Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Shut up, hissy kitty!

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

If you don’t believe freedom is for everybody, then the thing you love isn’t freedom, it is privilege.

The desire to stay informed is directly at odds with the need to not be constantly enraged.

When you’re in more danger from the IDF than from Russian shelling, that’s really bad.

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

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Rupert, come get your orange boy, you petrified old dinosaur turd.

Today in our ongoing national embarrassment…

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

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Dear Washington Post, you are the darkness now.

“Loving your country does not mean lying about its history.”

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

A norm that restrains only one side really is not a norm – it is a trap.

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Saturday Morning Open Thread: Scrapbook Memories

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Speaking of Georgia… Return of the Cavuto Mark!

Joe Biden, major train nerd:

Reader Interactions

190Comments

  2. 2.

    Baud

    President Biden marked his 100th day in office thanking Georgia voters for putting Democrats in control of Congress

    The country is in debt to the voters of Georgia and the primary voters of South Carolina. Who’d have thunk it?

  3. 3.

    Baud

    TV news ratings, online readership plunge during Biden’s first 100 days

    They knew what they were doing promoting Trump is 2016.

  7. 7.

    SiubhanDuinne

    So the Summer Term set in, sun-flecked and lovely, a departing April whirled on wind-spurred feet towards a splendor of May. — Dorothy L. Sayers, Gaudy Night

    *****

    Hooray, hooray! The first of May!
    Outdoor screwing starts today!

    https://youtu.be/UZA4jnvdYog

  9. 9.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    Matthew Dimitri SnakeTest tube
    @themattdimitri
    Glenn Greenwald claims the conspiracies Rachel Maddow and Chris Hayes peddle are “much more deleterious” than Qanon because they have a much larger audience, and says one of the benefits of Qanon is it gives people a sense of community and belonging.
    Embedded video
    2:14
    5.9K views
    10:43 PM · Apr 30, 2021·Twitter Web App

  10. 10.

    germy

    So all it took was an apology? I thought we were going to bankrupt these fuckers.

    Newsmax apologizes to Dominion worker for false allegations

    NEW YORK (AP) – Newsmax apologized on Friday for airing false allegations that an employee for Dominion Voting Systems manipulated machines or tallies on Election Day to the detriment of former President Donald Trump.

    Eric Coomer, security director at the Colorado-based firm, in turn dropped Newsmax from a defamation lawsuit.

    The conservative news network, in a statement published on its website and to be read on TV, said that while it aired the accusations against Coomer made by Trump’s lawyers and supporters, it found no evidence that they were true

    https://wnyt.com/politics/newsmax-apologizes-to-dominion-worker-for-false-allegations/6092280/?cat=665

  12. 12.

    raven

    @OzarkHillbilly: I was mowing my neighbors lawn and, while backing up, fell onto my back. It was so quick I didn’t have time to try to catch myself so I didn’t break a wrist but I dinged a rib or two and it’s a bitch.

  13. 13.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Austin voters to decide on restoring rules criminalizing homeless activities

    Summer Wright experienced homelessness on and off for years as a teenager and young adult. At no point would she have benefited from a $500 fine, or having police sweep away her belongings.

    “It wouldn’t have urged me into a shelter. It would have urged me further away,” said Wright, a member of the Austin Youth Collective.

    But – amid outcry over large, more visible encampments around Texas’s capital city – Austinites are still torn on whether they should use an election on Saturday to reinstate criminal bans on behaviors that are part and parcel of an unhomed existence.

    The national homelessness crisis has become an ideological punching bag in Texas, where lawmakers are also threatening a statewide ban on encampments. And, nearly two years after the Austin city council rolled back rules affecting unsheltered residents, a new ballot measure, Proposition B, would revert to criminalizing camping, panhandling, sitting or lying down on public sidewalks and sleeping outdoors.

    “If I’d had this additional trauma and these additional barriers, I won’t say it would have stopped me from being housed ever,” Wright said. “But it definitely would have made the process a lot harder.”

    Prop B could subject people who already cannot afford housing to tickets of up to $500, which would probably go unpaid and lead to arrest warrants.

    “The only way you go to jail is if you cannot pay the citation,” said Matt Mackowiak, co-founder of the Save Austin Now Pac, the proposition’s chief advocacy group.

    “If you are going to camp, the police are going to come up to you and they’re going to say, ‘Camping has now been banned in our city. You have to move.’”

    Mackowiak described Prop B as a last-ditch effort to save Austin from becoming a failed city, and he said he wants to be part of the solution for unhomed residents after his campaign wins.

    Yeah. Right. Sure you do. By housing them in jail. That’s the ticket.

  20. 20.

    Rob

    Did anybody see this story? Disgusting.

    https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article251069219.html

    Kansas Rep. Mark Samsel arrested for battery after physical altercation with student

    Parents told The Star that Samsel “put hands on the student” and allegedly kneed him in the crotch. In a video apparently taken immediately after the incident, the student is shown on the ground. Samsel is standing over him and says, “did it hurt?”

  21. 21.

    raven

    @Spanky: Yea, it’s a self propelled push mower and I let go of the bar as I fell so it shut down. I hit hard enough that a neighbor inside her house came out and said “you ok buddy”?

