Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“And when the Committee says to “report your income,” that could mean anything!

Another missed opportunity for Jamie Dimon to just shut the fuck up.

People are weird.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Happy indictment week to all who celebrate!

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

Books are my comfort food!

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Live so that if you miss a day of work people aren’t hoping you’re dead.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

“But what about the lurkers?”

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

Bark louder, little dog.

This blog will pay for itself.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

Never forget that he train is barreling down on Trump, even as he dances on the tracks.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

Innocent people don’t delay justice.

No one could have predicted…

You are here: Home / Elections / Election 2020 / Good News for Sanity Open Thread: (Most of) The Media Villagers Are Boooored with Donald Trump

Good News for Sanity Open Thread: (Most of) The Media Villagers Are Boooored with Donald Trump

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Of course, the NYTimes will never stop propping up the rest of the GOP Death Cult. They’re just as much victims as the rest of us, really!…

President Trump’s failure to contain the coronavirus outbreak and his refusal to promote clear public-health guidelines have left many senior Republicans despairing that he will ever play a constructive role in addressing the crisis, with some concluding they must work around Mr. Trump and ignore or even contradict his pronouncements.

In recent days, some of the most prominent figures in the G.O.P. outside the White House have broken with Mr. Trump over issues like the value of wearing a mask in public and heeding the advice of health experts like Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, whom the president and other hard-right figures within the administration have subjected to caustic personal criticism…

Once-reticent Republican governors are now issuing orders on mask-wearing and business restrictions that run counter to Mr. Trump’s demands. Some of those governors have been holding late-night phone calls among themselves to trade ideas and grievances; they have sought out partners in the administration other than the president, including Vice President Mike Pence, who, despite echoing Mr. Trump in public, is seen by governors as far more attentive to the continuing disaster…

A handful of Republican lawmakers in the Senate have privately pressed the administration to bring back health briefings led by figures like Dr. Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx, who regularly updated the public during the spring until Mr. Trump upstaged them with his own briefing-room monologues. And in his home state of Kentucky last week, Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, broke with Mr. Trump on nearly every major issue related to the virus.

Mr. McConnell stressed the importance of mask-wearing, expressed “total” confidence in Dr. Fauci and urged Americans to follow guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that Mr. Trump has ignored or dismissed.

“The straight talk here that everyone needs to understand is: This is not going away until we get a vaccine,” Mr. McConnell said on Wednesday, contradicting Mr. Trump’s rosy predictions.

The result is a quiet but widening breach between Mr. Trump and leading figures in his party, as the virus burns through major political battlegrounds in the South and the West, like in the states of Arizona, Texas and Georgia…

With only a few exceptions, Republicans have avoided direct confrontation with Mr. Trump. They’ve come to view public criticism as an exercise in political futility — one guaranteed to produce a sour response from Mr. Trump without any chance of changing his behavior.

But many Republican lawmakers have grown exasperated with the administration’s conflicting messages, the open warfare within Mr. Trump’s staff and the president’s demands that states reopen faster or risk punishment from the federal government…

Be thrilled — Zombie-Eyed Granny-Starver Paul Ryan has resurfaced, as the GOP Voice of Stern Realism. In other words, the Very Important People at NYTimes are poised and ready to bring back But the Deficit!!!, starting 15 minutes after President Biden’s inauguration. At least they’re admitting Team GOP is not looking prosperous, right at this moment.

Reader Interactions

229Comments

  1. 1.

    Jeffro

    So, how long until all of the goddamn villagers start lecturing Joe Biden and the Democrats that they had better not overreach* after they totally destroy the Republicans this fall?

    * “ Overreach“ defined here as it usually is for Democrats, i.e. actually delivering on their campaign promises to their constituents

  2. 2.

    NotMax

    Mr. McConnell said on Wednesday

    After maintaining silence and ducking questions for more than 4 months.

  3. 3.

    dmsilev

    @Jeffro: Biden has shown a remarkable ability to ignore Twitter and other chatter and just keep plugging away. Hopefully the rest of the party will take some inspiration from that.

  4. 4.

    dmsilev

    @NotMax: Not to mention, he’s still apparently dead set on screwing up the next relief bill. Priority one is, of course, liability shields for employers.

  7. 7.

    Elizabelle

    More from that NY Times article, by 3 former Politico writers:

    …. Amid mounting alarm in a huge portion of the country, Mr. Trump has at times appeared to inhabit a different universe, incorrectly predicting the outbreak would quickly dissipate and falsely claiming the spread of the virus was simply a function of increased testing. With his impatient demands and decrees, Mr. Trump has  “disrupted efforts to mitigate the crisis”  [NYTimes just say it:  “sabotaged the response”]  while effectively sidelining himself from participating in those efforts.

    From Paul Ryan:

    Mr. Ryan said Mr. Trump was losing key voting blocs across the Midwest and in Arizona, a Republican-leaning state that Mr. Ryan described as “presently trending against us.”

    While Mr. Ryan did not criticize Mr. Trump’s handling of the outbreak, he said the president could not win re-election this year if he continued losing badly to Mr. Biden among suburban voters who were wary of both candidates but currently favor Mr. Biden.

    “Biden is winning over Trump in this category of voters 70 to 30,” Mr. Ryan said, “and if that sticks, he cannot win states like Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.”

  8. 8.

    Aleta

    The undisputed winner at transparent boastful lying must have failed that brain test.   How many times has he brought it up by now.

  10. 10.

    Jeffro

    @dmsilev: the national party can take some inspiration from the VA Democratic Party, too.  Despite some loudmouth gun nuts and the usual BS from the trumpublican rump about “sohulism!” they have been delivering ever since they were sworn into office.

    Biden’s platform and his campaign’s statements in general have been pretty bold and unapologetic.  GOOD.  We need that to be the rule not the exception.

  13. 13.

