Here is a real thing Trump said during an AP interview when asked about the recent climate change report that suggests humans have 10 years to get our shit together or we’ll reach the point of no return:
Some say that and some say differently. I mean, you have scientists on both sides of it. My uncle was a great professor at MIT for many years. Dr. John Trump. And I didn’t talk to him about this particular subject, but I have a natural instinct for science, and I will say that you have scientists on both sides of the picture.
If I could pick up one of the many dead fish a recent algae bloom deposited on nearby beaches and use it to club each and every Trump voter (including my father, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.) over their stupid fucking heads, I would gladly do so. And I’d select the largest, stinkiest mackerel I could find.
The first order of business in addressing climate change is to get that eugenics-believing moron out of the fucking White House. At this point, I wouldn’t blame the governments of sane countries for banding together to effect regime change. Unlike the late Saddam Hussein, Trump represents a clear and present danger to the entire planet.
ETA: In case you’re wondering, the AP interviewer just moved on to the next topic after that incredibly idiotic response rather than laughing in Trump’s stupid orange face and saying “eat my WHOLE butt” or pointing out that only crackpots deny that human activity contributes to climate change, etc. This is part of the problem.
Elizabelle
No words.
A Ghost To Most
Trump is a symptom, not the disease (malignant cancervatism).
dmsilev
No. Just, no.
I feel I can safely speak for the vast majority of my colleagues in the Scientific Community ™ here.
schrodingers_cat
Science has nothing to do with instinct. And as usual the Lying Orange Blob is lying about the scientific consensus on global warming which is precipitating climate change
Enhanced Voting Techniques
They say It takes a smart man to know he is dumb.
dmsilev
Let me put this in terms Trump might understand. The number of people Trump thinks attended his inauguration is smaller than the number of scientists who think global warming is real.
SiubhanDuinne
Yeah, the “natural instinct for science” was pretty good, but he’s also a linguist-etymologist-philologist:
He has the BEST words!
MomSense
He’s basically saying I’m not a scientist but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.
Fucking pathetic.
Adam L Silverman
@Elizabelle: Actually “the best words”.
ruemara
@SiubhanDuinne: Christ on a cracker. Is that verbatim?
I am tired of the idiocy, the cruelty, the smug ignorance and I am so sick of the media that presents it as if it’s just normal.
Mike in NC
Fat Bastard’s only “natural instinct” is for grifting. Period.
Lee Hartmann
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhJQp-q1Y1s
Raoul
The concept of ‘instinct’ is just totally wrong here, too.
When I’m out in CO, there are times when I have what I call an instinct (intuition, really) about where the best powder will be the day after a storm on the mountain. By buddy has his, and we sometimes disagree. But we are making educated guesses based on years of snowboarding Breckenridge, or whichever area.
Trump has a gut. And it just tells him the most expedient route to what he wants, which is the easiest grift possible. So far, that’s coal oil and gas money. Hence his ‘instinct.’
Mike in DC
Tens of trillions in economic costs, billions of lives lost or disrupted. All avoidable by taking action now or relatively soon. But, fuck it, what’s the rush?
The decision makers involved in slow walking the response to climate change will be seen in the same light 50-100+ years from now as war criminals are today.
danielx
@MomSense:
“And if I was a scientist, my best thing would be stealing others’ work and taking credit for it!”
schrodingers_cat
@ruemara: Have you sent in your citizenship application? We need more sane to balance the insane.
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
I read a book called “With Speed and Violence: why scientists fear tipping points in Climate Change” a few years ago. It was written in 2007, it doesn’t go into extreme depth about any of the forces contributing to climate change but it makes a lot of them a little more accessible to the average person (please note I have a high school and a bit of tech school education).
Honestly it taught me a little about a lot of things I had no idea affect climate ( the hydroxol smog cleaning, frozen methane clathrates, the effects of soot on polar ice, the shear numbers of people who depend on glacier ice melt for their drinking and irrigation water)
I think we can work of mitigating some of the affects of Climate Change but it will take something like the rationing and rules put in place during WW II and I don’t think many politicians have the stomach for that.
I also think that some problems caused by climate change are not going to happen gradually they are going to arrive all at one with very little warning.
dmsilev
@Mike in DC: I feel quite sure that conservatives will seamlessly pivot from ‘we shouldn’t do anything about climate change’ to ‘we wanted to do something about climate change but liberals sabotaged our efforts’ as things get worse and harder to ignore.
Raoul
@ruemara: Some media do poke holes. Sometimes. WaPo:
Trump’s fanciful, falsehood-filled AP interview, annotated
President Trump was in rare form on Tuesday. With no official events, he spent much of the day tweeting, including calling Stormy Daniels “horseface” and continuing to cast doubt on the idea that he would hold Saudi Arabia’s leaders responsible for Jamal Khashoggi’s disappearance.
