Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Our messy unity will be our strength.

If America since Jan 2025 hasn’t broken your heart, you haven’t loved her enough.

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

“In the future, this lab will be a museum. do not touch it.”

“They all knew.”

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

75% of people clapping liked the show!

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

Not loving this new fraud based economy.

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

“Alexa, change the president.”

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

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

There are times when telling just part of the truth is effectively a lie.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

One way or another, he’s a liar.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

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

When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty. ~Thomas Jefferson

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

You passed on an opportunity to be offended? What are you even doing here?

You are here: Home / Elections 2024 / Sweaty Grey Debate-Prep Open Thread: Druuuuuugs!…

Sweaty Grey Debate-Prep Open Thread: Druuuuuugs!…

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Sweaty Grey Debate-Prep Open Thread: <em>Druuuuuugs!... </em>

(Mike Luckovich via GoComics.com)

Truly, when it comes to the GOP, Every accusation is a confession. I can personally attest that Mountain Dew Orange Mango Energy can get an aging brain through a burst of tedious late-night covid posting. But if there existed a formulation that could arrest senile decline even for ninety minutes at a time, hundreds of thousands of Boomers and their loved ones would trade anything up to a spare kidney or their least attractive grandchild for a dose of it. This is the saddest outburst of GOP copium since… well, since the last time TFG had to appear in public without a phalanx of party defenders and groupies as a human shield.

Sure, let’s hear from the guy who got busted from the Navy for being a gropy drunk:

The FTFNYTimes, once again doing its best to assist the GOP…

Reader Interactions

75Comments

  1. 1.

    Martin

    Didn’t realize Red Bull or Mountain Dew constituted a controlled substance in the US. To think that coffee I picked up before my morning staff meeting was giving me a competitive advantage. I should probably return those medals.

  2. 2.

    thruppence

    Frist! at stupid o clock in the morning. I’m blessed to be working tonight, so I’ll DVR the debate and some reactions, but I’ll probably fast forward through Trump’s parts, I don’t need more of him in my head, I’ll also donate $50 to Power leadership since I’m up

    ETA not first. too slow

  4. 4.

    hueyplong

    Seems like (1) Red Bull should cost a whole lot more, but, seeing as how it doesn’t, (2) I should own a shit ton of Red Bull before it goes all Schedule I.

  5. 5.

    Ruckus

    @thruppence:

    I believe that positive mental health is not being exposed to complete and utter idiots or senior citizens in mid to late stage dementia unless one is a current medical practitioner or mental health counselor. So really President Joe Biden should not be on a stage with shitforbrains. And I say this as a trained, although past mental health counselor. OTOH, given that some people will vote for  shitforbrains, and mainly because he is insane, it is possible that some will take this debate as proof that shitforbrains really, really isn’t in any way fit or able to be in charge of anything. Although I do get the impression that shitforbrains may not show up because it is possible that someone may be able to talk him out of it or his “doctor” may talk him into one of those cosy places where they lock the doors behind someone like him as they arrive, to protect the rest of society.

  6. 6.

    Nukular Biskits

    Not one single media outlet is aggressively pushing back against this bullshit, demanding those making the claims to provide evidence?

    As for Hannity, he’s a walking, talking piece of trash.

  7. 7.

    p.a.

    @Ruckus: They will back out, but have a stage set up where tRump will perform opposite a Biden cut-out while thinking it’s the real debate.  The only issue will be after, when he claims publicly he “won”.  But his 40+/-% won’t care that it’s just another fantasy.

  8. 8.

    TBone

    Some good news hopium. I posted an article about a possible new Silent Majority for 2024 a while back.  Heather Cox Richardson noted in today’s letter:

    Two Republican voters from Pennsylvania told MSNBC tonight that they are voting for Biden. When asked whether they think there is “a silent Biden voter out there,” one said, “I do. I know there is…. We don’t want to talk about it, but we’re all going to vote for Joe Biden.”

