Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

with the Kraken taking a plea, the Cheese stands alone.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Beware of advice from anyone for whom Democrats are “they” and not “we.”

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

The republican caucus is covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Days Since JD Vance Insulted Women Across America: Zero

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

Books are my comfort food!

Cancel the cowardly WaPo and set up an equivalent monthly donation to ProPublica.

Dear Washington Post, you are the darkness now.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.

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

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Dolt 45 / Friday Morning Open Thread: Another Infrastructure Week Already?!?

Friday Morning Open Thread: Another Infrastructure Week Already?!?

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  3. 3.

    lahke

    Terrifying to think of losing the midterms, and even more enraging to think of losing die to the myriad of GOP frauds.

  9. 9.

    bemused

    Every segment of Lawrence O’Donnell was great, imo. Thinking about Lindsay Graham trying to walk a tightrope on his views of trump made me wonder what McCain would think of Graham’s political dancing. Of course, McCain could say anything he wanted to on his way out and post passing. I was remembering how often we’d see the three amigos together on tv, McCain, Graham and Lieberman. Haven’t seen nor heard of Lieberman for a very long time.

  12. 12.

    TS (the original)

    @bemused: I want to know what the hold is trump has over Lindsay Graham. Must have discussed it at the first golf game. That is when things changed.

  15. 15.

    opiejeanne

    @lahke: I am so depressed by all of this, and I just realized that I’m pretty scared too, that I’ve been reading various slave narratives in order to distract me from our own horror. I can only take so much of them, though. I start drawing parallels between what those folks went through and what our future could look like.

  24. 24.

    Anne Laurie

    @lahke:

    And one more question: any word on the potential Boston meetup?

    A repost of Adam’s last post about this is due to front-page at 10am today. If it’s not there, bug whoever’s got the latest post up to release it from FYWP purgatory!

  25. 25.

    Amir Khalid

    @bemused:
    Lieberman has been a lawyer in privare practice since he left the Senate in 2013, so sayeth Wikipedia. His firm’s clients include one Donald J. Trump, now a resident of Washington DC. Trump also interviewed him as a candidate to succeed James Comey as FBI director.

  26. 26.

    Anne Laurie

    @satby: I can’t take responsibility for setting this one up, we’re supposed to on the wrong side of the state this weekend!

  29. 29.

    Platonailedit

    @bemused:

    I was remembering how often we’d see the three amigos together on tv, McCain, Graham and Lieberman. Haven’t seen nor heard of Lieberman for a very long time.

    Thank god for small mercies.

  30. 30.

    Wanderer

    @Lahke: I too am looking forward to Boston meetup. Time is 7:30pm, day is Saturday, place??? tbd. Someone had mentioned a place called Eataly. Never been, would be ok with trying it. Hopefully a post will come out about it today.

  34. 34.

    Amir Khalid

    Oh, before I forget: it’s Merdeka Day today, the 61st anniversary of Malaysia’s independence from Britain. Also the start of a three-day weekend.

  35. 35.

    But her emails!!!

    If Dems won the popular vote for the House by the same margin (5.7%) that the GOP did in 2010, they’d be only ~even money to win the majority of House seats

    This right here. Dems need +6% to break even in the House. I’m not saying I we should tar and feather Republican politicians, but I would understand should it come to pass.

  36. 36.

    A Ghost To Most

    I just contibuted to both Gillum and Abrams campaigns. Anyone care to match, or has already matched?

  42. 42.

    Chet

    Good morning all. Just got a buzz on my phone about a new WaPo/ABC poll, taken just this week (post-Manafort/Cohen).

    As Trump might say, you’re seeing numbers you wouldn’t believe: 60% disapprove, and 49% support impeachment.

  43. 43.

    TS (the original)

    The GOP and the media love comments like the one from Matthew Yglesias. They want to depress democrats into not donating, not helping and not voting. If dems lose the midterms and the GOP still controls both houses of congress – then the USA is not the democracy it used to be. It will have become a right wing autocracy where money is the only determinant of power. If the Dems win and can sort out the gerrymandering and the voter suppression which has been aiding the GOP for all of this century, then something like trump is unlikely to happen again.

