Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

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

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

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

Ah, the different things are different argument.

The willow is too close to the house.

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

You can’t love your country only when you win.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Let’s show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

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

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

An unpunished coup is a training exercise.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

No Justins, No Peace

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

If marriage is the equivalent of selling yourself into slavery, women with self respect should reject the offer.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

Republicans don’t trust women.

You are here: Home / Elections / Election 2020 / Late Night Open Thread: The Ghouliania Philes, Four Seasons Total Landscaping Edition

Late Night Open Thread: The Ghouliania Philes, Four Seasons Total Landscaping Edition

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Giuliani and Trump have been running buddies in the ‘not prosecutorially corrupt’ NYC version of Ankh-Morpork since at least the 1980s; it’s only fair (to the narrative) that he now plays the Fool to Trump’s King Leer…

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117Comments

  3. 3.

    Redshift

    As I told my friend in New Zealand who just learned of this, I’m kind of glad the writers for 2020 decided to turn to farce for the finale.

  5. 5.

    Redshift

    @Jerzy Russian: Trump’s Razor: the stupidest explanation is the correct one.

    So I’d have to go with “announced it was at the Four Seasons before booking it, ” because “we needed somewhere cheap and close to the highway” actually seems less stupid.

  6. 6.

    Benw

    This is the weirdest thing in a year of being weird.

    There’s been a lot of speculation on Twitter about HOW and WHY it happened. But the crazy thing to me is that once it was clear what was GOING to happen, they went ahead and did it anyway.

  7. 7.

    David ?Booooooo!? Koch

    the adult book store will be the site of Dump’s library

    they won’t even change the contents

  8. 8.

    NotMax

    At the landscaping company.

    Late arrival: “Where’s Giuliani?”

    “Over there. See all the bags of manure?”

    Late arrival: “Yeah, but which one is Rudy?”

  9. 9.

    Ruckus

    There is no way anyone with enough sense to come in out of a blizzard would believe this without video and the last 4 centuries of the shitforbrains maladministration.

  10. 10.

    JanieM

    From Giuliani’s words through the tweet from KT_So_It_Goes and on into the comments — maybe I’m just punchy, but I haven’t laughed so hard, or for so long, in months.

    KT’s collection of nyms is priceless in its own right.

  13. 13.

    Emma from FL

    I can just imagine a young historian a hundred years from now facing his dissertation committee. “Mr. Jones, unless you can find at least four independent corroborating accounts, you will have to start all over again. This is simply too impossible to accept as true without them.”

  16. 16.

    Amir Khalid

    This baffles me. Trump still has that hotel in DC, right? Couldn’t his campaign have booked a room there and spared itself this embarrassment?

  19. 19.

    Kelly

    It’s easy to kick trump supporters when they’re down but please remember it also doesn’t cost anything.

  23. 23.

    Achrachno

    Oh, come on! Even Trump is not this stupid. Is he? It’s worse than I’d imagined from earlier reports.

  24. 24.

    Wag

    This press conference was the second best thing to happen today. If I wasn’t already grinning ear to ear because the election was called in favor of Joe, then this would have had me laughing all day.

  26. 26.

    Ronno2018

    I hope the journalists track down what the hell happened and let the reich wing morons know how stupid their “leaders” are. LOL.

  27. 27.

    Winston

    I’ve been seeing this all day and wondering what it was about. Thanks to ace reporter, Anne Laurie, I now know. I’m laughing so hard, I’m sneezing.

  28. 28.

    Neldob

    I always liked King Lears fool. Giuliani is not Lears fool, more like one of the mad, cruel husbands of the cruel and vicious daughters.

  29. 29.

    smike

    @Al Z.:

    My wife and I and were discussing that very recently. It is hard to reconcile what we observe and make sense of it. Maybe impossible.

  30. 30.

    Punchy

    OT:  this SNL episode with Chapelle is crazy as hell.  Dave did about a 15 min intro, some funny and a lot not funny.  A bunch of N-bombs.  Was there a backstory here that I missed?

  31. 31.

    Mary G

    I thought that was a prank, but no. I can just imagine Roberts, Alito, Gorsuch, Thomas, Kavanaugh, and Amy Covid Barrett seeing this.  “We’re supposed to pretend to believe that this clown crew has a valid legal argument for overturning the election? Shoot me now.”

  34. 34.

    mrmoshpotato

    Call me crazy, but I think you might be a Soviet shitpile mobster conman when our country’s allies celebrate your impending demise.

  35. 35.

    Jerzy Russian

    @Al Z.:   Even if we were in a holodeck simulation, someone would have to program it.  It is too dumb to program, especially for a computer like they have on the Enterprise.

  36. 36.

    scav

    @Neldob: Trump’s no Lear either, Lear’s articulate.

