Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you do not.

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

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

You are either for trump or for democracy. Pick one.

“woke” is the new caravan.

Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

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

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

These are not very smart people, and things got out of hand.

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

Everything is totally normal and fine!!!

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

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

Trump’s cabinet: like a magic 8 ball that only gives wrong answers.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

Books are my comfort food!

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Dolt 45 / Thursday Morning Open Thread: Welcome to His World

Thursday Morning Open Thread: Welcome to His World

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Spent most of yesterday dealing with a dental appointment, so I didn’t get the chance to post about the unhinged behavior of the Oval Office Resident during his VFW speech. (In a more normal era, it would’ve dominated the news cycle for days.) He’s begging what should be a loyal crowd to accept a version of recent news that does not comport with reality…


 
And suddenly, some of the faithful are no longer buying the schtick!


Suspect that part of Trump’s extremely public decompensation was due to the fact that he’s losing what audience he once had…


… And some of that is certainly the (deliberate?) fault of the people in charge of advance preps:

Reader Interactions

132Comments

  2. 2.

    p.a.

    Heh. Please keep your business closed this weekday to prevent the most bigly business friendly president from feeling uncomfortable.

    “Computer, what is the nature of the universe?…”

  4. 4.

    Jeffro

    @p.a.: It makes one wonder what sort of restrictions will be in place for his faux-dictator military parade in November. How far back will spectators be from the parade – a half mile? A mile? They can attend, but must be decked head-to-toe in Freedom Colors? No signs unless they proclaim how great Orangemandias is?

  5. 5.

    OzarkHillbilly

    “If the Americans aren’t considered safe then no one is – they’re at least as safe as our European partners.”

    -John Holland-Kaye, Heathrow’s chief executive

    Ummm…. Sir? Have you ever met a trump voter?

  10. 10.

    Baud

    Vets were some of Trump’s biggest supporters. We’ll see if that starts to change.

  13. 13.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Baud: I only see one Balloon Juice.

    ETA: The nightstand is pretty much level with the bed, the corner just sliced me a bit over my right eye. Put some Neosporin on it. The dog in the bed(the cocker) seemed to be confused.

  14. 14.

    Baud

    Trump Pulls Off a Surprising Victory on Trade

    The Atlantic / by Reihan Salam

    The Atlantic continues it’s slow decline.

  18. 18.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    CNN’s Poppy Harlow on Wednesday interviewed a Trump-backing Minnesota farmer who told her that he might not vote for the president in 2020 if he didn’t find a way to end his trade war by then.

    “Trade needs to get fixed now,” he said.

    When Harlow asked him if he’d still support Trump in 2020, he said, “The jury’s still out on that.”

    “Timing is critical on this trade deal,” he explained. “If, in three or five years we have a better trade agreement, that won’t matter to most farmers because we’re hurting financially now and we won’t have the ability to run our businesses in the red for the next several years.”

  19. 19.

    debbie

    Trump must be most appalled at the farmers who have said they want sensible policies instead of handouts. Bet he can’t imagine who even thinks like that.

  20. 20.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    Trump is not going to love how many empty seats there are for his speech at the VFW convention. Municipal Auditorium in downtown Kansas City is about half full.

    Imagine the media response if Obama addressed a liberal group in Hollywood and half the seats were empty. But IOKIYAR

  22. 22.

    Immanentize

    Hello All. Ozark — I am so upset to read about you being driven off the road. You OK? Was it an accident, or just someone trying to read your bumper stickers?
    Momsense — is your boy OK?
    The Immp continues to heal. I bought him biking gloves and some new pedals for the bike. That reduces original parts to pretty much the frame and front gears…. Neosporin and lots of Band-Aids too.

    ETA. And now Billin gets klonked! Be careful out there, big Mars seems to be wreaking a jackal vendetta.

  30. 30.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @satby: Mars has been really bright for the past several weeks,;when I went out with the kid to teach her Milky Way photography, I was really pissed off that that “airplane” was going to mess up my shot, turns out it was just a very bright Mars.

    @rikyrah: Thanks, I think I”m OK.

  31. 31.

    SRW1

    What’s a Trump to do? Regaling this audience with how he heroically fought the onslaught of all sorts of venereal diseases prolly wouldn’t have gone well with them.

  32. 32.

    Steve in the ATL

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: “In the rude awakening department, I just rolled off the bed and hit my head on the nightstand.”

    You still remembered to leave her money on the dresser though, right?

  33. 33.

    Platonailedit

    A Japanese city has been forced to clarify it is not in fact recruiting ninjas, following reports that it was facing a shortage of skilled assassins.

    Local officials in Iga, which styles itself as the birthplace of ninja-dom, had received a flood of applications from around the world.

    But they said in a statement (in Japanese) that they were not officially hiring any, “so please be careful”.

    The mix-up apparently began with a report by a US broadcaster.

    Way to make fool of yourself, npr.

  34. 34.

    Gin & Tonic

    @rikyrah: I think it would be smart for a D congressperson to introduce a resolution revoking their 501(c)4 status.

