Professor Krugman:
How will the news media handle the battle between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump? I suspect I know the answer — and it’s going to be deeply frustrating. But maybe, just maybe, flagging some common journalistic sins in advance can limit the damage. So let’s talk about what can and probably will go wrong in coverage — but doesn’t have to.
First, and least harmful, will be the urge to make the election seem closer than it is, if only because a close race makes a better story… A more important vice in political coverage, which we’ve seen all too often in previous elections — but will be far more damaging if it happens this time — is false equivalence.
You might think that this would be impossible on substantive policy issues, where the asymmetry between the candidates is almost ridiculously obvious. To take the most striking comparison, Mr. Trump has proposed huge tax cuts with no plausible offsetting spending cuts, yet has also promised to pay down U.S. debt; meanwhile, Mrs. Clinton has proposed modest spending increases paid for by specific tax hikes.
That is, one candidate is engaged in wildly irresponsible fantasy while the other is being quite careful with her numbers. But beware of news analyses that, in the name of “balance,” downplay this contrast…
And what about less quantifiable questions about behavior? I’ve already seen pundits suggest that both presumptive nominees fight dirty, that both have taken the “low road” in their campaigns. For the record, Mr. Trump has impugned his rivals’ manhood, called them liars and suggested that Ted Cruz’s father was associated with J.F.K.’s killer. On her side, Mrs. Clinton has suggested that Bernie Sanders hasn’t done his homework on some policy issues. These things are not the same…
Finally, I can almost guarantee that we’ll see attempts to sanitize the positions and motives of Trump supporters, to downplay the racism that is at the heart of the movement and pretend that what voters really care about are the priorities of D.C. insiders — a process I think of as “centrification.”…
Meanwhile, our Very Serious National News Media:
Greatest moments in the WH press briefing room: pic.twitter.com/46fu6TLIp0
— Charlie Spiering (@charliespiering) May 6, 2016
***********
Keep calm and GOTV on. In the interim, apart from Mother’s Day, what’s on the agenda for the weekend?
Villago Delenda Est
Our media needs to be put on a rocket ship, and sent screaming into the heart of the Sun.
They are beyond useless. They make the old Soviet media seem down right impartial.
rikyrah
Good Morning ?, Everyone ?.
Off to swim ? and run errands this morning.
Betty Cracker
I’m planning a birding hike for later today. Hope to see some roseate spoonbills.
amk
dems have always had two opponents – rethugs and their media minions.
da kenyan showed how to beat them both. twice. #gotv #gotv #gotv
lollipopguild
@Villago Delenda Est: We need to hold their feet to fire, we need to call them out when they say stupid stuff and if some of their little feelings get hurt then too bad. Media people need to know that people are paying attention and names will be taken and asses will be kicked.
JGabriel
Anne Laurie:
Exactly. Once we get past the conventions, get out the vote, engage in:
JGabriel
@Betty Cracker:
That sounds dirty.
dianne
There was an amazing segment on MSNBC with Kate Snow and a Rep. yesterday right before the Rob Reiner segment. It didn’t come up on the website (too hot, I guess). Her jaw dropped as did mine when she asked him his sense of the feelings of the typical Trump voters. He said he wasn’t voting for Trump and his voters were fools being taken in by a charleton and were bigots and racists. Hope someone can recover this and get it out there. It was the most stark statement from a Republican I’ve heard yet. He spoke with great dignity and in a beautiful voice and I wish
MSNBC would do their job and not bury this.
OzarkHillbilly
In the garden this morn. Heading for some friends this afternoon to help celebrate their retirement. Gonna whip up a batch of Settler Beans for the shindig.
@Betty Cracker:
Jealous.
Betty Cracker
@JGabriel: Also hope to see limpkins, swallow-tail kites and wood storks! Filthy!
OzarkHillbilly
@dianne:
Obviously it was just a dream.
raven
@Betty Cracker: For the past two years the owls have appeared in our tree this time of year, here’s hoping.
OzarkHillbilly
I see London has voted for Sharia law.
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: Fuckin A!
Hillary Rettig
We’ve got the Kalamazoo Dog Walk AND Kalamazoo Marathon this weekend – don’t you think they would have been more fun combined? :-)
Anyway I’m tabling on behalf of Vegan Kalamazoo at both.
I also predict I will be spending lots of time mesmerized by this BENTHIC WEB CAM:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31vNARRU1SU
MattF
That WH exchange… The pinned tweet at the top is on-topic, in the larger sense. The internet-of-OMFG.
raven
@Hillary Rettig: My wife is organizing a barkus type doggie parade for the fall and it’s been a pain in the ass for here. At the last meeting two members got into an argument about the school art class drawing contest for an event poster. One person insisted that there be a rule that the woofs in the pictures had leashes on, the other thought that was stupid!
Betty Cracker
@Hillary Rettig: Did you see that neon jellyfish?
different-church-lady
Actually I don’t see the sarcasm in the tweet question. The reporter is following up on Obama’s observation of the gravity of the office by saying, “Here’s a guy who is running to succeed you being out-and-out racist in social media, as thought this were all a big joke.” It’s really exactly what Obama was talking about.
Hillary Rettig
@raven: too bad that such a potentially fun event would lead to such acrimony. everyone should chill out just like chill pugs. // still when all is said and done I suspect the Barkus Parade will be a hoot.
btw, reminds me of one of my favorite Dickens quotes: “Barkis is willing.” (From Copperfield)
Baud
@dianne:
I love Trump supporters. Eating a bowl of crackers right now.
Hillary Rettig
omg yes – so exquisite.
my childhood ambitions was to to be a marine biologist. I’m not sure where I came up with that except that one of my favorite sf authors, Arthur C. Clarke, was also into marine biology and marine science. Exploring space, exploring the deep – it’s all good!
different-church-lady
@Betty Cracker: What, no titmice? No dickcissels? No boobies?
different-church-lady
BTW, what the hell are we all doing being up before 6am on a Saturday?
Shalimar
I assume we will have to wait until after the Republican convention for the “Did any of you morons actually see Idiocracy? It isn’t entertaining anymore when the world economy gets so bad that no one in your family can find a job.” answer.
Baud
@raven:
Those people belong on Twitter.
Baud
@different-church-lady: It’s after 6.
different-church-lady
@Baud: Well sure, if you’re going to use a clock or something…
raven
@Hillary Rettig: I guess it’s why I only provide logistical support on all this stuff.
MattF
@different-church-lady: The bagel store opens at 6:30.
Hillary Rettig
@raven: on an entirely different note do you remember that cool Santa Shroom artwork you posted that your friend did a while back? can you ask your friend if I could use it (w/ link and attribution of course) on a future post? (And if OK please email me the link to it.) thx!
Hillary Rettig
@raven: ps – probably a wise choice!
Hillary Rettig
@different-church-lady: insomnia ftw
OzarkHillbilly
@different-church-lady: Been up since 3:25. It’s normal for me.
raven
@Hillary Rettig: I haven’t seen Jimmy in years and don’t know where he is these days.
different-church-lady
@MattF: And you’re the baker or something?
@Hillary Rettig: Seems like everyone I know has it lately. I’ve been waking up between 3 and 4 am and can’t get back to sleep.
Hillary Rettig
@raven: okay thanks
raven
@Hillary Rettig: Here’s a google.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@different-church-lady: I get off work in a half hour, then I go get some food, and then go to bed.
The Ft. McMurray smoke has arrived in the Twin Cities, and it’s been a major pain in the ass tonight. We had a fire in the solar panels here last evening, and I need to check every couple hours to make sure that nothing has started burning again. It would be nice to be able to go by whether or not I smell smoke, but that’s out the window since you can smell smoke everywhere now.
different-church-lady
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
That’s the only reasonable answer anyone should have.
I love sunrises. I just prefer they come at the end of the day.
Hillary Rettig
@raven: Thank you! He’s really talented.
raven
@Hillary Rettig: We have a small painting of a clearing in the woods that he did before he got all psychedelic.
Punchy
Off to run a 5K. Supposed to be for fun, but my brain cant accept that and must run full speed the whole way. The last half-mile is going to be uber-painful…
raven
@Hillary Rettig: Ah, here’s his website. They live over near the Outer Banks now.
