In the room where it’s going to happen #DemDebate pic.twitter.com/u01cKEhN8g
— Savannah Guthrie (@SavannahGuthrie) June 25, 2019
I’m probably gonna ‘watch’ the debate second-hand, via liveblogs and twitter. NBCNews.com and MSNBC.com are supposed to be streaming the whole thing, but my laptop tends to be unreliable about such high-volume platforms.
Plenty of people working hard to bring you this week’s debates, but spare a thought for two groups: The audio team responsible for miking 13 people on stage at once, and the ?@TelemundoNews? team responsible for simultaneous Spanish translation. https://t.co/GfYEQYKUE6
— Ed O'Keefe (@edokeefe) June 25, 2019
NBC debate tidbit: to avoid a "Ben Carson" awkward-entry situation, candidates will already be at their podiums (podia?) when the broadcast begins.
— Michael M. Grynbaum (@grynbaum) June 25, 2019
But then trump wouldn’t have made it to the RNC debates…. wait.
— L. Harvey (@LHarveyCI) June 25, 2019
It’s worth remembering just how irrelevant and lacking any support you have to be to not make it into these ridiculous debates https://t.co/vjp0WkpFLe
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) June 25, 2019
NB: ‘PFT Commenter’ is a parody account by a sportwriter/comedian, and the dude is still better qualified to discuss the debate than Chuck Toadie Todd, not to mention Chris ‘Mad Bitcher’ Cillizza…
#BusinessTrip to Miami (NYC ?? MIA). Its that time of the 3 year poltical cycle again: Going to attend Presdential debates and treat elections like sports. You better watch ur ass @CillizzaCNN im coming for ur market share
— PFTCommenter (@PFTCommenter) June 25, 2019
Not to mention the Squatter-in-Chief. Per NYMag‘s Daily Intelligencer political blog:
Will Trump Actually Live Tweet the Thing?
The president has gone back and forth over whether or not he will provide live commentary on both nights, although a commitment to watching two nights of fairly policy-intensive programming doesn’t really sound like his bag. Also, the 9 p.m. air time for the debates overlaps with Hannity…
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone ???
OzarkHillbilly
Dawg doesn’t love me that much.
satby
Already a shit-show and they haven’t even happened yet.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: I know some people like them, and I thank them because they tell me if anything relevant was said, but I’d rather have my finger nails pulled than watch a debate.
JPL
Past my bedtime, so I’ll pass. I’m going to vote for the democratic nominee anyway.
Baud
I’ll probably DVR it.
NotMax
Strictly FYI, on Friday TCM gives a nod to Pride Month with, shall we say, an eclectic mix.
8:00 PM Some of My Best Friends Are… (1971)
10:00 p.m.The Ritz (1976)
11:45 p.m. Torch Song Trilogy (1988)
2:00 a.m. Myra Breckinridge (1970)
3:45 a.m. Funeral Parade of Roses (1970)
Baud
Go ahead and rub it in, Josh. Asshole.
Baud
I’m actually looking forward to seeing the candidates begin to respond to each other.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Just set my DVR for both nights.
debbie
I hope Momsense drops by this thread. Last night, Colbert highlighted ravelry‘s banning of white supremacy from their site.
Jeffro
This is on from 9-11pm Eastern time tonight, right?
I’m picturing myself all wound up over…whatever…around 11pm. Doesn’t sound like a recipe for a good night’s sleep.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
I’m looking forward to Tulsi defending Putin and Assad. Finally someone who will proudly stand up for murderous dictatorships. It’s Reaganesque.
Baud
Really, WaPo?
Baud
dr. bloor
@Baud: With a little luck, they’ll cross wires with the iTunes rebuild and we’ll end up nominating Robert Fripp.
OzarkHillbilly
In an article with the headline, Are the wheels coming off Boris Johnson’s bus?, Ben Quinn at the Guardian boils it down to this:
To which Boris responds with, “Hold my beer. Watch this!”
