I am going through this Trump speech from last night.
The non sequiturs, the ranting, the exaggerating and lying.
It's rampant.
— Chris Cillizza (@CillizzaCNN) March 11, 2018
Maybe being run over and left for dead on Twitter by Soledad O’Brien has led to some slight post-traumatic enlightenment for this clown.
Open thread.
JPL
Sleepy eyed son of a bitch Todd challenged Mnuchin on Trump’s behavior on MTP.
https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/video/mnuchin-trump-s-attacks-on-the-press-are-campaign-rally-issues-1182946371844
satby
Oh you optimistic waif.
Edit: he’ll never catch a clue.
Magda in Black
” …a rich white guy watching from the sidelines.” pretty much nails it.
M31
“I stuck my hand in a bucket of ice water last night.
The coldness, the wetness.
It was rampant”
Emma
The hammering he got must have temporarily unsettled his neurons. He’ll revert to type as soon as they settle back to normal..
M31
“I stuck my dick in a nest full of hornets last night.
The stinging. The buzzing.
It was rampant”
WereBear
Won’t last. Never does. Next fat paycheck comes along and zaps those frontal lobes back into They Live and the special sunglasses come right off.
Raoul
Didn’t see it get that much traction (there was so much else to marvel/puke over) but Trump taking credit for the success of the Olympics.
Really.
Even idiot sycophant Cillizza couldn’t take last night’s 100% bullshit-a-rama.
HAL
My favorite thing about this tweet is the first reply is “Oh look, more crying from the left”.
M31
“Obama only had the winter Olympics every 4 years — I’ve had them every single year of my presidency!” — Donald J. Trump
Raoul
@JPL: “We should be focused on a week of policy,” says Mnuchin.
Ha ha ha ha ha haaa
Ha ha aha hah aaha … [gasp] hah hhah hah
Todd did a good job (not something I say every day!).
MattF
And Cillizza is now getting criticism from a girl. Ewwwww.
Kay
They give Trump campaign speeches wall to wall coverage. Just like they did during the campaign.
If Lamb wins it will be in spite of political media giving Donald Trump and the GOP tens of millions of dollars of free campaign spots. Hours of propaganda they’re pumping into homes.
Trump loves media, you know. All his “wars” with media are bullshit. They’ve been a team his entire career. Trump is as dependent on this kind of media as they are on him. It’s win-win. The only losers are the public.
Baud
@Raoul: Another infrastructure week coming soon?
Baud
@Kay: There ain’t a word that’s wrong, Kay.
Cheryl Rofer
@Emma: He already did. He took Trump’s lead and complimented Maggie Haberman.
Kay
At what point do they stop covering Trump’s announcements of future accomplishments as actual accomplishments?
How fucking stupid are these people? He’s done it 20 times at least. He LIES. His announcements are LIES. They aren’t facts.
Can all politicians do this now? Can they go out and present some bullshit promise as a done deal? At least extend The Trump Rules to everyone else. At a minimum.
Magda in Black
@JPL:
Does Mnuchin have a pull-string at the back of his neck?
Raoul
@Kay: Yes, this. Airing his rallies (which isn’t covering them, since coverage should mean reporting and analysis, not just point and shoot) is catnip for the networks. And damaging for the country.
One of the many, many ways that losing the equal time rule matters. They wouldn’t just air all this bullshit if they had to give Elizabeth Warren or Jerry Brown an hour of prime time too.
Kay
@Baud:
It’s amusing to watch the NYTimes pretend they’re waging some noble war with Donald Trump. NYC media created Donald Trump. They’re a team. We’re not on the team. It’s a closed circle.
jeffreyw
I like pie.
schrodingers_cat
I saw Madras Cafe yesterday. I loved it. It hews close to the actual happenings in the 1980s and early 90s in Sri Lanka leading up to Rajiv Gandhi’s assasination. The final scene was chilling. It brought back memories.
Kay
@Raoul:
We’re going to get hours and hours of Dear Leader speeches for the next 3 years. He knows EXACTLY what they want. It’s WHY he has contempt for them- because he’s been able to use them for 50 years.
Baud
@Kay: It’s working for them, Kay. Trump is their goldmine.
Starfish
@jeffreyw: I was looking for the link to expand the text for whatever you really wrote, but you really wrote about pie. Now I feel a little more guilty about not being dressed and at the store to buy some apples to make a pie.
Baud
@Raoul: Equal time never applied to cable.
zhena gogolia
@Raoul:
He didn’t mention it here, but according to WaPo Trump called Todd a son of a bitch in the speech. He only mentioned Maxine Waters, but he was really pissed about his own self.
schrodingers_cat
@Kay: The media is Republican, its not too surprising they give their party air time. That’s why it is impossible for them to point a finger of blame where it belongs even in the era of T.
DACA: Ds did it
Russian attack on the elections : Obama was responsible and so on.
Its either blame the Ds or both-sides-do-it.
RemindsMeOfThatMovie
So now some of you people like Chuckles Toddler? Like the last 8 years of Obama bashing never happened?
Some of you people constantly amaze me with your willingness to develop amnesia when it suits you.
