Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

The snowflake in chief appeared visibly frustrated when questioned by a reporter about egg prices.

Dear elected officials: Trump is temporary, dishonor is forever.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

People are complicated. Love is not.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.

The press swings at every pitch, we don’t have to.

“woke” is the new caravan.

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

If you cannot answer whether trump lost the 2020 election, you are unfit for office.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

When we show up, we win.

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls 2 years from now.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Museums are not America’s attic for its racist shit.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

They punch you in the face and then start crying because their fist hurts.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

You are here: Home / Elections / Biden For President / Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Go Joe!

Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Go Joe!

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On the other hand, our guy Joe:



Give Mitt Romney this much credit: The man is not known for his exquisite sensitivity to nascent political trends. If he has decided to proclaim that Black Lives Matter, it means that there’s broad support for the concept even in Utah. And, as the Washington Post points out, the Trump campaign is fully aware of how dangerous this is to their chances.

And *that*, if they have any sense whatsoever, should inspire more of his GOP comrades to flee the SS Trumptantic while they can.

(This still made me LOL, though… )

Reader Interactions

140Comments

  1. 1.

    NotMax

    Mitt Romney marching while saying, “Black Lives Matter.”

    In Mitt’s (Mormon) case, that would be from 1978 on.

    //

  2. 2.

    Chief Oshkosh

    “Rebuild. Reform. Right Now.”

     

    At the risk of falling in love with my own words (hijacked from Camden), we need to replace “Defund” with this.

  4. 4.

    Baud

    No, I don’t support defunding the police. I support conditioning federal aid to police based on whether or not they meet certain basic standards of decency”

    So…defunding. #MorningSnark #DontSendLetters

  7. 7.

    johnnybuck

    if they have any sense whatsoever, should inspire more of his GOP comrades to flee the SS Trumptantic while they can

    All they have are racist supporters, they have nowhere else to go.

  8. 8.

    mrmoshpotato

    It’s time for him to step out of his bunker and look around at the consequences of his words and actions.

    Don’t hold your breath, Joe.

     

    Mitt Romney can prove how woke he really is by beating the shit out of Rand Paul.

    I’m mrmoshpotato, and I approve this message want to see this happen.

  9. 9.

    Kirk Spencer

    Devils lie in the details, joe, but good idea as there do seem to be a few good’uns.

  10. 10.

    debbie

    Give Mitt Romney this much credit: The man is not known for his exquisite sensitivity to nascent political trends.

    Trump brings out the best in all of us. //

  14. 14.

    Baud

    What a different media we have now than we had in 2016.

    Trump’s latest attempt to tag Biden as a radical flops

     

    Progressives did not revolt after the Democratic nominee rejected the “defund the police” movement.

    Not good enough yet, but some good signs.

  15. 15.

    Jeffro

    Five more months of hapless flailing, GOP.  Aren’t y’all glad you canceled those primaries to clear the way for trumpov?

    LOLOL

  20. 20.

    JPL

    So glad that you included Pantomath’s video.   I saw it yesterday and didn’t click on, but decided to today.

    @HinTN: lol I laughed out loud.

  22. 22.

    Kay

    Susan Glasser
    @sbg1
    ·10h
    The thing about Trump’s lie that was so striking is how little credence anyone gave it —when the President of the United States said it. He has truly become the boy who cried wolf.

    The bunker lie but it doesn’t matter- there have been tens of lies since that one, including a huge whopper the AG told on television.

    This is what is supposed to happen when you lie all the time- people stop believing you- and I wonder if it’s happening now. Maybe the lies about Biden or the protesters or congressional Democrats and Democratic governors don’t stick because everyone in the Trump Administration has lied and lies so much. Before anyone says it I know the lies stick with Trump’s base, but I’m talking about the other 70% of people.

  23. 23.

    Amir Khalid

    @Baud:

    I think Biden is right to steer clear of support for defunding police departments as a nationwide policy. That needs to be decided by local governments based on their own police reform plan. Biden is properly focusing on national standards and criteria for getting federal aid.

  24. 24.

    JPL

    Bunkerboy thinks that scaring the citizens will get him the necessary votes.   Lincoln project needs to run the ad of peaceful protesters beings gassed nonstop.   That will scare the public.

  25. 25.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    Among all the other things going on right now, “normies” pay more attention to things in presidential election years.

  26. 26.

    Leto

    should inspire more of his GOP comrades to flee the SS Trumptantic while they can.

    But they like the matching uniforms and marching…

  30. 30.

