Well, I kept some of my vow. I didn’t watch any of the inauguration ceremonies, but some of it got in around the edges. Melania’s hat. Ivanka’s hat. Both of their chins, Ivanka’s unquestionably new. The next Mrs. Bezos-elect’s neckline. Saved by God, golden age, Elon’s Nazi salute, blah blah blah. All those executive orders. I guess this is how we govern now? Send a bunch of idiot clowns to Congress, then get shit done via EO. The wingnuts will holler OBAMA DID THIS while ignoring that the reason Obama did so much via EO was because Mitch McConnell, et al, vowed to do absolutely nothing to work with him, i.e. their jobs, and were as good as their word. Now there’s a whole generation of young people who think this is governing. It is not. It’s stupid king-signaling, but this is the country we are now. Regrettably.
Vivek Ramaswamy is out at the new commission which is basically just an office and has no power other than to prompt more EOs. The human mosquito now intends to run for governor of my native state. I haven’t kept up on how the Democrats are doing in Ohio, but I have no doubt that Buckeyes will buy what he’s selling, whatever that is. I wonder if he sends his kids to the excellent public schools in the suburb where he lives now, the same one I grew up in. My guess is…no. But they’re still very young, so we’ll see.
A headline along the way spoke of Trump’s “showmanship.” I guess that’s what you’d call it, but I prefer to think of it as the greasiest pro-wrestling promoter baying to a crowd of toothless morons, desecrating the traditions and buildings of our allegedly cherished republic. In other words, I’m even less inclined to be nice to Trump voters, if I ever was.
Yes, I am glum today. How about you?
Mark P said on January 21, 2025 at 10:55 am
I don’t think glum is the right word. Maybe resigned, like a condemned prisoner on his last day. At 74 there is a non-zero probability that I will die before this shit-show is finally resolved, and we rebuild from the ashes or try to survive a cross between Giliead and Nazi Germany.
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alex said on January 21, 2025 at 10:59 am
I’d love to show my contempt for Trump voters except around here it would likely result in retribution. Probably safer to upbraid my trans nephew and my nutty professor neighbor who wasted their votes on Jill Stein, if they’re not already shaking in their shoes over what’s to come.
I’ve been a prisoner of my own computer screen for the last eight years and this has simply got to stop.
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Dave said on January 21, 2025 at 11:36 am
Why would anyone vote for Jill Stein? I don’t get it, you either do something to try to prevent the evil or foolishly throw your vote away towards something that isn’t going to happen. Oh wait, hardly any candidates I’ve voted for the last several elections have won.
Mark P., I’m also 74, as Jeff Borden said in the previous posts, I’m probably too old to hope to see this change, not the outcome I was expecting when I was in my 20’s. I flat-out hate that piece of trash and all his yes-men he has surrounded himself with this time around. I see that he had General Milley’s portrait removed from the Pentagon and this morning, he’s removed the head of the Coast Guard, a woman. I wonder if being a woman had anything to do with it.
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nancy said on January 21, 2025 at 12:37 pm
A shocking percentage of Arab Dearborn went for Jill Stein — something like 18 percent. The best I can figure is, they couldn’t vote for either Harris or Trump because Gaza, and that was the alternative. Don’t bother trying to talk sense to any of them. It doesn’t work.
The super conservative Yemeni mayor of Hamtramck was all-in for Trump, and even invited Michael Flynn to speak there. Hamtown was always “the world in two square miles,” i.e. lots of immigrants, with lots of hipsters, artists and fun people sprinkled in, too. The latter groups fought hard to make the immigrants welcome, and pushed back against shit like the old Poles complaining about the call to prayer from the new mosques. Those people are now seeing their Pride flags torn down by Yemeni teens, and man are they ever pissed.
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Sherri said on January 21, 2025 at 1:28 pm
If God worked like Trump supporters believe, then the Capitol rotunda should have exploded yesterday as Trump swore an oath to the Constitution that he has already violated in his first term and intended to violate immediately. Sure enough, one of his first Executive Orders was about ending birthright citizenship, which is clearly specified in the 14th Amendment.
I know the MAGAs would like to pretend the Reconstruction Amendments aren’t in the Constitution, and there’s a good chance the radicals on SCOTUS will go along with them, given how much SCOTUS has already worked to hollow them out, but they are still there in the Constitution.
