(h/t commentor Joel Hanes)
Biden has a larger lead of any challenger at this point against an elected incumbent since… Well ever tbh. (Note: this includes Perot questions from 92.) Part of that is an unpopular incumbent, but it's plausible Biden's a better candidate than many here give him credit for.
— (((Harry Enten))) (@ForecasterEnten) August 30, 2020
The core claim of the Biden campaign is that Donald Trump is, currently, the President of the United States and I think it’s a pretty good point. https://t.co/k5jDTQvvO8
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) August 30, 2020
Associated Press: “Planes, pizza and Cher: Biden resumes campaign travel”:
PITTSBURGH (AP) — Joe Biden opened the first week of the general-election campaign with a morning flight to a must-win battleground state where he delivered a blistering speech against his rival, President Donald Trump. He dropped off pizzas at a local firehouse, took photos with first-responders and swung by a private fundraiser headlined by Cher before catching a return flight home.
For a moment, traditional campaigning — complete with chartered airplanes, unannounced visits and sometimes awkward celebrity moments — returned to America.
But Biden’s Monday trip to Pittsburgh, his first substantial travel in months, was anything but normal. Local rules designed to prevent the spread of the coronavirus meant that voters in this swath of western Pennsylvania who could decide the election couldn’t watch Biden deliver his speech in-person. Some Biden staffers had to leave to prevent overcrowding in the room. And the fundraiser was held virtually, with Biden joining from the same building as the speech…
In the parking lot outside, well-wishers swelled to more than 100, even after Biden’s speech concluded. Some waved Biden signs and chanted “We want Joe!” despite not being close enough for him to hear them.
Biden later made a quick stop at the firehouse, joking of the pizzas he brought, “I was worried my staff was going to keep them.”
He chatted with first-responders and posed for a group picture. But Biden also was interrupted by a man who said he was a retired fire fighter and used a perch atop a truck parked across the street and a bullhorn to pester the Democratic candidate…
Biden, who was wearing a black face mask, pulled it down as he turned and yelled in a deadpan, “Don’t jump!”…
Maggie could be right, but whenever I think about comparable elections the one that keeps popping into my head is 1980. https://t.co/ccMLQSbdpC
— Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) August 31, 2020
On The Road – lashonharangue – Mojave Desert, CA
debbie
I hope the citizens of Kenosha turn out for Trump, but turn their backs on him as he goes by.
prostratedragon
Just listened to that song a little while ago. EW&F were always so breezy and light.
Backs, indeed.
johnnybuck
Cat in heat day 5
Baud
Biden is helped by Trump the way Obama was helped by Bush.
There are a million ways Biden could have messed this up, but all he’s done is exceed expectations.
Biden doesn’t fit the mold of what savvy people think should be a good candidate, which tells us more about their ability to adapt to new information than it does about Biden.
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: A mass mooning.
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
“Why ask for the moon when we have the stars?” //
debbie
@Baud:
I like that Biden’s asking voters if he looks like what Trump’s trying to portray him as. That’s about as close as a person can get to calling Trump names without actually name calling.
Baud
@debbie:
My impression was that Kenosha is a conservative area, so probably not.
John S.
I am shocked that Trump’s message of “stick with me for 4 more years of this shit-show” is not connecting with voters.
Baud
@debbie:
I like that he didn’t flinch from the safety debate. He took it right to Trump. Of you care about the safety of yourself and your family, vote Biden.
debbie
@Baud:
No, but the protesters can.
Baud
@debbie:
They won’t be allowed anywhere near Trump.
Frankensteinbeck
Only Trump could pick a year to campaign on ‘law and order’ where for the first time white public sympathy is overwhelmingly on the side of the protestors.
MazeDancer
September is the first month Absentee Ballots drop. Slate, of all places, had a good round-up of voting in every state. Handy for helping others.
PostCardPatriots.com has all the info you need to make your Voting Plan. Post it here and we’ll illustrate it to Tweet out to inspire others.
WaterGirl has made a lovely Election Action section at the top of the sidebar. (And later today, there will be a nice batch of new Illustrated Voting Plans.)
debbie
@Baud:
Yes. It’s a good compromise between Michelle’s going high (not responding) and getting into the mud with Trump which is exactly what he’s trying to get Biden to do. I don’t think Trump would necessarily win this kind of mud fight, but it’s a positive to appear the way most people would assume a world leader would appear. Don’t fall for their tricks, Joe!
Baud
@Frankensteinbeck:
Trump wants more violence in the hopes that that will slip.
Hopefully, enough white people in swing states react to the Trump truck parade in Portland the right way.
johnnybuck
@Baud: Biden never struck me as craven or cynical. Take a guy a long way this year.
JPL
Serious question.. Should I be concerned of the plane load of people dressed in black flying around in a plane in order to direct Biden, or should I be concerned that out president would spout that. What is happening?
Baud
@debbie:
Going high doesn’t mean not responding.
satby
@johnnybuck: get her spayed as soon as it’s over.
OzarkHillbilly
Ken
@debbie: With seven red spots on the back of each shirt, like that WNBA team protest.
Baud
@JPL:
johnnybuck
@satby: That’s the plan. Shelter kitty, just got her home and this happened. Poor thing,
debbie
@JPL:
Good god. Did you see his eyes shifting back and forth?
BlueGuitarist
November (parody/tribute)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89fgNaZRKGc
Do you remember
When he said I was born in Kenya
Always pushing his racist agenda
And fanning the flames of hate
His polls are sinking
Meanwhile his tiny hands keep shrinking
He’s a vile juvenile offender
But soon we will celebrate
Hey hey hey Biden yeah,
dump Don in November
Biden yeah…..