  22. 22.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Rob:

    Yeah, but “one of the benefits of Qanon/KKK/World Church of the Creator membership is it gives people a sense of community and belonging”. You don’t get people together to watch Maddow or Hayes.

    It is all very simple in Glenn’s mind, and a good reason to force publishers to uncritically publish neo-nazi propaganda.

  23. 23.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @germy:

    Apparently, that’s only the lawsuit being brought by that individual, not the Dominion lawsuit

  29. 29.

    germy

    @Rob:

    In another video, Samsel is recorded telling students, “make babies. Who likes making babies? That feels good, doesn’t it? Procreate. … You haven’t masturbated? Don’t answer that question….God already knows.”

    I nominate the bold text for rotating tag.

  30. 30.

    germy

    @raven:

    Thank a liberal for the lawnmower’s safety feature… If conservatives had their way, the mower would have continued on its own power, circling the lawn before speeding directly at you.

  32. 32.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @raven:

    Don’t I know it. I’m still in PT over this quad repair.

  41. 41.

    Bobby Thomson

    The one time he took off the gloves.  Knowing what we know now, was it worth it?  (Bear in mind Trump was thinking of running in 2012 and Obama set him way back.)

  42. 42.

    Kay

    @germy:

    Videos shared with The Star — by parents of students in the class — show Samsel focusing most of his attention on one male student. Both Samsel and the student paced around the classroom, talking back and forth. Samsel is shown following the student around and grabbing him. In one video, he puts his arms around the student and says that he was being hard on him.

    They should probably interview the boys he has coached. This whole thing has a really disturbing focus.
    The misdemeanor battery is probably not the issue here.

  44. 44.

    mrmoshpotato

    The Hill

    @thehill

    TV news ratings, online readership plunge during Biden’s first 100 days

    Jeff perfectly answers the slapdicks at The Hill.

  45. 45.

    germy

    @Kay:

    Yes, it sounds like he’s battling something within himself.

    And physically/emotionally abusing children in the process.

  48. 48.

    mrmoshpotato

    I really fucking wish Twitter would strip Moscow Mitch of his “Leader” handle!

  49. 49.

    debbie

    I was so, so sad ? to read that a gun owner’s group had called off their planned rally at the Statehouse this weekend to honor the cop who killed Ma’Khia Bryan (the 16-year-old who was about to knife another woman) a week earlier. It was being touted as an open carry event.

    The organizer said he canceled it after hearing counter-protesters planned to attend the rally. Poor dear. I’d always heard a gun gives you courage. I was mistaken.

  52. 52.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Rob:

    So I noticed that beneath the article, Kristopher Kolumbus Kobach is trying to be a thing again. Wonder what his chances are?

  53. 53.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @germy:

    That Clarissa sounds like a grade a moron:

    True. Nobody in their right would call Biden a good campaiger – there was no campaign – or charismatic. Or a successful executive. Yet he’s the one in the WH. Kind of.

    WTF is that “kind of” supposed to mean? And Biden’s not charismatic and there was no campaign?

    And I particularly loved the bit from the commenter she was responding to about how “tech oligarchs select our president’s, not voters”

  54. 54.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @M31:

    what I want to read now is Dorothy Parker’s translation of Dante

    OMG, I want this so hard! Why has this not happened?

    “If all the people in the Second Circle of Hell were laid end to end, I wouldn’t be surprised.”

  57. 57.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @raven: You have my sympathies. Busted/bruised ribs suck donkey dick.

    Sitting down? Pain
    Lying down? Pain
    Sitting up? Pain.
    Walking? Pain.
    Turning? Pain.
    Breathing? Pain.

    My wife took a tumble in NOLA and bruised/cracked some ribs and tore some cartilage. She wanted to go to a doc until I explained that there was nothing they could do for her except give her a brace (I handed her one of mine) and drugs (I showed her my vicodin stash).

  58. 58.

    RandomMonster

    @Bobby Thomson: Was Trump’s monomaniacal hatred of Obama established before that dinner? I wasn’t much aware of Trump’s spewing before 2015.

  59. 59.

    debbie

    @RandomMonster:

    Trump has always hated all POC. He and his dad got started on that hate back in the 1970s with housing discrimination, redlining, etc.

  60. 60.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @MomSense:

    He’s gone manically noxious, and that has a spillover to the rest of a life. I’ll repeat my prediction for the cheap seats – Glenn Greenwald (this is the bat signal for a Greenwald sock puppet) and David Miranda will be splitting up sometime within the next 6 to 24 months.

  61. 61.

    debbie

    Speaking of achy pain, can anyone recommend a good brand for a heating pad?

  62. 62.

    raven

    @OzarkHillbilly:  Year, I just happen to have an annual appt with my GP Monday so I’ll just hang in there. It’s not really that bad until aI take the big boy out. I’m having to use a padded strap under his belly to support him when he poops and it’s a bit heavy. I’ve had broken ribs and while this if uncomfortable, I don’t think there is a break.

  66. 66.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Bobby Thomson:

    The one time he took off the gloves.  Knowing what we know now, was it worth it? 

    I need tonight’s Powerball and Illinois Lotto Numbers, as well as Tuesday’s Megamillions numbers, Future Boy.  Ask a frontpager for my email.

  67. 67.

