Plus:
*Plunging gas prices
*Kids return to school vaxxed
*Posdible omicron vax in September
*More from 1-6 committee & possibly from DOJ
*Possible campaign announcement from Trump, & resulting chaos in GOP
*Repubs running horrible candidates everywhere
Dems in disarray! https://t.co/sNh3vUinHr
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) July 28, 2022
The media loves to gang up on politicians who are doing too well, but they also love comeback narratives when they get bored of kicking them around. Maybe the timing is right for Biden and the Dems!
— Evan Bear (@evanbear20) July 28, 2022
The “somehow, someway” is by being good at politics and ignoring dumb dumbs on Twitter and clickbait-driven journalism. https://t.co/AqY0rjWvX2
— Mandice McChadbrad (@CandiceAiston) July 29, 2022
It’s killing the Very Knowing Dudes at Tiger Beat on the Potomac to admit it…
… The prospect of an eleventh-hour breakthrough on Democrats’ climate, tax and health care package after more than a year of stumbles has particularly captured the White House’s imagination. In the wake of Wednesday’s deal with holdout Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), one senior aide contended the legislation could turn the tide for Democrats trying to persuade voters to keep them in power, allowing Biden and his party to draw an even sharper contrast with Republicans who they argue aren’t offering an alternative agenda.
“It very much changes how Democrats are going to look at the first half of this first term” if the bill passes, said Tobin Marcus, a former Biden adviser and current senior policy and politics strategist at investment bank Evercore ISI. “Democratic voters are going to feel a lot better about what this has all added up to.”
The deal also left Biden advisers feeling vindicated in their patient approach to the negotiations — a strategy that involved sticking to an administrationwide gag order even as the White House faced mounting criticism and second-guessing from within the party. It was a long-game approach that one senior aide described as a “ton of phone calls.”…
With an agreement in hand, the White House is now expected to play a more significant role in convincing a handful of remaining Democrats to take the victory that’s in front of them.
And those who have worked with Biden in the White House and on Capitol Hill say that while he may have steered clear of the weedy negotiations along the way, the former seven-term senator relishes the role of legislative closer.
“Traditionally, it’s certainly something he’s been good at,” said Marcus, pointing to the 2013 fiscal cliff deal Biden cut with Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell. “[H]e closed [that] when I think not a lot of other people would have been able to.”…
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊😊😊
zhena gogolia
I’m afraid Evan Bear is kidding himself
germy shoemangler
“Despite our best efforts to diminish his achievements”
Someday, someway
Maybe I’ll understand you
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Dorothy A. Winsor
In contrast to the Trump WH, the Obama and Biden administrations are pretty disciplined. That probably reflects on the people each administration hired.
Baud
Biden didn’t win the presidency by trying to keep up with Twitter time.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: all this stuff about how he’s too old. Yeah, older than Swalwell Klobuchar Warren Harris Yang Bennet Bloomberg Sanders and Marianne Williamson. Who else you got? Buttigieg
sdhays
@Dorothy A. Winsor: It’s the main reason the press hate them. Under Tramp, they had a ready, juicy story of dysfunction for every deadline that would just be told to them over the phone or over drinks and they would type it up and go party the rest of the day. No thinking, no investigating, and not boring and potentially “controversial” like policy.
Now their job is a grind again.
jonas
And the media never forgave them for it. Low key. Professional. Competent.
How dare they.
cmorenc
…I predict upcoming media stories about how “the disarray among Republicans is causing even bigger disarray among Democrats”. Never underestimate the ability of progressive purity ponies to shit their own parties’ stall over perceived flaws in the climate/chips deal Biden negotiated with Manchin. Or at least the media’s eagerness to seek out any possible signs that maybe, kinda, sorta hint at that possibility, and run with it in a multitude of articles and commentary.
evap
@germy shoemangler: Love that song! Marshall Crenshaw has never had the recognition he deserves, imho
lowtechcyclist
@germy shoemangler:
Exactimundo.
Politico, Axios, etc. must be so disappointed that they’re on the verge of failure in that endeavor.
ETA: And what evap said about Marshall Crenshaw.
Omnes Omnibus
Wait, the win the day in the media strategy doesn’t work? JFC, focusing on a long game and being patient is how both Obama and Biden got to the White House.
germy shoemangler
Immanentize
@germy shoemangler: Crenshaw was my first thought too.
