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Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

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Their freedom requires your slavery.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Quote tweet friends, screenshot enemies.

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

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

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

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White supremacy is terrorism.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

I did not have this on my fuck 2025 bingo card.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

We’re watching the self-immolation of the leading world power on a level unprecedented in human history.

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

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Dear Washington Post, you are the darkness now.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Before and After (Open Thread)

Before and After (Open Thread)

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This post is in: ,

While waiting for our baseball game yesterday evening, we watched a segment on CNN about Trump and the adult sons being found liable for fraud and losing their business certification in New York. One of the talking heads looked familiar, but I couldn’t quite place him. Then it hit me — it’s George Conway, who evidently shed more than former wife Kellyanne!

George Conway before and after the divorce

I’m sure George Conway holds many views I find repellent. But the man lived through an earthly purgatory most of us can scarcely imagine, so I hope his health is good, and I wish him well.

***

Gold Bar Bob and Mrs. Gold Bar were arraigned this morning. So far, two dozen Democratic senators, including fellow New Jerseyite Cory Booker, have called for Menendez to step down, along with several House members, Gov. Murphy, the state party chair and several county chairs. I like the contrast with Repubs, who are trying to get their corrupt, serially indicted felon elected to the highest office in the land.

I thought it was interesting that Fetterman was the first senator to urge Gold Bar to resign. Fetterman is still new to the clubbiest of clubs and is already shaking things up for the better, IMO. May he continue to be a force for change.

Repubs Tom Cotton and Marco Rubio said Menendez should hang in there until a jury or voters decide his fate. That serves their purposes, which are the opposite of the interests of the people of New Jersey and the Democratic Party.

***

The second Repub debate will take place at the Reagan Lie-berry tonight as the long slog to determine the 2024 GOP runner-up continues. I don’t plan to watch it live but may turn on MSNBC to see what Maddow makes of it all at 11 PM ET. Conventional wisdom holds that DeSantis, Haley and Ramaswamy will feel compelled to make a move, so it could be a bristly, screechy affair that leaves hard feelings all around.

It’s not a real debate, though, as Zack Beauchamp at Vox points out. Calling the debate “a cosplay of a competitive election — and a distraction from an ugly truth” — Beauchamp says normal media coverage of the debates are a troubling sign:

(DeSantis) is a whopping 41 percentage points behind Trump in FiveThirtyEight’s average. That’s only slightly better than Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s 49-point deficit in his fake bid to unseat President Biden. A recent poll in the critical early state of New Hampshire put DeSantis in fifth place. His presidential campaign has been so humiliating that it’s actually hurting him back home: The once-captive Florida Republican party is rebelling against a governor who now looks like a weakling…

New York Magazine’s Eric Levitz recently argued that Trump’s undeniable authoritarian tendencies have put the mainstream press in a difficult position: Either it describes him accurately, and sounds like a “partisan rag,” or else it deceptively treats Trump and the Republican party he controls as essentially normal. Too often, he writes, they make the latter choice — acting like “an amnesiac, or an abusive household committed to keeping up appearances, losing itself in the old routines, in an effortful approximation of normality until it almost forgets what it doesn’t want to know.”

The breathless coverage of the presidential debate fits this description to a T. We are all pretending that this is something like what we’ve seen in the past, a normal event held by a normal party, when it’s actually a pageant masking the true nature of the Trump-enthralled GOP: a political vehicle of a strongman whose second term would represent an existential threat to American democracy.

He’s right. None of this shit is normal, and only death or an incapacitating medical event can keep the 2024 GOP nomination prize out of Trump’s grubby little mitts. Wouldn’t it be ironic (not to mention hilarious) if, after all the media hysteria about Biden’s 80 years, the 77-year-old Trump took a tumble down the campaign airplane steps and ended up in a geriatric ward?

***

Last night I made fettucine from scratch, plus an eggplant sauce using a recipe I nicked from Italian Grandma Gina on YouTube. It all turned out great EXCEPT I should have cooked the pasta a little longer before adding it to the sauce to finish cooking. The leftovers would have been perfect if there were any.

Open thread!

 

Reader Interactions

247Comments

  1. 1.

    Tony G

    If Trump dropped dead tomorrow, he would still be supported as the presidential candidate by the majority of Republican voters.  To the members of his cult, Trump is a symbol, not a human being.  A symbol of the racism, sexism and general hatred that governs the lives of these broken people.  He might be more useful to the cult if he is dead — they can just keep replaying his greatest hits, forever.

  2. 2.

    Alison Rose

    only death or an incapacitating medical event can keep the 2024 GOP nomination prize out of Trump’s grubby little mitts

    Honestly, I don’t want this kind of thing to happen to him, not because I give a single shit about his health, but because you know no matter what it was, his psychotic groupies would blame Biden and the Dems for it, and I fear it would become even more open season on them. TIFG could announce he has stage 4 pancreatic cancer and these fuckers would insist Biden gave it to him. And they all have a lot of guns and very few brain cells dedicated to self-restraint.

  4. 4.

    MattF

    I’ve read many times that one should ‘finish’ the pasta in the sauce, and have tried it a few times. Ended up with one more pan to clean— I normally just nuke the (sauce + whatever) and then add the drained cooked pasta to that. If there’s a big difference between that and the ‘right’ way, my aged taste buds don’t detect it.

  5. 5.

    TaMara

    I should have cooked the pasta a little longer before adding it to the sauce to finish cooking. The leftovers would have been perfect if there were any.

    If there were no leftovers, it was perfect.

    I saw Conway on one of the MSNBC shows last night while surfing. I paused a moment to realize who it was, like you I was confused. I didn’t stop long enough to listen to what he had to say.

  6. 6.

    rikyrah

    New York Magazine’s Eric Levitz recently argued that Trump’s undeniable authoritarian tendencies have put the mainstream press in a difficult position: Either it describes him accurately, and sounds like a “partisan rag,” or else it deceptively treats Trump and the Republican party he controls as essentially normal. Too often, he writes, they make the latter choice — acting like “an amnesiac, or an abusive household committed to keeping up appearances, losing itself in the old routines, in an effortful approximation of normality until it almost forgets what it doesn’t want to know.”

     

    Bullshyt.

    Being accurate is being accurate.

    Stop trying to continue to gaslight the people with normalizing their phucking fascism!

  7. 7.

    hueyplong

    @Alison Rose: No matter how/why Trump fails to win, his followers will see a reason for outrage.  There is no satisfying them short of Trump sitting at the Resolute Desk.  Their numbers might be reduced by a series of convictions playing out over several months but the more likely outcome is that most would stay in their state of constant anger and resentment.

    Accordingly, it’s not wholly irrational to take the position that Trump can go to hell today.  Hard to believe a post-Trump America wouldn’t be better, whenever it happens.

  8. 8.

    cain

    Conway in that picture looks like Ozzy Osbourne there – give the man a mic and let him sing ‘Crazy Train’.

  9. 9.

    MattF

    Saw a video yesterday of a young Dem lad reciting Biden’s achievements to a Trump supporter. The Trump supporter allowed as how it was a good thing that Medicare dependent diabetics can now afford their insulin, but Biden stole the election and Trump will win in 2024, period. They are beyond argument.

  10. 10.

    Ocotillo

    Then it hit me — it’s George Conway, who evidently shed more than former wife Kellyanne!

    Recently divorced men always lose weight.

  12. 12.

    laura

    Rooting for serious injuries all around at tonight’s vice-presidential pageant. I’ll miss it due to school, but if I didn’t have a drawing class, I’d find another reason to miss it- and will savor tomorrow’s am post and comment savagery.

    I would like to cosign respected commenter Rikyrah’s calling bullshit on infotainment peddler Eric Levitz and his fellow travelers. They are greasing the skids for fascism. Normalizing fascism invites and encourages more of the same. Eric ought to look deep into his soul and a cursory glance at history to see where this ends up.

