one more month of this bullshit unless the virus beats us to it
— kilgore trout, acting president (@KT_So_It_Goes) October 6, 2020
Trump's people are already preparing the "except for COVID, we'd have won" excuses, as though it's just totally a bad bounce that the President of the United States screwed up handling a national emergency. Like it's not in the job description. Like it's just so, so unfair.
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) October 6, 2020
Trump went full propagandist and the highest trending keyword related to his return to the White House is:#GaspingForAir
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@TheRealHoarse) October 6, 2020
the republican party's closing argument in the final month of the election is that their sole responsibilities are to a judge that endangered her entire family to attend a superspreader party and to the president who may not survive the election because of his own actions.
— GETFUCKINGMADABOUTITmachine (@golikehellmachi) October 6, 2020
the thing trump had to do was create a permission structure for his malcontented independents to come home to him, and instead he created a permission structure for them to sprint straight to biden https://t.co/LAyR2rReNV
— kilgore trout, acting president (@KT_So_It_Goes) October 6, 2020
A little something for the worry-insomniacs:
This was a soothing read. https://t.co/L8ToiSVZOI
— Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) October 6, 2020
On The Road After Dark – Dagaetch – Acadia National Park
Dog Dawg Damn
wasn’t Trump supposed to make an appearance today ?
do we really believe he’s doing better if he doesn’t?
danielx
I keep thinking of that scene in Downfall where Eva Braun is trying to get everybody in the bunker to dance when Russian artillery crashes the party…..
NotMax
Have respite threads been outlawed? Asking for friends.
rikyrah
@NotMax:
????
piratedan
@NotMax: you miss the previous thread kimosabe?
Jay
rikyrah
I think the latest from The Lincoln Project is brutally hilarious
Edmund Dantes
@Dog Dawg Damn: teapain on Twitter was nothing there was supposed to be a morning thing and he didn’t do it. He also didn’t call into fox and friends.
jl
@Dog Dawg Damn: He’s madly tweeting sheer madness. It’s his version of a remote appearance, maybe?
Edmund Dantes
@Edmund Dantes: https://twitter.com/teapainusa/status/1313679169595813888?s=21
Calouste
@Dog Dawg Damn: He was supposed to release a video, not a live appearance. From the non-appearance of that video I deduce that he can’t even string a few sentences together, or at least not often enough to add up to a video of a few minutes.
He’s been tweeting though, but on Twitter no one hears you cough or gasp for air.
NotMax
@piratedan
That’s one of the dedicated photo threads, not a general interest respite thread, buckaroo.
jl
@Edmund Dantes: I thought Trump’s been nonstop tweeting all day. Those ravings look like realDonaldTrump. So, if anything wrong, i’d guess manic phase from the ‘roids.
Jay
Darrin Ziliak (formerly glocksman)
Jay
jl
I think I saw a clip where Lindsay Graham just flat out said that he was going to ram through whoever Trump nominated for SC justice so SCOTUS could decide the election for the GOP. IIRC correctly, he just said that in one take, one cut, at some conservative talk fest confab.
That was, or should be, a genius innovation in political persuasion, for the other side.
The Dems should play that clip around the clock all over the country,
piratedan
@NotMax: well I guess you’re just gonna have to hold it until we get to a designated thread area…. try not to squirm so much and stop poking your sister!
Jay
Thread,…….
jl
@NotMax: “Have respite threads been outlawed? Asking for friends.”
Your visit to Acadia National Park was that miserable? Sorry to hear that. I had a great time. Except, I wish it were bigger.
jl
@Jay: But no graffiti on federal buildings? There’s your trouble.
Jay
@piratedan:
are we there yet, are we there yet, are we there yet, are we there yet,
danielx
@jl:
Going there in October can be iffy, though beautiful. Did it once, camped, woke up with snow outside the tent and caught the worst case of bronchitis I’ve ever had.
jl
@Jay: I don’t see the one where some guys tried to blow up a big propane storage tank facility and incinerate a large chunk of Sacramento.
Logan Brown
Cal Cunningham is trying to lose to TIllis in NC. He better hope that enough early votes are baked in and that people hate Tillis enough not to care.
jl
@Jay: Did you miss the Acadia photo shoot post? That not enough respite for you? I know… we all need a lot of respite.
