Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

Ah, the different things are different argument.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

I’m sure you banged some questionable people yourself. We’re allowed to grow past that.

White supremacy is terrorism.

How can republicans represent us when they don’t trust women?

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

Chutkan laughs. Lauro sits back down.

Fight for a just cause, love your fellow man, live a good life.

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

We’ll be taking my thoughts and prayers to the ballot box.

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

In after Baud. Damn.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

The US Supreme Court is on the ballot in november.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Israel is using food as a weapon of war. Unforgivable.

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

You cannot shame the shameless.

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Excellent Links / Excellent Read: “The Cancer in the Camera Lens”

Excellent Read: “The Cancer in the Camera Lens”

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I wish TNR wasn’t currently spasming through one of its periodic YES BUT THE DEMS ARE BY EVERY DEFINITION WORSE!!! outbreaks (I’ve been subscribing & quitting on a regular basis, for more than 30 years). Because right now I’d pay to read David Roth, but the headlines on the rest of their current roster make me slightly nauseous.

In close up, on television, at a glance, with the volume down, Donald Trump can from time to time look like a president. That effect becomes less convincing the more you pay attention, though. Even under professional lighting, Trump reliably looks like a photographic negative of himself; on his worse and wetter days, he has the tone and texture of those lacquered roast ducks that hang from hooks in Chinatown restaurant windows. The passing presidentiality of the man dissipates utterly in longer shots, where Trump can be seen standing tipped oddly forward like a jowly ski jumper in midair, or mincing forward to bum-rush an expert’s inconvenient answer with an incoherent one of his own, or just making faces intended to signal that he is listening very strongly to what someone else is saying. (These slapdash performances of executive seriousness tend to have the effect, as the comedian Stewart Lee once said of James Corden, of making Trump look like “a dog listening to classical music.”) Seen from this long-shot vantage, the man at the podium is unmistakably Donald Trump—uncanny, unknowing, upset about various things that he can’t quite understand or express.

Of course, it all gets much worse with the sound on; very few things about Trump have ever improved—have not instantly unraveled into a tangle of fragrant grifty waste—upon closer examination. Still, the combination of those familiar close shots, the years of inherited cultural reflex and unconscious media conditioning can make the illusion work for fleeting moments. Since Trump himself has both measured and lived his singularly episodic life in just those kinds of moments, it’s a deal he’s been happy to make. Trump knows what people see when they encounter an older white man standing behind a podium with a certain seal emblazoned upon it, which is the President of the United States of America. He imagined that he might be that man, and now he is. This is all a guess, insofar as anything about What Trump Really Thinks is invariably and inherently a guess, but if there was anything about the job that truly appealed to him when he set out to win the presidency as his own, this sure feels like it. As a lifelong acolyte and addict of television, he could imagine himself in those shots, in that space, doing … whatever a president does.

It seems much less likely that Trump imagined the part where he brutally duffs the response to a pandemic that is now killing thousands of Americans every day and exposing the fragility of the gilded and precarious economy on which he staked his political future and personal legacy. That’s not the sort of thing Trump contemplates, and after years of his presidency happening more or less as someone as vain and lazy as him might dream it—spend all day watching TV and chasing feuds, watch the big numbers go up and up, bask in the adoration of devoted fans who roar with laughter at every garbled punchline—he has proven himself wholly unprepared for the realities of this very difficult job. He only really has so many moves, and because there’s no room within him to learn or care or adapt, he can only hit his mark and expect it all to work this time.

Being there is the point. And being there, in those contextually flattering close shots but also those other ones where he appears to be falling asleep while hanging from an invisible parachute, is why Donald Trump has continued to fight off attempts by the various cynics and masochists to manage him in order to continue claiming the few hours of free daily television exposure that those briefings afford him. So Trump goes up there and does his weird fey bullying thing in response to questions he can’t answer, introduces the CEOs of various companies and accepts their thanks, and breaks in to deliver luxurious adjectival filigrees and wheedling requests for credit and weird obvious lies as promotional addenda to the answers given by the handful of experts also on hand to acknowledge the raging, destructive course of the present crisis. Periodically, Trump veers from his usual riffy emcee-in-chief tone to note how tragic it is that more than 60,000 Americans (as of yesterday) have died in the pandemic he’s so persistently chosen not to manage. But it’s never long before he returns to what matters to him—his numbers, his grievances, himself. “I’m seeing it,” Trump said Wednesday of his belief that an economic recovery will be swift. “I feel it. I’ve felt a lot of things over the years, including, ‘Gee, I think I can win for president.’ You know?”

This performance has long been deeply discordant, especially with Trump’s little whammy-bar runs of gloating and grievance now playing over the daily drumbeat of mass death and economic devastation. It has finally begun to feel as dangerous as it is…

And so they ask Trump questions about what he’s saying, and he talks about what he always talks about; he never knows anything useful, cannot tell the truth about the few things he knows, and is pulled by his own preposterous vanity and insecurities back toward the only thing he really cares about, which is himself. This is what the news is made of, now—the things that a vainglorious fraud says, and then the things that other people on television say about how Dangerous and Irresponsible they are, and then what Trump says about that in his amphetamized after-dark Twitter sessions or scrambling tantrum-swept mornings. It’s not that the things Trump says aren’t actually dangerous or irresponsible: They absolutely are. The bigger problem is that the definition by which these things are considered news—basically, because the president says them—is no longer workable…

More important, coverage that focuses on the stupid things Trump says will be limited to responding to those things and so will remain unresponsive to the more urgent and vexing problems of the moment. New York University journalism professor Jay Rosen has suggested that newsrooms “suspend normal relations” with the White House in an attempt to remedy this—to refuse to air Trump’s briefings live and to focus more on what is actually happening than on what various powerful parties are saying about it. So far, the cable networks that remain the most outsize force in American politics have been unwilling or unable to do this. And so we get what we get. “When the news itself is unstable—when leaders and institutions are crashing and flailing all around us,” Maria Bustillos writes at Columbia Journalism Review, “conventional media is with few exceptions incapable of providing an accurate picture of the facts.”…

Reader Interactions

221Comments

  1. 1.

    Sab

    Earlier this week we had a thread about our favorite front pagers. I mentioned the “technical” people like Cheryl and Adam and Mayhew Anderson. I did not mention you, and that has been bothering me all week. God knows what weird site I would have wandered to looking for information. My sister knows some good ones but they are all in Chinese.

  3. 3.

    The Thin Black Duke

    Even back in the days when Trump had real hair, I thought, “there was no there there.” I never figured out why so many people were mesmerized by this fraud.

  4. 4.

    Snarki, child of Loki

    These slapdash performances of executive seriousness tend to have the effect, as the comedian Stewart Lee once said of James Corden, of making Trump look like “a dog listening to classical music.”

    …so *that’s* the expression when Trump is listening to Putin!

    The old RCA-Victor (records) dog, listening to “his master’s voice”.

  5. 5.

    zhena gogolia

    @Sab:

    Oh, yes, Anne Laurie is a stalwart! I hope she was duly applauded in that thread, I thought that was the case.

  10. 10.

    Ryan

    Whether or not Trump would consider rehiring Flynn is a crime against journalism and should be met with immediate dismissal.

  12. 12.

    frosty

    I’ll pile on with a thank you to AL. Not just the CV19 posts, but everything. She reads Twitter so I don’t have to.

  13. 13.

    Another Scott

    ICYMI, Bitecofer’s model for the elections:

    Lots and lots of thoughtful commentary about races in various states. E.g.