Every time someone complained to me that the ACLU wasn’t being sufficiently supportive of free speech, I countered that maybe we should be focusing on the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments. That usually puzzled them enough to allow my getaway. I’ve also noticed that the complaints about free speech have disappeared since the issue is no longer about defending Nazis but about defending Palestinians.
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jcburns said on January 21, 2025 at 1:47 pm
Sherri, he kept his hand off the Bible to prevent that explosion. Science!
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FDChief said on January 21, 2025 at 1:50 pm
So Day 2 of Trump 2: Electric Boogaloo and Fatso the Stable Genetic Engineering Genius has determined that there are two and only two human genders, so the weird, diverse, complexity of the human genome can…umm…just stop being complex and start being as simple as simpleminded bigoted MAGAts want it to be.
Day 2. TWO. We’ve got something like a thousand more days of this nitwit shit. Or worse (RFK the Least waves idiotically from the wings…).
Like I keep saying: being ruled by competent evil is one thing. But these fools? It’s utterly infuriating.
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Joe Kobiela said on January 21, 2025 at 2:07 pm
Here’s a thought how about you run someone other than a wet brain or someone who doesn’t blow thru a billion dollars in 90 days. Sorry about your luck but you need to run someone who speaks to those who your candidates deem garbage and deplorable and cling to their guns and bibles, learn how to read a room, people want to be talked too on the same level, not talked to like a child, when a family is paying $300-400 more per month for groceries and gas they don’t want to be told everything is great your just too ignorant to see it.
There now you know what you need to do,
Your welcome.
Pilot Joe
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Dexter Friend said on January 21, 2025 at 2:09 pm
Governor DeWine appointed Jon Husted of Montpelier to the vacancy in the US Senate. A few days ago.
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Deborah said on January 21, 2025 at 2:29 pm
I have no idea what or who Pilot Joe is talking about? Word salad?
I broke my rule about engaging with the internet in general and trolls in particular, but I really have no idea what that comment was about?
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Mark P said on January 21, 2025 at 2:39 pm
What kind of yahoo thinks the president can magically reduce the price of groceries? Oh, that’s right, Trump voters. All I really care to say to them is come back in a year and tell us what you think.
As far as how to talk to the deplorables, if the Democrats talked their language they would be second rate Republicans. They are ignorant, hateful, and angry. Trump speaks their language. That language has nothing to do with the values that we used to think were truly American, so I don’t think the Democrats should even try. I honestly don’t think it’s possible to reach the MAGA crowd. I believe the only solution that can work in the long term is partition. Give the Trump followers the old Confederacy and let them go. There may be some other areas that could join that confederacy, like Oklahoma, Arkansas, maybe Idaho, but the rest should be part of a liberal, democratic, parliamentary government with an entirely new constitution. Let the MAGAs migrate to their new country and let the decent people migrate to a new, decent country. Then let the MAGA crowd go about their hateful business without dragging the rest of us into their nightmare.
Just don’t let them have a military.
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alex said on January 21, 2025 at 2:48 pm
Trump’s an incoherent asshole and likes attract.
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Jason T. said on January 21, 2025 at 2:49 pm
Deborah:
P.J. and the rest of the “F-ck Your Feelings” crowd have gotten really sensitive. They need safe spaces.
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FDChief said on January 21, 2025 at 3:12 pm
Thanks to our resident MAGAt the Great Waldo Pepper for making clear exactly how screwed We the People are.
Given the clear and unmistakable evidence that Making American Great for anyone not in the two-yacht demographic will require massive increases in the top marginal tax rates, closing bullshit loopholes like “carried interest” and similar plutocratic dodges, stringent corporate regulation and monopoly breakup, what’s ol’ Joe got?
An extended whine about how objecting to his culture war nonsense and economic ignorance hurt his fee-fee so he and his buddies HAD to vote for more greed, more plutocracy, and more financial inequality.
What does a republic do with millions of these gomers?
Nope. We are sooooooo fucked.
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Jeff Borden said on January 21, 2025 at 3:47 pm
You can always count on the aviator to speak for the plain folks because he once worked a blue collar job. Now, he drives a bus with wings. Yippee.
