Chris Jansing was just on Hardball, and she is embedded with the Carson campaign on his grifting book tour, and talking about all the different groups of people who support him. She then mentioned all of his patients, some 15,000 of them, as potential supporters, and stated (and I paraphrase):
I talked to one man who had half his brain removed by Carson when he was two and now rides a horse and will most likely vote for him.
And I thought to myself- that makes sense.
PS- I’m already being called ableist for tweeting this because the world has no sense of humor.
Baud
I don’t think you’re an ableist.
You’re clearly anti-equine.
feebog
Carson is a fraud, but there are plenty of fundies and rubes out there who will vote for him, especially in Iowa. But if you are spending over half your donations to solicit more donations, something is fundamentally wrong with your campaign.
Patricia Kayden
Why would his patients be potential supporters? If I found out my doctor was running as a Republican, I’d shake my head in sorrow and move on. She certainly wouldn’t get my vote.
I laughed at the half brain joke so I guess that makes me an ableist too. *** rolls eyes***
Corner Stone
Making new Republican voters one operation at a time. Now that’s playing the long game!
Baud
@Patricia Kayden:
Yeah, if Joe the Plumber was a plumber, and my plumber, and a good plumber, I still wouldn’t vote for him for president.
jo6pac
@Corner Stone:
Thank You:-))))))))))))))))))
piratedan7
Ben Carson IS Chauncey Gardener…. all he needs is his own Shirley MacLaine…..
larimegimp
My people can be retarded about humor, yeah.
Wait…
benw
Carson was doing brain surgery at two years old!?! He IS a genius. He’s got my vote, now!
NorthLeft12
Not sure I am clear about this…..so, all this half brained person does is ride a horse? Is that like a profession down there in the US?
I guess this is not complimentary for cowboys.
schrodinger's cat
@larimegimp: How is your wife? Did you make that appointment with the immigration lawyer?
larimegimp
@schrodinger’s cat: She starts chemo next week. Getting that done first. Some friends are helping us pay to file for her green card, too.
gogol's wife
I laughed. I guess I’m ableist too.
About to watch Home Fires for the second time. I love it. It’s really good soap opera.
gogol's wife
I just want to see if I can quote now. I never could before.
gogol's wife
Except I guess I don’t know how to end the quote. Oh well.
Omnes Omnibus
@gogol’s wife: Baby steps.
MomSense
Any news from Kentucky?
Bobby Thomson
@MomSense: Conway is running behind Grimes so far. He’ll lose. I hope Paul apologizes to the Kansans here.
Schlemazel
True story. My brother as a pretty normal guy until he was in a bad car accident. He suffered some pretty severe brain damage . . . he became a huge Rush Limbaugh listener. I mentioned to him more than once when he wanted to argue politics that he had made that change and I didn’t think it was coincidental
gogol's wife
OT, but TCM is getting irritating. It seems to be the Ben Mankiewicz-ization of the channel. They’re always plugging something like Bonham’s auction house, now it’s “TCM Wine Club.” Are you kidding me? And they’re showing films that are not rare or classic at all. (Tired of complaining about the website.)
Corner Stone
@Bobby Thomson: I haven’t found anything recent. Got anything closer we can read than 4 hours old, which is the best I found?
Nate Dawg
“Anyone with half a brain could see Ben Carson is a walking disaster…”
raven
@gogol’s wife: good
Omnes Omnibus
@gogol’s wife: They always have had time periods with filler. The trailer for Charade is making wish it was Friday already.
MomSense
@Bobby Thomson:
Ugh. Bevin pledged to take health care away from 400,000 people.
eli grossman
“I talked to one man who had half his brain removed by Carson when he was two and now rides a horse and will most likely vote for him.”
What about the people with both halves of their brain?
Ben Carson is an IDIOT SAVANT. Supposedly Brilliant surgeon, with the common sense of a six year old regarding reality, religion, and What America stands for!
Omnes Omnibus
@MomSense: I wonder how many of the 400,000 voted.
MomSense
@Omnes Omnibus:
It’s depressing.
Bobby Thomson
@MomSense: and he will. And probably be reelected. People are stupid.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@gogol’s wife:
I think Robert Osborne wants to retire, and Ben is his designated heir. I like his new set — the New York loft didn’t work, so now he’s in a California bungalow (arts & crafts style).
Bobby Thomson
@Corner Stone: GOS.
Iowa Old Lady
Friend of mine in Ohio went to vote today at the same place she’s voted for 20 years. She was told they had no record of her being registered to vote. She was the fourth person today they had to tell that. They fussed around a while, then let her vote provisional.
Baud
@Iowa Old Lady:
That’s awful.
PurpleGirl
@feebog: That fact would get his organization called out by any of the charitable watchdogs if they were claiming charitable status.
Omnes Omnibus
@Iowa Old Lady: What city?
shell
@gogol’s wife: Im tired of the auction house plugs and the dubious connection with the wine club to classic films. But TCM is still my favorite channel. Where else could you see Curse Of The Demon and The Devils Bride on October 31st, instead of those tedious Halloween franchise reruns.
************
Re: The topic of t he original post. Did they say WHY the guy had to have half his brain removed?
Arm The Homeless
@Omnes Omnibus: considering that the initial counts put this election squarely in line with previous turn outs, I would say, “not enough”.
Perhaps Kentuckians (Kentuckites?) feel that they are best served by assholes who trample on the less fortunate.
Not that I can feel too high and mighty, considering we have an ambulatory, syphillitic penis as our governor.
Baud
@Bobby Thomson:
Their current update.
Omnes Omnibus
@shell:
It was otten-ray.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
I have a tentative date on sending Becoming Phoebe to press: December 28. I was really hoping that it would be available by Christmas, but I punted that away by being slow with revisions back in the summer. We still have about six steps to go, but they are ones that we can put a likely timeline on.
In other news, Dirk seems to be doing well. He can pee, though it is an effort, probably due to swelling from the catheter; the doctor wants him to heal on his own, though, rather than giving him anti-inflammatories since his kidneys are still recovering. And I need to make sure Petplan got the fax on my insurance claim, because I can’t really afford the $4,000 this cost.
Iowa Old Lady
@Omnes Omnibus: Near Cleveland. I’m not sure of the suburb’s name.
Poopyman
This thread requires the obligatory picture.
jl
I think it’s kind of creepy to be hawking ex-patients, collectively or individually, as likely supporters.
The campaign better have all the t’s dotted and i’s crossed before they talk about anyone who can be identified.
But this is the GOP presidential primary, and nothing they do should be a surprise anymore.
bemused
@Iowa Old Lady:
Connie Schultz on her FB page is hearing from Ohio voters having trouble. I haven’t yet had time to read the comments to find out what kind of problems people are experiencing.
Mike J
Jack Womack @jwomack 4h4 hours ago
Listening to NPR play long series of Iraq War advocates denying any involvement with Chalabi, ever, never.
Omnes Omnibus
@Iowa Old Lady: Some of Cleveland’s suburb’s are pretty hinky GOP places.