Though maybe in Spanglish, that could mean well cooked spite?
HumboldtBlue
I got my ballot today. It’ll be filled out and at the election office no later than 12 p.m. PST tomorrow.
smike
@NotMax:
@piratedan
Hey, wait a minute, I thought a buckaroo was a cowboy. Buckaroo Pirate? Rock band or movie name?
jl
@danielx: I’ve been lucky and never got sick when camping and interesting weather had passed through over night. Waking up in snow is fun, if you are not right in it. Except for a few times when bad thunderstorms came through. Can shake your confidence that you picked a safe spot.
@smike: What gives respite is respite, in my book. I decline to engage in this BJ pedantic food fight.
NotMax
@jl
I make it a point not to insert anything in those threads overtly unrelated which might derail or detract from discussion of the pix.
Sue me.
@piratedan
No fair! She started it!
:)
danielx
@jl:
heh…on honeymoon i pulled up at the entrance to Grand Canyon South Rim. Four inches of snow on the ground and a big sign saying “camping accommodations only” and thought this does not bode well if I can’t find someplace warm to sleep tonight.
Last time I’ve ever gone anyplace without reservations. I was young and foolish and had camping gear in the car.
jl
@NotMax: OK, you people win, I’ll go to the BJ lexicon and refer to the rules of order, take the exam and get my certificate, and get straight on respite thread behavior.
A miracle that I haven’t been (intentionally) banned.
West of the Rockies
So pretty clearly, Trump is high.
When is he likely to crash? Will this go on for days? Is there, in fact, a predictable way this goes? I’ve never used steroids or taken Dexa-whatever, so I have no idea where this is going.
Kent
My 17 year old daughter was busy doing college applications at the table today and commented about the latest random Trump atrocity on the news:
“Dad, no one is going to believe us when we are old and we tell them about 2020. Will they?”
She ain’t wrong. I just hope to God she has a normal college experience to start with in the fall of 2021. Because for these kids who are stuck locked up doing zoom school. It really sucks.
jl
@Kent: The future version of QAnon and reactionaries will say all the Trump era stuff is an elaborate hoax when they try to run a new and improved version.
Anya
@Jay: Turns out the Comey Rules went very easy on Rosenstein. They portrayed him as an amoral, snivelling coward who was too weak to stand up to fraud. He is all that but also much worse. He is evil.
SFAW
@NotMax:
Don’t make Cole turn this blog around!
SFAW
@Logan Brown:
Something besides his “sexting” (or whatever you want to call it) thing?
Thor Heyerdahl
As a Canadian, I ask that you please do everything you can to stomp the tangerine twittler and his minions
Wouldn’t it be nice to see Joe win at the same level as Secretariat’s Belmont win?
TS (the original)
@Logan Brown:
If he was a republican, they would high five him & give him more votes.
HumboldtBlue
A little insider basketball here in this clip of Joe Biden.
Doc in this case is the newly-hired Glenn “Doc” Rivers as head coach of the Philadelphia 76ers, a man who gave an impassioned honest assessment of what it means to be a black woman or man in this country.
The Biden/Harris ticket has a real chance of shaping a generation.
jl
@Thor Heyerdahl: I’ll start a gofundme site to bribe Canada to take him in. Put him up on one of those islands near the North Pole. I only trust the Canadian Mounted Police to watch him in exile. Tell Trump there’s a great deal on a casino up there, and he’ll go to check it out.
Edit: no, tell him it’s Greenland and they’re ready to deal.
Amir Khalid
@West of the Rockies:
My hunch: if it happens, it will be in the next few days. And it will be the end of his campaign.
jl
@SFAW: It’s come out that some real sex came with the sexting, but I’m not sure. I think a one night stand, but not sure.
So, the good people of NC have to choose between a walking biological weapon and an adulterer with an affair that exists just enough to be problem I’m not sure which is worse.
Citizen Alan
@Logan Brown: Is he the fuckwit who thought the middle of a Senate campaign was the right time to sext his mistress (a married woman)?
West of the Rockies
@Kent:
My daughter turned in her transfer app to U of O yesterday (quack-quack, she wants to be a duck). First the Campfire marred her senior year in high school, then Covid hit freshman year. It’s been brutal.
