Trump referencing Hannibal Lecter as a sort-of a real person certainly makes you wonder what his brain worms have been thinking about since Stormy Daniels’ testimony:
Silence of the Lambs. Has anyone ever seen The Silence of the Lambs? The late, great Hannibal Lecter is a wonderful man. He oftentimes would have a friend for dinner. Remember the last scene? “Excuse me. I’m about to have a friend for dinner,” as this poor doctor walked by. “I’m about to have a friend for dinner.” But Hannibal Lecter. Congratulations. The late, great Hannibal Lecter…
I eagerly await the NYT story on this — “Trump Uses His Love of 90’s Film to Fuel Outreach to Gen X”.
This is via LGM, where Paul Campos thinks that Trump’s unhinged mouth diarrhea will go too far for some voters. Perhaps, but I think we might be at a point where his followers will forgive anything, though I do admit that 5 1/2 months is plenty of time for dementia to do its dirty work.
Edit: Well, I was close:
Baud
And this is the time on Balloon Juice when we quote lines from our favorite 90s movies.
hells littlest angel
No, the Times went with just not even mentioning it.
hells littlest angel
@Baud: Everything that guy just said is bullshit.
Ruckus
His dementia is showing. His hate is showing.
That enough people voted for him to be president was to me unbelievably breath taking bad.
He was and is every crappy trait of humanity on display.
Parents – teach your children that this human is the exact opposite of what anyone should strive to be.
R-Jud
@Baud: I open my mouth, the whole world gets smart.
hells littlest angel
This is true, and it will never cease to amaze me.
MagdaInBlack
Reading the transcript is bad enough, but watching it ( which I do not recommend for the weak of stomach) really brings home how much he has deteriorated. The word salad is now mid-word, he just devolves into gibberish. The rant about RFKJr tho, he was all stringy dry-mouthed on adderall. Quite the site. Told ya not for the weak of stomach.
Brachiator
Trump supporters live in an alternate universe in which Trump is the greatest president who ever lived, and who will restore America’s greatness and make every other nation respect us.
Trump could babble nonsense and dribble slobber down his chin and his cult would still eagerly vote for him.
satby
JoyceH
There are so many levels of interest in that quote. First that Trump apparently thinks Lecter is a real person. Second that he thinks he was a wonderful man. And third that he also seems to think that everyone in his audience knows who Lecter is. He had a friend for dinner? Okay, that’s nice. He was… what exactly? Maybe another New York businessman? A UN ambassador? I wonder how many clueless Magates bothered to google it.
Gregory
Perhaps, but I think we might be at a point where his followers will forgive anything
But his followers aren’t enough to get him elected. Here in Indiana he lost 20% of an otherwise meaningless primary vote to Nikki Haley, and I strongly doubt Democratic crossover was significant in that total, consistent as it has been with prior results.
Trump has the same problem that the Republican Party writ large has: They have their share of True Believers, but they are not popular, their agenda is not popular, and there are more of us than their are of them, no matter how much the FTFNYT tries to cover for them.
trollhattan
Video of this babble had me thinking “AI fake strikes” but as he’s not retracting, he must have said it and on purpose to boot. It’s not like Donny has ever sat through an entire movie. I suspect he hires folks to do that for him. Read the book? As if.
RSA
Searching to see whether the Washington Post mentioned Trump’s love affair with Hannibal Lecter, I find no mention but an Alexandra Petri column from August, 2020 (gift link):
japa21
@Brachiator:
His hard core base doesn’t care. But we don’t care about them, it’s the fringe voter, the ones that voted for him in 2020 but on;ly because they truly believe all Democrats are children of the anti-Christ, that will be slowly but inexorably turned off by his verbal decline. Some just won’t vote, some will vote for Biden. If just 3-5% fall into that category, it will be a landslide.
Personally, I prefer the don’t vote option, because many of those won’t vote at all, which will help the down ballot Dems.
trollhattan
@JoyceH: “Dr. Lecter is somebody who’s done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more, I notice.”
MattF
I do wonder where’s the line between ‘doing shtick’ and ‘delusional’. We’re going to find out, maybe sooner than later.
cmorenc
So the notion is that if blatant fraud (Trump University), self-admitted egregious sexual abuse of women (access hollywood tapes) and open vicious racism (“vermin”) and deliberate separation of children from parents doesn’t alienate substantial numbers of his base, rambling long speeches full of eg bizarre disgusting WTF references to fictional Hannibal Lecher will turn them off?
IMO he will only bleed a small fraction of them, but it may be enough to turn a nail/biting close 1-2 point election into a comfortable 5+ point win, provided Biden doesn’t bleed too many youts over Palestine.
