Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

This fight is for everything.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

This blog will pay for itself.

T R E 4 5 O N

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Come on, man.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

When do the post office & the dmv weigh in on the wuhan virus?

Prediction: the GOP will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

After roe, women are no longer free.

The revolution will be supervised.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

You are here: Home / Politics / Politicans / Hillary Clinton 2016 / Thursday Morning Open Thread: CUBS

Thursday Morning Open Thread: CUBS

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Apart from mainlining caffeine and/or encouraging your sleep-deprived workmates to do so, what’s on the agenda for the day?
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Reader Interactions

186Comments

  4. 4.

    Chet

    I lived in the Midwest until age 22 and went to college in Chicago. Then I moved to Boston and gradually became a Red Sox fan. I died with them from 1995-2003 and then 2004 happened. They beat the Yankees after falling behind 0-3 in the ALCS and swept the WS.

    I am sure the atmosphere in Chicago is like it was in Boston then. Rejoice, Chicagoans!

  5. 5.

    Betty Cracker

    Helluva series! Glad the Cubbies won, but I do feel bad for the Tribe — Francona is a fine manager, and it’s tough to make it that far and lose in such dramatic fashion.

  6. 6.

    Cermet

    Hate when people leave out Halloween candy at work; it forces … just forces me to chose between eating healthy and eating like a child, again …and what else but the child side wins. Oh well, the worse part is these people are really devious – they leave out all my favorites … will not go back for seconds, will not do back for seconds … .

  7. 7.

    Mustang Bobby

    If the Tigers couldn’t be in the Series, then I’m really glad the Cubs were and that they won. I wish I could have stayed awake through the whole thing, but seeing as how nail-biting it was when even Nature seemed to turn against them, I would be even more useless at the office than I already am if I had.

  11. 11.

    Cermet

    @Mustang Bobby: Wow, lucky you … I mean, that is terrible … the goodd … I mean bad luck to have Dove chocolate! I think I hear it calling your name too …

  13. 13.

    NorthLeft12

    @Botsplainer:Exactly! Has Deadbeat Donald been right about anything?

    I mean, besides predicting that there will be a yooge and terrible terrorist attack somewhere in the world at sometime in the future?
    In fairness I also have to note that he said someone would be murdered in Chicago this year. He totally nailed that……..the morbid douchebag.

  15. 15.

    Tokyokie

    @Botsplainer: The Cubs, even when they were cellar-dwellers, were drawing good crowds to the friendly confines. But then, had the Cubbies been playing solely for the folks across the street on the apartment building, that’d still be more spectators than Trump’s USFL has drawn in 30 years.

  16. 16.

    satby

    @Mustang Bobby: @Cermet: Eat the Dove chocolate and celebrate with Chicago! I remember going to the original Dove shop for chocolate sundaes made with the real whipped cream they had in a big steel bowl. RIP Mr. Stefanos!

  19. 19.

    delk

    I spent last week on the cardiac ward at Illinois Masonic down the street from Wrigley. I wonder if they got swamped?

  20. 20.

    OzarkHillbilly

    It’s over. The end is near. Up is down. Wet is dry. Hot is cold. Near is far. Life has lost all meaning.

  21. 21.

    David ?▶️Bad Hombres▶️? Koch

    By Chicago Tribune

    March 22, 2016

    Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump on Monday elaborated on a cryptic warning he issued to the Ricketts family in February, suggesting he would take ads out saying they’re doing a “rotten job” with the Chicago Cubs.

    “I’ll start doing ads about their baseball team. That it’s not properly run or that they haven’t done a good job in the brokerage business lately,” Trump said in an interview with the Washington Post editorial board.

    Sad!

  24. 24.

    Betty Cracker

    I’ve been trying to avoid election coverage because it’s making me crazy, but this latest FBI bullshit about the Clinton Foundation is just outrageous. So now FBI agents are using wingnut hit-job books like “Clinton Cash” as investigation templates? A book published by a Breitbart editor who is notorious for publishing poorly sourced political hatchet jobs and having to retract specious claims? Someone needs to clean house at the FBI, and Comey is clearly NOT the man for the job.

  25. 25.

    Citizen_X

    I see there’s no input from Gary Johnson, but I assume he just said, “What are the Cubs?”

  27. 27.

    kd bart

    Congrats to the Cubs on winning the World Series. Now you’re just another deep pocket team with an insufferable fan base.

  28. 28.

    Keith G

    On my way to hospital for prostatectomy. Time to get rid of a tumor. I have great care and med professionals…..thanks to Obama.

    This is what we are fighting for.

  29. 29.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Ceci n’est pas mon nym: Yep.

