Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

Their freedom requires your slavery.

SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Consistently wrong since 2002

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

I’m sure you banged some questionable people yourself. We’re allowed to grow past that.

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

The gop is a fucking disgrace.

Ah, the different things are different argument.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

Innocent people don’t delay justice.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

“woke” is the new caravan.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

Please don’t feed the bears.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

Let me file that under fuck it.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / All Day Long, On the Chaise Longue

All Day Long, On the Chaise Longue

by | 154 Comments

This post is in: 

Now this is how it’s done:

Straight Into My Veins God Damn!

Play this on repeat to all your Trumpy friends:

Straight Into My Veins God Damn! 1

It never seemed to dawn on the press corpse that we must take Trump’s statements seriously because he’s running for a serious office.  And if he’s spouting gibberish, that needs to be reported on, too.

By the way, couchbilly wrote the intro to the Federalist Society’s Project 2025 Cliff Notes version — so much for running away from that.

Reader Interactions

154Comments

  2. 2.

    No One of Consequence

    I… agree.. with… Trump… ?!

    Republicans shouldn’t vote.

    Wow. This is without doubt, the worst and weirdest timeline.

    -NOoC

  3. 3.

    rikyrah

    The New York Times is the #VichyPress (@Needle_of_Arya) posted at 0:25 AM on Thu, Jul 25, 2024:
    it’s also dangerous for (especially) this many (white) people to keep claiming that a nomination process with an incumbent cruising to renomination isn’t normal, and a virtual roll-call vote to nominate the logical alternative isn’t normal, but a 7-day blitz primary somehow is
    (https://x.com/Needle_of_Arya/status/1816343970139541558?t=ap93_WXRrxxURM7uFi_zFQ&s=03)

  6. 6.

    KatKapCC

    Also, the whole “I’ve instructed my voters not to vote” thing…does he even want to be president again? Is he hoping to lose so he can go back to playing golf 100% of the time instead of just 90%?

  12. 12.

    FastEdD

    I think KH goes for the jugular more often than Handsome Joe. Don’t get me wrong, I love Joe, but … now is not the time to mince words. We’re outta time.

  15. 15.

    Eunicecycle

    I am sure all downballot Rs are thrilled to hear Trump say not to vote. As always he’s thinking of himself (in some kind of weird reverse psychology way).

  16. 16.

    randy khan

    @rikyrah:

    I am perfectly willing to admit that the process from Sunday to today is not normal – because there literally never has been a time when somebody who was going to be the nominee dropped out between the end of the primaries and the convention – but what actually happened was perfectly fine.  The President endorsed a candidate, the people and party leaders supported his endorsement, no alternatives emerged, and she’s getting the nomination.  In fact, as apparently none of the blitz primary* people want to admit, Jaime Harrison as the chair of the DNC, specifically said that the party would look at anybody who chose to run, which is just what the blitz primary people wanted.  It just turned out that, through normal political means, one candidate ended up being the obvious choice.

    I’m sorry (okay, no I’m not, but you know what I mean) that following the procedures didn’t allow the fever dreams of the blitz primary people to be realized, but that’s politics for you.  And a blitz primary would have been a disaster for anyone who isn’t a member of the political press.

    *This is a stupid name, since there would have been no primary at all, just already-selected delegates voting.  What it really would have been was a beauty contest with no time for nuance or reflection.

  18. 18.

    randy khan

    @rikyrah:

    The whole DEI hire is just something people say because they realize they can’t use racial slurs in public these days.  But it’s particularly ridiculous for Harris, who is more qualified than both GOP nominees combined.  (And, yes, that includes Trump’s term messing up the job of President.)

  21. 21.

    Omnes Omnibus

    I am going to keep beating my drum about hammering on Trump and company being weirdos (and not the good kind you meet shopping for vintage vinyl and old books).

  22. 22.

    Ken

    “On the Chaise Longue” — so Vance likes a bit of foreign fluff, eh?

    (Every time I type “chaise longue” — admittedly, rarely — I’m sure I’m missing an accent somewhere.)

  27. 27.

    Yutsano

    @randy khan: The ghost of Lee Atwater will never stop haunting the Republican Party. Except now that game is so old it’s totally transparent when a term gets used to disguise what they really want to say.

    And what they want to say, they REALLY want to say again without consequence.

  29. 29.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Ken: ​ 

    I read somewhere he identifies his sexuality as intersectional and I’m still howling.

  30. 30.

    Chris

    @rikyrah:

    It’s still spectacular to me that a man whose shining moment of fame was when he pantsed the entire pundit class in 2012 by simply following the data as best he could when they were all running on (the only thing they know) vibes and gossip, just decided that the lesson from that was that he wanted to join the pundit class himself.

  33. 33.

    JaySinWA

    While I don’t think that Trump said don’t vote, and that is a disingenuous interpretation of what he did say, what he said was pretty incoherent. It was like he skipped from one thought to another without finishing his statement.

    It probably is more useful to take the worst interpretation of what he said and run with it, instead of the usual attempt to make sense of his gibberish using the most generous interpretation. It still makes me uncomfortable.

