Mistermix reviewed the debate last night, and I, for a change, watched some of it, but if you have not actually seen any of the debate footage and are just reading about it, you really need to watch it.
WORLDSTAR https://t.co/et8FL1rKMF
— John Cole (@Johngcole) February 20, 2020
I feel like a Bernie diehard because I just simply don’t understand why everyone does not love her. Steve felt the same way:
Go watch her.
notoriousJRT
Steve is so awesome. And, I am not a cat person.
Baud
This is a reminder that I have not released any of you from your NDAs.
kindness
Steve for Vice President!!!!
donnah
Warren’s been my pick all along, so it was very satisfying to see her do well in a debate. She’s smart, unflappable, and she has what it takes to beat Trump. I hope she picks up steam and the mainstream media doesn’t leave her off the polls again.
Nicole
It really was excellent. Maura Quint gives a pretty funny play-by-play on McSweeney’s. Her first one of these debate recaps had me howling, and then they got less funny (probably because the material she had to work with was not as good), but, unsurprisingly, last night’s gave her plenty to riff on:
https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/the-one-with-mike-bloomberg
Turgidson
Yes, given who is left in the field, it is perplexing why Warren is forgotten or shrugged off by the pundtwits, loathed by the worst of the Berners for failing to submit to his perfect awesomeness, and seemingly loathed or feared by anyone to the right of Barack Obama as a commie scold. She is so obviously (to me) the most prepared, the most gracious, the most energetic, the most passionate, the most sincere of anyone left, and probably the most pragmatic too. But what do I know. Nuthin.
Sab
I didn’t watch the debate because spouse controls the remote ( me getting cable was a condition of our marriage. So he getsncontrol of tv.)
Yes. Reading about it was not the same as seeing it. She is so pasionate, and Bloomberg has to just sit there and politely accept her justifiable, polite and righteous rage.
One of them worked his way up from the upper middle class into the Ivy Leagues. The other worked her way up from the lower middle class, of the wrong gender, through state schools.
Guess who is more persistant.
emmyelle
I love her now.
Fuck the rest of these idiots. I’m all in.
cmorenc
To what extent does the instinctive fear some men have of vaginas with teeth have to do with the combination of fear , indifference, and dismissiveness toward warren?
Jerzy Russian
My dream ticket is Bailey/Steve. Bailey can go to all of the events, lick the babies, etc., while Steve can be the real power behind the scenes.
Patricia Kayden
Betty Cracker
@Nicole: OMG, thank you for linking that!
?
Rand Careaga
@Turgidson: Be on notice that I am stealing “pundtwits.”
Mnemosyne
@Patricia Kayden:
Shorter Trump: scary Black woman intimidated the other jurors by existing! ?
Sab
@notoriousJRT: Maine coons are not cats. They are dogs in cat suits. Werebear might disagree, but when my husband bellows “Mouf! Come!” Mouf comes from where-ever he was in the house. What kind of real cat does that?
trollhattan
Love Liz, full stop. If she survives this ghoulish process to gain the nomination, every still-living Trump advisor will shout and plead with him to not debate her. 11-dimensional Warren will have some plan to draw him out, maybe walking down 5th Avenue in a headdress or something.
trollhattan
@Patricia Kayden:
Gosh, whatever would Trump know about being such a person?
trollhattan
@Sab:
Wish my dog would do that.
LuciaMia
The Wisdom of Steve!
R-Jud
@Jerzy Russian: So what you’re saying is that Steve is Dick Cheney?
Betty Cracker
@Patricia Kayden: So now the POTUS is defaming a random citizen who took her civic duty seriously enough to show up for jury duty. Fucking hell.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Patricia Kayden:
I honestly can’t figure out what he’s talking about half the time. How does he know that she’s “dominant”? All I can say is he has a very active fantasy life.
