Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

I didn’t have alien invasion on my 2023 BINGO card.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Accountability, motherfuckers.

I was promised a recession.

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

The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

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

You cannot shame the shameless.

Prediction: the GOP will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

Second rate reporter says what?

You are here: Home / Politics / Media / Thursday Morning Open Thread: Turn The Calendar Over, Already

Thursday Morning Open Thread: Turn The Calendar Over, Already

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… While the fickle media reports: WH Occupant Back on His Bulls*t…

Seriously, it’s good news that the Very Serious Media is treating Trump like last month’s celebutainment. Yes, he — more specifically, some portion of his administrative enablers and/or deluded followers — is still dangerous. But we no longer need to parse every tweet or scrutinize every puke-funnel interview for clues as to the next impending disaster…

ProPublica reporter & CNN analyst:

Reader Interactions

269Comments

  1. 1.

    mrmoshpotato

    Five years late better than never?

    Hey media, now do Why-we-elevated-this-Soviet-shitpile-mobster-manbaby.  That’s one that should be interesting!

  3. 3.

    Baud

    If the media really wants to be fair, they’ll start questioning the moral depravity of conservative culture and right-wing families.

  5. 5.

    MJS

    Now that they’re coming back live, I’m hoping Saturday Night Live does a stellar job with the abundance of material the past few weeks have given them. Nothing gets under Trump’s and his supporters’ skin more than being made fun of by “coastal elites”.

  7. 7.

    debbie

    Once again, he did not speak from the Oval Office. Why is he never seen in there anymore? What has he done to it?

  8. 8.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Baud: And their own moral depravity.

    “Haha, let’s cover the fat, orange fascist as a joke, and beat the shit out of the immensely qualified woman.’

  10. 10.

    debbie

    @MJS:

    I am amused by the idea of Trump declaring the night before the Inauguration that he’ll be running in 2024. He wants to interrupt the celebration with conversation about him. Well, what celebration would be complete without a chorus of raucous, mocking laughter?

  13. 13.

    Geminid

    Plans for a trump rally this Saturday with Loeffler and Perdue have been finalized. It will be at 7pm, at the Valdosta Regional Airport in south Georgia. Doors open at 3pm. There will be an after-rally two weeks later at the hospital.

  15. 15.

    MagdaInBlack

    I watched Hal Sparks watch it and wow what a bs whinefest that was. What troubles me is how many people believe every word.

  16. 16.

    Baud

    @mrmoshpotato:

    I feel like the reason there’s so much insanity right now is because these people subconsciously have come to realize how morally superior our side is, and they can’t deal with it because it goes against everything they were taught to believe.

  17. 17.

    p.a.

    Note the MSM is finally dipping its toes into the “this man is an unhinged liar” pool once they are kinda-sorta able to decouple him from his political party.  tRumpstink should cover Republicans for a generation like Hooverstink did.

  18. 18.

    Betty Cracker

    Holy shit, The Times interviewed some Biden voters!

    As Trump Rages, Voters in a Key County Move On: ‘I’m Not Sweating It’

    Pre-election tensions ran high in Bucks County, Pa. But Biden supporters there are increasingly comfortable tuning President Trump out and moving on, with an eye toward January.

    For most of the president’s term, Mr. Carr, a 53-year-old real estate lawyer, had been relentlessly attuned to the news cycle and the damage he felt Mr. Trump had done to the country. But ever since Nov. 7, when the election was called for Joseph R. Biden Jr., Mr. Carr has given himself permission to keep the television on mute.

    “It’s like a weight has been lifted,” said Mr. Carr, who voted a straight Democratic ticket on Nov. 3, as he did in 2016. “It’s so nice not to be as plugged in.”

    I does feel like a weight has been lifted. Well said, Mr. Carr.

  20. 20.

    TS (the original)

    If I hadn’t seen it, I would never have believed that the US political media could have so grovelled before a president* It started when they allowed themselves to be penned at a rally where the deplorables screamed at them.

    And the GOP leaders and legislators are missing in action as trump attempts to replace democracy with his continuous presence.

    The deplorables should be eternally grateful there were just not quite enough of them to allow it all to happen.

  24. 24.

    Brachiator

    Trump escalates baseless attacks on election with 46-minute video rant

    It is sad and worrisome to see a significant chunk of Trump’s base exhibit a greater degree of cult behavior, clinging onto his lies as though their very lives depended on it, absolutely refusing to accept the obvious: that their Dear Leader is an infantile, lying moron. I did not previously believe that so many people would willingly whip themselves up into a frenzy of delusion in order to sustain their faith in a loser.

    I don’t think that these people are going to do anything dangerous or act out their delusions. But they may be a troublesome voting bloc for years to come.

    Again, while I don’t expect anything from Trump, I am disgusted with the GOP leadership for continuing to let this nonsense go on.

     

    picture this hypothetical: a sitting president suggesting it would be good to void the results of an election and have the military take control

    I do not fear the military getting involved in this election nonsense. However, I find it ruefully amusing that Trump is stupid enough to believe that he would still be in charge if he managed to foment a coup.

  25. 25.

    TS (the original)

    @Geminid:  It is to be hoped they didn’t ask for postal ballots & are too sick to make it to the polls.

    … And watch the in depth media coverage. No way the Georgia democrats get anywhere near the free publicity.

  28. 28.

    MJS

    @Geminid: It will be interesting to see how many time Trump actually says their names. It will also be interesting to see how badly he undermines the real reason these runoffs are so important to Republicans – lose both, and Dems control everything. He can’t admit that’s the case, so his key points will be 1) he didn’t lose; 2) he’ll be there in January to stop whatever it is the Dems want to do; and 3) the voting in Georgia is rigged anyway. Sounds like Warnok and Osoff should be paying for this rally.

