Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Come on, man.

T R E 4 5 O N

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Infrastructure week. at last.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

I was promised a recession.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

After roe, women are no longer free.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Eh, that’s media spin. biden’s health is fine and he’s doing a good job.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

I did not have telepathic declassification on my 2022 bingo card.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

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Open Thread

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Harry Reid was in a car accident in Nevada a short while ago.  He walked into the Emergency Room at the nearest hospital under his own power.

538 Blog has 73.1% to re-elect. (corrected)

Also, the Rmoney campaign has produced the world’s worst photoshop job in a sad attempt to make it look like more people are supporting him than there really are in Nevada.

Open Thread.  We’re about to start the weekend.  Lots of SWTOR for me.

Reader Interactions

108Comments

  1. 1.

    Hal

    I cannot wait for this election to be over. I feel like this campaign has been ongoing since Aug of 2007. Nov 6th is going to be a hoot. I have an exam at 7:00am the next morning, so I may not sleep at all.

  2. 2.

    dmsilev

    538 Blog has 70.2% to re-elect.

    ?

    73.!% on the forecast, 75.9% in the NowCast. Hasn’t been updated with today’s polls yet though.

  6. 6.

    dmsilev

    And apparently Romney’s big speech today had this inspirational line:

    And those things will determine the most important and intimate things in our lives, the lives of our homes, our families, our loved ones.”

    The lives of our homes? I guess for a parasite like Romney, that’s accurate, but shouldn’t it technically be ‘the lives of our hosts’ in that case?

  8. 8.

    JenJen

    @dmsilev: Yes but Mark Halperin tweeted that it was a good speech and that the Romney campaign plane is buzzing with confidence.

    Also too, Unskew The Polls is so 2000 and late. The kool kidz are now Unskewing The Ohio Early Vote Numbers. Have you heard?

  10. 10.

    owlbear1

    Lots of SWTOR for me.

    Such a beautiful game to look at, too bad I couldn’t afford the 12 hours it took to get it running again after every patch.

  11. 11.

    the Conster

    I’ve had several conversations with white middle aged men about this election over the past few weeks, and they’re feeling old, grumpy and out of touch. This is their last gasp, and they know it. They’re going all in for Romney, and it has nothing to do with policy and they don’t like him, but he’s their tribal leader. It’s pathetic.

  12. 12.

    dmsilev

    @JenJen: Let me guess. When the proper numerical adjustments are made, Mitt Romney is winning the early vote in Ohio by 110%.

  13. 13.

    joeyess

    Jesus.

    Romney’s entire campaign has devolved into such an abyss of lies that I’m afraid it’s going to claim victory on November 6th. Election results be damned.

  15. 15.

    dmsilev

    @joeyess: You know, that would be hilarious on Election Night. Network after network announces that Obama has passed 270 Electoral Votes, and we wait for the traditional concession speech from the loser, and word comes from the Romney camp that they’re waiting for Obama to concede before giving their victory speech.

  20. 20.

    batgirl

    @dmsilev: I think it’s missing something

    And those things will determine the most important and intimate things in our lives, the lives of our homes, our families, our loved ones, our vaginas and our wombs.

    That’s better.

  23. 23.

    Higgs Boson's Mate

    Also, the Rmoney campaign has produced the world’s worst photoshop job in a sad attempt to make it look like more people are supporting him than there really are in Nevada.

    Hard to believe that this is the same party that smoked out supposed irregularities in the kerning of the type in GWB’s Air National Guard paperwork.

  28. 28.

    piratedan

    Romney’s campaign has taken on the odious tactic of the 8 year old kid in the neighborhood that never gets shot while playing Army and never commits a foul on the basketball court…. I really hated that kid.

  31. 31.

    the Conster

    @SatanicPanic:

    They’ve got a white guy, like they are, to vote for. That’s all it is. Regarding women’s’ issues or Medicare or anything else – one guy said yeah, those things are important, but he doesn’t “trust” Obama. So he’s voting for Mitt? What else can it be, other than race?

  33. 33.

    taylormattd

    Are you still liking SWTOR?

    I’ll be honest, I didn’t even finish leveling my Jedi Consular, but I’m considering starting playing again.

    Although all of the fucking dailies is MoP are taking up my time. Ugh.

  34. 34.

    handy

    Actually that Romney crowd photo looks somebody used an iPhone cam in panorama mode and got some bad stitching.

  38. 38.

    Democrat Partisan Asshole

    Obvious photoshop is obvious.

    Hey, I get it. When you’re desperate and losing, you’ll do anything.

  40. 40.

    scav

    @handy: Even if charitably accepted as true, they went with, chose and released a visibly inferior product. Makes you think, no?