Don’t even get me started on Jennifer Rubin. Pretty much the same amnesia symptoms there. The things they said are unforgivable and yet you people are like the Evangelicals on Trumpov. “Let’s just give him a mulligan.”
kindness
You know the adage about how minorities & women have to work twice as hard to get the same success? It applies to liberals too. Not only are the Courts packed with right wing nut jobs now but the media itself loves to be wired for Republican rule. The media will portray a Republican lunatic conspiracy as a valid considered point of view but will condescend to the point of mocking a Democratic position/politician. We have our work cut out for us.
Don’t let those who would fracture the party because it isn’t pure enough for their point of view. The Jill Steins & the Bernie Bros. It made the media’s job of portraying Democrats in disarray so much easier. Half of them are probably Russian trolls anyhow.
Kay
@schrodingers_cat:
Giving them an ideology gives them too much credit. The media is pro whatever is good for media.
zhena gogolia
@RemindsMeOfThatMovie:
We are in a war. Some people are saying the right things, some people are saying the wrong things. When people (especially people with a big megaphone) say the right things, we thank them for it. It doesn’t mean we’ve forgotten anything. And who cares what we say anyway?
schrodingers_cat
@Kay: They are always in the R corner. Covering Stormy Daniels and all T’s sexual escapades would have been good TV too, but it never happened before the elections despite the kitteh tape. Why?
ETA: It could be career advancement and financial rewards, not ideology.
Kay
@Baud:
I accept is it “not my fault but my problem” but sometimes it wears you down. The coverage of the Ohio state races is ridiculous. It has no connection to actual events or facts. They are (incredibly!) presenting Cordray as the “establishment” candidate, against Mike DeWine. DeWine is 20 years older than Cordray and has literally held jobs in government for fifty years. It’s just nonsense. They made it up.
gbbalto
@RemindsMeOfThatMovie: What was your previous troll incarnation? BTW your comment is just bullshit.
RepubAnon
I think it’s more what Terry Prachett’s character Lord Vetinari said in “The Truth”: “People like to be told what they already know… In short, what people think they want is ‘news’ – but what they really crave is olds.”
Pundits believe that, to keep their jobs, they need to confirm the thinking of their outlet’s patrons rather than force them to face inconvenient truths. Unfortunately, that’s how they got their jobs in the first place.
Here, it’s the last gasp of the “Fairness Doctrine” era journalists in the midst of a yellow journalism revival. Media ownership consolidation means that one needs to confirm the beliefs of the 0.1%. If Louis XVI and the court favorites own your newspaper, accurate reporting on peasant unrest can cost one their job. Of course, it could help one keep one’s head once reality bursts the informational shell…
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: If it’s Sunday,
it’s Meet the Pressit’s the beginning of Infrastructure Week!schrodingers_cat
@gbbalto: 50 shades of derp.
Tazj
Last week on Saturday in the late afternoon, I turned on MSNBC for a few minutes. They had a panel discussing Trump’s 2020 campaign. Would he do the same thing, forego the diners and fairs and just hold big rallies? Would other politicians follow him and campaign the same way? With all the chaos in his cabinet and the Russia investigation and the gun violence debate this is what they were talking about. Then, last night I’m on Twitter because I’m at dinner but want to follow the NCCA basketball scores. Most people on my feed are appalled at Trump’s speech. I turn on the television and the analysis is “Trump being Trump”.
Villago Delenda Est
Cillizza is the poster boy for Broderism. He’ll lose the clue by noon today.
Wipe them out. All of them.
SFAW
@zhena gogolia:
Why do you even bother?
RemindsMeOfThatTroll is just a rebranding of shomi, or NR, or one of the myriad other “All you Balloon Juicers FUCKING SUCK!!!” That schtick was old the first time he did it; the 37,000th time, under a new nom/nym is no less old.
Kay
@schrodingers_cat:
There’s a legit campaign finance issue there. You can’t give in-kind contributions thru a “conduit”. This is ordinary election law.
Every crook does this. They have someone give the money and then they reimburse them. There are tens of people in prison for this right now. You can’t have your lawyer donate 130k to your campaign and then reimburse the lawyer. That’s the classic conduit scenario. It’s not smart or original or unique. Every crook does it.
Baud
@Kay: There’s no downside to not lying. They might lose, but the risk of losing is greater if they were honest.
Villago Delenda Est
@Kay: It’s all about keeping their phony-baloney jobs, by delivering clicks, ratings, or (less now than before) newsstand sales.
It’s about the money, like everything else in this decadent Mammon worshiping society.
Kay
@Tazj:
I don’t envy the Democratic candidate in 2020. This isn’t their fault but it is their problem, and they are going to have to solve it or get around it or something. I don’t know what to do. I hope someone smart figures something out. I’m fucking stumped. I surrender.
satby
@RemindsMeOfThatMovie: nobody developed any amnesia. We’re well aware of the manifest sins of the people you named, but we’re not their audience. The people who are will possibly get a bit more educated when their media favorites contradict the Drumpf maladministration. We welcome the lamp that brings a glimmer of light to dark corners, but we don’t forget that it can burn us too.
jeffreyw
@Starfish: Sorry! I’m in a new browser and needed a cookie.
Here are some birds.
