WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2025
Diagnosis by clowns: It would be hard to exceed the dumbness of what Emily Compagno said.
It's as we noted yesterday. Speaking on a kitsch show on the Fox News Channel, she somehow came up with this:
Fox Co-Host Takes Offense at California Congressman Being From Iowa: ‘Pretends To Be From the Bay Area’
Fox News co-host Emily Compagno criticized Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) as someone who “pretends to be from the Bay Area.”
On Monday’s Outnumbered on Fox News, the hosts discussed Democrats’ opposition to President Donald Trump’s demolition of the East Wing of the White House to make room for a ballroom.
[...]
Compagno, who grew up in the Bay Area, then pivoted to attacking Swalwell’s backstory. The lawmaker was born in Sac City, Iowa, and was raised there and in Dublin, California after his family moved to the Bay Area. He represents the 14th congressional district, which is in Alameda County.
“But for some very small-minded and bitter people who come from, where does he come from? Iowa? And then he moved to Dublin, California, and pretends to be from the Bay Area?” she said.
As we noted yesterday, a younger version of Rep. Swalwell "moved to Dublin, California," with his mother and father, when he was in middle school. The perpetually overwrought Compagno—is she being eyed for the Judge Jeanine chair?—seemed to feel that Swalwell shouldn't be representing that California congressional district on the basis of that checkered past.
It would be quite hard to get dumber than that. Sadly, one day before Compagno's critique, the congressman gave it a try:
Swalwell Calls On 2028 Democratic Nominees To Pledge To Destroy Trump’s ‘Monument To Corruption’ Ballroom
Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) proposed a stiff litmus test for any Democrat who hopes to be elected president in 2028: pledge to destroy Donald Trump’s $300 million ballroom.
Swalwell posted to X on Sunday, “Don’t even think of seeking the Democratic nomination for president unless you pledge to take a wrecking ball to the Trump Ballroom on DAY ONE.”
For the record, the congressman actually did make that proposal!
"Yet this is you," Ezra Pound once wrote. For Blue Americans, the line must be amended:
Yet this is (frequently) us.
We humans! Were we built for this line of work—for running a very large modern nation? Again and again, the answer seems to be no. Just consider how dumb it got on Monday night's Gutfeld! program:
The CEO had sent in the flyweights and clowns, as she does each night. On one of the most-watched programs on our nation's most-watched "cable news" channel, this is the group which was scripting one of our two failing nations:
Gutfeld!: Monday, October 27, 2025
Joe DeVito: comedian
Kat Timpf: comedian
Greg Gutfeld: host
Guy Benson: Fox News Channel contributor
Michele Tafoya: former NFL sideline reporter
The comedians and the former sideline reporter were going to puzzle things out. Before long, Swalwell's peculiar recommendation became the topic, and the program's host said this:
GUTFELD (10/27/25): Didn't Trump want to have this [ballroom] built during Obama's years as a gift or something? It seems like I remember reading that, or maybe I dreamt it. I have really, really vivid dreams.
I keep hammering this, Michele, but it's like this story is a two-step process. You hear it, and then you Google it and you find out it's B.S. All you have to do is go—like what Joe said—all you have to [do is] Google "past renovations" and the story falls apart. But they just assume no one's going to do it.
Translation, within the prevailing context:
If you Google "past renovations," you'll see that President Obama changed the location of the White House putting green. This means that it was perfectly normal when President Trump demolished the East Wing, after saying that he was going to do something totally different.
So goes standard reasoning on the Fox News Channel. The panelists now spent some time alluding to a long-discarded sexual claim once directed at Rep. Swalwell.
The sexual claim in question is now 12 years old. As CBS News (and everyone else) reported, the House Ethics Committee formally cleared Swalwell of any wrongdoing in the matter. But when Suzanne Scott pries the lid off the can, that discarded insinuation and claim still comes slithering out, with some regularity, on the Gutfeld! program.
Quickly, the imitation of a conversation got dumber and worse. At Fox News Digital, a psychotherapist had diagnosed the 5-7 million people who had participated in the "No Kings" protests.
This provided perfect fodder for this program's standard tribal fare:
GUTFELD: No Kings was therapy! So, Kat, a psychotherapist called Jonathan Alpert called the No Kings protest "group therapy in the streets," blending emotional catharsis with activism, which is not surprising when you learn that the typical attendee was an educated white woman in her 40s.
The expert added that a lot of these people are not happy within their personal lives and are projecting their own anxiety and anger onto other.
Does this make sense to you?
Inevitably, Timpf said it did make sense—it did make sense to her. "I'm like, this was just a hang," she thoughtfully said.
