Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

‘Museums aren’t America’s attic for its racist shit.’

People are complicated. Love is not.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

If a good thing happens for a bad reason, it’s still a good thing.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

I was confident that someone would point it out and thought why not me.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

This blog will pay for itself.

Not all heroes wear capes.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Tide comes in. Tide goes out. You can’t explain that.

Donald Jessica Trump found guilty as fuck – May 30, 2024!

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

At some point, the ability to learn is a factor of character, not IQ.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

Let there be snark.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Dolt 45 / Sunday Evening Open Thread: This Day in His-Story

Sunday Evening Open Thread: This Day in His-Story

by | 203 Comments

This post is in: , ,


.

Here’s a “safe space” for snark & general chatter.

What’s on the agenda as we wrap up the weekend?
***********

(To be fair, yes, it is currently named after another son-in-law with Presidential connections: David Eisenhower, grandson of Ike and son-in-law of Nixon.)

Reader Interactions

203Comments

  1. 1.

    Felonius Monk

    For the first time, President Trump and his family are visiting Camp David this weekend. Also his first visit to a non-Trump property.

    Hope somebody counts the silverware before the Trumps leave.

  3. 3.

    Mike in NC

    He’s scoping the place out for building an 18 hole golf course and resort — at taxpayer expense, of course — to be called Mar-A-Lago North.

  6. 6.

    Mike in NC

    @Hal: One of our cats likes to get our attention by pushing things from the kitchen countertop to the tile floor. We’ve learned where not to put breakables.

  7. 7.

    ArchTeryx

    Waiting to see what’s up at work come the Monday blahs. The heat isn’t helping.

    On the other paw, I have a job to go to, one that isn’t going away in a couple of months! Yay! So I get to live to fight another day.

  8. 8.

    Mike in NC

    @MattF: I must say when we lived in the DC area, we made frequent visits to the Mall to see various attractions like the Smithsonian and other museums. Frankly surprised the Trump family hasn’t figured out a way yet to charge admission and skim some money off the top.

  9. 9.

    Baud

    ABC reporting that a conservative group is trying to use the shooting against Ossoff. Thankfully, ABC is portraying the ad negatively.

  10. 10.

    Mnemosyne

    I’ll repeat myself: my completely pulled-put-of-my-ass speculation is that this is Don and Melania negotiating the terms of their marriage and deciding what Melania will and will not do.

    They will have separate bedrooms, and it will be a closely-guarded secret.

  12. 12.

    mdblanche

    I don’t know if anyone else posted this earlier, but not only is good help hard to find, now the administration can’t even hire bad help.

  18. 18.

    magurakurin

    @Mnemosyne:

    They will have separate bedrooms, and it will be a closely-guarded secret.

    Not wanting to sound like I’m on his side at all, but, honestly, there is nothing wrong with separate bedrooms. My wife and I are very happily married in every possible sense and we have separate bedrooms. We spend most of our waking hours together and I would wager that many married couple only spend the time they are asleep together.

    my defense of separate bedrooms cast aside…I think you might be correct here. I don’t imagine their marriage is very healthy at all and I bet they hate each other.

  22. 22.

    rikyrah

    “He’s signing Executive Orders like someone doing their homework for class the next morning.”
    -Rev. Al about Dolt45

    ?????

  23. 23.

    West of the Rockies (been a while)

    Was anyone else expecting some big story to break already after the AAG warning news consumers of unsourced stories?

  24. 24.

    Mnemosyne

    In non-Trump news, I saw the live action Beauty and the Beast with my niece yesterday. It was okay — I liked it a little more than I expected given that the animated version is my favorite animated feature of all time. They fixed a couple of the story problems with the first one and improved Belle and Beast’s developing relationship, but Emma Watson’s voice was way too weak to carry off the songs, and making her character more forthright made her more of a jerk, IMO. The animated Belle had the whole bless your heart attitude down just right.

  27. 27.

    ruemara

    @Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): literally. Also, ew.

    I’m sitting in a bar of alt-hipsters waiting for the next band to get on stage. Feeling quite thankful that today’s musical venues are indoors & that the one other photog with minimal space sense is not here. About 3-5 more hours to go before I head home to get ready for work.

  30. 30.

    Jeffro

    dKos running an article about how Trump would like to resign and get the hell out of there but doesn’t want to be seen as a failure or quitting the office

    I’m OK if he doesn’t resign as long as he’s brought out of there in handcuffs

  32. 32.

    mai naem mobile

    @schrodingers_cat: my sisters been saying Melania is a Russian agent for a while now.
    Anyhow, we were talking to a family friend. Their daughter had a good hospital upper management job she took in Idaho a couple of years ago. After Dolt won, she faced so much racism and basically got scared shitless she moved back to VA where her previous job was. She had to deal with comments like “shouldn’t you be the janitor since you’re brown” kind of crap. She just felt white people felt emboldened by Dolt’s election.

  33. 33.

    Baud

    The Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA) is a body responsible for providing recommendations and information to the president, as well as overseeing the nation’s strategy for combatting the illness. On Friday, six members of the council resigned, writing in an op-ed published in Newsweekthat they can no longer be effective under a “president who simply does not care.”

