Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

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

Eh, that’s media spin. biden’s health is fine and he’s doing a good job.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

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

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

This blog will pay for itself.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Consistently wrong since 2002

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

“But what about the lurkers?”

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

No one could have predicted…

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

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Americans barely caring about Afghanistan is so last month.

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

You are here: Home / Past Elections / 2020 Elections / Election Year Open Thread: I LOL’d

Election Year Open Thread: I LOL’d

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But srsly, man has a feel for his audience:

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127Comments

  1. 1.

    Jeffro

    I don’t know why the Biden campaign doesn’t just run memes of Joe in his t-bird, rolling over trumpov, 24/7.

    Maybe Joe and Barack in shades, coming down the WH portico, just to change it up.

    Or just Joe in shades, with the caption, “few if any pornstar payoffs or Joe U lawsuit settlements.  Also no attacks EVER on your health insurance and Social Security.  You’re welcome.”

  3. 3.

    Wag

    He’s the only Democratic candidate who starts events with the Pledge of Allegiance

    I’m glad that he does this. The Pledge means a lot.

    You know what else we’ve lost sight of? The Star Spangled Banner. When I was a kid, the whole stadium would sing it together, off key, but united. Then, sometime during the Reagan administration, we ceded the singing of our Anthem to “professionals” and we lost our unity. I’d be super impressed if Joe started playing an instrumental version and invited us to sing together again.

  7. 7.

    frosty

    @Jeffro: Joe’s got a ’67 Corvette Stingray, not a T-bird. He’s owned since it was new and given to him as a wedding present from his father.

    //Gearhead pedant

    ETA But your overall suggestions are excellent!

  8. 8.

    chopper

    @Jeffro: 

    Joe U lawsuit settlements

    that’s because everyone who attends loves Joe U because it is awesome. my favorite class was on how to use a butterfly knife.

    even the school motto is rad. “i’ll Joe U, asshole!”

  14. 14.

    trollhattan

    @NotMax:

    My worst wreck was in a ’64 Corvette–4-speed convertible. We rolled down a levee embankment and landed upside down. I was not the driver.

  16. 16.

    Wag

    @Gin & Tonic:

     

    means what you put into it. If you’re willing to fight for the country and wrestle it back from the GOP, then it’s your flag   It’s my flag.  I was disgusted when trump dry jumped it. We need to reclaim the flag for all of us.

    let the GOP have the don’t tread on me flag for their snake of a president. He can dry hump that one until he cums, for all I care.

  20. 20.

    hells littlest angel

    The progressive rehabilitation of Joe Biden in real time — it’s surprisingly fun to watch.

  21. 21.

    zhena gogolia

    @Wag:

    I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

    I wish I had the patience and fortitude to watch all of Schiff’s presentation. I understand he is really crushing it. Partly I’m too nervous to watch it, and partly our house is built such that anything one person watches, the other person has to hear.

  24. 24.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @NotMax: I for one thought Scott Baio and Jodie Foster would become the powerhouse screen duo of our time. Who’d’a thunk Baio would get sidelined in favor of Anthony Hopkins

  25. 25.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Dadadadadadada: Eh. Biden backed some grand bargains that would have adversely affected social security in return for something else.

    Biden has not instigated any social security cuts. He’s not a Republican, who are actively trying to destroy it and medicare as Trump put forth today.

  29. 29.

    Jay

    More on WH NSC staff cuts: ‘Mass exodus’ coming, insider source says. ‘O’Brien said [agency detailees] would be allowed to end their tours’ on schedule in 2021. That was a total lie, people are being deported back on or before Jan 31.’ Two-year contracts also being curtailed.— Jeff Stein (@SpyTalker) January 22, 2020

    As a guy way, way to the left of your “progressives”, living in a country where the center is far to the left of your centerists,

    with some adult supervision, Biden will do fine.

    He’s not optimal, but he’s been a politician long enough to know that the world has changed and smart enough not to scare the Olds in public.

  30. 30.

    James E Powell

    @Dadadadadadada:

    This ignores the fact that Joe Biden has moved to cut Social Security many times in the last 40+ years.

    I’m willing to ignore that if he beats Trump and carries the senate on his coattails.

