Mitch McConnell is booed, and drowned out by chants of “retire, retire, retire”, for five minutes straight as he tries to talk to his own constituents in Kentucky. pic.twitter.com/zyZIHLJaoy
— Mike Sington (@MikeSington) August 7, 2023
Because the modern GOP Death Cult is never happy unless it’s eating its own, some misfortunate ‘leader’ was bound to be targeted as the one non-Demoncrat individual responsible for Trump’s various indictments. The choice of Mitch McConnell as the scapegoat is neither surprising nor particularly saddening…
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is “plagued by worsening hearing loss” and his colleagues have become concerned about his health, according to Politico. https://t.co/T0KYmvA4gc
— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) August 14, 2023
NEW: I spent a good bit of time this summer on McConnell’s last big campaign, the only way he’s confronting Trumpism: by trying to keep his party away from isolationism
On the inside game, from Helsinki and Munich to DC and Fancy Farm >https://t.co/f8gSPraWgJ— Jonathan Martin (@jmart) August 14, 2023
Wheeling out the big journamalistic guns, even in advance of the Georgia indictments:
Mitch McConnell has made it his practice to dodge questions about Donald Trump. Whether it be Trump’s bid to reclaim office, the mounting indictments leveled against the former president or even Trump’s racist mockery of McConnell’s wife, the Senate Republican leader avoids engaging a man he disdains.
Which is why it was so striking last month to sit in McConnell’s Capitol office and have him repeatedly steer our conversation toward Trump. I was there to discuss his forceful and out-of-vogue campaign to keep Republicans defending Ukraine and, more broadly, on the Reaganite path of projecting strength abroad. And at every turn, McConnell made plain it was his way of battling what Trump has done to the party…
From the Senate floor and Washington fundraisers to awards banquets and congressional delegation trips overseas, Addison Mitchell McConnell is on what could be his final political mission. And the results may illuminate what has become of his party.
After a relatively harmonious first half of this year, House and Senate Republicans are on a collision course this fall over four issues, three of which pertain to McConnell’s quest: spending, supporting the Ukrainians and Trump’s candidacy. (The fourth is impeaching President Joe Biden, which is intended as retribution for Trump’s impeachment over, well, spending and Ukraine.)
This confluence of issues will test who has the upper hand in the GOP, at least in the halls of Congress. Is it the McConnell-led Senate, which largely wants to spend more on defense, deliver additional aid to Ukraine and is not exactly enthused about Trump’s resurrection? Or is it the House, where Speaker Kevin McCarthy is handcuffed to his party’s hardliners on spending and has little appetite to imperil his job by pushing through a supplemental package for Ukraine that Trump is sure to decry and perhaps pressure rank-and-file lawmakers to oppose amid demands that they, and McCarthy, endorse him?…
… [A]s somebody who’s covered McConnell for years, it’s jarring to see his decline. He told me at the end of our interview that, yes, he would be at the Fancy Farm picnic this month. The gathering is Kentucky’s annual political bacchanal, a 142-year-old church barbeque fundraiser in which pigs, lambs and politicians are all roasted in their own way to please an audience that descends by the thousands the first Saturday in August to a hamlet that’s anything but fancy.
Sure enough, there was McConnell, in his first major public appearance since his freeze-up, on stage gamely getting off zingers at Biden, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and other Democrats.
Yet his voice was diminished, he mostly read his lines without looking up and his wife, former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, had to help him up from his chair each time he stood…
As I reported this column over the summer, speaking to dozens of officials in European capitals and Washington, two recurring themes emerged.
One was the degree of McConnell’s focus, to borrow what may be his favorite word and practice. In public and private, he’s waging a determined campaign to defend Ukraine, protect NATO and bequeath a Republican Party that’s as committed to what he calls “peace through strength” as the one he found in Washington after he was elected to the Senate in 1984 thanks in part to Ronald Reagan’s landslide reelection…
However, in many of my conversations, and usually not for attribution, another theme came up: how much McConnell has aged. Unlike with Biden, whose every gaffe and slip on the steps is caught on camera, McConnell’s difficulties have been largely out of view, or at least they were until late last month. In private, though, McConnell’s colleagues have grown more alarmed, with one lawmaker even talking to the leader’s staff about whether he should consider hearing implants.