    Yes, before the GOP brought institutional degradation to the federal Congress, they took it for a test drive in the North Carolina legislature. Given the outcome, you’d think the blowback it caused there, in a conservative-friendly state, would have given Senate Leader McConnell some pause this year as he navigated President Trump’s impeachment trial over his conduct in the Ukraine scandal. As with Arizona’s immigration law, the GOP’s overreach in North Carolina activated North Carolina Democrats, and now, a few years later, the trees of that political activism are starting to bear fruit. As in Texas, Democrats have their sights on building on seat gains from the 2018 cycle, working to flip enough state legislative seats in the 2020 cycle to take control of the North Carolina state house. That down-ticket activity will be a major asset to the party’s Senate nominee, Cal Cunningham, in his effort to topple Tillis.

    That said, Obama carried North Carolina in 2008 for three reasons, and he needed all three to do it: a surge in black turnout, a surge in turnout of voters under 30, and winning over pure independents. In 2012, he got the first two, but not the third, and lost the state to Romney. As my theory suggests, turnout surges of ALL parts of the Democratic coalition, minority and young voters included, and a turnout surge of left-leaning independents as well as a preference advantage for Democrats among “pure” independents explain Democrats’ electoral dominance of Republicans in elections since Trump. North Carolina has the ingredients for Cunningham to win this race, BUT, and you’ll notice I use a literally big “but” here, as my voter-file analysis of the 2018 House elections shows, not all parts of the Democratic coalition are surging equally. White, college-educated voters are surging the most, because these voters (especially of the female variety) are the most offended by Trump. Therefore, even though the Democrats failed to structure their 2018 messaging around a referendum on Trump and tap into the referendum effect the way the GOP did in their 2010 and 2014 cycles, college-educated whites surged anyway, which is why the Democratic primary produced what appeared to be a suburban wave for Biden. Latinos also seem to have a fairly robust, natural “Trump Effect” surge ( I wonder why), but, as I discussed in my 2020 presidential forecast update, due to institutionalized racism, black voters are less sensitive to the natural Trump Effect surge and therefore, likely need two things to really drive turnout in 2020: descriptive representation and an articulated referendum messaging effort from Democratic campaigns to heighten the referendum effect.

    Cunningham’s fortunes in NC, as well as those of many of the Democratic candidates in the down-ticket state legislative races, will hang on the turnout rates of black voters, so if Democrats are serious about winning there, they should be working feverishly to adopt Stacey Abrams’ “playbook” from her failed-but-close 2018 bid for Georgia governor because that effort, in North Carolina, would be a game-changer. Indeed, failure to understand this, and adapt their strategies to account for it, cost Virginia Democrats those two additional state Senate seats and likely, a couple additional seats in the state’s House of Delegates. Although fortunately, for them, they had room for error as they sought control of the General Assembly.

    Of course, the Cunningham campaign might get a major assist from the Biden campaign if the Biden campaign selects a running mate of color and/or one that galvanizes younger voters. We already know Biden’s running mate will be a woman, but a female woman of color, say, Kamala Harris, Stacey Abrams, or Val Demmings, would be a game-changer for this Senate race.

    It would also be a game-changer in the Democrats’ effort to flip one, or perhaps both, of Georgia’s Senate seats. There is no doubt about it, these seats are a much heavier lift than the seat in North Carolina is, but the viability of all three will be increased dramatically if Biden selects a running mate of color because I expect it will increase turnout of black voters. There is precious little quantitative research out there on descriptive representation and turnout, but we do know that turnout of black voters receded in 2016 after hitting historical highs in the 2008 and 2012 cycles. We also know that in many critical swing states, that recession was more than the margins Clinton lost by.

    And please do not conflate the strong preference black voters have for Democrats, Biden included, with their turnout rates. In 2016, black voters strongly aligned with Hillary Clinton, but their turnout rates declined relative to 2012 and 2008 because enthusiasm (and negative partisanship) was lower. The same is true of Bernie Sanders and young voters. Sanders was widely supported by young voters in both the 2016 and 2020 cycles, but when I would point to the fact that in 2020, young voter turnout did not increase for Sen. Sanders as evidence that he (and the revolution) was not particularly galvanizing among his supporters — whose turnout did not increase in 2016 over 2008 — well, let’s just say I would get dismissed. Let me repeat it here, clearly, so everyone can hear it. If Democrats win the White House and flip the Senate in 2020, it will be because many more young voters and voters of color turn out in 2020 than did in 2016, as was the case in 2018. This surge will be predominantly generated by college-educated voters, and not only white ones because the demographics of America’s suburbs today are profoundly different than they were 30 years ago. Thus, if one endeavors to elect Democrats at any level of office, voter participation and turnout must be the focal point of the campaign’s effort.

    The bottom line makes sense to me – motivate Democrats to turn out and you’ll win. How one does that depends on the state, etc., but being a Democrat and running as a “reasonable Republican” or similarly trying to finesse things to win GOP-leaning independents isn’t the way to win.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  14. 14.

    Aunt Kathy

    Going off topic, sorry, but does anyone else “of a certain age” recall, panty hose were still being worn as business attire back in ’93, yes? My 70-ish yr old mom & I were wondering if that were the case, how did Biden gain, uh, “access” to the area? Anyone?

  15. 15.

    trollhattan

    @JPL: 
    Nicely done. Agree with the tone, intent and timeliness. Will not have me reappraise the messenger, but we all remember his WTF reaction to Trump on inauguration day. He knows what we have in the WH.

  16. 16.

    The Thin Black Duke

    @Geoduck: James Taylor is a rare example of a guy who didn’t lose his mind when he lost his hair early in his career and wore his baldness proudly.

  18. 18.

    WaterGirl

    I would be thrilled if every democrat learned to say that the Biden accusations are bullshit and decline to discuss it ever again.  I hate for us to even give that topic oxygen.

    edit: We could also add something like “the world’s on fire, how about if we talk about that?”

  19. 19.

    James E Powell

    @JPL:

    There is probably nothing George W Bush could ever do to make me like him, but that video made me despise him a little bit less.

  20. 20.

    gbbalto

    @JPL: Whatever Dubya’s other failings, he took pandemics seriously.  I’m not saying I miss him, but if he, Bill Clinton, Obama, or Pres. H. Clinton had been in charge, the US would have done so much better.

  21. 21.

    Baud

    @WaterGirl: 

    Won’t happen. Can’t be seen as being insensitive to these types of allegations, even if this one isn’t credible. Politically costly.

  22. 22.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @WaterGirl: in my mind’s eye, I picture all the center-left pundits looking around waiting for someone else to say, ‘this is some bullshit’, especially the men hoping a couple of women will make the jump first.

    Today I listened to last night’s Hayes program, where he devoted a segment to the Wednesday segment that got FireChrisHayes trending. He was even more pompous and condescending last night than he was on Wednesday, when he explained that we have to take these kinds of accusation seriously, even if they’re made against people we like, in the tone of voice I strongly suspect he uses to explain to his kids that no one likes the dentist, but we all have to go.

  23. 23.

    WaterGirl

    @gbbalto: If my Henry had been in charge, we would have done better.

    Paws the ground 2x for no in response to “is this a hoax?”

    Paws the ground 3x for yes in response to “do you believe in science?”

    Paws the ground 3x for yes in response to “more testing?”

  25. 25.

    Baud

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    when he explained that we have to take these kinds of accusation seriously, even if they’re made against people we like

    The problem comes when that stops being the starting point of the inquiry and instead becomes an inviolate rule no matter what the facts are.

  27. 27.

    Scout211

    @WaterGirl:

    Because the whole thing is being exploited as a “gotcha” trap to entice Democrats to say things that could offend women.

  28. 28.

    danielx

    @Aunt Kathy:

    as I recall from discussion here, they were more or less required as part of women’s workwear if working in the Capitol. They weren’t even allowing women to wear slacks or pantsuits yet.
    So yes, that does pose a question – or would, if I was prepared to seriously consider Reade’s allegations.

  29. 29.

    gbbalto

    @WaterGirl: Just so, but I understand Dubya understood the risk, and started building the structure of a response that Obama took further.

  32. 32.

    gbbalto

    @JPL: Of course! If Hillary had won they would have started shrieking and shitting their colons inside out after the first 100 deaths.

