Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

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

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

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

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

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

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

Republicans do not pay their debts.

I conferred with the team and they all agree – still not tired of winning!

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

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

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

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

Trump’s legal defense is going to be a dumpster fire inside a clown car on a derailing train.

People are complicated. Love is not.

You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Thursday Evening Open Thread: Another Twist in the ‘RNC Convention of the Doomed’ Narrative

Thursday Evening Open Thread: Another Twist in the ‘RNC Convention of the Doomed’ Narrative

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BWHAHAHAHA!


Like this was somehow a point in Dear Leader’s favor…

The Washington Post is not impressed:

… Trump, who delivered the news at the beginning of a coronavirus news briefing, said he was presented with plans for the nominating event in the afternoon, but told his staff it wasn’t the right time to hold the event.

“But I looked at my team and I said the timing for this event is not right, just not right with what’s happened recently. The flare-up in Florida to have a big convention is not the right time,” Trump said. “It’s really something that for me, I have to protect the American people. That’s what I’ve always done. That’s what I always will do. That’s what I’m about.”…

The president said he would still give an acceptance speech in some form, but it would not be before the cheering crowds that attend in normal times.

Trump said thousands of people “desperately” wanted to attend and were already making travel arrangements.

“The pageantry, the signs, the excitement were really, really top of the line,” he said.

The cancellations, the staff complaints, the disdain from my donors were really, really attention-grabbing.

Also, BABY HAS A NEW TOY DADDY HAS A NEW GRIFT!

Reader Interactions

220Comments

  1. 1.

    dmsilev

    Look, holding the rally electronically makes it far easier to lie about how many people “attend”. Poor Brad Parscale; he really should have thought of that before sending Trump to Tulsa.

  3. 3.

    NotMax

    Brought up from downstairs.

    The vention part may be put on ice but the con proceeds uninterrupted.

  4. 4.

    mrmoshpotato

    Good on everyone who got a piece of that 38-million dollar pie!

    Fucking plague ship convention.

  6. 6.

    dmsilev

    SUMMER CONCEPCION
    5:56pm

    Batter up! The RNC cancelation isn’t the only curveball that Trump threw during his briefing — he just announced that he will throw out a first pitch at Yankee Stadium on August 15.

    The President clearly doesn’t want to be upstaged by Dr. Anthony Fauci throwing out the first pitch tonight in Washington.

    Notice that he’s only doing so in a stadium empty of fans. Also, expect camera tricks to hide just how close he will be to the catcher, who will undoubtedly be equipped with a mitt made from a pair of king-sized mattresses.

  8. 8.

    tokyokie

    I believe what the Jacksonville sheriff is saying is, “We’re not going to get stiffed for all the OT we’d need to pay for this shit show to proceed.

     

    I lustily booed George H.W. Bush when he threw out the first pitch of the season at a Texas Rangers game back in the day. Perhaps the Yankees will pump out some jeering over the P.A. to make der Trumpenführer feel at home.

     

    And by the way, Fuck the Yankees.

  9. 9.

    dmsilev

    From that Post article,

    Trump said, “We’ll figure it out. It’ll be online in some form.”

    Officials said they are looking at virtual and digital programming and possibly having a stage somewhere, without the convention-size crowd.

    I feel confident this will go off without any hitch whatsoever with such excellent planners on the job.

  12. 12.

    Ruckus

    Anyone who cannot see that shitforbrains is all and only ever about what he wants, whenever he wants it, however he wants it, for whatever asinine reason he wants it, no matter what the cost is or how or how much it hurts anyone/everyone else, is either on crack, has the mental ability of a parking lot bumper, or is too busy sucking something belonging to shitforbrains.

  13. 13.

    Roger Moore

    They made fun of Biden for staying in his basement, but he’s been doing remote campaigning the whole time.  Now that it turns out he’s been running circles around Trump in the process, suddenly telecampaigning is such a great idea it’s worth trademarking.

  14. 14.

    Ken

    So after four months and at least forty million wasted dollars, the Republicans decide… to do exactly what the Democrats are doing.

  16. 16.

    dmsilev

    Alexandra Petri:

    He remembers the words perfectly: first, person

    Next came woman

    Then man

    Then camera

    Last, TV.

    There was nothing easier to remember than TV.

    TV is the glass house where he throws stones. He has not been a person

    For a long time now, except to a camera

    And even then not so much person as a garbled man

    Stick-figure strong, to be distinct from woman.
    […]

    This is the order he will forget the words in, too. First person, then woman

    Next man, then camera

    Last TV.

  18. 18.

    MomSense

    So the FYRE GOP convention is an epic clusterfuck.  Good.

    I saw a Lawrence O’Donnell  tweet saying trump had a call with his handler Putin today and the press didn’t ask any questions about the bounty Putin put on our soldiers.  Seriously?  Did anyone hear anything about this?

  20. 20.

