Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

If ‘weird’ was the finish line, they ran through the tape and kept running.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

After dobbs, women are no longer free.

President Biden is doing good where he can, and getting it done.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

Donald Trump, welcome to your everything, everywhere, all at once.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

Elections aren’t won by handwringing, cowering, and/or bashing your own candidates.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

In my day, never was longer.

Polls are now a reliable indicator of what corporate Republicans want us to think.

Let’s show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

It looks like winning debates is a black job!

No Justins, No Peace

The revolution will be supervised.

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

You are here: Home / Open Threads / ‘Maximizing His Time’

‘Maximizing His Time’

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As I’ve mentioned in this space before, my fondest wish for the present era is that Trump’s fall will be so humiliating that it blights the political prospects of all the horrid wingnut remoras who attached themselves to Trump during his rise. Mike Pompeo is one such horrid wingnut remora, and boy does he deserve ruin for nestling so close to the Trumpian anal fin.

Ever seen Pompeo interviewed? He seems really angry. He’s definitely not enjoying life, despite having taxpayer provided dog-walkers and dry cleaning picker-uppers.

He snaps out pained, exasperated, prefab responses to softball questions and gets super prickly and sneery when gently queried on Trump’s lunatic pronouncements or — the sheer effrontery, the unmitigated gall! — the propriety of Pompeo’s own actions. You can almost see the thought-bubble over his head that reads, “DON’T YOU PEOPLE KNOW WHO I AM?!?”

From The Hill:

Ex-Pompeo staffers asked to sign letter against ‘smear campaign’

Former House staffers to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo are being asked to sign a letter offering him support after a “smear campaign” that he and his wife asked staffers to carry out trivial tasks such as bringing him lunch or getting his dry cleaning.

The letter obtained by The Hill says Pompeo, while serving as a House member from Kansas, picked up his own dry cleaning and that if there was a deviation, it was to maximize his time with constituents…

“In our time working with them, Mike and Susan never expressed that a task was so trivial or mundane as to be beneath them,” the letter states.

“To set the record straight: Mike picked up his own dry cleaning. Mike bought his own lunch. And yes, Mike picked up the phone and took constituent calls,” it says. “Any deviation from these norms was in order to maximize Mike’s time serving constituent needs. Misreporting on these practices is such a gross misuse of journalistic resources at a time of a global pandemic that it boggles our imaginations.”

Bolded text = Busted. According to The Hill’s sources, it was the missus who turned congressional, CIA and then State Department staff into personal butlers, but that’s probably a load of horseshit too. I’m willing to speculate they’re both arrogant, entitled shitheads, and if the Trump era marks the last stop on the federal gravy train for the Pompeos, something positive will have emerged from this shit-blizzard after all.

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

141Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    Mike wiped his own ass except in those situations when doing so interfered with his ability to provide his constituents the best representation possible.

  2. 2.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Baud: To be completely fair to Pompeo, on the occasions where he did not wipe his own ass, there was no copy of the Constitution readily available.

  3. 3.

    Josie

    I’d be curious to know who his constituents are as Secretary of State.  I have my suspicions.

  4. 4.

    Jerzy Russian

    Mike Pompeo is one such horrid wingnut remora, and boy does he deserve ruin for nestling so close to the Trumpian anal fin.

    That quote made me laugh, and also helped me with my diet. I was about to eat breakfast but can no longer do so after hearing about Trump’s anal fin and the possibility that things could latch there. So thank you twice.

  8. 8.

    Betty Cracker

    Okay, this made me laugh:

    Then she’d briskly dust off her hands. I can just SEE it! :)

  9. 9.

    jonas

    “Any deviation from these norms was in order to maximize Mike’s time serving constituent needs.”

    But remember, it’s the Clintons who are elitist and think they’re better than everyone. Howard Stern — of all people — had Trump’s (and the Trumpists’ more generally) number when he observed that Trump’s most die-hard working class/redneck supporters are precisely the people he despises most. Wouldn’t be caught dead hanging out with them.

  10. 10.

    Kent

    @WereBear:I would be hopeful but I think the average MAGAt has a gag reflex with the strength of ten Grinches, plus two.

    The corruption and obsequiousness to Trump is a feature not a bug to many MAGA faithful.  They eat that shit up.

