Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

Pelosi: “He either is stupid, or he thinks the rest of us are.” Why not both?

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I’m more Christian than these people and I’m an atheist.

The gop couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

The jury literally has a bell they can ring to force Trump to show up on command. Greatest thing ever!

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

The words do not have to be perfect.

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

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

You are here: Home / Elections 2024 / 2024 Primaries / Saturday Evening Horrorshow Open Thread: TFG’s Town Hall in Iowa

Saturday Evening Horrorshow Open Thread: TFG’s Town Hall in Iowa

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TFG At His Iowa Town Hall - STOCKPILE

After reading about Trump’s counter-programming to Wednesday’s sad GOP primary debate — like looking at a solar eclipse through a pinhole camera — maybe we should be taking note of some of the really horrible statements?

If only to share them with those among our loved ones / acquaintances who tell us maybe he’s not so bad, they never see this stuff on the front page of the NYTimes, it’s all just a performance?

Obvious trigger warning: What’s below the fold is extremely nasty, yes.


Supplementary: From NYMag, “8 Awful Things Trump Said in Iowa, Ranked“.

Reader Interactions

114Comments

  2. 2.

    zhena gogolia

    @Baud: What makes you say that?

    I’m afraid all these horrible things he says are just what his people want to hear. I just have to hope there aren’t that many of them.

  3. 3.

    trnc

    Baier: You said this week if there’s an economic crash, you hope it happens now T

    rump: Yeah

    It would be perfectly appropriate for the media to report that DT says the economy is very good under Biden.

  5. 5.

    dmsilev

    @Baud: If Haley ‘exceeds expectations’, for whatever value of expectations you want, the press will spend the next couple of weeks slobbering over her.Even if she’s not a threat to win the nomination, she is a threat to his need to be constantly the center of attention…

  6. 6.

    Anne Laurie

    @Baud: TBH. the Trump team seems kind of nervous about Iowa.

    Yep — or at least that’s what I’m seeing the media reporting from Iowa.

    A month or two ago, it was ‘Our triumphant juggernaut shall crush the mewling opposition like the minor annoyances they are.’   Now, it’s ‘We have the *best* organized, *most* experienced team putting in long hours to ensure that not one Trump vote goes begging!’

    Maybe it’s just sports-metaphor gaming expectations, but there’s been a LOT of bad news for TFG over that same time period…

  9. 9.

    Mike in NC

    Doing a bit of reading about White House history, I learned that in the State Dining Room there was an inscription on the mantle of the fireplace, attributed to John Adams and requested by FDR:

    “I pray Heaven to bestow the best of blessings on this House, and all that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof.”

    Well now…

    The mantle is now located at the Truman Presidential Library.

  10. 10.

    Another Scott

    @Baud:

    TheHill.com:

    A close finish could breathe life into a rival campaign. But a blowout, double-digit victory in Iowa would give Trump momentum heading into New Hampshire next week, where strategists and Trump allies believe the former president could effectively clear the field with another big win.

    “It’s always possible that his lead could narrow or that it could change,” Ralph Reed, chair of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, said on a call with reporters. “But at least in my conversations with people on the ground, we’re not seeing anything like the dramatic shift that took place in 2016 between say mid-October and early December that caused [Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas)] to jump into the lead. We’ll see what happens on caucus night.”

    Iowa is particularly critical for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), who has poured resources into the state, earned Gov. Kim Reynolds’s (R) endorsement and spent months meeting with voters in all 99 counties. While he has in recent weeks tried to manage expectations, strategists have suggested anything short of a strong second-place finish would be devastating for the Florida governor.

    Oooh! So exciting!! But things could change!!1 But it could be devastating1!11

    Good to see old Ralph at it again. He’s never far from candidates looking to grab power. Gotta grab some for himself, amirite??

    “No one has ever in the modern era for a contested primary contest going into caucus night actually won by more than 12, and no one has cracked 50 percent,” Jason Miller, a senior Trump adviser, said in an interview with “The Hill” on NewsNation. “So we believe that we’re in very good shape with President Trump, we do believe that we’re going to win. But you know what, I’m going to take the win.”

    Oooh. Jason Miller too! Getting the whole gang (that isn’t under indictment, yet) back together.

    Former president might win 50% in his own party! Great support!!1 Bigly!!11

    New Hampshire will pose a different test for Trump, given it is a more libertarian state and allows independents to vote in party primaries.

