Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Today in our ongoing national embarrassment…

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Petty moves from a petty man.

Disappointing to see gov. newsom with his finger to the wind.

So many bastards, so little time.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

There are times when telling just part of the truth is effectively a lie.

A norm that restrains only one side really is not a norm – it is a trap.

American history and black history cannot be separated.

They are not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

This country desperately needs a functioning fourth estate.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

You passed on an opportunity to be offended? What are you even doing here?

All hail the time of the bunny!

I’m more christian than these people and i’m an atheist.

Dear Washington Post, you are the darkness now.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

If ‘weird’ was the finish line, they ran through the tape and kept running.

The arc of the moral universe does not bend itself. it is up to us to bend it.

The press swings at every pitch, we don’t have to.

When we show up, we win.

You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Trump Crime Cartel Open Thread: Sarah Cooper Fans Rejoice – TikTok Is *SAVED!*

Trump Crime Cartel Open Thread: Sarah Cooper Fans Rejoice – TikTok Is *SAVED!*

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Repubs have been putting the ‘less’ in ‘shameless’ any time these past fifty years, but you’d think this kind of blatant ‘Anything you want, as long as I get a little taste in return’ would at least prompt some *token* pretense at embarrassment…

Every single GOP legislator is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Trump Crime Cartel, Inc.


Reader Interactions

234Comments

  1. 1.

    LuciaMia

    patriotic education

    Patriotic Education, eh? Are we gonna go back to the old “George Washington chopped down the cherry tree” fairy tales and chanting “In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue”?

  5. 5.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Holy shit. Trump says that as a condition of TikTok’s sale, he tried to shake down Oracle to put $5 billion into a fund “so we can educate people as to the real history of our country — the real history, not the fake.”

    this is so corrupt and so cheesily jingoistic and so comic-book authoritarian and…. I wonder if this is something Biden could quietly dismantle, or redirect to the Smithsonian and National Parks or historic trust or something.

    whenever he goes on about ‘our history’ I think of all the things I was told about forty-five years ago, by our very nice and respectable fifth grade teacher at Leafy Suburb Elementary outside of Chicago, who taught us Greek mythology and had made an early start on science education her life’s mission, and when we were all watching Roots and talking about it and she told us we should remember that most slaves were very well treated, cruelty like we saw on TV was very rare, and many immigrant factory workers in the North were treated much worse.

  7. 7.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @debbie: at a recent rally the report was the people on stage were all told to mask up right before he came one, for the cameras

    ETA: Remember Solyndra and picking winners and losers?

  11. 11.

    Ken

    going to be telling to see which prominent pro-Trump China hawks endorse this

    All of them, Jimmy.  “Pro-Trump” overrides all principles, leaving nothing in its wake.

  12. 12.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    I have genuinely come to despise this country, the white supremacism and greed it worships and it’s undeserved, unearned sense of entitlement.

    I find myself wishing there was a foreign power I could sell it out to, seeing as how many of our “betters” have been making far stacks of cash doing it already.

  13. 13.

    Another Scott

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: It’ll probably be like him saving those Carrier jobs, and the “$150B” that the drug companies were going to rebate everyone under Donnie’s grand scheme.

    https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2020/09/lets-set-things-straight-on-that-trump-pharma-deal/

    Here’s the deal. The Times doesn’t mention this, but that $150 billion is over ten years. I don’t know precisely how that would be structured, but payouts like this are almost always back loaded. It would probably look something like this:

    [ graphic ]

    And keep in mind that this is merely a vague promise. In real life, the pharma industry would almost certainly find a way to delay and complicate things so that they’d end up spending far less than that.

    ByteDance and Oracle and the Waltons aren’t going to be paying anyone $5B. He thinks he’s some grand wizard deal maker, but he’s just a desperate, stupid, narcissistic old man and everyone knows it.

    By Tuesday this will be forgotten and there will be some other shiny object for him to crow about.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  18. 18.

    Adam L Silverman

    Safra Catz, the CEO and co-president of Oracle, is an Israeli born, raised in the US naturalized American. She is considered to be an Israeli intelligence asset, specifically one of Bibi’s personal catspaws. She was on the President’s transition team. She is close to the Ledeens. Michael Ledeen is the co-author of LTG (ret) Flynn’s book and a mentor to Ezra Cohen-Watnick. Leeden’s psycho daughter is currently an Assistant Secretary of Defense.  Catz is also a mentor and major benefactor of Cohen-Watnick’s. When LTG (ret) McMaster was finally able to fire him from the position he was unqualified for on the National Security Staff, Catz gave him a mid 6 figure executive position as her senior advisor for which he was also unqualified. Cohen-Watnick is currently the official performing the duties of the Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict, which he is EXCEEDINGLY unqualified for as he 1) has no administrative experience and 2) no experience working with the Special Operations community.