TS (the original)
In the southern hemisphere the seasons change on the 1st of the month, so today is/was the first of Spring. It was a glorious sunny day, although still a chilly breeze & the SE sky – towards the coast was filled with smoke from the burn offs that have been taking place in a hope to limit the summer fires.
The days are getting longer & as this happens the depression seems to rise & things start to look better. I believe when trump is defeated in November, the world will become a much nicer place.
satby
@johnnybuck: Well, the heat should be winding down soon (yep, that yowling is awful). Thanks for rescuing a shelter cat!
Jeffro
Biden & Co have made this a referendum on a shitty incumbent, which is as it should be. Nothing trumpov can do now will make up for all the abuse and incompetence and corruption.
btw, if anyone needs a laugh, the NYT has a piece up noting that trumpov “needs his own ‘Sistah Souljah’ moment”
are you kidding me? He’s needed that since Day 1. He will NEVER have a ‘ssm’. That’s why he has to go.
Kay
I thought this was amazing:
The comparison with Donald Trump and his low quality, sleazy employees is really jarring. Would you have predicted the University of Alabama leadership would be much more progressive on civil rights than the wealthy urban sophisticates in the Trump Administration who attended America’s most expensive schools and had every possible advantage coming up?
Baud
@BlueGuitarist: like
Ken
@johnnybuck: I completely misunderstood and was wondering why you were comparing Trump’s interview with a cat in heat.
JPL
@debbie: Ingraham actually stepped in during part of the conversation when he compared the shooting of Blake to missing a 3 foot golf putt. The policeman choked.
BRyan
OT? I wonder if the jackaltariat have opinions on service businesses requiring returning customers/clients to sign a liability waiver re covid? I don’t know how widespread this is, but the salon where I (would normally) get my hair cut has adopted such a policy “on advice of their attorney.” It frankly wouldn’t have occurred to me to sue my hairdresser if I contracted covid, but now that the liability waiver has raised the issue in my mind, I’m wondering what that policy says about the level of confidence they have in their own safety precautions.
WereBear
As I look back on the wreckage of the Conservative Experiment of the last FORTY YEARS, I think we should stop listening to the Usual Suspects.
I don’t think they’ve been honest OR competent.
Baud
@Kay:
Yes, because the sports program needs to recruit talent.
Ken
@Jeffro: The NYT wants Trump to repudiate himself?
I guess it’s not that different from the usual ideas thrown out by political pundits, most of whom are still waiting for the moment when they can say “today he became president”.
Baud
@Jeffro:
NYT is feeling some heat for the way they report on Dems.
raven
A brief and not great vid of EWF on the Forum Float at the Rose Parade!
A really fun dvd is EWF and Chicago at the Greek Theater.
Jinchi
Anyone know the odds of Republicans keeping the legislature in Wisconsin? They really don’t seem interested in governing. I’m surprised they didn’t even bother to take the opportunity to push “Blue Lives Matter” policies during the police reform session.
hells littlest angel
— Maggie Haberman, professional writer
Betty Cracker
@BRyan: I wouldn’t assume their confidence in their safety processes is a factor. Many (if not most) “how to reopen safely” guides advise businesses to get customers to sign waivers.
raven
@Baud: Yea the NBA coaches are hero’s but the college coaches are just opportunists.
Princess
@JPL: To me the weirdest part of that segment was how he began talking about police choking George Floyd and moved from that to claiming the policemen who commit violence are doing it because they are choking (in a completely different sense). It was a view into how his strange mind is making odd connections and jumping around from thought to thought.
cmorenc
What possible comparison to the election of 2012 is Maggie Haberman thinking of? Reverse 1980, as an alternative possibility I get. With her coveted inside access to the Trump admin, maybe she’s pining for Trump to pull out a slimmer incumbent win, as did Obama, but the only realistic scenario where this happens is another razor-thin electoral college win but popular vote loss. Obama won both pop and electoral vote in 2012.
Baud
@raven:
Just Saban.
TS (the original)
@Ken:
And a large % of everyone else are waiting for the moment when they can say “today he is not the president”
WereBear
@johnnybuck: Well, on the other hand, you rescued in the nick of time!
Congratulations. She will be Houdini until it’s over…
Jinchi
@hells littlest angel:
I need a Maggie translator. What point is she trying to make? “Being more like 2012” seems to imply she thinks Trump will pull through, but “people are still so jolted by 2016” seems to imply she thinks he will lose.
WereBear
@Ken: Both are characterized by an unnameable longing that deprives the mind of all reason and inflicts suffering on everyone in range.
Betty Cracker
Today in “incidents that would be an enormous scandal that would blot out the sun for weeks if any president other than Donald Trump had said it:”
Sweet fancy Moses…
Amir Khalid
@Baud:
Savvy is really no more than the conventional wisdom of a self-anointed in-group.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
It’s a bad comparison. Golfers are more accountable when they mess up.
JPL
@Princess: The many definitions of choke. What surprised me is that the MSM are showing snippets of the interview, but not the entire clip. It’s as though they think it’s to batshit insane to show.
Ingraham interviewed him for more than a hour, so I wonder what they didn’t show.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Jeffro:
Shorter future NYT – “Yesterday, at his campaign rally in Sun City, Arizona, Mr Trump angrily shouted “N****rs – Fucking n****rs” for a full minute, while the audience laughed and chanted “four more years”. While some commentators, politicians and voters were shocked, many others felt like it was an inconsequential gaffe. “Let Trump be Trump”, said Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas. “He’s understandably concerned about the extent and duration of the protests”.