  11. 11.

    hells littlest angel

    …  Trump’s fall will be so humiliating  …

    I hate to admit what fantasy fodder that is for me. Falling down the steps of Air Force One, publicly shitting himself while wearing white pants …

  12. 12.

    Central Planning

    @Betty Cracker:

    …my fondest wish for the present era is that Trump’s fall will be so humiliating that it blights the political prospects of all the horrid wingnut remoras who attached themselves to Trump during his rise.

    That’s mine too, but I want Dolt 45’s stench to be on every republican everywhere, even if they had nothing to do with his ascension. I’m afraid most people will forget about it by the 2022 midterms.

  13. 13.

    laura

    Mikey Pompous was a fetid Bag-O-Shite long before he remora’d on to the trump rump. Angry and entitled is his default setting. And then there’s the god bothering. He’s the total package. Hollow, characterless suck up to actual wealth and privilege on the tax payer’s dime. Then there’s the missus. By their deeds you shall know them.

  14. 14.

    Shalimar

    I really hope Pompeo stays firm on not running for the senate until the deadline passes.  In small part because he would be more likely to win than any of the dozen Republicans currently running, and mainly because I want him to sink along with the Trump ship.

  15. 15.

    Kent

    @Betty Cracker: They’ll just wait until he goes golfing or visits Mar a Lago and then fly away with Marine 1, leaving him there all alone.  Shouldn’t take but a day or two.

  16. 16.

    Gin & Tonic

    I hope for a Trump downfall so severe that his moron children and their spouses can’t even consider further life in the public eye.

  17. 17.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Susan Pompeo called herself “the First Lady of the CIA” when he was head of the agency, and had prime office space and staff for what had been, for previous spouses a strictly volunteer job, even if this article soft-pedals that. She sounds like the GOP fantasy of Hillary Clinton from thirty years ago (from 2018)

    Susan Pompeo, the wife of Central Intelligence Agency Director Mike Pompeo, has taken an unusually active and prominent role at the organization, and has fashioned herself as an unofficial “first lady of the CIA,” according to people with knowledge of her activities.
    Pompeo, who is a volunteer at the CIA, uses office space on the seventh-floor headquarters in Langley, Va., where senior leaders, including the director, have their offices. A support staff of CIA employees assists her in her duties, although that is not their full-time job. And Pompeo travels with her husband, who President Trump nominated last week to replace Rex Tillerson as secretary of state including on trips he takes overseas to meet with foreign intelligence officials. 

    she also spoke at CPAC while he was at State

  22. 22.

    MattF

    Pompeo strives to be a perfect little Trump. As SoS, he’s liberated from the responsibility of tending to his constituents, he needs only harken to His Master’s Voice, and he does.

  25. 25.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Betty Cracker:

    What Trump will do when he loses the election is an interesting question.  He will certainly ask about the possibility of a coup, but he has no way to pull one off.  There’s the small, strange possibility his leeches will be too afraid to tell him that, and he’ll be sitting in the Oval Office during inauguration waiting for a general to tell him he’s Dictator For Life when the Secret Service break the bad news and escort him out.  Narcissists retreat from failure and hide, so it’s possible he’ll quit early.  “America doesn’t deserve me!” sort of thing.  He will not try to fight personally.  He’s an extreme coward.  That cowardice is another reason he might bail early, to avoid the humiliation of interacting with the transition team.  He will certainly pitch an extreme, useless “You cheated!” whining tantrum after results are announced.  His flunked will certainly destroy records in massive amounts to try and cover up their crimes.  Most likely he’ll pull a lot of asshole, petty spite tricks, like firing everyone he can so Biden doesn’t have a cleaning staff.  Shit like that.  The thing is, he has two months of tantrums and spite to throw.  That will get weird and he’ll boomerang all over the place.

  26. 26.

    Boris Rasputin (the evil twin)

    @Josie: They aren’t the ordinary citizens of the U.S., that much is certain.

    Let us all hope that this prick’s time is “maximalized” in a Federal prison in a year or so.

  27. 27.

    Betty Cracker

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: First Lady of the CIA? Jeebus take the wheel. My husband is affiliated with the golf industry, so can y’all kindly refer to me as “First Lady of the Links” from now on? Please and thank you! :-/

  28. 28.