Baud
@different-church-lady: You should consider moving out West. The sun comes up later there.
MattF
@different-church-lady: I’m the eater. As are others– there was a line at the counter of about a half-dozen somewhat dazed-looking bagel aficionados.
ETA: Also, I happen to be an early riser.
satby
Good morning all! Raining here (again). I’m about to turn into a mushroom myself from it all, but yesterday we did get a nice sunshine break. Lots of work finishing orders today and if there’s time dragging more stuff over to sell at the antique mall.
I’m in despair over the media in this country, so I don’t have much to say about that.
raven
@Punchy: It’s the huge Twilight Criterium bike race weekend and there is a 5k running race coming through our neighborhood at 8.
BillinGlendaleCA
@different-church-lady:
I believe those are called sunsets.
raven
@satby: Don’t let it get to ya. Everybody bitches about “the media” all the time. Screw it.
satby
@raven: you got that right!
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: No it comes up at the same time.
Joel
Toddler dad = 6am wakeup on a good day
satby
Just read this at Booman’s place, and I hope he’s right.
evodevo
@different-church-lady: Even better in England, where they have Great Tits … lol
Punchy
@raven: This race is a part of Corporate Challenge, an Olympic-style series of events taking place in Spring and Summer. So team points are based on finishing place. Ergo, this means something. Or something.
Lord, here comes the lactic acid.
Hillary Rettig
@satby: did someone say mushroom?!!?!?!? :-)
Pangloss
Our news media was not totally inept and impotent until The Fairness Doctrine was repealed and the FCC deregulated around 1987. That ruling allowed talk radio to proliferate and conservative buyers to stockpile HUNDREDS of radio stations. These outlets took the place of mimeographed newsletters, and amplified anger and conspiracy theories that once proliferated only though physical means.
The Nixon White House was really where the concept of the Right Wing creating their own media began, with Ailes making the suggestion in a famous memo. Nixon’s enemies list included many journalists, and the Nixon White House used the IRS and FBI to harass journalists. After Watergate, the right wing tried to brand the media as Liberal. The Washington Times was created in 1982, and served as a launching pad and right wing journalism petri dish until Fox News was founded in 1996.
satby
@Hillary Rettig: and still no morel sales people around here! Maybe with a bit of a warm up they’ll start growing.
MattF
@evodevo: Well, we’ve got Grand Teton.
Phylllis
@different-church-lady: Fixinta* head out to set up a table at the town yard sale. Cleared out the attice-where there was a lot of crap, but not nearly as much as I’d feared.
*Yeah, it’s all one word in these here parts.
Raven
@Phylllis: there is no X in that, just fikkin
Iowa Old Lady
Our local farmer’s market opens for the first time this season. Keeping my fingers crossed it doesn’t rain.
MomSense
Hoping the weather holds so I can go out in the garden today.
JPL
Trump.. Hillary is responsible for Bill’s infidelity..
Hillary… Trump is the presumptive nominee
Both sides are going negative..
I might have to turn off the TV until November.
Baud
@JPL: But do both sides have small fingers?
JPL
@Baud: Will Trump end up going hand to hand combat with Hillary? I think not.
qwerty42
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
Some years ago there was a big fire in the Okefenokee Swamp, Eventually the smoke got to Athens. None of this nice ‘woodsmoke on a fall day’ stuff. More like the smell of an old house fire.
Baud
@JPL: She should challenge him to a thumb wrestling contest.
PaulWartenberg2016
It’s FREE COMIC BOOK DAY Saturday!
Geek out at your local comic book store!
I will. I plan on dressing up for a few hours as a Jedi.
Schlemazel Khan
@qwerty42:
I remember the wildfires in Florida having a very distinctive smell. There was a hint of eucalyptus to it and some other earthy smells, nothing about it was pleasant. In the southwest I thought they smelled of sage & mesquite which is not unpleasant but up here on the frozen tundra next to the big woods they smell like a campfire mostly.
I didn’t notice the smoke last night but then again I have been so stuffed up this spring I’m not surprised.
Schlemazel Khan
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
We met your seatmates for beers at the new taproom in Robbinsdale. They have a couple worth returning for is you ever get a night off!
satby
@PaulWartenberg2016: Hi Paul, you asked a day ago but I was offline by then; I make and sell soap and other skin care items. Got into it because I’m allergic to a lot of stuff in commercial products.
Hildebrand
@Hillary Rettig: Need to add those the most important event in Kalamazoo this weekend, the International Congress on Medieval Studies (best academic conference of the year, well, outside of the Medieval Congress in Leeds, UK).
Woodrowfan
giving a final exam at 9. ugh. I hate this year’s finals schedule.
JPL
@Pangloss: this
debbie
@JPL:
I’m with you. What a laughingstock this has become.
Agrippa
The cartoon is very funny.
The article is true and accurate.
Well done!!
Agrippa
@JGabriel:
GOTV is first and foremost!
Agrippa
@JPL:
I seldom watch TV. When I decide to try, I go through the channels, and find nothing worth watching.
As for the news media ( there are no “good old days”): the press are like birds on a wire; when one comes, they all come; when one leaves, they all leave.”
the Conster, la Citoyenne
Just watched the clip of Bill Maher taking down whiny little bitch Trump in epic fashion from last night’s show. Wow, that’s gonna leave a mark. I didn’t realize Trump had sued Maher for saying his father was an orangutan. Trump is so thin skinned, Hillz won’t need to do anything – there are tons of surrogates just waiting to take their shots. Maher said he’d vote for the candidate with balls, not (with apologies to vaginas) a giant pussy.
debbie
End of the world for the GOP Oldtimers.
rikyrah
@PaulWartenberg2016: That sounds like fun ?
the Conster, la Citoyenne
LOL, I’m in moderation again – every discussion of Trump puts me in time out for using all of the words that trips the filter. It’s going to be a long election season. A front pager needs to give us a list of safe words to use.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
Trump is so easy to troll, it’s ridiculous. A few tweets from Liz and he’s off the rails.
Hal
Didn’t the guy Hillary ran against for Senate in NY try some variation on blaming her for Bill’s cheating? I seem to remember him saying she knew about it or some such shit. IIRC, that didn’t go over so well.
BillinGlendaleCA
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: One of the bad words is casino. The way you can use it without going into moderation hell is to put an empty bold or italic in the middle of the word. What I did here is cas[em][/em]ino.
Sloane Ranger
@raven: Yeah! And despite Zac Goldsmith trying to link him with Islamic extremists, which even some Tories found disgusting.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@BillinGlendaleCA:
The one I used had to do with the female anatomy – probably tripped the pr0n filter. Bill Maher used it in the context of Trump being a whiny little b!tch.
Amir Khalid
@Sloane Ranger:
Zac Goldsmith should have known better. His sister Jemima was once married to a Pakistani Muslim, the cricket legend and politician Imran Khan.
Schlemazel Khan
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
I wrote a comment yesterday that got eaten and I have no idea why. It did not contain a single reference to that parlor of chance or to any body part or any of the 7 words you can’t say on TV. It is the lack of explanation or opportunity to correct the problem that is so frustrating.
Elmo
@satby: Hoping you’re still around – which of your products would you recommend for extremely chem-sensitive multiple allergies dry skin?
Rolling Along
Check out this morming’s Washington Post. Bill Krisol and another conservative opinion leaders met with none other than Mitt Romney to discuss an independent bid. Hearing again through back channels that the Koch Bros may be on board.
“ON DEMAND” funding will take care of ballot acces. We’ve been hearing assurances that it’s not an issue, remember many state legislators owe Koch and ALEC their jobs. When the Hedge Fund Boys say “jump” they’ll respond “how high?”
Trump and Hillary are going to get utterly hammered. The Romney Band is getting back together!
#TakeItToTheHouse
MattF
@Rolling Along: Brinks Trucks are rollin’ again! How’d that work last time?
Schlemazel Khan
This was the comment I want to see if I can figure out what went wrong:
“RELAX! He doesn’t really mean it, he is only saying these things to get elected. Once he is in power he will be reasonable and we can easily control him. Believe me, you have nothing to worry about”
– Albert Junker, speaking to the guys at the Berlin Businessman’s club, 1936
Amir Khalid
@Rolling Along:
After their triumphant 2012 album and tour!
