Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

American History and Black History Cannot Be Separated

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

T R E 4 5 O N

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

No one could have predicted…

An unpunished coup is a training exercise.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

I was promised a recession.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

“And when the Committee says to “report your income,” that could mean anything!

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

Fani Willis claps back at Trump chihuahua, Jim Jordan.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

Happy indictment week to all who celebrate!

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

Glad to see john eastman going through some things.

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Peak Wingnut?

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Maybe attempting to foment civil war and undermining public confidence in the CDC from the HHS comms office is a bridge too far, even in this administration? From Politico:

The health department’s top spokesperson Michael Caputo called an emergency staff meeting on Tuesday to apologize for drawing negative attention to the Trump administration’s health care strategy and signaled that he might be soon departing his role, according to five people with knowledge of the meeting.

The departure of Caputo, who has closely controlled the health agencies’ dissemination of information about coronavirus, would be a blow to the Trump administration’s efforts to promote a possible vaccine, if one is approved in the fall.

Caputo told staffers that his series of false accusations on Facebook Live this weekend — which included unfounded allegations that the Centers for Disease Control was harboring a “resistance unit” — reflected poorly on HHS’ communications office. He blamed his recent behavior on a combination of physical health issues and the toll of fielding death threats against his family. Caputo also acknowledged that he had never read one of the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports, despite his team’s ongoing efforts to try to edit those documents.

Caputo told staff that he is scheduled to meet with HHS Secretary Alex Azar later today, the people with knowledge of the meeting said. President Donald Trump — a close ally of Caputo who helped install him as HHS’ communication head this year — is also expected to be involved in any decision about Caputo’s next steps.

Peak wingnut is a lie, of course, but it’s possible this nutcase has attracted too much attention. Maybe they’ll transfer him to the campaign. Open thread.

Reader Interactions

171Comments

  7. 7.

    Roger Moore

    Maybe they’ll transfer him to the campaign.

    I hope he gets the mental health help he obviously needs.  That should take priority over finding another job.

  8. 8.

    Chief Oshkosh

    So, will he make the media rounds saying that the CDC should have NO political minder, that there is NO seditious cabal there, that everyone should follow the CDC’s recommendations, that it’s the rightwing militias who are actually violent, that Trump will in fact quietly “stand down” and support a peaceful transition of power when he loses the election, that NOBODY should get violent about the election outcome, etc?

    Or will this just be like a NYT retraction?…somewhere on page 14, below the fold.

  9. 9.

    Dan B

    How will the Campaign pay Caputo?  Oh right, with the hindred million of Trump’s money!

    Caputo will accept a promise from Trump?  Haha ha ha ha ha ha ha etc. infinitum!

  10. 10.

    Brachiator

    The departure of Caputo, who has closely controlled the health agencies’ dissemination of information about coronavirus, would be a blow to the Trump administration’s efforts to promote a possible vaccine, if one is approved in the fall.

    I welcome the chaos and confusion, but Trump is Trump. He may slow down, but he continues in the same stupid direction.

    Interesting that the reporters noted that they got five people to confirm the story. Is this level of specificity how they will fight back against charges of fake news?

  11. 11.

    Dopey-o

    Caputo claims poor health and death threats against his family were the cause of his erratic statements. 78-year-old Dr.. Anthony Fauci has had so many threats that he has been assigned a protection team. And he still gets up every day and does his job without embarrassing himself.

    Maybe Caputo doesn’t have the right stuff. Maybe Caputo never had the right stuff. Maybe Caputo is just another incompetent trump hire. But i repeat myself.

    But i will take 1 piece of Caputo’s unhinged advice: Stock up on ammo. A friend in Northern California reports that ammo is disappearing from the shelves in his little town.

  12. 12.

    WaterGirl

    @Gin & Tonic:   I would LOVE to have Tim posting again.  I will confess to letting Tim know that occasionally in the hopes that he will return one of these days.

    Max is still with us by the way, but definitely slowing down.  That’s what Tim said when I asked last week.  (Or the week before.)

  13. 13.

    marklar

    In any other administration, he’d be Kaput-o.

    In this one, he’ll just be transferred and replaced by somebody even worse.