SFAW
@Citizen Alan:
I know that’s when it hit the news. Was he really stupid enough to do it during the campaign? Or was it something he did awhile ago? If he did it during the campaign, fucking moron would deserve to lose, so I’m hoping it was a long-past thing
ETA: Apparently something occurred in July, details re: extent of the “affair” are not clear (to me, that is). What a dumbfuck.
matt
Yes, that’s the standard Republican position now. Elite accountability not only doesn’t exist, it’s literally unfair to suffer consequences for being completely wrong about something, analyzing it wrong, responding to it in a completely stupid and destructive way.
West of the Rockies
@Amir Khalid:
I hope you are right, Amir. I just wonder how it goes: is there a crazed Tweet storm (worse than the 42 this evening), does he pee off the balcony with cameras rolling, dick-pick Instagram, or just go out on a stretcher back to WR Hospital?
jl
@SFAW: “Was he really stupid enough to do it during the campaign?”
News reports say yes, July 2020, with a campaign consultant
Cal Cunningham under fire after more texts revealed
A California woman, Arlene Guzman Todd, told The Associated Press she and Democrats’ nominee for Senate in North Carolina had an intimate encounter in July.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/06/cal-cunningham-texts-scandal-426971
I don’t understand why the ‘intimate encounter’ euphemism. This is during a pandemic, that could mean that they took off their masks and sneezed on each other.
jl
@matt: There is some lowering of the bar. Back in the day it was ‘appearance of impropriety’. Then no evidence of violating criminal law. Recently I think it was not being convicted of criminal behavior in court of law. Then unfair to criticize until the appeals are over.
I guess next will be that any criticism while they are still doing time in the big house is unfair.
SFAW
@jl:
Yeah, I can’t tell whether they had a “50 Shades of Horny” weekend or two, or just some extended kissing, or what.
“How was I to know she was with the
RussiansRethugs too?”Just once, I would like to make it through a campaign season without a Dem candidate being a fucking moron.
Kent
I grew up in Eugene and lived my whole life as a Duck fan. Half my extended family in OR are Duck fans. It’s on my daughter’s list of schools that she is applying to. But as we live across the river in WA, she is looking much harder at the WA schools and UW will likely be the first choice. It will cost me $25,000 less per year to send her to UW compared to UO so that’s a plus.
She is also applying to Western Washington, University of Puget Sound, Lewis & Clark, Gonzaga, Whitman, Occidental, Santa Clara, USC, and Gonzaga. We shall see.
West of the Rockies
@jl:
Sneezed on each other? Hmmm, Sexy Time ain’t what it used to be. “Oh, baby, I love how the moonlight shows your glistening snot bubbles…”
Logan Brown
@Citizen Alan: Apparently there is the sexting thing and now another woman has come forward with evidence they had an affair at some point. Most people I know don’t give a damn because Tillis is radioactive from his time in the General Assembly and the Senate but this could cost Cal the election as there are a lot of “Conservative Democrats” who are looking for reasons to vote for Tillis.
Kent
@jl: What’s with these people? I used to think it was just the men but then Katie Hill happened. Sigh.
Cunningham ain’t Trump so I guess the Trump rules aren’t going to apply.
SFAW
@jl:
“Well, it’s not as if I helped kill
200K500K10 Million citizens. So what’s the problem?”Logan Brown
@jl: All he has to do is drive across the finish line with 50% +1. This is a case where the early voting is helping and while I don’t approve of what he did, getting rid of Tillis and his rubber stamp is more important. We can primary Cunningham if need be when the economy is better and COVID is more under control.
danielx
@SFAW:
Truth. There was a bit of a squabble among the jackaltariat the other evening about it, as to whether this was something disqualifying or not. My take: I don’t give two toots on a flute about the man’s morality or private life or what he does with it, that’s between him and his wife. But to do this during the biggest campaign of his life? That calls his judgment into question. I’d vote for him anyway*, but I don’t live in his state.
*eta: but trust him? I don’t think so.
Jinchi
@jl: Maybe you’re thinking of this?
We really need to change the way judges are put in place in this country. Starting with ending lifetime appointments.
