A little late, but you can stream it live here: NBCNews Now It’s a free stream. I double-checked you can rewind to the beginning.
Folks, starting today, I'm trying something new.
I'll be writing notes to you about my plans to build our country back better. And I'll be sharing personal stories and behind-the-scenes moments from the campaign trail, too.
I hope you'll follow along. https://t.co/OIjQQRO2I2
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) October 5, 2020
These good boys are ready to build bark better. pic.twitter.com/OzaEkehJUR
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) October 5, 2020
Open thread
lamh36
I saw NBC say it’s all “undecided” voters at this townhall.
IMHO there are no true “undecided” voters at this point. Only folks who are looking for excuses to vote for Chump over Biden…I mean the choice is so clear.
I think, anyone who claims to still be undecided less than 30 days til an election is just doing it for attention.
Baud
Biden can be uneven but he is sharp tonight.
Elizabelle
@lamh36: Also people who want their moment at the mike, at the event, in the sun.
Re current questioner: some of the earliest deaths were flight attendants. Within the first months … and maybe earlier than we know.
aliasofwestgate
He’s been batting away gotcha questions about Lord Dampnut’s present conditions.
MisterForkbeard
@lamh36: I do think there’s some people who were originally planning on voting for Trump but are now looking longingly at Biden – partially because Trump is such a shitstain, but also because people want to vote for winners – and Biden is looking like the heavy favorite.
Elizabelle
@lamh36: Good luck to you with the new job. You are the kid in the first week of school. You’ll do fine. It is exhausting, though, learning and adjusting to all the new.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
undecided voters do not impress me with their thoughtfulness and general awareness of political reality
oh, here comes Lester with some Concern about civility
MisterForkbeard
@aliasofwestgate: Good for him. The most I would say is “I wish him well, and I hope he’s listening to his medical staff and following CDC guidelines on isolation and masking.”
Omnes Omnibus
Fuck you, Lester. Jesus.
Elizabelle
Biden is doing great. No worries about his temperament.
Why do we need to pretend that Trump was ever up to the job?
Wyatt Salamanca
@lamh36:
After the unprecedented incompetence, corruption, and cruelty of Trump’s administration I question the sanity of any person who claims to be undecided at this late date.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus: Civility, please.
jl
From what I’ve seen, Biden doing great job. Some might say ‘low bar’, but he is far exceeding that.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
he’s handling the police question well
after all this time, that silly slogan winds up being something he can swat away
MisterForkbeard
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’m not able to watch this in real time, but again – I hope the answer is something like “It’s important for civil discussion to take place. And unfortunately, that can break down when one participant keeps breaking the rules. At a certain point, you can’t just have one person following an agreement and the other person is just doing whatever they want. I’d like to note that I’ve pulled negative ads against my opponent, while he decidedly has not.”
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: Let me try again. “Lester, please, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble, could you go fuck yourself?”
hueyplong
Many of the kids in cages were much too young to use four syllable words like “civility, ” Lester, you fuck.
Elizabelle
Headline from the Richmond Times Dispatch, this a paper whose egregious editorial page endorses 90% of GOP candidates. (Trump was too far a bridge for them; they were delirious with how frisky they were being with endorsing Gary Johnson. Fuck ’em.)
johnnybuck
I like Joe’s unvarnished style. country need a little Harry Truman right now. It’s comforting.
Sure Lurkalot
@Omnes Omnibus: I say he can suck my dick but I don’t have one.
Omnes Omnibus
Heartfelt Joe is good Joe.
Elizabelle
I think Biden is doing great, not scaring non-insane Republicans, and probably increasing his vote share tonight.
He gets it. He can discuss issues coherently and realistically.
Now talking about a dog whistle out there.
Republicans: do you want to be on the side of the Tiki torch bearers in Charlottesville, or do you want into the lifeboat?
Elizabelle
These columns on the stage remind me vaguely of LAX.
Baud
I’m not impressed with a person who’s concerned about white supremacy and is an undecided voter.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: Hey, there are good people on both sides.
Baud
Every time Lester Holt speaks, it diminishes the evening.
