Here's how Hunter Biden rebutted the allegations that his father was involved in his business, in his own words.
No paywall, so even members of Congress have no excuse not to read it. https://t.co/R5gr4wcg32— Philip Bump (@pbump) March 1, 2024
Philip Block, at the Washington Post, gives us all another free chance to catch up on the D-R-A-M-A — “Hunter Biden’s point-by-point rebuttal of allegations against his father”:
It has been abundantly clear for months that the House Republican case suggesting that President Biden was corruptly involved in his son Hunter’s business engagements was a function of frenzied cherry-picking. When Hunter Biden came to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to answer questions from legislators and investigators working on the impeachment inquiry targeting his father, he was presented with a number of those assertions.
In each case, he offered credible responses. You can read them below, in his own words.
What emerges when reading the transcript of the interview is how dependent the Republican effort is on three tactics. You’ll see those play out in the rebuttals Hunter Biden offered, but it’s useful to articulate them specifically.
First and most obvious is that cherry-picking. Republicans have gained access to countless financial and personal documents involving the Bidens and business associates of Hunter Biden and James Biden, the president’s brother. Sifting through that material like amateur internet sleuths, they’ve picked out a dozen or so things that might be framed as suspicious. This is how all investigations work, of course, with a few clues scattered among a lot of distractions. But when the allegations include such things as Joe Biden showing up at a dinner involving his son and a business partner, the frequency of his joining his son for dinner matters.
This is the second point: Republicans are trying to weaponize the schmoozing that politicians do. The allegations of Joe Biden meeting Hunter Biden’s partners centers on things like shaking hands at a reception or Hunter Biden’s associates being invited to White House events.
Third, the allegations center on two key conflations. The first and better known is using “the Biden family” as a proxy for “Hunter and James Biden.” Claiming that Hunter Biden’s income was going to “the Biden family” is a way to loop in the president unfairly. The same thing happens with “payments.”…
There were other issues presented to Hunter Biden, but those didn’t centrally allege wrongdoing by his father. This was the intent of the hearing after all — and as Biden and his attorney had to remind Republicans at times — not to tear down Hunter Biden but to show how Joe Biden allegedly benefited from these business deals.
Now more than ever, there’s no evidence he did.
If you read the whole thing, it’s obvious how frantically the GOP is scrabbling around, digging through the bottom of the barrel and deep into the Russian-fostered swamp muck, looking for a Magic Weapon that simply doesn’t exist.
Hunter Biden is smarter than the House Republicans and not afraid to tell them that to their faces and I am here for it pic.twitter.com/YplYaPCfua
— John Cole (@Johngcole) March 1, 2024
Almost as if this entire thing has been a massive charade to drive down Joe Biden's approval rating by making false accusations against his son based on the musings of someone who is a Russian asset that the media treated as a credible source. ?? https://t.co/rwlRm9Ddcc
— scary lawyerguy (@scarylawyerguy) March 1, 2024
Epic Troll by Eric Swalwell to James Comer.
‘Excuse Me, What Did You Say?’ Eric Swalwell Asked James Comer If He’d Release Hunter Biden Transcript ‘In English or Russian’https://t.co/Y7qyzVufQq pic.twitter.com/Ug44yFFZh6
— James Tate (@JamesTate121) March 1, 2024
Put less polite, there is a "disconnect" here because they are lying. https://t.co/4V7b6hepQT
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) March 1, 2024
The Hunter Biden transcript: 5 takeaways @thehill
– GOP failed to score knockout punch
– Biden family tragedy casts shadows over testimony
– Hunter Biden’s addiction runs through testimony
– Jared Kushner gets surprise focus
– What’s next? A public hearinghttps://t.co/Mpt7VQU1gf— Mychael Schnell (@mychaelschnell) March 1, 2024
With Hunter Biden’s deposition in the rearview mirror, Republicans are looking to bring his testimony to television screens across the U.S.
Oversight and Accountability Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) said the “next phase” in the impeachment inquiry is a public hearing with Hunter Biden, where he hopes to “clear up some discrepancies between some of the statements [that] were made between some of the associates and what we heard today.”
HEY THE REASON I KEEP TALKING ABOUT THIS AND DOING ALL CAPS IS THAT THIS COULD SWING THE ELECTION https://t.co/yjQsPgHo5C
— Brian Schatz (@brianschatz) March 1, 2024
TBone
Swalwell FTW 😆
Elsewhere during the proceedings, he asked Hunter Biden a series of questions whose unflattering answers did not apply to Joe Biden, but to former President Donald Trump.
Baud
Schatz is underrated.
Jeffro
Speaking of swinging the election, why wouldn’t an innocent candidate – the World’s Most Innocent, in fact – want a speedy trial and exoneration BEFORE the election, the better to run and win on? What good is it to be found innocent once you’re in office, and had to struggle against the headwinds of felony charges during an entire campaign
What better way to defeat the blessed ‘Deep State’ once and for all, than to prove how their charges of um er espionage were all just another hoax?
TBone
@Jeffro: Bastille Day gonna be lit this year!
Yutsano
Nothing like a long defecation at 3am to interrupt your sleep cycle.
And yes: Democrats should be HOWLING about how they basically gave Republicans a sweet border bill and they killed it because their “fearless leader” told them to. So weak. Much coward. Wow.
EDIT: I am going to try to do that sleep thing my doctor keeps bugging me about.
mrmoshpotato
Is Peter the only child of Steve Doocy, or are there offspring that don’t speak to their idiotic father anymore?
mrmoshpotato
@Yutsano:
You’re just gonna let urination off the hook like that? Your bladder is to blame too.
Baud
@TBone:
Heh.
Betty Cracker
Highlights of Swalwell’s questions (via Bluesky):
Hahaha!
Shalimar
@mrmoshpotato: Steve Doocy was a precious only child, but Peter is the youngest of Steve’s 3 children. He has 2 older sisters who were apparently smart enough not to get into journalism or politics.
Betty
When you have even embarrassed Doocy Senior with your bogus hearings, you have made a remarkable achievement. My favorite Hunter response in all that mess was ” the most ridiculous thing that, I mean – so far.” Yes, a public hearing is just the thing to help your case, Mr. Comer.
Edited to correct spelling
Lapassionara
Shamelessness is their super power.
BellyCat
@Betty Cracker: GOLDEN!
Tony Jay
@Betty Cracker:
That’s News Media gold right there. They could run just that and see their ratings go up, if that was what they were interested in.
