Starting to suspect that Ramaswamy is a sociopath. https://t.co/5c2u5UdSmS
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) August 27, 2023
When it comes to Republican candidates, never say never in this fallen world, but I’m beginning to think Vivek chose to jump into the 2024 primaries because he expects to be in jail or in hiding by 2026.
Like I said, when you back any conservative into a corner on a mass shooting they immediately try to pivot to "what about the south side of Chicago?" https://t.co/2YQ664BgEV
— Ragnarok Lobster (@eclecticbrotha) August 27, 2023
He's a con man who was good at separating investors from their money in the bullshit economy. https://t.co/5iqaxuJMY1
— Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) August 24, 2023
Just an independent thinker. And like every single one of them…that was a lie.
— Centrism Fan Acct ?? (@Wilson__Valdez) August 24, 2023
I'm too busy running for President to be deposed in this lawsuit abt shady dealings with my failed company that somehow made me an almost billionaire. https://t.co/MqN1fcMJyI
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) August 26, 2023
Ramaswamy tells @OstapYarysh "some post-Zelenskyy warlord" will take power in Ukraine & will be armed to the teeth unless the USA quickly stops sending weapons to Ukraine.
He compares it with the Mujehadeen & Al-Qaida in Afghanistan after the Soviets left pic.twitter.com/1kGiTVBmLJ
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) August 24, 2023
Or, if the Ukrainians get their hands on him, in no condition to ‘run’…
In today's #vatniksoup, I'll introduce an American businessman and politician, Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy).
He's best-known for his stock promotion schemes, for his staunch support of Donald Trump, and for his hot takes on the Russo-Ukrainian War.
1/16 pic.twitter.com/Mjwv5qmeOE
— Pekka Kallioniemi (@P_Kallioniemi) August 25, 2023
War for Ukraine Day 550: Russia Bombards Ukraine Again
Nukular Biskits
There’s no way this guy should ever be in ANY public office.
eversor
He’s also a Hindu that pushes that the US needs to go back to Christianity. That’s the reason he’s popular. I know some are going to “Hitler made the trains run on time” around Christianity but they need to get over it. Republicanism is the symptom, Conservatism is the cancer, Christianity is the carcinogen. Until that is admitted all efforts on this are useless.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
Remember, Vivek rhymes with fake.
@eversor: AND cake rhymes with pie.
John S.
It’s so great to see politicians like Pramila Jayapal and Kamala Harris out there because so many others of Desi background are just fucking awful (like Nikki Haley and Bobby Jindal).
tokyokie
@Nukular Biskits: Won’t he have to enter a public office to meet with his parole officer?
Betsy
They’re all sociopaths. All Republicans candidates are some degree of sociopath.
Their voters are either idiots or sociopaths.
or both.
Mr. Bemused Senior
I find the number of office holders who fit this characterization… disturbing.
craigie
Are there any race-based violent crimes on the Left, Chuck?
S Cerevisiae
That tweet where he compared Ukraine to Afghanistan was offensive and showed how little he knows about either.
Fuck that guy.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@craigie: If Chuck Todd were smarter, I’d think he was insidiously putting an idea in his viewers’ minds.
C Stars
@Betsy: yeah, this. Like if he wasn’t a corrupt grifter would he even be in the running? Those qualities seem to be top line job requirements for modern GOP candidates. I feel like that’s why the MAGAs hate Pence so much…sure, he’s shallow and incompetent, but he’s got at least an iota of honesty and that is verboten.
Anne Laurie
Up-Chuck Todd ain’t paid to be smart, he’s paid to read off the script that’s put in front of him. And he’s highly compensated because he does those readings with real verisimilitude!
zhena gogolia
@John S.: This guy makes Haley and Jindal look good. I hadn’t seen him before these clips. Horrible.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Anne Laurie: Yes, it does closely resemble reading, doesn’t it?
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
@Anne Laurie:
Are the usual suspects who supported Tulsi Gabbard in 2020 supporting Ramaswamy this time around?
Ben Cisco
@Betsy: Both, certainly.
wjca
@C Stars:
I’m not sure it’s a requirement. But it’s not an impediment at all. So if you’re already a grifter, it could seem like an irresistible opportunity.