Baud
“Hate only hides.”
jl
Great push back against Holt’s responsible journalistic probing on policing and race, or desperate and transparent bothsiding one of the most inexcusable sides of Trump, depending no your viewpoint.
I don’t understand how there could be any undecided voters. After Trump bullhorned his support for racism, vote suppression through vigilantism, and said he wouldn’t accept the result of a democratic election, that should be three strikes for anybody.
Nicole
Ugh. Lester Holt: “You’ve been in government for 47 years, Mr. Vice President, WHY HAVEN’T YOU CURED RACISM? HUH? HUH?”
johnnybuck
Every question he answers basically comes down to “wear a mask”
Omnes Omnibus
@johnnybuck: So?
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: What was the stupid civility comment about?
Keith P.
@lamh36: A “town hall for undecided 2020 voters” sounds like a group-wide intervention scam – gets a bunch of them together in the same room before asking them how on earth can they be undecided about this election.
jl
@Nicole: I think that was less than a minute after Biden said hate couldn’t be destroyed completely, there is no permanent ‘cure. Biden did a good job of explaining it further to Holt.
dmsilev
@Nicole: That was horrible. Flat out regurgitation of a Trump attack line.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
Biden stood up to Trump at the debate so both sides.
germy
This morning’s trump tweets were impressive.
germy
@dmsilev:
It’s NBC.
I expect nothing less.
dmsilev
@WaterGirl: Last week’s debate. Apparently it was Just Awful that Biden didn’t just turn the other cheek when Trump did his …stuff.
jl
@germy: More like he’s high as a kite on ‘roids and who knows what else.
johnnybuck
@Omnes Omnibus: So what?
Elizabelle
@Baud: It’s NBC, Jake.
Seriously. NBC sucks. I like Lester Holt, but that network hid Matt Lauer for years. Something is really wrong in the corporate culture. Emphasis on “corporate.”
Nicole
@jl: Right? Holt’s bringing up the “47 years in government” made me see red because it’s an attack point taken directly from Trump on Tuesday. FUCK YOU HOLT; STOP CARRYING THEIR WATER FOR THEM.
Baud
@dmsilev:
“The role of the RNC in this town hall will be played by Lester Holt.”
Omnes Omnibus
@WaterGirl: Biden did call Trump a clown, didn’t he? That wasn’t very civil and how can Biden meet with foreign leaders if he is mean?
clay
Very good answer on opening classrooms. As a teacher, I’m impressed, and I wish we were doing that.
Kay
@jl:
Let’s just call them “indecisive voters”. Come on. These people are ninnies.
Baud
Good simple answer on Roe.
ETA: I also don’t respect people who care about Roe and are undecided.
Omnes Omnibus
@johnnybuck: Isn’t wearing a mask at least part of the answer to most of the problems out there?
Nicole
@dmsilev: Yes! It’s infuriating. It’s a stupid attack, too. Biden’s been in government almost as long as I’ve been alive, and I can assure Mr. Holt, US society is a lot different than it was when I was a wee bairn. I can, for example, have a credit card in my own name now. Good government has accomplished a lot in 47 years.
dmsilev
@Omnes Omnibus: I’d be more worried that Biden lost any credibility with the clown lobby after comparing them with Trump.
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: @Baud: @dmsilev:
I’m sure that comment from Holt came right after he chastised Trump for his behavior at the debate?
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
I proposed it way back during Baud! 2016! as a way to make ugly people more attractive.
Gin & Tonic
Open thread? Things are really heating up post-election in Kyrgyzstan. Protesters appear to have taken over the Parliament building in Bishkek.
Elizabelle
WaPost breaking news: Supreme Court sides with S.C. Republicans, orders reinstatement of witness requirement for mail-in ballots
Gin & Tonic
@Baud: I thought you were suggesting beer goggles. Damn.
Omnes Omnibus
You did ask your husband or father for permission before you did so, right?
johnnybuck
@Omnes Omnibus: Well hell, I thought that was my point.
jl
@Baud: Due to your recent stellar performance I’ve moved the odds up to Baud 2032!!
