…believe it or not [DOT 27/5/20]

mostly not...

…not that I can really lay claim to providing a particularly scintillating level of entertainment in these posts but beyond whatever potential amusement might be afforded by the spectacle of me trying to process whatever fresh hell the headlines assure us we have to look forward to…but I guess I try to find at least some token effort towards raising a smile most days

…which isn’t always easy on account of most of what makes the news isn’t a whole heap of stuff to smile about…so forgive me if I overdo this one

Twitter added a link to two of President Trump’s tweets in which he had made false claims about mail-in ballots, urging people to “get the facts.”

…so…sure…there’s still plenty to wipe the smile off my face

On Twitter and at a news conference, the president said Joe Scarborough was responsible for the death of Lori Klausutis, who worked for him when he was a congressman. But Twitter refused her husband’s request to have the false tweets removed.

https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/05/20/859814085/researchers-nearly-half-of-accounts-tweeting-about-coronavirus-are-likely-bots

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/i-m-looking-truth-states-face-criticism-covid-19-data-n1202086

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/top-hhs-watchdog-being-replaced-by-trump-says-inspectors-general-must-work-free-from-political-intrusion/2020/05/26/story.html

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/justice-department-drops-insider-trading-probes-three-senators-n1215196

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/26/politics/glenn-fine-pentagon-resigns/index.html

Mike Pompeo Is the Worst Secretary of State Ever

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/coronavirus-brazil-us-trump-travel-ban/2020/05/26/story.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/05/26/kayleigh-mcenanys-latest-briefing-is-case-study-gaslighting-whataboutism-false-claims/

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/26/a-dodgy-dossier-how-news-corp-hyped-a-us-government-reading-list-into-a-china-coronavirus-bombshell

President Trump has repeatedly voiced a desire to leave Afghanistan sooner than the timeline laid out in the Feb. 29 peace agreement. He may want to campaign on bringing home every soldier.

…but you know what?

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/twitter-fact-checks-trump-s-misleading-tweet-mail-voting-n1215151

…still funny…& some things aren’t great…but have some redeeming features

Republicans Tried to Suppress the Vote in Florida. And Failed.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-calls-mask-wearing-politically-correct-biden-calls-him-a-fool/2020/05/26/story.html

The president is spreading a vile conspiracy theory on the platform. Maybe Twitter should finally hold him to its rules.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/officers-involved-deadly-arrest-black-man-minneapolis-have-been-fired-n1215046

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/05/26/amy-cooper-central-park/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-for-now-will-not-stop-ohio-order-to-identify-prisoners-for-release-because-of-coronavirus/2020/05/26/story.html

House to Vote on Limiting F.B.I. Power to Collect Americans’ Internet Data

…but some of it’s still very much in the bitter pill category

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/05/26/hell-hath-no-fury-like-president-suckered/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/05/26/trump-blames-know-it-alls-he-has-no-plan-fix-this-mess/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/who-warns-of-second-peak-and-cautions-against-scaling-back-restrictions-too-soon/2020/05/26/story.html

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/trump-biden-sparring-escalates-summer-shadowed-coronavirus-n1214606

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/05/26/senior-citizens-have-emerged-key-2020-battleground-why/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/in-crucial-florida-some-senior-voters-cast-a-skeptical-eye-toward-trumps-reelection/2020/05/25/story.html

…under different circumstances though…you got to think this would be blowing up across the campaign trail

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/fx-s-jane-roe-deathbed-confession-reveals-abortion-lie-heart-ncna1214381

…but just remember

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/05/26/trump-twitter-label-fact-check/

…still fucking funny

…don’t let the bastards get you down…or illegitimi non carborundum if you’re feeling fancy

…& speaking of flights of fancy…I don’t know how up to speed any of you are about the walking calamity that is Dominic Cummings

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/may/27/who-is-dominic-cummings-coronavirus-covid-19-lockdown-car-trip-uk-politics

…but trust me when I say that this may be funnier than the fact-check thing

…an expression often uttered when a person is heard making a bad excuse in a still worse cause

…2020 ladies & gentlemen…it’s Barnard Castles all the way down

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29 Comments

  1. Last night some kid in a car yelled at me to turn on my lights which I absent minded(ly) did not turn on (I was tired from a busy shift, but I fucked up.) I sheepishly turned them on.

