At a fundamental level, the Biden campaign pitch is: “elect me; I’m not an incompetent, amoral monster like Trump.” That’s good enough for me, for reasons cited long before Biden essentially clinched the nomination. It also had the effect of rankling said incompetent, amoral monster, who appears to be gearing up to take on both Biden and President Obama:
He got caught, OBAMAGATE! https://t.co/oV6fum0zIS
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 11, 2020
Trump spent all weekend tweet-screaming about Russia, the Mueller report, Comey, etc., because astoundingly corrupt AG Barr let General “I Pleaded Guilty for Lying to the FBI” Flynn off the hook (pending judicial review). Trump believes he and his cronies are above the law, and why wouldn’t he? They are, at least as long as they’re in power. But as usual, Trump can’t shut the fuck up and quietly accept benefits that the amoral GOP lawmaker/administrator cabal bestow upon him.
Trump is like a bank robber who conducted the most ill-conceived robbery in history and got away with it due to corrupt insiders who were willing to abet the crime in exchange for a piece of the action. But this great good fortune — bestowed despite Trump’s epic stupidity — convinces Trump that he’s the mastermind and compels him to shout it from the rooftops. So he can’t stop showing up at the bank flashing wads of cash around and mugging at the security cameras.
Apart from the mind-boggling lack of self-awareness that would lead Donald Fucking Trump to impugn any other human being for a lack of “decorum and decency,” the thing that jumps out at me about this incipient strategy is just how fucking stupid it is. Decorum and decency? He really wants to go there?
Popular election loser Trump needs to hang onto every 2016 voter and expand his base. It looks like he’s determined to demonstrate his enthusiasm for abusing power to give cheap thrills to himself and his base instead:
Lord knows I’m no political strategist, and I will never again be caught underestimating the stupidity and malice of my fellow Americans. But holding show trials against political enemies in the middle of a pandemic and economic melt-down seems like a bad move.
Open thread.
Emma from FL
When your enemy is drowning, throw him an anvil. He should start having rallies soon. The more the better.
geg6
It may fire up his “base” but that’s nothing compared to what it will do to fire up our base. People love Obama. I love Obama. The only people who don’t love or at least admire Obama are the idiots waving guns and shedding virus all over each other. Good luck with that, Donnie.
zhena gogolia
I know this Nichols tweet is based on the assumption that we’re going to get an opportunity to vote, but still —
bbleh
He is the Great Distractor. It’s really all he’s got. He’s not a strategist or a manager; he’s a showman, so he’s gonna put on a show.
Of course, the media — ALL of them — will eat it up; he understands that instinctively. The only question is whether enough voters will believe it’s important (the crazies) or will be sidetracked (the fools). Personally, I’d bet against it, but y’never know with voters …
Baud
If arresting Hillary wasn’t politically viable, I’m at a loss as to why these yahoos, as yahooish as they are, think threatening Obama is a political win for them.
Baud
Speaking of strategy, remember when the news “leaked” that Barr was seeking to convince Trump not to file a brief in support of striking down the whole ACA, for political reasons. I think that whole thing was kabuki for John Roberts — basically telling him, “ignore what we are going to argue in our brief–don’t strike down the ACA because it will guarantee Trump loses.”
TaMara (HFG)
@geg6: And I think all the polls point to his base shrinking drastically. I’m not going to get complacent, but this entire corrupt tar pit of a party has been saying it’s okay for seniors to die for the economy. Guess those seniors aren’t taking that well, and suburban female voters have long ago abandoned them. I think he’s down to white dudes whose testicles are as small and dysfunctional as their brains and women whose brains are as bleached as their hair.
schrodingers_cat
How many people died in the first four months of the Civil War?
MagdaInBlack
I saw this swamp gas obamagate bs bubbling up yesterday, and to be honest, Im not sure what it’s supposed to be about ?
JMG
Attacking Obama is just so dumb. If this is the strategy, the grifters at the Trump campaign might as well give up and spend 100 percent of their time skimming and stealing instead of their current 95 percent.
Betty Cracker
PS: Sorry to inflict Trump’s hideous visage on y’all, especially before noon Eastern time, but the fact that he’s bragging about using the Justice Department to go after political enemies on his official Instagram account is material to my point. It’s straight-up Stalin shit, and due to the stakes, it seemed trivial to deface the image for comic effect.
@Baud: I think you’re right. Great point.
Baud
OT. this weekend, Vox looked at the numbers and confirmed what we all suspected.
Betty Cracker
@TaMara (HFG):
That’s a keeper!
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
Between the eternal scavenging for IP rents that forces the country into a weird trade war with China, the distribution and manufacture problems with 3M’s proprietary masks and the supply choke down and rationing of Gilead’s antiviral, can anybody make a case for American IP laws justifying anything beyond development & manufacturing cost recovery plus about 10% profit?
dmsilev
@schrodingers_cat: Not all that many. There was only one major battle in the first four months, First Bull Run. Roughly 1000 dead total.
TaMara (HFG)
@Baud: Everyone needs to contact their local stations in regard to this. I watched mine change the numbers from 100s to 1000s when the idiots screamed, so we screamed louder and they dropped them back down to reality.
Nothing we can do about national media, but control those local airways when possible.
WereBear
I guess we’ll see 27% then. I hope so.
Elizabelle
@TaMara (HFG):
I’m thinking those are Michael Nöthem’s tiny, tiny, tiny balls atop his surname? For gravitas!
These people have no decency. They might actually bring down the Republican party while their lizard brains think they’re sticking it to Obama
Bring it on, wingnuts.
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: He was elevated by Putin for one reason, to destroy America.
@Baud: The media is racist. Check out the coverage that Obama got and compare it to the current coverage of the Orange Corona. And yes I include prestige media the likes of the Snooze Hour and the Atlantic and of course the Pravda-On-the-Hudson.
The prestige media’s racism wears a suit and tie while the RW media brandish their Nazi tattoos.
geg6
@TaMara (HFG):
That’s how I see it, too. I refuse to be complacent, but this won’t help him a bit, as far as I can see, as long as people keep dying in droves. And, based on an article I read this morning, that is not only going to keep happening, but is going to increase. By quite a lot. The optimists are saying 3000 dead a day in by June. The pessimists are saying over 7000 a day.
taumaturgo
Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people. H.L. Mencken
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@TaMara (HFG):
I brought some dolmathes to my RWNJ mom yesterday, and we sat outside in her yard at a distance with masks.
I kept changing the subject – it does resonate with them, since the ACC announced that football is unlikely, but dad was scoffing over any notion of Trump culpability and mom was blaming it all on Xi and ‘Jina.
Total Fox zone.
