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I can’t take this shit today. I just can’t.

I did not have this on my fuck 2020 bingo card.

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Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

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My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

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We have all the best words.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

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Nevertheless, she persisted.

You are here: Home / Past Elections / 2020 Elections / Trump Crime Cartel Death Watch Open Thread: Murdoch Has Declared Trump A Sunk Cost

Trump Crime Cartel Death Watch Open Thread: Murdoch Has Declared Trump A Sunk Cost

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This has been brewing for some time, of course. From the Washington Post, “The long love affair between Fox News and Trump may be over”:

The last day of Donald Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign began just after 7 a.m., as polls opened on the East Coast, with a call to “Fox & Friends,” the television morning show that had turned the reality star into a U.S. president. He got his usual hero’s welcome. But it was no longer enough…

…[H]is remarks quickly turned pointed that Tuesday morning as he boasted about how well he had done in the job of president, despite unexpected challenges — not from China or Russia or North Korea, he said, but from the United States. And he mused rhetorically about what had changed the most for him since 2016.

“Fox,” he said, answering his own question. “It’s much different now.” As the hosts sputtered, he elaborated: “In the old days, they wouldn’t put sleepy Joe Biden on every time he opened his mouth. . . . It’s a much different operation — I’m just telling you.”

It was the last day of a campaign Fox had done so much to support, but it was a preview of the war — now one week old but months in the making — that may have permanently ruptured the bond between President Trump and his once-favorite television channel. As he faces expulsion from the White House, Trump has vowed revenge on the network that propelled his political career, according to close White House aides — perhaps by publicly attacking Fox or undermining its business model by endorsing a competitor…

In recent months, he had begun to complain — on Twitter and to his aides — that Fox had turned on him. That impression was only heightened when reports emerged that Murdoch was telling associates that the president was going to lose…

Which leads to this excellent, if daintily-phrased, NYTimes article from last week — “New York Post Shifts Tone on Trump as a Top Editor Plans His Own Exit”:

… With Mr. Trump headed toward a likely defeat, top editors at the tabloid told some staff members this week to be tougher in their coverage of him, said two Post employees who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions.

In addition to the shift in tone, there will be a change in personnel: Col Allan, the Australian tabloid wizard who was once seen in the Post newsroom wearing a Make America Great Again cap, will call an end to his career of more than 40 years at Murdoch papers in New York and Sydney.

Mr. Allan, who was The Post’s editor in chief from 2001-16, rejoined the paper as an adviser in January 2019, just as the presidential campaign was underway. Since his return, he has had a strong hand in shaping coverage, several staff members said. He confirmed his planned retirement in an email interview…

Several staff members said Mr. Allan had more or less run the newsroom since his return. “I have contributed little other than some minor advice,” Mr. Allan said of his work on the paper’s election coverage…

Col Allan is an old-fashioned tabloid thug who was brought back specifically to grease the skids for Trump’s re-election. If Murdoch (or whichever Murdoch kid is making the decisions this week) has given Allan his walking papers, it’s a pretty blatant announcement that they’re not throwing good money after bad.

Reader Interactions

152Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    I’ll always be grateful to the NY Post for their tireless work in uncovering what a great dad Joe Biden is.

  2. 2.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    Since when did *FOX NEWS* care when Republicans said hideously, nasty, baseless things about Democratic folks?
    (Well, obviously: when they think that it will actually hurt their brand. And what’s worse is, they might be right – they might be able to salvage their brand, by saying “see, when it started to look like it might hurt our brand when he crossed a line, we stopped supporting him”)

  3. 3.

    debbie

    Can we get those “disputed fact” banners to slap on Trump supporters? They’re tossing out conspiracy theories like so much poo.

  4. 4.

    natem

    Neil Cavuto is “Daytime Fox” (i.e. the “news” arm). Hannity, Ingraham, and Tucker are going to run with this as far as they can.

  5. 5.

    Viva BrisVegas

    Lachlan is the RWNJ heir. The other son James bailed from the whole show, presumably due to an attack of decency.

    Someone was talking about Republican daddy issues downthread. They ought to look up Rupert’s old man. There was a piece of work.

