Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Almost as fun as hiking the Appalachian Trail.

Today in our ongoing national embarrassment…

This is a big f—–g deal.

The Math Demands It!

Consistently wrong since 2002

I showered with Rahm and all I got was this shitty blog.

Usually wrong but never in doubt.

Good luck with your asparagus.

How has Obama failed you today?

Too inconsequential to be sued

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

This Blog Goes to 11…

An almost top 10,000 blog!

Militantly superior in their own minds…

I thought we were promised Infrastructure Week

I personally stopped the public option…

Mission Accomplished!

We still have time to mess this up!

Yes we did.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

Verified, but limited!

Technically true, but collectively nonsense.

I can see Russia from this blog!

Just a few bad apples.

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Late Night Open Thread: All We Have Learned…

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… is that Conservatives have a proud tradition of never learning anything new.

… Some of the candidates who received votes were joke candidates, and I think that speaks volumes. Have we considered whether or not more of our candidates in America ought to be jokes? It is clear that the people are hungry for bad ideas that will solve nothing; I think we ought to consider whether worse ideas, more clearly labeled, might not be better…

Think we got that last part covered, for sure. They call themselves ‘dirtbag leftists‘ and they are at best a wen on the Democratic party they seek to parasitize.


“Play stupid games, win stupid prizes” is a strong contender for motto of the year. Hopefully *this* year, and not 2020!

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Repubs in Disarray Open Thread: Crowdstruck

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It could be worse, you could be a Republican (assuming you could drop 40 IQ points and every moral qualm)…

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Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Whole Lotta “Nothing” Goin’ On

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Late Night Open Thread: Rich ‘Sparklepants’ Lowry Throws A Public Snit

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Not that I normally read anything by, or if I can help it about, the National Review editor who wrote the first public paean to Sarah Palin’s charms. But Mr. Boie’s tweet sent me in search of explication…

“You know what I am?” U.S. President Donald J. Trump said at a rally in October 2018. “I’m a nationalist.” Rich Lowry’s The Case for Nationalism can be seen as a way of working through, and defending, what the president meant. As the editor of National Review, the prominent conservative magazine, Lowry is an intellectual gatekeeper on the American right. He was one of the speakers at the National Conservatism conference in July 2019, an event that brought together such thinkers as J. D. Vance and Patrick Deneen, with keynotes by the billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel and the Fox News host Tucker Carlson, along with a notorious intervention on the perils of immigration by University of Pennsylvania law professor Amy Wax.

Lowry’s central claim is that Americans are, and have been from their country’s founding, a nation and not a community of universal ideas. Although intellectuals and left-wing pundits are openly hostile to expressions of national sentiment, the United States has a unique national tradition that is today obscured by fissiparous identity politics. If Americans reacquaint themselves with their true national heritage, they will be better equipped to overcome dangerous tribalism, protect their borders, and make their country great again. To the degree that the United States has a global role, it should be as “vindicator of the prerogatives of other democratic nation-states”—in other words, a defender of the idea that a world of culturally defined nations is humanity’s state of nature…

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Repubs in Disarray!… Open Thread: Nikki Haley’s Delicate Balancing Act

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Conventional wisdom, any time over the last forty years, has been that the first female president would be a Republican. (Or, we should amend, the first female winner of the popular vote allowed to take her earned seat in the Oval Office.) Nikki Haley has been working to be that woman for most of her adult life, but her best shot — and her new memoir — arrive at a tricksy point in the current electoral cycle: She can’t afford to denounce the sitting Republican president, for fear of angering his (Deplorable) base. But she can’t risk applauding too publicly someone who might be impeached, or worse, before her book tour is well under way.

Solution: Embrace the Oval Office Occupant; blame any ‘mistakes’ on the people around him. Even better, on the people who were around him, but have since been dismissed!

… In the book, which was obtained by The Washington Post ahead of its release Tuesday, Haley offers only glancing critiques of her former boss, saying she and others who worked for Trump had an obligation to carry out his wishes since he was the one elected by voters.

The former South Carolina governor, widely viewed by Republicans as a top potential presidential candidate in 2024, has repeatedly sought to minimize differences with Trump while distancing herself from his excesses. Haley, 47, writes that she backed most of the foreign policy decisions by Trump that others tried to block or slow down, including withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris climate accord and the relocation of the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.

In a New York City interview with The Post coinciding with the book release, Haley also dismissed efforts by House Democrats to impeach Trump. She said she opposes Trump’s efforts to seek foreign help for political investigations in a call with Ukraine’s president, but that the actions are not impeachable.

