Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

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

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

The low info voters probably won’t even notice or remember by their next lap around the goldfish bowl.

I swear, each month of 2025 will have its own history degree.

“Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.”

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

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

Hell hath no fury like a farmer bankrupted.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Republicans cannot even be trusted with their own money.

If a good thing happens for a bad reason, it’s still a good thing.

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

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

At some point, the ability to learn is a factor of character, not IQ.

Live so that if you miss a day of work people aren’t hoping you’re dead.

People are weird.

America is going up in flames. The NYTimes fawns over MAGA celebrities. No longer a real newspaper.

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” was supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

You are here: Home / Elections / Election 2018 / Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Lone Star of Mind

Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Lone Star of Mind

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I owe one of you a hat tip for this NYTimes article, “Beto O’Rourke May Benefit From an Unlikely Support Group: White Evangelical Women”:

… In the Senate race, one of the most unexpectedly tight in the nation, any small shift among evangelical voters — long a stable base for Republicans — could be a significant loss for Mr. Cruz, who, like President Trump, has made white evangelicals the bulwark of his support.

To Democrats nationwide, who have largely written off white evangelical voters, it also sends a signal — not just for the midterms but also for the 2020 presidential campaign — that there are female, religious voters who are open to some of their party’s candidates.

The women, who are all in their 30s, described Mr. O’Rourke as providing a stark moral contrast to Mr. Trump, whose policies and behavior they see as fundamentally anti-Christian, especially separating immigrant children from their parents at the border, banning many Muslim refugees and disrespecting women.

“I care as much about babies at the border as I do about babies in the womb,” said Tess Clarke, one of Ms. Mooney’s friends, confessing that she was “mortified” at how she used to vote, because she had only considered abortion policy. “We’ve been asleep. Now, we’ve woke up.”

Ms. Clarke, who sells candles poured by refugee women in Dallas, began to weep as she recalled visiting a migrant woman detained and separated from her daughter at the border. When an older white evangelical man recently told her that she couldn’t be a Christian and vote for Mr. O’Rourke, Ms. Clarke was outraged.

“I keep going back to who Jesus was when he walked on earth,” she said. “This is about proximity to people in pain.”…

Trump has been a true catalyst for America’s Evangelicals, and not just in Texas. The chemical reaction to his terrible, un-Christian sins and the general GOP piety-mouthing about ‘forgiveness’ has precipitated notice of the disconnect between those who actually believe in the tenets of Jesus, and those who just use His words as tribal markers for their own insular, mean-spirited band of bigots. Don’t know how much it can help Beto O’Rourke… but if I were a professional Christian, I’d be very worried about the next decade and beyond.

From a columnist at the Houston Chronicle:


Reader Interactions

143Comments

  4. 4.

    OzarkHillbilly

    blech.

    Autumn is arriving today. About damn time. I need to bring in wood for the woodstove. We’re looking at lows in the mid to upper 30s w/ highs in the mid to upper 50s thru the wkend. I’ll celebrate tomorrow, today it’s gonna rain all day.

  6. 6.

    Betty Cracker

    As someone surrounded by white evangelical Christians, I am not optimistic. To paraphrase Emily Brontë in Wuthering Heights, they ransack the bible to rake the blessings to themselves and fling the curses at their neighbors.

  8. 8.

    Jerzy Russian

    We need to tax the living shit out of those churches that declare voting for certain candidates sinful.

  9. 9.

    EveryDayIHaveTheBlues

    Good morning! Not to be a buzzkill, but I’m cynical that this particular issue (of immigrant kids) is the breaking point for these so-called religious voters. They lived through all the years of W waging war and Rs taking away health care from vulnerable families and the rest of that shit. No doubt, separating parents and their children is a particularly heinous act, but I have no faith in this sudden fount of decency. Is there statistical data to back up the support for Beto among evangelical women?

    OTOH, Ted is an evil slimy soulless bastard, so perhaps they happened to catch a glimpse of him on a TV…

  10. 10.

