Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

I was promised a recession.

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

In my day, never was longer.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Bark louder, little dog.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

After roe, women are no longer free.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

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

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

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

T R E 4 5 O N

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Not all heroes wear capes.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

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

You are here: Home / Past Elections / 2020 Elections / Wednesday Morning Open Thread: The Struggle Is Real, Unfortunately

Wednesday Morning Open Thread: The Struggle Is Real, Unfortunately

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Democrats want to save as many people as possible. Repubs want to steal everything they can, and break everything they can’t. All else is commentary.


Seems like McConnell wants to keep his job (thankless as it is and little as he needs it), but his nominal boss is determined to make sure that if he gets turfed out, so will #MoscowMitch…

In retaliation, Mitch refuses to ‘protect’ the FBI funding which is a transparent prefix for protecting Trump’s hotel room rates:

… And ‘LeaderMcConnell‘ gets quite as much respect from his caucus as he has for them. So, at least the rest of us get to watch the Death Cult chew on each other…

Reader Interactions

204Comments

  1. 1.

    debbie

    The GOP showed its true self when they cut unemployment while allowing foreclosures, evictions, debt collection, etc. to start up again.

  2. 2.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    Goddammit – I wish some news orgs would hire some experienced litigators to ask or at least script questions, someone would start asking who “they”, “many people” or “anybody” are.

  3. 3.

    Ken

    All else is commentary.

    Call-outs to Rabbi Hillel. I like.

    I find some of the framing a little weird. They seem to be saying that because the Republicans are divided, McConnell will have to negotiate with Pelosi and the Democrats. No – that was always going to have to happen.

    What the division means is that the Republicans wasted a lot of time, and are now in a much weaker position in those negotiations. Well, assuming they have any interest at all in passing some relief, which admittedly some do not.

  6. 6.

    Baud

    GOP tucks $8 billion for military weaponry in coronavirus bill

    Why are Dems opposed to the War on COVID?

  7. 7.

    Ryan

    ““Many of our state departments of labor — they just got microwaves last week, much less being able to reprogram the computer in 60 days to effectuate a complicated formula””

     

    I think I might see at least part of the problem…

  9. 9.

    Baud

    The GOP is lost if they can’t count on people blaming Democrats for not persuading the GOP to do the right thing.

  13. 13.

    Ken

    @Baud: I’ve seen reports the military is planning to make a history of COVID disqualifying for service. We may end up with lots of very expensive warcraft and no one to maintain and operate them. I understand staffing was already something of a problem for the Navy, even pre-COVID.

  15. 15.

    Baud

    Readership capture.

    Several House Republicans are suddenly sweating over losing their seats

    Turns out “I will kill you” isn’t as effective a reelection message as one would have initially thought.

  18. 18.

    Ken

    MCCONNELL throws the White House under the bus: says he’s opposed to fbi money in this covid bill

    Nice that he’s tacitly admitting that the White House priorities are indistinguishable from Trump’s business.

  21. 21.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    I’m OK with paying the troops, maintaining bases and equipment and cutting back training by 70% while we’re dealing with the economic and human fallout from the virus.

    New equipment acquisition and development need to go on hold for the indefinite future.

  22. 22.

    John S.

    I love the accurate and simple framing in that first clip. It’s so easy to understand.

    White supremacists protest with guns and threaten violence: No big deal.

    POC protest peacefully and naked women flash lady bits: FEDERAL RESPONSE!

    This is fine.

  23. 23.

    Barbara

    @Ken: It could be about his hotel but I think he also wants the chance to control who receives the contract, which can’t be awarded without having the money in place. This has already been tried once and then the contract was canceled.

  25. 25.

    gene108

    “Republicans revolt against GOP’s initial stimulus plan”…. this is a terrible, terrible no good horrible sentence.

    The sentence makes it seem Republicans are opposing another group’s, the GOP’s, plan, and that this is not just the same incompetent infighting we’ve seen for the last ten years.

    Boehner and Ryan could not even get a budget passed, without turning it into a clusterfuck. Now it’s Mitch’s turn to deal with how awful he and his party are.

  26. 26.

    NotMax

    Open thread?

    Turner I understand. Movies I understand.

    Howsoever, Classic can be stretched only so far.

    TCM dragging out one of the dregs of the dregs at 9:30 (Eastern time) this morning. You have been warned.

    ;)

  28. 28.

    gene108

    @Ken:

    Trump trying to use government to so openly help his business needs to be turned into an ad, and played over and over again.

    It really is a very big deal.

    With the country crashing down around us, I doubt there are going to be high profile hearings on this.

    Ads are the best way to reach the most people with this news.

  29. 29.

    John S.

    @Baud: That’s all he had left. Now the media will be in desperate overdrive to find the “But his emails!” narrative, or they won’t have their precious horse race. You can’t fill 24 hours of news with “Trump and the GOP are getting stomped.”

  31. 31.

    cmorenc

    @Ryan:

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: Yes, it’s a mystery why Trump keeps turning to magical thinking and hydroxychloroquine.

