I remember feeling helpless and furious in 2003 when George W. Bush and his posse of arrogant clowns were dragging the U.S. and allies into a pointless and lethal war of choice in the Middle East. It was like watching a horde of drunk bubbas invade a fireworks factory with Zippos, tiki torches and flame-throwers — bound to be tragic and bloody, but they wouldn’t listen to reason even though you shouted warnings until you were hoarse. All you could do was hope YOU didn’t get blown up in the inevitable conflagration.
A sampling of today’s stupid and destructive as distilled in headlines:
WSJ: Trump Effect Starts to Show Up in Economy
New data reflect that president’s tariff and immigration policies are boosting inflation and weighing on jobsA chaotic rollout of tariffs is starting to filter through to price tags on store shelves. An immigration crackdown is beginning to weigh on jobs growth, measured by federal surveys. Taken together, the impact of President Trump’s whirlwind six months back in office is showing up in the economy.
Interesting word choice there: whirlwind. As in, that thing you eventually REAP. Speaking of reaping:
Politico: Johnson breaks with Trump, calls for DOJ to release Epstein files
Speaker Mike Johnson is calling for the Department of Justice to release all of its information on Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier who died in jail after being charged with sex trafficking, and wants Attorney General Pam Bondi to explain previous statements on the matter.
That lying weasel isn’t “breaking with Trump.” He’s trying to surf the tsunami. Like Trump, he desperately wants this Epstein shit to go away. It’s not going away:
Q: Why do you think your supporters have been so interested in the Epstein story?
TRUMP: I don’t understand it. He’s dead for a long time. He was never a big factor in terms of life. I don’t understand what the fascination is. The credible information has been given. It’s pretty boring stuff.
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) July 15, 2025 at 6:52 PM
Charlie Kirk is one of the second-tier podcast twits who vowed to shut up about Epstein after talking to Trump. That lasted a day.
“When I said for the time being, I was talking yesterday.”
LOL, someone got an earful from his viewers for taking marching orders and shutting up on Epstein.
www.independent.co.uk/news/world/a…
— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona.bsky.social) July 15, 2025 at 4:46 PM
It’s not personal. It’s business. Meanwhile, someone needs to issue a Silver Alert:
Imagine. If. Biden. Had. Done. This.
— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan.bsky.social) July 15, 2025 at 8:37 PM
I’m taking break from the circus in a little while. Going on a short road trip and will report back from the hinterlands later. Y’all be sweet to each other, okay?
Open thread.
On The Road – Elma – Japan and Cruising the Pacific to LA Part 2
Princess
I’m a broken record on this but I don’t get the Epstein thing. If Trump knew his tiny fingers were all over this mess, why would he lean so hard into promising to reveal it? He could have promised it until Election Day then immediately forgotten it and his dim base wouldn’t have cared. Why was Biondi told to raise the possibility of releasing it when it wouldn’t bring anything to Trump but trouble? I know they’re not that smart but Trump is usually really good at self-preservation.
Halteclere
Someone needs to start tracking his level of incoherence vs time of day
zhena gogolia
“raised concerns”? “raised concerns”? “raised concerns”?
Yes, Jake Tapper to the courtesy phone. And bring George Clooney with you.
J.
I think the only thing that will bring down Teflon Don will be a heart attack, and I don’t think even that would really stop him. His enablers and supporters would just prop him up a la Bernie of Weekend at Bernie’s and drag him to photo ops, meetings, and campaign events. I mean, would anyone really be able to tell the difference?
Nukular Biskits
mornin, y’all.
fly-by.
vote in senate today about cutting us foriegn aid (including pepfar) and corporation for public broadcasting.
I plan on calling both my trump toady senators to vote no, for all the good it’ll do.
later, be sweet.
zhena gogolia
@Princess: He’s not good at anything any more.
montanareddog
Trump bloviating about AOC and Jasmine Crockett again
His obsession with the IQ of women and minorities is a clear tell for his white supremacism. But what’s the odds that he actually knows what the I and the Q stand for? I would say pretty low.
MattF
@Princess: Yeah, it’s incomprehensible. My assumption so far has been that it’s all performative bullshit… but maybe not! Try this YouTube video from Heather Cox Richardson for a considered viewpoint. She points at the end to the collapse of 19th century oligarchy (and the rise of Theodore Roosevelt) as a possible parallel.
Baud
@J.:
I think we’d notice the improvement.
Librettist
The appearance of the large flex-cloth bandage on the back of his hand is on the regular.
It’s going to be a gold
platedspray painted death of Stalin when he croaks. His hard core are emotionally stunted imbeciles.Also, Vance will toss the derp crew overboard in short order. Not saying he will be better, but his peeps are getting those jobs. That’s just politics. So I guess that means Elon gets back in….?
-barf-
different-church-lady
@Princess: Let’s go with Occam’s Razor on this: it’s because he’s an idiot and his words just bypass the thought process.
frosty
@Nukular Biskits: Kudos to you. I’m really tired of calling my Rep and Senators with no observable effect, but you’re facing levels of uselessness in Mississippi that we don’t have to deal with here in Pennsyltucky.
different-church-lady
@montanareddog: His overt racism tends to indicate he is a racist, yes.
Ohio Mom
@J.: It’s hard to know whether to wish Trump’s health holds up because if it doesn’t, Vance.
Would Vance be a washout or horribly effective? He doesn’t have Trump’s charisma but he is strategic and methodical, if he wasn’t, we’d never have heard of him.
Baud
@different-church-lady:
Oh come on. You’re always assuming the worst. His overt racism could mean anything. Maybe he’s just joking.
different-church-lady
I’m still stuck on the part where all this was fully evident before the election, and half the country (a) didn’t notice (b) didn’t give a shit (c) liked it.
different-church-lady
@Baud: You know who makes racist jokes?
Racists.
Baud
@different-church-lady:
I’ll never get over 2016, much less 2024.
The world doesn’t care how I feel though.
Chief Oshkosh
I’m still hair-on-fire boggled, pissed, and generally WTFing that the Shitbird Six just green-lighted the dismantling of Dept created by Congress — without explanation — and nary a peep out of a single “responsible” Republican.
This is a much bigger deal than what seems to be understood by many. It’s right up there with placing the President above the law.
Geminid
@montanareddog: Rep. Ocasio-Cortez will host Zohran Mamdani at a breakfast event this morning. It’s Mamdani’s first visit to Washington since he won the NYC primary for mayor three weeks ago.
New Deal democrat
One of the more striking things that has happened recently is the apparent radicalization of Ken White, a/k/a Popehat. Here is something he wrote yesterday:
“The bottom line [ ] is that things are getting worse, they are going to get worse, and the only question is how much worse. The regime is emboldened by the collapse of the institutions and norms that might have restrained it and are going to push and push and push.
“So. If totalitarians, theocrats, and white nationalists have rejected the rule of law, checks and balances, and the constitutional order, why should they be protected by any of the rules or norms of that order?”
Wow.
About a week ago, he made a not so veiled threat should the citizenship of his three adopted children born in Korea and China ever be threatened.
Btw, if we are going to have to break norms in order to defeat the fascists, here are three I hereby nominate:
1. Reversing all of T—-p’s pardons and commutations. Back to prison you go!
2. Nuemburg type trials either before Congress or authorized by Congress with full, enforced subpoena power.
3. Openly defying the current Supreme Court majority.
Yes, that does mean accepting that the current Constitutional order has broken. Because it already has.
JML
At this point I’m presuming that Thiel & company are having regular meetings on how to get the Elderly Golfer through another year and a half before replacing him with Lackey Vance, who will then finish out his term and still be eligible for 2 more terms (don’t want to have the cast a replacement any sooner than necessary, right?).
The fact that the GOP never says anything about their stumbling and decompensating leader is part of how they continue to get away with the madness, of course. And the media is completely useless, because the corporate masters have effectively muzzled most of the good reporters, and the shit ones know that this administration is super easy to cover and you can save up the best/craziest stories for a book deal down the road without consequences. Utter failures the lot of them.
Wish they would stop sane-washing this fool.
Baud
@Geminid:
I wonder if they’ll have orange juice instead of coffee. IIIRC. That was one of the big Obama scandals.
Chief Oshkosh
@Baud:
We care, Baud. Deeply.
Geminid
Duplicate.
New Deal democrat
@Chief Oshkosh:
All of the legal commentary I have read does recognize what a big deal it is, and also the fact that they didn’t even deem it worthy of writing an opinion was the biggest blow to the “rule of law” of all.
PaulWartenberg
Safe travels, Betty.
Professor Bigfoot
Mornin’ y’all, and for a day in the Trump shitstorm, ain’t it a beauty?
jowriter
@zhena gogolia: Amen.
Chief Oshkosh
@New Deal democrat: He’s making the points I made way, way back when the Shitbird Six declared that Trump was (and now is) above the law.
If one person is declared above the law, then any person can be declared above the law and then there is no law. Those that declare that one person is above the law thus have no protections from the actions of other persons who, even if momentarily, have the power to harm them.
Seems obvious to me, but it didn’t play well here when I brought it up those years ago…
Baud
It’s like you don’t know us at all.
p.a.
Authoritarian Personality: I want to be told what to think, say, do.
tRump: A,A,A, B, A, B,B,A, B… gurgle gargle umpha bleech…
Influencers & followers 😰😰😰😰😰😰😰😰😰😰😰
Professor Bigfoot
@different-church-lady: Aaayyuup.
Me ‘n’ th’ missus was just sayin’ to each other this very fine mornin’, “every goddamn day I find myself muttering ‘these stupid MFs…’”
It was so damned obvious a blind man could see it with a stick, but… here we are.
Chief Oshkosh
@New Deal democrat: Yes, a tiny number of people who’ve devoted their lives to the study of law noticed it. Apparently not one R Senator did, though.
different-church-lady
@Baud: ’16 was fool me once, shame on you.
’24 was fool me twice and… and… okay, I got nothin’ here.
Baud
@Chief Oshkosh:
I appreciate that.
different-church-lady
@Chief Oshkosh: Really quite a shame nobody predicted this outcome nine years ago…
p.a.
@New Deal democrat: Yes, I’ve thought I would support ANY Dem/lib who came out and said: If elected I will use all the means they have created, against them.
There has to be accountability.
Professor Bigfoot
@Chief Oshkosh: This entirely.
Bit by bit the GOP are destroying the 1787 Constitution; and there is no earthly knowing what will come next.