  34. 34.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @rikyrah:

    So, let minors have the right to vote, but only the parents get a say so in how they vote? That’s even worse than Ramaswamy wanting to raise the voting age back to 21 from 18

  35. 35.

    bbleh

    @Doc H: I think they’re stuck with him.  In part because of process — he’s formally nominated, it’s not clear how he would be un-nominated, ballots and ballot access might get screwed up, etc. — but mostly because it would require Trump to admit publicly that he made a mistake, and he’s psychologically almost incapable of that.

    In practice, of course, Trump would ignore any established rules and just proclaim a new nominee, and the RNC would probably cobble something together to validate it, but I’m not sure what the legal ramifications would be — especially regarding Congressional certification if (all the gods forbid) they won but some states had Vance on the ballot — although they’d probably out some resignation / appointment / approval process in the end, cuz you really don’t want to not have a VP, especially if the Prez is 79 and demented.

  36. 36.

    Old School

    @rikyrah:

    Vance: “Let’s give votes to all children in this country, but let’s give control over those votes to the parents of those children.”

    Come on, it’s obvious he misspoke.  It’s not the “parents” that should have control.  It’s the “father.”

  39. 39.

    Chris

    @JaySinWA:

    While I don’t think that Trump said don’t vote, and that is a disingenuous interpretation of what he did say, what he said was pretty incoherent. It was like he skipped from one thought to another without finishing his statement.

    The impolitic reality is that things like Biden’s debate moment happen to Trump every single week, and usually in full view of the camera.  It just doesn’t usually provoke much reaction, because his voters don’t care, and the media doesn’t turbocharge them into a scandal.

  41. 41.

    Splitting Image

    @rikyrah:

    Congratulations to Nate Silver for not understanding that we were always ready to get behind Kamala Harris. We knew that when we voted for Biden AND Harris.

    The plan was for 2028.

    You idiots just moved the clock up 4 years.

    My god Silver is showing his ass there. He’s basically admitting that he wanted to see chaos. Chaos, dammit!

  44. 44.

    rikyrah

    Elie Mystal (@ElieNYC) posted at 1:36 PM on Wed, Jul 24, 2024:
    Just to unpack a *bit* of the racism here: the lady who says that she thinks Harris is “not smart” is ALSO the lady who said she doesn’t know anything about her, or what she did as VP.

    So with no actual knowledge, she just *assumes* the Black woman is “not smart.”

    Elie Mystal (@ElieNYC) posted at 1:41 PM on Wed, Jul 24, 2024:
    And on the sexism… they were asked “when do you think there will be a woman president” and one of the ladies said “when there’s a qualified one.”

    The sheer freaking levels of internalized misogyny to believe that there hasn’t been one woman QUALIFIED to be POTUS is amazing.
    (https://x.com/ElieNYC/status/1816181878074007569?s=03)

  47. 47.

    gvg

    @rikyrah: They have been talking some about it was a mistake for women to have the vote. Even before Roe fell. It was mostly just a few women who actually said that on the record. Women who made a living being spokewomen for conservatives(reactionaries) mostly. Lately its been a few men, I assume because they think they are losing elections because of us.

    If they want to cling to power, that is what they would actually have to do, so even if you do think abortion is wrong….you better be careful. Every republican needs to go. I wish that could happen. I think that would finally hammer home that they need to change.

  48. 48.

    BR

    Men for Harris call is scheduled:

    https://menforharris.org/

    This needs to be filled with normie centrist / “independent” men from across the country. Men need “permission” from their social circle to openly support her, or else the bro code will prevent it.

  49. 49.

    Suzanne

    @rikyrah:

    If he is this comfortable talking about diluting the votes of those without children in public, how do we think he talks about the votes of minorities in private? 

    The ultimate irony is that white people are having fewer kids than PoC. The Boomers? 75% white. Millennials? 50% white.

    Methinks the Couch-Fucker didn’t think this through.

  50. 50.

    Chris

    @gvg:

    They have been talking some about it was a mistake for women to have the vote. Even before Roe fell. It was mostly just a few women who actually said that on the record. Women who made a living being spokewomen for conservatives(reactionaries) mostly.

    Ann Coulter was saying it all the way back in the 1990s, IIRC.

  52. 52.

    Geoduck

    @JaySinWA: I realize that politics is a knife fight, and you gotta go with what you are handed, but this whole “couch sex” thing with Vance similarly sets my teeth on edge. It’s a lie.

  53. 53.

    gvg

    @bbleh: Depends on who the speaker is. If its a sane democrat….or even some republicans, it could be better than whomever Trump came up with. And he might decide he liked not having someone officially supposed to take over for him if he died.

  54. 54.

    JaySinWA

    Have we discussed RFKjr’s totally not radical reform through labor proposal?

    Robert F. Kennedy Jr. unveiled his plan to overhaul addiction treatment programs. Speaking during a live recording of the Latino Capitalist podcast, Kennedy described opioid, antidepressant, and ADHD “addicts” receiving treatment on tech-free “wellness farms,” where they would spend as much as three or four years growing organic produce.

    https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/07/rfk-jr-wants-to-send-people-on-antidepressants-to-government-wellness-farms/

  56. 56.

    Redshift

    @rikyrah: Given their racist obsession about white people having more babies to avoid being overwhelmed by the (supposed) brown horde, it probably wouldn’t be hard to find cases of some prominent wingnuts saying out loud that only white children should count for extra votes.

