Joe Biden accused President Trump of "a life-and-death betrayal of the American people" hours after journalist Bob Woodward revealed ahead of the publication of his new book, "Rage," that Trump had concealed the true threat posed by coronavirus. https://t.co/lhxcWltoh6 pic.twitter.com/OSDQorkHNB
— CNN Newsroom (@CNNnewsroom) September 9, 2020
Given what Trump knew about Covid-19, does Biden blame him for thousands of deaths?
"Yes, I do," he told reporters on the tarmac at DTW. "I absolutely do."
— Thomas Kaplan (@thomaskaplan) September 10, 2020
Biden was asked what the consequence should be. "Kick him out of office is the consequence," he said.
— Thomas Kaplan (@thomaskaplan) September 10, 2020
Haven’t seen this mentioned, but also possible he needs to keep the market propped up so his & Kushner’s portfolios stay healthy enough so they can keep paying their (Russian & Chinese) lenders https://t.co/AFZy1xmihE
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) September 9, 2020
“I am so tired of that sacred podium with that seal on it being used to lie to the American people,” @clairecmc says in response to account documented by Bob Woodward that the president downplayed coronavirus. “He has killed people with his lies.” https://t.co/XJV4o1iDxC
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) September 10, 2020
On The Road – way2blue – Outer Hebrides
johnnybuck
Give ’em hell Joe!
debbie
As I recall, Trump was busy providing PPE only to people who were nice to him, and no one else. That is not calm, steady leadership.
Here, the BOE reports they’re getting more applications for mail-in ballots for Democrats than for Republicans. That probably means I’ll be surrounded by angry, spittle-dripping fascists when I vote early in person. Yuck.
OzarkHillbilly
Blech. I can barely bring myself to skim the headlines these days.
trnc
I wonder who will file the first wrongful death suit. No need to wait until he’s out of office for civil action.
trnc
@debbie: I’m planning to vote in person early.
Baud
Bob Woodword will be on Today show if anyone is interested.
raven
THIS IS FINALLY IT!!!!!
sheeeeeet
Baud
Today show cited a weird poll that says that the economy was voters number 1 concern and Trump led Biden by 10 points on the economy.
That seems inconsistent with what I’ve heard, so maybe they were cherry picking.
Balconesfault
@Baud: The new Trump pitch:
He’ll keep the DJIA propped up if he has to kill!
Baud
Baud
debbie
@Baud:
I’m guessing they found a few people not threatened with eviction, job loss, had no insurance, etc. So, maybe they asked a couple folks over at The Chamber.
Baud
NYT predicts a Biden win.
Immanentize
@raven: Ha. Na.gon.ha.pen
Ever
Baud
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud:
No.
Baud
Geminid
Sarah Gideon debates Collins tomorrow at 7pm Eastern Time. Two independents will also appear. The debate is hosted by two local papers and a tv station. The Maine Senate race doesn’t make national news much but I found state news outlets have a fair amount of coverage, and also of the ME2 Congressional race between Jared Golden and opponent.
donnah
The CBS This Morning coverage of Trump’s lies was immediate and straightforward. They offered clips and quotes from Woodward’s book interview with Trump and their commentary was pretty deliberate and honest, equating Trump’s lies with the loss of lives. I don’t know if any Trump followers will care or change their minds, but I hope Biden keeps drilling down on “Trump lied, people died”.
Trump also mocked Woodward for saying that he himself came from White privilege and didn’t Trump feel like he should consider BLM as something to consider. Trump accused Woodward of “drinking the Koolaid” and no, he didn’t see the value of BLM.
The fallout from Trump’s lies won’t be much from FOX viewers. I think they’re going with the “Trump was keeping things calm” and they always cry Fake News! when his actual crimes are revealed, so I expect the polls to stay 38% for him, no matter what. The fact that they can ignore 190,000 dead people is on them.
Immanentize
@Baud: So I saw two polls about the Biden vs Trump economy question. One had Trump up by 8 or so, which is a huge decrease from the Trump/Clinton split in 2016. The second one had Biden up! By 2 over Trump in PA on the economy issue. There has always been an odd split on polls where Biden was crushing on the pandemic, but Trump still lead on “the economy.” I think that people are starting to see that the pandemic is the economy.
But I really haven’t seen any poll that says a majority of voters think the economy is the number one issue?
Patricia Kayden
Immanentize
@Baud: my dearest hope is that the leagues might just decide they really don’t need to play the anthem at every game
Immanentize
@OzarkHillbilly: my thought in two letters. Thanks!
Betty Cracker
McCaskill was hilarious on Wallace’s show yesterday about the Woodward interviews. She went into an extended, exasperated rant about how stupid Trump is.
In the Fox News universe, the defense seems to be that Trump was just trying to be “optimistic.” It’ll work with his brain-dead followers. Why not? They’ve swallowed every other preposterous lie.
McCaskill also pointed out how idiotic Trump’s “I didn’t want to cause a panic” defense is since his entire campaign strategy is to cause panic. As if to illustrate her point, when the show went to break, there was a new Trump campaign ad that was just an unbelievably crude attempt at inducing panic. It had a bad Photoshopped image of Kamala Harris superimposed over a scene of urban destruction with a looped audio track of Harris laughing. JFC.
SFAW
@debbie:
You libtards just don’t get it. He was cheerleading. As in cheering on/for the “victory” of the Red states, and cheering/hoping for the “defeat” of the Blue states. And if it takes a few broken Blue state eggs to make an omelet … or some other saying which can be perverted to give the Murderer-in-Chief cover … well, the Rethugs are OK with that.
Baud
@Immanentize:
Politico has a story about GOP voter registration up in Pennsylvania, which has republicans excited. Most of that is probably because Dems are being responsible about voter registration drives. Dems still hold a big voter registration lead in the state.
donnah
@Betty Cracker: I watch Nicolle Wallace a lot and Claire is a frequent commenter. I had never seen her this agitated! It was almost funny, but she was righteously incensed. i think that Claire is disgusted with her former counterparts, Republicans in the House and Senate, and she’s livid about Trump’s lies.
Baud
@SFAW: They’re more than ok with it.
SFAW
@donnah:
I was listening to “On Point” (NPR) yesterday, and as part of their election coverage (or whatever they call it), they had a roundtable with three WI voters. One was a dairy farmer who voted for the Traitor in 2016, and will probably do it again in November. He talked about how the browns that work on his farm are really hard workers, and they should have some path to citizenship, then said that the immigration problems (re: laws) started before Trump, so *shrugs shoulders.*
Then there was the moron who needed to hear what Biden’s policy plans are, so she can decide whether he deserves her vote. She reminded me of the oft-quoted (by me) alleged Dem who needed someone to give her a good reason to vote for Hillary “but without using the words ‘Donald Trump’ or ‘Supreme Court’. ”
I had to shut off the radio, because it was in danger of getting smashed. Fucking morons. Hey Omnes, what kind of morons are you letting into your state?
OzarkHillbilly
@Immanentize: It bothers me that they remain there, without anything even approaching due process. It bothers me even more that they are very likely to never get any due process. But the thing that bothers me the most is that I hadn’t even thought of them in a long long time until Baud’s comment.
Spanky
@Baud: Don’t forget the part where PPE shipments to blue states were hijacked by federal agents and rerouted to Jared’s apparently personal stash.
Betty Cracker
Have we discussed Trump’s panicked attempt to change the news cycle by announcing that he would consider Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley and Tom Cotton for SCOTUS seats if reelected? JFC.
Jeffro
I know we love us some Rubin and Rampell around here, but En Fuego Dana Milbank really is the *best* kind of Dana Milbank: How to Fix The Trumpov Campaign ‘Cash Crunch‘
It starts like this…
So. Much. Failure. But…there is a solution here, America!
Dana has a few more great ideas about what else could be sold:
Hey, it’s not trumpov’s fault that his own campaign had to run ego-soothing ads – in D.C.! – or, like Bloomberg, just had to have a Super Bowl ad. But that was then…”mistakes were made”…the important thing is that we refill those coffers! ;)
LOL
MazeDancer
@debbie: NY just posted Early Voting hours. So anyone anxious had to apply for absentee. Not everyone will use them.
