While the Kamala Harris-Tim Walz ticket has lit a fire under the Democratic party, with people reacting with wild enthusiasm as if they have already won the election, even though the race is pretty much tied at this point and could go either way. This wild enthusiasm will undoubtedly fade somewhat over time. However, it looks like the Harris-Walz ticket are not lowering their guard and know that a lot of hard work lies ahead.
One has to feel a pang of pity for Joe Biden. He is someone whose presidency was on the whole better than I expected ( I was not expecting much), although there were some serious issues that I strongly disagreed with, his condoning of the Israeli massacre of Gazans being one of the biggest. I wonder what must be going through his mind when he sees how happy Democrats are with him leaving the race. Does he feel that they are ungrateful? He did, after all, save the country from a second creepy Donald Trump presidency in 2020. There have been no reports that he is sulking and he has been publicly supportive of Harris. In fact, now freed from the rigors of campaigning, he is reportedly looking at doing things in the last six months that would secure his legacy
But there is one person who seems to be deeply upset by Biden leaving and that is creepy Trump. He seems really angry that Biden is not running and that Harris is surging in the polls.
So now he is even hearing voices. This man needs therapy.
Susan Glasser writes about creepy Trump’s obsession with Biden.
There is no one, with the possible exception of the President himself, who has mourned the end of Joe Biden’s reëlection campaign more than Donald Trump. For eighteen days, Trump has refused to let go of his grief, alternating between anger and denial at the loss of his favorite target. On Tuesday, apparently freaked out by Kamala Harris’s rise in the polls and her decision that morning to name Tim Walz, a popular Midwestern governor, as her running mate, Trump, ensconced in his Mar-a-Lago resort, all but demanded that Biden return to the race.
…By Thursday afternoon, with no signs of Biden returning to the race, Trump summoned handpicked members of the media to Mar-a-Lago for a press conference, the point of which was to change the subject from Harris’s remarkable honeymoon. Even so, Trump couldn’t let go. Repeatedly, he circled back to Biden, complaining that it was not fair, and quite possibly “unconstitutional,” that the President had been so unceremoniously dumped by his own party. “We were given Joe Biden,” Trump said, “and now we’re given somebody else.” Later, he returned to this theme. “He had the right to run, and they took it away,” he said. “What they’ve done is pretty incredible, and now I’m running against somebody else.” Poor Trump. He looked uncommonly pale and tired.
Creepy Trump then poses a question:
What are the chances? I can answer that! The answer is zero. Yes, zero.
There are other signs that creepy Trump is really losing it. Kevin Drum writes about the strange anecdote that creepy Trump recounted at his press conference about how he was almost in a helicopter crash in California with former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown. He said that during that ride Brown made disparaging remarks about Kamala Harris.
It turns out that this ride took place in New Jersey, not California, and the person on board was Nate Holden, a different California elected state official. Brown was not on the plane.
“Willie is the short Black guy living in San Francisco,” Holden said. “I’m a tall Black guy living in Los Angeles.”
“I guess we all look alike,” Holden told POLITICO, letting out a loud laugh.
…Holden also connected with Brown on Thursday. “I said, ‘Willie, were you almost in a helicopter crash with Trump also?’ He said ‘No.’ I said, ‘I was the one, Willie.’”
Before he hung up with POLITICO, Holden assured a reporter that nobody discussed — let alone criticized — Kamala Harris as Trump claimed Brown did.
“He either mixed it up,” Holden said. “Or, he made it up. This was just too big to overlook. This is a big one. Conflating Willie Brown and me? The press is searching for the real story and they didn’t get it. You did.”
Brown said he was never in a helicopter with creepy Trump. However, the latter did ride in a helicopter with current governor Gavin Newsom and may have confused him with former California governor Jerry Brown. But there was never any scare on that trip.
So it looks like creepy Trump confused one Black man with another, one Brown man with another, one California governor with another, and one helicopter ride with another.
Creepy Trump is now threatening to sue the New York Times that challenged his his version of the story because that is what he always says when contradicted in the media. But he either never follows through with the threat or loses the case.
The big burly helicopter piolet panicked and started sobbing. “Sir”, he said, “can you take over the controls. You are the only one that cand land us safely!”
The problem is, there is no healthy base line to compare with.
I would have said there were loose IKEA parts rattling around in his head when he appeared on the scene 9 years ago.
It is like asking ‘when did Idi Amin lose it’? Or any random North Korean leader?
Trump would never do something for the good of anyone but Trump, so he can’t comprehend Biden stepping down from his re-election campaign. Trump can only ascribe the worst of anyone’s motives, because he himself is capable only of the worst motives.