    Shazam!

    The entire thing is worth a read. The Supremacists Court ruling that happened (not a draft opinion leak) is given proper coverage.

    heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/june-26-2024

  11. 11.

    Virogenes

    My mother “accidentally” played one of those Biden clip videos last time I visited her.  This violated our decades long truce on politics.  Ironically she said “I’m old and don’t know how to control the videos on my phone.”. She was clearly convinced that if I heard this I’d abandon Biden

  12. 12.

    Tony Jay

    @Nukular Biskits:

      NYT EDITORIAL

    As Biden stretches commanding lead in ‘not completely juiced up on Teh Krazee’ demographic, heritage media outlets turn to sources from “a world of pure imagination” for non-partisan coverage.

  13. 13.

    Rusty

    My 15 year old is convinced Biden is completely senile, but he also said it’ll he was old enough he wouldn’t vote for Trump.  When I told him he shouldn’t believe everything he sees on TikTok,  he blew up at me, how could I think he was dumb enough to believe some influencer.  The joy of teenagers, he’s our 4th, everyone has been different and annoying in their own unique way.  He and I are watching the debate together tonight.  It will be interesting to see what he thinks.  (He is a good kid, he just bungee jumps between responsible and flaky at a pace that is hard to follow.  As I said, a teenager.)

  15. 15.

    Nukular Biskits

    @Tony Jay:

    My observation is that there are two groups of people in that camp:  one that parrots that bullshit because “IT’LL OWN TEH STEWPIT LIBTARDS! HYUCK!HYUCK!HYUCK!”, one that truly believes or wants to believe it.

    It’s the latter that are the most dangerous, IMHO.

  19. 19.

    Soprano2

    This whole thing about Biden using some kind of drug cocktail is surreal to me, because those who actually deal with people who have dementia know there’s no such thing. They’d be better off talking about something that’s real, which is called various names – I’ve heard “showboating” or “Hollywooding”. It’s the phenomenon where a person with dementia can seem normal to others like family members who are visiting. They usually crash hard after a performance like that, and can only do it for a few hours at most.  I highly doubt a person with more advanced dementia could do that under the circumstances of this debate. If it was still mild dementia, that might be possible, but it would also be easy to hide that the person had dementia in the first place.

  21. 21.

    TBone

    They know they have backed themselves into a corner with the whole Joe Has Dementia gambit.  The hit dogs have to holler something to explain why, as the entire nation is about to see with their own eyes in real time, our President is sharp as a tack and their nominee is a babbling, continuous shart.

  24. 24.

    3Sice

    Skin-popping speed can be very painful, may cause an abscess, and will take a long time for the body to absorb. If you get the shakes after doing a few shots, it may be helpful to have a friend inject you if you are not using alone. Because the quality of speed varies so dramatically, a tester shot is a good idea.

  25. 25.

    3Sice

    In addition, muscle-poppers are at high risk for abscess formation

    I have wounds all over my body ass.

  26. 26.

    Princess

    @Soprano2: High five. My mother with dementia is super good at hiding it, so good her husband stayed in denial for a period of years. She is more advanced now but she still can keep her mouth shut or interject an appropriate question to make it seem like she’s all there. It takes a huge toll on her.

    This cuts both ways though. Trump is certainly not as sharp as he once was but I’ve been skeptical about those on our side who have said he’s in full blown dementia and will be unable to function by November. But what has made me pause recently is some of his recent speeches where he’s trying to tell some story about sharks or laser beams or wind farms or something but he tells it in a kind of shorthand, only getting a few words out so if you don’t know the backstory, it’s incoherent. That reminds me of my mother.

    The tell tonight is going to be, does Trump repeat the same points multiple times in answer to different questions? There’s not a pill in the world that’s going to stop that if he really has dementia. My Mum is okay, she knows who everyone is, where she is, she takes care of her body still but she’ll say the same thing or ask the same question three times in a row. If Trump doesn’t do that, well, he is certainly experiencing decline but it may not yet be full-blown dementia.

