Apparently even most reporters at the @nypost refused to add their bylines to the story. They had to settle for a former hannity booker on staff who’d never bylined a piece before. The other byline they added without the reporter knowing apparently. https://t.co/BpZ0YhtLPK
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) October 18, 2020
New York Post source tells me that inside the outlet, “All this Hunter Biden shit is being done in its own bubble. It's happening on an island within an island.” Person calls situation “gross” but is happy others are applying scrutiny and “see the grift.” https://t.co/GFsIo2dNu4
— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) October 19, 2020
The actual reporters at the NYTimes still have some self respect… unlike the highly-paid Access Journalists:
Rudy Giuliani – someone with well known ties to corrupt foreign actors opposed to Biden – didn’t give his bullshit hit piece to The NY Times because he knew they wouldn’t print it.
But then the NYT’s Maggie Haberman immediately circulated it.
Proud moment, @nytimes. https://t.co/p4GMKRhDh7
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@TheRealHoarse) October 18, 2020
Wow, the “sources” for the NY post story were Rudy and Steve “out on bail” Bannon.https://t.co/OyQs1UbPNz pic.twitter.com/9WAkREuZQc
— Molly Jong-Fast?? (@MollyJongFast) October 18, 2020
CAN WE INTEREST YOU IN A STORY pic.twitter.com/0MVBtiSeUK
— kilgore trout, kiss me mr. president (@KT_So_It_Goes) October 18, 2020
Bannon is desperately trying to pull off a disinformation stunt because:
1) He is facing a likely slam dunk conviction on multiple felonies carrying a 10+ year sentence
2) He needs a pardon
3) Trump has long since cooled on him
4) He needs to change that
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@TheRealHoarse) October 19, 2020
yep. the story is trash–essentially incoherent (what is being "revealed," exactly?) and on top of that is being pushed by people who have lit their credibility on fire during the last few years https://t.co/gh93jSxmEZ
— Gerry Doyle (@mgerrydoyle) October 18, 2020
Wingnut Twitter still yammering about the NY Post faceplant so I went back and started reading it again, and started chuckling and then stopped. The astounding thing about it is that _anyone_ ever took it seriously. I mean, come on.
— Charles Johnson (@Green_Footballs) October 18, 2020
If they follow the usual half-assed right wing hit job script, they probably have a few more releases of equal dumbassitude, spaced over several days to try to keep the bullshit in the news as long as possible.
— Charles Johnson (@Green_Footballs) October 18, 2020
Maxwell Smart voiceover: Would you believe… three Young Pioneers with recycled chromebooks?
Ken
I misread the Josh Marshall tweet as “former hannity hooker on staff”, which seemed totally plausible.
trollhattan
Even my can’t-evens have run out of can’t-evens.
Who’s the living(?) fossil in the lower right of the Bannon Giuliani screenshot. Is he there to make Rudy look young?
Gin & Tonic
AL @top
Really? I offer Ken Vogel, for instance….
BruceFromOhio
One enduring takeaway from Stephen King was a line from who-knows-which book. “And the whole thing was about as welcome as a wet fart in church.”
//cringe
@Ken: They asked her if she would put her name on it, and she said, “no way, you assholes don’t pay me enough for that.”
trollhattan
@Ken:
“On staff” or independent contractor? Big battleground right now.
debbie
Rudy looks like he’s wearing a Snuggy.
RandomMonster
Kudos for the Get Smart reference.
Gin & Tonic
@trollhattan: Looks like it could be Pat Leahy on a presumably unrelated story (I don’t know what warroom.org is and don’t intend to find out.)
japa21
Unfortunately, there are a couple regular commenters here who are afraid this is going to sink Biden. Not only am I not one of them, I think it could actually help Biden.
debbie
Asked and answered.
yellowdog
They’ve moved on now to child porn on the laptop. Endless possibilities.
trollhattan
@Gin & Tonic:
Yeah, so not googling pandemicwarroom.org. I’m sure they’re totally legit and all.
Adam L Silverman
@trollhattan: That’s Senator Pat Leahy (D-VT). That was him questioning Amy Coney Barrett during her committee hearings last week.
Adam L Silverman
sherparick
John Ratcliffe, the stooge Trump put in charge of the Directorate of National Intelligence is entering the story to boost the “but Hunter’s emails story” as saying it is not “Russian Disinformation.” Also, for those in Wisconsin who need more proof that Trump, Scott Walker, Paul Ryan, and entire Wisconsin Republican Party needs to be burned to the ground, read this story. https://www.theverge.com/21507966/foxconn-empty-factories-wisconsin-jobs-loophole-trump
BruceFromOhio
@Gin & Tonic:
The pop-up on the About section refers to “get all your impeachment updates here.” You betcha!
I will now go bathe so you don’t have to.
danielx
Be it noted that desperation flop sweat has a worse odor than a wet fart.
Adam L Silverman
@Gin & Tonic: Warroom.org is Bannon’s YouTube and podcasting channel. Bannon’s War Room. I’ve been in actual war rooms, Bannon has not.
Matt McIrvin
@japa21: So far, the effect of this story on popular opinion has been nil.
BruceFromOhio
@japa21:
Same as with the whole ‘court-packing’ episode, it gives B-H campaign another opportunity to point back at the talking heads and ask, there’s a pandemic with no Senate, and a POS ideologue on track for SKOTUS. News too slow for you?
mrmoshpotato
Fuck everyone. That’s my assessment.
Adam L Silverman
@yellowdog: That’s a Russian intelligence trick.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/09/world/europe/vladimir-putin-russia-fake-news-hacking-cybersecurity.html
Gin & Tonic
@Adam L Silverman: Thanks, I’ll update my filter list. Wouldn’t want an accidental click to send me there..
Zzyzx
Never mind. I watched the clip and Trump didn’t actually say what the summary implied.
BruceFromOhio
@Adam L Silverman:
I’ll wager your war room didn’t have Nigel Farage in it, either.
‘Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here! This is the war room!’
Adam L Silverman
@Gin & Tonic: I’d rather be sent to the cornfield.
trollhattan
Somebody call the waaahmbulance, Trump’s campaign manager is bitching to the debate commission (which he cleverly dubs the “Biden Debate Commission”) that they’re being treated…wait for it…unfairly.
They REALLY don’t want anybody cutting the mic. I wonder why?
Bill Arnold
@sherparick:
Since there is no way he actually KNOWS this, unless this is Trump administration/campaign disinformation, the future ex-DNI Ratcliffe will need a thorough deep investigative scan.
mrmoshpotato
@Adam L Silverman:
Calmest rooms in the world, naturally. No fighting allowed.
PPCLI
@yellowdog:
If there is any such thing on the laptop, it is almost surely a GRU plant. That is part of their playbook.
But it would mean that Rudy has been knowingly in possession of child pornography for (by his own admission) a year or so.
That is a very serious crime. Rudy is in big trouble if he is telling the truth.
Bill Arnold
@Adam L Silverman:
Also, QAnon has primed 10s of millions of Americans (and others!) to be Insanely Concerned about such things.
cain
Ah yes, the Dr. Strangelove reference – :D – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAeqVGP-GPM
Adam L Silverman
This is all you need to know:
https://www.mediaite.com/tv/exclusive-fox-news-passed-on-hunter-biden-laptop-story-over-credibility-concerns/
The structure, if you will, of this type of operation is to hack for actual documents and photos and video and audio files, remove them, doctor some, fabricate others completely, and then dump them all together. This makes it impossible for someone, especially if they didn’t realize they were hacked, to assert that they are all forgeries. Because the forgeries and doctored materials are shuffled in with the legit materials. This was attempted by the Russians against Macron in 2017. This was done against AG Lynch in 2016. One of the main drivers for Comey being stupid in the most Comey way ever is that one of the things his investigators in 2016 had determined is that an email from AG Lynch had been taken by the hackers, modified, and then included in one of the Wikileaks data dumps. They had the original email directly off of the DOJ servers, so they could see what was and was not changed. But the counterintelligence concern is that you 1) couldn’t put that out there because it could compromise sources and methods and 2) that it would only feed the disinformation as Wikileaks and those leveraging them like the President, would then pivot to accusing the DOJ and FBI of trying to cover up for AG Lynch to keep him from getting elected. So Comey decided that this had compromised AG Lynch vis a vis the HRC email investigation and she’d need to recuse. That was valid. What wasn’t valid was that Comey then decided he’d step in to replace her for oversight of this while she was recused. This was both stupid and unnecessary, as we had a perfectly good and not compromised on this issue Deputy AG: Sally Yates.