  34. 34.

    sukabi

    @Mnemosyne: what would be new about that arrangement? Pretty sure, judging by body language, the last time they shared a bedroom was after Barron was conceived.

    I’m going with a concentrated legal defense strategy, ie how can we keep daddy from landing us all in the slammer.

  35. 35.

    mai naem mobile

    @Quinerly: Dolt is a moron. I am tired of this “he’s playing 9 dimension chess etc.” I am betting the guy doesn’t even know how to play chess period. I think he’s possibly a high functioning autistic or midly retarded or has dementia – take your pick or create a combo of picks. There’s going to be tales written about Dolt 300 years from now like we read about Henry the Eighth or Caesar. I wouldn’t be surprised if somebody doesn’t run his DNA from his exhumed body in the future and figure out what’s really wrong with him. Something is definitely not clicking correctly in that rotten head of his.

  36. 36.

    Steeplejack

    *DVR Alert*

    TCM is showing Wong Kar-wai’s Chungking Express (1994) at 2:00 a.m. EDT tonight. Two Hong Kong policemen have trouble with women in two separate stories. Hard to describe, but that’s what makes it great. Slightly misleading trailer here.

  39. 39.

    Jeffro

    @mai naem mobile: I don’t think we need to go to far overboard and/or possibly offend other groups here … The guy is minimally educated and has only gotten dumber over time ( in terms of actual knowledge and skills )

    He’s also a world class narcissist. He’s been in a near panic every day since 9/11 ( when he isn’t busy gloating that his building was the tallest in Manhattan post 9/11). And he’s had a steady diet of FOXNews for almost 2 decades now, which reinforces almost all of the above .

    On top of that yeah there has probably been all kinds of decline due to his age and the fact that he doesn’t sleep a whole lot. Frankly I think he also takes a lot of pseudo-ephedrine too, but that’s just an educated guess

  40. 40.

    Nicole

    Wrapping up a nice weekend. Since our 6-year-old’s birthday party will end up being on our anniversary, the better half and I celebrated early by going to the Tears For Fears/Daryl Hall & John Oates concert on Friday. Oh my goodness, do I like the Forest Hills venue (the former site of the US Open). Everything must be shut off by 10:30, so the concert ran 6:30PM-10:00PM. It was excellent. Both the concert and the end time.

  44. 44.

    Mnemosyne

    @mai naem mobile:

    He’s a toxic narcissist. He’s convinced that he’s smarter than everyone else, so he doesn’t need to read or study anything because his natural brilliance will carry him through.

    G was comparing him to cult leader L. Ron Hubbard the other day, especially when it comes to the lying and grandiosity, and there was something to it.

  46. 46.

    nycmt

    @Nicole: We listened to that concert from the deck of our friend’s house on Dartmouth. Two years ago, I recorded the Who from our living room window. It’s really the best use of the property.

  48. 48.

    Timurid

    Comment just got dumped into moderation out of the blue (no naked links, words like “C4s1n0” etc.).

  53. 53.

    Nicole

    @nycmt: Excellent! The acoustics were great inside the facility. The steps leading into it are completely muffled, though (I assume so that back when it was a tennis site, people entering didn’t distract the players) and it was really weird hearing the sound vanish suddenly.

    I usually need earplugs during concerts, but this was perfect. Either that or I’m losing my hearing. ;)

  56. 56.

    Fair Economist

    @Kathleen:

    I just finished watching this “Alexa Silver” sketch on SNL and laughed so hard I cried. SNL has really upped its game the past couple of years.

    Having recently bought an Alexa for my mom, I found this disturbingly realistic.
    “Alexa would you please play – um, what was the name of that song? I think it was Deep Purple.”
    (Alexa flashes her confused lights)
    “I CAN’T FIND UM WHAT WAS THE NAME OF THAT SONG”
    “This thing never does what I want”

    But that ad is misleading – Alexa didn’t have any trouble finding and playing “Black Jazz” by Glen Gray. Hey, it’s kinda catchy.

  58. 58.

    Steeplejack

    @raven:

    I think Chungking Express is in the Criterion Collection. Another one of his that’s really good is In the Mood.

    I’ve been tempted by Filmstruck, but my virtual queue is already miles long.

  59. 59.

    SgrAstar

    @mai naem mobile: ack! Not to come off overly sensitive, but

    I am betting the guy doesn’t even know how to play chess period. I think he’s possibly a high functioning autistic…

    I can assure you that autism is in no way like dementia, and trump’s behavior is in no way indicative of autism. I’m pretty confident in this because I have autistic relatives…”high functioning”- if you like, and I’m very familiar with their challenges and their formidable abilities.

  60. 60.

    Mnemosyne

    @SgrAstar:

    Several of us folks here who have ADHD suspect he’s one of us — he has a lot of the classic symptoms. The flattened affect and lack of empathy would be due to his toxic narcissism, IMO.

    (With the caveat that IANA psychologist, just a layperson who has to deal with a toxic narcissist in her extended family.)

  61. 61.

    Baud

    Not good. Hoping for a drunk driver.

