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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Anne Laurie is a fucking hero in so many ways. ~ Betty Cracker

Innocent people do not delay justice.

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

Our messy unity will be our strength.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

To the privileged, equality seems like oppression.

Live so that if you miss a day of work people aren’t hoping you’re dead.

Shut up, hissy kitty!

T R E 4 5 O N

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.

A fool as well as an oath-breaker.

I would try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

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

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

Books are my comfort food!

Disappointing to see gov. newsom with his finger to the wind.

Not rolling over. fuck you, make me.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

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

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

A norm that restrains only one side really is not a norm – it is a trap.

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You are here: Home / Politics / Domestic Politics / Messaging!

Messaging!

by Betty Cracker|  October 8, 202511:35 am| 251 Comments

This post is in: Domestic Politics, Open Threads, Politics, Republican Stupidity

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I’ve been traveling and doing fun things instead of doom-scrolling, so it’s entirely possible my limited news intake offers a skewed view of what’s happening during the shutdown. For the past several days, I’ve been looking at views like this instead of a screen:

View of a misty mountain range with a river cutting through the valley.

But from what I have seen, some elected Democrats are pointing out the obvious — Trump is nuts, and the fascistic actions he’s taken, such as ordering federal agents and troops to assault American cities, are based on delusional thinking. Here’s JB Pritzker to the Chicago Tribune:

In a scathing critique of President Donald Trump, Gov. JB Pritzker on Tuesday accused the Republican president of deploying National Guard troops to the Democratic cities of Chicago and Portland based on fixations that stem in part from his being mentally impaired.

“This is a man who’s suffering dementia,” Pritzker said in a telephone interview with the Tribune. “This is a man who has something stuck in his head. He can’t get it out of his head. He doesn’t read. He doesn’t know anything that’s up to date. It’s just something in the recesses of his brain that is effectuating to have him call out these cities.

“And then, unfortunately, he has the power of the military, the power of the federal government to do his bidding, and that’s what he’s doing.”

Right. And here’s Senator Ruben Gallego from earlier this week, when asked if Trump is negotiating with Democrats:

“Look, the President clearly has some kind of dementia, so I think there’s a he’s probably talking to himself, or think he’s talking to a Democrat, but I sincerely doubt that that’s actually he’s actually physically talking to a Democrat.”

This is the way.

Open thread!

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Reader Interactions

251Comments

  1. 1.

    schrodingers_cat

    October 8, 2025 at 11:36 am

    Yeah he is cray cray and unhealthy and decrepit.

  2. 2.

    mrmoshpotato

    October 8, 2025 at 11:40 am

    For the past several days, I’ve been looking at views like this instead of a screen:

    Nice.

  3. 3.

    Old School

    October 8, 2025 at 11:43 am

    He’s talking to RFK Jr.  He’s a Democrat, right?

    (Or Tulsi Gabbard.)

    (Or Trump himself.)

  4. 4.

    kindness

    October 8, 2025 at 11:44 am

    The MSM used to run Biden is old stories constantly because ‘sources’ said he was impaired.  Now the MSM see’s Trump’s impairment daily and sane washes everything.  Just look at how they portrayed Bondi’s Senate testimony yesterday.  The msm sure seems to love them some Republican Daddies.

  5. 5.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    October 8, 2025 at 11:48 am

    This is the way.

    YES!

  6. 6.

    oldster

    October 8, 2025 at 11:48 am

    “This is the way.”

    This is absolutely the way.

    Every Democrat — every sane person of any party or none — must state the obvious out loud:

    Trump is suffering from severe cognitive impairment and decline. And he is getting worse, fast.

  7. 7.

    SFAW

    October 8, 2025 at 11:52 am

    This is the way.

    I’m sorry, but I saw that, and all I could think of was this.

    ETA: But in response to the various comments: yeah, Dems should hammer on his dementia, lying, and fascism every day.

  8. 8.

    cain

    October 8, 2025 at 11:54 am

    I wish our governor was more vocal. Oregon needs to really start pushing hard. I know they are more quiet and doing more legal stuff but given she is LBGTQ I wish she was more vocal

  9. 9.

    trollhattan

    October 8, 2025 at 11:56 am

    In Sleeper they have to operate on The Leader and [spoiler] learn there’s nothing left but his nose. We’re living that, only no orb or orgasmatron.

  10. 10.

    jonas

    October 8, 2025 at 11:58 am

    @kindness: What’s kind of clever about what Dems are doing now is actually going on the record saying Trump is losing it, thereby putting the question out there for reporters to report on (because “people are saying”) and ask Republicans for a response. They’ll over course scream and yell and flail and deny, which will only chum the water more. It’s nice to see people like Pritzger and Gallego finally pick up on how the system works.

  11. 11.

    trollhattan

    October 8, 2025 at 11:58 am

    @cain:

    Gav’s trying to help.

    x.com/GovPressOffice/status/1975793415049941186

  12. 12.

    Betty Cracker

    October 8, 2025 at 12:00 pm

    @cain: My kiddo, also an OR resident, said the same thing.

  13. 13.

    mappy!

    October 8, 2025 at 12:09 pm

    The dementia meme probably has solid legs. Senile Don, talking to imaginary people. He really believes he’s talking to [ fill in the blank ]. Don Dementia.

    Good positive messaging. It’s short. Dance-able.

  14. 14.

    frosty

    October 8, 2025 at 12:10 pm

    I’ve been traveling and doing fun things instead of doom-scrolling…

    Delete your account! /s

  15. 15.

    Boris Rasputin (The Evil Twin)

    October 8, 2025 at 12:12 pm

    To badly paraphrase a line in “Game of Thrones” a stupid king is one matter, a vicious king, another, but a stupid and vicious king is terrifying.

    In his first term, someone noted that Trump would not wander the White house halls at night talking to the portraits as Nixon was supposed to have done. “Nixon knew who everyone was, Trump wouldn’t have a clue.” Now, Trump might wander with a Sharpie, writing down gibberish names on each canvas.

    Also, ICE Nazis Raus!

  16. 16.

    CaseyL

    October 8, 2025 at 12:14 pm

    BettyC, that is a gorgeous view, and certainly not one from anywhere in flat-as-a-pancake Florida. Where are you?

    After seeing Dem messaging succeed using topics and methods the Terminally Online dismissed out of hand, I am once again reminded that social media is not reality.

    ETA: Not even “good” social media.

  17. 17.

    jonas

    October 8, 2025 at 12:14 pm

    @mappy!: It’s common for people with dementia to hallucinate encounters and conversations, especially with long-passed-away parents or spouses. When we start hearing “As my dad was saying last night…” we’ll know the end is near.

  18. 18.

    Hoodie

    October 8, 2025 at 12:15 pm

    This is how they should have been talking about him from the beginning.  Walz was close with his “weird” observation, but that’s not quite to the point.  It’s been obvious for while that Trump is crazy and now is probably suffering from dementia, which exacerbates his insanity.  It used to be he was mostly spouting nonsense for effect, but in the last few years he’s lost control and says ridiculous shit reflexively and more carelessly.  The useless media is too obsessed with their own view- from-nowhere self-image to point that out, which ends up normalizing a lot of his nonsense.  Dem haven’t had a lot of direct opportunities to point it out, but have often whiffed when they had them.  Not to overly criticize Harris, who otherwise ran a strong campaign, but she had a chance to do that to his face in the one debate when he started ranting about Haitians eating dogs and cats.  She could have bluntly said something like “that’s complete nonsense and you’re nuts for saying it.  If you insist on saying demented crap like that, prove it.”  That would be the equivalent of punching a bully in the nose.  Instead, she just kind of smiled, apparently assuming that people would get that he’s nuts.  A lot of people are not that smart or are unwilling to reach such a conclusion without being pushed.   It was a lost opportunity and elections often hinge on those types of moments.  Biden did something more direct in the 2020 debates when he basically told Trump to shut up.

  19. 19.

    Butch

    October 8, 2025 at 12:16 pm

    Nothing political about this comment; a while ago I completed an end-to-end hike of the Appalachian Trail and your photos are bringing back memories.

  20. 20.

    trollhattan

    October 8, 2025 at 12:16 pm

    @Boris Rasputin (The Evil Twin):

    Picture Joffrey having received a severe blow to the head when young, now nearly 80.

  21. 21.

    Scout211

    October 8, 2025 at 12:16 pm

    In Trump’s current cognitive decline, he is a person who is very vulnerable to manipulation. When you are often confused or you can’t remember the past or even what happened yesterday, other people can define reality for you.*

    This has been mentioned before but needs to be mentioned every time there is a discussion  of his cognitive state. He is not running the country.  Muscle memory (which is retained much longer than cognitive memory) cannot run a country.  His “aides” are in control and he likely has no idea.  And this needs to be highlighted and repeated. Over and over.

    *ask me how I know.

  22. 22.

    Boris Rasputin (The Evil Twin)

    October 8, 2025 at 12:17 pm

    @Hoodie: A quibble – Trump does not suffer from his dementia, the whole country and the world do.

  23. 23.

    Matt McIrvin

    October 8, 2025 at 12:18 pm

    @trollhattan: “We’ll clone him right into his shoes!”

  24. 24.

    Baud

    October 8, 2025 at 12:19 pm

    @Butch:

    a while ago I completed an end-to-end hike of the Appalachian Trail

     

    Save it for Balloon Juice After Dark. #WhoRemembersMarkSanford

  25. 25.

    Hoodie

    October 8, 2025 at 12:19 pm

    @jonas: My late MIL had an elaborate fantasy in which a nonexistent child of her husband’s nonexistent affair in Viet Nam came to visit her in assisted living.  There was a whole dialog that went along with it.  Dementia often brings out a bunch of subconscious fears and obsessions that had previously had been held down.

  26. 26.

    Matt McIrvin

    October 8, 2025 at 12:21 pm

    @Old School: Maybe he’s talking to Even the Liberal Alan Dershowitz! Maybe about the good times on the island.

  27. 27.

    MattF

    October 8, 2025 at 12:22 pm

    Trump believes his ‘instincts’ are infallible, so he says the first thing that comes to mind (or to what’s left of his mind). And it’s often a repetition of whoever he talked with in the last five minutes. Then he turns around, forgets everything, and heads for the other side of the fishbowl.

  28. 28.

    Baud

    October 8, 2025 at 12:23 pm

    @Scout211:

    In Trump’s current cognitive decline, he is a person who is very vulnerable to manipulation.

     

    The one positive with that is that there’s a slim, slim, slim chance he can be manipulated into supporting Ukraine.

