Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Giving in to doom is how authoritarians win.

They are not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Celebrate the fucking wins.

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

Republicans got rid of McCarthy. Democrats chose not to save him.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

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

Accountability, motherfuckers.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

The current Supreme Court is a dangerous, rogue court.

When we show up, we win.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

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

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

President Musk and Trump are both poorly raised, coddled 8 year old boys.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

You are here: Home / John Cole Presents "Stories from the Road" / Thursday Night Open Thread

Thursday Night Open Thread

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Just want to let you all know that we are now well under the 48 hour marker for Cat Fest at the Mesa Museum. Today I was informed that there is a cat fashion show and I can not tell you how excited I am for this thing. Joelle is really gonna have to keep an eye out for me when we leave because there are going to be cat adoptions, and I think after a couple hours of foreplay of cat art and cat fashion shows and I might be easy pickings.

Speaking of fashion, something I ordered a while back finally arrived today, and boy howdy does it deliver. I knew the mkoment I saw these I was going to have to bite the bullet and share. At any rate, the latest in Tempe’s menswear has been released:

Thursday Night Open Thread 5

I’ll never forget the first time Ann Burr saw me in overalls and said “You’ve just given up, haven’t you?” Give up my ass, I’m just getting started!

***

Speaking of stupid (and I was referring to me in the overalls, not Ann Burr), I had a conversation with Alex Knapp today. I don’t know if many of you remember him, but he was in the blogging vanguard, such that it was. Lot of names many of you would remember and many would not, like Erik Kain and Ian Boudreau and Alex. Regardless, we were talking, and Trump inevitably came up, and he remarked “The thing that drives me crazy is that “TRUMP IS REALLY STUPID” should be such a bigger part of the discourse.” And he’s right, because beyond the fascism and the greed and the malignant narcissism and the treason and the rape and racism and the fact that he eats fucking well done steak with fucking ketchup is the simple unavoidable but not nearly talked about enough fact that Trump is really fucking stupid. As dumb as we all think his son is, the father is that fucking stupid. His son is probably dumber than we even think.

The issue at hand that was driving Alex batshit was that a couple weeks ago, Trump was at a rally in Iowa, and literally stated that if you put a magnet under water it stops working. The man does not know how magnets work. And this got little to no press coverage. But it fucking happened:

It’s fucking mindbogglingly stupid. And the thing is, he has said so many fucking stupid things that this hardly stands out. One that has shook me for going on several years now is late in his presidency but pre-covid he was on a ship somewhere and started talking about aircraft carriers and stated that he thought we should retrofit our nuclear ships with steam catapults because, and this is where it gets even better, electricity is unproven and untested. Not only does he not understand magnets, the man does not understand electricity but even beyond that he clearly does not understand that the nuclear reactor powering the ship GENERATES FUCKING ELECTRICITY. It’s fucking insane.

I mean you want to write it off to senility and years of substance abuse, but he’s been saying stupid shit for so long it can’t be that it’s that he’s just that fucking stupid. Not to mention, I abused substances for years and even at the drunkest or highest or tripping I was, I never once questioned the fucking reliability of electricity.

And there is so much more. Remember when he blamed someone’s wild fires on insufficient leaf raking of the forest? I mean there are so many of these I am overloading. So why is this not more of the discourse? Is it because probably half the country or more would read this and say “Damn I didn’t know magnets worked underwater” or “fuck me I had no idea engines on ships generated electricity.” Is that it? Was Mike Judge that ahead of things with Idiocracy? Fuck me.

Maybe I forget just how fucking stupid most people are because I only talk to their dogs in public?

***

At any rate, put your “favorite” dumb thing below. Let’s make a comprehensive list of all the stupid fucking things Trump has said.

On a closing note, a very special friend of the blog will be celebrating her 84th birthday tomorrow. We’ve become very good friends the last few years, and I wanted all of you to help me wish her a Happy 84th! I’m glad your still with us and I’d do another 84 with ya, kid.

I’ll let her out herself in the comments should she so choose.

Reader Interactions

201Comments

  1. 1.

    Ed Welthorpe

    Remember how Trump also blamed California forest fires on “explosive trees”? It shocked me how little attention that got. Maybe most members of the press spend as much time in forests as Tubby does.

  4. 4.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    Heh heh, you can take the boy outta WV but can’t take the WV outta the boy.

    And yes, I graduated HS in WV albeit on the opposite side of the state from Cole.

  10. 10.

    lollipopguild

    As other people and better people have said before, trump is a stupid person’s idea of what a “smart” person sounds like. During the Covid time I worked part time at Lowes in the paint dept and at the time we were in charge of the cleaning supplies aisle. “Oh Joy and Rapture!” I had a person who was looking for something to kill germs inform me that Clorox  bleach does not kill germs.

  13. 13.

    piratedan

    Jc has procured the new government uniform for the next wave of Government Employees, the Forest Rakers.  Which is another goddamn fucking stupid thing that Trump said.

  17. 17.

    Almost Retired

    I heartily approve from a sartorial standpoint.  If you’re going to wear overalls (if you must) go all in and commit.

  18. 18.

