she is not just playing to win.
she is playing to govern.all gas. no brakes. pic.twitter.com/t6Fmw9hb5A
— Florida Chris (@chrislongview) September 3, 2024
Harris is visiting New Hampshire, away from bigger swing states, to tout her small business tax plan https://t.co/SbloySVbhr
— The Associated Press (@AP) September 4, 2024
"When everybody does better, everyone does better." Walz playing off the late Minnesotan Paul Wellstone's saying "We all do better when we all do better." https://t.co/33zDa08Aou
— Eric Michael Garcia (@EricMGarcia) September 3, 2024
As a former teacher, nothing beats that first day of school feeling. It’s all about hope and possibility.
Wishing all students and teachers a great school year! pic.twitter.com/eqwbLIrHnM
— Tim Walz (@Tim_Walz) September 3, 2024
George Clooney says during a Venice press conference that he takes no credit for President Joe Biden stepping down from the presidential race.
The actor wrote an op-ed in The New York Times in July saying Democrats needed a new nominee. pic.twitter.com/pf1O7eC4I4— AP Entertainment (@APEntertainment) September 3, 2024
I've been saying this. The media is behind the curve (again). The Beltway Media spends too much time covering stories for each other but the reality is that they like Trump more than the Non MAGA public does. https://t.co/BKLznOEb1r
— DFW Sports 4Life (@Kennymack1971) September 3, 2024
Even the Repubs, in their patented tone-deaf fashion…
"Haha look at Democrats symbolizing their transition from the face of 20th century America to the 21st."
— Shadow Of The Nerdtree (@agraybee) September 3, 2024
Baud
Republicans think it’s still 2016. Let’s hope their wrong.
Scott
The T-shirt on the kid in the Tim Walz classroom photo just made me laugh out loud. Subliminal message?
moonbat
Too bad, Mr. Clooney. I’m giving you some credit/blame anyway. lol
H.E.Wolf
I’ve always liked the “Rosie the Riveter” image which has Rosie rolling up her sleeves to get to work. That’s my guiding example for the next 9 weeks.
And I’ve always loved the original “Rosie the Riveter” painting by Norman Rockwell: with Rosie wearing union buttons on her work shirt, and stomping on a copy of Mein Kampf. That’s my goal.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊 😊 😊
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Baud
@H.E.Wolf:
We need to circulate that one more. It’s apt in today’s climate.
rikyrah
Right now, we are all in to try and save democracy in America.
But, post -election?
Yeah, there’s a list😒😒😒
Scout211
Much to celebrate in the Harris-Walz campaign. I love that pic of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris hugging. Very sweet.
And Trump’s sentencing is still scheduled for September 18th.
dmsilev
The GOP thinks that photo of Biden and Harris together is something to be ashamed of? I’m honestly confused as to why they would post it. Maybe they think “Biden unpopular, therefore Harris should be too”?
(Although don’t tell the GOP, but Biden’s approval numbers have been coming up over the last couple of months…)
zhena gogolia
@Scott: Hahaha
Baud
@dmsilev:
Who knows? They’re weird.
zhena gogolia
@moonbat: Me too. So sad his movie is going straight to streaming.
Jeffro
I’m closing in on finishing my first 100 (of 300) “postcards to swing states”. It’s been EXTREMELY helpful in feeling like I’m doing something every day, doing my part. =)
Have a great day Jackals! …and…GO BLUE!!!
p.a.
Sending money down ticket is good. Reading the Kremlin-parade* tea leaves, does this mean internal polls strong and getting stronger? Am I overthinking this? Maybe just so awash in $$$ they have to spend it somewhere? Either/or, it’s a good place to be.
*How old to understand the reference?🙃
rikyrah
ProPublica (@propublica) posted at 8:00 AM on Wed, Sep 04, 2024:
Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, privately heaped praise on a major religious-rights group for fighting efforts to reform the nation’s highest court — efforts sparked, in large part, by her husband’s ethical lapses.
https://t.co/QL1KIsoIjA
(https://x.com/propublica/status/1831316439325634962?t=FHt_gyE_5vh8YpyRaEPaxg&s=03)
rikyrah
@Jeffro:
Yeah 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
p.a.
@dmsilev: All they understand is fear and anger.
Soprano2
I thought this from Josh Marshall was interesting. I subscribe, so I can share with this link.
Basically, TCFG’s people have decided they can’t raise his favorable numbers any, so they’re going to try to bring hers down
The suit in the first cartoon should be a Tyvek suit if he’s getting all his stuff from the sewer. LOL
dmsilev
Good story in the Post this morning about how Democrats and affiliated groups turned Project 2025 into a toxic object and a potent attack against Trump:
Cutting to the chase:
Baud
@dmsilev:
👍
Baud
@Soprano2:
That’s what Republicans always do.
WaterGirl
@H.E.Wolf: If you have a link, can you send that my way?
BR
Did anyone join the Women for Harris organizing call yesterday? I’ve been curious whether the big calls are still getting good attendance and also whether Shannon Watts is going to organize another call like before.
MattF
@dmsilev: So… when pollsters listened to what voters were bringing up, the attacks were effective.
Anyway
LOL! haveta say – I love your comments on the sewer systems – essential part of infrastructure!
artem1s
@dmsilev:
I’m sure the GOP were confused about why loser Hillary was at the convention too. All Democrats, once they are not running get higher approval ratings. It’s almost as if there is a system of communication out there that spreads ill will and disinformation about them when Dems are leading the government.
Jeffro
@Soprano2: they can try, but it took 30 years of non-stop Republican Noise Machine slander to bring Hillary Clinton down to trump’s unpopularity level back in 2016.
They only had/have a few months to try and do it to Harris, and if anything, it looks like it’s only helping her become more appealing to swing voters, normies, and the like.
Soprano2
@dmsilev: I think they see BIden as a loser, so to them any association with a loser makes you a loser too. Of course, they don’t see TCFG that way even though he’s a huge loser.
