And the press is all breathless over Hillary’s untrustworthiness. That seems to ‘trump’ her health, even they can’t bring themselves to believe she has health issues. But they had to do something with that dramatic video. (I’m sure there are some who are making issue of health…but it’s pretty weak tea)
Meanwhile, Trump, as usual gets a free pass, but not from the Hillary campaign:
IMHO the most important issue for the present is Climate Change…but then that’s been my concern (and focus) for the last twenty years. It sure as hell isn’t a new issue. I have no idea if the photo below is accurate, but I’ve talked to many “deniers” who make me believe it.
I have a crazy, busy day ahead on very little sleep. But it’s my own fault. I got caught up watching Brooklyn last night and lost track of time. When it was over, had a list of things I needed to complete before sleep. But it was a great little movie and I don’t regret it…at least not now, check back with me around 3pm MDT.
What’s on your agenda today besides trying not to despair over the state of the intelligence of our great country?
Keith G
Note that CNN is reporting that:
All caveats applied.
JR
I hope I’m panicking prematurely and she’ll be fine and do great at the debates and more ugliness will come from Trump and our mainstream press will bother to cover him as the anomaly he is. Maybe both candidates will be forced to undergo independent and thorough medical exams and we’ll find out that Trump is as unhealthy as he looks and Hillary is as fine as any person her age. But honestly, that video is awful. Absolutely awful. I’d rather vote for a Hillary in a coma than Trump any day, and even I had to wonder whether all the tinfoil BS about her health wasn’t totally off base.
The fact that her campaign did not notify the media on Friday and she was not well (understandable at the time but in retrospect the precursor of this disaster) and obfuscated for hours on Sunday is not something the Beltway press will forget or forgive. I hope I’m wrong but I’m terrified right now.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
@JR: Don’t worry about it. She’ll be all right, and she’ll do all right. We Democrats always freak out over every bump in the road, even small ones. I’m not saying pneumonia is a little bump, but we need to stop ourselves from flipping out this way. We need to stop, breathe and take stock from time to time. This road over the next few months will be long and hard, but we’ll plow ahead, slow but steady, and we’ll make it.
Cermet
Hillary (like all ‘old dogs’) will never change when it comes to being secretive – the thugs made it into her DNA. As such, just have to live with it.
The Rump as a failure is a given but that was created by his up bring – always a silver spoon up his ass.
AGW could get so bad that even if DC was under water the thugs would just point out that about 20 million years ago Washington was under 200 ft of water – so, nothing to see here … just normal variation.
Tokyokie
Trump is significantly overweight, older than HRC, doesn’t exercise, and apparently subsists on a diet of steak and potatoes and fast food, yet he wants to believe he’d be the most physically fit person ever elected. Yeah, and Harding died from eating a tainted crab.
scav
@Keith G: number? I thought Trumps MDs reported entirely in a string of smiling Trump Enterprise emojis (to guarantee proper pallor) from a set kindly donated by a Trump SuperPac in turn funded by a Trump Charity.
quakerinabasement
Remember how everyone questioned Michael Jordan’s fitness to play basketball after he played in the NBA finals with pneumonia?
the Conster, la Citoyenne
Trump’s prostate is older than Hillary. Where’s Melania? Did she get deported?
Mike E
I went to see Brooklyn before I saw the new Star Wars movie and thoroughly enjoyed it!
Amir Khalid
@Keith G:
What numbers is he speaking of? Surely not his height or weight or blood pressure Blood test results would need to come back from a lab and be interpreted by a physician, but that doesn’t take very long at all.
@JR:
There’s been nothing to suggest that this weekend was anything but a fleeting episode for a woman otherwise in good health.
Keith G
@JR: I know that 98% of commenters here disagree with me about disclosure. Yesterday I was told how it would not satisfy the press and that it would be twisted.
The thing is, Hillary’s prime relationship is with the American public and not the press. To me, the question becomes not what the press wants, but what is the right thing to do in strengthening the relationship with the public. I think that Hillary’s shit reputation with large groups of the public is, for the most part, not deserved. But, it exists. I think that she is a good person and can make headway with the public against so much of this silliness. How does her campaign push back against some of the crap thrown against her? Well, the decisions of the last few days may not have been the best choices.
Keith G
@Amir Khalid: We will see, won’t we?
Bobby Thomson
David Axelrod can blow me. What a narcissistic jackass.
shomi
@JR: Lol… I have 0.0% patience with you pantswetters. You people are pathetic and I’m being kind on my choice of words right now.
Betty Cracker
I watched some of the CNN coverage of SwoonGate late last night and was pleasantly surprised by Carl Bernstein. He agreed with the media screechers that Clinton has been too secretive and said she’d need to be 100% transparent going forward, including with her medical records. But he pointed out repeatedly that Trump has been far more secretive than Clinton and has largely gotten away with it, citing as examples the absurd doctor’s note Trump released, his refusal to release his tax returns, etc. Bernstein said Clinton needs to be more forthcoming but said Trump is by far the worst offender.
shomi
@Keith G: And of course ball juice has no shortage of expert presidential campaign advisors like Keith G. Guess you should all be working for the Clinton campaign instead of sitting on your ass in your underwear on your computer in buttfuck America somewhere spouting off like you know better than the campaign advisors…lol.
Major Major Major Major
@shomi:
Projection is fun!
Quinerly
@Keith G:
I’m with both you and JR. “Terrified” is a bit strong for me. I did start my day with the most uneasy feeling I have had to date concerning this election. MUST STEP AWAY FROM IT. Have a 1000 mile drive tomorrow. Thanks, Balloon Juice support group!
germy
Bobbo
@JR: It is never the right time to panic. Don’t panic. To quote “Bridge of Spies,” “Would it help?” (He was actually talking about worrying, but it goes double for panicking.)
Bex
@Keith G: He’ll release those health “numbers” as soon as the audit is over.
Wapiti
@Keith G: And why didn’t he tell the press last week?
Emma
@Keith G: Which public? The one that hates her with the fire of a million suns and would lynch her if they could? Those of us who would vote for her if she were a brain in a vat? There are very, very few undecideds this time around.(well, to be honest I don’t really believe in “undecideds”, but let that lie).
SFAW
One would think that someone who comes here to incessantly tell everyone how much they all suck would find a less stressful pastime.
“shomi” says that blowing dead goats is less stressful, and he knows this from his first person, up-close-and-personal research.
Mary G
Kevin Drum predicted it yesterday:
lollipopguild
@Bex: He will release everything when the election is over-not.
Lyrebird
@quakerinabasement: That is a three-pointer Sir/Madam Quaker!
I think this is an open thread… someone last night wanted to get caught up on Kaepernick’s protests: this Raw Story article is one nice update…
Percysowner
Trump Doesn’t Want Moderators At The Presidential Debates
He wants to be able to shout for 2 hours uninterrupted.
SFAW
@Amir Khalid:
He’d lie about the numbers anyway. His “official” weight is 198. As I said in another thread, if he weighs 198, then I have the BMI of Abebe Bikila (when he was alive). [As a hint, the last time I was called thin was … never.]
sigaba
@shomi: Buttfuck America votes, don’t denigrate it.
Keith G
@shomi:
Fuck you. I type full blown commando. Underwear is for sissies,
@Wapiti: I donno. Wasn’t in his interest?
gene108
Anybody else having problems getting onto Balloon Juice via Safari on an iPad?
I keep getting a 404 error from my iPad.
Major Major Major Major
@SFAW: that’s more than I weigh and I’m 6’4″. You think he’d have picked a more plausible lie.
Barbara
The Trump Hotel in Washington D.C. is having its “soft opening” today and the only thing I have noticed is that the high decibel level of around 20 protesters is making it really hard for me to concentrate. Also, Axelrod’s history of obnoxious mansplaining seems to have outlasted its useful life. What a jerk.
CONGRATULATIONS!
Having pneumonia is a big deal. Got my first go-round (and hopefully last until my final days) two years ago. 48 years old. I thought I was going to die for a week, and that didn’t seem like a bad prospect at the time. It seriously would be about the best way to die I can think of.
The press is going to smear her from one end of the filthy alley they inhabit to the other because of the delay. Fair? Of course not. Totally expected and avoidable? Hell yes. She knows better. Release that info on Friday and do your 9/11 thing anyway and it’s “heroic Hillary struggles through pneumonia to pay respect to ‘Murican heroes, etc.” Now it’s “Pneumoniagate”. Fucking kill me now.
Percysowner
Trump Doesn’t Want Moderators At The Presidential Debates Try to link to this properly.
Trump wants to shot at Hillary for 2 hours uninterrupted. Also too, he thinks Lauer did a GREAT job!
gene108
@Mary G:
Surprised William Henry Harrison’s Presidency has not been made into a bigger issue. Given the lack of real time critical analysis by talking heads, it would not be hard to slip in a comment of “you know William Henry Harrison is the only President to get pneumonia and he died, how can we trust Hillary’s health?”
germy
@gene108: I had error messages yesterday in safari.
Today’s good, so far.
Barbara
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Sure, having pneumonia is not a joke, but nearly every member of my family has had pneumonia including me and — duh — MODERN MEDICINE!
SFAW
@Major Major Major Major:
I’ve seen the figure of 245 a couple of places, which would give him a BMI of 31-32, i.e., obese. Much more likely than 198 — he might get down to that weight if he cut off his ass, gut, and fat head.
Steve Crickmore
Hillary’s congenital disease. It’s part of her DNA. Clinton’s cover story for her pneumonia diagnosis further proves her first instinct is to lie.
Amir Khalid
@SFAW:
My own guess would be that the Donald weighs in at somewhere north of 260lbs.
Tazj
Trump also called Elizabeth Warren Pocahontas again but becaue he didn’t insult racists it will be no big deal with most of the press.
Keith G
@Emma: The first group you mention is an absolute minority (which you know since it was a considered over-statement). I assume that Hillary believes that good governance is a desired end unto itself – if she doesn’t, god help us. I think that part of the recipe of good governance is reaching out to the entire populace. Obviously, there are real limits to the results of such efforts, but the effort itself is important.
