Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The lights are all blinking red.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

This blog will pay for itself.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Cole, when it comes to calico cats, restraint is overrated.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

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

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

Bad news for Ron DeSantis is great news for America.

The choice is between normal and crazy.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

He really is that stupid.

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

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

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

If marriage is the equivalent of selling yourself into slavery, women with self respect should reject the offer.

Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Come on, man.

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

You are here: Home / Politics / GOP Death Cult / GOP Death Cult Projection Open Thread: Fakes on A Plane

GOP Death Cult Projection Open Thread: Fakes on A Plane

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Bill “Ever Lower” Barr, happy to chip in:

Heeere comes Little Prince Rand!

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204Comments

  1. 1.

    dmsilev

    From the Post’s coverage of Trump’s Kenosha waste-of-time:

    Asked whether he had anything he would like to say to Trump, Blake’s uncle, Justin Blake, referred to the president as “the orange man” and said he wished that Black people had the same ability to travel the country as they please as Trump does.

    “All I ask is that he keep his disrespect, his foul language far away from our family,” Justin Blake said at a block party Tuesday organized by the Blake family and activists. “We need a president that’s going to unite and take us in a different direction. We want the same right he’s got, and we want to be able to get our children home safely. They should be able to go anywhere they want in this nation and get home safely, and not get shot seven times.”

    So I guess we should put Mr. Blake down as ‘undecided’ with regards to the Trump approval question.

  2. 2.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Melania’s ex-BFF Stephanie Winston-Wolkoff is on the the Rachel Maddow program talking about her book, and the most interesting things is all the hints at wrong-doing being covered up about the inaugural money.

    I wonder if my tin-foil hat theory that they used that money to bribe Melania to stay with him will prove out.

  3. 3.

    Martin

    I was surprised to learn there was an antifa air force. If there turns out to be an antifa space program, and I don’t get to be part of it, I’m gonna be pissed.

  5. 5.

    ...now I try to be amused

    Here’s my conspiracy: some people/corporate or industrial interests/political groups/states figured out how malicious &/or crazy rumors get to Trump (many probably through Scavino) & plant them on Twitter, Facebook, guests/hosts at Fox/OAN/supremacist sites [Dana Houle]

    Do we have any practitioners of the dark arts who can do the same?

  6. 6.

    SFAW

    @dmsilev:

    So I guess we should put Mr. Blake down as ‘undecided’ with regards to the Trump approval question.

    Sounds like you’ll fit in perfectly at the FTFTFNYT.

  7. 7.

    dmsilev

    @Martin: Does antifa have a Marine Corps as well? I feel these are important issues to discuss.

    (Autocorrect wanted ‘Antofagasta’, which apparently is a South American city I was previously not familiar with)

  11. 11.

    Amir Khalid

    Trump should quit doing these media interviews. He failed miserably with Chris Wallace and Jonathan Snow. Laura Ingraham had to cut him off, more than once, when he was starting on a batshit crazy riff. A sane person can’t listen to that delusional rambling and not conclude that Trump is not all there.

  12. 12.

    SFAW

    @dmsilev:

    ‘Antofagasta’, which apparently is a South American city I was previously not familiar with

    What, do you live in a cave? EVERYONE knows about “Antipasto”; it’s the capital of Parador.

    I think.

  14. 14.

    Jeffro

    JUST in case anyone on the Right was wondering…this is kind of thing we warned you about 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1 year ago.  A completely corrupt, incompetent, malicious moron at the helm of our country, way behind and desperate for a win?  It looks just. like. this.

  15. 15.

    SFAW

    @dmsilev:

    “Mr. Blake’s words raised a cloud of concern which Mr. Biden will doubtless need to address.”

    Henry Olsen, an “opinion columnist” at the WaPo, said yes, Biden condemned the recent violence, but he didn’t do it early enough. Or didn’t do it the right way. Or maybe didn’t utter a magical incantation to stop it. Or something.

    Fucking moron. I may have to ask Villago if I can borrow his nym/nom for awhile, or maybe I’d be Villago Junior.

  17. 17.

    Yutsano

    @Amir Khalid: Every single time these interviews get done his followers think they’re brilliant. Why? Because every bizarre answer is hidden genius. The libtards just can’t see it. They truly think that.

  18. 18.

    Martin

    @dmsilev: I’m not sure. The marines are conceptually kind of a dumb service. They don’t really do anything the army can’t do. I’d like to think antifa isn’t that wasteful with resources.

  19. 19.

    dmsilev

    @SFAW: The only reason to read Olsen’s columns is to skip ahead to the comment section and enjoy the invective. Same for Hugh Hewitt.

  21. 21.

    SFAW

    @MazeDancer:

    Is TSA confiscating Soup Cans, yet?

    Gorram libtard. It’s bags of soup. Big bags. Which they throw at the police. And which severely injure … someone. At least, that’s what the Moron-in-Chief says.

  22. 22.

    Ohio Mom

    I love that part about the dark-uniformed airline passengers with “gear.” Yeah, like the TSA lets you carry on “gear.”

  23. 23.

    SFAW

    @dmsilev:

    The only reason to read Olsen’s columns is to skip ahead to the comment section and enjoy the invective. Same for Hugh Hewitt.

    Landsmann!

    Don’t forget Mark-Amber Thiessen, by the way. Another “winnah,” as they say in Beantown.

  24. 24.

    Martin

    @dmsilev: My goodness, that’s totally incorrect. You don’t throw Progresso. 19oz can, wide diameter –  you can’t get any action off a can like that.

    No, you want condensed soup – Campbells all the way. 12oz, small enough diameter you can get your fingers around more than half the circumference. I could two seam one of those through a riot cops face shield. Need some more stopping power –  Chunky. Same 19oz as Progresso, but much better proportions for throwing. You need a lot of arm strength for 19oz, though.

