Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.

They are not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Is trump is trying to break black America over his knee? signs point to ‘yes’.

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

“I was told there would be no fact checking.”

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

The words do not have to be perfect.

“Loving your country does not mean lying about its history.”

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

The real work of an opposition party is to hold the people in power accountable.

Museums are not America’s attic for its racist shit.

Jesus watching the most hateful people claiming to be his followers

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

If you can’t control your emotions, someone else will.

You cannot love your country only when you win.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

You are here: Home / Elections 2024 / Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Heating Up

Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Heating Up

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Fans of politics have another way to keep track of what’s happening in the most competitive states in the country through a new service that collects and streams local newscasts.

Swing State Election News, which began operation Monday, lets streamers choose from among 37 local television stations in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. They are primarily local affiliates of CBS, NBC, ABC and Fox.

Those are the states that pollsters have concluded will most likely decide the presidential contest between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. The service will allow people to test the maxim of “all politics is local” by closely following how the campaigns are being waged there…

Swing State Election News is an outgrowth of Zeam, a free streaming service affiliated with Gray Television that began last winter. Zeam caters to people who have given up cable or satellite television subscriptions by offering hundreds of local market broadcasts. The bulk of its users follow their local markets but a significant number check in on other areas where they may have had ties in the past, the service said.

Zeam doesn’t reveal how many people use the service.

Swing State Election News allows users to choose between live programming or archived newscasts. A quick click Monday on a tab, for instance, calls up the morning newscast on WMGT-TV in Macon, Georgia.

As the campaign goes on, Perry said the newscasts will offer a window into rallies and other events held in those states, along with details in local House and Senate races that may impact control of those chambers…

One important indicator of how the campaigns are going will be missing, however. A local newscast in the swing states this fall is expected to be filled with commercials for the presidential candidates, which can illustrate some of the campaign strategies and issues they feel are resonating.

Swing State Election News sells its own advertising, however, and will not show what is being seen in the local advertising breaks, Perry said.

In another effort aimed at boosting election news for swing states, The Associated Press said last month it is offering its campaign coverage to a series of small, independent news organizations that can’t otherwise afford it.


Peggy Noonan has THOUGHTS…
Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Heating Up 1

Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Heating Up

(Clay Jones via GoComics.com)

Reader Interactions

236Comments

  1. 1.

    japa21

    Absolutely amazing how after all this time, people don’t have a clue about either Biden or Harris.

  2. 2.

    Caveatimperator

    @japa21:

    Millions of people don’t pay any serious attention to the news. And it doesn’t help that so much of the media is spin at best and outright lies at worst.

  3. 3.

    waspuppet

    Peggy Noonan is simply following what “everybody” “knows” — that in any election, whoever is the Democratic nominee is the most liberal Democrat there ever has been or could possibly be.

    She’s a pure Republican hack who is too far gone to even remember what she is anymore. And our wealthy media class’s insistence that she must be wise because she talks the way she talks is as damning an indictment of them as their insistence that Maureen Dowd must be clever because she writes the way she writes.

    The fact that those two have Pulitzer Prizes and Alexandra Petri doesn’t is extremely telling, and makes me want to throw a chair whenever I think about it.

  5. 5.

    Steve LaBonne

    @japa21: Both of whom have always positioned themselves right in the middle of the Democratic Party, and nowadays that middle is in a pretty progressive place. But then, the same people also can’t see the Democratic Party. Their old narratives, which don’t fit reality at all, get in the way.

  7. 7.

    hrprogressive

    There’s still going to be a lot of “devil’s in the details” about how a potential Harris-Walz admin will actually govern, to say nothing of just how big a congress they get that can actually send them progressive legislation.

    However, I think it’s fair to say one of the biggest, most unifying themes of the last month and change has been that they, and their surrogates by and large, have tried to win over traditionally “not Democratic Voters” without bending over backwards to compromise on their own positions and beliefs.

    Maybe it’s happened and I’ve missed it, so I’m open to feedback.

    But listening to the convention speeches in particular, and thinking about what past Democratic Nominees over the last 20 years have said and done…

    I didn’t hear a bunch of calls for “bipartisanship” and “moving to the center” in trying to win over disaffected less-fascist Republicans or “centrist” voters.

    The message I’m hearing is one the Democratic Party should have found a long time ago:

    “Our policies, beliefs, and proposals are wildly popular, firmly in the mainstream, and seek to help as many of our fellow citizens as we can. Join us, won’t you?”

    Instead of a bunch of mealy-mouthed, wishy-washy “Well, you know, healthcare would be great, but gosh darnit if only the GOP would come sing kumbaya with us, we’ll destroy our own bills if you’ll vote with us, pretty please?” nonsense.

    Again, lotta nuance I am sure.

    But it’s more than about fucking time that our major candidates for POTUS/VPOTUS are unabashedly standing by what they believe in, and telling people “Get on board, while you still can”.

    I legitimately love to see it.

  10. 10.

    Mousebumples

    Good morning!

    I saw a comment in a thread yesterday, asking about postcards for swing state candidates. (CaseyL, I think?) There are lots of postcarding opportunities in the linked page under 2024 Activism in the menu/hamburger menu.

    • Postcards to Voters has addresses for Florida Vote By Mail right now. They have a short turn around to mail (3 days, I think), so they don’t have candidate campaigns YET. I expect that will be coming once early voting starts.

    I may have some local WisDems county level opportunities. I need to do some follow up though. My county has specific postcards to write on, that they want to address and stamp. Not ideal for out of staters.

    I know of a few other county parties that were looking for postcard writers. I can look into details, if there’s interest. I’m also not sure if it would be general GOTV or candidate specific.

    I’ll try to keep an eye on this thread. Otherwise, you can DM me on bsky ( @mousebumples.bsky.social ), maybe? Or WaterGirl has my contact info, too.

    Happy postcarding!

  11. 11.

    VeniceRiley

    @hrprogressive: 10/10 No notes!

    Peggy the wino needs a long nap until next February.

    And Harris/Walz ticket is rightly extending a hand to Republicans who wants to join up, but without any caving on a single policy goal.

  12. 12.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @japa21: It’s Peggy Noonan, so it’s expected.  The idea that Progressives have been the real champions of Kamala Harris, all along, would be news to any K-hive member.  Just ask them who was doing the most to shit on her in 2019-2020.

    The whole “She’s-A-Cop!” narrative (the disingenuous smear that has done the most damage to her) was hatched and promoted by Police Abolitionists and other Leftier-Than-Thou Progressives like DSA, Justice Dems, etc.

  13. 13.

    Frankensteinbeck

    The national press has believed in a narrative of war between the progressive and moderate sides of the Democratic Party for decades.  They hunt a lot less lately for whatever progressive they can find who will slag Democrats, but the narrative is a sacred axiom.

  17. 17.

    sab

    OT: the adorable little unhousebroken lhasa apso my husband found wandering in a busy street is back home with her real family. Meanwhile we get to clean our carpets. She wasn’t very housebroken.

    I cannot imagine what her family’s ( or families’) house is like inside.

    Whatever. She is back home. Our cats are still outraged.

  24. 24.

    Elizabelle

    Glad to hear of free streaming service Zeam, and Swing State Election News.  Without political (or other) advertising.  Maybe some of those local markets would rather stream than be stuck with the tsunami of constant (and often distorted) campaign ads that are a bane of election years.