One of the main differences right now is the progression in the ability to create deep fake videos.
mrmoshpotato
@cain: BruceFromOhio beat me to it by quoting the actual lines.
Adam L Silverman
@mrmoshpotato: From an appropriate social distance.
Ken
An electric shock collar is also acceptable.
Adam L Silverman
@BruceFromOhio: It did not.
Adam L Silverman
@mrmoshpotato: You’d be surprised.
jonas
@Adam L Silverman:
Lol. Reminds me of the “War for the White House” graphics the Onion News Network used to run back in the day, with fighter jets and explosions. The correspondent reported from the “Election Analysis Bunker.”
pamelabrown53
@debbie:
…a soggy, stinky snuggie!
The only real story is how Rudy is being investigated as a Russian “dupe”? I’m more inclined to believe “asset”.
Is he still “America’s Mayor”? How weren’t his crackpot tendencies detected earlier?
mrmoshpotato
@Adam L Silverman: And wearing well-fitting face coverings.
dmsilev
@trollhattan: That letter reads like the Trump campaign doesn’t want him on the debate stage and they’re looking for a fig-leaf excuse to pull out.
MattF
@trollhattan: Someone on the campaign staff has noticed that Trump’s approval declines after every ‘debate’.
Adam L Silverman
@mrmoshpotato: That’s just SCIENCE!
Adam L Silverman
@dmsilev: This is also just SCIENCE!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
boy you can almost hear the suburban housewives running back to trump, can’t you?
different-church-lady
“YOU PUT YOUR DAUGHTER AND FUCKIN’ SON-IN-LAW IN CHARGE OF ADMINISTRATION POLICY AND YOU HAVE THE NERVE TO COMPLAIN ABOUT THE OTHER GUY’S FAMILY?”
Betty Cracker
@Adam L Silverman: I’m glad you clarified this:
…because it appears some of the content the NYP barfed up is real. I don’t think that’s clear to everybody who’s discussing the incident (not here, I mean in general).
LuciaMia
@Ken: I prefer Mr. Burns trap door.
different-church-lady
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Have any of them noticed it’s been four years and he still hasn’t locked up Hillary?
mrmoshpotato
@Adam L Silverman: And just being courteous during a global pandemic.
And, yes, SCIENCE is so nice, you can say it twice.
Mike in Pasadena
A friend commented to me that the polls in 2016 and again in 2020 were and are getting it wrong because people don’t like to admit to pollsters they are voting for tRump. It’s like admitting to being a racist. Anybody else hear this theory?
topclimber
@Bill Arnold: This particular form of BS is as follows: Ratcliffe says there is “no evidence” that this is disinformation. Nor is their “evidence” that is not, which he fails to add.
He made his remark before the FBI impounded the laptop. So he was speaking out of his Trump approved ass.
I am sure he will be equally diligent when the story moves onto child porn on the laptop. Which QAnon could have told you would be on any Democrat’s computer.
Of course, we don’t expect QAnon to have any evidentiary standards. Our director of National Intelligence is another story.
LuciaMia
Jeebus, do these Pavlov’s dogs have anything else in their teeny minds they can shout?
mrmoshpotato
@Adam L Silverman: And just being courteous and protective of others during a global pandemic.
debbie
Hahahaha. The Cleveland company printing mail-in ballots photographed with a Trump flag proudly waving just below the American flag has now announced they will be taking it down. Apparently, they got a lot of complaints about it.
Adam L Silverman
@Betty Cracker: You’re welcome.
Jamie
@Mike in Pasadena:
Lots of people like to say this, but there’s no evidence supporting it. As somebody on Twitter pointed out, those shy Trump voters are also apparently pretty shy about donating, given that the Trump campaign is getting crushed in terms of fundraising.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
Hunter can’t authenticate the real docs, even if they’re exonerating (not damaging) because the moment he authenticates any they can produce anything they want and he will then be in the position of saying “that one is mine, the rest are forgeries/planted”
Which he seems to know.
It may be Russian but ordinary criminals do the same thing to one another with texts and social media. Claim one as yours, the rest become yours too. So they never willingly claim any.
debbie
@trollhattan:
I’m going break custom and watch the debate just to see what happens after the microphone is cut. Should be fun!
mrmoshpotato
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
“Get new chants, you Nazi shitstains!”
Seriously, fucking Nazi shitstains.
Zzyzx
@Mike in Pasadena:
Every 4 years that theory comes up. So far, it hasn’t showed up in a noticeable way. Polls have been within normal range and the errors have not always gone in the way that that theory would predict.
JPL
@Mike in Pasadena: The race started to tighten thanks to Comey opening an investigation because of Weiner’s computer. That was ten or eleven days before the election. He didn’t announce that they didn’t find anything until two days before the election
The national polls closer to the actual election accurate.
debbie
@pamelabrown53:
NYC is filled with crackpots. He fit right in.
mrmoshpotato
@different-church-lady:
Well, yes. This Soviet shitpile mobster crime family would have no attack plan if projection didn’t exist. A step up from And I’m Eric! just yelling “I know you are, but what am I?”
MattF
@Mike in Pasadena: I think the big unknown in polling these days is the effect of low response rates. However, the small proportion who do respond to calls from pollsters aren’t likely to be shy about their opinions.
debbie
@trollhattan:
Would a normal campaign manager write a letter to the debate commission that sounded more like a campaign stump speech?
mrmoshpotato
@LuciaMia: I’m partial to the robotic Richard Simmons myself.
A Ghost to Most
@mrmoshpotato: That’s a corollary of my theory that everyone is an asshole about something.
mrmoshpotato
@different-church-lady: Oh, “LOCK HER UP!” came with a timeframe, did it? 😁
mrmoshpotato
@Mike in Pasadena: Yes. Even if waiting to vote wearing an SS uniform, no one’s gonna go, “I’m voting for Trump because I’m a racist pile of shit!”
Roger Moore
@sherparick:
I’m provisionally prepared to believe that. It seems more likely to me that this was thrown together by some of Trump’s less competent lackeys trying to follow the Russian playbook. I think Russian intelligence would have done a better job of it.
John S.
@Mike in Pasadena: That’s a nice theory, but MAGAts aren’t shy. They are out and proud in 2020, and frankly, the majority of Americans are tired of them and their bullshit.
Kent
From Today’s Washington Post:
Ha, it’s about fucking time.
Humanities Prof
@Mike in Pasadena: Evidence for this is pretty sketchy.
The most that can be said is that there may have been a small number of “shy Trump” voters in live polling, but at most it amounted to maybe 1% of the votes. And a lot of polls are now done automatically (robo-polls), and there was no shy Trump vote detected there at all.
Might Trump be running a little ahead of his current polling numbers? Maybe. He’s not running ten points better, though. Nowhere near that.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: One thing in this tawdry tale I’m truly curious about is the origin of that laptop. From what I’ve been able to piece together, it sounds like the FBI really did take possession of a hard drive?
But the MAGA computer store guy’s story isn’t believable. If Russian agents and/or some of Giuliani’s other shady minions planted stuff on a laptop that didn’t belong to H. Biden and contrived this whole tale, I think a forensic investigation would reveal that, but I don’t really know how all of this works…
SFBayAreaGal
@Kent: If people believe there are undecided voters, I would like to sell them a beautiful bridge that crosses from San Francisco to Marin.
Kent
It’s the same bullshit as the Romney Camp wanting to “unskew” the polls in 2012.
