In last night’s post on Cuomo, I said that polls in New York open at today noon. This is true out in the boonies, but, as commenter BBA pointed out:
[V]oting hours for primaries are 6 AM to 9 PM in NYC and its suburbs (Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester, Rockland, Orange, Putnam) as well as Erie County (Buffalo), noon to 9 PM in the rest of the state.
I wanted to make sure we got that in since we know you dirty hippies want to vote for Teachout early and often.
With that out of the way, here’s a top-of-the-morning open thread with a little good news. Pat Roberts is losing in Kansas, which puts Sam Wang’s model at 83% probability that Democrats will keep the Senate.
Mustang Bobby
David Letterman skewered Chuck Todd’s Syria fixation last night.
That’s gotta be a record: one day on the job and already a late-night comic joke.
Betty Cracker
Re: the Kansas race, is there any chance the Democrats can get Secretary of Voter Suppression Kobach’s decision to keep Taylor’s name on the ballot overturned? Sounds like Orman would win handily if they could.
There’s a baseline of voter stupidity that’s just so hard to overcome, and so often fortunes turn on it. I don’t mean Republicans, which form the bedrock of voter stupid. I mean the people who mean well and actually show up to vote but then do something stupid, such as the people in Kansas who will cluelessly vote for Taylor and the folks in FL in 2000 who accidentally voted for Pat Buchanan or deliberately voted for Nader (me!), etc., etc.
In addition to doing what we can to turn out Democrats who would not otherwise show up to vote in the midterms (and I’ve already persuaded two such voters in Florida and am working on a third), those of us in states where there’s a likelihood that the margin of stupid will prevail must resist that outcome as well.
Mustang Bobby
@Betty Cracker: Kris Kobach is Katherine Harris (Florida Secretary of State in 2000 and proto-Palin) without the charm.
JPL
@Mustang Bobby: Thanks for the link because it’s fun to laugh in the morning.
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker: If I have it right, Taylor will be filing a suit against Kobach to have his name removed from the ballot on the grounds that Kobach is using a hyper literal reading of the law to negate it’s plain intent.
Valdivia
@Mustang Bobby:
thank you for that link.Made my morning over coffee. Boy does Todd look like a smug bastard asking that question.
Randy P
Thanks for that. I’ve been getting depressed at the stories that Democrats are running away from Obama and any Democratic accomplishments and once again trying to pretend not to be Democrats. That worked so well in 2010.
Baud
@Mustang Bobby:
If Chuck Todd hadn’t fucked up his debut, I would have had to question everything I believed about the media.
Valdivia
@Betty Cracker:
Kobach is also the guy who invented the term self-deport and created the local laws that would cause immigrants to leave. There’s a This American Life from 2012 where they interview him. Scary.
Valdivia
From The New Yorker, excellent piece this week of the 9/11 anniversary about the Saudi connection. Very much worth the read.
danielx
@Mustang Bobby:
I’ve got a neighbor who I’ve described as being like Dick Cheney without the charm.
Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]
@Valdivia:
Interesting. I know the connection has been pointed out in the past but it never caught on. Actually I should say the public never caught on I guess. Maybe, now that it is more than a decade too late America will wake up to the power behind the forces that led to 9/11.
Of course the wind has already been sown and there is a bumper crop of whirlwind to be reaped. Where the fertilizer came from is pretty much a moot point now.
JPL
@Valdivia: Todd is a smug bastard.
kindness
Vote for Wu as many times as you can too. Cuomo will probably win but saddling him with Wu will be just deserts.
Iowa Old Lady
@Mustang Bobby: That Letterman link is great. Thank you.
Also, Zephyr Teachout’s very name screams out to us dirty hippies. If I lived in NY, I’d vote for her.
Valdivia
@Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]:
according to this piece it was by design that people didn’t talk about it when the report came out as the details about the Saudi connected were classified. It is true we’ve already reaped the consequences but maybe a lesson to be had regarding places like Qatar.
@JPL: And also not bright or insightful which makes it worse.
Another Holocene Human
Any union people will know what this means: I’m a nervous wreck with my first grievance arbitration coming up today. I probably won’t even have to testify, as my bigshot guy from the international is running things. *crosses fingers*
Another Holocene Human
@Mustang Bobby: I noticed how Letterman damned David Gregory–first says Tim Russert was tremendous, then says of David Gregory only that he had the show….
Another Holocene Human
@OzarkHillbilly:
Have you noticed this is the right wing’s favorite game now, to get statutes and regulations and parse the fuck out of words and pretend they don’t know what common words and phrases mean so they twist them around like a Lewis Carroll character to fit their needs at the moment?
