Valued commenter Trollhattan alerted us to a new ad from Team Biden in the thread downstairs. It’s so good it deserves its own thread:
Remember how we all kept saying Trump’s market-soothing happy talk would come back to bite him on his big orange ass? Chomp, chomp, as we say in The Swamp.
I particularly like the message in the final frame: “Donald Trump didn’t build a great economy. His failure to lead destroyed one.” That’s going to leave a mark.
Open thread!
zhena gogolia
It’s really good. Terrifying but all true.
dmsilev
It’s oddly suiting that the ad focuses as much on the falling stock market as the loss of life. The former is what Trump really cares about.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Biden’s ad team has been hitting the mark repeatedly. Are they all online now or are some of them on TV?
On another topic, my publisher just notified me they have the ppb of THE WYSMAN for sale on their website now. 10% discount and shipped so you get it a week ahead of the official release. Be the first on the BJ block to read it! Also, you can already read chapter one for free at that link.
Jerry
Kind of disappointed that they didn’t (couldn’t?) include the comment from the commerce ghoul (that looks like Eddie from Iron Maiden) about jobs coming back to America since all of the Chinese workers are sick.
MattF
@dmsilev: I agree– but it’s the actual explanation for Trump’s reaction.
danielx
At this point, staying in the basement and letting Trump run against himself is looking like an excellent strategy. All Joe has to do is sit back and let Trump make (more of) an ass of himself every day.
My (and your) tax dollars at work – just saw the Blue Angels. Impressive.
WaterGirl
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Can you repeat that in english, please? :-)
Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.)
Ouch. I can’t wait to hear what Il Douche has to say about this. It must be hard to be Donald Trump. He’s so amazing and great, and yet everybody is so mean to him. Must be jealousy, I guess…
Dorothy A. Winsor
@WaterGirl:
Sorry! Paperback. The ebook won’t be available until June 27
JCJ
@WaterGirl:
paperback? pink and purple bat? personal protective bunker?
MattF
@Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.): Also, some people are just born-that-way nasty.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@JCJ: At the moment, a personal protective bunker sounds like just the ticket.
danielx
@Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.):
It must be hard to spend so much of his time in a rage because so many people refuse to plummet to their knees in awe of his awesomeness.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@danielx: His crime and his punishment are the same thing: being Donald Trump. Not that that’s enough punishment, but every bit helps.
Gravenstone
@WaterGirl: Given the context, guessing she means paperback – and not parts per billion.
West of the Rockies
Excellent ad!
OT, but anyone else keep getting that Zergnet link to some Sarah Palin story with the accompanying photo of her about to tear out Todd’s bearded throat? She looks like such a miserable, bone-deep toxic person.
WaterGirl
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Personal protective bubble would be my choice. I could go wherever I want and walk around and yet be perfectly safe.
mrmoshpotato
I know Dump’s a Soviet shitpile mobster conman who’s job it is to destroy the US, but I can’t get over the stupidity of statements like “It miraculously goes away.”
Uncle Cosmo
@danielx: We had the Thunderbluebirdangels through here Saturday a week. Two groups of six, right up Charles St past the JHU Homewood campus (across from which I was standing). And a 13th plane, think it was another Friggin’ Falcon, trailing along behind. Probably scanning the ground ready to call in an airstrike on anyone flipping the flyboys the bird.
mrmoshpotato
@mrmoshpotato: *whose
opiejeanne
@Uncle Cosmo: It wasn’t the lumbering C-130 they call Fat Albert, was it?
JoyceH
@Dorothy A. Winsor: ” Paperback. The ebook won’t be available until June 27″
I always do ebook first, and paperback… whenever I get around to it. My older sister is nagging me to get my new series out in paperback because she doesn’t like to read ebooks. But when I do finally produce the paperback, I sell so few of them! How do your sales breakdown between paperback and ebook?
Betty Cracker
@West of the Rockies: I get that ad too. Also one with Ivanka’s gormless mug illustrating the click-bait. It says something about the obnoxiousness of the Trumps that I’d rather see three Palin-illustrated ads than a Trump one…
Uncle Cosmo
“Miracle” is the only way his toxic-narcissist arse is gonna get pulled out of this, so why not? Same for the hydroxychloroquine kerfluffle – although I think some of that might have been the low cunning of a conman counting on the placebo effect among his cult followers. (“I tell them it works, it goes round & round their brains & their bodies make it so”)
MattF
@mrmoshpotato: And that was the Soviet shitpile mobster conman whose job it is to destroy the US– on a good day. He’s now having baaaad days.
JoyceH
@mrmoshpotato: “I know Dump’s a Soviet shitpile mobster conman who’s job it is to destroy the US, but I can’t get over the stupidity of statements like “It miraculously goes away.””
What gets me are his positive declarative statements about how the economy is going to come ‘roaring’ back. The fourth quarter, apparently, will be booming, BOOMING, I tells ya!
Of course, election day will be right in the middle of fourth quarter, so if the economy is not booming, we can expect to see that clip over and over again in political ads.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@JoyceH:
They’re largely ebook. The paperback sales happen at events like a library fair or the book launch I’ll do here if we can ever leave our individual condos and meet again. Supposedly YA readers like physical books but that requires sales in bookstores, and small presses usually can’t do that.
ETA: Also I sell some paperback when someone wants to buy a present for someone else.
Brachiator
And I will re-post why I think the ad is OK, but not great.
I do not like this ad, even though it includes a lot of stuff I like and have praised elsewhere.