    ETA:  Not an original analogy on my part, but it suits!  Or is a metaphor? I dunno

  33. 33.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    mincing forward to bum-rush an expert’s inconvenient answer with an incoherent one of his own,

    The “bum’s rush” is when you grab someone by the seat of their pants, and by their collar, so their center of mass is too low to let them use their feet, pursuant to pitching them out the front door – giving them “the bum’s rush” out of the establishment.

    Trump does rush in to demand the attention of a room, like an overactive toddler, much like he thinks he looks resolute when he does the cranky-faced, crossed arms look of a cranky toddler, or like he thinks putting a phone by the side of his head represents “working” like a toddler imitating a grownup.

    But words still mean something.

  35. 35.

    Kent

    @Aunt Kathy:Going off topic, sorry, but does anyone else “of a certain age” recall, panty hose were still being worn as business attire back in ’93, yes? My 70-ish yr old mom & I were wondering if that were the case, how did Biden gain, uh, “access” to the area? Anyone?

    We talked about this yesterday in detail.  Answer is yes, especially in the Senate and especially when the Senate was in Session.  I actually worked in the Senate (Hart Office Building) in 1994-95 as a staff detail from another agency and formal business attire was required of staff anytime the Senate was in session (when Senators were present) as would have been the case in this accusation.  That meant suits and ties for men and stockings for women if they were wearing skirt suits or dresses.  Some did wear dressy business pant suits so not all women wore skirts.  But if they had a skirt on, they would have been expected to wear hose.  I think it kind of depended on which Senator they worked for and if they were personal staff (in the Senator’s front office meeting constituents) or professional committee staff working on committee research and legislation in committee offices away from the public.

    During summer recesses when no Senators were around and it was just staff holding down the fort in Senate offices then the dress codes relaxed to business casual and guys would wear kakhis and button-down shirts and maybe a blazer without tie.  But that was only when no Senators were around which obviously doesn’t apply for this accusation.  There was no such thing as casual Friday.

  36. 36.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    He was even more pompous and condescending last night than he was on Wednesday, when he explained that we have to take these kinds of accusation seriously, even if they’re made against people we like, in the tone of voice I strongly suspect he uses to explain to his kids that no one likes the dentist, but we all have to go.

    The “more in sorrow, than in anger” voice. Wasn’t Hayes a big Sanders supporter, too? He was on his show a lot over the last four years

  37. 37.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Baud: Apparently there are hornets putting on clown make-up and killing people.  Probably best to just stay in and watch Netflix.

  40. 40.

    WaterGirl

    I am feeling exceedingly cranky this evening.  I suppose 5:45 is too early to just go to bed, but I’m closing the computer.  Omnes, don’t let the killer clown hornets get you.

  44. 44.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Omnes Omnibus: Cole has told us, “EVERYTHING IS FINE”.

    ETA: I tried flying around my room about a hour ago. (I tripped on something by the door and flew about 10 feet to the other side of the room; I’m OK, but expect to be sore tomorrow.)

  45. 45.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @LongHairedWeirdo:

    “Why do they call it ‘bum-rushing’? Who’s a bum, what’s the rush?”

    And another funny Seinfeld parody:

    “Hey, I know! Why don’t we have a little competition? Let’s see who can go the longest without making a lame observation!

    And the Critic makes fun of Seinfeld

    It’s actually refreshing to find these. Seinfeld was so popular that it always seems like blasphemy to criticize it. It has it’s moments, but I always thought the “It’s a show about nothing!” was pretentious. It’s not that funny and Seinfeld’s stand-up style is really easy to parody

  48. 48.

    rikyrah

    ???

    The irony of the media’s obsession w Biden’s UofD files: THEY WERE PUBLIC TIL 2011. Opponents saw them over the years, including the McCain camp AND even Obama’s own vetting team in 08. The media’s desire to see them now has nothing to do w Reade. They want dirt for new stories. https://t.co/1iWeLZxqKk— Paychecko (@Paychecko) May 2, 2020

  49. 49.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @rikyrah:

    I guarantee they’ll defend this by saying that the House is planning on doing remote sessions, just wait

  50. 50.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @WaterGirl: “We could also add something like “the world’s on fire, how about if we talk about that?””

    How about they say “If you’re going to focus on sexual assault allegations then how about the 25 women that have accused Trump of doing so? One of them may even have his DNA on her dress and she is suing him over it.”

    Our corporate press is not our friend, quite the contrary. The news is no longer the news, they all play off of each other to keep the public uninformed and at each others throats so that we don’t wrap them around their throats for what they are doing to our nation and the world. I am so over freedom of the press, you don’t get to yell “FIRE!” in a crowded theater when there’s no fire.

    Lies and misdirection do not deserve the protection of the First Amendment, especially when they are being used by our billionaire media to destroy our country.

  51. 51.

    Krope, the Formerly Dope

    @WaterGirl:I would be thrilled if every democrat learned to say that the Biden accusations are bullshit and decline to discuss it ever again.  I hate for us to even give that topic oxygen.

    I think if there is enough evidence to start a serious investigation as determined by professional law enforcement, they should do so.

    The accuser could help start this process by actually naming names in her criminal report.  It also merits mentioning that the accused being force to make his personal records available to the general public is not something I generally see as part of professional law enforcement investigations.

    And if we can never get past “he said, she said” then we should clearly stop giving this a lot of attention.

  52. 52.

    rikyrah

    Chris Hates & MSNBC knew the story was bogus. They knew "the papers" aren't in DE. They just figured Biden would just issue a stmt saying he didnt do it & DE wouldn't produce any papers & they could hound Biden into stepping down so Bernie could step back in. https://t.co/OnIFZF839X— Veronica McDonald? (@Purify_toast17) May 2, 2020

  53. 53.

    rikyrah

    @rikyrah:

     

     

     

    What Chris Hayes & the rest of the MSNBC gang didn't count on was Biden say "Hey Senate, roll that beautiful bean footage from 1993."They didn't count on that.— Veronica McDonald? (@Purify_toast17) May 2, 2020

  55. 55.

    rikyrah

    @rikyrah:

     

    Even their backup "Biden raped a woman in the Senate hallway in 1972" allegation failed because everyone pulled up the receipts of Biden not even being in DC in 1972/73 after his entire family got killed/injured in that car accident in 1972/73.— Veronica McDonald? (@Purify_toast17) May 2, 2020

  56. 56.

    rikyrah

    @rikyrah:

     

    Chris Hates & his little bike made a big mistake when he decided to hype this story, because now all the Obama people are activating to push back with receipts (which Chris Hates & his little bike don’t have) ??‍♂️— Veronica McDonald? (@Purify_toast17) May 2, 2020

  58. 58.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @rikyrah:

    Imagine digging this shit up from  nearly 50 years ago and making Biden live through that horror again to score political points

  59. 59.

    rikyrah

    ????

    First day out of "lock down" in Texas. It's been even worse than I imagined. Almost no one wears a mask in stores. People stand close to each other and block the aisles and at the register they breathe down your neck. It's like never anything happened, the ignorance is astounding— ??? Germerican ??? (@tyrion1) May 2, 2020

  60. 60.

    rikyrah

    ????

    Somehow–just a coincidence, I'm sure–every election comes down to demanding that the Democrat release a bunch of nonroutine records. Kerry's military records. Obama's birth certificate/college transcript/etc. Hillary's emails. Biden's UDelaware archives. Golly. I wonder why?— Kevin Drum (@kdrum) May 2, 2020

  61. 61.

    PsiFighter37

    So Reade changes her story in a new interview with the AP. The Russians should really do a better job in finding better assets to handle and pay off. Any credibility she had just evaporated, and I doubt even the FTFNYT puts in more effort into this. After their blockading editorial about it this morning, of course. Fuck those people.

  63. 63.

