Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

Thanks for reminding me that Van Jones needs to be slapped.

Republicans in disarray!

Bad news for Ron DeSantis is great news for America.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

In short, I come down firmly on all sides of the issue.

Everybody saw this coming.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

If you are still in the GOP, you are an extremist.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

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

Republicans do not pay their debts.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

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

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Republicans can’t even be trusted with their own money.

I didn’t have alien invasion on my 2023 BINGO card.

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

Bark louder, little dog.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Thursday Night Open Thread

Thursday Night Open Thread

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Looks like we need a new thread.

Someone HumboldtBlue posted this in an earlier thread today. Something good!

Open thread.

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56Comments

  4. 4.

    cope

    My wife and I watched “My Octopus Teacher” on Netflix yesterday.  If you question the likelihood of a human/mollusk relationship, this movie might challenge those beliefs.  It was that or “The Social DIlemma” which I didn’t have the stamina to watch what with everything and all.

  9. 9.

    Martin

    Youtube just recommended a live broadcast about the Oregon fires. I jumped in – they were IDing the antifa people they believe were setting the fires.

    Jesus fuck, Google. Get your shit together.

  11. 11.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Martin:

    Followed a Twitter thread from a right-wing jackass running for Senate in Oregon claiming antifa people are being arrested all over and are the arsonists behind the fires.

  13. 13.

    Martin

    @HumboldtBlue: I have to admit I do kind of love that Oregon republicans are dumb enough to not know the difference between the Bureau of Land Management and Black Lives Matter.  I mean, it’s tragic, but given how fucked things are, I can’t see how adding more idiocy to this situation could make it any worse.

  14. 14.

    Jeffro

    @HumboldtBlue: What else are they going to do?  Recognize that climate change is real and has real-world effects?  Stop following ‘Q’?  Realize that their gunz ain’t helping?

    Ok, seriously…I hope they get called out and stopped before someone gets hurt.

  17. 17.

    Kay

    FREELAND, Mich. — President Donald Trump made wildly inaccurate claims at a rally outside Saginaw on Thursday night, suggesting he has revitalized auto manufacturing in the state when it actually lost jobs even before coronavirus hit in March.

    Bravo to the Detroit Free Press. Thank fucking God someone there knows you can’t print the lie first and then correct it 500 words later. Composing a paragraph in a rational order that might actually impart the information. For this I am grateful.

  18. 18.

    sanjeevs

    I’ve been reading Peter Strzok’s book (FBI former head of Counterintelligence) and posted up my notes on the Clinton and Trump pre-election investigations. Since a couple of people were interested, here’s my notes on the post election to Comey firing chapters.

    Post Election

    1. The day after the election Strzok was upset. Trump had won and  ‘The prospect of bringing our cases to a close had moved beyond the horizon’. Yup, if Clinton had won the Counterintelligence case would have been closed. No harm, no foul, right.
    2. Trump’s Inauguration – a Who’s Who of shady Russians attended. There were so many questionable characters in town the FBI didn’t have nearly enough manpower to track them – Maria Butina was there, Viktor Vekselberg, Natalia Veselnitskaya (Trump Tower meeting lawyer), Konstantin Kilimnik, Sergei Millian  and many more.
    3. Mike Flynn and the Kisliak call investigation: Strzok and another agent conducted the interview with Flynn. Initially the planned to conduct a regular interview but Comey intervened to order them to ‘help jog Flynn’s memory’ by quoting phrases from the transcript. If Comey intervened like that for Strzok’s interview with Clinton, it isn’t mentioned in the book.
    4. Flynn took the interview at the Whitehouse. Before the interview he gave Strzok and the other agent a tour of the WH and talked about how important counterintelligence would be with Flynn as NSA.
    5. Flynn lied to Strzok during the interview even though he knew they had a transcript of the conversation with Kisliak. They gave him a chance to revise his answers each time but he didn’t budge.
    6. Later Strzok and his FBI colleagues met the DoJ to discuss the Flynn interview and possible charges. During the meeting a senior DoJ official tells the FBI not to conduct overt investigations like this without prior DoJ approval
    7. On the Friday prior to Flynn being fired (February 10), the Whitehouse calls the FBI in a panic. Mike Pence, having stood up for Flynn on ‘Face the Nation’ is now worried that Flynn lied to him. Pence requests the FBI file on Flynn and this is provided.
    8. Strzok says this came as a significant relief – Pence ‘hadn’t knowingly covered for Flynn’. Flynn departs on February 13.
    9. Anyone who watches Maddow will know what bullshit this is. As she has repeatedly pointed out, Sally Yates told the the Whitehouse (McGahn) on January 26 and 27 about Flynn. For 3 weeks Pence had done nothing. Only when charges were imminent did he feign concern.
    10. Two days after Comey was fired, Rosenstein meets with the FBI leadership to discuss the Russian election interference. After the regular briefing Rosenstein asked Strzok to remain behind. Rosenstein asks for details on the cases the FBI had built against administration officials. Strzok provides the information.
  25. 25.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Jeffro: They treat fires like they treat COVID-19. Ignore the widespread conditions that cause it to spread and concentrate on blaming somebody else for starting it, because that gives you a villain that’s not you.