@trnc Will illustrate your Voting Plan. And anyone else who would like to join the pantheon of over 60 BJ Voters, just post your plan.
Baud
@Betty Cracker: I think that was more a play to his base than an attempt to change the news cycle.
Betty Cracker
@donnah: To my surprise (given her background), I really like Wallace as an anchor.
Jeffro
@Immanentize: all the polls I’ve seen have the pandemic listed as the #1 issue, by far. Rightly so.
Spanky
@Spanky: Appropos of nothing, I wonder if we’re going to see a tranche of little boys named Jared start showing up in kindergartens in a couple of years. Poor boys, marked with the mark of the Beast at birth.
SFAW
@Jeffro:
Fixed to more-accurately reflect the sentiments of the Murderer-in-Chief and his minions.
Jeffro
I’d ask if you are kidding but I know you’re not…I had no idea they were going to break out ‘Satanic Kamala, Empress of Destruction’ this early in the campaign. 0_0
Geez.
That helps them with ‘Q’ voters and who else?
Bruuuuce
@Geminid: Collins has troubles enough, what with being endorsed by and having an ad from the DINOest DINO ever, Joe Lieberman. So let’s pile on and bury her so she can be oh-so-concerned at home.
Kay
@raven:
I don’t think anyone who follows this closely believes “this is it” or that Trump will lose the support of his followers. I’d just like Biden to stay 7, 8, 9 ahead because that’s what he needs to win the electoral college. They’re running out of runway and they can’t lift him over 42/43 and every day he spends denying he killed tens of thousands is a day he’s still taxiing down the runway. There’s a fence at the end. That’s election day.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone ???
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
Bruuuuce
@Kay: We need, not a fence, but a deep, cold, unyielding ocean at the end of his runway, one he can never escape.
SFAW
@Jeffro:
“Suburban housewives,” of course.
narya
@Baud: I will refer to Charles Pierce’s rule: Fk the economy [usually “deficit” here, but this’ll work]. People got no jobs; people got no money.
In completely trivial news, the last bits of the kitchen–grout, screen door, last bits of paint–should happen today. Will spend the weekend cleaning up, moving things back to where they belong, etc, and then pictures for you all.
Immanentize
@OzarkHillbilly: I think of them often, because of my peculiar professional interests and ties. But Obama was on track to close GITMO but the Republicans stopped him. The military court system there is in shambles and now COVID has hit some of the JAG lawyers and judges. Put it on the list….
Kay
@Bruuuuce:
There’s probably a highway at the end and the Trump plane will shoot onto it and kill a couple more innocents before finally coming to rest at land’s end.
If the pattern holds.
SFAW
@Immanentize:
I think it would be good humor if (FSM-willing) President Biden sends former-President Murderer to Gitmo on a “fact-finding” trip, and forgets to let him out.
jonas
All branding ventures *any* multibillionaire tycoon pursues because they’re not at all continually trying to shore up their cash flow to cover their debts until the next bankruptcy.
different-church-lady
NYT Pitchbot Pitchbot: “Trump’s egegious lies have transformed the presidency. That will require us to be unrelentingly tough on President Biden.”
Immanentize
@rikyrah: Good Morning!
SFAW
@different-church-lady:
DougJ is probably right. The only question is the over/under as to when the FTFTFNYT would actually have the gall to put that forth.
different-church-lady
The plane skids to a halt at the end of the runway. It crashes into the fence and catches fire. The rescue team decides to leave the plane burning becuse they don’t want to cause a panic…
OzarkHillbilly
Where? My list runneth over.
MazeDancer
@Betty Cracker: Nicolle has big heart and complete, relentless accuracy. Hard to beat.
different-church-lady
@SFAW: That was me pitching to Doug.
Bruuuuce
@Kay: I have no doubt he’d aim his plane at a building, even while solemnly decrying terrorism.
I can still dream of life in a deep, dark hole for him and his family.
Immanentize
@SFAW: Like Ozymandias in Watchmen?
Immanentize
@OzarkHillbilly: Right there is our nation’s collective problem.
Add, red smoke filled skies across the west, but no money for the green new deal.
OzarkHillbilly
UK has already breached withdrawal agreement, EU lawyers say
Kay
This is a good article on juvenile sex trafficking.
There was a story out of Georgia last week that was widely reported and nearly every fact in it was wrong or presented in a misleading way because they don’t know the meaning of the terms and phrases used- “trafficking” for example, or “reported missing”.
Conservatives have once again taken a legitimate issue and turned it into insane bullshit that will ultimately harm the at-risk teenagers who trade sex for money or housing or food.
AS ALWAYS, “stranger abductions” of juveniles or children are RARE. These kids are walking away from foster homes and trading sex for means to survive. It isn’t primarily a law enforcement issue- it’s a social services issue. AS ALWAYS, in the vast, vast majority of cases where children are harmed or neglected this is done by people THEY KNOW. Not strangers. Not shadowy international child sex rings. People they know.
OzarkHillbilly
@Immanentize: And this:
Florida sewage spills expected to worsen due to ageing infrastructure
“Oh noes, whatever can we do about this? We just don’t have the money!”
“Ummm, raise taxes?”
“Fuck that shit.”
oldgold
The Mango Mussolini, Doll Hands, Short-Fingered Vulgarian, Cadet Bone Spurs and Trumpelthinskin has a new nickname: Creep Throat.
different-church-lady
Twitter thread pitchbot: “How old were you when you changed from being excited to open your e-mail to dreading it because you’ve realized there’s probably nothing but tasks, situations, and bad news waiting there?”
sanjeevs
Woodward reveals there was almost a war with North Korea in 2017. It was so serious Matthis slept in his clothes.
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/trump-blabs-about-secret-nuclear-program-triggers-new-arms-race-91385413689
OzarkHillbilly
Sounds like what I’ve been fighting.
Speaking of which, I’ve lost my voice. Which just delights the hell out of Mrs OHB.
Kay
Here’s the article.
Amir khalid
Ronald Bell aka Khalis Bayyan, co-founder of the legendary funk and R&B band Kool & The Gang, has passed away suddenly at 68. RIP.
Soprano2
I listened to that, too. I was going ballistic on their Facebook page (since they finally got rid of their comment section on their Web site because they were unwilling to get rid of all the trolls and stalkers). I was appalled at how uninformed those people were. Why have people on who don’t seem to know much of anything about the candidates? I’m really impatient with the “they don’t talk about the issues” crap – if you want to know what they will do, you can go to their Web sites to find out (or, in the case of Trump, just look at the past 4 years to get a clue). What they’re really saying is that they want the press to spoon-feed them the exact information they think they need to make a decision. They also blame the candidates for how the press covers the election. They’re going to do that every week until the election, and I don’t see that segment getting much better. I did post on FB that if the Trump supporter wants those immigrant workers he’d better vote for Biden, because Stephen Miller isn’t going to let even one immigrant in if he can manage it. Imagine being a Trump supporter and then wanting more immigrant workers, and wanting them to have a path to citizenship to boot! Cognitive dissonance much?
NotMax
Just for fun, a that was then truck of the future (the drive that didn’t thrive).
Jeffro
@jonas: I forget how Mark Cuban put it about trumpov Steaks (or maybe it was the vodka?)…
…(so I went and looked it up =)
Chaos ‘businessman’, chaos ‘president’
different-church-lady
@OzarkHillbilly:
Betty Cracker
@sanjeevs: But then Kim wrote a bunch of flowery letters in which he called Trump “Your Excellency,” and it was all good. He’s far more likely to nuke Germany.
donnah
@Betty Cracker: I think I like her in part because of her background. She has insider info as a former Republican campaigner and instead of letting it color her commentary, it enhances it. She’s also really compassionate, thoughtful, and insightful. but she isn’t insipid or squishy. When she goes after someone, she can be tough and critical. I was thrilled when they moved Chuckles Todd out and doubled her time slot on MSNBC.
Geminid
@Immanentize: I am hoping that Biden and Harris push a green new Deal as a climate and a job creating program. In any event, the new Congress will have a chance to pass clean power, smart grid, and conservation legislation by February. How extensive? That will depend on how much of a Democratic wave we see this November.
