Trump’s horrible, no-good, awful debate performance may have been even worse than we realized, judging from the desperate and delusional spinning from his allies. Here’s Rudy’s original effort:
Someone rebooted Rudy a couple of hours later (after “debat” enjoyed a run in trending topics), and Rudy barfed up several tweets about how Trump did TOO win because shut up, that’s why. But really, the now deleted “debat” was more coherent, not to mention elegant.
My guess is the internal post-debate polls are ghastly, and Republicans know public post-debate polls are going to create a narrative — a LOSER narrative. So they’re trying to get in front of the story, flooding the zone with bullshit. Trump did his part:
I won the debate big, based on compilation of polls etc. Thank you!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 1, 2020
Needless to say, there is no “compilation of polls” that suggests anything of the sort. It’s the sort of face-saving lie we’ve come to expect from this ridiculous person.
But here’s a thought about how Trump’s boundless capacity for self-delusion can spare us endless strife. If Trump does lose the election, maybe he’ll just claim he won according to a “compilation of polls etc.” and go right on pretending that it’s so.
Then, on January 20, 2020, he could simply announce he’s decided to move out of the White House, claiming it’s “too small,” and just pretend that he’s president forever. It would be easier than tearing the country to pieces on the way out the door, so maybe we’ll luck out and he’ll go with this easy, face-saving option. Open thread!
jonas
His aides probably just printed out large, colorful copies of online polls from outfits like Breitbart and FoxNation to show him how bigly he won.
Patricia Kayden
Scott P.
When Inca emperors died, they were considered to still be the ruler — their mummified bodies were kept in their palaces (which they travelled between), they had banquets with their retainers and servants, and in all respects kept up the trappings of royalty. This turned out to be expensive, as each new Inca needed to built new palaces and to assign new lands to support them (one motivation for the continued expansion of the empire), but who knows, it might serve as a precedent.
Geo Wilcox
Rudy spelled dingbat wrong.
Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.)
That would be so wonderful. And I’d be happy to play along if it would get him to just shut the fuck up and go away.
trnc
Well, he did show himself to be tops in the insufferable assholes category, so that’s gotta count for something, right?
ETA: That DT tweet won’t load for me, so I wonder if it’s in the middle of being removed after a million responses showing non-imaginary poll results.
Princess
Trump is never going to be able to say “I lost.” Ever. About anything. He is never going to concede. He’s not psychologically capable of it.
That doesn’t mean Biden won’t win and won’t be inaugurated, but we’re going to have to get away from thinking Trump will ever acknowledge it or from thinking that fact matters. It doesn’t.
Brachiator
@Scott P.:
So Trump would be moved around Mar a Lago and his golf courses. Melania, Ivanka, Don Jr and the rest of the Trump Chumps would be forced to attend him. Hamberders would be served. Continuous coverage on Fox News.
Wag
@Scott P.: Unfortunately, the closest that we come to enshrining the mummified remains of dead leaders in our modern world is the tombs of Lenin and Mao. Maybe karma is Trump building a large mausoleum to host his remains Mar a Lago, only to have it blown away by a climate change driven hurricane.
trnc
True, but a half ass bat is perfect for half ass Nosferatu.
feebog
Who gives a rat’s ass what Trump thinks after January 20, 2021? The only question should be what federal prison should he be assigned to?
Searcher
If that’s the case, we really, really need to win the Senate, or else we get to see whether McConnell will still put Trump’s fourth SCOTUS nomination to a vote, while ignoring President Biden’s nominee.
trnc
The kind not acknowledged by the CIA.
cckids
Given how delusional and violent so many of his supporters seem to be, I’m not sure we want to set up a “2 Popes” schism situation. It could lead down some very dark roads.
However, if Twitter would do the country a solid and set up some shadow service for him, so he can twit around & feel important, that might do the trick. Let him have rallies at his golf courses.
MelissaM
@feebog:
Which prison has the highest MS-13 contingent?
Geoduck
@Wag: The Shiatgibbon has been quoted as saying he wants to be buried in Arlington Cemetery, but who knows if he means it.
I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if upon losing in a landslide, he just jets off to Mar A Lago and sulks until January. No way he attends Biden’s inaugural. (Of course, with COVID-19 no one who doesn’t need to should attend Biden’s inaugural..)
Doug R
I’m a bat!
youtube.com/watch?v=lV_tqn_n2Jc
Brachiator
@feebog:
Trump can act a fool as much as he wants. And he will. It won’t matter.
The only question is whether the GOP will continue to go down the drain with Trump.
Betty Cracker
@Scott P.: I like it!
@Princess: You’re right. I think it’s more about protecting his fragile ego than hanging onto the power and protections of the office, as strong as his motivations must be on that score.
I’ve never wanted to see someone’s nose rubbed in defeat more in my entire life, but he’ll never admit losing, no matter what. Oh well. It’ll be satisfying enough just to see him go.
The Moar You Know
Even my Trump loyalist mother – and I suspect she’ll be buried with Trump’s campaign logo on her headstone – admits that the debate was a disaster. Now, she blames Wallace and Biden for that, but I understand. Some truths cannot be admitted directly.
lofgren
Yeah, having the loser of a presidential election go on pretending that he won won’t cause any problems at all. You’d have to be a delusional, conspiracy-addled, violence-prone White supremacist to believe him, and we don’t have any of those.
Omnes Omnibus
@Betty Cracker: I don’t really care about his humiliation. I want his and his henchgoons’* hands off the levers of power. The rest is gravy.
*I believe I may have invented this one.
Ned F.
If Trump believes he scored in the debate and is convinced his performance is perfect, why would he change anything for the next time? A repeat of tuesday night wouldn’t improve anything for him. Plus Joe always does better the second time, remember the first and second Paul Ryan debate?
SiubhanDuinne
Chuck Todd just suggested that Trump’s antics “rescued” Biden from what might otherwise have been a terrible debate performance.
Ned F.
He may lose, but he’ll never go away.
randy khan
@Geoduck:
This has long been my thinking on the way to bet. Maybe not right away, but probably no later than the end of December.
Jeffro
That sounds like the premise for a really weird and maybe cool short story – a delusional president who tweets to his heart’s content all day long on his own private not-really-Twitter feed (with a couple thousand bots to keep him busy), golfs at his own private 1-hole golf course on the grounds of a federal prison, and then watches Fox shows during all the other time, never realizing they’re reruns from 2017 or something.
Nah never mind – way, way too good for him.
Jeffro
@Geoduck: I think he has some sort of weird plot/tomb thing set up at Bedminster (one of his golf courses?)
I don’t care where it is, just as long as I can access it late one evening after knocking out a 12-pack of the cheap stuff…
Betty Cracker
@SiubhanDuinne: I mean, it’s possible, but Biden barely got a word in edgewise, so it’s just as likely Trump’s antics prevented Biden from turning in the greatest debate performance of his life. We’ll never know for sure!
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I beg to differ that Trump is acting.
Jeffro
No kidding! My dad and bro couldn’t bring themselves to respond to my needling them (about how bad trumpov damaged himself in that debate) for over 24 hours. They NEVER do that.
When they finally did respond? Total ‘both sides’ BS.
“The real loser was the American people” LOL oh, ooooookay guys!
I twisted the knife a little harder and reminded them that with this big of a wave coming, we’re likely to do well with the Senate, House, and state legislatures too.
I’ll email them a pretend intervention tomorrow, begging them to please not go all ‘Q’ on me ;)
dmsilev
@cckids:
A modern-day Potemkin Village. Seems fitting, all things considered.
Betty Cracker
Y’all, this is real:
I thought SNL found a doppelgänger to film a cold opening, but no, that’s really the Third Lady doing a 2-minute plus PSA speaking over her shoulder to the camera.
Bruce K
@feebog: Call me odd and perhaps selfish, but I’m still hoping for Sing Sing (because a Presidential pardon won’t get him out of Sing Sing). It’d be poetic, and it’d make it easier for me to do that bucket-list pilgrimage to the prison cell where he died (since I’m planning to come back to the East Coast when I can).
Brachiator
@SiubhanDuinne:
What a stupid and pointless thing to say.
