Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

The willow is too close to the house.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

White supremacy is terrorism.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

I didn’t have alien invasion on my 2023 BINGO card.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

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

Battle won, war still ongoing.

Second rate reporter says what?

Tick tock motherfuckers!

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

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Wednesday Morning Open Thread: … If You Want to Live…

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  3. 3.

    debbie

    No link yet, but it appears the post office in an African-American neighborhood here has been closed “temporarily” because the air conditioning stopped working. People with no means to do so are being directed to go to the main post office on the other side of town. People with mailboxes have no way to get their mail.

    If it’s not one thing, it’s another

    ETA: It closed back in June.

  4. 4.

    Jeffro

    Not…not a coordinated voter registration drive!! Noooooooooooo

    Fear definitely is the mind-killer.

  5. 5.

    Winston

    Posted this at the end of one of the overnight threads. This a comment from a user on WAPO.
    In an alternate reality:
    Melania’s speech excerpt
    (Truth checked)
    I want to acknowledge that my husband destroyed Obama-Biden Pandemic defenses here and in China In 2018 to save money. These systems would have stopped the virus in its tracks in China.
    Since March 2020, when it finally arrived here, our lives have changed drastically.
    The invisible enemy Covid-19 swept across our beautiful country, particularly impacting minorities. The small amount of money we saved by dismantling the Obama-Biden Pandemic prevention systems, has now been used to buy PPE for the White House west wing.
    My deepest sympathy goes out to the One Hundred and Seventy-Eight Thousand People who have lost their lives. To everyone who has lost a loved one, my prayers are with you and those who are ill or suffering.
    I know many people are anxious about my husband’s failure to implement useful tests, track and trace, racial discrimination, police misconduct, lost jobs, travel restrictions, the crashed economy, poverty, hunger, and pending foreclosures.
    Some feel badly let down and helpless. I want you to know you are not alone. I, too, feel we could and should have done much more.
    My husband and the administration will not stop fighting to stay in office until the threat to his and their liberty for crimes in sealed indictments, and pending investigations are no more. He is eager for an effective treatment or vaccine available to everyone before the election, for obvious reasons.
    I want to belatedly extend my gratitude to all healthcare professionals, frontline workers, and teachers who stepped up in my husband’s absence. Despite the risk to yourselves and your own families, you put our country first.
    I have seen Americans come together in peaceful street protests, while beaten and gassed even outside the White House.
    It is in times like this that we will look back and tell our grandchildren their Grandad caused a Pandemic, and people responded with words of freedom;
    VOTE BLUE!

  7. 7.

    zzyzx

    After the Kenosha shootings last night (and also the Proud Boy induced riot in Portland over the weekend), I’m getting terrified. Society can’t exist if there are large enough factions trying to destroy it, and Trump hasn’t shown the slightest interest in trying to defuse things…

    At least if there are history books, his name will go down as the one who helped cause everything to fall apart.

  8. 8.

    Ken

    Unfortunately for that joke but fortunately for the Gulf Coast, Marco didn’t hit as a hurricane. However it did dump a lot of water right where Laura will be hitting later today as a category 4 hurricane (forecast).

  10. 10.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    Woke up to the worst dream about 40 minutes ago – incomprehensibly, I was Trump’s chief of staff.  He was demanding, immediately  (kind of like the worst boss I ever had) that I provide him data and studies on the economic slide that showed that everything is the fault “of the globalization, uh globalizationism, uh you know what I mean” (he’s an idiot even in my dream – that’s a direct quote). He then awkwardly patted my shoulder and I had a brief glimmer of hope that I could use this to somehow steer him off his preference for a disastrous course.

    Fucking awful. I had flashbacks to the miserable attorney job that I had with the world’s shittiest boss.

  12. 12.

    SFAW

    @zzyzx:

    At least if there are history books, his name will go down as the one who helped cause everything to fall apart.

    Mrs. SFAW and I are probably going to take a day trip up Maine in the next few days. [MomSense, I’ll wave as we drive by.] With all the news of the last few months, with all the prepping (by the Rethugs) for a Trump dictatorship, I’m thinking we also visit Canadia, just in case.

    Not really, of course. But it’s a little disheartening/depressing that I’m even thinking about it for more than a femtosecond.

  13. 13.

