Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

Take your GOP plan out of the witness protection program.

Let’s finish the job.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

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

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

If you are still in the GOP, you are an extremist.

“Why isn’t this Snickers bar only a nickle?”

Thanks for reminding me that Van Jones needs to be slapped.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

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

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

Tick tock motherfuckers!

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

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

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

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

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Late Night Open Thread: Current GOP Status

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Thank you, Suzanne, for the perfect descriptor: Die Mad About It!

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156Comments

  2. 2.

    JaySinWA

    “The best lawyers have said, ‘we just don’t want to be treated the way Dershowitz was treated.”

    Yes Dersch, the best lawyers don’t want to be treated like you were by Trump. You were “so close and yet so far” in understanding.

  3. 3.

    Rocks

    “What is best in life?”

    “To crush the Republican Party; to see it driven before us; and to hear the lamentations of their pundits!”

  5. 5.

    Citizen Alan

    True story: I walked into a liquor story earlier tonight here in Bumfuck, Mississippi and right as I crossed the threshold, I heard those immortal words “I’m not a racist, but…” And things proceeded like one would expect.

  6. 6.

    Ken

    @JaySinWA: I’m guessing he means not getting invited to the best parties at Martha’s Vineyard — not that there was any chance of any of TFG’s current legal team getting an invite.

    (In the old days, Dershowitz would probably have been one of the first ones calling the police if any of TFG’s team had gate-crashed.)

  7. 7.

    Keith P.

    I could have sworn that at some point, Barr put out some memo that <90 day indictments are OK as long as the Attorney General approves it.  I can’t find any mention of it, though, so I could just be misremembering some other directive he made.

  9. 9.

    Kropacetic

    The best lawyers have said ‘I just don’t want to be treated the way Dershowitz was treated.’

    Yes, Dersh.  You are just as much the foremost subject on everyone else’s mind as you are your own.

  12. 12.

    Scout211

    I had never heard of Tom Fitton until I read that article last week about Trump’s crazy chaotic legal team.  Link

    He has been giving legal advice to Trump about the documents from the beginning. He is a “conservative activist” and runs Judicial Watch, but he is not an attorney. He just plays one on Judicial Watch, apparently.

  14. 14.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    CNN thinks Dump’s secret service flunky Tony Ornato left his job today because he will plead the fifth before the Jan 6 committee

  15. 15.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    A clearly panicked Lil’ Marco went on Fox begged for money and called Val Demmings (a former police chief) a marxist and socialist – somehow the media didn’t clutch their pearls.

  17. 17.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Three things:

    1. That’s a great list from Preet.

    2. Holy shit, that Dershowitz take! And he wrote an entire book consisting of that whining? Thank you, I shan’t be downloading that to my Kindle anytime soon. Or ever.

    3. Somebody please explain to me what Neoliberal means by “I’ve never seen so much cope.” TIA.

  18. 18.

    Leto

    If I said he looks like Uncle Fester’s swollen testicle, that would be name calling.

    A factual description of an object is not name calling. Also, hard lol.

  19. 19.

    dmsilev

    So apparently Biden is going to be giving a prime time address about the threat to democracy and ‘the continued battle for the soul of the nation’ (latter a direct quote from unnamed-WH-official to WaPo). Wonder whether he’ll repeat the semi-fascist line direct to a national audience; I sure hope so.

    Set your calendar for Thursday, probably 9 Eastern at a guess.

  23. 23.

    Geoduck

    They really lean into the ice cream thing with Biden, don’t they? Practically every time Ben Garrison draws Joe, he includes it.

  24. 24.

    Halteclere

    What was the “classified” information on Clinton’s servers? I don’t want to wade through a bunch of right wing crazy to find out.

  29. 29.

    bbleh

    @Halteclere: Sigh. As best I recall, there were THREE messages among all the data on the server, sent from OTHER people TO Clinton, that had or included information that was classified at the “Confidential” level.  That is, the senders screwed up, either by not realizing what they were sending, or by sending it to the wrong account.

    By all accounts, SHE handled classified information entirely correctly, via the secure server.

    &btw, the Bush administration, prominently including Dick Cheney, allegedly sent over twenty-two million messages via an outside server, all of which were deleted afterwards, in violation of the PRA, and yet somehow nobody ever complained or looked into whether any of them contained any classified information.

