Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

Of course you can have champagne before noon. That’s why orange juice was invented.

Can we lighten up on the doomsday scenarios?

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

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

Never give a known liar the benefit of the doubt.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

An unpunished coup is a training exercise.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of story.

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

Pelosi: “He either is stupid, or he thinks the rest of us are.” Why not both?

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

I desperately hope that, yet again, i am wrong.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Losing loser keeps losing

Losing loser keeps losing

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Losing loser keeps losing

Breaking from The Post:

A federal appeals court on Friday rejected President Trump’s request for an emergency injunction to overturn the certification of Pennsylvania’s election results.

The Third Circuit Court of Appeals said that the Trump campaign’s challenge of a U.S. district court’s decision had “no merit.”

The court’s sharply worded opinion was written by Judge Stephanos Bibas, who was appointed to the court by Trump.

“Charges of unfairness are serious. But calling an election unfair does not make it so. Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here,” Bibas wrote.

Emphasis mine. I haven’t been following the sore loser litigation closely, but I think the only concession Team Trump has won out of dozens of tries was that Republican poll watchers in one state were permitted to advance four feet toward ballot processors, i.e., they’d been told to stay 10 feet back but were allowed to move to within six feet. Miranda v. Arizona it was not.

The shitgibbon and his sycophants have essentially pivoted from trying to prove anything (because they can’t) to asserting that it’s preposterous that Biden got 80M+ votes without inspiring boat parades and rolling pickup truck rallies. The answer is blindingly obvious — something related to the “Italian food vs. tire rims and anthrax” entrée dilemma famously proposed on this blog.

But to bastardize another quote, this time Upton Sinclair, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary the survival of his gigantic fucking ego depends on his not understanding it.” So, the losing will continue.

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

143Comments

  1. 1.

    PsiFighter37

    Pretty sure SCOTUS will deny a review – I don’t think anyone outside of Alito and Thomas at most votes to hear the case.

  3. 3.

    MattF

    Trump is doing exactly what was expected. Won’t concede. Will never concede. Lies, bluffs, blusters, and insults– which exhausts his limited behavioral repertoire. Has an incompetent legal team composed of lickspittles that does what he tells them to. So, go look up ‘Decompensation’ in Wikipedia.

    I’ve changed my mind a bit about the likelihood of a Trump self-pardon. A self-pardon suggests accepting the proposition that he did something wrong. So, I’d say the likelihood is only 50/50.

  5. 5.

    Scout211

    Yeah, it’s his ego but also it’s the flow of money bilked from his MAGAt fans that will stop once he gives up on this crusade to find election fraud.  The daily emails to his fans continue to beg for more money, more money, more money.

  8. 8.

    JoyceH

    @PsiFighter37:

    Pretty sure SCOTUS will deny a review – I don’t think anyone outside of Alito and Thomas at most votes to hear the case.

    Very true, but I think in his own mind, Trump is convinced that all he has to do is get the case to the Supreme Court, and he wins. After all, he’s ‘got’ three votes, the ones he appointed. In his mind, I mean. They’re his, and they’ll vote his way.

    I also think that he sees a SCOTUS decision as the whole ball of wax – like if he gets this PA case up to SCOTUS and they rule in his favor, he doesn’t just get the specific thing they’re asking for, some specific votes discarded in specific counties in Pennsylvania, the ruling turns the whole election over to him.

    We must never forget that he really isn’t very bright.

  11. 11.

    JoyceH

    @debbie:

    Yes, but isn’t it this decision that finally gets him to the SC?

    No, it gets his lawyers the chance to APPEAL to the Supreme Court. It doesn’t make the Supreme Court agree to hear it, that’s up to them.

  12. 12.

    Wapiti

    @Geoduck: This. Creditors will be lined up to empty his campaign warchests for this case, El Paso security, etc. He’ll be starting from scratch for 2024.

  13. 13.

    Yarrow

    But to bastardize another quote, this time Upton Sinclair, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary the survival of his gigantic fucking ego depends on his not understanding it.” So, the losing will continue.