  29. 29.

    Old School

    October 8, 2025 at 12:25 pm

    I’d say the messaging should involve pointing out Trump’s imaginary and nonsensical ramblings, but I’d stop short of diagnosing it as dementia.

  30. 30.

    SiubhanDuinne

    October 8, 2025 at 12:26 pm

    @kindness:

    Bondi’s Senate testimony yesterday.

    Jeff Tiedrich came up with a useful term: Pamnesia.

  31. 31.

    laura

    October 8, 2025 at 12:26 pm

    Yes, he’s crazy as a shit house rat. Yes, he is seriously ill. Yes, he’s desperate to hide the actual state of his health by spackling his hand and covering it with his other hand. Yes, his cankles are gushing out his shoes. Yes, he fears going down the stairs. Yes, I have all the necessary ingredients to make devil’s food cake while drinking champagne the minute he kicks it. And yes, I’m going to savor the infighting and backstabbing and the “I hardly knew the man” when he’s moldering in state. In the meantime, he’s probably going to pardon the sex pests he’s pal’d around with for decades which should make for some interesting times.

    Wishing I could run off to the woods or the ocean until it happens.

  32. 32.

    Deputinize America

    October 8, 2025 at 12:26 pm

    @Boris Rasputin (The Evil Twin):

    The Trump Administration 2.0 is the victory lap of the Watergate conspirators.

    The ones who were jailed needed longer sentences.

  33. 33.

    RaflW

    October 8, 2025 at 12:27 pm

    Apparently Trump this week said:

    “We call them the water drugs. The drugs that come in through water. They’re not coming. There are no boats anymore. Frankly, there are no fishing boats. There are no boats out there period, if you want to know the truth. Does anybody go fishing anymore?”

    I know some of that is his same garbled syntax from the past few years (though if one goes back, say, 15 years yes he did digressions, but he could speak in paragraphs back then), but it’s really just nonsense. His brain is cooked. I think it’s also true that he’s being fed tailored info, one wonders if there’s people just editing together Fox segments and making it look like he’s watching TV ‘live’ but Pritzker and Gallego are right to start saying “He’s demented” and make the press either go out over their skis in denying it, or uncomfortably have to start reporting on it.

  34. 34.

    Geminid

    October 8, 2025 at 12:28 pm

    @Betty Cracker: I am curious, Ms. Cracker: if you’d care to say, what river is that? Or is it a lake?

  35. 35.

    Deputinize America

    October 8, 2025 at 12:29 pm

    @Hoodie:

    Dementia (particularly in men) is typically accompanied by inchoate, unfocused fears and an inability to analyze facts that may counter those fears.

  36. 36.

    Melancholy Jaques

    October 8, 2025 at 12:30 pm

    @jonas:

    What’s kind of clever about what Dems are doing now is actually going on the record saying Trump is losing it, thereby putting the question out there for reporters to report on (because “people are saying”) and ask Republicans for a response.

    Are reporters asking Republicans about that asshole’s mental state? Are cable shows having guests doctors on to  diagnose his mental condition? That’s what they did with Our Man Joe.

  37. 37.

    RaflW

    October 8, 2025 at 12:30 pm

    @laura: Yeah.

    And frankly that ridiculous “I haven’t heard of Ghislaine in a long time” (or whatever he rambled) was also treated by many as What a liar! when, again, his dementia fits the situation. Use that, people!

    Make the WH have to do more risible “Doctor Flakeypants says he’s the healthiest person ever. He did 50 pushups in the examination room!” denials.

  38. 38.

    Shalimar

    October 8, 2025 at 12:31 pm

    Why Trump’s shutdown threats sound more like a wishlist

    A good summary of why Republicans will get almost all of the blame for the shutdown as time goes on.  This is their version of an orgy.  They aren’t even doing a good job of pretending it isn’t what they want.

  39. 39.

    Melancholy Jaques

    October 8, 2025 at 12:32 pm

    @Hoodie:

    My dad was always seeing police in the back yard.

  40. 40.

    laura

    October 8, 2025 at 12:33 pm

    Oh hey- Oregon Governor just ordered the National Guardsmen out of state per Court Order. She may not be splashy about it, like America’s handsomest Governor or the Mighty Khan, but she did The Thing.

  41. 41.

    Belafon

    October 8, 2025 at 12:35 pm

    @jonas: They won’t deny, but they’ll make a statement so that you’re focused on that rather than the denying.

  42. 42.

    Belafon

    October 8, 2025 at 12:37 pm

    @CaseyL: When Democrats are succeeding at something, you’re supposed to pivot to something they failed or are failing at, thereby proving they are still failures.

  43. 43.

    Belafon

    October 8, 2025 at 12:37 pm

    @Belafon:  See, like this: @Hoodie.

  44. 44.

    Butch

    October 8, 2025 at 12:37 pm

    @Baud: ‘Cept I really did it and I wasn’t hiding an affair!

  45. 45.

    Deputinize America

    October 8, 2025 at 12:39 pm

    @laura:

    shit house rat

    I’ve always wanted to know the etymology of the phrase, and why shithouse rats are deemed crazy.

  46. 46.

    Josie

    October 8, 2025 at 12:39 pm

    @Melancholy Jaques: ​
     My mother broke her wrist when she fell walking across the yard. Her story turned into a long diatribe about how she climbed a tree to get something off of the roof and fell out of the tree. No matter how many. times I corrected her, she stuck to her story. I imagine people wondered why I permitted her to climb trees.

  47. 47.

    zhena gogolia

    October 8, 2025 at 12:40 pm

    @trollhattan: “Checking the cell structure! Checking the cell structure!”

    I was just referencing that yesterday.

  48. 48.

    GB in the HC

    October 8, 2025 at 12:41 pm

    @Geminid: Both!

  49. 49.

    Lapassionara

    October 8, 2025 at 12:45 pm

    @Hoodie: that’s the plot of Miss Saigon. Maybe she saw the musical and it gave her ideas.

  50. 50.

    Scout211

    October 8, 2025 at 12:46 pm

    @Old School: but I’d stop short of diagnosing it as dementia.

    I agree. “Cognitive decline” is a more general term and  more difficult to defend, since he is 79 years old.

    ETA:  That’s the term that I use here instead of assuming I know his actual diagnosis.  My husband’s neurologist diagnosed him with vascular dementia, until he saw the MRI results that indicated Alzheimer’s. So even neurologists can’t accurately diagnose what type of cognitive decline just from observing symptoms.

  51. 51.

    Deputinize America

    October 8, 2025 at 12:47 pm

    @Hoodie:

    Conversely, in one of my cases many moons ago, I was appointed GAL for a dapper elder gent suffering some flavor of cognitive decline in his 90s – he’d had a career as an engineering executive, but as a younger man, been a junior field grade officer on Eisenhower’s planning staff for ETO, and had been in on the planning for D-Day.

    Fascinating guy – he could tell me who, what, where and why about the senior commanders, meetings and logistic concerns back in 1943 and 1944, but he couldn’t tell me his modern day address, what day it was, who was president or what he just ate for lunch. For that matter, he couldn’t tell me my name five minutes after I’d introduced myself.

    I should have recognized that he was a treasure trove of WWII info and interviewed him on tape, because he’d have been one of the last of the planners who’d interacted with the commanders still left alive at that point.

  52. 52.

    Dave

    October 8, 2025 at 12:47 pm

    @RaflW: It’s both; in his creeping dementia he reflexively resorts to his BS patter lines that might as well be his core persona. It’s just they lose whatever power they used to have as his dementia increases.

  53. 53.

    gvg

    October 8, 2025 at 12:48 pm

    Aside from everything else, he has driven me up a wall for the last dozen years because of the way he doesn’t construct sentences. I cannot stand the total incoherance. I feel like he was damaging our country just by the way people let him get away with speaking, and then cleaning up his word messes. I am already on edge with how badly I think college students are writting, considering I don’t think I am as good as I should be. I can’t stand to listen to him because he makes my head hurt.

    Now he is worse. Oh, God.

  54. 54.

    mrmoshpotato

    October 8, 2025 at 12:48 pm

    Stupid GOP.

    We don’t call them “POLICIA” here.

  55. 55.

    Belafon

    October 8, 2025 at 12:49 pm

    @Scout211: Except cognitive decline could be used to describe always forgetting where you put your keys as you get older.

  56. 56.

    Dave

    October 8, 2025 at 12:49 pm

    @Deputinize America: Well I figure it’s probably not particularly good for the psyche to live in a shithouse then again what the hell do I know about rats. The answer to that is very little.

    Though half expecting it’s some old timey racist/ethnic slur just because things so often are.

  57. 57.

    Deputinize America

    October 8, 2025 at 12:49 pm

    @Scout211:

    That’s how I describe my dad.  I can’t pin a diagnosis on it, but I see him slipping month to month.

  58. 58.

    Betty Cracker

    October 8, 2025 at 12:50 pm

    @CaseyL: & @Geminid: Photo was taken at Chimney Rock southeast of Asheville, NC. The waterway is the Broad River flowing toward Lake Lure. The town of Lake Lure is still recovering from Hurricane Helene. The lake itself was mostly drained, and there are big trucks everywhere hauling silt away and lots of construction to repair roads and buildings.

    I’m super familiar with Lake Lure but hadn’t seen it since the storm last year. I am boggled that the storm maintained enough strength to do that much damage so far into the hills. Saw a huge banner that said, “FEMA screwed us! Trump, please help!” Wondered if its authors realize FEMA screwed them BECAUSE that is Trump’s will.

  59. 59.

    Deputinize America

    October 8, 2025 at 12:50 pm

    @Belafon:

    Goddammit, the key thing is normal.

    I may have put an Apple thingy on mine so I can always find them. My wallet, too.

  60. 60.

    Doc Sardonic

    October 8, 2025 at 12:50 pm

    @Deputinize America: I heard that phrase when I was younger as outhouse rat when in polite company. When it was just the men it was shithouse. My theory is at some point in time an individual went to sort corn cobs or read last years Sears catalog and discovered a rat in the hole. Thinking on that they decided if stuck down there they would be crazy, so the rat must be.

  61. 61.

    schrodingers_cat

    October 8, 2025 at 12:53 pm

    @Baud: Those seem like innocent times compared to the hellscape we are in right now.

  62. 62.

    Baud

    October 8, 2025 at 12:55 pm

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Early Obama years were definitely a more innocent time.

  63. 63.

    mrmoshpotato

    October 8, 2025 at 12:55 pm

    @Baud: Haha!