Butch
What stood out to me in the Campos piece was the remark about the “sanitized” coverage. It’s all been sanitized….Meidas Touch as videos of people at this rally streaming for the gates, but you’ll see that in the prestige political media – where? Even MSNBC is falling down on the job in a serious way.
hrprogressive
After nearly a decade of Fascist Dictator Wannabe Trump in the news and in and out of office, there’s literally nothing he could say or do that would cause his Cult to not vote for him again.
That said, he probably has turned off a lot of the “don’t like Hillary, let’s vote Trump for lulz” voters from 2016.
Not sure how many of them would have voted for him a 2nd time in 2020 tho.
trollhattan
Lauren Boebert on stay-at-home moms, y’all!
https://twitter.com/patriottakes/status/1789654436995908032
Melancholy Jaques
@Brachiator:
I agree that Trump’s incoherence and inability to talk about anything but himself, 2020, and his trials will erode his support. Not among the faithful, but among the people who determine outcomes in swing states.
This will be especially true if Biden continues to show that he is old, sure, but also alert, engaged, and competent. FTFNYT notwithstanding.
I know it’s a stretch, but at some point being good at governing has to win some votes, doesn’t it?
Melancholy Jaques
@satby:
Yes, the promises to oil executives was Part the Who Knows of Trump doing something that would have ended any other candidate’s campaign but the press ignores it and nothing happens to his support.
$8 blue check mistermix
@trollhattan:
Well, at least she is consistent — she’s apparently decided not to pay for a lawyer for her son, who was arrested for a string of felonies. He just asked for a continuance until he’s able to engage a public defender.
cmorenc
@Gregory: More of us than there are of them only wins if more of us than them actually show up to vote, especially in the handful of battleground states. Recall that more of us than them showed up to vote for Hillary, but too many didn’t bother in 4 critical states.
Jackie
@Brachiator:
“Real MAGAts Wear Bibs” coming to a MAGA venue near you!
trollhattan
@$8 blue check mistermix:
“I told him ‘Don’t get caught’ and did he listen? NO! Well, sow the wind and harvest the whirlwind, loser. I’ve got more kids, maybe they’re smarter.”
Geminid
Trump also took a couple pokes at Bruce Springsteen yesterday. It takes a real Stable Genius to praise Hannibal Lecter and diss Bruce Springsteen at the same New Jersey rally.
scav
@$8 blue check mistermix: Well, yeah, mandatory pop out the kids for all wimminz in all circumstances as often as possible, but then back to the real work you lazy layabouts, get back out there and earn 70 to the dollar the way god intended! Traditional Jesus-blessed Family roles!
Citizen Alan
@Ruckus: This is why I stay in a state of low level anxiety and depression. No matter what happens in the election, even if biden wins decisively in november, even if we retake the house and hold the senate, we will still be sharing a country with between seventy and eighty million of these death cultists.
I feel like we are all living in the world of The Walking Dead except that the zombies don’t rot and can talk, so it is impossible to tell whether someone is a living person or a zombie without talking to them for some time up close. Also the zombies are intelligent enough to form a political party capable of preventing the government from doing anything to stop the zombie apocalypse.
eclare
@hells littlest angel:
Hahaha…oh yeah, you blend.
Ruckus
@Melancholy Jaques:
at some point being good at governing has to win some votes, doesn’t it?
Well a lot of voters really do not follow politics near as much as we do. And as in most humans they have their bits and pieces that amuse them and those that piss them off. And a lot of them are followers, not leaders. Likely most humans have never been much of leaders. They either don’t want to do more work than follow. They likely do not want the responsibility of knowing how to reasonably lead, rather than run off a tall cliff as part of the herd. Or they might think that there is always one best way to be, no matter if the result of that is absolutely negative for them and everyone else. That to me is a SFB supporter, he must be smart – he’s rich!
mrmoshpotato
Thomas Harris needs to send a
cease and desistSHUT THE FUCK UP! letter to the orange shitstain.Mr. Bemused Senior
@satby: @Melancholy Jaques:
What Trump promised oil CEOs as he asked them to steer $1 billion to his campaign [WaPo gift link]
jonas
I think it’s been obvious from the very beginning of this Saga of Stupid ™ that it’s less about actually supporting or forgiving him as just trolling people they hate. The worse Trump becomes and the more bigoted or incoherent insanity he spews the more fun it is for them to say they love him. FFS, people are showing up at rallies with “Real Men Wear Diapers” banners.
Dangerman
I’m thinking back to the Lindsey Graham quote; something like “if we nominate him, it will destroy the party”.
Took almost 10 years but here we are. Trump has double diarrhea (both directions, one being verbal) and, if he gets convicted, we might get the rare triple when he blows chunks.