    It’s not just his ego. Staying in office is the only thing that will protect him from the lawsuits and debts that await him out of office. He’s the cornered animal working to save himself.

  14. 14.

    germy

    Further proof of the grift: Even conservative SCOTUS justices hate this sort of talk, particularly when it’s about conservative colleagues. It’s like flipping off the ref BEFORE the call. Nuts as legal strategy, boffo for scamming the rubes. https://t.co/lXntYPaDaF

    — Don’tEverTalkToTheHatThatWay (@Popehat) November 27, 2020

    For anyone who entertains SCOTUS worries – or fantasies — about the Trump litigation, it’s notable that the Trump legal team has done every possible thing to make SCOTUS review (let alone success) less likely. I’d be hard pressed to imagine how better to avoid review.

    — Don’tEverTalkToTheHatThatWay (@Popehat) November 27, 2020

  15. 15.

    MattF

    @PsiFighter37: I predict that SCOTUS will do and say as little as possible. I’d be surprised if we hear anything at all from them before Biden’s inauguration– which makes the whole issue moot.

  16. 16.

    Mike in NC

    As a consolation prize they should let Fat Bastard keep the tiny desk we just saw him sitting at. Sad!

  17. 17.

    germy

    “An interesting note here is that the unanimous panel included the chief judge of the circuit, so this opinion was assigned to the Trump appointee, apparently to make the point as clearly as possible that this is frivolous litigation.” https://t.co/upAUVlpUpU

    — Hollywood DFPD (@thedrakesays) November 27, 2020

  18. 18.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @MattF:

    As I have said a few times, this bullshit with not conceding and suing over the results is not actually new.  Being a sore loser is well established in Republican electoral politics.  What Trump is, is a sore loser so stupid and whiny that he will go through every single option that regular Republican sore losers don’t try because they don’t work.

  19. 19.

    Fleeting Expletive

    Reading it now.  This could make me take up smoking. The opinion slices the lawyerly work presented presented by the president’s elite strike force team like a Benihana chef.

  20. 20.

    Lapassionara

    @debbie: In the alternate universe where rules apply, this is the end of the line for this case. All that happened was that he was not allowed to amend his complaint for a second time, and the case was dismissed. The Supreme Court does not take such cases, in that universe. In any event, before he files for cert, he must seek en banc review. I think even in the Trump universe, he has reached the end of the line.

  25. 25.

    Kent

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    @MattF:As I have said a few times, this bullshit with not conceding and suing over the results is not actually new.  Being a sore loser is well established in Republican electoral politics.  What Trump is, is a sore loser so stupid and whiny that he will go through every single option that regular Republican sore losers don’t try because they don’t work.

    Trump turned the election into a reality show in which he gets to lose and get humiliated 40 times in a row instead of just once.

    I guess if you are going to lose, you might as well lose “bigly”

  27. 27.

    Geminid

    Hopefully there is good news in the NY22nd Congressional District race. Republican challenger Claudia Tenney had a 28,000 vote lead election night, but after counting absentee ballots Democratic Congressman Anthony Brindisi had a 13 vote lead as of Wednesday. He’s claiming victory, but there are several hundred disputed ballots not yet tabulated. Court fights over these will take some days to resolve.

    The 22nd district covers a swath of central New York from Binghamton near the PA border to Oswego on Lake Ontario. Brindisi beat incumbent Tenney in 2018.

  29. 29.

    patrick II

    @Mike in NC:

    No, they should keep the tiny desk (and low chair which no one seems to mention) at the White House for when Joe Biden’s grandkids want to play president.

  30. 30.

    dmsilev

    The opinion is just brutal.

    “Mr. Giuliani, what you just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response, were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.”

  31. 31.

    JoyceH

    @germy:

    No, that’s the People’s Desk.

    Thing is, that desk has a specific purpose and it doesn’t look odd when used in its proper context. You’ve probably seen it dozens of times and never noticed.