    Jeffro

    @rikyrah: Oh. My. God.  Have y’all seen the new Lincoln Project ad?  “trumpov’s wall”?  Holy shit.  Holy SHIT.

  14. 14.

    trollhattan

    Be thrilled — Zombie-Eyed Granny-Starver Paul Ryan has resurfaced, as the GOP Voice of Stern Realism. In other words, the Very Important People at NYTimes are poised and ready to bring back But the Deficit!!!, starting 15 minutes after President Biden’s inauguration. At least they’re admitting Team GOP is not looking prosperous, right at this moment.

    “Hey Paulie, tell us again the difference between debt and deficit.”

    “They’re really bad, and one is badder than the other. Liberals love them both.”

    “Thanks a lot.”

  16. 16.

    Calouste

    @Luciamia: 
    Horrified. That he is no longer providing them with easy copy. Which means they might actually have to do, shock! horror!, work.

  17. 17.

    rikyrah

    @Luciamia:

    they can’t both sides it.

    I was watching someone on MSNBC and they were interviewing Tom Perez. They actually asked him when Joe Biden was ‘going to get out and campaign ‘.

     

    in the middle of a phucking PANDEMIC.

     

    They were desperate for Biden to do a rally. And, let JUST ONE PERSON come down with COVID-19.

     

    JUST ONE

     

    THAT would have been enough to ‘both sides ‘ the issue.

     

    Stay? in? the? basement? Joe?

  18. 18.

    dr. bloor

    In recent days, some of the most prominent figures in the G.O.P. outside the White House have broken with Mr. Trump over issues like the value of wearing a mask in public and heeding the advice of health experts like Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, whom the president and other hard-right figures within the administration have subjected to caustic personal criticism…

    Baquet-ese for “coordinated smear campaign.”

  19. 19.

    rikyrah

    @Calouste:

    They are also mad that COVID-19 has taken away their easy copy about the campaign.

    They have been desperate to find a. BUT HER EMAILS for 2020.

     

    They don’t have it. Drives them nuts.

  22. 22.

    Ken

    But the Deficit!!!

    I really should send my idea for handling this to the Democrats. All they have to do is pass a tiny cut in some obscure tax, then loudly proclaim that the increased revenue will offset the additional spending.  If they ask how that could happen, point to the nearest Republican and say “Ask him, he’s been claiming tax cuts increase revenue for twenty years now.”

    Also, if someone asks why the cut is so small, explain that they don’t want to overstimulate the economy. I think the last time I proposed this in the comments, someone called this “homeopathic tax cuts”.

  29. 29.

    Alison Rose

    President Trump’s failure to contain the coronavirus outbreak and his refusal to promote clear public-health guidelines have left many senior Republicans despairing that he will ever play a constructive role in addressing the crisis,

    No shit, Sherlocks.

  30. 30.

    Jeffro

    @trollhattan: I saw that one earlier today too.  They are swinging the bat harder than I ever could (and not for lack of trying).

    What’s he going to do, run a counter to that that says “yeah well, that wall of coffins would be a LOT longer, believe me, if I hadn’t argle bargle China virus boop-de-boop?”

    Holeeeeeee (dare I say it) sheeeeeit.

  32. 32.

    WaterGirl

    I think that on this one they took what could have been a great ad, and overplayed it.  I think it would have been more powerful if it was more understated.

    What they are showing and talking about is horrifying, I think they shot themselves in the foot with the overdone music and the overdone rhetoric.  Sometimes it’s more horrifying if it’s “just the facts”.

  40. 40.

    Elizabelle

    There’s a better way to depict the COVID deaths.

    140,000 dead is — I am told — the equivalent of 50 jetliners crashing each week, no survivors.  50 every week.  For four months.

    I don’t think people get “coffins can fill X number football stadiums.”  Airplanes falling out of the sky:  that hits home.

    Four jetliners lost on September 11.  The equivalent of the dead of fifty crashed jetliners, every single week for four months now, due to November 9.

    People are afraid of being in airplane crashes.

  43. 43.

    Alison Rose

    @WaterGirl: [inset woman raising hand emoji here]

    They have to keep giving this inept fuckface more chances because if they finally admit reality and say he’s an inept fuckface, then they also have to admit that it was their inept fuckface asses who helped get him elected. AND HEAVEN FORBID they ever admit fault in themselves or their party.

  45. 45.

    Calouste

    @rikyrah: Yep, the reporting about the election in the times of COVID-19 all has to include the topics of the role of government, the use of policies, and the competence of the person in charge. And legacy hires like Maggie Haw-Haw wouldn’t recognize those even if they hit them between the eyes with a baseball bat.

  48. 48.

    Elizabelle

    @WaterGirl:  I don’t think you and I are the audience for “This is how it starts.”

    Look at that ad.  It is stylized into frames from a graphic novel.  Look at the caption next to Bill Barr.  The blood effects.  It’s from a dystopian comic strip, but it is actually happening right now.  In this country.

    That ad is aimed straight at 18 to 30 year olds.  And maybe especially males, but maybe not.  In a format they will recognize.

    The only weird thing I saw was the young people massed near the White House.  Maskless.  That is from non-COVID days.

    ETA:  Seriously.  Look at the frame for “rogue attorney general.”  He’s a comic book villain.  Ka-pow.

    I think it’s brilliant.  Stands out among the noise.

  49. 49.

    WaterGirl

    @Alison Rose:  Yeah, me too.

    It’s appalling. It’s not just Trump, it’s every Republican who stood by and propped him up, or said nothing, and every media outlet that has been fluffing Trump since 2015.

    They all bear this responsibility.

  52. 52.

    Villago Delenda Est

    The worst thing one can do in politics is to be found to be boring by vermin of the Village.

    Wipe them out.  All of them.

  53. 53.

    Lyrebird

    I used to find it alarming when I found myself in agreement with Bill Kristol, but it’s too late for that.