But since it’s not a Republican mocking a former Democratic President and the Party he’s using as a suppository, nope, no story there. Let’s just tidy up and present Comer’s meth-addled flabulations as a serious topic of chin-stroking debate instead.
I heard The Narrative had to hire a team of ex-Special Forces mercenaries as bodyguards because members of the public kept accosting it at upmarket restaurants and spitting in its food. Poor Narrative.
Baud
@Tony Jay:
No video.
Tony Jay
@Baud:
Foiled again!
Baud
Interesting, cathartic comments to this WaPo article on Reddit
NotMax
Weekend listen: Harry S. Truman Lecture at Columbia University on the Witch-Hunting and Hysteria.
“When a leader gets up and makes a demagogue out of himself and misrepresents the facts to the people he’s one of the most dangerous men allowed to be run loose in this country….”
Princess
There is no way to square the “fetal personhood at conception— IVF is fine” circle. It was under GWB that they started bleating about snowflake babies.
TBone
@Baud: 😆❤️
OzarkHillbilly
@mrmoshpotato:
I’m not about to let my dogs off the hook. Their peanut sized bladders are more to blame for my interrupted sleep than mine is.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
I would have assumed your dog’s had access to the outside.
TBone
@OzarkHillbilly: cat vomited on my bed last night, also on a nice sweater I’d just washed and was laying flat to dry. I didn’t know till near bedtime that I had to strip bed down and be on laundry duty till way past bedtime. Good thing these little fuckers are so cute and cuddly. Cat vomit does not smell great in bed.
Sid
@Princess:
I agree.
If ‘personhood’ begins at conception, the decision of the Alabama Supreme Court is the only logical one to be drawn. That also applies to the large subset of pro-lifers who would make exceptions for rape and incest, or the even larger subset of pro-lifers who wouldn’t consider both a woman and the abortion provider guilty of premeditated murder- those views are logically disconnected with ‘personhood’ beginning at conception.
TBone
@Betty: I’m really looking forward to that smackdown. Do we know when and who will be further eviscerating these rodeo clowns?
Matt McIrvin
@Princess:
There’s always Trump’s approach–make a forceful public appeal for some super genius to find a solution immediately! Mere logical possibility doesn’t enter into it.
NotMax
@TBone
Perpetually finishes last in contention for Jelly Belly flavor of the month.
;)
sab
@OzarkHillbilly: Mine wakes me frantic to pee, then once outside she does a long slow tour of the yard, sniffimg everything. I can’t shriek to get her in because we have neighbors
Baud
@Princess:
Schrodinger’s Fetus
TBone
@NotMax: 🤮😅 I found this palate cleanser, I think it inspiring:
thebaltimorebanner.com/culture/arts/harriet-tubman-statue-artist-PRZXNU3XTZHORDF7TBBR5GM4UI/
“The reason I call it ‘A Higher Power’ is because I show her with her battle and military gear in which she’s seldom seen in,” Pettit said. “And I show her with her arms in a premium position, because even though she’s fully locked and loaded, with her gun and a pistol, she’s not using any of those. She’s actually calling on a higher power to her to get her through her own obstacles.”
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Nope, my wife won’t allow it. We have no fencing around the property and she’s paranoid about them getting lost (I tell her they know where they eat and who feeds them but it doesn’t matter). Also she’s afraid they will chase a deer across the highway and get hit by a car (a more realistic fear that I have to some extent myself). She want’s me to fence in a small area for them so they can be outside without adult supervision and I may well do that but I’m not sure they will enjoy it.
Regardless, it’s not something I can do just now as my shoulder is hanging on by a thread and a fence post hammer or post hole digger would probably blow it up and I have 3 other projects going that I have to finish before I go see the sawbones again.
@TBone: Uck.
NotMax
Thing I recently learned.
@TBone
Presumably that’s a temporary brace on her back to add support to the model while it is still in a malleable state and not a rifle.
TBone
@OzarkHillbilly: sorry to hear shoulder woes, I can relate. Had to have cortisone injections with extra large needle into bursa. On a lighter note (laughter is the best medicine), I once saw some contractor friends working off their hangovers with an electric post hole digger. One guy plugged it in, and before the guy standing on it knew what was happening, he was bouncing across the yard, holding on for dear life! Two stooges!
Dorothy A. Winsor
I’m hoping to spring Mr DAW from the hospital today. Yesterday, he asked if I thought he’d be out by 8am, which made me laugh. No, honey. Maybe noon.
Ken
@Baud: I think those reddit commenters have been stealing our Balloon Juice material.
The alternative is that instead of being a fringe little blog of wild-eyed liberals whose opinions don’t really reflect those of the Real Americans who make up this center-right nation, we’re the mainstream. And that’s crazy talk.
OzarkHillbilly
@sab: Heh. Billie does the same, but at least she will wake me up by shacking her tags, whining, even nudging my feet if the first 2 fail. Percy on the other hand… What he does is sit at the door and stare at me. Until I get up and let him out. When he wants to come back in, he stares at the door until it opens. It’s like magic, works every time.
Except for at night when I am asleep. Then he turns on Niagara Falls on the tile floor, which woe be to him if I find it with my stocking feet.
So when Billie wakes me up (sometimes 2 or 3 times a night) Percy goes out too. That generally works.
@Baud: HA!
NotMax
@TBone
You addition via edit blows my hopeful theory above out of the water, sad to say.
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: I’m still pondering the fence/jasmine dilemma. This is a crappy picture taken from above and it’s hard to see the old wooden fence that is hanging by a thread. The only thing I can think of is to go in with wire fencing but, like you, I don’t think I can hack the post driver.
Manyakitty
@Dorothy A. Winsor: fingers crossed!
TBone
@NotMax: I’m sorry!
NotMax
@Baud
Thought Reddit became platform non grata when they royally pissed people off with changes to their API.
Ohio Mom
My theory is that Biden has had his sights on the White House for most (maybe all) of his career. He is smart enough to know not to do anything corrupt or scandalous that would have blown that dream up.
Plus, under his swagger, he has a lot of goody-two-shoes in him.
@Baud: Typical Republicans, only start to understand an issue when it starts to affect them personally.
NotMax
@TBone
No harm, no foul.
;)
H.E.Wolf
@TBone:
Thanks for the link to that article!