When asked for comment, Attorney General Barr offered to have this reporter’s taxes audited.”
Jinchi
@TS (the original):
The NYT has probably already written drafts with both those headlines for their front page on November 4th.
Ken
Which, according to a number of people who have played golf with him, is yet another way where Trump breaks the mold.
(Shorter version in case that’s too oblique: Many of his golf partners say he cheats.)
Baud
@Amir Khalid:
Right. We have bad in-groups. We need to do better on that front.
frosty
@MazeDancer: Nitpick: My illustrated plan says “Voting early in person..”. PA doesn’t have early voting so it should be “Voting in person on Election Day …”
Otherwise very nice and fun to read everyone’s plans.
Emma from FL
@Jinchi: She’s covering all possibilities, as a good courtier does.
Baud
Wishful thinking.
Baud
@Jeffro:
So apparently this author is Jamelle Bouie, so not really the NYT proper.
Baud
Today show is covering the golfer remark.
Kay
More like 2012 means Biden will win. The Obama people said all during and after the 2012 race that they were ahead the whole time and it never moved outside the margin of error.
They also said “we know what we know and they know what they know” meaning Romney knew it too. I think he did. I watched the documentary about him and he’s completely calm and accepting when he realizes he lost Florida. He was expecting it. What would have been unexpected would have been if he won.
Jeffro
@Ken:
@Baud:
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: the funny thing is that it’s written by Jamelle Bouie, who’s usually pretty on-point.
On Twitter he’s saying it reads better as a (comedy) bit. Have to agree.
Replace “Not that I’ll hold my breath” with a line of LOL emojis and it totally works! ;)
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I would think “give me eight more years and I will get this right!” would be a sure sell.
Baud
I assume they are getting the story out there to inoculate people about the possibility.
Jeffro
Meanwhile, Bret Stephens is doing the same thing in reverse, calling for Biden to repudiate the ‘far Left’, and quickly.
(eyeroll)
(eyeroll)
(eyeroll)
Sorry Bret I think you might want to sit this one out…
Chyron HR
@raven:
I think you mean the shambling corpses of EWF and Chicago live at the Greek Theater.
Kay
Trump really did pull off an upset, too. All the factors in his victory, the NYTimes treatment of the emails, the Comey letter, all of that don’t change the fact that he wasn’t predicted to win and he did win. That’s why he believes it will happen again and so do his supporters. It’s not completely irrational and I think WE know that too, which is why we’re all terrified of another freak combo of events.
JPL
@Baud: CNN did also. I want them to carry the plane load of black uniforms flying around. As far as I know, they could be circling my house now
In fact the little green martians could have changed their uniforms.
Baud
Nature was healing.
trnc
No reason that chaos can’t be part of the DT supporting tweet strategy, too.
OT: If any of you have “special” friends who think the private carriers are going to flawlessly take over if DeJoy manages to destroy the USPS, I got this message this morning from one of those private carriers:
Mousebumples
@Baud: Kenosha “city” is more liberal, but the rural/county outside city limits is more conservative from what I’ve read. And liberal milwaukee is the next county up, i think. (Kenosha and racine are both south of Milwaukee , and I mentally mix them up all the time)
Unfortunately, the gerrymandering is really bad. The official plan for WisDems is to hold or flip enough seats to prevent a veto proof Republican majority, and then try to take the leg back in 2022. But in a wave election, gerrymandered districts could fall… ?
Kay
@Jeffro:
They add so much value, the NYTimes talent, don’t you think? It’s a shame they’ve all been “canceled” – we must just be imagining how they never fucking shut up with their boring, repetitive 1990s -era commentary. The loudest silent majority in the history of the world.
Baud
@Kay:
Danielx
@Baud:
Savvy people?
Fuck those guys.
Skepticat
A year ago today, Hurricane Dorian hit the Bahamas. Please keep in your thoughts the people of Abaco and Grand Bahama, the areas (incidentally including my home) that were obliterated. Abaco has not had utility power since then, and today everything is closed for a day of remembrance for the thousands of lives and much of a way of life lost. There’s been great progress, but there’s still a long way to go. I’m back in the States for a while, and this morning I took a hot shower, cooked breakfast, turned on lights and the heat (yes, it’s some chilly on the coast of Maine), and drank water from the tap in my own home—things I haven’t been able to do for nine months. I’m one of the fortunate ones, though I still keep doing things in the dark because sometimes I forget I actually have electricity. #AbacoStrong
germy
Baud
germy
Let’s replace McConnell
Danielx
@Princess:
Note: this is a common characteristic of amphetamlne users.
Amir Khalid
@Jeffro:
Given Trump’s history of encouraging police officers to use unnecessary force, I would not be optimistic about him ever doing that.
Morzer
@Jeffro:
Bret Stephens – the spokescritter for Bed, Bug and Beyond…
germy
Thread:
Kay
@Baud:
I love Eugene Robinson. I think he’s a good person.
Democrats are weird though. It’s good if they’re not complacent but they also can’t despair. One thing that has been different is we haven’t seen a lot of screaming at the Biden campaign to do this or that. That usually happens about now. They seem to me to be a quietly competent campaign and I cannot tell you how grateful I am that he didn’t hire a bunch of loudmouth egomaniacs.
Baud
@Kay:
Agree. My bubble is night and day from what it was in 2016. As bad as things are, at least I’m not disappointed in my own this year.