  58. 58.

    BR

    @JaySinWA: ​
    It’s crazypants. He wants to get rid of the NIH and all vaccines and medications — and then cure the people by sending them away to happy forced farming camps. He and Trump are two peas in a pod, but he’s delusional whereas Trump is malicious.

  59. 59.

    $8 blue check mistermix

    @JaySinWA:

    While I don’t think that Trump said don’t vote, and that is a disingenuous interpretation of what he did say, what he said was pretty incoherent. It was like he skipped from one thought to another without finishing his statement.

    It probably is more useful to take the worst interpretation of what he said and run with it, instead of the usual attempt to make sense of his gibberish using the most generous interpretation. It still makes me uncomfortable.

    Here’s my take on it.  Serious candidates for President speak with clarity and precision.  When they misspeak, or their remarks are misunderstood, then they issue corrections themselves or via their campaign.  Biden is a good example of this.  Sometimes he mixed up a word in a sentence that was clear.  That doesn’t require a correction (unless he caught it himself).  But if he said something that was misunderstood, he or his campaign cleaned it up.

    Trump just pukes out gibberish.  We’re left to fish whatever meaning we can out of this stream of nonsense.  If we don’t give it the most charitable reading, well, that’s life on the big ranch for grown up boys and girls.  He can either start speaking more clearly, or his campaign can clean it up.  But — if they clean it up, he needs to consistently stick with the cleaned-up version.

    He’s incapable of that and that’s just too fucking bad for him.  He’s running for a serious office so we’ll take him seriously.  It’s a huge mistake by the press to give him infinite mulligans because “that’s just Trump”.

    In the same vein, the whole couchfucker stuff is NOTHING compared to the Q anon nonsense that was implicitly endorsed by the Trump campaign.  I have zero trouble with it.  It is kinda/sorta good fun.  I mean, nobody was hurt if he did fuck a couch.  It isn’t accusing him of being a pedophile.

  60. 60.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Geoduck:

    And now it’s a meme and that fat nasty fuck is gonna have to deal with it every day, and that’s the point. These motherfuckers are absurd, hateful assholes, treat them as such and if that means mocking that couch-fucking fascist, so be it.

  61. 61.

    Ramona

    @rikyrah: and when does he propose those children get to vote for themselves? When do people who have a stake in the PRESENT get to vote? I am childless but I certainly care about the vicissitudes which global warming shall visit on people I know who are children today.

    What a maroon!

  64. 64.

    tam1MI

    @rikyrah:

    TrumpsTaxes (@TrumpsTaxes) posted at 0:44 AM on Wed, Jul 24, 2024:
    And just like that  the calendar has flipped on Trump.

    He’s lost this post-convention week to Kamala.

    The next two weeks will be about her VP and the Olympics.

    Next it’s the DNC.

    And then it will be the debate and his sentencing, right as early voting gears up.
    (https://x.com/TrumpsTaxes/status/1815986406809854380?s=02)

    In all fairness, the Olympics are going to suck all the oxygen out of the room for anything else in any event.

    Wonder who Biden is going to send to represent the USA government there now that his V.P. is busy doing other things?

  65. 65.

    JaySinWA

    @Geoduck: I prefer to think of the sofa sex story as bullshit. The original post was not intended to be believed except by the credulous. And now it has devolved into a meme.

    It makes me less uncomfortable than the extraction of whatever you want from Trump’s meandering, but I’m not sure why.

  66. 66.

    TBone

    Ball gargling thundertwat is gonna say anything to try to get attention.  Anything.

    What a moron. Trump claims Kamala Harris is “totally against the Jewish people”, which would come as a surprise to her husband, who’s Jewish. Trump is so desperate, it’s embarrassing. (Video)

    https://x.com/MikeSington/status/1816258348506816636

    This is just the beginning.

  67. 67.

    catclub

    @rikyrah: If he is this comfortable talking about diluting the votes of those without children in public, how do we think he talks about the votes of minorities in private?

    Ask him if he thinks childless people should only get 3/5ths of a vote.

  70. 70.

    catclub

    @JaySinWA: It makes me less uncomfortable than the extraction of whatever you want from Trump’s meandering

     

    I listened to his RNC speech but did not watch. Who is Dana? Was it totally rightwing inside baseball?

  71. 71.

    Hoodie

    @$8 blue check mistermix: Yeah, every verbal stumble by Biden was viewed as proof positive of incipient dementia.   Why doesn’t the press ask why Trump keeps yammering on about his skill at cognitive tests, e.g., why do they keep giving him these tests?

  72. 72.

    WaterGirl

    @FastEdD: Joe has not been mincing words – his campaign has been hard-hitting for a long time.

    I hate to see us giving Kamala credit for things Joe was already doing – as if she is doing them and he is not.

    She is doing great things, I think we can talk about those without having to elevate her by dissing Joe.

    People used to do that with Obama and Biden and it wasn’t helpful then either.

  73. 73.

    catclub

    @$8 blue check mistermix: Trump just pukes out gibberish. We’re left to fish whatever meaning we can out of this stream of nonsense.

     

    No. The media should be pointing it out when he does it. “What did trump mean when he said this? That makes no sense.” Make the campiagn issue an explanation.

    They are sure able to diagnose what Biden made mistakes on.