  26. 26.

    UncleEbeneezer

    Had to put down our 14 year old doggie Juniper on Saturday.  She was on one of the BJ pet calendars a few years ago.  She had a bunch of health issues and was just DONE.  So now I’m depressed as hell.  She was an unusually sweet dog.  Hadn’t barked in years and I don’t think I EVER heard her growl in the 9 years I knew her.  There’s a huge empty hole in our lives/world where she used to be, and it just plain sucks.  We’ve both lost pets before but this one hurts especially bad on top of wildfires, COVID and everything else. I forgot how awful grieving/mourning is.

  28. 28.

    SFAW

    @Martin:

    You prefer a slider, or a curve? A curve would, in some instances, be preferable I think, but unless you have Steve Strasburg throwing it …

  30. 30.

    dmsilev

    @Ohio Mom: The TSA has a blog and they regularly post examples of bizarre things people try to bring in through the checkpoints. For instance, from a recent post,

    On February 6, Austin Bergstrom International Airport TSA officers discovered a stiletto knife attached to a passenger’s prosthetic leg. The passenger stated that he always carries the knife and forgot about it.

  31. 31.

    Amir Khalid

    @SFAW:

    I go to supermarkets quite regularly, and I’ve never seen soup sold in bags. Is this some newfangled food-retailing idea?

  32. 32.

    Leto

    @Amir Khalid: Maybe we can figure that out when we can figure out why we have to have 20 different kinds of journalists. I’m fairly certain a lifestyle journo is the same as an investigative reporter. :P

  35. 35.

    Martin

    @SFAW: I think this is a misunderstanding. My understanding is that its a bag of cans of soup. My source:

    A Florida woman allegedly pummeled a firefighter with a sock filled with two soup cans over after she says she was slighted by the first responder at an investigation scene.

    64 years young.

  37. 37.

    kindness

    I think Republicans spout such outrageous bullshit because their base doesn’t complain about being openly lied to and everyone knows it.  Nope, right now the base just agrees with Trump because their egos can’t take admitting they’ve hitched their horse to a con man horse thief.

  38. 38.

    dmsilev

    @Amir Khalid: Four air forces. There’s the Air Force per se, there’s the Army’s Air Force, the Navy’s Air Force, and of course the Navy’s Army’s Air Force.

  39. 39.

    Leto

    @Amir Khalid: Amir is going to have his mind blown when he finds out school children in the US get their milk in bags… (we do and I don’t know why). Idk, maybe this “soup-in-bags” is gazpacho? Some type of chilled cantaloupe soup? I can see this being a new hipster fad.

  42. 42.

    Steeplejack

    There is comedy gold in the comments to that “GET ME ALL THE ANTIFA AIR MANIFESTS” thread:

    BRB. Shredding my Antifa Black Amex that was given to me by George Soros himself.

    Tough day on Wall Street for shares of Antifa stock.

  43. 43.

    Jeffro

    How exciting!  In dealing with the pandemic, ” ‘the internal goal is to keep things just under control until a vaccine comes ou’t, two senior administration officials said.”

    Could we consider keeping it more of a single-digit-deaths-per-day-“under control”, like in every other developed country in the world?  Or do we have to keep up with the 1,000-deaths-per-day model, just so trumpov doesn’t have to admit he fucked this up royally?

    Also, it’s September 1st and if we had just gotten our shit together back in May, we’d be partying our brains out and our kids would be back in school already.  (Hell, we could have all been dying in the heat rocking out at festival concerts in August!)   Just a thought.

    Pitchforks, torches, anyone?

  44. 44.

    Leto

    @dmsilev: I mean, why don’t we just have one unified military? It’s not that hard to have generals/admirals/whatever new rank it would be who are experts in aerial, ground, naval warfare, as well as special warfare tactics, cyber warfare, and space operations. I mean, that shits a breeze. I play Call of Duty. I pwn noobz; how hard is it?

  45. 45.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @SFAW: Thanks.  She really was.  We have tons of great memories which of course, makes it even harder.  We know we did the right thing, I just hate this part of the process.  I swear it’s hitting me harder than losing my Mom which also happened the last week of August in 2012, just before our wedding.

  46. 46.

    CarolPW

    @UncleEbeneezer: I had all three of mine die (one dog, two cats) a couple of years ago. That was terrible, but life is so much more fucked now that losing one these days would be way worse than what I went through. I am so very sorry.

    My sister has a very elderly westie, and I worry about the impact on her if he goes before the election and before the time we can get a handle on the pandemic.

    Again, so sorry.

    ETA Juniper is a brilliant name!

  47. 47.

    Jeffro

    @kindness:right now the base just agrees with Trump because their egos can’t take admitting they’ve hitched their horse to a con man horse thief.

    Truth.  They just look away, look away…

  48. 48.

    Ohio Mom

    (Off-topic but I don’t wake up early enough to catch Amir when he is easiest to find on the dawn threads)

    Amir,
    Recently Vox had a post telling readers not to worry if the US government under a second Trump turns from representative democracy to authoritarianism because Hey, look at Malaysia, life there is mostly boring and tolerable.

    If you could, how far off is their understanding of Malaysia?

    https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/the-big-idea/2017/1/9/14207302/authoritarian-states-boring-tolerable-fascism-trump

  52. 52.

    Leto

    @Gin & Tonic: See, that’s a mix; I’m sure there’s people in Brooklyn working on the technology to liquify that in the pouch So people can enjoy that on the go… that active lifestyle component crossover marketing thing.

  53. 53.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @zhena gogolia: The worst part is that there’s nothing that really speeds up the process.  All the usual pick me ups (music, tennis, good food etc.) just don’t work.  It just takes time.