    Geminid

    Michigan is a crucial state and I’m glad Harris is focusing on it. I hope that if and when Harris hits the road to campaign in person, she can clear out a day to visit Texas. The state legislature (at least the lower house), six flippable Republic U.S. House seats, and a U.S. Senate are up for grabs. Harris has won three statewide races in California, and I’ve read that she connected well with Latino voters. The Latino vote may be decisive in Texas this year and in years to come.                    I would love to see Kamela Harris share a stage with Democratic Senate candidate M.J. Hegar and Congresswoman Veronica Escobar (D-El Paso). Escobar is in a safe seat, and I’m hoping she’ll make time to campaign statewide for the Democratic ticket

  14. 14.

    trnc

    @Winston: My deepest sympathy goes out to the One Hundred and Seventy-Eight Thousand People who have lost their lives.

    No way is that true. She doesn’t give a rat’s ass.

  15. 15.

    zzyzx

    @SFAW:

    What’s more depressing is that you can’t even cross the border if you wanted to because it’s closed.

    I made a vow a few days after the election that I wasn’t going to let Trump have WA State without a fight. This is my home and until my Jewish spider senses start tingling and tell me that the pogrom is coming, I’m going to try to stop this for as long as I can.

  16. 16.

    Kay

    After weeks of pressuring the state to add more ballot drop boxes, the Ohio Democratic Party has filed a lawsuit in Franklin County Common Pleas Court to allow county boards of elections to install more of them.
    Ohio Democratic Party chair David Pepper said the goal of the lawsuit is to clarify whether the law limits each county to a single drop box at the board of elections. And he thinks it’s not too late to add more.
    “My hope would be that we wouldn’t get caught in endless litigation. This is something that almost everyone is looking at agrees is simply pro-voter,” Pepper said.
    Pepper said counties could use federal pandemic relief funds to add more drop boxes, because they reduce crowds at polling places, allow people with health concerns to vote from home and help with stress on the postal system. Democrats and voting rights groups have pushed for ballot boxes in several states.
    Secretary of State Frank LaRose had dropped his request for a legal opinion on the one per county drop box issue earlier this month, saying there wasn’t time to add more before early voting starts in October.

    I’m not sure this would have benefited Republicans- it’s as or more inconvenient for their rural and suburban voters when they limit dropboxes as it is Democratic voters, but it is “pro voter” as the lawsuit says and I think Democrats win these access fights not because people care so much about “voting rights” but because people want voting to be more modern and convenient. They’re right too- it’s a state recording process. It should be getting better, not worse. Republican efforts to make voting as difficult as possible waste hours and hours of voter time and add inconvenience.

  17. 17.

    Baud

    @zzyzx: It’ll get worse before it gets better.  The GOP knows that it can win only by depressing liberal turnout with a feeling of hopelessness while exciting its own base with fear.   Violence and unhinged rhetoric produces both effects, so expect more of both.

  19. 19.

    trnc

    @Geminid: Michigan is a crucial state and I’m glad Harris is focusing on it. I hope that if and when Harris hits the road to campaign in person, she can clear out a day to visit Texas.

    I was really hoping that one positive side effect of all this would be that voters don’t whine that a candidate didn’t visit their state 20 times. Even in 2016, the idea that a candidate doesn’t love you enough if they didn’t plant themselves in one spot for a whole day was ludicrous. It’s a waste of time and resources.

  20. 20.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    not because people care so much about “voting rights” but because people want voting to be more modern and convenient

    One of the things we often get wrong IMHO is wanting people who are not us to support the right things for the right reasons.  We should focus on getting them to support the right things first and foremost.

  22. 22.

    Patricia Kayden

    Proud Boys are shooting and killing protesters in Kenosha with the blessings of the police department.

    Cell phone video shows Kenosha Wisconsin police officers in an military vehicle telling armed White militia members they "appreciate them being there" and giving them bottled water; while in the background cops can be heard ordering protestors to disperse. pic.twitter.com/73SsfCUYWj— Rebecca Kavanagh (@DrRJKavanagh) August 26, 2020

  23. 23.

    Kay

    @Geminid:

    She really is popular with our voters. We have Biden yard signs that we got prior to the VP pick and people are picking one of those up and telling us they’ll come back and pay for another (it’s a donation but almost everyone pays) when we have Biden/Harris.

    I had an amusing encounter at the headquarters last night. Young woman comes in and asks me really aggressively where the GOP headquarters is. I don’t know and screw her I’m not her secretary so I (politely) told her exactly that: “I don’t know”. She said “I think you do know”. I just looked at her, because I don’t respond to things like that. She said “I hope you find the truth”. I should have said “I hope you find your headquarters”, but I didn’t say anything :)

  24. 24.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Patricia Kayden: I’ve noticed people responding to the reports of the shootings by bloviating about how “the looters have blood on their hands”, without even considering who might have done the shootings. Of course, they aren’t giving any details yet.