    A vehicle has hit pedestrians in London and there are “a number of casualities being worked on at the scene,” according to authorities. London’s Metropolitan Police said it was called just after midnight to an incident on Seven Sisters Road.

  62. 62.

    frosty

    @ArchTeryx:

    On the other paw, I have a job to go to, one that isn’t going away in a couple of months!

    I haven’t said this before, but congratulations! I’ve been lurkily following your saga and this is good news.

  63. 63.

    Steeplejack

    @zhena gogolia:

    Thanks for the reminder. I will vent.

    I wish to hell that they would give each episode a name, or even just list a number. Earlier today I saw Grant­chester on the schedule for tonight and couldn’t figure out if it was a new one or one of the ones they have been re­run­ning during pledge days. “Sidney is dis­tracted.” Hell, that could apply to just about every episode.

    Anyway, I did set a reminder so I could take a look and deter­mine whether it is new. But with your heads-up I’ll know to get situated in the cushy chair and really concentrate.

    P.S. I had a hell of a time finishing up the last season, because I missed one episode and then, when my station was re­run­ning them, I couldn’t figure out which one because of the cryptic log lines. So I was recording them and watching the first five minutes to determine if I had seen them. Maddening.

    Okay, First World problem deluxe, I know. I’m done.

  65. 65.

    frosty

    @magurakurin:

    My wife and I are very happily married in every possible sense and we have separate bedrooms.

    Once you get to the Age of Snoring this starts to look a lot more sensible.

  66. 66.

    Steve in the ATL

    @mai naem mobile: according to my sources, who are generally on the rubles, she was a high end Eastern European escort who was given to trump as a reward for services provided and trump, per usual, did the idiotic thing, in this case marrying that hooker.

  68. 68.

    randy khan

    @Steeplejack:

    imdb is your friend. I use it all the time for problems like this. (In my category of junk TV, it’s basically impossible for someone who doesn’t speak Hawaiian to figure out anything from the episode titles for Hawaii 5-0, so I can use the plot synopses there to help.)

  69. 69.

    Keith P.

    Ugh, another car plows into pedestrians in London today. I was hoping for some nice, simple political coverage before Twin Peaks, that’s going to be “Breaking News” for the next 24 hours….until Trump bigfoots it by calling London’s mayor names on Twitter.

  71. 71.

    Steeplejack

    @randy khan:

    Jesus Christ, I know about IMDB! I just didn’t want to do a deep dive to figure out something that should—okay, could—be a little more obvious on the TV schedule.

  74. 74.

    West of the Rockies (been a while)

    @Steve in the ATL:

    Are you being snarky or serious? If the latter, do you have any evidence? I’m not trying to be a dick, Steve, but we’ve all heard so many ludicrous and cruel things said about Hillary, the Obamas, etc. I’d be reticent to follow the path of so many wing nuts. YMMV.

  76. 76.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Mnemosyne:

    If the celebrity gossip rags are to be believed, they have had separate bedrooms for many years. And per se, I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. But like you, I do get a vibe that they are going to hash out/renegotiate the terms of their marriage. At a guess, the original prenup never anticipated POTUS-FLOTUS roles for them.

    Saw a very short clip yesterday of Trump, Melania, and Barron walking toward Marine One to take them to Camp David. I’m turning into kind of a body-language-reading freak these days, and it looked to me as though (a) Barron really really really doesn’t want to be there; (b) Melania has no interest in even pretending she’s okay being touched by her husband; and (c) Trump has been stung by all the criticism of how rude he is to his wife, and made a point yesterday of letting her precede him up the steps to the helicopter.

  77. 77.

    Ruckus

    @Mnemosyne:
    Please understand this is not a defense in any sense of the word or concept. drumpf can’t hold a candle to L Ron.
    First L. Ron is dead which puts him miles ahead of drumpf by itself.
    Second L. Ron has spawned a successful cult. drumpf has never spawned anything successful.
    Third as bad as a ScFi writer as L Ron was, he could at least write in reasonable english, something that drumpf seems unable to accomplish. Yes the ideas were shit but the language was acceptable.
    That’s how bad drumpf is, L Ron is a better human. We are talking very, very, very small fucking degrees better mind you as it seems a lot of his cult members may have voted for drumpf, maybe thinking that would get the government out of their lives and allow them to fully live only in the cult they’ve chosen as “truth” and the way of freedom from mental health.

  78. 78.

    West of the Rockies (been a while)

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Her body language would seem to speak volumes, much as how Ted Cruz’s daughter recoiled and shouted out at his touch.

  81. 81.

    Steeplejack

    @randy khan:

    Sorry, not mad at you, just irritated at this inconvenience.

    Possibly also affected by discovering that the bottle of tonic water I borrowed from my brother-in-law had already been opened and a little bit used, so of course it was totally flat when I tried to use it a while ago. The BIL has many fine qualities, but this makes me want to murder him. I have told him repeatedly that you can’t open tonic—or club soda—have a splash and then put the bottle back in storage, but he never listens.

    He does a similar thing with ice cream. I’ll be over at Sighthound Hall for dinner or something, my brother will say, “Yeah, there’s ice cream in the freezer,” and what you find is four or five containers of ice cream—but they’ve all been eaten down to a half-inch layer at the bottom. WTF?! And weird.