    You can easily solve this mystery by briefly surfing the RW media, such as OAN and Fox to see what relative narratives they’re pushing:  They’re trying to pin blame for the worsening COVID pandemic & economic fallout on:

    • Dems and liberal health establishment refuse to recognize that hydroxychloroquine has been proven effective in tamping down the COVID epidemic, thus needlessly prolonging it
    • The economy can be safely re-opened far more quickly, if only unsound establishment health authorities like Dr. Faucci (who has been proven wrong on many points) would get out of the way.
    • did we mention that it is the Chinavirus?  The virus is all China’s fault, NOT ours (in the Trump Administration).
    • things would get great quickly if the democrats and fake-news health authorities would quit interfering with a President who knows more about hydroxychloroquine and the virus than anyone else, cause he’s read more about it than anyone else.

    Shorter version: the virus is NOT our fault, and it’s the Dems and fake health establishment authorities who are prolonging the pandemic and economic distress, not us – we could fix both much more quickly but for their interference.

  33. 33.

    Salty Sam

    @Baud: 
    The GOP is lost if they can’t count on people blaming Democrats for not persuading the GOP to do the right thing

    Nothing makes me happier than to see this particular dynamic destroyed.

  36. 36.

    Robert Sneddon

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    The Holy Constitution says that all US Government spending has to be apportioned in the form of bills from the Legislature. It doesn’t insist on those bills being specifically about spending so for administrative purposes pretty much any bill about anything gets larded up with financial stuff like the FBI replacement building, a tranche of F-35A planes and so on just to get necessary spending through the sausage-making machinery. It’s actually an indication that this bill will eventually be passed, they wouldn’t stick all that spending stuff into a bill destined to fail.

  40. 40.

    Barbara

    @Ken: Most US attorneys are asked to resign at the beginning of every new administration. Only in a few situations are they held over and asked to remain. It is not a career civil service job.

  41. 41.

    Baud

    FWIW, groups are starting to put lists together of people to staff the new Biden administration.

  43. 43.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: That’s a good piece — thanks for the link! His conclusion:

    That defeat is looming. Will it bring desperately needed change to the Republican Party? I’d like to say I’m hopeful. But that would be a lie and there have been too many lies for too long.

    Good for him.

  44. 44.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    Can someone please beat Navarro to death with a baseball bat on live TV for my enjoyment?

    Thanks in advance.

  45. 45.

    rikyrah

    @gene108:

    Not even smart enough to just put Nancy Smash’s bill on the floor, tell the vulnerable Senators to vote for it, claim victory under the scam of Bi-Partisanship.

     

    It would be that easy.

     

    Yes, it would be a Democratic bill, but it would be positive for the GOP.

  46. 46.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @Baud: Good. Biden needs to be ready to fire the incompetent and corrupt and replace them with people who know what they’re doing on day one. People will be expecting to see action.

  48. 48.

    rikyrah

    @Baud:

    I mean, he should have names ready for multi-levels of the Government.

    No time to waste.

    Vet people now.

     

    I am of the belief that he should present his top Cabinet picks and invite folks to compare to what we have now.

  50. 50.

    Baud

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    Biden needs to be ready to fire the incompetent and corrupt and replace them with people who know what they’re doing on day one.

    Agreed, although I’m disappointed about not having the opportunity to serve.

  52. 52.

    Kay

    83 people infected at one event here in Trump Country, Ohio on July 11, including 4 of the wait staff at the event. No masks for anyone including catering staff.

  53. 53.

    SFAW

    @Baud:

    I’m disappointed about not having the opportunity to serve.

    Even with COVID shutdowns, I’m sure there are restaurants willing to give you a few tables. Tips might even be better these days.

    Or did you mean something else?

  54. 54.

    rikyrah

    Every Republican who voted to acquit Trump for sacrificing natl security to help his re-election is responsible for the Russian bounty treachery. They told him he could betray America and stay in office. They all must go.— Jennifer Rubin (@JRubinBlogger) July 29, 2020

  57. 57.

    Betty Cracker

    Did y’all see Trump’s shit-show of a press conference yesterday evening, when he stomped off in a huff after being asked about promoting a kooky doctor who believes medicine contains alien DNA? JFC. Any bets on how quickly the low-quality hires pull the plug on press conferences this time?

  58. 58.

    SFAW

    @rikyrah:

    Maybe Rubin has finally turned the corner/page on the GOP? [I know she’s been thrashing the Murderer-in-Chief for awhile, but I always had the sense that she was similar to the Lincoln Project — more upset with Trump’s vileness than with the evil of the GOP.]

    Probably not, but a boy can hope.

  63. 63.

    Baud

    @Kay: Trump County, MN feels your pain.

    Thousands showed up maskless to a Minnesota rodeo after its organizer invited people to come protest government overreach

  66. 66.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    Well, our local event was July 11th and the cases were reported July 28th, so if I were Minnesota I’d watch that.

  68. 68.

    Martin

    Here’s the next shoe to drop in the fucked up Covid response – a dozen states are running out of ICU doctors. They’re getting sick because they don’t have the equipment they need and because we won’t fucking stay home.

    Beds and PPEs are a lot easier to get more of than trained doctors.

