Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Shock troops for the Unitarian Jihad.

‘Forty-two’ said Deep Thought, with infinite majesty and calm.

We can agree to disagree, but I’m right.

Yes we did.

This blog is Obama’s Katrina.

This blog will pay for itself.

This is a big f—–g deal.

Nevertheless, she persisted

Also, too.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

We still have time to mess this up!

Screw the Judean People’s Front. Splitters.

Not all heroes wear capes.

Usually wrong but never in doubt.

No one could have predicted…

Gastritis Broke My Calculator

We Survived Breitbartpocalypse!

Word salad with all caps

What fresh hell is this?

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Reality always wins in the end.

Hot Air and Ill Informed Banter

An army of rabid, anonymous commenters

I personally stopped the public option…

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Thieves & Grifters All the Way Down: Trump & His GOP Cronies Confront A Pandemic

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COVID-19 Coronavirus Update (Domestic) – Saturday/Sunday, April 4/5

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One small good thing:

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Picking Our Battles Open Thread: All Respect for the Democratic Shadow Cabinet

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Harry Reid’s former deputy chief of staff (and, to be fair, Warren booster), Adam Jentleson:

… The news will get worse with every passing day, and the relief from the Phase Three legislation will not come fast enough, building enormous pressure for more action. In the best case scenario, the Senate relents and passes the Democratic bill, or a version close to it. Worst-case scenario, McConnell brings it up for a vote to kill it, but even then, Democrats will have set the starting line. At a time of unprecedented crisis, it is politically and morally untenable to argue against relief for Americans, or that it’s too generous. The mover wins—all the upside lies in acting quickly to deliver generous relief. Democrats have the high ground and they should use it decisively, because lives depend on it.

Here’s how Democrats should decide what goes in the bill: Get the biggest box you can find. Then take every policy that will help working people and our democratic institutions survive this crisis. Put them in the box, address it to Trump and McConnell, and drop it off for curbside, no-contact pickup.

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Saturday Morning Open Thread: We’re All Doing What We Can

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Chosen, of course, because Mary-Chapin’s elderly golden decides to add a squeaky-toy backup…

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COVID-19 Coronavirus Update (Domestic) – Friday/Saturday, April 3/4

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Trump’s a two-bit thief who aspires to be a mob boss. Robert Kraft is a personal friend of his — and, more importantly, a friend of Putin — so Trump graciously ‘permits’ his friend to make a grand gesture, even as Trump’s stealing PPE shipments right & left to stockpile for… well, ask his son-in-law Jared…

Trump’s already killed more Americans than Osama bin Laden. He’ll be lucky his corpse isn’t disposed of the same way.

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Florida Fiasco

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It’s omnishambles time in Florida, and it’s no coincidence that Republicans hold every statewide office except ag commissioner. The state’s department of agriculture is probably functioning properly. I don’t know. But Governor DeSantis has made a complete fucking hash of his job during the pandemic. He issued the “stay-at-home” order way too late (it went into effect at midnight). And he undermined more stringent local ordinances to accommodate the crackpot prosperity gospel grifters who want to gather on Sundays to fleece the rubes while they breathe on each other.

Testing has been ramped up, but so far only about .036% of the 22M population has been tested, and most of the testing has been done in metro areas. Every single county has at least one case, but as recently as last week, DeSantis was telling people a statewide stay-at-home order wasn’t necessary because the virus hadn’t spread to “every corner of the state.” As of today, we’ve got more than 9,000 confirmed cases, and experts say the “peak” won’t happen here for another month.

Meanwhile, the bottom has fallen out of Florida’s tourism-dependent and service-heavy economy. As hundreds of thousands flocked to file for unemployment benefits online, the state’s website crashed. Hard. It was deliberate sabotage; during his tenure, former Gov. Scott directed crooks to design that site to keep people from getting the princely sum of $275 a week in unemployment benefits to make Scott’s economic numbers look good. Auditors warned Scott about it, and they warned DeSantis too. Neither lifted a finger.

The director of the department overseeing the unemployment benefits fiasco, who has been on the job since DeSantis appointed him in 2018, apologized and said printed forms are on the way…eventually. He should be fired — not just from his job but also from a space cannon into the sun. Not only can untold numbers of suddenly unemployed people NOT get access to Florida’s stingy unemployment benefits, they can’t get access to the money the feds sent to augment it because that goes through the states.

To sum up, a tidal wave of pestilence is rushing toward the state because the stupid governor followed Trump’s idiotic lead, ignoring the virus until it was way too late to control the spread. And the economy is not only a smoking crater for the foreseeable future, hundreds of thousands or possibly millions can’t access the benefits they’ve EARNED to get them through this time.

