The title quote is from former Senator Claire McCaskill’s rant on Nicolle Wallace’s program last week after the Trump-Woodward tapes dropped. McCaskill was referring to Trump’s bone-headed conceit that he could “turn” Bob Woodward (with his personal charm?) and wrest positive coverage from him.
McCaskill was astounded that even a man not noted for his intelligence (except by himself) would agree to multiple interviews with Woodward in an election year, particularly since Woodward had already written one negative book about the Trump administration.
Boy, was McCaskill right. CNN obtained some more tapes. Here are a few highlights of their breaking news reporting on that:
CNN has obtained excerpts of the 10-minute conversation, which show Trump was more focused on the economy than the public health crisis. As the two debated Trump’s response to the pandemic, Trump finally asked: “So you think the virus totally supersedes the economy?”
“Oh sure. But they’re related, as you know,” Woodward responded.
“A little bit, yeah,” Trump replied.
“Oh, a little bit?” Woodward asked.
“I mean, more than a little bit. But the economy is doing — look, we’re close to a new stock market record,” Trump said.
Also, since experiencing blowback from the content of the calls, Trump has claimed the conversations were brief and implied that it was Woodward who was doing the dialing. That was a big fat lie: seven of the calls were placed by Trump to Woodward, and there’s a total of 10 hours of recordings.
Throughout their 18 interviews for the book, Trump sought Woodward’s approval, repeatedly asking Woodward whether he was going to write a “good book.” The lobbying continued in their final conversation, when Woodward noted that one of Trump’s accomplishments after the book had gone to press — the agreement to normalize relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates — had earned Trump rare praise from New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, who has been repeatedly critical of Trump.
“Tom Friedman? That’s nice,” Trump said.
“Isn’t that something?” Woodward responded.
“He’s come a long way. The next one I need is you,” Trump said. “But it looks like I don’t have it on this book, but we’ll get you sometime later, I guess.”
No. No you won’t, dummy.
Open thread.
FelonyGovt
We talk about the Fox News bubble, but I think Trump is in the most impenetrable bubble of all. He really thinks he’s doing great and people love him.
Just had my Global Entry interview and was disgusted to see Shitgibbon’s portrait on the wall. I wish I’d had a Sharpie.
debbie
I’m not buying Woodward’s argument (on 60 Minutes) that he didn’t say anything because everyone already knew the pandemic was serious.
Baud
@debbie:
Yeah. It’s pretty clear that Woodword was following the NYT model: save it for the book.
Raoul Paste
And he still wants the Nobel Prize
Of course, he spells it as noble, which might be disqualifying
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
Trump is a greedy narcissist, who is also a racist and misogynist . I am constantly surprised, at the people who are surprised by the depth of his greed and his “LOOK AT ME” attitude. This is who he is, this is who he always was. Daffy Duck in a Bugs Bunny cartoon had more empathy. He only cares about how things make him look, and how they affect him(and his stocks and properties). He is also stupid and incurious. He is not subtle about any of it, so the people who won’t believe it are willfully blind.
The Moar You Know
Calling bullshit right now. Trump does not know the word “supersede”, and probably would think it had to do with the potency of semen, or farming. Or both.
germy
“President Trump should be considered to be a useful idiot and a fellow traveler, which makes him an unwitting agent of Putin,” he says. Useful idiot is a term commonly used to describe dupes of authoritarian regimes; fellow traveler, in Vindman’s description, is a person who shares Putin’s loathing for democratic norms.
But do you think Russia is blackmailing Trump? “They may or may not have dirt on him, but they don’t have to use it,” he says. “They have more effective and less risky ways to employ him. He has aspirations to be the kind of leader that Putin is, and so he admires him. He likes authoritarian strongmen who act with impunity, without checks and balances. So he’ll try to please Putin.”
Vindman continues, “In the Army we call this ‘free chicken,’ something you don’t have to work for—it just comes to you. This is what the Russians have in Trump: free chicken.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/09/alexander-vindman-trump-putin-useful-idiot/616341/
Baud
@FelonyGovt:
Looking forward to Biden and Harris portraits in federal government offices next year
germy
@The Moar You Know:
I disagree. It’s probably one of those “fancy” words he uses to sound smart.
I suspect he couldn’t spell it, but he probably says it now and then to alpha beltway types.
Kay
They’re all dumb. Kushner and Ivanka are horrible and corrupt but they’re also banal. They’re boring. If you actually listen to them they’re like ever novel you ever read about the idle rich. It’s all this warmed-over vaguely “businessy” blather. You will hear more actual engagement with ideas and more originality at a Rotary Club meeting.
MattF
Where anyone rational sees pathological dishonesty, Trump thinks he’s charming and persuasive. And, no— making an impression on Friedman is not an accomplishment. And…
Baud
OT. Joe is going to talk about the western fires and climate change today.
Betty Cracker
@debbie: The half-way plausible explanation I read is that Woodward felt he had to verify the info Trump gave him about the virus — that checks out since Trump lies about everything. He claims it took weeks and that by the time he’d substantiated Trump’s claims, Trump had briefly changed his tune about the danger before changing it back again and being disastrously inconsistent and irresponsible.
@The Moar You Know: Good point. I’ll have to hear that on tape before believing he used that word correctly in a sentence.
Kay
I loved this story about Kamala Harris’ parents. I think it’s lovely and hopeful but also real, in that it’s complicated. I think we can handle stories like this. We don’t really need this dumbed down bullshit about how Donald Trump is a bidnessman and all the other crap. We could have better national stories. Meatier. More real. We don’t have to settle for this flimsy, invented bullshit. We can have higher quality.
Baud
Baud
@MattF:
You’ll feel differently in six months.
SiubhanDuinne
@Baud:
And I’m looking forward to Biden’s first SOTU, where both of the people behind him on the dais will be women.
germy
Uh oh. That’s gonna hurt Tom’s feelings.
Friedman’s next op-ed is going to be a direct quote from his cab driver or uber driver about Trump’s policies being too weak.
That’s my prediction.
cain
I’m not sure what the hell she’s been taking – but I wonder if she has forgotten who is currently president. It’s like they are already blaming Democrats and Joe for COVID. Jeezus.
It was probably meant as a clever double entendre. Where she’s beating him for his reaction to the pandemic “eg his record”.
Baud
@SiubhanDuinne: Smiling, happy, strong women.
marklar
@germy: Agreed…he thinks it makes him look smart. Plus, the tapes have him using it.
It’s like his use of the word “resolute” or “cofveve.”
It reminds me of the time I was in 7th grade and used a thesaurus before submitting an essay, presuming it made me seem more erudite. My teacher, bless her soul, comment that I should “eschew obfuscation.”
Martin
No. He’s a narcissist. He needs to think he’s doing great and people love him. That is life and death to him, and narcissist lie to themselves to meet that need. He distorts the world to fit that need because in Maslows Hierarchy of Needs for a narcissist, esteem needs sits at most above physiological needs and sometime among physiological needs.
Trump is a person who cannot accept failure. He’s not like you and me who dislike facing our failures or work hard to avoid them, failure is phobic, he will spin a whole new reality to avoid it and he lives in that reality. And part of that reality has always been validated by his ability to sell his stories to tabloid journalists who never really gave a shit if the story was true or not, they just needed their wordcount for the day. That’s why he’s always been fascinated by being on the front page, even if it’s faked. His ability to lie to himself makes it real.