MAGAts ARE garbage, flyboy. Their hate, their self-pity, their practiced ignorance, their intolerance and, above all, their fear motivate them. The prices of groceries are too high? Let’s elect someone who’ll deport almost 50% of agriculture workers and institute high tariffs on everything imported including food stuffs.
Thanks for living down to the stereotyped pilot arrogance. Maybe you can pick up a few extra bucks flying immigrants to the camps. You’d love that, wouldn’t you?
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Sherri said on January 21, 2025 at 4:13 pm
Two genders and the Gulf of America, boy that’s really going to bring down gas prices.
Greenland, too, I’m sure that will solve grocery prices.
(Pay no attention to those billionaires behind the curtains.)
Trump tells people whatever they want to hear, lying all the way. Some people eat it up, find it strong, whatever. The billionaires think they can harness it to their own ends, and all those people the aviator thinks he speaks for will be screwed just as hard as everyone else, because the billionaires want to bring back the Gilded Age.
Will the neo-Gilded Agers or the Christian Nationalists win? My money’s on the neo-Gilded Agers.
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Joe Kobiela said on January 21, 2025 at 4:14 pm
You bet Jeffy, it pays big bucks, can’t wait.
Pilot Joe
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Colleen Condron said on January 21, 2025 at 4:17 pm
This, per Jeff:
“MAGAts ARE garbage, flyboy. Their hate, their self-pity, their practiced ignorance, their intolerance and, above all, their fear motivate them. The prices of groceries are too high? Let’s elect someone who’ll deport almost 50% of agriculture workers and institute high tariffs on everything imported including food stuffs”
Yeah. I do think I am better than the hateful, fearful, ignorant people that make up the MAGAts. They don’t care about other people. They have no interest in learning anything new. They revel in their ignorance and accuse anyone pointing out said ignorance as elitist. I’m sick of them, their unwarranted victimhood and general ugliness.
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David C said on January 21, 2025 at 4:22 pm
With the stroke of his Sharpie, he raised the price of insulin for millions of patients. That doesn’t strike me as doing anything to lower anyone’s costs. The Republicans voted against continuing the child tax credit that lifted millions out of poverty. They want to cut Medicaid which will put health insurance out of reach for millions, disproportionately in red states. If his goal is to cut costs for the working class, he and the Republicans have a funny way of showing it.
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Jeff Borden said on January 21, 2025 at 4:26 pm
Not at all surprised, Pilot Joey Boy. MAGAts love being assholes and you have that covered. Happy landings, douchebag.
BTW. hat tip to FDChief for referencing a rather obscure Robert Redford film. I reviewed it for the Columbus Dispatch when it was released.
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Deborah said on January 21, 2025 at 4:59 pm
So we need to be careful what we say to the deplorables because we don’t want to hurt their feelings for being ignorant and cruel. Is that what it means? Trying to understand comment #8? I still don’t know who the reference to the “wet Brain” is and who blew through $1 billion in 90 days is? WTF PJ?
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tajalli said on January 21, 2025 at 5:07 pm
Deborah, there were a few of errors in logical discourse that were demonstrated in his post.
First, use of an ad hominem argument, basically an attempt to invalid one’s opponent by deriding them personally through name calling, and erroneously construed to invalidate their position by extension. In this case, saying the Democratic candidates have a neurological condition that prevents them from functioning with their full intelligence.
Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome, euphemistically know as wet brain, results from a thiamine (Vitamin B1) deficiency and expresses as confusion, difficulty with muscle coordination, and eventually hallucinations.
Thiamine was the first vitamin identified as such through its deficiency symptoms in regions in the Southern US where its intake was quite low due to the customary high consumption of white rice and pork, both very low in thiamine but a cheap source of calories. Alcoholics are also at high risk since nutrition is quite often poor.
SNAP/Food Stamps are designed to provide additional funds to permit low income persons the ability to afford a wider variety of foods.
The Democratic candidates show no signs of thiamine deficiency, either through poor nutrition in childhood or as the result of alcoholism.
The 47th president frequently displays confusion, poor muscle coordination and seems to be hallucinating, as demonstrated by frequent claims to events that have never occurred. It is ironic that many of the people he has appealed to are at high risk of Wernicke-Korsakoff, as are their children due to poverty. Nothing will be done about their poverty and they’ll probably lose their food stamps and other welfare support.