  69. 69.

    mad citizen

    @gene108: I’m right there with you on this.  It’s been top of mind with the FBI building/move story.  It’s corruption through and through.  Dems need to talk about corruption corruption corruption–at least Warren did that a lot.

  73. 73.

    Soprano2

    I agree, Biden needs to be vetting staff for positions now. I assume we’ll still be in a COVID emergency and a financial emergency in January, so there’s no time to waste. He needs to be able to replace all the incompetent Trump hires immediately, and have agencies be able to start functioning correctly ASAP. If I remember correctly, they confirm Cabinet secretaries ahead of the swearing-in, or they can because the new Congress is sworn on January 3rd. They need to be ready to go, with no unpleasant surprises if possible, because he’s literally taking over a country that’s in a blazing emergency! It’s worse than what Obama faced when he first took office.

  74. 74.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    The resident with COVID here seems to be doing ok. She’s still home and has been sitting out on her patio. The twenty or so people who had contact with her are done with their quarantine. Maybe we’ve escaped this time.

  75. 75.

    Baud

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    Incubi were thought to be demons who had sexual relations with women, sometimes producing a child by the woman. Succubi, by contrast, were demons thought to have intercourse with men. Debate about these demons began early in the Christian tradition. St. Augustine touched on the topic in De Civitate Dei (“The City of God”); there were too many alleged attacks by incubi to deny them. He stated “There is also a very general rumor. Many have verified it by their own experience and trustworthy persons have corroborated the experience others told, that sylvans and fauns, commonly called incubi, have often made wicked assaults upon women.”[

    The endometriosis is a modern twist.

  76. 76.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Martin:

    Facebook has a plethora of medical experts that managed to pass high school biology with a C- and some treatable chlamydia, so we’ll all be fine for medical treatment.

  80. 80.

    oatler.

    From Joe My God:

    “The Truth will set us all Free! But some people dont want to hear the truth. Especially the people in power who stand to make money from this long drawn out search for a vaccine. Which has been proven and has been available for months. They would rather let fear control them and let the rich get richer and the poor and sick get sicker. This woman is my hero. Thank you Stella Immanuel. – Madonna, posting last night to Instagram.

  83. 83.

    Betty Cracker

    @zhena gogolia: The LP people are so refreshingly forthright. They don’t mince words! Collins is a “fraud” and a “Trump stooge.” It’s true, and they just say it.

  84. 84.

    narya

    Ventured out last evening–local CSB (community-supported brewery) had a members-only event at their new space. HUGE space (very high ceilings, too), widely spaced tables indoors, some tables outdoors, limited size groups (everyone had to pick a time slot so they could clean between groups), masked when not at your seat. Beer was free. Was there about an hour, and felt reasonably safe. The owners are extremely careful (fun fact: I went to college w/ two of them), and the patrons were as well; one owner said that several folks had said this was the first time they had ventured out. Not ready to do it often, but was practically the first time I’ve been out since March (exceptions: morning run, grocery store, farmers’ market, small gathering on a back porch last week that actually felt more uncomfortable than last night, plus workers in part of my house). Still overwhelmed today, but a little better able to feel grateful, too, that I’ve been able to isolate this much.

  85. 85.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Betty Cracker: One would think defeat would bring some self examination but here in California the GOP has been non existent in state politics for almost a generation and no change.

  87. 87.

    Anya

    @Baud:  . I’ve followed him on twitter for years, even before Trump, and I’ve always found Stuart Stevens very reasonable.

  88. 88.

    Falling Diphthong

    So Republicans are in open revolt against their own bill, and we have sex demons. (I did not see the sex demons coming. Did anyone out there have “sex demons: last week of July” on their bracket?)

    I’m afraid to see what August manages.

  89. 89.

    Anya

    @John S.: She was magnificent. Not loving the whole “kill black bodies” thing but she put that smug criminal in his place.

  92. 92.

    Kay

    I do think Michigan is gone for Trump- Michigan was always a fluke for him anyway- but some of the other contested states will tighten because some of the Trump 16-ers will come home.

  94. 94.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Baud: Lot older than that, Sumerians talk about the same thing. So good to see someone with a Phd subscribes to the finest medical thinking of the Bronze Age.

  96. 96.

    Kay

    Matt Negrin, HOST OF HARDBALL AT 7PM ON MSNBC
    @MattNegrin
    ·36m
    Two weeks after Tapper accurately described Peter Navarro as leading a smear campaign against Fauci to discredit the “guy trying to save our lives,”
    @CNN
    invites Navarro on TV to lie about coronavirus and hydroxychloroquine again
    Giving liars a platform is the business model

  97. 97.

    Chris Johnson

    from way downthread on an Adam post, but just as relevant here…

     

    So yeah, bear in mind please that we’re many years into a really intense war with Russia waged one-sidedly on the internets. This is not an abstraction, it’s extremely tangible and has very specific aims towards the goal of killing us as much as possible, which is more or less the idea of war on America so points for consistency I guess. Can’t blame them after we stuck them with Yeltsin… no, wait, yes I can, because that shit’s got to stop and not just escalate.