    Luciamia

    If today’s space launch goes off as planned, can we doubt Trump will find a way to make it all about him.

  32. 32.

    bystander

    We can all stop wondering if Pimpeo’s lavish dinner parties were not appropriate. Lord David Ignatius assures us they were entirely comme il faut as he was an invitee. I didn’t read the article because we have plenty of Ipecac on hand.

  33. 33.

    Miss Bianca

    @jonas: There’s some connection to be made there to Groucho Marx’s famous quip/dictum that he wouldn’t join a club that would have him as a member, but I confess I’m not clever enough to be able to make it.

  35. 35.

    sdhays

    @Betty Cracker: She (or Kamala or whoever else is chosen) won’t need to soil their hands by dragging him out. She just needs to march in there and tell him what she thinks of him, and he’ll skulk away, frightened at the powerful woman and also seething. And then they can slam the door on his ass.

  36. 36.

    VeniceRiley

    @Frankensteinbeck: Yes you can take that scenario to the bank.  My fantasy is jan 22nd NY AG James arrests him and files a library size pile of charges against him the second he steps off the chopper.

  37. 37.

    JoyceH

    @Frankensteinbeck: Here’s what I consider a real possibility for the transition. I think it very likely that Trump will head down to Mar A Lago for the holidays and then – he won’t come back. He’ll just stay down there. Biden will be sworn in and Trump will be in absentia.

  40. 40.

    r€nato

    Ever seen Pompeo interviewed? He seems really angry. He’s definitely not enjoying life, despite having taxpayer provided dog-walkers and dry cleaning picker-uppers.

    an observation I’ve made since the early days of the Trump regime: angry when their guy loses, even angrier when their guy wins. I’m starting to think they are just miserable people, period.

  44. 44.

    Betty Cracker

    In the glorious and ardently hoped for (but not assumed) scenario of Trump taking a big fat L in the upcoming election, I don’t think any reaction he might have would surprise me. Anything between tapping out due to a “health issue” before the inauguration to fomenting a short-lived Cult45 rebellion to try to cling to power is on the table, I think.

    Oh wait, I did just think of a way Trump could react that would absolutely floor me: if he conceded graciously, cooperated fully with the transition and attended the inauguration displaying the class and civic-mindedness of, say, Hillary Clinton. That strikes me as much less likely than an alien abduction on the South Lawn.

  47. 47.

    Jeffro

    The great thing, if there is one, is that all of these GOP a-holes will be running as trumpov 2.0 in 2024, maybe minus the tweeting.  Same racist rhetoric, same billionaires’ agenda, same shameless/constant lying, same divisive crap.  Every last one of them.

  48. 48.

    trollhattan

    I feel for the qualified candidate whose place jerkwad Pompeo occupied at The Point. Talk about squandering national resources when we could have had a productive Army officer instead.

  49. 49.

    Elizabelle

    I bet West Point is wincing over Pompeo’s being first in his class.  He is the antithesis of their model of an educated and ethical warrior.

    But WTF West Point: they are going ahead with having the June 13 graduation ceremony.  That is appalling to me.   Will put up some articles on that in a moment. What an appalling decision by the Army, and their fig leaf excuse “they had to come back at some point to outprocess” does not cut it.  They could have been called back in smaller groups.  But no.

    West Point is giving the Toddler in Chief his photo op.  They are jumping through hoops for a man who would never, never have been admittable when he was younger, and is the antithesis of everything they stand for.

    Words fail.

  50. 50.

    SFAW

    @Central Planning:

    I’m afraid most people will forget about it by the 2022 midterms.

    Good one! Or do you really think the Party of Traitors WON’T pull a “Donnie Who??” on 2/1/21? [Assuming a President Biden, of course.]

  52. 52.

    Just Chuck

    @Frankensteinbeck: I predict it’ll go like this:

    “Mister President, you need to leave.”

    … checks watch …

    “Mister President, you need to leave.”

    … checks watch …

    “Mister Trump, you’re under arrest.”

  53. 53.

    trollhattan

    @Betty Cracker:

    He will be the first ex-president in modern history (ever?) who publicly hectors his successor the second he’s out of office, continually whipping his flying nazi monkey brigade into a frenzy of self-pity and sense of great loss. “We waz robbed!” It will be quite disruptive and dangerous. All those gun and ammo stockpiles.