  31. 31.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Wag: I dislike the Pledge of Allegiance. It’s a creepy loyalty oath and the fact that we make school kids recite it mechanically every morning is antithetical to the values of a free country, and a warning sign that we’re perpetually on the verge of slipping into autogenocidal fascism. The “liberty and justice for all” part is the only good bit.

    There are perennial cases of school authorities cracking down on kids who try to exercise their First Amendment right not to say it, and Bush the First successfully demagogued Dukakis over his support of that right–the girl in the relevant case was Jewish and got all sorts of “Hitler should have put you in the ovens” hate mail.

    The “Under God” line in particular has become this bit of religio-political fetishism used as an argument that atheists are not real citizens. Once saw the Pledge reproduced on the back of a pickup truck with “UNDER GOD” in giant letters three times as high as all the other words. Yeah, that’s not good

    That said, it’s probably good optics for Biden to be throwing it around. More’s the pity.

  33. 33.

    some guy

    the Pledge was as we pledge it today (re)written by a socialist, Edward Bellamy.  Captain George Thatcher Balch, a Union Army Officer, wrote the first version during the Civil War, and Bellamy rewrote it in 1892.

  34. 34.

    Jay

    Oh FFSRinat Akhmetshin a Soviet counterintel officer involved in the June 2016 Don Jr-Russia strategy session opened a nonprofit Russian-American Anti-Defamation League this month in DC. Probably another oulet to move money in time for election https://t.co/DdhL3Srz1z— Olga Lautman (@olgaNYC1211) January 23, 2020

  36. 36.

    James E Powell

    @Jay:

    He’s not optimal, but he’s been a politician long enough to know that the world has changed and smart enough not to scare the Olds in public.

    I also think that Joe will be busy restoring the dignity of the presidency and rebuilding international relations, while the legislative agenda will be handled by the one person we know who has demonstrated mastery of our clamorous coalition.

  40. 40.

    Matt McIrvin

    @some guy: Balch’s version was way worse–Bellamy’s original didn’t have anything about God in it; Balch’s did and also had a mention of “one language”.

    The whole Pledge business seems to have been born out of late 19th-early 20th century anxiety about mass immigration; the idea was that immigrants might not assimilate and become good patriots unless we muscled them into saying a loyalty pledge. That was the period when a lot of our patriotic symbols came into quasi-obligatory general use.

  46. 46.

    Jay

    @James E Powell:

    Great Presidents have a team, even though the “veneration of the Great Man” theory leaves most of the team as foot notes.

    The “true signal” will be, if he wins the nomination and the Presidency, the “team” he picks.

  49. 49.

    Jay

    Just counted 21 empty seats on the GOP side of the Senate, 2 on the Dem side, a couple hours into Schiff's presentation. Some are just stretching their legs, but most are not in the chamber. Some of them have been out of there for a while.— Michael McAuliff (@mmcauliff) January 22, 2020

  51. 51.

    WaterGirl

    @Jay: I don’t think any of them did that yesterday.  They all stayed around to vote 53/47.  I loathe the GOP at this point.

  52. 52.

    Jay

    Every few years, they update “Oh Canada”, to make it less colonist living on unceeded Indigenous Lands.

    As an old, it’s tough, but I try to keep up.

  53. 53.

    dr. bloor

    @hells littlest angel: He’s not my favorite, but if he’s the white guy who was inevitably going to jump into the race to suck the air out of progressive momentum, you could do worse.  Like, Michael Bloomberg worse.

    I doubt it will make you feel better, but his presidency would look a lot like Obama’s.  Not because he’s as progressive as Obama was, but because Obama was as progressive as Biden is.

  55. 55.

    Jeffro

    @geg6:

    @Wag:

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Thanks!

     

    @chopper: yours too?  =)

    I’m going to absolutely die if Biden is the nominee and Dems start wearing aviators and tees with the sleeves cut off.  Hell of a lot cooler than purple heart band-aids or “you can grab this p_____” t-shirts, right Repubs?  RIGHT??!?  Losers.

  56. 56.

    Jay

    @WaterGirl:

    yeah, but it’s the “learnin stuff part today” not the “voting to acquit” stuff, so you know, they are occupying all the handicapped stalls surfing PornHub, ( no diss on PornHub).