  26. 26.

    eric

    @Kay:  that is the perfect allegory for republicanism: Democrat, please help me to get the means to destroy you.

  27. 27.

    Baud

    I have to wonder if cops will be more likely to kill unarmed black me thinking the resulting protests will help Trump.

    The George Floyd protests didn’t help Trump, but what else can the fascists do?

  29. 29.

    randy khan

    I’m wondering if it has escaped the NRO that Facebook owns Instagram, so it’s not like a whole lot of coordinating would be required.  I mean, if it were somehow bad that they were coordinating on a voter registration drive.

  30. 30.

    Betty Cracker

    @zzyzx: Not to add to your justifiable concern, but did you read about the RNC pulling a slated “Angel Mom” speaker at the last minute when they “discovered” (i.e., were called out for) paranoid, anti-Semitic, Qanon-flavored ravings she shared with her 40K followers on Twitter?

    That Q-loon in Georgia whom Trump praised to the skies (and who will almost certainly be going to Congress next year) also spouts anti-Semitic, Islamophobic garbage. It’s a scary time. The tiki-torch Nazis must be thrilled. We have to squash them.

  31. 31.

    WereBear

    @zzyzx: I made a vow a few days after the election that I wasn’t going to let Trump have WA State without a fight.

    During the second W administration we discussed moving to Canada. Heck, we’re already so close local restaurants serve poutine.

    But in the end, I declared, “I love the idea behind America, and I want to stick around and defend it.”

    Besides, move to Canada and the US falls to Trumpian fascism? Isn’t that an illusory sense of safety?

  32. 32.

    germy

    On Monday morning, members of the Yale Law School faculty received a terse message from their provost informing them that Professor Jed Rubenfeld “will leave his position as a member of the YLS faculty for a two-year period, effective immediately,” and that upon his return, Rubenfeld would be barred from teaching “small group or required courses. He will be restricted in social gatherings with students.”

    Rubenfeld is married to fellow Yale Law professor Amy Chua, author of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, and both wield power in the high-stakes race for judicial clerkships. In the summer of 2018, it was Chua who took to the pages of the Wall Street Journal to vouch for then–Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh as a “mentor for young lawyers, particularly women.”

    https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/08/yale-professor-jed-rubenfeld-suspended-for-sexual-harassment.html

  34. 34.

    Geminid

    @trnc: In person campaigning is effective. And when it gets you on the front page of half a dozen Texas newspapers, and on the local new segments of even more local TV and radio stations, that’s lot of free advertising in an expensive media market.

  38. 38.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    I think about that too.

    This actually happened:

    On the morning of September 1, 2015, police lieutenant Charles Joseph “Joe“ Gliniewicz (born 1963) of the Fox Lake, Illinois Police Department was found dead in a wooded area in Fox Lake. At first it was thought Gliniewicz was killed by three unknown assailants, but after two months of investigation officials concluded that Gliniewicz had actually committed suicide after realizing that his many years of criminal activity would soon be exposed.[1][2][3][4] It later was found that he had attempted to arrange the murder of a village administrator who was positioned to uncover his malfeasance.

    I read a lot about it at the time. Fox Lake is outside Chicago and the suicidal crooked cop set it up deliberately to appear as if BLM “from Chicago” had ambushed him. The law enforcement response was INSANE. They descended on the place from 11 different jurisdictions to look for the “BLM killers” then they held a HUGE hero funeral. The white townspeople put up signs “Blue Lives Matter”. Then state investigators got involved and the suicide and theft and fraud was revealed and it all quietly ended and was never mentioned again.

    So, you know, we’re not the only ones who thought about this.

  39. 39.

    germy

    @WereBear:  I remember driving in Plattsburgh with my family and our car was stopped.  Troopers (or whatever they were) asked us if we were all American citizens.  When we told them “yes” they allowed us to go on our way.

  40. 40.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Baud:

    more likely to kill unarmed black me

    I think all of us join in the hope that the police don’t kill you, even if you were armed.

  41. 41.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: I wish stupid white kids weren’t contributing to the problem by hijacking protests in counter-productive ways. The vast majority are there because they want to be good allies and help change things, and God bless them for that. But there’s a small subset who get off on chaos and confrontation, and they’re the ones I worry about, as far as turning the protests into an issue that helps Trump cling to power.

  42. 42.

    zzyzx

    @Betty Cracker: Yeah, I might have read a few articles about that…

    I organized a virtual run for the Mockingbird Foundation (a 501(c) for music education) that is happening over Labor Day. The thing about virtual runs, is that you have to make them fun or people won’t do them, so one thing that I’m planning to do is to run all three distances in the next 2 weeks so people can have multiple attempts to beat my time. So right now I’m trying to be smart and rest a bit so I’ll be fresh for that, but I’m so stressed this morning that I might have to run today for my sanity…

  46. 46.

    zzyzx

    @WereBear:

    yeah pretty much. Also, if all of the upper middle class techie liberals who can get work visas all leave, then what happens to those who stay?