  57. 57.

    MattF

    @Betty Cracker: I’d assume ETs on the South Lawn would practice social distancing from Trump, so alien abduction as a solution to our current situation is… somewhat unlikely.

  60. 60.

    trollhattan

    @Elizabelle:

    They determined they could not say “no” and that the cadets are relegated to being extras in Trump’s movie extravaganza. What we can’t know is how many of the grads will be thrilled at the opportunity. I know it’s not the AF academy, but there will nevertheless be true believers in the mix.

  64. 64.

    Elizabelle

    UPI article from five days ago.
    West Point prepares for June 13 graduation ceremony
     

    … There has been criticism over the demand that West Point’s 1,000-member Class of 2020 return, citing travel complications relating to the COVID-19pandemic, the necessity of many returning cadets passing through viral hot spot New York City and the possibility that a large gathering of future Army officers could promote transfer of the virus.

    The Army said that, at the bare minimum, graduating cadets must move from their barracks at the school and receive medical screening before entering the next phase of their military careers and go through other aspects of outprocessing.***

    The first step occurred on May 8, when graduating cadets received questionnaires regarding any COVID-19 exposures or symptoms. The data will be used to identify which cadets are eligible to travel to West Point.

    They have been divided into five cohorts, each of which will return on a different day next week, beginning Tuesday.

    “We’ve never done this at West Point, and it’s very rare to be able to say something like that,” said Lt. Col. George Mitroka, leader of the organizing team.

    About 40 percent of returning graduates indicated they intend to fly from their hometowns across the United States, Mitroka said. They have been directed to the airport in Newark, N.J., where they will be met by an Army representative and bused to West Point.

    … There, they will undergo a medical screening and remain under restrictive safe distancing protocols.

    “The graduation ceremony is an important milestone, and while it may not be a traditional ceremony, our planning efforts will enable them to come together as a class one final time and for all of us to celebrate all of their accomplishments,” said Brig. Gen Curtis Buzzard, commandant of cadets, said.

    “We will also rightly honor their official transition into the profession of arms. They are ready, and I know they are going to make a tremendous impact on our Army.”

    *** This is the fig leaf excuse.  No reason it had to be done en masse, and for the benefit of the demonstrably worst president in US history.  Bar none.  And think about how West Point’s employees, who must be called back, may be putting their own communities and families at risk.

    Trump, the dignity wraith, takes down West Point, too.  I would have had much more respect for them had they postponed or insisted on a video address.

  67. 67.

    e julius drivingstorm

    @Betty Cracker: A gracious Trump at Baden’s inauguration could only be the result of a quid pro quo involving a blanket pardon. Failing to negotiate such a pardon raises the possibility that Trump shows up on January 20 in Moscow.

  68. 68.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Oh yeah – glibertarian philosophical idiocy is a large part of how we got to where we are as a society. Get this earnestly delivered bullshit’s authoritative  tone.

    If you had to choose among those vaccines, wouldn’t it make sense to look for guidance from market prices? They will reflect information about the perceived value of both protection and risk. On the same principle, if you need brain surgery, you would certainly want to know what the brain surgeon charges, although of course that should not be the only factor in your decision.

    Because medical services are so elastic, right? Just shop that brain surgery around.

    As a purely technical matter, you might be afraid that pure price discrimination will allocate all of the benefits of the vaccine to the sellers. But there is little danger of that outcome, since each person getting a vaccine confers significant benefits on others, through a reduced risk of infection. And if you are worried that poorer people won’t be able to afford the vaccine, give them vouchers or other forms of aid.

    So noble. I can smell the leather elbow patches, tweed and pipe smoke wafting about – along with the faint hint of the VS “Pink” perfume from the undergraduate he’s having an affair with.

    Finally, from a purely American standpoint, there is no guarantee that the U.S. will win the race to produce vaccines. Many of the current Chinese efforts, for instance, are based on older vaccine ideas, and might be ready fairly quickly, even though they provide only partial protection. Americans may not be first in line to receive Chinese vaccines, at least not through normal bureaucratic channels.

    USA! USA! USA!

