Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“But what about the lurkers?”

John Fetterman: Too Manly for Pennsylvania.  Paid for by the Oz for Senator campaign.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

The words do not have to be perfect.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Let there be snark.

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

“Squeaker” McCarthy

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

No one could have predicted…

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

After roe, women are no longer free.

In my day, never was longer.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

I really should read my own blog.

You are here: Home / Pet Blogging / Dog Blogging / Open Thread: Another Monday, Another Dumbshow

Open Thread: Another Monday, Another Dumbshow

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Note that the ‘lethargic friend’ is holding their end of the rope in their teeth, so it’s more game than trial.

This poor little dude, on the other hand…


 
Stay positive!

… In more than a dozen interviews with top strategists in both parties conducted by TPM this week, every Democrat and all but one Republican said that the Democrats have the upper hand heading into the homestretch of the campaign. But there’s plenty of disagreement about how sure a bet that is. Different plugged-in Democrats guesstimated their chances of winning control as between 55 percent and 80 percent. Two Republicans put their party’s chances of control as low as one in three, while one optimist put it at 60 percent likelihood.

That’s a wide range of opinions held by people with access to a lot of private polling and modeling information, as well as the opposition research and TV ads that have yet to air, though the majority of strategists in both parties put Democrats’ chances of winning at between 50 and 60 percent. The one thing all strategists, granted anonymity so they could speak candidly, agree on: Democrats’ chances of winning the 23 House seats needed for control look significantly better than they did even one month ago…

Democrats’ enthusiasm gap advantage remains large. Independents are breaking for Democrats by double-digit margins nationally and in most districts. The map of true tossup races seems to keep shifting Democrats’ way. With Sunday marking 100 days until the election, the unofficial start of the campaign’s homestretch, professional Democrats are a lot cheerier than their Republican counterparts as they look to get their clients to Congress…

Reader Interactions

159Comments

  2. 2.

    satby

    Spotty Wi-Fi at my hotel but The NYC meet up was a smashing success! And my visit with my exchange son and his family was wonderful. More later.

    Good morning all

  6. 6.

    satby

    @rikyrah: I am! Different hotel since yesterday, this one in Brooklyn and pretty basic, but they have coffee!
    And props to Reddirtgirl, because she called the taxi fare practically to the penny. I was pretty tired last night, so didn’t want to cope with an unfamiliar subway system. Today I won’t be lugging my bags, and will be taking it to meet my former coworkers.

    I introduced my exchange son to the blog too, he works in the financial end of the health insurance industry, so I showed him the Mayhew on insurance” posts category. Hoping he joins the jackals at some point.

    The meet up was excellent, great crowd of local folks and bonus NotMax! We were even able to circulate a bit so we could all talk to everyone. LAO has some great stories she kept us entertained with. More when the pictures come out.

  8. 8.

    MagdaInBlack

    Leigh Ann Caldwell
    @LACaldwellDC
    Charles Koch also said: “We all bear responsibility” for the divisiveness in the country.

    But is Trump to blame for the dissolution of discourse?

    “I’m into hating the sin not the sinner.”
    1:08 PM · Jul 29, 2018

    * Isnt that nice.

  12. 12.

    Schlemazel

    @MagdaInBlack:
    So are they all, all honorable men, – Marc Anthony

    The sad part is he will be permitted because it fits the media’s bothsiderism

  15. 15.

    LAO

    @satby: I’m blushing, what a polite way of saying I talk too much! Glad you made it to your hotel and very glad I was able to meet you.

    To the rest of meetup participants, thanks for a fun evening and a special thank you to NotMax for setting the shindig up.

  20. 20.

    OzarkHillbilly

    A wholly depressing but necessary read: White threat in a browning America

    White voters who feel they are losing a historical hold on power are reacting to something real. For the bulk of American history, you couldn’t win the presidency without winning a majority — usually an overwhelming majority — of the white vote. Though this changed before Obama (Bill Clinton won slightly less of the white vote than his Republican challengers), the election of an African-American president leading a young, multiracial coalition made the transition stark and threatening.

    This is the crucial context for Trump’s rise, and it’s why Tesler has little patience for those who treat Trump as an invader in the Republican Party. In a field of Republicans who were trying to change the party to appeal to a rising Hispanic electorate, Trump was alone in speaking to Republican voters who didn’t want the party to remake itself, who wanted to be told that a wall could be built and things could go back to the way they were.

    “Trump met the party where it was rather than trying to change it,“ Tesler says. “He was hunting where the ducks were.”

