And he doesn’t seem to be a very good politician, either. Doubling down on a publicly discredited lie because… truthiness?… obviously pleases The Base, but Vance is giving ’embarrassed’ GOP voters every reason to, at the very least, stay home on election day:
JD Vance says he's just a raving lunatic on a street corner and it's everyone else's problem for trusting anything he says. https://t.co/f84NBXf71V
— Lindsay Beyerstein (@beyerstein) September 18, 2024
Per the Guardian:
… The rally in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, came two days after the Ohio senator told CNN host Dana Bash it was OK “to create stories” to draw attention to issues his constituents care about, regarding inflammatory and unfounded claims that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, had eaten residents’ pets.
The comments, in which he appeared to say that politicians can brazenly lie, drew immediate rebuke. But during his rally, Vance defended them and claimed that numerous constituents had told him “they’d seen something in Springfield”.
“On top of it, if there are certain people who refuse to listen to them, who refuse to take their concerns seriously,” he said, “that’s when it’s my job as United States senator to listen to my constituents.”
Vance took questions from reporters but knocked the press repeatedly, a line of attack that brought the crowd to their feet.
“When I said – and the media always does this, they’re very dishonest – when I say that I created a story, I’m talking about the media story, by focusing the press’s intention on what’s going on in Springfield,” said Vance…
Is the Trump campaign controlling what Vance says & does, or are he and a few of his personal staff just winging it w little coordination w Trump? https://t.co/IDn7VkJ679
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) September 18, 2024
"When a reporter went to Anna Kilgore’s house, she said her cat had actually returned a few days later—found safe in her own basement.
Kilgore, wearing a Trump shirt and hat, said she apologized to her Haitian neighbors with the help of a translation app" https://t.co/NlINm0nS2b pic.twitter.com/quU0pdWeD1
— Vera Bergengruen (@VeraMBergen) September 18, 2024
JD Vance is too intellectually vain to be an effective demagogue. Instead charging ahead with bold lies, he feels obliged to qualify and explain why he's lying. So he loses the people who love lies and the people who love truth.
— Lindsay Beyerstein (@beyerstein) September 18, 2024
This motherfucker wants an apology because the bomb threats on Springfield elementary schools didn't pan out. https://t.co/LwNztMQ3w1
— zeddy (@Zeddary) September 18, 2024
JD Vance on CNBC says that if immigration was the path to prosperity, then “America would be the most prosperous country in the world.” (Who wants to tell him … ) pic.twitter.com/XY9RDUlvjo
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 12, 2024
“Keep the cat memes flowing.”
– JD Vance, Sept 10 https://t.co/JUDfVniRsp
— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla) September 12, 2024
Shalimar
Odds that Vance is secretly a furry?
Mathguy
I feel no guilt now talking about his furniture fornicating tendencies. We need to tell stories to get the attention of the press.
Jackie
Work is gonna be fun for Vance after the elections… when he’s still “only” a senator and a yuuge reason Harris is Madam President-elect – making the GQP losers again! 🤭
David 🐝KHive🐝 Koch
Only the best people
OId Man Shadow
I’d say we’re about a few days away from JD putting on a white sheet and hood and just screaming the N-word.
bbleh
So there’s still almost 7 weeks til Election Day, and as they say 2 weeks is an eternity in politics, so I figure the Harris folks are keeping a good deal of their powder dry, including unloading on Vance not only personally but as an object lesson in the Felon’s poor judgment and general mental decline. Maybe waiting til after the Walz-Vance show? Just a hypothesis …
Baud
Unfortunate place to cut off the sentence.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I was just saying to Mr DAW that Vance is shockingly bad at politics. He puts people off.
Poe Larity
I’m wondering if he and RFK Jr have the same brain worm.
Or maybe he’s RJK Jr in a skin-suit just like his cousin is playing Trump?
kindness
They are doing it on purpose. Distract from Trump’s horrendous policy proposals (2025) and get the press to talk about anything else. I hate to say it but it’s become effective. The press is doing exactly what the press did in 2016.
October Light
Biggest understatement in the history of Balloon Juice
Also too, Sarah Huckabee Sanders is far less than a good person.