Villago Delenda Est
@gbbalto: It certainly doesn’t reflect my views on Chuckles the Toddler. He an Cillizza are fighting for lead “journalist” tumbrel, right after Ken Starr, the remaining alive Bush v. Gore pro-Bush Supremes, and now selected members of the Trump crime family.
Oh, and Jake Tapper can never be forgiven for some of his actions during the Obama years. Particularly his defense of the vile fascist shit of Faux Noise.
MattF
@Villago Delenda Est: Cillizza claims ownership of the journalist/asshole brand. Broder was the owner of the ‘distinguished journalist who defines his opinions as bipartisanship’ brand. Not the same. I’d say Broder was worse, although Cillizza is truly awful.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@SFAW: Yup. The “you people all…” thing is a tell
the Chuck Todd thing makes me wonder if his good friend and “good person” Kellyanne Conway called him– off the record, of course– to assure him that she was just appalled at what trump said
Baud
@Kay:
I don’t either, but our candidates have been stepping up. Recruitment is off the charts. We’re not going down without a fight.
JMG
@Kay: The market solution, not the political one, would be to give the media what they want. Call Trump a traitor in every speech. Say you’ll hang him on the Capitol steps. Then the D’s rallies would get hours of free airtime. Politically, I think the voters will respond best to a contrast, a candidate who’s earnest, lucid and perhaps a trifle dull. But cable news would hate that.
debit
RemindsMeOfThatMovie RemindsMeOfThatTroll. Pied.
RemindsMeOfThatMovie
News flash: Chuckles Toddler is not your friend. Jennifer Rubin is not your friend. Unbelievable that I actually have to remind people of that.
Chris Cillizza is not definitely not your friend but in his case he’s maybe just a goat. Don’t know for sure and don’t care. The other two are straight up grifters.
Frankensteinbeck
@Kay:
Republicans have been doing this for at least a decade, and the media eats it up. Remember Ryan’s absurd budgets? Bush’s coteries’ claims about how the Iraq war would go? Republicans flat out lie on national television, including claiming accomplishments that haven’t happened as if they are now a done deal. The news gives no pushback, and allows no pushback from Dems. Trump is only breaking the code by being rude.
EDIT – @JMG:
This is exactly what the media covers up or roasts – mostly covers up – when Dems do it.
bystander
This morning on MSNBC, some young “journalist” was telling us that the House Intel committee investigation is all partisan because the repubs want to shut it down but Dems want to probe more deeply. So partisan means wanting to know the truth despite people who want to prevent the truth from coming out.
bystander
@Baud: Are you speaking for Democrats or Baud!?
MattF
@bystander: ‘What is Truth? said jesting Cillizza, and would not stay for an answer.’
cope
I wish I had rolled over the link before clicking it. I can’t believe I actually went to Michelle “Cheerleader” Malkin’s twitchy site…
Gelfling 545
@RemindsMeOfThatMovie: I doubt that anyone actually likes him. It’s just that it’s fascinating to see him and others finally seeming to realize on some low level what havoc they’ve wrought and stumble about apologetically without actually apologizing. Almost like they’ve realized “ Oh, shit. I have to live here too!”
Chyron HR
But when his non sequiturs, and ranting, and exaggerating
and lying became known to more and more pundits,
the attempts to normalize this outrageous man
became louder and louder.
Villago Delenda Est
@MattF: Fair point, but it’s all just the same bothsidesdoit/falseequivalency disease that is epidemic in the Village, and why it needs to be cleansed with fire.
Baud
@bystander: The Democrats are not going down without a fight. Baud! is not going down, period.
Raoul
@Baud: Well, in the soshulist hellhole we will create, it will!
Back on earth, I suppose I didn’t know this, but I’m not at all surprised.
Emma
@Cheryl Rofer: Shorter recovery time than I expected. Must have a really hard head.
JPL
@Raoul: Daniel Drezner said it best
FlyingToaster
@RemindsMeOfThatMovie: Why do you even come here?
Just fuck off already.
/ back to dealing with Neversource and the utility pole resting comfortably on my broken front bannister. “We show this as active and open”…
gene108
Given the billions of dollars conservatives have spent, over the last 45 years, buying their own media outlets, setting up think tanks, etc I am surprised opposition to conservatives even has a chance of succeeding.
Raoul
@Villago Delenda Est: Except Cillizza’s version of Broderism is supremely shallow. Broder at least managed some chin strokes to give a gloss of thought to his work.
Cillizza just barfs up his immediate reactions and some-freakin-how CNN calls this analysis.
Baud
@gene108: In addition to the special election turnout, the one thing I cling to is that Hillary got the most votes despite the combined array of malign domestic and international forces that succeeding in ultimately handing Trump the presidency. We have a chance. It’s less of a chance than I’d like, but we have a chance.
WereBear
One thing I realized about Trump and the Emperor’s New Clothes: he really did take it up a few notches. Instead of just walking around naked, he painted his butt bright red and is swinging from chandeliers making fart noises with his mouth.
You know. Obvious.
germy
link
Humdog
@FlyingToaster: Are the wires still live after all these days? How are you staying warm and safe? Yikes!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Cheryl Rofer: all due mockery to Haberman, but
this cracked me up
@Raoul: sweet jumpin’ jeebus, he is a sad little courtier
Raoul
@RemindsMeOfThatMovie: Newsflash: Pie filter.