    “I don’t think there’s been a candidate who won both Iowa and New Hampshire in the modern era,” said Reed, the Faith and Freedom chairman. “All I’m suggesting to you is that this thing is far from over, and the nomination process tends to be a marathon, not a sprint. And if you end up with a shocking outcome in one of these first three states, you’re going to at least Super Tuesday, if not well beyond that.”

    We’re going to win, but it’s not over! There might be surprises! But the other races are different, and a sprint is different from a marathon!! No, it’s not a sign of weakness that a former woman governor from a small state, and an intensely unlikeable guy from crazyland might keep a former president from getting even half of the vote. No, no, no!!11

    And these guys get paid zillions to tell the press this stuff.

    [ groucho-roll-eyes.gif ]

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  11. 11.

    Matt

    who tell us maybe he’s not so bad, they never see this stuff on the front page of the NYTimes, it’s all just a performance?

    The correct approach for those folks is to tell them they get double votes on the second Wednesday in November, because they’re either (1) an utter moron or (2) a liar who’s voting for Trump.

  13. 13.

    Urza

    @Baud: The guy they just hired from John Stewart, he should dig up video clips and microtarget with the things Trump says that people would hate.  Like that clip about a Muslim ban should help with current issues Biden is having with them.  There’s a clip for every occasion.  And then just a reel of all the stupid things like airports in the revolutionary war and magnets with something tested well so its not counterproductive about remember Biden’s the one they call old and senile and make sure that plays on Fox and every other network a Republican might watch so they can’t deny who actually has brain rot.

  18. 18.

    Alison Rose

    God, he is such a child. How anyone can look at him and see someone tough and strong is just beyond me. He’s a petulant, immature, braindead little whiny ass bitch. The avatar of today’s GOP.

    As a palate cleanser, an email from my governor:

    Republicans don’t give a damn about protecting kids and they are certainly not “pro-life.”

    Alison —

    Republicans don’t give a damn about protecting kids and they are certainly not “pro-life.”

    If they were interested in life, they wouldn’t cut child hunger programs.

    If they were interested in life, they wouldn’t allow guns, of all things, to be the leading cause of death for our kids.

    If they were interested in life, they wouldn’t be attempting to take away people’s health care through the Affordable Care Act.

    Here’s a refresher on what a “pro-life” agenda ACTUALLY looks like:

    gun safety laws
    healthcare for all
    expanding pre-natal care
    expanding mental healthcare
    expanding childcare
    universal preschool

    Sing it from the rooftops.

    Gavin Newsom.

    Tell us how you really feel, Gav!

  19. 19.

    Quadrillipede

    With any luck, Lumpy will decompensate to the point that (what’s left of) his brain falls out of his ears and he’s a boat anchor on the rest of his wretched party…

  20. 20.

    C Stars

    Yep, that’s him. Same old jackass. Noticeably smaller vocabulary but other than that about the same.

  21. 21.

    Brachiator

    Trump is asked about the report that his businesses profited over $8 million from foreign governments including China while he was president. He said that is such a small amount of money and “I was doing services for them … I don’t get $8 million for doing nothing!”

    What’s crazier than Trump?

    The fact that none of this is a problem with his base, nor with the GOP leadership.

  22. 22.

    Snarki, child of Loki

    @NotMax: Left out his “I’m going to build a dome over America.”

     

    Yeah, along with the Space Farce to stop the space alien invasion.

    Or maybe it was a typo? That Trump was going to “Make a Dumb over America”?

    Mission Accomplished!

  24. 24.

    smith

    @Urza: I think graphic demonstrations of his brain rot are unlikely to sway his cultists — accepting his nonsense at face value is a test of loyalty for them, and they seem happy to provide it. Maybe some less-dedicated  and less tuned-in folks who hear about it for the first time will be shocked and surprised, but it could turn out like that famous focus group, in which voters heard the details of Republican policies, but rejected the information because they didn’t believe politicians would be so cruel.

  26. 26.

    Urza

    @smith: You might be right about his base, but it should also inflame Biden’s base to want to turn out even if they’re a little unhappy about other things.

  29. 29.

    Yutsano

    There it is. Get him back in front of the cameras. Remind Americans over and over why they voted for the other guy. I am neither sanguine nor complacent. But I would rather be where we are right now.

  30. 30.

    Ohio Mom

    It’s a trite observation that truth is stranger than fiction but lately, every time I read about Trump I think, If this was a movie, I’d have already walked out because my willing suspension of disbelief would have snapped.