    It was just another Republican bullshit storm.

  30. 30.

    catclub

    @Halteclere:  a few of all the emails she had were classified Secret   AFTER  a LONG  investigation (searching for emails to retroactively classify). None were TS or SCI.​
     

    Note also that in the 4 years of the Trump admin no steps were taken against her. IN spite of all the Lock her up chants.

  32. 32.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @JaySinWA:

    It’s hard to believe that this sad, bitter, pathetic old Dersh was once portrayed (in Reversal of Fortune) by the splendid Jeremy Irons.

  34. 34.

    dmsilev

    @Geoduck: If you’re trying to alienate an audience against Joe Biden, ‘he likes ice cream’ doesn’t seem like it’d be the most effective approach. Nobody tell Tucker.

  37. 37.

    Alison Rose 💙🌻💛

    @Geoduck: Yeah, and it’s kind of weird. I mean, the whole “arugula and Dijon” thing with Obama was silly, but you can kind of understand the angle. But like…ice cream is not froufrou, unless it’s one of those artisanal brands with weird flavors. Pretty sure Joe is usually going to town on something much more basic. And who the hell doesn’t like ice cream? (People with dairy allergies are exempt from that statement.)

  39. 39.

    Shalimar

    @catclub: I might be misremembering, but I think the DC U.S. Attorney was under pressure from above in 2018-2019 and did secretly present a case against Hillary Clinton to a grand jury, which refused to bring charges.

    At minimum, it was internally debated ad nauseum but they realized they had zero chance of getting a conviction on incredibly flimsy charges.

  40. 40.

    Cameron

    @dmsilev: I’ll bet he doesn’t do the Trump thing of getting two scoops when everybody else gets one.  Every White House dinner a birthday party for a spoiled 4-year-old.

  42. 42.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @dmsilev:

    My completely uneducated guess is that the new Director of the Secret Service tossed him out on his ear, as in ‘you can resign with a fig leaf of dignity for the good of the Service or I’ll fire your sorry ass, your choice’.

    Yup, me too. First thing that popped into my mind when I saw the announcement.

  43. 43.

    Calouste

    @Alison Rose 💙🌻💛: There is excellent non-dairy ice cream. Coconut is a good base instead of milk.

    But people can dislike ice cream for different reasons. My dad doesn’t like it because the cold upsets his stomach.

  46. 46.

    Cameron

    @Alison Rose 💙🌻💛: Remember when the Republicans were shitting themselves over the elitist Nancy Pelosi eating….Talenti’s, that ice cream reserved for snobs who shop at Publix and Winn-Dixie.  ETA: And, of course, Wegner’s.  How could I forget Wegners?

  47. 47.

    Shalimar

    @Bill: Dershowitz was never paid for his Trump work, but he still can’t grasp that the reason good lawyers avoid Trump is they like being paid, not because they’re worried about being shunned.

  48. 48.

    hueyplong

    Nice of Dershowitz to remind us that the real victim in the MAL documents case is Dershowitz.

    Borrowing from Suzanne, I hope he dies whining about it.

  49. 49.

    JaySinWA

    I saw an excellent typo/pun in the wild, “feinting couches” referring to reporters aghast at “semi-fascist” who let commie socialist slide right by.

    https://twitter.com/StatmanStu/status/1563287314650251265

    It is called Right Wing Bias. Get used to it as we’re just getting revved up for the mid-terms! The minute.Dems say anything that is NOT cordial, bi-partisan or similar, reporters hit their feinting couches. Meanwhile, GOP labels, lies, & propaganda go unchallenged for the GOP.

  50. 50.

    sdhays

    @catclub: I remember one “classified” email was a copy of the final text of the speech Hillary was about to give – the speech was technically “classified” until she gave it. She told her aide to just send the damn speech, which, I think, we can all agree was not unreasonable.

    And definitely not a threat to national security.

  52. 52.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Cameron:

    Ranger Suarez had a no-hitter through four innings against the DBacks and in the 5th surrendered six runs on three hits and two walks or some shit. The bullpen has just given up five more runs and after 4 and 2/3 the Phils trail 11-7.

  54. 54.