  57. 57.

    zhena gogolia

    Schiff is laying out a narrative that is so clear – and undeniable, because it is rooted in a huge amount of documents and testimony – that the President’s defenders only have the choice now of looking complicit, stupid, or immoral (or all three) in rejecting it.— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) January 23, 2020

  60. 60.

    Ohio Mom

    I was never a flag waver but I am one now. I don’t want to give any Republican any excuse to think they have a monopoly on patriotism.

    Flags is the language they speak so I’ll speak it in their faces. I bought a bunch of little flags at the dollar store and I bring them with me to protests, where I hand them out, especially to kids.

    As for the pledge, when you have a kid in public school, you end up reciting it at just about every district event, so I got inured to it. Always leave out the Under God.

  63. 63.

    Jeffro

    @Jay: She’s totally right.  Why hire a former trumpov official/apologist/known liar?  Just to get that ‘perspective’??  Don’t we already get that 100+ times a day from trumpov himself on Twitter?

    (And how crazy is THAT?  Our supposed ‘leader’ hits social media dozens of times a day ranting and abusing American citizens and elected officials…you know, like any innocent person would do)

    Geez, snooze media…just go grab a poli sci or history grad student at random, you’ll get better soundbites and we won’t have to look at Rinse or listen to his BS.  Plus also genuine facts and stuff.

  69. 69.

    chopper

    @MisterForkbeard:

    the “biden wants to cut SS” attack whiffed so hard that bernie came out and apologized for it. but these schmucks think they’re gonna somehow make it stick.

  73. 73.

    Jeffro

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: soul searching…or just do an actual search instead of grabbing the nearest trumpista they know from the DC cocktail party circuit?

    It’s ridiculous.  Go through the process.   Put up a job ad.  Do some interviews.  Check references.  But no…gotta have ol’ Rinse and Donna Brazile and the Crypt Keeper on, over and over…

  75. 75.

    Matt McIrvin

    @chopper: Biden has just been around long enough that he was active back in the days when every serious Democrat had to furrow their brow a bit about the Looming Entitlements Crisis. He doesn’t seem to be doing it any more, but go back far enough and you get to that era.

  77. 77.

    opiejeanne

    @Jeffro: I love ZZTop. For a lot of their music you could identify unfamiliar songs by them by the guitar rhythm, kind of like you could regognize Mendelsohn’s less famous pieces by the Mendelsohn “elves”.

  78. 78.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Jennifer Epstein @ jeneps
    NEW: Bernie Sanders spoke in 1996 about the future need for “adjustments” to Social Security, a term that Sanders campaign/allied Social Security group had called a “euphemism” for cuts when it was used by Biden.

    Reily Connaugh @ reilyseanconn
    Bernie Sanders on Social Security in 1996: “Social Security has been adjusted before, and adjustments will have to be made again.” Every attack by Sanders is hypocritical.

  81. 81.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Claire McCaskill (of all people) just made the second reference I’ve heard her make to “Lindsey’s meltdown”– I haven’t seen any other mention of it. Is she just assuming Lindsey’s had a meltdown cause it’s a day ending in Y?

  82. 82.

    MisterForkbeard

    @chopper: They’re calling “truth telling”.

     

    The whole thing is dumb. what it comes down to is that Biden had been willing to vote for plans that would have made SS a little worse in exchange for some other benefits. This is not ideal! It is also not a hanging offense, and saying “Biden wants to cut SS” or “Biden tried to cut SS” is fundamentally dishonest.

  86. 86.

    Bill Arnold

    @Wag:

    I adhere to the original

    Likewise. I just don’t speak those two words. So far nobody has said anything. (Good speaking voice, so I’m sure it’s been noticed.)

  87. 87.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    olitical Polls @ Politics_Polls
    North Carolina Senate GE:

    Cal Cunningham (D) 44% (+2)
    Thom Tillis (R-inc) 42%

  88. 88.

    Another Scott

    In other news, Brett McGurk at Foreign Affairs – The Cost of an Incoherent Foreign Policy

    It’s quite long and seems well argued. A taste:

    […]

    Eisenhower challenged Dulles’s central assumptions. Dulles saw time as favoring Moscow, and so he demanded a more offensive strategy. Eisenhower saw time as favoring Washington, and so he thought a rollback policy could backfire. Unilateral moves, moreover, risked fragile alliances, which were Washington’s comparative advantage against Moscow. “We cannot live alone,” he told Dulles. “We need allies.”

