In the Headlines

What’s in your newspaper and what’s leading on your favorite news show?

This…

PUTIN THREATENS DIRECT WAR WITH NATO

Attribution: Putin threatens direct war with NATO by Rivers, CagleCartoons.com

or this?

POST DEBATE POLLING

Attribution: Post debate polling by Patrick Chappatte, The Boston Globe

Share

100 thoughts on “In the Headlines”

  1. continuing with Saturday morning cartoons

    David Horsey op ed at Seattle Times

    It is fascinating how really smart people can be surprisingly stupid. Latest case in point: Elon Musk.
    Musk got to be the planet’s richest person by simultaneously building the world’s most successful electric car company, Tesla, and the most successful private rocketry enterprise, SpaceX. You can’t be a dope and do that. But his acquisition of Twitter has enabled Musk’s most ignorant behavior and revealed a huge gap in his analytical abilities.
    After rebranding Twitter as X (what is the fascination Musk has with the 24th letter of the alphabet? Model X? SpaceX? One of his kids named X?), Musk has indulged his radical libertarian worldview by throwing open the social media platform to racist, misogynist, antisemitic trolls, right-wing conspiracy mongers and all manner of irresponsible kooks. Worse, he has amplified much of the crazy content by retweeting (re-Xing?) it on his own account, which has millions of followers.
    Most egregiously, Musk has promoted the lie that America’s electoral system is filled with rampant cheating. His numerous posts alleging that hordes of noncitizens are being allowed to cast ballots have attracted almost 700 million views, according to a Washington Post analysis. And a study from the Center for Countering Digital Hate found that 50 of Musk’s erroneous claims about election fraud were debunked by independent fact-checkers yet received almost 1.2 billion views.
    Beleaguered elections officials all over the country are having to deal with the threats and misplaced rage that Musk’s amplification of misinformation has provoked. Despite Musk’s dubious contention that truth will prevail in a competition of ideas, officials attempting to refute false claims do not possess communication tools that are anywhere close to the scale of the massive megaphone Musk has made for himself.
    Musk is also complicit in spreading the baseless rumor that Haitian immigrants in Ohio are eating their neighbors’ dogs and cats — a vicious little canard that former President Donald Trump latched onto during his debate with Vice President Kamala Harris.
    Following that debate, mega celebrity Taylor Swift announced her intention to vote for Harris and signed off her message as a “childless cat lady,” the type of woman Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, has notoriously disparaged. Musk, who appears to have the sense of humor and impulse control of a 13-year-old boy, responded to Swift’s message by offering to get her pregnant and protect her cat, presumably from those foraging immigrants.
    An intelligent person capable of critical thinking should be able to recognize a baseless conspiracy theory when it pops up from the dark depths of cyberspace, but, apparently, as smart as Musk may be about engineering and high-level technology, he is as clueless as a callow adolescent when it comes to recognizing a malignant lie.

  7. On last night’s show, Bill predicted Trump is Toast. When have Bill’s presidential predictions been wrong? 

  8. Ivy, not on the show but in an interview I saw yesterday Maher predicted Trump will dump Vance and replace him with Kennedy. He does have a pretty good record on predictions so I’m not dismissing this one.

  10. 1834: “We know’d that nothing more could happen to us if we went than if we staid, for it looked like it was to be starvation any way; we therefore determined to go on the old saying, root, hog or die.”
    —Davy Crockett, A 

  11. He might dismiss Vance but there will be no Kennedy.  That’s a fetch too far, even for Mump.  

  16. Book of the Week:
    ANOTHER ROADSIDE ATTRACTION,
    by Tom Robbins
    There’s something in this book about Catholic conspiracies, but I forget what, exactly.

  17. Now that Nate Silver is hooked up with Vance mentor Peter Thiel we can say he’s more than an outlier.

    Presidential Election Forecasts (Sept. 13)
    Chance of Winning
    • @FiveThirtyEight
     – 🔵 Harris 56-43%
    • @RacetotheWH
     – 🔵 Harris 56-44%
    • @DecisionDeskHQ
     – 🔵 Harris 54-46%
    • @CNalysis
     – 🔵 Harris 52-47%
    • @jhkersting
     – 🔵 Harris 51-48%
    • @NateSilver538
    – 🔴 Trump 61-39%

  20. Having fun playing with the new voter registration dashboard on TargetSmart

    Post 7/21 (after Biden dropped out) registration updates for every battleground state.
    All percentages are increases above same week in 2020:
    22%+ overall
    34%+ women
    50%+ under 30
    56% +Dems
    58% +Black
    125% +Black women under 30

    Considering how sudden and quickly these increases came about, it is safe to say they’re organic, not organized. We’re in our Kamela Era!