JPL
@Skepticat: I don’t know how you do it and thank you for the update. It’s is shocking and sad that power hasn’t been restored.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud:
But he more or less does, doesn’t he? He won the nomination on the basis of a very conventional electability argument: nominate the reassuring, centrist white guy with a known name to win the masses. So far that aspect seems to be working out OK. I suppose it depends on which bunch of savvy people we’re talking about.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: trump’s his own worst enemy. And I’m guessing he will get worse.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay:
That is happening right now– a lot of “BIDEN IS TANKING! BIDEN MUST GO TO KENOSHA!!!” panic on the interwebs. I’m seeing a lot of social media people freaked out by Michael Moore’s latest pronouncement.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
The savvy people don’t buy into the conventional wisdom.
Barbara
@Kay: Not me. Anyone professionally associated with football (70% of pro-football athletes are African American) knows how Black men are differently treated versus whites by law enforcement, but it doesn’t normally serve their interests to acknowledge that out loud. I am being charitable when I state that the wealthy people in Trump’s administration probably don’t have enough data to understand that.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: Ah, OK, the terminally contrarian type of savvy people.
Kay
I know the Trump people are low quality sleazy racists and that’s why they keep using Corey Booker as the example of the back person who will move into your neighborhood, but I think it’s hysterical.
Corey Booker is charming and good looking and relentlessly optimistic and FANCY. He’s a fancy person!
Could the coddled, privileged dopes have put an IOTA of thought or work into their choosing their scary person? They’re stupid people. Corey Booker would give you a big hug and then talk to you about your micro-loan to start your small business. He’s the least scary neighbor in the world.
sanjeevs
Russian journalists have discovered data from Michigan voter data rolls—including the personal info of 7.6 million Michigan voters—on a Russian hackers’ platform. It also includes voter info from other swing states, including Florida and NC
https://mobile.twitter.com/juliaioffe/status/1300771489847955456
germy
zhena gogolia
@johnnybuck:
Haha.
MazeDancer
@frosty: Will change, of course. So sorry.
germy
@Kay: Booker is the guy who rushed into a burning building to save a woman.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: One of my best friends was a big Cory Booker fan and is still sad he didn’t get the presidential nomination, though he admits that being vegan is a political liability.
Dorothy A. Winsor
An opportunity for someone:
My publisher, Inspired Quill, is open for submissions all of September, but ONLY for “own voices” books. That is, they’re looking for books about underrepresented groups that are also by someone from that group. I find IQ to be honest and easy to deal with, though with a small press like that you get limited distribution.
Immanentize
@Kay:
I know this might sound crazy, but the Alabama Senate race may come down to Roll Tide! versus War Eagle! Alabama vs Auburn. The fact that the Alabama coach is signalling his support for his athletes and the cause of equality and justice is like a huge campaign donation to Senator Doug Jones.
catclub
@Kay: A politician knows that if there is a popular parade, his job is to get to the front of it.
MomSense
I was yelling at NPR this morning, missed my exit, and had to run to get to work on time.
STOP saying Dump is running on law and order. Just stop it NPR. All of his campaign managers from 2016 and his long term associates, his fucking foundation and university are all either shut down, in jail, under investigation, or being prosecuted. He is fighting having to provide his DNA in a case concerning alleged rape. If his DNA would clear him he would offer it in a New York minute.
He cannot run on law and order because he is a fucking criminal.
Barbara
@Mousebumples: Which is what happened in Virginia in 2017. They expected the statewide victories, the only question was by what margin. The nearly total shift in the state legislature was not expected at all, so thoroughly gerrymandered had it been by Ed Gillespie and company, who now go around whining about polarization of the electorate.
Kay
@Immanentize:
I think it matters too. Obviously it matters. The Trump Administration racism and inciting violence matters and they’re just talking and doing public events too. If that matters then the opposite public face matters too.
I don’t need to know what the coach “really thinks” or his motives for not being a public racist. I just need him to walk in front, and he did. Good job.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: I’m screaming inside my heart. :) Seriously though, your description of Biden’s campaign staff as “quietly competent” rings true to me. I’ll admit to feeling some trepidation as Biden moves into a more active phase of campaigning in the final stretch. But he’s stepped up to the occasion every time he’s needed to so far. A lot of people, including me, kept waiting for him to face-plant during the primary, but he didn’t. Maybe he’s got this. I sure hope so.
Kathleen
@Baud: One of the best documentaries I’ve seen is Breaking The Huddle, the story of the integration of SEC college football in the 60’s, which focused on Bear Bryant’s efforts to bring Black players to Alabama. Like so many good sports documentaries it interweaves that story with the Civil Rights movement in the south. Brilliant and uplifting. Also sobering when I realize that integration did not fully complete until after I graduated from college
MazeDancer
@frosty:
PA does have, sorta, unofficial, fake “voting absentee early in person”. If you fill in your absentee ballot while-you-wait. Apparently, they added something.
Just, FYI, in case you’d like to take advantage:
https://twitter.com/ElastigirlVotes/status/1297540561050783749?s=20
Leto
@Kay: Corey Booker has a track record of saving his neighbors from fires, or just helping them with small tasks like taking out the garbage. We should all be so lucky to have a couple of Corey Bookers in our neighborhoods. How much better off would we all be? I thought this was the type of community we all wanted?
Barbara
@Kay: Booker: the guy who ran into a burning building to help his neighbors when he was mayor. Can’t have anyone like that moving in next door!
PsiFighter37
@Baud: This is why I think it was a huge mistake for Dems to jump all-in for mail-in voting, given that they should have known a Trump lackey in charge of USPS meant there was a big risk to it.