HumboldtBlue
“I’m still gonna call them an illegal alien” — JD Vance on Haitian migrants who are in Ohio legally
Just a raging asshole, always has been, always will be.
jonas
There is just so much here for Walz to just fucking pummel this guy over in the debate.
jonas
@HumboldtBlue: How humiliated must his wife feel at this point? JFC.
Chet Murthy
@jonas: It’s one thing to be made to look despicable; it’s yet another to be made to look ridiculous. She’s being made to look ridiculous.
Frankensteinbeck
Vance is developing a habit of doubling down on all the stupidest shit Trump says, the stuff that explodes in Trump’s face because everyone mocks him. Vance seems to think it’s his job to prove Trump is a genius.
@kindness:
Trump puked this up during the debate while Harris had him frothing at the mouth. This specific lie was the aftereffect of the debate that everyone talked about. His poll numbers have crumbled since that debate and just keep getting worse. No, this is not a deliberate strategy. Trump fucked up and he fucked up good, just like Harris knew he would. By all means, keep this in the news, it’s exactly what Trump’s handlers don’t want.
EDIT – Hell, haven’t you heard the chorus of Republicans, especially right after the debate, yelling “FOR GOD’S SAKE TRUMP SHUT UP ABOUT THE HARD RACISM AND JUST SAY INFLATION BAD OPEN BORDERS BAD.”
HumboldtBlue
@jonas:
She’s cut from the same cloth. She’s made her bed, she can sleep in it.
Baud
@Frankensteinbeck:
Yeah, Trump won in 2016 in large part because the media was spending all their time talking about Hillary and her damn emails.
sab
JD Vance was creating stories (aka lies) that badly damaged his own actual constituents because it might help Trump’s national agenda.
JD Vance is a sitting Senator with a very decent government salary who is doing everything he can against his sworn duty as a Senator.
I might call his office tomorrow to see if he even has a staff.
jonas
Oh, just wait until they find a copy of an essay Harris wrote in 8th grade social studies where she paraphrases, but *does not adequately attribute* a quote on where Lincoln was when he wrote the Gettysburg Address, thus exposing her to weeks of scrutiny over possible plagiarism charges. NYT editors are already blocking out square yards of front-page coverage space for this epic scandal.
“Trump Shoots Guy on Fifth Avenue; Claims He’s Never Even Been to New York When Questioned By FBI” — see Page A22.
Jackie
O/T but funny:
What makes it funny (to me, anyway) if/when TCFG loses in Nov, just how much influence will The Loser have anymore? Will the GQP finally be rid of his now empty threats and swipe him away like a pesky fly?
PST
@Shalimar:
I just checked Polymarket. Only 14 percent. By the way, Polymarket now gives Harris a 77 percent chance of winning the popular vote and a 52 percent chance of being elected. That’s the highest I’ve seen it. It seems to move a tiny bit with every new poll.
HumboldtBlue
@Frankensteinbeck:
Trump used it in the debate because Vance told the lie and the story earlier that day. He made it up and Trump ran with it, and now his people are pissed that Vance primed the pump and Trump was stupid enough to spew it forth. Now they can only double down.
Chet Murthy
@HumboldtBlue: You just know that Li’l Donnie is bitchin’ up a storm, wants to can Juicy Divans and get himself a real VP candidate! Vanky!
ETA: I wonder if Burgum would accept the invitation to join the ticket ? I mean, it’d be a good test of what G(r)OPers think of TCFG’s chances.
SiubhanDuinne
JD Vance seems to think Haitians come from a country called “Haitia.”
Chet Murthy
@SiubhanDuinne: It’s like his hair dye, which comes from “Grecia”.
Matt McIrvin
@Poe Larity: Maybe the worm moved to him as its new symbiotic host, like the Trills on Star Trek.
TS
Why on earth does he keep attacking the media – 90% of them are supporting trump/vance with every article they publish?
gwangung
They’re talking about vile, racist attitudes from Vance and Trump.
That’s effective…for Harris and Walz.
Besides, that racist shit is part and parcel of Project 2025, but without the nice words. We WANT that out in the open.
Frankensteinbeck
@HumboldtBlue:
Oh, I never thought Trump invented it. Harris had him angry and scared and he did what comes most naturally to him – he said the most racist thing he’d heard recently. He said it unfiltered, the raw awfulness his advisers keep trying to get him to tone down. He said it in front of an audience of 50 million, and the press finally had to address his actual words rather than sane-washing it.
