To their credit, Dems seem to understand that Trump and the GOP have stepped on a rake, at least timing-wise -- Trump's remarks coming within 48 hours of Arizona's total abortion ban really drives home what "states deciding" looks like.
I've even heard it framed as "Trump's Arizona Abortion Ban." That's the savvy way to do it. Trump is a lying liar and abortion is just one of the many things he lies about. The right to an abortion ended because of Trump. He owns it. And he wants a national ban because his most ardent supporters want a national ban.
I really do think that the abortion stompers believed that when they ended Roe, there would be enough time before the next general for us to get over our obsession with bodily autonomy.
Maybe. I wouldn't put a "now, now, little ladies" attitude past them. But I tend to think their strategy was more to move very quickly. End Roe, put Trump back in the White House by means fair or foul (read: foul), hello Comstack, birth control next.
I think I may have made the following point a time or two here: I was troubled by the states hijacking US drug policy to decriminalize marijuana possession/use not because I think weed will be the threshold to the continent-wide den of iniquity, but because letting the states get their camelized noses under the tent on that issue would only encourage them to do the wrong things subsequently.
Nah. Hypocrisy isn't something that matters to those types. Never think that if our side does something good, that will give them the nose under the tent. They'd have done it anyway and still argued against legalized weed.
Yeah. Marijuana is trivial compared to nasty stuff the states have done over the centuries (segregation, education and the like) but I used dope as the example because it occurred on my 'watch'.
And of course, don't forget the Comstock Act, which will soon be good law again (for all bad definitions of "good"). Trump and his supporters certainly haven't. They don't even need a nationwide abortion ban.
Soon's Slow-pokey Master of Disaster Evil Incarnate Uncle Joe finishes up with those nasty Mean Green Wasteful Infrastructure boondoggles and the brand new canal he promised me is runnin' full depth –THEN you just WAIT fer mah ship!
It should be clear that erectile dysfunction drugs are covered by the insanity of Comstock: so its days are probably numbered.
I'm seeing some evangelical types telling their internet flock precisely that we need to stop talking about abortion and what Donnie and his band's actual plans if they expect to win the election.
There have been anonymous quotes from the conservative attorneys (ADF, etc.) who argue these cases and draft legislation for the GOP to this effect. "Shut up about national bans until we get Trump back. Bans are unpopular and a guaranteed loser."
I didn't know about the boner pills, and the same guys who want to control the body of every woman in the country do tend to get pretty nervous when anything meddles with their own dicks. So a ray of hope, in other words. lol.
“Shut up about national bans until we get Trump back” is precisely what Trump said this week in that heavily edited video that our political media stars said was “moderate.”
Sure, why not, this SCOTUS just makes it up as they go along and do whatever they've been paid to do. Not paid by the government or taxpayers, of course. But they get paid.
Ken White (Popehat) posted the following fictional exchange between Harlan Crow and an aide. Crow has just gotten off the phone with Clarence Thomas to secure his vote to keep Trump on the ballot in Colorado:
Crow: OK, he’ll do it. But he has demands.
Aide: Of course. What’s the price tag?
Crow: He says he wants a new RV.
Aide: That’s it? No problem, right?
Crow: (long pause) He says he wants the RV to be made out of diamonds and blow jobs.
Aide: WHAT??? How do you…
Crow: DO I LOOK LIKE SOMEONE WHO KNOWS? JUST GET IT DONE
Never mind that – what I wanna know is whattabout the Interstate Commerce Code? Like, s'posin...just s'posin'...I were to stand right at the state line and comence to commerce (consensually, of course) with some mightily attractive partner in crime, but I need a certain boost if you know what I mean, etc in order to git 'er done. Does Commerce or Comstock take precedence?
or other article of an immoral nature, or any drug or medicine, or any article whatever, for the prevention of conception, or for causing unlawful abortion
is the only line in the Comstock laws that apply to drugs. The question is whether Viagra and Cialis are of an immoral nature
Well, Christ - this Arizona law is from the 19th Century, so why not bring back Comstock? Why not the Hayes Office? Why not patent medicines? Why not sawdust in the bread?
Now this kind of comment causes my mind to careen off in a completely irrelevant direction. I remember when bread with wood in it (saw dust?) was a new thing for adding fiber to the diet. That would have been back in the 70s, that's 1970s.
FunFact: packages of grated cheese sometimes contain sawdust to keep the cheese from sticking together. That or some other substance, which is why store-bought grated cheese is absolute garbage for making cheese sauces.
It’s from the freaking Civil War era (fitting, since the right has been fighting a civic guerilla war ever since losing on the battlefield in 1865). Let’s bring back trepanning and horse-drawn transit, and get rid of antiseptics and indoor plumbing!
Getting rid of indoor plumbing would be about the worst thing any of us could imagine. But for those who already spend their days eagerly wallowing in shit…
A minor bete noire -- sort of the zit on the ass of the elephant that is the elite media's crime against humanity (I barely exaggerate) of their harmful bullshitting that they call reporting is all the crap about "Trump says...". (Also applies to Musk, likely a few others that aren't coming to mind.)
"Says" in that context is bullshit. Serial liars "claim" or "allege". "Says" gives the ~10,000% more credibly than they deserve or should be granted.