“There was no heavy demand insisting that something had to happen. So it’s hard for me to understand where the whole impeachment situation is coming from, because what everybody’s up in arms about didn’t happen,” Haley said…

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So make sure when you say you’re in it but not of it

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Don’t forget to vote in your local elections today if you have them. Where I live, in Monroe County, the Republicans have dominated county politics for years, but there’s been a big shift in registration in the past three years, amounting to a 3-4% net gain for Democrats. I asked a friend if Dems have a chance this year and he said no because they don’t turn out for county elections.

Commenter MikeJ once said that too many liberals were

too cool to actually approve of anything. The whole thing smacks of effort, man. Democrats are also famous for only liking the first album (or better yet, the unreleased demos.)

Don’t be that guy. Go out and vote Democrat today no matter how uninspiring your candidates are.

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“Bring Me the Head of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi”: Early Reviews, Not Promising

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Publicity-grab sequels seldom match the success of the originals. Title of this post from a Christopher Dickey article in the Daily Beast, “Trump Turns Baghdadi’s Killing Into a Reality Show”:

PARIS—President Donald J. Trump wants you to see his new movie: “Bring Me the Head of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.”

At a special Sunday morning press conference in Washington D.C., Trump described the way U.S. Special Operations Forces attacked Baghdadi’s compound and killed him in such graphic and explicit detail that some intelligence professionals worried he may have revealed, again, too much about sources and methods.

But Trump knows great television when he sees it, and he was enthusiastic about the images he was watching from the White House situation room Saturday night. “It was absolutely perfect, as though you were watching a movie,” he said…

The reasons such a video of the 2011 Osama operation was not released are the same ones that the intelligence community will use to argue against dissemination of the Baghdadi death: because such images could compromise so much about the operation.

But quite apart from Trump’s worthy desire to undermine the messaging of the still virulent ISIS organization, there is also his unworthy inclination to gloat. Remember when Trump tweeted a highly classified high-resolution image of a failed Iranian missile launch earlier this year for little more reason, it would seem, that smug self-satisfaction?

Trump hates it when the fast-turning news cycle that he uses effectively to obscure his failings also works to push his accomplishments into oblivion…

He’ll be tweeting obscenities — not dirty words, but actual graphic images & descriptions — no later than tomorrow morning. And that’s only if the Fox News prime-time lineup lathers sufficient Kim-Jong-un – style propaganda all this evening.

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Russiagate Open Thread: Maria Butina Released from Federal Prison

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Per NPR:

… The Russian national, who pleaded guilty late last year to conspiring to act as a clandestine foreign agent, was released Friday into the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Now she’s expected to be deported quickly back to Russia.

Her release closes a fraught chapter for Butina, who for months occupied a spotlight in the federal investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Prosecutors accused Butina of scheming to forge a connection between Moscow and the Trump administration, as well as several heavy hitters in the conservative political community — including officials at the National Rifle Association and the National Prayer Breakfast…

She still has at least one NRAphilic defender — “U.S. Rep for KY’s 4th District, Chairman 2nd Amdt Caucus, Political Science Denier”:

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Cold Grey Pre-Dawn Open Thread: Norman Desmond in the WH

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“I am big. It’s the pictures that got small.”

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Under the Trump Bus Open Thread: Giuliani Edition, Part the First

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NBC, this afternoon:

President Donald Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani on Monday denied being involved with a Ukrainian oligarch whose ethical issues have dovetailed with the ongoing impeachment inquiry into the president.

Giuliani also told NBC News he was not planning on visiting Dmitry Firtash, who is currently wanted on corruption charges in the U.S., during a trip to Vienna he planned last week. He said he could not speak for his two Soviet-born business associates, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, who were arrested last week on campaign-finance charges in Virginia as they were about to board one-way flights to Vienna. Giuliani has said their similarly timed Austrian trips were not in conjunction…

Giuliani also said he has “never” brought up Firtash’s extradition battle with Trump.

“I’m not even sure the president is aware of him,” Giuliani said. “I think if you asked the president ‘who is Dmitry Firtash?’ He would say ‘I don’t know.’ As far as I know, we’ve never discussed him.”…

Saturday, per the NYTimes:

President Trump had lunch on Saturday with Rudolph W. Giuliani amid revelations that prosecutors were investigating Mr. Giuliani for possible lobbying violations, and speculation that his position as the president’s personal lawyer was in jeopardy.

The lunch, at Mr. Trump’s golf course in Sterling, Va., was among several shows of the president’s support for Mr. Giuliani on Saturday. They seemed meant to tamp down questions about Mr. Giuliani’s status with a client famous for distancing himself from advisers when they encounter legal problems of their own.

Mr. Trump, during a Saturday night appearance on Fox News, called Mr. Giuliani “a great gentleman” and said he is still his lawyer. “I know nothing about him being under investigation. I can’t imagine it,” he told the host Jeanine Pirro…

Mr. Giuliani, a former federal prosecutor and New York mayor, was retained last year to help defend the president in the special counsel’s investigation.