Scout211
Ramaswamy is interested in Elon Musk as a White House adviser, he has said to multiple news outlets. So we know who he is and we also know who his closest friends and donors are:
It’s The Guardian but an interesting read
Jinchi
Pekka Kallioniemi’s overview of Ramaswamy gives me serious George Santos vibes.
Has anyone seen the two of them in the same room?
Mai Naem mobileI
@eversor: if you think GOP evangelicals are going to vote for a Hindu you don’t know GOP evangelicals. That’s the number one reason Vivek won’t be there nominee.
BTW this business scandal of his is not new. I don’t understand why reporters have not covered this already. He’s been registering in the polls for a while now. I think we heard about Cornel West’s child support and tax issues before we heard about Ramalamadingdong’s issues.
karen marie
Ramaswamy’s lack of understanding about how anything works is mind blowing.
People who have given him money for his projects in the past must be among the stupidest people on the planet. It simply is not reasonable to believe he has a better understanding of “business” than he does of the rules and laws surrounding elections.
eclare
@Scout211:
I saw that and wondered about the phrasing “both sides of the political aisle?” What both sides? These are all hard right/libertarian nutjobs that Vivek associates with.
Tony Jay
So Ramaswamy’s whole grift is to say whatever he thinks MAGATs want to hear to a news media desperate to normalise it in the hopes that he’ll be treated as a ‘serious presidential candidate’ long enough to stay out of jail for some kind of drug based con?
Huh. Who’d have thought it. The super-positive brown guy dancing the jig for all those white supremacists is a bit of a fraud. Amazing. Totally out of the blue. I am so utterly nonplussed I can’t even cross my legs right now,
And yet, after all that, he’s still less of an annoying gobshite than the Pontificating Pope of Predictability.
smith
Yet another Yale Law School grad, huh? I’m going to start referring to it as the New Haven Finishing School for Young Fascists.
Scout211
@Tony Jay:
The article I linked to above, has a quote from Reed Galen one of the Lincoln Project guys, which is another form of grift, I realize, but a fun quote:
Link
Anne Laurie
He’s not ignorant, he’s lying.
He’ll say whatever it takes to make his audience — the marks in his latest grift — happy & confident. That’s how grifters succeed, and he’s been quite successful, so far!
Chuck Todd’s job, in this interview, was to be the grifter’s hype guy, the ‘innocent’ planted in the crowd around the snake-oil salesman who asks just the right questions at just the right time. And of course, Todd has also made quite a prosperous career out of playing the Scam-Partner-of-the-Week for the media moguls who sign his paycheck.
Nukular Biskits
@tokyokie:
LOL! True dat!
Another Scott
@Scout211:
??!
(Insert Inigo_Montoya.gif here)
[eta:] eclare at #22 got there first.
Cheers,
Scott.
TriassicSands
As Ronald Reagan might have said: “There you go again…(using actual facts to make a point)”
@eclare:
After the reference to “both sides of the aisle,” I kept looking for the name of at least one Democrat. Admittedly, there are at least two Democrats who somehow might be implicated. Well one is now a former Democrat. Also, there are always people who play both sides, and profits often are more powerful motivators than ideology or policy, so there could be people on the left side of the “political aisle” who are associated with Ramaswamy.
OzarkHillbilly
Yah, he’s a scum bag billionaire.
TriassicSands
Well, he does have a certain understanding: Trick people; get money; run. It’s always worked for Trump.
Otherwise, I couldn’t agree more. What he seems to lack entirely is any idea of how things should work. In that, he has the company of an entire political party and tens of millions of voters.
smith
@TriassicSands: Well there’s always RFKJr, for some values of “Democrat.” Ramaswamy has said he might consider him as VP. It’s a real dream ticket — someone should propose it to No Labels.
Tony Jay
@Scout211:
They’re all just exactly what they appear to be, only worse, and truly terrible at hiding it.
I guess when you don’t actually have to hide it, because you’re so justifiably confident that the news media that should be ripping them apart will in fact bend themselves into 9-dimensional shapes invisible to the human eye to cover for them, those hide-my-shame muscles can atrophy super-fast.
mrmoshpotato
Another Rethuglican primary season to ignore.
MisterDancer
I wish I had some clever words about this asshole. But no, this is just another iteration of the George Wallace Problem, post-Trump edition.