It’s completely maddening because you’re basically being gaslighted.
gogol's wife
@Mustang Bobby:
That was great! I miss Letterman (can’t stay up that late and don’t know how to record things and don’t have time anyway).
Another Holocene Human
@Valdivia:
Backpfeifengesicht.
Obama doesn’t have the room to be an asshole like GWB was to reporters (thinking off that horrid video of him and an Irish reporter) because a) Democrat and b) you know why. Which has lulled stupider GOP water carriers into this sense of smug superiority vis a vis the POTUS but you know what, smugface? It just makes those of us Obots with long memories hate you all the more.
Sometimes people tell you or show you exactly what they are.
gogol's wife
@Baud:
Oh, but Alessandra Stanley’s commentary in the NYTimes said that it’s just perfect that he wasn’t a perfect host (she was talking about his grooming, not his stupid questions). She approved of him for standing up to the President. As if being disrespectful to the President were something rare and brave.
Keith G
Fuck the concern caused by ISIL (or the reported lack thereof). To hell with Slavic civil wars.
The real tragic example of American policy gone horribly astray is that “Tighter FDA restrictions are keeping some classic French cheeses (Roquefort, Morbier, Tomme de Savoie) out of the US and even some American cheese makers are halting production of their cheeses….”
On all seriousness, this is the type crap pulled by liberal governance that makes libertarians seem like the sane ones.
Valdivia
@gogol’s wife:
The vapidity of the optics frame to judge governance at its worse.
@Another Holocene Human: absolutely. I see today that according to a new WaPo poll Obama’s presidency is a failure, even 29% or liberals and 25% of dems think that! Of course given how much the media say that every day. Just shoot me now.
Another Holocene Human
@Valdivia:
Wasn’t it as obvious as the nose on your face, though? I mean the Bin Ladens were a prominent Saudi family, OBL kept going on at length about how US base in Saudi Arabia (where Gulf War was staged) was defiling the holy kingdom, most of the hijackers were Saudi. I mean, come on. Bush family has ties to House of Saud and the Bin Laden family, hustles other Bin Ladens out of the country so FBI can’t even question them (to be fair, wonder what diff that would have made given FBI’s track record with major crimes–thinking of Whitey Bulger and his “handler” or their bumbling investigation into the Tsarnaev brothers when they accidentally-on-purpose executed a key witness/suspect).
This is the kind of shit conspiracy theories are made of. It should be no surprise that the conspiracy theories were swirling. The truth is that the Bushes consider themselves global elites, equals to the Saudi princelings, in a class defined by having more money than God. Who gives a fuck what the peasants think? The whole thing was a useful moment for the American right wing, the defense contractors, the neo-cons, and Bush II’s Iraq ambitions, so why not use it? Bush literally invaded Afghanistan as domestic theater while he and his admin executed their real agenda. It’s one hell of a trail of blood and a deep disregard both for American and Afghan and Iraqi lives.
Mustang Bobby
@Another Holocene Human: Yes, and they’re the first to get their tails all puffed up because of “activist judges interpreting the law as they think it should be.” Argh.
Baud
@Another Holocene Human:
Why you hate Valdivia? She’s really nice.
JPL
@Another Holocene Human: The right uses the constitution, the same way.
The section on cruel and unusual, is ignored.
Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]
@Another Holocene Human:
I caught that & wondered a) how much of a fool or a liar is Letterman to call Timmeh’s work “tremendous”? and b) how sad was Dancin Dave to not even get that?
@Valdivia:
We are not even half done with the harvest yet. The mess that is ISI[I/L] would not be running wild if Iraq still was in place. As for learning lessons? Have you met the American people? I am not convinced we are capable of learning lessons, at least not correct one.
Another Holocene Human
Of course I’m not saying that Bush orchestrated 9/11-that’s absurd. But I can see why some people do believe it. Not only do he and his admin come off as massively bumbling and stupid, but it shows how little he cares about 3000 slaughtered in New York that there are absolutely no consequences for our Saudi “allies” who at the very least had the infrastructure for this thing hiding in plain sight in their midst. Bush deliberately shielded SA from any scrutiny, diverted attention to Yemen because it’s just Yemen, fuck those guys, right?