Schlemazel Khan
OK, so the problem was the word spelled R, E, L, A, X — SERIOUSLY WP?
once I put the magic bits into that word the comment passed. WTH???
OzarkHillbilly
@Schlemazel Khan: FYWP. It is just a bug in the system that we all have been bitten by. One FPer (Mayhew?) has taken to copying every comment before he hits ‘POST’. It used to get me all too often, but lately has become a rare occurrence for me.
@Elmo: If she is not around, click on her name and it will take you to her store. The info you want is probably there.
JPL
@MattF: If the Brinks Trucks are rolling again, does that mean Jeb will be anointed VP?
Princess
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Warren really gets under Trump’s skin. I know and agree with all the good reasons for not choosing her as VP, but man, she’d perfect at the ‘Hillary’s attack dog” part of the role.
Schlemazel Khan
@Rolling Along:
“back channels”
Is that what you call your down low top?
Hal
@Hal: OK, I blanked on Rick Lazio and was thinking of Tim Russert asking Clinton a trust issues question during the 2000 debate because she initially defended Bill against cheating allegations. Lazio replied something about Hillary blaming others for her own mistakes.
amk
@Rolling Along: better warn turd blossom lest he has another on-the-air fits.
Schlemazel Khan
@OzarkHillbilly:
I copy before posting anytime I have doubts about words but what possible objection could WP have to that word? The only times I can remember getting deleted like this is when I forget and use casino or that socialist has a pham word inside it. But maybe that is the right thing to do, copy before post
Cat48
@Amir Khalid: Romney? Time to roll out the 47%’video Romney made & the nasty Bain Capital Ads from ex-employees of Mitts. Once more with feeling, Mr. President!
OzarkHillbilly
@Schlemazel Khan: We might be talking about 2 different things. When I use ca$ino, I end up in moderation. WP from time to time just eats comments. There have been times when I just could not comment about anything, no matter how I phrased it, for as much as a half hour or more, and then all of a sudden I can comment again.
I just blame all software engineers everywhere and wish them an eternity in Hell.
MattF
@OzarkHillbilly: It’s possible that ‘WP ate my comment’ is due to a brief disconnect with the server. I’ve seen that happen just before the site goes down.
O. Felix Culpa
@OzarkHillbilly
I vote for clemency: just half an eternity will do.
Immanentize
@Baud: That there was a thing of beauty I intend to steal.
Krugman has that recent article on false equivalency… BUT One of my great frustrations is that the elected democrats engage in it too. They are constantly feeding into the narrative that the Republican Party is not plagued by insanity of a particularly racist virulent slant. I love Obama, but he is among the worst offenders. A strategy, I guess. But people really need to start explaining how the Republican Party as a whole has finally driven off a cliff and to be a republican means you are cheering on the bus driver.
Schlemazel Khan
@OzarkHillbilly:
Well I am sure with you on that last line & not just for FYWP coders!
I guess I am lucky in I have never had that problem. With the comment above I just inserted the blank formatting stuff in various places and it kept failing until I did it to”relax”
satby
@Elmo: Hi Elmo! I would start with plain, unscented soap or lotion. Send me your IRL addy in a convo at my Etsy shop (link in nym) and I can send you some samples to try (your wife is the sensitive one IIRC?). I list all ingredients, so you can easily see if something is an allergen.
Schlemazel Khan
@OzarkHillbilly:
Well I am sure with you on that last line & not just for FYWP coders!
I guess I am lucky in I have never had that problem. With the comment above I just inserted the blank formatting stuff in various places and it kept failing until I did it to”relax”
Just tested it with this comment & yes, relax is a banned word as it failed so I had to redo it
Gin & Tonic
@Rolling Along:
You are unaware, presumably, that to run as an independent in Texas you have to file on Monday? Yes, Monday, two days from now. The filing has to have 80,000 signatures.
But fuck me, why am I talking with you as if you have any understanding of anything?
OzarkHillbilly
@MattF: I have no idea why it happens, almost anything is possible including the plain and simple fact that all computers everywhere hate me. (I commonly arrive at the register with my groceries only to have it seize up the second after I have put my last item on the belt)
It’s OK. I hate computers too.
Immanentize
@MattF: It just happened to me, not that my comment was any Pulitzer worthy thing. Still!
A Ghost To Most
@MattF:
Dude has already had more losing tickets than a drunk at the track.
JPL
@Gin & Tonic: IMO, the idea would be to win enough delegates, that no one gets to 270. At that point, the house decides our next president. The fallacy in that thinking, is that Ryan could not get enough republicans to agree with him, that Romney would be the best choice. Most republicans in the house are bat shit insane.
ThresherK
@Hal: Rick Lazio?
Oh yeah: He singlehandedly recreated, on a debate stage, every married woman’s experience of a husband shoving a credit card statement in her face and saying “You bought a new dress without asking me?”
scav
@A Ghost To Most: One presumably has to work with the strengths and the personality (or tic-based substitute) one has.
Jeffro
@PaulWartenberg2016: was just about to say the same thing…y’all don’t forget to check out TaNehisi Coates’ BLACK PANTHER while you’re there, too!
chopper
ugh. the 3-year-old decided to wake up at 5:30. on a saturday.
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: @Immanentize: site hiccuped for a minute, that’s probably what happened.
Gin & Tonic
@JPL:
The general election voting doesn’t work that way. The third-party candidate would have to actually win some states. Otherwise, a third-part candidate from the Republican side just splits the Republican vote and makes an HRC win even more overwhelming. Show me on a map which state can be won by a third-party-running Romney or equivalent.
henqiguai
@BillinGlendaleCA(#86):
No, you didn’t. You put “cas<em></em>ino” in there. Heh heh, me and my handy dandy lil’ reference book here…
chopper
@Rolling Along:
makes sense you’d bring him up, you have the same track record.
D58826
@BillinGlendaleCA: You mean like as in wall street casino?
Schlemazel Khan
@satby:
Not in the case I was talking about. It is repeatable. Every time I put the word ‘relax’ in a post it gets eaten unless I trick it
JPL
@Gin & Tonic: I meant to say electoral votes, meaning a few states. Romney would win Utah and Jeb might be able to win Florida. After that I’m lost to come up with another state.
chopper
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
Immanentize
@satby: I actually find it comforting that the site gets agita occasionally. Probably the news stories it had for breakfast…
Elmo
@satby: thanks!
Schlemazel Khan
test
Gin & Tonic
@JPL: In a 3-way race Mitt *might* win UT. So what? It’s 6 EV’s. In a 3-way race in FL, Hillary wins. It’s not even close.
oldgold
Generally speaking, Krugman is correct that the media almost always goes with the both sides do it coverage.
But in this case, Trump’s conduct is so egregious and often directed at the press, despite the media’s coolness towards Clinton, he is going to be unmercifully pummeled.
Plus, the media’s maddening equivalence coverage is most often seen in matters involving policy. This is about character and temperament. These are matters the media is more willing to weigh in on.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@qwerty42: There was a fire in the Great Dismal Swamp in Virginia in 2011 that burned for over 110 days.
These fires in Alberta aren’t new but do seem to be getting worse. NASA Earth Observatory:
Amazing, and scary, graphs and images at the link above.
:-(
Cheers,
Scott.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Schlemazel Khan: Agreed. Having posts simply disappear is aggravating. It seems to happen most often with me when I include a link and/or a blockquote in the post – FYWP seems less forgiving then.
Dunno what to do about it, but I do hope things like this are eventually fixed…
Cheers,
Scott.
NotMax
Passed by an unusual campaign lawn sign (banner, about 3′ by 5′) yesterday.
In large letters: Happy Mother’s Day.
In much smaller letters, at the bottom: candidate’s name.
Davis X. Machina
@Immanentize:
Generally — generally — the party that treat an election like a Manichean final battle against the forces of evil looks like a pack of loons. Looking like a pack of loons is a bad look, when you’re running on being the Sane and Competent party otherwise.
The major exception to this is when an election is in fact a Manichean final battle against the forces of evil.
D58826
Starting to fall in line.
Davis X. Machina
@Gin & Tonic: If tipping states away from Trump is your goal, that’s good enough.