Sorry if you are having lunch or dinner.
mrmoshpotato
@Baud: Movie quotes? OK!
Dr. Alan Grant: [seeing the dinosaurs for the first time] How fast are they?
John Hammond: Well, we clocked the T-Rex at 32 miles an hour.
Dr. Ellie Sattler: T-T-Rex?
John Hammond: [nodding] Mm-hm.
Dr. Ellie Sattler: You said you’ve got a T-Rex?
John Hammond: [nodding] Uh-huh.
Dr. Alan Grant: [grabbing Hammond’s shoulder] Say again?
John Hammond: [smiling] We have a T-Rex.
[Grant almost faints]
dmsilev
Liver, fava beans, and a nice Chianti would definitely be a culinary upgrade for Trump.
dmsilev
@jonas:
It’s so hard to tell these days. Are we sure that those aren’t pranksters?
Geminid
Maryland holds its primaries this Tuesday. Election analyst and Maryland resident Tom Bonior has an article on the Senate primary in Medium titled, “Analysis shows Angela Alsobrooks is the Democrat Who Can Beat Hogan:https://tombonior.medium.com/analysis-shows-angela-alsobrooks-is-the-democrat-who-can-beat-hogan-5f3923407177
lowtechcyclist
@Geminid: I voted for Alsobrooks. Sent in my mail ballot, got the email confirming receipt.
Ryan
I only saw the two movies, but if I remember right, he only lost a hand, he didn’t die. Why is Trump referring to him as late?
TBone
@satby: I too suspect it was about the dinner date he’d lured Stormy to that hotel room with. “Having your friends for dinner.” Haha chucklefuck, the joke’s on you. Choke on it, asshole.
Cannibal Sphincter.
jonas
@dmsilev: They were real MAGA, apparently.
TBone
@dmsilev: have you seen the photos of the diaper wearers here in PA? They’re not infiltrators. They truly think they’re pwning the libs for Rump. It’s why Stormy’s “real men testify” remark had me giggling so hard.
Geminid
@Geminid: Angela Alsobrooks currently is in her second term as the elected County Executive of Prince George’s County, which adjoins the District of Columbia on the east and northeast and has a population of almost 1 million. Before that she served as County Prosecutor for two years.
Her principal opponent is Representative David Trone, who has represented a western Maryland district since 2018. Trone has spent at least $40 million of his own money flooding the state with advertising.
ascap_scab
Hannibal Lecter, another man horribly persecuted by an awful, terrible woman. She was a Soros-funded FBI Deep State plant. So unfair. Just like the J6 HOSTAGES, I will pardon the great Hannibal Lecter as soon as you re-elect me. DJT.
TBone
@jonas: thank you
Another Scott
The clip I saw of him saying that it seemed like he was trying to tell a funny story. “Have a friend for dinner. Ha!” But he powered on through it before anyone could figure out if he was joking or not.
I’m not sure what the point was, but …
He’s really, really bad at reading a teleprompter in a way that engages the audience. There was another clip I saw from a few months ago where he was going all sing-songy while reading all the horrible things he was going to do (the 2025 stuff, locking up suspected immigrants, etc.). It’s jarring. Like having Chico Marx play Julius Caesar.
:-/
Other clips of him at BidenHQ on Twitter from the NJ event yesterday shows him apparently ad-libbing and reading the teleprompter at the same time (like when he’s talking about the helicopters and ships around Xi in Beijing – there were helicopter noises). “OJ!” Etc.
He doesn’t even have the attention span of a flea. That’s what makes him sound like he’s got brain worms or something – he can’t finish a sentence if something else – SQIRRRELL!!! – grabs his eye. And he’s been this way for years (remember the stories about his minions being determined to be the last one in the room when it came to any decision).
tl;dr – These events are more likely to be him not caring about his audience and not caring how well he reads his scripts rather than being signs of sudden overt dementia. He cares only about himself and having a crowd being under his spell for an hour or so. That’s what he feeds on.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Ruckus
@Citizen Alan:
This is LIFE.
All the concepts of do the right thing and everything will work out grand is bull and shit.
HOWEVER – the premise is to do the best you can because life will have its grand parts, it’s good parts and some pure shit for everyone. And eventually every one of us will stop breathing. It’s living. Doing it as well as you can is the best way. And that does not mean screwing everyone else for a couple extra bucks or hating for what you think is a rational reason just because hate has a possible revenge angle. Do your best, enjoy what you can, fix what you can, do not hate for hate’s sake, do not be a selfish shit and enjoy living. We have an entire concept of life after death in an attempt to make dying a bit more acceptable. It might be true, no one has come back to let us know. We talk about cats having 9 lives, but they don’t. We talk about ending up some place better so that we don’t have to do what, not make this place better for us and each other? And in the end, it’s humanity. All the good, all the not so good and all the shit. Some drink copiously to hide from reality – and in doing so reality very often sneaks up and smacks them down – and they often take someone with them – because many reasons but to me, mainly because they are afraid of what tomorrow will bring.