  21. 21.

    Baud

    Apparently, Trump’s defense is going to “why would you trust anyone who worked for me.”

  22. 22.

    satby

    @LAO: no way did you talk too much! We were all enjoying the backstory on some of the lawyers heard about in the news. Besides, it’s usually me who talks too much ?!

    @Schlemazel: @MagdaInBlack: Thanks, having a great time with good company. And yeah, the site seems to be lagging.

  23. 23.

    NotMax

    Fun evening last night. Scintillating conversation, good people, refreshing Irish hard cider. It was the Lake Woebegone table of the pub, the place where all the folks are above average.

    Believe it or not, in a glass case above and adjacent to the bar there is stuffed four-footed animal which, if one kind of cocks one’s head and squints a bit, can be mistaken for a jackal.

  25. 25.

    satby

    @Baud: Good morning to you! So far I’ve met other jackals in 3 meet ups and when people talk about which commenter they’d like to meet IRL every one wants to meet you. Your fans are legion.
    #proudtobeabaudie

  32. 32.

    Baud

    @satby: Good morning, satby. I’m glad to hear you are having a nice few days. You deserve it.

    Peple want to meet me because they want patronage. But the only way I can remain uncorrupted and pure is to reject not only all campaign donations but also real life, nontransparent human interactions. It’s tough, but it’s what the country needs right now.

  35. 35.

    debbie

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Even better is all the current shrieking over Trump Derangement Syndrome by those who happily practiced Obama Derangement Syndrome. “Yeah, but both sides…but here and now…but apples and oranges” and on and on.

  36. 36.

    debbie

    @satby:

    I just want to know how he stays on point like a laser and how he always says the right thing at the right time. I could use some of those gifts.

  41. 41.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @debbie: More:

    This is a point Tesler makes well. “In the post-civil rights era, Democrats needed to maintain their nonwhite base without alienating white voters,” he said. “So their incentive was silence. And Republicans needed to win over white voters without appearing racist. So their incentive was to speak about race in code. The shifts now have made it so Democrats’ incentive is to make explicitly pro-racial equality appeals and Republicans now have an incentive to make more explicit anti-minority appeals.”

    Take that idea and extend it out into the coming decades of American politics. The Democratic Party will not be able to win elections without an excited, diverse coalition. The Republican Party will not be able to win elections without an enthused white base. Democrats will need to build a platform that’s even more explicit in its pursuit of racial and gender equality, while Republicans will need to design a politics even more responsive to a coalition that feels itself losing power.

    This dynamic is behind much of the frustration about “identity politics.” When a single group dominates the political agenda, their grievances and demands are just coded as politics, and the vast majority of policy is designed in response to their concerns. But that changes when no one group can control the agenda but many groups can push items onto it; then the competition between identity-based groups becomes visible. And it becomes particularly visible to the group that’s traditionally dominated the agenda and believes that their issues reflect what politics is supposed to be about and other groups’ concerns represent special pleading.

    Still got a little more to go.

  43. 43.

    Immanentize

    @Baud:

    reject … nontransparent human interactions.

    They make those “companion” dolls see-through now?

  48. 48.

    SFAW

    @satby:

    “White supremacist into Bigfoot erotica” was as far as I got before NOPE took over and closed the thread.

    I don’t recall you being prone to joke like that, so I assume that’s an accurate restatement. (Also since DAW confirms.) Good Christ.

  50. 50.

    SFAW

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Semi-related: I’m reading “Bring The War Home,” which sort-of chronicles the rise of the post-Vietnam White Power movement. I don’t think “scary” is the word for it, more like “unnerving,” maybe?

  53. 53.

    Lapassionara

    @OzarkHillbilly: Identity politics is just the current buzz word. My skin is white, but I am old, so I focus on whether Social Security and Medicare are going to be strong, and not just during my lifetime. I lived through the positive transformation those programs made to families, when the grand parent generation no longer had to move in with their children. I think describing people’s concerns as centering on skin color is short sighted.

  54. 54.

    SFAW

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    So Roy Moore is going to file a lawsuit against Sacha Baron Cohen. I hope they televise the trial.

    Discovery should be interesting, although they don’t normally televise that.

  56. 56.

    arrieve

    @NotMax: Thanks for setting it up! It was great fun meeting everybody, and I loved your stories LAO!

    I have pictures — just need an email address to send them to.