Harris is a fucking genius.
Jackie
@HumboldtBlue:
It’s going to be shocking to learn how many moderate republicans actually stayed home or voted for Harris. I think a lot of republicans are lying to pollsters.
Chet Murthy
@TS: The beatings must continue until
morale improves.we have won.SatanicPanic
@Frankensteinbeck: No one ever suggests they’re distracting from their own pet issues. I’m pretty sure JD would rather be talking about their policies, such as they are. Build the Wall or raise tariffs or whatever
sab
@Dorothy A. Winsor: He won in Ohio because he mostly kept his head down and his mouth shut and let Tim Ryan be bipartisan.
Apparently nobody on our side ( including Tim Ryan’s people) read Vance’s book.
HumboldtBlue
The meteor can’t hit the planet soon enough.
sab
@Jackie: He is a lawyer and they are not illegal, nor were his own parents-in-law when they came here. He knows both facts and he doesn’t have the excuse of being a sundowning senile narcissicist. He is just a bad person lying. The Hugh Dobbs of Ohio politicians.
Bex
Someone on Nicolle Wallace’s show tonight said that most of the Springfield bomb threats came from “overseas.” The Putin bots are really busy these days.
Chet Murthy
@Frankensteinbeck:
There is a theory of the electorate, that goes thus: the voters are turned-off by rabid racism and misogyny, and want sober discussion of issues and policy. *cough* *cough* *spasms of coughing*. There is another theory that red meat, hatred, pointing out The Other, The Pollution In The Body Politic, The Interloper Poisoning The Blood of The Volk, is what will win this election, just like it’s won past ones. The latter theory worked in 2016, and we all remember Willy Horton right? Maybe it won’t work this time, but basically I think TCFG and Noted Bigamist Juicy Divans are testing that theory to its limit.
That is to say, their theory of the case is Timothy Synder’s “sadopopulism”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOjJtEkKMX4
Again, they might be wrong. But this is the theory they’re operating on. And it’s worked before, in many places. It’s how fascists and oligarchs win elections.
jonas
@Poe Larity: No, RFK Jr’s brainworm just makes him do and say really, really weird shit. Vance’s brain is just rotted with bog-standard sociopathy and amorality. He knows perfectly well his pants are basically a runaway fission reaction at this point, but doesn’t give a shit as long as he thinks it plays with the MAGA base.
And they’re lapping it up, of course. A majority of the rest of America? Maybe not so much.
Jackie
@Frankensteinbeck:
Exactly! Cats and dogs and even geese will be TCFG’s e-mails.
Harris and Walz are absolutely correct to stay on message and let TCFG/Vance fill the airwaves doubling down on Springfield, Ohio.
Baud
@Chet Murthy:
like the Teamsters!
Geminid
@Chet Murthy: Most people have no idea who Usha Vance is, and she’s trying to keep it that way.
Scout211
Rasmussen has a sad
Interesting poll, Rasmussen. I wonder why so many citizens feel that our country would we better off if Trump was assassinated. Hmmm. Oh, yeah. It must be that Democrats are threatening democracy. Uh huh. Sure, Rasmussen.
Gin & Tonic
I’ve been following politics for a long time, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone this bad at it.
Doc Sardonic
@jonas: His wife is as bad or worse than he is…..
twbrandt
I didn’t think it was possible for me to despise someone as much as I despise Trump, but Vance proved me wrong.
Gin & Tonic
The dude never had line of sight and never fired a shot. How does that make it an attempted assassination?
Baud
@Scout211:
Which, of course, was not the question asked in the poll.
They’re all liars.
different-church-lady
Vance is really catching on to this “Just say any old shit” thing real quick.
Baud
@Gin & Tonic:
It sells better.
Jackie
@Bex:
I thought Putin was trying to get TCFG elected? Maybe the bots are Iranian?
Scout211
It was a concept of an assassination attempt. It’s in the penal code. Look it up.
/s
Chet Murthy
@Geminid: haha, yes. Unfortunately for her, the people in her work circles know who Juicy Divans is, and if (IF, IF) he loses, they’ll make her life unbearable with just the whispers: not with anything in-her-face, just the unending, eventually-unendurable whispers. I can see her divorcing the bastard just for ruining her career.