You and I both know that’s not normal but again we’re talking about the guy who mocked Karla Faye Tucker as she was led to her execution. Karla Faye Tucker was a bad person who did bad things. She asked to be commuted to life so she could work with other prisoners inside the women’s prison. She said she had found the lard, you know, whatever, but it says volumes about Bush that his reaction is that it’s all an act and her plea for clemency is actually hilar-lar. Because sorry white trash or something. Bush is contemptible.
Hill Dweller
@Valdivia:
Why even ask that question in a poll? It’s obviously untrue.
Valdivia
@Baud: oh now I’m totally blushing. :D
@Another Holocene Human: that’s exactly what the redacted pages detail. And you’re right that releasing them would have prevented all the conspiracies but cost the Bushes a lot.
Keith G
@Another Holocene Human:
Actually, he does.
The people who would react negatively (either for real or for show) are the same ones who are shitting on him now. Meanwhile, none the folks at the other extreme would’nt change either. As far as the folks in the middle, toughness tends to do better than mellowness. An aggressively asserted wrong idea gets a better initial hearing than a quietly stated correct idea (See Ronald Reagan) So, Obama would have noting to lose and actually might see some gain in notching up the assertiveness dial.
The troubling state of affairs is that the standard Obama M.O. re the Press can be very effective, but when it isn’t, his team doesn’t seem that good at switching gears and trying new things.
Nicole
Voted! So happy NYC polls open early. Though I did that annoying hipster thing and brought my kid. Apparently it’s a trend here in the city- hey, total strangers, look what a civically engaged parent I am! In my case it’s just that the husband was still asleep, the kid was not, and my polling place is, conveniently, right across the street from my home. I may have had to bribe with a trip to Dunkin Donuts afterward. ;)
Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]
@Keith G:
There is a difference between America & France that makes the issue much more complex.
Here in Minnesota some libertarian fuck poisoned some people with his raw milk. He was ordered by the sate to quit selling milk from his diseased cattle but of course as a libertarian fuck that was not going to stop him. Now there are a couple of dead kids and he still maintains he did nothing wrong.
Eggs are another good example. In Europe they do not refrigerate eggs. They don’t have to because the laws force farmers to keep their hens clean. Since we don’t do that in the US eggs are washed with harsh chemicals that damage the shells & we have to keep them cold to retard spoilage.
So yeah, lets have even less regulation, I’m sure that these things will work themselves out & the market will protect us.
Baud
@Hill Dweller:
It’s also skewed. Even with purity trolls, I don’t see how a greater percentage of liberals than Democrats think the Obama presidency has been a failure.
I’d also like to see how the question was posed.
Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]
@Keith G:
I don’t think he does. I think he has to defend against “the angry black man” thing. Naturally the goopers would point & fling their poo same as now but its that ignorant bunch, the ones alluded to in the Kansas ballot deal that would turn on him. They are weak and wishy-washy as it is but sadly they are legion and their dream world has to remain intact for success. Thats why we get “Best healthcare in the world” “City on the hill” and related BS; not because it’s true but because it works with that crowd.
Hill Dweller
@Baud: Why even ask the question in the first place? The Obama presidency is not, and never will be, a failure. Even the imbeciles at WaPo understand that. It feels like they just wanted to push a narrative.
Anya
@Mustang Bobby: If he was not their colleague both Lawrence O and Rachel Maddow would’ve shown that clip and mocked Chuck Todd mercilessly.
OzarkHillbilly
@Another Holocene Human: Sit back, relax, and enjoy the show, your man might be a mean dirty low down sumb!tch, but he is YOUR mean dirty low down sumb!tch.
@Another Holocene Human: Only when it furthers their goals.
debbie
@Keith G:
Even if he tried to be an asshole, he couldn’t equal the asshole-ism of Brian Kilmeade:
http://thinkprogress.org/sports/2014/09/08/3564605/fox-mocks-ray-rice-victim/
Baud
@Hill Dweller:
Oh, definitely. It’s also idiotic to ask the question while the presidency is still ongoing. I think they ask the question because that’s what Village media thinks will get them clicks.
Another Holocene Human
@Baud: Hate Chuck Todd.
aimai
@Keith G: Oh for fuck’s sake–don’t believe everything you read and this has nothing to do with “liberal” government. Companies don’t have to change their method of production to be exporting spoiled or contaminated products. The entire news squib is full of non sequiteurs like that. Thank goodness the government is not run by libertarian assholes or corporations and stores could import and sell as much toxic or poisoned product as they want without let or hindrance.
Valdivia
@Baud: @Hill Dweller: totally agree. The fact they’re even asking the question tells you all you need to know about our Village idiots. I just can’t.