    That’s the desk they use when the president is signing a bill and there are a crowd of people ranged around behind him to share in the glory. The emphasis is on the crowd, so the desk is  minimized.

    But out of that context, it does look weird. The whole thing looked weird – that bare Christmas tree in the corner? Someone on Twitter said that Trump could make the White House Diplomatic Reception Room look like the activities room of an underfunded community center, where the out of season holiday decorations are shoved into the corner to make room for Zumba.

  32. 32.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Mike in NC:

    For whoever hasn’t heard, the tiny desk is a standard fixture for photo-ops that Obama and other previous presidents have used.  The trick is, it’s for photo-ops where the president is surrounded by people, so that they can be as much the center of attention as the president.  When you’re an asshole who refuses to share the limelight, you just look like an idiot sitting at the kiddy table.

  35. 35.

    Geoduck

    Other presidents have used that table, but it’s supposed to be deployed outdoors and/or as the Prez signs the bill de jour while surrounded by relevant supporters.

  37. 37.

    FelonyGovt

    @germy: Yes, I particularly love the fact that judges HE APPOINTED can’t bring themselves to entertain this dog’s breakfast of unsupported allegations.

  38. 38.

    mrmoshpotato

    @germy:

    Trump appointee Judge Stephanos Bibas writes “calling an election unfair does not make it so. Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here.” 

    Cry harder, Dump humpers.

  39. 39.

    Amir Khalid

    @Fleeting Expletive:

    … the lawyerly work presented by the president’s elite strike force team …

    Somehow, I doubt that any lawyer among the jackaltariat would describe that work as lawyerly.

  40. 40.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Kent:

    I guess if you are going to lose, you might as well lose “bigly” 

    He should start a trash reality show on the surface of the Sun – The Biggest Loser Assclown.

  41. 41.

    trollhattan

    Read elsewhere the ruling finds the plaintiff must repay the state for costs. I so hope it’s true (and they do not accept checks or IOUs).

  46. 46.

    WaterGirl

    @SiubhanDuinne: I am guessing that many people think Popehat is totally clever and awesome and that some people find him insufferably arrogant.  I am one who appreciates him, and I listen to his “All the president’s lawyers” podcast with Josh Barro, but I would almost bet my house that a lot of people also find him arrogant and full of himself.

    When Popehat has spoken, there is definitely a reverent respect as if that’s the end of it.

  50. 50.

    germy

    @FelonyGovt:   …judges HE APPOINTED can’t bring themselves to entertain this dog’s breakfast of unsupported allegations.

    Yes, and that’s got to be confusing the hell out of him.  Because he views everything as transactional, I’m sure he can’t comprehend why it happened.  “I appointed that judge.  He owes me.”

    I wonder if he’s mentioning McConnell in any of his angry rants and screaming sessions at staff.

  51. 51.

    mrmoshpotato

    @JoyceH:

    That’s the desk they use when the president is signing a bill and there are a crowd of people ranged around behind him to share in the glory. The emphasis is on the crowd, so the desk is  minimized. 

    Oh!  Didn’t realize that.

    Wonder why Obama never looked like a manbaby when sitting at it…

  52. 52.

    Betty Cracker

    @Amir Khalid: I think Hunter has a couple of kids who are still babies/preschoolers.

    PS: Maybe Jill Biden can champion a breast cancer detection initiative called #BeBreast.

  53. 53.

    germy

    @WaterGirl:

    I think he’s arrogant, but he surprised me one day with a long thread about his mental breakdown and time in a psychiatric hospital.  Made me rethink my opinion of him.

  56. 56.

    Wolvesvalley

    @Dave: I read that the order was automatically halted by the Wolf administration’s immediate appeal to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. (I have used up my free articles in both the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, so I can’t provide a link.)

    AP, by the way, keeps calling the Pittsburgh judge an appeals court judge. She isn’t — she is a Commonwealth Court judge.

  63. 63.

    Wolvesvalley

    @Wolvesvalley: Looking further, I can’t find any confirmation that Judge McCullough’s stay of certification was halted by the appeal. The hearing she scheduled for today was postponed pending appeal.