    I mean there will reach a point where it might not be safe for me to be here (and with a name like “David Steinberg,” I can’t hide), but we’re nowhere near that yet.

  47. 47.

    MagdaInBlack

    @Kay: I live ” down the road” from that cf. I know people who were friends with the man, one of them a cop.  It was quite the drama. Especially when the truth came out.

  48. 48.

    rikyrah

    We’re in a situation in which the president feels unconstrained by the law, his aides scoff at following it, the law enforcement bureaucracy has decided it cannot accuse or check him in office, his AG maneuvers to protect him, and the GOP Senate shuts its eyes and plugs its ears.— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) August 26, 2020

  51. 51.

    Baud

    @Betty Cracker: 

    Protests have value, but by now, anyone organizing them has to understand the potential for them to become hijacked, whether by sincere troublemakers or agent provocateurs.

  52. 52.

    Kay

    @MagdaInBlack:

    Oh, I bet!  It’s really a very worthwhile story for police reform. He was untouchable for years until an outsider came in who wasn’t afraid of him- the village administrator. They threatened to KILL HER and she continued to doggedly go through his books where she found the fraud.

  53. 53.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    OT, but holy cow. My small press publisher tweeted this morning that their sales are down 78%, which they attribute to COVID. I knew they sold a lot at events like conventions and book fairs, and it didn’t help when the managing director (my editor) got caught and locked down in Spain for 3 months, but 78%! That sends a chill down my spine.

    If you have a few bucks to spare, I humbly ask you to take a look at their web site and see if there’s something you want to read. They make more if you buy from them, but they’re UK based so you may prefer to buy what you want off Amazon or B&N or any of the other online retailers.

  55. 55.

    Baud

    @Kay: Wow.  Never even heard of that one.  It’s interesting what gets played up in the media and what doesn’t.

  56. 56.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    They threatened to KILL HER and she continued to doggedly go through his books where she found the fraud.

    Good on her for not being scared off.

  57. 57.

    Kay

    @germy:

    Yeah, I’m sorry but they’re a nightmare couple. They’re like some kind of awful “brand”- insanely ambitious people who are just completely full of shit on every level.

  59. 59.

    Baud

    @rikyrah:

    Liberty University May Owe Falwell $10.5 Million

    Two points:

    1. Couldn’t care less how the wingnuts allocate their money among themselves.
    2. When a headline that says that something “may” happen, the story is almost always not worth reading.
  60. 60.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Betty Cracker: As Patricia said, there are white fascist vigilante/militia groups in the mix too, eager to kill some protesters and apparently operating with police support.

  61. 61.

    mad citizen

    @Geminid: I was going to say something similar, remembering that Obama visited Indiana (my state) 48 times in 2008, and won it.  The other day I was thinking about how he did an in-person interview inside the Indy tv station.  I still think the in-person appearances will be the way in the post-vaccine times, but they might be less important.  It seems like our local tv news has all but abandoned political/democracy coverage anytime except election night results.  They really do not serve democracy any longer.

  63. 63.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    He was getting the money he was stealing from our insane over-funding of police equipment. He would apply for every state and federal grant. He had collected a warehouse full of military surplus, part of which he used to train “Police Explorers” (high school kids) to be terrible, overzealous and violent cops.

    You could take that one story and reform police. It had every element of the problems.

  64. 64.

    Kay

    @PaulWartenberg:

    Our high schoolers are all complying with the mask request, which surprised the school, but not me. I knew they could and would do it. I have watched these same kids meet a higher standard on not bullying one another. They can do it.

    We have two far Right county commissioners who won’t comply with it in their own meetings.

  65. 65.

    PaulWartenberg

    @Kay:

    I had an amusing encounter at the headquarters last night. Young woman comes in and asks me really aggressively where the GOP headquarters is. I don’t know and screw her I’m not her secretary so I (politely) told her exactly that: “I don’t know”. She said “I think you do know”.

    Have her call the library. I’ll direct her to the nearest minimum security federal prison and tell her that’s where all the GOP leaders are and will be.

  67. 67.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: You’re right, but from what I’ve seen and heard at a remove from one little corner of the nation, I don’t think the organizers or the protesters see what’s happening in the same context you and I do. This worries me, but I don’t know what can be done about it.

  69. 69.

