The drama in Michigan continues with Monica Palmer (say her fucking name) attempting to rescind her certification vote, and revealing that she got a call from Trump.
Elections run on election officials from each party having at least a tiny modicum of good will and connection with reality. One of the lasting effects of this election will be a further degradation of the quality of election officials, for two reason: First, nobody wants to go through something like this. Second, future elections that aren’t even close (remember, Michigan isn’t close) will see Republicans trying to disenfranchise voters up and down the ballot.
So, I’m expecting many more coup attempts in the future, whether or not this one succeeds. This election didn’t finish anything — it just got it started.
Open Thread: Obama Drops In On The Twins
Ksmiami
We need to put the fear of hanging and jail into these corrupt pieces of shit.
Omnes Omnibus
Sure, and no one from our side is going to look at what is happening this time and take steps to secure the process.
cain
We need to do a full sweep – and these fucking clowns in the Republican party need to understand that they only have faux power – they are completely enthralled to their base who are in turn enthralled to a cult leader.
Eventually, the entire system will collapse into an epic melt down that even then no one will be willing face the reality. We are living in very dangerous times. I hope the coalition of conservatives, liberals, and others can work together to push these elements out.
But one thing is clear – we need to understand the role of social media and far right media corps. We need to put enormous pressure on these institutions and break them.
VeniceRiley
It’s just one of the reasons I am happy to be going. I just imagine I’ll be relieved of all the anxiety.
Offtopic but hey, I am for this. https://twitchy.com/gregp-3534/2020/11/19/there-is-a-way-to-stop-the-pandemic-by-christmas-without-a-lockdown-if-only-the-fda-bureaucracy-would-get-out-of-the-way-that-is/
Shalimar
@Omnes Omnibus: How do you plan on securing the vote if almost 74 million people are willing to say their guy won whether he did or not? You have to draw election officials from somewhere.
JMG
If Trump steals this one, there won’t be any more elections. Either the Republican wins or the election is ruled invalid. There will be no recourse for the majority but actual revolt.
White & Gold Purgatorian
I’ve managed to stay pretty calm about these election stealing schemes so far because most of them just seem pathetically foolish, but also because Biden’s win seems big enough to withstand a good deal of GOP jiggery pokery. However, the two MIchigan GOP legislative leaders meeting with Trump at the White House this afternoon has me genuinely nervous. It makes no sense that they would travel to DC just to tell Trump “no dice” on overturning the votes in Michigan. Is this like that golf game Lindsey Graham had with Trump? Play ball or your darkest secrets will be exposed?
Ksmiami
@cain: I just want Trump and enablers punished to the full extent- hey if we’re becoming a lawless society anything goes amirite?
Kent
One of my biggest pet peeves is people who try to express complicated concepts in an unreadable series of tweets.
Just write out your damn ideas or proposal in normal paragraphs and post it someplace. There is no shortage of electrons out there
Worse still are actual web sites that aren’t constrained by character limits that just copy and paste a long series of tweets instead of formatting the material properly.
Omnes Omnibus
@Shalimar: Well, fuck it, let’s just give up then. Or would you prefer the fantasy of partition? I am saying that we have agency too and we should use it.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@White & Gold Purgatorian: I believe the R state senate majority leader has said they’re not going to fuck with the electors. I know trump has a crazy ability to sway once-normal people, but I don’t know what the state senate can do with a Dem governor, SoS, the state authority (I believe?) having voted to certify the count
maybe I’m hopelessly naive, but this is a bit too novelistic for me. trump has kompromat on Lisa Murkowski? Orrin Hatch (I know he’s out, but I was surprised at how fast and how hard he went all-in for trump)? Pat Toomey? Our Willard? Ted Cruz? Marco Rubio? Shelley Capito? Tim Scott? James Lankford?
White & Gold Purgatorian
@White & Gold Purgatorian: Correction to my comment above: They are meeting with Trump tomorrow, not this afternoon.
Scout211
We’ve all just expected our election officials to be ethical and have integrity in the US. And until this election (and somewhat in 2016 with foreign interference) we (for the most part) have had that. It is kind of a shock that our elections can be so easily rigged by a few dishonest officials.
In retrospect, it shouldn’t be shocking. But it still is, at least to me.
Another Scott
Haven’t clicked the WaPo link.
Repost from downstairs:
Yes, they won’t give up trying. But there’s a lot of built-in friction in our system. A lot of the time it’s frustrating because it makes progress and giving up on antiquated policies and systems difficult. But in times of crisis, the friction makes is that much harder for the petit tyrants to take over.
We have to fight them every single day, but we have had to do that at times in the past.
Forward!!
Cheers,
Scott.
jonas
After she got a call from Trump? From everything I’ve read, this is more pretend legaling from Trump people with no basis in reality — i.e. she can actually “rescind” anything — but isn’t this some kind of illegal election interference? Can candidates call up members of an election board and lobby them to say that you won regardless of what the ballots say?
Aside from the legal questions, can you imagine the apoplectic ragegasms on the right if some election official in a county Trump won handily decided to “rescind” their certification after Biden personally called to cajole them? Holy shit, I can’t even wrap my head around it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: The concern is that they will do … something.
Yarrow
David Frum has an interesting Twitter thread on how to strengthen our democracy. I really cannot believe I read people like David Frum and Bill Kristol and nod along but here we are…
Further down:
I think some form of independent commission will be required to safeguard and reinvigorate our democracy.
scav
@White & Gold Purgatorian: Nah, it’s probably all just for the PR about the dangerous dangerous ravening lieberal hordes that threatened their brave brave widdle selves out of their suburban lifestyle dreams, plus a few more invented details about magic sharpie addled voting machines printing Black Lives Matter onto every race. Every opportunity to heighten the lack of information stream they’re spewing will be taken.
Cacti
Knock me over with a feather. I actually agree with MM about something.
I said in 2018 that if the Repukes held both chambers of Congress, that would be the last free election in US history.
My opinion hasn’t changed. If we end in a situation with Republican rule over all of the elected branches of national government in the future, democracy in this country is over.
White & Gold Purgatorian
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Thanks for the reassuring words. I Really do know that, but the constant assaults on democracy seem to be taking a toll.
One minor quibble, given that these two guys have risen to powerful posts in the Republican Party, it is possible that they are not and never have been “normal.” Lying, cheating scoundrels seems more likely.
zzyzx
@White & Gold Purgatorian: I think it’s more that Trump can parade them around as proof that the election is a fraud and that Michigan needs to be declared for Trump.
Kent
@Another Scott: A lot of this bullshit is performative. They don’t have legal grounds to withhold certification of the election in MI so they fling this shit against the wall with the intention of pointing to it down the road as “evidence” of problems in MI.
At this point I think they are just operating at a feral lizard brain level with no master strategic plan other than fling shit in every direction all at once and hope something sticks somewhere.
I honestly think that the GOP is digging is own grave by their coddling of Trump. Every day that they let this go on makes him more and more powerful in a post-Trump political landscape. They more they prop him up now, the more he is going to rule their world in 2022 and 2024. They should have just ripped off the band-aid when they had the chance in the days after the election.
If I was some sort of serious business type conservative Republican looking to re-make the party in a more Latino-friendly and more inclusive business-friendly party for 2022 and 2024 I’d be livid. They are never going to be rid of Trump. Fucking serves them right.
Gin & Tonic
@Yarrow:
Hell, it’s less committed to democratic norms and has weaker institutional safeguards than some post-Soviet states.
Soprano2
Kent, you should read the article then, it’s here https://time.com/5912705/covid-19-stop-spread-christmas/ He’s right, this would work and would save lives. I would take a test like this two or three times a week if I could! Hope Biden’s task force is reading this.
Spanky
@Yarrow: What does “independent” even mean anymore?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@White & Gold Purgatorian: a lot of lying cheating scoundrels have never broken the law, nor done anything in their personal life that would cost them more than a divorce. Not all perfidious turpitude is illegal.
Another Scott
@Yarrow: First quote s/US/GOP/, 2nd quote s/so many/nearly every/
Frum still has blinders.