    Would it then be so bad if, in the early days, wealthy Americans and others had the option of flying to China, or some intermediary country, and buying access to those vaccines at market prices? It is not hard to imagine a $30,000 vaccine vacation to Singapore or Vietnam. Markets in such places could encourage more production of a vaccine that would then be available to poorer people elsewhere in the world.

    Such a noble set of speculative propositions; it reads like a land development brochure for a project in Orlando.

  75. 75.

    Elizabelle

    AP article in The Army Times:
    Army defends decision to have West Point graduation

    WASHINGTON — The Army’s top leaders on Thursday defended their decision to bring 1,000 cadets back to the Military Academy at West Point for graduation, where President Donald Trump is slated to speak, saying that despite the coronovirus risk students would have had to return anyway to prepare for their next duty assignment.

    The announcement has been criticized as a political move to get Trump on stage at the academy, where he hasn’t yet given a graduation address. But Army officials said the students must return for final medical checks, equipment and training.

    “We can’t telecommute to combat,” Gen. James McConville, the chief of staff of the Army, told Pentagon reporters when asked about the decision, which forces cadets spread out across the U.S. to travel, risking exposure on public transportation, and then land in New York, a coronavirus hot spot.

    ….  Lt. Gen. Darryl Williams, academy superintendent, said the students must return for medical and other required tasks that can only be done at the academy before they can be turned over as new officers to the Army.

    He said the school will create a “safety bubble” around the cadets and build a staging base where they will arrive. All cadets will be screened and tested for the virus at the staging area and then separated into five groups that will eat and live separately. They will be quarantined for 14 days.

    Williams said Keller Army Community Hospital at the base now has all the needed testing equipment, and was converted to be able to handle and quarantine virus patients.

    Asked if cadets will face discipline if they can’t or don’t want to come back because of the virus, he said commanders will decide on a case-by-case basis.

    U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., a member of West Point’s Board of Visitors, said she expressed her concerns about the decision to Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy in a call this week.

    “Trump’s reckless decision to gather 1,000 Cadets at West Point for a speech puts our future military leaders at increased risk — all to stroke his own ego,” said Duckworth, a retired Army helicopter pilot, who served in the Iraq war and received a Purple Heart.

  76. 76.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Elizabelle:

    West Point has turned out many thousands of mediocre, amoral clunkers across it’s history. This is just one more sad failure.

  78. 78.

    Hungry Joe

    In the runup to the election Trump will say that it’s rigged. If he loses he’ll say it was rigged. If he wins the electoral college and thus the election, but not the popular vote, he’ll say it was rigged. If he wins the electoral college and the popular vote he’ll say he would have won bigger — or rather, more bigly — but it was rigged.

    He really likes the word “rigged.” It’s right up there with “disgrace.”

  84. 84.

    Jeffro

    @Frankensteinbeck: Two months to loot the national treasury, golf anywhere and everywhere (in the world), pardon white collar crooks for cash, pardon himself and his family, go bananas on social media, lawyer up, and sign with OANN to blather for a few hours every day.

    And skip town before the Inauguration, no doubt about that.

  86. 86.

    Elizabelle

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:   It is such a bad, bad decision.

    Cannot imagine President Obama even thinking of putting the cadets and their communities at risk.  He was too intelligent and gracious for that.  Biden would not do it either.  No one who cared about the cadets’ health would think of insisting this go forward.

    But Trump wants his photo op, and he’s said he does not want the 8 foot distancing that the Air Force Academy employed.

    I hope this goes really, really badly for Trump, and that he gets ridiculed for insisting on his real life toy soldiers.

  88. 88.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Frankensteinbeck: My prediction is when it’s clear Trump will lose the election he will resign in some strange way not a resignation way so Trump can blame Pence for losing the election for Trump, then Trump will wall himself up at one of his resorts claiming to still be president, accusing Biden of cheating and staging a coupe tell the day Trump dies.

  89. 89.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    Since it’s an open thread, here’s a feel good video, a totally mindless distraction: he builds real-life Rube Goldberg machines. Once you start watching this thing you can’t stop, and the ending is so satisfying.

    This is almost better than cute pet videos. Don’t hate me, I said “almost”.