    It is what racist moron Amy Cooper really should have done when called out for letting her dog roam wild and free in a “Leashes ON” area of Central Park.

    She lost her dog and her job. She’s crying her life is ruined. Maybe it is, but trying to Emmett Till birder Christopher Cooper was a fucking low shitty racist thing to do. I have no sympathy for her.

    • Sheepishly putting the leash on the dog was the correct response. She seems like a total asshole. However, this is what the conversation was before the fellow started recording her ridiculousness per his tweet:

      ME: Look, if you’re going to do what you want, I’m going to do what I want, but you’re not going to like it.
      HER: What’s that?
      ME (to the dog): Come here, puppy!
      HER: He won’t come to you.
      ME: We’ll see about that…

      Doesn’t that sound like he’s threatening her dog? He wasn’t, I don’t think, but people freak out about their pets. I know I would have been a little concerned by someone saying I won’t like what they’re about to do and then beckoning my dog.

      • i don’t think offering a dog a treat to make its owner choose between putting a leash on the dog or it eating a treat constitutes a threat, but even if he did threaten the dog, she didn’t seem all that scared when she marched toward him to shove her finger in his face. that is the opposite of what i would do if i felt threatened and scared for my life…or my dog’s.

        • She didn’t know he was going to give the dog a treat. He said “you’re not going to like” what he was going to do. Ladies like this are going to freak out about something like that. I mean, that is a pretty ominous statement. I’m not saying that she reacted appropriately, but she did act predictably.

      • …I might be tempted to have some sympathy for a dog owner not appreciating some stranger beckoning their dog over…were it not for the fact that it wouldn’t be any kind of a problem if said dog were…on a leash…in a place where all dogs are supposed to be one a leash

        …so on balance she still isn’t triggering much in the way of sympathy out of me even though I think I see your point?

        • I don’t have much sympathy for her, either. I just think that what he said was weird and it’s worth pointing that out. People are going to freak out if they think you’re fucking with their pet.

      • I found that whole thing a little odd. “I carry dog treats because if I give an unleashed dog treats the owner will put it back on the leash.” Wut?

        • …it’s odd sounding, for sure…& I guess to me it sounds odd to make a habit of carrying dog treats if you don’t yourself have a dog

          …but if I found I was running into a lot of dogs I could see having a few on your person might be a good way to get them to not use you for a chew toy?

          …I don’t know…the whole situation seems like a big bunch of shit that could have been no problem for anyone turned into a massive problem for someone who seems largely to have brought it upon themselves?

        • I’m guessing that what everyone is missing is the part where white people who like their dogs more than they like people get unreasonably worried about a black person being in the same vicinity of their dog, because they feel like they own the space. White people don’t trust that a black dude in the park is just giving their dog a treat instead of, like, I don’t know, poison or something, and so they’ll leash their dog and vacate more quickly.

          Basically this guy is using white people’s intrinsic fear of black men to intimidate them into giving him an actual response after politely asking them like you would any reasonable human being fails.

          • On some level I knew that, but I really didn’t want it to be that.

      • “Doesn’t that sound like he’s threatening her dog?”

        With the fact that his post mentions that he *also* brings along dog treats for exactly this sort of situation, I didn’t read as *threatening* as much as “getting the dog by his side, so it could be detained ’til park police showed up, or she puts the dog’s leash on.