    At this point, every Trump utterance is beyond ludicrous. The Civil War could have been negotiated? Sounds like the start of a comedy routine.

  31. 31.

    Ruckus

    @Baud:

    Why would they? Does it directly benefit them?

    They get to report chaos – which always sells more news, spoken and written. Which is likely why they always report on SFB, he’s such a fucking disaster that he sells eyeballs and that makes them money, always the most important thing to news organizations.

  33. 33.

    Ruckus

    @Gin & Tonic:

    I wonder if they will notice he is insane.

    It is difficult for the insane to tell that they or someone else is insane. And if they are for this insane asshole, they are insane.

  35. 35.

    smith

    @Urza: I certainly hope so. One big advantage our side has is his legal troubles, and the fact that even disengaged normies can’t be unaware of them. As he continues to deal with one legal setback after another, not only does his mental state further deteriote, normal people’s discomfort over voting for a possible felon increases.

    An ABC poll I commented about yesterday showed 56% of respondents supporting charging him for his crimes, and an equal percentage is open to barring him from the ballot under the 14th Amendment, either by SCOTUS decision or by the states. I would not have guessed that second number to be so high.

  38. 38.

    TriassicSands

    @Baud: ​ Someone has to tell first. While columnists seem to be aware that Trump is old and has mush for brains, the news desk doesn’t seem to have gotten the word yet.
    If Trump keeled over and died tomorrow, I would expect the MSM to focus on and emphasize the fact that Biden is even older and could drop dead at any second.​

  39. 39.

    Martin

    “It’s horrible, but we have to get over it” should be the pledge of allegiance given the degree to which we rely on that sentiment.

  40. 40.

    hells littlest angel

    @Yutsano:I am neither sanguine nor complacent. But I would rather be where we are right now.

     

    Me too. My biggest worry is that he has a stroke or an aneurysm before he gets the nomination.

  42. 42.

    Brachiator

    @zhena gogolia:

    I’m afraid all these horrible things he says are just what his people want to hear. I just have to hope there aren’t that many of them.

    Trump is just babbling now. His base wants to hear some of this. They ignore what they don’t like.

    But who knows. Trump may be running on empty.

    Our side can ignore it and move on.

  44. 44.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Brachiator: ​ 

    Nor with the media. They just glibly glide past his criminality and continue to treat him as a normal run-of-the-mill candidate.

  45. 45.

    Another Scott

    @TBone: Why would there be an awkward moment with TIFG with NATO in 2018?? It’s a mystery, since he’s such a charming guy…

    FTFNYT from January 2019:

    Last year, President Trump suggested a move tantamount to destroying NATO: the withdrawal of the United States.

    Senior administration officials told The New York Times that several times over the course of 2018, Mr. Trump privately said he wanted to withdraw from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Current and former officials who support the alliance said they feared Mr. Trump could return to his threat as allied military spending continued to lag behind the goals the president had set.

    In the days around a tumultuous NATO summit meeting last summer, they said, Mr. Trump told his top national security officials that he did not see the point of the military alliance, which he presented as a drain on the United States.

    Hmm… Yeah, that might be a reason why he would be shunned at the NATO meeting. But Mr. Stable Genius probably didn’t understand that they have their own interests and weren’t going to come crawling to him, and buy out floors of condos in one of his trashy buildings, to try to get on his “good” side. Hence his pouting.

    But, man, 2018, that’s like in the Middle Ages, isn’t it?? Ancient history. The press doesn’t have historians on staff any more, so citizens will have to do their own digging for context, I guess.

    Grr…,
    Scott.

  47. 47.

    oldgold

    The extreme weather Iowa is experiencing, a once in a decade event, which will persist through the caucus, has thrown a real wild card into an already farcical process.

  48. 48.

    smith

    Another note about TFG’s legal problems: I was interested to see this commentary by Amanda Marcotte,
    “The Proud Boys are collapsing: Surprise! Legal consequences do hurt authoritarian movements.” It seems the Proud Boys are rapidly withering away, and she ascribes it to their membership witnessing the hard downfall of their leadership after J6. Her point is that authoritarian cults can disintegrate quite quickly when their leaders are taken down, especially when they are made to face consequences for their actions. This is a message that those who continue to hand-wring over likely MAGA violence if TFG is not handled with kid gloves need to hear. The most effective way to deal with MAGA terrorism is to show that the cult leader does not have impunity.

  50. 50.

    kindness

    Is it odd that Trump proclaiming his revenge and retribution as a reason to elect him excites his base?  It wouldn’t have been that many years ago that that wouldn’t have been OK.  Times have changed.