  64. 64.

    Baud

    October 8, 2025 at 12:55 pm

    @Butch:

    Congrats! Quite an achievement.

  65. 65.

    Belafon

    October 8, 2025 at 12:57 pm

    @schrodingers_cat: Back when Republicans cared about affairs in their party.

  66. 66.

    Trivia Man

    October 8, 2025 at 12:59 pm

    CNN edits out the bombshell word Plenary… and my wingnut brother said “CNN is a liberal network”.

    he (allegedly) isnt a trump fan but definitely repeats every libertarian/ right wing soundbite. And about 50% of the conversations he brings up hillary or kamala. Exhausting

  67. 67.

    p.a.

    October 8, 2025 at 1:00 pm

    Preznit Memento

  68. 68.

    Trivia Man

    October 8, 2025 at 1:00 pm

    @laura: we bought a bottle of wine and a very small bottle if whisky for some glorious future day

  69. 69.

    mrmoshpotato

    October 8, 2025 at 1:01 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne: Hahaha! That’s great!

  70. 70.

    Belafon

    October 8, 2025 at 1:03 pm

    @Trivia Man: Plenary, a word you don’t use unless in public unless you want to keep people from understanding what you mean.

  71. 71.

    Old School

    October 8, 2025 at 1:03 pm

    A 29-year-old former Uber driver was arrested and charged in connection with the Palisades Fire in January, one of the most destructive wildfires in Los Angeles history, authorities said at a news conference Wednesday.

    Authorities allege that Jonathan Rinderknecht “maliciously” set the fire that killed a dozen people. It was fully contained on Jan. 31.

    …

    Environmental sensing platforms indicated that the fire was started at 12:12 a.m. on Jan. 1. Authorities said Rinderknecht attempted to call 911 several times but could not get through because his cellphone was out of range, the news release states. He was eventually able to reach a 911 operator and report the fire. A nearby resident had also reported the fire.

    Authorities said Rinderknecht fled in his car but turned around and followed fire trucks responding to the blaze. Just after 1 a.m., he allegedly took videos of the scene as firefighters tried to put out the fire, according to the news release.

  72. 72.

    Jeffro

    October 8, 2025 at 1:04 pm

    hell YES this is the way!

    by all means, Republicans, let’s have the president*s dementia AND criminality front and center for the next three years

  73. 73.

    mrmoshpotato

    October 8, 2025 at 1:05 pm

    @RaflW: Kids, don’t snort coke, or Adderall, or Hitler’s speeches, or Putin’s farts.

  74. 74.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    October 8, 2025 at 1:05 pm

    @Baud:

    The one positive with that is that there’s a slim, slim, slim chance he can be manipulated into supporting Ukraine.

    The King of England certainly tried.

  75. 75.

    Scout211

    October 8, 2025 at 1:06 pm

    O/T for Californians:

    29-year-old former Uber driver arrested in connection with starting deadly Palisades Fire

    ETA: Old School got there first.

  76. 76.

    mrmoshpotato

    October 8, 2025 at 1:06 pm

    @Melancholy Jaques:

    Are cable shows having guests doctors on to diagnose his mental condition? 

    Phil and Oz?

  77. 77.

    trollhattan

    October 8, 2025 at 1:07 pm

    @Betty Cracker:

    NC didn’t vote for him HARD ENOUGH so must be made an example to the others.

    Still learning the rules, I yam.

    Storm missed Runner Girl by less than a hundred miles. She flew back to NC that afternoon to encounter drizzle. Meanwhile, to the west it rained as much as 30 inches.

  78. 78.

    MagdaInBlack

    October 8, 2025 at 1:07 pm

    @trollhattan: I said in the previous thread that I love protesters showing up in goofy costumes. I love it because it triggered Cosplay Kristi to comment about it and call ignorant and uneducated, or words to that effect.

    Ridicule works.

    I want to see 100 t-rex doing a conga line for her.

  79. 79.

    trollhattan

    October 8, 2025 at 1:08 pm

    @mrmoshpotato:

    OZ limits himself to evaluating Trump’s poo. Hope he keeps a bucket handy.

  80. 80.

    Jeffro

    October 8, 2025 at 1:08 pm

    @mrmoshpotato: LOL

    but…but…I’m told it was a ‘different time back then’

    oh wait, wrong issue

  81. 81.

    trollhattan

    October 8, 2025 at 1:11 pm

    @MagdaInBlack:

    100% here for the T Rex chorus conga line. Would also support a How low can you go? limbo-off.

    Portlandia was never completely parody. Nobody in Trump’s bubble comprehends that.

  82. 82.

    Baud

    October 8, 2025 at 1:12 pm

    Via reddit

    On Tuesday, the Trump admin said furloughed feds were not guaranteed back pay. On Wednesday, it sent notices saying they were

  83. 83.

    Baud

    October 8, 2025 at 1:13 pm

    Via reddit

    Dolly Parton Is Suffering from Kidney Stones As Her Sister Apologizes for Worrying Everyone

  84. 84.

    trollhattan

    October 8, 2025 at 1:14 pm

    @Old School:

    Crap, that’s bad.

    Not unusual as it turns out. Can even remember a Calfire dude busted for setting then reporting wildfires. Further back, a seasonal tanker truck contractor set a fire that got out of control. It had been a slow fire season and had cut into his income.

  85. 85.

    mrmoshpotato

    October 8, 2025 at 1:15 pm

    @trollhattan:

    100% here for the T Rex chorus conga line. 

    Will there be gongs to bang?

  86. 86.

    trollhattan

    October 8, 2025 at 1:15 pm

    @Scout211: ​
    Can you ever really be a former Uber driver?

  87. 87.

    zhena gogolia

    October 8, 2025 at 1:15 pm

    @Baud: That’s a pretty funny thread.

  88. 88.

    Baud

    October 8, 2025 at 1:16 pm

    @trollhattan:

    That’s like being a former Marine!

  89. 89.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    October 8, 2025 at 1:17 pm

    @MagdaInBlack: ICE Barbie is mad because you can’t shoot Al-Qaeda style propaganda videos for ICE if the supposed dangerous ‘terrorists’ are in inflatable rainbow kitten and dinosaur constumes.

  90. 90.

    mrmoshpotato

    October 8, 2025 at 1:17 pm

    @trollhattan: What?  Is being an Uber driver like being a Marine?

  91. 91.

    rikyrah

    October 8, 2025 at 1:18 pm

    Chris D. Jackson
    @ChrisDJackson
    So
    @jaketapper
    has seen my posts calling out his blatant double standard — how he hounded Joe Biden over every breath, blink, and pause but now bends over backward to excuse Trump’s obvious mental and physical decline.

    Just listen to this. It’s pathetic. Tapper is actually trying to convince people that the rambling, incoherent mess we’re seeing from Trump is “just how he’s always been.” Give me a break.

    This kind of cowardice is exactly how we ended up here. The media helped sell the idea that Biden — older, yes, but steady and competent — was somehow a bigger danger than a corrupt, lying narcissist who can’t finish a sentence.

    Never forget who ran cover for it.
    x.com/ChrisDJackson/status/1975917872661631268

  92. 92.

    p.a.

    October 8, 2025 at 1:19 pm

    @mrmoshpotato: TRex conga line!!!!  You’re all kidding right?  After all the comments here and elsewhere since 11/24 about “where’s the asteroid?”  Tell BillinGlendale to keep a watchful eye!

  93. 93.

    JML

    October 8, 2025 at 1:20 pm

    @Josie: This reminds me of when they finally convinced my mom’s 2nd husband to give up his DL (which he absolutely hated, and kept reminding people that he hadn’t actually done anything to “deserve” that). But with his dementia and abysmal memory, he couldn’t reconstruct the actual story of how he’d actually let it go, and would start telling it and fill in most of the middle with likely sounding things that never actually happened, leading to him having his license taken away.

    At that point he could still figure things out, but couldn’t recall the details, and would frequently fill things in that seemed likely and appropriate…and could often get it close enough that people didn’t notice/care that he messed up some details. Of course it eventually got much worse, and he couldn’t hold his train of thought long enough to finish his own stories before long.

    Dementia is a cruel affliction. And it’s one that the people closest to someone will make excuses for (like my mom did; “oh it’s not really that bad.”) long after things have gotten …bad.

  94. 94.

    mrmoshpotato

    October 8, 2025 at 1:20 pm

    @Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: No sharks? 😿

  95. 95.

    Harrison Wesley

    October 8, 2025 at 1:20 pm

    Does Diaper Don Do Dementia?

  96. 96.

    rikyrah

    October 8, 2025 at 1:21 pm

    Taniel

    ‪@taniel.bsky.social‬

    JUST IN: The Republican Mayor of Fairbanks, Alaska’s second biggest city, lost re-election last night to a Democrat.

    Mayor David Pruhs is a conservative who fought protections for LGBTQ+ residents; he made comments this year drew condemnation this year from Alaska Natives. He lost to Mindy O’Neall.
    October 8, 2025 at 7:10 AM

  97. 97.

    laura

    October 8, 2025 at 1:22 pm

    @Deputinize America:  because it’s a shit house and the rat is really crazy to not live elsewhere. See also, urban dictionary: urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Shithouse+Rat

  98. 98.

    Marleedog

    October 8, 2025 at 1:23 pm

    @Deputinize America:

    I’ve always wanted to know the etymology of the phrase, and why shithouse rats are deemed crazy.

    The OED informs us that the first known use was in 1922 by James Joyce. Those more erudite than I might be able to tell us more.  Shithouse goes al the way back to the 1600s

    oed.com/dictionary/shithouse-rat_n?tl=true

  99. 99.

    rikyrah

    October 8, 2025 at 1:24 pm

    Christopher Webb
    @cwebbonline
    Stephen Miller said the quiet part out loud. Trump has “plenary authority,” then suddenly went silent. The plan wasn’t to be made public. Clearly someone hit the panic button in his earpiece.

    It gets weirder: CNN uploaded the interview with the “plenary authority” comment edited out.

    📌 Historic fascists with plenary authority:
    • Adolf Hitler
    • Benito Mussolini
    • Joseph Stalin
    x.com/cwebbonline/status/1975784671054283070

  100. 100.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    October 8, 2025 at 1:27 pm

    @mrmoshpotato:

    No sharks?

    I’m pretty sure you asked for this. youtube.com/watch?v=XqZsoesa55w

  101. 101.