It turns out Trump was also interviewing with the Associated Press. And arguably more than in his “60 Minutes” interview this weekend, the falsehoods and fanciful claims were flying. Trump downplayed his relationship with Michael Cohen, suggested separating kids from their parents at the border hadn’t been that big a deal, and doubled down on the idea that the Saudis may escape blame for Khashoggi.
Below is the transcript, with our annotations and analysis.[snip]
ruemara
@schrodingers_cat: Not until I get the all clear from the IRS. Until then, it’s just my usual political advocacy. One of my former students thanked me for consistently reminding people of voting deadlines, providing resources and urging folks of the importance of civic engagement. So I have that going for me.
@Raoul: But how many read the AP by a no-name reporter (sorry, but there’s NAMES and then there’s names) versus how many watch 60 Minutes to feel like they’re informed? Pundits are a problem.
Raoul
@dmsilev: Conservatives won’t even do that. They’ll just be relishing the wars over scarce water resources and mass migratory displacement. Who’ll have tome for blame when there’s millions people to kill for fun and profit?
Brachiator
Goddam, Trump is a natural born egotist. The bullshit rolls off his tongue so easily.
JoyceH
He uses natural instinct as an excuse for laziness. He’s convinced himself he’s great, and that he’s great without any effort on his part. He was the best baseball player in the state when he was in high school! (Yes, he really said that – and the state was New York.)
Miss Bianca
@Mike in DC: That’s presuming there’s anyone around actually recording history in 50-100 years, of course.
Jeffro
I read that interview…pathetic.
In other news, presidential historian Michael Beschloss just tweeted that “we don’t have a president; we have a mob boss”. As you might imagine, he is already hundreds of “damn straight!”s and “bout time someone said it” deep in replies.
trollhattan
@Mike in DC:
Trump is picking up where Bush the Lesser left off. They obfuscated and stalled for their eight years, congress continued during the Obama years and today the combination of Trump, congress and the courts are in actual fact accelerating the conditions changing our climate. And allow me a complementary Fuck You to the Australian PM and deputy PM for their heartfelt rejection of the IPCC and embrace of coal, both domestic and export (the world’s #2 exporter, Australia).
This all should have been addressed thirty years ago–we already knew what was coming.
trollhattan
@Jeffro:
I’d swap Trump for Tony Soprano in a heartbeat.
Adam L Silverman
@ruemara: It is.
FlyingToaster
Trump is a walking, talking Dunning-Kruger effect.
The post-operative boot I’m wearing for a pair of messed-up tendons (don’t ask, it was stoooopid) is smarter than Trump. Putting on my “Impeach” hat now.
ruemara
@Adam L Silverman: I don’t know how I’m not constantly drunk.
@FlyingToaster: Get better soon and don’t wear that in the wrong spot. They’re getting crazier.
PAM Dirac
The whole damn reason for the scientific method is that “instinct” or “intuition” has proven to be a horrible way to find reality. People have to have the discipline and training to overcome their “natural” ways of thinking in order to make progress. When I was in graduate school I participated in a study where a task was described and you were asked to say how you thought it would turn out and then you were asked to do the task. Everything was simple consequences of Newton’s laws; so two objects of different weights, which one hits the ground first, weight on end of string, what direction does it go when the string is released, etc. I saw the results much later and 60-70% of the predictions were wrong for the supposedly intuitive Newton’s laws. Ever since I have equated “intuitive” with wrong 60-70% of the time.
Adam L Silverman
@Jeffro: Being a reanimated corpse has been liberating for Beschloss.//
Honestly, I try not to make fun of people’s looks, but he looks terrible.
Mary G
People are sick of the Republicans’ shit:
I have spent so much donating this year, and I don’t regret it at all.
ProPublica and WNYC are out with their major investigative story into the president’s crimes and misdemeanors: Pump and Trump.
Ivanka, in particular, looks like the grifter she is:
Ken Shabby
This is one of the dozen daily, hourly obscenities from that exploded pumpkin that am finally beginning to look away from. Babysitting a psychopathic, bratty five year old is exhausting. Too easy to get stabby.
At the very least, my hope is Mueller’s report is so goddamn shocking and thorough that even if they bury it, it comes with the caveat that if they don’t curtail that fucker, he will, loudly and in public, by whatever means necessary. I suspect they’ll do that, too. There’s likely a profound and reasonable concern that every violent Gomer will lose their shit and start shooting people and blowing up buildings. After he’s out of office, they can fit the entire family in matching orange suits. Votes are fundamental and, odd as it sounds, that means protecting the rest of us from all the Gomers who believe in their Man Date.
Until then, it’s easy to ignore that rotting fuckbag. Ok, it’s getting easier…
In two years, we’ll either have a country or we won’t. The damage is almost a done deal until then. I hate it but refuse to live with that kind of daily specter. Fuck That. I do get excited about voting and, I get to do it. Twice.
Jeffro
President Bwah Bwah Bwah has a ‘natural instinct for science’, thus proving in one short statement that he does not understand ‘science’.
I’ll say this for him, he doesn’t take long to get to the point…the point, always, being that he is a complete fucking moron.
