Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

I was confident that someone would point it out and thought why not me.

Somebody needs to explain to DeSantis that nobody needs to do anything to make him look bad.

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

Not all heroes wear capes.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

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

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

“Why isn’t this Snickers bar only a nickel?”

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

He imagines himself as The Big Bad, Who Is Universally Feared… instead of The Big Jagoff, Who Is Universally Mocked.

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

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Clickwrap

by | 169 Comments

This post is in: 

I wanted to see for myself how, exactly, the Trump campaign rolled out their COVID disclaimer for the Tulsa rally, figuring it was buried somewhere. Nope, it’s right there:

Here’s the text:

By clicking register below, you are acknowledging that an inherent risk of exposure to COVID-19 exists in any public place where people are present. By attending the Rally, you and any guests voluntarily assume all risks related to exposure to COVID-19 and agree not to hold Donald J. Trump for President, Inc.; BOK Center; ASM Global; or any of their affiliates, directors, officers, employees, agents, contractors, or volunteers liable for any illness or injury.

Stick this in a time capsule, because it is pretty much all you need to know about the mentality of Trump supporters in 2020.

Reader Interactions

169Comments

  1. 1.

    Patricia Kayden

    Imagine being okay with putting your potential voters at risk of death.  Speechless.

  6. 6.

    Geoboy

    Is anybody gearing up to do in depth contact tracing on the attendees?  It should be, to quote a former dictator, the mother of all spreading events.

  8. 8.

    donnah

    Also, Trump staff will collect names for their mailing lists, and this group ought to qualify as the most dedicated and ignorant of any other rally group.

  9. 9.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    So I wonder how Trump’s supporters are going to deal with cognitive dissonance between “the virus isn’t real/isn’t that bad!” and Trump’s own campaign acknowledging that that the virus is risky

  10. 10.

    trollhattan

    @Patricia Kayden:

    You’ve encapsulated Being Trump with this. Actual humans can’t imagine it, thank god.

    Yesterday somebody pondered selling confederate flags to the minions heading into this thing, to help the visual representation of the crowd be more accurate. Today I’m leaning towards “Fuck your feelings” facemasks. I suspect they would that get some conflicted responses.

  11. 11.

    Kay

    The 64 counties that moved into the second phase of reopening on June 5 saw a near 42 percent increase in new cases the week before that could not be explained by increased testing alone, according to a Miami Herald analysis of the Florida health department’s case data. Testing had increased by only 8 percent over the same period.

    Is there anyone who actually trusts the governor of Florida’s covid numbers? Besides Donald Trump’s low quality hires, I mean?
    I mean, I’m a partisan too but I’m not a fucking moron. One would think raw self interest would kick in at some point. He has lied about this from the get-go. He’s not reliable. At least go in knowing that he makes this shit up.
    I didn’t vote for Mike DeWine and in fact actively worked against his election but I’m pretty sure he’s not LYING to us. “Democrat” only goes so far. It doesn’t extent to “life threatening”.

  12. 12.

    Ronno2018

    tdump and his staff should be jailed for this behavior (well ok all the other behavior too LOL/CRYOUTLOUD). I suppose he has already said he loves the uneducated, but I suppose this will be the proof.

    I was just thinking about how to purge the justice department of all the Barr toadies. I get that some career employees have families to support and have to go along, but still.

  13. 13.

    LuciaMia

    So I wonder how Trump’s supporters are going to deal with cognitive dissonance

    They’ve been doing great so far.

  14. 14.

    Baud

    @Kay: 

    Besides Donald Trump’s low quality hires, I mean?

    I actually don’t know if those people trust those numbers or simply don’t care whether the numbers are true.

  15. 15.

    JaneE

    Anyone willing to agree to that stipulation is not likely to change their vote even if they do catch Covid-19 at the convention.  The convention is in August.   Anyone how catches Covid-19 will be dead or recovered by the election.  With any luck, their neighbors back home will not think highly of the person responsible for starting a new series of infections in their communities.

  16. 16.

    marklar

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    The responsible thing for editors to do would be to only assign reporters who have recovered from COVID or tested positive for antibodies.

    *I am not advocating for sending those currently testing positive for the virus.

  18. 18.

    Exregis

    Of course the Trump campaign would like to avoid lawsuits. He’s our most litigious president ever and quite familiar with that part of the legal system. Law and order, not so much.

  19. 19.

    artem1s

    @Kay:

    I didn’t vote for Mike DeWine and in fact actively worked against his election but I’m pretty sure he’s not LYING to us. “Democrat” only goes so far. It doesn’t extent to “life threatening”.

    Omission of the facts – is that lying?  ‘Cause I’m pretty sure he’s actively omitting much of the truth of what is happening in Ohio with COVID and those who are threatening Dr. Acton with violence so they can resume business and “worship” as usual.

  20. 20.