    Betty Cracker

    @mrmoshpotato: I’m surprised McEnany didn’t just lie about the current polling numbers rather than referring to that embarrassing single-digit performance. The Trump people pull polling numbers out of their asses all day long, so why not just lie about Trump’s level of support among black people too?

    Maybe they think there’s an inverse correlation between support among their base of Sean Hannity viewers and black support. That’s probably true, but the tactic for dealing with that dilemma so far has been to tell a separate set of lies to each audience.

  31. 31.

    mrmoshpotato

    It is going to be fun to watch the candidate whose campaign manager, deputy campaign manager, foreign policy advisor, campaign advisor, personal lawyer and National Securuty Advisor are felons run on law and order.— stuart stevens (@stuartpstevens) June 9, 2020

  32. 32.

    Kay

    Sam Stein
    @samstein
    · 10h
    NEW- Trump’s campaign has spent more than $400k on ads to air on D.C. cable because, sources tell @swin24 and @lachlan, they wanted to make sure Trump knew they were running an aggressive operation, including at The Lincoln Project

    Ha! He actually did what they thought he would do in response to those ads. They must be thrilled.

  33. 33.

    Mary G

    This isn’t a list I’m glad to be on, and I doubt it will help the president’s reelection chances:

    These 14 states just hit their highest 7-day average of COVID19 cases:
    Alaska
    Arizona
    Arkansas
    California
    Florida
    Kentucky
    New Mexico
    North Carolina
    Mississippi
    Oregon
    South Carolina
    Tennessee
    Texas
    Utah
    Also Puerto Rico
    https://t.co/OFCN7V0mjU
    — David Beard (@dabeard) June 9, 2020

    (Edited to remove excess hashtags)

  34. 34.

    Baud

    Amid a public backlash over the militarized federal response to mass protests, President Trump is seeking to turn the national movement for racial justice into a debate over law and order, presenting Democrats as inflaming chaos in American cities.

     

    But as the White House and the president’s reelection campaign begin that messaging, they are already facing difficulty navigating the line between exhibiting toughness and straying into the kind of offensive rhetoric and race-baiting that have often defined Trump’s tenure.

  35. 35.

    Geminid

    Mormons are conservative on many issues, but they may have more of outsider’s view on bigotry and prejudice having experienced it first hand.

  37. 37.

    Ken

    @Kay: Wait, they’re spending half a million dollars just so Trump sees the ads? And the Lincoln Project planned it?  I’m glad they’re sort of on our side.

  38. 38.

    Baud

    @Ken:

    I don’t know if the LP planned it. The grifters that run the Trump operation know what it takes to get paid, and that isn’t the same as doing what they need to do to win.

  40. 40.

    burnspbesq

    @Amir Khalid:

    Some folks on the left have a tendency to forget that there are Constitutional limits on the powers of the Federal government. They seem to lack the attention span needed for the long, hard struggle to do things state by state.

  42. 42.

    rikyrah

    The only three Democrats who seem to know how to handle the media ar Nancy Pelosi, Maxine Waters and Stacey Abrams. Most Democrats are too worried about appearance and civility.— FedUp_Mom (@Fedup_Mom) June 9, 2020

  43. 43.

    clay

    Hey, a question just occurred to me: Has Bloomberg dumped his pledged millions into the race yet?

  44. 44.

    germy

    Open thread?

    Okay, here’s my first-world complaint.

    Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful for the stimulus money, but they sent me a debit card.

    Then a few days later, I got a letter (with drumpf’s signature) telling me I got the debit card.

    Why couldn’t they send me a check?

    I had to call, set up a pin number, and see a whole list of potential fees.  “You want to check your balance?  There’s a fee.  You want to use an ATM?  First time, okay, then a fee.”  etc. etc.

    A fucking VISA debit card.

    I mean, what does VISA have to do with this?

    Okay, that’s the end of my rant.

  46. 46.

    NotMax

    @Geminid

    To channel rikyrah, uh-huh.