Adam L Silverman
@ruemara: I have two hypotheses:
H1: Ruemara’s state of being not constantly drunk is directly correlated to her not drinking enough.
H2: Ruemara’s state of being not constantly drunk is directly correlated to her having a high tolerance for alcohol.
I think we can resolve this with a direct, empirical observation experimental design. I will, however, need volunteers for the control group to drink far more than you and far less than you so I can do a proper comparison. Also, I’ll need, based on quick calculation, a $5 million dollar grant to conduct this research. Please do not use the tip jar donation button or my research funding will just go to Cole buying stuff for his house.
FlyingToaster
@ruemara:
I’m safely ensconced in the People’s Republic of Massachusetts; I can wear it in the car, to school, music school, Russo’s, Stop&Shop, Starbucks. I cannot wear it into Target or Home Depot. I certainly won’t wear it outside of 128.
Our local Trumpanista now owns TWO houses on my block; she’s being shunned by everyone because of her politics. Good luck renting that house down the hill to a Republican; they’re thin on the ground hereabouts.
SFAW
So, here’s my thought, which — if I can pull it off — may win me the Nobel Peace Prize for Stuff:
If I can find a way to convert lying, moronic bullshit into usable energy, the Traitor-in-Chief could provide for all the energy needs of the entire planet, possibly for 25 years. Wouldn’t even need the rest of the Rethugs, but their “contribution” would probably tack on another 100 years, just because there are so many of them.
I better get started.
Amir Khalid
Trump likes to cite his Uncle John as proof of his own smarts in general, as well as his own knowledge about science. I find it hard to imagine how someone like Angela Merkel, an actual scientist (a chemist) before she went into politics, feels about such an ignorant poser. If I were in her shoes, I would struggle to hide my contempt and anger.
gene108
We need better countrymen. If it was only Trump, it would be an obstacle we could remove. But the entirety of the Republican Party and all their supporters do not believe humans burning CO2 does a damn thing to increase the greenhouse effect or they simply do not care, because the problem is not staring them in the face right now, and short-term corporate profits are more important.
I don’t have much hope for the future, in this regard. The Clinton Administration agreed to the Kyoto Protocols 25 years ago, and there was some hope we could take action, but Republicans in the Senate refused to ratify it and then Bush, Jr. set us back 10 years, with regards to tackling climate change because he, at best, refused to do anything and probably eased up on regulations that would’ve caused us to do something about it.
Obama tried and looked to make some progress towards the end of his administration, but then we have Trump, who is going to set us back years (again) to fix the mess he’s made.
I just wish there was a way to separate Republicans from Democrats. Let the Republicans have their own country and Democrats have their own country. Let Republican voters live with the results of Republican laws, without Democrats softening the blow for them and Democratic voters living under Democratic laws, without Republicans gumming up the works.
Frankensteinbeck
Facts, science, and reality keep agreeing with people who say brown people are as good as white people and will eventually be in charge anyway. Conservatives had no choice but to declare facts, science, and reality The Enemy and Liars and make up their own fantasy world where, say, Hillary will be indicted any day now.
@ruemara:
The vast majority of national news personalities are pure bullshitters who find facts boring and inscrutable. They like other bullshitters. It’s one of the many reasons they’re Republicans. Despite this, Trump is driving a lot of them away. He’s just so damn obvious, he makes them feel bad about themselves.
@Raoul:
Instinct and common sense are the exact opposite of Science. The scientific method doesn’t care if things make sense. What the experiment shows to be true is true. Even trying to figure out why, you have to test everything to see if it’s true. If it goes against everything else you understand, but you’ve tested a fact to death and it keeps turning out true, then it’s your understanding that’s wrong. And if you can’t figure out a new understanding that encompasses everything? Tough. You’re still wrong and the facts are right.
Ken Shabby
Bush wrecked at least five years of our family’s lives. We got on like any of the rest of us but, that ridiculous person made us truly miserable. I’m not giving this unbelievable pig any of that.
Math is on our side. Fuck those people.
Ian G.
So Shitgibbon’s uncle being a scientist means Shitgibbon understands science? Cool. So my blood relation to my classically-trained pianist cousin means I should be able to perform “Pictures at an Exhibition” at Carnegie fucking Hall tonight? That’s how this works?
Mary G
Somehow I doubt that many of those people are eager to vote for Brian Kemp. This is gobsmacking to me, who has never had to wait to vote in California, ever, since 1976 when I started.
Elizabelle
It is very sad that too many of our citizens do not have a “natural instinct” for detecting bullshit. Because it was not hidden.
Look at what they do, and have done, and not at what they say.
