A possum broke into an Australian bakery and ate so many pastries it couldn't move. This is how they found him. pic.twitter.com/FxmK9l3cwo
— Adam(Alaa) Bujairami (@AdamBujairami) December 24, 2019
Dumb “controversy” for a dumb time:
Fox News is triggered by their Orange Savior being cut out of an old movie in Canada pic.twitter.com/ufV4VwGJHF
— Acyn Torabi (@Acyn) December 27, 2019
The thing you have to remember is Trump COVETED every one of his dumb cameos where he got to play a New York big shot while actual New York big shots were doing actual big shot things and not living off their dad’s bail outs.
— Schooley (@Rschooley) December 27, 2019
If you’re just joining us, the President of the United States is lashing out at the Prime Minister of Canada because his ten-second cameo in HOME ALONE 2: LOST IN NEW YORK (1992) got cut for time on Canadian television. Everything is fine. pic.twitter.com/i3zEhoXXip
— Scott Wampler™ (@ScottWamplerBMD) December 27, 2019
Nothing says paranoid and feeling under siege like freaking the fck out because a foreign country edited your racist savior out of an old, mediocre, widely panned Christmas movie. https://t.co/mw5Ujph89F
— Ragnarok Lobster (@eclecticbrotha) December 27, 2019
Fox News: Cutting the Trump scene from Home Alone 2 is censorship.
Also Fox News: STOP CALLING THEM CONCENTRATION CAMPS THEY’RE DETAINMENT FACILITIES! https://t.co/0k430hBCkm
— The Volatile Mermaid (@OhNoSheTwitnt) December 26, 2019
The best part of Trump being edited out of Home Alone 2 movie is the chance to remind everyone that the only reason he was in it is because he forced producers who shot movies at his hotels to feature him in a cameo. Most had the good sense to cut him from the final edit. pic.twitter.com/StTCwfOdFk
— Don Moynihan (@donmoyn) December 27, 2019
Canada cut Trump out of Home Alone 2!
– Wasn't he in it for like 7 seconds? And haven't they been running the edited for length version for years?
Look, it's Christmas week, the pickings are slim.
— Schooley (@Rschooley) December 27, 2019
***********
And a final note on WH-related holiday ‘festivities’:
Imagine being a non-native speaker in America and having to cover for a guy whose first language is English because he sucks so bad at talking. https://t.co/WvPplRkUeK
— The Volatile Mermaid (@OhNoSheTwitnt) December 25, 2019
Baud
Boomer anger?
Stop trying to appeal to the children.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Sounds better than “Silent Anger”.
Betty Cracker
Australian possums are not the same as American ones. They can probably shoot boiling acid out of their eyes or something.
NotMax
“Cameo? Everyone said I deserved an Oscar. Or two.”
//
OzarkHillbilly
If I had a cameo cut out of HA 2 I’d probably send the producers a thank you note.
SFAW
@NotMax:
Fixed
SFAW
@OzarkHillbilly:
As would we.
Betty Cracker
Are we back up?
debbie
Ah, so that must have been Trump’s last-minute Christmas gift for Melania: “Get on that phone and make those stupid NORAD Santa calls for me. You’re welcome.”
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Betty Cracker: Looks like it.
Playing with the Chromium version of Edge, you can turn a webpage into an app. Kinda interesting to see Balloon Juice on my start menu.
SFAW
The Moron-in-Chief’s “blunder last Christmas”? Does that refer to the “Santa doesn’t exist, you dumb seven-year-old” thing? Or was there something else. [Yeah, I realize how unlikely it is that he would screw up TWO things in one season, but still …]
OzarkHillbilly
@SFAW: Touche. Of course, that would mean you actually watched it, more than once.
SFAW
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Interesting. On my system, it reformats my hard dr
OzarkHillbilly
SFAW
@OzarkHillbilly:
The priest told me that, instead of 10,000 Ave marias and 10,000 Pater nosters, I could do my penance by watching HA2 three times. Easy, right?
I ended up begging him to let me do 20,000 of each, rather than watch the last 110 minutes of the first viewing.
I’ve been a very good boy since then. .
ThresherK
The Home Aloneses were never my thing, but by watching a YouTuber’s review of the second movie I learned that Trump once owned The Plaza.
My wife (tea geek) and I had afternoon tea there, and it was everything you’d dream of for something supposed to be big-city fancy and refined. I felt like a Barbarian just being there!
The Plaza is a historical landmark. And it must be, in order to survive his proprietorship.
SFAW
@ThresherK:
The rest of us will just have to be Juicers to feel that way.
debbie
How stupid must someone be to think the leader of one country would order that a leader of another country be cut out of the movie? Oh, wait, never mind.
debbie
@ThresherK:
I had tea at the Plaza, well before Trump bought it in 1988. I feel very fortunate for that.
ThresherK
@SFAW: There was fancy music played by two German and/or Yiddish accented littleoldmen, one on piano, another strolling with a violin. They played the Gershwins’ “Love is Here to Stay” on my request.
It was like being an extra in a Paramount movie from the 1930s.
(Cue NotMax and some of our other film buffs.)
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
Heh!
They Impeached his cameo!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@SFAW: You’re holding it wrong.
bystander
Somebody edited the Wikipedia entry for HA2 to note that twitler is the only cast member of the movie who has been impeached.
NotMax
@ThresherK
There’s that B word again (emphasis added).
?BillinGlendaleCA
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: Impeached and Removed.
Jager
@ThresherK:
A friend of mine was just getting started in the broadcast brokerage business, he wrapped up the sale of a TV station and was enjoying a late-night cocktail in the Plaza Bar in the early 80s. A lovely young lady sat next to him and struck up a conversation. He bought her a drink. She asked him what he did for a living, he said he had just started his own business. She told him she had her own small business. My pal asked her what it was. She smiled and said, “Its right here between my legs.”