    Jeffro

    October 8, 2025 at 1:27 pm

    @rikyrah:

    This kind of cowardice is exactly how we ended up here. The media helped sell the idea that Biden — older, yes, but steady and competent — was somehow a bigger danger than a corrupt, lying narcissist who can’t finish a sentence.

    Never forget who ran cover for it.

    110%

  102. 102.

    MagdaInBlack

    October 8, 2025 at 1:29 pm

    @Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Yup. And ain’t it great =-)

  103. 103.

    trollhattan

    October 8, 2025 at 1:29 pm

    @JML: ​
     
    Have shared the story before of grandma’s Chevy being pulled from an Iowa cornfield a final time when concerned locals “misplaced” the keys, ending her driving career. Had she continued she’d have hurt herself or importantly, somebody else.

    Fiercely independent, she stayed in her house several years on and could have even longer, had she allowed cleaning folks and meals on wheels cross the threshold, but that was right out.

    We had to move her into the Lutheran home (who relented and gave her a single, even though all rooms were double occupancy. You had to know grandma to fully understand). That was unforgivable and she did not forget our crime.

  104. 104.

    Jeffro

    October 8, 2025 at 1:30 pm

    @rikyrah: I had to look that phrase up…not good

    There are already some news stories up about it, though.  Now would be a great time to push Miller’s comments into public view via all channels you’ve got, peeps

  105. 105.

    mrmoshpotato

    October 8, 2025 at 1:30 pm

    Need a laugh?

    MAGA mom mad about insurance hike

  106. 106.

    zhena gogolia

    October 8, 2025 at 1:30 pm

    @rikyrah: That is so disgusting.

    ETA: And who is that douche interviewing him?

  107. 107.

    MagdaInBlack

    October 8, 2025 at 1:31 pm

    @mrmoshpotato: Of course!

  108. 108.

    Trivia Man

    October 8, 2025 at 1:33 pm

    @Belafon: i just assume its a word they taught orangeman to make him feel special. Bet: they use it with him daily as a magic talisman. Because they use it daily, it just slips in.

  109. 109.

    mrmoshpotato

    October 8, 2025 at 1:34 pm

    @Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Knew that was coming  before clicked.  (And now I’m dancing.)

  110. 110.

    Melancholy Jaques

    October 8, 2025 at 1:35 pm

    @mrmoshpotato:

    I was thinking Dr Vinnie Boombatz

  111. 111.

    JML

    October 8, 2025 at 1:36 pm

    @rikyrah: Tapper and the Vichy Times have both done the sane-washing for the decompensating yahoo and they (and others I think, if less explicitly) have defended not calling out his incoherence by saying “he’s always been like this” and “everyone already knows this, so we don’t need to point it out”

    But it’s noticeably worse, and they still are hiding from it.

  112. 112.

    Trivia Man

    October 8, 2025 at 1:36 pm

    @trollhattan: and salt lake city had their wettest day ever* – about 3” i believe

    *not sure if ‘wettest’ includes snowfall. I was there for days of 40”+ but it’s a dry snow.

  113. 113.

    Trivia Man

    October 8, 2025 at 1:37 pm

    @MagdaInBlack: the portland branch of World Naked Bike Ride announced a protest ride, check local sources for how to join in

  114. 114.

    Melancholy Jaques

    October 8, 2025 at 1:37 pm

    @rikyrah:

    Appreciate you & Chris D Jackson, but people have to stop saying what Tapper is doing is cowardice. It’s complicity.

    Also, Jackson says “Never forget who ran cover for it.” It was pretty much everybody, wasn’t it?

  115. 115.

    Scout211

    October 8, 2025 at 1:38 pm

    @Old School: @Scout211: @trollhattan:

    The suspect lived in SoCal but moved to Florida after the fire.

    This is on DOJ website:

    Florida Man Arrested on Federal Criminal Complaint Alleging He Maliciously Started What Became the Palisades Fire

    Florida Man. Ha.

  116. 116.

    Soprano2

    October 8, 2025 at 1:39 pm

    @Scout211: I rely on this. If I ask hubby something and he says “no”, wait a couple of minutes and ask again and it’ll be “yes”. If I get mad at him, he forgets about it a few minutes later most of the time. I agree, FFOTUS is not running things, although they’re telling him that he is.

  117. 117.

    rikyrah

    October 8, 2025 at 1:39 pm

    Curious Mr. Fox
    @CuriousMrFox101
    Kash Patel strutted onto Fox this week like he’d uncovered Al Capone’s secret army announcing that five percent of Chicago’s population 110000 people are active gang members. Scary right until you check the fine print and realize his “intel” came from a dusty old police database so sloppy the city’s own inspector general wanted it shredded. It’s basically a list of anyone who’s ever shared a sandwich with someone in a hoodie. But who needs accuracy when fear makes better TV?

    What Patel skipped right over is the inconvenient part the one where Chicago’s violent crime is actually plummeting. Homicides down more than thirty percent shootings down about thirty five the steepest decline in a decade confirmed by WTTW WBEZ and http://FactCheck.org. That doesn’t fit the “Democrat ruin” narrative so he pretends it’s not happening. Facts are boring panic is ratings gold.

    The MAGA routine writes itself now. Take one inflated number add ominous music call the city a war zone and cue Hannity’s serious face. Then declare victory for some “quiet federal operation” that never actually happened. Meanwhile on planet Earth Mayor Brandon Johnson’s reforms and community safety programs are producing the biggest drop in gun violence in years.

    So no Chicago isn’t collapsing under gang rule it’s quietly improving while pundits scream into cameras about ghosts. Patel’s version makes for great campaign theater but it’s about as grounded as a QAnon weather report. The city is healing the numbers prove it and the only crime here is how badly they keep lying about it.

    x.com/CuriousMrFox101/status/1975739503756370372

  118. 118.

    Princess

    October 8, 2025 at 1:40 pm

    The thing about Pritzker is, he’s not just messaging. He was doing the work steadily while Biden was president to Trump-proof Illinois — putting rights in the state constitution etc. The things Walz did in MN, which people learned about during the campaign, Pritzker was doing them too (so was Shapiro). He’s action-oriented, which gives heft to the messaging.

  119. 119.

    Melancholy Jaques

    October 8, 2025 at 1:41 pm

    @Scout211:

    Florida Man Arrested on Federal Criminal Complaint Alleging He Maliciously Started What Became the Palisades Fire

    Doesn’t appear to be an immigrant from Mexico.

  120. 120.

    CaseyL

    October 8, 2025 at 1:42 pm

    @Betty Cracker: Ah, Asheville NC.  I’m mostly familiar with the place via Pat Conley, a fellow who runs a YouTube channel showing the adventures of black bear families who have visited him constantly over the past few years.  He posted only very sporadically after Helene, and (come to think of it) I haven’t seen anything of his for quite a while.

    Other than that, Asheville has (had?) a lovely artsy-hippie reputation that piqued my interest.  Too bad it’s got enough Trumpers to support signage like that.  Bet they’ll keep thinking Trump wants to help them until the sheriff and bulldozers show up, and beyond.

  121. 121.

    Belafon

    October 8, 2025 at 1:43 pm

    I’m normally against using AI for this kind of thing, but someone should use one to write a book about Jake Tapper.

  122. 122.

    geg6

    October 8, 2025 at 1:43 pm

    @CaseyL:

    Hmmm, not sure what social media you frequent, but my feeds have been pounding the message that Cheetolini is in the throes of dementia for months.  And yelling at the MSM and elected Dems to start talking about it for months.  I don’t partake in any MSM really, so I only know what I read or see on MY social media.  But liberal/left/center left social media have been on the case since before the election and has ramped up to deafening levels since at least April or May.

  123. 123.

    tam1MI

    October 8, 2025 at 1:44 pm

    @Melancholy Jaques: Are reporters asking Republicans about that asshole’s mental state? Are cable shows having guests doctors on to  diagnose his mental condition? That’s what they did with Our Man Joe.

    “We don’t talk about Biden, no, no, no…”

  124. 124.

    mrmoshpotato

    October 8, 2025 at 1:44 pm

    @Belafon:

    I’m normally against using AI for this kind of thing, but someone should use one to write a book about Jake Tapper. 

    About how OLD he is?

  125. 125.

    Ohio Mom

    October 8, 2025 at 1:46 pm

    @Baud: Whew! Kidney stones are painful and awful but there are effective treatments and they aren’t terminal. We’ll have Dolly with us for a while more.

  126. 126.

    Fair Economist

    October 8, 2025 at 1:47 pm

    @Scout211:

    I agree. “Cognitive decline” is a more general term and  more difficult to defend, since he is 79 years old.

    It is, but we *want* this talked about. We want people arguing over whether to call what’s happening to Trump serious cognitive decline (it’s not just forgetting names sometimes) or dementia, because that will get people looking and talking about his very obvious mental issues

    I’m impressed with how the shutdown fight is coming out. The Republicans have two ways out – give in, or force it through. Politically giving in is far better for them, but I don’t think they have it in them, and even that is going to hurt them, because they’ll look weak and foolish. Forcing it through will likely lead to a historic wipeout in the midterms.

  127. 127.

    Bill Arnold

    October 8, 2025 at 1:48 pm

    @Deputinize America:
    One story is methane in outhouses. (Which are warm in winter, and things like undigested corn kernels are edible.)
    I don’t see any Science on the subject in a very brief search, though.

  128. 128.

    CaseyL

    October 8, 2025 at 1:49 pm

    @geg6: They’ve been yelling at the Dems to talk about that, and corruption, and brutalization of anyone not WMC, and on and on and on.  It’s not that social media doesn’t mention these things; it’s that social media mentions EVERYTHING, and slams Democrats for not responding to EVERYTHING, immediately, with all guns blazing.

    I feel that fury and frustration, too, but when I hear over and over again that Dems are “useless,” and see it’s coming from much the same people who sabotaged Biden and Harris, I take a mental step back and wonder how credible they are.

  129. 129.

    geg6

    October 8, 2025 at 1:49 pm

    @Old School:

    Anyone, literally anyone, who has lived through a person undergoing dementia knows that’s what it is since it’s so goddam obvious to us.  I have no qualms in stating he has dementia and neither should anyone else that has seen it.  I’m guessing Pritzker and Gallegos have seen what I see every day.

  130. 130.

    trollhattan

    October 8, 2025 at 1:50 pm

    @Scout211:

    When 3,000 miles is not enough miles.

  131. 131.

    trollhattan

    October 8, 2025 at 1:53 pm

    @geg6: ​
    Use whatever term is simplest and hits hardest. It’s about impactful messaging and consistency. (I would accept batshit crazy.)

