Since the GOP Death Cult would rather kill their own voters than negotiate in good faith, Lord Smallgloves found himself cheated of a Big Daddy Feelgood Story to start off his weekend golfing excursion. To make it up to himself, he decided to force the media to follow him to the gilted confines of his New Jersey club. The event will go down in the history books next to the bunker scene from Downfall:
Trump is so desperate for a rally that he is going to have a press conference in front of his golf buddies during the wine and cheese hour at his country club. I am not making this up.
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) August 7, 2020
Aside from the clear public health issues, the optics of POTUS addressing his country club members who pay at up to $350,000 to join while millions of Americans don't know how they'll cover rent this month as expanded unemployment benefits have expired is—an interesting choice. https://t.co/0Fl9ihm9do
— Kathryn Watson (@kathrynw5) August 7, 2020
Awaiting @POTUS presser in Bedminster. Many members of his club are here not social distancing and not wearing masks.
A club official just told the crowd to “spread out a little bit” because “the tweets are going out” about their noncompliance with NJ regulations pic.twitter.com/bzyLVwqS0u
— Toluse Olorunnipa (@ToluseO) August 7, 2020
Trump: "The Democrats are cheating on the election." (No.) "If you look at what they're doing even with these negotiations. That's an influence and an unfair influence on an election." (Total nonsense. Democrats passed a relief bill and want to spend more than Republicans do!)
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) August 8, 2020
Trump says he's looking at doing an executive order to require health care providers to cover preexisting conditions, which is already the law of the land thanks to the Affordable Care Act he hates so much pic.twitter.com/2EG5iL9DCA
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 7, 2020
That particular lie was so egregious, the rebuttals were trending on twitter all night.
Pres Trump says he looking to take executive action that would:
-Defer payroll tax until to the end of year and be retroactive to July 1
-Enhance unemployment benefits until end of 2020
-Defer student loans and forgive interest until further notice
-Extend eviction moratoriums— Yamiche Alcindor (@Yamiche) August 7, 2020
Asked when he might sign these executive orders he talked about on coronavirus relief, Trump says "it could be by the end of the week." He says he's not worried about the legality, though "probably we get sued."
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) August 8, 2020
I would give anything to see a reaction shot of the guys in the golf club trying to follow this bag of marbles that Trump is spilling all over the place
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) August 7, 2020
Trump's paying Bedminster customers boo when a reporter points out that many of them aren't wearing masks, violating New Jersey law. Trump defends them by describing them as "peaceful protesters" of the media, then ends the news conference to a round of applause. pic.twitter.com/5DVow55B1G
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 8, 2020
really spectacular friday night appearance by biden’s campaign spokesman
— kilgore trout, new tone haver (@KT_So_It_Goes) August 7, 2020
Yeah, I know — it’d be funnier if not for all the human suffering this monster is inflicting on the innocent.
Ken
Some excellent ideas there for my proposed “Office of Trolling” under Biden. (That’s the one that will float a repeat of some Trump action, just to see the Republicans howl.) I especially like the unemployment insurance extension, because it means that the President can spend funds by executive order without all that pesky Congressional process.
I also think “end of the week” is becoming something of a tell. He used that for his health care plan too.
germy
Peaceful protest?
What are they protesting? Public health?
Cheryl Rofer
It will be interesting to see the wording of his Executive Orders, or if anything at all shows up.
debbie
He’s making Kanye seem sane.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone ???
rikyrah
The picture of all of them uncovered, then someone ran and got them masks at the golf club?
OzarkHillbilly
And friends wonder why I hate rich people.
Ken
I just had a “Stewardess, I speak jive” moment, when I realized why Trump was babbling about the Democrats trying to “influence” the elections.
rikyrah
artem1s
Well there’s the 47% moment. I guess we’ll see if it sinks in how much these folks hate their fellow Americans.
Personally, if I were paying those kind of membership fees, I’d demand better entertainment.
rikyrah
Snarki, child of Loki
MORE FLESH FOR THE KARMAVIRUS TO FEED UPON.
I feel bad for he kids in the photo. They should have chosen smarter parents.
NotMax
FYI. Tailoring to the tech: a
rosegene is a gene is a gene.Scientists rename human genes to stop Microsoft Excel from misreading them as dates
Spanky
I’ve seen those looks on the crowd’s faces at car wrecks.
p.a.
Don’t remember last night’s dream exactly, but I know it involved the USPS, cheating, and tRump winning this year. Didn’t have a paper bag nearby to breathe into when I woke up, prolly better avoid the intertubes today, get the G.F. to talk me down.?
OzarkHillbilly
I’m just curious but can somebody tell me what KgT is talking about? I hate it when people tell a joke but never give the punchline.
Ken
@OzarkHillbilly: The joke is that Trump is helping Biden every time he speaks. A variant is “Biden’s campaign really should report Trump pressers as a donation in kind.”
Jeffro
Just keep talkin’, trumpov, keeeeeeep talkin’…
It’s yet another way that 2020 will not be like 2016, and thank goodness. Every time he opens his mouth, Americans – the ones not yet Covid-sick or unemployed, that is – know exactly how this clown will act for the next four years.
PPCLI
@OzarkHillbilly: The idea is that whenever Trump gives one of his disconnected, drugged hostile rambles, it helps Biden.
geg6
@OzarkHillbilly:
He’s saying Trump’s little presser stunt was as big a boon to Biden as if his campaign had set it up themselves.