Librettist
@JML:
2+ terms is definitely the big brained plan.
The anisocoria and drooping eyelid would indicate stroke(s). I guess we’ll see if they can keep him in office if it gets to Wilson level. The press tosses his salad on the regular, so….
Geminid
@Baud: I wonder what will be on the White House menu tonight. Trump is supposed to host Qatari Prime Minister al-Thani for a working dinner. I expect Steve Witkoff will attend because the subject will be the prospective Gaza ceasefire, and I bet Chief of Staff Suzie Wiles will be there too.
Baud
On Sunday, we’ll be 12.5% of the way through being grateful not having to hear Kamala’s laugh.
Baud
@Geminid:
Trump doesn’t work during work. He definitely doesn’t work during dinner.
Professor Bigfoot
@Chief Oshkosh: Musta been during times when I wasn’t on the blog as much as now, because bro, I’da been standing on a chair clapping for this.
If one person is above the law then there is no fucking law.
It’s not the rule of law anymore, it’s the rule of men.
And that, at its root, means that the 1787 Constitution is dead.
Butch
FWIW, here’s a news story about the speech Hasan references:
independent.co.uk/author/holly-baxter
Geminid
@Librettist: Susan Wiles has some experience in this area. Wiles served as Ronald Reagan’s Chief of Staff after he left the White House in January, 1989.
mrmoshpotato
Should I even give any thought to why the senile, demented, Kremlin-humping, fascist shitstain is babbling about the Unabomber?
Geminid
@Baud: Steve Witkoff’s doing the work on this one. Trump’s there to nod along.
Soprano2
@montanareddog: He thinks that test he takes at his physical is an IQ test, because he brags about “acing” it. Number one, I don’t believe he “aces” it, and number two, they don’t give that test to people unless there are concerns about their cognitive function. I’ve come to believe that at a certain age doctors should start giving the test every year to have a baseline to compare to, and to perhaps catch problems early, but I don’t think that’s standard practice now.
Baud
@Geminid:
I have no choice but to hope they’re successful. But I don’t expect it.
mappy!
His attention seeking is or at least seems to be performance based, mostly ad-lib. He reaches into his grab bag of posturings, spewing anything to retain attention. He may not be that smart or skilled but he has a pathological bent on remaining the center of attention that makes up for any other deficiency. It all falls apart with his tells though. Even the Muscovites are mocking his 50 days, two weeks, 24 hours, whatever… Taco.
As for real world issues, it is probably time to start clocking the empty space on store shelves. My guess is that produce is going to be the first. Tomatoes and lettuce don’t pick themselves… I wonder what the restaurants are going to do. No busboys. No salads. No salsa.
There’s always farmer’s markets. Truck farms near you…
mrmoshpotato
@Baud:
What? The GrOPers created an OrangeJuiceGate as well as TanSuitGate on top of HE’SBLACK!Gate?
mrmoshpotato
@Professor Bigfoot: I would prefer a crazy thunderstorm.
artem1s
@Princess:
First he’s got dementia. He probably thought only Democrats are on the list because he believes everything that the GQP plants out there when they are trying to win elections at all costs.
Every since the GQP torpedoed John McCain to get W elected, it’s been clear the lure of power means they do not think about the ramifications of what happens when they lose control of the that message. Whatever Bondi saw in those files scared the shit of her.
Also, too he thought he could destroy or had already destroyed or had a lackey tell him that all the evidence had been destroyed. Never mind he’s been doing the bidding of Putin for decades because he’s holding something over him. The evidence can never be completely eradicated.
On top of that, he’s monumentally stupid. Buying off the DoJ or FBI to firebomb their evidence rooms is a lot harder than passing a suitcase full of money to a local sheriff. They have ways of burying evidence of cold cases so they can go back to them when administrations change. And that suitcase full of money to state AGs and local prosecutors doesn’t always guarantee the lackey isn’t going to keep a thumb drive copy.
The first Epstein coverup was a Florida case. Who knows who still has evidence from that ‘investigation’ lying around.
Johnson is a zealot. He probably truly believes that there is nothing there. He is surfing the ‘whatever God means to happen will happen” wave. He’s not in that list so why should he be concerned.
Librettist
@Geminid:
She’s more of a defacto wife #4. They remind me of a couple I know that sit around, watch Fox, and yell at each other.
To expect her, now in her seventies, to manage to his decline is not a reasonable expectation.
Josie
Some good news–Adelita Grijalva has won a resounding victory in the Democratic primary for her father’s seat in Arizona. She is almost sure to hold the seat he occupied for many years.
Baud
@mrmoshpotato:
My memory is fuzzy, but I think so.
NeenerNeener
@different-church-lady: there’s a 4th option: d) refused to believe their own eyes and ears
I know at least 3 people in the D category.
Geminid
@Baud: I think there will be a ceasefire announced by this weekend. But I would not bet much on it.
Princess
Trump is stupid demented dying an idiot yadda yadda, but somehow he got elected president and is further on his way in enacting all his stated goals, while enriching himself and his family and friends than any Democratic president in my lifetime.
Baud
@Princess:
Cult of personality based on bigotry. No Dem has had that.
Geminid
@Josie: That *was* good news. Last I checked, Ms. Grijalva won 62% of the vote. Social media strategist and TikTok star Deja Foxx was second with 19% and former state Rep. Daniel Hernandez came in third with 12%.
bbleh
@Soprano2: Based on his famous “man woman person camera TV” remark, I assume it’s a basic cognitive assessment that’s routinely given to a lot of older people, part of which is giving them 5 words to remember (completely unconnected ones, unlike his quote), asking some other questions, then asking them to repeat the 5 words. And I assume, because he’s so fixated on it and has made such a point about it over and over, that he actually screwed it up completely, probably repeatedly.
mrmoshpotato
@Geminid:
Working? You mean Qatar telling Dump how he is their bitch for the bribe of a jet?
Soprano2
I have to agree with this, as you age it gets harder and harder to manage yourself, let alone someone else. It seems that she’s not doing a great job either if he’s making speeches like that in public.
Trivia Man
How come there isnt a clamor for bill barr to tell what he knows? Hint: he was in charge of the DOJ when epstein died.
Second point: he has close personal and family ties to Epstein for decades, going back to before Epstein was so well connected.
And i haven’t heard BB even mentioned.
Soprano2
@Princess: I think it’s because of the people behind him like Steven Miller. It’s also because he’s still coherent enough to scare the shit out of elected Republicans, so they do what he wants even when it’s not in their best interest. The last Democratic president other Democrats were afraid of was LBJ.
zhena gogolia
@different-church-lady: Absolutely right.
hueyplong
@mrmoshpotato: “Working dinner” is probably just diplomacy-speak for cash changing hands. We all knew what “frank and open exchange” meant back in the day. If we see that phrase again after the meeting, it will likely mean that cash failed to change hands.
Soprano2
@bbleh: I’ve watched my husband take that test three times. It’s easy, although remembering the five words would be harder than you think.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone😊😊😊
Baud
Interesting
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
geg6
I still can’t believe he stole that soccer trophy. I don’t put much past him but I admit that I never saw that one coming.
i think those that are saying this won’t matter because nothing matters are wrong. A big chunk of the MAGA base is in hysterics over this. Heather Cox Richardson has a good take on this. My favorite bit of proof is the rarely tried (because it’s rarely successful) 10-out-of-10 flip flop flip of Charlie Kirk on this matter. This matters. And I’m here for it.
Albatrossity
@Soprano2: As part of the Medicare-covered Annual Wellness Visit, folks on Medicare get an annual cognitive impairment test. So it is standard medical practice, at least for folks on Medicare.
I have my Annual Wellness Visit next month, and I am sure I will ace that test!
Ceci n est pas mon nym
I’m glad to see Charlie Kirk is getting pushback from the rabble. I saw a video yesterday of all the right-wing influencers falling into line and adopting the “we don’t talk about Epstein no no” song and dance, and I got depressed that it was going to be that easy to make it all go away.
I’m happy it’s apparently not.
A couple of possibilities I see:
1. We all know he’s in there, but they found something really bad that they didn’t know was in there. Maybe sex with a 12-year-old or something.
2. He figured he could pull the “we’ve always been at war with Eastasia” routine and tell people to forget about it, and they would. Like the ebola apocalypse, remember that?
The cult is still cultish though. I don’t see any evidence of people saying, “Hey, maybe our cult leader is a bad person”. All the stuff I’ve been seeing is “our beloved cult leader is being misled by bad people and needs better advisors then the world will make sense again”
Baud
@geg6:
You gotta take what the good Lord gives you. If this is what hurts him, so be it.
Betty Cracker
@geg6: I am here for it too. I mean, we’re trapped in the burning fireworks factory with the arsonists, and that sucks! But that doesn’t mean we can’t laugh when the arsonists shoot each other in the dick with bottle rockets. We’re only human, man!
Baud
Deputinize America
@New Deal democrat:
Ken always had an institutionalist support side that caused a basic level of respect for longstanding traditional doctrine and the alleged majesty of the court.
I’ve never been like that – as a street lawyer with few recitations of dry constitutional theory in any of the less lofty matters I handle, I’ve always recognized that judges are full of shit and transactional, and no smarter than the lawyers who appear before them. Off the bench, I refer to them informally by first name in public. When on the bench, if I personally dislike them, I don’t really disguise my contempt AND I call them out on dumb rulings in real time. As a result, I’m generally treated with kid gloves.
I feel like one of the reasons why shit is fucked up is all the historical obsequious fawning and groveling in front of SCOTUS justices and the treatment of their transactional, lazy bullshit as an academic pursuit by the SCOTUS bar, legal commentators and law professors. They need a lot more accusations of idiocy in real time to make the job a lot less fun and a lot less lofty.
artem1s
Vance will lose the hard core MAGAts but will win back the mainstream GQP and he’ll have control of the mailing list by this time. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had some 25th / Night of the Long Knives solution planned. Orange Hitler might know about that bit of history but probably hasn’t considered that Miller or Musk might not end up playing the role of Ersnt Rohm. If Moses Johnson decides it’s his God given duty to cosplay HImmler to Vance’s Goering and purge the government of pedophiles and other sexual degenerates, that would be the ironic feather on the cap of this shitty timeline. If only Dense had half the spine Mother had, he could have 25th the asshole and rid us of this troublesome mess back on J6.
Professor Bigfoot
@Soprano2: That really leads to the question: who is ACTUALLY running this shitshow?
