“How much Trump stink is on my resume right now?” Preparing for the worst, GOPers ponder life after Trump. My latest on the uptick in resumes circulating on Gmail, disqualifiers for corporate clients, & where all the Trump staff might go post Trumpworld. https://t.co/h8iT0xlPjd
— Jacqueline Alemany (@JaxAlemany) October 16, 2020
The Washington Post is the company paper in a town where the monopoly industry is national politics, so this is actually a pertinent issue for them. Not that the answer isn’t both obvious and (for us sane people) depressing:
… “There’s always a market for lobbyists, but look at someone like Spicer who had high-profile gigs in the White House and where did he land?” noted Amanda Carpenter, a Trump critic, CNN contributor and former aide to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.). “He’s a host on Newsmax right now. That’s not the kind of leg-up to high-profile communications in the corporate world that’s the typical path…. If he can’t do it, I think people with such a high profile will have similar problems.”…
Over a dozen Republican strategists, former Trump administration staffers, current Capitol Hill hands and associates close to the Trump White House predict that many graduates of the Trump administration could have a tough time sticking a landing in the private sector.
They say Trump’s shaky standing in the campaign — and his pull on down-ballot races — is already making Republicans especially nervous…
“Americans have short memories,” Rodney Faraon, a former CIA analyst and member of the president’s daily brief team in the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, who is now a partner with Martin+Crumpton Group. “One would think that the GOP would, as John McCain would say, ‘return to normal order,’ and then we can finally debate issues on the basis of real substance. But that’s the big $64,000 question. What happens to the GOP after Trump?”…
‘Return to normal order’ is quite the lift, right now. Rather like announcing that the patient will be fine once those stubborn Kapowsi’s sarcoma nodules are successfully treated — it’s the underlying immune deficiency which let the cancer establish itself that’s the real problem.
On The Road – Ceci n est pas mon nym – Venice and Milan, Italy, October 2015
Alison Rose
To quote the philosopher Izzard, hopefully it slowly collapses like a flan in a cupboard.
guachi
By 2022 Americans will have forgotten Trump and care about the deficit.
mrmoshpotato
Haha.
Punchy
Hopefully many of them end up in courtrooms, and not as a lawyer or bailiff.
Sebastian
Brad Pitt in Inglourious Basterds had a good approach.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
I’m … not comfortable with comparing the underlying immune deficiency of the GOP with that of AIDS sufferers. One group will be justly stigmatized because their deficiencies were entirely self-inflicted and chosen, eyes open. The other group are victims of the former.
Chetan Murthy
Today a former colleague and not-quite-friend-but-more-than-acquaintance came out as a covidiot. Christ. I’m so glad I no longer work with him: I’d be angry -all- the time. And this in California, and he works for one of those very successful tech companies. And he’s actually rather skilled at his work. But hey, Dunning-Kruger Mk. II: “out-of-your-specialty boogaloo” I guess.
Sigh.
VeniceRiley
Behing bars or in breadlines. All of them. Or I’ll never be entirely satisfied.
jl
From Trumpsterland ads I hear, it looks like some of them didn’t get past the try outs for normal media outlets, so are going back to the wingnut welfare circuit. I heard Spicer’s name, he’s doing some panel about Trump’s electoral surprise win, and the glory that follows.
Here’s a list of countries they can go to, not sure whether they want to pick the same one as Trump (UAE is currently an option, and Turkey). It’s for tourists, not countries available for asylum, but best I can find right now.
COUNTRIES THAT HAVE REOPENED FOR AMERICAN TOURISTS
TravelOffPath KASHLEE KUCHERANOCTOBER 14, 2020
traveloffpath.com/countries-that-have-reopened-for-american-tourists/
West of the Rockies
Every last Trump hire is damaged goods. How does the interview go? “Hi, I have no integrity or decency. I’m greedy and corrupt. Hire me!”
Ivan X
Voted today! Feels great! First CA vote in 24 years (NY screwed up my absentee ballot, so I am relieved.)
Amir Khalid
A moment of pedantry: There’s no w in “Kaposi’s sarcoma”.
On topic: Welcome to the real world, soon-to-be-ex GOP staff. Times is tough. For everyone.
MisterForkbeard
On another note, I see that the NY Post is now…. posting text messages supposedly from Joe and Hunter where Hunter tearfully talks about his addiction and how he’s failed everyone, while Joe basically tells him he’s a good father and to hang in there, he loves him, etc.
I have so many problems with this. But I should say that it shows Joe is a really positive light, as a fundamentally decent person who loves his family.
But seriously: There’s no ‘public interest’ here. They didn’t ask permission to post any of it. And that’s assuming any of it is real, as the entire enterprise is increasingly crazy sounding. The original idea was unlikely enough – Hunter Biden brought in a laptop (or maybe three laptops) with a bunch of sensitive information on it and then decided to leave it there and never come back for it. And uh oh, it had some e-mails from Hunter on it that could be bad if you squinted properly and did a headstand.
Now they’re also saying that… I guess Hunter Biden decided to copy his text messages onto the laptop? Along with incriminating ‘photos’ and videos of him being passed out from drugs? Who does this? How does that even make any sense? I don’t even know how that thought process is supposed to work.
Everything about this makes me really angry.
jl
@mrmoshpotato: The CA GOP did take the bogus ‘official’ signs off them, so I guess it’s OK. Would be fun to see them forced to put ‘no dumping’ signs up.