    I think Trump will scare all the actual Independents to vote for Biden.

  51. 51.

    Almost Retired

    @Baud: I think you’re right about a bit of slipping confidence by the Trump team in the Polar Vortex Caucuses.

    Anecdata, but I went to high school in a conservative Iowa town.  I recently waded into our Class Facebook page against my better judgment.  There’s a “no politics “ rule, but they only seem to apply the rule to me.

    At any rate, Trump has long attracted the support of the C and D students in my class.  But recently on the Facebook page he seems to be losing the C students.  This is filling the D students with poorly-articulated and misspelled retributive rage.  Someone will end up losing an eye from an attack with a chicken wing at the Pizza Ranch.

  54. 54.

    Wyatt Salamanca

    Aside from the lack of greasepaint and the clothes that they wore, Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum were completely indistinguishable from circus clowns. They’re a fucking disgrace to journalism and deserve to burn in Hell.

  55. 55.

    TBone

    @smith: this is why I’m so staunchly behind using our Constitution (Fourteenth Amendment, Section 3) as it was intended.  Hammer time.

  56. 56.

    JML

    The NATO stuff has actually always played pretty well with the GOP; they’ve got plenty of isolationists (it fits in well with their anti-immigrant stances) and there’s tons of their base that’s anti-european as well. The DC insiders always pretend that the internationalist wing of the party will keep those people in check (in part because that’s who they all hang out with), not noticing how much fewer and toothless they are.

    For all the moaning about Trump hijacking the GOP…most of his actual policies are bog-standard GOP these days, and they’ve been banging the resentment and grievance drum long before the Big Orange Idiot showed up. He just makes it more craven and personal and grifts more obviously…but this is who these fucktards are.

  58. 58.

    Bill Arnold

    @NotMax:
    That was him promising an Iron Dome missile defense system for the USA.
    The USA has approximately 444 times the area of Israel, and is far enough away from nuclear armed adversaries that it would need to defend mainly against SLBMs and ICBMs, which are much harder to intercept than the shorter-range missiles that Israel deals with.

  63. 63.

    Jay

    @Bill Arnold:

    That was him TIFG’s shit for brains attempting to promise an Iron Dome missile defense system for the USA. And of course, unless you speak or can interpret SFB, you would have no clue what he was trying to say.

  65. 65.

    Nukular Biskits

    Good evenin’, y’all, from the West Coast.

    What pisses me off so much about all this (well, a lot of things do) is that our supposedly liberal media in MS have yet to even report on this, much less get a single MS GOP official on record as stating they do or do not support these statements.

    FFS.

  66. 66.

    Anoniminous

    @Ruckus:

    [Trump] … sells eyeballs and that makes them money, always the most important thing to news organizations.

    The only important thing. They’d show porn 24/7 if it made them money.

  67. 67.

    Snarki, child of Loki

    @TBone: “staunchly behind using our Constitution (Fourteenth Amendment, Section 3) as it was intended.  Hammer time.”

     

    Damn.

    I seem to have misplaced the “Hammer-pants”.  Oh well

    Can’t touch this.

  68. 68.

    Another Scott

    @JML: Yeah, he’s the embodiment of what they claimed they were for for decades.  “Billionaire bidnessman who can’t be bought and speaks his mind!!11”

    [ groucho-roll-eyes.gif ]

    But he’s also an obvious, unrepentant, crook who only cares about himself and ranks his business stuff over his oath and brags about all of it. TheGuardian.com:

    According to the Jerusalem Post, Turnip added: “And by the way, you owe me $400bn, because you didn’t pay, you Germans, what you had to pay for defence.”

    He talked like that almost every time NATO came up – they own “him” money.

    It’s shocking, but not surprising. Everything is about him.

    I hope Nikki relays some interesting cabinet meeting anecdote before she drops out. Something to make him blow his top. “Everyone knows that Turnip tore up and ate official documents. But Turnip also eats his toenail clippings, made the staff change his diaper while we waited, and most shockingly of all, …” That would be interesting. But she’s so craven and power hungry that I don’t expect it.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  73. 73.

    Bill Arnold

    @Another Scott:
    Out of curiosity, what percentage of USA GDP is spent on NATO-related activities?
    The US has military bases around the world, and non-NATO alliances.

  77. 77.

    MomSense

    @HumboldtBlue: Third storm since Christmas and second one this week.  We are experiencing severe flooding and damage.  Buildings that are 150 -200 years old washing out to sea.