The only upside of this horrific situation? If Trump loses Florida in 2020, it doesn’t matter if he hangs onto the Rust Belt. I’m not in the presidential race prediction business any more, but just as a citizen looking around? I think Trump loses this state, and with it the presidency. Sorry about all the dead people and ruined lives, Florida, but the Republican experiment in small government by greedy crooks had to be carried out to its logical extreme, and here we are. Let’s do better next time.

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COVID-19 Coronavirus Update (Domestic) – Thursday/Friday, April 2/3

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It’s FUBARs all the way down!

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Late Night Horrorshow Open Thread: THE SPICE MUST FLOW!

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Just one more dungpile as we attempt to navigate the neverending river of filth…

Required disclosure: I never actually managed to plow through Dune, not even during my sf-obsessed teen years when I had all the time in the world. But from what I remember of deformed monster and would-be tyrant Baron Harkonnen, at least he managed to accomplish a few things…

Whoops:

These days everyone not on his payroll, or in the death cult, just assumes he’s lying about everything.

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Let’s Just Not Let Republicans Run Shit Anymore

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A friend from across the street texted me today to ask if my cable was out, and it was about 6 pm and I had not had the tv on all day, so I told him I would go downstairs and check. Went down, turned it on, and Mike Pence was yammering away. I immediately turned it off, texted my friend and said “I turned on my tv and Mike Pence was talking so first off, fuck you very much for that, and second, no, my cable is not out.”

If you think about it, that’s pretty insane, really. We’re in the midst of a global pandemic and on the downward slope to a global depression, and the people who matter the least to me in making informed decisions for my future are the President and Vice-President. I literally will not listen to anything they tell me to do, because A.) they are fucking idiots and B.) they are DANGEROUS idiots. It’s a helluva way to run the country.

And it’s not just them. It’s a majority of the Republicans. That idiot in Georgia who we know stole his election just yesterday admitted he had no idea that the virus could be transmitted by asymptomatic people, something we have known for MONTHS.

They just can’t be trusted with anything.

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Voting Rights Open Thread: Stacey Abrams Is Looking Better Than Ever

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Ain’t it just amazing what a rich white man is allowed to ‘not know’?

(And, of course, he threw a woman — Georgia Public Health Commissioner Dr. Toomey — under the bus, while attempting to excuse himself.)

If Kemp really didn’t know, he’s too dumb to be allowed to walk the streets unsupervised. If — and this is my bet — he just figured it didn’t matter, because COVID-19 wouldn’t come for him or his, he’s certainly a monster and probably a criminal.

Just imagine what might’ve been if Kemp hadn’t been allowed to ‘supervise’ his own election (and dump some 700,000 voters that mostly would’ve voted not-Republican). Could this voter suppression have been deliberate? Well, what are Kemp’s cronies saying right now?…

I predict that Stacey Abrams is gonna have a bright political future. Just listen to this interview:

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Go get him, Joe!

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Remember several centuries ago when the Democratic presidential primary was in full swing? One thing people liked about Joe Biden was that he beat up on Trump rather than criticizing his fellow candidates and re-litigating policy squabbles from the Obama years. If there’s one thing that unites our fractious party, it’s that we all despise Trump to the depths of our jaded, cynical souls.

Now that Biden pretty much has the nomination sewn up, the tone has changed a bit. Osita Nwanevu in The New Republic:

On Sunday, Biden made a virtual stop on Meet the Press, where host Chuck Todd controversially asked him whether Trump had “blood on his hands” given the administration’s bungling of the coronavirus response so far. “I think that’s a little too harsh,” he replied. “I watched a prelim to your show where someone used the phrase that the president thinks out loud. He should stop thinking out loud and start thinking deeply.”

In a Friday piece for Politico, Ryan Lizza quoted an outside Biden adviser who seemed to offer a reason for his reticence. “Biden has a thin line,” he told Lizza. “As much as I dislike Trump and think what a bad job he’s doing, there’s a danger now that attacking him can backfire on you if you get too far out there. I don’t think the public wants to hear criticism of Trump right now.”

Trump almost cracked 50% approval in a recent Gallup poll. That might be the zenith of his “popularity” if his dead cat bounce continues to fizzle as wave after wave of appalling pandemic and economic news continues to rain down on our heads.

I’ve been watching more cable news than I ought to and reading too many articles. While outlets like The Times are rightly pilloried for idiotic headlines and both-sidesy coverage by the brain-dead Beltway gang, I’m somewhat encouraged by the heat other mainstream papers and networks have brought to bear on the Trump administration, particularly about Trump’s attempts to revise recent history and claim he always took the danger seriously when he publicly and loudly did not.

Trump won’t stop holding news conference/rallies and giving himself high-fives for his stellar performance, but the truth is he and his team screwed the pooch badly in the early handling of the crisis, his failures of leadership are ongoing, and hundreds of millions of Americans are already suffering needless hardship because of it.

