Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

People are complicated. Love is not.

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

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

I really should read my own blog.

Cancel the cowardly Times and Post and set up an equivalent monthly donation to ProPublica.

If rights aren’t universal, they are privilege, not rights.

Mediocre white men think RFK Jr’s pathetic midlife crisis is inspirational. The bar is set so low for them, it’s subterranean.

Museums are not America’s attic for its racist shit.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

The revolution will be supervised.

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

Shut up, hissy kitty!

“But what about the lurkers?”

Beware of advice from anyone for whom Democrats are “they” and not “we.”

Do we throw up our hands or do we roll up our sleeves? (hint, door #2)

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

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

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

T R E 4 5 O N

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

“woke” is the new caravan.

You passed on an opportunity to be offended? What are you even doing here?

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

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Reader Interactions

224Comments

  1. 1.

    scav

    What exactly should they be sweeping to make it all better? Or is this where the paper towels come in?

  4. 4.

    lowcountryboil

    I have the same fear. I’m confident that Biden will win the popular vote by 6-8 points, but I have no confidence in the electoral.

  5. 5.

    Avalune

    I bet Trump is pretty pissed he’s being slightly overshadowed by the NBA protest and a stupid hurricane.

     

    It’s myyyyyyy niiiight.

  9. 9.

    Eljai

    Remember to do some deep breathing. It’s important to take care of yourself. I have moments of slight panic too. I think it’s because even after 4 years of disaster there’s still a gaggle of reporters crawling up the asses of Trump supporters to get their opinion, as if the rest of us just don’t matter. After President Biden is sworn in and it’s safe to travel again, I’m going to park my butt in front of the NYT building until a reporter comes out to ask me my opinion.

  10. 10.

    Kay

    I think it’s true for most people. Democrats are always nervous but they’re jumping out of their skin this time. I knew it would be like this- I bet most of you did too. We’ve known for at least a year that we were going to have this VERY LONG August to November jumpy period.

    The biggest media lie last night was Democrats think they have this in the bag. Jesus. Do they KNOW any?

  11. 11.

    LeftCoastYankee

    This has been a dark day.

    But the professional athletes in the NBA, WNBA and MLB staging wildcat strikes brings a flicker of hope.

    No justice, no circus.

  13. 13.

    zhena gogolia

    @Kay:

    Just had dinner with friends. The husband is convinced there’ll be an armed insurrection.

    Just your typical Democrats.

  14. 14.

    Kent

    So, I haven’t seen anyone mention that Trump just spent all the FEMA money diverting it to cover unemployment payments because they refused to negotiate with the Democrats.

    Now we have a MASSIVE hurricane hitting two red states and the FEMA coffers are going to be empty. Oops.

    Pelosi and the House should pull back their Covid relief bill, add the Hurricane relief money to it, and send it back to the Senate and let McConnell refuse to take action on BOTH Covid and Hurricane Laura.

  17. 17.

    Lacuna Synechdoche

    John Cole @ Top:

    In other news, Texas and Louisiana are about to be wiped out with a hurricane and it is *BARELY* making the news.

    Right? I feel like I’m in that scene from “Being John Malkovich” where Malkovich slides down the chute into a world where everyone has a Malkovich face and speaks only one word, “Malkovich,” in varying intonations – well, anyway, as much varying intonation as one can vary when repeatedly saying “Malkovitch”.

    Except, instead of “Malkovich,” everyone has Trump’s face and just keeps saying “Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump. Tru…” over and over and over and over and ad infinitum over again. It’s a fucking nightmare.

  19. 19.

    A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)

    Oh John, I know just what you mean. I taped the 20/20 interview with Joe and Kamala and was unable to watch more than about half of it because of the dread that rose in me. I did have an interview with SPW on TRMS from March just after she suspended her campaign I was able to watch. She is so same and smart. At the beginning of the show was a news recap and the death toll was 12, I think. All the coverage was about a cruise ship.

  21. 21.

    Lacuna Synechdoche

    John Cole @ Top:

    In other news, Texas and Louisiana are about to be wiped out with a hurricane and it is *BARELY* making the news.

    There goes that FEMA money Trump was going to redirect to unemployment … Or will he still hold onto it and screw, as Trump will eventually call them, “the losers who couldn’t even avoid a hurricane.”

  23. 23.

    Sab

    Cole, What news are you watching? My BIL is in Baton Rouge and I in Ohio am obsessed. BIL on the other hand thinks we are over-reacting. I grew up in Florida so I don’t think so. We will all see

    Hurricanes, not politics. Focuses the mind a bit ( but apparently not the BIL.)

  26. 26.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Kent:

    Now we have a MASSIVE hurricane hitting two red states and the FEMA coffers are going to be empty. Oops. 

    “But Dear Leader doesn’t have a vagina and hates the same people we hate!”

    Fuck ’em!

  27. 27.

    FlyingToaster

    @zhena gogolia: He’s not alone.  I’m the granddaughter of a socialist/pacifist, daughter of two democratic activists, and I’m fucking convinced this ends in bloodshed.

    Mind you, I grew up in Clay County.  I know EXACTLY what the run-up to a Civil War looks like.  It looks like Clay County from 1854-1861.

    I may live in Bwahstin now, but even looking from beneath the Sacred Cod, this is going to be very, very bad.  And deadly.  On top of everything else that 2020 is bringing us.

  29. 29.

    WaterGirl

    @Kent:

    So, I haven’t seen anyone mention that Trump just spent all the FEMA money diverting it to cover unemployment payments because they refused to negotiate with the Democrats.

    Did he actually do that?

  30. 30.