“He was sitting there as the conversation went on around him,” said an attendee of a recent Senate Republican lunch, alluding to McConnell’s hearing loss.
This convergence of mission and moment — McConnell in the winter of his career attempting to thwart Trumpist isolationism — may have been less crucial had the leader shown more leadership in the last days and immediate aftermath of the former president’s term. McConnell’s assessment late on the night of Jan 6 that, with his conduct that day, Trump had “put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger” has proven wildly wrong or at least wholly dependent on the whims of a federal jury.
The party’s drift on foreign policy wouldn’t have been reversed, but Trump would not have the same authority on this, or any, issue had McConnell sought 10 more Senate Republicans to convict the former president of his second impeachment and barred him from seeking office again. He said at the time that he was convinced by constitutional arguments about impeaching a president no longer in office, but clearly his caucus’s lack of appetite for conviction weighed on him…
McConnell, ever cautious about turning himself into a lame duck, usually sniffs out and dismisses rearview-facing questions about his legacy. However, the man who set up his Senate institute and archives the year after his first reelection has long been consumed by history — and his place in it.
And at a time when he and his inner circle are all sitting down with and turning over old files to AP’s Michael Tackett, who’s writing a comprehensive McConnell biography, the leader was remarkably candid when I asked where his current crusade rates to him over the arc of his career.
“Well, I still believe in the Republican party of Ronald Reagan,” McConnell said…
GOP colleagues: A sad loss to us all… as long as he’s really dead.
The thing one has to remember is that @jmart is Republican. His family is all Republicans. He started out, among other things, as Mark Earley’s driver. There’s a personal need to build in coherence and sanity where there isn’t any. McConnell has failed at containing Trump.
— Clean Observer (@Hammbear2024) August 14, 2023
New in Huddle: The House GOP's right flank is pushing back over recent comments from McConnell, who said impeachments should be "rare" and frequent impeachments were "not good for the country" https://t.co/p2o6sQWoHk
— Jordain Carney (@jordainc) August 14, 2023
Kill the traitor! Kill!
… After The New York Times recently resurfaced his response, which was quickly picked up by conservative media, several members of the House’s right flank took the opportunity to chide the Senate GOP leader as too cautious, or even too protective of a president he’s occasionally cut deals with.
What McConnell really said: When our bureau chief Burgess Everett asked whether a House inquiry into Biden had any merit, McConnell said that a constant flow of impeachment probes isn’t “good for the country.”
The Senate Republican leader also pointed a finger at Democrats for setting Congress down the path of normalizing impeachments, adding that he was “not surprised” to see the House GOP open the door on Biden after former President Donald Trump’s impeachments.
But the new media attention was fueled by his comments that trying to oust a president should be “rare” and that an impeachment competition wasn’t good for America — not his blame of Democrats. So conservatives hit back…
JustRuss
Watching McTurtle get devoured by the monster he worked tirelessly to create is giving me some satisfaction, though not enough to offset the fear that it will devour us all.
Baud
Shaking down Ukraine to manufacture evidence against Biden and trying to overthrow democracy should also be rare.
Jeffro
I hope McConnell lives just long enough to see everything he has
worked so hard forsold his soul for turn to ashes.(Leonard Leo too, btw )
Alison Rose
Yelling and screaming at him is incredibly mean.
PLEASE CONTINUE, FOLKS, PLEASE CONTINUE!
SpaceUnit
Just remember that whoever replaces him will be worse.
Wag
@Jeffro: I disagree. I hope that his ability to communicate and his hold on power both come to an abrupt end, but that his mental acuity remains. And that he lives many years watching his every political dream crumble before him, powerless to stop it.
To The Pain.
Another Scott
Meh.
The House doesn’t like the Senate, and vice-versa. There’s no bravery or consequences in them criticizing anyone in the “other body”. Politico might have a story when they get Senate GQPers screaming at how horrible McConnell is (rather than whispering that he’s losing his hearing).
Cheers,
Scott.
pacem appellant
@SpaceUnit: True true. But they will be a rookie. McConnell’s evil is honed over many decades.
SpaceUnit
@pacem appellant:
Yeah, valid point.