Trump really is a terribly broken person.
Baud
@cain:
Biden has signed zero executive orders since the virus hit. Trump has signed several. Checkmate!
Chyron HR
@cain:
Once the trials start, is she going to change back to “Ronna Romney” or just become “Ronna”?
MisterForkbeard
Is this part of the larger ‘panic’ conversation? If so, I think we’ve pretty conclusively figured out that Trump was talking about preventing a stock market panic and didn’t really give a shit about actual, you know, people.
He’s very, VERY more concerned about his re-election prospects than anything else. He’s saying the economy has to be amazing, and he won’t take actions that might hurt it in any real way.
Martin
@debbie: The tapes are out there, Fox News confirmed the ‘veterans are losers’ story. Not one GOP House or Senate member or Governor has condemned these statements, or called him out for lying, or even stood up stronger for the truth.
If they can’t do that after nearly 200,000 dead, they sure as shit wouldn’t have done it in Feb.
trnc
Of course. The stock market loooooooooves layoff reports for a while, but it eventually starts to notice those laid off people don’t tend to buy much.
germy
McCaskill says it’s stupid for someone running for office to spend hours talking to a journalist?
“Okay, who in their right mind who’s running for office in a year within an election year, sits for 18 interviews with a journalist? This is not a smart thing to do.”
I agree it was dumb of Trump to talk to Woodward. But she almost sounds like Meghan McCain, who said a few days ago “He shouldn’t have to talked to the media! The media is the enemy!”
LongHairedWeirdo
@FelonyGovt: It’s not just Fox News, though – there’s the rest of the right wing “entertainment” industry. (Remember: Rush Limbaugh has always proudly proclaimed himself to be an entertainer, not a journalist. He considers you voting for, e.g., Trump on his recommendation as akin to someone voting for Nixon because he was the kind of fellow Archie Bunker would like.)
(cultural note: All In The Family was a sitcom about the bigoted Archie Bunker, his wife Edith, his daughter Gloria and son-in-law Michael (aka-by-Archie, “the Meathead”). There was some controversy, because while Carroll O’Connor (Archie) was in no way bigoted, his character was, and may have helped normalize certain levels/amounts of bigotry. The key difference here is, everyone knew Archie was just a character in a sitcom; Limbaugh is a dishonest (and less entertaining) old-school-Colbert. (Sorry, Stephen – but yeah, you’ve got an old school stage, and if I’ve seen a bit of silver in your mop, it’s something to cherish, IMHO.) (The “old-school” stage, but the silver can be cherished too – even if you cover it up, ’tis a reminder of the wisdom that age can bring, and, in fact, will try to shove down your throat if you’re not a cranky toddler, arms crossed, like a certain POTUS we all know.))
Martin
@MisterForkbeard: Trump describes himself as a germaphobe. The panic he’s referring to is his own panic. In order for him to function personally, the pandemic had to be trivialized – for everyone.
I can’t say this enough times – Trump lives in a reality designed for one person. That’s what narcissists do. They then force everyone around them to live in that reality. All of the projection he does onto his opponents he also does onto the public.
Gravenstone
Once again proving that he conflates stock market performance with the financial health of the country. Not that this is an uncommon occurrence in the great unwashed, but one might hope for a competent understanding by the person in the White House. Of course, one would first need for that person to be competent on any level…
matt
If you think about how Trump outmaneuvered himself with Woodward, then think about how he’s trying to maneuver in the world with hostile players competing… It’s not pretty. We’ve got the handpicked biggest dunce in the world leading us, and a nihilistic movement of assholes backing him seemingly to the death.
schrodingers_cat
Stupid and evil is a deadly combination
Martin
@germy: No, she’s saying that going into an election year you need to control the message, particularly when that message is not immediate.
Of course Woodward was going to produce a book designed to be the equivalent of the NYT ‘but her emails’ headline, published right before the election. Why would you as a candidate support that, especially when it undercuts everything that you did as part of immediate work with the press?
trollhattan
This Campos post on LGM is all one needs to understand why The Deplorables cannot be reached. They basically need to be walled out of the process by outvoting the everloving fuck of them. You can’t fix stupid and willful stupid is even worse.
SiubhanDuinne
@Baud:
Yup. Kamala and N-Smash.
debbie
@Kay:
They’re walking, breathing PowerPoint presentations.
trollhattan
@Gravenstone:
In his bloated head the markets are probably the only things more important than TV ratings and poll numbers. Everything else…meh.
Gravenstone
@Baud: I suspect he was saving it in order to retain access to Trump. Which of course was itself to allow him to write the book, so not much of a distinction in the end.
germy
@Martin: I don’t even believe him when he calls himself a germaphobe. If he really had that problem he wouldn’t wade into those indoor rallies with his dirty fans screaming in his face.
He lies about everything else. Maybe he made up that particular story to make himself seem complicated and interesting.
Brachiator
And…
Trump is consistent. Incompetent, insistent, needy. He will take a hit from a high ranking male like Woodward because he believes he can lie his way out of any negative publicity in the long run. Which he can with his base.
This Woodward thing is just more confirmation of what we have always seen with Trump. He is stupid and impervious to facts and new information. It’s not so much that he cares about the economy. A bad economy makes him look bad. If people die, even his own supporters, so what. He don’t care.
So, he was in Nevada having a rally with no masks because he gets recharged by rallies.
And he is talking the same nonsense about California fires being a result of Democrats mismanaging forests because he is stubborn and stupid and has absolutely no reason to change.
Somebody once challenged me, said that I only despised Trump because he was a Republican. This reminded me that I once worked for a company where an employee was dangerously incompetent, but kept on because he was a great bullshitter with some political connections. The best my boss could do was to get him transferred to another department where the guy actually got a promotion, but ultimately became so disruptive that keeping him became both damaging and expensive.
This shot is tiresome. It will continue until we can dump Trump’s sorry ass, which hopefully will be very soon.
SiubhanDuinne
@Martin:
Geez. You’re almost making me feel sorry for him.
Knock it off, willya?
Roger Moore
@cain:
Conservatism is a hell of a drug.
Gravenstone
@cain: She’s picking up the ball the Snuffleupagass kindly dropped for her during his Sunday fuckfest when he tried to badger a Biden surrogate about why Biden had done and said so little about the pandemic when it was first getting a foothold.
Ken
“Prisoner 24601” has a nice ring to it.
Baud
@Brachiator:
That’s a challenge?
Betty Cracker
Anyone following the story about the South Dakota AG reporting that he hit a deer this weekend when it turns out he’d actually hit and killed a person? He was driving home from a GOP event at a bar.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Chyron HR: Corona.
Roger Moore
@MisterForkbeard:
He is also making the classic mistake of confusing the stock market with the economy. His administration has been pretty vigorous at taking steps to prop up the stock market but has been unwilling to do much to protect the real economy.
dmsilev
@Chyron HR:
She’ll follow Prince’s example and be known as “The hack formerly known as Ronna”, with her actual name being a poop emoji.
Baud
@Betty Cracker: If a Dem AG did that, it’d be national news.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@trnc:
Neither do dead people.
germy
@Betty Cracker:
SiubhanDuinne
@Betty Cracker:
He apparently has a history of speeding infractions — six tickets between 2014-2018.
cain
@Chyron HR:
I prefer ‘Rona’
debbie
@Martin:
I don’t know. He’s had more practice at failing than most of us.
cain
We must of course add the ‘libtards’ for extra cheekiness :-)
germy
schrodingers_cat
OT is any BJer in the Sri Preston Kulkarni’s district in TX? Where he is running for Congress, he is the challenger.