I talked to a co-worker who voted for TCFG. He says he’ll still vote for him because of abortion and “that gay stuff”. He knows TCFG isn’t a Christian and has reprehensible behavior, but he’s strongly anti-abortion and anti-gay, so that’s what guides his vote. He was unhappy that TCFG was backing away from what he did on abortion. He’s afraid his kids will be exposed to “that gay stuff” in schools, so it tracks with my belief that they’re afraid seeing stuff about gay people will turn their kids gay. I don’t try to change his mind, except I did mention that the strict abortion laws are hurting pregnant women because they can’t get proper care. He sounded dubious about that, so I told him to look it up for himself.
Baud
@Soprano2:
At least he didn’t pretend to be reachable.
Scout211
@WaterGirl: Post covers from Google images (there may be better quality ones out there. Many are for sale)
Rosie the Riveter
Rosie the Rescuer
ETA: Rosie the Rescuer isn’t union related, but I like it.
Hungry Joe
POSTCARD UPDATE — SERIES 2
Postcards to Swing States:
Yesterday — 15
Running total — 171
Soprano2
@Anyway: Thanks, it’s an extremely important thing no one thinks about until it isn’t working correctly; it then becomes the most important thing in people’s lives.
eclare
@Jeffro:
Postcards To Swing States (NC):
25 done with stamps on, 175 to go. Mail date is Oct 15, I got this.
Frankensteinbeck
@Soprano2:
I remember multiple articles over the last several years that this is one of the greatest oddities about Trump, from a political strategist’s perspective. Trump’s numbers don’t change. Maybe his voter enthusiasm does, but that’s hard to measure. The question is always how much ‘undecided’ swings to ‘Democrat’ or just remains ‘undecided’.
Jeffro
@dmsilev: I read that and agree – good piece!
Part of the reason the anti-Project 2025 attacks work so well is that even normies know by now that trump will greenlight literally anything if it gets him into/keeps him in power.
He’s a puppet for anyone who flatters and/or bribes him, and everyone knows it.
Soprano2
@Baud: No, he didn’t. He’s a good guy who I like even though we disagree about that stuff. We can talk about it without getting angry. I can do that with people if they’ll let me! I did want to bring up the thing about pregnant women not being able to get proper care because of how they draft these laws, because I think that’s the best way to reach them on at least easing some of the most insane stuff. I don’t think most of them literally want women to die, they just don’t know much of anything about the topic or how pregnancy works. I think many of them don’t know that a miscarriage and an abortion are basically the same thing.
geg6
Clooney can kiss my white fucking ass. Piece of shit liar. He should go suck up to Trump. I’ll never watch another thing with him involved in it again.
Soprano2
I think even the press knows this, but many of the reporters pretend that they don’t. It’s one of the things that maddens me the most about coverage of him, they pretend that the things he says actually mean something when they all know he lies constantly.
WaterGirl
@dmsilev: Who could have predicted that Biden’s approval would go up once the press stopped asking Biden every minute of every day?
BR
https://masto.ai/@Nonilex/113079486989853909
Frankensteinbeck
@Soprano2:
This is a huge thing. Conservatives generally live in a fantasy world, and the big question is how much they refuse to know the truth or have just easily accepted that things work the way that matches their bigotries. A major precept of their abortion position for any but the most sadistic evangelicals is that pregnancy is a perfect process and the complications liberals rail about are lies that can be ignored.
Hungry Joe
@eclare: It’s gratifying, isn’t it? Every day you’re doing something tangible, and the evidence is right there in front of you.
My mailing date is Oct. 24.
We got this, but still … pedal to the metal. All in. Sydney or the bush! (Okay, that one’s OLD.)
schrodingers_cat
Temu Cary Grant can go fuck himself
@geg6: GMTA.
BR
@Hungry Joe:
Thank you for the inspiration. We’re doing Arizona cards.
Separately, whether a good idea or not, I’ve started donating far more than I can afford to downballot candidates such as the ones on my young swing state Dems list:
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/youngswingdemcandidates
I realized that I haven’t donated this much since 2008. I wonder if it’s the same for others.
Frankensteinbeck
@WaterGirl:
Me, and I have no intention of forgetting any of it, but thank goodness we got lucky and Harris is incredibly popular. Let’s join hands and win this. I can point fingers later, when there are no stakes in who is right or wrong.
catclub
@Soprano2: Naturally the CNN headline was along the lines of ‘New Trump attack should have Harris worried.’
When all the things they had in the article were:
“New attacks show Trump is desperate and flailing.’
geg6
@BR:
That’s been running here almost non-stop. I couldn’t figure out why the woman seemed familiar and now I know why.
Baud
@catclub:
Almost all Republican attacks on Dems depend on a complicit mainstream media.
The Audacity of Krope
@schrodingers_cat: I’d threaten to stop watching George Clooney movies; but, honestly, the last I can think of that I watched has to have been a good 8 or 10 years ago.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Mainstream media should be christened RW Talking Points Media.
BR
@geg6:
Hmm. I guess we have to hope that there are so many incoherent lines of attack against Harris that it won’t stick well.
Mousebumples
@H.E.Wolf: speaking of getting to work, I did another 11 Postcards to Swing States for Wisconsin last night.
I think I might have an extra postcard in this batch. We’ll see if any of my other 2 x 100ct batches are short….
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Josh Marshall might not like that.
Mousebumples
@Jeffro: Great work! Where are your postcards headed?
ETA – open question for everyone postcarding. I like thinking about Juicers sending friendly GOTV messages across the country…
Baud
@BR:
Just keep repeating “Trump tanked the border bill”
It also has the virtue of being true.
BethanyAnne
@H.E.Wolf: I had never seen that. It’s great!
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Too bad. He launders Republican talking points too. He is just extra verbose and tries mightily to balance both sides.. He also gives space to virulent anti-immigrant op-ed writers like Judis. I know that he is beloved on this blog. I like TPM better during the Bush administration. YMMV.
Or we can just call the MSM, Republican PR media.
geg6
@The Audacity of Krope:
He directs and produces a lot these days. I will also avoid any of these productions, in addition to any acting roles. Pisses me off big time because I like him as an actor, especially in Michael Clayton and The Descendants. I also admired that he never stooped to doing superhero stuff after he made a fool of himself in Batman and Robin. I tend to lose respect for actors who I think are really good but lower themselves to comic book movie roles (yes, I’m looking at you Robert Downey, Jr.). And yes, I’m aware lots of people like that shit, but I despise it.
moonbat
@zhena gogolia: Must be because he’s so OLD that he’s lost his box office appeal.