    I can’t be held accountable for my significant lack of time in med school.

  132. 132.

    New Deal democrat

    October 8, 2025 at 1:53 pm

    Just leaving this here because it might be of future interest. Via Scott Horton:
    bsky.app/profile/robertscotthorton.bsky.social/post/3m2owsktexk24

    “The consensus of macroeconomists globally is that the techbros and Trump are driving the markets towards a Crédit Mobilier-type meltdown in which they will profit massively, but the financial system will be devastated.”
     
    The Credit Mobilier was a shadow-bank type entity set up to skim profits from the construction of the Union Pacific Railroad in the 1860s. Many federal officeholders were implicated in the scandal, but none were ever held liable. The bursting of the railroad bubble in 1872 led to a stock market crash and a multi-year depression.

  133. 133.

    trollhattan

    October 8, 2025 at 1:55 pm

    @New Deal democrat: ​

    A lot more nuanced than my fear of repeating the dot.com bubble, but effectively the same message. $4k/oz gold is just bonkers.

  134. 134.

    Tenar Arha

    October 8, 2025 at 1:57 pm

    @zhena gogolia: IIRC Tim Miller, Bulwark

  135. 135.

    geg6

    October 8, 2025 at 2:01 pm

    @Scout211:

    Cognitive decline is me not remembering, a year after I retired, the names of colleagues at other campuses who I only met once in person.  I’m about to turn 67 and that’s what happens at my age.

    Determining if someone has vascular dementia or Altzheimers is just figuring out what kind of dementia, not whether or not someone has dementia. Having gone through that exact process over the last few months, I submit that those are two completely different things.  Or at least, my John’s doctor presented the processes that way.

  136. 136.

    suzanne

    October 8, 2025 at 2:06 pm

    @mappy!:

    The dementia meme probably has solid legs. Senile Don, talking to imaginary people. He really believes he’s talking to [ fill in the blank ]. Don Dementia.

    We need to make a meme. Like FFOTUS’s face on the dude who is turning his head to look at the other woman, but instead it’s him talking to Maleficient or something.

  137. 137.

    zhena gogolia

    October 8, 2025 at 2:07 pm

    @Tenar Arha: He just giggles with Tapper. He doesn’t say, “Well, if it’s just that Trump is a little older, why didn’t that work to excuse Biden? Biden was actually doing the job, wasn’t he? He was also just a little older, and he’s had a stutter forever. Why didn’t you give him a pass the way you’re doing for Trump?”

  138. 138.

    Ishiyama

    October 8, 2025 at 2:07 pm

    @Deputinize America: How many lawyers are there on this blog (besides me)? I keep getting surprised. (I suppose I don’t pay enough attention.)

  139. 139.

    zhena gogolia

    October 8, 2025 at 2:08 pm

    @Ishiyama: There are a lot. “A cock’s stormcloud,” to use the Russian expression.

    Sounds better in Russian: “Khuyeva tucha.”

  140. 140.

    WTFGhost

    October 8, 2025 at 2:10 pm

    @kindness: Well, one of our values as decent human beings, is, you don’t make nasty jokes about things people can’t help.

    Does Trump crap himself, because he snorted too much adderall? Maybe. Does the sad man, talking to Howard Stern, deserve nasty derision for his affliction, caused by filthy habits? No.

    Does America deserve an opposition that uses every tool against fascism, most especially ridicule, most especially of physical infirmities we turn into humor because they terrify us, like being fat, old, and incontinent? In my opinion, yes, it does, with full mindfulness that it’s only okay to be rude, nasty, and untruthful, because you’re trying to win an election, against someone who kills people, yes, I mean, for reals and all, people die as a direct result of his decision, 21 sent to Davy Jones Locker so far, plus millions more.

    If Republicans will call a sharp, bright, wise, elderly, man “dementia ridden” because they need tax cuts for the rich, and more pollution, filth, and pestilence for the poor, we can be even nastier, especially when truthful, to protect the poor at the expense of people paying a fair price for good governance.

  141. 141.

    mrmoshpotato

    October 8, 2025 at 2:10 pm

    @mappy!: Fucking Fascist Dementia Don?

  142. 142.

    Fair Economist

    October 8, 2025 at 2:10 pm

    @CaseyL:

    They’ve been yelling at the Dems to talk about that, and corruption, and brutalization of anyone not WMC, and on and on and on.  It’s not that social media doesn’t mention these things; it’s that social media mentions EVERYTHING, and slams Democrats for not responding to EVERYTHING, immediately, with all guns blazing.

    And frequently the Dems DO mention it, but the press won’t report that.

  143. 143.

    zhena gogolia

    October 8, 2025 at 2:11 pm

    @WTFGhost: Good comment.

  144. 144.

    cmorenc

    October 8, 2025 at 2:11 pm

    @CaseyL:

    BettyC, that is a gorgeous view, and certainly not one from anywhere in flat-as-a-pancake Florida. Where are you?

    Although there’s no mountains in Florida approaching anywhere near the scale of western NC,  there is a surprisingly hilly region with curvy mountain-like roads in the panhandle region of Florida just south of the Alabama  border that’s midway between Talahassee and Pensacola.  The highest point in Florida named “High Peak” (345 ft above sea level) is located here.  You could easily be deceived passing through this region that you aren’t instead somewhere in the foothills of the Appalachians in north Georgia or the far western Piedmont of NC near Wilkesboro, NC.  What adds to the unexpectedness of encountering this region the first time you drive through it is that the region just north of it in Alabama is flat, as is the Panhandle region just below it down to the Gulf, betraying no hint of a hilly region until you are in it.

  145. 145.

    stinger

    October 8, 2025 at 2:13 pm

    @rikyrah: ​
     Actually, it looks like they re-interviewed him after regaining the lost connection. The interviewer’s lead-in question is different the second time, Miller’s response is different, someone with a backpack walks across behind Miller, and a cloud seems to darken the day the second time.
    I don’t think it’s dishonest editing. Now, dishonest answers, sure!

  146. 146.

    WTFGhost

    October 8, 2025 at 2:20 pm

    @Ishiyama: I’ve known a few attorneys who can pretend to be human, sometimes for hours, even days, at a time!

    I kid – education, and specialized training, doesn’t make a person other-than-human, and I *do* like the concept of the law. It’s just, there’s very few horses in the lawyerly profession, but a large surplus of horses asses, don’t you think?

    (What? No, a “horses ass” is how a horse makes mules. The human equivalent is the name of a female dog, for some reason.)

    @suzanne: we need *lots* of memes. And, IMHO, a lot of creative people to come to my place, where I don’t bogart the bowl, and… um… kids, pretend that’s a cereal bowl, filled with, uh, *candy*, yeah! It does involve that icky substance, “hash”, so, y’all stay away, while Ghostwife makes cookies.”

    Seriously, where are Sid and Marty Kroft when you need them? I bet if they were here, there’d be some jolly memes already!

    @Old School: Well… I hear you. And I appreciate a concern for honesty.

    More flippantly, I might respond: if you are a doctor, that’s very wise, and professional. If you’re an opposition member, you should have as much loyalty to the truth, when it comes to insulting Trump, as Republicans have loyalty to the truth, when insulting us.

    They call us child rapists, sans evidence. “Diagnosing” dementia in a babbling old man who has never been constrained by facts is not even in the same baseball league, much less the same ballpark.

    So: not saying “you’re wrong”. I’m saying “other people might disagree, and I don’t think they’re necessarily wrong.”

  147. 147.

    p.a.

    October 8, 2025 at 2:22 pm

    @New Deal democrat: One reason the Grant presidency has such a bad rep.

    Is this threat related to the meme (no idea if it’s accurate and no idea if you’ve mentioned it as true or not) that the consumer spending currently propping up the US economy is largely spending by the top 1% or even .1%?

  148. 148.

    Harrison Wesley

    October 8, 2025 at 2:22 pm

    @New Deal democrat: The 2025 version is Credit Mobilier AI. Or maybe Credit Mobilier Bitcoin.

  149. 149.

    mrmoshpotato

    October 8, 2025 at 2:28 pm

    The Trump administration has ordered FBI employees in Washington, DC, to immediately search their workstations and digital media for any records pertaining to the disappearance of Amelia Earhart, a law enforcement source told CNN. [image or embed]— CNN (@cnn.com) October 7, 2025 at 7:58 PM

    She was born in 1897! Do these idiots not understand she’d be long gone from natural causes.

    Haha! 👇

    [image or embed]— rskibby.bsky.social (@rskibby.bsky.social) October 7, 2025 at 9:19 PM

  150. 150.

    Belafon

    October 8, 2025 at 2:28 pm

    @Harrison Wesley: Or just TrumpCoin.

  151. 151.

    Old School

    October 8, 2025 at 2:28 pm

    🚨BREAKING: Mike Johnson now says Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva won’t be sworn in until the government reopens — despite swearing in Republicans during pro forma sessions.

    When asked why not her, he said Florida GOP members were a “unique exception” because their families flew in.…

    pic.twitter.com/FJXDVgw3nQ

    — Brian Allen (@allenanalysis) October 8, 2025

  152. 152.

    ExPatExDem

    October 8, 2025 at 2:29 pm

    @CaseyL:  Asheville has had a reputation as a haven for artists, writers, and creative types, going back to Thomas Wolfe and F. Scott Fitzgerald and has largely maintained it.

    Everything around it in western NC is deep red though, except for a few college towns.

  153. 153.

    Scout211

    October 8, 2025 at 2:31 pm

    Dementia, Alzheimer’s, cognitive decline, crazy, nuts, I will accept all terms.  😉

  154. 154.

    Harrison Wesley

    October 8, 2025 at 2:31 pm

    @mrmoshpotato: Even as a tactic to distract and delay, this is pretty feeble.

  155. 155.

    CaseyL

    October 8, 2025 at 2:32 pm

    @cmorenc:

    The highest point in Florida named “High Peak” (345 ft above sea level) is located here.

    “High Peak.” 345 feet. You cannot imagine how much this makes me giggle, from my perch in Seattle with the Cascade Mountains to the east, the Olympic Mountains to the west, and a whole lot of steep hills the city itself is built on.

    Disclaimer: I lived in South Florida for many years, which hopefully makes it less rude for me to mock the state’s “peak.”

  156. 156.

    Deputinize America

    October 8, 2025 at 2:33 pm

    @Old School:

    So Grijalva’s district has no representation, which feels like a big Constitutional no-no to me.