    Dangerman

    Arrest him. Let them riot. We’ll send Kyle Rittenhouse to keep the peace. Goose/Gander, motherfuckers.

  55. 55.

    SFAW

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    You are reminding me of my fave t-shirt from the ‘70s:

    KILL A COMMIE PINKO GAY BABY SEAL FOR CHRIST

    I recall one saying “NUKE THE GAY WHALES FOR JESUS”

  59. 59.

    VOR

    Trump is a legal client to be avoided for 3 reasons.

    1. He doesn’t listen.
    2. He doesn’t shut up.
    3. He doesn’t pay.
  64. 64.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    OT:

    So what exactly are the Dems/Biden planning to do to stop/prevent an adverse decision in the upcoming Moore v Harper being heard by the Extreme Court; aka the independent legislature doctrine? Because if the GOP 6 decide that the state legislatures can simply throw out election results they don’t like, then American democracy is a dead letter and civil war is not far off

    I really don’t think “vote harder” is going to cut it if that happens; look at what happened in Kansas after the pro-life/abortion victory by over 20%; conservatives claimed “voting irregularities” without basis. They’ve backed down for now, but what happens when they don’t? And how will everyone else react when that occurs?

    The way I see it, we only have until January, before the next Congress is sworn in, to stop this; it’s possible we retain both houses of Congress but I wouldn’t bet the farm on it

  65. 65.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @SiubhanDuinne: great movie though.

    You know you’re a very strange man

    You have no idea

    As I recall Silver followed the same trajectory as Dershowitz, from liberal to “my party left me!” Republican

  66. 66.

    patrick II

    @Halteclere:

    Kevin Drum did a thorough job (as he does) of the FBI complaint about Hillary’s emails. Three that I remember (out of four I think).

    1.  A series of emails of a non-classified nature with the head of a foreign state.  They were classified because of who the conversation was with.  No actual classified information was actually in the email.  This is a joke after the time of foreign policy by twitter practiced by TFG.
    2. A series of emails discussing a NYT story regarding the CIA (as opposed to military) controlling drone strikes and targets.  It was already published, but as secretary of state she was not supposed to discuss it because it was still theoretically classified.
    3. An employee at state used Hillary’s unclassified email adress (instead of the State Department’s Top Secret, Secret, or Confidential email information systems) to send Hillary a paragraph from a classified document to discuss.  Although the paragraph itself contained no classified information, any part of a classified document is itself considered classified.  There was a “c” in the left margin preceding the paragraph that should have tipped off Hillary to the source.  The Republicans made a big deal of this at the hearing.  It was a mistake by an employee, not Hillary, and not really a serious breach of classified data.  But that was not the point of the hearings.
    4. I think there was another, but I can’t remember what it was.

    Hillary asked Comey to declassify the emails since they were, to her mind, innocuous.  But Comey refused.  That was also discussed at the hearings.

     

     

    @Halteclere:

  67. 67.

    Another Scott

    @bbleh: I don’t want to check, but I have a recollection that one of the complaints from some GQPer made against HRC at the time was that something had “classified markings” but the headers weren’t right so they were breaking all the rules!!11

    When the actual “classified markings” were an innocuous unclassified list like:

    (a) This thingy

    (b) That thingy

    (c) The other thingy…

    (d) Yet another thingy…

    It’s my understanding that in a classified portions context “(c)” indicates that that (c) The other thingy… paragraph is classified (while (u) indicates the paragraph is unclassified).

    So, it’s possible (maybe even likely) that at least some of the complaints we heard about are even more bogus than it appeared at the time.  Pretty bogus!

    FWIW.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  69. 69.

    eversor

    @Scout211:

    Check his religion.  You all keep forgetting to do that. the problem is and has always been the fucking damn bible.  If we aren’t burning bibles there is not damn point in fight them.

  71. 71.

    Chetan Murthy

    @eversor: Geez dude, give it a rest.  I’m a rabid atheist, prone to saying things like “Christianity is an STD” and yet I don’ feel the need to bring it into every thread, every conversation.  Give it a rest.

  74. 74.

    ian

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    So what exactly are the Dems/Biden planning to do to stop/prevent an adverse decision

    They are most certainly going to fight that in court.  That will be something the Biden admin and government lawyers will go to bat for.  The 6 will rule as they will rule.