The ad is old fashioned. Old School. It is trying to build to a punch line. And even here, the punch line is buried at the 2:22 mark, almost near the end.
And it mentions Trump too often. It should have been more clear. Not just Trump, Trump, Trump, but failure, failure, failure.
In the age of the Internet, you have to put your main message up front. That way, if people only give it 5 or 10 seconds, you still have told people what you need to say.
The message should be: Trump failed. Vote for Biden Because He will Do Better.
Then you can add all the detail and do the punch line ending.
It is also odd that the ad tries to build to the punch with the relatively weak, “Donald Trump doesn’t understand,” instead of “Donald Trump fucked up.”
PenAndKey
You know, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this ad is shown in history classes to explain how this event played out in America. It’s hard hitting, cites it’s sources, and is utterly devastating.
And yet, somehow, I don’t think any of Trump’s fans will so much as hesitate to call it “fake news” or “nasty”, if they admit to knowing about it at all. As one of my friends out of the country likes to say, “Ils sont un culte de la mort”.
And yes, this ad is “old school”. It’s not designed for Twitter, or Tik Tok, or whatever other monstrosity of short attention spans the media is obsessing with now. It’s a short two and a half minute new report and/or documentary. It’s not a marketing punchline. And that’s fine because there’s plenty of space for Biden’s campaign team to have sharp sound bites and the sober, serious assessments like this.
I don’t know about anyone else, but this feels less like an ad to me and more like FDRs fireside chats or Cuomo’s news briefs than a standard political ad. Even if it only does so in sharp contrast to the instability and incompetence of the current administration. That stability is as much a selling point as a good pull quote. It’s an ad that was obviously designed to be shared organically by people to their contacts, not blasted out to their news feeds in a campaign. It’s the old “are you better off now than you were four years ago” line, just repackaged.
Uncle Cosmo
@opiejeanne: Too small, swept wings, internal engine(s), no propellors. Neither “Fat Albert” nor “Puff the Magic Dragon.”
Kay
@Uncle Cosmo:
But everyone knows Trump’s a liar. I think the clips of the low quality hires confidently asserting it’s “contained” are the best part.
These are people who built whole careers on making confident assertions. It works until it doesn’t, and boy when it fails it’ll come back to bite you.
pamelabrown53
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Will you remind us when it’s available on Kindle? It’s easier on my eyes, plus my space is limited.
Question: Is The Wyseman second in a series. If so, should I read the first one before your latest?
Chief Oshkosh
I appreciate how the down arrow showing the stock market plummet is looks like one of Dump’s ties. I know it’s red as red of the color of deficit/loss, but I’m pretty sure they went out of their way to make the arrow look like a tie.
JoyceH
@Dorothy A. Winsor: “The paperback sales happen at events like a library fair or the book launch I’ll do here if we can ever leave our individual condos and meet again. ”
Argh leave home. I’ve decided to start calling 2020 ‘the year I stayed home’. I’m old and overweight and have respiratory issues, so I am NOT venturing outside without significant precautions until there’s either a vaccine or a treatment that makes major improvement on the physical impact and the duration of the disease.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@pamelabrown53: I personally always buy ebooks mostly because I’m cheap. If I love a book, then I buy the paperback later.
The official release date is June 27, so you can for sure get the ebook then. And I will remind BJ. :-)
You’ll probably be able to preorder the ebook from Amazon or wherever one of these days. I don’t know when. Nobody tells me anything!
ETA: I forgot. You don’t have to read the previous book to read this one. The character in this one is a minor character in the previous one. It stands pretty much alone.
Chief Oshkosh
I agree that there should be more ads in which this is the opening gambit. I like this ad, but then, I’m already on board with its message.
p.a.
Good ad. More tie-in with House and Senate Rethugs next time. Think of downticket. Tie Donnie the anvil around the whole party’s neck.
HumboldtBlue
@Chief Oshkosh:
That caught my eye as well.
bemused
@danielx:
No amount of appeasing or idolizing trump, granting his every whim and wish, would be enough for trump. How could he exist if he had nobody to rage at, had nobody to debase and punish? He knows nothing but creating chaos and enacting revenge.
scav
@Kay: I am absolutely in favor of highlighting how this was a team fail. Irking the orange quarterback is well and good, especially as he’s prone to snits and erratic tantrums, but he had enablers and cheerleaders and they all need to be driven from the field. Besides, any minute spent out of the media spotlight (“all publicity is good!”) will probably drive Tangelo just as over the edge (“Why isn’t the false media talking about mmeeeeeeeee!”).
Betty Cracker
@Chief Oshkosh & @HumboldtBlue: Me three.
mrmoshpotato
Wait! Wha??????? (sighs)
natem
@Brachiator:
Yeah, that’s the thing I’m stuck at a lot with campaign spots like this. How do you evaluate the effectiveness of an ad you largely agree with, when really you aren’t (okay, really, SHOULDN’T BE) the target audience of said ad?
Duane
@p.a.: Don’t forget Jared ‘Great Success’ Kushner! His WH fail parade is notable. Bill Barr and his two accursed spawn. Most people resent nepotism.
West of the Rockies
@mrmoshpotato:
Do try to keep, potato. Reade’s father’s erotica was sooo last week.//
khead
I can’t remember which jackals live in south Jersey, but I hope they can stay home and safe. I just saw the pics of the Wildwood boardwalk from Mother’s Day. Uh, wow, people are stupid.
