Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Weird. Rome has an American Pope and America has a Russian President.

I would try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Disappointing to see gov. newsom with his finger to the wind.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

When we show up, we win.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

I’m more christian than these people and i’m an atheist.

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

The fight for our country is always worth it. ~Kamala Harris

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

Books are my comfort food!

We still have time to mess this up!

The press swings at every pitch, we don’t have to.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

“woke” is the new caravan.

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

Museums are not America’s attic for its racist shit.

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Saturday Morning Open Thread: Write Your Own Jokes / Jabs

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Starter: Just be grateful you’re not on the cleanup crew…

President Trump, partial to gold and marble elegance, never took a shine to rustic Camp David. So acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney pitched to him an unusual idea at the start of the House impeachment inquiry: Use the secluded mountainous presidential retreat to woo House Republicans.

Since then, Mulvaney and top White House officials have hosted weekend getaways for Republicans at the historic lodge, seeking to butter up Republicans before the big impeachment vote. The casual itinerary includes making s’mores over the campfire, going hiking, shooting clay pigeons and schmoozing with Trump officials, some of whom stay overnight with lawmakers.

During dinners, Trump has called in to compliment members personally…

The Camp David excursions are one prong of a broad White House charm offensive, meant to hold House and Senate Republicans in line through a House impeachment vote and a trial in the Senate that appears all but inevitable.

Never shy to feud with his own party, Trump has for weeks refrained from full-throated attacks against Republicans who have been even remotely critical of the conduct now under scrutiny by the House: The president’s attempts to pressure Ukraine to investigate former vice president Joe Biden and the Democratic National Committee.

The White House has made sure that a small clutch of Republican lawmakers have accompanied Trump to a trio of recent sporting events, whether at the Ultimate Fighting Championship in New York, the World Series in Washington or at the football game in Tuscaloosa, Ala., between the University of Alabama and Louisiana State University

In recent weeks, the White House has also invited a group of GOP senators every Thursday to have lunch with the president, where the mealtime conversation rarely centers on impeachment but inevitably veers toward it, according to participants. Trump’s message to the senators echoes what he has said publicly against charges that he abused the powers of his office, and Republicans who’ve attended say they feel no overt pressure from the president to stay on his side…

At the Nov. 9 football game in Alabama, Rep. Robert B. Aderholt (R-Ala.) said he listened as Trump spoke — again — about impeachment, expressing surprise while chatting with lawmakers in a luxury box at Bryant-Denny Stadium that Democrats were even moving forward with proceedings.

Trump, again, implored the Alabama and Louisiana Republicans in attendance to read the memorandum of the call with Zelensky. He also stressed that he is pleased Republicans have been united behind him so far.

“He had more impeachment on his mind,” Aderholt recalled, “than anything else.”

Your strategy is working, Comrades Pelosi and Schiff!

2019, in one tweet:

Reader Interactions

188Comments

  2. 2.

    WereBear

    Cone dependence. Puppy needs help :)

     

    A friend sent me a link to the Fox & Friends segment where they stared at the carpet while Hair Furor ranted. Sick comedy gold.

     

    That Ionescue feeling is sweeping over me again…

  4. 4.

    Chyron HR

    Use the secluded mountainous presidential retreat to woo House Republicans.

    Does… does he think that impeachment requires a 2/3 majority in the House?

  7. 7.

    WereBear

    I have always wanted a Warren/Harris ticket. I think that would thread the needle nicely, with Warren planning and Harris in charge of kicking Republican butt.

  9. 9.

    WereBear

    Use the secluded mountainous presidential retreat to woo House Republicans.

    I picked the wrong week to listen to “Behind the Bastards” podcast with a three-parter on Jeffrey Epstein, con artist (at least Bloomberg actually invented something) and pimp to the rich and famous.

  12. 12.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Louis XIV used invitations like this– Marly, the Trianon, his hunting parties– to corrupt, and debase, would-be trouble-makers

    I wonder if trump will invite Susan Collins and Rob Portman to watch him eat breakfast and then observe… other parts of his morning routine. If he does, they’ll go.

  13. 13.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Headline at the Guardian: ‘No one out there’: could Democrats’ lack of star power see Trump re-elected by default?

    Sometimes I just can’t.

  16. 16.

    OzarkHillbilly

    A resentencing hearing on Friday for the former Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky resulted in the same penalty he received after his 2012 conviction for sexually assaulting teenage boys: 30 to 60 years in prison, probably the rest of his life.

    Sandusky was granted the hearing because of a supreme court ruling that minimum sentencing requirements, such as those on which his original sentence was based, were unconstitutional.

    Sporting a faded orange prison jumpsuit, Sandusky smiled broadly to spectators including his wife Dottie as he entered the courtroom at the Centre county court of common pleas in Bellefonte, where his trial was held seven years ago.

    His shoulders slumped when he heard Visiting Judge Maureen Skerda reimpose the 30-to-60-year sentence.

    You mean I’m not getting probation and released immediately? What a bummer.

  21. 21.

    JMG

    Star power? Did the author suggest nominating Oprah? Bold talk from a publication in a country that is choosing between an upper-class twit out of a Monty Python sketch and a moth-eaten old twit who’s a parody of the clueless academic to be ITS leader.

