Biden is pivoting to his legacy. He speaks Monday at the LBJ Presidential Library https://t.co/eVJmTX3Vr5
— The Associated Press (@AP) July 29, 2024
Per the Austin American-Statesman, Biden’s speech will be livestreamed on YouTube at 4pm Austin time (5pm blog time). “Media members will be allowed to attend, but no tickets are available to the public.”
President Joe Biden, who belatedly opted against seeking reelection, on Monday will pay a visit to the library of the last president to make the same difficult choice, more than a half-century ago.
Biden’s speech Monday at the LBJ Presidential Library in Austin, Texas, is designed to mark the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, enacted under President Lyndon Johnson. But the visit has taken on very different symbolism in the two weeks it took to reschedule it after Biden had to cancel because he got COVID-19.
The speech, originally set for July 15, was once seen by the White House as an opportunity for Biden to try to make a case for salvaging his sinking presidential campaign — delivered in the home district of Rep. Lloyd Doggett, the 15-term congressman who was the first Democratic lawmaker to publicly call for Biden to step aside.
Two weeks later, the political landscape has been reshaped. Biden is out of the race. Vice President Kamala Harris is the likely Democratic nominee. And the president is focused not on his next four years, but on the legacy of his single term and the future of democracy…
Biden has said he is “determined to get as much done” as he can in his final six months in office, including signing major legislation expanding voting rights and a federal police bill named for George Floyd.“I’ll keep defending our personal freedoms and our civil rights, from the right to vote to the right to choose,” Biden said from the Oval Office. “I’ll keep calling out hate and extremism, make it clear there is no place, no place in America for political violence or any violence ever, period.”
Later Monday, Biden will also travel to Houston to pay his respects to the late Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, who died July 19 at age 74.
It would likely have been the complete opposite had he waited even 18-24 hours.
The Sunday shows would have eaten Biden/Harris alive, and they would have had an entire week to both consume them and also try to drive Harris off the ticket as well.
— The New York Times is the #VichyPress (@Needle_of_Arya) July 28, 2024
Sharing is caring:
That’s why I hope so much that we we all put in the time and work to help @KamalaHarris win so that this tremendous progress may continue.
There’s 100 days left.
Three resources in campaigns: money, people (your labor), & time.
We don’t control the last one, but max out 1&2. https://t.co/d1stjPbiLr— Clean Observer (@Hammbear2024) July 29, 2024
The massive 2020 psyop to convince you Kamala Harris isn't likable has come crashing down in a week.
— Shadow Of The Nerdtree (@agraybee) July 28, 2024
“She doesn't have to go out and sell sneakers or bibles, you know? All she did was announce she is running and they said where do we sign up?” pic.twitter.com/5ueaQ9Gm0L
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 28, 2024
Thoughts and prayers to all the ketchup bottles at Mar-a-Lago pic.twitter.com/wozxx5n0lp
— Wu Tang is for the Children (@WUTangKids) July 28, 2024
On The Road – Albatrossity – Summer 2024 in Flyover Country – 1
Dagaetch
I’m glad to see the energy for MVP is staying around, fingers crossed we can keep it up for 3 more months!
Did anyone watch the Sunday shows yesterday? I’m curious to know if they were visibly butthurt by how the campaign and Democrats generally have finally realized that the media is (one of) the enemy.
[edit] also good morning all
TS
And President Biden is front page on the Washington post for all the good reasons. After hounding him out of office, they now listen to what he has to say!
sdhays
It’s so weird to think that low viewer TV shows on Sunday mornings can have such an impact on “narrative”. I mean, I believe it, but goddamn it’s stupid.
M31
I’ve read in several places that Joe’s timing wrt the “Sunday Shows” was crucial, but I don’t know about that. No one watches them except other people trying to set the narrative, and they had their ‘no coronation’ and ‘mini primary’ circle jerks already in progress, so it’s not like the big FTFNYT didn’t have its chance.
I mean, I guess if Joe had announced Sunday at 7 am then not endorsed Harris for a few days, sure, but only Trump is that dumb.
That said, the way it all played out (SO FAR) has been masterful on the Dem’s part, so kudos.
BR
This article interviewed Katie Porter about her former boss Kamala Harris — it was a good one (even though Prospect is usually a bit manic progressive):
https://prospect.org/politics/2024-07-29-member-congress-worked-kamala-harris-katie-porter/
Splitting Image
I’m glad to see that both Trump and RFK Jr. have come out in support of Bitcoin. This gives people another good reason to vote for Harris.
I’m also hopeful that the scheme to have the government buy up cryptocurrency indicates that they know they are running out of suckers. That is one scam that I dearly want to see collapse.
Jeffro
“Just a reminder: Kamala Harris isn’t trying to sell you sneakers or bibles” is totes awesome.
I will be dropping that into conversations here, there, and everywhere for the next 3.5 months!
Also, this:
trump-Vance is about the most woman-hating ticket we’ve ever seen
and don’t forget to keep noting how Project 2025 is here to take away your freedom, too – especially women’s freedom:
(barf)
Let’s get after it! Have a great week, happy warriors!