Napoleon
@Iowa Old Lady:
Which is where I am at, and I have a really, really, really hard time believing that is true
Omnes Omnibus
@bemused: With Husted as SoS, I am not surprised. He signed off on some bad practices in 2012; luckily, lawsuits were filed and federal judges stopped some of the worst things from going forward.
the Conster
Matt Bevin wins Kentucky. Fuck you, teatards.
Felonius Monk
@MomSense: I was behind a late model car with KY plates this afternoon here in upstate NY, so I guess the migration has begun.
MazeDancer
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
Is it possible some time in January might be more noticeable?
Don’t really know publishing press, or if 12/28 means the press releases and review copies go out at Thanksgiving, or something, but do know that NYC, for instance, pretty much shuts down between Christmas and New Years. Don’t want your news lost in the back to work catch-up pile.
PurpleGirl
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: I realize you may feel funny doing this but if you put up a GoFundMe site, I think many of the BJ pet lovers would contribute to help you with the vet bill.
JPL
@gogol’s wife: The theme is haunting. It’s an historical soap opera!
Corner Stone
@the Conster: Good Sweet Fucking Christ.
Poopyman
@the Conster: The people of Kentucky know what they want, and they’re gonna get it good and hard.
beltane
@the Conster: It’s the teatards who have fucked themselves.
Baud
Kentucky = Kansas
Felanius Kootea
Bye bye Kynect. I guess Kentuckians hate Obama more than they like health insurance.
Imagine campaigning in part on taking away 400,000 people’s health benefits and winning!
Howard Beale IV
@MomSense: Looks like Kynect’s gonna go Bye Bye.
the Conster
28% vote turnout will elect a GOP fucktard every fucking time. Morons crawl over glass to elect someone who will stick it to “those people”.
bemused
@Omnes Omnibus:
Republican SoS aren’t too concerned about pesky things like good practices when it comes to voting. MN has a doozy, Mary Kiffmeyer who wanted posters up at polling places warning of men wearing perfume and muttering.
beltane
@Poopyman: There was a major study released yesterday showing an increase in the mortality rate of uneducated, middle aged white people partially due to increased suicide and drug abuse. Voting Republican is one of the most effective methods of suicide there is.
Corner Stone
On the one hand, the state of KY is going to provide a yooge amount of data on medical studies and other related data points over the next few years.
Going from KYnect to no KYnect. Should be able to see what happens pretty clearly.
The other hand is full on fapping by rightwingers salivating at poor white people reducing their quality of life and dying before their time.
Baud
@the Conster:
Yep.
Felonius Monk
I wonder if Zandar is going to seek asylum.
Omnes Omnibus
@bemused: I know. I lived in Ohio in 2004 when Jen Blackwell was SoS. I stood in cold drizzle for a couple of hours in order to vote for Kerry. Yes, I lived in downtown Columbus.
Ohio Mom
@shell: I think the big reason why surgeons remove big portions of brains is epilepsy that doesn’t respond to any other treatment, where the patients have high numbers of seizures every day. It’s a last resort.
Gimlet
@Mike J:
http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/media/features/9226/
By Franklin Foer
For critics of the Iraq war, the downfall of Ahmad Chalabi occasioned a hearty, unapologetic outpouring of Schadenfreude—a loud cheer for a well-deserved knee to the administration’s gut. In fact, it was possible to detect a bit of this spirit on the front page of the New York Times. On May 21, the editors arrayed contrasting images of the banker turned freedom fighter turned putative Iranian spy. Here he is smirking behind Laura Bush in the House of Representatives gallery as the president delivers his State of the Union address. There he is looking bleary and sweaty, after Iraqi police stormed his home and office in the middle of the night. An analysis by David Sanger went so far as to name names of individuals who had associated themselves with the discredited leader of the Iraqi National Congress. The list, he wrote, included “many of the men who came to dominate the top ranks of the Bush administration . . . Donald H. Rumsfeld, Paul D. Wolfowitz, Douglas J. Feith, Richard L. Armitage, Elliott Abrams and Zalmay M. Khalilzad, among others.”
The phrase “among others” is a highly evocative one. Because that list of credulous Chalabi allies could include the New York Times’ own reporter, Judith Miller. During the winter of 2001 and throughout 2002, Miller produced a series of stunning stories about Saddam Hussein’s ambition and capacity to produce weapons of mass destruction, based largely on information provided by Chalabi and his allies—almost all of which have turned out to be stunningly inaccurate.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@PurpleGirl: If Petplan somehow denies my claim, I might. For the moment, though, it’s more just a matter of timing and cash flow.
Baud
@Felonius Monk:
We need to plan a rescue mission.
beltane
@Felanius Kootea: The first Republican presidential candidate who proposes unleashing famine, plague, and pestilence on the American people will be a shoe-in for the nomination.
PurpleGirl
@Felanius Kootea: I’m sure that a good number of the teatards are absolutely, positively convinced that the 400,000 are all others. No one they know needs medical insurance from the state or Medicaid! (When if you ever looked at the statistics, more white people have been welfare receipients.)
amk
BJ FP looks disorganized. And why are the author’s names buried under tags as if on a second thought?
RSA
In 2007 my wife had two brain surgeries, and the surgeon removed three tumors. Three years later she had to have radiation because of recurrences, and now she has dementia, about the level of mid-stage Alzheimer’s disease. At 51. On a good day, she remembers how to pull her shirt over her head and put her arms through the armholes, she knows my name, and she says more than a dozen words. I wrote a kind of sanitized story about us a couple of years ago.
Once, in the time in between radiation and her losing the ability to walk on her own, we stopped at an outdoor pub for drinks. She told me that as she passed by another table, some douchey bro started going on about women who shaved their heads and how ugly it looked. She felt a little embarrassed–radiation makes your hair fall out, and that’s why she wore a scarf. I was pissed off, but she wouldn’t say who’d hurt her feelings.
When it comes to people who have survived brain surgery, I guess I don’t have much of a sense of humor. I’m probably overly sensitive, though.
Anoniminous
Kentucky: 3.3 million Voting eligible population.
With 85% of precincts reporting 821,076 have voted.
24.9% voter turnout.
I throw up my hands. Get sick and die you stupid sons-of-bitches.
Felonius Monk
@Baud:
Maybe we could hire The Expendables — then there would be another movie to watch. Unless those guys are now too old.
PurpleGirl
@Ohio Mom: That or a brain tumor.
Keith G
Houston’s equal rights ordinance is loosing 37% to 63%.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@MazeDancer: I’m not sure about press releases. I’ll have to talk to the woman I’m working with on this. 12/28 is the tentative date for sending the manuscript to press. It’ll need a back cover before then, too, though we can’t do that until we have a bar code and we can’t have that until we have a price.
Satby
@the Conster: you know, I don’t wish ill on anybody, but if people don’t come out and vote in their own interests there’s just not much else that can be done. It’s going to take real crisis hitting each one personally I guess.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@the Conster:
And yet someone posted this morning that Kentucky is something like 94 percent white.