Immanentize
@evap: I bet SteveinWTF was a big Crenshaw fan. He and my friend Rob seem to have identical jangly guitar passions.
Omnes Omnibus
@evap: He played Buddy Holly in the movie La Bamba. Brian Setzer was Eddie Cochran.
germy shoemangler
@evap:
The link is to an album of Crenshaw demos. I always liked his sound, he’s one of my favorite wastes of time.
SFAW
@germy shoemangler:
Thanks for the Crenshaw link.
ETA: Yeah, I noticed it was demos. I prefer the original release, but the garage version is good, too.
ETA2: Thanks, Omnes, for the La Bamba reminder, I had completely forgotten their roles.
MattF
I’ve actually seen some negative commentary about McConnell, which is pretty amazing. ‘A cross between Darth Vader and Elmer Fudd’.
Immanentize
@Omnes Omnibus: yeah? But Jim Jarmusch fronted a great band called the Del Byzantines. It goes both ways.
Immanentize
@germy shoemangler: The demos don’t have that later signature guitar sound. But how could they?
lowtechcyclist
@Omnes Omnibus:
Biden especially. After the 2012 election, some reporter asked him how it felt to have run in his last campaign. Biden basically responded, “who says it’s the last?”
Mike in Pasadena
In a call to my brother last night, he is a school teacher living in Tucson, I learned that he had never heard of trump’s call to Georgia SOS Raffensperger demanding the SOS “find me 11,780 votes.” My younger brother is a typical American, two kids, one dog, two cars, he and wife both work, scrambling to pay for for food and shelter and the only news they get is Fox News heard while waiting for car repairs. To them, Trump is just the manly man they saw on the Apprentice saying, “yer fired.” My older brother, working for a weapons manufacturer outside Washington DC, knows all about trump but informs me that trump “isn’t a real Republican.” Yeah, I reply, except that tens of millions of Republicans voted for him and elected him twice. After those two phone calls I finally understand why we as a country are not a country anymore. Ignorance on the one hand, denial on the other. I weep for our country.
NotMax
@germy shoemangler
I choose to dub it the Crypto party.
But only because the Underpants Gnomes party is much too obviously on point.
//
germy shoemangler
@SFAW:
The guy who directed La Bamba wanted to make a sequel.
He became friends with Ritchie Valens’ brother and wanted to direct a movie that takes him through the 1960s after his younger brother’s death. But no studio was interested and so it never happened.
SFAW
@Immanentize:
One of my big regrets is that, back in the late ’70s or early ’80s, I didn’t buy the vinyl of Gary Busey’s album (Wiki tells me the group name was “Carp,” which is prob true, but I have no recollection thereof) in a sidewalk sale on Newbury Street in Beantown.
OK, not a big regret, but it woulda been a good trivia thing.
ETA: It was after “The Buddy Holly Story” came out, so sometime after 1978.
germy shoemangler
@NotMax:
rikyrah
Uh huh 😒😒
🏳️🌈🇺🇦*THEE* Bougier Than Thou 💉💉💉💉 (@ScottyBurberry) tweeted at 7:05 AM on Fri, Jul 29, 2022:
Dear fellow wypipo, at 22, David Hogg is an adult. At 22 I was just out of college, had a job, my own place, and was paying my own bills. This wypipo reflexive trait of infantilizing adult white men to shield them from consequences of their own actions is grotesque.
(https://twitter.com/ScottyBurberry/status/1552988680696078337?s=02)
p.a.
I hope Joe’s poli-fu stays tip-top, because now that the spotlight is on MeMeSinema, I fear he’s gonna need it to be.
Old School
@germy shoemangler:
I see what you did there.
Uncle Cosmo
Eye surgery update: Not much to report. Everything went routinely. Heck of a light show. No pain to speak of. Minor difficulties reading with the unaffected eye. Left eye now covered with a permeable protective cup, taped down stringently enough it will probably take half my eyebrow with it when removed.
I see the surgeon for postop check just after noon & will continue the saga sometime this afternoon.
Thanx 2 all who offered good wishes.
SFAW
@Uncle Cosmo:
Glad to hear/read things went well.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Uncle Cosmo: Good. A friend told me the moment the protective is removed was a little tense for her. She was worried.