  42. 42.

    taylormattd

    @j: LMAO.

    Hey, I’m proud to be in Washington State, one of only a tiny handful of states that will vote for Obama. LOL.

  43. 43.

    Someguy

    I’m surprised Silver only has it at a 73% chance of an Obama win. I’d have expected more like 90% given the healthy leads in Ohio, Virgina, Florida and Wisconsin, never mind PA which the Republicans always think is going to go R, but never quite does.

  44. 44.

    General Stuck

    Crazy wingnuts. Now they wanted “Barry” to deploy C 130 Spectre gunships to have saved the day in Benghazi. Mini guns and cannon fire. Yea, that’s the ticket for an over run base. Just kill everything and let god sort it out.

    Nice to see Confederate Yankee land on his feet wingnut river city.

  45. 45.

    PsiFighter37

    @j: I want some of the rubbing alcohol this Dean Chambers is drinking. Apparently it’s slow-acting enough not to kill you right away but good enough to bend the rules and logic of math.

  47. 47.

    piratedan

    @JenJen: wow, hard to believe that they think that because the Tea Party happened that suddenly another 15% of America suddenly leans Right considering all of the Tea Party faves that crashed and burned in their Senate races, but I guess my reality doesn’t touch very much of theirs.

  48. 48.

    taylormattd

    @handy: If you haven’t started playing it, don’t bother.

    I mean, I’m hooked like a crack addict. And also, a lot of the Pandaria content is beautiful. But the end game (i.e., level 90) content is trash.

    Although they claim it is purely optional, you are expected to farm what ends up being something like a hundred dailes every day, I swear. The grind is out of fucking control.

  50. 50.

    the Conster

    @bemused:

    They think every politician lies, and Mitt’s “just playing the game” he needs to play to win. They don’t think, of course, anything Mitt does as president will affect them, because you know, they’re white guys.

  51. 51.

    jeremy

    The national polls showed Obama being closer in the national vote. And the spread was larger than what gallup and some other reported. The media is hyping conservative polls for the horse race narrative. You want to know who is in command in this race? look at the confidence coming from the Obama campaign people and the president. They are looking at the numbers and they know they are in command. The media is going to look real bad on election day because they are underestimating minority/ democratic support.

  53. 53.

    joes527

    I’ve been reading the forums at Intrade lately. It is fascinating to see how many people think not only that Romney is going to win, but he is a lock, and will be winning big (360+ EVs)

    Reading the forums there is like visiting a parallel universe where everyone has beards.

    The only sense I can make of it is that the crowd that hangs out at an Internet betting site probably skews from the population at large.

  54. 54.

    handy

    @taylormattd:

    Although they claim it is purely optional, you are expected to farm what ends up being something like a hundred dailes every day, I swear. The grind is out of fucking control.

    That’s what I thought made Cata so bad and that’s what I thought they were supposedly going to fix, among other things.

    Yeah I’ll skip. (Not that I have much choice–having a newborn made that one for me).

  55. 55.

    JenJen

    @piratedan: Yes, and they conveniently forget that Governor Kasich here in Ohio had his ass handed to him on a silver platter by voters over his union-busting SB5 initiative just last November, the first time Buckeyes got a chance to vote on something a 2010 Teabagger actually did.

    To me, the SB5 Repeal is what I’m hanging my Ohio Confidence Hat on. The pundits can talk GM Bailout all they want, but SB5 deserves at least as much credit for Obama staying ahead in Ohio, certainly in my part of the state (Cincinnati).

  56. 56.

    burnspbesq

    @Bulworth:

    I’d feel better if I could see a major national poll showing a PBO lead.

    Why? National polls are irrelevant. We don’t have a national election; we have 51 state/DC elections.

  58. 58.

    PsiFighter37

    @taylormattd: I’m disappointed that they focused on the MMORPG instead of doing KOTOR 3. Although KOTOR 2 was a bit sucky (mainly because the plot wasn’t well fleshed-out), KOTOR 1 was teh awesome.

    The only MMO I ever bothered playing Matrix Online, but I quit after I maxed out because I couldn’t be bothered to grind; leading a guild meant dealing with stupid shit, and I was in school. It also became apparent that there was really no good way to go about telling the story, especially once they offed Morpheus for no good reason (spoiler alert? Does anyone care?).

  60. 60.

    greenergood

    ‘the lives of our homes’ – Rmoney has many homes to look after, you know – esp. cause Ann’s all tied up wih the dancing horses, and getting designer outfits lined up for the Inaugural Balls – in fact, Rmoney’s looking after far more homes than children (and look how the kids turned out, wanting to take swings at the ‘bleh’ President, going on Mormon-jaunts instead of invading aka ‘serving in’ Afghanistan, and such-like).

