Programming Note!
Hillary Clinton will be live in-studio for an interview with Rachel Maddow this Wednesday, 5/1 at 9pmET. pic.twitter.com/OaAdmRrBHM— Maddow Blog (@MaddowBlog) April 30, 2019
Women organized and marched. They ran for office and won. We now have a record of over 100 women serving in the House. @Supermajority will inspire even more and ensure #WomenSucceed in the political process. -NP pic.twitter.com/zXj8LLvuBb
— Nancy Pelosi (@TeamPelosi) April 29, 2019
As I have traveled the country over the last year listening to women, I have met more than I can count who have been inspired by @HillaryClinton to run for office, march, organize, and come together to solve big, important problems. As Mom would say, you can't un-ring a bell. https://t.co/cTO6xKrBve
— Cecile Richards (@CecileRichards) April 29, 2019
Local races update:
Stacey Abrams has decided against running for Senate from Georgia, a Democrat with knowledge tells CNN, and she met with Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schemer today to inform him of her plan.
— Jeff Zeleny (@jeffzeleny) April 30, 2019
WE have other options. Sally Yates would make a great Senate candidate in GA.
— paulaptb (@paulaptlb) April 30, 2019
OzarkHillbilly
Overdid it yesterday. Not much sleep last night. Gonna overdo it again today. Blech.
FRANK MCCORMICK
Chuck Schemer?!!
Baud
I didn’t know Rachel was into knitting.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: She’s been knitting together conspiracy theories for over 2 years. How can you not have noticed?
Raven
Stacey is awesome, she’ll find the right place.
Sloane Ranger
@Raven: I wish her well but I hope she’s not thinking about entering the Democratic primary. It’s crowded enough already and, as a foreigner, I worry that the more candidates, the more chance of splits and general bad feeling, especially when you factor in preferred media narratives and Republican rodent fornication.
The counter though is that women tend to be able to work together with former rivals more easily than men are. Less testosterone driven thinking?
NotMax
Weird.
OzarkHillbilly
Saying the quiet parts out loud: Tech firm apologizes after job ad seeks ‘preferably Caucasian’ candidates
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
Misguided attempt at diversity?
ETA:. Or maybe they were looking for someone to get contracts from the Trump administration.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone ???
rikyrah
@OzarkHillbilly:
????
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
WereBear
Been doing so many Way of Cats projects I haven’t been doing much else. After a long hiatus, I am updating the site look, advertising my own products, and the tons more stuff to do as an online business.
Yes, I have a friend who knits hats and sells them on etsy, but she makes something that a photograph can be taken of. By comparison, I have abstract ideas and cats with varying levels of cooperation to work with.
And I can’t knit. :)
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
So much for the blog meme that Biden would fall the moment he announced.
OzarkHillbilly
Justine Damond shooting: police officer ‘acted as he was trained’, court told
Huh. He was trained to shoot without first ascertaining whether a person was an actual threat or not? Strange admission for a defense team, tho I suppose it might be a winning strategy in some cases. Also, I suppose shooting unarmed people without regard to race or sex counts as progressive these days.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: The story even notes that his company has 60% minority employment, which led me to think it was a white employee (no doubt male) getting his panties in a bunch over being surrounded every day by those people.
OzarkHillbilly
@WereBear:
Well then, crochet. ;-)
Immanentize
@OzarkHillbilly:
The training really is:
Ask, demand, shoot.
Of course, most people don’t know what they police are asking them to do or whether it is them that is being asked. Then, people are shocked and confused by just why the police are yelling at them; and by then, well, the police have no other choice than to shoot them for not complying.
Baud
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
I don’t recall that meme. People predict his lead won’t last, but I think everyone assumes people get a bump when they announce. Wilmer got a bump and everyone was freaking out.
NotMax
Things are looking up (as it were). Coming your way, the dawning of the age of the Aquarids.
Baud
@NotMax:
Ugh! Why do all the best astronomical events happen in the middle of the night?
WereBear
@OzarkHillbilly: Ah! I found out that “anyone can crochet” is a myth.
OzarkHillbilly
Mike? You are not one of the right kind of guys.
Patricia Kayden
Nothing but the truth.
https://twitter.com/TPVTrevor/status/1123061027820777472
Bernie has some explaining to do.
NotMax
@Baud
One minute ‘astronomy lecture‘ spoof ad from the swinging 60s.
:)
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
And he wonders why actual Democrats dislike him.
OzarkHillbilly
@WereBear: In my experience, just as anyone can hang a door, anyone can crochet. Doing it well on the other hand…
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Embrace the darkness Baud.
WereBear
@OzarkHillbilly: Now we get down to the specs :)
Considering my hopelessness at any kinds of crafts, I’m fortunate to type as well as I do.
NotMax
@David Merry Christmas Koch
Baud
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
::Raises hand::
Although I’m more worried about our ability to deal with his people after he loses.
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Hello darkness, my old friend I’ve come to talk with you again
OzarkHillbilly
@WereBear: Heh. I’m fortunate in that my wife appreciates having her own in-house carpenter.
zhena gogolia
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
Let’s hope he mortally wounds Sanders.
NotMax
@BillinGlendaleCA
Darkness, darkness, be my pillow
Take my head and let me sleep
In the coolness of your shadow
In the silence of your dream
?BillinGlendaleCA
@NotMax: With the dark, ya snooze, ya lose.
@Baud: Yup, just looking at the weather for my dark places.
ETA: New moon this weekend.
CliosFanboy
you joke, but back in 1987 I was in a museum in West Virginia and the docent told us that people were complaining that they scheduled viewings of Haley’s Comet too late at night…
Dorothy A. Winsor
@David Merry Christmas Koch: I have to admit Biden’s focusing on Charlottesville was brilliant. And satisfying. Trump’s immorality should not be allowed to be the new normal.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: As a counter-point, solar eclipse.
Baud
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Agree.
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Good point.
debbie
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
Check back in a month or so.
debbie
@WereBear:
My Mamaw tried to teach me to crochet. It made no sense. At least knitting is orderly.
Immanentize
I am not worried Bernie will win. He took 60% of the New Hampshire vote last time around. He is hovering in the 20’s now. That is BAD for an incumbant winner in his home state back yard.
(And Biden is currently crushing him in Iowa)
rikyrah
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
I am with Kay.
Force this muthaphucka ? to NAME the Democratic Establishment. Name names??
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@NotMax: I’ve never said Biden is going to win. I like all the candidates, except the usual suspects. At the same time, I do think some underestimate Biden’s viability.
Baud
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
Biden’s strongest advantage is that there are so many other candidates. It’ll be hard for any one of them to get enough momentum to catch up to him.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: I think part of that is Uncle Joe has run before(twice) and crashed and burned. While past performance isn’t 100% predictive, it can’t be dismissed.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: True, but President Jeb!.
ETA: Probably the first set of polling after the first debate will be more useful than anything we’re seeing now.
rikyrah
????
Mother Jones (@MotherJones) Tweeted:
A valedictorian at Brigham Young University, which is owned by the Mormon Church, just came out during his commencement address.
“I am not broken,” he said. “I am loved and important to the plan of our great Creator. Each of us are.”
