Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

We still have time to mess this up!

No Justins, No Peace

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

Take your GOP plan out of the witness protection program.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

Republicans don’t trust women.

Joe Lieberman disappointingly reemerged to remind us that he’s still alive.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

DeSantis transforms Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

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Labor Day Monday Open Thread

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Meanwhile, the wheels are coming off the Repub’s red wagon…

Reader Interactions

164Comments

  2. 2.

    J R in WV

    Goos morning all~especially you Raven, with such a great anniversary today.

    That looks like a very fine welcome home show to see. I saw Carlos Santana in about 1968 or ’69 in Philly, along with Joe Cocker, BB King, and Janis Jopllin. That was quite a night, too!

  3. 3.

    low-tech cyclist

    It’s good to see numbers like that from the DNC. Hopefully there are similar numbers from the DSCC, DCCC, DLCC, etc.

    Questions I’d have, though:

    1) 98% of the donations consist of amounts less than $200. But what percent of the money contributed is from those donations?

    2) Does the DNC still take PAC money? Seems that the implicit message here is that they can easily do without it. (Though the truth of that message might depend on the answer to question #1.) Do they still take PAC money, and if so, why?

    (Same question applies to the DSCC, DCCC, etc.)

  4. 4.

    Gozer

    @raven: Lucky sod.

    I’ve been listening to Santana over the last week on Apple Music as Dr. Mrs. and I have been driving to/from eastern MA.

  7. 7.

    different-church-lady

    Insomnia. So here, I’m going to babble… It’s amazing how much work I’ve had to do just to get my documentary to the point where it could suck. Meaning, before that it wasn’t even put together enough to qualify for sucking.

    Somebody told me a famous filmmaker said something like, “If you don’t eventually reach the point where you want to kill yourself you’re doing something wrong.” I must be doing something very right.

    No, I can’t tell you what it’s about — I feel it’s too important to remain anonymous online. Thanks for listening. i’m going to try to sleep now because I have a 250 mile drive ahead of me today. I hate cars and want to stab them. But not as much as I hate autotune and want to stab that until it’s very very dead and then stab it some more.

  9. 9.

    Chyron HR

    @low-tech cyclist:

    Oh, dude, you don’t need to try THAT hard. The average donation amount is $54, which is TWICE the sacred donation amount ($27) as decreed by our lord and savior. Clearly ALL the DNC’s donations are tainted, and our only recourse is to make sure 2018 is a shutout… for the corrupt corporatist neoliberal shitlib shills!

  10. 10.

    raven

    @OzarkHillbilly: Yea, the concert was awesome but, after dropping 4 or 5 times I learned psychedelics were not my cup of tea and I flushed about 30 hits after a particularly “strange” trip (which I can remember nearly everything after all these years}!

  13. 13.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @raven: During high school I had dabbled a bit here and there but probably the acid I played with was… a little wanting. Then one day in the smoking area at HS (you young ‘uns, we really did have those during the 70s) somebody passed me a dipper and it made me sick as a dog. I just wanted to die. Not only did I swear off acid, I never smoked any dope again either.

  15. 15.

    raven

    @OzarkHillbilly: I’ve already written about dropping the first time in Seattle when I was stationed at Fr Lewis in the summer of 68. It was the night Bobby was killed in LA.

  26. 26.

    rikyrah

    Peanut found The Brady Bunch on Hulu?
    When I was young…the Brady Bunch house was IT. Now you realize that they had SIX kids in a three bedroom house ?

  27. 27.

    polyorchnid octopunch

    @rikyrah: Yep. We musicians get this too, and of course it’s unmitigated bullshit. My favourite musician joke:

    What’s the difference between a musician and an extra large pizza?

    You can feed a family of four with an extra large pizza.

  33. 33.

    different-church-lady

    @rikyrah: I don’t like to piss on other people’s joys, but when I read a sentence like, “…her face is powerful because it allows an entire generation to relive the most sublime moments of fashion history through a contemporary lens that is freer and more experimental,” I can’t help but think we’re really just in a very heightened version of locked in a steel box for a year with 500 pictures of Joe Biden eating a sandwich territory.

  36. 36.

    ThresherK

    My wife is visiting friends who live on Cape Cod.

    Her longtime friend, who has lived on The Cape off and on for some 20 years, didn’t want to go to the beach because the water wasn’t going to be 80F.

    My wife is, rightly, a bit miffed.

    (And remember, my wife doesn’t like fish or seafood. The Cape for her means getting in the water, for fun and also it feels great on her psoriasis.)

  40. 40.

    Raven

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Sept 69 was the start of our pullout and they were not ready for the numbers of guys rotating. They came close to having a mutiny on their hands. . .it wasn’t the hippies who spit on us.

  42. 42.

    geg6

    RBG is on CNN tonight. They must have bought the rights and I must say I’m a little surprised they did, regardless that it had very successful theater run. Anyway, must see tv for Jackals.

  43. 43.

    Jeffro

    Meanwhile, in today’s Post I see that John Kerry is thinking about running for prez in 2020…”not ruling it out”…John, in that case, let me rule it out for you.

    A grateful nation thanks you for your service as a Senator and SOS, and we wish you well. Thank you for endorsing the eventual nominee!

  44. 44.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Ken: Most architects son’t make much money, and if you’d seen some of the shit that comes off their drafting tables that I have, you’d know why.

  45. 45.

    satby

    @Raven:

    it wasn’t the hippies who spit on us.

