Florida’s Republican attorney general, Crooked Pam Bondi, fills her copious free time after doing the people’s legal business by moonlighting as a Fox News personality. She’s not the only Florida Republican who does that.
Ron DeSantis, the Republican nominee for governor, has appeared on Fox News more than 120 times since Trump endorsed him, which amounts to nearly $10 million in TV air time value. He doesn’t discuss Florida issues because national viewers don’t give a shit about Florida — DeSantis is a reality TV cast member on the 24/7 Trump Show that is Fox News.
The Trump Show contestant strategy paid off for DeSantis in the GOP primary. Republican voters ate his servile Trump toady act up and kicked establishment drone Adam Putnam back to the citrus grove from whence he emerged.
The question now is, can DeSantis extract himself from Trump’s rectum long enough to convince Floridians who DON’T watch Fox News all day that he could govern this crazy-ass state? The early signs are not promising. From the Tampa Bay Times:
DeSantis, 39, overwhelmingly beat Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam in the Aug. 28 primary, but he’s continued to keep quiet about his agenda as governor. His main message has been that Democratic nominee Andrew Gillum is too liberal for Florida…
His campaign confirmed several days ago would sit down with the Tampa Bay Times to discuss his position on issues facing Florida between campaign stops in Pinellas and Hillsborough Counties Tuesday. The campaign cancelled Tuesday morning, saying they wanted to give him time to flesh out his platform before taking questions.
Emphasis mine because what the actual fuck — the dude needs time to create a platform after he won the primary? That’s a stunning admission all by itself.
Gillum struck just the right note in response to that bush-league fuckery:
TFW you’re still waiting on @realDonaldTrump to give you your general election platform…
Meanwhile, I’ll be over here fighting for higher wages, more money for schools, and affordable healthcare. https://t.co/WulcgnVdrf
— Andrew Gillum (@AndrewGillum) September 12, 2018
Our present national predicament is an obnoxious orange reminder that one needn’t be smart, mature, competent, in touch with constituents, empathetic, knowledgeable nor have a coherent agenda to reach the highest office in the land. So I wouldn’t count DeSantis out.
Still, if I were a DeSantis handler, I’d augment the “Build the Wall,” “NO COLLUSION” and “MAGA” cue cards to include some issues relevant to Floridians who aren’t mainlining the Trump Show all day.
randy khan
I predict he will propose to build a wall along Florida’s border with Mexico.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Spotted in B&N: Hope Never Dies: An Obama/Biden Mystery
From the Amazon description:
Due out in July
Jim, Foolish Literalist
That’s a depth charge in a live debate if it’s delivered right, and Gillum strikes me as someone who would know how to do that. Fingers crossed
@randy khan: that’s where my mind went when I saw that awful ad with his toddler building the wall: Where’s he gonna build it? Dry Tortugas? on the west side of Pensacola?
Parfigliano
I would make a commercial out of that still waiting for instructions from Trump line
satby
@Dorothy A. Winsor: after I get yours I have to get that.
MattF
‘Noun-Verb #MAGA’ works on Fox news. How could it not work elsewhere?
The Moar You Know
I would, just for the hell of it, like to know the dollar value of the media coverage Trump got in the run-up to the 2016 elections. I’m sure it’s well over a billion dollars.
Taken another logical step, I’d like to know the dollar value of all the negative coverage that Secretary Clinton got in the run-up to the 2016 elections.
And then, logical conclusion, I’d like to see the value of said coverage be required to be counted and disclosed as campaign contributions, because it is.
People say that CNN is anti-Trump and I laugh. They put him in office.
cope
I hope to hell DeSantis loses big hugely because having him as governor would makes us yearn for the good old days of governor Voldemort. That would be as bad as looking back fondly on the W presidency…oh wait, never mind.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@satby: I laughed out loud and held the book up to show one of the B&N workers. Then we laughed together.
Betty Cracker
@cope: Exactly.
schrodingers_cat
T’s plank is simple, fear and hate. T’s admin is constructing concentration camps for immigrant children at the border. In case you think I am peddling hyperbole, what else would you call indefinite detention?
Frankensteinbeck
When you are the only one selling a product that people desperately want, you can be bone stupid and still get rich. The product is white supremacy and the Republican Party is selling it.
burnspbesq
If my mom is representative of Florida’s white, Northeastern-retiree population, DeSantis is in a world of hurt.
schrodingers_cat
@Frankensteinbeck: What is your sense, what % of the population wants this product. Does it vary regionally?
Amir Khalid
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Don’t you need real people’s permission to use them as main characters in a novel?
FlipYrWhig
This is what happens when, thanks to Fox and hate radio, every Republican runs on big symbolic national issues without the least fucking clue about or interest in anything close to home — and for a long time now Republican *voters* have been not only OK with that but gung-ho about it. If it starts to dawn on voters that giving Random Schmoe a career in politics is supposed to mean empowering Random Schmoe to Do Things for them that affect their daily lives, Republicans’ proverbial goose is proverbially cooked, because pretty much none of them do that or know how. They all run like it was a student council election: posters and attitude.
Haroldo
Dear Mz Cracker,
I view you and Dr. Silverman as my windows on FL. how, ‘zactly, do DeSantis and Scott differ? To my eyes (and I’ve seen simultaneously too little and too much of him), DeSantis seems a lot more stupid than Scott, but I’ve not had the pleasure of having experienced either of them as public servants.
dmsilev
@burnspbesq: What about the mid-Western retiree population? Aren’t there more and more of those folks in places like The Villages and similar in Florida skewing hard conservative?
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Amir Khalid: I don’t know, but I’d guess the publisher checked.
eric
@Haroldo: Scott is the GOP version of McCaskill: good at retail politics, independent of their actual views. Good political instincts and the willingness to work at it, hard.
msb
@ Dorothy A. Winsor
I’ve read it; it’s fun.
And I read the replies to Gillum’s tweet; he’s getting nagged by what looks like a lot of purity trolls about “affordable health care” …
The Moar You Know
@Amir Khalid: Nope. It’s done all the time. It’s considered good form to insert a passage at the beginning of the book reminding people that said book is a work of fiction, but I don’t even think that’s required.
SFAW
DeSantis is taking a few days to figure out how to counter the rumor that one of his “former lives” involved targeting children for pedophile priests to “get to know better.”
Haven’t heard that rumor yet, have you? Probably a reason for that, since I started it 30 seconds ago. As LBJ would say: “Make him deny it.”
Betty Cracker
@Haroldo: IMO, Scott is an evil but efficient grifter. DeSantis is more of a hard-right ideologue. He’s a Republican, so I’m sure he’s an enthusiastic crook too, but I suspect he’s more of a true believer, whereas Scott just straight-up wants to steal shit. That’s my impression, anyway.