  83. 83.

    Steeplejack

    Damn it, the FYWP back function has decompressed to the point that after I post a comment I end up in some semi-random place in the thread. This is new, I think.

    (Win10, Firefox.)

  89. 89.

    mai naem mobile

    @Mnemosyne: @Jeffro: @SgrAstar: I didn’t mean to offend any group, although in hindsight I can see why people would be offended. There’s just something so obviously wrong with this guy, I don’t think it doesn’t occur to me daily the shock that the GOP let this moron become and stay president. I think it’s beyond ADD. I’ve had coworkers who had ADD and they weren’t dumb like him. Dolt has sure made me a lot more stricter about my requirements for a POTUS. Mentally and physically healthy. Preferably a lawyer. Has been in goverment before. No super stupid big mouth children. Not of an age where dementia may become a real possibility(esp.w/family history.) No ownership of any kind of property which an be easily grifter with.

  90. 90.

    sm*t cl*de

    @Steve in the ATL:

    she was a high end Eastern European escort who was given to trump as a reward for services provided

    Slovenia is Central Europe. [/pedant]

    General rule… if more than 1/3 of the country can speak German, then you’re somewhere in Mitteleuropa.

  91. 91.

    randy khan

    @Steeplejack:

    It is inconvenient, I agree. (And my initial comment was a little flip.)

    The ice cream thing is downright strange. All right-thinking people know that getting almost to the bottom is an excuse for finishing the container.

  95. 95.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    @Baud: There a really handy chart on the guidelines used to determine if an incident is terrorism (Chart)

  97. 97.

    Chet Murthy

    @Steeplejack: Uh, my experience has been that this happens (“the back function (or clicking on comment hotlinks repositions incorrectly”) when there are a lot of tweets — it seems like the problem is with the browser, not with FYWP. But I use Chrome, so maybe *my* problem is with Chrome, and yours is with FYWP.

  99. 99.

    Corner Stone

    @Chet Murthy: The “back function” has been fucking fucked for a long time now. And I am become peeved.
    Lately, if I reply to a comment that is itself a reply to an earlier comment, when my screen loads back up it sets me back at the original comment. Which may be 20 or whatever comments up the thread. I know we’re in the Watergate remix era, but can we not bork the damned back button?

  100. 100.

    Steeplejack

    @Chet Murthy:

    There is a known problem with FYWP and the “back button” functionality. It waxes and wanes depending on what Alain fiddles with in the back shop. But this latest thing is something I haven’t seen before: I post a comment, and instead of ending up with that comment positioned at the top of the screen I end up roughly a comment or two above, it looks like.

    I’ll see if it does it on my Android tablet with Chrome later.

    ETA: And with this one I ended up below the comment, at the very bottom of the page. Go figure.

  101. 101.

    MomSense

    @Mnemosyne:

    I’ve had a couple of my former students message me to tell me they remember when I used to sing all the Disney princess songs. I had a particularly roudy group of 1st graders that I used to bribe with singing the princess songs if they worked on their projects. Their favorite was the song Belle. Anyway, they said they’ve been talking with each other about how much they loved those classes. It was very sweet.

  103. 103.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @MomSense:

    Sheesh, I’m old. My Disney Princess songs are “Some day my prince will come” and “A dream is a wish your heart makes.”

  105. 105.

    NoraLenderbee

    I couldn’t give a flying fuck about pimple and whether she hates the asswipe or not. She chose to marry him. She made her bed, and I’m sure she gets plenty of $$$ to lie in it.

  107. 107.

    Steve in the ATL

    @West of the Rockies (been a while): no offense taken–I’m being quite serious. I’m certainly not going to out my sources on the internet, but I’ll just say that there are geopolitical events that they tell me about before they happen, so I have come to trust them.

  108. 108.

    Jack the Second

    Which do you think will be longer / more interesting, the Putin chapter in Trump’s biography or the Trump chapter in Putin’s biography?

  109. 109.

    Steve in the ATL

    @sm*t cl*de: merde–I hate being out pedanted! (?). In my defense, my life experience has been that there is Western Europe, then everything else. Like when I was a little kid in Chicago–there was the north side, and everything else.

    ETA: also, we are not leaving the lake house until tomorrow bottle morning and I may or may not be into a second or third bottle of Caymus, our favorite Napa wine.

  111. 111.

    jl

    Thought I heard a Trump quote on the news earlier today that Trump thought Camp David could be an OK place to stay… for about 30 minutes.
    Har har. Not sure I heard it right though.

    I looked at some pics of the place, and can see why. Has kind of dowdy, old school rustic, Scout camp for grown-up look. Sad, and low energy from a Trumpian point of view.

  113. 113.

    Steeplejack

    Okay, the power went out for a few seconds, just long enough to stun the cable box and TV, so I’ve lost Grantchester for tonight. (I’m not going to pick it up in the middle.) It is coming on again tomorrow morning and afternoon, I think, so I’ll catch it then.

  114. 114.