But his efforts to undermine the investigation’s origins and its conclusions helped lead Mr. Trump into an impeachment inquiry. The inquiry focuses on whether Mr. Trump, with assistance from Mr. Giuliani, abused the presidency to pressure Ukraine to pursue investigations for his political benefit, including into whether Ukrainians played a role in spurring the inquiry of the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III…

Mr. Trump was not enamored with the negative publicity around Mr. Giuliani, people close to the president said, but he remains loyal because of his lawyer’s willingness to aggressively defend him during the special counsel’s inquiry.

It is not clear what was discussed at the lunch…

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Late Night Open Thread: Courtiers to the Mad King Preznint

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Speaking of ‘small, weak & fearful’…

On the other hand, at least one RWNJ grifter — I mean, “reporter” — with a sensitive antennae for the prevailing political currents is publicly renouncing His Lardship…

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(Semi) Respite Open Thread: Area 51 Storms Back

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One the one hand, it’s sad we’ve got so much overtly political idiocy that there’s not enough space to mock mere ‘viral’ stupidity. On the other hand, Facebook ‘pranksters’ don’t need any more encouragement. Per Kotaku:

… “Storm Area 51, They Can’t Stop All of Us” began as a joke Facebook event earlier this year. “If we naruto run, we can move faster than their bullets. Lets see them aliens,” the post read. Two million people hit “Going.” There were plans for a music fest called “Alienstock.” But in the intervening months, the Facebook event’s creator has condemned the initiative, citing a lack of infrastructure and safety issues, and the event has been removed. A spokesperson for the U.S. Air Force told the Washington Post that Area 51 “is an open training range for the U.S. Air Force, and we would discourage anyone from trying to come into the area where we train American armed forces.”

Today is the planned date of the event, and according to 13 Action News, Rachel, Nevada, is still preparing for an onslaught of alien truthers and Naruto fans…

Original ‘organizer’ Matty Roberts actually disowned the event some days ago, per the Washington Post (Sept. 10)…

… Dueling accusations of dishonesty and sabotage have derailed “Alienstock” — a Woodstock for alien watchers — which creator Matty Roberts promoted as alternative programming to any plans to storm the base on Sept. 20 despite officials’ warnings.

With just over a week to go until the event, Roberts and the host town’s website are both comparing Alienstock to the Fyre Festival, which was supposed to be held in April and May of 2017 in the Bahamas but became synonymous with “epic failure” and led to a fraud conviction. Roberts has pulled his name and support from the three-day gathering in Rachel, Nev., but the owner of a motel in the town who had signed up as a partner plans to go ahead…

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Late Night Schadenfreude Open Thread: Sandernistas in Disarray!

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I’m a small, petty person rooted in Irish-American grievance culture; of course I’m enjoying this…

… After a pair of setbacks this week — the acrimonious shakeup of his staff in New Hampshire on Sunday and loss of the Working Families Party’s endorsement to Elizabeth Warren a day later — Sanders’ allies and former aides are worried that recent disappointments are not one-off stumbles but rather emblematic of larger problems in his bid for the White House. The concerns are particularly acute in New Hampshire.

“Seeing the campaign not be able to outshine Warren with WFP progressives doesn’t have me questioning WFP’s process,” said Rafael Shimunov, a former national creative director for WFP and 2016 Sanders volunteer. “It has me questioning where the Bernie campaign could have done better, because I want to make sure the strongest candidate unmasks Biden and unseats Trump.”

The worries come as the campaign enters a critical, more urgent phase. After Labor Day, more voters typically tune in to an election and begin to make up their minds. Expectations for Sanders are sky-high, especially in New Hampshire, where he defeated Hillary Clinton in 2016 by 22 percentage points…

Jeff Weaver, a top Sanders adviser, told POLITICO that numerous rank-and-file members in the WFP support Sanders and that his ground game in New Hampshire and other early states is strong. The Sanders campaign says it has 14 times as many identified voters in the Granite State than it had at this time in 2016 and it is doubling his field staff there from 26 to 50 employees. He said the campaign’s national and states staff are in daily contact, and that he has a regular “states call” in which he asks his aides across the country to be honest about the problems they’re seeing…

[Professional cynics point out that Tad Devine jumped ship on Sanders, but Comic Book Guy / Best Bernie Bud Weaver seems determined to hang on to the bitter end. Some of these professionals say that Weaver’s loyalty is… not necessarily the best for the Sanders campaign.]

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Late Night Petty & Venal Open Thread: Why Trump Is Mad At Debra Messing

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She (and her Will & Grace co-star, Eric McCormack) are threatening the two things he cares about most — his current grift, and his access to the company of real celebrities / rich people:

As so often happens, Tang the Conqueror only drew more attention to the event he’d been trying to keep under the radar…

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Late Night Lovers’ Quarrel Open Thread (Rooting for Injuries)

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