    JPL

    @rikyrah: She doesn’t know where or what she filed in the complaint, but admitted it doesn’t say sexual harassment or sexual assault, if there was a complaint filed.  She doesn’t even know when or where it happened.    Someone should have prepared her better cuz her scam is falling apart quickly.

  64. 64.

    Sab

    @Aunt Kathy: I started grown up work in 1980. Well into the early nineties pants were discouraged and pantyhose was mandatory with skirts. I had a cubemate in San Francisco who was sent home to change in 1989 when she showed up for work in a perfectly nice pantsuit.

    I am still actually bothered when I see dressy occassions ( stuffy office work, Oscar red carpet) when young women think that it’s okay to combine dressy clothes with bare legs.

    No way on earth was she in any official area of the Capitol in a skirt without panyhose.

    We had women copier repair people expected to wear a skirt and pantyhose when they had to lie on the floor to crawl under the copier. That’s how it was.

  65. 65.

    Aunt Kathy

    @Kent: Thanks for the info. As someone who is an “essential worker” ie distribution center lackey, I’m too tired to read more than the front page. That’s all my brain will absorb.

  66. 66.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    “Murder hornets”? *reads up on them*

    have mandibles shaped like spiked shark fins to decapitate honeybees.

    Oh shit, that’s not good for honey bees. They’re already in trouble

  67. 67.

    debbie

    @JPL:

    Between thinking nice things about DeWine and thinking Bush’s message is a good message, I’m almost losing my bearings.

  68. 68.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @rikyrah: I hadn’t even heard that one.

    One of the things that makes me skeptical about Reade is that her claims don’t square with the image of Biden I’ve built up over the decades. I could be wrong, of course, but we do have a long history of seeing him act in various situations. Just like we do Trump, which is one reason we believe women who accuse him.

    One problem with Kavanaugh and Ford was that we had no prior sense of them, so we had to judge on their appearances at the hearings.

  69. 69.

    M31

    Who’s going to be the first hack to ‘speculate’ that Reade is a plant by the Biden team to discredit all the “real assault victims” he’s racked up?

    1) Greenwald

    2) some loser fuckwit at Jacobin (but I repeat myself)

    3) Bernie deadender to be named later

  70. 70.

    debbie

    @Sab:

    So the protesters have gathered outside Amy Acton’s home, some carrying stupid signs, some carrying assault rifles. ??

  71. 71.

    Zelma

    @Kent:

    There still is no such thing as business casual when Congress is in session. My son is a staffer and when they are in session, he wears a suit and tie.  I don’t think the women have to wear dresses any more, but they dress up.  Now when Congress isn’t in session, he wears a Spiderman tee shirt and takes his dogs with him.

  72. 72.

    Chyron HR

    So what happens now that Reade and her accusation are both unraveling?  The Bernie gang just shrugs and goes, “It’s only politics, grow a thicker skin LOL”?

  73. 73.

    Mike in NC

    Trump can be seen standing tipped oddly forward like a jowly ski jumper in midair

    Because as we’ve mentioned here time and again, he’s so insecure he wears lifts in his shoes.

  74. 74.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Baud:

    “What are they hiding?”

    “The public has a right to know!”

    God, the last few years alone have really stripped the romanticism from journalism, hasn’t it? I have a difficult time taking reporters as the noble heroes they’re commonly portrayed as in fiction anymore. Superman comics with Clark Kent as a reporter are a slog now.

  75. 75.

    JMG

    So a commenter poll. Would Murder Hornets be a better name for a death metal band or a minor league hockey team? I’m saying the latter, as it could sell merch. I’d buy a Murder Hornets hoodie. And imagine the logo!

  76. 76.

    Fair Economist

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I thought it was strange that Seinfeld posed as a “show about nothing”. It’s a sitcom, with setups. resolutions, side plots, and running jokes like any other. The difference is that all the main characters are obnoxious and the situations often absurd. But, structurally, it’s just another sitcom about wacky people in weird situations.

  77. 77.

    debbie

    @Baud:

    I’ve been busy cleaning. Has it been posted here that Reade has canceled her Sunday appearance on Fox?

  78. 78.

    Sab

    OT I just got a call from an utterly charming young campaign volunteer recruiter from Seattle who had worked in Ohio before the primary. He probably got my name from the Warren people. So organizing is going foreward.

  80. 80.

    trollhattan

    @rikyrah:

    Trump: “Do you know how many Houseians there are? Hundreds and hundreds, believe me, it’s like a mob there all the time. They need this, we call it fast-check, because it’s, you know, fast. The Senate has what, forty, fifty guys? They can just sit far apart and text, although the furniture is not that nice, kind of tacky and not comfortable at all so sitting all day is not that good. They need to be more active, like me.”

  83. 83.

    debbie

    @rikyrah:

    I believe I heard Pelosi and McConnell jointly declined the tests, preferring that they go to first responders.

  84. 84.

    trollhattan

    @rikyrah:

    It’s only our 2nd most populous states, so what’s to worry?

    They’ve had a fine series of governors since Governor Ann, haven’t they.

  85. 85.

    trollhattan

    @debbie:

    Yup. IIUC it would have been Wallace, so perhaps she wanted no part of Fox’s one remaining journalist. “What, no Doocy? I’m out!”

  86. 86.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: the man Reade describes is at once a caricature of Biden (“C’mon, man!) and a cruel, angry, violent man (the assault itself, jabbing his finger in her face and saying “You’re nothing to me!”). I believe Reade is describing something she suffered but it wasn’t Biden who did it.

    Also, at the risk of starting up an old fight, about three weeks lapsed  between LeAnn Tweeden releasing that picture and Al Franken’s resignation, and in that time seven (?) other women came out with claims about unwanted touching (even if one of them was Tina DuPuy). Fifty years in public life, and not one person has a story even close to Reade’s. (I don’t like the hair-sniffing type behavior, but I consider it in a different universe than what Reade alleges).

  90. 90.

    Sab

    @debbie: Jeezus phuck. These are anti-vaxxers?

    She has done such a good job.1

    My grand-daughter is 6 and autistic, and there were all kinds of medical clues long before her first vaccination.

    If these were people of color they would just send in some cops and shoot them for protesting. Or at least taze or pepper spray them. That would work since they don’t wear masks.

    Commenter to Connie Schultz this mornimg about being crowded by the MAGAt behind her in the grocery store line: she turned around and said ” You probably should back off. My husband just got tested for Covid19 this morning.” MAGAt moved to another line.

    I am so tired of being angry

    ETA I guess being angry distracts me from being afraid.

  91. 91.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @debbie:

    It gets better

    Ohio State Representative Nino Vitale took to Facebook this morning to call Ohio Department of Health Director Dr. Amy Acton a “globalist.” The comments were in response to Dr. Acton, who is Jewish, extending the Ohio Stay-at-home order to May 29.

    “Globalist” has long been an anti-Semitic slur.

    A reply to the Twitter thread that is linked in that piece:

    chaser

    @chaser84

    ·
    May 1

    Replying to
    @Tylerjoelb

    Acton is a threat to us all.

    Maxx2020 

    @StevePhoto5

    ·
    May 1

    A doctor is a threat to you? Don’t ever get sick and require treatment.

    Tom

    @tommarolt

    ·
    May 1

    They said Acton not Doctors !

    darcy

    @tvismylife01

    ·
    May 1

    She is a doctor dummy

    Maxx2020

    @StevePhoto5

    ·
    May 1

    It may be too complex for some people to understand that is a highly-educated doctor, and is an expert in public health. She is also non-partisan, which that position should be.

    chaser

    @chaser84

    ·
    May 1

    If I were 85 or over, if I smoked 5 packs a day and was obese perhaps I’d be worried. Their numbers were way off and it wasn’t because of this lock down.

    Laura Lee 

    @derkie313

    ·
    May 1

    Then by all fucking means go volunteer in a hospital since you’re so confident.

    chaser

    @chaser84

    ·
    May 1

    Then by all means stay home if you’re so scared.