Doug R
@JR: Yes, you are concerned. It took me about a month off work to get back to form. Even then, my lungs weren’t the same. She worked for 3 days when she got her diagnosis and she’s 14 years older than me. I think she’s tough enough.
Amir Khalid
@gene108:
As I recall reading, Harrison gave his Inaugural Address outdoors in a blizzard, without his coat on — which doesn’t seem wise. Most accounts I have read blame the pneumonia on that.
Neldob
Cool poster! But do they really not believe their thermometers? That’s so anarchic, arachnid, arrotated, or something . . .
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Tokyokie: Not everyone is equal in those departments. My aunt finally passed on at 96, after a lifelong HEAVY diet of Marlboro Reds (that was so bad that even back when I smoked I couldn’t spend more than an hour in her condo, it was like living in a goddamn gas chamber), red meat, fried everything and cheap scotch. Lucid and functional and mobile until the very last hours. We all knew she was going to die when she finally decided to stop going to work – three weeks before she died.
Lizzy L
Good morning!
The contempt I have for the media is surpassed only by the contempt I have for Donald Trump and the Republican party. William Henry Harrison died in 1841, 100 years before we had antibiotics, FFS. News flash: human being gets sick, takes medicine, recovers.
Everybody chill. This is all, all media-driven. May their increase be eaten by goats.
Trentrunner
Listened to Nice Polite Republicans (NPR) while exercising this morning and learned
1) Hillary’s pneumonia plays into larger “concerns” about her health going forward, and
2) “Congressional squabbles about Planned Parenthood” have kept Congress from passing emergency Zika virus funding. Not a mention of “Republicans.”
We are so fucked.
ETA: I see MSNBC is going with “Hillary’s Health Disclosure Timeline Again Raises Trust Issue.”
Still fucked.
Patricia Kayden
@JR: I am not understanding your panic. She has pneumonia and is getting treatment. I’m sure she’ll be back up and running in a few days given that she probably has the best healthcare available in this country. Who cares what the media says about Secretary Clinton at this point in time? They’ve been going after her since the Convention ended. Her supporters need to rally around her and continue to work to get out the vote and get her elected. That’s about it.
amk
@Keith G: You keep harping about reaching out. In what way, she hasn’t done it?
Patricia Kayden
@Trentrunner:
No mention of Republicans trying to make it okay to fly the Confederate (treason) flag at Federal cemeteries as an addition to the ZIKA bill?
lurker dean
charles blow at the nyt had a great opinion piece today. he’s been really great recently.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/12/opinion/about-the-basket-of-deplorables.html?
“Donald Trump is a deplorable candidate — to put it charitably — and anyone who helps him advance his racial, religious and ethnic bigotry is part of that bigotry. Period. Anyone who elevates a sexist is part of that sexism. The same goes for xenophobia. You can’t conveniently separate yourself from the detestable part of him because you sense in him the promise of cultural or economic advantage. That hair cannot be split.
Furthermore, one doesn’t have to actively hate to contribute to a culture that allows hate to flourish.
It doesn’t matter how lovely your family, how honorable your work or service, how devout your faith — if you place ideological adherence or economic self interest above the moral imperative to condemn and denounce a demagogue, then you are deplorable.”
D58826
@Keith G: I guess I was in the 2% because I thought she should disclosed more. And then when the question started just refer to the statement.
Problem is there never will be enough information released and there always the ‘well that raises a question about…’ If she missed a mammogram in 1992 then that will raise the question of whither she is hiding breast cancer today.
Look at the e-mails. They have released thousands but there are still ‘questions’. Last week’s scandal was the 30 Benghazi e-mails that were just found. Big headlines ’30 missing e-mails not turned over” blah blah blah. Apparently the stories were written before the e-mails were actually read since 29 were dups of ones already released and one was from a diplomat praising her handling of Benghazi.
Weaselone
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
You don’t actually believe that do you?
Waldo
Looking on the bright side (because the dark side is too frightening to contemplate): The more the Trump people talk up the feeble Hillary angle, the worse it’s going to look when she smacks him around in the first debate.
D58826
Today’s NYT election forecast :
Botsplainer
As Zika worsens due to conservative fuckwittery, it may well be the thing which forever saves Roe.
Chip Daniels
I’m really perplexed and appalled at the way the media is handling this.
The tweet at the top of the post captures my feelings exactly.
This woman caught pneumonia, and pressed on with a schedule few of us could handle, yet instead of being amazed at her courage and strength, instead they are wailing like lost children.
When did we become like sheep begging for a Strong Leader to come and lead us? Instead of seeing ourselves as strong citizens making decisions on our governance, the media portrays Americans as helpless peasants, in need of a Man On Horseback to make us obey and keep us safe.
Emma
@CONGRATULATIONS!: You really believe the “elite” media is going to praise her for anything? Really?
cmorenc
A frequent claim of the global-warming denial crowd is that modern temperature records, especially from the last 30 or so years, are compromised by poorly-sited NOAA weather stations which produce artificially high readings due to encroachment of artificial surfaces (e.g. parking lots) or other heat sources (e.g. air conditioner exhausts) rather than valid rises in global temperature. They’ve stubbornly stuck to this meme, despite it being thoroughly debunked e.g. here1 and here2.
Bubblegum Tate
Is there a cite for that Gallup poll somewhere?
The Other Chuck
@Botsplainer:
Why would it? The republicans want to maximize suffering, so Zika just seems like gravy to them.
delk
The kids are alright….
12-Year-Old Mexican Boy Attempts to Block Thousands of Anti-Gay Protesters
NR
@Patricia Kayden:
You’re sure, huh?
In healthy people, pneumonia can be a mild illness that is hardly noticed and clears up in 2 to 3 weeks. In older adults and in people with other health problems, recovery may take 6 to 8 weeks or longer.
This is a huge problem for the Clinton campaign.
SFAW
@Amir Khalid:
I defer to your superior wisdom. I’m pretty bad about guessing weight(s), other than knowing that he’s no 198-pounder. (FYI: If your estimate is correct, his BMI is 33, vs. Hillary’s 21 or 22. But she is the fat one, according to the wingnuts.)
CONGRATULATIONS!
@SFAW: Trump and I are the same height. I weight 225. He’s got at least 30 pounds on me, no way it’s less.
FlipYrWhig
This may be Peak Ridiculous.
Shell
Gaah, he pissed me off. All this whining as if Clinton had tried to hide some serious, chronic condition from him and all the sacred press. She has a temporary problem that’ll be cleared up with antibiotics.
“She was diagnosed on Friday, how come were just hearing about it!”
Listen Bub, what’d if she’d been to her gynecologist and diagnosed with a yeast infection. Would you insist you had to know about that immediately too? Well, maybe thats his definition of ‘transparency.’
Doug R
@Tazj: Someone’s got that clip of Trump casually calling Senator Warren “Pocahontas” already.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Emma: No, of course not. I merely present a way that her campaign COULD have released this news, without feeding into the bullshit rumors about her health.
Chyron HR
@NR:
Good luck with that.
SFAW
@NR:
Yeah, yeah, your concern is noted.
Of course, since Hillary doesn’t have “other health problems” — outside of the MS, Parkinson’s, dengue fever, shingles, pertussis, Bubonic plague, prostate and testicular cancer, beri-beri, measles, mumps, polio, and frequent hangnails — she should be OK.
amk
Kneecapping their own with whines and snatching defeat from the jaws of victory – dems are the best at it.
sunny raines
as great a failure as trump is in business, how is it he still has money at all? Who are these chumps keeping him able to appear wealthy? The Russians don’t strike me as stupid enough to float such a colossal failure as trump.
FlipYrWhig
@NR: Until now I thought Hillary Clinton was indestructible, but it turns out she has a human body with flaws, and I am disillusioned. You’re repellent. You’ve always been repellent. You lie in the woodwork waiting to be additionally repellent when the coast is clear. You’re truly horrendous in every respect.
NR
@SFAW:
Other than being 70 years old, you mean.
SFAW
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
No argument from me.
“NR” might be upset with you, however.
FlipYrWhig
@sunny raines:
They’re called “the media.”
FlipYrWhig
@SFAW: NR is a pustule filled with hate and disappointment.
NR
@FlipYrWhig: You seem pretty obsessed with me. I’ll repeat my suggestion that you seek professional mental help.
Keith G
@D58826: I think the Barak Obama had a genius insight that gave him the ability to surround himself with a collection of the sharpest minds ever to work with a person who was to become president. Though Twitter, Google Alerts, and podcasts, I keep up with what these very smart and connected folks are saying. I use them as a bit of a reality check. Almost to a person, they felt that there were legitimate questions to be asked about HRC’s email choices and most felt that she would have been better served be being more forthcoming earlier than things have played out. They also completely felt that there was no there there, but that (more) openness was called for.
I will be interested to see their observation about this weekend.
sunny raines
@D58826:
its depressing that Clinton’s chances aren’t 98% with 2% split between Johnson and Stein.
SFAW
@NR:
Big deal. So is Corrupt Deadbeat Donnie, and he’s in much worse shape. Not that I expect you to care, since your sentiments have been clear for awhile.
And there are plenty of 70-year-olds who are pretty damn healthy, so what’s your point, other than that ridiculous article you keep linking to?
FlipYrWhig
@NR: I’ll repeat my suggestion that you turn into a toxic cloud of disease-bearing spores. Oh, wait, it already happened.
Jeffro
@Chip Daniels:
I understand the sentiment, but let’s name this problem accurately: a majority of GOP primary voters picked this clown, and now a majority of the GOP electorate at large are falling in line…but it’s not ‘we’ or ‘us’ who begged to give up every moral and principle. It’s them. And the only thing we can do is a) keep pointing out that it’s ‘them’, and b) GOTV, GOTV, G-O-T-V
SFAW
@NR:
Says the person who seems obsessed about more Hillary-related non-issues than Carter has pills.