  44. 44.

    JMG

    Yglesias knows a lot about various urban policy areas and very little about practical politics or the Dept. of Justice.

  45. 45.

    OzarkHillbilly

    A man has been arrested and charged with threatening to kill employees of the Boston Globe newspaper, in messages repeating Donald Trump’s claims that journalists are the “enemy of the people” and “fake news”.

    Robert Chain called the Globe’s newsroom and claimed he would shoot staff members in the head, according to the FBI, which said Chain later specified that he was retaliating against the newspaper’s criticism of Trump’s attacks on the news media.

    Chain, of Encino, California, owns several firearms and was found to have purchased a new 9mm carbine rifle in May this year, according to US authorities.

    Andrew Lelling, the US attorney for Massachusetts, said in a statement: “In a time of increasing political polarisation, and amid the increasing incidence of mass shootings, members of the public must police their own political rhetoric. Or we will.”

    Hey Andrew, maybe you should tell trump.

  46. 46.

    Baud

    Re: Yglesias, remember that as bad as our Senate map is this year, it is that bad for the Republicans in 2020.

  49. 49.

    Patricia Kayden

    Yglesias’ tweet is nightmarish. I can’t imagine the dark depths to which Trump and his sycophants will take this country should Republicans retain Congress after November. I’ll just stay optimistic, support Democrat candidates financially and hope for the best.

  51. 51.

    Kay

    @Chet:

    John Harwood
    ‏Verified account
    @JohnJHarwood
    12m12 minutes ago
    More
    new WashPost/ABC News poll on how Americans view Trump’s performance as president: 36% approve, 60% approve.
    53% disapprove Trump strongly

    Oof. 36%. It is bad for him.

    This part aligns with what I think happens:

    WashPost/ABC pollster Gary Langer: “among non-college white men, a core Trump group, his approval is down 15 points, from 70% just this spring to 55% today.”

    I don’t think Presidents ever “collapse” with their supporters. I think their supporters gradually peel off. It’s not an event. It’s a cumulative thing, piled-up events.

    Farmers here are genuinely pissed at him. They deal with so much uncertainty as part of their business they try to LIMIT risk and he creates risk for them. Adds a whole new real of risk. I’m not a bit sorry for them, partly because they’re sort of a whiny, entitled bunch anyway. They rolled the dice, they lose. Tough shit. They could have had a normal rational President but they wanted this reckless, idiot loudmouth.

  53. 53.

    Leto

    @Baud: As far as I know, there’s no enlisted onboard the space station so I’m dubious those eggheads came up with a solution that simple/obvious. /s

  54. 54.

    NotMax

    Goes to show how discombobulated the White House is, I guess, that the proposal to kill the wage increase for federal workers came out ahead of instead of on Labor Day.

  55. 55.

    Leto

    @Kay:

    Tough shit.

    Or in Trumpov parlance, which they might understand better: Fuck their feelings. And their wallets. They actually care about the latter much more.

  57. 57.

    geg6

    I am no Mika fan, but she has been relentless in hammering this appalling administration about the still-separated families. Good for her. Every time I see her, she’s talking about it.

    As for me, I have a four day weekend. Having a girls day with my friend Tracey and, later, my sister. Tracey and I are going shopping and I plan to hit the a Giant Eagle Marketplace and pick up some especially nice meats and seafood. Then to my sister’s to hit her pool for the afternoon. Not sure about the rest of the weekend, but that’s good because I’ll be flexible.

  58. 58.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Leto: Here’s hoping that this lawsuit bankrupts Jones and puts him out of business altogether. His voice isn’t necessary. He is nothing but a propagandist. No wonder he loves Trump so much. They’re birds of a feather.

  60. 60.