Baud
@Jager: She sold aspirin?
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@NotMax: So he bought the hotel for $826 million (adjusted for inflation) and then he added $105 million in renovations (adjusted for inflation) for a total investment of $931 million. Then it was sold for $895 million. Losing $36 million.
Can you imagine – people usually turn a hefty profit with top of the line NYC real estate, even when adjusted for inflation. But not Dump. No, no him. He found a way to lose a ton of cash with “the Mona Lisa”.
So much winning.
Sad!
ThresherK
@Jager: A real high-class place only attracts the classiest bidnesspeople.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@Baud: Bwhwhwhahhahahahhahahahahhahahha
Jager
@Baud:
Maybe, whatever she was selling, my pal paid her $250 for it, what’s that adjusted for inflation?
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone ? ??
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Jager: A really expensive aspirin.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@rikyrah: Morning.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@Jager: Adjusted for inflation, it would be one large divorce court settlement.
Jager
@ThresherK:
I’m spitballing here, but when trump took the Plaza over, the hooker minimum was raised to $1,000 and he personally approved every working girl. And he got a cut because it was “His fcking money!” So to speak,
Jager
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
He was single and he said it was cheaper than a dinner and show
The Dangerman
PLEASE tell me there were no P0rns shot in the Plaza while Trump owned it.
germy
Keeping In Shape
The Benchley short subject (Paramount) on the importance of diet, physical fitness and dental health.
SFAW
@The Dangerman:
That’s kind of a big ask
ETA: And my Mom taught me not to lie.
ThresherK
@Jager: But, it’s half-off if you go to the TKTS booth.
For the show, not the aspirin. Going strictly on hearsay, half-off small businesswoman aspirin is not what you’d want to buy.
JMG
I am working to a strict Congressional schedule and choose to think as little as I can about Trump and politics until after New Year’s Day. Today is my daughter Hope’s last full day here with us before she returns to her life in Bordeaux on Saturday evening. This is sad, although it’s always nice to remember that the next visit will be TO her new home town by us.
Betty Cracker
TPM investigative reporter Josh Kovensky used to work for the Kyiv Post, so he has interesting contacts and insights into Ukrainian politics. His work is always worth a read, IMO. Anyhoo, here’s a link to Kovensky’s account of a Ukrainian acquaintance — Andrii Telizhenko — who now appears to be a key player in feeding bullshit Russian propaganda to Giuliani and GOP senators.
Jager
@SFAW:
Would he demand a cameo?
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: Big Phama hires attractive women; why shouldn’t a small aspirin manufacturer do the same? I know it is lookist, but bidness is bidness.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Yesterday, my son said I put horrible Little Debbie cakes in his lunch when he was in school, and then refused to cut his sandwiches diagonally. WTF? If he’d said, I refused to buy him Little Debbie on the grounds that it’s crap and made him make his own sandwiches, I’d have believed him. Where do they come up with this stuff?
arrieve
It will be no big surprise that Ivana’s renovation of the Plaza was very controversial at the time — all Trump glitz. On the other hand, they now have a food court on the lower level. It’s a very nice food court, but still. I sometimes duck in there to use the bathrooms.
I once saw Roy Cohn in one of the bars in the early 80’s. The vendor who was taking us out for drinks starting screaming at him about McCarthy and he left.
Baud
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Russian disinformation.
MomSense
@ThresherK:
A really good friend of my parents worked at the Plaza. It was a nightmare that ruined his family financially. They ended up leaving New York and the hospitality industry. It’s not my story to tell, but Ivana is just as horrible as Donald.
khead
@Omnes Omnibus:
I thought about one of those jobs back in the day. I have all the right scientific credentials. It’s just that I’m too ugly and have principles. A few, anyway.
mrmoshpotato
Dump’s throwing a temper tantrum about Home Alone 2, and I’m wondering, “WTF was the plot?” while fondly remembering the first movie.
mrmoshpotato
@SFAW: Haha Isn’t it Zombieland where p0rn is shot after closing in every store they go to?
OzarkHillbilly
@khead:
That’s all it takes.
chopper
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
worse. after the bankruptcy it sold again valued at $535 million (adjusted). so he overpayed by $291 million before renovations.
Immanentize
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Memory is tricky business. It is overlays of yours and other people’s remembrances. That said, who remembers the experience of the lunches better, him or you?
Did he like a Little Debbie or a Ring Ding? Then he has a good memory. Oddly, my mother refused to make us lunches at all as the lunch card deal at the school was so good. And she frankly had better things to do than 3 lunches in the late 60’s.
jimmiraybob
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
Impeached, convicted and removed.
Steeplejack (phone)
Borkita o nik borkita?
ETA: Nik borkita.
Immanentize
@arrieve: Excellent vendor, there. I hope you gave him plenty of business.
Gin & Tonic
@khead: My sister took one of those jobs for a few years after her divorce. She has no scientific credentials, but she was (and still is, all things considered) attractive, and really needed the money.
OzarkHillbilly
@Immanentize:
So did my mother. That’s why we had to make our own.
mrmoshpotato
Good for that possum! Those pastries weren’t going to eat themselves!
Zinsky
I can think of a couple of other things of Trump’s that need to be cut off!
Ken
@mrmoshpotato:
“The first one made huge amounts of money.” Same plot as most sequels, really.
satby
@Baud: I LOLed so hard I wheezed!