    Elizabelle

    The WaPost, with a straight face, on trump‘s announcement re Jacksonville:

    … Trump made a surprise announcement Thursday that he has canceled the Republican national convention scheduled for next month in Jacksonville, Fla., saying he wanted to keep his supporters safe from the coronavirus pandemic and protesters.

    Trump, who delivered the news at the beginning of a coronavirus news briefing, said he was presented with plans for the nominating convention in the afternoon, but told his staff it wasn’t the right time to hold the event.

    “But I looked at my team and I said the timing for this event is not right, just not right with what’s happened recently. The flare-up in Florida to have a big convention is not the right time,” Trump said. “It’s really something that for me, I have to protect the American people. That’s what I’ve always done. That’s what I always will do. That’s what I’m about.”

    …. [Trump] said he would still give an acceptance speech in some form, but it would not be before the cheering crowds that attend in normal times.

    Trump said thousands of people “desperately” wanted to attend and were already making travel arrangements. “The pageantry, the signs, the excitement were really, really top of the line,” he said.

    A Republican official with knowledge of the decision-making said that the president wanted to appear focused on coronavirus again [AGAIN??] and “he realizes he can argue that it is responsible and the right thing to do.” Advisers also argued to him that canceling the convention could help his popularity and show he is taking the pandemic seriously, the official said.

    The decision had nothing to do with officials in Florida, the official said, [BULLSHIT!] who were still willing to hold the convention and were working with Trump allies to loosen some of the pandemic rules. [LOOSEN PANDEMIC RULES. YES.]  Some people involved in the planning were informed about an hour ago [!!] and were actively fundraising and planning as recently as yesterday.

    Some White House and campaign officials were fearful of the negative press if delegates and others caught covid-19 at the convention, two officials said.

    Trump also noted the bad press he’d receive if he went forward with the convention while the coronavirus outbreak was still surging around the country. [AND THIS WAS NOT FORSEEABLE EARLIER, WHY?]

    “I could see the media saying, oh, this is very unsafe. I don’t want to be in that position,” Trump said. “It’s safety, not because of the media. But that’s what they would say. And we’ll have a very nice something. We’ll figure it out. It’ll be online in some form.”

    I think I can hear North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper and his officials laughing from here.

    And that Jacksonville sheriff who warned the public safety planning was inadequate definitely saved some lives. Because you know Trump would have loved to dump the extra costs on Jville. Stiff them. During a pandemic. It’s what he does.

  23. 23.

    oldgold

    This week:

    1} British Open scandal;

    2} Using DOJ to punish Cohen for exercising 1st Amendment rights;

    3} Invades Portland and promises the same for Chicago;

    4} Brags ad nauseam about passing a basic dementia test 2 1/2 years ago; and,

    5} Cancels his acceptance speech at GOP Convention because it is unsafe, while ordering children to attend school.

    Being overwhelmed by the crazy and we haven’t even gotten to Friday afternoon.

  24. 24.

    Chetan Murthy

    So Donnie Pilzkopf is startin’ to be afraid for his life, eh?  Not that it’ll change anything for all of us, b/c he still won’t do jack-shit.

  25. 25.

    Ken

    @Elizabelle: Trump also noted the bad press he’d receive if he went forward with the convention while the coronavirus outbreak was still surging around the country. [AND THIS WAS NOT FORSEEABLE EARLIER, WHY?]

    Because he expected it would just disappear by now.

  27. 27.

    Baud

    Can you imagine how bad it’d be if we had a president who couldn’t pass a dementia test?

  29. 29.

    Calouste

    @dmsilev: I expect there to be an attempt at zoom-bombing the thing  shitgibbon hires look like prime social-engineering targets, so it shouldn’t be too hard for hackers to get some passwords, if there is any decent security at all that is

  30. 30.

    Victor Matheson

    I was on the Jacksonville news earlier this week and said, “This is all looking to be a disaster.” I presume Trump saw this and decided to call it quits. I mean, he is well-known for following the advice of subject-matter experts.

  31. 31.

    germy

    Batter up! The RNC cancelation isn’t the only curveball that Trump threw during his briefing — he just announced that he will throw out a first pitch at Yankee Stadium on August 15.

    The cardboard cutout fans will boo him.

  32. 32.

    Baud

    Trump hosted a little league team at the White House and no one was wearing masks.

    ESPN shouldn’t even be showing it.

  33. 33.

    hedgehog mobile

    Fuck ’em.  Imma watch Opening Night (my beloved Rockies open tomorrow).  Re the con(vention):  to quote Charlie Pierce, these mooks would fuck up a two car funeral if you spotted them the hearse.

    hedgehog soon to be +1 at least

  34. 34.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    He’s very concerned about forcing people to physically sit close together to hear him speak.

    I see.

    Can someone remind me why he called the cadets back to West Point? Why his people removed the social distancing signs in Tulsa? Why he refused to speak in Charlotte? I can’t quite remember.