Thanks.
cain
To republicans, there is no such thing as ‘truth’ – it’s just words to describe reality as others see. They are into reality – their reality – and in their reality – this man can do nothing wrong – their party can do nothing wrong – everything is just hunky dory – and nothing is more amazing than Republicanism.
JoyceH
@germy: My theory on the “germophobe “ business is that it was something his minions made up back in his Trump Organization days to excuse the fact that their boss was just too damn rude to shake hands. And Trump overheard it and adopted it because it made him sound interesting.
germy
@JoyceH: I agree.
He’s not that complicated.
JoyceH
As for Trump’s stupidity, that goes without saying. Anyone who refers to himself on Twitter as “your favorite president, me” has some… cognitive issues.
Jim Appleton
@Baud:
I saw what you did there …
Immanentize
@Martin: Under this theory, Trump knows he has already lost the reelection fight.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@cain: You’ve been watching old episodes of the ‘Colbert Report’ haven’t you?
cain
@Gravenstone:
This is the kind of bullshit that gets me angry – once again Dems are blamed when someone else is in charge and should be on the ball. Now our guy gets badgered? What exactly is he supposed to do? He had already tweeted/talked about that damn virus – that’s the only mouth piece he has – he’s just a citizen.
Ken
@germy: I think I saw that movie. Everyone in the car (except the Final Girl) was killed by the Gorton’s Fisherman.
Martin
@germy: No, he is. We knew that about him from the 80s. That’s been consistent. I mean, it’s not a proper phobia.
But you’re again missing how narcissists work. His fear of germs can be fixed by convincing himself that Covid isn’t dangerous. And he’s VERY good at lying to himself. He needs the rallies because he requires the adulation. So he creates a reality where the rally is safe – not by mandating masks, but by making Covid not dangerous, playing it down so that he can avoid himself panicking. His fear of seeing himself as a loser is greater than his fear of germs.
germy
@cain: Only Democrats have agency. Murc’s Law.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Ken: Slade Gorton was a Republican Senator from Washington, just sayin’.
Ruckus
@Kay:
A Rotary Club meeting? That is low ball right there, that is.
Almost as bad as the Chamber of Commerce. I was once asked to speak at a Chamber meeting about my business. I thought it was intended to introduce my business to the community. Silly idiot boy that I was.
They asked me to make a “donation” so I could speak and the questions they asked were insulting in the least. A more useless group of pompous arrogant assholes would be difficult to find. I’m sure I could though at any trump event.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Actually the surprising bit is Trump doesn’t see how others are using this to lead Trump around by the nose. Woodword got Trump to spill his guts on the vaguest of promises that Woodword’s next book wouldn’t be a hatchet job.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Martin: Howard Hughes became a germaphobe in his later years, he also became a recluse partly due to it. I’ve never bought into the whole ‘Trump is a germaphobe’, it’s another lie.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Maybe, it’s not like talking Trump into stupid shit is hard to do, as Woodword just proved. I mean all it would have take is the Russians making vague threats they have “something” and what passes for a mind with Trump will do the rest.
Just One More Canuck
@schrodingers_cat: Stupid, evil and crazy is worse
Brachiator
@Baud:
Somebody once challenged me, said that I only despised Trump because he was a Republican.
Yeah, it is. The presumption is that liberals would support anything that a president who was a Democrat did, no matter how stupid or corrupt he was.
Ruckus
@Martin:
Exactly.
A very broken, mentally diseased senior citizen. (And yes as a senior citizen myself I’m calling him old and infirm.)
Immanentize
@Betty Cracker: I saw the first report of the accident. I had no idea about the “deer.” Was the deer named Kopechne?
cain
I don’t have cable so I have never watched a full show. I must be on the right track! :D
Immanentize
@dmsilev: That is funny!
schrodingers_cat
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Also the teetotaler thing feels like a lie.
Ruckus
@Roger Moore:
Funny isn’t it, how a lot of wealthy people think the stock market is the economy, while it’s actually not a bad indicator of how much the wealthy are taking out of the economy.
germy
@Ruckus:
I had some encounters with Chamber of Commerce people about fifteen years ago, and my impression of them was the same as yours.
But this year, I was surprised to see this:
Marking a shift, U.S. Chamber of Commerce endorses 23 freshmen House Democrats
Roger Moore
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
I think Lt. Col. Vindman is basically correct: the Russians don’t have to blackmail Trump because he’s so eager to please Putin anyway.
Kathleen
@Baud: Non. Effing. Stop. News
Immanentize
@Brachiator:
Well, that’s one of the reasons….
Ruckus
@SiubhanDuinne:
I wonder how many of those should have involved a breathalyzer test but didn’t because of his position?
germy
@Roger Moore:
Chuck Todd: “Free chicken! Ahhhhgh…” [Drools in anticipation like Homer Simpson]
Immanentize
@germy: I saw that as the Chamber reading the billboard sized tea leaves and trying to get a little hedge for the coming four years.
Roger Moore
@schrodingers_cat:
I believe Trump refuses to drink alcohol because he was scared by what happened to his older brother, but I don’t believe that scared him away from other drugs.
Martin
@Immanentize: Sort of. It’s this constant struggle between catching a glimpse of something you can’t handle, and then rewriting the world to make it go away because you can’t handle it.
Think of the trope where a character finds evidence their spouse is cheating on them or their kid is doing something bad, and they spin these internal narratives to explain the behavior to protect them from the truth – until the climax when it breaks through when it can no longer be avoided. Trump does that to himself, except he’s been able to avoid the climax of this behavior for six decades, thanks to money and whatnot.
Trump can say the right thing at the podium, because he knows what the right thing ought to be, but then something happens where he needs to protect himself, so he rewrites that – he throws the right thing away. That’s why you can’t trust what he says, because it will always be overruled by his need to protect himself. Would he seize power? He’ll say no, right up until the moment he decides it’s the only way to protect himself.
Does that mean he will? No. It means there’s no way of knowing. Even he doesn’t know. But it’s possible. With previous presidents it wasn’t possible – they knew they couldn’t bring themselves to do it – not even Nixon. Trump doesn’t have those limitations.
oldster
I’m glad that McCaskill attacks him, but irritated about the grounds of her attack.
She does not attack him for not being wise or smart. She attacks him for not being *savvy*.
She thinks it is funny that he did not know what any savvy, inside-the-Beltway, well-connected Washington politician should know.
Well, fuck that noise.
The problem with Trump is not his lack of savvy. It’s his lack of brains, insight, and good judgements. As well as his lack of decency and morals.
She could have criticized his inability to understand his security briefings. She could have pointed out that he gets suckered by Putin, Erdogan, and Kim all playing him like a fiddle. She could have castigated his ignorance of science, and his refusal to listen to experts.
Instead, she feeds the cult of savvy. It’s a bit sickening.
Brachiator
@Martin:
He’s also one of those rich people who believes that he can easily buy a drug or exotic treatment such as light injected bleach or plasma replacement to cure him if he got sick.
This delusion is helped along by the fact that Trump is ignorant of science. His fear of germs is simplistic.
SiubhanDuinne
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Agreed. I think he started really claiming germaphobia* in late 2016 in an attempt to discredit the ‘pee tape’ rumours.