  21. Ivy…  I don’t watch Maher anymore… but when I did… his predictions were really good.  I was pissed as hell at him for predicting that Mump (thanks Sturg) would win the 2016 election.  I couldn’t fathom it… but we all know how that turned out.

    patd… thanks for new rules… that was a good one…

  23. Bill Maher Predicts Vance Will Be Fired, Replaced With Kennedy

    Maher: “I think he’s going to dump him … because he knows he’s losing now. So he needs an October surprise to change the parameters of the election. Trump will just go ‘I don’t like him. He was very disloyal.’ All he has to say is ‘I’m Trump. I’m doing it. It’s done.’ (His corollary prediction: Trump will run with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. instead.)

    https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2024/09/12/when-is-bill-maher-in-cincinnati/74979228007/

  24. Craig 9:45 LoL!

    TikTok astrologers are saying some sort of  switch-up in the race will either happen 9/17, or happen after October 11th.   October is too late unless it’s an act of gawd. 

    The Pope is a dope. Lose the US, and then Europe or let women make their own decisions about their health, which the loss of may result in death/harm/trauma to the woman and making any children left behind orphans. Hmmmm. Not a tough choice, Frank.

  25. Can’t find any clip to post of Bill’s exact statement last night about Trump’s end times, but I record the show, so I have it on record. Bill said, after all his previous predictions that when others said it was over, and Bill kept (rightly) saying, no it’s not over, last night, invoking the ghost of Joe McCarthy, Bill now, at long last, “I’m saying I think it’s over.”  Guest Kristen Soltis Anderson did not agree, while Al Franken said, I hope you’re right. 

  30. if the rump does dump JD, it’s possible his handlers will convince him that forgiveness is next to his godliness and he’ll anoint Nikki.

    if that doesn’t give him a big enough jolt of limelight, he’ll move on to someone who’ll garner even more media attention….. clint eastwood maybe? then the tucker, then… sorta an ongoing october surprise of musical veep chairs.

  33. Haley is still out there trying to claw her way into it.  

    That takes an extremely weird person.

  34. Speaking of weird. 
    This is so weird.   It’s like, how much more weird could it get? And the answer is: None.
    None more weird.

  35. If Dump thinks Vance is responsible for “They’re  eating the dogs!” Vance is as good as gone.  
    Yep. Add in the abortion thing and Vance is already gone.  

    So since it can’t be Kennedy, who can it beee, yeah……..

  37. I have to say, for me:
    None of the “eating cat” memes , including the video Craig posted are humorous. Any more than I would find humor in a person running up and down the street yelling “N*gger, n*gger, n*gger” There is no humor in what J D Vance and Trump are spreading about the Haitians. It is just blatant, immoral racism. 
    What have we come too as a nation when a main stream presidential candidate can say those words and not have the immediate condemnation of the whole nation. But no, the media is running around asking folks in Springfield if immigrants are eating cats. To quote LBJ, “I don’t care that my opponent is not a pig fucker, I just want to get him on the record denying it” Thats where we are at.  A presidential candidate spewing racist things and we are either treating it like a joke or running around trying to find out if it is true.
    Sigh, Jack
     

  39. Watching Trump’s events yesterday I could tell he is truly desperate and consumed with anger. He knows this thing is falling apart.

    Just watch this closing moment of his Las Vegas rally speech midnight last night. Not a well man… https://x.com/Acyn/status/1834808089411043758?t=vyE1cU6Cuz_VBR3-7TDbBA&s=19

    He screamed and hollered, pounded the podium like that throughout the speech. Much more than usual. He is in a dangerous rage. Then on the plane back he wrote the screed above. 

    We’ve got a psychotic narcissist in full clinical collapse on our hands, so absolutely anything could happen. 

