Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Disagreements are healthy; personal attacks are not.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

You passed on an opportunity to be offended? What are you even doing here?

Conservatism: there are people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

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

The real work of an opposition party is to hold the people in power accountable.

Quote tweet friends, screenshot enemies.

Not all heroes wear capes.

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.

Dear legacy media: you are not here to influence outcomes and policies you find desirable.

We do not need to pander to people who do not like what we stand for.

Not rolling over. fuck you, make me.

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

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

The republican ‘Pastor’ of the House is an odious authoritarian little creep.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Disappointing to see gov. newsom with his finger to the wind.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

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

You are here: Home / Open Threads / I’m a spite voter now…

I’m a spite voter now…

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The thing to understand about Republicans is that they’re spite voters. Most of us get that, but lots of people don’t. When someone says Republicans vote against their self-interest, I think to myself, nope — SPITE is just the overriding self-interest that they’re affirmatively voting for.

I didn’t used to be, but now I’m also a spite voter. It’s one of the innumerable ways the Trump administration has made me a worse person. If the election goes our way, I want President Biden to disband Space Force just to spite Trump, who will otherwise endlessly brag about that as his “legacy.”

Also, observing the end of the above clip, I realized Trump has something in common with his wife after all, aside from their both being amoral, money-grubbing shitheads, slanderers of immigrants and vile racist birthers. Both Trumps “smile” as if they were spider monkeys briefly baring their fangs to discourage a rival from approaching their food source. It’s grotesque.

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

204Comments

  3. 3.

    Baud

    Both Trumps “smile” as if they were spider monkeys briefly baring their fangs to discourage a rival from approaching their food source.

    Cheshire Trumps.

  4. 4.

    Geoduck

    It’s a bitter irony that one picture I’ve ever seen of the Shiatgibbon flashing something resembling a human smile is when he was snapped schmoozing with the Clintons at his wedding.

  5. 5.

    Brendan in NC

    Me too Betty! If we are lucky enough to flip the Senate and keep the House, i want the very first bill to be an omnibus bill that undoes everything that Trump and the Republicans have done during 45’s term.

  6. 6.

    gene108

    Undoing everything President Obama did, out of spite, is one of Trump’s legacies.

    I see no reason to not return the favor.

  7. 7.

    Doug R

    The only times the Slovenian mail -order model/bride smiles genuinely is when she’s near President Barack Obama or Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

  8. 8.

    Skepticat

    It pains me to admit I’ve become the same, though now I want to vote IN SPITE of their trying to stop me.

  10. 10.

    Ryan

    Paramount really should sue for copyright infringement regarding Space Farce’s new logo.

  11. 11.

    Betty Cracker

    The Lancet published an editorial that low-key begs Americans to vote for a sane president. As far as I know, that’s unprecedented.

  14. 14.

    Jeffro

    @Brendan in NC: plus the additional undoing of the W tax giveaways to the rich, plz

    plus a national $15 minimum wage, plz

    plus doubling the size of the federal judiciary, plz

    I’ll stop there…so much wingnuttiness to undo from the past four decades…

  18. 18.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    Biden should undo everything shitgibbon has done.  From EPA restrictions to land restrictions.  Every thin shitgibbon did sould be undone.

  19. 19.

    Jeffro

    BC: aside from their both being amoral, money-grubbing shitheads, slanderers of immigrants and vile racist birthers. Both Trumps “smile” as if they were spider monkeys briefly baring their fangs to discourage a rival from approaching their food source. It’s grotesque.

     

    I think it’s their dead eyes that gives them away.  They can smile all they want, there’s nothing behind those eyes but greed, spite, and a howling hollow where their souls should be.

  22. 22.

    John Revolta

    When I was maybe 16 I realized that a good portion of the GOP hated me and my kind and literally didn’t care if we died. The only thing that’s changed since Nixon days is that now it’s all of the GOP, and they apparently actively want us to die. So, I can’t say that “spite” is the word I’d use here. Voting against these assholes is no less than self-preservation.

  23. 23.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @Baud: Maybe should be Motherfuckers’.  Trump is a lazy ass and couldn’t have done all this damage without substantial help.

  24. 24.

    Barbara

    @Litlebritdifrnt: Certainly, every executive order and most of the regulations.  HHS has continued to operate semi-normally, so one work stream would be to have someone start reviewing those regulations (the ones that have survived judicial scrutiny) and determine whether they should be reverted.  Since providers do a lot of work to conform to them and base budgets on their payment, you can’t just undo those.   I would consider it an honor to be hired — heck to volunteer — to go through health and benefit regulations and make recommendations.

  25. 25.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    @Parfigliano: Whenever she has posted a video recently it truly looks like she is auditioning for a porn video.   Hair draped over one shoulder, sat like she is ready for the shot.  I mean really?

  27. 27.

    John Revolta

    @Baud: Those tax cuts were written to expire in ten years. What Obama did was to let them expire.

    ETA: Which of course the GOP then called him out for raising taxes.

  28. 28.

    Brachiator

    Both Trumps “smile” as if they were spider monkeys briefly baring their fangs to discourage a rival from approaching their food source. It’s grotesque.

    I don’t think that Melania can help it. Might be the combination of botox and fleeting jabs of disdain for her hubby. But yeah, Trump’s display is his avarice shining through.

    And you wonderfully nailed it by noting how Trump voters are spite voters.  They are locked in with the raging resentment of their Dear Leader.

  31. 31.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I can’t bring myself to watch the clip just now, is this where he talks about “super duper missiles”?

    paul mcleary @paulmcleary
    So far two DoD officials who would likely know about this sort of thing have told me they have no idea what the president’s “super duper missile” that goes 17x faster than any other missile might be.

    wasn’t it our nuclear arsenal that he said was in “tippy-top” shape? his language is so fucking weird I don’t even know where to start talking about. It’s like the old saw about eating an elephant (a profoundly unpleasant image, I’ll grant you), where the fuck to you start? and his language is just one aspect of his weirdness

  33. 33.