  35. 35.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Immanentize: It’s no big deal. Driving a gravel road into a super tight S-turn when a kid coming the opposite direction going to fast was halfway into my side of the road. We had about a second to react before impact. He swerved while I could only brake because I was already tight to the embankment on the right. Everyone was OK but my truck needs work that this time I have to have done. Had to cut away some body parts from the tire but otherwise it was mostly just time spent getting proper info. Didn’t even bother calling for a Sherrif’s deputy (would have been at least a 1/2 hr before one would show up). The Kid knew he’d f’d up and there was no disputing that.

    On the upside of the whole affair I got meet the family patriarch who told me a few tales of “way back when” which were more than a little interesting.

  36. 36.

    Platonailedit

    Trade wars are going so maga.

    Chipmaker Qualcomm has abandoned its $44bn bid for Dutch rival NXP Semiconductors after failing to secure approval from Chinese regulators.

    A deadline for the transaction, which needed China’s sign-off, was set for 11:59pm (03:59 GMT) New York time under the agreement.

    The deal had already won the necessary regulatory approvals in eight of nine countries.

    It would have been one of the biggest deals between technology companies.

    It comes as US-China trade tensions have escalated, prompting speculation this latest development is a retaliation to US tariffs.

  39. 39.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    @SRW1: he could talked about how he likes vets who weren’t captured and the importance of footwear to prevent bone spurs

  40. 40.

    SFAW

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    I only see one Balloon Juice.

    There can be only One.

    [I think it would be good humor if Cole posted a picture of Christopher Lambert (Great Neck, represent!) as “Your Esteemed Bloghost.”]

  42. 42.

    Leto

    NEW: The VFW has issued a statement saying it is “disappointed” with audience members who booed and heckled members of the press during the president’s speech today –>

    Then maybe you should disable grandpa’s Fox channel. Or in your monthly mag, run full page ads denouncing Fox News.

    @Baud: I can tell you it’s also a generational thing. He’s going to have a higher % of older vet votes, and basically anyone who watches Fox. But for people in my age bracket and younger (45 and down), there’s less support. More of us understand exactly what’s at stake because we’re on the ground seeing it first hand how it affects our military partners/relationships. I mean, take this with a grain of salt because it’s just first hand anecdotal evidence but this is what I’m observing.

  44. 44.

    Kay

    @SRW1:

    He gives the same speech to everyone. It’s 30 minutes of bragging about how great he is no matter the audience. People think “he said that to the BOY SCOUTS?” yeah, because it could have been a gathering of Golden Retrievers- he doesn’t give a shit. He’s there to talk about himself and that’s always the same- a loose collection of bragging lies peppered with whatever nasty shit he got from Fox News hosts that morning.

  45. 45.

    gvg

    @Matt: The farmer might be strategically lying. I have sent letters to republican politicians in my district that told them not to do things or they would lose my vote, without saying I wasn’t likely to vote for them anyway, because I judged a carrot and stick approach was more likely to work. Saying their is no hope I’ll support you ever again is a good way to get ignored.
    The farmer probably isn’t doing that, but some people will.

  47. 47.

    Viva BrisVegas

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    Mars has been really bright for the past several weeks

    I just went out for a look. Unfortunately, the nearly full moon is washing Mars out.

    The full moon tomorrow comes with a lunar eclipse. I don’t know if you guys get a piece of it, but I would have to get up at 4am in the freezing cold to catch it here, just before it sets. Not gonna happen.

  48. 48.

    SFAW

    @rikyrah:

    Serious people have brought serious charges that the NRA was used extensively by the Russian government in an illegal intelligence operation.

    As the Second Amendment says: “The right to keep and bear arms, and (if you’re a powerful-enough lobbying organization) act as intelligence agents for our adversaries, shall not be infringed.”

    Game, set, and touchdown, libtard!

  49. 49.

    JGabriel

    Stephanie Carvin (via Anne Laurie @ Top):

    Remember, what Putin wants is for all of us to lose faith in democratic institutions and the democratic process. … By continuously throwing doubt on the US electoral system, Trump is doing Putin’s work for him. Again.

    Of course Trump is doing Putin’s work for him. That’s why Putin hired him!

  50. 50.

    SRW1

    @Kay:

    I think Trump’s continued speachifying at rallies (though the VFW gathering formally doesn’t fall into that category) are all about his desperate psychological need for adulation. The worst thing for Trump to happen, would be for these rallies not to draw big crowds any more.

  51. 51.

    Viva BrisVegas

    @Platonailedit:

    Doubtless personnel losses due to anti-Iga ninja activity by a certain samurai going by the name Shintaro, in cahoots with his sidekick Tombei the Mist.

  53. 53.

    Kay

    This is a good race to test the “vote against their interests” theory:

    Two weeks out from an unexpectedly tight contest in Ohio’s 12th Congressional District—which President Trump won by 11 points—Republican outside groups have, instead, turned to topics like “open borders,” “amnesty for illegals,” and the composition of Democratic leadership.

    Meanwhile, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and O’Connor himself have done the opposite, zeroing in on the tax overhaul and deeming it a “corporate tax giveaway.” O’Connor began running an ad entitled “Deserve” on July 17. In it, he notes that to pay for the tax cut, Republican candidate Troy Balderson has said he would consider proposing hikes in the Social Security eligibility age. Just two days after that, the DCCC began running a similar ad saying Balderson supports a “massive corporate tax break.”