    @Betty Cracker: Saw your post from yesterday about moving chickens Betty. It is not difficult but it can be messy. Predawn is the best time, they are still sleepy and some are unable to process what is happening. You just grab the chicken and put it in the box. They’ll sqwauk and flap their wings but once in the box they’ll settle right down and begin to calmly watch the proceedings.

    And oh yeah, the messy part? I recommend a full body rubber suit. Either that or a long hot shower and a change of clothes.

  30. 30.

    kd bart

    Has the entire media forgotten that there’s another baseball team in Chicago and that they won the World Series back in 2005?. Only 11 years ago. It’s not like the City of Chicago hasn’t seen a World Series celebration in this century.

  34. 34.

    Waldo

    @Betty Cracker: I’m guessing the next thing Comey uncovers is some pressing issue that requires him to spend more time with his family. Should happen sometime between Nov. 9 and the day the new Dem-controlled Senate convenes.

  37. 37.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    Apparently a British court has ruled that the Government cannot invoke Article 50 on their own, they will need Parliament’s approval.

  41. 41.

    Comrade Scrutinizer

    @Baud: Scope the documentary Whitey: The United States v James J Bulger. Gives a view of the FBI that is consistent with what we are seeing now.

  48. 48.

    NotMax

    @Mustang Bobby

    Pick up the jar and tilt it to a 45 degree angle.

    That way, all the calories flow down to the piece on the bottom. Eschew eating that last piece.

    ;)

  50. 50.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    So now FBI agents are using wingnut hit-job books like “Clinton Cash” as investigation templates?

    It’s embarrassing for the FBI. God almighty. Doesn’t inspire confidence in their crime-fighting skills. How many copies of that book did they buy and how many of them read it? This is how they spend their time?

    I love the WSJ piece about it because they don’t seem to be aware that by leaking this stuff they’re all but admitting there’s a far Right faction who are running investigations. The far Right faction are so obviously the leakers and not only do they not care that by doing this they’re exposing that this faction exists they’re out of control enough to brag about it.

  51. 51.

    kd bart

    @Botsplainer: No, not at all. But if you read a lot of the national sports media in the past 10 days, too many writers seem to think that Chicago only has one baseball team,

  52. 52.

    Botsplainer

    @TS:

    You mean a right wing populist gimmicked referendum with severe negative consequences isn’t the last word? I’m shocked, shocked…

  60. 60.

    kd bart

    Latest National polls this morning. CBS, Clinton +3. ABC/Wash Post tracking Clinton +2.

    I’m sure Nate Silver will drop Clinton’s probability a couple of points off of these polls.

  62. 62.

    Another Scott

    @Baud: I didn’t pay much attention to baseball this year, but I saw some of the game last night. I got curious and did some searching and noticed that the Cubs had far-and-away the best record in baseball this year. It’s a well-deserved win, and extra innings in the 7th game is a nice bonus. Congrats to them.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  64. 64.

    NotMax

    @Baud

    Math is hard.

    A message for the media mediocrities relying on reporting national polls at this stage: The line for trepanning forms to the right.

  65. 65.

    rikyrah

    We didn’t get permission to wear Cubs stuff at work, but I don’t care. Got my Cubs shirt on today. Already got orders from out of town people for the merchandise they want. ???

  68. 68.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    I also love how the far Right faction in the FBI have dropped any pretense of “both sides” in these leaks. At the start of this they threw some Trump investigations into the leaked information-toward the end and mostly to exonerate him, but still. As it gets closer to election day the rapid response team over there focus on their opponent!

    I have a feeling the DNC hack will forever remain a mystery. They were all busy reading “Clinton Cash” during that period.

  72. 72.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay:

    not only do they not care that by doing this they’re exposing that this faction exists they’re out of control enough to brag about it.

    I disagree. Comey’s actions through out this affair pretty well confirm that this faction is firmly in control of the FBI.

  74. 74.

    TS

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: So Joe doesn’t like that a court upholds the law – guess that is why he wants another RWer on SCOTUS. Anyone with a brain is “elitist” in Joe’s world. Thanks for taking the hit for others by watching his drivel. I had to stop when emails resurfaced.

  77. 77.

    MomSense

    i cannot believe NPR just did a story on Shelton and Hillary this morning. Are they going to do a story on the child rape case against Trump?

  78. 78.

    Kay

    The older Clinton volunteers here are hurt because they helped the younger Obama volunteers in 08 (which was hard and I admired them for it- they lost and then worked really hard) and ’12 and now the younger people aren’t helping them with “their” candidate.

