Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

He really is that stupid.

This blog will pay for itself.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

Not all heroes wear capes.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

“I never thought they’d lock HIM up,” sobbed a distraught member of the Lock Her Up Party.

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

You cannot shame the shameless.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

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

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

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Y’all…

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A poorly socialized fifth-grader with an underdeveloped vocabulary and delusions of grandeur sent a letter on White House stationery to the president of Turkey:

Unfortunately, that fifth-grader is the President of the United States. We are so fucked.

Also, Trump had a meltdown in a meeting with House leaders and went off on Pelosi, whom he called “a third rate politician” and accused of being a commie. Pelosi characterized it as follows:

An overgrown child has the nuclear codes, and he’s having a pants-soiling tantrum. But I’m sure everything will be fine!

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

152Comments

  3. 3.

    hells littlest angel

    I don’t get all the praise given to the authors of the Constitution. If your requirements for eligibility for the presidency include where you were born, but do not include you can’t be a depraved simpleton, I think it needs more work.

  4. 4.

    Brachiator

    I posted this in one of the earlier threads. Works here as well.

    My gut feeling is that the problem is less on the “recognize a disaster in the making” side of things and more on the “talk Trump out of it” side. Trump is so convinced of his own genius that he’s unwilling to listen to any of his advisors unless they’re either A) repeating his own ideas back to him or B) making suggestions on how to be even worse than he already is. Nobody with the guts to tell him he’s making a mistake will stay around for long.

    Trump has always bristled at attempts to control his worst impulses, but he is increasingly out of control. I guess this was to be expected.

    Increasingly, he surrounds himself with loyalists and butt kissers. And he more openly asserts his infallibility. We see today how, refusing ever to admit a mistake, he rationalizes the terrible plight of the Kurds, which is fully his responsibility.

    Things will only get worse. Trump not only does not know how to respond to changing events, now he is actively creating disasters.

    ETA: Of course, we early on saw how Trump deliberately makes a bad situation worse in his treatment of immigrants. His “trade war” is an unfocused farce without any reasonable economic goals.

  5. 5.

    Zelma

    He really likes other people – like the Ukrainians and now the Kurds – to “make concessions in the face of illegal military attacks. Sort of like Chamberlain and the Czechs at Munich.

  7. 7.

    dmsilev

    You know, the “Donald Trump has pivoted towards being a serious President” genre of op-eds has finally died out. Proof that it is possible to beat an idea out of a set of pundits, it simply takes a lot of beating.

  8. 8.

    germy

    ”I’ve already given you a little sample with respect to Pastor Brunson” should be a rotating tag here.

  9. 9.

    Leto

    So he also sent, to Erdogan, the letter that General Mazloum sent? And is promising more concessions on behalf of the general? Now we need to see what’s in that letter. This really is beyond parody.

  11. 11.

    sukabi

    What are the odds that Turkey decides to keep the 50 tactical nukes they’re “storing” for us at one of their bases?

    They’ve got the upper hand in any “negotiations” drumpf tries his hand at. What a dumbfuck, that alone should get his ass carted off in cuffs.

  13. 13.

    Shalimar

    He dictated that to a secretary. The thoughts are clearly his, but the spelling is well beyond his ability..

  15. 15.

    Brachiator

    A poorly socialized fifth-grader with an underdeveloped vocabulary and delusions of grandeur sent a letter on White House stationery to the president of Turkey

    I am almost looking forward to the inevitable official GOP defense of this childish bullshit.

  17. 17.

    NotMax

    Official open thread?

    Quick note and DVR alert that The Set-up will be on TCM tonight beginning at 9:30 Eastern time. A case where the term classic is not misapplied. If unfamiliar with it, .check out the backstory from the American Film Institute. 72 minutes long, showing a story which unfolds over a 72 minute span in the lives of the characters.

  18. 18.

    catclub

    @Brachiator:

    Of course, we early on saw how Trump deliberately makes a bad situation worse

    trump does this routinely. Then, if we make it back to (close to) the state before he fucked things up, (usually by slowly backing down on all of the threats)
    it looks like an improvement. It is part of how he plays the press. N Korea, China trade, immigrants, tariffs.

