Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

This must be what justice looks like, not vengeful, just peaceful exuberance.

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

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

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

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

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

When you’re in more danger from the IDF than from Russian shelling, that’s really bad.

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

Weird. Rome has an American Pope and America has a Russian President.

The fight for our country is always worth it. ~Kamala Harris

We are aware of all internet traditions.

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

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

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

Republicans got rid of McCarthy. Democrats chose not to save him.

If a good thing happens for a bad reason, it’s still a good thing.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

Not rolling over. fuck you, make me.

“Loving your country does not mean lying about its history.”

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.

Rupert, come get your orange boy, you petrified old dinosaur turd.

You are here: Home / Elections / Election 2020 / Repub Venality Open Thread: Tulsa Corona-Palooza, Part II

Repub Venality Open Thread: Tulsa Corona-Palooza, Part II

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Per commentor Another Scott, Wonkette has a liveblog:

… Rather than have a bunch of stuff about the rally gunk up the open thread, we figured we’d put up ANOTHER open thread, but this time just for talking about his dumb rally and how terrible it is. So that’s what this is. We’re not gonna go so far as to put up a live stream, but we will put up a bunch of videos of Trumpists saying very stupid things, for your entertainment…

Prezdint BabyGates is sulking in his bunker:

Checkpoint Charlyhorse…

Reader Interactions

356Comments

  2. 2.

    Steeplejack

    Low-energy Trump so far. Rolling out the old clichés, interspersed with vitriol about recent events. Ranting about CNN now.

    And now Seattle: “They took over a big chunk of Seattle.” “The mayor, who’s radical left.”

  3. 3.

    Gin & Tonic

    Boy, this is exciting. Reminds me of Geraldo Rivera opening Al Capone’s vault.

  4. 4.

    Chief Oshkosh

    Any more word on the claim that teens across the nation “bought” those 800,000 tickets? That and the half-empty BOK are adding up to the sweetest Saturday night in a long time.

  6. 6.

    pattonbt

    Can’t they just do what the bundesliga is doing and put cardboard cutouts in the seats and pipe in crowd noise (in this case braying cows)?

  11. 11.

    Damned at Random

    @Mary G: Pence doesn’t want to be around when the Toddler in Chief vents his wrath over the half empty venue.

  13. 13.

    Renie

    Is it too mean to say how much I am enjoying this ‘low energy’ rally?!?  Bravo to all those people who got tickets knowing they were not going to show up.  Seems a lot of them were from the younger generation.  Knowing this I guess there is hope for the future.

  14. 14.

    Raoul

    I haven’t watched any of it, but I gather Eric was fully wound up about how Daddy is going to mop the floor of the debates with Joe’s deflated carcass.

    So, in a couple months when Donald makes some utterly transparent b.s. excuse about the moderators of the debate not being 100% OAN robots, and he’s boycotting, folx are gonna clip that Eric screed, yes?

    Please, yes.

  16. 16.

    Martin

    Next time the media suggest that Trump’s has some kind of campaigning genius or something, remember that he got trolled hard by a bunch of tik-tok k-pop stans that blindsided the campaign who couldn’t even be bothered to check how valid the signups might be by checking hotel availability in the area.

    You can book a room at any hotel in Tulsa for tonight. Everyone has vacancy. They got the locals, a handful of people driving in and that was it, despite the fact that most of their tickets went to people well outside of driving distance.

  18. 18.

    Damned at Random

    Sir, would you like to salute each cadet? Can you lift your hand 600 times? We have a bet…

  22. 22.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Martin: It’s the Trump admin here. They don’t do “math” or “prepare” or “think”. They just fuck up and then blame the innocent.

  24. 24.

    p.a.

    Smiling thinking about later tonight & behind scenes preznit ‘strawberries’ style eruption over missing crowd.  #antifaboughtthetix!

  25. 25.

    Ken

    @Raoul: I think it’s more likely Trump will miss the debates because he’s raged himself into a myocardial infarction – possibly tonight.

  26. 26.

    Achrachno

    @pattonbt:

    “pipe in crowd noise (in this case braying cows)?”

    Cows moo or bellow.   Jackasses bray — so that’s the sound you’d need for 100% authenticity with this bunch.

  28. 28.

    Steeplejack

    Yes! He has been telling a long-ass story about his long, grueling day at West Point, baking in the sun, listening to speeches, giving a speech, saluting individual pairs of cadets—600 times!

    “Leather-bottom shoes!” That’s the culprit. “It was like an ice-skating rink!” And he keeps going on and on about it. Keep digging, Mr. President.

  30. 30.

    CaseyL

    OMG.  There was a semi-organized campaign – by K-pop, of whom I have never heard before – to get the tickets and not show up.  On Twitter are many folks claiming to have done that with their friends, family, and fanclubs.

    Enough to make a difference?  Who knows?

  32. 32.

    Steeplejack

    @Steeplejack:

    He’s acting it out! And then: “When I was 10 feet short [. . .] I ran down the rest.” But the fake news cut it out. “It ends just before I ran.”

  34. 34.

    FelonyGovt

    @CaseyL: K-Pop is Korean pop music in general, and they have legions of social media-savvy, progressive minded fans who apparently indeed ordered lots and lots of tickets to this sorry event.

  35. 35.

    Steeplejack

    Oh, God, now he’s going to do the two-handed water drinking! “I just saluted 600 times!”

    I think I may pass out.

  39. 39.

    Cheryl Rofer

    Anecdotal evidence, but –

    i have three teenagers. two of them have a pair of tix each to @realDonaldTrump’s rally in tulsa; they registered to spoof POTUS & his campaign. one of them is sitting at dinner now, laughing and saying teens around the united states fooled the man. https://t.co/akLU9o8u3f

    — C.J. Chivers (@cjchivers) June 21, 2020

    Yep, my 4 teens and their friends have hundreds of unused tickets. Bozeman, Montana with the win. ?

    — Marty (@martylivs) June 20, 2020

  40. 40.

    Steeplejack

    @Steeplejack:

    He was cradling the glass so he didn’t spill water on his tie.

    And now he drank one-handed out of a glass in Tulsa. Literally getting a standing ovation from some in the crowd.

  42. 42.

    Damned at Random

    He couldn’t lift the water glass because he saluted 600 times in the hot sun and didn’t want to spill on his expensive tie. Oh, and I’m guessing Melania called him lame, but he left that part out

  44. 44.

    Cheryl Rofer

  45. 45.

    Krope, the Formerly Dope

    @Steeplejack: I was an old-school newspaper reporter a long time ago. I have sat through some dreadful speeches.

    @schrodingers_cat: Worse than this one?

    I gotta say, the man knows his audience.  My sister and brother-in-law are watching the rally across the wall from me and you wouldn’t believe how entertained they are.  They think he’s funny.  Can you believe that?

  50. 50.

    Ken

    @Steeplejack: With Trump, every day is Festivus and the Airing of Grievances. The best part is, most of the people in this crowd would never have remembered West Point if he hadn’t brought it up. Dare I hope that at least a few are now thinking of the ramp and thinking, “Run? Fast shuffle, maybe…”

  51. 51.

    Another Scott

    @Ken: I knew what that was before hovering my mouse pointer over it…

    Good show!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  52. 52.

    Krope, the Formerly Dope

    I’m not going to live tweet all the pre show stuff but Pierson pointed to the gigantic line and asked “where are the protesters”? The security perimeter, which actually expanded this morning, keeps them very far away -Dave Weigel

    Such is the infinite power of our protesters that we were able to decimate the attendance of Trump’s rally with a mere none of us. FEAR US, we brought cookies.

  53. 53.

    The Moar You Know

    Parscale is a dead man walking.  He promised crowds.  He failed to deliver.

  57. 57.

    Ken

    @Cheryl Rofer: w/ that, Trump reinserts questions of his health into national debate

    Except now it’s not just his physical health…

    Still, it’s good to know the Lincoln Project is getting their money’s worth.  “I’ve lived with the ramp and the water since I left West Point….”

  58. 58.

    Steeplejack

    Crowd just cheered at Trump talking about how well the stock market is doing. This crowd probably has fabulous portfolios. ?

    On to Joe Biden: “helpless tool of the radical left.”

  61. 61.

    Mary G

    Not watching it, but left CNN on in a tab and Sanjay Gupta is going ballistic because apparently Twitler said “I told them not to test so much, because it turns up so many more cases.” Daniel Dale debunks all the greatest hits – he signed the VA bill when it was Obama in 2014.