    Jerzy Russian

    OTOH, Ted is an evil slimy soulless bastard, so perhaps they happened to catch a glimpse of him on a TV…

    To know Ted Cruz is to want to punch him in the face. One wonders how he ever got votes in the first place.

  14. 14.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Barbara Kingsolver has a new book for our times: Unsheltered

    Her new book, Unsheltered, a return to the more ambitious, grand scale of novels such as The Lacuna and The Poisonwood Bible (which she’s currently adapting for the screen), though lively and vividly peopled, is a novel of ideas, and bleak ones at that. It addresses a world coming apart at the seams. Willa Knox, laid off from her magazine job and trying to keep her family afloat, despite a series of disasters – a bereavement, crushing college debt and healthcare costs, vanishing investments – lives in Vineland, New Jersey, a former utopian community, in an old house that’s crumbling around her.

    While attempting to keep the roof from caving in, she becomes interested in the people who lived in the same neighbourhood in the 1870s; they form the novel’s second strand. Thatcher Greenwood, a science teacher whose excitement about Darwin’s ideas puts him at risk of unemployment and who is newly and rather precariously married to the socially ambitious Rose, lives in the same building as Willa, with shoddy foundations above which “the whole house is at odds with itself”. Greenwood befriends the historical figure Mary Treat, a correspondent of Charles Darwin and Asa Gray, who spends her time on scientific experiments, keeping spiders in jars and letting carnivorous plants gnaw for hours at her fingers (Kingsolver showed me some of these plants in her own garden).

    She decided it would be “useful to go back to some other moment in history when people felt a similar absolute disorientation in the universe”. She’d considered writing about Darwin himself, before deciding “I write American novels”, no matter how far afield they roam. “Such a sweet man!” she says. “Thank God there was no internet. People hated him so much. Emily Dickinson hated him, for God’s sakes! She didn’t hate anybody.” It’s “hard to understand now how threatening it was”, she says of Darwin’s ideas, for human beings to be told that in fact they weren’t “put here to be in charge of the rest of the world”. Her hope in Unsheltered was to explore “paradigm shift”. “What do people do when it feels like they’re living through the end of the world as we know it? Because that’s what it seems like we’re doing right now, and almost nobody disagrees. And maybe people said that 10 years ago, but now they’re really saying ‘WTF?’”

    To the extent that Kingsolver is an optimist, it’s because she sees that as the only practical and conscionable option. When she tells me of her visit to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef earlier this year, a treat after turning in the Unsheltered manuscript, she’s quick to correct me about the direness of the reef’s fate. “Reports of its death are greatly exaggerated,” she says, and gives me a very swift, clear account of why these particular corals with their particular microclimates can still survive, heal and adapt.

    “You’re hearing about everything that dies, you’re not hearing about everything that’s still alive,” she says. “If you think it’s dead already then you’re not going to be bothered. I almost think people gravitate towards ‘It’s too late,’ because then they don’t have to put themselves out.” And then, as if casually reminding me just why her fiction, that patient, painstaking evocation of worlds, makes sense as a response to an emergency, she says: “Only if you love something will you inconvenience yourself to work on its behalf.”

    Indeed.

  18. 18.

    Mustang Bobby

    I’m slightly amused by all the guessing about why Nikki Haley resigned her post as UN ambassador and what she’ll do now — run for president? When? — and even more slightly amused by the speculation that Ivanka would or could get the job.

    Whoever it is will be appointed by Trump and therefore will be just another sycophant or nationalist, so it really doesn’t matter. We might as well argue who was the better Darrin on “Bewitched.” Either way, you end up with a Dick.

  19. 19.

    Schlemazel

    @rikyrah:
    I read theroot.com, which is part of the old gawker empire. It seems like hardly a day goes by without one of these incidents being reported. Rarely I think I can understand why the white person is calling, mostly they just sucks. I think it is a blending of racism and the ‘see something say something’ fear mongering we have been subjected to for 17 years.

  22. 22.