    If Oracle buys Tik-Tok, the Israeli NSO Group developed and owned, but exclusively licensed to the UAE with Saudi paying for the licensing, Pegasus spyware will be on every Tik Tok users devices within a week. There is nothing funny here. This isn’t a win for anyone. The security of Americans and every other person who uses Tik Tok is at stake here. What do you think Bibi, Mohammed bin Salman, Mohammed bin Zayed, and Jared are going to do with all that data? What do you think the President will do with the data of interest to Xi? What do you think the President would trade that data to Xi for?

  19. 19.

    PsiFighter37

    Can’t wait to hear all those free-market invisible handjobbers telling us that this is what Adam Smith meant.

  20. 20.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @raven: Peabody’s Tomb?  Nope.  We took a bus to Graue Mill, ground some corn and got to bring “our” corn flour home and make corn bread with it.  IIRC we also made beef stew.

  21. 21.

    raven

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    “in August 27, 1922 the legend of Peabody’s Tomb began.  Many people may not know the legend by name but if you grew up on the west side of Chicago or in the near west suburbs you might have heard about the old mansion and estate that high school kids would sneak into late at night.  The story was always the same.  A group of adventurous kids would sneak onto the property in an effort to locate the final resting place of a rich old guy who was buried on the property.  Some say that the old guy was buried with his gold.  Others say that if you find the chapel that housed his body you would see the guy in a see-through casket floating in oil.  The trick was you had to avoid the “monks” who were patrolling the estate looking for trespassers.  If the monks caught you, you would be given the choice of having the police called and being arrested for trespassing or you could kneel on rice or broomsticks while saying prayers for forgiveness until the monks released you.

    The legendary estate did and still does exist as the Mayslake Peabody Estate and the “old rich guy” refers to Chicago coal baron, Francis Stuyvesant Peabody.”

  22. 22.

    chopper

    i mean it’s not like this stupid curriculum is going to actually happen. as with all things related to trump, all that money is going to disappear into fat air.

  27. 27.

    zhena gogolia

    And thread:

    Panic is an unbecoming quality. People, mostly, don’t drown because they can’t swim, they drown because they panic. RBG was steady calm, steely and resolved. There is much panic on social media about the political consequences of Justice Ginsberg’s passing. Much of it supposes 1— Steve Schmidt (@SteveSchmidtSES) September 20, 2020

  28. 28.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    I’m old enough to remember when the liburel media went ape shit because Hillary met with some donors to the Clinton Foundation. Not because she extorted $5,000,000,000 dollars.

    liburel media bias, indeed

  32. 32.

    zhena gogolia

    P.S. Y'all mfers in the Senate GOP caucus bought the ticket.Our team is working feverishly tonight because you're about to take the goddamn ride.— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) September 20, 2020

  37. 37.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    The next time there’s a bank merger and Dems require a 5 billion “donation” to receive approval the republicans and the corporate media will applaud – amirite.

  39. 39.

    Old Dan and Little Ann

    Last night my sister told me to go fuck myself because I disagreed with her. Today a mother of a friend deleted a response I wrote to her and then unfriended me on the book of faces.  I wasn’t rude to either of them.  Oh well.

  40. 40.

    Quiltingfool

    @raven:  Peabody Coal Company? I think those are the bastards that strip mined coal in west-central Missouri (my dad’s family is from around there). There are still nasty looking open pits from well over 70 years ago. Assholes.

  47. 47.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @WaterGirl: I think I have come close to saying things to a few people on this site over the past 25 hours that would have lead to permanent estrangement.  I have deleted a lot of comments before I sent them.

  50. 50.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Adam L Silverman:

    There is nothing funny here. This isn’t a win for anyone. The security of Americans and every other person who uses Tik Tok is at stake here. What do you think Bibi, Mohammed bin Salman, Mohammed bin Zayed, and Jared are going to do with all that data? What do you think the President will do with the data of interest to Xi? What do you think the President would trade that data to Xi for?

    Ok. So what do you recommend be done about it?

  56. 56.

    WaterGirl

    @Omnes Omnibus: Yeah, the CLEAR COMMENT button is my friend, also.

    I had to walk away from the site last night at the first “she should have stepped down long ago” comment because if I had not, it wouldn’t have been pretty.

    After seeing 13 (!) people in my family in a photo from a labor day gathering I wrote a long email to my entire extended family about how stupid and irresponsible they are being.  I never sent it, but boy did I want to.

    Discretion is the better part of valor.

    Sometimes shutting the fuck up is the better part of valor.

    But so is speaking out when it’s important.  Sometimes it’s hart to know exactly where the line should be.

  59. 59.

    lamh36

    Eddie Murphy won an EMMY tonight for his guest hosting of SNL and Maya Rudolph won her 2nd EMMY this weekend for playing Senator Kamala Harris on the same episode that Murphy hosted!

    Congrats to both.

    Murphy win for SNL is long overdue!

  60. 60.

    Dan B

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: My seventh grade World History class in Arkansas was taught by the principle whose degree was from that school – 7th grade was it for him.  The first ten or fifteen pages were missing.  I was curious when the book had been published.  The last chapter ended in the middle of the Great War.

    That is what Trump’s Patriotic Education makes me think of.  Oh, we sang Dixie at the beginning of every day.  I wonder if that will be included?