The audience let out whoops of support. https://t.co/OQZZbCjs07 https://twitter.com/MotherJones/status/1122934157569454080?s=17
Kay
@Patricia Kayden:
Bernie gets on my nerves but I don’t think this is bad. They all collect information. The voter files (rolls) are a public record and they all keep elaborate “lists” which they freely hand out to all manner of volunteers and staff and if Russia or whoever wants them they can certainly get them, or just compile their own. People often end up on weird lists. I was on Sarah Palin’s organizing list in 2008, I think. I got phone calls about getting people to her rallies 50 miles away.
They sometimes use the lists to exaggerate their support- Bernie might be doing that. He would say all those names are supporters or even active volunteers. I think that’s what Palin did.
rikyrah
They were forced to go
https://twitter.com/staceyNYCDC/status/1122979898824458241
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@rikyrah: my grandparents are Democrats. My parents are Democrats. My sisters and I are Democrats. I joined the Democratic Party at age 19 – went down to the post office and filled out the paperwork. A multi generational family of card carrying Democrats. I guess that makes us the “establishment”.
gene108
@OzarkHillbilly:
Looking at who owns the company 60% minority are probably mostly H1-b’s*. I assume most of the management staff are working in India.
The ads asking for caucasians and a woman, for account manager, were probably posted by someone in their recruiting team, in India, not understanding U.S. rules on job advertising.
Basically, the poor chap in India, not knowing better said the quiet parts out loud, about who the owners wanted to hire.
* I have nothing against H1-b visas. It is pretty much the only way for people from India, who want to come to the USA, to do so. Considering immigration from India was mostly banned prior to the end of WW2, there is a lot of pent up demand for people to want to come here.
rikyrah
Sam Ghali, M.D. (@EM_RESUS) Tweeted:
“If we ban AR-15s they’ll just find other ways.”
I’m an ER Doctor. I’ve seen every way there is. Nothing comes close to empowering murderers with the ability to destroy as many human bodies as quickly and effortlessly. So let them find other fucking ways. It’s not that complex. https://twitter.com/EM_RESUS/status/1122628450999853058?s=17
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@rikyrah: None of the women are smiling in the photo. None. Even the coach is horrified.
rikyrah
@Patricia Kayden:
Uh huh ??
Spanky
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Yeah, and we’re predicted to have clouds and occasional rain for a WEEK. It’s my own fault. One of these finally arrived yesterday.
A little retirement present to myself.
Baud
@Kay:
I thought the problem was lack of data security, not the list itself.
gene108
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Once Trump announced, with his role out speech calling Mexicans rapists, he immediately jumped to the top of the polls and stayed there.
My fear with Biden is he will instinctively try to work with Republicans, and run a campaign that will not slag the hell out of Trump. I think Biden maybe stuck in the era where liberal was a dirty word.
What I like about Warren and Harris is they seem to understand there is no compromise, and they are aware how deep the rot is in this country.
I think, for better or worse, Biden represents the past of the Democratic Party, both the good and the bad, which is known and therefore comforting to many voters
Baud
@rikyrah:
Haha. I feel sorry for them, but that photo is perfect.
Kay
@Patricia Kayden:
I think it’s kind of amusing because the Bernie supporters might be horrified, that he’s building a huge marketing database. Like a corporation :)
JPL
@rikyrah: Did you see this one? https://twitter.com/rodimusprime/status/1123012322396655616
They appear to be having just a grand old time. lol
Meeting with President Obama. Look at the smiles
https://twitter.com/rodimusprime/status/1123017268517068803
Baud
@gene108:
Biden isn’t my first choice, but if he ends up president, I’ll laugh my ass off at every so-called progressive who thought Hillary wasn’t good enough. Hillary’s administration would have been far more left than Biden’s would be.
zhena gogolia
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
My husband’s answer to this is, “He hadn’t been a two-term Vice President with a popular President then.” He was getting all tingly about a Biden-Harris ticket until I pointed out that Biden was born in 1942.
Immanentize
@?BillinGlendaleCA: This whole thing about Biden doing poorly previously sort of ignores the fact that, since then, he was Vice President of the United States twice. He might have even brought a few votes into Obama’s column.
ETA Or what zhena said.
Kay
@Baud:
But what is the data to be protected? Can he get something that isn’t easily available to anyone else? The scale is larger- I get that- but if he’s just plugging in names and linking anyone can do that. I would think the risk is he would end up with a “bad list”- a giant list, but not one that reflects his actual supporters, which sort of negates the point of “targeting” but might be helpful if someone wanted to say “I have 12 million names on this list so therefore am quite popular”.
plato
@JPL: They sure are letting their faces show their feelings towards the racist scummy pos.
rikyrah
@Patricia Kayden:
Why do you think that was an accident??
https://twitter.com/madisonvking/status/1122968474677141505
JPL
@Baud: I’d be okay with him if he put Kamala on the ticket. My next choice would be Abrams. Although Warren is great, Biden needs someone younger to energize the crowd.
Matt McIrvin
@gene108: I don’t think you have to worry about Biden not slagging the hell out of Trump. The big theme of his campaign seems to be that Trump is personally the problem, a one-man anomaly. He’s trying to drive a wedge between Trump and people who might otherwise be inclined to vote Republican.
I think his diagnosis is wrong in principle, morally suspect since it basically involves taking core Democratic constituencies for granted, and it might be bad for down-ticket races. I’m not convinced it’s the best strategy for the presidential election either… but it’s one you could at least make a defensible case for. Trump was elected to a large degree by people who publicly stated that they disliked him, they just hated Hillary Clinton more. Probably at least 50% of that was pure sexism. Suppose you take them at their word and try to get those votes back? I don’t know, it might work, though I’m skeptical.
Baud
@Kay:
It may be all publicly available info, but people don’t care about that when it comes to data security. They still want their information protected.
Another Scott
@rikyrah: And Donnie is still making them eat cold fast food. Ick.
Good for the women for showing their disapproval.
Cheers,
Scott.
zhena gogolia
@JPL:
An American Tragedy in two photographs.
JPL
@plato: If looks could kill, we’d be better off
https://twitter.com/deeziest/status/1123019916947464198
zhena gogolia
@Another Scott:
They’re openly laughing at it and taking incredulous photographs.
rikyrah
Matt Murphy (@MattMurph24) Tweeted:
Someone tell Democrats that without control of the Senate, there will be ZERO legislation passed. https://twitter.com/MattMurph24/status/1123068511193059329?s=17
Kay
@Baud:
I agree and I think that might be especially true of Bernie supporters, who have a conspiratorial bent and are very attached to the idea that his organization is “grass roots” and unsophisticated. What always surprises me about his campaigns is how conventional they are. The ad he’s running about Trump is like boilerplate Dem “populist” ad. I’ve seen that “testimonial” ad with the shuttered factory tens of times in Ohio. For a “revolution”, they look like every other campaign. Sort of prickly and reactive and hyper-angry, but an ordinary campaign.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Spanky: Nice mount.