My point is that living is what there is.
Doing it better is more fun and more enjoyable.
Another point is that NO ONE can tell the future. And the most likely is that the sun will go around and be bright, the rain will arrive and the sun will go around and it will be dark. Don’t screw your fellow humans or other living creatures, respect others, and learn that too much worry cures nothing.
Actually my second point is that if you want actual better, it takes work, effort, desire and the ability to live with some failure because this is humanity. And there will always be humans that live with their heads up their exhaust port, for whatever reason I don’t understand but there we are. Life is easier than when I came into this world but it is still populated by HUMANS, who will make mistakes, purposefully or by accident or stupidity. Make your life better, you can’t fix theirs, they have to do that. And many of them can’t/won’t and many more loudly refuse. It’s life, live it the best you can, to show others how it’s done.
And remember that as the entirety of humanity goes, it’s better/easier now than most of its existence.
Robin Goodfellow
@Baud: Say hello to my little friends!
Geminid
@lowtechcyclist: What do you think of Tom Bonior’s analysis? I found it persuasive, but I am biased because I’ve been rooting for Alsobrooks all along. I think she’d bring more experience to the table; also, also, Alsobrookss 52 years old which I think is a good age for a Senator.
Tehanu
The replies on that Twitter-fk-Elmo-not-fkg-X thread included one guy trying to argue that it was a joke about illegals since Dump’s next sentences were about the “invasion” at the border. This just goes to show that MAGAts will excuse any kind of nonsense/bullshit as long as it’s tied to racism.
Soprano2
@Brachiator: Yes, but the MAGA’s can’t elect him by themselves. As we see more and more evidence that he’s in cognitive decline (talking about a fictional character as if he’s real, and praising said character who’s a psychopathic serial killer and a cannibal) it amazes me that anyone is still talking about Biden’s age.
I finally got hubby to take a shower this morning – it’s been 3 weeks since his last one. It’s definitely a struggle. I’ve got to decide on a service to hire this week. Also, my new daybed came yesterday and it’s a hit with him. I’m hoping he’ll get some better sleep now.
David Koch
TBone
@satby: Senator Sheldon Whitehouse was not thusly distracted.
trollhattan
@Baud:
“Hey, careful man, there’s a beverage here.”
trollhattan
@dmsilev: Looks good dripping from a wall, also, too.
JoyceH
@TBone: something that doesn’t get enough commentary is the fact that he got that poor woman to his hotel room by inviting her to dinner and then didn’t even feed her! What a cheapskate liar!
David Koch
What about President John F. McEnroe?
MattF
@Geminid: Well, good. I voted for Alsobrooks hoping that something like this was true. Bonior seems to know the numbers.
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
@MattF:
What made you choose her?
zhena gogolia
I noted the passing of Roger Corman in an earlier thread and got no replies. Really? No one here is mourning one of our greatest filmmakers?
mrmoshpotato
@zhena gogolia: I saw that on a YouTube channel late last night. May he rest in peace. A great career, and a life well-lived.
Gin & Tonic
Does anyone have a link to a reliable estimate of the size of the Wildwood crowd for TFG? His campaign is saying 80,000, which I don’t believe for a second, and I’ve read left-leaning reports it was in the low-single-digit thousands, with people heading for the exits while it was still going on. I assume the truth is in between, but that’s a wide range.
TBone
@JoyceH: “Are those Hugh Hefner’s pajamas?” 😆 She made him get dressed! Then he thought disrobing yet again while she was in the bathroom was a good idea. That actually happened to me once, but my best girlfriend was in the room with me. We laughed that guy right out into the parking lot in his skivvies!
TBone
@zhena gogolia: I haz sad too much today, missing Mom so did not comment.
MattF
@Baud: Also, Trone was obviously spending tons of his own money to get name recognition in Montgomery County. My over-stuffed postal mailbox was tired of it. And I have some distaste for the project of buying a Senate seat.
TBone
@David Koch: 😆
John S.
@trollhattan:
We wants the money or we’ll cut off your johnson!
Brachiator
@japa21:
I agree that Trump’s support is weaker this election season, even among regular Republicans. Going into the GOP convention, it will be interesting to see whether Trump reaches out to GOP laggards. But beyond that I don’t know if general voters are paying attention to Trump’s possible decline, especially since it is difficult to really measure this.
I don’t know that there is any reliable way of predicting this. We will see what happens.