*I know he had long been averse to shaking hands, but there are lots of reasons why people don’t like to shake hands. And it’s hard to believe that a true germaphobe would walk up to women and just start kissing them or grabbing their genitalia.
Ruckus
@debbie:
Hopefully that’s tongue in cheek because Martin is correct, a narcissist can not accept failure and shitforbrains is a narcissist, deluxe model. That means that he can not admit failure in any way, his life, per his telling will aways be A++. He always gets the bestest women, has far more money than at least almost everyone else, etc, etc. It’s so many lies he has no idea what any truth is and he’s got the mental acuity of a diseased fence post.
Martin
@Ruckus: Eh. It’s a dick measuring contest. Everyone knows the Dow is a shitty indicator of anything, yet they treat it like the most important thing ever. It’s a religion. Change the units to quatloos and they’d still revere it.
Baud
@Brachiator:
I’d be satisfied if liberals supported Democratic presidents who made difficult policy choices that have us only 90% of the ponies we asked for.
JPL
@Betty Cracker:
from the reporting
Baud
@Baud: have = gave
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Brachiator: The appropriate response is “I hated him when he called himself a Democrat too”.
germy
@JPL:
He called 911 after he thought he’d hit a deer?
I’ve never hit a deer. Is that something one does?
Kropacetic
I thought pee was sterile.
NeenerNeener
@Baud: I see what you did there.
Barbara
@cain: So, Ronna you admit that the response to covid has been a disaster — you do know that Trump is president, right?
Seriously, I wish they would all drop dead at this point. The level of idiocy and dishonesty is just too extreme.
germy
WASHINGTON — The top communications official at the powerful cabinet department in charge of combating the coronavirus accused career government scientists on Sunday of “sedition” in their handling of the pandemic and warned that left-wing hit squads were preparing for armed insurrection after the election.
Michael Caputo, 58, the assistant secretary of public affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services, said without evidence that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was harboring a “resistance unit” determined to undermine President Trump.
Mr. Caputo, who has faced criticism for leading efforts to warp C.D.C. weekly bulletins to fit Mr. Trump’s pandemic narrative, suggested that he personally could be in danger.
“You understand that they’re going to have to kill me, and unfortunately, I think that’s where this is going,” Mr. Caputo, a Trump loyalist installed by the White House in April, told followers in a video he hosted live on his personal Facebook page.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/14/us/caputo-virus.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
Martin
@germy: Depending on where you live, yeah. My roommate in college was from NW PA, and apparently something like one in three people who live up there will hit a deer at some point in their life. Super common.
My dad spent a few months as a claim adjuster as part of his career advancement and was shocked at how common it was for people to hit moose, and how massive the damage was to the car, and how unlikely it was for the driver to survive (moose are tall enough that the whole 1000lb carcass comes right through the windshield).
JPL
@germy: Do we know what time he reported the deer hit? They didn’t search until the next morning, so it’s possible he saw the dent and panicked. just guessing.
The event ended at 8:30 and it takes about a hour to drive ot Highmore according to google. He said that he hit the deer at 10:30. I assume he gets the Ted Kennedy treatment.
Eolirin
@germy: What the actual fuck…
germy
Immanentize
@germy: One usually calls a tow truck. When you hit a deer, your car loses.
Roger Moore
@germy:
This is my least favorite term from the Trump era. Just call it a lie already.
Betty Cracker
@oldster: In McCaskill’s defense, she often rakes Trump over the coals for being incompetent and idiotic in handling the domestic and foreign policy aspects of the job. But the topic that day was how he stupidly blabbed to Woodward, so the rant was on point. You don’t have to be a super-savvy politician to know not to blurt out damning confessions to a journalist who has already written one book about your dysfunctional White House and is prepping another to drop right before an election. Any fool would know that.
SiubhanDuinne
@Kropacetic:
You think Trump knows that?
Elizabelle
@Betty Cracker: Deer shouldn’t have had its earphones in. Situational awareness, deer!
Hmmm. Event from 5:00 to 8:30. Roosters Bar and Grill, Redfield, to Highmore is about 70 miles, so about an hour’s drive.
Incident called in at 10:30 p. Hmmm.
Sunset is 7:49 p CDT in Highmore tonight, so guess it was full dark.
Elizabelle
@JPL: You and I were doing the same calculations.
Elizabelle
@germy: I hope that means Caputo will be departing, pronto.
Who knows, though, given the “quality” of this White House.
germy
Jacob Wohl’s friend was raided:
Immanentize
@Elizabelle: That means the guy was smashed, so they are handing it off to another State(?) to bring the justice down on the killer. Cell phone records can be a bitch.
catclub
@Elizabelle: I remember the lawyer in some book, immediately after being in an accident, goes into a bar and drinks a LOT, so any breathalyzer test is useless. Waiting until
morning and not reporting is another way to avoid one.
germy
The Deep State Strikes Back
Immanentize
@Elizabelle: Hmm, the guy who was killed in the crash was named Joe Boever, age 55. I remember a relief pitcher named Joe Bouver from the 80’s?
ETA. Looked it up. The pitcher Joe Boever is age 59. I remember him from the Astros.
JPL
@Elizabelle: It will be interesting to see when he or an aide called about the accident.
germy
@Elizabelle: Wasn’t Caputo originally Roger Stone’s chauffer?
I can’t keep their backstories straight anymore.
The “Life On Venus” thing leads me to believe the writers of this particular miniseries we’re living in are planning a Huge season 5, though.
different-church-lady
We gotta remember something about the Trump Rules that will help us stay sane for the next month and a half: the dumber the thing he does, the more his base loves it. Because his base is made up of real-life bullies and trolls. And bullies and trolls know that the less sense something makes, the more infuriating it is to the target.
So don’t expect this to make a difference to a single one of the base. Instead, focus on the persuadeables.
JPL
Although I haven’t hit a deer, they can do tremendous damage to the car. I’d assume that you report it immediately because you want to insure that the deer is off the highway, and other cars are not in danger.
Immanentize
@JPL: This is another good point about hitting deer. They don’t necessarily go down immediately and stay down. They tend to run around some in the road.
Brachiator
@germy:
Charles Manson would envy the devotion of Trump cultists.
germy
https://www.thedailybeast.com/jacob-wohl-staged-fake-fbi-raid-on-business-partner-actor-hired-for-production-says?ref=wrap
Ruckus
@germy:
I think the US Chamber has a different outlook than a lot of local outfits. My exposure was like a closed circle of self worth importance. The US version has a bigger picture to work with.
SiubhanDuinne
@Immanentize:
Not the same guy. Different spelling, different age, inter alia.
ETA: I see you got there on your own while I was googling and typing.
Roger Moore
@germy:
Apparently not. The latest is that Wohl staged a fake FBI raid; they’ve contacted actors who were involved and were able to provide documents. I’m not sure what the point of claiming to have been raided is.
Immanentize
I ❤️ Biden:
“You know what is actually threatening our suburbs?” Joe Biden says. “Fires.”
Elizabelle
More on the story from KELOLand TV news.
The SD Highway Patrol will be investigating, and the Rapid City Journal newspaper today says it’s now the North Dakota Bureau of Criminal Investigation that will assist.
Immanentize
@SiubhanDuinne: Yeah I caught that.
ETA. But same spelling? What’s different?