  62. 62.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Dude, there is nothing you can do about it. I will leave it to our lawyers here to explain if there’s something that can be legally done to prevent the sale to go through if Tik Tok gives in to the blackmail from the President via the Commerce Department and sells a stake to Oracle to be able to continue to operate in the US, But given that Commerce is claiming this is a national security issue because the PRC could access Tik Tok’s users’ data, I have no way idea what the courts might do. I’m not even sure who would have standing to try to get the courts to intervene.

    As to your ongoing question of what do I suggest you do or complaint that I don’t provide a suggestion of what to do, the answer is because there is nothing you or I or anyone else can do other than voting, making sure everyone we know is voting, and making sure everyone that everyone we know is voting. That’s it. The Democrats control one chamber of Congress. The Republicans control the Executive, the Senate, the Supreme Court, and are coming close to controlling the courts of appeal.  And they control 1/2 the states and the legislatures in three key states that have Democratic governors (WI, PA, NC). They don’t care about process, they don’t care about rule of law, and despite constantly invoking it, they don’t care about the Constitution. This is reality. You can accept it, do the little things you can do, and simply stay informed and aware of what is going on. Or you can bitch at me. Or, perhaps, both.

  73. 73.

    Repatriated

    Did someone say “educational nonprofit”?

    As in 501(c)(3)?

    Watch it carefully, and think in terms of campaign slush funds… Expect them to start buying “educational” ads about how America has been made “great” again.

  75. 75.

    J R in WV

    Thanks GAWD ~!!!~ Finally we can know that Trump is actually a real billionaire, after extorting $5 B from Chinese companies. What a relief for everyone finally to know he’s really, really rich.

    Until the RICO prosecution ~!!~

    Do you suppose Trump even knows what a RICO prosecution is? Hope not, want to see the surprise when they explain it to him.

  76. 76.

    Mousebumples

    @Omnes Omnibus: I think I have come close to saying things to a few people on this site over the past 25 hours that would have lead to permanent estrangement. I have deleted a lot of comments before I sent them.

    I employed a liberal use of the pie filter last night when people were making me want to type… Unkind statements. Pie filters are temporary. And while I didn’t see as many trolls around, but it helped me avoid some of the chicken little voices that I didn’t need last mount. (I had enough I was fighting in my own head.)

  77. 77.

    mad citizen

    @WaterGirl: I’m hoping so too, we can turn away from the banana republic.  On the other hand, couldn’t help but think this morning about how “East America” and “West America” could happen.  Not sure how Illinois and Colorado would deal with that.

  80. 80.

    Goku (Amerikan Baka)

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Or you can bitch at me. Or, perhaps, both.

    Oh, thank you for that. Look, that’s all fine and dandy, but I’m not making “demands” of you. All I’ve done is ask you what can be done to solve these problems. I don’t mind hearing bad news, but I also want to figure out what can be done to counter the bad shit.

    I really don’t appreciate that last comment from you.

  90. 90.

    WaterGirl

    @Another Scott: I know.  It just gets kind of annoying when I, and likely a bunch of other people, have to google because someone else wants to use shorthand.

    If you’re trying to communicate with someone, and with a bunch of someones, I think it’s on you to be clear.

    And just to be clear :-) I am not picking on Baud here, just talking about general principles.  Not everybody is cool enough to know all the acronyms.  I’m certainly not!

  92. 92.

    Chetan Murthy

    @WaterGirl: It’s true what you say, but OTOH, after only a little while of googling-and-then-starting-to-use a bunch of these acronyms, my (only-a-year-younger-than-me) sister recently accused me of being hip to all the youngsters, and wanted to know how I did it.  Ha!

  94. 94.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    So we hit 200,000 deaths from Covid today as trump is yucking it up with his fascist Jackie Mason routine in North Carolina

  95. 95.

    WaterGirl

    @Chetan Murthy: That’s funny.

    I was cool once!  Decades ago.  I have never liked tight socks, so when I saw some socks that were loose and were mean to bunch up, I bought them.

    At Christmas my young nieces were very impressed with my “slouch socks”, which were apparently a thing.  :-)

  96. 96.

    Chris Johnson

    @Percysowner: Told y’all that was what he wanted the SC seat filled for.

    This is why the Lincoln Project people did not follow their deepest instincts (to lock in the court by fair means or foul). This is why they can’t do that and have to get what they can out of Biden, and are completely ride or die (sounds like they’re burning ALL the bridges, specifically over Graham)

    They have deepest instincts, which is to take the win over the SC, and they have deepest beliefs. And these are the kind of people who thought Hillary Clinton was a crazed autocrat selling out the country, believed this deep in their hearts.

    I’m sure if she was running against Trump they’d all just kill themselves, but she’s not.

    Trump is a demented fool who is as transparent as a glass of water, and he is going to conspire with McConnell and anyone else he can find to stuff a loyalist into the Supreme Court, IF he can which is not a given, and then call off the election with an executive order or something else as pathetic as a cat covering up shit on a tile floor.