Boris thinks he can do in 4 months what Theresa May was unable to in 2 years because the Tories couldn’t agree on anything? Pretty sure even he’s not that stupid. Get ready UK, a NO Deal Brexit is coming and you are going to get it good and hard.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Wednesdays are my regular writer group meeting, Not that I’d watch the “debate” anyway. The most interesting part will be reading the critiques of how the moderators handled it. Other than that, the stage is cluttered up with too many irrelevant people.
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
It’s almost like every country has to have their very own Chaos Candidate. //
Kay
I’ll watch with my youngest. He’s now a Gravel supporter. So that’ll be fun :)
Baud
FYI. No link for obvious reasons.
Baud
@Kay:
If he keeps going in that direction, he’ll be a Baud! 2020! groupie in no time.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Christ on a cracker…
satby
@Baud: yep. Shitshow. Not because of the candidates, but because of the disgusting media we have.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@dr. bloor: If we’re going to go with a Brit, I’d prefer Geri Halliwell.
debbie
@Baud:
Pity there aren’t enough trees or pixels to publish a similar treatment of Trump.
Baud
@debbie:
You’d think there would be with all the space they save not reporting on Trump’s rapes.
rikyrah
liberalvixen (@liberalvixen) Tweeted:
I feel like Hillary Clinton was asked every day and twice on Sunday about Bill Clinton’s affairs, and yet, no one has checked in at all with Melania. https://twitter.com/liberalvixen/status/1143564394342653952?s=17
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Kay: Whoa. How does he even know Gravel? I remember years back asking Mr DAW’s much younger brother who the 5th graders were supporting that year and he said Wilbur Mills.
rikyrah
Amy Klobuchar (@amyklobuchar) Tweeted:
Today I went to the floor to get a vote on my backup paper ballot secure elections amendment which is cosponsored by dozens of Senators. The republicans blocked it. They don’t even want to vote on it. What (or who) are they afraid of? https://twitter.com/amyklobuchar/status/1143577971288137729?s=17
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
They helped take down Al Gore with “earth tones.” They tried to ding Obama with “tan suit.” Of course, they’re going to pursue this.
rikyrah
???
? (@amakabot) Tweeted:
These people actually went to eat and have laughs with Sarah Sanders, despite her constant lying. I don’t have respect for them and I don’t care if they become the subject of Trump’s wrath in the future. https://twitter.com/amakabot/status/1143740458914537472?s=17
Kay
I went to a Dem meeting last night and everyone was talking about the migrant children- which surprised me. Strangely enough, we rarely talk about national issues. A lot of them are grandparents and it seemed to really hit them hard. I don’t watch the national tv news but they do and judging by what they said it’s being covered because they knew the children had been moved and then some had been returned.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@rikyrah:
Voters, obviously.
Another Scott
@Kay: I heard part of WBUR’s On Point show about the concentration camps yesterday. There were a couple of callers that were almost in tears they were so upset and furious about what’s happening there. It does indeed seem to be having a big impact when people understand what is going on under Trump’s monstrous policies.
Cheers,
Scott.
Kay
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
He went from Bernie to Yang to Gravel. He’s all over the place politically. There was a period prior to 2016 where he was reading the Right online- I recognized the arguments and honestly the attitude – that annoying thing they do where they think questioning something like food stamps is brilliant and original- but maybe Trump cured him of that.
This is patronizing and they would object but I think there is a reluctance to be “Democrats” among very young Lefties because it’s conventional. They align with the Democratic Party but they’ll never call themselves Democrats because political parties are too “normal”. It’s also loss avoidance, IMO. If you support the extreme long shot you don’t really “lose” because no one thought you would win.