    Republicans are running on racism and Democrats are countering really aggressively with (populist) economic issues. It has moved some toward the Democrat- it’s now officially “toss up” but IMO it still leans R.

  54. 54.

    zhena gogolia

    @Leto:

    I don’t know. I have a friend who’s on online dating in my blue state, and every guy she meets is a Trumpanzee.

  55. 55.

    Vhh

    @Baud: Port of rest for outcast neocons Jeffrey Goldberg and David Frum, now welcoming pseudo intellectual part time Trumpsters from National Review looking for new gig income. Wonder when Jonah Goldberg becomes a contributor…

  56. 56.

    Kay

    @SRW1:

    I don’t think the size of the crowd matters- he just invents crowd size anyway. The speeches seem jarring and weird because they’re not in any way connected to events or the particular audience. He has one speech topic and one speech- “Donald Trump is great and these other people suck”.

  58. 58.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @rikyrah:

    Why that day?

    Because the Trump Administration is a nonstop shit-show, all day every day. Roll a die for which horrible thing is distracting from which horrible thing at any particular moment. You can’t claim distraction when most of the time the ‘distractions’ are as damaging as the things supposedly being covered up.

  61. 61.

    Platonailedit

    Pak voters reject extremists, banned groups.

    Extremist and banned groups, including Mumbai attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed-backed Allah-o-Akbar Tehreek, have failed miserably in Pakistan’s general elections despite their massive campaign.

    Hundreds of individuals linked with hardline and banned groups were competing in the polls but so far, according to the unofficial results, none of them was seen as winning a seat in the national or provincial assemblies.

    Before the elections, concerns have been raised in the country over the participation of hardline Islamist groups in large numbers.

  62. 62.

    Raven

    @Leto: I guess there are some “blue” VFW and Leigon posts but I’ve never seen one. Any Nam vet who joined up was a douche to begin with!

  63. 63.

    JGabriel

    via Platonailedit:

    A Japanese city has been forced to clarify it is not in fact recruiting ninjas, following reports that it was facing a shortage of skilled assassins.

    Local officials in Iga, which styles itself as the birthplace of ninja-dom, had received a flood of applications from around the world.

    But they said in a statement (in Japanese) that they were not officially hiring any, “so please be careful”.

    “Not officially hiring any …”

    Well, of course not. Assassins are always hired off book. Everyone knows that.

  64. 64.

    Leto

    @Raven: That’s what I’m saying, it’s a generational thing. I can’t speak to VFW/Legion posts as I’ve never been to one, but among active duty personnel that I am/was stationed with this is more prevalent.

  68. 68.

    rikyrah

    I keep on reminding myself…we’re a First World Country, supposedly.

    ………………………………………

    Hospitals know how to protect mothers. They just aren’t doing it.
    Alison Young, USA TODAY
    7:21 a.m. CDT July 26, 2018

    Every year, thousands of women suffer life-altering injuries or die during childbirth because hospitals and medical workers skip safety practices known to head off disaster, a USA TODAY investigation has found.

    Doctors and nurses should be weighing bloody pads to track blood loss so they recognize the danger sooner. They should be giving medication within an hour of spotting dangerously high blood pressure to fend off strokes.

    These are not complicated procedures requiring expensive technology. They are among basic tasks that experts have recommended for years because they can save mothers’ lives.

    Yet hospitals, doctors and nurses across the country continue to ignore them, USA TODAY found.

    As a result, women are left to bleed until their organs shut down. Their high blood pressure goes untreated until they suffer strokes. They die of preventable blood clots and untreated infections. Survivors can be left paralyzed or unable to have more children.

    The vast majority of women in America give birth without incident. But each year, more than 50,000 are severely injured. About 700 mothers die. The best estimates say that half of these deaths could be prevented and half the injuries reduced or eliminated with better care.

    Instead, the U.S. continues to watch other countries improve as it falls behind. Today, this is the most dangerous place in the developed world to give birth.

    Identifying every hospital that doesn’t provide recommended care is next to impossible. There is no national tracking system for childbirth complications. Mothers tell harrowing tales of survival, but they often have no idea whether their doctors and nurses did something wrong.

    USA TODAY obtained more than a half-million pages of internal hospital quality records and examined the cases of more than 150 women whose deliveries went terribly wrong. Reporters contacted 75 birthing hospitals to track whether they follow recommended procedures.

    Together, these documents and interviews reveal a stunning lack of attention to safety recommendations and widespread failure to protect new mothers.

  69. 69.

    Raven

    @Leto: I’m

    Not sure, it was pretty rare for anyone to join that shit. Springsteen was one of the original sponsors of the VVA (his old man was really hard on him for not joining up but later changed his tune) and they did some decent work. I’m going to my Nam unit reunion next month and most of the guys who are active are pretty much wingers.

  71. 71.

    kindness

    That last tweet….I thought the rules for Secret Service operations were pretty strict. That they didn’t tell shops they had to close because the President was coming to town. Has the Secret Service gone ICE on us?

