How does anybody keep up with the news these days? Just yesterday I was thinking I’m an empty cup, and then I opened my laptop and WHAM MAGA idiots say Haitians are eating cats and WHAM tropical storm Francine is bearing down on the WHAM debate stage set for WHAM that “Sound of Freedom” guy, who is being sued by a bunch of women for — quelle surprise — being a sexually aggressive creep.
Closed my laptop. Let the room grow quiet again. Took Wendy to the vet (enflamed gums). Picked up a novel (“Demon Copperhead”). Sometimes you have to unplug. Just for a little while.
It’s a shame that the so-called mainstream media have fired or bought out all their columnists (or hired terrible ones), because damn, there are people writing more or less for free who have a lot of smart things to say. This piece on the “sanewashing” of Trump is really good.
If it feels like half the electorate has gone mad, that’s in part because the press continues to fail to present Trump as he truly is. The average voter probably doesn’t spend much time watching clips of Trump’s rants or reading his unhinged screeds on social media. But they might consume reporting that consistently “sanewashes” his derangement.
The sketch comedy series Key and Peele had a bit where the calm, no-drama Barack Obama (Jordan Peele) would have his true thoughts conveyed through a boisterous, profane Anger Translator (Keegan-Michael Key). The press has functioned as Trump’s Sanity Translator, to far less amusing effect: They filter through his nonsensical, offensive gibberish and offer readers a sanitized version that’s more PR spin than actual journalism.
MAGA cultists might consider Trump the second coming, but many swing voters hold a more reasonable, if still inaccurate view: Yes, Trump’s a jerk, but he knows how to fix the economy. The reality is that Trump’s both a bigoted creep and a total buffoon who can barely string a coherent sentence together on policy.
The centerpiece is the word salad served at the New York Economic Club last week, after someone asked him what plans he had, if any, to make child care more affordable. The answer:
Well, I would do that, and we’re sitting down — you know, I was, uh, somebody, we had Sen. Marco Rubio and my daughter, Ivanka, was so, uh, impactful on that issue. It’s a very important issue.
But I think when you talk about the kind of numbers that I’m talking about, that — because child care is child care. It’s, couldn’t — you know, it’s something, you have to have it. In this country, you have to have it.
But when you talk about those numbers compared to the kind of numbers that I’m talking about by taxing foreign nations at levels that they’re not used to but they’ll get used to it very quickly. And it’s not going to stop them from doing business with us, but they’ll have a very substantial tax when they send product into our country.
Those numbers are so much bigger than any numbers that we’re talking about, including child care, that it’s gonna take care. We’re gonna have — I, I look forward to having no deficits within a fairly short period of time. Coupled with, uh, the reductions that I told you about on waste and fraud and all of the other things that are going on in our country — because I have to say with child care, I want to stay with childcare, but those numbers are small relative to the kind of economic numbers that I’m talking about, including growth.
But growth also headed up by what the plan is that I just, uh, that I just told you about. We’re gonna be taking in trillions of dollars, and as much as childcare is talked about as being expensive, it’s, relatively speaking, not very expensive compared to the kind of numbers we’ll be taking in.
We’re going to make this into an incredible country that can afford to take care of its people and then we’ll worry about the rest of the world. Let’s help other people. But we’re gonna take care of our country first. This is about America first. It’s about: Make America great again. We have to do it, because right now we’re a failing nation. So we’ll take care of it. Thank you. Very good question.
How do people — sane people, members of the fucking NYEC, sit and listen to this and not erupt in jeering afterward. Or just say, “I don’t understand. Please explain again.” The question-asker went on CNN later to complain. She should have complained to his orange face. But as the piece linked above points out, MSM reporters didn’t do much, or any, better. They reported this answer, maybe with an adjective like “jumbled,” as though it played by the rules. And as much as I admire those few soldiers left trying to fight this war, we need new rules of engagement. Because the old ones don’t make sense anymore.
I reckon we’ll have a lively pre-, during- and post-debate commentary here, so let it begin.
Brandon said on September 10, 2024 at 4:15 pm
It starts at 3 p.m. Hawaii time.
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Brandon said on September 10, 2024 at 4:28 pm
In other news, Nicki Minaj, et al. object to choosing Kendrick Lamar over Lil Wayne for the 2025 Super Bowl halftime show.