Cheers,
Scott.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
my solution to all this : stay involved, get more involved, especially on a local level. Don’t fall into the Cult of the Presidency.
Jeffro
It’s a very simple playbook going forward: Only Republican Votes Count
Betty Cracker
Y’all.
Old School
Part of me wonders what good that would do if a sizable portion of the country would call it a hoax.
And if to be independent means a Robert Mueller or a James Comey needs to be in charge, then what would it actually accomplish?
Cacti
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Most authoritarian regimes commit their worst abuses with the full protection of the domestic law.
Once you get power, and have no restraint about exercising it, the law is whatever you say it is.
Soprano2
@Betty Cracker: OH My God that is totally insane! These people have lost their minds because Trump lost an election. Their voter suppression efforts didn’t work well enough this time, so I guess they’re panicking, and this is the result.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
They injected votes like one injects bleach.
dmsilev
@Betty Cracker: “Globalist” dictators, huh? We got the racism yesterday, so I guess today is AntiSemitism Day.
Yay.
Another Scott
@Betty Cracker: “Republicans don’t lie to be believed. They lie to be repeated.” – LOLGOP
Cheers,
Scott.
Cacti
@Jeffro: The Republican cancer has metastasized from “It’s illegitimate for Democrats to govern” to “It’s illegitimate for Democrats to vote at all”.
zzyzx
@Betty Cracker: the bit about Soros giving money to Antifa was better. As I tweeted, how does one even do that? Do you drive around PDX, look for people in Doc Martens, and throw $20s at them?
Gin & Tonic
@Cacti: A central argument of Timothy Snyder’s Black Earth.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Betty Cracker: they have the same target audience as Alex Jones, and it’s not the courts.
Cheryl Rofer
Wait, wait! That’s not even the best clip.
This kind of thing suggests to me that Kent is right. They are burning themselves down.
Also that it is time to start laughing at them. Loudly.
Cacti
I’m old enough to remember when Rudy Giuliani was generally admired.
Glad that’s over.
Kent
I read the article. They are talking about ramping up production of test kits into the billions and distributing them nationwide and then expecting both (1) massive voluntary compliance with a testing regime, and (2) massive voluntary compliance with quarantines. I don’t think any of these things are remotely possible or likely.
First, there is no evidence that we can ramp up manufacture of test kits any faster than we can ramp up production of actual vaccines.
Second, there is no evidence that 50% of the American population is going to go along with voluntary testing
Third, there is no evidence that Americans who have actual jobs and stuff are going to voluntarily quarantine on the basis of a rapid screening test that is notoriously inaccurate.
Fourth, massive in-home testing could actually undermine pandemic control efforts because they in-home results of rapid testing would not be available to public health officials. Right now we know what we know about the pandemic spread because every test is automatically uploaded into state and federal databases. If everyone is just doing their own tests at home then none of that would be happening and we would blind to the pandemic’s spread.
MisterForkbeard
@Betty Cracker: Who the F is Sidney Powell?
But yes, these people are terrible, liars, and into some incrediblely insane conspiracy theories
EDIT: I’m encouraged by the fact that the non-OAN reporters seem to think Trump and Giuliani’s behavior and press conference is full of shit. I’m a particular fan of when reporters asked for evidence, they freaked out and yelled “You clearly don’t understand how the legal process works”. And also yelled at a reporter when they asked why they were persisting when they’d lost nearly every court challenge except for an inconsequential one.
dmsilev
@Cheryl Rofer: How long until they start talking about the International Communist Conspiracy to Sap and Impurify Our Precious Bodily Fluids?
dmsilev
@Cacti: Remember when he gave a press conference in front of a landscaping company’s warehouse? Seems like a lifetime ago.
Chyron HR
@Betty Cracker:
What are they so afraid of? Biden’s not going to execute them, is he?
Baud
@Cheryl Rofer:
I can’t watch right now, but I can’t believe they haven’t brought up Hillary’s machinations.
Kay
evap
The vote in Georgia should be official tomorrow and the governor will then empower (or whatever the right word is) the 16 Democratic electors on Saturday. Kemp is awful, but he is not going to overturn the will of the people.
O. Felix Culpa
I dunno, why wouldn’t this kind of fuckery stiffen our resolve to continue fighting fascism?
Another Scott
@MisterForkbeard: The main point is to try to make everything tribal. Every reaction based on lizard-brain responses. Science, evidence, the law, none of that matters. It’s our Trumpist Tribe vs everyone else.
If they can divide the country that way, they can do what they want in the economy, in law, in government.
They know what they’re doing.
We have an obligation not to spread their crazy nonsense (even if it’s to mock it). These ideas aren’t new – they were just bubbling under the surface in the USA until Donnie and The Birthers got 24/7 visibility.
Cheers,
Scott.
Spanky
@Chyron HR: I think he’s going to delegate that to Hillary.
Baud
@evap: Good.
Patricia Kayden
cmorenc
@Omnes Omnibus:
The ultimate concern with states like Pa and Mi who have sufficient statewide D majorities of voters to usually go blue in Presidential elections, but have gerrymandered structural R legislative majorities, is that during a time they also have an R Governor, their legsislatures will pass a law switching to allocating electoral votes by gerrymandered congressional districts. Had such been in place in Mi and Pa this election, Trump would have won a grossly disproportionate share of electoral votes from those states despite losing the overall statewide votes by substantial margins.
Peale
@Patricia Kayden: So are they going to file a 3rd amended complaint that spells out how Hugo Chavez, Jews and Dominion tried to sneak a fast one by us by getting black people in Philadelphia to vote Democratic for President, something they’ve never done before?
Kay
If we’re waiting for weak-willed, groveling and obedient conservatives to save us we’re going to be waiting a long time.
They’re afraid of him and they lack character. They simply are not up to defending the country.
scav
I rather think the answering machines attached to those secret lines of communication between big business and the entrenched republican barnacles are flashing red and filling up.
MCA1
@Kent: I mostly come down on the same side as you, though a part of me still thinks it possible that the cult of personality dies here once the personality is behind bars at Sing Sing. This sort of devotion doesn’t usually transfer.
The underlying crazy is still there, though – the commitment to undemocratic minoritarian rule, the Rightwing Media Comic Universe alternate reality, the conspiracist mindset. Until we find out a way to break the hold that Fox has on framing the world for conservatives, we’re not getting anywhere.
LuciaMia
@Betty Cracker: Just out of curiosity I tuned to Fox, around 1:15. Rudy’s ranting away. The presser was said to start at 12;00. Was he blathering on for over an hour?
International dark forces, conspiracy on a grand scale. I guess he likes living in a Bond film.
Cacti
I think it’s safe to say that we’re now in the Weimar Republic stage of US history.
LuciaMia
Isnt that a contradiction in terms?
Kay
@scav:
Republicans are really going to back this. I had a very low opinion of them going into this but I had no earthly idea how compliant, groveling and obedient they are. Not one of them has a spine, or free will, or agency. They were so incredibly easy to conquer.
Ksmiami
@Chyron HR: a girl can dream…
Kay
@Cacti:
It’s unprecedented. Never before has a US political party backed a dictatorship.
O. Felix Culpa
@O. Felix Culpa: Oops, wrong link posted. Here’s what I had in mind: https://youtu.be/nUTXb-ga1fo
mrmoshpotato
I hope we win both Senate seats in Georgia so we can be the party of “FUCK YOU, YOU SHITSTAIN NAZI MOTHERFUCKERS!”
Mary G
@Kent: That site has a link to a Time Magazine article written by the author of the tweets you so object to in its first paragraph.
And I’d ask you to think about long series of tweets. My hands that’ve been infected with RA for 41 years now mean typing is a literal pain. Embedding tweets lets me comment a lot more. Not everyone is just lazy #CripTheVote.
HalfAssedHomesteader
Just so it doesn’t get completely flushed from our political culture: She should have declined his call. Full stop. There is no grey area here.
Spanky
@LuciaMia: Doesn’t matter. They’re two trigger words. Their audience at this point has the reasoning ability of a retriever who’s keyed in on certain words. “Ball”, “Fetch”, ad nauseum.
Delk
Rudy’s hair dye is running down his face.
