Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

We can’t confuse what’s necessary to win elections with the policies that we want to implement when we do.

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Just because you believe it, that does not make it true.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. keep building.

In my day, never was longer.

A norm that restrains only one side really is not a norm – it is a trap.

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

It is not hopeless, and we are not helpless.

Petty moves from a petty man.

Roe is not about choice. It is about freedom.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

She burned that motherfucker down, and I am so here for it. Thank you, Caroline Kennedy.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls 2 years from now.

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Disappointing to see gov. newsom with his finger to the wind.

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

You are here: Home / Elections 2024 / Any Primaries We Should Be Paying Attention to Tonight?

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70Comments

  1. 1.

    Princess

    Not a primary but I’m seeing reports James could start seizing Trump’s assets as soon as Monday (Dan Rather, Vanity Fair). If there are mortgages and liens on a seized property, who gets first crack at its value? Asking for a weary country.

  2. 2.

    Juice Box

    Arizona is voting today. Gallego should win the Senate nomination for the Ds, but I don’t know about Putin’s party, maybe Kari Lake?

  3. 3.

    WaterGirl

    Guessing that we’re rooting for the craziest of the crazies in OH to give Sherrod Brown a better chance in November?

  4. 4.

    Percysowner

     

    Trump endorsed Bernie Moreno was going against Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, and State Senator Matt Dolan. Moreno won. Moreno is MAGA through and through although the revelation that he had been posting looking for “Men for 1-on-1 sex” on a casual sexual encounters website called Adult Friend Finder. There was a chance that would take him out, but it did not. So he will go against Sherrod Brown. The Democrats were rooting for him to win, thinking he will be somewhat easier to beat what with his anti-LGBTQ views and stated desire for a national abortion ban. If Sherrod can’t pull it out we will have yet another nut case representing Ohio. OTOH, Sherrod has managed to pull it out before. It’s time to start donating and writing post cards.

    @WaterGirl:  We got the crazy!

  5. 5.

    rekoob

    @Princess: Generally speaking, lenders negotiate their priorities when offering loans. “I’ll lend at this rate, if you’ll grant me senior status to other lenders”, and the like. Since we don’t know how encumbered Trump’s various properties are, it’s hard to say how easily or quickly the State of New York can settle matters.

    My guess is it’s a real mess. The properties are mortgaged to the hilt and there’s little, if any, room for anyone, least of all Trump, to negotiate. It’s all bluster.

  7. 7.

    Phein64

    @WaterGirl: He won!  (According to AP.)

    Locally, I know there was only one contested race for Democrats (Coroner), but neither of them is particularly competent (according to the forensic anthropologist I’m married to and her colleagues), so nothing to get to the polls for.

  11. 11.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Jay:

    Then a lot of them will have to be sold to pay Trump’s debts.

    EDIT – If Trump is so leveraged that his entire real estate empire has to be seized to partially pay his fines, I can live with that.

  12. 12.

    Anoniminous

    Can she grab assets outside of New York?  Like Mar-a-Longo?

    And how long is Melanoma going to continue to ‘hang’ if Donny isn’t a sugar daddy?

  15. 15.

    RaflW

    @rekoob: God only knows how much some of Trump’s loans have been tranched into credit default swaps and all that mysterious shyte.

    I’m sure most everything has not just first, but second and maybe even more junior debt holders.

    This is why no bond co would bite. They’d be in liquidation litigation well past Donnie’s eventual expiration.

  17. 17.

    RaflW

    @dmsilev: Very used – 1991 registration. Yes, Delta flies a handful of planes of that vintage, but I’d trust them 100X over what notorious cheapskate Trump has paid for maintenance.

  18. 18.

    Ohio Mom

    @rekoob: During the Great Recession, one family in my neighborhood lost their house, or maybe they were renters and got evicted — all their stuff was in heaps on the front lawn. It was painful to see.

    How likely is it that something that dramatic will happen to Trump? As you point out, there will be a lot of behind the scenes accounting, and that is boring to watch.

    But maybe there will be a moment when something like the Trump sign being taken down from the building on Fifth Avenue happens, and that will be dramatic enough to be filmed for the nightly news. And that will get the normie’s atrention.

  19. 19.

    rekoob

    @RaflW: Precisely. If I were New York Attorney General James, I’d call a meeting of lenders to the Trump properties and propose what the British call a “ring-fencing” of the loans, separating the wheat from the chaff. Give them a chance to settle the fraud claims while protecting the major assets to benefit the citizens of New York over time.

  21. 21.