Does anyone have a clue what that stunt is about. I’ve heard people mutter that they want to discard the Democratic ballots. I don’t understand how they’d do that, unless they went into serious industrial strength tampering on an industrial scale. The GOP gets names for their far smaller efforts. I don’t think the CA state GOP is that stupid, unless the Trumpsters have completely taken over.
I wonder if it is a sign that state and local parties are afraid that Trump’s campaign against mail votes is going to really backfire. That would be nice, but I don’t know, just a hypothesis.
mdblanche
I would favor them with some music, but I’m afraid my tiny violin is currently in the shop.
@Alison Rose: Except the last stage of the Austrian Empire’s slow collapse was setting off a world war with the help of their authoritarian foreign sponsors. Just sayin’.
Poe Larity
Same place the State Department’s special representative for Venezuela and Iran, Elliot Abrams, went. Into a cave, only to return when the next vampire gets into the WH.
Alison Rose
@mdblanche: Okay, minus that part.
jl
@jl: Probably took the ‘official’ signs off to avoid being laughed out of court.
But the difference between the the GOP and Democratic reflexes is on display. The GOP says ‘Suck it, see you in court’.
As for the Democrats, I heard an interview with the author of the current CA ballot ‘harvesting’ bill say she was thinking of amending the law to make it explicit in the black text language that where the law says ‘person’, it means a person, not a dropbox. I thought, nice try, but that won’t stop a Trumpster strict textualist and original interpretation judge.
Edit: I hate the term ‘ballot harvesting.’ How did it get that name? Can we change it?
SFAW
A) Biden wins, GOP retains Senate control: McConnell and the rest of the traitors do their utmost to hamstring Biden wherever/whenever possible. Unlikely that Biden accomplishes anything before 2022. The GOP (i.e., office holders) continues as if Trump never existed.
B) Biden wins, GOP loses Senate control: McConnell and the rest of the traitors do their utmost to hamstring Biden wherever/whenever possible, but with somewhat less success. The GOP has a “crisis of confidence,” which leads to approximately 37 seconds of reflection re: whether they should modify their positions and tactics; they decide against that, and double down on their anti-American stance(s).
Not going to speculate on what happens if the Murderer-in-Chief wins, because this was a “nach Trump” question/scenario. Also because America would be destroyed after another two years of Trump.
Pete Downunder
I read somewhere – senility precludes recalling to whom credit belongs – this post Trump job interview with former Trump staffer:
Employer: There seems to be a four year gap here in your resume. What were you doing:
Job seeker: Prison
jl
@SFAW: Thanks, I agree. Just go back to the previous GOP, which is basically Trump, but with a planning horizon that is beyond the next 10 seconds.
SFAW
@jl:
I think it would be good humor if, at Trump’s next debate or town hall or similar, someone yells “Squirrel!!!” to see how he reacts.
sukabi
Seems like they should start completely over…by being turd wranglers in a waste treatment plant.
Mallard Filmore
@SFAW:
That assumes they remain on the good side of the new AG.
SFAW
@Mallard Filmore:
If they don’t do anything illegal, what’s a new AG going to do? Wag his/her finger at them as Inspector Henderson used to do, until they crack under the stress?
Calouste
@Pete Downunder:
There’s the internet these days though, and everything on it stays forever.
And there are only so many sinecures at Fox and OANN and think tanks available.
Chetan Murthy
@SFAW: I think we can safely assume that a good white-collar prosecutorial team would find *mounds* of illegals acts committed by these fuckers. I mean, start with Lindsey Graham campaigning from the fucking Senate chamber, ffs. And continue on from there. They’re all guilty of massive violations of campaign finance and coordination laws. Nail ’em to the wall, send ’em to the slammer. Maximum sentences. Fuckers.
Jay
@SFAW:
there is a bunch of stuff they have already done, from minor things like Hatch Act violations and perjury, to slightly bigger things like being in Russian and other foreign pockets.
Chetan Murthy
@Jay: Oh ha, I forgot completely about them all being Fucking Traitors!!
Find out what Putin has on American’s Stupidest Senator RoJo, and nail his hide to the fucking wall!
James E Powell
@guachi:
By March 1st, 2021, the NYT & the Village will be “How much longer is Biden going to blame problems on Donald Trump? He needs to solve the disarray in his own party, reach out to Republicans, and make the deficit and entitlement reform his top priorities.”
jl
@James E Powell: I don’t expect that much patience from them. A more interesting question is whether the debt crisis will be announced before or after the weekend honeymoon.
NotMax
Become the question to the answer “Rendered extinct in 2021” on future Jeopardy .
mdblanche
@Alison Rose: We live in hope.
@MisterForkbeard: Since it’s the NY Post, I would assume they were planning Joe would come off in a more negative light than you saw him.
SFAW
@Chetan Murthy: @Jay:
Oh, those “process crimes”? Look forward, not back!
Be that as it may: I certainly hope they would all get investigated and convicted for their various crimes, but a lot of them come from safely red states. And Traitor Turtle will be senator for as long as he wants.
But maybe a few of them getting tried for Treason might cause them to re-think their “strategy.”
p.a.
Which outlets of the MSM will human-centipede along the disinfo now that a US entity has run with it?
All of them Katie?