The message should have been what was done in the Wisconsin primary in April…utilize mail-in voting where needed, but otherwise tell people to mask up and prepare to wait a long time to vote on Election Day. If Cheeto has anything close to the ‘projected’ lead that is theorized in this article, you can count on him and the GOP trying to shut down vote-counting ASAP.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@hells littlest angel: Yeah, I don’t know what that means either.
Kathleen
@hells littlest angel: Glad it wasn’t just me that had a serious WTF moment. Maybe the Mag Speak is some kind of White Nationalist code for benefit of Steven Miller.
MomSense
@Betty Cracker:
He is a psychopath.
jonas
There’s a whole book about it.
Barbara
@hells littlest angel: The human brain automatically looks for patterns and analogies but this is so self-referential that it conveys nothing at all.
jonas
Black lives matter…about as much as a missed putt, apparently. The man’s a psychopath, but we all knew that. JFC.
Betty Cracker
@PsiFighter37: You have to weigh the likelihood of shenanigans with mail-in voting vs. people’s willingness to stand in line for hours in the middle of a pandemic, which may spike again during flu season. I don’t think it’s a no-brainer on either side, tbh.
Kathleen
@Jeffro: He gets serious points for reference to Kerner Commission report. Not surprised that most reporters have not acknowledged it.
WaterGirl
Anne Laurie, I think only one Open Thread for all of September is not enough! :-)
jonas
@PsiFighter37: Yep. The plan is to break the mail system, and then use that as the basis to launch lawsuits in every state on Nov. 4 to stop counting mail-in ballots because the USPS can’t prove chain of custody, has lost ballots, etc. The lawsuits may not go anywhere, but given the number of Trump judges on the bench now, who knows? Gives them time to delegitimize the outcome, sow chaos, draw mobs into the streets.
Matt McIrvin
@PsiFighter37: Any voting method pushed by Democrats would have led to a big effort to shut it down or declare it illegitimate. The whole point of telling people to vote by mail was the worry that Republicans would make it impossible or unacceptably dangerous to vote in person.
The big problem with Election Day voting to me is that you get no do-overs if something goes wrong–if Election Day is screwed up and you can’t get to the polls, that’s it. If I try to vote early and there’s a problem, at least in my state, I can detect it and I get a second chance (maybe with a provisional ballot) on Election Day.
I liked the big voter guide Slate recently put out–their favorite, recommended method, in the states where it’s possible, is to request a mail ballot as early as you can (immediately, if you haven’t already) and personally hand-deliver the mail ballot to an election office or drop box.
Of course, if you’re even reading a Slate guide on voting methods, you’re probably the kind of person whose chance of being disenfranchised for some bullshit reason is lower than average, because you’re actually making concrete general-election voting plans in September.
Immanentize
@Kay: My lawyer friends and I have always agreed we would take a Judge who was racist in his heart or at home, but who treated all in the courtroom with graciousness and respect over the liberal Judge who is nasty and mocking to all who appear (lawyers and clients) because s/he thinks of themselves as the best person in the courtroom. Every day.
What’s in someone’s heart often matters way less than how they behave. Trump has set the bad behaving folks free from their normal constraints. And all the other parts of society — community, schools, and churches — didn’t step in to constrain the bad actors.
PsiFighter37
@Betty Cracker: People are willing to crawl on broken glass to vote this guy out. I don’t doubt that, and I think most people would be willing to wait it out. After hearing about the USPS fiascoes, as well as the ridiculously long time it took for NYS to count their primary votes – well over a month – I am going to wake up at 6AM sharp on 11/3 and vote in person.
Matt McIrvin
@Betty Cracker: Also the likelihood that, say, we have Freikorps goons with machine guns doing mass shootings at some polling places and scaring everyone else into staying home.
Betty Cracker
@jonas: It’s just a hideously inappropriate comparison, so Ingraham tries to rescue him. Of course, referring to killer cops a “chokers,” by which Trump meant they failed at a critical moment, is also…problematic since many of the extrajudicial executions have been accomplished by police officers choking the life out of unarmed suspects. JFC on multiple levels here…
Matt McIrvin
@Betty Cracker: I’m just shocked that Trump didn’t describe the ones who failed to kill black people as the ones who choked.
Kathleen
@Kay: He’d also rescue you from a fire
Gin & Tonic
Huge pro-democracy demonstrations in Belarus today. Pretty close to a general strike, and students walking out on what is traditionally (Sep 1) the first day of school. This guy on Twitter is updating often; a good follow if you want a sense of what’s going on.
Kathleen
@Immanentize: That was the first thing that popped in my mind when I saw that.
Immanentize
Speaking of voting, I am off to my neighborhood fire station to vote in the Dem primary for Ed Markey, the son of a milkman.
artem1s
@Baud:
the MSM is still looking for some John Kennedy-esque hairdo to come along and save them from having to get down in the dirt with the Untermenschen. Joe wasn’t acceptable because he doesn’t do cocktail parties with the Glitterati and The Villagers who decide who is in and who is out. He doesn’t have a yacht and I’d be surprised if he ever belonged to a country club. He rides the train FFS. He’d have been presidents decades ago if he only had the sense to hire a driver and a nanny to take care of those kids!
geg6
@Matt McIrvin:
I’m sure glad I don’t hang out in the same places you do. I am not seeing any of this. But most of my FB friends are like-minded, middle-aged but closing in on senior citizen, women and men. They are all in on Biden, even the one guy who I’ve known since kindergarten who is an iron worker. They all hate Trump, weren’t in any way inclined to Bernie and have been pretty ecstatic about Biden and Harris.
geg6
@Kay:
And save you in case your house caught on fire. Corey Booker is the neighbor we all wish we had.