Mike J
@Gimlet: Not too soon, is it?
schrodinger's cat
@RSA: {{{RSA}}}
beltane
@Anoniminous: 24.9% turnout for a gubernatorial election? That is just disgraceful. When 3 out of 4 people can’t be bothered to vote, democracy isn’t threatened, it is dead.
Bobby Thomson
@Corner Stone: In real time, we’ll also be getting a test of how embracing Obama plays in Kentucky versus distancing from Obama.
MazeDancer
KY is heart-breaking.
Friggin Kim Davis supporter who wants to repeal KY Connect.
Guessing the repeal won’t happen. Because it’s popular. And the Christianists have made their point. And most GOP prefer protest over action. But this Christianist stuff is going to kill half the country if Dems don’t stop staying at home.
Saw my first Carson bumper sticker today. “Heal. Inspire. Carson 2016” Heal what? Is he Jesus? ( Someone did say maybe his voters need brain surgery…) “Heal” is Benny Henn territory. Carson is a stone cold, televangelist grifter. Carson spends 54 cents of every dollar raised on fund-raising.
The Christianist jihadi aim to take over America. And those of us of the sophisticated persuasion do not understand how, seriously, they are ISIL.
JPL
@RSA: Nope. You are not overly sensitive at all. I admired your courage and unending love to your spouse when I first read the article, and I still do.
schrodinger's cat
@amk: We are not to complain, the only opinion you can offer is fulsome praise of the redesign.
NotMax
You weren’t called a spaz for making a lame comment?
;)
Omnes Omnibus
@Mike J: A more modern take on it.
Pogonip
@PurpleGirl: Go ahead, Tissue Thin–Balloon Juice readers would otherwise spend the money on questionable and even dangerous substances such as mustard.
Satby
@RSA: I remember when you posted that because it made me cry. It was a very moving, loving essay on your wife and marriage.
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodinger’s cat: Unless you are willing to admit that you are old and mean and that you hate all change.
Patricia Kayden
@Felanius Kootea: Happily, President Obama will always have healthcare. Kentuckians will suffer for their vote tonight which is fine with me. The irony is that Senator McConnell and the new Governor also have great health insurance.
Baud
@Felonius Monk:
If they aren’t dead, they aren’t too old.
Felanius Kootea
@PurpleGirl: census.gov says Kentucky is 88% white (as of 2014). Surely there were white people voting who had friends or relatives that benefitted from Medicaid expansion. Then again, this is a state where a man professed to love Kynect because it was better than that damn Obamacare.
Satby
@MazeDancer:
Quoted for truth.
Anoniminous
@beltane:
The overall percentage will rise a bit but if it gets to 28% turnout I’ll be astonished.
Yup
amk
@schrodinger’s cat:
ok, how about this?
No other blog has a FP like BJ does.
Baud
From Kos. Hopefully, this holds.
schrodinger's cat
@Omnes Omnibus: I hate change for change’s sake.
For a minute, I thought you were describing John Cole.
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodinger’s cat: Cole is younger than I am.
Baud
@Anoniminous:
I really am having difficulty right now even being angry at the Kochs and other billionaires.
max
@Mike J: Listening to NPR play long series of Iraq War advocates denying any involvement with Chalabi, ever, never.
They’re continuing to clean house before the next Republican administration, when they will pretend that whole Iraq thing never happened, and let’s go to war with Syria, Iran, maybe occupy Libya, and also China and Russia. NYT reporters will hit the R soup line for big ladles of propaganda.
(That’s the underlying premise Hillary was pitching to the big donors prior to entering the race – donate to me me and I’ll get us some wars and some financial uh, forbearance. (See also, Future Democrat Senate Leader Schumer, Chuck.) This tendency has partly been negated by having to battle Bernie.)
The upper class types are very distressed at the state of our non-invasions.
max
[‘They got the jones and there’s only one cure….’]
Corner Stone
@schrodinger’s cat:
You shouldn’t say anything, even when they asked you to. That was wrong of you. I castigate you here and now, denouncing you as though you were an Olds Stalin.
But I hold you are nothing like broccoli which I refuse to denounce. Fuck the haterz.
schrodinger's cat
@Omnes Omnibus: May be chronologically, his blog persona is very curmudgeonly.
Patricia Kayden
@Keith G: Now that is heartbreaking. Was hoping for a clear win but I guess this is why civil rights shouldn’t be left up to the popular vote.
seaboogie
@gogol’s wife:
Baud
@Keith G:
Sorry, guy.
Baud
@schrodinger’s cat:
He knows how to play to his audience.
Nate Dawg
Is anyone else following this story in Colorado where a 911 dispatcher didn’t send cops out to a man carrying an Ar-15 because open carry is legal and he ended up killing 3 random people???
Baud
@Nate Dawg:
I saw it reported on TPM.
Mike J
@max: I do NOT want any of what you’ve been smoking.
schrodinger's cat
@Baud: You speak as though we are all Grandpa Simpson.
beltane
@Omnes Omnibus: Younger, but also grouchier.
MazeDancer
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
Oh sorry, thought by “press date” you meant “release to the press” not send to the place where they physically print the books.
12/28 printing of books will mean a later “press release”date.
Apologies for being promo-centric.
bemused
@Felanius Kootea:
There has to be and when friends and families of those folks start crying, their good neighbors and acquaintances need to let them know where the blame rests.
Mike J
@seaboogie:
No. Paste in the text to be quoted. Highlight it with your cursor. Hit the quote button. the tags will go on either side.
amk
rwnj’s – we hate obamacare and so we will vote gop
left/dems – obamacare is not single payer (/ insert any other single issue pet peeve) and so we are staying home as ‘protest votes’.
gop (with gold-plated state-paid insurance plans) – thanks guyz, you’re the best.
Baud
@schrodinger’s cat:
No, some of us are more Homer.
Patricia Kayden
@Baud: Fingers and toes firmly crossed. A Democratic majority could expand Medicaid under Obamacare in VA. Yay!!
Anoniminous
@Baud:
Kochs and the other 1% PTB saw their opportunity and took it. We’re looking at a takeover of the country by a well financed political machine because the majority of Americans are too fucking lazy to bother.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: I see myself as Lionel Hutz.
goblue72
@Keith G: Them activist libtard judges may be forcing us all to get gay married, but I ain’t gonna piss next to no queer in the bathroom. /Average Texas voter
Baud
@Patricia Kayden:
That’s just the Senate. I thought the GOP had a lock on the Virginia house.
Gimlet
Not sure if this is more right-wing media consolidation or not.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/nbc-msnbc-digital_56393682e4b0411d306ebee7
NEW YORK — NBC News Chairman Andy Lack on Tuesday named the BBC’s Nick Ascheim to lead digital efforts for both NBC News and MSNBC, management’s latest attempt at unifying the broadcast and cable networks.
Richard Wolffe, executive editor of MSNBC.com, and Julian March, senior vice president, digital, for NBC News, both are leaving the company.
Nick started his career at ABC as a Field Producer and moved into the digital news realm to launch foxnews.com. He has an MBA from Harvard and a BA in English from Cornell.