    Bruuuuce

    On the one hand, it’s Friday morning and thus the end of my workweek, so yay. But, I got into the M train this morning, and sat down to see a beefy Aryan type sitting across from me, wearing a Star Wars parody shirt, reading “SJW Wars Boycott”. Didn’t want to start anything up, but went to red alert. And wow, if looks could kill. I’d have slain him several times over. For once, I’m willing to judge a book by its cover and call him all sorts of NSFWP epithets.

  63. 63.

    debbie

    @Kay:

    If the farmers pay attention and see just how little changes in the new trade agreements, they will do more than peel off. Absent trade wars and tariffs, there is much noise and little change.

  64. 64.

    Immanentize

    @Kay:
    I agree, the ship dinks slowly and the rats take leisurly swims away one at a time. Until…

    I think (if it holds at all) 60% disapproval could be a psycological tipping point where the Trump supporters start forgetting they ever voted for him. Then his disapproval will accelerate. Right until November, I hope.

  65. 65.

    NotMax

    Finally got around to working my way through Dark on Netflix. Because am a sucker for time travel tales, sticking with it, even though they whipped up a superconvoluted salmagundi, plotwise.

    And the pacing? Like watching a relay race run by sleepwalkers.

  66. 66.

    Ken

    @debbie: But Trump said that his loyal followers, that common clay of the new West, would be glad to suffer a few hardships for his sake winning the trade war.

  67. 67.

    Immanentize

    @Bruuuuce:
    Yes, but on the other hand, if these nimrods are spending time, money and energy protesting the Star Wars franchise, they lost already. Laugter and mockery for your M train friend.

  68. 68.

    Immanentize

    @debbie:

    I just listened to a guy on Twitter

    Does Twitter do pod casts now? Or can you just record yourself yelling and upload it?

  69. 69.

    Ian G.

    @Kay:

    Remember that a lot of people aren’t political junkies and just care about the economy. Bush’s approval collapsed only when the economy did in 2008. I’m hoping it doesn’t take a global economic collapse to drop Shitgibbon’s approval into the teens, but even a mild recession will rip off the “successful businessman” veneer for a lot of people who vaguely pay politics any attention, and his approval will nosedive.

  70. 70.

    Leto

    @Patricia Kayden: You’re correct, his voice isn’t necessary but it’s just a drop in the chum bucket that is reich-wing AM/internet radio. I would love for an updated Fairness Doctrine to be reintroduced. I think it needs to be up there on priorities as vehicle for tamping down the craziness.

  72. 72.

    danielx

    @Immanentize:

    Does Twitter do pod casts now? Or can you just record yourself yelling and upload it?

    Sweet Jesus in a tar pit, don’t EVEN mention that prospect again! The thought of endless loops of “Hail Trump” and “lock her up!” is enough to ruin my sleep for weeks.

  73. 73.

    Bruuuuce

    @Immanentize: I’ve mocked such jerks often in the past. But confronted with an actual oxygen-wasting specimen, I found I was furious and ready to fight, but not to start one. (I strongly follow Ambassador Sheridan’s maxim, “Never start a fight, but always finish it.” (From Babylon 5, of course)) Very glad it didn’t come to that, but the reaction was both unexpected and MUCH stronger than I would have guessed, which isn’t in any way a bad thing.

  76. 76.

    Immanentize

    @danielx:
    I’m a gonna register some domain names:
    Old_Yeller
    Oh_YEAH?!
    BlahBlahBlah
    Jane
    The last one is reserved for, you know, … SNL afficionados

  81. 81.

    Immanentize

    @debbie: I thank you for that slip up, brought me peculiar joy to imagine people just actually yelling at each other instead of using ALL CAPS!!!

  82. 82.

    Corner Stone

    @Ian G.:

    Bush’s approval collapsed only when the economy did in 2008.

    It wasn’t just any one thing that dropped GWB. Sure, the financial collapse capped it, but he had been bleeding since Katrina and a pervasive perception of a Culture of Corruption. People had long soured on the Iraq War and W didn’t have any more bullets to fire since we had blown our wad on The Surge.