    Betty Cracker

    @OzarkHillbilly: Speaking of white nonsense*:

    *I’m assuming they’re white; no humans appear in the video.

    Also glad to hear that Kingsolver has a new book out. Did you read “Flight Behavior”?

  23. 23.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @rikyrah: I feel sorry for Dad, he is so excited and just wants to enjoy the experience while his wife and kids are shitting all over themselves. I kind of wonder where he went wrong with his parenting. Maybe he just worked 3 jobs so his wife could stay at home raising their kids to be as fearful as she. Sad.

  24. 24.

    germy

    Black Lightning has the best soundtrack of any TV show.

    2nd season premiere was last night. Didn’t disappoint.

  32. 32.

    Schlemazel

    Off to surgery – with any luck I should be back in time for the noonday thanksgiving thread

  33. 33.

    WaterGirl

    @OzarkHillbilly: Animal Dreams is one of my favorite books. I never did get around to reading The Poisonwood Bible — it seemed so overwhelmingly long that it discouraged me from reading it.

  36. 36.

    germy

    NYT’s A.G. Sulzberger on how the paper covers the presidency: “We know how to do journalism. We won’t be baited into becoming ‘the opposition.’ And we won’t be applauded into becoming ‘the opposition.’” #VFSummit— Dylan Byers (@DylanByers) October 9, 2018

  38. 38.

    germy

    Maybe she’s mixed up?

    In 1997, Susan Collins was afraid to get in a Senators-only elevator with Strom Thurmond because he was likely to sexually assault her… and her Republican colleagues thought it was funny.
    Not a typo: 19[NINETY]7, not 1977, not 1957, not 57 BC. 1997. https://t.co/9iA7XwmuMC— John Pfaff (@JohnFPfaff) October 10, 2018

  39. 39.

    WaterGirl

    @rikyrah: Pure evil.

    Unrelated, I saw some article this week that said the governor’s race in Illinois is competitive. Is that your take?

  41. 41.

    Patricia Kayden

    @germy: It’s about not giving disproportionate coverage to emails and other non-scandals when you have a dangerous, unqualified bigot running for President. It has nothing to do with being the opposition.

  42. 42.

    WaterGirl

    @Schlemazel: Cole tweeted a suggestion that someone register bartkavanaugh.com and make it about substance abuse. I hope someone does that before the Rs snap it up.

  46. 46.

    rikyrah

    @WaterGirl:
    Honestly, no.
    If the Illinois Democrats are United about anything, it’s that Rauner has to go.?

    This isn’t the last election, where he can bury his opponent in ads, because Pritzker can match him, dollar for dollar.

    Rauner has spent more time running ads about Michael Madigan, as he has Pritzker.

  48. 48.

    WaterGirl

    @rikyrah: That’s what I thought, but that article gave me one more thing to worry about. Glad to have the reassurance.

    I don’t get the Madigan hate.

  50. 50.

    rikyrah

    @WaterGirl:
    Another point ,Rauner got the benefit of the doubt last time, and even had a cadre of slave catcher pastors flapping their gums in support of him.
    You know, like the Dolt45 “what do you (Blacks) have to lose?”
    Well, you can’t find here nor hair of any of Rauner’s Black supporters. They have been completely discredited.
    Rauner has also been on the wrong side of all that has gone down with police misconduct.
    I don’t think that it can be understated how important the Van Dyke trial and conviction we’re. And entirely different narrative has come forth. A lot of activism.

  55. 55.

    rikyrah

    @WaterGirl:
    Madigan is the Illinois GOP Boogeyman.
    I loathe the man, but credit for where credit is due.
    He prevented Rauner from turning Illinois into Wisconsin.
    It has been strange times.. having to trust Madigan to do the right thing .

  56. 56.

    Betty Cracker

    @WaterGirl: IMO, The Poisonwood Bible is the best thing Kingsolver ever wrote. I liked Animal Dreams too. Very different books, though — and wildly varying writing styles. IIRC, I went back and checked that the two books were indeed authored by the same person while reading Poisonwood.