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus:
“Don’t touch my stuff! Wait a minute…this isn’t the Y.”
seaboogie
@Nate Dawg: Yep – the person who called in the first 911 call to alert the authorities was told that “we have a law that you can do that”, and the caller refered to it unironically as “open arms”.
Baud
@Anoniminous:
Seems that way. We’ll know for certain in next year’s election.
Corner Stone
Maybe the average white voter in KY just couldn’t get to the polls on a random Tuesday before 6:00PM ET? They had to pick their kids up? Make it to their second/third job? Get to class at night school?
seaboogie
@Mike J: I must have done that by accident last night and gotten it right.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Gimlet: Huh. I thought they just gave Wolfe the weekend early morning show
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
Sometimes I feel like Gil.
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: “And as for your case, don’t you worry. I’ve argued in front of every judge in the state. Often as a lawyer.”
goblue72
@Patricia Kayden: The Virginia House of Delegates is in GOP control and is not in a position to flip control to Dems in tonight’s election. Sadly, expansion of Medicaid under the ACA in Virginia is still DOA, even if Dems take back the Senate.
Anoniminous
@amk:
Prove it, shitheel. Give me some facts. You got polling? You got the numbers? Lay ’em on me.
Botsplainer
I simply can’t talk to my mother for days. She’s going to smugly tell me that what I know will happen to my health insurance isn’t going to happen, and I should trust the nice white Jesus fellator in the coat and tie.
I hate trailer trash, I despise the very notion of the lie that is Jesus and hate conservatives…
Rising Above
BREAKING NEWS:
GOP scores victory in Kentucky, wins Governor’s race! Matt Bevin will now move to effectively end ObamaCare in Kentucky.
Foreshadowing of 2016?
Corner Stone
“Jack Conway supports Barack Obama. Jack Conway supports Barack Obama.”
That’s what Matt Bevin sold.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Omnes Omnibus
@Rising Above: Ending Obamacare? Really? Do explain.
amk
@Anoniminous: The incumbent gov was a dem, who made kynect a shining example of obamacare and only a quarter turn out to elect a teabagger as his replacement. Idiot.
Rising Above
@Corner Stone:
Obama doesn’t connect with working-class white people. That’s just the bottom line.
Appalachia used to be born Democrat–Gore won that region and even none other than John Kerry did respectably there. Obama has squandered that in just eight years through the combination of the War on Coal and the smug insinuation by coastal leftists that Appalachian whites are “privileged”.
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: Oh yeah, encourage it.
Zinsky
Carson is a serial killer. I’m sure of it. Wait until the bodies start turning up…
Omnes Omnibus
@raven: Oh, yeah, bitch about anything anyone does.
Corner Stone
Alison Grimes, a KY electorate turns its lonely eyes to you…
Rising Above
@Omnes Omnibus:
Medicare expansion will now be repealed and KyNect deep sixed.
Tom Q
@Rising Above: Maybe there’s…uh…something ABOUT Obama that prevents those white working class voters from “connecting”.
Something besides Obama being “aloof”.
beltane
@Anoniminous: When over 75% of eligible voters don’t vote, it seems misguided to blame a few disaffected liberals unless Kentucky is a far more liberal state than anyone gives it credit for. If you look at the numbers, KY’s new teabagger governor was elected with the votes of less than 15% of the population. We have become a nation of passive, servile victims, a failed state with a powerful military. Scary times.
Nate Dawg
@seaboogie: This isn’t getting much media play, probably in part because it coincided with Halloween weekend, but damn this is infuriating and EXACTLY what we’ve been warning about!
Anoniminous
@amk:
And you know “left/dems – obamacare is not single payer (/ insert any other single issue pet peeve) and so we are staying home as ‘protest votes’.” how?
Dumb ass
Omnes Omnibus
@Rising Above: How does this equal the end of Obamacare? I’ll give you a hint. It doesn’t. It just fucks over 400,000 people.
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: I beg your pardon?
Keith G
@Baud: The impact on college educated gay and trans people will be slight to non existent.
For most urban areas in 2015, a there are abundant opportunities to be employed in fair workplace if one has a degree. The lower the level of one’s education, the more likely disruptive discrimination will be an issue.
Low socio-economic status and gender dysphoria is not a recipe for an easy life path. Houston’s ordinance was just a small attempt to make it easier.
Nate Dawg
@Rising Above: yes, Appalachian whites connect much better with a folksy, salt of the earth type like JEB? Bush
MazeDancer
@Botsplainer:
I feel your pain.
And annual income and housing location – aka “trailer trash”- ain’t got nothing to do with it. The South is so Red because all kinds of well-heeled, smug, white, church-goers vote for fetuses and “the Lord”. It’s a social thing. “Everyone” votes Conservative. It’s combo racist and pro-Christianist at the same time. Alas, to my peril, I grew up around same.
Omnes Omnibus
@raven: You’ve been complaining about people talking about the website, now you are complaining about this.
amk
@Anoniminous:
more and more bevins at state and federal levels since 2010, that’s how, you dimwit.
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: Excuse me Captain.
Baud
@Keith G:
Don’t lose hope. California turned around very quickly after voting for Prop 8.
Aleta
@RSA: I remember reading your piece when it was published. It describes so well, in certain details and the feeling between the lines, some of my experiences with my brother and mother. Thank you for reminding me.
Gimlet
The source is Breitbarf.
My right-wing acquaintances tell me the immigrant flood to Europe is to get free benefits.
Just a week after Poland voted to kick out every left-wing member of it’s national parliament, ordinary Poles have again shown the spirit which led them to elect the nationalist conservative Law and Justice party, with football fans unveiling an over-sized anti-migration banner at Sunday’s match.
Images from the match last night show a giant crusader defending Europe from invading jihadists in boats labelled USS Hussein, USS Bin Laden and USS ISIS.
The hand-painted sheet, which is estimated to have been at least 50 feet tall and 75 feet wide depicts boatloads of migrants preparing to land on the southern shore of Europe. Many of the boat’s crews make the one fingered ‘ISIS salute’.
Anoniminous
@beltane:
I’m not blaming the Left. Hell, I “am” the Left of the Democratic Party. I’m sick and tired of the rest of the Democratic Party blaming the Left every time one of their centrist, GOP-lite, POS candidates goes down.
Keith G
@goblue72: I will let you know what the exit polling came up with.
Rising Above
@Omnes Omnibus:
It’s the effective end of O-Care in yet another state.
Just wait until we take West Virginia back at the State level.
@Nate Dawg:
He’ll win them before the Human Pantsuit does. Nobody from Appalachia is going to connect with a woman who is essentially a closeted lesbian.
Anoniminous
@amk:
IOW, you got no proof. Just shooting off your mouth. Blaming THE EVIL LEFT when the entire Democratic vote collapsed.
J R in WV
@Mike J:
Either way works. Most modern computer stuff has multiple ways to get it done, because some people like it one way, and others like it another way.
That’s part of the advantage of windows-type development. You can swipe and click, or whatever. Drop-down menus, right-click menus, etc. etc.
Nate Dawg
@Omnes Omnibus: Is it (Rising Above) really gloating over thousands of poor Kentuckyians losing their healthcare? Just sickening.
