The president's job approval numbers, per new Politico/Morning Consult numbers pic.twitter.com/GjTZ8VNflh
— Morning Joe (@Morning_Joe) April 14, 2021
Road Runner goes Beep!Beep!
One of the weirdest things I’ve seen is Playbook leading with a poll showing Americans agree with Biden’s definition of infrastructure, not theirs, then immediately condemning Biden as some Orwellian manipulator for using that same definition. pic.twitter.com/HcPZ9L6nd2
— Jesse Lee (@JesseCharlesLee) April 15, 2021
having a sensible chuckle as these conservative goons rage against the president, not for anything in particular, just because he’s so completely non-threatening. it’s fairly hilarious.
— World Famous Art Thief (@CalmSporting) April 14, 2021
Wrote about Biden's steady polls yesterday, and I think Trump's/House GOP's attempt to overturn the election helps him in the long run – one reason voters aren't blaming *him* for partisanship is, you know, that stuff that happened. https://t.co/ZG1AoQhny4
— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) April 14, 2021
Really sense that the new writers of Playbook are struggling to try to make compelling narratives out of the current, Trump-free political moment. https://t.co/5ZvXc4t83J
— Rick Hasen (@rickhasen) April 14, 2021
Being a good public performer is not the same as excelling at governance, @paulwaldman1 writes.
"If Trump taught us anything, it’s that you can put on a captivating show and still be a disaster of a president." https://t.co/9N6sVIz796
— Washington Post Opinions (@PostOpinions) April 13, 2021
“You’ll never get anyone to admit this on the record, but it’s really f**king hard to drive down the negatives of an affable, gentlemanly white man who says nice, positive things most of the time,” a veteran Republican consultant said of @JoeBiden. https://t.co/1dE5tNAV2b
— Andrew Feinberg (@AndrewFeinberg) April 13, 2021
Harlan Hill is the soft little man-baby currently getting paid to defend Matt Gaetz…
Jews survived 2,000 years in exile. Early Christians survived three centuries of contempt. The Shi'a still mourn for Hussein and Ali. The communists fought off Hitler.
And conservatives are having a meltdown over Manchin being median Senator. https://t.co/MSg0ReBssn
— Alex Hazanov. (@alexhazanov) April 14, 2021
debbie
“Difficult to villianize.” God forbid.
Baud
I know he said “one reason,” but we do have a bad habit of focusing in singular events and ignoring the effect of long term experience. People have seen how the GOP has behaved since at least 2009 and Obama. That’s a lot of accumulated experience.
debbie
@Baud:
Yeah, but that “one reason” is definitely a reason that cannot be denied or rationalized/explained away.
OzarkHillbilly
“God, please make my enemies
stupidRepublican.”No need to be redundant.
Matt McIrvin
The Republicans also have inflated expectations–if you look at historical Presidential approval ratings, you’ll see that most Presidents were still well in their honeymoon period at this point, and Biden is running below most of them in net approval. He’s doing much better than Trump, but that’s not saying much. That’s probably nothing to do with Biden; it’s just the times–the Republicans are so polarized against any Democrat that for one to do much better than Biden is probably impossible.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone ???
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Wasn’t W pretty low until 9/11?
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
How was your NO visit with the grandbaby?
rikyrah
@Baud:
ICAM
I appreciate that the Democrats are treating the GQP like they actually experienced them since 2009.
There is NOTHING about the GQP that says ‘good faith actors’.?
MattF
@Matt McIrvin: Agree. There’s a ceiling for Biden’s approval, and he’s at it.
mrmoshpotato
Hehe, “conservative goons”
Also, “Grrrr! Why is Biden so quietly competent?! Grrrrr!”
Ten Bears
Right place, right time … a Zen thing
Karen S.
Good morning! I’m getting my second Moderna jab later today. I hope the side effects are minimal, if I have any.
The U.S. political media wants a circus. A member of the press corpse tried a few ago tweeted something about Dems didn’t hold some meeting or other—may have been a lunch meeting— that wasn’t open to the press. She was upset about it and clearly expected the Twitterati to share her indignation because, you know, the WH press corpse works so hard on our behalf. Basically, the majority of tweet replies I saw were not on her side. It was very entertaining.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: W’s pre-9/11 “pretty low” was better than Biden is doing now! His approval was about the same, his disapproval was considerably lower. That’s one of the big effects of increased polarization–almost nobody is “undecided/don’t know” any more. If you’re in the opposing party, you hate the President. Politics has really changed.
NotMax
Nudging the needle in a positive direction.
RepubAnon
@debbie: And villianizing is all the Republicans have…no policies, no solutions – nothing but hate and fear.
mrmoshpotato
Buncha slapdicks. I’ll freely admit that about the Rethuglican trash heaps.
Spanky
@Karen S.: My second Moderna gave me a slightly bruised shouldet. That’s it.
It’s good to be prepared for a bad reaction, but I think most folks skate by.
guachi
What I find useful is how far a President is from his vote %.
Trump received 46% of the vote and only exceeded the in Gallup a few times. That Biden can be 5% above his vote in a high turnout election is a good sign.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Ok, I was thinking only of approval, not the net.
Soprano2
I think it’s hilarious that Republicans are angry about a “narrative” that they just want to obstruct when they’ve spent the years since 2009 being loud and proud obstructionists!! They really drove it home to people when they obstructed Merrick Garland. I think that was one of their most high-profile obstructions that even low-information voters knew something about. Be angry all you want, little men and women, you know it’s true – AND YOU’RE STILL DOING IT YOU ASSHOLES! They want to obstruct but be seen as not obstructing. Democrats aren’t going to play that game anymore, and it looks like even the press corpse learned has something.
Betty Cracker
@Matt McIrvin: I wonder how much being a “new face” has to do with early approval ratings? Obama started off with strong early numbers, but his overall Gallup average was 47.9. TFG’s average was 41, which is the worst ever recorded by Gallup.
Approval at the beginning of a presidency is a very mixed bag if you look at Gallup. Truman had the highest ever at 87. He was a VP but a new one, and he assumed office upon a death, which seems to really boost numbers: LBJ clocked in at 78!
Obama came in at 68, and Biden has a lower but still respectable 57 per Gallup, which is roughly Bill Clinton territory. TFG once again has the lowest score ever recorded at 49 during his “honeymoon” period. Historical loserosity!
rikyrah
Mark Elliott (@markmobility) Tweeted:
Cariol Horne was fired in 2008 following a 2006 incident in which she tried to stop a fellow officer from using a chokehold on a handcuffed suspect.
Fifteen years later, a NY judge just ruled she should receive back pay and a pension. https://t.co/fO7YfrR6dj https://twitter.com/markmobility/status/1382652569999261698?s=20
mrmoshpotato
@Matt McIrvin:
Yeah? Biden didn’t even have anything close to the largest protest in US history against him. SAD!
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: Also, it declined, like it does for most Presidents. Bush was considerably less popular on 9/10/2001 than he’d been in early April 2001, but his approval – disapproval was still in positive territory because there were a fair number of undecideds.
mrmoshpotato
@rikyrah:
Inter-conteniental Assclown Missile?
Immanentize
I had my second Peefizzer yesterday. Reaction much like first: Slightly sore injection site, but more tired today than the day after the first shot. But that could be for lots of reasons. Like I want a vacation?
Soprano2
Where that quote says “drive down negatives” it seems to me it should say “drive up negatives” unless I’m completely missing the context. Geez, who knew it would be hard to demonize a nice older man who mostly says nice things about people and doesn’t regularly rage-tweet over stupid stiff? *rolleyes
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: Nonexistent… Yet. :-) It happens this wkend. We leave at midnight Sat morning, come back Tuesday.
