AMAZING: Trump campaign is requiring supporters to provide government-issued ID and a signed NDA to volunteer. This is unheard of. pic.twitter.com/bP6gJGBbEC
— Matt McDermott (@mattmfm) September 21, 2016
This is a Potemkin phone bank. Volunteers will not go to Trump Tower during the workday. It’s to pay Trump https://t.co/HTdgDSGELU
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) September 21, 2016
Dana Houle is a Democratic campaign professional, sitting this cycle out while he’s primary caregiver for his two-year-old twins. His twitter feed has been a great resource and a comfort to me, because he’s got the professional’s eye for the seams in Trump’s Potemkin village campaign.
Apart from always keeping in mind that Trump’s a con artist, what’s on the agenda for the evening?
[warning: autoplay]
Even if Trump's brand value is declining, his political kickback operation is going like gangbusters. https://t.co/2XRNqgvTr2
— Daniel Drezner (@dandrezner) September 21, 2016
germy
lamh36
Colin Kaepernick makes the cover of TIME Magazine ✊?
Major Major Major Major
At this point all of this crazy is just sort of washing over me. I read this post and the first two comments and thought, well, must be Thursday, I never could get the hang of Thursdays.
Trollhattan
@Major Major Major Major:
Thursday puts the thirst in thirsty. All you need to know.
SiubhanDuinne
Can we hope that Clinton’s oppo research folks and debate prep team are up to speed on these? I’d love to see Hillary gish-gallop her way through six or eight of the recent grift revelations and see him try to explain them away. Even better, of course, if the moderator pummels him with them. Corporate conflicts of interest, OPM going in to his foundation, inappropriate if not downright illegal money going out, possibly using his foundation as a tax shelter/laundry, possibly indebted to foreign creditors, requiring NDAs of volunteers, the list grows longer every day.
Major Major Major Major
@Trollhattan: Pretty sure the name’s from Thor.
mike in dc
8 million spent on Trump properties. 11 million for a digital media company that previously did work for Trump entities.
germy
So now Russia leaked the First Lady’s passport photo?
Irony Abounds
TPM has what I believe to be an excellent summary of why Hillary isn’t just skunking Cheeto Jesus. She simply doesn’t generate real enthusiasm. His comparison of Elizabeth Warren’s response to the Wells Fargo scam versus Hillary’s is spot on. Nothing can be done at this point, but Dem enthusiasm would be a hell of a lot higher with Warren at the top of the ticket. Unfortunately, instead of getting ready to laugh at a Trump demise of epic proportions, we have the real possibility of a nail biter of a finish.
Major Major Major Major
@Major Major Major Major: (My favorite quote about whom is from a Douglas Adams book: “Thor was the god of thunder and, quite frankly, acted like it.”)
JMG
@Irony Abounds: Not Josh. Piece was by John Judis, apparently a friend of Marshall’s. Used to be one of the old New Republic crowd of fretting/scolding liberals. His premise is not born out by public opinion data and isn’t exactly a hot take. “Democrats lack enthusiasm” is a presidential campaign evergreen going back to Carter-Ford at least.
Schlemazel
@Major Major Major Major:
you have your religion, we have ours!
Trollhattan
When you’ve lost Morning Joe.
schrodinger's cat
@germy: Huh?
Mr Rogers
@Irony Abounds: that wasn’t Josh, that was John Judis. His history so far this cycle as been “once I eliminate any acknowledgement of media bias and mysogony as being baseless how come the major party woman candidate with a long history of being mistreated by the press is doing poorly? It’s a puzzlement.”
Trollhattan
@Irony Abounds:
Check back with us Tuesday morning.
Frankensteinbeck
@Irony Abounds:
And just how enthusiastic is the Democratic voter? The author doesn’t say, only how enthusiastic he is. And…
Right there, at the beginning, the author jumps the shark. No, this is not an excellent summary of anything. It’s just an economic leftist who’s sure that a tone of anger against the rich and the banks is all the masses are waiting for to rise up.
gogol's wife
I’m enthusiastic as hell. I actually prefer Hillary to Warren. Her thing with the Wells Fargo guy was a little embarrassing.