    Some slave owners brought their slaves with them to Utah, though several slaves escaped. The church put out a statement of neutrality towards slavery, stating that it was between the slave owner and God. A few years later, Brigham Young began teaching that slavery was ordained of God and that equality efforts were misguided. Under his direction, Utah passed laws supporting slavery and making it illegal for blacks to vote, hold public office, join the Nauvoo Legion, or marry whites. Many prominent members of the church owned or used slaves, including William H. Hooper, Abraham O. Smoot, Charles C. Rich, Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball. Members bought and sold slaves as property, gave the church slaves as tithing, and recaptured escaped slaves. In California, slavery was openly tolerated in the Mormon community of San Bernardino, despite being a free state.…
    [snip]
    The church also advocated for segregation laws and enforced segregation in its facilities. Hotel Utah, a church-run hotel, banned black guests, even when other hotels made exceptions for black celebrities. Blacks were prohibited from performing in the Salt Lake Tabernacle, and the Deseret News did not allow black people to appear in photographs with white people. Church leaders urged white members to join civic groups and opened up LDS chapels “for meetings to prevent Negroes from becoming neighbors”, even after a 1948 Supreme Court decision against racial covenants in housing. They counseled members to buy homes so black people wouldn’t move next to LDS chapels. In the 1950s, the San Francisco mission office took legal action to prevent black families from moving into the church neighborhood. A black man living in Salt Lake City, Daily Oliver, described how, as a boy in the 1910s, he was excluded from an LDS-led boy scout troop because they did not want blacks in their building. In 1954, Apostle Mark Petersen taught that segregation was inspired by God, arguing that “what God hath separated, let not man bring together again”. He used examples of the Lamanites and Nephites, the curse of Cain, Jacob and Esau, and the Israelites and Canaanites as scriptural precedence for segregation.

    Church leaders opposed desegregation in schools, especially at BYU. After Dr. Robinson wrote an editorial in the Deseret News, President McKay deleted portions that indicated support for desegregation in schools, explaining it would not be fair to force a white child to learn with a black child. Apostle J. Rueben Clark instructed the general Relief Society president to keep the National Council of Women from supporting going on record in favor of school desegregation.Harold B Lee protested an African student who was given a scholarship, believing it was dangerous to integrate blacks on BYU’s campus.

    Church leaders advocated for the segregation of donated blood, concerned that giving white members blood from black people might disqualify them from the priesthood. In 1943, the LDS Hospital opened a blood bank which kept separate blood stocks for whites and blacks. It was the second-largest in-hospital blood bank. After the 1978 ending of the priesthood ban, Consolidated Blood Services agreed to supply hospitals with connections to the LDS Church, including LDS Hospital, Primary Children’s and Cottonwood Hospitals in Salt Lake City, McKay-Dee Hospital in Ogden, and Utah Valley Hospital in Provo. Racially segregated blood stocks reportedly ended in the 1970s, although white patients worried about receiving blood from a black donor were reassured that this would not happen even after 1978.
    [snip]
    …A church lesson manual for boys 12–13, published in 1995, contains a 1976 quote from Spencer W. Kimball that recommended the practice of marrying others of similar racial, economic, social, educational, and religious backgrounds. In 2003, the church published the Eternal Marriage Student Manual, which uses the same quote. Source

  47. 47.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: She’s a godawful nepotism poser. Did you see where she got busted for tweeting about the devastation of her ritzy section of Manhattan when she wasn’t even in NYC? Hilarious.

  48. 48.

    Baud

    @germy: Everything is done by cards these days. But usually you should have a period of time in which you can take your money out at an ATM without incurring fees.  It’s BS if the Trump people didn’t set it up that way.

  50. 50.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: Have a kind of Trump supporting friend (not a cult member, but likes him) on FB who posted a meme yesterday about wishing that “pants on fire” would be true with politicians. I replied by saying that Donald Trump would have been a pile of ashes four years ago! Of course, they don’t include him in “politicians” when they say that, but it gave me satisfaction nonetheless. Other people see that, too.

  52. 52.

    Kay

    I know the normies won’t care about this, but I care about it:

    I support conditioning federal aid to police

    Joe Biden knows how our system works and he uses specific language to describe it. The federal government doesn’t decide the vast, vast majority of police funding and that’s not a technical point. It’s how the thing works. If every single politician embedded a lesson like that in every statement the public would understand their own government better.
    Compare/contrast with the Trump Administration. Jared held a forum with police where he announced he had solved the problem and Trump said he wouldn’t allow any state/city/government to cut or redirect police budgets/funding. That isn’t our system. They are describing something other than the United States.

  53. 53.

    rikyrah

    Bernie Sanders is a less than mediocre career politician who redistributed $400,000,000 from vulnerable people, selling them a lie while he damaged the people who can deliver, giving that money to wealthy political operatives, his family, propagandists & large media conglomerates— ☇RiotWomenn☇ (@riotwomennn) June 9, 2020

  58. 58.

    rikyrah

    8 minutes and 46 seconds is a long time, but for 244 years, there were plenty of knees on the necks of Black people who were brought to this country.We are still in search of a more perfect union.We must not allow any force to turn back the clock. pic.twitter.com/QWlsv9q509— James E. Clyburn (@WhipClyburn) June 8, 2020

  59. 59.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    A long time ago, I read something that said that way back in the olden days (i.e., FDR time frame), presidents used to campaign on they types of policies that would ask Congress to enact.  Nowadays, of course, every candidate talks about what he or she will do if elected, even if it’s something that only Congress can do.