Baud
@Scout211:
Heh. I love that meme.
Chet Murthy
@Scout211: Dipshits. TCFG could make all these assassination attempts go away, by fucking following the instructions of his fucking security detail. Shithead.
surfk9
Is there a recall process in Ohio?
Citizen Alan
@Geminid: If/when Trump loses, I hope she divorces Couch Fucker the next day and takes the kids. I’m serious–I genuinely worry for their futures if Couch Fucker stays in their lives. JD Vance is an absolute psychopath who I’m convinced drove his mother to become a drug addict and who should not be left alone around children, not even his own.
billcoop4
Upper caste
bimboperson (as I understand) can enjoy reincarnation in this life, I hope.BC
HumboldtBlue
@Chet Murthy:
Grecia: Where we get Grecian formula.
Citizen Alan
@twbrandt: I’m coming around to that view. Couch Fucker is everything I despise about Shitgibbon except his younger and smarter.
SatanicPanic
@Chet Murthy: I don’t think there’s any theory behind it or there’d be Republicans leaping out to promote the story like they love to do every time an undocumented person gets in a car accident.
The only way Trump ever wins is by driving up opponents negatives. Everyone knows when his 2024 campaign was strongest – it was when all he had to do was say “Biden is old”. That effectively kept him from saying too many stupid things. Now that he can’t do that they’re flailing.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@October Light:
It runs in the family.
Sister Golden Bear
Since scare-mongering about Fido and Fluffy has worked so well, the cultists are back to targeting trans people: GOP To Spend Millions On Anti-Trans Ads
<sigh>
SatanicPanic
I’m curious if Trump will get his way and we get a shutdown
Falling Diphthong
@Scout211:“It is hard to imagine a greater threat to democracy than expressing a desire to have your political opponent murdered.”
This is literally what Trump and Vance are doing with their blood libel, and he’s totally fine with that.
Dan B
@Citizen Alan: Oh. I believe Rafael Cruz’ children should give Juicy Divans children tips on staying away from Dear Dad Divan.
HumboldtBlue
Trump: We are going to win New York
Trump lost New York state by 20 points in 2020.
Ohio Mom
When Vance won the Ohio Senate race, I tried to calm myself with the idea that he would vote like a Republican, just like his predecessor, Rob Portune did, that it wouldn’t be any worse than it was before. I did recognize that Portman had better manners but that hardly mattered when he did things like vote against the ACA.
But having better manners, Portman would never have done anything like this Haitians Eat Pets thing. In the short run, this has hurt lots of people, and disgusted many more. If it helps to sink the Trump candidacy, then I suppose Vance will turn out better for Ohio than Portman.
Still trying to calm myself down.
The Audacity of Krope
Irresponsible not to speculate. Imagine all the shedding on the couch.
ETA: Enumeration, heh.
Falling Diphthong
@Gin & Tonic: I think it’s worth pointing out the hypocrisy: Any gun within 1000 yards of Trump is a DIRE ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT. Let that same gunman veer off to explore a grocery store with his AK47 and hey, he’s just a second amendment loving patriot taking his gun out for a little air and exercise.
It’s not the guns. Until that gun is somewhere in Trump’s vicinity and OMG GUNS DANGEROUS, unacceptable risk to Trump.
TBone
🔔📢 Chief Ass Kisser John Roberts in his 2020 year-end report:
Get a load of this fucking guy and his report’s details. 🙄
https://www.scotusblog.com/2021/12/roberts-to-congress-on-court-reforms-were-on-it/
Jackie
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: The crabapple didn’t fall far from the tree.
Sister Golden Bear
@Citizen Alan: OT, I may be headed up to Sequoia/Kings Canyon next month or early November. Since I might stop in Fresno for the night, if you’re interested in do a mini-jackal meet-up, let me know.
Dan B
@Sister Golden Bear: I recall someone asking Charlie Kirk, or someone similar to define what a girl is. I believe running away snowflake was the ensuing storyline.
Mr. Bemused Senior
Can you blame her? /s
Geminid
@Scout211: Rasmussen is picking out the Democratic answers here because he’s pushing a narrative: Democrats are hyper-partisan ghouls. And he asked a leading question designed to that end.
I thought the big story with the Butler shooting was how little most Americans cared about it. My take is that this was because most Americans don’t care much for Trump as a person. I bet Trump noticed, too.