  13. 13.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @MattF: ​
     I’ve always done the pasta in the sauce. Prepare pasta in a big pan, boil for 10 minutes, then finish it in the sauce pan for another 1-2 minutes. Works great!

  16. 16.

    Baud

    Either it describes him accurately, and sounds like a “partisan rag,” or else it deceptively treats Trump and the Republican party he controls as essentially normal.

    Sounds like a “partisan rag” to whom? The answer will tell you which Americans the media cares about and which Americans they don’t.

  17. 17.

    CaseyL

    It’s a bit of a test:

    How many bog-standard GOPers refused to ever get on the Trump Train in the first place, and how they did or did not evolve afterwards.  Jen Rubin and Tom Nichols may be Exhibit A and B for how much they do turn against their former party: Rubin all the way, and Nichols pretty much all the way, to the point where he’s voting a straight Democratic ticket and trying to figure out what being “conservative” even means anymore.

    And then: How many bog-standard GOPers signed onto the Trump train for the usual bog-standard GOPer reasons (tax cuts, deregulation, non-enforcement of civil rights and environmental laws, and some grifting on the side…I mean, bog-standard GOPers are still horrible people, just horrible in a routine and ordinary way) and how many got off that train when they realized Trump was horrible in ways they had not previously imagined.  Liz Cheney, for example,  supported Trump right up until January 6, and is still (IMO) mostly pissed off about Trumpist methods, not Trumpist ideology.

    Conway may be in that latter group: I don’t follow him, so I don’t know whether his pre-Trump politics have changed or he only drew the line at outright fascism (unlike his ex who didn’t draw any lines at all).

  18. 18.

    bbleh

    It’s amazing how much tastier fresh pasta is than dried stuff from a box.  But the box is SO much easier…

  19. 19.

    Betty Cracker

    @rikyrah: & @laura: Levitz isn’t approving of the media’s approach here, but he’s accurately describing how they perceive their options. Here’s a link to the quoted piece — he thinks Trump is a huge danger and that the choices media figures are making are putting us all at risk.

  20. 20.

    MattF

    @CaseyL: Conway generally takes a somewhat legalistic approach— ‘What we have here is a common criminal.’ As a lawyer, he’s emphatic about the distinction between legal and illegal.

    And about Liz Cheney, she understands that Trump is a threat to democracy, which seems quite ideological, IMO.

  22. 22.

    eversor

    @bbleh:

    Get a better box?  There’s a place right by me that has really good dried pasta but then again they only stock Italian food and it’s immigrant run so it’s not like a chain store.

  23. 23.

    Bill Arnold

    @Villago Delenda Est:
    It’s a media criticism, FFS:
    Trump Wants His Enemies to Fear for Their Lives (SEPT. 26, 2023, Eric Levitz)
    Salient part is the last 4 paragraphs. Here’s the last one:

    The most salient truth about the 2024 election is that the Republican Party is poised to nominate an authoritarian thug who publishes rationalizations for political violence and promises to abuse presidential authority on a near-daily basis. There is no way for a paper or news channel to appropriately emphasize this reality without sounding like a shrill, dull, Democratic propaganda outlet. So, like the nation writ large, the press comports itself as an amnesiac, or an abusive household committed to keeping up appearances, losing itself in the old routines, in an effortful approximation of normality until it almost forgets what it doesn’t want to know.

  25. 25.

    Citizen Alan

    @Baud:

    Sounds like a “partisan rag” to whom? The answer will tell you which Americans the media cares about and which Americans they don’t.

    I would go further. It’s not that they’re afraid of sounding like a “partisan rag” to readers. They certainly don’t care when liberals condemn the partisan nature of Faux, the WSJ or other overtly conservative sources are partisan. The issues is that individual reporters and pundits are afraid of appearing partisan towards the left in the eyes of the oligarchs who sign their checks!

  27. 27.

    Butch

    My scuba instructor used to say that “second place is the first loser.”  There’s no point at all to this “debate,” and anyway, the sock drawer is such a mess I’ll be compelled to spend my time elsewhere.

  28. 28.

    Downpuppy

    Jill Colvin of AP did a recap of Trump’s South Carolina visit that showed the way : Quote his craziest all caps ravings in ALL CAPS surrounded by calm factual reporting & pointing out relevant facts.

    Trump was just as displeased with McConnell’s Democratic counterparts. “EVERY DEMOCRAT SHOULD RESIGN FROM THE SENATE!” he said, in the wake of a sweeping bribery indictment against New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez.

    He also claimed, after the recent crash of an F-35B Joint Strike Fighter aircraft in South Carolina, that as president he had told the the U.S. Air Force and Lockheed Martin numerous times that the F-35 Fighter Jet was “in effect, DEFECTIVE, because it only has one engine.”

    He insulted his former U.N. Ambassador and current GOP rival Nikki Haley, a native of South Carolina, calling her “Birdbrain.”

    Trump last visited the state last month, when he spoke at the state GOP’s largest annual fundraiser in Columbia.

  29. 29.

    Mr. Bemused Senior

    @CaseyL: Liz Cheney, for example, supported Trump right up until January 6, and is still (IMO) mostly pissed off about Trumpist methods, not Trumpist ideology.

    I disagree with Liz Cheney on almost everything. I give her credit for her work on the Jan. 6 committee. Based on Adam Schiff’s report she is worthy of respect.

    I hope we can still respect someone with whom we strongly disagree.

  31. 31.

    MattF

    @Downpuppy: Trump recently declared that he is “the most honest human being God ever created”. So, um… I think quoting his opinions is falling into a trap of some sort.

  33. 33.

    Alison Rose

    @Mr. Bemused Senior: I think it’s possible to respect a specific act or decision by someone who you don’t have a general respect for. In Cheney’s case, the fact that she knew this would likely 86 her reelection chances and she did it anyway is where my respect comes from. She put country over party and over self, and that’s an extreme rarity in the GOP.

  34. 34.

    montanareddog

    At the time that George was still married to KellyAnne but had come out as a never Trumper, he was on one of the shows and I said to my wife, they sure make an ugly couple.

    She said that she thought he was quite handsome actually. Jeez, what does that say about me!

    (this was before his re-entry into the dating market and consequent make-over, of course)

  35. 35.

    patrick II

    @Alison Rose: ​
     
    Trump would declare that he was fine and have violent protestors screaming threatening inanities and asking for a recount outside of the diagnosing doctor’s home.

  36. 36.

    Brit in Chicago

    @Alison Rose: Not only that, but if any serious physical thing happens to Trump (death, serious illness, falling down some stairs, or whatever) then a lot of commentators will take that as his showing his age, and will argue that since Biden is even older he can’t be a viable candidate. At this point, that would not be good.

  37. 37.

    jimmiraybob

    Has anybody looked into why tonight’s Republican Party debate is not being held at the Trump Presidential Library?

    Seems rather disrespectful. I think that the media should get right on this.

  39. 39.

    JPL

    @Alison Rose: The ideal time to die would have been when he was hospitalized for covid.  Then his groupies might have taken the disease serously.   It didn’t happen and he is still with us spreading his lies.

  43. 43.

    Hungry Joe

    My new (possibly harebrained) theory on why so many Trump supporters are unable to see him for what he is:

    They DO, in fact see him for what he is; they see all his flaws, weaknesses, shortcomings. But they worship him as the ancient Greeks and Romans did their fallible, misbehaving gods. Trump does and says horrible things? Of course — he’s a god! He can’t/shouldn’t be expected to act like a mortal. The fact that he gets away with such execrable behavior, even rising to the pinnacle of power, is proof of his divine status.

    Okay —MAGA-loons don’t actually think he’s a god. (Most of them don’t, anyway.) But I think there might be something to the he’s-above-us-and-therefore-unaccountable theory.

  46. 46.

    Renie

    The Judge’s ruling states that have to dissolve 40 Wall St and Silver Springs holdings.  Is trump Tower not included because it’s not consider commercial property?

