Absolutely astonishing. New Hampshire Republicans, after Trump lost there twice, may have just thrown away a Senate seat and two House seats with Trumpy nominees – which for all we know could be the margin in both chambers. https://t.co/cP6JyGinev
— Jonathan Bernstein (@jbview) September 14, 2022
Tourism is one of New Hampshire’s leading industries, and its First in the Nation! presidential primary is an important part of that industry. Not that the average leaf-peeper or outlet store shopper cares, but the quadrennial contest’s high-dollar Running of the Journos has been a reliable earned-media advertisement for the state — all those romantic leafy vistas, against which the quirky natives demand hands-on contact from every political hopeful. But I get the impression that the modern GOP’s increasingly sealed epistemic bubble is swiftly eroding the state’s draw for political junkies.
As far as I can tell, much of New Hampshire’s attraction for the Media Village Idiots has been its status as a mostly-reliable red state isolated in New England’s stalwart blue political sea (that, and its relatively convenient commuting distance from NYC and DC). For the thirty-odd years I’ve been living in what passes for NH’s biggest media market (eastern Massachusetts, which has all the high-power tv/radio stations, especially among the wealthier NH voters who cross over to work in MA) I’ve gotten the impression that New Hampshire has been marketing itself as the Kyrsten Sinema of political venues: Quirky, with a capital Q, because it’s cheap and it catches the attention of the easily bored. But candidates like Don Bolduc aren’t quirky, they’re borderline deranged… and they’re indistinguishable from every other election-denying Trump-cultist mounting their own media on YouTube and TikTok. Why spend the money sending a talking head and a camera crew to Laconia, much less Dixville Notch, when you’ve already got more B-roll than the station interns can get through?
Election denier Don Bolduc is officially my opponent. He supports ending Social Security and decimating Medicare, and would vote for a nationwide abortion ban.
Bolduc is too extreme for New Hampshire.
— Maggie Hassan (@Maggie_Hassan) September 14, 2022
Captain Cosplay, as one snarkster labelled this clip:
A real expert at pointing projectile weapons at his own side. https://t.co/RpvCJFLBPk
— zeddy (@Zeddary) September 14, 2022
"This whole virus that Donald Trump started, denying the election results, has seeped everywhere. It's not just in the key states of Michigan and Georgia and Arizona, but now it's come to fruition in New Hampshire" – @matthewjdowd w/ @NicolleDWallace pic.twitter.com/O1foNQSrGI
— Deadline White House (@DeadlineWH) September 14, 2022
The Granite Staters couldn’t even get Ron deSantis to show up before the primary, and deSantis seems to be working every state fair in the Midwest!
No wonder Governor Sununu has gone squishy…
sir I demand you stop insulting me with “semi” and respect my full dedication to fascism https://t.co/FBRJdmpCHx
— kilgore trout, death to putiner (@KT_So_It_Goes) August 28, 2022
… Sununu conceded there are “elements of fascism and white supremacy” in the U.S. but explained it’s also not true that “all the Democrats are communists.”
“When we allow ourselves just to talk in these extremes, we polarize the country,” Sununu told CNN on Sunday, adding that Biden on the campaign trail had “said he was going to bring everybody together.”
“And then to call half of America fascists?” the GOP governor asked. “He owes an apology. That’s not appropriate. That isn’t leadership.”
… while the glibertarian Free Staters gnaw at his ankles:
‘Free Staters’ roil New Hampshire politics in ski area spat https://t.co/BR63OdzLbR pic.twitter.com/0I6bo7ZbhO
— The Associated Press (@AP) August 28, 2022
Even the bedrock of NH’s right-wing political empire has been quietly unpersonned, for predictable reasons:
A New Hampshire newspaper has removed its onetime publisher from its masthead after disclosures that he had been a child molester.
“We know now,” the paper wrote, “that William Loeb is not a man to be celebrated. https://t.co/vTSMfdWN4s @UnionLeader— David Beard (@dabeard) May 1, 2022
2/n: William Loeb has been dead for a long time, but this kind of disclosure still matters. It may empower others to finally share past abuse and, perhaps, gain some closure. It’s also important to anyone who cares about a full, accurate account of history.
— Meg Heckman (@meg_heckman) May 1, 2022
raven
yo
Jeffro
I love the “Republicans In Disarray!” narrative…I just wish I saw more of it!