  6. 6.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Jonathan Lemire @JonLemire · 22m

    WASHINGTON (AP) — Barr authorizes DOJ to probe ‘substantial allegations’ of voting irregularities despite little evidence of fraud.

    Jennifer Taub@jentaub·5m
    Stay vigilant. Stay alert. Stay calm. We knew this was coming. They do not want to give up power. Biden won. Barr is the same guy who ordered teargassing of Americans who were peacefully protesting. Of course he will try to steal this election. But he will not succeed.

  7. 7.

    lamh36

    hate to be a debbie downer, but unless TPTB at Fox also keep this off of the night showcase, then having Cavuto drop away really means notice and becomes a wash

  8. 8.

    lamh36

    Uh huh, ya’ll notice how Hunter Biden hasn’t been mentioned since the election. It’s as if all the Hunter Biden stuff was A FAKE AND PHONEY DISTRACTIVE SMEAR ATTEMPT…smh

  10. 10.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @lamh36: do you think any of the mouth breathers remember cheering when he said we were gonna stop talking about Covid?

  12. 12.

    TriassicSands

    If Trump were intelligent (but he’s not), he could have conceded and announced his 2024 candidacy in the same breath. Then, he could have continued to damage the country nonstop for the next four years and continued to receive frequent infusions of adoration at his cult rallies. The MSM would probably have gone along and continued to cover (ad nauseam) his every word and misdeed.

    There is some question about whether he could sustain a four-year campaign, but for now it would give him a way to remain in the spotlight. I don’t think he plans more than one sentence, possibly one word, in advance. He’s not only and idiot, now he’s a LOSER, too.

  13. 13.

    artem1s

    What’s worse than ‘You’re fired’?  ‘You’re CANCELED’.  The Trump Show jumped the Shark in episode one and didn’t even make it to it’s fifth season so it could go into syndication.  Sad.

  14. 14.

    Raven Onthill

    “WASHINGTON (AP) — Barr authorizes DOJ to probe ‘substantial allegations’ of voting irregularities despite little evidence of fraud.” – https://twitter.com/JonLemire/status/1325946854530555914?s=20

    “There are no ‘substantial allegations,’ but Trump, Pence, McConnell, and Barr are desperate to bring this election before the Supreme Court. They have something up their sleeves. We just don’t know what.” – https://twitter.com/leahmcelrath/status/1325949658875777026?s=20

  18. 18.

    Kristine

    Wondering whether GOP senators who have so far declined to acknowledge Biden’s win will change course. Which do the believe has more power, Fox/Rupert or rabid Trumpists?

  23. 23.

    TriassicSands

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Barr authorizes DOJ to probe ‘substantial allegations’ of voting irregularities…

    Well, duh. Trump and his subthugs are making all the accusations. One would think, if there were any “substance” to the accusations, someone outside the Trump team would have noticed.

    Susan Collins may be “very concerned” right now that she was premature in offering her mealy-mouthed congratulations to Biden. I mean “substantial allegations!” Oh, my!!!

    This is great:

    Facing runoffs, Georgia’s Republican senators ask the state’s top elections official, also a Republican, to step down.

  24. 24.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Baud: Making vague threats against KH. Saying that she is the power behind the throne, she will be running the WH. She is an agent of Pakistan. COVITA has won, surrender or die. Biden has dementia. They are flooding the zone with CRAP.

    Meanwhile leftie Twitter from India

    She is a cop. She is appropriating the black identity, appropriating the Indian identity,  she should acknowledge her upper caste privilege. Oppose Modi’s agenda. And on and on it goes.

  25. 25.

    Geminid

    @lamh36: Like the 2016 election, this one was close enough that any number of factors could turn it. One may be how, in the critical last weeks of the campaign, trump and his henchmen wasted valuable messaging bandwidth on a laptop scandal that flopped.

  27. 27.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @lamh36:

    Did you already have your birthday and your trip to San Francisco? Or is that coming up this week? Apologies if I missed congratulating you and reading about your getaway — alternatively, if it all happens a few days from now, I hope you have a great day and a wonderful time!