    Jeffro

    @John Revolta: PARTIALLY expire.  They still kept some of the rate cuts for most of the higher income groups.  (I see Baud noted this as well)

  35. 35.

    CarolDuhart2

    @Litlebritdifrnt: Looking for her next, and possibly more prestigious hubby.  She isn’t getting any younger, and she doesn’t want to be the wife who has to concern herself about which nursing home Trump goes to.

    It was never a love match-at best it was a like match.  She loved money, he wanted some younger piece to drape over his arm.  I mean it was either Trump or back to Slovenia, and she made her choice.

  37. 37.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Doug R: to be fair, have we ever seen a picture of her with Barron’s father? Maybe the three of them have a healthy family relationship

    I’m feeling charitable for some reason

    ETA: @Jeffro: I did briefly try to imagine whatever the male counterpart of a flapper is, did they talk this way, with their raccoon coats and their flat-foot floogie with the floy-floy

  38. 38.

    Zinsky

    @Sure Lurkalot:  Totally agree! I don’t know why Democrats don’t make a bigger deal about how lazy Trump is. The fatass watches eight hours or more of FoxNews everyday. I think even a lot of Republicans would have a problem with that – if they only knew! Americans disagree about a lot of things, but the vast majority oppose lazyass slugs who aren’t doing their jobs!!

  39. 39.

    Mnemosyne

    Yep. At this point, just voting Trump out of office is not good enough. I want McConnell gone. I want Graham gone. I want every Republican Senator who has a Democratic opponent to not just lose to that opponent, but to be fucking CRUSHED in a humiliating and unprecedented landslide.

    I don’t want to win a squeaker. I want to run up the score and dance in the end zone. Let’s make it so.

  41. 41.

    Jeffro

    Hey now, me LIKEY this!

    Biden to challenge trumpov in Republican strongholds

    Former vice president Joe Biden is planning to compete against President Trump in traditionally Republican states like Arizona, Texas and Georgia as his campaign bulks up in size and turns to a general election made highly unpredictable by the coronavirus.  “We believe that there will be battleground states that have never been battleground states before,” said Jennifer O’Malley Dillon, Biden’s campaign manager, on a call with reporters on Friday. “We feel like the map is really favoring us if you as you look to recent polling.”

    Biden’s campaign said it will also compete in other states like Iowa and Ohio that Hillary Clinton lost by large margins in 2016.  The campaign’s public announcement of targets that some in the Democratic Party feel are overly ambitious is driven by what they see as weaknesses for Trump that have only been magnified by his uneven response to the virus and accompanying economic crisis.

    Go for a blowout, Uncle Joe!  Biggest EV humiliation ever, and how appropriate.

  42. 42.

    zhena gogolia

    @Baud:

    I want Biden to undo each and every thing Trump has done. The difference is that Obama did a lot of good things that Trump has undone. Undoing Trump’s actions will only bring good to the world.

  43. 43.

    donnah

    I’m a spite voter, too.

    I’m not proud of what I’ve become after dealing with this asshole administration this long. As an example, when I read that Moscow Mitch apologized for saying the Obama Administration had not left any emergency protocol and then said that they had, I couldn’t graciously accept that he actually apologized. I immediately wondered what he was going to say next, who he would blame, or how he’d try to spin it.

  44. 44.

    hueyplong

    Not interested in hearing trump’s voice again unless it is to answer whether he pleads guilty or not guilty.

    Not even interested in hearing his concession speech (which he’d churlishly dodge in any event).

    Highly motivated spite voter here.

  45. 45.

    Brachiator

    @Parfigliano:

    Call her what she is “the Slovenian Slut”

    Sorry. That is unnecessary.  Also, being a “slut” is often a noble profession, much more so sometimes than being a politician.

  46. 46.

    Roger Moore

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I suspect he heard something about a hypersonic missile that can travel at 17 times the speed of sound, vs. 5-7 times the speed of sound for Russian and Chinese hypersonic missiles.  Of course that’s just a wild ass guess, but it makes as much sense as anything.  This is the problem with complaining about Trump not reading his daily briefing: even if he read it, he lacks the basic knowledge and understanding to make any use of the information it contains.

  47. 47.

    sdhays

    @Zinsky: I hope the Biden campaign releases an ad specifically about this in the fall. Similar to the COVID-19 ad, tying his tweet volume to Fox “News”, and shown alongside what he actually should have been doing, but shorter. A 20-30 sec ad played on network television.

  49. 49.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @donnah: I thought it was interesting he said that on the Dollar Store Ivanka Hour on the Trump dot com channel, or whtever, thinking no one would see it but whatever sad lot of people watch that. Just the the shrewd old fucker missed a small trick, not quite understanding how the whole ‘viral’ thing worked. I guess he could have asked one of his kids to explain it to him, but as I understand it they’re… not close.

    ETA: @Roger Moore: hypersonic to supersonic to superduper? makes sense

  50. 50.

    Fair Economist

    @Jeffro: It’s no accident the 4 of the 5 “stretch” states have competitive Senate races. Joe knows what counts for his ability to govern.

    TBF, Arizona is very much a swing state this election – I think it’s now the second most likely tipping state, after Wisconsin.

  53. 53.

    Brachiator

    @donnah:

    I’m not proud of what I’ve become after dealing with this asshole administration this long. As an example, when I read that Moscow Mitch apologized for saying the Obama Administration had not left any emergency protocol and then said that they had, I couldn’t graciously accept that he actually apologized. I immediately wondered what he was going to say next, who he would blame, or how he’d try to spin it.