Related, a couple of crumbs of hopium:
The above kvetch overlooks that very few people get info from the aforesaid imploding elite news media. Too, I've seen nothing to suggest that this cycle will differ from the old rule that no one -- the mass of voters, I mean, not us news junkies here -- pays attention til after Labor Day.
Meanwhile, Trump just gets crazier by the day. Hate to quote Dean Baquet but I think the odds are pretty good that enough undecided voters and even some RepubliQans will be able to to suss out how unfit he is and that the possibility of voting for him is not an option.
While there's no good reason to expect Trump to win the popular vote, there's the Electoral College, SCOTGOP, the Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys, the Rittenhouse Brigade of Unfuckable Incels, all enabled by our exceptional elite news media.
Crazier by the day in part because he is mostly ensconced in the luxurious (gaudy) ass-kisssery that is Mar-a-Lago. I saw a video the other day of some kind of event (possibly just dinner) in which a live brass band played some regalesque music, spotlights shone, and Tubby strode in with Melania on his arm. He is practicing for his coronation. He will not be able to pivot to any acceptable version of Man of The People come Labor Day. That bullshit parfait of a policy statement was no doubt scripted and cleaned up and that's the very best they can do. Soon he will be expected to answer questions on the fly about his abortion "policy," and he's never been able to do consistency, let alone sanity.
HCR shrewdly observed the other day that Trump's latest abortion announcement came in the form of a canned video — something that could be scripted and cleaned up — rather than in a more spontaneous appearance. They won't be able to keep that up for long, and then his mental deterioration will be undeniable (but they'll try to deny it).
A canned video, so we know the part where he's claiming the Democrats want to "execute" babies at birth wasn't just him riffin', it's an approved and deliberate part of the message.
All that is barrels of MBS' oil on the flames and the flames are his nasty, monstrous, disgusting pathology.
Nothing could stop from being the piece of shit as which he was born. No matter how far back you go, there's not a single anecdote where he isn't a complete piece of shit.
Exactly right. The problem with Roy’s approach is that we have media outlets that STILL won’t use the word “lie” about Donald Trump (I know because I used to work for one and was directly asked why I was so “hung up on using that word “) and who shrug and say “We reported he said it because he said it; what else are we supposed to do?”
"Lie", you want them to use the L-word? JFC, I showed how easily necessary context can be provided without the L-word and still...
But that triggers the old rant that the elite news media don't actually report news in any honest way so much as they create a news-like product, kayfabe.
But I got places to be so you're saved from the rant.
Heading to the grave with a disability making it hard to fully comprehend how people can be so blind to or just unwilling to see the obvious.
He's not just in no way normal but he's such a piece of shit that he's less fit for office than he was in 2015 and after serving ( use the term loosely) one term already.
It's what set him off. No words for desperate he is to be restored to office, to wipe the stain of 2020's loss --of both office and grifts, I mean.
And every day between now and at least til the election's called, he's just going to get worse and worse. Maybe even enough to repel both sufficient voters as well as a SCOTUS majority. Barring any deaths, I see four votes there willing to telling him to go fuck himself.Whether there's more...?
In my experience it would actually be much, much harder to get the average newsroom slug to do what you’re suggesting than to use the L-word. But that’s debatable.
However lacking the work of the slugs are, I acknowledge that they have editors above them and in turn owners above them all, all with agendas other than honest, societally beneficial reporting.
Soon as one gets past the slugs on the beat, you get sociopathic levels of greed dictating things.
That’s actually who I meant by “slugs.” It wasn’t the right word.
A real rank-and-file reporter remembers whether someone’s lied to them before. For our six- and seven-figure media stars (and their bosses), forgetting that is a prerequisite for the job.
Back thousands of years ago ca. the latter 20th century, reporters knew what was going on — as if. But letting their knowledge into their reporting was something else. Nowadays, I’m not so sure. In either case, there are what can be called institutional barriers to honesty in political (among other) reporting.
Yeah but that’s not the same—that’s “maybe he just doesn’t know, being an inexperienced politician and all” nine years after he waddled down the escalator, and after four years fouling the White House.
Right. He's not a politician! He's a REAL guy! That's why we love him! So he breaks a few of those wonky Washington insidery so-called rules. How was he to know?
I've got no idea how it will turn out, of course, but a few things I do know: 1) Most people aren't paying much attention right now, 2) As we get closer to the election, more people will pay more attention, 3) ANY additional attention paid is NOT to the benefit of Donald Trump.
I will never forgive the media for giving any space to the forced-birther claim that "Democrats want abortion up to & even after birth." Maybe that was DJ Turd's own invention back when, but I've heard it in clips for years now, by others, in interviews, before legislative bodies — and it is so patently ludicrous, so offensively an abuse of the English language, the law, & the character of women, pretty much everything under the sun. And the statement remains in the edit & never pushed back against, questioned, even laughed at.
I guess I should be happy that this bizarrerie hasn't changed the 60-70% of all voters who poll that basic abortion rights should be preserved.
Most maddening in all the coverage is that mere hours before issuing his statement Trump said quite directly he was going to lie about it "to win the election." Yet, here is our prestige media reporting what Trump said as though he's NOT lying.
