Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

If you can’t control your emotions, someone else will.

“But what about the lurkers?”

I swear, each month of 2025 will have its own history degree.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

I am pretty sure these ‘journalists’ were not always such a bootlicking sycophants.

The unpunished coup was a training exercise.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

Not loving this new fraud based economy.

How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

When they say they are pro-life, they do not mean yours.

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

Mediocre white men think RFK Jr’s pathetic midlife crisis is inspirational. The bar is set so low for them, it’s subterranean.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

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

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Republicans do not trust women.

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Still with the Incel Shit

Still with the Incel Shit

by | 131 Comments

This post is in: 

Incel Boy 1

Every new find is worse than the last.  Over on TikTok, creator the_yv_edit has a video out predicting that Trump is going to dump Vance, and she makes a point that “childless” is a far different thing from “child free”.  The latter is what Vance really wants to say — women, couples and men who choose not to have children even though they could.  “Childless” can also mean someone who really wanted kids but couldn’t.

But he’s a political moron who wanted to go 110% MAGA to win a Senate seat, so here he is, channeling weird rhetoric that only misogynist incels would think is convincing.  He’d still get dragged (and with good reason) if he went after the child free women, but instead he’s too fucking stupid to make that distinction.

Yes, someone who went to Yale can be stupid.  Tim Walz went to Chadron State College and he’s smart and, more importantly, he has good instincts.  People who just kiss ass all the fucking time generally have good instincts about which butt to kiss, but not much else.  And if they were smarter they’d be kissing less ass.

Also, Tim Walz’ two kids were IVF babies.  Just saying.

Edited to add:  Walz also drinks diet dew.

Edit #2:  I told my therapist that I’d limit it to one Vance post a day, so:

Still with the Incel Shit

In case you’re living in a cave, Biles just lead the US team to a gold in Paris.  That’s her fifth.

 

Reader Interactions

131Comments

  1. 1.

    dmsilev

    I’m beginning to get the sense that when the Trump campaign said they “vetted” Vance, it mostly involved taking him in to have his anal glands expressed.

  2. 2.

    HumboldtBlue

    It’s like the Titanic was hit by a hurricane while a tornado ripped it in half, and sharknado happened while it was engulfed in a wildfire started by the largest earthquake in history.

  3. 3.

    prostratedragon

    What’s JDV trying to dodge in his twitter history? Short thread:

    Here’s something interesting. JD Vance changed his Twitter/X Username from @JDVance1 to @JDVance last week, sometime between July 23 or 24.

  4. 4.

    OId Man Shadow

    If he drops Vance, that would be admitting he was wrong about the most important decision he has to make as a candidate.

  5. 5.

    Peale

    Given the party he represents, he might as well have added “except for immigrants having children. They’re doing it for all the wrong reasons. Oh, and those welfare queens who are popping out babies left and right to get that extra $15 a month in food stamps. They’re having babies for sociopathic reasons as well.”

  6. 6.

    $8 blue check mistermix

    @OId Man Shadow:

    If he drops Vance, that would be admitting he was wrong about the most important decision he has to make as a candidate.

    And if he doesn’t drop Vance, he’ll be watching him shit the bed every day.  It’s a wonderful, beautiful dilemma.

  7. 7.

    matt

    the idea that it’s somehow insulting to normal people to call these incel people who use the word ‘cuck’ in daily conversation weird is, well, insulting to normal people. fuck you david brooks.

  12. 12.

    p.a.

    Any decently administered and funded  state school has tremendous resources, going back to pre-internet days: InterLibraryLoan afforded any school the resources of Hvd/Yale/Stanford for its students.  What may have been lacking was the contacts with “the better sorts”🤢, students or alums.  I remember the legit knock on our elite institutions: you don’t see a full professor until senior year or grad school.

    You get out what you put in, if resources are available to anyone besides the football & basketball teams.

  13. 13.

    Old School

    @OId Man Shadow:

    If he drops Vance, that would be admitting he was wrong about the most important decision he has to make as a candidate.

    He could always try to get his supporters to hang J.D. Vance.

  14. 14.

    MattF

    Vance offers identity politics but has multiple identities. There’s some logic— a man without a secure ego will reach out for a real identity. But he won’t succeed, and his failure is what we see.

  15. 15.

    p.a.