M31
lol and can we talk about the VP race? The dems have all kinds of well-spoken VP candidates out there just absolutely bringing it to Trump and the misfit weirdos, and I say keep it up until the last minute for all the free publicity and excitement.
Meanwhile, Trump already squandered his VP choice with an even cringier un-vetted weirdo who has video coming out every day of problematic creepy shit that he said. And even the ‘better’ choices were people like Rubio, who oozes ‘loser’ from every pore.
Matt McIrvin
@BR: Wasn’t Prospect the one that was suggesting that Trump might somehow be better for the Palestinians than Biden? Are they still pushing that line?
Another Scott
@M31: I agree that “crucial” may be too strong, and agreed that inflating the importance of the Sunday bobbleheads is a mistake, but Biden and Biden’s team knows how this stuff works. Even if one discounts the supposed palace intrigue about supposed internal party polling, it needed to be on a weekend for lots of reasons (not upsetting the all-holy markets, being able to get players on the same messaging side before heading back to work, not blindsiding important foreign players, etc). Sunday afternoon was ideal.
Cheers,
Scott.
p.a.
A cornered animal is a dangerous animal. The GOP (group of pigs) won’t go dog-whistle, they’ll go foghorn. And their armed SA wings will be active. Fortunately at the fed level we control the power. Action may be needed, and then we may find out how deeply subverted the securuty structure is. No Dem win is legit to them.
Soprano2
@Jeffro: I’m convinced they didn’t do one ounce of vetting on Vance, because they seem totally unprepared for the avalanche of video clips coming out of all the things he said that are sure to alienate women voters. Makes me totally believe the stories that he was going to pick Burgum and then switched at the last minute because the failsons persuaded him to. Seems exactly like the way TCFG would make the decision. He doesn’t have Steve Bannon to control the process this time.
zhena gogolia
@M31: Haley is really the only one who might have helped him.
Matt McIrvin
@M31: It’s kind of like the outsize role of Twitter (definitely pre-Musk, and probably still today): it was never even close to being the most popular social network but it’s the one that press and political people are on.
Baud
@Another Scott: Can you post that link to the website that provides news from state papers?
Mousebumples
Good morning! Saw this on bsky last night, and it adds up to me.
Only linking the first skeet, but they’re all threaded.
HinTN
@M31:
The underbusing has begun! ☄ A more worthy recipient you could not find.
BR
@Matt McIrvin:
Probably? I don’t read Prospect these days, just read this because I wanted to see what Katie Porter said.
Geminid
@zhena gogolia: Glenn Youngkin would have helped Trump, but Trump would like to think that he doesn’t need help.
RaflW
@sdhays: Their audience is a couple thousand people:
535 members of congress + each one’s political directors, a few hundred DC beltway reporters, analysts & pundits, and some small subset of the 1% campaign donor class.
As long as those select viewers lap up that biased sh*t, it’s gonna be used and abused for the private goals of the Republican party, as well as projecting corporate media ownership’s desires.
A for-profit media ecosystem is toxic to democracy. One small example is the well documented fact that the Sunday shows book Republicans & their apparatchiks like 3:1 over Dems and liberals.
Leto
OT: women’s rugby on atm, US v France. Good game so far. On NBC. Also on, women’s water polo, US v Spain. Another good game. These women are so damn tough!
Kay
It’s ony 40 days to early vote – not to put the pressure on or anything :)
Everyone who says “no one pays attention prior to Labor Day” needs to be told that 40% of people early/mail vote and that Democrats have enthusiastically pushed this because it’s convenient for voters and takes pressure off the election system on election day – it’s good government.
Elections start earlier. Bake that in.
narya
@Geminid:
This. His ego would have prevented him from thinking he needed help in the past, and his brain, such as it is, still thinks he’s in that spot. He still thinks people have to/want to come to him for his “blessing,” because that’s the world he and the people around him have built.
Delk
John Oliver went to town on Vance.
NotMax
“Biden? Wait, wait, don’t tell me. Name vaguely rings a bell.”
– The Great American Fruitfly Memory
//
Jeffro
@Soprano2: I think you’re right. Failsons + trump watching Vance act like a trumpian jackass on multiple tv appearances, perhaps.
The orange menace is no strategist, that’s for sure. If I needed to run and win the White House in order to stay out of jail, I might have consulted people outside my own family/bubble about which VP pick actually helps me win a crucial state.
I like that the Vance pick helps reinforce the (correct) idea that far-right billionaires and bitcoin speculators are a major source of support for trump. Not exactly a huge groundswell of love for those guys!
Kay
Remember our whole thing with “banking” early vote and how successful that was? That was good, partly because it helps us get around barriers to voting put up by Republicans. We have more lead time to have people get their shit in order well prior to election day. Let’s do that again. 40 days.