    One thing that’s interesting- there’s quite a few older Democratic men volunteers for Clinton. The evening I worked it was all men and my husband went last night and it was all men again. It’s like 4 or 5 people so I don’t mean to imply it’s a huge group of men but 4 or 5 people for a canvass is pretty standard here.

  79. 79.

    debbie

    @MomSense:

    I heard it. Of course the focus was on that laugh. It was very telling that Shelton had no problem with Clinton doing her job until the RWNJs got hold of her.

  80. 80.

    Jeffro

    @Baud:

    I hope he’s rooting for Hillary too.

    He’s a former Bernista who has seen the light…or rather, has seen the necessity of not electing someone who could ever say something as dumb as “I have the best words”. You never know what will motivate those undecided 11-year-olds…

  82. 82.

    What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?

    Donald Trump is scheduled to appear as a defendant in a rape case in a few weeks, so of course NPR Morning Edition just did a 5 minute segment on her defense of an accused rapist as a young attorney and whether she laughed at the victim. She didn’t rape anyone, and it’s pretty clear she wasn’t laughing at the victim…but shouldn’t they be focusing their rape coverage on the guy who has been accused of multiple counts of sexual assault, including rape of a 13 year old? I swear every negative story about that guy just dies for some reason…the Russia connection, the tax dodging, the shady use of charitable foundation funds, the stiffing of people who do work for him, the bankruptcies, and child rape and ogling nude underage girls in the Miss Teen USA dressing room. But Hillary does a job defending a guy (she tried like hell to get out of defending the guy but the judge who assigned her wouldn’t let her off) and it’s a big news story.

  83. 83.

    gf120581

    @kd bart: Nice to see the latter as that one was the one that set the media’s hair on fire a couple days ago. But now it seems to be reverting to normal.

    I’m having serious 2012 de ja vu right now, except the polling was even closer back then. I just look at the early voting signs (apparently Hillary is on the verge of locking down NV via early voting per John Ralston) and patiently await victory.

  86. 86.

    Jeffro

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    Joe of the Morning called the British court, elitist

    (Soup Nazi voice): “NO Brexit for you!”

    How wingnuts get so invested in such things, Dog only knows…

  89. 89.

    Kay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    He’s supposedly well-liked because he’s low key or staid or something- I wonder if that really means “easy for a group of political zealots to roll”. I would rather hear that he’s a control freak- they seem to need supervising. They need policing. A Boss Man. Right wingers are always terrible at policing themselves. The people who most hate regulations are also the people who most require regulation.

  90. 90.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: It’s outrageous. Maybe the FBI should look into the story of Bill Clinton’s “black son” next — another Breitbart-promoted “scandal.” Or they could use Breitbart’s “black crime” tag to supplement their crime statistics reports. That should be the story: the FBI is lousy with alt-right nutjobs who have destroyed the agency’s credibility.

  92. 92.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    I’m not arguing with them. Seems unfair to me too.

    It’s part of the kind of narrative to this election- that no one REALLY supports Clinton. They do really support her. She was their 1st choice in ’08 and she’s their first choice now.

  93. 93.

    MJS

    @Kay: First it was Republican politicians. Then the media picked up those politicians talking points and made them fact. Now law enforcement is showing their true colors. Why, it’s almost as if there actually IS a “vast, right wing conspiracy” against the Clintons. I seem to recall someone making that point a long time ago, but being mocked for it. Turns out the person who said that is exceedingly smart. Smart and tough. We should make that person President.

  94. 94.

    Matt McIrvin

    @What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: I just heard about FBI agents going directly to Fox News and claiming that an indictment of Hillary Clinton was likely, based on the Clinton Foundation investigation (which we’ve already heard was largely based on the book “Clinton Cash”, a famous smear job–and of course FBI agents can’t indict people in any event; they’re blowing smoke).

    Something is seriously wrong in that organization, and if there’s anything that can give me despairing feelings that the fix is in, it’s that.

  95. 95.

    Bupalos

    Huge Indians fan from age 5 through today, trying not to barf sour grapes all over everyone. But it’s REALLY hard to hear this money-drenched, winger-owned, Theo Epstein project in a wealthy and sports-fortunate city talked about as a miracle and an anything can happen kind of story when it looks from here like nearly the opposite. But my tribe tried this in 97 so I can’t be too holy about it, and I have genuine freudefreude for a pretty lovable fanbase that finally gets to celebrate for their baseball team.

  96. 96.

    Betty Cracker

    @OzarkHillbilly: I’m hoping to lure them into the dog kennel with bananas, slam the door shut and toss them into the back of the truck when the time comes. With any luck, I won’t get shat upon at all.

  97. 97.

