DRW50

Kind of makes me laugh that the audio is of Jack saying "I think I'm getting my touch back" and a promo all about how hot he is. The last thing I've been able to say about him in a very long time.

He's one of the most deluded people I've ever seen. He's so deluded that many think it is an act, which is one of the reasons he was elected. "Intelligent" people up high who should have worked harder to stop his winning assumed they could control him. They were wrong.

That's why I said Trump just makes it more overt. Our global standing dramatically slid around 2002 or 2003, with a President who not only didn't even bother to learn proper names and could barely hide his disdain for the world around him, but who was involved in war efforts that were soon revealed as being built on lies, lies that killed countless people. And then we had Obama, who, yes, was mostly hated and mocked because of racism. Now we have Trump. The world order has moved further and further away from us over the last few decades and I am just hoping the one positive in the damage Trump has done is that these issues have finally gotten too obvious to be ignored or papered over.

We've been here since W. Even Obama, who always behaved with grace and intelligence, was treated to abuse that no President had ever faced from other countries in recent times. Trump mostly just makes it more overt, but the one bright spot of the humiliation is now people know what our place in the world has been and will be from now on.

Great news for them. Thanks. I'd forgotten about that.

Who was the famous person who came out as having MS? The whole thing with someone telling her to "use" her MS is just crass, if typical Hollywood. What would that get somebody anyway, really? Teri Garr came out as having MS a number of years ago but beyond some sympathetic headlines it doesn't seem to have made her a fortune.

Disgusting. And yet he, and the media, are desperate to convince everyone all he did in high school was go to the sock hop. (this is from the NYT so yes I am a hypocrite)

I'm wary of how many are now pushing Avenatti as some kind of crusading hero and tsk-tsking Democrats who don't walk behind him. Something about him and his grandstanding just feels off for me. I'm also wary of these accusations, especially the way he's framed them. I know a lot of people (fake concern trolls, like that Jedidah who was on the View and the ever-phony, smarmy Beltway shill George Stephanapolous, and people with real concerns) are concerned about the way the New Yorker story was written too, but at least that didn't come across to me as attention-seeking.

I read that the White House was going around using the NYT quote to make sure people didn't believe the New Yorker article. Between this and Rosenstein it seems like the NYT has stopped hiding any pretense that they are working hand-in-hand with Trump and his people, who are presumably giving them access and making them feel special (and this is all the media elites really care about, as shown in the W years). When will those who "resist" - I don't mean the average person, but someone with real money and power - start shutting out the Times from being able to have it both ways? They want to stay in bed with Trump? Fine. Then just leave them there. I always had a feeling Kavanaugh would still get confirmed, as McConnell has no other options, but this "it's a smear!" wah-wah fest seems especially craven and sad. It won't work for a supermajority of the country. This is clearly designed to gin up the base (those who are, sadly, often most likely to vote), and weak-kneed types like Susan Collins, who has repeatedly hidden behind the "those liberals are so mean to me" excuse for her supporting Kavanaugh. When this is over I'm hoping people in Maine (which I know is not a big liberal state, don't get me know, but this isn't even about being a liberal at this point) will finally see through her and send her packing in 2020. It's long overdue. I know this isn't a laughing time but this did make me laugh: Yes, "Amanda Mills" was a huge fan of Ronan Farrow's since his childhood. Do these bots think Ronan was on Silver Spoons or something?

And gift wrapping, and Christmas lights... I wish I'd done more of what I promised myself I'd do about saving wrapping paper. My grandmother would have.

In tariff news, here's a list of items Wal-Mart says will increase in price due to the latest tariffs against China. And this is just the start. https://www.businessinsider.com/walmart-products-hit-hardest-by-trump-china-trade-war-2018-9

I wasn't talking about 2018, I was talking about 2020, when Trump is on the ballot, but I do think that the same women who turned out to vote for him when he repeatedly attacked the physical appearance of women, insulted them by talking about menstrual bleeding, bragged on tape about "grabbing 'em by the !@#$%^&*]," will come out again this time, as he made it very clear who he was and how he felt about women in that campaign. I don't have any faith in the public, so I am just going to wait and see and expect the worst, as I did in 2016, but my main comments were about the article, which seemed to just be about how Democrats feel if they yell really really loud about Trump (the same thing they did two years ago, when it didn't work), then they will win.