Soon, Gutfeld followed with this:
GUTFELD: It's funny, though. Kat says she was home with her kid. That's kind of the issue. A lot of these people don't have family, and this is their family...You have this correlation of a high level of mental illness in that same group.
Even the "expert" in the Fox News Digital piece hadn't said anything about mental illness within this large and pitiful group. By way of contrast, Dr. Gutfeld was able to spot the childlessness and the mental illness all through the 5-7 million people who took part in the No Kings events—and soon, a second doctor was IN.
Soon, a second doctor was IN. Coming in from the sideline and from the cold, Dr. Tafoya said this:
TAFOYA: Even if these [events] weren't destructive, there's so much anger there. That's what I see. I see anger dressed up in inflatable, you know, cow suits. That's a lot of what you saw was in these inflatable animal suits, but with really angry people inside. Now that could eventually get dangerous. I don't know.
I think this whole No Kings branding...It's so stupid and they tried to come off as so intelligent and intellectual and it's just—
GUTFED: Another imaginary problem.
This is the standard messaging offered on this propaganda show every night. The Others—the people in Blue America—are angry, stupid, mentally ill. In these ways, the clowns engaged by the CEO are creating a world in which Red Americans are being told, night after night after night after night, that they are a group (and a nation) apart.
Within the halls of Silo Red, it gets extremely stupid. Inside the halls of Silo Blue, this endless, disordered night assault doesn't get reported and it doesn't get discussed.
Along with its host's undisguised misogyny and his undying focus on human waste, the sheer stupidity of this "cable news" show is its distinguishing characteristic. Can a modern nation survive this kind of profit-centered corporate tribal messaging?
Can a modern nation survive? Tomorrow, a suggestion from two major Blues concerning our own tribe's conduct.
Tomorrow: Psaki speaks with Lis Smith
If you are poor and costing rich people, please hurry up and fucking die already you losers.
ReplyDelete"After the pandemic, inflation has pushed food prices up, making it more difficult to feed families as wages struggle to keep up. As a result, millions more people have been relying on food banks, which served more than 50 million people in 2023, compared to 40 million in 2019.
Now, ramped-up work requirements for SNAP passed under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act are also pushing people out of the program and increasing reliance on food banks. This comes at the same time that those food banks have lost some of their federal funding. Earlier this year, the USDA cut a program that provided over $400 million to help food banks purchase food."
"We humans! Were we built for this line of work—for running a very large modern nation? Again and again, the answer seems to be no. "
DeleteWe humans built this very large modern nation. We ran it fine under Biden. Again, if you look at the issue fairly, the ones who are not able to run it are Trump and the Republicans. Our solution is to get rid of the incompetents and go back to running our very large modern nation the way it was run before, the way it should be run.
That Somerby doesn't see this suggests there is something very wrong with Somerby.
"Our solution is to get rid of the incompetents and go back to running our very large modern nation the way it was run before, the way it should be run."
DeleteWhat Somerby points out, that you don't see, is that we won't be able to go back to running our nation unless we win elections and we won't do that unless we sharpen our game.
National elections are over. Step 6 in the fascist playbook. Game it all you want, these fucks attempted an autogolpe and the dipshits put the fucking fascist America haters back in charge. Dipshits for the win.
Delete@12:13 Sharpening our game doesn't mean attacking those in our own party.
DeleteSwalwell is a major target on our team because of his actions during Trump's impeachment hearing:
"Eric Swalwell was involved in both of Trump's impeachments: as an advocate and questioner during the first impeachment, and as an impeachment manager during the second, where he was appointed by Speaker Nancy Pelosi to present the case to the Senate. He also helped draft subpoenas for the first impeachment, was a vocal proponent of impeachment, and later filed a civil lawsuit against Trump and others for their role in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. "
This is why he is being attacked now by Gutfeld and the right. His willingness to take the fight to Trump and the Republicans is also why he is an important player on the Blue team.
No, we are not going to join Somerby in picking at his judgment. I for one will stand behind him and others who are showing that we can stand up to this threat against our democracy. We don't need an illegal ballroom or an arc (whatever Trump means by that) or a revision of the Lincoln Memorial to include a statue of Trump. We need an effective president and there is not anyone on the right who has shown the courage to be such a person.
As a right winger, Somerby does not want Dems to sharpen their game, he wants them to capitulate to Republicans. Clinton and Obama did do this - capitulate to Republicans, as a strategy - to a great extent and it was a complete failure, enabling lunatics like Trump to come to the fore.
