Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

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

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

Republicans in disarray!

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

The words do not have to be perfect.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

“More of this”, i said to the dog.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Being the leader of the world means to be the leader of peace.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

This fight is for everything.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Live: Obama- Biden One on One

Reader Interactions

197Comments

  3. 3.

    Elizabelle

    TaMara: Video link is from Obama’s FB page.

    And we get message we have to allow Facebook to track our movements on Balloon Juice.

    NO NO NO

  7. 7.

    JohnC

    You can watch without responding to the Facebook tracker – just leave it pending at the top of the window.

  10. 10.

    Joey Maloney

    Y’all tune into C-SPAN. Rep. Ocasio-Cortez has torn off Rep. Yoho’s withered sack and set it on fire on the speaker’s podium.

  12. 12.

    TaMara (HFG)

    “Having a daughter does not make a man decent. Having a wife does not make a decent man. Treating people with decency and respect makes a decent man. … You can be a powerful man & accost women. You can have daughters & accost women.” –

    @AOC

  13. 13.

    Lacuna Synechdoche

    @Elizabelle: TaMara: Video link is from Obama’s FB page.

    And we get message we have to allow Facebook to track our movements on Balloon Juice.

    NO NO NO

    Seconded. I use NoScript to block everything related to FB. I won’t go there to watch a video, and I won’t let them track me. No one should.

    This isn’t just paranoia about tracking (though that’s a valid response, especially given the current malministration). There’s also the concern of not wanting to validate or contribute to the profits of a corporation that has done far too little to reign in misinformation and foreign electoral manipulation on its platform, and is far too supportive of right-wing extremists and their causes.

    Is there another link or another way to watch this vid?

     

     

  15. 15.

    PaulWartenberg

    I’m at work so I can’t afford to watch at the moment.

    All I know is if I see and hear Obama I am gonna go out and vote for that man. I KNOW BIDEN IS ON THE TICKET FOR 2020 BUT DAMMIT I WANT MY PRESIDENT BACK.

  17. 17.

    Lacuna Synechdoche

    @Ken:

    @JPL: The sound of Trump’s voice brings tears to my eyes.

    The sound of Trump’s voice induces in me a fit of Trump Tourette’s: all I can do is repeatedly mutter. “Fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you ….” every time I hear his ignorant whiny nasal voice, or see him in a video, or even just see his disgusting vomitous visage in a  photo.

    Fuck that fucking Putin fuck-puppet.

  23. 23.

    Betty Cracker

    @TaMara (HFG): Good for her. That was a self-serving mess of an “apology.” Yoho is a veterinarian, and I can’t help but think animals in his district are better off when he’s in congress.

  28. 28.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @rikyrah:

    We can win this.  We are winning this.  The kind of comeback Trump would need to win is astronomical.  We’re like 6-8 points ahead of where Hillary was, and she lost by a fluke, a hair, and a technicality.

    All we have to do is vote and get to January.

  30. 30.

    PaulWartenberg

    @rikyrah:

    I tried joining a debate watch party back in 2016 and I had to leave thirty minutes in because I wanted to charge the flatscreen and smash it every time trump talked.

    I cannot abide that SOB’s voice, even when Cooper mocks him. I just can’t.

  32. 32.

    PaulWartenberg

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    trump could still win in a fluke, not only from the voter suppression the red states will likely commit but from the odd demographics and result skewing that the Electoral College promotes. Biden could have 75 million votes to trump’s 60 million, but if trump secures Michigan and Pennsylvania and Ohio and Florida by mere hundreds of votes trump gets ALL their EVs.

  33. 33.

    JPL

    BREAKING: Judge Hellerstein finds that the purpose of the first clause of Michael Cohen’s agreement was to interfere with his First Amendment rights.

    Discussing remedy now

    Barr must be pissed that he can’t imprison folks just to please the pres.

    https://twitter.com/KlasfeldReports

  35. 35.

    ThresherK

    Obama is not a journo, or (of course) even a Fox Newser/OANN suckup. But this is a “friendly”, as the footie fans say.

    I see quite a difference, however, compared to Trump, who can no longer just riff or converse his way thru a friendly interview, and needs to start working with a script to sound semi-coherent.

  37. 37.

    Ken

    @Gin & Tonic: Can’t help wondering if people below AARP age even know what handball is.

    They can always look it up in Urban Dictionary.  (Not going there myself…)

  38. 38.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @PaulWartenberg:But what are the odds of Biden getting 75 million votes and managing to lose those states?  And, yes, I am aware of 2016, but we can acknowledge the horror of that year while still recognizing the perfect storm that was needed to bring it about.  2020 is a different time.

  40. 40.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @Leto: Thanks for posting that, Leto. She was far calmer than I could have been in a similar situation. As I recall, Trump is trying to claim that Biden is her puppet. First, don’t be stupid. Second, is this what he’s scared of and wants us to be scared of too?

  44. 44.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: She is an attractive, self-possessed, and articulate woman who isn’t dependent on any man.  She is terrifying to some men.  Trump is the epitome of that type.

    @Baud: Exactly.

  46. 46.

    Lacuna Synechdoche

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    The kind of comeback Trump would need to win is astronomical.

    Unfortunately, it’s not.

    Trump’s approval rating remains at 41% among registered/likely voters at FiveThirtyEight.com. And Trump is still tracking at about 42% against Biden in presidential race polls – only 4% below the 46% percent with which Trump “won” the 2016 Electoral College.

    The one strong indicator we have is that Biden, at about 49.5% against Trump, is doing significantly better than Clinton at this point in polling.  But that’s not enough to feel comfortable, especially when Trump remains so persistently close to his 2016 polling.