Sebastian
@Mallard Filmore:
There will be a Truth and Retribution Commission. Maybe I am just going of how I feel but I cannot be the only one who is radicalized from the three years of absolute shitshow and fuckups and stealing and looting but then being forced to spend a year inside, my kid losing her youth and friends, and everything else.
For what? So we can go back to a fake pretending that everything is fine like DiFi? I want heads to roll. And if Democrats don’t go along then their heads will roll too and we will elect more aggressive representatives.
A lot of people, especially the GOP, is underestimating how pissed of folks are and how few fucks are left to give. Just look at the early voting, there is a firestorm of righteous anger rolling in.
Chetan Murthy
@Sebastian:
A-fuckin’-men. And if Dianne Feinstein wants to stand in the way of that, she’ll get fuckin’ run over. Goddamn. You said it well. Really well. Three years of insanity and criminality, inhumanity and incompetence. And THEN they fuck up a pandemic that every other Western country (aside from the UK and Sweden) is handling better, forcing us all to lose a year of our lives at BEST, and some of us our lives, some of us our loved ones, some of us our health. There’s gotta be a reckoning for that. Goddamn, there’s gotta be a reckoning.
“Look forward, not back” my ass.
NotMax
@Sebastian
I do have to pause to wonder what percentage of early voters are motivated by concern/worry/upset they may be incapacitated by or dead from the virus come election day.
Wapiti
@jl: Oh, Biden has a plan for the debt crisis. It’s called “tax the rich to solve the debt crisis”.
Jay
Jay
You don’t announce plans for a “Truth and Retribution Committee”.
”Nobody’s supposed to expect the Spanish Inquisition”.
Don’t forget all the financial crimes from renos and perks, through steering money, PPE theft and resale, to Stock Market manipulation.
MisterForkbeard
@Jay: That’s awful. Really sick and sad that supporting the idea that maybe black people aren’t treated as well as whites gets you this kind of backlash.
Especially given you can back it up. But it’s not hard to just say “Yeah, there’s definite room for improvement and we’ll work with you on that.” But they can’t, because they can’t admit they were ever wrong.
Goku (Amerikan Baka)
@Chetan Murthy:
I work with somebody who told me the other day that she hates “these stupid masks we have to wear” and hopes COVID-19 will go away “after the election”. Not particularly political either. She’s an obese latino originally from Florida. Nice person honestly. I wished I would’ve told her, “I hate to burst your bubble, but this thing isn’t going away after the election. COVID-19 is real and doesn’t give a fuck about the election.”
jl
@Chetan Murthy: I don’t know about UK, but Sweden has tried to reform itself. Currently they have forty percent of the cases and five (5) percent of the deaths that the US does.
Sweden needs to change it’s constitution, which inflexibly set limits on binding public health orders in an emergency, and extreme independence of some government agencies, very rigid delegation of some powers to local governments. Tegnell maybe should be subject to hearings for being a toxic goofball, but not clear if Sweden could have done much more whoever was in charge.
Sweden’s constitution decides its exceptional Covid-19 policy
VoxEU Lars Jonung 18 June 2020
voxeu.org/article/sweden-s-constitution-decides-its-exceptional-covid-19-policy
EDIT: given that Sweden’s constitution is very old, and deadly epidemics are also very old, I wonder how that country has survived through all of them over the last several hundred years.
EDIT2: I need to find a reliable source to learn how Sweden changed the situation so much. It is clearly not on a herd immunity path. Tegnell was an ass because he was very inappropriately coy about what the real plan was, and dead wrong about how close the country could get to the herd immunity threshold (which means very little, really, for permanent epidemic control). Clearly nothing has changed on the national level. Maybe the local governments got together with a coordinated plan? I don’t know.
SFAW
@Sebastian:
I hope so. Been pushing that idea for awhile.
Goku (Amerikan Baka)
@MisterForkbeard:
It is awful. And stupid. The police can never be criticized apparently. Thankfully, that $25,000 in funding was crowdsourced and donated
Chetan Murthy
@Goku (Amerikan Baka): This fucking Covidiot ex-co-worker I mentioned ….. he actually thinks he should be able to meet with 10-12 friends without masks, take his kids to their elementary school graduations, play dates, etc. Fucker actually had the cheek to tell me that if he gets the bug in the next year, I can tell him he was wrong. As if that’s the be-all and end-all of how he could be wrong.
He’s a libertarian, so no surprise, he hasn’t a clue about externalities and public goods. Covidiot.
I feel sorry for your Latina co-worker. I ain’t exactly svelte myself, so my precautions are partially for myself, partially for everybody around me. And yeah, she’s gonna be in for a rude surprise, when she’s still wearing a mask in March. Let’s hope the Rona isn’t feasting in March …..
Goku (Amerikan Baka)
@jl:
Having the decisionmaking powers during a pandemic reside in the nation’s Public Health agency sounds like a good idea on paper. Unless you have a moron like Tagnell in charge. I still remember when that clown was taken seriously
Cameron
Where have all the Trumpers gone/Long time passing…..
Sister Golden Bear
@jl: Narrator voice: Yes, they are that stupid. Which is why they’re mostly a fringe player in California politics.
jl
@Goku (Amerikan Baka): Tegnell is still the state epidemiologist. So something else happened. He changed his mind and did more to use whatever tools available, or maybe enough local governments told the national government to go to hell, and developed effective policies. I don’t know.