    Suzanne

    @Kay:

    Democrats are always nervous but they’re jumping out of their skin this time. 

    I am freaking the fuck right out.
    I can’t deal with this year.

  33. 33.

    Ken

    @WaterGirl: Sort of, but his plan concept slurry that came out of his mouth required states to pay 25% of the cost and change their UI systems again, and I’ve not heard that any of them have taken the offer.

  34. 34.

    Another Scott

    @WaterGirl: I don’t think he did.

    Because the broke states would have had to put up 25% of the money, and because it wasn’t clear it was legal, and …

    It was more of Donnie’s bloviating and lies, AFAICS.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  36. 36.

    Sab

    @raven: Well you certainly calmed me down. Last time he didn’t evacuate because the dog. His daughter rescued him with friends with boats. He did not learn a GD thing. New dog , however. Hope it can swim. Ohio, exporting her idiots.

  37. 37.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Another Scott:

    Don’t get discouraged.  We have a lot of work to do, but the wind is at our back. 

    But act like we have a gale-force wind in our face, because we need a CRUSHING victory!

    Remember!  These assholes wouldn’t accept the 2016 win because of the popular vote loss!

  39. 39.

    Quiltingfool

    I am feeling despondent today, too.  Having a huge sensory overload, just things seem so dark.  I think I need to go clean up the supper dishes and then work on a quilt – I can look at the fabrics and finished blocks and think, “pretty, pretty, pretty!”  An escape, but sometimes you need to walk away for a little bit.

  40. 40.

    Patricia Kayden

    Former White House national security adviser John Bolton torched the Trump administration's response to the coronavirus pandemic, leveling that that the lack of a national strategy has prompted "one mistake after another" https://t.co/G6UcKByLKp— CNN (@CNN) August 27, 2020

  41. 41.

    Martin

    @NotMax: I’m having this argument with Nate.

    He’s trying to reconcile why the polls are 70%-80% Biden but the betting markets are only 50%-60%. My argument is that statistics assumes a certain predictability around the sample. I can predict with 100% certainty that an 12oz can of soda when put on a scale will weigh less than a pound, but only if the scale is accurate.

    That gap reflects that about 20% of the betting market expects Trump to cheat, making the polls irrelevant.

    That’s where the anxiety comes from. In a fair election, yeah, we got this. Not even close. I’m about 50/50 on whether that will happen though.

    Similarly I’m about 50/50 on the armed insurrection as well. The kind of damage Trump is doing is hard to fix. Trump has no fear of an armed insurrection. He has no fear of the nation breaking. He has no concerns for such things. If Republicans were willing to work to repair it, sure, but they aren’t. I’ve never seen such a gross display of cowardice in my life.

  42. 42.

    Sab

    @Quiltingfool:  I have a ton of fabric but no creativity. Sigh. My dog just said the same thing. We would love to quilt but don’t want to ruin the fabric

    ETA:: my little folk harp has been begging for a new cover for 10 years.

  45. 45.

    FelonyGovt

    I have the same periods of sheer terror that this fucker is going to be  re-elected, whether by cheating, by  the stupidity of some Americans, or both. It’s especially infuriating that my vote in California doesn’t matter worth a damn, and it may all come down to what some folks in three or four states  decide to do this time.

  46. 46.

    Sab

    @raven: Huh? He got to La when the CoastGuard sent him there. Sent his younger brother to the Great Lakes where they belonged.

  47. 47.

    Mai naem mobile

    Can’t Orange Lump just sharpie Laura to the blue states?

    BTW Kay-Lee and Kelly Ann are big fat liars like their boss.

  48. 48.

    raven

    @Sab: Read “The Great Deluge” by Brinkley. The Gator Navy are to coon-asses who saved people all over Louisiana. Interestingly them, the Coast Guard and WalMart were the entities that did the best during Katrina.

  51. 51.

    Sab

    @raven: Sorry. Gator Navy were those guys ( probably his in-laws) rescuing idiots like him?  His wife is Cajun, and wonderful, and we don’t know why she loves him but she does.

  52. 52.

    James E Powell

    @Martin:

    Trump has no fear of an armed insurrection. He has no fear of the nation breaking. He has no concerns for such things.

    The press/media are looking forward to it. They are certain it will boost their revenues.

    Every few days or so I will read something and think, maybe we shouldn’t destroy the entire Village, then I read a NYT’s writer telling us how Melania’s speech was great and will get suburban women (I don’t think she said white, but that’s what she meant) and other pundits berating the rest of us because we weren’t all warm & fuzzy with her speech.

    I want them all destroyed. I want their LA privileges revoked. I want them all to spend a night in the box. I want their pets taken away and given good homes.

  53. 53.

    Mary G

    OT, this bucked me up. An article with a teaser video of Meghan Markle and Gloria Steinem chatting in Meghan’s backyard in front of an amazing tree and joined by Meghan’s dogs. Gloria says voting is everything, and a movement is like a family. TLo’s commentary is priceless as well:

    Your not-so-humble hosts have been DEEPLY AMUSED watching folks completely lose their shit because Meghan says things like “Voting is important” and “We need change” as if she were fomenting revolution and putting The Queen herself in mortal danger. We cannot roll our eyes hard enough at folks who think she should be stripped of her titles for making such anodyne observations. If the Queen wasn’t going to strip Uncle David’s title for LITERALLY hanging out with Hitler or Prince Andrew’s title for vacationing on Pedophile Island – let alone Sarah Ferguson’s title for influence-peddling – then the outcry over Meghan’s mild remarks has got to be seen as prejudicial. Sorry, but there it is. Diana got to keep her princess title after trashing the family and divorcing her way out of it, for crying out loud.