    We’re winning, but we don’t have this in the bag yet. The race is still close enough that Trump could pull out an Electoral College win with sufficient suppression of Democratic votes in swing states – whether through Russian hacking, or through intimidation and violence from Trump’s camo-shirt thugs. And we can probably count on seeing both the hacking and the violence from the GOP during, and in the run-up to, the election.

    And even if Biden wins the presidency, we still need to win back the Senate too if we’re going to have any hope of Biden being effective.

    So let’s not get overconfident. Yet.

  49. 49.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Baud:

      For Biden to lose with a 15 million vote edge would be like Trump winning the lottery.

    and he’s already done that twice, first by being Sonoffred, then by stumbling into a bizarre creation of the universe known as Mark Burnett

  51. 51.

    WaterGirl

    @Baud:  His point stands, though. Biden could be ahead by a ridiculous margin, but if they cheat and steal hard enough, the result could come out the wrong way.

  52. 52.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Lacuna Synechdoche: So let’s not get overconfident. Yet.

    I notice your use of overconfident.  Is it okay if we have some confidence, or should just be sure that Trump somehow going to manage another perfect storm and wander around morosely waiting for the other shoe to drop?

  53. 53.

    schrodingers_cat

    My suggestion to those who think that the Orange One will win is to talk people who are not in the R voting demographic. His popularity among all demographic groups other than white men is at the rock bottom. He can’t win just with their votes alone.

  54. 54.

    Baud

    @WaterGirl: The mathematical odds will never be zero.  Instead of worrying about what the result might end up being, we should just focus on making sure our people can vote, getting out the vote, and fighting Republicans’ attempts at voter suppression and disinformation.

  57. 57.

    Lacuna Synechdoche

    @Omnes Omnibus: Is it okay if we have some confidence, or should just be sure that Trump somehow going to manage another perfect storm and wander around morosely waiting for the other shoe to drop?

    I’d say that confidence that we *can* win, if we work for it hard enough, is good; but confidence that we *will* win, that the odds are “astronomically” in our favor, is overconfident and pushing our luck.

  58. 58.

    narya

    @Gin & Tonic: I actually PLAYED handball for about 15 years–with a bunch of old-school guys, most of whom were 20 years older than I am. One of the places was courts in the basement of a residential YMCA. Originally, there was no locker room for women, and men used to play naked. Which, srsly, I don’t get. I played there years later, and there were STILL people who were grumpy that wimmins were allowed in.

  59. 59.

    Lacuna Synechdoche

    @Baud: … we should just focus on making sure our people can vote, getting out the vote, and fighting Republicans’ attempts at voter suppression and disinformation.

    That is exactly the message I’m trying to push.

  62. 62.

    dirge

    Why is no one demanding that Trump produce the test results?  The original, official, long form record.

  63. 63.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Lacuna Synechdoche: And I think that we will win if we don’t blow it.  We need to work to make sure that everyone can vote.  We need to make sure that bullshit gets countered.  And everyone needs to fucking show up and fucking vote.  We do that; we win this time.  So let’s do the work and bury all these fuckers.

  64. 64.

    Ken

    @narya: I knew someone who was hit in the eye by a handball, and even though they were wearing protective goggles they had a black eye for a month. The thought of playing naked is insane.

  65. 65.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Baud: For Biden to lose with a 15 million vote edge would be like Trump winning the lottery. Putin’s hackers having utterly compromised enough states’ voting systems that he could have the totals altered at will. He’d let Biden pile up a margin that large but completely worthless just to shove it in Americans’ collective face that he now owned the system lock, stock & barrel.

    It ought to go without saying that I’m not rooting for this outcome, just noting what might happen. “Those who vote decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything.” (Stalin)

  67. 67.

    Betty Cracker

    I think we’re going to win in November and possibly win big unless the fundamentals of the race change in some dramatic way that benefits Trump. Trump (or his people) understand that, which is why he encouraged states to reopen prematurely in hopes of a dead cat bounce in the economy to save Trump’s ass, but that backfired.

    The current play is to stoke violence so median voters’ sympathy for protests curdle into fear for their own safety, but that doesn’t seem to be working outside the base. Maybe he’ll try a war with China next. He’s dumb and reckless enough to do that, but I’m trying not to worry so much about things outside my control.

  68. 68.

    Geminid

    @Lacuna Synechdoche: This year I think the Democratic side will run hard to the finish line, and Biden will win, and we will gain a Senate majority, hopefully a big one. But I don’t think I can really feel relaxed until Inauguration Day. I am more detached from politics than many, but the asshole-in-chief has really gotten under my skin, and I personally won’t feel right until he’s out of the White House.

  69. 69.

    Elizabelle

    @Geminid:   I think so too.

    I don’t know ANYONE taking this election for granted, but I wish the Chicken Littles would put a sock in it.  It’s demoralizing.

    We are resolved.

  71. 71.

    Yutsano

    @Uncle Cosmo: I am still not convinced to this day that votes weren’t changed in Pennsylvania. Or Michigan. Or Wisconsin. Or any place with an electronic voting system. It’s why I trust the mail in ballot more.

  72. 72.

    bemused

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    @TaMara (HFG)

    She’s right on.

    I keep wondering about the Portland storm trooper goons, if they think about their moms, grandmoms, sisters when they gas the Portland moms. Oh hell, they’d probably follow orders and gas their own moms if they were protesting.

     

     

    \

  74. 74.