Matt McIrvin
@Betty Cracker: People said at the time that Trump was getting no honeymoon, but he did have a honeymoon. That was just as good as it got. (Then in the later part of 2017 his approval was as low as it ever got, until the Capitol coup aftermath in January 2021.)
Immanentize
@Matt McIrvin: So what you are saying, in the end, is all of this comparative poll knowledge is not at all useful?
JMG
Trump NEVER had many undecideds or don’t knows in his approval-disapproval ratings, not from his inauguration on. Biden has between 5-10 percent, which is more reasonable. So while his approval is low to mid 50s, his disapproval is low 40s. I wonder if those are people whose reaction to his becoming President was “great, now I don’t have to think about politics too much.”
There go two miscreants
I wonder how people answered if they thought the whole “is it infrastructure?” issue was idiotic and irrelevant?
hueyplong
“Our tried and true demonization works best on the bitchez. And the coloreds. Having kindly old white guy there messes up our narrative.”
“It’s just not fair. Well, Politico, at least you’re still covering whether our skeezy plan is working instead of whether it is objectively skeezy.”
Matt McIrvin
@Betty Cracker: Bill Clinton did have a rough first year. Like GWB, he started out with approval similar to Biden but lower disapproval, but that changed quickly because there were a bunch of negative stories in his first year–lots of troubles with appointment confirmations, the freakout over “Hillarycare”, and inevitably he got blamed for not instantly fixing the bad economy; he got less slack for that than Obama got.
The Thin Black Duke
To give credit where credit is due, Trump knew way back when that Biden was going to be his toughest opponent. Hey, stopped clock and all that, right?
Matt McIrvin
@JMG:
Thus setting us up for another midterm disaster like 1994 and 2010.
NotMax
Media notes.
1) As spare and stark as the landscape, first season (all four episodes) of the Icelandic police procedural The Cliff included with Prime until the end of the month. Moves along haltingly but overall not a disappointing way to spend a few hours of watching time.
2) For those who aren’t put off by the sanguinary, the French film Earth & Blood looks intriguing. Arrives on Netflix this weekend.
Matt McIrvin
@Immanentize: I think there’s some utility but only for seeing the 10,000-foot view–the story in the end is that politics has gotten far more tribal and polarized than it was even in 2009. It concerns me because I think it potentially means the end of US democracy, maybe even a civil war of extermination a few years down the road. And I don’t know what to do about it.
hueyplong
@The Thin Black Duke: It was just his bigotry talking. He assumed the toughest candidate would be a white male because they’re all that matters.
The fact that Biden actually was the biggest threat can probably be seen in part by noting that so much of the country is skewed to Trump’s POV on that count.
lowtechcyclist
@hueyplong:
While that’s true, they’ve certainly been able to demonize white men like Kerry and Dukakis well enough to beat them, and they demonized Bill Clinton sufficiently to take control of Congress in 1994.
Betty Cracker
@Matt McIrvin: True. It’s possible Obama got more slack on the economy at first because things were just so damned scary during the Bush II recession, whereas the Bush I recession was painful but we were pretty sure the entire economy wasn’t about to collapse.
You’d think Biden would get a similar benefit of the doubt reflected in his poll numbers, and maybe he is, but like you said, things are even more polarized now, so it’s hard to gauge. Maybe historical precedent doesn’t tell us much anymore.
mrmoshpotato
@Soprano2:
A bazillion percent this!
NeenerNeener
I had my 2nd Moderna on Tuesday and I was totally worthless yesterday. I couldn’t sleep Tuesday night at all which made the fatigue from the shot even worse. I’m feeling better today.
SFAW
@Immanentize:
How would you be able to differentiate that from your current “routine”?
Ben Cisco
@Soprano2:
Yup – don’t want to be called out as obstructionists, maybe don’t do obstructionist shit. I will NEVER forget or forgive what they did to PBO/Merrick – I know why they did it, and anyone wanting to float “alternative facts” for why they did it can get bent.
Keep going Joe – drive their asses into the ground.
SFAW
@NeenerNeener:
Hmmm. Either that means I’ve been getting my 2nd Moderna every day for the last XX years, or …
SFAW
@Matt McIrvin:
I’m thinking Don’t Ask Don’t Tell may also have had something to do with that, but I might be mixing up my chronologies.
Honus
“You’ll never get anyone to admit this on the record, but it’s really f**king hard to drive down the negatives of an affable, gentlemanly white man who says nice, positive things most of the time,” a veteran Republican consultant said of @JoeBiden.
I watched this same phenomenon through eight years of Reagan cruelty and evil. Good to see it on our side for a change.
mrmoshpotato
@Matt McIrvin:
Lasted a week at most. “Oh look! He’s trying to ban Muslims! He really is the shitbag we knew he was!”
Kay
Infrastructure will really stick in Trump’s craw. Remember how they sold him as a “builder”?
Imagine how gross though, if he has been a hard worker or had hired competent people or if Republicans in Congress cared about…anything- the highways would be named after him and his children and it would be a giant corruption stew of contracts. Yuck.
lowtechcyclist
@There go two miscreants:
I think the question makes people’s eyes glaze over before even getting to thinking that much.
rp
Dubya’s approval ratings started in the high 50s, steadily dropped to about 50 by September, rose to 90 after 9/11, steadily dropped again until the invasion of Iraq gave him a temporary boost, and then steadily dropped to the end of his second term until it got to about 30%.
Xenos
Any thoughts on the move to expand the USSC?
I can think of four justifications.
1 new judge each to compensate for
Bruce K in ATH-GR
I think it was Mr. Pierce who commented that in the 1960’s, the Democrats had their come-to-Jesus moment on civil rights, while at roughly the same time, the Republicans made their deal with the devil. I’ve been wondering for years if this is finally the moment that Old Scratch calls in his marker.
SFAW
@Kay:
If Sterling really believes that Trump would ever do that, I have an investment property I’d like to offer him. It’s a bridge, built in the 1880s, rebuilt/refurbished in the late 1900s, runs between Brooklyn and Manhattan, he can probably make a ton of money on the tolls. Heck, I can probably give him a special deal on a three-fer.
Ken
@SFAW: I hear you. I had Moderna #1 yesterday, and this morning I was trying to decide whether the aches and pains were different from usual. Most of them went away after I took my hot shower (also as usual) but there’s a bit of ache near the injection, which I’ll take as a good sign.
RobertB
Moderna #2 didn’t affect my wife much worse than #1, but #2 wiped me out. Full-bore flu symptoms for a day. Waiting for the Super Soldier symptoms to kick in now.
lowtechcyclist
The Politico Playbook piece goes on to quote this GQP guy: “Everything they support is defined as either Covid relief or infrastructure, and everything they oppose is like…Jim Crow voter suppression and evil.”
Eric Levitz responded, “I get that Republicans are in a tough spot and understand their frustration. But have they considered simply doing less Jim Crow voter suppression and evil?”
Of course they haven’t. Evil is what they’re about, and they can’t win anymore without the voter suppression. QED.
SFAW
@Ken:
Yer focusing on the wrong thing vis-a-vis my comment. That said: good luck with any side effects, both now and in 28 days.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Xenos: Those are more like the unspoken reasons, with the justifications being the overload of cases for the nine-member Court, and thirteen being a natural number corresponding to the number of Federal appellate circuits. After all, the Supreme Court’s already been packed by the Republicans (though I hope they come to wish that they’d given Garland his hearing and approved his advancement to the Court, rather than having him as Attorney General under Biden).
Ken
@Xenos: I prefer to keep revenge out of it*. Just go for the practical explanation that historically there was one justice per circuit court of appeals.
* For public consumption.