  62. 62.

    Martin

    @MisterForkbeard: But this is the campaign. The is the super-geniuses that realized if they hit the right 100,000 people in PA, MI, and WI on Facebook that they could win, or so goes the media’s theory.

    This is the first shot of the Death Star and they didn’t even bother to do the level of prep work that I would have done for a 300 person academic conference.

  63. 63.

    Barbara

    @Cheryl Rofer: No fucking way.  JFC, how can anyone stand to be in his presence let alone showing him adulation?  What is wrong with people?  Yes, I might have had a few glasses of wine.

  65. 65.

    Krope, the Formerly Dope

    @khead: I wondered who the people are that think this is funny.

    Whenever I’ve listened to the man, I’ve never registered something I would describe as a joke (aside from the speaker himself).  Cruelty and insults, yes.  So I just assume every time I hear a laugh that Trump slaughtered a puppy on stage

    @Ken:As always, the crucial question is, laughing at or laughing with?

    Oh, laughing with.  Somehow.

  67. 67.

    Jeffro

    @Steeplejack:

    Oh, God, now he’s going to do the two-handed water drinking! “I just saluted 600 times!”

     

    How’s that saying go, again: “If you’re explaining, you’re losing”?

    LO-SER

  69. 69.

    Amir Khalid

    @CaseyL:

    Probably American fans of K-pop (South Korean pop music, which is currently enjoying a worldwide vogue). K-pop itself doesn’t really concern itself with American politics.

  70. 70.

    debbie

    From The Guardian:

    3m ago
    01:55
    He turns to “leftist radicals” statues of Thomas Jefferson and Christopher Columbus being torn down. He says that anyone burning the American flag “should go to jail for a year”. He says he believes in freedom of speech but not “desecration”. Respect of the flag is something Trump has turned to recently, even turning on NFL quarterbacks about the subject.

    Seriously, “desecration”? You mean like what it is you do when you hug the American flag with that smarmy grin of yours?

  73. 73.

    Steeplejack

    This speech is like a late-night phone call with a drunk friend where you can’t get a word in edgewise. But you don’t hang up because you’re waiting to hear if you need to come make bail or something.

  74. 74.

    Oclday

    @Steeplejack: From his own mouth he tells us he doesn’t have the stamina to make it through inspecting 2 buildings, walking three blocks, giving a speech, raising his fat arm 600 times and walk down a ramp.

  75. 75.

    Krope, the Formerly Dope

    @debbie: Seriously, “desecration”? You mean like what it is you do when you hug the American flag with that smarmy grin of yours?

    I don’t know if you were deliberately being delicate, but what he does is grope the flag.

  78. 78.

    Calouste

    The shitgibbon used a racist phrase to refer to COVID-19. The US ambassador in Beijing can probably expect an invitation from the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs for an explanation.

  84. 84.

    Ken

    @VeniceRiley: Maybe Biden will make them the first recipients of whatever replaces the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

    (Replacement needed because Trump has ruined it, of course.)

  85. 85.

    Jeffro

    WaPo seems to be reporting that protestors are a half-hour (walk? ride?) away from trumpov’s flail-fest…GOOD!

    Also, whew.

  87. 87.

    Steeplejack

    @Damned at Random:

    “He couldn’t lift the water glass because he saluted 600 times in the hot sun and didn’t want to spill on his expensive tie.”

    That’s relatively close to what Trump actually said.

  88. 88.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    TULSA, Okla. (AP) — Trump comeback rally features empty seats, staff infections

    By KEVIN FREKING and JONATHAN LEMIRE14 minutes ago

    AHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHH AHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHA

  89. 89.

    p.a.

    @Martin:For organization/operations, Putin can’t be bothered with this trivial shit, but his minions will be doing the heavy lifting for tRump on matters that = votes.  We need tRump & co to dig a deep enough hole that Putin’s help (& the founders’ EC) won’t put him over the top.

  92. 92.

    Kent

    Trump just now…

    “many call it a virus, many call it a flu. Some call it Kung Flu”

    Ummmmm???

  93. 93.

    Damned at Random

    Open borders – done with the new material and back to his greatest hits. Good time or a bathroom break

  98. 98.

    Villago Delenda Est

    I’m going to have to obtain a new Schadenfreude meter.

    My old one just exploded.

  101. 101.

    rk

    I’m laughing at the speech. It’s so awful it’s laugh out loud funny. COVAD, Klung Flu, Chinese virus, long rambling justification for the ramp, showing he can drink water and on and on and on. He’s so pathetic. Like the village idiot. SAD!

  102. 102.

    Jeffro

    I know it’s a little out there and conspiracy-theory-ish, but…what if trumpov’s support is actually much, much smaller than the polling, etc shows?

    I mean, I doubt we will get below 27% support but man, the guy is flopping around like a fish on a riverbank, and it’s only mid-June.  He can’t even get a decent crowd in OKLAHOMA(!)  He’s getting punked by teenagers.  His AG just pulled some serious amateur sh!+ and now all that’s left is for the incoming Biden administration/Democratic Justice League to let them all know, ‘there WILL be prosecutions for obstruction of justice if you try to cover up the evidence’.

    Fire for effect, Dems!  This is the weakest president*/human being we’ve ever seen in our lifetimes.

  103. 103.

    debbie

    The Guardian:

    19s ago
    02:14
    Trump says Ice gets “rid of the worst scum on earth”, effectively calling undocumented criminals. He says his administration defends Americans and deports dangerous outsiders. “We’ve got to keep the White House,” he says. He says Joe Biden has never done anything and has only been “a vice president or something”. Somewhere Mike Pence sheds a tear of shame.

  105. 105.

    Kent

    Trump just now:

    Testing is a double edged sword.  When you test more people you find more cases.  So I told my people to slow the testing down.

    For real.  He actually just said that on live TV.

  106. 106.

    Martin

    @CaseyL: Let me break this one down, because I speak gen-z (cue Airplane clip).

    K-pop is Korean pop music, which has quite a large fan base in the US. There’s also J-pop (Japanese pop), similar, but different in style. BTS is a good example of a very popular K-pop boy band. South Korea promotes these bands as way to help export Korean culture, which has been fairly successful. Japan has done the same.

    You might see the phrase ‘K-pop stan’  which refers to a fan of K-pop. ‘Stan’ refers to an Eminem song about an obsessed fan. So a ‘K-pop stan’ just means someone who self-describes as a huge fan of Korean pop-music.

    Tik-tok is a social media platform accessed through a smartphone app. It used to be known as ‘musically’ and typically has videos of teens lip-syncing to popular songs, often in quite creative ways. Anyway, Tik-tok has a large k-pop fan base who are considered to  be quite ruthless in mocking other tik-tok accounts and videos, but also other things. They are very good at banding together, so when the k-pop community commits to something, they bring a LOT of people to it.

    The fact that so many of these communities exist outside of the middle aged american experience can be quite powerful for Dems. If you want to organize a BLM turnout, it’s going to be through channels like this – hidden away from the view of most media, like black twitter.

    Think of it as old-school collective action work that used to be centered on labor unions but instead are centered in a social media context.

  108. 108.

    debbie

    Andy Borowitz on Facebook:

    Upon reflection, maybe handing out waivers that said “This rally might kill you” was kind of a turnoff.

  110. 110.

    rk

    Not one word about people who’ve died. Not one single word! Not even a token fake sentiment.

  111. 111.

    Mary G

    Enough of the loser. Joe Biden talked to civil rights activist and famous bird watcher Christian Cooper over zoom, and it is heartwarming:

    I've found that the way to overcome enormous tragedy in your life is to turn that grief and pain into purpose. Christian Cooper and I discussed how we can take our collective pain in this moment and turn it into a catalyst for change: pic.twitter.com/uPtszYLXxN— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) June 21, 2020

  113. 113.

    Kent

    @Martin: Exactly.   I have a 14 and 17 year old girls.  They are big BTS fans.  Their social media following is extraordinarily enormous.  BTS recently donated $1 million to Black Lives Matter as a nod to their enormous US following.  And they did a live digital concert a couple night ago (it was 2 am here on the Pacific coast and all the kids were up for it.  Absolutely massive.  There is a whole different universe of social media channels that older adults have no clue of.

  114. 114.