Humdog
@germy: How is Britain not considering this a chemical weapons attack on their people? Frikken Russians did not care how many innocents got taken down with their targets! Given the message this is supposed to send, this is an act of terrorism. But Shitstain will not mention it because brownish people didn’t do it.
Frankensteinbeck
@bystander:
Come on, you know this one. ‘Partisan’ means that both sides aren’t agreeing that Republicans are right.
Tazj
@Kay: As much as I complain and grump about the media and press, I remain strangely optimistic that the tide will turn against Republicans and Trump. I just have to vent about most of the coverage sometimes like “Doesn’t anyone else think this is crazy? I also want them to take some responsibility for his success and a few like Toobin have.
However, even though it’s always an uphill battle for Democrats, many people are realizing that Trump is bad for the country and Republicans will be voted out in November dépité much of the television media.
Baud
@Frankensteinbeck: Why are Democrats so uncivil?
Raoul
@gene108: Lately I’ve been having fantasies of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett going in to buy Faux Nooz. We have had a string of wingers buying news sites and shutting them or swinging them hard right. Couldn’t those two do this for democracy? Seems very much like their work to end malaria.
(And, yes, of course, if the above fevered imagining were to happen, a new cable channel would emerge to feed the gaping maw of stupid on the right. Give a guy a second to enjoy his dreaming)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Good point, and I don’t feel tin-foil-hatty saying that said message was intended for more than one American citizen.
JPL
@Raoul: There is another station to the right of FOX, and I assume that cable companies will receive a lot of requests to carry it. It can always get worse.
I can’t remember the name of the channel, but I do know that there are lots of requests already to drop CNN and carry that network.
WereBear
I’m trying to picture it… a lot like Romper Room with Dana Loesch as the host, I guess.
FlyingToaster
@Humdog: Wires are live; my feed is to the corner of the house, off to the right, from the pole on the main drag. We have gas heat, but ‘lectrict thermostats and igniters for the various gas appliances.
The pole slid down about 2 feet when the neighbor’s tree limbs came off the wires.
Timeline for those not following:
Wed-Thursday Nor’Easter #Quinn, cancelled Thursday School.
9am Thursday as I’m making French Toast, a huge BANG! from the front of the house. My porch post and rail gone, bannister hanging by the bottom post, treads popped off of my front steps, and 3 feet in front of my face, the top of the utility pole. The streetlight shattered on my lower granite steps. Call 911, the FD comes by and tells me: “Put no weight on that structure until it’s checked, do not go beyond the dogwood because these lines are live”; goes and tells the neighbors not to use their driveway, tapes off the block.
4pm Friday the broken pole base was removed and a new pole installed; they waited until dark but the treecutters didn’t make it.
11am Saturday the treecutters arrive and remove the limbs; the pole top slides down.
Nothing since until I tweeted this and got retweeted by the local rumor mill, which seems to be embarassing the fuck out of Neversource. And it’s not their fault; we have 17 fucktons of damage from the last two storms, at least 1 fuckton here in Watertown alone.
germy
@Humdog: You’re right, it’s amazing. I think a number of first responders were hospitalized.
germy
“Remember, kids! You don’t need cable to pick up Sinclair! Any old TV antenna will do!”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
all together now: “Can you imagine if an Obama official had said this….”
mad citizen
@Frankensteinbeck: Was reminded this morning of a 1968 story on CBS Sunday Morning, that we’re 50 years in on the “I can solve it” promise. Tricky Dick had a secret plan to end the Vietnam War. I was only 7, not sure how the media covered his secret plan, or what people thought of it. I do remember going to an RFK rally–we must have stood outside to get a glimpse, I don’t remember seeing the speech part.
WaterGirl
@germy: Holy fuck!
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Lordy. That’s much worse that “You didn’t build that.” Remember when they hammered Kerry on wanting to reduce terrorism to a “nuisance”?
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Prestige media and RW echo chamber are the two arms of the R propaganda machine.
tobie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Was there a follow-up question to this? Any effort to tease out how the T administration now waits for approval from the North Korean regime before conducting military exercises in the south?
Some SuperPac needs to be putting together a powerful 30-second spot showing the US’s diminished prestige in the international arena under Trump. Something like, “We were promised America First, we’ve become America Last.”
Yarrow
@Humdog:
So much Russian money in The City. So much Russian money being laundered through their real estate. Concerns about their economy being affected if they look too closely or shake things up too much. Follow the money.
mad citizen
I don’t worry about 2020–whoever the Dem candidate is will win. If Trump is the opponent, it might be a streetfight. What I like/liked about the Florida students gun debate and activism is actual debating of issues. It’d be so great if we debate all the issues like that. Dems need to be kicking ass and taking names. Yes I’m rambling.
When Peyton Manning sells his stake in Papa John’s franchises (2 days before the NFL annouces they’re going to Pizza Hut–coincidence?), having watched him for 20 years here in Indy, something is afoot.
Bruuuuce
Piling on with more media (and sports) dickery:
We already knew this guy had his head up his ass. Just another datum for the collection.
Another Scott
@FlyingToaster: Ouch. :-(
Hope it’s resolved soon, and that you’re staying warm!