  57. 57.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @satby: I am now fully informed (I had to google it, no resisting the urge) and it’s more strange than anything else. Especially the reactions of some self proclaimed “progressive white men”:

    Cockburn’s post was met with rage by several self-identified progressive white men who to accused her of “kink-shaming” and said that they hope she loses as a result.

    To which I can only say, “What happens in the bedroom between consenting adults stays in the bedroom, but what gets posted on Instagram is fair game.”

  62. 62.

    danielx

    Nice rainy day outside…good thing I have carefully sealed over the section of siding I removed this weekend. Nothing like going to replace a 2 x 3 piece of plywood and finding….termites. Going from a minor repair to fucking catastrophe in nothing flat. Ten years ago I might have tried to tackle this myself, minus the pest control bit. Now it’s going to require a crew of pros, no doubt at hideous expense.

  63. 63.

    chris

    Jeebus!

    The Oglala people have declared a state of emergency on the Pine Ridge Rez 48 hrs ago due to fierce winds from a massive hail storm. All vinyl sided dwellings, such as FEMA trailers, have been destroyed along with all windows in each dwelling. The Oglala Sioux Tribe will update. pic.twitter.com/ZEHY00mrrY— Chase Iron Eyes (@ChaseIronEyes) July 30, 2018

  65. 65.

    Tenar Arha

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: @LAO: @satby: I read that last night while everyone was sleeping & meeting ?

    Geez, was it only last night I heard that? I was just thinking about how I don’t really care about this guy’s cryptid porn, I care about his likely politics.

    ¯_(ツ)_/¯ 2018 where open white supremacists running for & in control of government is so much infinitely worse than finding out that Bigfoot porn exists that all I could think was “oookay, that guy’s kink is not my kink.”

    Anyway, good morning all! & YKINMK ?

  69. 69.

    tobie

    Morning folks! I gather the Manafort trial is set to begin tomorrow. Is that correct? I imagine jury selection will take up the first few days, then it’s on to witnesses. I’m thinking of changing my subscription to the Post to a paper version, so I don’t get sucked into the media vortex that will accompany the trial.

  70. 70.

    MomSense

    @satby:

    Yay! So happy you are having a good time.

    I got home late last night after a quick trip to Mass. Had a sort of panic/melancholy episode while there but when I got home two of my kids were at the dining room table talking and playing music so that cheered me up. My oldest is making plans to have my youngest stay with him for a few days which is sweet. Anyway, we also talked politics and they both inherited my ranting at the idiotic things pundits say. My youngest showed us part of a clip of Reza Aslan being interviewed by a Fox blond that was so stupid (the fox blond) and funny (Reza).
    Back to my routine today. Hope all the jackals have a good week.

  71. 71.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Lapassionara:

    I think describing people’s concerns as centering on skin color is short sighted.

    From the article:

    Perhaps the most striking experiment in this space was conducted by Harvard political scientist Ryan Enos. He attempted something rare in social science: an actual test of what seeing more diversity in our everyday surroundings does to our political opinions. His explanation of both the experiment and its results is worth reading:

    I sent Spanish speakers to randomly selected train stations in towns around Boston to simply catch the train and ride like any other passenger. I focused on stations in white suburbs. The intent was to create the impression, by subtle manipulation, that the Latino population in these segregated towns was increasing.

    Before and after sending these Spanish speakers to the train platforms, I surveyed passengers on the platforms about their attitudes about immigration. After being exposed to the Spanish speakers on their metro lines for just three days, attitudes on these questions moved sharply rightward: The mostly liberal Democratic passengers had come to endorse immigration policies — including deportation of children of undocumented immigrants — similar to those endorsed by Trump in his campaign.

    Enos goes on to note that his findings match what we saw in 2016: The biggest gains Donald Trump made over Mitt Romney’s performance “were in the places where the Latino population had grown most quickly. … For example, Luzerne County, adjacent to Scranton, Pennsylvania, had experienced an almost 600 percent growth in its Latino population between 2000 and 2014, and, after decades of voting Democrat in presidential elections, gave Trump 12 percentage points more votes than it had given to Romney in 2012.”

    So here, then, is what we know: Even gentle, unconscious exposure to reminders that America is diversifying — and particularly to the idea that America is becoming a majority-minority nation — pushes whites toward more conservative policy opinions and more support of the Republican Party.

    What happens when the exposure isn’t so subtle?

    …………………

    There is an explanation we prefer for all this; an explanation that accounts for the turmoil of our politics without forcing us into uncomfortable conversations about race, power, and resentment. That explanation? It’s the economy, stupid.