ALurkSupreme
@Kay: I agree. All this “Privately, Republican officials disagree/are alarmed/are disgusted/” bullshit has just got to stop. These f’ers are either in for a penny or in for a pound.
Kay
All the young conservatives are watching this too. They’re learning to bow down to a strongman leader. They should look back at how they’re raising these people. They learned this groveling, weakness and cowardice somewhere. It’s appalling to watch.
Butter Emails
@Kay:
I don’t know. Seems like they have spines of Adamantium when it comes to opposing things like truth, decency and doing the right thing.
zzyzx
@MCA1: I do think that, while racism is definitely a part, so much of the Trump cult is simple celebrity worship. You see this thing every now and then where fans of different Late Night shows or morning shock DJs will attack each other over how they like the wrong one, e.g. “Opie and Anthony stole everything from Howard Stern!”
I’ve seen that sort of thing enough time on message boards to know that there’s a large number of people who are willing to go to war for their favorite TV stars and Trump is trading off of that. I don’t think a Ron Paul would be able to pull over these hijinks as convincingly.
dmsilev
@Kay: As the saying goes, the Cossacks work for the Tsar. A sane Trump wouldn’t have tapped Giuliani for this (or for any) role.
mrmoshpotato
@Cheryl Rofer: “communist money”?
Oh these adorable Rethuglican Russkie idiots.
scav
@Kay: They’re going to have to choose which choke collar best suits their fetish fantasies going forward. Theirs was an uneasy coalition of long-standing.
Big business tells Donald Trump to admit defeat: Chamber of Commerce says transition needs to begin NOW ‘for the sake of Americans’ safety and well-being’
Kay
@ALurkSupreme:
It’s also factually untrue. Republicans are joining the lawsuits. The historical record won’t include all this super-savvy excuse making. Donald Trump and the Republican Party. Every step of the way.
I have no idea why people would accept what they tell reporters secretly rather than just accept their own public words and actions. That’s nuts. People are measured by their actions and statements, not elaborate spinning they planted themselves. Why are we continuing to coddle these people?
Yarrow
@Spanky: I would take it to be independent of Congress, so not run by them.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Ksmiami:
Yup – done with drum circles, giant puppets and dedicated non-violence. Shit’s for real this time.
WaterGirl
@Mary G: I am glad you are here.
Hoodie
@MCA1: This always seems to come back the failure of GOP elites, including the Bush debacle and the GOP decision to give into Trumpism because it lacked any ability to appeal to anyone outside of a narrow base. The problem is that now the lumpen feel empowered, it’s what Trump did for them because he doesn’t care if they shit on the rug and piss in the sink. The message to a lot of these folks used to be “you’re too dumb to make these decisions,” but the daddy that used to tell them that ran off for two-week bender in Sioux Falls. The result was letting the inmates take over the asylum, with the remaining GOP leadership now consisting mostly of nutcases elevated from the base and demagogic grifters who decided to cash in on the chaos. The Dems have their issues with their own elites, but at least the cultural diversity of the party makes it more resistant to going down the rathole like the GOP.
Sab
@Kay: I have been bickering with my husband about next year’s primaries. Depending on what is happening on our side, I am considering jumping over to the other side just this year. DeWine and Husted v Teaparty Trumpish nutjobs. I would like to throw my tiny oar in against the nutjobs. My husband is appalled. Any thoughts?
Kay
@scav:
One of my sisters has been waiting for the money to weigh in. She knew the groveling chickenshits would never stand up to him themselves.
They should examine the “conservative movement” though. They’ve created a huge group of weaklings who won’t defend the country and were incredibly vulnerable to an authoritarian ruler. Something’s fucked up with how these people are coming up. They don’t have free will.
mrmoshpotato
@Butter Emails: And an insatiable appetite for fascist, orange ass. Anyone checked if Dick and W are all “WTF?”
(Yes, I think this would embarrass idiot war criminal George W Bush.)
Cheryl Rofer
@Baud: Hush! Don’t give them ideas!
ALurkSupreme
@Kay: Well said. I agree.
SiubhanDuinne
Listening to PBO on Fresh Air right now. Just started on my local NPR affiliate. Terry Gross made him laugh right out of the box.
Ksmiami
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: the time has come for mounted, sustained counterattack. Burn the GOP to the ground and salt the fields. Get ready to descend on DC in such numbers and with hardware that they are made to fear our majority
WaterGirl
I think this ridiculous bullshit on their side gives us an opportunity to clean up voting machines all over the US before the election in 2022.
I don’t think they are crazy just for thinking someone might have messed with voting results, or uploading of numbers or whatever. I suspect the Rs have done that for years.
Can’t we use that to work RIGHT AWAY once Biden is elected to make sure every county in every state has reliable voting systems that all have printed ballots that are read by machines, and a literal paper trail for every vote? I don’t see why not.
Kay
@Sab:
I don’t do that anymore. I used to. My whole county is 100% GOP so I used to go with the moderate or less corrupt but around 2010 I rejected the party completely. I just can’t vote for any of them. The whole party is rotten and weak. I don’t have much sympathy for people who debase themselves. I suppose I should but I don’t. I just don’t want any part of it. It makes me cringe.
mrmoshpotato
@Delk:
What hair?
Frank Wilhoit
@Cheryl Rofer: Most of the people she is talking to don’t know who Hugo Chavez was. None of them could find Venezuela on a globe if you gave them forty minutes and a jeweller’s loupe.
leeleeFL
@Yarrow: As I said yesterday about Bill Kristol, Frum has been walking the walk for awhile! I think the Abyss has been looking back at them for 4 or 5 years now, and they are well and truly appalled and terrified by what has been wrought.
Whatever it takes to strangle this evil is what has to happen. If we do not end this bullshit now, my Grands and GreatGrands will not live in a Democracy we would recognize.
scav
@Kay: I’m rather assuming some of the law firms dropping Team Tantrum’s cases is reflective of the big money opinion. They’re not worried about the costumed street-side sign-wavers not bringing them cases.
oatler.
https://abc7chicago.com/michigan-governor-gretchen-whitmer-kidnapping-plot-militia/8079861/
Gin & Tonic
@zzyzx: But RuPaul could, amirite?
Yarrow
@Delk: Lol. “Grecian formula” is trending on Twitter.
Betty Cracker
That nutso lady babbling about communist money and Chavez and globalist dictators in the videos above is amusing on one level, but there’s some evidence red scaremongering works, at least in Florida. I was puzzled to see Florida’s US Senators Scott and Rubio yapping about commies at events in Georgia to support Loeffler and Perdue. Maybe they think that’ll work in Georgia too?
Rubio and other Republicans are also smearing Rev. Warnock for a sermon in which he paraphrased Jesus by saying you can’t serve God and the military at the same time. They’re pulling out all the stops. I have no idea if it’ll work. I don’t understand voters in my state, let alone those in our neighbor to the north.
Kent
I don’t see anyone on the GOP horizon who can replace Trump in terms of whipping up the MAGA crazies and conspiracy theories. So I think they are going to be stuck with him looming over everything they do.
I also think that Trump’s ability to influence elections when he is not in office and not on the ballot is going to be pretty damn minimal. But they don’t know that yet. He’s already looking around for some to primary Mike DeWine in Ohio because DeWine hasn’t properly sucked his dick. That stuff is going to keep happening until it stops working.
Reading Obama’s interviews, the point he makes repeatedly is that the problem is Fox. The right wing media environment has made it too toxic for any GOPer to ever do anything bipartisan, or even look bipartisan. That either ends up with the GOP going full fascist and destroying the country, or with the GOP as a rump party like in CA. I’m not sure which.
leeleeFL
@Cacti: took way too fucking long
Kay
@ALurkSupreme:
Republicans tell reporters secretly that Republicans are not backing an authoritarian power grab – this is directly contradicted by each and every one of their public actions and statements and for some reason we’re all told to go along with the Republican narrative of what Republicans are doing.
It’s insane. Since fucking when? Let’s all do that, shall we? We’ll scream a bunch of shit and take a bunch of actions and then whisper to certain others that we don’t really mean it. In what universe is this acceptable?