    ArchTeryx

    I really appreciate all the congrats! It’s been…a frightening ride since Trump was elected, but I’m really glad it isn’t my final chapter. I try, however, to keep in mind that for hundreds of thousands of people, no such stroke of luck will save them. At times it makes me feel like one of the survivors on the Titanic, watching it go down from the rare safety of a lifeboat.

  117. 117.

    mai naem mobile

    @jl: probably reminds him of his boarding/military school. Also,no gold plated toilets and gold Louis XVI chairs.

  118. 118.

    Quinerly

    @NoraLenderbee:
    I tend to agree with you. He is an abuser, though. I’m wondering what happens when HER Secret Service detail is forced to intervene. Age and circumstances may have slowed him down so perhaps he doesn’t abuse this wife but there is certainly a past history.

  121. 121.

    tobie

    @NoraLenderbee: My feelings exactly. I find her utterly vapid. On occasion I feel sorry for her for having to be married to this creep but then I remember she chose to marry him for his money. This was her Faustian bargain.

  122. 122.

    mai naem mobile

    @Steve in the ATL: Melanomas parents seem to have been hanging out with the first family quite a bit. Irresponsible not to speculate if Melanomas parents are Russian agents. The father,I believe, owned a textile or garment factory or managed it. Did he become friendly with the Russkies for that position?

  123. 123.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Omnes Omnibus: also in my defense, haven’t been in the area since the Pink Floyd concert at the Berlin Wall in 1990. (Date may be off by a year or two–again, blame the wine, not me.

  124. 124.

    sukabi

    @Jack the Second: well, considering Putin’s chapter will consist of “Trump? What a dumbaski! Hahahahaha.”
    Drumpfs will be longer, only because it will be “I had the biggest victory ever. You should have seen my crowds. Here’s my electoral college map. …….”

  125. 125.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Omnes Omnibus: my army buddies and I went into Czechoslovakia once to rescue our sergeant. ’82, I think it was. We had an urban assault vehicle driven by a couple of beautiful female MPs,. It was like making a beer run to Wisconsin: We zipped in, we zipped out.

  128. 128.

    Jeffro

    Hey look – I actually read a thread from start ’til…now…for once! Go Jeffro! lol

    Let’s see
    1) I have to lean on the side of ‘separate sleeping quarters’ but have yet to convince Mrs. Jeffro this is a good thing.

    2) Somewhat related, if any of you have seen Bill Burr’s “I’m Sorry You Feel That Way”, he takes a shot at men who, having committed some infraction, allow themselves to get sent to the couch for the night. It’s a hoot!

    3) I made some outstanding grilled chicken tonight…added a little corn on the cob…I think I’m getting the hang of this “summer” thing! Tomorrow’s crock-pot shredded pork loin tacos – YUM!

    4) Looking forward to seeing U2 on Tuesday – so many other shows and bands all these years but this’ll be my first time seeing them!

    Let’s all have a great week, call our Senators (heck, call ALL THE SENATORS!), and be happy warriors!

  132. 132.

    sm*t cl*de

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    While the Wall was up, it was Western and Eastern Europe.

    Wall schmall. I was brought up to think of the Czech lands as the Centre of Europe.

  135. 135.

    trollhattan

    @Keith P.:
    Additional twist being the crowd was in front of a mosque.

    Several people have been injured after a van struck a crowd of pedestrians near a north London mosque in what police have called a “major incident”.

    One person was arrested following the collision near Finsbury Park Mosque in Seven Sisters Road. Officers were called at 00.20 BST and remain at the scene, the Metropolitan Police said.

    The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) said a van “intentionally” ran over worshippers. Many of the victims are believed to have just left evening prayers after breaking the Ramadan fast.

    London Ambulance Service said it had sent “a number of resources” to the scene.
    –BBC

  137. 137.

    Luthe

    There’s been another van vs. pedestrians incident in London. This one was outside of a mosque. *deep sigh*

    ETA: And here I thought I checked the thread enough not to be repeating anyone. Oh well.

  140. 140.

    Another Scott

    @Luthe: If only we had threaded comments, we wouldn’t have these problems.

    I’ll send Cole a note about it, maybe in ALL CAPS so he sees it – I’m sure he hasn’t thought about this easy solution to this problem yet…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  141. 141.

    Steeplejack

    @MomSense:

    Here in NoVA the various PBS stations are showing it many times this week. I’ll catch it tomorrow afternoon.

  142. 142.

    daize

    @ArchTeryx: Semi lurker here, but I just want to add to the lots of good wishes and peaceful vibes and say many congrats on the new job. I really hope for the best for you. Take care.

  144. 144.

    Corner Stone

    As an ode to Father’s Day, allow me to share this small report. I was helping my son change to fresh sheets on his bed. He attacked me as we were finishing and I tried to grab him and hold him suspended. I pulled a nut muscle and am in some not small amount of discomfort.

  146. 146.

    Kay

    The Senate and House intelligence committees are set on Wednesday to hold two open hearings examining Russian hacking efforts during the 2016 election, featuring testimony from current and former Department of Homeland Security and Federal Bureau of Investigation officials as well as state election directors.
    Steve Sandvoss, the executive director of the Illinois State Board of Elections, is expected to walk the Senate committee through a cyberattack last July that allowed hackers to breach a database of up to 200,000 personal voter records.