FelonyGovt
@cain: This (the whataboutism and blaming the Democrats) explains some of the framing I’m seeing from Republicans on my FB timeline. I posted that cartoon about the Titanic “I saw the iceberg an hour ago but I didn’t want to cause a panic”, and a wing nut I know responded with some blather about Nancy Pelosi encouraging everyone to party in Chinatown during February. WTF???
Geminid
@Immanentize: I’ve hit deer twice and gotten away with dents, and I never reported it because it is so common. I’ve also known people who ran off the road for various reasons and told the cops a deer had jumped in front of them. If this politician reported a deer collision, it’s almost certain that he knew he hit a human and is cobbling together a defense on the hit and run. South Dakota had another republican involved in a vehicular homicide, when Congressman and four time governor Janklow sped through a stop sign and killed a motorcyclist in 2003.
germy
Brachiator
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Yep. I noted that Trump has claimed to be a Republican, a Democrat and an Independent. But he has always been a lying dipshit.
SiubhanDuinne
@Immanentize:
And now I see news reports are spelling the victim’s name “Boever” instead of the earlier “Bouver.” No idea how common a surname that is — maybe a distant cousin to the pitcher (who briefly relieved for the Atlanta Braves).
Elizabelle
@Immanentize: Yeah, saw that.
Since the Crow Creek and Lower Brule reservations are due south of the impact point, I wondered if the vic had been a Native American.
Photo in newscast shows a white guy with a mustache.
Immanentize
@FelonyGovt: The Chinatown thing is February was to get people to stop being stupid racists — way before restaurants were shut down, people were protesting and boycotting Chinese restaurants in American cities because, Chinese.
germy
Well, Jesus. I mean, I would hope so.
Elizabelle
From that KELOLand article:
Sounds like Mr. Boever might have been standing near where his truck had gone off the road.
Plus, note that the AG had hours to sober up before anyone found the hit and run vic’s body.
One wonders a tad about Mr. Boever’s blood alcohol, too. Why did his vehicle leave the road?
Ruckus
@Martin:
True.
Although some do actually make money at manipulating the market, so for them, it could be considered an economy.
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@germy: Yes, for a variety of reasons. Your car can be totaled from hitting a deer. And sometimes the animal is badly injured but not dead and you need someone to put it down (my brother has done this when people hit deer and just left them.) The dead animal may need to be moved off a busy road. I live in Connecticut, we are up to our butts in deer and deer strikes happen on our roads ALL the time. Also beaver, skunks, possum, turkey, bears. And once a mountain lion on the connector (yes I am serious!)
Immanentize
@Geminid: You are luckier than me — my dad hit a deer when we were all kids and in the car and we stopped almost dead. The deer was still trying to get up. It was horrible. And the car was a big ass chrysler (mid 60’s) Then I hit a deer on a country road outside Hondo Texas and it was a smallish doe but still smashed in my right front quarter panel. It was clear what I hit because I friggin SAW it when I hit it.
Ruckus
@Kropacetic:
Probably not his. He knows where it’s been……
Chyron HR
@oldster:
I’ll take “Can you believe how dumb Trump is” over Killer Mike swooning over Brian Kemp any day.
Roger Moore
@FelonyGovt:
There was apparently a thing back in February where people were afraid to go to Chinatown for the Chinese New Year’s celebration because of fears of COVID. A number of Democratic politicians said people were being stupid because Chinatown wasn’t China, and there was no indication that going there was risky. Trump apologists like to bring it up as a tu quoque response.
Quinerly
If true, HOLY FUCKING SHIT
https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/like-an-experimental-concentration-camp-whistleblower-complaint-alleges-mass-hysterectomies-at-ice-detention-center/
Ruckus
@Martin:
Have stood within about 10-15 ft of one at the south rim of the Grand Canyon and I can tell you without doubt that is correct. Big ass animal. I’m just shy of 6 ft and his shoulders were well above my head.
Gin & Tonic
@EmbraceYourInnerCrone: That mountain lion came from South Dakota, in a weird coincidence (no, I’m not making that up either.)
Ruckus
@Eolirin:
It’s 21st century republican politics. There is no basis in reality for anything they say, do or want. Or should I say 21st century republican bullshit? Far more accurate.
Elizabelle
The plot thickens in South Dakota. The victim’s cousin, Nick Nemec, is a farmer and former Democratic legislator. Who has had some choice words for Trump and his tariffs and its effects on the farm market.
And the story has hit CBS News.
I don’t doubt drivers speed in those wide open spaces, but six speeding tickets in 6 years? (That are on his record …)
Last, poor Abraham Lincoln, to get namechecked at events for today’s rightwing reactionaries. I truly think the Democrats should start having Lincoln Dinners. Get people thinking on how all today’s GOP shares with Honest Abe is the party name.
Ruckus
@Immanentize:
I watched the guy in front of me, on I-71 northbound, north of Columbus, OH hit a deer during daylight. I expected a lot of damage but he just kept driving normally. And as I saw the deer run across the southbound lanes and across the median and had plenty of time to slow down I’m not sure about the driver ahead of me but his car was not spectacularly damaged. Must have just been the exception to the rule.
oldster
@Betty Cracker:
Oh, all right. If you’re going to bring in issues like context, relevance, and her track-record elsewhere, then you’re just going to spoil my rant. Kill joy!
StringOnAStick
@germy: What Caputo heard, “resistance”, is a working group at the CDC about “antibiotic resistance”. Jesus, what a moron that guy is, no wonder Putin had little trouble turning him.
Immanentize
@Ruckus: Thank goodness for everyone! Maybe I am the unlucky deer hunter.
trollhattan
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
“Donny insisted on using a condom.”
–No woman, ever
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
That’s the nicest thing said about him in a long time.
Immanentize
@StringOnAStick: Is that true? What a maroon!
trollhattan
@Elizabelle:
Well that’s it then, just a regrettable accident.
Immanentize
@trollhattan: counting down to the pictures of the AG doing body shots of tequila at the Lincoln happy hour.
Elizabelle
@Immanentize:
My condolences on witnessing that deer hit in childhood. Would have been awful.
Ruckus
@Quinerly:
That is way, way, way past HOLLY FUCKING SHIT.
So far past that it is indescribably bad.
Ruckus
@Immanentize:
I’d bet not. A lot more people have major damage than don’t and as I said I was expecting a lot worse. And the guy just drove on past the next exit. It was a small car, compact sized, I imagine it was pure luck.
JPL
@Quinerly: That article made me sick. At this point, I can’t let myself think trump will win.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@germy: Oh yeah. Mostly at dusk or dawn. That’s when deer are on the move. Sometimes they hit you.
Just one of the things I learned after moving from Detroit to Iowa.
Quinerly
@Ruckus: I can’t find anyone else reporting it. Came up in http://www.memeorandum.com. Pretty sure Abrams’s site is reputable. I remember when he was on MSNBC years ago.
JPL
@Immanentize: Friends hit a deer in PA, and the cat escaped out of the car when they stopped. They were about a hour from Penn State where they both taught. They put signs up all over the near by town, and several months later received a phone call that someone found the cat. They then bought a crate to leave in the car for the cat.
Quinerly
@JPL: I’m numb. Dr. is probably huge GOP donor. Government paying him exorbitant amts per procedure. I guess nothing surprises me now.
Immanentize
@Elizabelle: Thank you. It wasn’t exactly Jim Morrison’s dead Indians on the highway, fragile eggshell bodies — but it was really freaky and scary.