Delete"We humans! Were we built for this line of work—for running a very large modern nation? Again and again, the answer seems to be no. Just consider how dumb it got on Monday night's Gutfeld! program"
ReplyDeleteNo one is proposing that Gutfeld should be running our very large modern nation.
""Yet this is you," Ezra Pound once wrote. For Blue Americans, the line must be amended:
ReplyDeleteYet this is (frequently) us."
For the record, Somerby is not one of the Blue Americans, not one of us. He proves that every day when he writes this blog and says ridiculous things that no Blue American would say.
It makes no sense to use Gutfeld or similar nonsense as an example of why we Blue Americans are ill-equipped to run the nation, when Gutfeld is not running it either and no one is suggesting he should be. Further, by all measures, Swalwell has done an excellent job in Congress and it is the Red Americans, the Republicans, who have fucked things up. Yet Somerby ignores their contribution to our current, especially the Republican surrender to Trump and his cronies, criminals and incompetents who have deliberately destroyed our nation. As usual, Somerby focuses on the wrong things and blames the wrong people for the undeniable mess we are in. I would never elect or encourage Somerby to run any part of our large modern nation. He appears to be unable to even identify the problems we are facing. Then he judges others by his own incompetence and claims none of us is capable of running our country, despite the evidence that it was very well run during Biden's term.
We know how to get the country back on track. Elect another Biden and let the Democrats back into the White House. That will fix everything Trump has destroyed.
Swalwell's call to tear down the ballroom is symbolic, not just literal. It means get rid of Trump and his greed and remake America as a country that cares about its people. Ballrooms are for wealthy people in fancy clothes. We the People need healthcare and jobs and food stamps, not a place to dance and ignore the needy. Of course we will get rid of the Epstein ballroom and Trump. We are building strength and it is inevitable.
ReplyDeleteWhen Somerby mocks Swalwell, he shows where his own sympathies lie. He is not Blue American any more than Trump's other willing executioners are.
We must only criticize the others.
DeleteWe must only criticize the others.
We must only criticize the others.
We must only criticize the others.
Yes, master.
If we want to achieve our goals, criticizing the others instead of ourselves is a much better plan. Somerby criticized Harris and she lost (perhaps because he wasn't the only one doing it from the left). Dems are known for their circular firing squads. I agree with Swalwell and not Somerby (who is other, not us).
DeleteBut look how hard the right is trying to convince us to abandon our protests against them and focus instead on eating our own children.
@12:02 thinks that if he (she, it) accuses us of conformity (obedience to a master) that we will knee-jerk resist and start criticizing each other instead of them (the others). Talk about childish nonsense!
SNAP benefits are being threatened and peope will go hungry, but we must not be too conformist so let's ignore that and attack Swalwell so no one thinks we are subservient to a master. That's the ticket!
Okie-dokie. Have fun under President Vance.
DeleteSomerby sucks hard on the Medicare teat. He is now just another old fuck Republican saying I got mine, fuck you.
DeleteIt is so cute you all think we're still a democratic republic and we will have free and fair elections. Adorable.
DeleteThe way to not have free and fair elections is to give up. Sounds like you've done that.
Delete12:37, do you know who is running the DOJ, the FBI, DHS, the Pentagon, the Supreme Court? What is Tom "bags of cash" Homan in charge of.
DeleteI went to watch a soccer game in D.C. a few weeks ago and walked into a group of N.G. sporting automatic assault rifles for some strange reason.
I fell asleep with the TV on the other night and woke up at around 4 am to see some crazy man on the TV giving a speech to a group of assembled Marines. And this crazy man was talking about electric power vs steam power and insisted he was going to sign a new EO to mandate only steam power will be used. He then went on to force the Marines to decide if they prefer magnets or hydraulics and he made sure they understood that the only correct answer would be hydraulics.
This Mad King just recently tore down the entire East Wing of the WH and told the country to go fuck themselves.
He is demanding the DOJ pay him $230 million and for all we know they may have already wrote check.
He is now selling red hats with the year 2028.
We have very little free press anymore. Sec of War has kicked all established media out of the Pentagon.
What the hell are you smoking, I would like to have some.
I’m angry, stupid, mentally ill. I love President Trump!
ReplyDeleteAnd he loves you back. Now go send him money.
DeleteDavid and Cecelia don’t molest children, and they don’t defend President Trump’s poop video.
ReplyDeleteWe don't know for sure what David and Cecelia do or do not do with children. We can tell they don't defend the poop video because of what they say or don't say about it here. We have no knowledge about what they do when they are not writing things here.
DeleteWhen I’m not here, I’m avoiding sunlight in my coffin.
DeleteShouldn't you be there now? Or is it still night in Eastern Europe on your troll farm?