    ETA: Aha — it was Rick Hasen in a tweet. I never can remember how to embed a tweet, so here is a copy-and-paste:

    Replying to
    @rickhasen

    People seem confused so here’s plain English. A judge issued a crazy order in a weak case challenging PA mail voting Judge ordered temporary stop to certification of electors (which already happened). The state’s appealed to PA Supreme Court automatically puts ruling on hold.

    3:12 PM · Nov 25, 2020·Twitter Web App

     

  65. 65.

    zhena gogolia

    @opiejeanne:

    We were zooming from our kitchen with friends yesterday, and I noticed the lighting is much better there, but it’s such a cluttered background! (30 years of refrigerator magnets) We’d get -3 on Room Rater.

  66. 66.

    J R in WV

    @germy:

    Trump appointee Judge…

    This is the sweetest part of this particular case. Trump will be raging about this betrayal by “His” Judge, that he picked and appointed. Well, we know he didn’t actually make the pick, he never heard the name until they passed the appointment document to him…

    And Trump doesn’t, won’t, can’t understand that even conservative Judges uphold straight up law, as in:

    “…Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here.”

    Pretty funny. Except for the Foreign War noises the State Department is making. Isn’t there International law regarding warfare? Could we just turn the current administration responsible for this warfare noise over to The Hague for trial? If it goes beyond just noise, I mean.

  67. 67.

    zhena gogolia

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Replacing a horrific 50-year-old floor lamp with a much newer one that had been sitting downstairs unused (it was one we bought for my husband’s aunt when she moved here, and it’s been sitting in the dining room since she passed away).

  70. 70.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Mike in NC: …they should let Fat Bastard keep the tiny desk we just saw him sitting at.

    You mean the Dissolute Desk? The one with “Romper, stomper, bomper boo” carved into the top with a dull penknife?

  71. 71.

    Brachiator

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    As I have said a few times, this bullshit with not conceding and suing over the results is not actually new.  Being a sore loser is well established in Republican electoral politics.

    It has rarely happened in connection with a presidential election.

    And Trump is not just a sore loser. He is a mentally unstable loser trying to force the country to pay attention to his futile, infantile ravings.

    And as with shit like the birther nonsense he used to garner attention, Trump is now crazily asserting that Biden must prove to the president’s satisfaction that he won.

    Trump tweeted that Biden can only enter the White House as president if he can prove that his “ridiculous 80,000,000 votes were not fraudulently or illegally obtained. When you see what happened in Detroit, Atlanta, Philadelphia & Milwaukee, massive voter fraud, he’s got a big unsolvable problem!”

    Trump should be held for mental observation. Someplace quiet where he can get the help he obviously needs.

    This farce is a medical, not a political issue.

  72. 72.

    catclub

    “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary the survival of his gigantic fucking ego depends on his not understanding it.”

    I would say: “It is difficult to get a man to admit to understanding something when the survival of his gigantic fucking ego depends on his not understanding it.”

  74. 74.

    LuciaMia

    Very true, but I think in his own mind, Trump is convinced that all he has to do is get the case to the Supreme Court

    This fervent hope still being clung to in wingnut-land, like Free Republic. The idea that SCOTUS will just overturn the entire election because of…reasons. Or that bombshell new evidence will be brought that will break everything wide open!  Ignorant of the fact that you cant introduce new evidence in an appeals court. The most SCOTUS would do is refer it back to the lower court.

  75. 75.

    Betty Cracker

    @Brachiator: Agree this is far more serious than any rando GOP candidate’s post-election whining over the years. I don’t understand it, but Trump has a cult numbering in the tens of millions. He seems to have managed to undermine faith in our democratic process for a significant chunk of the citizenry, if post-election polling is accurate. Maybe it won’t amount to anything in the long run, but it’s worrisome.

  77. 77.

