Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

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

Come on, man.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

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

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

The GOP couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

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

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

T R E 4 5 O N

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

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

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

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

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

The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

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

You are here: Home / Past Elections / 2020 Elections / Saturday Morning Open Thread: Compare & Contrast

Saturday Morning Open Thread: Compare & Contrast

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I love autumn, as a season, but this year November can’t come soon enough.

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96Comments

  3. 3.

    MagdaInBlack

    Biden: being real, showing compassion, making a personal connection. What a concept. Thank you, AL. I needed that.

  8. 8.

    geg6

    I need to see more Biden. He seems to calm the rage I am walking around with every minute of every day. He’s just so decent, a thing we’ve seen so little of over these past four years.

  10. 10.

    SFAW

    @geg6:

    And now the Murderer-in-Chief is trying to push a lie about drug use by Biden, apparently because Biden’s so old and feeble that he couldn’t string two words together — let alone two sentences — without some sort of pharmaceutical enhancement.

    As always: every accusation is a confession with that evil mofo.

  11. 11.

    donnah

    There was also a news item yesterday where Biden went back to see the Shanksville. PA firefighters after being there in 2012. He promised them then that he’d bring them beer, and yesterday he showed up with cartons of beer for them. You can call it a campaign stunt, but I call it being a good guy.

    And taking a moment to comfort a still-grieving mother is also showing his kindness and ability to empathize. We need that as a nation. I trust Joe to be that guy all of the time, not just for the camera.

  13. 13.

    MomSense

    @geg6:
    I feel the same way. The rage is always there ready to burst out of me. I don’t have adequate words to express the anguish and fury that I feel. It’s not just trump, his disgusting family, and members of his administration. It includes all the enablers. Why isn’t Pence being followed every minute of every day by journalists asking him why he went along with the lies and the politicization of the pandemic response? Why aren’t they following McConnell and every GOP member of Congress and not letting them get away with saying they haven’t listened to the recordings?
    Unless they prove otherwise, my honest opinion is that Trump has been very good for the “news” business and they want to ride this as long as they can.

  14. 14.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @SFAW: I saw that and it infuriated me. Even worse, junior is making the same accusation. A related claim is that Biden is using a teleprompter even when he answers press questions. Or he has the questions ahead of time.

    I’ve seen all those. I’m waiting for the claim that he has an earpiece and someone (possibly AOC) is whispering answers to him.

  15. 15.

    FelonyGovt

    The rage is there for me too. We have to hope enough people are outside the vicious Fox News bubble and can see the fact that Biden is a capable and decent person.

  16. 16.

    debbie

    @MomSense:

    You think you got rage? Aside from my Trump rage, I just found out my nephew (23-year-old son of the brother who voted for Trump and who I haven’t spoken to since the election) has a very rare form of cancer. I really don’t want to talk about this, other than to say I’m even enraged at my laundry these days.

  17. 17.

    OzarkHillbilly

    I saw this yesterday and it really pissed me off: Federal court rules Florida felons must pay off debts to state before voting

    Reading it again this morn and it pisses me off even more:

    Even though Florida requires people with felonies to repay financial obligations before they can vote, figuring out how much they owe is often impossible, even for state officials. There is no centralized place to look up how much someone owes. Some criminal sentences are from decades ago and record-keeping of court payments is often shoddy. Local clerks testified during a trial in May that there are often conflicting amounts in records.

    But in an extraordinary determination, the 11th circuit said on Friday that while Florida could require payment to vote, it had no obligation to tell people with felonies how much they owed. Florida does not have a constitutional obligation to provide that information to voters, Judge William Pryor wrote for the majority. The 11th circuit is one of three appellate courts the Trump has recently flipped to have a majority of Republican-appointed judges. Five of the six judges in Friday’s decision were Trump appointees. (the 6th was appointed by W. -OH)

    The logic behind this… I just can’t imagine what pretzel of reasoning they followed to come to this conclusion.

    But in a lengthy dissent, Judge Adalberto Jordan wrote that people with felony convictions might not vote because they feared being eventually found ineligible and prosecuted.