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Soprano2: We took a cognitive test as part of applying for long-term care insurance (which ultimately we decided not to get from that company).
I remember there was a list of 10 unrelated words, and there were intermediate questions they would ask before going back to the 10 words. I got all 10. Learned later that something like 6 or 7 was considered a passing score.
snoey
@geg6: FIFA had another trophy ready, they knew their man.
Crashing the trophy lift was far more offensive. The lift is iconic in soccer culture. It’s the pic that goes on your mom’s wall. Putin has enough sense not to skate around with the Stanley Cup.
Professor Bigfoot
@Albatrossity: First time I took it, I really didn’t understand what they were asking for- to draw a clockface and a time… until the nurse looked at me and said “you’re WAY overthinking this.”
Ah.
The second time I almost drew a digital clock just for shits and giggles.
geg6
@snoey:
At least Putin can skate! Can you imagine Donny Diapers out on the pitch?
Deputinize America
@Professor Bigfoot:
With all due respect, it’s been dead since 1861, and patched together with duct tape and bailing wire, propelled along by whatever bits of goodwill exist in blue areas and cities.
Unfortunately, the John Taney Roberts/Uncle Clarence/Scam Alito SCOTUS has been plucking off the duct tape and tugging at the baling wire.
Professor Bigfoot
Yep.
This terrifies me, but it must be faced: conservatives have successfully killed the 1787 Constitution, the Confederates have won their long war against the United States of America.
suzanne
This is inadvertently hilarious.
WTFGhost
@Princess: I don’t think Trump promised to release the Epstein records – I think other people did, and Trump kinda-sorta went along. I don’t think he’s ever shown any real eagerness.
So, Epstein was probably all Trump’s fans claiming he would, people like Bondi and whatsisname Patel, and Don BoingyBoingy, were all saying they’d totes release all the Epstein crap, but apparently they thought they were talking about Rob Hegyes, who played Juan Epstein in “Welcome Back, Kotter”.
I imagine all their excretory organs had a hard stop/sphincter swallow when they realized they were investigating a really awful man, a truly terrible man, a man so evil that it just seeps, oleaginously, around his very feet, leaving puddles of filth and despair eating away at very paving stones beneath his feet. And worse, this guy hung out with JEFFREY EPSTEIN, not JUAN EPSTEIN, so about that time, Bondi swallowed her dentures, and Patel’s asshole formed a perfect reverse pentagram, because this bad man was associated with a known sexual trafficker in women, including the underaged. (I know, Don Boingyboingy didn’t despair, but look at his name – he’s been living a life of despair since early pre-school!)
So, once they realized they would not only have to reveal the crimes of Epstein, but also those of Trump, you can’t be surprised by their reluctance. Trump lovers might tear them limb from limb!
Another Scott
@Princess: “You just tell them and they believe – they just do.”
Epstein was a cudgel to beat up on Democrats. That’s it.
The reality doesn’t matter. Every accusation is a confession, etc., etc.
I have a concept of a plan!!
Whatever they use to stay at the top of the news is a transient thing, to be dropped or recycled when they think there is a reason to do so. We have always been at war with East Asia.
It’s mouth noises for the cult.
The problem is, a cult isn’t rational and doesn’t always follow the mouth noises of the leader, because – after all – you can’t reason someone out of an opinion they didn’t reason themselves into…
Oh well, too bad, so sad.
FWIW.
Best wishes,
Scott.
artem1s
one scenario, his national security advisor or FBI was briefing him on some ongoing bomb threats and Dumbass couldn’t stay awake so they gave him a pop culture reference to focus on. One of the team may have worked on that case or had a relative, etc… And then the conversation went off the rails. He’s gonna be fixated on this just like we was Hannibal the Cannibal.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: I am not over 2016 and after 2024 I am politically homeless.
I am so over the brocast left and the MAGA right rewriting the Biden year
Most colonized people including black people in the US know that the “Rule of Law” is a mere window dressing for institutionalized brutality. So the Roberts Court is reverting back to the glorious western tradition. There is nothing new under the sun.
Geminid
@Librettist: I did not express any expectations, I just said Wiles has professional experience in the area of dementia.
But I have noticed that you underestimate Susan Wiles, and want to trivialize her. And like many people you do not much about Wiles. If you did, you’d know that she is not “in her 70s.” Susan Wiles is 68 years-old, and meaner than any snake.
Soprano2
@Albatrossity: That’s interesting, because as far as I know the first time my husband took it was when I went with him on his doctor’s appointment in October 2022, and he was in his 70’s at the time. He’s on Medicare Advantage, maybe that makes a difference.
Melancholy Jaques
@Chief Oshkosh:
There is really no point in castigating people who comment here, past or present. Our problem is the great mass of voters who are nothing like the people who comment here. Those people recognized the crisis and have voted for Democrats in the last six federal elections.
By whatever blends of strategies, tactics, and luck we get out of this, winning elections is the only way out of this and to do that we have to get the morons and half wits, dolts, dunces, dullards and dumbbells to understand what is happening, why it is important, and then act on that understanding.
Another Scott
@Trivia Man: There you go thinking and remembering, and using logic and stuff. What kind of ancient sorcery is this!!
Best wishes,
Scott.
Ohio Mom
@Soprano2: My first annual after I turned 65, the internist declared, “Welcome to Medicare!” and listed five unrelated words she told me to remember. Sometime later in the exam, I had to recite them back.
That’s the only screening I’ve had though I haven’t been exhibiting any concerning symptoms in the meantime.
WTFGhost
@Chief Oshkosh: I’m not boggled. They did place the President deliberately above the law already, twice now.
First, they said he couldn’t be prosecuted; if necessary, they’d delay the cases until after the election. Then, they said he can break the law, while they decide if he’s breaking the law.
This decision is precisely the same. “We’ll let you break the law, while we decide if you’re permitted to break the law, thankfully, no one has standing to sue, and we’ve never liked the DOE. If we later decide it was unlawful, so sad, too bad.”
What’s the difference?
J.
@Baud: Ha!
bbleh
@Soprano2: concur on both points, except that it’s easy … until it’s not. I watched a parent rather suddenly begin to fail markedly on parts of it (fortunately only very late in life).
Another Scott
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: My MIL had to take a similar test with someone for her LTC policy as well. We were amazed, and thankful, that she passed. (She had a life trick of tearing the page of the newspaper after she read it so that she would know not to read it again… :-( )
Brains are funny things. People who evaluate the brains of strangers they just met are not infallible…
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Matt McIrvin
@J.: One concern I have is that generative AI might allow even a long-dead Donald Trump to keep being President.
Soprano2
People who evaluate the brains of patients they’ve had for years are not infallible, either. Ask me how I know……….I had to fire a doctor to get my husband the help he needed.
Old Man Shadow
I am trying to choose every day to not let the motherfuckers steal my joy.
This is difficult.
suzanne
@geg6: Agree. This is a slow-moving popcorn moment. Or cake. Or both! Let us savor.
frosty
You aced your IQ test!
Harrison Wesley
@J.: I imagined something like the end of El Cid, with his corpse propped up in a golf cart leading a MAGA mob.
Shalimar
@Chief Oshkosh: Those of us who agree know better than to say it, because they will eventually imprison people just for talking about violence. And the people likely to act don’t really need our encouragement.
Math Guy
It seems that we are approaching the tipping point where trump is sinking fast and those around him are trying to distance themselves so they don’t get sucked down with him. Only a matter of time before we hear republicans say “Trump? Wasn’t he a game show once back in the day?”
Ramona
@Deputinize America:
You are my new hero!
Ramona
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Did the order of the 10 words matter?
Craig
@Librettist: Palmer Lucky for Sec. Def.
suzanne
@Betty Cracker:
I submit that laughter is a good, appropriate, and even praiseworthy response because:
1) Moments of joy and hilarity are sustaining and provide emotional connection, and
2) Ridicule is an effective weapon against fascism.
mrmoshpotato
@suzanne: Cake.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I was watching this you tube video this morning from these black farmers that they were insisting that their MAGA white, dumb as all fuck, neighbors were going around saying that once the Latinos were deported, the blacks would come back to work the fields in this kind of reverse Great Migration.
stinger
@Professor Bigfoot:
Every day I wake up is a good day!
Emily B.
@JML: Yes, Republicans are keeping a studied silence about Trump’s cognitive impairment. I don’t think that completely explains the sane washing, but it’s a factor. In the MSM, journalists need a source to tell them whether it’s raining or not. Whereas with Biden, I believe that, post-debate, Democratic politicians and donors started blabbing to reporters off the record that Biden was incompetent and should step aside. So it became A Real Story.
TerryC
@Soprano2: I scheduled a baseline mental health checkup with the VA last year. It feels good knowing that I am Trump’s age and showing zero dementia or mental illness signs.
Terraformer
Now they’ve passed their tax cuts – something only T***p and his threats could do, it seems the funders have decided it’s okay to seed stories about his mental health in the preferred, captured press and media – so their guy, Vance, can step in
RevRick
The United Church of Christ, at its just completed biennial General Synod, passed a resolution condemning the actions of I. C. E. under Trump as “domestic terrorism” and called for divestment from all private detention companies. This is the first national church body to do so.
hueyplong
I’ve had the welcome to Medicare visit and a pair of annuals since and have not yet been tested for cognitive ability.
Don’t know whether it’s because they think they already know I’m good or already know I’m hopeless. Not really inclined to ask.
Ramona
@WTFGhost: Ever since his Apprentice days, he’s benefited from people projecting what they wanted on him but it has arrived at the point where it’s impossible for him to live up to that projection.
Everything else heretofore projected on him was complex enough that there was not a simple measure by which it could be judged whether or not he lived up to the projection. “Release the Epstein files, Mr President!” is a simple measure and has been brewing long enough that it is shared by all his faithful.
We, the sane, know that releasing the files are not as simple as all that. Trump is implicated by simple snapshots of bare-chested under-aged pubescent children sitting on his lap by Epstein’s pool likely found in Epstein’s safe per Michael Wolff and everything else in the files is probably plain boring.
It’s the apparent simplicity of just releasing the Epstein files as the proof to verify this projection of the pedo-elites nemesis onto Trump and the amount of time and intensity with which it was fermented among his faithful that makes it so potent a means to their disillusionment today.
Do not all idols have clay feet?
zhena gogolia
@RevRick: Yay for us!
geg6
@suzanne:
Yes. This.