    Phylllis

    @zhena gogolia: I just snagged a pretty good deal on one of those suction cup light thingies for virtual meetings. I get great natural light in my home office, but obviously not at night & likely not so much as we head into winter.

  78. 78.

    germy

    Question:

    Sidney Powell and Jenna Ellis are prosecutors?

    Does this mean there are people sitting in prison today because of their work in the past?

    If so, can they request new trials?

  79. 79.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @WaterGirl:

    Well, I’ve never heard him speak, and to tell the truth I don’t follow or pay much attention him. But several front-pagers and commenters share his tweets here all the time, so I see and appreciate those. Especially, as mentioned, the witty and ever-changing twitter handles.

  82. 82.

    JustRuss

    Well holy shit, Trump was right, I am tired of all this winning! I wish he’d just go away and quit getting his ass beat in court.

  83. 83.

    Brachiator

    @Baud:

    At one minute past noon on Inauguration Day, it becomes a criminal issue.

    And no longer anything that the country has to pay any attention to.

    Perversely, I think that Trump is more fearful of losing the limelight than he is worried about any legal action after he leaves office.

    Recently he snapped at a reporter for “disrespecting the president.” He doesn’t know how to let go of the status and acclaim he got from being president.

     

     

     

  84. 84.

    Ruckus

    @JoyceH:

    We must never forget that he really isn’t very bright.

    You might want to rethink this.

    Not very bright is still smarter than dumb as a broken down lamp post.

  85. 85.

    Amir Khalid

    @Brachiator:

    So now Trump is claiming a right to veto Biden’s presidency? I’m starting to worry that his own presidency will come to a tragic and needlessly ugly end. Trump himself deserves that, but America doesn’t.

  87. 87.

    Ruckus

    @Yarrow:

    He’s the cornered animal working to save himself.

    Correction:

    He’s the cornered, wounded animal wondering how to save himself  without the slightest bit of skills necessary.

  89. 89.

    scav

    It could also be that adding up all the losses at this point, all the judges being unfair! in addition to the Deep State! government and pharmaceutical companies and even the Supreme Court! — His Supreme Court! —  failing him, will just provide still more grifting opportunities for whatever permanent campaign the Trump Dynasty is rolling out .  The Daily Tithe to the uniquely abused Orange Savior will roll on. The Westboro Baptist Church could take lessons.

  92. 92.

    Barbara

    @Lapassionara: I don’t recall that seeking en banc review is a predicate for cert. IIRC we will know how many justices want to hear the case but will only know which ones if they include a note to that effect. I can’t tell whether the president’s legal team appealed the final order of dismissal. They seem focused mostly on the refusal to permit amendment, which seems truly bizarre.

  93. 93.

    Redshift

    In addition to all of the foreign policy and regulatory sabotage, my rep Don Beyer highlights major bureaucratic sabotage in this thread:

    This is an extremely important story that isn’t getting the attention it deserves.

    After GSA initiated the presidential transition, I warned that there would still be new Trump sabotage to come. This is exactly what I was concerned about.

    Here’s what’s happening– 1/ https://t.co/alqbEA2qS5
    — Rep. Don Beyer (@RepDonBeyer) November 27, 2020

  94. 94.

    Cermet

    @Betty Cracker: I am sorry to say this is just the begining; with AGW, the failing eco-systems, mass migrations of people displaced by changing weather patterns, energy becoming more difficult to extract in the near future (and the cost then climbing fast), this is just the introduction to the begining. We, and the world are screwed – right wing nuts here and through the world will become the norm. The time to pay the bills our life styles have created are coming due. Just facts, not fore-sight.

  95. 95.

    NotMax

    @Baud

    Rudy is imbecilicly playing craps using a pair of dice on which all twelve faces have a single pip.

    As wiser heads have opined, “Something about that man ain’t right.”

  97. 97.

    JoyceH

    @Calouste:

    It might not even be a low chair. Things is that with his heel lifts, he might have to sit that way.

    It’s not the chair, it’s him. He always sits that way. Someone said that Trump sits in every chair like he’s sitting on a toilet, and now I can’t unsee it. Whenever there’s footage of him sitting, I go, yep, there it is.