Frankensteinbeck
@gene108:
Thank goodness, he is not. He’s slowing down the US in continuing the incredible progress made under Obama, but he can’t reverse it. Coal isn’t coming back. The world knows that it’s no longer monetarily efficient to build new infrastructure on fossil fuels. Nobody is going to tear down the massive renewable energy grids already in place. Everyone outside America is ignoring us, and significant parts of America are getting on with renewable energy whatever Republicans in government say. He may be slowing down progress that needs to be made now, but he cannot stop it or turn back the clock.
hitchhiker
I think he’s persuaded himself that the Rs are going to do much better than predicted in the midterms. The truth is that — no matter what happens — it’s going to be instant strong evidence that he was right and people love him.
Watch.
He’s cheery and sanguine right now because — for him — nothing bad can happen. If they lose a bunch of seats it will be because Democrats cheated and lied. If they lose a few, it will mean that the media is stupid and dishonest. If they keep the senate it will be a full vindication of everything he’s ever done.
For him, it’s all good all the time, completely unmoored from any reality you or I might be forced to live in. That’s because the definition of “good” in his world is himself. He’s got about a quarter of the population passionately believing he’s great, and that fact is and always has been the single most depressing thing about this wretched era.
Because this is an evil, thoughtless, cruel human being
Ken Shabby
@Frankensteinbeck:
Was taught this, too. At an early age.
Irony: Curiosity is almost inevitably instinct and common sense, looking for rigors of truths.
Most of the people we’re referring to lack each and all.
SFAW
@Ian G.:
What time’s the performance? And if you were really serious, your performance would be the first half, and the second half would be Toscanini leading the Symphony in the Ravel version. And in the third half, have Keith Emerson give it a try.
Or were you kidding?
gene108
@EmbraceYourInnerCrone:
That’s a short term fix. The long term fix needs to be a complete overhaul of the global economy, where there is somehow an alternative to the consumerism driven economy of today.
We are seeing the gradual problems now. They are not enough to totally change the way we live, but increases in forest fires in the West, for example, or unusually warm winters, or less ice caps in the North Pole, etc. are all there and will eventually get so bad that we will be forced to pay attention. Hell, countries are already planning for how to claim all the waters that will be free, when the North Pole completely melts away and is open to ships, for even just the summer months.
NotMax
Hazardous waste of flesh, transported from the carnival mirror universe.
FlyingToaster
@Mary G: I’ve had to wait in 20-minute lines before; usually if you show up to vote around 6:30 (just after work), there will be a line. It doesn’t take that long, though; there’s about 3600 people total in the precinct, and at least a dozen carrells for voting at a time, so the holdup is check-in (to get your ballot) and check-out (to scan in your ballot).
These days, I expect to vote right after WG gets out of school, or this fall, ~5:15. I’ll be surprised if there are more than 2 voters ahead of me.
rp
To be fair, I think Trump would argue that views himself as more Aristotelian and Cartesian who argues from first principles rather than a follower of Bacon who relies on experimentation and observable data.
Shrillhouse
Making people wait for hours to vote, particularly the economically disadvantaged who often have inflexible work schedules, is every bit as undemocratic and indefensible as Jim Crow-era literacy tests.
But then, that’s the whole point, isn’t it?
catclub
@Mike in DC:
You do know how Robert E Lee is seen today, by most white people in the US?
catclub
@Mary G:
It was not an accident that certain states (and other jurisdictions) were put on the Voting Rights Act watch list. Because they NEVER figured out how to not mess with voting rights of certain people. RBG wrote in her dissent that any jurisdiction that is under special watch ( pre-clearance) could get off of it with ten years of good behavior. They could not manage that.
catclub
@Ken Shabby: actually the scientific method can only prove theories false. The theories that have not yet been proven false are the best we have. But the best (useful) theories can be tested to see if they are false.
R-Jud
I have an uncle who designed roller coasters and animatronics for Disney theme parks. Would anyone like to try this log flume I’ve just built?
boatboy_srq
I come from a long line of physicians and engineers.
That doesn’t give me a “natural insctinct” for either discipline.
It doesn’t make me an MD or a PE.
It doesn’t give me carte blanche to second-guess professionals in either discipline.
Geez.
catclub
@Shrillhouse:
yep. There is a right to bear arms in the Constitution, but there ain’t no right to vote.
Miss Bianca
@boatboy_srq: Yeah, well, you’re not Donald J. Trump, SOOPER JENIUS, are you, Bub?//
gene108
@catclub:
There are 4 amendments to the Constitution that address people’s right to vote. We probably need a fifth to shore things up.
Waynski
@Amir Khalid: You mentioned Trump citing his Uncle John as proof of his own smarts. I hypothesize that it proves Uncle John got all the smarts. There seems to be enough empirical evidence to support it.
MattF
The one-word characterization of Trump is ‘asshole’. Everything else is an elaboration and a consequence of that– schoolyard bully, bullshitter, liar, lickspittle to murderers, et cetera and so forth.
chopper
jesus, this guy probably thinks the scientific method refers to how catholics try to avoid getting pregnant.
The Dangerman
I occasionally glance at Red State; someone there argued a few days ago that Millenials shouldn’t vote because they are “stupid”. Fair enough, but I wonder what Trump’s approval rating would be if you filtered out the “stupid”. Ya know, that ones that have a natural instinct for science.