Grr, Bruce K got there first. Must be the time zone advantage.
sdhays
@Xenos: No mention of Amy COVID Barrett
ETA: While it’s justified and should happen immediately, I really doubt it can get through the Senate in this session. I think it’s an important warning, though, to the current Court. TPM has an article up about conservatives being increasingly concerned over the new majority’s seeming hesitancy on overturning Roe vs Wade. They may be hesitating because they fear that they may cause Congress to take away their majority right away.
SFAW
@lowtechcyclist:
It’s like Theodoric of York, Medieval Politician.
mrmoshpotato
@Kay:
Yeah. Or even encouraged wearing a mask when out and about while a pandemic is a-raging.
But mobster trash is gonna hire other mobster trash.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@hueyplong: Yeah, I’m thinking that is Harris is our next nominee, she’s starting with a handicap. I’m glad Biden is trying to give her some visibility
lowtechcyclist
@Kay: Man, that tweet…I’d remind that guy that it’s easy to promise stuff! Trump also promised a health care plan that would be cheaper and better than the ACA, and it would be so easy.
Promises are easy, policy – the part where you figure out how to make those promises happen – involves work. Trump doesn’t do work. Biden does.
Kay
@SFAW:
I think a lot of people thought he would do some of it, because to do would have been politically and personally beneficial to him. The reason he’s such a freak is his mean-spirited nastiness overrides even self-interest. You know Democrats! A carefully crafted and competently sold infrastructure bill would have peeled off enough of them, because they actually want infrastructure. Put some in their district or state and they’d have a hard time refusing to go along.
Put “deal maker” in the bullshit bin along with “builder”. He’s bad at both things.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@NotMax:
We’ve been watching “Good Girls” on Netflix. It stars Christina Hendricks and despite the many giant plot flaws and continuity errors, is pretty entertaining.
Its biggest flaw (and there are many) is a villain who is too cunning and enduring in his schemes for real life.
sdhays
@lowtechcyclist: I’ve been struck over the past few days how it’s been reported as Biden’s problem that the US isn’t leaving Afghanistan by May 1st as agreed to by the TFG, but it seems TFG’s administration didn’t actually do anything to make that practical for OVER A YEAR.
Dump didn’t just promise pulling out of Afghanistan, he signed an agreement with the Taliban and then sat on it for a year. Even his signed promises weren’t worth the paper they were written on.
Uncle Cosmo
@Matt McIrvin: JFC, stop whining.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I think it more accurate to say Biden is also doing an act, but with Biden that act is means to goal – assure the public his policies are to their best interests. With Trump the act was the goal and there was nothing else. Since most of the media is now infotament they can’t figure Biden out because performance is all they know.
Kay
@SFAW:
Democrats have a better approach to “red states” than Republicans do to “blue states”. It doesn’t make any sense to exclude certain states from federal goodies or assistance and it isn’t just GOP Presidents who attack blue states, it’s the whole Right wing brain trust. It’s dumb and petty and short-sighted.
gene108
@debbie:
Villianization of their opponents has been the GOP’s script for success for as long as I can remember, and really became their preferred method of campaign because of Gingrich
It’s all they have.
The only “optimistic” GOP ads I’ve seen are them hunting, shooting guns, or driving a pickup truck.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
If one’s only interest is the drama of signing ceremony this is what happens. Security arguments and troop movement logistics are BORING and can’t be summed up in a tweet.
lowtechcyclist
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Enough said, right there! I’ve had the hots for her ever since her YoSaffBridge days. I’ll have to check it out.
NorthLeft12
@Soprano2: Yes, it must be galling for the Republicans to have their obstruction exposed on a regular basis.
The best part is that they are opposing very popular and necessary programs.
zhena gogolia
@Uncle Cosmo:
Haha, we’re in the same mood today.
Wapiti
That writer’s framing bugs me. They could have said: Biden is delivering things that Donald Trump promised but never completed…
Another Scott
@Matt McIrvin: The press went nuts covering TFG as if he were president the day after the election. People had months of him before he was even sworn in. The flip side of that was he burned the usual early “give the new guy a chance” good-will among the politically disengaged before he ever really had power.
Cheers,
Scott.
Kay
@SFAW:
Republicans attack “blue states” and Democrats don’t attack “red states”.
Republicans all gleefully went along with a whole campaign to depict federal aid as a “blue state bail out”
That just doesn’t happen in Democratic politics, only in Republican politics. Part of their giant tax cut was designed to punish people who live in blue states. It’s fucking bizarre and it’s wholly accepted on the Right.
mrmoshpotato
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
At least one Rube Goldberg machine per episode, but the end result is evil, not pouring a cup of water?
Kay
@Wapiti:
Oh, come on! It’s like this site has been taken over by Rachel Maddow. People can make SOME connections themselves!
It’s very favorable to Joe Biden. I mean, it doesn’t say “where’s why Biden is better than Trump” but have a tiny bit of faith in the reader :)
lowtechcyclist
@sdhays:
Totally unsurprising, unfortunately. There’s a book to be written on what a bunch of total fuckups the TFG people were, even in terms of their own ideology.
PST
Having one justice per circuit is not a very compelling rationale, but if that is the direction those interested in expansion want to go, it would make more sense to go for fifteen. The ninth circuit will have to be split someday, and the chief justice has plenty to do without being assigned to a circuit. A fifteen justice court would make it natural to have cases heard by five-justice panels, with only the exceptional cases heard en banc. There is a lot of politically uncontroversial judicial work to be done to resolve issues on which the circuits vary, and we don’t need nine justices for all these. We just need more such cases heard. The circuit courts of appeal, by necessity, have panels hearing the large majority of cases and few en banc decisions. Having each justice hearing only one case in three most of the time probably wouldn’t triple throughput, since there would be cases then heard by the whole court, but I’ll bet it would double it.
gene108
@SFAW: @Kay:
That’s the attitude the media took towards Trump. Despite Trump promising to strengthen Medicare, and Social Security, as well as promising universal healthcare, anyone with a bit of sense figured he was lying.
No reporter, talking head, or major opinion writer ever bothered with bringing up his 2016 campaign promises. These promises are just brushed off like they were not a major reason he won the GOP nomination.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Did previous GOP presidents openly attack blue states like Trump did? I remember plenty of wink-wink sneering about “San Francisco” and “New York” values and slobbering praise for so-called “Heartland” values, etc., and maybe I’ve forgotten more overt stuff. But I don’t remember any other GOP POTUS besides Trump so brazenly and overtly punishing people in states that didn’t vote for him. That’s probably because even in a liberal state like California, plenty of people do support Republicans, so trashing the whole state is dumb and counterproductive. Trump’s repeated attacks on blue states via words and policies were unprecedented AFAIK, and now the remaining elected Republicans can wear that around their necks too.
Frankensteinbeck
@Kay:
Of course. Right wing ideology sees America as in an existential war, the Other as absolutely evil, and is generally rooted in anger that society is steadily taking away their ability to shit on other people. By and large, they elect exactly the leaders they want and those leaders act the way they want, by being extreme assholes.
mrmoshpotato
@lowtechcyclist:
What was Dump’s bastard administration’s ideology?
I only saw screaming shit on Twitter, being as cruel as possible to the vulnerable, and stealing as much as the bastards possibly could.
raven
@Frankensteinbeck: Did you watch the Frontline on the insurrection?
Another Scott
@PST: “Fight for 15!!”
I saw a graph a few decades ago that said that the SCOTUS has only had a liberal tilt for maybe 25-35 years in the history of the country (mainly the later FDR and Warren years). It’s long past time that was remedied.
Cheers,
Scott.
raven
@Betty Cracker: “dumb and counterproductive.” Like that matters.