    Bill Kristol

    @BillKristol

    ·
    8h

    I’m no military historian, but I imagine the president has access to many who are. Here are just a few suggestions to start with: Fort Ulysses S. Grant Fort Joshua Chamberlain Fort Robert Gould Shaw Fort William Harvey Carney Fort Edward A. Carter, Jr. Fort Eugene Ashley, Jr.

    Did I miss an open thread on this topic?  If not, can we have one?

    I was thinking Fort Inouye, maybe a Code Talker and a Tuskeegee Airman…

     

    Kristol was responding to some more racist bilge emitting from the bloviating yam’s mouth.

  54. 54.

    prostratedragon

    @Elizabelle:  But what they did takes something from him because it plays off Trump’s own words. With that image out there it’s now risky for him to crow about Wall.

  55. 55.

    Danielx

    @Jeffro:

    Presuming Biden wins, about fifteen minutes after final results are certified. Jury is still out as to whether “overreach” will include  efforts to have Trump forcibly ejected from the White House when he refuses to accept election results (hint: he will), on the grounds that such efforts would be “too disruptive”.

  57. 57.

    Benw

    FFS the “Pre-2016 Republican Party” *IS* the Trump Republican party!

    Trump captured them with EASE. They FLOCKED to him. Argh

  61. 61.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Benw: The “Trump Republican Party” has been constructed over the last half century.  Reaganism was an early form, where the figurehead could be coached not to say the quiet things out loud.

    The GOP is what it is today because that’s where it’s been headed since 1964.

  62. 62.

    Uncle Omar

    @Baud: #42  Looks like 700 dead people per judge to me.  BTW how’s the Baud 2020 fundraising going?  Did my check clear?

  63. 63.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    Lincoln Project post THIRD brutal ad of the day (video)

     

    and a touching tribute in honor of John Lewis (video)

  64. 64.

    dmsilev

    @Elizabelle: Also aimed at the libertarian “jackbooted government thugs are coming for us” crowd. Granted, the vast majority of those are actually Republicans who are embarrassed to admit it, but some of them are reachable.

  66. 66.

    cmorenc

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    @Lyrebird: Fort Hood should be renamed for Chamberlain.  After all, Hood got his ass kicked by him.

    Fortunately, Mount Hood in Orgon wasn’t named after CSA General Hood, but instead for a British admiral, Lord Samuel Hood.

  67. 67.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

     

    @Lyrebird:  Fort Stormy Daniels

     

    I mean to paraphrase Billy Wilder, she’s built like a brick kremlin

  71. 71.

    Achrachno

    @David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch: Yes! The John Lewis video is good, and makes me think that the Lincoln Project people may have come all the way over to our side.  Some of them anyway.  They don’t have to praise one of our stalwarts if their mission is just to sink Trump.

  72. 72.

    zhena gogolia

    @WaterGirl:

    Like the one in Russian (which I laughed at hysterically the first time I saw it), it’s overdone and slips into propaganda.

    The “wall” one is great, though.

  73. 73.

    NotMax

    @Lyrebird

    Not Inouye. A thousand and one nays to that. Submit Fort Otani as an alternative (as Fort Go For Broke would never make an approved list).

  74. 74.

    Kay

    @Danielx:

    I’m a contrarian on this. Republicans in Congress will be glad to be rid of him. He exposes them as frauds and creates daily problems in their lives.  They will likely have also lost senate and house seats if we win, maybe a lot of them. They’ll be planning 2024 before the absentee ballots are counted. I’d worry much more about voter suppression in WI and FL than I would about Republicans in Congress mounting a vigorous defense of a defeated Donald Trump.

  75. 75.

    Elizabelle

    @dmsilev:   Libertarians and other embarrassed Republicans, for sure.   I think possibly at the Bern or busters too.

    The young man who freezes into a still with his hands up?  Cannot protest if you don’t protect your speech and VOTE.  No sitting this one out.

  77. 77.

    Gin & Tonic

    Too lazy (and +2 or 3) to look, but is it true Marco Rubio posted a picture of himself with Elijah Cummings on Twitter intending to pay tribute to John Lewis?

  78. 78.

    dmsilev

    Let’s check in with the other narcissistic jackass running for President:

     

    Kanye West at his “campaign rally” in South Carolina: “Harriet Tubman never actually freed the slaves, she just had them work for other white people.” Loud groans from the audience, “come on man” can be heard pic.twitter.com/Q9g92UvZ27— philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) July 19, 2020

  79. 79.

    Danielx

    @WaterGirl:

    Me! Me!

    Not in so many words, but I figured that as fucked up as his responses had been to so many other problems, he was bound to fuck up governmental response to a pandemic.

    There was a plan. All he had to do was  to Work The Plan. Still would have been painful and disruptive, but we would all be a lot better off, including him. But it was an Obama plan, so much better to talk out his ass and let Jared do it – “it” being letting the states sink or swim on their own.

  82. 82.

    Elizabelle

    Speaking of the late, great John Lewis — and bless their hearts at the Associated Press.

    Yes.  They sent out a photo caption correction this morning.  They had misidentified John Lewis as a Republican.

  84. 84.

    Gin & Tonic

    And did one of the tweets up top really refer to a “sharp @maggieNYT piece”? Uh, what? I’m reminded of an offhand remark of a colleague about a co-worker – “dude’s sharp as a bowling ball.”

  85. 85.

    Ken

    @Benw: FFS the “Pre-2016 Republican Party” *IS* the Trump Republican party!

    No, no, he was an aberration, an accident, nothing to do with the real Republican party, we always opposed him, never met him, isn’t he the guy that got the coffee, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera…

  86. 86.

    Benw

    @Villago Delenda Est: I know, I know! It’s just so *frustrating* to see people allow R’s to act like a “big split” is coming between Trump and some mythical pre-2016 R party, like in the OP tweet. They are the SAME PEOPLE and should be held accountable. Grrr

  88. 88.

    Elizabelle

    @Gin & Tonic:   Quite true.