Good luck!
Cheers,
Scott.
debbie
So I see this tweet:
I first check 538 and reassure myself that Trump’s at 40.7% as of Friday. Then I check Rassmussen Daily Presidential Tracking Poll and Trump’s approval was 44% on Friday, compared to Obama’s 46% at the same point of his presidency. PATHETIC LIAR!
hueyplong
@Bruuuuce: Yeah, that’s why it took nearly 24 hours for Sherman to find another team, and what proof of “doesn’t work” is there when Philadelphia willingly took Bennett from Seattle?
These were the standard cost cutting moves that always happen when a player approaches or passes 30 years old in a sport whose closest analogy is the board room scene early on in Django Unchained (“finish him!”).
And the commentary is pretty predictable from someone working at a Fox network.
Bruuuuce
@debbie:
Well, yeah. Has he ever intentionally spoken the truth when it wouldn’t make him a profit?
Bruuuuce
@hueyplong: I agree. Sadly, I listen to more sports radio than is good for me, and Colin Cowherd is right up there with the worst of political talk radio in terms of his connection to the real world and cogency of his analysis. As I said, just piling on while it’s more or less on topic.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@debbie: honestly trying to remember if Obama, or even the Shrub, ever mentioned their approval ratings. I can’t imagine it
Villago Delenda Est
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: We’d have Team Spirit every year like we always do regardless of Kim “allowing” it, and Pompeo is broadcasting his unfitness to be the CIA director here.
Immanentize
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: So Pompeo believes we needed the approval of the North to do our routine joint military exercises with the South?
How far we have fallen.
bystander
@Frankensteinbeck:
I think that statement replaced “All the News that Is Fit to Print” at the FNYT.
Immanentize
@debbie:
In this case, I bet this is just what his sides are telling him. Verbatim. He never checks details. And why would anyone ever lie to Trump?
zhena gogolia
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Nope, not even the Shrub. I hate to say it, but he had tons more self-respect and dignity than this mook.
Immanentize
I saw a bumper sticker on a Prius in Cambridge, MA yesterday:
HINDSIGHT
2020
Another Scott
@Baud: Cook Political Report has PA-15 as Lean Democratic.
We’ve got excellent chances to take the seat, but we have to work for every single vote.
Eyes on the prize.
Cheers,
Scott.
Roger Moore
@JMG:
I think a lot of that will depend on what comes from the Mueller investigation and its fallout. If the report is damning and the Republicans block any action on it, vigorous attacks on Trump and his cronies will be both good with the media and with the voters.
Brachiator
@Kay:
He’s the Crazy Uncle president. Of course he’s going to get coverage.
He also knows how to manipulate the media. After his surprise BS about meeting with North Korea, the press gave him coverage to see if there might be further surprises.
@Raoul:
Doesn’t really apply here. Any president has an advantage. And unlike the UK, we don’t have a shadow government.
And Trump really isn’t fooling anybody. His popularity rating is still low.
Bruuuuce
@Immanentize: That appears to be a Bernie bumper sticker. I’d rather look ahead, anyway.
Chyron HR
@Bruuuuce:
What the holy fucking hell is it supposed to mean in that context? “In hindsight you should have given him a coronation, because it was his turn”?
debbie
@Brachiator:
Like not being able to turn away from a car crash.
WereBear
This intrigues me.
bemused senior
And in the world of real toddlers: As my friends know, I never wear dresses. So I emerged from my bedroom this morning a bit later than usual, and my twin grandchildren (2 1/2) were already up and playing. Isaiah spotted me in my nightgown. “Look Mom! Nonny’s a princess!”
Bruuuuce
@Chyron HR: I don’t know. I just calls ’em as Google sees ’em, and there are enough “hindsight 2020” bumper stickers with Sanders that it’s pretty clear that the slogan belongs to that crowd.
Funny how self-described “progressives” want to look to the past, though :-(
tobie
@Baud: @Immanentize: It’s even worse. According to Will Saletan’s twitter feed Steve Mnuchin remarked that North Korea agreed to meet the US without any conditions (on the US)! Geez.
Aimai
@Immanentize: jesus! If I see one of those I’m keying the car.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
The problem with Ciliizza’s thesis in the link is
a) While TV shows goes for typically five years, they only are only on an hour, once a week. Not 40 hours , seven days a week. His audience is burning out from the bing watching.
b) The presidency is serious shit, so Turmp has offended every living American who doesn’t think with a TV set by now.
c) Trump is both dull and worse than inept when he tries to actually take the job seriously.
Brachiator
@Raoul:
Fox News is becoming old news.
Sinclair Broadcast Group is trying to gain dominance and they are very nasty. From a recent Variety story.
Sinclair is also starting to “encourage” news anchors to insert right wing propaganda into otherwise straight ahead news stories.
Link to Variety story.
http://variety.com/2018/tv/news/sinclair-tribune-merger-new-york-chicago-station-sale-1202716597/
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@tobie: Which means that NK has already got the concessions they wanted by Trump merely agreeing to meet with them.
sdhays
@tobie: And the humbling of America continues…
tobie
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: I see your point. North Korea’s condition for meeting Trump is that Trump have no conditions on North Korea. Twitler agreed to their terms. What an ass.