I'm trying to figure out what more it could possibly take to get the media to report on this so that readers/viewers actually understand what's at stake. But apparently having Trump say "I'm going to lie to you" and then actually telling the lie just isn't enough to get professional journalists to understand they've been lied to.
I think the one true joy of his life is getting away with shit. So saying out loud he's gonna lie, then lying, then having the NYT et al treat it like it was a serious statement of policy is another cheap thrill for him.
Like how he says he's picking up votes from African-Americans "Because they can see I've been treated unfairly by the criminal-justice system just like they have." That admission, that African-Americans are treated unfairly by the criminal-justice system, is to be used ONLY as part of the above statement and will be angrily denied in any other context.
The word cloud associated with Trump should have a giant LIES in the center, surrounded by Grifting, Cheating, Threatening, and so on. Good ad, eh? Anyway, the Arizona Supremes blew up Trump’s charade immediately by applying his Court’s Dobbs decision and dragging the state’s women back to the Civil War. We can only hope AZ women and men who care about them will show up in November and pass the proposed referendum, give Biden AZ’s electoral college votes, and send Gallego to the Senate. Of course, the larger question is whether voters in the other 49 states will realize they’re at risk and get to the polls or whether some combination of Gaza, ageism and housing costs will make Trump dictator for life.
Downsizing is the 'Merkin Way when it comes to draining pocket change. Can we sell it by the half-gallon? (Obviously not suggesting we switch to them commie liters...!)
Honest reporting would include, with any video clip of Trump, a running text commentary at the bottom: "He's lying here, oh, there he goes again, that's another lie too..." But I don't know who it would actually help. Anybody with half a brain knows he's lying all the time, even his supporters know he's lying, they just don't care, because they know his lies outrage the hated liberals, and the simple exercise of power gives them a thrill.
But he's been at this for eight years, right? You and I don't need the lies pointed out to us, and his fans don't either, it wouldn't make any difference to them, they know he's lying and they LIKE it. Somewhere there must be undecided voters who look at him each day with the fresh eyes of a new-born babe, would they benefit from it being pointed out for the ten-millionth time that he's lying? Anyway, I can't imagine they're reading the NY Times, so even though it enrages me that the Times can't just use plain English and call him a liar, I can't imagine it makes any practical difference.
Good observation. Those dewy-eyed morons indeed exist—people who simply don’t pay attention to politics until right before an election (if then). But they’re not reading the New York Times! So why pretend that they are and pervert the news coverage that way?
The people that don't really follow the news, get their opinions from the zeitgeist, the vibes they absorb from the headlines, comedians, Tik Tok, etc. So they are sort of reading things and the side that shouts loudest with the mostest usually wins
My favorites are the "Time for a Change!" voters, which requires you to know nothing at all except the name of the current President, a question doctors ask people who have suffered a head trauma.
Headlines, yes. They could still keep them as vibey and misleading as they want but still at least be accurate in the story itself, rather than rewriting Trump’s verbal spasms to resemble thoughtful policy.
The toadsound round here this week is more of an extended burbling, which seems to be American toad for "Hey baby, you wanna go for a swim? C'mon – we'll amble over to the pond..."
"[Dobbs] is not a mere low-impact transfer of legal authority from one bureaucracy to another, but the removal of heretofore accepted Constitutional protection of a basic civil right — very much like repealing the Thirteenth or Nineteenth Amendments (which, if these guys are allowed to get traction, will be among their next steps)."
Now that the manly boors of the far right have brought talk of repealing the 19th amendment out in the open, I'm trying to figure out a way to have an actual discussion about it, trying to parse a zinger question: why is my humanity up for debate and possible repeal? If we're trying to create a more perfect union, wouldn't removing men's civil rights be more effective? I'm just asking a question here —
They’ll get around to that next, and given their way, eventually only a few landed gentry (male, duh) will have any rights at all. Of course they all assume *they* are going to be amongst the elect, but…
Presumably that house and land is for your estate gardener, yes? Someone to maintain your splendid lawn and the HaHa to keep the sheep from grazing too close to the manse?
“Evangelicals won’t be bothered by Trump's abortion gambit — they know he’s lying.”
Lately, he's been adding a line to his stump speech about voting, about how when he's President we'll all be required to vote in-person on election day, no excuses, no absentee ballots. And the elderly Republicans in the crowd who all vote absentee eat that shit up because they know him just saying it will make the liberals mad and because they believe he's lying and nothing will change. If it wasn't for bad faith they'd have no faith at all.
To be fair, I'm open to the idea that you get a linearly-declining percentage of a vote as your age increases. You start with 100% at age 18, and just to make the math simple, at age 118 it's zero, you lose one percentage point a year.
I have been noticing this trope among conservatives since Ben Carson at the 2014 CPAC encouraged his audience to get their elderly relatives to vote "even if they say they're just waiting to die." I envision them rolling masses of dotards to the front to impede the will of the majority.
This is a new variation on the old "skin in the game" argument. Young people shouldn't vote because they don't have families and own property, poor people shouldn't vote because they don't pay taxes, etc. If you're old, you can't have much at stake in the election anyway since you're just about to check out.
It's a new one on me, but one symptom of Republican Rich Guy Syndrome is thinking that any random brain-fart you have must be Solid Gold.