  30. 30.

    Amir Khalid

    That’s the crazy-talk Trump video I saw on YouTube yesterday. I wondered why it wasn’t getting MSM coverage. Now that I know, I wish the MSM had started doing this sooner.

    @RandomMonster:

    No media layperson is qualified to call Trump clinically insane, no matter how crazy he talks or acts. No actual mental healthcare professional could call him that either, without a proper diagnosis — and diagnoses are subject to a patient’s right of confidentiality. Informal assessments like “That guy’s bat-shit crazy” will have to do.

  32. 32.

    cmorenc

    @Betty Cracker:

    I does feel like a weight has been lifted. Well said, Mr. pCarr.

    Although I too feel a huge weight has been lifted, what keeps me from getting too comfortable is that even though Biden won by a clean margin in both popular and EV, there were nonetheless nearly 74 million voters who contemplated Trump’s behavior and record the last four years and said at the ballot box: “I want four more years of that”

    …and there’s only 6 more million of us than there are of them…how in Hell did Trump attract 13 more million voters in 2020 than he did in 2016, when, given what he did in the intervening four years, the 60 million votes he got in2016 should have been more like an absolute ceiling?

  34. 34.

    Amir Khalid

    @Betty Cracker:

    If interviews of Trump voters in their native habitat i.e. diners are Cletus safaris, what shall we call the equivalent Biden-voter interviews?

  35. 35.

    TS (the original)

    @Baud:  I probably wasn’t taking much notice of US politics when that was happening. Most I can remember about Bush II were the “hanging chads” and the lies about those “weapons of mass destruction” (nd someone throwing a shoe at him).

    It was being penned up at the rallies that made me wonder about the political media & why they just kept on accepting it.

  36. 36.

    Punchy

    BI has story up (sry, cant link) that implies Trump is very close to canning Booby Barr.  That……would be……outstanding.

  38. 38.

    Betty Cracker

    @MJS: You’re right — Trump’s inability to face facts has created quite the Catch-22 for GA Republicans. Trump and the cultists threw Kemp and the Republicans who run GA elections under the bus, which could also make it harder to lure GA GOP voters to the polls. I mean, why bother to vote if it’s all rigged by Trump-hating Republicans, Hillary, Soros and Zombie Chavez?

  42. 42.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    Interestingly, when he piped his speech out of his Twitter feed, he also referred to himself by his title. Given that exchange at the tiny desk a few days ago (“I’m President if the United States, don’t EVER talk to me that way”), he’s enamored of and retreating into that title to the point of being brittle.

    I wonder what would happen if the next time he does that, he’s responded to with the framing “not for much longer, asshole”? I think he’d lose it.

  45. 45.

    MJS

    @Punchy: As schadenfreude-licious as that would be, Barr’s replacement will be worse. We can live with him for 48 more days, especially if he continues to tell everyone that there was no voting fraud.

  47. 47.

    Amir Khalid

    @Punchy:

    Firing Bilbar won’t do Trump any good. Trump is nothing now but an angry toddler breaking his toys.

    ETA: A million quatloos to the reporter who calls him that to his face.

  49. 49.

    Roger Moore

    I would disagree slightly with Rosen’s characterization of that as a “truth sandwich”. A truth sandwich actually involved going into the details of what Trump said. That passage just glides over those details. It mentions the topic of his lies but not their substance, so there’s nothing for someone who wants to believe him to listen to. This is the way the media needs to treat proven liars all the time.

  51. 51.

    Betty Cracker

    @cmorenc: My sister and I were talking about that recently, and you’re right: it does temper the joy and relief at getting rid of Trump. I don’t know if it’s possible to save a country that has such a large plurality of self-destructive, spiteful assholes. But we did manage to eject an incumbent POTUS (with a fanatical cult following) who abused the power of his office to cling to power. So that’s something.

  53. 53.

    SFAW

    @mrmoshpotato:

    They’ll attack Biden for the deficit at 12:02 on January 20.

    Don’t be an asshole.

    They’ll wait until January 21, give him some time to get his team in place. And besides, EVERYONE know it takes AT LEAST 24 hours to fix an economy destroyed by the (in)actions of a predecessor.

  54. 54.

    Amir Khalid

    @TS (the original):

    From what I’ve seen, Democrats in Georgia are getting some of that needed help from Trumpers telling each other not to vote because it’s all rigged anyway.

  57. 57.

    SFAW

    @Amir Khalid:

    If interviews of Trump voters in their native habitat i.e. diners are Cletus safaris, what shall we call the equivalent Biden-voter interviews?

    Can’t fool me, that’s a trick question.

    There will be ZERO equivalent Biden-voter interviews, except in The Onion.

  58. 58.

    Baud

    @Betty Cracker:

    But we did manage to eject an incumbent POTUS (with a fanatical cult following) who abused the power of his office to cling to power.

    There were a million ways we could have failed and we didn’t.

  60. 60.

    Brachiator

    @Amir Khalid:

    No media layperson is qualified to call Trump clinically insane, no matter how crazy he talks or acts. No actual mental healthcare professional could call him that either, without a proper diagnosis…

    No, that’s what the Internet is for.

    However, pundits have a lot of leeway, as do other historians and notable people who regularly appear in the media. The press kept trying to recast his lies as just his political style. They ignored his chipping away at norms and standards. They refused to ask tough questions and to dig deeper into stories.

    No one needs to be a psychiatrist to note his infantile and bullying behavior.