Keith G
@Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]: Yeah there are folks who swear my raw milk. As a farm kid, I (on a very few occasions) drank milk that was very recently “collected”. And later, since we lived not that far from an Amish enclave, bought containers of raw milk for consumption. It was great on cereal and in coffee. In both cases, these wore small batch farmers whose history and process were well known to us. Now as an older person with an immune response issue, I am more cautious.
What is needed is complete labeling and consumer education. That said, the new FDA rules WRT the cheese production seem nonsensical.
Another Holocene Human
@Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]: It turns out that most of the disease eggs in the US that ended homemade mayonnaise and egg creams and so on was one guy. One fucking guy. Who went from Maine, to Maryland, to now Iowa evading state regulatory authorities. On whose behalf people like Steve King are trying to get the USDA off his back.
US is perfectly capable of doing food safety. You don’t get tapeworms eating US meat. USDA pork supply is probably safest in the world.
As for raw milk, according to inspectors in states where selling that shit is legal, there is no such thing as a clean operation. Cows are dirty and you can go one month and no bac, come back and it’s full of the killer stuff that comes out of cattle colons.
Traditional society didn’t really eat a lot of raw milk. They processed milk into something else using a colony of good bac that has its own way to launch germ warfare and kill off the nasty stuff. Any society eating raw milk, as some do, runs the risk of killing children because their guts can’t take the onslaught and their little bodies quickly dehydrate and they die.
Even the Francophone world is going through a freakout and banning raw cheeses because of little children dying … but food snobs must have this elusive taste that pasteurization must not touch … sick.
OzarkHillbilly
@Keith G: Can’t disagree more Keith. Latent racism is so deeply ingrained in far too many white Americans they don’t even know it is there (and strongly deny the possibility it might even exist at every opportunity) and would trump all else in their minds, especially common sense, and Obama would become just another “uppity ni**er”.
Baud
Soon to be cited in a Scalia opinion upholding state voter ID laws.
gene108
@Randy P:
From what I’ve seen Democrats have embraced the PPACA, aka Obamacare, even if they do not specifically mention it. No one, who voted for it, is running away from their vote in support of it.
They may not say, “PPACA” or “Obamacare” specifically, but they do stand up for removing pre-existing conditions as a reason to be denied healthcare and other parts of the bill.
Despite how hard Republicans have worked to demonize the law, Democrats are not running away from it and are using it as a cudgel against Republicans, who want to repeal it and return America to the “bad old days”, when a pre-existing condition meant you could not get insurance.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
The approved code word is “unpresidential.”
Keith G
@aimai:
My, that is quite a hill of hysteria there. I somehow missed the graph explaining how stores were aching to poison their customers. Is anyone hereabouts arguing for no regulations?
Hmmm …aimai vs others:
moonbat
mistermix, I think you just made my day. Dog bless Sam Wang too.
OzarkHillbilly
@Keith G: @Another Holocene Human:
My wife asked me if I wanted her to bring anything back Spain.
“Cheese.” was all I said.
She then asked if there was anything else I wanted her to bring back.
“More cheese.” was my reply.
We are now at 36 hours and 31 mins till Happy Cheese.
Cervantes
@Keith G:
Here’s a letter the FDA sent to the aforementioned cheese importers.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Otherwise known as “Presidenting while Black.”
Belafon
@Betty Cracker: I watched that documentary about the cave drawings you recommended the other day. It was really good except for the artsy/melodramatic part about a third of the way through.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Keith G: Raw milk can kill people. If cheese made from raw milk can’t meet the standards, then they should pasteurize the milk they use.
This isn’t hard, and it isn’t liberalism run amok. It’s sensible public health and safety policy.
HTH.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
MomSense
@Mustang Bobby:
HA! Thank FSM for David Letterman. His “great moments in presidential speeches” kept me at least somewhat sane when C+Augustus was burning down the world.
Keith G
@Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]: There seems to be a fallacy of bifurcation at work. I do think he has more options. I am not advocating a full-on temper tantrum or even a half one.
Sometime the concerns of the “angry Black man” or the “uppity ni**er” (as cited above) seem to be poured in concrete until they are not; until someone pushes through and shows that the barrier was less solid than imagined.
But then, the above is just the whimsical musings of an amateur.
Keith G
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Scott, did you read the article?
Betty Cracker
@Belafon: Glad you (mostly) enjoyed it!
WereBear
I believe Andrew Cuomo needs a kick in the left side.
Regarding food safety, I am happy the FDA is waking up and actually enforcing the rules again… things got low in money and enforcement during the Bush Administration.