    MomSense

    @debbie:

    Unbelievable. Nothing on the death threats that prevented Trump’s accuser from speaking at her press conference yesterday but instead a 30 year old case Hillary begged not to do??
    @What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:

    There is apparently a story about Trump models actually being a trafficking operation mostly scoooing up young Eastern European girls. Seems like that is newsworthy and yet nothing.

  99. 99.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    Breitbart was promoting the FBI reading “Clinton Cash” in March.

    That might be an interesting investigation. Let’s probe any FBI ties to the “alt Right”. If I’m the victim of a crime by a Right wing extremist group I’d like to know if they have friends in the FBI.

  100. 100.

    Botsplainer

    @Bupalos:

    Thing is, Chi-town is a pretty lovable city with some great, approachable, relatable people. They’re generally not full of themselves, to my experience.

  101. 101.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:
    I was a reluctant supporter, butbby the time I cast my ballot a couple of weeks ago, I checked the name trying to do my part in saving the republic, however flawed it is… It’s still all we got.

  102. 102.

    Botsplainer

    @Kay:

    One wonders if the fact that so many FBI guys find it so easy to both infiltrate members into and recruit informants from right wing hate groups isn’t rooted in speaking much of the same language and harboring related ideas.

  103. 103.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay: At this point, it is hard to deny that he was rolled and it would not seem to have taken any great effort to do it. He could have reassigned these ‘rogue’ agents to the newly opened Nome office, but he didn’t.

  104. 104.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Kay: The FBI has always been friends to Rightwing extremists going back to Hoover’s public hatred of Dr. King. No surprise there.

  106. 106.

    gf120581

    @Botsplainer: MLK was along the same lines in the civil rights days when he noted FBI agents in the South, to do their job, had to ingratiate themselves into the society and thereby reflected a lot of those values. You play in mud long enough, some will stick to you.

  108. 108.

    MJS

    @MomSense: @MomSense: Trump benefits from two things – the laziness of the press, and the outlandish nature of his scandals. Re: laziness – the press already has “Clinton corruption” in the can. All they have to do is change a few of the words (Whitewater swapped out for Travelgate, swapped out for Lewinsky, swapped out for Benghazi, rinse, lather, repeat). Re: Trump’s scandals, each and every one of them is so outlandish that any one, on its own, disqualifies Trump from holding office. But if the media was honest, then what would they do to fill 24 hours every day? They know nothing but the horse race, and correctly disqualifying Trump from the presidency, even at the behest of Republicans and Democrats alike, takes away their horse race.

  110. 110.

    Kay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I love the horse race commentary on it- “it may help the GOP hold the Senate” – like, no harm, no foul.

    Screw these people who decided to insert themselves in an election. How dare they? I don’t want to pay them for this “work” they’re doing. I resent paying them. I’m sure plenty of good people want those jobs they have. They’re not uniquely talented or irreplaceable.

  112. 112.

    Peter

    @Betty Cracker: Honestly, the best solution would be to dissolve the FBI entirely and replace it with a new federal investigative unit, and I’ve thought that long before this nonsense started. The FBI was founded by a racist crook and blackmailer, and still operates out of a building that bears his name. For decades it was dedicated to preserving a racist social order at the expense of some of America’s greatest historical heroes. The tree is poisoned.

  113. 113.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Peale: Obviously you must be elitist to think that. Will of the common man* sez Joe of the Morning.

    *Common clay of the New West…

  114. 114.

    Van Buren

    @gogol’s wife: Actually the fact that my wife does might be the missing piece of a puzzle. I have been wondering how many 54 year old white male professionals who are all in for Hillary have wives who will not be voting for her, for seemingly inexplicable reasons. I think perhaps the brainwashing has been more insidious than I thought.

  117. 117.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    It is not difficult but it can be messy. Predawn is the best time, they are still sleepy and some are unable to process what is happening. You just grab the chicken and put it in the box. They’ll sqwauk and flap their wings but once in the box they’ll settle right down and begin to calmly watch the proceedings.

    That’s eerily similar to the Republican playbook on how to deal with voters.

  118. 118.

    NotMax

    @Peter

    Actually, the agency (Bureau of Investigation) eventually renamed FBI was created by a grandnephew of Napoleon, Charles Bonaparte, a civil rights activist and (among other things) Secretary of the Navy under T. Roosevelt.

  119. 119.

    Another Scott

    @MJS: I dunno.