Here in Texas, we have NO Medicaid for non-parental adults. None. Zip. Nothing.
Thank Obama for the federal exchange, or else I would be up a creek as I have no employer plan and a pre-existing condition.
Iowa Old Lady
@Napoleon: I take it back as to where she lives. She’s a fellow writer I know online, so I haven’t been to her house. She says she lives in Hamilton County, which she says is heavily Democratic. She says their county is having particular problems. Does that ring true?
Nate Dawg
@Rising Above: Actually, I think most voters have moved beyond the petty Limbaughisms of 1994.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Dave Weigel is really letting his conservatarian flag fly, gloating over Bevin in KY ETA, on twitter, that is
Omnes Omnibus
@Nate Dawg:
Yes.
@Iowa Old Lady: Hamilton County is the Cincinnati area and it is entirely believable that things like that happened there.
raven
@Nate Dawg: He does the same fucking shit every day. If you can just outsmart him he’ll stop.
Patrick
@Nate Dawg:
Utterly amazing to me that people voluntarily are voting to get rid of the ACA (for all practical purposes) and embrace our health care world pre-ACA. People are just a layoff away to be without health insurance in a non-ACA world. To each his own. I am so glad I live in a blue state.
Keith G
@Baud: Thanks. Again….My “hope” is ok. By a combo of chance and effort I am in a cohort that this reversal will not hurt.
I just hate that at all levels of our society, groups of Americans are not able to see how much needlessly harder upward mobility is for certain classes of our fellow citizens. This vote is just one manifestation of a problem that is growing after a period of time when it seemed to be shrinking.
mdblanche
@Bobby Thomson: It appears that how ever the details differ, the top-line result is the same.
Mike in NC
@Nate Dawg: White people in Kentucky will welcome Juan Arbusto and his Merry Mariachi Band with open arms.
Bobby Thomson
@Anoniminous: clearly, that’s not what happened in Kentucky. The squishy centrists won and Conway (who was only slightly less squishy) lost.
This should but won’t shut up the Grimes naysayers.
Bill Murray
@beltane: I think Sheldon Wolin got the reasons correct in his book Democracy Incorporated: managed Democracy and The Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism
Nate Dawg
@Patrick: You really nailed it. We moved to a red state *only* after the ACA had passed, and we knew we could get insurance no matter what.
Of course, SCOTUS, in all its wisdom, struck down the key provision expanding Medicaid, which kinda changes the whole dynamic, but at least we are fortunate enough to be able to afford it. Seriously, though, I don’t see why people vote for these assholes.
Corner Stone
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Jesus Christ. I’m usually pretty “meh” on Weigel but that smarmy motherfucker should be shunned by all nominal Democrats after his tweet storm tonight.
“Weird. They told me the wacky Tea Party was wrecking the GOP. How does that explain Speaker Ryan and Governor Bevin?”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Patrick: I didn’t follow the race, but Chris Hayes said Bevin downplayed Kynnect and played up Conway loves Obama. And Alec MacGillis says he played up coal.
(Rachel Maddow just ran, with fairly fawning introduction, Chris Christie’s speech on addiction, now we’ll get Tom Brokaw, last of dead-end McCain supporters, to talk about 2016)
Bobby Thomson
@mdblanche: Au contraire. Grimes, who was lambasted for distancing herself from Obama, won her election and Conway, who ran on continuing Kynect, lost. Obviously, Grimes has a better sense of the stupidity of the Kentucky voter.
raven
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Don’t forget her sticking that pig Ferraro in there.
Corner Stone
/Weigel
schrodinger's cat
@Corner Stone: He is just a younger, pimplier version of Bobo. I have no idea what Anne Laurie sees in him.
Bobby Thomson
@Corner Stone: He’s just pointing out the idiocy of assuming Americans won’t vote for stupid. They do all the time, because they are.
Baud
@schrodinger’s cat:
Agree.
goblue72
The Democratic Party is in trouble and has been for quite some time – basically since the mid-1990s, and frankly in some ways it started even before that. We got lucky in 2006 with the combination of a slowing economy, a failed war, and a President that was so grossly incompetent that he has been forced into hiding painting dog portraits in his post-Presidency. That little fluke of luck lasted all of 4 years for us, then back to normal, but even harder and more Tea Baggier.
We can’t survive as a Party that only contests Presidential elections. At some point, the worm will turn on the White House, and we will all be screwed. It is beyond critical for Democrats to take back Congress and the majority of state legislatures. Legislatures write the laws, they set the taxes, and the decide how – and on whom – to spend the money. Want to do something significant and structural to deal with income inequality, systemic racism and climate change? Then we need to control the lege.
Yeah – a portion of our base only comes out of hiding once every four years. But even then, its not like the other side goes to sleep. 2012 was Presidential election year and we didn’t take back the House, and we didn’t do much movement at the state level. We held the Senate, which was status quo. And that’s in the context of when we should be doing “better” because “our” voters should be there.
Something has got to give at the Party level. And that means the Party figuring out how to get some of “their” voters to vote for us, as much as it depends on turnout. Non-white Hispanic voter turnout has been below 50% in Presidential election years for quite awhile. Latino voter turnout was 45 percent in 1996. In 2012, it was…48 percent. This in spite of being a larger share of total voters over that time period. (Asian American voter turnout rates are similar to Hispanic voter turnout rates, but represent a much smaller potential voter bloc to mine)
In contrast, African-American turnout was 53 percent in 1996 and in 2012 it was 66 percent. African-American voter turnout (at least in the last two Presidential elections) has been on par with white voter turnout rates. Course, we have this challenge, that as we gain non-white votes, we also lose white votes. In some cases, at a faster rate than we gain non-white votes. And making things even harder – “our” voters are concentrated in geographically smaller, closer areas. “Their” voters are spread out. We’ve got LOTS of left-leaners all living in a handful of cities. They’ve got right-leaners sprinkled out all over throughout the suburbs (and rural areas). Net effect is we’ve got a few geographies where its 80% Democrat. They’ve got LOTs of geographies where its 55% GOP. (I’m generalizing.) Its exacerbated by gerrymandering, but its not that. And you can’t gerrymander a statewide election like US Senator or Governor.
This is all hard truths, but the data doesn’t lie. And its NOT the voter’s “fault”. Votes have to be earned and turnout has to be earned. Its the responsibility of a Party to do that. One might say, its frankly the only reason for a political party to exist. A Party that doesn’t win elections isn’t a Party; its a social club.
So no, the people of Kentucky do not “deserve” to get it good and hard. The only people getting it “good and hard” are a whole lot of disaffected non-voters who are going to wake up tomorrow with their daily lives being that much poorer and that much more challenging.
Bobby Thomson
Hey, FPers, hows about an election open thread?
Elie
@NorthLeft12:
There are seizure disorders that can be treated in childhood (because the brain is still so plastic), by removing the half with all the abnormal foci causing the seizures. The ok half grows to take over the missing half. It obviously does not mean that the remaining half, which becomes the new whole must have an IQ of 100 or more, or that it be sane. Doesn’t take much brains to ride a horse, so not sure what that had to do with anything…
trollhattan
@eli grossman:
Mark my words [book it, libs!]: at some point Carson will make a speech in which he declares America to be like a box of chocolates.