  32. 32.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Emma from FL: Not new. I have seen it many times, it is aimed at Indians in particular. I got so tired of the bullshit in the family WhatsApp group that an idiot cousin had started, I gave them a piece of my mind after a week of being at the receiving end of the fuckery and left the group

    There was a dichotomy in the group, the ones who were in the United States were Ds and pro-Biden and the ones rooting for COVITA were in India because that’s what their God Modi told them to do.

  35. 35.

    oldster

    It’s not just Murdoch who has written him off. Sheldon Adelson has also decided that he’s a non-performing loan.

    The Las Vegas Journal-Review, which Adelson purchased for $140 million back in 2015, also led with a headline proclaiming Biden’s victory.

    Adelson gave Trump and other Rs about $200 million this cycle. He is telling Donny that there’s no more credit after this.

  38. 38.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Raven Onthill:

    They have something up their sleeves.

    No doubt whatever they had up their sleeves when they ordered two criminal FBI probes into Hunter Biden and came up with nothing.  And the ones towards Obama and Hillary’s crimes in targeting Trump’s campaign, that also came up with nothing.

  39. 39.

    hueyplong

    One thing today has done is put a little perspective on why the networks waited so long to call it.

  42. 42.

    Hoodie

    @Baud: Maybe also laying the groundwork for new voter suppression tactics for 2022 now they have a compliant SC.  Expect a bunch of new restrictions for mail ballots.

  43. 43.

    gene108

    @LongHairedWeirdo:

    I do not think Fox News breaking from Trump’s claims of voter fraud are about saving their brand.

    I think it’s about insulating the rest of the Republican Party from Trump’s loser stink.

  46. 46.

    patrick II

    maybe MAGA’s will be so angry with Pfizer for waiting until after the election to announce that they will refuse to get vaccinated. Then the Biden voters can get their shots and just wait for multiple Darwin awards.

  47. 47.

    Emma from FL

    @schrodingers_cat: I am fascinated with all the crazy stuff but I am somewhat insulated by the fact that we’re (my sister and I) at best peripheral in the larger family. It must be horrid for you.

  49. 49.

    Aleta

    So Cavuto is more principled than Susan Collins.  And advocating for doubt about the election until  a court says otherwise is just the beginning of what her patrons will ask of her as their spoils.

  51. 51.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Tom Nichols @RadioFreeTom ·12m
    I assume part of what’s going on is that Trump has to keep his brand as a “fighter“ so that when he finally steps down he can claim that he never gave up and then he can get right back to fleecing the rubes.

    my prediction: the rallies will continue, with paid admission “to help keep up the fight!”

  52. 52.

    different-church-lady

    NEW: The Trump campaign’s legal war to invalidate the 2020 election results has some of his own top lawyers feeling queasy.

    “You know, when they said that “Leopards Eating Everyone’s Face Party” was just a metaphor, some alarm bells went off in the back of my head, but…”

  54. 54.

    hueyplong

    @patrick II: I kind of agree with this and find it both serious and hilarious

    [ETA: this is in response to the post about the vaccine and the almost certain rejection of same by a non-zero percent of trumpers]

  56. 56.

    Hoodie

    @🐾BillinGlendaleCA: Easy, do what Texas does, put age and health restrictions for absentee status.  Automatically qualified if over 60 or whatever.  The idea is to make it too much a hassle for younger voters, and then reduce early voting and poll locations in urban areas.

  58. 58.

    lamh36

    sounds to me like maybe Pence don’t yet want any of the stench of this to stick to him? Maybe him and mother are going to the beach so they can start thinking about trying to salvage what they can for their after-Chump life. We’ll see how long before he falls back to his knees for dear leader.

    @PeterAlexander

    ·
    4h

    “All you need to know is that Pence is going on vacation,” a person close to the president tells me, when asked about the prospects for Trump’s legal fight.

    Quote Tweet

  59. 59.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @lamh36:

    Yes! I was cleaning up old browser tabs today and realized that Tucker Carlson never did reveal his Hunter Biden documents after he miraculously got them back from FedEx or UPS. 🤔

  60. 60.

