Here’s how a real newspaper writes a headline: Trump asked if disinfectants could be injected to kill the coronavirus inside the body. Doctors answered: ‘People will die.’ See how they did that? First, they quote him accurately (he talked about injecting disinfectant — how fucking dumb do you have to be to think that Lysol in the vein is a solution to anything but your continued presence on the planet?) Second, when the preponderance of Doctors say that something will kill you, it’s OK to write “this will kill you”, even if Dr. Oz, Dr. Phil and Dr. Dolittle disagree.
It’s 8 AM on a Friday, and I’m already feeling like there’s not enough gin in the fucking world.
germy
Pensive
As soon as I read that a headline was well-written I thought “Well it’s not the NY Times”.
Quinerly
I highly suggest Boodles Gin. Makes a great Old School Cocktail called a “St. Charles.” You’ll need to round up some Peychaud’s Bitters. I bought a case on sale awhile back. Willing to part with some. ?
Quinerly
@germy: ?
Scrubbing Bubbles inhaled for the lungs.
TS (the original)
Wonder if Trump has been in touch with this guy?
Pete Evans fined $25,000 by Therapeutic Goods Administration over coronavirus claims relating to BioCharger
download my app in the app store mistermix
@Quinerly: I have Peychaud’s. I like the new low sugar tonic from Q and Fever Tree.
Cheryl Rofer
Take a screenshot of the NYT tweet. I can’t believe they’ll leave it up for long, although it’s not getting ratioed too badly.
Cheryl Rofer
It’s turned the conversation from 3,000 dead from COVID-19 a day, heading up to a total of 50,000.
FelonyGovt
I’m beginning to agree with those who say these briefings SHOULD be aired live. The public needs to see how dangerous and deranged and incapable this person is.
rikyrah
@Quinerly:
you two are cracking me up?
hueyplong
As someone who has posted “Obama needs to order people not to drink bleach” at least once a week for over three years, I find myself in a bit of an ethical quandary as we contemplate whether the absurd put-down might become reality.
The fact that I typed “ethical quandary” instead of “horrified embarrassment” is itself damning, but worse still is the fact that I’m leaning toward, “Let the market of ideas sort this one out.” They made the “Stupid is better” bed; let them lie in it.
rikyrah
I am trying to get back to sleep??
germy
germy
White?
Baud
@Cheryl Rofer:
germy
Spanky
No point in slandering Dr. Doolittle there.
Have you tried Lysol?
germy
Aleta
(In response to the headline published by The Independent: Trump suggests injecting disinfectant as coronavirus treatment)
germy
Cameron
Some experts think it’s dangerous? Who are the experts who don’t think it’s dangerous?
MattF
‘In the view of some experts’.
And then, you can inhale anthrax spores, which are the natural enemies of bacteria, and then hit yourself over the head repeatedly with tire irons. Experts disagree on the possible consequences.
WereBear
Once again, just cell-deep astonishment that ANYONE looked at Trump and decided to trust them.
He makes Nixon look better, and I loathed Nixon on sight. As a child.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Good for The Post.
How can there have been three morning posts before I logged on? I get up ridiculously early.
Steeplejack
I’ve been administering it orally, but maybe we should try injecting it. ?
hueyplong
@MattF: You seem to be saying that we’re near the Coleian definition of peak wingnut as Trump edges ever so closer to suggesting that the public dine on anthrax and tire rims.
PenAndKey
There are only three scenarios where someone would even think to utter a phrase like “And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside, or almost a cleaning? Because you see it gets inside the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it would be interesting to check that.”
The worst part? I fully expect that the real answer is mostly 1, exacerbated by 2, and an underlying lifetime of 3. What a world…
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Quinerly:
I’m a fan of Botanist for martinis (The Empress if I’ve got decent $$$), Hendricks and Fever Tree with cucumber slices for gin and tonic.
Quinerly
@download my app in the app store mistermix: well, you are there! I double the limes in a G&T and double the Peychaud’s in the St Charles recipe. You just have to get over the fact that the drink is pink. Once you taste it, you forget about the color! Once you have 3, you start figuring out how to smuggle in Peychaud’s at the bars that don’t have a clue about Bitters. ?
MattF
@hueyplong: Minor variation. Inhaling anthrax spores would be therapeutic for a lung disease.
Quinerly
@Steeplejack: Hmmmm??
Snarki, child of Loki
The appropriate response to Trump’s suggestions is:
YOU FIRST
blacque_jacques
In Trump’s defense, these treatments do guarantee you won’t die from COVID-19.
JPL
At least now we have the answer to trump’s question, what do you have to lost.
Quinerly
@rikyrah: I fear my liver may start talking dirty to me if I don’t quit mixing my own drinks and never get out to a club again. JoJo las Orejas and I can only dig in so much dirt here. It’s either Boodles Gin/Milwaukee’s “Beast” or gardening… Or both. ?
PenAndKey
@blacque_jacques: You know, I’m usually all about silver linings, but I’m pretty sure that is more a “you’re technically not wrong” statement. But you are right, if you want to ensure you don’t die of COVID-19 I guess that’s one way to ensure it.
Hoodie
It’s hard to get through his idiotic rambling, but I think he was actually advocating “lung cleaning” using disinfectants. Maybe chlorine gas? A lot of people are saying it worked really well for the Spanish Flu.
MattF
Meme alert.
Steeplejack
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
You haven’t lapsed into insomnia yet.
chopper
so “some” experts think it’s dangerous. presumably, this means the others are fine with it? woo hoo, off to buy bleach, needles and a light bulb
Quinerly
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: ?
Aleta
Remember the good old days when they only let him sell “Ivanka plus a condo!” and “debt with a fake degree.”
ixnay
I spent a serious amount of time last night ranting in my head about this coronavirus situation, more specifically about testing. As some of you know, I am a veterinarian, with no special education about epidemiology, but that is an interest of many veterinarians.
(1) The antigen (virus present) testing has a “window” – if the virus load is below a certain level, whether because a person is not yet sick, or because a person is no longer sick, or ? – then the test shows a negative. There’s a significant percentage of “false negatives.”
(2) Antibody testing (testing for presence of indication that the body is producing immune proteins) is similarly problematic. For one thing, to the best of my knowledge, antibody testing also has a high percentage of “false negatives.”
(3) There is no proof that antibodies are actually protective. Ask your veterinarian about how well antibodies against FIP (Feline Infectious Peritonitis) work. A vaccine against FIP was, I think, pulled from the market a while back because it was useless. Likewise a test: most feline corona cases are not FIP.
The upshot is that we really have just about no idea where we stand, and the Idiot in Chief is not making this any better. Mr. ixnay and I are fortunate that we are retired/not required to work outside the home. Because I am a sincere introvert, that is not too hard on me. Mr. ixnay is a musician, so he is having a tougher time. He has been doing stuff like this:
https://www.facebook.com/dan.moore.39589/videos/2905283312893995/?q=dan%20moore&epa=SEARCH_BOX
Best thoughts to all.
Quinerly
@MattF: ?
hueyplong
@Hoodie: The constant references to 1917 make more sense in the context of chlorine gas.
Cheryl Rofer
@Baud: No argument
Betty Cracker
Atlanta Mayor Bottoms is fed up with this bullshit too.
OzarkHillbilly
Krugman:
$33,000 per person. I knew it was a bunch, but I’d never seen it phrased so starkly.
Immanentize
@Betty Cracker: She is Clyburn’s choice for VP, I think
Jeffro
It’s almost like…hear me out here…he’s the opposite of everything you’d want in a national leader.
Again, just like many of you, my biggest concern about this clown was always that he is a complete moron. Even the ghost of Jerry Ford is like, “holy shit this guy is DUMB”
Also, adding to the list:
4. he’s fundamentally corrupt, and is likely a) using PPE/etc as patronage rewards and b) benefitting behind the scenes from shorting the stock market, skimming off of the relief packages, etc
BretH
@germy: they didn’t miss it, they knew and are deliberately suppressing the information because conspiracy argle bargle…
MattF
@OzarkHillbilly: I think people don’t fully grasp the hatred that Republican politicians feel towards public-service employee unions. McConnell reasoned that states declaring bankruptcy would let them break their union contracts, so what’s not to like?
Capri
@ixnay: Hey, I’m a veterinarian too. Being a large animal veterinarian, my frustration is explaining about 1000X a day that the corona virus that causes GI disease in horses and cows isn’t the same one that causes respiratory disease in people so the vaccine isn’t going to work.
catclub
@Spanky: I was thinking there wasn’t enough fucking in the gin world.