    I had exactly the same thought.

    I’m still wondering what his angle is.

  56. 56.

    lamh36

    Hey Betty is u see this?  Apparently the PBS story wasn’t the only in-depth story coming out about this today.

     

    ‘Manipulative, deceitful, user’: Tara Reade left a trail of aggrieved acquaintances
    A number of those who crossed paths with Biden’s accuser say they remember two things: She spoke favorably about her time working for Biden, and she left them feeling duped.
     https://politi.co/2Z6WgTB via @politico‬

    the PBS is a better piece IMHO.  the politico piece will come off harsh to some but ??‍♀️??‍♀️??‍♀️

     

    For those who missed it, here the PBS news piece

    NEW: We spoke to 74 former Joe Biden staffers, most of whom were women, to get a broader picture of:

    • his behavior toward women throughout his career
    • how they see Tara Reade’s allegation
    • whether there was evidence of a larger pattern

    twitter.com/newshour/status/1261273298631110657?s=21

    BTW…PBS asked her for an interview but she declined??‍♀️.  The only interview she has done is MK and she’s pulled out of even right leaning once like Fox News??‍♀️

    I guess the oxygen for this story is almost officially done ??‍♀️

  58. 58.

    senyorDave

    Also, observing the end of the above clip, I realized Trump has something in common with his wife after all, aside from their both being amoral, money-grubbing shitheads, slanderers of immigrants and vile racist birthers. Both Trumps “smile” as if they were spider monkeys briefly baring their fangs to discourage a rival from approaching their food source.

    Far be it for me to tell you how to blog, but if you keep holding back we won’t know how you really feel about shitgibbon and his dime store supermodel wife.

  59. 59.

    trollhattan

    @Mary G:

    Oh lordy, lordy, just put a camera in front of her and let us be entertained. She’s definitely my favorite “find” of 2020, beginning with her quizzing Trump’s pandemic folks in the House.

  60. 60.

    Brachiator

    @Zinsky:

    Totally agree! I don’t know why Democrats don’t make a bigger deal about how lazy Trump is. The fatass watches eight hours or more of FoxNews everyday.

    Trump supporters are strange. They will invent whatever lie they need to defend their Dear Leader.  So, Trump promised to work hard for the people. He’s a lazy ass. But I have heard his dopey supporters say that Trump doesn’t have to work hard because he is a savvy businessman who knows how to delegate.

    But still, I say bash Trump on everything. Call him lazy, call him incompetent, call him a liar. It’s all true.

  61. 61.

    Amir Khalid

    I have absolutely no idea what Space Force’s mission is. And its name still sounds like the title of a third-rate science-fictiony Saturday morning cartoon.

  62. 62.

    trollhattan

    @lamh36:

    She’s a doppelganger for my sister. I know her and I do not trust her as far as I could toss her. Just, nope. “Back away, slowly” should be seeping in even with those who thought they at last had the key to spiking Joe’s candidacy.

  64. 64.

    danielx

    From a friend on the book of faces:

    “There isn’t any iceberg. There was an iceberg but it’s in a totally different ocean. The iceberg is in this ocean but it will melt very soon. There is an iceberg but we didn’t hit the iceberg. We hit the iceberg, but the damage will be repaired very shortly. The iceberg is a Chinese iceberg. We are taking on water but every passenger who wants a lifeboat can get a lifeboat, and they are beautiful lifeboats. Look, passengers need to ask nicely for the lifeboats if they want them. We don’t have any lifeboats, we’re not lifeboat distributors. Passengers should have planned for icebergs and brought their own lifeboats. I really don’t think we need that many lifeboats. We have lifeboats and they’re supposed to be our lifeboats, not the passengers’ lifeboats. The lifeboats were left on shore by the last captain of this ship. Nobody could have foreseen the iceberg.”

  65. 65.

    Brachiator

    @Baud:

    There was some compromise before they expired. Anywho, we’re currently operating under Trump’s 10-year tax cut.

    The corporate tax cuts are meant to be permanent. The individual tax cuts are temporary.

  67. 67.

    Redshift

    @Amir Khalid: Its only mission is to make something come true that was a random brain fart in one of Trump’s speeches, and to let him brag about “creating” something.

    Anything else it does was already being done by the Air Force Space Command. We’re not going to fight wars in space any time this century, so making it a branch of the military is farcical.

  68. 68.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Amir Khalid:

    I have absolutely no idea what Space Force’s mission is.

    Trump thinks something much like the Star Wars movies is possible.  He probably doesn’t think interstellar can be done, but he is definitely imagining space fighter pilots firing lasers at each other.  The Pentagon has been drumming their fingers for years now saying what you did, since they know that doesn’t exist.

  69. 69.

    Mike in NC

    In their first 100 Days, President Biden and VP Harris should prioritize undoing every stupid fucking thing Fat Bastard has saddled us with, starting with the pointless Space Force, the daydream of some five year old imbecile.

  70. 70.

    Citizen Alan

    I’m a spite voter too, but that has the peculiar effect of leaving me conflicted about the November House race in my district. Because the Mississippi bench is so pitiful, no serious Dem chose to run against fascist hillbilly Trent Kelly. So the winner (unopposed) of the Dem primary is a Democratic Socialist woman with a half-mohawk who is a law professor at Ole Miss and is known for showing up to teach class in floral linen dresses and combat boots. She has no possible chance, but I’m reluctant to vote for her even as a protest vote because the only possible effect of my vote would be to make other DSA types think Sanders has a following in Mississippi. I may just leave that line blank.

  72. 72.

    Redshift

    I’m not exactly a spite voter, since I’ve never voted for a Republican in my life, but I didn’t used to routinely say that the GOP needs to be burned to the ground, so yeah, I’m with you.

  76. 76.

