Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Democrats have delivered the Square Deal, the New Deal, the Fair Deal, and now… the Big Joe Biden Deal.

Another missed opportunity for Jamie Dimon to just shut the fuck up.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Happy indictment week to all who celebrate!

Biden: Oh no. We’ve upset Big Pharma again.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

When the time comes to make an endorsement, the pain of NYT editors will be palpable as they reluctantly whisper “Biden.”

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

The Supreme Court is corrupt. Democrats must win in November and force court reform.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

He really is that stupid.

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

The US Supreme Court is on the ballot in november.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

with the Kraken taking a plea, the Cheese stands alone.

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Israel is using food as a weapon of war. Unforgivable.

You are here: Home / Elections 2024 / 2024 Primaries / Wednesday Evening Open Thread: … ‘Comedy’ Tonight!

Wednesday Evening Open Thread: … ‘Comedy’ Tonight!

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Last Big! Serious! Head-to-Head! GOP debate before next week’s starter gun at the Iowa caucus, and all journos want to talk about is Chris Christie officially dropping his campaign. (And, apparently, getting ‘caught on a hot mic‘ slagging Haley on his way out.)

Also, TFG has another counter-programming rally, because of course he does — how else can his people use ‘official’ campaign funds to give him an outlet for his latest sundowning rants?


For completists, the Hill dutifully drops “5 things to watch in the DeSantis-Haley Iowa debate”.

At this point, the GOP race doesn’t even amount to a decent attempt at farce.

Reader Interactions

120Comments

  3. 3.

    Jeffro

    Woooooo!  Go Nikki!

    (says the Post’s hack-of-hacks, Marc Thiessen)

    Do You Want a Landslide or a Coin Toss, Republicans?

    As Republican voters prepare to pick their presidential nominee, they should ask themselves a simple question: Do you want the election to be a toss-up or a landslide?

    Joe Biden is the most vulnerable incumbent in modern presidential history. He has the lowest approval rating recorded for any president since the end of World War II. He has double-digit deficits on every issue voters say is important to them — from the economy to inflation, crime, immigration and foreign policy. A Monmouth University poll finds 76 percent of voters say he is “too old to effectively serve another term,” while, according to a Yahoo News-YouGov poll, 54 percent ay he no longer has “the competence to carry out the job of president.” No president seeking reelection has ever been weaker.

    Yet despite Biden’s unprecedented vulnerabilities, Trump is currently leading him by just 1.2 points in the RCP average — a statistical tie. The Republican front-runner should be crushing Biden in the polls, but he’s not. Why? Because Trump is nearly as unpopular as Biden.

    Right now, Trump benefits from having been out of the daily media spotlight for the past three years. But as his trials begin and he starts to campaign in earnest, Americans will be reminded why they threw him out in 2020. And, as they do in every presidential election, the polls will tighten before November. Trump’s current narrow lead has some Democrats panicking that Biden might lose. In truth, it is Republicans who should be panicking that Biden might win.

    Oh my…sometimes even a blind pig finds an acorn, or something like that.  ;)

    Anyway, left unsaid is that trump is going to spare Ms. Haley absolutely no quarter for the rest of primary season.  In his mind, she’s standing between him and a get-out-of-jail free card called “Trump wins in 2024!”.

    And that, Mr. Thiessen – in addition to trump’s many upcoming trials and campaign speeches – is exactly what Americans are going to see all year long.

    I hope their panic only gets worse, daily HOURLY, from here on out.

  5. 5.

    dmsilev

    Chris Christie bailed out of the clown car, but not before aiming a pie at a couple of the remaining passengers:

    “She [Haley] spent $68 million so far,” Christie said. “And we spent 12. I mean, who’s punching above their weight and who’s getting a return on their investment?”

    “She’s going to get smoked, you and I both know,” he added. “She’s not up to this.”

    Christie, 61, also said that a “petrified” DeSantis had called him, but the audio cut before he could finish that comment.

    In fairness, “petrified” seems to be about as close to “natural human emotional” as DeSantis can manage.

  6. 6.

    SpaceUnit

    Who exactly is supposed to be the audience for this debate?

    Make it a literal pie fight and people would watch, but this is a ratings nightmare.

  8. 8.

    bbleh

    Can’t imagine the nets have very many people actually THERE, although I suppose a bunch of them are gonna get stuck “covering” the caucuses as though there will be actual news made.  I wonder whether their expense accounts include booze.  Unless I were some young ladder-climber trying to move up in my network, I’d probably start getting hammered around lunchtime …

  11. 11.

    Princess

    Was there ever another election season in which neither party really had much of a primary at all (I mean, since the era of modern primaries). It’s kind of shocking to me how there is zero competition to run for president in either of the two big parties.