  38. 38.

    FelonyGovt

    Between him throwing out a ball at Yankee Stadium and Mariano Rivera showing up to shill for him, I’m really glad I’m a Mets fan and not a Yankees fan.

  39. 39.

    Patricia Kayden

    I tortured myself four years ago by watching the Republican National Neo Nazi Rally because I was silly enough to have faith that my fellow citizens would not vote for a sociopath. I’ll skip this year’s hate fest.

  41. 41.

    dopey-o

    Trump could address the tele-rally from his new dascha in Sochi. I would pay to watch that.

    But honestly, WTActualF is up with all these phone calls to Putin? Did i read correctly that they spoke today?

    I see Putin’s influence in Trump sending Little Green Men into Portland, but what could interest Putin in cancelling the convention in Jacksonville? Or should we expect more Law ‘n Order theater this weekend?

  43. 43.

    JMG

    Three new Fox News polls tonight. Biden up 9 in Michigan, 11 in Pennsylvania and 13 in Minnesota. Look for some new OANN polls very soon.

  47. 47.

    Ken

    @Calouste: Prediction: Jared will be put in charge of setting up the teleconference. He’ll get a free account to save money, not noticing that the plan only allows 10 participants and 30 minutes a day.

  48. 48.

    Elizabelle

    @Victor Matheson:

    Yea you!

    CBS local/actionnewsjax TV: Economist: ‘This is all looking to be a disaster’ Mayor admits RNC will not generate $100m in economic impact due to Covid

    Must disagree with that mayor. One could still see that convention having a $100m economic impact. Outgoing, not incoming. In healthcare costs and unreimbursed collateral damage resulting from making the city into a GOP plague ship.

    Aren’t some unfortunate people getting million-plus hospital bills for their long COVID stays?

    Anyway, happy for Jacksonville, and really happy for North Carolina.

  50. 50.

    pattonbt

    What a cudlip

    Damned if he does and damned if doesn’t. If he try’s to act “presidential” his most ardent supporters will abandon him (and he himself will hate it) and if he acts how he wants the middle and non-deplorable support will continue to crater.

    I give him two days of “finally becoming president” before he lets loose again. He’s just incapable of not being himself.

    But one thing is for sure, these coronavirus briefings are staid and boring (from the lens of Trump). They aren’t delivering the desired adulation hit in any way. Look for them to end before the end of next week.

  53. 53.

    Anotherlurker

    @tokyokie: No chance. The Yankees are trumphumping thru and thru.  I am an audio tech who spent a lot of time working Yankee games and trump and Roodie are revered by the Yankee organization.

    Randy Levine, Yankees President was a Deputy Mayor in the Roodles administration.  His job was to help big donors get around NYC building codes .  He was instrumental in allowing Silverman to install a 6,000 gallon Diesel fuel tank for a generator, on the 6th floor of 7 WTC.

    trump humping assholes, all.

  54. 54.

    AWOL

    @tokyokie: I live near Yankee Stadium, despite being a Mets fan. I go to Yankee games once in a Blue Moon. Whenever I’m there, MAGAts are in the seats; you’d never see that at Citi Field.  (And in all fairness, Trump was probably a Met fan—I have been to games decades ago when his scowling face appeared on the scoreboard.)

    In general, Yankee Stadium with fans would be partially friendly to Trump, possibly more so than other zip code not in SI or a Chabad enclave. They’ve have Giuliani. They have Ari Fleischer. Now they have Trump.

  57. 57.

    gwangung

    @dmsilev: 
    I would LAUGH until serious injury if they left security holes big enough for hackers to take control of programming.

    Good thing I have a working health plan…

  58. 58.

    tokyokie

    @FelonyGovt:

    Between him throwing out a ball at Yankee Stadium and Mariano Rivera showing up to shill for him, I’m really glad I’m a Mets fan and not a Yankees fan.

    I distrust any politician who’s openly a Yankees fan. Even if they’re from NYC, in which case they should be Mets fans because the Mets aren’t evil. The Mets may be hopelessly inept, but they’re not evil.

  61. 61.

    Shrillhouse

    “The attendance at our telerally was incredible! We had 10 billion people online. They told me ‘Sir, it’s too much! This is going to jam the internet’….”

  62. 62.

    NotMax

    @AWOL

    Heh. From 2016:

    The Bronx showed the most support for Clinton, with 88 percent of voters casting their ballot in favor of the female candidate. Manhattan was second with 86 percent of votes being cast for Clinton. Source

  64. 64.

    Anotherlurker

    @AWOL: Mets fan, here, too. I made good money working Yankee Games .  I believe it was in 2003-4 that Darth Cheney was soundly booed at Yankee Stadium when his murdering mug was flashed on the screen .

    Yankee management is in the tank for the Orange Asshole.  Yankee fans, maybe not so much.

  65. 65.