Keith G
Are others have an issue with commenting? (assuming this one gets through)
Mnemosyne
@NR:
Hillary’s mother died 5 years ago at the age of 92. You can calm the fuck down now.
Mike E
Fuck the fucking trolls. That is all.
greengoblin
I know pneumonia is serious, but Hillary’s case is not requiring hospitalization and she looked fine yesterday.
After a few days of rest and then some public appearances , this will go away as an issue.
She does need to make sure it does not get worse, though. That would make it something to worry about.
Doug R
@sunny raines: Outwardly successful but with severe character flaws are the best candidates for the FSB to turn.
bluefoot
@Chip Daniels: Yeah, exactly this. But I guess the 15 years of fear fear fear is having its effect.
I’m also ready to slap the next person who tells me Clinton should have skipped the Sept 11th memorial if she wasn’t feeling well. Seriously? She was senator from NY in 2001. She’s the one who fought (and was called a traitor for doing so) for information on air quality at Ground Zero, fought to get funding for health care for first responders, etc, etc. She actually gave (and gives) a shit about the people who were there, how it affected the people in her constituency. Of course she was going to be there unless she was on her deathbed.
Doug R
@NR: So if they sought professional medical help like Hillary did, maybe you’d start worrying about them instead of Hills.
hovercraft
@Mary G:
It’s a new ‘angle’ for the press to cover. As evidenced by the editorials and other push back last week about the Clinton Foundation and the e-mails, that/those stories were played out. This new ‘health crisis’ combines their favorite Clinton trope with a new story. Clinton is ‘secretive’ and they get to weave in Trump and Rudy’s conspiracy theories as part of the legitimate coverage of her , I believe it’s now a collapse. It began as a wobble, or unsteadiness, then it was knees buckled, and now I’m hearing she fell flat on her face, and near collapse. This is now a major jolt to the campaign. The transparency trope also gives the media a way to gripe about their biggest complaint about her, their “lack of access”. They know that most people could give a shit whether the villagers get access or local press get the access, this way they can bitch about the publics right to know.
sigaba
@Doug R: You suppose they have video of him inflagrante dilecto with Anna Chapman?
trollhattan
@Mary G:
Technically, each of us has “months to live.” Must have been a slow news day.
Betty Cracker
@NR: That yellow puddle collecting around your feet must be quite deep at this point.
sunny raines
The problem with the climate change issue is that they’ve made it about temperature, which the rubes understand, but which is neither the key issue and also also leads to stupidness and distraction about cold winters and local occasional weather anomalies. The critical problem with climate change is not temperature (at least not for humans), and really it’s not even ocean rise and severe weather – all of which are manageable for humans for the next for 50 – 100 years, which makes the problem seem far off. No, what is the real problem with climate change and which already is a disaster and growing is the disruption, destruction, and collapse of complex interdependent ecosystems, which results in mass extinctions, runaway pestilence and disease, and unsupportable habitats for all life on Earth.
pacem appellant
Pledge week here on the local NPR affiliate, KQED, and who does NPR interview for Morning Edition? Cokie Roberts! Balanced by some other idiot from the Federalist. Gah. I’ve never wanted to throw a shoe through my car radio so badly. From stating that Trump set Clinton up for her fall to (the other idiot saying) that never have we known so little about two presidential candidates, it’s enough to make me almost feel sorry for KQED that they have to buy this shit programming. But sorry KQED, no turkey for you. I don’t feed trolls.
amk
@NR: Says the trump troll obsessed with all things hillary.
SenyorDave
I know expectations for Deadbeat Donnie will be low, but I can’t see her not cleaning his clock in the debates. i don’t see how you can fake a lack of knowledge over a prolonged period of time.
SiubhanDuinne
@gene108:
iPad Safari here, no problems.
Suzanne
@Amir Khalid: If you listen to the Presidential podcast from WaPo, they debunk the Harrison had pneumonia from standing in the rain story.
Some medical investigation has indicated that he actually died of gastrointestinal problems, most likely brought on from drinking contaminated water in the White House. Before real sewers were built, the main water supply into the White House ran through a large area of nightsoil—aka poop. This also likely killed Zachary Taylor, Fillmore’s daughter, and a few others.
Just goes to prove: “Don’t shit where you eat” was actually some of the best advice you ever got, and is surprisingly difficult to follow.
SiubhanDuinne
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
There’s a reason pneumonia has long been called “the old man’s friend.”
Major Major Major Major
@NR: hey look, it’s Scott Adams!
Larkspur
@Shell: I know. Nothing’s going to be good enough. I mean, you have to disclose pneumonia; you have to disclose all the “numbers” that Trump refuses to, so far. But why on earth would anyone insist on knowing if a candidate had, like, herpes. Can’t “transparency” also involve relevance? Are we gonna have to have morning briefings on their bowel movements and get all concerned about whether a constipated president is an existential danger for the nation? Feh.
Amir Khalid
@NR:
Per Wikipedia, Hillary’s date of birth is October 26, 1947. You’ve overstated her age somewhat.
Matt McIrvin
@bluefoot:
Can you imagine the media reaction to that? My God.
D58826
@sunny raines: This is also true but I’ll take the 80%
sukabi
@lollipopguild: he’ll release them when hell feeezes over, and will still be a climate change denier.
Weaselone
@NR:
Her schedule since Friday combined with standing in 80+ degree weather in body armor almost certainly would have caused me to collapse. I’m a 36 year old male not suffering from pneumonia. I’m thinking she’s pretty damn tough.
hovercraft
@NR:
I’m sure we all share your concern. Please rush out and light some candles for us all. Since she has now doomed her chance of victory, we need people like you to guide us through this next dark chapter in America. Thank you for showing us that we are all just whistling past the graveyard.
Patricia Kayden
@NR: Trump is older than Secretary Clinton. You know that, right?
Trolls these days. **rolls eyes**
hovercraft
@SFAW:
She is a woman, and so she is fat. He is an older man who is statesman like possibly a little husky.
Calouste
@NR: How old is your cult’s leader again? Or have you switched from the bullshitter of Burlington to that anti-vaxer?
Patricia Kayden
@NR: It’s actually a huge problem for you since Secretary Clinton will be our next President and first woman President. Start practicing saying “Madame President” over and over again. Get used to saying it for the next 8 years.
I’d prefer a wheelchair-bound Clinton over a “healthy” Trump any day. By the way, it was so classy of you to wish Secretary Clinton’s death. Typical Rethug move.
Juju
@Betty Cracker: What I would like to know is how she could be more forthcoming about her health?Does she need to show a video of her latest colonoscopy? She’s released a fairly detailed write up from her primary care physician. In her place I wouldn’t have said anything about the pneumonia either. It was being treated and she had things she had to do. Could you imagine the blowback she’s have gotten if she had skipped the 9/11 service? It would have started even worse rumors. The double standard seems to put her and Obama in too many damned if you damned if you don’t situations.
Cacti
@SiubhanDuinne:
It’s what finally took my grandmother in the hospital at age 94, after my aunts and uncles tried beyond all sense of reason to keep her obviously dying body alive.
Patricia Kayden
@lurker dean: Mr. Blow has been on fire. I’m sure the prospect of a racist President is enough to activate many of us into speaking out. That’s why I’m glad that Secretary Clinton made her “basket of deplorables” speech last Friday. This is a drum we need to beat loudly and often as we near November 8th.
gene108
@Amir Khalid:
I’m not sure it was a blizzard, but it was a cold, damp raining, chilly March day in Washington D.C.
He was then the oldest President ever elected. To prove his detractors wrong about his health and hardihood, he gave his Inaugural address not properly dressed for the weather.
He contracted pneumonia.
He died about a month later.
This was March/April 1821.
I think there’s a subset of low info / people who don’t pay much attention, who will hear “President Harrison died from pneumonia, Hillary has pneumonia” and equate it to Hillary being on death’s door, without stopping to check what year it is.
There was a stint, in the run up to the 2012 election, when a good chunk of Republican operatives kept saying there were no terror attacks on U.S. soil,, when Bush, Jr. was President and that only met with push back 50% of the time from moderators, from what I observed.
There’s a chance to slip in some innuendo about President Harrison’s health and Hillary’s health.
Matt McIrvin
@Patricia Kayden: You know who else is older than Clinton? Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden. (But not Tim Kaine.)
Origuy
I posted this in the last thread, but it’s dead: During the 1960 campaign, Richard Nixon got a staph infection in his knee that put him in the hospital for two weeks. He also got the flu. Here’s LBJ visiting him in the hospital.
Gelfling 545
@NR: No, it’s not a huge problem. I’ve had pneumonia ( actually a few times) including fainting in front of a class of middle school kids. I drank a lot of water, rested & took my meds. I was back in the classroom 2 days later and I was not young! You’re not bedridden with it, generally, as long as it’s treated or you don’t have otherwise impaired health.
hovercraft
@Juju:
They keep pointing to McCain and Obama, the only problem with that is that grumpy pants was a 2 time cancer survivor which was why his records mattered, and Obama in ’08 gave about the same as Hillary, and all the detail in 2012 was because he was president, and his annual physical is released annually.
Major Major Major Major
@Gelfling 545:
Shit, we’re in major trouble then what with the Parkinson’s!
Patricia Kayden
@Matt McIrvin: Exactly. How can NR be supporting The Bigot and then have the nerve to talk about Secretary Clinton’s age? Republicans are hypocrites but that takes the cake!!
@Gelfling 545: Secretary Clinton is being treated and apart from fainting, she looked fine yesterday. I’m sure she’ll be back to her normal self soon. After NR speculated hopefully about Secretary Clinton’s death, I really can’t take anything he says seriously. Vulture.
Mike E
Here’s another photo for you…the Reverend Dr Barber is doing it right so everybody can see it and take notes
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
@NR: My god man, won’t you think of the poultry ?
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Bobbo: Just be sure to carry your towel.
rikyrah
I said in the last thread, and will repeat it:
Hillary did what women have done for ages.
Put everything first before their own health.