    I still am not sure whether Beltway press and pundits are blindly cynical or just plain stupid. I realize that they have seen all kinds of outrageous behavior from politicians over the years, but they seemed totally oblivious to the threats that Trump posed to them or to the country.

    I will step carefully here because I can’t diagnose Trump’s craziness. However, I absolutely believe that Trump has felt emboldened by the failure to impeach and remove him and by his occasional victories and continued support from the GOP leadership. When the pandemic happened Trump clearly believed that he could let Americans die and get away with incompetence and open disdain for the people he was sworn to serve and defend.

    Trump had been slapping the press around, calling them the enemy of the people. And while I think that Trump lacks the discipline to be an effective autocrat, I believe that had he won a second term, he would move to actively stifle and punish the press, and that he would try to openly demolish democratic checks and balances.

    He would also actively push to make Donald Jr his designated successor.

  61. 61.

    Cameron

    @Betty Cracker: Cool.  Bucks is one of the wealthiest counties in Pennsylvania.  Interesting that they’d talk to people there instead of hazarding a Cletus safari to the middle of the state.

  62. 62.

    gene108

    @debbie:

    am amused by the idea of Trump declaring the night before the Inauguration that he’ll be running in 2024. He wants to interrupt the celebration with conversation about him.

    If he officially files papers to run in 2024 the day before or during the inauguration he can start fundraising from all these people, who think he’s been robbed this election.

  63. 63.

    Kathleen

    @Betty Cracker: My gob is smacked.

    I may have to retire to my fainting couch. I’m sure NYT outreach will pass quickly and I can resume my regularly scheduled NYT outrage.

  64. 64.

    Geminid

    @Betty Cracker: this rally could be a very weird affair. It will be trump’s first in almost four weeks. No one knows what trump will say, except that he’ll talk a lot about himself. I expect Georgia republicans will have their fingers crossed.

  70. 70.

    JMG

    @Cameron: The collar of suburban Philly counties, Bucks, Chester, Montgomery and Delaware, is the area where Biden way outperformed Clinton and why he won Pennsylvania. The Times probably picked Bucks because it’s the closest to New York.

  71. 71.

    Betty Cracker

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I noticed that too. I don’t think Trump likes the j-o-b part of being POTUS at all, but the pomp and deference to the office must be like high-octane crack for someone with his vast constellation of personality disorders. I hope and trust the loss of that will be extremely painful.

  73. 73.

    Roger Moore

    @Betty Cracker:

    The big issue for the Republicans in Georgia is not Kemp and the other state officials Trump has thrown under the bus; it’s the impossible situation he’s thrown Loffler and Perdue into.  If they agree with Trump, they’re trashing the very election they’re going to be running in.  If they disagree with Trump, they’ll anger all the people he’s working so hard to rile up.  How can they do a joint rally with someone who’s going to tell their voters that the election was rigged and they should boycott the runoff to protest?

  81. 81.

    Roger Moore

    @Cameron:

    Bucks is one of the wealthiest counties in Pennsylvania. Interesting that they’d talk to people there instead of hazarding a Cletus safari to the middle of the state.

    Or a trip to a black neighborhood to talk to the actual Democratic base.

  83. 83.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Amir Khalid: The question at this point is whether Trump can use brute force–just have Biden arrested or assassinated. It’s all he’s got left. Barr clearly won’t order the arrest of Biden because he knows he can’t get an indictment. But put enough lawless people in the chain, and who knows what they could do?

    The problem is that Trump is running out of time. Also, after all this time he still doesn’t understand how the government works and may not realize that he could eliminate Biden and Harris and it still won’t make him President after January 20th.

  84. 84.

    Cameron

    @JMG: I lived most of my adult life in Philly; moved to Florida about four years ago and haven’t kept up too much with the political scene there.

  89. 89.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Betty Cracker:

    Assuming we survive this moment in time and he finds the lights on the phone on the Resolute Desk dark at 12:01 pm on January 21, it’s going to be incredibly painful for him AND his GOP enablers that investigative hearings, suits and indictments will reveal the depth of his many depravities in office. Each week will bring more misery for President Festivus, and we can laugh and rejoice….

  91. 91.

    Danielx

    He needs attention the way a junkie needs the next fix. Once he’s out of office nobody has to pay attention to him and after starring (in his own mind) on the biggest set of all, that’s unacceptable.

  94. 94.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Acting Attorney General Mark Levin or Michael Flynn would order it in an instant – whether there would be minions willing to do it is the other half of the question.

  96. 96.

    rikyrah

    @cmorenc:

     
    This account has consistently looked at the number of votes Biden got over Hillary. I believe that is the story. The number of people who came out in 2020 vs 2016

    #Biden has the most votes cast in American history with 81,056,268, which is 15,202,754 more than Hillary Clinton's 2016 total. It's an impressive number and a graphic expression of how much people wanted Cheetolini out. #Election2020results— Skeptical Brotha ??? (@skepticalbrotha) December 2, 2020

  97. 97.

    Roger Moore

    @Betty Cracker:

    I fully expect Trump to go into rightful President in exile mode starting January 20th.  He’ll continue claiming the election was stolen, surround himself with a shadow cabinet of cronies, and try to get media attention by issuing “executive orders” and doing things he thinks are the ceremonial functions of the presidency.  I wouldn’t even be surprised if he steals the furnishing from the White House and ships them off to Mar-a-Lago to better play the role there.

  98. 98.

    germy

    If you want to know what they’re up to, listen to what they accuse us of.  “Every accusation a confession” is a cliché at this point, but for  a reason.

    This thread:

    Holy Shit. Florida GOPer caught on tape telling fellow FL GOPers to make false voter registrations in Georgia so they could vote to save Loeffler and Perdue. He in fact DID register in Georgia and is now under investigation. https://t.co/SUEtGKGR7M

    — Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) December 3, 2020

  99. 99.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    whether there would be minions willing to do it is the other half of the question.