    In fairness to Rubio (who deserves none, but …), it’s probably a staff error AND other people have made that mistake previously.

    Even people who admired both Lewis and Cummings.

    But people should be extra careful about that, and it was known on Capitol Hill that the two were sometimes mistaken for each other … superficial resemblance.

  94. 94.

    Geminid

    @Lyrebird: Fort Bragg should be renamed Ft. Ridgeway. The 82nd Airborne Division is based there, and Matthew Ridgeway was its commander from 1942 through the invasion of Normandy. Ridgeway went on to salvage MacArthur’s disaster in Korea. Braxton Bragg, on the other hand, was a nincompoop as well as a traitor.

  95. 95.

    Chyron HR

    They’re “eyeing subpoenas” with 110 days left. Even if this would be effective, and I doubt it would be, they’re about a year too late.

    Uh, the time to serve subpoenas is next year when we have a real DOJ backing them up.  And the purpose of subpoenaing these shits even though Trump is out of office is to nail them to a fucking tree for what they did to our country.

  98. 98.

    scav

    @Achrachno: I would hesitate to go so far.  There’s every likelihood they just know how to juggle styles, and this ad may serve the practical purpose of attracting donations from democrats (the hints of Burns documentary style does rather hit the pre-existing fund drive button somehow).

  99. 99.

    mrmoshpotato

    When is Michael Ian Black’s new not-for-children children’s book coming out? – Soviet Shitpile Has A SAD!

  100. 100.

    Kay

    Here’s some info on the latest low quality Trump hire who is in the news:

    Wolf’s Twitter profile photo shows him in sunglasses and a headset as he does his very best to look very tough. From all the posturing, you might think the Homeland Security secretary had spent some time in law enforcement. In reality, he was an airport security bureaucrat who became a lobbyist. But he’s learned an important lesson: When your boss became president by pretending to be a brilliant dealmaker on television, image is all that counts.

    When they got rid of the baby jailer they needed a warm body to fill the slot. They know they can’t get any of these people thru a senate confirmation, and 9 of the 10 spots under the baby jailer were unfilled, so it had to be someone who had served for 90 days prior- enter Chad, the fake soldier who is actually a lobbyist.

  101. 101.

    trollhattan

    @cmorenc:

    Not for the Brit battlecruiser sunk by Bismark?

    Fun fact: Mt Rainier was named by George Vancouver after an admiral friend. When I lived in Seattle it was variously called Rainier, Tahoma and The Mountain, as in “The Mountain is out today.”

    Before warming, The Cloud hid it most days. IDK about now.

  104. 104.

    TS (the original)

    President Trump’s failure to contain the coronavirus outbreak and his refusal to promote clear public-health guidelines have left many senior Republicans despairing that he will ever play a constructive role in addressing the crisis,

    It’s also left 140,000 people dead but that is not so important to those senior Republicans.

  107. 107.

    Amir Khalid

    @WaterGirl:

    The Lincoln Project doesn’t do subtle and understated. If you want to get Trump’s attention (and that is always partly why they do any video) you gotta do the over-the-top visuals and the thumping bad-guy music.

  110. 110.

    Kay

    Chad F. Wolf is the acting Secretary of Homeland Security and Under Secretary of Homeland Security for Strategy, Policy, and Plans. He previously served in several positions in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), including as Chief of Staff of the Transportation Security Administration and Chief of Staff to DHS secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. He was an architect of the Trump administration’s family separation policy.
    From 2005 to 2016, he was a lobbyist, helping clients to secure contracts from the Transportation Security Administration, his previous employer.

    Really scraping the bottom of the barrel now- this is the baby jailer’s underling.

  114. 114.

    Geminid

    @Villago Delenda Est: Virginia has a group of self-described conservatives who despise trump and publish an internet journal called Bearing Drift. They usually cover intra party state and local politics, but MD Russ had a good article a month ago about the rot in the GOP over the past decades. His conclusion: “Trump did not hijack the Republican party. He just answered the casting call.”

  115. 115.

    Jeffro

    @Danielx: Yeah, good point.  “Don’t be so rude…he’s just taking a little extra time to pack his ba…”  No wait, bad point – even the villagers will be throw-up-sick of trumpov by that point.

    But I do hope they get some good footage of him being physically dragged out.  That would be awesome.

    My bet is that he will be golfing on the taxpayer dime one last time while Biden’s sworn in, but that’s just me.

    And given how badly trumpov has tainted the office…I almost hope they just disinfect the place and turn it into a new museum.  No respectable person would want to live there after Sir Jerks-A-Lot spent four years stinking up the place.

  117. 117.

    NotMax

    @scav

    And William Joyce (born in Brooklyn, NY, BTW) was no lord.

    @Elizabelle

    A percentage of Americans would simply assume Maggie refers to The Simpsons character.

  120. 120.

    Danielx

    @Kay:

    I was referring to Villagers. I’m with you in thinking that congressional Republicans (short of Louie Gohmert, that is) would just as soon be shut of him at this point, since he’s advocating for the suicide of their constituents.

  121. 121.

    Ken

    @Benw: Goodness, I’m glad I didn’t continue with the media reaction to the forthcoming repudiation of Trump.

    (Which will of course be thoughtful nodding, followed by pronouncements that the Republicans have learned their lesson and Democrats need to reach out to them because this is a center-right country.)

  122. 122.

    Jeffro

    @Geminid: I’ll have to check that out sometime soon.  I keep getting distracted from state politics by the SQUIRREL!!!1! that iz our national politics.

  125. 125.

    WaterGirl

    @Amir Khalid: I think they have done a few that are subtle and understated.  But even compared to their usual, this one is way over the top.  The words they are saying are true, but their presentation feels like over-the-top propaganda, and I think it takes away from the message.

