Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

No Kings: Americans standing in the way of bad history saying “Oh, Fuck No!”

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

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

Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.

When I was faster i was always behind.

People identifying as christian while ignoring christ and his teachings is a strange thing indeed.

Donald Trump found guilty as fuck – May 30, 2024!

A norm that restrains only one side really is not a norm – it is a trap.

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

President Musk and Trump are both poorly raised, coddled 8 year old boys.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. keep building.

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

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

You are either for trump or for democracy. Pick one.

Celebrate the fucking wins.

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

We still have time to mess this up!

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you do not.

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

Roe is not about choice. It is about freedom.

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

I did not have this on my fuck 2025 bingo card.

Every decision we make has lots of baggage with it, known or unknown.

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Monday Morning Open Thread: Back to the Melee

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182Comments

  1. 1.

    NotMax

    FYI.

    Facebook removed dozens of accounts it says were part of a troll farm pretending to be African-Americans in support of President Donald Trump and QAnon supporters, the company said, for violating its policies against coordinated inauthentic behavior.
    [snip]
    Facebook also removed several hundred fake accounts connected to conservative media organization Epoch Media Group, which it says spread conspiracy theories about the coronavirus. That network included 303 Facebook accounts, 181 pages, 44 Facebook groups and 31 Instagram accounts, which had a combined 2 million followers. Source

    All I can surmise is the accounts must have been especially inept and/or egregious to stand out.

  3. 3.

    JPL

    trump says he might allow certain states to receive unemployment money even if they don’t chip in.   Geez, it must suck to be unemployed and live in a blue state, because you know he’s not gonna help you.

  4. 4.

    Ken

    In the GOP tweet quoted by golikehellmachine, I divide all the numbers by 10 (since it’s 10 year totals), and they don’t look bad at all.  “Wall” levels of funding except we get something useful.

    Infrastructure does stand out, but we’ve only devoted a week to it in the last three years so there’s some catching up to do.  (Seriously, we’ve not spent enough for several decades and are fortunate that only a few bridges have fallen down.)

  5. 5.

    Eric S.

    Just waking up to see there was heavy looting in Chicago’s Loop and near north side last night. Still developing so not much is known.

  6. 6.

    Betty Cracker

    Excited about the possibility of Biden’s ad team in the West Wing. They’re good.

  10. 10.

    rikyrah

    @Eric S.:

     

    Was in a sound sleep when I got the first phone calls from staff wondering about work at 4:30 am. Had to scramble and get answers. Our building is now closed. Just finished the email to staff and texting everyone whose number I have.

     

    Gonna try and go back to sleep???

  11. 11.

    zhena gogolia

    Kind of depressed about how bad Endeavour was last night. I know, not a big problem on the scale of things. But my world has shrunk to such a small compass that TV shows loom large.

  12. 12.

    mali muso

    Had a bizarre dream in which the election was over and the vandals were vacating the White House…but the outgoing couple was Melania and PUTIN and the inbound was Barack and Michelle.  Not sure what that says about my subconscious.

  14. 14.

    senyordave

    Trump said this over the weekend:

    “If I’m victorious on November 3rd, I plan to forgive these taxes and make permanent cuts to the payroll tax. I’m going to make them all permanent … In other words, I’ll extend beyond the end of the year and terminate the tax.”

    The payroll tax is the funding mechanism for Social Security and Medicare.  The Dems should be making ads off this asap.

  19. 19.

    prostratedragon

    @Eric S.:
    Wow. Nothing showing about 20 minutes ago when I checked headlines on the local rag sites.

    Meanwhile, to emphasize, the President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago has his hair on fire. This does not happen ordinarily.

  20. 20.

    NotMax

    @mali muso

    Running joke for years and years amongst our fluid local social group involves a certain fast food emporium adding the McFugu to the menu.

    :)

  21. 21.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    OT: Just returned from a trip to Amboy, CA.  There’s a volcanic crater there among other things.  I drove for 6 hours and shot for 3.  Now to process the photos.

  22. 22.

    WereBear

    Since Trump has made my life into a science-fiction dystopia, my novel-writing brain keeps coming up with parallels. In such a book, this is the opening of the third act.

    I know we keep discussing Sturgis, but we should. Since everyone must be alert about taking precautions once it ends. But also how it began.

    Trump wanted his face on Rushmore, dangled bait in front of the SD governor, and she approved this giant maskless event thinking only of the very local economy. The quarter million who came have to be from areas where the virus is not taken seriously. Regardless of the actual level of mayhem their home territory is dealing with.

