I was not around for Joe’s event earlier today:
Kamala’s starting soon:
I have to run out and will have to listen later.
This is your daily reminder of who we are electing to counter the orange disease firehose of garbage.
Open thread
Reader Interactions
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Baud
I appreciate these positive posts, T. Even when I can’t watch, it’s a nice counter to the negativity of Trump news.
Baud
Reposting from the prior thread.
Martin
@Baud: Yeah, I’m seeing a lot of data suggesting that youth turnout is going to be pretty decent.
Don’t underestimate how motivated they are around climate change. If Dems aren’t acting on it, then a lot of the motivation for young people to vote goes away.
Baud
@Martin:
I hope the youth know we need the Senate and then need to keep the Senate in 2022. I don’t think climate change will be a single piece of legislation.
James E Powell
@Baud:
Also reposting from an earlier thread, Simon Rosenberg on youth (18-29) turnout so far.
Listening to senatorial candidates Rev. Raphael Warnock & Jon Ossoff while I wait to hear my senator speak in Georgia.
VeniceRiley
@Martin: I’m thinking it’s the free college
NotMax
If nothing else, listen to the last minute of Olbermann’s thing today, regarding Rep. Higgins of Louisiana.
Baud
@James E Powell:
That’s encouraging, because you would expect young people would be more likely to wait until the last minute to vote.
Crashman06
@Baud:
Always wary of these youth turnout stories but who knows…?
Martin
@VeniceRiley: Nah, they all missed that boat. They know that.
A shocking percentage of Gen Z doesn’t believe they’ll live to 50 – that they’ll be die due to climate change.
different-church-lady
@Martin: They’re not going to die due to climate change.
They’re going to live absolutely miserable existence into old age due to climate change.
Baud
@different-church-lady:
If it helps with turnout, let them think they’re going to die.
James E Powell
Rick Hart (sp?), the Morehouse student who is introducing Senator Harris, just bragged that his ancestors were slaves who accompanied General Sherman across Georgia “all the way to the high seas.” He is my hero of the week.
EthylEster
This is OT but I am having problems accessing the front page from my iPhone 6.
The blogroll loads fine.
I finally gave up and fired up my laptop. I don’t know if anyone else is having issues. iP6 is old!
Ken
Really? Because I heard that AOC is going to ban automobiles, windows, and light bulbs in the first week after Biden is sworn in, and the only way to prevent that is to buy a gold star from the Trump campaign.
Kent
Former TX High School teacher here.
If I had to guess, a whole bunch of them are voting to spite their evangelical parents on subjects like Black Lives Matter, LGBT Rights, and other social justice issues. I would guess those would be bigger issues for much of the TX youth vote than climate change. What drove most of them out of their southern Baptist churches is the racism, sexism and homophobia. And, of course, a majority of them are Hispanic. There are currently double the number of Hispanic kids in TX public schools than White kids today
According to the Texas Education Agency: “Hispanic students accounted for the largest percentage of total enrollment in Texas public schools in 2018-19 (52.6%), followed by White (27.4%), African American (12.6%), Asian (4.5%), and multiracial (2.4%) students”
That is who is turning 18 and voting in TX today.
The Thin Black Duke
@Martin: I think climate change is this generation’s Vietnam. Things are different when you got skin in the game.
Baud
@Ken:
Not AOC. AOC + 3.
Geminid
@Baud: Today Axios had an article reporting on polling showing trump had a clear lead among 18-35 year olds in only 5 states: Wyoming, Idaho, South Dakota, Arkansas and West Virginia. A few other states were close, the others had Biden clearly leading or better. These folks and their cohorts could get in the habit of voting Democratic if the Democrats can deliver. And I think the next Congress will deliver on climate change, with multiple bills addressing clean energy, a smart grid, energy conservation, soil conservation, etc. These initiatives will invest in the future, and in the near term will create a lot of jobs. They will be hard to resist. Republicans can talk all they want to about austerity, but I don’t think that’s going to cut it next year.
Baud
@Geminid:
I hope so. Having gone through the Obama years, the fear of purity wars haunts me.
Martin
@different-church-lady: Given that roughly 25% experience suicidal ideation right now, thanks to Trump and Covid and distance learning and everything else, you might be exploring the wrong mechanism.
Kent
@Geminid: Austerity isn’t going to be a winning argument when you can’t get a good job in the post-COVID economy and the price of college is out of reach.
Baud
Hmm.
Redshift
@Baud: Yep. I’m just fine with them thinking of climate change as a life and death issue, and voting accordingly. And if we’re talking about the increased likelihood of death from natural disasters, disruptions of arable land and water supplies, and increased spread of diseases, rather than the Earth reaching an uninhabitable temperature, they’re not wrong.