Origuy
Sports commentator Andrew Cotter covers a penguin race in Australia.
Emma from FL
I love to watch what I call “cooking porn for the shut-in” — young Chinese and Korean women living in absolutely stunning landscapes, cooking food they plant or forage. It’s a bit of a fantasy, though if you get a close look at their hands you can see they’re not using doubles for the hard parts. Today the Trump people started placing anti-China, anti-Biden ads in them. Since I am not a complete moron, I realize the Chinese videos are state sanctioned — tourist bait for foreigners (hey, I’m ready to decamp to Yunnan ASAP). This will not end well for Trump.
MisterForkbeard
Test- last few comments haven’t gone through at all.
Anya
The COVID-19 stay at home ennui has lead me to many great podcasts, one of them is an amazing program from CBC radio show “White Coat, Black Arts” by Dr. Brian Goldman. He recommended a piece written by a professor of epidemiology in plain English, this 12 minute read is well worth it. It talks about the potential risks as certain businesses & services reopen.
The Risks — Know Them – Avoid Them
hueyplong
@mrmoshpotato: Spend a minute or so in the comments section of any of the never trump types’ twitter accounts and you’ll see that trumpers don’t spend a lot of time agonizing over Tara Reade’s credibility. She’s a shiv, not a human, and that’s that.
Biden as rapist and Alzheimer’s poster boy are the only tropes trumpers/bots use, and they employ them without exception. They’ve got to run up some numbers to make up for the 28 year demonization head start they don’t have this election.
Obviously, I’m preaching to the preacher by responding to mrmoshpotato, but his is the most recent post that references Reade.
Subsole
@Uncle Cosmo:
Isn’t he like, superbig into that whole “power of positive thinking” malarkey?
That would actually explain it. If he can make his base think it’s happy, then isn’t it, for all practical purposes, happy?
For some reason I’m reminded of a line from Gibson’s Gernsback Continuum:
“It had all the sinister fruitiness of Hitler youth propaganda.”
Comrade Scrutinizer
@natem: I wonder who the campaign ads are meant for. How many (true) undecideds are there these days? Most people I know are “Trump is the Spawn of Satan/God’s Anointed” and there just aren’t that many persuadable people out there right now. Whether you start these with “Donald Trump doesn’t get it” or “Donald Trump fucked everything up”, everyone knows the “truth”. I’m pretty sure The Lincoln Project is focused on driving Trump over the edge, but what is the campaign after? They really just need to reinforce “Joe: The Not-Batshit-Crazy Alternative.”
BTW, did the Tara Reade thing fade away? Haven’t heard much about it since OBAMAGATE!!! (Straight from the Rove playbook, but I don’t think Fat Bastard et al will get much traction with it.)
Subsole
@mrmoshpotato:
Oh yeah, her dad wrote a novel and there is a description of a rough sex act that is almost word-for-word what she says happened to her.
So either she is confused, or lying, or told her dad…and he incorporated it into his work, which…um…ew.
Feathers
@Brachiator: This ad is early in the season. The purpose is to draw people back to the truth, that it can’t be ignored, as much as the Trumpers are trying to. There are front loaded ads and end loaded ads, where the hook is to keep watching to find out what the ad is actually about. You need both.
The audience for this is voters, but also the media. They need to watch this for their jobs, and it’s reminding them of how long this has been going on and what Trump is trying to hand wave away.
Subsole
@Comrade Scrutinizer:
Never, ever, evereverever underestimate the sheer mindmelting number of our fellow Americans who just do. not. pay. attention. These ads are for them.
MisterForkbeard
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Is the eBook going to be available on Kindle? I have so many paperbacks at this point that I have a hard time justifying the space they’re taking :(
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Emma from FL: Examples of food porn shows, please. Most of what I’ve seen are kdrama (Pasta, Fermentation Family, King of Baking), but those are older and, well, dramas. Beautiful videography though.
Anya
@mrmoshpotato: To me, TR is not credible for so many reasons and for so many legitimate arguments but this one is gross and we should not go there. The scene described here is in every freaking slash novel and it also happens to too many women. Let’s not go there.
HumboldtBlue
@Feathers:
Well explained, thanks.
MisterForkbeard
I like the ad, but it’s long. Too long.
They need to have 30 second versions of these and the longer 2 minute ones with more details. Same ending tagline: “Donald Trump didn’t build a great economy. His failure to lead destroyed one.” And maybe inserting the number of deaths in as well.
West of the Rockies
@Comrade Scrutinizer:
Anyone older than, say, 20 who does not know what a vile fuck-up Trump is, is either living in Antarctica, developmentally disabled, or incredibly, wildly shallow and disinterested in any form of current events. There are no true undecideds. They might be ashamed and unwilling to admit they’re Trump fans, or maybe they just love the attention of being allegedly undecided.
Then again, a poll today of 50-year-olds as to whether Hitler was good or evil would probably have 5% somehow just unable to figure it out.
Doug R
@mrmoshpotato: Tara Reade got charged with check fraud on Monday, August 2, 1993-she was fired Friday August 6, 1993. Her “mother” called Larry King August 11, 1993.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@hueyplong: it’s not just trumpers, Heidi Moore– a former NPR business reporter, of all unlikely bios for Bernie Or Buster– had a full-on meltdown about Biden being pulled out of the trash heap by some paranoid vision she has of something like the “DNC” of berners’ imagination, and a lot of assertions that Biden is a “sexual assaulter”. She’s deleted the tweets where she claims there are thirty primaries left, and Biden only “barely” won three primaries. Looking in her feed for the since deleted tweet, I see she’s retweeting Matt Stoller. So….