  61. 61.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    @Someguy:

    I’m surprised Silver only has it at a 73% chance of an Obama win.

    Silver’s model has an uncertainty factor, aka an October Surprise probability factor, built into it, which decays to zero as we approach election day. Basically X = while there’s still some time left, something weird could happen to shift the race; less time = less chance for something weird to happen. Expect Nate’s Obama win probability to creep up as the race continues to maintain its current state with nothing really newsworthy happening. That doesn’t mean that swing voters are moving towards Obama, but rather that the clock is running out on Romnmney’s attempt to swing voters to his side.

  62. 62.

    giltay

    I dunno. As someone who’s put together panoramas badly, this looks like a shitty job of stitching more than a shitty job of deliberate fraud.

  67. 67.

    General Stuck

    Teehee, President Snark strikes again.

    President Obama said he’ll do whatever it takes to work with Congress to get a bipartisan deficit and debt reduction deal done in a possible second Obama term.

    “I’ll wash John Boehner’s car, I’ll walk Mitch McConnell’s dog,” Obama said in a Friday interview with radio host Michael Smerconish, referring respective to the House Speaker and Senate minority leader.

  68. 68.

    bemused

    @the Conster:

    Very dim white guys. For all the tearing of hair and screeching about anyone trying to take away their Medicare, they’re quite blase about it now. They can’t be bothered to do even a little research. Deep down, they know they can simply blame Obama/Dems anyway letting them off the personal responsibility hook.

    @piratedan:

    Tea party types writing letters to local papers all think they are in the majority with most people in the district sharing their values, religious bent and politics. How they know this when I’m pretty sure they don’t talk to or associate much with any other groups of people, I have no idea. They are hermetically sealed in their rightwing bubble.

  70. 70.

    Hill Dweller

    @jeremy: It’s ultimately about turnout for our side. If OFA can get all their voters to the polls, Obama will win.

    Gallup went to +5 because they’re now forecasting every demographic, save white men from 50-64, will turnout in lower numbers. That said, even if their likely forecast models are right, I still can’t see Willard coming close to winning the popular vote by 5 points.

  71. 71.

    geg6

    @handy:

    Yeah, that’s what all the wingnuts over at Buzzfeed are saying. Is that really the crowd you want to hang your hat on?

    And you really think the Rmonemoney campaign official photos are taken with a phone camera? Seriously?

  72. 72.

    dmsilev

    Pigs fly, Hell freezes over, and the Chicago Tribune endorses Obama. And really doesn’t like Mitt:

    His proposals to achieve a balanced budget, and to begin reducing taxpayers’ huge debts, rest on questionable math and rosy assumptions.
    __
    He promises tax cuts for all but tells the middle class, don’t worry, you’ll pay less and the rich won’t get a break. How would he achieve that and balance the budget? No one really knows because Romney will not offer a complete prescription for his proposed 20-percent reduction in federal income tax rates. The rate cut would cost $5 trillion. Romney says that revenue would be recovered by reducing deductions and loopholes and through economic growth. Many Americans would like to know now if their mortgage deduction or health insurance deduction would diminish. Romney won’t say.

    re: Obama, they end with this:

    Bolstered by his steadiness in office, cognizant of the vast unfinished business before him, we endorse the re-election of Barack Obama.

  74. 74.

    PsiFighter37

    @General Stuck: I don’t like all this talk of bipartisanship. He should know better by now and be prepared to bring a sledgehammer to any meetings with the GOP.

  75. 75.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    @Michael Bersin:

    OK, so he hates parades and really, really likes St. Louis. And ummm, he ummm, likes to have somebody else to read the articles with. Somebody young and cute so they have better eyesight (dang reading glasses!).

  76. 76.

    YellowJournalism

    My mom got a call from some organization promoting Romney and the Republicans. She told them she would never vote for a man like Romney and would be voting straight Democratic ticket from now on. The person didn’t even have a comeback and just hung up on her.

    She got a call today for me (I still get calls despite not living here for years.), and they wouldn’t admit who they were. When they finally did, she told the woman fat chance and hung up.

  77. 77.

    handy

    @geg6:

    I would say they have a case, nonetheless how are you not tempted to reply with a link to that totes real video of Barack’s birth in Kenya? The responses to that would be priceless.

  78. 78.

    Linda Featheringill

    @the Conster:

    Yeah. Some of the middle aged white males are having a hard time keeping up with the world. It’s my unscientific observation that they’re breaking about 60-40 for Romney. And that’s just the ones who are actually going to vote.