Gvg
@Jackie: A lot of racists actually think all people that don’t look “right” to them are illegal. It doesn’t have to do with the laws. They will include Native Americans and Hispanic Americans whose ancestors were here before the revolution. Different racists come up with their own definitions in their heads of who is an outsider which is why there is no consistency in the party. It also goes through cycles. Right now it has been increasing for decades and they have been talking to each other and not more tolerant people, so they are more extreme….and silly than they were, at least in public. Could be they were always this strange and I didn’t know it…but historically this has happened before, and also a more tolerant cycle.
Chet Murthy
Since we’re chewin’ the fat about TCFG, here’s a question to muse on:
(1) we’ve all seen TCFG in polo shirt: he’s a rotting pear, not an apple.
(2) but in his suit, his shoulders are all bulked-up as is his chest generally.
(3) I wonder if in addition to wearing a girdle, if he also wears …. well, something that increases the volume of his chest ? I’ve seen pics of him in a suit where’s there’s a horizontal line at the level where nipples would be on the average man. And I wonder if that’s due to a bulking-up front-piece. Kind of like the fake boobs some mastectomy survivors wear, only for men.
David 🐝KHive🐝 Koch
@HumboldtBlue:
says someone who doesn’t go to church
Jackie
Now what MAGA Mike? You gonna shut down the government?
Quinerly
@Poe Larity:
I’m wondering why Tim Ryan did no oppo research on him. Someone dropped the ball.
I am blaming Tim Ryan for why we now have Vance.
Chet Murthy
@Quinerly: He never struck me as the sharpest tool in the shed. I mean, he went after Pelosi. After Pelosi.
SatanicPanic
@Gin & Tonic: I don’t want to defend Trump but this seems silly.
The Audacity of Krope
Faux conservatives have abandoned the pursuit of a morally superior justification for selfishness and gone all in on “fuck you, that’s why.”
SatanicPanic
@Chet Murthy: lol like one of those Halloween store muscle guy costumes? I wouldn’t put it past him
KatKapCC
Anna Kilgore can go eff herself.
TBone
the Teamsters joint council representing the Upper Midwest announced their endorsement of Harris-Walz following national’s decision not to endorse
https://x.com/maxnesterak/status/1836528244109004958
Sister Golden Bear
@Dan B: “What is a woman?” has been supposed “gotcha” used by anti-trans folks for a while.
Although the answer is easy: A woman is anyone who instinctively covers her drink whenever she sees [Vance/Charlie Kirk/Trump/etc.], even if it’s just on television.
Geminid
@Citizen Alan: As Jaime Dupree used to say, I’ll put you down as “Undecided.”
David 🐝KHive🐝 Koch
@Gin & Tonic:
KatKapCC
@OId Man Shadow: Or as he calls it, “foreplay”.
TBone
@SatanicPanic: framing it as an assassination “attempt” seems silly to me. He never fired a weapon, so where’s the attempt? Attempt doesn’t mean intent.
Quinerly
@Citizen Alan:
I said it earlier. I get serious Ted Bundy vibes. Vance makes my skin crawl. Something very dark there.
sdhays
@HumboldtBlue: I’m still going to call him the Couchfucker. But that’s not quite fair since he actually does like fucking couches.
Sister Golden Bear
@Chet Murthy: Derek Guy the Twitter menswear guy concluded Trump has some rather massive shoulder pads in his suits, which often can be see if he’s not standing up straight. The rest is how a halfway decently tailored suit can change a man’s silhouette.
SiubhanDuinne
@Chet Murthy:
Hah!!
Quinerly
@HumboldtBlue:
He said the other day but for the Dems cheating that he had won CA in 2020.
Chet Murthy
@Sister Golden Bear: I’ve seen his pics and explanation, and for sure, he’s got shoulder pads. But his chest appears -thicker- (front-to-back) than his tummy when he’s in a suit and the other way around in polos. And the difference is ….. [haha] gigantic. I don’t see how that gets explained by shoulders — which go side-to-side. And then there’s those pics where he appears to have something at mid-chest level upon which his suit is draping: again, his chest looks bigger than his tummy when he’s in a suit.
Dan B
@Sister Golden Bear: I’d cover mine too.
Now I’m confused.