Pence tries to hide behind Dr. Birx’s skirt whenever he is questioned on this, conflating criticism of Trump with disrespecting epidemiologists, front-line medical professionals, first responders, Mom and apple pie. That dog declines to hunt. It also points to a huge vulnerability that the Trump people know they have.

There’s a specific person who deserves blame for unconscionable negligence, a person in whose office the fabled buck stops, whether he likes it or not. And it’s the big-mouthed orange braggart who is constantly in our fucking faces as we anxiously seek news.

Nwanevu argues that in light of that, Biden should “go for the jugular” right now, particularly since that was an implicit campaign promise: that Biden would beat Trump “like a drum.”

I’m no campaign strategist, but that sounds about right to me. Biden has offered constructive criticism and called Kellyanne Conway’s bad-faith bluff, and that’s fine, but does that go far enough? Early in the campaign, Biden called Trump a Nazi-coddling white supremacist who’s destroying the soul of the country. It was true then, and it’s true now.

It’s also true that Trump is a feckless incompetent whose lack of skills and inability to understand and lead the government is hurting us every day. Maybe it’s time to say so and point to specific examples.

We can’t sit idly by while that orange prick tries to prematurely claim victory if heroic early local mitigation efforts and our soon-to-be overwhelmed hospitals manage to keep the casualty count below 200,000 instead of in the millions. Trump’s catastrophic failures of leadership have endangered every single one of us physically and harmed virtually everyone economically. Go get him, Joe!

PS: The DNC moved the Milwaukee convention to mid-August in hopes that it will be safe to have a convention then, which is still very much an open question. Democrats from Biden to sitting House and Senate reps and state and local officials are already pressing the feds to do something to secure the vote in November by leaning on states to prepare to register voters and hold elections in the middle of a pandemic.

Trump opposes that because he knows the more people vote, the more will vote to toss him out on his orange ass. I’ve contacted all three of my worthless Republican federal representatives about this. Maybe you can too if you agree it’s a critical issue?

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Election Year Open Thread: Happy Thoughts

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Dana Houle is a long-term campaign professional:


(LBJ knew when to hold ’em, when to fold ’em, and when to walk away. Unlike certain other incumbents.)

Mike Francesca, sports radio macher & lifetime Trump guy (really — he’s known Don since they were both teenagers):

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What pandemic response?

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Senator Murphy reframes the debate over Trump’s pandemic response (detwitterized);

Hear me out: If you’re criticizing Trump’s Coronavirus response as ineffective, you’re doing it wrong. The problem is – for all practical purposes – there has been NO RESPONSE. The Administration has effectively declared surrender. And 200,000 might die because of this.

All the school, business, and beach closures have been carried out by states and cities, not Trump. At the very least, Trump could incentivize non-compliant or complacent states to enact emergency measures. But he does nothing, except provide weak, intermittent guidance.

The only way to solve mask, test, and ventilator shortages is for the feds to organize production. Trump has this power, but he chooses not to use it. His minimalist actions have barely made a dent. And day after day, the shortages continue, and Trump does nothing.

The supply chain for these same supplies has completely broken down into chaos. States and hospitals bid against each other, driving prices up. Supplies don’t get to areas of greatest need. Trump could solve this by federalizing the supply chain, but he does nothing.

Every legislative action to fund the public health response and save the economy from total ruin has been driven by Congress. Trump has no legislative agenda. He asks for no new authorities or new funding. In fact, his negotiators mostly argue for less money.

Trump has no actual plan to contain the virus. The virus will grow unless there is a national plan to TEST, ISOLATE, TRACK, AND QUARANTINE. But this takes a massive public health infrastructure that doesn’t exist now. Trump has no plan, and no interest, in building it.

You cannot beat Coronavirus with a state-by-state, city-by-city response, with thousands of conflicting strategies. Only a national plan will work. And the problem isn’t that Trump’s doing the wrong things. The problem is he’s effectively doing nothing.

Murphy is correct. On most issues, Trump’s lack of interest or action would be welcome, but the current situation requires a massive, coordinated response that only the federal government can provide. Christ, Florida Governor DeSantis and who knows how many other red state mouth-breathers are still playing “Mother May I” with the White House as the virus spreads. It’s ridiculous.

I don’t know who can shame the dumb fuck into doing his job (more accurately, appointing someone else to do it). It won’t be any of the unqualified dolts Trump appointed to the agencies, cabinet or adviser corps. Drs. Fauci or Birx maybe? They seem to have awakened Trump to the reality of the situation from the science side of the ledger, but schooling Trump on the complicated logistics of the response isn’t their job. Maybe they’ll take it on anyway since they are at least capable of abstract thought?