Jay
jl
@Sister Golden Bear: “Narrator voice: Yes, they are that stupid. Which is why they’re mostly a fringe player in California politics.”
I meant to type ‘the GOP gets nailed for far smaller.’ So my thinking is if the GOP can’t run voter fraud operations several orders of magnitude smaller, hard to see how’d they pull this off.
Jay
Jay
@jl:
people are using them as “free garbage disposal”.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@jl:
“to harvest” means to gather which is what they are doing. I’d think a farm boy like you would know that.
Ruckus
@MisterForkbeard:
They have exactly doodly squat to run an election on. The candidate is a loon about half way into dementia, seemingly constantly high on something, the concept that they should support him till the bitter end seems, even to the majority of staff, seemingly insane. And they’ve bet the farm, OK it wasn’t their farm but still, they bet the farm on him as the messiah and it turns out their religion is 1000% bogus and dumber than the candidate. Waking up after almost 4 yrs of this constant level of bullshit without realizing that they’ve been taken, screwed, debased, deluded, denuded of all sense given to a fire hydrant, which was the total sum of the common sense all of them together possessed, in following this disaster of a barely human pile of excrement.
jl
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
‘ “to harvest” means to gather which is what they are doing. I’d think a farm boy like you would know that. ‘
Waalll, yassir I rekkin I do, shore ’nuff.
But these dumb city slickers make such a mess of everything. Like, do you you even know the breakeven price of California field corn?
Edit: maybe the Democrats should make a ballot harvesting logo with a pic of a gorgeous smiling Ceres gathering ballots into a horn of plenty with pumpkins and grapes, backlit by a beautiful setting sun behind purple clouds. Sounds like the prefect photo shoot gig for BillinGlendaleCA.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@jl:
Nope, but does it have anything to do with taking photographs?
ETA: I’m working on creating “vintage postcards” now.
Ruckus
@jl:
Fuck them going back. They were shit before trump, all they’ve done is openly admit who and what they are. Which is thieves for very wealthy conservatives. They are stealing the country, and they don’t give a fuck about any of it if it can’t pay them. Their support boils down to the guys in high school who nobody liked, who barely scraped by but managed to turn their nothingness into a good paying con job. trump is their leader because they are his clones. They did the boat parades because they wanted to show they have money, but they are so stupid they swamped fellow boaters rather than do the right thing because the right thing is a foreign concept to them.
So I repeat, fuck them. They want a seat at the table, they need to earn it, and they haven’t done that in decades. They fucked this country and they shouldn’t get rewarded in any way for that.
jl
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Just take the loss. There will be more debates.
Edit: am eagerly awaiting the vintage postcards! Thanks in advance.
Jay
@jl:
in most States, “ballot harvesting”’is an illegal method of gathering ballots, to either suppress them or influence a vote.
there are legal methods in most States, for those who cannot get to the polls, mail a ballot, to elect and certify a second party to carry their vote to the polls.
So of course, the fucking MSM runs with the most pejorative descriptor.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
If there is any Trumper I have any sympathy for it’s Trump’s new campaign manager; he didn’t create the disaster but he sure is going to get blamed for it. And he is likely not to get paid for his troubles.
Jay
Redshift
@Wapiti:
Or as I like to say, Democrats believe in the things we propose being paid for. Why does anyone believe Republicans are “fiscally conservative” when they don’t?
Jay
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
tough shit, he knew fully well who he was climbing in bed with,
and got Covid.
jl
@Ruckus: I wasn’t saying the previous GOP was a good, or even a moderately bad, thing. They will be as bad as Trump, but with more political skill and finesse, is all.
For the GOP, the 2016 campaign and Trump’s term, was like wrapping a pile of dung like a present in a gaudy box that eventually self-combusts, leaving a pile of dung. So, more Groundhog Day.
Chetan Murthy
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: You mean Stepien? The fucker who helped run Christie’s Bridgegate scam? No, Stepien belonged in prison — anything bad that happens to him is too kind.
jl
@Jay: Thanks, is there a standard term for the socially constructive legal version? If so, I’d like to use that instead.
Edit: Wiki says it’s ‘ballot collecting’
Jay
@Redshift:
it’s not that ReThugs don’t believe that things should be paid for,
it’s that, for over 40 years, they have used “breaking the Bank” as a means of killing Government. Sometimes they shovel the Public money out to their Billionaire sponsors, some times they just burn it, flush it down the toilet or shove it in shredders.
jl
@Jay: The GOPers certainly believe that they should be paid for.
Not sure where that leads to next, but I think an established fact.
Joey Maloney
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: You mean the guy who was up to his beady little eyeballs in New Jersey’s Bridgegate?
Lemme check – nope, fresh out of fucks to give him.
Jay
Sab
@guachi: ” By 2022 Americans will have forgotten Trump and be care about the deficit.”
Nope. Covid19 will still be with us.
piratedan
these poor GOP staffers want to know what their next gig is gonna be? Well guess what, there’s a few million Americans wondering the same goddamn thing, so perhaps I will not shed too many tears for them. Those of them who don’t merit indictment… maybe they can grab a fucking rake and head to California and “do some good”.
Redshift
As a companion to the main post here, WaPo had a nice article yesterday about how people with Fox on their resumes are having a hard time finding work anywhere else.
Far cry from the days when the political media would stand up for their “fellow journalists.” I hope it sticks.
