Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

They punch you in the face and then start crying because their fist hurts.

One way or another, he’s a liar.

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

America is going up in flames. The NYTimes fawns over MAGA celebrities. No longer a real newspaper.

I really should read my own blog.

Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

So many bastards, so little time.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

If you cannot answer whether trump lost the 2020 election, you are unfit for office.

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

Of course you can have champagne before noon. That’s why orange juice was invented.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

Trump should be leading, not lying.

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

’Where will you hide, Roberts, the laws all being flat?’

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

The low info voters probably won’t even notice or remember by their next lap around the goldfish bowl.

You are here: Home / Elections / Election 2016 / Early Morning Open Thread: Professional Reporters (Also) Sick of Trump’s Shtick

Early Morning Open Thread: Professional Reporters (Also) Sick of Trump’s Shtick

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Deadbeat Don couldn’t even get more than cursory airtime from the local Boston news channels. Here’s Channel 5/WCVB: “Trump says town hall event has ‘nothing to do’ with debate prep — and proves it”:

SANDOWN, New Hampshire (CNN) —…[A]fter fielding a dozen softballs for just a half-hour from a hand-picked group of voters inside the small, sweltering wood-paneled room, it seemed Trump was right: the forum had “nothing to do” with the upcoming debate, despite Trump campaign sources telling CNN earlier Thursday that the evening’s town hall event would serve as a practice run.

If it did, Trump’s performance Thursday night and his repeated mocking of the importance of debate prep raised serious questions about how Trump will perform at the debate Sunday just two weeks after he botched his first debate appearance due to what aides described as a lack of preparation…

Howie Carr, a talk radio host supporting Trump, would serve as moderator, and he announced to Trump that he would man a clock timing his responses to two minutes each. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a town hall aficionado who has been helping Trump prepare for the coming debate, stood just a couple yards away, carefully observing Trump’s performance…

But Trump revealed little interest in participating in a mock debate.

Rather than working the room, Trump remained standing in the same spot, just a few feet from Carr who read off the questions Trump’s supporters had submitted.

And while he offered some jokes in an effort to connect with the crowd, Trump made little effort to answer specific questions posed to him and frequently went off on tangents as if he were delivering a speech at one of his rallies…

Howie Carr, forever putting the ‘ass’ in ‘Masshole’. Imagine Sean Hannity without the ‘manly good looks’, or Chris Matthews with half the IQ points after a six-week meth bender. In other words, the target Trump voter. One way to make a Hillary Clinton victory even sweeter will be remembering, come the day, that ‘news people’ like Carr and Jon Keller will be as befuddled as Karl Rove when his ‘math’ failed Mitt Romney.

The Boston Globe:

… The highly orchestrated affair prompted some seasoned local political hands to complain that the event was not a traditional New Hampshire town hall meeting where voters of all stripes can ask questions directly of a presidential candidate without a campaign filter.

“Trump’s ‘Town Hall’ is sad,” Chris Ryan, a Concord radio host, wrote on Twitter. “Hand selected audience. Hand selected questions read by a fawning host off index cards.”

Trump has rarely held town hall meetings, mainly sticking to large rallies and avoiding questions since he won the Republican nomination this year.

At Thursday’s event, none of the questions put Trump on the defensive, and most came from enthusiastic backers, one of whom asked, “What advice would you give to young Americans looking to achieve the American dream?”

Answer: “You have to do what you love.”…

(Speaking of Mitt Romney, who approved of Michigan because ‘the trees are just the right height’. Is there some weird ‘tree’ clause in the secret Repub candidate handbook?)

Another Trump Special — spicing his spiel with a little abuse of his minions…

Tough crowd, these reviewers…

Reader Interactions

57Comments

  1. 1.

    Calouste

    Not sure about the questions during the town hall on Sunday not being softball for that whiny loser. I can’t remember the site where you can vote on the questions, but the ones that were leading were along the lines of “Do you think that cabinet officials who use their own email server should be hanged or shot?”

  2. 2.

    Keith P.

    I’m putting my money on Trump showing up oddly sedate on Sunday, as his handlers will decide that uppers made Trump look to angry, so they give him some downers, resulting in ridicule for being “low-energy”. It’ll probably do wonders for his legendary focus, too.