    It amazes me that they are just now telling voters about some of the specifics. Last July. So 5 months prior to the election and almost a year ago. If it happens again will we find out about it a year later?

    16 months of non-stop coverage of Hillary Clinton’s emails while God knows what was going on with voting systems and voter data. They have to do a better job telling voters what is going on with voting. Even now 90% of the discussion is about what this means for Donald Trump.

    I’ve never been a voting systems conspiracy theorist but godammned they seem bound and determined to create some more of them by not telling people in any kind of timely manner.

    How funny is it that conservatives who have spent the last 15 years promoting the idea that voters are committing election fraud have a real election security story happening right now and they aren’t at all interested in it.

    Why did the hacker want the voter records? The basic info is a public record (name, address, age, partisan registration) so what was it they had to “hack” and why only 200K out of the millions in Illinois? If you’re a conservative who has been yammering about “ballot security” for 15 years isn’t this vitally important to you? A REAL conspiracy! One that election officials and the FBI verify!

  153. 153.

    Kay

    So if you were looking for coordination and you knew that Democratic congressional candidates were targeted (and we do know that) wouldn’t you look at WHICH 200k voters in Illinois had their info hacked? Is that a random 200k or a strategic 200K? Not saying they even used the 200k info in some manner but they took it to do something with it. That they failed to impact the result isn’t much comfort if the 200k were selected.

    You can do that with the regular public database in Ohio. You can filter for a certain neighborhoods and a certain age even w/in a county to generate voter lists. We did it for a school levy referendum. So one could certainly filter 200k voters in a given state for some reason. I hope they get very specific at this hearing. If 3/4’s of these witnesses say they can’t speak about this w/out going to “special session”or something I will tear my hair out in frustration. WHEN do they tell us what happened?

  155. 155.

    Corner Stone

    @divF: I’m looking for someone with a little sympathy as intense hand rubs are probably going to be needed for recovery.

  156. 156.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    So, Bill O’Reilly is now doing in dinner theater in Hacksquawkett, Lawn Guyland. He’s a victim, the truth will come out, et cetera, et cetera. I’m more wondering if Dennis Miller could open a used car lot’s Crazy Saturday Sale if he weren’t the Steve Lawrence to O’Reilly’s fat bald Sinatra

    Before O’Reilly took the stage, Miller warmed up the crowd with jokes aimed at a garden variety of conservative targets: environmentalists, political correctness on college campuses, Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi. But he got the biggest response when he spoke affectionately about Trump, whom Miller praised for “being more human than most presidents.”
    “Do I think the election was hacked?” Miller asked. “I don’t give a shit. If it was, I’m glad they picked him.”
    The crowd roared with approval. Ten minutes later, they booed loudly when Miller brought up former FBI Director James Comey.
    “What do you make of this idiot Comey?” Miller said. “The guy speaks out of both sides of his ass.”

  158. 158.

    CaseyL

    @Corner Stone: Um. I think you’re supposed to ice a pulled muscle for the first 24 hours after a pull. Bags of frozen veggies work very well, and are probably less, ah, uncomfortable.

    Speaking of testicles, LGM is linking to a hilarious report on Gwyneth Paltrow’s “GOOP” Conference, a gathering dedicated to woo worship and grifting the worshippers. There is a priceless description of a talk by Paltrow’s personal physician:

    He talks for an hour about “cosmic flow”; his left testicle; the “magnificence” of Gwyneth (“I’ve been down and I’ve touched her feet … and I’ll do it again”)

    Honestly, go and read. I guffawed hard enough that my tummy hurt.

  161. 161.

    Corner Stone

    @Steve in the ATL: 200 yards of water? Are you a Cuban immigrant trying to make the dry foot / wet foot before Trump’s version takes over?
    And a fucking 3 metal? Just grab the 5 wood you fucking wuss.

  162. 162.

    Mike in NC

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist Never cared for Long Island. It’s like the place where all the wingnut assholes in NYC migrated to. Now that my wife’s cousin who lived there is dead, I hope to never set foot there again.

  164. 164.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Mike in NC:

    Now that my wife’s cousin who lived there is dead, I hope to never set foot there again.

    I’m assuming you have an alibi?

  166. 166.

    NotMax

    Tragic news.Four people are feared dead after tsunami waves struck the coast of Greenland on Saturday night.

    A 4.1-magnitude earthquake, which struck 28 kilometres north of the northwest village of Nuugaatsiaq, is believed to have partially triggered the tsunami, according to a report from Kalaallit Nunaata Radioa, the national broadcaster in Greenland.

    The local newspaper, Sermitsiaq, reported that the four feared dead were inside their home in Nuugaatsiaq when waves struck and swept the structure into the ocean. Source

    Other side of the coin, happier news.

    Hundreds of thousands of revelers gathered in Sao Paulo on Sunday for one of the world’s largest gay pride parades with this year’s event focusing on the threat of religious fundamentalism to Brazil’s LGBT community.
    [snip]
    Parade organizer Claudia Regina said on the event’s official Facebook page that “our main enemies today are religious fundamentalists,” warning that some groups insist on condemning LGBT people and “removing rights that we have already obtained.” Source

    (And sounds as if a bigger crowd than turned out for Dolt 45 in January.)