Patricia Kayden
dnfree
@SFAW: I live in Illinois and have long-time family roots in Iowa, and friends in Wisconsin. I honestly can’t figure out what happened in those two states since my youth. The people there used to be more moderate.
Edited to add that, on reflection, the rural areas of Illinois also used to be more moderate.
Gin & Tonic
@OzarkHillbilly:
Why have I always had the impression you don’t use it very much?
Jeffro
@sanjeevs: there’s a terrifyingly real book about that very sort of thing.
up side: trumpov is utterly humiliated
down side: millions die
rikyrah
Once the bodies started to pile up, the rage in my heart hardened. It hardened against those in the White House. It hardened against those in the GOP that enable him. It hardened against those who voted for him and continue to support him.
I will never Until the day I die Forgive ANY of them.
Any of them.
I believe 90% of those who have died in this country of COVID-19 have died NEEDLESSLY. THEY.DID.NOT.HAVE.TO.DIE.
I believe that. I believe those broken hearts of their families didn’t need to be.
My rage is palpable.
The tapes were not a surprise.
Because, we were living through it in real time, and while the enabling muthaphuckas in the press called us ‘melodramatic’, and gave him every benefit of the doubt that he has never earned because he’s a White man, and they have been enabling him every step of the way, because they don’t want to do THEIR PHUCKING JOBS…. We knew.
Every phucking thing we said was happening in March WAS TRUE.
ALL OF OUR INSTINCTS ABOUT THIS WAS TRUE. EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM. WE KNEW.
sanjeevs
@Betty Cracker: North Korea also agreed to retrain Lou Dobbs
https://mobile.twitter.com/JasonSCampbell/status/1303804473400270854
different-church-lady
@Jeffro: Speculative NYT Pitchbot: “Despite nuclear winter, Trump still has a narrow path to 270”
Jeffro
My mom’s family is from southern Illinois, aka northern Alabama, and the one thing they were never moderate about was race. That’s what happened.
Soprano2
@OzarkHillbilly: This is my wheelhouse. I agree that they need to get a handle on this. Increasing population density on a sewer system without eventually increasing the capacity of the treatment plants is a recipe for overflows, especially when you get heavy rainfall. Our infiltration/inflow rehab program started here after we had a huge overflow at our largest treatment plant in 1995 because we got 10″ of rain in two days. They were in the process of doubling our capacity, but it wasn’t done yet. We spent $17 million doing the first go-round, and are currently on the second go-round where we are spending $50 million. It’s so easy to delay repairs to water and wastewater pipes, since they’re underground; out of sight is out of mind to many people. We were actually lucky that we came under a consent decree and had to improve our system. We have one of the most advanced rehab programs in the U.S. right here in Springfield, MO.
One thing that’s unclear to me is how much of that overflow is due to heavy rainfall, and how much is due to poor system maintenance (poor maintenance definitely contributes to rainfall overflows). These are two different categories of overflow with somewhat different solutions. Of course, most of Florida has a much different system than we do, because so much of their state is close to sea level. They have lots and lots of force mains and lift stations, which has the effect of meaning that when the electricity goes off many people’s sewer systems don’t work! A lot of what they’re talking about could be force main pipes bursting, which would cause huge overflows.
Jeffro
@rikyrah: with you 110% on this…we not only knew as this was happening, we knew from the beginning that this crew of corrupt morons never, ever, gave a shit about anyone but themselves.
Take note, GOP: it could happen to you and yours next time. I mean it won’t, Dems just aren’t built like that, but it so easily could be you and yours dying needlessly by the tens of thousands.
Skepticat
They really are dredging the muck for support, but I’m not sure she ever can have enough trouble. I’m doing my part.
OzarkHillbilly
@Gin & Tonic: I’m pretty sure I use it less than most people, and know that I speak very little in large groups.
A couple weeks ago I picked up my youngest granddaughter and then the oldest for the day. For the next hour not a word passed between us as I drove. Neither one of us felt any need to fill the silence that makes most people unbearably uncomfortable.
Finally, just before turning into our drive, I looked at her and said, “Anybody ever tell you you talk too much?” She giggled. I said, “Quiet is good Sweetie. Don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise.”
The funny thing is her father, my son, is a chatterbox. I guess the quiet gene skips a generation.
Skepticat
We keep saying that, and it’s never, ever true. We truly have fallen down the rabbit hole, and I’m not certain we can get out.
MomSense
@rikyrah:
Yes. 1000% in agreement. We all figured out that they were and still are trying to kill us.
catclub
I am tired of people calling it sacred, or a sacred duty.
SiubhanDuinne
@OzarkHillbilly:
You sound fine to me.
Gin & Tonic
@OzarkHillbilly: People have different tolerances. I was once talking to a friend about some time I’d spent with a mutual acquaintance and said “man, the guy just won’t shut up.” To which she replied “huh, I know him as a mute.”
OzarkHillbilly
@Soprano2: STL has major problems due to the fact that most of their water and *sewer* infrastructure is well over 100 years old. They to are working under consent decrees to fix it all but it will take decades.
** one of the major problems in STL city is the fact that they don’t have separate storm and sanitary sewers. So every major rain event ends up dumping raw sewage into the Mississippi. They’re making progress, but they have a long ways to go.
jonas
@Kay: I think this is right. A normal candidate running a normal campaign down this far right now would be scrambling to “pivot” to the center, expand their base, etc. Trump has only one setting: be insane and make everything worse, which appeals to no-one outside execrable base . As expected, he’s blowing off any debate prep, figuring his trademark spittle-flecked farrago of bullshit will put him over the top against the senile, doddering Biden. He’ll of course make a fool of himself, just like he did with Clinton, and it won’t really matter. His base will think it’s a triumph of forensic genius not seen since the days of Demosthenes and everyone else will go “holy shit!” and reaffirm their commitment to Biden.
Jeffro
@different-church-lady: spot on. unfortunately.
Betty Cracker
The feeling that it’s too late to right this country nags at me. If this nation rises up and crushes Trump and the Republicans at every level in November, we’d have a chance to salvage a functioning democracy. But according to the polls, that seems unlikely.
Meanwhile, I’m seeing more Qanon stickers on cars in the grocery store parking lot. I — we — are surrounded by stupid lunatics. Nothing to do but keep fighting, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to being discouraged and depressed about it.
Jeffro
Let’s not forget, trumpov is likely to put some highly offensive ‘characters’ in the debate audience as well. Game, set, match Sleepy Joe! Or more likely (and to your point)…we’ve seen this insanity before, and it will appeal to no one outside his Q base.
NotMax
@a href=”https://balloon-juice.com/2020/09/10/thursday-morning-open-thread-vote-biden-if-you-want-to-live/#comment-7852691″>OzarkHillbilly
Open up your voicemail, silly.
;)
OzarkHillbilly
@Gin & Tonic: I’ve told this story before so stop me if you’ve already heard it:
New guy comes on to a drywall job, the foreman comes to me and says, “Tom, show him what to do.”
And for the next hour plus I hear all about his musical preferences, what kind of car he drives and why, why he always has the same thing for lunch, how his wife keeps him so happy, what lazy bums his kids are, what church he goes to, all about his idiot in-laws, his last three fishing trips on the Mississippi, the big buck he got last year, etc etc ad nauseum. Finally he looks at me and says, “So Tom, what do you like?”
“Peace and quiet.” I replied.
I almost felt guilty for how completely I shut him up.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@narya: I’m excited for pictures!
laura
@rikyrah: No Lie Told.
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker: Headlines of articles at the guardian I have been unable to make myself read the past 2 days:
Illegal devices that bypass vehicle emissions controls spread across US
Humans exploiting and destroying nature on unprecedented scale – report
So yeah, you aren’t alone.
joel hanes
@Betty Cracker:
McCaskill: Has Trump ever read a Woodward book?
With respect to McCaskill, she should know by now that Donald Trump has never read *any* book in the sense that she means, because he is incapable of reading with comprehension at the 10th grade level.
OzarkHillbilly
@NotMax: I have to go to town to do that and I really don’t want to. ;-) I don’t know why people say I’m hard to get a hold of. They know where I live.