Benw
@Betty Cracker: schroedinger’s debat!!
piratedan
@SiubhanDuinne: waiting for the movie… White Men Can’t Pundit featuring Chuck Todd, because goddamn if I’m gonna say he “stars” in anything.
SiubhanDuinne
The “etc” is what makes this tweet extra precious.
Ocotillo
Last night NBC evening news had a story about some “undecided” suburban women near Cleveland. One of the ladies that said she was still undecided after the debate didn’t like Trump’s behavior but that she was glad she didn’t have her children watching the debate because Biden had told Trump to shut up.
That was it for me, I was yelling at the TV the reason she didn’t have her kids watching the debate is because in past debates Trump has commented on his, um, manhood. That woman was not undecided, she is a Trumper who does not want to admit to the world she supports the scumbag.
Ken
I suspect Trump will be in hiding after the inauguration, because no one will be paying to have everyone who comes near him tested for covid three times a day.
Evap
I just hope they count the spoons when he leaves the White House
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
General McChrystal endorsed Biden today.
Luciamia
@Brachiator: Its Chuck Todd
Matt McIrvin
@SiubhanDuinne: “It’s not fair! They’re only winning because our guy sucks so bad!”
JoyceH
I have long said that Trump will go down to Mar A Lago ‘for the holidays’ – and just not come back.
But on the subject of the debate, am I the only person that thinks that Trump probably really did misspeak in his ‘shout-out’ to the Proud Boys?
No, wait, hear me out. I am as convinced as it’s possible to be that Trump is a lifelong racist and white supremacist. But he knows that he can’t admit it publicly and when push comes to shove he’ll mouth the words about how yeah, white supremacy is wrong.
But he’s also a mushmouth who never corrects an error. When we misspeak, we say, “This, I mean that”. But Trump doesn’t do that – he says “this AND that”. Like the time he said that parents are working for “their children’s furniture – and future.”
So I think his INTENT was to say, “Yeah, whatevs, white supremacists are bad, but antifa is worse.” And he was asked to tell them to ‘stand down’, but couldn’t quite find the word. “Stand back and and stand by.” You’ll notice the telltale ‘and’ is there. He could have gone on – “and stand aside and stand tall,” still fumbling around for that ‘down’ he’d misplaced. But heck, he was in a hurry and had to get to what he considered the REAL point, which was about antifa.
I find that a lot more plausible that the notion that this addled old man is giving subtle coded signals to his violent supporters. Of course, now that he’s said it, he will never admit that he misspoke, so he might as well have been sending them coded messages. But I think the whole thing really originated in a brain fart.
Evap
@JoyceH: at the time, I assumed he misspoke or mangled what he was trying to say
Ohio Mom
I am sure Trump will go away because nobody lives forever and he is 74 and not in great shape. IANAD (doctor) but I wouldn’t bet on him seeing 80.
And I don’t think his kids will retain much spotlight after he is out of office, and certainly not after he dies. Oh sure, you’ll catch them in a “Where are they now?” feature in the back pages of People as you wait for the dental hygienist to call you in.
That’s not to say that the damage he has done won’t stay with us. But we’ll be spared seeing and hearing him.
The Lodger
@Jeffro: Wasn’t Jim Carrey in that movie? (No, not the one where he fell out the ass of the rhino suit.)
Ken
@JoyceH: Hanlon’s Razor: Never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence.
Joyce’s Corrollary: Or by dementia.
The Moar You Know
Just because I need to say it in every single debate thread: The debates are a gross anachronism and need to be abolished.
Exhibit A: without debates, Trump would have never made it out of the GOP primaries.
Nicole
I don’t know if it’s been posted on another open thread, but Timothy Ray Brown, aka the Berlin Patient, the first person to be considered cured of HIV, just passed away from leukemia at 54.
buzzfeednews.com/article/juliareinstein/the-first-person-to-be-cured-of-hiv-has-died-of-cancer-at-54…
For those who weren’t aware of him, it’s a really interesting thing on how he was cured, by happenstance, in treating his leukemia years ago.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Scott P.: I myself look forward to when Rudy and Jared drink their cups of poison to join Donald Trump the Cerebrum Maximus in the Trump Mortuary Complex for all eternity.
Matt McIrvin
@Jeffro: I’ve been hearing a lot of “both sides awful” from liberals who are definitely going to vote for Biden but can’t bring themselves to like it.
Gravenstone
@SiubhanDuinne: I would like to suggest that we toss Chuck Todd off the top of 30 Rock asap.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Matt McIrvin: That’s the problem with people;, they will demand someone go stop the bully from abusing people and when someone does it accuse that person of being part of the problem.
Shalimar
@Omnes Omnibus: Henchgoon apparently dates back at least to a Dark Angel episode 18 years ago. I would have guessed ’60s Batman, but nope.
Kay
Is that the first + more than ten?
Trump lost the debate and he’s also horrible at town halls so that’s coming up. But Biden could be better too- it’ll help that he’ll get good questions from normal people at the town hall so he could really press his advantage. If he keeps this going we could win by a lot.
Shalimar
@SiubhanDuinne: Chuck Todd is admitting to the narrative he had already planned, until Trump fucked it up by sucking up all the oxygen.
MattF
It’s not really delusional for Trump. He believes that ‘You’ve got three aces, but I’ve got six’ is a valid argument.
JoyceH
Just today I saw an article saying that Biden has opened up a slight lead in Iowa. IOWA. And the politicos are stunned that the Democratic candidate is leading among OLDER voters. The Olds always go Republican, right? Have they looked at a pandemic map recently? It’s the COVID, stupid!
Ohio Mom
The Moar You Know : the debates would probably be much improved by having the League of Women Voters take them back, though it is hard to imagine how that could be engineered.
Though I think something definitely has to be done about their scheduling. Having debates while people are voting seems a bit late to me.
James E Powell
@The Moar You Know:
I am with you in the End the Debates! camp, but I’d bet that CNN, et al., would have provided Trump with even more free air time. His rallies of hateful, ignorant bigots who hate Obama & Hillary was exactly the kind of programming that cable news wanted.
Jager
@Bruce K:
Attica! In H. Rap Brown’s old cell.
Kathleen
@Brachiator: The Toddler is just phoning it in. I’ll bet he didn’t even scrunch his face which is his go to move for displaying Concern.
Kristine
::dying::
Betty, I don’t know what I’d have done without you these last few years.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: There have been outlier polls giving Biden more than a 10-point lead in the past.
The odd thing right now is that Trump’s position in the race seems to be dropping while his approval rating continues to rise slowly, but that could just be noise. Or it could be that the main effect of the debate was that some people on the margins positively regarded Biden for the first time.
West of the Rockies
@Ned F.:
He will go away. He will die badly and in fear. Look upon my works, ye mighty, and laugh.
eldorado
i can only aspire to the perfection of ‘the debat’ tweet. not even joking.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Yes, it looked like Wallace was throwing Trump a soft ball for some rehearsed line (“I detest the violence on both sides, but it’s all those people’s fault for their criminal negligent birth choices. Who among us can truly say we haven’t been part of lynch mob in the heat of the moment?”), Trump was tweaking on meth to hard to remember his lines and threw a tantrum.
Barbara
@Shalimar: Whenever I hear this kind of comment, i.e., “Trump’s performance covered up how likely awful Biden would have been,” I can’t help think that admitting that their favored candidates, whether Romney or Trump, are mediocrities who have been propelled by birth and connections, would be admitting the same thing for themselves. And it would often be true. Not always, but often. Why would acknowledging that that Trump is really just a blowhard grifter with an uncanny knack for exploiting other people’s weaknesses make them squirm so much?
trnc
No kidding? How dare Biden try to win, or worse, make DT lose.
trnc
Nope. Would love to see those if they exist, but I believe there is only one VP debate each election. Maybe you’re thinking of Obama’s terrible performance in the first 2012 debate before kicking Mitten’s ass in the other 2?
Captain C
@Wag: When I was in Moscow in 1991 with a student group, we visited Lenin’s Tomb. After we exited, our guide asked our professor: “So, do you think he’s real?”
Professor: “Aaahhhhh, no.”