DeleteLook behind you.
DeleteI don't live in Eastern Europe. I know what time of day it is. You think you're being cute, and it is Halloween almost, but why don't you go back to sleep now. We are talking about intra-Blue America matters that don't concern you. Somerby wants us all to undermine Swalwell so that he won't be effective at rallying us Blues, and that has nothing to do with you.
DeleteWe already know you are a sick creeper Ceceliac.
DeleteAnonymices are truly angry. They are here every day because they hate TDH and every sentence Somerby writes. They hate Democratic commenters who are more reasonable/rational in their thinking. They can’t just read the blog and take what they can from it. They get angrier, more malign, and unhappier every year. No one is to blame for that, but you.
DeleteYou left yourself out of that list. Modesty?
DeleteAnonymouse 12:36pm, veracity.
DeleteGroup therapy, anxiety, unhappiness with the state of our society, these are not signs of mental illness. They are the things sane people do to deal with real problems posed by Trump. So is the protest itself. Dismissing this as mental illness may make Republicans feel better but it is another lie.
ReplyDeleteIf Republicans are saying that because the protest is a sign that something is wrong in America, the people expressing their discontent must be mentally ill, they are mistaking the unrest for personal problems instead of problems that the government and its leaders must pay attention to and recognize as a signal that they are not functioning properly on behalf of the citizenry whose well-being must be their concern or they will not be reelected.
Anger is a natural reaction to being hurt. The Trump administration is hurting us and our nation. It is normal to feel angry about that. Anger motivates change. That is the purpose of the emotion. It is not emotionally healthy to feel no anger when being harmed and when change is needed.
ReplyDeleteThe function of emotion is to inform us of where we stand in relation to our environment, our survival and important goals. When threatened, it is normal to experience negative emotions like fear and anger.
Gutfeld's show is, of course, propaganda. Trying to convince people that they would be mentally ill to oppose Trump should be obvious propaganda aimed at deterring protests. It shows we are on the right track with our cow suits and public protests. Note that Tafoya acknowledged that the protests are peaceful. Anger need not motivate destruction but can build a movement toward peaceful change. But change is the point -- Trump is threatening us with harm and it is right that we oppose that.
gutfeld is indeed propoganda. and he is annoyingly smug and self-righteous. I love when people on fox call other people angry. gutfeld, inghram, guys like carlson and hannity and bill o'reilly...all of them angry all the time. It's the rights' MO for a long time, they poke and poke and poke, and then when you react, they say "why are you so nasty? why are you so angry".
Delete"Can a modern nation survive this kind of profit-centered corporate tribal messaging?"
ReplyDeleteYes, if we continue our peaceful protests. Such protests have overthrown authoritarian regimes before. It is how the people fight back against a tyrant. That Gutfeld has chosen to ridicule the 7 million+ people who protested is a good sign, a sign that the protests are having an effect.
Using mental illness as name-calling is what Somerby has been doing here for a long time. When Gutfeld does it too, it is easier to see how empty and stupid that approach is as a protest against actual wrongdoing by Trump. Trump is a criminal.
We in Blue America who protest against Trump's excesses are neither mentally ill nor criminals ourselves (because our protests are peaceful first amendment expressions of free speech. So is Gutfeld's show. We believe we are right and Gutfeld is wrong and we defend truth and democracy, not the right of mentally ill people to congregate. Gutfeld misses the point with that, but so does Somerby. Somerby should be encouraging our right to speak truth to power, not our right to sit in a circle, sing kumbaya and "discuss" what Gutfeld does every night. Gutfeld is irrelevant. Our protest is not.
Let's not act like Gutfeld is irrelevant. he is the highest watched late-night show with about 3.2M viewers. I personally detest the man, he's crude and childish to put it lightly, but he does reach a lot of people with his bs. The one thing i have noticed about democrats and the left in the past several years is this tendency to underestimate. Love or hate Somerby, he is right to call out Gutfeld and fox and the 5...
DeleteFuck you you dumb tool.
Delete12:08 nailed it. 12:14, dry decaf.
DeleteYou can be irrelevant and popular. Look at sitcoms for examples.
DeleteSomerby isn't calling out Gutfeld. He is calling out Swalwell and blaming it on Gutfeld, using Gutfeld's words as proxy for his own (for plausible deniability). If Somerby supported Swalwell, he would have said so instead of saying he has "imperfect judgment" (whatever that means).
If we Blue Americans spend a lot of time dissecting the imperfections of our own leaders, we won't have as much time to be a nuisance to Trump. And the right can say "look, even you blues admit that your own leaders are crap" instead of reacting to our legitimate concerns (such as that SNAP and ACA subsidies are going away for millions of people).
