Doug Jones Victory Dog Dance Party! Open Thread for laughing at Roy Moore

@Tovius

Rumour has it down for the 22nd. Day after DC empties out for the holiday. Nothing definitive – even the Hill is poking this rumour with a very long stick.

Axe – don’t be too confident. Sure, Trump can’t fire Mueller directly. He can, however, fire Rosenstein and replace him with someone who will fire Mueller immediately.
Deputies do not need Senate confirmation. Nor do acting positions, so no delay in replacing. And, while notice is customary, any head of an executive branch agency can be dismissed by the president at any time, for any reason or none. Just because it’s rarely been done, doesn’t mean it won’t be done.

@PeeVee – that is pretty dumb.

Did anyone else miss this?

Twitter is days away from finally banning the Nazis. Yes, really.

Supposedly starting on Monday.

Believe it when I see it, mind.

Unless I see some screencaps of Twitter banning Nazis en masse their word means nothing.

@Shadowplay
Fear not. I’ve confidence in a great many things. The decency and integrity of fascists ain’t among em

@Oogly
“En masse” really is the critical point here. Table scraps and sacrificial lambs (sorry, lambs, just a turn of phrase, not saying you’re nazis), is how all previous such moves have gone down

@PeeVee
The fact that @jack doesn’t even feel shame enough to hide that he’s a nazi is… I don’t know if it’s worse if he’s just a proud fascist or if he legit believes ‘it’s about ethics’, as it were…

Unwarranted optimism can break out in anyone. 

I know you’re joking, but the gloom and doom prophesy constantly being trumpeted is getting bleak…

And Renato Mariotti is one of my favorite follows. He is pretty spot-on in his analysis.

Re. the Twitter Nazi ban. I give said Nazis… hmmm, let’s see, three to five days, before they’re back again under slightly different names.

@Sheila

Trump’s supporters like to pretend that he plays 4-D chess

Unfortunately, he plays Calvinball, and that’s even harder to beat. The only way to win at that game is not to play.

If Democrats ever manage to regain power again, they’re going to have their hands full restoring voting rights, eliminating gerrymandering, getting dark money out of politics, addressing Russian interference, closing emoluments loopholes, and fixing the massive damage Trump has done in a short time. For the past 45 years, Democrats have had to expend their temporary political capital cleaning up GOP messes (and they’re always so handwringingly bipartisan about it), which makes it hard to enact a truly progressive agenda and show the American public what Democrats stand for. It’s frustrating.

I had a stress dream last night where Mike Pence left his office unlocked and I slipped inside and was frantically trying to rifle through his browser history and desk drawers looking for evidence of Russian collusion. All I found was a cheerleader outfit and a duffle bag full of dental hygiene pamphlets. Then he walked in on me, and mercifully the dream ended there.

Sharing for lovers of language and sarcasm:

During the whole Moore thing, I bookmarked Al.com since local news can pick up things nationals don’t bother with, with mixed results. One unintended result though – there’s a gem hidden in that site.
A satirist, who is absolutely brilliant at his best, and still amusing at his worst.

@Buttercup Oh I agree that it’ll take practically forever to clean up the mess, probably with lots of set-backs. But I’m still hopeful that Mueller will at least get Trump out which would be a very useful first step. It will at least reduce the chance of nuclear war, especially if Pence goes too. Trump has way more power, but Mueller has way more brains.

Sheila— Bang-on with that 4-D chessplaying analogy…although I must admit that I’m perpetually baffled by just how seriously Trump’s followers genuinely seem to believe that yes, he IS in fact playing at some sort of Mega-Grandmaster Level Beyond Human Discernment, and thus will (despite looking like a total fumbling doofus to Mere Hooman onlookers) inevitably come out three steps ahead in the end. And they persist in believing this, despite all past evidence pointing to the reality: that he in fact has NO overarching “game plan,” other than to come out with his bank accounts stuffed to capacity, regardless who he has to screw over in order to achieve his goal.

I mean, it’s not like the guy has any history, at all, ever, of enriching his partners, (either business or romantic) of following through on any promises, or even of upholding any legal/contractual obligations he’s entered into. These aren’t even things he’s tried to hide— he’s bragged about how he’s built his wealth by engaging in what might be charitably referred to as “sketchily ethical/legal” business practices. (And what his less-charitable former colleagues have clearly considered so far from SKETCHILY ethical/legal that he’s been sued more times than I can count without looking it up.)

Yet, despite all this easily accessible history just a few keystrokes away, his devout followers persist with their absolute faith that he is indeed a brilliant master of strategy. Just, they believe that he’s (Brilliantly! And strategically!) chosen to hide his genius beneath a mask of shambling, vicious, paranoid, bizarre stupidity as the keystone of some ultimate plan to throw his naive, weak enemies into…well, something something total defeat. But, whatever that plan is, it’s BRILLIANT!!11!
Because he’s a genius and it’s his Brilliant Plan, wash, rinse, repeat.

It’s so brilliant, you see, that we mere 3-D chess players can’t begin to see where this plan of utter genius even begins to lead.

As best I can tell, it’s perfect circular reasoning: Trump MUST be a genius with a Brilliant Master Plan, because they support him. And they only support “winners.” Therefore, literally any off-kilter, foolish or downright bizarre things he does/says must be a part of that Brilliant Plan, as opposed to simply being evidence of him being incompetent at his job. Which means that any time one of his “enemies” is critical of him, they’re just playing into his hands…thus showing him to be even more of a master of strategy. There’s no possible way he can lose in their eyes. Ever.
(This is based on the constant declarations of multiple Trump followers in my personal circle of family & colleagues. It gets kinda maddening, but it’s weirdly consistent. YMMV, of course.)

@Moggie

On the subject of Alabama and Jones’ credentials, I am – yet again – reminded of a Douglas Adams quote:

It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see…”
“You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?”
“No,” said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, “nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people.”
“Odd,” said Arthur, “I thought you said it was a democracy.”
“I did,” said Ford. “It is.”
“So,” said Arthur, hoping he wasn’t sounding ridiculously obtuse, “why don’t people get rid of the lizards?”
“It honestly doesn’t occur to them,” said Ford. “They’ve all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they’ve voted in more or less approximates to the government they want.”
“You mean they actually vote for the lizards?”
“Oh yes,” said Ford with a shrug, “of course.”
“But,” said Arthur, going for the big one again, “why?”
“Because if they didn’t vote for a lizard,” said Ford, “the wrong lizard might get in. Got any gin?”

I’m not saying that all lizards are comparable. Orange lizards are clearly the worst (on ballots at least, I’m sure some in their natural habitat are delightful). But maybe a system where only lizards are available needs some tweaking.

No spoilers

@kupo

Is that a vote for careful discussion, or to leave it alone for now?

ETA Happy with either. I don’t want to detract from anyone’s experience.