Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

A Senator Walker would also be an insult to reason, rationality, and decency.

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

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

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

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

Consistently wrong since 2002

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Why did Dr. Oz lose? well, according to the exit polls, it’s because Fetterman won.

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

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

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

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

You are here: Home / Past Elections / 2020 Elections / Late Night Schadenfreude Open Thread: The Oval Office Occupant(s) Are Nervous

Late Night Schadenfreude Open Thread: The Oval Office Occupant(s) Are Nervous

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Donald Trump’s exhausted trudge from Marine One toward the White House after his botched rally in Tulsa, his red tie undone, a grim look on his face, a crumpled MAGA hat in his hand, is now an iconic image of his presidency. And as always with Trump, he’s already looking for someone to blame. The most obvious candidate, according to sources, is his embattled campaign manager, Brad Parscale… Trump was so furious when he saw how thin the crowd was that he threatened to not go onstage, two sources briefed on the discussions told me. The sources said that Parscale, reading the tea leaves, is planning to step down. “He knows he can’t survive,” one source told me…

But one thing is for sure: The blame game has shifted into high gear. Trump insiders told me Trump was presented with five options of where to hold his rally. “The president chose Tulsa,” a source said. Sources also told me that if Parscale is forced out, he likely won’t be the only casualty of the rally fiasco. Trump is debating revoking his son-in-law Jared Kushner’s control over the campaign, sources said. As I previously reported, Trump has been frustrated with Kushner’s oversight of the campaign in light of polling that consistently shows Trump losing to Joe Biden. Another source of friction has been campaign spending and reports Trump has gotten that Parscale is making millions of dollars. “Did Jared allow this?” Trump asked advisers recently, according to a source. (Kushner declined to comment.)

One way to measure Kushner’s diminished influence will be found in whom Trump would choose to replace Parscale. Top candidates include 2016 veterans [Jason] Miller, David Bossie, and Corey Lewandowski, all of whom Kushner successfully kept on the outer fringe of Trumpworld. “We can’t allow Jared’s stupid disagreements to get in the way,” Trump recently told advisers, according to a source briefed on the conversation….

David Bossie, of Citizens Unite Not Timid notoriety, got himself ‘distanced’ from Trumpworld in 2019 after he was caught scamming millions of dollars from elderly Republicans. (None of which he shared with You-Know-Who.) His little buddy Lewandowski, as per a quote in Sherman’s article, “couldn’t manage a 7-Eleven”. Miller himself only came back to the Trump bunker a few weeks ago — he’s a loyalist, and cronies with all the worst Trumplodytes, but apparently he can’t keep either his mouth or his pants zipped. Get out the waders, cuz it’s gonna get even filthier between now and November.

… The Tulsa debacle takes on added resonance given that a return to rallies is central to Trump’s reelection strategy. With COVID cases spiking across Trump country, it’s unlikely that Trump will be able to pack an arena anytime soon. Deprived of the oxygen his legions of fans provide, Trump is struggling to fight political wars on multiple fronts. He’s also lost the attack line that Biden is too old for the job. “There is something off about Trump,” a West Wing official told a top Republican a few days after Trump shakily descended the ramp at West Point. “He doesn’t have the stamina.”…

My motto, at the moment: Proud to be a Democrat. Hella glad NOT to be a Republican!

Missed it by *that* much!…

Political horse-race touts smell blood!

Reader Interactions

98Comments

  2. 2.

    Geoduck

    With protests again outside the White House, the press has been booted from the building and the Shiatgibbon is wading even deeper into the racist swamps than usual with his Twitter posts.

  3. 3.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    there have been too many “Jared and Ivanka will go back to New York…” stories for me to get even schadenfreude hopes up. We have to take the White House, the Senate and keep the House.

    I think tomorrow is the virtual fund-raiser with Joe and Barack, I’m really hoping it gets headline-making numbers, so if you were thinking of donating, that might be a good day. Think of it as a way to say fuck you, Maggie Haberman.

  5. 5.

    NotMax

    Must admit to a slight curiosity as to what his golf score* was immediately après-Tulsa.

    *Real score, not the usual fudged one.

  7. 7.

    ptee

    “Couldn’t manage a 7-11” is an upgrade from “couldn’t manage a popcorn stand.”

    Sadly, and insult to all the 7-11 managers everywhere.

  8. 8.

    cain

    I want to destroy the Republican party .. I want to see Barr and Trump’s cabinet in jail. Especially Barr. I want Trump to skip town and stuck in Russia never to return .. it will drive the fact to his supporters that he is a traitor and that they supported a traitor and they will forever STFU and stop showing how patriotic they are.