The second error is the Dunning-Kruger effect, which is the erroneous attribution of one’s own limitations to others. A stupid person who thinks everyone else is as stupid as he is due to lack of imagination.
A third error is having fallen prey to blatant propaganda and fear-mongering that limit one’s perception of reality.
Incidentally, “word salad” is a behavior often seen in schizophrenics in which the person just babbles strings of random words. I doubt PJ is a schizophrenic, he wouldn’t be able to hold a job or pilot an aircraft.
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Julie Robinson said on January 21, 2025 at 5:15 pm
It’s cold and rainy here, and it’s hard not to be glum on top of the devolution of our country. I am trying.
Today I successfully filed our federal employer taxes at the church. I’m still new enough to this job that I had anxiety about the whole process. I called the software help people, and they walked me through it. Since I’m an unpaid volunteer, my time counts as kindness #1.
Kindness #2 is ripping a couple of music CDs for an elderly volunteer who no longer has a CD player. They were something her deceased daughter made and she hasn’t heard them in years. I’ve got them on a thumb drive and we’ll see if she can figure out how to get them on her laptop and phone. Prolly not.
Next I repaired a piece of jewelry for her, kindness #3. I’m not virtue signaling; I’m trying to channel my outrage into positive energy to help others. Therefore I’m also not responding to the troll.
Our Congressman, Maxwell Frost, spent the day celebrating MLK Jr and packed meals together with a large group of others. I love that.
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Deborah said on January 21, 2025 at 5:25 pm
Tajalli, I googled wet brain and found that it can be alcohol related. But I still don’t understand who specifically is being accused of “wet brain” by our resident troll. And still don’t know who is accused of blowing through $1 billion dollars in 90 days? Is this in reference to a specific person or what? Of course it doesn’t really matter because it was a typical uninformed person pontificating about something he has no idea what he’s talking about.
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Sherri said on January 21, 2025 at 5:37 pm
I can translate the aviator for you. Wet brain is a reference to Joe Biden being senile, and $1 billion in 90 days is a reference to Kamala Harris raising and spending a lot of money in a short campaign.
MAGAts like to focus on Biden’s cognitive decline to deflect attention away from their hero’s obvious cognitive deficits, and on Harris’s campaign spending to deflect attention away from the enormous campaign finance violations of Elon Musk.
But, as we know, IOKIYAR, to use the short form of Wilhoit’s Law.
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Alan Stamm said on January 21, 2025 at 5:42 pm
“All day long, Trump kept cutting into the hat, hoping it was cake.”
— Jimmy Fallon
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Sherri said on January 21, 2025 at 5:54 pm
What Trump, the billionaires, and the MAGAts all seem to want is for us to like them, even when they treats us like shit. I don’t know why they care.
Marc Andreesen was lamenting the demise of what he called The Deal, and blaming that for why Silicon Valley turned to Trump. He claimed that once upon a time, you did a startup, got rich, then turned to philanthropy, and everyone praised you, but now you’re being criticized for everything. I don’t know what planet Andreesen was living on, but that Deal never existed. Sure, some tech founders were praised (David Packard and Bill Hewlett), but Steve Jobs was never universally praised, and Larry Ellison was anything but. In other words, not acting like an asshole had a lot to do with whether you were praised or criticized, and the billionaires we have now seem to want to be assholes and still be praised.
Trump craves praise. You can see it happen in his rallies; he’ll change what he’s saying in order to get that sweet, sweet crowd response.
The MAGAts constantly complain that we don’t like them, at the same time they call us all sorts of names. I don’t get it. I don’t spend any time thinking about whether Trump supporters like me. I just live my life.
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Mark P said on January 21, 2025 at 6:12 pm
Most MAGAts would be right at home running an old-fashioned movie theater because they are so good at projection. They are also pretty damned transparent. One of my favorites is the “Biden crime family.” Another is calling Democrats pedos. Makes me wonder just what Elmo does in his spare time.
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Sherri said on January 21, 2025 at 6:23 pm
If birthright citizenship goes away, how does anyone prove they are a citizen? There’s nothing on my birth certificate that says my parents are citizens. Sure, I could get their birth certificates, but there’s nothing on their birth certificates that says their parents are citizens. You don’t have to get very far back before getting birth records is impossible, and there are no immigration records because my ancestors came over before there was a country to immigrate to.