  79. 79.

    kimiko

    Advice wanted!

    I live in MD district 1 (R-Harris). The Dem candidate disqualified herself, but still appears on the ballot. What should I do? Do the write in Dem? Or something else?

    Thanks!

  80. 80.

    Roger Moore

    @joes527:

    The only sense I can make of it is that the crowd that hangs out at an Internet be tting site probably skews from the population at large.

    But it’s apparently only that one site. One of the things that Nate Silver pointed out is that Intrade has very different odds than conventional book makers. It’s as if Intrade has attracted a bunch of Republican partisans who really want to believe that he’s going to win, and that’s skewing the odds. There should be an arbitrage opportunity for somebody to bet on Obama at Intrade and Romney elsewhere.

  84. 84.

    Perfect Tommy

    Homeless Calico in Laurel Maryland.
    I found a young calico living in my garage. She was dirty and thin but otherwise in good health and very friendly. Vet says she is negative for FeLV and not pregnant. She is spending the night at North Laurel Animal Hospital to be spayed and bathed and have some ticks and ear mites removed. I have a high-prey greyhound and cannot bring her into the house. I’ve contacted the no-kills in the area and no one has room. Anybody want a cat? : )
    Tommy (202) 618-1507

  85. 85.

    bemused

    There was a tea party rally in a small NE MN town of about 9,000 people recently with several smaller towns located near by. My spouse heard from a wingnut guy who has a tiny newspaper and attended it. I was a little surprised the wingnut guy volunteered that there were only about 20 people there. I would have thought with at least 30,000 to 40,000 people in a 10 mile radius, they could have gotten more than 20 nuts to come.

  87. 87.

    lol

    @Maude:

    Except for Obamacare (*) and the budget, almost every major piece of legislation Obama signed needed at least a couple Republican votes to pass.

    (*) And that’s only if you don’t count Arlen Specter as a Republican after he switched parties.

  88. 88.

    geg6

    @dmsilev:

    Wow. Isn’t that the GOPer newspaper? That would sorta be like the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review endorsing O. Now that would be when pigs fly.

  89. 89.

    trollhattan

    @kimiko:
    Knowing nothing about your state’s laws, I’d determine who, if anybody, the party has put forward to replace the previous candidate’s and write them in. If nobody, time for darts, I guess.

  90. 90.

    SatanicPanic

    @General Stuck:

    So long as it is mostly talk.

    You know, people get upset about “telling voters what they want to hear” but this is a case of telling the media what they want to hear. And all available evidence suggests the media want to be lied to so no harm done.

  93. 93.

    General Stuck

    @SatanicPanic:

    A lot of it is media and the horserace, kumbaya thing. But is also a swath of voters as well, that aren’t hardened ideologues and are right to expect engagement and compromise. As that is the core essence of democracy.

    The fact that the republicans have decided to not practice that democracy in good faith, is a separate issue from the visible effort. If for no other reason than to go thru the motions, and put the onus on the ones that aren’t playing well with others.

  94. 94.

    Mnemosyne

    @dmsilev:

    Didn’t they endorse Obama in 2008, or did they punt and not endorse anyone?

    Either way, I’m not too surprised that they would endorse the hometown guy, even if he’s not a Republican.

  96. 96.

    Comrade Mary

    @joes527:

    BTW Wang’s meta-margin broke 2% today. :)

    To quote Reagan: “It only hurts for a minute and then it feels just great.”

  98. 98.

    taylormattd

    @handy: It is SO much worse, you can’t imagine. I spent four (4) hours doing dailies one day, and finally thought, holy fuck, what am I doing.

    They lifted the 25 cap on the number of dailies you can complete every day because there are so many. It is TERRIBLE.

  100. 100.

    Rusty

    Harry Reid has an auto accident and is able to simply walk into the hospital? At this point, I think Harry Reid could probably kick Chuck Norris’ ass.

  104. 104.

    Evolving Deep Southerner

    @Raven: Yes. This is an accurate summation of the weekend. 20-25 mph winds with gusts up to 40 mph forecast for Jax. Not ideal for a passing attack. And a kicking game? Advantage, us, because our special teams can’t get worse.

  105. 105.

    Lojasmo

    @Bulworth:

    You’d pivot to “national polls don’t matter, Pensylvania and Florida are too tight”

    How about you simply shut the fuck up.

  107. 107.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @JenJen:

    I managed to get into the article, but had to quit after “human gravy manufacturing plant.”
    Because LULZ.

  108. 108.

    oklahomo

    Now, now, now, any minute we’ll be treated to a Benghazi scale model in a sandbox that will prove, prove I tell you, what exactly we should have done.

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