    MattF

    In Trumpite terms, no problem. It’s a test. Anyone who gets sick, or, y’know, dies… is a loser. Shit happens. Trump winning is what’s important.

  22. 22.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: The scientist the DeSantis admin hired to build a COVID-19 dashboard and then fired because she questioned their fudged numbers built her own dashboard. It was published in the Palm Beach Post. :)

    There’s speculation that the unemployment insurance fiasco (which everyone knows is a GOP fuck-up on Scott and DeSantis’s heads) is going to hurt Trump in November. I sincerely hope this is right. It ought to be. They kicked their own voters in the teeth.

  23. 23.

    Baud

    Is the Georgia 6th winnable?

    Marjorie Taylor Greene got 41 percent of the vote in Tuesday’s primary for Georgia’s Sixth Congressional District. While this doesn’t make her the official GOP candidate, since she didn’t get a clear majority, it does make her the frontrunner in the August run-off where she will be facing physician John Cowan, whom she beat by 20 points.

    If she wins the primary and then the general election, she will have the distinction of becoming the very first QAnon idiot in Congress — or at least the first member to fully embrace it, publicly. She has not, as of yet, weighed in on the mole children or their whereabouts.

  24. 24.

    Suzanne

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    So I wonder how Trump’s supporters are going to deal with cognitive dissonance between “the virus isn’t real/isn’t that bad!” and Trump’s own campaign acknowledging that that the virus is risky 

    They aren’t going to read it.

  25. 25.

    Mary G

    I think they all need to attend if they want. Fewer fat old bigots to deal with.

    I’m guessing they’ll have trouble filling the hall and watching him flip out about it will be fun.

  26. 26.

    yellowdog

    @Geoboy: The deplorables would never give up their information. Some one could do that thing where they followed cell phones on the beach at spring break in FL back to wherever the covidiots came from.

  30. 30.

    Kay

    Acyn Torabi
    @Acyn
    · 8m
    Trump: The fact that I’m having a rally on that day, you can really think about that very positively as a celebration because a rally to me is celebration. It’s going to be really a celebration and it’s an interesting date, it wasn’t done for that reason but…

    It’s fascinating to watch him to to imitate a normal politician. The thing is, he’s bad at it. The only thing that made him stand out was the nastiness. Strip that away and you have a mediocre old man trying to mimic the pros, and failing.

  31. 31.

    Mary G

    Unifying America!

    Trump on Fox: “I think the concept of chokehold sounds so innocent, so perfect.”
    — Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) June 12, 2020

  32. 32.

    Highway Rob

    @Suzanne:

    They aren’t going to read it.

    Or they’ll tell themselves that it’s to prevent liberal infiltrators from faking COVID to set up a lawsuit and try to embarrass* Trump.

    (*-Objection, assumes facts not in evidence, specifically that he’s capable of feeling embarrassment.)

  33. 33.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    The only thing that made him stand out was the nastiness.

    So many people loved it when the object of the nastiness was Hillary Clinton.

  35. 35.

    Barbara

    @Patricia Kayden: What they don’t say in the release is that the event is not abiding by CDC guidelines regarding safe practices, e.g., requiring masks, social distancing, and so on.  I would love it if a lot of people stayed away out of concern for their own safety.  I have read that delegate slots to the Republican convention are not being filled quickly, with a lot of people declining to go.  It will be interesting to see it going forward.

  36. 36.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    There’s speculation that the unemployment insurance fiasco (which everyone knows is a GOP fuck-up on Scott and DeSantis’s heads) is going to hurt Trump in November. I sincerely hope this is right. It ought to be. They kicked their own voters in the teeth.

    Oh, I hope so. I think national commentary understates how much people love this unemployment boost. It’s like they can’t quite believe it’s real here. I have never seen such a huge effect from one federal program in my entire life. There’s almost a hushed aspect to it- like they think they got it in error and someone might snatch it back. BIG bang for the buck.

  38. 38.

    jl

    Trump might joke about it during the rally, say his (Jewish? That’s a touch Trump would add) lawyers made him put that nonsense in there. if he does, it will get a big laugh.

    In the meanwhile, several European countries are opening up faster than we are, without spikes, second waves, rebounds, etc. etc… The US continues to disgrace itself. Go to the WHO European Observatory on Health for detailed country policies (though I am sure Trumpsters will say it is all Deep State lies, because, why not?) and Oxford U’s Our World in Data to see different measures of how well different countries are doing. A few of them have opened up more than most places than the US for a month now, and they are doing well. Switzerland and Greece are two examples.

    In SF Bay Area, people have been more cooperative than most places in going along with the shut down. But governments are struggling to keep up their end of the bargain, for reasons that may or may not be out of their control Santa Clara county is having real trouble getting its outbreak control program up to required standards. I’m hearing news interviews with local primary care people saying PPE is still hard to get, and so expensive they struggle to pay for it, prices still 4 or 5 times pre-epidemic levels.