    Maxx2020@StevePhoto5

    ·
    May 1

    I do as much as I can. Too many fucking idiots who consider themselves impervious to disease. Then they get sick and end up taking vents in an ICU.

    chaser

    @chaser84

    ·
    May 1

    So many that have had it with no clue at all as well as it isn’t serious. Yawn

    I love how these people try to turn it around it on us. It’s fucking ignorant and obnoxious. “Stay home if you’re so scared.” If everybody goes out too soon, more people will die! 60,000+ people have died nationwide, not all of them are “85 or higher, are obese, and smoke 5 pks/day”. Not everybody knows if they’re unhealthy. And how the fuck do they know the numbers were off and it wasn’t because of social distancing?

    I mean, imagine 65,000 people dying from a virus in two months (and no sign of this stopping anytime soon), and going “yawn”? Talk about being callous and stupid

  92. 92.

    NotMax

    Perhaps Eleanor Roosevelt put it most adroitly:

    “Some people are going to leave a mark on this world, while others will leave a stain.”

  93. 93.

    debbie

    @Sab:

    No, it’s the a-holes who want the state to open up immediately. Though there probably some crossover between the two groups.

  95. 95.

    Kent

    @Zelma:

    @Kent:

    There still is no such thing as business casual when Congress is in session. My son is a staffer and when they are in session, he wears a suit and tie.  I don’t think the women have to wear dresses any more, but they dress up.  Now when Congress isn’t in session, he wears a Spiderman tee shirt and takes his dogs with him.

    Well, that is certainly a new development.  During the August recess in 1994 we wore things like khakis and button down dress shirts with no tie, but kept a tie and blazer handy in case there happened to be some sort of an ad-hoc meeting with a constituent or government VIP.   I honestly don’t much remember what the women wore as there weren’t really many working on fisheries issues.   As I remember, the personal staff also had some variation based on which Senator you worked for.  If it was an old southern dinosaur like Strom Thurmond it was very much the elegant Southern lady look.  If you were on say Patty Murray’s staff I think things were more relaxed.  But for pages and staff who pop in and out of committee rooms and the Senate chambers where you will be seen by other Senators and on camera the dress was very strict.  Basically everyone shopped at Nordstrom or Brooks Brothers and paid way more for clothes than they should have.

  96. 96.

    rikyrah

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    I know that it’s Dubya. But, he actually cared about this. 44 gave him the credit for setting up the Pandemic infrastructure for the government that 44 built built upon, and Dolt45 dismantled cause it came from the Black man.

    Remember that 60 Minutes slapdown of Navarro showed both 44 and Dubya talking about the airborne Pandemic.

  97. 97.

    Immanentize

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: The bridge too far in the narrative for me, was uncle Joe supposedly telling her, “you are nothing.” Sorry, I just cannot imagine that.  It would be like Biden was also Frank from Blue Velvet, nitros tank and all.

  100. 100.

    MisterForkbeard

    @JPL: Didn’t her previous statements explicitly said she failed a sexual harassment complaint against Biden?

    Now she’s saying she didn’t actually file anything probably, and also it didn’t say sexual harassment?

    It’s almost as if this doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

  101. 101.

    The Thin Black Duke

    @debbie: I’m originally a South Bronx guy, and news about Trump was as inevitable as cockroaches.

  103. 103.

    rikyrah

    As this Reade story falls apart don’t lose sight of where it came from. This wasn’t Russians, this wasn’t Republicans. This was Bernieworld. This was an attempt to steal the nomination by smearing a good man as a rapist. This is who they are and they’ve shown us time and again— JSapp_AR??? (@JSapp_AR) May 2, 2020

  105. 105.

    JPL

    @MisterForkbeard:  It’s the forever changing complaint.  She said she filed a harassment complaint, not sure she said sexual.   Anywho after Biden’s statement she canceled her interview with Fox and changed her story.  She’s not even sure if the complaint was filed with the House or the Senate.  This definitely proves that Biden is hiding something, though

  106. 106.

    Feathers

    @Aunt Kathy: An interesting aside. Sex and the City has been credited with ending the rule that women had to wear pantyhose. The actresses on the show didn’t. It was very popular and drove fashion trends, thus not wearing hose became more acceptable. Also, even Princess Diana ditched pantyhose after her divorce, at least when she was tanned.

    I also think it was because more women started wearing pants. Younger women wore opaque tights in the winter and nothing in the summer. The other thing is that inexpensive nail salons started opening up all over. I remember somebody asking when did women start getting pedicures and I answered that it was when they stopped having to wear pantyhose. Once offices went to business casual in the summer, you could ditch the hose and wear sandals, but you had better have neat feet and painted toes.

  110. 110.

    Sab

    @debbie: My dentist wants to open, but he is a RWNJ so I will reschedule for the next few years. My hairdresser wants to pay his rent, so I will buy gift certificates.

    Husband bought $35 dollars of takeout and left $75 tip. The credit card computer went nutz. Hopefully tip makes up for extra effort it cost. Hopefully staff instead of management gets some.!

  111. 111.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @debbie:

    That was “Tom”, but yeah point taken. “Chaser” is the real asshole of that thread:

    “Only old, unhealthy people die from this virus! It’s a joke, most people don’t even know they have it! Stay home if you’re so scared! The numbers were always off and and the lockdown had nothing to do with it!”

  116. 116.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @rikyrah: I’m not a Dubya fan, but he’s doing this right. It made me tear up, partly because there is no way our current President would do this. Especially with those visuals.

  117. 117.

    zhena gogolia

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    There are still some good journalists. The guy at the Atlantic has been doing himself proud today. There are even some good journalists at the New York Times, just not in the politics section.

  118. 118.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Okay, this made me laugh

    NerfHerder Union 17 @ ProblemChildFil
    BREAKING: Tara Reade changes story for the 74th time, claiming she filed a complaint in the form of interpretive dance.

  120. 120.

    Bill Arnold

    @James E Powell:

    There is probably nothing George W Bush could ever do to make me like him, but that video made me despise him a little bit less.

    Needs more masks.

  123. 123.

    rikyrah

    Keep your friends close…and your enemies closer ??

    Bernie Sanders is shady AF. He had Biden thinking his endorsement was sincere. Meanwhile, that sneaky crusty crack, is trying to collect delegates to challenge him in the General, and releasing his online trolls on Biden, just like he did to Liz. Can’t ever Trust Bernie.— Not Just Here For The Comments 2 (@RhodesMahogany) May 2, 2020

  126. 126.

    Immanentize

    I am now, at dusk, sitting on my smallish patio, looking at the back of my house.  I had it painted last summer and there is so much pleasure in looking at the clean cuts of a recently painted wood home.  A simple pleasure.

    Ok, I now see that the painters, who did a great job, used an old painters trick.  Ha!

  129. 129.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @zhena gogolia:

    There are definitely plenty of good reporters still out there and editors and owners play a big role in how events are covered. It still sorta ruins the idea of the “Noble Reporter Seeking the Truth” when a lot of journalists are stenographers like Maggie Haberman

  130. 130.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Baud: I’ll say it again: She wanted to be Bernie’s Joan of Arc

    ETA:

    @JPL:

    Save your sympathy for someone worthy.

    I’m not a very nice person, but I feel sorry for her. As I said, I think she’s describing something that really happened, and I suspect her life has had some pretty dark chapters. There are I think two different reports of her living with a domestic abuser, and somebody said her brother’s comedy routine focuses on his chaotic childhood.

  133. 133.

    Feathers

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: The other thing that makes Ford and Reade different is that once Ford came forward, there were a lot of stories by women who had gone to the same school or moved in the same circles and said that the social scene she described was familiar to them. Women wrote about parties they had been to, what girls were expected to put up with, how the boys behaved very badly and without consequences.