    Maybe closer to Dogberry and the ilk, only utterly without their usually good intentions.

  37. 37.

    Facebones

    In one of those weird coincidences, the crematory across the street from the Four Seasons landscaping was where we had services for my aunt. I hope her spirit helped influence the timing of the election results.

  43. 43.

    mrmoshpotato

    @NotMax: I thought we’d reached the “Man yells nonsense on street corner” part of this shitshow a long time ago.

    And yet…

    That is insane.

    ETA – I bet he tries to fleece his Trump trash supporters when his millions of loans come due.

  46. 46.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    oh my god, I just played the video in the Richard Hall tweet. They have a flag of trump as Rocky Balboa

  49. 49.

    West of the Rockies

    So what IS the explanation  for this nonsense? Did they think they were booking The  Four Seasons restaurant?  Were they turned down by The Four Seasons  and had no choice because  Trump already announced it?

    And, omg, Guiliani  is like a burnt-out community  college  instructor  who was last interesting and informative  in 1973 but just won’t quit (and is now just angry and boring).

  51. 51.

    NotMax

    @mrmoshpotato

    Not that I wish harm upon anyone but it would be be quite the plot twist for the handful of members of the Patriotic Iron Jellyfish Brigade who can manage to find it to storm Fox News HQ.

  52. 52.

    LurkerNoLonger

    So what’s the actual story? Their credit card was declined at the real Four Seasons? Someone booked Four Seasons Landscaping without checking that it wasn’t the hotel? Rudy wanted to get in some shirt tucking before flying out?

  53. 53.

    James E Powell

    Have to say that over the last week or so and especially over the last three days, the American press/media has not been shy about saying straight out that Trump and his people are lying, ridiculous, and no class people. What pisses me off is that Trump and his people have all been that way the whole time and it’s only when they were pretty sure he was going down that they had the nerve to say it out loud.

    I don’t normally listen to any cable shows. (People here are very generous in sharing excerpts and summaries. Thank you.) But starting Sunday night, because of the election, I’ve had my TV on one channel or another for most of the week. Even the best shows are shit.

    Today’s consensus? Great job Joe! Now it’s on you to soothe the feelings of people that would destroy the country just to show how much they hate you. Now it’s on you to work with people who refuse to work with you. Now it’s on you to figure out & solve why the country is filled with racist assholes who live in a sick, dark fantasy world. Don’t any of them ever consider that America is the way it is because of the way they are?

    That’s all I got. I’m fucking celebrating alone. I had a dinner of a filet with bleu cheese & spinach salad, downed a bottle of Taittinger, and now I’m having a few glasses of red wine before calling it a night. Thanks to everybody for putting up with my bullshit throughout this campaign season.

  55. 55.

    Aleta

    @West of the Rockies:

    Daniel Bush  @DanielBush
    An answer to the Four Seasons Total Landscaping mystery: the company told me the Trump campaign contacted them today out of the blue ahead of the Giuliani presser and said their location was close to an exit on I95, and was secure, and that’s why they wanted to use it.

    But I think they are broke and cheap,  and only intend to pay  money to  Trump properties and other authorized grifters.  And no decent venue will allow them to book w/o seeing money up front, because the campaign owes cities and facilities all over the country.  This is at least the 3rd story that’s been offered as cover for the desolation that’s about to be the only remaining image associated with the Trump brand.

  57. 57.

    mrmoshpotato

    @NotMax:

    Patriotic Iron Jellyfish Brigade 

    I don’t know if you’re making that up with the BoogaBooga Boys being a real hate group.

  59. 59.

    Aleta

    @Mary G:  It’s funny that they’re threatening a legal assault that would need a team of powerful lawyers when they can’t or won’t pay for even one legitimate legal brain, from the looks of it.  I bet they’ve asked around but had no takers.

  60. 60.

    West of the Rockies

    @LurkerNoLonger:

    It’s  got to be that they discussed where to hold their presser.   Someone  suggested  TFS and Trump tweeted  it prior to confirmation.   The real Four Seasons said no, so they scrambled and made do.  But this today was beyond farce.

    I hope that from now on when Guiliani  or Lewandowski  hear “The Four Seasons”, it’s  like Larry and Moe hearing “Niagra Falls.”  Hopefully, Kushner is in the Curly role.

  65. 65.

    HumboldtBlue

    @James E Powell:

    Today’s consensus? Great job Joe! Now it’s on you to soothe the feelings of people that would destroy the country just to show how much they hate you. Now it’s on you to work with people who refuse to work with you. Now it’s on you to figure out & solve why the country is filled with racist assholes who live in a sick, dark fantasy world. Don’t any of them ever consider that America is the way it is because of the way they are?