  75. 75.

    dm

    JD and his sofa adventures are the much delayed bearing of karmic fruit from the seeds planted by the tales about Al Gore claiming to invent the Internet, or wear earth tones.

  76. 76.

    lamh47

    All I heard:

    BRING IT ON BISH!

    @Acyn

    VP: Trump agreed upon September 10 debate. It now appears he is backpedaling, but I’m ready and I think the voters deserve to see this split screen that exists in this race on a debate stage. And so I’m ready, let’s go

    https://x.com/Acyn/status/1816556034200343033

  79. 79.

    Citizen Alan

    @rikyrah:  It’s like a weird corollary to Duning-Krueger. Incredibly stupid people who assume despite any evidence to the contrary that intelligent accomplished people are actually even stupider than they are.

  80. 80.

    Hoodie

    @dm: Yeah, no one really believes he would have written about fucking a couch.  One reason that meme may have taken off is because it just seems like he could be a couch fucker.  It’s kind of ironic given his literary pretensions. The book might have been better with the couch fucking episode, a kind of hillbilly Portnoy.

  81. 81.

    Lily

    He’s playing 3 dimensional checkers (1/2 his checkers dropped on the floor).

    Kind of sounds like an addled preamble to a claim his voters were turned away, ‘his’ ballots discarded.  (Whatever his band of dingo hybrids are actually in process of doing.)

    (No offense intended to honest dingoes. Only similarity is you must never feed them.)

  83. 83.

    Chris

    @TBone:

    What a moron. Trump claims Kamala Harris is “totally against the Jewish people”, which would come as a surprise to her husband, who’s Jewish. Trump is so desperate, it’s embarrassing. (Video)

    One of the many weird and fucked-up things about how we in America map “Israel/Palestine” onto our own racial scene is that there’s quite a few people who decide that basically anyone nonwhite, certainly anyone whose heritage comes from Africa, South Asia, and that part of the map where the two sort of come together, = “anti-Semite.”

  84. 84.

    Citizen Alan

    s@Geoduck:  It is. So was “Gore claims to have invented the internet.” So was nearly every word uttered about Obama, Clinton, and Biden by the conservative media.

    I consider JD Vance and his fellow travelers to be nothing less than the enemies of the entire human race. If “couch-fucker” jokes are what bring him down, I’m fine with it. Hell, if “couch-fucker” jokes just hurt his feelings, I’m fine with that too.

    If it offends him so much, perhaps he could try fucking a fainting couch next time.

  85. 85.

    brantl

    @JaySinWA: when the rethugs take everything everyone says, turn it into something else and then pretend that they’ve made no misinterpretation of what anybody said why would you give them this benefit of the doubt?

  86. 86.

    rikyrah

    @tam1MI:

    In all fairness, the Olympics are going to suck all the oxygen out of the room for anything else in any event.

     

    And that’s a good thing. Have the VP just be going around, doing events.

     

    a Lawyer on Tiktok that I follow made this observation this week:

    EVERYTHING that the House has done has been in service to the Orange Menace.

    Every hearing. All the bullshyt about Hunter Biden, and the President, and the Biden family.

    ALL OF IT

    Is now for absolutely nothing.

    and, they’re about to go on vacation. Having wasted all that time. They have nothing on the VP.

  87. 87.

    lamh47

    @Acyn

    KJP: When you have the Republican Speaker of the House set up a meeting to tell Republicans to stop being racist, sexist.. I think that says a lot that they have have to be told to not do that.

    https://x.com/Acyn/status/1816550934828450057

    The fact that the Republican party elected officials had to organize an actual DEI training session on treating diverse groups with respect does say alot

  88. 88.

    Chris

    @TBone:

    His unhinged tirade against her at his rally revealed just how angry & hurt he is for being called out for being a convicted felon.

    For Republicans, there’s a line between Criminals and Honest Citizens, and the things that put you on the Criminal side of the line have very little to do with whether or not you’ve actually committed a crime.

    At a very visceral level, people like Trump feel that being called a criminal means they’re being called the N-word.  Their whiteness, their ability to walk around as universally acknowledged citizens in good standing, is under question, and that’s unconscionable, because they’re people for whom that status should never be called into question.

  89. 89.

    scav

    @rikyrah: Ah, and if we’re all so fired up to restrict the rights of the childless to vote, how about pulling those same rights off all fathers delinquent in their child support payments?

  91. 91.

    Scout211

    NBC has a report up that has my cynical self questioning the unnamed Republicans quoted in the story.

    PITTSBURGH — Republicans increasingly see one of the Democrats under consideration to be Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate as the most likely to offer her a boost and make their efforts trickier: Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro.

    These Republicans say that Shapiro, a first-term governor of a critical swing state, is someone who could help broaden Harris’ appeal with independent voters and traditional Democrats who are drifting away from the party, and help win over his home state — the most pivotal battleground on the presidential map, in their view.

    My cynical self:

    They have oppo research ready to go on Shapiro.

    They believe he will drag Harris down because he is so centrist.

    They are full of shit.

    All  of the above.

    I just don’t trust anonymous sources to leak to the media without a self-serving agenda, hidden or blatant.

  94. 94.

    BR

    @Scout211: ​
    Yeah. There’s already the sexual harassment case of his staffer that will be problematic even if he wasn’t involved.