Time being a flat circle, a reminder that these same people wanted to kill off nursing homes full of COVID patients early in the pandemic because they were just going to die anyway.
And because racism is The Spice of Life for them, add in the fact that many nursing home staff are POC and they don't trust THOSE people to help with Grandma's ballot.
Wasn't this a thing in the Iowa caucuses, there was dangerously cold weather and Trump "joked" that the elderly needed to come out and vote for him even if it killed them. Hilarious, amirite?
I can't remember which General said it, and Duck Duck Go is no help at all in this, but bouncing around in my head is the quote, "Clarity of purpose is worth a division."
On this issue, the Democrats are totally united around a simple goal: Codify Roe into the law of the land. Republicans are divided, both confused and confusing, and I don't know how many votes advantage that translates into but it's not zero.
Wisconsin's abortion law, the one the Republicans wanted to stick us with, dates back to 1847. Because we don't hold with no new-fangled civil-war-era lawmakin', whippersnapper.
Boom.
2 marks.
Does Substack have a mic-drop feature?
To their credit, Dems seem to understand that Trump and the GOP have stepped on a rake, at least timing-wise -- Trump's remarks coming within 48 hours of Arizona's total abortion ban really drives home what "states deciding" looks like.
I've even heard it framed as "Trump's Arizona Abortion Ban." That's the savvy way to do it. Trump is a lying liar and abortion is just one of the many things he lies about. The right to an abortion ended because of Trump. He owns it. And he wants a national ban because his most ardent supporters want a national ban.
We ladies really can hold a grudge.
Oh my, yes. And I'm also Irish on my father's side. They say when an Irishman has amnesia, he forgets everything but the grudges.
I really do think that the abortion stompers believed that when they ended Roe, there would be enough time before the next general for us to get over our obsession with bodily autonomy.
Maybe. I wouldn't put a "now, now, little ladies" attitude past them. But I tend to think their strategy was more to move very quickly. End Roe, put Trump back in the White House by means fair or foul (read: foul), hello Comstack, birth control next.
The We Know What's Best For You approach.
Y'all gonna get yer own Puhsunnal Best, as decided by us'ns. We're certain y'all 'll agree it's only right.
Maybe a new hat or a pocketbook would catch the ladies' attention, and they'd forget all about it.
Just trolling for oofs, aren’tcha…
Well all righty then:
OOF
Other “classics”: Take a nice bubble bath, or go shopping. You’ll forget all about those pesky “rights.”
"Calgon, take me away!"
Abortion has been a litmus issue for me since I first voted in 74. It will remain so as long as I am on the planet.
That's a rake of the size normally attached to a tractor.
I think I may have made the following point a time or two here: I was troubled by the states hijacking US drug policy to decriminalize marijuana possession/use not because I think weed will be the threshold to the continent-wide den of iniquity, but because letting the states get their camelized noses under the tent on that issue would only encourage them to do the wrong things subsequently.
And VIOLA!
[sullenly muttering 'pattern recognition']
Nah. Hypocrisy isn't something that matters to those types. Never think that if our side does something good, that will give them the nose under the tent. They'd have done it anyway and still argued against legalized weed.
Yeah. Marijuana is trivial compared to nasty stuff the states have done over the centuries (segregation, education and the like) but I used dope as the example because it occurred on my 'watch'.
At least hempy days are here again...
And of course, don't forget the Comstock Act, which will soon be good law again (for all bad definitions of "good"). Trump and his supporters certainly haven't. They don't even need a nationwide abortion ban.
Every single one of them knowing that if THEY or one of THEIRS needs an abortion, one will be easily procured.
Democracy for me but not for thee.
And all the Rural Poors who think Tubby is bringing in their ships....
Soon's Slow-pokey Master of Disaster Evil Incarnate Uncle Joe finishes up with those nasty Mean Green Wasteful Infrastructure boondoggles and the brand new canal he promised me is runnin' full depth –THEN you just WAIT fer mah ship!
"Waaah! Some liberal college perfesser wrote a mean book about us! Now we GOTTA vote for Trump!"
He LIED about us and said we were filled with rage, and that LIE just fills us with rage!
Once again for no obvious reason thinking of my brother-in-law and his silenced sniper rifle...
Especially the mistresses.
Oof.
It should be clear that erectile dysfunction drugs are covered by the insanity of Comstock: so its days are probably numbered.
I'm seeing some evangelical types telling their internet flock precisely that we need to stop talking about abortion and what Donnie and his band's actual plans if they expect to win the election.
There have been anonymous quotes from the conservative attorneys (ADF, etc.) who argue these cases and draft legislation for the GOP to this effect. "Shut up about national bans until we get Trump back. Bans are unpopular and a guaranteed loser."
I didn't know about the boner pills, and the same guys who want to control the body of every woman in the country do tend to get pretty nervous when anything meddles with their own dicks. So a ray of hope, in other words. lol.
“Shut up about national bans until we get Trump back” is precisely what Trump said this week in that heavily edited video that our political media stars said was “moderate.”
It *should* be clear ED drugs would violate Comstock, but since ED is a serious medical issue [*cough*] I bet they'd find a way to make an exception.