However, the fact that nobody in Europe is dying of these cheeses should have given them pause. Are they coming down hard on small producers and ignoring the rat hairs in the food of the big producers?
Because that would be wrong.
And that egg guy needs to be hunted down and put on trial. If I run over somebody I’m in some trouble even if the person ran in front of my car. But sell contaminated food? Apparently, no big deal.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Keith G: Yes. Did you read the other link?
Cheers,
Scott.
gene108
@Valdivia:
I really think there’s entrenched racism in the media. They want the “Half-‘Rican” in the White House to fail.
Compare Obama to Reagan on crime rates, teen pregnancy and the economy:
Reagan:
1. Crime rates continue to soar, reaching record highs, by the time he leaves office.
2. Teen pregnancy rates increase, reaching record highs by the time he leaves office.
3. In 1987, the stock market experienced the largest single day drop – as a percentage of its value – in history, causing a major shock to the economy.
4. Downsizing and outsourcing became things American workers had to be concerned about, because Reagan let businesses and Wall Street to engage in activities they otherwise would not have been allowed to do, like hostile take overs.
5. Loosening of accounting standards led to the S&L crisis, in his successors term in office.
Obama:
1. Crime rates reach record lows, despite worst recession ever.
2. Teen pregnancy rates to a precipitously drop, in the last five years reaching historic lows, thanks in part to the Feds sending money to support sex ed programs with proven efficacy of working, instead of blindly throwing money into abstinence only education.
3. Stock market at record highs and no major shocks.
4. Job creation chugging along, despite Republicans slashing the shit out of state and local government employee job positions, throwing an extra 1 million onto unemployment rolls in 2010 and 2011 slowing the economic recovery even further.
5. Legislation passed and signed into law to try and avert another financial crisis, instead of enabling it to happen.
I honestly have no clue why the record low rates of crime and teen pregnancy (and coincidentally teen abortion rates) get ignored now. The dropping crime rates and teen pregnancy rates, during the Clinton Administration, was a big deal. The fact it is still going on, despite everything else, really should be making news because in many ways, “America IS NOT going to hell in hand basket.”
Also, too high school graduation rates are at record highs, but clearly the kids today are lazier, dumber and less educated than when I was a kid; plus they need to get off my lawn (angrily shakes fist at passing cloud, while fingering the onion on my belt).
Belafon
@gene108: Forbes declared him a better economic president than Reagan. At least someone acknowledged he’s a lousy soshulist.
Baud
@gene108:
I hate to defend our media in any way, but for a long time, liberals weren’t exactly shooting the good news from the rooftops either.
Belafon
@Betty Cracker: And just think, 32,000 years ago, the Earth wasn’t even a twinkle in God’s eye.
Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]
@OzarkHillbilly:
Back in the 70’s I was returning from Europe & at customs met a man who bought a large wheel of cheese in Italy. He was not allowed to bring it into the US but he was damned if he was going to give up without a fight! He was sitting there eating cheese & handing out pieces to anyone that would take some. It was very tasty but there was no way on earth anyone could have eating that much cheese & not many were accepting his gift.
Be sure you know what the law allows. (me? I had 200 Cuban cigars in my flight bag & would have been caught except the airlines had given me an apple that I stuck in the carry on for later & forgot. As soon as the agent saw the apple he ws satisfied & did not dig to the bottom of the bag. Sometime I guess I do get lucky.
Randy P
Don’t pick on poor Chuck Todd. He has already explained that when he said “you haven’t used the word Syria” he didn’t actually mean “you haven’t used the WORD”, he meant that the President hadn’t, something or other, mumble mumble Syria policy mumble Russia from my house mumble.
As far as I’m concerned, he’s explained himself perfectly well on this one. You libs are just taking him out of context. It all depends on what the word “word” means.
Seriously (I say with a big schadenfreude-eating grin on my face) the attempts to backpedal and reinterpret reality are just adding extra sauce to the incident, which otherwise might have already faded into the general silly-season noise background by now.
OzarkHillbilly
@WereBear:
Don’t get too happy just yet, There is a proposal making it’s way thru the USDA allowing chicken producers to self-inspect. The Republican strategy to starve gov’t until they can drown it in a bathtub continues to reap…. I’m not sure what to call it just yet.
Now, the USDA is proposing a fundamental change in the way that poultry makes it to the American dinner table.
As early as next week, the government will end debate on a cost-cutting, modernization proposal it hopes to fully implement by the end of the year – a plan that is setting off alarm bells among food science watchdogs because it turns over most of the chicken inspection duties to the companies that produce the birds for sale.