  27. 27.

    Ken

    @TBone: Sadly I interact with few if any RWNJ, because I’d love to be able to do this:

    RWNJ: Did you see that debate? Biden was all doped-up on anti-senility drugs!

    Me: [beat] Why didn’t Trump use them too?

  28. 28.

    Tony Jay

    @Nukular Biskits:

    They’re desperate. They can see with all of their real-world senses that Stench is a leaky bagpipe of criminal mediocrity, dragging down their vinegar-pickled dreams of cultural supremacy into a steaming shit pit of conspiratorial gibbering and campaign-wrecking graft.

    But they can’t possibly admit that, because they’re in too deep and have too much of their sense-of-self invested in the Great Unpatriotic War their side has been waging for a generation. So they surrender to the con and sink deeper and deeper, letting the freedom to believe any convenient shit liberate them from honest self-reflection.

      In that world of course Biden has access to a secret drug that only cures dementia for a few hours. It’s obviously limited because the drug companies stopped the research as soon as they realised they were getting close to a cure that would close off a rich profit stream. Biden’s Deep State connections pulled it off the same shelf where they keep the hidden cures for all the cancers, and the proof is that Biden is clearly using it! See? Simple!

    And this is also a very convenient prep for when it comes out that Stench was doped to the gills at the debate and they have to spin on a dime to justify it. Of course he was! With Biden touching heaven on his cocktail of rocket fuel and arugula juice it wouldn’t be fair for even an intellectual titan like Stench to go into a debate unmedicated, would it? Eh, Lib? You believe in equality, don’t you?

    Plus. They’re just wankers. Wankers wank.

  29. 29.

    TBone

    @Ken: denial of cognitive dissonance is their superpower.  The cult will never be reachable and Fux will edit, delete context, provide spin and outrage, etc. relentlessly.  RWNJ are already too far gone.  But a slice of people are not fully indoctrinated cult members – it is those people paying attention that matters.  I am hopeful, as ever.

    Trying to use logic with RWNJ, no matter how obvious it is, is fruitless.  You’re doing the right thing not interacting.  They’re merely trolling us with all this shit.

  31. 31.

    Kay

    @raven:

    I think shithead will walk off the stage!

    That’s possible. He has a really bad temper and he gets very mad during these debates. He also thinks he’s way ahead so he doesn’t “need” to debate, that a debate can only hurt the front runner.
    I think the liars and various lowlifes who work for him have to bring him ony good news, so he thinks he’s crushing the election.

  33. 33.

    Kay

    I’ve asked Trump supporters about the odd rambles he goes on in his speeches – sharks, serial killers, etc. They think he’s being deliberately funny – like a private joke between him and his supporters. I think everyone knows this by now but they’re absolutely unreachable. They believe what they want to believe. There is nothing he can do that they won’t put a positive ” we owned the libs!” spin on. When he said he could shoot someone on 5th avenue and they would still support him he was correct.

  34. 34.

    cmorenc

    Gee thanks, CNN: Right under the banner headline @the CNN website about how tonight’s debate may be the most fateful in American history, they have a story: “Even Wealthy Americans are struggling to make ends meet“, focusing on the demographic of those making from $100k to $150k a year,”due to years of inflation and high borrowing costs”, causing them to cut spending, “including dialing back restaurant visits and entertainment.”

  35. 35.

    Kay

    Someone on social media said Trump would have been happier as mayor of NYC. I agree. It also would have been much better for the country. I propose NYers crown him mayor as penance for foisting him on the rest of the country. He won’t be any more insane and mean than Giuliani, and he was mayor. It’ll be fine.

  36. 36.

    3Sice

    Some quack is gonna jab convicted felon in the ass with amphetamines and hope it all works out…

    What are the psychological symptoms of overamping?