  84. 84.

    Immanentize

    @danielx:
    If I thought of it, someone has already developed it and they are testing it right now. Backed by a ton of angel money.

    What a world!

  85. 85.

    Tenar Arha

    @lahke: I am also curious about the status of this weekend’s meet up. (I literally started making movie plans & i realized I might already be busy).

  88. 88.

    Leto

    @NotMax: Honestly it’s been “meh” so far. Most of the good/cool abilities that came with your artifact weapon weren’t carried forward (resulting in more pruning of abilities with nothing in return, and that’s not even counting the legendaries and their abilities that you lost), the stat squish has thrown things way out of whack, the grind aspect catches up very early, some of the new features (Island Expeditions for example) become highly repetitive after doing it more than once…

    On the positive side, the zones are cool (artistically/visually). The story lines are interesting. Alliance (Kul Tirans) has a pirate theme going on, while the Horde (Zandalari) has a ***WAKANDA FOREVER!*** theme. The new raid drops this Tuesday, but I’m already looking at alts to play.

  89. 89.

    Platonailedit

    Gofundme scam?

    A New Jersey judge has ordered a couple to turn over the money they raised for a homeless man after he helped one of them out in an emergency.

    The judge gave Kate McClure and her boyfriend Mark D’Amico until Friday afternoon to transfer what remains of more than $400,000 (£307,000).

    It is to be placed in an account controlled by Johnny Bobbitt’s lawyers and frozen pending a new court ruling.

    The couple deny Mr Bobbitt’s claim they helped themselves to the money.

    The Philadelphia man filed a lawsuit for fraud and conspiracy on Tuesday, saying the couple had used the funds as their own “piggy bank”.

    Mr Bobbitt’s original Good Samaritan deed went viral last year when he gave his last $20 to Ms McClure after her car ran out of petrol.

    The couple responded by starting an online appeal on GoFundMe, drawing contributions from more than 14,000 donors, but their relationship with Mr Bobbitt eventually soured as they accused him of using the money to feed a drug habit.

  90. 90.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Ian G.: GWB’s approval numbers peaked at 90% after 9/11 then steadily dropped till the beginning of the Iraq War which gave him the needed popularity bounce for the re-election, then began dropping again, passing the 50% mark midway through 2005, never to see it again, hitting 31% midway thru ’06 bottoming out at 25% by the ’08 election and rising to 34% for the handling of the turnover to Obama.

    Just saying it wasn’t the economy that sunk his Presidency.

  91. 91.

    rikyrah

    @Patricia Kayden:
    The thing is, we have seen the dark places before. Don’t want to go back there. Want to move forward. There are some here whose ancestors have already experienced those dark times…The difference this time is that White folk would be experiencing them too.

  94. 94.

    MomSense

    @Mustang Bobby:

    The good friend of my kid is working for a theater and does directing and such (just got his union card). Can he find links to your plays on your website?

    I’m sooo tired this morning. Worked a really long few days and then drove to hear kid open for a band at a very nice venue in Portland. Stayed longer than I should have and then made the late trek home. It was a very nice evening, though and all those young musicians are so wonderful. When you are in that energy, you really can forget that there are MAGAts and Drumpfs. It’s actually tough to reconcile that there could be such opposite worlds.

    My sobering thought for the day as I think about the phonebanking I start after the weekend, is that it is more difficult every election to contact voters. They don’t pick up calls from unknown numbers. A lot of them use streaming services so they miss tv ads. In rural areas, like much of my state, houses are too spread out to canvass. We have to be more innovative about how we contact people. I think we also have to work the tv/media reps much more than we do now. Believe it or not, jackals aren’t the norm. Most people aren’t willing to do the work to be informed.

  95. 95.

    Kay

    @Ian G.:

    That’s the “one event” theory though and I don’t believe that. “The economy” is different in different places. It was tanking by 2006 in Ohio. You just knew it was built on sand- people had crazy levels of debt and property appraisals were all out of whack. Property doesn’t go up and down here. It doesn’t gain 20% for no reason. They were borrowing more than the asset was worth, and it wasn’t just the houses. It was new cars, too. They were borrowing on imaginary value.