    Geoboy

    @Mnemosyne:

    “Yep. At this point, just voting Trump out of office is not good enough. I want McConnell gone. I want Graham gone. I want every Republican Senator who has a Democratic opponent to not just lose to that opponent, but to be fucking CRUSHED in a humiliating and unprecedented landslide.

    “I don’t want to win a squeaker. I want to run up the score and dance in the end zone. Let’s make it so.”

    I second that emotion.

  77. 77.

    hitchhiker

    Heard Adam Schiff talking to Rick Wilson and Molly Jong-Fast this morning. He was predicting how, once we’re rid of trump, a WHOLE BUNCH of Republicans are going to be eager to erase the history of how they stood around with their thumbs tucked into the puckers of their assholes (he didn’t say that part) while trump destroyed everything in sight.

    I always disagreed with him on that!

    These are the people I have the most spite for. No mercy, no forgiveness, no grace, no nothing. They’re all dead to me.

  78. 78.

    Roger Moore

    @Redshift:

    We’re not going to fight wars in space any time this century, so making it a branch of the military is farcical.

    Two points:

    1. We do have military gear, especially satellites, in space.  We need military people to operate them.
    2. We may not have space marines shooting out with the enemy’s space marines, but just about every country with a military presence in space has plans for destroying enemy satellites.

    This doesn’t mean we need a separate space force, since the air force was already doing the job of running our military satellites, but we do need some kind of military organization to deal with space.

  79. 79.

    Subsole

    @sdhays:

    This. We paid this puffy-eyed lump of shit for 4 years and he gave us a little under three.

     

     

    @Brachiator: We tend to forget our enemies are as human as us.

    Humans slip up.

     

    We should remember that so we are better prepared to Falcon Punch them in the dick when they do.

  80. 80.

    debbie

    The only way that clip up top would be worth watching would be if Trump tripped and fell while walking over to assume his grimace-smile pose.

  84. 84.

    Baud

    @hitchhiker:

    how they stood around with their thumbs tucked into the puckers of their assholes (he didn’t say that part)

    Katie Porter would have.

  86. 86.

    JaySinWA

    @Mike in NC: It’s going to take longer than 100 days. They’ve worked hard to try and make the cleanup a Sisyphean task. ETA if the Republicans hold the Senate, they will try and make that a literal statement.

  87. 87.

    laura

    That man and that smile are things my parents warned me about long, long ago. Smiling faces, they lie. The snap on grimace, the utter absence of facial muscle movement really gives away the fact that he lacks the thing that most of us have – an upwelling of feeling that is expressed in a smile. That gruesome facade masks the danger that lurks within – and in this case the danger also in plain sight. That’s the smile of the type of man who’d take you to the second location.

  88. 88.

    prostratedragon

    @Subsole:
    I recall a photo from that UK visit where the Queen was escorting It through a doorway, guarded by what at first I thought was some kind of torchier lamp or abstract figurine (it was the hat). I’ve thought of Melania as The Caryatid ever since.

  89. 89.

    Another Scott

    GovExec (from February):

    There are soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen. But what do you call members of the U.S. Space Force?

    Top Pentagon leaders still don’t know, a month after the 2020 Defense Authorization Act ushered in the military’s newest branch. But they’re crowdsourcing options and hope to settle on an answer soon.

    […]

    Spoiler: Space cadets and spacemen are not among the candidates, Thompson said.

    […]

    That’s far from the only open question about the Space Force. While there are currently some 16,000 servicemembers and civilians assigned to the new branch, only its top leader —Gen. Jay Raymond, the chief of space operations — is actually a member. The rest still belong to the Air Force.

    “We need to go through a process with Congress to have them provide authorization for specific names and specific individuals to transfer into that service,” Thompson said. “We’re working with Congress on that right now and that will take a little bit of time.”

    A number of bureaucratic functions, including a pay-and-benefits system must be put in place before members of the military transfer into the service.

    […]

    The Pentagon doesn’t seem to be in any hurry to get this thing up and running. Given our treaty commitments against the militarization of space, it seems to have no mission. It should be easy to start rolling it back into the AF getting rid of it come January.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  90. 90.

    Roger Moore

    @Subsole:

    If he does not sue these people back into the Cretaceous, Joe is a better man than me.

    I think refusing to sue will be a pragmatic decision.  It’s very hard for a public figure to win a defamation lawsuit, and discovery is likely to be a nightmare.  Besides, the Clinton precedent shows how civil suits can be a real problem for a President.  I think it’s enough if he can smash the lies and get the damn thing out of the media.

  91. 91.

    Baud

    @Another Scott:

    There are soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen. But what do you call members of the U.S. Space Force?

    Spacy McSpaceForceFace?

  96. 96.

    hitchhiker

    @Baud:

    Katie Porter would have.

    Why we love her.

    btw, Schiff also said that the biggest mistake from Mueller’s team was to not insist that trump and trump jr both show up in person to give testimony under oath.

    Speaking of spite, I still want that to happen. I was glad when Biden said no way he’d pardon trump. Prosecute them all within an inch of their lives.

  97. 97.

    Baud

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    It was a legitimate news story, as evidenced by all the news media covering the story.

    ETA: That said, good on Politico and PBS for doing the type of journalism that the NYT would not have.

  100. 100.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Mary G: Watched that earlier. “Oh yeah, I swear like a fuckin sailor.” LOL. Every time I see Katie Porter, I love her just that much more.

  101. 101.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Baud:

    It was a legitimate news story, as evidenced by all the news media covering the story.

    Absolutely, it was his unbelievably slanted and sanctimonious presentation of the story that was the problem. He didn’t cover the story so much as present his conclusions, with a guest who agreed with his slant. And which scolding sanctimony he went back to for one more round on his show–  and then again, as I read it, in this Chotiner interview.