    To play Devil’s Advocate for a while: The MSM’s reporters’ biggest fear seems to be losing face or somehow being perceived as too partisan. They know that 45+/-% of the public is in one camp and 45+/-% is in the other camp. They want to be perceived as being fair to both sides. While they get accused of being in one camp or the other, they want to have a mental picture that they’re being fair. I think NPR, especially, is in this boat (and since they have to worry about a big chunk of their funding that comes with Congressional strings, it’s not a stupid worry).

    If you’re perceived as too shrill or too partisan or too self-righteous (in the wrong way), then you also won’t get access to important sources who are willing to talk off-the-record. It doesn’t matter if you’re right (look at Judith Miller and the other Iraq War examples) – what matters is being able to get “the story” even if the “story” is so twisted out shape that it bears little resemblance to the truth.

    They also don’t want to be perceived as destroying public discourse. Talking about Weiner’s pictures and texting is fine because, hey, it’s funny and nobody but him really got hurt (and he’s a Democrat and Democrats are hypocrites, amirite?). Talking about an alleged rape by a candidate of an underage girl is horrible and risky (he might sue us!) and all the rest. Without some sort of solid proof, it’s kinda understandable why it’s not been in the news much. It’ll be interesting to see how it’s covered when the day finally arrives.

    We shouldn’t forget that there’s also a herd mentality in what gets covered. Coverage begets coverage once it reaches a critical mass. Reporters collect lots of information in covering a big story. It’s hard to give that up – it’s human nature to want to keep beating that horse rather than doing the hard work of finding a new story.

    Finally, something that’s new will always get more press than something important. Reporters covering the candidates can probably recite their policy positions better than most of the candidates themselves. But they’ve heard them so many times they don’t think they’re newsworthy because they’re not new. So we get stories about how negative Hillary is and how she’s not talking about the issues when she has written and given voluminous speeches about her proposed policies. The press seems to think that their job isn’t to inform the public about what’s important, but to talk about what’s new even if what’s new is her hairstyle and which designer she’s wearing today…

    I had some hope that Bezos buying the WP would allow it to break that cycle of ignoring the important and chasing the new (rather than worrying so much about subscriptions and ad-dollars), and maybe they are doing some of that with Eichen.. and Fahren… But the rot in the industry runs deep (and don’t get me started on cable “news”)…

    FWIW.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  122. 122.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Van Buren: Well, I haven’t heard of a reverse gender gap in that demographic…

    I got soured on public radio (technically not just NPR) by one drive-time evening in which I heard “All Things Considered” devoted to a Katrina retrospective that was dominated by an interview with some fellow in Alabama whose main point was that the displaced people in FEMA trailers were a bunch of layabouts on the dole with no initiative, followed immediately by “Marketplace” which had a segment about how great it was that states were figuring out how to attract business by cutting their taxes and government services to the bone. I just started screaming at the radio. Decided to switch over to WERS not long after that.

  123. 123.

    Anya

    @Betty Cracker: Attorney General needs to step in and take charge. Yes, Bill Clinton’s poorly timed greeting tied her hands for a bit but this requires a quick intervention. Right now, FBI is run by bunch of lawless goons. I can’t believe people with such poor judgement are in charge of our security.

  124. 124.

    JMG

    Good news: Dems rocked early voting yesterday in North Carolina, Florida, Nevada and even Ohio.
    Bad news: New poll shows Trump up 1 in New Hampshire (there will be another New Hampshire poll later today). Charlie Cook has hints Michigan possible problem for Clinton (We’ll see).
    OK news: CBS/NYT poll Clinton up 3, WaPo/ABC tracker has Clinton up 2, her first lead since Friday.
    Meaning of news: Hard to say, as it will be superseded by about 2,467 polls by tonight. It is interesting how in actual early voting Clinton seems to be doing much better than in polling.

  125. 125.

    sherparick

    @David ?▶️Bad Hombres▶️? Koch: God, a reminder of what an asshole this the Orange Ferret Head is. And 45% of the country, along with all the Cable Networks (He Is Great for Ratings!) want to make this jerk President. The Ricketts (except for Tom’s sister) are all right wing, Randian, plutocrats Republicans, but even they are not backing the wannabe dictator/Emperor the Republicans nominated.

  126. 126.

    Matt McIrvin

    I have this dread now that the FBI is just going to drop some completely fictitious, shocking story in the next few days–planted evidence that Hillary Clinton raped children in a three-way with Bill, or something along those lines–and that’ll be it, the end. There won’t be time to do anything about it. They won’t care about the fraud being exposed or the Hatch Act, because it’ll take longer than a week to do anything; if they get fired or thrown in jail after November 8, they’ll figure Trump will just fix it once he’s in office.

  127. 127.

    hovercraft

    Good morning.

    Congrats to all the Cubbies Fans !!!