    What do you expect them to do?  What else can they do?  There isn’t 50 votes in the senate to expand the court.

  75. 75.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @eversor:

    Umm, what did that have to do with what I said? There are a lot of Christians that aren’t fundies. Even during my most anti-theist teenage years I never thought about burning down churches. Maybe removing their tax-exempt status, but never that

  77. 77.

    patrick II

    If I was a federal judge and if it ever came before me in court I would say that the right of a president to grant pardons is not absolute.  Like “you can’t yell fire in a crowded theater” abridges the absolute right of free speech, so does the president being a co-conspirator abridge the right to pardon fellow conspirators.

    But I am not a federal judge and no one is making that argument anyway, so Trump’s traitors have little to worry about it seems.

  78. 78.

    Alison Rose 💙🌻💛

    @eversor: Do you literally think every single Christian is a hard-right fundamentalist evangelical homophobic patriarchal asshole? Do you realize or even care that when you talk about Christianity, you sound barely any different than people who say all Muslims are terrorists who should be locked up and/or killed without trial?

  79. 79.

    Chetan Murthy

    @patrick II: I am certain I’ve read this very thing: that the exercise by a public official of a power, for a corrupt purpose, can void that power.  Like awarding a contract to a crony, can void the contract, b/c of the corrupt purpose.

    Of course, none of this matters as long as the GrOPers control our judiciary.

  80. 80.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @ian:

    That’s not good enough. There needs to be a focused pressure campaign on those Senators who refuse to go along with a court packing scheme; you’re either for free and fair elections or you’re not. There’s no in-between. If the GOP 6 decide in favor of the ILD, then there will likely never be another non-GOP president for the rest of American history. Civil war and/or dictatorship will likely follow

    Like, I’m glad a bunch of good stuff got passed in the last month, but it will mean very little if democracy is destroyed because those gains will be undone rather quickly. And I feel like people around these parts are ignoring this

  82. 82.

    patrick II

    The best lawyers have said “We just don’t want to be treated the way Derschowitz was treated”

    — Alan Derschowitz, Center of the Universe.

  83. 83.

    ian

     Like “you can’t yell fire in a crowded theater” abridges the absolute right of free speech

    somewhere Popehat screams in rage.

    I can’t find the link, but here is something he wrote ten years ago

    “But those who quote Holmes might want to actually read the case where the phrase originated before using it as their main defense. If they did, they’d realize it was never binding law, and the underlying case, U.S. v. Schenck, is not only one of the most odious free speech decisions in the Court’s history, but was overturned over 40 years ago.

    First, it’s important to note U.S. v. Schenck had nothing to do with fires or theaters or false statements. Instead, the Court was deciding whether Charles Schenck, the Secretary of the Socialist Party of America, could be convicted under the Espionage Act for writing and distributing a pamphlet that expressed his opposition to the draft during World War I. As the ACLU’s Gabe Rottman explains, “It did not call for violence. It did not even call for civil disobedience.”

    You can yell fire in a crowded theater.  That phrase was something the justice Oliver Wendell Holmes used in the introduction as a metaphor.

  84. 84.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Goku, first, let me just say that I share your fear and your feeling of the urgency of the moment.  And I’m sure lots of others here do also.  But I think we all have to recognize that while we share this country with GrOPers, we also share it with normies.  And those normies are not going to accept your (and my) assessment of the situation.  They don’t see our Republic as literally in danger.  They just don’t.  And so, the idea that somehow we can force Cinemansion (and other Dem Senators who ride in them) to do this — to expand SCOTUS — is fanciful.  It ain’t happen’.

    And if we try to make it happen, what might be the result?  Manchin might caucus with the GrOPers, and then we’re *done*.  That’s the problem, you see?  There’s a term from negotiation tactics, “BATNA” — it means Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement.  The idea being, it’s your fallback position in a negotiation, if everything goes south.  In any negotiation,  you have to know your BATNA, and be comfortable with that being the outcome.  B/c if you aren’t comfortable with that BATNA, then you *will* lose the negotiation.  In this case, our BATNA is losing the Senate, Goku.  And I would say to you that that’s an unacceptable outcome for a lot of people.  I’d bet that it’s unacceptable to Biden, too.