Betty
Waldman’s description of Trump’s act as captivating sounds wrong. Maybe it’s just me, but really?
Frankensteinbeck
@raven:
I did not. What did it say?
pika
@rikyrah: Just wanted to say that I come to every morning thread hoping to find your “Good Morning Everyone ???” — I have always found it sustaining, so thank you
De-lurking just this once
What on earth was that last tweet even about? I recognized all the words but…huh?
raven
@Frankensteinbeck: What you said for an hour and a half. Motherfuckers are crazy and they want your head on a pike.
eta
Kay
I’ve been in a book club for about 100 years. This is a conservative area so unsurprisingly most of the women are Republicans, although not all- it’s like 7R to 3D, if you’re counting and I am.
So the pandemic has been hard because 2 of the 7 R’s are nutty in the specific Trump way and they cause all kinds of conflict, with the latest being their objection to one of the woman asking us to “raise our hands” (on Zoom) if we have been vaccinated because she wants to meet in person but her husband is really medically vulnerable. The Trumpsters suggestion was people who are “scared” attend by Zoom and the “not scared” would attend in person. I objected to this (politely) because I think it punishes the people who are more careful and one of the other members joined my objection.
So this is tyranny, obviously, asking if people are vaccinated to plan a fucking party, and the 2 Trumpsters just quit. I just don’t care anymore. Go, stay, I don’t give a shit.
mrmoshpotato
@raven: Is there any new information in it, or is it just a condensed version of the second impeachment trial?
Wag
@NotMax:
Unfair! Another blatant attempt by Biden to undermine the free market/GQP!
raven
@mrmoshpotato: I think the reporter is nuts. He went deep into militia country in Michigan and interviewed a Virginia proud boy who is ready to kill us (who has since vanished). He basically started in Charlottesville and chronicles what has occurred since.
sdhays
@Betty: It’s not just you.
Ruckus
@debbie:
Conservative politicians have nothing to sell except that they are screwing everyone by making it possible to be the worst humans. So nothing positive to sell, which means they have to make their opposition worse. That was much easier to do when something like the color of the opposition’s leader was not the same as their’s. That’s been taken away. The same thing works for competence. Our guy has competence, their guy is selected because he has none, except for the concept that he’s a money guy which will help everyone – by stealing all the money. We select based upon effectiveness at the actual job, they select for the best at the job of deflection and theft. Oh and hate.
Simpler. They have to make a villain out of our guy to win because their guy actually is one. They just managed last time to sell racism along with all shitforbrains other crappy points.
At some point, likely their last guy, the plot is so obvious that everyone breathing can see and understand it. Some will never change their point of view of why they vote for their guy, because they think all politicians are the same, even when the proof is so obvious a 5 yr old can see it. (That’s why they had to elect effectively a 4 yr old last time.)
mrmoshpotato
@raven: Gotcha.
Jeffro
@Ben Cisco:
110% here for all of this.
Immanentize
@SFAW: Ha! Easy answer — it would not be happening in my house.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
They’ve all joined him though! They think this is a good idea. “Blue state bailout” was a national GOP slogan. They would lose their fucking minds if any Democratic pol anywhere said anything like that about red states. There would be entire commentary category devoted to the unfairness of Democrats toward red states. It’s the neediness that gets me. The lack of confidence combined with belligerence. Confident people don’t behave like this. “Look at us! We’re important!” OMFG stop demanding to be loved!
Just One More Canuck
@Uncle Cosmo: he’s just pre-disappointed
Morzer
@Matt McIrvin:
Trump had the sort of honeymoon that leads to a divorce.
Frankensteinbeck
@Ruckus:
Extend that to the Republican voters themselves, and you’ve got it. It’s what assholes do.
Immanentize
@Xenos: I think expansion of both the Court and the house are each rational.
The house number was set post-WWI when the ratio of voter to representative was far less than it is now.
There are currently 13 Judicial Circuits. The 9th really is going to have to split at some point (it is de facto already split into a southern and northern division) giving us 14. Add a Chief Admin Judge (even if rotating) and you get 15 — that is a nice number for both input and as it is odd, for really close case dispute resolution.
Whether it can happen politically is another Q. But I have some thoughts about that.
SFAW
@Kay:
RWMFs getting their hate on re: “Blue states” is sort of emblematic of their entire worldview. If Fred Rogers were still alive and doing his show, they’d hate him. And Jesus? They’d applaud his crucifixion. [Well, some of them, maybe not all of them.]
WaterGirl
@raven:
Link
SFAW
@Kay:
I am sometimes reminded of Jed Bartlet’s response to the GWB clone (played by Brolin): “Can we have [our money] back?”
stinger
You said this better than I could.
I believe it was Linda Ellerbee who said women watched the rise of Ronald Reagan to power and thought of the boys they’d been in high school with — the jocks who sat in the back of the room throwing spitballs, but got passing grades and became class president on the basis of their athletic prowess and personality rather than academic effort or ability. That was certainly how I thought of Reagan; not being a Californian, I didn’t know the levels of cruelty and evil in his heart until after he became president.
Bush Jr. shared Reagan’s laziness, incuriosity, and indifference toward his job — but people wanted to “have a beer” with him. Trump of course far surpassed either man in laziness and amped up the evil — but I never heard anyone say they’d like to have a beer with Trump. Unlike Reagan or Bush, he didn’t win on the basis of apparent geniality; he won because he couldn’t be bothered to brush a veneer over the evil.
Ksmiami
@lowtechcyclist: Funny Tom Nichols today is thanking the Q caucus for going up against MLB- what’s next? The GOP says Apple pie is the devil?
zhena gogolia
More Biden ineffectuality //
lowtechcyclist
@Immanentize:
Whether it can happen politically is another Q.
I don’t know the answer to that one, but the first step is always to get it into the discussion. The Dems are doing that now.
Hopefully this will take the current size of the Supreme Court from something that everyone either regards as sacrosanct, or simply takes for granted, to something that people realize it can be changed, whether or not we should.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: It’s true — they’re all onboard. I don’t know what it means for their “brand” on a national level. I know Trump was a scumbag going in, but that’s one of the things he did that genuinely shocked me — crafting policies to punish entire states and being solicitous with disaster relief toward red states and criticizing blues.
As someone who’s been partisan all her life, I can’t gauge how that sort of behavior is received by “normies” and unaffiliated voters. But I’ve got to believe it was part of the reason Trump got the boot and that Biden NOT behaving that way will have an impact. Hope so, anyway.
The Moar You Know
@Kay: COVID has been bad enough. The social, legal, and world of work fallout (my company plans to fire any and all vaccine refuseniks) is going to be intense.
mrmoshpotato
OT – Device Orchestra dances to September
mrmoshpotato
@Ksmiami:
They haven’t yet?
rikyrah
@Soprano2:
I don’t think the press has learned shyt. They seem to be peturbed that the Democrats aren’t playing along.
rikyrah
@mrmoshpotato:
ICAM= I Couldn’t Agree More
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@mrmoshpotato:
How many bad decisions can one character make that draw her deeper into the shit every single time – at some time, you have to hammer the dead weight, decide to go all in on the evil or kill the oppressor.
And if you’re a crime lord, failure to give everybody in your network a decent taste of the action doesn’t lead to much loyalty or longevity after a short while.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Which is why I always thought infrastructure would eventually happen. They just left that pot of money on the table.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@zhena gogolia:
If they just pull SWIFT access from Russia and Cyprus, Putin won’t last long.
rikyrah
@Xenos:
Looking for the lie.
see none.
Ruckus
@Kay:
How else are they going to get any?
Ceci n est pas mon nym
I’m scheduled for my first Pfizer shot this weekend.