Lyrebird
Agreed. The timing bit that stands out to me is the match-up in the previous couple weeks of campaign events where Biden had Harris appear rather than him and the list of states with MVP’s preferred Veep short list candidates in them. AZ, NC, etc. There is no perfect path and there was no crystal ball, but I am very inclined to agree here:
Will there be curveballs? OF COURSE. But I remain fired up and ready to go, and it looks like we have a stronger blue wave than ever!
twbrandt
I know people, including me, have reservations about the Lincoln Project, but this is a genuinely good ad.
NotMax
@RaflW
At this point the Sunday yatterfests are relegated to setting the table for the upcoming week’s all you can eat tire rims and anthrax buffet.
//
Kay
Early Voting
Early Voting Schedule
Specific early voting dates and times in your county are determined by your local Supervisor of Elections. Early voting will end the weekend before the election. There is no early voting the day before Election Day.
That’s FL, like OH a “bad government state” so they’ve made it dumber and more complicated but it looks like they have early vote so we would bank those. Especially minority votes because they’re more likely to be challenged/thwarted on election day and then only have X number of hours to “cure” – get the vote counted. This gives them a fighting chance. Early, early, early.
M31
I’m sure now that the backroom Trump ‘brain’ trust is thinking like this:
“OK, Biden dropped out and Harris got a huge bump in the polls, hear me out, what if Vance drops out and endorses (uh, whoever pays us the most), we’ll get a huge bump too, it’s only fair! DO IT!!!!”
JCJ
@p.a.: ” armed SA wings”
South American? Super Assholes? Silly Anteaters? Sepia Armadillos?
Llelldorin
@zhena gogolia: 100% true, but the reasons she would have helped him are also the reasons he couldn’t bring himself to choose her.
If Trump were the kind of person who could appoint a woman more accomplished and qualified than himself as VP, Trump would not be Trump.
Lyrebird
VERY good point. Do you get the sense that Harris/TBD has a chance in OH? Obviously worth the fight no matter what, just wondering what you see. I was so disappointed that Vance’s indifference to Ukraine’s situation did not sink his senate run, and also so proud of OH voters who give a darn about reproductive health.
Also too for anyone in the Sunshine State:
Isn’t Florida a place that both has early voting and has had the MAGA/DeathSantis legislature messing with the rules? any leads from Jackals on good ways to help in Fl?
ETA: you type faster than I do :D
suzanne
Is there anything that anyone has seen, like a “PROJECT 2025: TOP TEN WEIRD SHIT”? I would love to find something very memeable and graphically engaging to share on socials.
Soprano2
@Geminid: 100% this is absolutely true.
Redshift
@M31: And in addition, the coverage of the Dem VP choice is all extremely normal – what do they bring to the ticket, what are their accomplishments, public speeches to show themselves off, etc. For TCFG, it was months of Manchurian Candidate style professions of loyalty, pilgrimages to MaL for private meetings, discussions of how he requires subservience, and would he do some sort of reality show final selection.
Normal vs. weird, without the campaign even having to push that.
Jeffro
btw it’s a little cartoonish in places (and I’m surprised Pink is jumping in here in a partisan way) but showing off the Democratic team/deep bench is a major strength for our party.
Great candidate, great team!
*you’d almost call them, “weird” =)
I disagree with naming specific folks to specific offices, but it’s important to show the full range of talent we’d get with a Harris administration!
*whoa Dan, take it easy and also I’m soooo stealing that!
Cartoonish, sure. But nothing we haven’t talked about here plenty of times: the Dem Justice League is a pretty big asset to our party! (especially compared to the GOP’s collection of mad scientists, malcontents, and pervy weirdos)
NotMax
@M31
Vance was for when Biden was running. Now that it’s Harris, we’re tapping Aileen Cannon.
“No beard, still weird.”
//
suzanne
Did anyone else see how Trump is now endorsing a second candidate in Arizona in the same race? Guess who it is: our old friend Blake Masters. Man, he needs that sweet Peter Thiel money!
BR
@suzanne:
Not quite what you asked for but something I found:
https://thegrio.com/2024/07/15/i-read-the-entire-project-2025-here-are-the-top-10-ways-it-would-harm-black-america/
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: My daughter becomes eligible to vote this fall and has already pre-registered. She’s going off to college and we are definitely going to get her signed up for her mail ballot as soon as we have a mailing address.
I remember missing the first election I was eligible to vote in (the 1986 midterm) because while I had registered to vote, I hadn’t prioritized figuring out the process for voting absentee, and it was not so trivial to find out in those days. I think it just involved getting a form from the local post office and mailing that in, but I didn’t know and of course one had to do it well in advance of the election.
I have a theory that a lot of our historically low youth turnout is because eligibility to vote coincides with a lot of kids going off to college, where their residency is a nebulous thing, townies don’t want them to vote locally and they may have to figure out how to vote absentee. There are actually extra barriers in their way, relative to most adults.
Redshift
@suzanne: Good idea, I’ll keep an eye out. I’ve heard the recommendation to tell people they don’t have to read the whole thing, just search for an issue or place they care about, because it’s extremely specific about everything.