Come ON, snooze media! Half the GOP wants trumpov back, half wants DeSantis*, and the other half is like “somebody please put us out of our misery…we can’t throw in with the Dems but this party is F********CKED”
*RWNJ Dad decided to text me out of the blue tonight, all hopped up on Fox News’ “reporting” that Ron DeSantis chartered flights – with FL taxpayers’ money! – to send immigrants up to Martha’s Vineyard today. (Take THAT, Greg Abbott!) A disgusting stunt that will win ol’ Ron ZERO additional Never Trump, independent (blessed be their name), or Dem voters, of course. If we thought the 2016 GOP primaries were a race to the bottom, the 2024 GOP primaries are gonna be the World Championships of Depravity.
Old Dan and Little Ann
My wife is reading me AP Gov essays from the 1st week. Not a whole lot of anti – choice teenagers.
Anoniminous
Ref: Running of the Journos
If they then herded them into a stadium and ritualistically slaughtered them like they do in Pamplona I’d spend money to watch.
Edmund Dantes
If that is a Sparta shield, isn’t he holding upside down? Plus the Spartans were very fluid with their sexuality.
Bobby Thomson
Reporters go to New Hampshire for presidential primary stories. New Hampshire’s governor, senators, reps, etc. are not story bait and never have been.
Suzanne
@Old Dan and Little Ann: Certainly not taking AP courses.
I’m sorry, was that elitist?
brendancalling
GG Allin was a famous New Hampshire resident.
C Stars
One of the only things I know about New Hampshire is that the town of Grafton is featured in the book A Libertarian Walks into a Bear. I read an excerpt of it somewhere and purchased the book for my dad, who said it was hilarious. A group of libertarians take over a town and in short order everything goes to shit. This whole thing (waves hands at election results) seems very on-brand
ETA Nonfiction
Cameron
@Jeffro: And what country does Florida border on from whence these immigrants come? Christ, DeSantis is worthless – he really will destroy the country when he takes charge in 2024.
Another Scott
STRZOK
(via OrinKerr)
Cheers,
Scott.
Cameron
@C Stars: I got a copy of that along with Lukas’ Big Trouble for GF’s birthday. All the articles I read about it were entirely too entertaining.
Matt McIrvin
@Bobby Thomson: Ah, but New Hampshire’s state House of Representatives is an endless supply of “politician does something ridiculous” filler stories, because they’re a huge body of nearly unpaid amateurs, often retirees looking for a way to kill time, and one of them says something appalling or commits some peculiar crime a few times a year. They’re a large part of the reason I am skeptical of the idea that random citizens could do a better job than most professional politicians.
Chris T.
@Jeffro: Isn’t that three-halves of the GOP?
Rusty
As a resident I can attest to the outright weirdness of NH politics at the moment. The incumbent dem in the first congressional district (we only have two) was considered extremely vulnerable. So the Republicans nominated a 25 year old former Trump White House intern that is all Trump, anti abortion and wants to both cut and privatize social security. This in a state with the second oldest population in the country. In the other district they also nominated the most extremest Trumpy candidate. The Dems ran $300k of ads against him, pointing out he is all for assault weapons, banning all abortions and thinks the election was stolen. The Republicans whined that the Dems were interfering in the primary (with an add that was 100% truthful and pointed out he is too extreme for NH). Of course the Republican electorate took the bait and chose him in a crowded field with 33% of the vote. The Democrats, who were all looking very shaky, are now looking to have a real chance. Sununu as governor is popular and should easily win reelection, but hopefully the nuttiness of the federal races will blunt his coattails and deliver the state house to the Dems. The NH senate is a lost cause, extreme gerrymandering the last session means the Republicans can get a minority of the vote but still retain a supermajority that can override the governor.
danielx
Wiiiam Loeb? New Hampshire’s ayatollah of conservatism? He who owned his own version of Der Stürmer, the Manchester Union-Leader?
Aye, the very same!
Mike in NC
As a former Masshole, I never understood the popularity of the Sununu family in NH. Recall that John Sununu said that Barack Obama “didn’t understand our culture”. What a flaming piece of shit. (Too lazy to look up if he’s still alive.)
piratedan
@Another Scott: and you just know that there’s more to come. It’s strange to be the ones finding out that all of that projection was so pervasive; I can’t help but imagine how many MOC, in the Senate and in the House are hip deep in this.
watching it spread to the states, how many of these false electors are going to jail?
you get the idea that someone is going to talk to cut themselves a deal… just going to be interesting to see who its going to be…
Have seen some speculation that it may be Babb, the Mar-a-Lago attorney who swore on a affidavit that they had searched MAL and turned over everything, she also happened to be in attendance for the hotel mtg on Jan 5th….