    Among other things, they’d have to get past Biden’s own Secret Service protection, who would probably recognize that none of this is legal. And anyone at the FBI would realize this.

    But you know Trump has been railing at Barr to do it 24/7.

  100. 100.

    Tony Jay

    @rikyrah:

    “Your Honor, my client would like to use the “While guarding democracy, no free man can a criminal be” defence as derived from his as yet unpublished screenplay based upon these at present occurring proceedings, in which he himself is hereby definitely played by James Woods, Kevin Sorbo or that guy who was in The Stand. The Defence rests.”

  102. 102.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @germy:

    Meanwhile, Greenwald is rambling on about neoliberals, corporatist democrats and warmongers.

    Two of Trump’s pardoned closest early advisors and one of his integral attorneys are calling for a cancellation of the electoral college vote, imposition of martial law, mass detention of media critics, and military tribunals, and Glenn can’t seem to offer up a word.

  104. 104.

    germy

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    The last time I checked, Glem had a long thread up about drones.  Obama’s (and Biden’s) drones.

    Drones. I think this is the first time in four years GG has even used that word

    Two of Trump’s pardoned closest early advisors and one of his integral attorneys are calling for a cancellation of the electoral college vote, imposition of martial law, mass detention of media critics, and military tribunals, and Glenn can’t seem to offer up a word.

    Again, back to the “every accusation a confession” meme.  Because this is what they spent eight years yelling what Obama would do.

  105. 105.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Why just cover up the ankle bracelet when they could replace Biden with one of their vat-grown clone duplicates instead? It seems like The Storm’s commitment is flagging.

  108. 108.

    Roger Moore

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    As I said yesterday, I would be more than happy if Biden got a snazzy new desk for the Oval Office instead of using one of the historic desks previous presidents have used.  I think it would be a great symbol of a presidency that’s thinking about the great things America can do today and tomorrow rather than one that’s focused on past glories.

  110. 110.

    Soprano2

    @Betty Cracker: I don’t think Trump likes the j-o-b part of being POTUS at all, but the pomp and deference to the office must be like high-octane crack for someone with his vast constellation of personality disorders.

    Oh yeah, for such a huge narcissist it’s the whole reason he ran! I found it interesting that in one of the interviews I saw with Obama, he said this was his least-favorite thing about being president, and his most-favorite was all the policy stuff. He’s a wonk to his core. To me the best part would be all the people I would get to meet, and the chance to do good things for people.

    Hubby & I were trying to figure out why we didn’t feel happier right now. We decided it’s because, even though Trump was defeated, he’s still there. We still have to deal with him and his shit until January 20th, and we’re just so exhausted by it all that we want it to be over now. I can see some benefit in the way other countries do it, where you have an election and *boom* the new people are in charge right away.

  112. 112.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Matt McIrvin:

    They’d probably give the job to a team of deputized Prince mercenaries that, between them, have the collective intelligence of a turnip, and would turn the entire operation into a murderous firefight.

  113. 113.

    germy

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Why secretly? Who knows?

    Here’s my guess:

    It just shows the level of compassion Trump has.  Biden has been secretly arrested, but Trump is allowing him to play-act “President Elect” – he’ll allow this until January, and then Trump’s scheming enemy will be gently nudged into a prison cell, along with Kamala and Hillary.

  114. 114.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Immanentize:

    maybe if I did some kayak cliff diving things would be different?

    Magic 8-Ball says “signs point to yes.”

    But you might not be pleased with how different.

  118. 118.

    germy

    @RSA:

    In your book, Disloyal, you tell a fascinating story about the socialite Patricia Kluge and how Trump slyly leveraged his way into acquiring her $100 million estate by exploiting her weaknesses. You wrote that Trump “was constantly calculating and assessing how to take maximum advantage of every situation.” I wonder if, while most people see the lame-duck period as a time to pack up and go, he sees it as a valuable opportunity to create discomfort that he can then trade for something valuable. 

    Of course he does. Life is a zero-sum game to Donald Trump. Every moment is a moment to dominate and win. Where some would see a lame-duck presidency, Trump views an opportunity to leverage power by granting pardons, raising money, and setting himself up for the future.

  120. 120.

    Salty Sam

    @Baud:I feel like the reason there’s so much insanity right now is because these people subconsciously have come to realize how morally superior our side is, and they can’t deal with it because it goes against everything they were taught to believe.

    This has been my take all along.  Cognitive dissonance writ large.

  121. 121.

    Matt McIrvin

    @rikyrah: That’s probably the correct emphasis, since that’s a number we know! Of course, it’s still an undercount.

    I’ve seen a lot of “Biden did worse than Trump with group X” analyses that don’t seem to recognize the unreliability of the crosstabs they’re working with.

    (I only just now realized that all of those thousands of “white women voted for Trump in 2016” stories we’ve read over the past four years were wrong! Obviously a lot of them did, but not a majority. That was all based on crosstabs in some bad early exit polls. And now, the main use people are making of the correct data for 2016 is to compare them to the early garbage data for 2020, so they can worry that Biden did way worse with white women than Hillary Clinton.)

  124. 124.

    sherparick

    @Baud: As Steve M wrote today about our RW brothers & sisters:

    “We just elected a Democratic president, but the outgoing Republican president and his supporters still dominate our political conversation and take up the majority of the political real estate in our heads, despite the fact that they’re as crazy as cornered rats on cocaine benders…”

    https://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2020/12/wheels-within-wheels-man.html

    By the way, around 2,500 Americans died of COVID-19 yesterday, we hit the over 100,000 hospitalized mark, & we have about a week before the Post-Thanksgiving explosion hits.  And President Asshole does not say a word. As John Cole says, I just hate these people.