Yes, the 2016 pollsters fucked up in the upper midwest because they under-polled white working class non-college educated voters, who turned out to be a larger percentage of the electorate than their models predicted. But they have had 4 years to adjust their polling models to achieve better accuracy this time around. One hopes they are doing better. The Pod Save America guys talked about this in their last podcast. Basically there was very little serious upper midwest polling done in 2016 because it wasn’t seen as a battleground. Now they are doing massive polling of those states. And it is pretty consistent.
Yea, it ain’t over until it’s over. But personally I’m not worried about polling bias. I think the new battlegrounds will be something different this time. It is always something different. Like maybe this time it will be something to do with Arizona or Iowa or North Carolina that no one has on their radar.
Patricia Kayden
sdhays
Very small point, but I really wish people (on Twitter, mostly) would not refer to the NY Post as “The Post”. “The Post” is the Washington Post. They’ve earned that. The NY Post is the NY Post, and it’s apparently trash. When I see “The Post” refer to the NY Trash, my brain has to translate from stupid and it’s getting tired of it.
/rant
zhena gogolia
@Patricia Kayden:
This is misleading. He says he doesn’t do this. (I don’t believe him, but it is an out-of-context quotation.)
Kent
There are actual undecided voters. I’m related to them. But they aren’t “independents” They are loyal Republicans who are sick of Trump and are likely to vote straight ticket GOP except for maybe not Trump. Here in WA they are the ones who are putting up Loren Culp signs for governor (our crazy GOP “constitutional sheriff” candidate) instead of Trump signs because they still want to let their GOP flag fly but are done with Trump.
zhena gogolia
@sdhays:
I think British people feel this way when we say “the Times” meaning NYT.
JPL
@sdhays: A friend who was raised in Brooklyn, talks about the days of yore, when the NYPost was the paper the middle class would read because of their support for unions.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kent:
Ha! I love the way they gather them together for debates and then they all complain that they didn’t hear enough about Issue X. I just want to scream through the ether: GO FUCKING GOOGLE IT YOU FUCKING MORON! Joe Biden dot com!
Zzyzx
@Patricia Kayden: Watch the clip. I deleted my post because Trump keeps talking and that’s just what he says they would do if he asked but he didn’t, not admitting to a crime.
Sab
@SFBayAreaGal: Nobody is stupid enough to know Golden Gate is for sale.
Did you know that all the bridges from Michigan to/ from Ontario are privately owned and potentially for sale?
Kent
They think that sort of pose makes them look smart when it really just makes them look breathtakingly stupid. Which, of course, they are. Or they won’t be doing that sort of silly posing in the first place.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
It’s really an impossible situation for the target. Hunter, right now, knows what’s authentic and what’s not. But he can’t say. Because the moment he does, it’s trap, sprung and they dump whatever they want in this basket marked “Hunter” he handed them and he doesn’t know what they have invented to put in there.
No one would do it. It would be insane to authenticate any of it, not knowing what “it” is. They’ll have to authenticate without the target, which should have been the standard anyway, for exactly that reason.
Baud
@Kay:
Agreed. And any reporter that refuses to understand that is playing for the other side.
Kent
He’s not under subpoena. He doesn’t have to say anything. He can just say the whole thing is a giant pack of lies and he’s not going to dignify it with an answer and leave it at that.
Ruckus
@trollhattan:
Difficult to tell, is it mitch?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kent: I was shocked to hear that non-college whites make up such a huge percentage of the eligible electorate– I wanna say 40%?
I took my own advice and made a fucking google:
those six other states: PA, IA, OH, MN, MI and WI
Betty Cracker
@Kay: True; HB has no choice, and as a lawyer, he must understand that better than most. But I do hope the rest of us get an accounting of this absurdity someday. It beggars belief that HB just coincidentally abandoned a laptop with lots of private info on it at a MAGA computer repair shop, etc. I just hope Rudy goes down hard when the true story comes out — if it comes out.
dmsilev
LA Times:
So many questions. Let’s start with ‘why was he exposing himself to a muted (sic) camera?’.
Kent
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: As long as they are being accurately polled then it doesn’t really matter. Apparently what went wrong with the polling in WI, MI, and PA in 2016 was that this group wasn’t adequately represented in the few polling samples that were done in those states
Those states are mostly white. And have a lot of rural and blue collar areas. So it’s not surprising that there are large percentages of non-college educated whites.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
If the FBI really has the hard drive and Biden actually did anything illegal the FBI has a really big problem charging him with anything related to that hard drive or lap top, now that we’re told some sleazy friend of Rudy Giuliani had possession of it, took things off it and disseminated them to various people, and did God knows what else. They can’t just drop evidence off with various GOP operatives and pick it back up later. They’re going to have a hard time explaining the whole private sector portion of this fake crime investigation.
Baud
@dmsilev:
According to updated info in the last thread, he didn’t just expose himself. He was masturbating during the call.
Kent
@Kay:
@Betty Cracker:
If the FBI really has the hard drive and Biden actually did anything illegal the FBI has a really big problem charging him with anything related to that hard drive or lap top, now that we’re told some sleazy friend of Rudy Giuliani had possession of it, took things off it and disseminated them to various people, and did God knows what else. They can’t just drop evidence off with various GOP operatives and pick it back up later. They’re going to have a hard time explaining the whole private sector portion of this fake crime investigation.
Even you take everything at face value, there’s still nothing illegal. Just the allegation that maybe Biden took a meeting with someone that he didn’t admit to. None of that it remotely illegal.
This is a giant nothing-burger and it will mysteriously disappear on November 4, just like the caravans of death mysteriously disappeared around the same exact time 4 years ago.
Aleta
Late November 2017 Trump got Haeberman and Martin to write about the Access Hollywood tape (and even birtherism! ) again. Nov 2017 ! (NYT: Trump Once Said the ‘Access Hollywood’ Tape Was Real. Now He’s Not Sure. ) Major outlets (MSNBC, CNN + many others like Vox, Daily Beast) immediately repeated it. Easy for them cause the source was the NYT.
At the time, the Russia investigation and related revelations were peaking in the news, along with stories that the Republican tax package would hurt the middle class. The administration was lobbying heavily to pass the tax cut, which happened at the end of December.
Distraction efforts (the smears and also the outrageous things T purposely says and does) do more than crowd out negative Trump stories. (Including the stories about him losing, which must be hurting their grifting of campaign contribution $.) The distracting stories consume media space that could be used to rebut other Republicans claims. Especially stories about how Democrats will cost voters more money. Repub claims in fall 2016 about health care costs if HRC were elected were persuasive to some middle class voters who “didn’t like Trump but.”
An attack on Biden happening right now (W. Examiner, IBT, etc.) consists of Trump’s promise to lower the corporate tax rate to 20% set alongside other stories that claim a Biden increase in the corporate rate to 28% will decrease after-tax earnings for the middle class and make 82% of taxpayers pay more. Attacks on Biden based on money could be dangerous in decreasing the vote margins, IMO. Turning off or away from the msm stories about Hunter in favor of solid journalism against Trump might help (I wish).
JPL
@dmsilev: He apparently was doing more than just not wearing pants
I guess Jane Mayer was on the zoom call also
Or what Baud said at 99
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
That part I actually could believe. Do you know any addicts? :)
The problem with this scandal so far is there’s nothing scandalous related to Joe Biden in the emails. That’s why they’re screaming and pounding the table so much and why we spent 3 days on the sacred constitutional right to pass links on Twitter. There isn’t shit there. They don’t have anything.
Danielx
@Baud:
could have happily lived the rest of my life without that information.
Danielx
@JPL:
I hear the Baud!2024 campaign will feature debates without pants…
MattF
@dmsilev: The Zoom call in question was an election simulation— and Trump was played by Masha Gessen. Which is hilarious, and, if true, a much better story than the Toobin masturbation saga.
Baud
@Danielx:
I’m concerned Toobin has tarnished the reputation of the proudly pantless. It’ll take work to restore our good name.
frosty
@different-church-lady: Thanks for shouting this out because I don’t think the news media has understood this yet.