JPL
@zhena gogolia: If someone with the magic keys to the site is around, maybe they will post the pics side by side.
johnnybuck
@JPL: In the poll cited above, Harris leads the field on the question of “which candidate would you like to hear more about?” which suggests to me that she has the most room to grow. Interestingly, Sanders came in dead last.
rikyrah
Marcus H. Johnson (@marcushjohnson) Tweeted:
Twitter is not real life. In reality Biden has long been very popular with Black voters largely because of his close ties to Obama. Other candidates will have to overcome that. I am a big believer in whoever wins Black voters and the southern states wins the primary https://t.co/mGTnYlyXwA https://twitter.com/marcushjohnson/status/1123171576273408000?s=17
OzarkHillbilly
@zhena gogolia: @Immanentize: The last time a vice President moved on to occupy the Oval Office was over 30 years ago. Jus’ sayin’.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@zhena gogolia:
@Immanentize: Yeah, but he’s not running with that Obama fella this time, and as Zhena pointed out, he’s old. As I said, we’ll see how things shake out after the first couple of debates.
rikyrah
Marcus H. Johnson (@marcushjohnson) Tweeted:
Biden being at 39% nationally and beating Sanders by 20%+ and by double digits with under 45 is peak “Twitter is not real life” https://t.co/Y7jRwfRcMS https://twitter.com/marcushjohnson/status/1123176447445807106?s=17
Dorothy A. Winsor
@BillinGlendaleCA: Biden’s age is sort of a stand in for what I object to about him. He’s an old, white guy who talks like Chris Matthews. He’s a decent person and would be a thousand times better than Trump, but he’s just as likely to lose mental and physical sharpness.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@OzarkHillbilly: I think before that was Tricky Dick and the previous example was in the 1830’s.
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
Biden worries me because I don’t think Democrats have the organizational infrastructure an older, conventional candidate may need, or worse, assume. He isn’t going to win organizing in a Steelworkers hall. He referenced this in his speech- he went after UPMC which is the Pittsburgh health care behemoth which is a huge employer and which is basically a monopoly and where employees are trying to unionize, so maybe he knows if his campaign is based on workers he needs ALL workers and he is going to have to find them because they aren’t on a union hall list.
My daughter and son in law are both in health care and one of the reasons they left Pittsburgh (he’s a native) is because UPMC owns the entire health care industry there, and they hated that. They say that one company controls the whole market.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
They’re both eastern PA Catholics and about the same age(Chris is 3 years younger).
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Kay:
As Mayhew said, it’s the hookers and blow.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I see Trump is suing banks to keep them from responding to House subpoenas. Can BJ lawyers say how likely he is to succeed? Or maybe how much time he can kill?
OzarkHillbilly
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Truman, tho he ascended in an atypical way.
Spanky
@?BillinGlendaleCA: It seems to be OK, but we’re socked in.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@OzarkHillbilly: I’m excluding the VP assuming office on the death of the President.
ETA: That’s actually much more common.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Spanky: That sucks, here’s something to look forward to.
Immanentize
@OzarkHillbilly: And LBJ. SHEESH. Facts may be inconvenient to people’s arguments, but facts they are!
Also, too, Gore should have been in that list
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Immanentize: The VP assuming the Presidency after the death of the President actually occurred every 20 years from 1840 to 1960.
(Tyler, Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley,Harding, Roosevelt, Kennedy).
OzarkHillbilly
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
And too much to ask in our present circumstance. I’m feeling lazy this morn and not looking to deep into anything.
And heading out the door.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Real life sucks. Twitter is worse.
OzarkHillbilly
@Immanentize: Duh.
Bye bye all.
Elizabelle
Good morning, jackals.
Sad that director John Singleton did not get a longer life. Only 51. Would bet he had a lot of good projects and work still ahead of him. I have not seen much of his work, and will get on that this summer.
Rest in peace, or power.
Chyron HR
@gene108:
That’s really funny considering that the alleged “left” are the ones who’ve been exalting the superiority of Republicans over crummy ol’ Democrats and warning us not to say anything bad about Trump.
JPL
Imagine standing near the president when he says this
TO NCAA WOMEN’S CHAMPIONSHIP TEAM: ‘I LOVE THOSE SHORT SLEEVES, SUCH BEAUTIFUL ARMS, GREAT DEFINITION.’
Imagine him wearing the shirt..
gvg
@gene108: Biden’s roll out attacked Trump by name for Charlottesville “good people on both sides”. So Biden is NOT playing nice with some Republicans. He surprised me with that. We’ll see if he can address the rest of the issue. If he names McConnell, I’ll be even more impressed.
Theoretically, it might be possible to split the republican party. I don’t see how, but I wasn’t a senator for 30 years.
I am not thrilled with him, but my goals are get rid of Trump and do it with some significant punishment to deter future grifters, and 2nd force the GOP to change or die. They need to lose power for a while, get new leaders at all levels.
Immanentize
Trump
Obama
GW Bush
Clinton
GHW Bush
Reagan
Carter
Ford
Nixon
LBJ
Kennedy
Eisenhower
Truman
So, five of 13 Presidents since WWII (and the passage of the 22nd Amendment) were former VP’s. This can be sliced and diced to fit one’s argument, but that still is a pretty powerful ascedency rate.
And like I said above, Gore should at least get an asterisk
Immanentize
@OzarkHillbilly: Don’t over do it!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@JPL:
No, there lies madness.
JPL
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I hope someone does because I think that Deutsche already turned over material to NYstate Congress has just as much right to investigate. At least that’s the way the Constitution was interpreted in the olden days.
Immanentize
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I had the same thought, but more a primal scream of horror rather than your eloquent observation.
Immanentize
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
He will not succeed. But he may be able to slow things way down. I think that was one of Cohen’s threats on behalf of Trump — that they would bury opponents in endless litigation.
Dave
@rikyrah: I do wonder how much credit he garners from how enthusiastically and effortlessly he embraced the VP role to President Obama was and how much that might be overlooked as a factor. It’s why one of my fantasy isn’t going to happen tickets would be Abrams/Biden he’s a good VP and it’s a less stressful role for an older person.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Immanentize: But 3 out of the 5 became President when the President either died or resigned. So Joe’s path is down to 2 out of 13.
Immanentize
@JPL: If Congress is seeking the same information NY received, there doesn’t seem to be any legal reason not to share it.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@JPL: In the picture I saw, the women standing around Trump all had their hands clasped over the area he bragged about grabbing. I assume they know how to play defense.
Immanentize
@?BillinGlendaleCA: see, that’s what I mean about slicing and dicing. Also, they were all younger, so there is no precedent at all! And none were from Pennsylvania — and certainly not Scranton (although Nixon was a Quaker much to that denomination’s eternal chagrin).
Immanentize
@Dorothy A. Winsor: HA! It’s confusing, but covering the genitals when it’s a man is an indication of insecurity. In these women it does look like power.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Immanentize: I think ascending to the office on the death or resignation of the predecessor is a fair slice.
ETA: Remember only Martin Van Buren, Tricky Dick and HW Bush won on their own(not being an incumbent after a vacancy) after being VP.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Fuck. That was the (potential) campaign I was most excited about.
O. Felix Culpa
@Immanentize: Good morning! Thinking of you and hoping you’re ok.
Immanentize
@?BillinGlendaleCA: But 2 of the 3 won a straight up election, so we are back to 4! Also a valid slice.
My point is — people in this country are primed to think of Vice Presidents (with notable exceptions *Quail cough*) as Presidential. With good reason — they have had some time to act that way on the public stage commanding a big microphone. Being VP to Obama is a huge plus for Biden.