Mary G
All the Muslims I follow on Twitter were surprised and pleased that Biden said “Inshallah” after Twitler made one of his outlandish claims in the debate. Evidently it can be used in a sarcastic way to mean “yeah right, as if” and Biden did it correctly. I’ve been waiting for the right to start screaming that Obama converted Joe into a super seekrit Mooslim who’ll persecute Christians, but it seems to have only struck a few. (Sorry for naked link)
twitter.com/DeanObeidallah/status/1311313743025000448?s=19
Brachiator
@JoyceH:
I just heard some talk radio host apologists say the same thing. It’s always some variation of “Trump misspoke.” They even trotted out an audio clip of Trump lamely, coldly stumbling through a prepared speech condemning “all forms of racism” and white supremacy.
But the reality is that Trump never really means the crap in the prepared stuff written out for him.
Who says that Trump can’t admit it publicly? He has admitted it. He’s not shy about it. He embraces all things white, including and especially the Confederacy. His policies and actions hurt nonwhite peoples. It’s strange for anyone to think that this doesn’t count without a formal declaration.
And Trump openly flits with racists, white supremacists and 2nd Amendment wackos, winking and nodding that they are his volunteer army Brownshirts, and should “stand by” and be ready to be mobilized when needed. It’s a sick mutual fantasy. He has goons. They are hot to bust some heads.
Trump rarely misspeaks. He blurts some shit, lies about it if necessary, and then blurts the same shit again later.
But he does depend on people who should no better giving him the benefit of the doubt or denying what is plainly in front of them.
MattF
@Matt McIrvin: If you’re taking that from 538, I’ve become convinced that 538’s complicated correction algorithms add a delay of several days to their results. They’re predicting the past, which… makes it not surprising that it’s more accurate.
patrick II
I don’t believe he would be so stupid that he would leave without trying for a presidential pardon. Although it’s never been tested in court he could try to give one to himself. He could also try retiring and leaving it to Pence, but he would have to depend on who Pence is most afraid of and that might not work out.
But he’s fooled me before, so maybe he’ll just go. Or call in airstrikes.
trnc
Because otherwise, Joe would have just stated a bunch of facts and laid out his own policies, which you just don’t do in Chuck Todd’s world?
BC
It would never occur to Chuck Todd that a Dem might somehow do better.
John S.
@Ocotillo: My 10 year old daughter DID watch the debate, and what she wanted to know was why Trump kept interrupting, why he was being rude and why he was so angry.
So that’s how an actual child reacted as opposed to the hypothetical reaction of children to hearing “shut up”.
piratedan
@Matt McIrvin: i think what we’re seeing are those people who end up watching Fox News out of habit that have been fed a steady diet of “Biden is senile” pablum listening to the debate and finding out that perhaps Joe isn’t exactly as demented and impaired as professed. May not make them Biden voters exactly but a chink in the projection that has been associated with his candidacy.
Bupalos
I think the most positive realistic Trump endgame scenario is that he claims the results are a scam, but not worth fighting because the presidency doesn’t matter and that ungrateful Americans don’t deserve him and need to learn a lesson, so they can have their fake president and see what they get.
Then I think he stays active extorting the Republican party by declaring which elections are valid and which aren’t. I could see him doing like a “certified angus beef” scam thing where candidates have to pay him to be MAGA-fresh.
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
No one I talked to all year thought Ohio would be a toss up, and it is. Biden has the chance to really destroy him, and no group of people deserve it more then the Trump Administration and the Trump Family. I hope they get shellacked.
Jeffro
I think we need some new pundits and politicos, stat…ones who actually understand that big issues like Covid-19 have big impacts, and that this election is not like the last, which was not like the one before, etc.
James E Powell
@Barbara:
Don’t know. Look how many still won’t call him a liar.
Brachiator
@Mary G:
Very interesting. Good on Joe.
I was just about to say that before I read the rest of your comment.
Totally agree!
MattF
@John S.: It’s been noted that comparing Trump to a child having a tantrum is unfair to children. Children grow up.
germy
Study Reports Biden Interrupted Almost as Much as Average Woman in Meeting
brantl
@Betty Cracker:Did you hear that twit say ‘egspecially’ ? I think we finally know what happened to Natasha, from Boris and Natasha, of Rocky and Bullwinkle shows.
trnc
@Brachiator: I really wish pundits would occasionally put each other on the spot. I would love someone to ask Chuck’s sorry ass if he thinks previous one on one debates have been bad for Biden.
Captain C
@SiubhanDuinne: At this point it’s not unreasonable to think that Chuck Todd is fully in the tank for Republicans, and barely, just barely understands that he has to keep a minimal pretense of “both sides” to keep his job as TV’s Centrist Scold.
John S.
@Brachiator: Kayleigh the pretend press secretary continued the charade by herself flatly refusing to refute white supremacy, dancing around the question and basically doing her own interpretation of Trump.
The climax was getting into it with John Roberts of Fox News to the point that he was visibly angry. Apparently the only “real news” left for the White House is OANN.
Ken
@Captain C: Think of Lenin’s body as a modern version of the Ship of Theseus.
trnc
@Ken: I suspect one “covid test” offered up by Vlad would make this all moot.
Ken
@germy: So difficult to tell if it’s satire or reality. I had to check other articles on the site.
Kay
@trnc:
Trump will lose the town hall. He’s terrible in them- I watched his last one. But Biden should win it too. I think we can raise the bar from holding his lead to expanding it. Biden can do that, whether Trump does terribly or not. Not because Chuck Todd says so but because it’s possible.
Hoodie
@Brachiator: It’s Cult of Savvy horseshit that you hear from a lot of pundits, not just from Todd. One of the Pod Save guys was even make these kinds of noises this morning, but then they went on to discuss several great moments Joe had in the debate, like “shut up, man”, the awesome way he stood up for Hunter, “it’s the way it is because it’s the way you are,” and his last discussion of voting. I was actually surprised how many good moments he had. At the end, the most they could fault Biden for was not talking enough about his policies, which is something he couldn’t really control in that debate format (e.g., a moderator who frames questions like they’re coming from Hannity) and which will likely come out in spades in the town hall format. A thread in this election seems to be people constantly underestimating Biden, which is ironic after they made a similar mistake with Trump in 2016.
Brachiator
@John S.:
Yeah. I heard a clip of that as well. She kept mentioning what Trump had inconsistently said in the past about “white supremacy,” and as you note, dancing around his current statements.
The talk radio hosts I alluded to did not defend Kayleigh directly, but joked about Roberts “losing it” and having a verbal meltdown.
Trump apologists are strange people.
trnc
@JoyceH: I think your scenario is plausible. Hardly matters, though. PB apparently heard the message they wanted to, and DT would never in a million years say he misspoke or strongly state that groups should refrain from interfering at the polling sites.
trnc
$421 million in debt comes due at 78, so that’s probably a more realistic life expectancy.
zhena gogolia
Hmmm. If there were a singular of the word in Russian (which there isn’t), it would be spelled “debat.”
MattF
@trnc: Doesn’t matter what Trump says now. The livestock have left the barn.
John S.
@Brachiator: And to top it all off, earlier today Republicans in the Senate refused to pass a resolution condemning white supremacy groups and the violent threat they pose to our country. The alleged “law and order” party won’t confront what the FBI calls out as the top domestic terrorism risk.
They are completely in thrall to Trump. He owns them, and the entire GOP. They’re all fucking racists and apologists.
zhena gogolia
@JoyceH:
I see what you’re saying, but two things are hard-wired into him:
He doesn’t criticize Putin.
He doesn’t renounce white supremacy.
These are things that are so instinctual and ingrained in him that they transcend his dementia.
Layer8Problem
Imagine that, with him going full Norton the First, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico. Strutting about Palm Beach in a Prussian doorman’s uniform, with goobers in campers stopping in the street to jump out to kiss his ring. Put Ivanka in a second-hand Disney princess outfit and have Don Jr. and Not-Don Jr. in elf costumes selling tickets for pictures with the royal couple.