  96. 96.

    Ocotillo

    I am hoping, now that the MAGA Court said presidents have immunity and can use the DOJ, MPresident will be more aggressive prosecuting TFCFG

  98. 98.

    rikyrah

    @Chris:

    At a very visceral level, people like Trump feel that being called a criminal means they’re being called the N-word.  Their whiteness, their ability to walk around as universally acknowledged citizens in good standing, is under question, and that’s unconscionable, because they’re people for whom that status should never be called into question.

    Which is why I want the VP to lean ALL IN on

    ‘Kamala is a Cop’

    I want the t-shirt, mug and tote bag

     

    THE PROSECUTOR VS THE FELON

  100. 100.

    Chris

    @Geoduck:

    @JaySinWA: I realize that politics is a knife fight, and you gotta go with what you are handed, but this whole “couch sex” thing with Vance similarly sets my teeth on edge. It’s a lie.

    “Sir, we can’t call him a pig-fucker.  It’s almost certainly not true.”
    “I know that!  Make him deny it anyway!”

  101. 101.

    rikyrah

    @Scout211:

    MY heart is with Whitmer or Secretary Pete

    My head tells me it should be Kelly or Beshear

    But, someone is going to have to really talk me through how it’s good to give up a SITTING SENATOR IN A SWING STATE.

    JUDGES, PEOPLE

    JUDGES

    JUDGES

    JUDGES

  102. 102.

    KatKapCC

    @Hoodie:

    Yeah, every verbal stumble by Biden was viewed as proof positive of incipient dementia.

    This was something that drove me and most people I know up the dang wall. EVERYONE has verbal oopsies here and there. Hell, last week, my neighbor’s son, who is 19, came over to ask if he could borrow our kiddie pool (my partner has a couple toddler niblings, neighbor boy was babysitting his little cousins), except he called it “the kiddie bowl”. We both got a laugh out of that.

  103. 103.

    Yutsano

    @Scout211: They have oppo research ready to go on Shapiro.

    Translation: they have a ton of anti-Semitic dogwhistles just waiting to be unleashed against him. Oh they think they’ll be subtle, but watch for drawings of Shapiro with exaggerated noses and Jewish Republicans *spit* calling him not truly Jewish or using his faith to get ahead. The real problem for me is I really like Shapiro. I’m just scared for him and his family because there’s the party and then there’s the out and out anti-Semitic nuts who might go after them physically. I could see a lot of other VPs contenders beefing up security, but I could see some attacks actually happening to the Shapiro household.

  104. 104.

    scav

    Speaking of so clever in their own minds, how about these details from the judge tossing the bankruptcy case filed by The Gateway Pundit.

    Calling the site’s assets “eye-catching”, Mora noted that they were 22 times the size of its liabilities.

    ….

    The proceedings had also revealed that the company may have been operating in Florida for three years without a proper business license and could owe back taxes to the state, Mora wrote in her 28-page ruling.

    …..
    The bankruptcy proceedings also offered unique insight into the company’s finances.
    The company disclosed, for example, that it had made a $799,000 loan to Hoft in order to purchase a condominium in Florida. There was no paperwork for the loan, however, and there was no interest rate or maturity date. The company also had no documentation regarding a $21,000 loan it made to Hoft’s twin brother, Joe, who is also a contractor to the site. Within 90 days of filing for bankruptcy, the site also paid Jim Hoft’s husband more than $33,000 for work for the site. The company also purchased a 2021 Porsche Cayenne for Jim Hoft that he keeps at his home in Missouri.
    Mora also noted that more than half of the company’s liquid assets were in retirement investment accounts held by Jim Hoft. She suggested that creditors could eventually make a claim on the more than $1.1m in those accounts because it had listed them as part of the bankruptcy estate.

  105. 105.

    MomSense

    @WaterGirl:
    The problem is that Joe was not running the usual volume of campaign events.  It was a much lighter schedule than the standard.  He wasn’t breaking through. One of the fun things now will be that trump is unable to keep up with Harris.  He’s got no STAMINA.  His last rally he was whisper shouting.  Low energy. SAD!

    ETA events

  108. 108.

    MomSense

    @rikyrah:

    I want Pritzker.  He has a fantastic record, one of the best on reproductive freedom, a legit billionaire, and Illinois is a good location to run a campaign.

  112. 112.

    tam1MI

    @rikyrah:

    But, someone is going to have to really talk me through how it’s good to give up a SITTING SENATOR IN A SWING STATE.

    JUDGES, PEOPLE

    JUDGES

    JUDGES

    JUDGES

    And not just lower court judges either. Thomas and Alito aren’t exactly spring chickens and word from several sources is they are starting to feel their age and wanting to step down. If either of them pulls a Scalia, we will need a majority in the Senate to get their successors confirmed.

  115. 115.

    TBone

    @rikyrah: the face-to-ugly-face prosecutor vs. felon billboards are already going up!  I would like to purchase one for here in my town.

  116. 116.

    Bill Arnold

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:

    I wonder if the anti-IVF crowd would suddenly find a loophole in their principles if they were told every fertilized egg got a vote?

    And/or was counted as a dependent for income tax purposes.

  117. 117.