Amir Khalid
@SFAW:
The Democrtic party is a big tent, and oftentimes a moron manages to sneak in. One such even wound up as the VP nominee back in ’04.
jl
@Jinchi: No, Graham’s confession of deep principles, or civic depravity (depending on your viewpoint) came in the week before Trump made the Barrett nomination. Graham just said, IIRC paraphrasing: I’m going to support whoever Trump nominates and get them appointed because the Supreme Court will decide the election.
Really amazing, but I can’t find it right now. Harrison should have gotten a recording and just played it at the debate.
MisterForkbeard
@Kent: Oh, I don’t know. There’s so much shit flying around right now that I really doubt people will care much.
I’d be more sanguine about it if their race wasn’t so close, though. What an idiot.
Thor Heyerdahl
@jl: we’ll put him on Devon Island – the world’s largest uninhabited island. That being said, I’d prefer he was on Tristan da Cunha instead.
Mary G
I was asleep and missed a ton of posts here, anyone know what this is about?
October surprise, and if so, for whom?
SFAW
@Amir Khalid:
Early during that campaign, I was more-or-less an Edwards supporter; his populism (which I saw as more than just good speechifying) was on the right track, etc.
I don’t recall if Elizabeth had already been diagnosed with cancer when the news came out about his affair(s), and said news initially gave me pause but not enough to “hate” him. But as things progressed, and it became clear that he was just another prick convinced of his own infallibility, I soured on him bigly. I still voted for Kerry, of course, but fuck Edwards.
Mary G
Viva BrisVegas
Doesn’t that require an amendment to the US Constitution?
If so, isn’t that less likely than Trump becoming the first person on Mars?
jl
@Thor Heyerdahl: Too close to that town on the south end of Ellesmere Island. What will it do to the property values?
piratedan
@Mary G: while I find it highly unlikely, maybe even this further unhinged, drug-influenced President could be getting called upon to sequester himself and get well and stop tweeting… or my guess is they’re gonna drop the turd that Trump actively worked with the FSB and GRU to undermine the Dems and rig the 2016 election… and who all else was involved in said machinations….
I’m just a cockeyed optimist but some anvils and anchors have been dropped lately and now I am guessing it’s time for some oil tankers to fall….
Enhanced Voting Techniques
ROFL, Trump just flip flopped on no stimulus until the election. He’s now begging to sign it.
https://www.yahoo.com/gma/trump-says-hes-calling-off-195300588.html
What a stoner idiot.
prostratedragon
@Mary G: Don’t know, but Wray and several other IC agency heads dropped this marker earlier today. Maybe
tomorrowlater today will be something more specific along those lines?Chetan Murthy
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: From a rapid perusal of that article, I don’t think he’s flip-flopped. He’s just trying to spin things, is all. Arguing that the things -he- wants passed, are easy-to-pass, get it done, help the American people etc. The things Pelosi wants? Oh, too much money, corrupt, graft, etc, etc.
Did I misread?
CaseyL
@Mary G: The QAnons on Twitter are sure it’ll be Wray announcing his retirement/firing and indictments of Democrats all round, starting with Hillary.
In Barr’s DOJ, I don’t dare rule that out. The whole Trump Show and GOP are in full Downfall mode at this point, destroying whatever they can.
Ivan X
@SFAW: I don’t know why you think that R’s have some sort of monopoly on being fucking morons. It’s kind of the human condition.
HumboldtBlue
Skater homie cruising to Fleetwood Mac gets some juice.
Calouste
@Mary G: I assume it’s in the Eastern District of Virginia, because its US Attorney is involved, and that includes a lot of DC suburbs, so it could be all kinds of stuff. The NRA has its HQ there for example.
mrmoshpotato
No, Tom. It wasn’t a bad bounce. You asshole Rethuglicans have been intentionally fucking up for at least 40 years.
What were St. Ronnie’s words? Oh right – “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the Government, and I’m here to help. “
phdesmond
@Mary G: is that different from this?
https://twitter.com/i/status/1313494766387105794
Tom Ames
@Calouste: As is the Pentagon, I believe.
MoeLarryAndJesus
@Jay: I guess the J in Rod J. Rosenstein stands for Juliusstreicher.