I have to quit waking up at 4 am and falling asleep again at 6. Just woke up again. It’s confusing the dogs.
mrmoshpotato
@Ken: Hahaha
Immanentize
@Gin & Tonic: Just to be clear — your sister worked for a Pharma company?
mrmoshpotato
It’s 35 degrees outside! With tomorrow being 49/48, huh?
satby
@Dorothy A. Winsor: if that’s his worst childhood grievance, you done good.
I never got the little kid obsession over diagonal cut sandwiches. For a time my kids had it too. But my kids got free lunch, so they are what the school offered or they went hungry. No Little Debbies.
Kattails
I’ve got two ads up on this site right now paid for by the Trump Make America Great Again Committee. Are they aware of who they’re targeting?? One is Quid Pro Joe and the other is Pelosi impeachment hoax. No way in hell I’m going to click on them so they can grab my info.
Ruckus
@satby:
I wake up at 1am and 5am. Every damn day.
There is a cat that has been meowing outside and I’ve gone looking for it and finally saw it. A gray, looks OK from 25 ft away. Runs away every time she sees me, back into the bushes where I can’t find her and she won’t make a sound when I’m around I say her because this seems like the way a new mom might act if her new babies were in need and it’s 39 deg outside. Or the poor thing might be scared. Any way has anyone got any ideas?
zhena gogolia
Please tell me Sanders isn’t going to get the nomination.
zhena gogolia
I just saw this headline on my NYT: “Fierce Loyalty Re-energizing Sanders’s Bid.” How can anyone look at Sanders and Warren and pick Sanders???????
Ruckus
@zhena gogolia:
Sanders isn’t going to get the nomination.
He will screw up the entire process though because it’s so presidential to throw a tantrum when a spoiled brat doesn’t get what he wants…..
Wait a minute, haven’t we seen this play before, and/or currently?
SFAW
@Jager:
Sure, but that would mean that the “director” would need to use an extreme-zoom lens on the camera, or the inchage would have been left on the cutting room floor, because there wasn’t enough “material.”
chris
I’m glad* I voted Liberal, ie. for Justin, the man with a plan! Much forward thinking!
*Not really, I voted strategically against the conservative wankers.
OzarkHillbilly
@zhena gogolia: Sanders isn’t getting the nomination.
XX vs XY. Answer your question?
zhena gogolia
@Ruckus:
I know, sigh.
SFAW
@zhena gogolia:
Yes, it’s a manstery.
Ruckus
@zhena gogolia:
Elect a woman?
Or an old, old man with one HA already in the books?
Hmmmmm, tis a puzzle, what should we do.
I’m thinking – go with the woman, we’ve tried insecure, shouty men and that’s gone so stunningly well…….
zhena gogolia
@OzarkHillbilly:
Unfortunately, the only die-hard Sanders fans I know are women. It’s terribly depressing.
mrmoshpotato
@Ruckus: Oh, you just wait until the Canucks cut Wilmer out of Home Alone 19! (Shark still looks fake.)
Josie
@satby:
My youngest son is 35, and his friends still swoon over the peanut butter sandwiches cut diagonally that I used to serve when they came over to play. It’s so strange what memories kids stick with.
Tenar Arha
@Dorothy A. Winsor: It’s super weird what I remember from my childhood. My parents used school lunch to teach me & my brother money handling.
School lunch was how I “earned” my pocket money after 1st/2nd grade. The difference between the 5 cent milk & the hot lunch was mine. My mother bought me my sandwich fixings & extras (though if IIRC I got Ding Dongs or Yodels there had definitely been some added begging in the grocer’s and maybe a chore involved). At some point, I’m not sure when exactly, my brother got the same offer & learned how to make his lunch too.
mrmoshpotato
@Josie: Hope you have strategically placed fainting couches. :)
Ruckus
@Josie:
Never did get the deal with needing cut sandwiches. It tastes exactly the same.
Maybe easier to hold with small hands? Less likely for the contents to drip out (PB&J!)
Baud
@zhena gogolia: Your own fault for reading the NYT for news on domestic politics.
OzarkHillbilly
@zhena gogolia:Yeah, I know a few of them too. Funny enough they also seem to have Daddy issues.
Gin & Tonic
@Immanentize: Yes. I believe they are called “detail people.”
Ruckus
@mrmoshpotato:
You really think Wilmer is going to be around for HA 19, when they can’t get funding for 6-18 yet?
Josie
@Ruckus:
It’s easier to avoid eating the crust.
OzarkHillbilly
@Ruckus:
Easier to avoid eating the crust.
Gin & Tonic
@satby: I’ve always hated having my sandwiches cut, whether it’s diagonally, horizontally or vertically. Took years for my wife to get that. But she understands now, and whenever i need a sandwich she says “make your own fucking sandwich.”
mrmoshpotato
@Ruckus: Maybe they’ll take the Thankskilling route and skip to 19. BTW, shark still looks fake.
Another Scott
‘Morning everyone.
Only a few more days until 2019 is behind us. Here’s hoping 2020 is much, much better.
Speaking of Donnie, TheHill:
But Donnie knows best, trashing the UCMJ, etc., etc.
Grrr….
But there’s another big problem – why was Gallagher allowed to be in the SEALs? Why wasn’t he weeded out much, much sooner?
Cheers,
Scott.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Ruckus: The thing I don’t get about Sanders is that he can’t win the nomination without some of the people who chose HRC over him, and he doesn’t seem to be making any effort to get them. Maybe I’m just not looking in the right places?
Tenar Arha
@Ruckus: Definitely keep asking in different threads, bc I’m sure satby, WereBear, & TaMara will have good advice. But here’s a link to a Feral Cat org that has tips.
Betty Cracker
I wouldn’t count Sanders out. Many things have broken his way.