The USDA hopes to save $85 million over three years by laying off 1,000 government inspectors and turning over their duties to company monitors who will staff the poultry processing lines in plants across the country.
The poultry companies expect to save more than $250 million a year because they, in turn, will be allowed to speed up the processing lines to a dizzying 175 birds per minute with one USDA inspector at the end of the line.
See? It’s a win-win.
Valdivia
@gene108: They can’t see it and will never see it. For 6 years now they have actively undermined him and promoted the most stupid talking points of the crazies on the right as if they had validity or were connected to reality.
@Baud: this is also true. Couldn’t wait to cut him at the knees some in our ranks.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
I soooo want to be a member of the National Chicken Council.
Valdivia
And the one most twitted thing I see this am is that stupid Obama’s presidency is a failure number from that poll. Just gah!
Mustang Bobby
@Baud:
Back in 1984 when I was first dating my then-partner, I was 32 and he was 20. I was nominated for that council by my (jealous) friends.
Baud
@Valdivia:
Yeah, but even a lot of liberals who aren’t into attacking Obama personally have a tendency to focus on negative information.
OzarkHillbilly
@Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]:
The first time I was in Spain, I brought some cheese back. (not too much, I didn’t want to lose my shirt to some hyper-sensitive customs agent) When asked, I said I was bringing cheese back, was that OK? They said, “Sure.” and I am not paraphrasing. It really was no big deal.
I have been back 2 more times and my wife has brought it back for me the 2 times she went without me. Always declared it. Always it was OK.
My guess is the laws have changed.
Baud
@Mustang Bobby:
Why only nominated? Too chicken to join?
[I’ll show myself out.]
Valdivia
@Baud: very depressing. Today feels like it should be one of those days I totally disconnect from the internet because its going to drive me up a wall.
gene108
@Baud:
I quit DailyKos after the public option went down.
They did not understand that whatever little, puny, microphone liberals have in reaching the broader public needs to be focused on supporting team Democrat, because they are the only political party that will give you the time of day and have a shot at getting your ideas into laws.
Conservatives understand this and they have a huge, superpowerful, speaker system rigged up in every remote corner of America. They are always backing Team Republican and trashing Team Democrat, because team Republican will do their bidding or publicly supporting a top-down purge of Team Republican of impure elements, with the Taxed Enough Already Party “Revolution”.
At some level, liberals are into “oral masturbation” because they’d rather hear the sound of their superior reasoning about why Democrats suck because they are not super liberal, than accepting the reality that politics is about compromise and push the positives about what they have gotten into law.
Right-wingers spent the entire Bush, Jr. Administration polishing his policy turds, which helped him get into a second term instead of screeching about how NCLB or Medicare Part D were actually “big-government” Democrat-lite programs that betrayed true conservatism; though they did around to decrying these laws when it became evident Bush & Co. were so grossly incompetent, there was no more they could do to put a shine on the shit show that was the 43rd President’s (mis)Administration.
Mustang Bobby
@Baud: Let’s meet later; I’m parked over by the cafeteria.
Betty Cracker
@Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]: When I was a kid, my dad kept chickens, and we didn’t refrigerate the eggs. I always refrigerated store-bought eggs, but now that I keep chickens myself, the eggs live in a basket on the counter, and I’ve never had a problem with spoilage. Going from store-bought to home-collected eggs, I had to get used to the shell thickness differential all over again. Our chicken’s egg shells are probably twice as thick as a store-bought egg shell.
Gin & Tonic
I’m going to be off the grid for quite some time starting in a couple of hours, so I’m going to miss our friend Bob’s fevered theorizing following the release of the preliminary MH17 report, which, among other things, relies on the relevant Ukrainian *and* Russan ATC recordings, and apparently shows a) there were no aircraft within 30km, and b) that Russian claims that Ukrainian ATC diverted MH17 to a lower altitude, putting it in harm’s way, are false. Interesting quote also from a BBC reporter who’s been working this case for some time:
JR in WV
@Another Holocene Human:
When I saw the Saudi Ambassador arrive at Bush’s ranch in TX, to be kissed by Bush, to hold hands with Bush as they walked from the limos up to the “ranch”house, I was dumbstruck at the display of brown-nosing the Saudi monsters by our selected President.
That film should be shown every day to the world, to put Bush in his proper place in American history – the person who enabled a Saudi attack on the financial heart of America. “You’ve covered your ass, now go away!” Bush said to the people who warned him that the 9/11 attack was already planned.