    • Extreme anxiety
    • Panic
    • Extreme paranoia
    • Hallucinations
    • Extreme agitation
    • Increased aggressiveness

    •Agitation, restlessness, irritability

    • Hypervigilance (being super aware of your environment, sounds, people, etc.)
    • Enhanced sensory awareness
    • Suspiciousness

    Just another trump world day ending in Y.

  38. 38.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Kay: It’s a cult, and cultists will twist or deny all disconfirming facts to maintain their narrative. Believing six impossible things before breakfast is part of cult discipline and proof of loyalty.

    On the other hand, some promising anecdata: my fundy in-laws–in Ohio!–have mentioned that they will not vote in November. The Felon is finally disqualified in their eyes. Of course they can’t bring themselves to vote for Biden, but every non-vote for the Felon helps. I wonder how many other people are out there quietly making the same decision?

  39. 39.

    zhena gogolia

    Just threw out my fishwrap NYT that had Peter Baker on the front page opining about how Biden’s old-school tactics don’t work any more.

  40. 40.

    Another Scott

    @Rusty: I think our brains are pathologically wired to jump to conclusions.  I remember early on in 2019 in the Democratic primary battle that there was a clip of Biden getting into/out of a car and he looked like he was 105 years old and was going to shatter into a million pieces if anyone touched him.

    So, I get it.  I was in the “Joe should retire” camp early.  But I again learned…

    Of course, it was a doctored video clip.

    Remind him that the people who spend their time making and putting up these clips have an agenda and somehow are making a living at it.  Normal people have work to do and can’t sit on their computer doing such things all day every day.  It’s especially important these days to look at the original item – not someone’s spin on it.

    Good luck!!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  41. 41.

    zhena gogolia

    @TBone: That is grotesquely hilarious.

    My takeaway is she’s scared. But I don’t want to put too much faith in it.

  42. 42.

    Suzanne

    “Jack him up” on Mountain Dew?! Dafuq?

    Is it elitist of me to say that these people are low-class trash?!

  43. 43.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @O. Felix Culpa:

    my fundy in-laws–in Ohio!–have mentioned that they will not vote in November.

    Does this mean sitting at home or voting for every other (R) on the ballot except Felonious D?

    Any under voting is A. Good. Thing.  I’m always curious as to how far your bog-standard RWNJ will go in this case.

  44. 44.

    Kay

    @cmorenc:

    It’s such junk. There is ONE piece of real information in that article and it says that Americans are spending MORE, not less:

    The Transportation Security Administration screened a record 2.99 million people at airports on Sunday.
    The agency is bracing for a record-setting summer of air travel, peaking over the Fourth of July holiday.
    TSA expects to screen more than 32 million people from June 27 through July 8, 5.4% more than last year.

    There is real information out there about consumer spending. They could have looked to see whether people are actually eating out less. They chose not to. It’s lazy, innumerate junk and they pump it into the national bloodstream every day.

    It doesn’t matter what people say about the economy. What matters is what they do, and what they are doing is spending.

  46. 46.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage:

    Does this mean sitting at home or voting for every other (R) on the ballot except Felonious D?

    Exactly the question I asked Ms. O about that conversation. Unfortunately she didn’t know (they hadn’t said). My preference is obvious. :)

  47. 47.

    Kay

    @O. Felix Culpa:

    I think there’s a downtick in Trump enthusiasm locally, but I can’t tell anymore. I don’t think it’s normal politics. As you say, it’s a cult. I’m not accustomed to politics as cult.

  49. 49.

    3Sice

    @cmorenc:

    The nugget of truth in the blizzard of “inflation” bullshit is those that fled to traitor states for a lower cost of living are getting hit with the true cost of their lifestyle.

    Low taxes, no income tax, blah, blah, blah. Shit ain’t free, those goddamn Yankees want everything for nothing, and the bills are coming due.

  50. 50.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    They believe what they want to believe.

     
    I’ve been saying that ad nauseum. Unfortunately, that’s a human problem not restricted to Trump supporters.