Bruuuuce
@debbie: Nice. Now I want to hear what Colbert the Nerd (and that’s a compliment) thinks of rpg.net ALSO banning support for Trump on their site
OzarkHillbilly
Shocking photo of drowned father and daughter highlights migrants’ border peril
Bonus:
So in addition to exporting our drug war to Mexico, now we are exporting our xenophobia. Can you say “Stockholm Syndrome”?
Baud
@Kay:
Don’t disagree, but I also think it’s harder for young people who don’t identify with one of the groups in the Dem coalition. You have to be comfortable with being a general liberal. It took me a little while to register as a Dem even though I was always liberally oriented.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: @Baud: I remember that stage very well. “I’m different, not like those other people at all.”
Kay
@Another Scott:
Yeah, I was surprised. Maybe I don’t give them enough credit. They’re generally centrist or right-leaning Democrats so they’re often further Right than I am. Many of them, maybe most of them, are church-goers.
Baud
@Kay:
So are Trump supporting evangelicals. That don’t mean nothing.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Kay: I was more conservative when I was in high school and when I registered to vote, but I still registered as a Democrat. I became much more liberal in college.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
I still think I’m different. I just now realize being different doesn’t mean shit.
Kay
@Baud:
I could see that. I’ve met people who use the party as a general proxy for a set of positions and they just vote the ticket. That makes sense to me. They don’t want to get into the weeds. However, there’s a whole group on the other side like that, too, which is why it can be hard to get them to stop voting Republican. They’re not really parsing individual actions or positions. They’re not interested to that extent.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Also that everybody is different, and just because they belong to a group labeled XYZ, doesn’t make them all the same. It was a phase, where highlighting our differences seemed more important than highlighting our commonalities. Fortunately it passed fairly quickly.
Kay
@Baud:
I can’t really explain this because I’m an observer and I was just plain bad at religion, but I do think there’s a difference in people who are what we call here “church raised”. They have a set of ideas that comes out of that. I recognize the language and the general frame of reference they’re using. It’s why I was amazed that people didn’t see it in Clinton. You can hear it. I don’t think they’re superior but they do have a commonality that runs through their views, a consistency among them, that is different than people who reach an ethical or moral position outside a church/religion. They tend to speak in a group, and they were doing that last night. A lot of nodding- like that.
MomSense
@debbie:
Ha! I hadn’t seen that. The fiber community has been going through a long conversation about racism and oppression so this ravelry decision didn’t come out of thin air. Women are using their pocketbooks to support or boycott depending on whether or not the companies are making changes. It’s been pretty incredible. It also brought out the white supremists/trump supporters who had engaged in some threatening behavior on ravelry and social media. This is why Jessica and Casie (owners creators of ravelry) decided they had to act. They’ve now had to shut down their accounts because of death threats to their family. Jessica and Casie are married and live in Massachusetts with their two children.
It is always a little jarring to hear the stereotypes about knitters. I guess a lot of people would be shocked at how unlike the stereotypes we are.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
For some of us.
@Kay:
I guess that’s the “organized” part of organized religion.
Immanentize
@MomSense: I’m not surprised about who real Knitters are. Haven’t we all read lurid accounts of “No. 10 needles at dawn?”
Kay
@Baud:
Honestly Baud, evangelicals are their own sect. Again, as an outsider, my sense is that they’re considered lightweights among ordinarily religious people here. They make fun of them for all the drama, how they’re always leaving one church and starting another and how their zeal often doesn’t last. How they’re “converted” and then start haranguing everyone else and then just go back to what they were before they converted. I think evangelicals know this and it’s part of their resentment, they know the mainstream churches think they’re fly by nights. Not serious. Quickly converted and then just as quickly go on to something else- gun nuttism or hating feminists or whatever.
Betty Cracker
@OzarkHillbilly: That’s one of my theories about Bernie Sanders’ refusal to permanently join the party he’s now twice used to run for president — he never grew out of that stage. Some folks never do.
My brother hasn’t. Every election, my sister and I have to harangue him about voting for Democrats, or he’d wander off the reservation and do something dumb like vote for a third party. (He’s in his late 30s and 6’4″ but still our little brother!)