    Kent

    @schrodingers_cat:

    @Baud: Making vague threats against KH. Saying that she is the power behind the throne, she will be running the WH. She is an agent of Pakistan. COVITA has won, surrender or die. Biden has dementia. They are flooding the zone with CRAP.

    Meanwhile leftie Twitter from India

    She is a cop. She is appropriating the black identity, appropriating the Indian identity,  she should acknowledge her upper caste privilege. Oppose Modi’s agenda. And on and on it goes.

    What is the end game?  Do they not have an interest in cultivating a good relationship with the new administration?

  61. 61.

    trnc

    @Raven Onthill: 

    “There are no ‘substantial allegations,’ but Trump, Pence, McConnell, and Barr are desperate to bring this election before the Supreme Court. They have something up their sleeves. We just don’t know what.” – https://twitter.com/leahmcelrath/status/1325949658875777026?s=20

    I suspect the election talk is not so much a bluff as a smokescreen, and I wonder if there is any thread to tie this with the firing of several appointees who are not household names – Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), Bonnie Glick, deputy administrator of the US Agency for International Development, and Neil Chatterjee, chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). Maybe they were all insufficiently loyal, but that could describe a lot of federal agency managers.

  63. 63.

    Splitting Image

    Murdoch and Adelson have one thing in common with Donald Trump: loyalty only goes one way.

    Trump was useful to them as long as he had something to offer. Now he doesn’t and he isn’t. So long sucker.

  66. 66.

    schrodingers_cat

    @lamh36: I remember reading an article about the Pences and their rescue animals during the 2016 transition, they bought their bunny and kitties and I think a dog with them when they moved from Indiana. So far I haven’t read a single thing approaching normalcy about the Orange person.

    May be mother has had it.

  67. 67.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    @gene108: You raise a good point, but I still feel it’s “po-tay-to/po-tah-to” where the real point is “of course we have ethics! Look away from when and why we stopped supporting Trump, er, at how we turned away from Trump in support of the nation!”

  68. 68.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Kent: The RWNJ Twitter and BJP’s flying monkeys fancy themselves as the next Likud.

    Lefties are just random people blathering on Twitter, who understand little of our politics but have bought in to Cold War narrative that we are the great Satan.

  70. 70.

    Splitting Image

    @gene108:

    I do not think Fox News breaking from Drumpf’s claims of voter fraud are about saving their brand.

    I think it’s about insulating the rest of the Republican Party from Drumpf’s loser stink.

    The two are actually very closely linked. They need a resurgent Republican party that is loyal to them in order to protect their brand. So rather than burn through capital to protect Trump, they are going to insulate the party from the loser.

  71. 71.

    Dan B

    @hueyplong: 60 Minutes had people who were preparing a massive vaccine distribution on yesterday.  One of them said only 60% of medical workers would take the vaccine and the general population was less likely.  The Covid task force will need a massive marketing campaign.

  72. 72.

    Hoodie

    @🐾BillinGlendaleCA: No, other places were not as restrictive as Texas, even before Covid, but now they might try to move in that direction in places like WI.   NC had excuse-free absentee ballots before Covid, albeit with a witness requirement, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see them place some additional restrictions targeted at younger voters.

  74. 74.

    Jeffro

    @trnc: I think they’re firing these agency heads so that a) it’ll be easier to get the lower-rung staffers to shred the evidence of all the criming that’s been going on, and b) it’ll jam up the Biden transition across the board – no one will be able to give Biden/Harris an accurate readout of each agency’s status, pressing issues, and needs.

  75. 75.

    different-church-lady

    @Baud: Well, nice to hear.

    You know what this feels like? This feels like the end of every Roger Moore Bond film, where it seems like the villain is vanquished, but then the henchman comes back for one more attempt.

  77. 77.

    Jeffro

    @Dan B: And they need to talk to American businesses, too (especially movie theater owners, concert promoters, restaurants, etc) about promoting it – hell, requiring it, however that might be do-able.

    “No Covid-19 vaccination record?  No Guns-n-Roses reunion tour ticket purchase for YOU, my friend!”

    j/k but I wish I wasn’t

  80. 80.