  56. 56.

    Jeffro

    @dmsilev:

     

    @SFAW:

     

    @Martin:

    When they start claiming “antifa” shops for the heavier condensed soups like bean n’ bacon and split pea (in order to cause greater damage on impact) we’ll know this is almost over.

    Related, sort of: what if “antifa” threw cans of Goya beans?  Is that good or bad, wing nuts?  Help me out here ;)

  59. 59.

    Mike in NC

    We just started watching “The Loudest Voice”, about Rupert Murdoch, Roger Ailes, and the other scum who brought us the filth of FOX News.

  61. 61.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @dexwood: Thanks.  It’s extra frustrating because I was planning on diving back in and stepping up my postcard writing for November, but it’s gonna be really hard to focus.

  62. 62.

    Martin

    @SFAW: Curve is useless. When you’re throwing into a strike zone the batter isn’t looking to jump away from the ball. But a curve might only benefit to get someone to duck and then clock them as it dips. Curves work well in baseball because their action is normal to the plane of the swing, making it that much harder to make contact.

    I think you want a slider here – something with some sideways action that can bend into the target. That’s a lot easier to achieve with a can of soup given that it’s a cylinder and not a sphere. Get some Magnus effect action on that thing. If you can prep the can so the air pocket runs the length of the can, instead of being concentrated at the top, it’ll have a massive wobble and be damn hard to duck.

    Martin has a degree in physics and was a training pitcher in college – not good enough to make the team, but good enough to help players read pitches. 

  65. 65.

    SFAW

    @kindness:

    I think Republicans spout such outrageous bullshit because their base doesn’t complain about being openly lied to and everyone knows it.

    Unless it’s a dusky-hued President saying “you can keep your doctor.” Then they go nucular.

  66. 66.

    Martin

    @Jeffro: In my experience Goya cans are pretty big, so I’m going to say that’s a de-escalation by antifa. And I should hope those were looted and not profiting the company.

  67. 67.

    WaterGirl

    @UncleEbeneezer: So very sorry.  That’s how I think of it, too.  They look at you and say “I’m done.”

    I always say that as long as they’re in it, I’m in it.  But when they’re done, there’s nothing to be done with all the love we have for them except let them go.

    So sorry.

  69. 69.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Martin:

    I could two seam one of those through a riot cops face shield.

    But can you do it as a knuckle?

  70. 70.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    Speaking of death cults – has anyone done a mashup of the number of Americans that Donald Trump said could die, which would prove they’ve done a great job?

    I think he first insisted it wouldn’t go over 30k, then 70k, then 100k.

    Imagine how cool it would be to do a mash-up of those, with the “total deaths” graph shooting up past each “we’ll keep the deaths below… because we’re doing such a great job” ending with “we’re not saying you did a poor job, Mr. Trump – *you* did.”

    You know… what’s really fricking *scary* here is, how many ways Trump failed, how numerous are his blatant stupidities, how much damage he has caused… just with Covid-19, before you look at other horrors.

    What’s even scarier, to me, is how the Republicans still support him. I’m split on which is worse: a Republican stupid enough not to spot the lies, corruption, criminality, and failure… or, one who sees all of those things, and still maintains their assent-through-silence. The first, at least, *could* conceivably, learn better (but won’t); the latter would seem, to me, will keep redrawing “lines in the sand” that Trump *must not* cross or (as he crosses it, and kicks sand over it to partially erase it, then continuing with “okay, THIS line is the one he must not – WOULD YOU STAND STILL FOR FIVE MINUTES WHILE I MAKE MY SOUL’S MORTGAGE PAYMENT FOR THE MONTH?”

  71. 71.

    dmsilev

    @Amir Khalid: Yes, but after it split off, the Army eventually realized it did need an Air Force of its own as well.

    (If I understand things correctly, the deal is that the Army can operate helicopters, but anything fixed-wing belongs to the USAF)

  72. 72.

    Zinsky

    Trump is slime.  He is lower than a snake’s belly.  Shit wrapped in skin.  For a good laugh, check out the last media contact that Trump’s ersatz doctor, Harold Bornstein had:

    https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/01/politics/harold-bornstein-trump-letter/index.html

    How quickly we forget!  This loser essentially says that Trump dictated his own physical results for this sap to put on a piece of paper to wave in front of the media!   God, it is incredible what a horrible, low-life skeeze merchant we have in the White House….

  73. 73.

    WaterGirl

    What if you heat the soup first – those hot cans have to hurt when they are thrown at you!  What if you heat the cans just to the point where they are ready to explode, and then put them in the bags to throw them?

  76. 76.

    Ohio Mom

    dmsilev @30: That’s my point. I don’t doubt that some people may succeed in bringing aboard prohibited items (either purposely or inadvertently) but no one is brandishing them once seated on the plane.

    As someone who wears a compression sleeve and a fake breast, I am always pulled over for a pat down. I always offer to pull the foob out of my bra for a closer inspection but no TSA agent has taken my offer.

  80. 80.

    Peale

    @dmsilev: I think the army gets to have other troop transport and cargo planes as well. They aren’t going to be trying to stock a base in god knows where and have to ask the air force for help with that.

  81. 81.

    Martin

    @Amir Khalid: Yes. When history started (1776) there were only armies and navies. Eventually the armies got jealous of the navies having to walk around all the time, so they invented tanks. Then they saw planes and thought ‘hey, we could throw shit from those, that’d be fun!’ and started using planes. Eventually the navy got jealous of the army fun and said ‘we can do this better – we can take off from a boat and throw shit ourselves’. The resolved this by calling a truce and putting the planes throwing shit into their own unit, but then the navy cheated and kept theirs even though they had sneaky submarines which should have been even more fun. And then the navy thought,  you know, why don’t we have our own army, which they called the marines. Oh, and they have their own air force.