    As the argument goes, the financial crisis, the rise of automation, the wreckage of globalization, the pain of the Great Recession, the shocking rise in inequality — all of that was more than enough to upend our politics; you don’t need to reach for racialized explanations. So a bitter debate has erupted since the 2016 election between those who blame our politics on economic anxiety and those who see a country riven by racial resentment. In its aftermath, a popular synthesis has emerged: Economic anxiety activated racial resentment, which means, comfortingly, that a better economy would calm our divisions.

    The best evidence we have suggests this gets the relationship largely backward. In their forthcoming book Identity Crisis: The 2016 Presidential Campaign and the Battle for the Meaning of America, political scientists John Sides, Michael Tesler, and Lynn Vavreck analyze reams of data and show that racial resentment activated economic anxiety, rather than the other way around:

    Before Obama’s presidency, how Americans felt about black people did not much affect their perceptions of the economy. After Obama, this changed. In December 2007, racial resentment — which captures whether Americans think deficiencies in black culture are the main reason for racial inequality — was not related to whites’ perceptions of whether the economy was getting better or worse, after accounting for partisanship and ideology. But when these exact same people were re-interviewed in July 2012, racial resentment was a powerful predictor of economic perceptions: the greater someone’s level of racial resentment, the worse they believed the economy was doing.

    This is unnerving data, as we tend to imagine the economy as a rare subject on which objective facts, rather than group conflicts, drive opinions. Sadly, no. Sides, Tesler, and Vavreck analyzed polling on economic sentiment and found that “Republicans in the highest income quintile, those making more than $100,000 per year, were actually slightly less satisfied than Democrats in the lowest income quintile, those making less than $20,000 per year.”

    You should go read the whole thing.

  73. 73.

    A Ghost To Most

    @danielx:
    I feel your pain. Nothing is ever simple. I remember our first May in our house in MD, when termite flyers filled our house. I was on vacuum cleaner duty for 3-4 days.

  77. 77.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @OzarkHillbilly: Me thinks that’s an over simplification of the issue – civil rights are inherently color blind. Take for example why Conservatives bemoan America is falling because of something like Steel Mills and coal mines, yet ignores things like Spaxe-X, the GOP base is a rejection of the entire modern era.

  81. 81.

    Elizabelle

    Happy Monday, all. Los Angeles Times today. Virginia Heffernan, with the issue that is front and center: Was the 2016 election legitimate? It’s now definitely worth asking the question

    We need to talk about a forbidden subject: the legitimacy of the current president.

    There’s been a code of silence around President Donald Trump’s shady victory in 2016. It’s one of those tiptoe-around-it things that the American family just doesn’t talk about. And with good reason. Whatever your politics, it’s perilous to question the soundness of an American election.

    Raising the question of Trump’s legitimacy risks detonating a full-blown crisis of faith — kindling distrust not just in Trump, but also in the system that installed him.

    As more and more facts about Trump’s incongruous victory emerge, the doubts gnaw harder — and grow harder to ignore.

    A nation devoted to majority rule has a minority president. Who squeaked into office on an electoral college technicality. Against most data projections. Using dark money. Using voter suppression. Using Russian disinformation.

    … And, most chilling of all, with a massive assist from the Russian military, which not only hacked the Democrats, but also hacked voting software and a voting-system manufacturer.

    …. In Wisconsin, as Mother Jones has reported, discriminatory ID laws prevented 45,000 eligible voters from participating in the election, including 23,000 in two heavily Democratic counties. Trump won Wisconsin by 22,000 votes.

    The attorney general of Wisconsin, Brad Schimel, even boasted recently that Trump won Wisconsin chiefly because tens of thousands of eligible voters were turned away.

    We’ve long known that Russian hackers attempted to break into the nation’s voter databases. But NBC reported this year that they succeeded. [her italics] Senior intelligence officials said that Russia compromised seven states, including California, Florida, Illinois and Texas.

    There are other good reasons to ask questions about the election. In Florida, exit polls on election day had Clinton winning by 1.3 % of the vote. When the votes were tallied, Trump beat her by 1.2%.

    None of this data is conclusive. But it absolutely does not suggest that American citizens should shut up, forget it, and will away all the evidence that something’s rotten in our electoral system. If it didn’t hurt your candidate this time, next time it might.

    …. It’s the American people — of every stripe — who have suffered, seeing our democracy in such devastating disarray. And the remedy for that suffering is not to suck it up, pretend everything’s fine, and let criminals hold on to ill-gotten power and money.