Amir Khalid
@PPCLI:
That idea would make a good topic for a Lincoln Project video, methinks.
debbie
@geg6:
Who needs campaign ads when you have Trump and a microphone? //
NotMax
Said it below, shall say it again.
It’s time to get serious. If they will not follow or enforce compliance with health regulations, slap a temporary suspension on the facility’s business license. Second violation, longer suspension plus a fine. Third violation, larger fine and cancellation of the license.
Gvg
@OzarkHillbilly: I think the joke is they mean Trump. Every time Trump has one of these moments, more people decide to vote Biden.
OzarkHillbilly
@Ken: @PPCLI: Thanx guys. I thought something unusual had happened.
and thanx to every one else who replied to this out of touch caveman.
Jeffro
I love all the stuff he’s planning to do by fiat:
Next up: “AMERICAN SUBURBAN DREAMERS: I AM SHIPPING YOU A PALLET OF CASH, EACH, WHEN YOU FILL OUT YOUR ABSENTEE – NOT MAIL-IN – BALLOT ‘CORRECTLY’! ENJOY!!”
Bex
Downfall in all directions. Falwell Jr. is on indefinite leave from his so-called college.
germy
Network TV news last night was trying to “both sides” this. “Russia wants trump to win, China & Iran want Biden.”
germy
@Bex:
It was that black water whut done him in.
Ken
@OzarkHillbilly: Well, historically it is a little unusual for the President to be an incoherent babbling moron. But we’ve gotten used to it.
There was a late-night open thread about the Libertarian presidential candidate being bitten by a bat, if you want something more conventionally unusual.
debbie
@Jeffro:
Don’t leave out the “FROM YOUR FAVORITE PRESIDENT!”
germy
OzarkHillbilly
@Bex: Evangelicals are broken.
Child separation? OK.
Letting a plague kill hundreds of thousands of Americans? OK.
Blatant self dealing and corruption? OK.
Lies lies and more lies? OK.
Let your underpants show thru an unzipped zipper? OH MY GAWD, THE MORAL DEPRAVITY!!!! HE IS GOING TO HELL AND CORRUPTING OUR LITTLE CHILDREN WITH SEX!!!!
Emma from FL
@Ken: The writers of this particular timeline really really want the “most ridiculous subplots” Oscar.
germy
Meanwhile…
NotMax
@Ken
Bitten by a bat one-ups a bird lighting on a lectern.
;)
OzarkHillbilly
Considering he’s a Republican, that’s not really all that unusual these days.
germy
@OzarkHillbilly:
There was a simple explanation:
The young lady is pregnant, and Jr. was simply doing a funny photo showing his belly as well. And the drink? It’s simply something called black water.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Ken:
If the rest of us get out of this alive, Mitch McConnell doesn’t doesn’t deserve to.
All he has to do is let the D bill come to a vote. Frankly, I want Schumer to commit to a principle that everything comes up for a vote. The Majority Leader isn’t a constitutional officer and shouldn’t be a superlegislator. McConnell has weaponized process.
germy
Incoherent babbling is their brand.
A Ghost to Most
While t* is distracting everyone, how are the fascists preparing to double down next? t* is a symptom, not the disease.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Cheryl Rofer:
He can choke out Social Security cold with this payroll tax lift – McConnell’s pet dream.
randy khan
The kids in that photo look extremely thrilled to be there.
NotMax
@OzarkHillbilly
Like the hero of The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Nights, at once sciolist and simpleton, “‘knowing many things, but knowing them all badly.”
Dorothy A. Winsor
I’ve been trying to reduce my caffeine intake by drinking half-caff coffee. This morning I drank a second cup. I feel much better now, but I’m not sure this is how this is supposed to work.
Oh and look. There’s a coffee ad embedded in this thread for me.
germy
Lapassionara
@germy: Did you see that the Postmaster has imposed a rule on states that send out absentee ballot applications. They have to pay first class postage of 55 cents rather than bulk mail rates.
Is there something we can do about this guy and his efforts to destroy the USPS?
OzarkHillbilly
@germy: Yeah, I know the story he came up with. That actually harming people is OK but drunken shenanigans aren’t, still means Evangelicals are broken beyond repair and need to go the great junkyard in the beyond. Lord knows Jesus isn’t going to want them anywhere near him.
Jeffro
Truth.
It’ll be interesting to see if the QAnon faction is able to drag the whole GOP right off the edge and into a sea of frothing insanity, or if it’ll be able to snap back into being ‘only’ Tea Party-level insane.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Cheryl Rofer: If it’s about health care, I predict buying insurance across state lines and a high-risk pool.
Even they seem tired of their own ideas.
germy
@OzarkHillbilly: And in the audio I linked to, he still sounds inebriated the next morning.
NotMax
@NotMax
Ack. Random extra “s” on that second Night.
Ken
@germy: For him, it might just be very, very late from the previous night.
Bex
@OzarkHillbilly: Their leadership certainly is, which is why more and more of the rank and file are running for the exists these days.
Immanentize
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Ah you are living the fallacy of “lite” beer — 1/3 the calories, you can drink three times as many.
OzarkHillbilly
Good news Cubs fans, the Cardinals will not be returning to the post season this year.
This is a joke, a very sad joke in service to greed.