    Lacuna Synechdoche

    @Omnes Omnibus: I think that we will win if we don’t blow it. We need to work to make sure that everyone can vote. We need to make sure that bullshit gets countered. And everyone needs to fucking show up and fucking vote. We do that; we win this time. So let’s do the work and bury all these fuckers.

    Yes. Exactly.

  75. 75.

    J R in WV

    @Leto:

    Thanks for that link. She was well mannered in that speech, yet managed to get her point across very well. I find I admire her pretty well across the board.

  78. 78.

    Gin & Tonic

    @narya: I played a lot back in the day too, but I was always clothed and I never encountered anyone playing unclothed.

    Did you play one-wall or four-wall?

  79. 79.

    piratedan

    @Yutsano: and that everyone just accepts that nothing untoward happened when we have evidence regarding the hacking of Democratic Party headquarters and staff, weaponized social media campaigns all coordinated with the help of foreign agents and GRU agents compromising GOP donors and dark money supplementing their campaigns that THIS was the one part of the equation that was left intact…

  80. 80.

    Roger Moore

    @Betty Cracker:

    Yoho is a veterinarian, and I can’t help but think animals in his district are better off when he’s in congress.

    I don’t know about that.  My family’s vet when I was growing up was Wayne Allard, and he was actually a very good vet, much better than he was as a senator.

  82. 82.

    Yutsano

    @J R in WV: I was really enjoying the clips being posted. You could hear her exact tone and expression. And while she was calm you could tell she has mastered the art of subtle righteous anger. It’s not an easy thing to do.

  84. 84.

    schrodingers_cat

    I never watched a single minute of the Apprentice, and I don’t intend to watch the shit show the Orange tyrant is putting on in Portland. He wants us to be afraid and demoralized.

    We see what he is doing and we are determined. I knew something like what is happening in Portland was in cards the day he won the election. None of this surprising.

    What is surprising is the surprise many express. Did you not pay any attention to the 2016 campaign? He has been fantasizing about sending troops to Chicago and Baltimore since the 2015.

  88. 88.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Lacuna Synechdoche: Then what’s your problem?  No one is saying “Sit back.  Relax.  It’s in the bag.”  I am tired of people telling us to pretend we are behind and that we need to live in fear that Trump might do “something.”  We are ahead at this point.  We can acknowledge that and still be wary of dirty tricks and complacency.

  89. 89.

    J R in WV

    @Ken:

    July 23, 2020 at 12:05 pm

    @narya: I knew someone who was hit in the eye by a handball, and even though they were wearing protective goggles they had a black eye for a month. The thought of playing naked is insane.

    Nudists are strange, tho. Have seen a naked guy (Friend on his farm) picking blackberries ( or perhaps raspberries, no difference in the story ) which is dangerous enough with jeans and a shirt on.

  90. 90.

    narya

    @Gin & Tonic: I played four-wall, but there were a lot of three-wall players, too, even though that’s only an option for part of the year here. The only two places where I think there’s a lot of one-wall is NYC and prisons.

    @Subsole: Ew. I have no idea, and, really, don’t even want to contemplate.

  91. 91.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @J R in WV: picking blackberries ( or perhaps raspberries, no difference in the story )

    Of course there is a difference.  One would put up with a greater degree of personal risk for raspberries.

  94. 94.

    Subsole

    @J R in WV:

    For real? I would not go anywhere NEAR a blackberry bush with my danglies out. Nuh uh. Nope. Think again.

     

    @narya: My bad, I read about the nudity and thought you were riffing on the ancient Greek concept of gymnasia, where people typically played naked, and used olive oil to keep clean. Did not mean it in any way perverse.

    The caldarium is from the Roman baths, because why not mix time periods?

  95. 95.

    WaterGirl

    @Baud:  totally agree.  It just didn’t make sense to me to be refuting his number example in particular.

    In previous elections I assumed that they just need our margin to be so strong that it would not be possible for them to cheat enough to have a win be believable.  What I’ve learned this past year is that they don’t care if it would be totally unbelievable. They would be brazen enough to steal it in plain sight and figure with Barr in place, they could get away with it.

    That said, we have to fight like hell and do everything we can.  No regrets.

  96. 96.

    J R in WV

    @Gin & Tonic:

    @narya: I played a lot back in the day too, but I was always clothed and I never encountered anyone playing unclothed.

    Did you play one-wall or four-wall?

    We played rackettball, on closed courts. Was a great sport for conditioning and keeping your weight under control, then wife broke the other ankle, was sneered at by the orthopedist who treated her, and gave it up.

    ETA: She broke the first one dancing to the Orange Blossom Special at a wedding party, got faster and faster, she was wearing some heels and turned her foot under. Or maybe the other way around, it was a long time ago now…

  101. 101.

    Ken

    @Yutsano: And while she was calm you could tell she has mastered the art of subtle righteous anger. It’s not an easy thing to do.

    Sadly, I’m sure she’s had plenty of opportunities to practice.

  103. 103.

    CaseyL

    We can counter voter intimidation, I think; provide escorts, like abortion rights activists do when patients have to run a gantlet of screaming morons.

    Countering manipulated vote totals will be… trickier.  In fact, short of having an army of lawyers in every state ready to file suits challenging the results immediately, I’m not sure what can be done.

  105. 105.

    Gin & Tonic

    @narya: I loved playing four-wall. I also loved that the best player on the country back in the day was a very hard-drinking (and smoking) guy from the Bronx who’d go to a tournament, spend the day playing, the night drinking, show up the next day half in the bag and still win everything there was. It helped that the perennial second-place finisher was a clean-living Bible-thumping guy from the South somewhere.