Baud
@goblue72:
Liberals against civic responsibility.
Interesting.
goblue72
@Rising Above: Look ma, a sociopath with a small penis.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Corner Stone: @Bobby Thomson: Weigel’s fellow Wash Post employees, Greg Sargent, is labeled as a liberal, self-described “pro-life”, Ron Paul supporter Weigel does not get a label that I’ve seen. I take him for what he is, and reporter with an agenda, I’m just surprised at the note of triumphalism that I see (others’ MMV) in those tweets.
goblue72
@Rising Above: Look ma, a sociopath with a micro-cock.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@RSA: I recall reading that story when you wrote it, and I think of you and your wife often. Days when I bitch about (what I’m assured by a physician are minor) cognitive deficits from MS, I bitch slap myself and recall what actual dementia in a young woman looks like, and how it affects families. My heart goes out to both of you.
CarolDuhart2
@Rising Above: Rising Above-there is no “War on Coal”. The truth is that fracking and automation have decimated the industry. Why pay for dirty coal when natural gas is cheaper and cleaner and costs less to transport? Why would the coal barons pay for jobs when a single person with heavy equipment can do the work of twenty, and with automation doesn’t even have to be near the coal mines in the first place? And why should urban dwellers pay for the health coasts of burning coal anyway when better alternatives are available? Why should your job cost me my health?
As far as Obama is concerned, the fact that he’s black means people were hostile to him from the beginning. It wouldn’t have mattered what he said, he was a Black Democrat from Illinois, and they would never have given him a chance.
beltane
@Baud: Voter turnout is much, much higher in almost every other country, even the shitty and corrupt countries. Maybe “American exceptionalism” can best be defined as a complete indifference to the world beyond one’s living room couch.
MazeDancer
KY reporters on Chris Hayes’ show said that Bevin in closing days of campaign took repeal of KY Connect “off the table”. Bevin said he’d do some Indiana-esque, it’s not Obamacare, fig leaf thing with slight fees or something and KY Connect – which is absolutely not Obamacare – stays in place.
So that left Bevin free to turn out the Hate Obama vote. Which the reporters say is key.
Racism in action. Conway was too close to the the President. They are still, eight years later, frothing in anger that a Black Man is in the White House. Certainly explains, a little, the seemingly foolish running away from Mr. Obama in previous elections. It’s not Mr. Obama’s policies, it’s his skin pigmentation.
And Bevin supported both cock-fighting and Kim Davis. So racism and Christianism and crazy – plus low turn out – wins again.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Oh, Lord Brokaw… Dan Rather made his journalist’s bones as reporter, I think (Wasn’t he the inspiration for Doonesbury’s Roland Hedley and his trench coat?). Was Brokaw ever anything but a news-reader? I think it’s grand that he hasn’t died. I’m sure his family loves him. But why do we have to pretend that, because he’s been around a long time, he has any insights to offer?
Ohio Mom
@Iowa Old Lady: I also live in Hamilton County. When I went to vote today, the big sign-in books were gone, instead I had to sign in electronically on a hand held screen, like you do on a screen after you swipe your credit card.
So not surprised there are people like your friend whose records were not uploaded and who “disappeared” from the rolls.
I will miss the books and signing my name in ink. I liked the visual proof that I was one among hundreds of other voters, I liked seeing my husband’s name on the line below mine, I liked the sound of the pages being turned and the little sigh of relief of the poll worker when she found my name and could turn the book in my direction so I could could put a matching twin of a signature next to the xeroxed one in the book. It was a lovely ritual.
Also worry a bit about fraud and accusations of fraud. Whose electronic signature looks like their real one?
goblue72
@Baud: Nope, just a pragmatist active in politics in my personal life who understands how the world works. Blaming voters is a complete waste of time and abdication of responsibility on the part of anyone who is active in politics.
That’s not how you win elections. And writing off voters is also foolhardy. The purpose of a Party is to win elections. When Parties lose elections, its not the voters fault. Its the fault of the Party. As well as the candidates – but as it is the Party than in many races has groomed, enabled, trained, and recruited many of the candidates, the Party bears responsibility for that too.
When a Party cannot get voters to vote for their candidate – time, after time, after time – its not the voters. Its the Party – it may be platform, it may be organizational, it may be messaging, it may be fundraising, it may (and possibly is), all of that. But its not the voters fault.
Elie
@goblue72:
Well said… I totally agree with you. Just what to do.
I am perpetually challenged with how to make progressive choices mean more at the local level. It just seems we are always outorganized by our red neighbors through their ability to bring really motivated people together in the chambers of commerce and the churches. The progressives here (NW WA state), don’t seem to have the social institutions that can be a fulcrum for our message. Somehow, we let Christianity get affiliated with the right wing and our churches just don’t seem to have the congregations motivated to lead the charge. Unions are much less a force than they were and there don’t seem to be the social organizations for the progressives to be a focus for building and broadcasting our message. We are back to grass roots 101 and way too many of our volunteers (including moi) are older…
I’ve been combing my brain trying to think of how to connect with the 30 – 45 year olds with whom we would have a message that would hopefully resonate. I don’t think that they are voting Republican necessarily, but we aren’t capturing them to vote progressive…
Rising Above
@CarolDuhart2:
Jessie Jackson did very, very well in KY and WV Democrat primaries in ’88, unlike Obama in ’08. Please explain that, thanks.
Al Gore won both, but Jackson came in second and won many, many counties that were 95%+ white.
The racism theory doesn’t hold up. It’s Obama’s anti-coal agenda.
Baud
@MazeDancer:
Thanks. If that’s true, at least the people in Obamacare who bothered to vote will still have health insurance.
schrodinger's cat
@beltane: Bihar, one of India’s poorest states had their assembly elections just now, voting was held in 5 phases and in some phases the turnout was close to 60%.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Botsplainer: I’ve been thinking about you, given what just happened. Holy rollerskating fuck. How did Bevin win? I know, of course, that tiny turnout always means the RWNJs have the home field advantage.
I also suspected that there might be some maternal gloating in your future. I’m only distressed by a municipal court race that I thought was competitive but where the good guy is down 17 points.
Gimlet
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/carson-national-review-mannatech-submarine
Dr. Ben Carson on Tuesday suggested that a rival presidential campaign had leaked information about his relationship to a medical supplement company to a conservative news outlet in order to discredit him.
Steeplejack (phone)
@bemused:
I was wearing a touch of Aramis when I voted today, as is my wont on formal occasions, and I may have made a few Popeye-like subvocalizations while I was voting. But no one seemed to take it amiss, and the Jessica Walter paleo-cougar at the registration desk actually perked up a bit.
Baud
@goblue72:
Couldn’t disagree more. Politicians shouldn’t blame voters. Regular voters should make clear that voters are responsible for the state of their government.
trollhattan
@CarolDuhart2:
It tests better if pronounced, “Wowah on co-ah.”