  128. 128.

    mad citizen

    @Baud: This is an interesting story–showing hope for americans after all (that having close proximity/seeing the crazy trumpers in your county turned some voters to Biden).  I don’t know what to make of the fact that Chuck Todd is pictured and apparently presented this on his Meet the Press show.  I didn’t know he presented actual facts.

  129. 129.

    Brachiator

    @Roger Moore: 

    I fully expect Trump to go into rightful President in exile mode starting January 20th.

    I don’t know what Trump might do, and don’t much care. However, I note that people have largely been wrong since 2015 in predicting Trump’s moves.

    He’ll continue claiming the election was stolen, surround himself with a shadow cabinet of cronies, and try to get media attention by issuing “executive orders” and doing things he thinks are the ceremonial functions of the presidency.

    On January 20, the GOP Congressional leadership will have to detach themselves from Trump’s ass. Whatever he says or does might be fodder for a segment on Fox News, but otherwise won’t mean squat.

  130. 130.

    germy

    “For the period when the supply of COVID-19 vaccine will be limited, ACIP has considered four groups for initial vaccine allocation. These include health care personnel, adults with high-risk medical conditions, nursing home residents, and balloon-juice commenters.”

  132. 132.

    sherparick

    @germy: Also, for Trump, with his version of Norman Peale’s “Power of Positive Thinking” taken to the ultimate level of insanity, if he never accepts he lost the election, then he did not lose the election in his head, and in the heads of his cult.  He & they don’t need what normal, reality base people call “evidence” or “proof” to make extraordinary claims.  They just have to “think positively” that the election was “rigged” and it is “rigged” forever in his & their heads. Hence, the burden falls on everyone else to prove their BS “false,” to prove an endless infinite regression of negatives to rebut their belief in a rigged election & fraudulent votes (a belief aided by the fact that they don’t believe votes by Blacks, Hispanics, and “Hippy” liberals should be counted any way as we “are not real Americans who love their country the way it is.”

  133. 133.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Baud: What I’ve heard is that Biden did worse than Hillary with every single group except white men, and he won entirely by cutting his margin of loss with white men.

    Which is kind of a dismaying story, if it were true, except that I strongly suspect it’s not true and is an artifact of incomplete data.

  136. 136.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @Brachiator: That rant he delivered yesterday was released on social media, not the major networks. A lot fewer people will see it or even know it exists. And that’s before he’s even out of office. So I think his impact will decrease.

  137. 137.

    Betty Cracker

    @Matt McIrvin: Thank you — that point can’t be emphasized enough: exit polls are garbage, and this year, they’re more garbage than usual because of the outsized mail-in vote. Not that this is putting a damper on the garbage takes…

  138. 138.

    Immanentize

    @Matt McIrvin: Also not true after all the votes have been counted?  That there was a lot of ballot splitting (Biden vote, but also Rep. Senate or House vote).  Republican House members end up being elected from Trump winning districts.

  139. 139.

    TS (the original)

    @rikyrah:

    I remember this one

    Texas upholds sentence for woman who didn’t know she was ineligible to vote

    Crystal Mason was previously sentenced to five years in prison for a mistaken vote that was not counted

    A mistake – 5 years in prison.  Wonder if the GOP operative will get the same?

  141. 141.

    Betty Cracker

    @Brachiator: Whether or not Trump’s actions mean squat after 1/20 will depend entirely on whether his voters stop paying attention to him. I think it could go either way, tbh.

  144. 144.

    sherparick

    @Matt McIrvin: There is a lot of stuff out their analyzing bad data.  We really won’t have a good handle on who voted for Biden & who voted for Trump for a few more months.  I generally go to the Pew Research site.

  146. 146.

    Another Scott

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: It, and your other books, fit perfectly on a phone with the Kindle app, too.  It’s amazing!!

    :-)

    I added them to mine a couple of days ago.  As expected, they look great.  They’re near the top of my reading list.

    Good luck!

    Cheers,

    Scott.

  147. 147.

    Brachiator

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    That rant he delivered yesterday was released on social media, not the major networks.

    The major networks don’t matter much anymore.  This is one thing that Trump clearly understands. Also, no network was going to run his 46 minute screed. But it is available on social media to be watched at any time. And it will reach those most interested in his nuttiness.

    A lot fewer people will see it or even know it exists. And that’s before he’s even out of office. So I think his impact will decrease.

    People wanted someone like Trump. And now that their anger and bigotry has been roused, it may not entirely go away. It will simmer, waiting for someone to bring it to a boil. I might have thought that the clamor for Trump would fade had not voter turnout for him declined.

    Still, I feel good that many more people came out for Biden. This, I think, is what matters and what offers hope.

  148. 148.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Betty Cracker: My favorite example of that kind of garbage story: the claims that California Prop. 8, the 2008 initiative re-banning same-sex marriage, was put over the top by black people who were turning out to vote for Obama. That was entirely based on the numbers from one CNN exit poll, extrapolated to the whole electorate. The poll wasn’t particularly defective, but the numbers they were working with were pretty small and it was probably an incorrect conclusion. But the “counterintuitive” punchline was just too hard to resist. And it led to some really terrible, hurtful discourse, especially online.

  149. 149.

    germy

    Useless but fun speculation of the day: If you were suddenly transported back to the 12th century, what useful modern inventions could you re-create, using only then-current technology, or technologies you made from then-current technology?