Betty Cracker
@eric: I could not possibly disagree more about the “good at retail politics” thing — Scott is the very worst at emulating human behavior I’ve ever seen, in fact. But I agree he works really hard — he’s good at ferreting out wedge issues, targets constituencies accurately and builds coalitions.
Jeffro
DeSantis is the guy who promoted his Trumpov-luv all over his primary campaign, right? The Trumpiest Trumpster that ever did Trump? It’s hardly surprising he doesn’t even know where he himself stands on the issues (any issue).
Meanwhile, even Republicans who aren’t Trumpov knob-slobbers are having a tough go of it: Trumpov’s Decline Creates a Quandary for Republicans
I know he’s a danger to our democracy and the world…but FSM help me, I almost want the Mango Menace to hang in there for his entire first term, attracting lawsuits and investigations and railing against “traitor” Republicans and really starting off the long-delayed GOP civil war…and STILL barely winning the 2020 GOP nom. I really do.
You talk about a blue wave? Watch what happens when a thoroughly fractured GOP limps into 2020 with this assclown and his by-then 17% approval rating. Instant WATERWORLD, that.
jeffreyw
A fuckbonnet for our time.
eric
@Betty Cracker: i misused the term “retail.” he is an excellent strategic campaigner and knows what needs to be said and done on the ground. He is not a Bill Clinton type of retail.
Kathleen
@burnspbesq: My apolitical daughter loathes DeSantis. I asked her to vote straight Dem ticket.
JPL
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Hilarious. Thank you for the link, because the reviews were laugh out loud funny.
Betty Cracker
@eric: Agree with you there — Scott is great at strategy, which I suppose is how he became a thieving corporate bigwig even though it’s hard to imagine him successfully leading a two-person phone conference.
Haroldo
@eric: @Betty Cracker: @Betty Cracker:
Thanks for these perspectives. I’ve tons of Florida based relatives, most born and bred, some a result of moving into the state. Some of them are ardent, ardent Dems, which is nice. Howevah…..
@dmsilev: I know a number of Northeasterners (principally work related) moving to particularly the Villages and that is none-too-encouraging.
El Caganer
@Haroldo: I’ve only lived in FL a couple years, but Scott seems like a Professor Moriarty type, intelligence in the service of evil.. DeSantis is more like Dim in A Clockwork Orange.
Villago Delenda Est
Ron DeRacist. His name is Ron DeRacist.
Jeffro
I’m still marveling that Fox would have on DeSantis to opine about the Mueller probe…I mean, on the one hand, or should I say their logic, it makes sense: build name recognition for him while repeating the anti-Mueller line.
But on the other hand, by which I mean any OTHER kind of logic, having a gubernatorial candidate on to talk mostly about…not his state’s issues, nor even just his own bio…but a criminal probe of the (same-party) president and his minions…I dunno.
Kay
The GOP will be much dumber and lower quality after Trump. The idea that they would escape unscathed from their leader was a fantasy. They’re worse already and it hasn’t even been two years. Quality is just plummeting. Wait until the next batch of candidates, and the ones after that. Trump’s the CEO of GOP, Inc. He’s the high. They only have to reach the bar that is an inch off the floor. Most of them will be BELOW the Trump mark.
In other news:
This and the Texas Beto race would be the funnest to be a part of. Underdogs! Long shots! Big risk but big reward.
Frankensteinbeck
@schrodingers_cat:
It varies wildly regionally, mainly because my sense is that it’s about 60% of whites and demographic balance varies regionally. In rural, especially Southern rural culture states it’s even higher, because that’s a culture of generalized hate. A lot less of them actually vote, but compared to liberals they have been traditionally highly motivated, simply because they see a war going on that liberals don’t. Although Trump may have woken the liberal side up.
Mandalay
So blabbermouth Bannon gave Bob Woodward a tasty morsel on Christie:
Christie is blubbering on Twitter that Woodward didn’t call him for verification of the quotes, but like all the others who come out the book dripping from head to toe in warm shit, he’s not actually denying any specific quote or incident.
Roger Moore
@Amir Khalid:
Nope. You just include a disclaimer that the characters and situations in the book are fictional, and any similarity to real persons, places, and events is coincidental. Even if the characters share the names of and are obviously based on real people, readers are expected to understand that it’s the work of the author’s imagination rather than an accurate portrayal of the actual people.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
where would a thirty-something Manhattanite have learned old-fashioned anti-semitism? ‘Tis a mystery
Roger Moore
@Betty Cracker:
Recruits third party spoilers behind the scenes…
tokyokie
@Amir Khalid: U.S. law recognizes a right to publicity, both in terms of exploiting a name or likeness commercially and in enabling someone to control his/her life story. The second part is where it gets sticky. Nobody can claim ownership of a factual story, so as long as authors stick to the facts, they’re OK. However, the more the authors deviate from established fact, the greater the likelihood of violating the subject’s right to privacy/publicity. The key case in this area is Spahn v. Messner Inc. 43 Misc. 2d 219 (New York Misc. 1964), in which baseball great Warren Spahn (one of my all-time favorite players) sued over a biography of him written for the juvenile market, claiming that the authors elaborated on his duty during World War II (he was a combat engineer, and his outfit captured the Bridge at Remagen) in such a way that he was made to appear much more heroic than he actually was (even though he received a battlefield commission for his exploits on the the bridge).
So if the authors of a production cooperate with the subject on the story, then they can portray the subject as they please. Otherwise, they need to stick to the facts. (Most states, however, have laws prohibiting perpetrators of crimes from profiting from their actions, so convicts are pretty much fair game.) So Biden and Obama would appear to have a cause of action against the dimwits who came up with this novel.
However, the more famous a person is, the less likely he or she is to bring suit, because it’s simply not worth the effort. And I’m guessing that’s what’s going on here. Sue, and the author gains sympathy and sales; ignore it, and it will disappear quickly.
Jeffro
Btw, off-topic but a great history lesson: A Warning From Europe, by Anne Applebaum
boatboy_srq
He’s a tRumpet. What platform is necessary beyond Deutschland Uber Alles – um, I mean Tomorrow Belongs To Me – no, wait, it’s Build The (Sea)Wall.
Roger Moore
@tokyokie:
Note, though, that what you’re talking about are books that are intended to be factual. There’s a long history of authors including real people as characters in works of fiction, and it’s treated differently. As far as I can tell, as long as it’s obvious the work is fiction, the author can do pretty much as they please.
Kay
The resistance! George W Bush is working hard to keep a majority of useless, weak lemmings in Congress, so Trump can continue to run over them with a tank.