Somewhat related: Biden was interviewed by Lawrence O’Donnell last night. Here’s what he (Biden) said about handling the virus (via The Post):

Biden also continued to criticize President Trump for his handling of the global pandemic, saying that he should have done more and sooner. Biden said that if he were in charge, he would appoint one person to lead the administration’s response.

“I would find someone in the administration who was a former general or used to organizing massive efforts,” he said, adding he would also consider his former chief of staff, Ron Klain, who also headed the Obama administration’s response to the Ebola outbreak.

Later he said: “This is a war. You need a general. Put somebody in charge.”

Well, Trump DID put somebody in charge, but unfortunately, it was Mike Pence, an idiot whose only qualification for the role is that he’s a reliable toady. No change in “tone” will address this. Like Murphy said, the problem isn’t that the response is ineffective. It’s that so far, it’s a goddamned postcard.

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Late Night ‘Trump Crime Cartel’ Open Thread: Profiteering on the Pandemic

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And then there’s GOP fundraiser Mike Gula!

I figure it’s even odds Gula doesn’t actually have access to this mysterious supply, any more than that Nigerian ‘prince’ online has access to ONE MILLION DOLLARS (US$). But if desperate people wire him a bunch of money for stuff that doesn’t exist… who’s gonna complain they were rooked?

And if they do, well, it’s what a BSD salesguy does, overselling his prospects, sure he may have exaggerated his holdings slightly in the heat of the deal, but his intentions were only the best!

(He just better be giving the Oval Office Occupant a taste, something to wet his beak, is all I’m saying…)

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COVID-19 & National Security Part VI: America is Not Suffering From a Failure of Intelligence, It is Suffering From a Failure of, and an Absence of, Leadership

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There have now been several pieces written that describe the US’s failing and flailing response to the SARS-CoV2 outbreak and COVID-19 epidemic as a failure of intelligence. The simple reality is that these analyses are wrong. They are not a failure of intelligence. As a former senior advisor to a number of senior leaders, I can honestly say that you can present senior leaders and decision-makers with the timely, accurate information they need to know, but no one can make them think. No one can make them accept it, process it, and act on it accordingly. And I was fortunate in that the senior leaders and decision-makers I served wanted timely, accurate information, were willing to consider it, and used it to inform their decision making. This is unfortunately not the case with the President. And this is clearly not a failure of intelligence, because we have excellent reporting indicating that timely, accurate information about SARS-CoV2 was presented to the President beginning in January 2020.

What we actually have is a failure of leadership. The President’s, the sycophants he’s surrounded himself with, members of the Republican caucuses in the House and the Senate, among Republican governors who are afraid of mean tweets and the President’s base, and among the publishers, editors, and executives at conservative news media outlets – from Fox News to talk radio to conservative digital news. The leak of the letter sent yesterday by  Captain Crozier, the commander of The Theodore Roosevelt to his chain of command is just further evidence of what we’ve been observing since January in regard to the SARS-CoV2 outbreak and since January 2017 with this administration in general. With the exceptions of Director Wray at the FBI and Director Haspel at the CIA, there is not a single cabinet secretary or equivalent senior political appointee in this administration that would have even been nominated for, let alone confirmed to, their positions in any other administration with the possible exceptions of Secretary Chao and Attorney General Barr because of their previous senior cabinet appointee experience in previous administrations. You would not see any of these people in these positions in any other Republican administration. The few actually competent and qualified senior appointees, all of whom were generals (Mattis, Kelly, McMaster) with the exception of DNI Coats, are long gone. And the qualified subordinates they hired are long gone as well. What we’re left with is an incurious president who thinks he knows the price of everything, but really knows the value of nothing, as well as the price of nothing too and a bunch of senior appointees who would either never be considered for political appointments in any other administration or, at best, would be considered for deputy assistant positions at best. They, like their subordinates, have been selected for and/or retained because of professed and displayed loyalty to the President. These subordinates wouldn’t even be considered for the most junior positions in any other administration.

As an example, I honestly cannot think of a single good reason why the Acting Secretary of the Navy needed to do his media appearances today from NY City with the USNS Comfort as the backdrop except that someone explained to him that he was doing them for an audience of one, the President. And that audience wanted to see the USNS Comfort. It is this performative sycophancy that we are seeing revealed each and every day.

The United States is not just suffering through the SARS-CoV2 virus and COVID-19 epidemic. At the national level it is suffering from not just a lack of good leadership, but actual bad, self serving, and ultimately destructive leadership beginning with the President and throughout his administration. We are suffering from it in Senator Majority Leader McConnell and House Minority Leader McCarthy and their caucuses in each chamber of Congress. And we are suffering from it at the state level in a number of states with Republican governors, like FL, AZ, SC, GA, MS, and AL, who have decided that they would rather suck up to the President and demonstrate their fealty to him and his base of supporters rather than even attempt to aspire towards competency.

Open thread!

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