  98. 98.

    Aleta

    These Republicans waste other people’s time and money in quantities that amount to theft.  Not only the election.  Well I’d better not get started on this.

  99. 99.

    Brachiator

    @Betty Cracker:

    He seems to have managed to undermine faith in our democratic process for a significant chunk of the citizenry, if post-election polling is accurate. Maybe it won’t amount to anything in the long run, but it’s worrisome.

    This is bad. A good chunk of voters have decided that they do not want democracy if it means having to share the country with “the wrong people.” And the GOP has been happy to support this malign project.

    Previously, perhaps, the most outrageous open subversion of democracy happened in the post Reconstruction South.

    Trump could not succeed because he is an unstable, feckless autocrat. And because a majority of the people saw what Trump was and slapped him down.

    But the GOP still want power and act as though they are the only legitimate and patriotic political party. And Trump’s base would be happy with a government dominated by a white patriarchal  Christianist minority.

    I do not know whether this tension will always exist. I hope not. But it is where we are now.

  100. 100.

    LuciaMia

    They seem focused mostly on the refusal to permit amendment, which seems truly bizarre.

    Cause is that all they have? Guilliani has refused to allege fraud or illegal voting in his suits.

  101. 101.

    JoyceH

    @germy:

    And he’ll always have the love of the redhat rubes.

    No, he won’t. He really won’t. Once he’s a loser, forget that ‘stolen election’, once he’s lost the status, he’ll lose the audience. Because keeping them requires actual work. And surely we’ve all noticed that Trump does NOT work.

  103. 103.

    Brachiator

    @Cermet:

    We, and the world are screwed – right wing nuts here and through the world will become the norm.

    Right wing nuts are always falling from the political trees. Democracy has always been the historical exception. But it can survive even the worst change in the weather if people trust one another.

  104. 104.

    Redshift

    @Brachiator:

    This is bad. A good chunk of voters have decided that they do not want democracy if it means having to share the country with “the wrong people.” And the GOP has been happy to support this malign project. 

    Ay-yup. It’s alarming how many Republicans believe the election was rigged/stolen, but a very large portion of them have believed that of every recent election that the Republican didn’t win or didn’t win as big as they thought they should.

  106. 106.

    Calouste

    @Cermet: Hydrocarbons are becoming more difficult and more expensive to extract, but sustainable energy is becoming cheaper and easier to extract.

  107. 107.

    LurkerNoLonger

    @Brachiator: If Trump’s tantrums turn off his fans from voting in the future because “it’s all rigged so why bother voting anyway,” I’m fine with that.

  108. 108.

    Kent

    @JoyceH:We must never forget that he really isn’t very bright.

    Bright enough to run through the Republican primary like a hot knife through butter and get himself elected president.  And come depressingly close to doing it a second time.

  109. 109.

    Kent

    @Redshift:Ay-yup. It’s alarming how many Republicans believe the election was rigged/stolen, but a very large portion of them have believed that of every recent election that the Republican didn’t win or didn’t win as big as they thought they should.

    There are Dems who also believe the same thing.  Let me introduce you to some of the Bernie faithful.

  110. 110.

    debbie

    @Brachiator:

    Trump is now crazily asserting that Biden must prove to the president’s satisfaction that he won.

    Not so crazily. Trump was convinced he had reelection locked up when he ordered DeJoy to fuck up the post office. All those ballots were supposed to be stuck somewhere in the system, along with seniors’ prescriptions and a mess of dead chicks. Imagine his surprise when the post office actually delivered them!

    He’s stuck like he’s never been stuck before. The only way he has to prove fraud is to acknowledge he fucked with the mail, which I believe is a felony.

    Dude has finally fucked himself worse than he’s ever fucked the rest of the world!

  111. 111.

    RSA

    @Redshift: 

    In addition to all of the foreign policy and regulatory sabotage, my rep Don Beyer highlights major bureaucratic sabotage

    Right, I remember this going by. It’s nuts. I’m not a lawyer, but two things strike me in the executive order.