Spanky
@suzanne:
“So why should we notice him leaving it?”
oldgold
When the unraveling and the stupid meet:
Representative Lauren Boebert is calling for a Special Counsel to be appointed to investigate the current Jeffrey Epstein controversy. And, she wants Matt Gaetz appointed as the Special Counsel.
Ramona
@Harrison Wesley: Beautiful! Now I have to go watch El Cid!
CaseyL
The MOTUs running the country want a return to the age of the Articles of Confederation, where each state was sovereign, except they want to prevent any state from becoming a 21st Century Liberal Democracy. So, “law for thee but not for me” and all that.
It’s an epochal change, driven by massive ignorance and apathy on the part of the voters, and I frankly don’t know how it shakes out. Individual states may be able to build their own education, healthcare, and legal instrumentalities either in defiance of or compliance with the fascist dictates from DC.
States that have agricultural capacity will have an obvious advantage over those that don’t, in that they can at least maintain a viable food supply. And states with their own rivers and lakes will have an obvious advantage over states that rely on other states for potable water.
As of now, the rights you have as a citizen of the US depends entirely on which state you live in. (Apologies to marginalized communities, for whom that has always been the case; it’s just that that’s the case now for everyone.). And even then, only to the extent that your state is willing and able to defy the Feds on your behalf.
RevRick
@zhena gogolia: Because of course we’d be first.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
His ankles and right hand are swollen, which is apparently a sign of heart failure.
Ramona
@mrmoshpotato: I second the motion!
Professor Bigfoot
@Soprano2: “People…are not infallible.”
Nary a one of us.
Craig
@Chief Oshkosh: more than half of them don’t know how anything works the rest don’t care
Baud
@RevRick:
@zhena gogolia:
WWJI?
(Where would Jesus invest?)
Just Some Flyover
@J.:
@Betty Cracker: yeah but then they show up at the hospital and you, of course, have to treat them while they run up a $200,000 hospital bill they have no intention (let alone ability) to pay because they’re uninsured because of course they are.
Baud
@CaseyL:
The Confederacy believed in states rights except for a state’s right to end slavery.
Baud
Math Guy
@CaseyL: So glad I live in Minnesota.
mrmoshpotato
@Baud: My money is on Gym Jordan not doing this – or wearing a damn suitcoat.
Nora
Not to add to the gloom and doom around here, but every time someone brings up the requirement for hospitals to treat everyone, insured or not, I wonder how long it will be before that particular law is disregarded as well. What’s to stop them? A sense of decency? An unwillingness to look like total bastards? Fear of arbitrarily choosing laws to destroy or keep? Fear of anarchy? Fear of opposition?
None of these seems like a real deterrent these days.
Miss Bianca
That is an image equally horrifying and hilarious. *golf clap* Well done, you!
Librettist
@Math Guy:
When the Fox News chryon starts putting a D after his name.
suzanne
@Nora:
To be clear: hospitals are only required to provide emergency care or stabilization and transfer. Things like cancer care and primary care and the like already do not fall under that requirement. So hospitals will basically transfer patients to the curb of the County hospital.
Kristine
@mappy!:
Hmmm. Had lunch with a friend yesterday, and they were complaining about the empty shelves at their nearest Costco. They also mentioned reduced staff, so the issue could just be this particular location.
Omnes Omnibus
@geg6: Stealing the trophy is one of the things that he has done that is shocking but not surprising.
WTFGhost
@Baud: If you’re “lucky,” someday you’ll have an invisible disability, and you’ll *really* know the world doesn’t give a damn about how you feel. It’s not as liberating as you’d think.
@Professor Bigfoot: It’s forecast for hot, with a bit of heat coming, then continued hot, until it breaks, after midnight, with warm.
And my portable swamp cooler’s pump kicked the proverbial bucket (or the literal one – I assumed the overturned bucket was one of the cats), so I don’t even have a cool breeze until my roomie leaves his room and I can throw his door open and suck the breeze out with a large fan.
Also, Trump is still President.
@Baud: She was saying be a Life Saver, not a man. Life Savers can come in five flavors, after all.
@different-church-lady: It must be wonderful to be a Republican, where other people don’t matter a bit. “Dear, which is more important, a Hummer in the driveway and a bunch of dead kids we’ll never have to see, or a bunch of living kids who will grow up to be foreigners? I thought so!”
@Librettist: I believe you mean he makes the press toss *the* salad… I’m sorry – I watched too many Kevin Smith movies growing up.
@Baud: Dude, remember: some people are clinging to life here. (And I’m only half kidding)
Geminid
From the Oil Price site:
Steve LaBonne
@RevRick: Bravo UCC!
zhena gogolia
@Baud: Jesus saves . . .
rikyrah
Safe travels, BC🙏🏽🙏🏽
Peale
@suzanne:
Which the county sold to a PE firm on a sales/leaseback deal where they thought they were outsmarting the moneyboys, but which now costs the county more than they were spending when they owned the hospital. Those will be the first hospitals to go under.
Chief Oshkosh
@Melancholy Jaques: I was castigating Republican Senators. I wrote that twice. Sorry for the apparent lack of clarity.
ArchTeryx
@WTFGhost: Yeah, you’re singing my song here, WTFGhost. All my disabilities are invisible, but oh, how real they are. And even those that care about me so closely have trouble understanding how I am dying. How can you communicate the internal breakdown of your body to an outside party? You can’t. And a lot of people don’t, until they keel over suddenly of something fatal.
THEN you get people’s sympathy. After they no longer have to pay taxes to support you.
Geminid
@oldgold: Boebert knows that Gaetz has subject matter expertise.
Lauren Boebert has a serious Democratic challenger this cycle, a retired Navy admiral. CO04 is very much a “stretch” district, but I think Boebert cannot take reelection for granted.
I noticed a former Intercept reporter warning people off donating to the Democrat, calling her a “national security ghoul.”
Chief Oshkosh
@Shalimar: No where am I advocating violence.
NotMax
@WTFGhost
Yes, yes they do.
;)
@zhena gogolia
But the Mongol hoards.
::rimshot::
KSinMA
@RevRick: Excellent.
Ruckus
@Princess:
He’s 80 yrs old and really doesn’t take care of himself, because he’s the top of the heap. Your guess as to what that heap consists of…..
He’s lost his way as a human. Of course this was never a trip with a good destination in the first place. He believes he’s the smartest human on the planet, he’s not even the smartest human within 6 ft of wherever he is. Even when he is alone. He thinks the world revolves around him but that’s just because he has no idea where he is anymore, not that he really ever did. He’s rapidly aging out, something almost all humans do as they age past some number of years. He has political support because of “his money,” he must be smart, look how rich he is. Money, even MONEY level dollars doesn’t make one smart. At least in his case. Money doesn’t buy brains or common sense. It will however buy a lot of pompous arrogance. Something some wealthy people seem to buy in bulk. Not all of them, some of whom I’ve met when I worked in a professional sport as an official had money but not arrogance. Not all mind you, money is, past a certain amount, the grease of life, it buys you things and position (to some it does, others actually earn it) I’ve known some that have earned it and some that just happened to be in the right place at the right time. IOW, money does not automatically buy you pompous arrogance but some with it earned it, because they think their money makes them great. It’s not a profitable mentality.
schrodingers_cat
@schrodingers_cat: *Biden era not Biden year…
WTFGhost
@suzanne: Right. Come to the hospital in a diabetic coma, you’ll be stabilized, and given a prescription for diabetes drugs you probably can’t afford except for the Metformin if you shop around. You won’t get every-three-months check of your A1c, which measures *roughly* your average blood sugar, and tells you if diabetes drugs are really working, or just letting you have a decent sugar score when you test. You can die really ugly from uncontrolled diabetes.
Hell, if you don’t have insurance, and have a heart attack, it might be a minor kindness if CPR doesn’t work – if you need open heart surgery, a nice, clean, heart attack now might be better than endless debility while you try to get health insurance.
Similarly with cancer – you have some terrible, painful, cancer? Well, the good news is, eventually, you won’t have any money at all, so you’ll qualify for medicaid. The bad news is, if you live in a red state, they might suck at hospice care, because they’re afraid someone might get high off your oxycontin.
@Baud: It does make it fascinating – in a purely Vulcan way – that they luuuuurve them the Dred Scott decision as an example of judicial incorrectness, when they had the opposite reaction when it was decided.
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: It can be. If the heart is strong enough, it can generally pull up all the fluid from your body. Swollen legs is less of a warning than overall edema – everyone has to fight gravity, and a lot of people end up with swollen ankles with their hearts still functioning mostly adequately. But if a person is having problems with too much fluid in their body, that tends to increase blood pressure. Your entire circulatory system is like a balloon, and if you have more water in it, the pressure increases, which means your heart has to work harder to move it.
I know of a person who lost over 100 lbs of water, and her blood pressure finally came back down to the normal range. After that, her heart was doing a lot better. So, she had heart failure due to edema, and a perfectly fine heart once they drained her to normal levels, all with the same, adequate, heart.
Tony Jay
Just call a press conference, announce that a SPECIAL PRESIDENTIAL INVESTIGATION ordered by PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP has discovered large chunks of The Epstein Files to be missing, and that therefore a VERY SPECIAL PRESIDENTIAL INVESTIGATION into the whereabouts of these missing documents will be ordered by PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP, with special attention being paid to members of the CORRUPT and IMPLICATED Democrat Administration that was responsible for keeping them safe before the current Administration was elected.
Thank MAGA for its attention to this matter and drag the whole thing out for years with leaks and side investigations and special hearings. They’ll gobble it up like free pizza.
Bill Arnold
It’s a safe bet that Mr. Trump will forget the name of one or more of his children, in public and on video, well before Mr. Biden does.
PaulWartenberg
@Professor Bigfoot:
“Pay no attention to that pedo behind the curtains!!!”
chemiclord
@Professor Bigfoot:
That in and of itself doesn’t scare me. Legal agreements change over time. That the country has become so ossified that there’s been no amendments for almost 60 years suggests that the framework has run its course. That, in and of itself isn’t the problem.
What scares me is how many people are going to die before a new order establishes itself, and how authoritarian said new order is going to be; because contrary to what Marx and Hegel believed, what follows the collapse of a capitalist state isn’t communism; it almost always is some form of autocracy (that may very well pretend to wear a red suit).
Bupalos
@geg6: I agree. I think TPM has a couple good pieces on how this is a very different kettle of fish for Trump and MAGA.