  22. 22.

    germy

    Elon Musk’s net worth dropped $720 million after Tesla’s botched Cybertruck debut https://t.co/f258bioH4v pic.twitter.com/oGVjoiCs7P— Forbes (@Forbes) November 22, 2019

    He lost more money than you'll ever have and he still has more money left over than you'll ever have and that's not because he deserves it, it's because his family stole an emerald mine from the Black people who live in South Africa. https://t.co/yiMR8uxWMd— April Daniels (@1aprildaniels) November 22, 2019

  23. 23.

    Amir Khalid

    @Chyron HR:

    And does he think a fun weekend at Camp David is all it will take to win them over? Incidentally, I seem to recall that the US Government, not Donald Trump, owns Camp David. Isn’t there some rule/law against him using government property for his personal political purposes?

  24. 24.

    germy

    When people get all shiny-eyed about humans living off world, I'm just going to point them to the goddamn cybertruck, "the official truck of Mars." Space is already being branded. It's only going to get worse.

    — Annalee Newitz (@Annaleen) November 22, 2019

  25. 25.

    germy

    RIP Gahan Wilson, who among a bunch of other accomplishments in macabre absurdism in cartooning illustrated a bunch of album covers that'd always stop me in my cratedigging tracks— Nate Patrin (@natepatrin) November 22, 2019

  27. 27.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    More proof that Trump couldn’t make a ham sandwitch without screwing it up.  Let’s just consider the whole idea of the President of the United States having to charm the his own party in the face of almost sure impeachment vote.  (the subtext here, is the Republicans hate him, I’ve heard this from someone who was a lobbyist)

     

    And the cheery on top.

     

    ” During dinners, Trump has called in to compliment members personally…”

     

    Trump can’t find the grace to do that personally.

  28. 28.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud:

      If people vote for trump or stay home because the DEM candidate is lacking in “star power” then I am glad to be dying soon.

  29. 29.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @OzarkHillbilly:  Makes one understand the mean of the phrase “Intellectual voluptuary” doesn’t it?

     

    And what’s Warren with her crowds to hear in speak in the rain, or it doesn’t count because Warren isn’t a guy born before 1963?

  30. 30.

    Baud

    @OzarkHillbilly:

     

    The Dem core is large and solid, but the periphery that we need to actually win elections is flaky and soft.  We saw that in 2016, and that is just something we have to deal with.

  31. 31.

    NotMax

    @germy

    50+ years ago, purely as something to pass the time and for my own amusement, dashed off a rough draft of a Heinlein parody in short story form titled “The Moon Is a Hirsh Mattress.”

    ;)

  32. 32.

    germy

    @Baud:

    Martians are such capitalists.

    And yet a hundred and fifty years ago their biggest public works project was building all those canals.

  34. 34.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Driver fined £100 at BP for taking too long

    “After I filled the car, I went in to pay. I decided while paying to also use the car wash, and having paid for that returned to the car. There were perhaps six cars in front of me waiting to use the wash. I certainly didn’t see any signs warning of the 30 minute limit,” he says

    It later emerged that his wife, the car’s registered keeper, had been sent a previous unopened letter from MET, which had demanded the charge, reduced to £60 if paid within 14 days. He had been on the site for 47 minutes, it said. He says he paid the £100 fearing debt collectors might turn up at their house.

    Last year, media trainer and journalist Guy Clapperton had a similar experience at the same Croydon BP forecourt – receiving the same £100 demand.

    “When I arrived there was a bit of a queue for the petrol pump. There is a Marks & Spencer’s Simply Food shop on the premises, so I stopped to buy a few bits. There was quite a wait for the till. After I had vacuumed the car and waited to use the car wash I’d been on the site 42 minutes and was sent the same £100 demand.”

    After a long battle in which he contacted BP to point out it was penalising its customers for using its services, he was eventually refunded, but he says BP wasn’t interested in his plight.

    “How can it make sense to penalise people who spend £80 or more on your services. An allowance of 45 minutes would be far more reasonable,” he said.

    Imagine patronizing a company that really really really doesn’t want your business.

  36. 36.

    Baud

    @OzarkHillbilly: I was actually agreeing with you in a way.  Lack of star power could doom us, but so could a million other absurd things because we can’t rely on ourselves to win elections but need other people to vote for us as well.

  40. 40.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @OzarkHillbilly: There’s a chain of convenience stores called Wawa in our area. They’ve added gas pumps to their stores in the last few years, and it’s frequently the most convenient place to get gas.

     

    90% of the time when I pull up to the pumps, I’ll find them all blocked by empty cars whose owners are all inside doing their shopping.

     

    i would be very happy if Wawa started handing out $100 fines to encourage people to park in the damn parking spaces and not at the pumps if they’re not actually pumping gas. In fact I’d encourage them to start towing. It really doesn’t take that much effort to start up your car and drive 20 feet.

  41. 41.

    Ken

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Imagine patronizing a company that really really really doesn’t want your business.

    I often get that feeling when dealing with customer service.  None of them have ever fined me for it, though.