In this case, the way things were done in Olden Times is clearly just obsolete.
Sure, why not, this SCOTUS just makes it up as they go along and do whatever they've been paid to do. Not paid by the government or taxpayers, of course. But they get paid.
Hey, it's hard to live in Biden's America on a SCJ salary.
Have you SEEN the price of Prevost motor homes these days?
Ken White (Popehat) posted the following fictional exchange between Harlan Crow and an aide. Crow has just gotten off the phone with Clarence Thomas to secure his vote to keep Trump on the ballot in Colorado:
Crow: OK, he’ll do it. But he has demands.
Aide: Of course. What’s the price tag?
Crow: He says he wants a new RV.
Aide: That’s it? No problem, right?
Crow: (long pause) He says he wants the RV to be made out of diamonds and blow jobs.
Aide: WHAT??? How do you…
Crow: DO I LOOK LIKE SOMEONE WHO KNOWS? JUST GET IT DONE
I believe the preferred term is "motor coach."
It’s all Calvinball all the time
Never mind that – what I wanna know is whattabout the Interstate Commerce Code? Like, s'posin...just s'posin'...I were to stand right at the state line and comence to commerce (consensually, of course) with some mightily attractive partner in crime, but I need a certain boost if you know what I mean, etc in order to git 'er done. Does Commerce or Comstock take precedence?
Depends on which part of the (watered-down) Sherman Antitrust Act you want to violate.
There will be a proliferation of "little stores just across the border", I'm sure.
or other article of an immoral nature, or any drug or medicine, or any article whatever, for the prevention of conception, or for causing unlawful abortion
is the only line in the Comstock laws that apply to drugs. The question is whether Viagra and Cialis are of an immoral nature
Well, Christ - this Arizona law is from the 19th Century, so why not bring back Comstock? Why not the Hayes Office? Why not patent medicines? Why not sawdust in the bread?
Now this kind of comment causes my mind to careen off in a completely irrelevant direction. I remember when bread with wood in it (saw dust?) was a new thing for adding fiber to the diet. That would have been back in the 70s, that's 1970s.
FunFact: packages of grated cheese sometimes contain sawdust to keep the cheese from sticking together. That or some other substance, which is why store-bought grated cheese is absolute garbage for making cheese sauces.
Say, that IS fun!
Most of them also contain an antibiotic--natamycin--as an antifungal preservative. So, yuck, grate your own.
Make America Gra–
Ah, never mind...
Luv ya, Bern
It’s from the freaking Civil War era (fitting, since the right has been fighting a civic guerilla war ever since losing on the battlefield in 1865). Let’s bring back trepanning and horse-drawn transit, and get rid of antiseptics and indoor plumbing!
They're probably fine with all of it, right up until you get to boner pills and hi-tech shootin' arns.
Getting rid of indoor plumbing would be about the worst thing any of us could imagine. But for those who already spend their days eagerly wallowing in shit…
"Premature antiseptics" be on some watch list soon enough.
There are many self-trepanation videos on youtube
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=self-trepanning+video
https://i.pinimg.com/236x/8c/80/3c/8c803c7cb52897758609a70fabc9cd58--out-out-incorrect.jpg
They've already been hinting around about child labor.
If by hinting you mean "Gitcher ass up that ladder quick-like!"
A minor bete noire -- sort of the zit on the ass of the elephant that is the elite media's crime against humanity (I barely exaggerate) of their harmful bullshitting that they call reporting is all the crap about "Trump says...". (Also applies to Musk, likely a few others that aren't coming to mind.)
"Says" in that context is bullshit. Serial liars "claim" or "allege". "Says" gives the ~10,000% more credibly than they deserve or should be granted.
Related, a couple of crumbs of hopium:
The above kvetch overlooks that very few people get info from the aforesaid imploding elite news media. Too, I've seen nothing to suggest that this cycle will differ from the old rule that no one -- the mass of voters, I mean, not us news junkies here -- pays attention til after Labor Day.
Meanwhile, Trump just gets crazier by the day. Hate to quote Dean Baquet but I think the odds are pretty good that enough undecided voters and even some RepubliQans will be able to to suss out how unfit he is and that the possibility of voting for him is not an option.
🤞🏻
Manqeman said:
"a couple of crumbs of hopium"
!!!
Don't get your hopes up. I left out sooo much stuff that would counter it 😬
Your 'leavin's' is other folks bon mots...
Not in this case 😂😭 sorry.
Fair enough. Keep it to yerself then.
Triggered:
While there's no good reason to expect Trump to win the popular vote, there's the Electoral College, SCOTGOP, the Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys, the Rittenhouse Brigade of Unfuckable Incels, all enabled by our exceptional elite news media.
That's what I held back...
Crazier by the day in part because he is mostly ensconced in the luxurious (gaudy) ass-kisssery that is Mar-a-Lago. I saw a video the other day of some kind of event (possibly just dinner) in which a live brass band played some regalesque music, spotlights shone, and Tubby strode in with Melania on his arm. He is practicing for his coronation. He will not be able to pivot to any acceptable version of Man of The People come Labor Day. That bullshit parfait of a policy statement was no doubt scripted and cleaned up and that's the very best they can do. Soon he will be expected to answer questions on the fly about his abortion "policy," and he's never been able to do consistency, let alone sanity.