    RandomMonster

    @debbie: True. Plain vanilla racism explains it all. The fact that Obama was a POC in the White House was enough to make him the focus of TFG’s hate.

  68. 68.

    germy

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    A good blog to read if you want to know what the Tucker Carlson wing of serious thinking conservatives are discussing with each other.

    I try not to linger, though.  The smell of sulphur is too overpowering.

  70. 70.

    Michael Cain

    @raven:  Must be a trend.  I took a fall from my bicycle yesterday.  Abrasions, contusions, and a cracked helmet liner — nothing serious.

  74. 74.

    Spanky

    As I’ve gotten older, I’ve definitely noticed that gravity is increasing.

  75. 75.

    debbie

    @raven:

    Thanks!

    The one I have now I’ve had since the 1980s. I’ve noticed that the control thing remains alarmingly hot after I turn it off. Time for a new one!

  76. 76.

    Ken

    @germy: As part of the settlement of the suit for defaming the Dominion executive, Newsmax had to admit to spreading false claims of election fraud. IANAL but that should help quite a lot with the suit by the Dominion corporation.

  78. 78.

    Ken

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Wasn’t that the argument made, oh, must have been twenty years ago, by the guy who was lamenting the decline of bowling leagues?  Something about how it showed that Americans weren’t getting together socially.

    As I recall, it didn’t consider that people might be adopting other social activities, ones that don’t involve putting on other peoples’ shoes in order to play an 18th-century game.

  82. 82.

    Kay

    Dave Weigel
    @daveweigel
    Trump was a former Democrat who promised not to touch entitlements and had no problem with gay marriage. He spent months getting accused of being liberal by conservative primary opponents. It mattered

    This doesn’t get enough attention when we talk about Trump, especially now that he’s a one termer.

    Trump didn’t run as a Republican. He ran away from Republicans on nearly their whole economic agenda. It was only after he was in that he reneged on taxing the rich, protecting entitlements, supporting labor unions, etc. And he didn’t get re-elected.
    The mini-Trumps in 2024 will just be far Right Republicans. They won’t be able to run away from the Republican Party economic agenda the way Trump did. Hell, even Trump himself couldn’t run away from it in the re-elect.

  84. 84.

    Ken

    @SiubhanDuinne: “What are the tenets of this new church you joined?”

    “The only thing they believe is there is an afterlife.”

    “Really? That’s all?”

    “And that Dorothy Parker is still writing, and Mozart is still composing.”

    “How do I join?”

  85. 85.

    Michael Cain

    @mrmoshpotato:

    ? Is that different from a cracked helmet?

    There’s breaking the expanded foam liner, and then there’s impacts that also break the hard outer shell.  I worked with a guy who did the latter.  Mild concussion, he never remembered the few minutes leading up to the fall.  The EMT who helped carry him out looked at the helmet and said, “If you hadn’t been wearing that, we wouldn’t have had to hurry.”  Bell offered to buy it from him — apparently they have a collection of spectacularly damaged helmets that saved people’s lives.

  86. 86.

    TS (the original)

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I’ve always hated that people were called “undocumented aliens” or any sort of aliens – and now I hear another term

     unhomed residents  The dictionary dislikes the word unhomed as much as I do. These are homeless people – folks without a place to live in the wealthiest country in the world.

    Rather like enhanced interrogation – these terms are used to deny the issues that exist for these people, to allow those that are “homed” to see them as people to be swept away with the garbage.

  87. 87.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Ken:

    The other part is that bowling is REALLY expensive nowadays.

    And those shoes still reek of athlete’s foot.

  88. 88.

    Barbara

    @Rob:

    Did anybody see this story? Disgusting.

    https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article251069219.html

    Kansas Rep. Mark Samsel arrested for battery after physical altercation with student.

    This article has to be read to be believed. If you didn’t know anything about evangelical culture you would conclude that he has mental health problems. And who knows, maybe he does, but it scares me to think that any kid I care about would be subjected to someone like him in a position of authority.

  89. 89.

    WhatsMyNym

    @germy:

    Thank a liberal for the lawnmower’s safety feature

    Thank all the ongoing lawsuits. They seemed to be never ending at the time.

  91. 91.

    debbie

    @Kay:

    He’s a panderer. He’s never favored anything other than autocracy. He faked liberal to appeal to the famous media types when he needed them; then turned fascist when he needed the conservatives.

  94. 94.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Kay:

    It was only after he was in that he reneged on taxing the rich, protecting entitlements, supporting labor unions, etc 

    He ran as a conman.

  96. 96.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Barbara:

    He’s got a better than fair chance of getting the GOP nomination for Governor of Kansas if he throws his hat in, and sticks with that rhetoric.

    That, or getting a Fox News anchor spot….

  97. 97.

    Ken

    @Baud: Death roomba.

    Not quite up there with the classic possessed-machine movies like Killdozer! or Maximum Overdrive, but I’d watch it on Svengoolie.

  98. 98.

    Kay

    @debbie:

    Right, all that, but he told more than “media”. He said over and over at the rallies that he would be paying the higher tax rates that he supported. It was only after he got in that he became a big fan of cutting taxes for the 1%. I think smarter conservatives know it, so we see things like Mitt Romney proposing larger tax credits or families with children and “working” on a counter to the D’s minimum wage. They know they have to moderate their economic agenda. They know the ground has shifted.