  157. 157.

    mr perfect

    October 8, 2025 at 2:33 pm

    @Trivia Man: You mean the word coming straight out of mini Goebbels’ mouth?  And that is CNN’s fault somehow?

  158. 158.

    mrmoshpotato

    October 8, 2025 at 2:35 pm

    @Harrison Wesley: Yup.  Too stupid to even think to go with Hoffa instead.

  159. 159.

    Josie

    October 8, 2025 at 2:36 pm

    @geg6: ​
     This is the precise truth.

  160. 160.

    trollhattan

    October 8, 2025 at 2:36 pm

    @Ohio Mom:

    I’ve known folks for whom the untrasound treatment works, and is helpfully noninvasive.

    We simply can’t lose our Dolly right after losing Jane Goodall.

  161. 161.

    WTFGhost

    October 8, 2025 at 2:36 pm

    @New Deal democrat: Trump has always enjoyed breaking contracts and stiffing others, if it means he can profit personally, so this is “on brand”. If you voted for Trump 2016, this is the sort of thing you voted for, someone who looks out for himself, no matter who else gets hurt.

     

    @Belafon: and we should search social media, for blurbs to put on the fictional book (about Tapper), questioning his mental acuity, and why he thought he should continue writing, even starting new projects when he was clearly too old to *sell* another book.

     

    @JML: Plus, if something is always true, it *requires* frequent mention – at least more frequent than “the Resolute desk”. People who have just started following the news deserve to be informed that the transcript was cleaned up, and the original recording can be heard (here). Then, they can hear the man sounds cray-cray, and they’ve been informed, rather than just suckered into buying a newspaper.

  162. 162.

    trollhattan

    October 8, 2025 at 2:38 pm

    @CaseyL: ​

    345′ msl is the stuff of nosebleeds and headaches. “Where’s my oxygen?!?” (Tallest building in Miami is 868′)

  163. 163.

    Deputinize America

    October 8, 2025 at 2:39 pm

    @ExPatExDem:

    But was it a collection of men from both armies who were dandy and dare I say fabulous, like the ones who took refuge at Shrute Farm in Pennsylvania?

  164. 164.

    Belafon

    October 8, 2025 at 2:40 pm

    @Old School: Then she should fly in her family and a bunch of constituents.

  165. 165.

    Matt McIrvin

    October 8, 2025 at 2:40 pm

    @RaflW: Trump just denied the existence of fishing?

  166. 166.

    Baud

    October 8, 2025 at 2:42 pm

    Via reddit

    Dolly Parton shares new video amid health concerns: “I ain’t dead yet!”

  167. 167.

    NotMax

    October 8, 2025 at 2:43 pm

    @Harrison Wesley

    Credit Exxon-Mobilier.
    //

  168. 168.

    Harrison Wesley

    October 8, 2025 at 2:47 pm

    @Matt McIrvin: Hey,water drugs,water bugs, water sports,WTFever.

  169. 169.

    Scout211

    October 8, 2025 at 2:48 pm

    @Belafon:Then she should fly in her family and a bunch of constituents.

    I heard that they were already on their way.  Didn’t you? ;-)

  170. 170.

    mr perfect

    October 8, 2025 at 2:51 pm

    @rikyrah: Just what we need is another TV doctor, this time on CNN called Dr. Jake where Tapper diagnoses politicians on the left and right with his vast knowledge attained not through medical school but by doing his own research.  I mean Oz and Phil are busy at the moment so why not “Jake You Ignorant Slut” Tapper?

  171. 171.

    rikyrah

    October 8, 2025 at 3:02 pm

    @Old School:

     

    FOH!!!

  172. 172.

    Harrison Wesley

    October 8, 2025 at 3:02 pm

    @Scout211: And ICE would meet them at the airport.,…

  173. 173.

    Scout211

    October 8, 2025 at 3:03 pm

    Charges were dropped against two Chicago-area protesters accused of assaulting law enforcement agents after a grand jury declined to indict them.

    At a brief hearing Wednesday morning, Magistrate Judge Gabriel Fuentes of the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois granted federal prosecutors’ motion to dismiss the complaint against Ray Collins and Jocelyne Robledo, who were arrested at a protest outside an ICE facility in the Chicago suburbs.

    When Fuentes asked Assistant US Attorney Brian Havey to explain the reasons behind the motion to dismiss, Havey said the grand jury on Tuesday had returned a “no-bill,” meaning they declined to file a true bill of indictment.

  174. 174.

    Chief Oshkosh

    October 8, 2025 at 3:05 pm

    Dementia Don and his Dozen Dimwits.

  175. 175.

    rikyrah

    October 8, 2025 at 3:05 pm

    The black and white of the new insurance bills is what’s making the difference. People know what they paid under Biden. And, they know now what they’re going to have to pay in order to keep their health insurance. it’s that clear. those raw bills are cutting through the GOP lie machine.

  176. 176.

    rikyrah

    October 8, 2025 at 3:07 pm

    @Scout211:

    Charges were dropped against two Chicago-area protesters accused of assaulting law enforcement agents after a grand jury declined to indict them.

     

    clap clap clap

     

    good for the Grand Jury seeing through this bullshyt.

  177. 177.

    Deputinize America

    October 8, 2025 at 3:08 pm

    LOL

    theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/08/arab-americans-michigan-dearborn-trump

    Arab Americans have come in for criticism in some quarters for voting for Trump in last November’s election. In Dearborn, a city of 106,000 people of whom about 55% have Arab ancestry, Trump won 42.5% of the presidential election vote, more than any other candidate, helping deliver Michigan, a crucial swing state, to the president. Arab American leaders in Michigan were incensed by the Democratic party and former presidential candidate Kamala Harris’s support for Israel’s war on Gaza.

    Now, interviews with some of those who backed Trump last year suggest that support may be eroding.

    Faye Nemer, the founder of the Dearborn-based Mena American Chamber of Commerce, which works to build economic and cultural exchanges between organizations in the Middle East and US, says that many among the Arab American community who backed Trump in last year’s election did so on the premise that he would be a president of peace. She was among a cohort of Arab Americans who welcomed and organized Trump’s visit to Dearborn just days before the presidential election last November.

    Fucking dipshits. They can pretend high-mindedness, but it was about the combo of Harris being a woman AND black.

  178. 178.

    Trivia Man

    October 8, 2025 at 3:10 pm

    @Jeffro: textbook case of working the refs. My family still drops in “liberal media” in every single political discussion.

  179. 179.

    WTFGhost

    October 8, 2025 at 3:23 pm

    @mrmoshpotato: Didn’t she acknowledge that her Trumpie bear was sure to fix the problem with a plan he’ll have ready in two weeks?

  180. 180.

    p.a.

    October 8, 2025 at 3:25 pm

    @rikyrah:  The black and white of the new insurance bills is what’s making the difference. People know what they paid under Biden. And, they know now what they’re going to have to pay in order to keep their health insurance. it’s that clear. those raw bills are cutting through the GOP lie machine.

     

     

    Good!  But also: damn them because that’s what it takes to get through their thick effing skulls.  IGMFY until it’s their dime.

  181. 181.

    rikyrah

    October 8, 2025 at 3:26 pm

    @Deputinize America:

    Faye Nemer, the founder of the Dearborn-based Mena American Chamber of Commerce, which works to build economic and cultural exchanges between organizations in the Middle East and US, says that many among the Arab American community who backed Trump in last year’s election did so on the premise that he would be a president of peace. She was among a cohort of Arab Americans who welcomed and organized Trump’s visit to Dearborn just days before the presidential election last November.

     

    whatever

     

    they got what they voted for

     

    President of Peace

     

    FOH

  182. 182.

    WTFGhost

    October 8, 2025 at 3:32 pm

    @Marleedog: Well, if the local population consumed toxins (like mercury from burning coal) the rats in the outhouse might consume foodstuffs tainted many times over with the same toxins, and become noticeably crazier. Or, they might be crazy because they keep trying to move over that… that thing, that’s just been sitting there for a while, making interesting smells, but not moving… and when they try walking across it, polite as can be,  it suddenly starts screaming and stomping.

    Of course, it is important to understand that writers needn’t be scientists, and if “crazier than a… a… a SHITHOUSE RAT!” just sounded good one morning, that’s what they wrote.

  183. 183.

    jonas

    October 8, 2025 at 3:35 pm

    @rikyrah: did so on the premise that he would be a president of peace

    That makes about as much sense as the National Association of Interior Designers endorsing Trump for his “minimalist sensibilities and restrained, modern approach to color, line, and light” when it comes to office decoration and then being surprised when he redoes the Oval Office in a look best described as “Pimpmobile-Meets-Versailles.”

  184. 184.

    Belafon

    October 8, 2025 at 3:36 pm

    I’m assuming everyone has heard about Zach Bryan’s new song “Bad News” that’s gotten all of the administration and a bunch of other wingers pissed off. (don’t make him a hero, but enjoy the lyrics)

  185. 185.

    Harrison Wesley

    October 8, 2025 at 3:37 pm

    @Trivia Man: I believe it’s “Our Liberal Media.”

  186. 186.

    Jackie

    October 8, 2025 at 3:41 pm

    @Belafon:

    I’m assuming everyone has heard about Zach Bryan’s new song “Bad News” that’s gotten all of the administration and a bunch of other wingers pissed off.

    Just a reminder that not ALL country singers are MAGA.

  187. 187.

    jackmac

    October 8, 2025 at 3:41 pm

    Pritzker to Trump via Chicago Sun-Times: ‘Come and Get me’:

    As President Donald Trump on Wednesday called for jailing Gov. JB Pritzker and Mayor Brandon Johnson for “failing to protect ICE,” the Democratic governor responded to the threat by urging the president to “come and get me.”

    Trump posted on Truth Social: “Chicago Mayor should be in jail for failing to protect Ice Officers! Governor Pritzker also!”
    Speaking to reporters at a federal workers rally at Federal Plaza later Wednesday, Pritzker responded to Trump’s threat.
    “Look, he’s a coward. He says a lot of things. He likes to pretend to be a tough guy. Come and get me,” Pritzker said.​

  188. 188.

    Baud

    October 8, 2025 at 3:43 pm

    Via Reddit

    Conservative justices reveal their distrust of medical expertise on LGBTQ+ issues

  189. 189.

    Old School

    October 8, 2025 at 3:45 pm

    WASHINGTON — The FBI has fired three special agents who worked in connection with former special counsel Jack Smith’s probe of now-President Donald Trump, three people familiar with the matter told NBC News.