  61. 61.

    Kay

    @Soprano2:

    Not to burst everyone’s bubble but I think Trump is somewhat right (probably) about polls not counting some of his support. I think his less committed cult members are a little chastened right now but they’ll come roaring back as it gets closer. I’m dreading the absolute panic of Democrats here when that happens :)

    I don’t blame them! I too am traumatized! But I think they have to keep it in check because fear is contagious.

  66. 66.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    Obama made the “states” point CONSTANTLY and I think it helped. He just did it again in his last statement- he told people policing is mostly a state and local issue so they have to vote in those elections too. Repeat, repeat, repeat. People will get it and politicians are in the best position to embed the lesson in every statement.

    It also takes fewer bad faith actors who pretend they can redirect police funding in Fort Wayne Indiana from the Oval Office.

  68. 68.

    NotMax

    @Kay

    It ain’t B-J without the appearance of knee-jerk “We’re all doomed!” posts.

    Unfortunately.

  69. 69.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: Great point. It really is necessary to explode the cult of the presidency too, and Biden’s approach helps while Trumpsters predictably inflate their own power and importance.

    We’re undergoing a 4-year lesson in how important it is not to elect a crazy person as POTUS who staffs his administration with family members and sycophants, but it’s still true that most shit gets done by Congress, state and local governments.

  70. 70.

    evodevo

    @germy: It was a handout to the banking industry who manages those cards…ostensibly it was to get the funds to people who had no bank accounts or who had no bank account routing number associated with their IRS tax returns.  The fees were a sweetener for the banksters to handle the outlay….that day is long gone when the IRS/Treasury could have handled it by themselves…they’ve been too hollowed out by Repub funding cuts

  71. 71.

    Soprano2

    We got that letter too. I made sure to tell my Trump cultist friend that Trump made the IRS waste millions of dollars sending out a letter telling us we were getting a check. They used to care about stuff like that.

    Now I’m going to complain some about the “defund the police” slogan from my perch in mostly white, 65% Trump-supporting country. It’s a bad slogan. It makes the person saying it be put immediately on the defensive in regular (non-activist) media interviews (heard one this morning on NPR that’s probably pretty typical “But you don’t actually want to get rid of the police, right”? “Defund doesn’t actually mean quit paying for them, does it?” “What does it actually mean?”).  I totally understand the concept and where they are coming from, but it’s true that if you’re constantly explaining you’re losing. All those white men and women in the suburbs who saw the video of George Floyd’s murder and all the police assaults on peaceful protesters and are appalled and are with you that the police need to change will suddenly not be with you if they think you actually want to get rid of the police. They hear “defund the police” and say “What? I never said I wanted to get rid of them completely! Who’s going to come when my house gets broken into? Who’s going to catch the criminals?” Whether the activists like it or not, white people see the police as people who protect them and who are essential.  It’s wonkier, but “Reimagine the police” or “Reinvent the police” is actually more descriptive of what they want to do, and it doesn’t turn off Joe and Jane White Person in the suburbs that you want to have vote for Democrats. Whether the activists like it or not, this is the truth. Look for every Democrat to now have to go through multiple interviews where they have to painstakingly explain that no, they don’t actually want to get rid of the police completely, ad nauseum. As a slogan, it’s a fail. I’m pretty sure I know what Frank Luntz would say about it.

  72. 72.

    germy

    @evodevo:  Had to get their beaks wet.

    ProPublica: This Treasury official is running the bailout. It’s been great for his family.

    Justin Muzinich has an increasingly prominent role. He still has ties to his family’s investment firm, which is a major beneficiary of Treasury’s bailout actions.https://t.co/oF9IhRIXlv

    — Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) June 8, 2020

  73. 73.

    Mary G

    Maybe some of our Atlanta readers can explain this line to vote there. They seem mostly white, but mostly are wearing masks and distancing, so I assume Democrats? Also, why put up with this kind of shit?
    ETA: Oops, forgot this:

    Voters line up at Park Tavern at Piedmont Park in Midtown Atlanta. It’s going to be a long wait. Good luck voters! pic.twitter.com/7op7k1VvlT— Mark Niesse (@markniesse) June 9, 2020

  75. 75.