Meow.
SatanicPanic
@Soprano2: the Republicans quoted in the WaPo article are delusional. The more people have seen of Harris the more they like her.
eclare
@geg6:
He was so good in The Descendants. Oh well, he is dead to me now.
TBone
@Scott: your attention to detail is amazing. LOL!
SatanicPanic
People are still mad at George Clooney?
TBone
@Baud: the first meme I found on Kamala Day One is a Rosie the Riveter meme. Beautific.
TBone
@Scout211: *rubs hands together in anticipation, with gleam in eye
geg6
@SatanicPanic:
I hold grudges and am not a big believer in forgiveness, especially when the person wanting forgiveness deflects and runs from their responsibility. Fuck George Clooney with a rusty chainsaw.
BR
I shared this the other day, but this is the kind of TikTok of Harris that is getting a ton of views and is light and fun:
https://www.tiktok.com/@kamalaharris/video/7408711099140394271
sixthdoctor
@Hungry Joe: That’s my mailing date as well (IA, 75 out of 200 so far).
I also learned that because my experience with corrective tape could’ve easily lead to a Clouseau-esque sequence where I’d fall down the stairs wrapped like a mummy, I’ve got to stick with good old-fashioned liquid white out…
schrodingers_cat
@schrodingers_cat: * liked
Jeffro
@eclare: you must be in an earlier ‘batch’ – mine are supposed to get mailed to NC between Oct 26-29.
cmorenc
@geg6:
Clooney was a big fundraiser and donor for Biden who, after the debate performance, said out loud what lots of other D supporters were thinking at that point. You speak as if Clooney had founded “Former Democrat Progressives for Trump” because of his very incremental part in eventually causing Biden to drop out in favor of Harris, but he was only one of many influential Ds – e.g. Pelosi behind the scenes had far more crucial influence on events than Clooney.
Helping Harris and Waltz over the winning finish line is what’s crucially important, your butt-hurt over Clooney (among many) helping push Biden toward his eventual decision to drop out in favor of Harris, not so much. Either be a team player and get on -board and help, or go sulk by yourself. Biden himself seems to have moved on and is helping, not sulking.
SatanicPanic
@geg6: I didn’t get the impression he’s asking for forgiveness
TBone
@rikyrah: my thoughts on that woman could get me banhammered for life (I read the article). Another grave I’ll be happily dancing and pissing upon, and that time can’t come soon enough. Grrrrrrr
Leto
The Guardian: Christian group recruits ‘Trojan horse’ election skeptics as US poll workers
And the closer:
These assholes are so tiring.
Jeffro
@Mousebumples: mine are going to neighboring North Carolina!
It’s interesting: the voter list I was given is from addresses all across the state. I guess that’s so that if any one postcard-writer falls down on the job or doesn’t get it done, it only impacts a voter or two per ZIP code?
I’m psyched, though. This is a really good daily thing to be doing! =)
geg6
@eclare:
I love that movie so much. But yes, he’s dead to me.
geg6
@SatanicPanic:
No, but he sure is deflecting.
Layer8Problem
@cmorenc: In terms of being team players and doing the work, kinda looks like we are dont’cha think? But we can still walk and chew gum at the same time.
Jeffro
OT but Brooksie and Douthat really showed their asses in That Paper today (and given that they do it pretty much every week, that’s really saying something)
Brooks had “how the Dems/Harris blew it” and Douthat had “how the GOP/trump blew it” – election postmortems, 2+ months in advance(!) You will be shocked to hear that in both columns, trump’s many disqualifying faults are glossed over and Harris’ are magnified.
SO full of themselves (barf)
Kirk
@SatanicPanic: My friend, some of us are still angry about the shit deal way the Biden push-out was run. And Clooney was a major part of that.
I will forgive some people for it; that’s just the way I am. But I will not forget any, and a few I will not forgive.
geg6
@cmorenc:
Go fuck yourself and take your condescending garbage elsewhere. I’m doing everything I can to get Harris/Walz elected. Believe it or not, I can hold two thoughts in my head at the same time!!!!! Shocking, I know!
Betty Cracker
@TBone: Ginni Thomas is dumb as a stump. That comes out in every communication of hers that’s released — the simple-minded, all caps exhortations to Meadows, the email blasts to former clerks, the transcript of the drunk-dial call to Anita Hill, etc. Her husband married a fool.
Baud
@cmorenc:
I’m not interested in the Clooney Wars now or later but no one here who hates Clooney is acting like a Bro who’s going to throw Kamala under the bus because of what happened. Biden supporters are all team players.
If you’re saying that people can’t even express their feelings about Clooney on BJ, you’re wrong. Nothing we say here matters.
SatanicPanic
Paging Matt McIvin- Digby messed up today:
The whole column is uncharacteristically bad but this quote is maybe the weakest. The Republicans can’t do this. It won’t happen.
Falling Diphthong
I think the main thing going on with the political media is just that they have formed a self-contained ecosystem within which they keep reinforcing each other’s takes. One of which is a complete dedication to the both-sides rule “Both sides should be equally mad at you; that means you’re doing your job.” Dana Boule even cited it after her Harris interview.
Coach Finstock on Bluesky noted that his wife, who is not a politics junkie, watched this interview and didn’t understand half the questions. It was all inside-baseball “How are you fitting our pre-existing narrative of you?” when she wanted “What are your governing priorities?”
This version of both-sides probably isn’t a great rule of thumb at any time. But now, when one side says “We are enraged at you for a thing we just made up. In fact, our candidate will literally cheer his supporters on as they physically attack you” then the media says “Golly! How can we appease this side so they are less mad, while attacking the other side so they get up to this level of mad?”
The political media is largely reduced to a crowd of very angry toddlers, chanting “Donald Trump says!” and furious that Harris won’t engage with the only framing they know.
The Thin Black Duke
@geg6: What’s depressing is the news that Brad Pitt, Clooney’s BFF, hit Angelina Jolie on the plane in front of their kids. But that’s alright with George, I guess.