    Gozer

    Him thinking that wind power means the power goes out when the wind stops blowing.

    Or that you could nuke a tropical cyclone to stop it.

    The sharpie-map incident.

     

    EDIT: I think it was Fran Liebowitz who said no one knows anyone who is as dumb as Trump. Imagine the dumbest people you personally know and Trump is so much dumber than any of them.

  22. 22.

    Princess

    Lordy my husband is on the phone trying to persuade his mother not to watch that QAnon movie Shadow of Freedom about the guy who got sued for harassment by all the women who worked for him. These were perfectly standard right wing for pro life reasons but not crazy people before Fox News got to them.

  23. 23.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    For me, it will always be injecting bleach into people to kill COVID. That’s literally insane

  25. 25.

    Mai Naem mobile

    Joelle won’t lose you in the crowd at the cat event wearing those overalls!

    TFG wanted to nuke hurricanes. Thars my stupid TFG comment. Also sharpiegate but that was just narcissism not so much stupidity.

  26. 26.

    Chetan Murthy

    Remember when TFG told us that UV light would kill covid, so we should look into using that to cure human patients ?  Shine that UV light up your ass, cure you lickety-split!

  27. 27.

    MattF

    Aaaaand… those colors. Did you know that the human visual system can ‘see’ colors that don’t actually exist in nature? Rumor has it that there’s a ‘super green’ that the Disney engineers have used in their various parks. Makes the grass greener.

  34. 34.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @MattF: Yep, magenta is a illusion created by our brains.

    This purplish-red-crimson color, located between red and blue on the color wheel, is extra special as it is not found on the visible spectrum of light and there is no wavelength of light that corresponds to that particular color. Rather, it is physiologically and psychologically perceived as a mixture of red and blue. So technically, magenta doesn’t exist.

    Hadn’t heard about Disney using a “super green” but they’re well-known for using “go away green” (actually various shades of green) used on utility structures, back doors, and other less-than-majestic sights that Disney doesn’t want guests to notice.

  35. 35.

    Frankensteinbeck

    Definitely the injecting bleach thing.  I watched that video, and he looks so senile.  He’s standing at the podium mumbling rambling stupid stuff, and he mentions that disinfectants have been working well and turns and asks the doctor next to him if they can be injected into people like he thinks he’s just had a good idea.  The whole thing had the tone of someone whose brain has completely checked out and he’s just saying shit on automatic.

  38. 38.

    Captain C

    John, with those overalls you would fit right in at The Noodles* at Cactus Jack’s on Sunday evenings.

     

    *One of Arizona’s Grateful Dead bands, among the others are Xtra Ticket and Harvest.

  43. 43.

    Damien

    True story: when Mike Judge was making Idiocracy there’s a scene where the #1 movie in America is “Ass,” and when he showed that actual footage for the background actors the legitimate laughter it engendered made him question whether he was already too late.

    spoiler: he was

  44. 44.

    Misswhatsis

    Man walks down the street wearing overalls like that—you know he’s not afraid of anything.

  45. 45.

    Captain C

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    The whole thing had the tone of someone whose brain has completely checked out and he’s just saying shit on automatic.

    The rambling guy at the end of the bar who is don’t-give-a-fuck-or-have-a-clue drinks into his evening.

  48. 48.

    RaflW

    @Ed Welthorpe: The thing is, the press long ago decided that it was their job to ‘decode’ Trump’s idiocy rather than remark on its existence.

    In your example, the nugget of truth is that pine trees near a raging forest fire can combust in a manner that looks ‘explosive’, and some editor decides “Oh, that’s what Trump means” and just paraphrases him rather than quoting him which would show his tiny-brained misconceptions of, well, nearly everything.

  49. 49.

    mrmoshpotato

    Joelle is really gonna have to keep an eye out for me when we leave because there are going to be cat adoptions, and I think after a couple hours of foreplay of cat art and cat fashion shows and I might be easy pickings.

    Is it possible for a guy to become a cat lady?  In my book, you don’t have to be single, and, also in my book, the answer is “Apparently, yes!” 😁

  51. 51.

    catclub

    @lollipopguild: I think it is ‘Newt Gingrich is the stupid person’s image of a smart person’  Trump is a stupid persons image of a billionaire – successful – businessman.

  53. 53.

    CaseyL

    Have you ever listened to a Trumpie being interviewed? They’re so stupid you wonder how they manage to breath without coaching.

    All those people who “came out of the woodwork” to vote for him are the least intelligent, stupidest people in the US.

    He is their god.​

    ETA: Meant to say, I love those overalls. I have a real weakness for tie dye. Much as I don’t want to wear overalls, I would wear a pair like that.

  54. 54.

    trollhattan

    Just want to chime in how grand it is to see the good-eatin’ overalls captured in public, for all to honour, each in our own way.

    Respect.

  55. 55.

    mrmoshpotato

    At any rate, put your “favorite” dumb thing below. Let’s make a comprehensive list of all the stupid fucking things Trump has said.

    I don’t feel like suffering an aneurysm.