  72. 72.

    Kay

    Paul Kane
    ‏Verified account
    @pkcapitol
    Follow Follow @pkcapitol
    More
    Every reporter covering a House Dem candidate claiming they won’t support Pelosi needs to watch this clip. If candidate says “we need new leadership”, that doesn’t mean he/she would vote against Pelosi on Jan. 3. 1/2

    This is what political media are covering in Ohio 12. Not Social Security or the giant GOP tax cut, not “open borders” or the GOP focus on race and ethnicity- but Nancy Pelosi.

    They cover whatever Republican operatives tell them to cover. Nancy Pelosi doesn’t have FUCK ALL to do with anything here, yet that’s their entire focus. Their weirdly intense loathing of Nancy Pelosi.

    Republicans said “you know what this race is about? Nancy Pelosi” and they all took it up.

  73. 73.

    zhena gogolia

    @kindness:

    I was working in downtown KCMO when the 1980 Republican Convention was held there. Nothing was closed, and there were Secret Service guys just mingling with the crowds on the sidewalk during lunch hour. (I think the actual convention was held not right in downtown.) There must have been a President attending, I would assume.

  75. 75.

    JGabriel

    Baud:

    Don’t those outfits let you put “Must Hate Trump” in your profile?

    Right?

    Back when I had an online dating profile, mine said “No Astrology.”

    I would definitely include a “No Trump” or “No Republicans” line today. In fact, I might have had a “No Republicans” line back then too.

  76. 76.

    rikyrah

    I don’t get why all the MSNBC shows don’t put all their segments online. Hayes has segments that I’m not even interested in, and the best one from his show last night isn’t even available. Hayes had asked a good question of a former prosecutor. He didn’t understand why Dolt45 wasn’t making a stink about the Cohen video. The prosecutor said that, from viewing the tape, if he had to guess, he believes that the Special Master (the person reviewing all of Cohen’s stuff and determining what’s allowable under lawyer/client privilege and what’s not), came back to Cohen/Dolt45, and told them that this tape wasn’t going to be allowed under client privilege, because it was obvious THAT A CRIME WAS BEING COMMITTED, and that is the ONE exception to attorney/client privilege.

    If they didn’t want her to make clear that was the reason this wasn’t covered by privilege, they could stop her, by removing attorney/client privilege objection to the tape. That was his explanation. And, he had a lot of other interesting criminal points. Can’t believe THAT is the segment that’s NOT online….UGH.

  80. 80.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    @Kay: They’re calling this an R+7 district, but in 2016 they won the congressional seat by 37 pts. And in the last 80 years the repubs have held the seat for 78 of those 80 years. It’s a lot more red than +7

  82. 82.

    MattF

    For many years, my personal motto has been “The world is what it is and not some other thing.” G.E.Moore, I think. Sounds like a tautology, but we’ve all learned that it’s not.

  83. 83.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: My shitty GOP House rep, Vern Buchanan, is in such a solidly Republican district that he’s cruised to 20-point victories in the last two elections without running a negative ad. This year, he’s already running negative ads against the Democratic challenger. You have to hunt really hard for the word “Republican” on his campaign lit, which calls him “independent” and “bipartisan,” even though he’s got a 96% Trump agenda voting record. He was also dumb enough to use the gigantic pile of money he got from the Trump tax cut to run out and buy a yacht, which got a bit of publicity down here. I think ol’ Vern is nervous. It’s an uphill climb, but it would be lovely to eject that bastard from the House.

  84. 84.

    JPL

    @Kay: The repubs are already running ads featuring Pelosi, Clinton, and Stacey Abrams.
    They used Pelosi against Ossoff, and it worked then, but to me it’s getting old.

  85. 85.

    Jeffro

    Quick! Count how many instances of wingnut wishful thinking you can find in this ridiculous take: How Trumpov Won Re-Election

    Of course, the whole premise is absurd…Trumpov won’t even be in office come November 2020…but let’s indulge Bret “Jackass” Stephens anyway

    In the end, a bitterly fought election came down to the old political aphorism, popularized during Bill Clinton’s successful 1992 run against George H.W. Bush: “It’s the economy, stupid.” This time, however, it was the Republican incumbent, not his Democratic challenger, who benefited from that truism.

    Donald J. Trump has been decisively re-elected as president of the United States, winning every state he carried in 2016 and adding Nevada, even as he once again failed, albeit narrowly, to gain a majority of the popular vote. Extraordinary turnout in California, New York, Illinois and other Democratic bastions could not compensate for the president’s abiding popularity in the states that still decide who gets to live in the White House: Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida.

    Yet, unlike 2016, last night’s outcome came neither as a political upset nor as a global shock. Mr. Trump and Vice President Mike Pence have consistently polled ahead of Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and her running mate, Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, since July. The New York Times correctly predicted the outcome of the race in every state, another marked change from 2016.

    In exit poll interviews, Mr. Trump’s supporters frequently cited the state of the economy to explain their vote. “What part of Dow 30,000 do the liberals not understand?” Kevin O’Reilly of Manchester, N.H., told The Times.

    Trade wars and tariffs and farm subsidies and $1T+ deficits…and over 24 months from now, the economy’s going to be great?