Ken
@germy: Excellent. Now that we’ve established the President can change the collection of payroll taxes by executive order, Biden will be able to do this without having to go through Congress. I also suggest collecting the taxes on unearned income such as dividends and interest.
germy
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I once complained of hearing loss and now I see endless ads on “curing” tinnitus. The sad thing is, they’re aggressively and stupidly bogus. Photos of people pouring honey or something into their ear canals, duct taping their ears, etc.
NotMax
Fervently wishing Immanentize and Immp a safe, fruitful, stress-free and fun trip mañana.
zhena gogolia
@Spanky:
And lynchings.
germy
@Ken:
OzarkHillbilly
Yes, but it’s illegal.
germy
@Lapassionara:
Send him a strongly worded letter.
OzarkHillbilly
@germy: That is probably his natural state. Lord knows, being around Evangelicals drives me to drinking.
Mallard FIlmore
@germy:
China prefers Biden. I am relieved. With the turmoil in the USA that Trump is inflicting, our loss of standing in the world, a shakeup in the world order is very possible. While Russia is too small politically and economically to take over, China has the power and ability to take that chance. Maybe they would end up with their currency becoming the world standard.
Several days ago I wrote a depressing comment that included this:
Also we owe China big time. How are they going to take the loss of a few trillion dollars of investments?
https://balloon-juice.com/2020/07/28/late-night-palate-cleanser-open-thread-vote-for-biden-hes-not-trying-to-kill-us-all/#comment-7794961
A reply came back:
What will a loss of their investments mean to China? Well, you know what they say. If you owe the bank a million dollars and you can’t pay, you have a problem; and if you owe the bank a billion dollars and you can’t pay, the bank has a problem. Now extrapolate from that.
https://balloon-juice.com/2020/07/28/late-night-palate-cleanser-open-thread-vote-for-biden-hes-not-trying-to-kill-us-all/#comment-7794973
If the Chinese leadership determined that this is the time to make their move, the lesser oligarchs would complain and then be forced to shut up, eat their losses, and do what they are told. With the news that China is backing the sane Presidential candidate, that means they are not ready to face down the USA and push us off the world stage.
I am relieved.
germy
NotMax
@OzarkHillbilly
“It was a woman who drove me to drink and I didn’t even have the decency to thank her.”
– W. C. Fields
:)
Ken
I keep getting ads inviting me to become a “Trump Executive” (“offer ends at noon!”). I deduce that the NLP that’s used to pick the ads is single-keyword-based – it detects that I sometimes write “Trump” but doesn’t identify the adjectives associated with that word.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Immanentize: I’m glad to catch a glimpse of you today, so I can wish you and Immp good luck tomorrow.
@germy: Those ads are revolting.
@Lapassionara: I’m freaked out about what they’re doing to the Post Office. I’d somehow deluded myself that there wasn’t time for much more lasting damage to be done. Goes to show you that building something is slow and hard, but kicking it to pieces is easy and fast.
Immanentize
@NotMax: thank you, very much.
Stress free is already a fail. I’m stressed about getting all his crap to Houston. The Immp is already having pre-school stress he reports. But that is two weeks away with some Covid version of orientation in-between. He’ll be exhausted when classes actually start and happy for the challenges.
Wheels up at 8 tomorrow morning!
NotMax
@Ken
Test the algorithm. Write “FREE MONEY” at the end of every comment.
://
Dorothy A. Winsor
@germy: I thought that Trump had been building a campaign war chest since he was inaugurated, and that he’d overwhelm whoever the D nominee was. Is that not true?
Dorothy A. Winsor
@NotMax: If he writes that, he’ll just get more ads for Trump scams.
Immanentize
@Mallard FIlmore:
To be clear, China is not backing Biden, rather they believe Trump is too chaotic for good relations. Which is true. Of course the pass on effect may help Biden, but I think they are more Lincoln Project than DNC. Russia is Project Veritas with nukes.
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Jeffro:
On one level, our deranged, awful courts finally have an executive order they can find the stones to halt quickly, at least in part, because there are some crumbs for working people.
He’ll probably accept that order without whining, but say “look at what I tried to do for you.”
Sloane Ranger
The problem is that these Executive Orders, whether they actually materialise or not, will be lauded by Fox and OAN as Trump coming through for ordinary Americans while the Democrats let them down by not negotiating in good faith, and people who only get their information from those sources will believe it.
And if he actually does sign an order extending no evictions or whatever, whose going to sue? It is a potential poison pill for Democrats, who can then be cast as the ones against helping Americans in need.
Kay
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
The new conservative idea for health insurance is even worse – it’s junk plans. They’re going to sell people cheap junk insurance that doesn’t cover anything and they can then check the box that says “we have a health care plan” leaving people paying for worthless insurance. People would literally be better off with nothing. As it is they don’t have insurance. Bad. With the conservative plans they’ll be paying for insurance, but not getting any value. Worse.
I’m seeing more and more of this on the Right. Potemkin policy. A facade of a “plan” or “benefit” that actually contains nothing of value and may even be a negative – a kind of fee people pay but get nothing in return.
Argiope
@germy: I’m still stuck on how being mandated to wear a mask violates their rights, but forcing other people to stay pregnant and give birth is A-OK. Incoherent indeed.
NotMax
@Immanentize
So old that for freshman year had a trunk shipped to the college by Railway Express.
Ken
@Dorothy A. Winsor: You’ve got to remember that this campaign has some unique expenses. Salaries to the relatives and hangers-on, fees paid to the candidate’s hotels and clubs (in $9900 increments), Lamborghinis – it all adds up.