  40. Oh thanks Jack for reminding me of that LBJ quote, certainly one of his most memorable, and sadly applicable to today’s politics.

    My ever so gentle pushback on using humor in this situation is ridicule is what gets to him. Outrage at his racism empowers him in his perverted mind, but mockery defeats him. 

  41. Hmmm, Nikki said he was unfit for office.  Amendment 25 might be tickling his paranoid brain stem.  Plus, wouldn’t Loomer’s racist comments would carry over to Nikki. 
    Does Kari Lake smell blood in the water? 
    Maybe Adolf gets the boot and Putin puts his tool, JD, at the top. 

    Here’s your daily reminder: Project 2025 is Adolf’s “concepts” of a plan.

    ps – Crickets on the Russian interference/Tenet Media.

    pps – Is Loomer just a convenient nut job, or a Putin-paid nut job?

  42. i appreciate when trump calls himself a genius, because everyone knows a genius, and everyone knows he ain’t one 👍 

  44. They’re pulling out all the stops Poot-man is not gong like it if they can’t steal it and he’s wasted all that money and Ukraine is going to be breathing down his neck.   He might threaten war with us, or something.
    I think our guys got his number, though.  They always have and that has not changed. Damn I wish the Flatus Man was here…..

  48. After noting Taylor Swift and Oprah endorsements, Tim Walz said,

    “It’s really great to have all these women to help us beat the smallest man in the world”

  50. Francis recalled the civic duty to vote.“One should vote, and choose the lesser evil,” he said. “Who is the lesser evil, the woman or man? I don’t know.

    Does Man In the Sky not know?

  52. here’s an independent musician trying to replicate the guitar part from that song and doing a fine job:

    ok pardon me 🤐

  53.  
    https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/09/13/wisconsin-voter-registrations-bumped-1300-after-taylor-swift-post/75207764007/

    “Wisconsin voter registrations bumped by 1,300 after Taylor Swift’s Harris endorsement”

    ps – “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived,” is a TS song. 

    Bink – Like I said, the Pope is a dope; too scared to say what he knows is right, but then the whole we-need-to-make-more-Catholics thing goes out the window.

  54. Harris tonight on CSPAN 8:30pm

    President Biden and and Vice President Kamala Harris deliver remarks at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s 2024 Phoenix Awards Dinner in Washington, DC.

  55. Craig
    I’m not interested in getting under his skin, there are plenty of ways to do that that doesn’t normalize racism.
    Instead of creating memes that trivializes what he said we need to push its uglyness  out front and center, call it what it is. Get it in front of the voters that count, those upper middle-class professionals who are all too proud that racism is a thing of the past. 
    Make them understand that their vote says a lot about who they are. If they want to vote for Trump , then they need to understand just how ugly that is. Be it billboards on their trip to the mall, ads to the zip codes or mailings to every registered voter in those zip codes of affluence. 
    Make it simple, his words and a question. Is this what you want our nation to be? If not, it is your vote, the choice is yours.

  56. i actually had a pretty good sexual and reproductive health education in public school, and i paid attention, so i probably i understand more about that physiology than certainly most men and a surprising number of women, and despite that i still didn’t appreciate the challenges and frequency of pregnancy complications, it’s rather horrific to what republican policy would subject women and the families that love them

    You’d think the Pope would understand with all that access to omniscience

    ok sorry, you invoked me, re-shutting up

  57. We’ve been calling out his Loomer and incel -inspired racism, here, for months, Jack

    in fact, Craig was highlighting his Loomer connection a month before the MSM even bothered to look into it

  59. BTW,  I’ve been going through a lot of old memories. picture from the years Mrs Jack and I lived in the old neighborhood. So that may have a lot to do with my anger. It is not the first time I’ve heard this type of crap. The difference is that it used to be some old drunk that could be ignored. Not some national politician.
    Jack

  60. We need people like you (with an understanding of blue-collar Midwestern culture) speaking out against racism, Jack, keep it up 🫡 

    We all on the same team

  61. Possibly, Vance will be dumped the day after whatever flub he makes at his debate (assuming he shows up for it.) 
    Vance was formally nominated, right? So can Dump do the dumping unilaterally? Another way to create drama and steal the spotlight, so of course, we should expect it. 