And whether he actually believes the stories he’s currently spewing but confusing the people, or he’s just making stuff up (badly), it’s obvious this guy doesn’t belong anywhere near the White House.
birgerjohansson @2, please don’t insult IKEA. 😉 I have decades-old furniture from them, and the parts are much more sturdy than anything in the Mandarin Dalek’s head.
It must sting for Agent Orange knowing that he will forever have a losing record against Joe Biden. His frail ego couldn’t handle losing to an “old man” 4 years ago, and probably can’t come to grips with it now, with his seemingly certain victory (redemption) snatched from him.
In Trump’s defence, both ne… black men might have had similar hairstyles.
Jörg@ 4
Daleks are highly effective doers of evil. They rarely trip over their own feet, mainly because they have none, but you know what I mean. They are the cyborg version of IKEA.
DT is a malignant narcissist. Biden is not. Does Biden need an ego of a certain size to want to (and get to) be president? Sure. But does Biden want to do good things for his country? Absolutely. Does DT? Absolutely not -- everything he does is for himself. Everything.
OT, but when citing social media posts, please use screenshots rather than embeds, for four reasons:
First, if the author memory-holes the post, the embed will become broken and not preserve a record of what was said. It might also be possible for the author to edit the post after the fact, altering what the embed shows. That could even be weaponized to make you look incoherent, as your response ceases to make sense in the context of the new contents of the embed. When reporting on an adversary, which indubitably applies to the instant case, both memory-holing (by deletion or sanitizing edit) and malicious edits are realistic risks.
Second, embeds tend to rely on Javashit and such, versus a simple image embed being basic no-frills HTML. That makes embeds relatively glitch-prone, as well as slow and bloated. I’ve seen them suddenly trigger page layout changes long after the page should have completed loading, as well as fail to load and cause other problems. Images are less likely to, and if the width= and height= attributes are specified in the HTML, they will not cause page layout changes when they load, even if that loading proves to be slow for any reason. And a few screenshots of mostly text should compress well, likely to a smaller size than the multiple megabytes of Javashit the embed probably drags into your page size and load times with added dependencies.
Third, iframes and lazy-loaded elements are likely to confuse accessibility software such as screen readers. Images, of course, also counfound these, but can have a title or an alt text added containing a transcript of the tweet (or whatever). Accessibility software knows to look for these. It may have trouble parsing complicated Javashit scripts. Further, anything a blind reader using accessibility tools can’t get, Googlebot can’t get, so your page will not match on searches that reference text in the embedded social media posts. Googlebot can, of course, see image alt texts. Search engines sometimes also care about page bloat/load times. Using screenshots is thus better not only for disabled audience members but for SEO as well.
Fourth, anybody in your audience who has a modicum of technical knowledge and gives two shits about their personal devices’ security is not going to be allowing Donald frickin’ Trump, of all people, to run code on said devices …
Does anyone get why SSACFT calls Harris “Kamabla”? Is it a reference to something? Or is it just like the resident troll continuing to make up weird childish names for me, except SSACFT is even less capable?
Kamala Blah.
(So simple!)
BTW, SmellyBog, you are the troll.
(So, if anyone knows about the troll, it must be you, the troll)
“[… continuing to make up weird childish names for me”
I told you, years ago, when you persistently tried to misnyme me and I had to school you on how actual Spanish names went, that I would reciprocate.
(Sow the wind, all that)
You shoulda paid attention, SpoiledBroth.
See, you are also a sniper.
A type I know well, for decades now.
So, self-declared pestifetator to me, Mittyish nemesis, remember how I told you several times over that time span that if you desisted from misnyming me, I would cease to mock your mysniming of me?
(I keep reminding you, but hey. You are not the sharpest spoon in the drawer)
Anyway.
How is your attempted trolling going, troll? Here yet stand, unscathed, but amused.
(Neither your gaslighting nor your repeated reiteration of outright lies avails you)
—
Are you not aware that I pretty much read every comment here?
Not that many, and I am not slow.
(Newton’s third law)
Okay, I should rephrase that. Does anyone other than the resident troll know why SSACFT calls Harris “Kamabla”? Is a reference to something, or just a dumb made-up name?
Heh. SoiledBum strives.
Youare the resident troll.You are the one who invoked me.
Sniping about me behind my back as you did with your three cubed is not stealthy, though it is duly slimy.
And you and the Slymepit that was have a lot in common; not least that both of you were fascinated by me.
You know about the dictum of not summoning that which you cannot dismiss?
(heh)
Horsey hate hydration.
You go on being clueless; it befits you.
‘Bob’
Right? You popped in @9 to snipe at me, SpurtyBogusian.
Out of the blue.