Immanentize
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Thanks. I’ll report in from Covid-central on Monday. My greatest concern — Tuesday the University decides it just can’t reopen as planned….
Immanentize
@NotMax: And that is how it should be! Or Greyhound!
rikyrah
@Bex:
so-called college
?????
NotMax
@Dorothy A. Winsor
Further proof that an adblocker is your friend.
;)
Lapassionara
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Yes. If this were a horror movie, I would walk out of the theater. Unfortunately, it is real life.
Is anyone else seeing the add for the Trump campaign at the top of the thread? Kind of sweet that the monster is spending money here.
rikyrah
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Truth??
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Ken: They promised a Death Star!
Scuffletuffle
I live on 40K a year. The fact that these people have $350K a year JUST TO PLAY A GAME is breaking my mind. Kill them all and let Satan claim his own.
Ken
@Dorothy A. Winsor: That reminds me of another unusual expense – lawsuits for illegal use of copyrighted material, or unauthorized use of music.
rikyrah
@NotMax:
Amen???
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@germy:
Somebody needs to quietly tell Shelley that even old necks can fit into guillotines when the Revolution comes.
Kay
Forget “buying across state lines” or “high risk pools”. This is the Trump Republican Party. The standards are much, much lower.
Their health care “plan” is just to sell people junk insurance that doesn’t cover anything, and hope that people don’t figure out they were ripped off when they go to use it:
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Sloane Ranger:
Yup.
danielx
@Cheryl Rofer:
It will be two weeks. That period of time should become known as the Trump Unit, like the Friedman Unit of yore.
rikyrah
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
They have been loo ting that since the beginning.
You know it and I know it.
Immanentize
@rikyrah: Thanks rikyrah! I’ll take good care of us as we go.
rikyrah
@Kay:
I don’t mean to be smart….
But, haven’t they been backing this all along???
zhena gogolia
@Argiope:
YES.
zhena gogolia
@NotMax:
Me too!
rikyrah
@NotMax:
So old that Mom and Dad drove me to school with everything packed in the car or bungee corded to the roof??
PPCLI
@Ken: The whole thing is foggy, especially because we haven’t actually seen the executive order yet. But I don’t believe that the president can, by executive order, cancel the tax. He can at best defer collection. Meaning that there will be a huge tax hit when the deferral order ends.
But IANAL.
NotMax
@Immanentize
Sure you’re already aware of it, but just in case. Pack any electronics at or near the top for easy access as you’ll have to take them out of any carry-on bags for TSA theater. Same goes for packed foodstuffs, aside from obvious snacks, as they’ll want to open the bags and check them.
Baud
@NotMax: I’ve never had an issue with electronics but foodstuff sets off their alarm bells.
Kay
@rikyrah:
This junk insurance is all over the place now- we have seen complaints about it in our office. When you Google the companies to try to find out why they reject nearly all claims and if people might have some recourse outside a class action suit, you find they are actually marketing it as “TrumpCare”. Garbage.
Paying an extra 300 dollars a month for nothing is worse than nothing. They are in worse shape having bought insurance than they were without it.
This is the health care “plan” on the Right. Fake insurance. It’s no more complicated than that.
rikyrah
So, this happened???
OzarkHillbilly
This was for @germy: Nose? Say goodbye to Face.
All of a sudden commenting is borked.
germy
SFAW
@zhena gogolia:
I know your response was not to NotMax, but the juxtaposition/sequencing was weird.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Not surprised.
This is who they are.
Baud
@SFAW: Can’t get that with threaded comments.
NotMax
@Baud
AFAIK current procedure requires taking any laptops, tablets, phones, etc. from carry-on bags and place them separately into one of those filthy trays.
OzarkHillbilly
Landlords.
Baud
@NotMax:
Right. I thought you were referring to something new where they examine the electronics. The separate tray thing has been around forever.
Kay
All the junk insurance is sold using the US Presidents name and often a photo or depiction of Donald Trump, so once again he’s ripping off his own voters, because I don’t know about you, but I see the Trump name on anything I know it’s trash. It’s targeted to sell to his supporters. Those would be the cancer patients who find out the insurance they’ve been paying for every month doesn’t cover any of their bills.
This is the mainstream “health plan” on the Right now- ripping off their voters by having them pay for insurance that doesn’t pay anything out on claims. One more shearing of the sheep by these crooks.
rikyrah
NotMax
@Baud
Spent close to 15 minutes explaining I was ‘smuggling’ two loaves of home baked bread to Mom last time I flew.
Whereas what goes through with no problemo are airline-size bottles of liqur, so long as they are nestled in a ziploc bag.
Had a by now amusing incident several year ago when was bringing back a cylindrical shaped metal salt and pepper grinder which had purchased at Zabar’s.
TSA: “We haven’t a clue what this is.”
germy
Ladyraxterinok
@Immanentize:
I read Rice plans ro hold som?most. classes in air-conditioned tents!
Have a pleasant trip
Hope he has a good year
SFAW
@Baud:
You can, but it’s much less likely. Plus, where’s the fun in that?
OzarkHillbilly
I have flown both domestic and international with all my caving gear, rappel rack, biners, harnesses, webbing, push rope, helmet, headlamps, batteries, etc etc, in my carry on and not once did they raise a single TSA eyebrow. Surprised the fuck out of me.
WereBear
@Dorothy A. Winsor: It’s a fool’s game! I don’t even try.