    Trumpov/Pence is going to ‘consistently poll ahead’ of the D ticket, despite the numbers we’re seeing in every election so far?

    People vote according to how the stock market is going? Does that include people who used to work at Carrier, or whose company depends upon aluminum imports?

    But wait! There’s more!

    Senators Warren and Brown never seemed to find a compelling answer to that question, despite an economy that continues to struggle with painfully slow wage growth, spiraling budget deficits and multiplying trade wars that have hurt businesses as diverse as Ohio soybean farmers and California chipmakers.

    Yet both Democrats are also skeptics of trade agreements such as Nafta, which served to mute their differences with the president. And their signature proposals — Medicare for all and free college tuition for most American families — would have been expensive and would require tax increases on families making more than $200,000. Mr. Trump and other Republicans charged they would “bankrupt you and bankrupt the country.”

    Meanwhile, the U.S. economy grew at an annual rate of 3.2 percent in the last quarter, the third consecutive quarter in which growth has exceeded 3 percent. Unemployment remains low at 4.1 percent.

    With neither a recession nor a major war to run against, Democrats sought instead to cast the election in starkly moral terms. Yet by Election Day, the charge that Mr. Trump is morally or intellectually unfit for office had been made so often that it had lost most of its former edge among swing voters.

    “I don’t care if he lies or exaggerates in his tweets or breaks his vows to his wife, so long as he keeps his promises to me,” Leah Rownan, a self-described social conservative from Henderson, Nev., told The Times, citing the economy and Mr. Trump’s Supreme Court nominations as decisive for her vote. “And he has.”

    I love how Stephens picked the two most boring possible Dem candidates – not a Harris or Gillibrand or Landrieu or Booker to REALLY stoke turnout.

    “Medicare for all” and “free college” are quite popular. And they don’t ‘bankrupt the country’ to the degree that the Republican Tax Giveaway did. And Dems won’t be talking about cutting people’s Social Security or Medicare, either…but we WILL be talking about how Republicans tried to.

    What fantasy world has us at 3%+ growth throughout Trumpov’s first term? That’s not even what he & the GOP promised in order to justify their budget-busting tax scam, btw. And wages are dipping, not increasing…it’s great if unemployment stays low, but a low-paying job is a low-paying job.

    But here is the real kicker – through the map and off the looking glass, as a Mr. Silverman would say: in what fantasy world does THIS outcome seem even remotely likely?

    Many of Mr. Trump’s supporters also said they felt vindicated by the conclusions of Robert Mueller’s report on Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. While the former F.B.I. director painted a damning portrait of a campaign that was riddled with Kremlin sympathizers and a candidate whose real-estate ventures were beholden to Russian investors, no clear evidence of collusion between Mr. Trump and Moscow ever emerged and the president was never indicted.

    “It was always a red herring, just like Trump said,” said Bernard Schwartz, a gun store owner from Houston, Tex. “Democrats wasted a lot of ammo on that one.”

    Say what now? Even if Trumpov himself is never indicted while in office (likely)…look at where we are today. Majorities of the country support the investigation and believe that Putin has something on the president*. It seems highly likely that many people closest to Trumpov – including Don Jr, Kushner, and Stone, plus Manafort, Page, Parscale, and more – will be indicted and tried during the next couple of years, and not just for conspiracy against the United States but also for money laundering, perjury, and campaign finance law violations.. Is that a good look? The entire operation was corrupt but Trumpov had nothing to do with that – does that jibe with being ‘a red herring’?

    As you might suspect, the comments are filled with folks making points similar to the above (not that Stephens cares). I’m going to join them and probably fire off a little FU note to Stephens as well. Be sure to poke holes in crap arguments like this one wherever, whenever you see them!

  86. 86.

    Aleta

    @Baud: Interesting. I’ve been trying to check on something I read–that across every racial group, more men than women voted for T. So far I haven’t seen numbers on that. (I also don’t believe the simple comparisons matter as much as is said.)

  87. 87.

    MattF

    @Jeffro: I’ve seen a number of these RW op-eds. It’s trolling, and not informative or interesting. It feels unnecessary to say so, but in-real-life, no one actually knows– and theorizing mostly reveals your own wishful thinking.

  88. 88.

    Jeffro

    @Kay: And after Pelosi, the GOP and their media enablers would just find the next Democrat, and put them under the special Democrats-only Flaw-O-Scope for months on end.

    Meanwhile, we have a guy whose ‘lawyer’ set up a shell corporation to siphon off campaign donations from loyal Trumpov supporters and use those donations to quietly pay off (just weeks before an election!) a porn star he had been nailing back when his third wife had his fifth kid. But hey, let’s bash a Democratic congresswoman – the first-ever female Speaker of the House – whose constituents love her and whose policy positions are well within the mainstream of our politics.

    They’re quite unreal.

  89. 89.

    SFAW

    @Jeffro:

    Good Christ, what a moron/asshole. Hey, Pinche Sulzberger — no problem with having an idiot do Op-Eds if he’s a wingnut, right?