I’m taking Republicans at their word and actions. If they would like to explain or elaborate they are free to do so but they’re going to have to have the balls to put their names on it. No more free passes.
chrisanthemama
What kind of shithole country runs elections this way?
Frank Wilhoit
@MisterForkbeard: Marcy Wheeler is your go-to source for all things Sydney Powell. (Much other goodness as well.)
MJS
Does anyone know what is going on with the Georgia recount? It was supposed to be wrapped up by midnight last night, with the results to be announced today. As relatively forthright as their SoS has been, doesn’t he understand that every single nail is needed to keep this coffin lid down?
Patricia Kayden
@JMG: Try to revolt and be met by Trump loving police officers and military members as well as unofficial gun wielding White Supremacist thugs. Sigh.
Kent
It’s a fools errand. When we lived in TX I once crossed over to vote for Ted Cruz in his first primary because I thought he’d be a more toxic candidate in the general than David Dewhurst, the more mainstream GOP senate candidate. Look how that worked out. Dewhurst would have just been another John Cornyn type, voting reliably GOP but not trying to shut down the government over Obamacare.
The better option is to just keep voting Dem and making the margins a tiny bit closer. Because some day the gap may close. Look at GA and AZ.
Baud
@chrisanthemama:
The election was mostly run pretty well. It’s Trump who is complaining they weren’t.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
IMO, we’ve left the realm of “politics”. We’re in some different place now.
Philbert
I watched the presser for an hour, sound off for Rudy but I listened to the other two as long as I could. They have pure seething contempt for anyone opposed to Trump. Sidney’s voice was pretty shaky. This is a coup try, through legal channels for now, but it is a dry run for the future. I am more scared than I have been since Nov 4.
Sab
Totally OT : In a previous thread it was noted that our beloved Mnemosyne is alive, well and occassionaly posting on daily kos. Geographically this makes a lot of sense to me. I miss her much, but in the middle of the night EST on BJ (which isn’t so late PST) there often wasn’t much to do but torment trolls. She excels at that, but I am glad she has found livelier pastures. I still miss her.
scav
Scriptwriters adding easter eggs of “Things appearing on televised heads” is a new little twist. Should we get a pool going?
Kay
@Sab:
It’s just that we have been saying since 2010 “the moderates will rise” or “the fever will break” and they get more extreme every year. They’ve gotten much, much worse in just the last 13 days.
Mike DeWine is HIMSELF much further Right than he was, and they want to impeach him.
Baud
@Philbert:
I’m not scared in the least.
Patricia Kayden
Emma from FL
I think I will join the exodus from BJ until after the Biden inauguration. The AAAAIIIIIEEEE WE’RE DOOMED FOREVER shtick is getting really old. Michigan is not going to overturn the election. Giuliani’s not going to suddenly develop Dr. Strange-level powers. This is theatre for the rubes. Yes, cleaning out the stables will be a long term job. Decades, probably. We might not ultimately win and the great American Experiment will end in fifty or sixty years. Empires do end. But if we’re going into it expecting to lose, what is the point of fighting?
Gin & Tonic
@Sab: Several people have said that’s not her, but somebody else with the same nym.
rikyrah
@White & Gold Purgatorian:
They THINK they’re about that life.
They’re not about that life.
NOBODY is playing with them.
Kay
@Sab:
It’s not her, I don’t think. She mentioned several times on this site that there is a kos poster who shares her name. I think the kos poster is a long time and prolific kos person.
Baud
@Emma from FL: I agree.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Kay:
I want to see journos start burning all those sources. We need to know these gutless fucks.
mrmoshpotato
@leeleeFL:
Fixed, and fuck ’em.
Sab
@Kay: Yes. He signed the heartbeat abortion bill, and he is now getting serious death threats. !?
LongHairedWeirdo
Now, the important thing here is, let’s not take sides. It’s clear that a lot of Republicans think that trying to steal an election is okay, and that automatically elevates it to a Reasonable View, held by Very Serious People.
We should probably just report on the facts, without suggesting that a call from Trump, and a desire to switch one’s vote, speaks to obvious corruption, corruption far, far more suspicious than getting a job while your dad is vice president, and keeping that job while your dad makes sure your company will be investigated. (See, Biden pushed to have a prosecutor who *wasn’t* investigating Burisma removed, so an actual prosecuting prosecutor would take over. It’s amazing how much one can miss when the zone is flooded with crap.)
(smacks head)
I’m sorry – I feel like I was infected by some strange disease that made me want to interview white people and ask how they feel about Trump, his loss, and
his whiny, sore loser act,er, his heroic struggle for the American people, and it somehow clouded my brain to the point where his multitudinous crimes weren’t as important as his support in the polls. Did I miss anything?rikyrah
@Yarrow:
Doug Jones for Special Prosecutor.
Philbert
@Baud: Thanks.
taumaturgo
@Betty Cracker:
It will work as it did in Florida if the Democrats stick to the weak messaging strategy instead of giving the voters solid reasons to vote for them, by not running away from the issues voters favor, and not running and hiding from the socialist-communist attack.
Sab
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Modern journalists don’t burn anybody anymore. It’s just not done these days.
Sab
@Kay: Sigh.
VOR
@Cheryl Rofer: One of the reporters need to ask Giuliani and company what color the sky is in their world.
rikyrah
@Kay:
keep telling that truth, Kay.
TELL IT!
scav
@Sab: I bet they would, as soon as they get a book out of it for themselves or possibly even just a slightly better cash on the barrelhead offer.
Yarrow
@rikyrah: I like Doug Jones for AG. How about Preet Bharara for Special Prosecutor?
Johnnybuck
@Betty Cracker: I live in Ga. Watching Loeffler’s ads are disgusting, but I don’t think they are very persuadable to anybody not already all in. I think the hope is that drawing out the election can maybe keep *Trump voters fired up for the runoffs. It might work, but something tells me that once the election is finalized, these *Trump voters will slink back into their holes not to be heard from again. At least I hope so.
MomSense
@Kent:
I think we have to focus on media accountability even though I’m not sure what exactly that means. In some cases it’s probably campaigns to go after advertisers. In other cases we will need regulation. Unfortunately the problem has gotten soooo much bigger than Fox.
The Thin Black Duke
@Emma from FL: If black people were this defeatist, we’d still be slaves.
Josie
@Emma from FL:
I think I will just stick to the respite threads, such as the one TaMara posted this morning and the travel pictures. Also, it is possible to read a post without going into the comments, which is where so much of the panic is evident. I am making a plan to do just that and hope that I can stick to it.
Mary G
@Kay: It is shocking. I just tweeted to Jake Tapper that I can’t imagine John McCain tolerating this, but Mitch McConnell doesn’t blink an eye.
Johnnybuck
@Baud: Me either.
Get a frickin’ grip people!
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Johnnybuck: Well the past four years show they only show up to vote when their Orange Sun King is on the ballot, otherwise they don’t care. But it is Georgia so there maybe enough politically engaged Republicans to vote them in.
The Moar You Know
@Kent: 20th century thinking and more than half wrong. The problem is Facebook. Fox is a backup adjunct for those so old they don’t know how to work a computer. That group won’t be with us in any appreciable numbers within a decade.
Kay
@Sab:
But he keeps trying to mollify them. I don’t get it. If people are threatening to kill you they’re not your friends. What is this “discussion” he’s planning with them? He thinks they want to talk about workers comp rates? The fine points of utility regulation? This isn’t about “policy”. They want him to say Donald Trump won the election. Is there some room for compromise there? Where?
danielx
@Kay:
Cult is the word. Way back when about a thousand years ago, I read about Dubya’s faithful being referred to as a cult. That went on until 2005, when things were going so badly in Iraq that even the faithful started to see that reality and W’s cheerleaders were getting farther and farther apart all the time and Repubs got hammered in the 2006 midterms.
This time around nothing Trump does or fails to do – no matter how badly he fucks up – seems to matter. It’s all about owning the libs, “because he talks like we talk”, ad nauseum. And since he will go to his grave insisting the election was stolen, they believe him since they believe anything he says. We are way past W-era levels of devotion.
eta: these people who say “he talks like we talk”, like that lottery winning bozo a couple of days ago, make me want to ask “if you talk like that all the time, how come somebody hasn’t rearranged your face by now?”.