Frankensteinbeck
@Jeffro:
It’s not significantly different from most oligarchies. It’s just a cute modern rephrasing. Putin’s Russia and Imperial China operate roughly the same way, including the massive corruption at lower levels.
PJ
@tokyokie: Right to publicity doesn’t apply to something that is clearly fictional, or to parody. Of course, someone writing something clearly fictional might run afoul of defamation law (say, if the Obama/Biden crime-fighting team were working for the Russians), but this does not look to be the case.
PJ
@PJ: I wish there were an edit button: but defamation hardly ever arises in cases that are clearly fiction b/c, duh, the average person would not think it was being presented as truth.
schrodingers_cat
@Frankensteinbeck: Sounds about right. What is your sense about the purity ponies who see politics as a means of self expression, is that too just another manifestation of the racial divide and privilege.
TenguPhule
@schrodingers_cat:
Worse.
The camps are already there and now Trump plans to TRIPLE them in size.
catclub
@cope:
no actually, the GWBush admin had a far higher body count plus a wrecked economy, so Trump is still far better than that, in terms of things he has actually done.
GWBush got away with being far worse because he was born into the GOP aristocracy.
Would you rather have 1) president is a crook? or 2) president kills 1/2 million Iraqis at a cost of $2Tr an d then wrecks the economy?
I know you are saying: Why not both?, but so far Trump is better.
schrodingers_cat
@Kay: I am so old that I remember all that gushing about W during the McCain funeral and calling McCain’s funeral “resistance”.
TenguPhule
@Mandalay:
Trump himself was stealing from his campaign. Apparently he didn’t like competition.
TenguPhule
@Kay: To be fair, he’s the one person Trump could shoot on 5th avenue that even I’d look the other way on.
TenguPhule
@catclub:
For now.
Roger Moore
@Frankensteinbeck:
The big difference between a modern authoritarian state and a traditional oligarchy is that the modern state provides a lot more scope for social mobility. The goal of a traditional oligarchy is to suppress social mobility to keep the oligarchs in charge. A modern authoritarian state is constantly looking for anyone who’s smart and ambitious enough to cause trouble and co-opting them into the party, where they have a chance to advance to the very top. Yes, in many cases the party functionaries manage to pass on wealth and position to their children, but there’s still way more turnover at the top than there is in a traditional oligarchy.
Ruckus
@Frankensteinbeck:
In Russia, same as it’s always been.
I’ve known a bunch of Russians who have moved to the US over the last 40 yrs and every one of them tells the same story of corruption. It’s how you survive.
rp
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Bob Woodward as the Jewy one??? I’m more confused than offended.
Haroldo
@Frankensteinbeck:
Yerp…..Imperial China immediately sprung to mind. Perhaps it’s the formal ‘illiberal one party state’ that seems to set Lenin apart in the author’s mind.
Calouste
@Frankensteinbeck: Also, Turkey and Italy had functionally become one-party states before Lenin had established full control over what was to become the Soviet Union.
It’s just reflexive communist-bashing by Applebaum.
Kay
@schrodingers_cat:
I stayed away from McCain discussions because I’m so polite :)
Don’t get me started! I compare him to John Kerry because there are so many similarities and I’m sorry but in the Senator/failed presidential candidate/veteran category Kerry is just better. It’s a small category, not a big sample size, but McCain isn’t number one.
It’s merit based, my analysis! Just the facts. Hard, cold FACTS :)
Corner Stone
I wish these Weather Service people would stop orgasming all over themselves over Florence. Calling it “Storm of a lifetime” is a little, uh, premature.
TenguPhule
@Kay:
You apologize to John Kerry right now.
J R in WV
@Amir Khalid:
Pretty sure fiction is defined as “made up stuff guaranteed NOT True!” so, no, you can use anyone in a novel, as long as you make clear that the real-life characters are being used in a totally fictional way. We see real characters in fiction all the time, movies, plays, songs, books, stories.
I do recall that at some point publishers began putting a disclaimer on the copyright pages of their books, defining what fiction is and how characters are used in fiction, because many people apparently don’t know about fiction NOT being REAL ~!!~ and not being advice for living your life.
So not making people be cannibals, not making people worship Satan, not being real Angels of Gawd, just stories. Time travel, nope! Interstellar war, nope! Climate Change–Hell Yeah!!!Right now!!!
What are we gonna do with folks don’t know what Fiction Is trying to vote!!~ and decide how to manage the complex world we live in??????
Mnemosyne
@Roger Moore:
@PJ:
One additional caveat — you can only get away with this with people who are already public figures. You can’t, say, give the serial killer in your book the name and physical appearance of your ex-boyfriend and then claim that it’s all fiction. You can only do this particular kind of fictionalizing with public figures, and even then you have to be a little careful. Portraying Obama or Biden as a serial killer would get you sued for defamation really fast, even in fiction.
tokyokie
@Roger Moore: The Supreme Court in 1988 in Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Falwell 485 U.S. 46 established a caricature, parody, and satire exception in regard to intentional torts (New York Times Co. v. Sullivan 376 U.S. 254 established an actual malice standard for public figures to meet in defamation cases.) if a reasonable person would not assume the offensive writing to be factual. Perhaps that standard could be applied in this case.
I wrote a law-school seminar paper on this subject nearly 40 years ago, and although my instructor agreed with my contention that parody definitionally constitutes actual malice, he didn’t see the need for constitutional protection because he couldn’t imagine what public figure would be sufficiently thin-skinned to prosecute such a case. I guess we both should have figured that Jerry Falwell was just that plaintiff. But I think his main point remains pertinent: If an author is reasonably certain that the subject will not bother suing, then the author can write whatever he/she pleases without fear of legal reprisal.
The Dangerman
Maybe I need more coffee or some asshole put decaf in the supply, but Republicans hate the Fairness Doctrine but get their feelings bigtime hurt when Google or Twitter bans Alex Jones or supposedly suppresses conservative content (they don’t but hey whatever). Can someone explain that to me? Am I missing something or are they just being dicks again?
Mnemosyne
Argh! I typed my email address wrong and now I’m in moderation. ? Can a front-pager please free me?
Kay
@TenguPhule:
He is better. His signature legislation wasn’t gutted by a SCOTUS of his own party. I mean, come on. As a Senator? McCain? Disaster.
Campaign finance reform and immigration. What’s the status on those two issues and which Party ruined them? McCain’s party. It’s tragic, really. Democrats didn’t have to do anything to John McCain. Republicans destroyed him.