    A younger me found that very amusing. It later turned out the guy had a variety of undiagnosed mental/behavioral disorders and was likely self-medicating.

  106. 106.

    schrodingers_cat

    @rikyrah: No. I don’t have Netflix and I hate the institution of arranged marriage with the heat of thousand suns. So I am not sure even if I am going to hate watch it. I watched it IRL (for my aunt and uncles) and it is horrible

    Did you watch it?

  108. 108.

    J R in WV

    @Jeffro:

    Me too, those guys in PA… Democrats won every state-wide race in PA except for president?!?!!!! No way that happens! Cheated totally.

    I don’t know if that single state would have changed the outcome. but I will never believe those three states actually voted for Trump.

    Never!

    He is not a legitimate president in any shape or form!

  111. 111.

    Another Scott

    @Baud: +1

    And letting Barr know that we know he’s going to try to pull a Comey and throw Biden under the bus just before the election.  Comey was a once in a lifetime thing.  Barr is a known liar, doesn’t have the “stellar reputation” that Comey had, and he is getting pushback on the “200 people arrested in KC” lies.  It won’t work.

    Without Comey, HRC would be seeking re-election now.  We can’t forget that.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  112. 112.

    Anoniminous

    It’s nice to be ahead in the national poll.  It’s also politically meaningless.

    Look at the https://www.270towin.com/maps/biden-trump-polling-map

     

     

    <a href=”https://www.270towin.com/maps/biden-trump-polling-map”>state polls</a.>

    They have Biden with 301 EVs.  They have Florida (!) a Must-Have Trump state leaning Dem – most recent poll gives Biden a 6 point lead – with Texas(!!) and Georgia (!!!!!) as toss-ups.

    The scum-sucking Republican shitbags* can read polls too and are https://politicalwire.com/2020/07/22/gop-feuding-linked-to-trumps-rapid-fall-in-the-polls

     

    hysterical about their future.

    * IMHO

  113. 113.

    Marcopolo

    Another week, another set of ratings changes on 8 House races. Seven are towards the Ds.

    Rep @AOC: “I do not need Rep. Yoho to apologize to me. Clearly he does not want to. Clearly when given the opportunity he will not & I will not stay up late at night waiting for an apology from a man who has no remorse over calling women & using abusive language towards women.” pic.twitter.com/XKymFh3Oyf— CSPAN (@cspan) July 23, 2020

    Particularly excited about AR-2.

    Also, I just watched AOC’s 10 minute speech commenting on her encounter w/ Rep. Yoho’s and his derogatory remarks towards her. It is a must watch. She is so good at this & it’s obvious why R’s are terrified of her.

    Rep @AOC: “I do not need Rep. Yoho to apologize to me. Clearly he does not want to. Clearly when given the opportunity he will not & I will not stay up late at night waiting for an apology from a man who has no remorse over calling women & using abusive language towards women.” pic.twitter.com/XKymFh3Oyf— CSPAN (@cspan) July 23, 2020

  114. 114.

    West of the Rockies

    Yoho’s pointless political career concludes like an over-flowed public toilet.  A fly-infested fecal display of his heart, mind and soul.

    Buh-bye, Yoyo.

  115. 115.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Jeffro: @J R in WV: I can’t speak to any other states, but I really doubt that vote totals were messed with in WI.  There are enough working parts involved in state elections in WI that it would be damned difficult to do.*  I do believe, and I have been saying since November of 2016, that voter suppression based on the voter ID law was enough to swing the state.

    *Don’t come at me with Waukesha County and the supreme court election.  There were multiple investigations which debunked it and I have linked the results here a shitload of times.

  116. 116.

    Kay

    @CaseyL:

    Obama knows how to do it. He put together a great voter protection team in Ohio in 08 and (especially) ’12. Hundreds of volunteer lawyers.

    I was smiling when political media had Romney election lawyers as “packed and ready to get on a plane” in ’12. Obama had it organized 6 months prior. No one had to fly anywhere. They were already there.

  117. 117.

    Another Scott

    @Uncle Cosmo: I’m convinced that all of the hacking of voting systems isn’t an attempt to change the numbers.  With a paper record, the numbers can always be re-tabulated and re-checked.  Your old neighbor who runs your precinct isn’t going to tolerate the numbers that she knows are correct being changed in the state tally.  Multiply that by eleventy billion precincts.  It won’t work to change the numbers.

    No, the point is to break registered voter lists, throw chaos in who votes in which precinct, etc.  IOW, reducing turnout – especially in Democratic areas.  Short of re-voting (and there’s no good way to do that in most state laws), a vote not cast cannot be corrected*.

    [eta:] * – Yes, there are provisional ballots.  But can the system handle hundreds of thousands or millions of them?

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  118. 118.

    Subsole

    @narya:

    Gotcha. Funny thing is, handball used to be a vital part of the old Roman baths. Supposedly, you’d use it as a form of calisthenics to get the blood pumping and invigorate the muscles, open the pores, and generally make the body more receptive to the heat and cold of the baths.

    So if they went to the sauna and then took a dip in the pool after a couple games they wouldn’t be too far off from a health routine thousands of years old. Broadly speaking.

  119. 119.

    Betty Cracker

    @Subsole: Someone less idiotic than Trump would take that into account, of course, but with him, I think we have to rely on people lower down in the chain of command distracting Trump with shiny objects or flat-out ignoring orders. Oh, the horrifying stories that will come out after he’s gone!

  120. 120.