I do not minimize pneumonia. Not in the least. I take it very seriously.
But, these muthphuckas, particularly men, clutching their pearls at her ‘secrecy’?
PHUCK.OUTTA.HERE.
And, there isn’t a working woman out here that doesn’t understand Hillary’s position.
Yes, we go to work sick, because we’re not about to be labeled ‘ undependable’, and have the best cases/workload be slid off to your male counterparts.
THAT is the world that Hillary entered into when she began to work. And, those are lessons that she learned.
For all the women on that tv, poo-pooing her : PHUCK YOU.
Because, you know damn well and good, that they’d have to stick an ACTUAL IV into you before you wouldn’t show up for work.
You don’t even have to like Hillary, to understand, particularly as a WOMAN, why she did what she did.
Phuck.outta.here.
And, the campaign should punch back with EXACTLY that mantra.
” You know how women do.”
SiubhanDuinne
@Origuy:
Were you calling raven? That’s not LBJ by any stretch; that’s the then-President of the United States, Dwight David Eisenhower.
Origuy
@SiubhanDuinne: Oops. I haven’t had my coffee yet.
Suzanne
@gene108: Harrison didn’t contract any illness until about two weeks after the inauguration, which casts doubt on the pneumonia story, because he likely would have shown signs of severe sickness much sooner.
@rikyrah: YES. I have started a new job sick so I wouldn’t have to “call in” on my first day. I got out of the hospital on Sunday and gave a major presentation on Monday. This is what we do.
oldgold
Mary G
@hovercraft: This. Her health is this week’s shiny object/SQUIRREL! and will be forgotten in two weeks or when Trump finds where Ivanka hid his iPhone and retweets another white supremacist.
SFAW
@Patricia Kayden:
I was going to express amazement that it took you this long, but then I remembered that you are a charitable woman, and thus disinclined to be uncharitable towards assholes/trolls. Unless they really earn it, of course.
SFAW
@Suzanne:
Wow.
Matt McIrvin
@Patricia Kayden: The truth is, this has been a campaign of mostly over-60 candidates, apart from Martin O’Malley, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, all of whom got crushed in the primaries by older people.
It’s not a situation I really like; I’d have preferred, say, Kirsten Gillibrand to get in this year. But this is the situation we’ve got. Clinton defused a lot of my anxiety about her health just by picking Kaine as a running mate. If she actually dies in office, she’s got a wholly capable VP to step in. A lot of the worry about McCain’s health was just that he picked Sarah Palin.
MomSense
@rikyrah:
A woman!
Patricia Kayden
@SFAW: LOL! You’re hilarious. I assume NR is Right-to-Rise or whatever that other Conservative troll called himself.
@rikyrah: Yep. Secretary Clinton is a trooper just like many other women. She’s working through her illness because that’s who she is. She will make an excellent President.
oldgold
Silver lining: It will help her in the debate. The expectations game just changed. Before, if Trump showed up and didn’t piss himself – he wins. Now, if Hillary shows up with good energy, she gets at least a tie.
lurker dean
@Patricia Kayden: he’s been fantastic in personal appearances on tv as well, strong and unaccepting of stupidity. i know it won’t make much difference but i made his quotation my facebook cover photo. too many folks are trying to split hairs and they need to know we see who they are.
Patricia Kayden
@Matt McIrvin: True. And certainly a Pence Presidency would be just as horrifying as a Trump Presidency should (God forbid) Trump win in November and then pass away during his first term. That’s a fair consideration.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@Amir Khalid:
Ineptitude with facts simply makes him Republican; it’s a feature, not a bug.
Matt McIrvin
@Patricia Kayden: I don’t think he’s that guy. The writing style’s different. RtR has posed as a lefty concern troll on occasion, but he can’t keep up the pretense for more than a few hours.
SFAW
@Patricia Kayden:
I have considered that possibility more than once, but I don’t think it is — unless RacistToRant has completely changed his style. Considering that he kept that style for a number of years, it seems unlikely (to me, at least) that the two are the same troll.
J R in WV
@Keith G:
Yes, with Firefox I’m having problems posting comments. Yesterday just pulling up new threads was an issue.
Plus, I’m unable to sign into Yahoo, so no email, don’t know what’s causing that yet. I’ll try in town later on.
Joyce H
Couple comments – someone upthread said the video of Clinton leaving the service looked horrible, and indeed it did. But to me, it didn’t look like anything other than what it was, a person who was dizzy to near-fainting in a situation where there was no place to sit down.
Someone else said that as New York’s senator on 9/11, Clinton had to be at the memorial and that also is true. But she left the service ‘early’ after an hour and a half – because the entire service was FOUR HOURS LONG. (With no place to sit down.)
Which brings me to something I’ve been thinking for a while. I understand that we need to commemorate 9/11. But does anyone else think that the way we remember it has become maudlin to the point of being unhealthy?
I’m sure there were memorial services for Pearl Harbor on Dec 7, 1956, but do you imagine any of them were four hour marathon grief fests? I doubt it! Parade the colors, listen to a few speeches, salute the fallen, and then go about your business, because we are (or were!) a forward-looking people and that was a part of history.
But with 9/11, the focus seem to be, not on remembering, but RELIVING! Where were you, how did you learn, what did you think, what did you FEEL? Remember how terrible it was and how frightened you were? Don’t just remember it – live it, feel it all again!
Fifteen years later, is this something we ought to be doing?
NR
@Patricia Kayden:
Which I never did. It’s really sad that you guys feel the need to lie about this.
Hal
A conservative friend helpfully suggested on Facebook that the Dems might want to replace Clinton. He’s just not convinced she can take the rigors of the Presidency, after all, look how Bush and Obama aged. He’s very concerned, I’m sure.
randy khan
@cmorenc:
1 data point doth not make a generalization, but in D.C. it’s actually the other way around. They moved the official D.C. weather station to National Airport many years ago, with the consequence that a lot of weather records here are still very old – the original location was far from any water, and so temps were more extreme and snow measurements were higher. If we hit a temperature record here, it’s really usually actually two or three degrees hotter than the old record.
SFAW
@NR:
We’ll all say 100 Ave Marias and 100 Paternosters, because FSM knows, we wouldn’t want you to get upset.
Major Major Major Major
@NR: Especially when there are so many rotten awful things to say about you that aren’t made up, you piss-soaked, shit-pantsed concernmongering gadfly.
JPL
@Percysowner: Trump’s handlers will probably ask for teleprompters.
Suzanne
@SFAW: It’s not a big deal. Most of the women I know who are highly career-focused do that kind of thing. Just like rikyrah said.
Mnemosyne
@rikyrah:
I feel reasonably okay calling in sick occasionally because (a) I’ve been at this job for 10 years and (b) my boss is a woman.
But when I fell off a stepladder at my old job, tore my ACL, and had a hairline fracture of my femur? I was back the next day on crutches.
gwangung
@NR: Right, “Dr.” NR……
sukabi
@Patricia Kayden: especially since women have a LONGER life expectancy rate…what is it 81 years for women and 76 for men
Barbara
@rikyrah: I went to work with pneumonia. I left work in the afternoon to get antibiotics when I learned that my daughter was definitively diagnosed with pneumonia (my husband had it before either of us) and I went back to work the next day. All manner of things can become serious if left unchecked. That’s why the average life expectancy used to be so much lower than it is now.
Matt McIrvin
@Joyce H: Profoundly unhealthy. I think the unresolved nature of the conflict is part of it. World War II was a war with a designated ending (that came less than four years after Pearl Harbor, about six after the invasion of Poland), even if the ending wasn’t really the ending in the sense of really solving everything. The Cold War had already begun, but that was different. With the “War On Terror” the closest thing to a “V-J day” we have is the killing of Osama bin Laden, and that didn’t really give anyone much of a sense of closure, in part because the war was too vaguely defined in the first place and had metastasized to all these open-ended conflicts all over. So we’re just left obsessing over the original injury, and using it as emotional carte blanche for all sorts of questionable things.
Chris T.
@Patricia Kayden: Oh, I like that! The “treason flag”! Someone has to repeat that until it becomes a meme!
SFAW
@Suzanne:
It was the hospital-to-work thing. Unless you were in for “routine tests,” as they call them, it would seem more problematic than a case of the sniffles, if you know what I mean.
SFAW
@Barbara:
As Jim Henson found out.
1,000 Flouncing Lurkers (was fidelioscabinet)
@shomi: Aw, shomi, you little PUA! You always make me feel like I’m 24 again, hanging in a bar with friends while a guy negs me until he gets brave enough to hit on me.
Patricia Kayden
@NR: I was looking at comment #73. I assumed you were being quoted. If you didn’t say that I sincerely apologize for misrepresenting you.
NR
@Patricia Kayden: Okay, thanks.
Patricia Kayden
@sukabi:
You’re right with your figures. Women typically live longer than men in the U.S.
Frankensteinbeck
@Keith G:
Even though I do not agree with you, now that shomi has explained things, I see that your argument is valid and understandable.
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
No. If there is anything clear after 25 years, it’s that the media and Republicans do not need facts to create their anti-Hillary stories. Ironically, at this point I think she could actually commit murder and she would receive the same coverage as if she spent the day curing orphans of cancer. I wonder if that’s freeing.
Mnemosyne
@rikyrah:
Oh, another story: my previous boss in my current job asked me to get a root canal in the morning and then come back to the office afterwards for an afternoon meeting. The other people in the meeting seemed to think that was pretty badass but, thanks to my endodontist and his philosophy of “profound local anesthesia,” I didn’t feel a thing and was pretty much okay for the meeting.
Chris T.
@SFAW:
I would have agreed with you up until today. Now, I think chances are NR is the same troll.
sukabi
@Patricia Kayden: if, dog forbid, drumpf were to be elected, he’d likely die in office, beings as he’s so OLD and obviously unhealthy, possibly has liver disease, cause that’s a very jaundiced look he sports.