  100. 100.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @Barbara:

    The thing that blew me away was that this was in a public high school. I thought it had to be the Cottonmouth Bible Academy or someplace like that.

  102. 102.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Michael Cain: My wheels went out from under me a few winters ago crossing one of Chicago’s cheese grater bridges downtown.  Plastic shell on my Specialized helmet got scraped and had some hairline cracks (helmet was toast) but my noggin was fine.

  103. 103.

    Kay

    @Barbara:

    I think he made it worse for himself because he claims it was “planned” and some of the kids knew it. So now his defense will involve interviewing them, he’ll have to name the kids, etc. Now he’s down the fucking rabbit hole. Also, he’s some kind of Christian coach and camp counselor so there are probably hundreds of kids.

  104. 104.

    Ken

    Found it: Bowling Alone, by Robert D. Putnam.  It wasn’t just the bowling leagues, it was all the things that held the social fabric of the nation together, like (scrolls that wikipedia article) the Knights of Columbus, League of Women Voters, the Lions’ Club… The list reads like “things white people did once a week in the 1950s”.

  106. 106.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Rob: Wow, that is a hell of an article. What a violent, wacko creep. I’m surprised the guy hasn’t had a come-to-Jesus talk with group of concerned parents on some lonely road in the middle of a dark and stormy night.

  107. 107.

    Rob

    @Barbara: I do know a little about evangelical culture and I still concluded that he may have mental health problems.​

  108. 108.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Spanky: Also ran as a conman.  “I’ll be tremendous bigly at coal!”

    Oh?  An industry dying a steady death for 40+ years?  Ok! Fucknuts!

  109. 109.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Ken:

    I know no K of C members anymore. The average age has to be 75+.

  110. 110.

    Amir Khalid

    @debbie:
    I still wonder why the cop didn’t think to say this:
    “Put down that knife, young lady, before you get yourself in big trouble with it. Put it down. Good. Now step back, take a few deep breaths, and calm yourself.”

  112. 112.

    Barbara

    @Kay: ​He was a substitute teacher. Unless he was a long-term sub this suggests that he is bonkers or lying or fraternizing with students outside of the classroom. All of which raises red flags.

  113. 113.

    Kay

    @Barbara:

    My new thing with these (allegedly) religion aligned crimes is I just take the thin wash of “religion” off and look at it without that. This man was following a middle school boy around a room demanding to know if he masturbated. Maybe focus there instead of that fact that he threw in “biblical” every once in a while?

    This isn’t a bible study that went awry. Something else is going on here.

  115. 115.

    Spanky

    Well I was trollin’ on the blog one day

    In the merry, merry month of May

    It came as no surprise

    To see trollin’ from some guys

    Then Raven said …

  117. 117.

    Urban Suburbanite

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Sounds similar to Seattle’s homeless “crisis”, down to the prison camp fantasies. I wonder if the similarities extend to a Sinclair station pushing out misery porn and nearby cities dumping their homeless population on Austin.

  120. 120.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    He just lied at his rallies

    But what he lied about matters. He lied to cover the GOP economic agenda.

    I think Trump knows it. I think one of the reasons he hates McConnell is Trump was too stupid and lazy to have an actual legislative agenda so McConnell was free to do his own, and McConnells is the unpopular Right wing agenda. Trump knows that now, sees the error, is bitter and blaming others.

  122. 122.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    Maybe.  But he did all those GOP things and gained a shit ton of new votes in 2020. It was always primarily about the bigotry and hate.

  123. 123.

    Spanky

    @Kay: Well, to be fair (?),  Trump’s entire life has been about bitterness and blaming others. Mitch is just a very convenient target.

  124. 124.

    a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio

    @Baud: The people who voted Biden in the south have decades of knowing just how bad GOP governance can be. When we aren’t prevented from voting it’s very motivating.

  125. 125.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Kay:

    Trump was too stupid and lazy to have an actual legislative agenda

    Trump had policy beliefs and a legislative agenda.  That he told each audience what he thought they wanted to hear does not change that.  His actions and his history before running for office paint a clear picture.  He’s a Nazi-level white supremacist, generally is in favor of anything that hurts people, specifically in favor of anything that hurts women or queers, thinks trade deficits mean the US is getting screwed and that tariffs fix that problem, hates alliances, thinks Iran is evil, thinks threatening to bomb people is the only kind of negotiation*, and hates all regulations.  Oh, and he believed a president is a king, and thus had trouble grasping the ‘legislative’ part of a legislative agenda.
    You are right that it is important that he lied to his audiences about his positions.  He got a lot of credit for positions he did not have.  It is reasonable to believe that shifted votes.​
    EDIT – *with a hostile power as defined by his prejudices

  126. 126.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Rob:

    “Sure he’s weird and probably molesting kids, but who am I but another sinner? So long as he’s forgiven by our Lord’s blood sacrifice and stands up for the culture, I’ll vote for him over any Democrat….”

  127. 127.

    Miss Bianca

    @Ken: Adam S. has repeatedly contended that the period of social engagement that the Bowling Alone guy eulogizes was very much an anomaly – that, historically, America has always been much more of a “loner” than a “joiner” society.

