Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Also, are you sure you want people to rate your comments?

Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.

Polls are now a reliable indicator of what corporate Republicans want us to think.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

If you voted for Trump, you don’t get to speak about ethics, morals, or rule of law.

Everybody saw this coming.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Cancel the cowardly Times and Post and set up an equivalent monthly donation to ProPublica.

If you cannot answer whether trump lost the 2020 election, you are unfit for office.

SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

They don’t have outfits that big. nor codpieces that small.

T R E 4 5 O N

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

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

We can’t confuse what’s necessary to win elections with the policies that we want to implement when we do.

The willow is too close to the house.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

If you’re gonna whine, it’s time to resign!

The real work of an opposition party is to hold the people in power accountable.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

I desperately hope that, yet again, i am wrong.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Excellent Links / Thursday Morning Open Thread: #PutinOwnsTrump

Thursday Morning Open Thread: #PutinOwnsTrump

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Philip Bump, at the Washington Post — “Eleven years later, Trump may finally have the best friend he wanted”: [gift link]

In 2013, Donald Trump was just New York Businessman Donald Trump, his presidential ambitions apparently obliterated by President Barack Obama’s scornful dismantling at the 2011 White House Correspondent’s Association dinner. Trump had been flirting with running in 2012, settling instead for a demure endorsement of the eventual nominee, Mitt Romney.

So instead of focusing heavily on politics, Trump was focused on promoting the Trump Organization. His private company still owned the Miss Universe Organization, for example, and he was looking forward to that year’s pageant, hosted at Crocus City Hall in Moscow. (In March of this year, terrorists aligned with the Islamic State attacked a concert at the venue, killing more than 140 people.)

There was one part of the upcoming pageant that seemed to hold particular appeal for Trump. While in town, he might finally get to meet someone who, we’ve since learned, he held in high esteem: Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“Do you think Putin will be going to The Miss Universe Pageant in November in Moscow,” he mused on Twitter, the social media platform now called X. And “if so, will he become my new best friend?”…

The day after he fired FBI Director James B. Comey in an effort to derail the probe into Russia’s interference efforts, Trump welcomed Putin’s top diplomat into the Oval Office. When Putin won reelection in March 2018 after a dubious vote, Trump called to offer his congratulations — despite specific instructions from his staff that he not congratulate the authoritarian on his continuation of power. Trump and Putin met in Finland that July, talking behind closed doors with no one but their translators for several hours. When they emerged, Trump suggested that Putin’s denial of having interfered in the 2016 election was just as credible as the intelligence community’s determination that he had.

Over the course of the first three years of his presidency, Trump and Putin spoke at least 16 times. And that’s just what’s formally acknowledged, calls between world leaders and public meetings. Trump is known to pick up the phone and call friends and allies at all hours; it’s certainly not impossible that he did so with Russia’s president at some point in time while serving in the White House…

Since he left office, Putin’s effort to subvert Ukraine has expanded. In early 2022, Russia launched an expanded effort to conquer the U.S.-aligned nation, failing to do so in part because of military and intelligence support from the U.S. government. When Putin’s invasion got underway, Trump described the push as “genius” and “savvy.” On the campaign trail, he has repeatedly claimed that, if reelected, he would quickly resolve the crisis — a conflict that he insists wouldn’t have happened if he’d remained in office.

Again, we don’t know what Trump and Putin might have spoken about since Trump became a private citizen again. Of course, we don’t know many of the details of what he spoke to Putin about when he was president, either. (Efforts to obtain notes from that conversation in Finland came up empty, for example.)

What we do know is that Trump’s 2013 wish that he might find a best friend in Putin may, at long last, have come to fruition. What we can say with certainty, though, is that Putin found the best friend he’s ever had in American politics.

I think the reporting that trump gave covid testing stuff to putin is not quite emphasizing trump didn’t give that ratfuck twizzler nose sticks, he gave him lab machines US hospitals were begging for to test their clinical staff
So they would have a chance at not dying

— hammancheez (@hammancheez.bsky.social) October 9, 2024 at 6:21 PM

One of the things no one really figured out because Joe Biden Old was a FARRRRRR more pressing story is why Putin's parrot, Viktor Orbán, was making house calls to Mar-a-Lago. Maybe we should revisit that issue.
Or the one of where the missing classified docs went to?