Immanentize
@SFAW: hmmmm. I will check my record collection…
Immanentize
@Uncle Cosmo: 👍👍
Immanentize
@Dorothy A. Winsor: like that Twilight Zone episode of the ugly/beautiful woman?
Ken
You mean where he wrote “no one has that much control over events”? You have to remember, a lot of people think Obama’s time machine is a joke, so they can’t understand that this is the 85th iteration of July 2022. And if this doesn’t work out well for Biden, we’ll find ourselves in number 86, not that we’ll know.
Tony Jay
@germy shoemangler:
It’s very much not just U.S, politics.
geg6
Saw a FOX poll that had Fetterman up by 11 and Shapiro up by 10. Feeling good about the state of the Commonwealth.
Baud
@geg6:
It’ll be nice to see PA return to the solid blue path after the ugliness of 2016.
geg6
@germy shoemangler:
Love that song!
Amir Khalid
@Uncle Cosmo
In situations like this, no news is often the best news. May your recovery continue to be uneventful.
Baud
@Uncle Cosmo: I wish you could read this, but good news.
geg6
@rikyrah:
What did David Hogg do? I do not twit, so I am not up on the latest Twitter outrage.
VOR
If Trump is ever convicted of something serious, watch millions of Republicans denying they ever voted for him. They will put away the MAGA caps and Trump flags while pretending they were secretly Jeb Bush fans all along.
UncleEbeneezer
@Mike in Pasadena: Did you tell your bro that the GOP just literally voted to deny benefits from Veteran burn pit victims and are poised to block efforts to protect Same-Sex and Interracial marriage?
VOR
@Uncle Cosmo: No drama is good news. Yes, keep that eye covered. I kept catching myself trying to rub my eye which is a very bad idea.
Ocotillo
I gotta throw this in here before I read the complete thread, below headline from Yahoo Finance:
RaflW
I’m frankly enjoying the corollary: McConnell and McCarthy are bad at politics. It is a ridiculous myth that Mitch is skilled at it. Yes, he’s cloak-and-dagger smart in the ways of the Senate that got him his radical six on the SCOTUS.
But they’re doing some very bad politics now:
+ Marist June 27: 56%-to-40% margin, respondents oppose the court’s Roe decision
+ Pew July 6: 57% – 41% dis/approve
Oh, and Alito popped over to Europe to insult several of the G7 leaders on this issue!
Oz is being drubbed by Fetterman (fingers crossed it holds), and Warnock is holind his own, though more narrowly, in GA.
Anyway, Yay Joe! LFG!
Betty Cracker
@geg6: That’s great news. Fetterman has been absolutely killing it on social media. Looks like he’s making strides toward a full recovery — it must be hellish for a guy like him to not be able to get out there full bore.
Paul in KY
@Uncle Cosmo: Best wishes on complete recovery & much better eye!
The Moar You Know
@geg6: Dr. Mehmet Oz was a gift. Things didn’t have to work out that way and this could be a lot closer.
But, y’know, “lord make my enemies ridiculous” and all that.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@germy shoemangler: he wrote a great fuck off song, too
Benno
@geg6:
Yeah, same boat. I had to look it up, was taken immediately to Twitter, and decided I didn’t care enough. I’m gonna be screwn when all information online in filtered first through Twitter. Hie me to the card catalog!
Paul in KY
@VOR: It would have to be something truly terrible (to them. His existence is terrible to me) like treason for being a FSB spy or sex trafficking Ivanka or a video showing him taking it (and liking it) from Vladimir Putin.
Minor insurrection convictions won’t make it to their head, as their heads are so far up his ass.
waspuppet
Mitch McConnell literally said they don’t have an alternative agenda. In actual words that came out of his mouth and were taped. But Politico can’t say it. They literally can’t.
Where do they learn to write like this, so I can not go there?
RaflW
@germy shoemangler: I don’t necessarily disagree with Eric Shapiro, corporatism is a serious long-standing insidious problem in gov’t & politics.
But if the near-right hadn’t totally lost control of the Republican Party to the far-right, they wouldn’t be casting about for a new home. I’m not interested in the folks who say to us Dems “Welcome them in.” Yeah… NO.