Jeffro
Ashes…crumbling dreams…I think we’re talking about almost the same thing here. You just want him to live longer in the aftermath; I want him off this mortal plane and down where he belongs a little faster.
RaflW
“I was there to discuss his forceful and out-of-vogue campaign to keep Republicans defending Ukraine and, more broadly, on the Reaganite path of projecting strength abroad.”
Ohhhhh, f**k that. McConnell has done nothing to reign in Rusky Tuberville and his one-man campaign to hollow out the senior ranks of the US military.
What absolute, risible bullshit. And f**k Politico for mouthing that horse pucky.
Roger Moore
@Baud:
I generally agree. Impeachments should be rare because public officials should behave themselves, not because Congress is afraid to impeach when they do something genuinely wrong.
zhena gogolia
What are all these “gaffes,” as opposed to his stutter? I haven’t heard him make any gaffes. Fuck Jonathan Martin.
Spanky
@SpaceUnit: Took the words right out of my keyboard. Whatever creature replaces Mc Connell will be that much worse.
zhena gogolia
Great respect for our justice system there.
HumboldtBlue
@SpaceUnit:
Indubitably.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: Yeah, fuck fuck fuck I hate everybody
Roger Moore
@SpaceUnit:
Worse how, though? McConnell is especially bad because he’s both evil and competent. I fully expect whoever replaces him to be even more evil, but I just don’t see anyone else who’s likely to be as competent.
Spanky
@zhena gogolia: Is Gaffe Biden different from the Touchy Feely Biden the press treated us to back in the Obama years?
Frankensteinbeck
@SpaceUnit:
No. They will likely be crazier. They will be vastly less competent. They will have less control over their caucus. They won’t have McConnell’s decades-long long game focus. They won’t have McConnell’s legendary fundraising ability. Most importantly, they won’t have McConnell’s ability to be the first person to spot a useful norm to break and deliberately break it. McConnell is a rare, special kind of evil.
JaneE
McConnell has done incredible damage to the country and its institutions. Whatever efforts he makes toward supporting the old Republican ideals, it is too little and way way too late.
That said, anything he can and will do to oppose Trump and support the Ukraine, go for it Mitch. I will even wish you luck in achieving something.
ColoradoGuy
Thinking about Mitch’s “legacy” … three stolen Supreme Court seats, tax cut after tax cut, and bringing the Senate to a complete standstill. Yeah, that’ll go down in the history books, all right.
Nelle
@RaflW: The Iowa senator, Joni Ernst, is totally on board with Tuberville because, in an email to me, she reminds me that she is “prolife.”
Jay
@zhena gogolia:
he wore sneakers, (atheletic shoes) to climb some slippery metal stairs to board a plane once,
he tripped over a sandbag once,
he fell off his bike once,…………..
It’s readily apparent that he is the Most Corrupt Evil Mastermind ever,
and mentally incompentent and physically ill.
Elizabelle
Exit, pursued by (Cocaine) bear.
zhena gogolia
@Jay: Okay, those are physical events. But what “gaffes” has he uttered?
SpaceUnit
@Roger Moore:
Worse as in full-blooded trumptrash MAGA loon and probably a Putin apologist.
Another Scott
@zhena gogolia: A couple of days ago, he apparently said something “wrong” about China’s GDP report.
I didn’t click.
Cheers,
Scott.
Jay
@zhena gogolia:
https://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29569,1895156,00.html
I wouldn’t bother, there are nits to pick.
“It’s
Chinatownthe Media, Jake”RaflW
@SpaceUnit: Yes. But also whoever has the job next will likely be worse at internal caucus strategy, too. So while the next leader will hasten America’s crumbling, they may also hasten the GOP’s weakness in the upper (but not better) chamber.
H.E.Wolf
“Whoever replaces McConnell” – well, that’s two separate items.
Whoever takes his place as a (probably Republican) Senator from Kentucky will have zero seniority in the Senate.
Whoever takes his place as the leader of the Republicans in the Senate will be unlikely to have the same constellation of skills that McConnell brought to that job.
In either case, it won’t be quite as easy for Republicans to be effective in the Senate…which is not to say we’ll like what they do any better than we do now.
brantl
How long has McConnell been (literally) speaking out of one side of his mouth. The left side of his face (his left, our right) is noticeably drooping. A LOT.