    Kay

    Here’s all I want. I want huge turnout. Record breaking. It has to be an overwhelming show of force and it has to be from the get-go. The best way to not worry about what they will or will not do after the election is to make whatever they have planned more difficult by a truly massive show of rejection of them.

    Just show up. The rest is speculation and guessing.

  121. 121.

    Ken

    @Anoniminous: They have Florida (!) a Must-Have Trump state leaning Dem – most recent poll gives Biden a 6 point lead – with Texas(!!) and Georgia (!!!!!) as toss-ups

    Hmm, three Republican governors, three absolutely abysmal COVID responses, three polls trending away from the Republicans. Coincidence?

    And it does my heart good to see only 102 electoral votes in the Trump-leaning columns, fewer than the number marked as tossup.

  123. 123.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Kay: His never-trumpism has not made me like George Will any more than I did before, but I do like the way he talks about election night. As I recall: “Biden will win Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Michigan and then those of us east of the Mississippi can go to bed and get a good night’s sleep.”

  126. 126.

    Kay

    If he wins Hillary plus 3 (WI, MI and PA) we probably have problems with Trump not accepting/contesting. If he wins better than that we have fewer problems with Trump not accepting/contesting for the really simple reason that people in those states will have chosen Biden. 

    Our whole analysis of this thing ignores that Donald Trump will be defying a majority of VOTERS. The more there are, the weaker he is.

  128. 128.

    Baud

    @J R in WV:

    Democrats won every state-wide race in PA except for president?!?!!!! No way that happens! Cheated totally.

    Not true.  There was one other female candidate who lost a statewide race.  The male Democrats won.

  129. 129.

    narya

    @Gin & Tonic: Yeah I loved four-wall too; I miss playing.  The place I used to play regularly is way too far away, and it’s been so long since I played, and hello, pandemic, and I wasn’t ever very good at it, and a lot of the guys I played with are dead now, but yes, I still miss it.

  132. 132.

    Hoodie

    @Anoniminous: 

    The scum-sucking Republican shitbags* can read polls too

    It’s hilarious that many of them perceive the problem as too much populism and not enough fiscal responsibility. When all you have is a hammer . . .

  133. 133.

    rikyrah

    For my Illinois (Chicago and Suburban Cook County) Folks:

     

    Mail Voting can be a backup plan for voters. You are not excluded from voting in-person just because you sign up for Mail Voting.

     

    The only reasons why a Mail Ballot would be rejected are:

    1. The postmark on the ballot is AFTER November 3, 2020.
    2. The ballot, even with the proper postmark date, does not arrive into your voting jurisdiction office BY November 17, 2020.
    3. The signature on the returned ballot envelope DOES NOT MATCH the signature on file from you in your voter file.

    Now, if you are concerned about the Post Office returning your ballot, there are other options for you this election in these two jurisdictions:

    1. You can hand deliver your ballot to any  Early Voting Sites, beginning October 19 – November 2, 2020.
    2. You can hand deliver your ballot to your LOCAL Polling Place on Election Day – November, 3, 2020.

    THESE are absolutely new for November 2020, and have never been offered before to voters of Cook County.

    If you are concerned that your jurisdiction doesn’t  the most recent signature on file from you, fill out and send back a Paper Voter Registration Application.  The signature on that application will be the most recent signature in your file, and thus, the signature to compare your ballot in November to will only be a few months old.

     

    I can’t stress enough to anyone considering a Mail Ballot for November (not just Cook County folks)-

    SEND IN A NEW VOTER REGISTRATION APPLICATION.

    Unless something tragically happens to you physically in the next few months.

    The freshest signature on file from you will be only a few months old in November.

  134. 134.

    Subsole

    @Origuy:

    True. Though I have read that they made a sort of pomade from oil and wood ash? I may be misremembering.

    I do recall seeing mosaics of exercising Romans. Pretty wild how contemporary they looked. Change the loincloths for trunks and et voila. Venice Beach.

  135. 135.

    dnfree

    Regarding arranged marriage, I once worked (decades ago) with a young man from India who was a newlywed. One day he happened to mention that his new wife was working in a city hours from Chicago, where we were. Someone expressed sympathy, and the young man said something like, “It’s okay, it’s an arranged marriage.”  That led to a short discussion, during the course of which he said, “Who would know better than your parents what would be a good match?”  That pretty much stopped the conversation dead in its tracks. I couldn’t imagine any of my children thinking or saying that we as parents should be trusted with that decision.  Furthermore I don’t think I would have been happy with whoever my parents would have selected.

  136. 136.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: Agree that a good curb-stomping will make Trump’s supporters and elected enablers less likely to cause trouble. Trump himself will probably continue to screech about voter fraud until Ivanka slams the lid on the coffin. I don’t think his ego could take the blow, so he’ll remain delusional.

  137. 137.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Baud: This is actually one of my reasons for advocating confidence.  People like siding with a winner.

  138. 138.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Kay: If Biden wins Florida, trump will resign by twitter (the general pardon/s for him, his kids and whoever could squeal on him are, I feel confident in saying, already signed and (putting my tin-foil hat on) hidden in a safe in Mar-A-Lago) and the wind will go out of the sails of the Parscales and even the Hannitys and Giulianis.

  139. 139.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Omnes Omnibus: In fact I’m a rather popular guest – with radioactive opinions and ionizing wit, I tend to be the half-life of the party. People who know me IRL have a lot better basis for evaluation than those who like to render judgments from a few posts on a not-quite-top-10,000 blog.