SFAW
@Soprano2:
That was the whole point of the Benghazi hearings, among other things, even before “but her emailz!” (e.g., Clinton Foundation BS). Hillary was usually high on the “Most Admired” list, so the Partei of Traitors decided to “fix” that.
SatanicPanic
@geg6: I guess it’s a matter of perspective- he seems like he’s being humble about something that he is proud of being a part of.
SFAW
@SatanicPanic:
Of course they can. All it takes is 269-269 EV, which is not nearly impossible-enough. [Yes, I know “impossible-enough” is not an actual concept, same as with “fairly unique.”]
TBone
@Betty Cracker: cold comfort, that…
I detest how these freaks are still able to needle in with hate where love resides – Donvict no longer has that ability with me. But these others still do.
Gah!
ETA but your description has me putting proper perspective into play! 💜
cain
Today is my the first day of school for assistant principal wife. So far it’s a shit show because the principal has nothing ready – but he hired my wife and another equally smart assistant principal and women are gonna pull this through.
Jeffro
Also OT but much more heartening: looks like Bob (No)Good’s bitter supporters might just end up sabotaging psycho John McGuire’s chances of keeping VA-05 red this fall.
Every Good write-in is a vote that McGuire doesn’t get, and I guarantee you VA-05’s Dems are fired up and unified behind Gloria Witt. If this all succeeds and VA-05 goes blue, I swear, I’m going to EXPLODE with joy!
Frankensteinbeck
@Falling Diphthong:
I believe this is the most important feature in our shitty national press. Press that have left the job say it. Editors publicly brag about it. Even liberals in the system fall for it. In most outlets there is no need for pressure from the top. In the social group of punditry, the belief that they are celebrity sages whose hot takes are real wisdom pushes them to being unrealistically friendly to Republicans.
Baud
@Jeffro:
👍
Anyway
What?! not even all the performative “I will never forget….” takes?
ETA – lost interest after the first 50 or so times I saw them
Booger
@Jeffro: Good riddance! Throw him on the heap of mediocre white men that central VA seems to adore!
How did Riggleman turn out not awful??
Jeffro
@cain: good APs are worth their weight in gold (and then some!)
Please give her our best wishes!!
TBone
@cain: as usual…
Go team!
SatanicPanic
@SFAW: that’s not them “finding a way” through – you can’t plan a campaign that results in a tie. It would be an accident if it happened
Glidwrith
@Frankensteinbeck: The first words out of my brother’s and father’s mouth were “what if she’s a whore?” without any further thought involved.
Haven’t succeeded in cornering either one yet to get them to actually think, instead of knee-jerk react.
Starfish
@Scott: Oh my gosh! When I was in high school, there was a line of “Big Johnson” t-shirts, and boys were getting sent home all the time for dress code violations.
Another Scott
@Soprano2: My mom (previously a nursing student) was adamant that the event she had in the early ’70s was a “spontaneous abortion” not a “miscarriage”.
(repost) As always, the language used frames the debate and the way people think about it.
We know of other famous examples of this language technique.
Grr…,
Scott.
Anyway
@Jeffro: Yes! Moar RThug infighting please!
cain
@Soprano2: Hopefully, he discovers it is a lot worse than that – that the meds used to treat transgendered are also used in other things. The meds used to safe a pregnant woman’s life also requires same meds used for abortion.
Women are going to die needlessly, and he can bet his fucking life that women are going to be voting for their lives.
The man is probably a closet gay man if he fears gay men that much. Following an unscrupulous man who has no conviction because of this stuff. SMH.
Citizen Alan
@geg6: Off-topic, but I love Robert Downey Jr.’s MCU work precisely because he took it so seriously. Less so in the two Whedon Avengers movies, but I don’t Whedon was taking it seriously either. But in the latter two Iron Man movies, Civil War the Russo Avengers movies, RDJ brought a shocking level of gravitas to the role. I got chills watching Civil War at this exchange.
TBone
@Glidwrith: how do you stop yourself from punching them in the mouth? Or ‘nads? I would be hard pressed to restrain automatic fist movement.
cain
@Another Scott:
Hell, they are so desperate that they don’t even call it murder anymore, it’s called post birth abortion. 🤣🤣🤣
mrmoshpotato
@moonbat:
Right there with ya.
Mousebumples
@Jeffro: makes sense. I wonder if there any patterns – eg last names are alphabetical, first names are alphabetical, etc. I figure the voter list is likely sorted somehow?
TBone
@cain: I’d like to.laugh about that but…
Ugh. It’s always something!
(like Roseanne Roseanna Danna said!)
hueyplong
@Jeffro: If that happens, it’s probably true that lots of good things will be happening all at once.
cain
@geg6: What a fucking tool. Using your dead child to attack all immigrants.
Mousebumples
@cain: good luck to her, and her students!
Frankensteinbeck
@Glidwrith:
What if she isn’t? Personally I don’t care if she’s an actual prostitute or a woman who has tremendous amounts of irresponsible sex. Not my business. But even if those were bad things, even if an abortion was immoral, I’d rather a hundred of them get abortions than one woman bleed out in a parking lot.
cain
@SatanicPanic: Apparently, he wrote an article in the past two days.
RaflW
I thought I’d check in on the fever swamp beat, and Fox Digital is reporting that Trump & his team view his rallies and speeches as his ‘debate prep.’ Hilarious spin.
I guess his interview coming up soon with Sean Hannity will at least constitute a form of Q&A (softballs + efforts to redirect and fix blunders), but the rest? Two hour incoherent ramble-thons are just his standard WTF bluster.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@TBone:
You must learn control
cmorenc
@geg6: You aren’t helping moving forward to November by picking at old resentments against others on the same team.
Citizen Alan
@geg6: Honestly, I was annoyed at the time, but Clooney doesn’t bother me as much because I think he was merely a stalking horse for the Hollywood mega-donors. That was what pissed me off–Clooney doing a one-off editorial was nothing compared to the likes of Tom Strickland, a fucking talent agent who is somehow worth a billion dollars, demanding that Biden step aside or he and his rich buddies wouldn’t donate money to any Democrats this cycle. I think that’s why Schiff got out in front of it, because he was hearing from that crowd directly. Ditto Nancy Pelosi, which is why I believe she got involved in the way she did.