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: I speak only for myself.
Baud
The Today show had the most offensive lead-in to the debate this morning. They interviewed a bunch of mostly young people in Florida, and used leading questions to get them to convey cynical attitudes towards our candidates (or at least those are the only people they aired). There was one scene with a group of young people in a coffee shop, and Today gave a white dude who said he only cared about low taxes and was happy with Trump the most airtime to talk about what Dems needed to say. The whole thing was awful.
Baud
@Kay: I take their voting habits seriously. Politically, they punch above their weight.
Immanentize
@OzarkHillbilly:
New campaign slogan!
That is bumper sticker worthy.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: They are either Republicans or Republican enablers.
MomSense
@Immanentize:
I’ll that you that the one craft night I go to that is all grandmothers (except me) is the one where I sometimes wish I could yell green balloons to make them stop. The craft night that is all 20 somethings (except a few of us) is much tamer by comparison.
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker: I say I grew out of that, and I did grow out of that, but in other ways I regressed to the point where I now like to say, “I used to be a grown up. It sucked.”
LightCastle
@Bruuuuce: Considering it was almost 9 months ago, I don’t think he is going to say anything.
Gelfling 545
@Baud: Sort of depends on the church, doesn’t it? Interesting to note that a Methodist church near me had You’re Still Welcome Here on their sign board the last few months, since the infamous vote.
oatler.
Aaand who’s in the mood for some Chuck Todd tonight!!
Baud
@Gelfling 545: Sure. Kay’s comment simply mentioned “church goers.”
Ramalama
@NotMax: Good list!
I still keep waiting to see on my many VPNd new streaming services this excellent movie that Jason Alexander was in where he played a gay man with AIDS. It was such a charming, moving story: Love! Valour! Compassion! But haven’t seen it since it was a video tape rented out to me by my local video store.
Bruuuuce
@LightCastle: Oops. It was posted over at the Book of Faces, and, fool that I am, I didn’t check the date (especially right after Ravelry). Thanks for bringing that to my attention (and it makes me love them even more, for doing it so much earlier).
Ramalama
@Baud: I’m in the middle of a really excellent book that I never thought I’d read (thought it would be too wonky) – <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Yes-We-Still-Can-Politics/dp/1538711710" Yes We (Still) Can" by Dan Pfeiffer. The only reason why I’m reading it is because I’ve become such a fan of the guy from listening to him on Pod Save America. His main fight each and every day was to convey the president’s message, goals, successes to the American audience, amid the rapidly changing media landscape. The number of ‘ughs’ coming from me while reading, so frustrating with journalists and media.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Read it and feel the brain cells keel over dead.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Kay,
Your theory that they took them away and brought them back so that they can begin the clock again….good thinking.
Major Major Major Major
I feel like this debate is gonna be a snoozefest but I’ll tune in for Warren.
rikyrah
@Kay:
I think they saw the video of the Justice Department lawyer arguing that children didn’t need soap, toothpaste, clean diapers or a bed.
chopper
@Baud:
it’s early here, so i read that as “just rub it in the asshole, josh”.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@rikyrah: That was shocking, and the judges were there to make sure everyone who saw it knew it was shocking.
schrodingers_cat
@MomSense: One of the many rituals in Hindu weddings is that of haldi (turmeric). Its usually a couple of days before the actual wedding and women in the family smear turmeric paste on the groom or the bride. Turmeric is supposed to make your skin radiant and glowing. The women who tell the most baudy anecdotes are usually the oldest. They make the young ones blush.
germy
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: Children don’t need these things if the plan is to kill them by neglect.
germy
germy
plato
@Dorothy A. Winsor: And these idiots (or they play idiots on teevee) rake in millions. Only in murka
germy
rikyrah
This is about the Census Question case:
???