Jay
Jay
@Sab:
not “Americans”, just GROpers, ReThugs and the Beltway.
the Pivot will take place the day after Biden’s Inauguration.
TS (the original)
@piratedan:
Should be able to get a job cleaning rooms at a trump resort – seeing as trump has banned the employment of foreign labor.
Sab
@NotMax: My whole family voted early to be sure our vote survives us.
Almost every county in my state moved into red zone (2nd to worst out of four.)
I haven’t hugged a grandchild since February. They are all being homeschooled or zoom-schooled. The cousins back in (parochial) school are havimg to quarantine as classmates get sick. Needless to say, we only contact them by text or phone.
All the vaccine trials are on temporary hold. This isn’t goimg away any time soon. Didn’t 1918 pandemic take about 4 years to settle down?
Jay
@Redshift:
Far cry from the days when the political media would stand up for their “fellow journalists.” I hope it sticks.
Chetan Murthy
@Sab: IIRC, the second winter (matching this coming one) was brutal; the third wasn’t anywhere near as bad, but still not great. Yeah: this ain’t goin’ away for a -while-.
Jay
@Sab:
yurp, a safe, long lasting vaccine will be around sometime in March to October of next year, then 80% of the Global Population needs be vaccinated, so yeah, 4 years or so,
Redshift
@Jay: That’s the main purpose, sure, but they absolutely believe in not paying for the things they have government do (military spending, etc.) Wasn’t it Cheney who said so in so many words?
jl
@Chetan Murthy: Ain’t going away in Taiwan, or New Zealand, or Switzerland any time soon either. But things are miles better in those places. It could be livable until we get the meds and vaccines. Key to get Biden and Democratic Senate, or it will be hell.
In the meantime, occurred to me I should go look up if I have any long lost relatives in those countries. I must have scores of them in Switzerland, but probably 150 years ago doesn’t count anymore.
mrmoshpotato
@Ruckus: I was getting worried going through the comments, then you offer up a “Fuck ’em!”
:)
Ian
OH PLEASE OH PLEASE OH PLEASE OH PLEASE
jl
@Chetan Murthy: @Jay:
As far as I can tell from the Taiwanese baseball news, you can still go to a game there. At 50 percent capacity, crowd can make some noise.
If, of course, you can get into the country. I don’t think I have any Taiwanese long lost relatives, so no angles to work that for me.
Chetan Murthy
@jl: I got a friend who’s doing the paperwork right now to get an italian passport, based on his parents (or grandparents, I forget). B/c who wouldn’t?
Sab
@Jay: How is YOUR quarantine going?
Keep thinking about your co-worker. My oldest grand-child is 20 and has a more difficult life than I think any child deserves. So young. And then I think about your co-worker, only 3 years older with her entire life upturned, she tries to regroup, and then this.
Ruckus
@jl:
If they had more political skill they wouldn’t have ended up with trump. This was not a mistake, they really aren’t any better than this. What the republican party is today is the same as it’s always been for the last 150 yrs. They just took the wrapping paper off and showed us what their version of xmas looks like. Do not be fooled that they should be able to recover or that anyone left is going to make them better. This is as good as it gets. They do not deserve to recover, they fucked the entire country and badly. It just took them a long time to get to the place they always wanted to be. The real problem isn’t that they ended up where they are, it’s that who and what they are is now out in the open for all to see. Many have understood what they are for a long time, they just made it easy for everyone else but the rabid base to see what they are. And the rabid base likes what they see and have no problem being part of that. And once again I say fuck them. They do not deserve one iota of care or concern for their point of view. They weren’t/aren’t bad, they are a fucking disaster for everyone, themselves included. They do not deserve in any conceivable way to be excused for the shit they fostered off on people who gave them the benefit of the doubt. The world can not exist with the number of humans there are with any kind of conservative government, we have to work together to exist, not to let a quarter of a million citizens of a mid sized country die because someone thinks they are unworthy for absolutely bullshit reasoning. We have been heading down this road since the end of WWII, for a lot of reasons, all of them untenable. There is a lot more going on with the concept of current conservatism than just a difference of political point of view. And none of it is good, because it takes from everyone for the benefit of a few and the world can no longer exist like that.
Sab
@Ruckus: I don’t even understand what “conservatism” means any more other than racism and protecting oligarchy. I have never been a conservative, but I used to believe there was some coherence to their thoughts. But no. Even the never Trumpers just want to get back to the oligarchy without the racial overtones. They want stong government protecting them and their property rights, financed by everyone else’s taxes and low wages.
Ruckus
@mrmoshpotato:
And I will continue to, they deserve nothing more and should get noting less than a hardy fuck you from anyone. It was bad enough they offered this shithead up for president but then they voted for him and are supporting him to the very bitter end. I have far more respect for the republicans who bailed on him, and I don’t really care or trust them. But the ones still supporting him, the assholes carrying guns and actually killing people, or running them over with their cars. A hardy fuck you is the least that any of us can do.
Martin
At best they should be picking up trash along the 5.
But yeah, having that on your resume would be a huge red flag regarding that persons judgement and ambition beyond their abilities.
Sab
@Martin: I used to think you were supposed to consider the implications to your future reputation about the quality of who you worked for. Sort of in the vein of don’t work for mob bosses. Don’t work for people in trouble with IRS. Don’t work for people under indictment. Don’t work for Catholic bishops whose last acountant got indicted for running double books. Just basic reputation preserving common sense.