  102. 102.

    Baud

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I was being sarcastic.  I suppose it was a legitimate story, but what I remember most is the media trying to use it to scavenge through his Senate files. And all  the “clouds.”

  104. 104.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Baud:

    LOL. I can’t wait for her State of the Union speech.

    “Ladies and gentlemen, the state of our union is fan-fucking-TAStic!”

  105. 105.

    piratedan

    and every single judge that the Turtle rammed down our throats comes under judicial review and potential recall.

    THIS was their big signature item… fuck them if we should let them keep them. I don’t care to see this shit perpetuated for multiple generations.

  106. 106.

    Kelly

    @Jeffro:plus doubling the size of the federal judiciary, plz

    Let’s double the House of Representatives as well. It would dilute the Senate in the Electoral College.

  107. 107.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    Space Force is the legacy of Mel Brooks.

    You just know Dump got the idea from watching “Space Balls” on late night cable.

  108. 108.

    Another Scott

    @Roger Moore: I agree that we don’t need a separate “service” to deal with space, but disagree that we (implicitly) need some sort of active military capability.

    The ASM-135 ASAT was tested in 1985. It’s relatively “easy” to destroy satellites. We don’t want to get into some sort of arms race there – we have more to lose than just about anyone. Preserving the various treaties is important and in our national interest.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  109. 109.

    Craigie

    I don’t think I’ve ever seen Trump smile, and I don’t intend to start now.

  110. 110.

    Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]

    @hitchhiker:  SMH at Adam Schiff.  The only way that the republicans could even attempt to stuff Trump down the memory hole is if Trump would never talk on radio or to a reporter again.  NEVER GONNA HAPPEN.

    Besides, when Trump loses (please FSM) He’s going to turn on the republicans as well to crack off the crazies for his own personal narcissistic supply.

  111. 111.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Baud: ah, sorry, I’m a little slow

    let’s hope that Mika and Jake will be distracted by some lesser story and forget about the Great University of Delaware Snipe Hunt

  112. 112.

    Another Scott

    @Craigie: There’s a clip of him at one of his 2016 rallies where someone in the audience makes a quip about Hillary that he (genuinely acted as if he) thought was hilarious.

    Yeah, you don’t want to see that either.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  114. 114.

    J R in WV

    @danielx:

    “There isn’t any iceberg. There was an iceberg but it’s in a totally different ocean.

    …

    Nobody could have foreseen the iceberg.”

    This is a masterpiece of description of the Trump administration. Tell your online pal we love him for this work!!!

  119. 119.

    Another Scott

    I think I can beat your “name” question; I once asked Jonathan Richman what his song “Fender Stratocaster” was about. He blinked for a minute, then slowly said “it’s about my guitar”. This was a live radio interview, that went downhill from there. Young and terribly naive I was.

    — Scott Imrich (@simrich) May 15, 2020

    :-)

    It’s a very good thread. Click over and scroll up to the top to get LOLGOP’s story.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  121. 121.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Tentin Quarantino @agraybee · 34m
    Biden’s new nickname is The Gym Membership because he’s impossible to cancel.

    Josh Barro @jbarro · 42m
    Ever since his campaign started, a lot of people have been eager to cancel Joe Biden, and there have been repeated, bad-faith efforts to do so. And this is because despite his purported weakness as a candidate, the voters could not be talked out of him in the ordinary manner.

  123. 123.

    Jinchi

    If the election goes our way, I want President Biden to disband Space Force just to spite Trump

    I think Space Force will be as easy to disband as W’s “Mission to Mars”.

  125. 125.

    TriassicSands

    Betty —  Voting to oust Trump is in your best interests and in the best interests of almost every living being on the planet. The SARS-CoV-2 virus is one exception (whether it is technically “alive” or not).

    And disbanding the Space Force, more commonly and aptly referred to as the Space Farce, is also in your best interests and in the best interests of most people whether they know it or not.

    I do agree that Donald Trump makes virtually everyone a worse person. Those who support him are obviously worse human beings and citizens for supporting an incompetent monster. And those of us who oppose him may find ourselves thinking things we never have thought before. I despised George W. Bush, but I didn’t wake up every day hoping the headlines would greet me with the joyous announcement that the plague is over — no, not COVID-19, but the Orange Plague, Donald J. Trump. And by over I mean dead. He will be a force for evil as long as he is able to utter an inane word or tweet a misspelled insult or threat.

  127. 127.

    SWMBO

    @mrmoshpotato:

    You people have no idea how boring and empty your lives will be when I leave. If I wasn’t here, the press would totally ignore you.

  128. 128.

    trollhattan

    Got the damndest mail today: a tabloid called “Epoch Times” that turns out to be a Falun Gong-funded propaganda rag. They were big Trump contributors in 2016 and I now know where the “China virus” shit came from (surprise: not the Fox and Friends sofa).

    The Epoch Times is identified as spreading misinformation related to the COVID-19 pandemic in print and via social media including Facebook and YouTube.[38] It has promoted anti-China rhetoric and conspiracy theories around the coronavirus outbreak, for example through an 8-page special edition called “How the Chinese Communist Party Endangered the World”, which was distributed unsolicited in April 2020 to mail customers in areas of USA, Canada, and Australia.[39][40] The minisformation tracker NewsGuard characterized The Epoch Times as a “super-spreader” of misinformation for European audiences.[41]

    A story in The Epoch Times on February 17, 2020, shared a map from the internet that falsely alleged massive sulfur dioxide releases from crematoriums during the COVID-19 pandemic in China, speculating that 14,000 bodies may have been burned.[42][43] A fact check by AFP reported that the map was a NASA forecast taken out of context.[

    Will be at least a little conflicted next time the PRA rounds up a bunch of Falun Gong folks.

  130. 130.