Roger Moore
@schrodingers_cat:
My sense is that being a purity pony is a symptom of privilege; they’re people who don’t care about or even believe in bigotry because they’ve never faced it themselves* and they lack the imagination to put themselves in the shoes of somebody of a different race/ethnicity/gender/etc. Some of them are probably racists, but more the kind of casual racist who ignorantly believes racist propaganda than the hard core “let’s start a race war” kind of racist.
*Or, in some cases, they make an exception for the kind of bigotry they’ve faced themselves while ignoring kinds that don’t affect them. This is why you can have women purity ponies who are up in arms about sexism but ignore racism completely.
TenguPhule
@The Dangerman:
Rules for thee, not for me.
Kay
@TenguPhule:
If you had a Democratic senator who said “my signature issue is tax cuts and cutting Social Security” and Democrats- his own party- effectively halted his life’s work you wouldn’t say “what a mavericky hero!” You would say “why doesn’t that guy join the other party where he can advance some of his issues?”
McCain sat in the hearing room when the far Right SCOTUS gutted his life’s work. With Russ Feingold. But Russ Feingold didn’t leave there and rejoin the people who destroyed his work. McCain did.
I don’t know what that is, but is it really something to aspire to?
schrodingers_cat
@Kay: You were wise.
TenguPhule
@Kay: McCain’s zombie corpse isn’t fit to lick John Kerry’s boots.
He ate GW Bush’s shit and smiled and asked for seconds.
TenguPhule
@Kay:
That was never his life’s work. That was part of his cover as a “nice Republican”. When it was no longer useful he cast it aside in favor of his true belief. Tax cuts by the Rich, For the Rich.
Corner Stone
@tokyokie:
How does parody de facto equal malice?
TenguPhule
Now we know how the Secret Service solved their funding problem for Trump’s golf games.
Haroldo
@Corner Stone: With any luck, Florence and the orgasming pseudo …. wait, the NOAA folks are engaging in this sort of thing? Blech!
So where was I? Oh, yeah…With any luck, Florence and the orgasming weather folks will last as long as Rick Pitino in his restaurant tryst http://www.theledger.com/article/LK/20090813/News/608101939/LL/ (hint: that number is about 15 sec). I don’t think we’ll have that kind of luck, tho’.
TenguPhule
Trump administration diverted nearly $10 million from FEMA to ICE detention program, according to DHS document
i don’t even know where to start on this.
Betty Cracker
@Roger Moore: I’ve got a different view of purity ponies, maybe because I used to be one myself. :) People get fixated on things and lose perspective. I’m not trying to minimize the racism, sexism, antisemitism, etc., among the purity pony herd — it definitely exists and is a big problem. But I don’t think those are defining traits.
Kay
@TenguPhule:
Oh, I think it was. That’s why he was so angry all the time. But what is that? How does that prove “mavericky”? It proves the opposite. That he stuck with the Party after they renounced everything he had ever worked on.
I guess it’s “noble” but what’s the cause? He voted for these judges. It’s just incoherent.
Roger Moore
@tokyokie:
My understanding is that for something to be defamation, it has to be false and harm the target’s reputation. But the reputational harm can only happen if the falsehoods are presented in a way that makes the audience likely to believe they’re true. If a work is obviously caricature, satire, or parody, the audience wouldn’t be expected to believe it’s literally true. If it’s obviously fiction, the audience similarly wouldn’t be expected to believe it’s true and there can’t be reputational harm.
TenguPhule
We are so fucked.
tokyokie
@Corner Stone: Parody and satire are knowingly untrue, and such statements, before the exception created in the Falwell case, overcome the absolute malice standard (knowledge that the statement was untrue or reckless disregard of whether it was true or not).
Mandalay
@TenguPhule:
So I guess the period of mourning is now officially over?
Adam L Silverman
@Haroldo: DeSantis, as far as I can tell, does not radiate an “I’m creepy and the skin suit I’m wearing doesn’t fit right and makes me itch” anti-personnel field like Scott does. DeSantis’s problem is what happens when he opens his mouth and all the stupid comes out. I saw a description from an experience Republican Florida political hand from the other day in regard to the two of them. He explained that Scott has pulled away and separated himself from the President, despite them having the closest personal and political relationship between a Republican governor and the President. The GOP big name coming to Florida to campaign and fundraise for Scott this week and next is President George W. Bush, not the President. When the President did his Tampa rally for DeSantis before the primary, Scott stayed away. Far away. And he explained Scott is doing this because he can. Because he has, whether you like it or agree with it or you don’t, a record of his own as Florida governor to run on. DeSantis, however, has to hug the President because that is all he’s got. This campaigning guy didn’t know if either would work for either candidate, but I thought this was an apt description.
Adam L Silverman
@dmsilev: There are. The Villages and similar places are “Trump Country”. They’re also in the midst of huge outbreaks of a variety of STDs.
TenguPhule
@Kay:
He was angry about the personal insults made against him. But the mission of the GOP? He was a true believer.
McCain was able to portray himself to the media as whatever they wanted him to be.
But his actions as a member of Congress told the real story. He was the paper maverick.
trollhattan
Tick
Tock
tokyokie
@Roger Moore: Although your argument is reasonable, before the Falwell decision, it wasn’t necessarily recognized by courts. Before Falwell, the standard was whether or not the offensive statement was true. Now, applying the reasoning of Falwell, the standard is whether a reasonable person would find the statement to be based on fact.
Adam L Silverman
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: From his brother in law.
RedDirtGirl
@Amir Khalid: Silly me. I actually thought Obama and Biden had written it!
Kay
@Mandalay:
It is. I’m in charge of these things :)
I don’t think it’s that hard to get media to adore you. You just have to talk to them. If I were a politician I would do it- it’s a no-brainer and how hard is it? Elizabeth Warren announced last week she was going to start talking to them and I thought “thank God, someone sensible”. Just give them what they want. It’s easier. That’s why they love Trump. He never fucking shuts up. They need raw material to feed the beast.
Adam L Silverman
@Kay: It won’t work. The Republican base loathes him. These candidates have figured out that hugging the President is like hugging an anvil while swimming. Unfortunately that leaves them with few alternatives. So they’ve turned to the last GOP president, who is now, partially because of the current GOP president, loathed by the base.
Roger Moore
@Corner Stone:
How can it not be? “Actual malice” means you’re saying something about the person you know isn’t true. But that’s what parody is; if you aren’t at least grossly exaggerating, it’s not parody.
Kay
@Adam L Silverman:
Rabid Republicans here still love Bush. Democrats missed that. It was love with Bush. They adored him. We didn’t love Kerry like they loved Bush, so they beat us.
Corner Stone
@Roger Moore: What if I am parodying your best qualities? Something positive you are well known for? Exaggerating a sunny positive attitude hardly seems to be damaging, IMO.