Betty Cracker
@PsiFighter37: Sounds like a good plan.
I would wait in line for 24 hours, outside, in a hurricane, standing in an alligator-infested medical waste swamp, accompanied by Trump supporters playing “God Bless the USA” on bagpipes to vote Trump out, if that’s what it took. But I’m not convinced counting on the perseverance of Team Broken Glass is a more effective strategy than encouraging vote-by-mail during a pandemic. Maybe it’s regional? I don’t know what happened with the NYS primary, but I’ve heard it was a clusterfuck.
In Florida, you’re allowed to hand-deliver your mail-in ballot early and track its fate online, so that’s what we plan to do. I also know the state counts early votes as they come in right up until the election and that votes that arrive by mail on election day are counted after, so we plan to make sure ours are returned and counted early.
artem1s
@PsiFighter37:
October 9 for me baby! early voting, in-person! if your state has it, find out now and get it over with.
Kay
@Immanentize:
Trump knows the public face matters. That’s why he got all pissed off at NASCAR and announced none of his followers are permitted to watch basketball anymore.
They know it makes them look like shitty, petty people.
Bobby Thomson
Mags is a hack. Obama’s re-election in 2012 was at a solid majority.
Joe Falco
@Immanentize:
I’ve joked before that Bama Republicans have a tough choice this November between voting against the Democrat or voting against a former Auburn coach.
Bobby Thomson
@Matt McIrvin: that is a legitimate concern. And there is historical precedent.
WereBear
@PsiFighter37:
As Ulysses S. Grant points out, the important thing in a war is to MAKE A DECISION and that was the sensible, public health, decision to make.
Now, we get to pound in the destruction of the Post Office and adapt the tactics to the terrain. We can walk and chew gum and then add a third thing if needed.
We’re competent.
MazeDancer
@PsiFighter37:
Depends on where you live, really. As Betty notes, there are arguments for every way to vote.
“Deciding How to Vote” is discussed at PostCardPatriots.com
Feeling lucky that living in teeny Upstate village, I, too, can hit the polls at 6AM, no problem.
Kay
@geg6:
He’s just a completely appealing person. You may object to his policies, whatever, but this PERSON is not someone anyone is repelled or frightened by.
rp
@Bobby Thomson: Yes…only media idiots like her and some nervous nellie democrats thought the 2012 result was ever in doubt.
Kay
I don’t really understand the Woke Mob thesis and I thought that was me- it’s the kind of thing that makes me cranky, just kneejerk, but the longer this goes on I’m coming around to thinking it was really just poorly thought out and kind of dumb. Especially because it was promoted by so many “public intellectuals”. They have to be better or lose that status as Great Thinkers.
SiubhanDuinne
@Immanentize:
Remember the old mnemonic:
Alabama
Usually
Beats
Us
‘Round
November
Hope it works in politics as well as in football.
Jinchi
@Immanentize: Go Markey!
Betty Cracker
@Kay: I see it as one of those issues that has a kernel of truth at its center but doesn’t make the top 10,000 list of pressing social problems. But since people with gigantic megaphones feel oppressed by it, we hear way more about it than the problem warrants.
germy
different-church-lady
@Matt McIrvin:
a) They’re gaslighting us
b) I know they’re gaslighting us
c) Even though I know they’re gaslighting us, it’s working on me — I’m spooked as all heck right now.
Marcopolo
@Immanentize: Tell ya fatha!
If I lived in MA, I would have one of these tees.
germy
different-church-lady
@germy: They all want to sell shitloads of merch to the rubes. It’s just that most of them don’t know how to do it well.
germy
Kay
Sleazy. All of them. The more you look into them the more you find.
Conservatives must be so proud of the “movement” they built. Every single one of them is a bottom of the barrel hire.
Kay
In the last 6 months we’ve gotten a peek into only two Right wing organizations- both of them turned out to be criminal enterprises.
They have a much, much bigger problem than Donald Trump. Donald Trump didn’t hire the NRA people.
germy
@Kay:
They certainly take care of their own.
different-church-lady
@Kay: If you stop looking for them, they won’t be there! They’ll just magically go away! //
WaterGirl
@debbie: You know how in horror movies, in your mind you’re shouting “he’s inside the house!” “don’t go downstairs” or whatever.
Watching that clip, all I can think is “you’re sitting too close!”
Well, that’s all I can think of after I conclude that he sounds like a raving lunatic.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Baud:
I am OK with this. The number of residual fucks I have to give about the white working class living along the banks of running Appalachian coal slurries is somewhere in the vicinity of zero.
Kay
I forgot one! Liberty University. I would bet the building I’m sitting in that there will be financial fraud. Guaranteed. The rot is complete. It runs through the whole Right wing enterprise.
WaterGirl
@Ken: When I saw that comment, I too was not sure whether it was literal or was a metaphor. That’s what made the comment so great.
Kay
@germy:
That’s it, IMO. Everyone looks for Big Reasons that all these people do what they do and there’s only one reason- they don’t want to work and they want a lot of money. They pay them all, and they pay them a lot and they have no other talents or skills.
Ken
@Kay: The NRA and which other? Are you counting Falwell/Liberty U?
EDIT: I see you weren’t counting Falwell, so what is the second?
debbie
@MomSense:
Thought I heard a distant shriek earlier… ?