    On their YouTube page, driftglass and bluegal included a Photoshop with tonight’s podcast of the orange shitstain as Dr. Evil. I’ll have to listen through the website tonight, because No!

    Enjoy unnecessarily subjecting each other to Hell.  Just remember – THE SHITSTAIN AIN’T DEAD YET!

    I’m out.

  56. 56.

    JaySinWA

    I missed the stupid statement challenge at first.

    How about Finland raking forests to prevent fires.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2018/11/19/why-finland-is-so-good-handling-forest-fires-hint-its-not-because-raking/

    While Googling for that, I did find a study about raking forests in tests of controlled burns to determine if it limited destruction of old growth trees, so there’s a germ of an idea there, just not from Finland, and it’s not about controlling wildfires.

    https://www.fs.usda.gov/research/treesearch/3422

    And I see both Cole and PirateDan got there first

    ETA reading comprehension and retention skills are low tonight. I haven’t even had a drink yet.

  58. 58.

    Joelle

    I am toying with the idea of adding gold chenille Appliqué letters spelling out “Cat Daddy” on the bib.

  59. 59.

    sdhays

    “Windmills cause cancer.”

    Is it the stupidest thing he’s said? I would argue much of what he says is so stupid that you can’t rank them.

  60. 60.

    Steeplejack

    Hmm, my Balloon Juice Stasi files don’t show a likely candidate for tomorrow’s birthday, but they do show that today is the birthday of Betty Cracker, hedgehog mobile and Quinerly. Happy birthday (if correct)! Haven’t been on the blog much today, so I don’t know if these have been mentioned already.

  61. 61.

    Pennsylvanian

    John Cole, you are my spirit animal. This is vintage JC. Divine.

    And it seems you have a content match. It can’t be beat!

    Links to the various and sundry overall suppliers please? Inquiring minds want to know.

    Also, need more animal posts! Two stars on proof of life from nearly every FPer.

  65. 65.

    ewrunning

    How about thinking that imposing tariffs is somehow taking money from other countries (rather than taking money out of the pockets of US companies and consumers)?

  67. 67.

    wmd

    Shipboard nuclear reactors generate steam, which spins turbines and makes electricity.

    Perhaps that electricity drives the propellers, but it strikes me that there’s some energy loss in the angular momentum -> electricity -> angular momentum mechanism and it may be that there is gearing from the turbines to use the angular momentum directly – splitting the motive force in two – one drive train spinning dynamos, the other spinning a mechanical drive shaft. I haven’t verified this, and the reactors likely produce enough power that the energy loss is irrelevant.

    I think the stupidest thing about Trump is his belief that he’s above the law, that he can just make inane assertions and they magically are TRUTH.

  68. 68.

    eversor

    It’s hit the point where I’m starting to question wether bone spurs was an excuse for Trump being a fucking coward or wether he just flunked the mental and psychological tests to get into the military.

  70. 70.

    Meyerman

    Or what about a magnet?

    Clearly, Trump did not watch Breaking Bad, or he would have more respect for electromagnets.

  74. 74.

    TaMara

    @Steeplejack: Yes, and I know time is weird since the trump/pandemic years, but I swear she recently celebrated 75 yrs.

     

    Also – I don’t hate those overalls and am curious if they came in shorts version.

  76. 76.

    Harrison Wesley

    Trump’s accounting prof at Penn said DJT was the stupidest student he ever had.

    Multi-color overalls outfit isn’t quite complete – needs some of those Trump golden sneaks, and you’re ready to rock and roll.

  77. 77.

    trollhattan

    @TaMara: Also – I don’t hate those overalls and am curious if they came in shorts version.

    Already there, takes three minutes and some scissors. This is not advocacy per se, just statin’ facts and such.

  78. 78.

    Jackie

    @Kristine: Oh, yes! I forgot about that idiotic statement.

    There are just too many to remember.

    And serving an NCAA championship team cold fast food burgers and fries – with LOTS of ketchup.

  79. 79.

    Xavier

    Trump is stupid, but for me the problem is that developmentally he is a child. The juvenile name-calling, the refusal to take any responsibility, the hitting out at any perceived constraint on behavior… These are the behaviors of a three year old.

  80. 80.

    VFX Lurker

    @Mai Naem mobile:TFG wanted to nuke hurricanes. Thars my stupid TFG comment. Also sharpiegate but that was just narcissism not so much stupidity.

    Nuking hurricanes was going to be my pick, too.

    @John Cole Wishing your friend a wonderful 84th birthday.

  84. 84.

    JCJ

    To cite those two well known scientific wizards Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope – “Fucking magnets, how do they work?”

  85. 85.

    toine

    Between “(Hurricane Florence) one of the wettest we’ve ever seen, from the standpoint of water” and

    “For all of the money we are spending, NASA should NOT be talking about going to the Moon – We did that 50 years ago. They should be focused on the much bigger things we are doing, including Mars (of which the Moon is a part), Defense and Science!”

  86. 86.

    Mr. Bemused Senior

    I’ve got one, the Notre Dame fire…

    “So horrible to watch the massive fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris,” the President tweeted. “Perhaps flying water tankers could be used to put it out. Must act quickly!”