  19. 19.

    dmsilev

    Can we all observe a brief moment of silence in honor of poor Adam, who is going to feel compelled to try to explain this letter and its implications?

  20. 20.

    Ohio Mom

    Compared to the other writing samples of Trump’s I’ve seen (i.e., tweets) this letter reads as if he dictated it and the scribe cleaned it up a little.

    Not saying it’s not still embarrassing, just that it is more polished than I am used to.

    ETA: I see that Shalamir already said this.

    If I ever wondered why the world stood by when other madmen ruled (Hitler at the beginning comes to mind but all of us could brainstorm a long list), I think I’m getting a glimpse into the dynamics of it.

  21. 21.

    catclub

    @sukabi:

    What are the odds that Turkey decides to keep the 50 tactical nukes they’re “storing” for us at one of their bases?

    Don’t know. But I would guess the Turks do not have any arming codes for them.

  22. 22.

    Annie

    Nancy Pelosi is a “third-rate politician” who got the Affordable Care Act through Congress and has been getting elected to her Congressional seat since 1988. Last time she won with 86% of the vote.

    Meanwhile, T**** has “won” one election, with assistance from a foreign government and with loss of the popular vote.

    Bet he wishes he was as third rate as Nancy.

  23. 23.

    Mary G

    I've paid as close attention to Trump as anyone, sadly, and I honestly don't think there has been a day filled with more batcrappery than this one. I mean, the morning news that he tried to pull a reality-TV-style surprise on a grieving British family seems like three weeks ago.— Rex Huppke (@RexHuppke) October 16, 2019

  24. 24.

    Leto

    @sukabi: Zero. The Turks don’t store them, they have no possession over them, they have zero control over them. In the event that they somehow manage kill every single American there, they still don’t have the machinery/equipment necessary to get any of the items out of the vaults. In the event that the base lost positive control, the F-16s at Aviano will make a straight run to Incirlik and level the Protected Aircraft Shelters they are stored in. Every single American on base becomes a security forces member in that event (base is overrun). They train for this all the time, including the specific scenario of, “If the host nation turns on us…”

    Here’s the system in which they’re stored: WS3

  25. 25.

    dmsilev

    On the lighter side of the news, there’s Lindsey Graham:

    Graham Threatens To Become Trump’s ‘Worst Nightmare’ In Escalating Feud

    Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-SC) stalwart loyalty to President Donald Trump is starting to see more cracks as Trump doubles down on his decision to pull U.S. troops out of Syria.

    Graham, who’s been railing against the decision for more than a week, appeared on the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) on Wednesday morning to blast the consequences of the U.S. leaving the Kurds to deal with Turkey and ISIS detainees in Syria on their own.

    “I am looking to President Trump to change this,” the Republican senator told CBN host Pat Robertson. “I will do anything I can to help him, but I will also become President Trump’s worst nightmare.”
    […]
    Trump, however, doesn’t seem to particularly care what his closest Senate ally thinks.

    “Lindsey Graham would like to stay in the Middle East for the next thousand years, with thousands of soldiers fighting other people’s wars,” Trump told reporters on Wednesday afternoon. “I want to get out of the Middle East.”

    Let’s all revel in the schadenfreude.

  27. 27.

    germy

    @WereBear:

    I warned everyone. We’ve moved out of Vonnegut into Ionescu.

    It’s a W.C. Fields film. Old screwball comedy “Million Dollar Legs”

  30. 30.

    NotMax

    As it is a designated open thread, dragging this up from downstairs. Floriduh woman must be jealous.

    A Vietnamese tourist has become the first person to be kicked out of Australia for concealing over five pounds of raw pork in her luggage, and has subsequently been banned from reentering the country for three years. While this may seem like a bit of an overreaction—they could have simply confiscated the pork, issued a fine, or given her a booting—Australia has highly strict biosecurity laws meant to protect their unique ecosystem and agricultural industries from invasive species and diseases.