  14. 14.

    Ken

    Who would have thought that being spokesperson for HHS was more stressful than being a PR flack for Vladimir Putin?

  15. 15.

    Kent

    He got out too far over his skies and pulled a Scaramucci.

    In Trump world, the only one allowed to make a media splash is the Orange monster himself.  And a few select useful idiots like Rudy.

  18. 18.

    Barbara

    @Dopey-o: How many public health officials have resigned because they have received death threats?  Caputo and his ilk elevate alleged threats to themselves to the level of a national emergency while actively dismissing if not actually encouraging threats against others.  If he can’t take the heat then get out of the kitchen.  This is the guy who wants us to “go back to normal” and expose ourselves to a higher risk of death and disability from the pandemic, so the least he can do is stop whining about his own fears.  No sympathy. None.

  19. 19.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    I question whether Caputo, before the last few days, was well known enough to be getting death threats. Okay, except maybe from inside the CDC. ?

  20. 20.

    jl

    Just shows how far Deep State is reaching into the Trump administration, after Caputo spilled about the super secret CDC hit squads. Is Trump himself a mole of the deep state, about to be activated? Horrifying thought.

  21. 21.

    Kent

    @Steeplejack (phone):I question whether Caputo, before the last few days, was well known enough to be getting death threats. Okay, except maybe from inside the CDC. ?

    As always with this bunch. It’s projection.

  22. 22.

    kindness

    Maybe Caputo will get the rest, isolation & relaxation he needs.  I hear the government has a great ‘resort’ at the tropical paradise of Guantanamo Bay.

  23. 23.

    West of the Rockies

    Yet another story that makes Trump look like the idiot he is and which keeps him from effectively going on offense.  The Media is not twaddling about with some bogus Biden story, and the election is another day closer.

    Excellent.

  26. 26.

    Gretchen

    A young friend of mine won’t visit her in-laws with her kids since the in-laws daughter went back to in-person school.  MIL is angry, says she’s being ridiculous, and we « can’t live our lives just to keep people in nursing homes alive’.  I’m shocked at the selfishness and callousness of someone I thought was a nice person.

  28. 28.

    Heywood J.

    Caputo is a Kremlin operative, full stop. The only reason he would be moving or “leaving” is so he can continue his fuckery more quietly. Like Roger Stone, these dirtbags never actually leave. Even if he vacates his illegitimate gubmint post, Caputo will spend the homestretch bouncing between InfoWars and Fox and Fiends.

    These people really are absolute scum, and an inordinate number of them seem to be pree-verts to boot. Whenever Caputo finally meets his maker, it’ll probably be in a wetsuit with a ball-gag, and a box of unmentionables under his bed.

  29. 29.

    ThresherK

    @Steeplejack (phone): As I’ve said since March, we’re living in The Monsters are Due on Maple Street, Donald Trump is the protagonist in It’s a Good Life, and Covid will fell the stupids among us like The Old Man in the Cave.

     

    (The worrying thing is that there is but one survivor at the end of The Old Man in the Cave. Oops! Should I have put a spoiler alert there?)

  30. 30.

    germy

    The Chaos Administration.

    Inbox: Sen. Patty Murray is calling on HHS Secretary Alex Azar to fire Michael Caputo, “who led efforts to revise scientific publications at CDC to suit President Trump’s messaging, and promoted conspiracy theories about career scientists at the CDC.”

    — Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) September 15, 2020

  33. 33.

    Saints

    Delurking to note that as an epidemiologist, I am oddly flattered to be considered that dangerous. Honestly, as a group, I’d say we’re pretty boring, risk averse, data geeks.

  34. 34.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    I saw a rash of stories about Caputo over the last few days. His lunacy got way out of control. I’d like to say I’m not surprised he’s leaving, but I’ve given up thinking I know what this administration might do.

    50 days folks. Then we’ll have a better idea of where we are.

  37. 37.

    WaterGirl

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Someone wrote this at the end of a comment last week:

    Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll.

    Hopefully we’re not just sitting here in limbo, instead we’re donating and making calls and writing postcards and doing everything we can help people to vote.