    The remedy is to keep speaking up, work for electoral reform to restore free and fair elections, and of course let justice run its course in the form of the investigations into Russian interference and Trumpland complicity.

    In the meantime, typesetters, cue up your asterisks. You might need them.

    1919 World Series*
    2016 presidential election*

    Do not let that fucker have another Supreme Court justice. Ramp up pressure on vulnerable GOP senators (and Lisa Murkowski and Lucy with the Football Collins). We can delay Kavanaugh, and possibly even stop him. No Trump appointment until the Mueller case is clear of the Supreme Court.

  86. 86.

    tobie

    @OzarkHillbilly: Thanks for the excerpts. I will go read this article. I was talking to a German acquaintance this summer and we were both marveling at the rise of racism in Germany and the US at a time of relative economic prosperity (e.g. low unemployment). It kind of upends the traditional argument that economic conditions led to the rise of Nazism in the 1930s.

    ETA: Someone posted here that the mainstreaming of racial animus in political discourse began around 2014 with the rise of Black Lives Matter. This would fit with the argument in the article.

  87. 87.

    JAFD

    Good morning, fellow Jackals !

    ‘Twas grand meeting you last night, and am hoping to see you again in future.

    Thinking that planning a NYC-area BalloonJuice meetup twice a year would Be A Good Thing, and that the weekend of MLK day would be a good time.

    I would volunteer to do the planning, but (sorry about that), first, my knowledge of Manhattan pubs and taverns is small, and second, a Newark venue would probably have to be a short walk from Newark Penn Station, racking brain to think of place suitable and reasonably priced (Going a bit farther afield, is establishment combining good Portugese diner and indoor soccer field…)

    Your thoughts are invited.

  88. 88.

    Tenar Arha

    @rikyrah: It’s clear to me that even if the news network isn’t entirely run by sexual assaulters, men who discriminate in one way, will do it in another. Jake, as someone who got one of their big byline breaks by dating, & then later deciding to turn that into an article about the woman he dated should get the ? for everything.

    White guy has a history of biased coverage of women, there’s likely some internet name for the corollary of “Yep, there’s bias too in his coverage of black men & women.”

  89. 89.

    tobie

    @Elizabelle: Exit polls had HRC winning Penn by 4.4% on election day. Just saying…we’ll never know about the integrity of the ballot but we can track is the disenfranchisement campaign carried out in various states.

  90. 90.

    Shalimar

    @tobie: Relative economic prosperity, but also continuing wealth concentration. It isn’t nearly as good for most of us as the numbers suggest.

  93. 93.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @tobie:

    the mainstreaming of racial animus in political discourse began around 2014 with the rise of Black Lives Matter.

    Yes, what could be less disagreeable than the simple statement that black lives matter? And yet look at the backlash.

  97. 97.

    RedDirtGirl

    @MomSense: Hi MomSense. Sorry you’ve been having a rough time of it lately. I’ll be up on MDI the week leading up to Labor Day. If you find yourself nearby and want to kayak out to Gott’s Island again, drop me a line.
    ivankathrowup at gmail dot com.

  98. 98.

    rikyrah

    @tobie:

    I will say it again…

    the number of people denied the franchise through Voter Suppression in those pivotal states was TWO TO THREE TIMES the size of Dolt45’s ‘victory’.

    never ever forget that.

  100. 100.

    tobie

    @Shalimar: I’m not saying that everything was peachy-keen. Income inequality is a big problem. But in 2016 the country did log the first significant growth in wages in decades, the housing market had stabilized, health insurance rates had risen dramatically, we were at full employment even if many jobs were low-income etc. We had emerged from the great recession, and Europe was starting to emerge as well thanks to the introduction of quantitative easing in spite of German resistance. All in all people had reason to be ‘cautiously’ optimistic but that’s not the way things turned out. Trump and Wilmer intoned daily at broadcast rallies how much the people were suffering and made it seem like we were still living in the great depression.

  101. 101.

    Barbara

    @OzarkHillbilly: It’s this kind of thinking that looks at trying to appeal to women’s concerns as “special interest” politics when women make up more than half the population and probably more than half of all voters.

  102. 102.

    john r

    The fix is already in, so don’t get your hopes up. I see a republicant wave gaining them 50 seats. Of course, that will be the result of the hacking of voting systems they are going to allow adversaries to perform.

  103. 103.