    — Megan McArdle (@asymmetricinfo) December 3, 2020

    Propaganda https://t.co/UVoTq1AB6S

    — Roy Edroso (@edroso) December 3, 2020

  152. 152.

    germy

    While mtg w advocates I learned of a constituent who is receiving $111 in unemployment & has 3 children. Her rent is $1,900. She has depleted her savings & has $35 left.This is a mere snapshot of the acute hurt & hopelessness caused by this pandemic & the Senate's refusal to act

    — Ayanna Pressley (@AyannaPressley) December 2, 2020

  155. 155.

    schrodingers_cat

    I find these scenarios discussing the assassination and/or arrest of the President-elect unseemly and ill advised.

  158. 158.

    germy

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    We watched the CBS Evening News with Nora O’Donnell last night, and the only part of the speech they showed was when he said “This is the most important speech of my presidency.”

  160. 160.

    germy

    So Breitbart is now calling Lin Wood a Democrat. The most insane thing is that now their base is turning on Breitbart for undermining Wood. The right wing throughly underestimates Trumps power over their movement. Insane. pic.twitter.com/23AP1IfuNX

    — ReallyAmerican.com ?? (@ReallyAmerican1) December 3, 2020

    Breitbart is now insinuating that some of the Trumpist conspiracy-mongering … might actually be a Democratic conspiracy to screw over the Trumpists! https://t.co/ytrgDpeM8A

    — Noah Shachtman (@NoahShachtman) December 3, 2020

  163. 163.

    Brachiator

    @Betty Cracker:

    Whether or not Trump’s actions mean squat after 1/20 will depend entirely on whether his voters stop paying attention to him. I think it could go either way, tbh.

    If Mitch McConnell goes down to Mar a Lago and communes with Trump, then I might worry. Otherwise, who knows?

    The thing is, right now, we don’t know what kind of asshole former president Trump will be, or whether he will have to focus on his tax problems or other matters.

  174. 174.

    HinTN

    Speaking of calendars, I’ve ordered mine. One from column A and one from column B. Thanks to WaterGirl,et al., for putting it together and to sell the fine folks who shared their owners with us.

  175. 175.

    Kathleen

    @Baud: And screwing up the down ticket races! Getting more than 80 million votes doesn’t mean voters want you in office (NYT headline).

  178. 178.

    danielx

    @different-church-lady:

    I have met a very few (fortunately) people during my life who I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt were crazy within a few minutes of meeting them. Not being a mental health professional I couldn’t name their exact diagnosis, but I knew they were nuts. If I told someone I have a date with Scarlett Johansson tonight, they would conclude I was joking or (If I insisted) delusional. It’s not that hard to deduce that somebody is at least slightly unhinged.

  179. 179.

    Quiltingfool

    @germy: That hearing?  The first thing I thought was, “Did anybody ask what the stupid people think?”  But here we are — a place where stupid people are given “serious” attention when they should be shunned.

  181. 181.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @germy: Breitbart is now insinuating that some of the Trumpist conspiracy-mongering … might actually be a Democratic conspiracy to screw over the Trumpists

    There was a long game with Skeptics to get accounts with various Creationists internet efforts and see what was the most absurd thing they could post and get passed the moderators. So it’s not impossible a notable percentage of Parlor is Poe’s Law in action.  Like the zombie of Hugo Chavez fixing the election sounds like a joke that got out of hand.

  182. 182.

    Brachiator

    @Matt McIrvin:

    I only just now realized that all of those thousands of “white women voted for Trump in 2016” stories we’ve read over the past four years were wrong! Obviously a lot of them did, but not a majority.

    This was refuted by a number of excellent follow-up stories, as well as a Pew Research report using data of “validated voters.” But as so often happens, once an idea takes root in the Internet and elsewhere, it becomes the unshakeable conventional wisdom.

    Turns out, Trump got 47 percent of the white woman vote, and Hillary got 45 percent.

     And now, the main use people are making of the correct data for 2016 is to compare them to the early garbage data for 2020, so they can worry that Biden did way worse with white women than Hillary Clinton.

    I haven’t even bothered to look at voter data for 2020. Not much point.  Hell, California election results won’t be certified until December 11.

  183. 183.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @germy: Mr Edroso needs to read up on the Donation of Constantine, the Investor Controversy and the First Crusade if he thinks they didn’t know how to do propaganda in the Medieval Period.

  184. 184.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Soprano2:

    Hubby & I were trying to figure out why we didn’t feel happier right now. We decided it’s because, even though Trump was defeated, he’s still there.

    And still trying so hard to gaslight us, insist that what we saw happen didn’t happen and sow uncertainty. The really dismaying and scary thing is that so many Republicans are humoring him. If it were just Trump going on about how he was robbed while there was broad bipartisan consensus that he wasn’t, that would be different. But the Republican leadership are either on fully board with the crazy or being coy about it–probably because they see the shitstorm that comes down on any Republican who dares to cross the line. That keeps the rest of us from feeling that it’s real, keeps us on edge.

  185. 185.

    Ken

    @Baud: If you go by the media analysis, Biden won despite doing worse with every group of voters.

    “We lose a little on every sale, but we make up for it with volume!”

  186. 186.

    germy

    @Quiltingfool:

    We call them stupid, but wait until people like Melissa Carone get half a million bucks in gofundme donations.

    At the hearing, she yelled “I can’t even get a job! Democrats have ruined my life!” so I predict the donations will be pouring in, if they haven’t already.

  192. 192.

    Brachiator

    @Roger Moore:

    Bucks is one of the wealthiest counties in Pennsylvania. Interesting that they’d talk to people there instead of hazarding a Cletus safari to the middle of the state.