D58826
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Worst case would be to write the comment in Word then cut and paste to the comment. At least if it gets lost you have it to try and repost. I’ve done it a couple of times on a long post that I did not want to retype. Waste of time for a sentence or two
Poopyman
@D58826:
They always do. Like a lot of folks, I don’t expect the Bush crime family to follow suit. The firewall is Mitt. If he endorses Trump, expect to see a flurry of similar announcements.
Schlemazel Khan
@D58826:
The interesting thing is the false information Sen. Dole used. Despite having more candidates for a longer period of time 2016 is still short of 2008 for number of primary voters. If we allow his fallacy there is a bigger problem, Clinton has received 50% more votes than the Dumpster and only about 20% more than Bernie (so even Bernie has more votes than Drumpf). So, no record numbers and no real groundswell for the short-fingered vulagrian. Bob needs to lay off the Viagra as it is impacting his cognitive abilities
cleek
the problem is that Trump is candy for the news media. yesterday i counted 37 stories about Trump on the CBS News front page, vs seven for Clinton. i just counted 25 Trump stories on TPM’s front page, vs 3 for Hillary Clinton (one of which she’s sharing with Sanders).
people will not stop talking about him. they enjoy talking about him. he’s entertaining.
D58826
@cleek: not candy – catnip to a feline
NotMax
In other news –
A change in martial policy.
An aftermath of devastation.
Iowa Old Lady
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: It smells smoky here in northern Iowa today. I wonder if the smoke from Alberta has come this far.
smith
@cleek: He can be entertaining and appalling at the same time. Attention paid to him is OK as long as the value placed on the the object of attention is realistic and appropriate. Kind of like all the attention paid to a serial killer. I worry that the press will try to normalize him, but am hoping he will keep reaching for the outer bounds of acceptability so they can’t, really.
I also wonder if we’re not seeing in Trump the personification of a viral meme. Those things have a relatively short shelf life, and it’s entirely possible that the audience will abandon him when some newer form of titillation appears.
NotMax
@D58826
No need to open up Word (don’t get me started on that piece of crap) when Notepad (or the far superior Metapad) will do just fine, and without gobbling up computer resources.
Zinsky
I live in one of the northern suburbs of the Twin Cities and I can tell you, the smoke from the wildfires in Canada and northern Minnesota were choking this morning! I walked outside at 5:45 and I thought one of my neighbors’ couch caught fire on their patio. Haze and a bad stench over our entire neighborhood. I can’t imagine being closer than 100 miles from these fires! It must be apocalyptic!
Schlemazel Khan
@Schlemazel Khan:
I realized too late that I have a small problem with the stats in that post. Hillary has not gotten 20% more votes than Bernie, it is is the mid-teens more votes. Bernie however is a bit more than 20% more votes than Drumpf
JPL
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: 80,000 people have been evacuated and the fire is not close to being contained. In fact they said it could double in size. Scary indeed!
D58826
@NotMax: Any text editor will do. Same process
D58826
@JPL: Only ‘small mercy’ is it’s in a relatively low density population area. Imagine the same scenario in the hills around LA and having to conduct an evacuation on a proportionately larger scale. This is not meant to minimize the horror and loss for the people involved.
Immanentize
@Davis X. Machina: Good point. But can’t this be somehow brought home “more in sadness than in anger?”
Shell
And we’ve got six more months of this shit to go thru. Mama Mia!
germy
@NotMax: more campaign signs:
http://liartownusa.tumblr.com/post/143182333235/political-signs-volii-chinook-mammarian-banjolina
burnspbesq
Why wait? In the states that have onerous voter ID rules, it will take time for the elderly and minority voters that Republicans want to disenfranchise to gather the documents they need to register. Start now.
ThresherK
@Zinsky: There are forest fires in northern Minnesota? I didn’t hear.
But I can understand why. Historically speaking, everyone knows the Great Chicago Fire (so incredible that at least two major league sport teams have been named for it) but on the same day there was the Peshtigo forest fire in Wisconsin, itself no small deal.
germy
@Shell: Why is the process so long? Why do other countries elect their leaders in less time than us? This isn’t rhetorical; I honestly don’t know the answer.
Iowa Old Lady
@germy: Because they have a parliamentary system in which a government is dissolved and must be replaced at points that are often unpredictable. We know when our elections are, so candidates gear up for them. You could run the actual conventions closer to November, but you’d still have people/parties campaigning far ahead because they can’t let someone else get a drop on them.
D58826
@germy: 1st amendment. Can’t shut Tail gunner Ted up on 11/9/16 when he throws his scales into the ring for 2020.
Brachiator
I’ve got tons of spring cleaning to do, so I will go into master procrastination mode and listen to the second part of the Hamilton cast album.
Later today I will go see the new Captain America film and then meet up with some people at a place that is supposed to be a fantastic burger and pastrami joint.
I need a timeout from the political scene because nothing much of significance is happening as various factions figure out their next moves.
And this anticipatory speculation about the feckless media is pointless. But I guess it’s a time filler.
The Sheriff Endorses Baud 2016
@cleek: Rubbernecking on an international scale.
germy
@Iowa Old Lady: I hadn’t thought of that.
@D58826: Perpetual campaigning. Like perpetual war.
D58826
@Iowa Old Lady: This also, but 1st amendment would prevent any kind of legislatively imposed start date. Only thing that might work is a ‘gentleperson’s agreement’ (cough, gag, insert politician joke here) on a start date
gf120581
Apparently, Hillary just won the Guam caucus as expected and will net 5 delegates according to Benchmark. So the meager gains Bernie made thanks to IN have been wiped out. (Guess Tim Robbins was wrong; Guam does matter.) Just another example of why this primary season is over.
Davis X. Machina
@germy, @Iowa Old Lady, et al.:
Andrew Jackson started running as soon as he was beaten in the House by JQA. The perpetual campaign is as old as the party system.
D58826
@gf120581: Can we make this a national holiday (eyes rolling)
gf120581
@D58826: Tomorrow isn’t enough? ;)
TriassicSands
From the NY Times:
My question is: Why or how are there any “respected party figures” in the Republican Party at this point?
Schlemazel Khan
@ThresherK:
Its pretty small > 500 acres, about 3-4 hours North of Minneapolis/St. Paul so it is not getting much attention. But then neither is the apocalypse being experienced by the folks in Canada
max
@Gin & Tonic: Show me on a map which state can be won by a third-party-running Romney or equivalent.
With Romney? Easy. Utah.
Of course, any contest in the House that ended with the guy who won one Norman state as President would kick off the Second American Revolution. I suppose Romney would then fulfill the prophecy of a Morman saving America by sacrificing his head.
max
[‘Considering the circumstances which would bring about a Romney victory, I say he should go for it.’]
Ken
@Davis X. Machina:
The loon’s plan is to prevent a majority in the Electoral College, and tipping Republican states to the third party doesn’t do that. All it would accomplish is a final tally of Hillary 347, Trump 185, ChosenOne 6. They’d need to somehow win a state (or five) that would have gone Democratic otherwise.
Say what you want about the Koch brothers, but they’re not complete idiots about money. They’d have to see that it would be more cost-effective to figure out how much would be spent on this third-party run, and simply set half that amount on fire.
scav
@germy: I’d also imagine to merely suggest there or other viable, let alone perhaps preferable, alternatives is unpatriotic and possibly treasonous. Besides, how else will all the innocent children of the spin-doctors, pr-flunkies and yard-sign printers be fed (on those occasions when bills are not skipped out on).
D58826
@Davis X. Machina: Check out the John Wayne flick ‘The Horse Soldiers”. Col Secord starts the march running for the House and by the time the movie ends he is planning his bid for POTUS. It’s funny because well ‘politicians’!!!
Shell
Yet Bernie vows to stay in the race till ‘the last vote is counted’. The River in Egypt gets bigger and bigger.
different-church-lady
@BillinGlendaleCA: No, silly, sunsets are those marvelous things you have during lunch.
dmsilev
@gf120581: As goes Guam, so goes West Virginia.
Or something like that.
different-church-lady
@Baud:
Not only that, but it goes down over the ocean where it belongs.