    Very different here. The only alleged corroborations are to people she allegedly told her story to AND who she contacted and reminded them of what she actually meant when she was complaining about her job back in the day.

    Also, Ford said it under oath.

  134. 134.

    TS (the original)

    @JPL:

    I have trouble giving any credit to any republican any more. Even if they stopped collecting money from the NRA, agreed that women have the right to control their bodies and called out trump for the racist he is – I would think they had an ulterior motive. They get no credit for me. As has been said, I know how to hold a grudge – like forever.

  138. 138.

    jc

    It drives me crazy to watch the press keep asking Trump serious questions on serious subjects, expecting mature, considered, “presidential” responses, and then to listen to him run his mouth like a lazy faker, pretending to be the expert authority on everything. It’s deeply embarrassing to see the media’s and the U.S.’s credibility go down the drain.

  139. 139.

    NotMax

    Le sigh.

    Mom called this afternoon to chew the fat. Told me her eye doctor’s office (which is closed due to current events until the end of June) called her to reschedule the appointment she had to have the stitches in her eye removed. And stressed that it’s okay to keep the stitches in but she should now switch to using only the antibiotic eye drops rather than those plus another type of drops they had previously prescribed.

    Said she called the pharmacy to get more of the antibiotic drops and they won’t do that without a prescription refill from the doctor.

    Why the “le sigh?” Because she also said when she calls the eye doctor’s office there is no one there, however the message does include an “if this is an emergency or this is a doctor calling, press 1” option. Mom continued, “I don’t want to bother them, this isn’t really an emergency.”

    Took over five minutes to convince her that yes, this counts because something they have deemed medically necessary is being blocked without additional professional action on their part, they aren’t going to drop her as a patient for pressing 1 and neither is the phone going to disappear in a puff of smoke when she does press it.

  141. 141.

    rikyrah

    Joy is correctly calling it out. For Reade's most vocal supporters, its not about Reade, it's about having Bernie replace Biden. Once it becomes clear that the DELEGATES will vote for someone other than Bernie if Biden were forced out, they'd forget about Reade in a heartbeat. https://t.co/gNKLp30Vqn— Hercules Mulligan's back b/c that energy is needed (@johnvmoore) May 2, 2020

  142. 142.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Feathers: Ford wanted a thorough investigation and more witness, including Mike Judge and Debbie Ramirez. Kavanaugh, Graham and McConnell were pants-pissing terrified of those things.

    Reade’s neighbor, who says she repressed the memory of what Reade told her for over twenty years until she was reminded of it, last night said she found Joe Biden persuasive.

  144. 144.

    Citizen Alan

    @Fair Economist: One of the things I love about “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” is that it can be viewed as an absurdist parody of Seinfield. As in, it’s a show about nothing but instead of sociopathic upper class New Yorkers, it’s a bunch of sociopathic lower class Phillies.

  148. 148.

    zhena gogolia

    @Immanentize:

    I sympathize with her too. I hope she gets some help and disappears from public view, stat.

    ETA: And I hate the Bernie cult.

  149. 149.

    cliosfanboy

    Little sympathy foe Reade.  Her ripping off a charity showed what she is.

  150. 150.

    Taken4Granite

    @khead: Let me sit six feet away from you. My fantasy is that Biden wins the electoral votes 537-1 (I’m spotting Trump NE-03, the reddest of that state’s congressional districts, to preserve the tradition that only George Washington gets a unanimous EC vote).

  153. 153.

    NotMax

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    Didn’t care for it nor appreciate it at all until the proverbial light bulb overhead lit and I came to the conclusion it was at the core a fantasy show about a group of 13-year-olds who had magically been given adult bodies.

    Once viewed through that lens it became rather an innocuous and amusing diversion.

  156. 156.

    Sab

    @TS (the original): I have utterly and passionately despised Mike deWine for twenty years, but he has mostly risen to the occasion this year, and people I love would have died and are still alive because of him and Amy Acton ( who he hired) and the prison director ( who he hired). So I am not backing off admiring deWine.

    Also too this is what two party government is about. Support the other side if they are being okay.

    You are an Aussie so not familiIar: As an Ohioan  cannot imagine how much of a mess we would be in if our former governor Kasich was still here, or really God forbid Mary Taylor who couldn’t even manage a smallish tax accounting section in a small accounting firm. What was she going to do with uncertain  medical data in Ohio?

  159. 159.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    According to 538, Trump’s polls are looking a bit better.  It makes me nervous.

  161. 161.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @NotMax:

    That’s a funny way of looking at it. Kinda like “Big”.

    It wasn’t a horrible show by any means; it could be funny, but I’m not sure it deserves the status it does. Was it really that innovative? The “Fresh Prince of Bel Air” was always hilarious and imo, a superior sitcom to Seinfeld

  162. 162.

    Anya

    @M31: what’s the difference between “fuckwit at Jacobin and Bernie deadender to be named later”?

  163. 163.

    Mary G

    @rikyrah: Check out the video in this tweet full of idiots:

    Whew! To be white in America.

    pic.twitter.com/NMI0FryyNu
    — FourWheel the Grabby Bitch Tile Thrower Coward (@4WheelWorkOut) May 2, 2020

    And they are all idiots, including the all-white cops or security guards who don’t have a scrap of PPE on. They are letting people stand toe-to-toe with them screaming in their naked faces! Somewhere Fauci is facepalming. In other news, the number of people in Orange County ICUs for Covid has gone down, but the number of people hospitalized went over 200 for the first time today.

    I can’t see well enough to read their patches and see where they are from, but there is an “Open California Now” sign, so I assume they’re around here somewhere.

     

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: I find the lack of other women coming forward is what put me over the “I don’t believe her” line. Men who behave like this don’t just do it once. #MeToo is what happens – the first woman to talk gives more victims the courage to speak up too.

  167. 167.

    JMG

    @Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: They had to come up from “told people to drink bleach” weekend. Since every time there’s a good poll for Biden or Democrats the insiders and data guys say “don’t pay attention, too early,” obviously that advice must hold true for the reverse.

  168. 168.

    Mary G

    @NotMax: Wow. I thought I knew a lot about Eleanor Roosevelt, but I didn’t know that one. What a great description of Republicans in general.

  169. 169.

    lamh36

    Tara Reade, who has accused former Vice President Joe Biden of sexual harassment and sexual assault, said she isn’t ready to respond to his recent interview denying her claims wsj.com/articles/tara-… via @WSJ

    Uh huh

  170. 170.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Mary G:

    And they are all idiots, including the all-white cops or security guards who don’t have a scrap of PPE on.

    Ah,  those “security guards” would be the California Highway Patrol, they also patrol the State Capitol in SacTown(they also have a mounted unit).

  173. 173.

    zhena gogolia

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    Seinfeld generated a lot of funny catchphrases but I could never sit through a whole episode. There’s one about a Chinese restaurant where other people keep getting seated before them. It is excruciating.

  174. 174.

    Aunt Kathy

    @Sab: I’ve decided not to cry too much about it, we’re on overtime & m’feet hurt, but this pandemic just may buy me a house.

  175. 175.

    debbie

    @Sab:

    Give that small, fake smile-grimace  she’s so good at assimilating and then ignore them.

  177. 177.

    ET

    @Aunt Kathy: I was just entering the workforce in DC in 1993, and pantyhose were definitely still business attire for women, particularly among the political class and even more so on the Hill. The Hill is still a lot more corporate than the rest of DC and I think pantyhose/tights were pretty much required for women wearing skirts and dresses not all that long ago. I think things are a little looser now, but definitely a woman working on the Hill in the 90’s would have been wearing pantyhose/tights.

  178. 178.

    Immanentize

    @lamh36: What does that mean, “she’s not ready to respond?” He said, “Didna happen.” The only response is “Happened.”

    As a criminal defense attorney, we used to say there are only two defenses:
    “SO?”
    and
    “FUCK YOU!”