    Still, the image of being in limbo waiting for the dice to roll really resonates with me.

  41. 41.

    jl

    @Saints:

    ” Delurking to note that as an epidemiologist, I am oddly flattered to be considered that dangerous. Honestly, as a group, I’d say we’re pretty boring, risk averse, data geeks. ”

    There are a lot of clinical/public health people at CDC too, a ruthlessly brutal bunch, if ever there was.

  44. 44.

    Gin & Tonic

    Unrelated to anything, Vitali Shkliarov, a Harvard Fellow and contributor at the Foreign Policy Research Institute – and more importantly, a US citizen with a diplomatic passport – has been imprisoned in Belarus for six weeks now. One would think there’d have been an expression of outrage from the US State Department, if not from the President. But crickets. Certainly it can’t have anything to do with the fact that he’d worked on Obama’s campaign.

  45. 45.

    germy

    Caputo will be fine.

    He’ll be on-air talent at OANN or Trump TV next year.  Maybe he’ll get a book contract. He’ll make more money in one year than most of us will see in our lifetimes.

  47. 47.

    WaterGirl

    @Immanentize: Now that you mention it, yeppers.

    edit: Though I think that’s Limbo with a capital L, and not the generic limbo.

    edit 2: Wait, I thought that was purgatory.  Or is purgatory if you believe and you have sinned, and Limbo is if you never believed?

    8 years of Catholic school.  The nuns are probably sad that I do not remember this.

  49. 49.

    catclub

    @Saints: [Epidemiologists] Honestly, as a group, I’d say we’re pretty boring, risk averse, data geeks.

     

    yeah, but you know where the bodies are buried.

  50. 50.

    Immanentize

    @WaterGirl: Jimmy Cliff, of course:

    Sitting here in limbo
    Waiting for the dice to roll
    Sitting here in limbo
    Got some time to search my soul

    Well, they’re
    Putting up resistance
    But I know that my faith
    Will lead me on

  51. 51.

    Brachiator

    @WaterGirl:

    Cool Jimmy Cliff song…

     
    Sitting here in limbo
    Waiting for the dice to roll
    Sitting here in limbo
    Got some time to search my soul

    Well, they’re
    Putting up resistance
    But I know that my faith
    Will lead me on

  53. 53.

    Mike in NC

    Casually noticed when walking or driving in our community that there was exactly one Trump/Pence yard sign visible, and a small one at that. Ironically, a Chinese-American family lives in that house. Our next door neighbors were hardcore Tea Party people and have had a big Trump banner hanging from the garage ceiling for weeks.

    As of today both were gone. Could this be part of the Woodward Effect?

  54. 54.

    germy

    There is no peak wingnut

    Donald Trump has been so corrosive to basic human decency that Jim Cramer just referred to the Speaker of the House as “Crazy Nancy” on live TV and justified it because he was pretending to speak as the president of the United States.

    — Kara Calavera (@KaraCalavera) September 15, 2020

    If you were one of those Republicans who, in 1998, said, “How am I going to explain blow jobs to my children?,” blow me.

    — Kara Calavera (@KaraCalavera) September 15, 2020

  56. 56.

    numfar

    He blamed his recent behavior on a combination of physical health issues and the toll of fielding death threats against his family.

    I call bullshit.

  57. 57.

    justsomeguy

    We won’t reach peak wingnut until sometime after this country has been officially renamed Qmerica.

  69. 69.

    Brachiator

    @WaterGirl:

    He beat you by the better part of 2 minutes. Slacker! :-)

    Ha! I’m always slower when I am posting from my phone instead of my laptop.

    Speaking of reggae, local sports radio host Petros Papadakis, a surprising Renaissance man, talked about what he did this weekend.  Apart from covering one of the area sports teams on a radio broadcast, he noted that he spent some time crying while watching Toots and the Maytals videos.  Toots, of course, died on September 11, due to complications from Covid-19.

  72. 72.