Bobby Thomson
I ran a PR four years ago in a trail race and finished first in my age group in between coughing fits. The next day I was diagnosed with pneumonia and told not to go to work for two weeks. Got a similar diagnosis a couple years later and ignored it. Yeah, Jim Henson, but different people react differently. I’m sure I’ve had walking pneumonia several times.
Frankensteinbeck
@Chris T.:
NR has been around forever, showing up in threads about how good a Democrat is to change the subject. Quite effectively. I doubt it’s RtR, who lacks that subtlety or effectiveness.
Mnemosyne
@Chris T.:
Nah, I’m pretty sure NR is exactly what he appears to be: a whiny misogynist who doesn’t understand why Hillary won’t shut up and make him a sandwich while the MEN get on with running things.
Chris T.
@sukabi: Depends where you count from (birth or present age), but yes, women live considerably longer than men, on average. Men are sort of built for one peak output followed by failure, while women are built for long term endurance. This general rule applies in many ways, some of them a bit rude. :-)
PsiFighter37
New NBC poll has Ayotte up 8 in NH.
If we win the presidency but cannot retake the Senate, nothing is going to happen for 4 years. Goddamn unfuckingbelievable.
FlipYrWhig
@Chris T.: NR isn’t a troll. Trolling has connotations of not meaning what you say, just angling to get a rise out of the room. NR means everything he says in dead earnest. He is a loathsome little gobshite.
JMG
@PsiFighter37: Freaking out about every poll between now and Nov. 8 will make you a nervous wreck by Columbus Day. Take two poll averages and relax or better yet, don’t look at them until Columbus Day.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Cermet: It’s BS because she’s being way more transparent than Trump but they keep bashing her for being secretive. He hasn’t released his tax returns, hasn’t submitted anything more on his health than a laughable self-penned note from his “doctor”, and still, unlike Clinton, won’t let press travel with him on his plane. Why aren’t they asking why he’s hiding something?
Mnemosyne
@Chris T.:
Also, Hillary’s mother lived to the ripe old age of 92, which says good things about her potential longevity. IIRC, women can look to their female relatives and men can look to their male ones to get clues about their own potential longevity.
ETA: On the downside, this probably means we’re going to be stuck with the Bush brothers for many decades to come. Ugh.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@PsiFighter37: We get the Court and that alone is worth everything.
Unless the Senate really decides they aren’t going to do their constitutional duty and just stops confirming nominees. Which could happen…but that would be rough to justify, even by the Shameless Turtle, who has no shame.
SiubhanDuinne
@Mnemosyne:
I assume your meeting went something like this.
shomi
@greengoblin: Ya think Dr. greengoblin?
I read the funniest shit on this site.
Mnemosyne
@SiubhanDuinne:
And the clip right after that is probably my all-time favorite, “Why are we changing maps?”
CJ: “Change it back.”
Map guy: “Why? It’s just as valid this way.”
CJ: “I know, but it’s kinda freaking me out.”
shomi
@PsiFighter37: You people pantswetting over every fucking poll and then ignoring the good ones or whatever is hilarious.
Makes me want to go hang out on right wing sites. At least those stupid morons always think they are going to win which is something….even if they are in their own little imaginary worlds.
Feathers
@Joyce H: @Matt McIrvin: I concur. Traveling around the English countryside, I was astonished how almost every church had elaborate memorials to the Crimean and Boer Wars. It struck me what a sign of decline that was. That the war dead wouldn’t be remembered without these memorials needed to be seen as a problem of the war itself, not its dead. Hence the memorials, all pretending that the war was worth fighting.
The war dead are only remembered through time if their sacrifice made good things possible for those who follow after them. Otherwise it is just a tragic loss. Despite the memorials pretending otherwise.
BTW – Four Hours outdoors with no seats?!?!? WTF indeed. There really should be an expose on the planners because some major disfunction had to have been going on for that sort of foolishness to have been allowed. Just did a perusal of wedding sites and they all suggest having chairs if people are going to be asked to stand for more than 10-15 minutes.
Lizzy L
@Bobby Thomson: On the other hand: I was in my early twenties when I fainted on the Chicago El platform on my way to work. Turned out I had had walking pneumonia for weeks and didn’t realize it — “it’s just a cough…” Everyone’s different.
The media does not give a flying f**k about Hillary Clinton’s health. First, they don’t like her because she refuses, and has always refused, to play their game, to defer, to be who they want her to be. They are profoundly self-centered and profoundly misogynistic, including the media women. Second, they want clicks and will push any story, however thin, to get them. Have I mentioned that they don’t like her?
SFAW
@shomi:
Knock yerself out, snookums. I’m sure they’ll appreciate your wit and wisdom far more than the commenters here, you poor, underappreciated child.
Grumpy Code Monkey
If it’s a result published by The Government, it must be false; no other interpretation will be considered. Hell, if Evil Government Scientists™ published a report that water was wet, you’d have more than a few people start drinking sand, just to prove a point.
That’s what you’re dealing with here.
Peale
@Hal: LOL. Unfortunately, 50 is about the time we all start to get the faces we deserve rather rapidly. If we didn’t want to see signs of aging over 8 years, we should elect 72 year old men.
WaterGirl
@Mike E: I just love Reverend Barber. He’s my hero.
tobie
@Keith G:
I couldn’t agree with you more on this. Optics matter. HRC could have limited her schedule to a big venue per day and a few sit-down interviews like Trump. She could have had voice coaching to be able to speak in big arenas. She could have gone big with the kinds of proposals that energize the youth. She didn’t do any of this. Some of this isn’t fair, I know. The press hounds her mercilessly. But according to TPM she no longer has a commanding electoral college lead. She’s ahead one friggin point in NH, a state that shouldn’t be close. And now in an election year where we should be regaining the Senate dKos has the Republicans as the odds on favorite to keep control.
I hate to say it but–even barring the latest pneumonia gate–she’s a lackluster candidate at best. Where’s the energy? Where are the big ideas? Even college-age students don’t give a hoot about this election. And without that constituency we’ve lost the election.
Aleta
This has started to feel like the (stereotypical) family when the mother finally gets so sick she goes to bed for a couple of hours and everyone has to wake her up because the new cereal brand they wanted is not on the right shelf.
Jeffro
Somewhat related: the fact that Trump hasn’t been forced to leave the country after all the crazy rip-off schemes, charity swindling, and disgusting things he’s said really make you pause and realize just how ‘immunized’ rich people are to criticism. People ascribe all sorts of wonderful traits to the rich (especially – need I even mention this? – rich white males) …they’re so smart, they are so successful, they’re wonderful people, they really know how to get things done, and so on. It makes me sick.
Just because of his wealth (if it even exists) Trump has been seen as a symbol of American business know-how, expertise, negotiating skill. Fortunately not everyone buys this nonsense, but enough of them do that he’s at 40%.
Mnemosyne
@tobie:
You know why the race suddenly tightened?
Because Hillary pointed out that Donald Trump is catering to white supremacists, and white voters got mad.
Period.
None of this other shit mattered until she did that speech that called him out.
I’m a white person, and I am fucking ashamed of my fellow white people right now.
gwangung
@tobie:
You do realize this is media dependent, right?
Matt McIrvin
@Feathers: We have a lot of war memorials too, but what it really reminds me of is the incredible profusion of Confederate war memorials that went up in the late 19th-early 20th century (and are mostly still standing). They vastly exceeded Union memorials even in border areas that were mostly pro-Union during the war. All for a lost cause that Grant called “the worst for which a people ever fought”.
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
@tobie: Good lord, you too? The chickens around here are so abused.
Mike E
@Tilda Swinton’s Bald Cap: or, insatiable
OzarkHillbilly
RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY!
I just sent her $100 above and beyond as a reward for almost telling the truth. I say almost because I thought ‘deplorables’ was a little on the kind side.
Aleta
Maybe we need a bunch of pictures of people on twitster holding up signs saying “I had pneumonia and never told anyone until now.”
Jeffro
@tobie:
Sorry but I don’t agree with any of this. She’s plenty awesome. She’s got tons of energy, obviously – she pushed right through a pneumonia diagnosis and kept on going (just as she has been for 18 months now?) No big ideas – have you heard her speak? Have you been to her website? Ya gotta be kiddin’ me.
As for college-age students…I work on a campus and they most certainly do care about this election. That’s why over 80% of them – even former Bernistas – are supporting Clinton. And while they’re important, they are not the key to this election. The Obama coalition turning out, THAT is the key to this election (and it sure looks like Barack, Michelle, Joe, Elizabeth, and others are doing their part for GOTV)
Find something else to complain about – none of this will fly.
Hal
Nate Silver had a post about Trump’s momentum appearing to stall. This is before baskets and pneumonia. Trump is also calling for Clinton to apologize or drop out (hahahaha). The only person who’s going to care about baskets are the baskets, and I think the media screwed the chicken trying to make a bout of pneumonia into the black plague. Hillary still has room to grow, Trump I think has reached his ceiling. I’m just not going to worry anymore. People need to seriously stop freaking out and assuming the worse over every stupid thing.
Keith G
@tobie: I have stopped looking for perfection in any of the political candidates or political leaders that I support. Considering of that standard, Hillary has done a pretty good job considering her own self-imposed baggage and that she put on her by others. She will never have the energy of a change candidate. She is an Insider running essentially an Insider campaign. That’s okay. I do feel that there have been some missed marketing opportunities, but I wouldn’t be worried about the right now. The question is what will be her move to get her campaign back generating positive news and thumping the hell out of Trump.
Speaking of what’s next, Hillary Clinton’s press secretary has just announced that the campaign will be releasing more medical information about Mrs. Clinton later this week. I take that to mean that it’s likely that today she is getting several things checked out medically speaking
Major Major Major Major
@tobie: I just checked Sam Wang and you’re wrong about what the polls say. Or rather your sources are.