  3. 3.

    Chris T.

    “We’re going to win some states that would never in a million years be in play,” Trump says.

    If that means “we took some solid-red, guaranteed-R-win states and made them purple, and we’re going to win some of those” … then, ok, probably true!

  4. 4.

    Cermet

    The tRump will get roasted Sunday night.

    And hope the storm leaves soon and all are well in Florida.

  5. 5.

    magurakurin

    any reports from Florida? The Google news feed articles don’t have much detail as to what is actually happening. It looks like Miami-Dade dodged the bullet and from what I can tell at 5am it is the center of the storm is about 50 miles west of Melbourne. Not seeing any reports of what the damage is or isn’t.

  6. 6.

    Mustang Bobby

    Reporting in from Miami-Dade County where — at least in my part of town — we got little more than a summer rain and no wind. The Miami Herald is saying that 86,000 people are without power, mainly up in Broward (Ft. Lauderdale) and Palm Beach Counties. But it was a quiet day down here. Thanks for all the good wishes; now we need to worry about the folks up along the Melbourne – Cape Canaveral – St. Augustine part of the state where Matthew is still a Cat 3. It’s off-shore but still wicked.

  10. 10.

    MattF

    Trump is lazy. And not just ‘procrastinating and whiny’ lazy– he’s ‘deluded, angry, and addicted to Twitter’ lazy. And the town hall format doesn’t fit with his preferences– he rambles, he loses the thread, he’s phobic about being in the vicinity of Hillz. If he’s lucky, it’ll be sedate and boring– but there’s a real possiblity of something more damaging.

  12. 12.

    amk

    Remember those days when cole used to freak out over ‘straight shootin’ christie? Good times.

  13. 13.

    gf120581

    “We’re going to win some states that would never in a million years be in play.”

    Translation: “We’re losing AZ and sweating GA, MO, and IN. Maybe more.”

    “We’re doing very well in CO.”

    Translation: “We’re getting killed in CO.”

    “We’re going to do fantastic with Hispanics.”

    Translation: “We’ll be lucky to hit double digits with Hispanics.”

    Up is down, black is white and reality is non-existent in Trump World.

    “

  21. 21.

    RK

    Translation: “We’ll be lucky to hit double digits with Hispanics.”

    Incorrect translation. It’s the Hispanics.

  23. 23.

    JDM

    “You have to do what you love.”. You know, like turning down rentals to black people, and borrowing yet more money from daddy to try to get out of the hole you dig with the last money you borrowed from daddy.

  24. 24.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Carr and similar chuckleheads will just insist that the election was rigged, that thousands of “illegals” were brought to polling places in taco trucks to cast votes for Hillary.

  25. 25.

    scav

    @Villago Delenda Est: Didn’t you get the memo? All the actual tacos are getting voter ID, (tacitos are too young, alas! but there’s a special effort being made to get all the taco-bowls papers.). So they’ll be snuck into stations cleverly disguised at food deliveries for campaign staff. In heavily contested areas, desserts will be deployed — chocolate chip cookies are the super-weapon.

  26. 26.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @scav: Only the Clinton Death Organization could come up with so insidious, so on the surface innocent a plan as that.

  27. 27.

    Matt McIrvin

    Sounds like Matthew’s center is just enough offshore that the greatest danger now isn’t wind, it’s water. Some areas along the coast may get a storm surge they didn’t bargain for. But they may have dodged a bullet with the strongest wind damage.

  28. 28.

    Soylent Green

    I expect most of the town hall questions to have Republican framing, which Trump could connect with for extra bases is he is on his game. But more likely is that he will respond with his usual rally-audience zingers, or will just ramble. If a questioner offers a real challenge, he will change the subject or project it onto Hillary.

  32. 32.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @RK:

    Hard to believe he really wants the job.

    I think he basically wants to hear “Hail to the Chief” when he walks in the room and that it.

  33. 33.

    Percysowner

    @Calouste:

    Not sure about the questions during the town hall on Sunday not being softball for that whiny loser. I can’t remember the site where you can vote on the questions, but the ones that were leading were along the lines of “Do you think that cabinet officials who use their own email server should be hanged or shot?”