Geminid
@Jeffro: Today’s Bearing Drift has a good article by Matt Hall on last night’s forum/debate between Cameron Webb and Bob Good, candidates in the VA 5th congressional district. Hall rated the debate, gave Democrat Webb a B+, republican Good a D.
SFAW
@different-church-lady:
Oops. Now I get the second “Pitchbot.”
Very nicely done.
Ohio Mom
Bruuuuce:
Do I remember correctly that you live in Queens? Your fantasy of the Trump plane rolling off into the deep sea sounds inspired by LaGuardia’s runways.
Anyway, I appreciate any imagined catastrophe befalling Trump, reminds me I am not alone in my wishes for him.
narya
@Dorothy A. Winsor: In looking at the tile in the bright light of a new day, I suspect it will not be to everyone’s taste. I, however, DNGAF. It has two of my favorite colors, and I will be able to get it clean (unlike the fking beadboard). Once I have crap back on the counters and such, it will be a bit more “quiet,” but, again, I DNGAF. Also: Fiesta colors! I blame John Cole–his last trip to the Fiesta outlet store had me down the Fiesta rabbit hole, which is when I discovered that you could get tile in Fiesta colors. I have a variety of colors (in my plates/cups/bowls), and one of the fun things I get to do is tell adults to pick their favorite color plate. Well, I USED to be able to do that, when I could have folks over to my house.
joel hanes
@Soprano2:
Remember that many farmers still cannot get broadband, because no one thinks it will profitable to provide it to them.
My mom, who lives in rural circumstances five miles outside a small town, was still on dialup until a few years ago. The Web is a lot less accessible source of information at audio modem speeds.
Aleta
“Some people feel that Donald Trump will bring the revolution immediately, if he gets in. Then things will really, you know, explode,”
SFAW
@Soprano2:
Meghna tried pointing that out to Farmer Moron, and I think that was what triggered his “both sides since Reagan” response. FSM spare me from these morons.
joel hanes
@dnfree:
I honestly can’t figure out what happened in those two states since my youth.
Paul Weyrich, Rush Limbaugh, Fox, and Sinclair.
(Paul Weyrich because before 1979, evangelicals were politically disengaged, and Protestant opposition to abortion was not a thing. Weyrich was instrumental in changing that, using Falwell and the “Moral Majority” and the Heritage Foundation as his tools.)
Also, a graying population.
SFAW
@joel hanes:
I heard his favorite book is “My Struggle” by some painter. Apparently he’s learned a lot from that guy.
Bruuuuce
@Ohio Mom: Yes, I do live in Jackson Heights, a few miles from LGA. (For the moment. It looks like we’re moving soon. The only question is whether we do it on our terms or the landlord’s.) And yes, the NYC airports (both on the water) gave me that thought, along with remembering a sad crash in DC some winters ago, with a plane going into the water.
TerryC
@narya: I grew up across the bridge from the Fiesta factory. Love visiting the seconds bin with prices at 14% of retail when I go home and see family.
joel hanes
@OzarkHillbilly:
In my young manhood, I was accustomed to organizing a two-week wilderness canoe trip each year.
After eight or ten days in the woods, the need to chatter is pretty well extinguished. My bow paddler and I might spend two hours in which the entire extent of the conversation was:
“See that?”
“Uh-huh.”
joel hanes
@SFAW:
I heard his favorite book is “My Struggle” by some painter.
I suspect what you heard (because it’s what I heard) is that Trump had that book on his bedside table. I’ve never seen a claim that he read it, much less read it with comprehension.
MomSense
@Immanentize:
I wish it were just Republicans, but the Senate in a very close to unanimous vote denied the funding needed to move the detainees and close the facility. Even St Bernard from a Vermont voted to block funding.
Kay
I knew the grab em tape wouldn’t be fatal. Women don’t have high enough status in this country for that to be fatal.
I mean, the DOJ are right now spending public money defending Trump on a civil case attached to a rape allegation. The idea that there’s some consensus in the US that this is an important issue – some “norm”- is just bullshit we tell ourselves. It ranks somewhere below lying about the payroll tax deduction.
Gin & Tonic
@Bruuuuce: Long long time ago I lived on 82nd St. Super convenient when traveling for work, fly in to LGA and hop on the Q33 bus, home in 10 minutes.
OzarkHillbilly
@joel hanes: Yep. With me that’s the way the trips start out. By the end I might manage an “Ugghh.”
NotMax
@joel hanes
Heck, I live on an island and have acquaintances who live in communities which have access to neither internet nor cable (and vagaries of terrain preclude satellite service). And others whose only internet access is spotty DSL over copper phone wires, which is internetting at the speed of sludge. One guy becomes practically ecstatic when at odd times his download speed peaks at 3Mbps.
Just One More Canuck
@Amir khalid: His brother’s godfather was Thelonius Monk and they knew Miles Davis (quick Wiki look)
NotMax
@Gin & Tonic
Last time was at LGA, with all the construction going on it took close to 15 minutes just to leave the airport property.
tom
Diana Rigg has died.
Jeffro
@Geminid: That’s excellent! Folks seem really turned off by Good. I like Webb a lot. Still can’t believe how young he looks! He’s going to keep getting carded until he’s 60. =)
Bruuuuce
@tom: Bollocks. And requiescat, lady. You earned it
J R in WV
@joel hanes:
My first job after the Navy, I was talking to the foreman on break one evening a d learned his first job after the Army was working with Rural Free Electrification in the 1940s.
The power companies didn’t see any profits in running the power lines to farmers and people out in the middle of the country. So the government did it! Dread Socialism in action! Actually, just the Democratic party at work
Matt McIrvin
There’s not going to be any bombshell that causes Trump’s support to crater. But Biden is ahead. The effect of a lot of these things is to keep Trump’s support from creeping up, and that’s important.
In other news, there’s some new thing on the Freakonomics blog about how Republicans and Democrats are all parts of the same system maaaaan and people I know who should know better are citing it approvingly.
Jeffro
@Kay: “corrupt use of the public’s money” is truly one of the defining themes of this maladministration, as we knew it would be:
And now we get to pay for trumpov’s rape defense, too.
Lots of low-hanging fruit there, Dems. LOTS of Americans get incensed at this kind of stuff.
Omnes Omnibus
@SFAW: We are prevented from keeping Jets fans out. We checked.
Soprano2
@OzarkHillbilly: Combined sewers are problematic but a lot of large cities are stuck with them. Lucky for us we have separate sewer and stormwater systems. I know MSD is working under a consent decree; I’ve met some of their people at our yearly industry meeting at Tan Tar A, and I’ve seen presentations on their program. I believe they started from the beginning working on private side problems, while we just started doing that about 5 years ago. That’s something people don’t realize; a lot of the problem with extra water in the system comes from the private side, and in many cities like ours the city doesn’t control what happens on the private side. It’s going to take decades to rehab everything even for us, and we’ve been rehabbing sewer since 1995.
TS (the original)
@tom:
Loved her in the avengers. In my long ago life that show was compulsory viewing.
JPL
Baud
At some point, we need to recognize that it’s those people who prop up the “system” by diminishing the political accountability that Republicans would otherwise have to face.
tom
@TS (the original): same. The theme song from The Avengers is going through my head right now.
Geminid
@J R in WV: My power is supplied by the Rappahannock Electrical Cooperative. When I lived in Stuart’s Draft it was the Shenandoah Valley Electrical Cooperative. Both originated in Roosevelt’s rural electrification program. They seem to function just fine without the profit motive. I can say the same about my bank, the Dupont Community Credit Union.
Booger
@Geminid: Hey, 540 represent! Where you at?
Omnes Omnibus
@tom: Mrs Emma Peel, Mrs Bond, Lady Dedlock, Mrs Danvers, Lady Olenna Tyrrell. RIP
Geminid
@Booger: I used to be live a few miles NE of Stuart’s Draft, Augusta County. Now I live near Amicus in Greene County. A mile up from the yoga studio.
Soprano2
Yeah, I heard that part too. Farmer Moron is in denial about the reality of who Trump is and what he’s done and intends to do.
OzarkHillbilly
@Matt McIrvin: It’s true, they are part of the same system… As is every tax paying American.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: I said something likening third-party enthusiasm to the difference between acknowledging that it’s unfair that waiters have to get much of their income from tips, and using that as an excuse to stiff your waiter.
dnfree
@narya: I think it sounds fun and creative and I was impressed that you laid out the pattern yourself. Looking forward to photos.
