Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Consistently wrong since 2002

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

After roe, women are no longer free.

You cannot shame the shameless.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

When do the post office & the dmv weigh in on the wuhan virus?

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

We still have time to mess this up!

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

You are here: Home / Past Elections / 2020 Elections / Wednesday Evening Open Thread: Tittupping Through Kenosha’s Ruins

Wednesday Evening Open Thread: Tittupping Through Kenosha’s Ruins

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Check out those heels! — no wonder the vain old man has trouble keeping his balance on ramps & stairs.


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108Comments

  2. 2.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    Re: that fake owner photo-op

    His supporters literally do not care that the owner Trump posed with was the former owner. Here’s a Twitter reply:

    ? ? Λ ? ? ? ? ? ? ?℠
    @IAmSeanMorris
    17h
    Replying to
    @timjhogan
    THE MADMAN

    Ezra Noles
    @CryptoGlyphic
    Never-mind the fact that liberal extremists burned these buildings.

    If Biden or Obama had done this I highly doubt they would’ve shrugged their shoulders like they are with Trump. Their hypocrisy and willful ignorance pisses me off

    And “liberal extremists”? Fuck off. Those people are opportunists who want to burn shit down. Literal outside agitators. The BLM protest ended peacefully, but the asshole anarchists rioted

  3. 3.

    Jeffro

    My TCNJ dad’s latest was that “Biden was going to WI to shore up his cratering polls and bringing tag-along Jill with him”. Yes, really. A ‘tag-along’, not a Dr., not someone who’s had her own career for decades (and no I’m not taking about an ahem missing decade, if you know what I mean…)

    Also, what cratering poll numbers?

    30 years of the Fox Bubble indoctrination and it’s like trying to listen to a North Korean or something.

  5. 5.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Jeffro:

    That cratering polls in WI bit is funny because Clinton was criticized for not visiting states like Wisconsin enough

  6. 6.

    Barbara

    And today on the birthday of my youngest, another 1000+ Americans died from Covid-19. And there is our president, affirmatively wishing violence on us when he isn’t consigning us to death through his own gross negligence. He will never get what he deserves because most of us could not be nearly that cruel.

  13. 13.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    A big day for new polls ends on a very positive note for Biden
    Fox News polls: Biden +9 in Arizona, Biden +8 in Wisconsin, Biden +4 in North Carolina.

  16. 16.

    raven

    This time 51 years ago today I was sitting on the runway on Guam waiting for a C-141 to take us back to the world. Why they flew us from Bien Hoa to Guam commercial and then made us “deplane” and wait on a transport was beyond us but we didn’t really care.

  20. 20.

    dmsilev

    Alexandra Petri is a wonder:

    The president, sound in mind and body, is continuing to tell us important things that are worth knowing. Most recently, he wants us to know that soup is a dangerous weapon.

    “And you have people coming over with bags of soup — big bags of soup,” he said. “And they lay it on the ground, and the anarchists take it and they start throwing it at our cops, at our police. And if it hits you, that’s worse than a brick because that’s got force. It’s the perfect size. It’s, like, made perfect. And when they get caught, they say, ‘No, this is just soup for my family. And the media says, ‘This is just soup.’”

    This is not just soup. Soup is a very dangerous substance. For instance, some soup is very hot. Alphabet soup can spell ANTIFA.

    Every soup, in fact, has something threatening about it. Vichyssoise collaborated. Chowder is menacing because in Boston it ends in “AH!,” the sound you make when surprised or terrified. Avgolemono? Avgolem — OH, NO! If you are Donald Trump, you love your base; you are against anyone who would try to bouillabaisse. (If you are Donald Trump, you also definitely did not suffer a series of minestrones.) This opposition to soup is just the logical consommé-shun that follows from everything that has gone before.

  24. 24.

    Omnes Omnibus

    I think the tweet associating Kenosha with Ryan and Preibus is more than a bit unfair.  Priebus went to high school there.  It is in Ryan’s old district, but it’s a big district and cities like Kenosha and Janesville who elect Democrats are outweighed by exurban and rural GOPers – that’s how gerrymandering works.