  90. 90.

    danielx

    With the qualification that Cillizza is a complete tool:

    Trump has never, ever, not ever admitted he has lost anything. In the face of multiple bankruptcies because of poor decisions he made with his businesses, he insisted he was flush with cash and was outsmarting everyone. When a business deal went south and Trump clearly got the worst of it, he would declare victory to anyone who asked — and to lots of people who didn’t. When he lost the Iowa caucuses to Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas) in 2016, he tweeted this: “Ted Cruz didn’t win Iowa, he stole it. That is why all of the polls were so wrong and why he got far more votes than anticipated. Bad!”
    Notice the pattern? This is a man who cannot accept losing in any way, shape or form. And when faced with defeat or setback, he insists that the rules were broken, that something nefarious happened — although he never says exactly what.
     

  92. 92.

    SFAW

    @VOR:

    I doubt it is West Point’s idea. Trump is Commander in Chief so when he says “do it”, that is an order.

    Correct. He made the demand 1-2 months ago, West Point pushed back, he told them to do it “or else.” [Not in those words, but that was his meaning.]

  93. 93.

    SFAW

    @danielx:

    And when faced with defeat or setback, he insists that the rules were broken, that something nefarious happened — although he never says exactly what.

    And when people point out that his claims are worng, he calls it “fake news,” etc.

  94. 94.

    The Moar You Know

    He will be the first ex-president in modern history (ever?) who publicly hectors his successor the second he’s out of office

    @trollhattan:  Herbert Hoover on the wireless with some things he’d like to share about that “impotent commie cripple”.

    Not a new phenomena.

  96. 96.

    Elizabelle

    @SFAW:   Source?

    I do remember the light pushback — a member of WPoint’s Board being interviewed about the logistical problems a Trump visit would pose.

  98. 98.

    Sab

    Argument with my RWNJ brother over relative merits of Pompeo is when I decided that it was important for my mental health to never speak to my RWNJ brother again. Also too same conversation when brother said the pandemic was caused by Fauci in kahoots with the Chinese. Brother was a normal human being in the 1970s. Then he went to work in the Oil Patch and later in investment banking. I had thought those guys were merely intensely cynical, but they are actually insane believers of this crap.

  100. 100.

    trnc

    @Kent: There is also the distinct possibility that DT walks out as soon as the election is called for Biden, possibly because he’s such a child, or possibly to get to a no-extradition country.

  101. 101.

    Barry

    @Kent: “They’ll just wait until he goes golfing or visits Mar a Lago and then fly away with Marine 1, leaving him there all alone. Shouldn’t take but a day or two.”

    I imagine that the Secret Service staff will highly prize the task of ‘escorting’ the *former* President out of his *former* residence.

  102. 102.

    WaterGirl

    OT, but…

    FREE COVID-19 antigen testing available for University of Illinois employees and their families
    May 27, 2020 11:40 AM

    Dear Colleagues,

    In preparation for the state’s move to Phase III of the governor’s plan for re-opening, we are encouraging all University employees to take advantage of the free testing offered from 8:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. seven days a week in the east parking lot of Market Place Shopping Center at 2000 N. Neil Street in Champaign. Enter through the south mall entrance off of Market Street. University employees and members of their households qualify for the free testing. Bring a photo ID card (children do not need IDs) and your health insurance card (but your insurance will NOT be billed).

    The test is self-administered, quick and painless with a 10-15 second swab inside of each nostril. Results are available within a few days and often within a few hours.

    Are you guys seeing stuff like this at other educational institutions?

  104. 104.

    Barry

    @e julius drivingstorm: “Failing to negotiate such a pardon raises the possibility that Trump shows up on January 20 in Moscow.”

     

    God will not be that merciful.  That’d be a full confession; not even the liberal MSM would be able to ignore that.  Also, it’d be easy to yank his passport while he was there.

  105. 105.

    laura

    @Delk: Rest in Power Larry Kramer, your life of agitation and rage and art will not be forgotten. I cannot shake the sense of deja vu with AIDS and CV19. Larry’s contributions are a lamp lit in darkness to light the way forward.

  106. 106.

    randy khan

    @Frankensteinbeck: 

    I can imagine the White House staff packing up the residence (whatever godawful gold-painted – not even gold-plated – knickknacks the Trumps brought with them, clothes, the remote control for the bedroom TV) around him while he sits there planning for his non-existent second term.