  50. 50.

    wjca

    @Tony G: If Trump dropped dead tomorrow, he would still be supported as the presidential candidate by the majority of Republican voters.

    The question is this.  Suppose he dies (or just permanently loses consciousness) before the convention.  Probably they nominate him anyway.  But how do they decide who to anoint as their god-king’s successor (i.e. VP)?  That convention could drag on for months!

  52. 52.

    Roger Moore

    @hueyplong:

    No matter how/why Trump fails to win, his followers will see a reason for outrage.

    This.  I think we need to accept that they don’t actually care about elections per se.  They care about elections as a way of achieving power, and they will refuse to accept any outcome that doesn’t result in them being in power.  Whatever fancy excuses they come up with for disregarding the elections are just post hoc rationalization for their underlying belief they deserve to be in charge.  People like that will never be convinced, so we shouldn’t waste our time trying.

  53. 53.

    Mr. Bemused Senior

    @Alison Rose:
    In Cheney’s case, the fact that she knew this would likely 86 her reelection chances and she did it anyway is where my respect comes from. She put country over party and over self, and that’s an extreme rarity in the GOP.

    I agree 💯

  54. 54.

    wjca

    @Renie:  Is trump Tower not included because it’s not consider commercial property

    If it is an asset of any of the Trump organizations names, it gets liquidated.  Whether that necessitates renaming it is up to whoever buys it.

  55. 55.

    Jackie

    @jimmiraybob:

    Has anybody looked into why tonight’s Republican Party debate is not being held at the Trump Presidential Library?

    The bathroom at MAL is a little too small?

  57. 57.

    Ruviana

    Since it’s an open thread I had to blow off some steam from seeing NBC News’s headline about how the Menendez indictments cast clouds and shadows on the Democrats.  They want so much to have Democrats in disarray!

  58. 58.

    Roger Moore

    @MattF:

    And about Liz Cheney, she understands that Trump is a threat to democracy, which seems quite ideological, IMO.

    She understands that Trump is a overt threat to democracy.  She seems just fine with voter suppression, gerrymandering, letting the ultra-rich own candidates, and all the other ways the Republicans have undermined democracy that fall short of an outright coup.

  60. 60.

    Betty Cracker

    @Paul in KY: I agree. Ever since Trump announced, I figured Biden would probably beat him. At first I was worried DeSantis could win if he’s the nominee because the media would obsess about the age thing nonstop. But now I think it’s possible he’s made himself unelectable nationally trying to outflank Trump to the right, along with the fact that he has the charisma of a wizened chihuahua turd. If someone like Christie or Haley were the nominee, I’d worry. They’re both awful but can come across as not-crazy.

  62. 62.

    Jeffro

    The breathless coverage of the presidential debate fits this description to a T. We are all pretending that this is something like what we’ve seen in the past, a normal event held by a normal party, when it’s actually a pageant masking the true nature of the Trump-enthralled GOP: a political vehicle of a strongman whose second term would represent an existential threat to American democracy.

    Spot-on.  Unfortunately.

    Right on cue this morning, RWNJ Dad texted me and RWNJ Bro: “Rs debate tonight at 9.  I’ll predict a max of 3 drop out after the debate.  It will most likely be the bottom 3 in polls.  Right now that is Johnson, Hutchinson, and Elder.”

    (never mind that I’ve refused to talk a minute of politics with them since J6)

    After all this time, it still floors me: their party leader is about to lose his entire fraudulent business “empire”, he was found liable for defamation to the tune of millions (and essentially found to be a rapist) just a few months ago, and oh yeah, yesterday he called for the execution of General Tilley and said he’d shut down NBC.

    But hey – maybe after tonight’s debate, Larry Elder will drop out!

    I am trying to fight through a lil’ bit of depression and work up an op-ed that captures this dynamic, but it might have to wait until tomorrow.

    And no, I didn’t text back.

  66. 66.

    rikyrah

    Nothing but truth

     

     Mr. Weeks  (@WonderKing82) posted at 8:30 PM on Tue, Sep 26, 2023:
    This man John Fetterman dressing attire doesn’t bother me, its the fact Y’ALL can’t recognize the white privilege within the sudden change and acceptance of the decorum for this white man.  If you can’t acknowledge that then you’re really not paying attention to race relations.
    (https://x.com/WonderKing82/status/1706843679086833749?t=IpvKCN0L7_uLjkyU3J3qVQ&s=03)

  67. 67.

    JoyceH

    @Renie: Trump Tower is mostly condominiums that are owned by other people. Trump owns his penthouse and I believe the Trump Org owns the commercial real estate on the ground floor and has a management contract for the building.

    I’m curious about all the properties that are physically located outside New York. The judge’s order canceled the licenses of a whole host of LLCs – if the other properties belonged to those LLCs that were incorporated in NY, are they also covered by this dissolution order?

    I do know that last year, Trump tried to start up a parallel organization in Delaware (or New Jersey? something like that), and Tish James leaped in and put a stop to that. He was obviously trying to slide his assets into another jurisdiction and save them from the lawsuit.

    What organization owns Mar-a-Lago, and is it incorporated in New York? Enquiring minds want to know!

  68. 68.

    JoyceH

    @rikyrah: I’m reading Hutchinson’s book, and it’s pretty fascinating. Her father was a real piece of work. Reading about him, you can see how she might have gotten sucked in.

  69. 69.

    Jackie

    My senator, Patty Murray has joined the chorus saying Menendez must retire. Still waiting for my other senator, Maria Cantwell to speak out.

  70. 70.

    Gretchen

    @JoyceH: that was the detail that got me to buy the book. She was on O’Donnell and he read the part where she asked her dad for help and he told her to ignore the subpoena and be loyal to Trump. He said he raised her, and she said no you didn’t. That made me curious enough to buy it. I was thinking O’Donnell’s daughter must be about the same age as Hutchinson.

  71. 71.

    Dangerman

    @Tony G: If Trump dropped dead tomorrow …

    … I’m buying dinner for everyone. Including the dogs. The cats can watch in envy.

    Hold on. Financial planner dialing in. Something about chest pain.

    But if Trump kicked tomorrow, I have one name for you. Ivanka.

  72. 72.

    JoyceH

    @Gretchen: If your little girl cut her leg badly and your wife wanted to take her to the emergency room, would you say that warriors didn’t need ERs? Yeah, Dad was a thing. He was also an AVID watcher of the Apprentice, sure he was getting the secrets of successful tycoons. Prime fodder.

  73. 73.

    Roger Moore

    @JoyceH:

    I think the ruling would apply to all subsidiaries of the Trump Organization, wherever they are located and organized.  It would be weird if the main Trump organization were dissolved for fraud, but Trump were allowed to continue running some of his businesses that were part of the Trump Organization because they had been incorporated in a different state.

  74. 74.

    JoyceH

    @Dangerman: If Trump died tomorrow, his cult wouldn’t believe it. CNN had an hour long thing this weekend about the weird subset of QANON who believes all this JFK business. Bizarre! People have left their families and spent whatever they had following this nonsense. JFK and JFKjr are both still alive and in hiding. JFK is Trump’s uncle (his father is PATTON!), and jr is his cousin. And it’s all based on this strange numeric calculation. Donie O’Sullivan (who is CNN’s resident crackpot whisperer – they’ll tell him anything, must be the disarming Irish accent) would listen to them while they rattled off all this numbers stuff and then nod their heads wisely, like ‘case closed’.

  76. 76.

    Jackie

    Former(?) Republican Tim  Miller lays it on the line better than a lot of the media:

    1. Where Is the Trump Panic? 

    For weeks now everyone except Nate Silver has been inundated with columns from (and news stories featuring) Democrats who are concerned about how Joe Biden will hold up in a general election, given his age.