OzarkHillbilly
@MattF: Yep, they hate hate HATE HATE unions of all types.
rikyrah
@OzarkHillbilly:
When Governor Cuomo said that Kentucky got back $148 BILLION more than it put into the Federal pot, did wonder how that broke down per person
$33k??
catclub
Think of all the people who did not die of spanish flu because they had gotten chlorine gas lung cleaning first…. and died from that instead.
catclub
@rikyrah: Except that is over 4 years. Why four years? why not one year?
or ten years?
OzarkHillbilly
Tornadoes rip through US south leaving trail of devastation and killing dozens
NO RED STATE BAILOUTS! These people choose to live in areas with a high frequency of tornadoes, they should plan ahead!
@rikyrah: You ask and Krugman delivers.
PenAndKey
@OzarkHillbilly: And yet if you tell them that the Chamber of Commerce is nothing but a union for business owners they’ll freak out and claim it’s “not the same thing” without ever being able to explain how.
MattF
@catclub: Some experts may hypothesize that phosgene gas would definitely possibly work even better.
Wapiti
@OzarkHillbilly: It’s not clear to me if the $33K/person is over 4 years or the average per year.
I think a lot of the net transfers are related to Defense; Kentucky has Fort Knox and Fort Campbell. It doesn’t change the main point – the rest of us are bolstering Kentucky’s economy.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@OzarkHillbilly:
Its even worse than that – evil, blue Louisville MASSIVELY subsidizes the rest of the state. The city only gets back 50 cents on every dollar it sends to the state budget.
In return, we get diluted representation, stripped of a lot of the traditional powers of home rule, vilified for religious and ethnic diversity and mocked for being liberal, all while we pay for the roads, bridges, medical care, public salaries, government buildings, schools, buses, and safety infrastructure of the trash that mocks us.
PenAndKey
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Isn’t a proportional representation gerrymandered to ensure that country yokels maintain control grand? As a Wisconsin resident from one of the few blue hotspots in the state I feel your pain.
MoCA Ace
Try boofing, all the kids are doing it! (see Kavanaugh, Bret)
Bloix
Headline in the British politically conservative paper The Daily Telegraph, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/04/24/donald-trump-suggest-disinfectants-sunlight-could-used-coronavirus/ (“medic” is British for physician):
Medics react with horror as Donald Trump claims injecting disinfectant could treat coronavirus
JPL
@ixnay: Thank you for the facebook link.. Lovely.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@PenAndKey:
Our map is bad, but I think the prize for worst situation in the country in the country goes to Austin – I think the TXLEGE has parched it out in six pieces for congressional districts, and spokes them out well over 100 miles.
OzarkHillbilly
@Wapiti: Until @catclub: brought it up I did not know and have no idea one way or the other If it’s only $8,000 per year it’s still a bunch more than Miserians get (we are a little below the break even point last I checked) (thank you KC, STL, SPG) If it is per 4 year Krugman should note it and I suspect he will.
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Yep. Living in outstate MO, I know where our money comes from.
Jeffro
@OzarkHillbilly: Both Krugman and Bouie take McConnell to the woodshed today: good.
Brooksie, meanwhile, is busy today reminding us that it’s all about the strength of our neighborhoods that makes the difference. I looked and looked, but I didn’t see any clarion calls for highly progressive taxation (much less competent federal governance) that might help fund and support those neighborhoods. I’ll go back and look one more time…
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Jeffro:
Neighborhoods are only as strong as surrounding walls and aggressive policing of, you know, them, will make them.
Gin & Tonic
I hear you, brother.
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@germy: And a lawyer !!
Lawyer allegedly threatens journalist
“[Petersen] just wanted to verify the man had deleted the photo as he agreed to do. [Petersen] was seeking a new job and did not want the publication of a misleading photo to cause him to lose a job opportunity. … Needless to say, my client is concerned for the welfare of anyone that might have been affected. When and if the opportunity arises he intends to offer his personal apology to the cameraman.”
Yeah I am SURE being arrested for kidnapping and threatening will help him get that job now…
OzarkHillbilly
@Gin & Tonic: I miss gin. Gives me horrible heartburn.
Baud
@blacque_jacques:
Keeps his numbers down.
Omnes Omnibus
@blacque_jacques: @PenAndKey: This is manifestly not true if you apply Richard Epstein’s logic.
catclub
not me. my guess is mostly social security and medicare and subsidy of medicaid.
khead
@FelonyGovt:
Virtual watch parties with family and friends playing drinking (not bleach) games.
Gin & Tonic
@chopper:
Suggestion: skip the light bulb. A friend was a medical resident in NYC in the early 70’s, and said the most difficult ER problem he faced was how to remove a light bulb someone had inserted in his rectum (i.e. the patient’s rectum, not my friend’s)
Baud
@Gin & Tonic:
Reminds me of the game Operation.
Omnes Omnibus
@Gin & Tonic: My understanding from reviewing relevant data is that if you skip the light bulb you miss the full experience. *
*I am not a medical doctor, but does that really matter these days?
Wag
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I completely agree with you about Hendricks.
Colorado, long home to a huge number of excellent microbreweries, is now also home to a bunch of good small distilleries, as well. There are some really nice guns produced here. I’m a fan of Leopold’s and also Spring44.
different-church-lady
My heart is warmed by the sight of “#TidePodPresident” trending on Twitter.
NotMax
@Gin & Tonic
Real Constitutional originalists use a beeswax candle.
:)
MattF
@Gin & Tonic: Still a thing.
MomSense
Trump has to be one of the dumbest motherfuckers ever.
Did anyone see the photo of Melania and Trump trying to shovel some dirt at an Earth Day tree planting ceremony? It doesn’t even make it to the list of outrages, but they just looked so fucking stupid.
Wag
@NotMax: Excellent recipe. I might consider adding a splash of Clorox to the ammonia chaser. The reaction between the Clorox and ammonia produces a delightful effervescent rush of chlorine gas. Inhale deeply, your alveolar tissues need to be sterilized!
different-church-lady
@Aleta:
“Some experts consider the action to be dangerous.”
NotMax
@Wag
Gotta link it again because it’s so damn clever.
:)
Betty Cracker
@MomSense: I saw that and was astounded yet again by the stupidity. It’s probably safe to assume they’ve never touched a shovel outside ceremonial photo-ops. But surely they are familiar with how spoons work, right? Same principle! :)
germy
@MomSense: it looked like they were digging a grave.
e julius drivingstorm
@NotMax:
It would be irresponsible not to caution pregnant women to consult their physicians before partaking.
schrodingers_cat
@germy: That’s exactly what came to my mind too.
Eric S.
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I was introduced to Monkey 47 gin on a trip to Europe. It is available in the US as well. I’m a big fan.
PST
@Immanentize:
She’s doing a great job, and it’s heartening to learn about yet another bright star in the Democratic galaxy. However, Biden’s one glaring vulnerability is his age, and it is a legitimate issue, so the one factor that dominates all others is ability to step into his shoes instantly. Both the reality and the perception matter with this. That makes it imperative to select someone who is a known quantity with broad experience at the federal level. There are multiple good choices among women senators alone, and many more if you cast a wider net. Honestly, I don’t think there is any doubt that the VP candidate will be a woman senator; I just don’t know which one.
Kattails
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:So you like the Empresss? I’ve been wanting to try it, but yeah, $$, & they don’t make it in 375 ml. I’ve heard Gunpowder is quite good. We have a local distillery, Saxton’s, that makes a very nice Snowdrop Gin, and the last remaining independent bottler in the state, Squamscot, makes a great tonic, not too sweet. Still cold here but maybe with another 5 degrees upwards and another unemployment check :)
Another Scott
Few words are more abused in English than the word “theory” (and those based upon it).
A “theory” isn’t just any wild guess about the way things work. Wikipedia:
A theory is a particular thing – a set of facts and an explanation for those facts, and an explanation of new facts that are subsequently found, and that makes testable predictions.
What Donnie said wasn’t a “theory”, it is the worst kind of anti-science kookery.
FTFNYT should know better, and they need to fire their headline/twitter writer if they can’t get it right.
Grrr…
Cheers,
Scott.
Amir Khalid
@Gin & Tonic:
Just wondering: when your friend made this disclaimer, did he happen to have his fingers crossed? ?
A Ghost to Most
Rick Wilson is my spirit animal:
schrodingers_cat
Why does Birx look like she is being swallowed by her scarves. As someone who loves silk scarves I love Nancy Pelosi’s scarf game. Birx makes me rethink my love of silk scarves.
Elizabelle
On the bright side, it will be fun to see what Andrew Cuomo has to say about Trump’s latest medical suggestions.
Every day is Friday bad news dump day. Every day.
NotMax
@NotMax
Riverdancing Christ on a Uneeda biscuit, stepping on the punchline is my mutant super power.
Fix of the fix.
DOLTINI
1½ oz.vodka (see note 1)
1 oz. Pine Sol
1 oz. Goldschlager
½ oz. Fox‘s syrup.