    We may very well lose our country.  And if that happens, it’ll happen not because Biden and Dem leadership were cowardly, but because normies were idiots, unworthy of their country.  It is the votes of normies, that constrain Dem leadership to not fully-engage in the struggle to save our country.

  85. 85.

    patrick II

    @ian:

    I know, but it has become a commonly used metaphor for asserting limits on constitutional rights because its meaning is clear and understandable although it was not used in a winning cause or case. So I use it anyway.

    @Chetan Murthy: ‘s explanation is more legally correct I suppose.

  86. 86.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Chetan Murthy:

    You can’t possibly know that. Why would Manchin do that? He has to know he’s likely done after 2024, no matter what he does. The least he could fucking do, would do the right thing for once in his miserable life and protect voting rights. He has to. He’s not completely stupid, he has to know what’s at stake. And who’s to say they themselves wouldn’t become targets in some GOP regime? They will go down in history as the people who allowed American democracy to die when they could have acted to save it

    And those normies are not going to accept your (and my) assessment of the situation. They don’t see our Republic as literally in danger. They just don’t.

    The recent victory in Kansas would seem to contradict that as well as SCOTUS’s collapsing approval rating

  88. 88.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    Again, you don’t know that

    I hope you believe me when I say that I want the same things you want.

    OK: so,  look at the 2020 election: Biden wins by 7m votes, and yet we don’t take Maine’s Senate seat.  I remember people talking about ticket-splitting all over the country.   What was that about?  It was about normies thinking “we need to get TFG out, but really, that’s all — the rest is fine, this is fine [insert dog on fire cartoon]”.  You’re right, that maybe the Kansas abortion rights vote is a predictor of …. *something*.  But we won’t know until after November 8. will we?

    As for Machin: dude, why would he do the right thing?  He’s a rich man, he can board a private jet and fly off to Switzerland.  He’ll never be in danger.  And so the idea that somehow he has to “do the right thing” because the country has its back to a wall and the knives are out ….  is just wrong.  He doesn’t have to do squat.

    So back again to BATNA.  I think we were *fortunate* that Schumer was able to prevail on Manchin to pass the IRA.  Really fortunate.  B/c Manchin didn’t have to do that, he really didn’t.

    Back again to Manchin: if he’s out in 2024, why should he humor Dems?  His future fortune will be made in lobbying GrOPers,  right?  Representing the interests of The Owners, who are GrOPers, right?

  89. 89.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    The recent victory in Kansas would seem to contradict that as well as SCOTUS’s collapsing approval rating

    A cynic would note that support for raising taxes on the rich has been high for a long, long time.  And yet, voters always seem to return enough GrOPers that it never happens.  People tell pollsters the darndest things, and then when it comes time to vote, they still return GrOPers to office to rape and pillage.  So sure, maybe, *maybe*, MAYBE what happened in Kansas is a harbinger of coming Dem victory.  Or maybe not.  Then again, you’d think that Biden’s approval rating shouldn’t have been in the toilet all these months, when he was doing such a good job — and he *was* doing a good job, ffs.  And yet it was in the toilet.

    Voters are fickle.  Normie voters are fickle, and stupid as posts.  And Dem pols have to take this into account.

  90. 90.

    livewyre

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    So what exactly are the Dems/Biden planning to do […]

    I really don’t think “vote harder” is going to cut it […]

    One thing I appreciate greatly about the current administration is that they don’t let Reddit or Twitter make policy for them. We can’t know all that’s going to happen ahead of time; we can only work towards it being more like what we’re after. Suggest taking a breath and doing the same.

  91. 91.

    Tom Q.

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: 1) Reversal of Fortune is a pretty wonderful movie, and Irons is sublime.

    2) Ron Silver didn’t so much swing right as support Bush after 9/11, evidently over the issue of Israel.

    3) To be fair to him, it was reported (by his friend Joe Klein) that he swung back around and voted for Obama the year before he died.

  93. 93.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Chetan Murthy:

    As for Machin: dude, why would he do the right thing? He’s a rich man, he can board a private jet and fly off to Switzerland. He’ll never be in danger.

    The Feds could be waiting for him at his private jet before he even has a chance to leave

    And so the idea that somehow he has to “do the right thing” because the country has its back to a wall and the knives are out …. is just wrong. He doesn’t have to do squat.