  128. 128.

    germy

    I have been a long critic of Rudy Giuliani going back years. However, Giuliani may have a valid point in asking why the FBI did not seize hard drives that he claimed contained Biden material. https://t.co/hdjJ81FQgZ

    — Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) April 30, 2021

    I would imagine that the Feds only took what was mentioned in the warrant.

    — Richard Lucas (@rlucas999) April 30, 2021

    People know that warrants have scopes & limits, don't they? You can't just take whatever looks like it might be interesting.

    This is such a disingenuous talking point that I wonder why people aren't made to feel more embarrassed when using it as cover.

    — Nick Mortensen (@nickmortensen) April 30, 2021

  129. 129.

    Baud

    @germy:

    why the FBI did not seize hard drives that he claimed contained Biden material.

    Huh? Does he realize that people can’t actually read the material on a hard drive directly?

  131. 131.

    Geminid

    @Kay: I thought McConnell shafted trump last October, when he pushed through Barrett’s Supreme Court nomination, but sat on a stimulus package. Another round of stimulus checks might have pushed trump over the top.

    I think McConnell knew this. But he didn’t care if trump was reelected. McConnell figured that as Senate Majority Leader he would use austerity to cripple Biden’s presidency.

    But then, on January 5, the voters of Georgia made McConnell Minority Leader.

  132. 132.

    laura

    @Miss Bianca: it was also pre 24/7 economy. The failure to consider workers without a Monday thru Friday 8 to 5 schedule was a glaring weakness when it was written – even more so today with gig workers.

  134. 134.

    narya

    @TS (the original): Or: people experiencing homelessness. I used to work at a health center that has federal funding to provide healthcare to people experiencing homelessness, and that’s the phrasing they now use, because it centers the person-ness rather than the homelessness.

  136. 136.

    Urban Suburbanite

    @Baud:

    This is the same genius cybersecurity consultant who routinely butt dials reporters. It could be an attempt to set up a new story where Rudi, Heroic Mayor of 9/11 and Victim of the FBI, shows up in front of a camera to clack his dentures about the FBI is uninterested in the real scandal of Hunter Biden. It could also be a coy attempt to set up an argument to undermine the search warrant by claiming the feds violated the scope of the warrant (but I’m not a lawyer, so I have no idea if that would work). Or maybe Guiliani is just a desperate idiot realizing that he’s about to see a lot more court hearings than cigar bars.

  137. 137.

    What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us

    @Kay: That’s one wedge I’m not sure Democrats are driving hard enough. Trump ran in 2016 as a big government liberal with a healthy side of racism. Then…he gave Moscow Mitch and the rest of them their tax cut for the rich and a bunch of judges and nothing else. He couldn’t even get them to pony up money for the wall.

    A lot of conservatives on my FB feed blame the Democrats (specifically Nancy Pelosi) for the fact that we didn’t get a big second Covid relief bill or an infrastructure bill, but it was really Moscow Mitch and the rest of the Republicans who had no interest in doing either of those things and the Democrats really need to point that out as they push their infrastructure bill forward.

    We need to point out that what stopped Trump from delivering an infrastructure bill was not the Democrats, it was Moscow Mitch and his toadies. And now they’re trying to stop us from delivering what Trump promised you, so maybe vote the fuckers out.

    I don’t know, partisan affiliations are so strong at present that I don’t know whether the message – especially coming from Democrats – would break through at all or change anyone’s mind, but my sense is that most Trump supporters have little use for Mitch or most mainstream longtime republicans, and turning them further off on those guys, who lets face it, will be the republican faces of the midterms, might really help depress turnout on their side if nothing else.

  138. 138.

    Booger

    @Ken: Casual member of our local Lion’s Club. 100% white, 95%+ male, a few members under 65. Feels like it should be watched in black-and-white on one of the three networks.

  140. 140.

    MomSense

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I knew it would work out well.  He’s a very smart and really good person.  He’s also wickedly funny.  He’s been working his whole career to make voting more accessible.

  143. 143.

    J R in WV

    @debbie: ​

    …can anyone recommend a good brand for a heating pad?

    I got an extra large heating pad from Walgreen’s, one branded as a “Walgreen’s” heating pad, which has been very satisfactory so far. It’s longer than it is wide, can cover most of my back.

  145. 145.

    Brachiator

    @What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us:

    A lot of conservatives on my FB feed blame the Democrats (specifically Nancy Pelosi) for the fact that we didn’t get a big second Covid relief bill or an infrastructure bill,

    I thougth that conservatives opposed relief bills and infrastructure bills as a matter of principle. It kinda looks like these folks need to find some reason to blame Pelosi and the Democrats for stuff, even if they have to make things up.

    but my sense is that most Trump supporters have little use for Mitch or most mainstream longtime republicans, and turning them further off on those guys, who lets face it, will be the republican faces of the midterms, might really help depress turnout on their side if nothing else.

    I don’t think that there is any point in trying to depress turnout. There are too many variables that no one can control. This is one reason why Republicans prefer suppressing votes. It is simpler and much more direct.

  147. 147.

    Immanentize

    @The Thin Black Duke: That would be a great honor, Sir.  One set of shoes I am unworthy to fill.

    Getting ready for a four hour zoom workshop on Scholarship Support for newer Clinical Law Profs.  I got my eye drops ready!