Joy in FL
@trollhattan: “11-dimensional Warren will have some plan to draw him out, maybe walking down 5th Avenue in a headdress or something.“ I laughed out loud. Thank you for that.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Betty Cracker:
She disclosed her political actions in the questionnaire, and his lawyers seated her anyway. They can’t now go back and object. Otherwise any defendant could let a biased juror be seated and then accept an acquittal but object to a conviction.
zhena gogolia
@Betty Cracker:
This is terrifying. For the first time in my life, I think I may end it in a concentration camp. This is no joke.
SFAW
@Betty Cracker:
Oh, quit whining. It’s not as if he doxxed her.
Yet.
Kent
What Warren is doing is showing us how painfully old and slow the thee old male front-runners are. I’m sorry, but SHIT those three are all really old and have all really lost a step or 3. Look at old film of Bernie or Biden and it is obvious how much they have slowed down. Bernie has been reduced to a repeating loop of jibberish about the 1%. Biden is barely coherent. They both used to be much sharper on their feet. And Bloomberg has been cloistered behind handlers for so long he no longer knows how to be authentic, if he ever was.
Think about this. Bill Clinton and George Bush are both FIVE years younger than our three geriatric front-runners. If either of them jumped into the race today they would have been the second youngest men on the stage last night by long shot.
This would never happen in any actual field where performance mattered. I watched the Crown recently and the last years of Churchill in the early 1950s when he was declining were just painful. He was the same age as these three candidates
My father is 4 years older than Bernie. He is as healthy as can be, bikes almost daily and works out religiously at the gym. But the amount he has slowed in the past 4 years is painful to see.
Jerzy Russian
@R-Jud: Well, apart from the corruption, criminality, war crimes, etc., Steve could model his vice presidency after Cheny’s. After all, cats rule, dogs drool, so of course Steve would need to be in charge.
HeleninEire
@notoriousJRT: Ditto
Jeffro
It’s just weird how every person who rules against trumpov’s lawbreaking, investigates his lawbreaking, or participates in any way in prosecuting the lawbreaking of his underlings is “tainted”/”deep state”/”a never-trumper”/”rigged”/”biased” etc etc.
Every single time, every case, every person, no exceptions.
Why, it’s almost like (as we have discussed here many times) a law-abiding and civil society and its institutions has a problem with a thoroughly corrupt scumbag and his endless scams.
That, and (as we have also discussed here many times) trumpov’s definition of “fair” is “whatever lets me get away with whatever I want” while “bias” is evident if there is any sort of accountability or restraint whatsoever.
Come on, white supremacists: don’t even you people deserve better representation than this?
Kent
@Jeffro: You gotta hand it to him. He has been relentless on message since day one. Pathologically so. Any normal person would have melted down into a puddle of bile after lying so forcefully and relentlessly for so long.
HeleninEire
@Baud: Yeah, so sue me. I’ll make WAY MORE with my book.
Jerzy Russian
@Kent: Statistically, these three dudes may live to be in their mid 80s. What the statistics don’t include is that while you are technically “alive”, you might not be in that good of a shape near the end. My dad made it to age 83, but he was in pretty bad shape the last three or four years.
trollhattan
@Jeffro:
Sometimes you want a Mussolini and get a Trump instead. Just gotta run with that.
Nelle
I really dislike the banner ads running a ross the top.
trollhattan
@Jerzy Russian:
We can resurrect that “2:00 a.m. phone call” ad and show them struggling to dial back the Sleep Number Mattress control and shut down the CPAP machine so they can answer. “Where are my goddamn teeth!“
Timill
@Sab: Well, there could be food. Gotta check.
karensky
If Steve is in, Warren will win. Special thanks to@nicole for the McSwweney.’s link. The flamethrower part forced me to hightail it to the bathroom!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@HeleninEire:
Probably not a wise thing to say to a lawyer.