    US: the ‘can’t do nation’. When you think about it, not really surprising. What social problems has the US even bothered to try to solve over the last 30 to 40 years? We finally got some crime and incarceration reform. Anything else? Even before the pandemic, the US didn’t give a damn about stagnant, then declining life expectancies. Why would it care now, just because a new infectious disease bug is in the mix?

    Edit: which reminds me that several European countries are starting to fold covid-19 control into standard outbreak control procedures, along with hepatitis, TB, meningitis, as they should to keep the prevalence low enough to allow some approximation to normalcy. I hope they are successful, so there are models of how to do it for the US to follow when, or if ever, it gets its shit together.

  39. 39.

    leeleeFL

    If people attend his rallies, after signing this disclaimer, none of them, and certainly tRump himself can claim they are not members of a Death Cult.

    Wonder if they are ALL descended from snake handlers and fire-walkers.

    What scares me is that I know I will find out that some people I know will do this.  ?

  40. 40.

    Barbara

    @Mary G: One of the replies:

    If you went on a date and someone said “the concept of chokeholds sounds so innocent, so perfect” you would end the date immediately.

    To say the least.  I remember once hearing of an AM radio host who decided to subject himself to waterboarding to prove it wasn’t torture.  He didn’t last long.  Maybe someone can offer to demonstrate a chokehold on Trump.

  42. 42.

    Kay

    @Roger Moore:

    The weird, smarmy teeth baring – the imitation of a smile- is somehow worse than his real nasty personality. It just doesn’t work. It’s like asking a dog to be a turtle. No.

  43. 43.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @JaneE:

    Anyone willing to agree to that stipulation is not likely to change their vote even if they do catch Covid-19 at the convention.  The convention is in August.   Anyone how catches Covid-19 will be dead or recovered by the election.

    Well, there is the dead part.  Dead people can’t vote(though I’ve heard from Republicans that it may be possible in Chicago).

  44. 44.

    bbleh

    @Suzanne: Right, especially after having to deal with the silly Captcha thing and then seeing a button that says not “accept” but “register.”

    I wonder actually how binding this is.  IANAL, but I can’t see it legally absolving the organizers of any responsibility to take reasonable measures to protect the health of attendees.

    I mean, what if it included, say, “fire” or “crowding”  Would that release them from any responsibility for fire safety or crowd control?  I would think there are certain responsibilities inherent in organizing and promoting an event like this that a quick click on a website wouldn’t release them from.

    (Of course proving that attendance caused a case of COVID would be another matter…)

  46. 46.

    fancycwabs

    While the disclaimer might protect Trump from the attendees, there’s no such protection from lawsuits stemming from those who were exposed to attendees and signed no such disclaimer. It’ll be one hell of an October Surprise.

  47. 47.

    JeffH

    @Baud: Georgia 6th is definitely winnable since it’s currently held by a Democrat. However the article has the wrong district for the Q-Anon believer. She’s in the 14th, where she is very representative of a lot of the population. She wins the runoff, she’s going to Congress.

  53. 53.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    So I wonder how Trump’s supporters are going to deal with cognitive dissonance

    It’s not about not believing the virus is real.  It’s about saying “fuck you” to liberals and anyone who tells them to restrict their desires to help others.  (The overlap there is nearly 100%)  A waiver on a form is barely a blip in that mindset.

    @Roger Moore:

    If you stop thinking, you don’t have to worry about cognitive dissonance.

    You may be joking, but this is also important.  It’s easier to ignore a logical conflict than it is to think about it.  You see this constantly arguing with people, especially conservatives.  If they don’t want the conflict to exist, they don’t think about it at all.

  54. 54.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @bowtiejack:

    You CANNOT embarrass a psychopath.

    Then Trump is not a psychopath, because he is extremely vulnerable to external shaming, far more than regular people.  He throws absolute shit fits and is miserable when he’s criticized for anything.  It’s internal guilt and believing he’s morally wrong that he’s incapable of.

  55. 55.

    Baud

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    because he is extremely vulnerable to external shaming,

    Agree.  You can shame him.  What won’t happen is that Trump will not exhibit a public display of embarrassment.  So if you’re looking for visceral evidence of shame, you won’t find it.

  57. 57.

    WaterGirl

    @Betty Cracker:

    The scientist the DeSantis admin hired to build a COVID-19 dashboard and then fired because she questioned their fudged numbers built her own dashboard. It was published in the Palm Beach Post. :)

    I love that.

  60. 60.

    JPL

    @Baud: She’s the 14th and it’s a conservative area. McBath is going to run against Handel again for the 6th. Greene wanted to run in that district but they knew she could not win the general, so the powers that be convinced her to run elsewhere.   I hope that McBath can win the 6th district again, but it’s easier to vote in areas Handel is popular

     

    Jeff beat me to it..   I live in the 6th district.