Geminid
@Anne Laurie: I think you are right, Ramaswamy is telling a cohort of Republican voters what they want to hear, not what he really believes.He is not trying to win but instead is building a power center among Republican base voters. He’ll likely end up a slick-talking Trump surrogate in the general election, and a cabinet officer if Trump is somehow elected.
Ramaswamy may bring in money from the David Sacks and othe contrarian tech-bros, but I don’t see him bringing in many new voters. I wouldn’t worry about him except that Congress needs to authorize more military aid for Ukraine soon. Rep. Michael McCaul, Foreign Relations Chairman, and others in his caucus are pushing for aid, but too many Republicans are on the fence with their finger in the air. They will be watching to see how Ramaswamy’s comments on Ukraine are received by the base Republican base voters.
Ohio Mom
It’s ridiculous but every time someone point out that Ramaswamy is from the Cincinnati area, I feel personally embarrassed.
I didn’t know that he and Vance go way back. Certainly adds up.
Mike in NC
Already so goddamn tired of these mini-Trump sociopaths.
Cameron
Well, he’s certainly convinced me. Folks, I think we’ve found Joe Manchin’s No Labels running mate.
TriassicSands
That is perilously close to redundant. Acquiring a billion dollars (or more) in this economy must be almost impossible for anyone who is not a scum bag. Then, once financially secure, so the pattern goes, the more “enlightened” billionaires try to buy back their reputations through philanthropy that never threatens their lifestyles
Some may acquire a billion dollars and only then become true scum bags.
Citizen Dave
On Twitter, for months, Viveks tweets are all pushed to me. I surely don’t follow him. At Elon’s world, the promoted tweets are 80/90% RWNJs.
geg6
@TriassicSands:
I don’t think every billionaire is evil . The vast majority, yes. But not all. It’s projected that Taylor Swift will be a billionaire by the time she finishes her current Eras tour. I may not love all her music (but I do like a lot of it), but I can’t imagine that she’s done it in an evil way. Hell, she just gave all the workers on her tour something like a $55 million bonus split among them.
Falling Diphthong
What struck me with the debate is that Ramaswamy managed a threefer:
• The candidate the other candidates all find massively annoying.
• The candidate those forced to watch professionally found most annoying, as he seemed to just spew out conspiracy theories which he didn’t even bother to believe, he just knew Trump did well appealing to the base’s love of conspiracy theories.
• The candidate the focus group of Republican primary voters, aka Trump fans, most liked. “He said one thing that really resonated for me…”
karen marie
@smith: That made me laugh out loud. Great idea!
Falling Diphthong
@smith: I’m grateful to Quinnipiac for finally doing a poll, in which we determined that Democrats think RFK is “that asshole” and Republicans really like him. So the media has started to abandon their pretense that Democrats would abandon their incumbent to embrace a conspiracy theorist who has never held office and is funded by the right-wing billionaire who funds Clarence Thomas.
I guess Ramaswamy will be their new flavor of the month, with a lot of “People are saying….”
RepubAnon
@Mike in NC: And, like Trump, he’s avoiding court cases because he’s running for President. Definitely a mini-Trump.
MomSense
I have to work early tomorrow so I wasn’t planning to go the music festival my kids are playing – but my 86 year old mom was raring to go. So here we are – she’s a party animal. Did I mention it is an hour and a half drive and the band is playing last? They start at 10.
MomSense is tired.
karen marie
@Geminid:
Maybe in Ohio. I’d bet money he switches to running against Sherrod Brown after using this “presidential campaign” to prove to Thiel he’s got what it takes.
eclare
@geg6:
Good example. I read that truck drivers on her tour each got $100k.
smith
@Falling Diphthong: I guess in some ways we should be relieved that whoever the Republican is that the corporate media anoint as the Next Big Thing and the Savior of His Party pretty much always crashes and burns, never to be spoken of again. To me, it demonstrates that the political power of mobster-oligarchs, whose interests are represented by corporate media, don’t actually have that much juice in determining who governs, at least at the national level. It’s reassuring that the voting public often turns out to be much less gullible than our betters in the media pretend to be.
eclare
@MomSense:
Just reading that makes me tired!
LiminalOwl
News site just sent me a CNN article about the enthusiasm of Iowa Republicans and evangelicals for Ramaswamy, after the debate.
