Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

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

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

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

Never give a known liar the benefit of the doubt.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Nothing worth doing is easy.

There’s always a light at the end of the frog.

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

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

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

I am pretty sure Katy Tur wasn’t always such a bootlicking sycophant.

I’m more Christian than these people and I’m an atheist.

We won’t go back.

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

The willow is too close to the house.

This blog will pay for itself.

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

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

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

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

There are more Russians standing up to Putin than Republicans.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Late Night Minor Consolation Open Thread: The Oval Office Occupant Is Miserable, Too

Late Night Minor Consolation Open Thread: The Oval Office Occupant Is Miserable, Too

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Back during the original Gilded Age, when Americans were first debating our then-new power over the misfortunate citizens of Puerto Rico, political commentor Finley Peter Dunne famously remarked “no matter whether the constitution follows the flag or not, the Supreme Court follows the election returns“. The only credit I’ll give Chief Justice Roberts for his recent decisions in regard to protecting LBGTQ workers’ rights and pregnant women’s bodily autonomy is that he does, indeed, seem to be following the polls… and those polls do not look good for Roberts’ ‘conservative’ Republican fellows.

Horse-race touts at Politico — “Trump admits it: He’s losing”:

The president has privately come to that grim realization in recent days, multiple people close to him told POLITICO, amid a mountain of bad polling and warnings from some of his staunchest allies that he’s on course to be a one-term president…

What should have been an easy interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity on Thursday horrified advisers when Trump offered a rambling, non-responsive answer to a simple question about his goals for a second term. In the same appearance, the normally self-assured president offered a tacit acknowledgment that he might lose when he said that Joe Biden is “gonna be your president because some people don’t love me, maybe.”

In the hours after the interview aired, questions swirled within his inner circle about whether his heart was truly in it when it comes to seeking reelection.

Trump has time to rebound, and the political environment could improve for him. But interviews with more than a half-dozen people close to the president depicted a reelection effort badly in need of direction — and an unfocused candidate who repeatedly undermines himself.

“Under the current trajectory, President Trump is on the precipice of one of the worst electoral defeats in modern presidential elections and the worst historically for an incumbent president,” said former Trump political adviser Sam Nunberg, who remains a supporter…



From the Washington Post, “The Trump campaign has a new effort to rebut his lousy poll numbers. It’s not good.”:

In the vernacular of political communications, a memo is essentially an attempt to nerd up a news release. Sometimes campaigns create memos meant to be leaked, increasing the chances that a reporter will pick up the story. Often, though, campaign memos serve as short-form white papers, aimed at impressing reporters with more detail than a normal campaign message without getting too complicated.

In the case of a memo released by President Trump’s reelection campaign on Sunday, the aim was something slightly different. In this case, the effort was to give a veneer of complexity and statistical rigor to a fundamentally weak set of claims.

Addressed to “Interested Parties,” the memo is titled, “Enthusiasm and Unity Update, Polling Methodology.” It attempts to downplay Trump’s weakened position in the polls by arguing, first, that Trump enjoys a distinct advantage in enthusiasm over former vice president Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, and, second, that the campaign’s internal polling is more accurate than public polling…

In his memo, Stepien argues that the media is intentionally making Trump look bad to “create an unfavorable scenario and to attempt to discourage President Trump’s supporters.” I guess if you are trying to identify likely voters in June, you’re also convinced that voters can be discouraged from voting four months early, too…

Reader Interactions

52Comments

  1. 1.

    Alison Rose

    “Some people don’t love me, maybe.”

    Trump may lose the election (KNOCK ON WOOD) but he’s won Understatement of the Century. Someone give him a golden KFC bucket.

  3. 3.

    Calouste

    the political environment could improve for him.

    If he removes himself from the picture, maybe.  Otherwise the guy is a millstone around his own neck.

  5. 5.

    oatler.

    As I said before, he’s living his own damnation. He screams like a damned soul.

  6. 6.