I am not voting for Biden in the primary, and I really thought he wouldn’t run (made that sorry prediction a couple of times here) I am not sending him money — I’ve already outlined my priorities this time around. But I’m not sticking my head in the sand about Biden’s positives in terms of getting votes.
Tenar Arha
@rikyrah:
That photo ?
Kim Mulkey’s face at the fast food spread
https://twitter.com/byjaysarkar/status/1122966794803863552?s=21
Immanentize
@O. Felix Culpa: ?
I am grumpy today, besides put upon.
Perhaps UNM will have me back?
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
My biggest complaint about Clinton’s campaign is this- it is conventional wisdom (because it’s true) that OH, PA and MI have commonalities on composition of the D electorate. OH is the reddest, but it is, in fact, a bellweather for D’s in that region because the states have a lot in common as far as Right leaning Democrats. So if Clinton was back 6 in Ohio (which Democrats win by 5, if they win) that means she is struggling in PA and MI. And she was. I don’t understand why back 6 in OH wasn’t a flashing red light that MI and PA are threatened. I comforted myself at the time because she had Obama campaign people, but they didn’t see it either and again, this is the conventional wisdom, that these states have commonalities in voter groups and they move somewhat in tandem. That one can look at one of them and guess the others. I think it was a giant error and no one has ever explained it, because political media jumped in with this whole different “Wisconsin” thing that they loved.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
So now we’ve got to hope for good recruits for Senate races in Maine, North Carolina, Iowa (?), Colorado, and pray for Doug Jones and hope Joe Manchin doesn’t fuck us over. We’ve pretty much got to run the table
Immanentize
@Tenar Arha: I am certain the Baptist asses running Baylor ordered them to go. Certainly Ken Starr would have — and led the delegation. We just need some good reporter to talk to a graduate in a month regarding what actually went down back in Waco.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Immanentize:
I don’t agree with you there, being an incumbent is not a straight up election. As I noted above, the record for non-incumbent VP’s running is 3/45, not a good record at all.
Immanentize
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
That is the current constitutional Senate feature (not bug) as far as the GOP is concerned. It seems that the differences were not sufficiently heightened. Get Susan Sarandon on the red phone!
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Joni Ernst is up for her first re-election and her first election in a presidential year. The Ds need someone strong to run against her. You can’t beat something with nothing.
Immanentize
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I understand your point….
Immanentize
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
McSally too
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Immanentize: Well, once those doughty totally non-racist economically-anxious white voters see Bernie’s charts showing that they’ll actually being paying less for health care, it will just be more in taxes, they’ll flock to Our Revolution!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I should say 3 out of 42, since the passing of the 12th amendment.
raven
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: She wouldn’t have beaten this asshole
Betty Cracker
@Baud:
I don’t know about that. I suspect the 2020 Democratic platform will be as progressive if not more so than the 2016 version, and that’s what the nominee will run on, whoever it is. Someone pointed out the other day that both Biden and Clinton were influenced by their time in the Obama admin in a good way, and I think that’s true. Biden came out in favor of marriage equality a little ahead of PBO.
If Biden is the nominee, his campaign will have a lot of the same baggage that hamstrung Clinton, including the fact that he’s an older white person who is perceived as an establishment type with some tough votes in the senate to explain. But he’ll also have some of the assets that helped Clinton, including being trusted by rank and file Democrats and a positive association with the Obama administration.
Two factors that made Clinton’s campaign inspirational for me personally are that she’s a woman and she’s brilliant. Biden is neither of those, but while lacking those qualities might be a drawback for winning my primary support, it may be an advantage in the general election.
Immanentize
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I wish MomSense would chime in on Maine — there are some very good possible up there. Including the current Governor. But third party vanity candidates seem to have a way of killing off Dem hopefuls.
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
I am a conventional Democrat. But, Obama wasn’t because he approached organizing in a different, better way and it seems it may not be transferable because wasn’t effective for Clinton. So Biden can be a conventional Democrat but he has to better at it than conventional Democrats have been. They have to admit that and work on getting better at being effective “conventional Democrats” if that’s the flag they’re planting. They could be excellent and inventive traditional Democrats, “centrists” whatever. “Centrist” can’t mean “mediocre and unimaginative” and to a certain extent it does. People didn’t make fun of Schultz because he was a centrist. They made fun of him because he sucked.
rikyrah
@Dave:
I don’t know about other groups, but, Black people recognize who had President Obama’s back and who didn’t.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Dorothy A. Winsor: was Braley a strong candidate before his “Grassley’s just a dumb old farmer” comment, or am I wishfully misremembering? And the guy who came pretty close (didn’t he?) in the last Gov’s race (Hubbell?)?
@raven: /sigh/ how is it all our stars are in such deep red states?
Immanentize
@Kay: @Jim, Foolish Literalist:
It is amazing how the “Biden is getting back the voters Democrats NEED to win” meme is in full flower.
Does the next candidate need to appeal to Ohio’s Trump voters? Are there that many Obama to Trump voters in Ohio (and MI and PA?). I just don’t know. Or is gerrymandering and voter suppression as much a cause of the Trump victories in those states? Calling Poblano! (Nate Silver’s original GOS nym)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Tenar Arha
@zhena gogolia: @Another Scott: & videos too
(kalani brown’s) https://twitter.com/linzsports/status/1122960275643273221?s=21
JPL
@raven: If Isakson doesn’t run for reelection Abrams might have a shot in 2022. I assume that Ossoff will run now that she’s out.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I think they just get noticed in those states than if they were from say California.
Immanentize
@Kay:
He sucked at being even a pretend moderate. He was just an asshole rich dude out for himself.
Bloomberg does that moderate for all schtick much better.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Immanentize: Or did Trump get infrequent voters to come out and vote for him? I think alot of the the time we view the electorate as static, it’s not.
Kay
@Immanentize:
I don’t know but until someone tells me what replaces PA and MI for Democrats, I think someone has to worry about those states. We can get mad all we want. Until they have GA, or NC, or, I don’t know, Texas, the candidate who wins the primary will pour effort into MI and PA because they need them. It’s no more complicated than that.
Immanentize
@Tenar Arha: That is so great. French fries under heat lamps. What an idgit.
Kay
@Immanentize:
I think so too. We got the low quality billionaire, even. Not even a good billionaire out of that tiny category :)
I got a huge kick out of it, because his whole attitude was “petulance”. Such a baby! Bloomberg is kind of stoic in a nice way. He’s like “I’m rich and smart and I don’t really care if you listen to me, although I’m right”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Immanentize: also, he defined “centrist” according to the Morning Joe spectrum: “We need to get serious about entitlements”, which means cuts and raising age limits and you have to read that in multi-millionaire dimwit Tom Brokaw’s voice. Atrios may have gone around the bend, but he hit the nail on the head when he described the Village consensus as running from Free Republic to the New Republic.
also, Dave Weigel was at the Biden rally yesterday
so the thing that got college kids all excited at Bernie rallies makes their parents– the ones who show up to vote– skittish
maximalist sloganeering is a double-edged sword, at best
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Immanentize: Hmmm, reminds me of the cafeteria in elementary school.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Braley was my congressman when I lived in Iowa and I thought he was doing all right. I don’t know what he’s been doing since. I also don’t know about Hubbell. 2018 was a hopeful election. Three of the state’s four reps are now D, the exception being Steve King.
