G7 Open Thread: Good News (If We Can Keep Him to It)

by 11:17 pm. It has 155 Comments.

More immediately:

If you’re in a paranoid mood (remember, even paranoids have real enemies!): It has been widely assumed that Trump’s ‘special guest nation’ at this G7 would be… Russia. What price a scenario where Putin rejects his puppet’s down-at-heels hotel, and tells him he’d prefer to introduce his own ‘security arrangements’ at Camp David?





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PSA Open Thread: Must-*Not*-Watch Video

by 9:16 am. It has 81 Comments.

Over the weekend, those second-tier benchwarmers not required to fluff His Lardship during his hatefest trifecta got together (at a Trump property, of course!) to throw themselves a fan-fest. Complete with ‘volunteer’ videos, including a (possibly deliberately) amateurish parody of the Kingsman movie, showing Trump as a fit’n’focused James Bond character shooting up a church full of ‘media figures’. This — I know, you’re shocked — didn’t go over well with the media in question. (AMPFest has since disavowed the video, FWIW.)

You’d think the Trumpsters would be a little more cautious, given present circumstances, about pissing off the already-getting-bored media figures required to facilitate their attempts to steal another election, but then: High-quality hires are not a Trump trademark.

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Much further down the political food chain, the Sanders campaign announced they’d be hiring independent video producer Matt Orfalea because his extremely enthusiastic pro-Bernie YouTube commercials were so viral. Unfortunately, outside researchers soon discovered ‘#Orf’ had also produced a wealth of deeply cringeworthy material, including a 2-minute ‘parody’ clip-cut entitled ‘MLK: I Have A Wet Dream’. Which I am not linking, not even to one of the many tweets decrying it, because it is every bit as disgusting as you’d imagine, or worse. (Public obscenity standards have relaxed a lot since the days when Sanders was writing rape-fantasy ‘think pieces’ for his local newspaper.) When neither the ‘can’t you people take a joke’ or the ‘when I was young and irresponsible… ‘ defenses defused the critics, the campaign hastily un-hired Orfalea. So, if the Sandernistas are lucky (and can keep from relitigating it all over social media), this glitch in the primary matrix will go unnoticed beyond the obscure realms of the Politically Engaged Online.





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Gun Safety PSA: Back to School Essentials

by 10:52 am. It has 105 Comments.

Trigger warning — this spot is almost too effective…

Seriously good work by the Sandy Hook Promise people — I learned about it from a spot on the local news, and I suspect it’s going viral on the airwaves as well as in social media.





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Late Night KKKlown Car Open Thread: The GOP Retreat (But Trump Found Them Anyway)

by 1:39 am. It has 26 Comments.

Even though it meant not live-tweeting during the DNC’s Houston debate, where he was guaranteed a (considerably less flattering) large audience. Per the Washington Post:

… With the president speaking here Thursday to a closed-door retreat of House Republicans, scores of protesters gathered to express opposition to White House policies and outrage at Trump’s recent tweets calling Maryland’s largest city “the Worst in the USA.”

The visit by the president — who maligned Baltimore as a “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess” where “no human being would want to live” — was limited to a dinnertime speech kicking off the GOP retreat at the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront Hotel in Harbor East.

House Republicans selected Baltimore as the location for their three-day conference long before the president’s attack on the city, where Democrats outnumber Republicans 10 to 1. Well before the White House announced that Trump would attend the conference, a coalition of advocacy groups calling themselves the Baltimore Welcoming Committee had planned days of rallies to protest GOP policies on immigration, climate change and other topics. There was to be a singalong, a light show and a dance party. Organizer Sharon Black said Trump’s scheduled appearance “upped the ante.”

“This is about the remarks about Baltimore and his policies. You can’t really separate the two,” she said…

Of course, Donny Dollhands goes nowhere without a few of his devoted sycophants…

Read more





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Happy Reminder Open Thread: #MoscowMitch Is *Very* Annoyed with Us

by 1:34 am. It has 39 Comments.

As a good bidnizman, McConnell believes the #MoscowMitch label is damaging his personal brand. He’s for sale to any sufficiently wealthy buyer, not just the GRU! So he vented with Hugh ‘Ambulatory Cream Cheese Sculpture’* Hewitt:

… “It’s modern-day McCarthyism,” McConnell said during a radio interview on Salem Media Group’s “Hugh Hewitt Show” when asked about the nickname he received after blocking Democrats’ efforts to pass bipartisan election security bills…

McConnell faced heavy scrutiny following his decision in July to block requests from Democratic senators to pass bills aimed at strengthening America’s election infrastructure by unanimous consent.

The move came a day after former special counsel Robert Mueller publicly warned that Russia was trying to interfere in the 2020 elections as we “sit here.”…

“These pundits are lying, lying when they dismiss the work that has been done. They’re lying when they insist I have personally blocked actions which, in fact, I have championed and the Senate has passed. They are lying when they suggest that either party is against defending our democracy,” he said during the Senate floor speech.

The bills blocked by McConnell would require the use of paper ballots and direct campaigns to report offers of assistance from foreign governments to the FBI.

*h/t Betty Cracker

Alternative #hack, too also:





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