    Amir Khalid

    I am happy to learn that Prince Jared is to have an even bigger role in overseeing Daddy-in-Law’s re-election campaign. This ensures the campaign will go exactly as we jackals want it to.

  7. 7.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    Damn, only 19% of the GOPers  thing the country is doing well? Donny finally broke threw 37%.

  8. 8.

    NotMax

    “Here’s one we can pass along. Shows his support at over 60%.”

    “Lemme see that. Who the hell did they poll?”

    “All his living relatives.”

  9. 9.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    In this case, the effort was to give a veneer of complexity and statistical rigor to a fundamentally weak set of claims

    Wait, this is just Trump’s own campaign gas lighting him.  The Fox will pick of the leak,  Trump will see and think all the polls aren’t that bad. ROFL

  10. 10.

    mrmoshpotato

    Until today, GOP satisfaction with how things are going in the US had been above 50% for nearly all of Trump’s presidency. It is now 19%.

    Oh?  Are the Rethuglican Trump trash realizing their orange plague rat god emperor doesn’t care about them, since he’s doing things to exacerbate the pandemic?

    Apparently elections have consequences.  Who knew?!

  13. 13.

    Leto

    @Amir Khalid: there will be so many case study books, in so many different fields, written about this administration on what not to do in X situation. Prince Jared will have a starring role in all of them.

  14. 14.

    Leto

    @NotMax:

    “Here’s one we can pass along. Shows his support at over 60%.”

    “That’s upside down.”

    “…”

  15. 15.

    mrmoshpotato

    @NotMax:

    “Here’s one we can pass along. Shows his support at over 60%.”

    “Lemme see that. Who the hell did they poll?”

    “All his living relatives.”

    Except Tiffany, Barron, his first two wives and his niece Mary. :)

  16. 16.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    Mount Rushmore Fireworks Display Too Risky Because of Drought and Ponderosa Pines, Wildfire Expert Warns

    The Mount Rushmore National Memorial, which honors Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln, is surrounded by the Black Hills National Forest, about 18 miles southwest of Rapid City, South Dakota.

    That area of the state is facing a moderate drought, and the dry conditions increase the risk of wildfires. In April and May, the Black Hills fell 30% to 50% short of moisture compared to the long-term precipitation average for the region, South Dakota News Watch reported.

    Melissa Smith, a hydrologist with the National Weather Service, told KNBN, “Our normal temperatures in this area this time of year are typically in the upper 70s with our lows in the mid 50s, so anytime that we are seeing temperatures in the 80s and 90s you know that’s definitely … a lot hotter than normal and it’s going to cause us to dry out across the area.”

    The South Dakota Wildland Fire Division said there is a moderate fire danger in the Black Hills.

    A former fire management officer for Mount Rushmore and six other national parks in the region says the abnormally dry conditions make the fireworks exhibition too risky.

    “Burning debris, the burning embers and unexploded shells fall into a ponderosa pine forest and ponderosa pine is extremely flammable,” Bill Gabbert, who is now retired and writes a blog called Wildfire Today, told the Argus Leader. “Shooting fireworks over a ponderosa pine forest, or any flammable vegetation, is ill advised and should not be done. Period.”

    President Trump has wanted to stage a fireworks show at Mount Rushmore since 2018, The Washington Post reported.

    South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, who took office in 2019, reached an agreement last year with the U.S. Interior Department to resume annual fireworks exhibitions at the memorial, the Post reported.

    At a White House event this past January, Trump introduced Noem with a story about working with her to bring back the fireworks.

    “I said, ‘What can burn? It’s stone.’ You know, it’s stone,” Trump said. “So nobody knew why (the shows had been canceled). They just said ‘environmental reasons.’ So I called up our people, and within about 15 minutes, we got it approved, and you’re going to have your first big fireworks display at Mount Rushmore, and I’ll try and get out there if I can.”

    Ian Fury, Noem’s communications director, told South Dakota News Watch the park service has taken several precautions, including conducting a large controlled burn in April and creating a safety “Go/ No-Go” checklist.