Ruckus
shitforbrains has only one time and has for decades.
Now.
He can’t look back because he’d see what and how badly he fucked up. He can’t look forward because he’d see what he’s about to fuck up and that will cause him to possibly not fuck that up. He can’t afford that, he has a reputation to live down to.
It is his destiny to be the world’s most famous and prolific fuckup. He understands this, why doesn’t everyone else?
Delk
We heard the Blue Angels earlier. I suspect more people hear them rather than see them.
Doug R
@Duane: You missed Justice Kennedy and his spawn that worked at Deutsche Bank loans.
Jeffro
@mrmoshpotato:
Yup, me too…er, me also.
Whatever. It sure seems to be slip, slip, slippin’ away. Now then…can we get a Megyn Kelly interview with each of the 20+ women who’ve accused trumpov of sexual harassment or worse, please?
Mandalay
@Ruckus:
Trump tweeted this earlier today:
It takes a very special level of stupid for Trump to claim the credit for what governors have achieved when his approval is lower than that of every single governor in the country.
I guess he’ll be claiming credit for the performance of the stock market tomorrow.
Anya
To the lawyers out there: I’ve been rereading the briefs in the Trump tax cases being argued this morning and from my very limited understanding, it doesn’t sound like Trump lawyers are making a case, other than, you cannot access his taxes because of stuff. What do you think of the case and where do you think the SCOTUS is leaning?
Ruckus
@Chief Oshkosh:
I’d bet that at this point in time, people like us are not the target audience. This is aimed at the squishy middle, the not fully sold. You start out all extremely assertive with a fuck in there, as B said just before you and you risk losing the narrative. Now of course these are not normal times so normal might not apply. But right now Biden needs to be and sound presidential.
mad citizen
@Ruckus: Well said Ruckus! I don’t watch him much, but of course he’s been on the air A LOT the last couple of months. He really does just make almost all of it up on the spot based on whatever question comes his way. He is like those ignoramuses that Jimmy Kimmel’s staff interview on the street about made up events and the people just pretend to know all about it and have opinions about it.
Anya
@Mandalay: the thing with Trump MAGA supporters that I don’t get is how they don’t see his neediness and pathetic desire for approval as off putting? How do they have this image of him as a big manly man when he is nothing but a needy toddler.
Emma from FL
@Comrade Scrutinizer: The queen is Liziqi; she’s a Disney princess in looks but she seems to be able to do anything she sets her mind to. She lives in rural Sichuan. She often does vidoes that track a particular food from planting to cooking.
The girl next door is Dianxi Xiaoge, called Apenji or Penji by her family — which pretty much seems to be everyone in her village. She lives in Yunnan. Her area seems to have a number of minorities because she does Bai dishes among others.
The boy among the girls is XiaoXi, who is an amazing craftsman and cook.
There’s been a bit of bitching from the usual suspects about how these are really staged, blah, blah, blah. No, they’re not “reality”. No, they’re not seen inside most of China. Me, I’d rather watch these girls (and guy) cooking and making beautiful things than a bunch of Karadashian wannabees shaking their fake boobs on a fake beach.
dmsilev
@Mandalay: Not _every_ governor. Kemp polled in the high thirties. Perhaps not coincidentally, he’s the one who has been most vocally Trumpish about reopening his state.
Cheryl from Maryland
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Times have changed so much since I was a YA. Once a quarter we would get the Scholastic Books order form — through which I found Encyclopedia Brown, Freddie the Detective, Andre Norton, Anne McCaffrey, etc. etc. My teachers would give me the YA form as I was reading at a semi-adult level in the 5th Grade. I still have many of those books — Scholastic Books seems so different now and so dedicated to its own publishing, which explains your conundrum of needing to publish in physical book form but also needing to be in the competitive book store shelf wars. Good luck to you.
Miss Bianca
Open thread?
OK, AWWWK – I tried to enter my information onto IRS.gov to get my stimulus check direct-deposited, and because I misread the numbers on my tax return from 2018 I got locked out with a “try again tomorrow” message. Didn’t someone say TODAY was the last day to enter this information?
AWWWWWWWWK. AAARRRGH. BLITHER!!
Mike in NC
We need to keep taking a rhetorical baseball bat to Fat Bastard’s skull and knees from now until November. After that time Brad Parscale — the 6’8″ neo-Nazi — should be able to find work in the movies as an imprisoned Aryan Nation leader.
JPK
I’m practicing social media distancing on the TR story and not clicking news links. It only encourages them.
Central Planning
@Anya: I think it has something to do with how they see themselves. Trump doesn’t call them out on their bullshit.
There’s an auto repair shop in the west side of Rochester suburban area with a huge TRUMP sign, and under it “Come vote with me and my deplorables”.
I would never take my car there. Or maybe if I did, just not pay the person for doing the work.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Miss Bianca: tomorrow, per NY magazine. They say by noon, which I presume means noon, eastern
Miss Bianca
@Brachiator: Yeah, well…I watched it, and I never watch Internet ads, and it held my attention all the way through. So, I dunno…you might just be wrong about this. Also, I think “Donald Trump fucked up” might just violate some standards of Internet speech (not BJ’s naturally).