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax: If respite threads are outlawed, only outlaws will have respite threads.
HumboldtBlue
K-Mart Goebbels gets Corona
?BillinGlendaleCA
@mrmoshpotato: Tom seems to be agreeing with you, did you read the whole tweet or just the excerpt you quoted?
mrmoshpotato
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I did read the whole tweet, and there’s no sign of acknowledging the GOP has intentionally been a 40-year fuckup.
jl
@mrmoshpotato: Not our, or more precisely, my, problem. They say that the want to burn down the current GOP and rebuild it from the ground up. How much they think they’ll have to fess up to in order to get done, who knows? We aren’t their audience. The Trumpster base isn’t their audience. Maybe the current 5 to 8 percent undecided are their audience. i don’t worry about it too much as long as they help defeat Trump.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@mrmoshpotato: I think you’re missing the point, Trump’s supporters think the only reason Trump isn’t cruising to re-election is the pandemic(might be true), but Tom’s point is every President faces challenges. It’s how they deal with them is what makes or breaks a presidency. I was contending for the first 3 years of Trump’s time in office that he really didn’t face any major crisis(Hurricane Maria should have counted, but probably 70% of the country doesn’t know Puerto Rico is part of the US). He had been incredibly lucky, his luck ran out with the pandemic and his complete incompetence in dealing with it. One of the reasons that Reagan got elected was Jimmy Carter was faced with two major crisis his last year in office(the Iranian hostage crisis and the faltering economy).
Mary G
@Calouste: Ooh, the NRA and Russia, maybe? We’ll know soon enough, I guess.
Chetan Murthy
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
@mrmoshpotato: Maybe you’re talking past each other? It’s true that the Twitter format doesn’t lend itself to Nichols -both- properly excoriating Shitler, and *also* issuing whatever mea culpas he ought. OTOH, I’ve seen at least one tweet storm where Nichols addressed specifically the issue that mrmoshpotato raised, and …. it’s really fuckin’ clear that he’s unrepentant, and if anything, thinks that liberals are assholes and morons for raising it.
I hold out hope that Jennifer Rubin won’t go back to being the same-old sort of GrOPer. It’s even possible that guys lik Stuart Stevens won’t. But Nichols? He’s gonna go back to bein’ what he was before. No introspection there.
mrmoshpotato
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Point taken.
My issue is I don’t trust any of these bastards farther than I could throw them. I fully expect them to rebrand the GOP (again, hi Tea Party!) and come back worse. Dump being in power is just an inconvenience they have to deal with because I guarantee they can’t kick the 40-year habit of “Tax cuts for the rich solve everything! Oh shit! We have no money! Guess we need to cut social programs!”
If anyone thinks they’ll turn over a new leaf, let me be on the other side of someone betting against the Globetrotters.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Chetan Murthy: I’ve never been under the illusion that most of the never Trumpers will be Democrats, they’re imperfect temporary allies. I pretty much agree with what jl said above.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@mrmoshpotato: I’m willing to align with Stalin to defeat Hitler, I’m under no illusions that Stalin will be a problem in the future. To be quite honest, I don’t very much like one party rule, even if it’s my party since it breeds corruption.
Kathleen
@mrmoshpotato: Is this the right time for “You’ll have to pry respite threads from my cold dead keyboard”?
mrmoshpotato
@Kathleen: Hehehe
mrmoshpotato
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I agree. It sucks that one party has spent my entire life trying to destroy any social good that the government has done.
I’m also under no illusions that the GOP will be (more of) a problem in future.
HumboldtBlue
Y’all motherfuckers need some James Acaster.
trnc
@Dog Dawg Damn:
I’m expected something like #WhereIsDonald? to start trending, maybe overtaking the gasping hashtag. After his Monday night stunt, no way would he have disappeared if he were doing well. I assume Kamala will make a point of asking tonight if we don’t see DT by then.