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tajalli said on January 21, 2025 at 6:29 pm
Misapplying “wet brain” to mean senility when it really refers to a vitamin deficiency-induced suite of neuro deficits is typical ignorant behavior. Pilot Joe’s post was ignorant on so many levels. And ironic to boot.
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tajalli said on January 21, 2025 at 6:37 pm
I have both my parents’ birth certificates including their birth places (US cities). How many people have this, though. I’m 9th or 10th generation on my father’s side, came over in 1553, 67 years before the Mayflower. Reading the published geneology was like having a granite albatross settle on me. So grim.
A good book to read about gnarly issues of proof of birth and lineage is My Name is Iris by Brando Skyhorse.
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David C said on January 21, 2025 at 7:30 pm
My maternal grandmother was born at home and had a hell of a time getting a birth certificate. If would have been easier except all of her older siblings were dead so there was nobody to attest for her. I don’t know how she finally got it and I sure as hell don’t know why an 80-something person would need one.
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Jakash said on January 21, 2025 at 7:36 pm
You can keep on blathering with your prescriptions for what we should do, PJ — you’ve said essentially the same things many times before — but President “cling to their guns and bibles” Obama won both his elections and left with a final approval rating of 59%. He’d have won again if he could have run in 2016.
He was a very smart and competent guy, unlike the orange felon you’re so enamored with, but even he couldn’t foresee that guys like you — no-nonsense, blue-collar types who claim to hate elites — would roll over for the bullshit spewed by a rich, Ivy-League, New York City-raised carnival barker.
“learn how to read a room” I don’t blame Kamala, nor anybody else, for trying to appeal to the best of what America stands for in attempting to be more inclusive and welcoming, rather than riling up the “fuck your feelings” crowd that populates one of the charlatan’s “rooms.”
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Deborah said on January 21, 2025 at 8:12 pm
Do Musk, Bezos and Zuckerberg do anything philanthropic? If they do I’m not hearing about it. I only mention them because they get the most attention for everything else. Remember when multi-millionaires (before billionaires came to be) gave to start theaters, museums, libraries and such? What happened to that?
By the way, I decided to let myself visit NN.C during the day and evening, but making the rest of the internet off limits for me for a while a least.
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Joe Kobiela said on January 21, 2025 at 8:34 pm
Boo hoo sure hope I can sleep tonight, oh wait I will because when I wake up, Donald Trump will still be President.
Pilot Joe
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Sherri said on January 21, 2025 at 8:49 pm
It depends upon how you define philanthropic.
Zuckerberg has the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, which is set up not as a foundation but as an LLC, for-profit philanthropy.
Musk has a foundation, but it has failed to give away the minimum required by law.
Bezos only really started in philanthropy around 2018, and his philanthropy has mostly focused on homelessness and climate change, plus he gave $100 million to Dolly Parton.
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alex said on January 21, 2025 at 8:56 pm
Bill Gates is one of the few who’s a genuine philanthropist. Unfortunately he was also discovered to be a Jeffrey Epsteinist.
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Sherri said on January 21, 2025 at 8:59 pm
Hey Joe, didn’t know you thought it was great that domestic terrorists and the creator of an extensive online drug and murder network should be pardoned and released from prison.
The leader of the Proud Boys has been pardoned, and Ross Ulbricht, creator of Silk Road, has been pardoned from his life sentence.
Guess drugs are only bad when the border can be blamed.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/21/technology/trump-ross-ulbricht-silk-road.html?unlocked_article_code=1.rE4.x7e-.x0bEW9wA3bV_&smid=url-share
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Sherri said on January 21, 2025 at 9:14 pm
And Joe, your Hero’s been really busy, but I’ve been searching…maybe you can help me find anything he’s done to help lower the cost of gas and groceries?
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Jason T. said on January 21, 2025 at 10:16 pm
Folks, never wrestle with a pig. You both get filthy, but the pig enjoys it.
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Mark P said on January 21, 2025 at 10:28 pm
Joe is a MAGAt. There is no reaching any of them. Partition is the only solution. Let them have their new Nazi wonderland somewhere with a lot of mosquitos and, soon enough, tropical diseases that we thought would never happen here.