Then again, I’m not sure why you’re lecturing *us* that, our opinions and tastes to the contrary, WELL ACTUALLY, it’s not a good ad. Maybe you should try dropping your insights onto the Biden campaign?
Mo MacArbie
@Chief Oshkosh: I had this thought as well. Potent image!
Renie
Did I miss the discussion about today’s Sup Ct hearings cuz I would love to hear people’s opinions.
Miss Bianca
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Thanks!
Zelma
@khead:
If you think the Mother’s Day crowd on the boardwalk was bad, wait for Memorial Day weekend. I plan to stock up on everything and hibernate. Maybe for the entire summer.
different-church-lady
“Just stay calm. It will go away”
In a better world that’s the caption to any picture of Trump.
germy
mad citizen
@Cheryl from Maryland: I also still have Scholastic paperbacks in my house in the attic. Probably all sports bios and such. Probably should offload them to half price books or somewhere.
Dahlia
Pipped at the post. Someone beat me to my comment. Never mind.
Subsole
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Isn’t Stoller pretty much openly Red-Brown herrenvolk brocialist now?
Jess
This is a good ad–it speaks to “fiscally responsible” moderates (what used to be mainstream republicans), not just people who already hate trump.
Dahlia
@Subsole: I love that story. It pairs well with Donald Fagen’s “IGY”.
Duane
@Doug R: Didn’t Guilliani son work for the WH as a special events flunky? 75k a year (part-time) to keep hamburgers warm. Nice gig if you can get it.
jackmac
@Miss Bianca: We have repeatedly failed with entering information from my 2018 return. The IRS claims that the information does not agree with their records, although the numbers are taken directly from the IRS transcript of my account. So I can’t enter banking information and thus will not receive automatic deposit. We’ve fallen through the cracks and there is not other way to fix this — no contact email, no phone number, offices all closed. It’s infuriating. I even tried to contact my congressional representative (a Dem) with this situation and have not had a response.
@Miss Bianca:
mrmoshpotato
@Anya: I wasn’t looking for a description. I was just reacting to some insanity I hadn’t see before in the shithouse rat nuts time we’re in.
Dahlia
@Emma from FL: I haven’t watched any of Dianxi Xiaoge’s videos yet. I’m quite fond of Li Ziqi’s videos. They are beautifully filmed and soothing to watch.
Subsole
@Ruckus: As you said, by the time some people figure out they aren’t nineteen anymore, they really don’t have the tools to be anything else.
Not that president ninerailsatweet has the drive to be anything else…
@Anya:
The scotus is majority conservative. That’s ballgame.
For which fact may God damn every last Stein voter.
danielx
@Anya:
In some circles the technical description would be whiny little bitch.
mrmoshpotato
@Jeffro:
Yes please. She has the time and money to produce the interviews herself.
(Must be sweet getting 60 mil to quit your job. I know, contract.)
Anya
@Central Planning: they’re pathetic whiners with a terminal case of victimization so he appeals to that side. I find him so odious at every level but nothing annoys me more than his pathetic need for approval. It’s like he never grew up from that little boy who used to say “what about me” when mom and dad praise someone else. You leave that shit at age 10. But this monster still wants praise like an evil child. Ugh! I hate him so much. And I hate anyone who made it possible for him to be our president, specially the “there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between the two parties”.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Subsole: Roberts and Alito always remind me of those who told me there wasn’t a dime’s worth of difference between Bush and Gore– looking at you, Michael Moore. And I’m assuming Gorsuch and Kavanaugh were moved up the judicial ladder under Bush II, too, along with whatever list of horrors Leonard Leo slobbers over every time RBG has a medical scare.
Feathers
@Emma from FL: Where are you watching these?
I’ve gotten into a Japanese YouTube channel called Party Kitchen. They have a bunch of different kinds of videos. The ones I like feature a young wife cooking meals for her husband. It’s very food porny, we never see their faces and he always offers very specific complements about her cooking at the end. The one that most amused me was the hangover breakfast, where she goes into the bedroom so she can open a bottle of water for him. It’s very interesting in terms of cooking to see how the ingredients are prepped differently from American cooking. Also, after the online discussion about white America making inauthentic versions of Asian dishes, the “Neopolitan Pasta” made with ketchup, sweet mirin, and hot dogs brings a laugh.
Miss Bianca
@jackmac: Yeah, well, apparently this one really was my fault – I was entering the amount I *still* owed at the time my taxes were done, which is what was yellow-highlighted by my accountant, not the entire amount I owed. I don’t know if they’ll let me fix it tomorrow or not. Sigh.
I wouldn’t be so antsy about it if my housemate hadn’t already received his check (paper check). I mean, I guess that means I’ll get mine eventually…right?
Anya
@danielx: yup. Why am I insulting toddlers
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@mrmoshpotato:
Was it Lack or Griffin who just got pushed out? and was that the bonehead who thought the Jesus-Is-White Lady would be a fine addition to MSNBC’s coverage of President Hillary Clinton?
mrmoshpotato
@Mandalay: Headline: Arsonist Wants Thanks For Giving Firefighters Work
MisterForkbeard
@mrmoshpotato: It’s a big simplification.
Her dad wrote a novel in 2010, in which the main character was assaulted in a similar manner unwillingly. That’s about it.
Subsole
@Anya: Two possibilities I see:
1. They are throwing a Tantrum. Trump is pure, pinch-faced, howling and kicking on the walmart floor fuck-you to all of us. His characteristics do not enter into it. He exists to hurt us for making them feel all indequate by, y’know, existing.