Omnes Omnibus
@dmsilev: Fuck clowns, man. Just fuck them.
germy
Something’s rotten there:
SiubhanDuinne
@germy:
His typofuckingraphical ARTS??
Oh, D’Stupid. Really?
Baud
@Gin & Tonic:
Hopefully we can avoid that fate.
sdhays
As “not a lawyer”, I say that reinstates the VRA.
germy
@SiubhanDuinne:
It almost reads as parody. He’s got to be trolling everyone at this point. I know he’s dumb, but… jeez!
JMG
Comcast Corp., which owns NBC, is controlled by very right-wing owners (controlling stockholders). They are deathly afraid of actual anti-trust enforcement and of a la carte cable bills, proposed by that noted Spartacist John McCain, in which the consumers would choose which individual channels they’d pay for, not bundles. Cut company revenue by a third right off the top. Be the end of cable news, too. A total win-win.
jl
@germy: Biden is very sharp tonight, and Holt is unusually lame in his trolling. So far Holt is just giving Biden chances to shine and very effectively reinforce and explain his points.
Edit: to be fair to Holt, Trump makes effective bothsiding hard.
Elizabelle
This guy looks like a rightwing radio host.
Biden points out he ran against a socialist and won.
Omnes Omnibus
The prove you aren’t a commie question was idiotic.
Nicole
@Omnes Omnibus:
Of course. They were glad to do so; it meant they could stop handing me their card and telling me to go buy myself something pretty.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
ActBlue is racing toward $7 billion. I’m going to watch that instead of stupid people asking patient Uncle Joe stupid questions, because it’s kind of soothing and exciting at the same time and doesn’t raise my blood pressure.
germy
@jl: Holt’s job is to repeat republican talking points, but his heart doesn’t seem to be in it.
He doesn’t display the mad glee that Matt Lauer did during the HRC town hall.
Baud
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice:
The questions aren’t great but Joe is doing great.
Baud
Good ending!
Omnes Omnibus
And it’s Packer time….
TS (the original)
@Elizabelle:
Only way Lindsey Graham gets re-elected – help from the gerrymander, voter suppression and the courts
jl
@Baud: Biden’s answer on yougins versus old farts was great, great ending.
Still an opening for middle ground. A Baud proposal for free super strong hefty bags and a handy-dandy trash picker for the kids to lift themselves up by their bootstraps would be a nice compromise between callous Trumpism, and Stalinist Bidenism.
Baud
@TS (the original):
Gerrymander doesn’t apply to a state wide election.
ETA: changed wife to wide
TS (the original)
@Nicole:
And I can now go on my property deeds as myself – not as “wife of …”
That was a long time coming where I live.
jl
@Baud: State wife election? So, is that an election for the ladies or the gents? This another Baud XXXXXXX!! idea?
CCL
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice:
Ditto.
Baud
@jl:
With WiFi built in!
Elizabelle
@TS (the original): Why should South Carolina voters bear a burden that Virginia voters need not share?
I hope some sharp lawyers fight back again on that demented ruling.
Fuck Thomas, Alito, whoever else voted for that travesty.
This comes down to John Roberts, though. He abetted gutting the Voting Rights Act. 21st Century Roger B. Taney.
TS (the original)
@Baud:
Yea – should have left out the gerrymander for state wide event. I’m just so used to using it in conjunction with voter suppression/court rulings
But then again …. Senate elections are in the main, a country wide gerrymander.
Baud
@jl:
I fixed it. People see “state wife” and they think Melania.
Kay
PsiFighter37
@Elizabelle: Anything to save Lady G’s seat. I am convinced, after watching clips from that debate, that Jaime Harrison is gonna pull it off and shock everyone. I think some of those Lincoln Project ads have really done damage as well, particularly that one about parasites.
Elizabelle
Trump visibly gasping for breath. Yup.
Nicole
@TS (the original):
I think perhaps straight men have less perspective than other groups about where we are now vs 47 years ago. And have a shit ton less to lose if we go backwards.
(Yeah, yeah #notallstraightmen don’t @ me.)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
meanwhile….