  25. 25.

    aliasofwestgate

    I still loved how Blake’s family held a block party and celebration and pointedly ignored Lord Dampnut on his photo op day here. Wish i could have gone, but there was no way roomie and i were going to mess with local traffic when we were near all the areas blocked off or temporarily blocked off for his visit half the time.

  26. 26.

    Bumper

    Some of you may remember Smiling Mortician, who commented here a few years ago. She had some health problems and haven’t been here recently.

    I’ve just learned that she has passed away. She was a smart, interesting commenter and  respected in our real life community.  I thought Balloon Juice would like to know.

  33. 33.

    Bumper

    @germy: not to my knowledge. She had been suffering from a serious illness. She moved from our area after diagnosis and we learned of her death from an email from her former place of employment (where my spouse also works).

  41. 41.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @joel hanes: @West of the Rockies: @Gvg: @catclub:

    Trump Cult Nut Job

    Jeffro invented it & he’s the only person who uses it. Some people objected awhile back to my objecting to his using his own private language & expecting everyone else to figure it out. Subsequently I suggested putting it in the BJ Lexicon so folks wouldn’t need to keep asking, but WG told me it’s not used often enough to warrant it. So I guess we’ll just wait until the next time he uses it & a bunch of posters ask WTF it means…ay yi yi…

  42. 42.

    The Moar You Know

    @Bumper: thank you for letting us know. Quite a few of our commenters just vanish, usually out of boredom but you just never know, and we never know what happens to them.

    RIP, Smiling Mortician.

  43. 43.

    Bumper

    @trollhattan: yes. I’m not sure how much she revealed in her comments here, so I don’t want to give too much away. My husband and son knew her better. I’ve only chatted in person once (very briefly) before I knew she was a juicer. She was respected and admired here and it was a loss for the community when they moved.  I hope her nym can be added to the gone but not forgotten roster if we have one.

  48. 48.

    Bumper

    @germy: I’m not aware of a toxic boss, but there may have been one. My understanding is that she was diagnosed then decided to retire and move to Spain. The illness was very serious and, honestly, our area is poor, rural, and hours from superior healthcare facilities. I’d move too if that was an option.

  49. 49.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    @trollhattan: Hey digya see this:

     

    NBC Sports to air 2020-21 FA Women’s Super League
    By Joe Prince-WrightSep 2, 2020, 8:01 AM EDT
    Leave a comment

    The FA Women’s Super League is coming to NBC Sports.

    That’s right, WSL action will make its TV debut in the USA this Sunday as Manchester United v. Chelsea will be shown on NBCSN and 50 games during the 2020-21 WSL season will be shown across the NBC Sports platforms as part of a season-long partnership with Atalanta Media.

    [ STREAM: Watch WSL live on NBC Sports ]

    Through the partnership, NBC Sports will present WSL matches between September and May, including at least 12 matches on NBCSN, with other games on the NBC Sports app and on NBCSports.com.

     
    Now we can see NWSL games on CBS and Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester on NBC

  54. 54.

    brantl

    Isn’t it fitting that Bill Barr always looks like he’s just realiized that he’s just crapped his pants?

  56. 56.

    Jeffro

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): well, we are talking about double standards for Ds and Rs after all…

    I think he’s cheered by the fact that of MI, WI, and PA, WI’s the only one that’s relatively close.  I mean, he’s dumb and ignores reality a lot, but even he knows what’ll happen if/when Biden gets all three of those states back.

    And AZ – holy cow – that is amazing.  Then again, that state was pretty hard hit by Covid, so yeah.

  58. 58.

    Jeffro

    @trollhattan: trumpov’s busy playing 11-dimensional chess again…”NO ‘OCTOBER SURPRISE’ THIS TIME LIBRULS – ‘NOVEMBER SURPRISE’ GIVES YOU NO TIME TO REACT GAME SET MATCH!”

    “serious” GOP pundits will be jumping on this, possibly with fewer capital letters, in 3, 2, 1…

  60. 60.

    Jeffro

    Btw I finally have the time to listen to Biden’s Q&A from earlier today and holy cow…he is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.