    Anyway, speaking of crying out loud, the latest outcry is her remark during this chat about how women are “linked, not ranked” – because she has a title. Apparently if you have a title bestowed upon you by marriage, you forfeit any right to talk about inequality or to uplift people.Literally anything she does now gets met with calls to have her title stripped because frankly, a whole bunch of folks can’t stand that she’s free from the restrictions of her royal duties and has no intention of being quiet. Also because she’s biracial, of course.

  56. 56.

    Scuffletuffle

    @Sab: You and me, lots of gorgeous fabrics, but cannot bring myself to cutting into them.  Is there a 12 step for fabricaholics?

  59. 59.

    rikyrah

    Maybe it’s just me, but I remember everytime there was a major storm during 44’s Administration, they were all in his face about what he was going to do. Was it going to be his ‘Katrina ‘?

     

    THIS Muthaphucka ?lets Puerto Rico drown, and they still phucking try to normalize him. They don’t even cover storms like this, cause they know the inept peop le who work for him are unprofessional.??

  60. 60.

    cain

    @Kay: The biggest media lie last night was Democrats think they have this in the bag. Jesus. Do they KNOW any?

    They don’t know any – just think they  know – based on tropes.

  61. 61.

    cain

    @Kent:

    Pelosi and the House should pull back their Covid relief bill, add the Hurricane relief money to it, and send it back to the Senate and let McConnell refuse to take action on BOTH Covid and Hurricane Laura.

    Make sure they find every press person they can… we should be talking about it non-stop. (how come we don’t have democratic bots to amplify our signal?)

  62. 62.

    lamh36

    Reason #999099999,9999999.99999 why I have no need to watch the RNC convention. There is no point watching the shitshow cause it won’t matter how many lies they tell, or how may Hatch Act violations they make, the folks who are voting for them will still voter for them…

    work with this people. They still support him 100%. They just dont’ say his name. Any yet the attitudes they express about teachers who worried about COVID, or how they bemoan wearing masks, or talk about protesting…hell Steve Scalise is their Congressman and they love him

    So no…fuq watching this racist shit-fest. It will mean nothing to me and it doesn’t mean anything to them either, they plan on supporting the GOP and Trump no matter what happens at RNC. So why the fuq would I put myself through watching it?

    Example:

    VP Pence set to say at RNC tonight: “The American people know we don’t have to choose between supporting law enforcement, & standing w/ African-American neighbors to improve the quality of life in our cities & towns. From the first days of this Administration, we have done both.”

    https://twitter.com/Yamiche/status/1298794798715936773?s=20

    his is the lie that people who will and want to vote for Chump will swallow. Doesn’t matter they haven’t done shit…just saying enough to make the supporters and on-the-fencers, feel good about their shitty choice of Chump

     

    Yamiche Alcindor

    @Yamiche

    VP Pence will say tonight: “Joe Biden says America is systemically racist. And that law enforcement in America has a quote, ‘implicit bias’ against minorities…The hard truth is…you won’t be safe in Joe Biden’s America…We will stand w/ those who stand on the Thin Blue Line.”

    8:32 PM · Aug 26, 2020·Twitter Web App
    https://twitter.com/Yamiche/status/1298795575844974593?s=20

    FUQ you and Chump, Mike

  63. 63.

    Sab

    @Scuffletuffle: Probably the fabric is better if we don’t get help.

    My harp is hoping for crewell embroidery on canvas. That might actually happen this year.

    My niece quilts madly. I just have to relinquish fabric to her. Can’t bring myself to do it. She will chop it up!

  67. 67.

    cain

    @FelonyGovt:

    Then we are going to down the hole – and we are going to climb back out again. Eventually, he’ll have taken the road down to utter ruin. The clean up will take generations.

    We can thank the american populace for that. History will not look kind upon us all.

  69. 69.

    Feathers

    @Sab: We need a weekly “Courage for Crafters” thread. I knit, have knit for a long time, have very inconsistent gauge. This means I need to knit a sweater all at once. At the beginning of all this, I put down the sweater I was working on to sew masks. I came back to my knitting and I have knit three sleeves, none of them the same size. I can knit the sleeve up to the armpit using a ruler to measure that it is the right size, but I have put it all aside for over two months now, because I am unwilling to do the math to figure out how to correctly knit the sleeve cap. I suppose I could also just pick up stitches along the edge of the sweater body and do short row sleeves. That may be best at this point. Sigh.

    tldr; got rambling about my knit world problems.

  70. 70.

    Gin & Tonic

    @cain:

    and we are going to climb back out again

    This.

    My parents survived Hitler and Stalin. They did not give up.

  74. 74.

    cain

    @lamh36:

    They can stand on that thin blue line because they ain’t going to have anything else to do with no sports on TV. Count on it.

  79. 79.

    cain

    @Another Scott:

    Sure, it is always about timing and of course – we’ll likely be forced to because we’re still on the side of the people and they need the money and support. They really are mobsters.

  80. 80.

    Kattails

    @Sab: Wasn’t it you who responded to a link to Bernadette Banner on youtube the other night? (I caught the response too late.) She’s got a new post up, making a criss-cross capelet with a hand-stitched silk lining and working with a specialty shoe company on the design of a new one for their line. I was unaware of my need for handmade leather shoes with court heels and ribbon laces until a few days ago.

    I’ve been inspired to look up websites that carry vintage patterns, contemplate my fabric stash, and generally drag myself BACK into a space where this stuff is a fun part of normalcy.  It seems to me that your lovely little harp would be just so happy to have a cover, be tuned, and plucked a bit.