As it’s still Black History Month (Feb. 31st), Elizabeth Catlett was another Black artist whose work featured Harriet Tubman.
annex.umma.umich.edu/post/170786088309/elizabeth-catlett
trnc
@Baud: I do love a good Schatz/Murphy routine.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: That’s pretty ugly. Maybe you can find a HS/college kid who doesn’t know any better to drive them for $5 per post. It sounds like a high price (to me anyway) but it might give him the incentive to finish the job.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊😊😊
rikyrah
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽
prostratedragon
@TBone: That’s going to be an awesome work!
Baud
@Ken:
I think we tend to be ahead of people in a lot of things (but certainly not everything).
MomSense
The problem with all of this is that people tend to believe the first narrative that they hear unless there is a more compelling narrative. Save for news junkies like us, it is remarkable how little facts have to do with what people believe to be true.
It’s a good thing that WAPO is providing some facts but it’s after the false narrative has had a really long time to become accepted.
I do t know what to say about all of this anymore. We won the White House in 2020 with only 45,000 votes. That is a terrifying reality. Will trump lose some voters? Yes. Will we lose voters? Yes. Will the other party candidates pull voters from both candidates? Yes. It’s going to be a brutal and very close election and the sooner we prepare ourselves for this the better.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
rikyrah
@Ohio Mom:
We are so fortunate that Joe Biden is an honest man
Gotta keep on saying this.
It.sucks that we have had.to go through this nonsense.
But, we finally got to the truth of the Russian plant , because they had nothing on President Biden.
Baud
@NotMax:
It’s definitely a worse experience than it used to be.
rikyrah
@Baud:
Sad to say, but I have no sympathy. Because, until it affected THEM .. they had no problem voting for people who took away the rights of others
Ken
You rang….
As you may recall, during the Dobbs hearings Justice
Serena JoyConey Barrett spoke approvingly of the “baby hatch” facilities which were common in the Middle Ages, and have made a comeback in some countries.IVF facilities should announce their policy will be to drop off the excess embryos at such facilities, or the equivalent state child service agencies. The state would take responsibility for caring for the embryos, which would presumably be simpler than providing the needs of older adoptees; a weekly top-up of the liquid nitrogen in their containers pretty much covers it, I think.
NotMax
@TBone
Dunno if you were around at the time when first related the story.
Was on the train from NYC to Philadelphia in the early 1970s. Conductor, after the stop in North Philly, ambled through the car announcing, “Next stop Philadelphia! Philadelphia, the Brother of Lov-e-ly Sid will be the next stop.”
rikyrah
@Betty Cracker:
That was priceless
rikyrah
@MomSense:
You speak truth, but , we can actually trust THE PROCESS in those states in 2024, because those over the administration of ELECTIONS in those states (MI, PA, AZ, WI, MN) actually believe in Little d- democracy.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Sympathy is irrelevant IMHO. They will either join us or not. My guess is not.
narya
@Dorothy A. Winsor: How’s he doing? Itching to go home is a good sign, yes?
Ohio Mom
@rikyrah: The Christian IVFers are such a case study in psychological blind spots and defending against cognitive dissonance.
NotMax
@raven
Put up a notice on the college bulletin board seeking yard workers and rent a power auger for a day?
Princess
@rikyrah: no wonder Swalwell was bugging Comer to release the transcript!
JMG
Times/Siena poll out this am is Trump 48-Biden 43. Expect this to dominate the Narrative for weeks. Siena is a good pollster, but it’s the Times name that’ll have the rest of the media accepting this as holy writ.
PS: If this poll is correct (could be, who knows?) then there has been a cataclysmic shift of black and Hispanic voters to Trump, a realignment of American politics not seen since the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Again, this could be true, but it’s a big event that wouldn’t seem to have any other big events driving it.
TBone
@H.E.Wolf: 🤎
ETA I loved doing linoleum cutout in art class!
TBone
@prostratedragon: I’ll drive there as soon as it’s up and get some photos with it, I love it. Sisterly love, not Brotherly Shove 😉
Kay
News media knew there was nothing to the story since late 2020, when the WSJ debunked it based on the emails on the laptop. They’ve been flogging it, knowing it was false, for at least 3 years.
You really can’t exaggerate how bad they are and how often they mislead the public out of careerism and an inability to resist following the herd. They were bullied by Republicans into pretending this story they knew was false is true- that’s the level of personal cowardice.
counterfactual
@NotMax: I looked again, and it’s a rifle. As the article says, it’s Tubman as armed resistance while praying.
Nukular Biskits
Good mornin’, y’all!
Yucky day out today, but at least it’s not raining. Not conducive for gardening though.
TBone
@MomSense: I’m prepared to be outrage fatigued. I have contingency plans for that. We all should, your comment is a great reminder.
RaflW
“Jared Kushner gets surprise focus.”
I hate our press. With white hot intensity. Only D.C. journos who ignored the Trump family’s obvious corruption across four long years could be “surprised”. G-d damn their phoniness.
TBone
@Ken: when that bitch mentioned “eggs in basket” during oral arguments on the 14th Amendment case, I wanted to slap those words out her mouth!
Ken
Pivoting back to Republican cartoon villains*, there’s new information about Tyler Boebert‘s moral failings. The headline kind of buries the lede; the word “underage” doesn’t appear until later in the article. You’ll not be surprised to learn that his mother just wants everyone to stop picking on him, and his father blames COVID lockdowns.
* Not that dog pee and IVF aren’t worthy topics, but the post does have a title.
TBone
@NotMax: 💙
Nukular Biskits
@Princess:
PERFECT encapsulation of that issue! Well done!
RaflW
@Kay: Won’t change anything at Fox, but good on the WH for writing to Fox execs demanding a retraction for their execrable coverage of the bribery allegations (ones that Ken Buck knew were likely false last September, but the wired-for-Republicans press covered as smoking guns for another five months).
Eyeroller
@JMG: I don’t want to be a polls-unskewer type but we have actual data in the form of elections, and for some time now it appears that polls have been oversampling Republicans and Republican leaners and have struggled to correct for this accurately. The supposed large shift in black voters to Trump is particularly “sus” as the kids say. Sample bias can especially distort minorities because the numbers are small. My assumption is that right-wingers (of all ages, not just the olds) are the demographic most likely to answer the phone when unknown numbers call.
TBone
@Kay:
Comment runner up (stand yer ground 😆)
“Officer, that fat, greasy, ugly MAGA motherfucker looked at me cross-eyed so I shot him in his fucking balls because it is my Anthony Scalia, Godly-blessed motherfucking Constitutional right to do it. Also, he said “Hunter Biden’s laptop” 3 times. So there!”