  27. 27.

    Jeffro

    Just going to say this one more time and then I’ll shut up: it is a TREAT to watch Mahomes, Hill, etc at work.  They are amazing.  Re-peat!!  ;)

  30. 30.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Ken:

    Antifa controls lightning and wind now?  Personally I wouldn’t get in their way….

    Is that what Antifa is? The next marvel/mutant/whatever the fuck movie? Who plays Antifa?

  31. 31.

    Kent

    @Martin:

    Youtube just recommended a live broadcast about the Oregon fires. I jumped in – they were IDing the antifa people they believe were setting the fires.

    Jesus fuck, Google. Get your shit together.

    Local news here in Portland area had on the mayor of Mill Creek, one of the towns that was evacuated and burned.  They just went back in there and encountered looters going through homes that weren’t burnt.  Several were arrested. Of course not an ANTIFA or black person in sight.  It’s all white rural MAGA meth-head scavenger types.  All locally born and raised.

    Of course that won’t make the national news.  Cause white looters?  That’s not really a thing is it?

  32. 32.

    dmsilev

    @Percysowner: Nice ad. On the other side of the great divide, Republican worries rise as Trump campaign pulls back from television advertising

    Fearing a coming cash crunch, President Trump’s campaign has pulled back from television advertising over the last month, ceding to Democratic nominee Joe Biden a huge advantage in key states and sparking disagreements over strategy within the president’s senior team.

    Republican officials have been inundated with calls from worried activists and donors who complain about constant Biden ads in their local media markets, with very few paid Trump responses, according to people familiar with the conversations. Some Republicans close to Trump have been baffled at the decision to sharply curb advertising and have told the president he should change course.

     

    Stepien has told others that cutting the ad budget was necessary because it was impossible to cut other spending, such as staffing or a campaign headquarters. He has described facing difficult choices, as he tries to save considerable money for the final 30 days before the Nov. 3 election.

    I trust ‘Trump family grifting’ counts as ‘other spending’.

    Edit:

    The president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, a senior White House adviser, continues to oversee the campaign’s major financial decisions,

  34. 34.

    Melusine

    Came late to the thread this was in, but for anyone interested in Lilith – she wasn’t cast out of Eden. She got fed up with Adam’s asshattery, spoke the secret name of God, grew wings, and flew off to the Red Sea where she spent her days frolicking and fucking sundry demons. Eventually Adam whinged God into sending 3 angels to fetch her back, but she refused, so God made Eve to shut him up. Got blamed ever since for killing children and stealing the seed of sleeping men, cause she was jealous of Eve. As if!

    Couple of feminist theologians wrote a piece in the ’70’s/early ’80’s about Lilith going back to the garden, to whisper wisdom and encouragement to Eve over the wall.

