I’m Joe Biden and I approve this message. pic.twitter.com/TuRZXPE5xK
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) September 20, 2020
The Very Serious Media is bored with Trump.
All Trump rally speeches should be covered exactly like this ?(genius). https://t.co/1HuvzhELaM
— Greg Jaffe (@GregJaffe) September 20, 2020
The Very Serious Republicans are (now) appalled by Trump.
Celebrating the injury of a journalist who was not breaking the law but rather covering a significant national news story is not "law and order." It's cruelty and malice.
But that's the point, isn't it? https://t.co/9dTK9Qmwfi
— David French (@DavidAFrench) September 19, 2020
Let’s kick his sorry arse to the curb!
Good morning. We're in the last gasp of minority rule. In 2021, we will fix the democracy the GOP has broken: a modern, expanded Court, an end to the Jim Crow relic filibuster, a Right to Vote const amendment and statehood. A republic if we can keep it. 1st stop: flip the Senate.
— Heather McGhee (@hmcghee) September 19, 2020
debbie
That synopsis is exhausting just to read. Major props to Daniel Dale for always making it understandable!
pat
Got my absentee ballot in the mail yesterday. Will fill it out in the local Town Hall and have it witnessed by one of the employees there, and leave it.
I live in fear of what will happen in the next several weeks, right up to January 21.
PsiFighter37
New WSJ/NBC poll has Biden up 8 (51-43). No complaints from me. If I had to game out election results right now, I think that kind of national margin puts us at a 335-203 EV margin (we win AZ, NE-02, NC and FL and all the ‘Blue Wall’ Rust Belt states). Tip it another couple points, and I think we can nudge that up to 375 (add in IA, OH and GA). If it’s north of double digits, that will get us over 400 EVs (because I think we win TX in that scenario)
For the Senate, I think am feeling confident about ME, CO, AZ and NC; we will lose AL despite Tuberville being a complete moron because Alabama is a state populated with too many retrograde Neanderthals. That puts us at a 50-50 split…that said, I think Iowa is a dark horse for us. Selzer’s latest poll still has Greenfield up 3 over Ernst. It would be great if we can take Iowa and then grab an upset from one of SC / KS / AK to give us some buffer. I think SC is the likeliest to flip, just given how much of a groveler Leningrad Lindsey has been the past few years. Even the genteel Republicans in-state have to look at him and wonder when he took to bootlicking so fervently.
OzarkHillbilly
My wife left her car at our local mechanic and tire shop for new set of rubbers yester morn. Afterwards we went to McD’s for some grab and go b’fast. They had quite a line of course and while waiting I looked in my side view mirror and noticed a woman smiling in our general direction. Looked away for a few seconds and when I looked back I realized she was looking directly at me with a big grin on her face. Then, barely loud enough for me to hear she said, “Biden/Harris” and I realized she was enamored with the death count and Ue ticker I have on my truck. I smiled and waved back to her.
First time I’ve gotten any feedback on it since I put them up 4 months ago. Nice that it was positive. It won’t surprise me if as we get closer to the election I get more and more negative responses.
pat
@pat:
I have to add that I also fear what will happen after January 21. Even if (please please FSM) Joe and Kamala take over.
Oh, and I live in Wisconsin. Where we do not have that greenie nut on the ballot, thank goodness.
p.a.
Who can make the request for international/UN election oversight? Asking for a friend?
Mousebumples
My ballot is officially in the mail, on its way to me. Hopefully it’ll arrive tomorrow. If it’s not here by Friday, I’ll be calling my Clerk to ask about my options.
24/7 ballot drop box is where it’s going once I have it completed. Taking no risks with mail delivery back to the Clerk.
mrmoshpotato
@OzarkHillbilly:
Condom car!
OzarkHillbilly
@mrmoshpotato: You just never know what you might catch when having road sex.
Quinerly
JoJo is very vocal about a walk. I’ll leave this here for now. Posted upstairs. Curious if anyone has any personal experience with People of Praise. Will check back later:
I spent about an hr yesterday reading up on this People of Praise that Amy Coney Barrett is involved in. Seems very cultish to me. Would love to see a post on it. I must have been traveling/something… Remember when she was nominated to the 7th Circuit by Trump. Don’t remember too much mention of this fringy sounding Catholic group. Anybody know anything personally about it? Read the Wiki page, couple of articles from 2017.
germy
@Quinerly:
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2020/09/how-the-right-wing-legal-machine-actually-works
This link is more about the other cult she belongs to, The Federalist Society, but it’s still interesting reading.