  126. 126.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Chyron HR:

    No, no, it’s Senate Republicans who are “eyeing subpoenas” for Biden’s associates

    ETA: Per the embedded Politico tweet:

    A Senate committee is eyeing subpoenas for current and former advisers to Joe Biden as part of an investigation into the former vice president’s son, an escalation of GOP scrutiny of the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee and his family

  128. 128.

    dmsilev

    @Jeffro:

    And given how badly trumpov has tainted the office…I almost hope they just disinfect the place and turn it into a new museum.  No respectable person would want to live there after Sir Jerks-A-Lot spent four years stinking up the place.

    They almost have to strip it down to the structural beams and rebuild it from scratch; god only knows what sort of surveillance devices he’s allowed his “friends” to leave there.

  129. 129.

    Brachiator

    Listen past the nonsense. Trump claims he has seen polls where he’s leading. At some point, a narcissist’s inner circle comes to realize there is no penalty for lying to him and a huge penalty for telling him the truth.

    I will not feel comfortable until Trump is actually defeated. He is sabotaging himself and surrounding himself with incompetents. However, the plutocrats are still behind him, and the GOP leadership is still afraid to defy Trump, or to criticize him.

    Some voters are finally backing away from Trump. It’s hard to support someone who doesn’t care whether the virus gets you.

  131. 131.

    Kay

    @Danielx:

    OK. I also think it would be prudent to have a plan if it’s close. Obviously we want to keep it out of the SCOTUS, so I suppose that means you go the House route.

  133. 133.

    Geminid

    @Villago Delenda Est: Virginia has a group of self-described conservatives who despise trump and publish an internet journal called Bearing Drift. They usually cover intra party state and local politics, but MD Russ had a good article a month ago about the rot in the GOP over the past decades. His conclusion: “Trump did not hijack the Republican party. He just answered the casting call.”

  134. 134.

    Yutsano

    @Mike in NC:  A friend has been stationed there for 2 years now. With his new contract renewal he said he wanted* only one option: Wainwright. He goes in September.

    * he did also select JBLM but apparently that’s so popular it’s hard to get.

  136. 136.

    Patricia Kayden

    The simplest theory of 2020 is probably the correct one: an incumbent President is horribly botching several concurrent crises.— Andrew ?? (@A_M_Dolan) July 19, 2020

  137. 137.

    SFAW

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Too lazy (and +2 or 3) to look, but is it true Marco Rubio posted a picture of himself with Elijah Cummings on Twitter intending to pay tribute to John Lewis?

    In addition to that pendejo, apparently Senator Sullivan (PoT-AK) did the same thing. I guess he and Rubio share staffers?

  143. 143.

    Geminid

    @Geminid: Sorry, another double post. Fat Finger strikes again. Bearing Drift provides good coverage of the power struggle going on in the Virginia GOP. It’s all good news for Democrats.

  144. 144.

    tokyokie

    @Lyrebird: I’ve been suggesting this for a couple of weeks now: Fort Bragg is named for Braxton Bragg, arguably the worst general of the Confederacy, as well an ill-tempered fellow, apparently just because he was from North Carolina. On the other hand, George Henry Thomas, a native of Virginia, earned the nickname “the Rock of Chickamauga,” because troops under his command held fast and prevented the Union loss in that battle (the only major battle Bragg won) from becoming a complete rout. Thomas then executed a series of flanking maneuvers that ended with Bragg abandoning the city of Chattanooga without a fight, as he chose to make his stand on the high ridges on the southeast side of the city. Whereupon Thomas’ troops attacked Confederate soldiers in firing pits at the base of Missionary Ridge and kept on going, all the way to the top of the ridge and forcing Bragg to abandon his defensive positions altogether.

     

    Thomas was  one of the Union’s best, albeit non-self-promoting, generals. He remained loyal to the United States and became Bragg’s chief nemesis. It’s time for George Henry Thomas to run Braxton Bragg’s name off the major Army installation in North Carolina, just as he ran Bragg’s ass off Missionary Ridge.

  146. 146.

    Elizabelle

    @Geminid:   They don’t like Betsy DeVos either.

    Would you put up the link to the MD Russ article you mentioned?  Cannot find it easily; maybe you can …  He’s apparently a vintner.  In vino veritas …

  147. 147.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Jeffro: Perhaps Biden and Democrats can respond in kind with a short phrase.  There’s no reason to humor the same media which can’t even call Trump a liar.

  148. 148.

    catclub

    @rikyrah: They are also mad that COVID-19 has taken away their easy copy about the campaign.

     

    an ideal greivance for Trump to peddle would be that Democrats stalled a vaccine that would have totally turned around the economy. I doubt he reads this blog.

  149. 149.

    Sally

    @Elizabelle: I agree. These are the kinds of ads Rs do to scare Rs into voting for Rs. They respond to this stuff. Scare them out of voting for Rs, maybe even scare a few into voting for Ds. Think of donny’s dystopian inauguration speech. Leopards eating faces.

  150. 150.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Patricia Kayden: The simplest theory of 2020 is probably the correct one: an incumbent President a Soviet shitpile mobster conman is horribly deliberately botching several concurrent crises.— Andrew ?? (@A_M_Dolan) July 19, 2020

    Fixed.

  151. 151.

    gwangung

    @WaterGirl: Oh.., it’s not clickable….that’s just the account you give to PayPal (haven’t bothered to, but maybe I should learn how to do the HTML. to fill in the blanks for PayPal).

    But the other one goes to the right page…

  152. 152.

    Jeffro

    @NotMax: I learned a new word today (seriously!)  And I think you’re right about ‘anomie’.  =)

    On to November!

  154. 154.

    Brachiator

    @WaterGirl:

    I think that on this one they took what could have been a great ad, and overplayed it.  I think it would have been more powerful if it was more understated.

    I think I like it. It is like a graphic novel. Some of the cop’s look like storm troopers out of Star Wars. Maybe it will appear to younger voters, let them know that they can make a difference.

    I don’t know. I don’t know that you need understatement when the government is snatching people off the streets.