    Remember this isn’t only blue collar workers. Lots and lots of the traffic are people who trailer their bikes in; professionals like lawyers and doctors. We’re talking societal coverage of about 80%; only the poor and very rich are excluded.

    Just a few years ago it was three quarters of a million, so there is a 2/3rds rule of sense being exercised.

    But it also means none of them will exercise sense when they get back home, either. Super-spreader, if anything, vastly underestimates the likely transmission rate.

  23. 23.

    raven

    SAN FRANCISCO — The shot elicited barely a whimper, a smattering of cheers and claps reminiscent of his college days at nearby Cal, but it was one that deserved the kind of delirium you expect in such moments on golf’s biggest stage.

    Collin Morikawa will have to settle for the shot seen — but not heard — around the world, an epic driver to the 16th green Sunday at TPC Harding Park that set up an eagle putt and a 2-shot victory at the PGA Championship. There might not have been any noise, but Morikawa loudly announced himself to the masses with that shot while forging ahead of a packed leaderboard to become a winner at golf’s first major championship of the pandemic-plagued 2020 season.

  25. 25.

    Searcher

    Man, sexism is a helluva drug.

    In 2016, you’d hardly know Clinton had a developed platform with clear policy goals from how much time the media spent talking about her emails and pretending she was dying.

    In 2020 the GOP itself is tweeting how great Biden’s policy proposals are.

  26. 26.

    Ken

    @prostratedragon: the President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago has his hair on fire.

    “Hey, guys, we can stabilize the banks somewhat, but not if thirty million households stop paying rent and mortgage and a similar number of small businesses go bankrupt.”

  27. 27.

    japa21

    @Eric S.: I am not usually much of a conspiracy bug, but this smells. Number 1, this started around 2:30, not the normal time for a lot of looting. 2, it seemed very coordinated with the amount of people involved and locations. 3, A lot of out of state license plates noted.

    Let’s just say it wouldn’t surprise me if the Trump administration isn’t behind it to have reason to send in the goons.

  29. 29.

    prostratedragon

    @Eric S.:  Reports now up at Trib and Sun-Times have nothing more than what you all just said. Trib did note that a young man in Englewood was shot by police last night and there was some disturbance in that neighborhood earlier.

  31. 31.

    Betty Cracker

    Speaking of Sturgis, I read somewhere that the town council polled citizens about having the event this year (population less than 10K, so they polled everyone). 60% were against it, but the town council decided to stage the event anyway because business.

    Also, the idiot governor (Noem?) who invited Trump to give the speech at the Mt. Rushmore also presented Trump with a model of Mt. Rushmore with Trump’s own hideous face added to it. By scaling new heights of obsequiousness, the governor’s move so alarmed Mike Pence (fearful of getting jettisoned from the ticket) that the governor had to make a second trip to DC to assure Pence she wasn’t gunning for his job.

  34. 34.

    Ken

    @prostratedragon: The president of the New York Fed: “Did we mention state and local governments too?  They’re among the largest employers, especially when you include contracted services like construction. Now imagine all those workers laid off too.”

  35. 35.

    SFAW

    @NotMax:

    Might consider laying off the jalapeño and radish pizzas before beddy-bye.

    Second Amendment response: “When you pry them from my cold, dead hands!”

  39. 39.

    debbie

    @japa21:

    Same kind of thing was going on in Portland overnight. While the protests have become smaller, the “rioting” persists. I think it’s past time to think about conspiracies.

  41. 41.

    prostratedragon

    @Ken:  Next I guess would be a chorus of BOG Presidents current and past led, of course, by Janet, Yellin. Alas, I fear that even that might not be enough to get through without some more unnecessary agony.

  42. 42.

    PenAndKey

    I know I’m incredibly biased, but that Biden ad Cesna shared floors me. Not because it’s happened, but because people aren’t absolutely livid about it. I’m still working on a dream plan to convince my wife to move to the Toronto area, but at this point I can’t even take her on a vacation out of the country to try and convince her (as was my original plan). We are, for all intents and purposes, trapped off.

    We’re the “leper colony” the blowhards on V for Vendetta said we were, and most of my neighbors here in Wisconsin don’t even know or care. Just… *pulls hair

  45. 45.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    @Searcher: And that was when they were not focusing on a bird landing on Bernie’s podium or at an empty Trump stage, rather than actually covering Hillary Clinton’s press conferences in full, or discussing any of her policy proposals (expanding Obamacare and lowering healthcare costs, killing the Hyde amendment, etc)

    But you know she was boring and over prepared…

  46. 46.

    prostratedragon

    @japa21:  Yeah, it did strike my notice that the whole thing began when there were few phone cameras walking about. And the city’s history of aggressive blockbusting has given me dark thoughts about the mechanisms of land assembly that can come into play around here. These mechanisms are readily adaptable to other purposes.