    @OId Man Shadow:If he drops Vance, that would be admitting he was wrong about the most important decision he has to make as a candidate.

     

     

    Twice!  (From his perspective).  And don’t forget the 18-ish of his own hires for Cabinet positions who whave signed a letter stating he’s not qualified.

  16. 16.

    wjca

    @dmsilev: I’m beginning to get the sense that when the Trump campaign said they “vetted” Vance, it mostly involved taking him in to have his anal glands expressed.

    A consideration, but probably a secondary one.  The primary criteria had to be “Did the checks clear?”  Because somebody who routinely stiffs others would want cash in advance, lest he be stiffed in turn.

  17. 17.

    gvg

    Trump gets away with saying terrible things about all kinds of people and not much happens except he gets followers. I don’t understand why, but thats what happens, so why would he know that someone else running with him couldn’t also say mean crap that is not really different?  And why would his campaign really know it wouldn’t work? Maybe Vance thought it would too and went for it so he could say such things.

    I don’t think his followers want someone who is polite. Pence didn’t have the personality to do this, so we didn’t have a prior test.

  18. 18.

    KatKapCC

    Saying “childless” is very much on purpose, no matter the reason why someone doesn’t have kids. For those of us where it was by choice, to people like Vance that makes us “less than”. And it wouldn’t surprise me at all if he thought that people who wanted to have kids but were not able to (via the usual method) were being punished by a higher power for some perceived transgression, and so again, the “-less” is intentional because it’s seen as a penalty.

  19. 19.

    Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.)

    This fucking guy has more problems than a math book. Josh Marshall wrote something a few days ago about how weird it is that this guy, who by any estimation has everything he could ever hope for in life, is so weirdly, unreasonably angry all the time. Everything pissed him off, he’s never happy, and he’s never going to be happy. He’s like Former Guy that way. It would be kind of sad if these people were less repellent, off-putting and awful.

  21. 21.

    ssdd

    @HumboldtBlue:

    It’s like the Titanic was hit by a hurricane while a tornado ripped it in half, and sharknado happened while it was engulfed in a wildfire started by the largest earthquake in history.

    …and then the asteroid hit.

  22. 22.

    Chief Oshkosh

    Tim Walz went to Chadron State College and he’s smart and, more importantly, he has good instincts.

    And he has good manners. Which used to mean something.

  23. 23.

    Trollhattan

    Chico Man, California’s handy unfortunate stand-in for Florida Man (yeah, you too, Aaron R) seems like a real peach now that his criming record has come out following the arrest for intentionally starting the Park Fire (385,000 acres spanning four counties, and our counties are big, not like those postage stamps y’all call counties back east).

    Ronnie Dean Stout II, the man arrested last week on suspicion of starting the sprawling Park Fire in Northern California, has a criminal history dating back to at least 2001 and could face an extended prison sentence if convicted of arson. Stout appeared Monday for his arraignment in Butte Superior Court.

    He faces a felony charge of arson of an inhabited structure or property. He also faces an enhancement of committing arson with special circumstances, and three enhancements related to prior convictions under California’s “Three Strikes” law. His defense attorney did not enter a plea Monday on Stout’s behalf, with court proceedings scheduled to continue Thursday.

    Here’s what else to know about Stout, his alleged role in the Park Fire and his criminal history. Cal Fire arson and district attorney investigators arrested Stout at 2 a.m. July 25, nearly 12 hours after the Park Fire started, which the Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey said “undoubtedly” would result in a charge of arson for Stout, an offender with “two strikes,” during a July 25 news conference. Stout was arrested at a mobile home park in Chico after officials gathered evidence from witnesses, including a woman who saw him acting “strange” after his car lit on fire near Alligator Hole at Upper Bidwell Park on the outskirts of Chico, Ramsey said.

    The woman saw him “doing nothing other than watch the fire” before getting back into the car, Ramsey said, getting out and pushing it down a 60-foot gully near the swimming hole, starting what by Monday had become the sixth-largest fire in California’s history, Cal Fire records show. “The male was then seen calmly leaving the area by blending in with the other citizens who were in the area and fleeing the rapidly evolving fire,” a statement from Ramsey’s office said.