— emptywheel (@emptywheel.bsky.social) October 8, 2024 at 11:04 AM

Thursday Morning Open Thread: #PutinOwnsTrump

(Jack Ohman via GoComics.com)

Reader Interactions

161Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    It is still shocking what stories the media finds time to cover.

    But less shocking with every passing day.

  2. 2.

    Chris

    Honestly, even arguing about this pisses me off.  Trump went on national television in front of millions of voters to ask the Russian government to commit crimes against the campaign he was running against.  He made one single change to the entire Republican platform, which was removing the pro-Ukraine language in it.  And he repeatedly insisted while President on meeting Putin alone with no translator or other American of any kind in the room.  And Republican voters know all this; it’s why Putin’s approval rating among them rose during the 2016 election cycle.

    None of about Trump being a Putin subsidiary is in dispute, and anybody saying otherwise is pulling the same kind of gaslighting as the people who still insist that we went into Iraq because of an “intelligence failure.”  (Not surprisingly, almost all of them are the same people).

  3. 3.

    SomeRandomGuy

    In that last embed, I’m surprised TCFG’s tie isn’t doing a “Dilbert” while he’s on the phone with Putin – back when Adams was interesting, he acknowledged the tie was pent up sexuality, and, geez, “tell me your plans for Ukraine!” is probably massive fap material for TCFG, who will *never* believe that Putin started the bit of Russian slang for a silent, toxic, room clearing fart that shows up all of a sudden, and ruins everything: a “donald”.

  6. 6.

    Baud

    @Chris:

    Agree. Lots of people are betraying their country. Far worse than Jane Fonda ever did getting photographed on a tank.

    They’re counting on us moving on, as we often do TBF.

  11. 11.

    Barbara

    DougJ has outdone himself.

    @Betty Cracker: So happy to see you posting already!  The story of the morning seems to be about the tornadoes that preceded landfall.  Some communities that were largely spared by storm surge seem to have been ravaged by tornadoes.

  12. 12.

    Chris

    @Baud:

    They’re counting on us moving on, as we often do TBF.

    Not being a lot harder on the former Confederacy post-1865 set the standard.

  13. 13.

    Betty Cracker

    I’m sitting in my car to charge up the phone. Listening to public radio, and DeSantis is droning on. When he asks a minion to give an update, they preface their remarks with paeans to his matchless leadership. It’s just like a Trump cabinet meeting!

  14. 14.

    Jeffro

    that Pitchbot tweet is the truest thing he’s ever written, bar none

    Sorry MAGA but we tried to warn y’all…now you’re all-in on a traitor to our country.  Too bad, so sad!

  21. 21.

    Another Scott

    @Chris: +1

    It’s annoying that this stuff wasn’t being pushed in the MSM to inform the normies before the GQP primaries when it might have had an impact, but I guess we should be thankful that it isn’t being held back for their books to be released in mid-2025…

    Grr…,
    Scott.

  22. 22.

    Chris

    @Jeffro:

    They were all in on a traitor to their country in 2016, and they knew it then, too.  They just didn’t care.  “Better Hitler than Blum!”

  23. 23.

    TS

    @Baud:

    I was in the US over 40 years ago – cold war time – the MSM was full off the horrors of the USSR (the rest of the world hardly scored a mention) – and when I see today people fawning over trump and dismissing the love for Putin – it just seems impossible that this is the same country.

  25. 25.

    Another Scott

    @Betty Cracker: Thanks for checking in.  I hope you get power back soon and the damage is less severe than it might have been, and recovery is quick.

    Hang in there!

    Best wishes,
    Scott.

  26. 26.

    TBone

    @SomeRandomGuy: that kind of fart prevented me from purchasing property at a DelCo Sheriff Sale (hubby’s former childhood home).  They planted that fucking guy right next to me and I had to evacuate the premises! 😆 Eggs and Budweiser.

  30. 30.

    Mousebumples

    @Betty Cracker: that makes me think of the chocolate oranges, with the little wedges.

    Glad to see you made it through the night. Hope you don’t have your Trumpy neighbors as house guests.