Warren’s brief flirtation with front-runner status drew all the fire from incrementalists and corporate interests that might have otherwise come for Sanders. The same media that got the white-hot fantods over Hillary Clinton’s minor medical issue in 2016 seems to find a 78-year-old male candidate’s heart attack completely uninteresting.
I could totally see the race coming down to Sanders vs. Biden, and if that happens, Sanders definitely has a shot. He has scads of money and an enthusiastic base of supporters.
Also, as we all know, Trump is weaponizing his office to shit all over Biden and will continue to do so. It hasn’t made a dent in the primary race polling so far, but who knows what’s going to happen — the bogus corruption allegations against Biden could eventually redound to Sanders’ benefit too.
OzarkHillbilly
@Josie: Beat me by this much.
One of my earliest memories was of making lunch before school. They usual chaos of 4 kids and an adult in the kitchen all trying to eat breakfast and make lunch. I don’t recall who the adult was but it had to be a neighbor because my mother was in the hospital giving birth and my father was with her of course. The phone rang and somebody answered. Again I can’t recall who it was but they hung up and said that my new little brother had died an hour after birth. All I thought was “Awww, that’s too bad.” It wasn’t real to 5 yr old me
The strange thing is I was in Kindergarten and the school had a half day program of Ks. All I can think is I was under the watchful eye of one of my big Sisses for the day and was going to be in the afternoon K session as well.
It’s funny what the mind hangs onto and what it lets go of.
SFAW
@Another Scott:
“So I looked at the shrink, and I said ‘Shrink, I wanna kill.’ ”
.
.
“And they came over, pinned a medal on me, and said ‘You’re our boy.’ “
catclub
I might have even been responding to you when I wrote that it would be nice if he had time for his job, rather than simply ranting on twitter all the time.
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker: Speaking only for myself, I’m not counting him out. I was just telling Ruckus what s/he needed to hear in the hopes they’d feel better.
satby
@Ruckus: she sounds like a feral. Put some food and water out for her/him. It’s unlikely to have kittens now but not impossible, so if it’s a female reliable food is the best way to help any kittens too. And contact Alley Cat Allies to see if a group in your area can come by and humanely trap and assess the cat. They can get it spayed or neutered, and if it looks like there may be kittens they can probably find them to rescue.
Ruckus
@Josie:
@OzarkHillbilly:
My mom’s dad passed away during the depression. We learned to never throw away food, like it or not. I’ve had the same brussle sprouts 3 meals in a row. I didn’t throw them away, but I didn’t eat them either.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@catclub: you’ll be happy to know he got back to work and tweeted that everyone should watch his friend and MAGAt buddy Jon Voigt on “the hit show” Ray Donovan. If you see Voigt is trending on twitter and wonder, he has not gone to his reward.
catclub
@Gin & Tonic: So when your wife told you “You’re going to eat this cut sandwich and you’re going to like it.” Smartass you said “No”? Well done, I guess.
Betty Cracker
@Another Scott: Also disturbing that Gallagher isn’t the only psycho war criminal Trump recently pardoned. Odds are one of them eventually kills an American on U.S. soil, probably a partner. The MAGA chuds won’t care.
Barbara
@debbie: I would bet even money that, like me, Justin Trudeau had no idea that Donald Trump ever had a cameo in Home Alone 2.
zhena gogolia
If Sanders is the nominee I may really have to look into emigration.
Percysowner
Youtube declares John Lennon’s classic “Happy Xmas” to be “offensive content”
Because of course it does.
germy
@Percysowner: Lots of the images used are of dying and wounded victims of war. Which apparently triggered youtube’s offensive image algorithm.
germy
Barbara
@Percysowner: They probably can’t figure out an algorithm to send people who listen to it to extremist content. So of course, it is “offensive” to their business model.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Percysowner: can they take Wonderful Christmastime with them too?
satby
@zhena gogolia: you won’t be the only one.
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
I understand.
I think he’s a spoiler, nothing more.
He probably doesn’t know that, I see him as an angry old man who’s done shit his entire life and made nothing of the opportunities that have been right in front of him. He has support, but while it seems strong, he has pissed off a lot of people who would need to vote for him. Maybe he’s hoping that trump is so vile that he looks good in comparison. As a human, maybe, as president? Now we are in a political crisis and yes he may end up being the least bad choice, but to me that’s as good as it will ever get. I’m pissed because the women are being shoved aside for old white men, once again. We’ve done old white men for, well ever, and how has that worked out? We tried different and he was one of the best presidents ever. I’m for trying different once again.
This country and several others are fucked, because of greedy old white men, as the world has been a number of times in history.
The world is changing, what with population, climate, hate, greed….. and it’s getting unsustainable. Now we’ll never be rid of problems, we are humans after all, but not finding or even looking for solutions to mitigate at least a percentage of the issues will make things far worse. My life is on the downhill side and while I may have a couple of decades, on the overall score of things, that ain’t much. But there is a huge mass of people far younger than me and they deserve a better life, especially if they get it at the expense of the massively greedy fucks that have been stealing it from all of us.
satby
@Tenar Arha: ?
Barbara
@germy: John Lennon has been dead since 1980. Sly Stone used the same imagery. We wouldn’t do it today but it seems a little extreme to banish the song for that reason.
Baud
@Ruckus:
One somewhat positive thing about Biden is that he’s probably the least “policy” candidate of the bunch. I say it’s positive because we really need to start taking Congress more seriously as a chief policy making body in the government.