    Matt McIrvin

    If almost the ENTIRE Republican Party is supporting Trump’s bullshit as a bloc, do you really think Murdoch isn’t going to flip back?

  83. 83.

    cain

    @schrodingers_cat: She is a cop. She is appropriating the black identity, appropriating the Indian identity, she should acknowledge her upper caste privilege. Oppose Modi’s agenda. And on and on it goes.

    Some black man comes into my twitter feed – ostensibly triggered by my crown moldings and then told me that this is proof that I am not a ADOS (a descent of slaves) – I of course quiped back with “I thought my race would have clinched it. Alas, my crown moldings have betrayed me.” Then he starts talking about my caste and stuff.
    I wonder if he’s been reading this crap too. Or maybe he’s just jealous because a bunch of black women made some nice comments about my skin. Whatever.

  84. 84.

    🐾BillinGlendaleCA

    @Hoodie: Unless there are federal laws to standardize voting procedures on the federal level, states are going to do what they are going to do.  They can’t overtly discriminate on a racial basis, or have an explicit poll tax, but it’s a state matter.  Their citizens either have to elect folk in their state to expand voting rights, or elect folk on the federal level(the Senate) to do it.  What I think the Dems should do(and have done), is pass expanded voting access in the House and have President Biden say he’ll sign it and point at Moscow Mitch.

  85. 85.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @trnc:

    I wonder if there is any thread to tie this with the firing of several appointees who are not household names

    Yes, it was.  Trump is throwing a temper tantrum because he can’t fail, he can only be failed, waah, it’s your fault I didn’t win, you, tell me that I’m going to win after all WHERE IS MY ICE CREAM.  As I have said a dozen times today, and have said a few times before the election and in the last couple of days, this is what narcissists do when they lose.  They attack their allies first, because they can’t do anything to their enemies or they would have already, and it must be their allies’ fault.

  86. 86.

    cain

    @schrodingers_cat: There was a dichotomy in the group, the ones who were in the United States were Ds and pro-Biden and the ones rooting for COVITA were in India because that’s what their God Modi told them to do.

    I’m glad that we have family harmony – we only have one uncle who is doing the bakt curious thing. But he’s definitely in teh “u.s. politicians cannot comment about India’s affairs” and so is against any U.S. politician saying – I pointed out that I’m here too and I also believe what’s happening is bullshit. Silence.

    I also plan on pointing out – what’s the point of all this – yous hould support the administration that will protect your grand children from racists – those kids have only been to India  a few times – they know nothing about it.

  87. 87.

    Ken

    @lamh36: Do the Pences know that there’s a hurricane zig-zagging along the Florida gulf coast?

    Personally, I would have spent the time house-hunting in Indiana.  They’ll have to move in a couple months, and – as was noted when they voted – they don’t appear to own a house in the state, since they listed the governor’s mansion as their address.

  89. 89.

    PsiFighter37

    Guys…there is NO grand plan. The GOP keeps getting lucky. You think with clowns like Trump and the rest of his low-quality hires that there’s an actual plan? Bill Barr tried to ‘plan’ a great big case around unmasking and other bullshit that nobody with a brain gives a damn about – and it backfired when the assistant US Attorney quit, and even the Trumper put in charge did not want to pursue it.

    These fools are high as hell on the right-wing Kool Aid. It’s going to come crashing down on them very quickly, and I suspect Perdue’s and Loeffler’s joint statement was the first big misstep of the runoff. We didn’t run our campaigns perfectly, but at least there was a plan of some kind. Literally the only thing the GOP does is shout Big Lies and hope they get lucky enough.

  91. 91.

    Ken

    @different-church-lady: This feels like the end of every Roger Moore Bond film, where […] the henchman comes back for one more attempt.

    So Barr and McConnell are going to be set on fire and thrown into the ocean with a bomb stuck down their trousers?

  93. 93.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Raven Onthill:

    This is the Trumpist equivalent of “credible allegations of sexual harassment” which turn out to be 100% bullshit.

    A person making allegations may be known to be “generally credible”, but the allegations themselves aren’t credible unless properly tested.

  96. 96.