Geminid
@Tony Jay: When you have some time Mr. Jay, I’d like to hear your thoughts on the new British political party led by Jeremy Corbyn and Labour defector Zarah Sultana. I’ve read that it polls well, particularly among voters age 18 to 24. I believe you fall just outside that age group.
mrmoshpotato
@Bill Arnold: Dump probably already refers to Ivanka as “the one I want to bang.”
Mike in Pasadena
@New Deal democrat: This is the first time I have read that kind of thinking on BJ. Maybe that’s not saying much because I seldom read through every thread, but I agree, we are into “what do we do about Julius Caesar and Nero?” Hint: it did not go well for either despot. Pitchforks are not far off.
Other MJS
Mary Doria Russell on Facebook reminds us of the adenochrome conspiracy and writes “They will never accept anything Pam releases unless it confirms their twisted beliefs about the Clintons.”
hueyplong
@mrmoshpotato: I think Ivanka aged out for Trump. Note that she’s nowhere to be found nowadays.
Truth be told, Trump has probably aged out of his sexual predations. Now he has to content himself with fawning adulation, which he sees as his due from both genders.
Chief Oshkosh
@Nora: Not treating someone at a hospital happens all the time. If you present with an ailment and no insurance, many hospitals ROUTINELY ship you off to “county” — whether that makes sense medically or not. If you are conscious and decline an ambulance, they ship you off in an Uber.
Sure Lurkalot
@Tony Jay: They better get on it because Don’s addled thumbs which have a dubious connection to what was once his brain have typed out some words,
Trump is now calling Epstein conspiracies a “hoax” that his “past” supporters fell for “hook, line, and sinker.”
Past supporters…such disloyalty will not be allowed!
Anyway
Same. He does things so gross, so blatant with barely any pushback or consequences. Still seething about his comments re AOC and Jasmine Crockett’s IQ/abilities. How dare he.
zhena gogolia
@NotMax: groan
CaseyL
O/T: I saw the new Superman movie yesterday, and it is a delight. Highly recommend.
Geminid
@hueyplong: I noticed that Jared Kudhner attended Sunday’s World Club Cup finals in New Jersey this weekend. My guess is that his wife was there also.
But you’re right, the two have not played a visible role in this administration like they did Trump’s first term.
Trivia Man
@Librettist: and more pictures circulate of him yukking it up with the clintons. I vaguely recall lots of pictures of t at democratic bigwig events. Fundraisers, weddings, ither social events.
In 2016 a few of his primary opponents tried to use those but only half heartedly.
Elizabelle
@Chief Oshkosh: Hmmmm. Shitbird Six works for me.
And they are. And so are all the voters too stupid to comprehend that the Supreme Court was on the line in 2016. They are shitbirds too.
pluky
@schrodingers_cat:
Preach!
Kathleen
@Halteclere: I’m sure the Tapper/Thompson Twins and NYT will apply their prodigious investigative and medical diagnostic skills to get to the bottom of Trump’s problems and how it’s affecting his governance.
(Insert poop emoji). Oh, who am I kidding? I crack myself up sometimes!
zhena gogolia
@Kathleen: This is somewhere near the anniversary of 120 articles on Biden in one week by the NYT.
Citizen Alan
@mrmoshpotato: it was that arrogant blowhard motherfucker chris matthews who claimed that because obama had orange juice instead of coffee at some diner it proved he was out of touch with working class america.
Kathleen
@Baud: It would be comical to watch how WaPOOP and NYT would try to spin it.
lowtechcyclist
@Chief Oshkosh:
Speak for yourself! 😁
Ruckus
@Soprano2:
but I don’t think that’s standard practice now.
It’s not as far as this old fart knows, because I’ve gotten a couple of tests but none in a number of years.
Bill Arnold
@Sure Lurkalot:
Wow. And I would bet real money that Mr. Trump did not write that.
Here’s the text:
Also, full of lies. I have reasonable confidence (some out of band information, plus some public video) that a part of the Steele Dossier that was “discredited” was in fact 98 percent true. (That part would put him in prison, were he to be tried for it.)
The HB “laptop” was similar. It did indeed have all the hallmarks of a Russian or Russia-affiliated hack-and-drop operation as part of a political influence operation. In late 2019, the information was being shopped around in Eastern Europe, and GOP operatives were signaling intent to do a HB laptop influence operation late in the election cycle. That was a vast amount of time to prep the press to be suspicious.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Tony Jay: Ever since his announcement that the Epstein files were forged by the Clintons, Obama, Biden, etc, I’ve figured he commissioned somebody in DOJ to author new Certified Real Epstein Files (TM) implicating every Democrat and stating prominently on every page that Trump never met Epstein.
Ruckus
@Citizen Alan:
So to be a working class American one has to drink coffee?
I had a sip once, and found out that I HATE coffee. With a passion.
Trivia Man
@Anyway: I dint think he stole it – my view is the football organization (FIFA?) intentionally gave it to him to suck up for the voming world cup.
zhena gogolia
@Ruckus: Hmmm I feel that way about tea. I love coffee but haven’t been able to drink it for many years.
Kathleen
@zhena gogolia: What should we give the NYT in honor of this accomplishment!? It takes guts and grace to malign and hound a decent, honest, hard working former President with cancer. Can we order something online from a toxic waste dump?
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: NYT is a toxic radioactive dump with a long half life. And how many articles on Hillary’s emails?
Madeleine
@RevRick: I hope this action will spread.
Bill Arnold
@Kathleen:
A stylized Hitler statuette.
Old School
@Ruckus:
Well, there’s your problem. It’s an acquired taste. You probably didn’t like your first beer either.
Harrison Wesley
@Citizen Alan: Reminds me of the boxers vs briefs nonsense in the Clinton years. Of course,if Trump was asked that, he’d probably reply “It Depends.”
WTFGhost
@Ruckus: I’ve gotten too used to espresso, so most coffee tastes like dirty water to me, but, of course, I can’t say that, or I’m tagged as elitist, which makes me glad not to be a politician. (I make mine at roughly 2tbl grounds per 16oz mug, plus an extra 2tbl for the pot (yes, just like with tea; and if you don’t like it, hot water will dilute the flavor!) That’s for coffee, of course, espresso is different, and rarely drunk out of 16oz mugs.
I suppose I could see it as surprising if someone doesn’t drink coffee, but not elitist. Of course, if you say you’re a vegetarian, or vegan, a lot of people “remember” you were all holier than thou about your dietary choices, even if you merely mentioned them to the waitstaff. Maybe lack of coffee was seen as the preachy, healthy, choice.
Ruckus
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
The entire concept of a cult is to hide something.
Now most of the people in the cult see the cult as the road to follow. What I’m saying is that a cult has a premise that is all about those in it and how to be better than everyone else. As they belong to a cult that automatically makes them not in any way better.
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: Strong tea is the nectar of gods. I am surprised you don’t like tea, since you are such an Anglophile.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
Nope, the 1/8 mark will be Tuesday at 4 a.m. Eastern time.
There are 1461 days in a Presidential administration; 1461/8 = 182.625, or 182 and 5/8 days. Sunday noon is just 181 days from January 20 at noon. Another one and 5/8 days would get you to Tuesday at 3 a.m. But we’re on Daylight Savings Time, and 4 a.m. DST = 3 a.m. Standard time. So Tuesday at 4 a.m. is the 1/8 mark of this monstrosity.
Yes, I’m a calendar math geek. How’d you guess? 😉
Kathleen
@Baud: Right with you and I agree and care.
Ruckus
@Old School:
Actually I did like my first beer. And first hard liquor taste – even more.
I did decide long ago that alcohol was not in any way a positive and haven’t had any in very long time. And I’ve seen this proven over and over and over……
Trivia Man
@Elizabelle: It is infuriating to have people tell me, “you are the boy who cried wolf!! Every election you say the same thing – THE SUPREME COURT IS ON THE LINE!! So i just tune that out.”
Dumb asses. It IS on the line every presidential election and it is ALWAYS a hair-on-fire emergency. Proof: 6 traitors with lifetime jobs.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
So Trump really lost control.
WTFGhost
@Old School: Heh. I knew a woman who said she hated coffee, and her friends tried to “fix” the problem, up to and including day old roasted, Kona mountain, with cream that had been in a cow within the past 24 hours, to see if they could get her past her “initial dislike.”
Then one day, out of the blue, she mentioned a quote from Spider Robinson, about coffee that tastes as good as it smells, and said she never understood that – she hated the scent of coffee!
And probably about 30 people in the chatroom had a head-desk moment simultaneously, about how no one ever asked her if she enjoyed the smell of coffee. It’s true – the aroma of coffee is the nice part, and if you don’t like that, you probably won’t even like a tiny sip of the finest crema from the best espresso (which, to me, is the perfect essence of “why I drink coffee”).
(Coffee geek here: Why “day old roasted”? Coffee beans have to off-gas for a day or so after roasting. That’s why your coffee beans might come with a tiny pressure-filter on the bag, to allow pressure out, but none in. Now, for real complication, ask how Kona Mountain should be roasted! Some would say a barely-done cinnamon roast, others will say “just at the start of first crack,” and me… I realized I was too tired to follow the debate, so I’ll just lean back and drink the coffee, except for the stuff shit out by civets – I do have my standards, and “no sloppy seconds” seems to apply here.)
montanareddog
@Geminid: They can smell that sweet FIFA graft.
Kathleen
@mrmoshpotato: Don’t forget arugula gate and I believe his elitist mustard choices also came under fire.
geg6
@Bill Arnold:
OMG, he’s freakin’ losing it. Hilarious, but frightening to see. This will surely shut everyone up about Epstein! Yeah, dude, sure. Can I get you a cup of copium?
Archon
My theory about why this Epstein case hits MAGA so hard is that if you believe the conspiracy theory about Epstein running a pedophile cabal for liberals it was the last and only piece of info where you could still convince yourself that Trump and his voters are the good guys and liberals are the bad guys.
Without that cognitive dissonance reaches it breaking point because you have nothing left to point to why voting for Trump wasn’t an act of cruelty and heartlessness.
rikyrah
I realize that I’m not going to understand this Epstein mess.
He was a vile, evil man who destroyed the lives of many young girls.
And, the Orange Menace was his best friend. …yet, MAGA overlooks that part.
Makes no damn sense.
WTFGhost
@Bill Arnold: And remember, there were two facts found about the “laptop”:
In short, it was a nothing burger, no roll, skip the lettuce wrap and condiments.
Miss Bianca
@Sure Lurkalot: oh, myyyyy….