    He should care about his legacy and how history will view him. And honestly, he might not have to worry about the Feds but random angry people blaming him for a GOP dictatorship

  97. 97.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Chetan Murthy:

    In the name of the saving the country. I would think it’s well worth the risk, especially in a lame duck session. We’d be fucked anyway. And it doesn’t have to be Dem leadership but enterprising private citizens

  98. 98.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    And maybe it doesn’t have to be Dem leadership but enterprising private citizens

    Nothing would scare the normies back into the GrOPer camp faster, than violence committed by progressives/Dems.  Look at how effective the 2020 Sturmabteilung Riots were, in scaring normies: even though almost all the protestors were unarmed and peaceful, the televised violence (almost all by fascist cops) scared normies enough that they hardened their attitudes in support of cops.

  101. 101.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Chetan Murthy:

    I think you overestimate how many of these “normies” there truly are and how they would react.

    Legislatures literally and blatantly stealing elections would be viewed differently, I would think. A tad bit more unambiguous.

  102. 102.

    cain

    @VOR: ​
     
    #3 should be the first reason. If the client wants to self destruct – that’s fine. But damn, you should get paid regardless.

  103. 103.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Amir Khalid:

    What the American founding fathers did in rebeling against the British Empire was technically criminal; treasonous, even. But I don’t think anybody would argue today that they were in the wrong in that instance

    Really, I’m just at the end of my rope and I feel powerless to stop the GOP and I feel the normal political process isn’t going to be enough. So yes, I know it’s a crime, but I don’t want to end up in a Nazi Germany

  104. 104.

    Eolirin

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I’m pretty sure that case doesn’t set up what you think it does, or at least doesn’t necessarily do so, and in the narrow issue that the case directly addresses, it would free up blue states to engage in more aggressive gerrymandering too, so wouldn’t necessarily work out in the Republican’s favor.

    I know NY at minimum would jump all over that. But someone with an appropriate legal background would be able to provide better clarity than I can.

  106. 106.

    cain

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Civil war and/or dictatorship will likely follow

    I think Roberts and some others will likely realize. If they go down that road – then so be it. We’ll see then. There is no point worrying about it now till they decide.

    But I will say this – if a state govt can simply replace the will of the voters then we are not in a democracy. There is a limit to states rights.

  107. 107.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    I think you overestimate how many of these “normies” there truly are and how they would react.

    We’ll get to find out on Nov 8.  Until then we have the Kansas abortion right vote for hope, and the VA and NJ gubernatorial elections last year, for despair.

  108. 108.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    Really, I’m just at the end of my rope and I feel powerless to stop the GOP and I feel the normal political process isn’t going to be enough.

    As I’ve said before, you are not alone in this feeling.  Just …. recognize that the American people are who they are, and there are things that are impossible, given these constraints.  People say “necessity is the mother of invention.”  And it is no such thing: there are lots of no-win situations in life and in history.  Lots.  James Kirk solves the Kobayashi Maru scenario in the movies, not in real life.

  109. 109.

    cain

    @Chetan Murthy: ​
     

    We may very well lose our country. And if that happens, it’ll happen not because Biden and Dem leadership were cowardly, but because normies were idiots, unworthy of their country. It is the votes of normies, that constrain Dem leadership to not fully-engage in the struggle to save our country.

    Benjamin Franklin believed that eventually it will all break down and we’re going to have to fight for liberty again. Normies live in a bubble of work/feed/sleep sometimes they have two jobs. They aren’t paying attention until something so catastrophic happens that that pattern is broken.

    Hopefully, it will be a Democratic presidency so that the military forces don’t come in and start shooting people.

  112. 112.

    Chetan Murthy

    @cain:

    Normies live in a bubble of work/feed/sleep sometimes they have two jobs.

    Immigrants come to this country and work a fuckton harder, many without any legal protections.  These people are the most cossetted people on Earth, and they think they’re put-upon.  And nobody is asking them to do a whole lot.  All they have to do is know which party tried to overthrow our government, and consistently vote *against* that party at every level of government.  That’s all.  It’s not a lot to ask.

  113. 113.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Chetan Murthy:

    and the VA and NJ gubernatorial elections last year, for despair.