Schlemazel Khan
@max:
I think G&T might have wanted a finer comb. Show him any state the Turd Party could take away from Hillary. The goal of that effluent would be to deny Clinton the 270 votes required. Even assume Drumpf could magically wrest a mid-West state from the blue column the lemons would still need to pull 2 or 3 other clear blue wins to themselves to prevent her from winning. Taking a red state from her does nothing for them. I would gladly balance that potential against the much more likely one that Drumpf and the Turd Blossom Special combined get the majority of votes but lose the state to Clinton because she has more votes than either of them.
It is much more likely that they would do this not to win the White House but to prevent their not-totally-insane voters from staying home. It would be a fight for the House, just not the White one.
Germy
@scav: That’s the part that bugs me. How it’s become a big financial industry rather than a normal part of functioning civics. And why candidates need to beg for $$$ if they want to be competitive.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
the word on twitter is that Kristol just wanted to rant at Romney about Ben Sasse. Maybe Our Willard felt he owed Kristol the chance to harangue pointlessly in sympathy to all the people who accidentally let Mormon missionaries past their threshold.
(anybody know if that’s one syllable or two? not that I imagine I’ll ever need to speak his name, I’m just curious. Is it Sass-SAY? which sounds like a WC Fields character?)
Mike R
@chopper: That is just mean, what a wonderful comment.
Brachiator
@TriassicSands: These guys look in the mirror and say”Wow. What a respectable figure!”
Also, NYT earlier reported that Sheldon Adelson said he liked Trump because Trump loves Israel. I suspect that other money men will soon fall into line.
ETA during an Indiana interview with the Daily Mail UK, Trump noted that he supports wider expansion of settlements in Israel. But he also thinks he would be a great negotiator of a peace settlement.
different-church-lady
@gf120581: So, Bernie’s “poised” to win Guam then?
Germy
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Eggbert SassSAY, accent grave on the “E”
His running mate will be Ogg Oggilby, the bubble in the bathtub.
ruemara
Getting ready to attend the Whole Earth Festival, or as I call it, Hippy Dippy Fest. This year, the focus is on RAW! Not sure if that’s food, or plutonium. Dragging the camera out to take some shots. Trying to figure out if I’d prefer to take pictures for money and if I can finance the new(er) car thing. The Yaris and the Versa both drive well but I dislike new car smell intensely, how is that enjoyable? Either is a much lighter handling than my Volvo wagon. Or as it should be called now, Spider Home.
@burnspbesq: yes, please help do this. Votesmart.org and voteriders.org
Germy
How does Jeb feel watching Trump take over his family business?
Germy
@different-church-lady:
I’m poised for my first date with Rihanna. My phone should be ringing any moment now.
Mike J
@gf120581:
Nate’s path to Bernie victory required Sanders to win Guam by 43% and pick up 5 delegates. The previous goal for West Virginia was +52%. Wonder what he needs now.
Iowa Old Lady
@Shell: I was just reading on MSNBC that if Sanders delays conceding until the convention, planning for it is awkward. I didn’t realize that the candidate usually controls the nature of convention events.
MattF
@Schlemazel Khan: Romney running as a third party candidate raises the intriguing (although distant) possiblity of zero EV for Trump. I say ‘go for it’.
D58826
@Schlemazel Khan: Yep. At the top it would be the rather forlorn hope of flipping the election into the House. Probably unrealistic but if SCOTUS hadn’t intervened, incorrectly in my view, in 2000 that just might have happened. But the more realistic hope is to prevent a Senate/House and down ballot blood bath.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Germy: Heh, you’re good. I had to go to IMDB to refresh my memory
ThresherK
Sunderland scored twice in two minutes, are up 3-2 on Chelsea in their bid to stave off relegation. Seeing if they can keep the lead for 20 mins.
ThresherK
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Really? I had you pegged as a guy who’d want to throw a flowerpot at Baby Leroy, just like W.C.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Iowa Old Lady: I couldn’t watch the Maddow interview, I’m so tired of that man and his only-virgin-in-the-whorehouse schtick. And given the general silence about it on twitter and the tubes, I’m guessing it was a lot the same old same old. After hearing for three months that the south doesn’t count, we’re supposed to put everything on hold for him because of West Virginia and Kentucky.
ETA: @ThresherK: You flatter me! and I literally laughed out loud.
I’m still chuckling just imagining that scene. It’s been at least twenty five years since I saw that movie.
Kathleen
@Brachiator: I have cleaning to do also and here I am. I hate to clean but I do it faithfully every weekend. Bleahhh!
Adam L Silverman
@Schlemazel Khan: I got that out of moderation for you last night. I have no idea why it went in, but if I’m perusing the site or working at my computer, I check to see if anyone is trapped and then I free them. Usually. Most of the time.
MattF
@ThresherK: Ah, Baby LeRoy. ‘Chacun à son goo‘.
Matt McIrvin
@Schlemazel Khan: Wasn’t that one of Right to Rise/Rolling Along/Reality Check’s other nyms?
dmsilev
@Iowa Old Lady: That may technically be the case, but if we arrive at June 14th and he’s still making noises about continuing on, he’ll fast become irrelevant. Everyone from Barack Obama on downwards will start calling Hillary the presumptive nominee, all of the remaining superdelegates will announce support for her, etc. Maybe there will be a credentials-committee tiff at the convention, but that would be about it.
Matt McIrvin
@Adam L Silverman:
Because it was one of the always-wrong troll’s previous names-beginning-with-R?
El Caganer
Several of the people I hang with at my local bar are avid Trumpsters; they think he’s going to win in a landslide (?) and carry all before him, kind of like “what is best in life” as described by Conan. They also believe in a number of other truly remarkable things, e.g., there are 93,000,000 unemployed in America, Hillary Clinton will be indicted at any minute, and so on. So they’re not just xenophobic racists – they’re nuts, too.
opiejeanne
@Iowa Old Lady: Seattle had smoke from a fire in Mongolia a couple of years ago.
D58826
@Adam L Silverman: why is the cas??no word subject to moderation? I can see the seven words you can’t say on TV but with this word could not even review an old James Bond flick that end in Royale w/o going into the penalty box.
Matt McIrvin
@Brachiator:
I guess the idea that Trump would be running to Clinton’s left on the Middle East is a non-starter.
Mike J
@D58826: Spammers often spam for online casinos.
MattF
@El Caganer: The barfly constituency. I can believe it. Comes the day that a Faye Dunaway lookalike walks through the door, I’ll pay attention.
Schlemazel Khan
@MattF:
That would be delicious!
@D58826:
I don’t see any other value to the Turd Blossom Special, there is no path for them to create a contested EC
Mike J
@El Caganer:
If you count children and OAPs that’s probably true.
D58826
@dmsilev: At some point, and very soon, he has to decide if he wants to lose graciously and leave a positive legacy that he can build on from his perch in the Senate (hopefully as a major committee chair) or lose ungraciously and become the next Ralph ’rounding error’ Nader. It’s his choice.
Adam L Silverman
@germy: Money. Its all about the money. No state, especially the two self proclaimed kickoff states, want to lose the revenue they get from having everyone flock to them for months. The media doesn’t want to lose its revenue. And the consultants, strategists, ad people, etc don’t want to lose their revenue. So that’s not only why it takes so long, but also why its actually been getting longer. This time it was a full two year process. I fully expect the unofficial kickoff of the next one to start even earlier. The longer you can drag it out, the more money you can make.
Schlemazel Khan
@Adam L Silverman:
it is the word ‘relax’
no idea why but I tested it here several times & I have to game that one word in order not to get it blocked. Weird
THANKS BTW
scav
@Adam L Silverman: It’s suddenly somehow pleasant to think of that little random spinning refuge of trapped comments fizzing about and suddenly set loose for equally random reasons. A pleasant little snappy bitey circus in the hidden below-decks distinct from the swimming pool of acid where other comments are tossed and the various circles of frozen banning etc. (past incarnations of trolls flying endlessly over the burning sands, whispering to and entwining themselves around the subject of their obsession).
D58826
@Mike J: ah!!!!!! One more brilliant insight from reading BJ. Thanks
Calouste
@Iowa Old Lady: In a parliamentary system there is also an explicit leader of the opposition party, which there isn’t in the US.
MattF
@Schlemazel Khan: Maybe because of a recreational chemical x?n?x.