Mike in NC
People need to understand that the mainstream corporate media are pushing for the Sanders vs. Trump slugfest, and will go out of their way to marginalize everyone not named Bernie. They’ve been in the tank for Trump ever since he started showing his ugly mug on TV.
azlib
Except our Maine Coon drools when you scratch his ears.
catclub
@trollhattan: teef
Kent
There is a reason why scammers prey on the elderly. This became painfully obvious to us recently as my father-in-law in his mid-80s came damn close to being scammed out of his bank accounts by a caller pretending to be his son. Ten years ago that never would have come close to happening.
Somehow Bernie seems to have flipped the formula around. He is scamming the young. Who think all they to do is vote Bernie and their college loans will magically vanish and they will all get green new deal jobs and M4A.
Alaska Reader
I continue to believe Warren is the best choice.
Mnemosyne
@Sab:
My cats almost always come when called. The secret is that you have to fuss over them and maybe give them a treat every time. They’ll come if they think it will be worth their while.
Kent
I agree on every level. Best on policy, best on leadership, and best to take on Trump. It’s not even a close call on any of those counts for me.
Kent
We have a black and grey tabby named Nikko that my 13 year old daughter has raised up from a kitten. He jumps up and comes running every time she calls him. Like a little puppy. She doesn’t give him treats at all, just a bit of attention. She is like the cat whisperer. He won’t come for anyone else.
Spc
@Sab: yep. Same with mine.
gene108
@Kent:
The young are far less impressed with capitalism, than older folks. Can’t blame them.
I think Bernie is giving them something that’s aspirational.
But in the process, since Bernie isn’t a details kind of guy, many of them seem to me to be a bit naive about how the rest of the country will respond to Bernie’s agenda. They truly do believe, if you make something that benefits people, the people will come around and support you. This hasn’t been the case, in this century.
hitchhiker
Just occurred to me that it’s possible a lot of people experience election-night-PTSD symptoms when they start to imagine a Warren/Trump race. It would be too much to bear if she lost to him, so they cast about for an alternative scenario that doesn’t ring so many familiar bells.
I mean, we have exactly ONE data point about what happens when a woman dares to campaign for the presidency. It was awful for a whole year, and then it got worse.
Not saying this is a factor, but it might be.
Betty Cracker
@Kent:
Whoa. That really puts it in perspective.
Kent
@Betty Cracker: Bill Clinton and George W. Bush are both 73.
patrick II
@trollhattan:
I like that. I would have Bernie start bellowing cliches from his campaign speech no matter what the emergency is. An earthquake in California? It is all the fault of the 1%!!
Betty Cracker
@hitchhiker: Great point. I’m certain that’s a HUGE factor. I feel it myself sometimes. (Then I give myself a stern lecture about the massive black swan-fest that was the 2016 election, the 30-year hit job on Clinton, etc., etc.)
Josie
Having dispatched Bloomberg, Warren may be ready to start in on Bernie.
https://politicalwire.com/2020/02/20/warren-calls-on-sanders-to-release-medical-records/
We can only hope.
Kent
Young people, especially in the cities, are also in an echo chamber that is almost as hermetically sealed as the Fox News oldsters. The naivete about how progress actually happens in this country is breath taking. And, unfortunately, the Sanders campaign just amplifies it.
Mnemosyne
@Kent:
Young people are prone to getting scammed as well, because they can be naive and/or idealistic. That’s also why they get targeted by cults.
hitchhiker
@Betty Cracker:
I think it was Rebecca Traister who said that men don’t really grasp the level of fury and pain women experience at the thought of trump winning that election.
A candidate named Edward Warren with Elizabeth’s resume, energy and ability to articulate the message would not be struggling to keep up with Mayor Pete.
Served
@Kent: ok boomer
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Betty Cracker: If you read “The Hunting of the President”, it was more like 40 years. Republicans were more afraid of Hillary then of Bill becoming President even back then.
zhena gogolia
I notice there’s always one mean-spirited, glib commenter (always with different nyms) who shows up in every thread to defend BS. Strange.
Baud
@hitchhiker:
It’s why I keep saying I wish at least one of the 2020 candidates had thought to tap into that. Especially Warren.