    Or a trip to a black neighborhood to talk to the actual Democratic base.

    Slate recently ran a ridiculous story about “how the white political establishment anointed Charlamagne tha God as the spokesman for all black voters. It’s long and pointless and ends up validating Charlamagne instead of examining the biases and stupidity of the white political establishment.

     

  194. 194.

    Ken

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: Don’t forget the reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks to Sultan Mehmed IV of the Ottoman Empire.  Which you can watch Peter Capaldi read.

    I’d try to get them to wash their hands.  Other than that, I could try to introduce some ideas in mathematics and the sciences – but who would be listening?  Especially since I don’t speak any medieval languages.

  197. 197.

    Planetjanet

    So the Orange blob could not be bothered to climb out from under the pile of Big Mac wrappers to turn on the lights of the National Christmas Tree.  Just fly off to Mar-a-lago already.

  200. 200.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Ken: There’s the wonderful depiction of their writing that letter by Ilya Repin – do a Google Image search on “reply of the zaporozhian cossacks”

  201. 201.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Baud: If you go by the media analysis, Biden won despite doing worse with every group of voters.

    Hold on, isn’t that your plan to get elected president? Biden stole Plan Baud.

  202. 202.

    jimmiraybob

    Can a president be arrested for leading sedition against the United states?

    Can a president be arrested for funding sedition against the United states?

    Is the 25th Amendment suitable for the times?

    Is Benedict Arnold now suitable for the Medal of Freedom?

    So many questions and only 48 more days.

  204. 204.

    catclub

    @Amir Khalid: From what I’ve seen, Democrats in Georgia are getting some of that needed help from Trumpers telling each other not to vote because it’s all rigged anyway.

     

    republican voters turn out. quietly, but they turn out. I am worried about organizing  massive numbers of mail ballots… again.

  205. 205.

    different-church-lady

    On the one hand, we should be relieved that the only people left in Trump’s orbit are certifiably insane.

    On the other hand, we should be utterly freaked out that the number of certifiably insane people in this country has reached over 73 million.

  211. 211.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @germy: Yep, all the other DEMs on the committee would do well to yield their time to her. Of course, that would mean they’d have to give up their 5 minutes in the spotlight and we can’t have that.

  212. 212.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @TS (the original):

    It started when they allowed themselves to be penned at a rally where the deplorables screamed at them.

    Just my opinion, but I think that the penning in of the press itself morphed from the protests against Darth Cheney and Shrub, where regular old citizens were hemmed in by police. This morphed into extreme violence by the police on regular old citizens during the Occupy Wall Street period.

    It’s all of a piece, and that piece is the gun in the hands of a poh-poh who is pissed off that you dared to attempt to breath without sufficient obsequiousness to him and his masters.

  214. 214.

    mrmoshpotato

    fun fact: every Republican now panicking because Trump is destroying their party voted to acquit him— Jeff Tiedrich (@itsJeffTiedrich) December 3, 2020

    Including Martha McLoser

  216. 216.

    trollhattan

    @germy:

    Awfully early for a cigarette but here we go.

    Trump’s already nudging attention away from his pack-o-lies and on to Trump 2024. “Here, come see the shiny thing.”

    And Tom Cotton has a sad.

  217. 217.

    Aleta

    @germy:  1.  ‘You have no authority to question me.’  2.   ‘I own my own lawyers.’  Finally, characteristically, when over-privileged white guy w/ infinite self esteem starts to lose the argument, 3.  he switches to infantile personal attack.  That’s (no surprise) untrue.

  218. 218.

    Peale

    @germy: O.K. I’ll bite. If all Chinese people do look alike, then what good does having photo ID requirements do? Or are the now arguing that the Chinese should not be able to vote. Or do we need fingerprint matches for Chinese voters? Or is the real mystery why Chinese play these elctoral games where one or two people vote thousands of times but the Koreans and Japanese voters haven’t caught on to the fact that they could outsource their civic duties to professional voters and jurors and save time at the polls?

  221. 221.

    Sloane Ranger

    @HinTN: How did you order it? I’ve been waiting for an official announcement and a link but not seen anything. Have I missed it?

    I’ve been on Cafe Press but not seeing it.

    Any information/help gratefully received.

  223. 223.

    Raoul Paste

    When Trump insulted that reporter recently saying “I am the President, don’t you dare talk to me like that”,  I wish the reporter would say “ Actually, you  work for me “

  224. 224.

    SFAW

    @TruthOfAngels:

    Frist!

    Sorry, couldn’t resist.

    Yeah, you could have. Although in fairness, “two hundred eighth!” doesn’t have the same panache, so I’ll cut you a little slack.

  225. 225.

    SFAW

    @Cameron:

    There would have been an opportunity to answer some of these questions if Tyler hadn’t died before the end of the Civil War.

    On the other hand, his grandson is still alive, so maybe HE can be hauled before a Grand Jury.

  228. 228.

    JMG

    @different-church-lady: Popular vote percentage for the Republican presidential candidate in this century. Bush 48. Bush 51 (as incumbent). McCain 45. Romney 47. Trump 46. Trump (as incumbent) 47. The evidence strongly suggests that nothing much can add to or subtract from the percentage of Americans who always vote Republican in presidential elections. For many, I doubt it’s a matter of conscious thought. It’s a habit, like brushing their teeth.

  230. 230.

    Miss Bianca

    @Betty Cracker: It’s true. It’s not so much that I’m feeling…deliriously happy or anything. But it is like a weight being lifted. My financial situation hasn’t changed, but I no longer lie awake fretting about it when I wake up in the middle of the night. After months of feeling paralyzed by the COVID situation – not able to play music, not doing any theater, not making any plans beyond “one day at a time” – I feel like I can move again.