    Currently, Asia is experiencing a devastating outbreak of incurable and highly contagious swine flu that has so far killed over 100 million pigs, and Australian officials have put the country on high alert to protect their pork industry. The woman in question, by the way, was also carrying garlic, fruit, raw eggs and more than 2 pounds each of squid and quail in her suitcase. Source

  32. 32.

    FelonyGovt

    And I understand Trump told the Italian President that the US’s ties with Italy date back “thousands of years to Ancient Rome”. WTF

  33. 33.

    Mnemosyne

    @hells littlest angel:

    The Founders never imagined that we would split into political parties, much less that one of them would become so corrupt that it would cooperate with foreign powers and protect itself against the interests of the country.

    A major failure of imagination on their part.

  38. 38.

    Mary G

    Dem Source on WH meeting: "POTUS cut Schumer off and said that Gen Mattis was: “the world’s most overrated general. You know why? He wasn’t tough enough. I captured ISIS. Mattis said it would take 2 yrs. I captured them in 1 month”"— Sam Stein (@samstein) October 16, 2019

    I ALONE FIXED IT! While it’s good to see him decompensating and showing his ass, I just dread what he’ll do next, because when he goes low, he just goes even lower.

  40. 40.

    NotMax

    @FelonyGovt

    “Extra hamberder for you if you can arrange a meeting with Sophia Loren. Don’t worry about setting up the hotel room, I got that covered.”

    //

  41. 41.

    Jeffro

    Preznit Meltdown melts down multiple times in one day…

    …TIME TO PING RWNJ DAD!
    (Semi-evil laughter)

  43. 43.

    Leto

    @Immanentize: Here’s the only the disclaimer I’ll give: I was the NCOIC of Comm Maintenance at Ghedi Air Base. I have to talk around this subject quite a bit.

  44. 44.

    germy

    @FelonyGovt:

    And I understand Trump told the Italian President that the US’s ties with Italy date back “thousands of years to Ancient Rome”. WTF

    Yes, that jumped out at me also. I still don’t understand it. I wonder what the Italian President thought.

  45. 45.

    Mary G

    @Leto: @Immanentize: I feel better after reading that. I was so shook up by the tours of our abandoned bases Russian TV has been giving/gloating over. Also you and Avalune explained the geography where the ugly American ran over Charlotte Charles and Tim Dunn’s son. Balloon Juice is amazing in that way.

  46. 46.

    TS (the original)

    And then we have those with something to hide

    House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a Republican who voted for the House measure to oppose pulling troops out of northern Syria, told reporters that Pelosi “stormed out” of the meeting. He called her behavior unbecoming and argued Pelosi tried to make the gathering unproductive.

    The same McCarthy who said

    In an exchange first reported by the Washington Post, McCarthy said: “There’s …there’s two people, I think, Putin pays: [California Representative Dana] Rohrabacher and Trump … [laughter] … swear to God.”

  49. 49.

    sdhays

    @dmsilev: Wasn’t he caught talking out the other side of his mouth last week when a Russian tricked him into thinking he was talking to the Turkish Foreign Minister? Basically saying “fuck those Kurds”?

  50. 50.

    Mary G

    btw..Trump just became the first US official to confirm the presence of 50 US nuclear bombs basedin Turkey. "We're very confident" they're safe, he told reporters, via WH Pool US and Nato officials never talk about nuclear deployments abroad.— Julian Borger (@julianborger) October 16, 2019

  52. 52.

    mrmoshpotato

    @hells littlest angel: At the time of its writing, pretty much everyone knew the amount of bloodshed that got them to that point of self-governing. They were afraid, deathly afraid, of foreign interference which is why the emouluments clause was written in.

    As for an idiot like Dump attaining the office, I sincerely believe the founders didn’t think the people would wisely choose their own President, hence part of the reason the electoral college exists.

  57. 57.