It may require all caps and bold next. Keep that in reserve!
Baud
I’m also deleting all video calling apps from my computer and mobile devices. Before it’s too late.
NotMax
It boils down to Dolt 45 being pissed that Hunter is a cooler name than Donald or Eric.
:) //
Suburban Mom
The NJ branch of the Suburban Family have now all voted. My 86 year-old mom couldn’t wait to do it and has been chasing the rest of us mercilessly. There were three other people dropping off ballots at the county office when I went, which pleased me. All were masked although the drop box is outdoors. I hope it’s a positive sign.
BC in Illinois
@sdhays:
I forget where I first heard this.
NotMax
@Baud
Having dual monitors can be … tricky.
:)
MisterForkbeard
@MattF: Oh, I don’t know. If Toobin was wanking during an election simulation, I think that’s a pitch-perfect simulation of the press. Someone give that man a promotion for method-acting the shit out of this.
artem1soo
@Kay:
just like in 2015/16 it’s an elaborate phishing expedition. the point is to get access to Joe’s emails/hard drives so they can find some evidence of something that may or may not drive away voters. For Hillary they had their eye on multiple potential targets. Mostly I think they wanted a Monica redo – Hillary and Huma in the bedroom getting it on while Bill watched and Americans were being slaughtered in Benghazi. Remember that ridiculous line of questioning that Hillz openly laughed at during that 11 hour marathon? They believe in their hearts that everyone has some sex scandal in their closet they can exploit – projection.
chopper
@MisterForkbeard:
like most of the members of our media, he was jerking off to googled images of a horse race.
WaterGirl
@Mike in Pasadena: That would be a lovely theory to promote if you were, say, Donald Trump and you were planning to steal the vote through any means possible, and you want a way to prepare people for the election outcome to be nothing like the polls.
NotMax
@Baud
It will be but a brief stain.
BC in Illinois
@Kent:
My unchanging picture of the undecided voter:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAG37Kw1-aw
[“Low Information Voters of America is responsible for the content of this advertisement.”]
Brachiator
@MattF:
I mentioned in another thread that Toobin thought it was an erection stimulation.
Chyron HR
@artem1soo:
That would improve my opinion of Secretary Clinton, though.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Oh my gosh, is that for real? Ouch.
BruceFromOhio
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
‘declined’ means ‘died.’ Or ‘moved to one of the other states.’
Either conclusion is welcome, because I am sick and fucking tired of the fucking bullshit they have wrought on us all.
WaterGirl
@MisterForkbeard: I was just thinking that’s quite a statement about how uninteresting the meeting is.
Roger Moore
@Kay:
I’m not confident that he does. I don’t remember everything that’s in my emails; I count on having an archive to remember the details for me. If you presented me with a bunch of my emails from last year with a handful of clever forgeries thrown in, I doubt I could pick out the fakes.
More to the point, nobody would, or should, trust Hunter Biden even if he said a particular email is a fake. He has too much reason to lie about a genuine but incriminating-looking email. It’s much better to turn this kind of thing over to forensic investigators.
Ivan X
My NYC absentee ballot hadn’t shown after 3+ weeks, and it was showing as “reviewing” on their web site, so I was starting to get panicky. No one at the election office could help me. I overnighted them a new paper application and a letter explaining what happened. But then I got no response to that, and it dawned on me that I could just register to vote here in CA, where I now actually live. So I did that, and I voted, hooray.
Yesterday, I got an absentee ballot from NY (perhaps the first one). Then today, I got another one (perhaps in response to my letter).
Needless to say, I am not filling those out, but I have to say, it seems like a less scrupulously minded person who didn’t mind breaking federal law wouldn’t actually have a whole lot of difficulty registering and voting in more than one state. Or is there some national database tied to the credit bureaus or govt agencies or who knows what to prevent it? All they asked me for in CA was the last four of my SSN and didn’t even ask for ID, but maybe that was enough. Or maybe it’s an easy system to game after all.
BruceFromOhio
@BC in Illinois:
When I clicked on the Youtube link, up came Tom Patton, an Ohio State legislator. I was taken aback at first, like, yeah, I can see how undecideds might vote for him. Idiots.
Then I realized it was just an ad.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@dmsilev: This guy speaks for me:
trollhattan
@Baud:
Something, something, really putting the tube back in Toobin.
BC in Illinois
@BruceFromOhio:
I just clicked on the link myself, and I got an ad attacking my own Congresswoman Ann Wagner (R – safe Republican vote).
YouTube apparently knows my zip code.
Calouste
@trollhattan: I get the impression that Toobin is a bit of a wanker.
zhena gogolia
@dmsilev:
OMG.
This is not a mistake that any professional person could possibly make.
Eating Pringles, yeah, I’ve done that.
But this?
Ruckus
@Gin & Tonic:
I managed to zoom it in a bit and I think you are right.
At first, quick glance I thought it might be mitch.
dmsilev
With regards to that ballot drop box that apparently was torched in Baldwin Park CA last night,
debbie
@dmsilev:
Was this one of those Republican “official” drop boxes?
jl
@trollhattan:
“Something, something, really putting the tube back in Toobin.”
He’s been doing the same thing on TV for years, just in a more socially accepted way.
Other than that, I will pay no more attention to this story. I think my current, limited, understanding is more than sufficient.
dmsilev
@debbie: No, this was a for-real official county drop-box.
Ballot box fire in Baldwin Park may be arson, officials say
debbie
@dmsilev:
This reply to the tweet you posted tells me this could be a major mess:
ETA: Maybe???
James E Powell
@Mike in Pasadena:
I’ve seen variations of it on twitter every other day or so ever since the first debate. They’re usually accompanied by guarantees that Trump will bury Biden in the popular vote, we libtards aren’t going to know what hit us, etc.
jl
I am not an expert at electoral politics and campaigning, but I’ll venture an opinion.
It’s a good sign when candidates like Biden, Harrison, Hegar, etc., want to spread most of their opponents attacks far and wide, and make sure everyone knows that they agree with them. Right?
@JoeBiden
… yes
https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1318286327721480194
Found at Paul Krugman’s twitter
terry chay
@Mike in Pasadena: Small problem. The pollsters in 2016 were right. The time the pollsters were wrong was in 2018 when they hard missed the blue wave.
jl
@James E Powell: There are some interesting articles and podcasts on polling methodology at 538 blog. At one of them, a pollster said they think they’ve figured out clever (or underhanded, YMMV) techniques to track the ‘Trump shame’ effect. They haven’t detected any of the 2016 shame this cycle.
Delk
Wasn’t Hunter making millions of dollars because of his father’s name? Do millionaires take their computers to strip mall repair shops?
Ian
href=”#comment-7912225″>@LuciaMia:
Lock him up for listening to Dr. Fauci?
James E Powell
@Betty Cracker:
Anyone who doesn’t take out the hard drive and smash it to pieces like the Bush/Cheney people did is an idiot. If Huma Abedin had done that to her husband’s laptop, we wouldn’t be in this mess.
Ken
Narrator: It was too late.
Roger Moore
@James E Powell:
These days you should probably use whole-drive encryption with a strong password. It makes life a bit more annoying since you have to enter a password every time you reboot the computer, but it’s worth it for the data protection. Protect your data by keeping good backups and you won’t need to take it to a shady data recovery place.
jl
@James E Powell: Thought I would add that there is a long research history and experience in polling and survey research on how to detect and correct for reluctance to honestly respond, or respond at all, to sensitive questions. Need it for health research when asking about STDs, bad health habits and risky behavior. So the pollsters aren’t doing the research on the fly.
Ian
@Betty Cracker: Well if we lived in a sane world, with a sane government, led by a sane political party, I would want the FBI(once again the sane qualifier…) picking up the laptop. There has been an accusation of wrongdoing, and a pretty obvious indication that there is foreign interference in our electoral process.
Law enforcement picks up pieces of evidence all the time, does not mean that go on to charge the person who owned it originally with a crime.