Kay
I gnuinely think covid knocked us off our game on things that we know “work” because it was nearly impossible to do the kind of intense outreach we got good at thanks to Obama’s excellent team.
Let’s do all of those things again. Obama banked minority votes because he knew if anyone was going to be challenged or have their vote wrongly thrown out on election day it was minorities in certain areas. Then you have this narrowed universe on election day – your list will be crossed out – “already voted” so THAT election day turnout becomes easier and more effective too. Let’s say we want 50% of D’s voted and banked by election day. That’s 10% more than 2020 and doable.
bbleh
@p.a.: Unfortunately true. (And in their case they don’t even need to be cornered because they’re so damn paranoid.) AND they’ve very PUBLICLY said it’s “not over til Jan. 6” (or whenever certification is next year), and they’re working hard RIGHT NOW at screwing up the election process AT EVERY LEVEL. They’re gonna try to throw it to the SC or the House.
Personally, I hope Biden goes all core-Presidential-duty on their asses and sends in federalized Guard if he needs to, to keep things moving along. But I also think we need to work hard to engineer SUCH a blowout at the polls that their screeching will be ignored by the media.
99 days folks! Donate! Volunteer! And if you can, vote early!
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone 😊 😊 😊
NotMax
@JCJ
Sturmabteilung (Brownshirts)..
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: In the past few cycles, a lot of people have gotten paranoid about mail voting because Republicans have loudly telegraphed their willingness to have those votes declared invalid and thrown out, and to use the timing of mail votes as the basis for spurious claims of fraud. I think the threat makes it harder to do that kind of vote-banking.
SatanicPanic
Venezuela’s election results are disappointing but I suspect it’s not over
Redshift
@Kay: Yeah! That’s what the campaign organizers told us about why we were starting door-knocking in early July. We haven’t had extended early voting for very long in VA, so it hadn’t occurred to me that the traditional late August campaign launch would be too late.
Kay
@Lyrebird:
No, and not worth the fight if the fight involves money or time. Sherrod Brown runs excellent statewide campaigns. If Harris is going to happen in Ohio thru some near-landslide scenario it will happen without Harris wasting time here. I would put everything into NC and FL as “reach states”. That’s worth it.
rikyrah
MEDIA ALERT:
The ReidOut (@thereidout) posted at 1:21 PM on Sun, Jul 28, 2024:
TOMORROW: Joy will be back for a ReidOut special report, “Project 2025 Exposed,” breaking down that 900-page document piece by piece–how it would give Trump the power to put in place an authoritarian government to take away many of your rights and reshape how you live your life. https://t.co/uHMs6HS7uH
(https://x.com/thereidout/status/1817626521110282535?t=OrC1IxCZSWBaWE8kKk3q3g&s=03)
Belafon
@Mousebumples: I could buy that if 1) the role of the media was to be an impartial judge and not to be biased in favor of democracy, 2) they had not been doing the “Let’s hear what diners in Ohio have to say about it” thing throughout the entire time Democrats were trying to impeach and convict Trump, 3) had gone after Trump’s derangement during the debate like they did Biden’s bad performance.
suzanne
@Redshift: Yeah, no….. we need a nice, clear image that doesn’t require clicking on a link.
Maybe I’ll make one. Or a series.
Matt McIrvin
@bbleh: A tangent with a pet peeve: A lot of the discussions of that repeat the claim that the election will get thrown to the House (where, because of the voting method used, a Republican win is a slam dunk even when the Democrats have a House majority) if “nobody gets to 270”.
And I think that’s wrong. The contingent election happens if nobody gets a majority of “the whole number of Electors appointed”. Some of these schemes involve disqualifying a bunch of electors so their votes aren’t counted at all, to make “nobody get to 270”. It seems to me that if that happens, they’re not “Electors appointed” and the threshold is no longer 270.
Granted, our crooked Supreme Court gets to be the arbiter of this. But I don’t think we should be amplifying arguments that have a Republican bias built in without criticizing them.
p.a.
@JCJ:
Juju.
@TS: Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone?
rikyrah
Chris D. Jackson
@ChrisDJackson
📺 At an Olympic reception hosted by Ralph Lauren in Paris, First Lady Jill Biden received a warm embrace from director Spike Lee.
https://x.com/ChrisDJackson/status/1817629320812093936
rikyrah
Josh Cowen (@joshcowenMSU) posted at 5:56 AM on Mon, Jul 29, 2024:
The voucher misconception, repeated in today’s @nytimes assumes most private schools are elite—and accept low-income kids with a voucher.
They don’t.
Wealthier families get rebates for elite schools they’re already in, and lower income kids get shoved into sub-prime options https://t.co/Bxuu3lqyt9
(https://x.com/joshcowenMSU/status/1817876935092883791?t=vNt7PbchTwct0SE9SO3zIQ&s=03)
Central Planning
@JCJ: I was going to go with Sexual Assaulters.
Nilnoc
@JCJ: Sturmabteilung. Nazi party street thugs.