    Thanks, AL. Really important to get out ahead of all the disinformation.  I hope France’s going after Telegram does have Musk and other bad actors frightened for the consequences.  Vive la France!!  They got their election correct; we need to follow.

  26. 26.

    Jeffro

    First, I’d like to thank the folks in last evening’s “bad food” thread for the lulz.

    (and also for SO MANY great ideas for band names!  “North Dakota Roux”!  “Italian Delite”!  “Dog Vomit Slime Mold”!!!  =)

    Second, Catherine Rampell notes the obvious (and yet, with our blessed electorate, it needs to be noted): trumpov has degrade our entire political discourse/expectations.

    (not sure about ‘our’ but I think that’s a headline thing: 90% of the column is about trumpov and the GOP’s utter lack of concern for actual policy…and hiding the few policies that they do intend to carry out…)

    The hard part of governing isn’t identifying what voters are mad about. It’s figuring out what to do about those complaints.  That is what a candidate’s “policy” agenda is supposed to address. Alas, Donald Trump has so degraded the state of policy discourse that few politicians are even trying to come up with real solutions anymore.

    The Republican presidential nominee often promises fantastical outcomes, without any plausible mechanism for how, as president, he would deliver them. Most recently, Trump promised to cut prices, with energy prices specifically falling by 50 percent.  How? No explanation necessary. He simply declares it will happen, and the media and his allies amplify his claims.

    Sometimes, he dresses up his promises with bureaucratic pageantry. “On my first day back in the Oval Office, I will sign an executive order directing every Cabinet secretary and agency head to use every tool and authority at their disposal to defeat inflation and bring consumer prices rapidly down.” he said at a recent rally.  “I will instruct my Cabinet that I expect results within the first 100 days, or much sooner.”

    “or much sooner” = “durrrhhh duh durrhhh”.  I still can’t believe what a fucking idiot the Orange Moron is.

    The challenge for Republicans is that if they did explain their plans and positions more often, voters might realize just how bad they are. For instance, nearly all of Trump’s major economic policies would worsen inflation (mass deportations, devaluing the dollar, politicizing the Federal Reserve, imposing new global tariffs of 10 percent or higher).

    So if you’re a Democrat, why bother crafting any careful, detailed proposals, with all their trade-offs and vulnerabilities? Why bother trying to understand the underlying causes of inflation when you can simply pledge to make high prices illegal…

    There’s always been a temptation for politicians to under-plan and overpromise, to pledge outcomes without detailing the inputs. But just as Trump has lowered* the bar for politicians’ character and ethics, he’s degraded our expectations for governing, too.

    *and by ‘lowered’ the bar, I believe she means, “buried it at the center of the Earth itself”

    Anyway, it’s a good point to bring up with any ‘leaners’ that you come across: “wouldn’t it be nice to hear actual policies and solutions again?”  And then just point ’em towards the Solutions Party: TEAM BLUE!!

  27. 27.

    Baud

    She’s wrong about the significance of our nominees, but she’s correct about progressives winning a long struggle within the party. A lot of progressives tend to move the goal posts so they won’t acknowledge or recognize it, but we’re less blue dog and centrist than we were during the first half of this century.

    No thing’s perfect of course. The public is against the progressive position on the border and immigration, and we have to compromise there. But debates happen on a better playing field than they used to.

  28. 28.

    SatanicPanic

    This is just great: 

    On the campaign trail and in meetings with supporters, Trump has signaled his intent to curb federal monitoring of local police and to withhold funds from departments unwilling to employ more confrontational tactics, according to people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.

    not surprising but I hope this gets more attention

  32. 32.

    Wolvesvalley

    @Jeffro:

    Most recently, Trump promised to cut prices, with energy prices specifically falling by 50 percent.

    How come the media and the MAGAts aren’t howling about Trump imposing price controls?

  35. 35.

    Steve LaBonne

    @Belafon: He always was to the right on racism and misogyny. That was his attraction for white men who ultimately voted for Trump.

  36. 36.

    Jackie

    DonOLD and his insecurities…

    The Bulwark: “Palm Beach County is a Democratic stronghold in a Republican state that Trump has little chance of losing. But Trump’s staff is at some risk of incurring his wrath if he — and his Palm Beach pals — don’t see his ads at Mar-a-Lago, a factor that insiders say compelled the purchase.”

    *snip*

    Florida Democrats relished the prospect of Trump blowing money in the West Palm Beach area, which consultant Kevin Cate predicted weeks ago.

    “I think Trump spends first TV dollars in Florida (for his ego and against his team’s advice). And that’s how you’ll know we’re in landslide territory,” Cate said in an August 26 X post that he re-upped on Monday.

    Maybe this will compel traditional non voters to vote. FOR HARRIS! 😁

  37. 37.

    Kristine

    Hoping if I’m able to make it to 102 that I have enough hellwithit left that I’d jump out of a plane.

    Thanks for the info about Zeam. I will definitely hunt it down.

  38. 38.

    TBone

    @Bupalos: she didn’t actually say that, but her campaign did say she would not ban it.  There’s room for regulating and taxing them out of existence.

  39. 39.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    @hrprogressive:

    The message I’m hearing is one the Democratic Party should have found a long time ago:

    “Our policies, beliefs, and proposals are wildly popular, firmly in the mainstream, and seek to help as many of our fellow citizens as we can. Join us, won’t you?”

    I think what has changed is that with new media (not the MSM, but TikTok, YouTube, etc.) this is a message that Democrats finally have a way to get out where normies can hear it, without having to pass thru viciously pro-GOP gatekeeping and gaslighting by the traditional MSM.

    Decades ago, perhaps even just a few years ago, this message would have been dead on departure (not even arrival) because there were no messengers willing to deliver it.

    Reading thru the threads here I pick up a lot of angst about the MSM. I think commenter Kay is correct both in her diagnosis of this and the metaphor she uses to explain it – the job of the Dem leadership is to drive well in the lanes available to them and not worry about what other (bad) actors are doing in other lanes.

    It is easy to think about revenge fantasies regarding the MSM – God knows they have earned and richly deserve all of the horrible things wished upon them in these pages. But let Capitalism take care of that part – eventually Creative Destruction will have its way with them (and already is beginning to do so in the form of declining viewership and shrinking subscriptions), albeit slowly in some cases, because it takes a long time for a big battleship to sink so long as the internal bulkheads hold up.

  41. 41.

    CaseyL

    @Mousebumples: ​

    Yes, that was me! And I have DM’d you on BlueSky.

    My interest is postcarding for close House/Senate races.

    My concern is whether all the various organizations are coordinating their efforts, so that we don’t inundate some voters with multiple postcards while other voters don’t get any.

    Do you know if the various organizations are coordinating?

  44. 44.

    Belafon

    @sab: We got a new dog five weeks ago, after not having one for over a year. He’s about 6 months old. We’re having some trouble house training him because he doesn’t like it when you watch him, so he will mostly go outside and sit or lie down, and then you end up finding poop behind tables later in the day.

  45. 45.

    Ukai

    @Shana: Off the top of my head, “Annie Hall” and “Shakespeare in Love” would counter your thesis. Wiki shows other winning films that are hybrid comedies (comedy-drama, dark comedy-thriller, etc.).