    Kelly

    @WaterGirl: Jimmy Cliff Sitting Here in Limbo is more hopeful than the line I picked.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRoJyaZW6SA&ab_channel=ShamrockVibes

     
    Sitting here in limbo
    But I know it won’t be long
    Sitting here in limbo
    Like a bird without a song
    Well, they’re
    Putting up resistance
    But I know that my faith
    Will lead me on
    Sitting here in limbo
    Waiting for the dice to roll
    Sitting here in limbo
    Got some time to search my soul
    Well, they’re
    Putting up resistance
    But I know that my faith
    Will lead me on
    I don’t know where life will lead me
    But I know where I’ve been
    I can’t say what life will show me
    But I know what I’ve seen
    Tried my hand
    At love and friendship
    But all that is passed and gone
    This little boy is moving on
    Sitting here in limbo
    Waiting for the tide to flow
    Sitting here in limbo
    Knowing that I have to go
    Well, they’re
    Putting up resistance
    But I know that my faith
    Will lead me on
    I can’t say what life will show me
    But I know what I’ve seen
    I can’t say where life will lead me
    But I know where I’ve been
    Tried my hand
    At love and friendship
    But all that is passed and gone
    This little boy is moving on
    Sitting here in limbo
    Waiting for the tide to flow
    Sitting here in limbo
    Knowing that I have to go
    Well, they’re
    Putting up resistance
    But I know that my faith
    Will lead me on
    Sitting in limbo, sitting in limbo (limbo, limbo, limbo)
    Sitting in limbo, sitting in limbo (limbo, limbo, limbo)
    Sitting in limbo, sitting in limbo (limbo, limbo, limbo)
    Sitting in limbo, limbo, limbo
    Sitting in limbo (limbo, limbo, limbo)
    Sitting in limbo, limbo, limbo
    Limbo, limbo
    Sitting in limbo, sitting in limbo (limbo, limbo, limbo)
    Sitting in limbo, sitting in limbo (limbo, limbo, limbo)
    Don’t know if it’s got to be so
    Don’t know if it’s got to be so (limbo, limbo, limbo, limbo))
    Sitting in limbo, sitting here in limbo (limbo, limbo, limbo, limbo)
    But I know we won’t belong now
    I know we won’t belong (limbo, limbo, limbo, limbo)
    Hey, yeah (limbo, limbo, limbo, limbo)
    Ah ha ha ha ha (limbo, limbo, limbo, limbo)
    Ah ah ah ah ha (limbo, limbo, limbo, limbo)
    Sitting in limbo, limbo, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh (limbo, limbo, limbo, li

  74. 74.

    cain

    @Dopey-o: But i will take 1 piece of Caputo’s unhinged advice: Stock up on ammo. A friend in Northern California reports that ammo is disappearing from the shelves in his little town.

    They’ll claim it is to protect themselves, but they’ve blowing all their money on bullets, but not as much on food and other things to live. You can bet that soon they’ll just end up going out and holding people up with their guns instead and taking their food instead.

    Turning into thugs they are protecting themselves from.

  75. 75.

    Kelly

    The furniture and deck here 50 feet from a cliff overlooking the Pacific near Fogarty Creek has a light coating of ash. Sunshine and surf sounds now.

  78. 78.

    cain

    @rjnerd:

    I would submit that it is the opposite. We’ll soon revert into a less polluting society that will die early because nobody will do vaccines or do any of that stuff. Earth wins – less of us around to pollute the planet. Animals return, plants come back – more oxygen in the atmosphere, global warming retreats.

  79. 79.

    WaterGirl

    @Kelly: Right, that was you!

    I knew it was at the end of a longer comment… it was you talking about the fires and whether you would have to evacuate again!

    Now i’ll read all the words.

  84. 84.

    Aleta

    What do you want to bet those Key to the White House in Elegant Velvety Lined Presentation Boxes are being churned out by a company owned by the Ivanka Brands Group LLC, at one of its undisclosed factory locations.

  85. 85.

    cain

    @jl: There are a lot of clinical/public health people at CDC too, a ruthlessly brutal bunch, if ever there was.

    You make it sound like a data scientist version of Mos Eisley

  87. 87.

    Baud

    I want to ask where they were in 2016, but I’ll take it.

    Biden receives endorsement from Scientific American, magazine’s first in 175-year history

  93. 93.

    mrmoshpotato

    @germy:

    If you were one of those Republicans who, in 1998, said, “How am I going to explain blow jobs to my children?,” blow me. 