    I’ve brought those up before and the regulars dismissed those examples; I can’t remember what Baud said months ago about it, but it was something to the effect of NJ having been close before and elected Republicans so it’s nothing to seriously worry about; it’s not necessarily a harbinger

  116. 116.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): The answer all the “savvy” people give is some bafflegab about “thermodynamic elections” and such.  It amounts to “voters cast votes for stupid reasons”.  Which …. isn’t the defense they think it is, when the elections were less than a year after an attempted coup just across the state line.

  117. 117.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Chetan Murthy:

    Well, personally, I don’t think elections from nearly a year ago will tell us anything about this year’s upcoming ones. A lot has happened and changed since then

  119. 119.

    Eolirin

    @Chetan Murthy: The “stupid reasons” that were dominant a year ago are not dominant now. At minimum there’s no reason to think the older data is still useful relative to the newer data, like Kansas and NY-19

    Doesn’t mean we’ll keep the House though. Gerrymandering is a bitch.

  121. 121.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Eolirin: I remember believing that the day before election-day 2020, and then we came thru in a literal squeaker.  And for a good while there, it looked like Biden wouldn’t have the Senate, hence powerless to actually govern.

    You can look at that and say “but we won!” or you can look at that and say “a few more such victories, and we’ll be all done in”.

  122. 122.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Eolirin: B/c it might not be obvious, I also hold out a forlorn hope that the American people are up to the task of doing their duty as citizens.  I really do.  I’m just not optimistic about it.  B/c I see a half-empty glass that the GrOPers are busy surrounding with dynamite and plastic explosives, and nobody is doing a damn thing about it.

  123. 123.

    lgerard

    There is one thing that I have never heard any of trump’s apologists address.He is 76, hog fat, and in poor health. It won’t be long before he takes that final escalator ride down to his well deserved final resting place
    Who gets his stash of secret documents then? Will it be Ivanka? Melania?
    And how long would it be until the day when Melania tells a crew of Mar a Lago’s foreign spies workers to get rid of those boxes of old papers because she needs more room for her shoes.​

    Perhaps it could even be a special episode of Storage Wars, with Darrel Sheets rummaging through a bunch of Michigan Mar of the Year Awards and framed magazine covers…..and hey whats in this box!

  124. 124.

    Chetan Murthy

    @lgerard: Supposedly his ancestors all lived to a ripe old age.  He’s got excellent genetics on his side.  And look at Kissinger: the really bad ‘uns never go early, so they say.

  125. 125.

    Amir Khalid

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    With her sense of entitlement, she probably does believe that. This is the daughter who’s in denial about the fact that Daddy paid for her fancy US$4.5 million* wedding with stolen money.

    *In our money, 20 million ringgit.

  127. 127.

    lgerard

    @Chetan Murthy: ​

    Somehow I doubt Fred trump or Kissinger stuffed themselves with KFC and McDonald’s every day though.

    I think Fred was a nazi about food, (among other things) which is maybe where his son’s proclivity comes from

  130. 130.

    satby

    Just for fun:

    David Hogg @davidhogg111

    Biden may very well be the most successful president in 50 years. I had my doubts but holy shit, it’s only been two years and so much has passed even with the filibuster. Imagine what we could do if we abolished the filibuster, kept the senate and the house.

  132. 132.

    Baud

    The best lawyers have said ‘I just don’t want to be treated the way Dershowitz was treated.’

    I think he’s misconstruing the best lawyers saying “Thank God I’m not Dershowitz.”

  135. 135.

    Keith P.

    The best lawyers have said ‘I just don’t want to be treated the way Dershowitz was treated.’

    By whom, Norm MacDonald? Larry David?  Lawyers don’t want to be treated like Cippolini, or even Powell or Giuliani.  Dersh is an academic.

  138. 138.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    That Tucker screen capture; the Right did the same thing with Clinton and Obama, talked themselves into a caricature of the two men, based their political strategy on that caricature and when it got rubbed in their faces they were wrong, started whining the Democrats are cheating.

  139. 139.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Halteclere:What was the “classified” information on Clinton’s servers? I don’t want to wade through a bunch of right wing crazy to find out.

    I thought the Right Wingers claim Hilary had on her email server a first hand account of how she forced Vince Foster into having a sex change operation, had a lesbian affair with him, then personal killed Foster with a claw hammer (ruining a pants suite) and then made it look like Foster committed suicide.