    “The fact that Florida had restored voting rights to 0 felons as of the time of trial indicates that this scheme does not ‘rationally’ further the goal of re-enfranchising felons,” he wrote. “Instead, it shows that Florida’s organs of government are doing their best to slowly but surely suffocate Amendment 4. I doubt that today’s decision – which blesses Florida’s neutering of Amendment 4 – will be viewed as kindly by history,” he added.

    Thank you Judge Jordan, but it’s mission accomplished. Society (in the embodiment of these assholes) has decided that there are those who must be permanently sentenced to the basement where they may toil in anonymity but can never leave and certainly never speak.

  18. 18.

    germy

    BREAKING: Gov. Newsom signs law allowing inmate firefighters in California to have records expunged, clearing the way for them to become professional firefighters once they are released from prison.

    — Ashley Zavala (@ZavalaA) September 11, 2020

  20. 20.

    PST

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: I’m with you on worrying about Joe out in public. It’s a shame he can’t really do much of that thing he does best. But his absolute number one priority has to be staying alive and healthy. Honestly, if he does that I think everything will fall into place. Number two is killing in the debates. In a way, it’s to his advantage that he can’t be on the road on an exhausting round of speeches and fundraisers every day. Addressing crowds isn’t his strong suit anyway. Better he save his strength and prepare for the confrontations with Trump. That’s about the only thing that might still change a few minds.

  21. 21.

    Chyron HR

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    A related claim is that Biden is using a teleprompter even when he answers press questions.

    These are the same people who think CNN gave Clinton “the answers to the debate questions”.

  22. 22.

    MagdaInBlack

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    With regard to your final comment, we’ve always had that and we are ingenious in finding ways of maintaining it.

    Have you read Isabel Wilkersons ” Caste” yet?  Reading it was a series of AHA! moments. It explains this too, for me at least.

  24. 24.

    trnc

    @MomSense: Scott Jennings is an NC gop hack who was interviewed about NC voting this morning. He made a pretty noise about how DT should not be holding rallies with no one masked, then said the dems are hypocrites for protests without masks. I missed a bit, so maybe the interviewed pointed out that most protestors have been masked and Biden doesn’t have control over protests like DT does over the rallies.

    Jennings was asked about DT knowing back in Feb about the virus, then spread the gop canon that Pelosi, Fauci and Biden also were discouraging mask wearing. The interviewer rightly pointed out that they were operating on the info they had at the time which was provided by the administration, but unfortunately failed to mention that there was a mask shortage due to DT’s ineptitude, and Fauci explicitly said to save masks for health workers because there was a shortage.

    So, while I think some of the journalism is just wired for republicans, I also think they are often just not as prepared as they should be. Of course, that could be on purpose.

  25. 25.

    Cameron

    @OzarkHillbilly: The reasoning is straight out of Kafka: “You must pay your debt.”  “Alright, how much do I owe?”  “We don’t know.  You’ll have to figure it out.”  “If I don’t know I owe anything, why can’t I vote?”  “Because if it turns out later that you did owe something, we’ll charge you with voter fraud.”

  27. 27.

    trnc

    @OzarkHillbilly: This won’t improve your mood – if I understand correctly, the legislature dumped a proposal to put the onus on the state to come up with an amount owed and stick with that, which would have at least let the felon know they wouldn’t be hit with a last minute charge.

    I assume voters with outstanding misdemeanor fines like traffic tickets can vote, but I haven’t been able to figure out how to research that before having my coffee.

    Republicans are disgusting.

  31. 31.

    Sally

    @Cameron: IMHO, aside from universal franchise, automatic registration, and “compulsory voting “, I believe that no one should lose their right to vote. Ever. That would make it all so much simpler. And right. I am an absolutist on this, though I know it’s not a popular position to take. Having everyone vote goes a long way towards reducing the extremism we get when it’s mainly the passionate ideologues who vote. There should be, in any society, so few (less?) prisoners that they are an insignificant proportion of the voting population. They never cease to be citizens.

  33. 33.

    Baud

    NYT

    Trump Onslaught Against Biden Falls Short of a Breakthrough

     

    President Trump has leveled scathing law-and-order attacks on Joseph Biden for weeks. But a new poll shows Mr. Biden ahead in three states Mr. Trump hopes to pick up, and maintaining a lead in Wisconsin.