I typically drink 2 pots of French press before noon. At least I resist after that.
SFAW
@germy:
I heard NPR report it last evening, and radio actually got it right (re: China preferring Trump not get re-elected, vs. “attempting to undermine”).
It ain’t rocket surgery, try not turning fact-reporting into
a Rethug talking pointan editorial comment, assholes. Journalism: how do it work?Benw
@NotMax: I work with electronics so I’m often traveling with weirdo PCBs and wires. I always get flagged and one time before I even started my usual “I’m a researcher blah blah blah” the TSA guy rummaged around through all the random bits of electronics in my bag and yanked out my mini-toothpaste, accusatorily barked, “this is bigger than allowed!”, chucked it in the trash and let me go. It was pretty damn funny, even at the time.
'Niques
@OzarkHillbilly: Such Karma . . . fool forgot his market and overplayed his hand.
satby
@Immanentize: Safe travels !?
OzarkHillbilly
Unlike the FBI, the NPS appears to have a sense of humor.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@NotMax:
I once had a rookie TSA guy go spastic over my bag – he was quickly calmed down by an old hand.
I always do my scuba regulator (expensive and delicate), dive computer (integrated with reg, also expensive) and masks (prescription bifocal, and this absolutely necessary) by carryon. I guess the reg looked hella suspicious with all its tubes and transmitting module along with its wrist mounted computer.
Thankfully, I didn’t get whisked to a side room for questioning and a blown flight.
Baud
@SFAW:
The both-sides filter at work again.
NotMax
@zhena gogolia
Random things I remember from freshman year:
1) Being assigned an upper class roommate (who apparently was unable to find anyone to room with). I doubt if a dozen words passed between us for the entire term. I was the sole freshman on campus who didn’t have a freshman roommate.
2) As a declared history major, being assigned a faculty advisor in the engineering department, whose advice boiled down to: “I don’t know, do whatever you want.”
3) Room was so far from the steam heating source in the dorm that it had 14 radiators in it. Any further away and it would have been outside.
;)
O. Felix Culpa
@Immanentize:
Princeton just did that yesterday.
Immanentize
@OzarkHillbilly: You are right — I know some of those guys. Evictions are a state state property law thing. An executive order can only prevent evictions from Federal properties.
Kay
The worst political coverage in the country comes out of the NYTimes.
They’ve apparently forgotten that Hillary Clinton ran for President and her VP was Kaine.
It will be worse than 2016. They get worse every cycle.
JPL
@Immanentize: Safe travels.
Immanentize
@Ladyraxterinok: Tents!! Lots of outdoor stuff. The Immp is going to live in Lovett — was that up when you were there? Did, which was built in the ’70s near to Lovett is going to be the quarantine residence.
Ken
@Immanentize: They have dorms named “Lovett” and “Did”? I’m imagining the “Who’s on first” conversations now.
JPL
@Kay: I haven’t read Dowd in years and I’m not going to start now.
Benw
@WereBear: now you’ve got me brewing a SECOND cup.
You monster
NotMax
@Immanentize
IIRC, was accepted at Rice during the concurrent very fleeting “maybe want to study architecture” phase.
:)
JPL
@Immanentize: Will Immp have a roommate?
debbie
@Immanentize:
I missed the announcement, but I hope you and the Immp have a great journey. I hope you have a safe trip back, and I hope college is all the Immp hopes it will be.
Baud
@Kay:
QFT.
WereBear
@Benw: My tummy limits me to one drink of alcohol and that’s not going to get ‘er done. My state does not allow herbs. Never had any luck with psychiatric drugs for anxiety, and the process was excruciating.
A vice I can live with. It’s all I ask.
Baud
Trying to guess what Trump will do based on what Trump says he will do is a fool’s errand.
NotMax
@Ken
Mentioned previously, still find it amusing that the relatively new girls dorm at chi-chi Blair Academy prep school in New Jersey is officially named Annie Hall.
Aleta
Could be historic, as they head out on the highway taking their souvenier Screw Covid T shirts and virus all the way home.
whatever comes our way\ yeah darlin gonna make it happen\ take the world in a love embrace
Free the USA! Sturgis 2020 | Day 1 Close | 80th Annual Motorcycle Rally
* From the folks who brought you “Either you’re with us, or you’re with the terrorists.” (There are other possibilities.)
debbie
@rikyrah:
Do they have any recourse?
Ken
Have you considered a gambling addiction? I understand that they were quite fashionable in the English upper classes a century ago.
(Though my understanding comes from G. S. Denning’s Warlock Holmes pastiches, specifically “Silver Blaze: Murder Horse”, so may not completely capture the social nuances of the milieu.)
SFAW
@Ken:
What?
PsiFighter37
I do hope there is more help on the way. I live in Chelsea in Manhattan, and there are far more homeless people on the streets than I have ever seen before. Definitely a rise in petty crime as well.
debbie
@Kay:
Speaking of, last night I saw an ad that accused Hillary of all kinds of things. The ad wasn’t exactly pro-Trump either, but it was about 80% filled with condemning Hillary. Assholes.
WereBear
Too much a fan of The Sopranos. I now cannot hear the word “gambler” without the adjective “degenerate.” :)
AnotherBruce
@germy: Yes, these are stupid remedies. The only thing that will “cure” tinnitus is complete hearing loss.
@germy:
NotMax
@WereBear
Semi-non PC today (stay for the punch line): Ajax Liquor Store.