Starfish
@satby: The bribes from the oil executives are not designed for SEO the way pop culture references are.
Miss Bianca
@zhena gogolia: you didn’t see my reply?
Harrison Wesley
@Ruckus: Somebody’s been reading their Marcus Aurelius.
Almost Retired
@Another Scott: I listened to the whole thing. I was stuck in traffic, and thought “what can I do to make the experience of sitting dead still on the 405 even worse?” And so….
What really struck me was that he would just flit from subject to subject, rant to rant, grievance to grievance without any kind of logical segue way. Hannibal Lector, the fucking snake song, impersonating Macron with a bad French accent, a brief dissertation on the difference between mental institutions and insane asylums, etc. He just hopped from one to the other, like some sort of free association exercise for the demented.
“Sorry, Grandpa, visiting hours are over, so I have to leave now. You can tell me about the caravans next time.”
eclare
@Starfish:
SEO?
Brachiator
@zhena gogolia:
Oh! I didn’t see anything about this.
Greatest? Probably not. But interesting, sometimes provocative and surprisingly influential on the development of modern cinema.
He had a keen eye for talent, both in terms of actors and crafts people.
Ruckus
@Soprano2:
I’m going to ask a strange question.
Does your husband still have his sense of smell? The reason I ask is that I lost mine a few years ago. I knew it was gone when I was cooking garlic shrimp and my roommate’s daughter walked over and said “That smells fantastic! What is it?” And I realized that I couldn’t smell a thing. My point is that without a sense of smell, one really doesn’t know they need a shower. And yes my doctors know. I’ve heard that losing one’s sense of smell is more common than many believe.
MattF
@eclare: Search Engine Optimization. Gotta get those clicks.
trollhattan
@John S.: Heh.
“Nice marmot.”
Harrison Wesley
I wonder if Trump could pass that rigorous mental exam he boasted about. “Woman – TV – glockenspiel – Antarctica – Biden….”
zhena gogolia
@Miss Bianca: No, I thought that thread would be dead. I’ll go look.
zhena gogolia
@Miss Bianca: Yes, he was 98.
3Sice
Jersey Shore… can he overnight on the road anymore? Seems like they are scheduling to get him back to familiar turf for the sundowning.
The Adderall can no longer keep him on message for an hour or two. He slips off to never-never land and it causes issues with his GI tract.
eclare
@MattF:
Thanks.
$8 blue check mistermix
@Geminid:
I saw a poll the other day saying that either could beat Hogan, not taking sides, just thought it was encouraging.
hueyplong
@R-Jud: Well, we’ll go out to Miller’s Crossing, and we’ll see who’s smart.
MattF
@Gin & Tonic: Here’s a crowd photo on X/Twitter from a Never Trump group. There isn’t going to be anything official.
prostratedragon
@zhena gogolia: Still processing. I’m keeping an eye on TCM for the next several days; sometimes with a passing of this magnitude they’ll depart from the program for a spontaneous festival.
Scout211
I’m sure Soprano2 will answer your question but I can answer that from my husband’s point of view. He started losing his sense of smell and taste about a decade ago, very gradually. When he started getting confused and his memory started showing decline, he thought he had early signs of Alzheimer’s disease due the loss of taste and smell. (One of the developmental psychology classes he taught was Psychology of Adulthood and Aging so he had an extensive background in the signs of dementia).
The neurologist we saw told us that sometimes the loss of those senses can be early signs of Alzheimer’s, but not always. He told us that some people lose those senses due to aging alone and don’t develop cognitive decline.
But after the MRI, it turned out that my husband losing those senses was indeed early Alzheimer’s. So it can go either way.
Another Scott
@Almost Retired: R E S P E C T !
:-)
Thanks for the report. I have to force myself to listen to even 30s of him, and even then it’s not very often.
Cheers,
Scott.
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
I was wondering why he said this because Lecter doesnt die in the films and Anthony Hopkins is still alive. I’m watching CBS Sunday Morning right now and I see Roger Corman passed away. Corman was a prolific, well liked B movie horror film director who had a 15 second cameo in the film. The stable genius must have saw the notice of Corman’s passing on one of the Hate news channels and thought Corman was Hopkins.
Oye.
Cheryl from Maryland
@Geminid: I voted by mail for Alsobrooks as well. And I found Bonior’s analysis to be persuasive – I remember a gubatorial election in the 90s where the Democrat won with huge numbers in Montgomery and PG counties, and in Baltimore City, with a strong showing in Baltimore County. I think Alsobrooks more than Trone will get that kind of turnout. I also think Trone leaving the 6th District to run for Senator puts that House seat in play.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch: That makes sense.
It’s so hard to make sense of Trump in general that he can say loony things and we just let them go because, Trump.