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alex said on September 10, 2024 at 5:06 pm
The buffoon doesn’t even understand what a tariff is. Tariffs make consumer prices higher on foreign goods. How is that going to pay for child care for families who are already cash-strapped?
If I had a dime for every time the MSM let Trump slide I’d be wealthier than Elon Musk.
I remember the summer of 2016 when the NYT business reporters sat down with Trump for an interview about his economic policies and were horrified by the man’s abject stupidity and said so. It’s probably the last time any American newspaper dared to publish such a stark assessment.
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Alan Stamm said on September 10, 2024 at 5:16 pm
You’re in for a lively, long (but worthwhile) ride with Barbara Kingsolver. I enjoyed it, mostly.
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Julie Robinson said on September 10, 2024 at 5:30 pm
It’s 11:30 pm in France and no one’s gonna watch. Don’t want to harsh the vibe either, because today I died and woke up in heaven, the Monet gardens in Giverny. I’ve been dreaming of this for at least 30 years, maybe 40. Beauty, peace, colors, all artistically displayed. Huge bucket list item checked off.
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Dexter Friend said on September 10, 2024 at 5:42 pm
Frack baby, frack ! This is the new Harris.
Someone, mods or Harris, must fact-check every lie the scumbag bastard utters.
It’s gonna be a heluva show. I bet very few Trumpers watch, it’s on at 9:00, they’ll be in bed. My trip to an orchard 30 miles SW of Ann Arbor resulted in 40+ yard signs seen, all for Trump.
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Peter said on September 10, 2024 at 6:00 pm
Julie, have you seen the Orangerie in Paris – it has the Water Lillies collection. It’s a stunner.
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Julie Robinson said on September 10, 2024 at 6:57 pm
We tried, Peter. Our credit card was rejected when trying to buy tickets online, and then they were sold out. We registered our trip in advance and have called them twice and nothing changes. I’m beyond pissed about it because it’s unlikely I’ll be back.
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tajalli said on September 10, 2024 at 8:17 pm
On the fence about watching the debate. On the one hand, I’d love to witness Kamala wipe the floor with him; on the other, my eyes just roll back into my head whenever I listen to him (much less see him), there’s just so much dissonance, too much “hold you in my armchair so you can feel my disease.”
Julie, Monet’s garden must be such a treat in person. Lucky you!
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alex said on September 10, 2024 at 8:58 pm
Tuned in an hour early on PBS and got to see Henry Louis Gates reveal the ancestries of both John Waters and Glenn Close. That was fun.
Now settling in for the big show. Peanuts from the gallery to come.
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alex said on September 10, 2024 at 9:34 pm
Trump’s first meltdown… immigrants eating people’s dogs in Springfield, Ohio.
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brian stouder said on September 10, 2024 at 9:39 pm
What a s@&$t show! TheDonald is discombobulated!
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Dorothy said on September 10, 2024 at 9:42 pm
He is raising his voice and getting more wound up and looking crazier by the minute. I just wish that she would level more arrows in his direction cuz I know she has them in her quiver. She needs to start pointing them at him and letting him bob and weave to try to evade her every barb. She’s saying too many pre-memorized slogans and not exactly talking from her heart. I wish she would.
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alex said on September 10, 2024 at 10:05 pm
He’s so flippin’ cray-cray tonight. She knows how to mash his buttons and it’s delightful.
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Suzanne said on September 10, 2024 at 10:33 pm
The Orange Menace is in complete meltdown. He is so unhinged that it’s amazing.
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MarkH said on September 10, 2024 at 10:36 pm
Certifiable. Put him in a straight jacket and toss him
into the cesspool of the nearest asylum.
Kamala exceeding expectations, imho.
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alex said on September 10, 2024 at 10:45 pm
Glad to see the moderators addressing Trump “Regarding your false claims about the 2020 election… .”
They’ve been better than most we’ve seen the last few election cycles.
What a shitshow.
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Peter said on September 10, 2024 at 10:59 pm
Julie, I am so very sorry to hear that. That is so frustrating.
I don’t know if you’re staying at a hotel, but sometimes they can help (I’m sure there would be $$ involved).