    +0

  9. 9.

    Emma from FL

    Now I can go to bed with a light heart and a smile on my lips. Let us pray to Loki, Anansi, Elegua, Kokopelli, and Lugh  that they continue meeting punishment to our enemies.

  10. 10.

    CaseyL

    Kicked in a few bucks, and will try to remember to tune in to the fundraiser tomorrow.

    ETA: Sarah Cooper is a national treasure.

  11. 11.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    The David Bossie link is interesting. Trump was angry, not because his voters are being scammed, but because the grift money was going to Bossie instead of Trump.

    In personal news, I apparently am about to get my renewed passport, meaning people have gone back to work at the State Dept. I sent the application in on Feb. 20. In the intervening months it went from “In Process, expect 6-8 weeks” to “We aren’t in the office and make no promises, but here’s your case number” to “No record of this application found” and then suddenly tonight three emails in rapid succession of “It’s in process, still no promises”, “It’s been approved”, “It’s been shipped”.

    I don’t need it. I’m not going anywhere in 2020. In the Before Times, we would have been in Germany right now but at this point we’re not thinking we’ll leave our neighborhood let alone the country in the foreseeable future. Still, I was getting anxious that they might have lost it, so I’ll feel better when I have a valid passport back in my hands.

  12. 12.

    danielx

    Read something recently about how you need a decent candidate and/or a decent record, according to political pros. The clusterfuck known as the Trump campaign has neither (for varying values and scales of “decent”), and he isn’t going to win on personality except among people who are already true believers. He also isn’t going to put anyone in charge who can tell him to shut the fuck up and make it stick; who could anyway? Much less listen to anybody who says mass public rallies are a terrible idea at the moment, because he needs those like a tweaker needs meth.

    Nobody involved can afford to admit the problem with the Trump campaign is Trump himself.

  14. 14.

    Martin

    Consider that Trump may fire Parscale and Jared and somehow find a way to hire worse people. Guessing John McLaughlin will make the cut. He convinced Eric Cantor that he was +34 in his primary. He lost by 11. Basically no Republican would hire him after that. He’s mister ‘unskewing the polls’.

    Can’t wait until we learn that Trump is +9 in California.

  15. 15.

    mrmoshpotato

    Trump was so furious when he saw how thin the crowd was that he threatened to not go onstage, two sources briefed on the discussions told me.

    Whiny. Bitchwaffle.

    This is your god emperor, Trump trash!

  16. 16.

    Doug R

    I saw a tweet somewhere that there were about 2,800 paid actors plus over 980 trump* campaign people plus building staff, plus some others that meant that there were ACTUALLY only about 1,800 RUBES. Knowing how there’s a hard core that DeadHeads around with trump*, how many locals could there have been?

    Which sounds about right for a city of less than half a million in the middle of a pandemic.

  18. 18.

    mrmoshpotato

    @cain: Late night ? The sun just set a few minutes ago ! ?

    Waahh!  Ask NotMax if the sun is still up. :)

  20. 20.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Doug R: I’ve heard that rumor several places about the actors but I still don’t know how credible it is. That makes me feel kinda bad about the maskless attendees now, if most of them were starving actors just trying to make a few extra bucks.

  21. 21.

    Amir Khalid

    You can change the sales and marketing team as much as you want. But when everyone knows the product is bad, none of your changes will help you sell it. You really need to improve fix the product.

    President Trump is a bad product.

  22. 22.

    Mallard Filmore

    @Martin:

     

    Can’t wait until we learn that Trump is +9 in California.

    And when Trump loses California, that there is PROOF of voter fraud!

  25. 25.

    Roger Moore

    @Martin:

    Consider that Trump may fire Parscale and Jared and somehow find a way to hire worse people.

    It’s an amazing concept, but Trump has somehow managed to continue scraping through the bottom of the barrel, through the floor under the barrel, and on down to bedrock.

  28. 28.

    Another Scott

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’ve been donating to Uncle Joe monthly for a while, but just kicked in a few dollars more.

    Here’s hoping they take in a mountain of money, and put it to good use.

    Thanks.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  29. 29.

    rikyrah

    When reporters say Biden is running a flawed campaign, keep in mind they considered Bernie to be running the perfect campaign, and he lost every county in Florida.— Tentin Quarantino (@agraybee) June 23, 2020

  34. 34.

    Captain C

    Trump pretty much always seems to be genuinely surprised to find out what’s going on in his organizations. Unless he’s taking credit for something that didn’t actually happen.