    Betty Cracker

    Uh-oh. OANN is now doing the Presidential Daily Briefing rather than Fox & Friends:

    Buffalo protester shoved by Police could be an ANTIFA provocateur. 75 year old Martin Gugino was pushed away after appearing to scan police communications in order to black out the equipment. @OANN I watched, he fell harder than was pushed. Was aiming scanner. Could be a set up?

    Real tweet from the President of the United States this morning.

  76. 76.

    narya

    We here in northern Illinois are already seeing adds for the mango menace. It’s disgusting.

  77. 77.

    Mary G

    Not gonna link or embed it, but Twitler just put out a doozy:

    Buffalo protester shoved by Police could be an ANTIFA provocateur. 75 year old Martin Gugino was pushed away after appearing to scan police communications in order to black out the equipment.
    @OANN
    I watched, he fell harder than was pushed. Was aiming scanner. Could be a set up?

  78. 78.

    germy

    Reminder: The House Judiciary Committee expects to see A.G. Barr in front of their committee later this morning. Chairman Nadler has floated issuing a subpoena to Barr if he fails to appear. https://t.co/3OFqgpIeWT

    — Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) June 9, 2020

  79. 79.

    Amir Khalid

    @germy:

    I hope you took all the money out with your first, free transaction, and then deposited it in your regular account. By the way, in my country, ATM and other card use fees (one ringgit per transaction, or US23¢) are suspended for the duration of the pandemic.

  86. 86.

    different-church-lady

    @burnspbesq:

    They seem to lack the attention span needed for the long, hard struggle to do things state by state any action at all after they post the Tweet.

  87. 87.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    @NotMax: Was Your Ancestor Written out of History

    When the first company of Saints left for the Rocky Mountains, three convert families from Mississippi sent their slaves ahead with the vanguard pioneer company. The slaves, Green Flake, Oscar Crosby, and Hark Lay (later Wales), were to prepare homes for the families at their destination.

    And

    Although references company members made to the black men traveling with them were not particularly enlightened, the men were a vital part of the pioneer trek. When Brigham Young lay ill at the head of Emigration Canyon, he sent Green and others ahead to prepare the road. Green drove the first wagon into Emigration Canyon, and when Young arrived in the valley, Green had already planted crops. When James and Agnes Flake arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in October 1848, they found that Green had built them a comfortable log cabin in the South Cottonwood area of the Salt Lake Valley.

  88. 88.

    Mary G

    @Baud: Wow, people didn’t get requested absentee ballots, so they brought chairs because they knew that they’d be waiting a long time. That’s dedication.

  89. 89.

    Baud

    @Baud: I see I misread your comment, germy.  I thought you were saying that there was a fee for first-time use.

  92. 92.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: Do you think that speech will actually be attempted? I’m sure the low-quality hires recognize the need for something like that, but even they must see that it will be really tough for Trump of all people to pull it off.

    How will they keep him from ad libbing OANN crackpottery and/or “all lives mattering” the speech? They can’t. It will be a fucking disaster, and they must know that, even as deluded and dumb as they are.

    The sad thing is that the bar is so low that all Trump would have to do is admit a few mistakes and credibly imitate empathy for 15 minutes, and MoDo, et al, would hail him as Great Emancipator 2.0. That’s a real danger, IMO. But I’m pretty damned confident that he is incapable of it.

  93. 93.

    schrodingers_cat

    One thing I like about Biden is that he doesn’t fall for the latest trending hashtag! And also good to see that I am in agreement with Biden about “defunding the police”

    One reason Putin was so overwhelmingly successful in 2016 is because many privileged Americans (not all are white but many are) have rusty survival instincts (because America has been so overwhelmingly successful post World War II) and fall for magical thinking both on the right and the left.

    A luxury many immigrants and minorities do not have. So thank god for the Democratic voters  of South Carolina, especially  black voters who never left Joe Biden’s side. Thanks to your decisive vote we have a fighting chance to take our democracy back.

    Putin must have observed how many Americans brought into the Iraq War build up and decided that the Soviet active measures which had not succeeded for over 50 years would have a greater chance of success now.

  95. 95.

    PST

    Give Mitt Romney this much credit: The man is not known for his exquisite sensitivity to nascent political trends. If he has decided to proclaim that Black Lives Matter, it means that there’s broad support for the concept even in Utah.

    Who is Romney speaking to? He doesn’t have many black constituents. He must believe that support for Black Lives Matter is good politics among the people he represents. I see it as a sign that this message appeals to moderately conservative, educated white people who usually vote Republican. Biden will never win Utah, but this will be an important piece of the puzzle in places like Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin. It means he will have an easier time getting black and progressive turnout without alienating the white swing suburbanites.