    I take that back, there was a bank once that wanted to charge me for using a human teller.  I changed banks.

  42. 42.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    Wooing votes is not necessarily corrupt, but the thing I always want to know about Trump is if I’m paying for his corruption. And with Trump the answer of course is always yes, taxpayer money is being used for partisan political purposes. And that pisses me off no end.

  43. 43.

    Chyron HR

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I can’t imagine anyone at the Guardian would suggest that BERNIE THE BERN lacks star power, so I assume this is a tacit admission that he’s not really a Democrat even as he runs for the Democratic nomination?

  44. 44.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud:

      Yeah, my only point is that if the Criminal in Chief isn’t enough to motivate people to get off their asses and vote, then as Ben would say, we don’t deserve to keep our republic.

  46. 46.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:

      If I need the bathroom or am going to be getting a few things (very rare that I buy anything other than gas at a gas station), I’ll move my truck after filling. But if people are unable to pay at the pump and have to go in and stand in line to pay before they can even begin, I don’t hold that against them.

  50. 50.

    JPL

    @germy: That’s an odd twitter fight.

    Press Sec Grisham said “Somebody who is of an advance age may not understand how twitter works?  Grisham doesn’t realize that her is boss is a doofus and is old.

  51. 51.

    WereBear

    @Ken:I often get that feeling when dealing with customer service.

    Like so much else, “customer service” has been outsourced to us, the consumer.

    I’ll never forget a week I spent on the phone at work, about a bill from AT&T that made no sense. Seriously, a solid week of jumping through their hoops, and it was partly because AT&T corporate culture never called things by their real names. I would ask for a “detailed invoice” and they wouldn’t know what an invoice was.

    So 90% of my time was spent learning their system, their specialized language, figuring out how things had gone wrong, and how it had to be fixed. Then I gave them instructions, in their language, which was the only way it would EVER get fixed.

    Because they didn’t know how to work their own system.

  52. 52.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @OzarkHillbilly: We curmudgeons all make our personal choices what we’ll curmudge about. In an earlier era I’d be writing angry letters to the editor of my local rag every week. Instead BJ is my curmudgeon outlet of choice. You’re all welcome.

     

    I’m not old enough to have watched Steve Allen when he was on air but when I was a kid they showed a lot of his old shows. One of my favorite recurring bits was where he would read letters to the editor and give them all the anger the original author intended. “The POTHOLE on 7th Street still has not been fixed since I complained EIGHT DAYS AGO…!!!”

  55. 55.

    germy

    @debbie:

    Hopefully, the WH will regret that decision before too long.

    Yes, Bolton is a vindictive, bitter, warlike person.  Not someone I’d want to piss off.

    He won’t testify, but he’ll do a lot of pissing into their tent.

  57. 57.

    NotMax

    Closed captioning AI for the old movie running in the background seems to have either suffered a stroke or is now transmitting code. Verbatim, this just flashed up on the screen: “Burnley a gas for today up Holland Tunnel.”

    Which has no relation whatsoever to any of the dialogue.

    :)

  59. 59.

    Kay

    Ever since 2016, when it was reported that there was Russian (state) interference in US congressional elections – only Democratic races- I’ve been wondering about it. 60 minutes is (finally) interviewing the candidates who were targeted:

    Taddeo speaks to Bill Whitaker for a report that explains in detail how the Russians stole the critical information and disseminated it to undermine political candidates in 2016. It will be broadcast on 60 Minutes, Sunday, November 24 at 7 p.m. ET/PT on CBS.
    Taddeo was on her way to a live television debate with her opponent when she learned of the hack. “My opponent Joe Garcia, showed up at that debate with a printout of all the documents,” she tells Whitaker. “We’ve seen a lot [in Southern Florida.] But this was a foreign government. This was so much bigger,” says Taddeo, who says she lost to her opponent by about 700 votes. “You know, I’ve been told by a lot of people, ‘You should stop talking about this. It’s really not good for you politically to remind people that you lost.’ But I refuse to stop talking about it. Because, again, if it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone. And it didn’t happen to me: It happened to our democracy,” Taddeo tells Whitaker.
    Whitaker also interviews John Demers, the assistant attorney general who runs the Department of Justice’s National Security Division, which inherited the Russian hacking case from Special Counsel Robert Mueller. There is no doubt in his mind the Russians executed the hack and strategically disseminated the documents through the online persona Guccifer 2.0. The agents behind Guccifer 2.0 then gave the data to political operatives and local journalists, and it eventually found its way to mainstream media. “So Guccifer 2.0 is a fictional online persona,” says Demers. “It’s all an effort on the Russian side to hide their involvement.”

    LOCAL journalists. So specific to individual House races.

  60. 60.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @germy:

      I think he wants to, hence his going to court as to which is superior, a subpoena from the House or the White House directive? If the court says the subpoena, he’s hoping it will give him enough political cover to still have a career in Republican politics.

    I think he’s wrong but who am I dispel his delusions.

  62. 62.

    SFAW

    gold and marble elegance,

    “Elegance”? The only time the Liar-in-Chief did anywhere close to “elegant” was when he misspelled “illegal” when talking about his own activities.