    Rather than resolve this debate informally, Eisenhower tasked experts from across the U.S. government to develop and then debate in front of him at least three competing national strategies. Kennan himself, at Eisenhower’s request, returned to defend containment.

    [ Eisenhower, Dulles, and the Governor General of Pakistan, November 1953 ]

    Two months later, Eisenhower sat through a full day of briefings on the competing proposals, and he ultimately endorsed the essentials of Truman’s design. What is now known as Project Solarium set the contours of a U.S. foreign policy that lasted for the next 35 years, and it helped avoid a direct military clash between Washington and Moscow.

    “No president before or after Eisenhower,” historian Robert Bowie wrote, “ever received such a systematic and focused briefing on the threats facing the nation’s security and the possible strategies for coping with them.”

    […]

    You’ll be surprised (or maybe not) with the contrast to the current administration…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  89. 89.

    Kraux Pas

    My personal anti-Biden feelings have softened a few times; mainly when the played that live action production of an episode of Good Times about the family being split over support for either a young politician with new ideas and a more seasoned, connected one; and whenever my Trumpist bestie mentions Hunter Biden.

    My strategy is gonna have to be to avoid hearing Biden speak from now til November. Missing all the debates since the second one has definitely helped with my anxiety over this election.

  90. 90.

    Mary G

    I watched/listened to probably 80% of the trial today and Schiff and the other managers are doing a fantastic job of telling the story with video clips, news reporting, emails, info from FOIA requests, and other visual aids. Schiff is really good about pointing out the administration’s obstruction of everything.

    Once the other side gets  going, I’ll have to turn it off. For my health.

    Also WTF media? All they want to talk about is who’s sleeping and who’s ditching school and all but one outlet I read both sides it. It was 21 Republicans and 2 Democrats. Pretty big difference there.

  91. 91.

    Kraux Pas

    @Mary G: Also WTF media? All they want to talk about is who’s sleeping and who’s ditching school and all but one outlet I read both sides it.

    C’mon…ditching school is relatable for their intended audience. They’re there to draw eyeballs, not inform people.

  92. 92.

    Beautifulplumage

    @stinger:  thus giving me an opening to present my version of our pledge:

    I pledge allegiance to the constitution of the United States of America and to the republic which it embodies, one nation with liberty and justice for all.

  93. 93.

    Kay

    @Matt McIrvin:

    They start every county Democratic Party meeting here with the pledge of allegiance. It makes me a little sad (and I may be reading too much into it) but my sense is it’s defensive- that they have internalized some of the “real Americans” bs Right wingers have attacked them with for 50 years. They’re vulnerable to that attack. I often feel protective of them both because I like most of them but also because they’re a political minority here. Underdogs.

  95. 95.

    smedley the uncertain

    @Matt McIrvin:

    The pledge goes way back… I grew up with it through WW 2.  The “under god” part was added in the ’50’s during the RED scare led by the HUAC denizens.  I’ve never learned to include it.

  96. 96.

    Citizen Alan

    @Ohio Mom: I don’t mind saying the pledge. I make a point of saying it loudly and firmly so that it’s conspicuous when I leave out “Under God.”

  98. 98.

    BlueDWarrior

    @Kay: it’s like the old example of “when did you stop beating your wife?” asked of an entire political cohort.

  100. 100.

    Mandalay

    @Mary G:

    Also WTF media? All they want to talk about is who’s sleeping…

    The NYT is getting crafty at this schtick. Their article Day in Impeachment was mostly straight reporting, but it allowed reader comments. This was their choice to put at the very top of the “NYT Picks” of the comments:

    This testimony is so boring. I know it is not supposed to be entertainment but it is torture to listen to. We keep hearing the Democrats repeat the same things over and over again. I will never vote for a Democrat after seeing this spectacle on television. They have lost many supporters after this farce.

    Ignoring that the comment is obviously bogus, and may have originated in Moscow, the larger issue is why did the NYT decide that from over a thousand reader comments, this one was worthy of being the very first NYT pick? Are they that desperate for mouse clicks that they deliberately choose dross to head the comments section?

  101. 101.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Mandalay: Why’d they choose that comment? Ummmm…..because they can’t start screaming about how the Democratic nominee is unlikable yet? Also – they’re assholes.