Now, I can’t prove that’s purely because I am in your thoughts and you feel a need to try to vent your frustrations about my commenting style, but there is a thing called ‘abduction’.
(Occam does not dislike my inference on that basis)
I suppose you imagine your feeble segue was subtle.
(I know such as you)
So…Mano posts an article about someone going “off the rails,” and along comes John Morales to do the same thing to its comment thread. How…um…fitting…
I guess it’s a ‘no’ then. “Kamabla” doesn’t mean anything. I suppose it’s just, “foreign names are weird so we can say whatever we want, amirite?”.
Bee that tries to rage:
“Do not summon what you cannot bend to your will, otherwise it will bend you.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNdcFPjGsm8
(Ontological dependence, too tricky a concept for bees)
My self-declared nemesis should not have awoken the Kraken.
—
Guess away, O clueless one.
What you are is an ignoramus attempting to condescend to someone above your level.
Hey, remember how you cluelessly and stupidly and ignorantly attempted to school me on how my name went in my own milieu?
(Heh. You sure are a fantasist)
The irony of you attempting to compare me to Trump, when it is you who attempts to rewrite the past and to harass me, well. It’s remarkable in multiple levels, SoggyBog.
Basically, it would be good if you mob faced reality.
Had it not been for the SoylentBlubber and the Raging Bee, I would not have had any comments here.
—
For years not I’ve tried to explain to the BubblingSod how, if they want me to comment less, perhaps not provoking comments is a better strategy than to open themselves to mockery and retorts.
(Can’t retort to a non-comment, can i?)
—
So, O Busy Bee, pay attention.
Learn from the unfortunate one, who tried to harass me and is now beset.
Hm, I wonder.
Just a quick catalogue of your most recent arseholery. Note that even these mere snippets of your comments are more voluminous than those interlocutors’ entire commentary in this thread, and these are just the nakedly snide bits. They clearly establish who the troll is -- you. Sbob and RB are just ordinary commenters that sometimes get angry, but you are the one that is constantly snide, condescending, braggadocios, belittling, sarcastic, scornful, mocking, disdainful, and on and on through the entire list of tiresome habits. You perfectly fit this excerpt deriving from a discussion of yappy dogs:
“And, sometimes, as I said before, the outside dog is a short-tempered dog who hates a row, and never wants to have a disagreement with anybody--like a good many peaceful men, who hate rows, and are always nice and civil and pleasant, in a nasty, unpleasant, surly, sneering sort of civil way that makes you want to knock their heads off; men who never start a row, but keep it going, and make it a thousand times worse when it’s once started, just because they didn’t start it--and keep on saying so, and that the other party did.” -- Henry Lawson, Two Dog and a Fence from While The Billy Boils
You are the stink in any board you inhabit.
___
Though I must say I greatly enjoyed the comments which gave an unclouded view of your overweening ego:
Wow, unscathed by comments on a blog!
LOL!
Not as egotistical as above, just a plain statement of superiority.
Beset! By… comments! On a blog! Never mind that such have previously been noted to leave one unscathed, he is beset!
Ah my god, you are pathetic.
“Beset! By… comments! On a blog!”
Heh heh heh.
(Self-reflexiveness is most certainly not in your skill set)
—
Maybe StinkyBooger would elicit fewer comments from me were he not to jump into threads to repeat his lies about me.
(Or you, for that matter)
“No puppet! No puppet! You’re the puppet!”
Sound familiar?
So, what you’re saying is, if Silentbob is a troll, then you … are a demon?
BRB, gonna pop over to the Wiccan bookstore downtown to get some sanctified chalk and a book of protection spells. Hey, how many points on a pentagram again? Sorry, I was a strict materialist my whole life right up until this demon popped up so I’m a bit fuzzy on the details of how one goes about containing the darn things …
Oh, fuck it, if we have trolls and demons then we probably also have wizards. Off to see if Gandalf the White has a Facebook page nowadays. He’s fought a Balrog and won before. Hey Gandalf! Here’s a golden opportunity to bag yourself another one!
As for Trump’s weird name for Harris, it could just be his senility screwing up his pronunciation.
Heh.
You are so fucking clueless!
Heh.
Nah.
At first (the first year or so) I was bemused.
Then (the second) I was irritated.
Then (the third) I became amused.
Since then, well, he’s the lemon, and I make lemonade.
—
And you feeble yappers always try to gang up.
Go on.
Justify #9, best as you can.
(I will be amused either way)
—
You are so clueless, you’ve missed most of my allusions.
(Lovecraft, not fucking Tolkien)
You know, the SeepingBubulum has for ages now tried to label me “hyperliteral”.
(He misses that he misses just about all of my allusions and references and little linguistic tricks, much as you do)
You are such an ignoramus!