EthylEster
I read one of the long threads here when it was pretty much dead. My first reaction was that a lot of commenters sounded triumphal. I think it’s way too early to start celebrating. I find that even more annoying than the occasional appearance of commenters who rant about how the Dems are doing nothing.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@schrodingers_cat:
I want to see Parscale in short sleeves. You know that dude is rocking some White Power ink.
Other MJS
@MagdaInBlack: Heather Cox Richardson:
mad citizen
@Baud: Thanks for this link/post. It’s been really irritating when the networks do their story of the protests and they have no mention of which political side is protesting–the president’s party. You can see the friggin’ signs right in the video.
trollhattan
@Betty Cracker:
I look at that photo and think, “He picked this because he thinks it makes him look handsome and serious.” All I can say is it will scare small children and dogs. Others will point and laugh.
schrodingers_cat
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: It would not surprise me either.
schrodingers_cat
@trollhattan: He was never handsome, even when he wasn’t a 300 pound blimp.
taumaturgo
@schrodingers_cat: The MSM may be racist but they are certainly capitalist in the never-ending pursuit not of the unbiased truth but of the almighty profits. Donald and the MSM have a symbiotic relationship that benefits both. Donald gets his punching bag that keeps his MAGA crowd cheering and asking for more while the media reaps the click bites and ads revenues. Who could want a better gig, never the danger to society?
MagdaInBlack
@Other MJS:
Thats it? Obama said something we all (here) say? Therefore argle bargle omg conspiracy?
I see.
eta: jeezuz h !
The Thin Black Duke
Trump’s monstrously inept response to the response really isn’t surprising; remember, this is the guy who pissed away a $400 million inheritance, after all. But I have to admit that what astonishes me is the realization that once the first diagnosed case of COVID-19 was discovered in January, all Trump had to do was make a speech promising to deal with it, hand it over to the experts, do what they advised, and keep his mouth shut. If Trump simply did that, there would be a good chance he’d be reelected. Thankfully, Donnie Trumped himself. Again.
yellowdog
@geg6: They are already OFFICIALLY hiding the death numbers in Florida and either AZ or TX. The only states reporting anywhere near accurate numbers will be blue states. Which will just feed into the shitgibbon’s narrative because the red state knuckle draggers will think they’re safe. And if they get infected they will blame it on immigrants and dirty libs.
Amir Khalid
What Obama said criticising Trump is true. Obama definitely could have thought of phrases much saltier than “chaotic disaster”. In fact I believe he did, but had the class not to use them. Obama may well be the first POTUS in a long time to speak harshly of his successor; but that successor’s presidency has been the biggest train wreck in the history of the office, and Obama had a duty to speak up about it. Trump can try to make a scandal of that, but only his fan base will buy it. The rest of the world knows where the real scandal here is.
Matt McIrvin
@MagdaInBlack: It’s not about anything–that’s why it’s impossible to argue against. There’s nothing to debunk, just a word.
The Moar You Know
@schrodingers_cat: Pretty sure there’s a very large “Mission Accomplished” banner in storage somewhere we could let him have. Unlike W, he definitely got the job done.
Other MJS
@Baud: There are anti-Trump rallies?
NotMax
Nixon: The president is not a crook.
Dolt 45: The president is a crook. Whatcha gonna do about it?
Omnes Omnibus
@EthylEster: A lot of people want to be on the winning team. Look at studies of late deciders, they tend to break for the leader. There is nothing wrong with trying to build up a sense of inevitability around our side (as long as everyone remembers to show up and vote). There is nothing wring with being confident and proud as liberals, as Democrats, as decent people who aren’t going to stand for this shit anymore. Let’s not vote scared; let’s vote both hopeful and angry.
Josie
@The Thin Black Duke:
“keep his mouth shut.” I think I see the problem here.
zhena gogolia
@Betty Cracker:
I know, I thought at first it was one of yours!
JPL
Obamagate is worse than Watergate if you factor in one is a total fabrication by trump and Barr.
taumaturgo
**never mind the danger to society?
Roger Moore
The whole thing about Obama being the first President to speak against his successor is a load of bullshit, too. Hoover was harshly critical of Roosevelt and went for the Republican nomination to run against him in 1936 and 1940. It’s true that more recent presidents have tended to be more reticent about criticizing their successors, but Trump has certainly given Obama more grounds for criticism.
schrodingers_cat
@NotMax: Never forgive and never forget those who brought him to power and are still enabling him.
@taumaturgo: Your tired Marxist discourse is boring.
daryljfontaine
@The Moar You Know: Run it through the COVID ward before packaging it up to send, it needs folks to cough on it a bit.
D
zhena gogolia
@MagdaInBlack:
No, the scandal is he cooked up the whole investigation of Russia before the election in order to taint Trump.
NotMax
@Roger Moore
*cough* T.R., Bull Moose Party.
zhena gogolia
@Omnes Omnibus:
Thank you.
MagdaInBlack
@zhena gogolia:
I see.
Clear as mud now ?
They really have created their own reality, just as Steve Bannon said they would.
germy
@Baud:
Enhanced Voting Techniques
That’s because you are a functioning adult and not a narcissist septuagenarian well into their second childhood.
artem1s
@schrodingers_cat:
a little math:
Approximately 620,000 soldiers died from combat, accident, starvation, and disease during the Civil War.
620,000 / approximately 54 months = 11.5K per month on average. The first year of the war was far less bloody than succeeding years though. I couldn’t find any stats by year, but these are considered the ‘bloodiest’ battles. Most took place in 1862 and 1863, I believe.
Battle Of Gettysburg: Over 50,000 casualties
Seven Days Battle: Over 35,000 casualties
Battle Of Chickamauga: Over 34,000 casualties
Battle Of Chancellorsville: Over 29,000 casualties
Battle Of The Wilderness: Over 24,000 casualties
Battle Of Antietam: Over 22,000 casualties
Second Battle Of Bull Run: Over 24,000 casualties
Battle Of Shiloh: Over 23,000 casualties
Battle Of Fredericksburg: Over 18,000 casualties
Cold Harbor: Over 18,000 casualties
Also, figures are for soldiers only – total deaths estimated 750K or about 2.5% of the population.
Steeplejack
@MagdaInBlack:
Adam Silverman gave a thumbnail description last night.
Gravenstone
Removed due to more accurate information posted by others.
different-church-lady
@EthylEster: Wild mood swings: they happen on a regular basis around here. Today triumph, tomorrow inconsolable despair.
MagdaInBlack
@Steeplejack:
Thank you. I missed that.
Eta: found it. Jeezuz h these people.
schrodingers_cat
@germy: Nice Polite Racists. See my comment above. I have encountered my fair share. They say to my face we like you but don’t like xyz immigrants. Yeah right. I see your racist ass as clearly as I see the color of the sky outside.
Jeffro
@zhena gogolia: That’s an interesting theory. So I guess my question for trumpov is, if he’s so innocent and there’s no ‘there’ there…
…when the Special Counsel was appointed, why did he exclaim, “Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my presidency. I’m fucked,”
Riddle me that one, Donnie.