Edmund Dantes
@Another Scott: I hate these types of arguments. The FBI is not above abusing their authority.
perfect example is a recent case out of California. Where they got a search warrant to go after a safe deposit box company. The warrant explicitly excluded the contents of the boxes of the customers as the probable cause was only for the store and not its customers.
Did that stop the FBI from seizing the enclosure of the boxes, then since the boxes were now in their control they had to catalog them, and oops now everyone has to come in and prove they owned the content of the boxes the FBI was never supposed to look in.
And people were forced to get lawyers to get their stuff back that was never supposed to be seized in the first place as the fbi/prosecutors were explicitly told in the warrant they didn’t have rights to the boxes.
Steeplejack
@Another Scott:
Old Dan and Little Ann
@Suzanne: You spelled groomer wrong.
JaneE
Half my foot. A minority of a minority. Even 74 is not half of 300+. But he knows that already.
Amir Khalid
Has anyone seen this, about Tucker Carlson? (Link to BBC story.)
Craig
@brendancalling: I saw him once with the Murder Junkies in NYC. Remarkable. Kinda beyond music at that point. There’s a really good version of Warren Zevon’s Carmelita, raggedly beautiful just GG and an acoustic guitar.
Matt McIrvin
@JaneE: He means half of REAL America, not the weirdos and degenerates. But he’s not a fascist.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Moscow Mitch losing his mojo?
Anybody else remember rumors that Mitch will pack it in if they don’t retake the majority this year? Seems to me I heard that story a few months back, but nothing since. Could’ve been speculation, I suppose
different-church-lady
Meanwhile one state south it appears DeSantis has shipped some migrants to Martha’s Vineyard. Folks there appear to be welcoming them with open arms. Bright move there: DeSantis is talking like it’s some kind of own, but instead he looks like a creep and a blue state gets to be the heroes.
P.S. See Jeffo at #2 got there first.
Bill Arnold
@Edmund Dantes:
The FBI got their feelings on D.J.Trump matters clarified a bit by MAGA callls for the elimination of the FBI.
different-church-lady
@brendancalling: Whoever that guy was, he was nuts.
Cameron
@Amir Khalid: WTF? Indians were building palaces when Brits were eating each other. Say one thing for Tuck – he doesn’t dog-whistle anything. There just isn’t any way to pretend he’s saying something different than what he actually is.
Ian R
@Cameron: They were building palaces during the runup to Brexit?
Another Scott
@Edmund Dantes: Made me look.
LATimes (from April 2021):
IANAL.
I don’t find the argument persuasive that a customer of a business that (allegedly) deliberately marketed itself as a place that, somehow, was outside the reach of law enforcement has some over-arching right to privacy.
“I just happened to be getting lunch here in this heroin den! How dare you detain me!!”
Lie down with mangy dogs, wake up with fleas.
But, as I said, IANAL.
Of course, the details (of the warrant, the indictment, etc.) probably matter a lot. And yes, we know law enforcement over-reaches a lot.
But I have to believe that those working on the January 6 investigation and all the rest know that they have to get it right.
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
ian
@Amir Khalid: That’s our Tuckems! for you. He says shit like this every week. I’m kind of surprised the BBC picked it up.
Ken B
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Mitch said he’d quit if he didn’t get to be the Majority Leader after the election.
Encouraging, but a Mitch McConnell promise isn’t worth much.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@Edmund Dantes: Traditional Spartan shields were full body length long, and usually thrown away if a soldier ran away from a battle. Hence the classic Spartan soldier’s Mom phrase “return with your shield or on it”.
counterfactual
@Edmund Dantes: Yes, it’s upside down. The “flexible sexuality” seems to be state-sanctioned rape and abuse, so the GOP wouldn’t actually mind that.
I recommend Bret Devereaux and his This.Isn’t.Sparta series, but mark out a few hours for well-written, well-reasoned historical argument. The TL:DR is ”
Sparta was – if you will permit the comparison – an ancient North Korea. An over-militarized, paranoid state which was able only to protect its own systems of internal brutality and which added only oppression to the sum of the human experience. Little more than an extraordinarily effective prison, metastasized to the level of a state. There is nothing of redeeming value here.
Sparta is not something to be emulated. It is a cautionary tale.”
https://acoup.blog/category/collections/this-isnt-sparta/
He also has a good series on “The Fremen Mirage,” the notion that harsh conditions make great barbarian warriors that has no real basis in history
Cameron
@Ian R: Long-term project, yo.