  48. 48.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @prostratedragon: A friend is a VP at the Fed in Minneapolis. Friend’s boss, Neel Kashkari, has been on TV saying the economy will only recover if the pandemic is under control. Rumor is that he’s hoping for a job in the Biden administration.

    I love seeing these people decide Trump is a loser so they don’t have to bother pleasing him.

  54. 54.

    Eric S.

    @prostratedragon: Unless proven otherwise I’m dismissing the Englewood shooting as the cause of last night’s looting. The looting started quickly and seems too coordinated to have developed that quickly.

  56. 56.

    germy

    Saw this comment about the rally in Sturgis:

    “There’s going to be some great deals out there on used motorcycles in about six weeks”

  58. 58.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @senyordave:

    American Elderly Already Drawing SS and Medicare:

    “So long as they come up with a way to continue to fund MY benefits, I am OK with that. Fuck you current workers, I got mine. #MAGA #TRUMP2020”

  60. 60.

    Betty Cracker

    @Gin & Tonic: I wish. Excerpt from an article in The Times on Saturday:

    WASHINGTON — Since the first days after she was elected governor of South Dakota in 2018, Kristi Noem had been working to ensure that President Trump would come to Mount Rushmore for a fireworks-filled July 4 extravaganza.

    After all, the president had told her in the Oval Office that he aspired to have his image etched on the monument. And last year, a White House aide reached out to the governor’s office with a question, according to a Republican official familiar with the conversation: What’s the process to add additional presidents to Mount Rushmore?

    So last month, when the president arrived in the Black Hills for the star-spangled spectacle he had pined for, Ms. Noem made the most of it…

    In private, the efforts to charm Mr. Trump were more pointed, according to a person familiar with the episode: Ms. Noem greeted him with a four-foot replica of Mount Rushmore that included a fifth presidential likeness: his.

    I think the White House has denied that Trump inquired about the process of adding his mug to the mountain, but AFAIK, no one has denied Noem presented him with a replica.

  63. 63.

    japa21

    @Kathleen: It actually saddens me that the first thing I thought of was trump was behind this.

    ETA: Wouldn’t surprise me if the head of the police union was in on it.  And yes, I hate thinking this way.

  65. 65.

    Van Buren

    Jeffrey Epstein died a year ago today.  I can’t decide if it seems much shorter or much longer ago than that.

  68. 68.

    prostratedragon

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:
    You know I didn’t realize Kashkari was President at Minneapolis. Since I remember hearing from his last week, it does seem that a progression is underway.

  70. 70.

    p.a.

    Chicago looting: false flag/white sups?  Anarchists because… anarchists?  Curious since Chi is on tRump’s target list.??

  71. 71.

    Elizabelle

    @debbie:

    Between the Mt. Rushmore rally and Sturgis, Trump will be losing plenty of voters. Poor planning. Bigly.

    I was looking at the FTF NY Times photos of the bikers. Plenty of Trump flags.  One guy wearing a tee shirt about Liberalism being a disease.

    And all the bikers looked 10-20 years older than expected.  I guess all the sun damage.

    Did we ever hear much of a wave of COVID infections after Mt. Trumpmore?  I missed it, if so ….

  72. 72.

    prostratedragon

    @Eric S.:  I’m with you, though it must be said that there are a lot of social media-savvy people out there who probably know how to get a flash mob going quickly. Wish they would confine it to flash steppin’ mobs and the like.

    A lot seem to have arrived in cars. Wonder whether there was unusual in-town travel on the CTA last night.

  73. 73.

    JPL

    @japa21: I didn’t catch all of it, but NBC is saying false information was being spread about the previous encounter.   You might be onto something.

  74. 74.

    Elizabelle

    @Van Buren:   It seems shorter, re Jeffrey Epstein dead for a year.

    Mostly because we cannot get away from seeing his mug, on a weekly basis.  So tired of his smirk.

  75. 75.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Elizabelle: COVID infections in South Dakota have been increasing since the July 4 event (and much more starkly in North Dakota, which had a really low case rate before July), but I haven’t heard of any direct attribution–the signal from these things can be hard to pick out.

  76. 76.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Van Buren:

    Jeffrey Epstein died a year ago today. I can’t decide if it seems much shorter or much longer ago than that.

    Pourquoi pas les deux?

  78. 78.