    (don’t get me wrong — I don’t think Biden should have a serious challenger!)

  12. 12.

    Geminid

    Iowa is a perfect set up for a candidate with a devoted following and a well-organized campaign operation, and Trump has both. It sounds like Trump campaign chief Suzie Wiles is trying for a dominant showing and she may well pull it off.

  13. 13.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Jeffro:

    I think it’s funny how Thiessen thinks it would be a landslide without Trump. The backlash against the anti-abortion/reproductive rights movement isn’t going anywhere and people like Nikki Haley are just as bad on this. All Republicans are.

  16. 16.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Princess: ​ 

    Bush and Gore? I don’t seem to recall any primary fights, but hell, that was two decades ago and I don’t remember a lot of shit.

  19. 19.

    Jeffro

    @Jeffro: more, in case you wondered whether or not Thiessen is merely ‘a’ hack, or still deserves the crown:

    The choice is simple: One GOP candidate is neck-and-neck with the most unpopular president in modern history, and one crushes him. Ask most Democrats which Republican they fear most as the GOP nominee, and the answer is Haley. And yet Republicans seem poised to nominate Trump, the one candidate as unpopular as Biden

    This works to the Democrats’ advantage. Recall that during the 2024 midterms, Democrats spent tens of millions of dollars supporting MAGA candidates in GOP primaries, hoping to get “poison pill” candidates nominated. The strategy was immoral, cynical and highly effective. All the Democratic-backed MAGA candidates won their GOP primaries and then lost in the general election.

    “Immoral”…helping show American voters just who and what MAGA candidates are…that’s “immoral”.

    Now, instead of ads, the weapon of choice is lawfare. Trump has been charged 91 times at the federal, state and local level. (To put this in perspective, the Unabomber faced just 13 charges). And in states across the country, local Democratic officials are trying to use a 14th Amendment provision to kick him off the ballot. Trump’s support among Republicans grows stronger with each legal assault on him, which is exactly what Democratic leaders want, because they believe he is the easiest GOP candidate to beat.

    Democrats, couldn’t we at least keep the number of charges to a Unabomber level?  What have we become??!?

    FU, Thiessen!

  21. 21.

    Mike in Pasadena

    tfg isn’t participating so this debate is a joke same as the other R debates. Without the frontrunner, why have them? This is a bunch of noise signifying nothing except who gets to be tfg’s running mate and nobody involved in the debate will decide that question.

  24. 24.

    Villago Delenda Est

    “Caught by a hot mike”?  It is to laugh.  Christie, with premeditation, left it hot.

  25. 25.

    wjca

    @Baud: I don’t know if Adlai Stevenson faces much of a challenge in the primary the second time he faced Ike.

    Stevenson was just the guy who agreed to be the token candidate when the Democrats failed to convince Eisenhower to run on their ticket.  Everybody figured Ike was unbeatable, which he was.  But somebody had to go thru the motions (both times), and Adlai agreed to be that someone.  Certainly nobody wanted the job.

  29. 29.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Jeffro:

    Thiessen is def the king of political pundit hacks for sure. Also, the “2024 midterms”? Dude needs a better editor/proofreader.

  31. 31.

    Geminid

    @bbleh: Trump could win a protracted primary battle, but he’ll be a lot better off if he can knock out the competition early. Vindication over Ted Cruz probably matters to him, but at this point I think Trump regards success in the primaries and in November as a matter of personal survival.

    Trump’s back is against the wall and he knows it. For him, the only way out is through.

  32. 32.

    Princess

    @Baud: Interesting! Wikipedia tells me in 52 Stevenson was drafted at the convention. In 56, he thought he was the nominee but after some of his former rivals challenged him, he was forced to compete in some big primaries, lost MN and barely won FL. So I’m going to claim this year as even less competitive than that.

  34. 34.

    Jackie

    TIFG’s rant because the judge denied him a 4th extension and trying to use his MIL’s death as a reason…. He didn’t postpone his Faux tongue bath tonight to be with his grieving wife…🙄

  35. 35.

    Urza

    Assuming we still have a democracy, 2028 should be even sillier for them given they’ve kicked out anyone remotely serious.

  36. 36.

    Lyrebird

    @Jeffro: ​
    Such complete slime.

    Unfortunately I shared a campus with Thiessen and Jon Karl when they were starting out and getting their Wm Buckley campus agitator jollies.

    I guess maybe it’s better than having gone ot Yale Law? Becoming a lawyer would have probably put me in a better position to do anything about this mess…

     

    Edited second time, trying to add:
    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
    Thanks, you and Villago are making me feel a bit better. Go Dark Brandon!
     