  78. 78.

    Mr. Bemused Senior

    @Alison Rose: Oh yeah, we’re besties. We go way back.

    How can I resist a line like that?

    [ in the voice of Ed McMahon ] How far back, Alison?

  79. 79.

    Neal

    @Urza: 

    Not that I would ever allow it on in my home, but that faux mien of gravitas adopted by Brett Baier is stomach wrenching.

    Somewhere in their youth poseurs like him must have practiced for hours in front of a mirror to be convinced that they had serious journalistic chops.

    The question should not be “will we survive?” but rather “do we deserve to survive?”

  80. 80.

    wjca

    @HumboldtBlue: How to find your kids when they are out of sight on the farm.

    Gosh, all my mom did was ring the old cow bell.  Definitely got us all to respond — and not just because it usually meant dinner was on.

  84. 84.

    Citizen Alan

    @Nukular Biskits:

    Well, the jackson free press can’t do everything by itself. Is there another even remotely liberal news source in mississippi? I know the clarion ledger and the tupelo daily journal are basically fascist rags. Maybe the student newspaper at USM?

  87. 87.

    Mr. Bemused Senior

    @Alison Rose: forgive me, it was banter with Johnny Carson’s monologue, Johnny would have a funny reply after starting with that kind of line.

  88. 88.

    Nukular Biskits

    @Alison Rose:

    All media is, by default, “liberal” unless it glowingly reports on issues/positions/statements that align with “conservative” values.

    Poor attempt at sarcasm, perhaps.  I be tired and have a case of the crud so bear with me.

  89. 89.

    Another Scott

    Meanwhile, ICYMI, … TheMessenger.com:

    Writer E. Jean Carroll’s attorney warned a federal judge on Friday that Donald Trump may seek to “sow chaos,” asking the court to lay down ground rules keeping the 2024 Republican presidential frontrunner from turning his upcoming second trial into a “circus.”

    “Indeed, he may well perceive a benefit in seeking to poison these proceedings, where the only question for the jury is how much more he will have to pay in damages for defaming Ms. Carroll,” the writer’s lead attorney Roberta Kaplan wrote in a four-page letter on Friday. “This Court should made clear from the outset that Mr. Trump is forbidden from engaging in such antics and will suffer consequences if he does so.”

    As an exhibit to the letter, Carroll’s legal team showed the judge a transcript Trump’s five-minute courtroom tirade during closing arguments of his civil fraud trial as evidence that the former president wants to use federal court as a forum for a “similar performance.”

    […]

    “Mr. Trump cannot testify that he did not sexually assault Ms. Carroll,” the letter says. “He cannot claim that he did not rape her, or did not know her, or had never seen her before. He cannot question or attack her motives for revealing that he had assaulted her. He cannot say that he was defending himself from a false accusation.”

    In light of those constraints, Trump could “theoretically offer testimony about their lack of wealth in the hope of minimizing a punitive damages award,” Carroll’s lawyers note.

    But they point out such a defense would be unlikely because it would “run headlong into Mr. Trump’s sworn testimony and public statements elsewhere.”

    At Thursday’s press conference, Trump told reporters: “I’m going to go to [the Carroll v. Trump trial], and I’m going to explain I don’t know who the hell she is,” a contention that a previous federal jury rejected.

    […]

    She’s got smart lawyers, and TIFG’s various twisted legal “arguments” are starting to bite him.

    I need to order more popcorn.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  90. 90.

    Nukular Biskits

    @Citizen Alan:

    Well, the jackson free press can’t do everything about itself. Is there another even remotely liberal news source in mississippi? I know the clarion ledger and the tupelo daily journal are basically fascist rags. Maybe the student newspaper at USM?

    Jackson Free Press, MS Free Press (to which I donate) and MS Today.  Other than that, most media outlets in the state are corp-owned.

    And then we have SupertalkFM, which is a rightwing statewide network dedicated to sports and, of course, promoting “traditional conservative values”.  At least partly on the MS taxpayer dime.

    [Edit] I forgot to include Mississippi Public Broadcasting which does a pretty good job, despite being under constant attack by “conservative” legislators desperate to cut their state funding.

  91. 91.

    wjca

    @Nukular Biskits: Mississippi.

    My native land.  Currently (and looks like forever will be) a third-world country.

    Hey, at least both your Senators actually are residents of the state.  Puts you 1 up on Alabama.  (So much for their pretensions.)