  46. 46.

    narya

    @CaseyL: @Mousebumples: And I’m eagerly watching for the answer, too! I’m registered only w/ Postcards to Voters right now, and I have postcards and stamps, but I’m not doing the FL Vote By Mail. I suggested Postcards to Swing States to my mom (!!) who wanted to volunteer for something (she’s 89 1/2, and I don’t think she should be canvassing, even though she lives in PA), but they’re all full up, apparently.

  48. 48.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @rikyrah:

    They are literally pissed that Joe Biden denied them their weeks worth of Democrats in Chaos stories

    To quote you, “No lie told.”

    The Punditariat are a toxic fandom, and politics is their geeky fascination.  This analogy works so well it is almost the literal truth.  They had their fan fictions ready of how they wanted this election to go, and they screamed until they got the main character who was in the way fired.  Their dramatic headcanons were proved wrong, and they are Big Mad.  The white men they wanted in the lead role were all passed over for a black woman who is way better at the role, and they are scrambling for some way to claim that nuh-uh, she’s inferior but it’s not about race or sex but ethics in gaming journalism.  Fuckheads.

    And they’re failing, because Harris really is so damn good at this.

  49. 49.

    OzarkHillbilly

    How do you spell delusional? From Are Trump’s campaign rallies energizing his base – or sowing doubt? comes this little tidbit:

    “These rallies fire up the base to go out there and knock on doors. His base will walk on fire for him, but plenty of other Republicans don’t vote. Are they demoralised? Do they think their vote doesn’t count? Most of it is apathy. But if we don’t get people out there knocking on doors, Trump’s not going to win Luzerne county,” he said.

    “But to do that, Trump’s got to focus on the message and not get distracted by personal attacks. Trump’s a good communicator. He’s got the issues, commonsense issues, most of them economic, not social. He should leave the attacks on Kamala to others, at least until the debate.”

    -Frank Scavo, a businessman and ardent Trump supporter

    Right, a “good communicator”, he’s got “the issues, common sense issues”.

    A delusional cherry on top of that sundae:

    Pribula told the Scranton Times-Tribune that the new leadership was pushing a hate-filled agenda.

    “They’d put things on their sites being against gays, lesbians, African Americans, anybody who didn’t fit their cookie-cutter mold they are against and that’s not how I am and that’s not how the Republican party is,” he said.

    Are there 2 GOPs in Pennsylvania? Nuts all around.

  52. 52.

    catclub

    @Elizabelle: another thank you for the Zeam info. I had never heard of it.

    There was something similar, that was killed by the courts, where essentially you rented an over-the-air antenna in the city of your choice. Too bad that failed.

  53. 53.

    Wolvesvalley

    @Baud: The MAGAts think Those Other People are going to be the slaves.  But Trump is going to deport all Those Other People, so who will be left to provide the slave labor?

  56. 56.

    hueyplong

    @OzarkHillbilly: “… and that’s not how the Republican party is….”

    It’s absolutely how the Republican Party is.  It’s how Trump is, and the Republican Party is a Trump cult.

  57. 57.

    Mousebumples

    @CaseyL: I doubt it. It would be nice but when you have multiple campaigns running, it’s difficult to do, I’m sure. I had heard that for the GA Senate run offs (January 5th, 2021), voters were getting multiple postcards and comparing!

    But better to divide up postcard resources, I agree!

    I’ll look for your DM on bsky. 😊

  60. 60.

    catclub

    @Baud: ​
     

    but we’re less blue dog and centrist than we were during the first half of this century.

    wait, aren’t we still in the first half of this century?

  61. 61.

    Mousebumples

    @narya: I’m not sure if you’re also local in PA, but hopefully her local PA Dems might have something for her to help with? If you’re not local and she can’t drive, maybe a volunteer could drop off supplies? Unfortunately, I’m not sure what is all going on in PA. But maybe other local PA Juicers can chime in?

  62. 62.

    Belafon

    @Wolvesvalley: Republicans will deport people like the LULAC leaders that Paxton is raiding. The quiet ones will get to stay because their labor is cheap, but they had better not make any noise.

  64. 64.

    catclub

    @OzarkHillbilly: “These rallies fire up the base to go out there and knock on doors.”

     

    Really? I do not get that impression at all from the Trump rally attendees. They might put up hand lettered signs in their yards.

     

    yes, I know I am quoting your quote.

  65. 65.

    Jeffro

    @Wolvesvalley: that, and how come they never ask him “how do you actually plan to get it done, sir?”

    (since you couldn’t get infrastructure done, couldn’t repeal the ACA, couldn’t get anything but tax cuts for the rich done?  Sir?)

    I’d also like someone, anyone, Bueller, Bueller, to ask him about our military being “out of ammo” per his remarks yesterday

  66. 66.

    Kent

    @SatanicPanic:There should be a mandatory retirement age for pundits.

    Noonan is 73.  Dowd is 72.

    But both of them had their pull date at about age 35

    Carville, by the way, is 79.

  68. 68.

    H.E.Wolf

    I’ll put in a cheer for the FL Vote By Mail postcard campaign being run by Postcards To Voters.

    1. There’s an abortion-rights initiative on the FL ballot this November, which needs 60% “Yes” votes in order to pass. If Democrats vote in large numbers, it will help pass this initiative and restore reproductive rights in FL.

    2. The 2024 Democratic candidate for US Senate is a pro-choice former US Rep, Debbie Mucarsel-Powell. If enough FL Democrats vote in November, she has a good chance to defeat a very unpopular Republican incumbent (Sen. Scott). debbieforflorida.com/

    3. FL Vote By Mail folks cast their votes in more elections than do non-participants, so they’re more likely to vote for 1. and 2. this November.

    4. Signing up for FL Vote By Mail takes 1 phone call, unlike many other states where there are multiple hoops to jump through.

    5. Postcards To Voters asks volunteers to write 3 sentences provided by the campaign. No long treatises. Less writer’s cramp. :)

    6. Postcards To Voters allows 3 business days in which to write. Sign up on Thursday, you get a free extra day (Sunday) in which to write!

    [email protected]

  71. 71.

    narya

    @Mousebumples: No, I’m in IL (though I’ll be in WI this weekend, watching pointy cars go fast). When she volunteered for Obama, it was . . . not an operation that could find a task for her and my dad. I’ll find something for her (and the next-door neighbor) to do. I imagine the post carding opportunities will improve, or maybe she can do some phone-banking. She likes talking to people–I, however, absolutely do NOT. I also DM’d you on bsky.

  72. 72.

    catclub

    @Jeffro: that, and how come they never ask him “how do you actually plan to get it done, sir?”

     

    and He gives them the _repeated_shuck and jive of ‘I will have a strong news conference on that in a few weeks.”

    and they buy that.

  74. 74.

    Kent

    @Baud:She’s wrong about the significance of our nominees, but she’s correct about progressives winning a long struggle within the party. A lot of progressives tend to move the goal posts so they won’t acknowledge or recognize it, but we’re less blue dog and centrist than we were during the first half of this century.

    That has nothing to do with progressives or progressive pressure though.  It has to do with former blue dog seats flipping Republican.  For example, if Tester loses in Montana it won’t be due to any progressive goal post moving.  It will be because Montana has gone MAGA.

  75. 75.