HumboldtBlue
@counterfactual:
I remember when I was introduced to Devereaux, he’s very good.
Dan B
@Amir Khalid: Such a historian and world expert!!!
NOT!
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Amir Khalid:
Oh lord. Paging Schrodinger’s Cat
Amir Khalid
@ian:
The story was reported from an Indian point of view. So it would have been the BBC’s reporters in India doing their job. Carlson does need to get called out whenever he airs this kind of ignorant, bigoted shit.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Bill Arnold:
Y’know, given how traditionally conservative the FBI has historically been, I wonder how the rank and file agents feel about the calls to defund their agency from the GOP and all the wacko MAGA death threats? All to defend a man who stole state secrets? And that, like you said, perhaps this has clarified things for them
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Jeffro:
Probably also people who are looking to hire people to help fix the roof on Huntington Emerson Codswallop’s (IV) cottage so HEC (IV) will pay that bill
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Amir Khalid
@counterfactual:
Gasp! You mean Frank Miller was wrong about them?!
Feathers
@Jeffro: Yeah, they are working on it, setting up cots in a church and sending out calls for volunteers. Baker is promising to coordinate with locals.
Martha’s Vineyard can’t even house their own workers. Luckily they have wealthy residents to raise cash to send people where they want to go. Mass also has cities like Worcester that are growing through accepting immigrants. You’re right red states are shipping people to blue states and blue states are just – handling it.
Tweet thread from local reporter
different-church-lady
@Feathers:
Way to admit the state you run sucks compared to the blue ones, dumbass.
Ksmiami
@Feathers: blue states have a labor supply deficit in everything from restaurants to the construction trades. It’s partly to blame for our current inflation issues so ok Ron and Greg, kill off your economies on the altar of hate; they’re both flaming assholes as are their supporters
different-church-lady
@Feathers: Jesus, it’s truly remarkable how many idiots responding to that tweet thread think we’re in a terrified panic over this. Like they just can’t believe we’d be anything but horrified by the actual immigrants themselves, when instead we’re horrified by someone using them for a stunt.
Ken
Reminds me of a line in one of Harry Turtledove’s novels, Guns of the South. Some other member of the Confederacy’s cabinet has insulted Judah Benjamin’s ancestry, and he replies “My ancestors were kings of the earth when yours were painting themselves blue.”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Honestly, I’m surprised he did this to Venezualans. I thought they were the new Cubans in FL politics
HumboldtBlue
@different-church-lady:
That brought a guffaw.
RaflW
re: Freestaters, wow. About 330 libertarians each year of the the past two decades have managed to program their (government supported) GPSs and navigate themselves to New Hampshire. What a fabulous service – to us normal people in several Blue and Purple states that are glad to have you gone.
How about getting the other 13,500 to hurry up?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
This is funny, because Rudi didn’t mean it to be funny.
I wonder how much Judi Nathan’s NDA is costing him.
Ivan X
@Craig: that’s so cool
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Speaking of Judi Nathan, considering the NYC Emergency Response Center was located at the WTC so she and Rudy could keep their affair private, this is a pretty sick joke:
Yikes
ETA: This place is pretty dead tonight, huh?
Rocks
@danielx: Jesus! It took them until now to figure this out? What assholes!
Brachiator
@counterfactual:
Not even the Mongol Horde?
ETA. I know that even the Mongols benefitted from relatively lush grass lands, but curious to see if there is any more about this.
Another Scott
@Ken: Yet another example, from earlier this year:
It’s almost always projection.
Cheers,
Scott.
Another Scott
Oh man!
rofl.
(Context – Pillowman’s phone was seized by the FBI at a Hardee’s drive thru.)
(via nycsouthpaw)
Cheers,
Scott.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Another Scott:
That’s a pretty good one
In related news, I tried looking up whether John Mearsheimer ever responded/reacted to being put on a list of public figures that promote Russian propaganda by the Security Service of Ukraine. I couldn’t find anything; he recently published an article on August 17th in Foreign Affairs, Playing With Fire in Ukraine: The Underappreciated Risks of Catastrophic Escalation
The rest is behind a pay wall, but I do wonder if the recent Ukrainian successes have changed his mind.
I recently found an excellent article critiquing his opinions of the Ukraine conflict at the Duck of Minerva website,
What Walt and Mearsheimer Get Wrong about the Security Dilemma
counterfactual
@Brachiator: As I remember, Devereux concentrates on the Roman Empire and its barbarian problems, since he’s a Roman specialist.