    Perhaps we need to grab the future we want, throw out a grappling hook and drag ourselves into it.

  81. 81.

    Immanentize

    My dear dear friends.  If Trump wins a second term very bad things will happen.  But I for one will continue working against those things.  I once got a fortune in a cookie.  I have it taped to my monitor at work:

    Don’t despair. But if you do, work on in despair.

    That is my plan.

  85. 85.

    Kattails

    @Feathers: Back when I was active in the SCA there was such a thing as the “Dabblers’ Guild”, membership being dependent on how many projects one had going ;-)

  86. 86.

    Kent

    @WaterGirl:

    @Kent:

    So, I haven’t seen anyone mention that Trump just spent all the FEMA money diverting it to cover unemployment payments because they refused to negotiate with the Democrats.

    Did he actually do that?

    Yes.   Trump can’t actually spend money not allocated by Congress.  So to get money for the wall he pulled it from other Pentagon accounts.

    For the Covid unemployment he couldn’t just spend new money, so he diverted existing FEMA accounts towards Covid unemployment.  At first they were demanding that states cough up $100/wk to get $300 in Fed dollars but backed off on that when even red states said they couldn’t.  So now there are indeed a variety of states moving forward to capture that $300/wk unemployment boost including my own state of WA:  https://www.king5.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/washington-approved-for-extra-300-per-week-in-unemployment-benefits/281-fd1b29d4-af75-4762-8872-9e6356e8c3bf

    Who knows how long that money will last.  I heard 6 weeks but no one knows.  But regardless, they are spending the money that was for things like Hurricane Laura relief so will have to go back to Congress for Hurricane Laura now.

  90. 90.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    this seems like a cromulent comment for the rest of the week and into the weekend

    John Sides @johnmsides ·14m
    People who watch the conventions and say what’s “effective” are simply making it up. They have no idea, except what they project on voters.
    Few voters are watching or will hear much about the conventions. Fewer will change their minds.
    I’m available for your cable news program.

  93. 93.

    Sab

    OMG. Our fifty pound rottweiler mix girl dog is asleep at the foot of my bed, completely oblivious that the fifteen pound tuxedo cat that haunts her dreams is asleep at the head of the bed. They hate and fear each other. Should be interesting when they wake up. I wish the dog would take charge. She is MUCH bigger than him, and sensible and kind. He HATES dogs. She has CAT friends.

  94. 94.

    Kay

    Well, but I was thinking the other day- what we be like if Biden were down ten?

    Good GOD :)

    So, it could be worse.

    We’d just have pets and food posts. We couldn’t bear anything else.

  95. 95.

    jonas

    I think it was Stuart Stevens who observed in a tweet today that it was *very* telling that not one GOP senator in a toss-up race this fall dared showed their face at that convention. McSally? Collins? Gardner? Ernst? I don’t think even Graham turned up unless I missed it somewhere. McConnell was in there briefly, but I don’t think his race is that close at this point. Sadly.

    If any of these folks thought Trump had coattails this year, you bet they’d have showed up to kiss Dear Leader’s ring, but they’re pretending he doesn’t exist.

  98. 98.

    phein61

    @Albatrossity:

    Is the reverse also true?    If they are afraid — and that seems their only currency — does that mean we are winning?

    I’d like to think so.

  99. 99.

    Kay

    Let’s just really wallow in that. Okay, Tulsi is the nominee. How are we?

    Worse, it’s someone we like and Trump is trouncing them! But they might deserve trouncing because they’re a disaster of a candidate- all these horrible things are coming out about them – or, worse- they’re OVERPREPARED and USE EMAIL.

  101. 101.

    Suzanne

    I swear, all of the women in the Trump orbit have the same shitty dark roots and wavy extensions. It’s so BASIC.

  102. 102.

    Chris Johnson

    @Martin: You must understand that what we’re seeing is Trump, his Russian friends, and the whole alt-right trying as HARD as they possibly can to produce a bloody insurrection for killing all the liberals and Democrats.

    This is not a slippery slope thing, or negligence on their part, or cowardice. This is them pulling out all the stops to create a MILLION assault-rifle toting 17 year old nutjobs.

    They got one. Courage. We are not the only country that has had terrorists within our borders, or the only one to get destabilized by enemy conspiracy. Hell, they learned it from us: it goes back into prehistory, I think.

    This absolutely sucks but don’t for one moment think they’re NOT doing the dirty as hard as they can already. It looks to me like we have a lot of good Americans who are ready to say ‘no more fascism’. If the alt-right and Russian tools start literally killing us in larger numbers than twos and threes, we fight back more directly… and that also means, use of rule of law to stifle the criminals. Because what they want is not lawful at all. And most of our grievances are against lawlessness (especially lawlessness of those in power)

  104. 104.

    Sab

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Wending my way through Dorothy Dunnett’s Nicolo books again. Dunnett was a huge discovery of mine this year. Dense dense books. First read just to figure out who is who. Second read to get gist of plot. Third read to realize it is amazing and so are most of the characters. But ten thousand pages to figure out the basic plot for one of her series, three times the basics of the plot. Lot of reading.

    I love your books. I love ( most of) your characters.

  105. 105.

    zhena gogolia

    @Immanentize:

    Good advice.

    My husband is sure we are going to have Biden as president. He doesn’t watch the news. He listens to his still, small voice.

  108. 108.