Brachiator
@Raoul:
WaPo, and now CNN, among others, are poking all kinds of holes in Trump’s AP interview: The 40 most outrageous lines in Donald Trump’s Associated Press interview
The sad thing is that I hear Trump supporters dismiss Trump’s lies as irrelevant braggadocio, while they instead point to his “decisive leadership.” He can do no wrong in their eyes.
Barbara
@Mary G: I waited over an hour to vote for Bill Clinton in 1992. That’s how I knew he would win.
A Ghost To Most
I’m thinking of turning my creative talents to building a system that filters CO2 using the carcasses of the 1%.
Lymie
Interesting reading about narcissism: https://www.healthyplace.com/personality-disorders/malignant-self-love/narcissists-disagreement-and-criticism
JGabriel
catclub:
I can’t speak for most white people. I know there are some who glorify Lee.
This white person thinks Lee was a traitor to the United States, a brutal slaveholder, an unmitigated racist, and, in general, just a flaming asshole.
I’d like to think a plurality of white Americans feel the same way about Lee as I do, but I don’t know it.
eclare
@Barbara: I waited a couple of hours, my state didn’t have early voting. Current one does, going this Saturday.
JGabriel
@A Ghost To Most:
While I applaud the sentiment – with the caveat that you mean conservative one-percenters – one would think the carcasses of such people would already be full of … gas.
NeenerNeener
Betty – Did you mean to say “clear and president danger” or is that just a neat typo?
SiubhanDuinne
@ruemara:
Copied and pasted from the transcript.
Rommie
My Grandfather repaired pinball machines in Chicago, so *obviously* I’m a Pinball Wizard! (Sadly, No)
It’ll go from Climate Change isn’t real to Climate Change isn’t that big of a deal to Climate Change isn’t as bad as the doom-n’-gloomers predict to It Costs Too Much to Fix, so Live/Die with it already.
And be careful with the Mackerel violence – you’ll force them to retaliate in caliber-sized kind. Or so I read constantly about how fighting back is a bad idea.
HeleninEire
Who is the crazy Great British Bake off fan here? Betty? I am on series 2 ep 4 and I am loving it. It takes me away from politics and work. It makes me happy. I’ve also, in the past 3 weeks, found out two of my friends have cancer. One has stage 3 colon cancer and the other has terminal lung cancer.
So great mindless TV is now my friend. Also, too beer. ;) Also, also too? Fuck Cancer.
Betty Cracker
@JGabriel: My guess is that around half of white people would have no idea who Robert E. Lee was.
trollhattan
@R-Jud:
Trump first. If it survives his estimable mass then I’ll make it no prob.
trollhattan
@R-Jud:
Trump first. If it survives his estimable mass then I’ll make it no prob.
“I have all the best pounds.”
trollhattan
Is is there there an an echo echo in in here here?
trollhattan
@Betty Cracker:
Special edition Dodge Charger, duh!
sheila in nc
Early voting started today in NC. Even without any big races (president, governor, senators) on the ballot, it will be long and complicated due to 1) judicial races and 2) state constitutional amendments (one of which is to circumvent the courts’ ruling against the voter ID law). It just occurred to me that 1) there will be massive wait times at polling places while people figure out all this arcane stuff and 2) some voters will give up and go home and 3) that’s a feature, not a bug, to our state legislature.
Mary G
ProPublica drops another investigative piece:
Ruckus
@ruemara:
For a lot of people with money, or delusions of money, they really do think they must be smart to have all the money. Some of them may actually be smart. There is limited evidence of this.
Mary G
@HeleninEire: I love GBBS.
Elizabelle
@sheila in nc: Wow. I hope the local Dems have volunteers outside to hand out Democratic voting suggestions.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
He has had decades of experience bullshiting. 70+ decades.
Elizabelle
@NeenerNeener:
Good eye. I think that is one of my favorite typos ever. It should stand.
Would even make a great bumper sticker. Trump. A clear and president danger. (With **s after president, because I still don’t think the asshat was legitimately elected.)
WaterGirl
@Mary G: I have to wonder if this isn’t the first of the promised “we are digging up dirt on the R candidates” articles that were going to be released just before the election. The story about the person behind that — someone from the Obama campaign — came out within the last week or two.
edit: sorry, I can’t recall better details than that.
Mike in DC
@catclub: I would say that the aggregate view of him in 2018 is far less heroic than it was 50 years ago. Certainly compared to 100 years ago.
jc
@JoyceH: What JoyceH said. Trump and his lazy base always take the easy way. Just make some cheap claim about your opponents, smear them, insist that the liberals are coming for your guns, your freedoms, your jobs, etc. So lazy, so easy. And when that falsehood is debunked, you just move on to the latest bullshit from Alex Jones. Pathetic.