2. They really…really… effed up, and are too weak to face it. So they feed themselves this backassed upside-down-diagonal-universe Trump. Basically, they bullshit themselves so they don’t have to face what utter fucking inadequacies they have behaved like.
Jeffro
@Mandalay: run another ad with that tweet, then the Orange Jackass saying “it’s up to the governors” (to deal with coronavirus)
shoot, throw in Jared the Other Jackass saying that states need to get their act together.
trumpov can flail all he wants, no one is going to give him credit for doing anything good here. This cake is BAKED, baby.
Subsole
@Dahlia: Oh, wow. That really is a good pairing.
Thanks for the suggestion.
Brachiator
@jackmac:
Can you at least follow the steps that let you know when the paper check will be mailed?
The last time I looked, offices were still closed, and even with Trump’s noise about re-opening things, I had not seen when any of the IRS customer service lines might be available again.
Emma from FL
@Dahlia: Dianxi is chatty, friendly, and gives you glimpses of her family life. And her dog, Daweng, would fit right in with this blog.
Emma from FL
@Feathers: YouTube. My sister got me hooked on them. She follows them in some of the other social apps but I’m an old fart who just sticks to the old stuff.
Anya
@Subsole: let’s hope Roberts cares about what history will say about him and he won’t sacrifice his integrity for this criminal dipshit
Gin & Tonic
So the top three countries in terms of infections are US, UK, Russia? Trump, BoJo and Vova? Really showing their leadership, these three stooges.
Subsole
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Yeah. I want to see serious court-packing if we win the senate. Like, two justices for every one Leo appointed.
I am officially at salt-their-ashes-grade rage. I don’t want to hurt them. I don’t want to get even. I don’t want to teach them a lesson.
I just want to burn their fucked up little falangist wet dream down on top of them. And then royally fuck up everyone who let this happen so it don’t happen qgain.
I would also like a pony.
And also a cowgirl.
Anya
@Subsole: both possibilities make sense. I think a lot of them are monsters like him and they’re comfortable with all the awful things he’s doing as long as the people they hate are his victims. They are too dumb to connect the dots and realize he’s hurting them too.
hueyplong
@Anya: If it’s a purely legal situation, we’re talking a 9-0 decision upholding the order to produce.
Pre-Bush v. Gore, I would have assumed a 9-0 decision upholding the order to produce.
Post-Bush v. Gore and pre-Trump, I would assume a non-unanimous decision upholding the order to produce.
During the Trump presidency, well, let’s wait and see. Still hoping for the best. My favorite, more even than a 9-0 result, would be an 8-1 decision upholding the order to produce, with the one being Kavanaugh just to highlight what a fecal pile he is.
Uncle Cosmo
Disagree with the last clause. Once it stops working, they never said it, and the media will never hold them to account for it – their jobs depend on them distracting the masses with the next shiny object while the Global Oligarchy Putsch grinds on.
Betty Cracker
@Central Planning: It seems really stupid from a business perspective to advertise your politics like that. There’s a thrift store in my town with a big Trump banner outside. I wouldn’t shop there in a million years, and I LOVE thrift stores!
I guess it’s possible their fellow Trumpsters make a special point of patronizing that place, but even in a deep red area like this, why would you go out of your way to alienate 30-40% of potential customers? I don’t get it.
Brachiator
@Feathers:
I think times have changed and people are less likely to stay tuned for a hook at the end, especially on YouTube.
And truth is, that I might not have watched the entire thing had it not been recommended here. And don’t get me wrong, I agree with the message.
I think that concern for the media should be low on the list of concerns. Very low. The worst of the media is incorrigible, and blind to their own failures. There is not much point in trying to get them to improve.
Miss Bianca
@hueyplong: Wasn’t there a SCOTUS decision recently that was 8-1 with Kavanaugh in the majority? Can’t remember which decision. Whatever it was, I remember it surprising me that he wasn’t the hold-out.
gbbalto
@Uncle Cosmo: I went to Federal Hill, which was promised (in the flight plan map) to get two almost-direct flyovers. Didn’t happen.
hueyplong
@Miss Bianca: Maybe so.
I’m focusing on the Trump-specific nature of this one.
Subsole
@Uncle Cosmo:
This.
The media is the linchpin. If we can hurt them badly enough to start holding Republicans to the same standard they hold us, our job gets much easier.
No idea how we do that, but…
Kinda like voting rights. If we make our votes count equal to theirs, they lose. I mean they lose badly.
Like, Texas would be purple. Not actually blue, but purple enough to make ’em sweat.
Basically, the problem is the rules only apply to one team. We have to make that painful for the refs.
I am open to any suggestions on how we do that, cuz my dumb ass is stumped.
Miss Bianca
@Betty Cracker: Hell, it pisses me off enough that one of the coffee shops in town recently put the ‘local’ right-wing newsletter on prominent sale display in the front window (it’s not really local, it’s financed by some RW shitheel from out of state, and I am not going to sully the word “newspaper” by applying it to this thing – I may be prejudiced, but since I work for the paper of record, I feel like I have a right to be!) that I’m seriously considering not bothering to give them my business anymore.