/s
SatanicPanic
@TBone: He was there to shoot the guy, so I would call that an attempt. If I contact a hit man and pay him to shoot someone but they don’t I’m still guilty of attempted murder.
Chet Murthy
@Quinerly: I know I cheated! By, y’know, *voting*. B/c brown people voting is cheating. This is known.
Jackie
@Gvg: I quoted from Humboldt’s post. Those aren’t my words or beliefs.
HumboldtBlue
Translation: Trump hasn’t spoken to Melania in person in months.
Chet Murthy
@SatanicPanic: Some scenarios:
(1) This jamoke Routh tries to shoot, but his gun jams: clearly, attempted murder, yes?
(2) you pay a hitman, the hitman goes to the assigned place to do the deed, but doesn’t follow thru. Clearly you’re still guilty; is the hitman?
What I mean is, it’s not the -intent- that separates you from the hitman: it’s the fact that you -acted-, and the hitman -did not-.
At least, so it seems to me.
Quinerly
@Sister Golden Bear:
I had a trip planned to Sequoia/King’s Canyon last Spring. Even had reservations at the lodge at KC. Had to cancel. That trip is back on my radar for Spring 2025. Will this be your first visit? Do you know the area well?
Scout211
@Chet Murthy: I have read reports that he wears a bulletproof vest at his rallies. He did in 2016 as well. That could account for some of what you are seeing in his upper body. Maybe.
scav
@TBone: I can’t even read yet from the attack of giggles, he thinks he’s preserving the public trust?! In his spare time from protecting the dodo & passenger pigeon strategic reserves?
Heidi Mom
@Chet Murthy: A bulletproof vest?
catclub
Of course, that is not what they expressed. He is putting thoughts in their heads that he assumes are there.
MagdaInBlack
@Heidi Mom: I was thinking that myself.
Eta: and Scout211 confirms. TY.
SiubhanDuinne
@Frankensteinbeck:
I love found poetry.
Chet Murthy
@Scout211: Oh nice! Yes, that would explain a lot of it, maybe all of it! Thank you!
Weftage
@Geminid: I’d really like to know how many people said, “What the hell?? What kind of a question is that?!” and hung up in their face.
karen marie
@Bex: It’s the Ohio Attorney General who’s spreading that particular lie.
He’s not a particular fan of “best evidence.” Whatever you want to believe is good enough.
Yost plans to run for governor of Ohio in 2026.
HumboldtBlue
Jackie
O/T: I see Margie Greene is back in the news threatening MAGA Speaker… and Looney Loomer seems to have vanished. Have they ever been seen in the same room together?🤔
karen marie
@Scout211: “Desensitization”? But both Trump and Vance – as well as innumerable other Republican politicians – have been telling Americans to “get over it” after a shooting.
Expressing surprise that people are taking their advice is fucking gaslighting.
twbrandt
@SatanicPanic: shutdowns have worked so well for republicans in the past.
Steve LaBonne
@HumboldtBlue: Bretbug is entirely representative of the kind of “undecided” voter who is absolutely going to vote for Trump but would rather not talk about that in polite company.
catclub
Trump thinks those posters of him as bulked up as rambo are documentaries.
Shalimar
@HumboldtBlue: “If she says bad things” means he has not actually read his wife’s book during the many months she and most likely a ghostwriter have been working on it. I can’t even imagine not reading what my spouse writes.
catclub
@TBone: I think you posted the latest version of Downfall today. great!
Frank Wilhoit
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
He puts *us* off, but not his own people.
Shana
@jonas: I wonder if she’ll file for divorce after the election.
Steve LaBonne
@karen marie: What makes Ohio so special is that
weRepublican voters get to choose between the two factions of the Republican Party- the somewhat fascist crooks (DeWine, Hustled) and the Christofascist loons (Yost, LaRose).artem1s
@jonas:
I guess Mother didn’t have a chance to warn her.
Steve LaBonne
@artem1s: She clerked for Roberts and I Like Beer and they were introduced by Amy Chua. She’s as big a piece of crap as he is.
Chet Murthy
@artem1s: “You know the young people these days, they refuse to let us -arrange- their marriages, they want to marry for love! And then look, just LOOK how it turns out!”
SatanicPanic
@Chet Murthy: But the guy did act- he had a gun and was posted up where he knew his target would be. He didn’t shoot anyone because he was noticed.