Kay
@Mary G:
Never thought I’d say this but Jake Tapper has been good. He’s simply telling the truth. Turns out is wasn’t any more complicated than that.
Fair Economist
@Kent:
It’s performative only because it can’t be functional due to Democratic officials (and the occasional honest Republican) blocking ways to execute it (e.g. in Michigan the governor can block any legal change and the Secretary of State can certify the election). If they actually had the power to do it, they’d be doing it. Lindsey Graham casually asking the GA SOS to throw out ballots makes me think they actually *ARE* doing it in some places already (actual electoral fraud, not just undemocratic voter suppression).
Chris Johnson
@Betty Cracker: Vaush is live dunking on this very video clip as I speak. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcWvUcMk-QA
H.E.Wolf
Precisely. The malefactors have a great many of us to reckon with.
I’m going to keep on doing the work, like O. Felix Culpa and a whole lot of you.
Doomsters, please join us! You’ll feel more hopeful once you start doing something concrete to help; and all helpers are welcome.
Kent
I don’t have any answers. They are clearly tripling down on the crazy. Basically going the way of the CA GOP which turned itself into a rump party. There was a day in my lifetime when CA was pretty reliably GOP.
I don’t see how they make it work long-term in a rapidly diversifying country. But what do I know.
Sab
@The Thin Black Duke: More words to live by from you. ( I hope that doesn’t sound snide, because it isn’t meant that way.) You are my new Ben Franklin.
Chief Oshkosh
@Kay: And WHEN OH WHEN will Magpie and the Muppets of the cocktail circuit reveal WHO THE FUCK THESE TRUMP ADVISERS ARE???!!
Judas Priest bouncing a pogo stick on cracker. The election is over Maggie. Why do you keep giving these people cover?
MCA1
@leeleeFL: True, but they still seem unable to admit to themselves (or maybe they have but can’t admit it to the world) the degree to which they wrought it.
I like living in a world where some of these hardcore conservatives say things that I agree with more than once a year or so. But I will be happier in a world where there’s more widespread recognition that their prior embrace of the nihilism that started taking over the GOP long ago got us here. I currently think that the Gingrich led 1994 midterms were the real inflection point. After that it was recognized as good electoral strategy for Republicans to demonize and dehumanize their opponents, which led to an electoral incentivization to obstruct and vehemently oppose anything any Democrat said at all times, as opposed to actually governing. The Bushes and Romneys and so on deluded themselves into thinking the party was still controlled by them and running well based on traditional conservative ideas, which makes them look silly in retrospect. But the pundits and GOP operatives like Kristol and Frum and Wilson and others, well, they look evil in retrospect, because they were down there in the dirt embracing this new concept of heightening the partisanship and turning politics into blood sport.
Kent
To be fair. I’m the one who wrote Fox in there. I think Obama was commenting on the right wing media landscape write-large, not just Fox. But it’s the same problem either way. The GOP doesn’t answer to the same set of incentives that it used to.
The Moar You Know
@Kent: That’s for damn sure.
Sab
@WaterGirl: Everyone has been telling me that. Sigh. I hope she is okay and happy.
Kent
I would actually gleefully like to see Biden troll Trump along these same lines. Saying things like:
“There are a lot of GOP Senators who are coming to us in private to congratulate and apologize for the actions of the president”
“We are working around Trump’s obstruction of the transition because a lot of top Administration officials are coming to us in private to cooperate”
And then watch the circular firing squad begin.
But then Biden has more class than I do.
Kay
@danielx:
I don’t really believe that. Donald Trump just lost an election where he was the incumbent and he unlawfully used the whole apparatus of the federal government to try to engineer a win. He still lost.
George W Bush is a much more successful GOP President than Donald Trump. Bush won his re-elect.
The mighty Trump coalition couldn’t even drag fat ass into a lay-up re-elect and George W Bush’s ordinary GOP coalition did. Trump lost. Incumbents almost never lose but he did.
The Thin Black Duke
@Sab: Oh my. Thank you (blushes).
Kent
Biden got the highest percentage of votes of any challenger since FDR. That’s damn impressive.
The Moar You Know
Ignoring from here on out any media reporting on what Republicans “privately” say. The media needs to stop giving them that out. They say it publicly for the record and take their lumps or it shouldn’t be reported.
Fair Economist
@Sab:
I don’t think it’ll make any difference either way. The nutjobs are running the asylum; you can’t fix that by visiting occasionally.
More useful is some kind of jungle primary and/or ranked vote system so the nutbars have to compete with the less nutty ones with a general election electorate. That has trimmed off a little bit of the crazy here in CA (Repubs occasionally cross over on specific issues).
@The Moar You Know:
Right. Basically everything they say in public is a lie; why should it be different in private?
Elizabelle
@Emma from FL:
Stay out of this type of mistermix posts. Some are designed to be angst-fests. Seriously. This was happening many months back, with the Bernie stuff. Saw the topic and the post and knew it would be hysteria here. Pick and choose what you read. The mornings are usually fine.
Go listen to Terry Gross. I think she’s on now, and her guest is President Obama.
@The Thin Black Duke:
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Yarrow
@H.E.Wolf: I would really like Balloon-Juice to have an action thread most days. Something specific we can do, not just the general, “Look at all the great things you can choose from to help.” I find that overwhelming and think, “I’ll get back to that later to look through it” and then I don’t do it. It’s too much choice.
I remember back curing the health care fights. Someone (Tim?) would post a thread telling us to call our representatives and talk about X. David Anderson has done the same thing when things got dicey about the ACA in the last four years. Those were great because I didn’t have to think too hard about it. I just called. About that one thing. Added my voice to the list of callers.
I really do think we should be burning up the phones calling our elected representatives about what’s happening to our democracy. Definitely for any R elected officials we have but also the D’s because they should know we’re watching/have their back too.
Kay
@danielx:
Trump beat himself, too. He was an incumbent with a good economy. All he had to do was present some vaguely human-looking response to the pandemic and shut the fuck up for 6 months and he could have eked out another narrow win and been a two-termer. Now he’s a loser one termer forever.
Losing a re-elect is worse than losing the first time because it’s a rejection of the person and performance people know. It’s the difference between not getting a job you applied for and getting fired. He got fired. Tried and rejected.
different-church-lady
@Baud: I’m not scared of this attempt at a coup working. I’m worried about what kind of monsters might grow from the seeds they’re sowing.
Mousebumples
@Emma from FL: your call, but I find judicious use of the pie filter helps mute the chicken littlest of commentators.
I periodically check and unpie as needed, but it’s a great feature to have.
Kent
I disagree. All this private disloyalty has to be feeding Trump’s paranoia. They should be reporting more of it and let the Trump loyalists go into a frenzy of Sulla type proscriptions and purges as they seek to weed out the disloyal and eat their own.
Baud
@different-church-lady: Why not focus on the kinds of heroes we’re going to grow?
Elizabelle
@Mousebumples: I love the pie filter. Especially with Avalune’s wonderful cupcake art.
At least in Virginia, Fresh Air with Terry Gross is on right now. President Obama is the guest.
Would you rather tear out your hair on this thread, or listen to someone with something interesting to say?
different-church-lady
@Baud: Because Saruman is getting all the screen time at the moment.
cope
@Kent:
Thanks, my sentiments exactly.
WaterGirl
@Emma from FL: I skip over comments from folks whose comments consistently stir up worries and sow doubt.
I think there are lots of threads here where it’s not all doom and gloom, maybe you don’t have to walk away completely.
Fair Economist
@Betty Cracker: The claim of voting machines “injecting votes” is another case of “every accusation is a confession”. That is exactly what was done to the last Democratic governor of Alabama, Don Siegelman. Six thousand votes were switched from him to his opponent after counting was over. The (Republican) Attorney General seized the ballots and refused to allow a recount.
Baud
@different-church-lady:
Hang out with the Ents more.