    I just spent two hours on a zoom meeting with friends and I voiced the same frustration. But I also realized that I’m gonna celebrate until January and be positive until January because once the calendar turns the hardest work becomes the focus.

    So for tonight and next week and the week after fuck McConnell and fuck Trump and fuck the GOP let’s dance.

  67. 67.

    piratedan

    with a new DOJ can we dust off the Mueller Report and start investigating all the money trails that Rosenstein forbade?

  68. 68.

    Ruckus

    @James E Powell:

    Now it’s on you to figure out & solve why the country is filled with racist assholes who live in a sick, dark fantasy world. Don’t any of them ever consider that America is the way it is because of the way they are?

    The simple answer, no, they don’t.

    The longer answer is that they only see the past, that racism is normal and proper. They see that America is not the country they think it should be because of all the people who don’t see racism as normal and proper. They elected shitforbrains for that reason, they hate because they can and because it’s the way they were taught by parent(s) or friends. This has been a racist country since before it was officially a country. And that racism has been used by conservatives, because it supports their political concepts and because they are shit people. It’s the last 75 yrs that we’ve been trying to erase that and that we’ve done this in baby steps, 2 forward 3 back, then 3 forward, what the hell… But we have also not wanted to go too far too soon and that has meant that we’ve lived with racism as a defining platform for a very long time. Some how we have to change that concept to the one the country was supposedly founded on, equality and not a government of by and for the privileged. I have no idea how we go about that after shitforbrains but I hope that we can find a way and get there.

  73. 73.

    Winston

    @Ruckus: The reality that I am starting to see is there has been a coopting use of the term conservative. Hell I am conservative in that I don’t go leaping forward if I don’t see a place to land. These people today are confederate rebels wanting to fight the civil war all over again. We can’t let them do that. And they have duped 40% of the country.

  74. 74.

    Sebastian

    @piratedan:

    That’s a given.

    The SMB and PPP loans are a treasure trove, too. We could even go after Tucker Carlson, he got money from there.

  77. 77.

    prostratedragon

    Patton Oswalt is to be commended for the ruthless precision of his description:

    This is not over. For we shall mount our righteous stand at Four Seasons Total Landscaping. Next to Fantasy Island Adult Books. Across the street from the Delaware Valley Cremation Center. Between the fire extinguisher and yellow hose.

  78. 78.

    CaseyL

    The Four Seasons thing is emblematic of the public face of the Trump Administration: dumb, mean, corrupt, and hilariously inept.  If he didn’t have the mechanism of the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist (and Opus Dei, can’t forget them) actually doing the work, the entire four years might have been like this.  A bunch of bigoted corrupt nincompoops whose only talent is grifting.

  79. 79.

    No One of Consequence

    So… I’ve been unplugged a little while, taking it easy. Checking in, and trying to follow along with the Four Seasons episode. Jeebus.

    Can we at least get an interception on The Football and get that into safekeeping please?

    Please?

    ( Holy shit how bad the wheels are coming off. I loathe this man, but we can’t take our eyes off the ball here folks. This bastard’s dangerous, unhinged, drug-addled and vicious on a *GOOD* day. )

    Peace,

    NOoC

  84. 84.

    J R in WV

    Just woke up to pee, thought to check for news, to see if anything was going on.  Nope.

    We had 2012 vintage French champagne with dinner,  it was very good. Will go back to sleep soon….

  86. 86.

    Angelwhine

    Is it wrong t be dreaming up “Acting Attorney General Hillary Clinton”…  if there’s one thing 45’s administration has taught me, we don’t need actual confirmed cabinet members.  Acting members have been tacitly approved by Republicans.

  88. 88.

    Frankensteinbeck

    I realized recently how important it is for Pratchett readers to remember that Ankh-Morpork is social commentary about Britain.  The casual racism, the idiot and greedy citizenry, the arrogant and vicious upper class, the frequent mentions of a lost empire – it’s all a Brit making jokes about Britain.  Keep this in mind, and Brexit makes sense.

    Similarly, Americans take for granted that the Voldemort thing was about racism, and it was a mind-boggling shock when She Who Must Not Be Named turned out to be a vicious and self-righteous bigot.  It’s about social class, which in America is tightly tied to race, but in Britain has a long and different history tied to aristocratic family.

  90. 90.

    Sebastian

    @Winston:

    Sorry, just saw that now.

     

    The Covid relief program and other handouts in hundreds of millions and billions, without any oversight whatsoever, have drawn attention. All sorts of “businesses” received loans and it seemed more like a slush fund to reward loyalists.

    Kanye got a few million as did Tucker Carlson. It’s probably the most target rich environment of all. I am sure Senator Warren is all over it already.

  91. 91.