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:
    Bill Clinton is an arrogant elitist. He exhorts the people at his rally to think, and talks about their anger, he arrogantly accusing them of being angry at ‘others’, but no their not angry at others they are angry at elites like Bill.

  128. 128.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Heh. Something non-election, non-USA to laugh about ;

    A £285m airport built on a remote South Atlantic island with UK government cash will require “an open chequebook” if it is to ever welcome commercial airlines as planned, a select committee hearing has been told.

    Plans to build a clifftop runway on St Helena were approved in 2010 by then ministers Andrew Mitchell and William Hague, making it the single largest investment made in an overseas territory. But its inauguration ceremony for commercial flights was suspended indefinitely in May after tests showed that planes could be blown off course.

    On Wednesday, civil servants from the Department for International Development were unable to tell the public accounts committee why they had not tested for windshear, a sudden powerful change in wind direction that can destabilise large aircraft, before the airport was built. Meg Hillier, the chair of the committee, said more public money would have to be spent if the airport was to ever function for the island’s 4,000 inhabitants.

  130. 130.

    Betty Cracker

    @Anya: Agreed. At this point, the damage is done since the election is five days away, but there needs to be a full and complete accounting for this shit.

    Also, the media and political hack hand-wringing about Bill Clinton’s airport conversation with AG Lynch is yet another sign of how widely accepted the wingnut framing is. Clinton and Lynch knew each other from past roles and exchanged pleasantries at an airport. So fucking what? It’s amazing to me that their meeting received so much more coverage than Trump’s former campaign manager’s ties to Russia, Russian interference in a US election, etc.

  132. 132.

    Matt McIrvin

    @JMG: The two new polls in NH (WBUR and SurveyMonkey) show Trump +1 and Clinton +14, over overlapping time periods. We’re into crazy days. I think we need to keep looking at medians.

  133. 133.

    gogol's wife

    @Van Buren:

    The brainwashing is unbelievable! If I hadn’t spent time in Russia I wouldn’t get it. Hearing something repeated over and over and over on TV all day long makes even intelligent people lose all sense.

  134. 134.

    hovercraft

    @rikyrah:
    I thought Chicago was closed today?
    If they expect any Cubs fan to behave as if this is just any other day, then they are crazy, wear your jersey. Any employer who tries to rain on this parade will bring down the wrath of the billy goat on themselves.

  135. 135.

    Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap

    Victor Laszlo @Impolitics

    This will always be remembered as the presidential election in which the KKK, the KGB and the FBI all supported the same candidate.

  137. 137.

    sherparick

    @Jeffro: @JMG: I go to Sam Wang PEC. Recent polls have started to drift apparently in Hillary’s direction and her probability of winning is over 99% under Bayesian statisical prediction. The Senate out come is more uncertain, but still favorable to the Democrats.

    Even 538 has an incentive to emphasize a close horse race in order to draw clicks. The Cable Networks love the ratings Trump gives them and also love the Horse race so they will by using the “within the range of error” canard to promote the race as a toss up. We need every vote though for the Senate and House races.

  140. 140.

    mike in dc

    Sometime from this afternoon to tomorrow night, expect something big to drop about Trump and/or Clinton. There’s just enough time for one more turn on this rollercoaster of a campaign.

  141. 141.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Baud: Granted the SurveyMonkey online poll has been a crazy high outlier for a long time. But I don’t see any evidence from other polls overlapping the period of the Comey letter that Clinton’s support in New Hampshire is collapsing. And the MassInc/WBUR has a history of being weirdly volatile. Oddly, both of these polls show Gary Johnson pulling 10% (maybe not so odd knowing New Hampshire).

    Anyway, aggregation is better than sniffing individual polls, and these two polls are obviously not going to swing PEC’s median.

  143. 143.

    PsiFighter37

    @mike in dc: I doubt it. If there was another opposition drop going to happen, I think we would have heard about it by now.

    Unless Trump’s alleged child rape victim decided to come forward and was credible, I think WYSIWYG.

    Also, too, Nate Silver of course draws things in even further. I would not be shocked if he sets his model to be 50-50 on Nov. 8th.

  145. 145.

    Barbara

    @Keith G: Good luck! And as for the Cubs — Evan McMullen must not follow baseball all that closely if he thinks the Cubs were a miracle team like the 69 Mets. I don’t think there was a single team that won a majority of games they played against the Cubs this year, they were that dominant in the National League. I am glad the Cubs won, but it was the kind of series where you get to the last game and if you aren’t from either city, you sort of feel like it would be unfair for either of them to lose. I gained a lot of respect for Cleveland.

  147. 147.