What if we put it another way? Say there’s a guy who you know from work and for whatever reason he really hates you. One night he’s found in your building’s parking lot with a gun pointed at the door you use to exit the building. I think you’d say “that guy was trying to kill me” if asked.
raven
@SatanicPanic: Florida is open carry
Chet Murthy
@SatanicPanic: To be clear I of course believe completely that he was trying to assassinate TCFG. I mean, -obviously-.
But to take your example, if a guy posted up all night outside your building with his gun, there are many possible explanations other than “he was trying to assasssinate you”. How are we to know ?
In the case of Routh, he could have been been bird-watching. He could have been out for training. The right to keep and bear arms is right there in the Constitution after all, and he was just exercising his 2A rights. I think it’s telling that they only charged him with gun violations, not for attempted murder.
Ken
Just spitballing here… What if at some point Vance’s calculation changed from “We’re going to win and I’ll become President when he dies in a couple years,” to “We’re going to lose so I’ll position myself as the successor when he dies in a couple years”?
Chet Murthy
@SatanicPanic: There have been multiple reported instances where a guy was walking around with his AR-15 and ammo, people call it into the cops, the cops even catch up to him, and they have to let him go b/c he’s not breaking any laws. Then later he does his mass shooting.
Heck, this jamoke Crooks apparently showed up at the site of TCFG’s rally beforehand with his rifle and all, and they couldn’t do jack-shit about it.
KatKapCC
@Chet Murthy: It wouldn’t surprise me if people like that would bring a semi-automatic rifle with them on a birdwatching jaunt. I mean, what if one of those birds appears threatening? And they got those creepy Roseate Spoonbills down there, and those beaks could totally be a weapon.
SatanicPanic
@Chet Murthy: Bird watching for twelve hours? I think they just charged him for gun crimes to keep him off the street until they can figure out what his motive is. Like you say, pretty obvious what he was trying to do.
I get it- Trump is a big baby and a whiny dude. But I think if someone had almost shot me, and then weeks later another dude shows up where everyone knows I’ll be with a gun, I’d claim people were trying to kill me. He’s a crazy man, but in this case, people really are out to get him.
Mr. Bemused Senior
“Telling.” Good choice of word.
Barbara
@Jackie: @HumboldtBlue:
I know that many African Americans (and probably other minority group members) know this already, but it’s still disgusting — when people do what you claim they should — come to the U.S. legally! Get an education! Work hard! — then, somehow the goal posts magically move — and in this case, he’s acknowledging that he’s just making it up — in his mind they are still “illegal immigrants” even though they aren’t.
Message: there’s nothing you can do. You don’t belong and I’ll find the reason why even if it means I have to tell bald faced lies.
HumboldtBlue
Fascinating look at the ongoing restoration efforts on the Klamath river.
Replanting the Reservoirs, Year One | Klamath River Restoration | Restoring at Scale | SERIES
catclub
Now suppose the target was not even in the building. Would he be charged or convicted of attempted murder? I think no.
cain
@Jackie:
They can make Johnson even more uncomfortable by saying that Democratic lawmakers saved his speakership. Forcing him to look compromised. It’ll start another leadership fight and there won’t be any help this time.
Bill Arnold
@Bex:
“Overseas” could just mean use of some non-USA-based service for making anonymous phone calls. (There are guides in right wing dark places for such activities.)
cain
@Geminid: Likely her husband does as well.
Sister Golden Bear
@Quinerly: It’ll be my first time visiting since I was a kid, so I unfortunately I don’t know the area well. FWIW, most of the visitors to the parks are day trippers, since the it only takes a couple hours to drive the main road where the major sites are.
But if you’d like a bit more solitude, the hotel at Cedar Grove Lodge fits the bill, albeit it’s a two-star hotel. Also worth checking out Mineral King, which is about 1.5 hour drive from the southern end of the park. The Silver City Resort has both cabins and a restaurant if you don’t feel like cooking. Not sure if they close part of the year, since is at 7,400 feet—which does give you a good taste of the genuine “high Sierra.”
My challenge is that I’d like to hit both, and the Tesla doesn’t quite have the range to do so—surprisingly there’s no EV charger of any sort that’s anywhere near the parks. So I’ll probably drive to Fresno, and pick up a rental at the airport.