    Steeplejack

    “Democrats want to subsidize late-term abortions and after-birth executions.” This is like late-period Coltrane multi-mode improvisation.

  115. 115.

    Krope, the Formerly Dope

    @Kent:

    Testing is a double edged sword.  When you test more people you find more cases.  So I told my people to slow the testing down.

    For real.  He actually just said that on live TV.

    Well, at least the Democrats will be happy for the ad copy.  Seriously, how does he think this helps anyone? All it does is encourage the spread of the virus while maybe keeping the numbers down a little bit temporarily.

    How can so many people listening to this not realize that this is a bad thing?

  118. 118.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    Nicole Wallace just showed pictures from outside the rally where BLM and Boogaloo Boys are gathered. The Boys are carrying. Several have long guns. That looks scary to me.

  119. 119.

    Mary G

    OK, one more:

    So far he’s received standing ovations for making racist jokes, mocking 120k dead Americans and drinking a glass of water with one hand. If this fucker gets a Netflix special before me I swear to god…— Randy Rainbow (@RandyRainbow) June 21, 2020

  122. 122.

    Steeplejack

    “We actually won on DACA yesterday.” We have to refile and do the paperwork right, basically.

  123. 123.

    dmsilev

    @Kent:

    Testing is a double edged sword.  When you test more people you find more cases.  So I told my people to slow the testing down.

    Mordantly curious to see how his mouthpieces try to spin this.

  124. 124.

    Geminid

    So far it’s been a bad weekend for trump, and it’s not over. His tweets tomorrow will make it worse.

  129. 129.

    Krope, the Formerly Dope

    @rk: I’m laughing at the speech. It’s so awful it’s laugh out loud funny. COVAD, Klung Flu, Chinese virus, long rambling justification for the ramp, showing he can drink water and on and on and on. He’s so pathetic. Like the village idiot. SAD!

    Can’t you see? He speaks to the insecurity felt by so many Americans.  People who go through their lives feeling utterly deplorable, but putting on a brave face to put down others despite that.

    I see you Mr. President.  Respect…/

  130. 130.

    Martin

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: If it helps, the anti-immigrant militia groups here in CA have a good history on turning on each other. They arm up because they’re afraid of us, and then one day they realize they’re more afraid of someone else in the group who is also armed and then someone gets murdered.

    Their most likely targets are inside the arena, not outside.

  132. 132.

    Ken

    @Steeplejack: We have to refile and do the paperwork right, basically.

    So DACA’s safe, because on thing this gang has shown is that they can’t do anything right.

  136. 136.

    Bill Arnold

    @CaseyL:
    Big during recent Floyd-related BLM protests:
    The K-Pop Stans Are Radicalizing (June 4, 2020, Kathleen Hou)

    The radicalization of the stans seems to have begun on May 31, when the Dallas police department tweeted a request for users to submit videos of “illegal protest activity” on Twitter or their own iWatch app. “DOWNLOAD THE APP AND SEND ALL YOUR FANCAMS!!!” one user suggested, per BuzzFeed News. (“Fancams” are short videos, usually of K-pop stars performing, that stans are notorious for posting in replies to mostly unrelated tweets.) “SEND THEM ALL!!! MAKE THEIR JOBS AS HARD AS POSSIBLE!!! GET THEM FRUSTRATED!!! MAKE THEM TAKE DOWN THE APP!!!”

  137. 137.

    Jeffro

    @Geminid: worse…for him.  =)

    From now ’til November (and then I guess until Inauguration Day) it will be rough, we will be tested, and yet…it will be so, SO worth it.

    Tweet your brains out, Ill Douche!  I just need a competent, genuinely American government to hit the ground running in January and keep us from having to shelter-our-seniors-in-place indefinitely, reopen K-12 schools, get the country to understand that wearing a mask is not a marker of political allegiance, and get all this shit straight before the next pandemic hits.

    (and also, not bend over for Russia, MBS, Turkey, etc)

  138. 138.

    Krope, the Formerly Dope

    @debbie: I usually go with “hump” because that matches the look on his face as he is groping.

    Well, I will accept this as I refuse to observe what he does with his midsection as he performs…whatever heinous ritual with the flag.

  139. 139.

    NotMax

    Any weather reports announcing the sudden appearance of a mass of hot air over Tulsa?

  140. 140.

    rk

    I’m more handsome than the elites, I have better hair, I have more properties. They’re not the elites, you’re the elites.

  141. 141.

    Aleta

     

    Steve Schmidt @SteveSchmidtSES

    My 16 year old daughter and her friends in Park City Utah have hundreds of tickets. You have been rolled by America’s teens.

    Can’t say if it’s true, but some of the replies to him:

    Omg my 13 year old told me about teens getting tickets to keep the stands empty. Man do I love this generation! I am finally getting optimistic about our future.

    It wasn’t just teenagers. I’m 60 and I’ve got 300 tickets. And I’m an Oklahoma Democrat.

    My 18 yr old granddaughter and everyone she knows did the same :)

    Her, and a ton of K-pop fans on Tik Tok. Power to the teens.

    My grandaughter was a part of the kpop one and I couldn’t be more proud of her.

    My daughters do too.

    My 17 yr old daughter & friends did the same. I thought she was kidding me on how many teens were on board. Amazing!

    It appears quite well spread and organized. Perhaps the next “greatest generation”.

    Yup Mine too Steve Was like a Girl Scout cookie competition…

    My 15-year old and her friends in Denver also purchased an obscene amount of tickets. I knew teens were smarter than Trump, but I had no idea they could outwit his campaign staff.

    A ton of Oklahomans took part in this venture too!

  144. 144.

    Patricia Kayden

    I had two tickets to tonight's rally.They were reserved in the name of Joan Quigley.She was Nancy Reagan's personal astrologer.Unfortunately, Joan and I were unable to attend.Joan, because she's dead. Me, because LOL.— JoeMyGod (@JoeMyGod) June 20, 2020

  145. 145.

    Gin & Tonic

    Since this is an open thread, here’s a Twitter thread about football in Russia. Worth five minutes of your time if you’re at all interested in football or Russia. Or even if not.

  147. 147.

    Mallard Filmore

    @Patricia Kayden:

     

    The autonomous K-pop brigades have successfully sabotaged the #TrumpRally by RSVPing thousands of seats ahead of time.

    I do not understand this. The K-pop brigades soaked up a lot of free tickets, so what? It gave Team Trump a stiffy, something to crow about, but any dedicated Trumper would still get in the arena. Nobody was frozen out of the experience. Its not like those phantom tickets were assigned to a seat.

  148. 148.

    Martin

    FYI, Trumps statement ‘I would tell you if I had parkinsons’ can probably be taken as a straight  up  admission that he has parkinsons. We’ll know for sure if they accuse Biden of having  parksinsons.

  149. 149.

    gwangung

    @MomSense:

    I did not have KPop Resistance on my bingo card.  Love it.

    Does anyone have any sense what a massive success like this would do for political activism among young folks?

  150. 150.

    Raoul

    @Martin: OMG, I just looked, the Hampt*n Inn a couple miles from downtown is $84. Tonight. The Courtyard right downtown is $129.

    Jebus. Parscale is a complete jackass.

  152. 152.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    OT:

    Geoffrey Berman is leaving office immediately after standoff with Trump administration

    Though Barr had said Friday that he would install Craig Carpenito, a person close to Barr who is now the US attorney in New Jersey, to serve as Berman’s acting replacement, the attorney general’s letter Saturday noted that “by operation of law,” Berman’s current deputy, Audrey Strauss, will become acting US attorney.

    “I anticipate that she will serve in that capacity until a permanent successor is in place,” Barr wrote.

    Berman’s strategy of refusing to resign paid off for his former office. In a victory lap, Berman said he was leaving “In light of Attorney General Barr’s decision to respect the normal operation of law” by appointing Strauss.

    The move was viewed as a win for SDNY, where prosecutors had become uneasy over the prospect of a new leader viewed as loyal to Barr.

    Berman’s 18-hour hold-out appeared to force Barr to walk back his initial plan to appoint Carpenito. It isn’t clear why Barr changed course but his appointment of Strauss proved enough for Berman to step down.

    “After all this what did they gain by getting rid of Berman? Nothing,” said one former SDNY prosecutor of Barr.

    On Friday evening, Barr said he intends to nominate as Berman’s permanent replacement Jay Clayton, the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, who has never been a prosecutor.

