Open Thread for Thursday, June 4, 2020 (Twitter-style)

kimmel

I’ve decided on a new way to do Open Threads. I’ll just share things I tweeted or retweeted about during the day. It seems to work better than looking at the main pages of a bunch of news sites and trying to find something that I’m interested in commenting on.

It’s not going to be balanced with a diversity of topics, the way my threads and Virtual Front Pages usually are. It’s super Trump-heavy. There’s nothing about ongoing protests (although a couple indirectly relate), and a couple of COVID items. But these are the things that randomly provoked responses or retweets from me at different points today.

So let’s try this:

  1. What on Earth is there to struggle about? — That’s part of my response to a tweet that said, “JUST IN: GOP Sen. Murkowski :”struggling” with whether to vote for Trump.” My full response was, “‘Struggling?’ What on Earth is there to struggle about? She KNOWS what the right thing to do is. Her other comments make this clear. All that is lacking is having the guts to stand up and follow through…”
  2. So… just to make sure I’m understanding… this makes all the racist stuff OK then? — That’s my response to a tweet from the White House that said, “President @realDonaldTrump provided permanent funding to historically black colleges and universities and enacted groundbreaking criminal justice reform—concrete results for underserved communities that no prior President delivered.”
  3. Yes, senator, that’s exactly what everyone thinks — That was my response (minus my original typo — I meant “that’s,” not “that”) to a clip from The Hill in which Lindsey Graham says, “You think I am in Trump’s pocket.”
  4. The Lafayette Square ‘highlight video’ — This is from Jimmy Kimmel, represented as the White House’s own highlight reel from the administration’s great victory Monday night against the harmless protesters. Be sure to watch to the end.
  5. Brazil set to overtake Italy as country with third-highest coronavirus deaths — I had no comment on this. I just thought it was worth sharing with folks. Of course, I believe the U.S. is still No. 1 on this grim ranking. That’s right, isn’t it? I had trouble finding stuff from today on that.
  6. Is Mexico paying for this fence, too? — That’s not me. That question is from retired Army lieutenant general Mark Hertling. He was responding to video of the big fence going up around the White House.
  7. Frank Bruni on why we need Achilles — My first tweet of the day, reacting to a good piece about the sad state of higher education right now.
  8. COVID-19 Can Last for Several Months — I actually haven’t even read the piece in The Atlantic that this refers to, but I thought I’d pass it on in case other people had a chance before I did. The tweet said, “I wrote about COVID-19 long-haulers—the thousands of people who’ve been struggling with *months* of debilitating symptoms. Many have faced disbelief from friends and medical professionals because they don’t fit the typical profile of the disease….”

Kind of a long list for an Open Thread, but I wanted to give you everything.

graham clip

15 thoughts on “Open Thread for Thursday, June 4, 2020 (Twitter-style)

  1. Scout

    I suppose this guy doesn’t have a chance but Lindsey has an opponent in the primary Tuesday who appears to maybe be an independent thinker, from what I can tell from his webpage. I would love it if he won the primary and we had two decent choices in November. His name is Joe Reynolds. The other two challengers seem to be cookie cutter ‘I love the Bjble, I love the Constitution, I am pro life, I won’t take your guns’ Republicans. I have not found out much about Joe Wilson’s opponents yet.

    1. Brad Warthen Post author

      I’ll have to check out Joe Reynolds, since I’m voting in that primary next week, mainly to vote NO on the stupid “advisory questions.”

      Otherwise, there are no significant choices offered. Oh, and there is NO Democratic primary where I live. Not one item to put on a ballot.

      That’s why the Republicans’ effort to close primaries is so insidious. It would basically take away my right to vote in what is, far too often, the ONLY election…

    2. Brad Warthen Post author

      By the way, y’all — I might have objected to Scout’s negative mention of people being “pro-life” (or saying they are), but hey, I knew what she meant. She meant what I meant one day exactly 10 years ago this week, one day when I’d had it up to here and beyond with people prattling about being “conservative:”

      As I’ve said from Day One I’m a conservative a true conservative my daddy was a conservative daddy my mama was a conservative mama I’m a bidnessman meet a payroll don’t take bailouts lazy shiftless welfare takers the key is to starve ’em before they reproduce 100 percent rating from conservative conservatives of America my dog is a conservative dog I don’t have a cat because cats are effete I eat conservative I sleep conservative I excrete conservative I got conservative principles a conservative house and conservative clothes take back our government from the socialists even though we don’t really want it because who needs government anyway they don’t have government in Somalia and they’re doing alright aren’t they National Rifle Association Charlton Heston is my president and Ronald Reagan is my God I will have no gods before him I go Arizona-style all the way that’s the way I roll I will keep their cold dead government hands off your Medicare so help me Ronald Reagan…

      Back then, of course, the standard was Reagan. Who knew that someday I’d find myself in a universe in which those were the good old days. (And now the reference to Arizona may fall flat — it was about this.)

      Anyway, I seldom object to anything Scout says. She generally makes a great deal of sense…

      1. Brad Warthen Post author

        Oh, by the way. The reason I was thinking about that old thing I wrote, and in connection with Scout’s comment, was that I went and checked out Joe Wilson’s primary opponent. His website starts out introducing him this way:

        I’m a pro-life, pro-2nd amendment, conservative republican….

        After that he says a lot of relevant things that are interesting to know about him — such as being mayor Springdale, and talking about how he believes folks like Joe haven’t been serving communities such as his the way they should.

        But he feels the need to start out with the stuff that essentially comes across as: Hey, don’t worry! I’m a regular white guy who is likely to have voted for Trump! So you don’t have to hate me, and you might want to listen to other things I have to say!

  2. Brad Warthen Post author

    Dang. Did y’all see where the sheriff said Boogaloo was involved in starting trouble at the protests?

    That’s bad. Sorry to see that. We don’t need those troublemakers.

    Of course, it could be worse. At least he didn’t say Shing-a-ling …

    1. Brad Warthen Post author

      Sorry. Stupid Boomer humor.

      I stopped myself before mentioning the Skate and the Monkey.

      Seriously, it’s not good if those folks were involved. But it was a new term to me, and therefore prompted the idiotic response…

        1. Bob Amundson

          I hope you have a chance to listen to some new post-punk music by the group “Bunker B**ch.” They perform two great songs: “OK Boomer” and “Boomer Remover.”

            1. Bob Amundson

              Being ex-military, I carefully express my opinions. I was so very junior to the many military leaders that have voiced “concerns” about POTUS, but the “chain of command” with POTUS at top is a tough nut to crack. I won’t get into details about when to disobey direct orders (you remember your Dad speaking of the “UCMJ”), but it is purposefully a very high bar. I still say POTUS; I’m interested in how Captain Warthen addresses “HIM.”

  3. Barry

    Lindsey’s getting his hair colored so he can look like trump is even dumber than Trump himself.

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