The Democratic coalition is enough of a bugaboo without trying to accommodate anti-union but gay-friendly, pro-war* but ‘concerned about the deficit’ types. Fix your own damn GOP. You don’t do that with some quixotic, silly ‘centrist’ third party with no platform, no ground game, and empty suits like Yang. Stop it.
*This is not me saying we shouldn’t fund and arm Ukraine. Helping them beat back Russia is, bigger picture, a path hopefully to less war. Certainly less adventurist aggression.
The Moar You Know
@geg6: I gotta say, neither do I, it’s blocked by my company firewall (I’m the firewall admin but I don’t go opening things up that I block because I block them FOR GOOD REASON) and Balloon Juice’s overreliance on Twitter makes a fair amount of posts and front page posts pretty meaningless to me. As in “literally incomprehensible”.
geg6
@The Moar You Know:
I don’t have it blocked, so I can read tweets posted here. And sometimes I can click through and read the tweets in question if I’m quick enough. But Twitter shuts you out pretty quick, so I wasn’t able to scroll down far enough to see what he’d said. I did see a tweet he posted about how he’d burned a bunch of bridges yesterday, but got blocked before I could scroll any further.
And no, I’m not going to join up just to read. If you’re going to post tweets in comments, you should provide context, IMHO.
cain
@RaflW: i
Yay Joe? or “Yo Joe!” Gotta fight Cobra everywhere, dontchaknow!
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: If Twitter determined political races Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren would have won the 2020 nomination.
That’s why I am concerned about Fetterman’s lack of on the ground campaigning and overreliance on Twitter memes as a winning election strategy.
The Moar You Know
@geg6: exactly where I’m at and I’m going to start howling about it here a lot more. SOME OF US CAN’T GET TWITTER SO HOWZABOUT YOU EXPLAIN THE JOKE GUYS?
Bill Arnold
@Ken:
Whirrrrrr goes the Lathe of Heaven. (An approximate analogy Also, The Scriptwriters have read all of tvtropes.org. :)
schrodingers_cat
@The Moar You Know: Weren’t Sarah Gideon, Jaime Harrison etc leading in the polls until the very end. How reliable are these statewide polls.
I hope both the Ds in PA running for statewide elections win. We can’t afford to lose PA.
Mike in NC
God spare us from the bullshit puke funnel called Politico.
artem1s
@schrodingers_cat:
this is why I’m concerned about the calls for Tim Ryan to run his campaign like Fetterman. He’s not going to turn out the Dem base in NEO by poking MAGAts on Twitter.
schrodingers_cat
@The Moar You Know: Balloon Juice only allows those with FP privileges to share a tweet directly in the comments. Commenters can only link to a tweet.
schrodingers_cat
@The Moar You Know: Balloon Juice only allows those with FP privileges to share a tweet directly in the comments. Commenters can only link to a tweet.
JMG
@schrodingers_cat: The guy had a thankfully minor stroke. Naturally his campaigning has been somewhat low-key.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@schrodingers_cat: a lot of people want to see Fetterman as a huge talent and towering political genius. I see somebody who got lucky by winning the other party’s primary.
Another Scott
@Paul in KY: Their politics is tribal above all else, so it will have to be someone from inside the tribe that takes him down for that to happen. And I don’t see that happening, myself.
He’s probably going to fade away and erased from memory, like W, inside the GQP. DeSantis and Hawley and others will try to keep his band of MAGAts together, but I don’t see it happening right now. As long as Trumpism is seen as necessary to win, they’ll keep pushing it. The instant it’s seen as a looooser, they’ll try to find something else to replace it. (They’ve been pushing “the GQP is the real party of the working class” for a while, but it doesn’t seem to be getting any traction. But they’re persistent…)
The GQP broke their own party. They have to fix it. Democrats can throw them anvils and anchors at opportune times, but we need to push our own agenda and build our own team. Eyes on the prizes.
Cheers,
Scott.
Betty Cracker
@geg6: Hogg is pissed off because he says House Dems are linking proposed legislation on an assault weapons ban with additional police funding, which is delaying it. He says he and other assault weapons massacre survivors were told after Uvalde that House Dems would get the assault weapons ban legislation done quickly. (Not that it’s going anywhere after that).
So, Hogg was harshly critical of the Dems for that and was urging young folks to take over state-level parties and run against people like Steny Hoyer. He’s angry and bitter and lashing out. At the risk of being accused of infantilizing a grown man, I will note that Hogg is a 22-year-old college student who has been through a trauma.