MomSense
@OzarkHillbilly:
Yesterday I drove my son an hour north on route 1 and he started giving the finger to every trump sign we passed. I joined in and it was quite satisfying.
pat
Oh great another religious nut. Don’t we have enough Catholics already on the court?
Remember the controversy over Kennedy and his Catholicism?
Sheesh.
germy
@MomSense: Okay, but be careful out there. If you progress from signs to trucks with bumper stickers, they might run you off the road or worse.
Kathleen
@p.a.: I totally agree. Can’t Jimmy Carter wrangle the folks with whom he’s monitored elections? How can we be a self respecting third world banana republic if we can’t have our elections monitored?//
Nicole
Postcardstovoters approved even my chicken scrawl handwriting yesterday (I’m a lefty; it’s harder for us!) so tomorrow I go buy a slew of postcards at the PO to start work. I’m anxious about November- not the voting; I think Biden has it, but GOP shenanigans to nullify it frighten me- but this makes me feel like I’m channeling my anxiety into something productive.
One of the Twitter threads I read in the throes of despair on Friday talked about the importance of finding something every day that gives you joy, even just briefly, so you don’t get too depressed over the next couple of months, since depression makes it hard to act. I’m taking the advice. Last year for my birthday, my husband bought me a 7/8 size guitar (suitable for my little squirrel paws) and he has taken it on himself to learn bass (he already plays guitar quite nicely, I, as a beginner, do not- I tried years ago, but gave up in frustration. A better sized guitar makes a difference, for sure). We had much joy attempting some 80s songs together on each of our respective very steep learning curves.
What do you do for joy?
Betty Cracker
@Quinerly: Read enough about PoP when Barrett was on the short list before to know we don’t want a kook like that on the court. Trump is a moron, but if there’s anyone on his team with third grade-level strategic smarts, they’ll nominate Barbara Lagoa, a Cuban-American wingnut recently appointed to the 11th circuit court, instead. They could drag out confirmation until the lame-duck session, which could help them in Florida. I don’t know if it would help them enough — I don’t think so, personally — but they’ve got to win FL or they’re toast, and right now, they’re losing.
Quinerly
@pat: remember it well. Grew up in the South. Southerners were very suspicious of Catholics. (sadly, my father held a deep seeded prejudice against Catholics but held his nose and voted for Kennedy. Plus, my dad adored Jesuit (educators! Science!) , saying they really aren’t that Catholic and there would never be a Jesuit Pope… Yes, I know.)
I grew up hearing from people around me that any Catholic politician/judge would take his marching orders straight from the Pope. Still lots of suspicion in the South of Catholics.
Kathleen
@pat: There is a group of billionaire Catholics who wants to establish a radical right Catholic nation. Having been raised and educated for 17 years in Catholic schools I find that terrifying. (Though on balance I received an excellent education and have no traumatic memories other than 17 years of guilt being pounded into me.) I remember the pre Vatican II church and it was ugly.
OzarkHillbilly
@MomSense: If I did that my FU finger would probably freeze permanently in the upright position.
Kathleen
@Quinerly: My dad graduated from Creighton University in Omaha (Jesuit) and he adored Jesuits also. He was very proud of having a Jesuit education as they’re known for their rigorous scholarship. He was probably the first O’Neill in our line to graduate from college (his dad immigrated from Ireland and dropped out of school in the 8th grade in the US). My mom and dad started saving for my college when I was a baby, which I imagine was a rarity for parents of a girl born in 1949.
Quinerly
@Betty Cracker: yep. Of Elian Gonzalez fame.
I see Trump focusing on Barrett though. A real in your face move. Plus, Axios reported awhile back and on the record that Trump said he was saving Barrett for RBG’s seat. I think the quote was pre Kavanaugh.
evodevo
Lemme tell ya, I am personally cognizant of David French, via interactions many years ago (late Nineties)…and when you’ve lost the loyalty of a talibangelical like French, well…..
Quinerly
@Kathleen: ?
Creighton is a good school. I graduated from Saint Louis University Law School… Jesuit. Several classmates had gone to Creighton. My mom teased my dad in 1982 when I chose SLU out of the blue about his anti Catholic screeds years earlier. He laughed and said, “But it’s Jesuit… And they are giving her money to go.” (SLU was broadening ing its base at the time and as my dad said at the time, “they probably have never had a beach girl from NC.” ?)
OzarkHillbilly
Having gone to parochial schools thru the 6th grade, I can’t say as I blame them.