    I might even go further. Law and order conservatives may back these “law enforcement” efforts. They need to know that they’re next. Trump doesn’t care about them.

  155. 155.

    catclub

    @tokyokie: I’ve been suggesting this for a couple of weeks now:

    I have been suggesting that at least two ( probably more) counties in Mississippi are named for Civil war traitors.  Forrest county and Jefferson Davis County.

     

    I have not checked on Pike county.

  156. 156.

    Peale

    @Jeffro: They are already lecturing Cuomo for taking a “victory lap”. The good thing is I think they’ll take out their anger that those liberal do gooders were right about something by taking it out on Cuomo and leave Biden alone.

  157. 157.

    WaterGirl

    @SiubhanDuinne: Anyone on that committee who is even thinking about doing that should be summarily thrown out along with Trump.

    They have to be able to see with their own eyes just how awful he is, yet they still want to use dirty tricks to make sure Trump stays in office.

    It’s appalling.  As we all know, we don’t just have a Trump problem.

  158. 158.

    Sab

    @Danielx: I want them to fail. They knew what he was. We impeached him. The Senate Repubs failed to convict when they knew what he was. Also too they knew this pandemic freight train was heading at us sometime in January 2020. His continued tenure is on them.

  159. 159.

    Jeffro

    @Patricia Kayden: I wonder if “F. U.” is short enough of a response for Biden and the Dems to use?  It’s certainly appropriate.

    They just better hit the ground running in January, that’s for sure.  It’s like watching work pile up for an incoming great new hire, only the ‘work’ is lost lives and jobs and everything else.  And the great new hire is ready to start tomorrow, but the departing bad hire insists on riding out his time.

    Ugh.  Come onnnnnn, November!

  160. 160.

    Falling Diphthong

    @dmsilev: It is my fervent hope that Trump will shake things up by dumping Mike Pence for Kanye West. It’s the extra level of crazy this year needs.

  161. 161.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Geminid: A friend of mine doesn’t want to rename Fort Bragg; Bragg’s actions in Tennessee were helpful to the Union cause.

  162. 162.

    Jeffro

    @Peale: Especially since Biden was a) part of the Obama-Biden team that left the ‘playbook’ behind for team trumpov, and b) warned about our unpreparedness for a pandemic just last October.

  163. 163.

    catclub

    @Peale: do gooders were right about something by taking it out on Cuomo and leave Biden alone.

     

    That would be interesting. Newsom is the Democratic governor who was closest  to taking a premature victory lap.

  164. 164.

    Geminid

    @Elizabelle: I am a digital dinosaur and can barely post much less link. But I was able to pull up Russ’s article by its title. I googled:  bearing drift donald trump is the republican president        The article is quite good. Before retiring to his vineyard Russ served in the Army for 25 years and did defense related work as a civilian for another 17.

  167. 167.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Sab: They are enablers of him, and accomplices to his treason.  Whatever punishment Donald suffers for his crimes, the 52 Senators who voted to acquit need to suffer as well.

  168. 168.

    debbie

    I don’t think either Lincoln Project ad is overwrought. If you saw the video I saw of the “police” beating the Navy vet in Portland, you’d agree.

  170. 170.

    WaterGirl

    @Brachiator: It was better when I viewed it the second time through the lens of a graphic novel.

    You are right.  Everybody is next.  Our government no longer cares who they hurt and who they run over.

    Short story: I put myself through college by working as a grocery store checker.  (I made 11.50 an hour in 1981, thanks to the union)

    Anyway, we had a terrible boss who would pick on various people and undermine then.  Some of the checkout people would say “isn’t it terrible what she did to Susie, but she’s always been nice to me, so…”

    I would have to explain that it’s like we were on a ferris wheel and everybody gets their turn at the bottom – their time just hadn’t come yet.

    These Republicans are just as naive and delusional as the 20-year-olds I worked with at the grocery store.

  171. 171.

    MagdaInBlack

    @debbie:

    And the one of them and the pregnant Moms Against Police Brutality?  I saw that on the same thread.

    Its on Raw Story now, but I have issues ( my own) posting links, Im sorry.

  172. 172.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Yutsano: Lewis, Carson, and Ord were once called “The Golden Triangle” in the Army.  Then Ord shut down and was sold off to drooling real estate interests who got stuck with a lot of superfund cleanup costs.  Impact areas are a bitch.

  174. 174.

    WaterGirl

    @debbie: For me, it wasn’t the words, it was the tone and the music.  I don’t know what to call these thugs in uniforms with no names, but they are beyond out of control.

    They are like rabid dogs.  In a pack.  It’s shocking.

  176. 176.

    debbie

    @WaterGirl:

    I can’t embed from this iPad, but find @tazerface on Twitter. He’s the disabled Navy vet a handful of “police” set upon with batons and spray. They broke his hand, but he turned and walked away. He must have been a foot taller than them.

  179. 179.

    Ksmiami

    @WaterGirl: Remember with Project Lincoln, Balloon Juicers are not the target audience. This is for disaffected Republicans and Independents and of course to goad Trump. No sleep till Biden

  181. 181.

    tokyokie

    @Villago Delenda Est: If you’ve ever seen Missionary Ridge, you wonder how the hell a general defending it could have been run off it in a single attack (even with the heavy fog). When I lived in Chattanooga in the mid-1980s, there were tunnels through it, but no roads to the top because it was too steep and narrow. There’s been a road around Lookout Mountain since at least the mid-1960s — I remember, because I got carsick on it on a family vacation — but not Missionary Ridge.

  182. 182.

    Matt McIrvin

    @WaterGirl: You almost can’t overdo this stuff. They’re playing to people who respond to syrupy kitsch and exaggerated drama–and they’re Republicans, who used these techniques against us with some success. And for once, the subject matter is horrifying enough to deserve it.

  183. 183.