I still prefer him in ADX Florence for the remainder of his natural life, reflecting on his life choices, but mad, unrecognizing self-abasement really has appeal.
trnc
@The Moar You Know:
I don’t think debates are super useful, but I don’t think they’re worthless. I’d much rather see a constitutional amendment requiring a president to have been elected to and serve at least 2 years in elected office at the federal, state or municipal level, plus a requirement that personal business holdings and stocks be put into a blind trust ( or some mechanism to avoid the conflict of interest).
cckids
Sort of a nightmare, OOAN Truman show. Let the true believers watch it.
opiejeanne
@Brachiator: I saw a couple of Muslims who decried the use of Allah’s name in this way, but most were surprised and somewhat delighted by his use of it.
Ken
The coroner will rule it as natural causes, because when you owe that much money to the Russian mafia and don’t pay, dying from Novichok is the natural outcome.
Or do you think he’ll try to do what Gerald Cotten did (or at least so some allege), and disappear to some non-extradition country? I don’t think that would work because (1) Russian mafia and (2) he’d have to keep quiet for the rest of his life and he’s incapable of that.
John S.
@trnc: At this point, I’d settle for a requirement that the president not be a racist and flatly denounce white supremacy.
A person can dream…
debbie
This pestilence has got to go!
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Josh has a good point about the debate; Trump does love dishing it out but can’t take it.
talkingpointsmemo.com/prime/where-things-stand-october-1-2020-melania-side-project
James E Powell
Am I mistaken or is Trump going to Wisconsin & Pennsylvania a lot?
piratedan
@Layer8Problem: I want him (and every other member of his administration that warrants it) there because he’s a fucking security risk to leave walking about after all of this criminal activity.
I want them all vetted and reviewed and if guilty, charged
Boris Rasputin (the evil twin)
What a business man Trumpov is! Hitler had to PAY the Brownshirts, but the Proud Boys show up on their own dimes! Is that a great move, or what?
God, I’m so tired of this shitstain of a human being.
Jess
That’s a brilliant idea, Betty! Actually, the Secret Service should make that claim, and gently wrap him up and remove him to a gilded cage with padded walls, along with his crew. We have the Truman Show as a model, but we could reverse the audience part; he thinks there’s an audience for his tweets, but it’s all a hoax.
PS: Remember the skunk incident I told you about last week? Well, now it’s moved into my basement. FML.
Ken
@James E Powell: Hmm, let me check the covid dashboards…. Yes, there’s definitely some sort of super-spreader activity boosting cases in Wisconsin and parts of Pennsylvania.
NotMax
Ivanka, Jared and Melania were polled.
Result was 66% for Dolt 45.
//
Ian
@MattF: Trump reminds me of myself at age 5. By age 5 1/2 I had faced enough social ostracism to get my shit together.
J R in WV
@Ohio Mom:
You’re right about that… but remember, these people are old and stuck in the 1960s. Or some distant past before early voting and vote by mail started, which was many years ago now.
They still think election day is the election, have no idea that the election just ENDS on Nov 3rd, think that’s when it happens altogether, which is now completely wrong. The whole situation may be resolved before “election day” if enough people vote early.
Ruckus
As this is an open thread…
A tweet from someone I follow.
That might just sting. Or at least get a lot of recognition from both sides of that dim lighting event.
Barbara
@JoyceH: It’s fear of Covid, but there must also be a certain kind of shock at hearing people basically shrug their shoulders when asked about the level of deaths, saying things like, “Well, you know, most of them were old.”
The Lodger
@Mary G: Joe’s one of those Muslim Catholics, a sect rarely seen outside the Supreme Court.
Amir Khalid
@opiejeanne:
It’s not necessarily an exclusively Muslim phrase. I reckon that anyone who (like Joe Biden) can say “God willing” in English, with or without sarcasm, can also say it in Arabic.
I don’t understand why some Muslims are unhappy about it. Biden was using the phrase correctly. He was clearly not mocking Islam or Muslims.
Hoodie
I could see Trump going for some President in Absentia solution where he goes on OANN and acts like he’s leading The Resistance while hocking Trump ED pills and Trump Proud Boys golf apparel and fighting off the IRS and various suits by creditors. He’s got a lot of bills to pay, but he has expanded his brand and developed a huge new pool of marks to grift. He’ll act as some sort of kingmaker for the GOP, who will continue to have to grovel for his approval.
PPCLI
A current strategy of Trump’s supporters is to compile cases where he has condemned white supremacism on video. Most of them are the zoned out, monotone hostage video variety reading a speech on the teleprompter. But in some of them, he briefly states it with some emphasis, though it is torn out of context and shorn of the “buts” and the bothsidesing.
Then they ask: How many times does he have to do this?????
Answer: When he really doesn’t like something he denounces it at least once a day and often dozens of times. So if you can come up with a tape of him denouncing white supremacy as often, and as passionately as he denounces contemporary flush toilets, or windmills, then I’ll pay attention
ETA: In slogan form:
A minimum condition: A president should hate white supremacy at least as much as he hates toilets and windmills.
Baud
Too bad we don’t have a holodeck. We could do with they did with Sherlock Holmes in TNG and put Trump in it where he could pretend to be president for life.
Maybe we could create some type of The Truman Show world for him to inhabit.
Searcher
@Ken: Also, natural causes can be surprisingly contagious to people who don’t agree with the finding.
Baud
@Amir Khalid:
I’m going with “Muslims are people and, as people, some of them want to bitch about something.”
Baud
@PPCLI:
Same number of times Biden has to denounce violence.
Brachiator
@Ken:
I’ve heard that Trump intends to become a missionary and build mini Trump towers for the poor.
p.a.
Any utube vids of first graders reading tRump’s debate transcript yet? Or would that be considered child abuse…
J R in WV
@Ruckus:
Oh, my! Is priceless~!!~ Thanks for this!!!
Ned F.
@trnc: Maybe I am, but I swear I remember Biden cleaning Ryan up a second time. Maybe it was all a dream.
Brachiator
@Amir Khalid:
If right wing idiots catch on to what Biden said, one of them will accuse Joe of cultural appropriation.
catclub
exactly. if you now played only Biden’s part of the debate, he would sound pretty bad.
Brachiator
@Hoodie:
Problem is, I don’t think that Trump knows where Absentia is.
Ken
@Baud: If it happens, be sure to update the TV Tropes page.
RSA
@Geoduck:
I’d be all for it.
(Narrator: Offer must be claimed within 30 days.)
Ruckus
@JoyceH:
Isn’t his brain just one big fart? The normal kind, not one that originates in the brain before being expelled? You know full of ……
catclub
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: you fancy pants liberals with your TPM prime membership. Did you get a ‘members only’ jacket, too?
catclub
it is fun to say that, but he was talking fast and relatively clearly for the entire debate. He had his talking points cued up and ready to go. Much sharper than i expected.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
He’ll probably think Absentia is some sort of alcoholic drink and he doesn’t do that….
Betty Cracker
I’m not crying — you’re crying!
Seriously though, just having our ballots arrive lifted a weight somehow. For all the anticipation and angst and frustrating-as-fuck volunteer work, etc., this tangible packet of papers arrived in the mail, and it got that much more real.
Also, an anecdote about the capriciousness of voters and effects of ad copy: I’ve been researching local candidates to decide whom to vote for in the nonpartisan schoolboard races, and I was really agonizing over this one choice between two women. I read interviews, studied their campaign sites (shitty FB pages) for clues, etc., and I thought I’d made up my mind
When our ballots came, there was also a mailer from the candidate I was ready to vote for, and unluckily for her, I read this line: “Restore patriotic education to our schools.” Poof — there went two votes (mine and my husband’s).
I know a dog whistle when I hear one (which makes me a dog, I guess)!
Geoduck
@Mary G: Probably because most of them have no idea what that word is/means.
Aziz, light!
Fixt.
?BillinGlendaleCA
I’ve mentioned in some of my OTR pieces that I’m a member of the local photography meetup group. The organizer, Hami, has decided to step down as organizer, guess who the new organizer is?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Brachiator: Heh, the only thing Trump knows about being a missionary is the missionary position.
jonas
With all those losers? Doesn’t sound like something Trump would say.
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Congrats, man. (It’s you, right?)
ETA: At least some Juicer got elected to something.
J R in WV
@catclub:
This is incorrect. Biden’s campaign staff has released a 60 second piece with many of his remarks run end to end, it seemed really successful to me, but I’m in the crawl over broken glass group.