  52. 52.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Kay:

    Agree, it’s most definitely not normal politics anymore on the R side. It took leaving Germany as a smoking crater to break the hold of Nazism. I hope that less drastic measures will be effective here. Like writing postcards and door-knocking to win the next several election cycles at least. Plus reforming the fucking Supreme Court.

  53. 53.

    Kay

    We’re seeing an uptick in interest in this at the law office. ADUs. Accessory dwelling units – “granny cottages”. It’s a way to keep an elderly relative out of a nursing home – you just put up a unit on property you already own. They sell prefab units that are designed for older people. It’s also a way to “spend down” the elders assets – ordinarily w/a nursing home the older person has to go thru all their own funds and assets before they qualify for nursing home payments made by Medicaid – with this they’re spending their money on an asset that appreciates. So far it’s people who live out in the country and have some acreage and no zoning, but we have a request to look into putting one up in a “village” w/single family R2 zoning.
    I just think it’s an interesting solution to an issue a lot of people will encounter.

    For a growing number of Americans, home is where mom, dad, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and the kids (and sometimes their kids) are. A 2021 survey by Generations United, a national advocacy organization, found that 26 percent of us live in households that include three or more generations. The same survey in 2011 found that only 7 percent were residing in multigenerational housing.

  55. 55.

    Subsole

    @raven:

    Someone on Twitter made the rather cutting observation that you could absolutely con these people into running a concentration camp, if you used the right emojis.

    Though honestly, I don’t think there’d be much conning necessary…

     

    @Baud:

    This.

    This entire stupid, wasteful dance is basically American society tiptoeing around the fact that these people despise us.

    All of the conspiracy theorizing and both-sidesing is basically that demographic giving itself permission to hate us, and the rest of America trying to tell itself that they must have a valid reason to hate us all. Because otherwise they’d just be a bunch of assholes.

    This is, of course, absolutely bonkers.

  58. 58.

    TBone

    @zhena gogolia: they’re all scared.  It’s why they are bullies – every bully is simply a frightened coward on the inside, hiding behind a facade of toughness.  They lash out in abject fear.

    That’s why you have to make ’em spit their chiclets.  It’s the only way to break through the wall of fear that is disguised as rage.  Snaps ’em right out of it, even if only temporarily.

  62. 62.

    TBone

    @Baud: yes, very true.  We play defense way too much. I much prefer offense, but it causes so much pearl-clutching that I get easily frustrated.

    I was a natural born princess in bio dad’s eyes and he treated me thusly.  I was not inclined to serfdom.

  63. 63.

    Another Scott

    @cmorenc: $100-$150k/yr is “wealthy”?? Mixing income and wealth is misleading.

    Made me look…

    IRS – AGI stats for tax year 2021 – XLSX file.

    Floors for brackets US as a whole:

    Top 1% – $699,008
    Top 5% – $257,507
    Top 10% – $172,677
    Top 25% – $96,633
    Top 50% – $48,667
    Top 75% – $24,089

    Yeah, Ok, being in the Top 20-25% or so is probably objectively “high income” looking at the country as a whole, but the distribution of income is far, far from gaussian. The total AGI of the Top 1% + the Top 5% is about $7T out of the total AGI of $14.9T…

    Thanks.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  64. 64.

    Suzanne

    @Kay: There’s been a lot of debate all over the country about ADUs, aka granny flats, guest houses, casitas, etc. Many municipalities don’t allow them on single-family lots, but that seems to be shifting in some places.

    Lots of concerns about setbacks, traffic and parking, people using them for AirBNBs, partying, metering….. all the same stuff.

  65. 65.

    The Red Pen

    David Pakman was on some Fox radio show with some dingus pushing the drug conspiracy theory. Pakman had a really good position: “If you are going to say that it’s ‘plausible’ that Joe Biden was on drugs at the State of the Union, you at least have to cite a substance known to man that has the effects you claim.”