Cloudy ammonia
Bitter melon (cubed)
(optional) Drano flakes
Fresh mint (see note 2)
.
Gather the ingredients.
Pour ammonia into a chilled old fashioned glass and swirl to coat the inside surface. Pour excess ammonia into a shot glass for use as a chaser.
Muddle the mint and Goldschlager in bottom of glass
In a cocktail shaker filled with ice, pour the vodka, syrup, and Pine Sol.
Shake well.
Strain into the chilled glass.
Garnish with a skewer of bitter melon. (optional) Roll skewered bitter melon cubes in Drano flakes.
Serve and enjoy!
Note 1: IMPORTANT! Before using, cover name of brand of vodka on bottle label with duct tape and print “TRUMP” on the tape with a Sharpie.
Note 2: For best results, recommend only U.S. mint.
Leto
This headline reminds me of a package of dog treats I recently saw: 3 out of 4 dogs prefer X brand. I’m like… who the fuck is the fourth dog? What type of dog snob are we dealing with? “Yes I’ll eat cat tootsies, but no way in hell am I eating X brand!” /turnsupnose
Elizabelle
@Another Scott:
There is something deeply wrong at the FTF NYTimes. I don’t know that it is explained by mere incompetence.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Dumb Ass Donny’s typical day
https://www.yahoo.com/news/no-rallies-no-golf-just-121917468.html
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump arrives in the Oval Office these days as late as noon, when he is usually in a sour mood after his morning marathon of television.
Good to know he has nothing better to do
Pathetic twat, he bad mouths Cuomo while being lead by him. So the reason why Trump whines so much about Hillary, Obama and Cuomo is secretly he admires them and wants to them to do his job, just as long as he takes the credit???
Fraking usless pig botheror.
Betty
@OzarkHillbilly: Public unions do get special hatred though.
NotMax
@Enhanced Voting Techniques
Yes, we’re suffering through the United States of Pakled.
“The economy is broken. Make it go.”
Barbara
@schrodingers_cat: Speculating wildly, without foundation, but for a long time people noted that men however casually dressed could put a tie on over a button down shirt and assume authority. So a lot of women looked for the equivalent of a tie to give themselves an equivalent boost, especially in science jobs where dressing casually was the norm. Those goofy bow ties had the opposite effect. I am guessing scarves is what Birx settled on and they just became part of her routine work wardrobe.
Also, I have noted people repeatedly referring to her as a Pence hire. I don’t know how she got her current position, but she has been a career military/government scientist for going on 30 years. She was promoted by Obama among others to science positions, and has much more experience in infectious disease public health policy than Redfield, her boss at the CDC.
Gin & Tonic
@Amir Khalid: The disclaimer was mine, when I realized that what I wrote here could have been unclear. When I first heard the story, subject and object were clear.
germy
@Barbara: I read somewhere Birx pulls up her scarf to use as a makeshift mask when necessary.
NotMax
@Gin & Tonic
“They’re doing what with them?”
– Thomas Edison.
//
Bruuuuce
@PST:
I have some doubts, but only because he could as easily choose a woman governor. One reason the GOP astroturf terrorist protests are aimed at Governor Whitmer is that she’d be a very strong VP candidate.
Either way, whomever he chooses needs not just to be younger than he, but also to be in a situation where her replacement is a lock to be a Democrat. That’s another reason Senator Warren is not a good choice; even with a mandatory special election, Gov Baker is a Republican and is likely to appoint another for the interim, which would be valuable time lost for the Dems.
germy
Tony Jay
I will now rant briefly about a thing that annoys me. It’s not for everyone, so feel free to move on to the next waterhole of toxic fury.
“THE TRUTH? WE DON’T HANDLE THE TRUTH!”
Example Eleventybillion and counting why the pile of shit excuse for a newspaper formerly known as the Guardian is nothing more than a niche marketing tool that looks in the mirror every morning and sees the British NYT smirking back at it, ratfucking and all.
There are quite a few verbotten topics that will get your comments deleted and letters ignored by the Guardian’s editorial scammers, most of them revolving around any inconveniently fact-based commentary on the campaign of systematic vilification the rag directed at Labour’s former leader in particular and anyone on the Left of the Labour Party in general, but anything that touches on that campaign in an embarrassing way is fair game as far as the nameless moderators employed to keep Badthought from polluting their sealed echo-chamber are concerned. One pertinent example is anything to do with the recent bankruptcy of the Jewish Chronicle and its rival, the Jewish News, two small-circulation outlets with a very right-wing, pro-Likud editorial policy that were launching pads for some of the most venomously anti-Corbyn propaganda, a lot of which fed back into the Guardian’s ‘reporting’ whenever a new ‘anti-Semitism scandal’ was required to bump Conservative troubles off the front page. Now, the Guardian has tearfully reported on the failure of the two rags, but yesterday had a prominent article telling everyone how a well-wishing consortium had ridden to the Chronicle’s rescue. Given the slant of the publication that’s a pity, but beyond the usual workings of the trans-Atlantic Wingnut Wurlitzer there are a few other things that the Guardian somehow failed to include in its coverage.
One of the reasons the Chronicle ran out of money was its habit of spewing costly accusations of anti-Semitism and/or untoward displays of affection for terrorist groups at anyone insufficiently deferential to the Israeli Right, including a recent major court case for libelling a Labour Party member in the Liverpool Riverside constituency whom it had accused of being (you may need to sit down on a comfortable chair or beanbag before hearing this shocking news) an evil anti-Semite. The judge in the case was hugely scathing of the Chronicle’s ‘reporting’, openly suggesting that they were liars who knew they were lying when they published their lies. The ruling is public knowledge, but heaven forfend that anyone mention it within the Guardian’s hearing. Back in the day they couldn’t move fast enough to ‘report’ how the former Riverside MP, Dame Louise ‘Likud Not Labour’ Ellman was being bullied and targeted for abuse by sinister Corbynista Joohaterz in her constituency Party, some of whom even wanted – horror of horrors – to select someone less hateful to represent them and the Labour Party in the next Election, those anti-democratic beasts! These accusations had even cropped up in the BBC’s barrel-scraping Panorama documentary (think 60 Minutes) as evidence of anti-Semitic bullying of Jewish MPs. But funnily enough, now that there was clear and irrefutable evidence that the accusations so gleefully bandied around were utterly false, the Guardian not only wasn’t interested in reporting on this rather important correction to their original stories, but had assigned their moderators to censor any mention of it in its online Comment is Free pages.
I’ll just repeat that for emphasis and because it still boggles my bubble-sack.
A major ‘left-leaning’ newspaper that touts itself as dedicated to reporting only on the facts in order to solicit extra donations from its readership will not allow those readers to even mention that a story they heavily promoted for years led to a court case where the story was found to be libellous and the very definition of Fake News.
But that’s not the thing that really annoyed me. Honest, it’s not. There’s no respect left in my great big bag of emotions for the Guardian to lose. OTOH, yesterday’s story about the consortium that has taken over the Jewish Chronicle’s debts opens with this passage –
So, a hardcore Brexiteer who worked as a senior advisor to various noxious Tories and as their man in charge of slanting the BBC’s political output, including during the 2016 Referendum and 2017 Election, another right-wing Brexiteer Polanski-apologist who left the Charity Commission roundly despised by the country’s charities, an uber-Blairite former MP for the constituency of UK Arms Industry-in-Furness who stood down rather than face an investigation into sexual harassment allegations before loudly backing the Conservatives in 2019, and the same Islamophobic ranter who the BBC tasked with producing the Panorama hatchet-job last year. Quite the interesting clutch of ‘ideologically sound’ faces to front an anonymous group of faceless trustees. Apparently the Kessler Foundation, which owned the Jewish Chronicle, had a scheme to dump the debt (and the staff, just in time for Passover, natch) then buy back the assets for pennies and merge with the Jewish News, with the News’ senior staff staying on to run the new publication. That’s in the bin now, much to the delight of the Chronicle’s editor, Stephen Pollard, whose career as a writer for seemingly every single right-wing rag in Britain is matched only by his ability to get his knuckles rapped by the Independent Press Standards Organisation for breaching editorial standards. He resigned to join the consortium and will now keep his job as shit-flinger-in-chief.
Missing from the Guardian’s breathless reportage on the Chronicle’s takeover is any mention at all of the recent leak of an internal report into Labour’s handling of anti-Semitism complaints. I’ve ranted about the shocking revelations in it before, but in this context the important bit is the evidence (in the form of thousands of e-mails, texts and Whatsapp messages) that the very same people who Ware’s Panorama documentary relied upon as ‘whistleblowers’, ever so bravely stepping forward to expose the sinister methods Labour’s previous leadership used to block investigations and expulsions for anti-Semitism offences were, in fact, deliberately blocking the investigations themselves in order to embarrass the Labour Party and give credence to the wider slander, promoted by the editors of the Chronicle and the Guardian, that the leadership, the Party and the entire British Left Wing were and are institutionally anti-Semitic.