    What you need to know about this, in the event that you agree that Russia has gone to war against us by informational/propaganda means, is that the influence and propaganda operation has two obvious goals.

    One, to get both the government and the people totally fascist (this, while also propping up the leftist radicals and doing everything possible to MAKE ’em violent: remember, Russia does not want Trump to WIN or RULE or anything. Remember they want both sides to lose)

    Two, to claim all manner of bullshit for the purposes of scaring and radicalizing everyone. So, to the rightwingers they have a whole line of crap fed through QAnon about how everyone on the left are baby-eating savages, blah blah you know the drill.

    For US, they have a line of crap about how QAnon is a huge popular uprising taking over the nation, and they’re trying very hard to get as many Republicans throwing themselves on that sword as possible. Remember they do NOT want to protect the Republicans. They’re meant to be martyrs, they’re meant to fail. Ideally they’re meant to draw out wild reactions that can further be propagandized.

    Stay calm and carry on. Fight the institutions that are being twisted, and work towards shoring up the institutions that aren’t failing. If you conclude that everything is fucked because QAnon will rule for 1000 years you’re doing Putin’s work for him and you’re also ignoring the fact that Putin would literally turn around and begin sabotaging QAnon in turn the instant they started to show actual power. Russia does not suddenly love the American right.

     

    I would add that of course the Republicans in Congress are flailing and in desperate shape. They are not meant by Russia to be a ruling, powerful fascist party. They are meant to fall and it shows. They’re meant to be destroyed while ‘heroically failing to impose fascist rule’ as we’d see it, but they cannot be allowed to actually do that because it would be political power and Russia never wanted them to actually be powerful.

  98. 98.

    Kay

    Giving liars a platform works for both ends of the business model because after allowing the liar to promote the lie the CNN anchor now has his role laid out- he corrects the lie. Over and over and over for the last 4 years, every day.

    Both people play their roles.

  99. 99.

    germy

    I had someone tell me in all seriousness that he had been attacked by a demon in his sleep.  This is a college educated man, considered intelligent by his associates.

    He explained to me what happened:  He awoke from a slumber, and found himself unable to move.  He felt the presence of a …  being … in the room, moving closer to him with malevolent intent.

    (For some reason, people tend to share these sort of things with me. There’s something in my face or my personality that gives people the impression I welcome these stories.)

    Anyway, I told him “You were sleeping on your back, right?”

    “Yes!”

    I told him “It sounds to me like a common sleep disorder.  Perhaps you had an episode of sleep apnea which awakened you partially, but not enough to overcome the normal paralysis we all experience while dreaming, that prevents us from flailing around in our sleep.”  I told him he might benefit from a professional sleep study and a c-pap machine.

    He nodded, but I’m not sure he believed me.

  100. 100.

    Jinchi

    @Baud: Michigan Threatens to Slip From Trump …

    Odd phrasing in that headline. Trump barely squeaked by in Michigan in 2016 and Biden has been 5-10 points ahead of him there for at least the last year.

  101. 101.

    germy

    I’ll see you in my dreams
    And then I’ll hold you in my dreams
    Someone took you right out of my arms
    Still I feel the thrill of your charms

    Lips that once were mine
    Tender eyes that shine
    They will light my way tonight
    I’ll see you in my dreams

  102. 102.

    different-church-lady

    @Baud: If Machina’s law holds, then they’ll be just fine with it as long as more black and brown people are dying than them.

  103. 103.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Just One More Canuck:  You have to promise to allow him a few minutes to justify his life, and then to do some body/leg blows first, just for the screams.

  104. 104.

    arrieve

    @NotMax: Wow. Thankfully I saw your comment in time to catch the movie. Although, I think having watched the trailer I no longer need to see the actual movie. Thinko the robot? They spent a lot of time coming up with that name.

  105. 105.

    rikyrah

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: 

    They NEVER INTENDED TO PUT UP A BILL.

    NEVER EVER.

    I don’t know why this isn’t pointed out in every story about this.

    They had 2 months and had NOTHING, cause they planned on NOTHING.

  107. 107.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: I’m trying to brace myself for the inevitable tightening, but it’s hard! As horrified as I was on election night 2016, at least I could tell myself that some percentage of the 62 million who voted for Trump were taking a flyer on a sexist, racist reality show creep as a sick joke — a burn-it-all down because both suck gesture. That was stupid and irresponsible, of course, but their active malevolence was an open question, at least with some portion of Trump voters.

    Well, not this time. The Trump administration has been just as horrible as we imagined — the corruption, the incompetence, the divisiveness, the racism/sexism/xenophobia, the kowtowing to authoritarians, the sabotage of institutions, loss of international prestige, etc. And yet somewhere around 40% still express approval FOR THAT when pollsters call. This election will sort out what that means, and I’ll admit, I am afraid of the answer.

  108. 108.

    rikyrah

    No rent assistance.
    No food assistance.
    No money to help state & local governments keep essential workers on payroll.
    But $1.7 billion handout to rebuild the FBI building & help increase the property value of the nearby Trump hotel. https://t.co/0pfSxwl6or

    — Tammy Duckworth (@SenDuckworth) July 28, 2020

  109. 109.