    Jeffro

    Here’s Charles Blow, really laying it all out there in the NYT today: Trump is an Existential Threat

    Sadly, as most of us know, this will move exactly zero votes from Trump to Clinton. Time to redouble our GOTV efforts for our own folks, and enjoy the Trumpkins’ bitter tears next Tuesday.

  148. 148.

    geg6

    I’m not much of a baseball fan, but Terry Francona is an old, old friend of mine and my sister. I feel bad for him today.

  149. 149.

    Peale

    @Betty Cracker: yep. At this point we need to drop Comey concern and focus on Trump. She’s not running against Comey and by the time voters figure out why they should be mad about it, it will be after the election.

  150. 150.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Another Scott: AFIACT, somewhere along the way, the vast majority of news coverage became not “what happened” but “what people are saying about what happened.” That’s why what Donald Trump did doesn’t make it into the news until and unless Hillary Clinton or someone important close to her says something zippy about what Donald Trump did.

  151. 151.

    Barbara

    @Patricia Kayden: Although I only made it a little way through, there is a book called “The Subversives” that gives the whole ugly history of how the FBI became a domestic spying agency. The book goes off on too many tangents and clocks in at 800 pages. Among other things, the FBI destroyed the careers of people at the University of California, especially if they had any connection to the Free Speech movement, and played no small role in Ronald Reagan becoming governor of that state. By undermining serious people who opposed Republican politicians, the FBI’s domestic spying preemptively kept several promising liberal leaders out of politics in California for a generation. It is one of no doubt several reasons why California’s Democratic bench has only recently become stronger.

  152. 152.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Baud: It’s not really possible to generalize about online vs. phone polls–there’s a big spread. The main pattern is just that there are a few individual polls that are hugely pro-Trump– Rasmussen, IBD/TIPP, LA Times– and those end up skewing any average that they’re part of, unless there’s some effort taken to deal with them.

    (Oddly, Clinton’s troubles of the past couple of weeks really don’t seem to have affected the super-Republican polls much–they keep bouncing around between narrow Clinton leads and Trump leads. Rasmussen just dropped one showing Trump +3, but they were saying that when Clinton was doing better as well. You’d think they’d be like Trump +9 at this point.)

  153. 153.

    Botsplainer

    @Tilda Swinton’s Bald Cap:

    At some point in the indefinite future, there will be a “last President of the United States of America”. The catalyst of that can either be a happy consolidation with some new and larger entity, or it can come about via catastrophe with unprecedented misery.

    Given the array of supporters, a Clinton presidency moves us closer to the first potential and kicks the can far down the road on the second. A Trump presidency forecloses the first option for generations, and can very well be the ignition trigger for the second.

    One other thing about the march of history – all does change and certain comfortable things all end. There will one day be a last puppy, a last child playing on a beach, a last romantic dinner in Paris, a last walk in a moonlit night. That is all OK, and to be expected, but let’s not hasten it out of misguided principle….

  154. 154.

    Jeffro

    @Jeffro: Btw I should have added: all of Blow’s reasons why even worried workers/hardcore Republicans/religious right folks/strict constitutionalists/insider-haters should turn away from Trump are the exact same reasons that craven Republicans like Ryan, McConnell, McCain, Rubio, and the rest will throw out there to explain Trump’s loss. So I hope the Dems stay on their case and reference that support for Trump for the next decade or so in their campaigns.

  155. 155.

    Kay

    I’m doing a forum at the high school where I’m the Democrat and a city council member is the Republican. I just called her to get organized- who goes first-whatever- and she plans on saying “Trump is winning” because she looked at the polls this morning.

    The whole point of this was so that we could show the students that we can have a civil debate and she plans to lead with “I’m winning”.

    So because I am the way I am I’m thinking “okay then, Carrie. I will destroy you at this thing” :)

  157. 157.

    Bill

    @Bupalos: I feel your pain, and you’re right. The Cubs were hardly underdogs this year. Maddon did his best to lose thr series, but unfortunately they won.

    I was rooting hard for Cleveland. Well probably rooting as hard against he Cubs. They have the second most insufferable fan base (behind Boston) in baseball. And now they are going to be even worse. I expect they had warm Old Style for breakfast and are now peeing on Wacker drive,

  158. 158.

    Ian

    @What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:
    It also ties into the right-wing think on attorneys. Defence attorneys are evil, evil, EVIL, creatures who deliberately try to get child rapists of the hook. If they defend a criminal they must have no problem whatsoever with the actions of the defendant (continue to read criminal here, presumption of guilt).
    The concept that everyone (even people who are probably guilty) deserves competent fair legal defence is lost on these people.