    Kay

    @Chris Johnson:

    This was good:

    In 2017, in the immediate aftermath of the white supremacist “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, at which James Alex Fields Jr., a young neo-Nazi, killed a left-wing antiracism activist, Heather Heyer, I wrote that the rally amounted to a “preview of the future of the Republican Party.”I argued, based in part on the number of (identified) College Republicans in attendance at the rally, that the near complete collapse of support for conservatism and the Republican Party among younger generations would have the perverse effect of making the future leadership of the conservative movement even more extreme.

  111. 111.

    PsiFighter37

    If Cheeto wins or steals the election, I am leaving this country. We will be sliding down the same slippery slope as Hungary, where minority popular vote turned into an insanely authoritarian regime.

  118. 118.

    Kay

    No one is mentioning the hurricane at the Trump tv show because the speeches were all pre-taped.

    That’s that administration in a nutshell.

  122. 122.

    Sab

    @Kattails: Yes it was me. Thanks so much. Who knew there were clothing historians. There should be. I didn’t know there actually were.

    Got useful sewing instructions from her on something simple. The rest I am in awe of. You go girl. I would  never attempt that, but I can learn from you. Simpler stuff.

    Pull threads to follow the fabric. That is what has been wrong with every cotton slip I ever bought that hung badly. My great great grandmother knew that, but no one ever showed me.

  125. 125.

    Chris Johnson

    @Kay: Exactly. They call it ‘the storm is coming’. They intend to have thousands, hundreds of thousands of trained, fearless armed murderers inured to the slaughter of liberals.

    They got one seventeen-year-old boy wearing rubber gloves.

    There are many others being groomed: I knew some of them, remember I cut ties with my IRL gamer friends when they turned out to be heavily, heavily pilled. What the alt-right has to do to them in order to get them that murderous is a dangerous game. Some of these people will kill themselves in despair because they are looking out on what they think is a hell world. They really struggle. They believe they are horribly outmatched by the forces of evil.

    They got it backwards: THEY are the forces of evil. Most of what they dread is actually happening on their own side. But they’re right that they’re outmatched, and the more they escalate the more intense the backlash becomes. It’s all we can do, really. They have been turned into actual monsters, but you have to torture people into being monsters and it’s a debilitating process. The folks I knew were getting so they couldn’t sleep or function. That’s usually when they flip out, is when they are on the verge of breaking down completely.

    Real armies are better cared for.

    We are better at caring for our people. Keep it up.

  128. 128.

    Kay

    @Immanentize:

    “Against”. Please. They lied! MOST of it is pre-taped. The objections were fake. Shit they were taping the segments AS they were lying about objecting to taped segments!

  129. 129.

    Immanentize

    Here is a sobering thought re Laura:

    Wherever it makes landfall doesn’t mean much now short of who sees the absolute worst of the strongest hurricane ever recorded in this part of the Gulf of Mexico.

    Luckily? It’s not straight into a major population zone

  131. 131.

    Ohio Mom

    I also fight that panic multiple times a day. I remind myself that the noise in my head just noise, because I think something does not mean it will come true.

    But I put on a chipper face because Ohio Dad is on the verge of losing it over the thought of Trump winning.

  133. 133.

    Kay

    @Chris Johnson:

    They got one seventeen-year-old boy wearing rubber gloves.

    Because Dear Leader and his shitty family are at 17% with the youths. I don’t know if that’s a record low but it’s gotta be close.

  135. 135.

    Sebastian

    @Chris Johnson:

     

    Dude, chill, they have nothing. If by any crazy chance Trump cheats out a win the wingers will get exactly what they got the last time: Sherman burning it all down.

  136. 136.

    Immanentize

    @Kay: of course.  It’s what they do best.  Lie while the evidence to the contrary is before them. I flipped the bird at the radio! tonight when ‘Ronna (Romney) McDaniel was just lie lie lying — about why former prominent Republicans (Bush, her uncle, HW Bush, McCain) were not included or celebrated. “The Corona virus, you know, Kept the RNC from including them….”

    I hate flipping off my speakers.

  137. 137.

    Sab

    @Kattails: Don’t want to give away my age, but when I go to fabric stores and the only patterns that seem attractive are vintage, Yikes. My favorite, late lamented dog ate my favorite dress pattern fifteen years ago when she was very young.

    My sister is an art historian. She has no interest in fashion. I think she is missing wonders of art combined with engineering.

  141. 141.

    Matt McIrvin

    Poll-wise, we’re actually doing better right now than we have in any presidential election since, I’d say, 1996. But we’re still scared out of our minds because the polls weren’t that indicative of the final EC result last time, and because the President is a cheating tyrant with no respect for democracy, and he’s causing his entire party to decompensate.

  142. 142.

    MC

    I mean, Trump is running the most toxic reelection campaign in US history. So we have that going for us.

  144. 144.

    Fair Economist

    @Immanentize:

    My dear dear friends.  If Trump wins a second term very bad things will happen.  But I for one will continue working against those things.  I once got a fortune in a cookie.  I have it taped to my monitor at work:

    Don’t despair. But if you do, work on in despair.

    I’m with you. Great quote, too.

  146. 146.

    kindness

    It would take Putin’s hackers getting a whole lot better to whack that many state’s vote totals for Trump to come out winning.  There is no way.

    Of course I said the same thing about Hillary 4 years ago.

  147. 147.

    Kay

    @Chris Johnson:

    My oldest lives in Denmark and we email constantly. He was politically interested when he lived here, a liberal in a conservative high school – his first political heartbreak was Al Gore. He tries to get me to explain what’s going on and I really can’t. He hears the Danish view- they think we’re falling apart, it’s real alarm and concern- but he wants to hear what it’s like. I can’t really explain it to his satisfaction, I can tell, because he returns to the question again and again. “Are people UPSET?” Well, YEAH, but they maintain. We all go on like it’s normal. Because what else can you do?