  140. 140.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    There’s a (sympathetic) documentary on Mitt Romney losing in ’12. He’s just cool as a cucumber thru the whole thing. They’re optimistic, which was reasonable and not delusional but Romney himself is watching Florida come in and he then knows it’s over. They can’t contest 3 or 4 or 5 states. At some point it becomes them fighting not with “the Democrats” or “Joe Biden” but with millions of voters.

  142. 142.

    Roger Moore

    @Kay:

    Our whole analysis of this thing ignores that Donald Trump will be defying a majority of VOTERS. The more there are, the weaker he is.

    An important undercurrent of the BLM protests is that Trump sees them as targeting him directly.  I’m sure part of the calculation behind his goon squads is that he wants to crush protests as a threat to anyone who would protest if he tries to steal the election.  I don’t think that’s going to work- election protests would be on a completely different scale from the early BLM protests, much less the much reduced ones we’re still seeing today- but I think it’s part of the calculation.  Trump wants his goon squads ready to bust heads if that’s what it takes to steal the election.

  143. 143.

    Baud

    @Kay: I couldn’t stand Romney and was so elated on election night.  I hate Trump for making so many bad people look more decent by comparison.

  145. 145.

    Kay

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    If I were running any post Trump investigations I would focus exclusively on audits and financials. They’re thieves. That’s easier to prove and it can be documented and it avoids all the problems with “differences on policy” and all the other hurdles. DON’T make it a morality play. No grand constitutional themes. You can get the same or better results with auditors. I just think people will be disappointed if they’re hoping for some kind of “these are bad people” decision to come out of a tribunal of some sort.

    No one but me would like that though. But it would work.

  146. 146.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    I did kind of admire his weird lack of personalization of the results, though. It’s like he’s looking at a balance sheet in that documentary. His stock didn’t perform well that day. Off to bed!

  147. 147.

    burnspbesq

    @Betty Cracker:

    unless the fundamentals of the race change in some dramatic way that benefits Trump

    Short of an effective vaccine becoming available by Labor Day, that’s hard to imagine. Third-quarter earnings for most of Big Corporate America will come out in October and they’re likely to suck, dragging down the Dow and S&P. Unemployment will still be high. Small business will be hurting even worse. A wave of evictions and foreclosures is probably going to start next month unless red state governors act totally out of character and put on another moratorium.

  148. 148.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Baud: and yet… I don’t think I’m being a lefty internet crank when I say that Romney’s vote on impeachment, as remarkable and admirable as I thought it was at the time, now looks like a half-step. He was never going to inspire the kind of media cult that McCain did, he doesn’t have the personality or the history, but I think if he wanted to, he could at least get Lisa Murkowski to stand with him, and that would, again at least, make Collins and Gardner and a few others extremely uncomfortable. It’s hard to conclude he’s not choosing party over country. What would happen with that discomfort, I don’t know, but it would be worth a try, and should be worth a try.

    Then again, I’m genuinely baffled that more people aren’t at least curious, and they should be scandalized, by trump’s profiteering in office. I’m frustrated but I get that Ukraine was too complicated, that the Russian collusion required too many dots to be connected (like, four). But that cheap, tacky fucking grifting, on an international level…

  149. 149.

    Roger Moore

    @dnfree:

    I have an Indian-American coworker who is currently engaged to a man her parents found for her.  They’ve had a chance to meet and get some confidence they’ll work as a couple, but my impression is that’s was their level of involvement; their parents did the main work of fixing them up.  It seems like a strange way of doing things, but she’s super-excited about it.

  150. 150.

    frosty

    @J R in WV: Sorry but the first-time voters I saw at the precinct would have been coming in to vote for Trump and wouldn’t have given a shit about anything else. I believe the totals. He won PA because he pulled the deplorables out of the woodwork.

  151. 151.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Kay:

    No one but me would like that though. But it would work.

    You sold me!
    Except on the “exclusively” part. I think the retrospective oversight (by Congress, not the AG, which is where I feel like I stand alone here) should go hard at the DoJ, then State.

  152. 152.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Omnes Omnibus: The danger is that Trump sends in goons to make the cities burn in all those states, and the chaos becomes so great that it becomes impossible to even collect or count votes. Trump wins them by default because the white exurbs are the only places where people can really vote. Or he gets it close enough that he can pull a Florida 2000.

    The thing is, currently he seems more interested in doing this in deep-blue states he’s going to lose anyway. Which says to me that that’s about the authoritarian id, not about a rational strategy to flip the election. But the possibility’s always open.

  153. 153.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Yutsano: I honestly don’t know, & do not care to speculate. What I was trying to say is that, should Biden win the popular vote by as much as 15 million but manage to lose in the Electoral College, it would IMO be much less likely to be a wildly improbable statistical fluke than malevolent manipulation by Putin’s cyberthugs – and that Vlad the Paler might specifically order up a result so outrageous simply to make it obvious that he controls the US electoral system, & rub our collective nose in it while laughing his zhopa off.

  154. 154.

    burnspbesq

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    ‘I have very little tolerance for Will pontificating about who Joe should choose as his running mate, but both of his suggestions that I’ve seen (Raimondo and Bass) have been pretty good.

  156. 156.

    Roger Moore

    @Kay:

    If I were running any post Trump investigations I would focus exclusively on audits and financials.

    I think it would also make sense to prosecute for cases where they blatantly ignored court orders, e.g. what they’re doing right now with DACA.  But in general I agree that we should focus prosecutions on garden-variety crimes rather than on big policy issues.  Stealing a bunch of money, cheating on taxes, etc. are likely to be easier issues to make stick than anything touching on policy.