Ruckus
@Sab:
Exactly what they want. That’s why I say that conservatism is a failed political concept. And it is in every country on the planet, not just this one. We are a lot of billions of people and if we don’t stop the conservative bullshit so that we can work together to stop doing stupid shit to the planet, then most of those billions will not exist in not all that long from now. And all that money that the conservatives steal won’t be worth shit. The world has changed a lot in the last 75 yrs. Technology has changed the world both a lot and not so much. But the one thing it’s done is enable anyone who wants to, to see what it will look like if we don’t change. And we, this country, is one of the most wasteful on the planet. That concept of living under a bridge with a sparrow on a stick is not as far fetched as it sounds. The world is interdependent on all of the countries anymore. Massive waste and lack of medical care will kill way, way too many because disease can be spread far faster today than ever before. This pandemic should once and for all prove that it’s one world, not a bunch of separate independent countries. We act like we are above the laws of nature and nature kicks ass, as we can see in the statistics of this mess we are in. trump would be bad without the pandemic but with it he’s deadly horrible. And his party is supporting his bullshit. So fuck them.
Jay
@Sab:
I’m not sick. I am bored, lonely, angry, and living on contactless food deliveries.
I also feel useless.
At work, I could bring my life experience in to help people solve problems. Yeah, it’s a shitty job, but it paid rent and “Calamari “ money, and I got to help people sometimes, who needed help.
SWMBO and I would spend 5 months out of the year, mostly alone, isolated, just us and the pets, in comfort. This is the longest I have been away from her and the pets, except for 25 years ago, when we were first dating, and 3 weeks every month, I would commute from Vancouver to Milwaukee to work.
And I am sad. I am sad that the fucking Government’s haven’t “stepped up”. I am sad at every preventable death. I am sad that I have to stand up hard for my co-workers because Corporate won’t.
SSDD.
Thank you for asking, and caring. I wish you all and your loved ones well, and health.
Stay 2 metres apart, wear a mask properly, eye protection, clean and sanitize surfaces often, and wash your hands you dirty, filthy animals.
stay safe, stay healthy, vote like your lives depend on it.
Sab
@Ruckus: Well, there is kind of a wall around America these days because our health administration is so inept.
I was reading a(n) historical novel the other day. One of the main characters was stuck in quarantine for 40 days entering Venice, extended for everyone in quarantine with her when she got chicken pox.
This stuff isn’t new. Americans were just oblivious, unaware and just stupidly ignorant. The rest of the world (except the Brits we think are geniuses) actually understand epidemiology.
Jay
Sab
@Jay: You aren’t useless. You live thousand of miles away and I have been following you for years. Doing is better than talking or commenting, but commenting does have an impact.
Often the quieter voices are the ones that are most heard.
Feathers
@MisterForkbeard: In the Apple ecosystem, your iPhone text messages are automatically backed up onto your Mac via iCloud. Assuming you said you wanted this done when you set up the phone and computer.
So, yes, if you hacked someone’s Mac, you would probably get all their text messages. No idea about the photos and video. I’ve been avoiding all the hacked shit unless someone posts it into my timeline. But if he was taking the pictures, or if someone sent it to him, it would be in his iCloud backup. Which is why I don’t have my photos automatically backed up. Even though what I am hiding is before and after pics from decluttering my apartment.
Sab
@Jay: I was thinking your were alone and isolated in a hotel and extremely frustrated. So I guessed right? I would suggest bury yourself in a really dense and long book, but burying yourself doesn’t seem your style. There are lots of jackals who care about you.
Jay
@Sab:
thank you.
Ruckus
@Sab:
It’s as much pompous arrogance as anything. The arrogance of thinking that we are better than anyone else, and then being at the forefront of racism. It’s not just an American problem of course it is a human issue but we’ve taken it to a political high art form and it’s killing a lot of people. And it’s not like the signs haven’t been repeated throughout history, but in the past it was not damaging to the entire world and now it is. And this is a country that should have led the way out of that bullshit. But it couldn’t, and some of that is a pompous arrogance – the Ugly American if you will. A book not really before it’s time but one that has grown into itself by people not learning anything.
And understand I’m not say you are in any way wrong, just that I think there is more to it than just being oblivious, unaware and stupidly ignorant, all of which are also true.
Jay
@Sab:
My books, are at home. And sadly, the stuff I like to read, like “Bloodlands, Europe between Hitler and Stalin”, “Collapse”, “Disaster Capitalism”, or even “Deminjuck”, arn’t really escapist.
I ordered a new book on how the BC Gold Rush was really a genocidal foreign invasion, 5 months ago, but it hasn’t arrived. covid.
On the bright side, Tim texted me today to let me know that parts I had ordered in January, to fix tools, are starting to trickle in. Also told me that Amaya, who left, 2 weeks ago for an IT job, leaving us even more short handed, which turned out to be exploitive BS, quit and is coming back. So, I might even get some time to fix tools again.
Sab
@Ruckus: I can’t even articulate. I have a RWNJ brother in California. He is not from there, but he has been there since mid 1980s. Came out of fevered swamps of central Florida (mid 60s) and then Ohio, and then Boston college and fancy Chicago B school. Excellent manners, but sociopathic nut job. When we were kids, he used to launch toads in baskets with helium to disappear in the atmospsere, dying from oxygen deprivation. No scientifific purpose. Just bored adolescent boys wanting entertainment. This is who he is.