We just booked our first vacation since lockdown. It’s a weekend in the nearby tourist town of New Hope PA in June. That was also the site of our last (weekend) vacation in March 2020.
When we came back we decided maybe it would be a good idea on Tuesday to do some grocery shopping, maybe pick up a pack of TP, just in case people started going nuts with this Covid thing and panic shopping. Then TFG gave his first Covid speech on Wednesday and all hell broke loose. By Thursday I was cancelling outside commitments and by Friday we were fully locked down.
The B & B tells us they are asking people to go masked, but we know that there’s a lot of rampant white privilege among the tourists. Also they aren’t asking about vaccination status. We once watched a guy screaming at the Mexican family who ran the authentic Mexican restaurant, that he knew what a taco was and this wasn’t a taco.
So we expect we’ll be doing a lot of avoiding of our fellow humans. It will be an interesting experiment in rejoining society.
rikyrah
@Betty Cracker:
They allowed in the GOP Tax Scam to deliberately target Blue States. That is not forgotten.
rikyrah
@pika:
No problem.
Asides from a couple of weeks after November 2016,
trying to take the positive look of getting up every morning is a blessing.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
There are a couple of different potential long-term outcome paths. See the documentaries Deadpool and I am Legend.
rikyrah
@Kay:
You are better than me.
I wish an unvaccinated muthaphucka would come cross my door.
Frankensteinbeck
@Kay:
Assholes demand to be praised for being assholes. Yes, they are royally pissed that it’s not happening. There’s a whole history and context. For one example, in the 80s an evangelical could say God told him to and get public applause. If they do it today, the public goes “Wow, get that guy to a psychiatrist.” They know what they’ve lost, and it fills them with bile.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Xenos: One for Amy Barrett because she’s an insult to RBG’s memory
rikyrah
@Kay:
Did you point out that their Orange Hero IS vaccinated, and that he did it secret MONTHS AGO?
Ken
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Right. Don’t attack with troops or spies, use accountants and auditors.
Frankensteinbeck
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Literally an insult. After McConnell confirmed her, he said it was his birthday present to Hillary.
artem1s
@PST:
I could see Roberts totally going for this. He’s got his name plastered all over some of the worst decisions in the country’s history. This one weird trick would mean he still has a chance to preserve his place in history as the second worst justice after Roger Taney!
Betty Cracker
@The Moar You Know: Once vaccines are not just authorized on an emergency basis but fully FDA approved, I expect a lot of businesses and schools will require employees or students/faculty to provide proof. The cruise companies here in FL already want to require vaccination proof, but the dumbass gov is trying to stop them.
Josie
@rikyrah:
I agree. A large percentage of the press made bank off of TFG and want to continue the clicks and payoffs. A small number, however, gets it, and we can only hope that others will learn after a while. It would help if Democrats at every level point out these truths every hour of every day.
rikyrah
@Kay:
We debated that – about Dolt45 voters.
I honestly believe it’s the fact that not only did we never bow down to Dolt45, we took their vote for them as a mark against their character. They weren’t used to that from our side. They thought we would roll over and show deference to him, and , in return, them.
I have you to thank for how to look at his voters, Kay. Until you said that their vote for him showed their lack of character, I was trying to nail down what I felt about Dolt45 voters. It was true when you wrote it right after the election in 2016, and remains true to this day.
Kayla Rudbek
@rikyrah: and add one more for Amy COVID Barrett because she’s nothing more than a mouthpiece for Opus Dei
mrmoshpotato
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Oof.
eclare
@Betty Cracker: Do you think that will end up in court? I have to think House of Mouse will want all of its ee’s vaccinated.
Mike in Pasadena
@Kay: At least we got TFG’s health care plan that was better and cheaper than the ACA. . . Oh, I mean, we’ll see it in two weeks.
patrick II
@NotMax:
I hope they include robo-texting in that. Texting is how I receive most of my “you’ll lose your social security if you don’t respond” approaches.
StringOnAStick
@Ruckus: The “all politicians are the same” trope is really hard to fight. It makes people who would nominally be on the D side cynical and uninvolved in politics, and easier for the culture war crap or disgust with it all to just drop out of voting. Especially when voting is made harder and harder to do.
raven
@Betty Cracker: I don’t know the answer but how much of that was just running his mouth? I seem to remember him saying no to relief for the California fires and then doing it.
Villago Delenda Est
Politico is competing with the WaPo to be the bile-oozing heart of the Village.
Nuke it from orbit.
Only way to be sure.
Frankensteinbeck
@eclare:
Won’t that be fun? The conservative justices will love that. The rights of corporations to be assholes vs the rights of individuals and Republican politicians to be assholes. My guess is Alito and Thomas will rule companies can’t require vaccinations because Cleek’s Law (they really are nutcases), and Barrett maaaaaybe with them because she’s big on the rights of Christianists to be assholes. For the liberals it will be a no brainer to side with public safety, and for Roberts, Kavanaugh and Gorsuch their mixed feelings will be enough to let settled law rule the day. They are vastly more conventional jurists than we give them credit for, if only because we give them no credit whatsoever and expect Alito and Thomas style lunatics.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
With due respect to all here, my Facebook friends and people who proudly put up artwork with the RBG collar and the phrase “I dissent”, I point out that it isn’t a winning set of words.
The phrase is one of powerlessness, and no dissent “eviscerates” or “unwinds” the decision of the majority. Many, many people get hurt by the ramifications of those decisions, many of them mortally. The act of governance isn’t some rhetorical game, where points are given to the winning club at a high school debate.
This brings me to the notion of hubris, the aged and indispensability – RBG did significant damage to every cause she cared about by not retiring when she should have. Frankly, our Senate is loaded with similarly flawed people, even those on our side. I wasn’t nuts about Biden’s age and he wasn’t my first choice – he is performing well at the moment and is different from most people in his cohort, but we really need to be careful lest our bench of 40 somethings be relegated to the background while a pack of 70-80 year olds cling to ossified vision and power.
I saw somebody talking about some powerful Kagan dissent that “laid the majority bare”, but that was meaningless, as she’s on the losing side on policy.
As someone reminded above, our Supreme Court may be one of our shittiest institutions. It had about a 20 year run of relative conservative decency starting with Brown, and conservatives lost their shit that it was making any changes at all – they’ve been in extreme reactive mode ever since. We need 10 year term limits on SCOTUS judges, or perhaps a hard retirement age set at something like 70 for every post.
JanieM
From one of the tweets at the top:
As with “socialism,” and the whole rest of the Fox News lexicon?
And anyhow, “allowing”? Is this dope going to gather an army to stop the evolution and devolution of word meanings?
Final silly question: is there really a disproportionate and increasing share of utter boneheaded stupidity in the collective punditry, or am I imagining it?
Almost Retired
@NeenerNeener: I had Moderna number two on Tuesday as well, and I was a Zombie by dinner time. As I mentioned in an earlier thread, I was too fatigued to get up and change the channel when Wheel of Fortune came on (I hate that show). And I couldn’t even solve the puzzles….Totally fine today.
Geminid
@PST: There are good objective reasons to expand the Supreme Court, beyond restoring political balance. But I don’t think expansion will happen, at least not during this Congress. There is a real possibility, though, of legislation that would add more federal Circuit Court and District Court judges. That would be a good thing.
Kay
@rikyrah:
No. It’s a complete disconnect. Vaccination for anything is freeing to me. I partake in all medical advances, gratefully :)
mrmoshpotato
@patrick II:
You probably ignore (and delete) those, but if you’ve ever replied, has it been with ???
Shakti
@Soprano2: It’s more like these Republicans are angry that their “working the ref” routine and the extreme presumption of reasonableness isn’t working for them right now.