  63. 63.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww…

    Hunter, a young Belgian malinois, keeps an eye on Jazz, a nine-day-old giraffe, at the Rhino Orphanage in the Limpopo province of South Africa. Jazz, who was brought in after being abandoned at birth by her mother, is being looked after at the orphanage and has been befriended by Hunter and his sibling Duke

  67. 67.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    A brief history of the 45 presidents of the United States: ?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

    — Nathaniel #CountryOverParty (@NewGopforUSA) November 22, 2019

  69. 69.

    ThresherK

    @NotMax: Steve Allen also discovered and basically codified the elements of the successful late-night TV talk show. (See here and I’m sure I’ve poached some Erik Barnouw about this too.)

     

    Doesn’t seem like such an accomplishment, except the format has succeeded for six decades now, and everyone from Carson to Letterman to Colbert to parodists such as Martin Mull (America 2 Night) have made it work.

  72. 72.

    Kay

    @chopper:

     

    Jake Tapper is good about the incessant lying, though. He treats it like a profound problem instead of a delightful celebrity quirk. It is a profound problem. Trump and his employees all lie constantly. It’s not sustainable – it has done extraordinary damage.

  76. 76.

    Kay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

     

    700 votes. Could the stolen information have determined the outcome of that race? Absolutely it could have.

    You know what would be an interesting news story? A list of the D candidates who had their information stolen and their stories. By state and district so we could see how close the races were and how fine-tuned the targeting was to ensure Trump had a GOP majority.

    When did they find out? How did they handle it? How, specifically, was it used and what were the first indications local media were using it?  We would then also have a list of the sitting GOP House members who benefited individually from Russian state interference and theft.

  77. 77.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay:

      They had to accept the help from Russia Kay. It was the only way to counter all the hacking the Ukrainians were doing for DEMs.

  81. 81.

    Kay

    Our county sheriff was convicted of a misdemeanor 4 (just below a felony) and that means he has to be taken off the ballot for what will be a spring 2020 GOP primary. I’ve been following it because everybody is and also because he’s hired a well-known election lawyer to try to stay on the ballot and that area of law interests me. Anyway I know him personally and he’s not been considered either a bad sheriff or corrupt- it legitimately seems to be a one-off error. And that’s what people are saying. They’re surprised. They expected better of him.
    I was wondering if that’s why Trump and the Trump hires mostly get a pass for the rampant corruption. No one expected better.
    Maybe corruption is measured not by the fall but by the distance of the fall. Everyone knew they were lying scumbags going in, so they didn’t fall very far. They barely cleared a rock bottom standard at the outset, so “the fall” is inches not miles.

  82. 82.

    BurisMaMa

    Watch your back, Fredo.

    Use the secluded mountainous presidential retreat to woo House Republicans.

  83. 83.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Astronomers have been racing to understand the impact of future satellite launches since May when Elon Musk’s SpaceX sent up the first 60 of what is expected to become a 12,000-strong internet satellite constellation.

    When I heard of Musk’s project my first thought was, “This can not be good.” Turns out I was right: ‘Not cool’: telescope faces interference from space-bound satellites

    A flagship observatory that will map the heavens in spectacular detail and search the skies for asteroids on a collision course with Earth faces serious disruption from a new wave of satellites bound for space, the Guardian has learned.

    Astronomers on the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, a state-of-the-art observatory due to open in Chile next year, have discovered that its views of the night sky will be marred by thousands of highly reflective communications satellites being launched by SpaceX, Amazon and other firms.

    Researchers on the LSST ran simulations to assess how the telescope would be affected by proposed launches over a decade of planned observations. They found that in some scenarios, almost every image the telescope takes will be spoiled by at least one bright streak produced by satellites passing overhead.

    The scientists modelled the impact of companies launching 50,000 internet satellites into low Earth orbits over the next decade, in line with stated aims. The greatest disruption was to twilight observations, which are crucial for some areas of astronomy, and useful for spotting Earth-bound asteroids coming from the direction of the sun.

    “Astronomical twilight is really, really dark, but about 90% of all our exposures with LSST will have a bright saturated trail across them,” said Tony Tyson, a professor of physics at the University of California, Davis, and chief scientist on the LSST. “At midnight in the summer, about 25% will have a trail, according to our simulation. That’s a huge hit on LSST observing.”
    ……………………………………
    Tyson’s calculations suggest the LSST will be more seriously affected than any other ground-based telescope. It is particularly vulnerable because it observes the entire sky multiple times each week. On a single night, it will take 1,000 exposures, each covering a square as wide as 40 moons in the sky. In all, the astronomers will make 30tn observations of 40bn objects. Construction and operation costs for the decade stand at $1.3bn.

    “It’s designed to scan the sky as rapidly and as deeply as physically possible and that’s exactly the prescription for running into these things,” Tyson said. To the 12,000 satellites already planned, SpaceX may add a further 30,000. Other companies, such as Amazon, OneWeb and Samsung, are interested in launching their own constellations.