    Kay

    I know the media commentary is the GOP convention is a rip roaring success- and it must be, they’re giving it way more airtime than they gave the Dems. We’ll be rattled by that, but it was inevitable and their certainty that all this “helps Trump” is just bullshit. They’re pulling it out of their ass. They don’t know and either do we, which is of course hard not to know, but not a reason to get scared.

    We knew it would tighten. It will. Stay the course! :)

  70. 70.

    Barbara

    @rikyrah: You know what? It serves them right.  Do you think they didn’t actually know what he was like?  They only cut the cord when the noise level coming from their student population (and parents and alumni) when THEY found out what he was really like became too loud to ignore.

  71. 71.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    There’s a basic misunderstanding that “young liberals” identify as “Democrats” and they don’t. They don’t respond to “this will help Trump” because they don’t see themselves as engaged in Party politics. I think that’s dumb and naive, but it is the truth.

  72. 72.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    the media commentary is the GOP convention is a rip roaring success-

    They find the spectacle entertaining, because they are of that culture.  Whether voters are entertained enough to affect how they vote is uncertain right now.

  73. 73.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @Geminid: I haven’t seen Casten’s polling. I hate to sound like Peggy Noonan (or was it Maureen Dowd?) but in the lily-white neighborhood where I live, I saw 6 Casten yard signs this week and no R signs. I think my area may be one of those suburbs that’s decided the Rs are offensive.

  74. 74.

    Patricia Kayden

    For those just waking up to the news about the Kenosha protests, here's what happened: Two people have died and one was seriously wounded by gunfire just before midnight on Tuesday. Several videos documented what happened (1/?) https://t.co/fHRPsTt6rD— Jaclyn Peiser (@jackiepeiser) August 26, 2020

  76. 76.

    Baud

    @Betty Cracker: Right.  All we can do is focus on what they can control.

     

     

    @Kay:

    They don’t respond to “this will help Trump” because they don’t see themselves as engaged in Party politics.

    And then they’ll blame the Boomers for everything being shitty.

  77. 77.

    Barbara

    @Kay: So this seems like 1 part paranoia and 2 parts entitlement, that other people are my enemy and yet, that they owe me whatever I ask of them, however unreasonable.  And, of course, I owe them nothing.  How do people get this way?

  78. 78.

    NotMax

    Visual media miscellany.

    1) Couple of early DVR alerts for movies upcoming on TCM.

    Overnight Thursday/Friday at midnight, The Palm Beach Story. Delightfully wacky rat-a-tat romp.

    2) Well before the big screen’s The Talented Mr. Ripley was the original film adaptation of the novel, Purple Noon, airing Monday at 6 p.m. The beguiling mystique Alain Delon exudes as the lead made him a star to be reckoned with.

    3) While zip in it which personally found enticing, the initial teaser for the new Batman film has been released.

  80. 80.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    Democrats don’t incorporate the more extreme liberal elements and actors into the Party. Republicans do. What that means is the more extreme elements and actors don’t identify as Democrats, where the more extreme elements in the GOP identify as Republicans.

    The only way to bring them is to bring them in, as Trump has done. But the downside of that is they get QAnon House candidates.

    But you can’t reach them “as Democrats” because they don’t identify as Democrats. We could bring them in, but that would change the composition of the Party proper and it would be as extreme as the GOP is. It’s a conundrum but it has always been so.

  82. 82.

    Immanentize

    @Kay: I’m not sure how much the main media narrative counts anymore. I suppose it may allow people who wanted to vote for Trump but are ashamed to do so room to vote for him. But there really aren’t that many undecideds. About 94% seem committed already.

    Will soft Trump supporters vote for Trump? Probably. Will Biden supporters switch to Trump? I don’t see it. And this convention will not even leave visible skid marks by mid-October, except the parts in Biden/Harris campaign ads.

  83. 83.

    Baud

    @Kay: IMHO, over the long term, the Dems need to promote young leaders who are independent of that group.  They are loud but relatively small in number (which is why the Dems can’t incorporate radicals the way the GOP does).  We shouldn’t treat them as if they are a bottleneck to our ability to reach young voters.

  84. 84.

    Kay

    @Barbara:

    I don’t know but I’m really the exact wrong person to approach like this because I had a kind of revelation about it 10 years ago and I don’t play along anymore. It has been WILDLY successful. I wish I had learned it at 25 instead of 50.

    Like a lot of women I was raised to be polite and helpful and I am. But I no longer explain, apologize to or assist people or engage with people who I believe are playing games with me or looking for a reaction and I have gotten very good at it. Approach me the same way I’m approaching you – good faith at the outset- or you’ll get nothing.