    [ETA in the voice of Bluebottle, I do not like this game.]

  92. 92.

    Jay

    ‘I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK? It’s, like, incredible.’

  93. 93.

    Yarrow

    @Joelle: Coleveralls! Perfection. Trademark it and start your own fashion brand. You’ll sell out.

    I want to say the hat and the fact that Cole is standing by a painting of a tiger are what makes the whole thing really work.

  94. 94.

    Matt McIrvin

    @wmd: Diesel locomotives for many many years have really been diesel-electric, that is, the diesel engine drives a generator that drives electric motors directly (not quite what we’d call a hybrid powertrain since there’s no battery involved). The reason for doing it that way is that even with the losses in that system, it’s more efficient and less trouble than using the titanic gearbox that would be necessary to drive the train mechanically.

  98. 98.

    Redshift

    Okay, my real favorite thing about him being incredibly dumb is that he really really wants to be president again to prove he’s not a loser and to make his legal troubles go away, but he can’t bear to let any money within reach go anywhere except to his own pockets. And since he’s too dumb to grasp that you need party organizations and campaigns and pacs and stuff to get into power, and instead thinks it all just happens because of his tremendous popularity, he just loots all of those things without a second though.

  99. 99.

    TBone

    @Soprano2: I had arguments with cultists about how you cannot actually inject light into the human body because they saw a stupid photoshopped meme set up showing what was essentially a glow stick being used as an I.V.line.  I reminded them that blood can be drawn out of the body for such a purpose, but even that was met with “he didn’t mean what he said” or some other bullshit every time.  Every single time.

  100. 100.

    Redshift

    @Soprano2:

    I think that was actually based on something real but TFG totally misunderstood it. Our treatment plant uses UV light to sterilize wastewater.

    Both that and the bleach thing are real, but you have to be really dumb not to get that medicines are different from antiseptics because in addition to killing germs they have to not kill you.

  102. 102.

    Soprano2

    Mine is his obsession with thinking you have to flush toilets 10 times to get stuff to go down (when you’re flushing documents that might actually be true. Those poor maintenance people…) and that no water comes out of showerheads in America.

  105. 105.

    lgerard

    My all time favorite is when he suggested we “buy” Greenland.

    What truly made it memorable is what happened next:

    trump suggests we buy greenland

    Danes, thinking it is a joke. laugh

    trump cancels diplomatic trip to Denmark

  107. 107.

    Another Scott

    He got lots and lots of briefings about lots of things, like electric catapults on new aircraft carriers.  An fighters with very small radar cross-sections.  And the contracts for the next AF-1.

    Unfortunately, he never had any interest in understanding anything, so of course he jumbled up everything and instantly thought all the experts were wrong and that his genius brain would instantly come up with some brilliant solution to cost overruns or whatever.

    That was wrong, wrong, and wrong.

    Presidents don’t need to be experts on these things, but they do need to have some curiosity, understanding of what they don’t know, and willingness to learn. TIFG is missing those things, also too.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  110. 110.

    lgerard

    @Soprano2:

    For a guy who makes a living slapping his name on dubious products, I’m amazed he missed the synergy here.

    What red blooded American wouldn’t want a trump toilet to sit on in his double wide?

  121. 121.

    Gvg

    His statement that he was smart because he had an uncle who was a professor at MIT. Drove me batty. The uncle sounds pretty intelligent per Wikipedia. Trump used his money to avoid the work of understanding anything. There must have been something defective in his personality right from a young age.

  125. 125.

    SomeRandomGuy

    Someone may have pointed this out, but, the issue was aircraft carrier catapults – I’m not sure subs have catapults. Our brand new whatever-class carriers, TFG said, should have used steam, not electromagnetics, because the brand new catapult system was still having the bugs worked out. He wanted them to retrofit steam.

    And the thing is, this is really what makes TFG so *STUPID*. He’s so stupid, he thinks he’s the first person who thought, “if the electromagnetic thingy isn’t working, could we revert to steam?” and the first person who thought “if disinfectants work on surfaces, can we use them in the body?”

    He doesn’t even think he should consult with someone on his staff before making such moronic statements – he *must* be correct that you can use disinfectants in the lungs, almost like a cleaning. Or, he must be able to impose his will, in order to make himself correct (sometimes via Sharpie).  Thankfully, someone, somehow, avoided letting him give the actual order to tear apart the first working carriers in their class, to retrofit them for steam….

  126. 126.

    Dan B

    @CaseyL: I had a client who did high level branding, tech startups and biggies, and a client who was a state Senator and now department head.  They both said that people would not vote for someone who was much smarter than them even if it was only ten IQ points more.  George W. spoke like a policy wonk with a clipped Connecticut accent until Rove got ahold of him.  His Texas drawl doesn’t exist in the south, let alone Texas.

  127. 127.

    Soprano2

    @princess leia: He’s getting better slowly. We’ll know more tomorrow after the urologist sees him again. It’ll depend on what his test numbers are. It’s so weird to be at home without him here.

  128. 128.

    wjca

    Those overalls are just soooo political!