    Officials later determined that the car belonged to Stout’s mother. One witness posted her encounter with initial flames in what quickly became a viral TikTok video, where she described witnessing a man push the burning car and casually walk away, a description she gave to police along with the photos she got of the man.

    In 2001, Stout was found guilty of lewd and lascivious acts with a child under 14 in Butte County where he was sentenced to serve a year in jail. The following year, Stout was convicted of committing robbery and great bodily injury in Kern County. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison after the 2002 conviction, but was arrested on suspicion of DUI in 2020, so it is unclear when he was released from prison, Ramsey said last week during a news conference.

    Details of the criminal cases that led to the two prior convictions were not immediately available. The earlier case resulted in Stout being registered as a sex offender. Stout’s entry on the Megan’s Law website — California’s database for registered sex offenders — shows his last reported address as a mobile home park in Chico. A warrant from a local judge allowed Stout to be arrested and held without bail, and he is currently being held in the Butte County Jail.

    Under California’s “Three Strikes You’re Out” law, which increases prison sentences for those previously convicted of violent or serious felons.

    https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/fires/article290543294.html#storylink=cpy

  24. 24.

    prostratedragon

    They have an app for that:

    I just called the @GaSecofState Press Office (470-312-2803) and they confirmed that all you need to cancel someone’s voter registration is their name, DOB, and either their address or the last four digits of their social.

    Includes a CNN segment on the True the Vote grift.

  25. 25.

    different-church-lady

    Every new find is worse than the last.

    I think you mean every new find is better than the last. ;-)

  28. 28.

    Scout211

    @OId Man Shadow: If he drops Vance, that would be admitting he was wrong about the most important decision he has to make as a candidate.

    He’s never wrong (in his mind), he can only be unfairly wronged.  He’s already blamed any misstep in his campaign (since Kamala Harris became the nominee) on Biden. He has said that Biden has unfairly dropped out,  making all of Trump’s prepared campaign (rants, smears and insults against Biden) unfairly unfair.  And he wants his money back because Biden’s withdrawal was so unfair.

    OTOH, it appears that no one is buying it.

  31. 31.

    KatKapCC

    @prostratedragon:

    their name, DOB, and either their address or the last four digits of their social.

    That “either” is doing the heavy lifting. It’s easy to find someone’s address. Much harder to find out their SSN. The full SSN should be required, along with license/ID number, at the very least.

  32. 32.

    rikyrah

    @dmsilev:

    The only thing that needed to be vetted was whether or not Thiel and Musk’s checks cleared. I don’t know why people continue to pretend that he had any other qualification other than he came with those checks.

  33. 33.

    bbleh

    @OId Man Shadow: @$8 blue check mistermix: @Old School: @p.a.: his cultists wouldn’t care of course.  “We have always been at war with Eastasia.”  But I think it COULD be an issue ** IF ** the Harris campaign made it one.  Roll it in with him “running away from” the September debate.  “First he runs away from the debate, then he runs away from his OWN VP!  Can America really afford a Chicken President?”  [add old Looney-Tunes-style clip of chicken fleeing, shedding feathers madly]

    And I think the other thing holding him back is, he just can’t admit to himself or the people around him that he was wrong, that he made a bad choice.  He’ll turn on a dime and expect — correctly — his followers to follow, but he has to convince himself first.  I don’t know whether he can, and especially not if the Harris people make a stink out of it, make it about HIM, HIS choice, HIS mistake.

    As many elsewhere have noted, attack attack attack!  (And yes as always, donate, volunteer, vote!)

  36. 36.

    rikyrah

    @prostratedragon:

    I just called the @GaSecofState Press Office (470-312-2803) and they confirmed that all you need to cancel someone’s voter registration is their name, DOB, and either their address or the last four digits of their social.

     

    I can’t tell you how much this enrages me.

    As I wrote in the morning, you can’t cancel a voter where I am WITHOUT A SIGNATURE.

    You definitely can’t do it ELECTRONICALLY.

  38. 38.

    different-church-lady

    @dmsilev:

    VETTING COMMITTEE: “He says a lot of insane shit.”

    TRUMP CAMPAIGN: “He’s a perfect fit!”

  39. 39.

    Kent

    @OId Man Shadow:If he drops Vance, that would be admitting he was wrong about the most important decision he has to make as a candidate.