Rachel Maddow just showed the same video, and I don’t think it’s my bias that has me seeing a man who gasping that much harder for breath because he’s trying so hard to conceal the fact that he’s gasping for breath.
zhena gogolia
@Elizabelle:
Yeah, I saw a few seconds on Tom Nichols’s feed and I take back what I said about Trump not really having it. He’s a sick man. (physically this time)
mali muso
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: watching the ticker too. It’s speeding up! Maybe people watching the town hall are motivated to donate? 7 billion, here we come…
WaterGirl
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice:
OT now that the event is over…
You mentioned in the first 2021 Pet Calendar thread that you wanted to send in pics. If you send email to watergirl or to pet-calendar, I will send you the link to upload your files.
This is true for anyone who wants to submit pet pics, not just Comrade…
(Contact Us gives more information about the exact address)
Baud
@mali muso:
It was a good town hall. I almost hope we get to see Biden and Trump at the next debate which is a town hall. The contrast would be amazing. My money is in it not happening though.
Gin & Tonic
@Baud: Well, between now and the US election, there are elections upcoming in Moldova and Tajikistan. The Moldovan one, in particular, looks like it will be more contentious than Belarus.
Wyatt Salamanca
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Per It’s a Wonderful Life, I think it’s also fair to describe Trump as “a warped, frustrated old man”.
Uncle Cosmo
FTFY! :^D
Baud
@Gin & Tonic:
What is going on? Are they all fights between Putin and anti-Putin forces?
geg6
You all know Lester Holt identified as a Republican until 2018, right? We never used to have network news anchors who publicly disclosed their political affiliations. Another good tradition that FOX News murdered.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@Elizabelle:
Yup. One of the things that most frustrated me about the recent article in Vox that got a lot of attention (Chief Justice Roberts’s lifelong crusade against voting rights, explained), like earlier ones in Politico, Mother Jones, and the Atlantic, is that it explained the how and when and what of Roberts’ career-long campaign to take the vote away from “some” people, but wouldn’t say why – at least out loud. The closest it got was citing his idol Scalia’s cynical grumble about the VRA being a “perpetuation of racial entitlement.” Wink, wink.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
“Gasping” is trending on twitter. I’m sure the stress will be good for him
ETA: Drudge is trolling trump hard
jl
@Baud: “What is going on? Are they all fights between Putin and anti-Putin forces?”
You mean like US elections?
mali muso
@Baud: Agree that the contrast would be striking. Maybe have T come wrapped in a bubble suit so that he doesn’t contaminate the joint.
$7 billion!
Baud
@geg6:
I did not. Didn’t he get Trump to admit the real reason for firing Comey? That’s the last notable thing I remember about him.
Steeplejack
ActBlue just rolled over to $7 billion in donations at 9:20 EDT.
Baud
@jl:
Yes.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@WaterGirl: Will do- thanks!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
the dumbest person (currently, Tuberville coming) in the US Senate speaks
jl
@geg6: I think just as well any personal political affiliations are out in the open, so I don’t care that much which Holt was, or is, if he is willing to say it out loud.
Edit: probably ‘fess up’ is better than ‘say it out loud’.
TS (the original)
Just shot past $7 billion. So much money to get rid of one man & his sycophants.
Baud
@TS (the original):
That’s lifetime, no? Not just this year.
TaMara (HFG)
@Kay: You sure know how to make my evening.
Mary G
Rudy Giuliani is coughing his way through an interview on Fox.
Elizabelle
@Uncle Cosmo: Coprolite. Is the right word. An elegant word. Sounds vaguely gemlike. But which describes something … quite less than elegant.
geg6
@Mary G:
Oh please, oh please, oh please!
Eljai
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’m collecting these tweets for next week to see how well they age.
dmsilev
@Steeplejack: That’s a lot of money. This an only mean one thing: excellent news for John McCain. Who is still dead.
TS (the original)
@Baud:
I’m getting worried about my mental state at this point time! I blame trump & his sycophants. Who knows what I might say if he gets another 4 years.
jl
@Mary G: Sad to say, but if irresponsible GOP stunts have infected enough high profile people, there will almost certainly be some high profile deaths before the election.