    James Carville and Bill Kristol are alarmed. David Ignatius wants Biden to step aside. Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) is thinking about challenging him himself if nobody else will step up. The Washington Post editorial page is basically a Socratic seminar on this topic. Former Crooked Media editor Brian Beutler launched a new media venture with a NYT column yesterday pegged to the problems with being silent in the face of the risks of Biden’s old age. Others have raised the idiotic quadrennial idea that maybe the incumbent’s flaws would be papered over if he’d just replace his vice president.

    And yes even The Bulwark Podcast has been known to raise this concern . . . we hear that you might have noticed.

    While I don’t agree with every statement in every panicked plea about the Biden re-elect, I’m sympathetic to the motives of those issuing these warnings. Here’s why.

    The recent run on Biden age stories is predicated on two fundamental realities:

    (1) Panicking members of the pro-democracy coalition are freaked the fuck out about the end of the American experiment if the other guy wins. (2) This very moment is the last possible chance to switch horses before it will become absolutely necessary to circle the wagons around Ye Olde Secretariat no matter how frail he seems.

    Some Biden supporters are frustrated with this increasingly public agita and they often state that this frustration is premised on the fact that the media doesn’t mention Trump’s advanced age with the same urgency or concern as Biden’s. I don’t know if that stated critique gets at the heart of the frustration, though. Yes, Trump is also old, and sure, it would be nice for The Media to mention that from time to time. But the real exasperation simmering underneath goes something like this:

    SURE BIDEN IS OLD BUT THE OTHER CANDIDATE IS A FELONIOUS MANIAC WHO ATTEMPTED A COUP AND HAS SAID HE WANTS TO END THE CONSTITUTION AND ASSASSINATE HIS POLITICAL ENEMIES. WHY AREN’T MORE PEOPLE—REPUBLICANS, THE MEDIA, MY FATHER, ANYONE!!!!—PANICKING ABOUT THAT INSTEAD?!

    That is the issue flummoxing me of late.

    The timeline for Trump is the same as it is for Biden. Now would be the time for a full-court press to prevent him from being nominated and yet . . . only Jack Smith seems to be making progress in that regard.

    Look at this screengrab from yesterday’s Drudge Report which offers a little taste of the American Carnage that Trump has planned.

    (must read link to see screen grab)

    Those headlines read like they are from a dystopian, authoritarian fantasy world, not the American democratic republic we grew up in. Shutting down media outlets. Killing disfavored generals.

    Any human of any ideological stripe who is capable of looking at that news rundown with the slightest discernment must concur that Trump needs to be stopped. Which is why it’s the absence of Trump panic in GOP discourse that is the outlier, not the reasonable ongoing discussion about the best course for President Biden coming from the left.

    Despite Trump’s disastrous track record and his scary stated plans, it is inarguable that the institutions/politicians/commentators in America’s center-right are more sanguine about a Trump nomination now than they were at this same time in 2016. There’s no Against Trump magazine cover coming. No “Based” Senators plotting convention coups. No new Stop Trump PACs on the horizon. There’s no Shep Smith or Chris Wallace on Fox trying to inject some truth into the madness.

    snip

    The only movement against Trump that I can detect on the right is Chris Christie and a tiny number of lower-level former White House staffers who have seen the light. Even Trump’s leading primary opponents barely attack him!

    This leaves the same old Never Trumpers, not exactly credible messengers with the MAGA base, out here screaming our heads off while everyone else just acts like this is business as usual.

    https://thetriad.thebulwark.com/p/where-is-the-trump-panic

    Much, much more at the link. It’s a good rant imo.

  78. 78.

    Dangerman

    @JoyceH: If Trump died tomorrow, his cult wouldn’t believe it.

    Yeah, truth. If he passed and was cremated, these looney fuckers would be running down rabbit holes for the rest of their days.

  79. 79.

    Stuart Frasier

    Whenever people have very rapid weight loss these days, I assume they are on Ozempic or similar.  I know a number of people on it.

  80. 80.

    terraformer

    Repubs Tom Cotton and Marco Rubio said Menendez should hang in there until a jury or voters decide his fate. That serves their purposes…

    I’ve seen that mentioned elsewhere – but how? How does it serve their purposes?

    I mean, one would usually expect Republicans to be dancing in the streets if a Democratic MoC was indicted. But they’re not. Why is that? I’m sure it’s something obvious that I’m missing

  83. 83.

    MattF

    @Baud: Because they have access to Obama’s time machinf

    Auto-correct is insisting that Time Machine is capitalized. Apple knows best! The alternative that works is to misspell it.

  85. 85.

    smith

    @terraformer: Maybe they think there’s more mileage to be made for the trial to feature a sitting Dem member than a former Dem member? There’s also the inconvenient fact that George Santos is also under indictment, and as far as I know there has not been a flood of R’s calling for his resignation. Of course, I haven’t seen the MSM particularly willing to point this out — where is their bothsides now?

  86. 86.

    Steeplejack

    I’m glad Kirsten Gillibrand finally stepped up and called for Menendez to resign, because she sure seemed to have Tar & Feathers To Go! on speed dial when Al Franken ran into trouble.

  88. 88.

    Roger Moore

    @Dangerman:

    If he passed and was cremated, these looney fuckers would be running down rabbit holes for the rest of their days.

    FWIW, dealing with this kind of thing is the origin of having important figures lie in state before their funeral.  It gave people who knew them a chance to see the corpse in person so they could know for sure the person was genuinely dead.

  91. 91.

    Baud

    If Trump does die, I hope Biden will honor him by classifying some documents so that they can be buried with Trump.

  92. 92.

    Mr. Bemused Senior

    @catclub: many people don’t understand about redundancy and high availability. I’m lucky, the systems I work on are not life critical.

  93. 93.

    BellyCat

    Too often, he [Eric Levitz] writes, they make the latter choice — acting like “an amnesiac, or an abusive household committed to keeping up appearances, losing itself in the old routines, in an effortful approximation of normality until it almost forgets what it doesn’t want to know.”

    This!

    The MSM has become the abusers’ (Trump AND the GOP) extended family, vested in maintaining appearances for reasons of access, reputation, and increased profits.

    The so-called fourth estate, as it exists now and without some form of course correction, may very well result in democracy’s undoing. Of course, the press is only serving up what ‘the people’ want to click to, so there’s that.

  94. 94.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @Roger Moore:

    She seems just fine with voter suppression, gerrymandering, letting the ultra-rich own candidates, and all the other ways the Republicans have undermined democracy that fall short of an outright coup.

    Also her bullshit that Democrats support abortions after birth and that the insurrectionists are all poor misled patriots. Her position on the 1/6 committee contributed to the fire hose being turned on Trump Trump Trump, ignoring all the other players and conspiracies.

    So no, no respect from me for Liz Cheney whose only problem with the Republican Party and its shitty “policies” is Trump. That she lost her position for “doing the right thing” is a good thing.  May she stay far away from governance forevermore. We do not need to give Liz Cheney any patina of respectability.

  95. 95.

    mrmoshpotato

    While waiting for our baseball game yesterday evening, we watched a segment on CNN about Trump and the adult sons being found liable for fraud and losing their business certification in New York.

    Oh, I didn’t know Dump’s slimy, 80’s-used-car-salesmen, large adult failsons were in on this too!

    Hooray!  Fuck ’em!

  96. 96.

    RaflW

    “The mainstream press [is] in a difficult position.”

    Bullshit. I don’t think one can argue they were in a difficult position before Sept 24. But just three days ago he very plainly and explicitly said he would, if re-installed in D.C., have the media “thoroughly scrutinized” for “Country Threatening Treason”. One assumes he means country-threatening, but its clear that in a second Trump reign of (t)error, he’d have no one on staff who would say no to his demands that reporters — the very people paving the way to his ascension to Corruptor in Chief —  be tossed in the slammer on a variety of ridiculous charges.

    And don’t expect the Roberts court, so callow and frightened even of the ethics of global private jetsetting, to do a g.d. thing.

  97. 97.