    Before her cameo in the Bible she was the Handmaiden of Inanna, who danced through the streets calling people to the Temple for sacred sexual rites. Lilith is ?

  36. 36.

    Ken

    @dmsilev: Members of Congress can no longer keep unspent campaign funds for their personal use on retirement. Did they bother extending that restriction to the executive branch?

    (Not that it matters, the campaign can just spend all the money on a big farewell party at Mar-A-Lago.)

  40. 40.

    Patricia Kayden

    @dmsilev: ? It’s great not having any Trump ads on my tv.  What a mess that an incumbent President can’t even get his campaign together.

  42. 42.

    dmsilev

    @Ken: Well, I was thinking more in terms of real-time looting. Trump family members and various hangers-on as salaried campaign workers or consultants, many many stays at Trump hotels, he or Jared or someone is probably getting some sort of kickback on whatever space the campaign is renting for an HQ (which, you note, was on the list of untouchable expenditures) etc.

  43. 43.

    Brachiator

    @dmsilev:

    Nice ad. On the other side of the great divide, Republican worries rise as Trump campaign pulls back from television advertising

    I am glad that Trump is having problems, but radio and regular television is not as important as in previous years. Except maybe with older voters.

    Even though it is the Devil’s playground, social media is where you want to get your political message seen.

    I am relatively ancient, but the only time I see any of the political ads is when they are linked here.  I have not listened to conventional radio in years.  I even listen to public radio via podcast, where ads are typically stripped out.

    I have noticed ads for both parties on YouTube. I avoid the Republican ads like, well, like the plague. But I notice that some of the Democratic Party ads are old fashioned.  But I love how Biden is taking it to Trump.

  45. 45.

    MoCA Ace

    @sanjeevs: That was the push on social media when Australia went on fire last January. It was arson, not climate change.

    So?  there will always be lightning, idiots burning leaves, careless smokers, and arsonists to start fires.  Climate change makes them blow up and gives us our recent fire seasons.

    Fire science is hard.

  46. 46.

    Kent

    @lashonharangue: Not only do you got white looters.  You also got a high-speed car chase cross country through a fire zone and across a golf course.   All the Hollywood elements right there if they were black.

    But it will be crickets on Fox news because they’ll too busy talking about some knucklehead firebug with “tats” who tried unsuccessfully to start a fire down in Douglas County someplace so…maybe ANTIFA!!!

  48. 48.

    cain

    @Matt McIrvin:

    It gives people a reason to point at so they can fundraise for it, but also it gives a people other than climate change to blame all these. By seeding stories of antifa and blm causing fires, they are trying to sow doubt.

    ETA: and you can bet that Facebook is the number one purveyor of all these conspiracy stories.

  52. 52.

    Eric NNY

    As a feller with goat kids, that makes my heart smile. My does are sweet nd good mothers,, but afer 20 minutes they lose focus.

  55. 55.

    Chris Johnson

    @Amir Khalid:

    CNN has this alarming story up about potentially dangerous Amazon Basics electrical products.

    I am currently being sent garbage products by Amazon, to almost-exactly-my-name and my address but not the account I use, in what they call a ‘brushing’ scam: someone is sending around shitty physical products so they can leave five star reviews and win the recommendations.

    One I threw away, one I didn’t open, and one is in packaging revealing that it’s a Miroco Light Therapy Lamp retailing for a little under $40. That product is ‘Fulfilled By Amazon’, and its reviews were already locked for suspicion of review faking.

    But not before that very product got to #1 in its category. It, a fake being pushed through brushing scams, is the top Amazon recommendation for this category. #1.

    CNN is on the money. This is a BIG problem. A lot worse than ‘I randomly got sent garbage products’. The by far largest retail outlet for products, which dominates mail and shipping and crushes other businesses with a CEO that is a bigger billionaire than anybody else and who’s prospered significantly as COVID turned people to online shopping, this unavoidable retail outlet is completely and totally untrustworthy for identifying, not just what’s good to get, but even getting things that are bare-minimum safe. This is dangerous on a whole bunch of levels.

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