Or there may be a tour company that includes that in a tour. I know – it’s like supporting terrorists, but my wife reminds me that it’s cheaper to pay someone off than to pay to fly back for another trip…
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Peter said on September 10, 2024 at 11:01 pm
I think Kamala really missed a golden opportunity – when Trump started rambling about illegal immigrants eating your pets, and the moderator pointed out that the authorities in Springfield said that there are no reports of any pets being eaten, and Trump replying that of course they would say that, but his sources say that pets are being eaten left and right, Kamala could have just said “Wow, now THAT’S weird….”
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Mark P said on September 10, 2024 at 11:21 pm
Harris scored a zinger when she talked about people walking out of Trump rallies. You could tell it got under his orange skin. I might have misunderstood (how could that happen?) but it sounded like he said the Democrats were busing people in to his rallies to have them walk out. Could he have actually said that?
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Deborah said on September 10, 2024 at 11:33 pm
Julie, I got to see Monet’s garden in Giverny a couple of summers ago, definitely a lifetime experience. So so fabulous.
I don’t know if I mentioned this but we’re back in Chicago, it’s been a crazy few days. We arrived Saturday but then at the butt crack of dawn on Monday I had to take a train down to Springfield, IL for meetings on Mon and Tues. I returned on the train this evening and got to watch the debate on my phone with headphones. I missed some of it when the train arrived back in Chicago and I had to get through the station and get a taxi etc. but I saw/heard a lot of it and I thought Kamala did just fine. It couldn’t have been more clear how different the candidates are, which gives people a clear and obvious choice. Hopefully the people will make the right one.
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Jim said on September 11, 2024 at 5:35 am
Nancy, you are using logic – THAT is against GOPerverts #religion# .
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David C said on September 11, 2024 at 6:26 am
It sure was nice to see moderators doing their job. ABC should be proud of them. I’m sure the wingnuts are whining abut it, but it’s about damned time journalists called bullshit on his bullshit.
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Jeff Gill said on September 11, 2024 at 6:46 am
There’s a scene in “A Christmas Carol” that doesn’t always make it into the filmed versions, where the Ghost of Christmas Present is shown to have in place of legs two gaunt fearful children, who are said to be Ignorance & Want. Scrooge is told they are the greatest hazard to the joy & hope this season otherwise might bring.
The two spirits haunting this election I’ve named “Things aren’t what they once were” & “Someone is getting something they haven’t earned.” Trump voters will convincingly tell me they are sincerely fearful about the future, and aside from the fact that they’re mostly older than I am, their widely varied explanations when I ask “why are you so worried?” orbit around those two poles. I’ve been hearing about Haitians for a while, but Somalis & Bhutanese are the big boogie-people population that they’re sure are all illegals (spoiler: they are almost 100% here fully legally by any standard, and rapidly completing citizenship), and the Intel plant just west of us has become the new locus of New World Order conspiracy madness, up to and including black helicopters (spoiler: all helicopters flying in the half of the sky between you and the sun look black). It doesn’t help that Intel is in rough shape & the chip foundry is likely to end up owned by TSMC, which of course gets turned to “China” which, um, isn’t what Taiwan is.
But those are the spirits we’re going to have to exorcise after defeating this lunatic in November: “Things aren’t what they once were” & “Someone is getting something they haven’t earned.” They’re the ghosts at every feast right now in east central Ohio. My county is likely to peg 75% for Trump. That’s not 99%, but it feels like it some days.
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JodiP said on September 11, 2024 at 9:47 am
I watched the first hour with the local NAACP chapter– We had our monthly meeting and hang out to watch the debate. I have to say watching it with black people was extra satisfying because they saw one of their own on the stage provoking Trump into outright gibberish.
A couple of us left at the hour mark because we needed to get to bed. It was great to watch with friends!
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Jeff Borden said on September 11, 2024 at 9:55 am
It’s unlikely his cult will be swayed. They’re already complaining about the “rigged” debate and castigating the ABC moderators. The usual b.s.
But Harris did very well. Her performance will sway those who dislike tRump, but think he’ll be better on the economy and immigration. His obsession with the silly pet eating story made him look insane.
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FDChief said on September 11, 2024 at 12:03 pm
One thing last night made clear is how utterly, completely lost to civilization these MAGAts are, and largely because the wingnuttosphere has become all-QAnon all the time.