  36. 36.

    Jinchi

    In the aftermath of eight staffers coming down with coronavirus during the Tulsa fiasco, the White House has decided to stop testing for symptoms. Trump is really stupid enough to believe that the problem is too much testing.

  37. 37.

    rikyrah

    ???

    Asked how he can get Black voters to give him a second look, Trump said it's "a shame" he even has to answer that question given all he's done, including HBCU funding and justice reform. He concluded, "To be honest with you, they should say, 'We love Trump.'"— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) June 23, 2020

  38. 38.

    rikyrah

    Trump campaign spox Tim Murtaugh: Trump's hitting the campaign trail while Dems are telling Biden to stay in the basement.CNN anchor Brianna Keilar: "I’m surprised you bring it up. Because there’s only one person who sought refuge in a basement recently." pic.twitter.com/pYrmKdMioN— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) June 22, 2020

  39. 39.

    rikyrah

    ????

    A day ahead of Trump’s visit to Arizona, GOP Senator Martha McSally proposes giving taxpayers *$4,000 each* to take a vacation. Couples would get $8,000 in vacation tax credits, plus $500 per kid.— Steven Dennis (@StevenTDennis) June 23, 2020

  40. 40.

    rikyrah

    So for those who thought Bill Barr was an institutionalist, consider: he wants to name a US Atty for SDNY with no—zero—prosecutorial experience— Ruth Marcus (@RuthMarcus) June 22, 2020

  41. 41.

    Ruckus

    @Amir Khalid:

    You are going with bad?

    I mean McDs is bad, well for some level of an attempt at food, at least bad. shitforbrains is far worse than bad. Horrible, disastrous, decaying feces level, maggots and worms level….

  42. 42.

    rikyrah

    ???

    You look at the polls and think "he can't win." But Trump's path to victory doesn't depend on persuading Americans. It depends on voter suppression, mass disinformation, foreign interference, and unabashed use of executive branch power to shape events, and perceptions, this fall.— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) June 22, 2020

  44. 44.

    rikyrah

    Tonight, Bolton was pressed on why he didn’t come forward and testify, instead saving it for a book.Bolton insisted it wasn’t about the cash.Well, to quote Dale Bumpers during a different impeachment:“When you hear somebody say, 'This is not about money,' it's about money.”— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) June 22, 2020

  46. 46.

    JWR

    @mrmoshpotato:

    Whiny. Bitchwaffle.

    Shades of Ritchie Blackmore’s Deep Purple at the first California Jam back in 1974, upon hearing that Black Sabbath had finished their set early and they’d have to go on before dark. “What? Without our lightshow?!!”

  48. 48.

    rikyrah

    What became very clear Saturday night was that he does not have much if any argument against Biden, either. He wears a mask? Not a negative with a supermajority of voters. Biden thinks there is systemic racism in policing? Well, so do most Americans. https://t.co/Hne8ww1g6M— Jennifer Rubin (@JRubinBlogger) June 22, 2020

  49. 49.

    Jinchi

    @Doug R: Sorry I don’t believe 2800 actors were hired to attend Trump’s rally and none of them tweeted the story.

  56. 56.

    rikyrah

    So here's a crazy idea. What if we expanded Medicaid to all unemployed Americans during the pandemic?The Center for American Progress is rolling out a new plan to do just that. It's pretty ambitious and could unify Dems.I wrote about this idea here:https://t.co/qrBjgYMxmv— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) June 22, 2020

  57. 57.

    Ruckus

    @rikyrah:

    There really is something wrong with that republican bot. It’s like all that’s up in that orange melon is putrid, rancid cottage cheese from 1946 and the wiring is all shorted out.

  58. 58.

    rikyrah

    It's reasonable to fear a repeat of Jim Comey's 11-days-to-election intervention. But the truth is that AG Bill Barr has been so nakedly corrupt that he's lost his ability to turn perception into reality and save Trump's reelection. I discuss here: https://t.co/mfqdZGJg2O— Paul Waldman (@paulwaldman1) June 22, 2020

  61. 61.

    Ruckus

    @Jinchi:

    You think he’s human? I mean over the years there have been a number of vile, obnoxious, idiotic, entities that would pass for human, but shitforbrains is human? I think I’ve heard everything.

  62. 62.

    joel hanes

    @Ruckus: 

    The answer is “angular momentum is conserved”.

    That’s how a diffuse cloud of dust becomes a star and planets, all rotating.