    Dropping Vance would be both:

    • a sign of weakness
    • admitting he made a mistake

    Luckily Trump is allergic to doing either.

    If Vance gets dropped they will spin it as Vance pulling out for…”reasons” not Trump dropping him.

  41. 41.

    HumboldtBlue

    AOC slaps Vivek Ramalamadingdong around… again.

    Being obsessed with repressing women is goofy.

    Trying to watch what LGBTQ+ people do all the time is abnormal.

    Punishing people who don’t have biological offspring is creepy.

    It’s an incel platform, dude.
    It’s SUPER weird.
    And people need to know.

  42. 42.

    matt

    Still looking for a better word than ‘weird’ for these people:
    Candace Owens claims “modern Satanists” convinced people evolution is real

  43. 43.

    KatKapCC

    @Kent: I imagine they would force Vance to drop out on his own by making up some lie about a cancer diagnosis or something. He already bent the knee to Trump, now they would make him fall on his sword.

  44. 44.

    Hoodie

    This is one of the worst own goals I can remember.   I do wonder if Trump’s campaign will decide that the stream of shit is never ending and they have to cut JD loose.   He’ll make up some gaslighting story that it is was never a mistake or something the Dems did.  His dumbass supporters will believe it because they want to, but it will have left a mark with other voters.  He’ll find some soulless GOPer (god knows there are plenty) to fill the spot and airbrush JD out of the picture.

  45. 45.

    Jackie

    WTF! This, after TCFG called Kamala garbage 😡

    Lara Trump, the Republican Party co-chair and former President Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law, compared Vice President Kamala Harris on Monday to a fashion designer’s faux ‘trash bag’ that gained notoriety for its nearly $1,800 price tag,” the New York Times reports.

    Said Trump: “It reminds me of — there was this bag that a very famous designer designed — this was several years ago. And it literally was a trash bag, but they sold this thing for like $2,000, thinking that people would actually buy it. It’s a similar situation with Kamala Harris.”

    For those who don’t subscribe to the NYT, here’s a link to HuffPost:

    https://www.huffpost.com/entry/lara-trump-kamala-harris-insult_n_66a88d79e4b07ad170d057cc

  50. 50.

    Tony Jay

    @bbleh:

    Should be easy enough for a guy used to believing whatever he needs to believe.

    1) Vance is a drag on his campaign.

    2) Trump only runs the best campaigns.

    3) Therefore Vance represents a broken deal.

    4) Dump Vance, keep the cheque, crow about how no-one makes Donald Trump accept the bad end of a deal.

    Stench should be able to convince himself of that in three seconds flat. Whether Thiel plays along… that’s a tomorrow problem. Vance is a problem today.

  52. 52.

    Dangerman

    @OId Man Shadow: He will find a way to blame his sons. The mailperson. Hillary.

    Donald is perfect. Time traveler. He was the model for the Statue of David.

    ETA: Maybe JDV is George Santos (or whatever that fuckers name was). Shit. It’s like a B movie, might as well go for the absurd. When does Godzilla make his appearance?

  55. 55.

    wjca

    @Scout211: He’s never wrong (in his mind), he can only be unfairly wronged.

    So, has he been unfairly wronged by Vance?  Or by the people who advised him to pick Vance?  Surely must be one or the other.  (Well, unless it’s both…)

  56. 56.

    Kay

    20k people went to the Harris rally in GA and they have a 10k limit. I think GA might end up a strong swing state for her.

  58. 58.

    catclub

    Trump in an interview said he probably picked Vance because Vance loved him the most. Not terribly related to electability or vetting.

    I am impressed that Vance loved him more than Tim Scott. Also Melania.

  59. 59.

    oldgold

    Vance is really playing with political dynamite.

    Look at these surprising (at least to me) numbers.

    “The share of U.S. adults younger than 50 without children who say they are unlikely to ever have kids rose 10 percentage points between 2018 and 2023 (from 37% to 47%), according to a Pew Research Center survey.”

    And, this:

    “Our prevalence estimates suggest that childfree adults are quite common, comprising over one-fifth (21.64%) of the population.” https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-15728-z#:~:text=Our%20prevalence%20estimates%20suggest%20that,want%20children%20early%20in%20life.

  61. 61.

    wjca

    @KatKapCC: That “either” is doing the heavy lifting. It’s easy to find someone’s address. Much harder to find out their SSN.

