Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

They are not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

Just because you believe it, that does not make it true.

We will not go quietly into the night; we will not vanish without a fight.

American history and black history cannot be separated.

Find someone who loves you the way trump and maga love traitors.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

The world has changed, and neither one recognizes it.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of story.

Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

“A king is only a king if we bow down.” – Rev. William Barber

If you can’t control your emotions, someone else will.

Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.

This really is a full service blog.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

Everybody saw this coming.

Anne Laurie is a fucking hero in so many ways. ~ Betty Cracker

The way to stop violence is to stop manufacturing the hatred that fuels it.

I don’t recall signing up for living in a dystopian sci-fi novel.

You are here: Home / Elections / Election 2016 / Absolutely

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81Comments

  1. 1.

    Blueskies

    Maybe she thought the question was “what would you tell a child to guzzle if Donnie T wins the election?”

    Now, Absolut is not to everyone’s taste, but it’s probably a legit answer to that question…if that had been the question…

  3. 3.

    SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch

    Contributed. I was going to anyhow, but seeing that ad reminded me that there’s no time like the present.

    That’s a fine ad, that is.

  4. 4.

    hovercraft

    Nice Ad. Get her, I can’t stand her. Let’s make Grumpy Old Man and Lindsey have to find a new member of the 3 Amigos.

  5. 5.

    Roger Moore

    @Origuy:

    Gary Johnson: If I don’t know where a place is, I can’t start a war there.

    I’m not sure if that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard a candidate say, but it has to be pretty close. I can’t believe there are people seriously considering voting for the guy.

  8. 8.

    Hungry Joe

    Ayotte is already walking back (trotting back? sprinting back?) that statement, but there it is. I’m so tired of hearing people like her and Susan Collins referred to as “moderate” Republicans on the basis of their not flicking rabid foam from their mouths when they bray. Look at their voting records, then try to call them “moderate” with a straight, or even a Picasso face.

  10. 10.

    Mnemosyne

    Just ran across a Facebook meme that claims the Clintons didn’t pay any income tax in 2015. This is, of course, untrue — they paid $3 million in income tax. What they *did* do was take a capital gains deduction.

    Here’s the story from Time magazine in case you, too, need to refute this.

    Oh, and ZeroHedge can go fuck themselves, because they seem to be the origin of the false claim.

  11. 11.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    No spines, no balls, no hearts, no souls, no brains. If you crossed jellyfish with zombies, you’d get Republicans.

  12. 12.

    hitchhiker

    Huh.

    We’re at a place where asking Rs if they want their kids to be like their own favorite candidate is a gotcha question.

    And still 5 weeks to go!

  13. 13.

    Turgidson

    @Hungry Joe:

    Obviously my partisanship colors my view here, but whatever. It really is one of the most maddening aspects of our political discourse over the past 8 years especially, but going further back. All a Republican has to do to be lauded in heroic terms as an honest statesman (or woman in the case of the New England Senators) is not be a complete and utter lunatic at all times. Actually voting with the lunatics every single goddamn time it counts doesn’t factor into that calculus at all. And meanwhile, Obama creates a new Katrina every time he farts.

  15. 15.

    NickM

    I just gave, and topped it off with a little extra for Gov. Maggie Hassan because Ayotte needs to crawl back under the rock where she acquired her “Trump family values.” Thanks for posting this.

  17. 17.

    Mai.naem.mobile

    @Mnemosyne: Twitter is full of this crap. Either rheres a tiny kernel of truth with lies or total nutty conspiracy/outright lie. Theyre pushing the Bill has an illegitmate son. Being that all their stuff is projection I am expecting an illegitimate Trump kid to pop up for one of the dailu October surprises.

  18. 18.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Mnemosyne: It drives me nuts that people I otherwise respect occasionally read and quote ZeroHedge, and believe it to be some kind of reasonable progressive economic analysis site.

  19. 19.

    hovercraft

    @Roger Moore:
    I’d love to, but he’s up 13.7 in the RCP average of polls. I’m thinking that one is just tilting at windmills. I would have loved to hand him a humiliating defeat, just as Obama rides off into the sunset with his high approval numbers. Alas tis not to be.

  22. 22.

    hovercraft

    @hitchhiker:
    All questions about Trump are gotcha’s. The fact that the Speaker and Senate Leaders refuse to discuss him tells you how toxic he is. But as Mackay Coppins documented the taint will not be forgotten. Teflon is for Donald, I doubt it will cover his supporters, after he loses (FSM willing), they will always have to answer for their support. Granny Starver’s dreams of the presidency are slipping away right before his eyes.