    Bush was already done by 2006 in Ohio. They had soured on Iraq, soured on the puffed-up imaginary economic strength, soured on the corruption in Congress.

    What’s notable about Trump is not how resilient Trump supporters are- it’s how flimsy the “independent” support for him is.

    He doesn’t have anything in the bank. A huge group of people loathe him and he hasn’t shored up support with his wishy washy voters and he hasn’t brought anyone over to his camp. He’s spending support faster than he’s making it.

    Which is entirely consistent with his whole life. Flimsy. Shoddy. Less than it appears. Low quality. Bankrupt. He’s running out of road.

    The big question for me was always credibility. Does credibility have value? Is their value in banking it by telling the truth? Is there a pay-off or is it just its “own reward”? What’s the price you pay for lying all the time?

    Trump hasn’t paid any price yet, but I still believe the bill will come due and he won’t have it when he needs it. In a way there HAS to be a price or why shouldn’t everyone just lie all the time? It’s easier than actually accomplishing something. There’s no moral hazard with Trump. No reason everyone shouldn’t behave as badly as he does- it works. Until it doesn’t. I’m hoping it stops working. If it doesn’t we have bigger problems than Trump.

  96. 96.

    frosty

    @Mustang Bobby: @raven: I’m about a year four months and change away. Today I just hit 19 years at my current employer. I figure 20 is a good time to pack it all in.

    Was it you, Raven, that recommended The Retirement Maze? It’s made me think twice about moving to the Eastern Shore, a few hours away from what little social life I’ve got.

  97. 97.

    raven

    Lil Bit update. She barfed again so I took her to the vet. Cue the tests to rule out aspiration pneumonia including the ever popular xrays. No sign but her symptoms are of concern. I didn’t really think about the difference between vomiting and regurgitation but they are distinct and, if it is regurgitation, has a whole bunch of problems most of all including megaesophagus . They gave her anti-vomit meds and, so far, she hasn’t had another episode. The really puzzling thing is the disappearance of her cough. All this started after she got into something, probably cat shit, and started hurling that night. She’s had a cough ever since her “tie-back” surgery in June and suddenly it is gone. The vet has no idea . and I have some theories but that’s no help.

  100. 100.

    Jeffro

    @Baud:They duct taped the space station!

    Matt Damon led the way…duct tape does solve all space problems! (except for having only potatoes to eat)

    A good friend’s sister is up on the ISS right now and even by proxy, even twice removed, it makes my heart skip a beat thinking about them battling those kinds of issues up there.

    Btw is anyone else here signed up for alerts for when the ISS goes overhead? It’s a really cool thing…you’ll get an email or text 12-24 hours in advance of the flyover, complete with the direction and duration (6 min is max) Here’s the link.

  102. 102.

    NotMax

    @Leto

    Yeah, nothing about it in advance grabbed me as being beyond same old, same old. And the squish, even before the expansion dropped, seemed not well thought out. Actively avoid raids, so neither here nor there about them. Each new expansion since about WotLK has made professions less and less relevant, which I don’t care for.

    Maybe will buy it later on. Disposable income coffers kind of meager after the NY trip. In the meantime, satisfied enough to futz around with holiday events and the Faire or to hop on just to chat a bit with a couple of long time WoW friends and see how they’re doing IRL.

  103. 103.

    Kay

    I was thinking about Trump killing all those stories at the Enquirer and that’s fine as far as it goes- makes sense- but why didn’t anyone else pick them up? You can really stop the truth from coming out by manipulating a single supermarket tabloid?

    Where were all the other outlets? They wouldn’t have had the whole story handed to them- the first person account, the main witness, but there isn’t only one way to investigate something. There’s something more here. There’s some reason Donald Trump escaped real serious scrutiny for all those years- not the bullshit with the divorces and Studio 54 or whatever, but the white collar crime.