    J R in WV

    @TOP123:

    Thank you, thank you verra much!! We try harder! I’m here all week, try the crab cakes!! And Tip Your Waitress, one of them is my wife!!!

  131. 131.

    trollhattan

    @HumboldtBlue:

    It’s a little too well-done for some kind of grassroots arm-waving rag, so I needed to dig. Ironic they’re published out of Santa Clara, considering that was Ca’s COVID ground zero.

  133. 133.

    hitchhiker

    Want to be reminded how we got into this mess?

    Just read the transcript of Jake Tapper’s interviews on CNN during the DNC in 2016. He’s got Robby Mook, Bernie Sanders, and donald trump jr.

    With a straight face, he wonders if jr. is considering a run for mayor of NYC. He confronts Mook with Comey’s characterization of Hillary as “sloppy.” And he chats with Bernie about how the emails stolen by wikileaks demonstrate that he, Bernie, got screwed.

    My spite has plenty of targets.

    transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1607/24/sotu.01.html

  135. 135.

    Jeffro

    @lamh36: yup…out of oxygen, file next to “Ukraine shenanigans”

    (in the file drawer above “ CARAVANS!!!1!” and the one below “OBAMAGATE!1!”)

  136. 136.

    Feathers

    @trollhattan: This is a known thing and has been. I’d been seeing the Epoch Times references (and even an Epoch Times YouTube ad!) and wondered what the fuck was going on.

    The Shen Yun dance shows are Falun Gong as well. There are Falun Gong protests in Harvard Square. Don’t know much about them, but they could swap out with the Jehovah’s Witnesses passing out brochures at the T stations. I’ll leave it there.

  137. 137.

    trollhattan

    If you can stand watching his orange mug, this Atlantic video intercutting Trump and world leaders is something else. It’s perhaps true that Trump himself is most of the campaign material you need. So jolting to hear the individual bits teased out and presented alone, away from the standard Gish gallop of verbal diarrhea.

  139. 139.

    Jeffro

    How ‘bout that Dan Abrams on #Obamagate, eh?

    ”it appears to be complete bullshit”

    LOLOL

  141. 141.

    HumboldtBlue

    @trollhattan:

    Interesting you say that because she said something similar as in “it look legit.”

    She was quickly disabused of that notion.

  142. 142.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Mnemosyne: I try not to let myself get complacent about the outcome. There is a lot of evil election-rigging that’s going to happen between now and November.

    But nevertheless I’ve lately let myself dream about the flurry of bills that could happen in January with a Democratic House, Senate and President. They can’t start voting on them till the new Congress convenes in January.

    But for damn sure they could start writing them in November and have one heck of a lot of bills ready to go to the House floor in January.

  144. 144.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @David Evans: And the “B” in “ICBM” is “ballistic”, which means much of the flight is unfueled and under the influence of gravity, which is the same for everybody.

  145. 145.

    Ruckus

    @Roger Moore:

    Is there really any issue, thing, bit, human emotion, thought that he does get, other than me, Me, ME, MEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEEMEME!

  146. 146.

    Another Scott

    The House is voting now on the latest $3T coronavirus bill tonight.  At the moment, they’re voting on a motion to send it back to committee (to kill it).  Next is the vote on final passage.

    Live coverage on CSPAN 1.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  147. 147.

    Patricia Kayden

    Fricking NYT

    85k dead, 40M lost jobs under Trump but it’s *Biden* that having tough week.NYT completely committed to this storyline. virtually *every* Biden article is Dem Disarray. and yes, Trump leads in 1 of the last 49 polls at RCP; t.co/I9Jxq6swqU— Eric Boehlert (@EricBoehlert) May 15, 2020

  148. 148.

    Subsole

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:

    Shit, we already have a pile written and sitting on Mitch’s desk.

    I want him gone, but in my wildest dreams I relish the thought of him as a minority leader watching as we ram every last thing through as he sits, impotently.

    But that’s just an indulgence. Better to just have him gone.

  149. 149.

    rikyrah

    From the very beginning, BC’s hardening is what’s happened on our side. And, it confuses the MSM. With every Cletus safari, they wanted us to say, ‘oh, we understand.’

     

    When.we come out and say

    Phuck those muthaphuckas ??

     

    The Village is confused.

  150. 150.

    Subsole

    @Patricia Kayden:

    If Trump loses, there may be a reckoning with the supine media slugs who paved his way.

    They…do not want that to happen.

    We should see that it do, and fuck what they want.

  151. 151.

    Nora

    @Subsole: There has to be a reckoning.  I think one of the things to do is reinstate the fairness doctrine.  I believe the elimination of that led to a lot of the crappy media we get now.

  152. 152.

    Subsole

    @rikyrah:

    Yeah. That’s why all the tut-tutting over civility. Like when Trump was going to ballgames and got booed.

    They know they put him there. They know their mask fell off. They know we see them.

    If we don’t forget, the media is fucked.

     

    If.

  153. 153.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]:

    Besides, when Trump loses (please FSM) He’s going to turn on the republicans as well to crack off the crazies for his own personal narcissistic supply.

    Nope.  Oh, he’ll probably try, but he fails to understand something:  The crazies are not loyal to him.  The evangelicals are not loyal to him.  They are fanatics for white supremacy.  Right now Trump is the champion of white supremacy and can do no long.  The moment he loses the power to further white power, he will vanish from their consciousness like morning mist.

  154. 154.

    NotMax

    @Nora

    May as well lobby for bringing back buggy whips. Its reach is inapplicable to the modern media landscape, so much of which does not have a broadcast license which theoretically could be in peril.

    Remember too that we got both Nixon and Reagan while it was in force.

  155. 155.

    Subsole

    @Nora:

    To a point.

    That will put a.m. radio on its ass. Which is a very good thing.