  59. 59.

    OzarkHillbilly

    European governments have been accused of opening the door to criminals through lax sales of passports and visas to the super-rich.

    The European Union had gained nearly 100,000 new residents and 6,000 new citizens in the last decade through poorly managed residency and passport sale schemes that were “shrouded in secrecy”, a report by Transparency International and Global Witness says.

    The campaign groups studied four EU member states that sell passports and 12 that offer residency rights to foreign investors. Spain, Hungary, Latvia, Portugal and the UK have granted the most “golden visas” to investors and their families. But some of the EU’s smallest countries, Cyprus and Malta, earned the biggest sums relative to the size of their economies.

    Most countries reveal limited details about the schemes, but a series of leaks have thrown light on the buyers, from the Brazilian business executive caught in a corruption scandal who obtained a Portuguese “golden visa”, to the Russian oligarchs who acquired Cypriot passports.

    They are rich. Chances are every single one of them have broken laws to enrich themselves, from cheating on their taxes to ignoring regulations they find onerous. Of course you are going to get criminals.

  62. 62.

    Baud

    @germy:

    NYT’s A.G. Sulzberger on how the paper covers the presidency: “We know how to do journalism. 

    Then why didn’t they?

  65. 65.

    Kay

    North Dakota has an initiative process, so the people can put a voting rights package on the ballot. The liberal position on voting (equal access to the ballot) is much more popular than the conservative position (suppressing votes from specific groups who don’t back Republican politicians).

    We haven’t see Republican judges strike down state laws that expand access and modernize voting, but these laws are very popular and they’re popping up all over so that’s probably the next tactic.

  66. 66.

    satby

    @WaterGirl: @rikyrah: And Madigan is the boogeyman because he represents Chicago, which to downstaters is a seething cauldron of diversity, homosexuality, and liberalism: all of which they hate. And since the voting population of Chicago way overwhelms down state they resent Madigan’s power in the legislature. Especially to stop IL from going the way of Kansas.

  72. 72.

    WaterGirl

    @rikyrah: That’s my take on Madigan, too. He’s willing to hold the line against evil Republicans. And of course he takes good care of his district in ways that infuriate a lot of people downstate.

    Do you think Lisa Madigan is done with politics? Or only done until her father retires?

  73. 73.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    I don’t think they do. I don’t think they know how to cover the lying. I sympathize, it’s a tough problem, but they should admit they have a problem and they need a new approach. What they’re doing now is quoting the President, who is lying, and therefore they are spreading bad information.

    It would be really refreshing if they would admit this isn’t working and come up with some new approaches. I love newspapers. I buy three. But they have a problem and denying it and defensively hunkering down and taking veiled jabs at legit criticism “the opposition”- isn’t going to get them anywhere.

  75. 75.

    WaterGirl

    @Betty Cracker: I loved all the layers in Animal Dreams. If you asked 7 people what the book was about, I think you would get 7 different answers. Or maybe 8. :-)

  76. 76.

    Baud

    @Kay:

     I don’t think they know how to cover the lying.

    I disagree, Kay. You think they wouldn’t know how to cover a Democrat who behaved like Trump? They know. They lack the integrity and the will to practice their art with the GOP.

  77. 77.

    satby

    @rikyrah: no matter which tech company they have doing that (it’s all outsourced) they will hate that that schedule is being imposed on them. Never piss off the IT people.

  79. 79.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    There must be some research on how to deal with liars. It’s probably different than dealing with President’s who didn’t lie constantly? One would imagine. I don’t know- try something. Three years of them bashing their heads against the wall is painful to watch. The ‘ol three pinocchio approach isn’t working. They better come up with something because it’s spreading. Supreme Court nominees now lie constantly.

  80. 80.

    satby

    @Baud:

    They know. They lack the integrity and the will to practice their art with the GOP.

    Exactly that. And they despise that people are calling them out for it.

  81. 81.