    A months-long effort to remove the streaks by processing the images has so far failed. And while it is possible to reschedule the telescope’s observations to dodge small numbers of satellites, it cannot avoid 50,000. “It turns into a wild goose chase. It turns out to be even worse than not doing anything because you end up losing telescope time in a major way,” Tyson said.

  85. 85.

    PsiFighter37

    @Kay: I would very interested to know if they helped a certain local legislator in Hawaii win a contested Democratic primary earlier this decade despite her family’s virulent anti-LGBT history.

  86. 86.

    Gin & Tonic

    William Taylor is back in Kyiv, and the US Embassy has issued a nice video of him speaking on the day of remembrance of the Holodomor, the Stalin-induced famine on 1932-33. The Channel 5 piece leads off with “The USA will never forget the Holodomor.” Taylor says “we are with you.”

     

    That man deserves a medal. His boss deserves a bag of salted dicks.

  87. 87.

    PsiFighter37

    @OzarkHillbilly: Naturally, Musk’s first reaction was to say that having global Internet access was more important.

     

    I credit Musk for doing a couple meaningful things – breaking the monopoly on NASA rocket launches, as well as forcing automakers to start making the long transition to manufacturing electric vehicles – but otherwise, the guy’s a complete asshole.

  88. 88.

    Kay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

     

    My son just finished an electrical update on what was a Ford stamping plant but is now a chopped-up facility that makes various components for several automakers in one plant. So they’re making something for Fords in one section and Hondas in another and Tesla in another. He says the Tesla workers are all low wage temps and horribly bitter because they’re in the same facility with actual permanent, experienced higher-wage employees.

    He says the Tesla workers are in the “sad” part of the plant :)

  89. 89.

    zhena gogolia

    @chris:

    When the referee told Jordan what happened, he alleges that Jordan blew him off with, “Yeah, that’s Strauss.”

    Phrasing!

    I don’t think he’s the “second most contemptible man” in the govt. Maybe third or fourth, after Barr and Nunes.

  92. 92.

    Kay

    @PsiFighter37:

     

    Ooo. Good catch. I’m a Tulsi loather so I would be interested in that. I know this sounds woo-woo but it continues to amaze me that people can’t pick up what is to me such a malicious sense I have around her. I feel like it’s blinking red. It’s like “stay away from that“, on a gut level.

  93. 93.

    jonas

    The White House has made sure that a small clutch of Republican lawmakers have accompanied Trump to a trio of recent sporting events, whether at the Ultimate Fighting Championship in New York, the World Series in Washington or at the football game in Tuscaloosa, Ala., between the University of Alabama and Louisiana State University

    To see crowds boo him and the home team lose a historic game as he watches? That must have really impressed them.

  96. 96.

    hells littlest angel

    This is perfectly normal: Republicans sitting around a campfire, making s’mores and discussing ways they can help Vladimir Putin weaken the United States.

  98. 98.

    Kay

    @PsiFighter37:

     

    Open Secrets had Tulsi donors at 75% men, which is interesting. No one other D candidate has that wide a gender spread. So Right or Right leaning and male.

  100. 100.

    zhena gogolia

    I hear a lot of justifiable cynicism about whether any Congressional Republicans will hold Trump accountable. It’s true; they don’t deserve our confidence, but we must keep demanding that they do right. If our cynicism causes us to lower or silence our expectations, they win.
    — Evan McMullin (@EvanMcMullin) November 22, 2019

  102. 102.

    PsiFighter37

    @Kay: The NYT did a profile on her presidential campaign earlier. My takeaway is that she is still in a cult, and that she and the people she surrounds herself with are weird as fuck. I also think they are too stupid to realize they are unwitting Russian assets.

  103. 103.

    SFAW

    @jeffreyw:

    No doubt Lindsey Graham will be all-in on leaving NATO.

     

    There is no action so egregious that the Traitor-in-Chief could pull that would cause the RWMFs/Rethugs to desert him. The only thing(s) he could do to cause that, would require him to (hypothetically) do something to try to end racism or its effects, and that’s not something I would classify as “egregious.” Since he would never do that …

     

    I used to say that W could go on prime-time TV and strangle “with his bare hands” a bunch of four-year-old girls and boys, and the RWMFs would say “Well, those kids must have done something REALLY bad, to deserve that.” I think it’s even worse with the Traitor-in-Chief.

  105. 105.

    PsiFighter37

    @SFAW: I disagree. The one thing Sweet Lindsey seems to love more than Trump is anything related to extremely hawkish foreign policy that keeps the U.S. involved in as many parts of the world as possible. That said, just like with the Syria stuff, Trump will just verbally bitch-slap him, and Lindsey will assume the supplicant position again.

  106. 106.

    SFAW

    @Kay:

    I think I recall a commenter at another site trying to tell me that Tulsi is far more progressive/liberal than Warren, and that her policies were about 97 percent in line with Bernie’s.

     

    As Arte Johnson/Wolfgang used to say “Ungeliegegable.” [Or something like that.]

  108. 108.

    SFAW

    @PsiFighter37:

    Lindsey will assume the supplicant position again.

    Which was my point. As with Susan of the Deeply Furrowed Brow, Graham talks a great game initially, but he eventually gets back in line.