    Anoniminous

    @dmsilev:

    People who know more than I think the plane is worth between US$3.58 million to $11.27 million.  I’d bet on the lower value especially since we’re talking fire sale

  22. 22.

    Jackie

    In FL, TIFG won, followed by Nikki Haley over Pudd’n Boots by 10 pts!!😂 🤣 😂 BettyCracker will be celebrating!!!

  25. 25.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @RaflW: The mortgaged properties won’t be a big deal.  A bankruptcy trustee will sell them and divvy up the proceeds according to the creditors’ status.  The fun will be the properties that have his name on them where he is a minority owner.

  26. 26.

    Jackie

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    There is reasonable odds he’ll be evicted from Mar-a-lago.  Is that dramatic enough?  We’ll just have to see.

    I like to visualize Putin buying MAL; TIFG losing the election, and as punishment for being a LOSER, Putin allows TIFG to live in the servants quarters and earn his keep as Putin’s caddy boy – on foot – as Putin doesn’t need a golf cart to get from hole to hole.

  29. 29.

    Jay

    @Ohio Mom:

    Eviction.

    Foreclosed properties the Bank sells and disposes anything left behind.

    Evictions, it’s all left on the lawn for the owners to pick up, or until the “Got Junk” guys have to be called.

  33. 33.

    frosty

    @Uncle Cosmo: There’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time. We had one Earl Scheib paint job done, on a Bugeye Sprite. We took off all the chrome, took off the side curtains (bolt-on windows) and took the top off. They managed to get paint on the seats.

  34. 34.

    Belafon

    There was some report that half of Haley voters said they’d vote for Biden over Trump. That’s 10% of Republican voters, but in this race that would be decisive.

  35. 35.

    FlyingToaster (Tablet)

    @cain: Putin and most or all of his remaining oligarchs are sanctioned; they can’t move money into (or through) any US-connected banks.

    If Bone Saw doesn’t come to the rescue, I think Donnie’s done.

  36. 36.

    RevRick

    The DSCC (Democratic Senate Campaign Committee) has already come out with an ad against Moreno in Ohio that features Republicans saying you can’t trust Moreno, and ends with the comment, “If Republicans don’t trust Moreno, should you?”

  38. 38.

    Bupalos

    @WaterGirl: I took an R ballot and did my part there. And you cannot CANNOT imagine how hard that was. Also cast a vote to save David Joyce, pro-ukraine house member, against Trumpist guttersnipes.

  39. 39.

    frosty

    @Anoniminous: Mohammed Bin Saud (I think that’s the name). The one responsible for the WaPo reporter being killed and his body cut into pieces with a bone saw.

  42. 42.

    columbusqueen

    By the time the oppo research is in, I’m convinced Sherrod will cut Moreno up into cutlets & serve him up to his two sweet dogs.

  43. 43.

    Another Scott

    Races?

    A guy named Qasim Rashid turns up nearly every day in mastodon.social/#explore He seems to have a decent social-media game and talks up nominally left/progressive policies. I never clicked on his stuff though.

    I see that he was running in the primary for IL-11 against the incumbent Democrat. I see from his Mastodon header that he has a SiriusXM show, so he should know how to do the media stuff.

    Unsurprisingly, the incumbent, Rep Bill Foster, won easily (~ 55 point spread).

    Having a good social media game is good (and maybe important at times). But it does not and cannot beat the grunt work of real bootsonaground politicking.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  47. 47.

    Urza

    @Belafon: I know its going to be an odd year with Gaza, but wouldn’t it be great if Biden got to 100 million or higher in the popular vote.

  48. 48.

    Another Scott

    @HumboldtBlue:

    !!!

    Good clip.  Grandpa Joe knows how to run an iPad, his team knows how to make a Tiky-Toky, and how to cut to the chase about TIFG.

    Well done.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  49. 49.

    Jackie

    @cain: No way. TIFG loves Putin way more than visa versa. Especially if Biden is still President come Jan ‘25 😊

  50. 50.

    Another Scott

    @Omnes Omnibus: It’s not a good time to be selling office buildings in Manhattan. NY1.com (from March 5, 2024):

    Even though more people are returning to the office, the vacancy rate of offices remains high. In fact, Manhattan’s was 22.8%, according to the latest data from the commercial real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield.

    “There’s a great deal of vacant real estate right now,” said Stuart Saft, a real estate lawyer and partner at the Holland & Knight law firm.

    Saft has spent decades representing developers and lenders. And now, he hears consistently from clients about how their office buildings have fewer tenants.

    That means less money coming in. And it comes at a time when the commercial real estate loan interest rates are much higher than they have been in recent years.