    I mean, absolutely anybody, regardless of previous views, who sees them is so going to be woke.**

    ** To any pedant who argues for “awakened” — poo! (See three L lllama.)

  129. 129.

    BigJimSlade

    @Ed Welthorpe: He’s a firehose of stupid. I think his fans like it that way, like he’s rubbing it in everybody’s face that he can say endless amounts of crap and his fans will be right there for him.

  130. 130.

    karen marie

    When John first mentioned the cat thing, I thought ooh! that would be fun but then I realized it would be too hard not to bring a new cat home. My dog – despite living with a cat for the 14 years she’s been on the planet – would be very unhappy to have a tag team to contend with. That plus the fact that my apartment is too small for our one cat, I decided I cannot go even with the incentive of possibly seeing John’s outfit in the wild.

  131. 131.

    Jackie

    @Soprano2: As caretaker for my Dad his last five years, hate the reason you have a bit of breathing space while he’s hospitalized, but embrace the freedom to relax, unwind and breathe. Those moments are short lived, but Oh So Needed! We tend to forget ME while being there for them.🥰🤗

  132. 132.

    Anyway

    @BigJimSlade:

    He’s a firehose of stupid.

    Yes, this. My favorite is his obsession with faucets and showers with no water. He’s probably talking about low pressure but brain worms render it as no water.

    As for Cole’s outfit — I just cannot

  133. 133.

    like a metaphor

    @NotMax: as the servant of a black cat, i know that they are actually dark  brown orange.  Just observe one in direct sunlight, and behold the gothic ginger glory

  135. 135.

    way2blue

    Cropped from NBC News: [19 Oct 2020]

    President Donald Trump on Monday attacked Dr. Anthony Fauci during a phone call with campaign staff, calling the infectious disease specialist a “disaster” and saying every time he goes on television there is a “bomb,” but there would be “a bigger bomb if you fire him,” according to a recording of the call obtained by NBC News.
    “People are tired of hearing Fauci and all these idiots — these people, these people that have gotten it wrong,” Trump said. “Fauci’s a nice guy. He’s been here for 500 years. He called every one of them wrong. And he’s like this wonderful guy, a wonderful sage telling us how” to respond to the pandemic.
    “If I listened to him, we’d have 500,000 deaths,” Trump continued, adding seconds later, “If we listened to him, we’d have 700-800,000 deaths right now.”
    Trump pointed to Fauci’s early comments on mask wearing and shutting down travel from China as examples of allegedly bad advice. “And yet, we keep him,” Trump told those on the call. “Every time he goes on television, there’s always a bomb, but there’s a bigger bomb if you fire him.”

  136. 136.

    SFAW

    “What’s the stupidest thing TFG has said?”

    Trick question. It’s in the same category as “Have we finally reached Peak Wingnut”? Meaning: it’s asymptotic.

  138. 138.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Yarrow YB: only improvement I can think of would be a painting of a liger instead

    @Geoduck: the one that E. Jean Carroll and Tish James will soon own?

  140. 140.

    Mart

    Just a few months back at a California GOP fundraiser Trump started a rant on a giant valve in Northern California. The valve is so big, waves his arm in a circle, it’s bigger than this room. Have you seen it? There is so much water behind this valve it would flood the Central Valley. I know there are farmers here. We did really good for the farmers. Because Chiina, Chiina, took advantage of Obama. The whole central valley would bloom. There would be billions and billions in agriculture. And you know those rich smelly Hollywood people. Their showers that go drip, drip, drip? They won’t smell bad anymore because there will be all the water they need to take a shower. But the communist, socialist, Newsome wouldn’t let my people open it. Because of a fish. A teeny little fish that is not doing very well by the way. ETA – Opening this valve would also allow the forests to be dampened. Also too land management in Austria. Leaves on the floor are five feet thick over here, and not in Austria. Dampened floors – no forest fires. He basically repeated this a couple days later on Fox with the totally gross Levin.

    It is just fucking insane, and it goes on for over 10 minutes. And not a single news story about how fucking insane this is.

    https://www.c-span.org/video/?530803-1/president-trump-speaks-california-republican-party-convention

  141. 141.

    Ruckus

    @lollipopguild:

    I had a person who was looking for something to kill germs inform me that Clorox  bleach does not kill germs.

    Well it doesn’t if you leave it in the bottle……… with the cap on.

  143. 143.

    ColoradoGuy

    There’s a straight line from Reagan to Trump, which is why the GOP base loves him so much. Politics as Entertainment, which is just fine with the media companies, and just fine with the Reality-TV viewership. They WANT loud, stupid, and noisy.

    The Stupid is the point. Just as Russians see brutality as Real Leadership, plenty of Americans demand entertainment. In case you think that’s more wholesome than the Russian equivalent, remember, lynchings used to be considered wholesome American family entertainment. Not that long ago, either.

    The GOP had been selling actors as politicians for many decades, and Fox News is formatted as entertainment as much as “news”.

  145. 145.