  35. 35.

    Steeplejack

    @zhena gogolia:

    I’ve been pruning old Balloon Juice tabs from my browser, and I saw your question about old New York Times crosswords. You can get a subscription to only the crosswords ($19.97 a year), or, if you have a full NYT subscription (which I believe you do, or used to), you can find the puzzle archive here.

  36. 36.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    Today is my 57th day in a row of doing Duolingo Spanish. Sometimes it makes me laugh. Here’s what I got this morning.

    Quién no es simpático en tu familia? (Who is not nice in your family?)

    Not answering that one, Duolingo.

  38. 38.

    Steeplejack

    @zhena gogolia:

    Brian Williams had Snowden on his show last night, live from Moscow. I didn’t watch the whole thing and missed the job offer, but Williams seemed unusually friendly with Snowden and basically gave him free screen time.

  39. 39.

    germy

    @Baud:  I watched the PBS show Washington Week last night.

    The moderator said it was a “tight race” between Biden and Trump.

  41. 41.

    H.E.Wolf

    @trnc: @OzarkHillbilly: This won’t improve your mood – if I understand correctly, the legislature dumped a proposal to put the onus on the state to come up with an amount owed and stick with that, which would have at least let the felon know they wouldn’t be hit with a last minute charge.

    This news actually does improve my mood somewhat… because it implies that seating more liberal state legislators in place of those who voted “no” (in committee or in a full vote) could result in passage of that law.

    When state and national legislatures flip from majority Republican to majority Democratic, better laws – from our perspective – go into effect.

  43. 43.

    Kay

    @germy:

    It is KIND of tight. I think they can plausibly say that if it’s w/in 5 and some swing states will be w/in 5.

    I’m just wary of their analysis on law n order because they so clearly were invested in law n order working. I don’t know why they do that. Why is it so hard to say they don’t know?  Once they’re invested in it they have a LOT of difficulty analyzing it because it often involves backtracking on over-confident pronouncements they themselves made. Just back off! Keep yourselves out of it!

  47. 47.

    germy

    @rikyrah:

    “Guess how many jellybeans are in this jar.”

    “One hundred?”

    “Wrong!”

    “Oh.  Okay, how many are there?”

    “We don’t know!”

  48. 48.

    MomSense

    @Steeplejack:

    Snowjob’s response to Russian interference was to say all countries engage in disinformation.  He went on to say that if the intent is to create division and partisanship than the worst way to respond is to to get all lathered up.  It sounded like he thinks we should just ignore it.

  50. 50.

    Sloane Ranger

    Looking at the video of Biden talking to the 90yo woman, I couldn’t help but notice that she didn’t seem to be wearing her mask properly. It seemed to be covering her mouth but leaving her nostrils free. Of course, this just could have been the angle it was taken from, or the woman could have breathing issues and been advised by a doctor to keep her airways clear but I worry when he gets up close with anyone who isn’t masked properly. Actually, I worry when he gets close with anyone, period.

    Liberal democracy everywhere is dependent on this man winning in November.

    On a different note and please don’t take this the wrong way, but I wonder about the Biden family dynamics. He always talks about Beau, never about Hunter or his daughter. I know that it is a great tragedy for a father to outlive a son but, even so, I do wonder if his living children feel ignored or undermined for not living up to their brother’s legacy.

  51. 51.

    Michael Cain

    @Ohio Mom: My understanding — I’m not making excuses, just stating what I understand to be facts on the ground — is that particularly for old cases there were only paper records, many of which have been misplaced over the years.  As the state legislature apparently didn’t see fit to provide funds (or assign responsibility), different parts of the state and different counties are having to figure out how to go through records and get the necessary information as a side job.  Hence the state’s claim that it will be 2025 or 2026 before the task is “finished.”

  53. 53.

    Steeplejack

    Just saw this during the Tour de France:

    Shep Smith, late of Fox, is joining CNBC. Show starts September 30.

  55. 55.

    TS (the original)

    @Steeplejack:

    You can get a subscription to only the crosswords ($19.97 a year),

    Slightly off topic, I have a subscription to the Washington Post for less than that per year. Watch for specials. I thought it was a special just for 1 year but every year it gets renewed at the same price.