  31. 31.

    Chris

    @TS:

    Half the Americans who hated the USSR only ever hated it because it had a welfare state and at least officially stated that all the peoples of the world were equal regardless of color or gender.

    The other half are Democrats.

  33. 33.

    Mousebumples

    In Do The Work news, I’m going to posting updates daily until I get these 300 Postcards to Swing States all ready for mailing.

    • 300 with messaging
    • 100 with addresses
    • 0 with stamps (last and easiest part)

    My mailbox got one of these for a former occupant (11+ years ago), which confirmed my decision to address these to Valued Voter and not use voter names.

    The messaging was very pro Democratic, too, and didn’t match what I had on my instructions. (though I didn’t follow any of thise scripts exactly either)

  36. 36.

    cmorenc

    @Phylllis: a new pro ballpark should be WAY down on the list of priorities, given the long list of immensely more urgently important disaster recovery needs.  NO public money should be going to stadiums to subsidize owners of pro sports teams.

  38. 38.

    zhena gogolia

    This morning’s tantrum before breakfast: NYT front-page headline: “Putin Seized Opportunity to Use Trump’s Grudge Against Ukraine.” GAAAAHHHHH

    Putin CREATED Trump’s grudge against Ukraine, as the article explains. Doesn’t that headline imply that Trump had some reason other than HIS ALLEGIANCE TO PUTIN to have a grudge against Ukraine?

  41. 41.

    jonas

    I’m sure it’s bound to drop soon that Trump is also in regular contact with Netanyahu, egging him on to expand the war to spike oil prices, and promising that if he’s re-elected, we’ll never mention Gaza again and help him take out Iran.

  43. 43.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Chris: The big big knock was that the USSR was Godless. Their attempt to forcibly eliminate religion was honestly a huge affront, but it also led to a lot of contrary forced public religion in the US that was an affront in itself.

    The people who hated Russia for being Godless decided they were OK the moment Putin started doing the same religious posturing as every two-bit right-wing dictator out there.

  46. 46.

    jonas

    @Chris: Yeah, they never had a problem with the totalitarianism. I think a good part of the antagonism towards Soviet Communism on the right during the Cold War was that atheism was official state policy. I mean, it’s what led Congress to start putting “In God We Trust” on all our currency in the 50s. If Stalin had claimed to be an evangelical Christian, his portrait would have been hanging in living rooms and pastor’s offices across America

    ETA: I see Matt McIrvin was there first! So, what he said.

  47. 47.

    Betty

    I wish there were more emphasis on the gift being sophisticated, expensive, hard to get testing machines, not the little boxes that didn’t exist in 2020. Walz stated it correctly , but the campaign ad does not.

  49. 49.

    Betty

    @zhena gogolia: The NYT headlines continue to be misleading. It has been the headlines that have kept DougJ in business. Complaints to management and mockery have changed nothing.

  50. 50.

    Melancholy Jaques

    @Betty:

    I wish there were more emphasis on the gift being sophisticated, expensive, hard to get testing machines, not the little boxes that didn’t exist in 2020. Walz stated it correctly , but the campaign ad does not.

    Neither do any of the news reports. They use the word kits.

  51. 51.

    JiveTurkin

    Hopefully Harris team and/or Lincoln Project are preparing ads specifically mentioning the Covid tests.  That should piss off a lot of people.

  52. 52.

    Matt McIrvin

    @jonas: Well, the people actually putting out the propaganda about Godless Communism may have really cared more about the USSR being officially anti-capitalist and pro-equality, in which case Stalin declaring himself an evangelical Christian would have led to the US making a big deal out of its pragmatic rationalism, and, if not promoting atheism, at least insisting we were not like that.

    Something similar happened with the weird CIA effort to promote cultural avant-garde movements like Abstract Expressionism, only there, it was more insisting our free society could be more artistically forward-thinking.

    (That still cracks me up. I remember Bircher magazines from the 1980s insisting that modern abstract art was all a Commie plot. They were so close–they just had it backwards! It was being promoted by the CIA!)

  53. 53.