Chip Daniels
One thing for us Warren fans to remember is that only about a third of Dems are firm in their choices; the rest are still up for grabs.
Jerzy Russian
@azlib:
I imagine it sounds something like this: “scritch, scritch, purr, purrr, purrrrr, drip, drip, drip.”
Sab
Note to midwesterners: Connie Schultz linked to a t-shirt and other stuff website where Sherrod bought her a t-shirt she loved (journalism).
They had a poster I loved much much more. Mid-western map by non-midwesterners. Hilarious.
I bought the poster and took into work where it is very popular.
However, they also have postcards, t-shirts and totebags.
Nicole
@Betty Cracker:
@karensky:
Glad you both enjoyed it. I howled, too. She’s a funny writer, she is.
Kent
And I think her strategy of going for the Bloomberg/Biden/Klobuchar/Buttigieg voters right now is sound as most of them are probably weaker in their support than the BS faithful.
I also think that if she manages to become the most viable BS alternative, then she is also best positioned to peel off layers of his support. Other than for a few on the left, this election isn’t really about ideology.
WaterGirl
@Nicole: Wonkette’s was excellent, also! Heading over to read this one now.
WaterGirl
@Nelle: Everyone does. I let Cole know.
gene108
@Kent:
I thought like younger Sanders supporters, when Obama was elected in 2008.
Do things like save the auto industry, and MI and OH would be so grateful that Democrats would do better there.
Or Obamacare would insure so many more people that it’d win people over.
I have become a bit more worldly wise, with regards to how dug in people are to supporting Republicans. Not everybody is totally dug-in, otherwise we would not be winning elections, but it’s not policy that’s causing them to vote for Democrats.
It’s disgust at Trump and Republicans abuse of power to serve their personal and political interests.
EDIT: If Bernie wins, and he gets anything done, they will be in for a rude awakening about what it takes to actually win people over. I’m not sure how many of them are willing to drop their delusions about “rigged primaries”, or whatever, and accept the reality of what they need to do, in order to finish what they started. They don’t seem terribly pragmatic.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: I think that’s what Warren is referring to when she says we can’t be driven by fear, that we have to have courage. At least, that’s my interpretation of it.
gene108
@hitchhiker:
I agree wholeheartedly with this assessment.
Post-2016-election-night-PTSD is the driving force behind voters decisions in the 2020 Democratic Primary.
RedDirtGirl
@HeleninEire: Nice to see you!
Bill Arnold
@Patricia Kayden:
Has D.J.Trump ever served on a jury, or at least showed up for jury duty?
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Maybe. The sentiment is right but it’s somewhat abstract and doesn’t tap into any anger. I was thinking something more direct. Maybe even mentioning Hillary’s name once in a while, and talking about the Russians and Comey and maybe even Matt Lauer. Like a real-world version of what Bernie has done with the fake rigged primary rhetoric.
Frankensteinbeck
@Kent:
He tells them that the rich are evil and should be destroyed. It’s obvious from their perspective, and you can see why. Saying it’s not that simple sounds like making excuses and not seeing your hand in front of your face when you’re young.
Kent
It’s not just Republicans. The Democratically-controlled House was just working on a fairly non-controversial health care bill to curtail out-of-network surprise medical billing. They couldn’t even get it through the Dem controlled House Ways and Means committee. After they chipped away at it, the bill was eventually tabled by Chairman Richard Neal, who’s biggest campaign donor is a private equity group that owns the country’s largest physician staffing company. https://www.modernhealthcare.com/politics-policy/how-congress-surprise-billing-compromise-fell-short
But yes, M4A will sail right through the House unchanged because Sanders is going to shout and wave his finger. And that is the HOUSE where Dem’s hold a majority
But yes, people are dug in. If Trump had implemented one of your big policy objectives, like something on climate change, or maybe strengthen social security, how many Dems do you think would have flipped over to him? Any?
WaterGirl
@Nicole: That was most excellent!