Betty Cracker
@HeleninEire: Yes, I am a GBBO fanatic, though I know I’m not the only one here. It’s like TV-delivered Xanax – calms me right down. My husband is always saying, “You’ve SEEN that! How can you watch it again?”
“Well, dear,” I tell him, “Because it makes me temporarily forget that there are roughly 62M people whom I want to drag through broken light bulbs, dip in sulphuric acid, roll in dog shit, coat with fire ants, wrap in barbed wire, stuff into a cannon and fire into a toxic waste dump. So leave me to my fucking show!”
So sorry to hear about your friends. Fuck cancer!
lamh36
Tehanu
@hitchhiker:
You left out stupid. I know, I know, it’s hard to keep the list of adjectives short.
A Ghost To Most
@Betty Cracker: I have to live with that asshole every day. My father insisted my middle name be Lee, after that cracker fuck.
Mary G
More happy news:
Still dreaming of seeing the Twitler family in matching orange jumpsuits too, even though the color clash would be eye-searing for the head of the family.
ETA: overlooked the place in the story where Manafort’s jumpsuit is dark green, not orange.
Betty Cracker
@NeenerNeener: Typo — I fixed it! :)
Betty Cracker
@A Ghost To Most: Ugh, that sucks. Maybe tell everyone it’s after Lee Meriwether?
Jay
”
Political scientists J. Eric Oliver and Thomas Wood have written a book called Enchanted America; How Intuition & Reason Divide Our Politics that looks to be a must read if you want to understand why our politics have gone batshit crazy. Jesse Singel’s review in New York magazine explains that what these political scientists have found is that while all humans use intuition and heuristics, a large faction of voters is simply “magical thinkers” who reject reason (or are incapable of being rational) and make “causal attributions to unobservable forces.” In other words, they would rather believe something absurd than what they can see with their own eyes. ”
https://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2018/10/malfunctioning-intuition-in-modern-world.html?m=1
Elizabelle
@Betty Cracker: But you shouldn’t have. It was genius!
trollhattan
@Betty Cracker:
Heh. Lee Van Cleef would be my choice, but yours might could work..
ruemara
@Adam L Silverman: I need a portion of that study fund but you will find two conclusions:
1. The hypertension medications ruemara is on mean ruemara is particularly careful because interactions are a bitch.
2. Ruemara knows burpees & military pushups are important for health. Alcohol is not worth the burpees unless she is overwhelmed with a need to tire herself out. Which is why she will do her pushups but rejects burpees and alcohol on the reg because burpees.
A Ghost To Most
@Betty Cracker: She wasn’t a thing yet, but good idea. To be honest, I’ve thought about changing my last name. Better to honor a B-24 pilot and his brother dead at Normandy than a raging racist alcoholic asshole.
patroclus
The PBS documentary on Eugenics was really well done!
So was the Whataburger ad in Texas by Beto. C’mon……………Te-hd.
Dan B
@EmbraceYourInnerCrone: You’re correct about disastrous effects of climate change arriving sooner than most people in the US imagine, at least according to some scientists. An acquaintance of mine is a researcher on the arctic. He will not discuss his work with his wife and daughter. I believe that half of the reason is he dies not see the level of alarm and action necessary to address the crisis. The other half may be that he believes it was too late 30 years ago.
Ocotillo
In the 60 minutes interview when Lesley Stahl asked him about climate change and rebutted with a statement that the vast majority of scientists have said climate change is impacted by human activity, he waved it off saying the scientists had a political agenda. I would have like to see her press him with what is that agenda? Why do they have that agenda? Where do you have proof of this agenda? etc…. Likely, he is parroting hate radio talking points that environmentalists really want to tear down capitalism and move the world to socialism to which I have to ask, why? Why do scientists care about reworking our political and economic systems?
Really these fools embrace any conspiracy that validates their side’s talking points.
A Ghost To Most
@A Ghost To Most: I stand corrected. Lee Meriwether WAS a thing before I was born.
WaterGirl
@Elizabelle: You wrote something in an earlier thread today that I wanted to reply to but the thread was dead. I made a mental note, but all that’s left in my little brain is that I wanted to tell you something; nothing about what the topic was or what I wanted to say. Sigh.
Did you watch Beto in the debate from last night?
sheila in nc
@Elizabelle: From what I can tell, good organization. And not so much of the stepping all over each other that sometimes happens.
Also, it’s made a huge difference that the governor’s office flipped blue in 2016. Being in charge of the voting process statewide means there is less room for local shenanigans. And the amendments were a really low blow. They are written to sound like a no-brainer but they are in actuality a power grab of the legislature vs the (non-gerrymanderable!) executive. Plus they were written in haste and don’t meet the standard of tightly crafted legislation, even if they represented good ideas! Which they don’t!