    It seems Biden won with the first without having to get to the second.

  179. 179.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Immanentize: Assuming that the statute of limitation hadn’t run, I still can’t imagine any prosecutor taking any further action on a case with this fact pattern.

  180. 180.

    MaryLou

    @Aunt Kathy: I worked in tech and banking in the nineties, and yes, pantyhose were expected and worn with skirts and dresses, although pant suits or slacks plus blouse/blazer were common. ‘Business casual’ was still in its infancy, and only in tech/creative environments, not in corporate or govt. life. At management and staff levels, men wore suits and women dressed professionally for the office.

  181. 181.

    Mary G

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: The CHP isn’t all white, is it? They must’ve called for volunteers or all the smart ones called in sick.

    ETA: How does the department not require them to wear and give them masks? They’re first responders.

  182. 182.

    PsiFighter37

    @lamh36: Must be actively going back and forth with her Russian handler about what to do. If any of these fucking media outlets knew how to do their job, they would be checking if she made any large purchases recently. But that won’t stop the NYT from writing about “Tara Reade still waiting to tell her truth” stories and all that crap, even as she changes her story again and again.

    I am heartened from what little I peruse of comments on social media when it comes to posts about Reade that it seems like most people think she’s full of shit by now. Then I read Andrew Sullivan’s hyperventilating post about this from yesterday, and I was reminded once again that mediocre white men of any stripe can make it in this world.

  183. 183.

    hueyplong

    @lamh36: Not ready to respond?  She thought he was going to admit all and was flummoxed when he didn’t?

    What Z-list preppers were assigned to her?

  184. 184.

    M31

    @Anya: what’s the difference between “fuckwit at Jacobin and Bernie deadender to be named later”?,

    OK you got me there, lol

  185. 185.

    Immanentize

    @Omnes Omnibus: me either.  Juries are actually remarkably fact-skeptical crowds.  A good defense attorney would slice this case up — if it were anything but a political move and actually, you know, a charge.

    Prosecutors hate to get shamed in front of juries.

  187. 187.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @MaryLou: I was around law firms in the 90’s where business casual for guys was a blazer and gray flannels instead of a suit.  And even in the 2000s when those firms loosened up, litigators wore suits and the corporate guys wouldn’t meet with clients or other attorneys without full gear.

  190. 190.

    Another Scott

    @TS (the original): I started playing W’s video, hoping it had some closed captioning.  It didn’t, so I turned it off after about a minute because I cannot stand to listen to the man.

    Axios has a partial transcript:

    Finally, let us remember how small our differences are in the face of this shared threat. In the final analysis, we are not partisan combatants. We are human beings, equally vulnerable, and equally wonderful, in the sight of God. We rise or fall together, and we are determined to rise,” Bush said in the video statement.

    In the final analysis, his party is quite happy to do almost nothing to help lessen the impact of this pandemic on most Americans (those not in the top 1%).  In the final analysis, his party was unwilling to open their eyes to his high crimes and misdemeanors and convict him and remove him from office when presented with compelling evidence.  In the final analysis, he has done almost nothing to rally the country by speaking out against those in his party who have enabled this crisis and made it much worse.

    It’s clear that his party does not believe that we’re all in this together.

    So, I agree – a flashy video and nice kumbaya words from him do not move me.  Others mileage may vary.  But if it actually makes some in the GOP change their minds and their actions, then great.  Welcome to reality.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  191. 191.

    rikyrah

    It sort of amuses me, the number of people who don’t believe Reade because of a little detail like pantyhose. So insignificant, yet glaring.

  192. 192.

    Immanentize

    @rikyrah: That is how a true story is distinguished from the false.  Like I said above, I also can’t imagine Biden telling anyone “You are nothing.” That was interior monologue, not what Biden has ever said to anyone.

  193. 193.

    Citizen Alan

    @hueyplong:

    Not ready to respond?  She thought he was going to admit all and was flummoxed when he didn’t?

    What Z-list preppers were assigned to her?

    Honestly, that’s possible with Bernie Bros. After all, they never had any plan for winning the primary if all but one of the moderates dropped out.

  194. 194.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Baud: And also to say “The complaints she’s talking about wouldn’t be in my private legislative records, they’d be in the standard location for HR records, and I encourage them to release anything that looks vaguely like what she says she filed”.

    Now she says she might not have filed a complaint (whoops) anr if she did she didn’t accuse of him of sexual assault.or harassment.

    That’s a lot of backtracking after a very  measured and correct response from Biden.

  195. 195.

    Mary G

    @MaryLou: I worked in a conservative corporation. When I started in 1980, my boss at the time was the only woman in the upper ranks who’d been promoted up that far. She caused a major brouhaha when she wore a nice pantsuit and refused to be sent home to change. She advised the home office that as a black women, both firsts for that position, she could be counted twice for equal opportunity and they could just get over themselves or face Johnnie Cochran, because she had worn the same suit to church and he complimented her on it.

    They changed the rules, but specified that hose had to be worn with skirts, and hose “knee highs” with pants; socks were verboten. God, I loved her so much. When I had to stop working in 2001, I was at that level and of 15 of us in our division, only one was a man and racially we looked like a United Colors of Benetton commercial. We all wore pantyhose or knee highs still, though.

  196. 196.

    japa21

    She knew he would deny it. She didn’t expect him to say, go ahead and look at any complaints that may have been filed. Also, I think they (she and her backers) expected him to lash out at her and then she would come across differently in the interview than the way he portrayed her. She (they) weren’t prepared for a reasonable and low key response from him.

  197. 197.

    MisterForkbeard

    @japa21: This. They expected him to act like the caricature that the dirtbag Left has internally built up about him.

  199. 199.

    Immanentize

    I’ll say it again.  Her refusal/inability to narrow the timing down to anything less than a three month (maybe?) period actually deprives Biden of the opportunity to have any defense at all.  Like, “no, in April, I was in China.” It is unacceptable to have such a gross period of time (the Spring) stand as the basis for a serious complaint.  We do let little kids do that when sexually abused, but not adults.  Just no.

  200. 200.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @hueyplong:

    Not ready to respond?  She thought he was going to admit all and was flummoxed when he didn’t?

    She thought he’d just fade away as The People with one voice proclaimed Bernie as our new President.

    In the deepest, darkest parts of The Cult, they’re not real clear on the details of how things work. They seem to operate, or at least tweet, on the idea that the Dem nomination is the whole fucking ball game. “If you’d supported Bernie we’d have single payer to fight the ‘rona!”

  201. 201.

    Another Scott

    @Immanentize: One would think that people would have learned that it’s foolish to challenge Biden’s stories about his personal life after what happened with the “CornPop” story…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  204. 204.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @zhena gogolia:

    Seinfeld generated a lot of funny catchphrases

    Oh yeah, like “It’s not a lie, if you believe it”, which sounds like it could’ve come out of 1984. It sounds pretty Orwellian, doesn’t it?

    O’Brien: “It’s not a lie if you believe it, Winston.”

  205. 205.

    Chyron HR

    @Baud:

    No, she thought he was supposed to believe her and concede to Bernie on the spot.  This is not sarcasm.

  207. 207.

    Immanentize

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): it really isn’t possible to not figure the timing out to a few weeks.  Even if the questions were about something not so amazingly traumatic, most people can pin events down to a couple of weeks — what are your markers?  Before or after the Easter break?  Were you still supervising student interns?  Before, during or after the cherry blossoms that year.  Was Eastern Market open yet?  Etc.

  208. 208.

    Feathers

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: One of the things that I’ve been wanting to write about but not gotten my head around what to say is what the whole Satanic Panic/day care abuse/recovered memories tragic mess of the late 80s and early 90s has to warn us about “believe the victims.” That whole episode has been forgotten about, wished into the collective cornfield.