    The zombie lie that never dies.
    Knowing what we know now about Russian meddling in other countries internal affairs, it kind of makes you wonder how long before Facebook it went on. Only 1/2 snarking.

  46. 46.

    Baud

    Here’s the lede on a Think Progress story.

    Keeping the 44-year-old Navajo Generating Station operating for as long as possible has turned into a bipartisan affair.

    The story doesn’t name a single Dem office holder who supports this. Rather, some Clinton supporting billionaire Democrat supports keeping the plant open. If Fox News had used “bipartisan” in this matter, we would call them liars.

    This concludes today’s lesson about who not to trust.

    https://thinkprogress.org/billionaire-clinton-donor-joins-trump-administration-in-bid-to-save-navajo-coal-plant/

  47. 47.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Give yourself to the Dark Side, Luke.”

    Scientists are about to launch an ambitious search for a “dark force” of nature which, if found, would open the door to a realm of the universe that lies hidden from view.

    The hunt will seek evidence for a new fundamental force that forms a bridge between the ordinary matter of the world around us and the invisible “dark sector” that is said to make up the vast majority of the cosmos.

    The chances of success may be slim, but should such a force be found it would rank among the most dramatic discoveries in the history of physics. The best theory of reality that physicists have explains only 4% of the observable universe. The rest is a mystery made up of dark matter, the strange material that lurks around galaxies, and the even more baffling dark energy, a substance called upon to explain the ever-accelerating expansion of the universe.

    “At the moment, we don’t know what more than 90% of the universe is made of,” said Mauro Raggi, a researcher at the Sapienza University of Rome. “If we find this force it will completely change the paradigm we have now. It would open up a new world and help us to understand the particles and forces that compose the dark sector.”

    It would be truly exciting if they actually found something that filled in some of the holes in the standard model.

  49. 49.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @OzarkHillbilly: Oooopps, meant to add this on at the end:

    Physicists have little idea how complex the dark sector might be. There may be no new forces to discover. Dark matter itself may be shaped by gravity alone and made up of only one type of particle. But it may be a far richer realm, where new kinds of invisible particles and forces wait to be found.

    According to McKinnon, the very fact that modern theories leave room for exotic particles like dark photons means that physicists feel compelled to search for them. “It would definitely be a huge thing in physics if some evidence of a dark sector was found,” he said. “Right now, it’s labelled as such because it’s the stuff we don’t understand. If a door can be opened, what will come out? That’s guesswork right now.”

    Since the discovery of the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider near Geneva in 2012, particle physicists have had little to get excited about. But the dearth of new findings from major facilities has boosted efforts at smaller labs to perform long-shot experiments with potentially huge pay-offs. What are the odds that Padme will find a fifth force? “We are shooting in the dark in every sense,” said Raggi. “But if you are shooting, you at least have a chance.”

  53. 53.

    Immanentize

    @raven:
    I know you have thought about retiring next year. How perfect would it be to do so on the 50th anniversary of your safe return? Great concert, by the way….

  54. 54.

    MagdaInBlack

    California’s net neutrality bill, S.B. 822 has received a majority of votes in the Senate and is heading to the governor’s desk. In this fight, ISPs with millions of dollars to spend lost to the voice of the majority of Americans who support net neutrality. This is a victory that can be replicated.

    From “Common Dreams”

  56. 56.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    Since it’s an open thread and we have plenty of STL and MO people here…

    Yesterday I ran in an ultramarathon (anything longer than a marathon distance) held in Fenton City Park (just south of I-44 at the I-270 interchange). It’s a little different in that it’s a timed event: 6 hour and 12 hour brackets. I ran in the 6 hour race because I’m not insane. You see how many miles you can get in the allotted time.

    The course is the paved trail that goes around the park, a 1.4 mile loop. It’s not as stultifying as you might think. Weather conditions were an issue (they always are at this race). Much of the race was run in temps approaching 90 in full sunlight. The first place winner was a woman in her 30s who set a new course record for women in the 6 hour race, she ran 42-43 miles. 2nd place was by a guy in his 30s who ran 38 miles and some change. 3rd place guy got in 37 miles and some change which was also good enough for 1st place in his Seniours (50-59) age group.

    That 3rd place guy was me. ;)

  58. 58.

    OzarkHillbilly

    For today’s Incomplete Reporting file: Microwave weapons suspected in US embassy ailments – report

    – Diplomats and family members stricken in Cuba and China
    – New York Times says scientists agree ‘there’s something there’

    Doctors and scientists increasingly suspect attacks with microwave weapons are the cause of the mysterious ailments that have stricken more than three dozen American diplomats and family members in Cuba and China, the New York Times reported.

    The victims reported hearing intense high-pitched sounds in their hotel rooms or homes, followed by symptoms that included nausea, severe headaches, fatigue, dizziness, sleep problems and hearing loss.

    In a study published in March in the Journal of the American Medical Association, a medical team that examined 21 of those affected in Cuba did not mention microwave weapons.

    But the lead author, Douglas Smith, director of the Center for Brain Injury and Repair at the University of Pennsylvania, told the Times microwave weapons are now considered a main suspect and the team is increasingly sure the diplomats suffered brain injuries.

    “Everybody was relatively skeptical at first,” he was quoted as saying, “and everyone now agrees there’s something there”.