    MomSense

    @dopey-o: 
    We shouldn’t have to wonder WTF is up with all the phone calls. We should have read outs. The press should ask questions. Jesus fucking Christ Putin put bounties on the heads of American service personnel and they can’t be bothered to ask a damn question? I remember when just opposing the war in Iraq was tantamount to hating the troops.

  67. 67.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    June 30, 2004 by Stephen VanDyke

    Even Boston RedSox fans had reason to love the Yankees last night as Boston lost an 11-3 match-up in the Bronx. That’s because Cheney received a loud and emphatic booing when his face was shown on the stadium big-screen.

    Tue May 29, 2018

    Washington (CNN)It was not a warm home team welcome for former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

    Giuliani, an avid Yankees fan, was back in the Bronx for a game on Memorial Day in celebration of his 74th birthday.

    “The New York Yankees wish a very happy birthday to Mayor Giuliani,” an announcer said over the loudspeaker during the game. The birthday greeting was greeted by loud and sustained boos throughout the crowd.

    Yankee fans aren’t so bad

  68. 68.

    tokyokie

    @NotMax:

    “It’s an honor to be here in the House That Ruth Built. She was a hot chick.”

    Alas, the sports venue that was the House That Ruth Built is no more, demolished to make room for parking at the stadium built on city parkland that Ghouliani basically gifted to the Steinbrenners. No parks for poor kids in the Bronx, but plenty of high-priced seats for the MotUs who write the cost off their taxes.

     

    Like I say, the Yankees are evil. Let’s go Mets, and Fuck the Fucking Yankees.

  69. 69.

    Van Buren

    @Anotherlurker: Trump makes Steinbrenner look like a guy with class, taste, good judgement,and a sense of decorum. It makes sense that they love him.

  70. 70.

    AWOL

    @NotMax: Wealthy Northern NJ is the source of many Yankee fans.

    There are many poor, middle-class, and wealthy Yankee fans who are anti-Trump. And there are probably many Mets fans on racist LI who root Trump.

    I live in a Dominican neighborhood in Northern Manhattan and currently the ratio is 50% NYY, 40% NYM, and 10% Boston.

  71. 71.

    dmsilev

    @Ken: And he’ll accidentally mute half the participants. Only useful thing he’ll do in his whole life.

  79. 79.

    JMG

    If you want to root for a professional sports team, any team in any sport, you must allow for knowing that your team’s owner is a horrible scumbucket. Because they all are. Well, maybe not Mark Cuban, he’s more eccentric than awful. Robert Kraft of the Patriots, he of the massage parlor happy ending and Trump fan, is one of the least objectionable of them. Honest.

  81. 81.

    Jeffro

    @Roger Moore: 

    “Tele-campaigning was my idea all along, bigly!”

    “I have always said that fighting this virus will require dedication, careful planning, adequate funding and…what’s that? No, um, no…Governor DeSantis is no longer requiring apologies. Yes, YES, masks are good, ok? There, I said it! Now here’s a baseball pitcher to tell you why your kids and their teachers need to crowd back into schools on time…”

  84. 84.

    Kay

    Stephen Marth
    @StephenMarth
    · 2h
    Earlier today, Governor Cuomo said chicken wings are not substantial food for bars to be allowed to sell alcohol. He added that sandwiches were the “lowest level” of substantive food

    I find Governor Cuomo amusing and I realize why- he talks like my father :)

  85. 85.

    NotMax

    @Cameron

    Mom last week bought a foam mattress topper and made it a point on her phone call here later on to say she deliberately refused to so much as look at the My Pillow ones.

  86. 86.

    Jeffro

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:Can someone remind me why he called the cadets back to West Point? Why his people removed the social distancing signs in Tulsa? Why he refused to speak in Charlotte? I can’t quite remember.

    That was then, this is now.

    Let’s look forward, not back.

    Mistakes were made.

    On a more serious note…maybe someone punked him into worrying that the Jacksonville stage had a ramp of some kind?  Yikes!  Way to see trouble coming and plan accordingly, trumpov my man!!

  87. 87.

    Ken

    @Elizabelle: Does a convention really generate $100 million in economic impact? Or was that just hyperbole by the mayor while trying to market it?

    Let’s see, there’s about 3000 delegates, maybe an equal number of politicians and officials. So are they expecting average spending of $15,000 per attendee?

    OK, maybe, but what percentage of that is for hookers and blow, and won’t ever be seen by the city?

  89. 89.

    different-church-lady

    So now, for me, the twitter embeds are not loading on the front page at all, but they are when I load up just the one post. This is on the computer, not a tablet.

  90. 90.

    catclub

    @Baud: Can you imagine how bad it’d be if we had a president who couldn’t pass a dementia test?

     

    Reagan didn’t fuck up his 1984 convention.

  91. 91.