JPL
@Delk: Don’t forget that he just flew across country drunk, and then brought the laptop in.
Roger Moore
@Ian:
Kay is right, though; the laptop is essentially useless if the goal is to prove anything against Hunter Biden. The chain of custody is garbage. None of the data on that computer can be trusted.
mrmoshpotato
@zhena gogolia: He should blame gravity. It puts the hands and the crotch at the same level.
CaseyL
The Toobin thing is just… insane.
Why would anyone beat off while they’re in a Zoom meeting?? How was he positioned in front of the computer that it was even visible??
What is wrong with men that they do these incredibly dumbass things??
dmsilev
@debbie: The LA Times story I linked says that the County had been picking up ballots every 72 hours, so ‘twice a week’ is roughly right. The current estimate is that there were around 100 ballots damaged or destroyed in the fire. Not good. There really need to be cameras covering these boxes, and apparently they should be emptied daily or even more often to limit the potential risk.
Sigh. The world we live in.
Danielx
@Baud:
You shall overcome!
Kathleen
@BruceFromOhio: I don’t need a bath after reading that. I need an exorcism.
NotMax
Couple of items of note which haven’t yet seen mentioned.
1)
2)
Mary G
@debbie: Wait, whut?
chopper
@Delk:
do they also take them to strip mall repair shops three thousand miles from their house? like they fly across the country to drop their box off at some low-rent shop run by a trumper?
PsiFighter37
@CaseyL: It’s utterly mind-blowing. Honestly, he couldn’t have waited to beat off after his call? Was the porn he was watching really that good that he just couldn’t wait? Now his career is done and he will have a reputation as being that guy who yanked it and cranked it on Zoom.
Kay
@Roger Moore:
Or anyone else. That’s why I don’t think it’s a real investigation. There can’t be this middle part where Rudy Guiliani and Bannon are intermediaries. If it ever was a real investigation it’s all fucked up now.
Gin & Tonic
@Roger Moore: Like TrueCrypt? 😏
Delk
The guy is 60. Mistimed the Cialis.
Goku (Amerikan Baka)
@Kay:
What do you mean by it’s not a “real” investigation? Are you talking about an FBI investigation?
Gvg
I have not seen valid information that the lap top even really exists. Only Giuliani seems to be the source of the stories. I don’t think the NY Post even says they saw a laptop. They have been shown (maybe) some purported emails G claims came from a laptop he says someone else claims came from Hunter Biden. G is a wild liar and a fool who is either gullible or thinks everyone else is or is losing his marbles. We know nothing of the repair shop guy, but his story has changed supposedly. Has anyone even shown he really exists and owns a real repair shop?
if this is Russian disinformation, it’s a really poor quality effort.
i just don’t even believe it really exists and think the FBI doesn’t have anything in their custody. They may be not commenting because this time they are trying to follow the rules….
Jim Appleton
@Kay:
Yeah, but it all sounded better in the original Russian …
lamh36
Kamala Harris dancing in the rain in Chucks!
Mary J Blige has GOT to perform at the inauguration or at least one of the inaugural balls!
https://twitter.com/meenaharris/status/1318334170498674688?s=20
Mary G
😝😝😝
Brachiator
@NotMax:
Just more evidence of Trump’s cruelty and stupidity. I’m sure that Trump would say that if everyone ignored the pandemic there would be zero percent unemployment and no one would need food stamps.
But I would love it if a debate moderator would question Trump about why he is undermining efforts to support democracy in Belarus and Hong Kong.
Kropacetic
I, for one, am glad the Republicans accept that the children of politicians trading their name for influence is wrong. I look forward to their cooperation in strong legislation to prevent it in next year’s unified Democratic Congress. Unless, of course, their sole focus on Joe Biden indicates that this is all about swinging one election and not a sincere concern about a problem in our political system.
JPL
Yes We can go to bed early
Debate commission adopts new rules to mute microphones to allow Trump, Biden 2 minutes of uninterrupted time per segment.
No way does trump show up
Calouste
@Brachiator:
Belarus because Putin told him to, I assume Hong Kong is just collateral damage. It would have been rather obvious if they said “You can help these people in Hong Kong but not in Belarus”, right?
Baud
@JPL:
Haha. They gave the president of the United States a time out in advance.
A Ghost to Most
@Kent:
The comments section was fun.
Kropacetic
Trump would otherwise love to support pro-democracy movements across the globe…
Aleta
@PsiFighter37: @CaseyL: A legal and political writer who forgets that “nothing is private on the internet” ? And he’s familiar with political take-downs of men who used a phone or computer for gratification. Suggests he couldn’t stop himself despite the risk, like A. Weiner. Or that he prefers slightly risky sex acts or almost-public ones.
MomSense
@mrmoshpotato:
I endorse that statement.
BTW I had a brief exchange with some asshole trump supporters, who were also tourists, on Saturday. I was with my son who said as soon as he saw them engage with me he knew it was going to go down.
Baud
@MomSense:
Oh my, for the first time, I felt sorry for Trump supporters
jl
@CaseyL: “What is wrong with men that they do these incredibly dumbass things??”
I read that the meeting was supposed to be some kind of election simulation. Maybe I got that wrong. If the meeting was about erection stimulation, it would make more sense.
Could someone check what the meeting was? No never mind, i pledged to never think about it again, and am already going down the wrong path.
MomSense
@Baud:
heh
Kropacetic
@Aleta: If our culture tolerated people being more open about their sexuality, we wouldn’t have a bunch of sneaks in positions of power.
Down with Larry Craig tapping his foot in men’s rooms. Give me a Senator who has made a porno, is happy to openly talk about it, and is nonetheless professional
ETA: They’re trying to tell me it’s OK for people to be racist on camera, but not suck d. I don’t think so.
Brachiator
@Calouste:
Ha! You’re probably right.
No matter what it undermines the lie that Biden is a tool of China, but Trump is a crusader for democracy everywhere.
jl
@Baud: “Oh my, for the first time, I felt sorry for Trump supporters”
I’m concerned about the impact of this incident on the evolution of he Baud 2040!! pantsless policy.
different-church-lady
Confirmation bias and all that, but I just took a glance at the Daily KOS front page, and it was a tonic for all the gloom I’ve seen here and other places while doom-scrolling today
zhena gogolia
@MomSense:
I’ve had three people today (in blue CT) tell me that they’ve been verbally attacked for wearing masks.
JPL
@Baud: I would watch that, because if trump can’t bullshit, he’s got nothing.
MomSense
@lamh36:
I love her so much.
WaterGirl
Unless he was intentionally flashing people, which would be beyond wrong, I could give a flying fuck about what Jeff Toobin did or did not do with his dick on a zoom call.
Every day we spend talking about Toobin’s dick is a day that Trump gets a pass for being the liar/cheat/sociopath that he is.
Aleta
@Kropacetic: I believe that’s going to change fairly soon, but I could be wrong.
MomSense
@zhena gogolia:
My son told me today he won’t be able to attend his fiancée’s recital. If people would wear fucking masks, we could get our lives back.
His fiancée is a doctoral candidate at UConn Storrs.
lamh36
Welp…the debate commission agreed to mute the mics…wonder if Chump is gonna pull out of the debates…
https://twitter.com/MikeBalsamo1/status/1318337004220915713
Nora Lenderbee
No. Thanks.
L85NJGT
@different-church-lady:
Naive optimists. Toilet flow was today’s Trump talking point, and shitters vote.
different-church-lady
Pssst, people: “Hide Self View”
A large percentage of my freelance work now involves manipulating Zoom* to attempt some kind of professional video look for larger on-line meetings substituting for cancelled meatspace conferences. So I know a bit more about how to arrange those windows than I used to. Toobin possibly had his own window hidden on his (but only his) computer screen using “Hide Self View” and then forgot about it.
In the studio I freelance at, it’s mind-twisting how many computers they have dialed into a single Zoom meeting, just to do all the convoluted routings and isolations for the various participants who aren’t even in the same building as us.
(*”PHRASING!”)