    Gee, wasn’t it originally a “sonic weapon” that was the source of these mysterious maladies? What ever happened to that theory? Oh yeah:

    Claims that US diplomats suffered mysterious brain injuries after being targeted with a secret weapon in Cuba have been challenged by neurologists and other brain specialists.

    A medical report commissioned by the US government, published in March, found that staff at the US embassy in Havana suffered concussion-like brain damage after hearing strange noises in homes and hotels, but doctors from the US, the UK and Germany have contested the conclusions.

    In four separate letters to the Journal of the American Medical Association, which published the original medical study, groups of doctors specialising in neurology, neuropsychiatry and neuropsychology described what they believed were major flaws in the study.

    Among the criticisms, published on Tuesday, are that the University of Pennsylvania team which assessed the diplomats misinterpreted test results, overlooked common disorders that might have made the workers feel sick, or dismissed psychological explanations for their symptoms. Doctors at the University of Pennsylvania defended their report in a formal response in the journal, but the specialists told the Guardian they stood by their criticisms.

    The US withdrew more than half of its Havana diplomats last year and expelled 15 Cubans after 24 embassy staff and family reported a bizarre list of symptoms, ranging from headaches, dizziness and difficulties in sleeping, to problems with concentration, balance, vision and hearing. Many said their symptoms developed after they heard strange noises, described as cicada-like chirps, grinding, or the buffeting caused by an open window in the car.

    The accounts led Washington to claim the diplomats had been victims of “acoustic attacks”, though an FBI investigation found no evidence that sonic weapons were involved. Physicists have voiced doubts that such weapons were even feasible.

    So the evidence for “acoustic attacks” collapsed under their own weight, and now we have “microwave weapons” and the only evidence cited for their existence in the first article is this:

    According to the Times, an American scientist, Allan Frey, discovered in 1960 that the brain can perceive microwaves as sound. The discovery opened a new field of weapons research in the US and the Soviet Union.

    The Russians called the envisioned weapons “psychophysical” or “psychotronic”, according to the Times, which said the US Defense Intelligence Agency warned in 1976 that Soviet research showed potential for “disrupting the behavior patterns of military or diplomatic personnel”.

    A National Security Agency statement obtained by Washington lawyer Mark Zaid on behalf of a client described how a foreign power built a weapon “designed to bathe a target’s living quarters in microwaves, causing numerous physical effects, including a damaged nervous system”, the Times said.

    The US military also researched weapons applications of microwaves, the air force winning a patent on an invention shown to beam comprehensible speech into an adversary’s head, according to the Times. Navy researchers explored the use of the Frey effect to induce sounds powerful enough to cause pain and even immobilisation, the newspaper said.

    It is not known if the US deploys such weapons, the Times said.

    Yeah, right. Where are the peer reviewed articles in scientific journals to back up that sci-fi fantasy? Riiiiiight…..They have Top Men working on it right now. Top. Men.

    In partial defense of the Guardians reporting here, they did supply a link to the 2nd article quoted above in the side bar of the first article, but that’s pretty damned weak.

  60. 60.

    Immanentize

    @OzarkHillbilly: Top MEN.

    I read that and my very first thought was, “What did the illnesses in Cuba have in common with those in China? Americans.” If anyone is testing anything on diplomats, it’s us.

  61. 61.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Immanentize: Now watch, Cheryl Rofer is going to show up with all kinds of links to peer reviewed articles showing the science behind these “weapons” is real and possibly viable.

  62. 62.

    Elizabelle

    Happy Labor Day, jackals.

    Gonna be a hot one in central VA. Already too hot to hang out on the shaded patio, and that says something! Stay cool.

    @Raven: You be safe! Can USAA bring some to you? They have kickass roadside service.

  64. 64.

    low-tech cyclist

    @Chyron HR:

    @low-tech cyclist:

    Oh, dude, you don’t need to try THAT hard. The average donation amount is $54, which is TWICE the sacred donation amount ($27) as decreed by our lord and savior. Clearly ALL the DNC’s donations are tainted, and our only recourse is to make sure 2018 is a shutout… for the corrupt corporatist neoliberal shitlib shills!

    Did you ever get an apparently critical reply to a comment where you have no freakin’ idea what the criticism is, or even whether it’s aimed at you?

    Seems I just did.

    Anyhow, I found the answer to my question in comment #3: 58% of the DNC’s contributions come from the $200-or-less donations. So while I’m sure this is progress, the DNC is still going to be quick to answer the phone calls of the 2% of contributors who are supplying 42% of its budget, and they aren’t likely to be refusing PAC money just yet.

  65. 65.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @OzarkHillbilly: David Hofmann, who has been writing about Soviet weapons research (The Dead Hand, and I think he’s got another one), tweeted out a peer-reviewed article yesterday that said (I think) that microwaves don’t cause this kind of damage. I’m hoping he writes something on this.

  80. 80.

    Ken

    @OzarkHillbilly: IIRC most beam weapons are one of those cases where the science and engineering are viable, but the economics doesn’t make sense (for example). Not compared with the cost of a bullet, anyway.

    Of course the economics might be different if the funding comes from a psywar black budget.

  84. 84.

    Viva BrisVegas

    @Ken:

    If you’ve ever set up a wifi connection you’ll be aware that one of the great weaknesses of microwaves is their very poor penetration of walls, or tinfoil for that matter.

    I’d think that might be a problem with a weapon that is supposed to affect people in their homes and offices.