    Mousebumples

    @narya & @CaseyL – message sent to the local WisDems office, and responses sent to both of you on bsky. More info to come as I hear back…

  77. 77.

    jonas

    @Ukai: Keep in mind “Shakespeare in Love” only won that Oscar because Harvey Weinstein bribed, threatened, and cajoled every member of the Academy that year to vote for it over “Saving Private Ryan.”

  78. 78.

    jonas

    @HumboldtBlue: As I wrote here a couple of weeks ago, Harris should agree to a sit down with the editorial board only as soon as they meet or exceed that number of stories about Trump’s fitness and cognitive health.

  79. 79.

    schrodingers_cat

    KH has always been pretty liberal but got no credit for it by the self anointed loud progressives in the media (both legacy media and social media). BS supporters went after her called her Kopmala and a cop because of her law enforcement background

    Now that she is the nominee she will be attacked as the second coming of Marx

    Tulsi Gabbard is good example of the horseshoe theory in the politics.  She was a member of the Sanders Institute and now she has endorsed Trump. Some people here assert that is a figment of my imagination exists only in  social media spaces.

  80. 80.

    Baud

    @Kent:

    That’s definitely an important part of it. But I think we’re also seeing more progressive minded people run and win in places that haven’t flipped permanently red.

  81. 81.

    Citizen Alan

    @rikyrah: I Remember asking a progressive of my acquaintance, back in 2020:

    “So your position is that only conservatives should be allowed to have jobs in law.Enforcement? And this is going to produce better and less racist outcomes in criminal prosecutions, how exactly?”

    He abruptly changed the subject.

  84. 84.

    BR

    @catclub: ​

    One of the risks of running a would-be-dictator campaign is that your base might believe that you alone can fix it and they don’t need to do anything. The risk to us, though, is that it might be appealing to enough swing state voters anyway.

  85. 85.

    Baud

    @Citizen Alan:

    I remember having a similar discussion here when that was the topic of the day. And, yes, some people think certain occupations should be out of bounds for our side.

  86. 86.

    SatanicPanic

    @Jeffro: that’s one of the few things that Trump has explained- more drilling.

    Add that to: build a wall, cut taxes on the wealthy and imposing tariffs and you have pretty much all of his actual policy positions that he’s willing to admit to.

  87. 87.

    catclub

    predictit marketplace news:
    presently Kamala for pres is $0.56 and Trump for pres is $0.47.
    But I can buy NOT trump for pres for $0.53.
    If I wanted to make money and thought Kamala was going to win, won’t I make more money if I buy Trump-NO for $0.53?

    @H.E. Wolf: I am not sure if there is a Florida senate market. I do know the Democrats have been disappointed often and frequently with Florida national elections. We live in hope!

  89. 89.

    kindness

    I think the swing states are going to solidly be Kamela’s.  I’d like to see the campaign spend more time in Florida and maybe even Texas.  I think they could win those states.

  92. 92.

    BR

    @kindness:

    I hope they *do not* do that. One of the mistakes of Clinton ’16 was generally ignoring the blue wall states in favor of reach states, and when Comey hit, there wasn’t enough goodwill built up in the blue wall to weather the storm.

  94. 94.

    catclub

    @jonas: ​
     and i say “what’s new?”
    the Oscar’s voters are member of a movie business club. why do we care what members of a private club vote for or against?

  95. 95.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @BR: ​
      Maybe the thing to do is look at the actual facts on the ground as the campaign goes on and not assume that the events of 2016 will repeat.

  98. 98.

    jonas

    @OzarkHillbilly:  Right, a “good communicator”, he’s got “the issues, common sense issues”.

    On one hand, I’d say “what fucking color is the sky in this guy’s world?” But I also think that a lot of MAGA types actually *don’t* listen to anything he says. And they don’t care. They’re there for the Nuremburg-style rally pageantry and camaraderie and what they hear is just sort of echoes of stuff they remember him saying on The Apprentice or whatever.  So where a normal person hears a bunch of insane word salad and fascist braggadocio, they hear something about “building this” and “fired” that.

  100. 100.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Baud: Some of the rhetoric that comes out of the tankie left scares people who have lived experience in those Communist hellholes.

    Tankie left helps the RWNJ right in painting Ds as lefty radicals which they are not

    Statements like these don’t help either.

    This from the 2020 debate between BS ad Biden

    Bernie Sanders: (01:39)
    Well, I think you can make the same point about China. China is undoubtedly an authoritarian society. Okay? But would anybody deny, any economists deny that extreme poverty in China today is much less than what it was 40 or 50 years ago? That’s a fact. So I think we condemn authoritarianism, whether it’s in China, Russia, Cuba, any place else. But to simply say that nothing ever done by any of those administrations had a positive impact on their people, would I think be incorrect

    These statements get applause on social media and college campuses but send people who have lived under those regimes in the arms of Rs.

  101. 101.

    TBone

    @OzarkHillbilly: it’s a fucked up dealio.  I threatened to doxx the very politically active CEO of my local electric company back when I was still on Fascistbook.  My electric bills went up afterwards but were gonna go up anyway (I’d never have carried out my threat because I don’t do that type of thing, but he doesn’t know that).  That fucking guy was posting all kinds of batshit disinfo and Rethug lies…

    Pennsyltucky sucks 😔

  102. 102.

    cain

    @OzarkHillbilly: They certainly are weird.

    I think that attack angle has really flustered them and they can see it for themselves when they look at their own ads with a critical eye.

  104. 104.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @TBone: ​
      So you threaten to doxx people but you aren’t the kind of person who would ever actually doxx anyone? Yeah, that’s reassuring.

  105. 105.

    TBone

    @Omnes Omnibus: I’m not technically capable of it.  Don’t know how to effectively.  But I will fight fire with fire wherever, whenever.

    It was a one time occurrence if that helps 😆

  106. 106.

    Sean

    @BR:

    If the ticket wants to make a good will swing thru Texas on their way to Arizona/Nevada or something like that, great. Energize folks, get some volunteers who might drag some close races over the line here.

    But I don’t want to see any major push in Texas. I think time and resources are better spent on the swing states and preparing for the legal deluge post-election. If she pulls it off, the entire month of November and maybe into December are going to be a shit-show of the Big Lie 2.0.

  107. 107.

    Kent

    @kindness:I think the swing states are going to solidly be Kamela’s.  I’d like to see the campaign spend more time in Florida and maybe even Texas.  I think they could win those states.

    A win is a win.  Both Bush and Trump governed like dictators despite eeking out the narrowest electoral college win while losing the popular vote.

    I would be as happy as anyone if the election was a landslide. And I’m with Howard Dean in that I think Dems should campaign everywhere.   But you gotta win first.

    But FAR more important than a big electoral college margin is winning state and local races.  Republicans understand the importance of those.  Democrats seem not to in many cases (I’m looking at you Obama).

  108. 108.

    Chris

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    The Punditariat are a toxic fandom, and politics is their geeky fascination.  This analogy works so well it is almost the literal truth.  They had their fan fictions ready of how they wanted this election to go, and they screamed until they got the main character who was in the way fired.  Their dramatic headcanons were proved wrong, and they are Big Mad.  The white men they wanted in the lead role were all passed over for a black woman who is way better at the role, and they are scrambling for some way to claim that nuh-uh, she’s inferior but it’s not about race or sex but ethics in gaming journalism.  Fuckheads.