It’s like they forgot that seven of that “moderate” “G-10” didn’t vote to convict Trump on inciting a mob to storm the Capitol to stop the certification of the election results. That means they think it was ok.
Why would any sane person in Biden’s shoes give them a benefit of the doubt?
cain
@rikyrah:
Now if we can only get Sinema to understand that. I think Manchin knows, but there is a dance that has to be played. Nobody can witness what happened in the senate and not think they aren’t good faith actors given all the machinations.
Kay
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
I agree, and I’m kind of interested in how the thing will change with the introduction of a term.
Ten years is too short though. 20. Don’t pack the court. Add a 20 year term.
mrmoshpotato
@Almost Retired:
And too tired to even zap some brains in the microwave. :(
Omnes Omnibus
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: @Kay: How do you square judicial terms with the Constitution?
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Omnes Omnibus:
Can’t – would have to be amended, which is impossible.
Another Scott
Phys.org:
This makes so much sense to me. Obama was elected twice, but too many people went nuts when it looked like Hillary was going to win… :-(
The fully study is here – https://apo.org.au/node/307612
Cheers,
Scott.
...now I try to be amused
@cain:
If only. But I’m not optimistic a former Green will see the value of political kabuki.
Roger Moore
@Kay:
This can’t be put 100% on Trump; the complete disfunction of Congress under Republican control has to take a big chunk of blame, too. The Republicans, especially in the House, weren’t going to do a big ticket thing like infrastructure precisely because it was something the Democrats wanted. Also, they wouldn’t know how to write and pass an infrastructure bill if they had wanted to. It’s amazing how far the Republican capability to do even the most basic tasks, like actually legislating, has atrophied.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Omnes Omnibus:
I suppose a workaround could be either:
1. Campaigning on nomination only those 55 and up for judicial positions, on the loud basis that “my vision for the judiciary is not going to be imposed on you that long after my term, unless you citizens want it to be done by future candidates by their nominations”.
2. Annual bonuses paid for justices who retire after 20. Make it tasty.
Kay
@Omnes Omnibus:
Imm suggested a work around with a more robust “senior status” – a gentler push.
sdhays
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I find it appalling how we allow Supreme Court Justices to decide who appoints their replacements (unless they checkout before retiring). It may very well be the case that we got the atrocious Bush vs. Gore decision simply because Sandra Day O’Connor wanted to retire and didn’t want her replacement chosen by Gore. If she had felt she had at least 4 more years in her, she may have decided differently. It’s breathtaking in its banal selfishness.
As others have mentioned, the Court hasn’t deserved any pretense of “legitimacy” since that decision. I would really like to see fixed terms for Supreme Court Justices. Lifetime appointments are simply an opportunity to game the system.
WereBear
@Another Scott: Someone should read Racoona Sheldon: The Screwfly Solution.
SiubhanDuinne
@NotMax:
What?! I live for the calls about my vehicle’s warranty! If the FCC gets rid of them, I’ll have no social life at all.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@sdhays: And if you remember, Scalia was brazen in taking Federalist and Heritage money for speaking gigs. I think Scam Alito has been big on that, too, not to mention what Ginni Thomas has been up to.
Baud
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
I feel the same way about “speaking truth to power.”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@SiubhanDuinne: there are a lot of things I don’t like about the iPhone 11 (and Tim Apple and his whole racket that I knowingly choose to be a mark for), but there is an option for blocking spam calls that makes up for a lot
germy
Getting
Republicans
Elected
Every
November
germy
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I have a moto phone, and every day I “block and report as spam” numbers that appear as local area code numbers. Spoofed, as one time I tried calling one back and got a “this number is not in service” recording.
I don’t know how the gov. can go after these people. Who knows where they are? They spoof their numbers so you can’t trace back to them.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Baud:
I’d much rather them say something along the lines “they’re fucking out of their minds, a bunch of dullards who are so in thrall to magic bean salesmen that they just aren’t part of the real world.”
None of that “I respectfully dissent”, fake civility bullshit.
Of course, I’m older now and can get away with cranky – I was terrified to do it as a young lawyer.
germy
Two shows I cannot tolerate: Pat Sajak’s Wheel of Fortune and Steve Harvey’s Family Feud.
They call Pat Sajak’s show “America’s Game” and I suppose that’s true. You’re always one spin away from bankruptcy.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I don’t blame RBG. I blame the people who told me in 2000 that there wasn’t a dime’s worth of difference between Gore and Bush, and who just sixteen years later, after Bush v Gore and Roberts and Alito and Citizens United and Shelby County– after all that, they told me that if there was a dime’s worth of difference it was that Hillary Clinton was actually worse than Donald Trump, and “don’t try to blackmail me with the Supreme Court”, and four years–eta: and three pre-Vatican II Justices– after that told me Biden needed to give them a reason to vote.
And who are probably going to tell me in 2022 that whoever gets the nomination in North Carolina (and Florida and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania) Is a corporate-consensus-neo-liberal
Baud
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Well, I don’t mind when they say it in an actual dissenting opinion. I’m less enamored with our people saying it as a rallying cry on the intertubes.
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
Oh, too bad. That’s my specialty around the university. It hasn’t gotten me very far, to be sure.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@germy:
A soon to be bankruptcy client of mine reports that his collection calls are coming from spoofed numbers. Could be an FDCPA claim in there if it’s a third party collector, not so clear on 1st parties.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
Haha. I know it comes from a good place. But speaking truth to power isn’t the main goal. Obtaining power is.
PJ
I know the use of “trickster” with Biden is ironic, and for me the really ironic thing is that Biden is confounding the Republicans (and certain vocal leftists) by doing what he said he would do, by being transparent about the process, and by executing things competently. These three things are so antithetical to the way Republicans operate that they are stymied in opposing him.
mrmoshpotato
@SiubhanDuinne: I have a ton of “Your antivirus is expiring!” spam that you can have. They aren’t robocalls, but they’re close.
Geminid
@Roger Moore: Also, some Republicans were still caught in the scam of privatization of public infrastructure. That made it harder for them to put up a good infrastructure bill. Privatization was used to “solve” state funding problems a decade ago, and companies still press their Republican minions for more.
I believe Virginia ended up paying a lot of money for a private highway from Petersburg to Suffolk. It was initiated under Republican Governor Bob McDonald, but was never built. Similarly, I believe the state is required to pay substantial money to a company for a second bridge at Hampton Roads even if the state builds the bridge itself, because of a sweetheart contract signed by McDonnell’s Transportation Secretary.
James E Powell
@Kay:
Not just on the Right. Like voter suppression, the press/media accept it and portray it as a legitimate political position.
Republicans routinely express hatred & scorn for large portions of the American people and that’s just politics. At the same time, Democrats are lectured that they need to “reach out” to racists & religious bigots because . . . I really don’t know why.
Baud
@James E Powell:
I think it’s because we’ve let them. Blue states and voters tend to just let insults just roll off their backs.
Just One More Canuck
@SiubhanDuinne: The only calls we get on our land line are from family members and “Dave” calling about the air duct cleaning. We keep the line because it would cost us more if we got rid of it (b/c of other services bundled) and my home office has crappy cell phone reception
rikyrah
Anyone heard anything about when the Census is going to drop?
Barbara
@Betty Cracker: I am surprised that no one has mentioned the potential legal hurdles to Florida trying to tell a cruise company that it can’t require proof of vaccination. Legally, almost none of the cruise lines flies under a U.S. flag. Given federal oversight of ports and international travel, it seems like Florida might be trying to regulate in an area that is subject to federal control. The most Florida could do in my view is try to prohibit proof of vaccine for ships that are taking on passengers in Florida ports, but even that might violate the commerce clause, by ostensibly regulating activities that occur in interstate commerce, which is limited to federal oversight.