Tenar Arha
@Kay:
Wasn’t there a few articles about how the Trump campaign had some kind of access to Clinton’s internals via Democratic Party hacks? Or was it just the Russians? (My google-fu is a failure right now).
Immanentize
@Kay: Nevada and Arizona might help balance out some of that, but not all three rust belt states. Maybe NC depending on how crazy the state continues to be. Florida is possible. I think each candidate will have to design their own path with some variables. But Hillary clearly depended on PA, MI and OH.
Immanentize
@?BillinGlendaleCA: But less appealing.
Immanentize
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
OT, but what did happen to him? He seems all bitter and repetitive and backward looking. And hates automated cars.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Immanentize: True, no Trump at my elementary school.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Immanentize: He still likes Supertrains, doesn’t he? I’m a bit more skeptical than many on automated cars, I’m thinking they’re going to have legal(as in liability) problems.
Immanentize
Well, Biden finally found a way to apologize without saying “I’m sorry:”
Better than his previous efforts. But I am sure that he did not put it to rest and I am (sadly) equally sure he will have difficulty staying on that message.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Immanentize: having been a regular reader there in ’09 when the PUMAs and the Naderites joined forces to declare Obama the secret Republican Manchurian candidate et cetera, I honestly think he spent too much time reading his own blog. He also thinks Obama whiffed or worse about helping home-owners rather than lenders. He may have a point, I’ve never seen him try to make the factual or political case, just petulant shit-posting
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: He has a pretty typical problem for Economists, he didn’t take enough Political Science as an undergrad.
Immanentize
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I was a regular there for most of the naughties. I agree with Black on the housing crisis, but I’ve always wondered if it was personal -+ like he expected to be appointed in the admin. but wasn’t. Considering how he has been since about 2010, good move on the part of Team Obama (if that’s what happened).
Tenar Arha
@Immanentize: It’s like, after assuming during the shutdown that all college student athletes would eat like sh*t, he somehow decided to make every college athletic team that comes to visit him eat sh*t. With extra humiliation & thumbing his nose at these women, who probably could hardly eat his cold food at all.
And nutrition-wise men who play sports often have to “make weight,” so feeding them fast food, including burgers & nuggets, is probably not too harsh on their regular nutritional schedule, as long as they don’t eat a lot. It’s significantly harder for women to eat to put on muscle & not fat. And he decided to feed a women’s team fast food! (That’s not just one cheat day on those tables for those women, it’s a week).
Immanentize
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
AI driving is already here. It is just a question of how fast the rest happens, I think. And yes, there will be liability issues, but legislatures will fix that to support AI cars. As someone said, the question will not be how quickly will it be before automated cars are a “thing,” the real question will be, how long will regular (non-automated) driving be legal after AI gets a toe hold.
Immanentize
Meanwhile, in the real world, Guido is trying to unseat Maduro with an armed coup.
ETA. The Russians already have troops in Venezuela to protect their investments. Things gonna get teal, real fast.
ETAA:. SO MANY typos, but I’m leaving them because they amuse me — Guido for Guaido? Teal for real? Gold.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Immanentize: It’s a bit more than litigation(though that can highlight deficiencies in a big way), but people trusting the system to work all of the time(not reboot and run you into a tree).
Matt McIrvin
@Immanentize: Self-driving cars are not going to be good enough to take over the market in my lifetime. They’re going to get 99% of the way there (already almost are). But the last 1% is going to be 99% of the work, and the solution will eventually probably be to redesign the driving environment instead of the cars.
They probably will, however, be good enough to replace human-driven trucks for long-distance driving on the interstates. A human driver will take over to handle the last few miles in urban areas. Since that will require many fewer people, it will put huge numbers of truckers out of work. That’s going to be a big problem when it happens.
Immanentize
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Oh I agree, and the best way for that safety stuff to happen will be large infrastructure investments like sensors (massive redundancy) and new traffic patterns (more one way streets), etc. But some city is going to do that, then hang on!
Hey, you’re a Bruin. They — along with MIT, Stanford, and Michigan — are leading the way on this brave New world.
Steve in the ATL
@OzarkHillbilly: still a better pick than Daniel Jones!
@OzarkHillbilly:
I assume this point has already been covered in the thread, but this job ad is not just “embarrassing” or “poorly worded”, it’s also flagrantly illegal. As in, not even a top notch labor and employment such as myself could defend it.
Immanentize
@Matt McIrvin: I completely agree about driving environments. See above. But 99% AI OK is better than human drivers.
I would never bet against fast technological restructuring these days. Sadly that includes warfare
O. Felix Culpa
@Immanentize: We’d be delighted to have you back in our fine state! Plus it’s closer to Houston. Although academic swamps will be swampish everywhere, I’m afraid.
Yesterday was my penultimate class of the semester. After next week – freedom!
Immanentize
@Steve in the ATL:
Bob Barr would. Slacker.
Steve in the ATL
@Immanentize: I hope that, based on the quality of work they have done designing traffic interchanges in metro Atlanta, that Georgia Tech engineers are not part of this process!
No offense to any rambling wrecks in the audience, of course.
O. Felix Culpa
@Kay:
Can’t really compare the two: Obama didn’t have Clinton’s “baggage” of thirty years’ worth of defamation, didn’t have Russian interference (as far as we know), didn’t have Comey. Apples to kumquats.
ETA: Plus, he’s male. Gender still prevails, it seems.
SFAW
@OzarkHillbilly:
Um, Ozark — I think they were talking about you being crotchety, not doing crochet.
Just trying to be helpful.
Immanentize
@O. Felix Culpa:
Freedom’s just another word….
Yes, UNM is like every other law school — but smaller! I really had a great time there. Made some good friends, had great trips around the State. I went there the fall of 2000. One of the other Profs had an election night party; the invitation to which included -“From 7:00 until the last vote is counted.” Good party, but I didn’t stay that long.
My final is being given this afternoon. Then grading. Then gardening? Travel?
Steve in the ATL
@Immanentize:
It’s too late now—doesn’t she usually hit the sauce pretty hard around 9 am?
I’m kidding! Right?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Steve in the ATL:
Wait, when did this happen?
schrodingers_cat
@?BillinGlendaleCA: For one, there are new voters entering the system, old voters dying off. Even if we assume that the voting choices remain static, people tend to vote for the same party that they have before, election after election.
O. Felix Culpa
@Immanentize: I’m (almost) embarrassed to say my grading is done electronically. But my discipline lends itself more to that than law.
I’m trying to catch up on gardening. Little by little. As for travel…New Mexico is nice. :) Ms. O and I are heading to Scandinavia in mid-June. I’ve never been there before, so very excited about this trip.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@schrodingers_cat: True, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about folk who didn’t vote on a regular basis that voted due to Trump’s racist message sans dog whistles. I’m betting that there were more of them than Obama-to-Trump voters. This also seems to be Trump’s re-elect strategy.
Steve in the ATL
@?BillinGlendaleCA: like MomSense, I’ve apparently also hit the sauce pretty hard this morning!
Though I am considered to be in top quartile of L&E lawyers in my household.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@O. Felix Culpa: I miss traveling, but those days are long past.