I’ll also note that Hogg has probably registered more people who vote for Democrats in a month than the Twitter randos who criticize him will ever accomplish in ten lifetimes. Also, he’s not telling people not to vote or not to vote for Democrats. He’s urging them to get more involved, not less, to change the party for what he believes will be for the better.
He’s a hothead, but he’s not the enemy, and the people who constantly shit on him for shitting on Democrats are…shitting on a Democrat. Not that he’s above criticism — he’s definitely not! But if you’re mad at Hogg for slamming fellow Dems, well…
Jinchi
The most recent newsworthy thing David Hogg did was this:
He explicitly called out the Republican, Biggs, as a white nationalist, which seems about right.
I don’t really understand how that earns him the ire of anyone on the left, although they seem to complain that he’s being mean to Democrats.
schrodingers_cat
@JMG: Has he been seen in public much after the stroke?
catclub
@The Moar You Know:
SOME OF US CAN’T GET TWITTER SO
HOWZABOUT YOU EXPLAIN THE JOKE GUYS?So Get OFF OUR COLLECTIVE LAWN. FTFY
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: FWIW I agree with you. He is a one-man voter suppression op against Democrats before an important election.. I say this based on his tweets against elected Ds.
Another Scott
@Bill Arnold: For some reason, I read that as “The Latte of Heaven”.
There’s probably a George Clooney Nescafe’ commercial to blame…
Cheers,
Scott.
HinTN
@Betty Cracker: AMEN! I hope they’ll listen to you, Ms Cracker. Thanks
HinTN
@schrodingers_cat: Bullshit. I agree far more with @Betty Cracker: than thee.
Paul in KY
@Another Scott: Agree with your analysis, Scott. I think we should use derisive laughter towards them at every opportunity. The ‘Brave Sir Hawley’ stuff is manna from heaven.
Alot of dudes (who vote) want to think they are voting for the ‘cool’ party. Somehow, the Democratic Party was libeled into being the ‘Not Cool’ party. Now alot of these guys may be sorta douchwaddy, but if we can get them voting for us or not voting for Repubs (and not do anything but point out what a bunch of losers the Repubs are), then that’s a big win for us.
JPL
Walker wants a Lincoln/Douglas type of debate against Warnock. The topic would be the reconciliation bill. Someone needs to ask him to explain what exactly that would like.
hahahhahahah
schrodingers_cat
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: He is popular with the same crowd who were sure that BS was going to win the nomination with a plurality.
Betty Cracker
@JPL: For real?
stinger
@The Moar You Know:
Same with FTFNYT and WaPo links, for me.
JPL
@Betty Cracker: Yes. He is campaigning in Alpharetta with Newt today, because they decided that it’s best not to let him go alone. I suppose that Newt gave him the idea, and Walker just agreed.
Layer8Problem
@Betty Cracker: He’s kicking it, with both hands tied behind his back and no head butts to the nose because recovery, but he can still knee into the groin.
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodingers_cat: He also seems popular with the Pennsylvanians who frequent this blog. They might well have a better perspective than people who live in MA or WI.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I don’t know that much about Fetterman. But besides being lucky in his opponent, he seems to have what I think you have referred to an “affect” that fits with PA, which as you’ve noted, is what seems to drive a lot of voting decisions.
He may even have “charisma,” although I don’t follow him enough to opine.
But as long as he wins, I don’t care how he does it.
Jinchi
Until someone asks Walker what a “Lincoln/Douglas” debate looks like or what the reconciliation bill is I think you have to put some pretty big limitations on what you mean by “for real”.
But yeah, he does apparently want to debate Warnock. It’s probably Walker’s best chance at catching back up with Warnock, even though it has a 90% chance of killing his campaign on the spot.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: Nancy Pelosi said this morning that there would be a vote on the assault weapons ban later today (according to a tweet by Jake Sherman, passed on by Grace Segers). Sherman said that the vote could be close.
House Dems want to get done what they can now. There will be a special election in early fall to fill the seat of the Republican from Minnesota who died a few months ago. After that, Democrats will have only a 3 seat margin in the House.
zhena gogolia
@The Moar You Know:
@geg6: Forgive me if somebody’s already answered. On the day the Dems seem to be making big legislative progress, he tweeted that we should just replace the Democratic leadership with a load of bricks and it would be a lot more effective.