  149. 149.

    Geminid

    @What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us: Another wedge that I would like to see Democrats drive into the Republican party is Comprehensive Immigration Reform. That’s a very divisive issue within the Republican party. The Wall Street Journal, Chamber of Commerce types want it, but it is anathema to the so-called populists.

    I want to see the undocumented immigrants  working around me earn green cards for reasons of justice and equity,  but I can’t help also noticing its divisive effect on Republicans. I caught an interesting Hew Hewitt radio show in February.  Hewitt, a self-described “wet” on immigration, touted comprehensive reform and then opened up the phones. Half of his callers agreed with him, for various pragmatic reasons. The other half were against it, vehemently.

  150. 150.

    JAFD

    @rikyrah:  Yesterday’s ekail of Politico’s – New Jersey Playbook had this to say

    “By Matt Friedman

    Good Friday morning!

    People are racking their brains about New Jersey’s Census numbers. Garden State Initiative, which argues that high taxes have people fleeing the state, raised some ideas about the count to smooth over the apparent contradiction.

    But I think the most promising answer to the mystery is not in an economist’s speculation or buried in some yet-to-be-released data. It came to me from Food & Wine Magazine: “New Jersey is the best place to eat pizza in the country right now.”
    https://www.foodandwine.com/travel/restaurants/best-pizza-every-state

    Many people will brave high taxes, endless traffic jams and suburban sprawl for a good slice. The country has caught on to New Jersey’s pizza greatness, and everyone wants to get sauced. “

  152. 152.

    sdhays

    @germy: So, Rudy has evidence that the FBI should see regarding President Biden, but he expects the FBI to swoop it up in a raid focusing on Rudy’s literally treasonous crimes? Why didn’t he just give it to the FBI? Or to Fox Snooze?

    Did he send the material to the Washington Roast instead of the Washington Post and that’s why we haven’t seen it yet? Or is it a file on Joe Biden of Toadsuck, AR, suggesting he ran over the neighbor’s cat and pretended to know nothing about it?

    His boss is going to be pissed.

  153. 153.

    SFBayAreaGal

    It’s a beautiful, foggy, windy morning. I can’t see the coastal hills and the pavement and grass is wet from the fog. I love my fog.

  154. 154.

    smith

    @Baud: And I could put any damn thing on any hard drive and claim it’s Hunter Biden’s. If there’s no provable provenance for the thing it’s worthless as evidence.

  156. 156.

    germy

    @sdhays:

    They always speak so loudly and confidently, but when you examine their logic (as you did in your comment) the whole thing dissolves into asbestos powder.

  157. 157.

    sdhays

    @Geminid: Dump could have demanded a new stimulus and pressured the Republican Senate to do his bidding, but he didn’t. He did jack shit, as usual.

    I think there was a vague “plan” to try to jam it in just before the election, but between Amy COVID Barret’s nomination and Nancy’s unwillingness to play along (and Republicans’ general horror at the idea of helping regular people), it didn’t happen.

  158. 158.

    J R in WV

    @Barbara: ​
    ​ 

    If you didn’t know anything about evangelical culture you would conclude that he has mental health problems.

    Is being really, really stupid a mental health problem? ‘Cause that’s at least part of this bozo’s problem.

    How hard is it to pass the bar exam in Kansas? Really, really easy~!!~

    I don’t think a person’s religion gives them any extra privilages regarding classroom behavior, speech in front of young students, none of that. And Government Officials (like a teacher!) aren’t allowed to preach their religion to people in a government organization of any sort.

    Here’s hoping this dum-ass spends enough time in jail to learn these easy lessons.

  159. 159.

    smith

    @sdhays:  I thought the hangup on the stimulus pre-GA senate runoffs was the R insistence on employer immunity from lawsuits if their working conditions gave employees covid.

  160. 160.

    sdhays

    @germy: Well, apparently their second most popular “news” channel considers analysis of dandelion placement on the White House lawn to be the most important thing its viewers need to know, so it’s no surprise.

    It’s amazing these people can dress themselves.

  161. 161.

    Geminid

    @sdhays: trump’s just lazy, and I am glad of that. If trump had worked harder, he might have gotten himself reelected, and we’d be in real trouble.

  162. 162.

    Mike in NC

    @Ken: My wife had a box of stuff that belonged to her dad. He was big into the Knights of Columbus in the 1950s. I listed all his KoC memorabilia on eBay and people snapped it up!

  163. 163.

    Brachiator

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    Trump was too stupid and lazy to have an actual legislative agenda

    Trump had policy beliefs and a legislative agenda.

    Everything that you note here demonstrates that Trump never had any coherent policy beliefs or any consistent legislative agenda. He was a bag of resentments with a chip on his shoulder, and his only consistent policy belief was “what’s in it for me?”

    But his resentments and simplistic view fit exactly with the equally mindless resentments of his base.

    Trump was for tax cuts that would benefit himself, but left it up to his Treasury Secretary and Texas Rep Kevin Brady to craft the bill, with McConnell set to bring the Senate along.

    Trump’s major role was to sucker his base into supporting the bill by falsely claiming that it would not do anything for rich people like him. This was part of his standard operating procedure, convincing the gullible that he was a powerful rich guy who knew how things worked, but that he was a man of the people, and so should be trusted.