    Gin & Tonic

    @NotMax: I will never forget when I was entering New Zealand, some guy a couple of customs lines over was being seriously delayed while a number of uniformed agents took what looked like hiking boots out of his checked baggage and were probing at the soles, apparently taking and bagging soil samples. In Australia, as you enter Customs there are posters with pictures of prohibited (agricultural) items and IIRC, text in English and Chinese explaining the restrictions. They don’t fuck around,

  60. 60.

    Mnemosyne

    @danielx:

    To be fair, it did occur to them that a total fucking oaf could be elected, but they assumed that the Electoral College would save us from the unwashed masses choosing an oaf. Whoopsie! ?

    ETA: IOW, it never occurred to them that elites could be corrupt, which was one hell of a blind spot on their part.

  62. 62.

    jimmiraybob

    @Mnemosyne:

    “The Founders never imagined that we would split into political parties, much less that one of them would become so corrupt that it would cooperate with foreign powers and protect itself against the interests of the country.”

    Technically, they did and tried to prevent it by separating powers and hoping that competing national interests would prevail. It was a nice try and worked well enough until the astoundingly ignorant, morally and ethically bankrupt, god-anointed supreme leader and his Trumpoanarcho-for-profit gang hit town and said fuck all that. I don’t think that it could have gotten this far without bloating the Republican Party with copious amounts of god-anointing white Christian nationalist sauce. They probably thought they’d safeguarded against this too but underestimated the extremist Christianist capacity for duplicity, hate-mongering and rage-induction and, of course, the willful ignorance of 40-45% or the electorate.

  63. 63.

    NotMax

    @Gin & Tonic

    Hawaii, too, is stringent when it comes to that.

    Remember (late 50s or early 60s) a coconut being confiscated from the storage compartment after landing in the U.S. in a private Piper Cub from Bermuda

  65. 65.

    sukabi

    @Mary G: Schumer should have said “Excuse me Mr. Bonespurs, when exactly did you have time? Between your golfing and endless tweeting and TV watching there’s exactly 0 hours in the day for you to have done that. Also, you’ve never taken your fat ass to Syria, so…..”

  66. 66.

    jimmiraybob

    @debbie:

    More critically, did Trump get permission to share that letter?

    Are you implying that Kremlin Spokesman Trump may have overstepped his authority?

  70. 70.

    Sab

    I love that Hoyer and Shumer are SHOCKED at the disrespect, and she is just this just another day in my life.

  73. 73.

    Mary G

    Alexandra Petri is hilarious in WaPo today: How the Washington Nationals won the Democratic debate:

    One of the frustrating things at the end of the baseball game is that even if your brave ballplayers prevail, they do not get to come out and speak exclusively for 10 to 20 minutes about how they believed and dug deep and what percents they gave, but instead an older man involved in their hiring gets to interrupt and take credit. Biden also did this when Warren was talking about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and it was not fun then, either.

  75. 75.

    Mary G

    How the letter got out:

    Per the same source, Trump handed out copies of the letter he'd sent to Erdogan at today's meeting in what was interpreted as an attempt to show everyone how tough he'd been.— Jill Colvin (@colvinj) October 16, 2019

    My head really hurts and there is a hole in my desk.

  76. 76.

    Roger Moore

    @Mnemosyne:

    The Founders never imagined that we would split into political parties, much less that one of them would become so corrupt that it would cooperate with foreign powers and protect itself against the interests of the country.

    This simply isn’t true. The founders imagined all these things. They had relatively recent history to remind them of all these things. Washington didn’t warn against the dangers of partisanship in his farewell address because he couldn’t imagine party politics steering the country in dangerous directions. The Constitution included an emoluments clause because the founders knew precisely the danger of American politicians being paid off by foreign countries. They did their best to include protections against those things, but ultimately the Constitution is just a bunch of words engrossed on velum. Those words can’t achieve anything without people actively defending the principles they declare. There is no scheme of government so clever that it can outwit the simultaneous decision of a large fraction of the people charged with running it to abandon its principles.

  77. 77.