Now, the Guardian has seen this report. It’s noted that Ian McNicol, the uber-Blairite former General Secretary of the Party who oversaw all of the sabotage and on whose watch the anti-Semitism smear was weaponised against the leader he hated, has ‘chosen’ to step down as a senior Party leader in the House of Lords because of it. It’s even published an opinion piece by the former Shadow Chancellor, John McDonnell, gently poking fun at the echoing, abyssal, and deeply cynical silence at the heart of the Guardian’s coverage of the revelations, while also pointing out that none of the people named in it have actually denied the accusations thrown at them, other than via anonymous threats of legal action (how Trumpian) and equally anonymous spurts of gaslit self-righteousness (but I repeat myself). They simply Do Not Mention It. In a story about the surprise takeover of a major element in the Media’s anti-Semitism smear campaign by a secret consortium headed by Tories and two of the central figures responsible for promoting and cementing the idea in people’s minds that voting for Labour was a vote for anti-Semitism, they completely fail to provide their readership with relevant information that might make them ask difficult questions about the Guardian’s journalistic standards and partisan slant, and, just in case anyone is foolish enough to think that maybe the article writers and their editors are just a little bit incompetent but not really aware of how awful their product is, simply try to bring the topic up on the Guardian’s ‘Comment is Free’ site and see how long it takes for the thread to be removed and the offending account put into pre-moderation if you so much as pose a polite inquiry asking what it was that broke their Community Standards.
There’s nothing accidental about this censorship. It’s got about as much connection to honest journalism as Don the Con’s bizarre advice on treating Covid-19 with injections of disinfectant has to professional medical guidance.
I also notice that, while the Guardian was happy to quote the Chronicle’s outgoing boss, Alan Jacobs, in claiming “Those donors (who kept the Chronicle afloat before the consortium came in) can be proud that their combined generosity allowed the JC to survive long enough to help to see off Jeremy Corbyn and friends, one of the greatest threats to face British Jewry in the JC’s existence.” they seem to have mislaid their typing fingers where he was also quoted as telling the Financial Times that “A bid for the Jewish Chronicle using money from an unidentified source and fronted by a group of individuals who refuse to tell the world anything of their plans looks like a shameful attempt to hijack the world’s oldest Jewish newspaper… the consortium members need to come forward immediately to explain their motives and plans.” You know, it’s almost like there’s a narrative at play here that the editors of the Guardian don’t want to spoil with bothersome facts or opinions that contradict the preferred gloss on reality.
These fucking people.
Okay, rant over. You may return to your locally scheduled pondering of how many WWC votes Diamond Joe Biden might just garner if he simply drove his Pontiac Firebird Trans-Am straight through the front doors of the White House and emerged from the Oval Office window in a slow-motion barrel-roll with Tang the Demented duct-taped to the hood before doing figure of eight wheel-skids on the lawn? Hundreds? Maybe more? Does Maggie H know?
Bruuuuce
@NotMax: They’re taking them to Isengard
Omnes Omnibus
@Barbara: Pence appointed her to a position and I think that people just ran with that. From what I have seen of her CV, I have no reason to assume that she is anything other than a competent career government physician/scientist. She was appointed to high level positions by Obama.
Elizabelle
@germy: What Nancy Pelosi seems to be doing, too. Silk scarf as PPE. Stylishly.
trollhattan
@germy:
Jeez. “Can’t we get a better class of nazis and klansmen around here? This isn’t Alabama, for gosh sakes!” might just be a clue you’re actually in Alta Alabama.
NotMax
OT.
Just shy of 11 hours after ceasing work carpentering and using power tools yesterday afternoon, hands have almost completely stopped sympathetic trembling. Can actually grip and pour from the vodka bottle with only one hand again.
As for the apres labor condition of the knees – don’t ask.
Elizabelle
The Washington Post headline writers are just way better.
‘Stable genius’ or dangerous ignoramus?
Yes, it’s Jen Rubin. Although it could be Max Boot, too.
RSA
@EmbraceYourInnerCrone: Wow. Also,
Clearly he chose the wrong weapon for his crime.
Omnes Omnibus
@germy: Well, I won’t be doing downtown today.
Ksmiami
@Cheryl Rofer: Look at the bright side, Trump followers who don’t get Coronavirus will be done in by their Jim Jones leader so better odds for us in November
schrodingers_cat
@Barbara: Her scarves and hairstyle make her look like Phyllis Shlafly.
different-church-lady
@germy: So, in essence, telling a bunch of people going to a “YOU CAN’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO!!!” rally what to do?
leeleeFL
@FelonyGovt: That’s where I have landed. Proof in the future (it will be needed for lawsuits) and a heads up for that proportion of his supporters who still have a brain cell or two left.
I can barely watch him, I check in later with my finger on the fast forward button. The laughable closed captioning. That’s another day
Jeebus, he is a dangerous wrecking ball of a creature, isn’t he?
raven
@schrodingers_cat: Kate look like her!
germy
Just saw Meghan McCain on The View saying she hopes Biden has a “bipartisan” cabinet.
Sure, let’s staff Biden’s office with republicans.
And maybe Trump should pick Ajamu Baraka as his running mate
In the interest of “bipartisanship”
sheila in nc
@Quinerly: Late to the thread but can I add another upvote to the Peychaud’s? Although mostly for rye drinks like the Sazerac and La Louisiane. Can’t believe so many places don’t have it. Last December I had to drive 30 miles to the next county to score some!
BC in Illinois
Hillary Clinton:
https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/1253697753479331840
Elizabelle
Breaking from the WaPost:
Live updates: FDA issues hydroxychloroquine warning, citing serious effects, including death; U.S. coronavirus toll nears 50,000
Jimmiraybob
No need to be dragging Dr. Dolittle into this.
August West
Trump has proven for the umpteenth time that his IQ is in single digit land.
How does fucking moron tie his own shoelaces or make the knot on his necktie?
NotMax
@germy
germy
https://reductress.com/post/quiz-have-you-made-the-bon-appetit-focaccia-yet-or-do-you-live-with-someone-you-can-fuck/
cmorenc
@PST:
If Biden is to pick an incumbent female D-Senator for his VP candidate, a mandatory requisite must be that it be a senate seat the Democrats can 100% reliably hold, both through any interim appointment period and when the election is held for a successor. No prospective choice, no matter how good, is worth permitting McConnell to retain/regain even the slimmest of majority Senate control, because he will use that to undermine and frustrate the Biden administration at every possible turn – which is unfortunately one thing McConnell is actually very competent at, aside from just being a corrupt asshole.
germy
@NotMax: They’re not into giving up power. It’s not their thing.
Princess
@PST: I think a mayor with executive experience in a large American city (not South Bend) would have an easier time stepping into the presidency than a senator without executive experience (Harris has both of course).
schrodingers_cat
@raven: Outfit and hair and makeup is not helping either. It probably is deliberate. PS may be her idol. Who knows.
Just One More Canuck
Reporters on CNN are openly asking if Trump is all there
Elizabelle
Cuomo O’Clock is 11:30 today. Nancy Pelosi also scheduled to hold a press conference then.
I live for seeing and hearing smart people speak.
Elizabelle
@cmorenc: I am sure Biden and his advisors are well aware of that.
schrodingers_cat
@Just One More Canuck: Wow it took them 4 years to acknowledge that the Emperor is naked.
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@PenAndKey: “All of them Katie!” Why do I have to pick just one? This is who he is, this is who he always was. Maybe he didn’t say the quiet part out loud when he was younger, but this is who he is. AND this is who millions of people in this country wanted for President. I’m going to go heat up my leftovers for lunch now, because I am at work and , that’s all I got right now. Maybe the spousal unit will send pics or video of the kittens to my cell…need kitten pics.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@germy:
Meghan and her friends are looking for a political party to take over.
raven
@schrodingers_cat: Blanchett is doing a great job as is the rest of the cast.
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@Just One More Canuck: Maybe they should have been asking that in 2016 when he was campaigning…They helped this happen.
“But her emails!!”
schrodingers_cat
@raven: Oh I thought you were talking about Birx.
raven
@schrodingers_cat: Kate Blanchett as Shlafly in Mrs America.
Amir Khalid
This is kind of off-topic, but still relevant to a general conversation on Covid-19:
Britain’s public health authorities will investigate the Champions League match last month between Liverpool and Atlético Madrid, attended by 3,000 travelling Atleti fans at a time when Atleti’s own home stadium was already closed because of a partial lockdown in Madrid. A link is suspected between the Atleti fans’ presence and a subsequent spike in new-case numbers in Liverpool.