    Shalimar

    @Geoduck: Yes, couch sex turns out to be bullshit and I haven’t pushed it personally.  But the positive is this is not what Deomcratic advisors usually think up as an attack.  This is the type of bullshit that emerges from groups on reddit that usually troll Democrats or non-politicians.  If they want to have a go at Vance for the next few months, I see no reason to get in their way.

  120. 120.

    Belafon

    @rikyrah: Shapiro is a governor.

    Kelly wouldn’t have to resign until after they win, and the state requires that the replacement be from the same party.

  121. 121.

    Bill Arnold

    @Hoodie:
    I would bet that racist felon Trump will be non-knowing-his-kid’s-names demented well before Biden, who might never get to that state.

  123. 123.

    TBone

    LOL fElon Skum’s child tore him UP today on his platform for lying about sexual preference at age 4 and “slight” autism.

    Not linking. Vivllainous is the nym.

  124. 124.

    Suzanne

    @Belafon: Just to note….. in AZ, when a Senate seat becomes available, the governor appoints a caretaker. But they’re only in until the next cycle, they don’t necessarily stay until the end of the fell term. So there would then be a special election for the seat. Then the real election.

  125. 125.

    Martin

    Someone in a previous thread asked how the Harris campaign could better get the message out.

    I think we underappreciate the importance of things like celebrity endorsements. I’ve been arguing that Democrats need a much stronger focus on selling culture to voters, because people care more about culture than politics. The GOP has been almost exclusively pounding on culture, and Trump is much better at that than he is at policy.

    Voters don’t trust politicians because politicians have an inherent bias – no matter how much they tell you they are there to work for the public, they have still accumulated a particular status, power, and immunity from consequences that apply to the rest of us, but not them. And their actions are always questioned regarding whether they are done for our sake or their own need to retain power. It’s why term limits are popular as a concept.

    But the public trust cultural figures who at the very least have a different set of competing interests. Taylor Swift endorsing a candidate doesn’t inherently help her – it potentially cuts her off from a fan base she might otherwise be able to reach. It’s a more trustworthy thing, depending on the situation. If she endorsed a Republican, she could be accused of doing so to get tax cuts given her newfound billionaire status. And so in a lot of ways these cultural figures are the better means to carry a message to a public who are skeptical or disengaged from politics.

    And many of these figures are themselves advancing culture through their work, through films, music and so on and when Democrats tap into that, align with that, reinforce that it gives voters a much clearer sense of what Democrats care about and seek to accomplish. They don’t need to articulate the cultural vision, they can simply point to what has already been articulated and reinforce that.

    So a different way of thinking of this event that just happened, and the decisions still to come are whether the political candidates from a month ago aligned with the cultural trajectory of the nation. Trump clearly aligns with the trajectory sought by conservatives. But Biden didn’t align at all with that. Sure on policy, but not on culture, in part because white men are a cultural mismatch – not just with Democrats but overall, from the community where culture is shaped (old people contribute very little to culture – their contributions were in the past, young people contribute a lot, black artists contribute more than white artists, women more than men, the queer community also punches above their weight). It’s rowing against the current instead of with it. Kamala is rowing with it, she’s engaging with it, she will add those endorsements and those people advancing culture will help carry Democrats message because she will amplify their cultural message.

  126. 126.

    Suzanne

    A side note on Mark Kelly….. when John McCain died, Martha McSally was appointed as the caretaker Senator. At the next election cycle, which was a special election, McSally ran against Kelly, and Kelly won. Then, at the following cycle, at the election for the full term, Kelly beat Blake Masters.

    McSally was appointed as the caretaker right after she lost the election for the other Senate seat to Kyrsten Sinema. Sinema holds the seat that was held by Jeff Flake and Jon Kyl.

  128. 128.

    Geminid

    @TBone: I think billboards are good advertising. People learn to ignore broadcast ads but driving is boring and billboards are something to look at. If they are on someone’s commute they’ll see a billboard repeatedly. It might not be too codtly to rotate messages every couple of weeks.

  129. 129.

    Suzanne

    And another note: Martha McSally ran numerous times for the Congressional seat held by Gabby Giffords and then Gabby’s campaign manager Ron Barber. Fuck her very much.

  133. 133.

    Suzanne

    @tam1MI: The sad thing is that Sinema is a step up from Jeff Flake and Jon Kyl. I reminded myself of that every time I had to vote for her pretentious ass.

  134. 134.

    rikyrah

    @Geminid:

    I think billboards are good advertising. People learn to ignore broadcast ads but driving is boring and billboards are something to look at.

     

    I want

    THE PROSECUTOR VS THE FELON

     

    made for billboards

  136. 136.

    Geminid

    @rikyrah:  The AZ Senate seat would remain in Democratic hands until a special election in 2026 (actually early January, 2027). The risk is that a Republican could flip it then.

    But if Harris decides that Mark Kelly adds the most strength to the ticket, the potential risk is worth running in my opinion. Winning this year is paramount.

    Harris and Kelly can lend a hand holding the seat in 2026, and Arizona’s Democratic Party is gaining strength while the Republicans are feuding like the Hatfields and McCoys.