  61. 61.

    Roger Moore

    @bbleh: 

    I would think there are certain responsibilities inherent in organizing and promoting an event like this that a quick click on a website wouldn’t release them from.

    I think this is a typical legal approach for contemporary corporate America. The goal isn’t to provide them with an ironclad legal defense. The goal is to intimidate potential plaintiffs into giving up. Lots of people will assume the disclaimer is binding and will give up before suing. Even people who believe it isn’t binding will first have to go to the trouble of arguing that in court, which will cost a lot of extra time and money.

  62. 62.

    Mike in NC

    If it gets hot in Tulsa on Juneteenth, they should have chilled bottles of Trump Bleach ready to pass out to his cultists. It’ll quench their thirst and kill the virus at the same time. Winning!

  63. 63.

    Calouste

    @Kay: 

    The people who do national commentary get lots of money, to add to the money they already inherited. They just can’t imagine people get excited about $600. I mean, you can barely get a decent bottle of wine for that /s

  64. 64.

    Just Chuck

    @Barbara: Christopher Hitchens volunteered to be waterboarded, lasted about five seconds, and the first words out of his mouth afterward were “This is torture!”

  65. 65.

    Cameron

    @Baud:  I’d say it’s embarrassment, not shame. If you’re ashamed, you actually feel guilt. When he hears ‘guilt,’ the only thing he thinks of is that shitty gold-colored stuff he paints on his toilet.

  66. 66.

    trnc

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: I wonder about the risk the press will have to take. Editors must be thinking about this as they assign reporters

    They could just skip it since unhinged rants no longer qualify as news.

  67. 67.

    Barbara

    @Just Chuck: There is probably more than one knucklehead who tried this stunt.  I think I would have remembered if it had been Hitchens. I think it was somebody in Chicago.

  69. 69.

    patrick II

    @Suzanne:

    So I wonder how Trump’s supporters are going to deal with cognitive dissonance…

    It’s their greatest skill.

  70. 70.

    Calouste

    Whirlpool just temporarily closed a factory in Tulsa with 1600 employees because of coronavirus infections. I’m sure a few of those employees will have nothing better to do next Friday….

  71. 71.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Barbara:

    To say the least.  I remember once hearing of an AM radio host who decided to subject himself to waterboarding to prove it wasn’t torture.  He didn’t last long. 

    And Hannity still needs to make good on his offer to get waterboarded.  He said he’d do it back in Shrub’s administration.

  72. 72.

    Just Chuck

    @Barbara: Oh yeah, Hitch wouldn’t be a radio host, especially AM radio.  I believe we’re still waiting on Hannity…

  73. 73.

    encephalopath

    “We’re having a big Juneteenth rally in Tulsa. Also don’t come to our rally because we won’t be held responsible for you dying as a result of coming to our rally.”

    It’s like they want to express the giant “eff you” by doing a racist rally at that time in place without actually having to do the rally.

  74. 74.

    Kelly

    @trollhattan: Yesterday somebody pondered selling confederate flags to the minions heading into this thing

    Would be a brilliant fundraiser for Democrats. Raise a little money, add a little more clarity to who the Republicans are.

  75. 75.

    Cameron

    @Barbara: I’m sure you’re right that there have been several dumb enough, but I do remember Hitchins at the time since his reaction was so different from his usual blustery bullshit.

  77. 77.

    Barbara

    @jl: This is extracted from a very long article, but I can’t link because it’s subscription, but it is the first article that I have read that CLEARLY lays out what I have been struggling to comprehend: we spend more on health care than any other nation on earth by a wide margin, and it turns out, that spending is basically useless for dealing with a pandemic. If you want the whole thing I can copy and paste it, but the following is for me the most important:

    American medical care is provided mostly by private entities, including sprawling hospital systems, physicians in private practice, and global pharmaceutical companies. The price of these services is typically much higher than in other countries, a fact economists attribute to a mixture of insufficiently competitive markets and weaker government price regulation.

    Whatever the price, American health care is considered a private good for individual consumption. “In the United States, the medical care system really emerged as a private-sector system, in the sense that it’s an individual commodity that you buy and sell,” says Bradley, the Vassar president. And unlike in some European countries, Americans don’t see health care as the government’s job. Bradley cites the World Values Survey, a global study of public attitudes, which finds that Scandinavians believe the top functions of government to be reducing inequality, promoting literacy, and protecting the health of the population. In the U.S., the priorities are protection from foreign enemies, keeping neighborhoods safe, and spurring economic growth.

    Bradley and others argue that this approach has left the U.S. with an abundance of expensive medical technology but a dearth of investment in many other things that influence people’s well-being, including education, housing, and nutrition. Despite the trillions of dollars the U.S. devotes to health care, the country lags behind many other developed economies on health measures such as life expectancy and infant mortality.