HarlequinGnoll
Could’ve been worse for Trump, he could be on his knees in that movie telling us he loves is. (Or someone does a head replace for that scene)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Ruckus: he showed his ass the other day when he included something called “the Democratic establishment” in his list of enemies to the cheers of his cultists. He’s canny, and dishonest, enough to lie about “respect” (I think was the word he used in the last debate) for Obama, but from his calls for a primary challenge in 2012 to his bellowing about the Democratic Party being a “fayl-yuh” in 2017, he’s shown himself to be as naive, arrogant and deluded about American politics and the electorate as any of the adolescents (of all ages) who cheer him on.
schrodingers_cat
Someone made this about Modi supporters but it could be easily applied to our R Congress Critters defending the Orange clown in the WH
Ruckus
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
He seems to be running on the support he had last time, thinking that this time it will work so much better.
He’d be 79 yrs old when taking the oath of office. Who is going to be his running mate? I want to know.
He’s had one HA, @78, that doesn’t bode well for his health O/A, especially given the stress of running for president and the job itself.
He’s only “worked” as a rep/senator his entire working life. Where’s his experience in running any kind of project, big or small?
He yells at people when they don’t agree with him 100%, is that a mark of a proper leader, one who weighs the pros and cons of a situation?
Need I go on?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: as I keep saying, Biden will be as good/bad progressive/whatever as Congress makes or allows him to be, and at this point he looks like the one who will throw the least baggage on the necks of down-ticket candidates
germy
@Barbara:
It hasn’t been banished. You just need to prove to youtube that you’re over 18 before you can watch a video his estate put together using images of dead and dying people.
I think the only one that’s really been memory-holed is “Woman Is The N***r Of The World” – it doesn’t get airplay anymore.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I don’t see Biden vetoing a whole lot. I suspect some of his appointments will be disappointing from a progressive prospective. As far as down ticket races, I really don’t know where the inflection point is on the safe vs. inspirational graph. I don’t believe, however, that purple and reddish areas are full of secret socialists. To the extent Bernie gets their votes, I think it’s more a function of their shared hatred of us.
satby
@Ruckus: I hate Sanders almost as much as I hate Trump, because they’re two sides of the same coin. If he became the nominee, a vote for him wouldn’t be for him, it would be against Trump and the Republicans. But I’d be working on expatriating if that came to pass.
Calouste
@debbie: You know the shitgibbon would try to order CBS to cut Trudeau from the movie if there was one he’s in.
zhena gogolia
@satby:
I feel exactly the same. He’s a nightmare and I do not at all understand the support for him. It’s just like Trump — WHAT DO THEY SEE AND HEAR WHEN THEY LOOK AT AND LISTEN TO HIM????
kindness
Who has seen this headline over at DKos this morning:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/12/27/1908087/-Russia-China-Iran-plan-joint-naval-drills-in-Gulf-of-Oman#view-story
Another Scott
@Ruckus: One of the things that bothers me most about St. Bernard is the tone he takes when he talks about Donnie compared to that taken when wink-wink-nudge-nudge he’s talking about Democrats and The Establishment™ and anyone on the left who disagrees with him on policy.
E.g.:
(His Twitter feed goes after Donnie with more vigor (I think those are written by someone else), but St. Bernard’s actual spoken statements are often quite mild. Almost obsequiously so.)
But when he changes the topic to the economy and M4A and The Establishment™, Watch Out!!1
Bottom line – he is so wedded to his stump speech that he cannot address the real problems that the US (and the world) is facing. And that problem is that governments have been hijacked by RWNJs and racists and know-nothings that are preventing governments from addressing items of critical importance (AGW, voting rights, health care, rent-seeking by industry and oligarchs, the rise of authoritarianism, etc., etc.).
Grrr…
I don’t think Bernie is going to do as well as in 2016. Back then, those who hated Hillary with a white-hot passion had (almost) nowhere else to go than with him. This time, not so much. But he will almost certainly hang around far too long again – it’s a living for him and Jane, after all…
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@zhena gogolia: to the extent that twitter’s a guide– ETA, and while I’m usually the first to say twitter isn’t real life, I think Rose Twitter does speak for Bernie-world–, they really believe in the power of the Righteous Bellowing. Once The People are allowed to hear Bernie– lots of a talk about a media blackout, including by Chris Hayes, who I would swear has the old fool on at least every other week– their false consciousness will fall away and they will embrace Our Revolution.
Baud
@Another Scott:
That’s not voting Democratic.
(But kudos for not saying Democrat.)
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
That’s the problem if he wins it all. His entire presidency would consist of bellowimg at Democrats for not enacting his agenda wholesale.
Omnes Omnibus
@zhena gogolia: You need to calm down.
Betty Cracker
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Klobuchar made a “coattails” argument for herself in the most recent debate. It sort of puzzled me at first — most people who don’t pay close attention to this shit don’t even know who she is, so what coattails? But I figure she was saying her policies are no more likely to rile up opposition than Biden’s are.
Gin & Tonic
@Baud:
Zero chance. If he gets the nomination it will be like 1964.
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: Sanders isn’t going to get the nomination. I predict that he will lose NH too.
I live within an half hour’s drive to Vt and less than an hour away from NH, this was BS country the last time around. The support for him has considerably cooled down here. Rose Twitter is not representative of D primary electorate
His support on the ground here has waned since 2016.
Omnes Omnibus
@Betty Cracker: I think we (political obsessives, that is) tend to miss how much ordinary Democrats (of whatever race and left/right orientation within the Party) just seem to like and trust Biden.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Betty Cracker: What’s the Bernie path to the nomination? How does he win a large enough plurality that the rest of us would break his way for the convention? I still don’t see it, esp. since he’s been running against us Democrats for his entire career.
Seems to me that he’d need large victories in at least a few states to make it happen, and I haven’t seen any polling showing Bernie with a significant lead in any large states. Unlike Biden, who is far ahead of the pack in a number of large states, such as Virginia and Texas.