    MomSense

    @RedDirtGirl:

    Ooh, that sounds like a nice thing to do. I’ll look at my schedule. Have a couple of family reunions close to that week.

  104. 104.

    tobie

    @rikyrah: Do you know of a site that has the statistics on voter disenfranchisement in one table or text? If I’m not mistaken, 2 million people were stricken from the voter rolls in Ohio. 45,000 according to the article were removed from the rolls in WI. I’d love to have the figures for states like NC, FL, GA, and MI.

  106. 106.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Barbara: I had a mother. I have sisters. I have a wife. I have daughter-in-laws. I have a granddaughter. Wouldn’t a better world for them mean a better world for me?

  108. 108.

    satby

    @JAFD: it was very fun! If there’s one in a year or so I may have to plan to come back. We’ll have to check back in a couple of months.

  109. 109.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @rikyrah: @lynnv378: And yeah I’m gonna say what no one will say. @JakeTapper’s attack on Barack Obama would not have happened if Barack Obama was White.

    Obama is apparently supposed to undo state legislative elections in KY, WV, AL and MS by skipping a concert in 2018. Does George W Bush go to concerts? Does Jake have any ideas about what he could/should be doing to fix the GOP?

  110. 110.

    RedDirtGirl

    @MomSense: I have another odd Maine/Internet connection. My go-to site for pop culture, with a side of politics, is Pajiba. I was getting weird warning messages when I clicked on it recently, so I emailed the site founder. I already knew he was based near Portland, from various comments, so I mentioned my Maine connections, specifically Mt. Desert Island. He wrote back that he and his family spend time near Echo Lake and so I mentioned Gott’s Island. Turns out his wife’s family rented a house out there for several summers when she was a kid. Blew my mind. Don’t think I met her, though.

  113. 113.

    LAO

    I see on the twitter machine that (unsurprisingly) Team Trump is once again shifting the goal posts.

    NEW: Giuliani just moved the goal posts in 2 big ways on Fox & CNN :1. He's no longer claiming Trump didn't collude with Russia. He's claiming "collusion is not a crime." 2. He's not saying Trump did not know abt 2016 Russia mtg in advance. He's saying Trump did not ATTEND it.— Christina Wilkie (@christinawilkie) July 30, 2018

  115. 115.

    LAO

    Holy Crap! I wanna go back to bed.

    Jeff Sessions is hosting a politicized “Religious Liberty” Summit" at DOJ headquarters Monday that leans almost entirely on the Christian right. It’s backed by ADF (the gay wedding cake group) and one of DOJ officials speaking is Kerri Kupec, who used to be ADF spokesperson. pic.twitter.com/4KS9WSf6kM— Dominic Holden (@dominicholden) July 27, 2018

  119. 119.

    Steve in the STL

    @tobie: my wife was stricken from the rolls last year in Georgia, which we found odd since (1) we have lived in the same house for 19 years, (2) the other three voters in said house were not stricken, and (3) we live in a very, very red district.

    Maybe because we have voted in democratic primaries?

  121. 121.

    rikyrah

    Obviously there are bigger things going on, but one of the least discussed losses of Trumpism is a First Family that is capable of love and joy.

    There was something healing and inspiring about watching that every day for 8 years.

    It was good for the soul. pic.twitter.com/GnsxoBdjhd

    — Kaivan Shroff (@KaivanShroff) July 29, 2018

  122. 122.

    SRW1

    @LAO:

    He’s claiming “collusion is not a crime.

    At least not when the president does it. Faint smell of deja vue.

  123. 123.

    rikyrah

    Funny how the economic anxiety argument has gone right? Proud to lose their savings and jobs under Trump. If they are proud to lose their $ under Trump, why would “free college” or “single payer” from Dems change their minds? Glad people see economic anxiety arg was a farce https://t.co/06yUtzXP9r

    — Marcus H. Johnson (@marcushjohnson) July 30, 2018

  124. 124.

    rikyrah

    “Historically Precipitous Decline.”

    This is how @jaketapper just described Obama’s term… Obama who didnt lock children in cages or separate them from their parents. Who didn’t rape his wife or several other women, who didn’t pay several women for sex while with his 3rd wife.

    — Sir James The Second… watch my shows on HUeMAN TV (@NotOnMyWatchTV) July 29, 2018

  125. 125.

    schrodingers_cat

    @rikyrah:All politics in this country according to the likes of Tapper and botlets of the mainstream media revolve around imaginary and manufactured grievances of the most privileged group in the country. The only demographic that still favors T by a huge margin.