  86. 86.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Ken: It’s not that they are impossible, because of course their are a few, it’s that in so many cases they are little more than thought experiments with just enough physics to make them possible. The idea that a patent (tho why the air force would apply for one is totally beyond me) is evidence of their existence is laughable. Microwave beams? Yes they are real (or so I recall reading somewhere in the past) but I have never read of them being used for any specific purpose, just in “what can this thing do” experiments. Or so the more distant regions of my mind are telling me. I have read nothing of them in quite some time.

  89. 89.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @OzarkHillbilly: Soviets were famous for using microwaves for passive bugging. “Microwave beams” are just radio, nothing magic about it. An external radio transmitter beamed at the bug causes it to activate.

    Here is a famous example. I have this in mind when I suspect the Oval Office is full of “gifts” from Uncle Vlad.

  90. 90.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @raven: My son had a habit of running out of gas in his truck “because” of a broken gauge. (in quotes because after the first time or 2 it was because he was too lazy/cheap to fix it) Really pissed me off the last time it happened to us because he had a broken ankle and I had to hump the mile to the gas station. I told him if he didn’t fix that damn gauge, the next time I was gonna break his other ankle.

  92. 92.

    germy

    Fox News guest points out that Bruce Ohr was going after the Russian mob and that’s why Trump is targeting him, he gets immediately cut off (and then they changed the topic)

    Bill O’Reilly used to cut his guests’ audio if he didn’t like their answers. Tucker Carlson plays tricks on his guests as well. It isn’t journalism, it’s weird and cruel performance art.

    it was a problem when Grandpa and Dad got hooked on that network. It’s a catastrophe that the current … uh… president… is a fan.

  93. 93.

    tobie

    @Jeffro: I’m late to this party but I have to confess I have a big soft spot in my heart for Kerry. He was the best secretary of state in my lifetime. I didn’t vote for him in the primaries in 2004 but I came to respect him in the course of the campaign. Of all the names circulating for 2020, he is the only one who would be able to repair our reputation abroad quickly. He’s that good on the diplomatic front. Alas, Americans never vote on foreign policy and Kerry’s coolness and competence don’t match today’s populist fervor.

  96. 96.

    tobie

    @low-tech cyclist: Unilateral disarmament doesn’t seem like a good strategy right now. Let’s retake the House and the Senate and in 2020 the White House and then overturn Citizens United.

  97. 97.

    Heidi Mom

    In two weeks, after 4 1/2 years of retirement, I’ll be returning to the workforce as a part-time (20 hours/week) information services assistant at the local library. I was not actively looking for employment, but when this job opening appeared on Facebook I grabbed it. Retirement was beginning to feel a bit aimless, and I wanted to once again be with people who love books. In my previous career I was a staff attorney with the state appellate courts, and one thing you can say about lawyers — at least those who have the time — is that they read. I think maybe my whole life has been leading up to a career as a reference librarian. Wish me luck!

  98. 98.

    germy

    @tobie: There’s an old clip of Kerry on the Dick Cavett show. He’s a young progressive debating a young ratfucker.

    Conservatives must have seen him and said “We need to nip that shit in the bud.”

  99. 99.

    Ken

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:

    I have this in mind when I suspect the Oval Office is full of “gifts” from Uncle Vlad.

    Why bother, when the occupant uses an unsecured phone with an old OS with known exploits? Though I guess it’s only polite to leave a little something, when your technical crew is invited into the Oval Office for a couple of hours.

  100. 100.

    Kristine

    @satby: I think I was still living in Ohio when she first hit the magazines. And I was born in western NY, which isn’t quite the Midwest but maybe falls under the Midwest Nice header. Anyway, I also liked her because she was a brunette and many of the top top models at the time–Cheryl Tiegs, Christy Brinkley–were blondes.

    I used to enjoy the fashion magazines. They were my version of urban fantasy.

  103. 103.

    Elizabelle

    @tobie: Exactly. Eyes on the prize. Nancy Pelosi knows this, and that’s why the conservatives are ganging up with the bros and non-courageous in our party to try to turn her out.

  104. 104.

    tobie

    @germy: I’ll look on YouTube for the Dick Cavett clip. The fact that Kerry served in Viet Nam and then came back and protested the war was an unforgivable sin for the GOP. The idea that someone could be a liberal and a patriot was, and still is, a mortal threat to the GOP. That’s why they had to ‘swiftboat’ him.

  107. 107.

    Another Scott

    @Ken: Even if the weapons exist, and even if they can cause the reported symptoms, why would the host country use them against US diplomats? It doesn’t make any sense. Weapons like that aren’t selective.

    If they want to, say, discourage spying by “diplomats” in the embassies, there are much better ways of doing so. Ways that are direct and clear – “stop doing that or we will kick you out of the country” type things. Beating up on the actual diplomats is counter-productive.

    It just sounds like fear-mongering by people in the US who want to beat up on Cuba and China because reasons.

    But I have no inside knowledge…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  109. 109.

    MomSense

    @Ken:

    That was the way we did it back then. I shared a room with my sister. We had one bathroom for five people – only had a claw foot tub. We had an old pot from the kitchen we used to rinse our hair.

    My friend next door was one of four kids and their family of six shared one bathroom. The kids shared bedrooms.

    I actually think this was a better to live.

  110. 110.

    Kay

    “Funded by the people” is fine and they didn’t just pull it out of thin air- there’s public concern about corruption and they hope to use that to their advantage in 2018 and 2020.