TBone
@NotMax: she was armed AND dangerous.
evodevo
@TBone: Yep! Those things are dangerous in the wrong kind of soil. Around here even the tractor-mounted ones don’t work, because as soon as you get below a few inches you hit a rock and the shear pin goes. The hand-held ones do NOT stop and throw you all over. A friend got a knee badly injured that way.
Nukular Biskits
@Baud:
Leo Toasting Meme
RaflW
@Eyeroller: Might have been James Fallows who was wondering if the reverse of the 2016 “shy Trump voter” polling error may also be at play.
Now if a Republican gets polled s/he might say Trump because they know that’s what’s expected, but in the privacy of the ballot carousel, do they really tick the Dotard box? Only their struggling conscience knows.
Mousebumples
Good morning, everyone!
Eyeroller
@RaflW: I’m not a statistician but I don’t buy that. Basic sampling bias is a lot more likely. People do lie to pollsters but I doubt it’s that large an effect in this case.
TBone
@Eyeroller: hear, hear!
Nukular Biskits
@TBone:
Electric posthole diggers? Didn’t know they made those.
I’ve used 2-cycle gas-powered “single man” diggers. Those things will beat you to death but it’s way faster than doing it old school.
Just hope you never hit a root while at max throttle …
Baud
@JMG:
@Eyeroller:
@RaflW:
Not going to pretend to understand polling, but I don’t see how black and Latino voters are massively shifting towards Trump but he’s still stuck below 50%.
Kay
@RaflW:
Fox (actually) debunked it too, in 2020. Then Republicans screamed at them a lot and they all (in a herd, led by the NYTimes, as usual) reversed course and ignored their own prior investigations.
It’s amusing to Google it. 50% of the hits are GOP activists and pundits screaming at media to lend the story creedance, which media then did, per their orders.
OzarkHillbilly
$6bn, payable in the electric car maker’s stock, according to a court filing.
“We recognise that the requested fee is unprecedented in terms of absolute size,” Friday’s filing by the three law firms with the court of chancery in Delaware said.
The fee works out to an hourly rate of $288,888, according to the filing.
The electric vehicle maker is being asked to pay the fee because it benefited from the return of Musk’s pay package, which the legal team said will result in the return to the carmaker of 266m shares.
Nice work if you can get it.
TBone
@evodevo: someone coulda been killed that morning. It wasn’t really funny unless (1) you saw the bouncing, (2) you knew the guys, and (3) afterward heard them cussing and assigning blame to each other while hung over. Eventually the jokes started to flow freely between them.
RaflW
@JMG: Also in today’s Times. The GOP’s racist-ass voter suppression is working.
Racial Turnout Gap Has Widened With a Weakened Voting Rights Act, Study Finds
In the 2020 election, 9.3 million more people would have voted if nonwhite voters had participated at the same rate as white voters, according to the study.
— —
9,300,000 votes, even if it broke 40/60 R/D, would be a g.d. tidal wave against Republicans. Gaaaaah!
TBone
@Nukular Biskits: I wouldn’t recommend them to an amateur!
Baud
@RaflW:
What’s the difference compared to prior years?
TBone
@OzarkHillbilly: WTAF
Nukular Biskits
@TBone:
Two-man diggers with the extended handles are WAAAAAY better.
Unless you like to take a “spin” every now and then … 🤣
Kay
@Ken:
The “sex tapes!” thing was pretty standard issue with teenagers -unfortunately many of them film themselves having sex, which is a shame because it can be a serious crime depending on the ages of the participants and when and how they trasmit the images. But it’s sort of died out- it doesn’t seem to be something they do anymore – so Boeberts son is a little behind the times.
TBone
@Nukular Biskits: 😆 got the visual
Kay
@JMG:
Oof. Bad number though. I was hoping Biden would rebound a little once the economy doommongering stopped. I think there’s SOME justification to think the GOP has picked up some Hispanic and some AA support. You can see it in shifts in FL and TX. The Hispanic erosion for Democrats is creating a gender split too- it’s primarily Hispanic males moving Right while Hispanic females remain in the D column.
OzarkHillbilly
@evodevo: I was working a job on Fort Lost in the Woods when I got the lovely task of laying out post holes for my laborer to auger out. At first he was going at it with great abandon but I told him to knock that shit off as the large blocks of sandstone in the ground would tear either him or the auger up in a NY second.
Our assistant superintendent came along and jumped all over him for doing exactly that, and I jumped right down his throat, screaming that he was a fucking idiot who was gonna get somebody hurt.
He was very proud of that. Went back to the trailer bragging about how he had “finally pissed Tom off.”
TBone
This is pretty funny if you’re not squeamish:
wonkette.com/p/baseball-conspiracy-will-make-you
Baud
@Kay:
It stopped?
Gin & Tonic
@Tony Jay: Speaking of accosting, the other day my son was in his favorite bar when he noticed that Aaron Mate came in for a drink. He assured me that no crimes were committed, but somehow Aaron didn’t stay very long.
Kay
@JMG:
I think Trump still under 50 is good though – buys some time for Biden to firm up his base – which is what he needs to do. But all in all not a good number and worse than I expected.
rikyrah
@Kay:
But, they wanted something to this story. Because, they wanted BOTH SIDES. And, they were willing to do professional malpractice because they wanted the BOTH SIDES. Hoping that SOMETHING.. ANYTHING… would click.,so that they could have BOTH SIDES
Kay
@Baud:
I think it has stopped. Replaced by an assumption Trump will win and all of media essentially manufacturing consent for the next Trump Administration, but they did stop the doommongering on what is a good economy.
rikyrah
@Mousebumples:
Morning 🌄
Dorothy A. Winsor
I liked this post by John Fetterman re Tyler Boebert.
rikyrah
@Kay:
They basically wished for a recession for two years straight. Every phucking month, they were talking about recession. Where is the recession.😡
Eyeroller
@Kay: In 2012 Obama’s polling didn’t turn around until about May. I have been reading old emails I saved and I was pretty panicky back then. And I think polling was more accurate then. Obama got a lot of the blame for the economic problems from about 2008-2011, as we all recall.
TBone
@Gin & Tonic: ❤️
OzarkHillbilly
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Yep.
Eyeroller
@Kay: The current doommongering now is about BORDER CRISIS as far as I can tell. It’s really remarkable (not) how much people parrot back the media narratives to them.
TBone
@Dorothy A. Winsor: me too!
TBone
@rikyrah: in Jerome Powell’s fevered dreams.