    I can’t think of any grand gestures that would take us out of our misdirected obsession with health care.

  78. 78.

    patrick II

    I am getting disappointingly harsh in my old age, but if someone sees that form, signs it, and goes to hear Trump speak I won’t care if they get sick.  However, I do care that they will bring the disease to their home, infect their families, and people at work, and people sitting next to them at the barbershop. If we could isolate I would just say “have a good time at the speech”.  But we can’t.

  79. 79.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Kay:

    It’s fascinating to watch him to to imitate a normal politician.

    Speak for yourself. I’m not fascinated at all.

  81. 81.

    Yutsano

    @patrick II: That’s why everyone there needs to be quarantined once they get back home. And it needs to be enforced. I’m not a fan of incarcerating innocent people but let the courts figure it out. Sorry Kay!

  82. 82.

    Boris Rasputin (the evil twin)

    @Cameron:  The radio person in question is “Mancow Muller” who did get waterboarded in 2009. He didn’t like it. Wiki has an article on him, if you care enough.

  84. 84.

    debbie

    @Kay:

    It’s fascinating to witness a brain that rickety trying to reason itself through a response to a simple question.

  88. 88.

    germy

    The disclaimer is not legally binding, but his attendees will think it is when they succumb to the virus.  “I can’t sue; I clicked on that thing!”

  90. 90.

    Just Chuck

    @debbie:

    It was said he cried like a baby.

    No shame in that.  Hitch said something about waking up with flashback nightmares.

  91. 91.

    Kelly

    @Baud:very first QAnon idiot in Congress

    Well a QAnon idiot won the Oregon Republican primary for Senate against Jeff Merkley. Not likely too win tho.

  95. 95.

    Brachiator

    By clicking register below, you are acknowledging that an inherent risk of exposure to COVID-19 exists in any public place where people are present.

    So, the people who believe the virus is a hoax or will have disappeared by the time of the convention …. the contradiction is cosmic.

  97. 97.

    not_a_cylon

    I’m sure the attendees will tolerate you wearing a mask if there’s a big ol’ KAG printed across it.

    …sorry, are they back to MAGA now? I meant MAGA.

  99. 99.

    Peale

    So what happens if we all just go and sign up. Get a few thousand of us to sign up and then not go so the stands are empty or they think they need to get a bigger venue.

  101. 101.

    Aleta

    @Frankensteinbeck: To me it seems like yes, he’s vulnerable to feeling shame in that he lashes out hoping to destroy whomever he blames for the shame.  But not vulnerable to the extent that he changes behavior or hides.   The vulnerability of a toxic narcissist / sociopathic sadist or whatever.

  104. 104.

    Martin

    Michigan GOP wants their beer held.

    WALKER, Mich. — Local politicians will host a protest in Grand Rapids on Friday evening for people to burn their absentee ballot applications.

    Not only are they happy to run headlong into the ‘rona, they’re choosing to burn the ships to show their commitment to the cause.

  105. 105.

    not_a_cylon

    @Peale: If I were the narcissist in charge, I’d happily stick with the smaller venue and use the overcrowded lines as campaign material.

    I’ll bet the registration software doesn’t have a cap on it, so any numbers in excess of capacity will just be touted as “lookit all mah MAGAts!”. Wouldn’t be surprised if they padded it with bots, either.

  106. 106.

    Martin

    Something I learned at work – you only write novel legal disclaimers if you believe you are legitimately liable for the thing you are about to do – or at least the lawyers believe that. So when the lawyers say you need a legal disclaimer, stop and have a conversation with them, because they have opinions that deserve to be listened to.

  109. 109.

    Kelly

    Damn, Mrs Kelly has a jury summons for second week of July. Jury website has a detailed description of court room precautions which are pretty good but yeesh. Oregon infections are increasing and Salem is a hot spot.

    Also a long list of acceptable COVID related excuses. Seriously thinking she should claim to be a smoker.

  110. 110.

    Martin

    @not_a_cylon: Practical problem here, the MAGAts that don’t make it into the venue are going to be outside with (does some math) possibly more protesters than Tulsa has people.

    Real possibility for all of the news coverage to be outside the venue with a bit of b-roll inside.

  113. 113.

    Peale

    @Martin: My God, what a stupid set of people we have. As a counter protest, maybe we should sneak into their houses while they are out and burn their remotes so they stop watching Hannity and Carlson.

  115. 115.

    Bill Arnold

    @Mary G:

    Trump on Fox: “I think the concept of chokehold sounds so innocent, so perfect.”

    Projection, perhaps. I now wonder if DJT has ever choked anyone, perhaps even to death.

  116. 116.

    Barbara

    @Martin: Well, I would demur a bit on this one.  You write a disclaimer also in cases where ultimately liability might not be clear, but a disclaimer gives you a shot at getting out earlier in the process.

  117. 117.