    Seanly

    77-year-old Trump took a tumble down the campaign airplane steps and ended up in a geriatric ward?

    You think too small…

  99. 99.

    Ked

    So I’m going to take a deep breath, and say to go easy on MSM coverage of the debate.

    Yes, it is a sideshow. Yes, they’re enabling Trump to skip these by feeding him coverage. But:

    The debates ARE relevant. The odds that Trump doesn’t successfully make it to the national election are very high. I’m not going to throw out a solid number here, but starts with the actuarial tables and ends somewhere around fleeing to Russia/Saud. And if he drops/dies/runs away/is forced out/gets 14th’d/winds up in prison, then what happens. If it happens before/during the primaries, all of these candidates are relevant. If it happens after the primaries… well, that’s a mess but whoever got second place would have the inside track. And none of those Trump voters is going to vote Biden so then it’s down to get-out-the-vote.

    But sure – I’ll agree that they are even more of a clown show than in 2015, and coverage should start with the fact that the leading candidate is hiding. Anyone not leading with that fact is doing journalistic malpractice.

  101. 101.

    Roger Moore

    @catclub:

    Most fighter planes have very powerful engines, so the twin engine types can stay in the air with the thrust from a single engine.  They won’t necessarily be able to carry out useful military tasks on a single engine, but they’ll be able to limp home provided they have enough fuel.  [ETA: That said,] Both the Navy and Air Force have long histories of using single engine fighters, though recent generations of naval fighters have tended to use twin engines.

  102. 102.

    Betty

    Have you all seen Senator Tuberville’s reason for voting against the Joint Chiefs nominee?  “He talked about race and things he wanted to mix into the military… Our military is not an equal opportunity employer.”  Just an ignorant, disgusting man.

  103. 103.

    Alison Rose

    LOL John Waters is such a hilarious little skanky boy:

    Filmmaker John Waters spent decades creating what he playfully calls “filth” for the big screen: irreverent, campy movies set in his hometown, Baltimore. After decades of being proudly outside the mainstream, the subversive auteur is now enjoying some very mainstream Hollywood attention. To coincide with the opening of major retrospective of his career at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, this week he was also immortalized in Los Angeles cement.

    “Here I am, closer to the gutter than ever,” he joked at the red-carpet ceremony for his sidewalk star this week. “The Hollywood Walk of Fame: You’re the best and I hope the most desperate showbiz rejects walk over me here and feel some sort of respect and strength,” he said.

  104. 104.

    RaflW

    @CaseyL: Here’s my two cents worth of advice to Nichols, Conway, and the various other conservatives tryna figure out ‘what being a conservative means’ these days: Fund, train and field conservative candidates for state races & the House and Senate to primary these freaking goons from your own left flank! (And keep voting for Biden and Kamala for the WH, because that’s the only near-term answer.)

    The party has been pulled right into looney land because no one, not the Lincoln Project grifters nor anyone else, has tried one iota of party-building from the reasonable, sensible-conservative side of things for a generation.

    Yes I’m pissed. Guys like Nichols may have wrung their hands while the party veered, and far shittier people like Conway and esp. Wilson, Schmidt, Weaver and the like earned flipping bank consulting for the wingers who “turned on them” later.

    Do the g.d. hard slog to wrest control. All the Lincoln Project does is scrounge donations from Liberals to run ads that get liberal ‘likes’ and does f*(k all to impact actual Republican politics.

  105. 105.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Dangerman:

    But if Trump kicked tomorrow, I have one name for you. Ivanka.

    What about her?  She’s a woman and she doesn’t have her daddy’s talent for crass racism.  She’s a Jew’s wife*.  She has no future in Republican politics.  Is she relevant in some other way?

    *She’s a woman, so to them, it’s her husband’s religion that matters.

  106. 106.

    RaflW

    @Betty: I forgot earlier today that Colin Powell passed in ’21, because I wished for him to do a split-screen on CNN with that dirt-covered turnip of a Senator, till I was reminded that it would have to be a seance.

  109. 109.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @RaflW:

    I figured, but again, to the Nazis infesting the Republican base, Ivanka’s being a woman means her religion is irrelevant if her husband is a Jew.  She could be more orthodox than him, they wouldn’t care or notice.  She’s a puppet, a doll, an object in their eyes, both because she’s a woman and they’re obsessed with Jews as manipulators.

  110. 110.

    jonas

    @terraformer: Oh, it’s a completely cynical ploy to maybe get Menendez to float switching parties or to quit caucusing with the Dems if things get too hot. “Hey, buddy, we realize these misunderstandings happen — seems like a lot of people you thought were your friends on side D really weren’t, though, were they? Let’s have lunch…”

  111. 111.

    lowtechcyclist

    @JoyceH:

    I can’t get around the notion that people think JFK is still alive.  He was born in May 1917, he’d be 106 if he were alive, and the odds against living to that age are considerable.*  You’d think that fact would give even the most addled conspiracy theorist a twinge of doubt.

    *Especially for a man. Lists of supercentenarians are almost entirely women.

  112. 112.

    hueyplong

    Reading this thread really highlights even more indirect good that can come from Trump exiting this mortal coil a wee bit ahead of schedule.  Having his legions spend the rest of their days on social media working an updated version of the attacks on the Warren Commission sounds a lot better than whatever-the-hell-else they might be doing.  With Trump totally isolated from non-Trumpers nowadays the list of murder suspects would undoubtedly include some of their own, along with Trump-assigned Secret Service people we don’t entirely trust ourselves.

    I say we blame the vaccine, thereby giving a friendly nudge to his followers in an actuarial sense.

  113. 113.

    hueyplong

    @lowtechcyclist: And, you could add, a man who had Addison’s Disease more than 60 years ago.

    But we’re looking at tiny margins when we say it’s more unbelievable that a lot of other stuff they believe.

  114. 114.

    rikyrah

    @terraformer:

    Repubs Tom Cotton and Marco Rubio said Menendez should hang in there until a jury or voters decide his fate. That serves their purposes…

     

    They really mean jury. They are hoping that the trial takes place AFTER the 2024 Democratic Primary, which, if Menendez wins, means that the 2024 NJ Senate election is thrown into chaos.

     

    He needs to be defeated in the 2024 Democratic Primary. The Democratic Party must consolidate around a candidate and get his AZZ out. He MUST NOT be the Democratic Candidate on that November 2024 ballot.

  116. 116.

    Dangerman

    @Frankensteinbeck: What about her?

    Gotta be one of the Trump’s. Melania except for the Birth Certificate problem (good luck fixing that problem). Barron, same. Jr and Fiancé act like they are coked to within about an inch of their lives. That leaves Ivanka and Eric (Tiffany seems to be perfectly happy being mostly anonymous and rich).

    Ivanka was on Daddy’s show. Eric screams idiot.

    Ivanka by default.

  118. 118.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Dangerman:

    Gotta be one of the Trump’s

    For what?  To succeed him?  No it doesn’t.  None of them have Donald’s ego or ability to validate his followers, so they’re nobodies.  Ivanka is the least likely of them to ever get anywhere in the Republican Party.  I guess one of her brothers might be able to step up and have the same vile ‘your racist uncle’ energy that makes Trump possible, but I don’t think they have the drive to narcissism.  They’re codependents.

    Trump doesn’t have a dynasty, as much as his sons probably think so.  I think Ivanka has decided she wants out and of course Trump doesn’t give a shit about the world if he’s not in it.

  119. 119.

    hueyplong

    Oh, man, I assumed the reference to Ivanka was on the topic of people the fanatics would assume killed him.  Agree with Frankensteinbeck that Trump has no political heir in the family.

  123. 123.

    Ken B

    @catclub: When Lindbergh was planning his flight across the Atlantic, he couldn’t find a plane that could lose an engine and finish the flight. So elected to use a single engine plane.

    Several attempts had been made before his flight; all of them failed, most of them disappeared. Most, if not all, were in multi-engined aircraft.