    Emma from FL

    One question: why are so many assuming, against all evidence, that the only people with power and agency are the Republicans? You think maybe Joe Biden is going to sit on his hands while this is happening? Or that there aren’t lawyers on our side willing to take them on? Or that even state-level officials aren’t getting fed up with the bullshit? (witness Georgia’s AG)?

    People, even Voldemort got it in the neck and Barr isn’t half as scary as Ralph Fiennes in snake makeup.

    (edit) oops. it was more than one question.

  97. 97.

    cain

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: wait, what ?

    I took a selfie in the kitchen and the man took a gander at my cabinetry and decides to “out me” because of my crown moldings.  The cabinetry was some pre-manufactured stuff. It was cheap.

    He went on a diatribe about how Indians make more than black people and white people and caste etc etc. I just didn’t understand what triggered him. I asked if he had a point – he said no. :shrug:

    ETA:

    The crown molding on his kitchen cabinet tells me & it should also say to most #ADOS, that he’s NOT one of us.— mi_keezy (@mi_keezy) November 9, 2020

    Man, good thing I didn’t have a picture of my countertops!

  98. 98.

    Jeffro

    @PsiFighter37:You think with clowns like Trump and the rest of his low-quality hires that there’s an actual plan? Bill Barr tried to ‘plan’ a great big case around unmasking and other bullshit that nobody with a brain gives a damn about

    So…you’re saying there’s nothing to Hunter’s laptop???  ;)

    What about the Clinton Foundation?

    Caravans??

    I got nothin’…and neither do they!

  102. 102.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Seth Mandel @SethAMandel · 42m
    The AP headline is not terribly responsible, mixing quote fragments in headlines is fine as a practice but it has to be handled carefully and this is just gonna make ppl freak out when Barr was placating him. (Which is worth criticizing! But not cause for great alarm.)

    If you don’t know who Seth Mandel is, he’s the editor of the Washington Examiner.
    If you don’t know what the Washington Examiner is, you’re like most people, but it’s the failing right-wing newspaper in DC

  103. 103.

    hueyplong

    @Ken: “So Barr and McConnell are going to be set on fire and thrown into the ocean with a bomb stuck down their trousers?”

    That’s right, Mr Kidd.

  105. 105.

    different-church-lady

    @geg6: He’s a shitty hack with the power of the entire Justice Department at his disposal. It’s not about who he is, it’s about what he controls.

  106. 106.

    Redshift

    @Geminid:

    Like the 2016 election, this one was close enough that any number of factors could turn it. 

    No it’s not. This wasn’t a close election, just one that took a long time to count. Biden won without any states that are within 2016’s margin of cheating in 2016.

  108. 108.

    trnc

    @Frankensteinbeck: If it were just DT, I’d say it was a tantrum. Barr and McConnell do not throw tantrums. They have knives  they know how to use them. We trivialize these actions at our peril.

  110. 110.

    different-church-lady

    IT WOULD SEEM THAT A LOT OF YOU ARE TRYING TO TELL ME NOT TO PANIC WITHOUT ACTUALLY SAYING THOSE WORDS.

  112. 112.

    Redshift

    @different-church-lady:

    He’s a shitty hack with the power of the entire Justice Department at his disposal. 

    He’s really not. He’s the head of it, but it’s filled with people who swore an oath to the Constitution, not to the president or Bill Barr. In a lame duck period, there’s very little risk to refusing to go along with his corrupt efforts.

  119. 119.

    Emma from FL

    @different-church-lady: His control is large but shallow. I don’t think he bothered to replace every clerk and every mid level career manager. And mid-level management has the “drag your feet” technique down pat.

  121. 121.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @trnc:

    Barr and McConnell do not throw tantrums. They have knives they know how to use them.

    Christ almighty, no.  Barr is incompetent.  He’s not wildly incompetent, but he is not very good at his job and mainly succeeds by going “Nuh-uh, won’t!”  Come to think of it, 90% of McConnell’s victories have been doing that.  Barr’s term has been a lengthy series of attempts to do dirty work for Trump that ended up failing so pathetically most people don’t even remember when he ‘proved’ that Biden was part of an illegal plan by the Obama administration to frame Trump.  And McConnell barely passed a gigantic tax cut, the thing his caucus wanted more than all else, then barely failed to pass an Obamacare repeal, the thing they wanted second most.  Neither of these people are geniuses with a secret plan we should be afraid of.  Barr is giving Trump pacifiers and McConnell is being an insulting asshole.  That’s what they do.