OT… Wife just picked out Linda Ronstadt’s greatest hits album, which is amazing. Torch singer to Rock and Roll queen in seconds. So talented. Good for my soul.
Ruckus, told her your piece on AR-15s and bra snaps, she LOL. Incel Club.
danielx
That would be both consistent and in character. Fits right in with the narrative about how mortality from Covid-19 actually looks (looked?) good if the statistics left out all the deaths in blue states. Those people aren’t really Americans and don’t really count anyway. So if he gets beaten in the election, it will be because of illegal votes from illegal immigrants, illegal votes from those pesky brown people who really shouldn’t have the vote anyway, illegal votes from clones from the planet Nibiru, illegal votes from no-account liberals who aren’t really Americans anyway, illegal mail-in ballots from those barns full of Chinese-printed ballots*…any or all, take your pick.
I’m not sure of whether he will claim the election was rigged because
It really doesn’t matter, since both ideas of the product of a diseased mind. Like the drunk shouty guy at the end of the bar, he will go on proclaiming bullshit without a shred of evidence because that’s what he does. That he will claim the election was rigged is a certainty. I mean, he won in 2016 because of the never-to-be-sufficently-damned Electoral College and claimed the election was rigged then. Any scenario that doesn’t end in a crushing victory for him is impossible because of reasons which make sense to somebody with a personality disorder, if no one else.
*courtesy of Michelle Bachmann, who is still possessor of the craziest eyes in American politics.
Frank Wilhoit
@Brachiator: Just over the river from Erehwon.
Ruckus
@catclub:
That he intended to fart is not an intelligent effort. That he was drugged up enough to be the obnoxious twit he’s been all his life doesn’t make him smart or “with it.” He lacks any critical thinking skills. He runs on narcissism, bullshit and seemingly some sort of pharmaceutical assistance. And has had a lot of practice at it.
catclub
I bet cats can hear dog whistles. also any smaller mammal. also bats.
also mosquitos. also dolphins
Ocotillo
@NotMax: Barron was a nay. By the way, my wife says she saw something on TV that was a video and Barron was speaking (I have never seen that myself) and he speaks with an accent like Melanoma.
catclub
@Baud: power corrupts. next he is probably going for HOA presidency.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Yeah, it’s me. There wasn’t an election, more of a selection.
Humanities Prof
@Ken: This sounds rather like the various things that Sam Vimes and the other members of the City Watch in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series describe as “suicide.”
Essentially, they boil down to: if you do something that is almost guaranteed to cause someone else to kill you, and they do, that’s suicide.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@J R in WV:
I’m so old that I remember when she was dating our Governor(Chairman Jerry).
Ken
@?BillinGlendaleCA: “Oh, Bill, glad you could join the zoom call… No, it started at 7. Your invitation said 7:30? Oops. Anyway, we just finished voting on a few things…”
Litlebritdifrnt
@Betty Cracker: I have said about all of the Third Lady’s PSA’s that she really looks like she is auditioning for a porn film. Every one of them looks like that. Perhaps when the shitgibbon is voted out of office she’ll get the part, seeing as there is obviously no money to pay out on the pre-nup.
Ned F.
@trnc: Yup, I had to look it up. Biden was making up for Obama’s poor performance in the first debate. My baad.
Ocotillo
@Betty Cracker:
Yeah, we got an idiot here running for school board who’s signs have “make our school board great again” Subtle.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Ocotillo: That’s odd, neither the kid or my nieces have Korean accents, they sound like regular California girls.
SiubhanDuinne
@Kay:
Biden’s doing a solo town hall next Monday night with Lester Holt (NBC and MSNBC are both supposed to carry it). I’ve always thought he was pretty good in that kind of setting, but a little extra practice before the “debate” town hall is never a bad idea.
Ocotillo
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Yeah, I was a military brat and most kids with a Mom from somewhere else didn’t have Mom’s accent. I guess Barron is somewhat sheltered.
opiejeanne
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Paywall.
trnc
@Layer8Problem: There really needs to be a serious way to deal with the people who have improperly held security clearances, because I don’t expect any of them to respect the security of the country who took their power and toys away.
ETA: I see PirateDan beat me to it.
randy khan
@Kay:
That poll is too good for me to believe, but I like it a lot. That’s 400+ EV territory.
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?
@MattF: If you’re right that’s bad news for Trump. 538’s Biden win probability was hovering between 77 and 78 for a while, and was at 77 the day before the debate. It’s now up to 80. I’d been assuming the swing was due to the debate, but it could be the tax return stuff kicking in. If the debate effect hasn’t kicked in yet, Biden is likely to see another bump in a couple-few days.
Captain C
@Ken: My guess would be, if he tries to escape, it’ll be to Dubai or some similar place with sun, golf, and no extradition treaty. Of course, that won’t protect him from Russian debt collectors, but it may keep him out of the reach of the long arm of American law (be it state or Federal charges).
Kathleen
@Brachiator: I had fun last night piling on Senator Weasel Words (Portman) on Twitter when he said he was glad Trump walked back the shout out to to the Proud Boys and there is no place for racism. Several questioned his assertion about the walk back and the rest of us just told him what a horrible Senator he was
MattF
Welp. Scott Adams, the shithead, says Trump has lost his vote.
Boris Rasputin (the evil twin)
@Ruckus: Is the bra on another Proud Boy?
Kathleen
@trnc: Thou shalt not challenge conventional wisdom about feckless Democrats. The Kewel Bro-y Kidzzz will delete you from the group text.
opiejeanne
@Amir Khalid: They appeared to very pious Muslims, on the face of it but it might have been the idea that a non-Muslim should not speak the name of Allah (God).
There are some Christians who wouldn’t say “God willing”, and a lot of Jews who will not even type out the name “Jehovah”.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I listened to the O’bros’ debate analysis podcast. They not only watched the whole thing when it happened, but also rewatched in preparation for the podcast. That has to violate OSHA regulations.
Betty Cracker
Huh. Is he going to punk out NOW?
opiejeanne
@Baud: The Trumpman Show.
bluehill
@PPCLI: When the proudboys stop turning his condemnations into t-shirts?
LuciaMia
Ick, Ted Cruz has an op-ed on CNNs site. Re: The SC nomination. Its a monument to mealy-mouthed hypocrisy.
dmsilev
@MattF: I think I know what caused the jump in the 538 number. Their model incorporates a “fundamentals” guess of what the election “should” be based on the economy, that Trump is an incumbent, etc. That part of the model had expected Trump to be winning the national vote by a few percentage points (i.e. a normal non-toxic President would be expected to be cruising towards reelection), but because of some bad economic news (Nate Silver mentioned on Twitter a drop in average household income for August), it suddenly became somewhat less pro-Trump.
Now, the overall model is dominated by polling (if you look at any of the individual state pages, there’s a mention somewhere of the weighting; it’s currently about 7 parts polling and one part fundamental) so a change in the fundamentals doesn’t produce a huge change in the final prediction, but it is noticeable.
Nate also mentioned, yesterday, I think, that if you take the fundamentals out entirely and look solely at polling (an “election held today” model), Trump would be at about a 9% chance to win.
dmsilev
@Betty Cracker: He’s going to show up at the town-hall debate and snarl at some ostensibly undecided voters, isn’t he?
To paraphrase The Last Real President, “please proceed, guy-occupying-Oval-Office”.
bluehill
@LuciaMia: And Rafael was supposed to have been a master debater at Princeton and Harvard.
Ken
Only if they offend him by asking questions that imply this is not the best of all possible worlds.
Amir Khalid
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
I remember that too. Damn, that was 45 years ago!
CindyH
@bluehill: you read “master debater” wrong…
SiubhanDuinne
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
It’s a members-only article. Can you summarise, please?
MomSense
@Betty Cracker:
Why is she standing to the side? That is so weird.
Uncle Cosmo
I would expect no less from Choke Toad, why should you?
PJ
@Betty Cracker: He knows that if he drops out, it won’t look good, but he also knows that if he goes through with the other debates, he is likely to “lose” in the eyes of the public and pundits. (I mean, really, is it possible for him to behave like a normal human being?) So dropping out looks like a better option. But I would bet he waits until after the VP debate to make a decision. If the press thinks that Pence “won”, he might stick it out.