But the worst thing is trying to craft a public message that gets all this across. Check out how the local Raleigh press characterizes the amendments:
1. A requirement that voters provide photo identification at the polls
2. A reduction in the maximum allowable income tax rate (Currently the constitutional max is 10%, we are nowhere near it)
3. An expansion of crime victims’ rights
4. A guarantee of the right to fish and hunt in the state (not clear how this affects local law and ordinances)
5&6. Two proposals to shift the power to fill judicial vacancies and to appoint the members of the State Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement from the governor to lawmakers. (In particular, the elections board would become evenly split between parties, and in case of a tie, the decision comes down to — you guessed it — the legislature)
People read this and say, maybe some of the amendments sound innocuous? They aren’t. But who is going to take the time to do the research and figure that out? Argh.
Barbara
Smile:
trollhattan
Sportsball programming note–Concacaf [really rolls off the tongue, don’t it?] women’s soccer final match is tonight @ 7:00 ET. Canada v. US with both teams playing extremely well in anticipation of next summer’s WWC.
Be there!
/SundayFunnyCars voice
jl
Gaslighting, bullshitting and swindling are a branch of the psychological sciences. So, Trump is correct that far.
mad citizen
@FlyingToaster: I’ve seen the Dunning-Kruger effect referenced many times here, but never looked it up until now. Kinda friggin’ obvious, but one could say that about some economics theories and of course Harry Frankfurt’s fantastic book On Bullshit. Like most (all) here, I’ve worked with many over the decades who suffered from this effect.
Barbara
So I am reading “Pump and Trump,” and I come across this:
A cut of the minibar sales?
Fair Economist
@Dan B:
This attitude is one of my pet peeves. Yes, it’s likely we are too far along from preventing some Very Bad Things from happening. But even so, the amount of Very Bad Things matters a lot, and they will get worse with every additional increment in temperature. Not only will they be worse, the awful stuff accelerates with each additional step. 1 degree warming is worse than no warming, 2 degrees much worse than 1, 3 degrees much much worse than 2, on and on until you get to an end-Permian extinction level.
If we really can’t stop 2 degrees, it’s *even more* urgent that we stop it from getting to 3. If we can’t stop 3, it’s yet more urgent to stop 4. Even if we get to the end-Permian extinction level, we need to control things to minimize the work we’ll then have to do for life support domes and the like. It’s never going to be too late to do something to stop, slow, or control global warming.
Amir Khalid
@Barbara:
Well, if a hotel owner is dumb enough to cut him a piece of that, why shouldn’t he take it?
Elizabelle
@WaterGirl: If it comes back to mind, I would be interested.
Did not see Beto in the debate. Youtube and other stuff seemed to be on the whack at the moment. Will check it out on CSpan tonight, glass of wine in hand to toast him. And can Cruz through his opponent, although it might be interesting (briefly) to see what his debating style is like. Man could not figure out the moral of Green Eggs and Ham, so I am curious.
But her emails!!!
It’s pretty much certain that we’ll get to a point where where global warming is undeniable and catastrophic. At that point, Republicans will demand we implement some sort of massive, batshit crazy geoengineering project most likely involving the detonation of nuclear weapons to save us.
Elizabelle
@Fair Economist: If we can’t save every person on the Titanic ….
Yeah, I don’t care for that style either.
Elizabelle
@sheila in nc: Good point about how innocuous those sound.
The North Carolina legislature is in a class by itself, isn’t it? I hope you all can make some genuine progress on gerrymandering.
Maybe Art Pope will have a Dennis Hof end. It could happen.
WaterGirl
@Elizabelle: If you want the condensed version of Beto at the debate, with very little from Cruz, there is a 3:35 minute compilation up on Beto’s twitter feed. I tried to copy the link to the video but had no success.
Google “Beto twitter” — it’s the pinned tweet at the top.
Amir Khalid
@Elizabelle:
YouTube is all better now.
WaterGirl
@Elizabelle: My mom told me that if anyone asked me a question that I didn’t completely understand, my answer should be NO.
Pretty good advice, I think.
Elizabelle
Thanks all re Beto-viewing. Will check it out!
Jay
@Fair Economist:
I don’t mind the “attitude”, as long as it doesn’t effect the actions.
After all, it’s my attitude and understanding as well.
As Cheryl’s list shows, there’s a shitload of things to learn and do by 2020. And if that doesn’t keep us below +2, well just more work to do.
Steve in the ATL
@But her emails!!!:
You misspelled “tax cuts for the 0.1%”
WaterGirl
@Elizabelle:
Picture grandpa Munster, only with dark hair instead of gray
Lies, bluster and rehearsed attacks
There you go!
It is completely worth it to watch the last question, something like “tell us about something you have done this year unrelated to the campaign that will tell us who you are”.
Cruz goes first.
Silence for several long seconds, they a big sigh.
Or maybe big sigh first, followed by several long seconds.
Followed by whining about how hard it is to be away from the kids.
Beto follows.
Agrees that it’s hard to be away from the kids and that his wife has the lion’s share of that load while he campaigns.
Then he talks about hanging out in the basement with his son with the drum set that was ostensibly for his son but was really for himself, having fun together and playing the drums.