    In a way, that’s good for me: were he to show some actual contra-Trump backbone, and not reverse himself to stay in Shitgibbon’s good graces, I might need to drop a few nitro pills from the shock.

  111. 111.

    Kristine

    @Kay:

    Open Secrets had Tulsi donors at 75% men, which is interesting. No one other D candidate has that wide a gender spread. So Right or Right leaning and male.

     

    Starbursts.

  113. 113.

    PPCLI

    Sorry if this article is all old news to everyone here, but I found it illuminating framing info. Trump and Rudy had already primed the Biden fake investigation sleaze and it was ready to go with the previous Ukrainian administration, and then the landslide election of Zelensky f*cked up all their plans. That’s no doubt why (as Volker testified) Trump was so visibly angry when aides argued that Zelensky was the real deal and would tackle corruption. Because Trump didn’t want corruption tackled; he had already arranged some corruption that he had been counting on:

    https://washingtonmonthly.com/2019/11/22/the-election-of-zelensky-threatened-trumps-plan-to-exploit-corruption/

  122. 122.

    Ruckus

    @Chyron HR:

    No. But he is worried about senators checking out on him to protect their own asses. All eyes, and noses have to be trained on his fat ass, not on their own careers. They don’t get to protect themselves if they haven’t laid down for him to walk all over them.

  124. 124.

    schrodingers_cat

    @SFAW: The *Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the Facist Brown shorts whose political arm BJP that rules India

     

    *National Volunteer Service Corps  would be a rough translation.

    BJP=Bharatiya Janata Party or the Indian people’s party.

  128. 128.

    mrmoshpotato

    Trump opens up Camp David as an “adult rapist playground“ to woo GOP lawmakers during impeachment

    Fixed. How does your mind not go there when this pile of shit’s first wife said in court documents that he raped her because he was pissed about shitty hair plugs?

  129. 129.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @schrodingers_cat: The YorkiePom woke me at 4:30am, yesterday and today.  She jumps off the bed and with the thicker covers can’t use the stairs to get back up.  The Cocker Spaniel just sleeps in the bed until I wake up, good dog.

     

    ETA: Yesterday, she woke me at 8:30am, but I didn’t get to sleep until 4am, so still she’s an asshole.

  131. 131.

    mad citizen

    @debbie: Thank you for posting this–perhaps my favorite artist in any field all time.  I miss Tom, wonder what he is up to, etc.  But good on him for enjoying himself.  December 7, 1949.

     

    On to the traitorous party, maybe it’s time for a simple, yet humongous, impeach and convict mass protest in D.C.  Hope some people plan this in and around any Senate trial that happens.  I’d been vaguely thinking, since I’ve never been to an inaugeration, of attending the next one, but perhaps attending such a protest would be far more important.  Just reading the news and posts this morning from the last 24 hours is sickening.  Pulling out of NATO?  What?

  133. 133.

    SFAW

    @schrodingers_cat:

     

    Thanks. I recognize the BJP (mostly from your comments), but I don’t recall hearing about the RSS (although you may have mentioned them before, in which case I apologize for the oversight or faulty memory).

  134. 134.

    Kay

    @Baud:

     

    I have a white streak in my hair so I’ve found this commentary very hurtful :)

     

    I love how it looks and I’m not covering it. It just appeared when I changed the part. One of my older friends told me “it looks good NOW but it won’t stay silvery- it’ll just be dull grey”. That seems to be true, sadly.

  144. 144.

    mad citizen

    @Raven: Yes!  Need to watch that one again.  Liked all the stories but the last one transcended.  Waits also had nice minor role in The Old Man and the Gun with Redford/Spacek, although he didn’t get much screen time.

     

    Has anyone seen The Irishman in a theater?  Is it worth the experience?  Just found out it is at a local Flix Brewhouse and I’m debating.  Only review I found on this point says watch in theater because the film builds on itself, etc.  Don’t break it up on netflix.  But I watch things straight through anyway, so that’s irrelvant.  Doesn’t seem like the material/scenery demands a big screen…

  146. 146.

    Matt

    In recent weeks, the White House has also invited a group of GOP senators every Thursday to have lunch with the president

    So he’s LUNCHING with potential jurors in his impeachment trial. And WE’RE buying the lunch.

    A needed reminder: the only good Republican is one that’s safely behind bars. #lockthemallup

  147. 147.

    mad citizen

    @Immanentize: Franks Wild Years was the first Waits I listened to.  I think I was vaguely aware of him, then around 1983/84 in that Rolling Stone year end issue where artists tick off their favorites of the year, 2 or 3 of the R.E.M. guys mentioned Frank’s Wild Years.

     

    Love that album, wish I’d had the wherewithal to have seen the play in Chicago in the mid-1980s or whenever that was; I’m not that far away.  But at least got to see Waits in concert twice in 1999, and once on that short tour around 2006(?).

  148. 148.

    Sab

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: What a classic first world problem.

     

    My dad’s blind elderly cat, who I adopted when I put dad in a nursing home, woke me up at 3 am. He was hungry and lost, so he sat down at the bottom of the stairs and yowled until somebody (me) woke up and fed him. Nightly routine that I am sick of.

  149. 149.