    Basically, nothing they’ve talked about can reverse mental decline. As others have pointed out her, if you’re spouting gibberish, then speed is just going to make you spout more intense gibberish.

  66. 66.

    Eyeroller

    @The Red Pen: ​ But then the FTFNYT will write about how “energetic” you are, which makes you seem so much younger than low-key Biden so we should continue to worry about how old Biden is.​

  67. 67.

    Kay

    @Suzanne:

    Thanks. I thought about you as I was writing that. You could go out on your own and be a “navigator”, I swear. A LOT of interest. It would be a great small business.

    Ours are all in the context of estate planning so late middle aged people putting them on proprety they own (own outright) for their parents  and paying cash for the dwelling. It can make a lot of sense. I think that probbaly changes if you’re borrowing.  My initial foray into talking to the zoning administrator in the village (which is zoned) went well – he seemed open to the idea although he raised the air bnb issue – laughable here. No one is vacationing in this county. I didn’t say that of course.

    We have one where the retired husband is taking CNA training to care for his elderly mother on an ADU on his lot, behind his house. It will work well for them. They’re in township with no zoning though and it’s 3+ acres.

  68. 68.

    Trivia Man

    @3Sice: I like the idea of taking advantage of his hyper vigilance. Loud enough for him to hear, someone backstage whispering “trump is a loser “ over and over or some other very short phrase that will trigger him. “Small hands” or “his dad hated him”.

    Maybe a sound – keep opening a bottle of pop so he pavlovs a craving for diet coke. Or handcuffs clicking shut. Any other sounds to trigger him?

  69. 69.

    Soprano2

    @Baud: I know, but it’s also so stupid because they can’t even use a real thing to explain it! They don’t have to make something up, there’s a real thing that could explain it if Biden did indeed have dementia.

  70. 70.

    Soprano2

    @Princess: She must be super good, because a spouse should be able to pick up on things that even you wouldn’t notice. I suspect he knew but didn’t want to know. Being around someone a lot makes it harder to deny what’s happening.

  71. 71.

    bluefoot

    As someone who has worked for a decade trying to find and develop therapeutics for Alzheimer’s disease, if there were a drug that could even temporarily slow, arrest or reverse it, 1) every neuroscientist would know about it 2) SOMEBODY would be selling it and rolling in cash 3) even if it were some secret DARPA product for only people with access, you know there’d be a lot more people than the president taking it (most of the Senate, I’m look at you), and we’d know.

    BTW, all the epidemiological data says the best things for delaying onset of age-related cognitive decline are regular cardiovascular exercise, healthy diet, and keeping mentally and socially active. Let’s compare Joe Biden and TCFG on these….

    I realize all this “Biden getting shot up with super seekrit drugs” is merely a distraction and excuse. I don’t normally address stupid talking points but to quote Biden, come on, man.

  72. 72.

    kindness

    ‘A very large percent of the country thinks Joe has dementia’ translates from MSM speak to ‘we really need more eyeball clicks and miss the Trump era down to the bottom of our bank accounts’.

  73. 73.

    emjayay

    @Tony Jay: Nice work. For the millionth time this blog needs a simple thumbs up/down function.

    The “sense-of-self” thing hits the nail on the head for the MAGA cultists. Not the whole story, but the core of it. I remember being a teenager too, but like most of us I grew out of it.

    For all the Republican politicians and right wing news talkers it’s a bit more cynical. None of the Fox News etc. people could get a job in that field paying a tenth of what they get anywhere else. The politicians making all those idiotic claims are embarrassing themselves but are well aware that their drooling baby voters won’t see it. Their identity is like a Jenga, and they are afraid it would collapse if a single piece was removed.

  75. 75.

    Citizen Alan

    @Kay:

     They believe what they want to believe.

    This goes back to Sarah Palin for me. It was the first time I really grokked the fact that, to Republicans and their Amen Chorus in the media, actual verifiable facts are less important that what an ignorant hillbilly knows to be true “in their heart.”

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