    Aleta

    Haeberman ignores the possibility that the strong-arming grift machine wasn’t effective in getting Jacksonville (the city and its businesses) to provide services up front in exchange for a handshake.  Couldn’t get free VIP rooms and catering in exchange for the fame and a timeless photo for the wall.  City not willing to let the Trump Org use its own contractors (aka unskilled kickback providers) in important roles.  Unwilling to let the convention committee and the T. Organiz.  dictate the receipts and keep the only books.

  92. 92.

    different-church-lady

    “The flare-up in Florida…”

    Biden +13 is quite a flare-up, yes.

  94. 94.

    different-church-lady

    @dmsilev: I could easily see him asking someone to teach him how to throw a baseball and dropping dead with a heart attack on the south lawn due to it being the most physical exertion he’s had in the past four years.

  95. 95.

    dmsilev

    @Ken: A full sized normal-year convention is more like twenty or thirty thousand people, especially once you include all of the media and their support crews. It’s a huge operation which normally takes a couple of years to plan, so a bunch of clowns trying to wing it on two months notice was bound to be a clusterfuck from the get-go, and now they have to do another u-turn and figure out the virtual thing with not much time left.
    Biden’s crew, by contrast, has been planning for virtual for two or three months already.
    Kind of sums up the two approaches to …everything in a nutshell.

  98. 98.

    dmsilev

    @different-church-lady:

    I could easily see him asking someone to teach him how to throw a baseball

    No way. He’d convince himself that he has the best arm in all of baseball and if only he had time he totally could be the best starting pitcher in either league.

  100. 100.

    Benw

    Baseball is currently on pace for 1 HR per team per inning!

    18 HR per game!! Gonna be a whale of a season

  102. 102.

    bluehill

    At this point, the Trump campaign may just the release the pee tape themselves.

  103. 103.

    geg6

    @JMG:

    I hate the Pirates’ ownership with the heat of a thousand suns, those greedy, cheap mother fuckers.  But Mario Lemieux and the Rooneys are good people for the most part and certainly not at all evil.

  105. 105.

    Skepticat

    @mrmoshpotato: Good on everyone who got a piece of that 38-million dollar pie!

    Considering how often the tRumpsters pay their bills, the pieces probably are microscopic.

  106. 106.

    raven

    JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Sheriff Mike Williams said there’s not enough time, money or officers to keep everyone safe during the Republican National Convention planned for Jacksonville in just five weeks.
    On Monday, Williams cited lack of clear plans, inadequate funding and an insufficient amount of law enforcement personnel to handle the delegates, visitors and potential protesters that the RNC would attract to Jacksonville.

  110. 110.

    Alison Rose

    “It’s really something that for me, I have to protect the American people. That’s what I’ve always done. That’s what I always will do. That’s what I’m about.”

    He no protecc

    He jus attacc

    And he eat a lot of snacc

  117. 117.

    Jay Noble

    @Kay: Nebraska had the answer to bars bringing in hotdogs to bars to get out of the lockdown early – No restaurant license with requsite food handler permits – NO OPEN

  121. 121.

    Cameron

    I don’t think Trump will make it past sundown without a Twitter melt-down.  No matter what bullshit he spun on TV, axing his precious rally hits him right in the middle of that fragile ego.  Fuck him.

  122. 122.

    Mary G

    Insane tweets incoming:

    Every player and coach on the Yankees & Nationals took a knee before the national anthem tonight in D.C.(via @MarkZuckerman)pic.twitter.com/PrPKv4Gs1Z— FOX Sports: MLB (@MLBONFOX) July 23, 2020

    Also, Dr. Fauci’s first pitch was endearingly terrible, and now the MAGAts are crowing that it shows he’s lying about the “pandemic.”

  123. 123.

    Matt McIrvin

    @MomSense: “Supporting the troops” was never about the actual, literal troops. The convenient thing about soldiers is that they’re not really allowed to express political opinions in their capacity as soldiers, so you can happily assume they’re good right-wingers. The moment one ever went politically off script the keyboard commandos would turn on them.

  124. 124.

    Yutsano

    @geg6: Cheeky question: did Mario stop having kids?

    And I have a long standing crush on Sidney Crosby and no one can disabuse me of it. Plus RedKitten has met him and he’s really nice.

  126. 126.

    Ken

    @Benw: 18 HR per game!! Gonna be a whale of a season

    Scherzer ends my dream of an 18 HR/game season! What a bum

    To hell with the Yankees

    I like your strategy of compressing the complete baseball fan experience into the first few innings of the first game. It’s especially important this year, since the season could end abruptly.

  127. 127.

    Yutsano

    @Matt McIrvin: General rule: enlisted tend to run more liberal and officers tend to run more conservative. There are exceptions especially in the Marines but it tends to run that way.

  128. 128.

    ThresherK

    So a lot of donors lit their money on fire.

    “I don’t know what I expected” Arrested Development GIF.

  130. 130.