Sure Lurkalot
@Bill Arnold: From the screed:
Democrats stick together like glue? Now I’m REALLY CURIOUS as to who wrote this…
rikyrah
Jeff (Gutenberg Parenthesis) Jarvis
@jeffjarvis
The fascists are tearing down democracy, brick by brick.
DOJ hits states with broad requests for voter rolls, election data
x.com/jeffjarvis/status/1945441898841120943
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat: And don’t forget Russia — I’ve never been to England, but in Russia you have to drink tea all the time. I don’t like the taste and it doesn’t agree with me digestively.
Sometimes I blame my mother, who always gave us toast and tea when we were sick, so I associate it with illness.
Ramona
@Bill Arnold: Whoever wrote FFOTUS rant here had in their mind the image of his bathroom full of unclassified documents hence the “Hunter laptop was in his bathroom.”
Old School
Ramona
@Harrison Wesley: AHAHAHAHAHAHAH!
JML
@Sure Lurkalot: it’s all projection, all of the time.
I really wonder if anything can break the fever that keeps people following the Orange Idiot. I get it from the electeds and administration people; that’s bog-standard corruption and grifting. It’s disgusting and shameful and borderline treason at times…but it’s not hard to understand. But the rank and file, man…what will it take? Is Epstein enough?
Mai Naem mobile
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: are they going to be presented in a golden folder with an authenticated autopen djt signed certificate? Limited edition for
$199.99$200(I forgot he’s getting rid of the penny.)rikyrah
Rep. Anna V. Eskamani, PhD![]()
(@AnnaForFlorida) posted at 11:41 AM on Tue, Jul 15, 2025:
If you’re wondering how much public money the state is spending to staff this immigrant detention center in the middle of the Everglades, look no further as we have the contract for CRS (Critical Response Strategy). They are the ones “managing” the facility. t.co/ejmd0HGDoQ
(https://x.com/AnnaForFlorida/status/1945161750296326444?t=TlvkpgzklcMO4C-RajXMMg&s=03)
WTFGhost
@Ruckus: Alcohol has kept me alive. It numbs neurological pain in a way that nothing else quite does.
It’s also quite dangerous, though in my case, never in the immediate term.
montanareddog
@Old School:
Trump’s going to fire Powell, even though it is blatantly illegal. And the Supreme Court is going to find some way to approve it. So to whom does John Roberts appeal when Trump fires him or ACB because of some perception of insufficient loyalty?
As was said earlier in the thread, the SC set him above the law and no one is safe.
New Deal democrat
TACO T—-p is going to learn what Bill Clinton said he did: you don’t want to F#§£ with the Bond market.
On rumors that he is close to firing Powell “for cause,” 30 year Treasuries are up over 5% for the 2nd time this year – which is the highest since 2007. And the US$ has slid over 10% since Inauguration Day and is sliding more today.
Both of these reflect a decline in confidence in the US, and both will have a negative effect on the economy.
E.T.A.:
montanareddog:
@Old School:
Per the above, the Bond and currency markets are not amused.
Also, the Fed has no control over long rates. Lowering rates to 0% in response to inflation will just cause inflation and interest rates to go even higher, causing an old-fashioned “bust.”
geg6
@rikyrah:
It doesn’t have to make sense. It’s MAGA.
Though, now that I’ve spent some time the last few days to try to understand what exactly this is all about, I have discovered some logical consistency to it. Seems the whole Epstein conspiracy stuff and Trump’s image among them as a crusader against sex traffickers (and yes, I know…but this is Q’s entire reason for being) has been accepted into the larger MAGA movement and also among the manosphere. It may be the one issue that unites them. And Trump and his flunkies talked about releasing these records incessantly during the campaign. All part of his image as savior and the claim of the greatest transparency of any administration ever. And now they are trying to shut down any information about the Epstein case, claiming there are no relevant files, that only two indictments were sought regarding an international sex trafficking ring and altering film of a prison hallway outside Epstein’s cell as he was dying. And some are now just noticing that it was AG Bill Barr who was forced to bring the indictments of Epstein and Maxwell, who arrested and jailed Epstein and who was nominally in charge of the terms of his incarceration. Now, I’m no conspiracy theorist. In fact, everyone I know would label me a skeptic on most things that aren’t knowable (hence my atheism). But even I have to wonder why all this panic from the WH?
MazeDancer
“I don’t want your support anymore,” as Trump just blasted to the MAGA base who want the Epstein transparency to which they feel entitled, may go down in history in the “famous last words” column.
But firing Jerome Powell will change the subject. Bond and stock market tanking can do that.
Sure Lurkalot
@JML:
Ten years since he came down the escalator to a throng of paid “supporters”.
He garnered more votes every time he was on the ballot.
It’s a cult. A cult of hatred and spite. Fueled by dittoheads like Limbaugh and the cretins at Fox.
Ruckus
@rikyrah:
Makes no damn sense.
Cults never do. People join and follow a cult mainly because they have nothing else. No direction, no basic concept of humanity, they just exist. Now a lot of things could under that concept be considered a cult. The boy and girl scouts. OK with one small exception. The scouts have a concept, that anyone can belong because they are a part of humanity. A cult has members because it adheres to premises that separate one from actual humanity. I give you scientology. (Had a sister in it) That separation is built in, that as a member of the cult, you are better, more human. And I actually can’t think of a cult that makes anyone better and/or more human.
jlowe
Unfortunately, you have to keep fighting because implementing strategic indifference and hoping for Type 2 diabetes and antibiotic resistance to winnow down the numbers of MAGAts so they can no longer distort electoral politics inflicts suffering on millions who do not deserve this.
Harrison Wesley
@montanareddog: The Chief Justice needs some remedial Niemoller.
Captain C
@Bill Arnold: That will look good next to the Pulitzer that Walter Duranty got them for his stenography of Stalin’s propaganda.
Omnes Omnibus
@zhena gogolia: The James Bond of the novels despised tea. He associated it with middle class drab suburbia. I premise that’s was one of Fleming’s personal taste coming through along with the fondness for late night scrabbled eggs and champagne.
WTA: I like both tea and coffee. Also late night scrambled eggs (and champagne if I was still drinking).
zhena gogolia
@Omnes Omnibus: I always marvel in the various detective stories in literature and film when they think the best thing for someone who just discovered a decapitated body is a cup of tea.
Geminid
@Sure Lurkalot: When Trump left office after his first term, I believed his support would fade over time. I likened his charisma to an unstable, toxic radio-isotope with a half-life of so many months or a few years at most.
After a while though, I understood that Trump’s attraction is more like a prion disease similar to “Mad Cow” disease. Once people get it they rarely shake it. I just hope the rate of infection has dropped with him in office the second time around.
Eolirin
Things souring for the administration without us having any power to stop anything they want to do may not work out to our benefit…
brendancalling
@New Deal democrat: I’ve seen those comments by PH. I understand where they’re coming from. George Conway made a similar comment several months ago:
Good question.
Steve in the ATL
@Omnes Omnibus: I read those books when I was 12-13 years old. I’d hate to read one now and see how poorly they have aged!
The modern version of Bond is Alex Mason, written by David Archer and Blake Banner. Painful to read. Though, like Bazooka Joe comics, still better than anything Brad Thor has written.
Ruckus
@WTFGhost:
Some humans seem to be more attached to alcohol than others. Some drink in moderation, some drink to hide, some drink to forget. None of this changes anything but the person indulging, especially if they over indulge. And it rarely helps or changes the situation for the better. (I was a mental health counselor for a few years, the stories of humans really doesn’t move all that far from the middle. But when it does it really can be a problem. Most needed a little better picture of life, but not a complete overhaul)
Steve in the ATL
@zhena gogolia:
“I’ll put on a kettle!”
Ridiculous–everyone knows that the correct thing is a crystal glass of top shelf scotch.
Omnes Omnibus
@zhena gogolia: Or a brandy.
Baud
Harrison Wesley
@Ruckus: As a long term alcoholic, I agree with you.
Trollhattan
Did you know Fred Trump Senior is the one who fingered [eww] Ted Bundy? You could look it up.
Baud
Layer8Problem
@Ruckus: “That separation is built in, that as a member of the cult, you are better, more human.”
One might say “More human than human,” which is how they probably think of themselves, but that also gets that White Zombie song in one’s head and these are exactly the wrong times for that kind of background music.
Eolirin
Though I will note it’s telling how completely incompetent Pam Bondi is here, given her complete inability to handle this situation when Bill Barr was able to handle getting the press to completely ignore the contents of the Mueller report just by telling them it said the opposite of what it said.
The quality of the hires is through the basement.
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: Do you drink it with milk and sugar or lemon and honey without milk?
Trollhattan
If there’s one thing Donny likes it’s an old-fashioned bust.
lowtechcyclist
@NotMax:
Ooh, that’s baaaaad.
Sister Golden Bear
@Princess:
Aside from his current dementia, Trump is an extreme narcissist, and they create their own reality moment by moment. Which is one of the most maddening things about dealing with them—their reality can literally shift 180 degrees from what it was a minute ago. It’s not gaslighting, they genuinely believe it themselves.
To narcissists, reality is whatever furthers their two driving motivation: get adoration and avoid feeling shamed. (Narcissists have no personal sense of shame, but they’re exquisitely sensitive about being seen as shameful to others.) So previously, it was useful to Trump’s ambitions (and need to dominate others) to believe there was an Epstein list, now it’s not. Simple as that.
rikyrah
BaseballHistoryNut
@nut_history
The Hank Aaron tribute they just had at the #MLBAllStarGame is one of the greatest sports tributes I’ve ever seen. Well done
@MLB
x.com/nut_history/status/1945312411051024765
Steve in the ATL
@schrodingers_cat: and teabag in cup or in pot? Tastes completely different, according to the Brits, a people known for their refined culinary palettes.
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: Tea is soothing it gives you minute to assess your options. Its warm and nice to hold while you ponder the mysteries of life.
Coffee on the other hand is bitter swill.
schrodingers_cat
@Steve in the ATL: Loose tea leaves are the best. I use an electric kettle. I make one cup at a time. Fresh tea is the best.
Most of the good culinary traditions of England come from elsewhere. In the case of tea it is China.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Interesting. MLB has been getting some flak for leaning into the anti-DEI crusade.
rikyrah
Loni Love
@LoniLove
Barack Obama and Michelle Obama hit back at divorce speculation on her “IMO” podcast.
x.com/LoniLove/status/1945502051347177722
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat: I’ve had it every which way. I even hate herbal tea, which I used to be able to stand.