    What’s incredible is that they had an entire half-decade of fan fiction worked out all the way back in 2020.  First, Biden was supposed to get rid of Trump for them.  Then, Trump was supposed to sink without a trace.  Then, a new reasonable Moderate Republican was supposed to run in 2024.  Then, Biden was supposed to step down after only one term and leave the party in chaos.  And then, the Moderate Republican was supposed to take over and restore the country to its rightful rulers.

    Problem is, nothing after the first stage has gone the way it’s supposed to.  Biden unseated Trump, but then Trump refused to go away, the Moderate Republicans they spent all of 2022 and 2023 relentlessly promoting burned out in a wet fart, Biden refused to step down, he was finally able to be bullied into stepping down, but then instead of leaving the party in disarray the Democrats’ prospects immediately got way better.  They’re all furious at us for failing to follow their fanfic.

    (Naturally, it isn’t just us who failed to follow their fanfic.  Republicans did too.  But, well, toxic fandoms are always selective about their blame.  Sort of like how all the problems with Star Wars in the last decade are Kathleen Kennedy’s fault, because Kathleen Kennedy’s a woman).

  110. 110.

    Kent

    @schrodingers_cat:These statements get applause on social media and college campuses but send people who have lived under those regimes in the arms of Rs.

    Exactly.  It is completely tone deaf.  Because the criticism of authoritarian states is not that they don’t accomplish anything.  You can actually accomplish a lot if you are authoritarian.  Rather, the criticism of authoritarian states is the disregard for human rights, freedom, personal autonomy, dissent, and so forth.

    Look at our own asylum system.  If you are an economic refugee from an authoritarian state by definition you do not qualify for asylum.  You are just derisively called an “economic refugee”.   You must have some basis other than economics to claim asylum.

  112. 112.

    Jim Appleton

    @Kent: I have a fantasy future where K/W 25-28 calms things down by clear benefits, but worn by MSM and wildcards like goon militia.

  113. 113.

    Hungry Joe

    @narya: Yeah, when I got my second (current) batch of 200 from Postcards to Swing States they informed me that it would be the last — it’ll take them a while to fulfill the final orders.

    I don’t worry about distribution of cards, or whether I’m putting my energy into the best possible places. I just volunteer — to both write and door-knock — and then go where they send me, figuring that others will be doing the same in places where I’m not. It’s the foot-soldier attitude, and I’m comfortable with it.

  114. 114.

    CliosFanBoy

    @Caveatimperator:

     A few years ago while visiting my wife and me in DC, my wife’s sister-in-law (who votes republican of course) pointed at the US Capitol and said “There’s the White House.”
    “No, that’s the US Capitol.”
    “What’s that?”
    “Where Congress meets.”
    “Who?”

    Even worse, she had just passed her US Citizenship test after living in the US for decades, which tells you how difficult that exam is.

  119. 119.

    tam1MI

    @BR: One of the mistakes of Clinton ’16 was generally ignoring the blue wall states in favor of reach states, and when Comey hit, there wasn’t enough goodwill built up in the blue wall to weather the storm.

    Worse, they ignored or dismissed voices being raised in alarm that the blue wall states were slipping away. I recall seeing on Daily Kos that people in Michigan were bringing in datasets to voting HQ showing that they were losing crucial areas, only to see the people there throw away the datasets without reading them. The book BATTLE FOR THE SOUL describes a conversation between Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan has a conversation with Joe Biden where Biden mentions that Clinton’s internal polling shows her up by 5% in Michigan and Duggan flatly replies that the internal polls are wrong and that Clinton is going to lose Michigan by about 10,000 votes. ( She lost Michigan by 10,704 votes).

    I have been skeptical of the efficacy of internal polls ever since…

  120. 120.

    CliosFanBoy

    @TBone:

      Thanks, but I’m used to it. she lives in Colorado Springs so you can guess the atmosphere in which she’s emersed. It doesn’t help that she’s a 10 watt fridge light in a 100 watt world.

  121. 121.

    Kent

    @Jim Appleton:@Kent: I have a fantasy future where K/W 25-28 calms things down by clear benefits, but worn by MSM and wildcards like goon militia.

    Things will NEVER calm down.

    The iron rule of politics in the modern era is that the orcs are ALWAYS at the gate except when they are inside the castle and running things.

    We forget that at our peril.

  122. 122.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @sdhays:

    Once one of the poster children for the worst that is the Beltway Political Media Corpse got onto the Pulitzer committee (or board or whatever), Jim Fucking Vandehei, I knew that whatever credibility the general political media might have had went right down the toilet.

  123. 123.

    SatanicPanic

    @Chris:First, Biden was supposed to get rid of Trump for them.  Then, Trump was supposed to sink without a trace.  Then, a new reasonable Moderate Republican was supposed to run in 2024.  Then, Biden was supposed to step down after only one term and leave the party in chaos.

    Maybe you’re taking this a bit too far?

  128. 128.

    Burnspbesq

    @Belafon:

    So, is Bernie to the right of the middle of the Democratic party since Harris had a more liberal voting record than he did?

    Bernie is sui generis. And thank Heaven for that.

     

    @Belafon:

  129. 129.

    H.E.Wolf

    @narya: ​

    @CaseyL: ​
     Both of y’all ROCK! Wherever you put your time and effort, it will be valuable.

    All of the postcard writers at BJ inspire me to keep writing, too… my energy and my writing hand were flagging a bit during August. Thank you!

  130. 130.

    SatanicPanic

    @Chris: I just don’t think there’s any overarching message like this. People seem to see what they want to see in the media.

  131. 131.

    Citizen Alan

    @catclub: I assume that the Not Trump price takes into account the non-trivial chance that the repulsive fat slob will keel over dead between now and November.

  135. 135.

    Citizen Alan

    @Omnes Omnibus:  I remember the then-editor of the Jackson Clarion-Ledger threatening in an email to dox me after I’d written him an angry email about his demagoguery over a proposed referendum to guarantee full funding of all Mississippi schools, including decrepit Delta schools. (His main argument was that all school funding issues raised under the referendum would go to a judge in Hinds County, and therefore a black judge.) I called his bluff and said I was proud of what I’d called him and was happy to discuss his bigotry in a more public forum than email exchanges. And also that his threat was exactly what I would have expected from the editor of a paper that ran Ann Coulter weekly. He gave a snotty dismissive reply but never carried out his threat.

  137. 137.

    Citizen Alan

    @sdhays: I think the Pulitzer Prize, like the Presidential Medal of Freedom, has been utterly ruined by the low quality people who have won them over the last ten years.

    I’m of the opinion that most contemporary journalists and the overwhelming majority of the FTNYT “journalists” would be happy to see America burn to the ground because of all the Pulitzers they would expect to win from writing stories about the flaming wreckage.

  138. 138.

    wjca

    @Baud:  we’re less blue dog and centrist than we were during the first half of this century.

    Would that be the first 12 years of this century? Of the second half of the last century? Inquiring minds want to know.

  140. 140.

    Citizen Alan

    @SatanicPanic: No, he’s talking about the imaginary script that the MSM thought the world would follow. And frankly it looks pretty accurate to me and is the source of the MSM’s current agita. Things didn’t go according to the stories they had pre-written.

  141. 141.

    Trollhattan

    @sdhays:

    Dowd won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize, for distinguished commentary.