Matt McIrvin
@Schlemazel Khan: I think most of the people talking about a third party throwing the election into the House are just making the really simple mistake of confusing the lack of a popular-vote majority with the lack of an electoral-vote majority. The only situation where these things are even likely to coincide is a two-way race. Usually, a third party that gets significant votes just means disaster for whichever major party is closer to it (if one is).
Adam L Silverman
@Ken: This is a William Kristol, PhD (major field sinecure, minor field nepotism) strategy. The guy does not now, nor has he ever, known anything about anything he has written or spoken about. He has no more understanding of how to force a presidential election into the House of Representatives than he did about why removing Saddam Hussein from power would advance America’s (officially stated reason) and Israel’s (his real interest) interests in the region.
dianne
Nope, just delusional. I paid more attention to the stately demeanor than to the R after his name. He is Mac Stepanovich and is a politico from Fl and a supporter of Bush. He was an advisor in 2000 in the theft of the election for Jeb!s brother. Had no problem then with a low IQ President. I’m sure he was all in for McCain and was ok, I bet when Palin could not even name one newspaper she read daily. The newest nominee says he has the best words, huge words! Only now, does he come out from under his bushel with a candle to light the way for all the uneducated GOP voters.
Even that I suspect, was not the catalyst for his sudden appearance on the scene. The Trump states that he will negotiate with the holders of US Treasuries and will make them take a “haircut” to reduce debt. Oh, the horror!
And his supporters are gleeful to see the country club Republicans squirm. When they find out that social securiy is also held in Treasuries, oops. The demographics continue to fall like dominos.
Schlemazel Khan
@scav:
That is poetry, man!
Amaranthine RBG
The key to the election will be who can come up with the best punny insults.
Hillary launched her latest by calling Donald the “presumptuous” nominee instead of the “presumptive” nominee. Get it?
They’re words that sound kind of the same and they’re both words most voters never utter.
Matt McIrvin
@MattF: Nah, I think it’s because RtR called himself that for a while.
Amir Khalid
@ThresherK:
Don’t have anything against Guus Hiddink (who’s a pretty decent bloke — then again, compared to Jose Mourinho, who isn’t?) but I hope Sundlund hang on and climb out of the relegation zone.
Schlemazel Khan
@Matt McIrvin:
Really? I guess I don’t remember that. That would explain it, thanks
Of course now he calls himself ‘rolling a schlong’ or something so it didn’t really do what needs to be done. But that is illegal.
Adam L Silverman
@Matt McIrvin: Could be. I do not understand how WP works anymore than anyone else around here. I’m assuming it has something to do with arcane mutterings and the entrails of small animals roasted on a dark altar to some abhorrent deity.
MattF
@Adam L Silverman: Kristol’s a Straussian. He thinks the main use of lesser breeds is cannon fodder– and if they survive that, enlistment for garrison duty in the colonies. It’s pretty clear from looking at the few times he’s sorta lost his temper, but he’ll never say it publicly.
Amir Khalid
@Adam L Silverman:
I suppose the logical conclusion would be the presidential cycle starting around, or even a little before, Election Day of the previous cycle.
D58826
@Matt McIrvin: 2000 almost made it to the EC with a three way race, in some states. But there were a lot of other factors outside of Fla that helped push it to the limit. Clinton won a plurality in a three way raced with Perot. Without Perot 1992 might have gone for Bush. EC was never an issue however.
For political junkies gaming out the possibilities is like the theologians arguing about the number of angels on the head of a pin. Or baseball fans on why there are no more .400 hitters
Adam L Silverman
@D58826: I don’t know and have never had that issue. It may be because I’m logged into the site so I can access the dashboard, but I do not know why casino puts some people into moderation.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Missi-fucking-sippi?
different-church-lady
@D58826: That made me curious about whether a certain someone was still on time-out.
Certain someone is. You know by the fact that if you type certain someone’s name in your comment, it simply evaporates wthout the usual “moderation” warning.
Adam L Silverman
@scav: that was a great comment. It was a hoot to read! The only time I don’t free something in moderation is if its obvious spam, in which case I hit the spam button or if I can’t tell whether its over the edge and I then leave it for one of the Front Pagers that have been here longer to adjudicate.
Gelfling 545
@Betty Cracker: hope to see phoenixes and griffons. Probably won’t though.
D58826
@Adam L Silverman:
ah now your blaming it all on Ted Cruz
Adam L Silverman
@MattF: I know he’s a Straussian. People who never paid attention when Socrates explained that: fine, I’ll theoretically sketch out a polis that is more exciting for you, but its not the ideal one that I just explained and you found too boring.
Ken
@Adam L Silverman:
I did call it a loony plan…
So wait, is Right/Rolling a Bill Kristol sock puppet?
Schlemazel Khan
@D58826:
It would have only made it to the House in 2000 if Florida had been taken out of play. The 5 thugs solved that issue by putting it back in play to their advantage. How would they remove Florida from Drumpf or Clinton? It is not very likely that the Turd Blossom Special could win it no matter who that is and there are now only 4 thugs living in the USSC so that path is not available to the bastards
El Caganer
@MattF: FWIW, “barfly” and “barf lie” sound alike if said quickly. I suppose both apply to The Donald, though.
different-church-lady
@Gelfling 545: They migrate later in the spring.
Adam L Silverman
@Amir Khalid: I fully expect that too happen. Its the same reason that Halloween candy now seems to go on sale the day after Labor Day and Christmas decorations are now going up the day after Halloween. By 2020 I expect Halloween and Easter to have merged – they both have candy, right?
gf120581
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: That is unexpected. I assume really high African-American turnout brought on by Trump’s bigotry would be the reason.
The other two are not surprising. Georgia’s been talked about as a potential sleeper state for a while (Hispanic voting may be a major factor there) and Utah had polling recently that showed both Hillary and Sanders beating Trump while losing to Cruz and Kasich. Apparently Mormons really don’t like Trump and Romney shunning him won’t help there at all.
Adam L Silverman
@Ken: Could be. Not sure how we’d prove it.
Ken
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I blame the 19th Amendment.
The Lodger
@different-church-lady: I never heard of a Tequila Sunset.
opiejeanne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Mr Sasse pronounces it as “sass” but I say Sassy! I knew a pretty large family with that name and that’s how they pronounced it, and I would just bet he’s kin to them. Besides, Sassy! is more fun.
different-church-lady
@Amir Khalid: “I had to get up in the morning at ten o’clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed…”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
seems like the 2020 GOP primary started when Trump won Indiana
debbie
No wonder Trump’s winning biggly
Wish they could track down the woman and interview her again.
Ken
@Adam L Silverman: Well, has Right/Rolling ever made a correct prediction? If so, he can’t be Kristol.
I vaguely remember R/R switched support several times this primary season, as his favored candidates (Jeb! Carson! Fiorina! Jeb! Rubio! Cruz! Romney!) kept dropping out, or never getting in. I suppose those all count as failed predictions.
D58826
@Schlemazel Khan: right, but if SCOTUS had not acted, and FLA didnot have it’s act together then that was a possible outcome at some point. As I said there were a number of other things that happened (like Gore losing his home state) that year that made it even a possible outcome.
MattF
@debbie: He used Arabic numerals! He used algebra! He used algorithms!
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@D58826: Chrome on Winders lets one do “alt-leftarrowkey” to get the previous page back and the edit window is still populated. There have been times when I’ve tried about a dozen times to get past whatever FYWP was choking on and I eventually had to give up.
First world problems, but still…
Cheers,
Scott.
Miss Bianca
@Phylllis: @Raven:
In Detroit, that expression has been reduced to “finna”. “Finna go to the store” etc. Yard sale sounds good…got a lot of crap that needs cleaned out. But today is grocery shopping and continued resume burnishing, maybe a hike in there with the pups if I’m very good.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@debbie: there was a similar case a few years ago, a woman got a group of (mostly) American Islamic scholars booted off a flight because they were speaking Arabic with a non-USIan colleague at the gate. When they interviewed her she said that all she could think of when she heard them (and saw them, I assume someone had to be dressed in traditional clothes for this woman to guess the language they were speaking was Arabic) all she could think of was “9/11 and my little family”. That last phrase stayed with me because I imagine this woman’s home was decorated with Thomas Kincaid paintings and a lot of big eyed children
and yes I am a member of the club that’s procrastinating on a day I swore would be devoted to spring cleaning and organizing.