  23. 23.

    ? Martin

    I like that CNN poll that came out last night. It’s one of the first that really puts this election in Clinton’s column. It’s 47/42/7/1 in a 4 way matchup. Even though its only a 5 point gap, not much different from other polls, it puts her only 3 points shy of a majority and has a pretty low undecided number of 3%. So even though the gap isn’t big, her proximity to 50% eliminates a lot of opportunity for bad models to break against here. Compare that to the Times Picayune national poll that is 45/38/5/1 with 11% undecided. The 45 top line for Clinton is decent but the undecided is large enough to put Trump on top.

    That’s why I don’t think each incremental scandal against Trump matters that much. Clinton needs to get to that 50 mark and knock down the undecideds and I think she needs to win them over more than knock people out of Trump’s column. (She can do both, but we should be favoring positive messages to Clinton than negative messages from Trump, even though the latter is more gratifying).

  24. 24.

    Turgidson

    @hovercraft:

    I don’t get why he’s suddenly so far ahead. Kirkpatrick seemed like a good candidate and was within a few points of McCain for a while there. Did just getting the primary behind him give him that much of a bounce? Is Kirkpatrick running a shitty campaign?

  27. 27.

    Felonius Monk

    @cervantes:

    I would certainly tell my child to aspire to have a rich father.

    You go to the ballgame with the father you have, not the one you aspire to have.

  29. 29.

    hovercraft

    @Turgidson:
    No idea, maybe his support looked softer when he was sill in the primary. And now that he’s running against an evil democrat everyone has come home?

  30. 30.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @hovercraft: As you pointed out, neither Palin for the incessant warmongering nor flip-flopping on everything from immigration to tax rates to Gitmo to carbon pricing etc has made a dent in McCain’s support at home or in the Beltway. I think the Beltway will never fall out of love with Sweet Paulie Blue Eyes. On a national level, I suspect even statewide in WI, his worst enemy is the Ryan budget. But he’s doesn’t spook the Cokies, so I suspect he’ll be to Republican budget policies what McCain (and Graham) are to foreign policy, an eternal TV presence.

  32. 32.

    The Moar You Know

    Since you’re here, can you give us a report from the front lines of how the effort to unseat Issa is going?

    @divF: Not Hungry Joe, but I live in Issa’s district. That he’s nervous about getting tied to Trump is obvious: he’s posting signs for the first time in at least a decade. He’s “working for US!”, apparently. What that work is, other than getting shitcanned off the Benghazi committee, is not stated nor obvious.

    His opponent? Nothing, nada, no press, no signage, no nothing.

    Bottom line: there’s enough inertia to Issa that he isn’t going anywhere. I would love to be wrong, but this is a “wave election” in San Diego and the big winners will be the GOP.

  35. 35.

    Face

    @Roger Moore: I had the exact same thought. How ~9% of the population would vote for a man who’s motto is “I’m too fucking stupid about everything to start any wars” is just mind-blowing.

  36. 36.

    Matt McIrvin

    @? Martin:

    That’s why I don’t think each incremental scandal against Trump matters that much.

    They matter because they keep the media from jumping on Hillary Clinton over some manufactured scandal out of boredom.

  38. 38.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Nelle: They just couldn’t bring themselves around to endorsing the only qualified candidate in the field. Because that candidate is a Democrat, and a she, and, remarkably, a home town girl. They didn’t have that problem with Obama, of course.

  39. 39.

    Dork

    And meanwhile, Obama creates a new Katrina every time he farts.

    I will say, I’m going to miss the “This (fill in any random completely harmless event) is going to be Katrina’s Obama” meme once that sneaky Negro scoots town in January.

  43. 43.

    liberal

    Man, after hearing about that idiocy from Ayotte, I feel even better about dumping as much money on Hassan as I did.

    BTW, does anyone know where that question originated? I didn’t watch the debate.

  45. 45.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @raven: WP did a big FU to whatever it was you were trying to communicate.

    Oh, wait, now I get it. Got a case of the Allepos there.

    “Look for Kelly’s ringing endorsement of Donald’s behavior to come up in the debate tonight”.

  46. 46.

    Hal

    @Dork: From the same people who thought George Bush shat gold, yet everything that was Obama’s whatever was something Bush fucked up. Obama’s Katrina, but those same people blame the people in NO for their own deaths. Obama’s Watergate, but think Nixon was a victim of the liberal media etc etc.

  47. 47.