    Jay

    If y’all want, us Canadians can sterilize the White Supremacy House again, like we did during the War of 1812.

    Only upon request from President Biden.

    We will bring our own PPE, and self quarantine for 14 days prior to commencing the sterilization.

    Y’all can build a new one, with Alexa Smart Locks, that does a deep dive Google search on somebody’s social media, trying to enter, and locks them out if they are a ReThug or Glibertarian.

  190. 190.

    Subsole

    @Ken:  Yep. Republicans get to be pure-hearted virgins no matter how many times they fuck the rest of us.

    It is known.

  191. 191.

    Elizabelle

    @Sally:   I wonder if we ever will see the Lincoln Project with leopards and faces.

    Probably too inside baseball,  but cannot rule it out.  It would certainly make our day!

  194. 194.

    Jay

    I would really, really, really like to thank Tav. She's my street medic angel who pulled me out of the park and took me to safety when I couldn't see anything anymore. She stayed with me the whole time and then her and her friends drove me around to find an ambulance.— Tazerface (@Tazerface16) July 19, 2020

  198. 198.

    Geminid

    • @tokyokie: I read that the original Confederate position was a half mile or so towards Chattanooga, but in response to a move by Grant’s army a couple days before the famous assault, Bragg pulled his troops back and put a thin line at the base and and his main line on top of Missionary Ridge. But his engineers mistakenly laid out the line on the actual crest of the ridge, not the military crest which would have been a far enough down from the top to actually cover the ridge side. As a result, hundreds of Union troops were able to use the “dead” spaces to closely approach the Confederate line and then rush it.         Bragg’s soldiers hated him, and his officers despised him, so everyone was ready to run when they saw Union troops gain the top of the ridge.
  199. 199.

    Elizabelle

    @Matt McIrvin:   Horrifying, isn’t it?

    Crimes against humanity.  Any president would have had some unavoidable COVID deaths as we ramped up our response.

    But not this record-setting number.  Which we know is underreported.

  200. 200.

    Jay

    “Now, somebody treats our veterans badly, and we look at them, what do we say? We say you’re fired, get out!” — Donald Trump, one month ago pic.twitter.com/NA5KAXOq3l— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) July 20, 2020

     

    Worth reading through. It was Taserface’s (a Guardians of the Galaxy reference) first protest, and he was only there because the Stormtrooper were engaged in terrorism,

  201. 201.

    Subsole

    @Jeffro: These people betrayed their nation, their god, their family and even to some degree themselves. I mean, if they took off the klan hood, what actually is left of them, at this point? Name one value they have bludgeoned us over the head with lo these forty years that has not been openly and flagrantly abandoned.

     

    Bush was just a fuckup, a bad call. They could turn on that. They could face that and own it and then sweep it under the rug once it was gone.

    Trump is a failure of such epic and fundamental proportion they literally cannot look at it. It will end their image of themselves. So it cannot be faced or acknowledged enough to be serpt under the rug.

    Hence the higher floor, I think.

     

    Maybe I am overthinking this, but the more I look at conservatism, the more I find it is animated entirely by fear. The hatred comes from fear, the ignorance from fear, the arrogance comes from the ignorance bred by the fear. But fear is the bedrock.

  203. 203.

    James E Powell

    @Subsole:

    Name one value they have bludgeoned us over the head with lo these forty years that has not been openly and flagrantly abandoned.

    I’ve been throwing that in the face of my RW brothers since summer 2016. I will spare you their incoherent, fact-free, racist responses

    They are not going to have any trouble disconnecting from Trump. They only love him because he hates the rest of us just as much as they hate the rest of us. They will claim he never failed, that everyone was against him from the start, blah blah blah.

  204. 204.

    Lyrebird

    I know this thread may have gone to sleep a while ago, but thanks anyhow to the other nominators,

    @NotMax:

    @Geminid:

    @tokyokie:

    and also the record-correctors,

     

    @debbie: …can’t stand how someone who enriches his own chosen faith leaders shows zero respect to others’.  As in I think that’s the Rev. Al Sharpton.

  207. 207.

    Elizabelle

    @Ruckus:   I actually got it from a friend.  And, as NotMax mentions in next comment, the size and capacity of the aircraft was not specified.

    But I think airliner crashes are a very descriptive marker.

  208. 208.

    Elizabelle

    @NotMax:   A 737 (commonly used jet) seats from 162 to 189, allegedly.

    So, going with 175 per passenger jet …  and that is exactly how someone did the math; I just guessed at that figure, but it dovetails with the example —

    140,000 divided by 175 is 800.  That is 800 fully loaded jets (OK, we did not load in the crew, but …)

    divide that by 16 — for four months; 16 weeks, and bingo — 50 airliners.

  209. 209.

    Ruckus

    @NotMax:

    A 777-200 carries 305 in a 3 class configuration.

    A 777-300 carries about 370 in 3 class configuration.

    @Elizabelle:

    I’ll take that as an OK but will refigure the numbers using an average.

  210. 210.

    Elizabelle

    @Ruckus:  Cool.

    To be a PITA, though:  I’d go with the 737.  If anything, airlines are flying smaller planes now.  Embrauers, etc. on some routes that used to have Airbuses on them.  Reduced demand and capacity.

    Anyway, it is way too many deaths.  So sad.

  211. 211.

    NotMax

    @Elizabelle

    Just penciled out some back of the envelope (morbid) numbers.

    Assuming an average height of 67 inches, 140,000 bodies laid end to end would stretch about 148 miles.

  212. 212.

    brantl

    @Ken: I think the last time I proposed this in the comments, someone called this “homeopathic tax cuts”.

    I think Republican homeopathic tax cuts should be a rotating tag line.

  214. 214.

    NotMax

    @Ruckus

    Not attempting to make a thing about it but believe the site I linked is more up to date in taking into account additional gross numbers resultant of reductions in seat width and in leg room than the numbers on Wikipedia for this particular data.