Kay
@rikyrah:
You give them more credit for planning or working toward a goal than I do. These stories all happen the same way – they start out doing real investigations and turning up nothing and then Republicans bully them for six months and they all cave and essentially “reopen the case” – over and over and over.
I think it’s had the effect of making them less credible because it looks like they’re always going back on their own work. They read the fucking emails on the laptop at the WSJ and FOX- they had the original source information. That should have been the end of it. But then the GOP started working the refs – you can see this happen in a Google search- half the hits are Right wing operatives of one kind or another demanding the media reopen the inquiry. So here we are 3 years later, still no corruption story but Joe Biden effectivey smeared as corrupt.
Baud
@Eyeroller:
Yeah. we need to face the reality that a substantial number of our potential voters are owned by the NYT.
Not sure how to deal with it.
rikyrah
@Kay:
The FL and TX
We don’t win Texas anyways.
Combine with active voter suppression in Texas and well..
The Latinos in Florida are some of the most White Adjancy chasing folks that I have ever seen
Danielx
@OzarkHillbilly:
Don’t blow the shoulder, lest you be in a sling for six weeks with another three months of rehab on top of that.
Kay
@Eyeroller:
Did it though? I thought he was essentially tied throughout 2012. I’d be happy with a tie for Biden at this point. The consistency of coming in a little under concerns me.
rikyrah
@Eyeroller:
Which the GOP walked away from a bill with solutions that they wanted done ON THEIR TERMS.
TBone
Chyron on GMA just now: CVS and Walgreens to start distributing mifepristone in states where it’s still legal. I’ma try that in my small town just to see what happens.
rikyrah
@Kay:
But, it has to be deliberate professional malpractice, because they never write CONTEXT in these stories. They never bring up all the previous ‘star witnesses ‘ that collapsed and then follow the logical conclusion that, hey, since all the previous witnesses were clowns, why would this be any different?
They never frame the stories that way, which makes it deliberate professional malpractice for me
Kay
@TBone:
I hope the GOP pokes that bear. I don’t think they have yet felt the wrath of the college educated, hyper private and very independent average abortion pill user.
These are women who treat themselves, privately, in their own homes and also women who have very early abortions. They’re going to be blazing mad that conservatives are rummaging around in their underwear drawer. It’s like the subset of women I would least want to piss off :)
rikyrah
Debby Williams 🗳️💙 (@dwilliams1210) posted at 8:06 AM on Sat, Mar 02, 2024:
As Sweden joins NATO, it bids farewell to centuries of neutrality | AP News t.co/ZepzzNATwB
(x.com/dwilliams1210/status/1763928942333788410?t=Z4Tx0BiNaxHq_ov18AQVXQ&s=03)
TBone
Continuing my theme for today (laughter is carbonated holiness said Anne Lamott), sometimes cartoon villains get the respect they deserve.
m.youtube.com/watch
TBone
@rikyrah: good!
Omnes Omnibus
About that NYT/Siena poll, it seems they may be keeping the responses of those who start but do not complete the poll. Not a poller or a statistician, but that seems off to me.
TBone
@Kay: 💙 hell hath no fury like…
ETA in this college town I wager that this availability will be especially popular. With the students. The rest of the Evangeluglicans will be pearl clutching protestors outside the CVS which is prominently located in a popular spot for previous abortion protests.
Kay
@Eyeroller:
That said, I don’t think the NYTimes poll is any more reliable than any other poll. I don’t think the NYTimes has earned some enhanced or prestige reputation for accuracy or reliability. I know that’s how the lemmings in media who all follow them see them – as super prestigious – but they haven’t earned that. They’re wrong a lot. Their projected voter model could easily be wrong.
MomSense
@rikyrah:
Process in those states, yes. There is a lot of social media pushing young progressives not to vote for Biden. It is a specially worrisome for MI. Like I said the margins are so small in those states and, sadly, there are a lot of young voters who find belonging in the circles that say Biden’s fascism is no different than trump’s because Gaza. Wish I were kidding. They also say he’s not doing enough on Roe even though there is nothing more he can do. I’m trying to engage but the lack of civics education among these voters is absolutely criminal. My kids tell me that the pressure to spout the BS is intense and they get sooo much grief and shaming if they try to present different opinions.
I have no doubt that some of the political influencers are part of a coordinated disinformation campaign.
TBone
@Kay: there is a big kerfuffle going on r.n. with ethnic NYT reporters being fired and more. Reported in WaPo to which I do not subscribe, either.
Kay
@TBone:
We talked to some of them during the Ohio amendment race. This is a very well informed, fiercely independent group of women who value privacy. It’s 53% of abortions and Republicans are just now coming after them. It’s like a second Dobbs, IMO.
It would be really interesting to do a story on just those women but no major news media are doing any in depth coverage of womens rights and health at all, so we’ll have to wait until they vote.
TBone
@Kay: if the Supremacists Court doesn’t get there first, there is a case about the FDA authorization currently going on, right? That might get coverage… it’s got some SERIOUS ramifications.
Eyeroller
@Kay: You also have to take into account that it is apparently much more expensive to sponsor a poll nowadays. Those people monitoring the calls (I assume they have autodialers and they’re not punching in numbers) have to be paid and the longer it takes for them to get an adequate number of responses, the more it’s going to cost. Per Omnes above, that could potentially explain why they seem to have included incomplete responses–that might be how they got the number of responses they promised within the budget. Response rates have just collapsed in recent years. That’s a problem and modeling can’t correct for that accurately.
There have been polls with Biden ahead and others where he’s tied. The NYT polls are among those most consistently showing him behind. I’m not accusing them of intentionally forcing pollsters to bias their results, but things like budgets, etc. can affect it.
Kay
@rikyrah:
I think Republicans successfully diversified their national candidate field. I think you could say these people were tokens or one offs back in the Bobby Jindal days but now it’s consistent and 1/3 or better of their candidates. I think we have to accept this. It’s reality.
TBone
npr.org/2023/12/13/1218332935/mifepristone-abortion-pill-supreme-court
Kay
@Eyeroller:
I looked the other day and one of the things affecting an average of polling is that the horrible No Labels couple have three polls that are included in averages. I mean, come on. This is junk.
I just think the NYTimes is extremely susceptible to being bullied by Right wingers and folding. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if their voter model was ultra deferential to Republicans. They take orders from Republicans.
I still think Biden should be picking up in polls. I expected it in January. Our voters should be “coming home” and as I have mentioned a million times, I think Michigan is a real problem.