2liberal
My exact reaction to this poster!
schrodingers_cat
What are Vivek Ramaswamy’s ties to the RSS(BJP’s parent org.) ? Because RWNJs in India sure love him.
Another Scott
@karen marie: +1
This was exactly my thought when I saw that Thiel was tied up with him.
Grr…,
Scott.
TriassicSands
@geg6:
That is why I wrote perilously close. There are likely to be exceptions. One I thought of, but don’t really know enough about is MacKenzie Scott, Bezos’ ex-wife. She’s given away billions, but depending on whom one believes that hasn’t had much effect on her net worth. I also added that it may be possible to become a billionaire without being a scum bag, but once that is achieved will there be a major effect on behavior. That, of course, is an individual thing. My own take on celebrities and athletes is that many are obscenely over-compensated. The ability to accumulate vast sums of wealth through mass exposure should, I feel strongly, be taxed heavily. That wouldn’t mean someone like Swift isn’t wealthy, but it would mean that much of what they “earn” would be recycled to be used for the benefit of everyone. Years ago, there was a book published called “The Winner Take All Society.” In it, the authors pointed out that the difference between the “winner” and “second place” (and lower) is often miniscule, but the difference in remuneration can be huge. This is especially true of athletes.However good a singer Taylor Swift is, she isn’t millions of times better than others who never make it. Often, that difference has more to do with right place, right time than actual superior talent.
Geminid
@karen marie: If Ramaswamy wants a shot at Sherrod Brown, he’s gotta get past Bernie Moreno, Frank LaRose and Matt Dolan. That’s probably tougher competition than what he faces now, at least counting only the other seven on the debate stage. And Moreno and Dolan’s family have more money than Ramaswamy.
Ramaswamy will lose either race I think, so he might as well stick with the one he’s in. That way he’ll have a national platform, and be a higher status loser.
Anyway
I thought Chuck Todd was no longer the host of the Sunday gabfest
geg6
@TriassicSands:
Swift may not have the singing or songwriting talents of some who never make it (though I would venture that is a very small subset of failed musicians), but she obviously has learned more than almost anyone about fan service, the importance of fighting for control of your IP however cleverly you must do so, rewarding your support staff at all levels and that your live shows and album drops are the lifeblood of your career, among many other things I haven’t even thought of. It’s not just timing. Her career is two decades old. She has learned and thrived in an industry that chews up and spits out young talent, especially young female talent, all day every day. She runs her own career now and it is spectacularly successful. First artist to hold all ten singles slots of the Top Ten. Re-recorded and released all her previous albums and sold more of each than she did the first release. Released new material to critical and popular acclaim. Began a year-long tour that has already, about halfway through, earned more than Elton John’s several years long farewell tour. All of this in the last three years. Without even counting her massive success since her early teens, that’s quite a resume for anyone. She’s worked and fought for her success and I don’t think timing has anything to do with it.
Anyway
@Ohio Mom:
Yep. And interesting that Thiel is a benefactor of both. Thiel scares the bejeesus out of me — the way he goes around grooming RWNJs. He has so much money to spend on his pet project of beating Ds
Jackie
@eclare: Reading that reminds me of my son’s 80 yr old grampa’s determination to go to all my son’s high school baseball games – both home and away! Away games could be easily an hour and a half away. Grandparents are the best!
Scout211
He’s leaving sometime next month.
Jackie
@Anyway: Mid Sept the baton is handed to Kristen Welker.
Mai Naem mobileI
@geg6: i don’t think Taylor Swift is as naturally talented as Beyonce or Miley Cyrus but I think she’s more focused than and outworks Beyonce and Miley.
eclare
@geg6:
Very well said. I especially respect her for re-recording the albums that were taken from her in a contract she signed at fourteen as “Original album name (Taylor’s version).”
Just brilliant. The documentary about her, Miss Americana, is very good.
Jackie
I saw that “My Kevin” is re-introducing the idea of possible impeachment investigations against President Biden. Could this possibly be a reaction to TIFG’s hysterical latest demand the GQP House impeach Biden?🤔
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-demands-biden-impeachment-immediately/
Another Scott
@geg6: Google tells me CNN says that she’s on a path to take in $2.2B for North American ticket sales alone.