        Buuuut I’m also someone who nearly ALWAYS has dog treats either *on* me, or in my car, AND I’ve used them to lure over the pup who happened to get away from it’s owner (at one home in particular,the neighbor’s dog was a sneaky little girl, and she’d go wandering pretty regularly😉)

        I think it may be a bit of a “ymmv” thing?😉💖

        • He said something vaguely threatening and then beckoned the dog. From her perspective, she doesn’t know he’s going to give it treats. He clearly had her pegged from the second he saw her. Probably from experience. So kudos to him on that count. I just find it off-putting that he said “you’re not going to like…” what he was about to do. That’s kind of creepy and would make a lot of people freak out.

  2. I read last night that a look through her social media history shows her to be pretty left-wing politically. Black lives matter until they inconvenience you, I guess?

  3. i hope twitter fact checks everything donny tweets from here on
    itll be funny watching him lose his shit and declare a war against twitter…on twitter

    • oh…that was quick..he’s already threatening to shut them down
      lol

      • …so, I don’t really know how twitter works but if the idiot tweeted some nonsense about “obamagate” being worse than Watergate about three hours ago & then retweeted it so it shows above a half-hour old tweet…does that look…I dunno…let’s call it thirsty?

        • “but if the idiot tweeted some nonsense about “obamagate” being worse than Watergate about three hours ago & then retweeted it so it shows above a half-hour old tweet…does that look…I dunno…let’s call it thirsty?”

          Short answer, YES.

          But slightly longer, I think it all depends on how you have your individual feed set up?

          I HATE the stupid “trending” way of presenting tweets (the default one), because all it seems to do when I read it that way, is amplify a few things from the folks you follow.
          And then, like You Tube, soon you’re in a whirlpool of the same.damn.weird.shit.

          I *prefer* when my feed is set to “show most recent tweets,” because then I DON’T get the *three days old,but being buzzed about on all the major news outlets!* crap.

          I follow the folks I do (lots of reporters,lots of ed, med, law, & history folks), in order to stay *current*–like, up to the MINUTE current, with what’s going on in the world.

          So I don’t want a feed full of 3-18 day old regurgitation.

          Ya know?😉

          • …that makes sense…but what prompted the question was just that it said “re-tweeted” at the top but the original tweet was also his & recent enough that the same thing was still visible in the top few most recent bits of garbage he’d extruded

            …so by the sounds of it that would be a big old yes, then

            • Oh,sorry!😖

              YES!!! I meant to say that first! (Thought it, but forgot to *type* it!)

              1000000000 times, YES!

              • …to be fair, you did say yes was the short answer…I just figured some extra details might make the long answer “hell, yes”

      • Which, of course, would probably be an *actual* First Amendment violation.

    • …personally I’d be highly entertained by an explanation of why the random capitalisations & terms “in” quotes that seem nonsensical are actually the emergent properties of some simplistic if-this-then-that strategies to allow some sort of tissue thin legalistic defense for the garbage he tweets not being actionable

      …my guess is it’d be a lot like that deposition of Alex Jones in which he insists he’s in no way a journalist & his whole infowars bit is 100% manipulative schtick designed to exchange delusional thinking for cashflow with zero regard for the truth about anything

    • I cackled when I ran across that one last night!
      (And then, OF COURSE, I liked & retweeted it!😉😁😈)

  4. McEnany, who has recently been shitting on mail in ballots to appease biff, has voted by mail for the past decade:

    the Tampa native has voted by mail in every Florida election she has participated in since 2010, according to a Tampa Bay Times review of her voting history. Most recently, she voted by mail in the state’s March 2020 presidential primary, just as Trump did after he made Florida his new permanent home.

    Update Apparently choosing not to risk your life during a global pandemic isn’t a valid reason according to McEnany in her statement regarding her use of vote by mail:

  5. Andrew Cuomo is making the most amazing speech on TV right now! Major takedowns of GOP & Trump. He sounds like FDR. I hope this gets replayed on every network!

  6. Just read the ny times oped on Pompeo. His hypocrisy is staggering.

    • …pretty sure that’s what got him the gig

      …but yeah…it’s a lot…& yet still just a small strand in an elaborate tapestry of awful proportions in the context of the wider administration

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