Mainly, it all bugged me that Biden got pushed out by the worst caricatures of “Hollywood liberals.”
Another Scott
@SFAW: Yup.
And they said as much. Wikipedia:
They only have one playbook. Qevin read from it. Their monsters are trying to do the same thing now.
Cheers,
Scott.
cain
@Mousebumples:
Thanks!
Baud
@cain:
And all Democrats.
Ksmiami
@Leto: these people need to be fucking arrested. How fucking dare they?
cain
@Another Scott:
Gonna be hard, there was no benghazi or any federal level stuff they can attack her on. The only thing they can attack her on is maybe afghanistan, but that was all Biden. You can’t find Harris’s finger prints on that one.
They could try to attack her record in California, but its’ going to be hard. For all of attacking Harris, it is Walz that terrifies them the most. That guy is the most american white guy, do-gooder neighbor everyone knows and loves. It’s going to be super hard to attack that man.
BR
@Citizen Alan:
Yeah, I save my scorn for Schiff and how he’s behaved so far — he was early to call for Biden to step down and couldn’t be bothered to attend the DNC in support of Harris.
Baud
@Ksmiami:
Arrested for what?
eclare
@sixthdoctor:
Wite-out beats that freakin’ tape every day…
cmorenc
@Another Scott: In NC, we are literally seeing amped-up Willie Horton-style ads (except Willie also shops at grocery stores this time around) grouping Biden, Harris, and D-Governor candidate Stein as “soft on crime” with rising violent crime, murderers being let out of prison, etc. mixed with the crime of rising prices, all presented in foreboding black-and-white unflattering group portraits of the three.
TBone
@RaflW: Harrisburg is too close to me, I’m gonna find a road trip to take further away…another farm fresh produce procurement mission is now in the works. Eggplant and zucchini stewed with fresh tomatoes and caramelized local sweet onions shall accompany tonight’s Philly style grilled sausage sammies with homemade roasted red pepper and onions relish.
More peaches will go in the freezer.
Roasted butternut squash soup will soon be in my stockpot later this week…
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@SFAW: You could say “improbable enough”.
But just to throw a little gasoline on the fire, in probability theory a probability of 0% does not mean impossible. Events with zero probability can still happen.
Math can be weird.
Citizen Alan
@SFAW: The only way no one can get 270 votes is if there is a 3rd party spoiler who is successful enough to win a state’s electoral votes. Otherwise, in a 2 party race, somebody’s going to win 270.
Actually, I think there may be an absurdly contrived way to get to 269-269 if the two candidates win the exact right arrangement of states, but it’s irrelevant this cycle because those states don’t line up on the blue-red axis.
zhena gogolia
@SatanicPanic: Yes. That is not going to change.
Chief Oshkosh
@dmsilev:
Which is example 65,789 of the old-school Democratic machine being far past overhaul time.
MomSense
@Baud:
They’ve said the same kinds of things to other commenters – relentlessly for weeks. It doesn’t bother Clooney but I didn’t appreciate being bullied. And I also don’t appreciate that it was condoned by the majority of other commenters and most of the front pagers.
In support of Clooney – all the attendees at that fundraiser kept quiet about what they witnessed until after the debate. When people reassure you by saying that what you saw was a one off and then it happens again – that’s not ok either.
zhena gogolia
@Layer8Problem: No, we must bow down and acknowledge that the push-Biden-out people were always correct about everything and knew exactly what was going to happen and were correct about publicly humiliating an excellent president because of his age and speech impediment.
SiubhanDuinne
@H.E.Wolf:
Rosie’s iconic pose in the Rockwell painting was modeled directly and explicitly on Michelangelo’s image of the prophet Isaiah in the Sistine Chapel. I love looking at them side by side to catch the similarities.
zhena gogolia
@BR: Was that his choice, or wasn’t he invited? I never heard the whole story on that.
BR
@Chief Oshkosh:
Yeah, the old guard really has failed lately. Setting aside all the ups and downs about Biden getting out of the race, the one thing that stunned me was that his team hadn’t shared swing state internal polling with him in two months. Even if you don’t believe much in polling, that’s basic political malpractice.
TBone
@Baud: the shenanigans almost worked here in PA (Fulton County, Philly, etc.)
After-the-fact prosecution doesn’t deter these fucks. I’m hoping against hope that this sort of thing will make a dent:
https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/02/politics/election-deniers-pennsylvania-voting-machine-dispute/index.html
A million reasons to think twice before Finding Out!
RaflW
@dmsilev: “don’t tell the GOP, but Biden’s approval numbers have been coming up over the last couple of months…”
It turns out that people like Joe Biden. They respect his term in office and appreciate the good results. It was really just his decision to run for a second term, which he’d at least indicated he wasn’t planning on when he ran in 2020, that was unpopular.
I’m glad his numbers are up. I dearly hope that historians right-size the whole “Biden is old” kerfuffle, and focus on the transformation he’s accomplished in terms of the use of government to better people’s lives.
Engineering a recovery from the Covid economic mess without a painful recession is amazing. Real wages for working people are up significantly. And he’s a mench and a sweetheart (but also tough when he needs to be). Even making the hard decision to stick to that previous guy’s shitty Afghanistan timeline shows toughness. We got out of that quagmire!
Anyway, enough gratitude for ol’ Joe today. And yeah, that pic, with the hug and the pro-union, pro-labor signs and the happy, diverse, and quite young looking audience is a great photo!
Baud
@MomSense:
I don’t care. People who want to express their unhappiness with Clooney get to. They’re not undermining Kamala by expressing their feelings about him on this blog. He’s not running for anything.
If someone wants to attack you or another commenter personally, that’s a different matter. To my knowledge, Clooney doesn’t hang out here.
BR
@zhena gogolia:
He claimed he had a trip planned for the same time. I mean what Dem senate candidate skips the DNC for a random trip?