    Oh, and he believed a president is a king, and thus had trouble grasping the ‘legislative’ part of a legislative agenda.

    You are absolutely right on this point. Trump believed that it was his government, and that everyone, including the Congress and the courts, should bend to his will. And his base were behind him all the way on this. They still yearn for an imperial presidency.

  165. 165.

    sdhays

    @smith: Well, that’s what they claimed, but they decided it wasn’t that important after all after the election when they passed the second stimulus at the end of December.

    I think it was an excuse to do nothing. And Dump was pretty much absent from the decision making around it. If he had realized that sending another round of checks with his name on it could save the election for him, he would have made it happen.

  166. 166.

    sdhays

    @Geminid: Remembering back, I suspect the other thing is the Republicans, and especially Dump, don’t understand the real economy. They saw the stock market recover and saw the problem at least 80% fixed.

  167. 167.

    Gary K

    Obama roasting Trump is fascinating to watch 10 years later

    Part of the fascination is in knowing the backstory. Even the speechwriters who gave him the line “These are the kind of decision that would keep me up at night” didn’t know that Obama was about to launch the bin Laden raid. Nor did they understand why he wanted to soften the punchline “Did you know that his real name is Gov. Tim bin Laden Pawlenty?” by swapping in “Hosni.”

  168. 168.

    L85NJGT

    Surging U.S. crop prices reverse fortunes in rural Iowa

    TRACTOR DEMAND JUMPS

    Free rider problem.

  170. 170.

    Brachiator

    @Kay:

    Right, all that, but he told more than “media”. He said over and over at the rallies that he would be paying the higher tax rates that he supported. It was only after he got in that he became a big fan of cutting taxes for the 1%.

    Trump early on told big lies about policy because he instinctively knew that this would win over his base and even some Democrats.

    The two biggest lies:

    Trump always claimed that he would repeal Obamacare and replace it with something better. Neither he nor the Republicans ever offered an alternative to the Affordable Care Act. Never.

    Trump lied that his tax proposals would not benefit him or his rich buddies. And he certainly knew that this was bullshit as the tax bill was working its way through Congress. From the Wiki.

    Fact-checkers such as FactCheck.Org, PolitiFact and The Washington Post‘s fact-checker have found that Trump’s claims that his economic proposal and tax plan would not benefit wealthy persons like himself were likely false. An analysis by The New York Times found that if Trump’s tax plan had been in place in 2005 (the one recent year in which his tax returns were leaked), he would have saved $11million in taxes. The analysis also found that Trump would save $4.4million on his eventual estate tax bill. Experts say that the financial windfall for the President and his family from this bill is “virtually unprecedented in American political history”.

    I can’t find it now, but there was an audio clip of Trump at some rich person event bragging about how much he was going to save on estate taxes and that it was only “natural” that the rich would want to leave a pile of loot to their kids.

    So much for self reliance.

    I think smarter conservatives know it, so we see things like Mitt Romney proposing larger tax credits for families with children and “working” on a counter to the D’s minimum wage. They know they have to moderate their economic agenda. They know the ground has shifted.

    Romney is an outlier. The rest of the GOP clings to the idea of working for the aid and comfort of plutocrats.

  171. 171.

    Another Scott

    @Baud: TFG ran for president before Obama made fun of him.  He said anything that he thought would get him what he wanted – “you tell them and they believe it – they just do.”

    You’re right – only himself is in the center, the rest is an illusion for the rubes.

    Cheers,

    Scott.

  173. 173.

    Ken

    @sdhays: His boss is going to be pissed.

    “Huh, who would be sending me a gift?  Underwear?  Oh, there’s a card… ‘Can’t wait to see you in these — Love, V.’  Hmm… Vanessa?  Oh, that little minx.”

  174. 174.

    debbie

    @Amir Khalid:

    Honestly, having seen the video, no one would have heard, let alone heeded, his words. If the police had shown up sooner, then I’d agree with you.

  175. 175.

    Cameron

    @sdhays: Meanwhile, the folks at Four Seasons Landscaping are scratching their heads and trying to figure out where an unidentified hard drive came from….

  176. 176.

    Another Scott

    Beware the hagiographers…

    Thread.

    Broad also established The Broad Academy which churned out a string of disastrous, incompetent public education administrators who wreaked havoc on large public school districts.

    And while everyone is praising Broad, his Academy’s model was somewhere between ignorant and racist. https://t.co/xcFNgmFyjL— The Hoarse Whisperer (@TheRealHoarse) May 1, 2021

    Rich white dudes don’t have any special insights or excess virtue. They just have money. We shouldn’t forget that.

    And they shouldn’t have so much money and power. Tax them and use the money elsewhere for the public good.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  177. 177.

    Ruckus

    @Spanky:

    So that’s what it is! Gravity gets stronger as you age……

    The world also tends to move unpredictably making one look like a drunk…..

    I used to think getting old was grand, until I started to experience the joys of it, now it’s just better than the alternative…..

  178. 178.

    What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?

    @Baud:  he ran as a Dixiecrat. Part of his pitch was a stronger social safety net. To Republicans, that’s a “big government liberal”. Maybe the air raid siren of racism it came with implied that all that government largesse would be only for whites but he was definitely promising to give people more social security and health care. It was all a sham, like everything else about him, but that’s what he was telling us.