    What I would like the national party to look at is not just where the money comes from but where the money goes. That’s part of being accountable to your donors and big donors get that- they get information on where their money goes and they get input into whether it’s being spent wisely. Because it isn’t just about “more money” or “enough money” to “match” GOP spending- that’s an idiot arms race and there’s no end to it. We spend more money on campaigns every year. They then spend more than that, and the lunacy continues.

    I want to really look at it- not just assume campaigns cost “as much as you can raise” but look at what successful campaigns who are good with money DO cost and make that the baseline.

    We’ll get rid of a lot of the grifters and dopes on the D campaign side if we stop paying them.

    I’d like to really look at media expenditures too. I’ll just give you one example to show what I’m talking about. In 2004 John Kerry ran A LOT of radio ads on a popular radio station here- it’s a morning program and it’s two asshole loudmouth hosts (it is popular- I have no idea why). So what they would do is talk over the Kerry ad and jeer at Kerry. Why we were running Dem ads on that station? It’s a complete waste of money.

    Bernie Sanders raised small dollars- truckloads- but then he used those small dollars in exactly the same ways everyone else does. Back to back tv ads in Toledo. There’s nothing creative or new about that.

    We can do this better and for the same money. Our campaign operations need a revamp. We need some boring person to look at every expenditure and justify its value before we just blindly pour money into it cycle after cycle. The whole thing should be reexamined but not just from the raising side, but from the spending side too.

  112. 112.

    Kay

    With what Democrats raise they should be able to hire A LOT of organizers. It’s just nonsense that they have to rely on unpaid interns or volunteers to run whole states and regions. They raise enough to put an organizer in every neighborhood in Milwaukee for some extended period – 9 months, 6 months, 3 months because organizers don’t get paid a lot.

    Here’s some the spending on an Ohio special House race:

    The National Republican Congressional Committee increased its spending on television ads by $250,000 on Monday, according to committee sources, reserving ad space for the final two weeks of the campaign. The committee has thus far spent close to $600,000 on the race, according to FEC reports.
    The NRCC move comes days after the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee dropped $238,000 for 10 days of ads through July 30. The expectation is that the DCCC will buy more airtime to run pro-O’Connor spots through the August 7 election.
    The most constant spending in the race has come from the Congressional Leadership Fund, the super PAC backed by House Speaker Paul Ryan, which has spent close to $2 million on ads slamming O’Connor.

    What else could you do with 2 million dollars other than spend it on tv ads?

    There are people benefiting from this who want it to stay the same- an idiotic arms race. We don’t want those people. If we stop paying them they’ll go away and we’ll get different people with other ideas.

  117. 117.

    Kay

    So Democrats are doing a “coordinated campaign” in OH this cycle. That means they take the whole ticket, federal and state, and “coordinate” the campaigns (to a greater or lesser extent) so if you’re campaigning for Sherrod Brown or Cordray you’re also helping supreme court candidate or state leg candidate. What this means in practice, employee-wise, is you get a regional organizer and a local organizer. Those are hard jobs! They have long hours and they’re not at all glamorous and often (frankly) horrible- the local organizer here has to operate in a 70% Trump county. We had a great one but she quit because they don’t pay her enough.

    We’re the Democrats. We can pay lower level people for the work they do. If we can’t we are allocating donor funds poorly. We shouldn’t be operating like Amazon. We shouldn’t have an over-paid executive layer and then a starved bottom layer. Do we believe this stuff or not? If we do the least we could do is model it in our national organizations and our campaigns.

    The Tad Devine problem will take care of itself if we cut off the funding for it. The model is outdated and broken and it doesn’t align with our stated values. Let’s change it.

  119. 119.

    Elizabelle

    @Kay: Agree whole-heartedly with your suggestions about funding Democratic campaigns from the bottom up.

    And you’re right about cutting off the dole to the “professionals.” Let them get their asses over to some other kind of paid work.

    You need to pay those who would almost do the work passionately for free, but cannot afford to do so, and should be compensated.

  120. 120.

    Lapassionara

    @Kay: has anyone studied the effectiveness of TV advertising in political campaigns recently? I suspect it doesn’t give the same bang for the buck that it used to give, but don’t know any facts to back that up.

  121. 121.

    Immanentize

    Just a comment — I saw Trump attacked AFL-CIO President Trumka today 0n Labor Day! I hope Cleek is around to pick up the white courtesy phone….

    ANYHOO — I looked up something Trumka mentioned — average gas prices are up 70 cents/gallon (about 33%) since Trump took office. How come no one is talking about this? A 30% gas hike and there goes the whole of the tax benefit workers got.

  122. 122.

    Another Scott

    @Kay: National media makes their money by selling ads. Of course they are going to hype the hell out of stories about political organizations spending money on ads.

    It’s things like this that make me go “ho hum” about stories on the Koch Brothers’ organizations saying they’re spending eleventy bazillion dollars on some political races. They get free advertizing on the media platforms about the stories, the media outfits turn it into a money race (“Hey, you Democrats, you better up your game and spend more money with us or you’ll be left behind!!11”), and it fluffs the political operatives that run these outfits and who “bundle” donations.

    It’s incestuous and hasn’t really made that much of a difference in decades. Remember how Phil Gramm was going to run away with the GOP nomination in 1996? – warning – FTFNYT link.