    PsiFighter37

    @Betty Cracker: No way he wins MI and PA again…the GOP got demolished statewide in 2018.

    Wisconsin will be close, but I am heartened by Tammy Baldwin crushing her opponent in 2018. I have to think that Biden will be fine here as well…but take nothing for granted. I am heartened to see that it seems like the Biden campaign is choosing to go on offense in some states (e.g. Georgia). More the merrier, and if we can somehow steal both of Georgia’s Senate seats, that would be gravy.

  110. 110.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

     

    I have to ask…

    as deaths increase and the economy gets worse…

    what reasons will they give themselves to ‘ come back home’.

  111. 111.

    The Thin Black Duke

    @Betty Cracker: I already know what the answer is, but I can live with that because there is still more of us than there is of them and we can put the brakes on these assholes once we make a commitment to it.

  112. 112.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

     

    This is why I know they are distraught over not having found the  BUT HER EMAIL for 2020.

     

    They were desperate to find it.

     

    They want their horserace.

  116. 116.

    taumaturgo

    @cmorenc: This is all about conspiracy theories. The GOP ate them up in 2016 election cycle up to today. Will they get away with it again?

  117. 117.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Soprano2: Biden needs to be vetting staff for positions now.

    How do you know his team isn’t doing exactly that?

    I strongly disagree that he needs to announce Cabinet nominees. Anyone he announces for any role in a Biden administration will immediately draw furious attacks from the Trumpistas – they can’t lay a glove on him, so they’ll beat up any- & everyone else. (Watch the fury next week when he announces his running mate.)

    He should announce key appointees only once he is certified as the winner of the 2020 Presidential election. Any earlier & the Thugs will try to use the announcements as an excuse to raise hell with the intent of keeping Trumplethinskin in power.

  118. 118.

    Betty Cracker

    @The Thin Black Duke: I know there are more of us too, but it feels like we have to not only win but curb-stomp the bastards to make any headway at all. And for a shitload of reason, I’m not confident we can do that, and we’re running out of time. Hence the dread. But there’s nothing to be done but work toward that goal.

  122. 122.

    cmorenc

    @Baud:

    Agreed, although I’m disappointed about not having the opportunity to serve (in a Biden Admin).

    I have heard through reliable sources that you will shortly be contacted by the Biden campaign about a Cabinet post as Secretary of Baud, a position for which they understand you are well-qualified and ready to hit the floor running on day 1.

  123. 123.

    geg6

    @Kay:

    I’m not sure that’s going to happen here in PA.  Will my county go for Trump?  Almost certainly, based on the people around me.  But Pittsburgh and Philly and their close suburbs are out of reach for him.  And there are places like Lackawanna County that will almost certainly come out strong for Biden.  Lackawanna and its major city of Scranton are pretty much all white (I think about 85% white) and non-college working class and retirees.  It’s been a Dem bastion for eons but Trump almost won it in 2016.  Anecdotal evidence is showing a big swing back to the Dems this year, mostly due to COVID.

  125. 125.

    Baud

    @Betty Cracker:

    but it feels like we have to not only win but curb-stomp the bastards to make any headway at all

    I think the curb-stomp, while welcome, is less important than winning over time, instead of giving the Dems only two years to fix everything.  For some reason, in politics, a lot of our people act like CEOs who think only about the next quarter instead of the long-term.

  127. 127.

    Baud

    @cmorenc: Already happened.  Biden decided to go with Pete Buttigieg. He said it was too important a job, and he wanted it done right.

  128. 128.

    Kathleen

    @Baud: It’s early. McConnell is blaming Pelosi for people losing health care during Covid crisis so the bleat goes on.

  129. 129.

    Leto

    @geg6:

    But Pittsburgh and Philly and their close suburbs are out of reach for him.

    Montgomery County checking in. This tracks how this county has voted for the past few decades on the state/national level. Reading up a bit more, seems that Dems have put a bigger focus on the local levels and have been picking up seats since 2008. Even though Trumpov won the state, MontCo was one of the few places that went for HRC by greater numbers than Obama.

    I’m hopeful (dare I use that?) that we can keep the momentum going from 2018.

  130. 130.

    Bobby Thomson

    @Baud:  “Slip?”

    I mean, I suppose it was close enough last time that switching a few votes was sufficient, but it was never his.

  131. 131.

    Kay

    @rikyrah:

    It’s just that it always seems to revert – all voters tend to go back to the Party they favor as it gets closer. We saw that in Obama’s re-elect in Ohio. The squishy Democrats who were “dissatisfied” so created all the drama with polling ended up back at Obama. Republicans here were really confident Romney would win- the standard answer from even moderate Republicans was “Obama is toast”. When they don’t know what to do they go back to what they’ve already done. Democrats did that in ’12 and Republicans might do it in ’20.

  132. 132.

    Captain C

    @Baud:

    Turns out “I will kill you” isn’t as effective a reelection message as one would have initially thought.

    It doesn’t shift over easily from “I will kill everyone you don’t like.” Imagine that.