Humdog
If North Korea throws Shitstain a military parade with their heavy equipment our military will not have in his parade here, Shitstain will be flattered, impressed and take Kim’s side just as he has taken Putin’s, Xi’s and Duterte’s. He loves him some autocratic leaders who have opponents assassinated. Gives him big ideas.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
In hindsight, they all should have campaigned enthusiastically for the D candidate. In hindsight, we can see they hurt all of us when they didn’t.
zhena gogolia
@tobie:
I couldn’t believe Todd just let that pass.
tobie
@sdhays: Given the jingoism of Trump’s reluctant followers, I still think it would be effective to have a 30 second commercial showing the US’s loss of global power under Trump. You won’t convince his most ardent supporters–they really are a lost cause–but you may give pause to some of his more reluctant supporters, who were taken in by all the shit about him projecting strength in the world.
tobie
@zhena gogolia: He was sleeping on the job yet again.
SiubhanDuinne
@Roger Moore:
I periodically toy with the idea of a handful of “moderate” Republicans — Mittens, Graham, Flake, Kasich — primarying Trump in 2020 and one of them winning the nomination so decisively that Trump would have to go third party or write-in, or quit, or implode in some decisive way. He would be the lamest duck in history during whatever months remained of his presidency. (It would also bring a level of chaos we haven’t yet dreamt of.)
Of course it won’t happen, but it’s an amusing fantasy.
Jeffro
@Kay: no surrendering!
Brachiator
@germy:
A Sinclair company owns the patent for the next generation of over the air broadcast devices. If this becomes the new standard, they will benefit greatly.
I read somewhere that this technology could also be built into computers and mobile devices, but I hope this is just speculation.
Still, with the decline of cable, Sinclair knows what it is doing to dominate future markets.
It’s fun to read people bash the NYT and the dying MSM. And even Rupert Murdoch is hobbled by a fixation on old media models. But Sinclair and other right wing extremists have a far greater understanding on how to exploit new technology developments.
Link
http://www.tvnewscheck.com/article/109467/sinclair-stands-to-profit-from-30-royalties
James E. Powell
@Villago Delenda Est:
Your version of Arya’s list? Or is it “Wormer, he’s a dead man! Marmalard, dead! Niedermeyer . . . “
Jeffro
I’m not going to worry about 2020 until after this November’s elections, and likely not even then. Too many things can (and likely will) happen in the next year.
Let’s get the Ds firmly in charge of the House and let them hold hearings for two straight years on all the corruption, incompetence, and risks to national security we’re seeing.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@SiubhanDuinne: I’m not predicting he’ll do it, but I won’t be surprised if Kasich takes a run at trump. I think Graham thinks the looming disaster of the NORK summit is a chance to push an enraged trump into the hot war that will finally, finally prove to Lindsey’s dead daddy that he’s a real man even though… you know. My Unified Theory of Romney is that he thinks one of his sons will be that White Horse, and I think he’ll do little more than Flake or Corker in his before-the-fact legendary anti-trump stance– gotta keep the mouth-breathers open to a Tagg presidency. My unified theory of Jeff Flake: There’s no there there.
condorcet runner-up
@bystander: yeah, i don’t think that word means what he or she thinks it means.
Brachiator
@SiubhanDuinne:
Unless the economy crashes, Trump will definitely be the 2020 GOP candidate. Trump put the loser stank on Romney during the 2016 primary, and that shit don’t wash off.
The GOP leadership is sticking to Trump until the bitter end, unless some deep political apocalypse happens. Look how the supposed party of free trade is meekly accepting Trump’s position on tariffs.
James E. Powell
@Raoul:
CNN, and the rest of the press/media, are following their own corollary of Cleek’s Law: If what we print or broadcast infuriates liberals, then we are doing tough analysis. See also, the NYT Op-Ed policies.
Frankensteinbeck
@Chyron HR:
I’ve seen them several times. It means “Bernie would have beaten Trump because a poll during the primary said so, so all you Democrats were stupid and wrong to elect Hillary in the primary and she’s as bad as we said.”
Mnemosyne
@RemindsMeOfThatMovie:
Shomi, no one cares what you think. STFU.
Brachiator
@Jeffro:
Yep. I would love it if the Democrats could also take the Senate.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
Did you have to link to Michele Malkin’s shit site? The article mentions “media/liberal types getting triggered” for christ’ s sake!
SiubhanDuinne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
@Brachiator:
I guess I wasn’t as clear as I should have been. It wasn’t a prediction, I don’t really believe for a minute that it’s likely to happen, and I wasn’t trying to make a case for any of these I named; they were just the names that popped into my mind of some of the GOPers the media like to call “moderate.”
trollhattan
@Brachiator:
Still don’t see a path to getting the senate, but if Alabama can hold Mississippi’s beer a sec, maybe we can have a Confederate state Dem twofer. Has Roy Moore moved and declared yet? Do it Roy, today!
tom
DJT thinks Haberman is a Hillary flunky: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/972832210222043137
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Nah, you were clear. I was just riffing on what you said, mostly because I think Kasich’s hot-headedness and vanity– Im sure he finds Paulie Ryan’s breathless press frustrating when he was doing that schtick 25 years ago, without the big blue eyes and workout pictures– have the potential to make him interesting. And I can’t resist a chance to mock Mittens and the Mittlets, especially now that Willard has become (again?) the latest great white hope of sleepy-eyed sumbitches
Brachiator
@SiubhanDuinne:
Point noted. In a similar vein, I mentioned the Dems retaking the Senate, but this was an idle thought, not a prediction.