OzarkHillbilly
@Danielx:I’ve already had to rotator cuff surgeries (torn bicep tendon and torn subscapular muscle) on that shoulder and I’m pretty certain I’m going to need another. I’m just hoping to hold it together till next winter.
zhena gogolia
They’re all salivating about how good Trump is going to be for the economy (translation: rich people). We deserve to be Russia, I guess.
Miss Bianca
@sab: One of my favorite cartoons from The Oatmeal has the guy’s dog standing on him while he’s in bed at 2 am saying ‘ Wake up – I’ve got to go stand in the yard and sniff things instead of peeing.’
rikyrah
@Kay:
But, it’s the same clown. They are all the same 🦝🦝🦝type, if you are talking about their Black GOP folks. Just because they put forth Stephen from Django as candidates, doesn’t make them appealing. Putting a Black face on White Supremacy doesn’t make it any less White Supremacy.
When the bottom line comes, all they do is 🦝🦝🦝
Mousebumples
I’m on team “ignore the polls and GOTV” for whatever that’s worth.
TBone
🎶
m.youtube.com/watch?v=9C1BCAgu2I8
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
We might. I’m ok losing, as long as it’s fair. There’s no reason any particular country needs to be liberal. Most aren’t. I actually would prefer to lose the popular vote if we lose, however. No more mixed messages.
rikyrah
@TBone:
I am still of the belief that Big Pharma will win out on this.
The actual tenants of the case are based on clown science and put forth by those who had no standing.
My money is still on Big Pharma winning
Baud
@Mousebumples:
I agree. What are we going to do with polls?
OzarkHillbilly
@OzarkHillbilly:
Omnes Omnibus
OTOH, from that poll: Out of the group that can’t stand either candidate, Biden wins as the one they would vote for. Apparently, the candidate who won the “double haters” won in both 2016 and 2020.
TBone
@rikyrah: I’m not a gambler, esp. where this Court is involved. I hope you’re correct! 👊
Starfish
@rikyrah: They also have a bunch of Aunt Lydias defending their extreme abortion bans.
TBone
@rikyrah: it’s the only place they approve masking.
TBone
@OzarkHillbilly: hubby’s shoulder is held together with rubber bands, so far, so good. It’s been over a decade. I hope you get a better outcome than it appears you’ve had thus far.
ETA he chopped wood, carried water and coal buckets, etc. It’s about the only spot on his body not giving him pain now. He prides himself on brute strength too much.
Chris
@Kay:
Like I’ve been saying, the concern for me is that Trump in both elections ended up overperforming his polls, not underperforming. The voters who come out for him but nobody else seem to be the ones the media has the most trouble picking up. So polling being broken isn’t really reassuring.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
I do wonder how many voters who dislike one candidate automatically dislike the other because they want to view themselves as nonpartisan.
lowtechcyclist
@Eyeroller:
I am (or was) a statistician, and AIUI less than one out of a hundred potential respondents gets as far as answering their questions. (Most just never pick up the phone in the first place. Unknown number? Talk to my voice mail.) I’m not worried about the respondents lying because there’s really no reason for them to do so, but with such a low response rate, it’s hard to imagine that nonresponse bias isn’t a huge problem – that is, the people who answer the phone and stay on to answer the questions aren’t representative of whatever subpopulation cell they’re in.
There’s really no good way to correct for that, AFAIK; it’s been about 15 years since I had to deal with nonresponse bias professionally, but I don’t think there’s been any magical solution discovered during that time.
Shalimar
@Baud: toss grenades?
TBone
@Shalimar: or smoke bombs? I mean, turnabout is fair play!
Kay
@TBone:
Another reason it’s silly to talk about Republicans “compromising” on abortion. If they had any intention of compromising it would be on medication abortions – very early abortions that women are conducting themselves.
This is 100% about controlling women. If they were actually having some real “discussion” on the Right all of these abortion facts would matter, but none of them matter because it’s a religious/control of women issue, not an abortion issue. I think medication abortions piss them off even more because they can’t control those women at all – the whole thing is self managed.
Geminid
@Chris: This year Trump seems to be underperforming his polling numbers. It’s a limited number of primaries for sure, but he’s been consistent so far.
I heard that Trump will visit Virginia before Super Tuesday, maybe this weekend. I was glad, because Virginia has never been a good state for that churl. I already know three Democrats who voted for Haley. Virginia has no party registration, so crossover voting is friction-free here.
Baud
@Kay:
Probably why they’re attracting more minority men.
catclub
$50 for the last one.
TBone
@Kay: I expect to meet vociferous resistance at my local CVS when I attempt to stock up for mailing purposes. You are 2,000% correct. I always ask how many children they’ve adopted before I walk away flipping the bird.
Kay
@Chris:
That’s fair. It’s what people say when you point to off year elections that Democrats overperformed – thatTrump wasn’t on the ballot. He didn’t overperform his polling in 2020 though and in my (anecdotal) observation in a VERY Trumpy county the passion has abated quite a bit. You just don’t see the nutty Trump cult behavior and displays you saw in 2019/2020.
Kay
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: Yes, the economy doommongering stopped, which is making me worry about the economy because when have these fuckers ever been right?
(My Eeyorism is counter-cyclical. I fret less when I see other people freaking out. That comforts me because at least other people are seeing the danger.)
Except: there’s a big round of layoffs and contraction happening in the sector of the economy where I actually work, and watching that carnage gives me huge cognitive dissonance feelings. It’s like a mini-recession that isn’t visible in the wider economy.
Mousebumples
@Baud: lull the GOP into a false sense of security?
I’d hope the press might give Biden some good press if he’s “behind” for their horse race, but lol, I doubt it.
catclub
umm tenets. But this is a case that is so absurd a normal SC would overturn in a minute. But our present court will take any case the GOP wants heard seriously.
Kay
@Baud:
I actually think that’s their very real strategy. Gaetz said it out loud but it makes sense, right? That’s the weakness where they’d leverage off a slice – misogony. If it’s showing up in Texas and Florida I would just expect it to show up elsewhere soon.
Baud
@Mousebumples:
Yeah, I don’t see that happening. There will be some good cycles here and there, but nothing consistent.
TBone
@catclub: that’s why I don’t gamble on it.
OzarkHillbilly
Tee hee:
Oh well, I feel better now. Don’t you?
Let the face eating commence.
TBone
@OzarkHillbilly: bwahahaha!