    The attorney general also announced in his letter to Berman that the DOJ’s inspector general would provide oversight of the Manhattan US Attorney’s office, a step that is likely to cause New York federal prosecutors, who famously prize their independence, to balk.

    “Going forward, if any actions or decisions are taken that office supervisors conclude are improper interference with a case, that information should be provided immediately to Michael Horowitz, the Department of Justice’s Inspector General, whom I am authorizing to review any such claim,” Barr wrote.

    Horowitz is something of a company man, yes? SDNY also has suspicions that Barr is funneling politically sensitive cases to other US Attorneys Offices and keeping them within the DOJ itself

    I don’t understand why Berman left, even if there was still going to be an SDNY person left in charge. He should’ve stayed and fought it out, actually made Barr present proof that Trump fired him. But then again, the man did donate to his campaign in 2016

  153. 153.

    schrodingers_cat

    @rikyrah: In my last Zoom call with Dems in my town one Warren supporter (older white woman) was stating with absolute certainty how black women would be overjoyed with Stacy Abrams as the VP pick. I rolled my eyes so hard that my eyeballs were in my sockets.

     

    ETA: Excellent choice with Harris. If she is chosen some Indian leftier-than-thou types will attack her for being upper caste. You can take that to the bank.

  154. 154.

    Damned at Random

    Introducing the band now: Inhofe, the other senator, the gov, Gym Jordan, and others. My guess is this is almost over there will be on encores

  155. 155.

    Martin

    @Mallard Filmore: Willing to bet  more than a few supporters begged off not  wanting to be stuck outside.

    But mostly, Trump’s kryptonite is being seen as a loser, and this makes him look like a loser given how much they  were overselling the turnout.

  156. 156.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    my god

    andrew kaczynski @KFILE
    Trump is reenacting walking down the West Point ramp.

    I know I’m not the target audience, but I’ll never process that this gibbering buffoon somehow reassures them of a lifetime of resentment and insecurities. That kind of third-rate Benny Hill, un-self-aware grand guignol histrionics makes them believe him when he says he’s smarter than all them perfessers and know-it-alls who look down on them, so they must be smarterer too.

  157. 157.

    Ken

    @Mallard Filmore: They overbooked worse than any airline – 800,000 tickets for 20,000 seats. In some ways it’s lucky for them that most of those were bogus, can you imagine the chaos if 800,000 people had shown up? Tulsa’s population is only 400,000.

    (Course Parscale said the quiet part out loud, when he called it the biggest data grab ever.  It looks like he might have to clean that data a bit – it wouldn’t surprise me if they already had the names of 90% of the people who actually attended.)

  158. 158.

    dmsilev

    Headlines:

    Washington Post: Trump blames media and protesters for empty seats, says he ordered slower coronavirus testing
    FTNYT: Crowd Is Sparse as President Tries to Reignite Campaign
    LA Times: Trump wanted big crowds at his comeback rally in Tulsa. They didn’t show up
    AP: Trump comeback rally features empty seats, staff infections
    and, just for giggles, Fox News: Trump mocks Seattle ‘anarchists,’ touts ‘law and order’ presidency in Tulsa rally marking campaign relaunch

  160. 160.

    Jeffro

    @Raoul:

     

    @debbie:

    Rooting for injuries; specifically, a footprint-sized bruise on Mr. Cambridge Analytica’s rear end and (if the FSM is generous) a lawsuit for “false crowdification” or some other nonsense from the Ill Douche

  161. 161.

    Wyatt Salamanca

    @Jeffro:

    This is the weakest president

    I don’t know if Trump is the weakest President we’ve ever had, but he’s far and away the dumbest, the most corrupt, and the laziest.

    Tonight’s speech like every other speech Trump has delivered is 100% substance free, it’s simply a super sized steaming pile of excrement unworthy of the office of the Presidency.

    Every day, through his words or his actions, Trump proves that he’s unfit to run a lemonade stand let alone run this damn country.

    Biden will need to hire a great cleaning service in order to remove the overpowering putrid stench that Trump leaves on the White House.

    FUCK Trump and his whole goddamn fucking family.

  164. 164.

    Yutsano

    @Krope, the Formerly Dope:

    Seriously, how does he think this helps anyone?

    I’mma gonna stop you right there chief. He doesn’t “think”. He acts in the moment as to what he feels will meet his narcissistic needs then moves on to the next moment. There is no underlying strategy. He is nothing but contemporaneous reaction. We shouldn’t ascribe that to him of which he is not capable.

  167. 167.

    jackmac

    My just-turned-21 daughter was among the hundreds (thousands?) who punk’d Trump tonight by reserving a spot at his Tulsa rally. She had no intention of attending, of course.

    The empty lots and seats inside in the upper level was delightful to see.

    Nothing like a little guerrilla political activism.  I’m so proud of her!!

  169. 169.

    Ken

    @Wyatt Salamanca: Biden will need to hire a great cleaning service in order to remove the overpowering putrid stench that Trump leaves on the White House.

    I also suggest sweeping the Oval Office for bugs. When was that Russian news crew allowed in, again? And am I mis-remembering, or were they unsupervised at Trump’s insistence?

  172. 172.

    Martin

    Heh, my wifes minister reserved a bunch of seats. Smart enough to use a burner account too.

    I mean, when you’re getting trolled by clergy, you really need to re-evaluate things.

  173. 173.

    Dan B

    @schrodingers_cat: A friend who teaches ESL is out of a job because foreign students don’t want to come to the US.  It’s awful because our friend just started treatment for cancer.

  176. 176.

    MomSense

    @debbie: 
    More important for VPs to have good relations in the Senate because their role tends more to pushing legislation.
    I’d love to see Rice at State.

  177. 177.

    Ken

    @dmsilev: Interesting that so many of the headlines – even Fox’s – are calling this a comeback, relaunch, rebrand, etc.  I suppose it’s the right idea when someone has dropped so far in the polls, but it’s a bit surprising to see it acknowledged by the media.

  179. 179.

    catclub

    @rk: It’s so awful it’s laugh out loud funny. COVAD, Klung Flu, Chinese virus, long rambling justification for the ramp, showing he can drink water and on and on and on. He’s so pathetic.

     

    I am more appalled that these are our same fellow citizens who voted him in the first time, than I am at him. They apparently lap it up.

  180. 180.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Jesus H Christ that Fox Chyron is REAL?

    “Trump debunks fake news”. What awful, useless people. They’re see that Trump medicated and practiced and now he can… when prepared… walk down a ramp and hold a glass with one hand. When stage managed. And this is “debunking fake news”.

  181. 181.

    dmsilev

    Via the Post, the clean-up attempts have begun:

    “So I said to my people, ‘Slow the testing down,’” he said, as the audience cheered. A White House official said later than the president was kidding.

    Odds are pretty good he’ll contradict that on Twitter sometime tonight.

  183. 183.

    Steeplejack

    Trump apparently back on the prepared speech, racing through it by rote. Looks like he realized he’s about 30 minutes behind after all the ad-lib vamping he did.

  185. 185.

    Bill Arnold

    @Ken:

    It looks like he might have to clean that data a bit – it wouldn’t surprise me if they already had the names of 90% of the people who actually attended.)

    Shhh. :-)
    (This is the funniest part of that op, IMO)

  186. 186.

    catclub

    @Yutsano: There is no underlying strategy.

     

    Mostly true. I would say the only strategic thought is “never apologize”.

    It is the only constant I can detect.

  187. 187.

    different-church-lady

    A major party candidate for president just felt the very strong need to prove to the country that he can…  (checks notes) … (double-checks notes…) …drink a glass of water.

  188. 188.

    Krope, the Formerly Dope

    @Yutsano: Fair enough.  Next question.  How does someone who can seriously propose not testing people because it makes the numbers too high have any support?

    To attempt to answer my own question, perhaps they listen to Trump the same way I listen to rap and hip hop.  I let it wash over me.  Appreciating it for aesthetic enjoyment but rarely picking up much of the lyrics.

    I hope my answer is wrong, the implications would be horrific.

  189. 189.

    sdhays

    @Steeplejack: Umm…Republicans are the ones who don’t give a shit about babies after they’re born. When they’re a fetus, there’s nothing more sacred, but after they’re born, they’re damn sinners who need to take care of themselves. AND STAY OFF THE TAXPAYER’S TEAT!!1!

    ETA: More projection, I think…

  190. 190.