Mike in NC
@Gin & Tonic: As we are entering the End Times, drinking of vodka martinis is permissible.
Elizabelle
I’ve been watching Foyle’s War on Amazon Prime. The series’ first four episodes are available free through April 30. Very well done, although occasionally I cannot catch the dialogue.
Depressing to think of being Britain heading in to WW2. With Trump as your head of government, but no way to remove him.
WaterGirl
@ixnay: Do we think there are enough musicians on BJ to have a post where you guys can link to the music you’re putting out during quarantine?
Would anyone be interested in a thread like that?
cmorenc
@Elizabelle:
Yes, but are Elizabeth Warren’s ardent supporters pushing hard for her to be the pick, sufficiently aware and cautious of that? As reliably blue as Massachusetts is in Presidential elections, the recent history isn’t nearly so reliable for US Senate and Governor. The Massachusetts electorate has demonstrated a soft spot for electing purportedly “moderate” Republicans to the Senate and Governorship – the immediate successor to Ted Kennedy’s senate seat was Republican Scott Brown, who together with asshole Joe Lieberman, enormously compounded the difficulty and limited the substantive possibilities for passing the ACA.
As much as I admire Elizabeth Warren, she’s frankly strategically much better left in the Senate.
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@cmorenc: Exactly. We can not risk losing ANY Senate seats. And people have to stop assuming that Northeast states will reliably vote in only Democrats. Vermont, New Hampshire and Massachusetts all currently have Republican governors. Up until last year Maine also had a Republican governor.
zhena gogolia
@germy:
Funny!
Elizabelle
Cuomo up. Tells audience they look bright and peppy.
Jimmiraybob
@OzarkHillbilly:
(thank you KC, STL, SPG)
And, from STL, thank you back, as well as to all of your fun and gracious fellow Ozarkians, for all the decades of being welcomed to visit the hills, woods, crystal-clear springs and rivers, farms, and all the small town groceries, restaurants, BBQ joints, and taverns that I’ve visited over the decades.
PenAndKey
This is pretty much me Monday through Friday now, with the addition of having to wear PPE and a face shield all day when I’m not eating because as a manager I have to talk to every team on site all the time. My vice is Mrs P&K sending pictures of my 10 day old daughter every morning and whenever she wakes up to play and eat. Those are really what make me put up with all this.
zhena gogolia
@Elizabelle:
We watched it when it first appeared and loved it. We just got through the first two episodes and it’s even better than I remembered. Michael Kitchen, Honeysuckle Weeks, et al. have never done better work. And Horowitz’s writing is amazing.
ETA: Incredible performance by Charles Dance in the second episode.
WaterGirl
@NotMax: Would you like me to delete the two previous efforts?
Elizabelle
@zhena gogolia: Yes. Charles Dance was perfect.
Almost sorry he could not be a recurring character, although what a villain.
Geoboy
@EmbraceYourInnerCrone: Can he be permenantly disbarred now, please?
Quinerly
@sheila in nc: I’m big on the Sazerac! Must use good rye and not bourbon.
A few years ago I had Monday night Red Beans and Rice parties during the Mardi Gras season created around Sazeracs.
Those were the days, my friend. ?
Amir Khalid
Did FYWP eated my comment? Oh well, I’ll just type it in again.
British health authorities will investigate the Liverpool-Atlético Madrid Champions League on March 11 as a possible coronavirus infection cluster. The match was attended by some 3,000 visiting Atléti fans at a time when their own home stadiums was already closed because of lockdown measures in Madrid. Letting the match be played had been criticised at the time as a mistake.
Just One More Canuck
@EmbraceYourInnerCrone:
@schrodingers_cat: Baby steps – at least it’s happening and aren’t excusing his behaviour as they had before
WaterGirl
@Elizabelle: I can’t find a link that lets me start at the beginning. Do you have one?
Elizabelle
@cmorenc: @EmbraceYourInnerCrone:
I think states should have a law that a departing/deceased US Senator is replaced by a member of his/her own party (since that is what the voters selected), and any change can be made at next election.
It is just not right that it comes down to chance — which party is the governor? — and it’s not worth it enough for Democrats.
leeleeFL
@BC in Illinois: The numbers of tRumpians who have to be treated for ingesting, injecting or applying toxic fluids to themselves will be through the roof, Hill. Well done!
Gin & Tonic
@Mike in NC: As bad as the world is, it has *not* gotten to that point yet.
WaterGirl
@Amir Khalid: It got marked as spam. I just released it.
japa21
I checked Georgia’s figures for yesterday, the day before they started opening up. 781 new cases and 35 deaths. Let’s see what it looks like two weeks from today.
Elizabelle
@WaterGirl: Yes. Just remember Ny.Gov very easy
https://www.ny.gov
different-church-lady
@Just One More Canuck: Four years too late.
The Golux
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Those two seem to be about the same price, at least according to the interwebs. I like the Botanist, the Empress less so. Tanqueray is my usual; I occasionally splurge for Tanqueray Ten (which goes to eleven).
Elizabelle
@WaterGirl: here is a better one. C-Span link. You can watch in progress, or start at the beginning.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?471494-1/york-governor-cuomo-coronavirus-news-conference&live
No fireworks just yet.
trollhattan
@Elizabelle:
Whoops. Somebody at the FDA gonna lose their jerb by COB.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@germy:
In the late spring of 2001, while he was still mad at George W Bush and before Jim Jeffords stole his thunder and 9/11 opened the possibility for endless war in the Middle East, McCain was said to be in talks with Dem friends about switching parties. There was an article quoting an anonymous GOP operative saying, basically, take him, and you’ll find out the dirty little secret of DC politics is that John McCain is not that smart (and difficult to work with). I’ve never been able to google up that article, but I think history has proved both those things.
Meghan is both far, far dumber, and far, far to the right, of her Daddy. It is a real black eye for ABC to have someone so partisan, not just conservative, in that daily format
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Eric S.:
I took out a mortgage and bought some Monkey 47 this past winter – I agree. I’d had it at Enchantment Resort in Sedona in October.
Other favorites that are related to travel and that I can’t get here:
McHenry’s Federation Gin (Australia, special product – has botanicals from all 10 Australian states)
At the Royal Livingston in Zambia, at Vic Falls, there is a house made gin they keep in a cask at the bar. It is pink and wonderful, in a fantastically old-school Victorian safari lodge bar. I wanted to wear a pith helmet with jodhpurs while smoking a pipe when I drank that.
different-church-lady
@cmorenc:
The Mass dem party has a bad habit of choosing horrible party-machine candidates for these campaigns. And one governorship and one senate failure can be blamed on the same person: Martha Coakley.
trollhattan
@EmbraceYourInnerCrone:
Maine didn’t just have a Republican, they had Paul LePage.
Booger
@Wag: Technically phosgene, which is even better at keeping you safe from dying from COVID-19
Miss Bianca
@Quinerly: Has no one spoken to you yet about the dangers of drunk gardening??//
WereBear
Cuomo points out states declaring bankrupcy is ILLEGAL. “Pass a law letting me. I dare you”
Elizabelle
@WereBear: “But if you believe what you said, and you’re a man of conviction, pass that bill. … if it’s not just politics.”
He knows Mitch.
Elizabelle
Every NYS voter will be mailed an application for a ballot by mail. Yea!
trollhattan
@The Golux:
Empress has popped up in fancy schmancy cocktails in these parts because of its odd characteristic of turning purple when mixed with certain ingredients. As gin it’s perfectly serviceable.
Sab
@cmorenc: I am an ardent Elizabeth Warren supporter and I want her to stay in the Senate where she might be useful.
Gin & Tonic
@The Golux: There are just so many new and interesting gins now, it’s hard to keep track. Since it’s among the first revenue-generating products a startup distillery can make (no barrel aging required) and the various mixes of botanicals can differentiate them, that’s where a lot of the creative energy goes.
That said, not in the startup category, but St. George Spirits (Alameda, CA) “Botanivore” is excellent.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Kattails:
We had something called “Ink” from Tasmania that also had its color from butterfly pea blossom – the addition of the tiniest bit of water turns it from dark indigo to pink. Just delightful. I like making martinis with it, wife likes unadorned gin and tonics with it.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I can see a Larry Hogan type in an unimportant subcabinet position. Certainly, no Republican should be named to any important cabinet position or any law enforcement role.
leeleeFL
@A Ghost to Most: He has been fucking brilliant, hasn’t he?