He posted that on Truth Social, not said it in actual words he pronounced.
Then he doubled-down, as is his wont.
(Covfefe!)
<smirk>
↑ ooo look I did an onomatopoeia!
I’ve done many a thing.
(Chewtoys are chewy)
But you have only gums. As for #9 being in need of justification, it needs no more than what it already has -- the truth.
wow.
just…
wow.
It’s pretty obvious why the SuckyBog could not hold back another attempted gibe at me; I am in his thoughts.
He fancies himself my hate-fan.
You know the routine by now, Holms.
You can have one more comment to me or about me, and then I’ll cut you off, so we don’t have a repeat of your endless attempts to get the last word in and clog up yet another thread.
(Of course, none of this would have happened if the Bubbling thing had kept it in his pants)
()
( (| )
. ) )\/ ( ( ( ) . •crackle crackle•
• ( (( / ))\)) ( ) )
( \ )\( | ))( ) (|
>) ))/ 9• 10• •11/ \(( ) \ . .
( 8• •12V )/ ) . •sproing•
) 7• \__ IRONY / •13 / .
( 6• \ / •14 / •
5• | /\ •15 . . .
4• •tinkle• -•- / \ •16 . . •sproing•
3• __/ |• •17 . @
2• \/ • •18 .
1• / • •19
0• _•/ •20
OFF• • •DANGER
Oh, hell, there goes another one …
As usual, you don’t get it, BB.
I am the respondent, not the initiator.
(Don’t initiate, lest you seek a response)
—
Irony, not that complicated a concept, even for you, BB.
Nothing says living rent free in your head than when a minor poke -- “resident troll” -- results in an angry tirade, catalogued previously. Again, the abusive parts alone have a higher word count than his entire presence in this thread.
Henry Lawson’s Two Dogs and a Fence again, with emphasis:
If only, if only Silentbob didn’t force you to post launch into a spittle-flecked rant!
It is very funny to me that you obviously think yourself far more intelligent than he, yet he effects you far more than you do him.
___
And, oh look, here we have the usual script for when I call your bullshit a little too well for your linking. But remind me, who here is the only one to promise to get the last word in any thread, at all, in our years-long history here? And is also the only one to brag of it later?
How could you have forgotten?
Mano even made a post about it.
And I promised to never do that again, my point having been proven.
Basically, I told you (not sniping, unlike the Buba, but directly) that I was gonna definitely prove you cannot get past having the last word, and I would do that by responding so that you did not get the last word.
I told you what I was doing as I was doing it, and I proved my point in spades.
That was the one and only time, Holms.
Like this, but over days and days and hundreds of comments.
(What, you wiped that from your recollection? Heh)
Anyway. Carry on, I’m done with you on this thread.
This is what you imagine is bragging: “You can have one more comment to me or about me, and then I’ll cut you off, so we don’t have a repeat of your endless attempts to get the last word in and clog up yet another thread.”
Heh.
I’m just miffed he hasn’t yet reached the point of consistently using Trumpian nicknames for me. Where’s my rent free digs? 🙂
BB, you haven’t spent literally years sniping at me, popping into threads to accuse me of being a troll — nothing to do with the thread, of course — et cetera.
You will get your due warning if you start persisting in misnyming me. As he did.
Look: around 3 years ago now he was accusing me both here and in Pharyngula of being a troll.
Posting supposed PSAs about my nefarious trollishness, and how he found it amazing and bewildering that after 15 years or so I still hadn’t been banned.
I am sure both PZ and Mano are rather amused by this little blather, and because he is a sniper and I restrict myself to responding to snipes, it gets by.
—
Basically, don’t sow the wind, and you shan’t reap the whirlwind.
Perhaps try to argue about what I write, rather than speculate about my character and how you feel sorry for the sad sack straw dummy you have created in your imagination.
Not hard, really.
BTW, this is a dynamic to which I have become accustomed:
“I’m just miffed he hasn’t [blah]”
See, when you are ostensibly addressing the audience (that is, more than just the commentariat) but clearly responding to me, knowing I am here, you are switching into passive-aggressive mode.
Be aware that what you are doing is not exactly obscure, and it’s not to your credit.
#34 John
Hah! No. In that passage of #33 you quote, I was specifically referring to those times you bragged about that earlier exchange, years ago now, in which you promised to spam a thread endlessly to get the last word. (You know, the same bragging that you are doing now.)
I was referring to it because in #30 you stated you were cutting me off from something, when we both know you are the one with the craving and the boasts of stamina. Me, I just keep pointing to your stupidity as before… except unopposed.
LOL
#36
Whirlwinds, Kraken, bending and besetting… But all I have seen so far is wheezing.