    I agree that spending the money on motivated grunt-workers and “organizers” is probably a better way to spend the donations. But I don’t think it’s a big deal myself. As long as our side has “enough”, anything extra helps for the next time.

    My $0.02.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  123. 123.

    Ken

    @Another Scott: I don’t think the weapons exist, and I certainly don’t think our diplomats are being targeted by (non-existent) weapons. I was saying the science works, for a sufficiently broad definition of “works”. Though not as broad as in Tipler’s “Rotating Cylinders and the Possibility of Global Causality Violation”.

  126. 126.

    Another Scott

    @Another Scott: Thrown in the dungeon for that?? Really??!!?!

    (sigh)

    If anyone with the keys is still listening, freeing my comment would be appreciated. Thanks.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  127. 127.

    Kay

    As far as organizers- those people- campaigns are not permanent jobs so you couldn’t approach them like ordinary hiring but you don’t have to approach them the same way it’s been approached since Nixon either.

    You could operate within a community. Instead of trucking underpaid young people IN you would hire local. Hire people who live there for the equivalent of a temp job – the campaign ends and the organizers remain within the community where they live. Over the course of several cycles you would have a list of people you had hired in X Milwaukee neighborhood or X county and you could return to them and hire them again or even promote them for work in the same area. It would be really fluid- a lot of turnover- because obviously they’re not just twiddling their thumbs until campaigns come around again but you would have this enormous specific bank of people to draw on, and those people would learn things about running campaigns in their area.

    People romanticize “machines”. My grandmother was part of a labor union campaigning “machine” but they paid her. They had to. She didn’t work for free. She was the lowest rung, a door-knocker- and she had a full-time job but in her spare time she was a PAID organizer for an alliance between a labor union and various Democratic campaigns.

    Now instead of using her we would hire a recent college graduate from out of area or out of state. How does that make sense? Of course we don’t have a constant presence in these places. We never built one.

    Take half of the 2 million we pour into tv ads in a special House race and pay people like my grandmother to talk to people she already knows. Pay her X amount for 3 months. See if that adds more value than a tv ad.

  129. 129.

    Another Scott

    @Kay: Trying again – I think the “i” word threw me in the dungeon…

    National media makes their money by selling ads. Of course they are going to hype the hell out of stories about political organizations spending money on ads.

    It’s things like this that make me go “ho hum” about stories on the Koch Brothers’ organizations saying they’re spending eleventy bazillion dollars on some political races. They get free advertizing on the media platforms about the stories, the media outfits turn it into a money race (“Hey, you Democrats, you better up your game and spend more money with us or you’ll be left behind!!11”), and it fluffs the political operatives that run these outfits and who “bundle” donations.

    It’s **incestuous** and hasn’t really made that much of a difference in decades. Remember how Phil Gramm was going to run away with the GOP nomination in 1996? – warning – FTFNYT link.

    I agree that spending the money on motivated grunt-workers and “organizers” is probably a better way to spend the donations. But I don’t think it’s a big deal myself. As long as our side has “enough”, anything extra helps for the next time.

    My $0.02.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  133. 133.

    Kay

    @Elizabelle:

    We have this tiny group of younger people who have been coming to county meetings (sporadically, admittedly). They are there because Adam Papin, a young person, is running for the state legislature and he is also on the county committee- he’s the secretary. They are the people helping him with his (smart but CHEAP) campaign. Some of them he knows from high school or from his work. They’re clever! THEY should be the local hires for the Ohio Democratic Party coordinated campaign. They will know every inch of his district by the time this is over. We don’t even have their names listed anywhere and we should be considering them an invaluable resource. The next time we find a Democrat to run we’ll start from scratch. Again. And the organizer will come in from Pennsylvania or Kansas and I’ll introduce her to the locals. Again. It’s ridiculous. We could do this much better.

  135. 135.

    PJ

    @rikyrah: People hate the idea that people who work in sports or entertainment should get paid for their work (“but it’s fun!”), and resent it when they are paid well, which usually only happens when those performers are very popular/successful in measurable terms, and usually whoever hired them is making a lot more money off of that work (“the owner’s a businessman, so he deserves it, but these players are just playing a game!”) It’s the same argument they make about teachers – they should do it for free because they must love doing it.

  137. 137.

    Another Scott

    @Kay: You’re on the ground and know this stuff much better than I do, but isn’t “trucking in people from outside” simply the logical outcome of organizers asking people they know to do a job? I know that OFA and other outfits run “classes” for organizers, etc. Would it make sense for OFA and other groups to have less intensive classes/training for local people who want to help, but don’t have the time for a full-on commitment for months on end? And couldn’t that list of people be passed around and used in a database to have local troops doing work when they can?

    IOW, aren’t they bringing in outside people because there haven’t been enough local people that they can call on?

    How do we get enough acorns to grow so that candidates don’t depend on trucking in outside people?

    I dunno…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  139. 139.

    Kay

    @Another Scott:

    But no one knows what “enough” is. The recall election in Wisconsin. There was much grumbling that Democrats didn’t spend “enough” but THAT race 1. was a bad race, a long shot and 2. was targeting a relatively small group of people- the percent of one half of the voters in Wisconsin who would come out and recall. Wisconsin had 6 million people so 3 million vote and then half that again and keep dividing because we’re talking about persuadable people in a recall election. The answer to that can’t be “what Republicans spend” because that’s just dumb. This is WHY arms races are bad. If arms races were sensible and logical no one would object to them. But they aren’t. They’re dumb and endless and the best case is half the people wind up dead. I want to think about this differently and the place to do that is not raising but spending.