  157. 157.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Lacuna Synechdoche: Please stay. It was my exasperation speaking. It is me who needs to learn to stay away from the blog white angst, where I clearly do not belong.

    I am not around much but Balloon Juice has been a decade long habit so I do check in occasionally. My apologies.

  158. 158.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Matt McIrvin:  But the possibility’s always open.

    Sure.  But we should also make a reasonable attempt at analyzing the probability of that possibility.  I am not trying to blow sunshine up people’s asses.  I am just looking to avoid unnecessary rain cloud suppositories.

  160. 160.

    scav

    @dnfree: There’s a world of difference in expectations about what a marriage is and about how one makes it work that also needs to be put in play. We’ve all probably seen self-chosen marriages doomed because the expectation is they’ll be all an effortless lifelong drift of dizzying romance between soul-mates eternally joined at the hip. There’s something to be said for going into a relationship knowing there’s going to be compromise. There’s a lot of ways to build a team of cats, probably not of them foolproof.

  161. 161.

    Gin & Tonic

    @narya: A wonderful, evocative quote from an old (*old*) Sports illustrated story:

    To understand the reason behind all this midsummer lunacy one must first understand something about the sport. Handball is a game that might have been devised by the Marquis de Sade as something fun to do while his whips were at the cleaners. The four-wall version is played by two men locked inside a 20-by-40-foot room, off whose walls, ceiling and floor they slam a small, black rubber ball at speeds up to 100 mph. There are only two ways to win: by scoring 21 points first or by having your opponent suffer a coronary occlusion. In one match (two out of three games), a good player will sweat off at least six pounds, and the palms of his hands will begin to look like the soles of combat boots.

  162. 162.

    Chyron HR

    @Matt McIrvin:

    The danger is that Trump sends in goons to make the cities burn in all those states, and the chaos becomes so great that it becomes impossible to even collect or count votes. Trump wins them by default because the white exurbs are the only places where people can really vote.

    Brutal military occupation of the United States in the name of “stopping graffiti” might hurt Trump’s numbers at least a little in his real American strongholds.

  163. 163.

    narya

    @Gin & Tonic: Love it! Yeah, it’s a fun game, and the guys w/ whom I played really got me through some tough times in my life, just by being there. I intentionally started to learn to play while I was starting to write my dissertation, under the assumption that a “mental” learning experience would be enhanced by a “physical” learning experience. I was right.

  164. 164.

    Calouste

    @Matt McIrvin: 
    One thing I haven’t seen yet, but I’ve not really been looking, is the following: these goons must be staying somewhere. If they are staying in hotels, can we get the names out and start a boycott?

  165. 165.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Roger Moore: While individual arranged marriages may indeed work. The institution promotes casteism and patriarchy. In fact it is the primary way caste is perpetuated through generations. Arranged marriage exists to perpetuate endogyny.

  167. 167.

    J R in WV

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    …then those of us east of the Mississippi can go to bed and get a good night’s sleep.”

    I surely hope so. I haven’t had a really good night’s sleep since they stole Hillary’s election out from under the world. And prescription drugs don’t actually help that much. You sleep, but it isn’t a good sleep, it’s very troubled because you are afraid of what’s next.

  168. 168.

    Lacuna Synechdoche

    @schrodingers_cat: Please stay. It was my exasperation speaking. It is me who needs to learn to stay away from the blog white angst …

    Okay, but you stay too. I’ve also posted intemperately while exasperated or frustrated, so I know the feeling. It happens.

  169. 169.

    Jeffro

    @Anoniminous: It’s great to see Biden WAY over 300 (334 by my count) even before OH and TX and NC tip one way or another.

    We must, MUST do this, Dems.  It’s great that our team is ahead but please make sure you and everyone you know has registered and double-checked their voter registration.

  172. 172.

    Jeffro

    @Omnes Omnibus: I’m not coming at you with anything other than my strong suspicions, boss.  =)

    I’ll trust your knowledge of WI and let that one go.  There were certainly enough other shenanigans (shenanigans, I say!) going on last time around.  Not this time!

  173. 173.

    J R in WV

    @Baud:

    July 23, 2020 at 1:14 pm

    @Kay: I couldn’t stand Romney and was so elated on election night.  I hate Trump for making so many bad people look more decent by comparison.

    Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t Romney cut off all his campaign staff credit cards the very night of the election? Which given that those folks in the trenches aren’t well to do and might have had trouble just getting back home without that card…

    I thought that was a pretty slimy thing to do, just to save campaign money for the next race.

  174. 174.

    Roger Moore

    @schrodingers_cat:

    One of the main criticisms of the show is that it doesn’t get deep enough into issues of caste, both in terms of arranged marriages preserving caste and the extend to which they are more of a high caste thing.  I haven’t watched the show, but I read that all of the matches wind up falling through, which is an interesting outcome.  I wonder if that is typical or if they edited the series after the fact to focus on the failed matches rather than the successful ones.

  175. 175.

    Jeffro

    @Kay: like getting Al Capone for tax evasion, in other words.  =)

    I totally agree with that strategy.  Just pursue him like the common criminal that he is…all the stealing, all the money laundering, all the contracts given out improperly to cronies, etc.

  177. 177.

    Jeffro

    @Betty Cracker:

     

    @burnspbesq:

    Agree with burns here – this all happened on trumpov’s watch, his “handling” of the pandemic clearly made it much worse than it had to be, the economic effects have yet to fully land, and trumpov’s “handling” of BLM protests has been horrifying, clearly demonstrating that he’ll do anything to keep the country divided in hopes of staying in office.