I don’t want any, not one. A lot of innocent people would be alive today if the Trump/GOP complex had been more responsible. So, that is not me wishing for anything. That is just the science, historical data and some simple statistics talking.
Hope Giuliani is just coughing because he aspirated his usual beverage of choice before his TV appearances… whatever that may be. Hope it’s not the same as Kudlow’s, for Rudy’s sake.
Elizabelle
@Mary G: A noun, a verb and …. hack hack hack.
Patricia Kayden
debbie
Trump video from the WH balcony: “Maybe I’m immune.” Oy.
WaterGirl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Those 5 lines were a damn good summary of the situation!
Mary G
WaterGirl
@Steeplejack: Where’s the video??? :-)
WaterGirl
@Mary G: He looks really scared in the photo on the balcony.
jl
this was rambling around in the back of mind
The Undecided Voters – SNL
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAG37Kw1-aw
?BillinGlendaleCA
Just went out to get the mail, my ballot arrived!
Ken
Yeah, I was thinking the John Lewis Restore Voting Rights Act should just start with a pointed reference to Amendment 15 Section 2: “The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”
But now I’m really leaning toward invoking Article III Section 2 Paragraph 2: “The supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.”
Careful, these clowns will rule like they did for credit card companies, and we’ll all have to live under the voting laws of the reddest of red counties.
Kent
Saw this on FB. Don’t know if it is true or not but sounds about right
COVID-19 infections over the past week:
Mainland China: 0
Cayman Islands: 3
Taiwan: 7
Monaco: 12
New Zealand: 22
Vietnam: 22
The White House: 27
Ken
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I feel so unclean being on the same side as Drudge. But then I look at the other side and feel spotless and pure.
Jay
Jackie
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Mary G: does this qualify as “there is always a tweet”?
debbie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
When you’ve lost Drudge,…
Ruckus
In the half hour since Act Blue went over 7 billion it’s raised another $600,000 and going just as fast.
Jay
Elizabelle
@Jackie: You are my kind of bad person. Me too.
Jay
There is always a tweet,……
Martin
@Kent: Seems high for both NZ and Vietnam.
trnc
If there is a more explicit display of being full on flaming assholes without actually holding a murder weapon, I would love to know what it is.
Jay
Felanius Kootea
@Baud: Yes he was! I caught only the last 40 minutes of it because I didn’t realize there was a Townhall tonight, but I was impressed. He just comes across as a fundamentally decent human being and right now, that counts for so much.
Martin
@Patricia Kayden: Yep. What’s more, this isn’t a ‘macho’ thing. It’s a dictator thing. The whole recipe for getting installed as a dictator is convincing the public that you, and you alone, can govern and solve these problems. As such, you cannot, ever, give up power, or the appearance of power.
Mind you, that’s just a magnified version of conservatism, centered on the self instead of the in-group, but it all functions the same way.
But Trump has been like this for 60+ years. If it was going to self correct, it would have decades ago. For most people, self-correcting never happens, instead homelessness happens. It’s not that they change their behavior, it’s that we remove them from society and ignore them, rather than treat them. Trump has always been wealthy enough to avoid that, and the enablers around him aren’t going to stop now. That’s always been part of the problem of being rich/famous – the people around him are dependent on him, and they can’t self-correct any more than he can.
trnc
@Kent: Looks right according to this site, which has clickable links for most countries and graphs for daily cases.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries
Maybe the USA section should add White House after the states.
jl
@Martin: I get 23 for NZ and and 27 for VN for 7 days ending yesterday.
https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus
Those countries have excellent contact tracing, far better than anyplace in the US, and the WH stops after the results get inconvenient, so close enough.
Ruckus
Act Blue is up over 1 million in the last hour.
randy khan
@JMG:
I work in the communications business. A la carte has been dead for 10 years and nobody is going to bring it back. Nobody in the industry is worried about it. Cable operators are worried about streaming services these days. (And, honestly, once the big programmers started forcing cable operators to buy all of their channels to get the popular ones, the operators began to think that a la carte isn’t such a terrible idea.)