My predictions, as of today:
Iowa: Biden (but very close, no one drops yet)
NH: Sanders (Biden in close second, followed by Warren)
Nevada: Biden (Sanders in second)
SC: Biden (by a lot)
Super Tuesday:
Biden wins: Alabama, California (in a virtual tie with Sanders), NC, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia
Sanders wins: Vermont, plus a significant chunk of California delegates
Warren wins: Massachusetts
In this scenario, Super Tuesday momentum helps Biden consolidate support and most of the rest of the field drops out. Sanders persists, but Biden’s lead outside of California is likely too large to overcome. Sanders and his diehards make the next few months a living hell for Democrats online, as they endlessly trash Biden and everyone who supports him.
Then we move on to the Convention (that’ll be fun) and the general election campaign (thought 2008, 2012, and 2016 were ugly? We ain’t seen nothing yet). We’ll keep up the energy, though, and do our best to turn out the vote. And like in so many elections over the past few years, from Senator Jones to Governor Beshear… we’ll win.
(This prediction is subject to change, of course. But we’ve seen remarkably less change throughout this primary than usual so far.)
Baud
@Gin & Tonic: I don’t predict losses by any candidate. The fact is, he’s polling just as well against Trump as Biden is.
@schrodingers_cat:
The problem isn’t Rose Twitter. The problem is he’s still polling at a solid number 2 position just over a month before the first votes are cast.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: According to my anecdata many older liberal women who loved Sanders the last time around are pretty pissed with his behavior in 2016 and will vote for anyone but Sanders.
Another Scott
@schrodingers_cat: My J was a huge Bernie fan in 2016 and she may be even more of one this go-round. She put a Bernie 2020 sticker on her car a few weeks ago.
I don’t understand it. (sigh)
Cheers,
Scott.
schrodingers_cat
@Another Scott: Elizabeth Warren is our senator. Half of the BS supporters the last time around are in her column while the other half are split between Biden (they like him) and BS.
Yarrow
@Baud:
A big issue is that no one has really gone after Sanders yet with oppo research or coordinated attacks. Warren has had that happen a few times. Biden has been dealing with Hunter and Ukraine issues. Hillary didn’t go after Sanders in 2016 with much of the oppo she had. If anyone goes after Sanders these polling numbers could change a bit.
germy
Betty Cracker
@Omnes Omnibus: Could be, but I think one thing we here at this specific blog miss is how much Democrats generally like Sanders. He and Biden have similarly high name recognition, and Sanders has a slightly higher favorability rating among Democratic primary voters than Biden does, at least right now.
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: That’s a plausible scenario; it could totally shake out that way. I’m just saying I don’t count Sanders out. Biden hasn’t historically been a strong candidate unless he’s the under-card for Obama. Also, see above: most Democrats don’t agree with the consensus on this blog about Sanders. If Biden stumbles in a big way or Trump successfully slimes him, Sanders could benefit. (Of course, everyone has been waiting for Biden’s campaign to collapse practically since he announced and so far it hasn’t, so…)
Yutsano
@Yarrow: I don’t think it matters. Bernie won’t win in the South. He’ll eke out decent votes in the west because of (mostly) white voters. He has made zero inroads with any of the base of the Democratic party besides young (mostly white) voters. He hasn’t even tried to win the coalition. Biden at least knows enough to work with that.
To wit: does Bernie have any Spanish language ads?*
*I don’t know if anyone else does yet either but it would be serious malpractice if none do at this point.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@SFAW:
Double fixed.
And now Canada has a gone and wrecked it. Oh cruel and perfidious Canada! The very Heavens are hung in black as the angels themselves mourn the death of a great movie.
Yarrow
@Ruckus:
It doesn’t surprise me. We nominated an extremely qualified and experienced woman as our candidate last time and she lost. Trump is a disaster and Democrats and many Independent and former Republican voters want him gone. That means we need someone who can win. People are scared that a woman can’t after such a qualified woman lost last time. Misogyny is real, cost Hillary votes, and it doesn’t surprise me that voters think perhaps we need a man to be the nominee this time against Trump. Outside of an Obama-like person of color candidate appearing, which hasn’t happened, it seems clear the male candidate and eventual nominee would be white.
It’s too bad, sure, but at this point I just want to win. I’m not spending any time on what-ifs and disappointments. It is what it is. Let’s win.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Yeah, Bernie’s high favorability saddens me, although some of that is from the absence of attacks against him.
Baud
@Yarrow:
Our people are afraid to lose his petulent supporters in the general election. Trump won’t have that issue.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Baud: The mind reals what the “The First Main Squeeze” is going to be like with the Baud administration.
mrmoshpotato
@germy: Does that Twitter account’s owner have a portal back to 1971?
Brachiator
@NotMax:
This gives me hope for peace in the Middle East someday.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Yarrow:
I regularly remind myself that HRC got more votes. It helps.
schrodingers_cat
FYWP eated my tweet about Modi. WTF is going on?
Yarrow
@Dorothy A. Winsor: She did, but not where it counted. Similarly this time the Dem candidate can run up the votes in California and other blue states and it won’t matter. If our candidate isn’t focusing on the handful of states and even the counties within those states that they need to win that state then it’s political malpractice. Electoral college sucks but we play the game we’re in not the one we wish we were playing.
Yarrow
@schrodingers_cat: Too many links? Something else that looked like spam? Someone posted several blockquotes in a comment a week ago or so and their comment got sent to spam. Only one link in it, I think.
schrodingers_cat
@Yarrow: No links. I was just wondering out loud about my parents BJP support wavering, like they no longer are defending what he does. But are still not willingly to recant their support.
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat:
I hope you’re right.
Brachiator
@Yutsano:
This may be true nationally, but I wonder. During the 2016 campaign, with my own eyes, I saw people coming from a Sanders rally in Southern California. Lots of young blacks and Latinos.