We downsized last year to a place almost entirely painted in a muted pale yellow. We don’t want to repaint the whole thing so we are doing accent walls and areas to make it a little more lively. (The basic color is Sherwin Williams Napery, which looks beige-ish online but is actually yellow.)
A Ghost to Most
Vote, but don’t assume that a big Biden win will change everything.
These assholes always double down. The shit parade starts on Nov. 4.
OzarkHillbilly
@Soprano2: Many years ago when I was still living in the city somebody sugared my gas tank. Right after I had filled it. Along with replacing damn near every part of the fuel system I also ended up with over 20 gallons of sugared gas.
WTF does one do with 20+ gallons of sugared gas? I knew I couldn’t just leave it around or dump it in the alley. Surely there is someplace I can take it? If anyone knows, it’s the fire department, right? Right???
First they sent a Captain to ascertain that what they heard on the phone was in fact true. He called for a pumper truck. They opened a fire hydrant and dumped the gas down a storm sewer. Ran that water for at least 20 mins.
The solution to pollution is dilution.
Not sure MSD appreciated that.
Patricia Kayden
Soprano2
@OzarkHillbilly: Jesus!!! If we smell gasoline in the sewer it’s a big investigation for the source. That was stone-cold stupid of them! There was one place where we spent time over several years trying to figure out if there was a leaking underground storage tank, because we’d get periodic reports of gasoline fumes from the sewer main. I think they finally found an old tank that hadn’t been removed when a gas station was torn down. Gasoline in the sanitary or storm sewer is a major no-no, not to mention dangerous due to the fumes.
rikyrah
RIP Diana Rigg :(
Matt McIrvin
@A Ghost to Most: The struggle is endless and if Biden wins, it’s going to be difficult to keep the Republicans from taking back everything else in 2022. But one thing at a time.
SFBayAreaGal
Good morning everyone.
I noticed Mnemosyne hasn’t commented recently. Does anyone know why. Is she okay?
raven
@TS (the original): She and her daughter were fun in The Detecorists!
taumaturgo
The one thing the twin viruses of Covid19 and Trump has laid bare is how inept and powerless the checks and balances, pillars of our constitution really are. This has left conservative democrats, pundits, and opportunistic never trumpers telling us how terrible Trump is with no meaningful actions to put a stop to the malfeasance. A top military four-star general would most likely face a tribunal charged with treason, dereliction of duty, and criminal neglect if it comes to light that he had battle information that could have prevented 190,000 casualties, yet he chooses to hide this information and instead encourage the troops to attack and face certain death. If Joe wins, would he instruct his DOJ to charge Trump and his cadre of accomplices for crimes against the State or will he most likely take the same path he followed with Obama when it came to the bank’s criminality, that was to look forward and not to look back? Will Trump get a pass?
germy
@SFBayAreaGal:
I thought I read here that she said she was taking a break from posting to focus on other things.
L85NJGT
The biofuel trade association is running op-ed letters threatening plant closures, and Brazil is throwing up a tariff on US ethanol due to his awesome deal making skills, so it now looks like EPA ethanol blend waivers for low(er) volume refiners are going bye-bye.
His dipshit supporters are not getting why he’s waffling on his commitment to killing the bio-fuels industry.
Omnes Omnibus
@taumaturgo: You are nothing if not predictable.
Kay
@jonas:
I knew Republicans would come home to Trump. The polls that have Biden 50 and Trump 39 weren’t counting the Republicans who will inevitably come home, but they always do. The one and only question is if there are 42% of them or 48% of them. If it’s 42 it’s a relatively big win and if it’s 48 it’s a squeaker in swing states. The one thing everyone knows is the Trump Administration won’t get a majority of voters, but could be returned to power, again, while not having the support of the majority of people.
IMO that’s a catastrophic event. They’ve done a lot to ruin the country. They’ll finish it off in 4 more years. Unrecognizable.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Omnes Omnibus: Yup, consistency!
Miss Bianca
@tom: Well, shit. This year just gets better and better, don’t it?
patrick II
Biden:
Come on, say it Joe. It needs to be said.
germy
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Aren’t we all pretty consistent around here?
Matt McIrvin
@Omnes Omnibus: taumaturgo has a point here though. It’s not just “never trumpers and conservative Democrats”; it’s the people in general–a big chunk of the population has a powerful yearning just to get back to some kind of “normal”, somehow. That’s really Biden’s appeal, and I can definitely feel it. It’s the same impulse that made Ford’s pardon of Nixon seem like a good idea to the center. Just make the bad stuff go away; I don’t want to think about it any more.
Is there going to be any appetite for prosecuting crimes, once we’ve won?
MisterForkbeard
@Omnes Omnibus: Particularly since Biden has already talked about this. He thinks there were probably crimes committed but it would be a intrusion if he tells DOJ who to prosecute and why.
Ultimately, it’s up to a reformed justice department to make the call.
Kay
One thing that makes me think Trump is still able to pull this off is vulnerable GOP Senators. They’re not bailing on him, and since they have no principles or character or ethics of any kind, they’re doing that because they still think he can pull it off. The rats should have been slinking towards the exits by now.
L85NJGT
“Green” is an important trigger word for FOX News watchers. As in the Green New Deal being a bunch of tree hugging bullshit, rather than necessary upgrades to an outdated and inefficient power generation and transmission grid.
germy
From Carter Page’s new book. He has a strange writing style (assuming here he wrote it himself) and he comes across as an odd person. Some writers reveal more about themselves than they mean to. Some strange stuff. And of course the non-partisan “Real Clear Politics” is featuring excerpts.
germy
@L85NJGT:
“Green” and “Black” are big triggers for them.
taumaturgo
@Matt McIrvin: IMO, if Biden wins he has the duty, not an option to instruct his DOJ to investigate and charge the impeached Trump. BTW, if he were to decree right now that he would definitely uphold not only the law but the rule of law, it would give me a charge not only to vote against Donald but to actually have a powerful reason to vote for Joe.
narya
@TerryC: ooooooh . . . . . I am on a “don’t buy stuff” plan, but that would be irresistable.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: I call that Trump’s pitch: “Yeah, I’m awful, but remember… I hate the people you hate.”
Another Scott
“It takes a Village…”
Grr…
Cheers,
Scott.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: Could always be some kind of coming-home effect that’s not reflected in the polls, but I’m not seeing any real national tightening right now, just the effect of the Democratic and then Republican convention bumps, which I think were real but not large.
They’re freaking out about Florida because it’s the one place tightening seems to be happening, but last week it was Pennsylvania and that already seems to be reversing now.
L85NJGT
@Kay:
They wanted to kick the ethanol waiver decision out past the election but Ernst is in trouble.
WaterGirl
@Skepticat: “This is finally it” is the new “peak wingnut”.
Matt McIrvin
@taumaturgo: You’re an outlier. Everyone here is an outlier. Most people find politics gross and unpleasant and they don’t want it in their heads–if Trump offends them they just want him gone, not a focus of attention once he’s out of office. So the interest is going to be hard to sustain.
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
It’s hard to beat an incumbent. Most of them get re-elected. Trump’s job with R and lean R voters is to give them an excuse to stick with him, which they wanted to do.
WaterGirl
@OzarkHillbilly: I could read that story a hundred times, and still enjoy it.
germy
I’d like to see Yamiche Alcindor and Paula Reid moderate one of the presidential or vice-presidential debates.
Geminid
@Kay: Incumbents like McSally, Tillis and Gardner are deservedly in a tight spot. The best they can hope for is a narrow win. But if they distance themselves from trump many trump voters will leave the Senate line blank. I’ve noticed that McSally trails trump in Arizona by 7-8 points. I think the shortfall is trump voters who already consider McSally a RINO. And trump is loyal to himself alone; if he notices republicans distancing themselves from him, trump will pull them down with him.
Ohio Mom
SFBay AreaGal @153:
Ruckus reported a while ago that Mnemosyne is alive and well and very busy but I think she has joined SteveintheATL (and elsewhere) in moving on to wherever old commentators who have had their fill of us go.