    Alison Rose

    @Mary G: Obviously. I mean, everyone knows that scientific acumen and athletic ability are strongly correlated.

    Oh wait no I mean they are diametrically opposed.

    (Kidding of course, don’t @ me)

  131. 131.

    lgerard

    Rudy is a Yankees fan.  That is enough of a reason to hate them

    PS  Have to love the way trump refers to what is happening in Florida as a “flare up”

  134. 134.

    Jay

    Talked to @RonWyden, who led the push for the current $600/week unemployment benefit, about the coming cliff in benefits: "They're talking about it being a few weeks. Well, people are going to be hurting this week. They can't eat retroactively."— Jeff Stein (@JStein_WaPo) July 23, 2020

  136. 136.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    Kimberly Guilfoyle under fire for Trump fundraising disarray

    Interviews depict an operation beset by departures, staffers with no prior fundraising experience and accusations of irresponsible spending.

    Who could have known?

  137. 137.

    different-church-lady

    @CliosFanBoy: Hate to break it to you, but the current Reds were founded in 1881. Perhaps you’d like to cheer for the Braves?

  138. 138.

    geg6

    @Yutsano:

    They have four kids.  I met them both, Mario and Natalie, at a fundraiser at their spectacular home in Sewickley, just across the Ohio from where we live.  I’ve met Sid, too.  He is a truly nice, humble guy.

  140. 140.

    Jay

    Last night my friend, chair of History Dpt. @lewisandclark, was shot in the head by Trump's goons. If you know Mo, you know she is the most peaceful protestor one can imagine. As an act of solidarity, I ask that all of you who have stayed home to get out on the street tonight. pic.twitter.com/TXfiCzzfZA— Elliott Young (@elliottyoungpdx) July 21, 2020

  143. 143.

    Baud

    @bluehill:

    Even if he were only mediocre baseball player, if he did it in his youth, he can probably do a better than average job.  I wouldn’t put too much hope in him embarrassing himself in this one instance.

  148. 148.

    Benw

    @Ken: I’ve already eaten 3 dogs, Kracker Jacks, 9 beers, started and ended a fight, and done the Tomahawk Chop. I’m wiped

  149. 149.

    Cameron

    @Baud: It will be an incredible spectacle.  I can envision it now: bright sunny day, no wind; the Jumbotron picks up the President being taken to the mound in a golf cart driven by a camo’ed DHS…cop? storm trooper?; the camera pans over a stadium crowded with inflatable sex dolls provided by Trump’s bestie Kim Jong-un, with a badly recorded cheering sound track; camera pans back to the President leaving the cart and waving to the crowd while being accompanied on the climb up the mound (waving off his driver after he ascends); a faceless announcer bursting with faux enthusiasm shouts, “Give it up! Give it up! P-Tape in the house.”

    Then I woke up.

  150. 150.

    bluehill

    @Baud: Good point. No pressure though. Just the all the eyes of his ardent followers as well as haters around the country and probably the world. No pressure at all.

  151. 151.

    dmsilev

    @Mary G:

    Also, Dr. Fauci’s first pitch was endearingly terrible, and now the MAGAts are crowing that it shows he’s lying about the “pandemic.”

    Even by MAGAt standards, that makes no fucking sense whatsoever.

  152. 152.

    Kent

    @Baud:Can you imagine how bad it’d be if we had a president who couldn’t pass a dementia test?

    Who says he passed it?  What Trump actually said was that his doctors were “very surprised” at the result.  Which can actually be read two different ways, both of them bad for Trump.

  153. 153.

    Calouste

    @Baud: John Prescott, deputy Prime Minister under Tony Blair, was an amateur boxer in his youth. When a protester hit him with an egg while he was campaigning, he hit him full on the jaw with a left hook, showing that his boxing instincts were still there decades later. He later joked that Blair had told him to connect with the electorate.

  157. 157.

    lgerard

    After trump throws the first pitch he is going to hop in a golf cart, race over, and kick the ball towards the catcher.

    Same as he does in golf

  159. 159.

    PAM Dirac

    @bluehill:

     

    Supposedly Trump was a good baseball player back in the day

    Someone went back though box scores available in local papers and found, at least in the records that he could find, that he was pretty bad, hit less than .200. I’m sure you are shocked that drumf’s claims are nothing but lies.

  160. 160.

    Victor Matheson

    @Ken: yeah, I kind of wrote the book on economic impact, and the thumb of thumb I use is to take whatever number the boosters are telling you and move the decimal point one place to the left, and that’s generally a pretty good estimate of the true impact.

  161. 161.

    Elizabelle

    Doug Jones has an ad up on Facebook; he and his wife and his two dogs — labs in Doug Jones scarves.  Everyone is enthusiastic.

    Dogs have been promised they can go visit DC, and all the dog parks, when Doug is re-elected.

    So:  had to contribute.  Have to send Scout and Dakota on a road trip to Washington.