  37. 37.

    Geminid

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Much better. Trump lucked out in 2016 with an improvised operation and help from St. Petersburg. Last time he lost a winnable race with amateurs (including himself) calling the shots.

    But Susan Wiles is a pro, and the fact that Trump hired her and hasn’t fired her shows that he knows he’s in real trouble, I think.

  39. 39.

    smith

    Yet more evidence that Moms for Liberty has become a major force for morality in contemporary US:

    Moms For Liberty-backed school board member Keri Blair resigns 13 months after being elected, following $728 worth of shoplifting charges from Target. (after 7 total offenses)

  40. 40.

    bbleh

    @Geminid: oh in the larger picture I agree entirely!  I’m sure he’s energetically mainlining all the happy-talk the nervous acolytes and various self-serving grifters surrounding him are dishing out (“look at this poll sir, you’re up by six points over Biden!  he’s toast!”), but ain’t no way he’s not sweating gooey orange bullets over the indictments and trials, the almost preternatural competence and loyalty of Biden’s people (“how come *I* never had people like that? why aren’t you people as loyal as they are?!?” [ketchup bottle crashes against wall] ), and — I guess, judging from his actions and demeanor — a little bit of a nagging sense that he’s lost a lot of his old magic touch…

  41. 41.

    Brachiator

    @Geminid:

    Iowa is a perfect set up for a candidate with a devoted following and a well-organized campaign operation, and Trump has both.

    Trump has a well-organized campaign operation? I am surprised, given the band of misfits surrounding him.

    Did Christie endorse anyone or say anything about Trump?

    The sad thing is that the elements of the GOP which had half-heartedly moved away from Trump must now acknowledge that like Thanos, he is inevitable, and bend the knee.

  42. 42.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Lyrebird:

    Thanks, you and Villago are making me feel a bit better. Go Dark Brandon!

    Happy to help!

    @Geminid:

    Interesting, thanks. I’d rather his campaign be dysfunctional. I think that would harm his chances of reelection, obvs. I’m sure impossible to make predictions at this point, but do you think his campaign being better organized helps him vs Biden significantly?

  45. 45.

    Jeffro

    @Geminid:I think Trump regards success in the primaries and in November as a matter of personal survival.

    Oh, absolutely.

    Many, many ‘swords of Dumb-o-cles’ are hanging over that corrupt clown’s head, and it’ll only take one to drop and send him to prison.

    (or worse, from his perspective: it’ll only take one to drop and puncture this weird myth that most of his followers have of ‘powerful, strong, always-winning trump’)

    Go ahead and run from behind bars, trump!  Why not?  It’s not like it’s beneath you!!

  46. 46.

    bbleh

    @Brachiator: Did Christie endorse anyone or say anything about Trump?

    Hahahaha oh boy did he.  I didn’t hear him, or hear of him, endorsing anyone, but he said something very similar to “I’m gonna do everything I can to make sure that Donald Trump does not become President again.”

  47. 47.

    Brachiator

    @Jeffro:

    Ask most Democrats which Republican they fear most as the GOP nominee, and the answer is Haley.

    This is beyond stupid. Why would Democrats fear someone who has no chance of becoming the nominee as long as Trump stays out of jail, or does not die?

  48. 48.

    Hob

    @Jeffro: ​
      [quoting Thiessen] Recall that during the 2024 midterms, Democrats spent tens of millions of dollars supporting MAGA candidates in GOP primaries, hoping to get “poison pill” candidates nominated. The strategy was immoral, cynical and highly effective. All the Democratic-backed MAGA candidates won their GOP primaries and then lost in the general election.
    You already replied to that with appropriate contempt, but I want to elaborate just in case anyone doesn’t quite remember what Thiessen is bullshitting about there (which lots of other people also did their best to spread confusion about). The campaign ads he’s referring to were attacks on the Republican candidates, explaining why they were bad and should not be voted for by anyone, due to their extreme right-wing views. Wingnuts who voted in the Republican primaries did indeed vote for those candidates… because they are wingnuts and that’s what they want. They were not somehow fooled into doing this by devious Democrats. Talking negatively about members of the opposing party is a normal thing to do in a campaign, and telling the truth is not an “immoral” “strategy”, even if there are idiots out there who will react to the truth in an idiotic way. What a goddamn tiresome bad-faith hack argument that always was.

  49. 49.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @bbleh: This is a guy who said he should have generals a loyal to him as Hitler’s were, and John Kelly had to inform him that many of Hitler’s generals plotted for years to assassinate Hitler.

  50. 50.