  126. 126.

    eversor

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    Well per the Bible and even Christ men have absolute power and the women obey.  That’s one of the core parts of Christianity.  You can’t be Christian and not accept that.  It’s the rock of it.  So Ivanka converting and doing as told is the most Christian thing out there.

    Ivanka doing as told is more Christian than any amount of charity or good deeds could ever be.  A woman not doing as told is not Christian at all.

  130. 130.

    wjca

    @cain: They don’t have a heir, so it will probably be some other joker in entertainment.

    I’d not be surprised if Musk thinks that he’s got a great shot.  He doesn’t have the charisma required.  (Well, unless your standard is DeSantis.)  But his grip on reality increasingly resembles TIFG.

  134. 134.

    Jay

    @wjca:

    while Apartheid Clyde probably could inherit the foaming horde of MAGAt’s, (his X is doing a great job at reeling them all in),

    he can’t be President other than in the delusions of the scumbag Xshitter mob.

    Not “native born”.

  135. 135.

    Gin & Tonic

    OK, since I am apparently *not* aware of all Internet traditions, what’s up with the sudden spurt of Tweets/memes about the Roman Empire, and mens’ alleged interest in it?

  137. 137.

    Alison Rose

    @Jay: I won’t be shocked if some of his fanboys try to do a reverse-birther thing where they cook up a scheme to show he was actually born in the US while his parents were here on vacation or something.

  139. 139.

    Alison Rose

    @Gin & Tonic: As with most bewildering trends, it got amplified on TikTok, but I think it actually first started on Instagram. Some random lady with many followers on Instagram told them to ask their male partners how often they think about the Roman Empire. Why? I don’t know. Maybe her own partner is obsessed with it??? And then TikTok people found it and thus is grew by a factor of 16 zillion.

  141. 141.

    Jay

    @Gin & Tonic:

    @geg6:

    Moronic BBC poll/clickbait article from about a week ago.

    According to the poll results, women’s key interest is “something, something relationships”,

    Guy’s key interest is “The Roman Empire”.

  145. 145.

    bbleh

    Wouldn’t it be ironic (not to mention hilarious) if, after all the media hysteria about Biden’s 80 years, the 77-year-old Trump took a tumble down the campaign airplane steps and ended up in a geriatric ward?

    I’m thinking the peaceful kind, with trees and stone monuments.  But I am a Bad Person.

  147. 147.

    Scout211

    I don’t know if this has been posted yet or not, so apologies if it has been posted and discussed earlier.

    Michigan State Fires Coach Mel Tucker Over Sexual Harassment Allegations

    Michigan State fired Mel Tucker on Wednesday, saying the suspended football coach failed to present adequate reasons why he should not be fired for cause after having what he described as phone sex with an activist and rape survivor who accused him of sexual harassment.

    The school said it terminated what’s left of Tucker’s $95 million, 10-year contract for acknowledging actions that subjected the institution to ridicule, breaching his contract and moral turpitude.

    So the university can now show that they do better in punishing sexual harassers but also save themselves about $80 million.  I’m not sure which is the top priority for them, but this is good.

  148. 148.

    Betty Cracker

    Oop, sounds like Gold Bar Bob is a goner — he’s losing Chuck: (TPM)

    But Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has signaled from the start that he wouldn’t necessarily push for the now-twice indicted senator’s resignation.

    Last week, Schumer announced that Menendez had “rightly decided” to step away from his committee chairmanship. On Tuesday, Schumer said he was “deeply disappointed” by the indictment. He called the allegations “truly upsetting” but did not join his colleagues in encouraging Menendez to leave Congress.

    “For Senators, there’s a much, much higher standard. And clearly, when you read the indictment, Senator Menendez fell way, way below that standard,” Schumer told reporters during his weekly press conference. “Tomorrow, he will address the Democratic caucus, and we’ll see what happens after that.”

    When pressed on if Menendez should resign, Schumer repeated the same line.

    I’d love to be a fly on the wall at that caucus meeting! What the hell can he possibly say?

  149. 149.

    Geminid

    @rikyrah: New Jersey will hold its primaries (including for the Senate) on June 4 of next year. I expect all the candidates to announce by December 1st at the latest, and probably sooner because none will want to let Rep. Andy Kim get out too far ahead. Among others, Rep. Mikey Sherill will probably run. She and Kim both entered the House in 2019, after flipping Red seats in the 2018 Blue wave.

    It’s still over 8 months until the primary, but I asked my Occam’s 8-Ball about who would win anyway. The answer was, “Mikie Sherill.”

    I don’t think Senator Menendez will still be in the race, but just to be sure I asked, “What if Menendez is running?” and the answer was, “Mikie Sherill.”

  155. 155.

    Betty Cracker

    @Geminid: Why are you so bullish on Sherrill over Kim? Either would be fine by me, and my opinion is irrelevant anyway — just curious about why you think she’s the better bet.

  157. 157.

    bbleh

    @Jay: Romans wore underwear…

    Really?  All of them?  How do we know?

    “Dear Penthouse Roman Forum, you wouldn’t believe what happened to me…”

  159. 159.

    glc

    @Jay: Fever Pitch (opening, more or less)

    “What are you thinking about?’ she asks.
    At this point I lie. I wasn’t thinking about Martin Amis or Gérard Depardieu or the Labour Party at all. But then, obsessives have no choice; they have to lie on occasions like this. If we told the truth every time, then we would be unable to maintain relationships with anyone from the real world. We would be left to rot with our Arsenal programmes …

  160. 160.

    rikyrah

    @Betty:

    Have you all seen Senator Tuberville’s reason for voting against the Joint Chiefs nominee?  “He talked about race and things he wanted to mix into the military… Our military is not an equal opportunity employer.”  Just an ignorant, disgusting man.

     

    UH HUH

    UH HUH

  163. 163.

    Suzanne

    I am super-shallow, I know…. but I don’t understand why rich people don’t groom themselves well. It looks like he has never seen moisturizer ever.

    Like, get some Neutrogena at Target.

  166. 166.

    Betty Cracker

    Woof — the number of Dem senators calling for Menendez’s resignation is now 30+, according to CNN, including Dick Durbin. You know who showed real leadership on this? John Fetterman.

  168. 168.

    Geminid

    @Betty Cracker: I’ve read Sherill’s Wikipedia biography. It’s very impressive. I think Sherill’s resume will make her a stronger candidate than Kim, and Democrats will see her as the better choice.

    I know people here are attached to Representative Kim on account of his actions the day after the Insurrection, when he pitched in on the cleanup of the Capitol. That was a heartwsrming story to be sure. But I wanted to get Sherill’s name out there because I think she will announce, and I don’t want people wondering who this upstart is trying to primary Andy Kim.

    I think a lot of Representative Kim and he would make a good Senator. He is only one member of the very talented House Class of 2018 though, and Sherill is another.

    If Mikie Sherill runs, that will be four Class of ’18 members running for Senate: her, Andy Kim, Elissa Slotkin, and Katie Porter.

  169. 169.

    tobie

    @Betty Cracker: @bbleh: Does Kirsten Sinema attend Dem Senate caucus meetings? She is a clown, but she’s also venal and would have an off-the-record interview (or maybe on the record) with a reporter from Politico afterwards to talk about the Dem Senators eating jello, talking about where to get the best care, and dozing off.

    She did this once before.

    Well, that’s my nightmare. May Ms. Dress Up be blocked from attending.

  170. 170.

    Roger Moore

    @hueyplong:

    Agree with Frankensteinbeck that Trump has no political heir in the family.

    Of course he has no political heir.  For someone like Trump, who won’t let any silly rules about term limits stand in the way of staying in office, the heir is just a designated competitor for power.  He’d much rather use the promise of being named heir to keep his subordinates fighting with each other and sucking up to him.