It’s hard to overstate how crazy a request this is. They are asking the Supreme Court to decide a constitutional claim that has NOT been briefed or argued in our case before the Supreme Court, in order to prevent a different court in MD from getting to the bottom of the facts. https://t.co/ogAgiUMm4a
— Daniel Jacobson (@Dan_F_Jacobson) June 25, 2019
opiejeanne
@Gelfling 545: That distressing decision at the Methodist Conference will not stand forever, and the unintended result is the very determined effort to work around it, to make LGBTQ welcome and to work toward the goal. The intent of the people driving this was to get the liberals in the church to peel off and make their own church, but the reaction was the opposite of what they expected, after the initial despair. A lot of heartsick anger and weeping initially from a couple of friends who are either in divinity school or are now preachers, but that quickly turned to an expression of strength and reaffirmation of faith. They will continue to operate behind the lines, as it were, and they knew we are there but can’t do anything about us. We Methodists will get where we need to be.
Kay
@Baud:
I think the reason evangelicals became part of the GOP was because they couldn’t gain dominance over the mainstream Protestant churches. They weren’t powerful within the “establishment” broader religious community, weren’t successful in getting those churches to adopt extreme views- anti science, anti-education- so they turned to an arena where they could exert a lot of power- as a wholly owned subsidiary of the GOP and an important voting group for Republicans. There they were welcomed and taken seriously, not for their religious views but because they’re essentially a political machine. That’s why they seem to veer further and further from what are supposedly their beliefs.
chopper
@schrodingers_cat:
if white people did that we’d all look like we have liver problems.
Kay
@rikyrah:
Well, in Ohio the state children’s services agencies (county, but it’s state law) live and die by the clock so they get very good at gaming it. For example. Children aren’t supposed to stay in limbo longer than 18 months. They are supposed to be returned to their parents or assigned to some legal guardian. But they “time out” so they need extensions, so they’ll do some fake back and forth to re-set. That’s why it occurred to me.
The federal government is not set up to do this. It isn’t what they do. It’s a state function. The root of this is incompetence and bad direction from the Trump Administration, poor leadership. They are ordering these people to do something they cannot do properly, and they’re doing it for political reasons, because one or another of the low quality hires wants to appear tough on immigrants.
They know they don’t have HHS shelters for them when they’re picking them up. That’s why they’re violating the 72 hour hold rule. Someone in the Trump Administration is telling them to pick them up anyway.
LightCastle
@Bruuuuce: Considering it was almost 9 months ago, I don’t think he is going to say anything.@Bruuuuce:
Yeah, considering some strains of the RPG hobby, it was pretty impressive to see them do that.
(I think Ravelry specifically namechecked RPG as a model for what they were doing, but I may be misremembering that.)
Kay
@rikyrah:
This children custody and care structure is elaborate at the state level. Everyone understands it. States cooperate because obviously it goes interstate. So if they put a kid on a plane to return them to Florida from Ohio, Ohio lets them go and Florida picks them up. The duty to care for them. That’s what they’re picking up. Legally. With an order. It’s a rule-bound orderly process and it operates without a lot of fuss because it’s daily in states. The federal government isn’t set up to do it. So they took them and once you do that they’re yours until you pass it off. Every minute. There are no gaps. They can’t pass a 3 year old to an 11 year old. This idea that the 11 year is responsible for the 3 year old is just insane. No, the 11 year old is not. The federal government is. 100%.
Kay
Here’s my crackpot theory on why the cruelty to the child migrants is covered and the allegations of rape and assault by the President are not- because political media only consider something a legit issue if some portion of Republicans care about it.
That’s the measure. Because Trump does “care” about the migrant children politically- as something that makes him look bad, and so do his followers. The debt and entitlements will become an issue again ONLY when the Republican leaves office and Republicans care about it again. The essential element for “important” is some buy-in by the GOP base.