SenyorDave
@SiubhanDuinne: I think it would be too convoluted to try to explain. The charity is scam is much more basic, he used his own charity that he didn’t donate money to in order to benefit himself. There’s got be a nice catch phrase that they can tag that scam with. I want her to hammer him on releasing his taxes. A question on tax policy – Clinton should say the American people have a right to know how Trump’s tax plans would affect his taxes. A question about job creation, she could talk about tax breaks that Trump may have receiived over the years, including the 9/11 tax breaks that really were not designed for companies like his.
Actually, since he won’t release his taxes, maybe she should speculate about what’s in them.
Schlemazel
@JMG:
guys like that really will be at the head of the line when my auto-tine(TM) fully automated guillotine starts up. The 1% and the teabillys will have to wait
schrodinger's cat
@gogol’s wife: She does come off as a bit of a school marm. Not that there is anything wrong with it, says the daughter of a school marm.
gogol's wife
God, that last picture of Trump up there. Isn’t he the epitome of the smug, soulless fat cat who just loves to stomp on the little people? Why are so many idiots supporting him? I know, it begins with r and ends with m. Just nauseating.
Emma
@Major Major Major Major: Me neither. Gah. This is getting insane.
hovercraft
@Major Major Major Major:
Yes lots of weirdness today:
They are trying to revive the She’s Dying Meme. And I guess Rand is tired of being invisible.
Then there’s this interesting take on the silent majority that’s not a majority but feels like it is.
Too Big to Compromise Via Martin Longman
Major Major Major Major
@Frankensteinbeck:
That doesn’t seem to square with his bio, FWIW. He’s still WRONG, but not because he’s a Thomas Frank type having a sad.
EDIT: Never mind, yes he is.
gogol's wife
@schrodinger’s cat:
Yes, I don’t mind it when she gives speeches, but the hearing performance was too theatrical and preachy.
schrodinger's cat
@gogol’s wife: Preachy is right and I actually agree with most of what she says.
Eric U.
Did trump take Federal campaign funds? Seems like leaving money on the table if he didn’t.
@schrodinger’s cat: I didn’t watch the hearing, and confronting people at hearings is usually not too satisfying to me. But her letter to the Justice department asking them to release their files from investigating bankers was a thing of genius. The FBI released their files on the email investigation, they should release the files on the investigations into the bankers. Bankers in the rest of the world are starting to go to jail now for causing the meltdown, but we already gave up on it here in the U.S.
Humdog
Why did I immediately think RtoR (and its later banned Nyms) upon seeing the nym Irony Abounds?
geg6
Okay, some crazy shit happened today. Don’t know that I’ve mentioned that Dutch Shell has decided to build the first cracker plant (related to Marcellus shale) in the northeast here in my county. It’s a huge thing, economically speaking, that is expected to create a lot of related businesses and manufacturing and it’s being built about five miles from our house. This has led to an increase in home and land values as developers snatch up everything they can get, especially if it’s in the vicinity of the plant and along major traffic arteries. Our house sits along one of those major arteries on 2 acres zoned for residential, multi-unit and commercial. John got two phone calls from out of state entities offering to buy our place. Starting bid? $500K!!!!!!!!!!! Holy shit!!!!!! I’m ready to move tomorrow!
hovercraft
@Trollhattan:
I didn’t click, but it was Willie Geist who said that on Morning Ho this morning.
Major Major Major Major
@hovercraft: Drudge was hyping some Hillary’s Dying! stuff last night, and today on memeorandum I saw that Stupidest Man On The Internet thinks she’ll skip the debate.
Elizabelle
@gogol’s wife: He looks like a retired actor. Someone who was on a longrunning soap opera.
Frankensteinbeck
@Major Major Major Major:
Sounds like it to me. He’s making the ‘forget bigotry, people are mad at the rich’ argument in this article, whether or not it’s his usual.
Bobby Thomson
@Irony Abounds: Warren’s demagoguery raises expectations unrealistically. I’ll take the steady hand who can actually get something done, thanks.
schrodinger's cat
@gogol’s wife: Why do you hate orange fat cats. I have one and she is far sweeter and cuter than the Orange Monster masquerading as a human.
Humdog
@geg6: Whoa! Big changes for you ahead! How long do you hold out? Where will you go?
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Irony Abounds: I think he’s partially right (she isn’t super inspiring), but it’s also partly sexism (may be partially why people don’t find her super inspiring), and partly that the electorate is different. The electorate is much more polarized, and the polarized camps are closer in size to one another, than during those previous landslides. The reason she’s not winning bigger is because there are approximately 45 percent of the population – give or take a percent or three – that really, really never ever vote Democrat. There are fewer true swing voters than there used to be.