Back in the Before Times there were “conservative” gatekeepers like the WSJ, FAUX, the National Review that laundered the ugly parts of the movement and confined the weirdo racist snake-handling loons to the wilder parts of the Idaho Ungovernable Tribal Regions.
Now? Trump repeats the “Haitians eating cats!” nonsense because there IS no firewall; the insanity is coming from inside the MAGA house (or House, as the case may be…) and Trump is just another bone-stupid FAUX News grampa. His brain is pickled in this dumb shit like theirs is.
There’s no way in Hell to deprogram 70-odd millions of these loons. They’re toast. Done. History’s refuse…unless they win.
Then WE’RE done.
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tajalli said on September 11, 2024 at 12:40 pm
Came in at the last 15 minutes on a live stream, so I missed the predicted meltdown; the contrast in demeanor was profound, as was content and delivery. Loved her arched eyebrow and “you are such a weirdo loon” smile while he was rambling.
The “three against one” complaint was probably prepared in advance to position him as victim in the persecutor/victim/rescuer triad he loves so much. He is so trite.
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Dave said on September 11, 2024 at 1:22 pm
Jeff Gill, I remember several years ago that you posted what some people in Licking County suspected was going on inside the former Newark Air Force Station, a place that my father worked in for some 24 years and my brother worked in from the time it was still run by the Air Force and on through the Rockwell days and whatever it became. I thought then that people who believe that will believe anything. Now, with the Intel plant, I can only guess that there’s a lot of small-minded people that are very suspicious of what is really going on there and it doesn’t help that Intel is now in the news in a negative way. I can only hope that it doesn’t end up like the Foxconn fiasco in Wisconsin.
Here locally, you can always find some posting of someone suspicious of a helicopter that flew over.
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Jakash said on September 11, 2024 at 4:05 pm
Excellent points, as usual, Jeff G. I’d include “My groceries cost too damn much,” but perhaps that’s a subset of “Things aren’t what they once were.” Regardless, how they think a convicted felon giving tax breaks to rich people and pardoning other felons who stormed the Capitol is gonna lower the cost of bread is a mystery for the ages.
Alas, I’ve learned to my dismay that one doesn’t have to be uneducated or a fan of the Biggest Loser to be wooed by the siren song of “Someone is getting something they haven’t earned.” Thus, the desperate search for a third-party option, even one as wacky as RFK, Jr.
The Democratic project of trying to make life better for as many people as possible, which sometimes involves giving people who aren’t you some kind of break, always seemed like a good thing to me. Putting more money in the pockets of those with less has demonstrably been much better for the economy than allowing millionaires to keep more of theirs, but that just doesn’t seem to register with those smitten with the ghosts of this election.
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annie said on September 11, 2024 at 5:45 pm
“someone is getting something they haven’t earned” vs. “I” have earned it!? Yes, I have earned it because I was born with the right color skin and in the correct place and at the right time.
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Sherri said on September 11, 2024 at 6:01 pm
I’m in Tennessee with my parents, so I didn’t watch the debate. There are fewer Trump signs than I expected here. Lots of signs for Republican candidates for Congress and legislature. I’m used to living in a place with restrictions on the size of signs, so the huge signs are distracting, and ugly. Lots of money spent on buying signs, not much spent on graphic design. It was a day and probably a hundred signs before I realized the candidate was Aron Mabery, not John Mabery. Bad font choice.
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Sherri said on September 11, 2024 at 10:17 pm
From Rose Eveleth’s latest newsletter:
An online friend recently said something interesting to me about this: “It has been interesting to watch the Paralympics with the context of Tested in my mind. There’s such thought behind each sport’s rules about who can participate and how the competitors limitations are equalized… And then it struck me. Some of these fuckers think not being a man is a disability and they’re projecting the same need to make competition “fair” in the women’s divisions of the other Olympics. They think sex testing is no more than making sure we all wear the mask to play blind soccer”
https://buttondown.com/tested/archive/tested-what-can-we-learn-from-the-paralympics/
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Jeff Gill said on September 12, 2024 at 7:11 am
After 20+ years, the Gannett overlords have withdrawn their ban on columnists making endorsements, and my counterpart in the Granville Sentinel wrote a column endorsing Trump. After reading Don’s qualified support for The Donald, I had to submit my basis for unqualified opposition:
https://www.newarkadvocate.com/story/opinion/columnists/2024/09/12/knapsack-why-gillfish-cant-vote-for-donald-trump/75085224007/
If you can’t see it in full (the firewall on columns in my two papers keeps changing, so I never know if a first time viewer can read it in full or not), I copy the raw submitted text to a blogspot I’ve had for years:
https://knapsack.blogspot.com/2024/08/notes-from-my-knapsack-draft-september.html
I hope it strikes home for a few out there.