And then let’s talk about Helsinki…
schrodingers_cat
@Gravenstone: Thanks. We are going to beat the total of Civil War deceased in action, at the rate we are currently progressing.
Robmassing
Not for nothing, I’m pretty sure every living ex-president has criticized Trump, and plenty of ex-presidents have criticized sitting presidents.
Elizabelle
Cuomo O’Clock upcoming. www.ny.gov has the soothing new age music up. Will put up the C-Span link when Governor Cuomo arrives.
Other MJS
200k+ crisis actors.
Trump’s first and last strategy is to deny reality — and he’s likely to argue that all these deaths aren’t real
LuciaMia
So an ex-president has never criticized a sitting prez? Any presidential historians here-cause somehow I doubt this.
And how does this amount to “CAUGHT-OBAMAGATE!!” even in Trumps fevered peanut brain?
Ruckus
@bbleh:
The owners of a lot of the news media are really only different from shitforbrains in degree. They are showmen as well, as that is what most of the media has become, a show, entertainment. The fundamental concept of news journalism isn’t about how much money one can make spreading it (yes one does have to make money to stay in business) but about spreading the truth, while it has turned out to be spreading the truth as the publisher sees it. IOW media is biased. Because it’s run by humans it will always be this way. But a lot of people do not understand that the truth is always what the person with the loudest voice thinks it is. The problem is we have, in the last very small segment of human existence, added science to the mix of things we “know.” And science generally is about what is the truth, inconvenient or not, liked or not, which is fundamentally different than news publishing. Hell in books we call out fiction and non-fiction, to separate out that.
And around the world a lot of conservatives are finding out that their political views do not fit in, accept, understand really, that their political views no longer fit in a world with this many people and decades of technology growth, especially in that a lot of that growth is environmentally crappy. They are fighting a losing battle, and starting to seeing that their conservative hate/racism/theft is not conductive to more than a very few, but the can not admit that, it runs counter to everything they know and believe so they are doubling down, in desperation. They are electing around the world the most desperate leaders, who will and are spreading destruction, trying to hold on to the last vestiges of proof that they are right, in the face of overwhelming evidence that they are completely and utterly wrong.
Monty
@Emma from FL: True, but they are not rallies. They are Trump Cult gatherings.
germy
@schrodingers_cat:
They know which side their bread is buttered on.
germy
@Elizabelle:
In the meantime:
bemused
@Betty Cracker:
Barr was asked on CBS evening news about when history looks back on decision dismissing Flynn charges and he said, history is written by the winners which largely depends on who is writing the history. Fascist monsters.
zzyzx
@geg6: “The optimists are saying 3000 dead a day in by June. The pessimists are saying over 7000 a day.”
I think this sort of death inflation can be as dangerous as ignoring the virus. There are reports that one model had a run that under one set of conditions would have 3000 deaths a day. We don’t know any of the details. Having heard that, others said, “3000? We’d be lucky if we saw that!!!”
When people make projections that are ridiculously high and then they don’t come true, it leads others to say, “See! It was no big deal,” and precautions that we should still be taking will go away. There’s no way that the big population centers are going to open up at any time soon, especially if we see a massive influx of new cases in red states, so the problem is more likely to be individual communities suddenly being overwhelmed than a giant nationwide wave.
It’s the same problem I have when we look at a protest and say, “Well they’ll all be dead in a few weeks” where what might happen is that some grocery clerk who waits on a protestor or two gets sick and then their mother dies.
different-church-lady
“BEANY! APPLAUSE!!”
Ruckus
@TaMara (HFG):
It may be that those white dudes believe that their testicles are their brains. At least they seem only to have thoughts that originated there.
germy
@Robmassing:
GWB after Trump’s inauguration speech: “That was some crazy shit!”
Betty Cracker
@The Thin Black Duke: That’s definitely a pattern — and a warning. The next demagogue will be more competent, so we have to strengthen our democracy and its institutions now that they’ve been revealed as a balsa-wood construction.
The Moar You Know
His “base” – and I use that word with BOTH it’s meanings, as they are his base and they are base beyond belief – LOVES his utter lack of both.
Which is not surprising. Look at any American entertainment media since the late 1970s. Our culture has been awash in an utter lack of either decency or decorum since then. We, as a culture – and I mean pretty much everyone – not only allowed but encouraged this.
The wonder of it all is that anyone still values these things at all. I’m grateful that they do.
And yes, I sound like a church lady scold, and to make it worse I’m a hypocrite to boot, as I really enjoyed those movies, those albums, those TV shows. Hell, even participated in the creation of some such.
I think that since the early 2010s, I’ve been undergoing some sort of slow-motion revelation. It has not been pleasant. Realizing that a lot of stuff, like – oh, let’s use Breaking Bad. Which was a great show in many ways. But you start letting shit like that in your head, and it changes you. You become hardened, habituated. You start thinking this is the way things are, or will be, or should be. And when that happens, well, you really do get the world you imagined. I think Lennon wrote a song about that.
And yes, it is just fiction, and yes, I sound like fucking Tipper Gore or some bluenosed Jesus freak, but in a lot of ways, those folks weren’t wrong. Just really, really bad at making a point that, well, they weren’t even sure what the point was. They just knew that what was happening in American culture was wrong, a wildfire spreading of contempt for morals and values (and frankly, some of those morals and values needed to go, but not ALL of them!) but they had nothing to back it up with other than nonsensical appeals to the Bible to quantify why it was wrong, or coming up with any reasons other than the innocent ears of Sweet Baby Jesus why it should stop.
If someone had said during the PMRC hearings that WASP really needed to stop making albums about chainsawing people for fun because it would end with Donald Trump being president in 2016, and traced a hypothetical path (not hard) of how that would happen, well, it would have gotten my attention even as an adolescent.
Well, here we are, thanks for reading my no doubt ill-informed rant, but that’s where I am. Decency and decorum? Dangerous to base an election on that. America still really wants to be the country where white people can flip off the cops or worse, and be heroes.
patrick II
@Baud:
Because he’s black.
I’m surprised Trump doesn’t spell his name Black Hussein Obama. Notice the absence of the word “President”. Hate works for Trump and he hates President Obama in a way only jealous inadequacy can drive hate.
Baud
@zzyzx:
I agree. It’s like talking about how your candidate is going to crush the other candidates in the debate. It’s not helpful.
chopper
trump has spent almost 4 years viciously attacking his predecessors, but yeah, obama’s criticism is the biggest scandal ever.
zzyzx
@The Moar You Know:
I’ve been finding the anti-hero trend to be unwatchable for a while now. My rule for any new show is that it needs to have at least one main character that I can root for who at least occasionally does smart things and occasionally has things work out for them. Even with that vague set of rules, it knocks out so much of peak TV.
