Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

Republicans cannot even be trusted with their own money.

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

They want us to be overwhelmed and exhausted. Focus. Resist. Oppose.

Mediocre white men think RFK Jr’s pathetic midlife crisis is inspirational. The bar is set so low for them, it’s subterranean.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

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

Museums are not America’s attic for its racist shit.

Tide comes in. Tide goes out. You can’t explain that.

We’re watching the self-immolation of the leading world power on a level unprecedented in human history.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

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

Not all heroes wear capes.

Also, are you sure you want people to rate your comments?

“A king is only a king if we bow down.” – Rev. William Barber

I really should read my own blog.

To the privileged, equality seems like oppression.

T R E 4 5 O N

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

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

We can’t confuse what’s necessary to win elections with the policies that we want to implement when we do.

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

You cannot shame the shameless.

Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”

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TGIFriday Morning Open Thread: Another Week for the Marx Brothers History Books

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***********
I wouldn’t buy a used car from Olivia Nuzzi. (Or, were I forty years younger, be alone in an elevator with any of the men with whom she’s chosen to associate.) But she’s got a genuine journalistic instinct, and I’ll miss her wit in the final runup to the election. This is from her latest NYMag cover story about Trump:

It is popular to say that he does not have any beliefs, but what people mean when they say this is he has no principles. His greatest belief, the essential thing to understand about him, is his belief in his own mind. In its power to conceive and then to actualize. And he was unwilling to accept or admit that his mind was vulnerable to the influence of his emotions. He had never been comfortable being that human.

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Friday Night Fights Open Thread: Laura Loomer, TFG’s Latest Emotional-Support Waifu Pillow

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When someone’s too sketchy for Project Veritas and too racist for MTG… Per the Washington Post, “Trump’s time with Loomer, a far-right activist, upsets his GOP allies” [gift link]:

Former president Donald Trump has traveled the country this week accompanied by far-right activist Laura Loomer, unnerving some GOP allies with his increasing embrace of a provocateur with a history of espousing conspiracy theories and incendiary rhetoric…

On Friday, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) posted on X that Loomer is “a crazy conspiracy theorist who regularly utters disgusting garbage intended to divide Republicans. A DNC plant couldn’t do a better job than she is doing to hurt President Trump’s chances of winning re-election. Enough.”

Loomer most notably joined Trump as he made multiple stops Wednesday to mark the 23rd anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, standing nearby as Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), met with firefighters in New York City. Just last year, Loomer posted a video on X that called the 9/11 assault on the United States an “inside job.”…

In addition to joining Trump in New York, Loomer was seen getting off his plane the day before in Philadelphia before his debate with Harris there. And after she visited New York with Trump, Loomer headed with him to Shanksville, Pa., for ceremonies commemorating 9/11.

Loomer emphasized this week that she does “not work” for Trump, but the campaign has declined to say why she has been traveling with him amid increasingly harsh scrutiny from Democrats and some Republicans…

Loomer first gained national notoriety as an undercover agent for Project Veritas, focusing her efforts on infiltrating Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. She left the group in 2017 to do stunts under her own name, such as chaining herself to Twitter’s New York headquarters and leading a group of undocumented immigrants to hop the fence at a Napa, Calif., home owned by former House speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

Loomer ran for Congress in Florida twice, in 2020 and 2022, and lost both times. Her anti-Muslim rhetoric, among other alleged terms-of-use violations, have led Facebook, Instagram, Lyft, Uber, Venmo, PayPal, GoFundMe and Cash App to ban her, Loomer claims.

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Friday Evening Open Thread: That Was A *Really* Expensive Debate for TFG….