Baud
@RaflW:
Not true. This was a media invention.
prostratedragon
@mrmoshpotato: One might wonder why he’s so fidgety. Most of us have moved on to engage constructively with the task at hand.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
Oh shit, my cover’s blown!
schrodingers_cat
@cain: They will attack her based on her identity and her immigrant heritage.
Steve in the ATL
@Baud:
You have a typo. It should be “there” not “their”.
zhena gogolia
@BR: I have a feeling there was an agreement that it would be awkward for him to be featured, given his role in Biden’s ouster. I don’t think he was slighting Harris by not being there.
Belafon
@geg6: I find the incessant need to chase an Oscar for every movie to be off-putting (here’s looking at you, Leo). Tony Stark gave him the ability to win his Oscar. Doom will show people he can do a truly dark character.
zhena gogolia
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: Loved you in Burn After Reading!
BR
@cain:
Folks were talking yesterday about how Walz can tickle that Bernie economic populist manosphere bone that some voters have — there are definitely voters out there that he can bring in (probably mostly men between 30 and 50 years old) that Harris can’t easily reach because of latent misogyny. I hope they keep him doing his labor day stump speech to those kinds of audiences — maybe even get Bernie to open for him at a few events to get those people to show up.
geg6
@SatanicPanic:
Yes, he does. That’s what is infuriating and disgusting. Own up to what you did, asshole. Just another gaslighter.
BR
@zhena gogolia:
I mean Pelosi gave a speech…
rikyrah
Trump L’s (@Trump_Losses) posted at 7:34 AM on Wed, Sep 04, 2024:
BREAKING: In a must watch moment on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Mike Barnicle calls Trump a “damaged, delusional, old man” and SLAMS the media for making absurd false equivalencies between Trump & Harris.
This needed to be said. RT so all Americans see this.
https://t.co/8AVv5EKQIm
(https://x.com/Trump_Losses/status/1831309962955427990?t=KhPHIafmKknTCJXCYTafCA&s=03)
zhena gogolia
@BR: She kept her public profile pretty discreet during the post-debate shitstorm.
TBone
On the front page headline theme, today’s important (longish) read:
https://digbysblog.net/2024/09/04/you-have-been-warned/
Worth the effort, so much information collected by Tom Sullivan in one easy place (much more at link, WaPo is trying hard to rehabilitate?!)
geg6
@Citizen Alan:
Glad you like it. I’m very anti-Marvel. It’s completely ruined film today, IMHO. I hope it ends soon.
RaflW
@TBone: Fortunately Mosinee, WI is fairly far from our cabin, so Saturday’s event won’t bug me. Apropos his campaigning in WI, I just stumbled across this tidbit. He blames his staff for not informing him, but I think it’s just his rapidly declining mental state in play (via WPR):
SiubhanDuinne
@BR:
I adore that clip! The little-child widening of her eyes, the unbelieving amazement in her voice:
“WHAT is that C A K E ?”
Baud
@BR:
Schiff is a shoe in, so maybe they decided they didn’t need to give him precious convention time.
Mike E
@Citizen Alan: all the BJ rage-posting aside, Clooney directed and acted with Downey in good night and good luck, the biopic of Edward R. Murrow and Fred Friendly’s televised pushback of the Red Scare during the ’50s. It’s a great piece that can be streamed/popped into the DVD player for young and old alike to see how propaganda, misinformation and hatemongering can catch on like wildfire.
And, whatever you do, try not to get on geg’s and SC’s shit-list! Heh.
rikyrah
Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) posted at 8:34 AM on Wed, Sep 04, 2024:
Reporter: It has just been unearthed that JD Vance endorsed a report from the architects of Project 2025 that argued women should get pregnant younger instead of using IVF. The report also says the ‘ideal’ family has heterosexual parents, abortion should be ‘unthinkable,’ and hunger is a good motivator for greater employment
https://t.co/LbMCoQiLDQ
(https://x.com/KamalaHQ/status/1831324905528258822?t=RxBJV8wOH8ygaieeHVwzJQ&s=03)
rikyrah
Jessica Kutz (@jkutzie) posted at 10:39 AM on Tue, Sep 03, 2024:
Her grandmother did not have the right to vote until she was 30.
Now, Gabriella Cázares-Kelly, a member of the Tohono O’odham Nation, is working to ensure everybody has access to the ballot in November as Pima County’s first Indigenous county recorder.
https://t.co/EdTrWfq4YT
(https://x.com/jkutzie/status/1830994111509496155?t=P5fk83JdR24uako6nXKrFw&s=03)
geg6
@cmorenc:
Oh, cut me a fucking break. Are you serious with this shit? I’m not hurting anything or anyone, not even asshole Clooney. And I’m doing a lot of work on the campaign. But I don’t need to justify my bona fides to you and so we’re done here.
rikyrah
Centrism Fan Acct![]()
(@Wilson__Valdez) posted at 9:53 AM on Tue, Sep 03, 2024:
Again, like at least 50% of the media obsession BIDEN OLD stories were about if Biden was up for campaigning for president and meanwhile, Trump is just phoning it in (b/c he is old and losing his mind) and there’s not a peep from the very same media.
(https://x.com/Wilson__Valdez/status/1830982379592393186?t=fuT_kAzsIW4ETwkSj5ouhA&s=03)
Jackie
@Steve in the ATL: Thanks for the spewed coffee…
karen marie
Oh, look – JD Vance is trying to stoke a race war.
“The National Black Farmers Association is calling on Republican Vice-Presidential candidate JD Vance to apologize for comments claiming the Biden-Harris administration handed out farm benefits to growers based on skin color.”
Also, George Clooney can fuck off.
TBone
@RaflW: you are correct and also too his need for fawning admiration from crowds larger than the “unexpected” 😆 Town Hall format allows. Thank you for sharing, I hold your hand in solidarity that these gatherings shall not deter us from living with joy and not in fear!
FastEdD
The kid in the Walz classroom photo with the shirt that says “Big Cock Country.” Chortle! I had one kid in my class who I kept trying to stop from using cuss words. At least in school. One day he wore a shirt that said A MAN FROM NANTUCKET. I gave up.
JML
@karen marie: resentment and grievance, that’s all the GOP stands for any longer. I’m not shocked that they’re going to try and stoke those fires to try and motivate their base, especially knowing that the rich or wanna be rich white dudes will go along with anything that they think gets them more tax breaks.