;)
Immanentize
@satby: Thanks Satby! Sadly. I think I need to make an old person trip to Ikea in Houston this week — forgot to get the Immp a laundry hamper…. The worst of the US meets one of the worst of Europe (Swedes). Still I bet Ikea will be safer than Walmart in Houston.
Immanentize
@NotMax:
That, Sir, is the best advice that any frosh can receive.
SFAW
@NotMax:
Hudson & Landry! It’s a great bit. I also like “Kearsarge,” if for no other reason than why radishes gotta be planted in those parts.
Actually, the whole album was pretty good.
Elizabelle
@Kay:
Hillary Clinton. Excised from the memory banks. Clinton Derangement Syndrome at the FTF NY Times surfaces again.
MoDo mentions HRC once. With this:
Hillary. She tripped up.
mrmoshpotato
?♂️?♂️?♂️
taumaturgo
Is it me or the Democrats seem helpless and defeated? All I’m hearing from them is a description of the problems and how terrible things are, yet the mechanisms and rules they have to implement are being laughed at by Yo-semite. Donald, so far, has usurped Congress’s power, the court’s powers, and disabled them with a dictatorial like power move. Democrat’s leadership countermoves have failed, from the wall to impeachment. Is cringed worthy every time Pelosi and Schumer step in front of a camera, powerless to do anything to stop the hemorrhaging, the same goes for every Democrat that appears on TV bemoaning this, that and the other and ending the presentation with zero solutions. If Donald were Joe, he will be acting as if he was the President already without regard or deference to the office, on the attack rallying the base for support. Let’s go, Joe, your buddies in Congress need all the help they can get.
Aleta
@Immanentize: Much respect for your parenting.
Not the same, but for the love at the beginning: Boots of Spanish Leather
Immanentize
@O. Felix Culpa: fuckity fuck fuck! Thanks for the info. Looking for my wife’s old super strength cancer time downers ….
Tenar Arha
@Immanentize: BTW, congratulations on the pending Immp launch. Just wanted to say, have a good drop-off-at-college trip!
NotMax
@SFAW
IMHO The Prospectors was their pinnacle.
“I couldn’t live like that.”
Love playing that for the first time to newbies.
mrmoshpotato
@Elizabelle:
Fuck. This. Shit.
Calouste
@O. Felix Culpa: Well, there was a major COVID-spreading event in New Jersey just last night, so Princeton is just playing it safe.
Elizabelle
From MoDo’s column.
And Hillary Clinton never got mentioned as the Democrats’ nominee for President. Yes, column is about pitfalls for a female VP but still ….
Also, I love that Nancy Smash chose “lioness.”
Baud
@Elizabelle: New thread up on this topic.
Immanentize
@Ken: sorry, Did = Sid. For Sid Richardson College which was built in the old parking lot for Lovett Hall in 1971. This has caused much rivalry and pranking, I’m told. So for Sid to be turned into a plague ward is certainly the happy culmination of nearly a half century of mockery.
Lovett is a brutalist architecture structure. I like that style, but when I said that BC*, I used to clear out stools near me in Boston bars (See, Boston City Hall)
*Before Covid
Ken
Quite appropriate, since the lionesses do all the work, while the males lie around and sometimes fight one another.
Immanentize
@NotMax: The Immp’s roommate is a budding architect. It seems he has notified the pod that he has an extensive hat collection? Hmmmmmm. The Immp says he guesses the guy is already going bald.
NotMax
@Immanentize
Could avoid agita and order one through Amazon. No complaints to speak of with this one ordered some time back (opted for the gray)
Immanentize
@JPL: Yes — he will have a roommate. Then those two will share a bathroom with two others. Then together with another two such pods they will form a “Covid family” of 12 for intermingling purposes. Never gonna work. But hey!
That’s Entertainment!
ETA the link to That’s Entertainment by The Jam
japa21
@SFAW: I thought the same thing.
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax: “He’s alive! He’s in the Old West but he’s alive!” -Marty McFly
Ken
It’ll be all trilbies.
SiubhanDuinne
@Ken:
“How do you like your new dorm?”
“Lovett!”
***
“You didn’t get assigned to that dorm, did you?”
“Did!!”
WaterGirl
@’Niques: The first comment on Balloon Juice has to be manually approved, and after that comments will go through without manual review.
EXCEPT that WordPress does not like apostrophes in screen names (nyms) so if you keep your apostrophe, someone will have to manually approve each comment before anyone else can see them. :-)
SFAW
@Elizabelle:
I’ve said more than once that I thought Hillary should have turned around, told that asshole “Back the fuck OFF, you creep, or I’ll kick you to the pavement” (or something similar). She would have taken some crap from the MSM for about one or two weeks, but I bet her poll numbers would have risen. [Of course, the FTFTFNYT would have had as many articles etc as “but her e-mails,” but fuck them.]
Elizabelle
@Ken: Exactly. And Nancy Smash knows that.
Aleta
@NotMax: My roommate the 1st year was an upper class woman, both senses of the word. Her chosen roommate hadn’t come back to school. I showed up with a backpack and an instrument; she greeted me in a caftan, drink in hand, refrigerator and bar set up. Extreme culture shock for me. She was dating the captain of the football team and moved out within a week.
Immanentize
@Aleta: I love that song. And that is a great version. Thank you. Made me a bit misty.