Kropacetic
@Nora Lenderbee: I tried penis once, but I didn’t inhale.
debbie
@JPL:
I believe Adam shared a tweet in the previous thread of a letter from Stepian complaining about the debate set-up.
NotMax
@lamh36
Crash course in how to sign “He’s a senile crook” in Ameslan at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
//
Baud
@debbie:
They keep complaining, the debate commission will force Trump to wear one of those Hannibal Lector masks.
Ken
I’m concerned that the Baud campaign keeps receding into the future. Or is the plan to run every four years like Pat Paulsen?
JPL
@debbie: Apparently they did not agree with him.
debbie
@Mary G:
Yep. Owner was surprised at getting so many complaints. 😒
Baud
@Ken:
Baud! keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping
Into the future.
MisterForkbeard
@PsiFighter37: I have a friend who used to give her SO blowjobs during remote calls when they were at home. Apparently the added ‘danger’ made it much better for both of them.
I still feel like this should have ended badly, but apparently it didn’t. She told me that he actually started attending MORE trainings and meetings from home, which… doesn’t surprise me at all.
jonas
These fucking people. There is no curse in Elvish, Entish, or the tongues of Men for this treachery.
NotMax
@Ken
Baud! = Harold Stassen 2.0.
Oh, and by 2040 fashion will dictate all pants be transparent anyway.
:)
debbie
@MisterForkbeard:
I seem to recall a scene from The World According to Garp…
dmsilev
@lamh36: Huh, so the Trump campaign’s Sternly Worded Letter to the Commission ended up being just a fart in the breeze? I’m shocked.
Anyway, the Trumpies are probably going to use this as an excuse for chickening out of the third debate as well as the second.
WaterGirl
@lamh36: I was thinking about you last night, wondering how the job is. You must be at the start of week 3?
NotMax
@NotMax
Of course, Dolt 45 being Dolt 45 he’d end up signing something like “dancing umbrella melons.”
:)
LuciaMia
On TCM, the 1959 version of The Hound of the Baskervilles. Its always fun to see Christopher Lee playing a non-villain (or monster.) ;-)
Roger Moore
@Kropacetic:
Stormy Daniels for US Senate!
A Ghost to Most
@debbie:
No shit? Good for him.
NotMax
@LuciaMia
Who let the dogs out?
:)
Hungry Joe
Re Toobin:
Wide angles. They’ll kill ya.
MisterForkbeard
@A Ghost to Most: Cant find anything about it yet. Not sure Debbie got it right.
Kropacetic
@Roger Moore: Tell me Stormy’s platform.
A Ghost to Most
@jonas:
I didn’t know Treebeard was a commenter here.
NotMax
@Kropacetic
Well padded.
TS (the original)
Just catching up on the news – Reading the WaPo online – cannot find a mention of Biden or Harris on the front page.
Seems to be an election between trump and the political press.
Nutmeg again
@zhena gogolia:
Interesting! In my part of CT, everyone wears a mask, even ugly lawn statuary. And the lawn signs in my tiny town seem to trend Repub, even. But I’ve never seen a non-masker, and never seen any kind of kerfuffle about it. Which is a relief.
frosty
@NotMax: It won’t be fashion that dictates transparent pants. It’ll be gun safety… or should that be weapon safety.
Geoduck
@lamh36: We are in the middle of a pandemic. Biden and Harris should not be holding any inaugural balls, at all.
Roger Moore
@Kropacetic:
She’ll promise to tell all.
different-church-lady
@Geoduck:
BIDEN: [cancels in-person inaugural attendance]
TRUMP: “So many more people were at my inauguration!”
JPL
@debbie: Not sure what scene, but maybe I don’t want to know.
Baud
@Geoduck:
Yeah. Especially with what just happened to Too in, holding amy balls is risky behavior.
Baud
@different-church-lady:
He promised American Carnage.
Aleta
Geoduck
@different-church-lady: I can live with that. If it was up to me, it would be Biden, Mrs. Biden, Roberts, a camera team and the Secret Service at the swearing in ceremony.
lamh36
@Geoduck: Well duh. I know that. Doesn’t mean a girl couldn’t hope and dream…
zhena gogolia
@MomSense:
Oh, but don’t let Covid dominate your life!
lamh36
@WaterGirl: Job is going well. Yep this is the beginninf of my 3rd week. Still learning the ropes, but I’ve so far had 2 assignments assigned to me, one of which went pretty well. The next one is ongoing. So that’s cool.
Even just 3 weeks, I can tell that this job will be 75% personnel management and babysitting…with some QC/QA.
But that is what I expected. I’d say I may need another 3 weeks and I should be able to start my regulare 10 am scheule instead of this early 7am one.
zhena gogolia
@LuciaMia:
It’s a lot of fun. I love his tweed suits.
Gin & Tonic
@WaterGirl:
For three easy installments of $29.95 (plus handling) I’ll sell you the secret to not talking about Toobin’s dick.
Matt McIrvin
@Aleta: Shit, they better count those ballots fast before Barrett gets in and has all the rest of them dumped in the shredder.
NotMax
@Gin & Tonic
Um, isn’t the handling problematic?
:)
Gin & Tonic
@NotMax: That’s why I charge extra.
Jeffro
So sad…despite signs of sanity as recently as two weeks ago, my trumpov cult nut job (TCNJ) dad actually asked me about this today, as if it was something that really bears looking into.
The actual exchange was something like:
TCNJ dad: What do you think about those Hunter/Joe emails?
Jeffro: What I think is that the president* is holding Covid super-spreader events all throughout the swing states, is keeping busy insulting Dr. Fauci who is WAY more popular with the public than he is, and the GOP’s going to lose the Senate, is what I think.
TCNJ dad: but seriously…how did the Bidens make all that money?
Oh and he also pretended not to understand why I kept asking him where the 2020 “CARAVAN!!!” is, and still thinks there’s a ‘there’ there with the Clinton Foundation. I mean, for real. It’s the kind of trolling I almost wish he was doing to try and get my goat, except he actually means it.
Oh well – 14 days to go peeps! Let’s G-O-T-V!!
Kropacetic
He just pulled a technical boner.
Ken
@Aleta: I wonder if Roberts is looking forward to being on the short side of a lot of 5-4 decisions.
JPL
@Mary G: Didn’t he lose all custody rights? Maybe he just wants to keep digging that hole. sa
geez google says they were seen together.
brantl
@mrmoshpotato: You might be surprised……
debbie
@MisterForkbeard:
I fell for a parody account. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.
Ken
Technically they don’t need Roberts there. Dr. Biden can administer the oath to her husband. Also it doesn’t have to be on the mall, so they could zoom it from their home. Harris could similarly be sworn in by her husband.
danielx
@NotMax:
Considering some of the appalling images involving stretch pants worn by people at Walmart that I’ve tried to erase from my memory, I really hope to have passed to a better world by then.
Kropacetic
@Ken: They should be sworn in by Merrick Garland.
danielx
@Gin & Tonic:
Is this another Trump Organization deal?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’ve always liked Jeff Bridges. Good, solid actor and he seems like a good guy. So this is sad news, but admirably expressed
Jim, Foolish Literalist
and Rachel Maddow just opened her show by thanking Chris Hayes for his collegial advice about what constitutes news worth covering on shows like theirs on a day like this.
Hayes lost it.
I wonder whatever she might have been referring to…
and Rachel usually blushes about any story that involves bathing-suit-areas
MisterForkbeard
@Jeffro: “How did the Biden’s make all WHAT money?”
Seriously. Joe Biden was the poorest Senator when he left. When he left the VP position, he wasn’t that rich either. And in the meantime his income has all been public and we know where it came from… because his tax returns are public.
Hunter made some money being a reputable face for a disreputable company. There you go. All explained.
Jeffro
@Kent: I forwarded that article to 3 college buddies who I thought would find it funny.