    Pursuant to my authority under section 3302(1) of title 5, United States Code, I find that conditions of good administration make necessary an exception to the competitive hiring rules and examinations for career positions in the Federal service of a confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating character. These conditions include the need to provide agency heads with additional flexibility to assess prospective appointees without the limitations imposed by competitive service selection procedures. Placing these positions in the excepted service will mitigate undue limitations on their selection.

    I think this means that agency heads can hire whomever they want in more positions, rather than having to advertise the openings competitively. There’s an unfortunate revolving door that goes into as well as out of the federal government.

    (e) Each agency head shall, as necessary and appropriate, expeditiously petition the Federal Labor Relations Authority to determine whether any Schedule F position must be excluded from a collective bargaining unit under section 7112(b) of title 5, United States Code, paying particular attention to the question of whether incumbents in such positions are required or authorized to formulate, determine, or influence the policies of the agency.

    And this, of course, stripping employees of union protection.

    To be honest, I will not be surprised if an employee who sees him- or herself at risk goes to a lawyer, and the entire process gets gummed up until after January 20 and then is swept away.

  112. 112.

    Another Scott

    @SiubhanDuinne: There was one time a few weeks ago when the insanity was coming so fast that he was crying “Come on, I only change my handle once a day at most!”

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  113. 113.

    Kent

    @RSA: Part of the problem is that Trump has refused to staff up the Merit Systems Review Board which is supposed to review these sorts of cases:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Merit_Systems_Protection_Board

    The Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) is an independent quasi-judicial agency established in 1979 to protect federal merit systems against partisan political and other prohibited personnel practices and to ensure adequate protection for federal employees against abuses by agency management.

    When an employee of most Executive Branch agencies is separated from his or her position, or suspended for more than 14 work days, the employee can request that an employee of MSPB conduct a hearing into the matter by submitting an appeal, generally within 30 days. In that hearing, the agency will have to prove that the action was warranted and the employee will have the opportunity to present evidence that it was not. A decision of MSPB is binding unless set aside on appeal to federal court. Along with the Office of Personnel Management and the Federal Labor Relations Authority, the MSPB is a successor agency of the United States Civil Service Commission.

    The board has gone without a quorum for the entire Trump administration, with the last member to retire at the end of February 2019.

    So the fuckery runs deep.

    Employees can still turn to the courts but it isn’t as easy.

  116. 116.

    Another Scott

    @germy: Yeah, he’s quite human and unafraid to show it.  He’s written some excellent “essays” on his past as a US Attorney and how he went over to the defense side of things, also too.

    I really enjoy the “dad jokes” he tells at his own expense.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  117. 117.

    Mike in NC

    Don’t around 85% of Republicans still believe Obama was a Muslim born in Kenya? Screw ’em.

  119. 119.

    BruceFromOhio

    The answer is blindingly obvious — something related to the “Italian food vs. tire rims and anthrax” entrée dilemma famously proposed on this blog.

    I have used that analogy countless times when fellow progressives make noises about “if we just show them how wrong they are, they’ll realize x.” I hate shooting down people who are hopeful, and earnest, and trying to make things better.

     

    But nothing kills idealism like experience.

  122. 122.

    Spanky

    A special edition of Morning Joe to flack Joe’s book on Truman, and to really flack the idea that Biden must reach out to the GOP. McCaskill is part of this travesty.

  124. 124.

    Jeffro

    @debbie:

    Trump was convinced he had reelection locked up when he ordered DeJoy to fuck up the post office. All those ballots were supposed to be stuck somewhere in the system, along with seniors’ prescriptions and a mess of dead chicks. Imagine his surprise when the post office actually delivered them!  He’s stuck like he’s never been stuck before. The only way he has to prove fraud is to acknowledge he fucked with the mail, which I believe is a felony.