  143. 143.

    Searcher

    Remember that Trump’s Razor holds that all other being equal, whatever the question concerning Trump, the stupidest is likely to be the correct one.

    “Classified documents were the only fiber in his diet, and he’d never been so regular in years.” it is.

  146. 146.

    bbleh

    @Another Scott: In fact, in many classified documents where some information is unclassified and some classified, each paragraph is marked with the classification level of the material in it, (C) for Confidential, (S) for Secret, and so on, and unclassified paragraphs are indeed marked (U).  Each page is classified and stamped at the level of the highest level of information on it, and the entire document likewise.

    In general, EVERY PAGE of EVERY DOCUMENT, and sometimes every PARAGRAPH, contains classification markings.  It’s not like you can just slip up and not notice it.

  147. 147.

    catclub

    @Chetan Murthy: All they have to do is know which party tried to overthrow our government, and consistently vote *against* that party at every level of government. That’s all. It’s not a lot to ask.

     

    2016: All they have to know is which candidate is totally unsuited to the presidency and vote against.

     

    Our fucking fellow citizens.

  148. 148.

    Ruckus

    @Chetan Murthy:

    “Then again, you’d think that Biden’s approval rating shouldn’t have been in the toilet all these months, when he was doing such a good job — and he *was* doing a good job, ffs.  And yet it was in the toilet.”

    Joe’s approval ratting was in the toilet because the wonderful news media was telling everyone who would listen or read that the country was swirling the bowl. And it was entirely Joe’s fault. The majority of the people do not read the bills or specific sites that do tell the truth. They get “the news.” And “the news” was slanted the direction it wanted to be slanted to. As it became obvious that they were full of shit, the news media sort of stopped the overt lying. The people that own the rail cars of ink and/or the airwaves make the news, turn the direction of information. The only time they will deviate from their chosen direction is when the stench of what they deliver overwhelms the people that buy their bullshit. They have a path, they are enriched by that path, they believe in that path, and until one or both of those two things change they will not deviate from that path. We trust them to tell the truth, but the truth is what they believe it is and they have a right to print that. We need to have a better understanding that the media is not always on the side we’d like them to be on. All of the major media is owned by well monied people who are going to direct their media in a direction that pleases them. Many of us are the ones who do not always understand that truth of the written word is what the writer thinks it is. Or gets paid to think it is. The only losses to be suffered are someone’s profit and/or the public’s concept of trust and truth.

  149. 149.

    stinger

    @Cameron: Not only that, but she has an entire section of her refrigerator devoted to ice cream. Imagine that, a person with, what, 6? grandkids, keeping a good supply of ice cream on hand. The noive.

  150. 150.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): ​Then there has to be something to blackmail the asshole over. Everyone has skeletons in their closet

    I suspect the Thuglicans got there first. Manchin’s erratic “drunkard’s-walk” public political persona has for many months now reminded me of a dog on a choke collar and tight leash – whenever he starts in the direction of doing the correct (i.e., Democratic) thing that would adversely affect his Far Wrong handlers, they give it a vicious jerk and his head snaps back. (By “collar” and “leash” I’m guessing they have something on him and/or his daughter – real or well-enough fabricated – that would send one or both to prison for a long time.)

  151. 151.

    Ruckus

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    You do understand freedom of the press in this country – don’t you?

    You can print whatever the hell you want, except within very narrow limits. You can’t advocate for civil war, you can’t call people to arms. And that’s just about it. We have freedom of speech and expression in this country. It’s in one of those amendment thingies. You can lie out your ass and the only thing that stops you is that everyone knows you are lying and/or you get sued for libel. And not enough humans are skeptical of monied interests. They like money, they want to have a lot of it and they respect people who do, often even when they really, really do not deserve that respect. A case in point – SFB.

    This country is not the liberal nirvana many think it is. And it’s not liberals who make it that way, it’s monied interests. Money talks, people listen.

  156. 156.

    columbusqueen

    @Alison Rose 💙🌻💛: I happen to be an highly liberal Presbyterian who’s served as an elder of my church.  Nobody hates right wing fundies more than we liberal Christians, because they’re destroying the very faith we are trying to honestly practice.

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