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… [O]n Wednesday, it was pretty clear that Trump’s widely panned debate performance dragged down the shares of his company. Trump Media, which trades under the ticker DJT, fell as much as 19 percent from last night’s highs to its lowest point all year of $15.35. (This year, shares are down about 74 percent from its high in March, shortly after going public.) To put that into perspective, it is now less valuable than it was in January, before the publicly traded shell company that ultimately bought it — Digital World Acquisition Company — was cleared to merge with Trump Media as part of the process of going public through a SPAC. It also erased $467 million of Trump’s net worth about a week before he can cash out all his shares…

Trump Media’s only real asset right now is the social-media network, which is essentially a less reputable version of Elon Musk’s X. It is the kind of place where brain-wormed conspiracy theories about stolen elections, the cops who actually did the January 6 insurrection, and Haitian migrants stealing and eating dogs go unchallenged. The moments when Trump most clearly lost control of himself during the debate was when he seemed to be aping the users of his very own social network. You can see how the plunge in DJT shares is not just a reaction against Trump spinning out in prime time but a broader realization that the kinds of posts on Truth Social have little value outside its tiny network.

This has a direct impact on Trump’s net worth. In March, Bloomberg valued his fortune at $6.5 billion with the majority of his wealth, about $3.9 billion, tied up in his stake of DJT. With shares trading trading below $16 — down from a high of $61.96 in March — that stake has fallen to less than $1.8 billion. The price of the stock is expected to fall even farther during the next few days, as traders look to get ahead of the expiration of the lockup agreement, which prevents insiders like Trump from selling their shares before September 19…

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Schadenfreude Open Thread: Let… Us… SAVOR!

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Schadenfreude Open Thread: Let... Us... SAVOR!

(John Deering via GoComics.com)

 
Harry the retreat, shoot the enemy’s wounded, and loot the corpses!

Come along on a short walk across the battlefield, checking out the smoking ruins, the shattered artillery pieces, and the tattered flags of the MAGA armies.

1) El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago‘s drop-by in the post-debate spin room was a real tell. Usually, candidates avoid the spin room as though it’s a cholera ward. The spin room is a job for vice presidents, at best. (J. Divan Vance did show his face, but mostly to defend the dog-eating fantasy.) But, usually, you trot out experts, or famous senators, to make your case. You don’t allow the ambulatory carcass of what used to be your candidate to come out and blither to Kaitlan Collins of CNN about how he “won all the polls” after the debate was over. That was pure desperation with a fine glaze of flopsweat on it…

9) On the scale of Defending The Indefensible, I think it was a tie between his defending his infamous ad calling for the execution of the now-exonerated Central Park 5 and the following delusional account:

We did a phenomenal job with the pandemic. We handed them over a country where the economy and where the stock market was higher than it was before the pandemic came in. Nobody’s ever seen anything like it. We made ventilators for the entire world. We got gowns. We got masks. We did things that nobody thought possible.

And, somehow, 350,800 Americans died of Covid in 2020. Phenomenal.

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Wednesday Evening Open Thread: Another Russian Disinformation Operation Unmasked

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‘Beanie Boy’ Tim Pool and serial plagiarist Benny Johnson are two of the highest-ranked ‘Just Doing Our Own Research’ right-wing pests on social media. It’s probably true that they’d be almost as persistent in pushing Russian disinformation for free. But then again, it can be assumed that, given the lavish nature of the Wingnut Wurlitzer, they knew they’d never have to go unpaid… Per the Washington Post, “Justice Dept. charges two Russian media operatives in alleged scheme”[gift link]:

The Justice Department on Wednesday charged two Russian media executives in an alleged scheme that authorities say illegally funneled millions of dollars to a Tennessee-based company to create and publish propaganda videos that racked up millions of views on U.S. social media.

The 32-page federal indictment accuses Kostiantyn Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva, employees of RT, a Russian-state news site formerly known as Russia Today, of conducting a money-laundering operation that spent nearly $10 million on efforts to covertly influence public opinion and sow social divisions, including placing blame on Ukraine regarding the war with Russia.

Authorities said the U.S. company, which was not identified by name in the indictment, allegedly created and posted hundreds of English-language videos on social media sites, including TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and X, a site formerly known as Twitter, that echoed Russian state propaganda and garnered 16 million views on YouTube alone.