    JMG

    @Elizabelle: The median age of bikers everywhere is almost as old as that of cable news viewers. It is a boomer hobby, especially the Harley riders.

  79. 79.

    Booger

    @WereBear: This is the same group that refuses to wear helmets because of ‘freedom.’ I suspect the majority of motorcyclists would like to distance themselves from the typical Sturgis-goer.

  81. 81.

    jonas

    @PenAndKey:  most of my neighbors here in Wisconsin don’t even know or care

    That’s really the sad thing — Trump’s base doesn’t give a damn that we’re a global pariah. The vast majority of them have never traveled abroad or give a crap about the rest of the world. That’s why they’re Trump voters.

  82. 82.

    Ken

    @debbie: It would be emblematic of this presidency if they started work on Trump’s head, and it sheered off the side of the mountain into a pile of rubble.

  83. 83.

    PenAndKey

    @SiubhanDuinne: C’est définitivement les deux.

     

    @Betty Cracker: He denied it, but then gave his usual “I actually said it but want to act clever” agreement with the idea. I say let him wreck the monument by trying to add a fifth face onto unstable granite. The entire place is one giant monument to a whitewashing erasure of local heritage site anyway.

  84. 84.

    Uncle Cosmo

    Yesterday marked the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, which was duly noted as an unsettling milestone.

    IMO the world should take (somewhat sardonic) note of today as well:

    Today marks 75 years during which no nuclear device has been used on human beings.

    For all the cruelty, viciousness & pure damn evil our species has shown itself capable of – most notably in that war concluded nearly 75 years ago – it has at least shown enough sense not to unleash those implements of utter instantaneous devastation upon itself and its handiworks for three-quarters of a century.

    Maybe it was circumstances, maybe it was just dumb luck. But maybe, just maybe, it means that H. sap. is capable of rising above, or leaving behind, its most destructive impulses.

    That might be something worth noting and celebrating. /jmo

  87. 87.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    My RWNJ mom, my aunts and their friends beg to differ. All financial woes  can be traced to “those people” drawing EBT benefits, rental assistance and affirmative action hiring, with a healthy assist from Juan the landscaper/roofer.

  89. 89.

    PsiFighter37

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: Yeah – that said, I do think he’s a truly moderate Republican (if he is really one at all – I get the sense he was trying to get his foot in the door), and while he has been the Fed president in Minny, he has arguably been one of the most dovish Fed presidents out there in terms of speaking towards having loose monetary policy, as well as needing to ramp up fiscal spending. That said – I think he is better-suited towards his current apolitical job…I do not think he was as stellar at running TARP as his benefactors would have you believe.

  92. 92.

    Betty Cracker

    @PenAndKey:

    The entire place is one giant monument to a whitewashing erasure of local heritage site anyway.

    Agreed, and I can’t think of a more appropriate remedy than a landslide resulting from trying to add the current fool’s face.

  95. 95.

    Van Buren

    @debbie:  It would be the perfect way for this nightmare to end for them to start blasting his visage into the mountain only to have it crumble to the ground.

  97. 97.

    Another Scott

    @prostratedragon A report I read said in the eleventy-ith paragraph that the cop didn’t have his body camera running for “unknown” reasons. They showed a picture of the gun that the gunshot victim reportedly used to shoot at the police.

    This all stinks. We know that Donnie has been screaming about how horrible Chicago is for 4+ years. We know that he’s looking for excuses to send in his little green men and be President Lawnorder!! We know that too many punks are looking for excuses to play barbarian and have others be blamed. And too many cops still are refusing to do the minimal amount of work to build trust with the community.

    Grr…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  98. 98.

    Amir Khalid

    @Elizabelle:

    Check out the ‘shop of Trump’s head on Rocky Balboa’s body, next to the slogan READY FOR ROUND 2  (partly obscured by the motorbike).

  99. 99.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Van Buren:

    It would be the perfect way for this nightmare to end for them to start blasting his visage into the mountain only to have it crumble to the ground. 

    Or, and hear me out, they could tell him to slam his fat, orange, fascist face into the mountain until it leaves an imprint.

  100. 100.

    germy

    Look at what the evil geniuses over at “The Hill”  (owned by a friend of trump) are saying:

    Former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown (D) advised Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) to “politely decline” any offer to be presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s running mate.

    Brown wrote that the vice presidency would likely hinder any further political ambitions for Harris.

    They concern troll over Harris further political ambitions being thwarted, and they bring in Willie Brown!

    I can hear them laughing now.

  101. 101.