  148. 148.

    Kattails

    @Sab: There is the issue of anti-“fast fashion”, not buying cheap crap that falls apart and is made by slave labor from fabric derived from petrochemicals.  There is the delight in doing quiet hand work while listening to books on tape. I have an antique Singer treadle machine and it makes the loveliest soft ticka-ticka, does not go so fast that I can’t control the line, and makes an even, small stitch that will hold until the fabric falls apart.  She needs a new belt & some work on the oak veneer of the case.

    IF you do get around to the crewel work on your harp cover you are welcome to borrow (open ended) the book “English Crewel Designs” I got as a hand-me-down from a friend’s mother’s estate. 1974. Tons of photos with gridded line drawings.

  149. 149.

    Martin

    @Chris Johnson: Yeah. I think they’ll ramp up yet. They fully understand the benefits of moving late, before courts and the like can respond, so I think it’ll intensify going into Nov.

    The risk is that if we lose, the GOP has no choice but to go all-in. Just look at the trajectory of the police violence situation. We’ve gotten some shift in policy attitude among voters, a few local successes, but a growing base of support for ‘that guy was out after curfew and deserved to be shot in the head’ and a growing number of politicians either defending that or ‘no commenting’ their way through life.

    A course has been charted by Trump, and the GOP is ever less likely to push back. The ones that that were too disgusted just chose to avoid re-election. But as they shrink in size, they have to grow in intensity, and Dems need to meet that challenge. So far we aren’t. We are still awaiting clearly failed institutions to work. They’re not going to.

    Maybe the election institution works, we’re not sure. We’re gambling it does. It’s the last link of the chain though. If it fails, there’s nothing left but violence.

    I’m concerned that we’re staking a lot on an election we have uncertain control over, and no plan if its compromised.

  150. 150.

    Scuffletuffle

    @WaterGirl: Lol, that’s definitely not me. I buy fancy kitchen stuff for a buddy that actually cooks with them, then I wash the stuff after eating what she cooks. Fabric though…it’s a problem!

  152. 152.

    Skepticat

    On September 1, 2019, Hurricane Dorian, a category 6 storm according to Scientific American, obliterated Abaco and Grand Bahama in the Bahamas. My home was a tiny bit of that loss, and Abaco still does not have power. The “official” death toll is 52, but we who live there know it was at the very least 2,520, mostly undocumented Haitians; they’re still finding remains. A few days shy of a year later, Laura may be a category 5 when it makes landfall in one of the most physically and economically vulnerable areas of the country. The U.S. is as ready for this as it was for the pandemic. And Mother Nature continues to be a mother.

  153. 153.

    Martin

    @Matt McIrvin: The polls were, though. Hillary was never at 50%. There was always this uncertain population that could break either way, and they ALL broke for Trump.

    This election the uncertain’s should break for Biden. So, I’m pretty confident Biden will win – provided the election isn’t decided by USSC, or the USPS doesn’t throw half of it into a shredder.

  154. 154.

    Suzanne

    @chopper: Oh, the whole fucking ass.

    I am also homesick right now. Which is weird, because it’s hot and Rona-y and full of Republicans.

  155. 155.

    Mousebumples

    Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) tweeted at 9:37 PM on Wed, Aug 26, 2020:

    Sources: The Lakers and Clippers have voted to boycott the NBA season. Most other teams voted to continue. LeBron James has exited the meeting.

    I don’t know what this means, but… Wow.

    EDIT – For the non sports Juicers, these are the 2 LA teams – #1 & 2 seeds in the Western Conference, #2 & 3 overall. (milwaukee bucks are the #1 overall seed)

  157. 157.

    Kattails

    @Sab: Well I’m 69 if that helps. But Bernadette is clearly MUCH younger and just drawn to these things, and good for her. Whatever works. Last night I went through my stash of patterns and found vintage Yves St. Laurent from the 70’s, never cut because Jesus the tailoring. But the fantasy…

  158. 158.

    Suzanne

    WAIT. Did Dense just say that Trump is not a talker, but a doer?

    Well, okay, I guess words just don’t mean shit anymore.

  159. 159.

    Matt McIrvin

    @kindness: We didn’t have COVID-19 before. And the consent decree that prevented the Republicans from performing many of their favored vote-suppression activities has now expired–it was still in place even in 2016.

    So it’s entirely possible that what we have will be so far from a free and fair election that a Democratic win simply isn’t possible, no matter how good the polls get.

  162. 162.

    WaterGirl

    @Martin:

    This election the uncertain’s should break for Biden.

    I figure that anyone who is undecided at this point is for Trump but doesn’t want to say so out loud.  What makes you think the uncertain’s will break for Biden?

  163. 163.

    Kay

    @Martin:

    I’m pretty confident too, honestly, although I sometimes worry people will give up. They’re so stressed. I see it in my office but everyone says it. Even the BUYING is weird and frantic. It’s like they’re constantly preparing for a catastrophe right over the horizon.

  166. 166.

    Jay

    Naomi Osaka says that she’s pulling out of her semifinals tennis match tomorrow. "Before I am an athlete, I am a Black woman. And as a Black woman I feel as though there are much more important matters at hand that need immediate attention, rather than watching me play tennis." https://t.co/g5owEDcn9k— Yamiche Alcindor (@Yamiche) August 27, 2020

  169. 169.

    Kay

    @Chris Johnson:

    Ha! Look who’s at the convention!