  92. 92.

    Nukular Biskits

    @wjca:

    Hey, at least both your Senators actually are residents of the state.  Puts you 1 up on Alabama.  (So much for their pretensions.)

    I’m confused.  Does that make MS #2 or #49?

    😂

  95. 95.

    oldgold

    The weather in Iowa is beyond brutal. Currently the wind chill is 51 below zero!

    Humidity75%; Wind SpeedW 31 G 40 mph; Wind Chill-51°F (-46°C); Last update13 Jan 7:35 pm CST

  97. 97.

    smith

    @Another Scott: He’s going to keep trying to hijack court proceedings until some judge really lowers the boom on him. Engoron let him run his mouth for 5 minutes, and now TFG thinks he’s figured out how to make an end run around this trial nonsense. With the NY fraud trial, it won’t make any difference, since it was a bench trial and there’s no way his word salad would make it better for him. But all his upcoming trials will be jury trials, and letting him run amok could actually influence the jury or result in a mistrial.

  101. 101.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Jackie: He’s paranoid.  With good reason.  Everyone is out to get him and make him suffer for his criminality.

  103. 103.

    Brachiator

    @HumboldtBlue:

    Nor with the media. They just glibly glide past his criminality and continue to treat him as a normal run-of-the-mill candidate.

    To be fair, some news organizations will also regularly interview historians and other experts about Trump’s authoritarian urges. But I agree that the media treat this as just another election in their political coverage.

    A good chunk of the country believe that “it can’t happen here,” with respect to an eruption of fascism. But people also believed that Roe v Wade was settled law. 

  106. 106.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Brachiator: But I agree that the media treat this as just another election in their political coverage.

    Hence my nym.  Wipe them out, all of them.

  107. 107.

    Elizabelle

    Ha ha.  Just looked at the forecast for Iowa City, IA.  Too bad they’re not holding their primary a week from Tuesday, when they expect a balmy 33 to 38 degrees.

    This Tuesday’s forecast is negative 3 to 3 degrees

    Not sure what either forecast would be given wind chill.  But it warms up to negative 1 on Monday.

  109. 109.

    RevRick

    @zhena gogolia: Trump is using the classic fascist device of ramping up the ugly rhetoric. It is a loyalty test of his followers. I said x that was somewhat outrageous and you went along with it. Here’s x+1, and x+2, and x +3. You will be onboard, because you accepted x.
    Fascist followers think this is, oh so clever, because it’s transgressive. This, of course, prepares them for actual acts of violence.

  110. 110.

    Jackie

    Looks like Pudd’n Boots has dropped into the third place slot in Iowa. BettyCracker is dancing with glee in balmy Florida!

    It’s frigidity cold here in southeastern WA, although not as bad as Iowa. Once it’s below zero it’s 🥶

  111. 111.

    SomeRandomFellow

    And don’t forget when he tried to blackmail a new, reform-minded Ukrainian government into spying on Joe Biden.

    No: he tried to blackmail Ukraine into opening an investigation of Hunter Biden, so that Barr could Comey the 2020 election.

    They didn’t want spying – spying wouldn’t find anything (since there was nothing to find). They wanted power – and asking Ukraine to announce the investigation (remember: they just wanted the *announcement*) gave them that power.

    So: no, they weren’t trying to get Ukraine to spy on Biden. They were trying to get Ukraine to provide lies, to cover for Barr.

  112. 112.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    Trump’s becoming a parallel of a specific portrayal of Hitler: an aged, delusional, demented version from Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, a video game so blatantly, proudly anti-fascist that it got a waiver on Germany’s ban on the swastika because of how obviously evil the Nazis were, a video game that pissed off the MAGA movement by advertising with the tag line “Make America Nazi-Free Again”. (And the game was produced before Trump stole the 2016 election, too.)

  113. 113.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Almost Retired:

    Anecdata, but I went to high school in a conservative Iowa town.  I recently waded into our Class Facebook page against my better judgment.  There’s a “no politics “ rule, but they only seem to apply the rule to me.

    The rule of the unmarked case is at the heart of conservatism. Their politics is not politics; their identity is not an identity; their race is not a race and their gender is not a gender. They’re just expressing the default positions of decent normal folks. If you disagree with them, you’re the one bringing politics or identity or race or gender into it.

    The most extreme ones even insist that evangelical Christianity is not a religion–only other religions are religions; they’ve just got a direct connection to Jesus Christ, like decent normal folks.

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