RaflW
@Frankensteinbeck: Politico (yeah, consider the source) last year posited that Thune, Cornyn and Barasso were the top three contenders. Thune isn’t wild eyed crazy, so who knows if the magatized GOP will tolerate him in the top slot.
Cornyn seems very eager. He also seems like a petty shyte who probably would suck at the party-building components of being Leader.
I honestly don’t know much about the third John. Not sure of the national political salience of elevating a guy representing Wyoming is. “Yeehaw, we’re nearly in Amon Bundy land!”
NotMax
Open Thread?
Questionable eats. Some new food entries at the Iowa state fair:
The Iowa Twinkie: jalapeñ filled with pulled pork with corn and cream cheese, wrapped in bacon, smoked with swweet and sticky BBQ, finished eith ranch.
Deep-Fried Bacon Brisket Mac-n-Cheese Grilled Cheese: American cheese grilled cheese sandwich on bacon-cheddar bread, layered with bacon brisket and macaroni and cheese, then deep fried and served with a raspberry chipotle BBQ sauce.
Also too, this:
NotMax
#34:
jalapeñ = jalapeño
swweet = sweet
eith ranch = with ranch
::NotMax flashes a stern look at fingertips::
Brachiator
I couldn’t get through the linked article. The excerpt was infuriating enough.
McConnell is responsible for Trump. The GOP leadership rolled over for Trump. They sustained him and declined every opportunity to rein him end or to put a stop to his madness.
As always, the GOP has no interest in government. And fuck bipartisanship. They either are opposing the Democrats or plotting revenge against the Democrats.
Why would McCarthy still defer to Trump? And why would the writer of this article find this blandly acceptable?
And of course, Beltway journalists are too close to the politicians they cover and want to be their buddies.
Look for more stories about frail and elderly political figures. And look for the inevitable bullshit questions about Biden’s age.
I didn’t know who the author of this piece was.
Once again, another pundit who is happy to be a Beltway insider, part of the popular crowd. They get access because they promise not to be too hard on their subjects. And God forbid if they actually had to work to get something that was real news.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jay:
To be fair, they were ugly ass sneakers.
evodevo
@Frankensteinbeck: Yes. This. Whoever replaces Mitch (Comer? Massie? someone worse?) won’t have the experience or the knowledge of where the bodies are buried or what buttons to push, or how to exploit the arcane rules of the Senate to accomplish a goal, or the political/international connections he has. He was a master at it, to our regret…but he knows what he is doing, and the other clowns have no idea. It would be McCarthy time in the Senate…
bbleh
@NotMax: oh my gawd. now I know why Jerry Springer had an audience.
bbleh
@Omnes Omnibus: shoulda asked Kamala, ahem
Omnes Omnibus
@bbleh: She does have good sneaker game.
VOR
True, any successor will be a hardcore MAGAt. But McConnell is effective at his craft, earning the title “Gravedigger of American Democracy”. A replacement Senator won’t have the seniority and won’t be a leader in the Senate.
bbleh
McConnell’s colleagues have grown more alarmed, with one lawmaker even talking to the leader’s staff about whether he should consider hearing implants.
“He was sitting there as the conversation went on around him,” said an attendee of a recent Senate Republican lunch, alluding to McConnell’s hearing loss.
So, wild canids — wolves, wild dogs, etc. — when a leader becomes weak and lame, attack him and ultimately finish him off, no? Starting with careful challenges — snarling, snapping and so on. Sounds about right.
But then they have to fight among each other to determine the new leader, right? Viciously? Lots of near-mortal wounding of contenders, lots of disarray in the pack? Please?
Ken
If McConnell does leave the Senate, I understand that the Kentucky Republicans will nominate a list of three names for his replacement, and Gov. Beshear has to pick one of those. Does anyone have a line on how messy the nomination process will get? I could see infighting among ambitious Kentucky Republicans delaying the process for some considerable time.
Probably doesn’t matter if McConnell decides to retire, since he can make it contingent on his replacement having been selected. But if he… exits abruptly we could be treated to one of those shitshows that seem to be the only thing the Republican party can currently accomplish.