Major Major Major Major
@Frankensteinbeck: Yeah, turns out I skimmed that paragraph. I blame being at work.
SiubhanDuinne
@SenyorDave:
That’s pretty much what I had in mind. I want it to be too convoluted for him to try to explain away. I want him to get tangled up and contradict himself in a setting where she can immediately jump on the discrepancies. And yes, hammering away on the tax releases would serve the purpose (except for the volunteer NDA thing).
Mnemosyne
@Frankensteinbeck:
Spoken like a straight white dude. Some people will never be convinced that an experience outside their own actually exists.
schrodinger's cat
Is Irony A the new Bailey?
geg6
@Irony Abounds:
I read that piece of crap by Judis. What a load of garbage! He ignores the latest polling that puts the lie in the idea that there is some sort of enthusiasm gap. And he just slides right on by the idea that media depictions of her have any effect on her favorables or that misogyny has an effect on anything. Totally fact free crap by a white man, lecturin the wonky woman on why nobody likes her and how anybody could do it better. Fuck him and fuck Josh for publishing it.
Major Major Major Major
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: Hillary isn’t crazy inspiring as a candidate, it’s true. She is to us hardcore Dems but we’re not the ones she needs to inspire. She’s fought long and hard for the right to be considered slightly less boring than John Kerry.
But it was never going to be a landslide. I think Trump’s floor is lower than 45%, but not by much.
schrodinger's cat
@Frankensteinbeck: It may or may not be a majority but they certainly aren’t silent.
Frankensteinbeck
@Mnemosyne:
As a straight white dude, I had to be slapped by the bugfuck insanity that came out roaring when Obama was elected. Boy, was that eye opening. And it only got worse. By now, I really am not surprised at all that more than 50% of white men support a candidate openly calling for white power.
Aleta
@mike in dc:
a company with no previous experience relevant to a political campaign if I remember right
Bobby Thomson
@gogol’s wife: not to mention not rooted in any legal principle.
hovercraft
@Frankensteinbeck:
I can’t take anything he says seriously after that opening.
News Coverage of the 2016 National Conventions: Negative News, Lacking Context
The media coverage has been completely biased. Beating the same drum every day, as opposed to jumping around every day is more damaging, because that becomes the thing you remember.
bystander
@gogol’s wife: The no-enthusiasm b/s was most humorously advanced by Beltway hack Andrea Mitchell concern trolling John Lewis about how Clinton doesn’t “inspire” black people. Clinton is polling 90%+ of the African-American vote, she’s so uninspiring. Her reactions to the terrorist attacks and the police shootings have been pretty inspiring.
As for where the election would be if Warren or Sanders had run, all one has to remember is that Trump voters are not interested in facts, knowledge, expertise, economics or international relations. There is no reason whatsoever to believe the situation would not be what it is.
Aleta
The Orange Skittle
Keith G
@germy: That was quick. Even though the evidence of wrong on the part of the cop was quite explicit, other jurisdictions would have gone slower. I guess this is some sort of progress.
Shell
Ummm, they found the drug in his car AFTER they shot him, Joe.
Gelfling 545
@Irony Abounds: Enthusiastically cast votes don’t count for more than the unenrhusiastic ones.
shortribs
I’d like to see a total percentage of how much of the donations to the Trump campaign have ended up back in his pocket over the course of this campaign, not just a single quarter or cycle, is that available anywhere?
geg6
@Humdog:
Not sure how long we’ll hold out. Hell, I told him to say yes right away, so you can see why he doesn’t want me doing any of the negotiating.
That said, I can’t wait to get rid of this place. We’re getting too old to keep up with the land and the house is 5 BR and almost 4000 sq ft. Too big for the two of us. I want a nice 2-3 BR ranch on about a quarter or half acre, close to here but within walking distance of one of the small towns scattered along this part of the Ohio River. Hell, we could pay cash with the $$ they are offering.
Bobby Thomson
@bystander: so far she seems to be inspiring the shit out of NC voters. Iowans, not so much.
Anne Laurie
@Eric U.:
Nope, too many restrictions on using PAC money & other dark funding if one accepts federal funding. So, unfortunately, that funding has turned into the last resort for candidates incapable of raising their own money… the only “serious” candidate who took those funds this cycle is Jill Stein. Who’s basically using them as a tool to keep her vanity campaign going, because she likes the attention & she hates Hillary Clinton in about equal measures.