Matt McIrvin
@Mousebumples: I think they don’t really want a horse race so much as they WANT TRUMP. They learned that Trump is a bigger crazier more dramatic thing than a horse race–he’s a firehose of appalling behavior, conflict, farce and tragedy. That’s like catnip for the political media. It boosts their profits too. Their individual contributors may hate the guy but collectively they love him as a spectacle.
You even saw that in wistful “aren’t you gonna miss him a little?” pieces when he was leaving. Especially before January 6th made him the gift that kept giving on the way out.
Baud
@Kay:
My hope is that Biden’s attempt to do something similar with white labor balances out that strategy.
@OzarkHillbilly:
If history is any guide, he’ll be a front runner in the next couple of cycles.
catclub
well the large CNN business headline is:
Americans struggle to afford the basics in a strong economy
Another Scott
Meanwhile, …
Grr…,
Scott.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: It’s crosswise divide-and-conquer. White men are a minority of the electorate. But you get some white women with racism (and internalized sexism!) and some non-white men with sexism (and bigotry against minorities different from themselves), and with some luck you can cobble together a winning coalition even with a platform that is fundamentally just pro-white-guy.
catclub
This reminded me of the conservative Jews who favor Trump. They have serious blinders on so they can ignore the facts that the nazis and the klan and Putin are with Trump.
Kay
@TBone:
I just think intruding in this private health care access mechanism in womens homes is a much more invasive act than screeching at women outside of abortion clinics or denying them medical care in hospitals.
They’re IN your fucking house now. Amy Comey Barrett and Catholic Church are snooping around in your bedroom when you, a person who so values privacy that you chose a medication abortion, don’t want them in there. There’s a reason a lot of US law focuses on enhanced protections for what people do in their own homes. This is really approaching “I need a protection order” territory. They need to back the fuck off.
japa21
Regarding polls.
The last Quinnipiac poll had Biden 49-Trump 45. The interesting thing is voters viewed Trump higher than Biden on age issues, mental acuity and physical health. I think that will change a lot as Trump is more and more visible.
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
My two younger sons keep telling me they are making inroads with young men of color and I lately have started to believe them. However, I should also say that my middle son, the electrician, thinks Biden will win and he’s not a political predictor (or really much of a talker at all). He is a lot more plugged in to the views of 25 year old men than I am.
Kay
@japa21:
That was a nice poll and Ithink it’s a quality poll. We just need more of those :)
zhena gogolia
@Mousebumples: Thank you. I need that advice.
Mousebumples
@Matt McIrvin: sadly, you’re not wrong.
I saw something earlier this week about UAW and how much a strong union GOTV push could swing extra votes in the Midwest.
Also – successful union membership drives in Alabama! I’ll have to find those links again…
TBone
@Kay: we’re being raped as well as unwanted sexual touching.
TBone
Question: the wildlife specialist (“humane” kill traps) I called about squirrels removal from chewing chunks! of wood outta my attached carport roof beam wants a $600 commitment before he’ll even show up. Is that normal???
Mousebumples
@zhena gogolia: you’re welcome. Tap into whatever campaigns WaterGirl runs here, or anything that interests you. It’s easy to get anxious about polls, but I prefer optimism. Pessimism discourages me. If we lose, that’s not great. But how can I (we?) best keep that from happening.
Postcards are my tool of choice. 😊
Chris
@Mousebumples:
Your second paragraph is how I’ve known for years that the narrative of “they just want a horse race” was false. No, they don’t. They never put their thumb on the scale for Democrats when they run behind like they do for Republicans. It’s only ever in one direction.
“And now we interview a fired air traffic controller who feels angry and betrayed and swears he’ll never vote for Reagan again! Reagan has a working class problem! Once you unskew the polls, Mondale is cruising to an easy win!” Said no New York Times pundit, ever.
lowtechcyclist
@Omnes Omnibus:
Well, at least they’re being upfront that they’re doing it.
What I don’t understand is how they use these responses, but that deserves some explanation.
Every time I’ve responded to a poll over the phone, they’ve waited to the very end to ask the demographic questions: sex, race, ethnicity, age.
In order to ensure a representative sample, what they do is divide the population into ‘cells’ based on those demographic characteristics, for instance, I’d be in their white, male, >65 cell. Then they take the responses from each cell, and ‘weight up’ to the size of the population in that cell.
(For instance, if there are 10 million Americans who are white, male, and over 65, and they get 30 responses from white males over 65, then they’d take each of those responses and give them a weight of 10,000,000/30, and that way the 30 respondents are representing the ten million people in that cell.)
So if people drop off in the middle, how do they know what cell to put them in? I know there are outfits that collect that sort of info for addresses and phone numbers and sell that info to marketers; my former employer contracted with such an outfit to obtain a reasonably reliable address frame, but we’d have been scared to rely on it for demographic info; back in 2020 when we tried collecting responses by phone rather than face-to-face interviews, we found that even their matching of phone numbers to addresses was pretty iffy.
So I’d really really like to see their methodology here: maybe they ask the demo questions up front, but I’ve answered dozens of telephone polls over the years, and they always ask them last, so that would be a change. But otherwise, how the heck do they match up their drop-offs with the demo cells?
Also, it would mean they’d have to weight the answers to each question separately, because respondents would drop off at different places in the survey.
My mind, it is boggled.
Uncle Cosmo
Well, I am a statistician (or was before I was forcibly retired) and I kinda disagree. Go back a couple of generations (to when I designed and oversaw polls) and poll respondents were flattered anyone cared about their opinions and (at least somewhat) aware that their answers stood for a lot of other people’s, so they tended to be pretty forthcoming and honest.**
Today, of course, anyone can post stuff on the Internet & comfort (or delude) themselves that their opinion matters, and no one trusts anyone cold-calling them enough to answer questions honestly. I know that survey researchers have ways and means to figure out and factor out when a respondent is dissembling, but it’s a lot tougher slog to filter the signal out from the noise.
And even that presumes that the polling operations are going about their work honestly. IMO many do – but the honest polls they take are the ones you will never see; everything you read about is pushpolling and/or clickbait.
** We often see the same from jurors – people who understand they have the outcome of a person’s livelihood or life in their hands tend to take the responsibility more seriously than one might expect.
lowtechcyclist
@Kay:
When you see “NYT/Siena poll”, the format is ‘sponsor/pollster.’ So the real question is, how good a pollster is Siena? The NYT doesn’t do the polling, though they may have input into how it’s done.
Hoodie
@Ken: this is one of the more ridiculous aspects of this thing. They seem to be saying it’s okey dokey to leave these embryos in perpetual suspended animation as there’s no way they’re all going to be implanted. Are they going to charge doctors with negligent homicide if they allegedly botch an implantation? These people are infantile.