Mandalay
@The Moar You Know:
Exactly. FoxNews was only ever preaching to the choir. CNN and MSNBC did far more to elect Trump than Fox ever did because they persuaded the undecided.
It’s interesting to hear Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski airbrushing history these days. Their schtick now is to spend 3 hours a day vilifying Trump, and I’m not going to get in their way. But for months before the election they were both sticking their boots into Hillary Clinton while giving Trump fawning interviews.
Scarborough now repaints all that as being the period when they were the first to recognize the possibility of Trump becoming president. It’s a twofer: they completely ignore all the shilling they did for Trump and their attacks on Clinton, and they portray themselves as sages. But it’s all a lie.
Adam L Silverman
@Mnemosyne: I have yet to see Secretary Clinton sue anyone, let alone threaten to sue anyone, for continually claiming that she’s both directly murdered and ordered the murder of hundreds of people over the past 30 years or so.
pamelabrown53
@Adam L Silverman:
Fellow Floridian here. DeSantis used to be my congressman before the districts were redrawn.(An interesting aside is that the new drawn district cuts us off from St. Augustine where all the dem energy in my district is located. Now we have the northern small beach communities north of St. Augustine and west. Diluting dems efforts to organize and create momentum). Anyway, DeSantis always struck me as a back bencher ideologue with neither the smarts nor charisma to run for a state wide office.
Gillum, ideally should just blow him away.
Adam L Silverman
@The Dangerman: It is a combination of a proactive strategy of working the refs to shape the coverage and embracing their solely delusional belief that the only actual victims of anything in the US are white people, white Christians, conservatives, and Republicans.
Adam L Silverman
@Mnemosyne: I did.
tokyokie
@Corner Stone: But exaggeration of good qualities was at the base of Spahn v. Messner.
TenguPhule
Novelist who wrote about ‘How to Murder Your Husband’ charged with murdering her husband
Sadly, not the Onion.
LAO
OMG:
Wow.
tokyokie
@Adam L Silverman:
Which is why my law-school prof doubted the need for constitutionally protecting parody and satire. Were Clinton to sue these chumps, she’d only bring them more publicity, and they probably don’t have significant assets for recovery of any monetary award. Better to ignore them. Which I’m guessing is Obama and Biden’s approach to the silly detective novel.
Adam L Silverman
@pamelabrown53: Thanks. My impression was that he is a not to bright ideologue. So this makes sense.
TenguPhule
@Adam L Silverman:
She couldn’t afford the billing hours for the number of law firms she’d need.
catclub
@Adam L Silverman: I assume she just has them killed, instead. Quicker than the courts.
Adam L Silverman
@tokyokie: I’m also pretty sure that since a lot of this stuff has been published (laundered?) through print and online publications that claim to be news, that there would be a 1st Amendment issue involved in trying to sue them for defamation.
Though I have been following how things are going in the defamation suits brought by the Sandy Hook parents against Alex Jones.
TenguPhule
@Kay:
Democrats do that all the time. They don’t have the right pedigree demanded by the media.
catclub
@TenguPhule: Who names a child ‘Crampton’?
Adam L Silverman
@catclub: And yet they’re all still alive. Bossie, Klayman, Fitton, Kavanaugh, Ruddy, Pecker, and dozens of others.
zhena gogolia
Hasn’t anyone here read Campbell vs. Acuff-Rose?
Mnemosyne
@Adam L Silverman:
She can’t — she’s a public figure. She would have to prove actual malice.
But private citizens have more protections than public figures do.
Adam L Silverman
@LAO: This is going to get a lot worse for Moonves and CBS before it gets better.
Adam L Silverman
@Mnemosyne: I know, I was being sarcastic.
schrodingers_cat
Some OT fun.
Dhyaanchand from the upcoming Anurag Kashyap* movie, ManMarziyaan.
* Recently of the ,Sacred Games fame.
Typically, Kashyap usually makes dark gritty films that shine a light on the not so shining aspects of contemporary India. This latest movie is a romance. A triangle between a not so good girl, a bad boy and a husband material prototype. I am looking forward to it. Played by Tapsee Pannu, Vicky Kaushal and Abhishek Bachchan. Both Tapsee and Vicky Kaushal have been killing it in recent movies, Mulk and Raazi.
<a href="“>Dhyaanchand
Love the pun on Dhyaan == attention, also Dhyaanchand was a legendary hockey player, he is to hockey what Babe Ruth is to baseball or Don Bradman is to cricket.
Gin & Tonic
@zhena gogolia:
:: raises hand sheepishly ::
Sorry Professor, I’ve been busy.
LAO
@Adam L Silverman: Too true. And I think, thanks for retrieving my comment from purgatory.
Mandalay
@tokyokie:
She probably wouldn’t even win in most cases.
Trump claims to admire the British libel laws (where the author, not the claimant, faces the burden of proof), but nothing would strip him of his fortune faster than having such laws in place here, while he maliciously lies about anyone who raises his hackles.
trollhattan
@zhena gogolia:
No, but if you hum a few bars I can fake it.
schrodingers_cat
@schrodingers_cat: Sorry for the horrible formatting including stray html tags. Edit function, I miss you.
Adam L Silverman
@LAO: You’re welcome.
rikyrah
Now, WHAT IF ANY BLACK CANDIDATE gave this explanation…
I tell you..
the curve for Unqualified White men is REAL.
Corner Stone
@tokyokie: IMO, it looks like those guys just flat out lied about Warren Spahn. However, I have exhausted my interest on this and need cheese.
Roger Moore
@zhena gogolia:
Sure, but that’s about copyright infringement, not defamation. There’s some interesting stuff in there about how parody (and criticism in general, since it classifies parody as a form of criticism) can reduce the value of a work without directly stealing its market, but it’s not obvious to me how that would apply to loss of reputation from a parody.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Tell it, Kay.
Tell that truth!
bemused
@Haroldo:
Ugh, The Villages. Not that I have ever been there but reading about it made me shudder. I’m an oldie but would never want to live there or any similar retirement place. Some friends stayed a weekend with a couple who retired there and my friend said she didn’t care for the “ambiance”, thought it was kind of a weird place.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: Good to see that I was not alone in not joining the McCain funeral == Resistance, chorus. The gushing was getting OTT embarrassing.
origuy
@msb: A lot of the purity trolls responding to Gillum’s tweet are having conniptions because he didn’t say the magic words “Medicare for All”.
Mandalay
Whoa!…..little Marco (somewhat sheepishly) goes rogue:
I guess President Rubio just saw Trump’s poll numbers. It’s pretty weak sauce, and invites the question why it took him so damn long to grow a pair, but it’s better than nothing.