Elizabelle
Cuomo up. C-Span link.
Doing intros. Melissa DeRosa (sp) is the second in command. They’re doing presser from Rochester.
Matt McIrvin
@geg6:
And I keep thinking about Orwell pointing out that while liberals offered people a good time, fascists offered them only suffering and death, and the people rewarded the fascists with ecstatic love.
schrodingers_cat
@germy: I disagree that the motivation is merely economic, its who they are. D presidents are better for the bottom line and yet they (money interests and their enablers) are always supporting and promoting Rs.
Baud
@patrick II:
True, but he’s a lot more popular than Hillary. That was my point.
MattF
Trump demonstrates his (possibly) subliminal awareness of his own various faults by accusing Obama of precisely those faults. People call this ‘projection’ but I don’t think that’s exactly right because there’s a sort of political strategy there. Trump makes accusations that disorient and trigger his opposition– accuse Biden of nepotism and sexual harassment, accuse Obama of a lack of decorum… And then also accuse Pelosi and others of being female. It’d be amusing, except it’s happening in real life.
Monty
@Ruckus: We see this everywhere now. The doubling down on what is WRONG. On ignorance, stupidity, greed, malice, cruelty. And there is no reasoning or compromise with this. Let’s face it: we are in a war.
Elizabelle
@Ruckus:
And how perfect is it that the testes might be a reservoir for coronavirus? If that proves true (lots of research on it now; has to do with ACE2 cells, I think) — never say the Flying Spaghetti Monster does not have a wicked sense of humor.
I will put up some links on this soon.
NotMax
@chopper
Now, is he was wearing a tan suit and had a dab of fancy-schmancy mustard at the corner of his mouth…
//
Baud
@MattF:
It’s about creating talking points for the people on his side and for the media to “both sides” their coverage.
trollhattan
@bemused:
Barr exudes a good deal of Cheney’s “personality,” which makes sense recalling they were both Reaganites. Lucky, lucky us.
Elizabelle
@MattF: It’s projection queuing up the gaslighting.
The media and readers/viewers have to get way smarter about this. I know Margaret Sullivan and Jay Rosen have been writing on this for months upon months.
Emma from FL
@Monty: A hot zone by any other name….
Barbara
@geg6: Honestly, I don’t think the optimists or the pessimists have much basis for their calculations. FWIW, I predict a lower daily death toll but over a much longer period of time. It might be 1500-2000 every day, but it will seem endless. I guess the assumption for the higher counts is that people will cease social distancing, but I doubt it it is going to get back to normal anytime soon.
zzyzx
@Baud: in general, I think this is really hard for our brains to wrap around. We get the flu and we understand something like The Stand where everyone dies, but this whole thing where something is worse than the flu but what we’re trying to do is to slow it down to prevent the health care system to be overwhelmed and give us time to come up with better techniques, just isn’t what we’ve been trained to look for.
I mean I have a MS in math and I have trouble getting my mind around the difference between R0 of 1.6 and one of 2.4 in a population of billions.
mrmoshpotato
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I want to see Parscale as dead weight swinging from the gallows.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: Betty, I thought that was someone’s snarky image on their twitter feed. TRUMP ACTUALLY PUT THAT OUT?
(apologies for shouting)
The Thin Black Duke
Matt McIrvin
@Barbara: I think things are going to be wildly different in different places–that’s what we’re already struggling with now. People in rural areas where there hasn’t been a high infection level see the stories out of New York and conclude that they must not be real or must not be relevant, because there’s no commonality with what they’re seeing locally. And when it does come to them, things will be getting much better in New York.
zzyzx
@Barbara: that seems far more likely based on Europe. The tail of this thing is so frustratingly long.
However, I am worried about the west coast. We’ve largely been spared from this wave which makes me think that we’re more vulnerable to a second wave than anywhere else.
randy khan
I’d say that if you wanted to make black voters willing to crawl naked over broken glass to vote against you, indicting Obama for “crimes” related to the Russian interference in the 2016 elections probably would be a great way to do it.
It’s clear, by the way, that the right wing obsession of the moment is some testimony that’s been released recently in which people like Susan Rice say things that can be seen – if you have precisely the right glasses and the light is exactly right – to suggest that the Russian interference case was not completely nailed down. But there’s some competition: Mueller was dirty because of how he treated Flynn. Oh, and Devin Nunes swears he saw an FBI interview report that shows that Flynn wasn’t lying, but it’s now “missing.”
different-church-lady
@The Moar You Know: Keep in mind, back then even though the bad guys got glamorized, it was still clear they were the bad guys. And even the good guys were bad guys in some ways. The characters were more complicated and that seemed like a revelation.
Today they’ve lost the thread and now the bad guys are the good guys.
artem1s
I’m expecting this strategy of putting the Obama administration on trial to work out about as well as putting Hillary on trial did for Trey Gowdy. Her 10 hour testimony was great for her likeability numbers, as were her debate performances. The actual trials never hurt her. It was the Russian trolling of social media with a tsunami of misinformation, gerrymandering, and voter suppression that worked more than the investigations themselves.
However, it doesn’t surprise me they are trying to repeat the strategy of spearheading the misinformation campaign with an investigation. Mostly because the Orange Plague sees himself as a soldier in a war anyway. In his head he believes he can sell the deaths of American soldiers in Benghazi, “butheremail” and “lockherup” as easily as the notion that the Intelligence Community’s and FBI’s investigation of the Russian mob in his hotel was a conspiracy to steal the election in 2016. And Flynn’s exoneration and the ‘failed’ impeachment is more proof that Obummer and Hitlery are still trying to steal the election. They are attempting to change the subject back to something they think worked for them in 2016. What he fails to understand is the winning strategy was consolidating the votes of misogynists and racists in a way that W consolidated the votes of misogynists, racists, and homophobes in 2000 (and suppressing the AA vote). JEB was supposed to be the figurehead for the GOP puppet regime but he and the rest of the field was so completely inept they failed to keep Dump from bogarting their campaign strategy. And in the end, they didn’t really care who the puppet was. McConnell has taken every advantage of having another halfwit in the WH.
the only problem is he doesn’t get that he’s made himself the victim – not his base – in this conspiracy. He’s selling death for his base in exchange for their vote to save his ass this time around. He’s not protecting the WWC from ‘those people’. He’s demanding they die to protect him from Biden (and jail). And with this wave of infections in the WH staff, I’m not sure it’s going to be that easy to change the subject to whatever pizzagate they dream up next.
lapassionara
@Jeffro: I agree.
No one who sees that photo of Trump with Putin after that meeting can doubt that Putin is the boss of Trump.
Baud
@zzyzx:
You have to admit, that’s be simpler and solve a lot of problems.
Agree. People always have difficulty when it comes to big numbers.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Have we reached the point where there could be actual show trials despite there being no there there?