    Amen, Kara.  Amen.

  95. 95.

    debbie

    He blamed his recent behavior on a combination of physical health issues and the toll of fielding death threats against his family.

    Well, now you know how Ohio Medical Director Amy Acton felt, don’t you, asshole?

  98. 98.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @scav: Every time I see that name I read it as Cornuto – which is Italian for “horned,” or in slang parlance, cuckold.

    So Mikey Cuck it is, then? Instead of a kiss, I throw a hearty & heartfelt vaffanculo in his general direction.

  101. 101.

    Immanentize

    @debbie:  seen on Twitter retweeted by D. Dale:

    — Caputo has signaled his desire to take medical leave
    — He claimed to staff he had never read a single MMWR, despite efforts to meddle w reports
    — He concluded meeting by telling staff to listen to the Grateful Dead

  104. 104.

    Hildebrand

    @Immanentize: Right?  I always appreciated that Dante hung out with the poets and philosophers (Greek, Roman, and Islamic) in Limbo before heading out into Hell proper.

  107. 107.

    hueyplong

    @Baud: In the spring Trump said it would get warmer.

    Now, as fall approaches, he says it will get cooler.

    The kind of leadership we need.

  115. 115.

    hueyplong

    @Baud: Trump:  “Autumn is right there with fall, only cooler.  A lot of people don’t know that.  Autumn is an example of something that’s done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more.  Science doesn’t take this into account.”

  126. 126.

    Baud

    @catclub: The newspapers also ran a lot of negative stories about Hillary that the endorsements didn’t rectify.

    Anywho, this is noteworthy because it’s an unusual source.  If it has any impact, it’ll be at the margins.

  128. 128.

    hueyplong

    @catclub: That’s because Comey, Russians and other ratfuckers were slamming Hillary on page 1 of those same papers.

    It can be different this time.

  129. 129.

    piratedan

    @debbie: ty for that, it’s a lovely encapsulating sentiment capturing the fatigue and sadness of the year, cheerfully dressed despair.

  131. 131.

    piratedan

    @Immanentize: understood, but as a piece of mood setting music capturing the stress and foreboding, I’ve not found another that fits as well (not saying its not out there, just that it hasn’t come to mind or across my path).

  138. 138.

    JPL

    Did anyone watch the Alex jones story line on Homeland.?  Much to the surprise of no one, the guy was a coward.

  140. 140.

    SFAW

    @japa21:

    I avoided that by just starting out on the floor.

    “You’re not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on.”

    I think that was attributed to Dino Crocetti, but not certain.

  142. 142.

    SFAW

    signaled that he might be soon departing his role

    Right, and Mitch McConnell “signaled” he might be willing to work with Chuck Schumer on something/anything. If the Murderer-in-Chief wants him there to continue cooking the books (so to speak), he’s staying.

  145. 145.

    J R in WV

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    Don’t know, I was raised Baptist(American, not Southern) and we frown on dancing.

    My wife was raised American Baptist, and really loves dancing — a shame I can’t do it at all.

  146. 146.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    Peak wingnut is a lie,

    That’s because of the Synthetic Wingnut Plant in Indiana.

    It might be dawning on Trump that appealing the batshit nuts extreme isn’t a winning stragey.

  147. 147.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Heywood J.: Caputo will spend the homestretch bouncing between InfoWars and Fox and Fiends.

    I think it’s rather those are the only career paths open to Caputo now. No legit company or org will touch him after this.  And you know grifting the loony right has been an over developed market for a while, sooner or later some of these guys are going to end up living under an overpass.

  148. 148.

    Brachiator

    @J R in WV:

    My wife was raised American Baptist, and really loves dancing — a shame I can’t do it at all.

    A high school girlfriend was some version of Pentecostal. They were against jewelry and dancing, both of which she enjoyed. It was not comfortable watching her sometimes struggle over this.

  149. 149.

    trnc

    Peak wingnut is a lie, of course, but it’s possible this nutcase has attracted too much attention.