Sab
@Jay: I read “Bloodlands”. Tim Snyder’s amazing book?
Jay
TS (the original)
Jacinda Ardern & Labour are winning in New Zealand. As in Australia, the party of the left is red, while the conservatives are blue.
TS (the original)
@Jay: Sadly he is no longer to be the deputy PM. His party which was in a coalition with Jacinda Ardern’s party has lost & he is about to “go fishing”. Labour will govern without the need of support from a minor party.
Sab
Jay, I am just an idiot, not reading actual history. I am currently obsessively in love with Dorothy Dunnetts’ historical fiction about renaissnce Scotland, a very phucked up political entity.
First one is about Frances Crawford, a hyperactive aristocrat working from Mary Queen of Scot’s imfancy until Elizabet Tudor took the throne.
Second series is Nicoli/ Nicholas, an extremely bright and talented apprentice moving up in the world in spite of everything his birth parents can do to stop him. About 100 years before Crawford, mostly in Flanders but with some Scottish ties.
Jay
@Sab:
yeah. That’s the sort of stuff I read. “Wages of Sin”, an economic breakdown of the Nazis.
Demanjuck is an accounting of 120 years of the Court Cases and litigation by the Demanjuck Peoples, to finally win part of their rights, in 1998.
I used to be a settler, living on unceeded Septemiic Lands, now I am a settler, living on unceeded Musquium Lands.
Sm*t Cl*de
@TS (the original):
Naturally we are grateful that Peters took his party into coalition with Labour after the last election 3 years ago, rather than with National. So NZ had 3 years of left-leaning centrist gubblement rather than 3 years of hard right.
But we are even more grateful now that the results have arrived from the election, resulting in a Labour/Green coalition while Peters & his party disappear into merciful oblivion.
Jay
@Sab:
T, SWIMBO, loved some historical fiction, about English gardens, French English Wars, sort of homosexuality but really, power inequality, that ended amongst Indigenous Nations in North America.
Most of it was historically accurate, not just places, dates, but power inequality.
I read them too, because she said I should, but I prefer, brutal cold, dry history.
Still, I will hold in my heart forever, the Millagro Beanfield Wars, the Grapes of Wrath, Cannery Row, and many others.
Baud
@TS (the original): Oh excellent news.
yellowdog
@jl: They are doing it to cause confusion about the vote totals and to create an opportunity for lawsuits. They are trying to cause legal delays so that electors can’t vote on the assigned date. Then it goes to the House and there is about a 99% chance that the shitgibbon wins.
Sab
Outlander fans. Caitriona Balfe’s lovely cat ( Eddie, a girl despite the name) died at at the tender age of 17, on October 15. Sad, but she had a long and mostly good life ( despite 6 months in quarantine when Mom decided to move to UK).
satby
@yellowdog: The majority Democratic house? Yeah, nope.
Sab
This Thanksgiving in US is going to suck. Canadian Thanksgiving already did, didn’t it?
yellowdog
@jl: They are doing it to cause confusion about the vote totals and to create an opportunity for lawsuits. They are trying to cause legal delays so that electors can’t vote on the assigned date. Then it goes to the House and there is about a 99% chance that the shitgibbon wins.
@satby: When it goes to the House they vote by delegation, each state getting one vote. The current count is 26/24 in favor of Republicans. PA is tied and Amash doesn’t get counted as a Republican. There is a very small chance we could change the D/R proportion enough to win the necessary delegations.
There go two miscreants
@satby:
Voting in that case is one vote per state; unless we flip some of the state delegations (I forget how many) we lose.
JPL
@Sab: Since I’ll be alone, I’m going to treat myself and order prepared food from Whole Foods or Fresh Market. At least the kitchen will be easy to clean.
Jay
@Sab:
depends. Did Roast Chicken with SWIMBO,
Miracle Gravy.
For 40 years, never knew you could make chicken gravy, because , like peas, my Mom, cooked it to death , but not grey.
So, we, at least, had a good Thanksgiving.
Missed our friends, Dave and Vicki,
Did not miss our Covidiot KKK brother’s gathering.
Missed seeing Steve, Keiko, Justin and Michelle, but they are also Covid aware.
We facetimed instead.
TS (the original)
@Sm*t Cl*de:
@Baud:
It is really good news, but not unexpected given the leadership during covid. (trump take note what could have been)
terry chay
@jl: the strategy is that they are going to lose in California anyways and they want to call into question the integrity of the entire ballot collection process.
Removing “official” is not okay. Every ballot submitted there is spoiled according to the law and can easily be manipulated the same way that happened in an election in South or North Carolina in 2018.
The people involved need to be arrested and prosecuted to the full extend (many years in prison). Not doing so proved them right: that peoples votes can be stolen through fraud. It is a serious offense and don’t let these right wing GOP armchair profs of loser law schools fool you: it is an open and shut case of fraud no matter the intent.
matt
@Chetan Murthy: I’m not sure what it is, but the information ecosystem has changed a lot. It has provided Trump a floor above 40% despite being one of the worst leaders in the history of the world. I suspect that Facebook which seems to have Dan Bongino as 5 of its top 10 shared stories week after week might have something to do with it.
Ken
The bad assumption in asking “What happens to the GOP after Trump?” is that he goes away. He’ll keep running his mouth indefinitely.