  86. 86.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: That’s certainly true among the young folks I know. Most will vote for Democrats (if they bother to show up at all, which most will) but with “lesser of two evils” disdain. I get it because I felt that way myself once (and still do, about some Democrats). But I wish I could help them see that no political party will ever center the issues of people who aren’t involved in the process and don’t show up to vote.

    That’s one thing I admire about the Parkland kids, who get unwarranted shit (IMO) on Twitter from anti-Bernie Democrats. I don’t get their adoration for the old coot either, but from the very beginning, as high school students, they understood this was about voting and have consistently led voter registration drives. When Bernie lost, they were disappointed, but they’re actively encouraging people to vote for Biden because they understand he’s now the only vehicle to effective gun control. I wish more kids their age understood that.

  89. 89.

    Soprano2

    I’ve listened to all of “Morning Edition” this morning, and I didn’t hear one word about the RNC having to can a speaker at the last minute due to her anti-Semitic and crazy QAnon internet posts. It’s amazing to me, because you know how they would have covered this if it happened at the Democratic Convention.

    I feel so much disdain for the fact that Melania is getting effusive praise from the press for being the first speaker at the Republican Convention to actually acknowledge people who died of COVID, and the grief their families feel. So, I guess a couple of lines in one speech completely cancel out how the whole rest of the convention has pretty much either ignored COVID, or talked about it as if it’s already over! It’s amazing how low the press sets the bar for Republicans…..

  91. 91.

    Immanentize

    Things are so “off” in the policing world right now, I am having difficulty knowing how to teach my criminal law students. I am not one of those Profs not capable of talking about people/things like Jacob Blake and Kenosha.  It’s so important.

    But I am losing the thread of the narrative.  Is this how it has always been, but now we have cameras?  (No Bigfoot, but lots of police violence).  Or, are things truly different (years of decreasing accountability plus Trump)?  Or is this some true moment of societal change toward more just community law application?

    I know one can say it’s all that, plus more, but there is not a cohesive teachable in just saying we are in chaos.

  93. 93.

    Soprano2

    @Immanentize: I haven’t heard any mention of Bannon not being able to speak because he’s in jail, either. It’s as if it completely disappeared from their memories.

  95. 95.

    rp

    I was initially skeptical of the defund the police message, but I’m coming around. Like DHS and ICE, I’m starting to think that law enforcement around the country needs to be torn down completely and rebuilt from the ground up.  And step one is significant budget cuts.

  101. 101.

    germy

    @Soprano2:  He’s not in jail though, is he?

    I thought I saw footage of him leaving the courthouse with a smirk on his face, and climbing into an SUV.

    Posted bond?

  102. 102.

    gvg

    @Betty Cracker: Those Parkland kids, seemed to have some really good teachers and mostly smart parents. Politically smart parents. One of the leaders is the son of I think an FBI agent and I wondered if that was why he seemed to understand so much already.

  103. 103.

    Kay

    @Kathleen:

    I did! For whatever reason yesterday and last night were my “Ohio Democrats day” so I heard literally every bit of scuttlebutt and news.

    I posted this last night but in case you didn’t see one of our House candidates told me they have very good polling out of Wood County, which is a swing northern county. I was pleased about that. It’s like rural/student/working class but with a hefty dose of fancy suburbs.

  104. 104.

    MomSense

    Last night’s CONvention was really disturbing and affected me more than I thought it would.

    First, they fucking destroyed the historic Rose Garden to make it a set for Melanie. Any other explanation about ADA or access is complete horseshit. I’m furious about the blatant law breaking, the propaganda, the whole horrible thing. The media should not have broadcasted any of it.The actual convention began on Monday morning and ended Monday afternoon. This is a fascist propaganda infomercial the GOP assholes are getting free.
    Pompeo flying into Israel as Secretary of State with the United States of America emblazoned on the side of the Jet so he could deliver a speech from the rooftop of the King James Hotel. That man is terrifying, BTW. His speech was revealing and not in a good way. He knew it was wrong based on the direction he gave to the State Department about not participating in any political speech.
    There was a gruesome presentation by an anti abortion activist that I will not describe.
    I’m livid and disgusted and I don’t know what to do about what I’m feeling.

  105. 105.

    germy

    @MomSense:  Pompeo is part of the doomsday cult that sees Israel in a very special way.  He was doing a smirking shoutout to his fellow believers with that stunt.

  107. 107.