    Jeffro

    So just today, we have
    – the insane presser with the Italian PM
    – the insane non-event with the grieving British parents
    – the insane ranting at Nancy Smash
    – the insane letter to Erdogan

    Am I missing anything?

  78. 78.

    sukabi

    @debbie: that was the “atta boy” he got from Vlad. “Donald, we’ll take over operations in Syria, too messy for you guys aalllll the way across the world. Concentrate on securing your borders and we’ll talk about Trump Tower Moscow. The world will think you’re a genius.”

  79. 79.

    FlipYrWhig

    Dear Mr. Trump:

    Attached is a letter that we received on October 10, 2019. I feel that you should be aware that some asshole is signing your name to stupid letters.

  83. 83.

    Argiope

    @hells littlest angel: Dunno. As an educator, I’ve said for many years now that there is simply no way to write directions in such a way that all students will understand them and no one will misinterpret. I feel like they thought words and phrases like “emoluments” and “high crimes & misdemeanors”were self-evident…but there are no senator-proof directions either, perhaps. Particularly when some of our more illustrious congresscritters are so willfully ignorant. I think they thought they had it covered…

  84. 84.

    sukabi

    @Mary G: that’s some brilliant strategy…self-impeaching in it’s most basic form. Can’t wait for the emolument immolation.

  85. 85.

    Chris T.

    @Gin & Tonic: I have washed my hiking boots before heading to NZ. (It’s also a good idea to do that in the other direction, and while there, due to the rock snot problem.) Could not clean them properly between NZ and Oz, though.

  86. 86.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @germy: Sounds like Trump half understood some observation that the Roman Republic was a model for our constitution.

    Then again, it is Trump so one cann’t rule out he thinks the US and Rome were allies during the Punic Wars.

  87. 87.

    Leto

    Back from making dinner:

    @Mary G: Almost 60years of foreign policy… *poof*! I know some of the media coverage around this issue is a bit, hyperbolic. But they don’t know what they’re talking about. The people who do can’t reassure them, so they’re just spinning their wheels.

    @germy: Haha, I don’t know what that is, but it’s amazing! The spotted booby flies at midnight; ca-caw! ;)

    @debbie: *Narrators voice: no, no he did not.

    @eclare: That thing is amazing! Scary amazing, but still!

  88. 88.

    Aleta

    It’s so good to know that we are on top of this and we are ready to go at a moment’s notice, as the steely Sec. Mnuchin reassured us many times in a single interview

    … We are ready to go on a moment’s notice to put on sanctions . … So the president is very focused on this, he’s offered to mediate this situation. … we’re ready to go at a moment’s notice to put on sanctions.

    Now, we have warned the Turks…. they know what we will do if they don’t stop …. we’re being very clear with Turkey what’s going on.

    The president was very clear on making sure that ISIS prisoners are not escaping, … this is obviously a big issue we are on top of.

    I can assure you the president and the national security staff are on top of this situation… at a moment’s notice the president calls me up and tells me — we will do this. We could shut down all U.S. dollar transactions with the entire government of Turkey, if we — That is something we may do, absolutely. … that is something at a moment’s notice the president can tell me to do.

    And again, we’ve put them on warning, the president has authorized me to effectively shut down the entire Turkey economy and we can do that at a moment’s notice.

    It’s cool, Honey Bunny, we’re still cool.

  89. 89.

    Mnemosyne

    @Roger Moore:

    I clarified in my ETA — what they never imagined was the elites becoming so corrupt that the will of the people (the popular vote) would actually be the wiser choice.

  92. 92.

    Martin

    @Roger Moore: This kind of partisanship wasn’t possible in the age before mass communication. It simply wasn’t possible to get the entire country on the same page until the 20th century.

  97. 97.

    Sloane Ranger

    @rikyrah: Yep. It’s real. Watched The Lead with Jake Tapper. He said CNN originally thought it was a parody so they sent a copy to the White House who confirmed it was genuine.

  98. 98.

    Jeffro

    @Mary G: I took a look at it and wow, am I watching a president* disintegrate before our eyes or a 7th grader?