The net effect of that prohibition might simply be to reduce the number of voyages that sail out of Florida ports like Fort Lauderdale, particularly if destination islands (e.g., St. Maarten, Aruba, Guadaloupe and Martinique are all overseas departments of E.U. countries) are demanding proof of vaccine for incoming vessels.
germy
Dick Durbin apologizes to Cotton in this clip (I wish he hadn’t said “Sorry” because he was right; simply telling Cotton to let Clarke speak):
gvg
@mrmoshpotato: My special nuisance is robo texts that come in to multiple numbers including mine but the sender is an email address, which means I can’t block it on my phone. It’s always stupid stuff too that I can’t imagine works for most people.
zhena gogolia
Baud
@germy:
People wanted him to be majority leader but he seems too nice for that job.
Gravenstone
I wonder if in that shriveled mass of gray matter sloshing around between his ears, TFG remembers how McConnell shot down his infrastructure plan? If so, that may be (just) one aspect of his increasingly vocal villainization of him.
James E Powell
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Agree, especially on the senate.
It’s not just age, it’s the dead wood. Feinstein is Exhibit A. I’m not as worried about her seat because I’m reasonably confident her replacement will be a Democrat. But can we say the same for Leahy?
Doc Sardonic
@Betty Cracker: I’m not 100% certain, but I believe EEOC has already set out policy that employers can require vaccinations.
James E Powell
@Baud:
My sister, a medium information voter who leans left and hates Trump, was complaining about the cap on the SALT deduction, but did not connect it to Trump or Republicans. Following Merc’s Law, she wanted to know why the Democrats didn’t do anything about it.
This applies to a number of things. People are against it, but they don’t connect it with Republicans. It’s “the government” or some vague “them” so it doesn’t help.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@germy: I think Cotton is genuinely angrier and crazier than Hawley or Cruz, but there’s a lot of calculation in his performance, equal parts throwing his opponent off balance and making a clip for Fox, and I assume his own email list. “Senator Cotton blasts liberal Obama-ite Establishment Senator!”
Baud
I agree. I like the push, but it’s premature for the leadership to jump onboard.
germy
Republicans are like all non-apex predator animals: They divide the world into those they can attack, and those they need to run from.
zhena gogolia
I’m afraid things are turning against the prosecution in the Chauvin case. I hope it’s just twitter hysteria.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
I mean, it’s the defenses turn.
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
I know, but the prosecution has made some big mistake in their rebuttal. I can’t uncover my eyes to figure out what’s going on.
ETA: Kay lowered my expectations the other day. They just have to arouse “reasonable doubt” in one juror. It’s not a high bar.
Baud
@James E Powell:
Ugh. So frustrating.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@zhena gogolia: @Baud: I thought defense rested early this morning? The judge has said he wants to wait till Monday for closing arguments?
From what I saw of yesterday’s testimony, I wasn’t impressed, but I don’t pretend to be objective.
Brachiator
@James E Powell:
.The Tax Fairy, perhaps?
Interesting anecdote about your sister. Good points. Some people just want “the government” to do stuff, and don’t pay attention to the details.
I am not sure of the best way to fight this. The media may be biased, but it is not that hard to get reliable reporting if you are willing to look for it.
Sure Lurkalot
I am fully cooked now so I ventured out to Costco during senior hours this morning to get some king crab to celebrate and other items. I haven’t been inside a Costco since March 2020.
While shopping I noticed a guy, nowhere near 60, no basket, no hand held items, walking down an aisle with a mask under his nose. He was easy to avoid by 100 feet as the store was pretty empty so I just carried on. A few minutes later, I see him again walking down another aisle, still plenty far away, no items, still not shopping and now the mask is under the chin.
Why are people like this?
Betty Cracker
@Barbara: You’re right; there’s a lot of speculation to that effect in the Florida dailies. I think the proposed ban is more of a stunt than anything else. DeSantis, like his mentor Trump, is more about stunts and trolling than governing.
germy
@zhena gogolia:
The creepiest witness was the guy from Montana. He’s a retired cop who makes a living as an expert who specializes in defending the police:
https://www.theroot.com/police-officers-don-t-have-to-fight-fair-defense-att-1846678416
I wish some investigative reporter would dig through some of Brodd’s social media. I’m sure it hides all sorts of ugliness. He seems like the type who knows how to cover his tracks, though.
zhena gogolia
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I’m just going by twitter. I’m supposed to be reading a book on Lermontov.
sdhays
@Geminid: I seem to recall McDonnell did the same thing with the express lanes for I-495 and was going to do the same for I-66, but McAuliffe stopped that before Virginia flushed any more money down that toilet.
James E Powell
@Brachiator:
That’s more work than most people are willing to do.
zhena gogolia
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I’m going by stuff like this, from one hour ago:
zhena gogolia
@germy:
He was disgusting.
James E Powell
@zhena gogolia:
Go back to the poet. Twitter is no way to follow a trial. Truth is, there is no good way to follow a trial.
zhena gogolia
@James E Powell:
If I were reading the poet directly I’d be okay. But I’m reading litcrit about the poet. I hate litcrit. But I have to read it.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
Wait, how can a defense witness create a mistrial?
Nora
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I have long thought that an age requirement for nomination makes a lot of sense. If nothing else, someone in their 40’s hasn’t been practicing law that long (15 years, max?) and is unlikely to have the life experience and wisdom to sit on the highest court of the land. And your point is good, too: I do not imagine the writers of the Constitution ever envisioned that someone like Clarence Thomas would be on the Supreme Court over the tenures of seven different presidents (more than seven terms, too).
Another thing I would like to see is a requirement, informal if not written into law, that the person nominated for the Supreme Court have actually litigated something for some period of time. One thing I admire about Sotomayor (and about Justice Jackson before her) is the practical sense of what decisions actually mean when they’re translated into what happens in a courtroom. Too much to ask, I’m sure.
Doc Sardonic
@Barbara: That’s part of our Governor’s problem. He thinks that because his little league team went the World Series and he got a law degree from an Ivy, he is one step below God almighty and the smartest sumbitch on the planet. The Mouse can do what ever the hell it wants to in Florida because to sell all that “worthless swampland” in Osceola county, and all the tourist $$$$$, the Mouse was granted by the then Florida legislature in the 60’s Vatican Status. They want to build an international airport, yep already approved. They decide they don’t like all the solar they’ve put in and wanna build a nuke plant, done deal. The DeShitheads issue he don’t know what he don’t know.
germy
This is something I’ve noticed, too. And my wife has seen it. A few months ago she was in a grocery store (early, to avoid crowds) and this guy, also browsing the vegetable aisle) comes up and stands right next to her. Purposely ignoring social distancing rules. His mask was on, but he seemed to be purposely trying to make her uncomfortable.
I’ve seen people with their masks down over their necks in the store. The employees don’t get paid enough to challenge them, so they keep quiet. But the maskless give off a “I get off on upsetting and frightening people” vibe.
My neighbor did it, early in the pandemic. I was walking to my car, and waved to him. Tried to have a conversation from a distance, but he strode right up to me and got into my face, with a weird little smile that signaled “Am I making you nervous so close?”
Neighbor is a trumper (surprise!) and I’m not interested in any feuds, but he seemed to enjoy seeing me step away from him.
Two things have ruined my faith in people: Trump’s election win (and continued support) and the foolish behaviors I’ve seen in this pandemic.
The Thin Black Duke
@zhena gogolia: If folks are swayed by whatever nonsense the defense spews, it’s because they’re racist assholes looking for an excuse to acquit. Ain’t got time for this bullshit.