    Amir Khalid

    Crystal Palace have a goal disallowed against visitors Liverpool for a foul by Palace’s Jordon Ayew against defender Dejan Lovren in the buildup. Whew!

    ETA: Fans on the BBC liveblog are complaining that the goal shouldn’t have been disallowed for an off-the-ball foul.

  151. 151.

    chris

    Bah! won’t let me edit.

     

    The server isn't in Ukraine. It's here, in this photo, right next to the Watergate cabinet in the DNC's basement. Lest anyone take this as further proof of some conspiracy, know that one of Crowdstrike's other big clients is the Republican campaign arm, the NRCC. pic.twitter.com/i4XjAIYphQ— Nicole Perlroth (@nicoleperlroth) 23 November 2019

  152. 152.

    Sab

    @Kay: I grew out my bangs and discovered the new white streak. I had hated it. If you like your white streak then I will like mine. Thanks.

  154. 154.

    Sab

    @Kay: I wonder how many billionaires he can sign on for his Mars venture. I am absolutely cheering for injuries. Class warfare and all of that. There are more of us than there are of them.

  156. 156.

    zhena gogolia

    Well, Bret Stephens is calling for impeachment and removal. I haven’t broken my streak of never reading a word he writes (just the headline), but I thought it was notable.

     

    RIP, Michael J. Pollard.

  158. 158.

    MisterForkbeard

    @zhena gogolia: I would be really surprised if he means it. But maybe?

    It’s notable in that more and more conservative friendly voices are starting to turn on Trump publicly over this, but what really matters are his “Trump Right or Wrong But He’s Really Always Right So Fuck You” enablers in the media, which is basically Fox and its satellites.

  159. 159.

    J R in WV

    @OzarkHillbilly:

     

    So Musk’s satellite array, 50,000 of them, will interfere with telescopes searching the sky for asteroids which may collide with the Earth? Hmmm… wonder if that’s part of why Musk want’s to colonize Mars?

     

    Wonder if there is some technical reason they don’t cover the satellites with the new cosmic black substance, which wouldn’t produce as bright a streak as a shiny titanium object? That might cost a little more, maybe the emerald mine his family stole is giving out suddenly?

  161. 161.

    Raven

    @zhena gogolia: He was in the little known “Riders of the Storm” with Dennis Hopper.

     

    “A group of Vietnam vets disturbs television programs from a B-29 airplane. They want to sabotage Mrs Westinghouse’s political campaign who is running for the Senate in support of US military involvement in South America. Mrs Westinghouse orders some nuclear missiles to be launched against the saboteurs, but they manage to avoid the impact and even succeed in exposing a big secret of hers.

  164. 164.

    Chris Johnson

    @debbie: In the ‘no shit, Sherlock’ category…

     

    Also, who upthread was shocked about the Guardian making a story about ‘since there are no Democrats running who are the least bit interesting, Trump will get re-elected’?

     

    Sometimes I’m not sure whether it’s Putin or just plain oligarchy (or to what extent they form some unholy voltron armored with krugerrands) but you cannot be surprised at media outlets trying to explicitly throw the election. Isn’t the Guardian a UK paper? They exist in an incredibly heavy reality exclusion zone, much like our own. I can’t be shocked if their coverage is ‘from where we’re standing, everybody seems to uniformly think Trump will win and the Democrats are crooks’.

     

    Because there’s a very expensive and high-effort full-on war underway that’s been going on for YEARS to redefine ‘from where I’m standing’ for everyone in the West, in very specific ways. And of course you target or straight-up capture the media. Nobody wants to acknowledge that their world is constructed of Russian propaganda, so people accept some wild things as ‘reality’. It’s not by accident.

  165. 165.

    Raven

    @zhena gogolia: A better description:

     

    Dennis Hopper and Michael J. Pollard (Doc Tesla) lead a crew of misfit Vietnam veterans highly trained in psychological warfare and armed with a B29 equipped as a flying pirate TV station creating havoc for the broadcast networks and authorities as they fly the country on a crusade to bring radical philosophies and classic audiovisuals to a conservative and media brainwashed viewing public.

    On the verge of retirement they are compelled to mount one last campaign to destroy a demographically engineered presidential candidate who would see the country brought to war again.

    Extensive explorations into concepts of non-violent defiance of authority and pursuit of justice, questioning conventional morality, exposition of criminal activities in the guise of righteousness by righteous people being classed as criminals by a corrupt establishment, existentialist themes, technology and rock music versus violence and force, nature of religious beliefs, political corruption and post Vietnam issues.

    Some excellent 60’s and 70’s music in the soundtrack. Not to be missed.

  166. 166.

    Amir Khalid

    Wilfried Zaha equalises for Palace against Liverpool. 1-1. Pout.

    ETA: Bobby Firmino restores Liverpool’s lead. 1-2. Big smile.

  167. 167.

    James E Powell

    @Immanentize:

     

    I hope they cover “Frank’s Wild Years.”

     

    I was thinking the same thing, but I checked the track list and no, not on the album. I committed that to memory years ago and I still bring it out from time to time, though usually just the last line.