    The park service also conducted an environmental assessment and found the fireworks display would cause no significant impact.

    The chances of “a major wildfire burning to Keystone, South Dakota, or Horsethief Campground would be quite low — less than 0.02%, while the chances of a more modest wildfire are much higher — in excess of 60%”, the assessment found.

    The assessment, however, also said a wildfire in a dry year would be more likely to result in a high-consequence fire burning outside the boundaries of the memorial.

    The Post reported that the Interior Department has positioned firefighting resources at the site.

    The park service assessment also discussed a U.S. Geological Survey study that found perchlorate, a compound used in fireworks, at higher levels in water sources within the memorial’s boundaries than those from outside the park. The park service concluded levels were not high enough to halt fireworks shows.

    Oh, Trump’s Park Service said it’s ok and totes won’t cause a wildfire that could spread outside the memorial’s boundaries!

    See, this is the problem when you lie all the time and undermine departments and agencies to spew your message; you have zero fucking credibility. Why should I believe the South Dakota state government, the National Park Service, or the Interior Department under Trump? He’s wanted his little light show since 2018. Well, enough decay has set in that nobody will deny him his precious this year. Imagine if a wildfire does happen. Trump and Noem will look like even bigger assholes than they already are and thousands of lives could be put at risk, along with miles of nature.

    Fuck Noem by the way. She’s such an idiot and kiss ass to Trump it’s disgusting.

    Noem also had this to say in response to Sioux leaders calling for Mount Rushmore to be demolished:

    Harold Frazier, chairman of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, said in a release that, “Nothing stands as a greater reminder to the Great Sioux Nation of a country that cannot keep a promise or treaty than the faces carved into our sacred land on what the United States calls Mount Rushmore.”

    Frazier also criticized the upcoming July 3 visit from Trump, where he and South Dakote Gov. Kristi Noem have worked to bring back the monument’s annual fireworks show, which one fire expert has called “ill-advised” due to dry conditions.

    “We are now being forced to witness the lashing of our land with pomp, arrogance and fire hoping our sacred lands survive,” Frazier said. “This brand on our flesh needs to be removed and I am willing to do it free of charge to the United States, by myself if I must.”

    Oglala Sioux President Julian Bear Runner said last week he also believed the monument should be removed, calling it “a great sign of disrespect.”

    […]

    “He can choose to continue the same rhetoric that he always has,” Noem continued, “he’s an activist that is always using inflammatory language, or we can choose to focus on what we can learn from these individuals.”

    Noem responded to theoretical calls to remove the monument last week, when conservative pundit Ben Shapiro tweeted “So, when is our woke historical revisionist priesthood going to insist on blowing up Mount Rushmore?” in the wake of Confederate memorials around the country being removed, either by law or by force.

    “Not on my watch.” Noem replied.

    This witch has some fucking gall. Who the hell does she think she is to be lecturing Frazier on this? Whether you agree with demolition or not, he wasn’t wrong in his remarks and if anybody has any right to say this, it’s him. That land was stolen from the Lakota by the US government. We violated our treaties with them.

    “He’s an activist! He uses inflammatory rhetoric.”

    And you fucking don’t? Pull the other one, Governor Barbie. And no, Shapiro, it’s not “revisionist” to remove monuments glorifying racist traitors. Nobody’s proposing they shouldn’t be taught about.

    Noem also replied to a now-deleted tweet from the Twitter account of the Democratic National Committee reading “Trump has disrespected Native communities time and again. He’s attempted to limit their voting rights and blocked critical pandemic relief. Now he’s holding a rally glorifying white supremacy at Mount Rushmore — a region once sacred to tribal communities.”

    Noem said in her own tweet that “George Washington unified our nation. Thomas Jefferson wrote ‘All men are created equal.’ Abraham Lincoln ended slavery. Teddy Roosevelt was the first President to dine with a black man at the White House. It is shameful for @TheDemocrats to slander these great leaders.”