  63. 63.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Ruckus: I’ve have decided that all technical questions can be answered by magnets or multi-port fuel injection.  Magnets seemed the better fit.

  69. 69.

    joel hanes

    @Ruckus:

    To be scrupulously fair, conservation of angular momentum is only half the answer.

    The other half is gravity.   (And its corresponding anti-force, comedy.)

  72. 72.

    Martin

    @Craigie: There’s only about 11 main roles. Obviously there are more during the dance numbers, but yeah, nowhere near 2800 can fit on a stage even across multiple acts.

  74. 74.

    Mary G

    @rikyrah: I like that CNN anchor. When Murtaugh tried the “Trump was only joking” about slowing tests on her, she said she didn’t think 120,000 dead Americans was funny, does the president?

  79. 79.

    Achrachno

    @West of the Rockies: The hired actors numbers seem not to be well sourced.  I’d like to think I’m wrong but I’m afraid he really did manage to turn almost 6000 suckers and staffers.  Big face-plant, but maybe not the biggest ever.

  80. 80.

    JWR

    @hitchhiker:
    @Martin:

    Oh yeah. And don’t you just love how shopping lady had to walk out half-way through to, “use the restroom”? One board member later said something like, that we’re going at this amongst ourselves, doesn’t that tell you that it’s time? That we’ve been doing this all wrong? So yeah, dude was awesome!

  81. 81.

    KrakenJack

    One benefit of the open grifting is the example that it sets. You can bet that everyone involved is scraping off every penny they can and lying about the work they’ve done. The net result being that Trumps campaign cash will dissipate like a wet fart.

    We’ve still got to fight for every vote just to overcome the massive cheating, but it would be that much harder if they had a fully effective campaign organization. We have no reason to expect Parscale’s or Jared’s replacements to be any more competent or less corrupt than the originals.

    Also, I find it very hard to believe the Tulsa rally organizers would hire actors when their minimum estimates were for 60,000 people.

  83. 83.

    Luciamia

    Okay, the bloodhounds aren’t snapping at his behind yet, but the baying is getting louder.

  84. 84.

    mrmoshpotato

    Republican stupidity you say?

    it rules that dersh is some fancy harvard law guy and he uses his blue-check twitter account exclusively to contest various accusations of being a pervert and literally nothing else https://t.co/lSknChJ2OX— mr cant spell good (@KrangTNelson) June 23, 2020

    LOL

    Also

    We’re like one week removed from entire cable news panels debating whether or not we should blow up Mount Rushmore.— Meghan McCain (@MeghanMcCain) June 22, 2020

    Let’s “debate” whether or not Whoopi should slap John McCain’s daughter on camera, and then let Whoopi decide. (She’ll probably go “Fuck it!” and punch John’s daughter.)

    ETA – How is Lou not dead yet from a rage-induced heart attack?

  85. 85.

    prostratedragon

    Only somewhat more than 11 million seconds till the end of the day Nov.3, and 18 million till noon on Jan. 20.

  86. 86.

    JWR

    @mrmoshpotato:

    Speaking of Mt Rushmore, wasn’t Trump having a hissy fit some time ago about the “no fireworks” policy there? Welp, problem solved, apparently. From June 12:

    The U.S. Drought Monitor recently labeled nearly all of southwestern South Dakota, including most of the Black Hills, as “abnormally dry.”

    The fireworks display at Mount Rushmore to celebrate Independence Day has not happened since 2009, when it was ended because of fire danger after a pine beetle infestation.

    Oh well, I’m sure they’ve raked the floor.

  88. 88.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @Achrachno: I personally saw an actual Craig’s List ad—couched in strategically vague phrasing, but clearly seeking actors to round out the rally. But don’t know if it whether it was truly from the campaign, or just some rando who posted it for unknown reasons.

  90. 90.

    James E Powell

    I knew it was a bad idea, but I watched Maggie’s flawed candidate running a flawed campaign bit. First, what an a hole. Second, what I think she means is that she and the NYT are gearing up to launch a smear campaign against Biden and to carry on through the summer to make sure the campaign stays close.

    As Jennifer Rubin points out in the tweet that @rikyrah: quoted above, they’ve not got much of an argument against Biden. Maggie and the NYT times are going to help them find one.

  92. 92.

    CarolDuhart2

    @rikyrah: Empty promises..nobody is going anywhere, especially folks who could use 4K in travel credits.  Stuck on stupid, which is why she’s trailing to the astronaut.  And even if you could get the credit, what’s open?

  93. 93.

    mrmoshpotato

    @CarolDuhart2: I know, right!  “Go!  Go get infected like there isn’t a global pandemic!  Here!  Here’s 4000 dollars!  Have fun (potentially dying)!”