    IMO, this is one of the strongest arguments in favor of presidential term limits.  It keeps the president from acting like he’s going to stay in power forever, and it keeps subordinates from thinking the only way to advance is over the careers of someone ahead of them.

  171. 171.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: The only political podcast I listen to is Josh Marshall’s, and his co-host, Kate Riga, has been covering Capitol Hill for a few years and does a terrific job, IMO. Last week, she said Fetterman seems like a new man these days. He’s sharp and witty and seems super committed. I was so glad to hear it.

  177. 177.

    wjca

    @NotMax: Last I checked, South Africa is not a part of the U.S.

    @Jay

    And your reason for assuming that these folks think the rules apply to them would be what, exactly?

    If the 14th Amendment doesn’t apply, why should Article 2, Section 1?

  179. 179.

    tobie

    @Baud: Thanks. Hope Sinema stays mum. I don’t believe she’s called on Menendez to resign but haven’t check her Xitter account, since I avoid the app.

  180. 180.

    NotMax

    @wjca

    “Neither the word “south” nor “Africa” appear in the original text, so obviously the Founders were okay with it.”
    //

  182. 182.

    wjca

    @NotMax:

    Also, there’s no reason not to separate “natural born” from “American”.  So unless you can prove that Elon is a clone and/or came out of a vat, he should be good to go.

  183. 183.

    Misterpuff

    @Baud:

    That’s why, when I’m president, all military planes will be required to have three engines.

     

    …Having secured GE and RollsRoyce stock in advance of election.

  185. 185.

    skerry

    Ben Cardin (D-MD) is replacing Menendez as chair of the Foreign Relations Committee.

    Cardin is not running for Senate next year.

  186. 186.

    Misterpuff

    @Seanly:

    77-year-old Trump took a tumble down the campaign airplane steps and ended up in a geriatric ward?

    You think too small…

    Trump announces new addition to Trump Force One: Gold Escalators for boarding and exiting.

  187. 187.

    rikyrah

    @Gin & Tonic:

    OK, since I am apparently *not* aware of all Internet traditions, what’s up with the sudden spurt of Tweets/memes about the Roman Empire, and mens’ alleged interest in it?

     

    I had no idea men actually thought of the Roman Empire at all. I mean..why? I see the videos on TikTok, but, they don’t make sense to me.

  188. 188.

    Geminid

    @Betty Cracker: I probably do!

    Sherill’s military service might be held against her by “Progressive” rags like the New Republic and Jerkobin. This has been a sore point for some liberals, and I saw some grousing about military backgounds after so many Democratic veterans won in the 2018 midterms. They included Mikie Sherill, Chrissy Houlihan, Jason Crow, Jared Golden and Elaine Luria. Plus Elissa Slotkin and Abigail Spanberger were former CIA employees.

    This may have reflected the fact that they won primaries in purple districts to run against Republican incumbents, and local Democrats might have considered their previous service a strength electorally. So their profiles are more moderate than some people like.

    But I don’t think the good liberals at the New Republic and Slate and the jerks at  Jerkobin will have much influence here. Your average New Jersey voter is more likely to say of Sherill, “A Navy helicopter pilot and Russia Policy specialist? Cool!”

  189. 189.

    CarolPW

    @Geminid: ​
     We don’t often get a chance to see what really moves people, and Kim cleaning up the capitol was an extraordinary example of someone who revered the institution and solemnly served it on a terrible night. I have no idea if Sherill has a similarly black/white example of actions demonstrating the heart of her political thought, but one does not find that in a resume. His story was significantly deeper than “heartwarming” and gave a lot of us hope that the country was not completely in the crapper.

  190. 190.

    Barbara

    @skerry: ​Given allegations against Menendez I don’t see how he could credibly continue serving let alone chairing that committee.

  191. 191.

    BlueGuitarist

    from political wire

    The UAW’s lead negotiator in contract talks issued a scathing assessment of Donald Trump hours before Trump was due to speak in Detroit, the Detroit Free Press reports.

    Said Mike Booth: “Let me be blunt. Donald Trump is coming off as a pompous ass. Coming to Michigan to speak at a nonunion employer and pretending it has anything to do with our fight at the Big Three is just more verbal diarrhea from the former president.”


    https://politicalwire.com/2023/09/27/autoworkers-official-calls-trump-a-pompous-ass/

  192. 192.

    Dan B

    @rikyrah: What a great photo of young black people in absolute awe of Kamala.  It’s like gay men with Mayor Pete.  There’s a leader who’s experienced what you have.  Personally I get as excited about either of them.  They’ve both had to figure out who they were and persevere despite the hurdles placed in their way.

  197. 197.

    jimmiraybob

    Speaking of the “The Roman Empire” and Trump’s potential familial successor, there are a couple of options for any Emperor of God (exiled or not).

    1. We know next to nothing of Barron. If he turns out to be as devoid of ethics and morality as the Emperor in exile, has the toxic narcissist character of the Emperor in exile, and the unrelenting drive for fame, wealth and power as the Emperor in exile, then he would be an excellent choice to be put forth as the true blood ruler the Empire.  Of course, the older siblings would have to be disappeared and that would be the perfect chance for the Saudi Kingdom to cement the alliance.  It would also require a large army to reclaim the lost territory.
    2. If that doesn’t pan out, Trump could adopt a son that he feels would protect and defend the Trump name and Empire.  There may not be a direct blood tie but who’d dare object.  Also too, disappearance of rival siblings and raising of army.

    Dang!  I think that I’ve just pitched a new Netflix series.

    The death struggle of republics can be very entertaining.

  198. 198.

    scav

    What cool guy on the Intermeme is not going to be all over what the latest hot male thing the Intermene is interminably meming about?  Stands to reason.

  199. 199.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Jay:

    Roman’s wore underwear

    And bikinis!  With a modern rather than 50sish cut of fabric!  But nobody knows under what circumstances.  There are pictures of women doing sports in bikinis, but a lack of official records.

    Wait, or was that the Greeks?  I think Romans.  The Greeks were already into nudity.

  200. 200.

    Geminid

    @CarolPW: Yes, I think some of the people who know about Kim’s actions the day after the Insurrection will vote for him because of that. Kim would do well to include this event in his campaign advertising and he probably will. Some people vote on matters of inspiration.

    But unless she is a crappy campaigner, I still think Sherill will win if she runs.

  203. 203.

    Scout211

    @Gin & Tonic:OK, since I am apparently *not* aware of all Internet traditions, what’s up with the sudden spurt of Tweets/memes about the Roman Empire, and mens’ alleged interest in it?

    Yeah, I was not aware, either.  I had to look it up, of course.  Here’s a nice explainer from Wired. 

    From September 15th (I guess it has been going on for the past couple of weeks).

    IF THE QUESTION hasn’t hit your For You page or Twitter feed (or group chat) yet, it will: How often do you think about the Roman Empire? The provenance of the query is a little blurry, but it maybe started with this tweet (which also references an Instagram Reel) or possibly this TikTok. Or this one. The point is, everyone is trying to figure out how often the men in their lives think about the Roman Empire.

    More at the link.  Silly stuff.

  204. 204.

    Jay

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    yeah, I did a group “naked run” yesterday.

    No fit bits, no gps, no tech, no phones allowed, just running for the sake of running.

    I wish somebody had told me that before the run.

  210. 210.

    eversor

    @Geminid:

    There’s a not insignificant portion of our side of the political isle that views any association with the military, intelligence, or law enforcement as a total disqualifier.  Which is fair enough as they all have checkered pasts.

    The catch is that for most people being say a veteran is considered a good thing.  Most people are rational enough to realize that war veteran doesn’t mean war criminal and cop does not mean killer of Black folk.  Also that generally, the people who have been through the shit have a more grounded view of it.  Like if you want to hear about how much war sucks go to your local VFW hall and you’ll get all of it.

    The military is a particularly hard target to rail against as it’s the one public institution that is still trusted by a majority.  That’s both good and bad.  But it is a thing.