The GOP’s best hope is to see him behind bars, though I don’t know if any of them will make that calculation and cooperate (discreetly and deniably by preference) with prosecutors.
I could also see similar cooperation if his children decide to have him declared incompetent and committed to a nice memory care home.
lee
Honestly, if they come clean about their job with the Trump Administration then I wish them a long an productive life post-Trump.
When I mean ‘come clean’ I mean full ‘Truth and Reconciliation’. Turn state’s witness, tell everything to anyone who will listen and all without a book deal.
One of the many problems with Spicer is that he never did that. The last I heard he was still claiming Trump’s inaugural crowd was larger than Obama’s.
brantl
@mrmoshpotato: I hope people cross-check these with the board of elections, write GOP FAKE BALLOT BOX on them in paint, and then start putting their garbage in them. I am sure that the California Democratic Party could arrange this, and I hope they do……
brantl
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: He bought in, with no blindfold (that will come later).
brantl
@jl: I recommend ‘civic-minded ballot transport assistance”!
brantl
@Sab: that toad launching is the most boring kind of mean I have ever heard of. Jesus..
Matt
There are exactly two “real substances” that should be involved in a debate with a Republican: a curb, and a boot.
Ruckus
@TS (the original):
trump could never have been successful, he has not one of the skills necessary to do so. He started in life with a massive advantage that 99% of the people never come anywhere near, money, education, position, but he was trained in hate and he’s stupid. If he’d had less of a head start he might have been a middle level manager of a medium sized business that his secretary managed to make work despite him, but because he’s stupid, hateful, and yes another helping of stupid, he shot for the big prize of very wealthy. And for the same reason he’s failed at everything but gold plated bullshit. And for the same reason he was never going to be anything more. If he wasn’t falsely convinced of his lack of greatness, he wouldn’t even be a footnote in history, but because he is convinced and his one trait was convincing others of his lack of greatness and level of hate, which matches theirs, he would be the same negative bag of shit but without the lighting and the final office of shame, that would not penetrate that orange goo he slathers on for who knows why and may still not.
Ruckus
@brantl:
They moved the boxes and that negates a lot of the problem. That they could just pick them up and move them was one of their issues that should tell everyone that it was a bullshit idea that they had to show that the CA SoS had done a shitty job trying to get everyone to vote and that it shouldn’t be easy enough for everyone to vote, because in CA at least that’s how they got beaten like a rented mule. They think citizenship should be hard and earned, in their case mostly by whiteness and the color of money but still earned. The premise of this country is that citizenship is earned by simply being born. And that is still not a concept of many places. Including the republican party. They have added a few additional layers of who gets to be a citizen – not to the legal definition but to the one they want to see.
kindness
Republicans returning to normal…. The problem with this idea is that Republican ideals aren’t derived from their voters. Republican priorities come from the 20-30 gazillionaire families and another 50 corporate groups that fund almost the entire party. The Kochs, the Mercers. They want an Ayn Rand dystopia and they won’t ever change, hence the Republican party’s core drives won’t ever change either.
‘Serious’ talking heads who voice these notions should be mocked, pointed & laughed at. That’s all they are worthy of if we are really being serious.
Uncle Cosmo
There will be nothing of the sort. And you really don’t want one.
Any significant attempt to exact retribution from Trumpistas and their enablers will simply touch off Civil War II – where the other side has nearly all the guns, nearly all the cops, and enough of the military to keep it from intervening. About the best you could hope for is a coup à la Turque, i.e.:
Again, that is the best you Retributionists can expect – and IMO there would still be a toll of dead, injured, homeless and bankrupt to dwarf the effects of the current pandemic.
Do you really want that? After mature and sober reflection?
Didn’t think so.
What’s needed is South African-style Truth and Reconciliation: Offer forgiveness in return for their public confessions of the ways they worked to destroy our republic.[1] If the victims of apartheid had opted for retribution instead, the UN might still in 2020 have legions of blue helmets in SA trying to keep the killing down.
The problem is, that probably requires a Nelson Mandela – a decent person of unquestioned authority and probity – to make it work. Joe Biden, bless his big ole heart, is probably as close as can be found in our time – and the Global Oligarchy Project, which profits from the social unrest, is doing its best to dirty him up & kneecap him now that they can’t stop his election.
But’s it’s the best shot[2] we have at getting back to some semblance of normality[3].
———————–
[1] Criminal activity, especially violence, must of course be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
[2] Pun unintended, but I’ll accept the award on behalf of my subconscious.
[3] And not “normalcy,” an obscene & redundant “word” coined by the crooked Warren Gamaliel Harding, who bears a striking resemblance to Mikey Dense. Fuck ’em both.
neldob
Maybe what we need is some really good folk song that names the names and the deeds. Something like a poem that can be set to music so we don’t forget. Like Beowulf or Odysseus except a tragi-comedy. I loved Death of Stalin! Maybe Kristin Guillfoyle as an opera singer and we can be the chorus. We must not forget. Scooter Libby and his gang wandering around the world sowing chaos and death, still. Already I have forgotten more than half their names. Vietnam is already very distant to my children, Allende, Mossadegh. I dont want to forget these mistakes.
Rand Careaga
@brantl:
C’mon. Would you really not want to watch Roger Stone in a helium assisted ascent into the stratosphere?