Steve in the ATL
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
The fact that these exist is an indictment of the state of mental health in this country
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Steve in the ATL: I was chalking it up to your appearance going well last week.
rikyrah
@Immanentize:
Amen.It was all about him keeping his tax cut. A tax cut that rank and file Democrats never wanted him to have in the first place. And, all he did was attack Democrats
O. Felix Culpa
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Air travel is a hardship these days; I try to limit it. You seem to get around in the great state of California, which has a lot to offer. And then there’s the sky. In the middle of the night. ;)
schrodingers_cat
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Yes that too. I was just mentioning one of the ways that electorate is in flux..
Gin & Tonic
@Matt McIrvin: Long, long time ago I read a short story in one of the pulp SF mags with one of the premises being semi-autonomous long-haul trucks which had dedicated lanes on the highway where they traveled at very high speeds. Not sure why I recall that
?BillinGlendaleCA
@O. Felix Culpa: Pretty much just in SoCal, as far as my Prius will take me. Ah yes, the sky; I’ve got some great plans for this summer. Nice dark places with interesting things.
Gin & Tonic
@Immanentize: Ever read Manuel de Landa’s War in the Age of Intelligent Machines?
Immanentize
@Gin & Tonic:
Because it’s cool?
Gin & Tonic
@O. Felix Culpa: You will love it. Just bring lots of money.
Like the great philosopher M. Allison says, “if you’re going to the city, you better have some cash.”
Immanentize
@Gin & Tonic: No, but I will if you recommend it.
Steve in the ATL
@?BillinGlendaleCA: blind squirrel, acorn.
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I assume SoCal traffic is better in the middle of the night, but is it ever actually good?
MomSense
@Steve in the ATL:
Ha! I wish it were something rebellious like that. Sadly I crashed early and then was wide awake at 3:00 and only fell asleep right before it was time to wake up.
We’ve got some good people who could run for Senate. The current speaker of the house, Sara Gideon, is considering it but I doubt she will. She is a rising star and doesn’t want to run and lose. I think she wants to be governor after Janet. We have a history of really good candidates like Tom Allen losing to Collins and that was in 2008 when the conditions were ideal. Susan Rice apparently has decided not to run which is a bummer.
The biggest problem is that Collins is very popular here and people in the state aren’t paying attention as closely as Dems nationally. She has a huge war chest and the support of lots of industry and professional associations. She has focused a lot of effort on constituent services over the years so there are many people who feel that she helped them when they needed it.
Our governor has a sister and a brother who could possibly pull it off but I don’t think they will for personal reasons.
Steve in the ATL
@Gin & Tonic: @O. Felix Culpa:
Double that if you plan to consume alcoholic beverages
Steeplejack
I’ve been away from the news for a bit. Has anyone raised the question of why Trump is still dishing out cold fast food to visiting teams now that the shutdown is over and the White House staff is working again?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Steve in the ATL: There’s usually very little traffic at night, the only slow down I ran into on my trip last Friday was freeway construction(they had 3 out of 4 lanes shut down near Magic Mountain).
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Steeplejack: I had the question as well.
rikyrah
@Kay:
I believe that we already have GA and NC. ..but, hanky voter suppression…
There are 1.4 MILLION unregistered former felons in Florida that can be registered -poll tax be damned. ..I believe a lot of them would be Democratic Party Voters.
I think Ohio is beyond reach and a waste of time. I don’t think the same of PA and MI.
I will repeat – AGAIN…
that the number of REGULAR DEMOCRATIC VOTERS DENIED THE FRANCHISE DUE TO VOTER SUPPRESSION IN 2016….
in MI, PA, WI…
Was TWO-TO-THREE-TIMES the margin of Dolt45’s ‘ victory’ in those states.
We NEED to address THAT.
MomSense
@MomSense:
I almost wish Stephen King would run. He’s a solid Dem but his corgi Molly, the thing of evil, runs him ragged. She’s definitely not vetted.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Steve in the ATL:
Well since I quit the bottle, that makes it a bit more affordable, though still not attainable.
MomSense
@rikyrah:
That’s exactly it! Hundreds of thousands of people in those states were denied their right to vote. Half the voting machines in Detroit didn’t work!
Ruckus
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Biden will be 78 on the date of inauguration. As someone not all that far behind him, that is far too old to be the person the actual job requires.
MomSense
@Steeplejack:
Apparently taxpayers pick up the tab for state dinners but not events like that – hence he served the cheapest most disgusting food to the team.
Gin & Tonic
@Immanentize: I just looked up the publication date, and it’s almost 30 years ago, so I’m not sure how well it will have held up. I may need to take another look.
De Landa is kind of a polymath. He teaches architectural history and urban design, but writes about AI, history of science, nonlinear systems, lots of other things, kind of from a French “post-modern” perspective – i.e. Guattari and Deleuze. Probably not everyone’s cup of tea, but gave me some interesting perspectives on the Mongol invasion of Europe.
scav
@Steve in the ATL: Having watched a person jump from Obama to Bernie to Trump, it struck me that there’s a largish group individuals that may be putting more effort into chosing between the latest pet rock or beanie baby substitute than anything else in their life. There’s no logical chain of platform or meaning or ethical worldview but merely the sloshing of sheep-like trendiness. Or maybe plankton.
Not so much a distortion of cognition, but the entire absense of it.
schrodingers_cat
@scav: Sounds like my ex-friend, the Yoga teacher. She voted for Jill Stein but was making excuses for the Muslim ban and was slowly drifting towards T. Wouldn’t be surprised if she has gone over to the dark side completely by now.
schrodingers_cat
@MomSense: RWNJs are claiming on Twitter that other presidents didn’t serve the teams any food at all. So the Orange one is the most generous one of them all. I find this hard to believe.
ETA: The invited teams should eat nothing.
ETA2: He is so fucking gross, where I come from you are supposed to treat your guest as if he were God.
Miss Bianca
@gene108: You know, for all this hand-wringing about Biden “not understanding” and wanting to work with Republicans and not being hard enough on Trump that I’m seeing from you – and in fairness, not just from you – I look at that campaign video and the response to it and think, “Joe’s on to something here”. And I am not going to be one of those “Joe for the primary” voters – I just think he has a role to play, and if he plays it like I think (hope, pray) he’s going to – that is, using his unique position as Obama’s VP for moral authority to hammer Trump and Trumpism – he’ll be a great addition to the Democratic campaigning. I don’t think he’ll end up as the candidate, but whoever does will likely do so because of, rather than despite, Biden’s full support.
@rikyrah: I agree with this analysis.
schrodingers_cat
@Steve in the ATL: @scav: They vote their gut. They voted for Obama because the stock market was in free fall and McCain seemed erratic and out of touch. They voted for T because now their stock portfolios had recovered, they hated HRC and were upset by all the Black Lives Matters protests and heard the siren song of Brietbart whispering white genocide in their ear.
I would like to know how many of these supposed Obama voters were Obama voters in both 2008 and 2012 or had they already bailed on Obama and had voted for Romney. My ex-friend’s husband the Jewish T supporter voted for Obama in 2008 but was back voting for Rs in 2012.