  104. 104.

    Kraux Pas

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: The New York Times is garbage.

    I have little doubt that influential decision makers at the NYT believe that if both sides think they’re garbage they must be doing something right.

  108. 108.

    Jay

    BTDubs, there was some dissing of German Weimar Era communists on a thread earlier, comparing them tonBernie Bros and Tankies.

    At the end of WWI, Germany abandoned ( semi) the feudal Constitution for a more democratic, ( not really) system.

    In the post war elections, Democratic Socialists and their allies were elected enough to create thin majorities, (*not really democratic, not really socialist).

    In the chaos of the post WWI era, which for example, saw the Democratic Socialists supporting Freikorps attempts to support White and Other Colour Russians, colonize the Baltics and Ukraine,

    When the communists and other progressive groups challenged the status quo, the Democratic Socialists sent the Freikorps against them. Arrests turned into murders and the murderers got medals, ( sound familiar?).

    A few years later the Freikorps became the SA, the SS and elevated Hitler to power,

    so, at the minimum, ( aside from tankies) it is an ahistorical analogy, at it’s worst,………

    Having lots of experience with communists, radical socialists, real progressives, anti-facists, I trust them far more than “ centerists”.

    “Centerists” are why I have no pension, ( other than OAP) my RRSP is shite, retirement age is now not “Freedom 55” instead Walmart 65, etc.

  112. 112.

    Mnemosyne

    @Jay:

    Perhaps consider the notion that the American left is using the word “centrist” in a dishonest way that doesn’t actually reflect the beliefs of center-left Democrats. And that they’re deliberately using it that way to confuse people like you.

  113. 113.

    Eolirin

    @Mandalay: I would be extremely surprised if the top comments aren’t decided algorithmically. And in such a way to maximize views  sure, which benefits troll posts. But I doubt a human is looped in there.

  114. 114.

    Mike J

    The monthly Democratic meeting in my LD always starts with the pledge and it’s been taken over by Berners who express admiration for Tulsi.

  115. 115.

    Jay

    @Mnemosyne:

    my pension got bundled with a bunch of other Corporate Debt, into a subsidiary in Delaware, (1990), spun off into an IPO, ( traded, initially at 0.15% over margin, ( 1992) went into bankruptcy in 1993.

    What should have been $65k a year plus COLA, until I died, bound up being a one time pay out of $16.21.

    So now, my retirement plan consists of dying on the job, what ever that is.

    it was “bipartisan legislation” that made that possible. (Borders aikn’t).

    As a “progressive”, it’s fucken hard. On the one hand, for 40 years, ( in Canada, I get to vote for people who, because of what  Capitalism passes it self off for now, people who will screw me and mine, ( mine is pretty broad),

    or people who will really screw over me and mine, upfront.

    Horgan refuses to meet with the Indiginous groups, and yet, it’s still a far cry from the “Liberals”, who deny they exist.

    Tired of voting for the “less evil”, (Parliamentary system), I would actually like to be able to vote “for”, you know?

  117. 117.

    Jay

    Bed time, y’all
    New life, new expierices,
    Too old for this shit,
    Not up for dying today.

    Good night all.

  118. 118.

    Mnemosyne

    @Jay:

    Surprise — it wasn’t centrists who came up with 401(k)s to replace pensions and who allowed corporations to raid their pension funds. It was conservatives.

    ETA: Bill Clinton was sworn into office in January of 1993 after Reagan and Bush were in office for 12 years, so it seems more than a little weird to blame centrist Democrats for your troubles since they weren’t in charge.

  122. 122.

    joel hanes

    @Wag:

    The Pledge means a lot

    It does.  It means so much to me that in over forty years, I have never uttered the “under God” clause inserted by jingoists to mar the original.

  126. 126.

    PenAndKey

    @Wag: “The Pledge means a lot.”

    For me it stopped meaning a damn thing when in high school I witnessed a teacher I (until then) respected scream out a student who didn’t stand fast enough. I got to listen to 5 minutes of vein-pulsing jingoistic bullshit and I’ve never lost my respect for an individual as fast as I did that day.

    I’m honestly past the point of caring if some people love the pledge. To me, as a patriotic American, I care more for the ideals the country claims than in any proto-fascist bit of indoctrination we shove down our kid’s throats every morning before class.

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