Not to mention that Brian Roberts actually is a big donor to the Dems – in one recent year he contributed 5 times as much to Dems as to Republicans, which for a top executive of a big company is much tilted to the Dems than usual.
Martin
@jl: Guessing that all of NZ and VNs cases are foreign originated. IOW, they weren’t domestic transmission but people who flew in and tested positive during the mandatory quarantine period.
I don’t think either nation has had a domestic origination case in weeks/months.
jl
@Martin: I don’t know for sure, but those countries probably ID and trace almost every case, like over a dozen other countries. only thing that matters is if they can handle what they find. Good bet the WH outbreak is, or soon will be, larger than the emergent cases over there. We’ll get an idea as WH staffers and high profile GOPer pols hit the news.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: He sure looks like he’s struggling to stand up.
trnc
I didn’t get to watch the town hall, so I haven’t seen it yet and I don’t have any context for how Holt did, but it’s clear most here didn’t like the questions. I don’t have a particular problem with Biden being asked questions that are tough, stupid or basically republican talking points because I think Biden usually has pretty good answers (and I see he’s getting positive reviews here). So I think that can actually be a good thing, especially when contrasted with the gish gallop of crap last week.
Then again, maybe I’ll feel like Holt was a dick after I watch it.
jl
@trnc: Too many of Holt’s follow-ups and objections that Biden hadn’t really answered the questions were just barfed up Trumpster talking points.
In the end, didn’t make much difference, IMHO, since Biden did great at responding. Holt has a normally functioning brain, and some shame, apparently, so not as bad as, say, Todd probably would have done.
Edit: for one thing, after Biden responded to Holt’s follow-ups, Holt let it be. Rather than pursue opaque nonsensical cavils past the point of hilarious nausea, as Todd has done with some Dems over the past several weeks.
WaterGirl
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: There’s a difference between mostly sitting or lying down in a hospital, as compared to walking around upright.
I remember picking my Dad up from the hospital one time, where he thought he was doing pretty good and could not wait to get out of the hospital. By the time we got him home (30 minute car ride, walking in the building, riding the elevator to his room) he was exhausted and wasn’t doing nearly as well as he thought he was.
Looking at Trump on that balcony, I can only imagine that something similar is going on. He really looks scared, which I am sorry about, even though he’s a lying cheating heartless sociopath.
I still feel bad at the thought of any human being scared like that, possibly facing death. It looks like he is panicked and barely holding it together. And yes, having trouble breathing.
Patricia Kayden
Arghhh
Jinchi
I don’t understand anyone who plans to vote for Trump, but there are millions of them.
I find it much easier to believe in undecided voters. Or people who are weighing whether to vote at all. Anyone who contributes to the Biden campaign or writes GOTV postcards or makes cold calls to gettable voters has to believe in them on some level, too. We’ve seen polls swing several percentage points in the last week. It’s worth believing in undecided voters, if only because the difference between getting them to the polls and voting for Democrats or not is the difference between a squeaker with majority leader McConnell still in place or a blowout with Democrats swinging control of the Senate as well as several red state legislatures the year before redistricting gets decided.
James E Powell
@jl:
Daily Show’s Samantha Bee & Jason Jones investigated the same phenomenon
jl
@Jinchi: If you work two or three jobs and have kids or oldsters to take care and just too stressed and pressed to pay much attention until now, I guess. Probably a few been struggling to get out of, say, a family Trumpster misinformation bubble, and just emerging now. Anything else? I can’t think of anything.
jl
@Patricia Kayden: Well, that’s true! If you are going to drive drunk at night, you have better odds if you make sure your turn signals are working. Give ol’ Tuck some credit.
Brachiator
@jl:
Coming late to the thread and was working, so missed the town hall, but wanted to note that this is a great point, and well stated. I think it applies to anyone not voting for Biden, not just undecided voters.
Jinchi
@jl: I had a close friend in college who was passionate about social justice, marched in protests, lived a life centered on politics and it was like pulling teeth to convince her to vote because “My vote won’t make a difference”.