    The man can’t hide anything. If he was trying this after four years of careful preparing then MAYBE there would be a chance he’d get away with it for a time, but right now? This is lemming tactics. And the specifics of what he is doing and threatening, don’t stop at pissing off liberals.

    And what he wants, his fondest goals, WILL NOT WORK. It will not WORK to have a rabble of demented QAnons threatening all of America with guns. He will turn all of America into one big insurgency, and attack it with the worst possible tactics for attacking an insurgency, while not protecting or helping his ‘COIN forces’ at all, not even to help them stay ALIVE. Not even having a good word to say about them when they die.

    Normal dictators at least have the fucking sense to praise their own martyrs, but not this asshole.

    I’m sorry RBG didn’t live to see this guy absolutely crushed. No good end, for bad orange man.

  98. 98.

    J R in WV

    I don’t know many hip new acronyms. I do know that style is that first use is never the naked acronym, you always start with the words, followed by the (Acronym) after the words.

    And TCNJ is TheoCratic Nut Job every time.

  103. 103.

    Another Scott

    @Percysowner: He tells his adoring crowds (that he personally hates) all kinds of crap that is impossible / illegal / disgusting to get them riled up. It would be news if he didn’t say such things.

    Also from RawStory, quoting a Jane Mayer piece: https://www.rawstory.com/2020/09/mitch-mcconnell-is-immune-to-shame-but-he-has-one-key-weakness-that-could-impact-the-supreme-court-fight/

    Mayer says that McConnell’s top goal is to remain majority leader of the Senate, which telegraphs to Democrats his values prioritization.

    “He’s made the conservative makeover of the federal court system his pet project, but if he faces a choice between another right-wing Justice and losing his control of the Senate, no one who knows him well thinks he’d hesitate for a moment to do whatever is necessary to stay in power. In fact, back in the summer of 2016, when it looked like Trump would lose to Hillary Clinton, far from being distressed at his party’s dim prospects, McConnell was savoring the probability of being the single most powerful Republican in the country, according to a confidant who spoke with him then,” Mayer wrote.

    “The problem for McConnell now is that it may be impossible for him to both confirm a new Justice and hold onto his personal power as Majority Leader. A power grab for the Court that is too brutish may provoke so much outrage among Democrats and independents that it could undermine Republican Senate candidates in November. As he knows better than anyone, polls show that Republican hopes of holding the Senate are very much in doubt. If Joe Biden is elected, enabling a Democratic Vice-President to cast the deciding vote in the Senate, Democrats need only to pick up three seats to win a majority. And, at the moment, according to recent polls, Democratic challengers stand good chances against Republican incumbents in Maine, Arizona, and Colorado. Democrats also have shots at capturing seats in South Carolina and Iowa,” Mayer wrote.

    Poor, poor Addison. Whatever will he do when his dreams are crushed??

    Make it so.

    Forward!!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  105. 105.

    Quiltingfool

    @raven: Please don’t think I’m blaming your kinfolk,  they worked a dangerous job because they had families to support, and workplace conditions were terrible, and families paid the price.  I watched a documentary on zinc mining in Joplin, and the conditions those men worked under was horrific, and even if they survived the mines, they died an early death from lung diseases.  They interviewed a man whose father worked in those mines; he said his daddy worked there because the family was starving (farming wasn’t  working for them) and you go where the jobs are, no matter the risk.

  107. 107.

    J R in WV

    @Jay:

    Yeah, my first thought was that voters, dozens of them, should have called the cops instantly, and that everyone not making a phone call should have been making video or photos of the illegal bastards.

    Did that not happen? Why the hell not???

    All those people were unmasked, that’s a good thing, it makes them easily identifiable after the crime is over, from the video of the people attacked. Threats are illegal~!!~

  111. 111.

    Another Scott

    @WaterGirl: “Speech was given to man to conceal his thoughts (La parole a été donné à l’homme pour déguiser sa pensée).” Said by Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, Prince de Benevento – also known simply as Talleyrand.

    ;-D

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  115. 115.

    bluehill

    @Adam L Silverman: Oracle never made sense when I first heard they were a bidder except that Larry Ellison was a Trump supporter and would probably love to get all that user profile data. Between Facebook and now Tiktok and with help of Palantir, I guessing the Trump campaign should be able to microtarget most of the likely voters in the upcoming election.

  116. 116.

    Another Scott

    @Amir Khalid: One I learned long ago was:

    WFYITBWNBLJ

    .

    .

    .

    .

    .

    .

    .

    .

    .

    “Waiting for you in the bath wearing nothing but lime jello.” (I think it was.)

    Yeah, there’s a never-ending supply.  It’s even bigger than Aleph-Null.

    ;-)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  118. 118.

    Fair Economist

    @WaterGirl:

    At Christmas my young nieces were very impressed with my “slouch socks”, which were apparently a thing

    I can be fashionable just by wearing my old run-down socks? Well, at least there’s one good thing about 2020.

  122. 122.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @WaterGirl: By this point, you must know that I don’t use the pie filter.  Also, shouting at an actual idiot is therapeutic sometimes and better than shouting regulars who are having a meltdown.