The fact that I got an upset stomach after eating one of their chicken salad sandwiches recently is just icing on the shit cake, so to speak.
cain
@hueyplong:
it’s not going to be Kavanaugh, it’s going to be Clarence Thomas – apparently he’s been quite active in this case.
cain
@Betty Cracker:
And if Trump continues to fuck up and the death toll gets higher – people are going to remember businesses that supported him so enthusiastically…
BTW neighbor put up a big Trump flag – “Trump 2020 No bullshit” I LOL’d.
hueyplong
@Miss Bianca: If there is one thing that is certain, it is that RWNJs are strongly opposed to the nanny state getting involved in the issue of the careful creation and handling of food. Let the market sort that one out, with sickness and deaths as mildly regrettable but totally acceptable collateral damage.
scav
Anyone in need of a break? Olive and Mabel are in a meeting.
mrmoshpotato
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Andy Lack was pushed out. Not sure who decide to hire Megyn “Santa is white” Kelly.
hueyplong
@cain: Thomas being active is quite a thing.
Miss Bianca
Completely o/t, but this old Tim Buckley track is just killing me right now – I was too young to be aware of him in his prime, and never quite grokked the mystique after his death, but OH, MAN, what a voice!
Uncle Cosmo
@gbbalto: From the east side of Charles at 34th I saw them barrel north, then 2-3 minutes later to the west coming back just beyond the Eisenhower Library & then crossing Charles to the south, heading east for Essex/Rosedale. Sorry you missed them, though it was nothing particularly spectacular.
WaterGirl
@MisterForkbeard: You are officially fixed! Sorry that happened. WordPress thought you were spam.
Redshift
I’m still signed up for the White House email list, and another sign of Trump & Co’s desperation is how they’re scraping further down in the bottom of the barrel for their “news the *resident doesn’t want you to miss.”
It was pretty appalling when it was filled with Fox, Brietbart, and the occasional fawning WSJ editorial (considering that previous adminstration would report actual accomplishments), but the latest “news” led off with a rant from David Limbaugh that had to lie about the Democrats not taking the virus seriously back in January and lie about how great Trump is doing to get near making him look good. And it didn’t get better after that.
daryljfontaine
@Subsole: Pretty much there with you. The argument I’ve made on leftier-than-thou FB friends’ timelines is: why are you fighting the wrong enemy (aka “the Hated DNC, literally no different from the GOP”)? Want to get anything done in this country? Burn the entire Republican Party to the ground. Cremate them. Mix their ashes into pig shit. And then restart the battle as “left” vs. “centrist”.
D
Miss Bianca
@scav: Ha ha, thanks!
I am so in love with the Olive and Mabel vids, sometimes I feel like they are the only good thing to come out of this whole COVID-19 disaster.
Brachiator
@Miss Bianca:
Part of what I’ve done in the past is to review messaging, marketing and training. As I said, I agree with the themes big time, but some things just stood out to me. But the bottom line is that I hope people respond to it and remained fired up.
Got any contacts? I would happily do so.
Subsole
@Miss Bianca: As someone who works for a paper, why does it seem like every outlet is so overprotective of conservatives? Bearing in mind the industry isn’t a monolith.
It’s just, I cannot imagine every headline writer at the GDNYT magically forgetting how to spell the word ‘lie’ if Trump was a Democrat.
Like, why are we the only ones that ever get held to a standard? Would be interested in thoughts from someone in the industry. Is it money? Political sympathy? Or is my perspective just borked?
CaseyL
@Origuy: @scav: I love this guy.
Maybe some day he’ll do human sports again, and I wonder if he’ll include any of the editorializing that the dogs and penguins (and whoever else) get.
Redshift
@Miss Bianca:
The news article I saw yesterday said Wednesday at noon, I think? Of course, it’s not like they’re notifying anyone, it was pure chance I saw that. The previous time I checked it said my status was unknown. Yesterday it said they didn’t have bank info, even though I’ve used the same bank for years, and had the info in this year’s return. Still, I was able to fix it up.
A friend of mine has a widowed neighbor who got a check addressed to “[wife’s name] and [husband’s name] deceased.” She was not amused.
J R in WV
OK, wife tells me CNN is reporting that Russian puppeteer and owner of Trump, Vladimir Vladimirovitch Putin is in the hospital with a serious case of Coronavirus Blues. SO sad for the Bernie bros and the GRU.
Whatever will Trump do without someone to tell him what to do next????
Miss Bianca
@Brachiator: Hell, no, I don’t have any useful contacts – even if I did, I’m so busy right now burning bridges with Bernie-or-Bust Democratic Party officials here in CO who are bad-mouthing Biden that I’ll probably end up under arrest for decking some of them before it’s all over.
ETA: I’ve gotten so disgusted with Colorado Democrats that I’ve quit being a party official myself, so no – wrong person entirely to ask for anything like that.
rp
Alito is far worse than Kavanaugh. He’s the worst, most partisan hack on the Court. If it’s 8-1, he’ll be the dissenter.
Renie
@J R in WV: It’s Putin’s spokesperson who has it not Putin
Miss Bianca
@rp: I think that was the case in this last decision I was talking about.
CaseyL
@J R in WV: Not Putin himself, alas; his press secretary, Dmitry Peskov.
But one can hope Peskov had spent the last couple of weeks within breathing range of T*’s Master.
SiubhanDuinne
@J R in WV: Not Putin himself. His spokesperson.
J R in WV
@Renie:
Yes, my bad. Wife misheard, but by the time I got back to the ‘puter it was too late to strikethru that comment.
Oops! Sorry guys, don’t mean to spread misinformation!!!
hueyplong
Spokesperson for some asshole is getting to be almost as dangerous as #2 man in al qaeda.