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alex said on January 22, 2025 at 8:05 am
And with the swipe of a pen, Trump raised the price of insulin, which was prohibitively expensive before Joe Biden did something about it. Talk about American carnage. I’ll let you all know when my copays go back up to being bigger than a house payment.
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Jeff Borden said on January 22, 2025 at 8:45 am
Don’t engage with MAGAts. It’s futile. Like the old saying goes, “Never wrestle with a pig. You’ll just get dirty, too, and the pig will love it.” They live in an alternate universe. Let us all fervently hope MAGAts get everything they deserve from tRump.
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Joe Kobiela said on January 22, 2025 at 9:37 am
Don’t engage with LEFTist. It’s futile. Like the old saying goes,”Never wrestle with a pig. You’ll just get dirty, too, and the pig will love it.” They live in an alternate universe. Let us all fervently hope LEFTist get everything they deserve from Trump.
Pilot Joe
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Deborah said on January 22, 2025 at 9:45 am
Then what are you doing here?
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Dorothy Michalski said on January 22, 2025 at 10:01 am
I find it a much more pleasant experience here if I just scroll right past a particular poster here. He’s only here to stir up trouble and I’m not going to fall for it anymore. I just thank my lucky stars that I wasn’t born as dumb as him. He might go away for good if we all just stop responding to him.
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Jason T. said on January 22, 2025 at 10:18 am
Deborah @ 45:
It’s all about owning the libs. Don’t you feel owned? Aren’t you triggered? HA HA HA HA.
A toddler will learn a swear word and realize that if he yells “SH-T!” mom and dad will get upset. He then spends the next two days yelling “SH-T!” at every opportunity, and he giggles with glee and claps his hands when mom and dad freak out.
Most of us outgrow that impulse … eventually.
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alex said on January 22, 2025 at 10:34 am
When I was growing up, baby learned the word shit, mommy and daddy beat the hell out of him, and he didn’t use that word again until he was old enough to tell his parents to either abide by their own rules or shut the fuck up.
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Jeff Borden said on January 22, 2025 at 10:52 am
Not unusual the bus driver of the wild blue yonder has no reply beyond repeating shit. Most MAGAts have issues with intelligence. They must cultivate ignorance to justify their atavistic viewpoints. Apologies to the aviator for making him look up polysyllabic words. My bad.
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Sherri said on January 22, 2025 at 11:39 am
Stupidity is a necessary part of fascism.
https://www.smbc-comics.com/
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Joe Kobiela said on January 22, 2025 at 12:09 pm
This should really make you happy, my passengers today are from Hillsdale college.
Pilot Joe
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FDChief said on January 22, 2025 at 12:21 pm
I’ll give our MAGAt credit for this; he, at least, realizes that his faction is already at war with every not-autocrat American, just as King George in realized in ’75 that the OG redcoats, and Adolf realized in ’41 that the OG Nazis, were, too.
It’s not anything about pigs or wrestling. It’s war.
To which I simply reply as an ACTUAL American, Dr. Franklin, once wrote:
“You are…one of that Majority which has doomed my Country to Destruction. Look upon your hands! They are stained with the Blood of your Relations! — You and I were long Friends: — You are now my Enemy, — and
I am,
Yours.
B. Franklin”
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Jeff Borden said on January 22, 2025 at 12:52 pm
Well said, Chief. Have you read the Walter Isaacson biography of Benjamin Franklin? It’s outstanding. Every time I hear the choads talking about destroying the USPS in favorite of privatized delivery services (ka-ching), I wince. Old Ben is the father of the Postal Service. Of course, that means nothing to someone like Lumpy, who’s knowledge of history is nil, or the addled followers who would drink his bath water and ask for more. Such a shame.
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susan said on January 22, 2025 at 1:05 pm
Search for The Constitution on the new and degraded White House website, and you come up with this:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/our-government/the-constitution/
Amurkkka is going down the magma tubes. Or is it coming UP the magma tubes? Either way.
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Scout said on January 22, 2025 at 1:09 pm
Too bad our resident maggot isn’t intelligent because then he could explain how this shitty clown show is going to benefit the country he claims to love instead of cutting and pasting other stupid maggot drivel. Alas, we have to endure his gloating and stupidity and waste bandwidth telling him to go fuck himself because he is too wet brained to know where he’s not wanted.