Jay
@Omnes Omnibus:
Guess you have never seen mine.
Around here, the yutes tend to wear garish neon “NBA touted” court shoes. Nothing quite like seeing somebody in coordinated black, with neon green metallic low cut sneakers with baby socks.
Those of us who have lived here for decades, tend to wear low cut hikers in summer and waterproof hikers in winter.
It’s all about the tread, man.
Even my dress shoes, (30 year old Florishine’s) have a hiking tread. Works fine on the dance floor, serious business meetings and steep muddy trails.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jay: I am not talking youth culture or whatever culture you claim, but POTUS could have done better. He usually does.
MagdaInBlack
@NotMax: First day with the new fingers?
oatler
“When there is no more room in Hell, McConnell and Murdoch will roam the Earth.”
Omnes Omnibus
@MagdaInBlack:
Cold, but fair.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@MagdaInBlack: Probably a new cyborg arm, just needs a little calibration to settle in.
Tony Jay
I’m the event of McCondomneck ‘rapidly vacating’ his bony ass from that Senate seat, Governor Beshear should announce that as an homage to the great man, he’s holding the seat vacant until the electorate get to have their say. Sure, that’s in violation of every norm and probably a few laws, but damned if it isn’t the way Mitch would have wanted it.
Howl all you like, MAGATs. That’s one of Manchin and Sinema made irrelevant for a bit.
Seriously, though. Fuck about, slow walk, take every opportunity to delay. One less Republican vote in the Senate is an unalloyed good for however long it lasts.
NotMax
@MagdaInBlack:
Apparently, failing to read the instruction manual, snapped them into place on the wrong hands.
:)
Jay
@Omnes Omnibus:
He should just get some Red Wings.
Dressy, take a nice shine, great with a suit or tropical forest mud.
You can even get them with a tungsten cleated sole for ice and snow, or composite sole and toe, CSA5 rated for kicking ass or working in a warehouse.
And I don’t think Biden’s going to be working in a warehouse.
Jay
@NotMax:
always read the manual.
MagdaInBlack
@NotMax: That’s my standard excuse, feel free to use it anytime 😉
NotMax
File under “you’ve got to be sh*tting me.”
Jay
@NotMax:
Boner Haus? I don’t think that’s a PornHub brand or channel, and I have done my research.
Corps do this BS all the time, in the hopes that the little guy won’t fight back and the lawyer get’s paid, win or lose.
Ksmiami
@RaflW: John Cornyn is an idiot- he was our sr senator and the guy is a schmuck
wjca
@SpaceUnit:
Or perhaps not. If Kentucky can elect a Democrat as Governor….
Hoppie
“AP’s Michael Tackett, who’s writing a comprehensive McConnell biography”
Doubt it will include the state trooper incident, which is well-enough known that Republican parents in Bourbon County advised their (male) Senate page nominees to never be alone in a room with him. Lived there many years ago, it was common knowledge… that entire party, top to bottom, even locally, is hypocrites, ALL the way down.
Gin & Tonic
@NotMax: What is “bacon brisket”??
Geminid
I hope McConnell can hang on until next year, so Republicans have a leadership fight in the middle of election season.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@NotMax: Demon with a Glass Hand
[plugging in fingers, stirred a memory]
SpaceUnit
@wjca:
Yeah, one can hope. I don’t recall the circumstances now, but I seem to remember that Beshear got really lucky with the opponent he drew in that race.
Maybe one of our Kentucky jackals can fill in the details.
Scout211
I wonder if McConnell’s colleagues are leaking to the press about his sudden hearing loss to cover his actual cognitive decline. They want the press to believe that he can’t hear when in fact, he doesn’t remember or comprehend.
Hoppie
att@SpaceUnit: The incumbent, Matt Bevin, had pissed off the school teachers by trying to steal their pensions. Not politically astute. Also, the Beshear family goes waaaaay back in Eastern Kentucky.
wjca
@SpaceUnit: Maybe even a Herschel Walker clone.
Few things would be sweeter than having his Senate seat go to a Democrat.
Geminid
Kentucky Governor Beshear is leading this year’s Governor race. If he wins, Beshear will complete his second term at the end of 2027. That will be right on time to launch a campaign for Rand Paul’s Senate seat.
smith
@Geminid: I saw a poll from a couple weeks back that Beshear’s approval rating in KY is at 64%.