Kay
This was always going to happen. They can’t allege the huge conspiracy without implicating Republicans who got elected in states Trump lost. He’s going to try to take them all down with him.
The Thin Black Duke
@different-church-lady: The monsters have always been on Maple Street.
Elizabelle
Terry is asking PBO about the precedent Trump is trying to set, and that most Republicans are supporting him.
PBO: Donald Trump is who he is …. what I was surprised by was the complicity of other GOP leaders and their [refusal] to call him … says he was pleased by the election just run, and the election officials, with their integrity. ” But there’s no doubt it’s been strained.”
Terry is right on to trump’s lies and birtherism …
Yarrow
@Kay: For a narcissist it’s the worst.
Elizabelle
Obama calling out mainstream media for having Trump on their shows to boost ratings. “That was frustrating to me.”
… that horrible ideas could end up gaining traction. “And the internet doesn’t help.”
Says “Trump was an accelerant, but he didn’t cause all this.”
different-church-lady
@Baud: Oh, sure, then we’ll have the election certified some time in June.
Steve in the ATL
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
“I’ll take Victorian insults for $200, Alex”
MCA1
@danielx: Things certainly did accelerate starting the moment Obama won in 2008. They seem to be more immune to those “reality seeping in” events like Katrina now, which is why the hold just won’t break, no matter how bad Trump behaves. They’ve had another 15 years of voluntary conditioning by right wing media, convincing them that Democrats are satan incarnate and the only truth they’ll hear is from Fox.
I’ve come to terms with that realization – that we’re broken as a society because half the country doesn’t believe anything reality tells them anymore or prefers not to be introduced to reality, and that we’re probably in terminal decline. But I will never get over the absurd fact that the Destructor we chose, the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man of the death of American democracy, was Donald F’ing Trump. The smallest, pettiest, most ridiculous man in America. A proudly gaudy, flamboyantly ignorant, buffoonish grifter who loathes his supporters. A man so overwhelmed by his various psychological disorders as to be obviously, completely broken. THAT’s who they chose. That fact will never, ever, stop pissing me off.
The Moar You Know
@danielx: Bush was old money. He never let you forget it. He tried to get you to forget it, but that’s a smell that doesn’t wash off. That was a hard limiter on how much you could be devoted to the guy. He would always be a remote god.
Trump is a second-generation slumlord who is a half-billion dollars in the hole and has a thing for legal meth and second-tier porn stars. More than half of America not only wants to be him, but think they could be, and truly think, as they used to say of “W”, that he is a guy they could have a beer with.
Notwithstanding Trump’s hatred of alcohol, Trump is the kind of guy who would gleefully lock any of these “salt of the earth” fine examples of Americans who would want to consume some fine brewskis with him into a gas chamber, and pour the Zyklon-B in himself, but man, his people just will not realize that he’d far rather gas them then even look at them.
He’s not a remote god. He’s a god they could be if they just tried harder. The epitome of what the “American Dream’ really is. Work hard and become the president, and stay a filthy amoral dirtbag.
O. Felix Culpa
Here’s a nice thing: Biden Plans To Reopen America To Refugees After Trump Slashed Admissions
h/t Wonkette
Dorothy A. Winsor
In many parts of the country, such as Wisconsin and Michigan, Rs hold legislative power through minority rule. Trump and W both took office through minority rule. When that’s how a party gets power, it’s probably best not to rely on them to strengthen democracy.
Kay
@Yarrow:
Right and he’s never, ever been fired before. He never had a job his family didn’t give him. He’s never had an actual evaluation of his work. He just got one. Boom. 70-some years of bullshit come crashing down.
Cheryl Rofer
As the states certify, the legal challenges become moot. Michigan has certified. Period. It’s over, no matter what fever dreams Rudy and his trolls have to share.
matt
Well, since Dems rig so many elections Republicans are forced to rig them themselves. As a defensive measure.
Sab
@The Thin Black Duke: When I was an elementary school student in Florida and a high school student in Ohio I learned that white people freed black people in the Civil War.
Then as an adult I read General President Grant’s memoir, and that is not what happened at all. The North depended very much on intelligence information given at great risk by slaves to the Union Army. That is in addition to the actual brave and effective fighting by black troops.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Re the pie filter, I use it very occasionally. I just skip comments that annoy me.
Sometimes I think I’d like to know if anyone has me pied. But then I think no, it would hurt my feelings.
Elizabelle
@Kay: I want the next evaluation to come in a courtroom. Trump must be fully investigated, prosecuted if warranted, and punished if convicted.
Gin & Tonic
@O. Felix Culpa: It would also be nice if the normal processes for visas and residence permits started to work as well. My son isn’t particularly enjoying seeing his wife only via FaceTime.
burnspbesq
@Frank Wilhoit:
Also worth noting: Chavez died in 2013.
Baud
@Cheryl Rofer: Good info. Need to have a new push against the GSA on Monday to begin the transition.
Mai Naem mobile
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: you don’t become a senator not being a knife fighter up to an extent. Especially nowadays with polarized politics. If you’re a red state senator you had to fight a lot of people to become senator because it’s a safe plum position. I am guessing there’s stuff for kompromat on the whole lot of them. The Russians hacked the DNC and magically didn’t bother hacking the RNC? My guess is there’s tons of stuff on the GOP that’s being held over them by the Russians or some other entity.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Someone on here posted this list of when the various states certify the elections. I found it useful. Most of them will be certified in the next couple of weeks.
matt
@Mai Naem mobile: Sadly I don’t think that’s needed for the behavior we’re seeing. Proximity to power and a seat on the gravy train is all that’s needed to get people to do essentially anything you want.
The Moar You Know
@Kay: I have been wondering why we just didn’t respond tit-for-tat and start doing the same kind of challenges. Well, if they’re going to do it for us…please proceed!
And also holy shit. The Trumpies are really going to go after their own here. Holy shit.
Death Panel Truck
@Kay: All Trump had to do was unleash the experts to work from the existing pandemic playbook (which he shitcanned), take COVID seriously and shut his fucking pie hole, and he’d have cruised to reelection. He will never understand this because he saw the pandemic not as a public health crisis but a political one with himself the victim.
Sab
@Emma from FL: Please don’t go. Stay on the cheerful threads. There are many of those, and many of us look forward to you commenting there.
Sab
@Death Panel Truck: He ran for President to be the center of attention. There was no way for a toxic narcissist to succeed at this job.
ETA: I am 66 years old and have been around a lot, but I have only had to deal with one toxic narcissist in my life. Until you run into one of these critters you have no idea what toxic means.
leeleeFL
@mrmoshpotato: . I was going to add the gist of what you said, I just know we are aware of their complicity. I can still see them being sickened by the outcome, if they ever loved this Country at all.
mrmoshpotato
@The Moar You Know: Wait. You mean W wasn’t a rancher?!
Philbert
@Cheryl Rofer: Thanks for this, I feel better. That press conference, stupid as it was, amplifies the madness of the already crazy. The earlier they douse the flames the better.
The Thin Black Duke
@Sab: History is always more interesting than the mythology, isn’t it? It’s encouraging to see that the truth is more available than its ever been.
burnspbesq
@Yarrow:
Jones doesn’t have the right kind of experience.
Never forget that DOJ is a huge fucking organization. The AG should have experience in running huge fucking organizations. The General Counsel of any Fortune 100 company has more relevant experience than Doug Jones.
State AGs are the best candidates. Healy is my first choice, but I’d be OK with Becerra or James.
mrmoshpotato
@O. Felix Culpa: Oh, NPR link. Thought for a second Wonkette had gone serious.
Yarrow
@Kay: It’s the biggest narcissistic injury possible, losing the election for president for his second term. He’s reeling and we’re having to deal with it, just as anyone in a relationship with a narcissist has to deal with their crazy, especially when they try to break up with them. It’s a terrible thing to have to deal with and it can be dangerous.
Barry
@Omnes Omnibus: “Sure, and no one from our side is going to look at what is happening this time and take steps to secure the process.”
The point is that a constraint has been relaxed, and it’s a constraint which bound them and not us.