  169. 169.

    jimmiraybob

    To be honest, I’m a bit surprised that none of his loyal minions has yet gotten him to rename it Camp Trump.

  170. 170.

    Miss Bianca

    @NotMax: I *loved* “Meeting of Minds”! There was a point in my young life (ages 16-17) when that and “The Muppet Show” were the only things I watched on TV!

  171. 171.

    J R in WV

    @Kay:

     

    One of my older friends told me “it looks good NOW but it won’t stay silvery- it’ll just be dull grey”.

     

    Not so !!! Wife was in her mid-60s the last time we went to NYC, were at BB King’s nightclub to see Jimmy Vaughn, having dinner before the show (great huge porterhouse steak we split) when a young woman came over to tell wife how lovely her long silver hair was.

     

    Totally unexpected bonus compliment which I have used ever since when she is down about something. So if you take ordinary care of your hair, which is all she does, shampoo and conditioner in the shower, you too will/may have beautiful platinum silver hair.

  172. 172.

    Amir Khalid

    The final whistle blows after five minutes of injury time: Crystal Palace1-2 Liverpool. Liverpool win by another Kloppage-time (i.e. very late) goal but no Liverpool fan really minds that. YNWA!

  173. 173.

    germy

    The Batman director Matt Reeves has confirmed John Turturro is playing the mob boss Carmine Falcone in his upcoming DC Comics adaptation.

    Casting updates for The Batman have been coming in fast and hot of late, well ahead of the start of production in 2020 and release a year later. Recently, the film added Zoë Kravitz as Catwoman, along with Paul Dano as Riddler, Andy Serkis as Alfred Pennyworth, Colin Farrell as Penguin, and newcomer Jayme Lawson in an unknown role, all on top of Jeffrey Wright as Commissioner Jim Gordon. Today brings yet another casting announcement for the film, and this time straight from Reeves himself.

    https://screenrant.com/batman-2021-movie-cast-john-turturro-mobster-falcone/

  175. 175.

    Amir Khalid

    Up next in the EPL: Manchester City host Chelsea as they duke it out for third place, behind two teams whose names begin with L: Liverpool and Leicester City.

  178. 178.

    germy

    The IG office spent months chasing down anti-Trump bias and found bureaucratic errors that didn’t affect the investigation. Comey told them he kneecapped Clinton and interfered in an election to appease Trump partisans in the NY FBI office and they just didn’t give a shit. https://t.co/aCRoC0Ekaz

    — Adam Serwer? (@AdamSerwer) November 22, 2019

  179. 179.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @JMG:

    a moth-eaten old twit who’s a parody of the clueless academic to be ITS leader.

    Uh oh: TonyJay has entered the chat

  180. 180.

    VOR

    @SFAW: you laugh, but CNN (I think) recently asked a Trump supporter if it was okay if Trump shot someone. The answer was, it would depend on why he shot them.

  183. 183.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @sukabi: indeed, it’s been obvious since our Media betters couldn’t figure out why the general public didn’t share their outrage over Bill Clinton having consensual sex with an adult woman. Going by the lawsuits somethings are just unnatural to them.

  184. 184.

    WaterGirl

    @germy: Can you say more about what you mean by that?  Scrolling with a trackpad?  A mouse with a wheel?  Every thread?  Just this one?

    Inquiring minds want to know. :-)

  185. 185.

    planetjanet

    Since the November elections, I have been purging my email, trying to get off of so many fundraising lists.  It was sad to unsubscribe to MoveOn, having been a member since the 90s, but the emails were just neverending.  Most are candidates I have never heard of, but basically legit.  Today is a lazy day, so when one came in from Dump Trump, I did a little investigating before I unsubscribed.  There were no direct links to their website, just ActBlue, for the vaguely named Nominee Fund.  Took a bit to find the website.  Google searches for the name brings up lots of similar sounding names.  The only stated goal was to raise $2500 for each candidate who qualifies for the DNC debates as of January 1, 2020.  Incredibly modest goal, Balloon-Juice can easily blow that away.  Of course, this is only after expenses.  The email listed an Austin, TX address.  Looking on the FEC website, I finally found a registration, listing Brandon Philipczyk as the Treasurer.  The address was a WeWork location in Southeast DC.  Might as well be a post box at UPS.  A LinkedIn profile of Philipczyk shows his position as Chief Operating Officer for the Florida Democratic Party.  So he appears to be a run of the mill political gopher, with his own sideline. Thankfully, another FEC search shows he only reported $6000 in donations for the first half of the year.  Naturally, $0 went to candidates and $5000 to consultants.  Is there anyway to stop this?

  186. 186.

    J R in WV

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

     

    So, are you posting from the mid-Atlantic, heading towards South America?

     

    So cool… have always wanted to travel by ship without being in the USN. Our one cruise last winter to Baja for whale watching was great fun, summer camp at sea, very informal, the whales were great!

     

    But we didn’t actually cruise very far at all.

     

    ETA: What ship or cruise line are you traveling with, if you don’t mind saying? We’re looking for an adventure next spring…

  188. 188.

    Martin

    I think it was clever of Trump to get Mulvaney to write the checks for the hookers and porn stars. Grade A presidenting right there.

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