  164. 164.

    M31

    @Benw:

    Baseball is currently on pace for 1 HR per team per inning!

    Come on, give the guy a break, Fauci is almost 80 years old!

  165. 165.

    Yutsano

    @Jay I like the woman recording. She had to be white because there was no way anyone else could have gotten away with getting in a cop’s face like that.

  166. 166.

    Origuy

    @Kay: 
    I remember a story about a bar long ago, I’ve forgotten where, that could only stay open if they served sandwiches. If you wanted a drink, you had to order a sandwich, but you didn’t want to eat it. It was always the same sandwich: a moldy, disgusting thing that they would take a way as soon as they brought it to the table.

  167. 167.

    Wyatt Salamanca

    @tokyokie: 

    Like I say, the Yankees are evil. Let’s go Mets, and Fuck the Fucking Yankees.

    I’ll second that and also fuck Paul O’Neill and Mariano Rivera specifically for their support of Trump.

  168. 168.

    Mike in NC

    @PAM Dirac: Fat Bastard awarded himself several fake plaques and magazine covers. Maybe he has an Olympic gold medal hanging on a wall, too.

  170. 170.

    Jay

    It's abundantly clear that the young man being arrested touched no one and was in no way threatening. He just angered a plainclothes police lieutenant who began yelling at him. A deputy initiates the contact by shoving him, and then a court marshal wraps it up by cuffing him.— David Neiwert (@DavidNeiwert) July 21, 2020

  171. 171.

    Chyron HR

    @Mary G:

    Also, Dr. Fauci’s first pitch was endearingly terrible, and now the MAGAts are crowing that it shows he’s lying about the “pandemic.”

    Pfft, pikers.  Try this on for size: “Dr. Fake-ci can’t throw a baseball properly because his body has been ravaged by adrenochrome.”

  173. 173.

    Eunicecycle

    @Victor Matheson: if I remember correctly about the convention in Cleveland in 2016, it was very disappointing. The restaurants had food in their refrigerators expecting lots of customers, but the crowds were small. Their regular customers stayed away and the convention people ate at dinners provided by different sponsors. Unless you rented your restaurant out for one of the parties, you were out of luck.

  174. 174.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    BREAKING: A federal court just issued a restraining order on the federal agents in Portland, Oregon.We said we would deploy the full firepower of the ACLU in this fight to save our democracy — and we meant it.— ACLU (@ACLU) July 24, 2020

  179. 179.

    Uncle Omar

    @bluehill: 
    It’s been embellished bigly. Someone recently dug up all of the box scores of games in which Dear Leader played in high school. He was a .138 hitter. DL claimed in one of the many books he had ghost written than he went to a MLB tryout in 1965, the other player there was Willie McCovey DL claims. At the time McCovey had been in the Majors for several years and was so good that the Giants had already traded future HOFer Orlando Cepeda.
    If DL manages to get the ball to the infield grass from the pitcher’s rubber I’d be amazed.

  180. 180.

    Jay

    The lead federal agency responding to protesters in Portland employs thousands of private contractors. And it turns out they have a long history of failing to ensure that these officers have proper training and certifications, including firearms training. https://t.co/AebGXenLEp— pdx law grrrl (@pdxlawgrrrl) July 23, 2020

  184. 184.

    Roger Moore

    @CliosFanBoy:

    Any team founded after 1869 is just an expansion team.

    FYI, the Reds have only been in the majors since 1882.  The original Cincinnatti Red Stockings dropped out of professional baseball after their financially unsuccessful 1870 season.  Most of their players went to Boston, where they played for the team that is now the Atlanta Braves.  Those Braves, incidentally, are the only team to have played every season since the first professional league was founded in 1871.  The Cubs didn’t quite manage it, having failed to play in 1872 or 1873 for the stupid reason that their city burned down late in the 1871 season.

  186. 186.

    Victor Matheson

    @Ken: The main problem with the RNC (and DNC, to be fair) is that they actually do generate a fairly significant gross impact. My analysis of hotel data from 2008 and 2012 shows a roughly $20 million increase in hotel revenues alone. But the events also shut down huge amount of activity as well. Downtowns become super high security zones with regular business coming to a halt. So you can’t identify any increase in citywide economic activity at all.

  190. 190.

    Barbara

    @geg6: My sister’s one-time BF worked at a golf club where Lemieux was a member and said that everything people said was true – he was just really gracious and kind to everyone, even the lowest staff. The only team I really miss seeing. Went all the time with my dad, way before the Crosby era, of course.

  192. 192.

    Victor Matheson

    @Eunicecycle: That’s a common story. Certain industries do well. Caterers, law enforcement, hotels, ground transportation. Others do generally poorly.

  195. 195.

    TS (the original)

    hehehe – Rachel did a few words imitation of trump – Sarah Cooper is taking over everywhere.