    Jeffro

    @Hob: good reminders!

    “immoral” (from any Republican, much less Thiessen) set me off, like, eight different ways

    I shouldn’t let The Hack get to me like that, but…”immoral”??!?  God#$&% m$&%^rf$&*%r…

  51. 51.

    Geminid

    @Brachiator: A lot of people would be surprised to hear that Trump has a good campaign operation. They’re used to the “band of misfits surrounding him” that you describe and like to think that could never change because Trump is such a churl. Looking down on him is very satisfying.

    But Trump has a low cunning when it comes to his self-interest, and this campaign is now a matter of survival. So he’s put a professional in charge and so far he apparently likes what he sees.

    Back in February, Politico had an article about anti-Trumpers and their inability to gain traction with their efforts. Ex-Congressman Vin Weber was one of them. Weber said he had expected Trump to fade by then. One reason Trump hadn’t, Weber posited, was his good campaign organization.

  52. 52.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @HumboldtBlue: Bill Bradley challenged Gore, it didn’t last long but people like Bill Maher jumped on it, it was always cool to hate Al Gore for reasons I still don’t get. Moynihan made a splash about endorsing Bradley, which IIRC was about his own grudges against the Clintons.

    There was a good size field on the R side, and McCain got a lot of attention from, as even he said at the time, his base, but once the votes started getting counted, GWB wrapped it up pretty quick.

    @Baud: McCain won NH and some mysterious, anonymous mailers went out in So Carolina about John McCain having an illegitimate Black child.

  53. 53.

    Jackie

    @bbleh: Christie voted for Biden in ‘20 – very reluctantly. If he means what he says about doing everything possible to keep TIFG out of the WH, I see him eventually joining up with Liz Cheney and the like and campaigning against TIFG.

  54. 54.

    Scout211

    Liz Dye has a column up at Above the Law tonight that is a worth a read.  Here are a few snippets:

    Judge Blocks Trump’s Plan To Defame Carroll Some More, But This Time On The Witness Stand

     

    The honor of defending Trump in the second case falls to Michael Madaio after his partner Alina Habba wandered off to shout inanities on TV. The defense has been somewhat shambolic, with Madaio putting forward the same expert witness who’d been tossed in the first case, affecting shock and amazement when that witness got booted a second time, and then unsuccessfully seeking to substitute another expert on the eve of trial. Most recently he tried to get Trump’s damaging deposition testimony excluded on the theory that Trump might show up next week to speak in his own defense.

    That effort was also a failure.

    . . .

    Madaio has, however, managed to get Judge Lewis Kaplan to call his client a rapist in multiple public filings. So much winning!

    Carroll’s counsel have fared much better. Yesterday the court issued another devastating ruling barring Trump from introducing evidence about litigation funding or Trump’s post-discovery offer to undergo the DNA testing he’d avoided for three straight years. It also blocked Trump’s plan to argue that Carroll’s damages arose not from his defamatory statements, but “that it was Plaintiff coming forward with allegations against Defendant, and not Defendant’s denial, that caused her any damages (to the extent there is any damage).”

    “As an initial matter, and assuming arguendo that plaintiff made such claims, defendant’s suggestion that such claims might have resulted in greater media attention than otherwise would have occurred and that any such increase would have benefitted plaintiff’s reputation ultimately is purely speculative,” the court noted dryly.

  55. 55.

    Jeffro

    @Brachiator:This is beyond stupid. Why would Democrats fear someone who has no chance of becoming the nominee as long as Trump stays out of jail, or does not die?

    In Thiessen’s fever dreams, I guess we Dems stay up all night worrying about things that will never, could never, happen.

    If a pollster called me up and asked me which Republican I fear most – assuming that a non-trump GOP official could simply be pasted onto the presidential ballot without causing the party to go 110% crab-bucket on each other – I’d tell him: “Brian Kemp or Glenn Youngkin”

    But my phone isn’t ringing, and it’s not my prob if the GOP can’t figure it out.  =)

  56. 56.

    Jeffro

    @Geminid: good points.

    There was a piece somewhere (Post?  Times?  Politico?) about how well the trump campaign was doing in terms of lining up endorsements (especially those from FL politicians, to really stick it to DeSantis).  Cajoling or bullying, they’ve been working the shit out of their pols to get behind trump.  And obviously, it’s working.

    ETA: here it is, in the NYTimes

    Today, three years after Jan. 6 and more than a week before the Iowa caucuses, Mr. Trump has almost entirely subjugated the elected class of the Republican Party. As of this week, every member of the House Republican leadership is formally backing his campaign to recapture the White House.