Layer8Problem
@The Moar You Know: Certain invocations of ssh in combination with particular hand-tooled virtual machine set-ups though . . .
are much too clever by half.
geg6
@schrodingers_cat: He’s been slowly getting back on the trail and is expected to gear up to full campaign mode this month. His tv commercials are excellent and running on a continuous basis. You do not need to worry about Fetterman. He’s doing great.
Geminid
@Baud: Fetterman won a primary against two good candidates, and with over 50% of the vote. I’ve been a skeptic, but I think Pennsylvania Democrats know what they are doing.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: absolutely, he’s a unique politician in a unique political situation
its all the “THIS is what all Dems need to be! “ that I object to. As someone said above, his schtick wouldn’t work for other candidates or in a lot of other states/districts
(and I personally find his authenticity rather studied, but I’m pretty much alone in that)
JPL
@Betty Cracker: Here is a little more information on Walker and the debate
Walker suggested the Lincoln-Douglas discussion after I asked what, specifically,
@SenatorWarnock
has done in the Senate that is bad for law enforcement (since that was the charge during the newser) and Walker pivoted to the reconciliation bill.
Patricia Murphy (@MurphyAJC) / Twitte
He’s clueless and unfortunately still in a position that he could win
geg6
@schrodingers_cat:
I live here and have my entire life. I think I have a better take on the pulse of what’s happening here than most people and I don’t partake in twitter. People in PA, even the Pennsyltucky parts, love Fetterman. I’ve been saying this for a year, but some people think they know better than I do.
geg6
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
WTF does that even mean?
JPL
@Jinchi: Bingo! Walker’s handlers won’t let him debate.
gwangung
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Given that he’s won statewide office before, it must work, studied or not.
RaflW
@zhena gogolia: I’ve forgotten now what it was maybe a month ago, but that was when, for me, Hogg had jumped the attention-economy shark. I think he had a message and an important perspective in the aftermath of tragedy.
But the eyeballs/engagement/influencer world can be pretty toxic. I’m a very minor schlub on the twitt-box, and I can see when I get too obsessive and glazed over. With 1/1000th the followers he has.
Layer8Problem
@The Moar You Know: And like I used to goad the developers, “if you can’t get through on your own, you don’t deserve to be on my network.” Followed by much log-watching to see what they tried.
Betty Cracker
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I like Fetterman, but I agree with your point about extrapolating from one thing that seems to be working well in one particular place and specific race. Not everyone can be a hulking six-foot-eight guy with a shaved head and a goatee, nor should they try to be.
That said, I do believe the party could benefit from more Democrats being “in your face” about the Republican Party’s dangerous turn toward fascism, and I appreciate the efforts of people like Gov. Newsom, etc., to make that clear.
geg6
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
My question to you would be how would you know if he’s genuine to the people here? Are you a Yinzer? Do you talk with a Philly/NJ accent? Do you argue with your friends and relatives about the relative merits of Sheetz and Wawa? Do you have friends and relatives in Pennsyltucky? Where have you lived in PA? If none of the above apply, you have no idea what is genuine to people here. I’ve been watching this guy for over a decade. I think I have a better take of what works here than you or your friend SC, who also has no clue.
geg6
@Betty Cracker:
Exactly. More in your face Dems who fit with what works in their state/district.
schrodingers_cat
@geg6: I bow before your superior local knowledge and I hope he wins because we need more senate seats.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Kamala should at least try if she wants to succeed Biden.
germy shoemangler
@geg6:
Check out this ad from someone running against Stefanik:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IC3LT8-TLw
Cheryl from Maryland
@Uncle Cosmo: Thanks for the update and that all went well. Wilmer is a class act.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Betty Cracker:
This – Fetterman is good at channeling authenticity. He’s comfortable with who he is, and it shows.
What any Dem can do is “be themselves” – this goes along way. Don’t come off as a phony.
Kathleen
@Uncle Cosmo: I’m glad that all went well for you!
zhena gogolia
@germy shoemangler: Me likey. I wish we could get rid of her.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: LOL!
Bill Arnold
@stinger:
Re the “FTFNYT”, a combination of frequent use of the Cookiie Remover plugin/extension and hitting X to stop the page load as soon as the text appears seems to do it for me.