    Kathleen

    @Immanentize: Some cities like Cincinnati entered in to Collaborative Agreements with support of Justice Department.  Things are not perfect but I can see a big difference in how police engage in the community. During protests here the police chief, who is African American, spent a lot of time talking to protesters and said he plans to keep the dialog open. He also said he told them many of the things they wanted police to do are already covered in the agreement. We had such a bad rep for so long AA organizations boycotted the city. If we can improve anybody can. I think the key is local involvement balanced with Federal standards.

  110. 110.

    E.

    @Baud: And if Josh Marshal wrote it, start at paragraph eight because you can be certain nothing of interest is contained in the back and forth hemming and hawing that those paragraphs will indubitably contain.

  111. 111.

    Gin & Tonic

    @MomSense:

    He knew it was wrong based on the direction he gave to the State Department

    My son was in Kyiv at the time Pompeo was supposed to go there this winter, and had/has plenty of contacts in the embassy community and related. One of his friends was due to make a presentation at the embassy around that time and was admonished about “political” content based on those guidelines (it wasn’t what you or I would call a “political” topic.)

    Needless to say, he is beside himself this morning.

  112. 112.

    Kathleen

    @Kay: That’s great. I watched Ohio Democratic Party virtual convention and was so impressed with our bench. Sykes and Timms are so impressive and there was another young woman whose name I don’t recall. Joe and Kamala also appeared at the end. ODP did a great job.

  113. 113.

    MomSense

    @Gin & Tonic:

    In addition to all that was wrong about what he said and did, there was also that he is a scary person.  His face was frozen in a weird smile that never changed even when he talked about killing people and beheadings.  I have serious concerns about him.  It was just absolutely horrible and so unsettling.  My warning lights are all flashing danger.

  114. 114.

    Kathleen

    @MomSense: I have decided after checking headlines/stories and tweets that too many in broadcast and print media are knowing and willing enablers of fascism and should be called out as such. WaPo used term “rough edges” to describe how Melanoma defended Trump.

  115. 115.

    MomSense

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Speaking of Ukraine, Pam Bondi’s presentation was straight Russian disinformation about Hunter Biden and all the rest of the discredited bullshit for which hair furor was impeached.

  117. 117.

    Immanentize

    @MomSense: Remember Ashcroft from Russia with the weird red background?  It gave me that vibe.

    PS. Its the King David Hotel in Jerusalem (not King James). You just Christianized history?

  118. 118.

    mrmoshpotato

    When they say “the best is yet to come,” that’s a threat.

    I saw this ad last night, and it’s still spot on.  That is a threat.

    Also, Kim needs to be shot with a horse tranquilizer.

  119. 119.

    Kathleen

    @Baud: Yes. It happened in early August but remains a bright spot. Dems have so many brilliant people who want to run and make a difference.  We are very blessed

  120. 120.

    Gin & Tonic

    @MomSense: Since my blood pressure doesn’t permit me to watch any of that I’ll have to trust your summary. But I can’t help thinking that to normal people, the Hunter Biden – Burisma story is yesterday’s news and they just don’t care.

  123. 123.

    mad citizen

    @Immanentize: Agree, this election has been cooked for a while.  My hope is that somehow Trump is having this last hurrah and scuttles off to Florida forthwith.  I watched the forced citizenship ceremony, and mostly trump was still and not moving, but there were still a few times his right leg twitched, etc.  I do think he is on a degenerative path mentally and physically, but it doesn’t seem to be as bad as Tom Joseph bloviates on twitter.  I’ve been reading over there for around 3 months, and it’s like an alternate universe.  It always gets me hopeful, but then when I watch trump video, yes he is twitching and jerking, sometimes quite badly, but his words are for the most part still making sense (grading on his scale).  Last night I was so hoping that he would fall walking from the Rose Garden lawn to Third Lady and then around to the sidewalk.

  125. 125.

    Betty

    @Kay: Now that Republicans in Pennsylvania lost their lawsuit they are proposing legislation to outlaw drop boxes. I don’ t think they have the votes to overcome the Governor’s veto. Monsters.

  126. 126.

    the mugster

    @debbie:

    Interesting…seems HVAC maintenance would be one of those ongoing contract items that are in place for the upkeep of any gov’t. agency or outpost…like lawn mowing, plowing snow out of the parking lot, etc.

    This should be a no-brainer “constituent services” item for every single elected official from every level of that ward/district/city/county’s gov’t.

    And then there’s the 6th word in the postal motto: “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night …”

    Oy!  You must be in a helluva GOP-dominated area!

  127. 127.

    Kathleen

    • @MomSense: Yes. And I think someone is paying them to produce this propaganda. Or blackmailing them. I thought the Senate Intelligence Report had section that covered blackmailing of media not just in U S but overseas as well. I keep meaning to check that out.
  136. 136.

    catclub

    @Baud:

    I care. Liberty U gets federal student loan money, also federal contracts.