  94. 94.

    CarolDuhart2

    @mrmoshpotato: What they don’t get, is that a big chunk of the travel industry relies on the very people who must  now stay at home-retirees and others who are immunocompromised and and have the free time to actually go somewhere.  If they have to worry about going to the grocery store, travel for anything other than medical and other absolutely necessary things is <i>out</i)

    Not to mention that the only way a 4k credit is useful is if you actually have spent at least that much.  A $300 trip to your vacation home doesn’t count, and I doubt that RV trip costs get that high either.  So this is a credit to the airlines, but the places you could fly is pretty limited too.

    So what happened to the vaunted Republican hard headed embrace of reality and business sense here?

  95. 95.

    SFAW

    @rikyrah:

    So for those who thought Bill Barr was an institutionalist, consider: he wants to name a US Atty for SDNY with no—zero—prosecutorial experience— Ruth Marcus (@RuthMarcus) June 22, 2020

    But but but I heard esteemed shill professor Jonathan Turley talking about how The Criminal Barr was just trying to arrange a “job swap” for Jay Clayton [SEC head], so that Clayton could “return to New York.” So Barr was just trying to help out a buddy. Or something.

    “On Point” had Turley and Stuart Gerson (former AG, GHWB era, I think), and they basically concluded that it was just bad optics. Meghna kept asking, in effect, “why was Berman fired, and why did Barr’s justification keep changing?” Turley was his usual scumbag self, although he attempted to sound high-minded.

    But I really wish Meghna had had at least one guest who was not a Rethug mouthpiece.

  96. 96.

    SFAW

    @Doug R:

    I saw a tweet somewhere that there were about 2,800 paid actors

    Having seen that tweet: although I may be the only one, I’m pretty sure that tweet was a joke. The tweeter said it was something like 2826 actors — meaning, not a rounded number — which indicated (to me, at least) that he/she was joking.

  97. 97.

    Chris Johnson

    @cain:
    I don’t believe he is welcome in Russia. No, hear me out: it’s not that he hasn’t done great service to Russia, the Kremlin etc. I think Jared is more likely to be the knowing traitor taking specific direction from Russia, but that might be Central Casting talking: however, Trump is disqualified from being an effective collaborator as he’s a hysterical child, the wrecking ball wielded by the Russians.

    I think he’s aware of Russia as I think he got beat up in the 80s and turned, due to trying to cheat the Russian Mob in real estate deals. That seems… plausible.

    But what on earth does Russia stand to gain from providing a safe haven for Donald Trump in the end? Absolutely nothing. Trump is not a talented and brave spy. Trump is an old cow filled with dynamite. He is a sacrificial asset. One thing we’ve got to understand is that whatever Russia’s continuing plan is… and equally important, Russia does not do elaborate plans, but stochastic chaos-based ones, at this time… their game involves Trump being destroyed.

    My best guess is that they want to make it look like a heroic demise, to whoever’s dumb and crazy enough to believe it. Crazy is good because crazy is stochastic terrorists, they’re PLAYING to the crazy. At no point do they need to seize and hold power in legitimate ways: that’s not possible for Trump and they knew that going in. It’s all about doing maximum damage while they have control, because the window for that is gradually closing.

    Don’t look for direct, or coherent, control of Trump and his people, and don’t look for a hero’s welcome back to Russia for Trump (on the other hand, McConnell? Jared? Barr?). Trump is meant to die a shabby death and become a martyr to the crazy, so that they will go to war against us once we get back control of the country.

    That becomes the new challenge: literally domestic Reds (hats. with MAGA written on ’em) waging terrorist war on the US. Hell, I’ve seen some of those ‘ironically’ crying alliance to Russia a YEAR ago, and that’s nothing to what we’ll see when we inevitably get the country back.

  98. 98.

    artem1s

    @rikyrah:

    But the low turnout shows even his voters aren’t ready to deny scientific facts that could kill them.

    Some of his voters… the demographics of Trump voters has always been another one of the GOP lies.  The 27% factor was in play on Saturday. The rest of his base will still vote for him as long as they think it will put money in their pockets and Wall Street keeps riding bubble. The White ‘Working’ Class, Chamber of Commerce guys were never going to attend his rallies anyway.  Those guys attend the rubber chicken dinner fundraisers at the private country club before or after the rally.  Since Dump isn’t crowing about the money he raked in over the weekend, I’m assuming the country club fundraisers are as dead as the rallies.

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