I miss them both.
taumaturgo
@Matt McIrvin: You may be right. Burying our heads in the sand is an option, except it would embolden the opposition and it could cement the view of the weakness of the democrats.
catclub
from a Slate article on voting:
There are also tons of all kinds of (possible) voters who do not turn out. wasn’t the Obama high point about 80+% of registered voters but only 70% of eligible adults? That is a huge missing block- luckiliy highly heterogeneous.
Kay
@Geminid:
That’s the part I don’t believe. Trump voters will vote for her if he tells them to and he will.
These are the people who deliberately put themselves at risk for contracting a deadly disease because admitting it existed sullied Donald Trump’s image. That’s why they pitched hissy fits about the masks. Every time they see one of those masks it’s like an insult to Dear Leader.
WaterGirl
@patrick II: You know if Joe didn’t say “almost”, the discussion would ONLY be about Joe having used the word criminal, and exactly which laws did he break, and isn’t it unseemly that a presidential candidate would… blah blah blah.
Better that he said “almost”.
Bonus: the people who are paying attention will think “almost?”, not almost, it is criminal.
WaterGirl
@Kay: Or perhaps they are in so deep that their only hope is to hope that Trump wins. So they don’t dare distance from him, or Trump will turn on them and then they are most definitely screwed either way.
In for a penny, in for a pound. There is no way out for them, except a Trump win.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: The USC Dornsife poll is really interesting:
https://election.usc.edu/
It’s important to understand what this is and isn’t. It’s not a normal poll; it’s a weird survey in which they ask the same people over and over about the election. What that means is that you can’t really credit the overall level as meaning much, because any random error in their sample will be propagated through the whole survey.
Some people have tried to make a lot of the fact that Biden is doing WAY better on the whole here than Clinton did in 2016 (the Dornsife then actually had Trump ahead for most of the cycle, and this time Biden is well ahead), but I don’t think that means anything really. Probably just random sampling effects to some degree.
Also, it’s a less and less naive sample as the cycle goes on–these are people who get used to being asked about politics every day, and that very fact probably affects how they think.
But what it’s good for is tracking changes caused by news events. Most polls weren’t sensitive enough to day-to-day changes to get a good handle on convention bounces. This one shows Biden’s numbers jumping up palpably after the D convention, dropping after the R convention… and now they’re rising again, as fast as a convention bounce.
That’s probably the effect of the big dogpile of “awful Trump” stories coming out from everyone with a score to settle. If that flood stops, I expect the numbers to revert to the mean again and there will be a big freakout. But for now it’s what’s happening.
catclub
If you can get TV over satellite, can’t you also provide pretty high data rates via satellite? I know it sucks for gamers, but mostly much better than dialup slow.
Matt McIrvin
@catclub: You can get good downstream bandwidth, not necessarily great upstream bandwidth… and the other thing is the lag. No matter how fat your bandwidth is, if the satellite is in geosynchronous orbit you’ve got a round trip of more than half a second imposed by the speed of light, and modern web pages are constructed through a whole complicated sequence of cascading requests from the browser. So you could stream video fast but the Web will still feel weird and sluggish (though caching will help some)
This is why people like Elon Musk keep trying to blanket the whole planet in low-orbit satellites, to get that lag down. But because they’re in low Earth orbit, you need a huge constellation of them and it’s very complicated and expensive. Hard to make it all commercially viable.
Soprano2
Michael Cohen says Trump wants to be a dictator. Of all the people who have written books and spoken out about him, I believe Cohen knows him the best, so I believe him. Besides, it fits with all the stuff Trump has said and done over the past 4 years.
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
I don’t think they were able to tie Biden into the appeals to racism, not because voters are so great and equity minded, but because he’s an older white man. No one thinks he’s a radical for a good reason- he’s not.
I read they’re going to try it with Harris. It won’t work with her either. The one thing we have working in our favor, and it’s a big thing, is that the Trump people are coddled and privileged and have not actually ever lived in the ordinary United States. Suburban white women aren’t afraid of attractive, accomplished, appealing people like Kamala Harris. Harris would fit easily into any suburb and be considered an asset.
scav
@germy: Personally, I often don’t have the bandwidth to be consistent with myself.
geg6
@tom:
When I was a kid, I wanted to be her. She was a badass, I thought. Haven’t changed my mind in my golden years.
different-church-lady
@germy: I LIKE TO MIX UP THE PREDICTABILITY WITH VARIATIONS ON A THEME!!1!
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
I was cheered up by the Trump campaign’s attempt to use Cory Booker to drum up racism. They don’t understand either Cory Booker or suburban white racists if they think that. That’s just going nowhere.
patroclus
I really liked how Lady Olenna Tyrell killed King Joffrey – Diana Rigg was a great actress!
Uh, actually, the Dems didn’t use the government to provide rural electrification to farmers. Sam Rayburn worked on it for many years and it was a combination of the Public Utility Holding Company Act and the Rural Electrification Administration. PUHCA was the greatest legislative fight (all contained in a single year – 1935) ever and basically required that utility holding companies be required to register with the new SEC and be subject to public interest regulation, including the potential winding up and dissolution (the “Death Sentence”) of such companies if they didn’t comply. Essentially, they wouldn’t spend the money to build transmission lines to rural areas because their holding company structures allowed for all their profits to be dividended up to their out-of-state holding companies. PUHCA limited them to one holding company and required their operating subs to re-invest money into new transmission lines. The REA was a series of co-ops and companies formed by the farmers themselves that aggregated their negotiating leverage so that the power companies wouldn’t have to provide electricity to one single farmer – they would instead provide electricity to whole groups of farmers. Ultimately, after several decades or so, the transmission lines were built and the power companies made even more money. So everyone benefited; the farmers got their electricity and the power companies made more profits. A major third part was that there were also a lot of new hydroelectric plants built on rivers all over the country to make the government authorities (like the Southwestern Power Administration) big but not dominant players in the supply side of the industry.
In response to the “socialism” criticism, Rayburn famously said “It’s not socialism to lend money to businesses.” The coops were essentially new businesses that were formed to enhance negotiating leverage and the REA lent them money. So, it was ultimately a mix of public interest legislation, a new money-lending bank and public-owned power that provided electricity to farmers. Kind of a combination of the best of socialism and the best of innovative capitalism. That’s what Rayburn and the Dems did.
Geminid
@Kay: A lot of trump’s supporters will listen to him, but some of those Arizona conservatives were RINO hunting long before trump showed up. These may ignore trump’s endorsement, even if trump and McSally campaign together this fall. Not that it will make a difference in the result. Mark Kelly is a strong candidate, and I think McSally is a goner.
Kay
@Geminid:
You’re probably right- I don’t know anything about Arizona.
L85NJGT
From a national perspective, Senate results are often odd – those six year terms and state PVIs can make for some large seat gains on a small vote swing percentage, and vice versa.
Bruce K
I just did some rough math.
Causing death by depraved indifference to human life is murder two in the state of New York. Fifteen to twenty-five years per count. Assume that even with competent governance, eight thousand would have died regardless (Romania, with a similar population, has lost four thousand, but New York may be assumed to have some aggravating factors). That leaves twenty-five thousand.
Second-degree murder in New York is punishable by 15 to 25 years imprisonment, so assuming the lower number, the perpetrator would be up for release from Sing Sing in three hundred seventy-five thousand years (assuming sentences were to be served consecutively and not concurrently).
I know the chances are nil, but a guy can dream, right?
Kay
I go back and forth but is seems wrong to say nothing hurts him. It does influence how people think of him- the question is does it change how they vote. These are horrible numbers for an incumbent R President on this question- Biden is trouncing him, but do they vote for him anyway? I don’t know.
evodevo
@Soprano2: I know it’s an unlikely fantasy, but just ONCE I want a “reporter” to say something like “What the hell, man? Trump’s staff aide is the one making life difficult for your employees, and it’s part and parcel of the Republican national platform. Why ARE you voting for these people?!!!”
different-church-lady
Wisdom here:
Tufekci is talking about people’s initial resistance to masks, but could just as easily apply this to the “latest Trump outrage changes nothing” crowd. People think being cynical is the same as being savvy.