  142. 142.

    J R in WV

    @raven:

    what year did you go to the Newport Folk Festival? I was there the summer of 1968, concentration on blues, though there were std folk people too. Janis was a headliner, BB King, the stage I remember the best was for really aged guys from deep in the Delta country, playing hand made instruments, drums and whistles mostly, and doing a slow march/dance across the little stage under a fairly big tent. Was Saturday afternoon. Made a huge impression on me.

    I was familiar with Appalachian folk music, grew up around it, home made banjos and really old fiddles, and to see and hear music with such similar fundamentals but such different tonal scales and all was eye opening. Now I love music from all over the world, esp if it has that beat. Or some other beat.

  143. 143.

    Bill Arnold

    @Cheryl Rofer:
    Somebody has been badgering me a while to work out a viable hypothesis for the Cuba symptoms using open source research literature including .mil links, then a couple of days ago a friend (New Mexico, near Taos perhaps :-) ) said that a friend can detect whether her cell phone was turned on, and gets headaches if it is. (Note: I don’t think microwave effects are a match for the Cuba symptoms, but not entirely sure.)
    Plenty of weird stuff, starting with the Frey Effect, and lots of “interesting” science, the “The Hum”, and the like. This comment section doesn’t like too many links so here’s a few. You probably know of these (I read your comment as a possibility that you do), but for others:
    as Influenced by Low Power Modulated EF Energy (AH Frey, 1971) (for the citations; his original paper can be had via researchgate)
    Auditory Response to Pulsed Radiofrequency Energy (2003)

    Perhaps related (: :-) )
    The Hum: An anomalous sound heard around the world
    The real rabbit hole is tying it in with tinnitus. (I’ve climbed out of the rabbit hole for now. Other things to do today.)

  145. 145.

    laura

    @raven: any time I see a reference to rhe Fillmore the first notion that comes to mind is did you have an apple?
    Glory be, what a beautiful venue!
    The last concert there for me was X maybe with rhe Blasters opening. Yes, I had an apple.

  147. 147.

    Steeplejack

    @Baud:

    You only discuss certain things in quiet rooms when the president is Republican.

    This is the way most people would write it, but it has the undertone of “all you do in there is discuss certain things.”

    On the other hand,

    You discuss certain things only in quiet rooms when the president is Republican

    gets across the idea you want more precisely.

  148. 148.

    low-tech cyclist

    @satby:

    @low-tech cyclist: not all PACs are evil. As long as they’re legal under our laws it’s insane to handicap our election fights by refusing PAC money. This isn’t Happy Gumdrop Fairy-Tale Land (via fellow jackal aimai).

    Yeah, I know all this, so if I run into a BernieBro, I’ll be sure to pass this along. Meanwhile, you and Chyron are reading a lot of shit into what I say that’s not there.

    It’s shit like this that I really HATE about this place. Y’all are fighting your various internal wars, and when you see something that even hints at someone being on The Other Side in your fucking war, you jump on them.

    This place has GREAT front-pagers, but a whole bunch of you regular commenters really suck.

  150. 150.

    low-tech cyclist

    Look, the DNC tweeted this graphic, which leads off by saying 98% of DNC donations are $200 or under. A less careful reader might have read that as “98% of our money comes from these $200 or smaller donations.” Especially because at the bottom, it says “The New DNC: A Party Funded by the People.”

    Well, not exactly. It’s 58% funded by the people, and the other 42% maybe or maybe not. It’s hard to take that as being anything but deliberately misleading.

    When I first asked my question, I hadn’t yet found the 58/42 breakdown at the link, but I wasn’t expecting a 98/2 split in the actual money. But though the DNC is better than any Republican organization, any day of the week and twice on Sundays, a significant reliance on money from corporate interests makes it harder for the Democratic Party to take the right stands. We know that. Like you say, this isn’t Happy Gumdrop Fairy-Tale Land.

    So there comes a point when, if small donors really are driving the bulk of DNC giving, it would make a lot of sense for the Dems to cut loose of PACs entirely. If the split was 98% of their money coming from small donors, there’d be no reason for them to do otherwise. Hell, even if it was 85% instead of 98%, giving up that last 15% would be worth it to be genuinely independent of interests besides their voters. But if it’s 58%, they’re nowhere close to being able to give up PAC money. They need that other 42% to fight the good fight, even if it’s a somewhat compromised fight.

    Now nothing in my earlier posts in this thread implied anything different from this. You guys were just being assholes, jumping on someone just because you thought he might have the taint of Bernie and purity and all that. Well, fuck you, satby and chyron. Preferably with rusty farm implements.

    But one more thing before I shaddup: I realize it’s inevitable that our side must make compromises. But I have a real problem when the people on my side lie to me. In this case, maybe the DNC wasn’t outright lying, but they were misleading to an extent where the difference hardly makes any never mind. I can deal with them taking PAC money if they must, but if they must, let them say so and not try to give a false impression that practically all their funding comes from people like you and me when that’s not true.

  151. 151.

    James E Powell

    @tobie:

    I’ll look on YouTube for the Dick Cavett clip. The fact that Kerry served in Viet Nam and then came back and protested the war was an unforgivable sin for the GOP.