Targeting Obama seems weird to me, given that he’s popular and not on the ballot. I suppose they’re trying to dirty up Biden by association, which is a long way around. But then, Trump real motivation is probably something less thought out than even that. He hates Obama so he goes after him.
mrmoshpotato
@trollhattan:
“This makes me look like a tough guy, and not a whiny ass titty baby who’s Putin’s bitch!”
zzyzx
@different-church-lady: it’s so edgy! There are no good guys. The world is dark and evil and everyone is the worst ever and what’s the point in trying to be better? You’ll just get punished!
MattF
Also, speaking of decorum, dying for your country, and being able to breathe, I stumbled (once again) on this old and entirely relevant poem by Wilfred Owen Dulce et Decorum Est.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@artem1s:
That “conspiracy” seems too complicated and muddy for people to grab onto. But then, I suppose but-her-emails wasn’t exactly clear either.
scav
@Elizabelle: fffff, those little white testes are viewed as far more than their brains (which they don’t especially value, any more than their liver or kidneys). The little danglers are the existential, numinous self, the crown, balm, orb (snort) and scepter (re-snort) that proves their mastery over all other assemblages of atoms. no other qualifications or effort required.
Can’t wait to hear the latest research.
geg6
@yellowdog:
His base will for sure. Pretty sure that everyone else will notice when 3000-7000 a day are dropping dead.
different-church-lady
Y’all are way overanalyzing this: Obama said (indirectly) that Trump was a failure, and so Trump lashes out like a child throwing his toys. There’s nothing more calculated to it than that.
Barbara
@zzyzx: And they are developing better techniques, but implementing them is not going to be easy. I own a house in a rural location where my husband grew up. They now have close to 200 cases, mostly centered on nursing homes and the local prison, also grocery stores. They understand that it will be percolating outward because, hello, those are the largest employers in the county. There is no hospital in the county. There is a small hospital in a nearby county. Presumably they have a small ICU.
While these kinds of counties might feel that they are totally separate from large urban areas, when it comes to getting actual high end medical care they have to travel to those urban areas — in this case, at least 45 minutes by car to Richmond, or an hour to the exurbs of Washington D.C. Nursing homes are going to be obliterated. There is no nice way to say it.
bemused
@Ruckus:
Last week I saw a cartoon on twitter that a trumper/white supremacist type said depicted what liberals want to happen to them. The cartoon had white women in black leather dominatrix outfits with whips standing over white men in thongs who were forced to break rocks. Both the women and the men had peak, physically toned bodies. I thought it was an interesting look into the fantasies in the mind of the guy who posted the cartoon.
Matt McIrvin
@The Moar You Know:
They were wrong in some ways. They got the horror of this sort of moral hardening mixed up with their horror of sexual imagery, and, in some cases, their distaste for any violation of social hierarchies.
Even with violence itself, they’d fail to distinguish between the surface trappings–depictions of blood and gore–and the modeling of cruel, amoral behavior.
So you got things like Fredric Wertham, a guy who had been an activist against segregation and for racial justice, writing a book about unwholesome imagery in comics that led to a Comics Code Authority that led to stories getting nixed because they were trying to fight racism.
different-church-lady
@zzyzx: For reasons that are too difficult to explain, I’ve been reluctantly working my way through “Peaky Blinders”. About halfway through season three, I was suddenly, “Holy shit, Tommy Shelby is a complete asshole and I hate him.” And he’s the damn protagonist.
Gin & Tonic
Coronavirus cases in Russia up by nearly 12,000 in the last 24 hours.
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax: ? T.R., Bull Winkle Party.
Rand Careaga
@The Moar You Know: Your thinking dovetails with my own. Reading your comment, I was put in mind of a brilliant essay by the San Francisco Chronicle’s film critic from sixteen years ago. Excerpt:
The whole piece can be found here.
lapassionara
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I think they are trying to dirty up Biden. Biden’s activities with respect to corruption in Ukraine, which the rational part of Europe welcomed and applauded, will become in their telling a sign of Biden’s corrupt practices. Taking care of Flynn, so he can become “exonerated” and participate in Trump’s campaign, is only the first step in this process.
Wait for the “lock him up” chants. They are coming.
zzyzx
@different-church-lady: That was me with Breaking Bad. I got halfway through season 2 before realizing that I hated everyone and was rooting for a nuclear bomb to hit Albuquerque to get rid of all of these people.
Ruckus
@Roger Moore:
TV has changed the political landscape. Because it covers a larger audience. How many more can be motivated by a daily barrage of slanted political news, especially if it is twisted/lied about by opinion shows? shitforbrains walking to the plane/helicopter/car in his black suit/red tie, behind the seal of the president, all the while we’ve heard for our entire lives that we have to respect the president. Nixon blew that shit out of the water, raygun sunk the boat, shrub laid the dynamite, shitforbrains has blown it up completely. The concept that we should have any respect for any of these jackasses as they lied/stole/destroyed/made a laughing stock out of our country is the real abomination. But almost worse is that better than a third of the country thinks they are the saviors of a really crappy way of life and that we should honor and obey them for that.
zhena gogolia
@The Thin Black Duke:
Oh, great example! I hated, hated, hated that scene from the first time I saw it.
Kay
I wanted to watch the Clinton documentary that’s streaming but after the “early years” segment, that was interesting, they put on Andrea Mitchell, Peter Baker and Amy Chozick to defend the 24/7 reporting on the emails. OMFG, it was bad enough to watch them do a terrible job the first time- forcing us to listen to them again is unbearable. Chozick says Clinton “triangulated”. That’s the fascinating analysis that will get you a multi-million dollar book and tv deal, I guess.
I turned it off. I REFUSE to contribute to these peoples’ “brands”. They learned nothing and they will change nothing, ever. Anyone who is surprised that they haven’t covered anything on Biden other than the allegation simply hasn’t been paying attention. It was a GIVEN. Crap work turns out well for them, personally. Why would they change?
zhena gogolia
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Obama was just quoted on a supposedly private call where he harshly criticized Trump (i.e. just stated an obvious fact).
zhena gogolia
@different-church-lady:
Right.
The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
@The Moar You Know: Sorry, but that’s horse shit. Since the 70’s, is it? As a member of more than one historically marginalized group of Americans, let me assure you that a nation conceived in genocide, sustained by slavery and the suffering of women, queer folk, and minorities of every stripe did not require “Breaking Bad” to corrupt its discourse. If you believe there was a kinder, gentler America before the 1970s, I have a lot of folks to introduce you to.
zhena gogolia
@Kay:
I agree completely. That word “triangulated” should be taken out behind the barn and shot.
mrmoshpotato
Nunes’ lover probably ate it. Devin Nunes is a cow fucker after all.
Ruckus
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
I beg to differ.