    Aaron Rupar
    @atrupar
    The Hitler fanboy is speaking at the RN

    Madison Cawthorne. The guy who inexplicably rose from part time at Chik fil a to a congressional office .

  170. 170.

    mvr

    @Gin & Tonic: My parents survived Hitler and Stalin. They did not give up.

    Mine survived Hitler in very different circumstances in occupied Holland.  I was raised to be worried about a repeat here.  I’m kind of expecting to die if Trump is reelected.  Sometimes I worry.

  171. 171.

    Kay

    @Jay:

    With all the bad going on, this is kind of amazing. That’s what keeps you coming back- there’s people like Trump but there’s people like this, too.

  173. 173.

    Martin

    @WaterGirl: 2016 and 2020 are both change elections. Undecideds tend to break for the challenger in those cases. Everyone had an opinion of Clinton, so undecideds went against her. Today everyone has an opinion of Trump.

    Assuming states can keep control of this election, we’re solid.

    The latest good poll of Texas is Biden +1. There’s no fucking way a Dem candidate from Delaware that is tied in Texas is going to lose nationally.

  175. 175.

    WaterGirl

    @Martin:  I hadn’t thought of it like that.

    It would be a lot easier if we knew that the election would be won fair and square.

    It’s the lying, cheating, stealing that makes it so difficult

    edit: I do still think that there are people for Trump who aren’t willing to admit it out loud, but will still vote for him.

  177. 177.

    Yutsano

    Well this has me slightly cheered up: Dan Crenshaw of the Patch of Eye might just be in trouble. It could be doubly so if he doesn’t end up helping with hurricane relief.

  178. 178.

    James E Powell

    @Immanentize:

    How much have we ceded to the powers of the media?  They are not all that in most lives compared to reality.

    Our experience is that elections are decided by marginal, low information voters who get most or all of their information from the Republican leaning press/media.

    These are the voters who, in 2016, believed that Trump was a successful businessman and that Clinton’s emails were a major transgression, though they could not explain why, and that the Clinton Foundation was a trust fund that Bill & Hillary Clinton used to extort money from foreigners.

    None of them got smarter since 2016. They still get all their information from the same Republican leaning press/media.

  179. 179.

    Jay

    At least two Facebook users reported the Kenosha Guard account for inciting violence prior to the killings. In each case, the group and its counter-protest event were examined by Facebook moderators and found not to be in violation, the Verge reports.https://t.co/uYnJz4Aroi— Hamza Shaban (@hshaban) August 26, 2020

  180. 180.

    Martin

    Good news, Laura didn’t get any stronger.

    Bad news, storm surge expected to be 50% higher than Rita, and Rita wiped out most of this area back in 2005. High tide at 4AM CDT. That’s not going to help.

  183. 183.

    Martin

    Louisiana residents who refused to evacuate have been asked by state officials to write their SS# and next of kin on a piece of paper and put it in their pocket.

  186. 186.

    Mary G

    @Yutsano: I’ve been trying to keep to Senate donations this cycle, but to get rid of that godawful guy I made an exception and a donation.

  187. 187.

    RaflW

    My brother and his wife live in Houston. They’re at her brother’s place in Atlanta now, waiting it out. They live north of downtown, in an area that rarely floods. But these things bring tornados and lengthy power outages, and with WFH, they can be away.

    As it happens they were on their summer driving vacation just a few hours from Atlanta so when the vacation ended Monday, they just drive over and were like “Hi, we’re here, thanks” (of course they called well ahead).

    I rode out a hurricane 23 mi NNW of where they now live, when I was in my late teens. The storm itself was fascinating. The pine trees bent so damn far but, at least in our neighborhood, didn’t snap.

    Six (or so, can’t recall) days without electricity wasn’t fascinating. At least we had a plumbed natural gas grill in the back yard, so we had hot food twice a day. Shoulda ditched the shitty coil stove after that. Oh well, I don’t think a lot of us suburban folks knew better then.

  189. 189.

    dww44

    @James E Powell: Such a depressing but true analysis.  Was at a Friday night gathering a month ago with 4 non family members.  One of them is a strong lifelong Republican (who nevertheless still loves Truman and she certainly is old enough to remember his Presidency), one other a moderate Democrat (son of the lifelong Republican) and the other 2 I’d label as weak Republican leaning.  2 of them voted for Trump…… because they believed he was a businessman. It was never said, but it was obvious they all thought Hillary was a corrupt liar. However the very senior strong Republican ( she constantly gets their mailings) has turned on Trump.  I’ll hand it to her;that’s much better than many in my family who are still in the Trump camp, and I cannot fathom why.  They’ve better sense and better education.

    For our side, it really is about getting out the vote and that’s the part that concerns me. And it miffs me off to no end that the namby-pamby media nods and blinks to the GOP still…. even now.  They should all be drawn and quartered after the election and pushed back on between now and then.

  192. 192.

    different-church-lady

    WaPo not suffering fools:

     

     

  193. 193.

    Martin

    @Jinchi: Oh, no it is the point. Too late to evacuate. Nobody really expecting any bodies found in southern LA to be in structures due to the severity of the storm surge.

    When they find a body in some bayou, they want a way to identify it.

  194. 194.

    Leto

    @RaflW: I’ve ridden out two major hurricanes. First was Hugo in 1989. I was thirteen. My parents home is surrounded by pine trees, and all during the night you could heard them creaking and popping. The second was Katrina. Rode that out at Keesler AFB, in Jones Hall (where I taught). 18” thick concrete walls make up the building because it was built to withstand nuclear blasts. With Hugo we were without electricity for about three weeks, maybe four? With Katrina, we had power back at the base relatively quickly. The apartment where we lived, we also had power back very quickly because right down the road from our apartment building was a major hospital, a tv station, and the region’s newspaper.