She has loads of ideas and is a perfectly fine speaker. They just don’t report on her ideas or show her speeches.
tobie
@Tilda Swinton’s Bald Cap: As I said before and will say it again this is about optics. And to Mnemosyne, none of this is fair and the double standards applied to Dems in general and HRC in particular are infuriating but that doesn’t change the fact that HRC has never been one to put forth a big vision. The electorate is hungering for this. Things have changed drastically since the end of the cold war and 2001 and the Iraq War and people want a vision for the future. Trump’s vision is absurd, hateful, dangerous, bankrupt, etc. but he’s speaking to their anxiety.
Just One More Canuck
@CONGRATULATIONS!: the 198 refers to his hair
Kay
Well, there’s only so much one can do.
However, you’ll want to be able to tell your children and grandchildren you did what you could to beat the racist moron reality tv show star. That matters all by itself.
Hoodie
@Mnemosyne: This will pass. She did the right thing. Her campaign probably figured they had to heighten the contrast with Trump because the press is trying so hard to normalize him after his initial drop. Clinton wants to boost turnout in the Obama coalition and shame at least some R’s into not voting Trump, and calling out the deplorables is one way to do that. It may mean, however, that chances of a D takeover in the Senate are declining. The one thing you can count on, however, is that Trump will say something pretty awful in the next couple of months that will send him back down, and take the rest of the GOP with him. We haven’t reached that tipping point.
tobie
@Jeffro:
Glad to hear your campus is abuzz with election fever. Mine isn’t. Not a single sign posted anywhere yet. Here’s hoping that changes.
Mnemosyne
@tobie:
The white electorate is hungering for this. White voters are anxious about the future.
I’m sorry, but if we’re not honest with ourselves about this, we’ll never get anywhere. White voters are the problem in this election. They would prefer to elect an out-and-proud white supremacist than be part of a multiracial, diverse society. That is the problem.
Mnemosyne
@Hoodie:
Black women are consolidating behind Clinton and getting enthusiastic, and that makes me hopeful, because they are now THE most reliable voting block.
Basically, if Hillary wins, it will be because of minority voters rallying around her. That’s fucking embarrassing to me as a white person, but I’m grateful that they’re willing to save us all.
Kay
A shit load of people will deny what transpired during the last 18 months, but the internet is forever.
Here’s today’s reporting on the race One story on Donald Trump and it’s positive. The rest is Hillary Clinton Is Doomed.
The thing speaks for itself
Keith G
@Mnemosyne: Well, that to cannot even be close to being an overstatement.
rikyrah
@WaterGirl:
Mine too. He’s the REAL DEAL.
Major Major Major Major
Slate has an article saying that the reason Trump is being so nice and not hammering pneumoniagate is because of a strategic decision to let it go away quickly and keep talking about basketgate.
OzarkHillbilly
@Mnemosyne:
I’ve stopped being embarrassed, the racists just aren’t worth the bother.
Mnemosyne
@Keith G:
Right now, Trump is polling at 1 percent with black voters. He’s also at historical lows with Hispanic and Asian-American voters.
Given those numbers, where do you see the problem originating from?
rikyrah
@Kay:
Kay, did you see my response to you in the Morning Open Thread?
Keith G
@Mnemosyne: What problem are we talking about?
Frankensteinbeck
@Mnemosyne:
I’m afraid you are absolutely correct. It looks to me like at least half of white Americans are racist enough that, when the rubber hits the road, it will beat out all other considerations. That’s more than I expected, but this is our Alan Keyes event.
Kay
Donald Trump’s adviser believes China is a party to the TPP agreement.
Apparently no one in media knows this is false.
This is what you’re up against. God speed :)
amk
@tobie:
And what ‘anxiety’ that would be? Care to expand?
rikyrah
@Mnemosyne:
Willard won 60% of the White Vote in 2012.
Show me where Trump makes up THE LOSSES from Willard’s numbers with non-Whites, and I’ll begin to worry.
sukabi
@tobie: well, YOU could initiate some change and put up some signage yourself … just a thought.
Feathers
@Matt McIrvin: Yep. “Good” wars have a few large, well placed memorials – AKA Trafalgar Square, Memorial Halls and Union Squares all over the North. Wars nobody wants to admit were bad get lots of small memorials all over that nobody is willing to overrule the pearl-clutchers and noble wailers. Note: Giving in to people who want futile gestures is never good. Your generation may know that it’s a full of shite empty gesture, but your kids will think it is written in stone. (AKA One Nation (Under God))
Keith G
@rikyrah: Worse yet, Trump is losing white voters that the GOP has owned for decades. With that type of hemorrhaging, this race is Hillary’s to lose….
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
@Major Major Major Major: Apparently the MSM isn’t cooperating though.
tobie
@sukabi: @sukabi: I’m sorry…I don’t know what you mean by ‘signage.’ Care to clarify? I’ve contributed to the campaign, phone-banked, and canvassed on weekends and will continue to do so till election day. I agree with most of you that it’s the only antidote to anxiety…but I’m struck at the shrill response here to noting that things are not going well right now. Evidently it’s sacrilege to say this.
AMK…the anxiety in a nutshell is that the future that awaits children/grandchildren won’t be better than the past. Yes, Trump’s explanation of this is racist, xenophobic, sexist. Bernie’s explanation was that it’s the fault of big business and bankers. But maybe, just maybe, someone could talk about how the US can continue to be preeminent economically in a complex world. HRC has good speeches on how to create jobs, revive manufacturing, strengthen the country for the 21st century etc., but that message isn’t being heard right now. I’m not a campaign strategist. I don’t know how someone makes a splash. But I gather that’s what campaign strategists are hired to do.
FlipYrWhig
@tobie:
Anyone who says this means “this is about my own anus.” No one fucking cares about “optics” and no election has ever been fucking determined by “optics” and the only people who use the term “optics” are slavering assholes like Chuck Todd and Andrea Mitchell. You use “optics” when you want to say “what I think idiots think based on what other people have told me that idiots think.” It’s fucking stupid and should stop.
Patricia Kayden
@Hal:
I’ve heard the same. There is a limit on how many people will vote for an out and out Bigot, after all. Thankfully.
@tobie:
Perhaps Secretary Clinton hasn’t done a good job of publicizing her vision but if you go to her website, you’ll see that she has far reaching policy goals (for education, immigration, jobs, etc.). But I agree with you that she hasn’t gotten that message before the public enough. Once she gets better, she should give policy statements every day. Unfortunately, they’ll probably be ignored by most of the media in favor of following Trump around for his latest farts.
sukabi
@tobie: you said there were no signs or posters on your campus, I suggested you put some up.
FlipYrWhig
@Patricia Kayden: Also, Obama didn’t put forth a big vision, Bush didn’t put forth a big vision, Clinton didn’t put forth a big vision, the other Bush didn’t put forth a big vision, Reagan MAYBE put forth a big vision, Carter didn’t put forth a big vision, Nixon didn’t put forth a big vision, Johnson didn’t put forth a big vision, Kennedy MAYBE put forth a big vision, Eisenhower didn’t, Truman didn’t, and now we’re back to motherfucking World War Two. This is something that no one does, and people who didn’t do it have won elections resoundingly. It’s ridiculous to suggest otherwise. It’s faux-savvy hand-wringing masturbation.
glory b
@Joyce H: THANK YOU!!!
I’ve been thinking this for the last 5-7 years now. It was horrible, but get over it! Do we need some kind of national grief counseling?
Kay
Hah! Now they’re all just making shit up!
Does anyone know why these people are afraid of Donald Trump? He’s a moron. He’s not even as rich as Matt Lauer!
Keith G
@FlipYrWhig:
You might want to look up a few interviews done by Michael Dukakis wherein he voices a differing point of view. Then again…what would he know?
trnc
@shomi:
Exactly. Remember, a comment thread on a blog is no place to state opinions. Leave thoughts on how to run a campaign to excellent professionals such as Bob Shrum and Steve Schmidt.
glory b
@NR: Yes, it’s terrible. You shouldn’t stick around here and take all this abuse.
Patricia Kayden
@Kay:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/oct/05/us-midterm-elections-2010-tea-party-movement
CNBC are notoriously Conservative/Republican. That’s where the whole Tea Party nonsense started.
Mnemosyne
@Keith G:
The problem that Hillary isn’t running away with the election like all the Very Serious People keep claiming she should be.
It’s because white voters are anxious about race and gender, not because Hillary is a bad candidate.
NR
@Mnemosyne: You’re full of shit. But then, we already knew that.
Mnemosyne
@NR:
Yes, yes, you totally have Good Reasons for hating Hillary Clinton that have absolutely nothing to do with your mommy complex and your discomfort with seeing a woman in a position of power over you. You keep telling yourself that.
Patricia Kayden
@shomi: I have been guilty of doing what you’re doing but have to ask why you feel it necessary to attack people on such a personal, degrading level? You almost sound just like Trump. What are you getting out of insulting people who are supposedly on your side? People are going to be nervous right up to the time when Secretary Clinton is announced the winner. That shouldn’t be shocking to you in such a tense election.
Kay
@Patricia Kayden:
“That’s been well-documented” regarding Trump is laugh out loud funny.
They have a doctor’s letter on Donald Trump. That’s it. It’s more difficult to pass the vetting at a temp agency.
NR
@Mnemosyne: The great thing about the “everyone who’s against us is racist/sexist” argument is that it means that there’s never any need to think about anything or make any changes to anything we’re doing. Since only racists/sexists oppose our candidate, we’re already the best we can possibly be. No need to talk about any flaws or even think about changing anything.
NR
@Mnemosyne: I don’t hate Hillary Clinton, which makes the rest of your blather irrelevant. Like most everything else that comes out of your mouth.
Kay
@Patricia Kayden:
If they asked Donald Trump to name the parties to the TPP right now, he couldn’t do it. They’re choosing not to ask these questions. We know they’re capable of asking simple questions, because they gave one to Johnson.
Mystifying.