Mike in NC
@Steeplejack: Hey, those cold cheeseburgers are only two months old. Fat Bastard is a thrifty stable genius who wastes nothing.
Steeplejack
@MomSense:
Surely there’s a White House budget for non-state-dinner entertaining. What about when the president—well, not this one—has congressional leaders over for working a reception or a working dinner, etc.?
This can’t be considered a purely “personal” thing, because the president is now sort of expected to host the champion teams of everything. Well, maybe food is optional?
O. Felix Culpa
Schiff says House will make a criminal referral of Trump ally Erik Prince for possible perjury.
Couldn’t happen to a finer guy.
Sab
Since this is open thread, I am back to ramps, since it’s spring.
Ramps! Went to our local health food grocery yesterday, and they had ramps with the roots still attached. So instead of eating them I planted them. They look very sad and unhealthy. Should I trim back the leaves? would that give them a better chance or would it finish them off?
Sab
Our rottmix dog is asleep right now, on her back, and is distinguishable from a dead cockroach only because she has four legs not six.
Spanky
@Sab: You have cockroaches the size of Rottweilers?
schrodingers_cat
@O. Felix Culpa: Mr. East India Company, modern day Robert Clive is in trouble. Sweet.
schrodingers_cat
@Spanky: I am hiding under the bed just reading about it. Scary!
JPL
@Steve in the ATL: My son and his wife got hit by the SALT limit pretty hard and owed. I would assume that in your area that is the case also. Have you heard complaints from neighbors? Truthfully since I’m single I would have if I were still working.
That might sway a few local repubs to vote dem
Wapiti
@Matt McIrvin: So these self-driving trucks… I guess there will be a booming market for crews putting chains on trucks at winter passes. It will be strictly seasonal work. Except as climate change introduces more and more fluke weather.
rikyrah
@Sab:
ok…that just terrified me.
Sab
@Spanky: Of course not. I left Florida fifty years ago. She is a rottmix so she isn’t even the size of a rottweiler. She’s only sixty pounds.
O. Felix Culpa
@schrodingers_cat: Sweet indeed. He and his sister and the entire trumpian crew are criminals and belong in jail.
rikyrah
Committees for the Defense of the Revolution
by Liberal Librarian
O. Felix Culpa
@Sab: Ah, relieved to hear your cockroaches are smaller than purebred Rottweilers.
JPL
France 24 is airing a press conference with Guaido’s Ambassador to the US. There is no turning back from the take over and the US supports the ouster of Maduro.
This could get bad real quickly.
Gin & Tonic
@rikyrah: Co-sign.
MomSense
@schrodingers_cat:
I remember those events happening in the afternoons. I’m guessing they just had refreshments. I don’t remember dinners.
Sab
@O. Felix Culpa: When I first moved to Florida at age six, my deskmate had a pet cockroach in a jar. It was an inch long at least. I got my first crush on a boy because he was so attentive to the needs of his pet cockroach. Teacher was cool with it also.
Florida has always been odd.
JPL
@MomSense: I did read a tweet that mentioned the Obama’s always had a nice spread, but since I read it on the internet who knows. I would believe anything a right wing nut job would say though.
O. Felix Culpa
@Sab: My first exposure to Florida was a cute boy who joined our fifth-grade class in New Jersey. Don’t remember what part of Florida he was from, but he said “yes, ma’am” a lot to our teacher, which we thought was quaint.
JPL
Holy crap a tank is charging a crowd. It doesn’t appear that anyone was injured though. Now someone just tossed a firebomb at a tank and here come the water cannons.This is not good.
I wonder if you can stream france 24 ssince they appear to be the only ones covering the situation in Venezuela
Kay
Dave Weigel
Verified account
This so true. I’m fighting it and will vote for a woman in the primary but it’s risky, so I get their concern.
Sab
My ramps still need advice.
Sab
@O. Felix Culpa: In Florida, when I was a kid, “yes, ma’am” or “yes, sir” was absolutely mandatory for any child speaking to an adult. When we moved north to Ohio and said that we were punished. The teachers thought we were either being sarcastic or talking like West Virginians. Neither was acceptable behavior.
Kay
@Sab:
Oh, OKAY. But you won’t like it. I myself do not plant wild things in a home garden. Just grow some nice domesticated onions. They’ll grow beautifully. Eat the ramps and go get some onion sets. That’s my advice :)
Peale
@rikyrah: Yeah. I don’t really want to overemphasize the opportunity for Dems from the re-enfanchised felon vote to help in Florida. A lot of them haven’t voted for decades and we know that non-voting is a habit that’s hard to break out of. Plus many will continue to be poor and jobless and we know that depresses turnout. And these probably aren’t the most civic minded co-hort. If we get maybe 140,000 of that 1.4 million to the polls it will be a miracle. A 65-35 split of that group, though, will go a long way to making up for what we need in Florida to carry the state this time. I just don’t want to get too excited into thinking Florida will have a higher turnout this time around. To win that, we need the voters we had last time, plus Trump voters to stay home, plus new voters of some kind.
Another Scott
Meanwhile, in the Russian pipeline industry… Reuters:
Weird.
About all Putin has going for him is money from oil and gas exports. If this turns out to be deliberate, then it’s going to hurt him, and Russia, in the pocketbook.
Cheers,
Scott.
schrodingers_cat
@MomSense: I am sure snacks better than cold fast food were served.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: He is Russian Asset # 2. This is what communists governments perfected. He calls himself a Democratic Socialist can some reporter ask him what exactly that entails? And no invoking Sweden elebenty times is not the answer. I want to know what his ideology is.
gvg
@Peale: A lot of Florida’s felons were for minor shit. Plus I happen to think it’s a good sign that my electorate decided it wasn’t cool to pick on felons like that. It’s the first time in a long time that republican politicians weren’t able to get their way by scare mongering about ooh scary felons. It would be good if that became a habit and we actually started thinking about felons as people who sometimes need kindness.
I have no evidence, but I think some of it is people are thinking about legalized marijuana maybe coming and realizing how many were locked up because of such useless charges. Talk about voter suppression also probably influenced some.
rikyrah
@Another Scott:
HMMMMMMMM
Ella in New Mexico
@Betty Cracker: and truth be told, no matter how angry and spiteful and stupid I think they were, a ton of voters refused to vote for Hillary based on personal animosity. They detested her viscerally, and could not bring themselves to vote for her.
But they WILL vote for Joe Biden. In a heartbeat.
We have to accept they were stupid, stupid people who simply could not imagine what they were doing to our country, but that that dynamic was likely responsible for the handful of votes in an even smaller handful of states that put Trump over the top in the Electoral College.
Kay
Just love her. Since I’m never getting a female President I just look to Pelosi. We all should. Who on the D side is better at this? No one. Trump is afraid of her, and he should be.
donnah
How times change! My mother grew up in rural West Virginia, one of six children of a coal miner. She said only the poorest kids ate ramps, and when they brought them in their lunches everyone could smell them because they were so strong. To this day, Mom won’t eat them.
Also, she wouldn’t wear denim jeans for years because that’s what the poorest people wore. She finally gave in and bought some jeans when she was in her forties.
Immanentize
@Kay:
That is tattoo worthy
Immanentize
At TPM:
Why not just ask the American Fruit Company to do it? Really? American mercenaries once again invading South America to seize resources? I cannot image better news for Maduro.
rikyrah
@Kay:
What is USMCA?