  127. 127.

    Jeffro

    @debbie:

    Even better is all the current shrieking over Trump Derangement Syndrome by those who happily practiced Obama Derangement Syndrome. “Yeah, but both sides…but here and now…but apples and oranges” and on and on.

    Hmm…I was thinking about this and then rikyrah’s comment came along

    @rikyrah:

    This is how @jaketapper just described Obama’s term… Obama who didnt lock children in cages or separate them from their parents. Who didn’t rape his wife or several other women, who didn’t pay several women for sex while with his 3rd wife.

    …and I thought about all the things we didn’t get under Obama:

    – alienating NATO allies
    – bashing the E.U.
    – sucking up to tyrants around the globe
    – “Infrastructure Week” every frickin’ day
    – Spicer, Scarmucci, Pruitt, Omarosa, Hicks, the wife-beating guy who had to go, the Fox News slime ball who just got hired, etc etc
    – crazy-ass deficits from fake tax “reform”
    – twitter attacks on American businesses
    – racist attacks on NFL players
    – golfing every 4th day
    – lining his own pockets EVERY day
    – “fixers” paying off Playboy models and porn stars with laundered campaign funds
    – and on and on and on

  128. 128.

    rikyrah

    Kavanaugh ruled for Trump casino in 2012 unionization case
    Source: The Hill

    President Trump Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh in 2012 sided with the future U.S. president’s casino in a case over unionization, Bloomberg reported.

    Kavanaugh threw his weight behind Trump Entertainment Resorts’ successful attempt to end a unionization effort at one of its casinos six years ago.

    He voted with two other Republican-nominated judges on the D.C.-based federal appeals court to set aside an order by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) that would have required the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino in New Jersey to bargain with the United Auto Workers.

    Labor advocates point to this ruling as evidence that Kavanaugh’s appointment could lead to the targeting of laws to protect workers and specifically target the dwindling number of unions in the U.S.

  133. 133.

    Miss Bianca

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    “Trump met the party where it was rather than trying to change it,“ Tesler says. “He was hunting where the ducks were.”

    Still on my first cup of coffee for the day, and I thought this sentence ended with, “hunting where the dicks are.”

    Then I saw what it really said, and went, “Oh.” And then I realized that it worked just fine either way.

  134. 134.

    trollhattan

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    Am sure Cohen can afford some spiffy lawyers. Let’s see what they can uncover in discovery.

    “Judge Roy Moore has nothing to hide!”
    “Put your pants on, judge.”

  135. 135.

    MomSense

    @rikyrah:

    What pisses me off is the failure of pundits to ever acknowledge the structural disadvantage Democrats face. It’s more than just the electoral college. In 2010, 12, 14, and 16 we had more votes for our members of the House of Representatives but that still doesn’t give us a majority. The same for the Senate although that is part of the design. I’m sick of the laziness when it comes to political analysis. IMHO Obama was so extraordinary that all these mostly white male pundits were determined to knock him down a peg. They may not know that’s what they were doing but they aren’t exactly the most self aware bunch.

  136. 136.

    rikyrah

    Nothing but truth

    I think the criticism of President Obama dancing with his wife is another example of the erasure of black joy. We can’t dance, barbeque, sell water, wait for someone etc. without white folks “snitching”. PBO worked until he was gray but he can’t live his life. https://t.co/SWlEkFAhVJ

    — Loves2Read (@MarciaPoulson) July 30, 2018

  137. 137.

    WaterGirl

    @tobie: I used to say that I would have been the perfect juror for the OJ trial – I was on vacation at a summer house on a lake, no TV or newspapers and no internet to speak of back then. I came home and people were talking about the car chase, etc. I was possibly the only person in America that didn’t see any of that.

    I find myself this morning wondering about the people who know nothing about Manafort. I’m thinking that unless they were at the summer house on a lake – for, say, the past year and a half – anyone who knows nothing about Manafort doesn’t deserve to be on the jury.

  138. 138.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @schrodingers_cat: Your snarklmeter needs recalibrating.

    Bullshit analysis is bullshit.

    if you haven’t read it than you really don’t have a clue to what you are talking about, do you?

  139. 139.

    MomSense

    @satby:

    Wait whut?? When so went to bed there was some discussion pandas I didn’t understand but Bigfoot erotica? I’m guessing we are not talking about Cole’s pet picture posts.

  140. 140.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @rikyrah: wait for someone etc.