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annie said on January 22, 2025 at 1:10 pm
I’m with Dorothy. Don’t respond; don’t engage.
Some people live in an alternate reality and reason–facts–obvious truth does not mean anything to them.
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Jakash said on January 22, 2025 at 1:25 pm
Thanks for the tips about not engaging, folks. (Though I gotta say, yours was a bit odd, given comments #15 and #49, Jeff B.)
Alas, I don’t feel like I’m getting filthy, and I don’t care whether or not the instigator enjoys it. Replying to him accomplishes nothing with regard to changing his mind, that’s been made quite clear. But it’s not like ignoring him accomplishes anything. He’ll go weeks without making a comment and then toss out one of his unsolicited right-wing talking points whenever he feels like it. I don’t believe that ignoring him will change that, either.
Meanwhile, I refuse to allow his “points,” such as they are, to go unchallenged, as I feel that the truth is still important and needs to be reinforced when obnoxiously dismissed.
I do think it’s interesting that PJ, who I’m sure considers himself to be a nice guy (and a Christian, I think) finds his political broadsides here appropriate. He’s been around this blog longer than most of us, so he knows what it’s about and who the primary readers are. If he’s read many of the comments at all, he knows how upset many of us are by the return of his fascist hero and his cronies to positions where they will cause a lot of pain for a lot of people.
Yet, he sees that and, rather than showing a bit of compassion, (which, in this case would only call for not chiming in with an abrasive comment), chooses to taunt us. Sure, that’s in keeping with the behavior of many Republicans and certainly the orange felon himself, but I still, even at this point, find it kinda disappointing. Next week he’ll make some innocuous remark about flying to the Mouse House, or whatever, and assume that it’s all fine and wonder “why can’t we all get along?”
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Dexter Friend said on January 22, 2025 at 2:00 pm
Capitol cop Brian Sicknick died 2 days after the insurrection from complications of 2 strokes. Carla Lee’s grandson’s dad chided me for posting how Sicknick’s death was not even closely riot-related. This is blinder material. Officer Fanone also was abused by at least 2 terrorists and a heart attack was induced.
So let us celebrate Trump releasing murderers and terrorists! Let all those fuckers loose! Viking Head QAnon Shaman immediately promised to go by “some motherfucking guns.” Michael Fanone is fearing for his family’s safety. A “bag of shit” was recently thrown onto his mother as she raked her yard. These released criminals are now free to hunt down and kill NeverTrumpers. Trump will pardon every goddam fucking one of them.
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Colleen Condron said on January 22, 2025 at 2:20 pm
I think not engaging and remaining civil is part of the reason we are where we are. The MAGAt side has never been shy when it comes to aggressively expressing their opinions. And in the interest of keeping the peace,or good manners, or whatever, we are more reluctant to aggressively engage. So they steamroll over people, coming up the “winner” out of sheer obnoxiousness.
I get the don’t engage the troll philosophy, but I’m not sure I can adhere to it. I am on my last nerve.
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David C said on January 22, 2025 at 2:47 pm
Oh no, I saw the words “Hillsdale College”. Now I’ll have to lie back on my fainting couch and recite my pronouns until I feel better.
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alex said on January 22, 2025 at 2:52 pm
David C, Ima wash your keyboard out with soap. You can’t use that kind of language ’til you’re at least 15.
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Jeff Borden said on January 22, 2025 at 3:05 pm
Jakash,
I’m trying to do better, but it’s a weakness. I always taught my students to avoid demagoguery and engage the actual arguments of someone on the other side of the ideological wall. Demagogues prey on our emotions, which can obscure our intellects. The problem, of course, is that there really aren’t any logical arguments for supporting the Mango Man. It’s all performative bullshit at a playground level. Individuals like the aviator already suffer enough for being who they are. I will endeavor not to add to their burden, but I can’t make any iron clad promises.
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Sherri said on January 22, 2025 at 4:50 pm
Republicans having been selling Americans seductive lies at least since Reagan. Their message is that whatever you have, you’ve earned, and whatever you think you should have, someone else has taken away from you at the hands of the government. So they can believe that they don’t benefit from the government, even if they receive Social Security and Medicare or federally insured home loans or public education or even if they’re employed by the government, and resent the taxes they pay, because those taxes are benefiting other people, not them.