    So we have the army, the navy, the navy army, the air force, the navy air force, the navy army air force, the space force, the air force space force, the army space force, and the navy that’s afraid to venture too far from land. And Elon Musk. He has his own space force, or ballistic missile program, depending on his mood.

  82. 82.

    Anne Laurie

    @Amir Khalid: I’ve always wondered why the US needs a big army and a small one. Plus three different air forces.

    Nobody reads Professor Parkinson any more!  Obvious answer:  The more ‘forces’, the more officers. 

    Every (other) enlistee gets a higher rank in the chain-of-command!

    And then every ‘superior’ watches their fellows like jealous siblings counting jellybeans in their Easter baskets.  If A gets an Air Force, B demands one, for fairness!

  86. 86.

    SFAW

    @dmsilev:

    but anything fixed-wing belongs to the USAF

    What, so they give the broken-winged ones to the Army, make the Army fix them, then steal ’em back? That’s kinda shitty of them, ain’t it? Although it sounds very Trumpian.

  88. 88.

    Peale

    @russell: Yeah. It really must suck for Barr to have to come up with “corruption” and “racketeering” charges against Antifa and BLM. Its not like they are well funded. Were they right wing groups, you’d just pick up any three “leaders” and look into their records for 15 minutes and realize that most of the money they raised was going to fund their lavish lifestyles. Were they police departments, just pick an auditor and let the rest sort itself out. But no. The leaders of BLM aren’t riding around in Ferraris and partying on Yachts. They aren’t mega church pastors, after all.

  90. 90.

    FlyingToaster

    @Amir Khalid:

    … Wait. The Air Force Air Force was originally the Army’s Air Force, right?

    Yep!

    At last, a question I have the answer for!

    My dad (shut up, y’all, I’m old, never mind the adolescent daughter) was recruited into the United States Army Air Corps in 1942.  (Off the line, he was a co-op student at Wichita State, working a semester at Beechcraft.)  In early 1946, his unit, back from the Pacific, was being hustled to-n-fro across the midwest, closing all of the training bases, when he suddenly went from being a US Army Master Sergeant to a US Air Force Technical Sergeant.  He mustered out in April, hired on at TWA, and rebuilt engines while an Air National Guardsman.  Activated for the Korean Conflict; after that he requested a transfer by TWA to Chicago and went back to finish his degree at Northwestern.

    ALL of our childhood business contacts (dentist, my original pediatrician, ophthamologist, his car mechanic) were guys he knew from the VA.

  91. 91.

    Jeffro

    @dexwood: it’s insulting…do they think that chucking cans of soup are the “Philly Special” of our soshulist rioting antifa playbook?

    Soup chucking = just an off-tackle run, wingnuts!  I’d elaborate, but there are several dozen black-clad “friends” I need to go pick up at the airport after I cash this SorosCheck…

  92. 92.

    Martin

    @Gin & Tonic: Oh, yeah, forgot about that. So the ‘afraid to venture too far from land air force’ goes on the end there.

    Mind you, this all pales relative to the wild variation of US police forces inside various agencies and whatnot.

  96. 96.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    just saw a clip of Pence saying that he can’t recall being told he had to be on stand-by for trump’s mystery trip to Walter Reed, but he remembers being told The Beast had a “doctor’s appointment”. This is a flat out lie. Their story was that trump was sitting around twiddling his thumbs on a Saturday afternoon and decided on the spur of the moment to have a partial physical.

  97. 97.

    SFAW

    @WaterGirl:

    Yes, sadly I have been trained to try to make sense of the gibberish.

    You poor kid. I’m a little amazed that you don’t sign each comment “WaterGirl +50”

  98. 98.

    Amir Khalid

    @Ohio Mom:

    This article is from 2017, a year before the historic general election that changed everything — well, not everything, but a whole hell of a lot. For one thing, Najib Tun Razak, the most corrupt prime minister in Malaysia’s history, is now out of power and looking at some serious time in the big house. His coalition is discredited and in tatters. The political situation here is in flux, with the current bodged-together ruling coalition oone parliamentary challenge away from collapse.

    It’s not an ideal situation, but with the political class no longer certain of tenure, there’s far less opportunity to be authoritarian, and the place seems a lot freer than before. In fact I believe this has shielded our health authorities from interference by a PM anxious to preen before the TV cameras, and helped them do an outstanding job of managing the pandemic. Najib was PM when MH370 went down, and he screwed that crisis up royally.

  102. 102.

    SFAW

    @Jeffro:

    after I cash this SorosCheck…

    Doesn’t your ObamaPhone have a SorosCheck-cashing app, to go with its welfare-check-cashing app?

  104. 104.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Martin:

    the ‘afraid to venture too far from land air force’

    The responsibilities of the PACAREA extend from the Rocky Mountains to the east coast of Africa.

  106. 106.

    debbie

    I don’t think “dark shadows” are Antifa or Q. I think it’s all just Trump’s usual racist bullshit.

  108. 108.

    Another Scott

    @Leto: It’s like Windows Everywhere, innit?  Like, run the same operating system on your toaster and clock radio and also on giant supercomputers.  It’s all just 1s and 0s, amirite??

    ;-)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  111. 111.

    Bill Arnold

    @Martin:

    If there turns out to be an antifa space program, and I don’t get to be part of it, I’m gonna be pissed.

    What makes you think that there isn’t an Antifa Space Force?
    (That might be a :-), or not :-) )

  113. 113.

    The Moar You Know

    I’ve always wondered why the US needs a big army and a small one. Plus three different air forces.