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: T’s NAFTA.
rikyrah
@schrodingers_cat:
thanks.
Go Nancy Smash :)
rikyrah
@Immanentize:
My lips are so pursed.
Brachiator
@JPL:
From The Guardian UK
LIVE UPDATES OF SITUATION IN VENEZUELA
ETA: Also updates on BBC World News
Princess
@Sab: Don’t cut the leaves. I’ve done this a couple of times, and it works. I know that at least once I kept the ramps in a glass of water for a few days in the hopes their roots would grow. The leaves all wilted, I planted them, they looked sad and the next year and ever after they have come up. However, they have not multiplied the way I’d like. I still don’t have enough for a glorious backyard ramp harvest.
schrodingers_cat
All the FPers have been raptured and we have been left to our own devices.
Kay
@Immanentize:
Guffaw.
They want to gut environmental regs to “fast track” infrastructure. They still don’t know her at all. Nope.
Kay
@schrodingers_cat:
Let’s move John’s willow while we have the chance. It’s too close to the house.
rikyrah
@schrodingers_cat:
BWA HA HA HA H HAH A HAH A
Brachiator
@schrodingers_cat:
Excellent point. McCain’s dubious reputation as a foreign policy and military expert was neutralized by his inability to offer any solutions to the financial meltdown. And his selection of Palin as his VP pick called his judgment into question.
Well, Obama won handily in 2012.
One quick comparison: Obama got 65,915,795 votes in 2012. This was about 3.6 million fewer votes than in 2008. Romney got 60,933,504 votes in 2012. But this was only 985,000 more than McCain got in 2008. Maybe more people stayed home than vote for Obama the second time around, but there was not a big surge for Romney in terms of popular vote.
Aleta
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Momsense is more knowledgeable and involved than I, but here’s a little info about Maine:
Maine Rep. Sara Gideon might run against Collins. (She’s Speaker of the Maine House. From southern Maine, not yet well known elsewhere in the state. She says she won’t decide until after the session ending in June, at the earliest.)
We hoped that Susan Rice would run against Collins, but a few weeks ago she announced she will not.
Helpful Joe Manchin says he would love to come campaign for Collins’ reelection. Collins has been rewarded by big donors for all her work and votes for T with millions of early, out-of-state big donor $. Her press office has always been formidable.
rikyrah
So, Biden has come out against Medicare for All, but for a Public Option.
It makes sense that Biden would be for strengthening Obamacare and for the Public Option.
I would like to point out that all the ideas about healthcare are on the Democratic Party side.
The GOP only has-too bad, I’m coming to take your healthcare away from you.
schrodingers_cat
@Brachiator: I am pretty sure that my ex-friend’s husband voted for Romney in 2012. So what is the estimate of these so called Obama to T crossovers, do you know.
Also 985000 is more than T’s winning total in the 3 states combined that he flipped OH, PA and MI
Burnspbesq
Some days, good things happen in Texas.
EAT IT, TEXAS LEGISLATURE.
https://www.aclu.org/news/third-federal-court-blocks-anti-bds-law-unconstitutional
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: The Rs want the sick and the infirm to die, that’s their health plan.
J R in WV
@Sab:
In my experience, just water them often the first few days, so they don’t dry out. They’re pretty hardy, I have even planted the trimmed off roots and had them come up the next year. Wild greens, so really hardy.
Burnspbesq
@rikyrah:
As someone I know likes to say …
DA PHUQ?
bemused
@schrodingers_cat:
Liberals too. Then they could be totally free to loot and destroy the planet to their stone cold hearts delight.
tobie
This is off topic, and probably a bit trivial given the US-instigated-coup underway in Venezuela, but it occurred to me this weekend that we may have missed the significance of the effort to blackmail Bezos. I suspect he made public what others, like Rosenstein, have hid — that the GOP will use any tactic to dig up someone’s dirt to have them pledge undying loyalty to dear leader. I don’t know what the skeletons in Rosenstein’s closet might be, but I’d bet good money he was willing to sell out his country to keep them secret.
ETA: Yes, I’m in full tinfoil hat territory but how else to explain the shameless groveling?
rikyrah
UH HUH
McAleenan is a carbon copy of White House adviser Stephen Miller, relying on fear-mongering, tearing families apart, and other barbaric practices to further Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda. #FamiliesBelongTogether https://t.co/6ERsew3B6M
— Raul M. Grijalva (@RepRaulGrijalva) April 30, 2019
rikyrah
@tobie:
I don’t think you’re in tinfoil hat territory at all.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: It is open season on immigrants. That poor 13 year old girl in Sunnyvale is fighting for her life. T is teaching people to hate immigrants, Muslims etc for the sin of merely existing. BS is no better. And our media is enabling both these Russian stooges.
Aleta
Last year I finally followed a great tip from AL and planted tomatoes in big fabric pots. Now I’m recklessly thinking of using a couple to start some potatoes early, and maybe some garlic, since I have both sprouting. I can use an old SAD lamp indoors on the pots.
I’d rather put the garlic outside where I used to have it, but the ground is just too wet right now. Don’t know if this is true, but I’ve heard that if garlic is planted when the ground is too wet, the harvested heads may end up not keeping very long– turning to black powder.
Whatever the reason, the garlic at the farmer’s market the last few years has turned powdery black after a short time. (It’s been the thin-skinned kind, which may be part of the problem? It seems to be all that’s sold there. It is delicious when fresh though.)
Aleta
@tobie: We know they are capable of anything, and that what has been exposed (after being hidden, blocked and guarded by the entire group) is a tiny piece of the whole and the history. Your head looks cool and level from here.
Aleta
@Kay: John will be making aspirin and willow salve long after bay er is torn apart by ro*und*up scandal. (jk)
Brachiator
@schrodingers_cat:
Unclear. Clinton got 65.8 million votes in 2016. That’s only about 60,000 less than Obama’s 2012 total.
Trump got 62.9 million votes, about 2 million more than Romney in 2012. I would guess that a chunk of these voters may have been people who stayed home in previous elections, people who voted for Obama in 2008 or 2012, and people who had not voted before. But I am just looking at popular vote totals and no deep analyses of election results.
True, but I didn’t look at any state votes at all, so can’t say anything about how this vote difference compares across the different election cycles.
OTOH, Democrats have had a popular vote advantage the majority of the time. The thing is to win key swing states and to counter voter suppression tricks and other dirty tricks employed by the Republicans.
schrodingers_cat
@Brachiator: So the MSM pundits don’t have a number for this group of O to T voters they keep incessantly harping about.
Brachiator
@schrodingers_cat:
I was just looking at some of the raw numbers and applying a little logic. I did not look for any pundit analyses. I think that some pollsters may have done a deeper dive into the data. There might even be a few pundits with some good insights.
But … doing a quick google search, I immediately ran into an important caution:
After a lot of back and forth, this site came to the following conclusion:
I think that some of these raw numbers estimates are too high, in relation to looking at popular vote totals.
However, if you look at electoral maps, there are clearly a number of counties in swing states and elsewhere where significant numbers of voters switched from Obama to Trump. There is nothing controversial about this. Whether there is a burning need to try to appeal to these voters is a separate question.