  58. 58.

    Steeplejack

    @germy:

    I saw that part. Didn’t construe it as a job offer, if that’s what Wokyleeks is suggesting. Did construe it as BriWi being repellently jokey and friendly with Snowden.

  60. 60.

    ThresherK

    @rikyrah: Yup, and I’ve read that this is on the county level. That’s 67 little martinet Boss Hoggs delaying shit to even come up with a number for people to pay.

    (I’m a lifelong CT resident, so maybe it’s me, but: This is another example about how county-based government sucks.)

  61. 61.

    SFAW

    Maybe I’m conflating two (or more) stories, but wasn’t LeBron trying to do something about helping the FL ex-felons vis-a-vis their poll tax payoff? If that’s the case, I would hope that some of his helpers would get a bunch of workers with checkbooks to accompany ex-felons when they try to pay off the FL State Mafia. [Yeah, I expect there would be logistical problems, and I have no idea if the FL Lege included wording to prevent third-party assistance.]

  62. 62.

    JMG

    It is NOT, as of today, a tight race. Biden is ahead by a significant if not insurmountable margin. It COULD bcomee a tight race, sure. Trump still has a non-zero chance of winning and there are two months to go. But to say it’s tight is projection. Like most Washington elite reporters, Costa WANTS a tight race because that draws more interest to his work and also allows for better both-sidesing. Note: this is such an unconscious bias on the part of these reporters they get angry when it’s pointed out. “No way I, a fearless Washington journalist, would left self-interest color my judgment, unlike everybody else associated with politics.”

  64. 64.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @SFAW:

    LeBron James did start a fund to help ex-felons pay, but the problem is that Florida officials can’t tell the ex-felons how much they owe. So it doesn’t do you much good to show up with your checkbook or anybody else’s.

  66. 66.

    Betty Cracker

    @H.E.Wolf: Democrats in the Florida Statehouse face the exact same structural disadvantage Democrats at the federal level face in Congress. Low-population wingnut counties are over-represented. IIRC, the Dems haven’t held the statehouse since the Dixiecrat days.

    If we elect a Democratic governor, I guess we’ll have more options, but I’m not sure how he or she could address the poll tax. Pardoning ex-felons en masse is a risky business. I’m not sure what else can be done.

  67. 67.

    Jeffro

    Sigh…my mom is busy bemoaning renamings of buildings and schools this morning, as if it is the end of civilization, as if we only learn history from going from statue to statue and memorizing building names, as if racists and Confederate generals should be honored until the end of time.

    It gets SO OLD

  70. 70.

    Jay Noble

    @OzarkHillbilly: If they insist that there is a debt, they must produce the the paper trail. That’s what tripped up the banks in the mortgage crisis. And also applies to to credit card debt.

  72. 72.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @debbie:

    I have a subscription to the Times crosswords. There is a site somewhere that has a Times crossword every day, just not the current one. Can’t remember what it is, though. I don’t have the link on this new computer. Seattle Times, maybe?

  74. 74.

    bluefoot

    @SFAW: Bloomberg could do it as a way to make good on his promise to help if he dropped out of the race.  He’s been radio silent….It’s almost as if running was a vanity power grab for him.  Who would have thought?

  76. 76.

    Roger Moore

    @JMG:

    Biden is ahead by a significant if not insurmountable margin. It COULD bcomee a tight race, sure.

    If it could become a tight race, then Biden’s lead is far from insurmountable.  I think that’s the only sense in which the race is really tight: Biden has a substantial lead, but it’s small enough that Trump could conceivably come back.  I’ll feel a lot more comfortable if Biden can keep his current lead (or more) for the next month.

  77. 77.

    SFAW

    Not that I think it would do any good, but could the decision be appealed to SCOTUS, on the “grounds” that FL is unable to tell the ex-felons how much they owe, therefore the attempted-voters are unable to pay off their debts, therefore the law cannot be complied with and is left up the the “judgment” of the (possibly discriminatory) officials?

    Obviously, I am not a lawyer of any type, etc., etc. But as Cameron and Steep have noted, the Catch-22 nature of the law’s “implementation” is pretty much the same as the “literacy” tests that used to be applied before the VRA.