Cannot say I will trust him, but I can enjoy and share his stuff that I agree with
Miss Bianca
@Capri: OK, first I’m impressed (?) that people are even *asking* you about corona virus in large animals. Because second, I just re-located Roxy’s vaccination certificate from last year the other day (not last month, when I actually *needed* it, sigh…) and was surprised to note that, among other things, she had been vaccinated against canine coronavirus. I was happily ignorant of the fact that there even *was* such a thing!
artem1s
@PenAndKey:
The worst part? I fully expect that the real answer is mostly 1, exacerbated by 2, and an underlying lifetime of 3. What a world…
you forgot
4. He’s fundamentally driven by a narcissistic need to make people believe him AND he is compelled by his illness to always up the ante and push the envelop on what he can get the rubes to believe.
The more dangerous it is to the listener, the bigger the rush it is for him. He is getting an endorphin rush out of this. It is always going to be part of his pathology to lie just to see if he can get away with it.
WaterGirl
@Elizabelle: That one wouldn’t let me go back and start at the beginning. :-(
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@PenAndKey: up. My 25 year old daughter is planning her now postponed even further, wedding. That give me something to chat with her about that’s not the news, on our breaks from work. That and her attack cat…. I am lucky in that I only have to wear a mask all day. Fresh gloves I wear anytime I have to work on ANY printer and any computer except my own and I have been doing that for over a month. AT least I got everyone to STOP bleaching the touch screens on the printers. My printer screen doesn’t work!! No Really? I wonder why…
Kent
Martha Coakley is now a lobbyist for Juul, the vile e-cig company. Which should tell you want kind of person she actually was. Who leaves politics and says to themselves that what they are going to do for the rest of their life is dedicate themselves to is addicting millions of teens and pre-teens to nicotine?
Quinerly
@Miss Bianca: I do wear pants.
WaterGirl
@Elizabelle: Thank you!
Elizabelle
His Italian grandmother: It’s easy to be nice when things are nice. … when things get hard — that’s when you know if they’re nice ….
you really get to see character and true colors when it’s hard. …. it’s like the pressure just forces their character. The weaknesses explode, or the strengths …
I tell you, some people just break your heart. Some people I thought were strong …. under pressure, they just crumble. OTOH, you see other ppl you did not expect anything from and they rise to the occasion.
… the beauty of people and the ugliness you see … Cuomo says he sees the beauty and the strength, so that he can tolerate the weakness.
Amir Khalid
@japa21:
Malaysia’s population is three times that of Georgia. Yesterday we had just 71 new cases, only two deaths, and were informed that lockdown was extended again. (I think the Movement Control Order should be really extended a month at a time rather than two weeks, but I’m not on the National Security Council so they never ask me.)
Miss Bianca
@Wag: Woods, or get out of town.
Elizabelle
A letter writer (farmer in NE Kansas; wife has one lung and diabetes) mailed an N95 mask to Cuomo to pass on to a doctor or a nurse.
The farmer had 5 masks; kept 4 for his family; shared the remaining; sent to NY.
The Thin Black Duke
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: However, Meghan is smart enough to see that Trump is a Dead President Walking, which makes me smile.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@germy:
She’s covering hickeys. Trump hickeys.
Quinerly
@WaterGirl: ??❤️??
different-church-lady
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: God almighty, WHY?
Elizabelle
Says the generosity of spirit makes up for all the ugliness.
First Q: UV and bleach. Of course.
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@trollhattan: Yes, I always chuckle when people talk about “deep blue” New England. Nah, we are way weirder than that. I still have cousins in Maine and the thinking just flabbergasts me some days.
Miss Bianca
@A Ghost to Most: Yeah, he gives good invective, and I enjoy it more than I should, considering that Rick Wilson is, y’know, one of the evil mofos who helped shape the current Republican Party and thus *enabled* a President Trump.
Has he ever apologized for that, or even acknowledged it?
Elizabelle
Every registered NYS voter gets an application, with postage. Streamlining the process — no longer dependent on internet and with return postage.
Kent
Former Republicans would be OK. Like Elizabeth Warren running Treasury.
Kristine
@Quinerly: My intro to Peychaud’s was in a sazerac, which is pretty much my favorite mixed drink
Barbara
@germy: She and people like her will always feel entitled to hold power, no matter how few people actually vote her side in. If I were Biden I would basically tell people that it’s not enough to be a “Never Trumper.” There has to be a basic recognition when/if he is elected, that the Republican Party has failed. They can either become Democrats, maybe independents, or stay Republicans who work to bring their party back to sanity. But they can’t have their cake, serving in his administration, and eat it too, that is, without acknowledging the essential failure of the party that they represent. That’s the equivalent of giving everyone a trophy no matter how badly they lose. Sure, it works for grade school sports, but not for adults who want to wield power over policy and people’s lives. You can’t move forward from a failure until you own it.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Elizabelle:
That’s what should’ve happened in Ohio. But no, we had to mail-in or drop off applications for absentee ballots like normal
Sab
@Kent: I adore E Warren but she doesn’t have the skill set for Treasury. She is a lawyer. It needs an economist ( which it curently doesn’t have.)
Elizabelle
Mitch McConnell is a taker. Not a giver. NYS are givers.
Kentucky is the number 3 state in taking from the federal pot. Every year. Every year.
WereBear
@Miss Bianca:
HAIL NO. He is simply smart and cynical enough to see the wreck coming, and work on changing trains…
germy
Cuomo’s making good points about McConnell and his state.
Amir Khalid
From The Guardian’s coronavirus liveblog
I say to the Trump “administration”: lead, follow, or get out of the way.
Kent
That is the best analogy I have ever heard. There are no participation trophies in politics! Elections have consequences Megan!
hueyplong
@Miss Bianca: Converting some a-holes is the only way to get a blowout of historic proportions. I lived in Georgia when Max Cleland got screwed so it’s not a casual thing for me to say that I’m fine with Wilson’s aggressive support in this campaign.
Obviously, any new administration will keep a proper social distance from Wilson and all the other shock troops who have joined the anti-Trump resistance (Schmidt, Rubin, Frumm, etc., etc.).
We didn’t demand that Stalin give public apologies for the Nazi-Soviet Pact while sending Lend Lease to the USSR. I try to think of this stuff in that context.
Elizabelle
Previously, a little tutorial on how the virus arrived in NY because of airports. It flew in.
Planes don’t go to Kentucky. They go to NY. Or California.
germy
@Elizabelle:
If every state in the union did that, republicans would never win another election.
(I’m quoting Trump. He actually admitted that)
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Barbara:
I wonder how McCain and others like her would react to that view when put in such stark terms? Deny it? Because it’s absolutely correct. All of their blithering about freedom and liberty is undermined by such talk. Would she also expect a Republican POTUS to have a “bipartisan” cabinet as well?
Redshift
@Miss Bianca: Anyone who was just fine with the GOP right up to when Trump got the nomination should not be allowed anywhere near the levers of power.
Kent
I don’t want her in treasury either. I like her where she is.
I was just joking that my idea of a bipartisan cabinet would be including some former Republicans *like* Elizabeth Warren.
I just like the idea of going along with Republican pleas for bipartisanship by putting Warren in charge of Treasury just to see the heads explode. Careful what you ask for!
Miss Bianca
@Mike in NC:
Are we entirely sure that that’s not what’s been *causing* the End Times?
Ruckus
@Jeffro:
trump is the hit parade for every shit characteristic that you don’t want in a president. Or just everyday human being actually. And those feed on each other to make the sum far worse than the individual bits and pieces. The only thing he lacks is the balls to murder by his own hands. He doesn’t mind that people take up his suggestions and then die. But the real problem is two fold. First, the dementia makes the rest of his deficits worse. Second, his enablers and followers are as bad as he is and give him support. Most people would call the police if they found someone as deranged or in such a incapacitated way wondering around on the street. He gets a press conference and dangerous, bigoted support.
Barbara
@Kent: McCain’s whole life experience is basically receiving one participation trophy after another. Seriously.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@germy:
Yup. They all think vote-by-mail will somehow lead to widespread fraud or something. That there will be a black market for votes!
20 years ago the GOP was pushing for vote-by-mail because they thought it would favor their voters
WereBear
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
I have yet to hear such a proposal!
Mandalay
In other heartwarming news, another parasite has managed to get its claws into PPP money allegedly intended to help small businesses:
Even Lil’ Marco should be able to work out that announcing your freebie to the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange might indicate that his PPP money is being dished out to the wrong companies.
Redshift
Today in crazification (via Greg Sargent):
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: yeah, I’m not gonna call for burning the party down if Christie Todd Whitman is at SBA or Ray LaHood comes back to the transportation department. ETA: I won’t be thrilled, I’d rather he didn’t do it, but I’m gonna use my outrage carefully.
germy
Kent
@Redshift: Well, if we can get the 23% of MAGA die-hards to drink bleach and eat light bulbs…..