ETA. “it depends on how I’m feelin'”
MisterForkbeard
@germy: I noted that on facebook when NPR posted it. It’s an extremely lazy headline that doesn’t at all describe what is happening.
I was pretty angry about it. I knew exactly what the bothsidesing would do, and the comments backed me up.
different-church-lady
Yeah, but I bet they all have store-brand ice cream in their bargain-outlet freezers.
Ken
An overly-cautious approach, but less work than sanitizing their database inputs.
mrmoshpotato
@OzarkHillbilly:
I hope all of the Cardinals players are ok, but yeah. This is ridiculous.
Emma from FL
@WereBear: Chocolate? Frozen coconut bars? Goldfish crackers? (yes, I’m cycling through former and current OTC anxiety “meds”)
different-church-lady
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Either you dial it down slooooooly — a little less caff, a little more decaf each time — or you carve out a day or two to just crash and go the cold turkey route.
I’ve do the second on occasion, and I’ve always feel great the day following the withdrawal.
different-church-lady
@germy: Good thing we weren’t talking about gun control.
Oooops…
Mary G
@Immanentize: I’m usually reading threads you’re in much later in the day, but I follow your tales of the Immp closely. You are a great father and son. My mom took me to college (only an hour away) when I was only 16 and her friends and the high school counselors were all against it.
My dad had died of cancer five years earlier and she would be alone. She said I wanted to go, so I would. I was a angry depressive obnoxious child and it saved my life to get out into a wider world instead of being with the same kids I had known and mutually disdained since kindergarten.
You are a total mensch with a great kid.
ETA: Even if it fails and he has to come home, he won’t forget that you let him try. Coincidentally Rice was my mom’s first employer after she graduated college.
Uncle Cosmo
@Kay: Forget it, Jake, it’s Dowd. She wakes up drunk from the night before.
Mike in NC
Fat Bastard was unable to defeat the virus by firing it or suing it, or even by giving it a puerile nickname. So he got bored, farted a couple of times, and then went off to play golf. MAGA!
JPL
@Kay: This is from the Hoarse Whisperer
For the first time in 30 years, Maureen Dowd forgot about Hillary.
Falling Diphthong
@OzarkHillbilly: While I agree about Evangelicals being broken, I have to give the LU board some credit for reasoning “So you deliberately posted a photograph. Of your yacht party. Where everyone has their pants unzipped. But for Christian reasons! Yeah, we’re not waiting around to see what you pull to top this stunt.”
O. Felix Culpa
@Immanentize: Sorry about that. Didn’t mean to cast a shadow on your trip or harsh your non-mellow. I do wish you and Immp all the best and a lovely time in Ikea, one of my guilty pleasures.
@Calouste: LOL. The decision was made pre-moron event, but we can call them prescient.
mrmoshpotato
@Mike in NC:
SAD! (And to think this assclown is their god emperor…)
WereBear
@NotMax: LOL
mrmoshpotato
@JPL:
LMAO!
WereBear
@Emma from FL: Chocolate is also a staple.
O. Felix Culpa
@Immanentize: Culpa son #1 was in Martel, designed by Michael Graves and brand new at the time.
WereBear
@Immanentize: So young, and yet, so wise.
patrick II
@NotMax:
I was stopped and inspected for a turntable. The young TSA agent had never seen one, but fortunately, an older agent came over and let me through.
Kelly
It’s summer time for inner tubes not intertubes ;-)
Uncle Cosmo
Two generations back I matriculated at The Johns Hopkins University[1] intending to become an astronomer. They had no astronomy department[2], so in a fit of unwarranted honesty I put down “Physical Science” for a putative major. This got me a geologist for a freshman advisor and an oceanographer sophomore year.[3]
Which actually worked out well enough. The oceanographer was as PO’d as I was over the math department’s refusal to teach putative scientists & engineers anything with any practical applicability, so we schemed together against them. And decades later when I met the former chairman of the geology department at Charles University (Prague), we discovered he’d been studying for his PhD at JHU when I was an undergraduate there [4]– & my freshman advisor had been one of his good friends ever since – a bizarre turn of affairs of a sort that’s all too common when people are connected through The Biggest Small Town In The Multiverse.[5]
[1] The “The” was in place long before I arrived & probably before those Buckeyes adopted it.
[2] Gimme a break – it was my “safe school,” for reasons too long to go into here.
[3] In fact there was a clutch of astronomers & astrophysicists lurking in the Physics faculty – one of whom became my advisor when I officially declared that major after soph year.
[4] We are now best friends & he is my host on my frequent visits to Prague.
[5] Balmermerlinhun – yes, it’s all one word. Where else? :^p
MagdaInBlack
@WereBear:
Yes! I usually due 2 before noon as well. The 3rd last me the rest of the day.
I’m going to pick up the new roomie today. =-)
Kilgore Trout
@germy: And she will turn around and with no irony say that of course the government can force a woman to carry a baby to term whether she wants to or not. Apparently wearing a mask for 20 minutes at the grocery store is a larger burden than carrying a baby to term, giving birth, and then raising that child to adulthood.
WaterGirl
@germy:
Oh, so you can’t force a woman not to have an abortion. I’m down with that.
WaterGirl
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Isn’t it nice to know that someone or something is listening to everything you say? And responds immediately?
Kay
@mrmoshpotato:
I love the feigned surprise that there is sexism in our politics. That paper did more to promote it than any other single entity. They attacked two MALE D candidates for not being manly enough.