The Lodger
@scav: For some reason, I’m reminded of the waste beaker in my high school chemistry lab. Some of us used to toss potassium hydroxide tablets into it and watch them ricochet off the surface.
amk
Will applejinx weigh in today telling us how it is all a clinton conspiracy that she won in Guam without campaigning there?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Cole retweeted something from Meghan McCain so I looked at her twitter feed (yes, that is how badly I want to avoid cleaning) in the vain hope of seeing some response when half the tweeting world points out to her that her father helped create Trump. Of course she didn’t but I did see this
she is amazing in her own way.
ETA: I hope Fox gives her and MacArdle a McMeghan show, where they can share McThoughts about a world they don’t know confuses them very badly.
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman:
Revenants are also a popular mutual theme.
Eric U.
@Matt McIrvin: well, the republican party leadership was confused about that same issue, only in the “winner takes all” format vs. popular vote. Romney was the establishment choice, and he won the old way, so I don’t know why they had to make these stupid changes and throw it to Trump. But they aren’t exactly the smartest people in politics. Lots of confused people out there.
I know there are a batch of liberals that don’t want to vote for the compromise candidates we always get for president, so then they help the republicans win or at least keep it close. These are nominally intelligent people, so I don’t get it. If we elect only purity pony candidates to minor local offices, eventually there will only be purity pony candidates at the presidential level, and so we will not have to sully our principles to vote for them. But since the purity pony people only run third party at the local level, they never get elected and the dems are at a severe disadvantage at those levels of government too. In one Dem-friendly election around here, there was a green candidate and he pulled in more than the margin of victory between the incumbent republican and the democrat. Infuriating.
Applejinx
@amk: Don’t read this site much, do you?
My major beef with Hillary lately, is trying to get money from disenchanted Jeb? people. I can see it’s part of ‘win at absolutely any cost against Trump’ but at a stroke she made it 1000 times harder to persuade any berniacs that she’s going to continue running to the left. It validates the whole ‘massively right for the general’ suspicion.
I think it might be ‘get money from them NOW before continuing to swing left and then grabbing all the hippie votes at the convention through ceding the platform to the Bernie wing’. She does actually like a lot of that platform, and if she’s at all smart she knows it’s time to turn against the oligarchs. So, logically, now is the ONLY possible time to hit up anti-Trump Republicans for money.
Doesn’t mean I have to like it, and I don’t.
Brachiator
@Germy:
Now there’s a Godfather movie I’d like to see.
Schlemazel Khan
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I see where John thinks that having Drumpf at the head of the ticket killed his re-election chances. I think the worse hit was his son posting a picture of himself and his wife. My guess is more than a few McCain supporters heads exploded when they discovered who (or more in their parlance, what) his DIL is.
Mike J
Guam supes pledge to follow the will of the people, vote Hillary.
And Leicester are picking up their silverware.
Adam L Silverman
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: We have a poorly informed citizenry that has been fed a constant diet of fear and paranoia for the past 15 years. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the US lost its mind on 9-11 and has yet to fully come back to its senses.
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Bianca: Oy…
Schlemazel Khan
@Brachiator:
I’d be completely OK if they would settle all their scores the way it was done in the movies.
Poopyman
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Damn, this must be a huge club. I’m still here. Actually, I’m back. At least I showered, people!
Keith P.
Just got back in my cats’ good graces. They like dry fancy feast between moist food (with variances between the two cats as to how much of each and which if each they like…it’s ridiculous keeping track), but that’s all I’ve had since yesterday morning. The old male has been bitching up a storm all morning, so I finally went to PetSmart and got Nutro egg scrambles and duck/rabbit pate cans along with a cardboard & catnip bed. My final task is to move the leftover food outside for the feral out back before my female cat comes in to bug me to do it.
Adam L Silverman
@Eric U.: They made the change because they thought it would serve the forcing function of getting the large number of obviously not going to be the nominee candidates out of the primary much sooner than in 2012. Not only didn’t it work, it helped create the conditions that allowed Trump to rise to the top with only a plurality – often not much more than 1/3 – of the primary voters in the states that he won.
Adam L Silverman
@Schlemazel Khan: I’m confused: McCain’s daughter in law or Trump’s daughter in law? You lost me in the second sentence.
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: Remember my motto: No Laugh Too Cheap.
gene108
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: u
MS is 40% African-American. Republicans get 90% of the white vote usually.
Drop the percentage of whites voting Republican by 6-7% and you flip the state.
gene108
@Adam L Silverman:
Sad part is the biggest scaredy cats are in places terrorists are not going to bother attacking.
The places that got attacked or are likely targets, i.e. big cities, are the folks keeping it together.
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: I think this is very true, actually. I think there was a mass psychosis that manifested on a personal as well as national level. I remember very clearly getting into the worst fight of my life with my ex on the very day that GWB announced that we were going into Afghanistan – just the stupidest, scariest, most pointless and exhausting kind of fight imaginable – boiling up out of the blue and then slipping into darkness – and thinking, as I heard the announcement on the radio, “Of course. We’re both crazy right now. The whole country is crazy right now. This is how madness begins.”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@gene108: London just elected a Muslim mayor, and if Ben Sasse is any guide, the people of Nebraska think every breath is a victory they bravely snatched from the encroaching Moose-lim hordes.
Amir Khalid
@Schlemazel Khan:
They have something against USAF Reserve captains?
@Adam L Silverman:
He means Senator McCain’s DIL, the wife of John Sidney McCain IV.
D58826
@Adam L Silverman: My only quibble is the date. The slide into national dementia started with Reagan
opiejeanne
@Adam L Silverman: McCain’s DIL.
Citizen Alan
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
In 2008, Barack Obama got 11% of the white vote in Mississippi. If he’d gotten 15% he’d have carried the state. We have, I believe, the largest percentage of black voters in the nation, so ironically, Hillary wouldn’t really need to peel off that many white women disgusted by Drumpf’s misogyny or even religious types horrified by his moral bankruptcy to carry the state. I would faint if it happened, but it’s not utterly impossible.
D58826
@Applejinx: Oh please. Lenin/Marx are supposed to have said the capitalist will sell the proletariat the rope which will be used to hang him.
If Hillary can convince big GOP donors to help her cut the throat of the republican party then I say go for it. Purity pony politicians are bad enough but why expand that to purity dollars. If GOOPER dollars help dilute the Koch money then great. As far as what will she have to give up for that money, I would suspect very little. When she started a year ago, the plan had to be that she would face a ‘sane’ republican, probably ‘!” (Jeb). Her campaign fund raising plan was probably built around that. Trump is simply a gift from what ever list of gods you wish to chose and any money she can get from the GOP is like winning the power ball jackpot.
D58826
@Citizen Alan: Actually one election projection on Kos has Mississippi, Utah, and Arizona flipping blue at the presidential level ,
Mike J
@D58826:
Also keep in mind where Bernie or Busters would play into this. I believe they are a tiny, tiny minority that won’t actually have any influence whatsoever on the election. BUT, if it looked like there really were a fair number of people on the left who refused to vote for Hillary, those votes will have to be made up somewhere.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@D58826: trying not to restart the fight, really, but… I’m fascinated by the spectacle of indignant Berniacs complaining that the Evil Witch of Wall St hasn’t done more to win over the people who’ve spent the last three months calling her a corrupt whore and declaring that we’re all better off if Trump brings the Revolution.
Also by the seemingly fixed idea that campaign rhetoric and party platforms are more important than down-ticket races and legislation.
ETA: : I saw video this morning of the anti-HRC demos in LA, not all the signs were visible but one was calling her an assassin and another talking about the blood on her hands
Adam L Silverman
@Amir Khalid: @opiejeanne: gotcha, now I’m tracking.
Citizen Alan
@Schlemazel Khan:
DIL?!? He has an adopted black daughter!
Mike J
@Citizen Alan: Bush said the daughter was from his affair with a black prostitute.
Adam L Silverman
@Amir Khalid: @opiejeanne: Just googled it. She’s stunning.