    All three agents were previously named in documents released by Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, about “Arctic Frost,” an FBI probe that was the precursor to the Smith investigation, which resulted in two federal criminal cases against Trump: one for his handling of classified documents; and the other involving his attempts to overturn his 2020 election loss, which ended in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

  190. 190.

    brendancalling

    October 8, 2025 at 3:46 pm

    @Baud: that’s good to see. Dolly is a saint.

  191. 191.

    Interesting Name Goes Here

    October 8, 2025 at 3:46 pm

    @Deputinize America: May they continue to have the day that they voted for.

  192. 192.

    suzanne

    October 8, 2025 at 3:48 pm

    @jonas: That would be the IIDA, and I can assure you….. if ever there is a group of people who loathe Donald Trump, it is interior designers.

  193. 193.

    New Deal democrat

    October 8, 2025 at 3:50 pm

    @p.a.:

    the meme (no idea if it’s accurate and no idea if you’ve mentioned it as true or not) that the consumer spending currently propping up the US economy is largely spending by the top 1% or even .1%?

    There is a lot of evidence that consumer spending by the top 10% or thereabouts, fueled by the wealth effect from AI related stock market gains, is doing so.

  194. 194.

    Baud

    October 8, 2025 at 3:50 pm

    @Interesting Name Goes Here:

    Normally, I’d be ok with a little face eating by leopards. But here, those Trump voters will be fine. It’s people in Gaza who will bear the brunt of their decision.

  195. 195.

    Deputinize America

    October 8, 2025 at 3:52 pm

    @jackmac:

    What crime would that be?  Or are we headed straight to “anti-state activities are prohibited with no actual statute”?

  196. 196.

    Old School

    October 8, 2025 at 3:56 pm

    If the U.S. government sells your student loan to the private market, would you even notice?

    That’s a question 45 million federal student loan borrowers may be asking. The Trump administration is considering selling part of the federal government’s $1.6 trillion student loan portfolio to the private market, a source familiar with the matter confirmed to USA TODAY.

    No decisions are imminent, the source said. Politico first reported the potential move.

    Lenders routinely sell loans like mortgages to banks, mutual funds and other large investors to free up money to issue new loans. Beyond sending a payment to a new company, borrowers usually don’t even notice. The original terms of your loan, including the interest rate, monthly payment and loan duration, remain the same.

    But federal student loans could be different because the U.S. government provides protections that private companies may not, experts said.

    For example, “selling off the loans would reduce the ability for future administrations to try to create loan pauses, which may be the main concern that the administration is trying to deal with,” said Kent Smetters, head of nonpartisan research group Penn Wharton Budget Model.

  197. 197.

    Scout211

    October 8, 2025 at 3:57 pm

    The Internal Revenue Service  said it is placing more than 34,000 employees, or about 46% of its workforce, on furlough starting Wednesday as the government shutdown stretches into its second week.

    The agency will also temporarily pause many taxpayer services, such as answering phone calls. The independent Taxpayer Advocate Service will also cease operations due to the lapse in funding.

    The agency added that most administrative functions will also come to a halt, as will many planning activities.

  198. 198.

    Deputinize America

    October 8, 2025 at 3:57 pm

    @Baud:

    The actual Gaza people were begging American voters to select Harris.

  199. 199.

    schrodingers_cat

    October 8, 2025 at 3:59 pm

    @Deputinize America: I remember that, on Twitter as well.

  200. 200.

    Geminid

    October 8, 2025 at 4:00 pm

    From Ankara-based  Clash Report:

    Trump:

    “I may go to the Middle East this week. maybe on Sunday.”

    “There is a very good chance of a deal happening.”

    Clash Report posted this an hour or so ago:

        U.S., Israeli and Qatari officials are “cautiously optimistic” that a Gaza ceasefire and a hostage-prisoner deal can be finished this week.

    Source: Axios

    This latest round of talks commenced Monday at Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt.

  201. 201.

    Melancholy Jaques

    October 8, 2025 at 4:00 pm

    @Ishiyama:

    There seem to be quite a few. I’m one of them. I don’t know people’s practice areas.

  202. 202.

    Deputinize America

    October 8, 2025 at 4:01 pm

    @Old School:

    The PLUS loan I’m paying for my youngest has been through 3 different private servicers, but hasn’t been sold yet.

  203. 203.

    Betty Cracker

    October 8, 2025 at 4:02 pm

    @rikyrah: I think that’s right. Open enrollment is coming up, and millions of people are getting notice that their premiums are doubling. I wasn’t convinced focusing on healthcare prices almost exclusively was the right strategy, what with all the fascist lawlessness happening. But the timing is right, and I’m pleased to see Dems linking premium increases with billionaire tax cuts. When even a Trump-humper like MTG isn’t on board with screwing regular folks to line the wealthy’s pockets, it may be a winning issue. We’ll see!

  204. 204.

    p.a.

    October 8, 2025 at 4:04 pm

    @Deputinize America:What crime would that be?  Or are we headed straight to “anti-state activities are prohibited with no actual statute”?

     

    Failure to enforce the “Secret Cruel Homeland Masked Unaccountable Cops’ Security” Act.

  205. 205.

    Betty Cracker

    October 8, 2025 at 4:13 pm

    @CaseyL: It’s a fact Florida is pretty flat, and I don’t consider it rude to say so, FWIW.

    It’s a challenge for me to drive in mountainous areas, although I’ve done it plenty this week and in the past (Appalachians, Catskills, Poconos, Adirondacks, Rockies, Cascades, Green, Berkshires, even the Alps a little!).

    Intellectually, I know the road is there even if I can’t see it over the crest of the hill, but it still feels like a leap of faith to keep driving into the unseen. I also struggle NOT to ride the brake when descending because it feels like I’m hurtling toward my doom. Hill country driving is stressful for me in a way that driving in Florida is not, even with all the armed fools and assorted lunatics sharing the road down here. It’s not rational, but there it is.

  206. 206.

    suzanne

    October 8, 2025 at 4:15 pm

    @Deputinize America:

    The actual Gaza people were begging American voters to select Harris.

    I don’t mind if any FFOTUS voters have the day they voted for. But I’m not going to look at civilians experiencing war crimes as just an example of face-eating leopards.

  207. 207.

    Deputinize America

    October 8, 2025 at 4:20 pm

    @suzanne:

    One day in the past couple of weeks, a Mexican-born naturalized US citizen who works on staff in this office came to talk to me about her fears about having her citizenship yanked and a followup deportation. She hated Trump from the start, enthusiastically supported Harris, and that story was heartbreaking – it twisted me up.

  208. 208.

    trollhattan

    October 8, 2025 at 4:21 pm

    @Old School:

    If I declare twenty-seven bucks net income and federal income tax overwithholding of three-millyun dollars, this is gonna be the year to do that, right?

  209. 209.

    Martin

    October 8, 2025 at 4:22 pm

    Air traffic controllers are showing how rank and file employees can exert power over political appointees. O’Hare may need a ground stop today due to lack of workers in the tower. Management has the power to fire, but they don’t have the power to land planes. Eventually that problem comes to a head.

  210. 210.

    suzanne

    October 8, 2025 at 4:27 pm

    @Martin: I am currently joking with a work teammate/friend who is delayed at the airport. He’s a dedicated Dem, funny AF, probably y’all would describe him as a bro. Anyway, he just said, “Corrupt Democrats, I KNEW IT. Lemme text Soros and see if we can speed this up.”

    LOL.

  211. 211.

    evodevo

    October 8, 2025 at 4:32 pm

    @Dave: OED’s earliest evidence for shithouse rat is from 1922, in the writing of James Joyce, writer.  No one seems to know about the crazy part..

  212. 212.

    Soprano2

    October 8, 2025 at 4:34 pm

    @JML: That’s not just excuses, it’s denial. It’s an extremely scary thing when you start to realize what’s happening. At first you deny it, because you can’t believe it. I’ve been decently realistic about my husband’s condition, but it took me a year to come to terms with what was happening.

  213. 213.

    Castor Canadensis

    October 8, 2025 at 4:38 pm

    I fear he really isn’t tracking: he just had a meeting with Mr Carney and didn’t exactly distinguish himself.

  214. 214.

    RaflW

    October 8, 2025 at 4:41 pm

    @Matt McIrvin: The five or six bass boats that were out on our lake on Sunday seem like a) several of them are probably Trumpy? and b) not in danger of drone attacks in SE Wisconsin.

  215. 215.

    Castor Canadensis

    October 8, 2025 at 4:42 pm

    @Boris Rasputin (The Evil Twin): There’s a similar militarism:
    “The last thing you want is an officer who is stupid and enthusiastic. He’ll get you killed”

    I understand in the US they just say “frag”.

  216. 216.

    Geminid

    October 8, 2025 at 4:45 pm

    @RaflW: Those fishermen might have been using drones themselves, to scout fish.

  217. 217.

    JeanneT

    October 8, 2025 at 4:50 pm

    @suzanne: ​

    if ever there is a group of people who loathe Donald Trump, it is interior designers.

    Oh heavens – this made me laugh so much!!

  218. 218.

    trollhattan

    October 8, 2025 at 4:54 pm

    @evodevo:

    Guessing it’s de facto, coming from Joyce.

    Good piece of trivia, to be sure!

    Today’s Patti Smith Substack post from Dublin includes Joyce Tower, his trunk, and death mask.

    open.substack.com/pub/pattismith/p/belated-dublin-and-a-visit-with-guernica?utm_campaign=post&u…

  219. 219.

    trollhattan

    October 8, 2025 at 4:56 pm

    @Geminid:

    Husband of a friend was a helicopter pilot on a tuna boat. Drones have to be a LOT cheaper.

  220. 220.

    rikyrah

    October 8, 2025 at 4:59 pm

    @Old School:

    For example, “selling off the loans would reduce the ability for future administrations to try to create loan pauses, which may be the main concern that the administration is trying to deal with,” said Kent Smetters, head of nonpartisan research group Penn Wharton Budget Model.

     

    UH HUH

    UH HUH

  221. 221.

    Castor Canadensis

    October 8, 2025 at 4:59 pm

    @Fair Economist: The mentions show up in UK papers, and some in Canadian. (I’m unilingual, so I have no idea about EU ones)

  222. 222.

    rikyrah

    October 8, 2025 at 5:00 pm

    @Betty Cracker:

    But the timing is right, and I’m pleased to see Dems linking premium increases with billionaire tax cuts.

    WELL, because IT’S TRUE!!