  124. 124.

    WaterGirl

    @Omnes Omnibus: That’s not actually the pie filter.  It’s my favorite image from the pie filter, and I put it in the comment itself.

    That’s what I do to signal when I think someone is deliberately wasting our time, or trying to derail things.  Apparently not very effective.  :-)

  126. 126.

    James E Powell

    @Mousebumples:

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Is it really that hard to scroll past a comment that annoys you?  I get that the negativity can be tiresome. The same can be said for angry, hateful responses. That’s what makes comments at LG&M and the GOS unreadable.

  128. 128.

    Jack Canuck

    @raven: Add me to the list – lived in Geneva from Grade 4 on, for about twelve years. Never head the Peabody story though, maybe I was too far out for that.

  130. 130.

    Mousebumples

    @WaterGirl: That’s not actually the pie filter. It’s my favorite image from the pie filter, and I put it in the comment itself.

    That’s what I do to signal when I think someone is deliberately wasting our time, or trying to derail things. Apparently not very effective. :-)

    I quoted that post about 3 times before i realized there was no toggle there.

    It’s been… a long day, to say the least.

  134. 134.

    Mousebumples

    @James E Powell: Is it really that hard to scroll past a comment that annoys you? I get that the negativity can be tiresome. The same can be said for angry, hateful responses. That’s what makes comments at LG&M and the GOS unreadable.

    Usually not. Last night was just rough, and for my own mental sanity, that was my solution. I wasn’t sleeping, and I felt like the community was somewhere we could grieve together.

    But I just needed a break from certain commenters, and I didn’t think going off on anyone would be helpful. So the pie filter was my solution. I’m toggling now, and unpieing people, as appropriate.

    It’s a tool, and it worked for me last night.

  136. 136.

    Percysowner

    @James E Powell: Using the pie filter is much kinder to my blood pressure. Why subject myself to people who make me mad and want to respond badly. Plus most of my ‘Pies” are trolls, who eventually disappear. I get to look at pie and NOT be tempted to feed the trolls. For me it’s win/win.

  143. 143.

    Benw

    @Ken: laugh and vote MORE. Everyone turn out. Flood them in votes. Early voting, mail in, absentee, day of. Show up and don’t give up until your vote’s cast. Make any attempt to steal the election laughable

  147. 147.

    WaterGirl

    @Mousebumples: No apologies!  It took me a long time to find those images :-) so I’m happy when it helps someone.

    What I like about it is that I can’t get sucked into replies from people to that person.  And if there’s too much pie showing, that means “skip this thread”.  :-)

  152. 152.

    JaySinWA

    @WaterGirl: If speech is meant to obscure, the catcake is beyond words. Maybe in reply to a likely offender or a reply to a reply of the likely offender? with a pie is good or pie in the eye hint to eschew obfuscation?

  153. 153.

    Ken

    @Another Scott: Speech was given to man to conceal his thoughts

    I think it’s in one of James Morrow’s “Bible Stories for Adults” that God reverses the effect of Babel, so that we all understand exactly what the other person really means by what they say. The effects are not pleasant.

  157. 157.

    Ken

    @WaterGirl: sent the ricin or whatever Trump is pretending to have received in powder form in the whitehouse

    Definitely a lie, unless White House mail and security protocols have completely disintegrated under Trump. Which I suppose is possible.

  159. 159.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    The O’Bros Get Mitch or Die Trying fund is split between 13 Senate candidates, in CO, ME, NC, MT, IA, KS, both GA seats, AL, MI, AK, SC, TX and KS. They’ve raised, if I’m reading the tweets right, $13M in a little over 24 hours, bring their total up to $18M.

    There’s a savvy take floating around the tweets today that it’s too late for money to make a difference, which struck me as fucking absurd, which these guys who work in politics think, too.

    Tommy Vietor @TVietor08 · 4h
    People might be wondering at what point there are diminishing returns. To put it in perspective, Raphael Warnock, an amazing Senate in Georgia, reported raising $4.349MM in his 6/30/20 FEC report. Total. So what you guys are giving is a HUGE boost to many of these campaigns.

    Brian Schatz @brianschatz ·2h
    We are literally 1 billion dollars away from diminishing returns. I’m not exaggerating. This idea that money doesn’t make a difference is preposterous. We can put more places in play if we put more money into this fund. It matters .

    Rick Wilson said in his latest podcast– he and Molly Jong-Fast are not great anchors, but they get good guests– that Alaska is both gettable for Gross, and a state where money goes a long way.

  162. 162.

    Another Scott

    @Lefthanded compliment: Well actually, it’s only an acronym if it’s pronounced as a word.  Like SCOTUS.

    ;-)

    //

    [/snark]

    [It’s a joke son!]

    [eta:] Deleting your comment isn’t fair!  It makes me look like a Kook, and I’m Not A Kook!!1

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  163. 163.

    Chetan Murthy

    Rib-tickler for the day: Donnie wants Joe to take a drug test.  Joe should counter with a demand that both contenders weigh-in on the same scale, immediately before the first debate, on-stage.