O. Felix Culpa
@Gin & Tonic: Reinstating the normal processes for visas…and controlling the pandemic so we can actually travel. All nice things.
mrmoshpotato
@Kay:
Yup. And SAD! They really ought to flee the country now.
Yarrow
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I figure most people have me pied. Always surprised when someone replies to a comment I make.
Chris Johnson
@Chris Johnson: It’s amazing to see how much Vaush, an edgy super-lefty, would please Balloon Juice readers. He has no fucks left to give, he loudly acknowledges that Russia messed with the election, he wants to see all Republicans charged with treason. I swear this crowd would love this guy, who knew?
different-church-lady
@Cheryl Rofer: You said Michigan already certified, but the Tweet says they certify Monday. ?
Kent
We lived in Waco during the last 5 years of the Bush presidency. Actually in China Spring TX which is the next town over from Crawford. I used to go biking by Bush’s ranch all the time as it is a pretty area and the back road behind his ranch is kind of hilly and wooded with some cool low water crossings.
Of course his Crawford ranch was a prop. But he actually did some decent things out there and the ranch house itself was pretty nicely done in a a fairly understated and eco-friendly way. https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/laura-and-george-w-bush-prairie-chapel-ranch-texas-article
I kind of got a kick out of all the world leaders being forced to beat a path out to Crawford TX to pay homage to the king. And it meant that we had some better restaurants in Waco, including my favorite which was a local Mexican seafood place called Siete Mares that was a favorite of the national press corps. I knew the owners, they were cool. Unfortunately after Obama came into office it declined because it was just too eclectic for the local tastes as most Wacoans seem to prefer big box chain restaurants along freeway interchanges than cool interesting local ones in out of the way corners.
To think that I’m actually reminiscing fondly about the Bush years tells us how far we have fallen.
mrmoshpotato
@Mai Naem mobile:
The Russkie bastards did hack the RNC too, but surprise surprise! only released DNC material.
I think only one candidate made Putin poop his pants…
different-church-lady
There’s a theory that says the reason spam cons are filled with ridiculous claims, poor grammar, and misspellings is because the scammers are trying to ensure that only the dumbest of the dumb wind up on the hook.
We might be entering that phase with the Trump campaign. They’re going deliberately dumb so that they can build some kind of army of idiots who really actually can’t think on a higher level, and will move at their command. They don’t even know what they’re going to do with that army yet, they just know they can’t do anything without it.
mrmoshpotato
@Death Panel Truck: Dump is such a POS that a virus wanted him to be a loser. :)
gvg
@Sab: It’s not her on kos. apparently she mentioned in the past that someone else used the same name on kos,
Gin & Tonic
@Kent:
You really should read Robert Caro’s telling of how Lyndon Johnson had German Chancellor Erhardt and a whole delegation come out to a barbeque dinner in a high school gym near his home.
mrmoshpotato
@Death Panel Truck: Dump is such a POS that a virus wanted him to be a loser. :)
zzyzx
@different-church-lady: I think it’s that counties certified yesterday and the state certifies on Monday.
Michigan is the one that worries me the most because of that stupid bipartisan committee that has to confirm the vote but rumor (aka something I read here the other day) has it that the governor can fire people from that at will so I hope that’s right.
Jeffro
@Cacti:The Republican cancer has metastasized from “It’s illegitimate for Democrats to govern” to “It’s illegitimate for Democrats to vote at all”.
Exactly.
Peale
@different-church-lady: The deadline for the county certifications was yesterday, apparently. The state certification of the county certifications is Monday.
J R in WV
@Kent:
This is the tail end of the thread that Kent is complaining about, and rightly so. A good argument is hard to do in 240 characters, esp. in a technical field, obviously so:
I have a couple of complaints with this idea. Obviously having in home rapid testing would be a huge improvement, Test in the morning after the coffee, test again before dinner. But 20 million tests a day is 310,000,000 too few, or some number of that magnitude.
And the author, whoever he is, doesn’t go anywhere with the 20,000,000 test a day. NOW WHAT, Jenius??? (sic, Trumpian inside joke)
What exactly do we the people do with those test kits? How do we put that scant bit (on or off, one bit of data information science) of info to work to prevent the disease from continuing to spread all around. And what the rest of the world?
How will this entirely speculative (because I don’t know what it is past that one bit on information) advance twine with the necessary vaccination campaign which in my view needs to be nearly total world-wide, but for people with legitimate immunity issues, on transplant drugs, chemo of one variety or another.
But that has to come with a legit diagnosis and treatment records, not “My Woo Sister Told ME SO so I can’t have the shot… but it’s OK, Woo Sister says I won’t get it!”
I love woo, find it fascinating at a remove, but when you try to use it for life and death decisions, not so much.
Yes: Burn the sage, listen to the chime of the prayer bowl, draw the sand painting, buy FIRST take your fucqin shot!!!
Cheryl Rofer
@different-church-lady: I may have mistaken something. But the board on which those two loathsome creatures sit has done its work, and they cannot change it from what I’ve read
ETA: I see it’s the county boards that have certified.
mrmoshpotato
@leeleeFL:
I’m gonna go with Kristol and Frum being sad that it’s been so in-your-face and not done slyly and with a smile like their beloved sack of shit St. Ronnie.
J R in WV
HELP
I posted a big [#226] comment and did something to put it in moderation. Maybe too many links, looks like 5, who knows. H
Oklahomo
@Sab: I have had the honor of not 1, not 2, but 3 at various places of employment. And an aunt. They will move heaven and earth to be the center of the universe and they will burn it all down before admitting defeat.
Sab
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I only pie the verbose, whose comments cover the whole page. Skim past the others I don’t like. Isn’t that what real jackals do, wander to the other side of the pack from the jerk jackals?
Cheryl Rofer
@J R in WV: Released
Ghost of Joe Liebling*s Dog
Dear kindly lamb-o’-deity, I did not expect to see this day but Steve Inskeep, whose single-minded pursuit of mediocrity in journalism had left him without the ability to use words like these, is actually calling Republican lies “lies.” (Not on the air, so far as I know, but Twitter’s a start.)
mrmoshpotato
@Chris Johnson: Oooooo. Just watched a few minutes of this Vaush Guy. Subscribed.
J R in WV
@Yarrow:
From Frum:
Supoena and truly loyal heavily armed investigators to serve the writs, search warrants, take fleeing suspects into custody, and protect their investigation from those who would corrupt it. Everyone wearing body-cams running 24/7 with no off switch, required to be running all the time, with the person it is issued to.
WaterGirl
@J R in WV: It’s more than 5 – the @names listed toward the end are each a separate link. That’s okay, not a big deal, you just have to wait on someone to free your comment.
Kent
I’m actually not that worried about it.
Once a Covid vaccine is widely available it is going to become mandatory for:
Even if plenty of wackadoodle anti-vax types refuse to let Bill Gates inject vaccine/GPS tracking into their arms, there will still be more than enough of the population vaccinated to push the R value way way below 1.0 and the pandemic will burn itself out quickly.
Sab
@Oklahomo: Wow and JFC. Excuse my language.
I had a boss who was a saint, and I don’t say that lightly. Horrible childhood, yet he emerged from it an amazing kind and perceptive person. Converted to Mormon (Nevadan his whole life). He had three kids but his only son was a toxic narcissist, Amazing the damage that kid could do. His dad figured it out intellectually but not emotionally early on, but couldn’t stop it short of getting son thrown in jail. So kid is still wreaking havoc in Nevada while Dad died years ago.
mrmoshpotato
@J R in WV:
Stop and frisk Ghouliani – just to be sure.
Then tackle his ass for good measure.
J R in WV
@Cheryl Rofer:
Thanks so much, much tentacle twisting in that much verbiage!!!
Dan B
@Kay: And Charles Koch is sorry that the groups they supported for decades created a divided country. He’s singing Kumbaya, let’s come together and be nice.
They only believe in manners with a side of lawn order. They cannot recognize the suffering of minorities or the horrors of the neo-caste system that has crushed the American Dream of work hard and get ahead. It’s rapidly destroying American exceptionalism. They don’t realize that yet.