Kay
@germy:
I had a juvenile once I’ll never forget. He was stealing money out of cars parked at the laundromat. Not a dumb kid- people don’t lock their cars because they’re taking laundry in and out. I sort of loved him. His whole family are petty criminals so he comes by the trade honestly. Judge thundered at him “WHY do you steal” and he said “because I wanted a go cart”.
They want a go cart.
Omnes Omnibus
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Yeah, that water never flows downstream and into larger rivers….
WaterGirl
@Immanentize: I so want Markey to win this. Thanks for voting.
VOR
But Trump voters don’t think it is a shit-show. They think COVID-19 is either massively overblown or an outright hoax. They like what Trump is doing in the way of bluster against the really dangerous foreigners like Canada and the EU. They believe he is strong against China because he tweets about it. He hates who they hate. They are owning the Libs and that’s all that matters.
different-church-lady
@Jeffro:
Meanwhile-meanwhile, the ‘far left’ is just as busy as they ever are trying to directly kneecap Biden.
Omnes Omnibus
@VOR: Trump needs more than just his core group of supporters to vote for him. We can write those people off anyway. This election comes down to getting non-cult GOP to stay home or hold their breath and vote Biden, getting Dem leaning non-voters to show up, making sure POC are able to vote. The daily shit show should help with the first two.
different-church-lady
@Omnes Omnibus: Need to add “Ensure the vote is counted correctly and completely” to that list.
StringOnAStick
I have noted that our one utter asshole neighbor, the early retired prison guard who screams horrible things at his teenaged kids and seems more deeply in love with his giant leaf blower than his family and was the only one to put a tRump sign in his yard on this street in 2016, has yet to do so this election season. Hmm.
germy
@StringOnAStick: They do love their power tools
I’ve lived among them for years.
One thing I notice: they don’t walk their dogs. Instead, open the sliding patio door, let dog roam into neighbors’ yards to shit.
Jeffro
LOL
The scariest thing one might say about Cory Booker as a neighbor is that all the happy-happy-sunshine stuff might get irritating once in a while. But I bet he would bring some fabulous vegan side dishes over to the neighborhood cook-out, so…occasionally irritating? Eh, we’ll roll with it. =)
Miss Bianca
@different-church-lady: I am starting to wonder if white leftists in this country have always been this stupid. I remember doing a lot of reading that suggested that 1930s-era lefties were consistently ragging on FDR for not dismantling capitalism, maaan, but were they stupid enough to suggest that there wasn’t a dime’s worth of difference (a dime they couldn’t spare) between FDR and the GOP? I am almost afraid to dig deeper, lest I find out that yep, historically, you can always count on American lefties having been as stupid, gullible, and racist/sexist as the right-wingers.
Ken
@StringOnAStick: Maybe he was won over by the Lawn Order “leafblower dads” at the Portland protests.
germy
I hereby demand the gingham dog and calico cat repudiate each other. Immediately.
J R in WV
I think Joe Biden is doing pretty well. He’s a down-to-earth person, which means he isn’t going to go for anything esoteric in his campaign. I think that’s a way to beat Trump, just be normal and easy going, which Trump is not and can never be.
Also, Law and Order is not really something Trump can make stick. His whole 2016 campaign is guilty of felonies (along with his National Security Advisor, etc, etc), and as someone we all know pointed out early in this thread, Trump is fighting being required to provide a DNA specimen in a rape case, which in my (tiny elderly) mind points to GUILTY, GUILTY GUILTY because if he wasn’t guilty he would provide that sample in a hot flash to end that particular legal battle.
Of course, it could be that there are so many rapes and questionable sexual incidents in Trump’s past he has no idea if this particular event happened as the victim claims it did or not. Of course, that isn’t good either. Law and Order doesn’t mean just SOME laws, it means all of them, including campaign law.It means delivering the mail properly, keeping the environment cleaner today than it was last year, etc. None of which Trump does.
It also doesn’t mean beating up people who need to be arrested, and especially doesn’t mean beating people who haven’t done anything illegal past demonstrating as provided for in the First Amendment. Grrr.
Our voting plan is to vote in person early in the early voting period, not the first day, let them get the system working smoothly, then show up. Going to the county seat will let us pay taxes and renew permits and such.
J R in WV
@Jeffro:
They could have picked Mike Tyson or even O J to be the scary Negro in their fear monger ads, but no. Lets jump on one of the sweetest guys out there, happy, smiling, life-saving hero type. We are so lucky that our Nazis are stone solid stupid! Just like our communists!
Kay
Chad the lobbyist and the lawyers we’re all paying in the DOJ are gonna go out and arrest some people and conduct some political trials, on orders from the Big Boss.
I know they all say they can’t resist because they’ll get fired, but has it occurred to anyone we probably don’t want to continue to employ people who went along with this?
It is not all about them, actually. There’s the employee but there’s also the employer.
It works two ways. If they’re serving Trump rather than the public they can’t keep their jobs because they don’t know what their job is. They don’t know who they work for- Donald Trump isn’t the client- The United States is the client.
Immanentize
REPORT FROM THE POLLS:
(The actual ones where people vote).
I went to participate in small d democracy today by voting in the Mass. Primary for the big D Democratic candidates. Ed Markey is my man! He was my House Rep. before he moved to the Senate when Kerry became SOS. His constituent services peeps did my family a solid when Bush the W was holding up passports. He intervened to get my son’s passport so I could teach in Hungary.
Kennedy thought he could just crush Markey because he was younger and claimed the title of progressive champ. But AOC (House co-sponsor with Markey of the Green New Deal) backed Markey with the memorable line — “It’s not your age, but the age of your ideas.”