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Deborah said on September 12, 2024 at 8:59 am
I personally have a lot more reasons not to vote for Trump, Jeff G. He’s clearly unfit for the job. Kamala Harris spelled them all out precisely.
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Dexter Friend said on September 12, 2024 at 9:58 am
I found the debate dull. Trump wasn’t nearly as batshit as he was in accepting the nomination in Milwaukee, so from that viewpoint, he was quite subdued. He already regaled us with tales of sharks and battery-electrocution this summer, and how could he top that? I was going to look up the clip wherein Jack Crabbe (Dustin Hoffman), in “Little Big Man” (Arthur Penn masterpiece) says “I ate dog with the Indians, and it warn’t too bad…”,but I didn’t. Of course eating dog wasn’t a new concept for me, having spent parts of 2 years in Viet Nam many moons ago.
Here’s a little Google grab:
“Dog meat is consumed in Vietnam to varying degrees of acceptability, though it predominantly exists in the North. It’s a winter food which believed to keep you extraordinarily warm on cold nights. Dog meat is eaten in a variety of ways, from grilled, stuffed in spring rolls, stir fried, to added to soups.” —END. No, I never partook in dog eating. Oh fuck no.
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Jeff Borden said on September 12, 2024 at 11:05 am
Have any of you heard or read the remarks by the father of Aiden Clark, the 11-year-old Springfield boy who died when a Haitian immigrant crashed into a school bus? It’s quite powerful. He begs tRump and Vance to quit invoking Aiden’s name in their immigrant bashing, saying it exploits a family’s horrible tragedy to no good end. Further, he says he wishes the driver had been a 60-year-ols white man, so the Haitian community wouldn’t be targeted by xenophobic haters.
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Deborah said on September 12, 2024 at 11:09 am
I didn’t know until this morning that yesterday Trump attended the 9/11 memorial with Vance AND LAURA LOOMER! Loomer is among other things a 9/11 truther who thinks it was an inside job. Imagine showing up to THAT occasion with crazy Loomer. Also there’s a photo of he and Vance standing in a line of dignitaries the likes of Biden, Harris, Bloomberg etc. The dignitaries all look appropriately somber while Trump and Vance are dressed alike with their jackets hanging open, Trump has his hands hitched on his belt like he’s starring as a cowboy in a western movie, I call that stance the jacket man spread. It’s quite comical actually.
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Dave said on September 12, 2024 at 11:39 am
Yes, and the red ties, Deborah, we were struck by both Vance and Trump wearing the ridiculous red ties to what should be a solemn occasion but no.
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Jeff Gill said on September 12, 2024 at 12:10 pm
Oh, I’m under no illusion that my reason is the best one. It’s just a reason I find compelling which doesn’t (in my opinion) get enough attention. It is a fact that his habits of word & phrase have made school-age bullying worse by valorizing the practice of making up mocking nicknames, and if you vote for him, you’re voting to tell kids “yeah, more of that is just fine.” Tease handicapped kids, too, while you’re at it.
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alex said on September 12, 2024 at 1:34 pm
I agree with Jeff that we need an adult in the room to set a civil tone, and that Trump’s puerile comportment has essentially given people license to be assholes. I guess if you’ve been a straitjacketed archconservative your whole life it must feel liberating to be naughty like a child, obstreperous and defiant.
The Post warns today that Trump is likely to start milking the “inside job” conspiracy theories about the assassination attempt, especially if he starts shedding voters as some expect may happen.
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Mark P said on September 12, 2024 at 2:21 pm
Did you notice in the debate when he said he took a bullet to the head? Sounds more dramatic than a scratch to the ear.
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