    Soprano2

    Geez, the dumb stuff you see in the news now. On Yahoo I saw the headline “Democrats Hit the Panic Button” from the Hill, and “Harris Distances Itself from 60 Minutes Edit Controversy”. There is no “edit controversy”, people know that interviews are always edited. Why do they give TCFG’s idiotic ramblings oxygen? They should just say that all TV interviews are always edited, and go on. I’m so tired of this shit.

  54. 54.

    Soprano2

    @zhena gogolia: Did you know there’s a 60 Minutes “edit controversy”, the “controversy” being that her interview was edited, which is true of literally all the interviews they do and of pretty much all interviews done on TV!!!

  55. 55.

    geg6

    @Melancholy Jaques:

    I’ll give CBS a little credit here.  I caught a report on their evening news that pointed that out and even showed a photo of such a unit.

    And I’m glad to hear that the Crackers seem to have come through safely.  And many other FL jackals, too.  All my friends in the Tampa, Bradenton and Port St. Lucie (lots of tornadoes in and around that area) seem to have gotten through relatively unscathed.  There’s only one friend who’s in the Sarasota area I haven’t heard from yet, but that does not surprise me as he may be a bit busy at the moment.

  56. 56.

    Hoodie

    @Betty Cracker: That was pretty disgusting, some manly man  LE type steps up to the mike and gives him a veritable tongue bath.  I don’t see anything in the guy that warrants anything like that. DeSantis seems comes across like he’s in a permanent foul mood, pissed off about everything.  The contrast between him and the mayors of Tampa and Jax was pretty striking.  They were thankful and encouraging, he seemed like a toddler badly in need of a nap.

  57. 57.

    Soprano2

    @Betty: Yes, because the TCFG supporters are going to point and yell “fake news” at it. How sad is it that a supposedly professional media can’t even get this right.

  59. 59.

    Soprano2

    @zhena gogolia: The real controversy should be that TCFG refused to do the 60 Minutes interview because he didn’t want anything he said to be fact checked! I swear, he leads them around by the nose and they like it.

  64. 64.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Mousebumples: Well done! I have 175 of 200 postcards to NC messaged and addressed. Will finish the other 25 by tomorrow. Then on to stamping while watching football. Mail date is Oct. 15.

    Friends and I will do another 200 postcards for NM CD-2 (Gabe Vasquez) next week. The mail date for these cards is later in the month. Just saw a poll that shows Vasquez with a healthy lead over the evil Herrell. Fingers crossed it’s right, and hopefully our postcards help ensure that!

  66. 66.

    Tony G

    @Betty Cracker: The entire state of Florida is a paved-over swamp close to sea level that is predictably in the path of massive hurricanes every single year at this time.  Maybe it’s time to just evacuate the whole state and leave it to the gators.

  67. 67.

    catclub

    @cmorenc: a new pro ballpark should be WAY down on the list of priorities, given the long list of immensely more urgently important disaster recovery needs. NO public money should be going to stadiums to subsidize owners of pro sports teams.

     

    haha. have you watched what was rebuilt first in New Orleans after Katrina? Pro sports teams are most professional at extracting money from their home city.

    And the state legislature was fully behind it.

  68. 68.

    TBone

    Couldn’t resist this platitude today.

    When the wires are all down and your heart is covered with the snows of pessimism and the ice of cynicism, then, and only then, have you grown old.

    – Samuel Ullman

  69. 69.

    catclub

    @Tony G: I bet you did not know that the average elevation of Florida is 100ft, while the average elevation of Delaware is 60 ft. Should they leave too?

  71. 71.

    TBone

    @catclub: yes.  Eventually.  I have a friend in Ocean View and the bay encroaches on the regular. She’s in a mobile home, of course.  I think she should sell while she can still get top dollar (she owns the home and the big lot).

  73. 73.

    Chris Johnson

    @zhena gogolia: Oh, that’s very interesting.

    If you grant that the NYT is currently 100% New York Pravda and taking dictation from Putin, that’s a really interesting take. It suggests that Russia knows Trump is failing, losing, and won’t even be able to coordinate an insurrection.