    Peale

    I think we’re going to end up with situation where Flynn is sentenced but court orders are just ignored when he doesn’t show up to prison. Or if he shows up, Barr orders the warden to mark him as “checked in” and let him go.

  118. 118.

    rikyrah

    @Kelly:

    Also a long list of acceptable COVID related excuses. Seriously thinking she should claim to be a smoker.

     

    She should claim whatever she has to do in order to get out of it.

    Health before all.

  120. 120.

    not_a_cylon

    @Martin: You’re right, I haven’t thought of that. Still, would make great footage for his LAW AND ORDER fanatics.

  121. 121.

    Martin

    @Frankensteinbeck: Right. Narcissists have this deep seated hatred of themselves. I’m sure Fred just treated him like a piece of shit and he internalized that. The narcissism is the constant need for validation and praise to try and cover up those feelings.

    If you hit him where he’s sensitive, it affects him way more than other people. Call him a loser. Call  him dumb, lazy, etc. He probably doesn’t care about being called a racist.

  122. 122.

    Martin

    @Barbara: Fair enough. I stand by my position that the lawyers have a lesson that us non-lawyers need to listen to and take to  heart.

    But I also contend that it’s unlikely that would result in a novel disclaimer. Our disclaimers for summer camps are the most generic things to cover exactly what you are describing. Trumps disclaimer is quite novel.

  123. 123.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Aleta:

    he changes behavior or hides.

    I must disagree.  He changes behavior and hides frequently.  It’s quite dramatic.  The Suleimani thing is my favorite example to point to, because it’s so stark.  He did that, he started a victory lap, he made threats, and he got called an idiot for it repeatedly on the national news.  When the US was hit back, he did not a damn thing, and the topic disappeared down the drain as he hid from it.

  126. 126.

    scav

    The more people tRump can kill (in the middle of 5th Avenue or anywhere), the more he proves to himself he is still loved, especially in the “real” polls.  It’s even sweeter if they sign an NDA or disclaimer or even a will in his favor first.

  127. 127.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Frankensteinbeck: You may be joking, but this is also important.  It’s easier to ignore a logical conflict than it is to think about it.  You see this constantly arguing with people, especially conservatives.  If they don’t want the conflict to exist, they don’t think about it at all.

    That’s why parody tends to be more effective with them; it forces them to think of a rebuttal rather than just parrot slogans.

  130. 130.

    JustRuss

    @debbie: I believe when this started Trump said he didn’t want to be looking out at a half-empty arena or a sea of masked faces.  Masks won’t be banned, but no one will be wearing them.

  132. 132.

    catclub

    @donnah: so when 5 million people with names like Donald Duck register, do they reserve a bigger location?

     

    asking for screen scraper app.

  133. 133.

    prostratedragon

    @Mary G:
    Chickenshitler indeed. He so wants to be a “great” mass murderer, but wants it to be viruses and cops doing his bidding.

  136. 136.

    Just Chuck

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:

    That’s why parody tends to be more effective with them; it forces them to think of a rebuttal rather than just parrot slogans.

    Never thought about it that way.  But hell yeah that is right.

  138. 138.

    sdhays

    @Martin: Mara LIE-ASS-ON told me last week (or was it two weeks ago?) that it was natural for the man who was impeached for breaking the law to turn to lawn order because it’s “his lane”. And that’s why I stopped listening to NPR over 10 years ago.

    Maybe people want actual law and order – you know, the kind where the police uphold the law and aren’t criminals themselves so that the established order is fair to everyone.

    “Defund the police” isn’t the only slogan that should need context.

  139. 139.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Martin: Most people only ask the lawyers after they did something dumb.  I once had a person who told me when I asked why he hadn’t come to me before doing the dumb thing, “Because you would have said not to do it.”  OTOH he never questioned his bill and always paid on time.

  141. 141.

    Kent

    @Betty Cracker:There’s speculation that the unemployment insurance fiasco (which everyone knows is a GOP fuck-up on Scott and DeSantis’s heads) is going to hurt Trump in November. I sincerely hope this is right. It ought to be. They kicked their own voters in the teeth.

    In practice it is turning into a giant transfer of wealth from red states to blue states.  In state like here in WA the system has been running relatively smoothly (with some minor problems) but most people are getting their checks.  This is in utter contrast to red states like FL and TX which have been a disaster.

    The difference in terms of federal stimulus funds flowing to red vs blue states is enormous and in the tens of billions of dollars.  Because all those unemployment checks immediately flow into the local economy in the form of rents, grocery purchases, clothes purchases, etc.

    They fucked themselves badly in an effort to screw the poors.

  144. 144.

    Kent

    @sdhays:@Martin: Mara LIE-ASS-ON told me last week (or was it two weeks ago?) that it was natural for the man who was impeached for breaking the law to turn to lawn order because it’s “his lane”. And that’s why I stopped listening to NPR over 10 years ago.