  211. 211.

    Subsole

    @lowtechcyclist:

    The purpose of conspiracy theory is to eradicate thought while convincing the theorist that they are the only thinking person in the room.

    It is raw emotionalism dressed up in a facsimile of skepticism.

    So no. Facts will absolutely NOT impinge on the theory. The purpose of the theory is to permit its holder to disregard the facts.

  213. 213.

    Alison Rose

    @Geminid: Okay, but cleaning up the Capitol isn’t the only thing Kim has done, and people won’t vote for him solely because of that one moment. He does have more on his resume. He was at USAID, worked at the State Dept, was a civilian adviser in Afghanistan, an official on the NSC. He was a Rhodes Scholar. He’s done more than just pick up some trash.

  216. 216.

    Subsole

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    Romans. You are indeed thinking of the Romans. The mosaics in question were located in Pompeii, iirc, and depicted women exercising with weights and wearing clothing that looked shockingly modern.

  218. 218.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Subsole: ​
    Having looked at the construction of conspiracy theories, I definitely think you’re right about emotional rewards of being a conspiracy theorist, but I spotted something else. There is a consistent style of logic. Conspiracy theory thinking seems to flow from an inability to believe in coincidence. If there are few or no accidents, if things don’t ‘just happen’, then exceptions become more important than rules. You start having to ask yourself why a word is capitalized in some places in the Constitution and not others. The answers necessary to make a coincidence-free world work are pretty bizarre.

  219. 219.

    Geminid

    @skerry: That’s good. Among other issues, Ben Cardin is unlikely to block the sale of F-16s to Turkiye that the administration wants to move on.

    Menendez has a lot of animus towards Turkiye and has been very stubborn in this matter. His three stated objections were Turkiye’s resistance to Sweden’s Nato accession, its saber rattling against Greece, and conflicts between Turkiye and the US military forces in eastern Syria.

    Now, Turkiye has agreed to Sweden’s Nato membership, although Erdogan says its National Assembly won’t ratify accession next month if the F-16s are not promised; and Greece and Turkiye have put their relations on a stable and amicable footing. As for Syria, the US and Turkiye seem to have reached a modus vivendi there and it was Menendez and not the Biden administration who complained.

    But Menendez just doesn’t likeTurkiye, even more so than the typical American who thinks about Turkiye at all (which is not that many). Armenian and Greek Americans think about Turkiye a lot though, and they have given Menendez tangible proof of this through liberal campaign contributions.

    Turkish people don’t like Menendez back. Last Friday journalist Ragip Soylu announced the Menendez news: “Greek and Armenian lobbyist Senator Robert Menendez and his wife are indicted by the U.S. Justice Department.”

    So some Greeks jumped into Soylu’s timeline and protested that he had slandered their country. “It was Egypt that bribed Menendez!” they said. “No one has found any evidence that Greece bribed him!”

    “Just you wait!” the Turks said.

  221. 221.

    eversor

    @Formerly disgruntled in Oregon:

    Except Christinaity is only bad and it’s founding orders are patriarchy and women as non persons.  That can’t be dodged.  Also Christianity is hated by the younger generations is a cross will be a swastika in my life, the military will live on.

    Nothing is as horrid as Christianity.  Nothing ever will be.

  223. 223.

    Geminid

    @Alison Rose: I did not say that Kim has done little more than pick up the trash, and I did not imply it either. I was answering a commenter who seemed to assert that this proves he’s a better person and thus a better candidate than Sherill. It doesn’t for me, and I don’t think it will for very many New Jersey Democrats. This primary race will be decided by other factors, I believe.

    Ed. This is not to say that Andy Kim won’t win the Balloon Juice primary. And like they say, “As Balloon Juice goes, so goes…Balloon Juice!”

  226. 226.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @Betty Cracker:  “he has the charisma of a wizened dry, shriveled chihuahua turd.”

    More better… 👍 “wizened” sounds like something stupid people would think means that he’s wise. Let’s be clear, just for them…

  229. 229.

    Geminid

    @Geminid: I would add though, that Rep. Sherill has not announced for Senator Menendez’s seat, and it’s not certain that she will. But I think it’s probable.

  231. 231.

    CarolPW

    @Geminid: I did not assert that Kim was a better person, just that he behaved like one who cherished our democratic institutions. I have not seen evidence that Sherill is compellingly superior (or inferior either).

  233. 233.

    strange visitor (from another planet)

    the navy phased out the f-8 crusader in favor of the f-4 phantom II. one of the stated reasons was that they thought a twin-engine airframe had twice the chances of returning to the carrier if damaged in combat. that happened during the vietnam era. the f-35 is the first fighter design accepted by the navy since the late sixties that will fly into action on a single engine.

  234. 234.

    Dopey-o

    @Gin & Tonic: OK, since I am apparently *not* aware of all Internet traditions, what’s up with the sudden spurt of Tweets/memes about the Roman Empire, and mens’ alleged interest in it?

    Joey, do you like movies about gladiators?

  235. 235.

    Geminid

    @CarolPW: Have you seen any evidence that Rep. Sherill, and the other 220 Democratic Representatives who were not working alongside Rep. Kim that day, do not cherish our Democratic institutions? Is this something they must show you before you credit them.

    This is something I take for granted with the vast majority of our party’s members of Congress. I do not think Rep. Kim is exceptional in this respect, even though as I’ve said (at #168) I think highly of him and believe he would make a good Senator.

  236. 236.

    Alison Rose

    @Geminid: Well sure, anyone saying that alone makes him better is being silly, even if the moment would probably hit hard for a lot of voters. But whatever side we’re coming at this from, I don’t like the idea of isolating that one moment as though it’s the only thing about him.

  238. 238.

    CarolPW

    @Geminid: I saw Kim do something that touched me very much at a bad time. I have not seen Sherill do something that touched me at a bad time, but I did not say she did not cherish our institutions. That is all I said, and I do not understand why you are making such an issue of it. Am I not allowed to put forth an alternate favorite? Fuck that.

  240. 240.

    Geminid

    @Alison Rose: I don’t think people should isolate one moment either. But that happens to be the first time Andy Kim came to many people’s attention.

    It wasn’t for me because I’ve studied the Democratic Class of 2018 a lot. That was a crucial election, and the first one I really used the Internet to research. I also have a lot of time on my hands.

    So I knew about Rep. Kim’s background, where his district lies, who he beat and by how much, and how his reelection went before he made the news with the cleanup. I think a lot of people were like, here’s a Democrat I did not know about and he is really good! I was more like well, another member of that talented class just reminded us of how talented it was.

    Anyway, I am speaking to the merits of Kim and Sherill as candidates, not public servants. I think her background as Navy helicopter pilot and local prosecutor wiill resonate with voters more than his background as Rhode Scholar and State Department official will, even if it arguably should not. Mr. Kim’s year on the National Security Council staff is a good credit, but so is Ms. Sherill’s year on the staff of the top US Admiral at Nato headquarters, as a Russian policy specialist.

    And women are still under-represented in the Senate so Sherill’s gender will likely be held in her favor, if she runs.

  244. 244.

    Geminid

    @CarolPW: Nothing wrong with having a different favorite. But I got this argument going by predicting that Rep. Sherill would win, and did not assert that she should win or that Rep. Kim was not worthy of support.

    I also wanted people to know that there will likely be another good Democrat entering the race and who she is.

    I would also say in Rep. Kim’s favor that his actions that day were spontaneous and not performative. They may have gotten Kim good press but that was not his motivation so I give him full credit for them.

  247. 247.

    Geminid

     

     

    @CarolPW:I have no problem with you admiring Rep. Kim. I have said twice that I think a lot of Andy Kim, and think he would make a good Senator. I respect Rep. Sherill as much as I do Kim though, and I think she will prove to be the stronger candidate.

    I just hope you don’t take your anger at me out on Rep. Sherill if and when she enters the race.

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