Sanders also held a number of very successful rallies in Latino communities, and was very well received.
catclub
I thought he was mayor of Burlington VT. That is an executive position – if I am right.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Betty Cracker: I live in Oregon, which is Bernie country. I generally can’t talk politics with liberals here because of it. And even here, I don’t think that most people see him and his politics as the solution to the problem we have right now.
Yes, anything’s probable. But for every factor that’s broken Bernie’s way, there are two for Biden.
I really loved the idea of President Kamala Harris. (I still do!)
I’d like to see many of Elizabeth Warren’s plans in action. (I’m so glad she’s talking early childhood now – universal child care and pre-K!)
But awe-shucks Handsome Joe Biden seems to be where our base voters are most comfortable. Seems like that feeling is shared by many apolitical, independent voters as well – and, unfortunately, sexist voters who won’t vote for a woman yet.
Some of those factors are helping Bernie too, but in a fight for delegates, I think 40 years inside the tent will beat 40 years spent outside, pissing on it.
Anyhow, that seems like where things are going.
I think the best cure for the primary blues is to ignore it and adopt a few Senate candidates. That’s where our policy possibilities will be most expanded or constrained, anyway, so you’ll be making more of a difference.
The best way to get another significant expansion of government social spending in 2021 isn’t by nominating Elizabeth Warren – it’s by electing more Democratic Senators. These will be conservative Dems from Red and Purple states. You’ll have to hold your nose when you click some of their ActBlue links. But means to an end, my friends, means to an end!
zhena gogolia
@Yarrow:
Warren has been attacked SO much more than Sanders.
catclub
@germy: Lucky?
bemused
I seem to remember Marty McFly was wandering around in the future and horrified to stumble upon a trump museum.
Another Scott
@zhena gogolia: Donnie and the Teabaggers know that their best chance to win depends on St. Bernard being the nominee. That’s why they are holding their fire against him.
Cheers,
Scott.
Yarrow
@schrodingers_cat: Weird. I guess that’s FYWP for you. Regarding the topic, it’s really hard for people to admit they’re wrong.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
About Harris, she’s my senator but I can’t see the rest of country not literally shitting themselves to death at the idea of a black woman as president, right now. Four to eight years, things change. So I always views this as her getting the concept of a black woman president out in the public mind.
Do note that Warren is having a much more smother go at it, because everyone got over the shock at the idea of a white woman president with Hilary. Obama had the right time because years of movies depicting black male presidents.
Politics for you.
Yarrow
@Another Scott: Exactly. If Sanders gets the nomination I do not think he’ll win. In fact I think he’ll lose badly. Not Mondale level but not much better. All the oppo research that I mentioned above that has not been used on Sanders by anyone going back to 2016 will be unleashed if he’s the nominee. It will be a disaster. Someone would be doing Dems a favor if they can take him out now.
?BillinGlendaleCA
Speaking of YouTube giving strikes to video…there’s this one*.
*It’s a cat meowing.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
and the perverse advantage of one of the whitest white guys– a Texas accent and phony regular-guy affect slapped on to a New England aristocrat pedigree– ever to hold the office, at least since FDR, having fucked it up so completely
germy
Even the conventional, laugh-shack comedians can sense something isn’t right.
https://dailygazette.com/article/2019/12/26/fun-ride-still-going-for-no-nonsense-madigan
Betty Cracker
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: Le sigh. Hoping to return to a “means to an end” frame of mind soon. Right now, I’m finding the whole thing so goddamned depressing.
Brachiator
@Yarrow:
I’m hoping that the primaries will overturn this presumption.
mrmoshpotato
@bemused: Are you sure you’re not thinking of Biff’s gaudy hotel and casino?
Anyway, Jaws 19 for you.
Yarrow
@Brachiator: Don’t think it’ll happen this time. I think it’ll take another round and more cultural change before Dem primary voters feel confident enough again to nominate a woman.
James E Powell
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
I don’t see Warren having a smooth go at all and I don’t think people are ready to elect any woman yet. I will be shocked if they do.
Warren’s early rise disappeared because as soon as any woman looks like she will take the lead, the negatives against her increase.
Betty Cracker
@James E Powell: Maybe you’re right and any woman candidate would have been similarly pilloried when she threatened to take the lead. But I suspect the fact that Warren is explicitly running on raising taxes on the super-rich, holding mega-corporations accountable to communities instead of just shareholders, breaking up Big Tech, pushing for single payer, etc., had something to do with it. From Morning Joe to the Murdoch properties, the knives came out right on cue.
WaterGirl
@Gin & Tonic:
Thanks for the laugh out loud.
pat
Everyone is talking about the nominee beating trump. I actually wonder what happens if he continues to go bananas in the next few months. His tweets are more and more unhinged. And the more unhinged he gets, the more people think he should be removed.
We ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
WaterGirl
@schrodingers_cat: There is no comment from you in moderation, spam or trash.
Can you send me a link to the tweet via email to watergirl?
mrmoshpotato
@pat: When does he start tweet shouting that his Daddy Vladdy thinks Nancy (“I call her Nancy.”) is a total loser?
bemused
@mrmoshpotato:
The director did say they based Biff on trump.
mrmoshpotato
@bemused: I know, but I don’t remember a museum in part 2.
J R in WV
@schrodingers_cat:
Well, I would blame FYWP far more than I would Modi or political skullduggery, as we know the Balloon Juice software has been giving the developers fits for a couple of weeks now. Glad they’re falling away from supporting Modi — give them some time to feel better about that and they may be more willing to talk about it.