Barbara
@Geminid: The last election that McSally lost was very close, and her opponent was another woman. She is underperforming so spectacularly because Mark Kelly (through no fault of his own) is appealing to voters who don’t like voting for a woman when there is suitable male alternative.
different-church-lady
@Kay: In 2016 things hurt Trump. But things also hurt Clinton.
Perhaps it came down to a last-possession situation, and Comey awarded the ball to Trump.
VOR
I’m not seeing that yet, but my Trump-supporting in-laws are posting on Facebook about child kidnapping. Which is part of the whole Qanon mythos, that children are being stolen so they can be harvested for their precious bodily fluids. It’s not about the racism, no they are voting Trump because he’s the guy who is against pedophilia. Yeah, the guy who used to go backstage to oogle teenagers at his beauty pagents. The guy who talked about being more sexually attracted to his teenage daughter than his wife.
piratedan
@tom:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10QW3Az1FTw
TS (the original)
@Soprano2:
I’ve always thought trump knew little (well nothing) about how the government worked in the US & he thought the President was a dictator. When he was elected, and discovered this was not true, he quickly stopped talking to or negotiating with anyone other than a few senior republicans & has done all in his power for 4 years to convert the role from Government leader to dictator.
Eunicecycle
@germy: Page definitely needs a better editor.
Omnes Omnibus
@MisterForkbeard: I agree. In our system, it is not the president’s job to direct the prosecution or crimes. Biden will step back from that – as he should. At the same time, he has, on multiple occasions, said that he will not get in the way of the justice department doing its job. How aggressive it is will depend on who he appoints as AG.
Kay
@VOR:
Anti sex trafficking has been big on the Right on for 20 years. So of course they ruined it by handing it over to lunatics on Facebook. They had a genuine humanitarian issue, but they felt the need to exaggerate and lie about it and now here were are, surrounded by people who yammer on and on about child sex trafficking but don’t have the faintest idea what they’re talking about.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Soprano2:
Trump wants to be King.
Peale
@Kay: Yep. Basically allowing themselves to be fed a fantasy cooked up on 8Chan – that Hillary Clinton is the real child molester. 8Chan being a site started as a splinter from 4Chan when 4Chan started to “censor” child porn. A big ass projection fantasy – that all those hoity-toity liberals are covering up a big sex trafficking ring and are the real perverts – started by a bunch of guys who are indeed probably perverts.
James E Powell
@Kay:
That’s the only question that matters. Thing is, the reason that Republicans always come home is that they hate the rest of us.
Jay
@OzarkHillbilly:
did you check the couch cushions to see if it was there?
Geminid
@Kay: I don’t know much more if any about Arizona politics than you. But you know way more about Ohio politics than I do. Sometime if you feel like it, I’d really like to hear your thoughts on how and why Sherrod Brown wins in a state that has gone from purple to red.
Ghost of Joe Liebling*s Dog
@Bruuuuce:
I’d forgotten Lieberman was a D even in name … didn’t he stay with the Lieberman for Lieberman Party?
Baud
@Matt McIrvin: I like that.
Just Chuck
There needs to be more substantial consequences than merely voting the bums out. This was murder.
Frankensteinbeck
I want to note something: I do not think there is any law which Trump could be prosecuted by for what he has done with COVID. It doesn’t matter that he’s responsible for at least a hundred thousand unnecessary deaths. It’s not ‘murder’ by legal definition. There are no laws to prosecute politicians enacting shitty policies that turn out to be a disaster. Hell, our system deliberately makes that near-impossible, because it stops people like Trump from arresting his political enemies like Obama and Hillary, which he wanted to do.
If Trump is prosecuted and sentenced to prison, it will be for some side issue, like abusing campaign finance laws or shenanigans with his regular businesses that are revealed because he’s under the spotlight now.
Oh, and he cannot be prosecuted for violating the emoluments clause. There is no legal standard, process, or punishment for it.
Uncle Cosmo
Why? Where the hell were they going to go? No Biden voter is going to believe that all of a sudden they got religion, after enabling Trumplethinskin for 3.5 years. They’d only manage to piss off the Trumpistas and lose by 30 instead of by 10 – and when you’re losing by 10 there’s always the chance of a miracle (perhaps mediated by a bunch of hackers outside Sankt-Peterburkh).
trollhattan
@catclub:
Back when we had Dish we only received signal from the satellite and communications back to Dish were via phone line (we had DSL at the time). IDK if the technology has changed so that uploading to the satellite is possible.
5G could be what brings broadband to the sticks, once it’s done giving us the rona, that is.
Omnes Omnibus
@Frankensteinbeck: As much as no one here wants this to be true, it is. It is one of the main reasons that something like a Truth and Reconciliation Commission is needed. People need to understand what happened and how it happened so that we can make sure it doesn’t happen again.
Dan B
@narya: Pictures! Wahoo!! Just in time for good news for those of us in the west coast 7th circle of hell. And those in many other places in suspended animation until 2021.
WaterGirl
@Frankensteinbeck: Depraved indifference?
Matt McIrvin
@different-church-lady: The 2016 general-election polling was much more volatile. Hillary kept swinging between a huge lead and a close one. At her best, she was almost as far ahead as Biden, but it never lasted very long.
What fooled a lot of people was that one of those big swings happened after the debates, pretty late in the cycle. That was what made Sam Wang promise to eat a bug. And it ended with the Comey letter just a few days before the election, and on top of whatever general cheating and fuckery went on, the state polls were just too slow to catch more than the beginning of the resulting drop that got it close enough for that stuff to matter.
There are going to be plenty of October surprises this time around, but I think the voters are less primed to respond to them. The big question to me is just whether there will be bigger cheating and suppression and legal trolling, big enough to reverse even a landslide.
Josie
@Frankensteinbeck:
All of this is true. I believe, however, that New York State D. A. Letitia James is just waiting for him to step down and has some questions for him. I remember her statement when she went after the NRA that no one is above the law. I like to think there was a message there.
Miss Bianca
@Omnes Omnibus: Reading the writing that appears to be on the wall, I’d say that Doug Jones might be out of one job in November and into another in January. Just sayin’.
And I think he would make a pretty damn fine AG.
catclub
@Kay: McMartin Pre-School panic, writ large.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay:
One of the things Fred Clark likes to emphasize is that this isn’t new–the conservative version of sex-trafficking panic was big 100 years ago under the name of “white slavery”, and the imagery always revolved around swarthy foreigners kidnapping innocent white women for sex. It resulted in the Mann Act, which was exploited to do things like prosecute interracial couples for crossing a state line.
catclub
@Miss Bianca: can he get the conviction of the Democratic Governor of Alabama reversed/overturned?
Omnes Omnibus
@Miss Bianca: I am hoping for Preet Baharara. But there are a lot of good people for that job.
Dan B
@Kay: When my nephew came out, to very supportive parents, I took him to an LGBT youth center. It was apparent there were lots of kids with serious emotional issues. Most seemed to have no concept of stability or security. It was disturbing especially in contrast to the kids I’d done volunteer work with at a minority majority middle school. It was apparent the LGBTQ youth center would benefit greatly from 24/7 Social Worker staff.
sherparick
It will be fine, it will be fine! or what the Trumpster & his crew really fear.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9VoRmjxvPs
StringOnAStick
I’m to the point where I dread my weekly phone call to my 88 yo wing nut father. We never talk politics because I made it clear that if he sends me anymore crazy political email forwards or yells at me about politics again, I’m gone, period. I make it a point to call early before his Prime time FOX line-up let’s him enjoy his favourite emotion: rage.
He’s a combination of pity party over his failing body and anger at “stupid bullies who won’t wear masks”, but he’ll vote straight R like he always has. He was a shitty parent who cared only about work with his family a distant second, and now that he’s no longer able to work he wants his kids to listen to hours of boring, self aggrandizing BS about his career so he can still feel like Mr. Manly. His interest level in what’s going on in his kids lives is zero, just like it’s always been. I’m just so done with him and feeling guilty that I hope he passes soon and as painlessly as possible before his destroyed back and knees confine him to a wheelchair; I’ve worked in nursing homes and I know just how mean and bitter guys like him become when that’s the only living choice they’ve got left. It doesn’t help that I look around at every horrible disaster and all the tRump corruption and know that he willingly enabled it and aggressively supports it all continuing.
david
“Kick him out of office is the consequence”
“It’s almost criminal.”