FlipYrWhig
@Keith G: Michael Dukakis lost because he was too liberal to win in 1988. The media layer had very, very little to do with it. But the reason why the media endlessly discusses “optics” is because the media determines what “optics” is, and they love to talk about themselves. Instead of talking about things that happen, they talk about what things that happen mean to other people they imagine caring about them, and the trendlines that they forecast resulting from them. It’d be like a movie critic talking about what other people say about the movie and what it means for the next movie, rather than about the actual fucking movie they just fucking watched. And this total lunacy has become second nature. It used to affect mostly pundits, but now it’s the entire media ecosystem. Holy fuck is it strange.
NR
@Kay: Well Johnson was asked a specific question about Aleppo, not just if he knew what it was. But you make a good point overall. There are any number of questions the media could ask Trump that would expose his ignorance, but they’re choosing not to.
glory b
@tobie: And of course we know that SIGNS mean everything!
Last week I wrote a post about a story on npr (I know, I know) about how concerned everyone should e about black turnout in N. Carolina.
Every black person they interviewed proceeded to say that of course they intended to vote for Hillary. When asked why, some said they wanted to make sure Trump went down in flames (my words, but you get the gist), they were big Obama supporters and wanted the continuation of his policies, along with more lefty stuff, and they were inclined to teach the repub legislators a thing or two about the voter restriction laws.
THEN the story was their concern that they were voting for every reason except their enthusiasm, and somehow, I guess practical votes count less than enthusiastic ones do. Or something.
Kay
Did we ever find out why all of prestige media did a countdown for days since Clinton held a press conference but didn’t do one for days since Trump hasn’t released his tax returns?
Has anyone seen any of the questions or answers from the press conferences, the press conferences that were so vital to democracy?
Mnemosyne
@NR:
And the great thing about ignoring race and sex is that you can pretend that Breitbart is a real news source and having one of their executives run Trump’s campaign is no big deal. Only someone as oversensitive as Hillary would say that Breitbart is part of the white supremacist alt-right, amirite?
Again, Trump is polling at historical lows with every minority voting group. That means that this current polling change is solely on the shoulders of white voters. Own it.
Kay
@NR:
I know more about the TPP than Donald Trump does, and so do you.
Ask him if Mexico and Canada are parties and how the TPP might intersect with NAFTA. Trade is one of his signature issues. These should be softballs for Mr. Trump.
Kay
@NR:
Have Trump describe the steps to “renegotiate” NAFTA and how that would impact TPP.
Hillary Clinton could do it. Donald Trump can’t.
Mnemosyne
@NR:
Yes, the reason you constantly whine about Hillary’s “likeability” ratings is that you love her and can’t understand why other people don’t love her as much as you do.
Pull the other one, sweetie, it’s got bells on it.
Aleta
@Joyce H: Seeing media programming for 9-11 and media reaction to HRC on the same day brought home to me that their motivation is what USE they can get out of an event.
glory b
@Major Major Major Major: I figured that he doesn’t want to talk about HIS health and medical records.
NR
@Mnemosyne:
I’m not ignoring it. I’m saying that saying racism/sexism is the only reason people oppose Hillary Clinton is every bit as stupid as saying it’s not a reason at all.
You use this talking point all the time, and it’s only ever intended to shut down discussion, not foster it. “Hey, maybe we could do this thing better.” “Nope, only racists and sexists oppose us so we’re already perfect. No need to change.” It’s intellectually lazy.
SFAW
@Patricia Kayden:
No, you haven’t.
As with Reggie M before him, one of “shomi”‘s big things is to come here and tell the FPers and many/most commenters “you fuckers all fucking suck!” I guess, at some level, if one finds something one likes, one should stick with it, to a point. But it does get tiresome.
Kay
@NR:
When he says “federal reserve” they could stop him and ask him to define the federal reserve in his own words.
NR
@Kay: Or, hell, just ask him if he stands by any one of his earlier ignorant/stupid/insane statements. “Mr. Trump, you’ve previously said that climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese. Do you stand by that statement?”
The press won’t do it of course, but it would be incredibly easy.
Kay
@NR:
That’s why I don’t buy that it’s about “eyeballs” or “clicks”. Watching Donald Trump try to bullshit his way thru basic definitions would be great tv.
NR
@Mnemosyne: Yes, pointing out legitimate problems with a flawed candidate means someone is an evil sexist. You’re so pathetic it’s actually hilarious.
SFAW
@NR:
Actually, your misrepresentation of Mnem’s point is what’s intellectually lazy, chief. But if all YOU have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail, as the cliche goes.
I’d explain Mnem’s point to you, but I wouldn’t want to upset your preconceptions.
Kay
@NR:
No, he relies on bullshit and that’s he said/she said.
Ask him what the terms are of the climate change agreement. Own words. Just rough description. He doesn’t know.
Hell, you could ask him what the basic terms of NAFTA are. He doesn’t know those either.
NR
@SFAW: No, it’s literally what she’s saying. I’ve never seen her acknowledge any other valid reason why someone might not be happy with Hillary as a candidate. It’s always “they’re just racist/sexist.”
That is a big part of the reason people support Trump, but it’s not 100% of it. And pretending it is doesn’t do us any favors.
NR
@Kay:
I’m pretty sure he tweeted the climate change thing, so he couldn’t get out of that one.
And that’s the point. He’s said so much stupid and crazy shit that’s on video or on Twitter or in some other recorded and verifiable form that it would be insanely easy for the press to confront him with it. But they won’t. Because “gotcha journalism” or some other bullshit excuse.
Mnemosyne
@NR:
On one side, you have a sexist white supremacist who has never held elective office and whose biggest claim to fame is as a game show host.
On the other side, you have a woman who is a former US Senator and former Secretary of State who was highly respected and popular in both positions.
But the reason they’re running neck-and-neck is that Trump is a better candidate than Clinton and has absolutely nothing to do with racism or sexism.
Riiiiiiiight. You just keep telling yourself that Trump voters aren’t racist or sexist just because they’re voting for the white supremacist game show host. It’s because they have questions! Serious questions!
And if you just can’t bring yourself to vote for Hillary in this election because of “corporatism” or some other whiny bullshit, you’re an overprivileged white person with, at best, subconscious racist and sexist feelings. Period. Full stop. No excuses left at this point.
Mnemosyne
@SFAW:
NR is unable to understand the difference between not being totally happy with Hillary as a candidate, and claiming that the reason you’re voting for Trump is because Hillary is an imperfect candidate.
And, yes, at this point in the election, if you are voting for Trump or voting third party because you have some nebulous “problem” with Hillary, you are voting in favor of white supremacy and misogyny. Full stop. You have no excuses left. Your fig leaf is gone.
NR
@Mnemosyne:
Stop making up shit I didn’t say. It’s dishonest.
Some people like Trump because they’re racist and/or sexist. Some people are turning to Trump because Hillary has serious issues as a candidate. And some people support Trump because they feel he’s speaking to their concerns in a way that neither major party has done since neoliberal economics took over the Democratic party back in the 90s.
This is a problem, and it’s one the party could address. Saying “they’re all just a bunch of dirty, dirty racists and sexists” only ensures it never will be addressed and these people will continue to drift further and further away from us.
SFAW
@NR:
Actually, THAT is what she’s saying, not your mischaracterization.
And there are two facets of that: for (one assumes) a significant portion of his supporters, it as a large part, for some other yet-to-be-determined percentage, it is the main or perhaps only reason.
Of course, there are some number, who, as with you, just wish that Hillary weren’t so darn unlikeable. Of course, two years ago, her approval numbers were approximately the reverse of what they are now. But, you give the Rethugs enough time, and a compliant MSM, and Jesus and Gandhi would end up underwater. Funny how that works.
SFAW
@Mnemosyne:
Not orange supremacy?
NR
@SFAW:
Again: I’ve never seen her acknowledge any other reason someone might hesitate to support Hillary. It’s always “they’re racist/sexist.” Always.
Mnemosyne
@NR:
Name the “issues” that Hillary has that Trump isn’t even worse on. Immigration?
War? Tax policy? International trade?
Yes, angry white people who feel left behind. They know Trump isn’t going to fix the economy, and will probably make things even worse, so they’re fine with having him beat up black and brown people instead so they can feel better about themselves.
Sorry, but we have reached the Occam’s Razor point of the election. A year ago, you might have been able to argue that people had reasons to support their candidate other than racism and sexism, but now we’re down to two: the unqualified white supremacist, or the person who is more qualified than anyone else who has ever held the office.
If you still can’t choose between those two, it ain’t “qualifications” or “likeability” holding you back. It’s bigotry.
SFAW
@NR:
Then you haven’t been looking to hard.
Be that as it may, Mnem’s comment:
is pretty much spot on. Note that she is referring to the de facto result on their (in)action, not saying that they are such persons. It’s not that fine a distinction, nor is it splitting hairs.
Mnemosyne
@NR:
No, I’m saying there’s no other reason to hesitate to support Hillary over Trump. She may not have been your first choice or my first choice, but she’s the candidate now. And anyone who’s still unsure is not making their decision for rational reasons.
Mnemosyne
@SFAW:
I will go there on Trump voters: if you’re voting for Trump, you are a racist and/or a misogynist, and possibly both. At this point, there is no wiggle room left. He has repeatedly told the whole country what he is.
Johnson or Stein voters may just be enablers, but they should be aware of what they’re enabling.
mike in dc
Trump has risen little. Mostly it’s been a slippage in support for Clinton. I think the “scandal” bs has hurt a bit, along with the natural “widening” of the electorate (people who are only now tuning in). She should have a little down time, then show her vigor with a sensible but busy campaign schedule. Let the surrogates barnstorm the swing states while she preps for the debates. Then hand Trump his ass on September 26th. A strong performance in the first debate will boost her support regardless of how the media spins Trump’s performance.
Keith G
@FlipYrWhig: You are entitled to your views. They are not shared by Dukakis or by others who have written about this. You can claim bad faith, but can’t that also be pointed back at you? At some point, don’t we have some expectation that the folks who were there doing it, or are the professionals who write about are likely to be correct?
A thorough post mortum in the LA Times
The Politico summing up polling data about the godfather of optics mistakes:
The candidate himself in Slate earlier this year:
NR
@Mnemosyne:
Oh, so now you’re willing to concede that maybe they aren’t necessarily racist and/or sexist, they might just be irrational. How magnanimous of you!