  167. 167.

    J R in WV

    @Nicole:

    Back in 2011 my cousins invited me to go to a ZZ Top show. I’ve always liked the bluesy Texans, so I was all set. Disappointed to learn later on that Lynard Skynard (sp?) was the opening act. Wasn’t surprised when their sound sucked, their set selection sucked, and they were wrapped in the flag of treason in defense of slavery. I used my shooting earplugs which were barely enough to save my hearing.

    Then during intermission, they tore down the Skynard set and sound system and put up a minimalist set for the three-man band. I was surprised to find the sound great, loud but clean, and no hearing protection needed. I think the Skynard sound system was run too hot, causing distortion and clipping, which was what hurt my ears.

    The ZZ Top set was great, they played to the audience, did the major part of the set old style blues, a very professional job by gifted musicians. I really like blues, whether modern electric or really old steel guitar, no matter when it’s done right.

  168. 168.

    Shalimar

    @Kay: I have no problem admitting to being a voting systems conspiracy theorist. When the CEO of Diebold is providing voting machines with no paper trails to critical swing counties while at the same time raising hundreds of thousands for George W. Bush’s re-election campaign, your voting systems are compromised. Nothing has changed about that situation in the intervening 13 years. It has only gotten worse.

    In particular, Republicans acceptance that there is no real way to audit the electronic results and their refusal to provide one has always been extremely suspicious given where so many of the machines come from.

  169. 169.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Buzzfeed is reporting that that guy arrested in the London mosque vehicle attack said “I want to kill all the Muslims”. I understand wanting to wait for official announcements, but Richard Lui just said something about this being “unrelated to terror”, meaning the perpetrator appears to be a white guy, the victims muslim.

  170. 170.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Shalimar: I’ve seen the post election audits of WI votes (2011-2012) and I can say that they were not messed with. It is hard to hack something where every muni can choose its own system. The issue in WI was suppression via Voter ID.

  171. 171.

    Gin & Tonic

    @NotMax: In other pride news, by all accounts a successful Pride Parade in Kyiv, capital of Ukraine. Hard to imagine something like that taking place in Moscow, or, frankly, most any other place in eastern Europe these days.

  172. 172.

    J R in WV

    @Steeplejack:

    you can’t open tonic—or club soda—have a splash and then put the bottle back

    Well, it won’t last a week, but it will be OK tomorrow. I do it almost every evening. G&T with a big squeeze of fresh lime. Two of ’em, me and the Mrs gets a rum & tonic. Sometimes she wants hers “freshened up a bit” and that’s when a bottle gets cracked and a little bit poured. But it’s still good tomorrow.

  173. 173.

    efgoldman

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Richard Lui just said something about this being “unrelated to terror”, meaning the perpetrator appears to be a white guy, the victims muslim.

    So an asshole, not a journalist.
    “Alternative to Fox” my saggy ass.

  174. 174.

    Amir Khalid

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:
    If the Finsbury Park Mosque van driver really did mean to kill Muslims — and he very likely did, since he chose a time when there’d be a lot of people leaving the mosque after Iftar — then it was indisputably a premeditated terrorist attack.

  175. 175.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @J R in WV:

    I get that! But I’m talking about the bottle being opened, then put back in the pantry, not, say, in the refrigerator, as in “This is in the process of being used,” but as in “These are pristine supplies that can sit back here for weeks or months.” Which is why it was completely flat when I opened it.

  177. 177.

    NotMax

    @Steeplejack

    Depending on how long it was stored after opening (and whether or not refrigerated), you might be able to temporarily restore the fizz using the old trick for reviving sparkling wines of dropping one or two raisins into the bottle.

  180. 180.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @NotMax:

    I’m talking probably weeks. The BIL opens the (big) bottle, uses a little bit, then puts it back in the cabinet or in the pantry where no one uses it for weeks and it goes flat and dies.

  181. 181.

    efgoldman

    @Amir Khalid:

    it was indisputably a premeditated terrorist attack.

    Of course it was. The questions are (1) the one asshole “journalist” who should be fired yesterday but won’t be (2) what are the London authorities calling it, publicly. Are they calling an attack by a white guy a “mentally ill lone wolf” action, like they do over here when the terrorist is white and “christian”?

  183. 183.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    I think I have pulled a nut muscle trying to carry 200 yards of tonic with a brassie.

  189. 189.

    Amir Khalid

    @efgoldman:
    The driver is in custody, but so far the Metropolitan Police haven’t released any details about him. Nor have they characterised the incident in any way.

  195. 195.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Amir Khalid: Timothy McVeigh used a rented vehicle to carry the explosives to blow up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.

    Just sayin’.

  196. 196.

    Amir Khalid

    @Villago Delenda Est:
    In both incidents, the ownership of the vehicle is a circumstance that doesn’t shed any light on what took place. It’s like mentioning what shoes McVeigh and the Finsbury Park van driver were wearing.

  197. 197.