    Actually, as of now, the question with the most votes is Would you support requiring criminal background checks for all gun sales? , which is prefaced by the questioner telling how her son was killed by someone who should never have been sold a gun. It’s followed by How would you protect the Second Amendment. I don’t think the town hall will be as dire as we fear. Knock wood.

    The site is here. It often defaults to Trending questions, not most votes, but you can adjust to see most votes, least votes, most votes since the last debate, random and a few others.

  34. 34.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Percysowner: IIRC the site wasn’t to vote on actual questions, but instead was supposed to gather information that would _inform_ questions asked at the event.

  35. 35.

    nonynony

    @Percysowner:

    Actually, as of now, the question with the most votes is Would you support requiring criminal background checks for all gun sales?

    I’m very happy with the trend on the questions that have been upvoted. Questions about gun control, expanding Social Security, climate change, and making rich people pay taxes. A stupid question about Term Limits for Congress and SCOTUS (aka the Second Worst Idea In Politics right now after the Balanced Budget Amendment) and the usual “Second Amendment Rights” question in there, but some really good policy questions about real concerns have been voted up highly.

    Almost any of the questions on that first page would be better than most of the questions asked in the VP debate.

  36. 36.

    Applejinx

    @Keith P.:

    I’m putting my money on Trump showing up oddly sedate on Sunday, as his handlers will decide that uppers made Trump look to angry, so they give him some downers, resulting in ridicule for being “low-energy”. It’ll probably do wonders for his legendary focus, too.

    Just a thought, but… good luck getting a drug addict to NOT do the drugs you don’t want them to do. Handlers my ass, if Trump is high it’s because he wants to be. I can’t imagine anybody hitting the off switch.

  37. 37.

    Uncle Cosmo

    (Testing the ability to reply to a thread [“reply” buttons not working for me]. Carry on.)

  38. 38.

    Bruce K

    Are the forecasters still predicting that Matthew is going to fishtail in the Atlantic and hit Florida again before heading into the Gulf of Mexico?

  40. 40.

    stinger

    Is there some weird ‘tree’ clause in the secret Repub candidate handbook?

    I’ll have to think about that and get back to you after the aspens are done turning, turning in clusters, because their roots connect them.

  41. 41.

    shomi

    You know what other schtick people are sick of? These posts of Owen Ellickson 3rd party conversation twats. They are not funny. There were not funny after the 2nd or 3rd time.

  42. 42.

    catclub

    @nonynony: Krugman is demanding climate change questions. That really is important, and Hillary’s answers versus Trump’s should help with young voters – who take a longer view.

  49. 49.

    Brachiator

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Carr and similar chuckleheads will just insist that the election was rigged, that thousands of “illegals” were brought to polling places in taco trucks to cast votes for Hillary.

    In the next “Transformers” movie, taco trucks, black helicopters and FEMA trailers will turn into battling Autobots.

  50. 50.

    Aleta

    It looked like a way to add his so-called answers to custom questions into the “debate record” so his pals can preempt anything weird he does on Sunday. More of a long commercial for us, and for him, a nice shot of adulation to lube his dead axle.

  51. 51.

    Origuy

    I heard Trump on the radio talking about Hillary taking three days off to prepare for the debate. He said that she was “resting”, not preparing. He couldn’t handle the idea that someone would actually prepare for a presidential debate.

  52. 52.

    toschek

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques

    I’m starting to think that Radiohead/Thom Yorke were quite prescient with their “Hail to the Thief” record. I know it was written for/inspired by the folie du national that was the first term of Bush the Lesser and the Iraq war but it also fits Trumpence so well.

  53. 53.

    Bill

    Trump says the heroin epidemic is surprising because of “the trees” and “the valleys” in New Hampshire, which are aesthetically pleasing.

    Does someone have a cite for this. I’d like to see the whole quote in context.

  54. 54.

    Jeffro

    @MattF:

    Trump is lazy. And not just ‘procrastinating and whiny’ lazy– he’s ‘deluded, angry, and addicted to Twitter’ lazy.

    And dumb, don’t forget d-u-m-b dumb.

  55. 55.

    SWMBO

    @opiejeanne: I don’t understand why someone would read a blog that they hate. Maybe shomi suffers from low blood pressure and reads balloon juice to raise his/her blood pressure without medication? I just don’t get it.

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