That’s up there with Hamilton, isn’t it??
;-)
Seriously, I have never bought any of her music, but I thought she was a great talent ever since I caught her on SNL in 2009. (Yeah, SNL is wildly, wildly uneven, but she was fun there.)
Cheers,
Scott.
Mai Naem mobileI
@TriassicSands: the gazillionaire musicians and athletes are few and have little impact financially. The tech bros and wealthy business folks have way more money and way more impact. I just remember the Ars Technica reporter who tried to do without Google,Amazon webservices and Apple and it affected what she could do dramatically. Just imagine the impact of google pay and apple pay alone. The problem is above my pay grade but I know letting google and AWS have so much power over just government services alone(forget the private sector) is not a good thing. Same goes for starling. And I don’t see a Teddy Roosevelt coming up anywhere.
MomSense
@eclare:
My mom just told me she’s a night person and she is now dancing with a bunch of 20 somethings in front of the stage.
Jackie
@MomSense:
🥰😂🥰😂🥰😂🥰
Jackie
Pudd’n Boots gets booed at the Jacksonville prayer vigil for the murdered black Americans:
https://youtu.be/y8AANOENA7g?si=PnK63ffjRfqUPMaH
Steeplejack
@Jackie:
Interesting that Casey is glued to his side at the podium. Gotta get that screen time!
Jackie
@Steeplejack: And has a semi smile. Wrong optics due to the occasion.
eclare
@Jackie:
Yeah, just totally off.
Another Scott
@Jackie: Thanks for the link.
In context, his comments are even worse than I thought (based on tweeted excerpts earlier).
(The problem isn’t lack of money for “security”, it’s him and the monsters he is feeding with his way of governing and campaigning.)
Good for the folks there for having none of it.
Grr…,
Scott.
TriassicSands
@geg6:
I wrote: Often that difference has more to do with right place, right time than with actual superior talent.
I don’t think any of my statements have been categorical, though you seem to want them to be and continue to dwell on Taylor Swift. There are always exceptions, something that shouldn’t have to be explicitly stated over and over. The initial subject was billionaires. You made Swift the exception (or an exception), which I didn’t really argue with except to say that her talent alone is not enough to explain her huge financial success. Taylor Swift means nothing to me. I don’t listen to her music and know virtually nothing about her career. I have no axe to grind with you or Taylor Swift except, as I wrote, society would be far better off, in my estimation, if celebrities who earn huge sums of money through mass exposure (which depends on much more than their individual talent and business savvy) should be taxed to a degree unseen in this country for many decades.
It should go without saying that, for example, many people today are earning ridiculous sums of money being “influencers” on the Internet. Right place, right time. I don’t have a breakdown of Ms. Swift’s finances (and don’t care), but it’s fair to say that she makes a lot more today that she would have before the Internet and social media.
Is Taylor Swift a scum bag. I have no idea, but I doubt it. But unless someone knows a person intimately or has seen examples of deplorable behavior they can’t make that judgment either. How many times have we seen previously well-thought-of people revealed to be somewhat less than their public personas.
In our exchange, I have spent more time thinking about or discussing Taylor Swift than I have in the entire rest of my life. Now, I plan to return to not thinking about her. I wish you and Taylor well, and I hope someday celebrities will face the kind of taxation I think makes sense for the betterment of our entire society. The gist of my point about Swift was about taxing mass celebrities, not whether Taylor Swift is or isn’t talented, a good businessperson, or a good person. I care about the first, and not at all about the latter three.
Frankensteinbeck
I usually lean to elected right wingers being true believers in their horror show bullshit, pulled only by small degrees to match the political headwinds. DeSantis is a hardcore bigot who picked anti-woke because he loves grinding down minorities. Ramaswamy is just saying whatever he thinks the audience wants to hear.
geg6
@MomSense:
I love your mom! 😀
eclare
@MomSense:
She loves the nightlife, she’s gotta boogie!
geg6
@TriassicSands:
I’m not sure why you are fixated on taxing artists and athletes when they, at least, provide value for their work and are not, generally, anywhere near the wealthiest people in America, Taylor Swift being a singular exception. I am similarly happy to see Margot Robbie have such a massive success as an actress and a producer for Barbie. I, myself, am more focused on the real economic enemies of Silicon Valley, Wall Street, Big Pharma, Big Oil and the like. All of which pay vastly less in taxes than Taylor Swift or Margot Robbie I am quite sure.