Here the media is worse than irrelevant. Moderates don’t matter in the GOP. They haven’t mattered in years.
The angry fire that pushes the GOP farther to the right is not burning out anytime soon.
Tenar Arha
@WereBear: Along with investigate the Icahn & Deripaska(?) pre-tariff announcement sell offs, and calling & saying a hearty thank you about the Banking Bill this past week, I’ve told my representatives to add Peyton’s payback to the list (and mentioned that Martha Stewart went to jail for less).
ETA in case I was unclear, my Senators are Warren & Markey who are firmly on the “no” side of the current Banking Bill.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
To my surprise, a fellow Tech Writing prof posted on my FB that she met Stormy Daniels at a horse event and she’s a nice person with a lovely daughter. So however many degrees to Stormy Daniels.
Roger Moore
@trollhattan:
It’s a narrow path, but it’s there. If the Democrats can hold every seat and win in AZ and NV, they have a 51-49 advantage. There’s also an outside chance for a real upset, like defeating Cruz in Texas or winning the open seat in Mississippi.
Pope Ratzy
“this clown”?
or did you mean
“that clown”?
Matt
@JMG: Dukakis, Gore, Kerry and Clinton are all counterexamples.
Brachiator
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Don’t matter.
A little rummaging in history came up with this little nugget.
It will take a political apocalypse to shake Trump loose. But hopefully some GOP goober will make the primary fun to watch.
Ruckus
@satby:
Wouldn’t he have to be chasing a clue to actually catch it?
mike in dc
@Brachiator: @Brachiator:
An incumbent with a serious primary challenger is generally a bad omen for that incumbent. LBJ in 1968(bad showing, decided not to run again), Carter in 1980(lost to Reagan), GHWB in 1992(challenged by Pat “Swastika plate” Buchanan, lost in the general). Additionally, Gore was the incumbent VP in 2000, challenged by Bradley(not a particularly strong challenger, but still…). H.Clinton was a quasi-incumbent running to succeed a two-term Democrat, and in that sense Sanders was nearly akin to a primary challenger to her incumbency. Point being, a primary challenger points to a certain lack of base voter enthusiasm for the incumbent or incumbent party.
Similarly, an outsize 3rd party vote can point to a lack of general electorate enthusiasm for the two major choices. Trump’s best hope may be another divisive Dem primary, followed by a left-leaning 3rd party candidate siphoning off anti-Trump votes.
Brachiator
@mike in dc:
LBJ is a fair citation, even though he declined to seek another term.
Otherwise, my historical note says nothing about general elections, and simply suggests that it might be extremely difficult for any other Republican to snatch the nomination away from Trump.
Roger Moore
@Brachiator:
Your point is misleading. Precedent is less valuable a way of looking at US presidential elections than you think, because there simply haven’t been enough under anything like the current rules to come up with strong rules about how they’re going to work. There’s also the very real problem that very weak presidents may choose to drop out rather than face outright defeat (as LBJ did in 1968) or be damaged by a strong primary challenge that isn’t enough to defeat them (as Ted Kennedy did to Carter in 1980). I could easily imagine somebody like Kasich decide to run in 2020, either to position themselves for 2024 or as a deliberate spoiler.
James E. Powell
@Bruuuuce:
He works for FOX and his main sport is NFL football. NFL football fans who watch sports shows and listen to sports talk trend RW. I’m not excusing his dull-witted observations, but I do believe he’s just pandering to his audience.
Roger Moore
@Brachiator:
He didn’t really decline to run for another term. He started running for reelection but gave up when he realized he had a serious chance of not being renominated. That’s a de facto defeat, even if it was presented otherwise.
Ruckus
@Villago Delenda Est:
Money is the social lubricant that allows modern societies to work. Otherwise you’d have to grow/raise your own food or be able to trade food for what you can’t. Money isn’t the culprit here. Stealing money, hoarding money, money for money’s sake is.
Corner Stone
@Tenar Arha:
Thank you for adding the ETA. My boggling was mind.
El Caganer
@Kay: Kay – they don’t care. Everything on any screen you watch – TV, computer, etc. – is entertainment. Truth, reality, actual consequences in the real world……nobody gives a shit anymore.
James E. Powell
@Roger Moore:
Kind of agree, but consider that the rules may be different for Republicans. While Democrats who challenge incumbents or “the establishment” tend to get permanent fan clubs among the press/media and on dailykos, Republicans who challenge their party’s leaders (pre-downfall) are regarded as enemies, cucks, closet liberals, etc.
If Kasich, for example, runs against Trump, he would do worse than he did last time.
Brachiator
@Roger Moore:
Precedent is always more valuable than ahistorical speculation.
Kasich is not going anywhere in 2020. There is no real moderate wing of the GOP, so Kasich has no realistic path to the nomination. And as I noted, it would take some political apocalypse to weaken Trump, as Vietnam weakened LBJ. We really do not disagree.