Immanentize
@Quinerly: It’s so terrible I’m not allowing myself to consider it right now. I have to teach in half an hour. But I don’t doubt it could be true.
Benw
Damn I just read the Woodward book highlights over at Slate, and damn Trump is an astonishingly, jaw-droppingly vain and stupid man. Damn
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Ruckus: Kid saw a moose on her bike ride up in Anchorage.
rikyrah
@debbie:
Phuck Outta Here ?
Geminid
@Immanentize: I was lucky. The deer were medium sized and crouched to run when I hit them, so their centers of gravity were low. My passenger asked me to stop for one but it gone.
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
She didn’t have a lock on her bike to keep the moose from riding it?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: It was a rental.
Ruckus
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Hope she was farther away from it than I was.
This was in the living quarters area in the middle of the park area. It’s a short cut to the store/laundry and I was on my way to do wash. Kids playing, nice neighborhood. All the kids got quiet and all walked away from the animal, which was coming up behind me. That’s what made me turn around and decide to just follow the kids. They live there I didn’t and I’d bet they were instructed to quietly just walk the hell away. They all did without any discussion. I didn’t need to be convinced.
Barbara
@germy:
This is such bullshit. My husband grew up in a rural part of the state, and to get anywhere not rural, you had to go on a road with long stretches of forest where no one lives. Every time we drive through it at night we are on high alert for deer, because nearly everyone in his family has hit a deer along that stretch at one time or another. You KNOW when you hit a deer because deer are LARGE. They do sometimes run off, but in that case, there would be no body lying near your vehicle.
Elizabelle
The NY Times has a story up on the South Dakota AG and it is — markedly different from the other articles I’ve reviewed since Betty C put up the link.
In that the Times barely mentions the deer. It’s literally the last word in the story. Mentioned once. Giving you the story in full.
NY Times: South Dakota Attorney General Is Involved in Fatal Car Crash
Gov. Kristi Noem said that the attorney general, Jason Ravnsborg, was in a car crash on Saturday night that left one person dead. Mr. Ravnsborg said he was “fully cooperating with the investigation.”
Link to the Argus Leader article.
From the Argus Leader:
Betty Cracker
I’ve had deer jump in front of my car twice since we moved to the woods a couple of years back. Both times, I was only going about 15 MPH due to the shitty road, so no one got hurt. The feral hogs have the good sense to wait until the car passes. They are smarter than the deer, I suspect.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Ruckus: She got video of it while she rode by, maybe 15 feet away in the forest along the trail.
Elizabelle
@Barbara: I’m thinking Mr. Boever was hit at high speed and thrown into the field abutting the road. Field was down an embankment.
Argus Leader website has photo of field where Boever’s truck hit the haybale. Front page (ie. no wasting a click on their paywall.) https://www.argusleader.com/news/
Sounds like Mr. Boever may have been walking when hit.
Gravenstone
@Ruckus: Years ago had a couple of kids I knew from high school come blasting past me at 70+ on a county highway at night. As they pulled ahead of me I saw a blur to their left, then saw their car physically jump as they slammed into a deer. They somehow managed to pull over, even though the impact had sprung the hood, which then folded back over the windshield. This turned out to be fortunate because you could see the channel where the deer carcass had carved out the fiberglass insulation lining the hood. The deer was fortunately quite dead after all this. They managed to get the hood back down, and I ended up towing them to the cousin of one who happened to own a body shop. I’m pretty sure there was never a police report about that one.
SiubhanDuinne
@Elizabelle:
Given all those speeding tickets the AG collected in a matter of just a few years, there’s very little doubt in my mind that he was speeding when he hit Boever.
I would never be allowed to serve on a jury.
germy
Brachiator
@Elizabelle:
Odd. I usually associate a “car crash” with a car hitting another vehicle or some object that is not a human being or an animal.
Sad story.
Sab
@Betty Cracker: Cleveland Ohio had a terrible but true story about ten(?) years ago where several drivers called in a dead woman on the side of the highway. 911 dispatchers sent some cops to check it out and they reported back it was only a dead deer. Next mornimg it was obvious to commuters that the body was a woman not a dead deer. Cleveland’s finest.
I am not normaly anti-cop. My city’s cops aren’t perfect but most of them try. But Cleveland’s are their own private gang on the public payroll doing not much that’s useful.
germy
Okay then.
Ken
@germy: I’m possibly being unfair, but I take it the judge made the ruling from his sterile basement COVID bunker, where he’s been working since March?
Sab
@Ruckus: So you never were a Jaycee?
ETA: Sorry. I agree the Sr. Chamber pf Commerce is worse than the Jr. branch. Jaycees training to be pompous idiots.
geg6
@germy:
If it’s a bad enough accident, you call 911 for sure. You may need an ambulance. I would ballpark the proportion of people around here (30 miles northwest of Pittsburgh) who have hit a deer at least once to be at least 30 to 40%. I know several people who have done it more than once. I also know of several people who were grievously injured or died from it.
SiubhanDuinne
O/T: I just heard a snippet of Trump saying “I talked to the head of a major country” and then something about exploding trees.
Who describes a president or a premier or a monarch as “the head of a major country”? Nobody, that’s who. You say something like “Angela Merkel” or “the King of Sweden.” Either he’s totally lying and didn’t have any such conversation (100% likely) or he’s too far into dementia-related befuddlement to remember the name of either the “head” or the “major country” (also 100% likely).
Elizabelle
@Brachiator:
Yeah. The NY Times’ story was written by a new reporter (Fellowship class of 2020-21), and “car crash” is the wrong word here. What we are looking at is an alleged hit and run. (FWIW, “car crash” always makes me think the vehicle has been stopped.)
If the Times story was the first you read, you would come away with a wholly different idea of what transpired.
The WaPost put up a short AP story which was an informative headline. In full:
South Dakota investigators: Attorney general reported hitting deer but actually killed man whose body was found next day
Less confusing than the NY Times, in only 18 words.
Steeplejack (phone)
@germy:
Trump doesn’t get close to his fans.
Gravenstone
@germy: No one explain to him how air conditioning works.
Elizabelle
@germy: Does anybody ever ask him. “OK. You’re safe. Do you ever worry at all about your audience?”
They should. He should be shamed. (He’s already putting his staff and the Secret Service at risk — several have gone out with COVID.)
Sab
@geg6: I hit a deer once. It was big. They are kind of distinctive. They have brown fur, four legs, and often antlers. Deer hit by cars often get away to die or recover in the woods. You have tufts of very distinctive fur in parts of your car. Human pedestrians usually fall over. So he assumed it was a deer and couldn’t be bothered to check. Also couldn’t be bothered to check if it was injured and needed help. What a guy.
ETA also could have been a family dog. What a guy.
Annie
Here’s a story from the San Francisco Bay Area about somebody else who claimed he’d hit a deer:
https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2009/01/15/appeals-court-upholds-conviction-in-2005-hit-and-run-that-killed-moraga-woman/
Betty Cracker
@SiubhanDuinne: JFC. IIRC, when Trump first starting babbling about raking forests a couple of years ago, he attributed the idea to the Finnish president (name escapes me) with the marvelous Boston Terrier. He (the Finnish president, not the terrier) was baffled by Trump’s claim.
Geminid
@germy: Well, Manchin, Kaine, Casey and Sinema aren’t up for reelection until 2024, and it’s too late to primary Jones. What is Mr. Cohn suggesting?