Just saying. Maybe Trump has a point!
Redshift
We bought a bottle of Aviation Gin after seeing an interview with Ryan Reynolds (part owner) about how he’s donating 30% of the profits to help out of work bartenders. I like it a lot.
Elizabelle
Short press conference. Cuomo seemed tired. Has been a long week.
Kent
But not the scientists and medical professionals. Don’t listen to them.
EthylEster
@WereBear: He makes Nixon look better, and I loathed Nixon on sight. As a child.
OK. I laughed out loud. Thanks.
germy
glory b
@schrodingers_cat: I’m rethinking my scarves too. Do I look like that? I hope not!
Redshift
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: And god, I hope we don’t get a Republican at Defense again. Trump has burned a lot of the GOP’s undeserved national security cred, and there is no reason to help them rebuild it by giving the media an excuse to indulge their knee-jerk “Republicans are strong on defense” tic.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I’d prefer none. But I suppose a talking point on bipartisanship might justify an innocuous appointment.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Barbara: I don’t watch the View but every once in a while a clip goes viral and I don’t think she can speak a hundred words without misusing a fifty-cent word that she thinks makes her sounds smart.
NotMax
@WaterGirl
Be my guest.
Redshift
@Steeplejack:
If you’re trying to protect against the virus, I’ve heard inhaling it might be good. What have you got to lose? /magat
Miss Bianca
@hueyplong:
Well, that’s certainly one way to look at it, and I wish I could cultivate that spirit of detachment. Because, man, Max Cleland…if I lived in his former district, I’d be setting my computer on fire every time I saw Rick Wilson’s name for his role in that disgrace.
Still, since Wilson *isn’t* Stalin, I would just once like to hear *someone* ask him about his former role as a dirty trickster. As in: “Do you regret the part you played in taking the Republican Party to where it is right now?”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Redshift:
or, for that matter, Leon Panetta, blobbiste extraodrinaire.
kmeyerthelurker
This keeps going through my head now.
https://youtu.be/Sumb3GYuAT8
Kent
You ONLY put someone like Hogan in a minor Cabinet spot in order to take back the MD governorship going into redistricting. THAT is the only reason you do something like that.
He has been a absolutely HORRID governor when it comes to urban affairs and has implemented an absolutely racist transportation policy in MD, killing mass transit that would help poorer people of color in Baltimore in favor of more “white flight” sprawl inducing, carbon intensive freeway expansion for the white suburbs. So you don’t put him in something like Transportation. He has a horrid record there.
You don’t put any GOPers into any Cabinet or cabinet level positions of power unless you are taking them out of an elected office that Dems can re-take. So no retirees or college presidents (like Gates).
And, if they turn you down? Well… you made the effort.
khead
@Baud:
I agree on the “none” part but I probably wouldn’t mind Hogan because I am a little worried he will change his mind about running for the Senate. Timing isn’t quite right though. Larry has the job until 2022.
ETA – See Kent above.
germy
Kent
The only ones who award “points” for bipartisanship are institutions like the NYT. Is that what we care about now?
Honestly, by Jan 2021 when appointments are made, the election is already over and by Nov 2022 when the mid-terms come what you did in the first weeks of the administration will be really old news. I don’t see the benefit of that sort of thing except to generate “likes” from the likes of David Brooks.
Nicole
I do not tire of Cuomo going after McConnell. Unlike cleaning agents, I will gladly have his contempt for Yertle injected into my veins ALL DAY LONG.
A Ghost to Most
@germy: This. Before they get to apologize to me, the Nazi asshole contingent of my family need to apologize to America for being Nazi assholes.
Ruckus
@Leto:
Can you imagine the research that should have gone on before that commercial? Can you imagine the looks of the people in the conference room that weren’t listened to when they said how fucking stupid that was? Can you imagine a world that something like that would never, ever get made into a commercial?
Mandalay
@A Ghost to Most:
Jesus Fucking Christ.
Rick Wilson is the guy who tied triple-amputee Max Cleland to Osama bin Laden, and advertised his KKK credentials when he vilified Obama for having associated with Jeremiah Wright.
There are plenty of opportunist Republican never-Trumpers out there, but Rick Wilson is the worst of the worst. He’s complete scum, but he’s your “spirit animal”?
The enemy of your enemy is not automatically your friend.
Jinchi
Ironically, this is the one time where he could have avoided the whole problem if he’d simply been wearing a mask.
Baud
@Kent: Yes, a lot of people care about what the NYT says. I wish they didn’t, but they do.
Ksmiami
@Miss Bianca: No Republicans in the next administration- that party needs to die.
Ruckus
@Elizabelle:
There is more to it than mere incompetence. The FTFNYT is not a liberal newspaper in any way, shape or form. They employ a few liberal writers, just to have the pretense of some balance but it is only a pretense. They may not be the nazi times but they are on that side of the mid line for sure. What drives them is money. The thrill of it, the feel of it, the smell of it, the need to impress others with how much you’ve got more than them, just the concept of rolling in it naked….. Everything else is just a cover for their fetish.
Kent
Rick Wilson is not any kind of friend. He’s just a premature anti-Trumper. Trying to get out ahead of the crowd who are ALL going to “forget” who Trump was in 2021 if he loses. The ENTIRE fucking Republican party will be trying to distance itself from Trump if he loses. Scum like Wilson are just trying to get first in line. That doesn’t mean any of them are any kind of progressives or share any kind of agenda with any of us. To the contrary. They’ll just be looking for a different vehicle through which to pump their right-wing horrors.
Miss Bianca
@germy: aaaaanddd…down that rabbithole (rabidhole?) I go…thanks, man!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I was listening to an NPR news round-up and the reaction to ‘drink bleach’ as he looked around for, and got, affirmation from the country’s leading public health officials was, “Well, that just shows how the President is eager to find a silver bullet…”. So, pretty much, there he goes again, that’s just trump being trump.
Side note: Wasn’t Dreher always among the farthest right of the ‘right wingers who like to get high’ school of libertarianism? In the Bush years I had a much firmer grasp of who all these goons were, now they’re a big blur.
WereBear
@Nicole:
Crikey, it’s like having a banquet after starving for so long. I’m usually standing up like someone at a prizefight lately.
Hit him again! Hit him harder! Put him dooooowwwwwnnnn.
Poe Larity
Wasnt the gin & tonic invented to make taking quinine more paletable?
What’s chloroquine taste like?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Miss Bianca:
he appears with some regularity on Ana Marie Cox’s podcast, and the first few times he did, well over a year ago, she went after him for it several times, saying pretty much ‘I like you, I want to think of you as a friend, but I keep going back to that Cleland ad’. His response is pretty much, I did not compare him to Saddam Hussein, and politics ain’t beanbag.
Jinchi
I had a similar reaction the other day when I read an article describing the difference between Republican governors and Democratic ones like those in California, New York and Massachusetts.
5 of the last 6 governors in Massachusetts have been Republicans, but we all know that Massachusetts is a liberal state, which therefore has a liberal governor, who therefore is a Democrat.
Likewise, the NYT is a newspaper in New York and therefore, by definition, liberal.
Kent
I’ve always been skeptical. I know the famous Hillary emails headlines. But how many swing state voters in MI and WI subscribe to the Times? More than you can count on two hands?
And yes, I know they tend to set the media narrative that gets repeated on cable news and such. But I even have doubts about that. If the NYT vanished tomorrow I doubt that cable news would change in the slightest.
WE educated liberals who are tuned into the press obsess about the NYT and WP coverage. But I have to wonder how much influence they actually have compared to other factors like Facebook and the Russians and Comey and Fox News and all of that kind of thing that seeps deeper into the lizard brain of middle America.
I’m pretty tuned into the MAGA half of the country and I have a shitload of MAGA relatives in red and purple states. To the extent that they EVER mention the NYT it is only to parrot something that Trump said about it, or to dismiss something cited or mentioned in the NYT because that is where it came from.
Betty Cracker
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: My impression is Dreher is more of a Christianist than a libertarian.
khead
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Dreher is a god botherer. Roy Edroso beats him like a rented mule frequently over at his place.
tomtofa
Here’s what went on behind the scenes during his hyping of chloroquine (probably still is):
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/04/internal-documents-reveal-team-trumps-chloroquine-master-plan
Makes me wonder what’s going on now with regard to injecting UV and disinfectant . . .
A Ghost to Most
@Mandalay: At least he’s got guts. He is going against a lifetime of professional experience to try and fix this mess. Would you also ignore Jennifer Rubin because of the awful screachy things she wrote prior to the existential threat?
In a foxhole, I would rather have Rubin and Wilson than a bunch of socially sensitive progressives who want a place to hide out until the unpleasantries pass. There’s no place to hide anymore.