Nora Lenderbee
The streaming of Kamala’s speech is breaking up and freezing. :(
jl
Is Harris, as VP, going to lay out what commie things she is going to order Biden to do as president?
If so, I’ll watch when I have time.
Baud
@jl:
All of them, Katie.
different-church-lady
@EthylEster: Something is dragging down old devices: ever since yesterday night’s troubleshooting the front page has been close to dysfunctional on my very old MacBook, but loads okay on the more modern iMac.
Lapassionara
Why is there a banner ad at the top of this page saying “Don’t Let Democrat’s Win”? Nice way to waste money in my view, but ymmv.
Martin
@Kent: This is what people don’t get about the demographic changes I’m describing. There are a lot of latinos in CA, but they’re young. Median age close to 35, compared to 50 for whites. What that means is that most latinos are just hitting voting age. They’re still in school.
Texas is the same way. So while the large latino population in TX might seem like a big Dem benefit, it’s not until they’re old enough to vote, which is just now starting to happen, as a lot of the older population aren’t citizens, but their kids are, and they’re just now hitting voting age.
So my previous predictions were waved away because there was no evidence of this voting block being able to carry Dems. Well, yeah, they were 12. They weren’t a voting block yet. But they’re starting to be now. And TX is like CA in that with each passing year, the white voting population shrinks due to attrition while the latino voting population grows. CA in the near term should both get bluer, and start to rebel against the Dem party for not doing enough for their votes.
Texas will inevitably follow CAs path. Just don’t quite know when.
WaterGirl
@Nora Lenderbee: Doing the same for me.
Kent
@jl: No, you have the narrative wrong. She’s not going to order Biden to do anything. She’s a stalking horse for AOC+3 and they are going to get Pelosi to use the 25th Amendment to remove Biden for senility and install Kamala in the White House so she can invite in ANTIFA to implement the Green New Deal.
It’s all laid out there in plain sight if you know where to look!
jl
@Baud: So much of this VP talk seems to be various interested parties signaling and posturing for purposes unknown, I don’t give a shit. Just as I don’t give a shit about the Kasich talk.
The person I would like to see with a strong cabinet position is Warren, though others worry about who will replace her in MA.
One unknown is whether the Senate goes D, and how many D seats there will be. Then will be a question of whether the most exciting action would be in cabinet or Senate.
Unless we get Biden elected, none of this means anything.
dmsilev
Excellence in trolling:
Miss Bianca
@Baud: uh…no?
jl
@Kent: OK, thanks. Hard to keep the narratives straight. I’m still trying to figure out what the sheet and pillow Biden scandal is, and whether it involves Soros, Ukraine, China or the secret and sinister Delaware plot for that state to rule the universe.
jl
@dmsilev: They should do that for the great GOP and Trump plan for health reform that will solve all problems. The should put up a clock. It’s been nine or ten years now with no evidence, so a clock with years, months, days, hours, seconds and 1/100 seconds would be fun to watch.
Kent
@Baud: You know it’s all bullshit when it’s only Republicans and fringe non-Democrats like Sanders listed as under consideration for Cabinet jobs.
When they actually start talking about mainstream Democrats being vetted for cabinet jobs you know the stories are starting to get more real. Mainstream like Corey Booker, Jay Inslee, Julian Castro, Beto, and Pete Buttigieg will get first consideration before they start scraping the bottom of the barrel.
But sure, Sanders for Labor Secretary? IDK. If has a history of working on labor issues in the Senate then fine. That’s better than Kasich for something like Commerce.
Another Scott
The Kamala event has started. A GA State Rep is up first. Said that 2M have already voted.
Cheers,
Scott.
Kent
@jl: I thought the sheet and pillow thing was Giuliani and Trump was just projecting.
RobertDSC-Work
@Baud:
He can go fuck himself.
jl
@Kent: Maybe Borat will replace Soros as the sinister uber villian, orchestrating everything behind the scenes?
WaterGirl
@EthylEster: @different-church-lady:
This is the first I have heard of this, except for Adam who is having an issue on his iPad.
Are others having problems also?
Another Scott
@WaterGirl: Things are OK for me at the moment (Chrome on Win10), but yesterday things were slow on this (long delay before page refresh) when they were fine on my Android phone on the long debate threads. (Yesterday things improved on Chrome on Win10 after your plugin-surgery.)
HTH just a little.
Cheers,
Scott.
Nora Lenderbee
My ballot has been accepted. Yay!
WaterGirl
@Another Scott: Both plugins are still turned off, which is not a long-term solution to last night’s problems, but this is apparently a different issue.
If folks who are having trouble with older devices, it would be helpful if you can click on this link to go to a DougJ’s thread which has no twitter in it at all… that could help determine whether this could be the result of a recent Twitter change. Or not.