    As for this Congress, Kelly could break off for a judicial nomination when needed. Schumer controls the schedule and can keep Kelly from losing much time. Kelly could campaign with Angela Alsobrooks in the morning and vote in the afternoon. The Virginia 7th CD contest is close by as well. And there won’t be many votes because Congress will adjourn before too long.

    Again, this is if Harris believes Kelly adds the most strength to the ticket, which I think will be the criteria.

  137. 137.

    Chris

    @Martin:

    And many of these figures are themselves advancing culture through their work, through films, music and so on

    If I had my way, Leverage would go on to be as big a juggernaut with as great a number of spin-offs, as NCIS or Law & Order.

  138. 138.

    Martin

    @BR: Men need “permission” from their social circle to openly support her, or else the bro code will prevent it.

    Like, what the fuck.

    I’m a 55 year old cishet white male. My friend group is predominantly exactly the same with one variable swapped out. Some straight men of color, some gay white men, give or take a few years.

    NONE of us want a white male on the ticket. At all. My 78 year old dad, ex Navy, in Oregon feels the same way. I didn’t grow up in California, I grew up in NYC and went to a very white college in central PA, and we never had the ‘bro code’ bullshit, and we never took issue with women or POC or the LGBTQ community. We’re having a meetup next week – first since June due to travel – and I’m 100% certain that everyone is going to feel wildly better about Harris than Biden being the nominee.

    And if you want to know what the underlying dynamic with my friend group is – there’s a lot of guys our age (and older) who got the cultural message drilled into them that our job was to go out, get a good job, get a partner, get a home, build a family, and work your ass off to take care of them. One of the biggest problems men face is that a large set of us were trained to ignore our own needs, maybe substitute in having a man cave or some superficial shit, but sacrifice our own mental and emotional well being for our families. And most of us have no idea how to not do that – I certainly don’t. So we don’t vote for ourselves – we vote for our families, our queer kids, our partners and daughters, and so on. And we do that reflexively. And that’s nearly every single guy I know. Self-selection, sure, but I also just came back from a group trip to France, and I’m pretty confident it applied to every male on that trip – young and old.

    Note, the focus group referenced above that was saying that America will get the first woman president when we nominate a qualified one – they were all women. I don’t think Democratic men believe that at all, and I think there are enough Democrats to win if you light us on fire, which is what Harris is doing. And none of the white men to be considered for the ticket – except for Pete – help with that.

  139. 139.

    Geminid

    @rikyrah: I want to see some billboards with that picture from Helsinki, the one where Putin is beaming and Trump looks like a whipped cur. That picture is worth a thousand words. The caption could be something simple, like “Putin’s Pet.”

  140. 140.

    Martin

    @Scout211: Polling suggests that most swing voters are generally to the left of the party.

    This continued assumption that swing voters in 2024 look like swing voters from 1988 is giving me a fucking aneurism.

    • The swing voters of the 2024 election are younger and more diverse than the composition of the overall 2024 likely voter population. Forty-three percent of swing voters are under 45 (compared with 33% of likely voters overall), and only 62% are white (compared with 71% of likely voters overall).
    • Swing voters reject ideological and partisan labels. They are especially likely to describe themselves as “moderates” and to not identify with or lean toward either major political party. However, some take clear left or right ideological positions on economic or social issues, aligning with existing data showing that voters who self-describe as “moderate” are not always coherently moderate on the issues.
    • Swing voters broadly lean left on government spending, taxes on the wealthy, and social equity. A majority of swing voters (60%) think the U.S. should increase spending on social programs and raise taxes on businesses and wealthy Americans, and a majority (52%) say they favor accepting non-traditional values and embracing diversity and inclusion efforts.
    • Swing voters are politically disengaged. They broadly dislike Biden and Trump and do not pay much attention to politics. Many are not sure which candidate they trust more on major political issues. They also demonstrate low interest in national politics and less enthusiasm for the 2024 election than likely voters overall.
    • Swing voters slightly prefer Trump over Biden in a race between the two candidates, but many are unsure and defect to third-party candidates. In a two-way race between Biden and Trump, Trump (32%) holds a slight advantage over Biden (29%) with swing voters, while a plurality (39%) are not sure. In a six-way race, with third-party candidates included, only 4% of swing voters back Biden, while 7% back Trump. A majority say they would back either Independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (46%) or one of the other third-party candidates (12%). Thirty percent say they’d still be unsure.
    • Their focus is on the economy. To the extent they do care about politics, it is focused heavily on the economy, with a plurality (33%) ranking it as their top issue in the 2024 election.
    • Swing voters say they want Biden to take more action — not less. Sixty-one percent say that “Biden needs to take more action to solve our country’s problems” (compared with 49% of likely voters overall), while 22% say that “Biden has taken too much action that has made our country’s problems worse.”
    • Swing voters’ main concern is Biden’s age and ability to handle the job — not his ideology. Swing voters select Biden being too old (55%) and being incompetent (40%) as reasons they might not vote for him. Ideological concerns do not rise to the top: Only 16% select “Biden is too liberal” and only 5% select “Biden is too conservative.”
    • That said, swing voters are more concerned about Trump’s criminal charges and threats to democracy (48%) than Biden’s age and mental and physical health (41%).
    • Swing voters trust Trump more than Biden on the economy, immigration, and foreign policy. Biden holds an edge on other key issues including abortion, health care, and climate change. However, swing voters say they’re not sure whom they trust more on these issues at a higher rate than likely voters overall.
    • There is no evidence that a rightward ideological pivot would solve Biden’s problems with swing voters. The top two policies that swing voters say would make them vote for Biden are left-leaning economic policies — raising taxes on the wealthy (23%) and raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour (18%) — while the third-most cited is increasing border security (17%). Lower-ranked policies are a mix of left- and right-coded issues, including extending the Child Tax Credit, increasing oil drilling, conditioning military aid to Israel, adding work requirements to SNAP, legalizing marijuana, and increasing funding for police officers.
  141. 141.