    Served

    @mrmoshpotato: that account is unfortunately tied to an extremely racist blog that started because the writer thought there were too many black kids in Lakeview

  102. 102.

    germy

    There isn’t room on Mount Rushmore for another president head, so trump would probably want one of the other presidents removed.  Maybe Lincoln.

    Because he freed the slaves, and “you know how that worked out.”

  105. 105.

    Kathleen

    @japa21: I more or less grew up thinking this way thanks to my father, who was an avid reader and history major who believed Hoover was one of the government officials behind JFK’s assasination. I’ve been reading about John Birch Society and fifth columnists since I was in the 7th grade. My biggest fear about Trump has been a false flag scenario.

  109. 109.

    Mel

    @rikyrah: True. And they’ll infect people in every motel, campground, convenience store, restaurant, and bar that they stop in on their travels  back to various parts of the country. It’s terrifying and so infuriating.

  110. 110.

    JPL

    @germy: Yesterday the NYTimes painted her as protecting evil cops.   All and all, I take this as a good sign that she will be the nominee.

  111. 111.

    dnfree

    @mali muso: dreams are sometimes interesting. Yours reminds me of the time during the GW Bush administration that I dreamed I was yelling at Dick Cheney. When I woke up, I thought, at least I knew enough to go to the person in charge of the war.

  112. 112.

    ljt

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: You can switch back to the old layout: in the upper left corner, click flag-waver icon; from the drop-down menu, select ‘switch to new frontpage design’ (even if you’re already on the new design, this is the option); then click again and you should be able to select ‘switch to old…’

  113. 113.

    Miss Bianca

    @Van Buren: Really? Jesus. You’re right, I’m having trouble with the time-space continuum on that event – and all other events – myself. Seems like it was just yesterday, but yesterday seems like a hundred years ago already.

  114. 114.

    Mel

    @debbie: I see he’s going for the Falwell fashion statement, with the overalls coquettishly unsnapped at the hip to give everybody a little lagniappe.

    {{shudder}}

  115. 115.

    Elizabelle

    @Amir Khalid:   Yesh.  And the back of the bus (mercifully, not shown by reddit) has a full photo of Trump with bare chest as Rocky.  At least, it’s bright orange too.  Enjoy following that MOFO down the highway.

    From when they rolled this sucker out, in January.  Link to local CBS News station in Raleigh, NC.

    Interesting to watch the graphics team wrap the bus.

    The 45-foot professional tour bus is covered in extravagant, pro-Trump images and quotes. It’s been dubbed the “Trump Train” and took the team at King Tut Graphics two days to install all the graphics.

    … The back of the bus is customized with President Trump himself portrayed as a shirtless Rocky Balboa with boxing gloves.

    Vice President Mike Pence is pictured smiling on the side of the bus. Former President Ronald Reagan and Queen Elizabeth are shown wearing the infamous red Make America Great Again baseball caps. [Actually, they photoshopped MAGA onto the Queen’s own red hat.  She does not do baseball caps.]

    The man behind the concept is Mississippi businessman and loyal Trump supporter, Buddy Hall. He tells CBS 17 he and a friend purchased the massive bus with their own money to help get Trump re-elected.

    “The original owner of the bus had it custom made in Miami for $1.25 million. We got a better deal than that on it. And then we paid about $14,000 to have it wrapped,” Hall told CBS 17.

    Near the bottom rear of the bus, a section says “Promises Made Promises Kept” and includes an image of Trump wearing a tattered U.S. flag like Superman.

    “Give me a super majority in November and I’ll finish fixing our country. Vote Republican,” the type over the flag says.

    The bus also has a plug for Ivanka Trump for President in 2024 right beside a large pink square that says “Women For Trump.”

    …. “We love our president, he’s made a lot of sacrifices for our country and we wanted to make a sacrifice for him and show our appreciation. Everyone says ‘Get on the Trump train.’ So we wanted to have a Trump train for the president,” Hall said.

  116. 116.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Van Buren:

    It would be the perfect way for this nightmare to end for them to start blasting his visage into the mountain only to have it crumble to the ground.

    The metaphors write themselves.

  117. 117.

    Miss Bianca

    @Booger: Right now, the “bathroom book” I’m reading is Hunter S. Thompson’s Hell’s Angels. Yeah, in almost 60 years (!!) since it was published, a lot has changed about biker culture but a lot, sadly, seems to have remained the same.

  118. 118.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Kathleen:My biggest fear about Trump has been a false flag scenario.

    Go read the WP article on the Trump Admin virus response; Trumpy don’t do hard work and goes for instant gratification. A false flag would take someone outside his admin.