Gelfling 545
@gogol’s wife: I also am as enthusiastic as all get out. I didn’t find Warren embarassing at all but it is not the type of thing a president can do. Also, that “despite what her supporters say” bit? That is as much as to say thay we should disregard the enthusiasm of the enthusiastic and only consider that some people aren’t.
Miss Bianca
@gogol’s wife: Yeah, I’m with you. I mean, it’s nice for a change to see the fat-cat white guy in the business suit getting the Congressional shellacking, but I was not actually that impressed by the Senator Warren display. As an old theater hand, I recognize political theater when I see it. GIve me HRC any day.
Anne Laurie
@geg6: Well, you can point out that it’s not as though having a fracking plant in your backyard is going to make your home more attractive… or saleable!
Humdog
@geg6: I understand the comfort in staying close to where you are now, but if it becomes fracking central will it be as attractive?
Iowa Old Lady
@geg6: Wow. Sounds like serious money.
mapaghimagsik
@germy: They weren’t inappropriate. They were fucking stupid.
debbie
@germy:
In case people don’t know what you’re referring to:
Miss Bianca
@geg6: Wow! Course, I’m watching Season 6 of “Justified” right now, so I’m all like, “whatever you do, don’t tell them there’s no way they’re prying this house from your cold, dead hands, because that’s exactly what they’ll do!”
ETA: @geg6: Whoever here came up with the meme of HRC as Hermione Grainger is a fucking genius. *This* is what should be out there to get across to Millenials. “Incredibly brainy, always saving everyone else’s bacon, never gets the credit and besides gets a shit-ton of crap from the “No Mudbloods” crowd.” What’s not to love?
Schlemazel
@Shell:
And someone needs to ask: were the drugs there BEFORE they looked?
lamh36
@germy:
On the charges for the Tulsa police officer, I’m thinking the fact that it’s a woman could make it interesting. Cause we know there still are people who believe that women are not fit for the line of police work.
I think Trump is enough of a sexist that he sees that it’s a female officer and of course he thinks she’s likely too scared to even be an office anyway. So it’s easier for Trump to take a stand against her
Emma
Folks, it’s not either or. Hillary has her place and methods and Warren has hers. Warren is pitching her to the people she works amongst: the Senate Republican yahoos and their rich owners, who need to be slapped upside the head. It is theater. Just two different kinds.
Aleta
–Darryl Pinckney
Miss Bianca
@Shell: “oops! Hey, that black guy we shot? We found DRUGS in his car! Yeah, that’s right!”
Irony Abounds
@Humdog: Because you haven’t been paying attention? For better or worse I have been around this place since the time Cole realized he was an idiot for supporting Republicans. I don’t post all that frequently, but when my posts generate negative comments they are just as likely to be attacked as being too conservative as too liberal, which is fine by me.
As for the criticisms of my post and Judis’ article, y’all are living in a bubble if you think enthusiasm FOR Clinton is anywhere close to the enthusiasm that existed for Obama in ’08 or even ’12. And sexism has nothing to do with it (and is an odd excuse to raise in the context of an article that contrasts HRC with Elizabeth Warren).
With respect to Warren and that asshole CEO of Wells Fargo, she said exactly what needed to be said. The guy deserves all the shame in the world for what happened and a public dressing down was not beyond the pale.
geg6
@Humdog:
My job is here and the plant is in an industrial area that’s been there over a century, currently housing a nuclear power plant and a chemical plant. The cracker plant is being built on the site of what used to be a lead plant. Where we live could be the picture in the dictionary illustrating “suburbia.”
Humdog
@lamh36: well, Rump said the officer “choked” because she was scared, so you are correct there. The officer herself reported that “she had never before been s scared in her whole life” when a black man put his hands in the air. This particular officer is not fit for police work and fits the unfortunate stereotype. Seems women and minority officers are held to standards, sometimes.
Aleta
Also by Darryl Pinckney (who is an author, of books of fiction)
geg6
@Miss Bianca:
I’ve been using the Hermione thing with the youngs I know. You can see the lightbulb go on when you explain what you mean. It’s an excellent analogy.