Steve LaBonne
Trump must be beside himself that for the first time since he came down that accursed escalator, he can no longer control the narrative or compel the media to shower him with attention. And such attention as his campaign is getting is all devoted to how weird and creepy VD Jance is. “Donald Trump? I haven’t heard that name in a long time. A long time.”
Soprano2
@Kay: The OBoys say we’ve forgotten what a normal campaign looks like, and I think to a certain extent that’s true because of 2020 and Covid.
Burnspbesq
What is this “belatedly” nonsense?
GTFO, AP.
rikyrah
Amy Siskind![]()
(@Amy_Siskind) posted at 9:01 PM on Sun, Jul 28, 2024:
Don’t forget: if Trump loses, Jack Smith’s cases will have time to play out without his getting ejected, and Trump will likely face prison time.
Remember this when you notice Trump becoming increasingly desperate and undone in the final 100 days.
(https://x.com/Amy_Siskind/status/1817742176006152686?t=7B1x2DyNnO97lbTgRM3gaw&s=03)
M31
um, did they forget who’d be presiding over ‘Jan 6’ in 2025?
not sure they’ve thought their cunning plan all the way through
“b-b-but this time, Pence will do the right thing!”
JCJ
@NotMax: Ah thank you. Since my brain is in English mode reading that it did not register. Wäre es auf deutsch geschrieben hätte ich das verstanden
rikyrah
REFERRING TO VENEZUELA:
The New York Times is the #VichyPress (@Needle_of_Arya) posted at 7:03 AM on Mon, Jul 29, 2024:![]()
%.
It’s turning out that this is what happened: exit polling showed him getting smacked in the polls, and seeing this, he decided to send his armed thugs out and steal ballot boxes and declare himself the winner. And it’s worse than that; the faked election results don’t even =
(https://x.com/Needle_of_Arya/status/1817893833696252323?t=EG2jdlNzJWm6U43GDtbr6w&s=03)
sab
@Matt McIrvin: Not all early voting is by mail. In Ohio we can vote at the county board of elections.
rikyrah
Eugene Daniels (@EugeneDaniels2) posted at 8:15 AM on Mon, Jul 29, 2024:
Foremost on her mind is activating the new volunteers and getting them out knocking on doors. Harris and emerging campaign brain trust share the view that shifting the fundamentals of the race will be difficult with a calcified electorate and fragmented media environment.
(https://x.com/EugeneDaniels2/status/1817911922450190358?t=EshXmaewTGxvc4IbGQDFGA&s=03)
Kay
@rikyrah:
It’s SUCH a bad newspaper. This is not theoretical. I think 22 states have vouchers now. It’s not a success.
The NYTimes is really close to being the among the most over-rated entity in this country. They just don’t do good work. This is junk. Expensively produced, lavishly advertised junk.
catclub
@JCJ: The SA were the brownshirts, or some different Nazi ‘paramilitary’/ street thugs organization backing Hitler.
I see very very little evidence of anything similar for Trump.
rikyrah
Marvin Sapp InTheSkreets/Marvin Gaye InTheSheets (@groove_sdc) posted at 7:34 AM on Mon, Jul 29, 2024:
This is a go-to of white nationalists or supremacists to call Black people “low IQ.”
They’ve been doing it for years.
It’s based on their belief essentially in eugenics.
Trump picked it up from them.
It wasn’t the other way around.
(https://x.com/groove_sdc/status/1817901521066942680?t=cnMcrrFu4fzZAOizcJMbUw&s=03)
Burnspbesq
@BR:
if even Fucking Moron David Dayen is on board, she’s clearly doing something right.
rikyrah
Eugene Daniels (@EugeneDaniels2) posted at 8:15 AM on Mon, Jul 29, 2024:
In PB this AM: an insider who just recently spoke with VP Kamala Harris described her current outlook this way: “She is not blinded by the sugar. She understands the gravity and excitement of the moment but also understands the work that needs to be done.” https://t.co/J3cXxvLjdm
(https://x.com/EugeneDaniels2/status/1817911787494285727?t=yurC2PkdtCt4otQk7murrA&s=03)
Duke of Clay
@JCJ: Sturm Abteilung – official name of the Nazi brown shirts.
Kay
@Soprano2:
They’re right. We have. And we have no time to ponder it. Just use the existing template. No one has to get creative, thank God. I wish they woulld move the whole thing to Chicago, really.
Matt McIrvin
@sab: True, though in Massachusetts, an early vote is functionally nearly identical to a mail vote; you just do it at City Hall (you seal the ballot in an envelope, sign an affidavit on the outside, and it goes to your polling location on Election Day to be counted with the mail ballots).
Raoul Paste
@twbrandt: That was a remarkable ad. Thanks
Omnes Omnibus
@Matt McIrvin: That’s basically the way it works in WI as well.
Matt McIrvin
@rikyrah: Harris seems to me to be campaigning HARD. She and her organization are clearly not sitting back and letting stuff happen.
catclub
And he assumed you would believe he is on the side of the American dream, rather than the side of anarchy, madness and chaos. Assumes facts not in evidence.
zhena gogolia
@Burnspbesq: Thank you.