  97. 97.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    How will they keep him from ad libbing OANN crackpottery and/or “all lives mattering” the speech? They can’t. It will be a fucking disaster, and they must know that, even as deluded and dumb as they are.

    I’m hoping it will be like that obscene photo op with the orphan. That’s what happens when these freaks try to imitate normal people. You get scenes like that.

  98. 98.

    Baud

    @Betty Cracker: I don’t know.  On occasion, Trump has been persuaded to simply read the speech from the teleprompter.  I just don’t see how they keep Stephen Miller’s hands off of it.

  99. 99.

    jonas

    @johnnybuck: All they have are racist supporters, they have nowhere else to go.

    …which is precisely why they can’t bail on Trump and still be electable as Republicans. They will go down with the ship.

  102. 102.

    jonas

    @Betty Cracker: Here’s what happens every time Trump has to give  a speech in which he needs to act empathetic or offer condolences — two things he’s simply viscerally incapable of: He’ll read the damn thing looking like he’s being given a proctological exam and then rush to watch how the speech was covered on cable news. When he sees someone on CNN or something say it sucked, he’ll then start rage tweeting a few minutes later contradicting everything he just said.  The headlines write themselves: “In Televised Speech, Trump Says Nation Needs to Heal Racial Wounds; Suggests in subsequent tweet that he may pardon Derek Chauvin”

  103. 103.

    Barbara

    @PST: No doubt Romney has long been fighting a battle even if it’s mostly inside his head to reclaim his father’s Republican party.  On the one side there is legacy and principle and  hope and on the other there is actual power.  So I think of Romney the way I used to think of Maureen Dowd (no longer read her at all), which is to say, as an arbiter of the direction in which conventional wisdom is heading.  One thing is sure — Romney will not do anything that would actually decrease his influence or power.

  104. 104.

    Barbara

    @Spanky: I don’t put Comey and Cotton in the same camp.  For one thing, Cotton is looking mostly ahead to getting even more power to remake American society into an authoritarian military state.  Comey has been in atonement mode for a while now.  Yes, the preening and self-regard grates, so I don’t read him, but no, not the same at all.

  107. 107.

    jonas

    @Kay: I’m hoping it will be like that obscene photo op with the orphan.

    Ah, yes, the Great Presidential Moment where he posed with an infant whose parents had been killed in the El Paso massacre by a gunman inspired by Trump’s own anti-immigrant rhetoric, giving a big thumbs-up and wearing that stupid shit-eating photo-op grin of his.

    The only way to top this would be to have him pose in the Oval Office kneeling on the neck of a black mannequin labeled “Racism” and giving a thumbs-up.

  108. 108.

    Citizen Alan

    @burnspbesq: This is why I’ve been calling the Rose Twitter crowd “the Teabaggers of the Left” for years. They’re all authoritarian cultists. They just disagree on what they want the dictator to do once he assumes control.

  109. 109.

    FelonyGovt

    @Mary G: Excellent politics, attacking a frail old man and accusing him of faking a fall that left him on the ground bleeding from the head. Way to solidify the senior citizen vote, especially after declaring them expendable to COVID.

  110. 110.

    jonas

    @Ken: Wait, they’re spending half a million dollars just so Trump sees the ads?

    Yes. It’s a CYA move by Parscale to convince Trump he’s still fighting and not just fleecing the campaign. That Lincoln Project ad — which they purposely aired only on the DC Fox affiliate during Tucker Carlson’s program — suggesting Parscale was getting rich while Trump’s poll numbers were tanking was simply *chef’s kiss

  111. 111.

    PST

    @Soprano2: All the reasons that make Defund the Police a bad slogan highlight what a superb slogan Black Lives Matter is. Unambiguous and undeniable. Only the deliberately obtuse can misconstrue it.

  112. 112.

    PST

    @narya:

    We here in northern Illinois are already seeing adds for the mango menace. It’s disgusting.

    That’s something else we can blame on Wisconsin and Indiana. Those ads sure can’t be meant for us.

  115. 115.

    jonas

    @Citizen Alan: Virtually all revolutions eventually become the very thing they claimed to have fought to overthrow. The inflection point is always when eliminating “counterrevolutionary” thinking starts to replace other goals, such as rule of law, as the main purpose of the movement.

  116. 116.

    SFAW

    @jonas:

    Virtually all revolutions eventually become the very thing they claimed to have fought to overthrow.

    Maybe I’m jaded, but to me, 235-240 years is kind of a stretch for “eventually.”