Scout211
Somewhat related to billionaire finance bros, I am trying to watch The Big Short on Netflix right now and I keep getting so creeped out with the finance bros and all their machinations that I have to pause and get away from it for awhile. I really want to watch it but yikes, this is a really creepy true story with creepy finance bros. 😳
Cameron
@Jackie: “They like me! They really like me!”
Jackie
@Cameron: 😂 A moment in Hollywood’s history we’ll NEVER forget!😁
And so perfect to describe Mrs Pudd’n Boots expression.
MomSense
I wish you all could see the scene – it’s wild.
Jackie
@MomSense: If you’re videoing, send to a Front Pager, PLEASE!!!
*With the required permissions, of course 😁
eclare
@Scout211:
I read the book (which is very good), and that was enough.
wjca
@Jackie:
One gets the distinct feeling that, for both DeSantises, making their utter lack of empathy obvious to everyone who encounters them is one of their core competencies. Certainly they display it with notable consistency.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Scout211: the Big Short is great. I did not know the players personally, but I am certain it’s very close to the mark.
[ETA] it is a movie, of course, so you have to expect some liberties.
MomSense
@Jackie:
It’s dark! I got the band playing a couple songs.
brendancalling
@eversor: JFC, you again?
I’m figuring out how to pie you out, because you have one trick, and it’s a boring trick. Got it. You don’t like Christianity. I don’t like liver, you don’t see me bringing it up every five fucking seconds.
brendancalling
I just pie filtered that anti-Christian weirdo but now my own posts seem to also be pie.
Another Scott
#91 – Assuming you accidentally pied yourself and want to undo it – Click on the red pie above the start of the comments, then click on the “Filtered” tab, then click on the name (your handle) that you want to remove from the pie filter.
Note that any @replies to a pied person are also pied.
HTH!
Cheers,
Scott.
TriassicSands
@geg6:
I’m not fixated on celebrities or artists at all. I would apply the same rules to Elon Musk and celebrities and athletes. The real problem, in many cases, is not simply wealth, but the influence and power that accompanies extreme or excessive wealth. As for whether celebrities and athletes provide “value for their work” that is subjective. The obsession that people have in this country (and around much of the world) with athletes has, in my mind, one major effect — it makes spectators out of people, rather than doers and participants. Think of how many overweight people sit on their couches obsessively rooting for and watching professional athletes, when they would be much better off if they were out among friends and community actually engaging in athletics. The value that singers provide, ultimately, in my mind, is the music they create, which can be better appreciated for its content in the absence of massive, screaming crowds. Do people really go to concerts to appreciate the music itself or to be involved in a social gathering. If I wanted to appreciate Taylor Swift’s music, I certainly wouldn’t attend a concert surrounded by adoring fans. However, I love music, and not pomp and glitter, so it shouldn’t be surprising that big, highly-produced concerts are not my thing. Others obviously feel differently. There is a big difference in my mind between the music (content) and the concert. But the concerts are where so much of the money is generated. Mozart, Beethoven, and Mahler haven’t personally held concerts in quite a while, but those who appreciate their music can go to a “concert” and sit in a quiet hall (for the most part) and enjoy every note. Trying to appreciate the work of fine film actors and script writers in a movie theater today has become increasingly difficult because of the behavior of the audiences.
You’ve made assumptions about my focus that simply aren’t true. Is the content that any athlete or celebrity of equal value to the many of the products of pharmaceutical research? I think Big Pharma is bilking the American people, even when so much of the research was initially done by government entities. So many of the wealthy exist on what amounts to government welfare and that should be dealt with in part by taxation, which should apply to everyone in an equitable manner. Including athletes and celebrities.
Your assumption that my focus is on celebrities and athletes seems to have arisen from your bringing up Taylor Swift, who was certainly not part of my original thinking. I agree with you about where the bulk of the problems are, but I wouldn’t exempt athletes and celebrities simply because people like their music or are fans.
That is likely an individual thing and not something I would attribute to any individual without knowing the details. As a rule, rich people don’t enjoy paying their fair share of taxes, which in any case is, in my opinion, not even close to what it should be. I would be shocked if Ms. Swift doesn’t employ quite a team of tax lawyers. I have to end my participation in this discussion. Be well.