  133. 133.

    Ken

    @Jinchi:

    Michigan Threatens to Slip From Trump …

    Odd phrasing in that headline

    It’s a report from a media organization, that the Trump campaign is not buying media ads. There may be a sliver of self-interest there.

    To me, the real question is why they’re cutting back on ads. Do they think they’ve got the state in the bag, or conversely that it’s a no-hoper at this point? Or – and I’m leaning toward this – does it mean there will be more money in the campaign fund in November, and Trump thinks he’ll be able to walk off with it?

  134. 134.

    trnc

    @cmorenc:

    Shorter version: the virus is NOT our fault, and it’s the Dems and fake health establishment authorities who are prolonging the pandemic and economic distress, not us – we could fix both much more quickly but for their interference.

    And perish the thought on getting answers from them for how S Korea, Japan and other countries much closer to China than we are managed to tamp down the virus without any of the quack medications push by DT and the QAnon Qrew.

  135. 135.

    zhena gogolia

    @NotMax:

    James Mason’s wife appearing in this flick is the greatest thing that happened to him since he made that Thunderbird commercial.

  137. 137.

    Frank Wilhoit

    @rikyrah: The same and only reason since 1979: to keep the Democrats out.

    Seriously, everybody needs to stop with the old wrong framing.

    No one votes FOR a candidate.  No one even votes FOR a party, or a platform, or a pseudophilosophy.

    Everyone votes AGAINST a party.

    The number of people who will always vote against the Republican Party and the number of people who will always vote against what they so proudly call the “Democrat Party” are so nearly equal that the only, very crude and wobbly, measuring device that we have, viz. first-past-the-post elections, cannot reliably distinguish between them.  Elections are decided by who sits home.  (The semantics of sitting home is declaring that you are okay with any possible outcome; every vote not cast is cast for the winner, whoever it turns out to be.)

  138. 138.

    Chyron HR

    @cmorenc:

    So the plan is to deliberately make the pandemic worse and hope that people blame someone else? I don’t mean to sound like a liberal elitist, but isn’t that kind of a bad plan?

  139. 139.

    Leto

    @Baud: Again, listening to adults just sit and talk is not what I thought I/we would need in 2020, but here we are it’s just really nice

    Edit: there’s things that they’re discussing in the first fifteen minutes, stuff their parents taught them/things that they envisioned for themselves, that feel like their parents were my parents. But it also sounds like conversations I’ve had with so many other people. Basically there’s more that unite us/we have in common, than separate us.

  140. 140.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @dmsilev: Gohmert was scheduled to travel to Texas later in the day with President Donald Trump, who until recently has also flouted health experts’ recommendations on wearing facial coverings.

    /thinks un-christian thoughts about how close… bites virtual tongue…/

    I wonder if the test was part of a pre-Air Force 1 screening

  141. 141.

    Kathleen

    @SFAW: She’ s of the “Both Trump and GOP need to be obliterated” school. She lays it down! I love her.

  142. 142.

    Kay

    @rikyrah:

    Maine Senate Sara Gideon (D) 44% Susan Collins (R) 39%

    This is what I look for. The difference between 100 and 83. Too big. These are the people who drive me crazy. I swear to God predicting what this sort of voter will do is a fool’s game. They’re squirrely. I have no idea how they manage to decide what to have for lunch let alone who to vote for.
    I want the blank space between 83 and 100 filled in, because you cannot trust these people :)

  143. 143.

    Jinchi

    @Betty Cracker: I’m trying to brace myself for the inevitable tightening,

    I don’t expect the race to tighten. If anything, the polls may get worse for Trump as the pandemic continues to rage, schools remain shuttered, millions remain unemployed, and he continues to lurch from one scandal to the next.

    Polls this year have been remarkably consistent. Unlike 2016, when the average would regularly swing by 8 points over the course of a week.  At his best, Trump has never been within 4 points of Biden, more often he’s been behind by 10.  People are done with Trump.

  144. 144.

    Ken

    @rikyrah: What about those on active duty who catch it?

    Well, I hope there will be some changes from the current policy, which is to ignore it and ship them to an island base. Or ignore it, and cashier their commanding officers if they complain.

  145. 145.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @dmsilev:

    Who needs v!agra when there’s a story like that? I just hope he drowns in his own lung fluid, alone.

  146. 146.

    Kay

    @rikyrah:

    “I” shouldn’t stand for Independent, it should stand for Indecisive and when you talk to them you’re just shocked and horrified at what they base their decisions on- that’s IF they tell the truth.

  150. 150.

    trnc

    @zhena gogolia: Lincoln Project on Susan Collins, a thing of beauty, so concise and powerful:

    Cool! I see some of the twitter responses saying she’ll be very disappointed, concerned, etc, but that isn’t quite right. “Concern Theater” is for Russian bounties on US soldiers or brown kids being permanently separated from their families. She’s probably livid over this ad.

  151. 151.

    Jinchi

    @Kay: I want the blank space between 83 and 100 filled in, because you cannot trust these people

    The blank space may never be filled in. A lot of those 17% may decide not to vote at all.