    Mr. Trump has obsessed over his scorecard of endorsers, according to more than half a dozen Trump advisers and people in regular contact with him, most of whom insisted on anonymity to describe private conversations.

    He sees gathering the formal endorsements as a public validation of his triumphant return that serves his strategy of portraying himself as the inevitable victor. He calls endorsements the “E word”; when lawmakers merely say they “support” him, he considers it insufficient and calls that the “S word.” In recent weeks, his allies have told lawmakers that Mr. Trump will be closely watching who has and hasn’t endorsed him before the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 15.

    Mr. Trump works his endorsements through both fear and favor, happily cajoling fellow politicians by phone while firing off ominous social media posts about those who don’t fall in line quickly enough. In October, he felled a top candidate for House speaker, Representative Tom Emmer, by posting that voting for him “would be a tragic mistake!” On Wednesday, Mr. Emmer capitulated and endorsed him.
    “They always bend the knee,” Mr. Trump said privately of Mr. Emmer’s endorsement, according to a person who spoke to him.

    And Mr. Trump is privately ranting about and workshopping nicknames for other holdouts, like Senator Ted Cruz of Texas.

    “Ted — he shouldn’t even exist,” Mr. Trump said recently of Mr. Cruz, a 2016 rival, according to a person who heard the remarks and recounted them soon after. “I could’ve destroyed him. I kind of did destroy him in 2016, if you think about it. But then I let him live.”

    B-movie mob boss shit, as always…

  57. 57.

    bbleh

    @Jackie: yeah the first thing I said when I heard him was “welcome to the Liz Cheney club.”  And fine — we can use all the help anyone wants to give, AND people like Cheney and Christie can help at least to get SOME “moderate” Republicans in the few actual swing states to consider at least not voting for Trump (far fewer of them would ever switch to Biden), and that could make a real difference — remember how narrow the margins were in 2020.  (The best “bang for the buck” is still getting Dem leaners actually to show up to vote, but people like Cheney and Christie can convert former Trump voters to non-voters, and mathematically that’s equivalent.)

    But he’s done as a pol.  His Republican Party, and Liz Cheney’s, is rapidly becoming a dusty museum-piece.  And they know it better than almost anyone.

  58. 58.

    Geminid

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I think an efficient campaign operation will help Trump but I don’t think it will be enough. He has an uphill battle for several reasons. And there’s still the possibility that he’ll fall out with Susie Wiles, which could happen if he runs into trouble on the way to the convention. But Trump ought to have the nomination all but sewn up after Super Tuesday, I think.

    I’m just glad he did not hire Wiles for his 2020 campaign. I guess Trump had to lose to understand he that needed a real professional for something this important.

  59. 59.

    Alison Rose

    Glad to see the FTFNYT is on top of the important topics of the day. On the homepage, right next to the news about Christie dropping out, there’s a close-up image of a man in a suit, you just see his torso and his hands clasped in front. It’s headlined “Inside the Mayor’s Closet” and subheaded “Ten suits, 19 ties, crisp white shirts and pin collars: a 30-day snapshot of the New York City style of Mayor Eric Adams”.

    First off, I didn’t realize “man wearing plain navy suit and white dress shirt” was “New York City style”, but okey-dokey. Second, who gives a flying fuck about the man’s wardrobe when he seems to absolutely suck at his job

    Also too, I’m not sure if I’m more annoyed by the NYT’s insistence on calling everyone Mr or Ms or by their refusal to use Oxford commas.

  61. 61.

    jimmiraybob

    1776!!!!  If Alexander Hamilton were here he would suggest pistols at 10 paces.  1776!!!!

  64. 64.

    FelonyGovt

    I think most of these pundits fail to comprehend the VISCERAL and all-consuming loathing so many of us have for TIFG. The “Biden’s old” crowd doesn’t come close to that intensity.

    And  one thing Hack Thiessen does get right is that once the normies are forced to listen to TIFG’s insane rantings and irritating voice every day once again, the worse it will get for TIFG.

  65. 65.

    Martin

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: it was always cool to hate Al Gore for reasons I still don’t get

    Both parties hate establishment candidates because pretty much everyone hates the top 1% and their choke hold on politics (and everything else) through their funding. Everyone, everywhere wants the top taken down a peg, but political survivors bias makes sure nobody actually does anything about it. Gore just by virtue of having been VP was a protector of this system. Lot of Democrats opposed Clinton for the same reason. That was one of Trumps better selling points to voters (it was a lie, of course, but he sold it well) that he didn’t need their money.

  66. 66.

    Anne Laurie

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Bill Bradley challenged Gore, it didn’t last long but people like Bill Maher jumped on it, it was always cool to hate Al Gore for reasons I still don’t get.