    Mnemosyne

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    FWIW, Obama is much more of a hometown guy in Illinois than Clinton is. He was an Illinois state rep and state senator long before he was their US senator, and he represented a district in Cook County. The Trib was comfortable breaking their rules because they knew him so well.

    Hillary has spent most of her life and career outside Illinois at this point, so most people don’t think of her as being from there.

  48. 48.

    Brachiator

    @? Martin:

    That’s why I don’t think each incremental scandal against Trump matters that much.

    This simply is not true. Trump’s Achilles Heels (he’s got two of them) are that he cannot let this stuff go, and he cannot listen to his advisers to craft an effective response. So, he stews and goes on a rampage and keeps shit going that otherwise would fall off the news pages and social media conversation. This may not change a lot of minds, but it chews up time, which may hurt him as people go to the polls and start mailing in their ballots.

    If Trump were a more conventional politician, maybe the play would be different. But Clinton found a way to neutralize Trump by getting him to neutralize himself.

    Clinton needs to get to that 50 mark and knock down the undecideds and I think she needs to win them over more than knock people out of Trump’s column. (She can do both, but we should be favoring positive messages to Clinton than negative messages from Trump, even though the latter is more gratifying).

    Apparently, Clinton and her people are pushing a positive message during rallies. Presumably, she is also running positive ads in key markets. But I partly agree with you that a positive message should follow any negative jabs at Trump.

  49. 49.

    liberal

    @Hungry Joe: Americans for Democratic Action gave Ayotte a 10% for 2015, and Collins a 30%. I believe the latter is the best score for a Republican senator, but it’s still not “moderate” (if we assume their scoring is stable over time, etc).

  51. 51.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Brachiator:

    Apparently, Clinton and her people are pushing a positive message during rallies.

    You’d never know this if you only caught the “highlights” of the day in campaigning on the Nitely Nooze. It’s always about if it bleeds, it leads, and negative stuff bleeds.

  52. 52.

    Mai.naem.mobile

    @Turgidson:theyve beem running in heavy rotation two powerful ads against Kirkpatrick in Phoenix. One is an Obamacare and 2010 townhall that she ‘ran’ from and another one with her supporting the Iran deal. The anti Mccain ad is just to do with how long hes been atound.

  53. 53.

    Joyce H

    Something occurred to me today – can you think of anything cute or heartwarming about Trump? Anything at all? If someone said to you, “Funny story about Trump…”, you just KNOW the funny story isn’t going to be cute-funny, it’s going to be sleazy or skeevy or disgusting funny. I honestly can’t think of a previous candidate with NO redeeming features whatsoever. Even George Bush was fond of his grumpy little dog, and quit drinking and did the T-ball thing at the White House. But Trump? Even his fondness for his daughter is rather shudder-inducing.

  55. 55.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    @Joyce H:

    You can’t find a single person who he’s helped. Everything about his charity is a grift or a scam to for either his own aggrandizement or a public relations stunt or a money laundering scheme – he even cheated the winner of a hole in one golf tournament out his earnings by shortening the length of the hole to disqualify any hole in one, unbeknownst to all of the contestants. There is not one single nice word to be found from anyone about him, and he’s still going to get 10s of millions of votes, and this Ayotte creature says “absolutely” he’s a role model. Such courage!

  59. 59.

    eclare

    @Joyce H: Nope. And his family could not even come up with one nice or cute anecdote. I think someone commented “do they even know each other?” Whereas all sorts of people were willing to speak on stage for Hillary.

  60. 60.

    Hungry Joe

    @divF: Sorry I took so long to answer; was literally out to lunch. Issa’s still vulnerable; I think one poll has Applegate — make that COL. Applegate — within two points. We can do this.

  63. 63.

    Brachiator

    @Mai.naem.mobile:

    Twitter is full of this crap. Either rheres a tiny kernel of truth with lies or total nutty conspiracy/outright lie. Theyre pushing the Bill has an illegitmate son.

    Illegitimate black son. It is weird that the Clinton haters get so worked up over the idea of this, and also they think that this would be so incredibly disqualifying.

  64. 64.

    gene108

    @hovercraft:

    Nothing will stick to Republicans. Reagan gave them an eternal Teflon coating or automatic Reset Button or however you want to picture it.

    There’s nothing they do that will generate consistent negativity about them.

    The mistakes are because of past leaders and today’s Republican leaders have learned their lesson and have humbly changed.

    Or even if mistakes were made, they know in their hearts the people, who made those mistakes did what they thought was best for America and even though the facts may show they caused harm, the meant well. Therefore, no biggie.