Humanities Prof
@dmsilev: This is true, but I think a big part of the uncertainty is also rooted in time remaining to the election.
Silver’s post yesterday confirmed something that I’d suspected for a while. Biden’s current polling numbers aren’t consistent with a candidate who’s got a 77% chance of winning the election. They’re a lot more consistent with a candidate who’s got about a 90-95% chance of winning. The reason 538’s projections are lower than that is because they’re baking in the possibility that something might shake up the race between now and November 3. The more time passes without the state of the race shifting, the more that uncertainty goes down, which means Biden’s odds go up.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@bluehill:
I’m sure in his dorm room as well.
*Old joke among folk who debate.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Now I’m thinking of these guys.
dww44
@Ohio Mom: They should definitely be given back to the League of Women Voters. Not given to the for profit media outlets.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Amir Khalid: And to think that Jerry just left the Governorship last year.
Ken
I’d say it’s almost certain, since he couldn’t handle the thought that Pence won and he lost, if only in the eyes of the press.
Though that assumes his staff is letting him see any negative press. Considering the tweet above they may have him on a 24/7 loop of Hannity.
misterpuff
But think about what would have implied if he had answered the question directly. He was asked by Wallace if he would tell the Proud Boys (suggested by Biden Good Job Joe BTW) to “Stand Down”? That would also imply Drumpf has some chain of command over this extra legal paramilitary group. The question should have been “will you repudiate or disavow White Supremacists?”, not justify their existence by asking them to stand down. Of course Trump took it and made it worse, especially when linked to his closing about voter fraud and incitement to voter intimidation.
Captain C
@Litlebritdifrnt:
I wonder if part of the renegotiations following Donnie’s “win” in 2016 had to do with all money potentially due Melania being put in escrow, either in cash or easily-sold securities, immediately.
cain
@feebog:
There is going to be a thorough investigation of the Trump administration and the four years of grift. Expose EVERYTHING. And if acts of sedition has happened then we start removing judges because they’ve all been compromised.
Absolutely, McConnell should be wire tapped and see if he’s talking to the Russians.
James E Powell
What changes does the debate commission (who the hell are these people anyway?) propose? The second debate is a town hall, what is the third supposed to be?
Mary G
J R in WV
@Boris Rasputin (the evil twin):
Oh, my! This just gets better!!!
(Yes, I’m quoting George Takei as best I can!)
J R in WV
@bluehill:
Master debater, or…. ?
Emma from FL
@Amir Khalid: I have seen the same reaction here among some Cubans when a gringo swears in Spanish. It’s like “they’re our words, dammit!”
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Betty Cracker: Well, that answers what will happen in the election if he loses, he will just pretend he won.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@cain:
The only way to remove a Federal judge is via impeachment, ain’t gonna happen.
cain
Todd is a corporatist stooge – not a journalist. He should be escorted off the set and deposited in a forest city.
Brachiator
@James E Powell:
Cage fight.
J R in WV
@PJ:
Fixed that for ya. And since Pence is debating a woman of color, no way Trump doesn’t believe Pence won, unless Pence breaks down crying under the pressure of the event.
Which isn’t likely for a Republican Zombie. Do they even have tear ducts?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@SiubhanDuinne: Basically, 2016 Trump was able to run amouke on the GOP and they praised him for it, Trump was enjoying himself and his base loved the theater of cruelty. As other’s have said, it’s about POWNage and Luzs. But more and more Trump’s opponents have been taking their digs at Trump and Trump no like at all and it was clear Tuesday Trump was personally having a horrible time . Josh thinks the base soon won’t have much use for Trump if Trump is always the one being POWNed.
SiubhanDuinne
@jonas:
Is he even eligible? I believe burial in Arlington is restricted to active and retired members of the military and their immediate families. Surely Trump’s military (reform) school years don’t qualify him.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Brachiator: I thought I saw that one Tuesday evening.
bluehill
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
@J R in WV: He’s not a cunning linguist.
germy
Ted Cruz has been busy.
Matt McIrvin
@Humanities Prof: That’s right, though of course we should remember that the Comey-letter incident happened so late in the 2016 cycle that aggregated state polling couldn’t even fully catch the effect of it, so there ought to be some residual fudge factor even right at the end.
And all of these models are explicitly not modeling the probability of Trump cheating somehow, or some catastrophe in the election mechanics that keeps it from being a free and fair election, which must be unusually high this year.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@bluehill: I take it you’ve spoken to Melania.
SiubhanDuinne
@J R in WV:
I saw that yesterday and really liked it. Was just trying to find it to post here, but I’m having no luck at all. You wouldn’t have a link, would you? It’s worth seeing again. Thanks.
opiejeanne
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I remember seeing her as a solo opening act for Neil Diamond, right after she left the Stone Poneys (sic). 1970, I think it was late September.
Ruckus
@Boris Rasputin (the evil twin):
It’s entirely possible from the pictures that I’ve seen. Proud Boys really, really have nothing to be proud about.
Bruce K
Pfft. Trump won the debate in the same sense that Rosie Ruiz won the 1980 Boston Marathon.
Immanentize
Top beef of the day —
Fox Reporter John Roberts has the name of the Chief Justice, but looks like Peter Navarro.
J R in WV
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Well, someone could be indicted, tried and convicted in either state or federal court. Hard to cast your vote from jail, or even home confinement.
And if the Republicans are in the minority, it may be that appeals to their patriotism if corruption is proven in the case of some appointments…. naw, who am I kidding, never gonna happen without a huge majority in the Senate… Republicans would still have voted for a nominee who answered their questions in Russian.
germy
The sanctity of life.
raven
@Ruckus: The one’s who showed up here were a fucking joke. Pudgy little assholes with smirk’s on their faces.
Mary G
Love the smell of flop sweat in the afternoon:
germy
I had a flu shot this morning and I feel like shit now.
JoyceH
That probably saved him from being strong-armed into giving a speech at the RNC. Well, that and the fact that he’s now taller than dad.
SiubhanDuinne
@Ocotillo:
I have read that he speaks fluent Slovenian, and uses it almost exclusively with his mother and grandparents. But I’m surprised his accent hasn’t been at least softened a bit from being in American classrooms for however many years he’s been in school.
Uncle Cosmo
@trnc: Meet my leetle fren’, Novichok!
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
(For some reason I’ve always liked this one – it may be the cleanest dirty joke I’ve ever run across…)
J R in WV
@SiubhanDuinne:
Nope, and Google doesn’t seem to have any data on it either. But it was great. One plain fact after another. Great selection AND editing. I would have thought I found the link here, really…
ET
I love how Merriam Webster had debate be the word of the day. They are past masters at the subtle and the not so subtle, troll.
Humanities Prof
@Matt McIrvin: Yes, you’re correct on all counts.
Perhaps I’m falling a bit too far into the sunshine-and-unicorns camp here, and I know that Adam and others have been warning about the “October Surprise” possibilities.
But I’m just having a hard time seeing any of that sticking this year. Not in any way that matters. The Comey letter worked because it played into 20+ years of Hillary Clinton being painted as the Most Worstest Corruptest Person Ever to an extent that many people actually believed it. But no one who lives outside the Trump bubble is actually going to buy an allegation like that leveled against Biden. Ron Johnson tried to spring something last week with his re-hash of the Ukraine stuff. It was such a wet fart that it hardly got noticed. The problem that Trump, and Barr, and all the rest are going to run into is that a very large number of Americans have cottoned on to the fact that these guys lie all the time. If you make a habit of that, sooner or later, the bill comes due, and I think they’re paying it now.
I mean, suppose that these guys happened to stumble ass-backward into evidence of a real Biden scandal. How many people would believe them, even if they were telling the truth?
As for the cheating stuff, yeah, that’s the other unknown. That’s why we need to make sure the wave is as high as possible. Going to be very hard to lie or cheat their way over a seven- or eight-point (or, FSM willing, larger) beating.
sdhays
I did this during the 2016 campaign. I tried to make sense of his nonsense and divine what he must actually intending. And then I realized it doesn’t matter. He’s a grown man, the President of the United States, no less. He can issue a fucking clarification if he didn’t say what he meant to say. If he doesn’t, whether he intended to say what he said or not doesn’t fucking matter.