    I lived through it, remember the trials, all the episodes on 20/20, Nightline, and the other hour long news shows. There were quizzes in women’s magazines, basically listing the symptoms for depression and anxiety, saying if you had these go to a psychiatrist because it probably meant you had been abused as a child and repressed the memory. There were therapists who specialized in recovered memories and hypnosis. It all came back to torpedo Martha Coakley’s Senate campaign, because she refused to release the Amiraults. I knew someone who had worked on the defense and he was sympathetic to Coakley. “Those kids, they still think it all happened, that they were raped by a clown in a secret room, even though that room doesn’t exist.”

    People truly believe all sorts of things. Memory is highly malleable and terrifyingly porous.

  209. 209.

    Immanentize

    @Feathers: it has not been forgotten one little bit by me.  I am heading to bed.  But the difference in such cases was not that the victims were coming forward, but advocates for the kids were in charge of the narratives. It was so horrible. If a coached kid said something happened, it had to be true. If a kid said nothing happened it was proof that they were so traumatized by what actually happened that the opposite of what they said had to be true. Ugh. I could say a lot more about such cases.

  210. 210.

    Miss Bianca

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I’ll say it again: She wanted to be Bernie’s Joan of Arc

    By being Biden’s Charlotte Corday. Unfortunately, looks like she just stabbed herself with the knife she was saving for Biden.

    Oopsie.

  212. 212.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Miss Bianca: Ooh fun!  Are we playing tragic French women?   Because I’ll try to get Joséphine de Beauharnais into play somehow.

  213. 213.

    Origuy

    The thread is probably dead, but I wonder if Reade and her supporters bought the “Joe has dementia” line. If so, they probably didn’t expect him to address the claim convincingly.

  214. 214.

    J R in WV

     

    There are so many inconsistencies in the Biden attack story that I wonder how any reputable news outlet would publish it at all. Answer: the outlets publishing this BS story are NOT reputable at all.

    Regarding funny looking hair… I have been bald since about 1974, and have not found that to be a problem in any arena of my life. I take the fringe hair and pull it back into a skinny poly tail, which goes with the full beard I have worn since, hmmm, about 1973. It all works out because I’m a hippy farmer as well as a builder, mineral collector and software developer — actually, I’m nostly retired from all that.

    Trump’s hair situation is not a standard hair issue, it’s wildly strange to say the least!

  215. 215.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @The Thin Black Duke: Even back in the days when Trump had real hair, I thought, “there was no there there.” I never figured out why so many people were mesmerized by this fraud.

    Speaking of that I was going threw my old role playing game notes from the ’90s and I would parody Trump a lot during them;  some cheesy, pushy realestate developer with dumb ideas and an overblown view of himself.

  216. 216.

    James E Powell

    @Another Scott:

    But if it actually makes some in the GOP change their minds and their actions, then great.  Welcome to reality.

    Agreed. We only need about 100K of them in three states, right?

    Side note: Though I despise George W Bush and hold him responsible for much of the evil in our nation today, the Republicans are definitely not his party anymore. And it wasn’t Trump, it was Republican voters. They disappeared him from their histories and they rejected his supposedly smarter, more talented brother because he was just not racist and hateful enough for them. And to top it off, GWB was laughing and joking with Michelle Obama in public. I hope it’s destroyed the Bushes with Republicans for a generation.

  217. 217.

    Sally

    I don’t think Reade is at all credible for many of the reasons everyone here, and elsewhere, is saying. But one point. I had an “incident” when I was at university with a guy who was Brett Kav type. It wasn’t violent as CBF had to cope with, and no sympathy or anything, it’s fine, I’m fine. I never even think of it until something like this or that senate confirmation reminds me of it. I listened to CBF and nodded along with her imperfect but still CONSISTENT recollections. And just one thing I would like to add is that I can’t for the life of me remember when it happened. Not the day, the month – even the year I would have to work out. I don’t know why that is all just a blank for me. I remember the “incident”, I remember during, and after but not much else. I read some articles at the time of Kav’s hearing how trauma can obliterate memories. Some people might not be able to remember times and dates but imho that doesn’t reflect on their honesty. I’m not saying this is true for Reade as she has so many other cumulative inconsistencies. It would have been easy and beneficial for CBF to fill in the blanks of her memory with credible lies, but she didn’t.

    Also, the real Barf O’Kavanaugh really came through in his hearing. Screaming “I like beer” and red faced ranting, it was easy to believe he did what he was accused of. The real man shone under that light, and I think the real Biden shines in the spotlight he has been under for decades. No one can hide this kind of sadistic personality for decades in the limelight. Kav couldn’t hide it in one short senate appearance. I’ve never seen Jill Biden reel back from Joe the way Kav’s wife pulled back from him. It’s very hard to believe that men like that only do it once, to only one woman, and I’d be pretty sure Mrs Kav is familiar with the dark side of Barf’s temper.

  218. 218.

    Gvg

    @Another Scott: Bush has been ignored by the party he gave his life to for 11 years. I kind of wonder if he really believes he is still a republican anymore. Sure he fucked up and worse, but they used him, then ran away. A human would notice. I think Bush…might be alone. That video…it’s what a President should say. Maybe Bush is trying to live up to his dreams. Doesn’t excuse what he did (justified torture) Trump if he had any wisdom, would realize as soon as he is a loser, Republican Party will run away from him.
    Problem for us is what will they find to lead them next.

  219. 219.

    columbusqueen

    @debbie: The Bexley cops should have busted the entire pack of them & hauled them downtown.  Bet they wouldn’t feel so tough after a couple of nights in jail.

  220. 220.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @frosty: …a thank you to AL. Not just the CV19 posts, but everything.

    Sorry, frosty, gotta disagree. Not everything.

    AL torched a lot of credibility in my mind during the months where nearly all her FP activity was spent unabashedly shilling for her chosen Presidential candidate, even as that campaign was crumbling.

    The problem I saw wasn’t her preference (shared by many though by no means all of us) but her relentless promotion of it, which at times IMO came damn close to an abuse of FP privileges. (Several times I thought of contacting Cole to suggest her stanning posts were inappropriate & request that he block them until she got the hint – but since the Old Naked Mopper seems to have a thing for women candidates I figured he’d just tell me to fuck off.)

    With the primary campaign all but settled, & all of us (with some illtempered grumbling) now on the same page of the hymnal, AL is back doing invaluable work for the reassembled multitudes – I am grateful for, & rarely miss, her omnia-gatherae re Thuh Vars**.

    ** Appalachian pronunciation of “the virus.”  From the same good folk (including Mom’s fambly, sprung from the bituminous hills of north-central WV) who go “feeshin down thuh crick” & pronounce the name of the MLB team based in Pittsburgh as “Parts.”

    /grouch

  221. 221.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Seinfeld was so popular that it always seems like blasphemy to criticize it.

    Did someone say “blasphemy”? Right up my alley. Particularly for a show I generally thought/think of as Swinefailed.

    The few times (& few minutes) I caught it I mostly saw repulsive characters behaving reprehensibly. I guess that’s a laff riot if you delight in snickering at people you know you’re better than. I don’t – I’d rather laugh with folks than laugh at them – & I have little respect for those who do.

    I always thought the “It’s a show about nothing!” was pretentious. It’s not that funny and Seinfeld’s stand-up style is really easy to parody.

    Bangalore! Jerry Seinfeld is a third-rate jokester who hit the big payoff with a show that ridiculed everyone in it but himself. Its popularity probably contributed to the general degeneration of common decency of which we’re now reaping the bitter fruits.

    (There will be a short pause while the culture snobs struggle into their Velcro-closure golf spikes & come around looking for someone to stomp.)

     

    ETA: Whoever typed “bum’s rush” probably meant “bull rush” – no, not the ones Baby Moses was found in, but the contemporary NFL version of defensive players throwing or shoving offensive blockers out of their straightline path to the ball carrier. Also works with secondary meaning of “bull,” if ya knows what I mean.

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