    Last night I had a Zoom meeting/rehearsal for a play I am adapting for the radio here for Christmas time, and just…seeing all my actors on screen, some of them for the first time in months, *did* made me deliriously happy, actually.  Just realizing that things were finally,  maybe, going to be all right.

  231. 231.

    zhena gogolia

    Is there a simple way of ordering the calendar? All I see in the sidebar is requests for people who submitted pictures to check it.

  234. 234.

    Matt McIrvin

    @mrmoshpotato: And several of the Republican officials who are now catching hell for saying that Trump lost were personally pushing narratives of Democratic mail-vote fraud hard before the election.

  236. 236.

    sdhays

    @Roger Moore: He’ll continue claiming the election was stolen, surround himself with a shadow cabinet of cronies

    Come, now. That’s just a glorified way of saying “Jared”.

  237. 237.

    Matt McIrvin

    @JMG: Modern presidential elections are always a game of inches, and historically, one of the functions of the Electoral College has been to artificially inflate the apparent size of the win and create the appearance of a blowout, which helps maintain perceived legitimacy. But now things have gotten skewed enough that it’s as likely as not to give the “blowout” to the popular-vote loser, which breaks that function entirely.

  239. 239.

    J R in WV

    @Baud:

    @Amir Khalid:

    Informal assessments like “That guy’s bat-shit crazy” will have to do.

    Heh.

    I think an informal opinion of drug-induced dementia combined with greed and thievery would also be OK. I am not a law enforcement official, yet I recognize thievery when I watch it going on for years right out in public.

    And when a person is no longer able to read ordinary English proper names properly, something, somewhere in that person’s head is causing that inability to say “Minneapolis” for one example.

    Plus can’t or won’t understand how elections work…

    Demented, at least.

  241. 241.

    gwangung

    @Miss Bianca: Yeah, the election plus THREE vaccine candidates has provided a bit of optimism.

    And, yeah, making some art has been a balm. Doing a lineup of staged readings for the public over the last few months has been IMMENSELY healing/soothing for me.

  242. 242.

    Miss Bianca

    @gwangung: Does it make me a terrible person that I’ve had your “She-Devil” script and Zoom read bookmarked for *months* – heck, I even donated! – and haven’t got around to reading/viewing either yet? I’m telling ya, the brain logjam this year has just been *intense*.  Finally breaking, I think.

  243. 243.

    Just One More Canuck

    @germy: and she wasn’t even close to being the craziest witless there. The blonde woman was off the scale bonkers/hammered

  244. 244.

    Nelle

    @Brantl: Yes, I think that’s the source of outrage.  They had their cheating plans and it wasnt enough.  I’m remembering the utterly confident way a Republican official contradicted a reporter, in 2000, after Florida was called for Gore.  No, they got it wrong.  None of that “Let’s wait until all the votes are counted” veneer.  Was it 20o4 when Rove had his on camera meltdown, was it over Ohio?  The years, the cheating…it becomes a blur.

  246. 246.

    different-church-lady

    @mrmoshpotato: If I had any ability to operate the BJ search function I could show that I’ve been saying it for years now. Every Dr. Frankenstein thinks he has the monster under control.

  247. 247.

    different-church-lady

    @gwangung: I’m ready for all three, rigorous testing be damned. I’ll hold the dry ice in my hand if that’s what it takes.

  251. 251.

    Just One More Canuck

    @NotMax: This one seems to combine outright stupidity, batshit craziness, being drunk/high/both and the poutiness of a 13 year old girl who just got her phone taken away

  255. 255.

    Ruckus

    @Brachiator:

    70+ million voted for this deranged clown. There’s always going to be a segment that believes every demented word he utters, because they are as deranged as he is.

  256. 256.

    HinTN

    @Sloane Ranger: You have to locate the “Our Store” link. On my android using Chrome there’s a three line button in the Balloon-Juice header. It’s at the bottom of that list for me and takes you to the BJ page at Cafepress. 2021 Calendar is at the top of the list.

  259. 259.

    Sm*t Cl*de

    @Matt McIrvin:

    I’ve read some stuff from the 12th century. They already knew how to do propaganda.

    Philip IV was a virtuoso, though of course he was a century later. “I need money. Who has money? The Leper hospices… Jews… the Templars. Whip up a frenzy of hatred against them, kill them, take their money!”

  262. 262.

    Roger Moore

    @sdhays:

    Come, now. That’s just a glorified way of saying “Jared”.

    It will also include all the bottom scraping who have been working for him and now can’t get real jobs because they’ve shown the world just how incompetent they are.

  264. 264.

    Roger Moore

    @Ruckus:

    One thing we can never be 100% sure of is what fraction voted for Trump specifically and what fraction voted for whoever had an (R) next to his name.  Untangling that is something the Democrats need to be really focused on.

  265. 265.

    Skepticat

    @schrodingers_cat: 

    I find these scenarios discussing the assassination and/or arrest of the President-elect unseemly and ill advised.

    And absolutely terrifying because they’re so widely disseminated/supported by Chump et al and approved of by so many loons.

  267. 267.

    Ruckus

    @Soprano2:

    With 50 different voting systems, several different counting strategies/end dates, it would be almost impossible to have them installed much earlier.

  268. 268.

    Calouste

    @germy: 12th century? High school math would put you a few centuries ahead of that time. Of course, that is not a skill that McArgleBargle has.

  269. 269.

    WaterGirl

    @Skepticat: This comment got thrown into moderation because you left the “c” off of .com – oops.

    I fixed it and released your comment, but you’ll need to fix that before you comment again.

Comments are closed.