    Anne Laurie

    @mai naem mobile:

    I think it’s beyond ADD. I’ve had coworkers who had ADD and they weren’t dumb like him.

    That’s because they were working with you — capable, in other words, of holding a job requiring a certain level of function. ADD does not correlate with intelligence (much as some of us would like to pretend it makes us all ‘creative geniuses’); it’s perfectly possible for someone with a room-temperature IQ, or incipient dementia, or both to have ADD.

    I too, as someone with ADD, think Trump is ADD. But the inability to focus that was obvious even in his earlier years seems to be morphing into senility, as well. We do know his father was diagnosed with Alzheimers when he was younger than Donald is now, and that’s strongly hereditary, too.

  198. 198.

    Anne Laurie

    @Steve in the ATL:

    I’m certainly not going to out my sources on the internet, but I’ll just say that there are geopolitical events that they tell me about before they happen, so I have come to trust them.

    I’m sticking with my own theory, based on the long history of how members of the lower upper nobility have traditionally operated: She impressed him with her business savvy, and they signed a mutual contract where he got a trophy for public display and she got an ‘anchor prince’ to ensure her social security after the old man’s death.

    How she was in a position to offer herself as tribute to the aging warlord in the first place… well, let’s agree our theories could theoretically dovetail.

    But I do think it was an “honest contract” when the pre-nup was signed: he admired her savvy, she admired his prosperity, and they were willing to work forward from those premises. That things haven’t worked out as smoothly as either party hoped in the ensuing years, well, of how many marriages can that be said?

  199. 199.

    Suzanne

    @Anne Laurie:

    She impressed him with her business savvy

    I don’t think “business savvy” was what impressed him, but the rest of the analysis seems plausible. I think it was a combination of her looks, a certain controllability, and desire for a wife n that status-y world in which being single is no bueno.

    Also, don’t forget that he’s likely codependent and is likely very unhappy while single. He strikes me as the type of man who needs to be in a relationship.

  200. 200.

    Anne Laurie

    @Suzanne: Well, she wouldn’t have impressed him if she wasn’t “hot” enough to be a model. But both parties, well before 2015, talked about their first meetings as a situation where he demanded her number, and she negotiated terms for “dating” him. He talked to Howard Stern about her in terms of how she always met her contractual demands (stayed ‘hot’, took her birth control pills, didn’t spend too much money), and she talked to fashion mags about how he respected her requirements as a Park Avenue / Palm Beach society lady (allowed her the money & space for her personal upkeep, gave her free rein over their son’s upbringing & education, let her chose the family ‘charities’). It may have come off as more of a business contract than a marriage, but certainly people through most of history have started their lives together as public arrangements more than love matches.

    You’re right, though — he’s one of those people (mostly, not always, male) who needs to have someone in their life they can be sure will be there if they want to wake them up at 3am because they just thought of something. Paid servants are easier to replace, but there’s nothing like a marriage contract to guarantee instant access to ego-stroking/sock-finding/discussing whether that funny lump they’ve just noticed might be a tumor.

  201. 201.

    Mnemosyne

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Earlier today, I linked to a recent article from the Nation that estimates that about 200,000 registered voters in WI did not have ID that fit the newest requirements. That’s 7 percent of all the registered voters in WI.

    Trump won WI by less than 23,000 votes.

  202. 202.

    Amir Khalid

    @Anne Laurie:

    … he’s one of those people (mostly, not always, male) who needs to have someone in their life they can be sure will be there if they want to wake them up at 3am because they just thought of something.

    When Trump wakes up with an idea at 3am, is there anyone in the bed next to him? My understanding is that there hasn’t been one of late; given how much the First Lady clearly detests him, I doubt she’s keen on being roused from bed at such an hour just to hear his latest cockamamie notion.

  203. 203.

    Anne Laurie

    @Amir Khalid:

    When Trump wakes up with an idea at 3am, is there anyone in the bed next to him? My understanding is that there hasn’t been one of late

    Yeah, and his staff has been lamenting to anyone who’d listen about what a pain it is to have the old man wandering around late at night, watching Fox news & sending out tweets they’ll have to “explain” the next morning.

    given how much the First Lady clearly detests him, I doubt she’s keen on being roused from bed at such an hour just to hear his latest cockamamie notion.

    Sure, now she quite possibly regrets the marital bargain that looked pretty good to an aging-out never-top-tier immigrant model a dozen years ago. And sometimes I regret thinking some of my own Spousal Unit’s personal quirks wouldn’t get more annoying over time, just as I’m certain he sometimes regrets my own shortcomings in similar areas. But we have 40 years of mutual affection & negotiation to keep us together. Melania and Donald have a no-doubt-ironclad prenuptial agreement… and the certainty, given the various power disparities, that they’re not gonna do any better looking for replacement partners. At worst, she’s waiting for the old man to die, or at least for her son to finish his education; he’s waiting, if he thinks about it at all, for All This Lie-bral Nonsense to die down, so his lawyers can pay her off and he can go on a spree. If they split up now, I assume they expect the infotainment industry to do an all-American version of the Charles & Diana Blame Hunt, and not even a publicity hound like Donald wants to be that guy.

Comments are closed.