  117. 117.

    jonas

    @Soprano2: Yeah, there’s a lot of smh right now over this. Unfortunately, there *are* a number of BLM and other SJ activists who are running around insisting that, indeed, they really do want to simply zero out police budgets and eliminate law enforcement, period. More pragmatic progressives are waving their hands frantically, going “No, no. We need police, we just need them to do their jobs right” and trying to explain why “defund” doesn’t mean what it says, it actually means “reform,” or something. It’s such a distraction. The media will, of course, do their best to amplify what a few activists on Twitter are saying to the exclusion of the latter because it’s like bringing out the jilted girlfriend from backstage on the Jerry Springer Show. Oooh! Fight! Fight!

  118. 118.

    Nicole

    @Baud:

    Everything is done by cards these days.

    They did send out some paper checks- my stepmom got a paper check (we got DD, weeks before she did), but then switched to cards, without any sort of notification.  Lots of people threw them out because the return address was something not official sounding, and then got charged to get them replaced.  The whole things seems fishy.  I agree with Dorothy, below, that it sure seems like someone is getting a kickback for this and hope that the Biden Administration looks into it in 2021.

  120. 120.

    SFAW

    @jonas:

    Yeah, unfortunately the media will likely pull that shit. And the whole disband/defund  thing has the potential to become an own-goal.

    I heard some Camden (NJ) official — the mayor, maybe? I don’t know — talking about the police reforms instituted there a number of years ago. The figures he cited seemed encouraging, although there were some questions not asked re: the population (i.e., statistical population set) on which those numbers were based.

  121. 121.

    jonas

    @SFAW: 1. I would argue that calling the American Revolution a “revolution” in same breath as the French Revolution or the Russian Revolution is a bit of a stretch. It wasn’t a complete upending of the existing social order. We just declared independence from British rule. 2. The Founders were smart enough to establish a constitutional government (rule of law), rather than just some junta of self-described “patriots” to govern as they saw fit. 3. There were a few moments early in our history where we *did* flirt with what we would now view as completely undemocratic attempts to quell dissent, such as the Alien and Sedition Acts. Thankfully that remains a footnote in the history of the early Republic, rather than a major chapter.

  122. 122.

    jonas

    @SFAW: Camden didn’t get rid of its police force, but it did dissolve it and then rebuild it. Basically they got rid of the city police dept and created a new county-level LEA. Most of the former city cops were re-hired into the new police force, but only after a lengthy screening process and retraining. They also implemented new community policing practices and use-of-force guidelines. The results were impressive. Camden went from being literally one of the most violent cities in the US to more or less on par with other urban areas of its size and demographics within a few years, and police brutality complaints fell dramatically as well. To be sure, it’s a poor, heavily minority area and there are still lots of problems, but policing is no longer its biggest one. I think a lot of people will be looking at Camden and other cities like it in the coming weeks.

  123. 123.

    Geminid

    @NotMax:   I too am aware of the racist history of the Mormon Church, and I’m  sure the legacy persists. But my comment spoke to how Mormon people may look at things now. Maybe someone who knows Mormons can speak to this.            It may be that I’m  wrongly attributing traits to Mormons that I saw among Mennonites when I lived in Stuart’s Draft Va. They seem to have stayed clear of the Christo-republicanism that so many Baptist and independent evangelical churches have fallen for. And they, like the Mormons, are heavily into foreign mission work and seem to have a less insular world view than most. The local State Senator, Emmitt Hanger, was one of three Republican senators who helped Gov. Northam push through Medicaid expansion in 2018, and then easily turned back a primary challenge from a pistol packing babtist lady. Hanger is Church of Brethren; they are similar to Mennonites in origin and culture.

  124. 124.

    Fair Economist

    @Soprano2:

    Now I’m going to complain some about the “defund the police” slogan from my perch in mostly white, 65% Trump-supporting country. It’s a bad slogan. It makes the person saying it be put immediately on the defensive in regular (non-activist) media interviews (heard one this morning on NPR that’s probably pretty typical “But you don’t actually want to get rid of the police, right”? “Defund doesn’t actually mean quit paying for them, does it?” “What does it actually mean?”).

    A good snappy response is “taxpayer funds shouldn’t be used for cracking the skulls of 75 year old men”. Anytime somebody questions “defund the police”, use it as a chance to point out police abuses, and that our money is being used for it.

  125. 125.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Geminid: Methodist and Muslim also begin with the same letter.  Seriously, I am not sure that Mennonites and Mormons have enough in common to make that kind of comparison.

  126. 126.