Another Scott
Warnock is talking now. He’s good.
Cheers,
Scott.
Ksmiami
@Martin: don’t forget about all the liberal professionals who have moved to tx cities aNd suburbs- it’s a very different population than the small town west Texas hick
Baud
@Kent:
All said and done, I’d prefer Biden go with younger folks across the board.
jl
@Kent: I agree. Sanders friendly people may be pushing this because they are pissed about Kasich talk.
As far as I’m concerned, if they will competently follow administration policy, both can be in cabinet for all I care.
jl
@Baud: There, I do agree. I’d like to hear about some younger people moving up the ladder.
Edit: and federal political leadership is so old, right now, under 70 would quality as ‘younger.’ Baby steps… maybe start there in case the current leadership is worried about 65 year old ‘these damn kids these days.’
Citizen Alan
@Baud: I am convinced that Shitgibbon referred to them as AOC plus 3 because he cannot pronounce any of their names.
jl
@Citizen Alan: Maybe a Trump staffer sold the idea that rhyme is the key to dumb nicknames that will doom opposition candidates.
EthylEster
@WaterGirl: Well, if I can ever finish loading stuff on my iPhone and get to that page, I will try it. I made four attempts starting at 7 am eastern and never got through. I’m posting now from an old Win 7 box.
Kent
@Baud: I agree. I have Buttigieg tagged for Department of Commerce, my old agency. It’s the most tech-heavy agency with NOAA, NIST, the Patent Office, Census, but also the Small Business Administration which Buttigieg would be good at I think.
For Secretary of Education, someone from the states, not Congress, like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Cathryn_Ricker who is 51 and most definitely NOT NOT NOT someone from the Charter school grifter industry.
For State, Susan Rice
I’ll have to think more about the other cabinet spots.
The Moar You Know
@Baud: Hard no, but not because of the usual reasons. It’s simply this; he’s never had a job. Never had to work for some asshole and take shit every day and fear for his livelihood, and hang in there in spite of it and bring home a paycheck. He’s literally been a politician all his life. And there may well be a cabinet position in which he could excel. Labor is not that position.
What I will be an utter hardass about is this; no Republicans in the cabinet. At all. The GOP has made this a tradition and I actually think it’s a good one.
EthylEster
@EthylEster: So after the reply to WG, I went to my phone which I left loading the BJ site. I was away for about 20 minutes and it had finished loading. So I scrolled down to the DougJ post and it loaded right up. Is that because it has no twitter links? IDK.
But then I reloaded the BJ site. It took about 2 minutes. And the DougJ post took about 10 seconds to display. So not a clear result.
How I loathe tech.
Geminid
@jl: I can see why people want to see Elizabeth Warren in a Biden cabinet. But I think Warren can do more as a legislator. John Sherman authored the Anti-Trust Act enacted in 1890, and it is still law. But does anyone know who the Treasury Secretary was in 1890? Or care?
Baud
@The Moar You Know:
Bush had a nominal Dem. I can’t recall if Trump had one at one point.
Kent
@The Moar You Know: I honestly don’t know why he would want a minor cabinet position like Labor when he is in line to be a Committee Chair in the Senate.
Kent
@Baud: Jared is a registered Dem. Does that count?
Bush had Norm Mineta as Secretary of Transportation.
Trump doesn’t have any Dems in the cabinet, only a few nominal Dems in lower positions that aren’t really partisan Dems.
Wikipedia has a whole chart of them going back to George Washington.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_political_appointments_across_party_lines
WaterGirl
@EthylEster: Can you close the BJ window/tab on your phone, quit your browser on your phone, then open your browser and type in “balloon-juice.com/mysteries” and see if that page will load?
edit: I see that you were able to open the DougJ twitter-less post with no problem, and that the BJ main page is still slow loading at 2 minutes. Though not as slow loading as it was earlier today?
If you are willing to test some more, please try again with an individual post where you don’t see a tweet from the main page, and see if that is similar load time to DougJ. or if it takes longer.
At this point, I am wondering it is a front page problem, or and individual posts load just fine, OR if there are problems with certain individual posts.
Baud
@Kent:
Jared will count in the media’s eyes.
jl
@Geminid: I can see the point.
I can also see how Warren might especially want to stay in the Senate of there is a D landslide and she works with a substantial majority. Warren was far more aggressive on institutional change than Sanders, who was stuck in sloganeering about how a mass popular movement would do something something to force politicians to do something something. to enact effective policy.
Warren might see Senate as best place to push the big institutional changes that she’s been proposing.
Matt McIrvin
@Kent: The strange thing is that if you look at poll crosstabs, Trump’s youth support has actually increased since 2016. But since it’s still low, greater youth turnout probably isn’t good for him.
laura
@Kent:
Richard Griffen and David Weil ought to go to the head of the line Labor Secretary-wise. And Richard Griffin should get the nod. He has been fantastic for Labor and worker rights
I’d sure like Steve in the ATL’s opinion on this. I miss him so.