    So apparently now TRUMP is gonna be history’s greatest monster, and twisted poor little Vlad’s arm. Is that the pravda going forward? seriously? Are they fixing to have a small supercell of terrorists in America transfer their loyalties to Putin and away from Trump, or is it the intended politics going forward? Back off and blame everything on Trump now?

    One thing about it, if that’s the new plan, they can’t bomb us and might have to let go of Ukraine to go through with it. At that point it’s how badly you can twist history, which is one of Russia’s primary techniques.

    Wow. It was all Trump’s fault, huh?

  75. 75.

    TBone

    I kinda tried to get people here to watch Rachel Maddow’s documentary “From Russia with Lev” when it aired on MSNBC recently.  I don’t think I got any takers.

    Watch the doc.

  76. 76.

    catclub

    @HinTN: No real damage besides feet of water.

     

    Usually feet of water means LOTS of damage.

     

    The only good aspect of feet of water coming through a busted roof is that the exclusion by insurance companies of flood damage applies to water  coming in on the ground.  Water through the roof is covered.

  77. 77.

    kindness

    @Betty Cracker: After reading about someone in Florida who saw bullsharks swimming in the flooded streets after the prior hurricane, I’m glad you are OK and don’t have to deal with that.

  78. 78.

    TBone

    Reading the tankie left, et al. with a jaundiced eye is sport for those with spines of steel. Don’t internalize it is key.

  83. 83.

    Yarrow

    @Betty Cracker: So glad you’re safe! If you have cell service you’re doing well! You’ve been through all this before so you know the drill. Take good care of yourself. At least it’s October and not August! The weather is much more manageable in October when you’re without power for days.

  85. 85.

    RevRick

    Some promising news, courtesy of the PA 7th District:

    The Morning Call released its poll today which shows Rep. Susan Wild leading her GOP challenger by 6%. Meanwhile, the poll also shows Sen. Casey also leading by 6%. The Presidential race is tighter, with Harris up by 3%, 50-47.
    Is this last result alarming since Biden won by 4.8%?

    No. With redistricting the district has shifted 3% to the right, which suggests that Harris could win PA by 3% or so.

  89. 89.

    NotMax

    @TBone

    Would that be the rally where the self-described stable genius called the wind “bullshit?”

    (not snark, actual quote)

  91. 91.

    OId Man Shadow

    Putin also owns many of the power brokers and leaders in the GOP because they want to emulate his model of government.

    Whether that involves their desire to plunder the nation’s economy or remove the right of the people to self-governance or to use the State’s monopoly on violence to impose Christianity on the populace and persecute the perceived enemies of Christianity, they envy Putin and Russia and seek at every turn the chance to erode checks, balances, the rule of law, democracy, and human rights.

  92. 92.

    TBone

    An “interesting” FYI article – grain of salt or nah?

    Fairshake, the [crypto] industry’s super PAC, has raised an astonishing $203 million for the 2024 election cycle, according to an analysis of disclosures by campaign finance watchdog Open Secrets. Crypto accounts for nearly half of all corporate spending in the 2024 election, according to a report from Public Citizen. No other industry or interest group is even close: Runner-up Koch Industries has raised $26 million for the election cycle.

    https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/10/trump-harris-crypto-fairshake-senate-sherrod-brown-ohio.html

  93. 93.

    Jackie

    @JiveTurkin:

    Hopefully Harris team and/or Lincoln Project are preparing ads specifically mentioning the Covid tests.

    AL posted a Harris ad about TCFG giving Putin Covid tests up above.

  94. 94.

    TBone

    @NotMax:

    @geg6:

    Dang it, can’t remember now where I read it (I read a lot!) and the search engine is being weird today.  Gah.  But I did read it somewhere!

    I bet it did happen when he expounded upon his windy jenius.

  96. 96.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @RevRick:  I suspect that absentee voting and new voters who are not in the likely voter models will drive those margins a lot higher.

    A new toy I discovered a day or two ago is this early-vote tracker.

    You don’t know how people voted, only how they were registered. But no surprise, Democrats have banked a lot more early votes than Republicans. In PA there are 188,000 Democratic ballots returned, compared to 57,000 Republican. Another 22,000 are no affiliation or minor party. That’s about a 71% – 21% advantage.

    Nationwide 771,000 (56%) to 384,000 (28%) with another 226,000 no or minor party affiliation.