    As for the looting, well there are lots of ambitious people who know how to organize out of work and since the 600 week ran out feeling the pinch.  The real failure of Conservatism is they assume to poors will polity roll over and quietly die.

  119. 119.

    Elizabelle

    @debbie:   I know.  That level of chubs and overalls would be cute on a two year old.

    Whoever took that photo knew what he/she was doing.

  121. 121.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Elizabelle:

    Enjoy following that MOFO down the highway.

    I would pull over to the shoulder for 5-10 minutes and let it get well out of my range of sight.

  122. 122.

    dnfree

    @Eric S.: Chicago looting news is up on the Tribune site, being updated. They have reopened expressway entrances and bridges. Obviously not much known yet.

  123. 123.

    dnfree

    @zhena gogolia: ugh. I agree. I know they’re mostly just setting things up for the season, but I hate when they have a character do things that seem wildly out-of-character to push the plot in an unlikely direction. It’s like they’ve run out of plausible ideas.

  124. 124.

    ellenr

    @PsiFighter37:  He came to our university just after T took office and gave a talk on how the only way to “grow” the economy is increase population. Yes, immigration, but also women should stay home and make babies. To an audience of faculty – including women, of course – and biz + govt leaders.

  128. 128.

    Betty Cracker

    @jonas: Swing voters care according to polls, but you’re right, Trump’s base doesn’t give a shit about our global pariah status. Unfortunately, the lag time between their idol’s shitting all over our global standing and the resulting decline of our ability to influence international events in a way that benefits Americans will probably come too late for those slack-jawed nitwits to make the connection…

  129. 129.

    Elizabelle

    That Trump Train bus is in Sturgis now.  Maybe it will be quarantined for 14 days.

    On the plus side, it’s big enough to hold a mess o’ coffins.  Like a cruise ship.

  130. 130.

    Mel

    @Amir Khalid: Oh, no no no no no!! Now I’ve seen the Riboflavin Rocky, but also just noticed the MAGA version of the “Venus of Urbino“, lolling on the motorcycle. The “Maganus of Sturgis“, perhaps?

    Excuse me for just a moment while I go claw out my eyes…

  131. 131.

    PenAndKey

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: The real failure of Conservatism is they assume to poors will polity roll over and quietly die.

    It’s not that they think people will politely roll over, but that the ones who even think to ponder the end game always presume they’ll end up on top. When Robespierre orchestrated the French Revolution he probably never considered that he’d end his days under the blade, after all.

    These sorts of situations have, throughout history, been defined by people who failed to consider the lengths others will go to when they’re desperate to provide food and shelter to their children. It never ends well, for anyone

    @Betty Cracker:

    Unfortunately, the lag time between their idol’s shitting all over our global standing and the resulting decline of our ability to influence international events in a way that benefits Americans will probably come too late for those slack-jawed nitwits to make the connection…

    There’s a reason why I’m devoting so much of my mental energy these days to planning out a move to the Toronto area and trying to convince my wife that it’s the only responsible course of action for our son and daughter’s futures (presuming we can ever cross the border). As far as I’m concerned most of my community is already a lost cause. Even if when the country kicks Trump to the curb it’s been evident for years that our little slice of Americana here in Western Wisconsin is rotten to the core.

  136. 136.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    @Uncle Cosmo: 75 years If we don’t count the service men who were used as guinea pigs for some of the Bikini tests in the 50s. My mother’s first husband amongst them. He died of testicular cancer in their first year of marriage.

  137. 137.

    prostratedragon

    @Another Scott:  Yeah, Grrrrrr. Been listening to WGN online. Unfortunately one can choose one’s target to blame, because who can prove otherwise? However it shakes out, there are too many chuckleheads walking around, that’s for sure.

  139. 139.

    Betty Cracker

    @mrmoshpotato: My poor kiddo works at a print shop where she has to produce banners with similarly nauseating pro-Trump content. She also does pro-Biden material, but notes with alarm that there’s not nearly as much demand. I don’t think that’ll be an issue because I suspect Trump will prove to be the greatest GOTV machine the Democratic Party has ever seen.

  143. 143.

    Elizabelle

    @debbie:   Me too.  I suspect QE2 heard about this, and first winced, but then laughed.  It was rather clear how the British royal family regards Mr. Trump.

    @Betty Cracker:   In the CBS/Raleigh video, you see a young African American man working in the graphics shop.  Wondering what he thought about the contract.  Although, bus wrap only has to last 11 months …

  146. 146.