    I have said this before, but I think the likeliest among all of the possible outcomes if he loses is that he runs off to Mar-a-Lago at some point between Election Day and the inauguration and never comes back to D.C.

  107. 107.

    MomSense

    My office is doing a phased reopening and apparently I’m the only one who is not too much of a wussy to wear a fucking mask.  “They’re too hot”. “I can’t breathe in them”

    I want to scream.  I guess my mask will just muffle the sound. ?

  108. 108.

    dopey-o

    Trump will be watching Biden’s inauguration from his dascha in Sochi. How he gets there from Merde-A-Lago is not my problem.
    Amateurs talk strategy, dilettantes discuss tactics, and professionals work out the logistics. Vlad will sort out the logistics for Fat Nixon.

  111. 111.

    Sab

    My husband totalled my car yesterday. 5 blocks all with 25 mph speed limit. How did he do that? He won’t say. Quarantine with a spouse you are furious with is not fun.

  112. 112.

    Cameron

    In the interest of inter-service comity, it would be really nice if the anonymous sailor from the Theodore Roosevelt showed up and gave a hearty “what the fuck” in the middle of Trump’s speech.

  114. 114.

    Elizabelle

    @Omnes Omnibus:   You misread my comment.  West Point clearly did a lot of pushback, anonymously perhaps, at the outset.  I saw a lot of news on that.

    It was a surprise to hear that the graduation is still on.  I suppose the Army had to buckle under to Trump, but what a shame.

    The dishonor is with Trump and his enablers.

  115. 115.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @WaterGirl:

    The test is self-administered, quick and painless with a 10-15 second swab inside of each nostril.

    is there a less-invasive test now? or are they down-playing the brain-stab?

  120. 120.

    Miss Bianca

    @danielx: Oh, sure, they’ll all say it *now* Guess it only took 100,000 dead bodies to make the Village notice that oh, hey, maybe Trump really isn’t John Galt after all, and maybe we have some sort of obligation to note his multiple failures and manifold sins and wickednesses?

  121. 121.

    Elizabelle

    @Omnes Omnibus:   I believe that I may not have been clear that I was asking for SFAW’s source on Trump forcing them to hold the graduation.  This is the part I wanted a source for:

    SFAW:  he told them to do it “or else.” [Not in those words, but that was his meaning.]

    My issue was not with West Point pushback.  I saw that myself, in real time, and put up some comments about the NY Times article when it appeared.  Someone made a big deal about the difficult logistics and considerations that the NY Times enjoyed immensely reporting.

    Officially, West Point’s pushback was gentle and respectful, but you know people who cared about West Point and the cadets were leaking like sieves to the newspapers

    The proposed graduation ceremony was — and is — a public health issue.

  125. 125.

    Miss Bianca

    @Sab: Ouch.

    My ex-husband destroyed my beloved Honda Civic hatchback by borrowing it to go to a gig and then hitting a deer at 90 mph on his way back. Managed to limp the car all the way home, but I was forced to replace poor Mothra after that.

    Once I realized he was perfectly all right, I felt I had leave to be furious with him. Not sure I ever totally forgave him for that stunt, in fact. In retrospect, I think I should have made him give me *his* car and have to beg, borrow, or buy another one on his own.

  127. 127.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Jeffro:

    You’re describing what someone who was corrupt and evil and at least vaguely rational will do.  Trump doesn’t go ‘I have two months to accomplish this.’  It’s all about what he wants NOW NOW NOW and how he feels NOW NOW NOW and he will be tortured at every moment by having lost the biggest public competition he knows exists.

  128. 128.

    Bill Arnold

    @Elizabelle:

    West Point is giving the Toddler in Chief his photo op. They are jumping through hoops for a man who would never, never have been admittable when he was younger, and is the antithesis of everything they stand for.