Miss Bianca
@Irony Abounds: “Oh, hey, some leftists really like this ONE woman politician who makes them hard by yelling at banksters, so OF COURSE that means there can’t possibly be any sexism at play in this ‘HRC generates no enthusiasm’ charge!”
Yeah. Right.
Whatever you say, dude.
geg6
@Miss Bianca:
Don’t you just love men who tell women that sexism is never in play and that we should believe them and not our own lying eyes?
chopper
@geg6:
2 acres zoned for multi- and commercial? i’d hold out for more than 500K.
z
@SenyorDave:
This is sadly an important point… a phrase that ties together all of Trump’s behavior that enriches himself at the expense of honest people who don’t know what he’s doing. 40-year-old real estate swindles, housing discrimination, phony charity, self-dealing political fundraising, tax dodges, and a fake university… something that ALSO ties this type of behavior to insincerity and outright lies in his political campaign.
“Griftgate” doesn’t really encompass it all. Warren calling him a “bully” doesn’t come close either. Need something that clearly relates his dishonest financial gains to his political persona — one phrase that makes it clear he’s going to screw over voters just like business partners, charities, students, etc.
les
@Irony Abounds:
Neither conservative nor liberal. Stupid and proud of it. Lookin’ in a mirror when you picked your nym?
geg6
@chopper:
That’s what my John says. We’ll see. He’s the pie in the sky person and I’m the pessimist in our relationship, so who knows who is right.
Major Major Major Major
@les: Irony Abounds scores rather highly on disgust and sadness.
z
@Irony Abounds:
Totally agree. Clinton’s campaign in 2008 generated much more enthusiasm although the folks running at it failed at the whole maths thing. Josh Marshall’s totally right… her campaign is basically being everything to everyone plus being anti-Trump. No coincidence at all that the Dem convention coincided with her best polling when there was a very good job done basically parroting morning-in-America.
Clinton’s basically running for a third Obama term while simultaneously trying to align herself with the same populist grievances that fueled Sanders’ support and a lot of Trump’s rhetoric… if you see her talk it’s sometimes one and sometimes the other. The convention rhetoric was much better: ALWAYS lead with “morning in America” and THEN pivot to “but we can do even more”, and list a couple new policies.
The biggest thing I’d do differently is specifically attack “make america great again” over and over with specific comparisons that show America has been kicking ass in the global economy … coupled with specific examples of Trump predicting doom from the same time.
Tom Q
It’s interesting how the people who think Warren would be doing so much better than Hillary because she’d excite lefties don’t seem to take into account she might lose an equal or greater number of the moderates/Republicans who’ve signed on to Hillary’s campaign. Do we really think HW Bush would have come out for Warren?
I, too, read the TPM piece thinking it was Josh (especially because, like Josh’s pieces, it doesn’t accept comments, which strikes me as cowardly). Judis is, as many have pointed out, wedded to the econ-is-all philosophy — his (otherwise very sharp) Emerging Democratic Majority thesis rested on states like WV staying in the Dem fold. He’s written plenty of essays critical of Obama’s coalition in the past for its divergences from his theory, so this is part and parcel of an overall Dem party critique given extra strength by some bad Hillary poll numbers last week.
I wonder: if she wins by 10, will he apologize to her?
Chris T.
If we’re doing Potterverse and Clinton = Hermione, then Trump = … umm … hmm … damn, the problem here is that Rowling only put believable caricatures into the Potterverse!
Major Major Major Major
@Chris T.: I go nuts when I see the “this election they’re asking us to pick between Voldemort and Dolores Umbridge” thing on FB. It’s… kind of astonishingly sexist. From people who know better! Or so I thought.
Robert Sneddon
@geg6: The father of a friend owned a small business in a part of Glasgow that got seriously redeveloped in the 1950s. He got wind of the plans and held out and held out until they made him an offer he didn’t refuse, being the last property owner left in the area with the bulldozers lined up revving their engines.
He bought a small farm a few miles north of the city, sold most of the land for more than he paid for the entire farm and lived happily in the farmhouse on a couple of acres raising a family, growing vegetables and drinking whisky.
For a time the family had two Rolls Royces, one good one for going to church in and one for driving around the fields for fun.
ThresherK
@Major Major Major Major: I’ve received far too many reposts which also postied Bernie as Dumbledore.
Major Major Major Major
@ThresherK: That too.