Baud
@Cheryl from Maryland:
Same problem we had with Katie Porter. I’m of two minds about that. Hard to tell people they need to stay put.
moops
My own theory, which is all my own:
Trump has been imagining himself in prison. He has this romantic notion of himself as the suave genius merely allowing the authorities to put him in prison, while giving people access to his deep wisdom and special quotable quotes. An image of Anthony Hopkins in his head. A dangerous, cunning man of action, held in isolation, but ready to be free once again and at the top of his game.
He wants his fans to think of him like that when he is sent away.
Baud
@Almost Retired:
My condolences to your brain.
Another Scott
@too-many:
TheBaltimoreBanner.com:
Ooof. That’s a big negative for me. Businesses don’t have to financially support monsters. They don’t.
Much more, including about other races in MD, at the link.
Best of luck to Alsobrooks, and the good people of Maryland.
Cheers,
Scott.
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
@Baud: First rule about Balloon Juice is we don’t talk about Balloon Juice.
zhena gogolia
@moops: THAT IS BRILLIANT
mrmoshpotato
@Baud: Hahaha! I can’t even stand late night comedians showing clips of the orange shitstain babbling to make fun of him.
Jay
https://www.jefftiedrich.com/p/this-week-in-stupid-may-11-edition
Brachiator
@moops:
Damn! I think you are on to something here. Trump probably fears prison. He certainly fears being branded a loser.
But he has tried to compensate by playing at being a martyr, even comparing himself to the arrested Jesus.
But to see himself as a stable genius version of Hannibal Lecter, captured but still in command, oh man, that’s got to make him feel like a big man, instead of a chump, which is what he is.
Baud
@Another Scott:
I would think the fact that Alsobrooks would come earlier in the Senate roll call also gives her a slight edge.
Gretchen
@Geminid: I don’t understand why Hogan’s push to allow the huge container ships that caused the Baltimore bridge disaster isn’t hurting him. After all, isn’t government supposed to be about making good decisions and avoiding bad?
Sure Lurkalot
@Almost Retired: Think I’d rather open up the windows and breathe 90 minutes of Interstate 405 car exhaust than listen to that clown but the effect might be the same.
Baud
@Gretchen:
when has any Republican faced backlash for giving benefits to industry?
Ihop
@Brachiator: well, you all have just written the next snl short film.
smith
This is interesting. Glenn Kirschner has posted a video advocating filing judicial misconduct complaints with the 11th Circuit against Judge Cannon and asking for her recusal because of her obvious bias. Here’s an example from a commenter at dkos, who I believe is a lawyer. I think he’s pretty persuasive.
Roberto el oso
@Brachiator: At least judging by Trump’s contemptuous dismissal of the Nikki Haley protest-voters, where he said that he’s doing fine and doesn’t need their votes, it doesn’t sound like he’s even trying.
Jay
from 3 days ago, in English.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlIagcttGY0
Ken
Makes me wonder if there’s some reason that’s on his mind.
I’d normally say one or more of his offspring have tried to start The Talk (“Dad, it’s not a crazy house. It’s a retirement community with memory care facilities.”) but I can’t see that happening with that family, if only because the grift stops if he goes away.
Another Scott
BaltimoreSun.com – Key Bridge span demolition now scheduled for 5 PM Monday (delayed by lightning in the area).
Fingers crossed.
Cheers,
Scott.
Jay
@Ken:
Once TIFG is inside the doors, it will become a “Crazy House”.
Melanoma should start posting want ads for a large Slovenian Nurse Ratchet.
trollhattan
@Jay:
What was that again, about Anthony Kennedy’s son’s dealings at Deutsche Bank with Trump? Guessing there’s still a there, there, given he scooted so quickly from the Court.
Gregory
@cmorenc: Yes, in 2016. Trump lost bigly in 2020, and he isn’t getting more popular, despite the desperate attempts of the so-called “liberal media” to normalize him.
moops
@zhena gogolia: I mean, how does a narcissist demented asshole like Trump navigate the concept of going to prison? The thought must pass through his brain while sitting in court and things go poorly, and imagining the other much more serious trials that he is only delaying. The humiliation of his image with his cult. So, demented moron imagines himself as an Hannibal Lecter-style prisoner. In prison but secretly still having the upper hand and better than everyone around him.
Geminid
@Gretchen: Maybe the jumbo container ship issue wil be used against Hogan after the primary. Right now the two Democrats are selling themselves to primary voters. Speaking to Hogan’s threat to abortion rights is all they really need to do at this point.
Jay
@trollhattan:
There may be no there, there. Justin Kennedy made a lot of shady loans, Deutsche Bank made a lot of shady loans and laundered money for various Mafia, Sanctioned Individuals and Drug Cartels.
pieceofpeace
@Ruckus: Thank you.