H.E.Wolf
I, too, have found that joining in with the many people who are doing something concrete to help has lifted my spirits and strengthened my determination to keep working through – and after – the election.
There are small tasks, big tasks, and minuscule tasks (my favorite). It’s possible to work while fearful. It’s possible that the work itself will lessen one’s fear. Either way, it will help others and ourselves.
Congrats to Nicole from another postcard writer, and good wishes to pat that a task that lifts your spirits will be available if searched for. To both of you: your help is so much appreciated! Thank you!
NotMax
Lazyish weekend respitey open thread? Cool.
File under Things Which Never Caught On.
;)
Nicole
@Quinerly:
I had a friend in Florida who refused to believe Catholics are Christian. I suspect, as she had no problem voting for Trump, a twice-divorced adulterer (she told me she thought him in the White House would be a fun roller-coaster ride), that her opinions of Catholics in government are considerably more accommodating, as long as they are hurting the people she likes to see hurt.
germy
debbie
@germy:
Ivanka. All of her.
mrmoshpotato
@OzarkHillbilly: That seductive, seductive road.
pat
I will be writing postcards for a conservation group. Expect 25 to be delivered, along with addresses and some instructions, in the next few days.
NotMax
@OzarkHillbilly
Yield When Merging.
;)
Quinerly
@OzarkHillbilly: 99% of my exes all went to Catholic grade schools and Catholic HSs. I understand completely. ?
Quinerly
@Nicole: sounds about right.
p.a.
My mom was a regular Sunday Catlick churchgoer, Catholic school into 12th grade (dropped out), but when Catholic high school became an option for me was: no way, nope, not gonna happen. No explanation. ?
Geminid
@Quinerly: I have been suspicious of the Jesuits ever since I read that it was a Jesuit who introduce the ailanthus tree to the U.S. Ostensibly for tanning hides. Now, I’m not saying it was the Jesuits. But it was a Jesuit.
Quinerly
OK, found it. Not exactly what I had remembered but pretty damn close. From 5/2019: “I’m saving her for Ginsburg,” Trump said of Barrett, according to three sources familiar with the president’s private comments. Trump used that exact line with a number of people, including in a private conversation with an adviser two days before announcing Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination.
https://www.axios.com/supreme-court-trump-judge-amy-barrett-ruth-bader-ginsburg-11d25276-a92e-4094-8958-eb2d197707c8.html
Quinerly
@Geminid: ?
Ken
@Geminid: #NotAllJesuits
Betty
@p.a.: It has no legal effect. Trump and co. would not care about their critique.
Hoodie
Going to lunch with in-laws today, including Trump voting father-in-law and brother-in-law. I normally avoid politics with these guys, but considering making a last pitch to them to vote Biden. Brother-in-law’s Korean American wife is heading to Mayo Clinic next week for cardiac surgery she may not survive because of rare hematological condition. I think he’s very scared she won’t make it. Father-in-law is in end stage renal disease and lives on dialysis. I think he’s very aware of his mortality as his wife slips into Alzheimer’s. Both guys are huge beneficiaries of the welfare state, namely prohibition of lifetime caps (BIL) and federally subsidized hemodialysis (FIL).
Yeah, I know. The thought of trying one last time to get them to see the light after BIL made light snark about healthcare as a right. I think we might be more effective in framing this in terms of responsibility, i.e., that healthcare is our responsibility to one another. The pandemic has reinforced this, e.g., wearing a mask is our responsibility to one another so we can all live something approaching a normal life. Framing that way highlight the selfishness of not wearing one.
So the pitch is that you should vote for Biden because he is the candidate of responsibility. Trump is the candidate of selfishness. I don’t harbor any illusions thus will sway them, but I guess it’s my responsibility to try.
Kathleen
@Quinerly: I was ready to go to Loyola in Chicago (we lived in St. Paul) but at the last minute got a scholarship from the University of Portland (Oregon), who was recruiting students from the Midwest (their idea of diversity at the time).
germy
sdhays
I love that Biden tweet. Yes, please, for all that is holy, just make the piece of shit shut up and go away.
I just learned that since the Arizona Senate election is a special election, Mark Kelly will be seated in November when he beats McSally like a drum. Which means that, for the lame duck session, the Republican Senate majority will be down to 52-48. I don’t know how much that will change anything, but it’s interesting and at least has the potential to actually be hugely significant.
Quinerly
@Kathleen: ?