D58826
@Citizen Alan: The wife of his Naval officer son is african american. I think she is military also. And yes there is an african american adopted daughter. Was a Bush slime tactic in S. Carolina in 2000 if i remember. Trump comes by his slime naturally as a republican.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Mike J: one of McCain’s allied PACs hired the guy who started that rumor. the old man didn’t literally sign the checks, nor did he tell the guy and his paymasters to go pound sand.
D58826
@Mike J: True but given the general ‘Hillary is responsible for everything bad since the asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs and that Obama missed destroying) going after the GOP money is just a bit more icing on the cake for them.
Amir Khalid
@Citizen Alan:
The adopted daughter is not African-American, but from Bangladesh.
opiejeanne
I’m in the same boat with cleaning this morning, and after sweeping just the stairs and the entry I can understand the appeal of dirt floors.
Villago Delenda Est
@Schlemazel Khan: It’s a mixed marriage, after all. He’s Navy, she’s Air Force.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: the link was more direct than I remembered, though I think there was a campaign operative more directly involved in the slime in 2000 working for a PAC in ’08. Man of Honor my ass
Villago Delenda Est
@Amir Khalid: Brown is brown, to vile American racist fucks. Asian Indians get confused with Mexicans in parts of the country. The stupid is real, and it’s pervasive.
opiejeanne
@Adam L Silverman: She is.
Miss Bianca
@Villago Delenda Est: Honestly, from the little I know about both services, I should think *that* would cause more strife than any racial issue! ; )
D58826
@Villago Delenda Est: And Sikhs as Muslims because of the turban. If it isn’t white as snow then it isn’t a true Murkin.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@opiejeanne: credit where it’s due, I became aware of them when they twitter shamed some racists who lost sleep over a clothing ad
I think the reason I dislike McCain so intensely is because inside of him is the decent, honorable man he and the Village think he is, if he could just get past his bitterness and megalomaniacal ego
patroclus
The Romney case would be that Trump flips (from Clinton) blue/purple states like Florida, Ohio, Michigan, New Hampshire, Colorado, Iowa, Wisconsin etc… and that Romney wins Utah, Idaho and Wyoming, thus preventing Clinton from getting to 270, but also preventing Trump from doing it either. Like Bernie’s superdelegate argument, that’s the stated case – everyone realizes it’s unlikely and the real goal is just to prevent Trump from winning, but at least it is “plausible” and prevents the media from treating it as completely irrelevant. It would also presuppose that Trump either attracts Bernie votes or that Bernie (or someone similar) runs 4th party or that Bernie voters don’t vote at all. It’s like what David Frum said about a joke reportedly told by Lincoln (you offer a temperance-supporting teetotaler some whiskey in his lemonade and he declines, but if somehow the whiskey was added “unbeknownst” to the teetotaler, it might be okay). It gives the Romney supporting Republicans a place to vote and they are therefore helping Clinton in an unbeknownst fashion. It’s ridiculous – it’s coming from Kristol, but that’s the theory.
ruemara
@Applejinx: Dude, Sanders has been claiming that he would bring in independents and republicans. That he had that crossover appeal. That this was why primaries should be open. Why is it that if HRC is saying, “hey, Republican person who isn’t that fucking nuts, you can vote for me in the general”, that’s a negative?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I wonder if Renee Swift McCain and her FIL talk a lot of politics…
Okay, getting to work now. Really. I mean it.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Okay, seriously, I’m out…
D58826
@D58826:
Paranoia.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/ivy-league-economist-ethnically-profiled-interrogated-for-doing-math-on-american-airlines-flight/ar-BBsK6RQ?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=iehp
D58826
@ruemara: I think we have to add a new tag to the ‘ ‘its ok if your bernie’. Just like ‘it’s ok if your a republican’
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
@ruemara: It’s only a negative if the Hilbeast does it, otherwise totally cool.
The Lodger
@opiejeanne: Also, it’s disconcerting to hear, “I’m Ben’s ass and I approved this message.”
Bob In Portland
Some propaganda for you.
cleek
@Applejinx:
you should probably ask yourself if perhaps you’re simply primed to see everything she does in the most negative way possible.
in other words: confirmation bias.
NotMax
@Adam L. Silverman
He died in 2010 but his blog is still there.
You might well find some of the archived posts informative/enjoyable/incisive.
The Quakers’ Colonel by Col. Dan Smith, USA (Ret.).
Bob In Portland
@gene108: Mississippi is 35% black.
different-church-lady
@Bob In Portland: Race baiter says what?
different-church-lady
@ruemara: It’s a bit more than that, actually: there’s the subtle implication that Sanders and Trump supporters are natural allies in their outsider qualities.
It’s something we saw floated a lot earlier in the campaign. Thankfully that nonsense has receded.
Villago Delenda Est
@different-church-lady: Villager vermin trying to fit the “both sides do it meme” onto a couple of insurgencies from very different directions.
Applejinx
@cleek: I’m surrounded by Facebook peeps including in my own family who are just like that.
So have some patience. I’m trying to think big picture here, but this country is CRAZY. :/
different-church-lady
@Villago Delenda Est: Maybe, but I’ve seen it directly from Bernie-folk too. Certainly not a lot of them, but a handful.
I propose that if you want to know the exact percentage of the electorate in the “hipsters who are politically incoherent” category, just measure who out there is willing to go Sanders or Trump.
D58826
from huffington
While I think Trump will be the nominee, there are still 6-8 weeks to go and Trump could finally talk his way out of the nomination or lightening could strike (him or someone else) and the GOP figures out a way to select someone else w/o totally destroying the party on national TV.
AH there is the ‘delivery of popcorn by the truck load’ at my door with this weeks supply
D58826
@different-church-lady: Maybe the Ron Paul platoon. I doubt if there are enough to make a full company,
different-church-lady
@D58826: I’m going with critically wounded in an attack by wolverines.
Keith G
@Applejinx:
Persuasion? Really?
Listen to yesterday’s Domestic Hour of The Diane Rehm Show. A “berniac” called in, mid show. He will not be happy until Hillary is burned at the stake.
The berniacs, by size, are a smaller group than the politically experienced and rational, regular ol’ supporters of Bernie Sanders. That group, well acquainted with the way the world tends to work, understands the compromises that are required to successfully run a campaign for president. Hillary will reach out to them and they will step up and become part of Hillary’s coalition and will have influence in the Democratic Party.
The “berniacs” who choose to remain truculent will end up isolated, playing in puddles of their own purity poo and jizz of sanctimony.
Maybe you should try to talk some sense into those of that group whom you know.
D58826
@different-church-lady: poor wolverines.
Matt McIrvin
@different-church-lady:
They could just be sexists. That’s fairly coherent.
opiejeanne
@The Lodger: Hehhehehehe. Ben’s ass. I had not thought of that.
After reading his little speech, it’s apparent that he really is an ass.
Vor
@Villago Delenda Est: yep. I have a friend who was born in Malaysia but has lived in the US almost all her life. People routinely assume she is a Latino. Back a couple presidential elections she was manning a GOTV table just outside the forbidden zone at a polling place. Someone actually reported her as intimidating voters and called the police. Cop walked up and saw her sitting with her toddler alongside another woman who also had a toddler there and just rolled his eyes.
J R in WV
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Late to a dead thread, but as USN vet I wanted to say that McCain was a terrible sailor. Read his auto-biography about the Forrestal fire and his behavior in that disaster. He did not comport himself as an officer and a gentleman at all. He didn’t become an admiral, as his father and grandfather did, for that reason.
He was shot down and captured because he wasn’t flying the orders for the mission.
Not a good man, treats his wife terrible, called her a “c**t” out loud in front of reporters, when it is her money that won him all those senate elections. A prick.
And my experience is that using the seven dirty words doesn’t seem to have any effect on moderation, but anything associated with spam will. Don’t know about relax, maybe that’s an adjective in spam?
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@J R in WV: Yup.
McCain could have been someone who used his horrible life experiences as a learning experience and as a genuine moral example for others. But he seemed to treat his captivity and torture as a golden ticket to get whatever he wanted. He really let his legacy (what was left of it by then) down by not arguing forcefully and interminably against Bush’s torture policies. Yeah, he made some comments saying he opposed waterboarding, but when it came time for important votes he sided with W. When you’ve been tortured yourself, but you’re unable to side with Christopher Hitchens on an unambiguous condemnation of torture, there’s something wrong.
Cheers,
Scott.