    WaterGirl

    @satby: @rikyrah: My real-life friends hate Madigan — they are not very political — and they are about 10 years behind in their political judgment. They still believe the both sides do it crap and think that NPR is liberal. It’s maddening. Maybe I need better friends.

  83. 83.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    It IS really hard though. In my experience. Part of it is the barrage of lies. Kavanaugh used that too- he lied so much people had to make lists. It’s hard if you can’t pluck one out – the exception proves the rule. The lie is the exception and you pluck that out and set it against the rule (not lying) and that’s the proof that the rule exists. This isn’t an exception. It’s their entire dialogue.

    There must be research on this gleaned from other authoritarian leaders. I have some vague memory of this being an actual identifiable strategy, lying to vast swathes of the public. They could get help with it. Bat around some approaches. Try something. Digging in and saying “we’re doing a GREAT job” isn’t helpful.

  84. 84.

    WaterGirl

    @rikyrah: The thing is, here in Champaign we don’t have a rural lifestyle, but they still seem to hate Madigan and Chicago politics. Maybe it’s different because I grew up in Chicago, but I just don’t get that mentality.

  87. 87.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay:

    I sympathize, it’s a tough problem,

    Disagree with the 2nd part. “The President is Lying” is a news story that needs to be written every time he does. When they get accused by the right for taking sides they need only answer that they are on the side of the truth.

    They can do the same when a DEM lies, shouldn’t take too long. It’s not like DEMS tell the truth 100% of the time.

  89. 89.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @rikyrah: Yes, Evangelicalism a cult, not religion, Voting Democrat gets one excluded from their social group. There going to go to church three times a week between now and the election and have people scream at them about how evil liberals are and how Cruz is their only hope.

  92. 92.

    chris

    @Kay:

    have some vague memory of this being an actual identifiable strategy, lying to vast swathes of the public.

    Sarah Kendzior has been writing and talking about this for years.

  93. 93.

    NotMax

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques

    “They are so wrapt up in prejudice, that they don’t care if men all go to hell, if they won’t be saved exactly according to their notions.”
      – Jedediah Burchard (19th century preacher)

  95. 95.

    captnkurt

    @Jerzy Russian:

    To know Ted Cruz is to want to punch him in the face. One wonders how he ever got votes in the first place.

    Confirming the truism that politics is Hollywood for ugly people.

  97. 97.

    waratah

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Cruz is afaraid of a townhall , where Beto loves talking and answering questions from an audience. Cruz thinks he has the edge with a debate. I think there is a debate this weekend and then it looks like Beto has the townhall to himself doing what he does best.

  98. 98.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: USA Today published an op-ed by Trump (well, whichever semi-literate goon is serving as ghostwriter this week) today. The first sentence is a bald-faced lie, and it goes downhill from there. Just crazy-ass lies through and through (open borders! Venezuela-style socialism! muh Medicare!).

    I can appreciate the unique problem of receiving an op-ed from the POTUS and having to decline it because of all the lies, but like you said, standards need to evolve, and quickly! The Trumps aren’t going to get more truthful. The opposite is happening, and it’s spreading like a virus, infecting all three branches of government.

  99. 99.

    Gelfling 545

    @rikyrah: There have always been a few who understood the meaning of the Gospel and tried to live by it. And a few more would be a good thing. More, however, are stuck in the subservience to male authority mind set. If anything COULD shake them out of it, it would be the wholesale mistreatment of children by this administration.

  100. 100.

    Kraux Pas

    @captnkurt:

    Confirming the truism that politics is Hollywood for ugly people.

    To be fair; though Ted Cruz may be ugly, his looks are actually the least unappealing thing about him.

  101. 101.

    satby

    @NotMax: OT, I’m about to give DirectTV the heave-ho, especially now that I subscribed to Filmstruck to get my classic movie fix. It’s a TCM streaming channel, even has the TCM intros to watch as an option before you start the movie. I’m so happy to go back to my Roku! Didn’t know if you had test-driven Filmstruck, but it has a 7 day free trial of you want to.

  104. 104.