  198. 198.

    moops

    Why is New York inviting Trump to throw out the first pitch?

     

    Trump abandoned the city to the pandemic.

  199. 199.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @debbie: @Kristine: The details of the restraining order are out, and it seems to apply to journalists. The goons are ordered not to hurt them or interfere with them while they’re trying to cover the protests. The goons are complaining that they can’t tell the journalists from everybody else, especially since everyone is recording things these days. So we’ll see what effect it has.

  200. 200.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Origuy: Just saw that yesterday in a clickbait link that appeared in Firefox. I get those when I open a new tab, and every once in a while I get suckered in.

    Here it is. Had to do with drinking laws in NYC prior to Prohibition. As long as you put the sandwich in front of your drinker, you were in compliance with the law.

  202. 202.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Alison Rose: Years ago my wife and I were at a picnic of a math graduate department. When the softball started, she was nervous about joining in. “Don’t worry about it,” I reassured her. “These are a bunch of math majors.”

    I even got a base hit as I recall, much to my surprise.

  205. 205.

    Jay

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    I guess the big assed “PRESS” letters on white on a baby blue background, and baby blue helmets, just like they wear in war zones and paint on their vehicles, is just too confusing for their MAGA/Facist brains.

  206. 206.

    Aleta

    The Seattle Times,  by Mike Reicher

    Judge rules Seattle media companies must hand over protest images to police

    Five news outlets, including The Seattle Times, will have to comply with a subpoena and give the Seattle Police Department unpublished video and photos from a May 30 racial justice protest that turned violent, a judge ruled Thursday.

    King County Superior Court Judge Nelson Lee sided with the Police Department in a morning hearing, ruling that its subpoena was enforceable. He found that the photos and video were critical for an investigation into the alleged arson of SPD vehicles and theft of police guns.

    Lee said the news organizations were not protected by a Washington state shield law that under many circumstances prevents authorities from obtaining reporters’ unpublished materials.

    The judge placed some limits on the subpoena. He said police could use the images to identify suspects only in the arson and gun theft investigations. Detectives could not use the photos or video to pursue suspects in vandalism or other lesser crimes — even if police found such evidence.

    The subpoena would also be limited to professional camera equipment and would exclude reporters’ cell phone photos and videos.

    …

    …

  208. 208.

    Elizabelle

    @Aleta:   It would seem appeals to that decision will go right up the chain.  I don’t see the media companies complying.

  209. 209.

    SFAW

    @tokyokie:

    because the Mets aren’t evil. The Mets may be hopelessly inept, but they’re not evil.

    The Mets themselves aren’t evil, but the Wilpons are.

    LFGM!!!!

  210. 210.

    Elizabelle

    @rikyrah:   Very glad to see that.  Near my old stomping grounds.

    That high school may need rebuilding before too long.  One of the oldest, as the suburbs developed in the 1950s.  [ETA:  yep.  Opened in 1958.]

    Glad to see its lovely new name, though.

    Local TV report on it.  WJLA.  John Lewis’s name has been in the works for a while.

    The new name is already up on the website.  John R. Lewis Hight School.  Whose address is still leehs ….

  211. 211.

    ballerat

    It’s really something that for me, I have to protect the American people. That’s what I’ve always done. That’s what I always will do.

    I feel like kicking that lying fucker’s teeth in.

    140,000 Americans dead.  Another 100,00 will die by the end of January. Secret police beating and abducting American citizens. Russians paying for the scalps of our soldiers.

    That smarmy bubble of pus. That rancid chancre. That flabby bag of greasy pigshit. Fuck him. Fuck him right in his lying teeth.

  212. 212.

    SFAW

    @bluehill:

    Supposedly Trump was a good baseball player back in the day.

    No. He said that he was one of the best players in NYC, or some such. I think he also mentioned being scouted by MLB teams, but not sure about that. But, as with all things, especially considering the .138 BA that Uncle Omar uncovered, the Traitor-in-Chief lied.

  214. 214.

    Layer8Problem

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:  Eugene O’Neill mentions that old law, the Raines Law, at the beginning of The Iceman Cometh.  That might be what @Origuy is thinking of.

    This food provision was generally circumvented by putting a property sandwich in the middle of each table, an old desiccated ruin of dust-laden bread and mummified ham or cheese . . .

  217. 217.

    cckids

    @Jay Noble: I’ve got a friend back in Vegas who owns/runs a craft brewery. When the city opened up again, they did as well, with definite guidelines about # of people, outdoor seating, etc. They were open about 4 days, then re-closed; the crowds and just inability of customers to give a shit about anyone but themselves were too much. They’re back to carry-out growlers only.

    I’m hoping they can hold on. They’re good people.

  218. 218.

    Ruckus

    @WaterGirl:

    Thanks!

    Was on my phone, don’t know how that happened.

    Couldn’t possibly be my fat fingers with geezer muscle control, which means mostly not at all.

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