    ;)

    Ok, more seriously: how deep into the Fox Bubble would one have to be to watch Biden today and think to oneself: “whew – THAT guy is in the grip of full-blown dementia, but that trumpov, man, HE’s got it together!”  Whew.

  61. 61.

    Sab

    Yay! I just got a call from Biden phone bank. So there is a ground game in Ohio. She asked if I could volunteer and I said know because I suck at phone banks. I asked if they do postcards and she was surprised and said she’d ask and get back to me.

  63. 63.

    Barbara

    @Jeffro: Yeah, it’s funny how old people in particular don’t find the concept of culling the herd of its weakest members to be a sound approach to treating diseases.

  64. 64.

    Jeffro

    A big lead for Biden in a static race, and here’s why: C-O-V-I-D

    A Washington Post average of polls conducted immediately before the two conventions had Biden leading Trump 51 percent to 42 percent. With polls released this week after the Republican convention, we can update those numbers.  Biden leads Trump 51 percent to 42 percent.

    That things didn’t change much shouldn’t be a surprise. The race has been remarkably static, with Trump’s daily high in FiveThirtyEight’s average of polls never beating Biden’s low. Biden came into the conventions with an unusually large lead, and he comes out of them with one, too.

    His answer today about how he’d use the bully pulpit, essentially, to get mask mandates going across the country was excellent.

  65. 65.

    PPCLI

     

    @Jeffro:

    @David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch:

     

    Well, at least Jeffro’s dad will have a Fox poll to enlighten him when he watches tonight

     

    ETA: The Fox Poll is even more encouraging than it first appears since, if I recall correctly, previous polls had been of Registered Voters while this one is of Likely Voters. I gather that is a pretty standard shift at the beginning of September.

  66. 66.

    Jeffro

    @Barbara: Yup.  Everyone who’s pro “herd immunity” seems to think they and their loved ones won’t be the guests of honor at the 2M funerals that would follow.

  67. 67.

    Jeffro

    @Jeffro:

    speaking of enthusiasm? Trump regularly touts the record enthusiasm in his base. In CNN’s poll, that is clear, including that 87 percent of his supporters say there is no way they will change their minds about whom they will vote for.

    Among supporters of Biden, the figure is 94 percent.

  68. 68.

    WaterGirl

    @Bumper: I have a vivid memory of being on the train and reading that she had received a cancer diagnosis and wondering whether it was worth fighting, and then she she seemed to be in a better space and decided to fight.  I think hey moved – somewhere that seemed wonderful to me, but I don’t recall where- and I thought things were going okay for awhile. That’s the last I recall hearing.

  69. 69.

    Suzanne

    @Bumper:

    I’ve just learned that she has passed away. She was a smart, interesting commenter and  respected in our real life community.  I thought Balloon Juice would like to know. 

    Oh no. I remember her well. She was very intelligent and engaging. I hope for peace and healing for her family and friends.

  71. 71.

    Suzanne

    @Jeffro:

    And AZ – holy cow – that is amazing.  Then again, that state was pretty hard hit by Covid, so yeah. 

    It’s the young people turning AZ blue(r). It has a reputation for being full of old people, but it is actually a younger state than the national average…. which is of course led by the growing Latino population. K-12 education in AZ is majority minority.

    And Martha McSally sucks.

  72. 72.

    PPCLI

    @trollhattan: It would be delicious if a bunch of governors replied:

    Well, November 1 is a Sunday and our state employees don’t work that day, and Nov. 2 is All Saints Day / Dia de Muertos. We don’t want to prevent our Catholic workers from being with their families on that day. Nov. 3 is election day, and we wouldn’t want to keep employees from voting. But we can absolutely get it done by Nov. 4! That’s soon enough, right?

  76. 76.

    TS (the original)

    @VeniceRiley:

    So lots of people are going to make money from state governments for non existing vaccines to arrive on November 1. trump wants everyone except himself to pay for his wild re-election schemes. A campaign donation by any other name.

  78. 78.