HCR shrewdly observed the other day that Trump's latest abortion announcement came in the form of a canned video — something that could be scripted and cleaned up — rather than in a more spontaneous appearance. They won't be able to keep that up for long, and then his mental deterioration will be undeniable (but they'll try to deny it).
I thought videos always came in an aluminum tray.
A canned video, so we know the part where he's claiming the Democrats want to "execute" babies at birth wasn't just him riffin', it's an approved and deliberate part of the message.
Well that's just an article of faith these days.
We must find this Faith person and stop her!
It's maybe Faith Hill, or Faith Chayya Reichik
All that is barrels of MBS' oil on the flames and the flames are his nasty, monstrous, disgusting pathology.
Nothing could stop from being the piece of shit as which he was born. No matter how far back you go, there's not a single anecdote where he isn't a complete piece of shit.
Exactly right. The problem with Roy’s approach is that we have media outlets that STILL won’t use the word “lie” about Donald Trump (I know because I used to work for one and was directly asked why I was so “hung up on using that word “) and who shrug and say “We reported he said it because he said it; what else are we supposed to do?”
"Lie", you want them to use the L-word? JFC, I showed how easily necessary context can be provided without the L-word and still...
But that triggers the old rant that the elite news media don't actually report news in any honest way so much as they create a news-like product, kayfabe.
But I got places to be so you're saved from the rant.
He's a candidate for the highest office in the land! We must treat his every utterance with gravitas.
Heading to the grave with a disability making it hard to fully comprehend how people can be so blind to or just unwilling to see the obvious.
He's not just in no way normal but he's such a piece of shit that he's less fit for office than he was in 2015 and after serving ( use the term loosely) one term already.
The butt-hurt of having lost Prom King to Sleepy Joe did nothing to mitigate his life-long shittiness.
It's what set him off. No words for desperate he is to be restored to office, to wipe the stain of 2020's loss --of both office and grifts, I mean.
And every day between now and at least til the election's called, he's just going to get worse and worse. Maybe even enough to repel both sufficient voters as well as a SCOTUS majority. Barring any deaths, I see four votes there willing to telling him to go fuck himself.Whether there's more...?
To be fair, sounds like it'd be fun to watch Queensman play a couple rounds of gravy-toss.
In my experience it would actually be much, much harder to get the average newsroom slug to do what you’re suggesting than to use the L-word. But that’s debatable.
However lacking the work of the slugs are, I acknowledge that they have editors above them and in turn owners above them all, all with agendas other than honest, societally beneficial reporting.
Soon as one gets past the slugs on the beat, you get sociopathic levels of greed dictating things.
That’s actually who I meant by “slugs.” It wasn’t the right word.
A real rank-and-file reporter remembers whether someone’s lied to them before. For our six- and seven-figure media stars (and their bosses), forgetting that is a prerequisite for the job.
Back thousands of years ago ca. the latter 20th century, reporters knew what was going on — as if. But letting their knowledge into their reporting was something else. Nowadays, I’m not so sure. In either case, there are what can be called institutional barriers to honesty in political (among other) reporting.
The Old Grey Lady is no lady.
“That was no lady; that was the paper of record!” /rimshot
Back when records was made a lacquer, FFS!
Well I've seen "he falsely claimed..." a few times lately.
Yeah but that’s not the same—that’s “maybe he just doesn’t know, being an inexperienced politician and all” nine years after he waddled down the escalator, and after four years fouling the White House.
Right. He's not a politician! He's a REAL guy! That's why we love him! So he breaks a few of those wonky Washington insidery so-called rules. How was he to know?
I've got no idea how it will turn out, of course, but a few things I do know: 1) Most people aren't paying much attention right now, 2) As we get closer to the election, more people will pay more attention, 3) ANY additional attention paid is NOT to the benefit of Donald Trump.
All for sure.
And yet it's what he craves so desperately.
" clotted glurge" is certainly apt!
U usually need to go to a British food shop for that
Like a chutney, right?
Trump's Potted Meat
That sounds pretty nefarious.
don't you like both pot and meat? Why not both together
"Like a chutney, right?"
.... like....
There are many, many things that are like chutney but are, nevertheless, not chutney.
Izzat anything like Filboid Studge?
I take mine with mucky dripping...
I like mine on toast.
I will never forgive the media for giving any space to the forced-birther claim that "Democrats want abortion up to & even after birth." Maybe that was DJ Turd's own invention back when, but I've heard it in clips for years now, by others, in interviews, before legislative bodies — and it is so patently ludicrous, so offensively an abuse of the English language, the law, & the character of women, pretty much everything under the sun. And the statement remains in the edit & never pushed back against, questioned, even laughed at.
I guess I should be happy that this bizarrerie hasn't changed the 60-70% of all voters who poll that basic abortion rights should be preserved.
But... but... some people say it! We're powerless to resist, we must report all things that some people say!
Most maddening in all the coverage is that mere hours before issuing his statement Trump said quite directly he was going to lie about it "to win the election." Yet, here is our prestige media reporting what Trump said as though he's NOT lying.