He’s never grown out of his first childhood. He stopped all emotional growth at spoiled 4 yr old brat.
different-church-lady
@zzyzx: At least with Breaking Bad there was a strong reason triggering the protagonist’s slide into extreme moral decay. In Peaky Blinders the Shelbys are shitty and violent because that’s just what a Shelby is.
Supposedly Tommy is going to burn in hell by the end of it, but in the meantime we just get him putting everybody else through it, one hour at a time.
Anya
@Baud: the media folks identify with the ugly protesters. They know them. They’re their relatives and former neighbors. They genuinely don’t identify with anti-corporations demonstrators or the Women’s march or gun control demonstration and they definitely fear the BLM. The Trump loud mouth folks are who they really are on the inside.
MisterForkbeard
@yellowdog: What does “officially” mean in this context? I know they’ve been underreporting nursery homes, people that live out of state for part of the year, etc.
Barbara
@zzyzx: I watched the last season of Breaking Bad on a long transatlantic flight and the ONLY character who had ANY redeeming virtue (at least among the bad guys) was Jessie. Yes, stunning cinematography, good acting, and so on, but just relentlessly horrible people. The only difference among the characters were those who owned their evil and those who made excuses for it.
Jeffro
@different-church-lady: agreed
Wolf
Almost at the 1 and half Vietnam deaths right now.
Barbara
@different-church-lady: “I got cancer so the obvious thing for me to do as a high school chemistry teacher to secure my family’s financial well-being is to become the chemist for a vicious drug gang.” Yeah, no.
schrodingers_cat
@artem1s: Thanks for the data! Also casualties include injured or just the dead.
zzyzx
@Barbara: And what’s worse is that they even destroyed that when they gave him a way (in season 1 no less) to get his medical bills all covered that he threw away because he didn’t want their pity. This wasn’t someone doing what he had to do to support his family. It was someone deciding a massive death toll was worth preventing taking an ego hit.
different-church-lady
@Barbara: I didn’t say it was a good reason, I was just saying that at least they bothered to construct a series of stresses that push him into madness. It’s a five year long story of moral collapse.
oclday
Yeah, you empty suit merde head, wait til it’s Biden’s turn.
Carol
Read today that “money managers” are “putting their money” on trump in 2020. Isolating at home pales by comparison to living through another 4 years of the bad orange man. I may be forced to join large groups hoping to get the virus if that’s the case. I can’t imagine living if he wins…unless the Democrats are lucky enough to gain control of the senate.
Fair Economist
@geg6:
I don’t think it will be that bad by the start of June. Right now, as the poorly led states are “opening up”, new infections are lower than they were earlier, before the lockdowns reduced them, or will be later, after re-openings re-ignite them. And it’s people infected around now who will be dying around June 1. So I expect deaths will decline for the rest of the month and bottom out around June, although still at unconscionably high rates, maybe 1,000/day. Cases may well be climbing fast by then, but the deaths won’t have happened yet.
It will be during June that the effects of the current and future spreading events show up in the death rates. Given the push to insanity amongst the MAGA folks, who are now deliberately avoiding even easy, basic, measures, I think it’ll be very bad by the end of June. I’m expecting the mega-churches to be the worst of the worst. Gatherings of thousands singing and falling out, refusing safety measures, and in close quarters and sometimes multiple times per week? Urk.
Betty Cracker
@The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion: Co-signed.
Miss Bianca
@zzyzx:
Sorry, got a little lost here – are you describing Breaking Bad or Trump’s response to COVID-19?
Betty Cracker
@Kay: I wonder if folks like Chozick lie to themselves about their role in elevating Trump or know exactly what they did and don’t give a shit since they personally benefited. My guess is the former, at least with Chozick.
The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
Oh, fer fuck’s sake. Never mind that American society since the 1970s has seen the greatest overall advancement of civil rights for minorities and other marginalized groups in this country’s history, or that the racist “conservatism” that Trump and the Republican Party embodies has been in conflict with US values like decency and personal liberty since before there WAS a US, the problem is that they don’t make nice wholesome shows like “Leave It To Beaver”. You know who ELSE wishes we could go back to the days of Donna Reed? Have all the media critique circle jerks you want, but when you start talking about the old days when people were better, all you’re doing is showing which side of the tracks your nostalgia is built on.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
She was hugely rewarded! She got a book and movie deal and she was then hired to do a story on all the D women running for President. She’s the EXPERT on women running for President! Democrats must buy this- none of them objected.
We’re stuck with them. They’ll never get better because there is absolutely no connection between the quality of their work and 1. how much they make and 2. their continued employment. That “market” is broken. It doesn’t work. I suspect it’s because “the news” isn’t the product. They themselves are the products- they are independent brands.
J R in WV
@yellowdog:
That only works for so long…
Once it tears through enough families, once there are enough Reefer trucks full of bodies, enough funeral homes that can’t deal with the volume of bodies, enough sat photos of mass graves being dug with heavy equipment, you can’t hide that with cheap political tricks.
Ruckus
@zzyzx:
This is really a part of the issue, that the growth rate has put us in a position that humans can and are changing the planet in so many ways that is extremely different than nature and that it’s really only over the last 150 yrs that this change has happened. And if people with advanced degrees in maths have this problem, think about people with 4th grade maths understanding. And no, nature is not all that kind to itself either. But most of our problems have a start in growth. Without a level of understanding of growth and maths a lot of our problems seem to be not all that bad. Add in that understanding and it can get unbelievably messy.
Mike in NC
Yes, but Fat Bastard has a limited number of moves and he always doubles down on the stupid. Here we are, six months shy of him being tossed on the trash heap of history, as the numbers of infected take off, and he thinks he can organize witch hunts against the people who refuse to love him. Trump couldn’t organize a successful one car funeral procession on his best day.
leeleeFL
@Elizabelle: I rarely believe The FSM loves me enough for this to occur. However, the cluster in the WH and the cluster-fuck that has followed it is giving me pause!
Matt McIrvin
@Carol: Vegas oddsmakers are still weakly favoring Trump over Biden. They also seem to think the chance of Andrew Cuomo or Bernie Sanders becoming President is non-negligible enough that they can offer odds (well, I guess they’re happy to take people’s money).
sdhays
@different-church-lady: Indeed. Just last week(?!), the previous worst President in 100 years put out a nice video saying normal leader-like things and didn’t mention Dump at all, and Dump raged about W for getting complimented for being able to pretend at being a President better than the actual sitting Preznit.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
I’m glad Biden is running on “decency” (or whatever this is). Good for him. They’re not going to cover policy anyway, so why bring it up?
The Democratic primary ended and all policy discussions came to a screeching halt. If they can’t fearmonger on M4A they have zero interest in any of it. I’m ON BOARD for that. Why fight it?
different-church-lady
@The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion: I took it as discussing what was represented in mainstream fictional culture of the time, not how the country actually was.