Brachiator
@Central Planning:
Sad thing is, people like this just don’t see the business they will never get because they insist on being as boorish as their Dear Leader.
trnc
@Jerry: I think I’d much rather run into Eddie (even the one from Piece of Mind) than Ross the Crypt Keeper.
Subsole
@Miss Bianca:
Where is the brain poisoning coming from? Social media? Like, are these folks chapobros? Old hands? Curious what the breakdown is, if it’s widespread or confined to a certain subset.
sdhays
No, let’s just all agree that Megyn Kelly shouldn’t “interview” anyone other than her children ever again. She’s a horrible person who has been enriched for being horrible.
trnc
Perhaps this is who April Ryan was referring to a few days ago when she tweeted that a high ranking individual in the White House had tested positive.
EthylEster
@Mandalay: no, it went down today
Brachiator
@Miss Bianca:
I would have no patience at all with idiots who insist on carrying a torch for Sanders and who would snipe at Biden.
Good luck in your battles against these folks.
Miss Bianca
@Subsole: No idea – I keep wondering why, if *Bernie*, whom they have apparently accepted as their personal savior, has endorsed Biden, what the hell THEIR excuse is, but the last time I got into it with a bunch of these assholes – when they were trashing Hickenlooper – somehow my remarks ended up in the Denver Post, which is something that I saw as counterproductive.
I have so little patience and energy for purity-posturing on the left right now- it’s literally impacted my mental health to engage with these people, so I have to back off. BJ is really my only “let it all hang out” outlet.
Ruckus
@Anya:
Think about those supposedly tough manly men, who think that they have to prove how manly they are, with not just guns, but combat weapons, or by wearing speedos, with their bellies hanging over everything, or how much watered down beer they can drink or how much they are worth, and how they seem to lie about all of it.
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
They do not see reality. They only see the story they want to see. And that is where they get everything and everyone else gets doodle squat.
StringOnAStick
A friend of mine was fixing his RW uncle’s irrigation system for him, in a red area of western CO. He was wearing a mask when he entered the irrigation supply store, no one else was and all the employees were standing around complaining that they hadn’t gotten their stimulus check yet. They proceeded to refuse to help my friend because he was wearing a mask so after they shit talked about him like he didn’t exist, he left.
different-church-lady
@trnc: OH THAT WAS WICKED!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Like St Karen of the Big Hair in Texas who insisted on reopening her salon and pocketed $18K in SBA aid.
OldDave
On the out-of-formation aircraft during the Blue Angels / Thunderbirds flyover – the Navy team has been flying a two seat version of the F/A-18 as a camera platform. I’m guessing that’s what was seen by Uncle Cosmo and others.
zhena gogolia
@PenAndKey:
I agree with your analysis. I found it riveting — and I have a short attention span for ads.
Brachiator
@natem:
Even if I were looking at a Trump ad, I would ask three, maybe four questions.
Who’s talking to me?
What are they trying to tell me?
How do they want me to feel?
What do they want me to do?
If I’m not clear on all of these, then I would judge the ad as ineffective. And here it’s not about whether I agree with the message, just that I understand what it is.
zhena gogolia
@trnc:
Good one!
Unfortunately, as noted above, it’s Peskov, not Putin. He’s a sweetheart too, though.
grandpa john
@Miss Bianca:
James E Powell
@Subsole:
And every Nader voter.
Geeno
@Brachiator: We need to link to “Trump and the Republicans that support him” or some better phrasing – we want to join Trump to the GOP, but not alienate all republicans.
grandpa john
@Miss Bianca:
@Miss Bianca: Got ours yesterday. We are both over 65 and don’t get a refund anyway to be deposited. For the last two years ended up owing 4 dollars, and yes I sent it to them.
Another Scott
@Anya: Someone pointed us to the
erinbromage.com/post/the-risks-know-them-avoid-them
link a few days ago. Thanks for the reminder. Agreed, it’s a good read.
Cheers,
Scott.
grandpa john
@Miss Bianca:
@Miss Bianca: Got ours yesterday. We are both over 65 and don’t get a refund anyway to be deposited. For the last two years ended up owing 4 dollars, and yes I sent it to them.
@Betty Cracker: I think stupidity pretty well covers that
jackmac
@Brachiator: At this point, we’re resigned to (maybe) receiving our paper checks before summer.
jackmac
@Brachiator: I couldn’t find information about tracking a paper check status. I wasn’t able to get past the confirm my identity stage.
jackmac
@Miss Bianca: Hope you do! My adult children both received their payments (one via direct deposit, the other via paper check).
Suzy
@Subsole: It defies credibility that she would have told her dad about a supposed assault, and then her dad uses it in describing consensual sex.
Melusine
I swear the guy who did the voiceover has done docs for the History Channel (appropriately enough, the channel that Hitler built). If not it’s a damn good impersonation. Grabbed my attention right away. He has the same authoritative, factual cadence I associate with an in-depth look at the Battle of Midway.The kind of voice and delivery that might inspire trust and belief within certain voter demographics. Could be very effective.
Miss Bianca
@StringOnAStick: Fuck, where was this? The Western Slope? >:<
Brachiator
@jackmac:
You should be able to track the check status from the Get My Payment page.
irs.gov/coronavirus/get-my-payment
See this article for more details.
I will post this again in an upcoming Open thread. The deadline for setting up direct deposit is Noon tomorrow (not sure of time zone).