Will it be enough to turn out low information voters whose goal at the ballot box is to pwn the libs?
rikyrah
The Biden Accomplishments Guy (@What46HasDone) posted at 8:01 AM on Wed, Sep 04, 2024:
Regarding code switching, most white people do some form of it too, they just don’t realize they are doing it because it’s the “norm” to them. But we absolutely switch up how we speak depending on who we are speaking to as well.
(https://x.com/What46HasDone/status/1831316535279022445?t=IB9xVtwoFyxUYFQJI8ROLg&s=03)
RaflW
@TBone: Also gotta love his “looking over some material” which sounds impressive — hey, he’s preparing! — but was very likely just his staff showing him fawning coverage of the even he’d just left in Michigan.
TBone
@FastEdD: 😆😍 aww I like that little guy’s style
TBone
@RaflW: emotional support print-outs 😆
MagdaInBlack
@rikyrah: Yup. EVERYONE does it.
Mike E
@cmorenc: the ads are panic mode smears, they are desperate to cling onto NC when our demographics show an infusion of blue voters who don’t want to live in a state fashioning itself to be N Fla. or E Texas. Trump, and Black Trump, are sinking the ticket like a boat anchor, and Obama-level excitement jeopardizes the down ballot races (tho I’m not as sanguine about keeping more Dem seats in DC and Raleigh, but you never know!).
eclare
@FastEdD:
A popular t-shirt when I was in high school (graduated 1986) was for the band Circle Jerks. I don’t think any teacher or admin got the message, one guy wore his prob every other day. He was in the yearbook in it! With a huge grin.
RaflW
@rikyrah: For sure. I can remember as a late teen/early 20s guy, very bookish and nerdy, but also charged with being the family member who always had to get either family car serviced (this was the 80s, car quality sucked so it was a lot).
I’d leave the garage and almost laugh at myself. “Who was that guy, talkin’ with no g’s and knowing about bushings and lower idler arms and shit?” I had no idea then of the term code-switchnig.
BR
@Mike E:
The NY Mag headline about NC Gov candidate Robinson was something else:
https://bsky.app/profile/joshuaholland.bsky.social/post/3l3c6ziodjh2l
UncleEbeneezer
@Soprano2: I don’t know how you do it. I know too many queer people (friends and family members) who are living their best lives because of SSM, adoption and the general progress of LGBTQ Rights and mainstream tolerance advances of the past twenty years. I remember what it was like for them in the 80’s and 90’s and see how much happier they are now. I don’t know how any decent person could want to force them back into the closet or think they are somehow lesser people simply for being who they are.
And forcing my wife to give birth if we suffer an unexpected, unwanted, unplanned pregnancy, at 52 years old would be a likely death sentence for my wife. I have no patience for anyone who thinks that should be a reasonable demand for us if we want to have a healthy sex life. We are both atheists, but we are supposed to be denied the joy, mental health benefits and intimacy/love of sex all because (or face a possible death penalty) all for someone else’s beliefs/religion…fuck that bullshit.
Betty Cracker
@MomSense: FWIW, I regret not speaking up more about the bullying that was happening here at the time. It wasn’t okay.
Mike E
@BR: porn and Holocaust denial, he should move to Utah! Also, from the blsky thread:
Jacel
@Hungry Joe: I’m trying to remember where I first encountered the (presumably) Australian expression “Sydney or the Bush”. Perhaps it was a catchphrase of a character in Walt Kelly’s “Pogo” comic strip?
SiubhanDuinne
@Steve in the ATL:
Pendant.
zhena gogolia
@Betty Cracker: A lot of people felt bullied on both sides of the issue. Some left the blog for good.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
I miss Miss Bianca.
OId Man Shadow
Part of me thinks Harris’ role in a debate should be to just look at Trump with a “What the fuck are you even going on about, old man” look and say “Seriously what the fuck was that shit? And this asshole said Joe Biden was mentally impaired. Did you listen to that shit?” when it’s her time to speak.
MomSense
@Baud:
Good to know that it’s ok to express opinions here because we are just talking to ourself. That is not the standard when the opinion is a minority opinion here.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@OId Man Shadow: I’m looking forward to seeing how she handles it. You know it’s coming and I’m certain she knows too.
RaflW
BTW, just saw a graphic showing GOP vs. Dem ad buy planning in swing states.
PA: D $75.2M / R $71.2M
GA: D $39.4M / R $38.9M
MI: D $56.9M / R $6.9M
WI: D $34.4M / R $3.6M
NC: D $30.4M / R $2.8M
These can shift, of course, and reservations may not become spending (but regaining ad time later costs more per ad — dunno if there’s some non-refundable deposit but… weeds, I’m in ’em!).
Anyway: It shows that 1) Repubs have some money problems, which I think we knew, and 2) they’re starting to cede ground to the Dems!
(NC having a porn-obsessed nutjob at the top is quite the gift)
moonbat
Crimminy, Clooney is a big boy and a public figure to boot. If he’s going to stick his nose into national politics big time by writing an op ed in the FYNYT calling for the ouster of a sitting president, he can take whatever heat he generates in a top 10,000 blog.
Baud
@MomSense:
That’s the BJ consensus that’s developed, from what I’ve seen.
Chris
@dmsilev:
A politician, a comedian, and a celebrity did a better job of being the media than the actual media, because of course they fucking did.
MomSense
@Betty Cracker:
Thanks. It’s ok I appreciate that. It was a difficult issue and emotions were hot.
Mr. Bemused Senior
[ In the voice of Lucy van Pelt ] Welcome to the 21st century.
MomSense
@moonbat:
He donates a lot of money. And like I said, he kept quiet about what he witnessed at the fundraiser until after the debate.
Chris
@Frankensteinbeck:
The first things I ever read that were really “political” in the sense of talking about modern day politics were Tom Clancy novels. While a big part of their appeal was always the conceit that they followed real life closely, looking back at them a few years later, it occurred to me that they were best understood as retcons of real life, with lots of stuff lifted from the headlines but then retold in such a way that this time the conservatives were vindicated, or at least more comfortable, than they’d been with the real thing.