Truth matters. Courage matters.
Origuy
I was in Napa last December and stopped in at the Napa Valley Distillery. They don’t use grain for their base, they use grapes, of course. Their Hollywood Ginn (they can’t call it gin) is very nice.
Betty Cracker
@Kent: The Times definitely influences how other journalists (not just the cable talking heads) cover politics. They tend to create the narrative, so my guess is they influenced the 2016 outcome plenty.
EthylEster
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Dreher is still a wacko. He’s sort of like Trump in that nothing will ever cause him to be anything except a wacko. A couple of weeks ago he was posting about an old US flag from 9-11 that now has a tear in it so….portent? He is as stupid as Trump, just in a different (that is, religious) way.
Trump is just a signifier for idiots. But if someone thinks that Trump is a moron, that doesn’t mean that they are not also a moron. That’s what makes this so much more difficult.
Jinchi
@Betty Cracker:
The Times also affects how the political class view the world, especially in D.C. It defines the “norms” that are followed and certainly helps establish the range of acceptable choices when it comes to legislation.
Kent
If only that were the case. The GOP certainly followed the cue of the NYT with their tax bill and their jihad against the ACA didn’t they? Those were the only two meaningful GOP pieces of legislation in the past 3 years.
And Trump is certainly following their “norms” for behavior.
Oh…did you meant that the NYT helps establish the acceptable ranges of DEMOCRATIC legislation and norms?
Mandalay
@A Ghost to Most:
What guts? Rick Wilson is an amoral fraud with a big mouth. And going after Trump is how he makes a living. There’s no “guts” involved.
Yes, I would. And I would ignore a sanctimonious prick like Steve Schmidt who tried to dump Sarah Palin on us. And I would also ignore George Conway who sleeps with someone who lies her ass off for Trump.
I find the whole gang of Republican never-Trumpers vile and repulsive. They have absolutely nothing in common with me or my values beyond a loathing for Trump.
Over half the country hates Trump. Why the fuck are we giving any of these rattlesnakes any oxygen at all?
Omnes Omnibus
@Mike in NC: No.
SFBayAreaGal
Here’s to Casblanca
https://youtu.be/lvHUGOHdHhY
Duane
@Amir Khalid: A headline from the AP yesterday read, ” Coronavirus shakes the conceit of ‘American Exceptionalism'”. When even the AP is calling you out the jig is up.
WaterGirl
@Quinerly: I’ll take that as one ‘yes’ vote from Quinerly. :-)
Kent
I’d say that Iraq and Afghanistan already did that. But yes, I take the point.
Citizen Alan
Personally, I think that had less to do with Massachusetts’ voters flirting with moderate Republicans than it did with Martha Coakley’s unique awfulness as a candidate.
Redshift
@PenAndKey:
Honestly, though I think he’s malevolent most of the time, I don’t think that even factors into it here. I recall (before all this started) reading articles where science communicators talked about disease control, and after talking about using disinfectants for cleaning surfaces, they anticipated the naive question “so why don’t we use them to treat infections?”, and explained that it’s because they’re really good at killing all living things, including us.
But Trump has the appalling combination of always being certain he knows better than everyone else, and being impervious to new information, especially when it contradicts his wishful thinking. So when something that seems obvious pops into his head, instead of thinking there may be a reason why it won’t work, he assumes that nobody has ever thought of it because they’re not as brilliant as him, and just blurts it out.
Miss Bianca
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: In other words, no. Well good to know, I guess.
Miss Bianca
@A Ghost to Most: I must confess, the fact that I find what the Rick Wilsons and Jen Rubins of the world are saying to be far more palatable than a lot of what my lefty friends are saying to be…disturbing to my inner wah, as it were.
Then I tell myself it’s because they’re the ones actually attacking *Trump*, rather than the Democrats, unlike my some of my lefty friends.
Duane
@Kent: Some people have to learn good and hard. Death is a hardass teacher.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Miss Bianca:
that’s true
Of the never-trumpers I’m aware of, Max Boot and Stuart Stevens are the only ones who’ve addressed the role that race has played in pre-trump GOP politics, and expressed regret for it.
Uncle Cosmo
@Gin & Tonic: “…the most difficult ER problem he faced was how to remove a light bulb someone had inserted in his rectum (i.e. the patient’s rectum, not my friend’s)”
In order to free the gerbil that was asphyxiating behind it, amirite? :^D
sdhays
Regarding all the scarf usage – the obvious answer is creeping Sharia law!!11!! //
Ruckus
@August West:
How do you know he does?
Another Scott
@Kent: FTFNYT defines what is “political news” in the USA just about every day. You know that NPR and the national radio news networks look at what FTFNYT is covering in building their top-of-the-hour newscasts, similarly with the evening news. It’s not that FTFNYT decides the slant on every story, or that it always gets its way in pushing a story, but it sets a marker.
“Even the Liberal FTFNYT says this is an important story!!1”
Do you really think that they had no role (or just a small role) in pushing the Iraq War or Hillary’s E-mails or Comey’s Investigation into Hillary’s E-mails?
Nobody’s arguing that the GOP wouldn’t have tried to find some other shiny object if Hillary’s E-mails hadn’t been such a game changer. But the point is, FTFNYT gave it legitimacy as an important story, when it wasn’t. And what was important about it, that the GOP was encouraging foreign interference in our election and all the rest, was a small side-show to them.
They’ve done this for decades. Look at their coverage of Hitler before the war. Look at their coverage of Carter. Look at their coverage of Clinton and Gore. They sit on stories to help Republicans. They set the marker that the rest of the MSM follows. They have outsized influence in American politics.
Grr…
Cheers,
Scott.
James E Powell
@EmbraceYourInnerCrone:
Seems to be so. New Hampshire cost Gore the election just as much as Florida did. For some reason this is always overlooked.
Ruckus
@Sab:
A seemingly large number of economists don’t seem to grasp economics as good as EW does. I believe there are two basic schools of economics and one is that if we’d just do economics their way, the stock market would blossom and all would be well with the world, the other is that we live in a complicated world where the very wealthy shouldn’t control all the money.
So I’m doubting that just an economist is the correct answer.
rikyrah
@Elizabelle:
yessssss
A Ghost to Most
@Uncle Cosmo: My wife (RN) tells the story of a person in the ER complaining of vague lower GI distress. After an x-ray revealed a vibrator buried in their ass. When the doc asked if they wanted it removed, the patient said “No, I just want you to change the batteries”.
Ruckus
@Baud:
I’m thinking that dog catcher in east nowhere ND would be OK for a republican. Possibly butt wiper for said dog catcher. That’s the extent of it in my mind. And only because I live far enough away from east nowhere SD.
Ruckus
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
As I understand it, she uses plenty of ten cent words that don’t work either.
A Ghost to Most
@NotMax: As soon as the Texas construction mob moves on, I’m going to start ripping 2×10 Doug fir planks down to 2×1.5 to use as the ribs of the trailer cabin I’m about to build. I hope to be as safe as you apparently were.
Ruckus
@Jinchi:
And NYC is not NY state. Just like LA and SF are not all of CA. There are red bits everywhere in this country. It’s just that some areas are highly populated and blue. Is it because even republicans don’t like each other and don’t want to be too close to each other that they live in more rural areas?
satby
@Ruckus: my son once told me that I shouldn’t have been surprised by how unfriendly the country people were when I moved to rural MI. He pointed out that if they liked people they would live where some were. He was right too.
James E Powell
@Betty Cracker:
Exactly. The NYT influences the whole nation of people who decide what stories are covered, how they are covered, and where they are placed.
The whole “Clinton is corrupt” narrative was built and maintained by the NYT for years before 2016. Without that, the claim had no foundation.
Uncle Cosmo
He did get it right. Far, Far Right.
For some years I have been morally certain (and have often said so at the top of my voice) that the Global Oligarchy Project has spent decades insinuating trusted operatives into those obscure niches in the media corps(es) where headlines & chyrons are drafted. They know good&godamned well that most Murkins don’t read past those blurbs & they’re happy to twist out of all recognition the meaning of the underlying article or segment to serve the Global Oligarchs’ vile purposes,
“Not enough tumbrils,” my arse – there ain’t enough rope for nooses or lampposts to dangle the deserving from.
A Ghost to Most
@Uncle Cosmo: Go long on hemp. There’s gonna be a run on rope.
E
Good Morning America on ABC and the Today show on NBC were pretty much just as bad this morning. They both spoke of the president’s controversial comments, not wromg or dangrous, and pretty much devoted both of their segments to talking about the president’s recommendation of using light and downplayed the whole disinfectant thing. When discussing the disinfectant comments it seemed like they devoted 30 seconds to it and made sure to leave out the word injection. It was mind-blowing to watch how they were trying to cover for him.