  152. 152.

    Matt McIrvin

    They’re not even unified enough to give out free money, let alone cancel elections.

    But they don’t want to give out free money.

  154. 154.

    dnfree

    @arrieve: when I was a young child in the 1950s I saw a terrifying movie in which the name of the robot was TOBOR. Get it?  Robot spelled backwards!  TOBOR rescued a little boy from the bad guys at the last moment. I wonder if that one will ever show up on TCM.

  155. 155.

    Omnes Omnibus

    Herbert Hoover got nearly 40% of the vote in 1932.  Just something to keep in mind.

  156. 156.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Chyron HR:

    So the plan is to deliberately make the pandemic worse and hope that people blame someone else?

    Deliberately make the pandemic worse and hope it kills more Democratic voters than Republican voters, so they win.

  158. 158.

    Jinchi

    @dmsilev: “If I get it, you’ll never see me without a mask,” the GOP lawmaker told CNN.

    I’d rather not see him at all. The idea that he’d be going out (masked or not) after testing positive is just idiotic.

    Stay home Congressman.

  160. 160.

    Betty Cracker

    @Jinchi: I believe people are done with Trump too, but 2016 PTSD is going to have me on pins and needles until the outcome is certified, I guess. I needed to hear what you said, so thanks.

  161. 161.

    Kay

    @rp:

    I read yesterday that McConnell stripped a financial reg she’s proud of under the guise of his “stimulus” bill which apparently means he considers her as defeated and no longer needing to be accommodated.

    So that’s positive! :)

  162. 162.

    Ruckus

    @rikyrah: 
    Let’s be honest here.
    Can anyone tell me when, in the last 100 yrs, that the republican party has been for anything positive?
    I’ll wait.
    Positive is not who they are and it’s gotten worse in the last 50-60 yrs. They are the minus sign of American politics, the accountant who knows the only way to be profitable is to cut wages and employees, the doctor who only knows the amputation saw, the thief who robs churches because look at all the nice furniture.

  163. 163.

    germy

    Gohmert: And I do want to advise our media friends before they wrote stories about how we didn’t wear masks and we possibly didn’t socially distance adequately, that you saw to it that we had tests and nobody in here has the Coronavirus unless it’s somebody in the media. pic.twitter.com/SbnjtGboSi— Acyn Torabi (@Acyn) May 8, 2020

  164. 164.

    Jinchi

    @Kay: It’s just that it always seems to revert – all voters tend to go back to the Party they favor as it gets closer.

    Not in times of crisis.

    Look at the polls for McCain vs Obama in 2008 or Reagan vs Carter in 1980. When people lose confidence in the president and his party, they’re gone.

  166. 166.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Kay: I like to imagine Collins getting that memo and thinking, “But… I’ve always done what Mitch wanted, and now… he’s throwing me overboard?”  Face-eating-leopard party, et cetera…

  167. 167.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay: I have no idea how they manage to decide what to have for lunch let alone who to vote for.

    They have the same thing for lunch every day: Bologna with miracle whip on white bread and a bag of lays potato chips. A couple chocolate chip cookies too.

  168. 168.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    OTOH Trump giving up on Michigan is good news because the set of states that includes Michigan have some similarities in terms of voters and the conventional wisdom is if one moves the others move too.

    So if he’s even in Ohio (and he is) you can work backward to PA and MI and guess that he’s back further than 5 there, because they’re bluer than Ohio in a predictable way. That’s what Ohio political people do anyway. They look at the whole set. So Trump up that far in OH in ’16 should have been a flashing light for Clinton in PA and MI.

  170. 170.

    Jeffro

    @Kay: Pennsylvania appears to be gone, too.  Wisconsin, who knows but I have been seeing pretty regular polling number where Biden’s up by 8-10 points.

    What’s trumpov to do – try and flip California or New York, at this point?

  172. 172.

    Jeffro

    @rikyrah: true, and kind of horrifying.

    The upside, if there is one, is that in so many states, Biden is up over the 50% mark.  Trumpov’s people can ‘come home’ all they want, but at this point, they will have to figure out how to convince people (mostly blessed ‘independents’) who have made up their minds to vote for Biden/vote out the incumbent/save themselves to switch to trumpov.

    What’s he offering?  Any changes in tone’ last a couple of hours at most.

    He’s sunk and the smarter reptiles in the GOP high command know it.

  173. 173.

    Jeffro

    @Uncle Cosmo: I agree with “vet them and have them ready, but don’t announce them until absolutely necessary”.

    But whew, does Uncle Joe need to have wave after wave of appointees ready and raring to go…

  174. 174.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Ruckus: Can anyone tell me when, in the last 100 yrs, that the republican party has been for anything positive?
    I’ll wait.

    Teddy Roosevelt! Oh wait, that’s more than 100 years. Starting in 1920, we have Woodrow Wilson, Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover…

    Hmm. Well, maybe Calvin Coolidge wasn’t 100% awful?

    I never realized what a lock the Republicans had on the White House in the early 20th century till the Great Depression and FDR. We really are kind of repeating history here 100 years later.

  180. 180.