Next up: “Obama’s secret plan to rid our city centers of horses.”
mdblanche
@Bobby Thomson: Touche.
Elie
@goblue72:
I would add that though the Democrats have some challenges right now, the demographics are reassuring, as long as we can open up our party to promote policies that help the middle class and poor and not just the upper 2%. We will see. What helps of course is the complete lunacy of the GOP — at least we hope!
RSA
Thanks for your thoughtful comments. I am sometimes a little overwhelmed by the kindness I find on BJ.
Elizabelle
Very sad about Kentucky results. Morons.
trollhattan
@Gimlet:
Nice try doc, but you’re doing a fine job discrediting yourself.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Omnes Omnibus: @raven: Don’t make me come over there you two. Directed in the order listed.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Brokaw: What’s gotta terrify Democrats, is Kentucky a predictor for the nation?
Somewhere Halperin and Fournier are nodding as they type the same thing.
Mike J
@Rising Above: And Clinton, who beat the best politician of his era in WV and KY, is running this year.
raven
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Oh it’s cool, I know how to take orders.
trollhattan
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
But MA–AHHH, he started it!
goblue72
Don’t look now, but Democrat Jim Hood, AG of Mississippi, is attempting to hold on as last Democrat to hold statewide office in the Deep South.
And yes, you read that right, in the entire of traditional “Old South” – there is not a single Governor, Lt Governor, Attorney General, Treasurer, or Auditor who is a Democrat except for Hood.
White people aren’t going away and they sure as heck vote in every damn election. And we need to figure out a way to get some of them to switch their votes. Doesn’t mean we go “kinder, softer, gentler racist”. No, of course not. Nor does it mean we go beat up on the poor, or LGBT folks or immigrants. But our Party needs to figure out a way to get those voters to look past that and vote for our side.
gogol's wife
@Mike J:
Let’s try.
Like that?
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Iowa Old Lady: Good God, Hamilton County is not heavily Democratic, though the city of Cincinnati itself is. The suburbs are rhubarb red, and I’m sure there were plenty of issues. Of course the biggest issue where I voted was a standoff with horns blaring between two short older females, each backing up in the temple parking lot. I’m in a rare quite Democratic suburb.
Omnes Omnibus
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Sorry, mom.
Gravenstone
@Iowa Old Lady: Hamilton County is CIncy. And it sounds as if your friend’s experience isn’t unique. They had to extend voting hours there because of the “irregularities”.
Botsplainer
@goblue72:
As a native Louisville socialist commie Kenyan Muslim supporter with A LOT of trailer-dwelling, cousin-fucking, racist-piece-of-shit relatives on my mother’s side, yeah, they’ve got it coming to them (and yes, I had a drunk relative take a shotgun to the potluck table at the reunion at his daddy’s rental field – he was aggrieved over the notion that his 4th wife was divorcing him).
The Bevin Administration will make the Fletcher Administration look like a model of efficiency and integrity. We’re gonna get Brownbacked, no lube.
Bobby Thomson
@goblue72: The only way to turn white people to voting Democratic in large numbers is to turn them to non-white people. Mendelian genetics does offer a solution.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Anoniminous:
So basically 13% of the electorate can.determine an election. Good times.
beltane
@Bobby Thomson: Well, according to the statistics, white people seem to be very efficient at doing themselves in with drugs and weapons and such.
Corner Stone
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Contra fucknuts Joe Scar, Brokaw is in fact a Republican asshole.
janeform
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Brokaw sucks. He started dissing Obamacare and Racel gave him a velvet-gloved smack down. He folded. Nice work.
goblue72
@Baud: Completely disagree. Your attitude though, is typical of what I see online in progressive blogs – and frankly, amongst a certain set of the liberal commentariat at large – its the voters fault, voters get what they deserve, what’s the matter with Kansas, why do those fools keep voting against their own self-interest, blah blah blah. Its naive and its arrogant and its wrong.
People don’t vote out of some selfless sense of civic responsibility outside of the small group of kale eating hippies in Boulder, and even there not so much. People need motivating reasons to vote, combined with inculcated loyalty to one side or the other. Its a Party’s job to provide that.
Botsplainer
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
Conway did the same thing in the race against Rand Paul – rested on a Bluegrass State Poll that oversampled Ds as”likely voters” and let spring and summer get away from him, not doing shit until October.
He opened, I shit you not, with milquetoast education spots. He then segued into Bevin’s tax trouble in Connecticut. He never really had a coherent message of continuing Beshear’s course.
The only candidate I gave money to, Andy Beshear, won. Whitney Westerfield tried doing what Bevin did, and it failed to take.
Botsplainer
@Corner Stone:
Make that a mumbling Republican asshole.
Keith G
@Baud:
Frame it as you like, but a political party sorta needs to get votes more that just every four years and it needs to have a some noticeable presence at the level of governance that interacts the most with the citizens. If voters that might be going to us are staying home, we need to try new things that do not include blaming them.
@goblue72: To your point, Matthew Yglesias at Vox wrote about this at some detail.
I did not agree with all of Yglesias’ observations but he does a pretty good job of chronicling the results of GOP dominance at the state level.
It’s a interesting read.
goblue72
@Botsplainer: Well you are going to get it hard and lubeless too. There’s a lot more stuff on “our” side’s agenda that would be great to push forward on that we currently can’t – higher wages, lowering college tuition, subsidizing child care, providing for paid maternity leave, public infrastructure, mass transit, climate change. The list goes on, and some of those things affect middle class dude’s/dudette’s posting on the Internet.
goblue72
@Keith G: Thanks. Have read that. And like you, I don’t agree with all of his analysis. But I do agree with the general thrust of it.
goblue72
@Elie: Frankly, I think the union thing is critical. There’s a fair bit of academic analysis that points to the falling fortunes of the Democratic Party (outside the White House) to the falling fortunes of unions and the decline of union membership. Unions were – and are – THE organizational structure that provided POWER to working people. As the power of unions increases, the electoral prospects of politicians aligned with the more pro-worker party (Democrats) increases. While the core agenda of unions is economic, and more specifically, the economic prospects of unionized workers, when the kinds of candidates that unions get elected tended to be also the kind of candidates that supported other big plank of the liberal agenda (civil rights – racial, gender, sexual orientation, etc.). And while at the height of union power in this country, environmentalism hadn’t really started yet, these days, the big national unions are fairly sympathetic with and allied with the environmental movement on a number of issue.
Not sure how we do it, but it would sure be nice if Democrats made labor issues a more important plank. As it stands today though, the Party is way too dependent on money from financial services/Wall Street and from tech – two sectors that hate unions.
Nate Dawg
Are we allowed to complain about the Front Page posts being completely fucked up right now?
Wow.
Elie
@goblue72:
I referenced this earlier on another post about the election. It is worth a read and some deep thought about how we Democrat/progressives can make sense to these folks. Right now I am sure a fair number are into the extreme anger and denial phase that has resulted in supports for crazy policy at the state level and support for candidates like Trump and Carson. REAL things are happening to them and their emotions govern the only impact they feel that they have on the “system”… They will at some point be ready for something else (Lord willing), but we have to figure out how to reach that —
Botsplainer
@goblue72:
Oh, I agree.