Quinerly
@germy: really like Frank’s writings. Heard him speak once and met him afterwards. Very arrogant and full of himself. Plus, during the question and answer portion he only called on men. Stuck with me all these years later. Audience was 75% women.
germy
This is a good video. I wish it got the same amount of airtime as the pharmaceutical ads during the nightly TV news.
germy
@Quinerly: Interesting. Sounds like he has some issues around women.
I remember when Kurt Vonnegut visited my school in the late ’70s. I’d been reading his books, so I was interested in hearing him talk and take questions. He was such a pompous asshole that it put me off his writing. And his son with the megavitamins is a dangerous quack.
WaterGirl
@sdhays: Someone speculated here yesterday that the R governor might be able to hold that up, but I don’t recall the details and do not know if he has the power to do that.
Quinerly
@germy: I have a friend who knew Frank S. from childhood. Don’t remember the exact connections. May have been a camp situation. She is from MS originally and still very good friends with him. She and her wife have a second home in Taos and he visits. I was with her at the event where he spoke. Very friendly with her. (actually he was planning his next trip to Taos ?) Very arrogant with others at the reception after.
Tony Jay
I’m liking that tweet from Heather McGee a lot. Expanding the Court(s) is seemingly becoming commonly understood wisdom on the Democratic side, and the deeper you get into the GOP push to fill Ginsberg’s seat with another radical nutter the more common sense and unremarkable it becomes. It’s the ‘un-radical’ option. The necessary fix to de-Trumpify the Judiciary that a post-Election GOP, reeling from the scale of its defeat and desperate to disentangle itself from Trump’s hyperpanicked lame-duck quacking about how his Election Night ‘victory’ is being stolen from him by millions of ‘fake’ mail-in votes, will be unable to muster a coherent argument against.
This is a very good thing. Democrats shouldn’t be embarrassed to say how and why they’re going to use their mandate to clean house, especially with McConnell kindly making a point of rubbing radical shit all over the walls for nakedly partisan ends. IMHO, of course.
Kathleen
@Quinerly: (-:
Kay
This is really smart. I was afraid they would get sidetracked by the SCOTUS and drawn into a fight on the Right’s terms so I was hoping they would stick to the issues that are being ignored by political media and Republicans, like health care, but this is even better.
They have already successfully integrated the Trump Administration’s failure on the pandemic into their health care message (the single strongest issue for Democrats) – it’s seamless- if they can make threats to health care coverage the issue with a far Right SCOTUS? Brilliant.
Democrats own health care as an issue and it is not a bad thing to own – it’s the most valuable political asset they have.
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?
@germy: Surprised to hear that about Vonnegut. The last famous author I saw in person was Richard Russo and he definitely didn’t come off as pompous or conceited.
Geminid
@sdhays: Mark Kelly and Martha McSally will have one debate, Tuesday October 6. Early voting will begin in Arizona the next day. Among others, Phoenix jazz station KJZZ will livestream it at KJZZ.org. Should be good.
kindness
Trump is becoming more and more detached from reality every day. Every day he goes a little farther out on that ledge. That something like 40% of our fellow country folk will vote for him is such a sad statement as to the Republic we are expected to keep. At this point I’m like ‘What? We have to keep it with them???’. It’s like trying to form a democracy where 1/3 of the participants are raving insane.
Quinerly
@kindness: plus, he really looks like he is about to stroke out. I went for over 6 months without looking at him. There’s a real physical change.
Kay
It’s amusing too because the “pro life” far Right have been dismissing the fact they literally do nothing for people after they are born for decades. Handwaving that away as unimportant, up to and including how they completely dismiss the 200,000 people who have died of covid. It will be delicious to turn that on them and turn their far Right judges into “the judges who want to take your healthcare away”.
“Life”. It’s a big category! The Right probably should have fleshed out their position on it a little. Lazy, lazy, lazy. Democrats can take every bit of the “life” issue other than criminalizing abortion, so, 99.9% of it.
WaterGirl
@Geminid: That one will be worth watching. Interesting that voting begins the next day.
dnfree
@Quinerly: you have 100 or more exes? Cool!
Growing up Methodist in the 1950s, we were actually given a brochure in high school warning us not to marry a Catholic. We would have to convert, obey the pope, worship saints, and if female, have lots of babies that would all be baptized Catholic. My husband went to Catholic elementary and high school, which was a real financial sacrifice for his parents. By the time we got married neither of us was religious, but our parents both retained suspicions about the in-laws.