    Steeplejack

    Abrupt finish, and now the Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” Why does he think that’s a great song for him? And why haven’t the Stones’ attorneys crushed his nuts for continuing to use it?

    Suddenly Judge Jeanine on Fox. My eyes! Click.

  191. 191.

    Ken

    @jackmac: daughter was among the hundreds (thousands?) who punk’d Trump

    Hundreds of thousands, if you believe Parscale’s claims about the number of registrants. In which case, the 10,000 or fewer who actually showed up are a rounding error.

  192. 192.

    Martin

    @Dan B: It’s not so much that they don’t want to come, it’s also that they can’t. But the ones that do want to come are afraid that Trump will issue an order to revoke their visa as is happening now with Chinese students. Much safer to pick another country than to potentially lose a year of study.

  193. 193.

    Jeffro

    @debbie: I am fine with Rice and she would do an excellent job.  This upcoming Biden presidency, presumably a 4-year project, has a LOT of clean-up work to do, and putting Rice in there has a lot of side benefits for the Democratic party.

    Being optimistic here:

    • focus is back on Biden as the party unifier and choice for all who want to defeat trumpov…not much fodder for intra-party squabbles
    • no issues with Harris or Demings on their police/prosecutor records
    • no issues with Warren’s age or her NOT being a woman of color

    And on and on.  Just focus on cleaning up the mess, instituting safeguards in our politics, and executing the Warren/Harris agenda of a more just and equitable country.

    I’ll just stop there after saying I’m also fine with Warren or Harris as VP.  The main thing is Biden, the main thing is to be the not-trumpov, the main thing is to register and GOTV, crawl over broken glass, all that.  You know the drill. ;)

  197. 197.

    TS (the original)

    @Steeplejack:

    And now he drank one-handed out of a glass in Tulsa. Literally getting a standing ovation from some in the crowd.

    The toddler when they stop using a sippy cup – and the family applauds.  Why do I keep thinking  this cannot be true

  200. 200.

    Jeffro

    @Wyatt Salamanca: agree with all but…wouldn’t dumb + corrupt + lazy automatically put a president in the bottom tier if not the worst of all time? ;)

    And doubly agree with FTAHWGFF!

  201. 201.

    CaseyL

    @Martin:

    @Kent:

    Interesting!  As an inhabitant of a few “hidden universes” myself (various fandoms and interests) this intrigues me.  Particularly as the kids are using social media as a political tool/weapon, pretty effectively.

    I hope they use this power more often… like, say, GOTV.

  202. 202.

    Wyatt Salamanca

    @Immanentize:

    Yes, cleaning the White House after Trump’s departure would be comparable to cleaning the Augean stables.

    @Ken:

    You raise a good point. The White House will need to be swept for bugs as well as cleansed from Trump’s putrid stench.

  204. 204.

    Morzer

    @Chief Oshkosh: I am seeing claims that it was specifically a bunch of k-pop fans who decided to use their expertise in gaming ticket sales and bought up a bunch of tickets with no intention of showing up. Looks like they understand the art of the deal a damn sight better than Deadbeat Donnie ever did.

  205. 205.

    Amir Khalid

    @Steeplejack:

    Trump doesn’t give a fuck what Mick and Keef think of him. Also, he has this one clever trick: his people blame the venue for playing the song.

  213. 213.

    Jeffro

    @Wyatt Salamanca: it’s time to perhaps think about making the WH the people’s house/museum, and building a new POTUS executive office building with a separate residence.

    Some funk just won’t wash out.

  214. 214.

    gwangung

    @CaseyL: Like I said before..they did a little political guerilla warfare…and it looked like they had an effect.

    I would think it would encourage them to engage in other political activity…

  216. 216.

    Steeplejack

    Where are these MSNBC correspondents getting these cool (and comfortable-looking) masks? I’m in the market. I have one that a friend made for me, but the fit is not quite right. It gives me Alfred E. Neuman ears. Now I’m planning for the long, long haul that this coronavirus thing appears to be.

  217. 217.

    dmsilev

    @sdhays: Tickets were free. Well, you had to give Trump’s campaign your email address, but throwaway accounts are trivial to get.

  218. 218.

    bluehill

    Keep Pascale! He’s doing great. If Trump would have kept Manafort and Lewandowski last time, we probably wouldn’t be in this mess now.

  219. 219.

    Geminid

    Stacey Abrams is an very talented and capable politician, but Biden won’t pick her as VP and that’s just as well. She has unfinished business in Georgia, namely a rematch with cheatin’ Brian Kemp. Georgians badly need a good governor, and Abrams could be a great one.

  221. 221.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    from Heilemann’s keyboard, et cetera, et cetera

    John Heilemann @jheil 1h

    There is only one word to describe this performance of Trump’s in Tulsa: pathetic.
    And one conclusion to be drawn: he’s finished … and he knows it.

  223. 223.

    Wyatt Salamanca

    @Jeffro:

    When I saw you use the word weakest, I thought you meant weakest in terms of his polling numbers and not as a synonym for worst.

    I think Trump is the absolute worst President in our history.

    I also forgot to include that he’s the most malevolent, heartless, and mean spirited President, in my opinion.

    Mr. Robinson in The Graduate best sums up my feelings about Trump: “I think you are scum. You are a degenerate!”

  227. 227.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    the very well-sourced Jonathan Swan on MSNBC: “this is not going to be a very pleasant plane trip home” on AF1

    “there will be recriminations…”

    aren’t some goons from the original campaign gunning for Parscale’s job? Lewandowski and that goon who helped Dan Burton shoot up some honeydews in his backyard?

  230. 230.

    Dan B

    Trump mocks the Seattle CHAZ / CHOP as a 19 year old black man was killed by what appear to be white separatists in a drive by.  Another young black man is in ICU.  The police were slow to respond as have the police in other areas with George Floyd protests.

  234. 234.

    Wyatt Salamanca

    @Steeplejack:

    As a huge Rolling Stones fan and of this song, in particular, it pisses me off to no end that Trump continues to abuse it

    From the few stories I’ve read on this subject, musicians don’t have much leverage from a legal perspective to prevent their music from being played against their wishes.

  236. 236.

    Redshift

    @Morzer:

    I am seeing claims that it was specifically a bunch of k-pop fans who decided to use their expertise in gaming ticket sales and bought up a bunch of tickets with no intention of showing up. Looks like they understand the art of the deal a damn sight better than Deadbeat Donnie ever did. 

    I believe it. A couple of weeks back in response to the protests, #whitelivesmatter started trending on social media, and K-pop fans flooded it with pictures of Korean pop stars and anti-racist messages, killing any further interest from racist white people.

  239. 239.

    Steeplejack

    In looking at footage of people filing into the arena tonight, I didn’t see anyone taking their temperatures or handing out masks. Did anyone else?

  243. 243.

    Ken

    @Steeplejack: Various news reports say that both were done, but that many attendees immediately threw the masks away. Also if someone flunked the temperature test, they were put in a cool room and retested a few minutes later.

  244. 244.

    sdhays

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: With the increasingly apparent dementia, I wouldn’t place any bets on what Dump “knows” from minute to minute. But, deep down in his core, he’s always known that he’s a loser and he sucks, and that’s the source of his unquenchable neediness for undeserved adoration. No amount of dementia is going to cure him of that.

    I think it’s still too early for Dump to really begin to comprehend that this is what he has to look forward to in the 2020 campaign. Presumably, they’ll try harder to prevent gaming the issuance of tickets in the future, but COVID-19 is going to put a damper on his rallies for the rest of the campaign. If the spike in COVID-19 cases is on the worse end of the possibilities, it might prevent anyone from allowing him to have another rally like this again all year (except for the evil shit in Floriduh).

    When that reality settles in (if it ever does), hold onto your butts….

  245. 245.

    jl

    ‘ “Remove clothing with expletive messages” would knock out a bunch of shirts I’ve seen: ‘

    Does the third line of the sign in that Weigel tweet say ‘Leave balls ON’?

    Edit: Oh… belts…? OK. Never mind.

  246. 246.

    Redshift

    The best short-term outcome would be if today is humiliating enough that the other planned events get cancelled, and we don’t have any more plague rallies.

  247. 247.

    Ken

    @sdhays: I think the next two events were in Arizona and Wisconsin, be interesting to see if either of them cancels.

    @Redshift: I had the same thought, but there’s no way he cancels. He needs the hit of unthinking adulation to counter reality.

  248. 248.