Elizabelle
@SiubhanDuinne: I looked at some of those records.
Appears the speeding convictions were pled down from what would more likely be reckless driving. 5 to 10 miles over the speed limit? Come on.
Six speeding tickets in SD, and two in Iowa.
Ah, here’s the KELOLand item:
FWIW, 85 mph or doing 20 mph above the speed limit triggers reckless driving in Virginia.
I know people speed out west, with the long stretches of empty and flat highway.
But six convictions? Why does this guy keep coming to the attention of the highway patrol and police?
MisterForkbeard
@germy: Jesus H Christ. And doesn’t care at all about the people in the crowd that AREN’T far away.
Dude just keeps showing he’s a monster, over and over.
Chyron HR
@Geminid:
Stay home in November to punish The Democrats.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@SiubhanDuinne: Trump thinks of countries like they’re companies, he’s a businessman, so the leader of a country is the head of the country. He also thinks running a country is like running his small family business as we’ve seen.
Elizabelle
@Annie: What a prince. A Napa CA financial consultant.
Turned in by his own sister. And yeah, that deer was wearing earrings. But: three years. For killing someone with a car.
He impressed the appeals panel, too.
Relieved to be obsessed with something other than Trump.
Origuy
I saw a dead bear on the side of Interstate 80 once. It was in the Blue Canyon area, about 40 miles west of Truckee. Probably not a full grown adult, but I’ll bet it made a dent.
SiubhanDuinne
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
You’re right. I’m reminded of that episode a few years ago when he tried to negotiate with the Danish PM to buy Greenland. Real “art of the deal” stuff.
Chris Johnson
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Well, I hope she got her bike back when it was done!
SiubhanDuinne
@Elizabelle:
Inorite? It’s like he’s a common Matt Gaetz or something.
Geminid
@Sab: Among other freshman Representatives, I follow Congresswomen Abigail Spanberger(D-VA) and Sharice Davids (D-KS). They both received endorsements from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Both have tough races in purple districts, so I was glad to see the endorsements. Spanburger’s republican challenger has strong backing from the Club for Growth.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Chris Johnson: You’re on the list with Baud.
Brachiator
@Sab:
I would not stop to check on a deer at night. I would not know how to render any help and would not want to be hurt by a wounded animal. At most I might try to call 911. I don’t know if there are any official traffic laws that cover this situation. It never came up in the ancient days when I took high school driver’s education courses.
Years ago I was a passenger in a car that almost hit a deer. This alone freaked us out. Pre cell phone days, we didn’t call anyone even to note that deer were around. But there may have been some deer crossing signs, so maybe it was assumed that drivers would be alert.
That a person was killed makes this a larger tragedy. We’ll see, I guess, what happens after it is investigated.
Barbara
@Elizabelle: What would he say? He would say: They chose to be there.
laura
@JPL: Forced sterilization is “A Thing” and has been used far longer and far wider than anyone would know. My dear friends mother was sterilized after she had just delivered my friend. Her dad was career military and the birth was at a military hospital- and her mom didnt find out until years later after trying to conceive. No consent -let alone informed consent. The shame and pain and rage of this practice of racially motivated cruelty remains close to the surface. It can and does happen here.
Barbara
@Annie: A woman in Northern Virginia hit a 15 year old girl as she was speeding home after having been to a bar. The girl was walking on the side of the road after having gotten into a fight with her family and left the vehicle to walk home and said that she thought she had hit an animal. The driver called the police when she got home. She ended up spending a year in jail.
The thing is, as I said above, hitting a dear is pretty memorable and most LEOs in areas like this know what it’s like and have been to the scene of many such incidents.
Kay
Texas as a even a possible long shot swing state in presidential elections has to scare the shit out of the GOP. It’s going to happen, too, if not this cycle then in the next couple. It’s like Democrats losing California. What do they replace it with?
Elizabelle
This was mentioned upstream by a jackal, but — wow. Just read this in full.
NY Times story about CDC spokesman Michael Caputo. He has literally advised his Facebook readers to buy ammo, because Biden will not concede when he loses to Trump.
FACEBOOK. Again, Facebook allows this crap to be posted. He is saying this shit, and has 5,000 followers.
Call your Republican senators and congressweasels and ask where they stand on this. Is this someone who belongs in charge of communicating about COVID response?
Honestly. This one is worth a click to read in full. It’s way more complicated than the excerpts I pull here.
This is how he describes the scientists at his own agency:
Venial sin? Not mortal??
NY Times:
Trump Health Aide Falsely Alleges Conspiracies and Warns of Armed Revolt
Michael Caputo, the assistant secretary of health for public affairs, told a Facebook audience without evidence that left-wing hit squads were being trained for insurrection, and he accused C.D.C. scientists of “sedition.”
Crazy train. In charge of what he says is a $250 million budget.
How much of that, if it exists, is going into Trump pockets to get them back to normal??
prostratedragon
Apropos the title:
Remember this one from SNL? I’d forgot who played Buckley (perfectly).
trnc
That buys him maybe a couple of months, even with the head fake toward responsibility. While Woodward was “substantiating” DT’s claims, the newspaper he works for published dozens of stories that made it clear DT was prioritizing politics over a proper response.
In fact, the only real difference between what the Washington Post was writing back in the spring and Woodward wrote in his just released book are the recordings. In fact, I’m confident that if Farenthold had gotten “It’s also more deadly than even your strenuous flus” on tape February 7th, we would have heard it by April. He sure as shit wouldn’t have waited until last week.
Elizabelle
@Barbara: I remember that story. Korean teenager. Last act was having an argument with her mother, leaving the car, refusing to get back in, mom drove off, and then killed in a hit and run. Heartbreaking for her family.
I think the woman who hit her was an attorney, if memory serves.
Brachiator
@SiubhanDuinne:
Especially if you are Minnie the Moocher.
Trump typically falls back on “I heard” or an appeal to a poorly defined authority when he is making shit up.
This should be referenced in his next book, “The Art of the Grift,” which I would like to see him write after he gets out of prison for his crimes.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Elizabelle: Wow, what a loon.
Geminid
@Elizabelle: I think AG Ravensborg knew it wasn’t a deer he hit. A lot of people drive off after hitting pedestrians, and most of the time they get caught.
Elizabelle
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I think the NY Times reporter dropped her jaw reading the Facebook post. I wonder if it’s still up …
prostratedragon
@Elizabelle: Thought at first you meant the reporter’s jaw, which may have some difficulty staying up for a while.
“Shadows on the ceiling?!” [shudder]
Miss Bianca
@Betty Cracker: Holy shit.
Ken
Really brings the psychological picture into sharp focus, doesn’t it?
NotMax
@Brachiator
Have never hit a deer. But have had a deer hit me.
After sunset was driving on a two-lane road, running below grade with farm fields on either side. There are slopes going up from the ditches at the side of the road to the fields, with tall grass and weeds obscuring view of the fields.
Anyway, driving along when a deer came bounding over the weeds on one side, landing smack on the hood and leaping off to run to the other side of the road.
Did a number on the hood and the grill. Only engine damage was putting the air conditioning out of commission. When got to my nearby destination I did call the non-emergency police number to let them know where it had happened in case the animal was injured. Police chuckled while looking at the hoof prints on the hood (which I did end up having to replace).