TenguPhule
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/12/hurricane-florence-north-carolina-nuclear-plants-prepare
What could possibly go wrong go wrong?
Martin
Reminder regarding polling:
There are two dependent models to make a poll. The one we see and talk about is the split among the sample, how they are going to vote, who wants D and who wants R. The one we don’t see and don’t talk about is the model for the sample, and that’s a model of who is going to vote. The sample model doesn’t really take shape until later. Everyone has an opinion, but not everyone has a plan, and voter engagement tends to not be measured until closer to the election.
I think what we’re seeing in some of these new poll swings is that sample firming up. It’s not not that more likely voters are rejecting Trump, it’s that more people who oppose Trump are signaling that they’ll vote, and the sample is changing as a result. If this holds, that’s where the rout comes from. It’s not that popular opinion changes, it’s that popular opinion leads to a differential in execution – opposition voters turn up a lot more strongly than supportive voters. And this is why it catches so many people off guard – we assume turnout is, while not consistent, is at least proportional.
If I had to guess now Dems will take the Senate.
Jay
@The Dangerman:
The Fairness Doctrine was a law that basically required that news and opinion be fact based, science based, history based point/ counterpoint.
So, CNN could present a show in which one side was pro-vaccination, and the counterpoint would be “yes, there have been some issues with some vaccines”,
not the “vaccines cause autism” stichk.
You can see how ReThugs would hate it.
The Alex Jones issue is however, Corporations setting up terms of service and algorthyims on how to maximize your feed and searchs, banning content contributors and commentators who violate their terms of service, and understanding through data analysis that haters arn’t profitable, and adjusting their algorythms accordingly.
You can understand why “Free Market” ReThugs would also hate this.
Finding out that in the “Marketplace” their product doesn’t sell.
Mnemosyne
@Adam L Silverman:
That’s what we have sarcasm tags for, young man! ?
bemused
@Mandalay:
They met with Trump a lot before they changed their tune. They saw him up close and personal. They knew what he was all along and put up with the inevitable headaches of dealing with him. It’s fine they are ripping him now but their pretense from earlier is laughable.
TenguPhule
‘They were laughing at us’: immigrants tell of cruelty, illness and filth in US detention
The Lodger
@Dorothy A. Winsor: You had me at “the darkest corners of Delaware.”
louc
@pamelabrown53: speaking of purity ponies, the responses on Twitter to Gillum’s tweet shows the Bernie Bros are still pure as can be. They’re complaining that he’s not calling for Medicare for All instead of affordable health care.
Unless they’re Putin’s henchmen pretending to be Bernie Bros.
Tokyokie
@Adam L Silverman: Clinton (either one), as a public figure, would have to overcome the Sullivan actual malice test to prevail in a defamation action. However, the parents of the Sandy Hook victims are not likely to be considered public figures because they did not seek the news spotlight, and therefore they don’t have to overcome the burden of proving actual malice on Jones’ part.
TenguPhule
California transit agency allows ad from Holocaust denial group
LAO
Things that make me go hummm:
Adam L Silverman
@Martin: And the samples consistently undercount people of color and religious minorities and younger voters. Though younger voters usually don’t vote reliably.
jonas
Gravenstone
@Kay: Don’t forget Bob Dole! //
Actual, sort of serious question; would the inclusion of Dole move McCain to third place or not?
schrodingers_cat
@Gravenstone: Wasn’t McGovern also a vet? WWII, no less.
schrodingers_cat
@TenguPhule: Have you kept track of the number of deaths in the detention facilities?
Adam L Silverman
@TenguPhule: This has been my concern all along. They’ll likely get all the plants shut down safely, but this will place a lot of stress on the grid as those generating facilities will be offline. The hog waste pits are a constant, low level disaster. Florence will elevate them to a large scale one.
Mandalay
@Kay:
I agree in principle, but that approach is not without risk. Here’s what happened to Marco Rubio when Alex Jones gate crashed a hallway interview Rubio was giving to reporters: https://youtu.be/wuC2tdSPMVg
Despite being called a “frat boy” and a “little punk” on camera, and pretending not to recognize Jones, Rubio just about emerged from it unscathed, but Jones is a really annoying person, and things could easily have taken a much uglier turn.
Adam L Silverman
@Jay: There are, actually, no free market Republicans. Just as there are no actual Republicans that believe in liberal democracy, whether in the republican/representative form we have in the US, or any other type. What they want is one party control. Of politics, of the courts/criminal justice and the rule of law, of the economy.
TenguPhule
@schrodingers_cat:
https://www.hrw.org/report/2018/06/20/code-red/fatal-consequences-dangerously-substandard-medical-care-immigration#83b201>Code Red
The Fatal Consequences of Dangerously Substandard Medical Care in Immigration Detention
12 in 2017. 5 so far in 2018.
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodingers_cat: Lots of people in Congress were WWII vets.
TenguPhule
@TenguPhule: Code Red
The Fatal Consequences of Dangerously Substandard Medical Care in Immigration Detention
Amir Khalid
@rp:
You’re surprised that Eric Trump can’t distinguish between Woodward and Bernstein?
schrodingers_cat
@Omnes Omnibus:I was adding to Kay’s sample size of losing Presidential candidates who were senators and veterans.
TenguPhule
@Adam L Silverman: And the coal plants are located next to the water to dump their waste in the ash pits.
I wouldn’t drink any water in SC or NC after this storm.
Gravenstone
@Adam L Silverman:
Does anyone else find it ironic that all of a sudden, Republicans remember that GWB actually exists? After trying to elide him from history, the better to blame the Democrats who preceded and followed his administration. But hey, he’s better than embracing the actual Trump!
Corner Stone
@TenguPhule:
I didn’t click the article so, WTS…pumped down to *where* ?
Adam L Silverman
@LAO: All part of the plan. Q is sending a signal via Reddit’s ban of the sub-reddit.
TenguPhule
@Corner Stone:
They didn’t say. But I’d wager that they dumped it into the local rivers.
Adam L Silverman
@Gravenstone: It isn’t going to help with turnout. The base is all in for the President. The President hates the Bushes. It will help with wealthy donors for fundraising purposes.
germy
@Adam L Silverman: Is Q a left-wing hoax to troll right-wingers, or is that a hoax? I can’t keep up anymore…
TenguPhule
I admit imagining this picture made me laugh.
The Moar You Know
@TenguPhule: That’s complete bullshit. BART can and has done exactly that in the past.
jonas
@jonas: No idea how that second part got blockquoted. Wish there were some kind of editing feature….oh, right.
Gravenstone
@TenguPhule: Just so long as they don’t prosecute anyone and everyone who ends up defacing or destroying those ads…
Adam L Silverman
@Corner Stone: You neither want to nor need to know.