Steve in the ATL
@Baud:
they did to suck up to me as my office has a view of the ballpark.
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat: Haha, I love the flavor of coffee. Coffee ice cream is my absolute favorite. Tea tastes bitter to me! (I do like green tea ice cream, though.)
brendancalling
@MazeDancer:
wait what? He just sent that out?
Paul in KY
@J.: Could have a Wilson Situation and Melanoma becomes the defacto POTUS. Probably would be an upgrade…
WTFGhost
Yes… and some of us, are in real, honest-to-goodness pain, that is going untreated. The lucky ones of us (like me) know that we’re in pain, and recognize when we’re using alcohol to try to stay alive.
I’m not saying any part of your viewpoint is wrong – I’m just saying, for good or ill, alcohol has helped me survive so far, and, the reason it has helped me stay alive, is, it numbs a kind of pain that affects me greatly.
Baud
@Steve in the ATL:
Can you actually watch a game from your office?
Anyway
Even moreso – sweet Qatari/Saudi/ME grift. They know how to buy off US officials and hangers-on.
Steve in the ATL
@Baud: no, the bastards built the walls too high! A Wrigley Field setup would have been nice.
Gin & Tonic
@Steve in the ATL: Ahem. Palate. Literally.
French Onion Soup
@Eolirin:
If this comment were lobbed at a liberal women doing worse than a male it would rightly be torn down as misogyny. If misogyny is wrong we don’t get a pass on doing it because Bondi is a Trumper.
Paul in KY
@Ohio Mom: I think I would take the fake hillbilly over TFG.
Old School
@Trollhattan:
Pretty sure he prefers new improved ones.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve in the ATL: I was around the same age when I read them.
Steve in the ATL
@Gin & Tonic: confidential to the United Kingdom: zing!
Tony Jay
@Geminid:
Just very, very narrowly outside it. Barely a decade or three.
The short version is I think something like this had to happen. The aggressive authoritarianism of Starmer’s cadre in pursuit of a pretty textbook centre-right policy agenda has left no room within Labour for MPs who want to do anything worthwhile. It’s not just that the current leadership whittles down any seemingly ‘progressive’ policy to a Tory-friendly nub, it’s that they actively reject any policies that left-wing MPs could support because those MPs support them. There’s no compromise, just constant factional oppositionalism.
That doesn’t mean the planned new Leftwing party can or will get off the ground in the face of Media hostility and the perennial finding issues. It just means that Labour as it exists isn’t a vehicle for Labour policy and probably never will be again, not without a wholesale bloodbath and a purge of newnewlabourinc that I just can’t see happening.
I’ll probably vent some sort of longer form rant about it when and if I ever get the time.
fourmorewars
I’m mildly surprised Ms. Cracker didn’t tweak Mehdi Hassan’s bluesky, just a little, for his msm-ish pass on the 16 trillion being ‘unsubstantiated.’ I mean, that’s unsubstantiated by about 23 galaxies, ain’t it?
WTFGhost
@zhena gogolia: If tea tastes bitter, make sure you steep it for less than 3 minutes, and see if the bitter taste is still there. If you steep tea too long, more tannin will get in to the tea, so, if you like strong tea, use a bit extra loose leaf tea (if you’re a purist/snob), or an extra tea bag, to make it stronger, without steeping too long.
I find good tea has a pleasant flavor to it – but I’ve tasted it (at least in iced tea) all my life, so there’s a cultural expectation for me.
Paul in KY
@Chief Oshkosh: Sir Thomas the weirdo (Not Cromwell, head chopped off by Henry VIII) said basically the same thing.
zhena gogolia
@WTFGhost: I’ve had tea made in every possible way. I don’t like it.
I used to be able to drink iced tea on a hot day, but now I don’t do caffeine.
Paul in KY
@different-church-lady: 24 was ‘Fool me twice…Buwahahahhahahaha, you fools will soon know my wrath!!!!!’
Paul in KY
@Geminid: If Miller has any say, it will be pork of some kind…
Trollhattan
Your hourly position declaration, updated on the quarter hour.
How about them Yankees?
rikyrah
Jay McGill Says Abolish the Political Extremes (@Jay_McGill94) posted at 0:15 PM on Tue, Jul 15, 2025:
I will never shut the hell up about 2016 (or 2024)
The Supreme Court was on the line in BOTH elections.
Chances are that Trump adds AT LEAST one justice before he leaves.
(https://x.com/Jay_McGill94/status/1945170363484078111?t=LVYyfYUvdyS0MtyI2PpCpQ&s=03)
Baud
Via Blue sky
zhena gogolia
@Trollhattan: He’s just trying to quiet the Epstein story, I guess. And inspire that little spurt of dread and terror that seems to be his major inspiration for how to “lead” the nation.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: Oh, but the botched Afghanistan withdrawal . . .
rikyrah
Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) posted at 11:01 AM on Tue, Jul 15, 2025:
Crockett: “I need people of color to understand that the scheme of the Republicans has consistently been to make sure that they mute our voices. I fully anticipate that’s where they are going with this map.” t.co/tZigfd1JXh
(https://x.com/atrupar/status/1945151722201944324?t=Pk0V3JJznc57cDBAnhJarw&s=03)
Paul in KY
@Baud: Maybe Andrew Jackson, vis a vis Indians/British
sab
@Geminid: NYC is so full of itself. My city elected a young Pakistani Muslim guy as mayor and nobody (except the FOP) even raised an eyebrow.
rikyrah
CathyNotToday2![]()
(@Cathy2NotToday) posted at 7:43 AM on Tue, Jul 15, 2025:
Wait … not only are Floridians paying these obscene salaries .. ICE AGENTS ARE GETTING A $1500 BONUS for every person they arrest ?
That makes them taxpayer funded bounty hunters .. no wonder they are masked
(https://x.com/Cathy2NotToday/status/1945101902330401221?t=IeqDt-yHpTqIF_PtyVEgIQ&s=03)
Paul in KY
@Betty Cracker: Well said, Betty.
rikyrah
The Tennessee Holler (@TheTNHoller) posted at 9:55 PM on Mon, Jul 14, 2025:
WASH POST: “Trump has declared millions of undocumented immigrants no longer eligible for a bond hearing…”
Enriching their private prison company friends who make money the longer they keep them locked up, often with no criminal record. t.co/IePy9Jkg4W t.co/b9ThjbRYp0
(https://x.com/TheTNHoller/status/1944953956389593406?t=F0quKgJSvlMlG975zmDsAg&s=03)
Bupalos
@Geminid: Trump support is not static. Like, at all. That we think “You can’t talk these representative individuals out of their position” is somehow new is probably because the internet in its current form is only really a couple decades old.
Trump does have a slice of fanatical and fatalistic support. But he also lost a shitload of voters between ’16 and ’20 and between ’20 and ’24. He just added a lot too.
A radical reform/outsider has a certain shelf-life in power, which has been extended in his case by some dramatic contingencies. But time keeps on ticking, and Q/Epstein reaches into the deepest part of his reform/outsider image.
I think Dems are about to be presented with an opportunity, but they probably aren’t ready to seize it.
JML
@rikyrah: I was on this train myself in 2016, 2020, and 2024. I was frequently laughed at.
While I don’t expect any of the liberal justices to exit during the Demented Elderly Golfer’s term, I suspect there will be lots of pressure on Thomas to retire before the midterms so the DEG can appoint a fresh Nazi to the bench. (there will be pressure on Roberts, but I suspect he’s uninterested in leaving and while there may be some push on Bishop Alito he’s really uninterested since he now controls the court even if he doesn’t have the title of Chief he badly wants)
sab
@Trivia Man: So Barr’s reputation repair tour was successful.
sab
@Soprano2: My dad with dementia passed repeatedly. I probably wouldn’t pass because I have other things on my mind besides that stupid test.
Trollhattan
@JML: What about Alito? He’s 75 and also has a weirdass wife, like Thomas. Okay, maybe not like-like but she’s sure a True Believer who loves hippie punching.
Mai Naem mobile
@MazeDancer: i don’t think Lutnick or Bessant want the bond market or stock market tanking. Also they want to be able to show their faces at their NYC and/or FL social events.
Layer8Problem
@sab: Yeah, we’re just awful.
Omnes Omnibus
@French Onion Soup: Bullshit.
Ramona
@Steve in the ATL: Is a culinary palette something one spits on before dipping a brush in to apply to a canvas on an easel or did you mean ‘palate’.
Paul in KY
@Math Guy: I wish. Prepare to be disappointed on that.
Kathleen
@Soprano2: I’m on Medicare Advantage and I think the only times I took that test were during Medicare home visits, the about 3 years ago and then again this year. But I don’t recall having taken it for every home visit or yearly Medicare appointment, which I need to schedule for next month. Have to admit I struggled with the clock the first time.
Mai Naem mobile
@JML: i think you’re underestimating the tfg people. I think they’re part mafia who threaten everybody. If tfg becomes unpopular enough , trying to push Roberts and Thomas out before the midterms might actually backfire if there are enough GOP Senators worried about losing their sears and not going along. Anyway, Thomas would resign at any point for a GOP POTUS given a large enough bribe.
MazeDancer
@brendancalling: As you have, no doubt, learned by now, yes, Trump told his Epstein Transparency Longing followers to take a hike.
QAnonn weeps.
sab
@Layer8Problem: Well, the FOP runs your city.
Bupalos
@rikyrah: I’m sure it was incredibly impressive in person as a technical production. It left me a little cold because they didn’t nod in any way to the social significance. Vin Scully’s statement about it being ‘a great moment for the United States and the world’ was edited down to just that, which left it meaningless. My kids were watching with me, didn’t know who Aaron was or why this would be happening, and without my explanation never would. They’d have been like “so a Barry Bonds celebration would be even more lit??!”
Which… I don’t know. Maybe it would be.
Paul in KY
@Tony Jay: I hope they don’t read your recommendations…
Kathleen
@Bill Arnold: And Adolf sports a MAGA cap!
Ramona
@French Onion Soup: Hard disagree! She is a Trumpist corrupt Attorney General who happens to be a woman and who has dealt with embarrassing official information in a similar way to a Trumpist corrupt AG whose effort was resoundingly successful. Pointing this out is not antifeminist.