(There is also a “bypass paywalls” plugin/extension, that can be found on github, for the hard core.)
catclub
“If you can fake sincerity, you’ve got it made.”
Geminid
@geg6: Some people don’t like Fetterman because he was a Sanders supporter in 2016 and 2020. But he campaigned for Clinton and Biden, so he’s no “Berniebro.”
Fetterman did have some cranky lefty supporters. It was kind of funny when they found out after the primary that Democratic Majority For Israel had endorsed Fetterman and he happily accepted their endorsement. Some of them were like, “Ahh, I love the smell of K-Hive tears in the morning…wait, what?! Noooo….”
Amir Khalid
@Jinchi:
You’re probably right about a debate being Herschel Walker’s last, least-bad chance to rescue his flailing Senate campaign. But in the video clips I’ve seen of him, Walker seems to be at the intellectual level of Li’l Abner Yokum. Warnock will surely tear him to pieces in any such forum.
Miss Bianca
@Baud:
I second that emotion.
Miss Bianca
@Geminid: Haven’t heard about that special election, is there a Democratic candidate running for that office? Wonder what their chances would be.
mrmoshpotato
Go choke on a semi truck of unseasoned dicks, POLITICO!
The Lodger
@geg6: Fetterman is working out so well because people in PA like seeing him do what he does and don’t want him to go away. For a PA politician, that’s a rare attribute. Besides, nothing happens before Labor Day anyway.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Magdi Semrau, who lives in small town/rural PA, said among the Dems and Dem-leaners she knows, it breaks pretty evenly between people who think he’s the second coming of Bill Clinton and that of Bernie Sanders.
Geminid
@Miss Bianca: There must be a Democrat running, but observers assume the winner will be a Republican. It may be a mostly rural district.
Chris Johnson
@The Moar You Know: All that happened is David Hogg bitched about Democrats and said they should all be replaced by young progressives. Or as we call it on Balloon Juice, ‘tuesday’.
Seems like there was a bunch of defending him on the grounds he was young and stupid, and a bunch of ‘he’s a grown ass man and twitter celeb with lots of followers, he should act better’.
Just twitter being twitter, I thought…
Betty Cracker
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Wow, that’s a neat trick to pull off!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Yes. So unless you’d like to move your own goal posts, I am apparently qualified to comment on this politician and this race on this /checks notes/ comments section of an almost top-10,000 political blog.
Obviously, if I had known you were such a close relative of his, I would have refrained from the vicious personal attack of saying I (myself, personally, unless you can show me the comment I don’t remember where I was speaking for others, much less Pennsylvatians?) don’t find this politician particularly impressive.
Omnes Omnibus
@geg6: Fetterman doesn’t really float my boat, but I am not a Pennsylvanian so it doesn’t matter. He won your primary so I want him to win the general. End of story.
In WI, all viable opponents to Mandela Barnes have dropped out and endorsed him. Tuesday’s primary will be a formality. We have a candidate, and he is good one. Fuck Ron Johnson.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
More common that we political junkies realize, I think . “I just like him/her”. More hims than hers, if we’re being honest. Susan Collins is an “I just like her”, even if I think she had to work, and copy others, to get there. Sarah Palin, too. ETA: Palin with much more limited and specifically political/cultural appeal, of course)
NotMax
@The Moar You Know
This, times a googolplex.
O. Felix Culpa
@rikyrah:
Fred Hampton only made it to 21. Emmett Till was 14; Tamir Rice 12. While their situations and Hogg’s are not the same, there’s clearly an American predilection for criminalizing–and executing–one type of young man (or boy, as the case may be) and excusing/infantilizing/celebrating another.
Examples: Brock Turner. Kyle Rittenhouse.
TBF, Hogg has only been stupid, with the potential excuse of trauma and naïveté. But he’s gained a major platform and I hope will use it more wisely going forward. He does have a tendency towards Dem-bashing, even though they’re the only folks who will help his cause.
Omnes Omnibus
@NotMax: So the blog should gear itself to the most Luddite commenter’s standard? I don’t have an NYT or WAPO subscription, so sometimes I miss things. I also don’t Zoom. My choice, I live with it.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@NotMax: so you’re not even a little curious as to why Tina Louise is trending? (I can’t tell you, but apparently she remains the last survivor of the SS Minnow)
NotMax
@Omnes Omnibus
Don’t see anything indecorous about dropping a hint of whatever the hoopla du jour may be.