Gravenstone
@schrodingers_cat: True. As noted, the sample size is actually quite small.
Adam L Silverman
@germy: The Elders have not authorized me to make any statements at this time.//
More seriously, I honestly have no idea.
Captain C
@Frankensteinbeck: I often think of both the modern Russian and the Soviet systems as fascistic overlays on the old Czarist system. Maybe not fully accurate, but pretty close.
Gravenstone
@Omnes Omnibus: The failed presidential candidate qualifier is what greatly narrows the pool.
Gravenstone
@Corner Stone: Agricultural fields. That’s where you put manure from those types of lagoons, you spread it on fields as fertilizer. Under normal circumstances.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Martin:
Be still my heart.
Aleta
@TenguPhule:
Hog manure, that’s what could possibly go wrong.
These fcking industrial manure farms also supply antibiotics, hormones and medications to the water supply and the industrial fertilizer supply. All because nature’s way of saying ‘you aren’t treating your animals right’ was overridden by turning care into an industrial practice. Funny how this now threatens human life, in the form of antibiotic resistant bacteria.
(another don’t believe-the-scientists
Corner Stone
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
“Ummm, yeah, operator? I have something I’d like to take back. ‘Kay, thanks.”
Seanly
De Santis is only 39?!?!? I am a 50-year old white male with barely controlled Type 2 diabetes and I look younger than him. Seriously, I thought he was late 40’s at youngest.
It’s like when I would watch old Columbo episodes on Netflix – Columbo would call some recognizable actor a young man. I would look up the actor on IMDb and see he was only 36 or so at the time of filming to which I would wonder how he looked so damn old.
schrodingers_cat
@Seanly: Hate is aging.
trollhattan
@schrodingers_cat:
Correct. Not only did George McGovern serve in WWII, he enlisted as a college student following Pearl Harbor, became a bomber pilot who served in Europe (possibly the US military’s most hazardous occupation) and was awarded the Air Medal with three oak clusters. George McGovern was a stone cold war hero. And Nixon happened anyway.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Corner Stone: Actually my heart needs to not be still. But taking the Senate would be so sweet.
Kelly
@Gravenstone: So the manure is already out of containment. Instead off a flood a mere heavy rain will flush it down the watershed.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Seanly: It stuns me that Cruz is only 2 years older than Beto O’Rourke.
raven
@trollhattan That’s why I laugh like hell when idiots say Bernie would have won. They would have BBQ’s his ass.
Litlebritdifrnt
@TenguPhule: During the flooding after Hurricane Floyd we were all warned not to go into the Flood water as it contained among other things (paint, gasoline, pesticides) massive amounts of hog waste that basically turned it into a toxic soup. It was exacerbated by the high temperatures which followed the Hurricane which meant said toxic soup began cooking. Of course when you are trapped in your house and the only way to get out is to walk through the water you have no choice. In our case my DH carried me out but he hit a raft of fireants that were floating through the water and they swarmed him. The only way he could save me from the inevitable fireant bites (I am allergic to them) was to throw me onto the trunk of the car, and then get the fireants off using the very toxic water he was walking through. This stuff is not funny. My dear next-door neighbor who lives in a timber framed house in Jacksonville, has made the decision to evacuate to her daughter’s house in Wilmington (of all places) but it is brick built and has two floors, which hers does not. I do not blame her. As crazy as it seems she is like many people, she can’t afford to go west or out of state and pay for a hotel and meals for four adults and one child (her, her husband, two adult daughters and one grandson) for an unspecified amount of time. Her only option was to go toward the storm and hope that her daughter’s house will be strong enough to withstand the storm. I can understand people saying that people should “just get out” but it is like everything these days, if you can’t afford to do so, you simply can’t.
Uncle Cosmo
@Gravenstone: @schrodingers_cat: Dole, George McGovern (awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for landing his crippled B-24 on a too-short runway on the Yugoslav island of Vis & saving his entire crew), and FFS, Daniel Inouye (comes out of a detention camp to fight in Italy, loses his right arm & wins the Medal of Honor). Add Kerry & John “Hey-you-kids-get-off-my-lawn!” McCain gets bumped to fifth – & there might be more…
Jay
@Adam L Silverman:
That’s why “Free Markets” is in quotes.
One can do that with 99% of the ReThug platforms.
Mnemosyne
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Seriously? Cruz looks 15 years older, at least. And Beto has had that pale Irish skin baking in the Texas sun his whole life.
Gravenstone
@Kelly: If it wasn’t pumped there directly, per T_P’s comment (sadly, likely to be more accurate).
Aleta
@Aleta: Sorry, my connection is r-ea-l-ly s–l–o–w. I see hogs, water and fields have already been covered.
The animal farm overlords will not come forth with data about what happens, because manure is in the eye of the beholder or something.
Ruckus
@The Dangerman:
What’s this dicks again bit?
I’m positive they never stopped, not for a second. I do believe that they never think they are being big enough dicks and are always striving to be the best dicks ever. They are getting closer to maxmum dick though.
catclub
[email protected]Litlebritdifrnt:
They say that if a storm aims at New Orleans, they will have better free transport for all the people who do not have their own cars. [Important if true!]
Which is a non-negligible number. I wonder what the number is in Wilmington, and if they are doing anything for those people.
Aleta
@Litlebritdifrnt: Hope your spouse and you are OK now.
Uncle Cosmo
@TenguPhule: Um, no, actually “the coal plants are located next to the water” like nearly every other power-generation facility in order to use that water for (1) producing the steam that is sent through turbines to drive dynamos that generate the electricity and (2) cooling the combustion apparatus. (Cooling water returned to the same source can cause environmental problems, particularly if it’s been pretreated with a biocide like chlorine or bromine to prevent fouling of the pipes by algae growth.)
FTR I happen to know something about this stuff because my first real job >40 yrs ago was as a programmer/analyst evaluating phytoplankton levels in the Chesapeake Bay in the thermal plume produced by cooling water from the Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant.
But hey, thanks for playing!
Uncle Cosmo
@The Moar You Know: Wasn’t it BART that either refused to post (or took down after protests) some Christmas-season ads from atheist/agnostic groups that were inoffensive except to hardcore godbotheres?
Luthe
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I find the whole “Obama/Biden” description a little unsettling, as I am from the corner of fandom where “/” has a very different meaning than the one intended by the author of this masterpiece.
Mnemosyne
@Luthe:
You know there’s Obama/Biden slashfiction out there in the darker corners of the Internet. It’s inevitable.
Steeplejack
@Aleta:
They are back in Britain now, so they should be safe from this hurricane, at least!
TenguPhule
And of course because he’s a fucking crook.