    Good job completely ignoring the substance of what was said, Noem! Thanks for the Schoolhouse Rock-level history analysis, too. History isn’t as black and white as you portray it as and these men were complicated. The DNC shouldn’t have deleted that tweet; it was 100% fucking correct

    Rant over

  18. 18.

    NotMax

    @Leto

    Deserves a p[lace in the nation’s permanent political lexicon.

    Jared: to study every possible worst decision or action in preparation for creating a new low.

  20. 20.

    trollhattan

    Thing you probably missed, along with everybody else: minor league baseball cancelled for 2020. Suspect a lot of teams will be folding before next year.

  21. 21.

    piratedan

    and while I find our current POTUS a loathsome example of a human being, many of us already knew and expected this shambling dumpster fire of an administration and whatever court of law gets to decide his fate, I don’t envy them the task of determining which of his many crimes to give precedence to… his administration and those people who blithely looked away from all of his crimes and aided and abetted them…. well, I have a new thought on how we should handle them.

     

    I don’t want a single one of them to do jail time, not a day…. sure, they can be felons and carry that stigma the remainder of their days.  Sucks for their families, but sorry, your Mom or Dad shouldn’t have betrayed the public trust.

    I want them to have to forfeit all of their assets, to be applied to a number of worthwhile entities, from Planned Parenthood to the NAACP.  Strip them of all of their property assets, remove their wealth.

    Then, since they betrayed their oaths to the public office, restitution must be made.  Since they served themselves instead of their offices and their constituencies, they can make good on that by serving the public.  They can perform public service,  they can work the phones for the medicare triage lines, they can break and maintain trails in our national parks, they can paint replacement signs for the interstates.  Loads of solid menial tasks that they can fulfill, then they can return to their double-wide and sit down and watch network TV and revel in the reruns of The Bachelor when they’re not using food stamps to complete their shopping at the local Dollar General.

  22. 22.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @piratedan:

    I want to hand Trump over to the Iranians. Think that would repair our relations with them? I’m half serious

    @mrmoshpotato:

    He’s not well at all. Mentally, cognitively, or physically

  23. 23.

    Martin

    Don’t overread this survey. The dissatisfaction from a decent percent of people is going to be due to uppity negroes and liberals not letting them go to the beach and cough on people.

    Trump approval is still garbage, but I think his base is gonna die on this hill.

  24. 24.

    Luciamia

    Ha! Love that quote about Kushner. When a recipe is failing, just add more Jared!?

  25. 25.

    James E Powell

    @Martin:

    Agreed. I’d like to see surveys that ask: Are you going to vote? Are you registered to vote? Are you going to vote by mail? Do you know how to get a mail in ballot? Do you know where you must go to vote in person? Are you sure you’re registered to vote? Do you need an ID? When did you last check to see whether you were registered to vote?

    Our people are out there and we outnumber the Evil Ones. We just need to make sure everybody can vote and does vote.

  27. 27.

    James E Powell

    Rosalind Helderman, the others on that article, along with the headline writers & editors at WaPo are showing us that they are going to work hard to keep this election from getting out of hand. I mean, they aren’t going to let Joe Biden just walk into the White House, are they?

  28. 28.

    Kent

    What should have been an easy interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity on Thursday horrified advisers when Trump offered a rambling, non-responsive answer to a simple question about his goals for a second term. In the same appearance, the normally self-assured president offered a tacit acknowledgment that he might lose when he said that Joe Biden is “gonna be your president because some people don’t love me, maybe.”

    Astonishingly, the Trump Campaign actually has ZERO published goals for his second term.  Absolutely none.  Trump’s 2020 campaign web site does not even have a section for policy issues or objectives.  They don’t even have a placeholder section for 2nd term priorities.  They have a big pop-up add urging you to donate money to help Trump fight ANTIFA and protect our heritage.  So maybe that’s his 2nd term objective.  Protecting Confederate statutes and fighting ANTIFA?  Who the fuck knows.

    At his big Tulsa rally he spoke for what?  An hour and 40 minutes?  Something like that?  And not one word about what he wants to do for the second term.  The past 3 years every single move he has made, domestically and internationally, has all been about getting re-elected  And he can’t even articulate why anyone should vote for him.