    9/11/01, the Iraq War, Iran-Contra, etc.,etc. just brushes off them like water off a duck’s back.

  65. 65.

    Brachiator

    @Roger Moore:

    Also, too, does anyone think pig ignorance would stop Trump from starting wars? If not, why would it prevent Johnson?

    Trump would get insulted over some imagined slight. Four days later, he would start a war at 3 am after furiously sending twitter messages to his joint chiefs of staff.

    Johnson would not realize that he had been insulted until some reporter brought it to his attention. Four days later, he would forget all about it because he got the munchies at 3 am after smoking his chief joint.

  67. 67.

    gene108

    @efgoldman:

    It’s entirely possible that the House Krazy Kaukus will shiv Granny Starver as speaker just as they did to Weeping Cheetoh.

    I don’t think anybody else actually wants the job, so Paul Ryan’s safe for the foreseeable future.

  68. 68.

    PST

    @Mnemosyne:

    Oh, and ZeroHedge can go fuck themselves, because they seem to be the origin of the false claim.

    ZeroHedge flat out lied. The author claims that the Clintons used the same tax avoidance technique that Trump did. In support, he shows an illustration of a couple of lines from the return showing a 699,540 capital loss carried over from the prior year. But look at the return itself. What the author does not show is the line down the page that tells the taxpayer to enter the smaller of the number above or 1,500 (3,000 if married filing jointly). That is the only amount the Clintons were allowed to set off against other income — 3,000 dollars — not 900 million like Trump or even 699,650. If the Clintons had had some capital gains they could have set off more, but they didn’t. This is a completely different section of the code than the net operating loss (NOL) carryforward used by Donald Trump, which he could set off in unlimited amounts against other business income. So it isn’t the same thing at all, and the actual amount of the tax saving was concealed by ZeroHedge to make it look a couple of hundred times bigger than it was. For what it’s worth, I don’t think using the NOL carryforward is illegitimate in itself or an inherently bad rule. We need more information to see if it was used legally and to see if the loss left Trump indebted to someone who can now pull his strings.

  69. 69.

    Roger Moore

    @Brachiator:
    Sure, but that’s an issue of temperament, not knowledge. If Johnson isn’t going to start wars because he’s a laid back dude who doesn’t care what’s going on outside the US, he should say that, not try to joke about his ignorance being a good thing.

  72. 72.

    hovercraft

    @gene108:
    That is so depressing. My hope is that as the electorate continues to change, this crap becomes less acceptable. The Reagan Revolution infected an entire generation of voters, but the Great Recession has been just as powerful in countering many of it’s bedrock principles. The generation coming into their work place is a lot more populist and less reverent of business and their sensibilities. The media was as stunned as the two parties by the publics embrace of populism, they may have to be dragged kicking and screaming, but they will have to adjust, or continue to die.

  74. 74.

    RaflW

    When Ayotte walked it back last night, she (IMO) insulted lots of other women and girls by saying that Clinton isn’t a role model for girls either.

    I mean, I get it that they have big policy differences, but it is completely tactless and clueless to just put out the short and stupid ‘correction’ her campaign did that to my eyes simply shoved the other foot in her mouth.

    But then, I want her to lose, so: Carry on, Kelly, you’re doin’ it just right.

  75. 75.

    Brachiator

    @Roger Moore:

    Sure, but that’s an issue of temperament, not knowledge. If Johnson isn’t going to start wars because he’s a laid back dude who doesn’t care what’s going on outside the US, he should say that, not try to joke about his ignorance being a good thing.

    Unforrtunately, with either Trump or Johnson, you just get the the crazy shit that pours out of their empty brains, not anything close to what they “should” say.

  76. 76.

    WaterGirl

    @Hungry Joe:

    Ayotte is already walking back (trotting back? sprinting back?) that statement, but there it is.

    How does a person walk back something like “Absolutely!”???

  78. 78.

    Zinsky

    Q: “Would you tell a child to aspire to be like Donald Trump?”

    Any Republican: “Why, yes, I think being an ignorant, racist, child-raping greedbag pervert is a very worthwhile goal.”

  79. 79.

    Jeffro

    @Face:

    I had the exact same thought. How ~9% of the population would vote for a man who’s motto is “I’m too fucking stupid about everything to start any wars” is just mind-blowing.

    They think he’s being insightful and clever…just as they see themselves. Rs and Ds are dumb, dontcha know – it takes an Independent, or better yet, a “Libertarian” to really see things as they are. Man.

    The lowering of standards in this country, I tell you…

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