RSA
@zzyzx:
I’m the same. The way I put it is that if the world would be a better place if all the characters were to die in the first episode, then it’s not for me.
MisterForkbeard
@zzyzx: IIRC, Walter actually says this and agrees with you in the later seasons.
He chose to do this for himself, not for his family. Because he wanted to do it.
sdhays
It’s truly stunning how absolutely true this is. I remember back in 2016 how the RNC was a total shitshow, despite having been told for years what a “great showman” Dump is, and how much he cared about how things looked on TV. It was a typical embarrassing Trumpian disaster, and it really should have damaged him more considering how much he was supposedly personally involved (his very own pageant where he’s the queen!!).
But Republican voters happen to love shit, so it was a “success”.
James E Powell
@Kay:
Thank you for watching it and reporting on it because now I don’t have to. When it came out I figured if it was in any way even-handed, the right-wingers would be screaming it was lies and NYT reporters would be disparaging the producers. Their silence was a signal that I could live without it.
The Thin Black Duke
@The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion: Oh, so that’s what I’m doing? Thank you.
MisterForkbeard
@Matt McIrvin: I’d be interested to know what their thinking on this is. The economy is going to suck, Trump already lost his Corona Bounce, Trump v. Biden polling has always favored Biden enormously, etc.
Is it just an acknowledgement that Trump/Barr/Republicans are going to cheat massively? Because that actually makes sense. More so than thinking the Reade stuff will really hurt Biden, though you could factor this into Republican Dirty Tricks as well.
hueyplong
@Matt McIrvin: Trump being slightly favored may mean nothing more than Trumpers being more likely to bet on that particular exchange.
I’d hesitate to believe that the betting line you are referencing is supposed to function as a type of substitute poll for the election
And it should go without saying that the bettors on such an exchange do not constitute the “smart money” in America.
BellyCat
@The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion:
Nicely put. Fictional media horror is a sublime trap that catches off-guard even the most progressive among us.
Art reflects Society reflects Art reflects Society reflects….
Societal Progress is slow, but may suddenly step forward twice and then once back (if we’re lucky). We need to remember that Society (twice!) elected an AA President and Drumpf is simply the reaction, which should come as little surprise. Whether he will break or reinforce Democracy and/or Societal Progress will become clearer in November.
Let us hope that Progress continues and work tirelessly toward that end in whatever ways we are able.
The Moar You Know
@The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion: Can only speak to what I’ve seen in my lifetime. I have zero experience of what America was like pre 1970s as I wasn’t born yet.
MattF
@Matt McIrvin: So, I suppose that means the odds makers are taking more bets favoring Trump than favoring Biden. That’s interesting, but only says something about the politics of gamblers. Betting on horses will be random, betting on politicians will not be.
Elizabelle
@Matt McIrvin: They’re not taking into account any of American voter behavior in 2017 or 2018, are they?
Why not just put these Vegas insiders down as morons who are without professional sports to watch, at present, and it is months before they will actually have to put down any good money?
This is more of the “we’re so powerful and terrifying — we will annihilate you.” Uh, no. The loudest and ugliest do not necessarily represent your average American, voter or nonvoter.
Psy ops, I think. Or just wanting to consider themselves rugged contrarians.
How’s Vegas going these days, by the way? They like their chances of reopening — and remaining open — with a Trump at the helm?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@bemused: The correct phrase is “History is written by the survivors” or how else the Barr explain all those German WWII generals who memoirs are the biases of the Great Slavic Horde myth of WWII? As a lawyer, bootlicker there should know history is subject to critical examination which means the “victors narrative” will be challenged.
Josie
@The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion:
Conservatives’ horse shit seemed kinder and gentler because they kept their real motivations and actions more quiet and under cover, but they were always who we thought they were. Today they are emboldened by Trump’s success to say everything out loud. I am not surprised by the revelations, only by the number of people who seem to agree.
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@Kay: A politician triangulated…OMFG the horror! /snark
Something that’s done by every politician since forever. I know that and I have a high school education.
This really is the stupidest timeline.
Matt McIrvin
@MisterForkbeard: I think they’re still incorporating a slim possibility that some intra-party civil war, the Tara Reade thing, etc., will force Biden to step down (and that the chaos would in turn benefit Trump). They don’t *strongly* favor Trump; it’s very close to fifty-fifty.
Jeffery
Dick Cheney, who was really president during the Dubya (I’m the decider) Bush administration, criticized Obama on lots of occasions.
Bluegirlfromwyo
@EmbraceYourInnerCrone: I’m so old that I remember when the MSM thought Hillary Clinton’s husband was a political genius for triangulating. We’ve always had stupid but our media betters keep ensuring we outdo ourselves.
Baud
Y’all realize that “triangulating” was a BernieBro attack on Hillary that the media picked up on. It is supposed to be evidence of her insincerity and duplicity.
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
I first heard it used about Bill Clinton in probably 1992.
different-church-lady
@Bluegirlfromwyo:
HistoryNews is written by the winners.zhena gogolia
@hueyplong:
Unfortunately, Matt is always happy to bring in any evidence that we’re going to lose.
Baud
@zhena gogolia: The phrase is older. I’m saying it was resurrected and popularized as an “issue” with Hillary by the Bernie people.
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
Well, I remember that it was supposed to be evidence of Bill Clinton’s insincerity and duplicity too.
ETA: Not without reason.
robert222
“First Ex-President to Speak Against Successor,” btw, is just plain wrong. Teddy Roosevelt was extremely critical and vocal about Woodrow Wilson. Wilson was enraged by some of TR’s public pronouncements. If I spent a few minutes on Google, I’m pretty sure could find other instances of ex-presidents talking smack about successors in the Oval.
Ruckus
@Elizabelle:
An extremely good point. LV is really nothing more than a lot of very fancy funnels to dump money into, with a bit of entertainment and reasonably nice food provided – at a cost – to justify you leaving a lot of money there.
Mayur
@The Moar You Know: People picnicking at fucking lynchings is infinitely more brutal entertainment than anything the contemporary media has dreamed up. Even our more civilized forbears enjoyed Jacobean and Shakespearean and operas, for example, all of which are very bloody, dark, and grueling. I agree with the Reverend that horror at violence or unsympathetic character portrayal in modern media is a trap and a dodge.