    If they are using that money to pay off Falwell Jr’s various poolboys and trainers with sweet real estate deals. Or are using the liberty private jet to transport them, I want to object. It is the ‘their money’ part.

    1. Couldn’t care less how the wingnuts allocate their money among themselves

  137. 137.

    catclub

    @mrmoshpotato: But it appears that small town country folk are HIGHLY willing to believe that antifa or BLM are targeting THEM. So the long hike does not seem to be a problem.

  138. 138.

    OGLiberal

    @Patricia Kayden:  The militia man – more precisely, kid – who can be seen most prominently in the video of the cops thanking the “armed citizens” for being there is almost certainly the kid who killed somebody with a shot to the head and then, when people chased him down for doing that, killed another, injured another, then walked right towards police vehicles with his AR-15 and they did nothing. Am I 100% certain of all of this? No. But probably 99% certain. Appears to be a 17-year old from Illinois with future cop aspirations. Nice.

  139. 139.

    Peale

    @catclub: The town I grew up in is pretty much 1/2 way between Madison and Milwaukee, so whenever there’s a discussion of high speed rail or commuter rail lines, it seems to be a logical spot to put a depot. But they will protest that every single time because they don’t want people coming in and stealing their things and hoping on the train to escape. They just know that the second that depot opens, those city gangs are going to come in for the plethora of TVs and Oneida flatware. Antifa just gives them a name. They need to believe that because they need constant reassurance that their lifestyles are attractive to other people.

  140. 140.

    Peale

    @OGLiberal: Clearly his life was in danger and he should be extended immunity. I mean, sure, he traveled many miles with a loaded gun, but where is the pre-meditation necessary for a murder charge.

  141. 141.

    OGLiberal

    @Peale: “They were chasing me and I feared for my life.  And why were they chasing me – for killing somebody with a head shot?  I mean – I’m a minor who took an assault rifle across state lines and killed two people with it…is that a crime???”

  142. 142.

    Geminid

    @H.E.Wolf: I appreciate you giving me the benefit of autocorrect on Lauren Underwood’s name, but that was me being sloppy. I’ve followed her, though, on Chicagoland media. She is one of a number of impressive freshmen to flip Republican seats. Cameron Webb in my 5th Va. District could be another one this year. Like Underwood, Webb worked in the Obama administration.

  143. 143.

    The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion

    @Immanentize: I don’t presume that you need my help to know what to teach, but, fwiw, I think the questions you just posed provide the outline for an inquiry-based classroom approach to the issues.

  144. 144.

    J R in WV

    @Baud:

     

    @rikyrah:

    Liberty University May Owe Falwell $10.5 Million

     

    Two points:

    Couldn’t care less how the wingnuts allocate their money among themselves.
    When a headline that says that something “may” happen, the story is almost always not worth reading.

    Wife, a professional journalist back when that meant a little more than it does now, utterly rejects any use of any conditional word in any news story.

    “Trump May be Alien From Sagittarius” is as true (or not) as “Liberty University May Owe Little Jerry $10 Million”

    The whole exercise become meaningless as soon as “May”, “Could”, “Perhaps”, “Possible”, “Might”, “Potentially” or any similar weasel words are attached to any statement of alleged fact. They do not belong in a news article.

    And once someone pleads guilty or is convicted, using the word “allegedly” becomes inappropriate as well.

  145. 145.

    J R in WV

    @Soprano2:

    It’s amazing how low the press sets the bar for Republicans…..

    Seriously, what “bar” do you think is set for Republicans?

    Because I don’t see any bar whatsoever set by the MSN for the right-wing nut jobs, who are treated as if they are Ivy-educated and brilliantly equal to Issac Newton, even while they babble meaningless nonsense on camera.

    MSNBC is less inclined to worship the ground trod by Republican Fascists than the traditional networks, CNN as well, a little. CBS, ABC, NBC, NYT, no hope for following truth there at all.

  147. 147.

    J R in WV

    @Immanentize:

    August 26, 2020 at 9:51 am

    @MomSense: Remember Ashcroft from Russia with the weird red background?  It gave me that vibe.

    PS. Its the King David Hotel in Jerusalem (not King James). You just Christianized history?

    Also, that hotel (Then the British HQ) was blown up during the Israeli fight against colonial British rule of Palestine back in 1946 by the Irgun  which was led at the time by future Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin. 91 died in the attack, hard to tell from here and now how many were actual British officers.

  148. 148.

    A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)

    @NotMax: Thanks for the heads up.  I have never heard of Purple Noon and it sounds great.

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