    I had (fortunately), until now, been able to avoid Stephens’s “writings.” My IQ dropped a good 15 points from reading that, so I guess I need to return to that practice.

    FTFNYT

  90. 90.

    Yarrow

    @Jeffro: I just skimmed that, but what the hell is it? Is it Trump fan fic? Who are all these people – “Bernard Schwartz, a gun store owner from Houston, Tex,” “Leah Rownan, a self-described social conservative from Henderson, Nev” – are they made up people?

    It reminds me of Peggy Noonan’s, “I saw lots of yard signs for Romney!” conservative pr0n.

  91. 91.

    SFAW

    @rikyrah:

    I keep on reminding myself…we’re a First World Country, supposedly.

    Well, now that the Oval Office Squatter is a Russian asset, I think that moves us to Second World. (Yes, I know that’s not what you meant.)

  92. 92.

    Calouste

    @Baud: I read a European analyst who said that Juncker put the current situation in gift wrap with a bow on top, and that the shitgibbon was very impressed with the wrap and the bow.

    So the Europeans have also worked out that all they need to do to placate the shitgibbon is some empty gestures, because he doesn’t understand what is really going on. The Emporer’s New Clothes was an instruction manual apparently.

  93. 93.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Yarrow: Jeffro: I just skimmed that, but what the hell is it? Is it Trump fan fic?

    sort of– it looks like Stephens’ dark prediction of Elections Yet To Come if Democrats abandon the Vital Center!

    The pundit blindness to the fact that trump won by embracing the New Deal is so frustrating, and not just from ‘wingers like Stephens or ‘professional centrist” wankers.

  94. 94.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Jeffro: In exit poll interviews, Mr. Trump’s supporters frequently cited the state of the economy to explain their vote. “What part of Dow 30,000 do the liberals not understand?” Kevin O’Reilly of Manchester, N.H., told The Times.

    also, even knowing who BS is and what this column is supposed to be, this is like a big blinking light in red neon “SELL! SELL! SELL!”

  95. 95.

    Thoughtful David

    @Jeffro:
    Bret Stephens wrote in early 2016 that “wouldn’t it be awful if Trump is what Republicans really are?” Then he bent over and scooped a big cupful of cyanide-laced kool-aid out of vat and drank it down. He’s a true believer now.

  96. 96.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I recall one of the previous market downturns, my sell signal was a bunch of guys who always ate lunch together – nice guys, friends of mine, but not all that astute – started spending most of lunch talking about the stocks they were buying, as opposed to talking about fishing or golf.

    When they started talking about buying condos in Florida, I knew exactly what was going to happen.

  98. 98.

    schrodingers_cat

    NYT is the propaganda broadsheet for Rs as much as Brietbart or Fox News. Their target audience is the R totebaggers who have pretensions of erudition and being learned and have better manners.

  99. 99.

    Ruckus

    @Leto:
    A lot of those old vets may also be having old fart memory, where every thing was better when they could do more than barely remember the good times, like actually think they had good times. They also remember the republican party as the one that didn’t send them to war. Fuck LBJ and let’s not forget, Nixon. They probably don’t have selective memory, they have limited memory of something, something, something.

  100. 100.

    p.a.

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Shitgibbon hasn’t been tweeting about the market since its all-too-predictable reversion to the mean (and Obama-admin slow and steady but growing trendline), has he? If/when there’s a crash he’ll trash Wall St, while his followers will get in their magic time machines and blame Obama/Dem policies.

  101. 101.

    Jeffro

    @Yarrow:

    Is it Trump fan fic?

    Most definitely.

    Who are all these people – “Bernard Schwartz, a gun store owner from Houston, Tex,” “Leah Rownan, a self-described social conservative from Henderson, Nev” – are they made up people?

    Most definitely.

  103. 103.

    Jeffro

    @Aleta:

    It sure reads like propaganda to strengthen the resolve of any R who’s having doubts.

    That, or since his own party is out of control, Stephens is attempting to mitigate the damage his future tax bills by making a plea for Dems to win, but only by focusing on jobs and not “expensive” “entitlements” like health care and education.

    I do love it when conservative trolls like Stephens and Brooks get frantic about the prospect of Dems taking over. Too late, jerk wads…you already abetted the destruction of your own party, you don’t get to tell us how to run, win, and rule.

  104. 104.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Raven: My grandfather refused to join the Legion or the VFW because they were a bunch of right wing assholes.

  105. 105.

    the Conster

    @JPL:

    That Ossoff race was affected by that Berniebro shooting up the ballfield, the white powder in Karen Handel’s mailbox, and whatever sketchy voting machine anomalies we have yet to find out about, since the GA Sec State wiped the data from their voting database server when they were sued. The bros of course blamed Pelosi for Ossoff, and the singing cowboy Quist’s defeat in Montana, since Wilmer never delivers, and it’s never his fault.

  106. 106.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @zhena gogolia: Maybe the guys who aren’t Trumpanzees aren’t on the site because they aren’t having any trouble getting dates! Y’think?? :D

  108. 108.

    Immanentize

    @Jeffro: These kind of stories/op eds actually give me some hope. I have been worried that the Republicans are acting too easy going into the midterm. They sometimes act like they have it in the bag…. Then I worry that they have a plan for messing with the election. Full on voter intimidation, registration manipulation, use of militias to stop voting….