    My own impression, at the time?  Al Gore, Child of Privilege, actually *served* in Vietnam.  As a journalist, not a grunt, and arguably only because he intended to follow his prominent father into politics, and it was still conventional wisdom that dodging the draft would be a career-killer.  (Ha!) 

    But every second journalist / entertainer in Gore’s generational cohort had an argument about why they didn’t feel the patriotic need to show up for their local draft board… and many of those arguments revolved (quite reasonably!) around the fact that most Fortunate Sons found an exemption, so why not upper-middle-class dudes from second-tier state colleges?

    That was Al Gore’s first step down the road to Modern America’s Cassandra (also, IIRC, a nepo-baby) — the prominent person most likely to be right & yet disbelieved by all the Kool Kidz.

  67. 67.

    Jackie

    @jimmiraybob: I believe she is, but she’s already said she’s voting Blue in ‘24. Cheney acknowledges it will take at LEAST one cycle of voting Democratic to oust the MAGA party.

  68. 68.

    Geminid

    @Jeffro: Trump still has endorsements from only 20 out of 49 Republican Senators. Most of the holdouts will probably come around, but not with a lot of enthusiasm..

    My guess is that many Republican Senators believe Trump will lose in November. Their main interest now is winning a Senate majority, and if that is to happen they need Trump’s voters to turn out. This is one reason, I think, that they haven’t tried to block him. They’re hoping Trump brings out the base voters, and that Independents who are fed up with Trump will split their tickets and vote for down-ballot Republicans.

    That’s what happened with Sue Collins in 2020. Maine’s a weird state and there was an unusually large number of Biden-Collins voters. I think it was close to 20%. But just a 5% swing might make the difference between a Republican Senate majority or minority come January, 2025.

    But good luck winning a majority without Trump’s hard core supporters. They don’t have any more loyalty to the party than their leader does.

  69. 69.

    catclub

    @Geminid: And there’s still the possibility that he’ll fall out with Susie Wiles, which could happen if he runs into trouble on the way to the convention.

     

    So Democrats need to talk about Susie Wiles refusing to let Trump debate because she does not trust his ability?

  70. 70.

    Anne Laurie

    @Martin: Gore just by virtue of having been VP was a protector of this system. Lot of Democrats opposed Clinton for the same reason.

    Follow-up to my last comment… The same white dudes who sneered at Gore for being a nepo-baby were insanely jealous that Bill Clinton, white trash, had come barrelling out of the butt end of nowhere to eclipse all their own tidy upper-middle-class candidates.

    Howell Raines, IMO, gets lead position in Hell when this mob gets there — being The Rare Arkie Success was supposed to be Howell’s gold medal, dammit!   When you read the stuff Raines wrote, and everything he assigned at the NYTimes, his absolute rage at the ‘smarmy, networking, charismatic’ Bill Clinton practically sweats off the page.

    The NYTimes was always plutocrat-friendly and power-dazzled, but I’d argue its rock-solid “Dems bad, weak, stupid, anti-American” bias is the end result of 40+ years of Raines and Raines-hires hating Bill Clinton, his wife, and everyone who ever said or did anything positive for Bad Boy Bill.

  71. 71.

    wjca

    @Jeffro: From the NYT: “Mr. Trump has obsessed over his scorecard of endorsers, according to more than half a dozen Trump advisers and people in regular contact with him, most of whom insisted on anonymity to describe private conversations.

    He sees gathering the formal endorsements as a public validation of his triumphant return that serves his strategy of portraying himself as the inevitable victor.”

    Realistically,  endorsements only matter if the endorser has followers who will direct their vote according to his words.  How many of those currently exist, among those theoretical endorsers not already opposed to TIFG, is IMHO debatable.  Getting endorsements may feed TIFG’S ego.  But the impact on actual vote totals is probably a close approximation of zero.

  72. 72.

    bbleh

    @Geminid: concur entirely.  Best bet right now is Biden – R Senate – D House, which would leave McConnell et al back as Protectors of the Plutocracy, and there’s a lot of people / money who’d like that very much.  (And yeah, everything depends on Teh Economee, and a true blue wave might keep the Senate D, but the calendar is so stacked against the D’s that I wouldn’t give it more than 1 in 6.)  But SO much depends on keeping TIFG out of power that I’d willingly vote for an R for Senator if that would make it happen.

  73. 73.

    Geminid

    @jimmiraybob: I’m not sure, but I think Liz Cheney is living in Virginia now. At least, last I saw she had some academic affiliation with the Miller Center for Politics at the University of Viginia, probably teaching an occasional graduate seminar and sipping sherry with Larry Sabato. If so, Cheney would have no public party affiliation because Virginia does not register by party.