That was incomprehensible to me since getting to the polls was easily the simplest thing she could do. As a Latina from rural Texas it was hard to argue she was wrong.
Kent
@Brachiator: I frankly don’t know how there could be may voters left who have been undecided about Trump since 2016. In other words, “independents” who are true independents and not stealth Republicans.
However, I do expect there are probably a lot of normally loyal Republicans who are growing undecided about their continued support for Trump.
I’m not sure if you can really call them “undecided” so much as disgusted Republicans.
columbusqueen
So am I the only one in love with Joe’s dog ad? Gave me the best smile I’ve had in a week or so.
Patricia Kayden
Patricia Kayden
@columbusqueen: Loved it too. Will tick off the dog-hating Trump so that makes it even better.
Matt McIrvin
@jl:
Unless you like all of those things a lot, but are worried that Trump might be too incompetent to really deliver them.
Patricia Kayden
Matt McIrvin
@Jinchi: There are a lot of activist leftists who reject “electoralism” as a mug’s game. If they’re from places where their vote genuinely doesn’t determine much I can understand it to some degree.
cain
@WaterGirl:
There might be a chance that I will have two cutey black kitten pairs coming in to life with me. I hope to take a look at them this Friday. We had initially thought that it might be pre-mature because of my remodel plans and having to knock a wall in my house – but thsi stupid thing is taking longer and longer and if I get them now they will probably get acclimated by the time all that happens.
Ivan X
@Gin & Tonic: What’s at stake in the Moldovan election for Transnistria?
cain
@Jackie:
It would be a tragedy if unlike during Nixon times a lot of the Trump administration did not manage to stay but instead found a path to another plane. Very sad.
Aleta
Nicole
@Matt McIrvin:
My AP American History teacher, Brother Hess (Mr. Hess, but he insisted we call him “Brother”), would have had words with them. He was clearly liberal (I grew up in the Alabama section of Pennsylvania), and yet, one class period, a guy asked him his political registration and he told us he was registered Republican. We all gaped, and then he went on to explain that in our area, there was no Democratic Party to speak of, and if he wanted to have a voice in the local elections, which, he stressed to us, were the ones that were most important in our day-to-day lives, that he needed to be able to vote in the primaries, and that required being a registered Republican. And votes do very much determine a lot in local elections.
It was one of the smartest things any teacher ever told me in high school, and I never forgot it. His party affiliation had nothing to do with his values; it had everything to do with making sure his voice was heard on a local level. Because voting is that important, and even more so on a local level. Gads, he was a good teacher.
Steeplejack
@TS (the original), @Baud:
Yeah, it’s cumulative since 2004.
rikyrah
@Patricia Kayden:
Been six months wearing a mask.
I’ll go another 6 months.
I’ll watch MAGA Red State Sychophants take the vaccine first.
THen, I’ll wait 6-9 months to see how that turned out for them.
Peale
@Patricia Kayden: Just a guess – while it is their hail mary electioneering win for sure – Meadows is probably acting alone because he’s got a few dozen angry billionaires who attended Trump’s bedminster event who are demanding access to a vaccine – as if the vaccine does the already sick any good. They probably think getting that shot now will save them.
cain
@randy khan:
ala carte is the streaming services. I am more than happy with just Prime Video and Netflix. I don’t need anything else. I think eventually Disney is going to fail because it’s an ala-carte option with only one studio. Bleah. Just because they have GenX era movie properties doesn’t mean squat.
Ken
@Patricia Kayden:
It might have been a week ago. Now, upward of 60% of the US population will assume any vaccine announcement before the election is a lie, as they do for everything else coming from Trump. That is very bad for eventual adoption, but even worse for his electoral prospects.
hueyplong
@Peale: They made a deal with the devil and he killed them.
Almost as poetic as Trump’s last words being “I can’t breathe.”
Brachiator
@Kent:
There are people who believe that the world is flat or who believe in little green men riding Bigfoot. I don’t know how these people exist, but they do, so I just have to accept this fact.
Similarly, some people are or claim to be undecided. I DO know people who are not totally in love with Trump, but who absolutely deny that he is a racist or a danger to democracy. In fact, until Covid-19 came along, they presumed that their lives would pretty much be unchanged no matter who was in power.