  97. 97.

    TBone

    I just used a Tide pod for the first time ever (cat vomited on bed and I’m out of my regular laundry soap). PEEEEEE. YOOOO!

    These things could give Donold a run for the money in the stench department!

  103. 103.

    frosty

    @Betty Cracker: ​DeSantis: Matchless leadership. Puke!!​

    I’m glad to see you came through the storm OK and you have a generator (OK, car) to charge up your devices and get the news. I’d be interested in more detail about how you fared there in the swamp.

  104. 104.

    Scout211

    @TBone: I read on the blog someone mentioning it but all that I found online about yesterday was mutual praise of each other.  However, Trump did trash McCormick prior to the primary in speeches and those videos are still posted. Maybe someone forgot to check the dates on those? Or maybe my search capabilities are just lacking.  But I found zero mention of any trashing from yesterday and many from earlier this year.

  109. 109.

    rk

    @JiveTurkin:

    Yesterday I had tears in my eyes on my way back from work. Covid testing is a part of my job. In the initial phase of the pandemic there were strict criteria for who was allowed to have rapid tests. I got a call from a nurses a few times asking for a test for their dying patients as the family would like to say goodbye. The patient did not meet the criterion (but I ignored it and did the test). I had a colleague who died alone in the hospital because no one was allowed to visit.

    It made me cry with frustration that this evil man sent tests to Putin! And millions of people will vote for him.

  111. 111.

    Kay

    Just a note to political media people – if you write “Can Kamala Harris beat Trump?” that is a biased sentence. It assumes Donald Trump (the white male) is the default and Harris is the challenger.

    It is 2024. I know media people are hired based on how rigidly conventional they are,but come on.

    Adjust. Move forward. Even if it’s deeply uncomfortable for you.

    I’m sick to death of the sexism and racism. He’s NOT the default. There are other people in this country.

  113. 113.

    Scout211

    @TBone: From the overnight thread:

    Geminid
    OCTOBER 10, 2024 AT 7:41 AM

    @K-Mo: I’ll be interested in whether Trump can fill the Garden and how that’s done; also, in how many Republican Congressional candidates show. They may have second thoughts once they see how Trump treated David McCormick last night in Reading, Pa. Trump pretty much humiliated the Republican Senate candidate.

    I am not at all disputing Geminid.  I’m just saying that this version is not being reported online.  It probably is on social media but I don’t go there.

  114. 114.

    frosty

    @O. Felix Culpa @Mousebumples: ​My 200 postcards to CA-47 are done; I’ll mail the last 50 today. Then it’s on to 100 for close House districts in PA. All due by 10/18 so I don’t think I can get more than that done.​

    ETA This is a lot less stressful than knocking on doors, although I’ve signed up to do that too. Sigh.

  117. 117.

    Kelly

    Good health care news. Researchers are reporting successful animal trials for a mRNA vaccine that protects against Clostridioides difficile. This nasty bug can take over your gut after antibiotics kill your good gut biome microbes. It causes horrific diarrhea. This is the bug that started Mom’s decline. She dropped from 120 lbs to 99 in 5 days.

    https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adn4955

  118. 118.

    TBone

    @rk: hugs 💔

    I got Covid in Jan. 2020 and couldn’t get tested no way no how when testing arrived. Stopped trying.

  119. 119.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: I’d rather be on our side than theirs with those numbers, but of course the recent Republican mistrust of early voting means we can’t rely on that as a win. In 2020, they specifically exhorted their voters to vote only on Election Day so they could use the distinction between early and Election Day ballots to claim the Democratic ones were illegitimate.

  120. 120.

    frosty

    @TBone: ​We have friends in Cambridge on the Eastern Shore, first block next to the water. When the winds are right and the tide is high the Choptank visits the street in front of their house.

    PS Now I have a Blondie earworm!

  121. 121.

    Geminid

    @Scout211: Trump introduced McCormick at yesterday’s Reading rally and told McCormick nobody wanted the listen to him and he had two minutes. McCormick went along and said Okay, I’ll make this short

    Ed. I don’t think Trump slagged McCormick in this year’s primary but he did in 2022, when Dr. Oz was his preferred candidate.

