Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I wonder if trump will be tried as an adult.

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

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

How can republicans represent us when they don’t trust women?

Maybe you would prefer that we take Joelle’s side in ALL CAPS?

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

Ron DeSantis, the grand wizard, oops, governor of FL.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

I was promised a recession.

“I never thought they’d lock HIM up,” sobbed a distraught member of the Lock Her Up Party.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

We still have time to mess this up!

Good lord, these people are nuts.

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

I conferred with the team and they all agree – still not tired of winning!

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

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

You are here: Home / Archives for Schadenfreude

Saturday Evening Open Thread: Taylor-ing the Experience

by | 103 Comments

This post is in: , , , ,


Taylor Swift, still propping up the national economy!

… “I think it’s amazing,” said Katie Mabry van Dieren, owner of Shop Local KC, which sells merchandise made by local artists, including the Karma sweatshirts. “I have never shipped so many items from our stores to different states.”

She said she thought the busiest weekend would be when Kansas City hosted the NFL draft in April. But she said Swift’s The Eras Tour concert stop at Arrowhead Stadium over the summer blew that away…

About 73% of adults say they plan to watch the game this year, about 10% higher than in recent previous years. And the romance that has been dominating headlines throughout the NFL season might be helping drive interest…

I’ve decided that Taylor Swift is my personal next-gen Mary Chapin Carpenter, and I really love Mary Chapin Carpenter. There’s a lot more tech work supporting Swift’s music, which is fine — music tech is so much better and cheaper than it was forty years ago, when I was going to MCC concerts in Michigan church basements!

Interesting Vulture article on last week’s Grammys — “How Taylor Swift Beat Sinatra”:

… With her win for Midnights, Swift broke a four-way tie with Frank Sinatra, Stevie Wonder, and Paul Simon to become the artist with the most AOTY wins. This means 40 percent of her albums have been recognized by her peers as the year’s best: Fearless at the 2010 Grammys, 1989 in 2016, folklore in 2021, and now Midnights.

While it’s hard to call Swift’s first-place finish an outright shock — Midnights was a wildly successful album buoyed by a just-as-successful tour while Swift dominated over a year of conversation — it’s surprising to see her break a Grammys record so handily and to do it over competition like the night’s top nominee, SZA, who was up for her second album, SOS. Here’s how Swift pulled it off.

She wasn’t just successful — she gave the music industry hope.
Prior to October 2022, most industry observers thought a million-album week on “The Billboard 200” (a number combining album sales, song sales, and an equivalent amount of streams) was no longer attainable in today’s streaming economy. Adele couldn’t do it, Drake couldn’t do it, and successful newcomers like Morgan Wallen and Bad Bunny couldn’t do it. Then Midnights posted a stunning 1.5 million units, the first seven-figure American debut since Swift’s own reputation in 2017 (and since Billboard tightened up its bundling rules). As the music industry became even more resigned to streaming’s dominance, there was Swift, doing the impossible. For good measure, she did it again with 1989 (Taylor’s Version) last fall…

She held on to her new folklore fans.
In such a plural Academy, your own genre alone can’t carry you to AOTY. That’s how Jon Batiste surprised for We Are back in 2022, with nominations across R&B, American roots, and contemporary-classical categories (plus jazz for Soul). Swift last won AOTY for 2020’s folklore, an ostensibly pop album that drew on folk and country and was largely produced by the National’s Aaron Dessner, a rock musician. From the way her peers heaped praise on that album, it seemed as if she’d stacked votes from all those corners of the Academy to come out on top…

She had key technical voters’ support.
Swift may now have the most AOTY wins among artists, but someone else still beats her outright: Serban Ghenea, an audio engineer who has worked with Swift since Red. He may be one of the most respected collaborators in pop right now, and this was his own fifth AOTY win (he has also won for Adele’s 25 and Bruno Mars’s 24K Magic). The Academy is full of people like Ghenea — the engineers, writers, and producers often standing behind an artist when they win — and if you want to win big, you’ve got to earn their votes. Swift has. It’s not just the engineers, either, since Antonoff, her right hand, once again cleaned up in Producer of the Year…

She’s Taylor Swift.
Whenever Swift attends an awards show these days, her peers turn into fans. Everyone’s clamoring for a photo with her, and people shout her out when accepting trophies that have nothing to do with her. She’s like the music world’s Meryl Streep — even when Streep is also in the room….