  124. 124.

    CarolPW

    @cain: Kitchen looks very nice, but not so nice to be prompting anyone to be crapping on you. You can get extraordinary moldings and ceiling roses made out of fucking styrofoam, and when painted you cant tell them from the real thing. One can create a palace for next to nothing, and unless one sticks a fork in it you can’t tell the difference.

    On the other hand, you are a handsome man which may have been the source of the rancor.

  126. 126.

    Kristine

    @Frankensteinbeck: Holding onto comments like yours because when I first saw this story, my good feelings of the last few days fizzled.

    Resigned to not being able to well and truly relax until January 20, 2021, because I know this swamp gas is just going to keep bubbling to the surface until then.

  129. 129.

    The Thin Black Duke

    Remember folks, there’s more of us then there are of them, which is why Biden won. As long as we show up, we gain that precious inch which becomes that mile further down the road. When we show up, we win.

  130. 130.

    geg6

    @different-church-lady:

    I doubt very much that he has the whole department at his disposal, especially now.  His appointees are hacks and the career people, I have no doubt, hate his guts and won’t be falling all over themselves to please him.

  131. 131.

    Dan B

    @Jeffro: That might get .0001% of the target.  Kardashians, Chris Evans, Chris Pine, Ryan Reynolds,, Beyonce, and similar, would up the return.

  132. 132.

    kcinthedmv

    @cain: Going through this person’s time-line, I think the agenda they’re pushing has little to do with the advancement of the black community.

  133. 133.

    cain

    @CarolPW: On the other hand, you are a handsome man which may have been the source of the rancor.

    aww – thanks – I think that might have been it – there were a number of black women who made some comments and that must have triggered him. Otherwise, I have no idea why he showed up in time line. I did thank him though!

  134. 134.

    different-church-lady

    @WaterGirl: Oh. Yeah, a relative of someone who we were filming was tested positive during a routine screening. She’s asymptomatic, and we don’t think we ever came in direct contact with her, but the production company paid for us to get tested up anyway. The quick one came back negative, and I’m still waiting on the full one.

    (PS: that now makes five negative tests I’ve had so far, although those first two when I was in the hospital… hmmmm…)

  135. 135.

    Bill Arnold

    @debbie:

    “Biden crime cartel.”

    Hm. Every day that the Rs bad-mouth the Bidens, these sound better.
    “The Trump Crime Cartel” (in post title)
    “The Trump Crime Family”
    “The Republican Crime Syndicate”

  138. 138.

    Geminid

    @Redshift: I guess it comes down to how you define close. It may not have been as close as 2016, but was too close for me. And I know people here were really sweating it out for a couple days. Weren’t you?

  140. 140.

    kindness

    Trump probably thinks he can brand the OAR network the Trump Network.  Use it as a platform and take branding money.  Trump thinks he has the makings of a media mogul.  Problem with that is those folks work for a living.  Something Trump has never done.  Delusion runs deep with that one.

  141. 141.

    lamh36

    @SiubhanDuinne: yep. I did.  It was great and it was safe.

    I got back Saturday.  The AirBNB was great and the weather was perfect.  There was def more tourists there than I expected (probably because of the NFL home game) but it was still nothing like it’s heydey.  i posted a pic or two on FB and Twiter

  142. 142.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    @different-church-lady: While Barr has done a lot, and done a lot of evil, he’s been very careful not to cross certain lines. He’s failed to do certain things that he clearly should be doing for his client (the United States); he’s wildly misrepresented data, but in ways he can defend; he’s engaged in wild discretion that is, nevertheless, within his domain; but he hasn’t, for example, opened an investigation into the Bidens and Burisma, because he knows damn well there’s no “there”, there.