What he did was established himself as the leader of a white supremacist paramilitary group. He said that, and 2 days later, he hasn’t even tried to pretend that he didn’t.
Speaking from experience, save your sanity and don’t bother trying to parse Donnie Dump. When he’s being awful, accept it. And always assume that he’s lying.
James E Powell
@Brachiator:
Two men enter, one man leaves.
J R in WV
@germy:
We got ours Tuesday, arm was a little sore yesterday, but no big deal. Like I told the nurse as she was prepping, I got 20-odd vaccinations at one time in boot camp, in a shot line and we all felt like crap the next day, but one or two, no big deal. So far, anyhow.
Would like to know what all they dosed us with, really. 1970. Great Lakes Navy Base. Lots of them with a pneumatic gun. Lots of guys wriggled and wound up with blood running down their arms.
opiejeanne
@Captain C: Would he still have Secret Service protection if he did that? I mean, think of the cost of housing them there for the rest of his unnatural life.
Kay
@SiubhanDuinne:
Oh, I’m glad. I want him to tie it all together- a closing argument. People are already voting. It’s not too soon. He has all the pieces- I want him to put them together. He couldn’t do it with Trump interrupting and Wallace put all the questions in a Right wing frame anyway so that was the wrong forum. Town halls aren’t great for that either- people ask very specific questions- but maybe he can jump off some and broaden them.
For this whole election we’ve been “just win”- traumatized, fearful, and understandably so, a lot is at stake. I’d like to close confident and hopeful.
James E Powell
If I’m picking up on the right-wing murmurs, Pence will demonstrate that Harris is the most anti-Catholic person since Martin Luther. I have no idea what the roots of this might be, but among right-wingers it is regarded as fact that the only things Harris hates more than Catholics is America and the troops.
Baud
@James E Powell: So you’re saying we can pick up the Lutheran vote.
MattF
@J R in WV: I got the superduper old fogie shot two weeks ago and my arm was sore for a day. Second shingles shot was the bad one.
Kay
@SiubhanDuinne:
I know this sounds insane to us because we follow it so closely but I feel like we skipped a step- covid interrupted what would have been a well developed positive argument for Biden. There’s still time to do it. Trump handed us some breathing room. I want to use it.
SiubhanDuinne
@misterpuff:
The minute Joe said “Proud Boys” Trump knew exactly who they were, and reacted instantly. The next day he told a reporter he knew nothing about them. If he really knew nothing about them, he would have said so at the debate.
James E Powell
@Kay:
Agreed. And this gap between debates is the perfect time. Non-political types are paying attention. Let’s state the case in 30 second chunks. After all, we do have plans.
SiubhanDuinne
@J R in WV:
I agree. It was surprising to realise that he was actually able to say a few sentences uninterrupted. I found it effective, and would like to see it again. I’ll prowl through the last couple of days’ worth of blogs I follow and see if I can find it. Thanks for looking.
prostratedragon
“Then, on January 20, 2020, he could simply announce he’s decided to move out of the White House, claiming it’s “too small,” and just pretend that he’s president forever. “
Ms. Cracker’s facesaving option did work for Norma Desmond. And he always said he could shoot someone on Sunset Blvd and no one would care;<)
opiejeanne
@?BillinGlendaleCA: When he was running for it in recent years, I referred to him as the Once and Future Governor.
SiubhanDuinne
@Humanities Prof:
This is ? the moral of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf,” come to life.
LuciaMia
@SiubhanDuinne: Maybe cause hes technically Commander in Chief….
But really, as someone else said, why would he want to be among all those losers?
Ken
@Mary G: Cue Republicans complaining about money buying elections.
Aleta
statesman.com/news/20201001/abbott-orders-counties-to-close-multiple-ballot-dropoff-sites
VeniceRiley
I’d start by getting ahold of every NDA as a reason to fire any and all hires done this 4 years. And if any judges signed one; they shall be impeached.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@prostratedragon: Interesting trivia, but the house used for Sunset Blvd was actually on Wilshire Blvd and was owned by one of J. Paul Getty’s former wives. It was torn down in 1957 for a Getty Oil office building.
The Moar You Know
@Betty Cracker: Hell yes. He got the first one entirely his way from start to finish and all he could pull out of that one was getting destroyed by Joe Biden in one sentence. Got an extra helping of “oh yeah he loves Nazis, I forgot” as a bonus.
If they change the rules and cut his mike he’ll be ruined at the next two debates and he knows it. So yes, he will punk out now.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@opiejeanne: He was Governor for 16 years, so we just call him Chairman Jerry.
chopper
@LuciaMia:
1) cause it’s a big, famous cemetery full of ‘tough guys’
2) cause he wouldn’t have to pay for the grave/burial
3) to keep vandalism of the grave to a minimum
WaterGirl
@MomSense: Some modeling thing, I’m guessing. It looks so artificial, but I guess that fits. There’s nothing real about her.
JMG
It’s gonna be kind of hard for Pence to paint Harris as anti-Catholic, since her immediate rejoinder is she was selected to be VP by a Catholic. That puts Pence in a position where HE will be seen as denigrating Biden’s faith.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@chopper:
Nah, Trump thinks they’re suckers and losers. I mean all that sacrifice and what was in it for them?
JeanneT
@catclub:
I think Biden sounded pretty good when he could get his message out: one minute of Biden debate statements
The Moar You Know
Read the requirements for getting buried at Arlington. Trump cannot be buried there.
Mo Salad
@Baud: Moriarty. Data was Holmes.
Aleta
@MomSense: Neck spasm. Her head is stuck. Lot of tension flying around the WH lately.
SiubhanDuinne
@Kay:
That’s an interesting point. The South Carolina primary (which resuscitated his campaign, thanks to Jim Clyburn) was February 29, and Super Tuesday, which all but clinched his nomination, was a week later, March 3. At that point, news of the virus was just beginning to sink in. I don’t think the economy had quite started to collapse yet; but within a few days it was all-COVID-and-all-stock-market-all-the-time, and until much later there wasn’t an opportunity to get to know Joe better in this cycle. Thankfully, to anyone paying attention, he was a known quantity from his years as Obama’s Veep. At the very worst, a “do no harm” kind of guy, with a compelling and relatable biography.
cain
@J R in WV:
I’d just appeal to the supreme court.. I mean these folks are using every lever possible. You’ll never know till you try.
Cameron
@dmsilev: A PoTrumpkin Village?
Matt McIrvin
@Amir Khalid: I think the English is “God willin’ and the crick don’t rise.”
?BillinGlendaleCA
@The Moar You Know: I think he could under current law, Sen. Duckworth is trying to change it so only Presidents who served are eligible.
Mary G
One of the many reasons I love Liz Warren is that she’s a real team player and is always supporting other Democrats. I just took her cute quiz for who to send last month money to and got
Plus Christy Smith in CA 25 and Hiral Tipirneni in AZ6 who I’ve donated to already. Some cute Bailey pics!
ETA: Sorry, forgot link; Quiz is here:
jl
Most White people won’t sign up for a team that advocates straight out 200 proof vicious ignorant and stupid racism and xenophobia, and extreme political prejudice, despite their often subliminal biases and stereotypes.
Most people of all varieties are terrified of political violence, and explicit threats of political violence in defiance of democratic rule.
Trump gave them that choice during the first debate, he forced people to choose which side, Trump bullhorned out that he is on the wrong side of both issues, and will cost him dearly.
Been some criticism of Biden’s supposedly being too mild and meek, not attacking. But there are more debates and I think Biden and his team understood they had to firmly establish something very important: the moderate, judicious and inclusive temperament needed to govern a democracy, ‘trustability.’ I think that was Biden’s most important task in the first debate, and he fulfilled it as best he could.
Mary G
Womp womp part one zillion:
Humanities Prof
Front page over at TPM says that Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman have just been hit with state felony charges related to an attempted voter-suppression scam in Michigan.
Probably unimportant in the larger scheme of things, but it would be schadenfreudelicious to see them both get perp-walked
Edit: Mary G beat me to it.
raven
@The Moar You Know: You sure?
SiubhanDuinne
@JeanneT:
That’s the one @J R in WV and I have been looking for!! Thank you so much for finding it!