Can’t wait until January 2021 when we’re told that there are more pressing issues and that we need to move forward. He’s gonna walk away untouched.
sherparick
@?BillinGlendaleCA: As Patrick Henry said in a famous speech, “…Caesar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell and George the Third — .” At that point he was interrupted by cries of “Treason!” from delegates who easily recognized the reference to assassinated leaders. Henry paused briefly, then calmly finished his sentence: “…may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it.” Louis XVI did not and I doubt Donald the First will either. Ca Ira, Ca Ira.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9VoRmjxvPs
catclub
Not my first choice for ‘scary black man.’
StringOnAStick
@sherparick: I heard a story about Edith Piaf last night on PRI (I think); did you hear it too?
Betty Cracker
@StringOnAStick: You’re a saint for subjecting yourself to a weekly call, and your hope for his ending isn’t anything to feel guilty about since it sounds like it would be the best thing for him as well as everyone else. I feel for you. Dealing with aging relatives — especially wingnutty ones — is a fucking trial I’m beginning to get all too familiar with as well. Hang in there.
Uncle Cosmo
Which they proved en masse this last primary season by going ga-ga for one of another of those candidates who were then decisively rejected by the Democratic electorate as a whole.
At least yinz have had sense enough to rally ’round Joe. (After whining loud & long that “he wasn’t my first or second or nth choice” – as if that were some blue badge of political sophistication, not a confession of utter inability to understand the 99.9% of the electorate that just isn’t like you but gets just as many votes per capita as you do.)
It reminds me of the sentiment famously** attributed to Churchill, that “the Americans” would always do the right thing after exhausting all the alternatives.
**And wrongly – apparently the first appearance owed to Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban in 1967. You could look it up.
piratedan
@Geminid: to speak to AZ politics, 2016 was apparently a last hurrah for the conservatives here, elections in 2018 started to show the trend and the polling in 2020 appears to confirm it.
In regards to McSally and how she is doing… the answer is its kind of complicated… in short, she was presented originally as a moderate Republican when sold as a congressional candidate here in Southern AZ where she got her start. She’s drifted considerably more to the right and was one of the GOP Congressional influencers in leading the charge to gut the ACA when the GOP held the house.
When Flake left office, she ran to fill his seat and stepped off with a bunch of local ads trying to portray herself as a moderate again and how she would protect people with pre-existing conditions. Sinema trotted out ads in reponse showing her positions and votes to be a lie when compared to her campaign. Then McSally pivoted to a character based campaign that turned off a significant portion of libertarian types. So she lost, unexpectedly, in a close race. At the same time McCain passed, and the governor could have chosen to take his seat himself (and he was and continues to be wildly unqualified for it) and instead of offering it to Cindy McCain (who I believed politely would have refused and maybe they knew this), he turned to the GOp congressional contingent… of which you have Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar of being representative of that group who are clearly batshit insane. So he turned to McSally, thinking that she lost a close election, maybe she can show how effective a legislator she really is and will have the benefit of incumbency and she’s a nice female military token that they can trot out upon need.
Fast forward to this year… McSally is still trotting out lies in her campaign ads and this time she’s running against Kelly who also has the unspoken Giffords legacy behind him (assume you know about the Gabby Giffords story) and he’s an astronaut and he does not come across as a “wild eyed radical”. McSally had her lies called out again, plus some awful statements made on the record about what she was doing during the pandemic and has also tried to smear Kelly’s character.
Currently on the last polling by Fox News, she’s down by 17.
Biden is up on Trump between 8 and 9 here as well…
Miss Bianca
@Omnes Omnibus: Also a fine choice. But, as you say…there are many fine candidates.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@catclub: That was here in LA, it was on the news every night for years.
Betty Cracker
@Uncle Cosmo: You know whom “the Democratic electorate as a whole” rejected with extreme fucking prejudice a few years back? Your friend Martin O’Malley. That doesn’t make “the Democratic electorate as a whole” wise or foolish or whatever. Sometimes “the Democratic electorate as a whole” is an ass — in 1988 and 2004 it sure was, IMO. The people have spoken, the bastards.
Miss Bianca
@Uncle Cosmo: You know, your tirelessly self-righteous hectoring and abuse of the jackaltariat both jointly and severally has become a real PITA.
ETA: If we all disgust you so damn much, what are you still hanging around for?
StringOnAStick
@Betty Cracker: I’m sorry you’re dealing with it too. It sucks. It pulls at my heart that he sometimes sounds so desperate and alone, but he’s more than capable of switching in an instant into the abusive asshole he’s always been. I’m thankful my older half sister is there and without her time and attention he’d be in a nursing home now; she and her Southern Baptist “brain” says “it’s an honour” . I can’t wait to move out of this state and get farther away from my family. Soon. Too bad where we’re planning on going is generally on fire.
different-church-lady
@Uncle Cosmo:
For what it’s worth, I think a lot of the folks who didn’t have enough of that kind of sense in 2016 no longer hang around in these parts. Hopefully that’s also a reflection of the electorate as a whole.
different-church-lady
@Miss Bianca: You have to forgive him, he’s very busy shouting at people who aren’t here anymore.
Kay
@Dan B:
There was a big effort a couple of years ago in NW Ohio to “crack down” on sex trafficking with minors- they were primarily girls, and they were working out of truck stops. It started as law enforcement, bust up the sex trafficking ring, but it ran right into reality, which is the girls aren’t “trafficked” by others, there is no “ring”. It’s just girls who have sex for money because they have no other way to survive. For one thing they’re 15 and 16 and 17 and what that means is they are essentially “undocumented” they live in a underground, cash economy because they can’t function as minors in a world that requires “an adult” to make transactions like renting somewhere to live, etc. It sort of devolved into “bring in the social workers and see if we can place these people somewhere they’ll stay until they’re 18”, which is how almost all of these cases end up. People want to think it’s some pimp with rings on his fingers, criminal masterminds, but it’s just displaced teenagers trying to survive. There’s no one to arrest.
Omnes Omnibus
@Betty Cracker: So who would have been better in in 1988 and 2004? Just a historical question, not trying to pick a fight.
Betty Cracker
@Omnes Omnibus: I was for Howard Dean in 2004. It seems to quaint to recall the disqualifying “scream” these days, huh? In 1988 I was still in college and too drunk and stoned to pay much attention to primary politics, but Dukakis? Jesus, there had to be someone better running!
catclub
Joe Biden, Gary Hart, Al Gore?
Omnes Omnibus
@catclub: Biden blew up. Hart was interesting until he dared the media to find him fooling around with women and then folled around with a woman on a boat called “Monkey Business.” Gore wasn’t ready yet. Duke looks bad in retrospect, but it was Bush’s race to lose and he didn’t.
Dan B
@Kay: Good to hear that common sense prevailed despite the “common” perception of our American strain of Calvinism.
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: I love Preet, but he is not partisan enough for me, which probably means he would be a great choice for the job.
WaterGirl
@StringOnAStick: That’s a complicated set of emotions. Families. sigh.
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus:
I laughed. Sounds to me like Hart wasn’t ready yet, either! :-)
patroclus
@Dan B: The American strain of religion most closely tied to John Calvin is the liberal Presbyterian Church of the USA – we have gay pastors, build hospitals, support schools and routinely help the needy in our local communities; focusing, like Calvin, on doing good works. As per Calvin, we democratically elect our leaders and meet annually in a General Assembly where we debate all issues in accordance with faith tempered by reason. It’s not surprising that non-sex trafficking was viewed as non-sex trafficking by us at all.
SFBayAreaGal
@germy:
Thank you
@Ohio Mom: Thank you. I miss both of them.
ballerat
@Bruuuuce: To hell with that. I want a deep cold grave waiting there.
That would be the best possible outcome for this country.
Think about it. About what you know he will do and continue to do for years post-election if he loses. He will do everything he can to make this country ungovernable. To continue to undermine every expert and every measure to deal with covid.
The best outcome is if he just keels over from a massive stroke after losing.
The best as in most fitting is if he succumbs to covid-19.