    Doesn’t help w tv or the net tho.

    There, we would need some kind of laws making broadcasters accountable for misinformation.

    Like if some Sandy Hook truther harasses me, Alex Jones gets sued into the ground. Hannity hypes chloroquine? He gets sued for wrongful deaths. Won’t fix it, but it damn well ought to put them on their heels.

    The net? If we could force facebook twitter and youtube to actually apply their company standards to the nazis on their platform, it would be a start. Maybe a discrimination suit? Show the uneven application of guidelines?

  156. 156.

    cain

    @Brendan in NC: 
    No way..

    The first bill is 50 state vote by mail. We want to make sure that we can get as many people to vote as easily as possible.

    The 2nd bill is state hood for washington DC and/or Puerto Rico.

    That will give us more Democratic representation.

    The first set of bills is to make sure that we hold all branches of govt.

  158. 158.

    James E Powell

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:

    And the “B” in “ICBM” is “ballistic”, which means much of the flight is unfueled and under the influence of gravity, which is the same for everybody.

    I was today years old when I learned what “ballistic” in ICBM means.

  160. 160.

    HumboldtBlue

    Bloomberg is planning on spending big to support Biden.

    “As Mike has said, he supports Vice President Biden in defeating Donald Trump. We’re currently looking at how to best support Vice President Biden as well as Democratic victories up and down the ballot in November, just as Mike Bloomberg has done in previous cycles,” a Bloomberg spokesperson told CNBC.

    Though it’s unclear how much Bloomberg will eventually spend, some of the people familiar with the matter noted that they anticipate Bloomberg to end up spending in excess of $250 million to support Biden

  162. 162.

    Miss Bianca

    @Citizen Alan: I’m facing something of a similar situation here in my state congressional district. The woman who is running as a Democrat is a complete Bernie bro (sis, I guess I should say), who decided that endorsing, as part of her run, stuff at the national level that makes the DSA types cream (Green New Deal! Medicare for All!) was somehow going to be a winner for a state-level campaign in a pretty red district. She met with the Democratic party leaders in my community (very, VERY small # in my ruby-red county), who apparently were as underwhelmed as I was. She didn’t endear herself to them by refusing to commit to Voting Blue No Matter Who for POTUS.

    I finally unfriended her on FB after she started asking “what about” Joe Biden’s record and Tara Reade. I did ask her in a comment why she didn’t ask Bernie Sanders, since he’d endorsed Joe. So…I didn’t vote for her in the primary, and I am feeling strangely reluctant to vote for her in the general.

  163. 163.

    Starfish

    @Citizen Alan: I joined Mississippi Rising Coallition on Facebook, and I had to leave because whoever runs that page was trying to drag Biden with the Tara Reade nonsense all the time. My comments were along the lines of “I did not know this was a Trump fan club.”

  165. 165.

    Sloane Ranger

    @Jeffro: 1930’s wise guys talked like 1950’s school children? I had no idea!

    Honestly, super duper and tippy top sound like something out of Enid Blyton’s Famous Five books.

  167. 167.

    Jeffro

    Matthew Dowd (yes, him) just tweeted that he hopes there is “accountability” for those who over-reacted to the Covid-19 pandemic as well as those who under-reacted.

    Matty, that’s good for a 20-place jump ahead in the tumbrel line, you jackass.

    OVER-REACTING IS WHAT YOU DO IF YOU WANT TO *PREVENT* A PANDEMIC!  And, OBVIOUSLY, we didn’t do that at ANY stage of the game!

    Ask New Zealanders if they want some good ol’ Dowd-ian “accountability” for their over-reacting PM…go ahead, I’ll wait…

  169. 169.

    Baud

    @Jeffro:

    Matthew Dowd (yes, him) just tweeted that he hopes there is “accountability” for those who are responsible for the deaths over-reacted to the Covid-19 pandemic as well as those who under-reacted. those who are responsible  Matthew Dowd doesn’t like.

  171. 171.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Jeffro: I saw that. Does he think this is over? I’m hearing a lot of talk as if we’ve passed the worst of it. I guess you can make an argument that we’ve sort of plateau’d? for now? but 85K dead (that probably an undercount), leveling off at ~2000 deaths a day, the new syndrome seemingly affecting young children…. How can anyone talk about “overreacting’?

  175. 175.

    Jeffro

    Meanwhile, Stand Up Republic (ie, NeverTrumpers) are having a “Convention on Founding Principles”, sponsored by a PAC of theirs, ‘Republicans for a New President’

    Mainstream media: “…um…um…Dem…Democrats in disarray!!!1!  Ok, ok, both sides in disarray!!!1!”

    LOLOL

  176. 176.

    frosty

    @Jeffro: I saw a line a little while ago: “If your public health measures worked it will look like an overreaction.”

    PS Same with Y2K

  177. 177.

    Jeffro

    @Baud: As always, even ‘moderate’ Republicans can’t help themselves and don’t want the DemoSoshulists to run away with it in November.

    After all, LAST time, more Americans got health care and stuff.  Ridiculous!

  179. 179.

    Starfish

    @Miss Bianca: People are trying to sell Romanoff as being pro-GND and Medicare for All, and I am not sure they understand how much of a turn off Bernie’s talking points are. I mean, sure I would like some regulation so we are not fracking everywhere, but I don’t need someone to spout Bernie’s talking points.

  180. 180.

    John Revolta

    @frosty: It wouldn’t shut anything down, necessarily, but it would force stations who carry Limbaugh and his disgusting ilk to give equal time to people with opposing viewpoints. How much good that would do is unknown, but as NotMax points out, it never hurt Nixon or Reagan.

  181. 181.

    Jeffro

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I guess because he’s an effing moron, is why.