NotMax
@SiubhanDuinne
Ivanka instructed him in no uncertain terms not to say “Putin.”
//
Gvg
@germy: I did. It’s easy to remember and you don’t always know what the correct law enforcement district you are in in the middle of the night on back roads.
you need a police report for insurance usually. In my case, I also shouldn’t have driven home afterward because even though it didn’t look like that much damage, the deer got my radiator and it almost ran dry. In the dark, it’s hard to tell these things.
a deer hit my sister in her nearly brand new car. It was panicked, running on the sidewalk beside her and evidently kicked the side of her car as she passed it. She wasn’t sure till the next morning that anything had happened.
Deer in the dark are hard to see and don’t stay in your headlights. I find it easy to believe someone could hit a person out in the country, and not know or think it was a deer. A person outside can see a lot better than someone inside a car. Car glass really does cut visibility down.
this guy was leaving a bar and was probably drunk, but don’t be surprised if the person he hit was also drinking.
Geminid
@Geminid: One hit and run driver who was not caught killed Jacinta Eagle Deer along a southern Nebraska highway in 1975. She was from the Rosebud Sioux reservation, and the previous year had filed a petition to have William Janklow disbarred from practicing in tribal courts. She claimed Janklow had raped her 9 years before when she was 15. She was babysitting for Janklow at the time. Janklow was ultimately barred from the Rosebud tribal courts, but the accusation did not prevent him from winning the South Dakota Attorney General race, and going on to win four terms as Governor and one term as U.S. Congressman. A year into his congressional term he blew through a stop sign and killed a motorcyclist who had the right of way. It was reported that Janklow had been stopped for speeding many, many times, but was given warnings because he was governor. He also liked to speed through stop signs on lightly traveled roads. Janklow plead guilty to manslaughter and resigned his congressional seat. Peter Matthieson wrote of the story of Janklow and Jancita Eagle Deer in his book about the reservation FBI agent killings for which Leonard Peltier is still imprisoned. I think the book title is In the Footsteps of Crazy Horse. After Ms. Eagle Deer’s highway death, her stepmother pressed her case against Janklow until she herself was killed a year later in an unsolved murder.
Elizabelle
@prostratedragon:
Also from the NY Times story:
No one forced Caputo to take and keep that job. In fact, he’s in there to sabotage Azar and the CDC professionals and scientists. He supports Trump, who is personally responsible for undermining and sabotaging the nation’s COVID response and preparation.
Caputo converted to Roman Catholicism. He speaks of “venial” sins, although facilitating mass murder sounds like a mortal one, to me.
Per wiki, he joined the Army out of high school, got a university degree once out, and has devoted his career to truly awful people (with the exception of Yeltsin, who definitely had some good qualities). Roger Stone. Vladimir Putin. Carl Paladino. Trump.
He was already nuts, but sounds like he is cracking up in real time.
Gvg
@Barbara: not all deer hits are that memorable. The ones you remember, scare you or cost a lot of money sure, but sometimes they just graze you and you aren’t sure what that was or if it was anything.
I’ve known both circumstances. Daylight makes things a lot clearer. I think the AG probably did drink and or drive recklessly. I also think there is something off about the victim being there on foot. I predict he was drinking too.
i do recall though, that Florida deer are considered small compared to the rest of the country, so maybe my experience isn’t typical.
i looked for the deer I hit and couldn’t find it till the next day in daylight. Night time with woods and whatnot is just not easy to see anything. And a deer what’s more likely than a person there.
Geminid
@Geminid: Correction: Pter Matthieson’s book was titled In the Spirit of Crazy Horse. It was published in 1983. William Janklow sued Matthieson for defamation; the lawsuit was eventually dismissed. The Ravnsborg case reminded me of Janklow. Ravnsborg spoke of “moving on.” I’m hoping this hit and run ends his political career.
Miss Bianca
@Gvg: I’ve hit a couple deer in my 20+ years living out here in rural CO. At night, always. And no…I am not getting out of my car in the middle of the night to check on them after they have bounded away off the road, certainly not when I’m by myself. And no, I’ve never called the sheriff *or* 911, either – I figured if the deer have already taken themselves off that that’s just a waste of time and effort.
J R in WV
@Roger Moore:
They aren’t “drugs” if you have a prescription. they’re medicine. Even if it’s an amphetamine, or a narcotic, or a sedative like Valium.
Those are good for you, because the good doctor said so! You need them to help you!
J R in WV
@germy:
No, not unless lots of other bad things happened related to hitting the deer. I was late to work and did $2000 worth of damage to wife’s Saab, didn’t feel obligated to call the cops at all.
They wouldn’t have come out for it unless something else was bad wrong.
Like somebody being dead in the ditch.
For one instance.
Sally
@Kropacetic: If it’s fresh, it’s aseptic.
Sally
@SiubhanDuinne: I go for all of the above. He had no such conversation and is too addled to remember the name of any head of state to lie about.
SFAW
@Roger Moore:
I’m more partial to “made shit up, yet again,” but I imagine the FCC (so to speak) might look askance at the profanity.
SFAW
@J R in WV:
Would that be Dr. Ronny Jackson? Or Dr. Harold Bornstein? Or maybe Dr. Hugo Z. Hackenbush?
SFAW
@Elizabelle:
Not a Catholic, but that’s what I would have thought as well.
But there might be another explanation: in his view, the only mortal sin is voting for the Demon-craps; everything else is venial.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@SFAW: Dr. John Barron.
J R in WV
@SFAW:
… ;-) …
So many GOOD doctors we could list here ~!!~
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@Gin & Tonic: yes! When I first heard word of mouth at work about a mountain lion I figure someone hit a bobcat or something. Nope young mountain lion apparently collared by biologists to track its movements. Made it to a Connecticut just to get killed on an off ramp…
PaulWartenberg
@Betty Cracker:
he fcking killed a guy. Christ.
PaulWartenberg
Considering Presidents who might be the stupidest ever, I went back to see the education levels of our Presidents and found a number of our earliest ones – even Washington – did not get a full college degree. And yet many of them were reasonably informed and intelligent – likely self-taught or at least trained in a skill set that required knowing things. Washington did have a surveyor’s certification from William & Mary, for example, and that takes math and reading skills.
So a college degree alone is not proof of intelligence – it is merely a sign in modern days of requiring a college background as a status symbol for employment and prestige (EFF the Ivy League, Go GATORS).
In terms of actual stupidity, trump currently tops the list, but Andrew Johnson if you ever look him up may be the one person who can give trump a challenge for that title.
SFAW
Here’s an interesting “thought exercise”: who is stupider, Trump or Louie Gohmert?
Show your work.
Ian
@debbie:
I think he should have said something too, however the arguments he and his defenders make that I find somewhat reasonable are these two- 1. It was timed right before the election. It will have a maximum impact and still be in voters minds. 2. This is when the book was planned to come out. It would have been against his self interest to promote the juicy pieces of his book when it wasn’t for sale.
The 1st argument assumes Woodward cares about the US and specifically its most vulnerable people who are suffering. His MO seems to be about studying power and his access. That’s how he wants to be remembered. So anyone who expected him to do the right thing early for the sake of doing the right thing is frankly overly optimistic about the world, at best.
Ian
@germy: You are suppose too, especially if it is still in the road or has potential to be. Either way, there is a deer carcass that needs picking up. It also helps with insurance, though the giant deer sized dent usually is hard to argue with.