  105. 105.

    Jeffro

    @Corner Stone: Seconded…Iraq War + Katrina = W’s ratings were in the toilet, as they deserved. The financial crisis was the coup de grace for the GOP that year.

  107. 107.

    Kay

    @debbie:

    I don’t believe any of the trade stuff from this past week. It appeared obviously designed to deflect attention from his criminal inquiry problems.

    I’ll believe it when I see it. North Korea was absolute utter bullshit and lies. We spent a month on that. It was a pack of fucking lies. Not falling for that again.

  108. 108.

    frosty

    @raven: My wife got laid off in 2009, couldn’t get another job, so essentially retired then. She’s been sitting around, twiddling her thumbs, and waiting for me so we can start doing longer road trips.

    For me it”ll be 68. The extra couple of years for SocSec will be worth the wait. And the job hasn’t been too bad, other that I’m sick of deadlines. And working (usually unpaid) OT to meet them.

  109. 109.

    debbie

    @Kay:

    Yeah, it’s the usual bullshit from Trump, but I’m not sure the rest of the world will be so sanguine.

  110. 110.

    Kay

    @Corner Stone:

    I feel like liberal activists pretty obviously over-defined Bush’s lack of support as “caused” by Iraq for a really good political reason- because they wanted to pressure candidates to renounce Iraq war.

    I think this is fair play in politics but it isn’t “true”- it’s exaggerated. It worked too- pols started to flee from supporting Iraq.

  111. 111.

    Leto

    @NotMax: The squish was needed to combat ever increasing ilvls, but totally agree it was poorly done. Going from 110-120 you were basically losing power the entire way. Your secondary stats became worse, and you basically have to be semi-mythic dungeon geared to come back to a semblance of power. The global cool down changes, combine with the stat squish has made for a really slower game play which doesn’t feel fluid at all. It’s partially coming back now but it just still feels off.

    Good call on holding off: see how things shake out in 8.1 (when they might finish some of the class redesigns, coughcoughSHAMANcough, that were supposed to be done by launch.) and go from there.

  112. 112.

    Kay

    @debbie:

    But they know – they know MORE than we do. They have a few leaders who aren’t liars and meet with our liar. We just have the liar’s account. They have a credible witness in the room.

    They have their own economies and public to worry about. They need good information and they have a way to get it. They can get it from meeting with him and his low quality team.

    We’re the last to know, in a way. We get everything from the pack of liars.

  115. 115.

    debbie

    @Kay:

    We’re the last to know, in a way.

    We’re (as in the American people) to CHOOSE to know. A person would have to be willfully blind not to see the damage done to America’s reputation.

  116. 116.

    Elizabelle

    Happy Friday, Jackals. We can livestream the Queen of Soul’s funeral today. Musical prelude begins at 9:30 am Eastern. From the LA Times:

    The Greater Grace Temple in Detroit will livestream the “homegoing ceremony” on its website, greatergrace.org, from the start of the remembrance until it ends around noon PDT [3:00 pm EDT.]

    If you’re watching on TV, Fox News and MSNBC will cover the event, and CNN will have a crew there and plans to air the ceremony around other news, according to Detroit Free Press. HLN, or Headline News, will air the funeral live and continue coverage throughout the day.

    ABC News’ live feed will cover at least the first two hours of Franklin’s funeral, the Free Press reported. BET Networks said Thursday that it will carry the funeral “in its entirety” on BET, BET Her and BET.com.

    NPR Music will have an audio livestream, and SiriusXM’s Soul Town radio (Channel 49) will broadcast the funeral live in its entirety.. Afterward, the Aretha Franklin Tribute Channel — as Soul Town has been known since Aug. 16 — will take calls from listeners nationwide who want to pay respects and share stories and memories of Franklin until 3 p.m. PDT.

    …..long list of talent who will perform in five- to 20-minute increments around speakers who will include Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, former President Bill Clinton, filmmaker Tyler Perry, actress Cicely Tyson, musician Smokey Robinson and more.