    Pretty easy to get a DoB, too.  Just check the census records.  Readily available online, by the way.

  62. 62.

    Hoodie

    @HumboldtBlue: Listened to that interview.  Walz is a nice guy with the right attitude, certainly won’t hurt Harris as a VP choice.  I’m not sold that he’ll be a major help.  Since hers is an underdog campaign, she might want someone with a bit more juice.  He had the virtue of coming out with a hit on the “weird” meme, but he might be a one trick pony.  She needs all the horses she can muster.

  63. 63.

    catclub

    It would be fun to ask him: So you think Pence was a terrible choice and now so is Vance. Is that a pattern with you?

  64. 64.

    prostratedragon

    @KatKapCC:
    In which connection (Georgia edition):

    The DOB, DL#, Last 4, all easy to come by. After all, for 18+ months the SOS election server was not secured and leaking all that data. Many people have the 5 million voter’s PII obtained from that leak. Additionally, In 2015 Kemp’s staff sent it all to the press (in error.)

  66. 66.

    Kay

    Joe Manchin on JD Vance: “very weird”

    It’s actually very good! He says Vance is weird 3 times and smiles – looks authentic. Harris is inspiring even our dullest members.

  69. 69.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Hoodie: ​ 

    Walz has done several interviews and there is plenty of footage out there of him banging the drum for progressive policies, particularly how successful they have been in Minnesota.

  70. 70.

    wjca

    @catclub: I am impressed that Vance loved him more than Tim Scott. Also Melania.

    For Melania, it’s just a job.

    You have to really love your (native) country to take a covert position somewhere else.  One which not only lasts for years, but involves getting and staying close to someone like Trump.  Apparently she does.

  71. 71.

    Barbara

    @Jackie: Umm, what?  Did Lara Trump feel so eclipsed by Vance’s foot in mouth disease that she had to try to outdo him in spouting drivel?  “Hey look at me! I can say stupid and weird things too!”

  73. 73.

    bbleh

    @Kent: concur it would be “Vance’s choice.”  And they’d try to paint it as parallel to Biden’s.

    @Tony Jay: also concur it would be “Vance’s fault” *IF* he can do that credibly.  Thus the need to hammer NOW on Vance being TRUMP’s choice. TRUMP chose him, TRUMP brought him out at the convention, he’s TRUMP’s boy.  If they can make that the Narrative — if the Felon hears it on TV, which means it’s really real — I dunno what kinda psychic battle it would set up in his head.  Maybe he’d even decompensate materially!

  76. 76.

    MCA1

    @KatKapCC: It would definitely need to be made to look like a voluntary stepping aside by Vance.  Otherwise Trump’s ego just couldn’t deal.  The needle they need to thread is waiting until it’s so clear that he’s an anchor on the campaign that they can go to the tech billionaires and say “Hey, we gave it a try but this kid’s killing us, and surely you can see that.  He’s gotta go…but please keep those checks coming.”

    The fun part would be that Democrats could, baselessly or not, just run around for two weeks talking about how Vance was such an albatross that Trump was forced to dump him, and then tie the terrible choice of selecting him in the first place to any one of a million dumb choices Donnie made while president

    ETA: the even more fun part would be that that would be the absolute end of Vance’s national political career.  He’d be cut off from both the MAGA faithful and Republican money simultaneously.  Cast aside like the paper wrapper on an ice cream cone.

  77. 77.

    Ruckus

    @KatKapCC:

    This is one of his many problems. He wants his life to be something to be revered and yet every time he publicly opens his mouth….

    Thing is he knows this but is such a doofus dipshit that he has zero idea how to change it in any way.

  78. 78.

    Barbara

    @Kay: Not everyone who is from Appalachia is going to view “son of an opioid addict turned protege of a gay billionaire” as a defining trait or a desirable biography.

  79. 79.

    zhena gogolia

    @matt: I’ll say this: I used to have to explain what a “cuckold” is while teaching 19th-century literature. Now I don’t.

  80. 80.

    Barbara

    @BR: “Champion caliber asshole” is the verdict of one commenter and that really seems about right.

  81. 81.

    West of the Rockies

    @matt:

    Don’t forget Steven Miller, the Concierge of Creepiness.  And Gaetz and Stone and Guiliani. They’re a party of creeps, top to (the subterranean) bottom.