I'm trying to figure out what more it could possibly take to get the media to report on this so that readers/viewers actually understand what's at stake. But apparently having Trump say "I'm going to lie to you" and then actually telling the lie just isn't enough to get professional journalists to understand they've been lied to.
I think the one true joy of his life is getting away with shit. So saying out loud he's gonna lie, then lying, then having the NYT et al treat it like it was a serious statement of policy is another cheap thrill for him.
Absolutely, he wants you to know he's lying to you, straight to your face, and you can't do a damn thing about it. It's an exercise of power.
It's the salesman in him. Say anything, do anything, promise anything, but get the customer's (mark's) money.
Like how he says he's picking up votes from African-Americans "Because they can see I've been treated unfairly by the criminal-justice system just like they have." That admission, that African-Americans are treated unfairly by the criminal-justice system, is to be used ONLY as part of the above statement and will be angrily denied in any other context.
Yeah, oof.
Salesman, conman, same thing pretty much...
America will be made great again once we get the Tru-Coat.
The Venn diagram of Real Estate Developer and Scumbag is a near perfect circle.
You've met Eric Hovde?
No need. It's a Type.
The word cloud associated with Trump should have a giant LIES in the center, surrounded by Grifting, Cheating, Threatening, and so on. Good ad, eh? Anyway, the Arizona Supremes blew up Trump’s charade immediately by applying his Court’s Dobbs decision and dragging the state’s women back to the Civil War. We can only hope AZ women and men who care about them will show up in November and pass the proposed referendum, give Biden AZ’s electoral college votes, and send Gallego to the Senate. Of course, the larger question is whether voters in the other 49 states will realize they’re at risk and get to the polls or whether some combination of Gaza, ageism and housing costs will make Trump dictator for life.
"It costs $150 to fill up my Ford Ball Crusher truck!"
Queensman to the rescue!!!
What happens if he gets re-elected and gas prices don't drop?
You wimmins act like y'all got somewhers ta go. You needa git straight wif yer various lords and yer various masters.
Won't they just lie and say prices went down when they didn't? Worked for chocolate rations in 1984.
Downsizing is the 'Merkin Way when it comes to draining pocket change. Can we sell it by the half-gallon? (Obviously not suggesting we switch to them commie liters...!)
Clever! There may be a job waiting for you at the Ministry of Truth.
Honest reporting would include, with any video clip of Trump, a running text commentary at the bottom: "He's lying here, oh, there he goes again, that's another lie too..." But I don't know who it would actually help. Anybody with half a brain knows he's lying all the time, even his supporters know he's lying, they just don't care, because they know his lies outrage the hated liberals, and the simple exercise of power gives them a thrill.
That's why his superfans can pick and choose. Anything they like, that's the truth, anything they don't like, "Oh, well he didn't really mean that."
"[T]he simple exercise of power gives them a thrill."
This. "*My* power is limitless. *You* have only the rights I say you have."
Somewhere, a cop's beatin' up a guy, and THEY WANNA WATCH.
Because it'll NEVER be them getting the boot.
i.e., fascism.
King Toad is the ultimate Gish Gallop - literally so many lies you couldn't even point them out in time, much less refute them.
But he's been at this for eight years, right? You and I don't need the lies pointed out to us, and his fans don't either, it wouldn't make any difference to them, they know he's lying and they LIKE it. Somewhere there must be undecided voters who look at him each day with the fresh eyes of a new-born babe, would they benefit from it being pointed out for the ten-millionth time that he's lying? Anyway, I can't imagine they're reading the NY Times, so even though it enrages me that the Times can't just use plain English and call him a liar, I can't imagine it makes any practical difference.
"Somewhere there must be undecided voters who look at him each day with the fresh eyes of a new-born babe..."
Politely put, but you'd be surprised.
And they ALL work for the New York Times: "This Trump fellow seems to have some interesting, if controversial, ideas! Let's give him a fair hearing!"
And if randos in small town diners are any indication -- AND THEY ARE -- well we've got to give him a fair hearing!
Good observation. Those dewy-eyed morons indeed exist—people who simply don’t pay attention to politics until right before an election (if then). But they’re not reading the New York Times! So why pretend that they are and pervert the news coverage that way?
The people that don't really follow the news, get their opinions from the zeitgeist, the vibes they absorb from the headlines, comedians, Tik Tok, etc. So they are sort of reading things and the side that shouts loudest with the mostest usually wins
My favorites are the "Time for a Change!" voters, which requires you to know nothing at all except the name of the current President, a question doctors ask people who have suffered a head trauma.
Headlines, yes. They could still keep them as vibey and misleading as they want but still at least be accurate in the story itself, rather than rewriting Trump’s verbal spasms to resemble thoughtful policy.
Hey now, toads wanna word…
When a problem comes along, you must RIBBIT
Before the cream sets out too long, you must RIBBIT
When something's going wrong, you must RIBBIT
The toadsound round here this week is more of an extended burbling, which seems to be American toad for "Hey baby, you wanna go for a swim? C'mon – we'll amble over to the pond..."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0Ksdwgtk_0
"[Dobbs] is not a mere low-impact transfer of legal authority from one bureaucracy to another, but the removal of heretofore accepted Constitutional protection of a basic civil right — very much like repealing the Thirteenth or Nineteenth Amendments (which, if these guys are allowed to get traction, will be among their next steps)."