The one who has always prided himself on what I’d call “both sides on steroids” lost his shit within 5 minutes, responding with all kinds of weird culture-war, “latte-sipping liberals look down on people who are undecided and hate both parties for betraying people who are trying to pay the bills”, etc. (Also, I don’t sip lattes...I gulp my morning home-brewed coffee, thanks!! Grr…)
I was like, “so you going Bernista or ‘Q’, which is it homes?” ;)
(I have a gift for calming people down that way.)
But it seemed to register a few exchanges later when I got across to him that voting for a third party is *technically* principled, while being undecided between Biden and trumpov is just fucking idiotic attention-seeking and/or indulgent.
And then I blew it by telling him that in our current system, third party voters are also morons, but you know, there’s only so much I can take…
cain
@James E Powell:
Fixed.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@WaterGirl:
The stupidity galls me, considering his pay and connections.
On the other hand, when my wealthy, famous, well-connected and respected betters fuck up like this, I look stellar by comparison.
cain
@lamh36:
Damn I love her. She’s bringing it.. all the otherside got is a set of hateful old men.
Jeffro
@MisterForkbeard: Any straw at all to grasp at, literally anything at all…
Lesson learned: a certain type of human being will do ANYTHING to avoid admitting they were wrong, duped, suckered, much less that they were led to do so because their values were corrupt to begin with. And that their subservience is going to earn them and their blessed ’cause’ absolutely…nothing.
(which is why hell yeah we have to pack the fuck out of the courts, raise taxes on the rich, all of it. It’s not only the right thing to do for the country…it’s the only thing that might register with some of them: next time, have some fucking principles)
James E Powell
@cain:
That too! If she had choked the slimy perv in the middle of the night, who would convict her? And if convicted, who would sentence her to more than the minimum?
Geoduck
@Ken:
Kropacetic’s Merrick Garland idea is tempting, but no point in handing FoxEtc a talking point literally on the first day of their terms. “He didn’t use the Chief Justice! He’s not really President!!”
And on a different subject, the debate commission is going to mute microphones at the next debate. The reaction to that is going be delicious.
NotMax
Anyone mention that the latest incarnation of The Beach Boys played at Dolt 45’s California hatefest?
(For the record, Brain Wilson is not involved with this iteration of the band.)
cain
@zhena gogolia:
Here in OR, I have yet to have a single person accost me – people quite diligent in wearing a mask and appreciate social distancing – everyone I’ve met – we’ve been social distancing.
Ironally the only place that didn’t quite happen is at a gathering of health care people!
Jeffro
@Kent:
See also:
And on and on and on and on…
jl
@Ken:
” I’m concerned that the Baud campaign keeps receding into the future. Or is the plan to run every four years like Pat Paulsen? ”
Baud XXXX!! campaign staff have been moving the date of total victory over everything between 2032 and 2520, depending on his recent trends in torpor and sloth.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@NotMax:(For the record, Brain Wilson is not involved with this iteration of the band.)
and was not happy about what Mike Love did with his band, nor was Al Jardine
James E Powell
@Jeffro:
Right-wingers still talk about all those things and more. Remember, everyone in Benghazi could have been rescued, but Hillary gave an order not to try. In their world, they were proved fucking right and there’s no more argument to be had on any of those subjects
There are also quite a few tote-baggers and non-right-wingers who believe there is some substance to all of those things. They might have voted for her, but they still believed she was a corrupt person. I’ve been appalled at the number I know who are like this. You can prove to them conclusively that the Benghazi thing is BS and they will respond with, “Yeah, but you gotta admit that using the foundation as her private slush fund was bad.” And I just give up.
Puddinhead
@Jeffro: simple reply: Biden released his tax returns. Why don’t you look at them and then tell me? Puts the onus on him to deal with facts rather than spinning conspiracies out of thin air.
Amir Khalid
@zhena gogolia:
Back in the day, I was a tech journalist at a Malaysian newspaper called The Star. Whenever I introduced myself to an American tech executive, there was always an awkward moment while they processed the idea that a supermarket tabloid reporter had questions for them.
Another thing was seeing how news media in other countries referred to The Star. They would always call it The Malaysian Star, to distinguish it from the American supermarket tabloid and the even more wretched British newspaper; I found that jarring, because that’s not our name and nobody here calls us that.
Jeffro
Have to agree. Think of the message it would send with a minimal, socially-distanced inauguration.
I’m picturing some great post-inaugural PSAs (sun rising, Americans working hard and going about most of their business, just with masks on) that would help remind everyone that we’re going to get through this, but…now’s not the time to take off the masks. Not yet. Also hearing some ‘Avengers’ soundtrack music in my head but that’s a little much.
Kay
Kay
“Fantastically well”. I just hate, hate, hate how he talks.
Jeffro
@James E Powell: I usually just ask them, “Then where are the charges? The GOP had complete control of the government for two years, and has had DOJ all along…where are the charges? Why isn’t Hillz in jail?” And they never have a response, they just move on to the next thing…
cain
He reminds me of the tool of a Republican president in Scandal – he seems just like the whiner fuck who would do shit like this. What a dick.
MisterForkbeard
@debbie: Happens. I’ve done it once or twice.
I figured it was really unlikely (though would have been very understandable). Fauci has been professional and bent over backwards to not endorse Biden or even denigrate Trump, going so far as to be mealymouthed when it comes to criticizing the government response.
piratedan
when it comes to the 3rd party stuff, I always wonder why they bother, it’s like are you working for all of their candidates up and down the ballot? Say they were elected, how do you expect them to govern without any base in either house? Doesn’t that simply make them still beholden to either the Dems of the GOP?
Creating a political party is hard work and these folks going 3rd party NEVER appear to be interested in doing any of it. It’s just their way of trying to signal that they believe themselves to be above it all.
Amir Khalid
@dmsilev:
I’m surprised that a grown man like Jeffrey Toobin was that impatient to have a wank. A boy of 12 has better self-control.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kay: as bad as things are, I sometimes take grim pleasure when trump expresses his contempt for his most loyal supporters. I can’t think of an occasion when he’s expressed it so clearly. Few deserve it more than Martha.
mad citizen
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I have to say given the main ongoing topic here and what I read on twitter, and discovering celebs who support trump, I expected the story to be that Bridges came out for trump. So in a weird way was relieved it was just about a medical issue. Positive thoughts to the Dude. Always worth watching, and a good dude.
Early voting passed 30 million votes. (electproject)
brantl
@CaseyL: Unfortunately, some of my gender have mistaken Mr. Johnson for some sort of divining rod.
Miss Bianca
@cain: Well, we had an anti-masker idiot walk into the grocery store today while I was in the check-out line and start shouting about “FREEDUMB!!” Literally shouting. Fortunately, the lady in front of me (masked) started giving him shit, and telling him to shut the fuck up, basically (she may have left out the “fuck” part), and I happily jumped in to back her up. He did, actually. Of course he then went into the store unmasked, but at least he wasn’t yelling anymore.
BruceFromOhio
@Ken:
He’s a contemporary Lyndon LaRouche!
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
That sentence is actually one of the better ones. He thinks they’re “untied”
Separate, separate, separate. He barely knows her, really.
NotMax
@Amir Khalid
Well, there’s also a fairly well-know Star in Toronto. Am so old can remember when the Washington Star was the D.C. newspaper of record and the Post an also ran.
Not at all related but still chuckle that the area paper published near where I once resided took great pride in announcing itself on the masthead banner as “The Nation’s Largest Tri-Weekly.” Really, how intense is the competition for that title?
Jeffro
@Puddinhead: Yeah, well I’ll give it a shot but I have a feeling he’d rather Fox News just tell him what to believe about how that nefarious Biden Crime Family made its filthy lucre.
Like, I could waste a LOT of time on that and it’d be wiped out by 30 seconds of Hannity and a Cavuto Mark.
So…pass. ;)
jl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: There is some truth to Trump’s statement, though I doubt he meant it in that way.
In analyses of election polling, I’ve read repeatedly that other GOP politicians are much less popular, have less support, than Trump among Trumpster voters.
They need to mainline the highest quality, loudest, crudest crazy conman, nothing else will do.
Trump should have started a Warp Speed research program back in 2017 to get himself cloned so he could run for every Senate seat.