    We could have a worldwide vaccine fall from the sky tomorrow, and all of that would still be undeniable.  He’s toast.

  179. 179.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Roger Moore: Arranged marriages are the norm, no matter what caste. Divorce is looked down upon. So there are many unhappily married couples around

    After I saw the hell my aunt went through ( I was a teen then) I decided that I was never going to participate in that.

  180. 180.

    scav

    @schrodingers_cat: That’s a fault shared by romantically-based matches too — as are the associative matches based on class.  I in no way wanted to go much beyond it’s no crazier a means of choosing a life-partner than thinking with one’s loins.

    ETA.  In fact, I think the more interesting thing to unpack is the expectations of the relationship rather than the exact method one stumbles into it.

  181. 181.

    schrodingers_cat

    @scav: It is misogyny on steroids. The American version just does not compare. Instead of just winning over the man you are supposed to win over his family. Servility is a prized virtue.

  182. 182.

    Gin & Tonic

    @sgrAstar: I’ll bet a large cold beverage that’s not the sport  Charlie Pierce was referring to in the Tweet posted by TaMara. It’s also not the sport narya and I have been chatting about.

  183. 183.

    scav

    @schrodingers_cat: Well, I’ve just got my one example of an Indian arranged marriage which seemed to work as well as the again purely Indian romantic self-starter match, so I can’t presume to speak for the totality of the subcontinent in definitive and exhaustive terms.  I can look at the state of American marriages with a bit more confidence and doubt their being a role-model of perfection.

  185. 185.

    dopey-o

    @Subsole:

    So if they went to the sauna and then took a dip in the pool after a couple games they wouldn’t be too far off from a health routine thousands of years old. Broadly speaking.

    “Health routine” ??? I’ll bet all those romans are dead now! Ask them “person, woman, man, camera, TV”.

  186. 186.

    schrodingers_cat

    @scav: As I said in my earlier comment that individual instances may work out. The entire institution is problematic and needs to be burned to the ground and the ground salted.

    I don’t know how realistic the Reality TV show is about real life matchmaking that goes on before an arranged marriage.

  188. 188.

    Miss Bianca

    @Jeffro: I read the first one a couple years ago and really liked it – I bet there’s a mile-long waiting list at the library for the second one now!

  189. 189.

    Wapiti

    @rikyrah: Thanks for the reminder. While your comment was for Illinois, it reminded me to check my ballot for the August 4th primary election in WA. According to their site, King County has received my ballot, confirmed my sig, and counted my ballot.

  191. 191.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @dopey-o: Ask them “person, woman, man, camera, TV”.

    What’s funny about that list of words is that Idiot thinks he’s the smartest guy in the world because he can remember that list (which was likely not the list he was asked to remember for his screening). But millions of us have memorized the same list of words after one hearing.

    I would guess he’s not going to figure that out. He needs reporters to randomly shout the list at him during press appearances.

  192. 192.

    J R in WV

    @Roger Moore:

    I have an Indian-American coworker who is currently engaged to a man her parents found for her. They’ve had a chance to meet and get some confidence they’ll work as a couple, but my impression is that’s was their level of involvement; their parents did the main work of fixing them up. It seems like a strange way of doing things, but she’s super-excited about it.

    I too had Indian (S Asia) coworkers who’s parents chose a mate for them. One showed us resumes his parents sent him, some were like model beautiful, we didn’t say anything. There was another round of resumes, then he went home for a month, came back married.

    Now a citizen with at least 2 kids. Last I heard living in Maryland working as a contractor for the feds somewhere. Really smart Jain. Could figure out anything with a little time…

    My parents liked my future wife, one of her older cousins had worked for my granddad for like 20 years, and her grandma and my grandma lived next door in a coal camp not far from my home town.

    If I had only known…   ;-)

  193. 193.

    J R in WV

    @frosty:

    Well, if you were on site, your information is obviously better than mine! i just have trouble with accepting that most state-wide Democrats won while Hillary lost.

    I spent evenings for weeks calling into Ohio for Hillary. By about Friday before the election, I had a slow burn that it was a waste of time, after Comey’s lies, The FTFNYTimes lies, it would have taken a miracle for that so well qualified woman to have won. And with the congress that was elected, she would have been miserable…

    Have lost a lot of sleep since then! But will work again, and contribute for congressional races!

  194. 194.

    J R in WV

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Hotels are a public accommodation and can’t really say no.

    I’m sorry, sir, but we have several reservations coming in tomorrow, so at least N+2 members of your party must depart this afternoon!

  195. 195.

    Jay Noble

    Back to the video – Those chairs are too big for this conversation. I like the casualness but Both guys look  to be swimming in them. About 6″ narrower would work. Why worry about the width? Subconsciously everyone is waiting for them to swing a leg over an arm of their chair and ask for a brandy. :-)

  196. 196.

    debbie

    The thread’s way dead, but has anyone noticed that that the composition in the video still of Joe and Barak at the top echos the shape of a heart?

  197. 197.

    brantl

    @WaterGirl: The polling has long been discredited, ballots are anonymous and untraceable (by the voter) and they could lose shitloads  of them, and who would know? The secret ballot removes all traceability. While that is done intentionally, no one intended that you couldn’t in any way validate yours or anyone else’s, ballot. In Ohio, for Bush’s second non-election, many punch type sequentially numbered ballots (hundreds in a row) were either double-voted, or voted for Bush. (What that means is that someone took them and passed a rod through the Bush chads.) Nothing was done about it, after it was discovered, and there was a lot more of that, in Ohio.

    The secret ballot will never be safe.

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