    And yet Mean Girls was not released until 2004. Does it really take three years to complete a script, then pitch it and cast the film? Granted, we started two wars in the interim and were pretty busy.

  142. 142.

    Baud

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Yeah, that’s a weird statement since poverty in China went down because they opened up economically, although they did it in a better way that Russia did after the fall of the USSR.

  143. 143.

    artem1s

    @hrprogressive: ​ 

    The message I’m hearing is one the Democratic Party should have found a long time ago:

    “Our policies, beliefs, and proposals are wildly popular, firmly in the mainstream, and seek to help as many of our fellow citizens as we can. Join us, won’t you?”

    The base of the Democratic Party found this message a long time ago. It was the last vestiges of the old Southern, Whites only Unions and White men who kept pressuring the party to go backward on labor, and civil rights and throw women under the bus over Roe. They are the ones have insisted on keeping that message on the down-low until 2020 forced them to accept that there was no returning to their male dominated, Tip O’Neil bi-partisan rainbow ponies dream.
    Everyone who keeps repeating the misinformation that Harris was a bad campaigner in 2020 is helping the usual suspects cast doubt on her qualifications. The reason Harris couldn’t gain any traction in the primaries is because the Party leaders were too afraid to throw their support to their biggest fundraiser and 2nd most qualified candidate because of what happened, what they helped happen, in 2016 to the woman candidate.
    In 2016 they couldn’t bring themselves to give unqualified support to the most qualified, liberal, progressive candidate who ever ran for the WH (in 2008 and in 2016) because she didn’t have a penis. They couldn’t mount an effective strategy to combat the MSM butteremails because they never had her back. They never had Obama’s back either or they would have never let McConnell dictate SCOTUS picks.
    And the main reason they have lost the support of White women over the last 3 decades is because of the way they looked aside when the MSM and the GOP treat qualified women in power like they are an abomination. Even after everything that’s happened in the last 4 years they can’t admit that Joe’s win in 2020 came primarily because he refused to give up on the base of the party and understood that Clyburn’s support was critical to GOTV in swing states. He made good on his word to choose a woman as his VP, to nominate a Black Woman to SCOTUS and move the first primaries away from NH and Iowa to South Carolina. He understood that it was time to bring the message out of hiding.
    Harris is the latest step to stop the drift of the Overton window ever rightward. It’s not the last. But it was critical to finally slam the door shut on whether the White base of the Democratic Party really wants to accept women and POC to take lead of the Party. Nancy kept Ryan from dragging us back to the 1950’s and handed the House to Jeffries when she left. This Convention put women leaders front and center and this campaign (and by extension the Party) made it clear that misogyny is not acceptable to main stream Dems anymore. See, even White guys like Tim Walz will fully support a qualified candidate even if she doesn’t look like or have a penis like the last 46 presidents. And she (and Biden) made it clear that gains in civil rights and economic gains for one group will mean gains for all demographics. This isn’t a “we win, you lose” campaign. Hasn’t been since 2020. Hopefully the semi-Dems and DINOs don’t forget this lesson about who the base of the party is in the next 4 years.

  144. 144.

    Ksmiami

    @Citizen Alan: checks notes… many institutions have been diminished by unhappy billionaires and the Republican Party- just look at the Supremely Corrupt Court. It’s finished- it just doesn’t know it yet.

  146. 146.

    wjca

    @Kent: But FAR more important than a big electoral college margin is winning state and local races.  Republicans understand the importance of those.  Democrats seem not to in many cases

    THIS!!!

    Failure to pay attention to this, especially state legislature races, is why we have so much gerrymandering.  We’d have some, regardless.  But way less, if Democrats paid more attention.  Particularly in census years.

  147. 147.

    SatanicPanic

    @Citizen Alan: I understood that, it just seems like it isn’t that clear to me. I mean, people on our side often say the media wants Trump, either because it’s good for the clicks OR because the corporate owners want tax cuts. But Chris is saying that the media doesn’t want Trump, they wanted Biden to get rid of Trump. Not sure which is true, maybe they’re both wrong.

    I buy that the media overrepresents opinion writers from the “fiscally conservate, socially liberal” quadrant. So yeah, there are a lot of pundits that want a moderate Republican president. And that might even define the media ecosystem in general. But beyond that it’s a lot of speculation with no solid data behind it.

  148. 148.

    persistentillusion

    @CliosFanBoy: Hey, I also live in Colorado Springs, where we have an active and growing group of Dems. Thirty years ago, when I moved here from Chicago, you would have been right.  Not now….

  149. 149.

    BR

    @BR: ​

    I should have added — I think this Walz content is FP worthy. This is why Harris was so right to pick Walz.

  151. 151.

    Chris

    @Citizen Alan:

    I’m of the opinion that most contemporary journalists and the overwhelming majority of the FTNYT “journalists” would be happy to see America burn to the ground because of all the Pulitzers they would expect to win from writing stories about the flaming wreckage.

    Earlier this year there was a movie about an American civil war set in the near-future.

    Which provoked the expected amount of backlash from people criticizing it for the poor taste inherent in making that sort of movie at a time when a civil war is very much a possibility in the near future.

    The response to which was, well, but it’s not really about the war!  You don’t even dwell on the big picture behind the war all that much!  What the movie really is about is an ode to the importance of fair and unbiased journalism!  

    And I haven’t seen the movie and doubt that I ever will, so I can’t say how accurate either the critics or the defenders of the movie were.  But I remember reading the defense and thinking that if it was true, that would make this pretty much the most Village-brained movie ever made.  What is the war being fought over?  Who cares!  What are the two sides of the war?  Who cares!  Who started the war?  Who cares!  What’s important is the media covering the war!  They’re the real heroes!

  157. 157.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Chris: I never saw the movie but I remember hearing that it took pains to blur out the two sides from Democrats vs. Republicans–if I recall correctly, California and Texas were on the same side vs. the evil federal government.

    Which they probably thought was clever, but, you know, it’s a pulled punch.

    If we get the civil war that some of these guys want, it’s going to be neighbor vs. neighbor down to the block level. Every podunk town turned into a killing field.

  158. 158.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Citizen Alan:

    I think the Pulitzer Prize, like the Presidential Medal of Freedom, has been utterly ruined by the low quality people who have won them over the last ten years.

    Fully agree, but I hate to tell you, MoDo got her Pulitzer in 1999 — fully a quarter of a century ago. For her coverage of the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal. So your point absolutely stands; it’s just been going on a lot longer than you surmised.

  159. 159.

    zhena gogolia

    @BR: OMG THAT HAS TO BE ON THE FRONT PAGE

    I can’t wait to show this to my husband. He already loves the guy, but this will really do it. The gutter obsession 😂😂💜

  160. 160.

    Sean

    @Ksmiami:

    Honestly, right now NC looks more doable than GA. The Governor’s race between Stein and Robinson (going REALLY bad for Robinson now) could be a factor in driving just enough Harris votes to drag them across the finish line, where they’re already polling pretty well given the NC of it all. I’d be cool seeing them go for it there. But not in Texas or Florida.

  161. 161.

    zhena gogolia

    @Baud: One of our friends was quoting her at the dinner table the other night. I don’t remember the quote (it was anti-Trump, so I allowed it), but my God, people are still quoting her.

  162. 162.