    @MattF: ah, thank you. I’m sure the Congressional GOP was reassured by the stable genius. What did Lindsey Graham warn? I missed that

  102. 102.

    Elie

    Dude ain’t gonna make it till the end of the year before he completely wigs out such that no one will be able to hide it. He is almost there now and Pelosi is skillfully making him holler louder and louder. We ain’t seen nothin yet is my guess. Scary though. Very scary cause there is no bottom I’m afraid

  104. 104.

    NotMax

    @mrmoshpotato

    Too far-fetched that this Thanksgiving a pair of turkeys are brought out, introduced as being named Joe and Elizabeth and he denies them pardons and proceeds to behead them in the Rose Garden?

    Sadly, no.

  107. 107.

    Mary G

    Scoop: Trump assigned his AG and Treasury sec to deal with Erdogan’s pleas to avoid charges against one of Turkey’s largest banks. In months that followed, no action taken against Halkbank for massive scheme to evade Iran sanctions.Story out soon by @nwadhams, me, @SalehaMohsin— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) October 16, 2019

  110. 110.

    Roger Moore

    @Martin:

    This kind of partisanship wasn’t possible in the age before mass communication.

    I’m not sure that’s either A) true or B) relevant. For example, the American Civil War was an example of extreme partisanship blowing up the country well before the 20th Century, and it was only the last in a string of regional blow-ups. Hell, how would the Revolutionary War have happened if it weren’t possible to coordinate extreme partisanship on a national scale?

    But more important/relevant was that part of the solution the Framers adopted was to try to put things in the hands of a small, presumably wise elite rather than leaving it in the hands of the masses. That was the idea behind the Electoral College and indirect election of Senators. But it’s much easier to arrange extreme partisanship among a relatively small, well connected elite than among a whole country. Just look at the end of the War of Spanish Succession as an example of how partisan and corrupt a government by elites could be, and that’s an example the Framers were certainly conscious of.

  115. 115.

    PaulWartenberg

    @Kent:

    It seems to be an actual letter. trump reportedly gave it to Pelosi and the other House leadership when they visited today in order to show “proof” he was being hard on Erdogan.

  118. 118.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Roger Moore:

    Just look at the end of the War of Spanish Succession as an example of how partisan and corrupt a government by elites could be

    At least that had the virtue of launching the careers of Jonathan Swift and Daniel Defoe.

  120. 120.

    sgrAstar

    @Leto: you are an absolute fount of useful information, Leto. Thanks for the fascinating detail about our overseas nuclear weapons storage.

  122. 122.

    TS (the original)

    I sometimes think I must be the crazy one when I see trump start international “wars” be they physical wars, trade wars, diplomatic wars, reality game wars – and then turn around and say he is the one solving all these problems. It is insanity or megalomania – both appear the same coming from trump.

    As for those who support him to ensure women are kept pregnant & old white men can continue to keep minorities in their place – they are definitely worse for they know what they are doing.

  125. 125.

    Jeffro

    @MattF: @hilts: Well, I neglected to add the “Bad Lindsey” stuff but I just sent the rest of the list off to RWNJ dad and bro to see what their take is…we’ll see.

    On a related note, I had a weird exchange today with NNRWNJM (as in “not normally right-wing nut job Mom”). Oh joy. She is concerned about a NoVA-area candidate for commonwealth’s attorney (odd) whose campaign is being partially funded by a Soros-funded PAC (true…still odd that she would even pay attention to this race, or recognize the name Soros) and who is running on a ‘reform’ agenda. She seems to think this will cause an instant spike in crime, all of which will somehow be directed at her.

    So I sent her a few links and notes: violent crime and property crime in the US generally have been on a 25-year downswing; VA is generally a low-crime state; the higher crime rates are in the SW and Norfolk area, not NoVA. No deal – there was a “suspicious” person acting squirrelly at Panera the other day, after all. (A Caucasian male, so perhaps this is not all racial and is mostly about her getting older/more paranoid. But still)

    I plan on inspecting her countertops at the next available opportunity.