    So for the hundreds of billions of dollars in office loans needing to be renewed this year, the building owners have difficult decisions to make.

    “There’s a great deal of debt on these office buildings that’s coming due this year and in 2025 and the concern is, what do we do?” Saft said.

    Trump Tower is condos, offices, and retail:

    That Wikipedia article says “GMAC Commercial Mortgage” owns the building.

    Wells Fargo & Co., the master servicer of the $100 million mortgage loan Trump took out in 2012,[141] placed the tower on a debt watch list in September 2021 because its average occupancy had fallen to 78.9% from 85.9% at the end of 2020. Revenue was $33.7 million in 2020, $7.5 million in the first quarter of 2021.[142] By early 2024, Gucci was the only large retailer in the tower’s retail atrium, which had once contained up to 60 stores.[143] Another analysis, publicized in February of the same year, found that the average per-square-foot cost of a condominium at Trump Tower had nearly halved from 2013 to early 2024.[144][145] The decline in condo prices was attributed to competition from newer towers nearby, the age of the building, and the protests that regularly occurred outside it.[144]

    I see 7 condos in it for sale listed on Zillow, many with big price cuts.

    [ womp, womp ]

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  52. 52.

    Urza

    @Another Scott: Some of those sellers did not get the memo on price cuts.  $195 million for a condo, exactly how many people on the planet could even be potential buyers for 17k sq ft in New York at that price.

  53. 53.

    Another Scott

    @Urza: That’s in a different building.  That’s the penthouse in the Central Park Tower – the giant pencil that was put up a few years ago (and apparently is where the oligarchs park their money).

    TIFG can only dream of owning a property like that…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  54. 54.

    Gretchen

    Primary in Kansas today. An older couple came to the site. Woman asks why there are only Republicans on her (Republican primary) ballot. Husband replied that the Democrats vote at a different site. Reported by a Democrat who was, in fact, voting at the same site. Their votes count as much as ours.

  55. 55.

    Gretchen

    Trump got 75.5% of the primary vote in KS. None of the above got 5%. Biden got 83.8%, with 10% for none of the above.

  56. 56.

    Another Scott

    Meanwhile, …

    Steve Vladeck
    @steve_vladeck

    #BREAKING: #SB4 is blocked again.

    A majority of the Fifth Circuit panel hearing argument on Texas’s stay application *tomorrow morning* just issued an order “dissolving” the “administrative stay” that a different panel imposed on March 2. So the injunction goes back into effect.

    10:58 PM · Mar 19, 2024

    [ insert rant about crazypants state laws trying to usurp federal powers over immigration, supremacy clause, etc., etc. ]

    Kinda crazy that the crazy 5th Circuit had to block something that the SCOTUS just let through.

    Grr…,
    Scott.

  58. 58.

    Jackie

    TIFG is freaking out that his donors and voters will now know he’s a penniless FRAUD! 😂

    Donald Trump was relying on the Chubb Corporation underwriting the $464 million bond he needs to pay by Monday — and the company’s refusal to do so has left him panicking, according to a report.

    CNN’s Kaitlan Collins said Tuesday that the former president was “counting on the insurance company” to bail him out with the damages he owes after his civil fraud trial, just as it did when it supplied assurances for the $91 million bond after he was found liable for defaming New York columnist E. Jean Carroll.

    Chubb had been “actively negotiating” with Trump and his co-defendants, according to a statement released by Trump Organization’s lawyer Alan Garten and reported by CNBC. Then, “within the past week,” Chubb changed its direction and “notified defendants that it could not accept real property as collateral.”

    “Though disappointing, this decision was not surprising given that Chubb was the only surety willing to even consider accepting real estate as collateral,” Garten added.

    Chubb’s agreement to underwrite Trump’s Carroll defamation bond was followed by criticism aimed at its CEO, Evan Greenberg, who had been appointed by Trump to a trade policy advisory committee and a business group to stymie the economic effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.

    On Wednesday last week, Greenberg sent a letter to investors, customers and brokers who had expressed concerns about that bond.

    “As the surety, we don’t take sides, it would be wrong for us to do so and we are in no way supporting the defendant,” Greenberg wrote. “When Chubb issues an appeal bond, it isn’t making judgments about the claims, even when the claims involve alleged reprehensible conduct.”

    He added that Trump’s bond in the defamation case was “fully collateralized.”

    Chubb was one of 30 companies — including billionaire Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway — that Trump had asked to put down the fraud trial bond amount, but they reportedly decided against it because they wanted hard cash or liquid assets as collateral.