    @Amir Khalid: serious answer: The four equal service model eliminates any possibility of a military coup. Who’s gonna be in charge becomes a four way fight to the death among fairly equally matched entities instead of a simple tally of who has the most seniority.

    Sure, it’s wasteful and redundant. It was meant to be.

  114. 114.

    Leto

    @Gin & Tonic: His mind will be blown when he finds out two of our core responsibilities are interdiction of enemy sea power and antisubmarine warfare and shipping protection. I’m not even going to mention BALTOPS.

  115. 115.

    Jay

    Antifa doesn’t throw food at cops, other than dumpster dived stale donuts.

    The soup is for the unhoused, the local community trying to survive  Covid now that short term aid is gone.

  116. 116.

    Jeffro

    @SFAW: I accidentally dropped some frozen welfare t-bone steaks on my ObamaPhone, and it hasn’t worked right since.  Damn gubmint!

  117. 117.

    Bill Arnold

    @…now I try to be amused:

    Do we have any practitioners of the dark arts who can do the same?

    Not something one talks about in public.
    Yes, the right wing anonymous chat places can be fed things, and are, by many actors. The risks of unintended consequences are high … The craziness can be stoked pretty easily, but then you get stoked craziness, that can last for decades. There are still (many times) recycled John Birch Society memes floating around.

  118. 118.

    Ohio Mom

    Amir, thank you! I did not notice the date of the Vox article (to my embarrassment).

    The news since then sounds very hopeful, even with all the uncertainty. It’s always good to hear about bad guys meeting their fall.

    I do see your morning comments on the Covid threads, so I know your health authorities are doing a bang-up job.

  119. 119.

    Leto

    @Another Scott: If Windows can run my Zune, it’s def good enough to run my toothbrush :P

    @dmsilev: I didn’t learn about this stuff until I started testing for my first NCO position. It was in our Professional Development Guide. Of course we’re 5 revisions on from what I had and a lot of that history has been eliminated (like we had enlisted pilots until the 1950s, as well as warrant officers).

    @The Moar You Know: Ah, we’re already ahead of you on that: Unified combatant command. We’ve already good to go for the initial purpose. It’s the messy details afterwards that we haven’t exactly sorted. :P

  120. 120.

    Another Scott

    @Martin: But the Marines is older than the US (November 10, 1775).  And the Navy is older still (October 13, 1775).

    ;-)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  121. 121.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Steve Kornacki trying to sell the idea that an incumbent ,endorsed by the DSCC, winning a primary is a sign of the power of AOC and the ascendant left.

    ETA: Lawrence O’Donnell pointing out that $25M was spent so a Kennedy could indulge his ego.

  124. 124.

    Ohio Mom

    Uncle Ebenezeer,
    It’s my bedtime but I don’t want to leave without sharing my condolences with you. I hope you find solace in knowing you gave Juniper a wonderful life, and comfort in all your memories of your years together.

  125. 125.

    Steeplejack

    @UncleEbeneezer:

    Sorry to hear it. RIP, Juniper.

    We haven’t had this in a while. From Irving Townsend’s book Separate Lifetimes:

    We who choose to surround ourselves with lives even more temporary than our own live within a fragile circle, easily and often breached. Unable to accept its awful gaps, we still would live no other way. We cherish memory as the only certain immortality, never fully understanding the necessary plan.

  126. 126.

    Luciamia

    Hmmm, Dark Shadows is behind it all. Is Barnabas Collins the ring leader?

     

    one things for certain. Rand Paul can’t be any more of a moron if he tried.

  131. 131.

    Starfish

    I have been informed by head of Antifa HR that ALL receipts for travel and looting expenses must be submitted by no later than 3pm Thursday
    — L. Chupacabra: The Freshmaker (@L_Chupacabra) September 1, 2020

  132. 132.

    Jay

    NEW: Phoenix police held a teenage girl on the hot asphalt until the pavement burned through her skin, forcing her to be hospitalized in the burn unit. She has permanent scars. https://t.co/8Rhoj0z3Ff— Sam Levin (@SamTLevin) September 1, 2020

    There was a record-breaking 113F heatwave that day. Phoenix gets so hot that the city has law banning dogs from hiking trails when temps are above 100F so the pets don't burn their feet. But there does not seem to be any police policy to prevent officers from burning civilians.— Sam Levin (@SamTLevin) September 1, 2020

  137. 137.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Just a normal night at the White House, at 10:30 pm

    Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump · 45m
    Mike Pence was never put on standby, & there were no mini-strokes. This is just more Fake News by @CNN, a phony story. The reason for the visit to Walter Reed, together with the full press pool, was to complete my yearly physical. Short visit, then returned (with press) to W.H

    again, IIRC the original story wasn’t that he was ‘completing’ his yearly physical, he was getting a head start on it

    Tom Nichols @RadioFreeTom·14m
    Nothing says “I don’t have a health problem” like multiple panicky denials of a health problem

    A reporter said on the Hayes program that trump has become obsessed with the idea that Maggie Haberman said he has Parkinson’s. There is no public record of Maggie Haberman having said this. I had a close relative who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s after a couple of TIA’s at about age 85. The diagnosis was later changed to Parkinson’s Syndrome, which as I understand it (it’s been a couple years) is when the patient shows symptoms of Parkinson’s, but it’s not progressive. trump’s two-handed drinking thing looks very familiar.

  138. 138.

    Elizabelle

    Great topic, because I have wanted to share this Dana Milbank WaPost column with you. And this IS the headline.

    WaPost: Trump flies to Kenosha but lands on Planet Zog

    … But in the imaginary Kenosha that Trump created Tuesday afternoon at an invitation-only “roundtable” — in a high school cafeteria serving as a government “command center” — things were quite different.