It sure was good to get all those blue dogs purged in 2010, wasn’t it? Really set the stage for major progressive change…
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@Rising Above:
Jackson got 13% in WV and 15% in KY.
If you are wont to behaving like a lying sack of shit, you should avoid easily searchable databases.
Randy P
Well, the GOP keeps their 100% lock on my local (Delaware County PA) County Council.
But overall, it looks like the Dems did pretty well in the PA results I’m seeing. There were some important judge seats and it looks like a Democratic sweep there.
http://6abc.com/politics/2015-local-election-results-for-pennsylvania-/1055346/
Dems also appear to be doing well on other local counties that aren’t mine.
As I recall, our county went for Obama about 60-40 in both elections, and supposedly we are registered majority Dem as of a couple of years ago. So the continuing GOP lock on County politics is a little frustrating and puzzling.
Brachiator
@beltane: I am on the road and can’t post much or read the site. Has there been much commentary on the recent stories about the unexpected rise in white deaths? This is actually a bad sign, in that it suggests that long term downward trends in the economy is taking a terrible toll. The stories remind me of the devastation in the physical and mental health of people in the former Soviet Union. These societal ruptures can lead to murderous counter-reactions.
Mike in NC
@goblue72: Not true. NC Attorney General Roy Cooper is a Democrat and there are probably several others across the south. Where do you read this bullshit?
Elie
@goblue72:
Yes, Yes, Yes
Steeplejack
@Mike J:
You can do it either way. On some devices (some people find that) it’s easier to mash the
<quote>button, enter the text and then mash<quote>again. I find it hard to highlight a block of text on my small cell-phone screen with my gigantic fingers.Kryptik
@Elie:
On this note, I’m just going to repeat a comment I made on LGF about things:
Satby
@goblue72: I disagree. Most people have checked out completely, a 25% turnout shows that. It affects any and all parties. Not just one. But the one party with the true spite voters always can eek out a win under a turnout that low.
Steeplejack
@Gimlet:
That Franklin Foer piece is from June 7, 2004, by the way (in case someone thought it was a new one prompted by Chalabi’s death). I hate it when websites don’t clearly time-stamp their pieces.
And thank you, Gimlet, for providing the link as well as the text.
Satby
@Nate Dawg: you must be old and unable to adapt to change.
The Golux
@seaboogie:
What I always do is to select the text to be in the blockquote, then click the quote button.
Works every time.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@goblue72:
White evangelicals — who are the majority of the white voters in the South — believe as part of their religion that gay people are sinners and minorities are inferior as decided by God himself. You can’t present logical and rational reasons for them to change their minds, because it’s based in religion and emotion.
How do you propose changing the religious beliefs of that group of people?
Matt McIrvin
538 folks talk about the 2016 election:
http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/the-election-is-a-year-away-is-either-party-winning/
Nate Silver thinks it’s fifty-fifty, Harry Enten thinks the Republicans have a slight advantage, but it seems to be mostly because they don’t think the Republicans are really going to nominate Trump or Carson.
CarolDuhart2
We’ve known what to do for a while. Support election and voting reform that makes it easier for many of our voters to actually vote (vote by mail, rationalized elections). Create a liberal media that connects to people instead of leaving it up to MSNBC to do it (little as it does). Go around to the new constituencies not just at election time but between elections-partner with minority churches and clubs and be PRESENT EVERY DAY and VISIBLE EVERY DAY.
But certain Dems who have the money to do it won’t do it because they still think that if they don’t embrace the new voters, white working class people will come back to the party somehow. They aren’t going to ever, but until these people who hold a lock on much of our party get slapped on all four cheecks, they won’t allow the needed changes to be made.
An example is the Congressman who was elected in 2008 in my district. We never heard much from him-he never ever tried to come over to the East part of our town. He lost badly even though we tried to do turnout work (remnants of the Obama organizing work was still working today)
Steeplejack
@Botsplainer:
Take (cold) comfort in the fact that you will be able to righteously go off on her ass when it does happen.
ETA: Thanks to Obamacare, I had my first non-emergency/non-cancer visit to a doctor in, oh, 15 or 20 years.
J R in WV
@Schlemazel:
My cousin worked construction at a big dam site in southern WV, when a rock fell off the top of the cut, dropped a couple of hundred feet, and hit him in the back of his head. The hard hat didn’t help much.
He became a xtianist wingnut almost as soon as he woke up. Last time he phoned me was t ask me to vote for Reagan! I was polite and didn’t laugh at him.
What to do about Kentucky>? Hell, what to do about West Virginia!?!?
Now I’m scared. If they can elect that rat bastard in Kentucky, they can elect anyone, anywhere. Scared!!
Steeplejack
@goblue72:
Well stated, and I agree with most of this.
Honus
@Mike in NC: as are all the statewide offices in Virginia, including both senate seats, which I believe qualifies as part of the Old South.
Steeplejack
@gogol’s wife:
That worked fine.
Steeplejack
@Keith G, @goblue72:
At some level it does come down to Colbert’s joke that “the market has spoken.” You can’t keep blaming the
votersconsumers and just throw up your hands. The Democratic Party needs to figure out why it has trouble getting traction in the local and state “market” and address that. And not by going GOP lite.J R in WV
@trollhattan:
The major problem with the coal industry in West Virginia is that all the f’ing coal minable at a profit and worth burning for an y industrial purpose is already out of the ground.
I worked for a WV state agency with many engineers who specialized in coal extraction and valuation, and well before I retired, they were saying that the industry had about 15 good years left. That was about 12 years ago.
Out west, where most mining is hard rock mineralization lodes, the ore only lasts so long, and when the miners hit the bottom of the lode, that’s the end of the mining. The smelter shuts down, the hardware warehouse closes, the miners move away, and the town is a “ghost town” a couple of years later.
The same happens here in the east, but the towns rot as soon as a few shingles blow off the roofs. The steel gets recycled, or moved to another mine, the people move to another town with an operating mine. But now new mines are a thing of the past.
My best friend’s son-in-law recently moved to Nova Scotia to open a new coal mine – a long long way from West Virginia!
Big coal has spent millions of dollars blaming President Obama for the failure of the coal industry, but that’s all the big lie. Partly prices in the energy markets, partly the exhaustion of the coal reserves in the ground.
People will believe what they want to. If they can convince themselves that a person or policy caused the end of coal mining, they can believe that another person or policy will bring it back to life. But when the ore – or coal – is gone, mining is over.
Kentucky election has me angry, and I need to get to sleep early to make a Dr appointment in the morning. Dammit.
Elie
@Kryptik:
They are still very angry… but the reality will sink in and we have to be there — or something. They actually cannot accept that they are no different than anyone else. All this time… all this time it was USAUSA USA — and they thought that this was something special in itself. Sooner or later they will have to move on and accept—
This 2016 election will tell us how much work we still need to do
louc
@piratedan7: OMG. My husband and I were making the very same joke the other night. He does sound a bit like the Peter Sellars character, doesn’t he?