The Mongols, though they didn’t yet build cities, were “civilized” enough to have a sophisticated and flexible governing system that let them insert themselves into local cultures and bind them into an empire.
Kent
The section you just quoted is bullshit. Complete bullshit. Western policymakers have settled on no such consensus. They don’t have consensus on trivial shit like cod quotas in the Barents sea or labeling requirements for organic food. They certainly don’t have consensus on Ukraine. Western nations are all over the map as are western policymakers.
This is an example of the “foreign policy blob” trying to assert consensus when none in fact remotely exists. Sort of like they did with the endless war in Afghanistan which we could NEVER leave because our credibility would be forever diminished. Right.
Ukraine is in the driver’s seat and it only takes a couple of allies to keep it supplied with materials and the war will continue. Basically as long as the US and UK and neighboring states like Poland are on board. It will make little difference what any other western states think or want.
Total victory for Ukraine would be something like reverting to pre-2014 borders with enforceable security guarantees. For example, Ukraine agrees not to join NATO as long as Russia demilitarizes the Ukrainian border. And if Russia reneges then all bets are off and Ukraine can join NATO. Something like that.
Calouste
@Brachiator: And the Vikings? IIRC the first Viking raids started because there was a famine in Scandinavia.
Feathers
Here’s more on the immigrants from the Cape Cod Times:
Link
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kent:
I already thought John Mearsheimer was full of shit, but thanks for the explanation re: foreign policy blob. And I agree UKR is in the driver’s seat. I think realist takes like Mearsheimer’s ignore the agency of Ukraine
ian
@Brachiator: If you haven’t checked out his website, I join the people here recommending it. He does a bit on nomadic horsemen as well, focusing on the Mongols and the Plains people of North America.
Chetan Murthy
@Brachiator: It’s worth reading the “Fremen Mirage” series. Seriously. IIRC, his assessment of these horse nomads was two things:
So eventually they were bound to win some battles. But they weren’t actually intrinsically better, for being primitive. Deveraux adduces all sorts of historical information about the effectiveness of various sorts of tactics, and the importance of training that can only be accomplished when you have an agricultural surplus to sustain those troops who are training/training/training (and their equipment) instead of out in the fields tilling the soil.
Worth a read.
Kent
@Chetan Murthy: The Romans took over the western world basically because they were the only society with a full time professional army. They had a whole class of citizens who spent their productive lives in the legions rather than putting down their hoes and pitchforks when the need arose as was the case with most of the opponents they faced who were not also Roman
The Mongols were another professional army and society organized around perpetual warfare.
Chetan Murthy
@Kent: Deveraux deals with the Mongols here: https://acoup.blog/2020/02/28/collections-the-fremen-mirage-part-iv-desert-power/
Chetan Murthy
@Chetan Murthy: From near the end of the piece:
Amir Khalid
@Kent:
I have to disagree with this suggestion. One of Putin’s reasons for invading was to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO. By promising not to join NATO, Ukraine would be handing him a win on that score. I wouldn’t trust any Russian promises to respect Ukraine’s sovereignty in the future. I promise you that at some point Putin (or someone after him) will be emboldened to try another invasion.
Upon driving all the Russian invaders off its soil, Ukraine needs to join NATO, promptly. That is the most significant thing it can do to deter Russia from trying again.
prostratedragon
Ian R
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I didn’t know Shapiro graduated from one of the high schools I went to. Small world.
Spc
@Matt McIrvin: Yeah – I’ve worked with a few. One of the biggest perks was being able to speed to get to Concord in time for a session. I wouldn’t call NH a red state these days, more of an unpredictable swing state.
J R in WV
@Another Scott:
Thanks for sharing this! Hysterical to compare the forest which was the not-yet-existent capital of Russia when Kiev was building beautiful cathedrals. And India was building the Taj Mahal !!
dnfree
@Edmund Dantes: I have never trusted the FBI since they tried to discredit and shame MLK. And why is their building still named for the deplorable J. Edgar Hoover? They don’t find him an embarrassment? And what was Comey up to before the 2016 election? And why would two FBI professionals use their work phones and emails to communicate about their affair? It is a strange feeling to be hopeful that they’re somehow going to save the day here.
StringOnAStick
@dnfree: I see your point, though what might be somewhat different this time is the people the FBI identified with and thought of as their supporters are now calling for their defunding. Institutions tend to eventually become all about preserving themselves more so than about their original mission, so hearing threats by the side that used to support their preservation as being as important as mom and apple pie might have upset a few worldviews. We can hope.