    I’m just waiting for him to say it fully, out loud, in the middle of a press conference: “we screwed up the USPS so thoroughly that there’s NO WAY those ballots should have gotten through!”

  125. 125.

    Ruckus

    @Betty Cracker:

    I believe that a lot of the people who believe shitforbrains would believe any republican over any democrat or any judge. They want a country/government that hasn’t existed for, well at least since the formation of this one. They want not to have to make decisions any more difficult than McDs or BK for lunch. They want the smarter people, (which is the wealthier people – how do you think they got all that money…) to make the decisions. They can’t accept that people that don’t look like them could be smart enough and unfair enough to decide in their direction.

  129. 129.

    mrmoshpotato

    @rikyrah: Drag his fat, orange, fascist ass out of our House by the feet.  If his head hits each step on the way out, well, someone didn’t want the police to be too nice…

  131. 131.

    Dr. Jakyll and Miss Deride

    @Amir Khalid: As a retired staff attorney for a state court of appeal, I’d say it’s “lawyerly” in the sense that actual lawyers sometimes file briefs this bad.  But when they do, the court often issues an order to show cause why they shouldn’t be sanctioned for it.

  132. 132.

    Brachiator

    So, Trump is losing it…

    JUST IN: President Trump snaps at reporter objecting to the President’s false claims about the election: “You’re just a lightweight. Don’t talk to me that way. I’m the President of the United States. Don’t ever talk to the President that way.”

    But his GOP enablers have created a monster.  And now, people are considering whether this soon to be ex-president can be trusted with sensitive information.

    A number of intelligence officials should not be given the customary briefings that have been delivered to ex-presidents.

    They argue soon-to-be-former President Trump already poses a danger because of the secrets he currently possesses, and they say it would be foolish to trust him with more sensitive information. With Trump’s real estate empire under financial pressure and his brand suffering, they worry he will see American secrets as a profit center.

    “This is not something that one could have ever imagined with other presidents, but it’s easy to imagine with this one,” said Jack Goldsmith, who worked as a senior Justice Department official in the George W. Bush administration.

    The problem might become easier if Trump gets himself convicted of some federal or state crime.

    Here’s hoping…

  135. 135.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Kent: Mitch McConnell was just grousing about how Democrats never accept legitimate election losses, just before tacitly signing on to Trump’s election bullshit.

  138. 138.

    RSA

    @Brachiator:  A number of intelligence officials should not be given the customary briefings that have been delivered to ex-presidents.

    Disinformation, on the other hand…

    Not that I think foreign intelligence agencies would trust information coming from Trump (based on my wide reading of espionage novels) but it poses some interesting challenges.

  139. 139.

    WaterGirl

    @rikyrah: @mrmoshpotato:

    Ugh is right.  I had to take my dog to the vet today, and I waited outside whenever possible while they took blood, took X-rays etc.

    I was in the exam room for about 15 minutes all told, and that was longer than i wanted it to be.

    It’s scary out there.

  141. 141.

    Keith P.

    @patrick II: I wonder if there’s a bigger version of that picture, where off to the side, there is an adults’ table with generals and various cabinet members.

  142. 142.

    SFAW

    If SCOTUS rejects the case(s), I half-expect Moron to sue them, too. Maybe he’d claim they’re part of the Derp State.

  143. 143.

    ballerat

    @germy: I’ve read a number of the responses and comments on twitter to these Trump legal legal fiascos and noticed a couple of trends.

    One is they are as delusional as hitler in his bunker believing Steiner will save him, that somehow “their” justices on the us supreme court, using legal powers as imaginary as Steiner’s divisions, will issue an edict granting Trump another 4 years.

    The second thing I noticed is that this is a tacit admission that they believe they have successfully corrupted and politicized the USSC in their favor. They assume if the case reaches the Court “their” guys will do them a solid, like frat brothers on the inside passing them the answers to a final exam.

    It is an acknowledgement that the goal of the ramming through USSC appointments by Trump and McConnell was to corrupt the court, specifically to get “their” people on the bench where they are expected to put their thumb on the scale.

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