  215. 215.

    NotMax

    @Elizabelle

    Didn’t particular relish coming up with that yet it’s a description which might have more immediate impact on those it is presented to.

    5’7″ is a decent ballpark estimate for average American adult height (men + women).

  216. 216.

    Ruckus

    @NotMax:

    Understand, the numbers on Wiki are for the original production planes, not necessarily the latest single class planes.

    I’m going to think this over tonight and if I do this it will be tomorrow and I’ll give the numbers out as well so that it’s obvious what we are talking about. For me you could say any size airplane you wanted or cars on the freeway even but we all know how people feel about airliner safety and crashes. I want to think about this a bit more before I write it up.

  218. 218.

    Ruckus

    @NotMax:

    Was just thinking that one would want to make it reasonable without trying to make it absolutely terrifying, or would you?

    The entire thing is terrifying, people dying by the literal truck loads because one idiotic narcissistic asswipe needs his ego stroked when he should be in a mental heath institution or at least a old geezers home by himself where he couldn’t have been responsible for killing semi trucks full or large airliners full of people and now has his brownshirts out on city streets maiming, shooting and kidnapping people.

    I wanted to travel a bit next year after I retire but I’d be amazed that any other country would let americans into their countries for at least the next decade after this level of depravity. And of course I have to remain alive and healthy to do that.

  219. 219.

    frosty

    @Ruckus: I see you’ve been talking about 777 and 737. Isn’t there a 757? Plus a couple of Airbuses I’m sure. A research opportunity!

    That being said, comparing this to x airliner crashes per week, every week, really brought it home to me. Much more than x911s or xVietnams. This is a good approach. Think of the headlines!!!

  220. 220.

    NotMax

    @Ruckus

    As an abstraction, couching it as the sinking of 100 Titanics works, too. (That would be ~150,000 but we’ll reach there and beyond all too soon.)

  221. 221.

    Ruckus

    @NotMax:

    100 Titanics might be more appropriate. After all the people in charge were stupid enough and convinced that the Titanic was unsinkable. Which no ship ever before had been and none since. There is of course a parallel to our current situation, dumb motherfuckers in charge.

    @frosty:

    That’s the reason that it stinks so much, so many people can see themselves in that situation. Once when I was flying most every week I did my usual, got on the plane, took my window seat and fell asleep just after they closed the door. I woke up a while later and looked out the window and there was a brick wall just past the wing tip. Asked my seat mate if we’d arrived and his reply was, “You fucking bastard, we’ve been here with the door closed for 45 minutes and everybody on board is pissed as hell, except for you. You’ve been asleep the whole time, you’re the only person that’s not.” I started laughing, he was not amused, which of course made it funnier. “Was I snoring?” That got him and he laughed. I could have slept through the entire thing, the only thing that ever woke me up was the drink cart.

    We are all pissed as fuck at this situation, especially at the morons who can’t be assed to grow a pair and mask up and the idiots who are letting their racist flags fly. Whole countries have done this but these motherfuckers are too ignorant and racist and selfish to think about anyone but themselves. Not even their kids or their parents can they manage to not try and kill. shitforbrains must be so proud, if he could understand how many people want to be as ignorant, racist and selfish as he is he’d jump off a cliff with pride.

    I don’t know if we should try to make them feel bad or try to make ourselves feel better. Also I’m not sure either is possible.

  223. 223.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Jeffro: It’s great except for one (IMO) yuuuuge inexplicable cinematographic fail:

    In the angle shown of Twitler’s Wall, you have to look pretty closely to tell that it’s made up of caskets stood up shoulder to shoulder one after another after another after another into the far distance…

    I realize this is mentioned in the voiceover, but words don’t work like a visual. All they had to do was take one second to show a full-on frontal of that wall & there would be no doubt whatsofuckingever in any viewer’s mind.

  227. 227.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Kay: I also think it would be prudent to have a plan if it’s close. Obviously we want to keep it out of the SCOTUS, so I suppose that means you go the House route.

    Mmm…be careful what you plan for. Most of the Constitutional language for when no candidate has accumulated 270 EVs (e.g., because of ongoing challenges to election results) have the HoR choosing POTUS on the basis of one vote per state, determined by vote among each state’s Congresspersons – and after the 2018 elections, the GOP held a majority in 26 of the 50 State delegations (with 23 Democratic majorities & 1 tie). I doubt that’s changed much since then.

    That’s not to say the situation would be the same in the new Congress, but it accentuates the need to run up the score. E.g., it is highly unlikely but not inconceivable that the selection of the next President will depend on which party wins Montana’s single House seat. (We have someone good running?)

  228. 228.

    Uncle Cosmo

    I know the thread is dead, but even so:

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch: Storm Troopers is apt.

    In fact it is not. But that’s a common misconception. What you want – what you meant – is Sturmabteilung or SA – the brownshirted “Storm Detachment” street thugs of the NSDAP.

    The original “stormtroopers” were elite troops of the Reichsheer whose detachments first appeared in force in the Spring 1918 offensives on the Western Front. “Storming” was a description of their mode of attack: Armed only as heavily as was consistent with a need for speed, Sturmtruppen were tasked to penetrate the Allied lines & burst into the rear, going as deeply as possible as fast as possible, bypassing any strongpoints for the following regular units to reduce. It was a tactic of war, no more brutal or thuggish than any other – a human equivalent to the Allies’ use of massed tanks to break through entrenched defenses – & it came very, very close to winning the war for the Kaiser. **

    The goon-squads of the SA had fuck-all to do with these thoroughly professional and highly accomplished troops – the Nazis merely stole the name. /Ped Ant

    ** IIUC, logistics was their downfall: When the German Army broke through to the Allied supply dumps, the successive waves (who’d been on short rations for years owing to the British naval blockade) quite understandably took time out for stuffing themselves silly from the mountains of food and drink. Which gave their enemy just enough time to organize a defense. /tmi

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