    I think I’ve filled my quota for major nature events.

  195. 195.

    Steeplejack

    Switched over to MSNBC after the RNC. God, they have sent Ali Velshi down to Louisiana to be killed by the hurricane! I thought he was safe from that duty. Why not Steve Kornacki?!

  196. 196.

    Redshift

    @WaterGirl: 

    I figure that anyone who is undecided at this point is for Trump but doesn’t want to say so out loud.

    That makes no sense to me. For all of Trump’s “silent majority” blather, I’m not aware of any evidence of the existence of shy Trump voters, if anything they’re more likely to be vocal than followers of most candidates. (Plus what Martin said.)

  198. 198.

    Martin

    @Redshift: Yeah, I agree. Part of Trumps projection of power is getting his supporters to be vocal so they appear larger than they are.

    So they might be shy around their neighbors, but I don’t think they’d be shy with a pollster.

  199. 199.

    Redshift

    @Suzanne:

    WAIT. Did Dense just say that Trump is not a talker, but a doer?

    Well, okay, I guess words just don’t mean shit anymore.

    Well, Pence does bear a strong resemblance to Humpty Dumpty…

    “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”

  205. 205.

    Martin

    Laura might not be done growing yet. NOAA just recorded 175MPH sustained. That’s unofficial – plane still making passes. Might be in the update at the top of the hour.

  210. 210.

    Barbara

    @Leto: I got married on the day Hurricane Hugo finally blew back east, blessedly holding off until my reception had started winding down, but we had to hurry up and cut the cake as the temperature dropped by 30 degrees in 30 minutes.

  211. 211.

    Martin

    Pressure down to 932. She might be a 5 now. Thankfully not many people live in that corner of the state, but man, that region is starting to become uninhabitable if it keeps getting major hurricanes every decade.

  212. 212.

    Redshift

    Did anyone else see the Biden/Harris ad just before the start of the convention on MSNBC? I can’t find it online, but it was really good. It was brutal which that I was sure it was Lincoln Project or some other outside group until the tagline.

    It ran through a litany of Trump’s failures with very slick production, ending with “Enjoy your convention.”

  213. 213.

    Barbara

    @Martin: I have pictures of the destruction wrought by Hurricane Camille imprinted in my brain from when I was a kid. Camille also took a northward path after hitting the Gulf Coast as a Cat 5 hurricane, and it was devastating in every state it hit. It’s peak storm surge was 24 feet. Many more people live along the coast now. I really hope people have chosen safety if it is at all possible.

  215. 215.

    Ruckus

    @Albatrossity:

    Exactly.

    However it can be difficult to think like that for a lot of people because djshitforbrains is such a fuckup and he’s got a following. Which is also a massive group of fuckups. But they can vote and racism is a very real thing in this country. I’m with the positive side and yet I still am very concerned because I’m at that point in life where I really have nothing more to lose (again!) than everything.

  218. 218.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Martin: If Republicans were willing to work to repair it, sure, but they aren’t. I’ve never seen such a gross display of cowardice in my life.

    Lazy is the word, Of course the Republican will sit on their asses like sacks of shit and complain about why haven’t the Dems fixed it. But that’s the thing,  Trump is also a lazy sack of shit and he won on Republicans doing the hard work for him 2016 and I don’t see them doing it this time. Not the base but the actual party members.

  219. 219.

    Jay

    A group of Nazi propagandists within the Boogaloo Movement are going by the fashionable name Patriot Wave. At their helm, a US Navy Reservist, one Jordon Lee Sherperd: alias “Squid”, the founder and owner of the brand. Enter Patriot Wave. pic.twitter.com/92dy5wH7L4— Rod Serling 161 (@TwilightZoneAFA) August 26, 2020

  222. 222.

    tokyokie

    @lamh36:

    Yamiche Alcindor

    @Yamiche

    VP Pence will say tonight: “Joe Biden says America is systemically racist. And that law enforcement in America has a quote, ‘implicit bias’ against minorities…The hard truth is…you won’t be safe in Joe Biden’s America…We will stand w/ those who stand on the Thin Blue Line.”

    I guess Pence never saw the Errol Morris documentary The Thin Blue Line about the Dallas legal system railroading a homeless man to Death Row for a cop killing he didn’t commit. Mom must not let him watch anything truthful.

  223. 223.

    Ian

    @Immanentize:

    The pre-taped speech is like the teleprompter or the president golfing, its just an excuse to hate liberals.  There is no rational basis behind why they think these things are good or bad this week, just what Fox and friends tells them they believe this week.

  224. 224.

    PaulWartenberg

    I know I’m late getting to this thread but:

    At least 2-3 times a day I am briefly paralyzed with fear that Trump is going to win in November.

    It’s not that trump might win.

    It’s that we KNOW trump is going to cheat his ass off to win, with his polling stuck in the low 40s and with 70 percent of Americans feeling our nation is on the wrong track. There’s no sane way for trump to win. There’s no INSANE way for trump to win. There’s only the corrupt way trump could win.

    It’s that we dread yet another cycle of realizing too many of our fellow Americans are death-cultists clinging to a GOP that worships a bloated, corrupt, rapist con artist as their god.

    We have to work twice as hard this year to make certain that trump and his cronies can’t cheat their way to a second term.

    I know it’s stressful. I’m feeling it too.

    But as the police brutality and white extremist violence in the streets are showing us, it is now LITERALLY a matter of life and death for America and what we should stand for.

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