None of this applies to 2024 unless Trump finds a way to pull a Xi and abolishes term limits.
Ruckus
@debbie:
If drumpf is breathing, he’s lying. His lips don’t have to even move, he’s still lying. With him it’s autonomic. Autonomic, not automatic. It’s built in.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking, not that Kasich thinks he can win, but that he just might be vindictive and vainglorious enough to run, just to put a hurt on trump. Especially if somebody like old man McCain, also vindictive and vainglorious, starts whispering in his ear.
germy
@Brachiator:
Oh I don’t know. Aren’t there enough republicans who would cut off their right hand before voting for the “democrat party” but are embarrassed and alarmed by drumpf?
If someone like Harris or Gillibrand or Booker is nominated, will a left third party (with plenty of $donations from the right) split the vote? I hope not.
Brachiator
@Ruckus:
Ha! So true.
And he sometimes makes those strange breathy sounds, which makes is autonomic lying more irritating.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
Racism and money grubbing are as old as humanity, they won’t ever go away. The best we can hope for is containment.
Brachiator
@germy:
No. Not yet.
Right now, I don’t think Democrats would be so foolish as to split the vote. Trump seems to be about as reprehensible as a Republican could ever be.
But I recently heard some Bernie supporters talk some incredibly dumb shit. It’s as though they would rather live under Trump if they cannot have their progressive Nirvana.
RemindsMeOfThatMovie
The good news is that we got rid of Al Franken. Also, the Sandernistas are starting to froth again over their favorite grifter never gonna be president not a real democrat candidate who didn’t do sheit to help Democrats after he lost the primary. Instead, mister “the 1%ers are evil” focussed on selling his book and becoming a 1%er himself.
So once again, Democrats are working overtime to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
I’ve often wondered if LBJ knew something we didn’t. He passed away 4 yrs, almost to the day after leaving office. At 64 yrs old.
cokane
Nah Cilizza is playing a game. He’ll write the “trump sucks and lies” column and then he’ll write the “trump is the most entertaining politician ever” column in a week. He churns out a peculiar kind of clickbait, but him learning anything? Shit, even when he’s criticizing Trump, he’ll do it in a substance-less way
Brachiator
@Ruckus:
The Wiki article on the 1968 primary says that LBJ’s declining health was one of the reasons he was not up for a bruising fight over the nomination. I have not read the LBJ biographies and don’t know what they say about this period.
Hmm. I see that Robert Caro has not got to this era in his long series on LBJ.
Brachiator
@RemindsMeOfThatMovie:
Ah, a joker in the deck.
Hmm let me try an emoji. ?
James E. Powell
@germy:
No. Republican voters, especially primary voters, are not embarrassed or alarmed by Trump. They love him. More than any Republican since Reagan.
HeleninEire
Open thread? Yeah like I care. My niece Colleen is coming to visit on Saturday. For those of you who have been paying attention, Colleen is Alex’s sister. So excited. We’re gonna have the best time ever. For those of you who have not been paying attention, well Alex.
WaterGirl
@Brachiator: I read its comment as that of a troll looking to stir up trouble on BJ.
WaterGirl
@HeleninEire: I have apparently missed some important threads. Do tell!
Jeebus
@cokane: I dunno, “the lies” is a pretty strong statement from a journalist. But ok, sincerity itself is a fungible commodity to exchange for infotainment now. One can hope the scales fell off his eyes. It’s nice to at least fantasize. But … sigh.
HeleninEire
@WaterGirl: My godson, Colleen’s brother, Alex, was shot to death by his “friend” Long story, but the friend made assumptions about Alex. They were all wrong. Virginia law would have put that FUCK to death. My sister (Collen’s and Alex’s mom) as a practicing Catholic asked the state not to. So he is now in jail for the rest of his life.
debbie
@HeleninEire:
I missed this, but how horrible for both you and Colleen. I hope you have a wonderful visit together.
HeleninEire
@debbie: Thank you. Its gonna be GRAND.
WaterGirl
@HeleninEire: Oh how awful. Was this quite some time ago? I’m glad you can be together.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
I’ve thought this since he decided not to run. He was a street fighter. He would trade off big things to get what he wanted. Yes he knew he was unliked, but I don’t think he cared all that much about that. I think he did see that Vietnam wasn’t going anywhere near as well as he wanted it to. Did he fail or did people bow down to him a bit much and tell him what he wanted to hear? Or some combination? But him not running for the one thing that he’d worked his entire career about? Yeah, I’ve wondered for decades if there was another reason, and of course that’s another question that will never be answered.
cokane
@Jeebus: I get being optimistic, but this isnt the first “trump is being ridiculous” column from the man. He’s playing this game where he stakes out a “centrist” brand by writing columns that piss off both sides. the problem, for me anyways, is that he’s not even a good centrist in terms of staking out anything on actually policy. all his shtick is writing about optics.
Westyny
@debbie: And Rasmussen inflates the Republican and depresses the black guy, er . . . Democrat. It’s never been that close.
No One You Know
@jeffreyw: Nice! I think you posted one a little while ago showing a cardinal eyeing a bunch of blue jays? Reminded me of home.