    Law and order are two separate (and often opposing) concepts.  The phrase itself is a racist GOP dogwhistle perfected by Nixon as part of his southern strategy where “law and order” was meant and understood to be support for Jim Crow segregation and opposition to civil rights.  So it is indeed Trump’s lane.  Very much so.  But I don’t think that is what Mara actually meant.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy

    Nixon’s advisers recognized that they could not appeal directly to voters on issues of white supremacy or racism. White House Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman noted that Nixon “emphasized that you have to face the fact that the whole problem is really the blacks. The key is to devise a system that recognized this while not appearing to”. With the aid of Harry Dent and South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond, who had switched to the Republican Party in 1964, Nixon ran his 1968 campaign on states’ rights and “law and order”. Liberal Northern Democrats accused Nixon of pandering to Southern whites, especially with regard to his “states’ rights” and “law and order” positions, which were widely understood by black leaders to symbolize Southern resistance to civil rights. This tactic was described in 2007 by David Greenberg in Slate as “dog-whistle politics”.

  146. 146.

    PJ

    @Martin: It’s not that the lawyers necessarily believe you will be held liable for the thing the waiver is about, but that a colorable claim could be made, one that might survive a motion to dismiss.  Holding someone liable for something like getting coronavirus at a convention would be difficult to prove on causation (because conventioneers could have picked it up anywhere – say, at the airport) and there would be a good assumption of risk argument, but no one wants to deal with the cost of a class action, regardless of how likely it is you will prevail on the merits.

  148. 148.

    MomSense

    My office has transitioned to all of us working in the office.  We are not very spread out – probably exactly six feet if we don’t walk from our desks to anyplace else in the office.  We are supposedly not seeing clients and following cdc guidelines.  Clients keep coming in and only 3 out of 10 of us are wearing masks.

    These are all smart people.  No MAGAts.  I think they are desperate to return to normalcy and to feel like they can have some control over the situation.  Yes hey are in complete denial about this virus.

    This situation has me completely stressed out.  I’m worried I will get it and bring it home to my mom.

    Even though they are not MAGAts, I am convinced that the inconsistent and contradictory messages we are getting from our so-called President and Republican Governors have created just enough space for denial to take root.

  150. 150.

    Kelly

    @Kent:In practice it is turning into a giant transfer of wealth from red states to blue states.

    Passing up unemployment money? Kind of a pattern. See Obamacare Medicaid expansion

  151. 151.

    Mike in NC

    @debbie: Even if some people wanted to wear masks, Trump will shame them into not wearing them.

    Alternatively, they might be directed to a nice table selling paper “Trump/Pence 2020” masks (made in China) for a reasonable $5 each.

  152. 152.

    jl

    @Barbara: Yes, please put up link if you are still here. You might be interested in the late Uwe Reinhardt’s work. He was a health and financial economist who looked at that issue. One of his famous articles was ‘It’s the prices, stupid’, I think in Health Affairs. You should find it easily with a google search and I’m pretty sure it’s public access.

  153. 153.

    piratedan

    @sdhays: when it’s become readily apparent that the slogan “to protect and to serve” no longer applies to the people who pay their salaries with their tax dollars, then I believe that they have a right to have input into just how those tax dollars are spent by electing officials to enact their will.

  154. 154.

    jl

    @MomSense: Wow, unbelievable people can’t wear a crummy mask. Hope you stay safe. Maybe you can score some, what is it, N95 masks, if that is the right name?

    I’m sure our Dear Leader’s example has really had an influence, overtly political and direct for his die-hard base, and perhaps subliminal for others. And crummy CDC messaging about them. I think they should have said ‘Masks might help, but sorry, we need them for health care providers now, so public has to wait because Trump idiots effed up’.

    I heard an interview, I think on Sam Seder show, with a historian of the 1918 flu pandemic. He said transparency and honesty and clarity are extremely important in an epidemic in order to retain public trust and cooperation, and the feds have consistently flunked that test for covid-19.

    He also said that business interests tried to Trump their way through the pandemic in the same way the Trump/GOP complex is now. Back then, there was a similar attitude that they could make their own reality through sheer force of dishonest PR. Which did not work then just as it is not working now. So, there were military camps that were killing fields a few miles outside of cities, while local press was pressured into saying that the deadly pandemic flu was just like a cold. Sound familiar? But everyone knew soon enough, both that the disease was  very dangerous, and that their betters were depraved liars. The economy took a big hit, and social unrest occurred anyway. Depressing story: the more things change the more they stay the same, and some people never learn, and those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.

  155. 155.

    luc

    I hope you all have signed up for the event?
    (using a junk-email account).
    In order to facilitate event planning?

  156. 156.

    sdhays

    @piratedan: I’d really be interested to see the reaction to a high-level push to implement rikyrah’s solution: misconduct settlements come out of the police pension fund rather than the taxpayers footing the bill.