    DIRECT LINE

  223. 223.

    Sister Golden Bear

    October 8, 2025 at 5:01 pm

    @cmorenc:

    The highest point in Florida named “High Peak” (345 ft above sea level) is located here.

    <laughs in Sierra Nevada>

  224. 224.

    Ruckus

    October 8, 2025 at 5:05 pm

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Yeah he is cray cray and unhealthy and decrepit.

    You speak truth!

    He isn’t getting any better because there is nothing on this planet that will reverse what little is left of his brain him.

  225. 225.

    schrodingers_cat

    October 8, 2025 at 5:05 pm

    @Sister Golden Bear: Or the Himalayas.

  226. 226.

    Sister Golden Bear

    October 8, 2025 at 5:06 pm

    @Baud:

    Conservative justices reveal their distrust of medical expertise on LGBTQ+ issues they believe LGBTQ+ people should simply be eradicated.

    Fixed it

  227. 227.

    Sister Golden Bear

    October 8, 2025 at 5:08 pm

    @Betty Cracker:

    Intellectually, I know the road is there even if I can’t see it over the crest of the hill, but it still feels like a leap of faith to keep driving into the unseen.

    You should definitely never drive in San Francisco. Especially going downhill.

  228. 228.

    Sister Golden Bear

    October 8, 2025 at 5:13 pm

    @trollhattan:

    Husband of a friend was a helicopter pilot on a tuna boat. Drones have to be a LOT cheaper.

    They absolutely are. Which is why Hollywood now uses them instead of helicopters for the vast majority of aerial shots. Also far safer—a friend of mine is a retired cinematographer and personally knew a couple camera operators who died in separate  helicopter accidents.

  229. 229.

    Jackie

    October 8, 2025 at 5:14 pm

    FFOTUS admits to having taken freedom of speech away.

    Donald Trump gave off-the-cuff remarks at a round-table meeting on Wednesday that included Attorney General Pam Bondi, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, FBI Director Kash Patel, and others, where he acknowledged his administration has taken away some freedom of speech rights.

    “We took the freedom of speech away because that’s been through the courts, and the courts said you have freedom of speech, but what has happened is when they burn a flag, it agitates and irritates crowds. They’ve never seen anything like it. On both sides,” Trump claimed.

    “You end up with riots. So, we’re going on that basis,” Trump said, turning to Bondi. “We’re looking at it not — from the freedom of speech. I always felt very strongly about it. But it never passed the courts.”

    Link above goes to C-Span video.

  230. 230.

    Ruckus

    October 8, 2025 at 5:17 pm

    Look, I’m only 3 years younger than shitforbrains and I see far, far, far better than he does that the only thing left in the whirlpool that is the inside of his brain, is everything going 90 miles an hour in circles, very, very small circles – there isn’t enough left in there to make big circles, it is that nothing in that brain any longer knows how to swim against that whirlpool. Not that it was a lot smaller whirlpool even 20 years ago. But now there is not a clue, nothing, nada, zip, ZERO.

  231. 231.

    rikyrah

    October 8, 2025 at 5:19 pm

    Acyn (@Acyn) posted at 2:08 PM on Wed, Oct 08, 2025:
    Jeffries to Lawler: You’re not going to talk over me because you don’t want to hear what I have to say so why don’t you just keep your mouth shut t.co/tDz83r6tMQ
    (https://x.com/Acyn/status/1976001693247815772?t=R8e4VxGHBVXiMfecnP_uPw&s=03)

  232. 232.

    rikyrah

    October 8, 2025 at 5:19 pm

    scary lawyerguy (@scarylawyerguy) posted at 6:39 AM on Wed, Oct 08, 2025:
    Save for an unhinged rant to Naval Academy midshipmen where he told them Democrats were gnats that needed to be eliminated (crickets in the media, natch) he’s been MIA for the better part of a week and the BIDEN IS TOO OLD crowd in the media is predictably incurious about it
    (https://x.com/scarylawyerguy/status/1975888811642192099?t=lszDeDqsYTgpb4qQ0zC8jg&s=03)

  233. 233.

    Eyeroller

    October 8, 2025 at 5:21 pm

    @Sister Golden Bear: It seems clear enough they don’t give any fucks about medical consensus if it interferes with their religious dogma and personal prejudices.

  234. 234.

    Omnes Omnibus

    October 8, 2025 at 5:22 pm

    @Betty Cracker: Whereas I love driving in the mountains…. It takes all kinds, I guess.

  235. 235.

    Eyeroller

    October 8, 2025 at 5:24 pm

    @Jackie: ​He also seems quite interested in taking away free speech and academic freedom from faculty and students at universities, even if they aren’t burning flags.

  236. 236.

    Scout211

    October 8, 2025 at 5:27 pm

    @Jackie: Ugh. That “White House round table” has generated some sound bites, for sure.

    No rioting in the streets of Portland? She was there, and the cameras that followed her found no riots, not even very many protesters, most of them in costumes, dancing.

    What is her response to finding no riots? Lie, of course.

    Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem today accused Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek and Portland Mayor Keith Wilson of “covering up” terrorism on Portland’s streets.

    “I was in Portland yesterday and had the chance to visit with the governor of Oregon and also the mayor there in town, and they are absolutely covering up the terrorism that is hitting their streets,” Noem said during a roundtable this afternoon held by President Trump at the White House on antifa.

    “These leaders in these local cities, along with Pritzker and Johnson, ignore what’s going on, or sir, they’re helping antifa cover it up,” she added.

    Pkus, she said “sir,” so you know Trump will believe her.

  237. 237.

    lowtechcyclist

    October 8, 2025 at 5:29 pm

    @MattF: ​

    Trump believes his ‘instincts’ are infallible, so he says the first thing that comes to mind (or to what’s left of his mind).

    “What a waste it is to lose one’s mind. Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is.” How true that is.” – Dan Quayle

  238. 238.

    RaflW

    October 8, 2025 at 5:29 pm

    @Martin: “Management has the power to fire, but they don’t have the power to land planes. Eventually that problem comes to a head.”

    I can’t help but come away from watching Sean Duffy on TV thinking, this man is not one who will be able to rally his “team” to work long hours for delayed compensation.

  239. 239.

    Jackie

    October 8, 2025 at 5:30 pm

    @Eyeroller:

    He also seems quite interested in taking away free speech and academic freedom from faculty and students at universities, even if they aren’t burning flags.

    No freedom of speech for DEMOCRATS. Period

  240. 240.

    Betty

    October 8, 2025 at 5:31 pm

    @Martin: When the shutdown started, Robert Reich predicted that the air traffic controllers would end it. Seems he was on to something.

  241. 241.

    Scout211

    October 8, 2025 at 5:32 pm

    And Trump  knows the law.  He’s seen it and read numerous journals!

    President Trump was asked during a White House roundtable today about whether he’s asked the Justice Department about identifying specific charges after suggesting earlier that Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson should be jailed.

    “I’ve seen the law. And when you have a group of people where the police call off the safety for ICE officials, I’ve understood that, and I’ve read it today in numerous journals, that that’s illegal,” Trump said.

    He described an incident that he said involved police calling off efforts to help ICE agents who were “under threat,” adding that “the governor knew about it, the mayor knew about it. I understand that’s a criminal offense,” Trump said.

  242. 242.

    Geminid

    October 8, 2025 at 5:34 pm

    @trollhattan: I think the military may already have drones equipped with sonar. If they do, fishermen won’t be far behind.

  243. 243.

    JaySinWA

    October 8, 2025 at 5:37 pm

    @Scout211:

    Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem today accused Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek and Portland Mayor Keith Wilson of “covering up” terrorism on Portland’s streets.

    Antifa has got their invisibility screens strategically placed, but we know what they are doing none the less. We have our sources. /s

  244. 244.

    Geminid

    October 8, 2025 at 5:50 pm

    From the Times of Israel:

        US scientist of Palestinian descent among three winners of Nobel prize for Chemistry

    Omar Yaghi, born and raised in Amman, shares award with two others for work on molecular chemistry, first Palestinian Nobel laurete since Arafat, won Israeli award in 2018

    ….Yaghi was born in 1965 to Palestinian refugees in Jordan, where his family shared a one-room house with the cattle the family was raising.

    “It’s quite a journey and science allows you to do it,” he said in an interview published on the Nobel website, adding that his parents could barely read and write. “Science is the greatest equalizing force in the world,” he said.

    Omar Yaghi emigrated to the United states at age 15, and is now a professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

       Yaghi, who said he was astonished and delighted to win the award, was 10 years old when he found a book on molecules in the library. It was the beginning of a lifelong love of chemistry.

  245. 245.

    p.a

    October 8, 2025 at 5:51 pm

    @JaySinWA: The Oregon response should be “We weren’t aware dementia was communicable, but apparently there’s an outbreak in this admin, with Mr Trump as patient 0.”

  246. 246.

    trollhattan

    October 8, 2025 at 6:07 pm

    @Jackie: “You end up with riots. So, we’re going on that basis,” Trump said, turning to Bondi.

    Cue Jan 6 video package, list of convictions.

  247. 247.

    JaySinWA

    October 8, 2025 at 6:09 pm

    @p.a: Dementia is fake news. Our invisible sources tell us so

  248. 248.

    Betty Cracker

    October 8, 2025 at 6:22 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: Road trip buddies! You take the hills, I’ll take the flats. ;-)

  249. 249.

    AM in NC

    October 8, 2025 at 6:54 pm

    @Interesting Name Goes Here:  Ha! I have a car magnet that says “May you have the day you voted for”

  250. 250.

    WTFGhost

    October 8, 2025 at 7:40 pm

    @Old School: So the student loan scam is part of the “keep poor people poor” scam, like RTO and so forth. Biden almost erased a lot of debt, which would have erased a lot of future interest and late fees, etc., so the SCOTUS had to stop him, because they are good Catholics and good Catholic lawyers say it’s okay to (metaphorically speaking) rape the poor (in various positions, and utilizing various manners of entry), because who else can you beat down, spit on, and profit from? The wealthy? HAH! They’d take their business elsewhere!

    No, really, that was a hard question in the Good Catholic Lawyer Catechism, because you had to answer with positions, entry methods, and further, interspersed, bits of information, in order.

    But it’s only metaphorical, so it means you can kill them, you just have to have clean, green, hands when you do it.

  251. 251.

    danielx

    October 8, 2025 at 8:01 pm

    @Deputinize America:

    Wild with fear, as in the only way to escape the outhouse is by diving down the hole.

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