    Fair Economist

    @jonas:

    1. I would argue that calling the American Revolution a “revolution” in same breath as the French Revolution or the Russian Revolution is a bit of a stretch. It wasn’t a complete upending of the existing social order. We just declared independence from British rule.

    Yep, it was a rebellion, not a revolution.

  128. 128.

    Bruce K

    If you want the view of someone who might be considered an average Mormon-on-the-street, you might check out the webcartoonist Howard Tayler, specifically his Twitter feed @howardtayler. He proclaims himself to be very conservative (but not “politically conservative”), and he appears to be utterly done with the GOP.

    (His views on the political situation can often be lost in between commentary on art, slice-of-life musings, and incessant teasing of author Myke Cole, an Iraq veteran/Coast Guard veteran/former NYPD contractor who is also publicly fifty shades of pissed off at the current political situation.)

  129. 129.

    PST

    @Fair Economist:

    Yep, it was a rebellion, not a revolution.

    The revolution came afterwards. The early nineteenth century brought deep, rapid changes in social and political norms.

  131. 131.

    Geminid

    @Omnes Omnibus: Both have histories of religious persecution by dominant religions. Both form cohesive bodies within larger gentile communities. Both are heavily into foreign missions that bring them into contact with non-Europeans, and seem to have a less insular world view than other Christian sects.

  132. 132.

    Soprano2

    The worst thing about that interview I heard on NPR this morning is that the woman who was being interviewed, “She the People” president Aimee Allison, said that if Joe Biden didn’t want to say he wanted to “defund the police” that would be a problem for him. She cares more about him reciting her slogan than about getting real change by electing him. I wanted to ask her “So, what’s the alternative? Re-electing Donald Trump? Is that what you’re going to do if Joe Biden won’t recite your slogan?” It’s how the Sanders supporters act, and it drives me crazy.  It’s like caring more about the slogan “Medicare for All” than about actually getting more people healthcare.

  133. 133.

    Geminid

    But like I said, I may be incorrectly attributing characteristics to Mormons that I’ve seen in Mennonites. Someone who actually knows Mormons could shed light on them. I was interested, though, in how quickly the organized blow-back against Romney fizzled (when he voted to convict Trump). I think it would have been different in a state like Alabama or Arkansas.

  134. 134.

    Soprano2

    @Fair Economist: Sure, but that doesn’t help with all the white people who don’t even ask because they hear “defund the police” as getting rid of law enforcement completely, so they decide Trump is the safer choice for them. It’s a deeply stupid slogan, especially considering what they actually say they want to accomplish. I guarantee you hysterical posts about Democrats wanting to abolish law enforcement will be showing up on my FB feed, probably today. I think it’s super stupid for us to set up that kind of hurdle. I’m not talking about what Republicans will say, because I know they’ll bash us no matter what we say. I’m talking about ordinary, not that political people who only vote every 4 years. Why should I have to spend a lot of time explaining to them that the slogan doesn’t actually mean what it sounds like it means? It’s an own goal.

  135. 135.

    Ruckus

    @Baud:

    It’s not the word defund that’s the problem it’s the vision that the word provokes. Joe changed that around to the police have to earn the right for the money, not just have it shoveled to them. Police have to be accountable, they have to be restrained, otherwise, as it is now, their actions can be disastrous, especially left to their own accord.

    It was a great answer to the question. @HoarseWisperer on twitter yesterday ran a thread about how to explain an idea in a way to explain it properly, rather than one word, which would mostly be misunderstood. Defund is that current misunderstood word. Joe just explained it. Not in a catchy phrase but in a realistic way

    And the use of, the discussion of that word, defund, how wrong just the one word is, Joe just explained that in the proper way. The “movement” gave him that word to explain. Yes he shouldn’t have had to explain but most of the people trying have been saying the same thing. Joe just did it far better and clearer. And used the word to explain that he’s not against the police, just them being unaccountable and out of control.

  136. 136.

    Calouste

    The shitgibbon only got 45% of the vote in Utah last time around, so if Romney can find the spine to actually endorse Biden, Biden might win Utah. And there are still almost 5 months, so Romney might take a few more steps in that direction if the shitgibbon gives him excuses to do so, which he will.

  137. 137.

    Ruckus

    @germy:

    Cashing a check gives them nothing. They can make money on you using your new debt card. Them making money is far better than you getting said money. Don’t you understand? Or is that why you are pissed, you do understand?

  139. 139.

    Morzer

    Mitt Romney can prove how woke he really is by beating the shit out of Rand Paul.

    Please, brutality!

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