They all but admit this, right? “Oh, Trump supporters won’t care” about the rape allegations. But they care about some things, and those things are then considered important. It isn’t “public” outrage that makes it a scandal. It’s whether Republicans think it’s an issue- a real issue or just something that makes them look bad. They, Republicans, determine the legitimacy of the complaint.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Listening to the stories from the lawyer who saw the facility…just angered me.
schrodingers_cat
@Kay: Its because they are Republicans themselves (the network bosses) and for careerist or other reasons most Beltway journalists are R enablers
rikyrah
@Kay:
patently absurd. Not saying that you aren’t telling the truth, just that I’m thinking about the bullshyt excuse that the NYT gave about not covering the latest rape accusation against Dolt45.
ThresherK
@Betty Cracker: Bernie reminds me of the kid who pretends to be your friend because he wants to come over to your house and play with your cool toys because he hasn’t got them of his own.
Aleta
The children are also about Kelly’s and the WH’s programs that turned housing children into a ‘growth opportunity.’
You can google Kelly and DC Capital Partners, Kelly and Caliburn. Caliburn’s subsidiary, Comprehensive Health Services, runs Homestead in Fla.
Some older stories this spring:
March 2019, NY Post
April 10, Forbes
One In Six Migrant Children In The U.S. Are Staying At A Shelter Operated By A Private Equity Tycoon
WaPo in May 2019 reporting on Kelly and Caliburn
Sen. Elizabeth Warren on twitter: “John Kelly pushed for family separation while in the White House. Now he’ll profit off of separating mamas from their babies. It’s immoral, and under my plan to #EndCorruptionNow it would be illegal for someone like Kelly to do this.”
FelonyGovt
@Kay: A lot of anguished talk at my Dems meeting last night about the immigrant children as well. It’s hit a nerve with so many of us.
Going to a debate watch party tonight but I don’t think I can stand to go Thursday as well, will probably stay home and watch. 6-8 pm California time, so it’s manageable.
Kay
@FelonyGovt:
I (actually) love debates so I’m a little bummed that they will make it all about Trump. Not the Democrats. The media:
His rating are lower than they were because he’s a giant fucking dumb bore who lies all the time, so maybe they won’t subject us to their worshipful obsession much longer.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
He is also claiming the right to (implicitly threatening) fire the Fed Chairman, and claiming Robert Mueller committed a crime
Kay
@schrodingers_cat:
I keep hearing this sentiment that people feel like “something should happen”. One guy said it last night at the meeting- he meant as a result of the cruelty to the children but it’s the general thing among Dems. Because we’re all used to how this works- there’s the scandal and then the fall out. In, through and out the other side. It’s like they know something is broken but they don’t know what it is. What, exactly, is failing to operate. Like it’s a system- electrical or plumbing- and there’s a faulty connection. A deep sense of disquiet and a kind of panic because it just keeps getting worse.
Kay
Elizabeth Warren’s visit to the children is better organized than the Trump Administration care of the children.
Just give them to her. She’ll get it sorted out in her spare time. Admit defeat. You’re incompetents.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
plato
BR
@Kay:
It is like an electrical system, but one where somebody has been slowly removing circuit breakers for 40 years and now someone else wants to draw more power from every socket than the wires can handle.
rikyrah
@plato:
The video is so good. She didn’t even have to think twice about it. It automatically came out of her mouth.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Great move
rikyrah
@Kay:
They are phucking criminals who belong in jail. Instinctively, WE KNOW that’s what should be happening.
THEY ARE ABUSING CHILDREN.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: Isn’t that a lyric from “Absolutely Sweet Marie?’
VOR
@rikyrah: I have two thoughts on the party for Sarah Sanders leaving. First, I would totally be up for a party to celebrate her leaving. Goodbye and don’t let the door hit you in the ass. Or do, I don’t care. Second, whoever replaces her is almost guaranteed to be worse. Not sure how that is possible, but remember Trump hires only the best people.