And also, she’s driving the right people out of their tiny minds!

show full post on front page

Saturday Evening Open Thread: Taylor-ing the ExperiencePost + Comments (103)

Cold Grey Pre-Dawn Open Thread: Mitch McConnell, the Lyin’ in Winter

by | 98 Comments

This post is in: , ,

To highlight a powerful statement from Adam’s Ukraine update, last Sunday:

McConnell broke the Senate in order to accumulate the power to achieve a very specific set of political objectives: 1) to cut taxes for the wealthy, 2) to remove as many regulations on the wealthy and on businesses as possible, 3) to remove as many campaign finance regulations as possible to ensure it was legal for the wealthy to shovel obscene amounts of money at him and his caucus members making them wealthy beyond their dreams, and 4) to pack the courts with Federalist Society apparatchiks who would both do through the judicial process what he could not accomplish legislatively and, perhaps more importantly, ensure that none of this could ever be reversed by Democratic presidents working with Democratic majority Congresses.

What McConnell did not foresee that in doing so he was hollowing out the Republican Party and the conservative movement – including the white traditionalist Catholic and white evangelical churches – that sustain it. The result of McConnell’s labors is that instead of one Republican Party and one conservative movement, we now have dozens. The one the Kochs fund, the one the Mercers fund, the one the Uhliens fund, the one Art Pope funds in NC, the one the DeVos/Prince clan funds, etc, etc, etc. In some cases these ultra-high net worth individuals just buy their own Republican officials. Peter Thiel owns JD Vance. A multi-millionaire in Miami created the political career of Marco Rubio. And it was into this hollow shell of a party and a movement that Donald Trump, ever looking for his next set of marks and preternaturally capable of identifying them, recognized that he could just waddle right in and execute a hostile takeover for pennies on the dollar. And, in fact, get others to provide the pennies for him to do so.

Now that McConnell wants something else from his caucus, as well as their counterparts in the House for his “legacy”… he’s not going to get it.

But never forget who the architect of the current moment is. Sure he had accomplices like Leonard Leo and Don McGahn and a host of others you’ve never heard of, but we are where we are because McConnell had four objectives and he was willing to and did break every rule, norm, and tradition to achieve them.

Could not happen to a more deserving elderly villain.

From the Politico story — “Behind the border mess: Open GOP rebellion against McConnell”:

… McConnell, now nearing his 82nd birthday, is determined to fund the Ukrainian war effort, a push his allies have depicted as legacy-defining. But now that his party is set on Wednesday to reject a bipartisan trade of tougher border policies for war funding, his far-right critics are speaking out more loudly: Several held a press conference Tuesday where they denounced his handling of the border talks, with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) calling on McConnell to step down.

show full post on front page

Cold Grey Pre-Dawn Open Thread: Mitch McConnell, the Lyin’ in WinterPost + Comments (98)

Late Night Open Thread: From the FAFO Files

by | 54 Comments

This post is in: , , , ,

Late Night Open Thread: From the FAFO Files

(Matt Davies via Gocomics.com)

Remember JOKeefe-III whining all over social media last week that he was ‘not suicidal’ but might ‘be forced to disappear’? Well, looks like he hoped to preempt discussion of his latest fvckup:


From the local GoErie newsite (which includes a detailed report on the whole disgraceful episode):

show full post on front page

Late Night Open Thread: From the FAFO FilesPost + Comments (54)

Late Night Open Thread: Elon’s Tesla Plate Is Wobbling

by | 46 Comments

This post is in: , , ,

Sooner or later, gravity comes for even the most skilled, uh, performer… Per CNN, “Judge strikes down Elon Musk’s massive, multi-billion-dollar pay package”:

A Delaware state court judge has thrown out the 2018 pay package that helped to make Tesla CEO Elon Musk one of the richest people in the world.

Delaware Chancery Court Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick, who oversaw the bench trial that concluded in November 2022, ruled Tuesday that Musk and the Tesla board “bore the burden of proving that the compensation plan was fair, and they failed to meet their burden.”

The 303 million split-adjusted stock options that Musk had received as part of the package are worth $51 billion today, when calculated using Tuesday’s closing price, less the modest exercise price of $23.34 a share.

The case was argued in Delaware, where Tesla and many other major US corporations are incorporated. While Musk did not have an immediate comment on the decision, he did tweet Tuesday, “Never incorporate your company in the state of Delaware.”

show full post on front page

Late Night Open Thread: Elon’s Tesla Plate Is WobblingPost + Comments (46)

Low Characters, Low Stakes Open Thread: Update on the Grifter Primaries

by | 61 Comments

This post is in: , , , ,


Translation: Sources currently promoting one or both of these candidates try to bait Our Very Serious Horse-Race Media into breathlessly speculating on which camp first contacted the other. The NYPost gave them a mercy quote, because that kind of earned media is their jam.
======