    Another Scott

    @EmbraceYourInnerCrone: A former colleague’s father was part of the Manhattan Project and died early from a rare cancer.  The family eventually received compensation as part of a bill for similarly-situated people passed by Congress.

    Also:
    https://www.ctbto.org/nuclear-testing/the-effects-of-nuclear-testing/general-overview-of-theeffects-of-nuclear-testing/

    It is difficult to assess the number of deaths that might be attributed to radiation exposure from nuclear testing. Some studies and evaluations, including an assessment by Arjun Makhijani on the health effects of nuclear weapon complexes, estimate that cancer fatalities due to the global radiation doses from the atmospheric nuclear testing programmes of the five nuclear-weapon States amount to hundreds of thousands. A 1991 study by the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) estimated that the radiation and radioactive materials from atmospheric testing taken in by people up until the year 2000 would cause 430,000 cancer deaths, some of which had already occurred by the time the results were published. The study predicted that roughly 2.4 million people could eventually die from cancer as a result of atmospheric testing.

    :-(

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  149. 149.

    coin operated

    FWIW…not all old bikers want to be old, dead bikers.  Had planned to visit Sturgis this year but several of my riding buddies, who had generously offered me a couch or two to crash on during the event, backed out thanks to ‘rona.

    *edited for spelling

  150. 150.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Betty Cracker:

    She also does pro-Biden material, but notes with alarm that there’s not nearly as much demand.

    I can think of any number of harmless reasons for this, such as coincidence of location/customer base, this election being driven by anti-Trump more than pro-Biden, and a major conservative trait is their compulsion to shove their beliefs on everyone else.  Do not fall into the ‘Romney is going to win because I saw more yard signs while driving’ trap.  The polls are crystal clear that Trump is fucked.

  151. 151.

    Elizabelle

    LOL.  They put that photo of QE2 in a MAGA hat up on a UK reddit thread.  Drew 294 comments, but was then removed by the moderator.  Wish I could have seen the responses there.

    This bus does not do much to improve our image in the world.  LOL.

  152. 152.

    Betty Cracker

    @Frankensteinbeck: My guess is that a lot of the pro-Trump garbage my daughter had to produce is for the “boat parades” because she’s in the Tampa Bay area, and there are lots of boats and Trump jerks, though HRC carried Hillsborough CO. overall. TRUMP is falling for an even stupider version of the “Romney will win because yard signs” crap, i.e., the boat parades are the barometer. I am under no such illusion.

  153. 153.

    zhena gogolia

    @dnfree:

    Yes. Shaun Evans, very fine actor, does not seem to be a very fine director. I know Barrington Pheloung died, but couldn’t they have gotten someone to write good music?

    They’re making Grantchester look good.

  154. 154.

    PsiFighter37

    @ellenr: Not surprising that someone from the financial sector who was an investment banker would have a tone-deaf approach.

  155. 155.

    Kay

    It’s hard to reach any other conclusion on the heels of the DHS sending federal militarized police into Portland last month, where camouflaged and unidentified officers indiscriminately sprayed protesters with teargas and rubber bullets for more than two weeks. But even after the agency reached an agreement with Portland officials to leave, virtually every day we learn more about the DHS abusing its vast surveillance powers to spy on journalists, protesters and immigrants.

    We can’t afford a postal service but for some reason we can afford this giant, incompetent money-sink of an agency. I’m sick of it. They do a lousy job protecting the country from real threats and they invent wholly political fake threats. I don’t want to pay for a Right wing militia anymore, especially because I’m so vastly OVERPAYING for what I get.
    We need some money to repair the damage these people have done to our country. Let’s really start looking for some. Let’s cut something other than public services and start poking at this giant police force. Cut, cut, cut. This funding can be reallocated to some service that benefits the people who pay for it.
    These people are in no way “professionals”. They invent and then enforce Right wing conspiracy theories. They’re LOUSY at their jobs.

  157. 157.

    Kay

    In yet another story, we also learned last Friday that the DHS has been reading and analyzing the content of communications of a number of protesters, and widely sharing what they learned to other law enforcement officials. Earlier in the month, the agency had explicitly told Congress, according to the House Intelligence Committee, that the DHS “had neither collected nor exploited or analyzed information obtained from the devices or accounts of protesters or detainees”. The leaked document showing they had was created six days before that testimony.

    50 billion dollars a year – that’s WITHOUT the extra funding they get for unique emergency events- so they can play at being spies in their own country and surveil BLM protesters and organizers. But we have no money for pandemic mitigation in public schools. They seem to be getting their “intelligence” from Fox news tv personalities. That’s free. Where does the money go?

