Open Thread
Open Thread For Nov. 13, 2018: Four No-Trump
Lessee…no-shows a ceremony honoring the World War I dead? Check. And check out his excuse. No, not the rain. ‘Concern for Paris traffic.’ No-Shows Arlington Cemetery on Veterans’ Day? Check. Urges that Florida military ballots not be counted? Check. Presides Over trainwreck On GI benefits? Check. Happy Veterans Day, Y’All. RIP Stan Lee. I don’t […]
Nov. 2 Open Thread: Signs of the Blue Wave
If you’ve read enough election stories over the years you know that the congressional district in Pennsylvania Dutch country around Lancaster has never elected a Democrat. Ever. Before Republicans existed they elected Whigs. Before Whigs, they elected Federalists. This year, even this district is in play. The Democrat, Jess King, trails incumbent Lloyd Smucker by […]
Nov. 1 Open Thread: Donnie Two Scoops Melts Down
The dishiest Beltway reporter these days is definitely Vanity Fair’s Gabriel Sherman, who reports that Trump’s mood is grim and has been ever since Cesar Sayoc’s arrest. Sherman also hears that Steve Mnuchin is among the cabinet officials eyeing the exits post-midterm elections. Mnuchin’s name is the latest in a lengthening list of administration officials […]
Oct. 31 Open Thread: President Pariah
Something unprecedented in American history happened yesterday — a sitting president was universally shunned when he tried to stage a photo op pay his respects at the Pittsburgh synagogue where 11 people were gunned down because they were Jewish. Trump even pulled one of his old ratfucking tricks — he called Pennsylvania politicians one at […]
We Have Descended to a Lower Circle of Hell, Built by Trump
I get the sense we have crossed another once-inviolable barrier in the Ballad of Donald Trump. Three horrifying hate crimes in five days, like four 500-year floods in a decade, give people overwhelming evidence of big changes, and not in a good direction. Or, if you prefer, people can see shit ain’t right. I could […]
Oct. 26 Open Thread: The GOP’s Tiny Violin Orchestra
Blog patron saint Sir William of Ockham is best remembered for a simple rule to apply when choosing among possible solutions to an unknown — the simplest explanation is most likely to be the true one. He was obviously a liberal, probably hired by an ancestor of George Soros. Given a set of facts — […]
Oct. 24 Open Thread: Boom! Goes the Mailbox
The same genius behind the Soros Mailbox Bomb seems to be a busy little beaver. Similar devices were also mailed to Bill and Hillary Clinton, Barack and Michelle Obama and the White House, though that last one is just the claim of Sarah Huckabee Sanders so it hasn’t yet been confirmed by truthful sources. CNN […]
Oct. 19 Open Thread: Can I Still Get a Saudi Assassin Costume for Halloween?
It’s well documented that more people respond to stories of one person’s misfortune than to stories about mass suffering; that’s why those late-night TV ads talk about a single starving child rather than millions. Maybe that explains why, after decades of running one of the planet’s most repressive dictatorships, Saudi Arabia is now finally feeling […]
Oct. 18 Open Thread: The Ghost of James Bayard
Esquire’s Charles Pierce connects the dots from Jamal Khashoggi’s murder by the Saudis to the Constitution’s emoluments clause, and does so with the help of a quote from storied Delaware statesman James A. Bayard, who explained the need for the clause clearly and succinctly during the Constitutional Convention: If presents were allowed to be received […]
Oct. 17 Open Thread: Horseface Pushes McTurtle Out of Headlines
Yesterday’s news cycle was dominated by Trump inaccurately calling Stormy Daniels “horseface,” an insult that simply doesn’t fit her. This was seen as an attempt to distract from Trump’s murderous Saudi buddies, but both stories actually worked to hide the outrage of the day, Mitch McConnell’s declaration that the soaring federal deficit means we must […]
Oct. 16 Open Thread: Oh, Wait, Yeah, Right…You Mean That Journalist
The Saudis aren’t the fastest liars on the planet, that’s for sure. It took them a week to come around to “he died under questioning by rogue elements,” which ranks with only a dog eating homework and a grandmother’s funeral in the Pantheon of Lame Excuses. Turkey found more evidence of Jamal Khashoggi’s death, so […]
Oct. 15 Open Thread: Fellow Worker Gritty
The Legend of Gritty continues to spread, this time with a piece in the New Yorker titled “How the Left won the war for Gritty.” The author notes that Gritty could easily have gone the other way — hockey audiences are notoriously white — but fans disdained him before Jacobin magazine sent out a simple […]
Oct. 13 Open Thread: It’s Not Just Mike Matthews
What happened to Mike Matthews is going on all over America as election season nears a boil. The same day a Connecticut Republican dropped out of his race over Facebook comments, the GOP candidate for governor of Michigan was forced to apologize for a creepster comment he made during taping of a video 30 years […]
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