The Thin Black Duke
The Killer Mikes, Nina Turners, Ice Cubes and Jason Whitlocks take up a huge amount of media real estate because there’s a subset of white progressive purity ponies who love watching black clowns spewing fantasies about “taking the revolution to the streets”. The only thing these hustlers are committed to is either getting paid or are into the con to get sex from young naive political activists.
Long Story Short: I don’t believe the hype about a huge tsunami of black people voting for Trump in November. Sure, there’s divisions in the African-American community, but the brothers and sisters who have their heads screwed on straight are under no delusions about what a second Trump presidency would mean.
Hoodie
@Chris: I’d say the horse race imperative is dominant but there is a secondary bias along the lines of “maybe Daddy really is right and I don’t want him to punish me.” In other words, the GOP is given the benefit of the doubt because reporters subconsciously fear that conservatives are more likely to beat them up and ruin their precious careers, eg, they’ll lean on management, which is more aligned with conservatives.
Another Scott
@TBone: Not a direct answer to your question, but look at your locality’s policies on “vermin” and the like. We had a groundhog under our deck and I was looking into options. Turns out that there are county laws about them – they cannot be moved somewhere else and are regarded as vermin and have to be destroyed if caught. :-/ (It moved on on its own after a while, having a dog probably helped. ;-)
Is making the chew spot less appealing an option? Hot pepper sauce, metal flashing, etc?
Good luck!
Cheers,
Scott.
catclub
@Chris:Yes, exactly. Well put.
Matt McIrvin
@The Thin Black Duke: part of it is that any movement that makes it a surprising “man bites dog” story gets hyped up even if you need a microscope to see it.
Eyeroller
@Uncle Cosmo: You and lowtechcyclist can duke it out over that (per his response above). I do believe people are likely to lie about “moral” positions; in particular we have seen large disparities between pre-election polling on abortion/anti-abortion initiatives (not candidates, direct initiatives) when it seems like pro-choice is either losing (e.g. a Mississippi election a few years ago) or it’s basically tied (Ohio IIRC) and it turns out to be a pro-choice blowout. But I really doubt that Republicans and most Republican “Independents” think supporting Trump is morally wrong.
Citizen Alan
@Princess: It is just barely possible if you believe that personhood doesn’t truly begin until implantation. But then that gets you into trouble with forms of contraception that interfere with implantation which the Jeebus-humping idiots all think are forms of abortion.
Matt McIrvin
@Eyeroller: I suspect the abortion polling is more an issue of the vote breaking differential turnout models formulated before the Dobbs decision.
Matt McIrvin
It seems like the big question in poll analysis circles these days is whether the advantage Republicans used to have in lower-turnout non-presidential elections has reversed because of Trump and Dobbs. Most of them seem to think it has, which of course they can frame as bad news for Biden by discounting high Democratic turnout in midterm, odd-year and special elections. The theory is that Trump will bring out supporters who don’t turn out in these elections.
Gvg
@raven: Hire a professional with the equipment like this Post hole driver
farms and ranches don’t mess around with doing it by hand. Some of the vehicles they can attach a driver to are very small and can get in narrow places. At my last house, it was kind of outside town and the fencer we could get used a version like that but smaller, that fit between tightly spaced houses. Very quick and not that pricy either, since we weren’t even a big job like they usually did. We installed no climb horse fence because we had an escape artist dog.
Ruckus
@Ohio Mom:
Typical Republicans, only start to understand an issue when it starts to affect them personally.
They are conserving their brains for some higher purpose. Either that or they are narrow minded – thinking that everyone else thinks only of themselves as much as they do. There might be a crossover between those two concepts.
Soprano2
@Kay: The R’s online lie about it all the time. They’ll say that Hunter never denied it was his laptop, to which I reply that R’s have never proven it is, that it’s easy to hack someone’s online account to plant e-mails on a laptop, and it’s unlikely that Hunter took an Apple laptop to some no-name shop in New York City and never came back for it. They usually shut up after that. Adam’s posts here on it helped me a lot to understand what’s going on.
cain
@Baud: Cue the Rocky Theme and “Eye of the Tiger”!
Soprano2
@Kay: I used to think medication abortions would break the anti-abortion movement because there were no clinics to picket. I was naive about their persistence and ability to get states to pass crazy laws about abortion.
Soprano2
@Kay: I agree, you don’t see it as much here either. I don’t see the amount of TFG flags I used to see.
Soprano2
@Matt McIrvin: That’s how it always is. I think one reason the press was down on the economy is because things are bad in their industry. It’s affecting them and people they know.
Soprano2
@catclub: Fresh Air had an interview with Bradley Onishi this week. He used to be part of the white Christian nationalist movement. When she asked why they support TFG in spite of his personal horrible behavior, he said they decided they needed a bully who was willing to fight to force their worldview on everyone through the law. They saw that having a real evangelical Christian in the White House in George W. didn’t get them what they wanted. It was a revealing interview.
buggrit
@TBone: Long dead thread, and I don’t know the answer to your question, but we had squirrels in our attic that were driven away by a pie plate full of fresh offerings from our cats’ litter box. Might be worth a try.
steve g
@JMG: Well the last Times/Sienna poll was received so well. /s
What matters is not the popular vote, which Trump has never won. It is the electoral college result. Trump can get a million more votes in Florida and he still just wins Florida.
It’s very likely that the Dem will once again win the popular vote. The polls need to poll the swing states, and use those to forecast the electoral college result, if they want to do anything meaningful.
sab
@buggrit: That is how I got the woodchuck to move out from under our new room. Just stuffed his/her hole with cat pee litter. Didn’t block it entirely. Just made ingress/egress very cat pee whiffy.
rikyrah
@Kay:
And, they can’t harass these women like they do at clinics
rikyrah
@Matt McIrvin:
I believe it’s a deliberate attempt to cause a recession before the election
scott alloway
@OzarkHillbilly:
Hell, with my tools, I’d do it for $5 a post. Have some drill attachments that go 2 feet down. Put in a 23 by 36 for 6 foot wood fence in two days in Philly a couple years ago, And I’m 73. Have another project like that next month.
Kayla Rudbek
@Baud: yes, I seriously think that the only reason we don’t already have a religious dictatorship in this country is because the white religious fanatics are too racist for other ethnic groups to support them. Suzette Elgin Haden and Robert Heinlein underestimated racism in my arrogant opinion.