Bill Arnold
@Baud:
Good eye.
a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
@Dorothy A. Winsor: With some thought and effort he could have worked the Ronald Reagan angle: I agree with all that you feel—I feel it myself—and while I’ll do everything I can to fix things, I promise to make you feel good about it and not embarrass you in front of people.
But he decided to work the Say-it-loud angle.
Chet Murthy
@a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio): I’ve read that one of the jobs of the VP nominee is to be the attack dog that the Presidential candidate cannot be. So he might have interpreted that as “I have to be more of an attack dog than [TCFG]” which is ….. well, it would explain his behaviour, maybe ? Just speculatin’.
WaterGirl
@cain: I deleted your comment after it went into SPAM – it had like 100 links. :-)
If you copy from Wikipedia or elsewhere with a bunch of links, use “Paste & match Style” (or whatever your OS calls it) and then it won’t paste words as active links.
columbusqueen
@Shalimar: According to dear Melania, the sleazy nude shots she did as a model celebrated the beauty of the human body, just like Renaissance art!
GAG. I’d have a lot more respect for the little bitch if she admitted she whored herself out for the paycheck.
Chet Murthy
@columbusqueen: [ok, ok, just bein’ a spitballer here, but ….]\
40+ years ago, I read a book called _Ways of Seeing_ by John Berger, that made this very argument, only in the opposite direction. That is, that Renaissance nudes played the same role back then, that Playboy nudes do today: they commodified and objectified women. The owner of the nude painting was saying “I own this woman”.
She’s still a shitbag, and her argument is still shit, only even worse than she knows.
Quinerly
@Sister Golden Bear:
Thanks for the info. Hope you will post about your trip. I know no one who has ever been.
I realized after I posted but after the edit window closed that my reservation was for a few nights at one of the dog friendly cabins in the park. Not the lodge. I just ended up canceling and going to Bisbee, AZ for a week in February. I was trying to include a few days in the Death Valley area on the same trip as Sequoia/King’s Canyon. It just got too complicated re accommodations at DV. I decided to just regroup and change everything. Not drive as far.
I really want to get back on track for a late spring Sequoia/King’s Canyon adventure. And I definitely want to get to Death Valley in winter sometime.
Scout211
I never could figure out how to work that on an iPad when you first recommended it. I never found the “and match style.” Maybe that’s on a computer?
I just go through each link in the text that I copy and paste into the text box and tap each link and then tap the broken link icon in the link pop-up.
kalakal
@raven:
No and Yesish.
It’s not open carry but you can open carry if you’re travelling to/from or engaged in fishing, hunting, camping, or target shooting.
If he’d been carrying a fishing rod he could have claimed he was just having a (long) rest while on the way to the beach
a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
@Chet Murthy: Bulletproof vest?
sdhays
Couchfucker is the Republican VP nominee because Trump couldn’t handle anyone that had any kind of political talent or semblance of a power base beyond Trump. Couchfucker couldn’t win an Ohio election without Trump, and it’s clear he has no political talents of his own. Trump picked someone who he thought would stay bought because there’s nowhere else to go, someone who wouldn’t call up Dan Fucking Quayle when Trump gives him an illegal order. That’s his only value to Trump, and Trump didn’t think he needed anything else from his VP nominee.
Well, selecting for perceived toadiness has its downsides…
Timill
@kalakal: Shagged out after a long squawk, perhaps?
columbusqueen
@Chet Murthy: Par for the course. Compared to her, Ivana & Marla acted like duchesses. He just keeps going lower; I guess that makes Loomer a logical next step.
wjca
Even a Scandinavian, if he’s got at least the beginnings of a tan and doesn’t vote MAGA, counts as brown people for this purpose.
wjca
Edited for accurace.
Chacal Charles Calthrop
@Frankensteinbeck: this sounds absolutely true
Enhanced Voting Techniques
This makes way to much sense.
Kathleen
@Quinerly: I get the feeling he hides a box of dead flies whose wings he’s pulled off in a secret basement chamber.
TBone
@catclub: yes! Very hilarious 😆
TBone
@scav: like our rotating tag says, it has so much WTF written all over it, it’s barely legible!
Quinerly
@Kathleen:
And that’s the least of the secrets he hides.