NotMax
@Mr. Bemused Senior
Go back far enough to remember watching it when it first aired in 1964.
;)
SpaceUnit
@Hoppie:
Thanks. Yeah, if I recall Bevin went into that election with absolutely abysmal approval numbers.
Mike in NC
Moscow Mitch, or as Adam Silverman dubbed him, “Gravedigger of American Democracy”.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@NotMax: I thought you might know it. Me too.
bbleh
@Scout211: as a cynic, I think they’re trying to look like they’re covering for him — such loyalty! such virtue! — while actually undermining him. If they really supported him, they’d do what TFG’s people do and just deny, deny, deny, or at least refuse to comment.
Geminid
@smith: Andy Beshear gives frequent radio addresses with the theme, “Team Kentucky.” Blue Grass State residents seem to like what they hear.
Jay
@Gin & Tonic:
slab of uncut bacon, cooked low and slow like a brisket.
It’s either that or a brisket wrapped in bacon,
or a new street drug the meth heads have cooked up.
Alison Rose
@NotMax: LOLOLOLOL
Mr. Bemused Senior
I don’t want to know about Pornhub’s “look and feel.”
bbleh
@RaflW: Thune and Barasso are currently leadership, so that’s a gimme for Politico. But Barasso is in his first term — ain’t no way, except perhaps as a compromise candidate if things get really nasty, in which case he’d be McQarthy 2. My money’d be on Cornyn.
bbleh
@Mr. Bemused Senior: if you’re famous, they let you do it.
HumboldtBlue
If you read any thread today, read this one.
Jeffro
FOLKS: go read this whole thing.
Former GA Lt Gov Duncan: Rather than history repeating itself on an endless loop, I am hopeful that this latest chapter can be a pivot point for the Republican Party. If it’s not, we only have ourselves to blame for our electoral losses.
This is how the “enough of trump” wing starts to gather steam (and hopefully, goes to open warfare with the MAGAts)
Wyatt Salamanca
@Mike in NC:
In previous threads, I’ve cited this excerpt from a 2018 New York Review of Books essay :
h/t https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/10/25/suffocation-of-democracy
Jeffro
@Jeffro:
Kayla Rudbek
Baud
@Jeffro:
I’m sure severe abortion restrictions will bring them back.
Lacuna Synecdoche
Just Russ:
The more of itself that beast devours, the smaller it becomes in comparison to all of the rest of us. And the less capable it becomes of devouring us.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kayla Rudbek: They could try drilling into his skull without it. I am sure it would be fine.*
*My medical credentials are a 45 year old First Aid merit badge and a more than 30 year old CPR course, so I clearly whereof I speak.
NotMax
Originally posted here back in March.
To the tune of “Copacabana.”
He’s charged with RICO
He wears a long tie
Now he haunts his gilded halls
With their ketchup-splattered walls
He almost blends right in
With orange-tinted skin
But Donald went a bit too far
Thus he stands before the bar
.
Another Scott
@NotMax: @Jay:
Devil’s advocate:
Don’t companies have to bring these notices/suits or they risk losing their trademarks?
IOW, isn’t the system working as designed?
IANAL, and I am not arguing that we live in the best of all possible worlds. ;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
Wyatt Salamanca
@Wyatt Salamanca:
The author of the NYRB essay is Christopher R. Browning, the Frank Porter Graham Professor of History Emeritus at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the author of The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939–March 1942.
https://www.nybooks.com/contributors/christopher-r-browning/
Jeffro
@Baud: I hear you. It’s likely Duncan feels like ridding the party of trump is the more urgent threat.
(and he’s mostly right. they can probably get the anti-abortion nuts to chill for a cycle, but trump is a boil that must be lanced)
Suzanne
@Frankensteinbeck:
Agreed.
I can’t imagine his successor being anywhere near as skilled in the Dark Arts.
like a metaphor
Look, can’t we just park Mitch in the shed out back, or wherever we keep all of those other unwanted Confederate statues?
Another Scott
@HumboldtBlue: Reads like fan fiction off of AOL or MySpace to me.
YMMV.
Cheers,
Scott.