Sure Lurkalot
Chotiner interviews Pletka in the New Yorker. I’m dizzy from her circuitous justifications and bad faith arguments AND I feel like I need another shower. Sometimes it’s better not to click.
Quinerly
@dnfree: ?
Tony Jay
@Quinerly: There’s a trend right now for Rightwing faux-populist figureheads to look like bags of shit stuffed in mouldy sausage skins as the reality of how out of their depth and at risk of actual ‘bad trouble’ they are slowly sinks into their pudding brains.
Over here Flobalob Johnson has given the appearance of a hairless pug with intestinal worms ever since Covid hoved into view. He thought the job would be parties and speeches and chasing interns around the Cabinet table to Yakkity Sax with long holidays in between and a guaranteed payoff at the end. It hasn’t turned out like that and the useless tube-blockage isn’t enjoying it one bit.
Thoughts and prayers, fucko.
sdhays
@Tony Jay: Yes, but he “got Brexit done”, and that’s the important thing, right?
Patricia Kayden
Tony Jay
@sdhays: Oh he’s got it ‘done’ all right. Apart from the small matter of the withdrawal deal he based his entire Election campaign on being as flawed as everyone said it was (thanks for covering that story, non-partisan national media!) and his brilliant soultion being to break international law and turn the UK into a pariah state cut adrift by bith the EU and the post-Trump US.
Oh yes. He’s done.
Geminid
@WaterGirl: re Oct. 6 Kelly v. McSally debate: I think KJZZ will just have audio. Phoenix or Tucson public tv will probably stream it.
sdhays
It’s right next to the “audit” that has been preventing Dump from releasing his tax returns.
Geminid
@WaterGirl: And Texas Senator John Cornyn and Democratic challenger M.J. Hegar will debate on Friday Oct. 9. I think that one will be real good.
sdhays
@Tony Jay: Unfortunately, he’s not “done”, and won’t be for quite some time.
It’s stunning how Brexit seems to be in a very similar spot to where it was exactly a year ago, just exponentially worse. It was exceedingly obvious that BoJo had no clue what he was doing and was too lazy to actually try to figure something out, but somehow the voters decided that they wanted more of what they had seen.
It’s going to be a long 4+ years for you all over there.
mrmoshpotato
@Quinerly:
Sucking the Kremlin’s asshole since 1987 will have that effect. The Soviet shitpile mobster conman and his traitorous trash crime family.
Chetan Murthy
@Kathleen:
@p.a.: Apropos of, I read recently that the OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe) cut back their election observer mission to the US from 300 to 50 people. B/c we’re such a shithole country we can’t get the Rona under control. Too dangerous for their personnel.
Sigh.
Tony Jay
@sdhays:
Oh its going to be awful. Really terrible on many, many levels. Made worse by the Tory Party’s decision to go full-on English Nationalist and the British Media’s decision to pretend that everything is just fine and completely normal and the country is in good hands now those smelly Socialist oiks have been shown their place.
I can’t see Johnson lasting long into 2021, if that far. His ouvere of openly corrupt sleeze and barefaced lying is toxifying the Tory brand to such a degree that its only a matter of time before the Powers That Be give the signal to make him the fall guy for Tory failure on the pandemic and everything to do with Brexit. Plus there’s the many dangling threads of Russian money he and his handler Cummings have wrapped around them. They’ll have to be trimmed away to protect the Party from its many sins.
But Flobalob is done. Its just a matter of time and opportunity. Chances are he’ll be trying to negotiate an amicable resignation in the Spring, claiming ill-health, anxious to run before the Brexit voting public run out of excuses for why their ‘victory’ is destroying their lives. IMHO.
Kathleen
@dnfree: We got the same propaganda about “non Catholics”!. I didn’t see threats of eternal damnation included in the warnings you got.
Kathleen
@Chetan Murthy: Thank you for that update. Ugh!!!
Tim Now Sir Simon Poshlord
Who am I? “Ballots! Ballots! All these ballots! Where do they come from? Where are they going? Who’s doing all this voting? Who’s counting? By the way so horrible rigged so unfair unAmerican FAKE NEWS executive order believe me!”
Well, that was a bit of fun.
greenergood
@debbie: This synopsis is yes, difficult to read, but what I find astonishing is how many people the Drump managed to name check. Was he reading from a teleprompter, or does he just have a Rolodex instinct mindset, where he remembers nothing but the people who have supported him and the people who have dissed him – and basically NOTHING else?? Cause that’s what this ridiculous synopsis looks like… this is like a transactional black hole of dysfunctionality ….