    YY_Sima Qian

    How the f*ck did this pack of clowns do so much damage to the the US and the world in four years?!!!!

    I know, enabled by the GOP at all levels of government, conservative media, and far too often MSM.

  93. 93.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @YY_Sima Qian:

    Malicious stupidity is great at breaking things, especially when you put it in charge.  And more than half of whites, seethingly furious that a black man was a good president, specifically wanted malicious stupidity.

  94. 94.

    Croaker

    Little is know of Operation Mockingbird

    Carla from Roxborough called looking for Uncle Joey and  Jimmy D.  They were supposed to going down to Penn’s Port on Delaware Ave for lunch.  Seems they ended up going to the Four Seasons.

  95. 95.

    Sebastien

    Probably overdone already joke: these guys are good at metaphors in their location choice: a bunch of dildos crashed and burned and now the country needs to be rebuild.

  96. 96.

    zhena gogolia

    I woke up this morning and realized that I have more forgiveness in my heart for the man who murdered my mother than I do for Trump. This is not posturing, or an intellectual exercise, it is a visceral feeling I had as I opened my eyes this morning.

  97. 97.

    zhena gogolia

    @YY_Sima Qian:

    They could never have done this much without the complicity of Repubs and media.

    The Repubs could have gotten him out a year ago — by voting the way they knew was right.

  101. 101.

    trnc

    @Aleta: Trump campaign contacted them today out of the blue ahead of the Giuliani presser and said their location was close to an exit on I95, and was secure, and that’s why they wanted to use it.

    Wow, super secure. Just like Half-Ass Nosferatu’s cyber security business that was hacked about 5 minutes after going online.

  102. 102.

    p.a.

    What section of Philly is the Four Seasons?  NCAA men’s lax championship scheduled for Philly in ’21.  If it gets played I’ll consider staying there.  Only mildly familiar with the sports complex and Rittenhouse Sq.

  103. 103.

    trnc

    @Angelwhine: Clinton was confirmed by the senate for SOS, so I believe Biden could put her in any position that requires confirmation. I think it’s only people who have not gone through any confirmation vote who have to be “acting.”

    As delicious as it would be to see Hillary become AG, I think howls of “conflict of interest” would be picked up by the media. I’m sure there are others who would be effective, so all we’d have to listen to are whatever repubs flat out make up.

  104. 104.

    different-church-lady

    The amazing part of this fuck up is not that they booked the wrong Four Seasons.

    The amazing part is that after they figured out they had fucked up, instead of finding another place they went ahead with doing it there anyway.

  106. 106.

    Bruce K

    @different-church-lady: That seems to be a common thread with the 21st-century GOP: never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever admit that you made a mistake. That shows weakness (to their way of thinking) and a bully cannot afford to be seen as weak, lest he be brought low by people who suddenly realize they don’t have to be afraid of him any more.

    It may explain why Murdoch held the line on Fox News calling Arizona – taking it back would be an admission that they might be wrong.

  108. 108.

    Citizen Alan

    @zhena gogolia:  I still don’t hate Shitgibbon as much as I do the people who voted for him. 70 million fellow Americans, and I would teleport them all into the heart of the Sun if it were possible.

  110. 110.

    Barry

    @Emma from FL: “I can just imagine a young historian a hundred years from now facing his dissertation committee. “Mr. Jones, unless you can find at least four independent corroborating accounts, you will have to start all over again. This is simply too impossible to accept as true without them.””

     

    Other way around – they’d only say this about normal, sane and decent things happening in 2020.

  111. 111.

    Ken

    The legal challenges start Monday. Rudy Giuliani is spearheading the case in Georgia and already has his tickets for Tbilisi.

    (Original to me, as far as I know.)

  113. 113.

    Bill Arnold

    @Bruce K:

    That seems to be a common thread with the 21st-century GOP: never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever admit that you made a mistake.

    It helps that their information system is so full of nonsense that they are always hair-trigger primed to make mock-able errors. It is fun to [try to] nudge them into making mistakes.

  114. 114.

    Miss Bianca

    OMG. I am sitting on the couch here shaking with laughter. Yes, good going, 2020 scriptwriters! You finally came up with a couple of plot twists I am really, really loving right now!

  115. 115.

    droog

    What an inspired choice of location:

    • A crematorium, where everything you built will turn to ash.
    • A landscaping store, where all your manure you produced will be used to feed worms.
    • A dildo store, where you can get something to go f*ck yourself.
  116. 116.

    jonas

    This American Life or some other media show/podcast needs to do a deep dive on how this happened. Step-by-step all the way to the moment the staffer realizes that it’s an industrial landscaping company, but the president has already confirmed it by tweet even as you scramble to get a hold of the real Four Seasons hotel to reschedule. This has to be one of the most absurd moments in American history.

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