Kent
@Geminid: Yes, we need Elizabeth Warren to be standing in Joe Manchin’s office until he is persuaded to be the 50th vote for whatever progressive thing she is doing. Some new freshman Senator from MA (if it’s even a Dem) would not be doing that.
Kent
I wonder what that is actually showing. Probably white MAGA sorting going on by the youth, especially in red states and red areas of blue states. But what do I know. I doubt it’s black or Hispanic or Asian youth.
WaterGirl
I would like to see Warren stay in the senate with her big ideas and her big plans. But I would like to see the Dems create a fourth leadership position for someone in her skill set, and put her in that position.
Kent
@laura: That’s out of my area of expertise so I defer to you.
I mostly only have strong opinions about Commerce because I worked there for 15 years and it is often a dumping ground for political appointees when it should’t be. Ron Brown was the last truly great Secretary of Commerce and he was Clinton era and died in a plane crash in Kosovo or somewhere over there during the Yugoslav war.
And also Department of Education because Obama’s pick was so horrible. Arne Duncan was probably his single worst Cabinet pick. Honestly Bush’s first Secretary of Education Rod Paige was just as good if not better than Arne Duncan.
Secretary of State is going to be immensely important as we need to repair or tattered international standing everywhere on the planet and on every topic from trade to climate to defense to human rights. I don’t know any other top candidates than Susan Rice who can hit the ground running.
The Moar You Know
@Kent: Trump is far more popular with both the Hispanic youth (and adults) here in SoCal than I am comfortable with. Kinda freaks me out. It’s something to keep an eye on, even if there’s nothing that can be done about it.
The Moar You Know
@Kent: I know one. She’s even done the job before. And it would make a definitive statement that this admin rejects Trump and Trumpism and his whole fucked up worldview. Just a thought.
Kent
@The Moar You Know: If it is like Texas then a lot of Hispanics are basically wannabe Whites who live in tract homes in the suburbs, work in construction or small business, drive big pickup trucks, and often go to evangelical churches. If they were White they would be very solidly in the so-called “white working class”
Kent
@The Moar You Know: Sure if we aren’t talking any more about going with a younger generation in government. But perhaps State is too important for that.
Geminid
@Kent: Don’t be shocked if Warren and Manchin co-author climate change legislation.
The Moar You Know
@Kent: Yeah, SoCal Hispanics are just like that too.
The Pentacostals, of all denominations, are making some serious inroads in that community. Hope that stops sooner rather than later. Those folks are fucked in the head.
Kent
Not just in the US. All the way through Latin America. Central American countries like Guatemala are now a hotbed of Pentacostalism. They actually do some good because they are so vigilantly anti-liquor which is an enormous scourge in the Mayan community just like in the American Indian communities. I saw that in the Peace Corps in Guatemala. Evangelical groups were instrumental in dragging a lot of drunk irresponsible men and fathers out of the gutter and into productive lives when the Catholics weren’t doing it. A lot of Pentacostal preaching in Central America is 1/2 evangelism and 1/2 AA. That’s why it is so popular with women.
evodevo
@Kent: another reason it’s so popular in Latin America is the lack of onus on contraception….your priest is no longer looking over your shoulder and tut-tut-ing about using birth control if you are Protestant…
The Thin Black Duke
@The Moar You Know: My God. You’re an evil genius.
Matt McIrvin
@Kent: It’s all races, actually–I strongly suspect this mostly explains the reports of Trump’s black and Hispanic support modestly increasing: those demographics are younger than whites. It’s much more men than women.
I think Trump has a distinct appeal to young asshole guys which has increased with his disdain for COVID-19 rules. These people aren’t the most enthusiastic voters, though.
James E Powell
@jl:
The imposition of sharia law – but only on those states that voted for Trump – is the first order on the list.
Matt McIrvin
@Kent:
One of the most popular “Clinton Body Count” conspiracy theories was that the Clintons had murdered Ron Brown by having his plane sabotaged. Why they were supposed to have done that… I don’t remember if I ever knew, or if there was even a coherent hypothesis. But I remember a guy I knew on Usenet insisting that he was positive they’d done it because of a fleeting facial expression he’d caught on Bill Clinton’s face during the raw satellite feed of Ron Brown’s memorial service.
frosty
@WaterGirl: No problem here, iPhone SE circa 2016. “New phone? We don’t need no stinkin’ new phone.”
brantl
If it helps with Climate Change, let them fucking believe it?
brantl
@The Moar You Know: I don’t think she was that great of a secretary of state, to be honest. She wasn’t bad, she just wasn’t great.