    The event is meticulously scheduled right down to the minute; click here for the official program.

    Again, the link to the program: https://www.clickondetroit.com/entertainment/aretha-franklin/aretha-franklin-funeral-service-on-aug-31-heres-the-official-program

  117. 117.

    Elizabelle

    I think Balloon Juice should have a thread on Aretha’s funeral. Speakers include Eric Holder and President Clinton, Reverend Barber, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Smokey Robinson, Tyler Perry, Cicely Tyson, Clive Davis. No longwinded speeches, apparently; very tight schedule. Stevie Wonder is among the last musical performers.

  118. 118.

    Leto

    @Kay:

    but why didn’t anyone else pick them up? You can really stop the truth from coming out by manipulating a single supermarket tabloid?

    Don’t people usually sign contracts for these? Person A brings story to Enquirer (or any other trash tabloid) about Trumpov having kid out of wedlock, they sign a contract stating that they’ve given the story to the Enquirer and that that person can’t shop it around. Here’s the money, off they go. Story goes into the chamber of secrets and that’s that.

    Also regarding “the truth”, I think part of it comes down to: who cares? Pre-2016, who honestly gave a F if Trumpov had a kid out of wedlock? If he slept with women not his wife (which is something we already knew, hello #3)? If you had seen this in The Star, would you have given it more than a chuckle? If the “the truth” was on the front page next to the alien abduction story, would you have known this? The Enquirer has been trash for all of it’s life. The Star, and a myriad of other supermarket tabloid trash pieces, has always been trash. Who believes any of the shit that’s printed in them? If it’s been printed in a publication like that, do you think it’s more or less likely for it to be picked up by respected journalists?

  119. 119.

    Immanentize

    @Elizabelle:
    Just a semi- unrelated memory. When Bill Clinton was running against George Bush, some guy in my neighborhood had cut their two campaign bumper stickers in half to make his own red and blue “George Clinton” bumper sticker. I think Are that might have been able to get behind that.

    And here is another George — George Jackson — singing my favorite songs about the power of Ms. Franklin:
    Aretha, Sing One For Me

  124. 124.

    Corner Stone

    @Kay:

    I was thinking about Trump killing all those stories at the Enquirer and that’s fine as far as it goes- makes sense- but why didn’t anyone else pick them up? You can really stop the truth from coming out by manipulating a single supermarket tabloid?

    I think we have to understand it was a two way relationship. Trump gave them dirt on people and they helped promote/shield him when needed. I would be willing to bet that beyond fear of the R base, one reason so many GOP pols have fallen weirdly in line behind Trump is because Trump, through AMI, has dirt on them.

  127. 127.

    Elizabelle

    Rather unfortunate that Aretha Franklin gets twinned with John McCain in death.

    That happened to the late, great Ray Charles too. Twinned with Ronald Reagan.

  131. 131.

    Elizabelle

    Hillary Clinton greeting inside the church.

    She should be in the White House. But in Detroit, taking time out for this funeral.

  132. 132.

    Corner Stone

    @schrodingers_cat: It’s driving me insane, and it still has three days to go. Then they will begin the after action breakdown/review for another solid week. I didn’t have any petty grudges against McCain but I’m starting to develop them. Lordt only knows what all this fanfare is doing to the very stable genius in the WH.

  133. 133.

    Tim C.

    So to start with, I don’t think we are doomed, but there are some things we need to remember. First the main thing propping up trump right now is thathe hasn’t managed to start a shooting war just yet, and that the wrenches he’s thrown into the economy haven’t had time to bring everything to a crashing halt. I think there’s a very good chance both those things happen in the next couple years. Yes, trump has a good chance of getting away with things this time around, and we should fight like hell to mitigate the damage, but we have a long road ahead.

  134. 134.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Immanentize:

    During the Changing of the Guard ceremony at Buckingham Palace this morning, the band of the Welsh Guard played “R-E-S-P-E-C-T” in Aretha’s honour! What a cool transatlantic thing for them to do.