    But then I read these things and I see that their confidence is mostly based on the stories they tell themselves and little else.

  110. 110.

    rikyrah

    Hmmph

    Facebook shares dive 19%, shedding $120 billion in market capitalization
    Jessica Guynn and Mike Snider, USA TODAY
    Published 9:34 a.m. ET
    July 26, 2018

    SAN FRANCISCO — Facebook shares dove 19 percent Thursday, with the social networking giant shedding about $120 billion in market value after the company warned of slowing sales growth.

    Traders braced for a decline in tech stocks as the market opened Thursday, with a potential cascading effect likely to hit competitors Snap and Twitter. Facebook remained down 20 percent in premarket trading Thursday after plunging as much as 24 percent in after-hours trading Wednesday.

    Chief financial officer David Wehner triggered the selloff when he said Facebook’s sales growth would continue to slow through the rest of the year. Shares, which had already declined 7 percent after hours, then tumbled further after the comments on a conference call with analysts.

  112. 112.

    rikyrah

    Last Friday, stories came out about Trump getting coked up with 14-year olds. Then they trot out the Playboy models like clockwork. https://t.co/f842tlUTOn

    — Eric Garland (@ericgarland) July 25, 2018

    Sex with an adult – even in less-than-monogamous, chaste circumstances – is less damaging that sex with children who are victims of human trafficking. That’s why they’re running these media Ops.

    — Eric Garland (@ericgarland) July 25, 2018

    It’s only happened four or five times in a row.

    Maybe consider that it’s coordinated.

    — Eric Garland (@ericgarland) July 25, 2018

  115. 115.

    rikyrah

    IF he wants these to be his hills…so be it.

    …………………………………

    Jerry Jones is ignoring the NFL-NFLPA agreement to work together by saying Cowboys will be forced to stand for the anthem. In the same press conference, he says the team will continue its relationship with Papa John’s. pic.twitter.com/fh3cxBsex9

    — Jonathan Jones (@jjones9) July 25, 2018

  116. 116.

    rikyrah

    Breaks my heart.

    “Mommy, I love you and adore you and miss you so much,” the girl wrote in curvy block letters. And then she implored: “Please, Mom, communicate. Please, Mom. I hope that you’re OK and remember, you are the best thing in my life.”

    Can you imagine? https://t.co/xW8DpBEyKz

    — Rep. Pramila Jayapal (@RepJayapal) July 25, 2018

  117. 117.

    Another lurker

    @Leto: Not necessarily . All Assassins can find organized representaion with Local 12, V.T.S.U (Villens, Thieves and Scoundrels Union, Boris Badinov, B.A.) . Additionally, The League of Calamitous Intent provides representation for individuals and villainous organizations.

  118. 118.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @rikyrah: As a Baltimore Ravens fan, ah haves a soff spot in mah heart for that fuckhead Jerreh.

    Back in 2008 when he was closing Texas Stadium the NFL allowed him to handpick the Plowboys’ opponent for the last game there, & he chose Poe’s Crows, thinking it’d be a cakewalk.

    It was – for the wrong team. Not only did the visitors win, but at the end of the game they embarrassed the Cowgirls, responding to late Dull-Ass TDs by scoring on their first subsequent play from scrimmage, not once, but twice, & not on some chip shot, but via touchdown runs of 77 & 82 yards. A decade later, the mere mention of that denouement gladdens the hearts of Ravens fans everywhere.

  119. 119.

    Brachiator

    @schrodingers_cat:

    NYT is the propaganda broadsheet for Rs as much as Brietbart or Fox News. Their target audience is the R totebaggers who have pretensions of erudition and being learned and have better manners.

    NYT readers generally are erudite and learned, and many have good manners. Other than this, you are spot on! :)

  120. 120.

    Brachiator

    @Aleta:

    Interesting. I’ve been trying to check on something I read–that across every racial group, more men than women voted for T. So far I haven’t seen numbers on that.

    Might be true, based on some of the exit polls, but white men were much, much, much, much (did I say much?) more likely to vote for Trump than other groups. And some of this might be due to some base line of sexism than Trump appeal.

    So, nationally, the following was the Trump breakdown by race and gender
    62% white men
    52% white women
    13% black men
    4% black women
    32 % Latino men
    25% Latino women
    31% Others

    Based on CNN exit polls. Among nonwhites, the craziness factor (Trump voting) was more or less evenly distributed across all ages. For whites, the older you were, the crazier you were.

  121. 121.

    Shana

    @Gin & Tonic: On a related note: I learned Tuesday night that the March for Our Lives kids are going to be in Virginia on August 4th and will have an event outside the NRA headquarters from noon to 3pm. Any DC-area jackels are welcome.

  122. 122.

    Jeffro

    @Uncle Cosmo: In our family, no matter the ups and downs, there are always two teams we root for as if our lives depend upon it: whoever is playing the Patriots, and whoever is playing the Cowboys. So from the Fro family to the Ravens and all their fans, we’d like to say a big ‘thank you’ for embarrassing “America’s (Jackass) Team” in that stadium’s final game. No really: THANK. YOU.