RobertB
@Sure Lurkalot: My wife turned me around in an aisle at Costco the other day. “Let’s go this way.” It turns out I was too busy looking at coffee or whatever to notice this guy going by with his mask hanging under his chin, and my wife didn’t want to walk through his breath.
I see that occasionally at Costco, Target, Kroger, etc. It’s usually some MAGA-looking guy in his 40’s/50’s, or a family straight out of “Seen at Walmart”, or two teenage girls.
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
He’s a rebuttal witness.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
Ok, thanks.
Gravenstone
@germy: Recently had a spate of “local” numbers call my phone. One actually left me a voicemail – asking why I had called her number? Apparently my number was one of the many being spoofed for that barrage of spam, and someone else had simply had enough. I found that somewhat grimly humorous.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: I believe Tobin is the Irish doctor who gave what was generally thought to be very effective testimony for the prosecution. He’s on (I’m gathering) as a rebuttal witness to the (to my unobjective eyes) really off-putting South African doc from yesterday?
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Ken:
Most days you’d be dead right, but I’m currently not in ATH-GR but NYC-US for shots and scans and a pile of other stuff. Although I am getting up roughly at dawn between jet lag and coordination with the home office back in ATH-GR…
Gravenstone
@germy: Someone should fit Cotton with a shock collar.
J R in WV
@Kay:
HI Kay! Sounds like a win-win to me!
You get rid of a couple of Trumpistas no one likes and at the same time you get room to recruit a couple of intelligent moderate people who like to read and think and talk about what you all read.
Amir Khalid
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
The defence’s witness from yesterday, a forensic pathologist named Fowler, brought up, quite out of the blue, the carbon monoxide level in Floyd’s blood. Which Dr Fowler said could have gone up to as much as 18%, maybe contributing to Floyd’s death.
Now, Floyd’s CO level was tested at the ER, and the level was within normal bounds which would refute Dr Fowler’s contention. But the medical examiner Dr Baker had not included that datum in his autopsy report, and only belatedly told the prosecution about it an hour or so before today’s hearing. If it were introduced now, said Judge Cahill, it would prejudice the defence’s case and cause a mistrial.
So when the prosecution recalled pulmonologist Dr Tobin and his Irish brogue to refute Fowler, Tobin had to do it without mentioning that measured CO level. He managed it by pointing out that Floyd’s haemoglobin was 98% saturated with oxygen, so the CO in his haemoglobin could been no higher than the remaining 2%. The prosecution was able to dodge that bullet.
zhena gogolia
@Amir Khalid:
I hope that’s right.
Brachiator
@James E Powell:
The media may be biased, but it is not that hard to get reliable reporting if you are willing to look for it.
Democracy cannot be done by automatic pilot. People have to participate. And part of participation means keeping informed.
But I also suppose that historically, party loyalty may have been stronger and sometimes substituted for being informed. You just assumed that the party was looking after your interests and voted straight party line.
And you would read the newspaper that reflected your party’s views. This may be harder since there is more conservative media. But the challenge of being informed, if you want to be, has always existed.
J R in WV
@rikyrah:
They also stole Personal Protective Equipment already purchased by blue states early on.
And if they had won the election, there would be no vaccines for Blue states. No needles either.
They want to kill us, and Covid is their best tool so far for that goal.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
heh, I wouldn’t underestimate the effect of that brogue
IANAL, but I’d bet a large amount of money there’s no way that judge is going to declare a mistrial. He may bang his gavel and read the lawyers the riot act or (again, NAL) rewrite his instructions to the jury ? (they did things like this on LA Law, probably the last lawyer TeeVee show I watched, so… FWIW) A mistrial would be lobbing a giant Molotov cocktail into the Twin Cities.
J R in WV
@Kay:
While I agree with your point, a 20 year term takes a constitutional amendment, and changing the number of justices takes a bill passed through congress. One is nearly impossible, the other is merely difficult.
Amir Khalid
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Tobin’s brogue is undeniably more appealing than Fowler’s clipped South African accent, plus Tobin is way better at explaining stuff to the jury.
J R in WV
@sdhays:
While I despise the lack of honesty in O’Conner’s decision to go along with the stunningly illegal Bush V Gore decision…as well as her decision to retire when she did …
It was because her husband was sinking into dementia and needed care. So much of what is wrong with our political life today is her fault, and the fault of that whole RWNJ bench of the Supreme Court, and their willingness to twist the law to make their gguy president after he lost the actual election.
Ruckus
@NeenerNeener:
Sounds almost exactly like my second Pfizer shot reaction. Couldn’t sleep well the first night, although I felt tired, and so was tired all the next day, then woke up the third morning and felt great.
J R in WV
@gvg:
I used to get these robo calls that claimed to be a Federal Marshall, or the security branch of Social Security, etc.
Then I started taking the calls, and when an actual person finally came on the line to set their hook, I would ask “Are you aware that participating in this fraud is a Federal felony that could put you in jail for many years when they bust your organization?”
Then suddenly those calls all went away — go figure, right~!!~
I also sometimes take the calls about my computer’s virus load being detected by Microsoft Security, and see how long I can keep them busy talking with a guy running Linux OS instead of Windows. I usually had no problem getting escalated to a manager.
But I’m a retired software geek… both expertise to burn and plenty of time to kill. Those went away too.
StringOnAStick
We got our second Pfizer vaccination yesterday, at the fairgrounds between a reliably blue city and the working class red city to the north. On the way home there was a guy, mid 40’s,camo wearing, holding a sign that said “Covid is 97.5% survival rate, don’t get vaccinated” . Yeah, I know my friend’s boss technically “survived”, but was once a competitive weekend aerobic athlete and now a year later he can still barely climb a flight of stairs because of lung damage. But he “survived” .
Gvg
@J R in WV: good for you but doesn’t help with getting group texts. And if someone replies, the responses go to everyone which makes it really annoying as people then start complaining about that and those go to everyone. Honestly it seems like some kind of trolling, and I don’t see how it makes money. It started fairly recently.
J R in WV
@Gvg:
Yeah, but we don’t get cell coverage at home, so my cell phone sits in the car, turned off. You wouldn’t believe now long my phone stays charged up that way!!! Battery life in weeks, not days or hours…
And I don’t even look at messages, since I don’t use them with friends, friends don’t use them with me either.
So they’re all spam at least. No voice mail either… why would I set up that?
MisterForkbeard
@J R in WV:
This is true. It would have been justified as “Red States are suffering more (because they haven’t been doing any precautions) so they deserve 90% of the vaccine supply”.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@J R in WV:
I just release pent up hostility and describe how I’m going to fly to their country and slaughter them and every one of their co-workers.
This tactic tends to keep my volume of scam calls down – I only generally have to do it every 18 months or so.
I suspect that I’m on some sort of scammers “do not call – he’s super unpleasant” registry.
Emma from Miami
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Would you like to piss on the female liberal members of the Supreme Court a little more? And if you really think that the Senate would have allowed even a moderate to take her seat during Obama’s administration, let me give you two little words: Merrick Garland.
And if you think dissent isn’t powerful, let me give you another two: Aleksei Navalny.
Emma from Miami
Did I get into moderation because I used a colloquial expression for micturition or because I dissented?
Ruckus
@Kay:
It is after all, the basis of conservative policy not to do anything that takes away from their owners bottom line. Their base may like stuff but they seem to like being able to hate more than most anything else.
WaterGirl
@Emma from Miami:
Emma, you went into moderation because this was your first comment with a new name. You went from Emma from Florida to Emma from Miami, so WordPress thinks you are new.
Now that I approved your first comment with the new name, your future comments will show up right away.