Geminid
@Gretchen: Some Democrat-aligned PACS will be spending a lot of money tearing Hogan down on any issue that they think can hurt him. I expect they will hit him on the container ship issue if they think it does, but that one may not be so clear cut and salient as others.
But he’ll definitely face a lot of attack ads because like it or not, he polls high on personal popularity. Once Democrats have a nominee, Hogan will face a lot of incoming advertising fire. The hard shots will be on abortion rights and his allegience to Trump.
@Geminid:
trollhattan
Infinite are the reasons Trump cannot be reelected. Here’s a reminder of one.
Uncle Cosmo
@Geminid: Tom Bonier, whoever the fuck he is, is IMO full of shit. As an “election analyst” he might be a passable garbageman. He blathers about a “Black firewall” while ignoring the 10,000-lb elephant in the room:
I’m no particular fan of Trone, but I think we owe it to the forces of democracy to do our part to keep the Senate. IMO nominating Alsobrooks will get us Hogan.
Baud
@Uncle Cosmo:
You’re not wrong about white voting, but Maryland has a black governor so there are limits.
moops
Otherwise the Hannibal Lecter crack makes absolutely no sense. I think we have seen that Demented Don has scrambled thinking but most things he says are jumbled remixes of his starting points. I seriously doubt he was rewatching Silence of the Lambs recently. More likely his Secret Service team has given him some details of what incarceration for him would look like for him. Then his mind starts protecting him.
That Hannibal Lecter is a serial murderer and cannibal..are not important. His fans wouldn’t care if he was a cannibal and he knows it. But he cannot stand the thought of them pitying him trapped and helpless in a prison cell.
Uncle Cosmo
I have a fuckton MORE distaste for handing control of the Senate to the Thugs because Maryland Democrats are stupid enough to imagine they can expect to beat Hogan – who it may be remembered stomped two AA candidates statewide to become a two-term Governor – by nominating a woman POC with no legislative experience whatsoever.
Bonier puts the “anal” in analyst. He likes to work with numbers but doesn’t have a fucking clue what they mean. His sort is the reason I haven’t given President Uncle Joe a penny – I’d rather fund people working hard in the trenches, who are the ones who are going to win this thing for him, and not bankroll the highrolling lifestyle of clowns like Bonier.
Another Scott
Speaking of bad liars…
An updated Trolley Problem.
Cheers,
Scott.
Soprano2
@TBone: Me too, just got back from putting flowers on her grave as well as my sister’s and my dad’s. If he were still alive he’d have turned 90 today. My sister’s birthday was yesterday, she would have been 58.
Uncle Cosmo
The 2022 GOP gubernatorial nominee was a certified (and certifiable) RWNJ. A shitton of Republicans and unaffiliated voters who wouldn’t piss on Cheeto Benito if he was on fire remember Hogan as a relatively** sane two-term Governor. Look no further than how Hogan exploded when his hand-picked successor lost the 2022 primary – he accused the MD Democratic Party of meddling to ensure the nomination of said RWNJ and said publicly at the time that the meddling had just ensured the election of Wes Moore.
** I realize “relatively” is doing a lot of heavy lifting here…
Soprano2
@Ruckus: He says he can still smell things. I should test it, because he’s not a reliable reporter of things. I’ve wondered if that’s why he doesn’t eat much.
Baud
@Uncle Cosmo:
I agree. All I said is that there are limits. Your initial block quote suggested no limits.
Uncle Cosmo
< counts to ten in Hungarian: egy, ketto, harom, negy, ut, hat, het… >
Of course there are limits, as the 2022 gubernatorial election showed. I maintain those limits are awfully far to the left of the political continuum, and only the extreme situation (RWNJ vs relatively sane male POC) pulled that result past them.
Non-Marylanders think of this as a trueblue state when in fact it’s only a very short wrench-shaped section (Baltimore City and DC burbs with Howard County as the handle between) that’s deep sapphire – the territory runs purplish pretty fast away from that axis and turns blood red in a few more miles. Had Hogan not been term-limited, I believe he would have beaten Wes Moore as soundly as he beat Anthony Brown and Ben Jealous.
Another Scott
@Uncle Cosmo: I’m no expert, but would like to think that MD Democrats understand the importance of turnout and pulling together after recent election results.
Anthony Brown struck me as a corner case – (my recollection is) he ran away from MOM’s successful 8 years and didn’t have a good counter for the attacks on MOM’s increased taxes. Ben Jealous fired up the lefty base but scared the rest, but was kind of a sacrificial lamb it seemed to me (I don’t think many expected him to win).