  125. 125.

    Ken

    @catclub: I think we can rely on the market for this, specifically the insurance market. If they stop writing policies for Delaware, as some have in Florida, that’s a clear sign.

  126. 126.

    TBone

    @Kelly: now that might actually help ME!  Ruined my gut trying to eradicate Lyme with ABX and have suffered IBS ever since.  Which got 10 times worse with COVID inflammation.

    Thank you, I LOVE hope!

  128. 128.

    tam1MI

    @Betty Cracker: I saw on the coverage that some construction cranes in Sarasota/Tampa got knocked over by the storm. At the time they said that no one was injured in those incidents.

  130. 130.

    frosty

    @Jackie: ​You’re all spreading disinformation. He gave Putin laboratory testing machines, not COVID test kits, which is worse. Details are in the comments in this post.

  131. 131.

    Melancholy Jaques

    @TBone:

    I saw it. It is informative to anyone who wants to be informed. I thought it gave details to a story we already knew.

  132. 132.

    frosty

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: ​I’m on the fence about going to the Board of Elections to get a mail ballot and return it then and there. I finally remembered why I went to the polling place in 2022 – that way my vote gets counted on election day. If there are enough Harris votes that day to call the election it avoids all the bullshit about “I won, stop counting the votes.”

  134. 134.

    Matt McIrvin

    @frosty: As I recall, states varied a lot about when they counted early/mail votes: some counted the banked ones early (unless they arrived late); others waited until after the Election Day votes were counted, and the “Stop The Steal” ratfucking all depended on selecting the states where the votes that leaned Democratic were counted last to claim that the “mysterious shift” meant cheating.

    I tend to vote early or by mail because it thwarts some other types of ratfucking where something happens at the polling place on Election Day that prevents you from voting with a regular ballot, and you don’t have time to fix it. If you vote early, you have a heads up with any kind of trouble with your registration or ballot and you can still vote on Election Day.

  136. 136.

    Geminid

    @frosty: Norfolk experiences similar flooding during high tides. The Navy is raising the piers at the the base by a meter because of this. This was authorized during Obama’s 2nd term.

    The flooding is partly due to sea rise, but the land in this area is also subsiding. During the last ice age heavy glaciers to the north squeezed land in the Chesapeake Bay area up. Since the glaciers left the ground has been returning to its former level.

  139. 139.

    West of the Rockies

    @zhena gogolia:

    I think that in 30 days we will be able to watch his visible and visceral slow demise.  His brain and body, freedom and fame, everything he knows and “loves” will crumble to ash like Voldemort in his last scene.

  140. 140.

    Matt McIrvin

    @frosty: I was always impressed by how the rivers and inlets around there looked from an airplane (or on a map): so extravagantly fractal.

  142. 142.

    Dave

    @Kay: Conventional and rigid is a framework that you use that has a lot explanatory power.  It’s like discussing the NYT people are so locked onto they must be liberal that they miss that what they really are is incredibly conventional.

    Talking to media is not that dissimilar than talking to law enforcement. You can have discussions within the boundaries of current accepted practices or regulations (you actually can’t with most police but some of the moderate reasonable cops I know you can) but it always stops at is such and such behavior valid under the current framework?

    If so than any criticism is invalid very few are able or willing to take a higher level view that questions the assumptions they operate under. It’s as if I suddenly started to speak gibberish.

    It’s not limited to media and law enforcement but it is at it’s most noticeable.  I encountered similar dynamics regarding reports in military systems when I tried to hammer that just because a report is in a system doesn’t mean it’s an accurate reflection of reality.

  145. 145.

    catclub

    @Matt McIrvin: If you vote early, you have a heads up with any kind of trouble with your registration or ballot and you can still vote on Election Day.

     

    and it helps the GOTV people to target their efforts.

  146. 146.

    catclub

    @frosty: PA starts counting mail-in ballots at 7 AM on election day. That’s why we were so slow in 2020. Ridiculous.

     

    It is probably the law. And the law is often an ass.