Steve in the ATL
Any Georgia voters around? I found a handy guide to the proposed constitutional amendments:
https://athensforeveryone.com/2018-general-election-guide/
TL, DC:
Amendment 1: YES
Amendment 2: NO
Amendment 3: NO
Amendment 4: NO
Amendment 5: YES
Elizabelle
@WaterGirl: LOL. Will check that out. Cruz not good on his feet with unexpected questions. Problem with the human suit. (Of course, Beto had notice and time to formulate his response.)
Jay
wonkette rips the Bloomburg/Meuller “story” apart,
“OK no. First of all, we’ve known Mueller was very close on the obstruction shit for quite a while now. That’s what all the back-and-forth rigamarole about Trump sitting down for a lie-meeting with Mueller has been about, at least partly. But on the collusion stuff, we question Bloomberg’s math, or the math of the sources whose words Bloomberg is dutifully transcribing. Bloomberg seems to admit this about 14,000 paragraphs in:
There’s no indication, though, that Mueller is ready to close up shop, even if he does make some findings, according to former federal prosecutors.
So what is the point of your story, Bloomberg?
Mueller is still very busy working, but nothing much has been happening in public since we crossed within 60 days of the mid-terms, because Mueller, unlike ol’ Honest Jim Comey, is observing that dumb rule of not doing anything “political” so close to an election. (Weird, since none of Trump’s assholes are actually on the ballot.) To be quite honest, we have no damn clue what Mueller is up to at this very moment, and we doubt Bloomberg does either.”
https://www.wonkette.com/mueller-investigation-almost-over-according-to-people-who-wish-that-were-true
danielx
@But her emails!!!:
Well, of course! You don’t want Halliburton or KBR to starve, do you? Dick Cheney would be very unhappy.
NotMax
@WaterGirl
Hey now, don’t go dissing Al Lewis, a dyed in the wool lefty and sometimes politician.
WaterGirl
@Elizabelle: Beto is also a bona fide human being, which helps.
raven
@Steve in the ATL: Good buncha folks.
raven
This freaked em out in the Classic City!
When she took her oath of office, she didn’t use a bible. On the steps of the Athens City Hall, Parker cocked her right fist in the air and placed her left hand on a well-worn copy of “The Autobiography of Malcolm X,” held by her mother Mattie Parker.”
Atlanta Journal Constitution, June 7, 2018
ruemara
@NotMax: plus very nice guy and Village staple
Steve in the ATL
@raven: most Athenians are!
@raven: that is freaking awesome!
Barbara
@Amir Khalid: I just hope that they deducted the expense associated with accounting for the damn sales.
Kathleen
@A Ghost To Most: Totally agree and want to steal “cancervatism”.
Kathleen
@ruemara:
I despise, abhor, loathe and detest most of the media as much as if not more than the emboldened Nazis/racists/misogynists they fellate.
Kathleen
@Adam L Silverman: No, you must not accept grant money which is tainted by corporations somehow I’m sure. You can only accept $27 donations, otherwise I will accuse you of “rigging” the data.
Mnemosyne
@WaterGirl:
I still find it hard to believe that Ted Cruz is only 2 years older than Beto (and 1 year younger than me!) He looks at least 10 years older.
raven
@raven: Check her out
Lingua Franca is a local rap artist and linguistics student at UGA. She also runs the popular show Hot Corner Hip Hop, which just had it’s one year anniversary.
Kathleen
@Shrillhouse: Yes. And it’s evil. But most media will not cover it.
Kathleen
@HeleninEire: So sorry to hear that.
ltelf
@JGabriel: Well done, you.@JGabriel:
Kay (not the front-pager)
I was certain you would end this sentence, “It would be smarter than the Stinky Twittler.”
WaterGirl
@Mnemosyne: It’s the ugly coming from inside Ted Cruz, showing through.
SiubhanDuinne
@Steve in the ATL:
Thanks!
Raoul
@Adam L Silverman: The ‘mob’ tweet was by Steven Beschloss. Who is much more outspoken.
From a recent piece about the Beschloss family endowed program at Illinois. “Beschloss’ sons also are involved in journalism: Michael, a lecturer, author and television personality, is considered to be one of the nation’s leading presidential historians; Steven is a filmmaker who works for Prime Time.”
Is it just me that the heaps of praise for one and not the other is noticeable?
Mary G
We have gotten deep into Bizzaro World:
There is a snippet of film in this tweet:
How does putting an actor up in the briefing room at the Pentagon and having him say he’s cancelled a promotional appearance where he was supposed to meet with MBS because of the Khashoggi killing fix press complaints about access? Is Mattis trolling Twitler, the press, us, or all of the above? I imagine him thinking “My military upbringing and duty means I cannot criticize the Commander in Chief, but I can have a Scots actor call him out instead.”
Villago Delenda Est
The AP interviewer should be fired for malpractice. Definitely be put on a tumbrel manifest, too.
Tehanu
@A Ghost To Most: Or Harper Lee? Or, for that matter, Bruce Lee?