    RobertB

    @rp: Nixon with the EPA and normalizing relationships with China.  And now I just threw up a little bit, and my papaw will haunt me.

  181. 181.

    germy

    Branson anti-mask advocates now have an unofficial celebrity spokesperson.

    Comedian Yakov Smirnoff took the podium at Tuesday’s Branson Board of Aldermen meeting to speak against a possible masking ordinance that would have required people 12 and older to wear face coverings in most indoor public settings to slow the spread of COVID-19.

    Smirnoff, a native of the Soviet Union who often harks back to his upbringing as part of his comedy routine, took a more serious tone Tuesday when he said adopting a masking ordinance would make Branson more like Russia.

    “I’m hoping that you can make this an island of freedom and choice in the sea of hatred and fear,” Smirnoff said to thunderous applause from others who attended the meeting.

    Only the best celebrities.

  186. 186.

    Lyrebird

    About that state and local aid… can we please get more people shouting about how McConnell is defunding the police around the country?  Beinart said it at the Atlantic,

    there was an article from the Tax Policy Center

    along the same lines, and our county might see a 20% reduction in police, WITHOUT any complementary increase in social services.

     

    I wish we could get wall-to-wall Biden and Demings on how to train and pay police officers better in contrast with this backstabbing mess from the Turtle.

  187. 187.

    catclub

    @Ken: Call-outs to Rabbi Hillel. I like.

     

    I always think the

    ‘all else is commentary’ is a reference to that rightwing Jewish magazine.

  189. 189.

    Captain C

    @Jeffro:

    What’s trumpov to do – try and flip California or New York, at this point?

    Hope someone with no extradition treaty with the U.S. will take him in.

  190. 190.

    J R in WV

    @rikyrah:

    Not even smart enough to just put Nancy Smash’s bill on the floor, tell the vulnerable Senators to vote for it, claim victory under the scam of Bi-Partisanship.

    It would be that easy.

    Yes, it would be a Democratic bill, but it would be positive for the GOP.

    They could even change the name of the bill to the Donald J Trump Rescue Bill, or the McConnell-Trump Recovery Bill, leave everything else the same… but nope!

    Nope!

    Can’t pay people for staying home instead of working, even in the Trump Plague Times. Especially in the Trump Plague Times!!!

  192. 192.

    Brooklyn Dodger

    @NotMax: A gentle au contraire, to you dear BJer. I mean, Albert ZUGSMITH’S Sex Kittens Go to College? Why have I not heard of this before? I think TMC is doing their job. Love it and thanks for the, er, pro-tip.

  193. 193.

    J R in WV

    @Ruckus:

    Can anyone tell me when, in the last 100 yrs, that the republican party has been for anything positive?

    Nope. They weren’t even in favor of defending the free world from fascists during WW II until Pearl Harbor was attacked.

    Then they weren’t in favor of the war, they just stopped being against it in public. Lest they get arrested for hindering the war effort and go to one of those remote “camps” where they wouldn’t be able to take contributions from big companies any more.

  195. 195.

    Connor

    @SFAW:

    Somewhere in the great beyond, Cyril Kornbluth is either weeping, or laughing uproariously.

    The Marching Morons, indeed…

  196. 196.

    Subsole

    @rikyrah:

    I have family parroting the leftybros’ Tara Reid story as their excuse not to vote, so, y’know. Thanks for that, you useless socialist assholes.

     

    @J R in WV:  Incubi if you want a male. Succubi if you prefer female.

  198. 198.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

     

    This is what I look for. The difference between 100 and 83. Too big. These are the people who drive me crazy.

     

    Ok, I understand you on this. I see your point.

  199. 199.

    Anya

    @zhena gogolia: Usually I think the Lincoln Project’s ads are ineffective outside of getting under Trump’s skin (which super easy) and giving those of us who hate him some cathartic release. This ad though is very effective. And Susan Collins’ team seems to be ineffectual. They ran an ad that seems to be like a positive ad for her opponent. Just shows how removed Collins and her team are from her constituent.

  200. 200.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @dnfree: In Heinlein’s 1955 juvenile Tunnel In The Sky, the final exam for a HS Advanced Survival class is to stay alive on an unfamiliar planet (to which they are transported by means of a stargate) for 2-10 days**. Their instructor’s final written message to the class says (among other things) “watch out for stobor.”

    There’s some discussion among the kids as to what “stobor” are – once on the test planet a general consensus settles on a large lion-like predator on the – but no one ever notices that “stobor” spelled backwards is “robots” & appears to refer to anyone in the party who is acting robotically, c’est-à-dire inflexibly, & therefore likely to get themselves & anyone in their immediate neighborhood killed.

    ** Recovery fails & the kids are stranded on the test planet for more like 2 years. Otherwise there wouldn’t be a novel!

  204. 204.

    Ruckus

    @different-church-lady:

    It was sort of positive. It was much slower to drive any distance before the system was at least 75% finished. Problem was that it had no real plans for the future. Places growing rapidly, even for the time quickly outgrew the system and now several big cities have crunch issues and little ability to fix the worst problems because growth was not factored in at all.

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