    Even at the upcoming convention they just plan to roll over the 2016 platform.  They have nothing new to say or add.   It just astonishes me that the GOP is so utterly bankrupt as a party that they have zero issues to run on for a second term.  There is not one single GOP politician who can say:  “Vote for Trump because he will do ______________________ in his second term.”

    These people and their party need to be purged out of existence and salt plowed into their fields.

  29. 29.

    Kent

    @James E Powell:Rosalind Helderman, the others on that article, along with the headline writers & editors at WaPo are showing us that they are going to work hard to keep this election from getting out of hand. I mean, they aren’t going to let Joe Biden just walk into the White House, are they?

    Talk about burying the lede.   The fucking headline should have read:   Trump Campaign again breaks the law by seeking illegal foreign interference in the presidential election”

  30. 30.

    mdblanche

    @Martin: The alt-right types are very disillusioned that Trump never did call out the army to crush the blacks nor has he done anything about the Jews who are using the blacks as muscle against them. They’re obviously never going to vote for Biden, but I wonder how many will stay home.

  31. 31.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @mrmoshpotato: More likely the things they’re dissatisfied with are the things we see as bright spots, such as the majority support for BLM and loss of support for police brutality.

     

    Also maybe that there is not yet a Big Beautiful Wall.

    And that even with Barr in place, the DOJ is never actually going to jail Hillary for the crime of existing.

  32. 32.

    opiejeanne

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: And states like Mississippi removing the small Confederate flag from their state flag while others remove those hideous statues honoring the Confederacy, some of them red states.  I’m sure they’ve been asking what this world is coming to.

  33. 33.

    opiejeanne

    Wow! Just a second ago there was an ad for Trump across the bottom of this page. It disappeared and changed to an ad for athletic shoes.

  35. 35.

    Brachiator

    What should have been an easy interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity on Thursday horrified advisers when Trump offered a rambling, non-responsive answer to a simple question about his goals for a second term. In the same appearance, the normally self-assured president offered a tacit acknowledgment that he might lose when he said that Joe Biden is “gonna be your president because some people don’t love me, maybe.”

    Wow. This may have been “non responsive,” but it is very revelatory. Trump is not a politician. He’s not a leader. He has never had much of an agenda. He has no vision.

    He became president so that he could be loved by his idiot base. He would give them what they wanted, and they would love him.

    He is now forced to deal with a complex situation, and make decisions which don’t have simple outcomes. And he has failed.

    But instead of finding a way to deal with these challenges, he is sulking and obsessing about his deep drop in popularity.

    In the past, he has bounced back from these funks with some hideous new proposal. We will see what happens. Either way, everyone should keep hammering away at him, pointing out how much of a loser he really is.

  36. 36.

    Canadian Shield

    <i>This witch has some fucking gall. Who the hell does she think she is to be lecturing Frazier on this? Whether you agree with demolition or not, he wasn’t wrong in his remarks and if anybody has any right to say this, it’s him. That land was stolen from the Lakota by the US government. We violated our treaties with them.

    “He’s an activist! He uses inflammatory rhetoric.”

    And you fucking don’t? Pull the other one, Governor Barbie. And no, Shapiro, it’s not “revisionist” to remove monuments glorifying racist traitors. Nobody’s proposing they shouldn’t be taught about.</i>

    I think the American left has to be careful here for how Shapiro and the Repubs are trying to re-frame things. Getting rid of Confederate monuments is in play now, great! They will now ‘slippery-slope’ this to blowing up Mt. Rushmore, removing the Washington monument, pulling down Lincoln, Jefferson, etc.

    The battle-ground is the middle (the mythical ‘independent voters’), I don’t begrudge any Aboriginal American to hate on something like Mt. Rushmore but it can’t be part of the Democratic party platform. Incremental change is the only tool available and you have to win to get the current poop off your shoe. Confederate monuments coming down and state flags removing the Virginia Battle flag is already serious progress, don’t push until it backfires (The USA is conservative by its nature, I think it has to be pulled left in increments). #1 and only goal should be removing the incumbent, the rest is gravy – so make sure you win!