Xi is patient. America’s oligarchs will be bent to his will.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Dan B: You knows it’s not impossible that Trump’s constant saying the quite parts out loud and incessant demands for donations gave Charles Koch a revelation that this whole culture war movement he was funding for decades is nothing more than a massive grift with him as one of the marks.
Sab
@Oklahomo: So you agree with my point that Trump could not have succeded as president?
Obama left a good government machine there. Trump as a toxic narcissist had to break it. A normal loser would have slunk in there and sat there while the machine ran smoothly. Trump had to break that machine. He could not let it run.
Jeffro
Which, frankly, is terrifying. Or would have been if it weren’t for “…and shut the fuck up for 6 months…”, which made me howl. =)
J R in WV
@Kent:
One could connect the testing device to the internet… require the SSN before inserting the test, make the quarantine paid leave, require employers to treat employees well in sch a case, require a second test in 15 minutes when positive results occur, even have the test unit print a pass needed to go out in public …
I’m just speculating on ways to address the obvious problems, but working to fix things is more positive than throwing up the obvious problems as insurmountable issues. They are not brick walls, and if they were we know how to take masonry down pretty quickly.
If you can’t go out in public without a negative test with your data on it, or a certificate of vaccination… people would have to get on board with the program. And knowing you’re positive should mean seeing a medic right away to receive free majik beans to fix you!!! ;-)
mrmoshpotato
@Kay:
About the “vaguely human-looking” part… :)
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Sab: It’s more than Trump is a narcissist who hates Obama; one of the problems with the pandemic and just letting the CDC function is Trump is bag fan of pyramid schemes and quack medicine.
J R in WV
@HalfAssedHomesteader:
I probably would agree with you, if I had any idea which person in this saga “She” refers to. But not enough information. A governor, the woman who heads the GSA, a SoS — several off whom are female. Thanks anyway.
Actually, no one should take his call at this point, assuming “his” refers to the nearly former president Trump. Again, a proper name would help. Trump, Rudy G, Fat Billy Barr, etc. Who knows?
catclub
I think that certificate thing will happen. especially if it frees you from having to wear a mask.
Oklahomo
@Sab: No more than he’s succeeded as an entrepreneur. He leaves a smoking crater and moves on the the next con.
Dan B
@Emma from FL: I find it informative to read comments that reflect people’s emotional states. I’m concerned by the craziness but believe that a super majority of people see the craziness, including many Trumper who are willing to tolerate it in order to get their agenda items. They will discover that the Leopards Eating Your Face Party will eat their face and not achieve their agenda items. As a long term activist I’ve watched the craziness ramp up just before big transformations. It feels we are on the verge of a big shift but it’s never guaranteed to be in our favor. We need to be aware and not look away.
I believe that some people have had a view that the US is not perfect but is mostly benign. As a gay man I’ve not had that illusion. There has been great progress but there is much left to ensure fair treatment. There are far too many people who feel that gay people have all their rights and that we are fully protected. Sigh.
At the moment I’m more concerned about the troop withdrawals from Afghanistan. I’d like to hear from Adam. The election drama is just drama.
catclub
yes. I would add that if all he said was that he cared nothing about re-election but only wanted to do what was best for the country. he gets re-elected in a landslide … say 306-232.
Dan B
@rikyrah: Doug Jones – a hero!
Special Prosecutor would have most of us squeezing, or something similar.
J R in WV
@Kay:
I think a large part of this is the Patriarchal churches, aided by the BSA troops at so many churches. At the Mega-churches it’s a total hierarchy, kids are totally controlled by parents and sunday school teachers, youth ministers, etc.
Women are controlled by their husbands and the assistant ministers, and can’t exercise any will that opposes any man.
All the men are controlled by the assistant ministers as needed, and the head pastor if necessary. If you don’t go along exactly, you can be expelled from the church, and will lose ALL your friends, as you aren’t given time for a relationship with people outside the church.
So everyone is controlled, you have to tithe the proper amount, or be humiliated in front of people. You have to show up for meetings on schedule. You have to control your wife and kids as expected.
And if Trump calls, by G-D you better hop to and get it done~!!~ Or your life is ruined by the close of business. Job lost, wife called away, the works.
ETA: Really un-American when you stop to think about it, since the Puritans fell out of favor. Calvinist authoritarians in charge of all those big churches, buying private jets, etc.
burnspbesq
@catclub:
Needs to be a laminated card that you can keep with your driver’s license in your wallet.
J R in WV
@MisterForkbeard:
She is the last lawyer representing former LT Gen and briefly National Security Advisor Mike Flynn, who has pleaded guilty twice to several felonies. Ms Powell is attempting to get the bad general off with the help of Fat Bill Barr, who ordered the DoJ to drop their charges, even after Flynn pleaded guilty, twice.
From what I read at Marcy Wheeler’s site, Sid Powell is a terrible lawyer, even with AG Barr on her side. IANAL, but I can read…
Dan B
@Baud: Emily Murphy:
202-501-2472
@gsaemily
J R in WV
@Fair Economist:
Senator Lindsey committed a felony, soliciting a felony or some such crime (IANAL, but I know a crime when I hear it!), and there are witnesses.
The fact that it was so casually done shows me that Lindsey has lost his moorings, or doesn’t realize how much danger he placed himself in with that phone call.
I hope he at least is subjected to numerous interviews with FBI agents not a bit respectful of his shitty position, after everyone else who heard the phone call is interviewed at length. And that they remind him that lying to federal agents is a felony in itself, and does he want another lawyer with him for the interview.
He was JAG in the military, I don’t know how shitty a lawyer he is, maybe we’ll find out. He needs a long drawn out trial for multiple crimes. Show the people of South Carolina who they re-elected!!
J R in WV
@Chief Oshkosh:
Because she knows where the money is coming from. Her family made their money to live the good life in Manhattan from Trump. She went to high-end private school on Trump’s dime.
For her to be reporting on Trump is very nearly a crime on the part of the NYTimes, acting as a stooge world-wide for Trump!
Miss Bianca
@MCA1:
I think there is much truth to what you say, here. I also think that Reagan’s whole “government is the problem, my friends” schtick also paved the way for Gingrich. If government is the problem, we can’t elect people who, you know, actually *want* to govern, or think government can provide any solutions. Once you’re committed to that ethos, it’s a pretty short step to start demonizing political opponents who believe in good governance.
And then it’s a long, long way down from there.
J R in WV
@burnspbesq:
Seriously!??! You mean the Demoncrats have overcome death to allow a dead Communist leader take over our nation’s elections?!?!!
/s
I knew it was some time ago, but the years have gotten away from me. Still amazing how Cesar Chavez was able to overcome time and death to work on our elections!!
Dan B
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Yes. The Koch, and Mercer, etc, Think Tanks and right wing / Powell Memo orgs, spent all their time on framing, messaging, and punditry on access plus the best dog whistles. Murdoch came in with the angry people and spawned more screaming snowflakes. Koch wanted control and gentile manners but chaos triumphs when you subvert fair play and opportunity. This breeds resentment and sets the stage for chaos.
They got what they thought would make a week behaved populace but were blinded to their ignorance of social order.
I believe their campaign to reduce division will succeed at failing. They understand people at their private clubs but don’t care to know the “rabble”.
Miss Bianca
@Death Panel Truck:
Right, and all his followers who identify with him were trained like seals to consider themselves the victims as well. Masks! No parties! No bars or hairdressers! HELP, HELP, I’M BEING OPPRESSED! ORK ORK ORK!
Miss Bianca
@Jeffro:
@Cacti: It’s the move from “Democrats have no right to vote” to “Democrats have no right to LIVE” that I’m worried about.
cwmoss
@zzyzx: 1995 called. They want their Doc Martens back!
SFAW
@dmsilev:
I imagine someone has already posted it somewhere herein, but there’s a Garrison (I think that’s his name) cartoon showing George Soros as the puppet/marionette master pulling Pelosi’s and Biden’s (I think) strings. Above Soros is a dark, shadowy hand pulling Soros’s strings. Naturally, the hand is labeled “Rothschilds.”
SFAW
@Miss Bianca:
But they’ll have the right to work. Because work will make them frei, of course.