    Steeplejack

    @Ken:

    I saw several clips where (it looked like) people were streaming in three or four abreast with no pausing at all, or even anyone waving a thermometer.

  249. 249.

    Martin

    @CaseyL: It’s kind of always been like this. I think what really woke me up to it was the immigration rally  in 2006. Half a million people in LA, and NONE of us knew about it. I asked a few students and they were incredulous, it was 24/7 on spanish language radio here, and facebook but it never broke out of those communities. I remember around the same time that there was a racist incident at UC San Diego – one of the frats, IIRC, which the university did a poor job of responding to, and there was a big boycott of applications there that year. It never seemed to  be a big enough news event to trigger that kind of response but it turns out that spread through the black barbershop network.

    I some ways, this is no different from how 4chan works – mischief for the lulz. But these communities are quite a bit more diverse than their meatspace counterparts so they become quite strongly inclusive on race and gender and whatnot. And these are communities that they control, which is very appealing to young people that have suffered through overpoliced schools and, well, a lot of bullshit from the olds.

    If you can reach them on their terms – something that Obama did a good job of and still gets a ton of praise for the effort – then you  can win them over in big numbers. Not sure the Biden campaign can pull that off, but that’s why I like Harris on the ticket – she (and moreso Maya has that eye). They know how to reach and motivate young voters.

    In some ways, I think that’s why POC and young people are important to campaigns. They don’t see the world of reaching voters as Fox vs MSNBC. They roll through an entirely different space, and they get that lots of people do. I think that’s why AOC shocked everyone with her win – she reached a whole other group of voters entirely out of view of the political class.

  250. 250.

    Wyatt Salamanca

    @Immanentize:

     

    Those guys don’t own the rights to that song anymore.

    Did you learn this information from a magazine or newspaper article?

    Do you know how much else of their catalog Mick and Keith no longer own?

  251. 251.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Jeffro: I know it’s a little out there and conspiracy-theory-ish, but…what if trumpov’s support is actually much, much smaller than the polling, etc shows?

    It’s certainly noteworthy how Trump’s approvals are so much higher than the support for Trump’s actual policy. I take to mean a lot of his voters aren’t showing up in November.

  252. 252.

    TS (the original)

    The response to Coronavirus could have re-elected trump. If he’d done it as per NZ or similar he would have got support from “both sides” for his actions – but he is just too stupid – or he really has the worst people on the planet working for him – or both.

  253. 253.

    jl

    @Wyatt Salamanca: They lost the rights to most of their songs? Wow, so many Trump could play at is rallies:

    100 years ago

    Sympathy for the Devil

    Slipping Away

    You don’t have to mean it.

  254. 254.

    p.a.

    JFC.  Suggests.  SUGGESTS.  FECK THE AP

    @ZekeJMiller

    The Latest: Trump suggests he urged slowing of virus testing (from @AP)

  255. 255.

    jl

    @sdhays: Trump really does seem to have this sincere fixed notion rattling around in his head that if you don’t test for the disease, somehow, it won’t be a problem.

  256. 256.

    mad citizen

    @Ken: Or one final confirmation that he has NO chance this time and it’s time to execute the exit plan to FLA.

  257. 257.

    Ken

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: It’s certainly noteworthy how Trump’s approvals are so much higher than the support for Trump’s actual policy.

    I put that down to the sunk cost fallacy – people who voted for him in 2016 and continue to support him rather than admit they made a mistake.

  258. 258.

    Martin

    @Raoul:

    OMG, I just looked, the Hampt*n Inn a couple miles from downtown is $84. Tonight. The Courtyard right downtown is $129.

    Jebus. Parscale is a complete jackass.

    Yeah, this is not rocket science. Booking.com will tell you in 30 seconds if you fucked up your event or not.

    Don’t expect this to work on the future. They’ll come up with a  different mechanism to get seats. I hope the k-pop stans feel emboldened to rise to the challenge, but eventually they’ll get it sorted out.

    Obama’s monster outdoor rallies were the way to go, though.

  259. 259.

    Wyatt Salamanca

    @Morzer:

    Looks like they understand the art of the deal a damn sight better than Deadbeat Donnie ever did.

    Trump could not find his ass with both hands and a map.  He’s a single digit IQ President.

  260. 260.

    Jeffro

    @Steeplejack: Because he wants that bitter resentment coursing through his people’s veins when they leave, the same way it always does when he’s alone and thinks of how Fred trumpov never loved him, that’s why.

  261. 261.

    TheOBP

    @Gin & Tonic: ? I remember watching that dud.  It’s frankly a testament to his tenacity, luck, or possibly negotiated soul settlement, that he still has a career after that debacle

  262. 262.

    Kent

    @debbie:

    @schrodingers_cat:

    I have to say I like the idea of Rice as VP. We got an awful lot of repair work to do in the world.

    She would also make a good secretary of state, which is a pretty damn important job too.

  264. 264.

    Kay

    Ha! I’m so glad it was a flop.

    I’m in western Michigan and people I know here say they are getting tons of mailers on Trump and the environment- “Trump Has Been Toxic for Michigan”. It’s a conservative part of the state. It’s the League of Conservation voters who are doing all the advertising. There’s a lot of fishing, hunting, boating, camping here- I just thought it was interesting. Not “jobs” but contaminated water.

  265. 265.

    Ken

    @Martin: eventually they’ll get [registration] sorted out

    If they’d done it properly this time, they would have known the arena would be at best half full. Who breaks that to Trump?  Or would they find some reason to cancel?

  267. 267.

    Wyatt Salamanca

    @jl:

    I don’t know the answer, I just posed the question.

    Of all the Rolling Stones’ songs, I’ve always thought that Salt of the Earth would make the best campaign song.

  269. 269.

    Pete Mack

    The security cordon was immaterial. Black leaders in Tulsa recognized that Trump feeds on controversy and wisely decided to starve the beast. They asked protestors to stay away from the event. Trump ended up with crappy turnout and an unengaged opposition. Sad!

  270. 270.

    Kent

    @Mallard Filmore:I do not understand this. The K-pop brigades soaked up a lot of free tickets, so what? It gave Team Trump a stiffy, something to crow about, but any dedicated Trumper would still get in the arena. Nobody was frozen out of the experience. Its not like those phantom tickets were assigned to a seat.

    True, but it completely fucked up their planning.  Because they ended up having no fucking clue about how many were attending, and the initial reports of the event being sold out and that overflow crowds would have to watch remotely on big screen TVs may have put off a lot of people who might otherwise have come but decided it wasn’t worth it because the crowds and traffic would be too much trouble.

    Plus, if they actually knew in advance that they were only going to get 10,000 people to show instead of 20,000+ they could have engineered the arena to make it look full.  As it happened, they didn’t know until 30 minutes before the event started what kind of crowd they were going to have.  And we can thank the Kpop kiddos for that.

  273. 273.

    mad citizen

    I thought artists can request their songs not be used but can’t stop it legally.

    Do Mick and Keith own their post ABDCO songs?  Or all of them?  Google doesn’t say either way.  I’ve read a lot about them and never that lost publishing on their songs, say like Fogerty did.

  274. 274.

    Jeffro

    @Martin: this assume a candidate who can a) draw monster crowds and b) withstand normal temperature ranges, walk up and down ramps, etc etc.

  275. 275.

    Jeffro

    @Pete Mack: that is just awesome!  My biggest wish for the protestors was that they would find someplace well away from the trumpov event and do their own thing, preferably in a nice park.

    I doubt they were looking to me for advice…=)

    …but still glad that it worked out so well!

  276. 276.

    CaseyL

    @Redshift:  I’ve dipped into some RW-attempted tweetstorms and saw those, and didn’t get what it was about.  I thought it was just a fanbase trolling every thread they felt like, because that happens, too.  Didn’t realize it was spamming with purpose, for Good.

    They’re doing it still/again. Check out “Trump2020Landslide.”  It’s amazing.

  278. 278.

    jimmiraybob

    I hope you know that you’re all being sued.  For treason!  Everything Trump said was Top Secret and Classified at the highest levels of top secrecy and classification.

  279. 279.

    catclub

    @dmsilev: Via a commenter at LG&M, this was the Reichstag Fyre Festival.

     

    I am glad I have nothing of counter protestors and violence.

  280. 280.