    A disturbingly large number of people who are not necessarily committed Republican voters have the same belief. Maybe not overt and out loud, but in their gut, which is where their voting decisions are made. The American Dolchstoßlegende morphed into the near worship of Our Brave Troops! and now everyone must support every war every time or they are considered disloyal cowards who are objectively pro-terrorist. Just another one of those features of our very fucked up political culture.

  152. 152.

    Mr. Mack

    @low-tech cyclist: I’m considering what you have to say about donor money…but I’m not prone to quick decisions about important policy matters of the Party, so I’ll think on it.

    Your right about the purity posse tho. It exists at every level of the beloved Left. It didn’t used to. But I have learned one thing about blog cliques….very very hard to break into. It isn’t the fault of the people already accepted and entrenched. Years ago, I was one of the first on the DNC’s new blog called Kickin Ass. We were definitely a family, had regular meet-ups, raised money from time to time and we had one big blow-out and all of us met in Nashville for a MoveOn fundraiser. I remember seeing new people log on and have a hell of a time trying to break in as a regular. I have been a steady lurker here for well over a decade, and I find so many of the people well read, or funny, or both. Some seem very well informed, others are contagiously enthusiastic. There’s plenty of reason to stay. But, yes…sadly, if you are in the clique, you can say certain things with immunity. If not, there will likely be hell to pay. I remember commenting here before the election with my very real concern of a Trump victory and was of course labeled a troll of the concern variety.

    Anyway, it helps to remember you won’t click with everyone, but it seems to be a fairly diverse group here. Best of luck.

  154. 154.

    James E Powell

    @Kay:

    Instead of trucking underpaid young people IN you would hire local.

    This is what killed the Dean campaign in Iowa.

    Hire people who live there for the equivalent of a temp job – the campaign ends and the organizers remain within the community where they live.

    And experience shows that working together creates relationships that last so that after the campaign & paychecks end, the people stay in touch, keep abreast of issues and people that will matter for the next cycle. Constituent service often matters much more than issues and the locals know the names, dates, and places.

    Co-sign, endorse, and enthusiastically agree with every word of your comment.

  155. 155.

    Heidi Mom

    @rikyrah: This is indeed a jaw-dropping story! Everyone involved did what they thought was best, and in the end love, on all sides, conquered all.

  157. 157.

    Kay

    @Another Scott:

    IOW, aren’t they bringing in outside people because there haven’t been enough local people that they can call on?

    No. That is not why they are doing it.

    Adam Papin won’t win. He’s great and I donated to him and I have not yet but I will canvass for him- but he won’t win. It’s a 70% Trump district. But Adam Papin is smart and he will know every inch of this district by the time he is through with this race and he lives and works here and they could hire him. They could do that. He has a full time job but he’s campaigning in his spare time anyway, so he’s someone who will work tow jobs for limited periods- he’s doing it for free right now. He loves politics. They could keep him around.

    I could give them 20 names in 24 hours. Some would be retirees, some would be young, some would only want a limited role but they could job-share. They could have 2 part timers instead of one full timer. They could have three. YOU know these people- political junkies who follow this stuff and would love to get paid some reasonable amount to work at it.

    It wouldn’t cost that much and is anyone really going to miss it if we cut out 1/3 of the tv ads? Can we at least TRY something different somewhere and then compare?

  158. 158.

    Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]

    @AThornton: There are reasons why directed energy weapons have had a rocky road in development, but the inverse square law in not one of them. In a vacuum, lenses or mirrors will collimate a beam quite nicely. In the atmosphere it’s more complicated, but that problem has been tackled through the development of adaptive optics. I would say the primary technical hurdles are actually building a laser that can provide the 10 KW- 1MW continuous output without melting itself, and dealing with pushing that much energy through the atmosphere without having the atmosphere break down and turn into plasma.

    Still we do have laser weapons deployed or very late in testing. Turns out that they work well as a defensive weapon, detonating mortars and dumb rockets before they hit their target.

  159. 159.

    Kay

    @Another Scott:

    This is partly ideological for me. Fitting that we’re discussing this on Labor Day and not an accident for me.

    I think the approach to campaigns comes out of our fucked up national approach where we do not value lower level employees and over-value managers and CEO’s. The Democratic Party is the person who knocks on the door to canvass. That’s our face to the world. Invest in THAT person. Get great people and keep them. Value them. The labor union kept my grandmother on the payroll for GOTV because she knew everyone and loved politics. They essentially paid her for her hobby. Not a lot! But she didn’t make a lot in her full time job- “a lot” is relative.

    We’re fucking awash in money. Money isn’t the problem. How we spend it is the problem.

    This is a great problem to have! This is the fun part! Spending it :)

  164. 164.

    sgrAstar

    @Kay: Kay, you have good ideas. You’re a county Dem officer now, right? So why not just execute some your ideas. Getting the names of Papin’s team into a Dem database is a no brainer. In my experience (BO ‘08 FO) you gather names and contact info from attendees at every single meeting. I guess I’m saying that you and your friends don’t have to wait around- you can get the ball rolling where you live. In defense of those carpetbagging college kids, they are the ones who worked 24/7 on behalf of their candidate… because they didn’t have anything better to do. In my counties, the local dems wouldn’t work (call, walk) on certain days, didn’t recruit new members, resisted newfangled ways of doing things. The best strategy is to utilize all of the resources where they’re strongest. Your granny + college kid = irresistible Democratic force for change. Yeah!

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