    Ruckus

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    I’m not sure there was ever much of a brain there at all. OK that’s not true, I’m pretty sure there never was much of one. Certainly not a good, sharp, thoughtful, intelligent, reasonable one. Dad used to get WSJ and Forbes and there would be articles in them once in a while about SFB and they always seemed to me to be saying “Look at this doofus.” He always looked like he bought his suits at the Salvation Army store – with his eyes closed and on a dare.

  149. 149.

    Ruckus

    @Gvg:

    There must have been something defective in his personality right from a young age.

    I’d bet more than just one thing……

  152. 152.

    TriassicSands

    1. “I think if this country gets any kinder or gentler, it’s literally going to cease to exist.”    1990
    2. “I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will have Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my words.”  2015′
    3. “I will be phenomenal to the women. I mean, I want to help women.”   (2015)
    4. “The answer is there has to be some form of punishment.” For abortion (2016)
    5. “I have so many fabulous friends who happen to be gay, but I am a traditionalist.” (2011)
    6. “The U.S. cannot allow EBOLA-infected people back. People that go to far away places to help out are great – but must suffer the consequences!”    (2014)
    7. “They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.” (2015)
    8. “When you see the other side chopping off heads, waterboarding doesn’t sound very severe.” (2016)
    9. “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.”    (2012)
    10. “If Hillary Clinton can’t satisfy her husband what makes her think she can satisfy America?” (2015)
    11. “I’m the most successful person ever to run for the presidency, by far. Nobody’s ever been more successful than me. I’m the most successful person ever to run. Ross Perot isn’t successful like me. Romney – I have a Gucci store that’s worth more than Romney.”  (2015)
    12. “[John McCain is]… not a war hero. He’s a war hero – he’s a war hero ’cause he was captured. I Like people that weren’t captured, OK, I hate to tell you.”  (2015)
    13. “.@arianahuff is unattractive both inside and out. I fully understand why her former husband left her for a man – he made a good decision.”  (2012)
    14. “My favourite part [of Pulp Fiction] is when Sam has his gun out in the diner and he tells the guy to tell his girlfriend to shut up. ‘Tell that bitch to be cool. Say: Bitch be cool.’ I love those lines.”  (2005)
    15. “I look very much forward to showing my financials, because they are huge.”  (2011)
    16. “Sorry losers and haters, but my IQ is one of the highest – and you all know it! Please don’t feel so stupid or insecure, it’s not your fault.”   (2013)
    17. “All of the women on The Apprentice flirted with me – consciously or unconsciously. That’s to be expected.”  (2004)
    18. “Certain guys tell me they want women of substance, not beautiful models. It just means they can’t get beautiful models.”    (1999)
    19. “I would never buy Ivana any decent jewels or pictures. Why give her negotiable assets?”  (1990)
    20. “I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.”  (2016)
    21. “Why are we having all these people from shithole countries coming here?”  (2018)
    22. “In life you have to rely on the past, and that’s called history.”  (??? Early 2000s)
    23. “Nobody knew health care could be so complicated.”   (2017)
    24. “I’m the least racist person you have ever interviewed.”   (2018)
    25. “What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening,”   (2018)

    Some are unbelievably offensive, but the offensive things he says are always very stupid, as well.

  153. 153.

    TriassicSands

    @Gvg: ​
      There must have been something defective in his personality right from a young age.

    Yep. Sociopaths tend to have something defective in their personalities. Something “YUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUage.”

  154. 154.

    wjca

    @Ruckus: I think there is so much evidence that it is almost impossible to rank them.

    Realistically, we would need to a) determine the criteria for establishing levels of stupidity, b) write software to apply those criteria to text, c) collect all Trump’s voluminous words and run them thru the software.  Because there is no way mere humans can process all the drek he spews.

  155. 155.

    Jinchi

    @Mai Naem mobile:

    The stupid part of Sharpiegate was that he legitimately thought (and still believes) that nobody would realize he’d drawn the last contour line in himself, by hand, with his favorite writing implement.

    This is toddler levels of stupidity.

  156. 156.

    DMcK

    The one that stuck in my head (almost called it “my favorite”) is when he referred to the warhead of some new super-missile he was probably making up in his head as “the Tippy Top”. And kept repeating it as if it were some sort of semi-official, super-cool military jargon: “That’s what we call it, you know, the Tippy Top”. The tippy-fuckin’-top.

  158. 158.

    Tony Jay

    American Gothic 2.0 – Eclectic Boogaloo.

    But seriously, that is a dapper outfit for any man. Kudos.

  159. 159.

    Citizen Alan

    @Damien: Here’s the thing that frustrates me about Idiocracy: I truly believe that it was about 6 minutes away from being one of the most culturally important films in American movie history and one worthy of a Pulitzer Prize. Those six minutes? The five at the start where the narrator blames the coming Idiocracy on eugenics (because dumb people “outbreed” smart people) and the tacked-on happy ending where Joe ends up becoming POTUS on a platform of making it socially acceptable to be smart again.

    The truth that Mike Judge ignores is that the coming Idiocracy is not the result of dumb people having more kids than smart people. It’s the result of a systematic campaign by conservative elites to destroy public education for the purpose of keeping the lower classes ignorant and more easily controlled and manipulated. To the extent that uneducated people have more children than educated people, that’s just a symptom, because as a matter of empirical fact, people who went to good schools with comprehensive sex ed programs are less likely to have unplanned pregnancies than those who went to shitty schools and only got “abstinence training,” if that.