BruceFromOhio
@Roger Moore: So I just wrote a nice paragraph in response to that, and it was all double entendre. Sorry, nope.
PsiFighter37
@MisterForkbeard: Wouldn’t we all, though?
Jeffro
Btw, Biden & Co are just running ad after ad of trumpov saying with a sneer, “Joe Biden will listen to scientists…he’ll listen to Dr. Fauci…”
It takes a certain kind of mind-set to think, “I will say stupid shit to my base, and it will not bite me in the ass with the much larger electorate”
It also takes a certain kind of dumb-set to think, “I will knock my opponent for respecting knowledge and HAVING A PLAN DURING A GLOBAL PANDEMIC”
But what do I know? Maybe this is genius.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kay: that tied/untied thing reminds me of his claim, when confronted with his “downplaying” quote from Woodward, he said, “I up-played it!”. Olivia Nuzzi reported last week that when he was diagnosed with Covid, he started calling friends– “friends”– whining that he might be “one of the diers”. As Nuzzi put it, at once childlike (I’d say infantile) and sinister
I find the paucity of his vocabulary fascinating
A Ghost to Most
Jeff Bridges announced he has lymphoma.
The Dude abides.
Amir Khalid
@NotMax:
They’ve really been Mike Love’s Beach Boys for decades now, and he’s a Republican. Also, at this point, a better name for them would be The Beach Granddads.
jonas
@Kay: Wait, is an incumbent POTUS literally telling downballot candidates from his own party to go fuck themselves? That is, well, a first..or something…as far as I know. Wow.
ETA: #ETTD, Martha. You bought the ticket. Enjoy the ride!
MisterForkbeard
@Jeffro: Apparently the NEW rumor is that the laptop has video of Hunter Biden clearly sexually assaulting young chinese children and the chinese have proof of it, which explains all the (nonexistent) corruption from China and why Biden is owned by them.
I’ve seen this pop up in comment sections all over facebook. The most hilarious part of it is that the guys frequently say “I have a friend who is HIGH UP in government who’s seen the videos”. And they’re serious, too. I bet they all have girlfriends in Canada or something and we’ll just have to accept it.
Yutsano
TBogg Monday?
I wonder if the Lincoln Project smells blood in the water in Mississippi. It’s not the strongest ad, but a shiv is a shiv.
raven
@Amir Khalid:
Kansas City star, that’s what I are
Yodel-deedle ay-hee, you oughta see my car
I drive a big old Cadillac with wire wheels, got rhinestones on the spokes
I got credit down at the grocery store
And my barber tells me jokes
I’m the number one attraction every supermarket parkin’ lot
I’m the king of Kansas City, no thanks, Omaha, thanks a lot
MisterForkbeard
@A Ghost to Most: I have close relatives who had (and still have) lymphoma. Most lymphomas are very survivable, especially if you catch them early.
Miss Bianca
@Amir Khalid:
Beach Geezers.
Amir Khalid
@Jeffro:
This is the kind of Trump campaign tactic that makes me suspect Trump is secretly working for the Biden campaign.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Yutsano: IIRC, Rick Wilson said in a recent podcast that if Espy can boost African-American turn-out (to what level, I don’t know) and hold Cindy Hyde-Smith (who if she were better known would be a career opportunity for Amy Sedaris, who I bet would make it funny) to less than 75% of white voters, he can win. Again, IIRC, around 40% of MS’s voting-age population is AA
brantl
@Kropacetic: THAT’S A WINNER! SEND IT TO THE BIDEN CAMPAIGN!
brantl
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I don’t know, I’ve thought Toobin was a stupid jerkoff for a long, long time. It’s just more literal than I thought.
Melusine
@BruceFromOhio: 😂😂 king certainly has a way with homespun-sounding phrases
Ivan X
@Ken: I wonder whether he’ll start making some of those votes 6-3 if the conclusion is foregone, so as to make them appear less contested, and to give ACB cover to not be the “deciding vote.”
topclimber
@Amir Khalid: At a certain age one must seize the member when it arises.
Melusine
@danielx: but not nearly as sonorous on a wooden pew
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@brantl: if you had told me a TV lawyer was gonna find himself in this kind of imbroglio I would’ve bet money on Turley. Much more of a wanker. IMHO
Bill Arnold
@Jeffro:
He literally has a hard time fully believing that that larger electorate exists.
Jeffro
@Bill Arnold: “I HAZ LARGE RALL-EES!!!” says the moron who seems not to understand that a crowd of a few thousand does not translate into dominance in a nation of 340M.
Math, science, civics, statistics…this nation’s whole curriculum has to be re-written, people!
danielx
@Kay:
Variation on Russian proverb: you said you were a mushroom, Martha, now jump into the basket.
Bill Arnold
@MisterForkbeard:
Haven’t checked out the existence of this rumor, but if so, it’s exploiting the QAnon-driven mass hysteria about child-eating pedophiles.
NotMax
@topclimber
Carpe dickem?
:)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I don’t know anyone who I know to be undecided.
Jeffro
@Amir Khalid: trumpov…and police everywhere…are oh-so-slowly catching on to the fact that video cameras are everywhere. Every. Where.
Wait ’til Josh Hawley seems himself supporting the overturning of the ACA and also speechifying that he will protect the health care coverage of those with pre-existing conditions.
Oh wait…that was just a dream I had a couple of years ago…never mind…
James E Powell
@Yutsano:
It’s the kind of ad that might appeal to the reachables, though they be few. Say what you will about the LP gang, they are doing more than Bloomberg.
topclimber
@NotMax: True in any language.
WaterGirl
@lamh36: Glad to know it’s going well. What is QC/QA
10am will be better than 7am!
brantl
@WaterGirl: Quality Control / Quality Assurance.
WaterGirl
@Gin & Tonic:
!!!!!
danielx
Fuck Covid unbelievers with rusty farm tools.
WaterGirl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Fuck.
Yutsano
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: All I know is that if Jeff Bridges dies before Rush…I’mma gonna burn my Baha’i card.
TS (the original)
@dmsilev:
The world of the GOP and trump disciples. Trump encourages this every time he opens his mouth.
Ivan X
I have a Bernie Bro friend who is not a Trumper, but who is conspiracy minded, chauvinist, hates political correctness because it’s someone trying to control him, etc. He has this fantasy that Biden will somehow be influenceable by the same sort of neocons who led us into Iraq, but I think he’s just mad at liberals, sees Democrats as not doing enough about protest violence, and he’s afraid of BLM in Portland, and he’s looking for an excuse to vote Trump. When he told me he hadn’t made up his mind, I told him I was appalled, and he went to the “I know, Trump has no decorum, he’s mean” and was about to continue in this vein I’ve heard from other Trump apologists as though the problem is the style and not the substance.
I cut him off and started ticking off the reasons Trump is vastly worse than Biden could ever be, and when I got to “he’s corrupt,” he responded: “MORE CORRUPT THAN THE CLINTONS??” Yes. This is real. To some people, they are just the most corrupt people in the history of corruption, so you’ve got to hand it to their enemies in ginning that shit up so effectively.
I just responded that multiple people in Trump’s immediate orbit have been indicted. He conceded the point, and after the debate and Trump getting COVID, he sighed and said he guesses he’s voting for Biden. But he continues to send me insane videos about socialist democrats and various conspiracies. Some people just live in those YouTube swamps and I think COVID, with its yawning chasms of time and isolation, has worsened it.
dww44
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I missed that. Please explain. How did Hayes “lose it”?
Ken
I find it diagnostic, but I’ve had relatives with dementia.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@dww44: burst out laughing and dropped his head on his desk
ballerat
@Mary G:
On first read I thought it said “Weiner apparently felt like popping up again at the end of an erection”.
Amir Khalid
@NotMax:
True story: many decades ago, a popular magazine down under changed its frequency of publication from every week to every month. But its publisher decided it was best not to change the name of The Australian Women’s Weekly.
yellowdog
@dmsilev: The GOP will use this as an excuse to