  159. 159.

    Kay

    Matthew Miller ‏@matthewamiller 12h12 hours ago
    Matthew Miller Retweeted Devlin Barrett
    So FBI agents:
    1. Started probe based on laughable “Clinton Cash” book.
    2. Found nothing.
    3. Were told to move on by FBI & DOJ.
    4. Leaked!

    Outrageous. They’re not worried at all either. They either are or believe they are untouchable- they can do and say anything they want. Pretty freaking scary attitude for a faction inside a national police force.

  162. 162.

    MomSense

    @Kay:

    So because I am the way I am I’m thinking “okay then, Carrie. I will destroy you at this thing” :)

    Yaaas Kaylisi, Yaaas!

  163. 163.

    hovercraft

    @Jeffro:

    How wingnuts get so invested in such things, Dog only knows…

    Dear Maggie broke the backs of the unions, she was St Ronnie’s bestest friend evah! They are vested in brexit because it has become a central part of their trope that the ‘people’ want to take their country back, just like they did in Britain.

  170. 170.

    Kay

    @Matt McIrvin:

    This is what happened to the League of Women Voters, I think. They were like “screw that, we’re liberals, then!”

    I was going to lead with the fact that Carrie and I worked together to pass the levy to build the high school we’re sitting in but now that is OFF THE TABLE :)

    It’s dumb for her because she has to get re-elected and I don’t and there are actually 40-something % Democrats here, but whatever!

  171. 171.

    bupalos

    @Botsplainer: Agreed. I really do (to the extent I can this particular morning) wish our long-suffering Chicago compadres well. This year’s Cubs team itself I can’t like, there’s a great core of homegrowns, I wish they could have played it out with those rather than overstocking and overkilling it. Can’t stand the idea of the Cubs (The Cubs?!) as one of these rich-get-richer teams.

  172. 172.

    1,000 Flouncing Lurkers (was fidelioscabinet)

    @Patricia Kayden: Longer than that–J. Edgar Hoover goes back to the days of the Palmer Raids, in the first US Red Scare, back in 1919. He easily carried all that over to the Bureau of Investigation when he went there in the 1920s. It’s pretty well baked in over there.

  173. 173.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    Reuters PoliticsVerified account
    ‏@ReutersPolitics
    BREAKING: Clinton leads Trump by 6 points, same margin as before FBI announced email review – Reuters/Ipsos poll

    Pollsters overweight for white people. That’s what they do, have always done, and will always do. The Monmouth poll of PA that came out yesterday had 85% white electorate, when 2012 was 76%. Polls are garbage. It’s all about the ground game.

  177. 177.

    Barbara

    @Iowa Old Lady: I have been angry and getting angrier ever since the Republican Party began pushing bogus voter fraud stories and imposing onerous ID requirements. I was aggrieved before then, but to watch this obvious, transparent new Jim Crow arising in our midst with apparently total amnesia among the judiciary until this year has made me boil over at times. My mother (who is white) was so worried about not having proper ID that she went and renewed her driver’s license early. This was in Pennsylvania, where the ID law was, thankfully, enjoined and then overturned. And it was pushed hard by someone I had gone to school with. I can’t even think about him in the same way I used to, as a basically nice guy. Because now I know that he is apparently a white supremacist intent on using ID laws to get Republicans to win statewide elections in Pennsylvania.

  179. 179.

    Calouste

    @BillinGlendaleCA: Well, High Court judges are knighted when they join the court, so all of them are a Knight or a Dame, which is pretty elitist :-)

    And there are still two more courts to go to, the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court, so this is not finished yet.

  180. 180.

    J R in WV

    @Keith G:

    Best of Luck, Keith! My best friend had total removal a few years ago, daVinci robotic surgery, total success, cured.

    Will keep fingers crossed, you may well be in recovery by now.

  182. 182.

    chopper

    @MomSense:

    my favorite comment in that story is freddie boners reminding everyone that he’s the only true reasonable person left. man, i forgot all about that dickweed.

  183. 183.

    catclub

    @Botsplainer:

    At some point in the indefinite future, there will be a “last President of the United States of America”.

    I realized at some point there was a “last time I will ever carry my child”, too.

  184. 184.

    The Ancient Randonneur

    andrew kaczynski ✔ @KFILE
    Donald Trump said the Chicago Cubs were a poorly run baseball team in March:

    Heh. Theo Epstein and the Cubs players gave Trump a big middle finger last night. Good for them!

  186. 186.

    Original Lee

    @OzarkHillbilly: The Nome office is all about covering up the latest Palin shenanigans. Probably there is a limit to how many agents can be devoted to that cause.

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