Kay
@rikyrah:
The logistical challenges of such a short window are daunting. I’m so glad they’re not deluding themselves. It’s never been done before. She needs a lot of bodies.
OTOH normies have been complaining about how long campaigns go on as long as I have been active. I think we should say “we’ll give you short elections back”. The only people who like permanent campaigns are media and pundits. Maybe we get so many moronic “undecideds” because we give them two fucking years to make up their minds. People expand things to the time available.
sab
@Matt McIrvin: Ohio has had problems with actual mail in-votes.
We had a mayoral recall election in Akron a few years back where 10% of the ballots were disqualified because the post office in Cleveland never got around to date stamping them.
H.E.Wolf
How do you feel about writing postcards? It’s one small, concrete action that adds up when lots of people do it.
Postcards To Voters has a well-organized ongoing campaign to write to FL voters and encourage them to sign up for FL Vote By Mail.
This could win the Dems a Senate seat, restore to Floridians the right to reproductive freedom, and win Democrats the White House.
[email protected]
Additional details:
https://balloon-juice.com/postcard-writing-for-2024/
RaflW
@Kay: Some states have very obviously manufactured ‘problems’ on election day in, shall we say, strategic precints. Amazing how minority-majority polling places seem to ‘run out of ballots’ or have fewer working voting machines delivered, etc.
Making people stand in line for an hour or two on a work day, while suburban districts run like tops and folks are in and out in minutes? Huh.
So, yeah, banking votes esp in places where polling day shenanigans are a risk makes a ton of sense.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: Are short elections a promise that can be made unilaterally? It’s a game-theory problem–as long as the other side knows when the elections are and who your candidates are, they can attack them and you have to respond.
Maybe we do it going forward by having primaries late? A national primary just before the convention? But in most years without a term limit operating, an incumbent will be the presumptive nominee.
hueyplong
@catclub: They gave it a go on J6, but their wannabe SA types got prosecuted, convicted, and, at times, sentenced to incarceration. It’s not a horrible idea to keep watch for signs of the so-far deterrent effect wearing off.
Anonymous At Work
@Mousebumples: I am seeing “weird” take off in every corner of the Internet too. It’s a simple word and a good entry point into Project 2025 that both gets people curious and undersells how radical Project 2025/Project Trump really is. Finally, it contrasts well with the “Oh, but SHE’S not likeable” dog-whistles because “Well, she’s not my cup of tea but at least she isn’t weird.”
Kay
If you’ve never volunteered for a political campaign this would be the one. If we succeed this will never have been done before – not just Harris, AA. woman, etc but such a short window. A huge collective effort. It’ll be amazing.
p.a.
The troops were there: 1/6/21. If Pence had done tRumps bidding, they would have been his backing. Some of those leaders are in prison. What’s next? They just need better organization.
Central Planning
@Kay: Sorry, you mis-posted. The Medium Cool ‘Worst Things Ever’ thread was last night :)
Belafon
@Matt McIrvin: We would have to push the primaries to start in May, not the beginning of the year, for all states. The Democrats can’t just do it themselves, because it gives Republicans months to define Democrats.
Redshift
@rikyrah: Hell, yeah! No one’s mind is getting changed about who they’re voting for at this point, it’s all about who actually comes out to vote. One of the things that didn’t feature much in the polling-driven coverage earlier is that TCFG’s “lead” comes from demographics who are less likely to vote, whereas the D votes are more likely voters.
Burnspbesq
@Matt McIrvin:
Republicans in Mississippi sued the state, asking for a declaration that state law allowing mail-in ballots postmarked on or before Election Day to be counted if received up to five days afterward was unconstitutional. They got righteously slapped down by the district court. Unfortunately, appeal lies in the God-forsaken Fifth Circuit, and who know what those idjits might come up with.
https://x.com/kyledcheney/status/1817710729505739213?s=61
Kay
@RaflW:
Right. The lines alone. Every early vote is one less person waiting on Eday, so a shorter line. Early vote makes election day smoother. It’s better than that, but that would be enough. Get them voted.
Another Scott
@Baud: https://statesnewsroom.com/
Scroll down and click on the map, then click on the relevant link to the paper that is part of their team.
HTH!
Cheers,
Scott.
skerry
@suzanne: Not a bullet list, but a nice summation focusing on Gen Z concerns
https://votersoftomorrow.org/gen-zs-guide-to-project-2025/
RaflW
@Matt McIrvin: One of the reasons the money flowing in so fast matters. It’s expensive to be out there pushing hard every day.
I was impressed by how much I could see of logistics that went into the Milwaukee rally last week. The campaign had to spend a lot to get that to run so smoothly. Worth every penny.
Kay
@RaflW:
The idea is we take responsibility for one another. So a long line on Eday in a minority precinct is a failure to use early vote effectively. Republicans aren’t going to help us. We help each other.