  74. 74.

    Layer8Problem

    I cannot square the apparent fact that TFG has a professional campaign organization with the obvious fact that TFG has a slapstick comedy grade legal apparatus. Logically wouldn’t you expect him to be equally dopey about both outfits? What makes him hands-off about the campaign? He’s too impulsive and petulant for that to last. At some point he’ll decide that Susan Wiles is doing it “WRONG WRONG WRONG!” because she’s telling him uncomfortable things and toss her out for some toadying screwball with a sure-fire cannot-fail plan.

  77. 77.

    Suzanne

    I just got back to my hotel room, and I turned on the GOP debate, and I am trying to decide who I hate more.

    Nikki’s hair isn’t moving and it is distracting.

  78. 78.

    Another Scott

    Meanwhile, …

    Kristin Wilson
    @kristin__wilson
    5h

    Oversight markup // Judiciary markup

    [ images ]

    Jan 10, 2024 · 8:52 PM UTC

    rofl.

    (via Fritschner)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  79. 79.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Layer8Problem:

    At some point he’ll decide that Susan Wiles is doing it “WRONG WRONG WRONG!” because she’s telling him uncomfortable things and toss her out for some toadying screwball with a sure-fire cannot-fail plan.

    Yep! When he gets closer to the actual election he’ll take over. But then, it’s important to realize that the Republican Party has accommodated Trump so much that their normal operations are insane batshit stuff, but now it’s planned.

    Trump taking direct control may happen, but it might not look different. It’ll just be more slapstick.

  80. 80.

    Geminid

    @catclub: Well, that’s one obvious reason Trump isn’t debating, isn’t it? But you don’t run against a campaign manager, you have to run against their principal.

  81. 81.

    Manyakitty

    @Jeffro: and lickspittle Ted’s response was, “thank you SIR, may I have another,” while a single tear trickled down his cheek.

  82. 82.

    Martin

    @Anne Laurie: And of course, there are plutocrats of the correct class and plutocrats of the incorrect class. Trump was always hated by the NYC press because he was low class. He didn’t do the necessary things to buy the tolerance of the proles. He got the last laugh on that one – he found a different category of proles.

  87. 87.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Suzanne:

    Nikki’s hair doesn’t particularly bother me, but Ron is completely squicking me out the way he runs the tip of his tongue over his lips every time he finishes answering a question speechifying. Just ugh, so unpleasant.

  90. 90.

    Suzanne

    @Jackie: His whole face is really weird. He’s holding his hands weirdly in front of him and it makes his head look wobbly.

    @SiubhanDuinne: The lip-licking is fucken distracting. Reminds me of Marco Rubio awkwardly reaching for a glass of water.

    Aaaaaand here goes DeFucker talking about pushing Gazans to other countries. Such a casual endorsement of ethnic cleansing.

  91. 91.

    Jackie

    @Suzanne: Nikki’s wardrobe drives me crazy. She doesn’t dress business like, the way every woman since Hillary dressed – who want to be taken seriously as a presidential candidate. Tonight she’s dressed like she’s running for flotus – and that fake pearls choker is way top-heavy. It looks like a collar.

  93. 93.

    Geminid

    @Bill: Yeah, I think Gore overthought that one. The conventional pick would have been a popular Senator from a swing state. For example, Florida Senator Bob Graham.

  94. 94.

    Geminid

    I was just checking out Al Jazeera for news of the Israel/Hamas war, and it turns out they are covering the Haley-DeSantis debate.

  95. 95.

    zhena gogolia

    I wish I could remember who here gave a recipe for roasted cauliflower & carrots with walnuts. It’s delicious! Definitely has entered the rotation around here. Thanks, whoever you are!

  96. 96.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Bill: Without question.  Lieberman was (and is) a tool of the parasites of the Health Insurance industry, and a sanctimonious prick to boot.

  97. 97.

    Another Scott

    Meanwhile, …

    Virginia Democrats
    @vademocrats
    9h

    Congratulations to SPEAKER @DonScott757 — the first Black Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates. Big day kicking off Session to deliver results on the issues we ran on. It’s a great day to be a Virginia Democrat!!!

    Julie Carey

    [ video clip ]

    Jan 10, 2024 · 6:07 PM UTC

    Good, good.

    This isn’t Bobby Lee’s Virginia any more. Forward!!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  99. 99.

    catclub

    @Geminid: What I meant was that if Wiles gets better press than Trump, and Trump hears about it, he will fire her, which sounds like it will be good for the country.

  100. 100.