    Frankensteinbeck

    My takeaway from this dumpster fire:  Yes, Trump has had a stroke or some other degenerative neurological issue.  Of all the things he could be angry or sensitive about right now, and he has a ton of them, the one he devoted tons and tons of time and energy to was people making fun of his lifting the glass and having trouble going down a ramp.  That means he is deeply emotionally invested in those events, which means that there is a real problem that he desperately wants the public to not find out about.  He’s so stupid he does that by… reminding the public with lengthy, unasked for denials.

  281. 281.

    Kent

    @schrodingers_cat:So fewer people than at the inauguration or more?

    As I said in the last thread.  The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band drew more people to my local county fair last summer

     

    High school football games in Texas draw bigger crowds.

  282. 282.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @HumboldtBlue: my god, The Beast knows that Don Jr did, in fact, turn out to be a loser, and Don Jr knows his father thinks he’s a loser

    doesn’t excuse what an awful person Junior is, but it goes a long way toward explaining it

  283. 283.

    Krope, the Formerly Dope

    I suppose I will now have to perform an inquiry into becoming a K-Pop fan.

  286. 286.

    VFX Lurker

    @rikyrah:

    Peanut knows KPop, and some of her favorite programs on Netflix are Korean dramas.

    Peanut has good taste. I recently watched the superb KINGDOM on Netflix, and it had everything I could ever want in a show. Medieval Korean setting, palace intrigue, zombies, great characters, awesome action scenes, and magnificent production value. I can’t wait for Season 3.

  288. 288.

    dmsilev

    When you’ve lost Maggie Haberman…

    President Trump’s attempt to revive his re-election campaign sputtered badly on Saturday night as he traveled to Tulsa for his first mass rally in months and found a far smaller crowd than his aides had promised him, then delivered a disjointed speech that did not address the multiple crises facing the nation or scandals battering him in Washington. The weakness of Mr. Trump’s drawing power and political skills, in a state that voted for him overwhelmingly and in a format that he favors, raised new questions about his electoral prospects for a second term at a time when his poll numbers were already falling.
    […]

    Tim Murtaugh, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, falsely blamed the small numbers on “radical protesters” and the news media who he said had frightened away supporters. But there were few protests in the area and no sizable effort to block entrances, and there was a strong security presence. Mr. Trump was furious about the unused outdoor stage and the comparatively thin crowd in the stadium, according to two people familiar with his reaction. News broadcasts carried video of the partially empty stadium, and even the Drudge Report, a reliably conservative website, carried an all-caps headline that said “MAGA LESS MEGA” with a picture of rows and rows of empty blue seats.

  289. 289.

    James E Powell

    @dmsilev:

    Mr. Trump was furious about the unused outdoor stage and the comparatively thin crowd in the stadium, according to two people familiar with his reaction.

    If Maggie wrote that, then I’m betting the two sources are Ivanka and Hope Hicks.

  292. 292.

    Calouste

    @dmsilev: I’m surprised Maga Haberman  goes as far to use the phrase “falsely claimed” in relation to a shitgibbon campaign operative.

  294. 294.

    Ruckus

    @Wyatt Salamanca:

    Biden will need to hire a great cleaning service in order to remove the overpowering putrid stench that Trump leaves on the White House.

    May have to get the British to come back and help disinfect it.

  295. 295.

    Wyatt Salamanca

    @dmsilev:

    Mr. Trump was furious.

    I wish I had a dollar for every article written over the past 3 years about Trump being angry or upset about something.

    This fucking guy is afflicted with approximately infinite butthurt.

  296. 296.

    NotMax

    @Steeplejack

    Might look into getting some of those straps the ear elastics attach to so they don’t hook behind the ears, the strap they’re then attached to sits on the back of the noggin instead.

  297. 297.

    dmsilev

    @Calouste: I think the answer might be in this bit:

    The weakness of Mr. Trump’s drawing power and political skills, in a state that voted for him overwhelmingly and in a format that he favors, raised new questions about his electoral prospects for a second term at a time when his poll numbers were already falling.

    That’s the narrative of the day, and political hacks like Haberman love their narratives. How long they’ll hold it before trading it in for a ‘Trump comeback!’ story is of course an important open question, but for now, enjoy it.

  298. 298.

    different-church-lady

    OK, so who wants to help me start a rumor that Trump can’t survive a 40 foot head-first fall onto a concrete block?

  299. 299.

    Gremcat

    So when do you think he’ll blame this on South Korea committing election inference by sabotaging his rally in order to get Biden elected?

  300. 300.

    Wyatt Salamanca

    @dmsilev:

    I look forward to the day when we have an actual adult serving as President.

    @Ruckus:

    It’s almost getting to the point where I think a Hazmat team may need to enter the White House after Trump moves out.

  301. 301.

    dmsilev

    Robert Costa of the Post (and formerly National Review, so not exactly a flaming liberal):

    Trump rallies in red-state America — and faces a sea of empty blue seats

    He threatened violence against protesters, endangered his supporters by flouting health recommendations and endured a 110-day, coronavirus-induced dry spell, but when President Trump finally stepped back onto his rally stage Saturday night in Tulsa, he saw a sea of blue seats. The thousands of empty arena chairs, after his campaign had hyped overflow crowds and ticket requests totaling more than 1 million, symbolized the beleaguered state of Trump’s presidency and of his quest to win a second term.

    To a nation broken by a pandemic and a recession — and with a racial justice movement roiling communities across the country — Trump offered neither reconciliation nor rapprochement. Instead, he put up a fight.
    Trump belittled the seriousness of the coronavirus, mocked heath experts and recalled, “I said to my people, ‘Slow the testing down,’ ” because as more tests are conducted, more infections are discovered. And the president uttered a racially insensitive term in describing the “many” alternate names for the novel coronavirus that originated in China.

  302. 302.

    Ruckus

    @Wyatt Salamanca:

    GWB got a reprieve from possibly being in the bottom 5 worst presidents.

    shitforbrains has taken all 5 bottom spots all on his own. He owns them, all 5 of them.

  304. 304.

    NotMax

    Dolt 45’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
    That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
    And then is heard no more. Tulsa receiv’d a tale
    Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
    Signifying nothing.
    .
    /steal from the best

  306. 306.

    Wyatt Salamanca

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    Trump has the most fragile fucking ego of any human being I’ve ever seen.  His brain dead followers think he’s John Wayne or Clint Eastwood but he’s just a nail biting, bed wetting coward with the emotional maturity of a five year old child.

  307. 307.

    BBA

    @Ruckus: no president will ever be worse than Andrew Johnson. He pardoned the Confederates when every last one of them should have hanged.

  308. 308.

    Gemina13

    @Martin:  If Parscale could find a way to get people to attend Trump’s rallies in the numbers of Obama attendees, he’d have it made.

    But he’d have to offer them something they’d want – like Trump stroking out onstage.

  309. 309.

    Keith P.

    LOL…Brad Parscale is trying to save his ass by emphasizing large numbers of online viewers.  He is TOAST.

  311. 311.

    Yutsano

    @Wyatt Salamanca: I’m just curious: how do you get blood from that turnip? He’s broke. He’s so far underwater to so many entities that demand he give them scratch as soon as he gets it that there is no wealth there. He’s a complete fuck-up and tax cheat. He qualified for a NYC tax break that you can only get if your income is $550,000 or less. There is so much shell accounting going on around him that forensic accountants will be spending years if not decades trying to trace it all. Id it’s even there.

  315. 315.

    Wyatt Salamanca

    @Ruckus:

     

    @dmsilev:

    Thanks, you both made me laugh which is important because you’ve got to laugh to keep from crying.

    I wish Trump could be compelled to take an IQ test and a citizenship test. I’d love to see those results.

    I also wish I could be around to read what future generations of historians and political scientists write not just of Trumpenstein but his despicable enablers like Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham and all the other cowering bed wetters in the House and Senate,

  316. 316.

    Martin

    Hmm. So, it hit 100F in the arctic for the first time ever in recorded history.

    That’s uh, bad.

  318. 318.

    Ruckus

    @Wyatt Salamanca:

    I was thinking War of 1812.

    Dropping fire plane/helicopter loads of bleach might do the outside but pressure washers filled with bleach is possibly the only answer to the inside…..

  319. 319.

    dww44

    @TS (the original): I think it’s as simple as the recognition by Trump, as well as by the rest of us, that managing something like a public health response to a once in a century pandemic is simply beyond his abilities. If a member of the Trump cult cannot recognize the pitifulness of our response to the pandemic for what it is, then they are truly not worth anyone’s time and effort to persuade differently.