This just makes me roll my eyes. https://www.politico.com/story/2018/09/23/democrats-michelle-obama-trump-837499 Clegg called Michelle Obama “almost a perfect public figure,” and recalled in “We go high” a “gorgeous speech that really spoke to me in the moment.” But he added that “I think [Michelle] Obama would be the very first person to acknowledge … that what we faced in 2007 and 2008 was a wildly different world, and a wildly different media environment.” How soon many forget that Michelle Obama was not in a wildly different world or media environment in 2008 - she was viciously attacked by the right wing as hating America, and even allegedly liberal media pumped out magazine covers featuring her as gun-toting and militant. It's just that many on the left simply didn't care, as they also cared very little about anything said about her over the next 8 years (including repeated slams against her and her daughters like being compared to apes and monkeys), because they were too busy going on about what a disappointment she'd been and how she was supposed to use her First Lady role to march in the streets. Her speech was about how she had to survive as First Lady, and beyond that, how black women generally have to survive in the world. Her speech wasn't meant to be a guidebook for people who never had a lot of respect for her in the first place. The truth is that many people in the 2016 election did attack Trump - it's just that it wasn't enough. Yelling about Trump and what Trump was going to do just made the conversation even more about him and did nothing to make people less anxious about Hillary. If their strategy is still nothing more than yelling about Trump, they will be in the same position in 2020 that they were in 2016.

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/09/23/ed-whelan-kavanaugh-theory-837445 A special comment to Mr. Whelan:

Ah. Was that the profile with a Nazi?

What is it you dislike about Peters? Is he another anti-Hillary stooge? Not even surprised that "evangelical" "leaders" are all in for abusers. Franklin Graham makes me sick, and Ralph Reed is someone who has already tried and failed at anything worth noticing.

I thought all the women would be too scared to say something, with the backlash Ford has faced. They're very brave. I wish that we had legislators who actually cared, because the allegations of Kavanaugh making sure his clerks all looked like hot models are very disturbing, and they have been drowned out.

Do any of you remember when the possible nominees were going around, and some on the right, like Ben Shapiro, were trying to speak out against Kavanaugh? The idea was that it was because he was not reliably conservative enough, but I wonder now if someone at the time knew something and was trying to stop it...they just didn't say the right things (or Trump didn't care because he wanted someone he knew would be there for him if he was ever facing charges). The sad thing is I still don't know if this will stop him. I don't think it will. I'm already seeing people dismiss it. A few days ago I was reading an article claiming that before the allegations, Kavanaugh was some kind of example of the power of women, because he had a wife and daughters. That's the worst kind of pandering. It shows just how deluded Republicans are, yet how good they are at controlling the narrative.

Thanks. I didn't know RHOBH did that well.

@Juliajms did you see unbearable Lindsey Graham going around saying that he would vote for Kavanaugh no matter what unless something different to the current information they have became available? I'd like to think this release was timed just to make him choke on it. Not that he will change his vote, no matter how many come forward.

Is Vanderpump Rules still a big show? All the focus on 40-year olds reading out trashy scripts just sort of blurred together for me.

I thought they made a handsome couple, and Erika and Roy obviously liked working together. I was mostly just surprised they were intended to be a very sexual couple as I never really felt that way with them.

Thanks! I got so tired of Michael and bored of the Baldwins-Fishers and the odd entitlement that seemed to keep them on the canvas far longer than they deserved that I now kind of just pretend Michael never came back after this stint.

Sad that I knew it would be a Republican. St. Cloud is Michelle Bachmann's stomping ground. It seems to be exurb toxic hell.

I wonder if they are just going with the lowered expectations tactic.