    There are lines he won’t cross, though I’m quite confident it’s *only* self interest that prevents his crossing them. Nevertheless – he hasn’t crossed those lines when they mattered, so there’s no reason to expect he’ll grow a backbone when the President he considers his “real” client is certain to go down in defeat.

  144. 144.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @LongHairedWeirdo: It’s like watching a Mafia family in the touchy and tricky process of trying to “go legit.”

    On that note –

    Tony the Mobster decided it was time to “go legit.” He figured it would take him two years to launder all his assets and become just another wealthy businessman. In the meantime, he decided to send his longtime squeeze to a fancy finishing school in Switzerland, where for $100,000 a year they’d turn her into a fit companion for a rich guy, a real lady – even teach her to speak French.

    Two years later, Legit Tony is waiting at the gate where the flight from Geneva has just arrived, anxious to see his girl. Soon she emerges in a swirl of furs and an expensive dress. She throws her arms around him: Dear, dear Antonio! So lovely to see you again! Tell me, Antonio, did you get blue while I was away?

    And Tony thinks, Cripes! Two hundred thousand dollars for her French schoolin’ and she still can’t speak English right!

    /rimshot

    (Not to everyone’s taste, I realize, but it seemed à propos…)

  145. 145.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @schrodingers_cat: Did you notice (of course you did) that Modi tweeted congratulations to Harris on her election & didn’t even mention Uncle Joe? Slimy motherfucking racist. I wish we could get him & Erdogan in a death cage match with a guard outside to shoot whichever survived.

  146. 146.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Baud: Just about every atrocity of the Third Reich was discussed in Mein Kampf, but “serious people” pooh-poohed the content as “oh, you know, just political chatter, he’ll get more moderate if he ever enters government.”

    Which only proves Robert A. Heinlein’s observation that, while the second-best way to lie is to tell the truth but not all of it, the best way to lie is to tell the truth, and tell all of it, but in such a manner that your audience is convinced you’re lying.

  147. 147.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Frankensteinbeck: They might be laying the groundwork to defend a Democratic appeal to the Extreme Court after they persuade the AZ, GA and PA legislatures (all GOP-controlled) either to certify Trump electors or to refrain from certifying any electors at all (which would throw the election into the House where they hold a majority of state delegations). No idea whether “Dis” Barr and his swine are thinking that way but it’s not beyond the realm of possibility,

  148. 148.

    Vhh

    @Viva BrisVegas: u betcha. Keith Murdoch tried to interfere with Aussie and UK policy in WWI and used volonence on competing papers. Rupert inherited his papers and methods. Judt like Trump.

  149. 149.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @PsiFighter37: We didn’t run our campaigns perfectly, but at least there was a plan of some kind. Literally the only thing the GOP does is shout Big Lies and hope they get lucky enough.

    And we got crushed nearly everywhere, up & down the ticket.

    The only things that went right were Mark Kelly in AZ and Biden/Harris (and the latter still may be fucked with). Not much of a vote of confidence in Democratic electoral competence.

  150. 150.

    J R in WV

    @different-church-lady:

    He’s a shitty hack with the power of the entire Justice Department at his disposal. It’s not about who he is, it’s about what he controls.

    You actually think Fat Barr controls the entire DoJ?

    There are rules and laws, and Barr is trying to work outside those rules and laws. No DoJ lawyer is going to actually do anything outside the rules and laws at this point in our history. It would be professional suicide!

  151. 151.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @PsiFighter37: I have heard the plan, such as it is, it keep this alive as long as they can so Trump can milk his idiot followers for donations so Trump can pay his debts. After Jan the 20th the bills come due.

  152. 152.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Uncle Cosmo: To much History Channel dude, I am pretty sure Hitler didn’t lose the election first, went golfing, dissed the military, his staff and then staged a coup.

    Not to mention the right wing reactionary coup in Germany was in 1919 with the suppression of Bavarian Soviet, long before Hitler was fixture in German politics.  Which of course wasn’t much a stretch in Germany was right wing monarchy since it’s foundation. I really wish people would just stop with the nonsense that Germany was some kind of paradise  of Jeffersonian Democracy before Hitler showed up and ruined it all.

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