  86. 86.

    Tony Jay

    @bbleh:

    Yup. Hammer on the reality that Vance really is a perfect Trump pick. A deeply stupid, racist, misogynistic, sex-case with a deep hatred of everything that makes modern America great.

    Make it as hard as possible for Stench to gain any helpful headlines out of forcing Vance to “spend more time with his family” while also trying to make sure everyone who matters knows that it was really a Trump decision to dump a loser he never intended to keep in the first place.

    Keep the pressure on. Hit from all the angles. Let the nationwide campaign(s) and the ground game do their work while keeping the nation’s slowly widening eyes fixed on how weird and creepy the Party of Hench are.

  89. 89.

    MCA1

    @oldgold: Totally.  Ironically, he’s probably driving this bizarro road in large part due to being closer to that demographic of younger people choosing not to have kids.  He’s seen that phenomenon up close and personal and, as a reactionary with fascist tendencies who married up and had kids to conform into a different social strata, recoils from it.  That’s why he declares them to be “psychopaths.”  It’s overcompensation.

    What he doesn’t realize, of course, is that they’re voluntarily not having kids because they’re making economically rational choices in the f’ed up, barren economic landscape they inherited.  Many can’t even afford to save enough to buy a house much less pay for full-time childcare and everything else.  And they may blame both parties to some degree for it, but I think the under ’40’s can see which of the parties has anyone in it that sympathizes with their situation.  The other is full of people who go on and on about how they worked a part-time job in college from ’68-’73 and graduated debt free and then bought their first house and paid off the mortgage before they were 35, nevermind that the cost of college for them was inflation-adjusted 20% of what it costs today, and housing as a percentage of median income was something like 40% of what it costs today.

  90. 90.

    phdesmond

    thought i would share my research here.

    three days ago i thought to do a Google Boolean search.

    it’s an AND search for the two terms:  “JD Vance” “weird”

    here’s what i’ve got so far:
    7/28
    About 32,800,000 results
    7/29
    About 35,600,000 results
    7/30
    About 53,000,000 results

  93. 93.

    Kent

    @Jackie: Yeah, that’s going to play in the hinterland.  Some obscure reference to a designer handbag controversy from several seasons ago?

    These people are not only weird, they are cluelessly out of touch.

  94. 94.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Barbara:
     

    Not everyone who is from Appalachia is going to view “son of an opioid addict turned protege of a gay billionaire” as a defining trait or a desirable biography.

    Fantastic!

  96. 96.

    TBone

    They will all double down on weird – it’s all they have to outdo each other with while garnering clicks and eyeballs.  It may get boring because it’ll be such an obvious competition.  But someone will “win.” 😆

  97. 97.

    Martin

    I’ve mentioned this before, but his fixation on biological children is starting to feel like Vance trying really hard to validate his decision to marry a woman.

  99. 99.

    Kay

    “That’s just a very weird position to take…very weird. I couldn’t believe it.”

    Joe Manchin couldn’t believe it but sadly it is all too true – weird as hell.

  101. 101.

    Jay

    First the scary as fuck:

    These Swing State Election Officials Are Pro-Trump Election Deniers
    At least 70 pro-Trump conspiracists are election officials in key battleground counties — and they are poised to make a giant mess on Election Day

    By Justin Glawe

    July 29, 2024

    https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/trump-swing-state-officials-election-deniers-1235069692/

    Certification of election results is what legal experts consider a “ministerial task,” and one required by state and local law. But as Trump’s lies about the 2020 election have taken hold, Republicans nationwide have decided that certification provides them an opportunity to hear fraud allegations — and refuse to officially count their local votes. Republicans have refused to certify election results at least 25 times since Trump lost the 2020 election to President Joe Biden.

    Summary at Wonkette, https://www.wonkette.com/p/rachel-maddow-flashlight-under-chin

    And also here:https://www.american-doom.com/p/exclusive-pro-trump-swing-state-election

    The funny:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMG_yyRM_Zk

    Long video by comic Ben Parler about how he became Fmr. Rethug Senator Ted Yoho* Social Media Manager,

    * the guy who called AOC a “bword” in Congress, then gave a non-apology denying it on the floor, and wound up admitting it in a zoom meeting with Ben Parler.