    Calouste

    @Suzanne: Also Gov Doug Ducey (R) is about 30-50 underwater in what the public thinks of his handling of COVID. He might not be up for re-election this year, but that won’t stop voters from taking it out on his party.

  81. 81.

    Ruckus

    @NotMax:

    That real cheap deep fryer fat has no prime.

    And you know he’d never spend anything on the expensive stuff. And any chef he hired would very soon figure out that you buy the cheap stuff, tell him it’s the good stuff and pocket the dif.

  85. 85.

    TS (the original)

    Rachel leading with what I couldn’t believe when I read it – Trump telling people to vote twice. Guess he wants them to get 6 years in prison.

  87. 87.

    Barbara

    @lgerard: Gosh. I saw Tom Seaver pitch.  My dad used to choose games based on who was pitching, home or away.  We saw a lot of low scoring home town losses.  Seaver not only got the win, but he hit a double that scored the go ahead run.

  88. 88.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    NEW @Opinium Research

    Poll (LV, 8/21-28):

    #Wisconsin:
    Biden 53% (+13)
    Trump 40%
    .
    #Florida:
    Biden 50% (+7)
    Trump 43%

  89. 89.

    Richard

    We are beginning to be seriously angry with this monster and all of his little helpers. Because we have good ways, we can’t just kill him. There’s a story about that. Think Hercules & Hydra.

    But i am told that we have another 4 months to endure this. I hope i can do it. My heart goes to all people who have survived a siege, and to those who died.

  94. 94.

    SFAW

    @lgerard:

    Tom was one of my heroes when I was a teenager, and long after. 

    COVID may have contributed, but he had Lewy body dementia, diagnosed early last year. A shitty way to go for anyone.

  95. 95.

    J R in WV

    @Bumper:

    Some of you may remember Smiling Mortician, who commented here a few years ago. She had some health problems and haven’t been here recently.

    I’ve just learned that she has passed away. She was a smart, interesting commenter and  respected in our real life community.  I thought Balloon Juice would like to know.

    Thanks for the update… I do remember her. She will be missed. A shame.

  96. 96.

    SFAW

    @Jeffro:

    Among supporters of Biden, the figure is 94 percent.

    And NPR seems determined to find all the six-percenters. I listened to “On Point” and one other show — maybe “Here & Now”? — and each had a “panel” of Dem voters. In each panel, the black woman was all-systems-go for Biden. The others talked about how they don’t think Biden will do anything transformational, or he hasn’t laid out in minute detail what 341 specific programs he’s going to implement to make that person feel good enough to vote for him, or the panalist is a member of DSA and thinks Biden something something something.

    I came THIS close to trying to reach into the radio to strangle the stupid motherfuckers. And since “On Point” was a repeat from this AM, I couldn’t call up to tell the moron(s) to read “Your Mumia Sweatshirt Won’t Get You into Heaven Anymore.”

  97. 97.

    J R in WV

    @lgerard:

    Greatest NY Met of all time succumbs to COVD

    RIP Tom Terrific

    I think we saw him play in the grapefruit league many years ago, when my folks still were alive and had a place south of Sarasota. We would go to ball games with my dad. Great memories of the long ago.

  98. 98.

    Miss Bianca

    @Bumper: I remember her, and remember her saying that was having health problems before she stopped commenting. Thanks for letting us know. RIP, Smiling Mortician! (I always loved that nym.)

  99. 99.

    Suzanne

    @FelonyGovt: I’m an ASU alum. I am hearing that professors are not allowed to tell their students if one of their classmates has COVID. I have no idea how it won’t be all over the campus tomorrow.

  102. 102.

    Bill Arnold

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    And “liberal extremists”? Fuck off. Those people are opportunists who want to burn shit down. Literal outside agitators. The BLM protest ended peacefully, but the asshole anarchists rioted.

    A broader point is that 10s of thousands of small businesses [1] have been destroyed by D.J.Trump’s willfully inept SARS-CoV-2 Federal-executive-branch-level pandemic response, particularly the botched Federal early response which left us with community spread and no tools except for lockdowns to prevent millions of deaths (no significant testing for several months, no organized contact tracing). Lock downs we did, and the economy collapsed. Reopens we did, too early, oops, there goes the economy.