    Kraux Pas

    @Kay:

    It IS really hard though. In my experience. Part of it is the barrage of lies. Kavanaugh used that too- he lied so much people had to make lists.

    Also how they play the victim when you call them out for lying. Also, who knew that 15 years after the Iraq War, we’d be treated to our own government with Baghdad Bobs top to bottom.

  106. 106.

    satby

    @Gelfling 545: details were very sketchy, but there was a big bust of a child trafficking ring in Michigan this week. 123 missing children recovered. The details on that should be interesting, because it was in a Trump-Devos stronghold I think. Wayne county*. Wondering if any were the immigrant kids.
    It’s always projection with Republicans.
    Edited to add: suburban Wayne county is red, Detroit is not.

  110. 110.

    NotMax

    @satby

    Have been internally debating for some time about whether to switch from cable and give Sling a fling on the Roku, as they include TCM as a part of their Hollywood add-on.

  112. 112.

    chris

    Meanwhile in Canada, an actual Nazi has a “freeze peach” problem. Faith Goldy is throwing a tantrum against the largest media conglomerate in the country. LOL

    The National Post reports in its Wednesday edition that with less than two weeks left in Toronto’s mayoral campaign, a fringe candidate is asking a court to force Bell Media to run her campaign ad. The Post’s Joseph Brean writes that Faith Goldy claims in a newly filed lawsuit that the broadcaster violated her constitutional right to freely express herself as a registered candidate when it refunded her money and refused to air her 30-second ad on its news channel, CP24. The lawsuit seeks a court order forcing Bell to offer her the chance to buy airtime for the ad for the remainder of the campaign. Lawyers for Bell have not yet filed a response to Ms. Goldy’s claims. She has built an on-line following by pushing anti-immigrant and Islamophobic sentiment and advocating a racist conspiracy theory of “white genocide” or “ethnocide.” She was famously fired by Rebel Media for appearing on a neo-Nazi podcast during the 2017 Charlottesville protests, and has endorsed and cheerily recited a common white supremacist slogan known as the Fourteen Words. It is not clear what standards Bell thinks her ad violates, or whether the media company’s problem is with Ms. Goldy herself. The broadcaster never told her, she said.

  113. 113.

    satby

    @NotMax: I tried a couple of years ago, but had terrible problems with TCM on Sling. No volume to hear the dialogue, and ONLY on TCM, the only reason I got Sling in the first place. I assume they’ve fixed that by now. But Filmstruck has been pretty enjoyable for the last couple of weeks, so give the free trial a run. Between Netflix and Filmstruck my viewing habits are well covered. I have Amazon prime too. All of it combined is still cheaper than cable / satellite.

  115. 115.

    Steve in the ATL

    an older white evangelical man recently told her that she couldn’t be a Christian and vote for Mr. O’Rourke

    I get so sick of this garbage. Everything the Republican Party does is the opposite of what Jesus did and said to do. The right wing noise machine has done the devil’s work in brainwashing millions and millions of these poor stupid people.

  116. 116.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    I keep thinking of all the classmates of Kavanaugh’s who said he lied. They all had variations of “you can’t lie your way onto the Supreme Court”.

    Yes, you can, and he just did. We can’t cling to these notions anymore. They sound great and noble but they’re not holding up. Whatever the convention is regarding presidential op eds, that needs to be looked at and adjusted because all USA Today is doing is printing lies backed by the seal of the US government.

    “We know how to do journalism” doesn’t leave room for adjustment. They have to change. I don’t know how to cover blatant liars like Trump and Kavanaugh but the people who smugly declare they know how to do it should figure it out, because they’re getting fucking trounced by the liars. You know what’s really unfair? How ever since Ford’s testimony there has been a parade of senators and lobbyists and hacks like Kavanaugh erasing her testimony. We heard WAY more from them than we did from Ford. No ordinary citizen should try to compete on this playing field- it’s wildly skewed toward powerful people. This nonsense that it was “he said/she said”. It was and is “he said, he said, he said, and she said something once, and then we erased her”.