The whole picture of the surprise attack was false, and that one sentence proves it. The whole kissy lovey dovey greeting of the Saudi “Prince” in Texas after the Saudis attacked us showed that Bush cared more for the feelings of the Saudi royal family than he did for the American survivors of the deceased killed by Saudi agents.
The whole thing was as surprising as the sun coming up in the morning. Bush ran for President just so he could attack Saddam, in petty revenge for Saddam’s attempt to kill George H W Bush after the first Gulf War.
Now I’m gonna read the New Yorker story and see what new dirt they may have found on George.
Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]
@OzarkHillbilly:
Thats good to know, thanks! Not that I am going to be back there any time soon but its good to be aware of.
Neutron Flux
@Betty Cracker: I hear from the Democratic Chairwoman for my county that Chad Taylor is apprealing the decision. She thinks he will win. I do not.
Bobby Thomson
@Another Holocene Human: Not parsing, and Kobach’s argument isn’t frivolous:
KSA 25-306b(b) (emphasis added).
Taylor made no such declaration because he didn’t want to end his political career. That language was added in 1997, so it’s not as though it was just surplusage.
Bobby Thomson
@gogol’s wife:
Ten years ago, it was.
I’m not upset about journalists being confrontational with this president, as long as they are honest. I’m outraged that they weren’t confrontational or honest with the last one.
Betty Cracker
@Valdivia: Allow me to play Pollyanna: The flip side of the binary WaPo poll is that 71% of self-described liberals and 75% of Democrats see Obama’s presidency as a success. Those are pretty damn strong numbers!
Valdivia
@Betty Cracker:
:)
if those were approval numbers I would be a tad less upset, but it’s the definition of Obama’s whole presidency as a failure (in 2014!) that I can’t stomach.
Cervantes
@Betty Cracker: What’s a failure is that silly poll.
Gene108
@Betty Cracker:
Subtraction, how does it work?
Inquiring first graders want to know.
Manyakitty
For you New Yorkers, Wired has an interesting article about Tim Wu: http://www.wired.com/2014/09/tim_wu/
(Sorry for the lack of slickness–my HTML-fu is off today.)
FlipYrWhig
@Valdivia: I’m already
opposed todisappointed in the NEXTwarDemocratic president!PurpleGirl
I just got back from voting. Good liberal that I am, Teachout and Wu. Fi on Cuomo and Hochul.
Then I went and bought breakfast which I am about to start eating. A good start to the day.
ETA: Whatever happens vote-wise today, I hope it shows that Cuomo is vulnerable and is not a shoe-in for national office (i.e., the presidency).
shelley
He must have changed it overnight, cause Wang was on WNYC yesterday, and the prediction was still in the 60’s.
What does it matter if Taylor’s name stays on the ballot. He can simply campaign for the Lib and tell people ‘a vote for him is as good as a vote for me, and against you-know-who.’
Valdivia
@FlipYrWhig:
preemptive disappointment is how dems roll!
shelley
Wasn’t that an ‘I Love Lucy’ episode?
Amir Khalid
I wouldn’t have thought it was possible, but apparently you can make a usable chocolate teapot. Admittedly, the tea you brew in it does taste a bit different.
Betty Cracker
@Cervantes: Gotta agree there. Also interesting that the Bush dead-enders who say it’s still premature to rank the presidency of D-plus Augustus are crowing over this dumb poll, which was conducted while the president in question still has a couple of years left in office. Consistency was never their strong suit.
Betty Cracker
@PurpleGirl: Yes, please, New Yorkers — remove that schmuck’s presidential ambitions.
FlyingToaster
@Nicole: I’ve always brought WarriorGirl to our Massachusetts polls, until today. There just isn’t enough time (we have school, then violin practice, then the all-school-picnic, then bath and bed. Half an hour to walk up the hill and vote with Mom just isn’t going to fit into today.
HerrDoktorToaster is home today (not feeling entirely well, didn’t sleep, etc.), so I’ll probably drag him up the hill once I’ve got the next round of chores done.
burnspbesq
Fascinating conversation going on between Jack Goldsmith (at Lawfare) and Marty Lederman (at Just Security) about the way Obama is trying to tap-dance around the War Powers Resolution with respect to air ops against ISIS.
The latest installment is here.
http://www.lawfareblog.com/2014/09/yet-another-iraq-war-powers-letter-and-a-response-to-lederman/
Note to the Greenie fan club: this is what serious treatment of issues related to national security and civil liberties looks like.
burnspbesq
@Betty Cracker:
Which presidential ambitions are those? By 2024, Cuomo will be too old, and the conversation will be about whether the country is ready for 16 years in a row of women Presidents from Noo Yawk.