Another Scott
Meanwhile, … propublica.org/article/the-kushners-freddie-mac-loan-wasnt-just-massive-it-came-with-unusually-good-…
Nothing to see here, move along move along…
Grr….
Cheers,
Scott.
opiejeanne
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I was in college when he was elected governor the first time and I didn’t really appreciate him, thought he really earned his Governor Moonbeam moniker. (I was still an R, but was starting to vote for Democrats at age 25, because I had started noticing a nasty shift in the party)
His second two terms, I thought he was a pretty good governor, but we had moved to Washington by 2011 so we didn’t get to vote for him.
jl
Also, I think there have been, as expected, too much ‘bothsidesism’ in corporate media. But Trump was close to stark raving mad during the first debate, and an obvious irredeemable hopeless A-hole. Too much clarity for anyone watching an even a few clips to be overcome by corporate media hack pundit BS.
Subsole
@Wag: Like his broke ass could afford it.
Mary G
@SiubhanDuinne:
@JeanneT:
Jeanne finds the brilliant compilation of Biden at the debate you were discussing with catclub!
It is very effective:
I suspect Twitler’s interjections were muted through some of it. Great work by Team Joe.
Eunicecycle
@Aleta: Aww, taking his idea from Ohio’s Secretary of State. Only 1 dropoff place per county! The ridiculous thing is, Abbott is taking away boxes that already exist! In Ohio a trade union even volunteered to make boxes for free, but LaRose won’t budge. That’s after a judge even said there was no law stating there could only be one box per county, which had been his excuse.
JoyceH
Is it just me, or does anyone else worry about the safety of the ballot drop off boxes? Consolidating to one to a county would make it a lot easier to fire-bomb some in Democratic counties. Are they emptied frequently? Please?
catclub
It is not what is illegal that is the problem, it is what is legal. If The GOP state legislatures have the legal authority to override their state voting totals – by not certifying the vote, or replacing electors, then that is a risk. trump has been discussing this.
Marcopolo
@Mary G: Thanks for the link. Just took the quiz. I’m shocked, shocked to learn I have already supported both of the candidates I was aligned with. But taking the quiz was fun. Warren was my candidate in the primaries and I’ve been doing a monthly donation to one of her Warren Dem House candidates list since April. That included Joyce Elliott in AR-2, Christy Smith in CA-25, Tricia Zunker in WI-7, Gina Ortiz-Jones in TX-23, Candace Valenzuela in TX-24, and Kara Eastman in NE-2.
catclub
But 180 proof seems fine for a lot of em.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@catclub:
In which states is that a risk? A number of states have laws that preclude that as a possibility.
Ken
As a compromise, a special single-slot graveyard (somewhat like Andreas von Zirngibl‘s) could be created for Trump near but not in Arlington. Looking at the map there are several suitable sites, like the middle of the Pentagon parking lot, or the Arlington Water Pollution Control Plant, or under one of the runways at National Airport.
jl
@catclub: Traditionally, the GOP dog-whistle race and other out-group politics knows how to stop at 179, Trump doesn’t. So, unexpected results can occur
Edit: and remember, Trump put himself explicitly in the camp for political violence in defiance of democratic rule. I don’t think that element has received enough attention. Trump thinks he is instilling fear of minorities, immigrants and lefties that will scare Whites to his side. But Trump is so toxic and out of control, he’s the one who is terrifying to people when they see him without the filter of corporate media and the more expertly done GOP social engineering.
Trump is offering people a two-fer on dread and disgust.
Ruckus
@J R in WV:
San Diego here, early in 1970 as well, the next day I passed out on the parade ground in formation, standing, waiting to get into the chow hall for breakfast. Was carried by recruits to sick bay, had a fever of 105, they took my to the hospital in the back of a pickup truck after dark, and the next 7 days it stayed between 104-105 before it dropped that night. One more day in hospital and they took me to the disciplinary barracks to wait for a new company. Fun times. I’ve had the same reaction but not as bad every time I’ve gotten a flu shot. No other vaccination does that.
Nora Lenderbee
@MattF: More to the point: tantrums are developmentally appropriate for children at certain ages.
J R in WV
@SiubhanDuinne:
So glad you also saw that… it’s a fine example of Joe Biden telling the nation why he’s the best candidate, and trump is a Russian puppet, not qualified at all.
They did a great job picking those sentences out of the dog’s vomit Trump forced out over the debate and the nation.
J R in WV
@JeanneT:
Where / How did you find that?
Google doesn’t have a clue about that 60 seconds of great video~!~
And I couldn’t remember where I first saw it at all.
Ruckus
@raven:
I’m not so sure. The Arlington website lists the yes and no of getting in. I do not qualify for in ground burial but do for above ground internment in Columbarium Court or Niche Wall, whatever that is. There is an exception way to be buried there but I don’t see shitforbrains qualifying for that in any manner.
karensky
@Brachiator: Chuck Todd is a stupid and pointless talking head.
jl
@karensky: Corporate news hacks who know how to survive and prosper need to stay away from making themselves ridiculous to the majority of the population. Todd is failing that test.
Whenever Biden had some room to speak, he was sharp, concise, on-point, articulate, persuasive, and sensible. Maybe keeping Biden from speaking too much was part of the the Trump team’s strategy. If so Trump didn’t understand how to execute. I wonder if his handlers were thinking of Romney’s Gish-gallop stunt at his first presidential debate. That is way over Trump’s head.
More time for Biden to speak, Trump would have been dismantled. Same either way, disastrous evening for Trump.
jl
“so maybe we’ll luck out and he’ll go with this easy”
Another sliver of hope is that running a civil war is hard, grueling, and dangerous work. Trump is a coward and folds easily, and flees any work at all. The pro-Trump pro-violence forces won’t have any leadership, let alone dependable leadership. As soon as there is a snag, Trump will call them losers, gripe about them, and sulk.
If Democrats can get in a big early vote, either in-person or mail, that will help a lot. Remember, most swing states count both kinds of early votes before election night. MI, WI and PA don’t so they need special attention from Dem GOTV and voting rights lawyers.
J R in WV
@Ruckus:
OMG, that must have been terrible. I was out all night one night, mid-March, shoveling snow off the Grinder, got pneumonia, went to sick bay, they sent me back to the barracks, but instructed to stay in my rack until my fever came down. I was petrified I would miss enough classes to be ASMOED to a new company and be in Boot Camp another 2 weeks. (Do you recall what ASMOED or whatever that was stood for?)
How bad was disciplinary barracks, that sounds horrible for just having a reaction to the shot line?? Or having pneumonia~!~
Matt McIrvin
@Mary G: That’s a clever, silly, fun way of spreading around people’s donations… it told me to support Sara Gideon, who in fact I have already donated to.
Ruckus
@J R in WV:
When I walked in to the disciplinary barracks the lifer behind the desk saw the desperation on my face as I looked at the guys scrubbing the floor with toothbrushes. Probably their own. He was expecting me and told me not to worry, it was Saturday and the only place on base to put me till Monday and they could insert me into a new company. I had free run of the place till Monday morning when I got my new company. Actually a lot different than normal boot camp. Like any assignment after boot camp. Sleep here, don’t do anything stupid, here’s where you go to eat….. Only day better was the last day when I walked out of boot camp.
J R in WV
@Ruckus:
Well, that’s good. They didn’t have you scrubbing floors with a toothbrush. I heard about that crazy shit, but never saw it. They leaned on me a little while I was on bed rest, but you can’t force your temps down with will power!
Gvg
@The Moar You Know: The proposed rules open for comment NOW state President and VP can. I couldn’t find the current rules.
bcwbcw
“compilation of polls” is a new euphemism for what Trump saw in his toilet this morning.
PIGL
@trnc: One of those is where Senator McConnell and the governor of Texas should be headed as we speak.
MoCA Ace
Win, lose, or draw I won’t be happy until I’m pissing on that odious, racist MFers grave.
I’m not bitter… you’re bitter.
jayjaybear
@?BillinGlendaleCA: The production team for Sunset actually built that pool for the owner to keep as part of the agreement to use the house.
Tehanu
Just have to say, Betty, the post title is this year’s Internet winner!