    There’s no such thing as absolute peak wingnut, but I think we can allow for a variable peak wingnut that can be defined as any wingnut action or statement that results in the firing, resignation or demotion of said wingnut.

  150. 150.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Quinerly: The article premis makes sense, charges of child molestation have been the hammer people have used for decades to attack their political opponents. Though this batch is extra ironic since the biggest child molesters these days are on Qann side politics.

  151. 151.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    Caputo told staffers that his series of false accusations on Facebook Live this weekend — which included unfounded allegations that the Centers for Disease Control was harboring a “resistance unit” — reflected poorly on HHS’ communications office. He blamed his recent behavior on a combination of physical health issues and the toll of fielding death threats against his family. Caputo also acknowledged that he had never read one of the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports, despite his team’s ongoing efforts to try to edit those documents.

    This is one thing that just bugs the hell out of me. If I was a Republican, this kind of lie would piss me off because it’s such an insult to one’s intelligence, akin to (everyone who tells an unhappy truth) “… is just trying to hurt the President”.

    “Duh, I was so stressed, I started to demand changes to a document I never bothered to read, because that totally makes sense. Oh, and I decided to relay *lots* of lies, because, after all, what are lies, except stuff that Trump says? Are you trying to insist that saying stuff that makes a bigoted incompetent happy is wrong?”

    I guess, now, any Trump supporter is so used to lying about everything that I’m not sure they can still parse the truth any longer. But, geez, isn’t there a point where you just want to say “oh, come on! You’re not even *trying*!” to the people repeating the happy horsepoop?

  152. 152.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Brachiator:A high school girlfriend was some version of Pentecostal. They were against jewelry and dancing, both of which she enjoyed. It was not comfortable watching her sometimes struggle over this.

    As Max Von Sydow said  “Pentecostals, once they were just another snake cult. Now snakes in all my beautiful cities. “

  154. 154.

    Elie

     

    These people do scare me but nevertheless, I think that this bluffing, huffing and puffing is meant to scare us into backing down without a fight.  Well I can tell them this — ” As scared as I am, Y’all can kiss my black ass cause I aint backing down from nothin — I WANT MY COUNTRY BACK  “.  Do not threaten me — do not threaten us.  You are all a bunch of frauds….

  156. 156.

    There go two miscreants

    @WaterGirl: 8 years of Catholic school.

    TWELVE years of Catholic school, and when I hear “limbo”, all that happens is my knees hurt!

  157. 157.

    Chris Johnson

    Caputo was employed by a Moscow-headquartered subsidiary of Gazprom, Gazprom-Media. He was contracted by Gazprom in 2000 to work for Russian leader Vladimir Putin. His task was to increase Putin’s public relations standing, specifically his support level in the U.S. He moved back from Russia to the U.S. in 2000.

    So, now that he is flailing around being ‘craaaazy’ and coincidentally amplifying and espousing the EXACT same narratives being pushed by Russia through the QAnon distribution network, we are shocked that he is ‘loony’ and ‘bad at his job’ and ‘unqualified’.

    What the fuck y’all. There is nothing crazy about this guy. He is doing the exact job he is there to do, and I’m sure this is not mysterious to everyone in government who has to deal with the Putin-directed motherfucker. He is playing games of being soooo scared of the deep state and antifa cells in the CDC and so on, because he is there to sell those narratives, because he’s working for the same country that’s feeding the same narratives to the Q people.

    He’s not scared of antifa cells. He may be cracking under the strain, but it’s because he’s worried which will get him first, the Feds or his real bosses. And if he’s caught betraying his real bosses he’ll die like Epstein, whom I think also worked for the Russians amassing kompromat.

    The little fish will stay loyal to Russia because that’s where their safety lies. The biggest fish, like Roger Stone, think they are too powerful to be caught (also, Trump) so they aren’t going to get whacked because they feel invincible. The medium ones who do get caught, like Epstein… that’s where you see the failures of nerve. We need to catch the right ones and keep them alive, because killed they’re not useful except as Putin’s warning to the others.

    Caputo will not depart from the story that he’s flipping out because antifa BLM murderers infest the deep state blah blah blah… because he’s there to sell that narrative. Asking ‘is he crazy or is it TRUUUUUE’ is the wrong question. The real question is, who actually believes that bullshit, and who knows full well the guy is a spook sent to sabotage the place to which he was assigned?