El Caganer
The Obama presidency is a failure? Using what criteria? Comparing it to its predecessor? All that poll results like these tell me are that a lot of people are unhappy, not anything useful.
burnspbesq
@El Caganer:
Would respectfully suggest that that is highly useful information if one is planning strategy or tactics for the next seven weeks.
srv
Googler Eric Schmidt’s Radical Centrist thinktank blames Obama:
Betty Cracker
@burnspbesq: From your lips to the Flying Spaghetti Monster’s al dente orecchietta.
Betty Cracker
@srv: I don’t blame the family for feeling that way. If religious lunatics tortured my relative to death in such a horrible fashion, I’d be pissed off too and ready to blame everyone. But that doesn’t mean they have a valid point.
It’s reasonable to assume the administration and the family shared the goal of getting Sotloff back alive, but while the family understandably focused on that goal exclusively, the administration had/has lots of other considerations.
Gin & Tonic
@burnspbesq: I’m sorry, but who represents the first 8 years of women presidents from New York?
srv
@Betty Cracker: It’s good that they have the New America Foundation to emote for them.
shortstop
I’m having McDonnell trial withdrawals. Someone needs to go look through their windows and report on them crying all over their granite countertops.
Bob In Portland
@Gin & Tonic: Three unidentified eyewitnesses is more proof than two unidentified eyewitnesses.
No black boxes. Nothing on there to interest you, take our word. No air traffic controller conversations. No US intel satellite photos.
In short, it’s a delaying tactic for a few months or a year or how long.
Let’s see how the rest of the world interprets it.
catclub
@Betty Cracker: I think there are some counter examples of the voters not being quite so stupid. Lieberman won CT. Did the GOP rep actually drop off the ballot, or just say vote for Lieberman, I don’t know for sure.
Murkowski won with a write-in ballot in Alaska.
if you are claiming the GOP voters are dumber, be careful.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’m no Cuomo-ologist, but his presidential hopes have always struck me as a fantasy, I think he thinks his name resonates through national Dems’ hearts like “Roosevelt” or “Kennedy”. Not so much. As for the Senate, he strikes me (again, from a distance) as Chuck Schumer (Wall St Democrat) without a sense of humor or the skill at some partisan knife-fighting (when it won’t offend Jamie Dimon).
As the UN ruins my morning by announcing that we are more fucked climate wise than we thought, does Cuomo at least make noise about the environment? I know Schumer did after Sandy.
catclub
@burnspbesq: Can Barack Obama get appointed to the Supreme Court by Hillary or Kirsten?
catclub
@Baud: There was a Forbes (Forbes! for goodness sake) article today that Obama is far better than Reagan in economic performance: better stock market, lower unemployment rates, obviously lower inflation, and cutting deficits rather than blowing them up.
Nobody notices. That article where Bush was described as a genius who produces masterpieces that are ignored? Wrong President.
Bob In Portland
It’s not actually a news story at TPM. It’s an advertisement.
Betty Cracker
@catclub: There are stupid people in both parties, but they’re stupid in different ways. The vast bloc of Republican voters are stupid in that they can be fooled into voting against their economic interests and prop up plutocrats under the banner of god, gays and guns. But they can be trained to spell “Murkowski” correctly or back a DINO in Connecticut.
Well-meaning Democrats can be stupid in another way, as in getting so discouraged that Obama didn’t immediately deliver single payer and equal rights for gays that they stayed home in 2010 and allowed a venal crook like Rick Scott to become governor of an important swing state and handed control of the US House to Death Eaters. That’s stupid too, only in a different way.
burnspbesq
@catclub:
If there is a vacancy to fill, absolutely. There is a precedent: Harding nominated Taft.
burnspbesq
@Gin & Tonic:
You so funny.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Bob In Portland: You’re right, Bob! There are no black boxes!!111
They’re orange.
HTH!!
Cheers,
Scott.
burnspbesq
OK, that opening video of the Apple announcement was pretty spiffy.
Bobby Thomson
@catclub:
There was a Republican candidate on the ballot who got less than 20% of CT Republicans’ votes.
As a rule, people are stupid, but the people who vote in mid-terms tend to be more engaged.
Groucho48
@Valdivia:
Well at a comparable time in Bush’s Presidency:
Wonder what Reagan’s numbers were like at a similar stage?
Cervantes
@Groucho48:
See here.