  148. 148.

    scav

    So, clearly the advanced next-gen level of incel is wondering obsessively about a man (Pootie!!!? Kim Jong Un?  Orbaaa-aaan???) maybe being your friend after establishing firmly than no woman will except on a cash upfront basis.  And when leaving little mash notes for the desired one isn’t producing results, disguise the cash upfront as medical supplies and boxes of surprises in the bathroom.

  149. 149.

    Kent

    @TS:I was in the US over 40 years ago – cold war time – the MSM was full off the horrors of the USSR (the rest of the world hardly scored a mention) – and when I see today people fawning over trump and dismissing the love for Putin – it just seems impossible that this is the same country.

    It is the same country.

    Today Putin hates on they gays harder than anyone else.  And so that has won over the “deplorables”.  Bigotry is a powerful drug.

  151. 151.

    TS

    @Jeffg166:

    From the comments there were reasons for the anti USSR that I knew nothing about, but the US seemed very insulated against the world back then except for the hatred of the USSR. We bought a copy of the Saturday NYT – well because everyone said you had to – and it was 90% US, 10% USSR and the odd mention of the UK.  Everyone thought my Australian accent was British? and when I told a lady (in Florida) that I lived in Australia she asked me was that over the sea.

    We did have a great time at Micky’s 50th birthday party.

  153. 153.

    Another Scott

    Meanwhile, over at the Pentagon yesterday… Defense.gov:

    Q: Hi. Good afternoon and thank you both for doing this. Can you — you know, first of all, can you address sort of — at the risk of beating a dead horse here, the Ukrainians continue to press for the permission of the US to do longer range strikes into Russia. Do you see a change in US policy on that coming, and/or do you see any shift that the US will give Ukraine something else that will sort of make up for not allowing that?

    And then just quickly, can you give us a sense of sort of how the — both countries are setting up for the winter months and whether one or the other can gain some sort of advantage with this — at this point this year? Thank you.

    SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL: Great. So, Lita, on the long range strike issue, we have not changed the position on this. I think I’ve spoken with some of you about this before in terms of how we consider, you know, decisions on capability. We always look at kind of risks and benefits. And in this particular case, we certainly have to look at risks in terms of readiness.

    This is a — you know, a munition that has, you know, finite quantities. And we also, obviously, have to look at risks of escalation. But in terms of effectiveness, we also have to look at whether the quantities that exist, and again, they are limited, whether they would have the strategic effect.

    And we certainly know that many of the capabilities that are of greatest concern, particularly for glide bomb use, for instance, have actually moved out beyond ATACMS range. And we also know that we’ve seen tremendously effective Ukrainian strikes using their indigenously produced capabilities.

    IOW, as I read the answer, it’s mostly numbers of available weapons and systems, not Biden being afraid of VVP, that’s driving this decision. And that makes sense to me. We know that the Pentagon wasn’t been building up vast numbers of these things before February 2022, and we know these systems are complex with long lead times. Addressing production and the industrial base is a difficult, expensive, long-term effort. Investment in Ukrainian production at home, as mentioned elsewhere at the link, is a big part in addressing the weapons pipeline.

    My $0.02.

    Slava Ukraini!!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  158. 158.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @zhena gogolia: it’s part of why I don’t delete some people off my Facebook. To know what the weird contingent is saying, although it shocks and angers me.
    (I know, it’s more correct to say, I feel the anger shock in the face of it, and they don’t do it t9 me. Just less cumbersome to say it the first way.)

  159. 159.

    Betty

    @catclub: I think it is up to county officials. My county waits until election day. Besides delaying the final count, it also shortens time for people to correct ballots.

  160. 160.

    greenergood

    @Betty Cracker: Puddin’ Boots just behaving like his normal self, despite the storm of the century (or at least one of them) causing chaos in his state (after the other one two weeks ago…) – NO Matter! The main thing is that you’re still here, alive and posting (even if it’s from your car), and that is GOOD NEWS, which we all need in however much quantities we can get it.

  161. 161.

    wjca

    @Another Scott:  as I read the answer, it’s mostly numbers of available weapons and systems, not Biden being afraid of VVP, that’s driving this decision. And that makes sense to me.

    It only makes sense if you assume that the Ukranians don’t have a sense of where the most cost-effective places ate to strike with limited munitions.

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