    As for the ending, they should have run it as filmed through the end of Joe’s televised speech about the benefits of education … and then cut away to a darkened board room where the real Brawndo board of directors (all well-dressed, well-groomed, and obviously intelligent white men) are watching the speech when the Chairman says menacingly “We need to do something about this guy.” (/cue minor chord and fade to black)

  161. 161.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    I think those overalls could get you shot in some parts of this country though the beard just might save you.

    I’m with you on stupid Trump. I’ve said this for a long time and it exasperates me that the media refuses to point out the obvious. Big Media has been playing footsie with the Republicans for decades, allowing the Republicans to label them “the liberal media”. They are literally hiding behind that label and shooting down the Democrats at every chance they get. That gives the Republicans the worn out line “Even the liberal media is against insert whatever.” that they have been abusing forever.

    Big media is owned by the rich guys and they are no friends of the Democrats, thus the constant kneecapping. They aren’t going to report on Stupid Trump because there’s nothing in it for them. Trump is their guy, not Biden. Democrats have to disabuse themselves of the idea that big media is going to report anything that is bad news for Trump/Republicans and good news for Biden/Democrats. Big media shapes the news, they don’t report it. They quit doing that years ago. It’s easier to go with a theme and to report from that angle than it is to actually do real reporting.

    Trump is stupid and his supporters love him because they think he is a genius. That’s because he’s just like them and vice versa.

  162. 162.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @Citizen Alan:

    Judge has always had a thing about who he views as stupid people and it isn’t the Hank Hill types. Those salt of the earth types could never be the problem, only the solution. He really missed the mark with Idiocracy.

    So close and yet so off.

  165. 165.

    Manyakitty

    @middlelee: wishing you the happiest of birthdays!

    @Odie Hugh Manatee: Hank made a point of being an Ann Richards fan. I think they even got her to guest star. Judge was pretty clear that the dummies were more like Dale than Hank. Also, I suspect Khan and Minh would vote for citizen trump. Khan because of the flaming asshole thing and Minh because her dad was a fascist strongman bully.

  166. 166.

    topclimber

    Last? What better way to end it than to remember all the good work Frederick Douglass is doing nowadays.

  167. 167.

    BellyCat

    @Devore: I assume it’s overalls WITHOUT shoes to complete the West Virginia look.

    Requires Birkenstocks with socks to complete the look!

    Happy 84th to Blog Friend!!!

  170. 170.

    Betty

    @Soprano2: He has updated that to you turn on the tap and no water comes out. And a guy told him he had to shut down his dishwasher factory because no water could come in to the dishwashers.

  171. 171.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Soprano2: Trump just latches onto every single “the liberals made you use shitty wimpy technology” panic, no matter how stupid. Those are some of his favorite wedge issues. That’s the low-flow shower heads, low-flow toilets, CFL/LED bulbs, wind turbines, electric cars, and he thought the electromagnetic aircraft carrier catapults were that.

    Usually there’s some grain of truth in the drawbacks of the newer tech at step one when the new tech is very new, but he keeps hanging on for 40 years and repeating it like holy writ.

    (Come to think of it, I think he saw masking for COVID instinctively as one of those.)

  172. 172.

    Mo MacArbie

    Stupidest thing he ever said? “I, Donald J. Trump, do solemnly swear…”

    Man, the whole Sarah Cooper thing is a trip. To think, we all lived through a time that the president was so dumb and so bonkers that she could make a comedic name for herself by lip-syncing his words. That time may yet come again, sigh.

  175. 175.

    Subsole

     

     

    @Mart: It’s infuriating. Dude sounds like he’s been cracking the tops off thermometers and drinking whatever was inside for the last five years; prestige media doesn’t make a sound.

    Too busy examining Biden’s age, I guess.

  176. 176.

    Lacuna Synecdoche

    John Cole @ Top:

    And there is so much more. Remember when he blamed someone’s wild fires on insufficient leaf raking of the forest? I mean there are so many of these I am overloading. So why is this not more of the discourse?

    Not to belabor the obvious, but it’s because: it wouldn’t be balanced.

    There’s no one as stupid as Trump on the Democratic side, and the press can’t report anything negative about a Republican unless they can say the same thing or worse about a Democrat – for fear of being killed or, god forbid even worse, being criticized as biased by conservatives.

  177. 177.

    Subsole

    @Citizen Alan:

    Probably. And it would absolutely be Peggy leading the charge on that one.

    Dale? Doesn’t vote. That’s how they get you. (Actually, probably Libertarian. Or Joe Exotic.)

    Boomhauer? Probably Trump, if he didn’t forget it was election day.

    Bill? Depends on whether Hank was able to talk a little sense into him that day.

    Kahn? Trump. Early. Often. Both times.

  178. 178.

    Subsole

    @Matt McIrvin:

    It’s all just bitching about how we can’t clear-cut the forests anymore because some spotted Owl will go extinct.