This is what I’m talking about. As far as you’re concerned, Hillary Clinton and the Democratic party are perfect. Literally everyone who refuses to support them is either racist, sexist, or irrational. And so you have completely closed off any possibility for dialogue with people who might be convinced to support us if we work to make change and better our party. Because you see, it’s their fault, not ours, that they don’t support us in the first place.
Mnemosyne
@mike in dc:
Interesting bit that Betty Cracker found in today’s Washington Post poll: everyone but white men without a college degree thinks Trump is prejudiced against minorities.
Now the question is how many voters think that and will vote for Trump anyway.
Mnemosyne
@NR:
Here, I’ll explain it to you again using very small words:
Anyone who supports Trump over Clinton is racist, sexist, or irrational.
We’re not talking about parties anymore. We’re talking about individual candidates in the election that is happening in two months.
If you don’t think that having a white supremacist running for president is a problem, then you are racist, sexist, or irrational.
And if you start blathering about “the Democratic Party” when a white supremacist is running for president, then you fall into one of those three categories.
Miss Bianca
@NR: What an ass you are. Really. You justify any pushback against your snide, whiny, and generally unhelpful comments by saying that we think HRC and the Democrats are “perfect”. No – but they are so much better than a blowhard white supremacist and his enablers in the Republican Party that you literally, seriously, have to have some serious damage going on in your head not to be able to see it. That damage would be largely due to racism and sexism. If you can’t – or won’t – see it, but keep insisting that oh, if ONLY we had some Democratic candidate – a white man, perhaps? – everything would just be so much better, then if you possessed the slightest shred of intellectual honesty, you might have to wonder whether *you*, in fact, might be conditioned by racism and sexism.
But you have never hitherto shown the slightest evidence of such honesty.
The Lodger
@CONGRATULATIONS!: I assume some of that 30 pounds you see on Trump is a bulletproof vest.
stinger
@rikyrah: This x 1000.
FlipYrWhig
@NR: Like you care at all about “dialogue.” You lurk in a corner waiting for bad news so you can spread your special filth and foulness.
NR
@Mnemosyne:
And like I said: This line of thinking means we never have to look at ourselves, we never have to make any changes, we never have to acknowledge that we could do anything better. Since the only people who oppose us are racist, sexist, or irrational, that means we’re perfect. Get out of here with your talk about changing or improving anything.
This is the ultimate talking point for shutting down discussion. And you’re eager to use it at every opportunity. Guess what? It doesn’t help us, in either the short or the long-term.
FlipYrWhig
@Miss Bianca: He has the Glenn Greenwald mindset. He is right about everything, you are wrong about everything, and you dislike him because he has such truthfulness and principle.
NR
@FlipYrWhig: I’m actually worried about you. You really need psychiatric help. Please seek it out.
FlipYrWhig
@NR: EVERYONE LOOK SOMETHING BAD IS HAPPENING ARENT YOU UPSET HOW ABOUT NOW OH THE PAIN OH THE ANXIETY is not the pathway to discussion. You don’t care about discussion. You don’t care about anything except your own hatefulness.
FlipYrWhig
@NR: Being disgusted by you is entirely rational.
NR
@Miss Bianca: Okay, so now it’s not only the people who don’t support us who are racist and sexist, but people who even talk about the possibility that there might be other reasons people don’t support us are also racist and sexist. This is beginning to approach a cult-like level of dogma. It’s a little creepy.
NR
@FlipYrWhig: Your behavior around me is anything but rational.
I’m serious when I say you need help. I’m not attacking you. I’m genuinely concerned. You sound like you’re one polite rejection away from shooting up a school. Please, look into whatever resources are available to you before someone gets hurt.
Bobby Thomson
Why are people feeding the rat fucker?
FlipYrWhig
@NR: “No, Ace. Just you.”
NR
@FlipYrWhig: And you just further proved my point.
Mnemosyne
@NR:
No, it means that now is not the right time to do that self-examination.
The goddamned house is on fire, and you want to stand in the living room debating about whether or not we should change the drapes while flames are licking at our feet.
The house is on fire RIGHT FUCKING NOW — get out of the fucking house and then we can decide how to redecorate it.
NR
@Mnemosyne:
Well according to you, it’s never the right time. Your position is that literally every single person in the country who doesn’t already support us is racist, sexist, or irrational. It is therefore not possible for us to ever get any more support than we already have, so what would be the point of examining or changing anything?
And by the way, Hillary Clinton recently said that that characterization only applied to half of Trump supporters. So I guess you think she’s wrong about that?
Mnemosyne
@NR:
No, it’s that you’re in the position of one of the people who insisted for years that the Civil War wasn’t about slavery. It was about tariffs! And states rights!
And you know what? The tariff fight was over slavery. The states rights fight was over slavery. The cause of the whole goddamned war was slavery, but Confederate apologists didn’t want to admit it, so they insisted that we only talk about the effects of slavery and not slavery itself.
The Southern Strategy worked because of racism. The Republicans came to dominate US politics because of racism. Ignoring that root cause means that you’re never going to solve it, because that sucking chest wound will still be underneath whatever banking regulations band-aid you slap on top of it just waiting for the next Republican demagogue to come along and tell people that the banks aren’t the problem, it’s all those black and brown people who didn’t pay their mortgages.
Mnemosyne
@NR:
I think Hillary Clinton is overly generous in her estimation. But, sure, let’s stop to discuss changing the drapes while the house is on fire. There’s no way that could go wrong.
SFAW
@NR:
Oh, stop with the projection already.
stinger
@glory b: Agree with you both. I think it’s a way of keeping us all a-skeert. Many, many people benefit financially and in terms of power when Americans are afraid of dusky furriners. And if we don’t participate, then we’re unpatriotic.
SFAW
@NR:
Yes, your sincerity is overwhelming in its sinceritinessitudeness. So much so, that perhaps never before in All of Recorded History Has Anyone Been So Concerned. Sincerely and Genuinely.
EthylEster
Your pics are youuge! Why?
SFAW
@Mnemosyne:
And now you are being a racist for calling out their racism. Sad!
SFAW
@EthylEster:
Because an inordinately high percentage of commenters are old.
And next time, could you please type LOUDER? I’m GETTING HARD OF HEARING!
Taylor
@Bobby Thomson: Will no-one rid me of this meddlesome ratfucker?
NR
@Mnemosyne: Well it sure is convienent that the Democratic party has attained perfection and never has to change. Otherwise I might have thought that neoliberal economics has alienated huge swaths of the country or something. Glad you’ve set me straight on that. It’s really all just racism and sexism. No need to ever change or try to grow or work to serve the country better.
You’ve made it all so simple. We can just shout down anyone who thinks we should pursue economic policies that benefit the people instead of corporations. If they leave afterward, well, they were just a racist anyway. Or a sexist.
SFAW
@NR:
FSM, you are such a whiner.
I hear they like that shit over at RedStoat. You might feel more at home there.
Matt McIrvin
@Mnemosyne:
If something like 66% of whites vote for Trump, he can win without a single minority vote. Since a few minorities will vote for him, the threshold is actually a little lower, something like 64%. (And that’s the fraction of the two-party vote, so the absolute fraction goes down some more if some whites vote third-party.)
Whites are definitely the problem. If Trump wins, it will be because he got Reaganesque landslide numbers among whites.
Matt McIrvin
@rikyrah:
White bros in young middle age who thought Obama was cool but Hillary is a boring old poop that reminds them of their stupid mom, and electing Trump might be a kind of entertaining funny/horrifying thing like electing the Joker.
And other white bros in young middle age who thought Obama was cool but both sides are equally bad now so they’ll vote for Gary Johnson or something.
I doubt there are enough of these people to get Trump over the line, but if they’re anywhere, they’re there.
NoraLenderbee
Oh, FFS. Any doctor who mentioned cystic fibrosis should lose his license. That’s not a disease you get in middle age, and if Hillary had it as a child, she’d have been dead before she was 20.
Miss Bianca
@NR: No, jerk. I’m saying that *you* are a whiny, snide, nasty little contrarian who takes every opportunity he can to shit on the honest efforts of people who are trying with all their might and main to keep this country from careening into fascism, because they don’t happen to meet *your* standards of purity. And that only a white male dudebro can afford to take such a stance. And that whenever you’re called on it, you cry, “oh, Kettle, you are so very, very, VERY black – signed, Pot.”
I’m sure all of here are waiting breathlessly to hear what good work you’re doing in the world to address the economic concerns of the white working class. Because, since you’re so very, VERY concerned about how left behind they are – and since you’re so adamant that of course, racism and sexism couldn’t be the primary factors in their voting against their own economic interests – you must be toiling diligently in the nonvirtual world to help them, right? So lay it on us, man – just what are you doing, besides sniping at people who think you are an ass and an idiot, to bring about the great populist revolution you’re so busy deriding HRC and the Democrats for not addressing? That you somehow imagine that people who are voting for Trump really, actually want?
Throw down, man. Tell us what YOU’RE doing that’s so much better, and so much more effective, than what the Democrats are proposing. But I’m betting you can’t. Because your shit sounds desperately weak.As the late, great James Brown would have it, you’re “talking loud/and saying nothing.”
J R in WV
@NR:
Does that mean you’re a lock to vote for The Donald Trump?
Or are you planning to vote for Hillary Clinton, despite her issues?
Have you ever just come out and told us who you personally intend to vote for? Will you be working for that candidate? Contributing to that candidate?
Or are you just here trolling?
All good questions, I think. Answer up, or get the Fuq outta here…
Matt McIrvin
It took me a while to realize it, but I think a lot of the lefty fretting about Clinton’s health on Facebook and such is coming from people who are harboring a hope that the party will replace her with Bernie Sanders. It’s Flip The Superdelegates II: Death Watch.
SFAW
@Miss Bianca:
Damn, girl! Remind me not to piss you off again.