Kalashnikov and Afanasyeva, Russian citizens who remain at large, were charged with conspiracy to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison, and conspiracy to commit money laundering, which is punishable by up to 20 years, authorities said…

The federal indictment doesn’t name the Tennessee-based company. But a quote from the company’s YouTube channel in the indictment describing it as a “a network of heterodox commentators that focus on Western political and cultural issues” suggest the business is Tenet Media.

Tenet is a Tennessee corporation founded by conservative commentator Lauren Chen, who goes by the name “Roaming Millennial” online and her husband, Liam Donovan. Chen, who also works as a host for Glenn Beck’s BlazeTV online video company and contributes to Turning Point USA, didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The indictment alleges that at least two Tenet contributors were misled about the true source of the site’s funding, while the company’s co-founders knew the money came from Russia.

Tenet Media’s launch in November 2023 was hotly anticipated in the world of right-wing YouTube, a mega-channel combining the work of prominent pundits like Dave Rubin, Tim Pool, Benny Johnson, and Lauren Southern.

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Late Night Open Thread: Tales of the Jagoffwagon

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Late Night Open Thread: Tales of the Jaggoffwagon
 
A little schadenfreude, as we gird up for the work week…


(Optimus Prime, Transformer)

Elsewhere in the Cybergork Universe:


Responses from a whole bunch of snarksters…

didn’t even flag the load smh

Maybe he didn’t think he would actually get far and was just proving his concept?

They didn’t come out before he started driving, so why would you expect that to change just because he drove? Checkmate, moran!

I’m mostly thinking how lucky it is they fell out *before* they got on the highway.

I wonder if there are connection points for straps in the bed? I’m guessing not.
ok, I looked it up. It’s got tie-down connection points, this guy has no idea he needs to use them.

After seeing what happened to the bumper of a cybertruck when a guy tried to pull half the load it is rated for, my guess is the tie-downs are secured by an Elmer’s glue stick.

HE’S IN THE PRO PARKING. 😂

Getting laughed at by the contractors, I hope 😉

That’s Trex, plastic decking boards. Slippery stuff.
Yes, I’m pedantic.
Anyway, great stuff! 10/10 no notes.

In conclusion…

Late Night Open Thread: Tales of the JagoffwagonPost + Comments (123)

Late Night Schadenfreude Open Thread: TROMPED

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Late Night Schadenfreude Open Thread: Tromped - STOCKPILE

(Joel Pett via GoComics.com)

Well, it’s always nice to know that Karma is still working, however slowly. Per the Washington Post, “Trump allies try to energize him as he struggles to adapt to Harris”:

… [A]ides did not want a situation where he was watching the [DNC] convention every night, getting angry, and then just golfing all day and stewing, according to people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private interactions. Trump also had grown annoyed with the news coverage that depicted him as not working as hard as his opponent, one person who talked to him said.

So the campaign launched back-to-back events over the past week, with the goal of counterprogramming the Democratic convention and securing news coverage, as other campaigns have often done, but also as a way to keep Trump busy.

The candidate, though, often appeared reluctant. He frequently departed from the policy themes assigned to each day’s event — an attempt to keep him focused on poll-tested messages over his pugnacious impulses — illustrating his continued struggle to find his footing in a changed race.

“The stakes for Trump this election are arguably the highest they’ve ever been. His criminal cases don’t go away if he loses. Yet he seems to be phoning it in, running a remarkably low-energy, undisciplined campaign,” said Alyssa Farah Griffin, a former White House spokeswoman who quit after Trump supporters attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. “From spending days off the campaign trail golfing to coming up with frankly weak nicknames like ‘Kamabala,’ it feels like he’s lost his mojo.”…

Asked about the perception that the change in Democratic candidates had thrown him off, Trump responded: “No, I think we’re doing great.” He proceeded to complain about how “unfair” the change was.

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