Burnspbesq
@SatanicPanic:
The “election results” you’re hearing from mainstream US media are almost certainly not what actually happened. Everything I’ve heard suggests that Maduro got his ass kicked, and is lying and cheating to stay in power.
Shocking, innit: mainstream media normalizing a wannabe despot. We’ve never seen anything like that, amirite?
hueyplong
@p.a.: Having the worst of them in prison on this upcoming election day is helpful, but vigilance is a good idea. Trump can’t keep his yap shut so we’ll probably get a heads up if they’re getting the
bundband back together.Baud
@Another Scott: Thanks.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: In-person early voting is actually something I’ve taken advantage of in multiple elections since it started here.
Since it stretches out the literal election, I suppose it also limits how short the election campaign could be, but on the other hand, once someone has already voted, the campaign is effectively over with regard to targeting that voter. And I think the campaign knows who they are.
Burnspbesq
@Kay:
All eleven rational Tesla shareholders would beg to differ.
SatanicPanic
@Burnspbesq: WaPo was clear that the results were pretty dubious and that polling suggested a solid loss for Maduro. I don’t think US media wants to back him up- he’s still ostensibly left wing. I was just hoping that the results would come in and he’d do a Slobodan Milosevic and step down. But who knows, I don’t think this is over just yet.
Steve LaBonne
@Matt McIrvin: In person early voting is one of the few things Ohio does well- we have a very generous early voting period. I happen to live (in Medina) only a couple of miles from the county BoE, which is also right near the supermarkets we shop in, so it’s how my wife and I vote every election. Super convenient.
Another Scott
@sab: I’m on Virginia’s list for permanent absentee ballots by mail. I fill it out, then drop it in an elections drop box. It’s fairly convenient (I wish the box was 24 hours – it’s only certain hours on certain days) and I don’t have to worry about the USPS. And I would assume it saves the county some money. I can easily check online that the ballot was received and counted as well.
The GQP, naturally, is against anything that makes voting easier and less stressful.
Grrr…,
Scott.
catclub
@Burnspbesq: Mississippi is fully into ‘make voting as hard as possible…. especially for _those_ people’
But vote by mail is for old people and if Trump wants to disparage vote by mail, he is discouraging his own voters. Keep it up!
hueyplong
@Burnspbesq: Well, she did say “close to the” instead of simply “the”, sort of like an Olympic judge leaving room to score a better performance.
Mike in NC
The crappy Sunday bobblehead shows have been irrelevant for 20 years.
phdesmond
@Mousebumples: @Anonymous At Work:
here’s a measure of how popular the “weird” phrase is getting.
i did a Boolean search on Google of “JD Vance” “weird”
on 7/28 i got
About 32,800,000 results
a little earlier today (7/29) i got
About 35,600,000 results
Lyrebird
@Kay: Thanks, appreciate the read-out, and
@H.E.Wolf: thanks for the helpful info! I looked into one of the other postcard orgs when they were full up, and I confess while job hunting I’m not at my best… so your taking the time to put this in easy reach today was a big help. I will click.
Mousebumples
@Anonymous At Work: weird seems good. Gross feels like it may have potential, depending on the topic.
I think it’s validating to have someone say, Why do they want to do that? That’s so weird/gross.
Mousebumples
@phdesmond:wow! Can you check how it spiked? Whether from before announced as Trump’s VP or even before Biden withdrew?
hueyplong
@Mousebumples: Weirdly, changing terms now would probably highlight the coordinated nature of the campaign more than would continuing to hammer home the already effective (because accurate) “weird.”
Except in the circumstances when the proper response is, “Not only is that weird, it’s gross.”
phdesmond
@Mousebumples:
i don’t know how to search into the past.
Mousebumples
@hueyplong: yeah, fair.
Anyway
@Central Planning: hahaha! WaterGirl left out Worst Newspaper from her Medium Cool categories last night
Itinerantpedant
@Redshift: THIS is what frustrates me about all the current (and former) narrative around polling. It was entirely Registered Voters not Likely (for ANY value of “Likely”) Voters. The Ds always polled better once you applied LV instead of RV filters.
RaflW
Top WaPo story right now is Vance’s struggles and GOP worries. So refreshing to see that they can find a new chew toy if it’s handed to them with a jangling bell and maybe a peanut butter schmear:
Not ideal. Hahahaha.
zhena gogolia
@RaflW: Love it!
rikyrah
@Soprano2:
I hate blaming it on the idiot sons. It was the Orange Menace’s greed. Burgum’s check would have cleared, but it wasn’t larger than Thiel and Musk’s checks.
rikyrah
@suzanne:
Got a kid in PUBLIC High School? Will be forced to take the Military Aptitude test. Not so Private schools.
Got a Kid in Head Start? It’s going bye bye
Good bye single sex marriage
Good bye overtime for workers
Good bye abortion rights
Good bye birth control
Good bye any kind of fight against climate change
Good bye to federal protection of federal lands. They will be up for sale to the highest bidder.
Good bye to Pell Grants for pool students for college
Good by to Title IX protections for young women in college.