    When I say magical thinking, I mean it. Trump was steeped in Norman Vincent Peale’s “theology” (The Power of Positive Thinking) by his father when he (DJT) was young and it clearly still sometimes guides his thinking (see also Chaos Magici), but DJT does not (IMO) properly respect or understand probability, and once a pandemic has attained widespread community spread, there’s no (lucky) way out except hard work to reduce the infection rate. (SARS-CoV-2 has a high R0 with no NPIs)

    [1] I do not know the real number, but it can be estimated easily with sampling of random towns.

  103. 103.

    Another Scott

    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-facebook-russia/duped-by-russia-freelancers-ensnared-in-disinformation-campaign-by-promise-of-easy-money-idUSKBN25T35E

    LONDON (Reuters) – When freelance journalist Laura Walters submitted a 1,000 word article about Chinese political influence in New Zealand to her new editors at non-profit media outlet Peace Data, the response was emphatic.

    “I’d like to express our deep gratitude for your work,” wrote Peace Data communications manager Alice Schultz in a June 15 email seen by Reuters. “It’s hard to believe how totalitarian countries like China (or Russia) are finding their ways to meddle even in the strongest democracies around the globe.”

    But that email, from a person claiming to be Schultz, now appears to have been a small part of one such meddling attempt.

    Acting on a tip from the FBI, Facebook and Twitter said on Tuesday they had identified Peace Data as the center of a Russian political influence campaign targeting left-wing voters in the United States, Britain and other countries.

    The website succeeded in tricking and hiring freelance journalists to write articles about topics including the U.S. presidential election, the coronavirus pandemic and alleged Western war crimes, Facebook said.

    Email correspondence reviewed by Reuters and interviews with six journalists commissioned by the website show how the writers were approached on social media, paid up to $250 per article and some times encouraged to insert political angles into their work.

    A person who identified themselves as Bernadett Plaschil, an associate editor at Peace Data, told Reuters via email: “We’re really confused by these accusations and deny all of them.” The person declined to speak via phone or video call.

    The news about Peace Data follows warnings that Russia is attempting to sway the outcome of November’s election after what U.S. intelligence officials have said was a concerted effort to boost the campaign of President Donald Trump in 2016.

    […]

    All of the writers contacted by Reuters, some of whom requested anonymity due to fears of professional repercussions, said they had no knowledge about the website’s Russian backing before Tuesday.

    […]

    We (Americans, westerners, everyone really) need to be skeptical of our news sources. There’s a seemingly mostly one-sided war going on…

    Speaking of which, I hope Adam is doing well wherever he is these days.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  104. 104.

    Another Scott

    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-poll/no-bounce-in-support-for-trump-as-americans-see-pandemic-not-crime-as-top-issue-reuters-ipsos-poll-idUSKBN25T1I3?il=0

    The Aug. 31-Sept. 1 national opinion poll showed that 40% of registered voters support Trump, a Republican, compared with 47% who said they will vote for his Democratic opponent Joe Biden. Biden’s lead is largely unchanged over the past three weeks during which both parties held conventions to nominate their candidates Trump and Biden for the presidency.

    Trailing Biden in most national opinion polls since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus this year, Trump has sought to change the subject from a pandemic that has killed more than 180,000 Americans, blaming Black Lives Matters protesters for violence in the cities and accusing Biden of being weak on crime.

    But the poll showed the majority — 78% — remain “very” or “somewhat” concerned about the coronavirus. Nearly 60% said Trump is at least partly responsible for the protracted school and business closures due to the virus, as well as for the high number of coronavirus cases in the United States. More than 6 million Americans have been infected with the virus, more people than in any other country.

    By contrast, most Americans do not see crime as a major priority and do not think it is increasing in their communities, the poll showed.

    […]

    The Reuters/Ipsos public opinion poll was conducted online, in English, throughout the United States. It gathered responses from 1,335 American adults, including 551 Democrats and 523 Republicans. It has a credibility interval, a measure of precision, of 3 to 5 percentage points.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

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