    Yes, they are that stupid.

  103. 103.

    Hoodie

    @HumboldtBlue: That’s not really what I mean.  There is a certain risk that he’s another Tim Kaine, who was another not very well known pol with a record of progressive policy making but didn’t really contribute a lot to Hillary’s campaign.  He didn’t hurt her, and she didn’t really need a lot of juice from her VP . Harris might need more help than that.  There have been VPs that have helped more underdog-type pols, e.g., Gore probably helped Clinton against Bush I and Biden probably helped Obama against McCain.

  104. 104.

    artem1s

    Finally seems like we have scooted out from under the malaise that has been infecting the country since 11/9/16. I think there have been times the Dems have been in celebration mode since then but haven’t been able to sustain it under the tsunami shitstorm of craptastic SCOTUS decisions; uncertainty around the next election cycle; and the ever growing weight of knowing just how much damage TCFG did in the 4 years he was in office and on J6. For the first time in what seems like forever, I feel like there is a consensus around our common feelings about the f’d up timeline we’ve been subjected too. We all seem to have finally put a finger on how to express it perfectly – it’s weird. And keeps getting weirder the longer and harder you look at it. And we’ve finally decided it’s OK to laugh about how perfectly weird it is and we’re joining each other in laughter rather than shrinking from it. Think about how long we’ve all been waiting for the crowd/MSM to notice how this Emperor has lost his cloths.

  105. 105.

    Soprano2

    I remember when the press and pundits would wring their hands about how the horrible Democrats and Hillary and Obama insulted the voters by saying they were “bitter” and “deplorable”. So it is crickets so far on how JD Vance has insulted millions of voters not just once, but over and over again?

  106. 106.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    I think the last time a Vice-Presidential candidate was this far underwater, his running mate was a dead cat … no, wait, check that: Bill the Cat was only dead for the ’84 campaign; by ’88 he was alive again, and I think they were polling even lower.

    (For the benefit of those who don’t remember: that was a quadrennial plotline in the comic Bloom County, which ended its newspaper run with Donald Trump buying out the feature, rebranding it as “Trump: The Strip”, and systematically destroying everything worthwhile in Bloom County. I am not making this up.)

    (The story arc began with Trump being hit by a yacht anchor and his brain being transplanted into Bill the Cat. I am not making this up either.)

  108. 108.

    wjca

    @Kay: oh god. I watch no sports and no Olympics and even I know she’s [Simone Biles] loved.

    “Childless cat-ladies” applies, among others, to Taylor Swift.  Who is not exactly reviled either.  Vance definitely knows how to pick ’em.

  109. 109.

    Lily

    Vance’s attacks on imaginary people make me wonder about poor treatment of his own kids, since sometimes those behaviors are linked.

    Found this on People, now a vessel for planting PR stories:   On his child’s birthday, during a Senate debate about Ukraine aid, Vance used his time to announce “I want you to know that Daddy loves you very much.” Then he read all of Seuss’s Oh, The Places You’ll Go!  “into the record, because maybe you can watch it at home.”

    Treating your child as a device to display yourself falsely–while telling him, as if privately, yet super-publicly, that this proves your love–is extra-warped stuff.  May also transfer your own narcissistic malformations into the kid’s mind.

    It’s truly a shame Vance is not childless.

  110. 110.

    Dan B

    @Bill Arnold: On my trip to India we passed by a group of women in Rajasthan who were processing tiny hot chili peppers in a field by the roadside.  The ground, sand, was red with the fine dust from the peppers and the air was deadly spicy.  It was surreal, frightening, and tragic at the same time.

  111. 111.

    Dan B

    @Hoodie: I’ve watched many interviews of Walz.  He’s like Pete, always has a clear and simple response.  He always nails it.  Every interview I always feel like his explanations of his views and his actions seem so obvious.  There’s a lot of: Why didn’t I think of that?

  112. 112.

    Central Planning

    “Childless” can also mean someone who really wanted kids but couldn’t.

    Well, I guess if people have a sincerely held belief about wanting kids, they get to vote, amirite?

  113. 113.

    TBone

    Ugh! Weirdo maga neighbor guy is out with his gas powered leaf blower, cleaning the public street, just before a powerful, gusty thunderstorm is about to hit.  What a maroon.