    There was no pandemic in this Kenosha; at his suggestion, everybody in the roundtable took off their face masks. There was no right-wing violence. (I heard no mention of the killings by the Trump-backing extremist.) There was no such thing as police brutality (Trump quickly swept aside any such notion). And there were hardly any Black people (only two of the 23 in the room).

    It quickly became clear that the pair, a pastor and his wife, were to be seen rather than heard. James Ward, who said he is the pastor to Blake’s mother, was asked by Trump to offer a prayer, then offered to discuss “the real pain that hurts Black Americans.” Trump wasn’t interested.

    When Trump opened the roundtable to questions, a reporter asked the pastor whether he believed that there is systemic racism in law enforcement.

    Before Ward could answer, Trump broke in to say there were only “some bad apples” among police, of which “I have the endorsement of so many, maybe everybody.”

    The reporter tried again. “Could the pastor answer my question, please?”

    Trump called on another questioner.

    Then, shutting down the session, Trump turned to the muted pastor he had just used as a prop. “Fantastic job,” he said.

    As the election gets closer and closer, Trump appears to be getting further and further from reality. Tuesday’s stagecraft in Kenosha was Trump’s most audacious attempt to rearrange reality since … well, since the night before. On Monday, he informed Fox News’s Laura Ingraham that Joe Biden is the victim of mind control by “people that you’ve never heard of, people that are in the dark shadows.” They are, he said, the same “people that are controlling the streets.” Trump further reported the existence of a plane, “almost completely loaded with thugs wearing these dark uniforms, black uniforms.” He said they “were on the plane to do big damage.”

    Pressed for details, Trump said he could divulge no more. “I’ll tell you sometime, but it’s under investigation.” As NBC reported, Trump’s fantastical tale closely matched a two-month-old conspiracy theory making the rounds on Facebook. 

    … Trump didn’t meet with the [Jacob] Blake family, instead moving on to the high school cafeteria, draped with blue curtains and decorated with flags.

    “I feel so safe,” Trump remarked, after a tour in which he was protected by armored personnel carriers, military trucks and police in camouflage carrying automatic rifles.

    He received thanks from a participant for “sending the National Guard.” (That was actually the work of Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, who, like Kenosha’s mayor, urged Trump not to visit.)

    Trump reported that “there was love on the street, I can tell you, of Wisconsin when we were coming in … so many African Americans.” According to the “pool” reporters traveling in the president’s motorcade, he had been greeted by friends and foes alike, including one “large group protesting the president, their middle fingers pointed at motorcade.”

    The two African Americans in the roundtable did their best to bring Trump around to reality. James Ward prayed for a restoration of “empathy and compassion.” Sharon Ward noted that “it’s important to have Black people at the table” and called it “a good opportunity for us really to solve the problem.”

    But Trump would not be moved. Asked about nonviolent protests and structural racism, he answered with “anarchists,” “looters,” “rioters” and “agitators.” He said Democrats like riots and want to close prisons and end immigration enforcement. “The wall will be finished very shortly,” he added.

    Maybe that’s true — on Planet Zog.

    We have to outvote Planet Zog. Yes we can.

  140. 140.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Blake News @blakehounshell ·30m
    So at the time, the White House said it was “phase one” of his physical and the rest of it would be completed in 2020. Now Trump says it was to complete his physical.

  143. 143.

    CaseyL

    @UncleEbeneezer:  What a sweetheart! I’m so sorry. There’s never a good time to lose a loved pet, but I agree that losing one now is especially hurtful.

    I hope happy memories, and knowing you gave her a wonderful life, are of some comfort.

  144. 144.

    SFAW

    @WaterGirl:

    Is it that he has aged me 50 years, or that i’ve had 50 drinks?!

    Well, I thought the “+NN” shorthand used here applied to alcoholic beverages, but your question has given me pause.

  145. 145.

    SFAW

    @Jeffro:

    I accidentally dropped some frozen welfare t-bone steaks on my ObamaPhone

    Hmm, I had not realized you were/are a “strapping young buck.”

  148. 148.

    Bill Arnold

    @dexwood:

    Over-sized, easily hidden, mobile slingshots to get that soup on target.

    My brother’s fraternity at Cornell did that, called it a “funnelator”. Surgical tubing, funnel in the middle, water balloons. (I never saw such things.) Three man team, I think.
    With soup cans it would be deadly weapon. I suspect that the authorities would not be amused , not even by water balloons. Those Portland jacked-up technicals with no gun mount and paint ball guns doing their safari in Portland could have been improved with some water balloons with non-toxic dye, maybe a bit of vegetable oil to make it stick a bit. But the authorities would not be amused.

  149. 149.

    J R in WV

    @UncleEbeneezer:

    So sorry for your loss!

    Fur babies are the best– and it really does hurt to lose one.

    I have found that Balloon Juice can help a lot,  all the comments about the puppies and kittens.  Please do keep in touch…

  153. 153.

    Leto

    @Omnes Omnibus: aye, aye Captain! ;)

    @Bill Arnold: at my site in Italy, we had a water balloon slingshot. We’d have wars with the ammo guys a couple of buildings over during the summer. Always a nice moral booster on a Friday afternoon :)

  154. 154.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    @UncleEbeneezer: Argh. That sucks. I’m sorry.

    And yeah, it really sucks with all the other crap. It’s like, can’t someone hand you a “get out of being human, free!” card (akin to the Monopoly “get out of jail, free” cards), so you can skip the grieving and awfulness until you have the actual resources to deal with it?

    Alas, no card exists, and it wouldn’t work if it did. But remember, it’s normal, and things will get better. For me, it helps to think of emotions like the weather, and all the pain that’s confronting me as… well, as the rain ruining an especially important occasion. It’s not my fault (for being so “weak,” or whatever, that I feel this way); it’s not someone else’s fault (even if I’m cranky that they didn’t do what I felt they should have, given the circumstances); it’s just an awful situation on top of other awfulness, and… and, there’s nothing much to do but survive, and get through.