NotMax
@Another Scott
Painting a mural of Mickey & Donald is worlds removed from claiming infringement over alleged similarities in coloring and typeface (and zero similarity in wording). IMHO.
bbleh
@Jeffro: definitely a few zingers, but the whole thing is kinda cringe. looks like it was written by committee. but whatever, it’s Out There.
NotMax
Then vs. Now.
Roger Moore
@SpaceUnit:
He got really lucky in that his opponent had a track record following Republican orthodoxy. Maybe it was a bit worse than that- he got into a nasty fight with public school teachers over pay- but he wasn’t a Roy Moore or something. There’s a reason Republican governors who want to get reelected tend to focus on competence. The ones who try to act as partisan ideologues can lose even in solidly red states, e.g. Sam Brownback in Kansas.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Wyatt Salamanca:
The United States is not Weimar Germany and several recent election results are proving this. The GOP is getting killed right now because of their extreme stances on reproductive freedom and voting rights
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@NotMax:
He typed “indicated” again lol. Must be too busy furiously hitting send to do basic proofreading while sitting on his golden crapper at 1:30 in the morning
Omnes Omnibus
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Historical parallels are never perfect and, as result, any lessons taken from them must take that into consideration. That doesn’t mean that historical parallels are bad though.
NotMax
“Read? We don’t need to actually read no books.”
An Iowa school district is using ChatGPT to decide which books to ban.
Jeffro
Now he’s just trying to make everyone believe that he really, truly, honestly DID believe the election was stolen…
…good luck with that Donnie! I really, truly, honestly believe all the money in the bank is mine: I still don’t get to take it, try and get others to take it, etc etc.
IRREFUTABLE, I say!
oh okay
2liberal
fani willis could cleanse the republican party of trumpism. and i don’t think that georgia republican leaders will be sorry to see that happen
NotMax
@Jeffro
Today, on an all new episode of Big Blather….
HinTN
@Omnes Omnibus:
Damn, you’re ancient.
NotMax
@HinTN
Leeches!
:)
Jeffro
Henry Olsen, getting in on the act: it’s unwise to jump to trump’s defense
Subsole
@RaflW:
Yeah.
“Unlike Biden, McConnell’s issues have mostly been off-camera,” the papers all say. Wonder whose fault that is, guy-o?
Twerps. The entire Beltway press. All of them. Utter. Fucking. Twerps.
Omnes Omnibus
@HinTN:
Well, we did learn trepanning.
Yutsano
Meh. Wake me when Yertle is actually dead or a drooling heap.
NotMax
@Jeffro
Calling it a partisan witch hunt is intellectually unwise, Mr. Olsen (not to mention odious).
gene108
The tongue bath Johnathan Martin gave McConnell as a “Russia hawk” is such bullshit.
Moscow Mitch opposes Russia, unless they interfere in an American presidential election on behalf of the Republican candidate.
Brachiator
@Jeffro:
Who are these people, who enjoy being associated with Trump?
This is beginning to sound like Hitler in his Bunker. Trump and his weird circle of true believers.
I guess this stuff must be for his base. I can’t imagine that his attorneys would let Trump include anything that might be part of his defense when his case goes to trial.
Or maybe. Trump must believe that it is inconceivable that he would actually be prosecuted for his criminal acts. Could he really believe that all he has to do is hold a press conference, mumble some nonsense and then go get in a few rounds of golf?
The equally delusional people he is surrounding himself with are doing him no favors.
Jackie
@pacem appellant: Tuberville is a rookie and look at what he’s been able to do… Stupid archaic senate rules allow ONE to wreak havoc. 🤬
NotMax
@Brachiator
It’s like bizarro Harry Potter.
“Indictus Disappearus!”
//
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Brachiator: “inconceivable”. Ah, there’s that word again.
It seems to me they’re doing themselves no favors. I mean, we have example after example of what happens to people who associate with Trump. How can it not be obvious at this point?
Alison Rose
Fucking terrorists burned down an abortion clinic in the Imperial Valley in California
If you can’t see the tweet, the image adds more details, that firefighters responded promptly and there were no staff or patients on site at the time, and the cause is under investigation. I will be quite surprised if it was anything other than arson, but happy to be proven wrong.