    Roberto el oso

    @wjca: my mom’s first vote after she became a US citizen was for Stevenson. She was very upset when he lost, to which my dad said “well, that’s how democracy works, you win some, you lose some”. My mom was unimpressed. Having grown up in Poland under the (mild) dictatorship of Pilsudski and then in Brazil under the caudilloesque regime of Getulia Vargas, it took her a while to get used to things.

  101. 101.

    Roberto el oso

    I may have already said this elsewhere, but I’m a little surprised that Marc Thiessen isn’t in the Desanctis camp, given the latter’s work experience at Guantanamo …. Thiessen being a torture enthusiast and all.

  102. 102.

    Roberto el oso

    @Anne Laurie: I had always heard that Gore himself was opposed to the war in Vietnam but was pressured into serving to benefit his dad’s re-election. According to his then college roommate, Tommy Lee Jones, Gore was of course knowledgeable about politics, having grown up in a hyper-political family, but was not personally ambitious for a political career  and was more interested in listening to music and smoking pot all day.

  104. 104.

    wjca

    @Roberto el oso:  I’m a little surprised that Marc Thiessen isn’t in the Desanctis camp, given the latter’s work experience at Guantanamo …. Thiessen being a torture enthusiast and all.

    But DeSanctimonious was a lawyer there, not a torturer.  So maybe not pure enough for Thiessen.  (Who, of course, would never get his own personal hands dirty.  That’s what lackies are for.)

  105. 105.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Kristine:

    I can’t recall when or in what thread it was posted, so I’ll just copy-and-paste.

    Roast Carrots & Cauliflower (Mousebumples)

    * 4 medium carrots, peeled and thinly sliced on an angle
    * 1 small head of cauliflower (about 2 pounds), made into small florets
    * 4 Tablespoons olive oil
    * 1 chopped onion
    * Salt and pepper, to taste
    * 2 Tablespoons chopped fresh parsely
    * ¼ teaspoon thyme
    * 1 oz. walnuts, finely chopped and browned (about 3 Tablespoons)
    1. Place carrots and cauliflower florets on cookie sheet with raised edges. Drizzle with olive oil.
    2. Add next 5 ingredients and toss to coat.
    3. Preheat oven to 400ºF. Bake for 45 minutes, mixing every 15 minutes.
    4. Remove from oven and stir in browned walnuts.
    Serve hot.

    Bon appétit!

  108. 108.

    sab

    @Bill: Gore made lots of very bad personnel choices throughout his career. Bad judge of character. Made bad hires a lot. That was my main gripe against him.

    He would have been a bad president because of bad hires,  but he probably would have prevented 9/11 and he certainly wouldn’t have gone to war with Iraq.

  109. 109.

    Geminid

    @catclub: I figured that out after I replied. Trying to psych Trump into firing Wiles might work. Right now a probem is there that there is  good reason besides incapacity for Trump to refuse debates, that being his frontrunner status. Debates will be more of an issue this fall. I don’t think Trump is up to the task.

    And stirring up mistrust between Trump and Wiles is tougher because she keeps a low profile. I see very little reporting about her current activities. Wiles has likely passed up a lot of interviews; she knows better.

  111. 111.

    Paul in KY

    @Martin: The media (who hated VP Gore’s general policy of not fluffing them with interviews and whatnot) made (and occasionally VP Gore helped inadvertently) him seem like that know-it-all teachers pet in 4th grade who’d rat you out to the teacher/principal for their kudos/praise.

    Then he picked Joe Loserman as his Veep pick…

  113. 113.

    Paul in KY

    @Geminid: He’d have been Pres if Bob Graham had been his Veep choice. There’s some alternate universes where that happened. I hear they are doing well…

  117. 117.

    Paul in KY

    @wjca: Yup. Some of the detainees there remembered him leering at them (observing) when they were tortured. His job was to try and suss out what they liked the least & then tell the torturers.

    A swell guy that Ronny!

  118. 118.

    Geminid

     

     

    @Paul in KY: Al Jazeera does a lot of reporting on the Gaza war, and the Qatari rulers who own it are relatively supportive of the Palestinians. I just thought it was funny to see them cover a debate that seems so inconsequential.

  120. 120.

    Geminid

    @Paul in KY: The Gulf Arab states have ambivalent attitudes about the Palestinian conflict. They want a Two-State solution, but normalization of relations by Bahrain and the UAE with Osrael.sent an implicit message that they no longer supported the Palestinians’ maximal goals, that Palestinians needed to take what they can get.

    Saudi Arabia has been prepping its people for normalization also. Like Qatar with Al Jazeera, Saudi Arabia has a news site, Al Arabiya.

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