    Trivia Man

    Two questions for trump that should be asked every day:

    1) How will you vote on Florida Amendment 4? If he needs a hint, remind him is to codify the right to an abortion in state law. If it comes up at the debate, dare him to endorse either YES or NO. “If you are as important as you claim, your endorsement here should ensure your position wins. Which is it?”

    2) Where are your tax returns?

  165. 165.

    SatanicPanic

    @Baud: “And the Most Superfluous Dingbat Award goes tooooooooooo… Jason Willick! Congratulations, you have managed to do absolutely nothing of value for another year! Well done!”

  168. 168.

    jonas

    @catclub: Yeah, on the one hand, the Oscars are basically a big circle jerk for Hollywood insiders and machers. Always has been. But on the other, there’s at least a pretense that the Best Picture award should be about cinematic artistry and storytelling and impact. Weinstein’s lobbying for SIL went *way* beyond a couple of “for your consideration” ads in Variety and approached outright extortion in some instances. As bullshit and corrupt as Hollywood can be, that was a new low.

    Crash‘s win in 2004 was another gobsmacking blunder, but I don’t know what sort of chicanery was involved in that one, if any.

  172. 172.

    cain

    @BR: JFC – every right winger is going to look at that as a major attack ad and I’m here for it.

    That shit is going to hit them where it hurts.

    They are already trying to do some “he lies”! That attack about his dog was desperate!

  173. 173.

    Ishiyama

    @artem1s: The base of the Democratic Party found this message a long time ago.

     
    As in: back in 1976, and we’ve been wandering in the desert ever since, like (to mix a metaphor) a red-headed stepchild. It’s true that I didn’t know things about politics then that I recognize now, but the takeover of the Party by the present team is a dream fulfilled for those of us who have lived a long life under the shadow of these wars and economic disasters. We had our summer of love, but it’s been nothing but nightmares since 1980.

  175. 175.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Baud: I read recently that trust in mainstream news media is one of the biggest distinguishing differences between Trump opponents and supporters–with media-trusters on the anti-Trump side. If you hang around on political blogs like this one it feels like news from Mars. But American liberals mostly are the people who get their news from outlets like newspapers or CNN or MSNBC.

  176. 176.

    The Audacity of Krope

    @catclub: There are lots of voters who think divided government is a good thing.

    No accountability and nothing gets done. Genius!

    From the same line of thinking that brings you “my lack of a firm moral stance tells me you can just average out what the ‘extremes’ want and that will make good policy.”

  177. 177.

    cain

    @Baud: I do, actually. I represent all of you. I’m like the Vishnu of the Democrats.

    When Arjun told Krish, ‘show me the money’ – boy did he.

    Vishnu. It’s what’s for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

  179. 179.

    Anyway

    @Kent:The iron rule of politics in the modern era is that the orcs are ALWAYS at the gate except when they are inside the castle and running things.

    Yep. Capital has decided that small-d democracy is the enemy and will throw in its lot with authoritarians and fascists to keep its share of the pie. Make sure the serfs don’t get more than their teeny share.

  180. 180.

    Matt McIrvin

    @artem1s: The old “New Deal coalition” assumption was that white men WERE the mainstream, and it wasn’t going to be possible to assemble a durable winning coalition without a majority of them. They were trying to undo the Reagan Democrat transformation of white men.

    All the “class not race”/”pocketbook not gender” reasoning that drives lefties to horseshoe land, or centrists to David Brooks idiocy, has that assumption underpinning it.

  181. 181.

    Matt McIrvin

    @catclub: I’ve never been sure if so many voters really think divided government is a good thing, or if pundits just say they do because they’re extrapolating from the party swings between presidential and midterm elections (which are really about different groups of voters turning out between the two).

    Everyone wants divided government when the alternative is the other side being in charge of everything.

  182. 182.

    TBone

    @BR: I love that guy!  When the tornado here knocked down a bunch of trees that took out part of the carport roof, the homeowners insurance paid for half of a new roof for the whole house (I paid for the other, undamaged half) AND all new gutters.  First thing we did after that was install leaf guards on all of them!  Well tended gutters 💙

  184. 184.

    Baud

    @Matt McIrvin:

    I think we trust the media to not lie about the underlying facts, although even that’s getting iffy. But when it comes to setting an agenda about what to cover and how to present it, I think that’s where we shouldn’t follow what they decide. And commentary and analysis is a whole other level of fail.

  185. 185.

    wjca

    @Matt McIrvin: The old “New Deal coalition” assumption was that white men WERE the mainstream, and it wasn’t going to be possible to assemble a durable winning coalition without a majority of them. They were trying to undo the Reagan Democrat transformation of white men.

    It may even have had some validity, before the big demographic changes we’ve seen in the past few decades.  It got Bill Clinton a win.  It got Gore a (popular vote) win.  So perhaps not so crazy, originally, as some here would like to think.

  187. 187.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @SatanicPanic:

    Maybe you’re taking this a bit too far?

    I dunno, I remember hearing pundits talking about this way back in 2020, and it fits their coverage since.  DeSantis was supposed to take out Trump, for example, and “Will Biden step aside and not run for reelection?” has been a regularly posed press question for awhiiiiile.  I don’t recall much “Kamala Harris will succeed him”, and after the debate and the pundits were sure they had Biden trapped, the narrative sure wasn’t “Harris will smoothly pick up the nomination.”  It was all about the pundit’s favorite white guy leaping out of nowhere at the convention to grab the nomination.

    @artem1s:

    the Party leaders were too afraid to throw their support

    Black voters in South Carolina?

  188. 188.

    TBone

    PSA: It’s Ossie Davis day on TCM’s Summer Under the Stars for all who celebrate!

    Just saw a wonderful, if slightly cheesy, 70s made-for-TV movie (commercials cut out) called The Sheriff.

  190. 190.

    sdhays

    @Baud: Yeah, for the NYT, I consider them basically National Enquirer level for anything touching on domestic politics. Possibly some facts there, definitely a suspect agenda, very possibly just plain lies mixed in.

    Who has time for wading through that shit?

  192. 192.

    The Audacity of Krope

    @sdhays: Who has time for wading through that shit?

    The FTFNYT is turning increasingly toward games and other content geared towards consumers who want to get the Times and relax.

    “Pick the useful, accurate information out of this article” is just a verbal/logic version of Sudoku.

  195. 195.

    TBone

    @Manyakitty: I didn’t see it in the lineup – Do The Right Thing at 8pm, Get On The Bus at 10pm…

    Might’ve been on this morning.

    Right now, a short 50s (60s?) feature about the dangers of marijuana 😆

    Tom’s buddy is taking Tom for a ride to see his buddy, a “true expert on the grass scene.” Of course, they go to a head shop!  A psychedelic delicatessen!

    Hmmm, this film might actually be pro-weed 😆

    Nope, now we’re getting into the “leads to harder stuff” territory.

  199. 199.

    The Audacity of Krope

    @SatanicPanic: Maybe you’re taking this a bit too far?

    Per Balloon Juice’s favorite Pulitzer winner; “Is it irresponsible to speculate? It would be irresponsible not to.”

    We don’t need a higher bar on accuracy when discussing the media than they have discussing, well, anything.