    As the old saying goes, “if you’re going through hell, *keep going*.” I won’t be so pollyanna-ish to say you *will* get through; not everyone does. But if you don’t keep going, you’ll never know if you’d have gotten through, if you’d kept going, you see?

    Be well, and, when it’s possible, be happy. There ain’t enough happiness in the world, and it sounds like there’s been *far* too little for you recently, and I hope things change.

  156. 156.

    Martin

    @Jay: Thank Jesus! Been demanding this for like 2 decades.

    Nice too to see Trump announced eviction relief just in time to get credit ahead the CA legislatures much more durable bill.

  157. 157.

    Jay

    Hobbitses loads up cans of tater stews, swings them fro and to! Yes who would’ve thoughts precious! Hobbitses with stew cans! Cans cans cans! Rotten taters! Pbthhh! But yes precious, rockses too heavy for skinny fat hobbits arms! So stewses they toss! Tremenders mentums! Wicked!— Gollum J. Trump (@realGollumTrump) September 2, 2020

  159. 159.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Leto: My fraternity’s funnelator was a crew served weapon.  One person on each end of the surgical tubing and one on the funnel.  It was surprisingly accurate.

  160. 160.

    Aleta

    @UncleEbeneezer: I’m so sorry.  It is the worst of times to have this kind of pain.  If only it got easier with experience, but no.  Sending your household my condolences and hopes for better moments as soon as they can come.

  162. 162.

    SFAW

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I think I first heard of them when I was in college, lo these many years ago. One story I heard had to do with water balloons being successfully launched from one side of a football stadium to the opposite side. Similar launch team setup, I think.

  163. 163.

    Jay

    @Martin:

    Dolt 45’s “eviction relief” is gonna be hung in court for months.

    he ain’t gonna get any credit, other than from his Base.

    the Firefighter thing is long over due, maybe attitudes towards incarcerated Americans are changing.

  166. 166.

    Jay

    @SFAW:

    we used them while sailing and racing on beer nights. Using the shrouds allowed one man operation, but, rules said you had to hoist a pirate flag first.

  167. 167.

    Jay

    Hobbits in dark shadows, they pulls Biddens strings- beings you’ve never heard of precious! Slinking! SNEAKING! They cackles with glee, very bad hobbitses, very tricksy, yes they are! Yes they are! But is this conspeeries? Is it FALSE? NO! You’ve never heards but Sméagol knows!— Gollum J. Trump (@realGollumTrump) September 1, 2020

  171. 171.

    Jinchi

    @Martin: You don’t throw Progresso. 19oz can, wide diameter – you can’t get any action off a can like that.

    Everyone on this thread is going to jail. Better get your ballot mailed off before Barr’s commandos knock down your door.

  178. 178.

    Bill Arnold

    Here’s the Dark Shadows transcript, for those who can’t or won’t watch DJT:
    Donald Trump Laura Ingraham Interview Transcript August 31: Says People “in the Dark Shadows” Controlling Biden (Sep 1, 2020)
    Influence Operation Drive-DJT-And-His-Adminstration-Crazy is proceeding as planned. :-)
    Bold mine:

    Laura Ingraham: (15:20)
    Who do you think is pulling Biden’s strings. Is it former Obama people?
    Donald Trump: (15:24)
    People that you’ve never heard of. People that are in the dark shadows. People that are-
    Laura Ingraham: (15:29)
    What does that mean? That sounds like conspiracy theory. Dark shadows, what is that?
    Donald Trump: (15:32)
    People that you haven’t heard of. There are people that are on the streets. There are people that are controlling the streets. We had somebody get on a plane from a certain city this weekend and in the plane, it was almost completely loaded with thugs wearing these dark uniforms, black uniforms with gear and this and that. They’re on a plane.

  180. 180.

    L85NJGT

    @Jinchi:

    Somebody at LGM posited that Trump muddled Paul Hogan beaning someone with a can in Crocodile Dundee with whatever soup outrage talking point they had fed him.

  181. 181.

    Bill Arnold

    @Jay:
    From context, DJT is saying that the press will die of boredom when he’s no longer president.
    He’s losing it though. He’s mentally incoherent in that clip.

  182. 182.

    Ruckus

    @Amir Khalid:

    It’s code.

    It’s not good code.

    It doesn’t translate into anything sensical, it’s just there to mock those that haven’t swallowed the hook yet.

    Also there is nothing logical about any of it, you aren’t supposed to be able to understand it, you are supposed to agree and follow. It’s like a frat hazing, if it made sense it wouldn’t be stupid and disgusting.

  185. 185.

    West of the Rockies

    @Martin:

    I had three pitches:  a split-fingered pea soup, a backdoor minestrone, and a bean with bacon slurve.  No control though, so I never got past single A.

  186. 186.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Jay: What the everloving fuck is he talking about? Like, literally what was this in context of

    ETA: Ah. Basically “Democrats and the Press are all going to die of boredom when I’m not president”, but where he fucked up the delivery so badly you just can’t tell what the hell he means and it sounds like he’s threatening his enemies.

  187. 187.

    Kent

    @L85NJGT:Don’t they make frozen bags of soup for institutional and restaurant use?

    Shrug….I’d rather imagine ANTIFA thugs trying to throw 2-oz Maggi soup packets.

  188. 188.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Amir Khalid: Since nobody seems to have answered, I thought I’d give it a try:

    (1) the Marines are supposedly more “expeditionary”.  As in: more training for landing on hostile terrain and taking it.