    West Point has (well had, Apr 7) a mandatory masks policy, as does New York State (indoors) i.e. the local towns that West Point cadets and employees interact with.
    I wonder whether that policy will be bent for Trump stupid deliberately-divisive homicidal manufactured culture war theme re anti-masking. (His homicidal bullshit will kill 10s of thousands of Americans. IMO. Perhaps hundreds of thousands if things get bad. Nowhere in the US Constitution is there a right to kill random people.)
    West Point Implements New Face Covering Policy (West Point Public Affairs, April 7, 2020)

    All military personnel, family members, civilian employees, contractors and visitors will wear cloth face coverings on academy grounds to the extent practical when they cannot maintain six feet of social distance in public areas or work centers.

  129. 129.

    Elizabelle

    @Bill Arnold:   Yes.  I am thinking of the non-masked Toddler/Traitor in Chief, and how all of West Point that comes in contact with him might have to quarantine again for 14 (plus) days.

    The military is way more matter of fact and actually common sense about a lot of procedures than they are given credit for.

    They take climate change and its implications extremely seriously.

  131. 131.

    cmorenc

    @Frankensteinbeck:

     His flunked will certainly destroy records in massive amounts to try and cover up their crimes.

    There may possibly prove to be career officials from the alleged “deep state” within the various security/intelligence agencies who have been routinely, systematically and securely accumulating backup copies and receipts of goings-on that the administration doesn’t know exist, created precisely to forestall any tampering, destruction, or accidental loss.  Or at the very least to the extent the administration is aware of such, they don’t yet realize how inaccessible they are to their reach for tampering or destruction.

  133. 133.

    burnspbesq

    @hells littlest angel:

    My fantasy is that he high-tails it out of Dodge on 1/20/21, heading for Dubai because we don’t have an extradition treaty with the UAE—and they don’t let him in.

  135. 135.

    Jeffro

    @Frankensteinbeck: nah, those are almost all things he’d easily do and none of them take any special genius or planning.

    ”Let’s go golfing in Ireland today!”

    ”I think I’ll pardon myself and my family this afternoon”

    ”Hey OANN, let’s talk – we’ve got a good thing going here!”

  136. 136.

    trnc

    @Sab: Quarantine with a spouse you are furious with is not fun.

    Sorry to hear about the car. I suspect “isolated with spouse” is going to show up in quite a few defense motions this year.

  137. 137.

    trnc

    @Bill Arnold: All military personnel, family members, civilian employees, contractors and visitors will wear cloth face coverings on academy grounds to the extent practical when they cannot maintain six feet of social distance in public areas or work centers.

    That’s their out. As long as they ask DT to stay 6 feet away from everyone else, they can say they stuck to the policy even if he doesn’t wear a mask.

  138. 138.

    ...now I try to be amused

    I can see why Pompeo and Trump’s other remoras are angry all the time. The idiot they serve, with his constant whims and saying the quiet parts out loud, makes their lives hard, don’tcha know.

    @trnc:

    There is also the distinct possibility that DT walks out as soon as the election is called for Biden

    I half expect there will be no transition as we know it, through a combination of malevolence and incompetence on the part of the Trump administration. Who lifts a finger to help the spawn of Satan? will be their attitude.

  139. 139.

    Raoul

    My suspicion as to why Mike has the “pained, exasperated, prefab responses to softball questions and gets super prickly and sneery when gently queried”?

    He is in over his head, knows it, and can’t fathom how to manage — and he constitutionally cannot handle asking for help. He acts in the brittle way I think many of us have experienced when overseen by a boss who isn’t cut out for the work. He’s ambitious. He wants to be president some day. But he’s not really that smart (not sure how he got first in his class at West Point) or he can’t translate his school smarts into operational, complex institution smarts anyway.

  140. 140.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    @Betty Cracker: I’d argue that she might not be physically strong enough – the man is a pear shaped tub or lard, and incapable of giving a simple thumb’s up, which is weird, given how much he likes showing off his curled thumbs that look like he’s pointing it at himself.

    Then again, perhaps she’ll be possessed by the spirit of Lady Liberty – or, perhaps she’ll treat Trump as he deserves, and grabs him by the ear, rather than the collar. (Men get grabbed by the collar; many parents have found the ear to be a far better option than the collar, when dealing with cranky children who can’t follow instructions.)

  141. 141.

    JML

    My cousin served with Pompeo back in the day; apparently he was a prick back then too who treated his soldiers like they were his servants. So he wasn’t surprised at all about any of this latest stuff at State. Power doesn’t build character, it reveals it.

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