Both NYT and WaPo at least remain accessible for further perusal with a minimum of fuss if one is so inclined.
Ruckus
@Mike in Pasadena:
It works even worse when you have ignorance and denial at the same time.
NotMax
@Jim, Foolish Literalist
Not even a whisper of a shadow of a scintilla.
;)
NorthLeft
In my view from the North, it seems to me that President Joe has had a very good run so far….considering that over 40% of the USA has been actively trying to block and sabotage everything that he is trying to do.
But according to Politico and the NYT that is just politics as usual and “both sides do it”. Maybe the latest Republican hissy fits that targets vets and SSM will change that outlook? HAHAHAHAHA!
Almost got you on that one.
schrodingers_cat
@HinTN: That doesn’t surprise me at all. Your lived experience is probably closer to Betty C’s than it is to mine.
Chief Oshkosh
@geg6: I have friends, family, and professional acquaintances from Pittsburgh to Philly and in between. They are mostly Democrats, but quite a few were Republicans (now they’re ‘independents’), and overall most are normies. Educations range from high school drop-outs to MudPhuds. Jobs range from landscaper helper to university deans. Ages range from late 20s to 70s.
Almost all of them LOVE Fetterman. Those that don’t at least respect him.
Chief Oshkosh
@NotMax: On a Mac, using Safari, copy/paste the twitter URL into the link slot of a “New Private Window” (accessed under “File” in the top menu bar.
This will allow full access to Twitter threads.
schrodingers_cat
BTW this is what Hogg said, you can judge for yourself if this helpful to advance his pro-gun control agenda.
.
What Joe Biden and the Democratic leadership has achieved with razor thin majorities is nothing short of miraculous. He has not earned the right to shit on people like Nancy Pelosi and Biden who have given their lives to public service. He is way out of line. He has a large platform and if he is using it to harm the Democrats and their chances in 2022 he should be called on it.
geg6
@germy shoemangler:
Good one!
geg6
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
You were questioning his authenticity, so turn about is fair play. I’m a native. I find him completely authentic and even my MAGA neighbors like him and see him as one of “us.” This is why he will win and win big.
geg6
@schrodingers_cat:
Hmmmm. Sounds a lot like Balloon Juice or, even moreso, LGM on a bad day.
I don’t see what the big deal is.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@geg6: do you live in New York? Why are you commenting on a non-Pennsylvania campaign? HOW DARE YOU!
See how silly that looks?
ooooo….. kay
CapnMubbers
WAY late, as usual, to comment but maybe someone can benefit. When the blocking window pops up on a tweet thread, I click on “sign in”. Another message pops up with an “X” at the top left. Click that and continue reading.
schrodingers_cat
@geg6: To me he sounds like a Republican shit poster dissing Democrats.
Darkrose
@Uncle Cosmo: Glad everything went well!
SamIAm
Dead thread I know but nice End of Enternity reference.
Dopey-o
@schrodingers_cat:
I totally agree!
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This is one of my gripes: a commentor replying to a previous comment, 25 comments back. So I have no context and don’t know WTF they’re talking about. So i click on the link, see what the refence is, then scroll all the way back down to find my place.
There is no rule that says you can’t quote a snippet of the Tweet, or the original comment, so people know what the topic is. I want to know the topic before i waste time going to the Twitter cesspool.
Let me demonstrate:
ETA not accusing my favorite feline of clueless commenting. BTW, how’s your health?
senyordave
IMO inflation will trump almost all good news. Plunging gas prices is all relative, and oil is still over $100 a barrel. CPI is 9.1% year over year. If not for Roe v Wade overturn and some horrible candidate for Republicans I think Democrats get slaughtered, but I still don’t feel great about midterms. depends a lot on inflation numbers for July, August and September. Key point : inflation was low for Jul – Sep last year, so year over year will look bad almost no matter what the numbers are for this year.
Dopey-o
It’s not fair to compare Walker to Li’l Abner. The esteemed Mr. Yokum had a long and productive career as a mattress tester.
schrodingers_cat
@Dopey-o: I will try to do. But the tweet I am referring to in quotes.