Sab
@mrmoshpotato:” We can’t pay taxes because private school tuition for our kids is so expensive.” That is the wholesome side of the Republican party. The unwholesome side is just a bunch of sociopathic grifters…
ETA: and also (cannot believe I forgot this) deeply, deeply racist.
mrmoshpotato
@HumboldtBlue: Excellent. Love Mock The Week.
trnc
@Jinchi:
I know faith in anyone identifying as conservative seems ridiculous at this point, but I have a feeling some of those judges really don’t want to be pawns for a corrupt senate majority, especially ones that were easily confirmed while the filibuster still existed for judicial nominees.
mrmoshpotato
@Sab: Yup. That pretty much sums it up. But you forgot “Fuck clean water, air and safe workplaces if our stock portfolio goes up a bit!”
Steeplejack
Trump movie pitch (thread):
mrmoshpotato
@trnc: These bastards have been begging decent judges to retire for months if not years.
Guess a quarter of the federal bench being massively unqualified prepubescent right-wing nut jobs for the next 50 years isn’t enough.
Sab
@trnc: Don’t be naive. Lifetime appointment. They think over a lifetime they can remove stink of appointment shenanigans.
Maybe yes. But Ms Barrett risked the health of her seven kids to get her roost. Pro-life my arse.
trnc
I don’t expect them to become democrats, but I am cautiously optimistic that they are trying to actually make the GOP relatively sane again because they’re going after more than just DT and his Qanon Qrew.
trnc
@mrmoshpotato: No amount of anything below 100% is ever enough for them.
mrmoshpotato
@trnc: A very generous take.
J R in WV
@Kent:
So, Now there are TWO Gonzaga U’s??? Wow, who knew?????
trnc
Sorry, trying to decipher your brief post. Are you saying older judges ARE leaving and that by the time newer judges are on the bench for 30 years, everyone will have forgotten how they got there, or are you saying the older conservative judges will stay on the bench rather than participate in a corrupt scheme to be replaced by snot nosed DT sycophants (which is basically my position)? Or are you saying something else altogether which I have not successfully teased out?
If the former, it won’t be so much that people would forget, but rather that they’ve accepted it because if it works now, they’ll keep doing it.
You call me naive, but my basis for my view is the many rulings against DT by some older conservative judges not named Thomas. There’s still a couple of months, so I guess we’ll see.
Evap
@SFAW: I’m confused. My memory is that this stuff about Edwards didn’t come out until he was running for president in 2008.
Bruce K
In other news that’ll probably get lost in the shuffle:
A criminal court in Athens, Greece, just ruled that Golden Dawn, the neo-Nazi fascist party which at one point had almost two dozen seats in the Greek parliament and still has a couple of seats in the European parliament, is a criminal organization. This case was combined with several others involving attacks on left-wing activists, attacks on migrant fishermen, and the stabbing murder of a Greek rapper.
Vhh
@Calouste: Remember, on Twitter, no on knows whether it’s your assistant or the steroids writing the tweets.
cmorenc
@Logan Brown:
The Presidential election result in NC is the overwhelming driver of turnout, not the Senate election, and if Biden wins NC, so does Cunningham, and if Trump wins NC, so does Tillis. In an off-year election, a consensual adulterous sexting situation against the D candidate might skew relative partisan turnout (down a bit for D, up for R) and be the determantive factor in a close election. In a Presidential year, if the incident involved a nonconsensual imposition by the D candidate, it might also be a more significant factor in a close election. But its not, and so the NC senate election will follow the presidential results pretty closely.
SFAW
@Evap:
You’re probably right. As I am now officially an old fart, I find my memory, while not Trumpian (thank FSM), is somewhat worse that it used to be. So, thanks for correcting me.
Edwards is still a dick, and I did support him for a time, but obviously the flip-over date has become lost in my clouded memory.
SFAW
@J R in WV:
And she’s going to study in the Department of Redundancy Department.
Uncle Cosmo
FTFY. (Don’t believe me? Have a look.)
Uncle Cosmo
At least two along with numerous high schools – all Jesuit, all named after the Jesuit St. Aloysius Gonzaga.
By comparison, there are 4 universities in the US (Chicago, Marymount, New Orleans, Maryland) and dogonlynose how many high schools in the USA named after St. Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits. All, of course, Jesuit.
Hey, at least they’re upfront about it. I haven’t checked, but I wonder how many other American colleges are run by the Society of Jesus while skulking under innocuous non-denominational-sounding aliases, e.g., the University of Scranton.
ltelf
@J R in WV: She likes Gonzaga.