Hoodie
@gene108: They don’t seem to understand the profound power of resentment, even though we have the king of resentment sitting in the White House.
Baud
@Kent:
Um…if that’s the issue I’ve been seeing a bajillion ads about, I wouldn’t call it non-controversial.
Nicole
@WaterGirl: I loved Wonkette’s, too! Especially this bit: “In the first minutes of the debate, Warren made it clear she was there to kick ass and chew policy, and she was setting aside her policy folder for a moment.”
Baud
@Kent:
At Balloon Juice, none. Across the country, enough.
Parts of the left supported Trump on trade in 2016.
Kent
@Baud: Non-controversial to anyone who doesn’t have a vested financial interest is probably a better way to put it. It’s not a partisan issue, plenty of Republicans support the idea. But yes, the vested interests who cash in on the current system? they are going to predictably squeal like stuck pigs.
Baud
@Kent:
I don’t really know enough about the issue or the proposed solutions. I just hate the ads.
Kent
@Baud: Plenty of Dems would probably applaud if he brought the troops home from Afghanistan or came to some big trade agreement with China. Or decided to re-enter the Paris Climate accords. But they would still vote against him in 2020. That’s my point. It was equally naive to expect heartland Republicans to vote Dem just because Obama saved the auto industry.
Kraux Pas
@Kent: We got an improved NAFTA and I did applaud. But no way will I vote for him.
Also, too, Dems in Congress fought and succeeded to improve the final deal.
Baud
@Kent:
Right, but we’re mostly talking about areas that flip. And you would hope that those areas don’t flip away from you right after you save their asses, absent some other factor.
WaterGirl
@Nicole: I didn’t see that line in Wonkette’s – maybe there were two???
https://www.wonkette.com/are-you-ready-for-blooooomberg-no-your-vegas-democratic-debate-liveblerg
WaterGirl
@Nicole:
Rick Taylor
@Baud:
Thanks, Baud! Obviously, if I had wanted the freedom to disclose any unpleasant business, I would not have signed that nondisclosure agreement. Your consideration for us is both courageous and heart warming.
Betty Cracker
@Kraux Pas: I made that point to a Trumper uncle (Truncle?) the other day. He said Trump had done a lot of good things, and I asked him to name one. He said the deal that replaced NAFTA, and I said it was basically an update, not some magnificent, brand-new deal, and that Nancy Pelosi had to force Trump to incorporate the best parts of it, i.e, the parts that help people rather than corporations.
Then he said the China deal was good, and I informed him China sliced off Trump’s stupid balls when he got over his skis with the trade war, julienned them and is now forcing Trump to buy them back strip by strip and that Trump spent more on farmer welfare to shore up his base than Obama spent to bail out the auto industry. He shut up then. Hadn’t mentioned Trump in my presence for a year and probably won’t for another year.
mary s
I wasn’t initially a Warren superfan but I feel like she’s got a huge amount of integrity and intelligence and yes, persistence. It’s so obvious to me! But people seem to be contorting themselves into thinking that other people don’t like her and/or aren’t going to vote for her, so they have to vote for Biden or (just recently) Bloomberg. In fact, a pair of beloved friends I was visiting over the weekend “confessed” that they had already voted for Bloomberg (by mail — I live in California) because it seemed like he might win. This was after I’d ranted for a bit about how awful he is as a candidate.
Nicole
@WaterGirl: Oh yeah, the liveblog was GREAT, but I was quoting this one:
https://www.wonkette.com/elizabeth-warren-has-a-plan-a-plan-for-kicking-ass
J R in WV
@Bill Arnold:
Is Trump even aware that the foreperson of a Jury is selected by the jurors in the jury room after the trial is over and deliberations are beginning? Nope!!
I was elected foreman of a jury that heard a capital murder case, which went to the jury on Oct 31. We acquitted the defendant after 3 or 4 hours of deliberation. Self defense was the mood in the jury room.