    Yeah, Donnie, let’s see how much you really fuckin’ weigh.

  164. 164.

    guachi

    Can’t candidates transfer money after the election as well?

    Say a candidate has more money than he knows what to do with AND loses he could just wholesale transfer the money to the DNC.

  165. 165.

    Yutsano

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: If Dr. Gross can nail down the tribes, then he can work the liberal pockets in Anchorage, Fairbanks, and Juneau. Not easy but it could happen. Also: Dolt45 doesn’t have totally solid numbers here either. I highly doubt Biden can win, but there’s nothing keeping Dr. Gross from getting over the hump.

  167. 167.

    Schmendrick

    @Another Scott:

    [pedantic snark]   I agree that an abbreviation is only an acronym if it is pronounced as a word, but I am pretty sure that the number of available abbreviations is equal to (not greater than) Aleph null (unless you have an uncountable alphabet or allow abbreviations of infinite length — but that would hardly be useful or an abbreviation, would it?)  [/pedantic snark]

  172. 172.

    James E Powell

    @Schmendrick:

    I agree that an abbreviation is only an acronym if it is pronounced as a word

    Every time I bring this up at a faculty meeting I get strange looks and a feeling that no one likes me.

  177. 177.

    Jay

    This is a grave loss for the country, the Court, and those of us who had the unbelievable privilege to work for and know Justice Ginsburg. For tonight, I'm revisiting happy memories, and I'll share a small one to illustrate what a kind and caring person she was. 1/x pic.twitter.com/8JmcRke5WN— Joe Palmore (@palmore_joe) September 19, 2020

  178. 178.

    Ken

    @Jay: Comedian Alan King (to show my age) had a routine called “Ten things you never say to your wife”.  Somewhere on the list was:

    SHE: I’ll never speak to you again!

    HE: Promises, promises.

  179. 179.

    Another Scott

    @Schmendrick: It’s been a long, long time since I read 1, 2, 3, … Infinity.  Since acronyms and initalisms can have multiple meanings associated with them (may an infinite number of them on their own, like “ABC”), isn’t there a chance that it could be bigger than Aleph null?

    In other words, is it a countable set?  Hmmm.

    https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/29599/is-the-set-of-all-finite-sequences-of-letters-of-latin-alphabet-countable-uncoun

    That doesn’t really answer the case if each combination of letters can represent a large number of meanings.  But if that large number of meanings is countable, the it appears the whole shebang is countable.

    So, Aleph Null it apparently is.

    Going on much longer will make my head hurt.  ;-)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  189. 189.

    Ian

    @zhena gogolia:

    It’s nice they are on our side with this.  In four years these ‘friends’ will use their time in the Lincoln project to show how they are the Serious True American Heroes.  The news networks will bombard us with stories about how these few fine brave defenders of democracy stopped Trump without any help whatsoever from the left, who were to busy protesting, or some other made up thing.

    I would love to know how many actual votes these fine ex-Republicans actually swing.  I think the Lincoln Project is a lifeboat for Republicans who don’t want to be tainted with Trump.  It may be they are the enemy of my enemy, but by no means should we trust or applaud these people.

  190. 190.

    Jay

    Breaking: Newly released body-camera video shows L.A. police officers yank a large protest sign from the hands of a man in a Hollywood intersection, shove him backward as he puts his hands up, then shoot him in the groin with a projectile at close range.https://t.co/OC9sr2J1qK— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) September 19, 2020

  191. 191.

    Jay

    Homeland security at a Chipotle in Atlanta.

    First employee: "We can’t serve you without a mask."

    Officer: “Steak burrito.”

    Second worker: "We can't—"

    Officer: “Everything but cheese.”

    Manager at register: “Sir, we can’t serve you without a mask—"

    Officer: “Ring it up." pic.twitter.com/HDFXvGI4yu— Charles.Bethea (@charlesbethea) September 18, 2020

    Lactose intolerant Piggies???????

  192. 192.

    Lyrebird

    @Ian:  I look forward to the day they can crow like that! And if they get us to having Harrison or Greenfield in the Senate, fantastic.

    I dislike Steve Schmidt, who helped bring us Palin, and I am sure I disagree with most of the rest of the Never Trump crew. Having them exaggerate on TV would be much less disgusting that Chris Cilizza’s misogyny. just my thoughts.

  194. 194.

    Yutsano

    @Gvg:

    Good God, we are going to have to pay China reparations.

    For what? The Chinese Communist Party has been ripping us off for decades.

  195. 195.

    Mary G

    Irin Carmon, who wrote a book about RBG, has a lovely tribute to her in NYMag. I had never heard this:

    Ginsburg was born in 1933 in Flatbush, and her stoicism was forged in a childhood spent in a house that, she said, bore “the smell of death.” When she was 2, her only sister died of meningitis; one day short of her high-school graduation, her mother died of cervical cancer. Celia Bader, who had once broken her nose reading while walking down the street but whose sweatshop wages had gone to her brother’s education, left behind secret college savings for her daughter and a will to accomplish what Celia had been denied.