    (2) The USAF was rebadged from the old US Army Air Force.  But the USAF rapidly got tired of doing the two tasks that the Army really needed: transport and “close air support” (CAS)..  So the Army built its own “air force” of choppers (b/c they were forbidden to use fixed-wing combat craft) to provide that CAS.

    Perhaps you’ve heard of the A-10 Warthog, reckoned to be the best CAS plane flying.  The Air Force wants to kill it, b/c they just *hate* the mission.  It doesn’t involve flying really fast planes with missiles, after all.  Why would they wanna do it?

    (3) I don’t know why the Marines has their own air wing, but I’d guess that in a similar manner, the Navy’s air wing doesn’t really care so much for supporting the Marines’ actual mission.

    TL;DR all this wasteful duplication is due to various bureaucrats (and that’s what most of these generals and admirals are — bureaucrats) who just can’t give up their institutional perquisities, and couldn’t GAF about the larger organization (US military)’s mission.  Really, they couldn’t GAF.

  189. 189.

    Ruckus

    @Leto:

    I think the concept of each branch is so different that it would be difficult to make one military work reasonably. On the other hand it might just be one of the best decisions ever if the intra service rivalries, overlaps and BS didn’t exist.

  192. 192.

    Mozocare

    I think the concept of each branch is so different that it would be difficult to make one military work reasonably. On the other hand it might just be one of the best decisions ever if the intra service rivalries, overlaps and BS didn’t exist.

  193. 193.

    Kent

    @Chetan Murthy:

    Navy plus Marines:   Sea-based warfare like most of the island-hopping Pacific war against the Japanese.  Although even there we had two separate wars.  a land-based war by McArthur with the Army in the Philippines and a sea-based war by Nimitz and the Marines in the Pacific.  Which ultimately converged at Okinawa.

    Army plus Air Force:  Land-based warfare like WW2 in Europe against the Nazis with Patton, Bradley, Eisenhower, etc.

    Since at least WW2 the US doctrine has been to maintain the capacity to fight and win two simultaneous major wars on different sides of the world as we did in WW2.  The military is always fighting the last war.

    Except since then we really haven’t had two wars ever happen at the same time again.  So they all compete for their own individual roles in each subsequent war like Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.  And you end up with things like Marine battalions and Navy SEALs deployed to Afghanistan, which is about as far from any ocean as you can get.

  194. 194.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Bill Arnold: Donald Trump: (15:24)
    People that you’ve never heard of. People that are in the dark shadows.

    So it was Barnabas Collins all along.

  195. 195.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Amir Khalid: I’ve always wondered why the US needs a big army and a small one. Plus three different air forces.

    You forgot every one the fifty states have their own armies and air forces.

  196. 196.

    patrick II

    @dmsilev: 
    you are correct, sir. If the army could have fixed wing they would take over the A10 Warthog in a moment. The air force has been trying to get rid of it for years.

  197. 197.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    BREAKING REPORT: Rand Paul has called to SUBPOENA ANTIFA plane records, hotel records, all travel records & all funding….

    These idiots ever talked to anyone on the hard left?  “Organized, with detailed record keeping” is not what comes to mind.

  198. 198.

    Brachiator

    @SFAW:

    Doesn’t your ObamaPhone have a SorosCheck-cashing app, to go with its welfare-check-cashing app?

    I didn’t understand that people really believed this crap until I overheard some diners at am outdoor table talk about how Soros was paying protestors. I thought about asking them where do I go to sign up.

  199. 199.

    Gvg

    @Amir Khalid: The marines deploy off ships which is actually a different skills set than land based. I assume that it involves not being too sea sick.

    The different air forces are support for different kinds of operations. Naval Air Force takes off and lands from ships which I’m given to understand is really complex. Carriers are supposed to be more difficult than space programs. The different services want their own air forces under their control so they don’t have to fight to get the right kind of air support when they need it plus avoid friendly fire.

    its kind of like needing hammers, screwdrivers, saws and wrenches to get things done. The bigger we got, the more we interacted with the world, the more we learned the world impacted us, the more complex the problems were and the more kinds of tools we learned we needed. And it also means that the military is definitely not the whole tools kit. Trade policy, monetary policy and especially diplomacy are much more important. Unfortunately we have a lot of ignorant citizens who can’t see anything but the simple force.

    A lot of how complex our military has gotten involves major screw ups with casualties that make us say afterwards, there has to be a better way.

  200. 200.

    Procopius

    @dmsilev: As I understand it, the agreement reached among the services during their conference in the Bahamas, in 1947, was that the Army could still use small, single engine observation planes, needed for artillery spotting. Helicopters were still an experimental novelty, and the new Air Force didn’t want to be bothered. To this day they really don’t want to have to mess with anything but the hottest fighter planes, but they realized that controlling freight carriers (fcking delivery trucks) gave them power over the other services (especially the Army; the Navy not so much because they control the sea lift, which is by far the biggest freight carrier). Anyway, because the Air Force had no idea how useful helicopters would be (actually, no one did) the Army was not prohibited from using them.

  201. 201.

    opiejeanne

    @SFAW: This was a legend in the late 60s, at Cal Poly Pomona. Some boys from the dorms went to Claremont buy surgical tubing at a medical supply shop. The clerk sized up the lads and pulled out a box marked “for water balloons”.

    It was one dorm in particular, the one my husband-to-be lived in. A 3-story building on a hillside above the main road. They could launch them all the way across the road and quite a ways into the rose garden if they wanted, but mostly they wanted to hit people on the sidewalk across the road.

    Engineers, lonely, bored boys due to an extreme shortage of girls on campus.

  203. 203.

    satby

    @UncleEbeneezer: Condolences UncleEbeneezer. Heaven on earth for our furry companions is to be someone’s beloved, and you gave her that. May her memory be a blessing.

    Edit: and to you too Quantumman

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