    No seriously, per the comment I just posted above, it’s a combination of not wanting the Dems to run away with it in the fall, and that damned reflexive “both sides” from the Beltway/media/establishment types.

    “Over-reacted”.  What a complete jackass.

  182. 182.

    Jeffro

    @frosty: people are bad at science, numbers, and at what “upstream” (ie, preventative) fixes look like.

    It’s like, “Are fire stations and fire trucks a waste?  Home smoke detectors?  Should there be some blessed ‘accountability’ for all the folks who passed THOSE appropriations and regulations, since CLEARLY we over-reacted there?”

    Just unbelievable.  Shut up and enjoy your pandemic hideaway wherever you are, Matthew Dowd.  Let us all know what the penalty for over-reacting should be…we’re already $4T in the hole as a country, thanks.

  184. 184.

    NotMax

    @friosty

    Not hardly. Do the names Joe Pyne or Morton Downey Jr. ring a bell (just as a couple of examples on the air when the policy was on the books)?

  185. 185.

    Gravenstone

    @Amir Khalid: Space Force’s “mission” is for somebody in Trump’s orbit to get their grift on by tapping into a new DoD cash stream. Lots of supposed promises, but the only deliverables will be to someone’s offshore accounts.

  186. 186.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: The Right thinks that the amount of deaths we ha e proves it isn’t so dangerous, and that we’ve clearly “flattened the curve” (we haven’t, outside of NY), and that the death rate is actually way below 1%.

    They think the whole thing has somehow proved them right and that we should eb apologizing to them. They’re in for a ryde fucking awakening in a month or two when the curve somehow unflattens.

  189. 189.

    Miss Bianca

    @Starfish: This is the thing that makes me crazy about the stupid “reforms” the parties did after 2016. I mean, we get rid of the Presidential caucus (yay!) but keep the “other national offices caucus” (da FUQ?!) and then we have the “other national offices primary”! Why not just do, I dunno, ONE FUCKING PRIMARY?

    So, we’ve got Hickenlooper, who’s popular enough to get himself onto the primary ballot by petition, and then we get Andrew Romanoff, winner of the caucuses, who “progressives” love but who’s always failed when he goes for higher office than State Senate.

    Meanwhile the polls that people keep citing show Hick creaming Cory Gardner, and I feel compelled to keep pointing out to people that that ain’t going to make any damn difference to anyone unless he wins the primary. How many people are even going to vote in the damn Democratic primary?? And again, WTF with the caucus bullshit – JUST DO ONE PRIMARY, damn it!

  190. 190.

    Another Scott

    @John Revolta: Dunno that one can say the Fairness Doctrine didn’t hurt Nixon.  Jack Anderson and Daniel Schorr and many others were probably helped by the Fairness Doctrine, and Nixon was constrained by their reporting in ways that Donnie has never, ever been.

    But, counter-factuals are always fun…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  191. 191.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Subsole:

    Agreed, but I sense he’s serious, he’s not an idiot he knows what Trump has done and what Trump is.

    If that money can be used to support down-ballot tickets in battleground states (and non) as well as Biden’s campaign then I am all in.

  194. 194.

    Kay

    @Jeffro:

    This is how seriously Hong Kong takes it:

    ·There are more forms to fill out, including a health declaration and compulsory 14-day quarantine order once I arrive in Hong Kong. Penalty for violating the quarantine: HKD $25,000 and 6 months in jail

  195. 195.

    Starfish

    @Miss Bianca: I did not get a chance to go caucus 4 years ago. My son was 5 years old, and all this stuff was going to involve being awake past his bedtime.

    My husband felt the Bern at the time. The caucus sites were mobbed, and I mocked him and another friend who was in traffic and standing around for hours.

  197. 197.

    Kay

    @NotMax:

    Wow. That’s elaborate. I’m interested in the idea of actually doing something rather than having this abstract debate about it. I’m convinced people would have been a lot less anxious if they had seen some coordinated, concrete effort at mitigation, instead of how it was presented, as a set of opinions.

  198. 198.

    Brachiator

    @frosty:

    It won’t do anything to Fox or cable news, but it could shut down hate radio. Maybe?

    Who listens to radio anymore? Wanting the Fairness Doctrine back is like wanting a return to the pre pandemic world.

    And even when it existed, the doctrine had become an often parodied joke. The time given to an opposing topic was rarely equal.

    And there was also a tendency to reduce things to two views which were acceptable to the existing Establishment. Truly radical or alternative views were derided or dismissed.

  199. 199.

    Bill Arnold

    @Amir Khalid:

    I have absolutely no idea what Space Force’s mission is.

    It’s about aliens, specifically about defenses against them.
    Exotic defenses. :-)

  201. 201.

    cain

    I feel like Cole’s lawn looks moist.

    I have not thrown in any money yet I have been busy with an online conference. That’s my life these days.. whoring myself out to online conferences so I can either attend or give talks.

  203. 203.

    jc

    I will be openly voting with my middle finger against Trump. I hope Biden will appropriately, legally seek to prosecute any and all abuses of power and acts of corruption committed by Trump and members of his administration.

  204. 204.

    snarkrates

    Spite voter.  Yep.  However, I don’t give a damn about the Space Force.  It will collapse of its own weight–there are always DoD amoebas ready to absorb smaller organizations, especially if they don’t make sense.  I suspect “Space Force” will die unlamented and unmourned about the time the next Democratic President proposes his or her second budget and the Rethugs rediscover their love of fiscal responsibility.

    Nope.  My priority is impeaching every single Trump appointed judge.  That shouldn’t be as hard as it sounds, as Darth Cheeto has been scrapin’ the bottom of the right-wing barrel for nominees.  And although in the past, I wasn’t a gun control fanatic, I want to see these bastards lose their guns. Then we look at whether the churches need to lose tax exempt status…  I want to destroy everything they love.

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