    That’s what good genes are, Twitler.

  197. 197.

    Jay

    This thread, on the LA Sheriff's office presser about a recent killing by sheriffs, is important to read. It is a good example of how LEOs try to aggressively shape narratives and detest oversight.Here: justifying a shooting bc Kizzee… listened to rap music. https://t.co/6EFYbOoZRu— John Pfaff (@JohnFPfaff) September 18, 2020

  199. 199.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Jay: Dean Baker makes a cogent case that (given how almost all the gains go to the very rich, who are transnational at this point) all intellectual property protections are a tax on the rest of us.  And hence doing away with them would be a net plus for almost all Americans.

    It’s true that some number of Americans own some stock.  But compared to the massive amount of money extracted from them by the rich, in the form of rents on IP, the stock is inconsequential except for the rich.

  200. 200.

    joel hanes

    @WaterGirl:

    I took a (nearly complete) 24-hour break from blogs and twitter as soon as I heard that RGB had passed.

    It seems to have been a good idea.

  201. 201.

    Gvg

    @Yutsano: I know, but many wrongs don’t change the fact this is robbery. I don’t want robbery to be considered OK when it happens to foreigners. Next it happens to us….actually early on i think Trump May have been extorting American companies.

     

    it would be nice if we had a competent administration that actually worked on problems for years to get things done to help Americans….god dam am I tired of republicans and ignorant fellow citizens who don’t even try to understand how things work and just use their gut….I wish more Americans actually understood economics.

  204. 204.

    joel hanes

    @Baud:

    TIL there’s a clear comment button.\

    If you’re on a computer, you can hit [CTRL] a to select everything in the composition box, and then hit backspace.

  205. 205.

    joel hanes

    @WaterGirl:

    Apparently not very effective

    Like using a new acronym without providing the expansion into words, it leaves the audience guessing at your meaning.

    Because I have two old troll accounts permanently pied, I had thought that we were seeing sporadic re-eruptions from long-dormant asshole commenters.

  207. 207.

    joel hanes

    @Chetan Murthy:

    A step you could take right now would be to quit using the framing devised and insisted on by the rights holders.

    “Intellectual property” is not a thing.   It’s intended to refer to four actual things that exist in law: copyright, trade mark, trade secret, and patents.   What those things have in common is that there is no property — nothing alienable.   (The patent holder still has his idea if I use it too.)     These exclusive rights are entirely the right to sue.

    But rights-holders weren’t happy with that situation, because unauthorized use of their exclusively-held ideas was not a crime — not covered at all by criminal law — and the rights-holders thought it should be.   So they lumped four legal concepts, none of which have anything to do with actual property, into a phrase that includes the word “property”.

    It used to seem strange when the music and movie companies talked about making a copy as “stealing”.   We’ve mostly become inured to that usage, but it was never correct, and intellectual property is not property.

    When you’re talking about it,  figure out which of the four components you’re actually discussing — copyright, trademark, trade secret, or patent protection — and use that term instead.

  210. 210.

    Ruckus

    I’ve been away from BJ for most of the day. Sanity reasons.

    What the hell happened that pissed off everyone at everyone else?

    Or is everyone just pissed off at the last 24 hrs in American life and are taking it out on each other?

    Or have I missed the mark completely?

  212. 212.

    Ruckus

    @Chetan Murthy:

    So, y’all realize that this is really shitforbrains 1 and only specialty, misdirection, redirection of all of all your desire to string him up by his balls for being the complete and utter asshole that he is by getting everyone to hate someone else, anyone else. It hasn’t worked for most of the last 4ish years because it’s been so obvious that he is one of the most ignorant humans still managing to breathe. But the last 24 hrs has given him an opening. And everyone  seems to be losing sight of the real goal here, beating him and his sycophants like the rented assholes they are. We lost someone who’s been sick for a while and was even in that condition, a real human being. She lived a long and pretty damn good life and she didn’t choose her time, she did everything she could to kick his ignorant, moronic, racist, narcissistic ass out the door and we should celebrate her life and carry on with the task of kicking his racist, narcissistic, moronic ass out of our house so we can fumigate for a week or so and get on with the job of being an actual decent country, or at least trying to.

    We all have a job to do, and it’s take back the country and help our politicians fix the fucking mess shitforbrains has turned it into, and figure out how to keep it on track for longer than what looks to history like a minute and a half. At least 1/3 or the country is insane and is willing to cut off their own genital to spite the other 2/3. We should be the better people and fix it so they don’t have to do that, or at least not give a shit if they do and move on with the actual job at hand.

  213. 213.

    CaseyL

    I spent most of the day watching Columbo reruns.  It was very soothing.

    I live in a state that’s done VBM for over a decade, so there’s not much opportunity to Protect The Vote here.  Everyone I know has a plan to vote. About the only activist thing I’ve had the chance to do is let people know they can hand-deliver their ballot directly to the nearest Election Office.

    I’d love to be a poll watcher in another state, but the rules require you to actually be from the state whose polls you’re watching.