  79. 79.

    Roger Moore

    @Jay Noble:

    If they insist that there is a debt, they must produce the the paper trail.

    The problem is they can prosecute someone for voting illegally even if they don’t come up with the paper trail until after the person has voted.  That’s understandably enough to scare people away from even trying.

  80. 80.

    Betty Cracker

    @Sloane Ranger: I didn’t know Biden had a daughter with Jill until I watched the convention, and I’ve followed politics pretty closely for many years now. That said, I do tend to tune out the family stuff from any politician unless it’s directly relevant, e.g., Trump’s grifting spawn, so maybe that’s why I missed it.

    It used to annoy me that Biden focuses on his family backstory so much. But it seems to be compelling to other voters, and I’m in favor of whatever works.

  85. 85.

    Kirk Spencer

    @Roger Moore: Agree, and I know the 11th allegedly considered this, but to me that part smacks of ex post facto, and that is constitutionally prohibited.

    (for the pedants, I know constitution ex post facto applies to making laws themselves. I said it smacks of, not is.)

  86. 86.

    cain

    @SFAW:

    May he find himself in the mountains of afghanistan – surrounded by the elements and forced to subsist on water, boiled roots, and hate.

  87. 87.

    Ruckus

    @Ohio Mom:

    Even if they were some of the money owed goes back a long time and so the rate would be different. Plus not keeping records means that someone can never really know if they paid it all off and the state can keep saying you own more. It is a way to never allow a violator to pay back the “debt” to society. Spend 1 yr or 10 yrs or however long in jail, serve your judicially allotted time and yet never become a citizen again. Along with many sentences which are far longer than the crime should require because CRIME, it creates a class of people who are disenfranchised for life. Gives those “tough on crime” politicians another bullshit talking point. And makes a mockery of ever having the idea that a mistake can be rectified by jail. And of course given that minorities seem to be over represented in the criminal system…..

    Sorry, this is a particular point with me, that the law is not just unfair but is made more so just by pompous asses parading around as upholders of truth and justice. This country has always had a seemingly decent character, on top of slavery, hate, pompous arrogance, and inequality. For an example, Jeffery Epstein. Or djshitforbrains, or the Mercers who owe what 7 billion in taxes, or Falwell, or….

  88. 88.

    jeffreyw

    @cain:

    When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains,
    And the women come out to cut up what remains,
    Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
    An’ go to your Gawd like a soldier.

  89. 89.

    Sloane Ranger

    @Jeffro: I internalised the fact that the Trump family are a bunch of disfunctional grifters years ago (the family that preys together stays together) so I accept it and move on. I’m not spending time on Biden family dynamics, I just wonder occasionally about his relationship with his other children, that’s all!

  90. 90.

    J R in WV

    @germy:

    Some people (Brian Williams) are actually still suckered into the belief that Snowden was actually working as a journalist when he dumped CIA data into the hands of the Russians. I don’t know what Snowden thought he was doing, but it wasn’t journalism.

    I’m usually “information wants to be free” central, but there are limits.

  92. 92.

    Gvg

    @Heidi Mom: Dead family members don’t have real needs for privacy and voters have always kind of needed the empathy for tragedy that Joe had. It’s a part he is expected to keep playing, especially if after Trump the Vogon. What we hear in the news might not be how things are in the real living family. The living children might not want the spotlight. I would hate it myself.

  93. 93.

    Ella in New Mexico

    @germy: seriously seems like Baby Don himself is totally on something in that video…his hands are so shaky I doubt he could even sign a fake ballot once, much less twice ;-)

    I can’t get over how he and the Trump Humper Immediate Family crowd without permanent paying gigs have decided it’s their next career move to be constantly out there, on some shitty home-made medium, desperately performing in a year-long audition to take over Rush Limbaugh’s little piece of the RW airwaves after he finally croaks…

    I can’t stop laughing at him, either. He’s so fricking canned. Nothing original in that schtick.

  94. 94.

    dnfree

    @Steeplejack: have you done The Atlantic crosswords?  I can do Monday and Tuesday, sometimes Wednesday, seldom Thursday or Friday. They’re small but fun. I guess they have a new more difficult  one on Sunday.

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