  123. 123.

    No One of Consequence

    @Platonailedit: Obviously, they never saw the only site needed on the internet:

    http://www.realultimatepower.net

    Click it, if you dare…

    (one of the oldest sites on the Internet)

    You’re welcome, if you have never seen before. (If you have, try to act surprised, so as not to spoil the fun.)

    – NOoC

  124. 124.

    Bill Arnold

    @schrodingers_cat:
    Evidence? All I found in a quick search is this (2014): http://www.journalism.org/interactives/media-polarization/outlet/new-york-times/ and this http://www.journalism.org/2014/10/21/political-polarization-media-habits/ (Pew, and an online survey FWIW, but read it to judge methodology.)
    Which says that NYTimes readers lean left, whatever that meant in 2014.

    The New York Times’ audience (13% of respondents) skews to the left. About two-thirds of its audience (65%) have political values that are left of center (compared with 38% of all Web respondents).

    They have done a lot that is hard to forgive, and may well be influenced by dark forces, but the readership does seem to lean left. Perhaps they’re trying to retarget on a different readership base.

  125. 125.

    Juju

    @Yarrow: I believe Bernard Schwartz was the given name of actor Tony Curtis. I might be wrong and I just don’t feel like checking on google right now.

  126. 126.

    jc

    @rikyrah: It’s remarkable that a week ago Monday (July 16), a few hours after news broke of Butina’s arrest, the Treasury Department announced a new rule sparing some tax-exempt groups, including the N.R.A., from having to report their large donors to the I.R.S. Sen. Wyden called the move “truly grotesque,” saying it would “make it easier for Russian dark money” to flow into American politics. -Michelle Goldberg

  127. 127.

    J R in WV

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    …I just rolled off the bed and hit my head on the nightstand.

    That happened to me once, but I got a pretty good knock, and came to dazed and confused sitting on the floor leaning against the bed. Best I could tell, the rug bedside slipped out from under me and my feet went with. Middle of the night, IIRC, which I may now from all the dazed confusion. I have a long history of serious head impacts! Tools, rocks, a sports car, the F-350 and a bedside table.
    40 pounds.
    In the NAVY I was working on a cargo net taking old paint off the hull with a tool called a deck grinder, maybe 40 pounds. We had safety harnesses with short leads with snap clips, you only unclipped to move over when you ran out of rope to work.

    While I was unclipped another sailor above me (using the word loosely) dropped his deck grinder on my head. Our hard hats were roughly as strong as batting helmets passed out for free on batting helmet day at a minor league park. So broken into a million pieces. I came to just above the water line, tangled in the net. A long time ago. In retrospect, it was done deliberately, he tried to kill me.

    @rikyrah:

    The Dallas Cowboys are the most despicable team in a fairly low bunch of teams. Because of Dallas and the Jones ownership mostly, and because they recruit without regard to the decency of the player, just his football skills.

  128. 128.

    burnspbesq

    @Calouste:

    the Europeans have also worked out that all they need to do to placate the shitgibbon is some empty gestures

    There is plenty of fun stuff still in the pipeline. Apple’s appeal of the Ireland state aid decision is still pending, the Austrians (who hold the rotating EU presidency) are knocking heads to get a consensus on the design of the “Google tax,” and the WTO action against the 2017 tax bill is likely to be filed before the end of the year. Trump will have plenty of opportunities to lose his shit.

  130. 130.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Jeffro: Mostly concur with your inverse-preferences, but would add (& this will go over like a fart in church on this blog) the Tar&Piss aka Stealers (unless they’re playing the Bungles & we need the Orange Tabbies to lose). Used to add the Deadskins the Foreskins America’s Ethnic Slurs – that was fun, two weeks a year it was Cue The Meteor Sunday – until my niece married a Bloodclot&Urine fan& my nephew-in-law (??) being the father of my beloved grandniece & a fine young man who comes by it honestly (having been raised in the DC area)…we demur.

    Just for shits & giggles you should pull up the Cowboys/Ravens 2008 highlights on NFL.com. It’s worth wading through the first 6 minutes (which include a Tony Slo-Mo dumb-bomb thrown up for grabs where Ed Reed was patrolling – oh no no no ho ho ho) to watch the two long runs – both of which were off-tackle plays where the Crow OL blew open holes the width of a double-wide & Willis McGahee & LaRon McClain did the rest. A Plowboy DB runs up to tackle one of them (Willis I think) & receives for his efforts a stiff-arm that plants him in the next area code. On McClain’s scamper (82 yards by a fullback?!?!?) Deion Sanders can be heard shouting “Are You Kidding Me????” Comedy purple&black, um, “gold.”

  131. 131.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Gin & Tonic: IIRC Joseph Kennedy Sr. (father of JFK & RFK) attributed his having gotten out of the stock market just ahead of the Crash to his shoeshine boy. When the latter started to deliver stock tips along with the polish he knew it was time to sell, sell, sell!

  132. 132.

    Death Panel Truck

    @Jeffro: They’re seriously going to let Needy Amin have his fucking parade? Is he going to dress up in a phony military strongman uniform?

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