Irony Abounds
@shomi: “OMG, someone said Hillary wasn’t generating much excitement, what a horrible person!” I can understand Trump Supporters’ intolerance, since so many fit in the #BasketOfDeplorables, but it’s disappointing to see that some Democrats are so reflexively and obnoxiously intolerant of anything that even hints as criticism of Clinton.
gwangung
@Irony Abounds: you’re still an idiot blowing hot air , bereft of hard data.
It’s damn obvious that you’re centering white voters and pulling your observations out of your ass.
Work harder. Do some actual research.
geg6
@Robert Sneddon:
What a good story! Though I’d be horrified to find myself on a farm. We have some lovely old river towns here where we could buy a riverfront home, in town, for less than 200K. That’s what I want. I could sit on my deck (enclosed and screened so we could put in winter windows so we could use it all four seasons) with John and my dogs and drink wine while watching the river go by. Maybe even retire before I’m 65. Dreams!
Major Major Major Major
@gwangung: But Irony Abounds has been around here for years, so (s)he can’t be wrong, dontcha know.
SiubhanDuinne
@geg6:
As long as the house is big enough for a guest room, because I’m for sure coming to visit ?
geg6
@SiubhanDuinne:
I would love that!
Applejinx
I would totally buy Hillary making the argument ‘we are kicking ass in the global economy AND it is not trickling down or even being invested in America’. That’d be true.
No sense in NOT kicking ass in the global economy, because that’s producing the huge bags of money that go only to the 1% and that’s a tappable resource. That’s how we produce taxable revenue. The money is there, because our economy is recovering. We don’t see it yet because we aren’t rich.
Well, geg6 sees it. That’s how it works. Good luck! You won the lottery in a sense: hire some smart broker and cut them in on the action, and get a disgusting amount of money out of the bastards. You can use that wisely to protect a lot of friends and family from disaster :)
Ruckus
@geg6:
I’ve seen, in the last week 2 men go after women on the train. I think one of the women sort of knew the guy, but the other one didn’t at all. The first was just your standard dude without a clue but the second one was actually very creepy. Everyone in the car was on high alert and when the train stopped (last stop of the line, so everyone out) I just stood up in his way and let a bunch of people go by, giving her time to beat feet and hide in the crowd. He was seriously strange but had seemed OK when he first got on. What I’m trying to say is that this is not something one sees all that often but I’d bet any woman would have to deal with far more than I could imagine.
Chris
@Chris T.:
Mundungus Fletcher?
Capri
OT, but this is an open thread. In Indiana, Bayh’s commercials are attacking his opponent on his tea party positions – particularly privatizing social security, They are very effective. His opponent is calling Bayh a “Washington Insider” blah blah blah Nobody in any of the ads I have seen has used the term ” true conservative” or “conservative values” to describe themselves.
Progress
Humdog
@Ruckus: Thank you for standing between a stranger and danger. Really, thank you very much.
daves09
Charlotte police are withholding the dashcam videos for reasons. The chief has admitted that the video doesn’t show a gun, but is sure the police did indeed see one.
If the helicopter video had not been available would Tulsa have reacted as they did?
Police depts. are trying to withhold the videos claiming that they are part of the officer’s records and of course they just want to be fair to everyone.
The police are assuring everyone that they would never lie about the contents of the videos.
Obviously the police are longing for the days when they could kill people and say anything they wanted with no recourse for the victims.
geg6
@Ruckus:
Yes, it happens more than most men would ever dream. And thanks to you, for being an ally to that woman. We need more of you.
FlipYrWhig
@Miss Bianca: Not to mention that when Elizabeth Warren was actually running for office, she wasn’t being lionized for her genius at communication or inspiration or whatever. For instance, in this ABC News story from the eve of the election in 2012:
It’s almost like there’s a pattern or something about how when a smart woman runs against a vacuous dipshit it’s closer than it should be.
FlipYrWhig
@Gelfling 545: The other thing that annoys the hell out of me is this standard about how the candidate has to be inspiiiiiiring. Oh no, the candidate doesn’t inspiiiiiire me, whatever shall I do? Well, you can do the same thing every voter has done for every candidate other than JFK, Reagan, and Obama since World War II: shut your fool mouth and vote for the fucking person you like better. Inspiration is rare. Stop expecting to get a political boner every four years.
sinnedbackward
@Irony Abounds: How many middle-aged or older women of any age do you see regularly? @geg6: Please talk to a good agent – maybe one you know personally -quickly.