They worship rich, stupid, belligerent MALE bullies. They are poor judges of character.
The industry ITSELF is hugely sexist.
The Moar You Know
those poor kids look like hostages.
Another Scott
(via NotLarrySabato)
Donnie and his minions preparing Emergency Press Announcement in … 3 … 2 … 1
Cheers,
Scott.
WaterGirl
@O. Felix Culpa: My mom used to say “Forewarned is forearmed.”
I’m sure Imm knew that’s what you were going for.
Ruckus
@germy:
If you are a con man and actually know that you are, drinking is what you do when the entire plot is being shown on TV every night. shitforbrains has been running a con his entire life, the con being that his IQ is over 70 and that he has more ability than a common slug. But shitforbrains doesn’t know that it’s a con because he keeps showing everyone the con. It’s just that a percentage of the people aren’t any better than he is and don’t see the con any more than he does. Plus many of them are running the same con, with the distinction that they don’t have the degree of narcissism that he does.
kindness
Doesn’t appear that the country club patrons are wearing very many masks there. Darwinism lives. Feel bad for the employees they infect though.
evodevo
@Kilgore Trout: Yes, yes she will. I deal with a lot of forced birthers here in Ky., and that is their go-to defense of hypocrisy…
Ruckus
@Kay:
I believe there is a term for that.
A nothing burger for lunch.
It’s like a buffet with no cooks or food. You pay at the front door, go in and sit down, wait a half hour and then get up and leave. You went to lunch, you paid, you got nothing but a total loss in return for your effort. It’s just like a republican government or an evangelical church.
Ruckus
@Scuffletuffle:
Isn’t that $350,000 just the entry fee? They still pay for the bad food and the bugs and now, for a limited time, the exposure to a deadly disease.
mad citizen
@Another Scott: No doubt the Biden team will game it out for the best if that exists, but I was wondering when the best time is for the big announcement since you know the trump team will try to create some BS chaos thing to outshine it. A thought just came–Biden or his team should point out or ask if Trump’s running mate is Pence, just to remind everyone that Mike Pence exists.
Ruckus
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Once was in line behind a Marine in khaki shirt/blue pants, no carry on and they kept sending him back out of the scanner to remove one more thing, their next step was naked Marine. This was the flight that unbeknown to me, my pen knife key ring was still in my back pack and they let me thru without a word. It is, for the most part, complete theater.
Kelly
@Ruckus: Years ago (pre TSA) when I drove my folks to the airport there was a trainee checker with a senior guy at the gate. When the senior guy saw my Dad, a lifetime heavy equipment operator, walking up he started reeling off all the stuff that would be in my Dad’s pockets. Guessed it all. Measuring tape, a few small tools, big bunch of keys on his belt. My Dad and him had a great time. The guy said “I understand why you carry the tools you might need to fix the plane but that tape is to short to measure how far you are off the ground.”
Yutsano
@Ruckus: I feel bad for thinking this but I wonder if he had shrapnel in his body. But usually one can request the manual inspection at that point*.
*Disclosure: I have both artificial joints and an implanted electronic device. I get manually inspected all the time. Occasionally I even get a hottie to do it.
jayjaybear
@Uncle Cosmo: Still high from the edibles incident…
Ruckus
@Yutsano:
He could have, normally he would have known to tell them and I didn’t see or hear him do that. As I’ve said before I used to travel a lot and you couldn’t get to where I was going from where I was, you always had to connect once or twice. I saw way too much TSA, which BTW stands for Terrible Shitty Attitude. It seems to be a requirement.
@Kelly:
Once went to reach for my bag as it came out of the scanner and there was a 9mm pistol laying in the handgrip. The TSA had been testing a new operator and put it in there. Not expecting this I reached for my bag and only saw the pistol when I was about 2 inches away from it. I pulled back and ask the guy who came up to retrieve it, “What the Fuck!?” He didn’t like my language. Part of the problem was that this airport had a lot of armed police walking around and two of them were walking towards me about 20 feet away. Had they seen me with that gun I figured they’d shoot first and not ask any questions ever. Did I say I was pissed off?
Bill Arnold
@OzarkHillbilly:
Another funny aspect of this is that to that cohort, Falwell does not have the right to show unzipped pants, but absolutely has the right to go maskless, because freedom!
dnfree
@WaterGirl: Pogo used to say “Forewarned is forearmed, and forearmed is half an octopus.”
Heywood J.
This is a fascist country, but “force” is doing some heavy lifting there. No one put a gun to their heads. They do it to retain a job that isn’t worth hanging on to.
Be a shame if enough the stenographers decided, at long last, to gather up the remaining shreds of their dignity and, you know, just not show up. I know they think they’re providing some sacred service to ‘murka, but it’s been a very long time since they told us anything we didn’t already know a thousand different ways.
It’s pretty sad that someone would consider it their professional duty to literally risk their life to be verbally abused, just so they could transcribe the millionth iteration of I’m so awesome and youse guys suck. They’re like the guy shoveling elephant shit at the circus, just can’t bring himself to quit show bidness.
J R in WV
@germy:
Pretty sure there’s a federal law against interfering with the prompt delivery of the US Mail. Postal Inspectors used to enforce those laws! Isn’t that applicable even if you’re an appointee to “manage” the Post Office?
J R in WV
@SFAW:
What’s on Second, right? And I don’t know is on Third, I think.
Then it gets odd…
WaterGirl
@dnfree: haha