    I’d also happily volunteer to pepper spray assholes showing up to block voters from polling places, but apparently that is also frowned on.

    Soooo…. tomorrow I’m doing an online training session with Common Cause to be a social media watcher, doing somethingsomething about disinformation.  I hope that’ll be useful, but it does bring to mind the classic xkcd cartoon about Someone is Being Wrong on the Internet; i.e., shoveling sand against the tide.

    Gotta do something, though.

  215. 215.

    CaseyL

    @Ruckus: 

    From your mouth to FSM’s noodly auricles :)

    Oh, and it just occurred to me that part of the effort might require having a FB account again. Ugh – but that is where most of the disinfo, and the most targeted disinfo, is found.

  216. 216.

    Connor

    @joel hanes:

    You are fundamentally wrong when you state that there is nothing alienable in intellectual property. The definition of “alienable” is “able to be transferred to new ownership.” This certainly applies to copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets, and patents, all of which can be transferred by a creator if they so wish, and from purchaser to purchaser after that.

    The correct word for what you refer to when you say “The patent holder still has his idea if I use it too,” if you use that idea without independent invention or permission, is theft.

    From the remainder of your commentary it seems likely that you don’t make your living as any kind of creator. If the world actually functioned in the fashion you appear to support, there would be precious few working artists, writers, composers, producers, or scientists.

  219. 219.

    Connor

    @NotMax:

    The fly in the ointment being the trend to making them perpetually renewable.

    There is no such “trend” as you describe.

    Trademarks are perpetual in their basic concept — so long as usage is not abandoned, they remain good. Therefore the question of “renewability” never even arises. (And it is possible, under very specific circumstances, for an owner to lose a trademark even if it is in use.)

    Patents are specifically time-limited. They can’t be renewed and no one is trying to make them renewable, perpetually or otherwise. It is true that the US patent term was adjusted upward slightly back in the ’90s, but that was to bring us into alignment with the rest of the world, which was a good thing.

    Existing copyrights in the United States have been extended (not renewed) twice in the last 100 years — once in 1976 and again in 1998. In both cases the purpose was to harmonize US standards with international standards, and once again, that’s a good thing. There is nothing in copyright law about “renewing” a copyright, and there is no reason to believe there ever will be…as witness the fact that massive numbers of things that were extended by the 1976 and 1998 changes have now fallen out of copyright and entered the public domain.

  221. 221.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    "They give [Biden] a big fat shot in the ass, and he comes out, and for two hours he's better than ever before … we are going to ask for a drug test. Both of us." — Trump pushes ludicrous conspiracy theories about Biden's debate performances.
    pic.twitter.com/4ZRsWbHm7l

    — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 19, 2020

    This is from Trump’s rally in North Carolina on Saturday night. The part about the “big fat shot in the ass” seemed awfully specific, as if Trump really knows what he’s talking about, if you catch my drift.

  222. 222.

    Jack Canuck

    @oatler.: It was a park with an old windmill in it, as I recall. No idea what’s there now. Last time I was back to visit family was in 2012, I think, and it’s all changed (grown!) so much since I lived in the area. I remember doing a bit of sledding there, I think.

  223. 223.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Steeplejack (phone): This is from Trump’s rally in North Carolina on Saturday night. The part about the “big fat shot in the ass” seemed awfully specific, as if Trump really knows what he’s talking about, if you catch my drift.

    Ass Adderall!

  227. 227.

    Chris Johnson

    @evodevo: I increasingly take a little time, when looking at Twitter, to glance at trends and find right wing stuff being put across, and fuck with it. Find the counterattacks in the threads and the people calling out the Nazis, and ‘like’ ’em all, watching those numbers go up and up and up.

    I’m no bot farm, but I do my bit, when I can. Just because the right wing runs troll farms doesn’t mean they automatically control all the algorithms and all the social media. Take a moment to look for the helpers and ‘like’ ’em in passing. It adds up.

    And then move on, as it’s still a dumpster fire :)

  229. 229.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Lum’s Better Half: If we make the appropriate response we will just get arrested. This is the fundamental problem with a President who has no sense of the responsibilities accruing with power. Trump can make his funny “jokes” about ending democracy, screwing your daughter or putting a bullet in your head and there’s really nothing you can do about it.

  230. 230.

    Dopey-o

    @Chetan Murthy:

    SEPTEMBER 20, 2020 AT 1:05 AM

    @Jay: Dean Baker makes a cogent case that (given how almost all the gains go to the very rich, who are transnational at this point) all intellectual property protections are a tax on the rest of us.  And hence doing away with them would be a net plus for almost all Americans.

    I will pay you to show the link to the article you mentioned. I have been trying to explain the economic catastrophe to my Porsche-driving brother in law.

    Pet peeve on progressive sites: ” Here’s a cogent article by an experienced writer who has studied the issues and has written a complete and concise article to explain it to you. I read the article, i know what it says and why the arguments are compelling. I just can’t be bothered to share that with you. ”

    takes less than 15 seconds to publish the link. FOYFF.

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