Ruckus
@zzyzx:
This sounds vaguely familiar. Where/who have I heard something like this before………
Llelldorin
@The Moar You Know:
If you want to see all the anti-heroes and awful people presented as heroes that you didn’t see on TV, I’d suggest reading a few midcentury novels. It’ll also give you some much-needed arm exercise during the lockdown—you’ll get tons of practice hurling them across the room into walls.
rikyrah
@The Thin Black Duke:
Never forget….he had an actual Manual…
PANDEMICS FOR DUMMIES…
But, because it came from the Black man, he couldn’t be bothered
cmorenc
Trump seems unable to take the lesson from the Correspondent’s dinner where Obama’s Trump-roasting was such a potent factor in motivating Trump to take a serious, determined run at the 2016 GOP nomination. He also seems unable to take the lesson from Obama’s own history of how savvy, determined, engaged, and effective Obama was (and needed to be) to win the nomination and Presidency in 2008 and then successfully fend off a fiercely competitive, savvy opponent in Mitt Romney in 2012 – and that Trump would be better off quietly hoping Obama kept channeling the typical trait of many past Presidents of hanging back from prominent politicking, at least until much closer to the election.
But Trump is too narcissistic, impulsive, and uninsightful to grasp this.
rikyrah
@yellowdog: I
But now, the red states and their inadequate healthcare infrastructure will not be able to deal with it
Woodrow/asim
I’m deeply disappointed in this reply.
We’re supposed to be intelligent, thoughtful, aware adults here. Part of the responsibility of being Progressive, I strongly feel, is to understand viewpoints outside our own lived experiences, so that we can actually shape a pluralistic society — not the monoculture the Conservative Movement insists upon.
Right?
I’m trying not to actually be as angry as I feel, after reading your comment and supporting ones. Part of that’s that it took me studying 15th/16th century Ottoman and South Asian cultures to start to grasp the history of my family, estranged as I was. And some of that was, frankly, fuckin’ up hardcore around unlearning a lifetime of bias, and staring to listen to the scholars and others from those regions.
I get how hard it is. But I couldn’t speak to, say, my strong disagreement with a comment Adam made last week on the Civil War from an African-American perspective, without having done the reading and thinking and talking. And that came from the aforementioned background in layperson research, pus Coates’ blog back when he was with The Atlantic. And, indeed, watching Coates grapple with feedback also taught me a lot about how to manage, consume, and learn from both valid and invalid critics.
What I’m saying, here, is that getting pushback, getting “called out” (or in!), should be a wake-up call for you — as it was, for me.
I love this blog, flaws and all. I’ve been around since at least Schiavo; hell, I’m one the the folx who had Greenwald call me a “Obamabot” here :)
So: I hope this comment is met wit the right spirit — of trying to bridge a gap, and not just fly off in anger.
Thanks for reading.
JAFD
WQXR broadcasts the Metropolitan Opera on Saturday afternoons, and Thursday and Friday they have ‘three-minute summaries’ of the plot for the coming attraction.
Lot of evil characters and undeserved unhappy endings to be found therein.
a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio
@schrodingers_cat:
@artem1s:
To be specific, it looks as if the combat deaths for the period from April 1861, when Ft. Sumter surrendered, through the end of July 1861 (which saw the first major battle, the First Battle of Bill Run) we’re around 1000. First Bull Run had around 850 deaths in combat.
I haven’t been able to quickly locate the totals for non-combat deaths and those who died of their wounds later for that period.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Woodrow/asim: Thanks, that’s one of the best comments I’ve read here.
Omnes Omnibus
@JAFD: Most European folk tales end horribly as well. The general moral of the story is if you put one foot wrong your shit will be fucked up forever and, oh yeah, there are more ways than you can imagine to put your foot wrong.
Mo MacArbie
Of course, show trials for the predecessor also inoculate Trump against his own deserved fate. “America just wants to heal now, not to be subjected to more partisan bickering.”
Brachiator
Trump is a strange, vengeful little man. He announces all his plots and revenge reveries up front and in advance, and always comes back to them, despite any caution from his advisors.
Early on Trump painted Obama as the worst president ever, something that white racists easily and perpetually latched onto. And Trump also claimed that the Russia investigation was deliberately launched to taint the glory of his landslide victory over Hillary Clinton. You know, the electoral victory where Hillary hid 20 million illegal alien Mexicans in a pizza shop to bring out to vote for her using mail-in ballots.
Trump also gets rid of anyone insufficiently loyal to him, and has been itching to work up the list and punish Susan Rice, Speaker Pelosi, Hilly and Obama. Hell, Trump would temporarily install Hillary as president if he could subsequently have her impeached.
Obama as worst president ever to Obama as a criminal who must be prosecuted is nonsense that Trump has offered time and time again. If he is re-elected, he will push hard for this, and Barr has shown himself eager to please.
And of course, as always, it is projection with Trump. His own failures and crimes projected onto Obama. That’s how Trump rolls.
J R in WV
@The Moar You Know:
OH, come on… read history? Watch documentary or news film of Civil Rights police riots, lynching photos, “Strange Fruits” sung by Billie Holiday?
Or take it from me, born in 1950, saw signs “Colored Only” and “Whites Only” on water fountains at gas stations on major highways, right out in the open while driving on family vacations. Was shocked even as a little kid!
Hell, 1968 Chicago Police Riots attacking peaceful Democratic demonstrators during the Democratic Party National Convention. Clubs and tear gas, beating people without any weapons because they were against the Vietnam war, LIVE on TV NEWS.
Was despicable and nothing was done about the violent police attacks because Mayor Daley ordered it. He was in theory a Democratic pol, in theory. I imagine film is available should you care to look it up.
But “I have zero experience…” — really !
Embir
Is there a sentient being in the Universe who thinks Mango Mussolini won’t rage tweet at his successor 30 seconds after the election results are announced? As if that particular norm was something he would observe after torching ALL the others?
If you believe that, the New York Times is hiring editorial staff….
Brachiator
@Woodrow/asim:
Catching up on the thread, and note that I heartily concur with BillinGlendaleCA
Brachiator
@J R in WV:
And this led to the electrifying moment which has inspired and given hope to activists for decades:
The Whole World is Watching!
Another Scott
@zzyzx: +1
There are too many unknowns in predicting the way this pandemic evolves.
What’s important isn’t the exact numbers, it’s that it didn’t have to be this way. We have less than 5% of the world’s population. We weren’t the first infected. We should not have 30+% of the world’s deaths. Horrible leadership has made things worse, and they are doing little to do what needs to be done.
That’s the message. IMHO.
Cheers,
Scott.
MattF
@Omnes Omnibus: And gruesome stories for children are written by more modern authors as well.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@TaMara (HFG): I’m not sure that is true, as much as I want it to be. Via 538, Trump’s poll (approval/disapproval) numbers are disturbingly stable. If his approval was really shrinking, you could see it.
rikyrah
@Kay:
So happy to see you posting again, Kay. :)
MattF
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: However, note that Trump’s approval ratings are better than his polling vs. Biden.
Another Scott
@robert222: History didn’t exist before January 2017.
:-/
HTH!!
Cheers,
Scott.
Jinchi
It’s also not illegal, but leave it to the guy who thinks treason and extortion are ok to not understand that point.