  117. 117.

    Emma

    @Patricia Kayden: Christ on a Harley. The white folks have gone bonkers with sheer spite. Cops are going to get tough about handing nuisance and disturbing the peace court summonses.

  118. 118.

    Jeffro

    Good morning everyone!

    What to talk about, what to talk about…

    Megan McCardle’s busy giving advice to teh libs, “Don’t Pack The Court, it’s a Baaaaaad Thing To Do!” (actually of all the nerve, she says that “the left shouldn’t assault the Court’s legitimacy”. Where is my bat?) Too fucking late, Megs. We’re most definitely gonna pack the damn Court first chance we get.

    Mike Bloomberg has officially declared he’s a Democrat (again). I’ll give him credit, it’s more than Wilmer has ever done. But Mike we are looking for FRESH FACES please so thank you for your time (and donations) but we really must take a pass on your offer.

    It looks like the US may have had a heads-up that something bad was about to happen to Jamal Khashoggi and did nothing about it…the question is, how high up did that info go? Not that it matters while we still have a GOP Congress, but still…

    These issues and more and how is it only Wednesday??? I am beat.

  119. 119.

    Elizabelle

    Canvassing at the doors in central Virginia last night:

    (1) a woman came to the door in a tee shirt; blue ribbon for disease awareness, as with breast cancer:

    Liberalism. Find a Cure.

    (2) maybe half an hour earlier, was talking to a man on my list of contacts. Turns out to be supporting the opposing candidate; his big issue was illegal immigration. His wife comes to the door. She tells me that women should not have roles beyond the kitchen or bedroom. She literally said that. I wonder if she’s kidding me, but she goes on and on and says she would never vote for a woman candidate.

    Well, all righty.

  120. 120.

    Leto

    @satby: Quick question: how much is it for just internet access through your provider? I’d consider doing just internet but it’s about 3x as expensive to do just that versus doing the regular cable/internet package ($300 vs $100).

  121. 121.

    Elizabelle

    @Kay:

    Agree with your comments on the Vichy Times.

    No ordinary citizen should try to compete on this playing field- it’s wildly skewed toward powerful people. This nonsense that it was “he said/she said”. It was and is “he said, he said, he said, and she said something once, and then we erased her”.

    And this is chilling.

  127. 127.

    NotMax

    @satby

    A few free channels available on Roku which you may want to check out, not heavily ad laden:

    Rokumovies
    B&W Theater
    Rewind
    Tubi TV

    I believe the first one I’ve listed is still part of Roku’s ‘hidden’ channels (and still ad free) and can be installed from here or here. As with any of the Roku hidden channels, might or might not take a few hours before it shows up among your channel choices on the Roku home screen.

    For B&W Theater, go to Streaming Channels and then Search. As there is no ampersand in the search, searching for black will bring it up in the choices list.

  128. 128.

    satby

    @Elizabelle: why I don’t canvas. As soon as I made bail from the first punch in the mouth, I’d be arrested at the next one for the same thing.
    I am all out of patience.

  131. 131.

    Elizabelle

    @satby: Actually, stuff like that entertains me. And you meet so many nice folks.

    Really, I would take a known GOP at the door over “not home” any day of the week. It’s just cleaning up our lists so we can find our actual supporters.

  133. 133.

    smintheus

    You could end up waiting the rest of your life for evangelicals to do the right thing, even once. They are remarkably impervious to appeals to logic or human decency.

  134. 134.

    Tenar Arha

    @Kay: I believe you’re referring to what Goebbels called “the Big Lie.”

    Sarah Kendizor & Jay Rosen & others (even anti fascist activists) have talked about this. There is, & it’s don’t give liars a platform. Don’t give them airtime. & Never let them gain a foothold in power.

    If they do have power, don’t propagate their Big or little lies. Treat liars as defacto false when you write about them. Every lede must start with the truth, never direct quote the liar in the article first, make sure the headline is hyper-accurate & never the big lie. If you must report on the lie the lede paragraph must be a truth sandwich around the lie….