Now that the manly boors of the far right have brought talk of repealing the 19th amendment out in the open, I'm trying to figure out a way to have an actual discussion about it, trying to parse a zinger question: why is my humanity up for debate and possible repeal? If we're trying to create a more perfect union, wouldn't removing men's civil rights be more effective? I'm just asking a question here —
If we bring evidence into play, men are a more of a problem...
Exactly.
Which is why we don't bring evidence into play. With the exception of The Bible.
'At's a nuff evidence fer ME.
Evidence has a well-known lady-bias.
They’ll get around to that next, and given their way, eventually only a few landed gentry (male, duh) will have any rights at all. Of course they all assume *they* are going to be amongst the elect, but…
The Gentry Has Landed.
Assuming a mortgaged-to-the-hilt 1500 square foot ranch house qualifies one for Landed Gentry status? Asking for a friend.
*chuckles patronizingly*
Presumably that house and land is for your estate gardener, yes? Someone to maintain your splendid lawn and the HaHa to keep the sheep from grazing too close to the manse?
“Evangelicals won’t be bothered by Trump's abortion gambit — they know he’s lying.”
Lately, he's been adding a line to his stump speech about voting, about how when he's President we'll all be required to vote in-person on election day, no excuses, no absentee ballots. And the elderly Republicans in the crowd who all vote absentee eat that shit up because they know him just saying it will make the liberals mad and because they believe he's lying and nothing will change. If it wasn't for bad faith they'd have no faith at all.
Eric Hovde, Repub candidate for Senate, was in the news recently proposing that no one in a nursing home be allowed to vote.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
I remember when the gay-marriage ban was on the ballot, we used to say, "Every time a hearse pulls up to a nursing home, they lose another vote."
You useta say weird stuff.
"Every time a bell rings, a Republican gains his wings"
Nope. Not gonna heart. Nope nope nope.
Bizarrely, part of his claim seems to be that they don't have much longer to live, and so that somehow means they shouldn't be voting:
https://www.wpr.org/news/senate-candidate-eric-hovde-nursing-home-voters
To be fair, I'm open to the idea that you get a linearly-declining percentage of a vote as your age increases. You start with 100% at age 18, and just to make the math simple, at age 118 it's zero, you lose one percentage point a year.
Hell, let's just take the gloves off and call 'em what they are, Useless Eaters.
Not useless! They load up on ruffage and leave all the bloody red meat fer me!
I have been noticing this trope among conservatives since Ben Carson at the 2014 CPAC encouraged his audience to get their elderly relatives to vote "even if they say they're just waiting to die." I envision them rolling masses of dotards to the front to impede the will of the majority.
Too bad they killed off so many potential gomer voters with their anti-vax bullshit.
This is a new variation on the old "skin in the game" argument. Young people shouldn't vote because they don't have families and own property, poor people shouldn't vote because they don't pay taxes, etc. If you're old, you can't have much at stake in the election anyway since you're just about to check out.
It's a new one on me, but one symptom of Republican Rich Guy Syndrome is thinking that any random brain-fart you have must be Solid Gold.
Time being a flat circle, a reminder that these same people wanted to kill off nursing homes full of COVID patients early in the pandemic because they were just going to die anyway.
And because racism is The Spice of Life for them, add in the fact that many nursing home staff are POC and they don't trust THOSE people to help with Grandma's ballot.
But wasn't it supposed to be Gramps and Nana voluntarily stepping out onto the ice floe to save the American economy for the youngsters?
Wasn't this a thing in the Iowa caucuses, there was dangerously cold weather and Trump "joked" that the elderly needed to come out and vote for him even if it killed them. Hilarious, amirite?
Hey when they showed up at his rallies he stranded them miles from where they parked their cars.
"Another layer of Trump's bullshit parfait." I will never unhear it.
I can't remember which General said it, and Duck Duck Go is no help at all in this, but bouncing around in my head is the quote, "Clarity of purpose is worth a division."
On this issue, the Democrats are totally united around a simple goal: Codify Roe into the law of the land. Republicans are divided, both confused and confusing, and I don't know how many votes advantage that translates into but it's not zero.
Hearted, but can’t we do a long ton better than Roe? Asking ‘cause I’m a guy and not qualified to answer.
Good point, I don't know either, but OTOH it's the Democrats.
Quit with the Doomspeak!
Arizona Republicans (including Kari Lake) who had previously cheered the fall of Roe now coming out against the Arizona abortion ban:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2024/apr/10/trump-biden-campaign-election-abortion-ban-latest-updates
AZ. media, and social media ,has been on fire.
Alla them Arid Zone a cows be on death's bed from hoof-in-mouth.
Heck, they used to cheer the 1864 law
Wisconsin's abortion law, the one the Republicans wanted to stick us with, dates back to 1847. Because we don't hold with no new-fangled civil-war-era lawmakin', whippersnapper.
HCR with some history of the AZ. law
https://open.substack.com/pub/heathercoxrichardson/p/april-9-2024?r=igbe&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
You got that right. "The clotted glurge excreted from his pie-hole..." is every goddam word about every subject, not just reproductive rights.