    If I were his wife, I’d sabotage that noisy tool and make sure he used the vacuum cleaner inside the house every damned day instead.

  116. 116.

    Jackie

    @wjca: I just watched Sen Warnock deplaning in Atlanta with MVP Harris…

    Made me wonder what JD thinks about divorced pastors who have custody of their children? 🤔

    ETA I purposefully didn’t add “Black” to the question, because divorced is divorced, right?

  117. 117.

    lowtechcyclist

    @wjca: ​
     

    Pretty easy to get a DoB, too. Just check the census records. Readily available online, by the way.

    For people born before April 1950 only, unless there’s been a serious data breach since December.

  119. 119.

    MCA1

    @Dan B: Agreed.  He cuts right to the heart of a subject in ways that some of us overeducated elitists have forgotten how to do.  We’re trying to explain the nuance and budgeting and everything and he’s like “Hey, here’s an idea: how ’bout we don’t let kids go hungry?  Republicans want kids to be starving to death all day in school.”

    Pete’s amazing in a different way, to me at least.  He answers questions with the nuance that us overeducated elitists would  attempt to, just with a concision we lack.  But he also has this incredible ability, even in a concise response, to weave all sorts of anecdotes and references in and out and then pull it all together to a punch line.  Witness that takedown of Vance he had on Maher’s show that went viral a couple weeks ago.  He’s f’ing Mozart where Walz is Woody Guthrie.

  120. 120.

    K-Mo

    My teenage niece and her friends bagged on Biles in 2020.  It reflected badly on them.  At least they are only kids.

    In truth, what Biles did in 2020 was heroic and her return this Olympics  is epic.

  121. 121.

    Dan B

    @Hoodie: Kaine was a nice centrist (safe) guy. Walz is a pistol!  He is not afraid to tell it like it is and then have his opponents notice he flamed them.

    Tim Walz is no Tim Kaine.  Walz can be an attack dog par excellence.  Don’t let the midwest-nice demeanor distract you.

  122. 122.

    K-Mo

    @Kent: Trump is like the counterfeit bottle of Chateau laFite that Chris Forbes bought in the 80s for a half a million.  I wouldn’t make Sangria with that swill.

  123. 123.

    Dan B

    @MCA1: Excellent description of the difference between Woody and Wolfgang Amadeus.  I believe Walz would be a great contrast to Harris’ brilliant brain.  And they’re both filled with joy and good humor.

  124. 124.

    Geminid

    @Dan B: I always thought of Tim Kaine as a moderate liberal, not a “Centrist.” Picking Kaine may have been a Centrist play in part, but I think Kaine was also a suburban play, and maybe a moderate Catholic play.

    Tim Kaine’s big problem is that the Democratic ticket lost. With one hundred thousand votes in the right places, Tim Kaine would have been a brilliant pick!

  125. 125.

    Bugboy

    “Childless” can also mean someone who really wanted kids but couldn’t.

    I can’t believe no one has underlined this, but since when has the conservative movement cared about POC being “Childless”?

  126. 126.

    gratuitous

    We don’t all live in caves, but some of us work in a different time zone, and would like to watch Olympic events in the evening without knowing the outcome. Please don’t post results as they happen, or set up an open thread for Olympic results.

  127. 127.

    K-Mo

    @Bugboy: And what about nuns?

    Are they really just throwing away the convent-dwelling voting bloc?

    Seriously though, the whole thing is a low-quality dog-whistle for educated elites, people who use birth control, and non-traditionalists.

  128. 128.

    Tony G

    @OId Man Shadow: I will bet a shiny nickel that … A) Trump will jettison Vance.  B) Trump will blame it all on Vance and take no responsibility for the decision himself.  (That’s an easy prediction, since Trump has NEVER taken responsibility for anything in his life.).   C) Trump’s cult members will, of course, totally agree with Trump.  D) Vance will become an un-person within the Republican Party.   Thoughts and Prayers!

  129. 129.

    wjca

    @Bugboy: I can’t believe no one has underlined this, but since when has the conservative movement cared about POC being “Childless”?

    Vance was talking to “people” about “people.”  POC don’t fit his definition, and are thus irrelevant to his remarks.  And his intended audience would understand that, to the point that your point wouldn’t even occur to them.

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