Unless they’re still living in the old country, where it sounds like it may actually be dangerous to come out in public against that bastard…
Yarrow
@pat: Yeah, there are a lot of moving parts. Trump is really frustrated that Nancy Pelosi isn’t sending the articles to the Senate. The delay is making him even more unhinged than he has been. As things go on more people support a real trial with witnesses and support removal. If the majority of Americans start to support removal, and we’re not far from that tipping point now. all bets are all for what happens in the Senate.
bemused
@mrmoshpotato:
Biff Tannen museum in video clip. So much like trump, my mind registered trump museum.
Kristine
@OzarkHillbilly:
A question for crust-avoiders past and present–why? I recall classmates who had the crusts cut off their sandwiches, and I never understood it. To me, the crusts were, and continue to be, the best part. If the heels are available on a sandwich board, I grab ’em.
But I’m a fan of BCBs (Burnt Crunchy Bits a la Pratchett) in every form, so.
Brachiator
@Yarrow:
Maybe. Who knows? We will see what happens in the primary.
But I guess my larger point echoes a comedian who said that the Democrats cannot “out white man” Trump.
And the continuing irony, of course, is that Clinton beat Trump in the popular vote. The lack of confidence in a woman candidate is refuted by reality. And yet, some people want to ride the masculine “who’s more electable” train.
Yarrow
@Brachiator: The reality is that Clinton didn’t win the electoral college, therefore she lost the election. Our system is stupid but it’s the one we’ve got. Any candidate who isn’t hyperfocused on winning the electoral college is committing political malpractice. It’s the only game in town.
Villago Delenda Est
Fuck these cultists. Let them drink the Flavor-aid and we’ll be rid of them all.
Brachiator
@Yarrow:
Both statements are true. Clinton was more popular than Trump and lost the general election. And white men recently have voted more for the Republican candidate than they have for the Democratic Party candidate, without regard to race or gender.
So, any notion that some people have that a male candidate might be better than a woman candidate does not square with the facts.
opiejeanne
@germy: We got a few short stories by Benchley when I was in HS and jr High, and I appreciated the humor in the midst of all of the serious learning being done by others.
WaterGirl
@Brachiator: I have started to conclude that the way we get a woman president is for one of the old white guys to win, and they are smart enough to choose someone like Stacey Abrams as VP.
And then they croak or otherwise become incapacitated in office, and we get our first woman president.
tam1MI
I find it telling that back in 2016, if people here had criticized Bernie Sanders in any way, the comment section would have immediately gotten swarmed by his asshole supporters vying with each other to issue the best clapback. Now… nothing.
Fleeting Expletive
Depressing talk with my daughter who thinks Sanders is It. I don’t. I will concede to her that Sanders may have sense enough to pick Warren as his running mate, given his health and her much better qualifications. We didn’t talk about Biden, but he would NOT choose her, I’m afraid. He’d do something tone deaf like pick Harris. I like her a lot, but that would not be a winning ticket, and his ego is far too enormous to choose Warren.
Like I said, depressing talk.
Brachiator
@WaterGirl:
I think that Obama blew open the door for more diversity. Some people don’t realize it. Some people fear it. But this is where we are.
And other countries have women leaders. Germany’s Merkel is arguably the most powerful world leader, even though Trump may still consider himself official leader of the free world because he is the American president.
So I think that we will get there. The path might even surprise a few folks.
J R in WV
@Kristine:
Yeah, this! Wife loves bread you have to chew, chibatta rolls, baguettes, bread with some staying power! We don’t do wonderbread type breads at all.
Omnes Omnibus
@Fleeting Expletive: Yeah, two fucking people on the ticket in 70s. That is brilliant.
Yutsano
@Fleeting Expletive: Stacy Abrams on line 2 for you.
Wilmer will not make a good VP choice, and it definitely won’t be Warren.
Another Scott
@Omnes Omnibus: Warren’s in excellent health and her parents both lived into their mid-80s. I have no concern at all about her age, myself.
Cheers,
Scott.
WaterGirl
@Another Scott: Yeah, but in partnership with another octogenarian as president? It’s not hard to draw the dotted line to the possibility that something could happen to both of them and then… CHAOS.
Totally not worth the risk.
mrmoshpotato
@bemused: Oh yeah! I forgot about that infomercial thingy. Sorry.
Melusine
Every time I hit reply by mistake the comment box refuses to go away. Clicking the X does nothing. Can’t get out of it without hitting the back button.
WaterGirl
@Melusine: What do you mean by “the comment box refuses to go away”?
What device and browser are you using?
Have you tried refreshing the page with the link that’s right above the comment box at the bottom of the page?
M. Bouffant
Never enough pastries!
WaterGirl
@M. Bouffant: That’s what I thought! I’m just glad the little guy didn’t die.
Misterpuff
200+ posts and no:
The War on Christmas Movies with Donald Trump in Them IS THE REAL War on Christmas.
Take that Billo and Baby Christ!
Ruckus
@Another Scott:
My take also.
He’s an old man shouting at the sun about his better days and that he’s still got it. In this case it is the ability to say stuff and then do absolutely nothing about making it happen.
He’s the index to the cookbook, except no one has written the recipes for any of the foods in said index, let alone had anyone cook anything, and of course no one has tasted any of it to see if any of it even eatable or in fact, kills the testers. And he has no knowledge of how to go about that, even though he’s been working at it for decades.
Mary Ellen Sandahl
Please enlighten: why is the cutting of Drumpf’s cameo a “boomer trigger”?
Ruckus
@Yarrow:
I don’t disagree, I’m just pissed off about it.
No One You Know
@Ruckus: Food worked for us. I’d talk softly while leaving some out, and I avoided looking at her so she wouldn’t feel I was a predator. Took several weeks before she came to the door and asked to come in, in her way.