In addition to undecided voters, there are a good chunk of people who don’t vote and don’t care. I would like to think that some of these people have been roused to support Biden. We will see what the exit polls show.
ETA. Survey after survey shows that many Independents are just that. They are not stealth Republicans. In California, there are more Independents, I think, than registered Republicans. Also in California, these voters tend to vote for Democratic Party candidates. And yet for some reason, a lot of people cannot accept this easily verifiable fact.
Punchy
@Patricia Kayden: Disgusting but predictable since June. It did not matter IF one was ready; he was going to say one was regardless. Lets hope the pharma developing it comes out forcefully and says GTFOH.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
Los Bandidos Yanquis
Patricia Kayden
Amen
Ken
Oh, it won’t take that long. Both the Biotrial and Tegenero failures showed up within the first few days.
Now, those were both Phase I trials, and most of the candidate vaccines are in II or III now, so you wouldn’t get the same failure rate. Instead of 100% of patients suffering irreversible organ damage, it might be only, oh, 0.1%. That would still kill any interest in using that vaccine.
mac8
@Nicole: Your AP History teacher sounds like my high school Government / Gym teacher. When he passed out voter registration forms in our senior class he flat out told us all to register as Democrats because the area I grew up in had no Republican presence at the time and registering as Democrats would give us more options.
rikyrah
I know that’s right ???
Ruckus
@Ruckus:
Act Blue is up 2 million in 2 hrs and 10 min. Now $7billion 2million.
BruceFromOhio
Watching the ATL-GB game, and here come ads for OH state Republicans (house and senate). Have never seen such ever since living here. Someone is feeling the heat.
rikyrah
Omnes Omnibus
@BruceFromOhio: Watching in Madison, I have seen one political ad (Biden). We aren’t a good place for an ad buy.
Omnes Omnibus
@rikyrah: That will be litigated.
Brachiator
@rikyrah:
Damn. Look for Trump to claim that he has done more for Native Americans than any other president in history.
Steeplejack (phone)
@WaterGirl:
Just go to their page and watch the total at the top. May take a few seconds to start changing. May not work on phones, just computers.
Jinchi
Not to mention that Pence should be quarantined right now.
Omnes Omnibus
@Omnes Omnibus: Just had a second one (Biden again). Not ignoring WI this time.
Ken
Someone tell Trump, it’s a double blow – that they’re raising that money to get rid of him, and that he’s not getting a taste of it.
Danielx
@Ken:
that last part is what will sting.
catclub
@Brachiator: Obama reversed a lot of bad things that had been done to the tribes by Dept of Interior. Naturally, trump reverses that.
lofgren
The note from Biden is not mincing words. I feel like Biden is clear-eyed about what Trump is and what he represents. This gives me hope that there will be prosecutions.
eddie blake
@cain:
disney+ is pretty good. they’ve got a very large catalogue.
Gvg
@cain: I know a lot of people who tend to only watch Disney movies. Some just because they have young children, but also quite a few women who just love Disney. Some of it is escapism, but some of it is just personality fit. I can’t really explain it, I’ve just noticed it….several really hard working women managers I’ve known plus an aunt. The last few years I have hit a bunch of estate sales for furniture and there are quite a few lifelong Disney obsessed.
i watch a lot of Disney myself but not exclusively.
Sloane Ranger
@WaterGirl:
Don’t be. According to CNN he wasn’t certain that the shots of his Mussolini moment on the balcony caught his best side and insisted on a re-shoot.
Also, I’d like to believe his breathing issues are signs of COVID-19 or pneumonia but, he’s never been really fit. Remember when he took a golf cart instead of walking like the other world leaders, he’d probably be out of breath walking up those stairs even Pre-COVID.
WaterGirl
@cain: Two more kitties for the calendar! Now all we need are the actual kitties, and photos. :-)
WaterGirl
@Steeplejack (phone): No, you missed my point. I wanted the video of it turning over to 7 billion!
Definitely does not work on phones or any device that is portrait mode.