The next December I was asked by the county clerk to be part of a jury pool, as they were having trouble getting a good pool for another murder case. I said OK, and spent 2 weeks around Xmas in the courtroom.
When the case went to the jury, several members (like me) had been on the previous jury, and they immediately volunteered me for foreman, but I declined, saying I felt I had done that duty at the previous trial.
In the end, we were 11-1 for acquittal pretty quickly, but that one guy lied when he told the judge he could be objective on the jury — he had been on a jury that acquitted a defendant, he thought wrongly, and had promised himself he would never vote to acquit anyone ever again.
It took til nearly midnight for us to convince this guy that 11 to 1 meant that there was reasonable doubt that a murder had been committed by the defendant. Who was the widow of the deceased, who was shot by a gun still in its holster… way too much to tell here, but no one else on the jury thought the widow intended to shoot her husband that night as he packed up for a hunting trip.
SO I’m here to tell folks the jury forewoman in Roger Stone’s trial didn’t cause Stone’s conviction — 12 jurors tried and true, peers of Stone’s, convicted him unanimously !! Also, his lawyers could have struck that African-American lawyer woman from the jury had they seriously thought she was biased against Roger!
And no, I’ll bet a large sum of cash that Trump has never been on a jury in his whole life — if he had he would know more about being on a jury!
paulnix
I’m with you John, I don’t understand why people don’t see it. she’s smart, she’s tough, and has the least amount of baggage. she would wipe the floor with that orange turd. all he’d be able to do is shout “Pocahontas, Pocahontas!” over and over.
WaterGirl
@Nicole: oh, good, now I have that to look forward to!
Marcopolo
About to head out for the evening but as this seems to be a bit of an open thread I want to remind everyone of one of the political elephants in the room we don’t hear enough about.
There is a federal court case waiting to be heard by the Supreme Court that would end the ACA. It has been in the system for well over a year and there wasn’t a good reason for the Supreme Court to slow walk hearing it (which really should be happening right now this term) except for the Republicans on the court not wanting the decision to come out prior to the election (nor the voting public to be reminded that the Rs & the Trump Administration actually does want to strip everyone of the protections that the ACA provides).
Can anyone here imagine what the election dynamics would look like if one of the overarching issues was the ACA going away and everyone losing pre-existing condition protection or the ability for their kids to stay on their plan until they are 26? Remember the main issue driving the 2018 election? Instead we mostly have crickets on this.
Anyways, just thought I’d throw that out while it was in my head.
Have a good night everyone.
Geminid
@mary s: “I feel like she has a huge amount of integrity…”. I also think E. Warren has shown strong character. Hasn’t always benefited her, like when she was honest enough to lay out out the cost and financing of her health plan. Unlike a certain junior senator from Vermont who likes to say, “nobody knows.”
debbie
@Mnemosyne:
If you’re giving them a treat every time, is it really a “maybe”? ?
rk
@J R in WV:
No, he would still know nothing. He’s incapable of learning. Trump has been president for more than 3 years. You think he knows anything about being a president? This POS will die knowing nothing.
sukabi
@Sab: the kind that will come to document the grievance so he’s got an accurate count when he decides to murder you by tripping you on the stairs….
sukabi
@paulnix: also pretty sure if he took to stalking her on the stage she’d calmly retrieve Amy’s comb and disembowel him before anyone was aware of what was happening.
PeakVT
Awesome band name. Can’t wait for the first album!
James E Powell
@hitchhiker:
I assume you’re not talking about the white women, no college voted for Trump over Clinton 62 to 34. Is there any indication that there have been changes in that demographic?
Mary Ellen Sandahl
On 2016 Election Night PTSD:
@hitchhiker:
Oh, I think it’s a very powerful factor for a lot of people who’d love to have Liz in the WH. It’s gonna take some doing to overcome the Pavlovian dread that seizes many good people at the idea of another smart female with short blonde hair going against the Orange Stalker.
We have to work our butts off to get her nominated.