    The information on how is out there. But the media & the editors even in the places that can still afford this kind of effort, don’t want to, or are actively incentivized by their jobs or $ or their rich a-hole owners desires for ratings to not do it.

  135. 135.

    J R in WV

    I have a question about the end of your own commentary, where you say:

    … if I were a professional Christian, I’d be very worried about the next decade and beyond.

    In my book, Jesus tell his people to pray in private, in a closet, and to never pray out in public like the hypocrites. To me, this makes most “professional Christians” blatant hypocrites with no leg to stand on whatsoever. I only allow that weasel word most because I am acquainted with a handful of people who are preachers or priests who appear to be sincere to me.

    But the TV preachers, the folks who promulgate the rapture as a real religious belief important to their congregations, the guys with private jets, those guys and their professional Christianity are a total loss. No one who can read simple English should believe a words those guys say.

    Oh wait… are there congregations out there who are discouraged from actually sitting at home and reading their bible, alone? Why, yes, there are. Because you will need a lot of help and advice to see that rapture stuff, not to mention to overlook the hypocrites shouting in public.

  136. 136.

    EveryDayIHaveTheBlues

    @Gelfling 545: Yeah… I believe they have no empathy whatsoever. I can’t deal with these people. Beto and the Ds would gladly welcome their vote, but otherwise they can go fuck themselves.

  137. 137.

    captnkurt

    @divF:

    As I have said before, Ted Cruz looks like an ill-tempered, dyspeptic version of the Bob’s Big Boy mascot.

    Do any of these work for you perchance?

  138. 138.

    ChuckInAustin

    In the heart of Texas I can tell you “There’s something happening here, What it is ain’t exactly clear”
    I’ve been plugged into Democratic circles for 15 years and I just don’t know what’s going to happen. It could be like every election for the past 20 years, or Beto could win by 10 points. I would be equally non-surprised by both. (Ok, Beto by 10 would surprise me. Beto scratching out a small win would not.)

    At this point it’s all about turnout. The polls say Cruz but polls are terrible about including young people and young people are terrible about voting. Beto is hitting all the colleges. Let’s hope it works.

  139. 139.

    Shakti

    @Betty Cracker: Who calls 911 on a bunch of whales? I didn’t realize the cops were Cops of the Sea. @germy: I don’t know WTF is wrong with Susan Collins, but “would avoid in an elevator (a small enclosed space with one door) because they might assault me” is a solid reason not to vote for someone or work with them. I guess she thinks it’s fine since Barf Sniffledrunk is in a different branch of government (and a different building) so he’s the female justices’ problem now?
    @Jerzy Russian: Ted Cruz doesn’t have a Duchenne smile (aka a real one.) That’s why he’s creepy as fuck and I don’t get his popularity. The only time I’ve seen him resemble a normal human was when he talked about his half sister who had drug problems. [I’ll never get that part of my life back, watching ALL the primary debates of both parties.]

    I hope Beto wins. Because how the hell does someone like Beto lose to a smarm bucket like Cruz? Never mind the politics… just why?

  142. 142.

    EthylEster

    @J R in WV: Responding to your comments about today’s “Christians”, I live in very blue Seattle. My eye doc recommended a particular cataract surgery practice when things got bad visually for me. In the very nice info pack she gave me (which said practice had provided her) there were two mentions of the possibility that the surgeon would ask (right before the procedure started) the patient if it was OK with the doc praying. I was shocked and appalled and immediately chose a different cataract surgeon.

    When I later told my eye doc about my shock, she was surprised and stated approximately: “They warned you ahead of time so no harm, no foul.” I’m not sure I will continue with this eye doc. Every person I have shared this story with has had the same response as I did.

  143. 143.

    Original Lee

    @Baud: Dead thread, but this is not the first big child-kidnapping-for-pron bust in Michigan recently. They found 51 children in Genessee County in June, and 107 in Wayne County (again) in September.

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