  158. 158.

    PenAndKey

    @germy: Ben Shapiro got caught as the creator of an “Antifa recruitment” website hahahaaaaa.

    Once again cementing my belief that he’s nothing but a right wing debate club idiot with delusions of grandeur. He really doesn’t get that he’s nothing but the proto-nazi son from Knives Out, does he?

  159. 159.

    Kay

    @germy:

    Probably coordinated thru the huge, bloated, wholly corrupt DHS. Bust it up. I don’t want to pay 50 billion dollars a year to Right wing political operatives. I think I found some money for schools and the postal service. All we have to do is take from one column and add to another.

  161. 161.

    The Thin Black Duke

    Trump is already walking back his bullshit about “terminating” Social Security and Medicare. That was fast.

  163. 163.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: Amen and amen. I’ve hated the idea of DHS since they rolled it out, and it’s outperformed my worst fears by an order of magnitude.

  164. 164.

    Jinchi

    @Betty Cracker: She also does pro-Biden material, but notes with alarm that there’s not nearly as much demand.

    That’s because Trump’s base is a cult. The last guy who covered his vehicle in Trump fanart is in prison for sending mail bombs to Trump’s personal enemies list.

    When Mr. Sayoc pleaded guilty in court, he listed his intended victims. In addition to Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton, they included former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.; Senator Kamala Harris, a California Democrat; Senator Cory Booker, a New Jersey Democrat; George Soros, a billionaire Democratic donor; and John O. Brennan, a former C.I.A. director.

    The list also included Representative Maxine Waters, a California Democrat; former Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.; Tom Steyer, a prominent Democratic donor; James R. Clapper Jr., a former director of national intelligence; the actor Robert De Niro; and CNN.

  166. 166.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @PenAndKey: been defined by people who failed to consider the lengths others will go to when they’re desperate to provide food and shelter to their children. It never ends well, for anyone.

    Just glancing at the current situation, gangs of well organized and coordinated looters isn’t going to end well.

  169. 169.

    PenAndKey

    @germy: I was in high school when 9/11 occurred and the Project for a New American Century group decided it was the perfect moment to roll out the Patriot Act in response. Even when I was more obsessed with video games and my girlfriend than politics that always stunk too much of a Reichstag fire-level ploy for comfort. As far as I’m concerned the whole thing needs to be banished to the dustbin of history as a bad idea made worse by it’s believers. The DHS has no place in the American polity.

  172. 172.

    Another Scott

    @germy:

    US government extermination of criminal motorcycle gangs in South Dakota province called “barbaric” due to use of germ warfare.

    Motorcycle hooligans in DPRK are reformed through re-education and socially useful labor. pic.twitter.com/IxlH9CDdAN

    — DPRK News Service (@DPRK_News) August 9, 2020

    Haha.

    …

    :-/

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  173. 173.

    PenAndKey

    @germy: I’d say he probably had some pragmatic calculation that made him pick Lieberman, but this is a VP who didn’t want his still extremely popular president campaigning for him. Quite frankly, both moves strike me as attempting a triangulation that simply didn’t work out. Both of them failed for the same reason: they failed to differentiate between the views of the voters and the views of the DC media club.

  174. 174.

    Sab

    @germy: I had liked Gore before with reservations  but by picking Lieberman I really had to hold my nose to vote for him. Good thing I did. Met my future husband in voting line. He talked me into Gore. At that point I was usually straight D except for an occassional local judge or county engineer, but Lieberman was over my line. He said “and Cheney isn’t?”

  175. 175.

    Elizabelle

    @Sab:   Met your husband via Gore-Lieberman.  LOL.

    Yeah.  Gore erred badly in pushing Clinton away from him.  GOP mythmaking has turned WJC into a rapist, but folks forget he was a popular and well-regarded 2-term president when he left.

    All very sad.  And GW Bush turned Sandra Day O’Connor into a dignity wraith, in my opinion.  Never regained my affection or admiration for her (and she was a very accessible Justice;  saw her around DC at a lot of events, especially literary ones).

  178. 178.

    MoxieM

    Last post by an hour as usual… The Biden ad really only appeals to people who have passports and travel. I’ve been shocked by meeting grown adults who have never had a passport–who prefer going to Disney-whatever, because it doesn’t require one. And they don’t seem curious enough about the world beyond to overcome their fear? intimidation? to take the leap and travel. It costs just as much to go to Disney for a week as it does to go to the UK, and bonus! they speak English in the UK as well, so no scary foreign languages.

    Shorter: I don’t know that the Biden ad will appeal to those people.

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