  157. 157.

    jackmac

    @Baud:

    Just curious, but are visitors to the White House required to sign away their rights like this? Or sign an NDA?

  158. 158.

    debbie

    @MomSense:

    We were told we’d be going back in the fall; a couple of days ago, I heard it had been pushed back to next year. This is a very large company, and it was all open plan seating in football field-sized spaces. I’d almost bet they’ll never come up with a solution that is fully compliant.

  159. 159.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @sdhays: IMHO the NPR talking-head’s name is most properly rendered as “Mar-a-Liarspawn.” The last part working equally well as “Liars’ Pawn” or “Liar Spawn.”

  160. 160.

    Aleta

    @MomSense: Are the clients who come in required to wear a mask?

    It sounds terribly stressful.  It’s not right that  a business (or nonprofit or gov’t org) can force employees to work in an  environment that risks their health (and wasn’t part of the original job description).

    .

  161. 161.

    Hoodie

    @Barbara:  The current healthcare system in the US is designed for and largely controlled by affluent people, i.e., people who are rich and/or have good health insurance.  It reflects their interests.  Up until COVID, they largely didn’t see themselves as being vulnerable to public health problems that occur in “shithole countries.”   It didn’t used to be quite this way in the US.  There was a good level of  public health consciousness that came out of the Depression/WWII era, stuff like Hill-Burton hospitals.  That was still somewhat alive when I was a kid in the 60’s, but started dying off in the 80’s.  In fact, the hospital my mom worked at most of her career started off as a Hill-Burton hospital and evolved into a corporate medical megaplex that is focused almost entirely on profit and not public service.

  162. 162.

    jc

    I read: “Donald J. Trump for President, Inc.” and I didn’t realize at first that it’s the name of his re-election organization, or something. I thought, oh, he just considers his presidency to be an extension of his company. He’s the CEO of America, Inc.

  163. 163.

    Aleta

    @MomSense:  My friend who works a federal job says that while all administrators are required to wear masks, the other employees aren’t,  unless working very close next to each other.  Even though masks are supplied throughout the building, 50+ employees at a time are not wearing.  So far no cases, but he predicts the place will have to shut down if covid spreads.

  164. 164.

    J R in WV

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    @Martin: Most people only ask the lawyers after they did something dumb.  I once had a person who told me when I asked why he hadn’t come to me before doing the dumb thing, “Because you would have said not to do it.”  OTOH he never questioned his bill and always paid on time.

    OK, this is really LOL funny… thanks for sharing. We have a good friend who is a lawyer, we love to take them to dinner, the stories are hysterical. I’m sure the work can be painful and difficult, but OMG the stories we’ve heard, No names, unless there were headlines, but who needs those anyway?

  165. 165.

    MomSense

    @Aleta:

    Some do and some don’t.  The director won’t.  It’s hot.  He can’t breath.  His glasses fog up.  Waaah waaah waaah.

  166. 166.

    sdhays

    @MomSense: To be fair, your glasses fogging up really does suck. But if your mask has wire in the nose, like the surgical masks, it’s not too bad.

  167. 167.

    catclub

    @Aleta: My friend who works a federal job says that while all administrators are required to wear masks, the other employees aren’t, unless working very close next to each other.

     

    At my federal work, still 98% telework, but I want in to get stuff.

    Two other people on hall of offices for 25.  Both wearing masks.

     

    No hints of my federal org calling people back.

    OTOH, other, federal agency that is all classified,  cannot work via vpn, so their parking lot was 80%+  full.

  168. 168.

    J R in WV

    @MomSense:

    I have worn a nice paper disposable mask, and it was light and comfortable, but DID fog my glasses and make it difficult to see.

    Much more often I have worn an industrial 3M respirator with two big filter packs and straps over my head and behind my neck. Heavy and uncomfortable, but no breath up onto my glasses, very secure as to filtration, etc. Would much prefer the 3M industrial respirator, even tho the replacement filters for the 3M unit are expensive, they last for 40 hours.

  169. 169.

    Gvg

    @MomSense: the masks are turning out to be pretty uncomfortable for long periods. Not excusing it, debating what to do about it. I have had some stressful doctors appointments the past week. The staff in multiple doctors offices are not all consistently masking which made me mad, till I had a long appointment in a stuffier office and after an hour felt like I couldn’t breath. So I switched to a lighter weight mask which still wasn’t great. I have been trialing multiple models including my own makes because work is transitioning back to the office and I want to be careful and comfortable. Not satisfied yet. Trying to find some more to order this weekend to trial. I think I need at least 5 that are comfortable for me to do a ful week. Scratchy, hot, suffocating, fog my glasses, nose piece knocks glasses off, won’t stay on etc. my choice is to keep trying till I get it right.

    you might offer tips, or mention which ones work for you. I don’t know. I’m thinking it won’t hurt

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