  137. 137.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Elizabelle: @SiubhanDuinne:

    And one more that is resonant today: You’ll remember that Diana Princess of Wales died 21 years ago today, and her funeral took place on September 6. In addition to the funeral, a big memorial concert was planned for a few weeks later, with the great conductor Sir Georg Solti scheduled to conduct the Verdi Requiem at Royal Albert Hall.

    Solti died on September 5, 1997, the day before Diana’s funeral. As did her friend Mother Teresa, who assuredly would have had priority seating at the service. Both Solti and M.T. were really overshadowed by the insane coverage of Diana’s death.

  138. 138.

    MisterForkbeard

    I don’t think we’re going to get more indictments today from Mueller. He’s not rushed, and nothing about DOJ guidelines says he can’t indict people who aren’t on the ballot near an election.

    It’d be nice, but I’m not seeing him do it.

  139. 139.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Leto: That makes sense up until some OTHER reporting agency hears about it and starts digging in.

    In which case, the fact that the person who sold the story can’t talk about it is certainly a damper on things, but it doesn’t stop other news agencies from doing other investigations and confirming it. That’s the real damning thing from 2016, evidently – all these other news orgs knew Trump had done these awful things and that the Enquirer was covering them up, and they… just shrugged and went back to Emails or the Clinton Foundation.

  140. 140.

    Elizabelle

    @SiubhanDuinne: Did not know that about Georg Solti. I remember people joking that Mother Teresa’s death was proof God had a sense of humor.

    Wonderful about Buckingham Palace.

    Listening to Aretha’s service (which has just officially started) on local Detroit station, and MSNBC has Very Serious Mourning Washington VIPs. I say — go with Detroit!

  141. 141.

    Elizabelle

    @SiubhanDuinne: I remember getting up early to watch Diana’s funeral, and just being in shock at her untimely death. They should never have allowed the Fayeds to be entrusted with her security.

    Although: while terrible for the princes, maybe it allowed Prince Charles to have more happiness, later in life. Diana could be vengeful.

  142. 142.

    Elizabelle

    I recommend the Aretha Louise Franklin services. Reminds you of how sonorous the voice of some church pastors.

    Bill Clinton is enjoying it.

  145. 145.

    J R in WV

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    I love the 3-D effect on the shadow line… great job. You motivate me so often to get out with the camera and do something. I’m not into tripods at night lately. I did a lot of that in the long ago, in snowstorms. It was tricky, Tri-X and souping it up in the chemicals.

  146. 146.

    James E Powell

    @Corner Stone:

    It wasn’t just any one thing that dropped GWB. Sure, the financial collapse capped it, but he had been bleeding since Katrina and a pervasive perception of a Culture of Corruption.

    I’d have to do more research than I feel like doing, but my recollection was that his numbers were put into permanent decline by Katrina, and proposals on immigration and social security. The latter two alienated his base.

  149. 149.

    J R in WV

    @Bruuuuce:

    Bruuuuce, this is Balloon-Juice, we’re a pack of ravening jackals, no mere language can be NSFWP, as long as you stay away from violent racist threats. Etc. But putting down a jackass on the Metro, for that you can use any language you want to…

  150. 150.

    James E Powell

    @Kay:

    There’s some reason Donald Trump escaped real serious scrutiny for all those years- not the bullshit with the divorces and Studio 54 or whatever, but the white collar crime.

    Our culture elevates acquisition above all other values. Tolerance of and admiration for con artists is widespread. Many people just don’t feel that such things are real crimes.

  151. 151.

    TenguPhule

    @debbie:

    If the farmers pay attention and see just how little changes in the new trade agreements

    Spotted the fatal flaw in this plan.

  152. 152.

    debbie

    @Corner Stone:

    ordt only knows what all this fanfare is doing to the very stable genius in the WH.

    Almost makes me wish the wall-to-wall coverage would last forever.

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