This was the only clinic in that area, and now patients will have to drive a couple of hours to San Diego. It was also seeing many patients coming from Arizona who were past 15 weeks. Fucking awful.
Percysowner
Reading this BREAKING: Trump, allies will be booked at Fulton County Jail, sheriff says gives me joy! Trump will actually have to waddle his orange fat ass into a jail, a jail in a majority Black area, and be booked. He should be fingerprinted and then have to wait around for bail to be set.
I hope he will be convicted, but at least we should always have this!
mrmoshpotato
Enough Kentuckians finally realized that McTurtleass hates them and only cares about his own power?
Alison Rose
@Percysowner:
They’ll have to scrape off the french fry grease first.
Jackie
@wjca: But that Democratic Governor’s hands are tied re replacing McTurtle’s replacement. He has to choose from the three candidates selected by the state Republican senators.
NotMax
@Percysowner
Breaking? The AJ-C scooped themselves, from August 1.
Jackie
@HumboldtBlue:
Baahahahahaaaa!
That’s something my daughter would have done – IF she’d thought of it. Or one of her friends had suggested the idea to her! 😂
NotMax
@Alison Rose
“Just a moment, please. Will someone fetch one of those extra-small fingerprint cards?”
//
Jackie
OMG, I’ve FINALLY caught up with all the posts!
Fani indicting TIFG a day early had me scrambling to do today what I planned to do yesterday.
I’m exhausted; but I’m current (for the moment!😂)
Matt McIrvin
@Jeffro: Since Trump’s prosecutors have no need to prove that his claims of election fraud are lies, I doubt they will spend much time on them. The claims aren’t detailed, consistent or logical enough that they can be disproven, are they? It’s like proving the nonexistence of an invisible pink elephant on Pluto.
NotMax
@Omnes Omnibus
“Note, scouts, you can kill two birds with one stone by using a bow drill to simultaneously start a fire.”
dirge
I recall observing the Biden Gaffe back in the 90’s, but don’t recall specific examples. I had begun to see a pattern, but it didn’t really click until the archetypal example, when he got way out ahead of Obama on gay marriage. He’s also had a few hot-mic moments in support of Ukraine, and on other issues.
Surely I’m not the only one to figure this out. It works like this:
Biden: Plainly states [very popular thing] nobody else will say.
Press: OMG! [very popular thing] is super divisive because assholes hate it! I can’t believe Biden just came out and said it!
Republicans: Yeah! [very popular thing] is a huge problem for Biden! We hate [very popular thing]!
Everybody: Actually, we like [very popular thing]. You Republicans sound like assholes.
Press: Clearly, [very popular thing], was yet another Biden Gaffe, but perhaps he’s accidentally hit on something.
Biden: Yup. Totally an accident. Again. Anyway, since only assholes disagree with [very popular thing], I’d like to announce [extremely popular policy].
Everybody: Public pressure works! We forced Biden to do [extremely popular policy]!
Republicans: WTF just happened?
zhena gogolia
@dirge: Yes, that’s a good description of the gay marriage thing. But Martin seemed to be talking about some spate of recent “gaffes.” I haven’t seen it. Oh well.
dirge
@zhena gogolia:
🤷♂️ Biden stumbles over a word or mangles a sentence all the time. Normal people take a second to figure out what he meant and move on. Obsessive weirdos fixate on it as an example of… whatever their weird obsession is. So I guess on some level it’s true that every Biden vocal glitch gets the slo-mo instant replay micro-analysis treatment by… well, mostly by people like Jonathan Martin.
So yeah, Martin’s point is true enough, that people like Martin wouldn’t normally subject McConnell to the kind of treatment he’s getting in Martin’s piece, which treatment Martin usually reserves for Biden. A bit odd though, that Martin seems unaware that he’s actually writing about himself here. And telling that he can’t help but smuggle in his criticism of Biden, where it has little if any relevance.
All that said, “gaffes” are very much part of Biden’s public persona, independent of whether any actual empirical examples exist (some do). I actually think Biden encourages this, because it’s humanizing, it makes it easy to walk back trial balloons, and it’s the predicate for his signature “Biden Gaffe” rope-a-dope maneuver.
Miss Bianca
@dirge: :)