    60 years on and this country still isn’t over the damn hippies.

  179. 179.

    Nettoyeur

    @Ed Welthorpe:  Parts of CA (eg San Diego are) are planted with eucalyptus trees (aka gum trees) originally brought from Australia. Don’t need much water. They are liaded with sap and the wood is twisted. When they burn they often pop I know because we lived in the Australian bush for 9 years and heated the house with gum tree wood. So Trump does have a fact, but doesn’t understand it.

  183. 183.

    Miss Bianca

    @Dan B: You gotta be kidding.

    I mean, I know you’re not, but logically, *why* wouldn’t people want the guy/gal/gentlebeing at the top to be the SMARTEST person who could be persuaded to run for that position??

    This makes no sense to me. I have no problem believing that HRC or Joe Biden or Obama or Harris or, hell, Elizabeth Warren or even Bernie freakin’ Sanders is smarter than I am. Hell, I *know* Pete Buttigieg is smarter than I am.

    I WANT my political leaders to be smarter than I am!

  184. 184.

    Motivated Seller

    TFG is not stupid, he performs stupidity with a purpose: it conditions other people to constantly parse his meaning, rather than taking him for his word.  Then when he breaks his word (which he constantly does) he can gaslight the audience (i.e. the mark) into believing that he never really said that, or that he never really meant that, and the mark is strung along.

    There are certain subjects that he masters, when it suits him. Like the ability to command media attention, or how to abuse the law to bully his victims. His “stupidity” is all about setting up the mark.

    For example, when he said he would be a dictator only on “day one” of second term, was that a stupid comment? 1) Yes, it was stupid because it shows an ignorance on what the meaning of “dictator” is and how it is contrary to a democratic contest. Or 2) No it wasn’t stupid because with those very same words, he was able to signal to his allies what’s coming AND escape media sanction for repulsive commentary AND make the liberals cry.

    Yes he presents as stupid, but he is most certainly not.  If you believe he is stupid then you are falling for the con.

  186. 186.

    wjca

    @Miss Bianca: logically, *why* wouldn’t people want the guy/gal/gentlebeing at the top to be the SMARTEST person who could be persuaded to run for that position??

    There’s a critical difference between someone who is smarter than you are, and someone who is smarter than you are and never misses an opportunity to lord it over you because of how smart he is.  Most people are fine with the former.  They just get irritated by someone who keeps shoving his intelligence in their face.**

    ** They are OK with TIFG constantly ranting about how smart he is precisely because it is so obvious that he isn’t.

  187. 187.

    Joelle

    @Yarrow: Thank you for noticing the staging efforts made for a proper fashion photo extravaganza to complement such a bold design statement.

  188. 188.

    Joelle

    Shout out for the covfefe but I gotta go OG with “Grab them by the pussy.”  The Trumpster always keepin it classy.

  190. 190.

    Paul in KY

    @Sister Golden Bear: Interesting article. Another thing to wonder at: Do cats have stroboscopic vision? When something moves, does their movement create momentary after-images in the cats eye (like a strobe light effect)?

  194. 194.

    Paul in KY

    @Miss Bianca: I think some of them (the dumbasses) remember some smarty pants kid from elementary school or middle school who ruined the curves and didn’t suffer fools gladly. They hated that kid and think the ‘smart’ candidate will be like that (to them).

  197. 197.

    seaboogie

    JC, you cannot go out in public in that outfit – you need to swap out that black tee for a white or red one.

  198. 198.

    Another Scott

    @Motivated Seller: Good points, but it’s another ¿Por qué no los dos? thing, isn’t it?

    He’s a chaos agent. He knows how the media works. He wants to break government systems that get in the way of him doing what he wants.

    He’s good at that stuff.

    But he’s also very stupid, probably because he never had to learn much of anything for himself outside of those areas above all his life.

    Thanks.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  199. 199.

    chbnna

    I’m late to the overalls convo, but I work in real estate development so I’m around construction guys a lot, one time I saw the overalls one of them was wearing and noted that they were green corduroy and I had never seen one so nice. I asked him about them and he said there was a catalogue and that they had light weight overalls for summer, heavyweight for winter, patterns, lots of colors, holiday themed ones, like the american flag for 4th of July. My mind was blown, who knew there were so many different ones? I learned something that day.

  200. 200.

    RBS

    T****’s stupid statements are like his lies. There are so many that it’s hard to keep track.

    Also like the horrible things he and his administration did — there are so many and they came so fast, we were meant to be overwhelmed, and so exhausted by constant (but justified) outrage that we wouldn’t have the energy to fight back.

    I’m grateful that enough sane people voted in 2020. I hope they show up again this year, because we won’t survive another 4 years of that human-shaped garbage pile. I can’t believe anyone who’s not in the cult would want him back in office.

    And I’m glad I’m not in Mesa right now because I would also have to buy ALL the cat stuff. Awesome overalls, btw.

  201. 201.

    WaterGirl

    @RBS: Your first comment – or your first comment after changing your nym or your email – has to be manually approved before it shows up for everyone.

    I just saw your comment and approved it, so now your comments will show up for everyone right away.

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