TenguPhule
@TenguPhule: I miss edit here. I really do.
schrodingers_cat
@Uncle Cosmo: He was not mentioned because he was not a failed Presidential [email protected]trollhattan: So all the love for the vets that Rs profess is lip-service, a stick to beat Ds with.
SFAW
@louc:
I feel quite certain that, any day now, Bernie will make some well-publicized speech/announcement, wherein he tells his Floridian fellaters “Don’t fuck this up! Vote for Gillum, he’s a gazillion times better than DeSantis. His healthcare support is just fine! DON’T FUCK THIS UP!!”
I swear, I crack myself up sometimes.
randy khan
@Mnemosyne:
Rule 34
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Luthe: Yeah. I used to write Tolkien fanfic.
SFAW
@TenguPhule:
Judge Kavanaugh can empathize with former-Secretary Pruitt.
schrodingers_cat
@Dorothy A. Winsor: You must really like Tolkien.
MattF
Somewhat amusing, via WaPo. A group of DC residents complained to the DC Liquor Board that Donald Trump was not of good character, so the liquor licence of his big hotel should be taken away. The Liquor Board declined to rule, on a technicality, but the story apparently isn’t over yet.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Aleta: @Steeplejack: Yes I am back in the UK and watching this storm come in vicariously is almost as scary watching it first hand. I know what my friends are going through, my DH knows what his students and colleagues are going through. It is still very scary.
The Moar You Know
@Uncle Cosmo: Yep. More than once. And ads that went after their police force after they shot a few too many people a few years back.
(Don’t ever fuck around with BART cops, they are trigger happy and the most insane and violent cops I have ever encountered in my life)
They exercise plenty of control over their ads and I’m wondering why they are very specifically giving this one a pass.
Ruckus
@Gravenstone:
You don’t have to go with the moron you have, you can go with the one you had.
Really the republicans want a figurehead, a glorified autopen, not an actual leader or even someone like GWB.
Roger Moore
@schrodingers_cat:
Al Gore was also a former senator and a veteran when he
lostwas robbed in the 2000 election. Also, too, Barry Goldwater was a senator, veteran, and losing presidential candidate.Gin & Tonic
In other news, Pyotr Verzilov, spokesman for the women’s punk and protest group from Russia whose name triggers FYWP filters (and husband of member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova) has fallen critically ill from suspected poisoning.
schrodingers_cat
@Roger Moore: Then we have to add Nixon to that list too.
Steeplejack
@TenguPhule:
Thanks for providing sources. It really helps.
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne:
Rule 34 will not be denied.
AThornton
It’s been a very busy year in the Pacific and now the Atlantic and Gulf is hotting up.
Steeplejack
@Roger Moore:
For the love of God, do not Google “Mayhew silver spread.”
TenguPhule
@schrodingers_cat:
I would have thought this was obvious. Republicans love Tax cuts and only tax cuts.
TenguPhule
@Steeplejack: I really miss the edit button. Sometimes the link button doesn’t work right the first time.
Timurid
@Gin & Tonic:
Feline Civil Unrest? They rock!
Raoul
@Gin & Tonic: Ugh, yes I was just seeing about, umm, Cat Riot‘s suspected poisoning. Putin’s gang are ruthless in the extreme.
Roger Moore
@TenguPhule:
Totally unfair. Republicans also love killing black and brown people.
Luthe
@Mnemosyne: Dark corners? Ha! I am 99.9% certain there’s an AO3 tag for it. I know there were stories posted to the PoliSlash community on LiveJournal back in the day.
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Of what sort? The kind with literary merit or the Rule 34 kind? Or a combination of the two?
The Moar You Know
@Roger Moore: I’d go further. If you made them pick between tax cuts and shooting dark folks, they’ll pick shooting dark folks every time.
TenguPhule
@Roger Moore:
That’s more of a platonic relationship that doesn’t personally enrich them.
TenguPhule
@The Moar You Know:
But they tell me some of their best friends are black! //
Brachiator
“Too liberal?” Wow. Yeah, right. Whenever I see something about this, I think that the Florida Republicans immediately went for the sewer. I hope that it’s a sign of desperation.
trollhattan
Vanity Fair writer has the good goods.
TenguPhule
@Brachiator:
Actually I think that’s par for the course in Florida.
rikyrah
PragmaticObotsUnite (@PragObots) Tweeted:
RT @THR: Linda Bloodworth Thomason, one of CBS’ biggest hitmakers, reveals the disgraced mogul kept her shows off the air for seven years:… https://twitter.com/THR/status/1039898970183684106?s=17
Mary G
Those 120 appearances DeSantis made on Fox News should make for some wonderful Gillum ads.
Aleta
Been thinking it would be useful to have some chest-high fisherman’s waders or a dry suit in case of flood during a stalled storm system or hurricane. Esp if the waters could get toxic from farms or mining waste or chemicals. At the least, high rubber boots that go over shoes.
Brachiator
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
In my college days, I used to gently mock Tolkien’s stuff as Edmund Spenser fanfic (technically, before fanfic was a thing).
I was never a huge fan of Tolkien, but understand his appeal, and loved the movie trilogy.
Where’s Jeb?
Aleta
@trollhattan: I wonder if it means anything that David Drucker (of Washington Examiner) wrote that.
Luthe
@Brachiator: It’s Beowulf fanfic, not Spencer. Tolkien was an Old English kind of guy. The 1500s were way too modern for him.
Brachiator
@trollhattan:
The Republicans can be as pessimistic as they want to be. But I don’t think that Democrats should be counting their chickens before they hatch.
I don’t think that pollsters are getting the whole story. And the Republicans are pushing stories in the media that essentially say, “Yeah, we know you hate Trump, but the economy is doing well, consumer confidence is high, and you should keep with the team that is making America great again.”
But apart from that, I hope that Democrats mount a strong get out the vote effort.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Luthe: IMHO, it had literary merit, but I am not an objective judge.
Brachiator
@Luthe:
Yeah, Beowulf, the sagas and related stuff were all big influences, but his own efforts always reminded me more of weak “Faerie Queen” stuff. Maybe if he had put in more sex and violence…
Brachiator
@trollhattan:
Thanks for the reminder of McGovern’s service record. Yep. Definitely a hero.
Uncle Ebeneezer
I just watched the first couple episodes of Rest In Power, the Jay-Z produced documentary on Trayvon Martin. It’s very good though depressing as hell. Ms. Bondi is NOT “very good” and is also depressing as hell…
J R in WV
@Kay:
Really, few similarities between McCain and Kerry. Kerry was actually a hero, while McCain was just a shitty pilot, shot down by not following his flight plan for the bombing run he was assigned. Oops.