DeleteSomerby is aiding and abetting the distraction by Gutfeld. We Blues are right not to watch or discuss or care about Gutfeld. He isn't there for our benefit. We need to be watching and discussing people like Colbert and our real blue media (Hartmann, Pakman, Meida Touch, Heather Cox Richardson, Joyce Vance, Robert Reich). These are the people telling us the truth and supporting our interests. We should trust them, not an asshole like Somerby who works hand-in-hand with Gutman to reduce Swalwell's effect on us Blue Americans.
Yes, master.
DeleteAgreeing with what someone else has said doesn't make them your master. That is the way a 12 year old thinks. Or a stupid annoying troll.
DeleteAnonymouse 12:34pm, that comment is one that should be quoted back to you every day.
DeleteWar is Peace. Ignorance is Strength
ReplyDelete"Two federal prosecutors have been placed on administrative leave just hours after describing the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol as perpetrated by “thousands of people comprising a mob of rioters,” according to two people familiar with the move..."
But don't you dare say King Orange Chickenshit is a fascist.
DeleteAt least not without an Elon Musk Nazi salute.
Delete"Fascist!" We remember the horror when Nazis placed two Jews on administrative leave.
DeleteIt takes a fascist to know one fascist David.
DeleteYou're such a good little Jew Nazi, David.
DeleteTo think that fascism consists solely of the Holocaust is to show historical ignorance.
DeleteHitler didn't start up the ovens in 1933. Assholes like DiC think you can't be a fascist until you start burning Jews. It didn't start that way in Germany.
DeleteFascism-- A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, a capitalist economy subject to stringent governmental controls, violent suppression of the opposition, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism.
DeleteThe US has some characteristics of fascism. It's capitalist. Businesses are subject to stringent governmental controls. It's nationalist, though not particularly belligerently so.
But, the US is nothing like fascist on other key characteristics. It is not a dictatorship. It's not centrally controlled. Democrats are not violently suppressed. Policy in not racist. In fact, Trump has made the country less racist.
One consequence of pretending that the US is fascistic is to overlook areas that are truly fascistic. Hamas's rule of Gaza is a prime example.
DeleteThe sun on the meadow is summery warm.
DeleteThe stag in the forest runs free.
But gather together to greet the storm.
Tomorrow belongs to me.
The branch of the linden is leafy and Green,
The Rhine gives its gold to the sea.
But somewhere a glory awaits unseen.
Tomorrow belongs to me.
Now Fatherland, Fatherland, show us the sign
Your children have waited to see
The morning will come
When the world is mine
Tomorrow belongs to me
Tomorrow belongs to me
Tomorrow belongs to me
Tomorrow belongs to me
You don't excuse America's fascism by pointing to more fascistic people and places.
DeleteOf course, this is not a Nazi song. Its a song from the musical show "Cabaret" written by Americans John Kander and Fred Ebb. It reminds me of the (possibly apocryphal) story about the Austrian man who was asked if he was familiar with the song "Edelweiss" from the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, "The Sound of Music." He responded, "Yes, but of course I first learned it in the original German."
DeleteICE is fascistic and it is attacking citizens and bystanders, even elected officials, not just immigrants. When 70 year olds are being treated with violence by ICE/DHS/CBP simply for being around, that is fascist. Arguing about how badly fascist makes no sense when we are not supposed to be any kind of fascist.
Delete"Ballroom oversight update: The White House fired the entire Commission of Fine Arts, an independent federal panel established by Congress that is responsible for advising the federal government and the city of Washington, D.C., on construction projects.
ReplyDeleteThat includes expected reviews of Trump’s ballroom and the massive arch he has planned for Washington’s Memorial Bridge. “We are preparing to appoint a new slate of members to the commission that are more aligned with President Trump’s America First Policies,” a White House official"
Totally not fucking asshole fascists like Fascist David in Cal.
This is why I no longer donate to the NAACP
ReplyDeletehttps://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2025/10/28/they-wont-admit-it-but-the-naacp-pretty-much-endorsed-spanberger-n2665582
why wouldn't they endorse her, have you seen the lunatic running on the Republican ticket?
DeleteThat is wonderful!
DeleteDavid, this isn't why you no longer donate to the NAACP.
DeleteIndeed it is, @1:22. I was a member of the NAACP for many decades. But, they are now essentially an arm of the Democratic Party, so I don't donate. In fact, they are not really a pro-black organization any more. They simply support Dem candidates and liberal policies, even those liberal policies that are bad for blacks.
Delete