    *snip*

    Collins learned that Trump is also worried about how it will look to the public if he fails to pay up what he owes.

    “I’m told that Trump himself has become increasingly concerned about the optics that that March 25 deadline could bring given he is someone who has long tied his identity to his wealth, and he could find himself confronting a real financial crisis in just a matter of days,” she said.

    https://www.rawstory.com/donald-trump-fraud-bond-2667553064/

  59. 59.

    Another Scott

    @Hoppie: There were and are on-going battles on whether Texas’s SB4 law can take effect or not.  The important bit is that the 5th Circuit says no, it can’t, yet. Apparently more hearings in the morning.

    HoustonChronicle.com has more.

    tl;dr – There’s still a decent chance of a bad outcome, given Texas and the 5th Circuit, but there are a few more processes before this is all fully decided.

    IANAL.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  60. 60.

    Splitting Image

    @Princess:

    Not a primary but I’m seeing reports James could start seizing Drumpf’s assets as soon as Monday (Dan Rather, Vanity Fair). If there are mortgages and liens on a seized property, who gets first crack at its value? Asking for a weary country.

    It would be a crying shame if half of the Republican party abandoned Trump because he is now a broke-ass loser and the other half rallied around him and turned their hatred towards the high rollers that Trump is going to blame for not bailing him out.

  61. 61.

    yellowdog

    @cain: There are gift taxes. He can’t just hand over the cash. And the financial monitor is there to catch such shenanigans.

  62. 62.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @frosty: :^D As doG is my witless, within the last decade I distinctly recall driving past a drive-in doorway with an Earl Scheib sign on York Rd just south of Bellona. (As a lapsed Baltimoron you might just be able to visualize it.)

  63. 63.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Gretchen: ​FTR a classic Thuglican dirty trick is to robocall heavy Democratic neighborhoods reminding voters to show up at the polls to vote on the Wednesday after. The bastards justify it by saying that anyone that stupid shouldn’t be allowed to vote anyway.

    Here in MD in 2014, when Governor O’Malley was locked in a rematch with Thuglican Bob Ehrlich, robocalls flooded AA neighborhoods in Baltimore CIty saying “you don’t need to vote, the Democrats have this locked up” in hopes of depressing turnout enough to sneak some Thugs into office. Astute recipients of this call quickly notified Democratic HQ and Rep. Elijah Cummings (RIP) quickly cut a short message to the effect of “yes you DO need to vote!!” which was then spread by phone to the affected areas. (IIRC the “mastermind” behind this was an AA political operative who worked either side of the aisle so long as he got paid handsomely for the rodent copulation.)

  64. 64.

    Ironcity

    @dmsilev: That 757 is owned by DJT Enterprises, a Delaware LLC, so I’m not sure how selling that would go.  Painting an airliner is not a 57 Chevy, wouldn’t let Earl Scheib within a mile of it.

  65. 65.

    PaulWartenberg

    There are still signs that at least 20 percent of the Republican voting base will not support trump in the November general election.

    This all depends on if this disgruntled faction either 1) refuses to show up to vote in the general or 2) take the personal emotional shift of voting Democratic (or at least for Biden). In terms of the math, trump can’t afford to lose 20 percent of his 2020 turnout (it would drop him down to 59 million). It also depends on how the dropoff for Biden – who is seeing 10 percent of “uncommitted” protest votes – could go in November, but even then Biden can see 73 million turnout for him and get better results (even in the Electoral College where swing states will likely be in his favor).

    THIS is why trump and the Republicans are working overtime to rig the game to nullify the Electoral College entirely and force a vote in the US House which they hope the GOP still controls by January 2025.

  66. 66.

    Geminid

    @PaulWartenberg: My intuitive take is that people who show up for primaries show up in November, so I don’t think many of these voters will stay home. Some might leave the top line blank, others will bite the bullet and vote for Biden.

  67. 67.

    wjca

    @Splitting Image: It would be a crying shame if half of the Republican party abandoned Trump because he is now a broke-ass loser and the other half rallied around him and turned their hatred towards the high rollers that Trump is going to blame for not bailing him out.

    Maybe said cult fanatics could turn their hatred (or even assassination attempts) against Putin and/or MBS.  Probably not, but a guy can dream,

  68. 68.

    wjca

    @yellowdog: There are gift taxes. He can’t just hand over the cash. And the financial monitor is there to catch such shenanigans.

    Last time I was involved with gift taxes, they are due from the giver, not from the recipient.  Not sure how that works with non-US givers, but that was the rule.

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