Eolorin’s point leads me to surmise that Bondi failed where Barr succeeded because Barr’s audience was the rational world that by virtue of being rational is willing to factor in new information which paradoxically renders them more susceptible to being bamboozled in certain circumstances. Bondi has to satisfy irrational conspiracy theorists who are loath to surrender their sacred cow. She treated them as though they were rational. Unlike Barr, she had more flexibility about when she could have released the unsigned letter. I wonder about the DOJ’s calculus with respect to their timing.
Ruckus
@Chief Oshkosh:
Seems obvious to me, but it didn’t play well here when I brought it up those years ago…
I’ve found in my over 3/4 of a century that humans like “normalcy,” whatever the hell that is. A long time ago I was a mental health counselor and for most people their problem was that they just didn’t see a common answer to a common problem. A bit by bit exposure to that common answer almost always was all they needed to see what to do, to change and therefore fix the problem. A small percentage needed massive help with actually being able to see outside of the tiny box they seemed to live in and whose walls were all they could see. A much smaller percentage needed almost constant backup and exposure to rational thought processing because they really couldn’t make out anything that a normal human could plainly see. It was almost as if a full grown adult was stuck in nursery school.
Trivia Man
@rikyrah: except they edited vin scully’s to remove a reference to aaron’s race. (Hint: he was not white and that was a huge party of the aaron/ ruth story back then. But it will hurt some fee fees now if we mention henry aaron was black)
Paul in KY
@rikyrah: It does, when you believe that to MAGA, shitting on brown people and just in general behaving like a complete douche, is what they really want in a POTUS and the Epstein Saga was just a convenient cudgel to whop Hillary etc. over the head with.
Except for some QANON whackos who really believed it, MAGA doesn’t really care what Epstein did, as they know in their hearts that TACO did the same or wanted to do same, etc.
Omnes Omnibus
@WTFGhost: Sometimes people just don’t like something and it’s not because they haven’t had it prepared properly.
Eolirin
@Math Guy: It looks like the senate is going to pass the house recission package despite initial opposition, so I’m thinking not so much.
Or if that does happen it’ll be too late anyway. They’ve already done everything they needed congress for.
Kathleen
@zhena gogolia: I don’t like most teas either, especially herbals. Green Tea which is supposed to be good for you upsets my stomach. I drink a lot of iced tea with lemon and no sweetener and hot tea rarely. Coffee OTOH…Caffeine and Carbs are my 2 favorite food groups.
Trivia Man
@Trollhattan: key word here is “unless…”. They are already floating the story jp committed fraud in the building renovation project so that gives “cause.”
JML
@Trollhattan: I’m sure they’d love the get a fresh Nazi to replace Bishop Alito, but he’s finally getting to write his name on majority opinions re-writing the law and constitution into his preferred white anglo-saxon evangelical christian nationalist fantasy. They’re not getting him out with dynamite.
Thomas can be bribed much more easily. He’s desperate to be rich.
Kathleen
@zhena gogolia: One of our best known local ice creams in Cincinnati is Graeters, and my favorite flavor is Chocolate Mocha Chip. They make home made ice cream AND chocolate so it’s a wonderful combination! Big honking chunks of chocolate. Sigh. I need to pick some up tonight from Kroger!
Kathleen
@Paul in KY: In some way I think he’s much worst than Trump.
Eolirin
@Ramona: She also could have just lied in a way that would have been less likely to create blowback! No one in the actual media was going to call her on it either way.
You don’t go from I have the list to there is no list. You do something like, I have the list but I can’t release it because doing so would jeopardize ongoing investigations and eventual prosecutions, but don’t worry it’ll all come out as soon as we start making arrests, and then you never make arrests.
Paul in KY
@schrodingers_cat: I drink mine with milk/sugar. Mom from Lancashire and all that.
Eolirin
@sab: NYC has a very large population of conservative to very conservative Jews. It’s a slightly more effective wedge issue with that population.
Paul in KY
@WTFGhost: Hope you have a nice drink to help you out!
Ramona
@Trollhattan: From what she was saying in the wake of FlagGate, I really got the impression he’d decided to retire if Trump won a second term. She said something to the effect that soon when all this nonsense was behind them she would hang her antipride flag.
Omnes Omnibus
@JML: With Alito you need to substitute Catholic for evangelical. Alito wants an American Franco (still dead).
Omnes Omnibus
@Paul in KY: Milk in first or tea in first?
Paul in KY
@Kathleen: Agree that in some ways he is worse than TACO. However, he’s not cray cray like TACO and I think that would bring more economic/foreign policy stability than we get now from TACO.
I did have to think long and hard before I wrote that.
AWOL
@sab: Do you think the population of NYC, the wealth of NYC, and the very powerful people who call NYC home might have a tad to do with the fuss in NYC over your Pakistani mayor in another location?
Paul in KY
@Omnes Omnibus: We’re on-the-go Murcans dontchaknow and as such we just go with milk in 2nd. I know that’s technically ghastly, but hard decisions have to be made when you are perpetually on the go, etc. etc.
Ramona
@Eolirin: Exactly! In a way that goes to my puzzlement regarding timing. This letter seemed like they wanted to put the matter to rest once and for all instead of the simpler and surer way of stringing MAGA along in their usual way as you pointed out.
My guess is that their overconfidence got boosted in the wake of their success in getting the Big Awful Bill passed and they figured this was the least bad time to explode this grenade.
zhena gogolia
@Kathleen: Sounds great!
Barry
@artem1s:
“Johnson is a zealot. He probably truly believes that there is nothing there. He is surfing the ‘whatever God means to happen will happen” wave. He’s not in that list so why should he be concerned.”
Remember that the GOP House just blocked revealing the evidence a day or two ago. He’s saying one thing in daylight, and another thing in the dark.
Geminid
@Eolirin: I read in this morning’s Politico Playbook that:
For anyone interested, here is the link to Politico’s article about this:
politico.com/news/2025/07/15/mamdani-expected-to-clarify-his-position-on-globalize-the-intifada-0045…
RevRick
@Baud: Jesus saves! Moses invests!
(I’m 1/4 Azhkenazi Jew, so I can get away with this joke)
Omnes Omnibus
@Paul in KY: Milk in first.
Ruckus
@WTFGhost:
In some parts of this country help to see the bigger picture and how to live in it is available. I was once upon a time a mental health counselor in a city who most would recognize the name of in SoCal. And most people at one point or another need some guidance, be it mental, physical, educational or spiritual. Being human and doing it anywhere close to rational takes effort and at least a tad of the concept of who and what each of us is. We often get stuck in one place with no map on how to move forward. There are people that can show you your map. But you have to ask for that. I’ve found, over my 76 years that almost all of us need that help at some point. It may need a simple answer that isn’t obvious to the person, or it may be a complicated thing that several people need answers to. It’s humanity and most of us get that need for that help on some occasion. It may take a sentence or it may take a book. But that book need is very rare. I got my help in learning how to help others, and in listening to them and helping them. Some parents have been in situations that gave them that answer and they can teach their kids, but my experience is that is somewhat rare. Being a parent can be rewarding, but raising, feeding, caring for a family takes effort. And most of us leave at some time and go out on our own – the circle of life.
Barry
In terms of releasing the Epstein files, remember that Trump gets away with it. He’s very rarely held to account, and The Base accepts *everything
brendancalling
@MazeDancer:
That is hilarious.
Anyway
just kidding, sab …
Paul in KY
@Omnes Omnibus: I am aware of that method :-)
Edit: Just read what you linked to and found it very interesting. Thanks! My aunties made tea in a kettle and for them they added milk first (to cup) and then poured the brewed tea from kettle onto the milk and then (I think) finally added the sugar.
We didn’t use the kettle and just poured the boiling water from tea kettle onto the bag in the cup, etc. etc.
Martin
@sab: Well, I doubt your town has a couple of billionaires that are willing to flood the zone with attacks because they are afraid the new guy might reveal that capitalism can’t solve every problem and that Israel might not be the most morally upstanding government.
Putting aside Cuomo’s many other flaws, his willingness be the messenger for some of the richest people in the country on those points did not endear him to a lot of his previous supporters.
Anyway
Not just the base, but the MSM, FTFNYT, CNN etc
JGreen
@Professor Bigfoot: One Big Beautiful Constitution, of course–if you know what I mean and I think you do.
Professor Bigfoot
@chemiclord: Dead thread no doubt- I’ve been busy! but that’s the part that scares me.
What fresh hell comes next? The 1787 at least had the pretense of creating a free and fair government; if it’s dead, are we inevitably going to face that autocracy (the one that killed it, even)?
Professor Bigfoot
343 comments great googly moogly you guys have been BUSY while I was out!
Matt McIrvin
@mappy!:
Aren’t they going to be the first ones under?
Chris T.
@Professor Bigfoot:
Being the annoying pedant I am, I’d ask if they wanted a 12 hour or 24 hour clock and whether they wanted solar or sidereal time.
(When I got out of my most recent survey they tried a large cities question, and I immediately came back with “by population or land area?”)
“WHAT … is your favorite colour?”
Ruckus
@Princess:
shitforbrains is an old.
Now we all age differently but in the bigger picture we all age out at some point – if we live that long. And that age is different for all of us. Not massively different normally but we are not carbon copies of each other, we don’t see everything the same way nor do we, as I call it, age out at the same rate or age. shitforbrains is showing signs of aging out. I know people older than him by a ways who showed zero signs of aging out at his age or even older. (Have a 99 yr old neighbor for one, and she is aging out, but 2 years ago showed almost none of the signs) I’ve known others that in their mid 90s that did not show any signs at his age. Or even somewhat later. Now we all age out, it’s part of life, unless we go in say an accident or an illness. And we all do this at different ages and in somewhat different manners. But generally, if we live into what I call old fartitus we show signs of aging out. shitforbrains is showing rather normal signs.
Ruckus
@Soprano2:
Too many patients, not enough doctors in the US to do that. And healthcare is too expensive for many to have that level of care.
Ruckus
@Professor Bigfoot:
It is a shit show precisely because of who is running it.
I believe that a lot of his vocal supporters are because of who and what shitforbrains is.
Do they want a government that works for all of us? I seriously doubt that. They want to win. And win decisively. They are greedy, they want everything. They don’t look at the world with wide eyes, only the very narrowest look, the one that involves them. And them alone.
Canadian Reader Bob
Very enjoyable cruising Charlie’s comment sections and witnessing the crisis of faith first hand. Even more enjoyable is helping them along.
WaterGirl
@Canadian Reader Bob: Welcome!