Moore seems to be more of a conventional MD Democrat. I think Hogan’s time has passed and enough voters won’t want to go back after seeing the dangers posed by people (even “moderate” people) with an “R” after their name. Hogan can be attacked on gutting the Purple Line and letting giant ships into Baltimore and more. He’s got vulnerabilities.
We’ll see.
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Alce_e_ardillo
@Ruckus: can happen for lots of reasons, chronic sinus problems near the top the list.
When you forget your phone number, or get lost going to the grocery store you’ve been going to for the last 20 years, call your doctor
Uncle Cosmo
I’d like to think the same, but I have my doubts. I think party leadership understands it but the rank and file might not. It strikes me that the Baltimore City Democratic underclass and the upscale voters from prosperous PG County (IIRC the most affluent majority POC county in the nation) don’t particularly like or trust one another. In the 2018 gubernatorial primary, Jealous and PG County Exec Rushden Baker took 70% of the vote, but Hogan won going away.
Yes to the first. (NB MOM told me he’d repeatedly offered to throw his organization behind Brown but was rebuffed. Stupid. If there’s one thing Martin knows how to do, it’s win elections.) No to the second – I don’t think taxes much mattered. MOM gave Brown one high-profile task as LtGov, to supervise the development and rollout of the state’s ACA signup website. Hogan literally ran ads of Brown himself boasting about what a great job they were doing, and he came across as arrogant as well as incompetent because everyone knew he’d fucked it up completely.
Jealous and PGCo Exec Rushden Baker between them pulled 70% of the primary vote; no non-minority candidate even reached 10%. Again, Baltimore vs PG. I haven’t checked the numbers but I’d guess Jealous underperformed in PG in the general.
Unconventional, in fact – no political experience whatsoever. New face helped him, but look out in ’26, he’ll have to run on his record, and TBH I can’t point to a single significant accomplishment (maybe you can help me).
I fear you are dead wrong – non-batshit-insane GOP and unaffiliated voters will go for Biden and then Hogan as a safe vote to control the Senate and hamstring the reelected POTUS.
Trivial vulnerabilities – I don’t see anyone caring about them.
Of course if Alsobrooks is nominated I will vote for her and do what I can to elect her, but IMO it’s going to be just one more case of Free State Syndrome, where the AA vote can determine the nominees for MD statewide office but cannot keep the shakier white Democrats and unaffiliated from abandoning the party and costing the Democrats the seat.
smedley the uncertain
@Starfish: SEO ??
Ruckus
@Scout211:
I understand, my father had Alzheimers. It is possible of course that I do but everything else works and losing the sense of smell is not as uncommon as some think. And My docs know about dad’s Alzheimers and I get checked regularly with neurology and neurosurgery. We’ll see and then we’ll know. OK, sure I might not but someone in medicine will. And I’m 15-20 yrs older than when dad started showing early symptoms. At that time we didn’t know that’s what it was. Also Alzheimers doesn’t necessarily run in families. Mom didn’t have it, older sisters didn’t have it. I have as good a chance as them avoiding it. And BTW I hope everyone else does as well – it sucks donkey balls.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
SFB would have to raise several levels to be a chump. Which is why I call him ShitForBrains. OTOH he is pure, unadulterated shit, so there is that…..
Another Scott
@Uncle Cosmo: Thanks muchly.
Fingers crossed.
Cheers,
Scott.
Ruckus
@Soprano2:
I do not eat as much as I used to but then I am actually retired and had physical jobs, mostly owning and working in machine shops. I still walk several miles a week which seems to make a lot of things work much better. Also without a sense of smell food really does lose some of it’s appeal. But my memory is still good and I actually still type rather rapidly, and more important actually spell better. That part amazes me. I’m old(ish), I’ve slowed down a bit and I sleep better, so who knows. There is no calendar that has our ending date on it, or give us the road map for the trip. One foot in front of the other, be reasonable with other humans and at least attempt to be friendly. That’s all I’ve got.
Ruckus
@Alce_e_ardillo:
If I’ve gone that far is it likely that I’ll remember my phone number? Or name/address/etc, etc….
That’s one possibility but unlikely in my case. And sometimes the sense of smell just abandons ship. I live in a seniors apt complex, one has to be over 55 to rent here. The oldest person I know is 98 and there are a number that are in their 90s. I’ll be 75 very soon so I’m about average age here.
rikyrah
@Gretchen:
That is a General Election ad.
Would never hurt him in a,GOP Primary
rikyrah
@Uncle Cosmo:
Maryland finally got over the hump about voting for Black candidates statewide.
Black Governor and Attorney General
The Lodger
Lecter got all that praise from Trump because he’s obviously the VP candidate!
MAKE AMERICA _ _ EAT AGAIN!