My personal favorite 2024 primary chewtoy, not having the best week:

show full post on front page

Low Characters, Low Stakes Open Thread: Update on the Grifter PrimariesPost + Comments (61)

Saturday Morning Open Thread: New Hampshire, *Not* Living Up to Expectations

by | 147 Comments

This post is in: , , ,

Saturday Morning Open Thread 28

(Danziger via GoComics.com)

 
Jeff Danziger lives in Vermont, which has a historically… complicated relationship with New Hampshire. They both rely heavily on tourism, but Vermont is the ‘good brother’ that does its best to remain true to its flinty yankee heritage, resisting anything that smacks of ‘development’ and living within its meagre budget; NH is the shiftless prodigal that charges visitors to enter, charges visitors again to leave, and is more than willing to shill everything from fireworks & booze at state rest stops, to Jersey-Shore-style bikers’n’bikinis festivals in between.

Mocking NH’s First! In the Nation! primary every four years has been one of Vermont’s affordable pleasures, but it’s looking like they’ll have to find a new target…


Politico is perturbed — “‘You don’t see the frenzy’: The New Hampshire primary is a bust”:

The storied New Hampshire primary is a dud.

Debates are off. The frontrunner, Donald Trump, chose to spend a day in court. His main rival, Nikki Haley, is keeping a light (by New Hampshire standards) schedule. And Ron DeSantis, already an afterthought here, is effectively ceding the state and moving on to other contests.

“It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before in my 32 years of New Hampshire presidential primary experience,” said New Hampshire GOP strategist Mike Dennehy, a veteran of John McCain’s presidential campaigns here.

show full post on front page

Saturday Morning Open Thread: New Hampshire, *Not* Living Up to ExpectationsPost + Comments (147)

Cold Grey Pre-Dawn Open Thread: Iowa Caucus Vivek Heel-Turn!!!

by | 124 Comments

This post is in: , , , , ,

There’s always been a strong WWE flavor to Vivek Ramaswamy’s candidacy — copied, along with much else, from his ‘idol’ TFG — so a last-minute heel turn was an obvious last-minute arc.

Reasoning has always been that Vivek was running (a) for a chance, however slim, to become Trump’s new VP candidate; and (b) to increase his right-wing media visibility and boost his payouts for future speeches, promos, and outright scams. Neither Trump nor Ramaswamy can be trusted to be truthful — quite possibly neither of them can tell what’s true from what they choose to believe right at this very moment — so Vivek’s last-minute “Save our ancient, failing god-emperor from an ignominious electoral death, vote ME!!!” stratagem will just have to go into the history books as a farcical footnote to the various GOP October Surprise sagas…

Per Bloomberg, “Trump Turns on Ramaswamy, Telling Iowans ‘Don’t Get Duped’”:

Former President Donald Trump trained his sights on rival Vivek Ramaswamy, casting him as a threat to his Make America Great Again movement in what appeared to be a shift in strategy two days before the Iowa caucuses.

“Vote for ‘TRUMP,’ don’t waste your vote! Vivek is not MAGA,” Trump said as he arrived in Iowa on Saturday night. The comments, which appeared in a social media post, ended what had been an informal marriage of convenience with the 38-year-old Ohio entrepreneur and first-time political candidate…

An Iowa State University/Civiqs poll this week found that Ramaswamy was getting only 8% support but was the second choice of 30% of Iowa Republicans. Ramaswamy has campaigned aggressively in the state, visiting all 99 counties at least twice in a feat he called the “Double Grassley” after Iowa’s senior senator.

With Trump boycotting primary debates, Ramaswamy had served as a stand-in for Trump’s policies during bouts on stage with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley and former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.

Trump allies praised Ramaswamy after his performances — as they trained attacks on DeSantis and Haley — fueling speculation that he could be Trump’s running mate.

But no more.

“Vivek started his campaign as a great supporter,” Trump told followers on his platform Truth Social. “Unfortunately, now all he does is disguise his support in the form of deceitful campaign tricks. Very sly, but a vote for Vivek is a vote for the ‘other side’ — don’t get duped by this.”…

Tension had been building between Trump and Ramaswamy for weeks, according to people familiar with Trump’s thinking. Ramaswamy told NBC News earlier this month that Trump was “wounded” and it was time for the party to look for new leadership, raising the president’s ire.

But the final straw came a little more than an hour before Trump’s broadside, when Ramaswamy posted a photo on X, showing him with supporters in T-shirts saying, “Save Trump. Vote Vivek.”

Are any of these dudes even old enough to vote?

show full post on front page

Cold Grey Pre-Dawn Open Thread: Iowa Caucus <em>Vivek Heel-Turn!!!</em>Post + Comments (124)