    And I’d like to know exactly how Trump was directed to use Caputo for stuff. I’d like to know who is taking the direction from Moscow and Putin, and influencing Trump to ‘do’ things, because I don’t believe they can be directly working with Trump, because the man is demented and irresponsible and will blurt out any stupid thing. They’ve GOT to have a cut-out, possibly dear Jared, or Barr, or McConnell, or frickin’ Tucker Carlson for all I know. They’ve got to have a cut-out.

  158. 158.

    WaterGirl

    @There go two miscreants:  Two of my dad’s sisters were nuns, and holy shit my mom had to fight tooth and nail for us to go to public high school.  Her daughters were not going to an all-girl high school – she wanted her daughters to be able to handle themselves around boys.

    That fight was a big deal for quite some time.

  162. 162.

    JoyceH

    @Baud: did you know that “fall” and “autumn” refer to the same time of year.

    Did you know that “fall” is an Americanism? I just learned that recently – someone was sniffing in a Regency group about an American writer who had her Regency characters refer to fall, when they should have said autumn. So… huh.

  166. 166.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    @SFAW: HAH! It was Dean Martin, and this is *JUST* like that time you were were all “it was Samuel Clemens” when it was Mark Twain!

  167. 167.

    Amir Khalid

    @JoyceH:

    I dunno about that. A lot of “Americanisms” are not actually of American origin; they’re just older expressions that are now out of style in British English. “Fall” may be one of these.

  168. 168.

    Zelma

    @Kathleen:

    Hey, I spend 37 years at a Catholic school and I’m a Lutheran.  I win!

    We were so poorly paid at one point that the VP suggested teaching there was a cardinal act of mercy.  I pointed out to him that this wouldn’t work for me.  Still didn’t get a raise.

  169. 169.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    @WaterGirl: Purgatory is if you are going to heaven, but have to be cleansed (“purged”) of sins.

    Limbo was used in the discussion of unbaptized babies who were never able to make a choice regarding salvation. I heard a legend that the quote was “we’ll put that in limbo” (i.e.: we won’t discuss that), but I also heard a nun say that Limbo was a place of physical pleasure, not the higher, greater, pleasures of Heaven. (So, the idea was “unbaptized babies don’t suffer, and live good, happy lives, but, well, they can’t go to *heaven*.”)

    A key thing is, (Roman) Catholics believe there are sins that aren’t going to put you in danger of hell, called “venial” sins, and sins that will (like murder, etc.), called “mortal” sins. If you die with a mortal sin on your soul, it’s straight to hell.

    How do you get a mortal sin off your soul? Through confession/reconciliation/whatever-they-call-it-these-days. Confess your sin to a priest, do the penance demanded, and it’s gone – but it will leave a stain that needs to be cleansed in purgatory (per the – Baltimore Catechism? I think that’s what it was). Also, if you can’t get to a priest, there *are* exceptions – the one I remember most is making an act of perfect contrition, regretting your sin because of your love of God, and how much it bothers him – i.e., not “because if you don’t repent, you’ll go to Hell.”

    Anyway: Purgatory is for burning off venial sins and the remnants of mortal sins. However, you can be given forgiveness for your time in purgatory with an indulgence, including a plenary indulgence (if you die after that, you’ll get straight to Heaven).

    (This last bit was a key plot point in the Kevin Smith movie Dogma. The movie is… well, it’s a Kevin Smith movie (as in: Clerks, Mall Rats, etc.), but I love it for a strange reason. See, it hinges on the idea that God must be perfect – if God wasn’t perfect, then *nothing* would have meaning, not even existence – existence and nonexistence would be one and the same. And I love that because, damn it, if I’d gone to a Catholic high school, I could just imagine debating that sort of thing, like it was something important and meaningful.)

  170. 170.

    Rick Taylor

    I remember when John Cole proposed we had reached peak wingnut. It made perfect sense to me at the time. Things were so nuts during the Bush years, how could they possibly get any nuttier? Oh  how naive I was.

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