The Frankish Reich

https://www.theonion.com/report-trump-gunman-googled-how-to-be-an-enigma-1851607974 “Not a good sign for Trump that he’s losing the deranged loners with guns demographic.” KASSIE GARDNER, CALENDAR MANAGER

Keep up the cornball humor! I operate at a higher level.

Far, far past its prime, but The Onion still operates on a far higher level than the Babylon Bee. https://www.theonion.com/who-is-trump-s-vp-pick-j-d-vance-1851594675 Hometown: Decay, Ohio Alma Mater: Ohio State University, Yale School of Political Pandering Ethnicity: Mountain white Conservative Credentials: Somehow both rich and poor? Current Larval Stage: Pupa Books: Hillbilly Elegy, The Wizards Of Elzagard I-III, The Children Of Elzagard IV-V, Elzagard Chornicles: The Crystal Of Sa’Sakar I-IX, Encyclopedia Elzagarium: The Complete Companion To The Elzagard Realm Face Shape: Cherubic Go-To Eyeliner Brand: Covergirl Intensify Me! Liquid Liner in Intense Black When Scanned At Vet, Microchip Identifies Owner As: Peter Thiel Vice Vice President Pick: Matt Gaetz Greatest Liability: Attraction to electric bug zappers Number Of Times Trump Has Issued Order To Have Him Killed: 12 Pet Names For Grandparents: Mamaw and Pissbucket

https://www.natesilver.net/p/harris-trump-electoral-college Nate Silver's update. Note that the electoral college advantage is still squarely with Trump, but it's a lot closer than when Biden was in the race. A completely expected trend: RFK Jr's support starting to crater.

I've said this before. This is the corny old white guy humor of the Babylon Bee. They must have a lame AI generator for their posts. Something about race? Pull out the old Robert Byrd was in the KKK thing. Nobody except us old white guys who are too informed about politics even remembers or knows about that. Old. Tired. Unfunny. And still they persist.

https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/putin-congratulates-venezuelas-maduro-election-win-2024-07-29/

Good point. But of course that was March, long before the debate debacle.

Wow. Amazing Dem comeback simply by subbing out for Biden. Imagine if the Republicans subbed in, say, Haley for Trump ...

I think Simmons is gonna be forced into a 1-year prove it deal.

It's not true! And I think pretty much everyone who's seen those memes understands that. The new and improved JD Vance gives off a little bit of a creeper vibe, so it works! Fighting back effectively starts with understanding and accepting that. Sorry, politics is a contact sport. It's just that the contact usually isn't with a couch.

Proving my point.

We are now into multiple pages about Couch Screwing.

Oh, I'll let you guys do that. My unwelcome advice: be a little more sophisticated about it. Elon Musk thinks it's still funny (in kind of a meta way, laughing at how deliberately stupid his insults are) to do the Bevis and Butthead thing. He's stuck in the 90s. Couch Banger is an absurdist gem. Sorry, it still makes me laugh just a little. As the old saying goes, "an old story that even if it isn't true, should be true."

Politicians are weird. They're not like us. They're incredibly phony, incredibly power hungry, they have skeletons in their closets, they're fully deserving of parody.

See what I mean about not getting it? "The Left" is having far too much fun with the uptight attitudes about sex, sexuality, and children that still prevail in official conservatism. I don't actually think hooker-banger Trump fits that, and I know Vance doesn't, at least in their private attitudes. But they're still spouting (particularly Vance) the old-fashioned Republican "normal Americans are married (multiple times if you know hIllbilly elegy) and have kids and don't let their kids see drag queens" stuff. And "the left" continues to troll them. And the "weird fascination" is now officially a problem for "the right" too.

That's what gives it legs. It blindsided them. They've been on about Democrats not being like "normal Americans" since the Clinton Administration. Turnabout is fair play. Never saw it coming, and have no idea how to respond other than "oh yeah, look at your own weirdos," which isn't working. OK, military journalist PR kid JD Vance Fan ...

I don't know what "the Left" means here. But yeah, some guy on Twitter/X just made it up. And the right wingers here are missing the point. You're not gonna "refute" it by showing pictures of the purse klepto trans Biden guy. Those people are out there saying "look at me; I'm weird!" That won't accomplish the point. Better to go out there JD and make fun of yourself a little. Loosen up! Be yourself, not a minor league Trump mimic. I know I'm no kid, but I watch how my kids use language and memes, and I'm kind of into it. "Weird" here is "trying too hard to be normal, obviously trying to hide something." And the something here is 'had sex with a couch." That's why it's working!

No. It was a really good joke tweet! Knowing the old rule that it is impossible to analyze comedy ... 1. JD Vance is kind of stiff and awkward on the national stage, and he's trying too hard to be Joe Sixpack, if the Sixpack is Diet Mountain Dew. He's also trying way too hard to be a Trump insult comic. Instead, as one commenter said, he's the Great Lakes Ron DeSantis. 2. Somehow the "sex with a couch" works against that backdrop. 3. The tweet itself was simple yet specific. It involve a rubber glove and a couch. And it gave a reference in standard citation form (Vance, p. 179-81). Far enough into the book, knowing that most people never made it that far. Simple. Elegant. Beautifully done. Dare I say "edgy" which a lot of old fogeys here just don't get.

There's a reason that joke story has legs, and it's because JD Vance - at least the current incarnation of JD Vance - is acting kind of weird. See "Low Energy Jeb."

Simmons just hit the market at the wrong time. A time when teams just aren't willing to shell out that much for a safety, no matter how good.

^^^ Weirdo. Who cuts and pastes empty quotes?

I just read the obituary. Here's what I never knew: it was so difficult to find/keep people in the military at the height of Vietnam that a horribly incompetent/unqualified guy like Calley was promoted way, way beyond his capacity. From the NYT: On the morning of March 16, 1968, Second Lieutenant Calley, a 24-year-old platoon leader who had been in Vietnam just three months, led about 100 men of Charlie Company into My Lai 4, an inland hamlet about halfway up the east coast of South Vietnam. The Americans moved in under ambiguous orders, suggesting to some that anyone found in the hamlet, even women and children, might be Vietcong enemies. While they met no resistance, the Americans swept in shooting. Over the next few hours, horrors unfolded. Witnesses said victims were rousted from huts, herded into an irrigation ditch or the village center and shot. Villagers who refused to come out were killed in their huts by hand grenades or bursts of gunfire. Others were shot as they emerged from hiding places. Infants and children were bayoneted and shot, and an unknown number of females were raped and shot. A military photographer took pictures. Although Lieutenant Calley’s immediate superiors knew generally what had happened, the atrocity was covered up in military reports that called it a successful search-and-destroy mission. It took nearly a year and a half — and persistent efforts by a few soldiers and an independent investigative journalist, Seymour M. Hersh, who later won a Pulitzer Prize for his disclosures — for investigations to grind forward and the story to reach a stunned world. By then, Lieutenant Calley, a short, stocky man scorned by his troops and fellow officers as an insecure leader who could hardly read a map or a compass and who seemed to lack common sense in the field, had been promoted to first lieutenant and awarded a Bronze Star with oak leaf cluster and a Purple Heart.

Hillary has a point, doesn't she.

Don't you understand? Those little kids were scarred for life because their parents put masks on them! Probably at the height of COVID, but whatever. As a parent of older kids, I can assure you they will have no memory of the mask-wearing thing when they were kindergarten age or below. None. But still: scarred for life!

Rest assured that if you are not a professional athlete, you are just entering your prime.