  201. 201.

    rikyrah

     

    Hey Jo 🤍 (@joe_jo4) posted at 0:27 PM on Mon, Aug 26, 2024:
    Ken Paxton literally confiscated phones and computers from Latino Democrats based upon a debunked conspiracy that Maria Bartiromo made stating she heard from a friend, who heard from a friend that his wife said there was a massive line of immigrants obtaining driver’s licenses at a DPS office in Weatherford.

    THEY ARE TERRIFIED OF THE LATINO VOTE!

    texastribune.org/2024/08/26/tex…
    (https://x.com/joe_jo4/status/1828122036847174080?t=O7s0EGqIoXs53rBHHXf05w&s=03)

  202. 202.

    Ksmiami

    @Sean: yep… NC and GA should be the focus and don’t understand the Atlanta Democratic Machine- if they can turn out, we can still win GA, even with the vote fuckery

  205. 205.

    rikyrah

     

    Will Bunch (@Will_Bunch) posted at 0:04 PM on Tue, Aug 27, 2024:
    Harris is running as the 1st post-media president. It’s the media’s own fault!

    Instead of meeting a threat to democracy, careerist clickbaiters have both-sidesed, fact-checked trivia, and asked pointless questions

    My column on 2024’s massive media fail🎁https://t.co/eoJRnw7Jwg
    (x.com/Will_Bunch/status/1828478723517034941?s=02)

  206. 206.

    Manyakitty

    @TBone: understandable. Some of that is rough. At least the nursing home staff in the movie is generally kind and concerned.

  207. 207.

    RevRick

    In a few minutes, I’ll lead a Zoom meeting for the PNEC UCC Racial Justice team as we finalize plans for a bus trip to the African American Museum of History and Culture in DC in October. Sunday, I led our local church’s Green Team as we discussed environmental goals for our church, which we will submit to our Consistory at the September meeting.
    Asking this community for supporting thoughts.

  208. 208.

    Soprano2

    @zhena gogolia: I got most of the stuff for last year’s bathroom remodel at Menards. I think I got over $250 back from that rebate. It’s not worth it if you just spend a few dollars, but I spent a whole bunch of dollars. The rebate was part of the reason I went there, but also they were the only place that had the cabinet and vanity I wanted.

  210. 210.

    lowtechcyclist

    @hrprogressive: ​
     

    The message I’m hearing is one the Democratic Party should have found a long time ago:

    “Our policies, beliefs, and proposals are wildly popular, firmly in the mainstream, and seek to help as many of our fellow citizens as we can. Join us, won’t you?”

    Instead of a bunch of mealy-mouthed, wishy-washy “Well, you know, healthcare would be great, but gosh darnit if only the GOP would come sing kumbaya with us, we’ll destroy our own bills if you’ll vote with us, pretty please?” nonsense.

    It really couldn’t have happened until now, because the party wasn’t sufficiently unified until now. You can’t say “this is what we stand for” of a whole bunch of your ‘we’ isn’t willing to take that stand.

    There’s a reason why “Democrats in disarray” was a cliche for so long. We were a party that mostly agreed on most things, but there were always lots of people who weren’t ready to be publicly for this or that. How many Dem pols weren’t ready to be for gay marriage just thirteen years ago, for instance? And climate change legislation died in 2009 because not enough Dem Senators were willing to support it.

    I’m glad the party has realized that it’s found this moment of unity, because I think being able to say, in your words, “Our policies, beliefs, and proposals are wildly popular, firmly in the mainstream, and seek to help as many of our fellow citizens as we can. Join us, won’t you?” is the way we can broaden and deepen support for the party and its goals, and become truly a majority party at last. But it’s possible now because of that newfound unity.

  212. 212.

    Soprano2

    @The Audacity of Krope: There are a lot of people who still think divided government makes people compromise so more things get done in a more moderate way. These are people who haven’t actually followed politics for a long, long time, or they would know all Republicans want to do when they aren’t in total power is prevent anything from getting done.

  214. 214.

    rikyrah

    @Chris:

    They never hold Republicans accountable FOR ANYTHING.

     

    THE GOP chose not to rid themselves of the Orange Menace

    Along with a MSM that continued to try and normalize him….AFTER JANUARY6TH😠😠😠

     

    The Republicans could have ended it with a guilty verdict at the Impeachment. They didn’t.

     

    But, somehow, the MSM won’t hold Republicans responsible for their actions.😠

  218. 218.

    Old School

    @The Audacity of Krope:

    Isn’t that a Peggy Noonan quote?

    It was – in a column about Elian Gonzalez.

    “Why did he do this thing?… Was it fear of Fidel Castro?… Was it another threat from Havana?… Was Mr. Clinton being blackmailed?… Is it irresponsible to speculate? It would be irresponsible not to.”

    –Peggy Noonan on Bill Clinton (Wall Street Journal, 4/24/00)

  220. 220.

    Mr. Bemused Senior

    @Baud: perhaps you’re thinking of
    Cheney’s “one percent doctrine”

    The title comes from a story within the book in which Vice President Dick Cheney describes the Bush administration’s doctrine on dealing with terrorism:[3]

    If there’s a 1% chance that Pakistani scientists are helping al-Qaeda build or develop a nuclear weapon, we have to treat it as a certainty in terms of our response. It’s not about our analysis … It’s about our response

  221. 221.

    TBone

    @Manyakitty: after enough time passes, I’ll be able to watch Bubba Ho-Tep and laugh about all of the absurdity of aging, hopefully before the movie and I are too old!

  225. 225.

    Chris

    @Matt McIrvin:

    @Baud: I read recently that trust in mainstream news media is one of the biggest distinguishing differences between Trump opponents and supporters–with media-trusters on the anti-Trump side. If you hang around on political blogs like this one it feels like news from Mars. But American liberals mostly are the people who get their news from outlets like newspapers or CNN or MSNBC.

    And that’s why hit jobs like 2000, 2016, or the last four years succeed.

  226. 226.

    The Audacity of Krope

    @Mr. Bemused Senior: If there’s a 1% chance that Pakistani scientists are helping al-Qaeda build or develop a nuclear weapon, we have to treat it as a certainty in terms of our response. It’s not about our analysis … It’s about our response

    I wasn’t aware of this history when Batman used this precise logic as a basis to go after Superman in Jack Snyder’s underwhelming Batman v Superman.

  227. 227.

    Captain C

    @sdhays: I hope it was for her columns attacking Judith “WMD” Miller.  Or if not that, for her column about the time she didn’t read the instructions and ate way too much cannabis edible.

  229. 229.

    lowtechcyclist

    @TBone:

    Nope, now we’re getting into the “leads to harder stuff” territory.

    To the extent that it was true at all (not very), it was because marijuana was just as illegal as hard drugs were, so they shared a distribution system. The same guy you bought that dime bag from might also try to sell you mescaline or cocaine.

    That’s one of the big plusses of cannabis legalization – it breaks that link.

  230. 230.

    Captain C

    @jonas:

    Weinstein’s lobbying for SIL went *way* beyond a couple of “for your consideration” ads in Variety and approached outright extortion in some instances

    At minimum Saving Private Ryan (or if not that, Elizabeth) should have won that year, and Cate Blanchett should have smoked Gwyneth Paltrow for Best Actress.  I suspect in the case of the latter, pre-wellness shill Paltrow is Hollywood royalty, and enough of the voters figured this was probably her best shot at an Oscar, while Cate Blanchett, an actual competent actor, would get several other chances (which thankfully, she did).

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