Noskilz
I’m expecting him to spectacularly unravel sooner rather than later. He’s a sketchy bullshit artist with an iffy past, and I suspect his wealth and political prominence may prove to be very ephemeral.
Whether he will meet his Waterloo by through disgruntled investors or some variation of the Face-eating Leopard Society, we’ll just have to see.
Nettoyeur
@LiminalOwl: I am old enough to remember when Herman Cain and Carly Fiorina were the flavors of a few weeks for GOPers. Cain had his puzza company and 9-9-9 tax plan and Carly had her failed gig as CEO and ..something I can’t remember.
Glidwrith
@Nettoyeur: Yep, each turd in the punch bowl will float to the surface then sink to be replaced by another. The cycle repeats until primary voting is done with whichever current turd winning. It doesn’t matter who it is, because it’s guaranteed they will be a monster in their own shitty way.
Anyway
@Scout211:
Ah, thank you! Didn’t know that.
Anyway
@Jackie:
Thanks!
Mai Naem mobileI
@Nettoyeur: Carly was essentially called ugly by TFG during a debate. That was her ‘thing.’ Unless you’re talking about her surviving breast cancer.
Hob
@eversor:
I know it’s utterly pointless to argue you out of pounding your dead horse obsession into the ground all the damn time, and you do not care what anyone else here thinks about this (or how you are personally insulting commenters here who you know take their faith seriously)… but is it too much to ask that you at least write comments that are understandable, rather than word salad? I have no freaking clue what the hell you intended that sentence to mean.
Hob
Whoa! I just wrote a comment lamenting that the pie filter isn’t of much use to me because I usually don’t read this blog on a desktop… and then reading Another Scott’s #92 made me finally understand that there’s a whole new pie filter system that I had somehow totally missed, which works everywhere. VERY good to know – this will greatly improve my experience here (even though I think the blog does have a lot less of a crank problem than it used to, years back).
eclare
@Hob:
I can pie people on my phone, Samsung SE10, running whatever came on it.
Just double checked, yep, pie filter works.
Hob
@eclare: Yes, I edited my comment too late after finally noticing that things have changed – maybe a long time ago, I don’t know, clearly I missed the announcement. The pie filter used to rely on a browser plugin, now it doesn’t.
eclare
@Hob:
Great that it works for you now!
trnc
At the very least, a constitutional amendment should require presidential candidates to have served in elected office for at least one term.
Anne Laurie
Maybe her ‘Demon Sheep’ ad? It even has its own Wikipedia page!
BellyCat
Bernie Sanders never had a real shot at the presidency. His goal was to move the Dems more to the left.
Ramaswamy does not have a shot at the presidency. His goal (like Trump’s in 2016) is to see just how far the GOP hate machine has pushed the deplorables and milk it for all it’s worth.
There will be others until the GOP shuts this shit down (unlikely) or collapses (more likely).
I mean, climate change is a hoax?!?! I’m old enough to remember the “hottest day of the summer” happening during, you know, summer, not forecast for the day after Labor Day here in Pittsburgh.
Ramalama
@Tony Jay:Vivek Ramaswamy’s role is to Pump and Dump for Trump.
sab
@brendancalling: That’s how the pie filter works. The whole comversation becomes merely edible.
Skepticat
Not to mention terrifying, disgusting, depressing, and obscene.
Paul in KY
@Scout211: I just see one side of the aisle. The scumbag side…
Paul in KY
@Ohio Mom: I’m going to assume he attended Covington Catholic…
Paul in KY
@schrodingers_cat: I assume he’s a Brahmin of some flavour. That’s gonna get him some love.
Paul in KY
@MomSense: She’s badass!!
Paul in KY
@TriassicSands: Not really a music fan of Ms. Swift’s but you can’t hate on her for playing the game. She comes from some wealth and has been well mentored and obviously has a keen intellect herself and alot of experience in the game.
Paul in KY
@BellyCat: Bernie sure acted like he thought he had a ‘real shot’ at the nomination and acted like Hillary’s archenemy waaaaaay longer than a dude with no ‘real shot’ should have acted.
TriassicSands
@Paul in KY:
When did I hate on Taylor Swift?