  126. 126.

    cain

    @germy:

    Yes, that jumped out at me also. I still don’t understand it. I wonder what the Italian President thought.

    I think he’s referring to the fact that this continent is called America named after an Italian. But Ancient Rome? I guess it was ancient to him at that time. Heh.

  127. 127.

    waratah

    @Gin & Tonic: even us Aussies know and respect that.
    My first visit home to see my parents with my toddlers the customs guy wanted to keep my children’s sneakers. I had not budgeted to buy any on the trip and was close to tears. I finally told him I had washed them in the washing machine and he passed them.

  128. 128.

    Jeffro

    @Mary G: I think a lot of the CI stuff is bubbling up through Schiff’s inquiry.

    He may want to settle in. We’re probably going to need him for the Truth & Reconciliation (& trials & imprisonment) Commission, circa 2020-2027

  129. 129.

    Jeffro

    BTW folks Pelosi’s new background pic on her Twitter account is…her standing and pointing her finger at the president* (the same one he’s so eagerly tweeting)

    LOLOL

    Dude, just ‘declare victory and go home’ already.

  130. 130.

    waratah

    @NotMax: My sister and her husband had that flu a few weeks ago. She had just put her husband in the hospital because he has bad lungs and when she got home it hit her. She said she has never been that sick and thinks if she had not had the shot it could have been deathly. So please make sure you have your flue shot.
    I know you have a lot of Australian visitors there because they love it. ❤️

  131. 131.

    Gravenstone

    @germy:

    I wonder what the Italian President thought.

    Smile and nod. Smile and nod. The nightmare will be over soon and I can leave.

  132. 132.

    hilts

    @Jeffro:

    I can’t wait till Election Day 2020 is here. Trump’s constant over the top, foaming at the mouth tweets and his insufferable buffoonery are exhausting.

  133. 133.

    Mnemosyne

    @Jeffro:

    Not to bring you down since it sounds like she’s your only sane relative, but creeping paranoia can be a sign of dementia. You may want to take her to the doctor for a cognitive wellness checkup just to be safe.

  135. 135.

    Kent

    I’m starting to understand what it was like to be Roman and live in the time of Caligula or Commodus or Elagabolus or Tiberius.

    When an unstable narcissist is running things behind a praetorian guard.

  140. 140.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Republicans in disarray!

    Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is facing pushback from some of his Republican colleagues over his plan to send a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) warning that the caucus won’t remove President Trump from office.
    Graham raised the forthcoming letter during a closed-door caucus lunch on Wednesday, multiple sources told The Hill.
    The letter, according to Graham’s own description, would warn House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) that Senate Republicans will not vote to remove President Trump from office because of a phone call where he asked the Ukrainian government to “look into” former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden.
    … A GOP senator panned the idea as “one of the dumbest ideas I’ve ever heard from Lindsey.”
    “He’s trying to help but it’s going to backfire,” the senator added. “If there aren’t enough signatures the president is going to look really weak.”

    I suspect Collins and McSally– maybe Ernst and Tillis– also do not want to sign this letter, and probably don’t want to not sign this letter. If they don’t sign, they piss off the MAGAts. If they do, they look like apparatchiks

  141. 141.

    Jeffro

    @hilts: You and me both. In the thread above I just noted a Fox News dot com bit that referenced a Moody’s report that essentially said because of the economy, trumpov is a slight favorite to win re-election. Reeeeeally? When over half the country wants him impeached and removed NOW, 13 months out? I don’t think so.

  143. 143.

    Jeffro

    @Mnemosyne: I’ll take that in the helpful vein I’m sure it was intended, but sometimes an old lady who confuses ‘anecdotes’ for ‘data’ and probably gets most of her news from various Facebook groups is just misinformed, not suffering from dementia.

    Plus she has me, who learned all kinds of good lessons in Sunday school (her teaching, me listening and helping) and puts those values into action…as a Democrat…to shore her up. ;)
    I think we’re good.

  144. 144.