There is almost certainly more available property for commercial and residential development than will be needed in the next ten years. The amount you were offered may be the shock and awe to put parcels together now, but there’s a good chance later prices will be lower. Residences are often worth less five miles from a cracking plant.
Get a good professional opinion – running now with the money may be the best bet here ( says the dude who held out for more in a VERY different situation).
Also, if you know a good agent, if you cut them ink on selling here and buying your new place, you should be able to cut a commission deal.
(I generally despise RE agents as a class because of their collective ability to get exemption from anti-trust laws, but if you can connect to a good one you can exploit some of that.)
sinnedbackward
@sinnedbackward: Hi Alain, I backed out of the IA part of this post, thinking better of the wording, and never hit Post Comment. I then composed the post to geg. Both posted together. Check on it? I’m on an Ipad with ios 7.
PIGL
@Trollhattan: but don’t you see? They’re black!
With apologies to How to Scrape Skies.
Betsy
@geg6: can you wait a week or two, enough time to pit the two buyers against each other in a bidding war?@geg6: he’s right. Your first offers will be from flippers. Don’t let them get your rightful margin.
Betsy
@sinnedbackward: hey, what do you mean by “cut them ink”? I am in a situation parallel to this and would like to know more about how to hire/remunerate an agent.
J R in WV
@geg6:
Sell before they get that plant built, because after it is built your property won’t be worth shit. Pollution will happen. People will get sick. Move a long way away from the plant, upwind.
We live near the Kanawha Valley, where there were lots of big chemical plants when we moved out to the country. We’re a good distance away, 20 odd miles, but we’re SW of the plants, and wind is from the NW, so not directly at us, but across mostly.
One very still night I went outside, maybe 10 or 11 pm. I could smell chemical valley smell. What happened, it was so still a huge bubble of polluted air built up in the valley. Then it moved very slowly south and west, still in a bulge of stench. After a couple of hours drifting, it was on our farm. The only time it really smelled strongly here. Once or twice I smelled it a little. People who lived in that smell die young.
I worked for the Department of Environmental Protection when they moved us to an abandoned/bankrupted discount store HQ building. Between an oil and gas pipeline yard in front and 3 chemical plants out back, separated from our HQ by a chain link fence and a railroad line.
They released tons of dangerous chemicals, and we got to smell most of them The worst one was undetectable at dangerous concentrations – carbon disulfide aka carbon bisulfide – no smell. Symptoms of exposure, skin outbreaks, insanity. I got chloreacne, whole body exzema, my family doctor injected multiple steroids, put me on an oral drug, prednisone. Better than the insanity… The itch went away quickly, the sores healed in a couple of weeks. Until the next time.
I got called to the airport because wife’s car’s battery was dead. While I was charging her up, I always hook up the dead battery and give it 15 or 20 minutes to charge, a young guy dressed tops in a suit and leather briefcase passes by, I nod and say hello, he nods and smiles.
A few minutes later he walks up a little sheepisly, asks me for a jump. I say sure, give me a few minutes to let wife’s car charge and start, and we chat. I ask what he does, he’s a doctor, teaches occupational medicine at MU med school. Then he notices the rashy look of my forearms, in the parking garage, tells me I have chemical exposure. Diagnosed in a parking garage. He’s a contract doctor with Worker’s Comp, tells me to file. Young and dumb!
What an irony – I want to protect the environment, they move our office to a place where shelter in place means smelling ethyl-methyl-death. I guess I should have gone to HR with the problem, but I was young enough to think I would just heal. Now I’m retired, and occasionally I still rub high-strength prescription steroid creme on my eczema.
Sell your place while you can, and move a long way away from the location of the new economic promise. Because I promise you one thing – there will be dangerous emissions from that plant, to make an extra $00.0001 a pound on the product. Think of all the millions of pounds of product, and the bonus that comes with that extra $00.0001/pound. So cutting corners would almost be mandatory, wouldn’t it?
Sure it would! You understand, money talks, you know what walks…
But Trump wants to close EPA down.
sinnedbackward
@Betsy: typo, meant “cut them in”, since agents are all about their %%
sinnedbackward
@sinnedbackward: And a really good real estate agent in our current legal environment is worth it and more. The problem is finding them. Best and very good luck!