What Kennedy missed is that the campaigns against entrenched Democrats was not only about being progressive — it was about opposing privilege. And no Kennedy can run opposing that.
It’s a tight race. I hope Markey beats Kennedy like a rented mule.
SFAW
@Ken:
GODAMMITtoHELL! Will you give us a trigger warning before you shock us — well, me, I guess — like that?
SFAW
@Immanentize:
You’n’me both, kid.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kay: Actually, this goes to the heart of the discussion people were having last week of when should a civil servant leave. Being asked to participate in overtly political trials should be a resignation issue for a career DOJ attorney. As I said at the time, the question is are you doing more harm than good by staying.
StringOnAStick
@germy: Yes, the power tools mean everything to him. Yards on this street are tiny, maybe 15′ square. His giant backpack mounted leaf blower is used once a day, at least 3x/day in autumn. The leaves WILL submit!
He left it in his drive way earlier this year, and one of his wife’s Tupperware distributors ran over it because she didn’t see it thanks to her huge car and all the cars parked on either side. Just after I heard the crushing, I heard him yell “she just ran over a $700 piece of equipment!” . I hurried to the other side of our home so he wouldn’t hear me laughing. I enjoyed that way, way too much.
different-church-lady
@StringOnAStick: $700 to blow dirt around.
We clearly need tax reform based on the value of yard tools.
StringOnAStick
@StringOnAStick: May we crush tRump on Nov 3, just like that leaf blower (and the neighbourhood fascist too).
eddie blake
@Kay:
any arrests chad wolf orders are illegal, because any chad wolf orders are illegal.
he’s an illegal appointee.
nothing he does or orders is valid
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/14/us/politics/homeland-security-illegal-gao.html
Gin & Tonic
@eddie blake: Good thing the DoJ is led by a person of unquestioned integrity so this won’t be an issue.
sdhays
@Kay: We’re always told how hard it is to fire civil servants, so how the hell is it that they’re so terrified of being fired?
If they can be fired by Dump, they can be fired by a Biden AG. And they should be.
sdhays
@Gin & Tonic: No, no – the DOJ is the one led by Bill Barr. You’re getting it confused with….some fantasy agency that’s still being led by “a person of unquestioned integrity”.
Matt McIrvin
@Miss Bianca: 1930s-era lefties definitely had an overly rosy view of events in Russia, which should sound familiar. At least it made a little more sense because the Soviet Union actually claimed to be Communist–the clever folk on the left who stan for Vladimir Putin’s imperial ambitions don’t even have that.
Uncle Cosmo
@SFAW: Makes 3 of us. I still haven’t forgiven the Kennedy clan for sticking MD with the worthless Thuglican Bob Ehrlich as GOV from 2003-2007. They strongarmed everyone but RFK’s little girl Kathleen Kennedy-Townsend (didja know she’s a Kennedy?!?) out of the 2002 Democratic primary so that she could stage the single most incompetent statewide campaign ever mounted by a MD Democrat (& that includes Anthony Brown’s doomed gubernatorial run in 2014). Martin O’Malley** had to clean Ehrlich out of the Governor’s Mansion in 2006 & then wallop him again in 2010.
** At MOM’s St Patrick Day party that year his dad buttonholed me & asked if I thought Martin (at that time first-term Mayor of Baltimore) should run against KKT. I counseled against it & have regretted that ever since. Within 2 minutes of taking the stage in a debate with her, everyone in the audience would have known who really had the Kennedy charisma, & it wasn’t the one with the pedigree. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I suspect that the Kennedy Mafia helped starve MOM’s short-lived 2016 Presidential run of funds (a major reason it was such a bust), just because he didn’t bust his nuts to singlehandedly pull her inept arse across the line 14 years before. Kennedys expect deference as a birthright, don’t like to be reminded the family Money Bin was filled by a criminal and Nazi appeaser, and have long memories – fuckem!
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Omnes Omnibus:
If it passes through the kidneys of the white working class first….
Miss Bianca
@Matt McIrvin: Lord, you’re right – plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose, y’all.
Alien Radio
@Baud: “Not that golfer, He’s Notorious for fraudulent cards”
Not that golfer, His score cards are notoriously fraudulent.
neldob
@JPL: I will never forget hearing Reagan: “Anyone who’s ever had their kitchen done over knows that it never gets done as soon as you wish it would.” after more than 220 people died, and Americans kept being killed.
PPCLI
@Jeffro: Though I do think well of Stephens’ suggestion that Biden should reach out to burned-out businesses that have losses not covered by insurance that his administration is committed to helping them get back on their feet.
catclub
@Betty Cracker: my sweet fancy moses moment was when he talked about large numbers of people dressed in black (combat stuff?) on an airplane, but Trump couldn’t say what city ‘It’s still being investigated’ and then ‘people in dark shadows’ are manipulating Biden. Barnabas Collins? Vampires??
cain
@WereBear:
So sick of the 90s pundit class weighing in.. we need a different set of pundits – more diverse voices – not these ostensibly white middle aged men.
KrackenJack
@germy: Even though I’d never heard of the original reference, it reminded me of some verse I hadn’t thought of in decades: The Hydrogen Dog and the Cobalt Cat.
The Hydrogen Dog and the Cobalt Cat
Side by side in the Armoury sat.
Nobody thought about fusion or fission,
Everyone spoke of their peacetime mission,
Till somebody came and opened the door.
There they were, in a neutron fog,
The Codrogen Cat and the Hybalt Dog;
They mushroomed up with a terrible roar—
And Nobody Never was there—Nomore.