    Jeffro

    @Barbara: yeah, the Dem’s only real opponent is an ‘independent’ who appears to be mostly that – pretty good prior track record. I’ve read a bit about both candidates (the Dam and the Independent) and while I suspect that the Dem will win based on Dem turnout in Fairfax County and straight-party voting alone, should the Independent win, I am not seeing anything crazy happen.

    The R candidate I know nothing about, but at this point NoVA Rs…like the rest of the Rs in Virginia…are really struggling to find their way, define themselves, find much to successfully run on. Hence my constant refrain that Ds really are the ‘center-center’ party at this point.

  145. 145.

    Brachiator

    @Jeffro:

    You and me both. In the thread above I just noted a Fox News dot com bit that referenced a Moody’s report that essentially said because of the economy, trumpov is a slight favorite to win re-election. Reeeeeally? When over half the country wants him impeached and removed NOW, 13 months out? I don’t think so.

    The report noted many caveats and dependencies, including voter turnout. And if you really want to scare people, note that Moody’s actually predicts an easy victory, in part based on the state of the economy.

    Unemployment is low and consumer sentiment is high. Trump is hitting this hard, as well as the far more dubious proposition that he has tried hard to keep his electoral promises, i.e., be honest with his supporters.

    Even though the Moody analysis supposedly has been accurate in the past, I think that Trump is such a divisive and erratic figure that its standard methods may not apply. And the last time it was wrong is very suggestive.

    Moody’s models have been backtested to 1980 and were shown to be correct for each presidential election, except for 2016 when it predicted a narrow victory for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

    If Trump is not impeached and removed, I also think it is possible that he will continue to make increasingly bad decisions whose negative consequences will be quick, obvious and damaging. His core supporters may always be with him, but the rational majority of the country will not blindly follow him anywhere.

  146. 146.

    Steeplejack

    @Jeffro:

    I assume your mom lives with your RWNJ father? Maybe she’s getting a contact high from being exposed to all the right-wing bullshit, and she’s channeling it into her particular “concerns” (whatever has caught her interest).

  147. 147.

    Jeffro

    @Steeplejack: No, actually they have been apart for a couple decades now. This convergence does appear to be linked to contact w/ RWBS, though, as you noted.

    HoEVer…RWNJ Dad’s spouse/my stepmom has quite clearly moved into some weird RW positions over the past several years just from – I’m assuming – Fox being on all the time (and her getting older, etc). It has helped me understand more how they operate on a psychological level with their constant outrage trolling and constant “BREAKING NEWS!”/fear alerts. It’s really interesting. They throw outrageous stuff up all the time and then just keep going. I guess my layman’s understanding is that once they outrage you (‘outrage’ being a threat reaction) about one thing, you become more susceptible to additional propaganda, and start seeing other “issues” as outrageous/a threat.

    She used to be a fairly liberal lib…now she thinks the economy turned around in January 2017, is what I’m saying. Wacky but true.

  149. 149.

    Jeffro

    @Brachiator: Moody’s is clearly re-fighting the last war/re-gaming the last election. The next one, assuming trumpov makes it to Election Day, will not be due to economic performance in either direction. It’ll be a referendum on him, and this country is clearly tired of his act.

    I agree with you that the majority – a growing majority – are wide awake to how he damages everything he touches and is sick of it. He may be much more of a minority-support president than we even realize right now. It’ll be reflected in turnout, assuming he even lasts 13 more months.*

    13 more months like today would be what, 4 crazy-ass obvious signs he’s sick in the head x 395 days? America, are you ready for almost 1600 more news stories like you had today?

  150. 150.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Mary G:

    Someone else shared that with me earlier. It has a date of April 30. Wonder why it’s suddenly being resurrected today, nearly six months later? Has something new happened?

  151. 151.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @cain:

    I think he’s referring to the fact that this continent is called America named after an Italian.

    Fun fact: Amerigo Vespucci was a cousin of the beautiful Simonetta Vespucci, thought to have been the model for Botticelli’s painting The Birth of Venus (aka “Venus on the Half-Shell”).

    ETA: Link

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Birth_of_Venus

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