    Chris

    @Martin:

    Swing voters reject ideological and partisan labels. They are especially likely to describe themselves as “moderates” and to not identify with or lean toward either major political party.

    Ugh.

    This goes back to the same “vibes” problem we’ve always had, and doesn’t sound that different from how my white boomer father identifies as a “centrist Democrat” despite substantively being perfectly okay with every policy plank the progressive wing of the party offers and agreeing that people like Manchin and Sinema are turds.  When asked about policy issues, voters mostly agree with Democrats, but it’s understood (outside of the right wing bubble) that being a “moderate” is something you’re supposed to aspire to, that it rhymes with being smart, being serious, being a good citizen and not a party zombie, etc.  I’d like to hope that moving left can get voters from younger generations to check their disdain for the party and identify with it more, but I’m not sure it will; everything Biden’s done for the economy sure doesn’t seem to have made much of a dent.

  143. 143.

    Geminid

    @Chris: Like it or not, at least half of Democratic voters consider themselves “Moderates.

    As to swing voters, political scientists study them a lot. The commenter is citing one study, and Data for Progress shapes their polling to confirm their priors, in my opinion. But maybe they’ve gotten better.

  144. 144.

    sab

    I hope by next week videos of Kamala Harris speeches will have her face rather than the VP seal in focus.

    The fuzzy images aren’t helpful. Whose responsibilty is it?

  146. 146.

    Chris

    @Martin:

    I mean, Jesus fucking Christ:

    Swing voters broadly lean left on government spending, taxes on the wealthy, and social equity. 

    Their focus is on the economy.  

    Swing voters trust Trump more than Biden on the economy.  

    What the fuck do you even do with this?

    You’re saying that the swing voters of 2024 are nothing like the swing voters of 1988.  But this is, in fact, exactly the same shit that Democrats have had to struggle against for half a century, even with a much whiter and more conservative electorate.  People want Democratic policies, on most things, but they want to get them from Republicans.  Because reasons.

  147. 147.

    Scout211

    @Martin: Thanks for the info but I was actually mocking the Republican anonymous sources and their leaks to NBC to raise the profile of Shapiro.  They are probably doing so because they already have their attacks ready against Shapiro.  I guess I wasn’t clear.

    I agree with WaterGirl@131:

    What I hear:  “Please don’t throw us in the briar patch.”

    But your reply to me is full of very interesting information. So thanks for posting that.

  148. 148.

    Eyeroller

    @Chris: Swing voters have incoherent political views and typically do not have a firm association of party with policy (that’s why they “swing”).

  149. 149.

    Misterpuff

    @rikyrah:

    Vance: “Let’s give votes to all children in this country, but let’s give control over those votes to the parents of those children.”

    Ummmm, so who gets control of those votes after divorce? What if the mother and father disagree on vote allocation?  Does a rapist get to vote for his progeny? Do the fetuses get a vote?

    OH I forgot. The Patriarchy will take care of that and by the way, “The Li’l Woman” probably doesn’t need all that voting responsibility anyway. The Head can cast all those votes……

  151. 151.

    FastEdD

    @WaterGirl: True, I like the social media responses of both. The individual candidates have different backgrounds. KH comes off as a prosecutor/AG type speaking directly to someone. Joe comes off more as a senator speaking in an oblique manner, as in “God love ya.” 8 years ago I observed both close up as a delegate to the CA Dem Convention. VP Biden went on about “You can question someone’s legislation but can’t question their motives because you don’t know why they are proposing something.” I thought that was naive, but I was wrong. When he was President his senatorial instincts made him a genius at passing legislation. My attorney brother thinks Harris was a better prosecutor than a senator. I endorsed her because she was careful with her words. In a campaign she can be more direct. They have different skills, and I’m also aware that a candidate’s social media efforts are not the same as the individual candidate.

  152. 152.

    MCA1

    @Geoduck: It’s not even a lie, though.  It was an obvious joke that no one would believe.  No one ever actually thought it was a thing documented in his book.  And I don’t think anyone, especially liberals, who aren’t exactly known for giving a rat’s ass who consensually screws whom or what, would really care if it were true – hormonal teenage boys do all kinds of bizarre and disgusting shit all the time.  It’s just caught on because it somehow captures in shorthand his particular brand of awkward douche bro tool for the super rich zero authenticity or actual beliefs other than ambition and pathological fear of unmarried women probable massive hypocrite with some weird skeletons in his closet guy who has no business on the big stage aura.

  153. 153.

    Citizen Alan

    @Suzanne: Just to clarify, in this case, the next cycle would be the  2026 election, right? Which is supposed to be a more favorable map for democrats anyway, isn’t it?

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