  320. 320.

    NotMax

    @Steeplejack

    Staple gun. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

    :)

    Actually, the additional pulling of the elastics could conceivably make the fit more amenable. I didn’t like the look of the straps most generally out there (both the ones with buttons and those with notches) so repurposed these cable ties, and so far they function great. Work with the ear elastics sitting either across the ears or totally underneath them.

  322. 322.

    Wyatt Salamanca

    @dmsilev:

    Robert Costa of the Post

    I’ve never forgiven WETA for hiring him to replace Gwen Ifill as the host of Washington Week in Review

    When you’ve lost Maggie Haberman…

    Also too, a few weeks back the lead singer of the Village People requested that Trump stop playing their songs at rallies after that disgusting Bible photo op at the church so he’s lost the support of at least 1 member of the Village People.

  323. 323.

    Kent

    @Keith P.: LOL…Brad Parscale is trying to save his ass by emphasizing large numbers of online viewers. He is TOAST.

    How many were Russian bots?

  324. 324.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @jl: Sympathy for the Devil

    Ahem….  A man of wealth and taste.  Disqualifier right there.

  325. 325.

    Wyatt Salamanca

    @NotMax:

    Thanks for that post!

    As a native New Yorker who has heard and seen far too much of Trump, I always regarded him as an idiot full of sound and fury.

  327. 327.

    Ruckus

    @BBA:

    I agree that AJ is absolute shit. A racist fuck of a human being, not worth the spit and urine on his grave.

    But.

    shitforbrains took a world pandemic and turned 5% of the worlds population into 25% of the deaths. By stealing PPE. By doing nothing or worse by doing the worst possible things at the worst possible times.

    Andrew Johnson set the tone for a very long time that slavery should never have ended. shitforbrains has actively caused the deaths of tens of thousands of the citizens of the country he is supposed to be the leader of, has torn apart families of people looking for a place to work and live because their home country doesn’t seem to give two shits about them, has created death squads of our border guards, who were assholes to begin with. Andrew was a shit of his own time, and there is no excuse for him, shitforbrains is a man of no time and there is even less of an excuse for him.

    We are a fifth of the way through the 21 century and we are still discussing slavery and hate and racism and shitforbrains is as much an asshole as Andrew was but he’s not just OK ing racism and slavery, he’s actively tryin to bring it back and killing citizens.

    I give shitforbrains the bottom 5 spots. YMMV.

  328. 328.

    different-church-lady

    Hey, now look, they may have screwed things up about the overflow crowd, but the underflow crowd loved it!

  329. 329.

    Wyatt Salamanca

    @Yutsano:

    How do you get blood from that turnip?

    Great question for which I have no answer.

    I know it will never happen, but i wish this rat fucking pathological liar could face criminal charges once he leaves office.

  330. 330.

    Jackie

    @Steeplejack (phone): I love the masks the MSNBC reporters wear, too. I’d love to get a couple. I ordered two pairs of the Nancy Pelosi masks – a bit spendy – but, for every mask ordered, a matching one is donated. So, I donated two masks to someone who needs one. Win Win.

  333. 333.

    Feathers

    If you want to know what this arena actually looks like when sold out, here’s a tweet with footage from a recent Cardi B concert. Huge difference.

    There’s a saying in politics that you can survive anything but people laughing at you. They are laughing at Trump tonight. I don’t know if I missed it earlier in the thread, but they built a huge, elaborate stage outside, so Trump and Pence could speak to the expected enormous and adoring crowds outside. Those speeches had to be cancelled when they realized the arena wasn’t going to be close to full.

    Huge fuckup. As to them getting it right? I don’t know. I knew somebody who had a pretty high up position in the Romney team. They had been let go from a mid-level dot.com job when that all went bust and hadn’t found another tech job in the next twelve years. Got a sweet title as an actual hire on the Romney campaign, though. Wasn’t able to parlay that into a private sector social media job. Why? They had taken shitloads of classes, but done no actual work. The problem the Republicans have with this shit is that it is grifters all the way down. They have sympathizers within Facebook, etc., but those folks aren’t going to throw themselves away working on a campaign.

  335. 335.

    Calouste

    Has someone dug up footage yet of the shitgibbon saluting 600 times at West Point? Because of course that is a lie.

  336. 336.

    philpm

    @Wyatt Salamanca: At minimum, Biden needs to have a film crew document everything Trump and crew have damaged, sabotaged and stolen as soon as they move in, and then disseminate it on YouTube.

  337. 337.

    Feathers

    Ha ha! The Lincoln Project referred to tonight’s speech as the “Emptyburg Address.” Ouch.

  338. 338.

    Wyatt Salamanca

    @TS (the original):

     

    @dww44:

    If stupidity were something that could actually be quantified or measured, then “trump” would be adopted as a unit of stupidity just like “watt” was adopted as a unit of power.

  339. 339.

    Yutsano

    @Feathers: I saw their ad venerating Mattis over President Toadface. I gagged a little at that. I know Mattis still has a good reputation in the regular community but between Theranos and him waiting so damn long to speak out my respect is diminished.

  340. 340.

    Wyatt Salamanca

    @L85NJGT:

    Thanks for that link, it’s always good to hear from Bruce.

    @philpm:

    I like your idea.

    Given that Trump is clearly an emotional basket case, I expect the absolute worst from him if he loses in November.  First he’ll contest the results, ranting and raving like a lunatic about voter fraud.  Once that fails to change anything, God only knows what depths this asshole will sink to in order to sabotage and undermine Biden before he’s sworn into office.

  341. 341.

    piratedan

    @Ruckus: and you didn’t even mention the treason, the perjury, the money laundering, the civil rights violations and tax evasion.

  342. 342.

    Kent

    @Ruckus: If there positions were reversed.  If Trump was president in the 1870s and AJ was president now.  I think it is safe to say that Trump would have been WORSE back then and AJ might perhaps have done a better job managing Covid and would have been less corrupt than Trump.  Trump would have probably restarted the damn Civil War.  I mean Trump is corrupt and venal in ways that most normal people do not even have the imagination to think up.

  345. 345.

    frosty

    @schrodingers_cat: @rikyrah: Harris is my favorite too. In fact she was my favorite candidate from the beginning. I’m really happy to see that both of you like her for VP (If I’m reading your comments correctly).

  346. 346.

    Wyatt Salamanca

    @Kent:

    That’s a good thought experiment.  Based on all I’ve seen and heard from Trump, I believe your assessment is correct.  As horrible and vile as I knew Trump was before he took office, I didn’t think he’d mount such a vigorous defense to preserve Confederate statues and military base names.  As several people have recently noted, he is basically the second president of the Confederacy.

  347. 347.

    Yutsano

    @Mary G: Sigh. So of course they bring up the fact that he wore the Confederate battle flag on tour in 1985. He expressed regret for that later, but they don’t care. It’s just another “pwn the libz” moment for them.

  348. 348.

    bluehill

    I still think that the repubs in senate are on board until the end, but after tonight’s performance, I’m more open to the possibility that a few of them may reconsider. Team Trump needed the rally to cheer him up, but they also needed it to reassure their side that victory was still possible. That didn’t happen. Now just need someone other than Mitt to defect and who knows what could happen.

  349. 349.

    bluehill

    Standing ovation for drinking water. And these guys mock participation trophies.

  350. 350.

    Sebastian

    @Kent:

     

    Not only that! Can’t believe you aren’t aware how awesome they are.

    KPop took down QAnon and other right wing groups during BLM. Whenever the nazis tried to organize something on Twitter the BTS Army descended onto their feed and basically DDoS-ed by tweeting thousands and thousands of messages into a thread.

    haha it was DELICIOUS!

  354. 354.

    Mel

    @Omnes Omnibus: Also leather soles: ballet pointe shoes – and yet, no Trump tiny tot shuffle step action on stage at the NYC Ballet. Mysterious and baffling!

  355. 355.

    Ruckus

    @piratedan:

    @Kent:

    That’s why I give him the bottom 5 slots, look at all I left off…

    Of course we weren’t there and I don’t know about the two of you but I don’t have a family history of racial discrimination and deaths. So I’m not contesting if someone wants to put AJ at the bottom. Let’s call it even, a tie, two of the worst human beings in the last 200 yrs have been presidents of the US. Not exactly a winning sales pitch for us.

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