The GOP goal has been to destroy government while convincing people that they’ll still get their services they need without paying taxes. Trump has been saying for years that he’s going to replace Obamacare with something we’ll love, something much better, but in all those years, there’s not been one hint of an actual plan. There will never be a GOP health care alternative, because the GOP doesn’t want the government involved in healthcare. They don’t want to say that out loud, though, because people know they’re screwed by private for profit healthcare, so they just keep lying.
It’s the political equivalent of the prosperity gospel. Just believe, and everything will be fine. Because the rich will get richer, and you’ll die and get to heaven sooner.
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Mark P said on January 22, 2025 at 5:47 pm
The Fraternal Order of Police is all in a tizzy because, they say, Trump’s pardons and commutations of sentences for the January 6 insurrectionists “sends a dangerous message.” No kidding, you dumbasses. Exactly what kind of message did you think he was sending when he said he would pardon them and you fucking morons endorsed him anyway? The shitbirds are already coming home to roost. How long before the rest of the MAGAts start crying about their hurting butts?
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Deborah said on January 22, 2025 at 5:59 pm
Colleen, you have a point, as much as I believe in turn the other cheek, there is a limit to how many cheeks we can turn.
Don’t expect people to respect you when you act like an asshole, I am sick and tired of MAGAs and I want them to know it, when they have acted deplorably. If they don’t like my attitude maybe they should look hard at their own.
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Jakash said on January 22, 2025 at 6:08 pm
Hmmm… I remember when the Republicans were the “law and order” party. Now they’ve supported and elected a felon and traitor as president, the Supreme Court (a third of which was hand-picked by the felon) has ruled that presidents are above the law, and the felon has pardoned a bunch of other convicted felons who tried to overthrow the government.
I wonder what Eisenhower and actual, patriotic Republicans from the past would think about that. Not too hard to guess, given the efforts undertaken to prevent it from happening by Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger and a relatively small number of other non-cultists.
Yeah, Mark, the “dangerous message” that the orange felon and his cronies have no respect for the law was sent long before this week. Long before the election. Long before January 6, 2021, but that’s for sure when it was made glaringly obvious to a national TV audience.
Jeff B.,
No problem, and it was probably too cheeky of me to say that. Sorry. I do try to “engage the actual arguments,” such as they are.
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Deborah said on January 22, 2025 at 6:46 pm
If you think that what we say now will be held against us in the next election, I think not. First of all there may not even be another election if the authoritarians have their way, or it will be so compromised like Russian and Venezuelan “elections” that it will be laughable. And the MAGAs are going to get it up the butt so much by then from their glorious leader who supposedly cares about them, there won’t be much there for them to rally around. And if they still do, that will be even more pathetic. Am I bitter? You betcha.
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FDChief said on January 22, 2025 at 8:08 pm
So the obvious question from the whole “MAGAt weirdos versus normies” is “Why ARE people like Joe such flaming assholes?”
And if you think about it for a nanosecond the answer is obvious: what ELSE do they have?
Think about the “policies” of MAGAtWorld.
Tax cuts for rich fucks? How does that Make America Great for anyone not a plutocrat?
Removing environmental and health and workplace regulations?
Tossing millions off Social Security and Medicare?
Indulging in idiotic foreign policy stupidity?
So…no. All these poor sad bastards have is “being a dick about pronouns”.
Does a dude in a dress pick their pocket or break their leg? Or someone they don’t know aborting their sprog? Or two women kissing?
It’s. All. They’ve. Got.
Otherwise they’d have to make sense out of idiotic ideas like letting thousands of nitwits and dangerous fucktards have semiautomatic weapons, and there’s no sensible way to justify that.
Nope.
Being assholes is their whole existence.
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Sherri said on January 22, 2025 at 8:22 pm
I can tell you from experience why conservative white evangelicals take it so personally when you don’t agree with them: because their whole belief system is a house of cards, and if they stop to question one part of it, the whole thing collapses. Its why they don’t want their kids in public schools and want them in “colleges” like Hillsdale.
It’s like Molly Ivins said, a Southern liberal is created when they figure out that they’re being lied to about race, and wonder what else they’re being lied to about.
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