StringOnAStick
@catclub: The street thug stuff is starting to show here in redneck central Oregon’s blueberry in the tomato soup (Bend), though I’m seeing fewer fully flagged up pickup trucks than in 2020; no yard signs so far.
We drove west yesterday through prime downwardly mobile rural areas, and there’s fewer tRump signs and they’re smaller than in 2020, no giant banners. No Harris signs but in rural Oregon, but that would be a dangerous thing to display in Oregunian territory (that’s a local redneck bumper sticker, with the outline of an AR-15). The advantage of the tRump signs we saw on businesses (some boarded up) is it tells you where to never spend your money.
When we moved here in late October of 2020, there was enough of this crap that it set me on edge. There was a guy selling t-shirts and banners in the weeks up to and for months after the election, with the flag bedecked jacked up pickups mustering around that location for a long time. After Jan 6, I noticed a lot less signage to the point where even the ranches and ranchettes that has those signs all over the fences were suddenly cleared of that stuff, and so far I’ve only seen one that has even a single sign.
The beauty of the Vance pick and the incredible meme war it has spawned is Vance and tRump are rapidly becoming deeply uncool. That one stings and will cut their turnout, especially amongst the mushy voters.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
rikyrah
@Jeffro:
this is SO STOLEN
rikyrah
@Kay:
When you think that Britain does it, in what, 6 weeks.
The French’s last elections? Couldn’t have been more than a couple of months.
Yeah, this shyt we do in America is ridiculous
rikyrah
@sab:
Which is why dropboxes are a brilliant creation. I do elections, for a living, and I would tell any voter that called in about a mail ballot, before dropboxes – to take their ballot INSIDE OF THE POST OFFICE AND WATCH THEM DATE STAMP IT.
We were rejecting so many ballots based on the Post Office date stamp,.
RaflW
LOL
No One You Know
@suzanne: And yard signs. Billboards. Bumper stickers.
randy khan
@Soprano2:
Trump’s always had a certain “last guy* who talks to him wins” vibe. He doesn’t really know anything and a sufficiently vigorous argument, whether it makes any sense at all, is likely to impress him.
*”Guy” used entirely intentionally. No woman held any actually important policy job in his Administration.
Fair Economist
@Splitting Image:
Read: “Give us untraceable money and we’ll let you cheat the country.”
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@rikyrah: The fundamental issue is that elections don’t get called in the US. They’re scheduled. I remember my Greek colleagues having their minds boggled at the concept that federal elections happen every other November like clockwork and that not even the Civil War changed the schedule. Back in the mid-to-late 20th century, there may have been a sort of gentleman’s agreement between the parties that serious campaigning wouldn’t really begin until at least January of the year of the election, but ever since the Contract with America, Republicans can’t be trusted to hold to a gentlemen’s agreement unless you’ve got a knife to the throat of someone they care about.
artem1s
@Lyrebird:
Ohio’s not swinging for Harris. But we need to keep Brown in the Senate. The turnout should be good because of the gerrymandering bill and continued backlash against Dodd. If we can make the GOP spend money in what they usually consider a ‘safe’ state, that’s a good thing. Postcards yes. Money to Brown, yes. Sharing Dem ads and weird Vance takes on FB, X, tiktok, bluesky, mastadon, etc yes. But I doubt phone banking would be worth the time. I’m hoping to work the polls day of and maybe take time off work to work early voting the weeks/weekends before.
Fair Economist
@Steve LaBonne:
Entirely fitting; given the word salad Trump is emitting it’s very likely he won’t be running the administration, and may very well get 25th’d out. People should be focusing on the person who will likely replace him.
Fair Economist
@Bruce K in ATH-GR:
And since Republicans don’t care about anybody…
Ruckus
@Jeffro:
SFB has been trying to find out why women don’t like him for his entire life. For him it’s an eternal quest, because he’s been such a putz for his entire life. In my book the only reason he got elected in the first place was because he has money (very little which he made for himself, inheriting hundreds of millions must be nice, except in this case…..(for the rest of us….)
Ruckus
@Soprano2:
Seems exactly like the way TCFG would make the decision.
SFB makes decisions? I’m betting that everything is a guess to him. Now he thinks he is so great that he likely will not listen to anyone else, unless it’s delivered with a lot of
honeyBS slathered on top. He is convinced (by himself of course) that he is THE high and mighty of the universe.Bill Arnold
@Fair Economist:
Selfish people generally care about themselves, at least.
brantl
They don’t ooze loser to the Republicans. They ooze “the best they have to offer”, but to us? Still losers.
brantl
@Jeffro: We’ve already got one, unofficial or not. How would you vett all these people in a few weeks?
brantl
@catclub: give it time, they intend to disrupt as many polling places that lean democratic as they can.
brantl
@sab: More DeJoy, probably.
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
Can FOX do math? 57 + 47 = more than 100.
brantl
@randy khan: He wouldn’t call them policy jobs, he’d call them grift jobs. I wonder how much money lined his palms, to give them these jobs.
brantl
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: That would only be the individual himself, not anybody else.