  179. 179.

    Another Scott

    ICYMI, a ProPublica piece on a woman trying to run a childcare business in Kansas/Missouri during the pandemic.

    The Child Care Industry Was Collapsing. Mrs. Jackie Bet Everything on an Impossible Dream to Save It.

    Jackie Thomas was $29,134 in debt and in trouble with state regulators. She hadn’t slept in days. If a judge ruled against her, she’d fail the mothers who could only keep their jobs thanks to the 24-hour child care she offered.

    Biden knows the need. Here’s hoping that the American Families Plan is passed soon.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  180. 180.

    Ruckus

    @J R in WV:

    I’d bet that if he’s dumb enough to do this shit in the first place, he’s way too dumb to learn from the consequences.

  181. 181.

    Ruckus

    @sdhays:

    This.

    They are selfish fucks and only, ONLY, think of what would benefit them. shitforbrains has another small problem and that is that other than moving money around, he’s dumb as a box of lead. (Heavier than a box of rocks and more hazardous.)

  182. 182.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    No, he didn’t but he also didn’t run as a Republican. He ran against the Republican Party.

    The only reason I think it’s an issue is because the Trump imitators won’t be able to do that and it may well have provided Trump his tiny margin in several states in 2016.

    When he ran as a Republican he lost.

  183. 183.

    Another Scott

    @Kay: He lost while getting more votes than any other GOP candidate in history, IIRC.

    Words and policies didn’t mean anything to him in an intellectual level.  He was for the border wall because it was a big applause line at his rallies.  He told people what he thought they wanted to hear.  The things that he actually worked for were those that punched down and increased his own personal power.

    That’s it.

    Otherwise, it was just mouth noises to him.

    Cheers,

    Scott.

  185. 185.

    Citizen Alan

    @L85NJGT:  I am nearly to the point of thinking that farm aid should become a partisan issue with the democrats on the side of protecting consumers against fraud by “the welfare farmers.”  I know its bitterness talking, but personally I rather buy every bit of food I eat for the rest of my life from another country then to see any of my money go to people who live like kings off of farm subsidies and then begrudge everyone else in the country who gets so much is a penny from the government.

  186. 186.

    Gvg

    @Citizen Alan: I have relatives who are farmers. They have never lived like kings. My uncle may lose the farm mom’s family settled over a hundred years ago, because of the cancer his wife died of and the long battle to try to live. The area and his state are losing population because there are jobs in the cities and automation means they don’t need as many to produce more. Corporate farms exist but so do real family farms and it’s just not a rich life. Wisconsin dairy farm for the record. There ate a lot of different kinds of farms. It isn’t the same everywhere. And yes, I think he gets subsidies, it’s just that isn’t the same as rich.

    insurance and retiring are real problems too.

  187. 187.

    sab

    @What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?: Dixiecrats required a Federal government to overcome their worst insticts. Those days are past.

    The economy of the South didn’t suck for 100 years because Sherman brutally marched to the sea in Georgia back in the day. Georgia was only one state.  Their economies sucked because their ruling powers made bad, rentier decisions for a hundred years. This is who they are. This is what they do.

    In 16th century Europe, if you had any property at all, you could not leave your house and cross town without a small troupe of bodyguards, because desperate thieves were swarming everywhere.

    Limiting minimum wage to subsurvival limits, is that realky what we want?

  188. 188.

    Citizen Alan

    @Gvg: And what are his feelings about Trump and the GQP? The Tea Party? QAnon? Immigration? Welfare?

    My ability to feel empathy for people in bad situations has been drained to the point that I don’t have any left to spare for those who themselves lack empathy for others.

  189. 189.

    Citizen Alan

    @sab: Or as I put it to a nephew a few years back as I was encouraging him to leave the state:

    “Mississippi has been a shithole since 1860 at least and will continue to be a shithole long after we are dead and buried. And it is and always will be a shithole because the majority of people who live here would rather live in a shithole than in a prosperous society where they had to share the benefits of that prosperity with people they hated.”

  190. 190.

    J R in WV

    @Citizen Alan:

     

    “Mississippi has been a shithole since 1860 at least and will continue to be a shithole long after we are dead and buried. And it is and always will be a shithole because the majority of people who live here would rather live in a shithole than in a prosperous society where they had to share the benefits of that prosperity with people they hated.”

    This is so true. We lived in Mississippi for nearly a year when the Navy sent my WW II vintage ship to the Pascagoula shipyard for a major overhaul in 1972. That work enabled the USS Howard W Gilmore to be a productive vessel in the Navy into the 1980s.

    It was like traveling in time to 1950 at the latest. Racism was obvious, everywhere, in stores and in public facilities, like the public library where Wife worked while we were there.

    The liquor store had a sign “All Procedes From Sales to N****rs will be donated to the United Klans of Where-ever”… I forget that detail now 50 years later on! There was actually worse shit around…

    We got the hell out just a handful of days after my discharge. The ship was already doing sea trials when I escaped. It was a real time warp without the blatant racism, they thought when the ship left the yard Wife should have gone back to WV to live with either her parents or my parents… AS IF~!!~

    Last again? OK…

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