    Speaking of the crime of being seen by white people, has the one Cole called Taxi Nazi Tina— called the cops on a woman waiting for Uber in front of an apartment building– been ID’d yet? Looks like she was either really drunk or off her meds

    as many people have said, municipalities need to start fining for frivolous 911 calls

  141. 141.

    WaterGirl

    @LAO: So now I guess we can be absolutely certain that Trump DID ATTEND that meeting. Thanks, Rudy!

  143. 143.

    Gin & Tonic

    Tweet from Ecuador’s External Affairs Ministry today: It is in the interest of Ecuador and also of Mr. Assange that the asylum be terminated

  145. 145.

    Steve in the STL

    @Raven: that’s better than experiencing it in an orange jumpsuit. And then having to pay LAO to try to fix what Immanentize couldn’t win!

  147. 147.

    rikyrah

    @Raven:

    Tweet from Ecuador’s External Affairs Ministry today: It is in the interest of Ecuador and also of Mr. Assange that the asylum be terminated

    tee hee hee

    BWA HA HA HA HAH A HAHA

  148. 148.

    JPL

    @rikyrah: A gal on the local news showed the clip, and mentioned how good they dance at their age. She quickly realized her error, and said that the fifties aren’t really old. It was actually cute, because it had nothing to do with their race.

  153. 153.

    J R in WV

    OK, I understand that some people are astounded at the thought of Bigfoot porn. I am too, kinda. So not my kink.

    But Internet Rule 34 states that if there is a thing on the Internet, there is porn about that thing, on the Internet. So Bigfoot is a thing… so porn about Bigfoot is not only not out of the question, it is required. But no one can make someone get off on porn that doesn’t mesh with their set of kinks, so you’re all safe.

    Mostly, a few may learn that they have a heretofore unknown kink! Ha… ;-)

  154. 154.

    Ruckus

    @tobie:
    I wonder how many of those 2 million in OH were people like me. I left OH in 2005, nothing was done to remove me from the voting.
    I’ve moved three times in CA since then and have updated my voting address each time but never informed OH I’d left and I’m not required to do so. How many election cycles does it take before my name is properly removed for non voting? Now I’m not saying that OH it right, I was Ken Blackwell’d when I lived there, may he rest in hell. But how many people are like me, we moved we aren’t required to inform the state voting system we left.

  156. 156.

    JWL

    Deadspin: “The NFL’s new rule on helmet contact is going to force players on both sides of the ball to make some major adjustments this season, but how exactly referees will enforce the rule is a question that’ll likely take at least a few weeks to answer”.

    A few weeks? I can answer it now: it will be “enforced” in incoherent cashion. Junior Seau fucked everything up for everybody.

    The NFL is simply delaying the inevitable with these absurd helmet-to-helmet “rules” (as if the health of a player’s brain is subject to human dictate). It’s like the captain of the Titanic takeng time to read rules of lifeboat protocol to the mass of doomed passengers milling about on deck as the ship sinks.

    It’s a doggone shame, too. Aside from the catastrophic brain damage it inflicts on so great a percentage of NFL players (year in and year out), it is otherwise a truly beautiful game (“liar!”, screamed thousands of ex-players on behalf of their aching knees, hips, and joints)). I played it as a kid, and was a rabid fan for over 50 years. I wish things were different, but they’re not. And that stone cold fact ruined the game’s enjoyment for me.

  158. 158.

    Steve in the STL

    @JWL: among CTE, the national anthem clusterfuck, and the Patriots cheating to beat the Falcons in the Super Bowl, I am done with the NFL.

    Now I can focus on more important issues. SEC! SEC! SEC!

  159. 159.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @tobie: Problem is this runs afoul of the so-called “Shy Tory” Factor.. As in, were the exit polls skewed because voters were loathe to admit they’d voted for Trump, or was there serious ratfuckery afoot? (Maybe both – but in what proportion?)

    @OzarkHillbilly: Question re the Enos study: Were the recruited Hispanics sent out iindividually or in groups? If the latter, were they encouraged to speak Spanish amongst themselves? IMO monolingual whites find it far more threatening to hear a language they don’t understand being spoken around them – they all assume the reason Those People ain’t speakin’ good ol’ Murrkin is either that they’re plotting something or they’re making snide comments about the white folks around them. Even people who know better can get caught up in that if they have any vulnerability to paranoia (& jeebus cripes, IMHO anyone who isn’t at least a little paranoid these days isn’t paying attention); I have upon occasion had to remind myself that No, they’re not talking about you…

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