  64. the Tide done gud today

    Pogo, I miss Nick Saban’s having his tantrums even when they were winning. 

  65. What’s really weird is the profusion of television ads…….and they go like this:

    Pay us this amount every month and:

    A.   We will fix your car
    B.  We will fix your appliances and house.  C.   We will fix your payday.

  67. watched ur vid, sturge, i made a tele and les paul, been craving a tremelo and don’t have time to be building guitars in my old age

    hardware ain’t cheap these days either, not more economical to build

  68. Text from some entity: “We’ve  asked you SEVEN TIMES if you support Kamala Harris.”
    Another delete & report as junk.  

  71. BID, i got that one too! I’m deleting any seemingly posing as nudniks or insult comics. Actually deleting them all except 30330

  73. ABC under investigation?  Same crack team that investigated Obama’s birth certificate? Bwahahahahahah. Dumbshit. 

  75. well, a 60% rate of a Kamala win in simulations run with data in Nate Silver’s model, that probability is only as good as Silver’s data and model

    it’s a good trend but we ain’t won nuthin’ yet, let’s goooooo 🦅

  76. Tonight’s Monster Movie.  
    “The Incredible Shrinking Man”
    Wo….must be about the gop vp.     

  87. https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/tenet_media_indictment_russia.php
    “The Tenet Media Incident”

    “… reported that a mysterious network paid influencers to promote sexual smears about Kamala Harris. The rates were generous; one participant made more than twenty thousand dollars over several weeks by boosting certain messages”

    Hmmm. Laura Loomer, are you one of them?

    “Without disclosing how the company was funded, Chen approached the six right-wing influencers—referred to as “its talent”—and offered them an astonishing amount of money to sign on. The influencers, who included Tim Pool, Benny Johnson, and Dave Rubin, were tasked with posting original content on Tenet’s platform.”

    “For their services, one of the influencers was paid four hundred thousand dollars per month, a hundred-thousand-dollar signing bonus, and an additional performance bonus.”
     
     
    She isn’t mentioned, but Laura Loomer has been on a podcast with Tim Pool, so is Putin paying her, too? 
     
     
    ps – The body language in those pics says it ain’t just nothing. Both of them sure have a taste for sh/t.

  88. i’m not saying she’s a Russian asset (yet), but she doesn’t seem like the type to turn down an easy payday (from Putin), her technique has already been established to be effective, she’s as close as you can get to the man

    you can’t vote to give that guy the nuke codes

    i humbly request you don’t vote to give that guy the nuke codes, thank you

  91. I was rooting for Colorado State.  

    Same here, BID. Wasn’t to be, but the loss is not stopping any parties tonight here in the ‘hood. 

  92. Brooklyn Dad Defiant. 
    Holy shit, one of the most conservative people in America, George Will, has endorsed Kamala Harris for President over trump.
    I don’t care how reluctant he was to do so; I care that he did it. Every single Republican who cares about the future of America needs to follow his example. Country over party.

  93. KamalaHQ

    Gov. Walz: Look, we all deal with it. Friends, neighbors, family. ‘Oh, I like Donald Trump. I don’t really like how he swears and gets convicted of felonies and found liable for assaulting women. I like his proposals.’ Which one? Forcing women to bleed out in parking lots because they can’t get health care? Tax cuts for billionaires? No one wants that agenda

  95. Bruce Bartlett
    If you like getting Listeria from the Boar’s Head lunch meat sandwich you ate, you are going to love Project 2025, which eliminates much of what little regulation of the food industry that still exists

  98. Bette Midler
    Oh, please. #LauraLoomer is a zero, a cipher, a nothing. She’s the newest shiny object Trump dangles in front of us, meant to distract the lazy press and those of us who are idiots, from his SHITTY DEBATE PERFORMANCE last Tuesday. That was THE WORST! Do it again, #Don-old!

  99. meant to distract the lazy press

    trump ain’t that calculating 

    he isn’t creating more bad press to deflect from other bad press, he is just vain and susceptible to flattery and all bad press

    he has crossed some insanity threshold in the last 48 hours also, judging from his latest appearances

    down 5pts will do that to a convict awaiting sentencing

    you can tell when trump camp gets awful internal polling back because he does something really stupid the next day

Comments are closed.