    Just one outsiders opinion

  37. 37.

    Brachiator

    @opiejeanne:

    Wow! Just a second ago there was an ad for Trump across the bottom of this page. It disappeared and changed to an ad for athletic shoes.

    I wonder. Is that a smart algorithm at work? Scrapes a mention of Trump, then sees that the discussion is not pro-Trump, and adjusts the ad.

  38. 38.

    opiejeanne

    @Brachiator: I’m not sure what happened, just caught the flash of TRUMP in large letters before the ad changed. They do change after a set amount of time, so maybe I only saw it just as it was changing, but it was  startling, even though the ad at the top is usually something inflammatory about Democrats. .

  39. 39.

    Brachiator

    The only credit I’ll give Chief Justice Roberts for his recent decisions in regard to protecting LBGTQ workers’ rights and pregnant women’s bodily autonomy is that he does, indeed, seem to be following the polls… and those polls do not look good for Roberts’ ‘conservative’ Republican fellows.

    The recent decision about tax credits for religious schools muddles the shit out of separation of church and state and gives aid and comfort to religious conservatives.

    Democrats cannot depend on Roberts doing the right thing. Another reason to vote for Biden.

  41. 41.

    JWR

    @mrmoshpotato:

    …and his niece Mary

    Speaking of which, I take it everyone’s seen this?

    New York (CNN Business) – A New York judge on Tuesday temporarily blocked the publication of an unflattering tell-all book written by President Trump’s niece that Simon & Schuster is set to publish in July.

    The ruling, issued by Judge Hal B. Greenwald of the New York State Supreme Court, the state’s trial court, is the first legal win for Robert S. Trump, the younger brother of the President. Robert Trump has sought to block the book by Mary Trump, the President’s niece, contending it violates a confidentiality agreement related to the estate of the President’s father, Fred Trump.

    It sounds to me as if this will get about as far as the attempt to block Bolton’s book, and, unlike Bolton’s screed, this one promises to be a pretty juicy read.

  45. 45.

    different-church-lady

    As I’ve said before: widespread death has a rather clarifying effect on things.

  46. 46.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): He even held it upside down! What a clown!

    Holding the Bible upside-down is just one other little detail for the Antichrist.

    Srsly, the Emperor Tang® fills in so many of the checkboxes on the Antichristian list – and yet the Evilangelicals luuuuuurve him in spite of it (or maybe because of it). Sad to see a once-somewhat-respectable religion degenerate into a mindless cult, but there you have it.

  47. 47.

    Ken

    @Brachiator: The recent decision about tax credits for religious schools muddles the shit out of separation of church and state and gives aid and comfort to religious conservatives.

    Anyone have any contacts at a madrassa that might want to apply for state funding as a test case?  (Come to think, didn’t Louisiana go through this about ten years ago?)

  48. 48.

    Gloomyjim

    @Uncle Cosmo: a careful reading of the Revelation of John is that the AntiChrist comes and fools the Elect (read modern Pharacies). I keep pointing this out to the Evangalicals in my world, but no luck so far…

  50. 50.

    low-tech cyclist

    I’ll believe Roberts is following the election returns when he casts a deciding vote against billionaires and/or big corporations.

  51. 51.

    low-tech cyclist

    @Gloomyjim:

    @Uncle Cosmo: a careful reading of the Revelation of John is that the AntiChrist comes and fools the Elect (read modern Pharacies). I keep pointing this out to the Evangalicals in my world, but no luck so far…

    Trump ain’t no Antichrist*, but he’d sure be a good test run/proof of concept for one.

    *Two reasons: first, you’ve got to twist the Bible into a pretzel to come up with all that Antichrist bullshit to begin with.  Second, the concept of Antichrist that the evangelicals buy into certainly involves someone who’s a good deal smarter than Mango Mussolini.

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