Then the more I found out about conservatism, the more I realized that this is how they all work. Their worldview runs entirely on headcanon.
dm
@BR: Is it cynical of me to wonder if this is a response to the JV orders donuts thing?
Steve in the ATL
@SiubhanDuinne:
I do like hanging around here….
Gin & Tonic
@MomSense: Place was a fucking cesspool.
Betty Cracker
@zhena gogolia: It seems like 90% of the commenters and 100% of front papers who expressed an opinion were vehemently in the “Biden should stay” camp. But I guess it’s possible to feel bullied about a topic even when your opinion represents the overwhelming consensus. If they were falsely accused of being trolls and told to shut up repeatedly, that’s not okay either.
satby
@zhena gogolia: you know, you’re right, but fuck ’em.
schrodingers_cat
On Balloon Juice certain commenters with blessings from FPers are never wrong, their judgment is always spot on. They can only be wronged. And they expect eternal obeisance.
Fuck that shit. Bully someone else.
JPL
@RaflW: Local stations have been unwatchable imo. Since I live in GA, it has been like that for weeks and since Kamala has a slight lead here, they don’t appear to be working.
OId Man Shadow
@RaflW: I find the turnaround of opinion… distasteful? Disgusting? Rage-inducing?
He’s the same person with the same accomplishments he was five weeks ago when the same public was demanding he jump overboard or the country gets it.
Whatever.
At least now we’ve got a fifty-fifty shot at avoiding the collapse of America and the rise of the God-king, so… we got that going for us.
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: Yeah we must always bow our heads and be respectful of our BJ betters. Or so they think.
Yeah no.
Well I don’t have time to deal with this nonsense right now, I have two back-to -back meetings or I would I have typed a longer screed.
OId Man Shadow
@Mr. Bemused Senior: Yeah… you can’t handle it like a “normal” debate or you’re going to have a disaster. You have to treat the man like he’s spewing the nonsense he is. You have to tell the public that the Emperor has no clothes.
Really hoping she does well.
JPL
@Betty Cracker: Friends disagreed but truthfully there were good reasons on both sides. I’m glad it worked out and democrats are coming together. It wasn’t your responsibility to monitor our behavior. just sayin
Chris
@The Audacity of Krope:
I think the last one I saw him in was that astronaut movie with Sandra Bullock, which would’ve been more than a decade ago. I like his movies just fine, but it seems to’ve been a while since he produced anything memorable.
zhena gogolia
@OId Man Shadow: However she does I’ll have her back. She is the nominee.
UncleEbeneezer
Megan Thee Stallion is a national treasure:
catclub
@SiubhanDuinne: pendejo?
Citizen Alan
@rikyrah: I will say once again that I am legitimately afraid for J.D. Vance’s children. There is no question in my mind that he will be, at a minimum, emotionally abusive to them as they grow older and fail to be exactly what he wants to be. I am certain that he doesn’t consider his daughter to be fully human simply because God cursed her with the ability to bear children.
Betty Cracker
@rikyrah: Seems like anyone with a shred of self-awareness would be aware they do that.
Soprano2
@Falling Diphthong: If they were smart and actually wanted to serve their viewers, they would ask a focus group of “average” voters what they want to know from Harris/Walz, then they would ask those questions. Who do they think, besides reporters and Republicans, wants to hear about how or why she’s changed her position on fracking since 2019? TCFG changes his position on abortion almost daily now, but they don’t call that “flip flopping” or press him on it! Ask what people actually want to know about, not what you think you can do a “gotcha” on. Sheesh….
satby
@Betty Cracker: Trolling is a disruptive technique, not necessarily about who’s performing it. Other commenters were positively begging for people to drop the discussion, and ignored or accused of “bullying”, all while they refused to engage in an honest debate with the POC like rikyrah who begged to differ. Big reason why I bugged out for a couple of weeks, lots of unacknowledged racism in that dismissal of POC concerns. And we’re allowed to still be angry about it, notice that the so called “victims” are the ones jumping on any stray comments of resentment at the way Biden was treated.
And I won’t address this again or engage with any of the sad little grievance collectors about it. Fuckem
OId Man Shadow
@zhena gogolia: Yeah. I just worry that all that enthusiasm for the Democratic party and candidate now could evaporate as quickly as it came if things don’t go well.
moonbat
@MomSense: I don’t give a shit how much money he donates. I really don’t. If he thinks his donations buy him a bigger say in the party than his vote, or my vote, he’s really not democratic.
Baud
@OId Man Shadow:
Definitely a risk. See Obama’s infamous first debate with Romney. The other risk is if she does well, but not well enough to overcome the media thumb on the scale.
Chris
@cain:
“Ma’am, I’m deeply sorry that your son was murdered. That’s horrible. It should have been you.”
Dave
@Chris: Clancy became much less subtle as the weaknesses and direction became harder to deny; strong elements of wish-casting.
My other favorite version of this is military sci-fi where it was popular a few decades to have very thinly veiled expies of HRC and Ted Kennedy be screaming at the noble and brave square-jawed Space Navy for starting unnecessary fights against the Toddler Eaters of the No Really we are Irredeemably Evil Empire.
And socialist space nations in space were always terrible but good space Libertarianism was amazing and blessed.
Can’t even bring myself to be angry about them because they were so over the top,
BR
@dm:
Oh it totally could be. I hadn’t considered it, but that’s smart if so.
Sallycat
@Steve in the ATL: No it should be they’re. They are
Dave
@Citizen Alan: This is why I have the smallest shred of sympathy for the large adult Trump children. It’s tiny and swamped by withering contempt but it does exist.
Chris
@Citizen Alan:
Honestly, Clooney doesn’t bother me as much as maybe he should because I just don’t expect much from Hollywood celebrities.
The guy my opinion’s been much more permanently stained by is Paul Krugman, who also wrote “Biden should step down” op-eds and, unlike Hollywood stars, is a guy I actually do expect to have known better.
lowtechcyclist
VAAC postcards:
Got all 100 postcards stamped and address-labeled, now I just have to write a short message in each one.
prostratedragon
@FastEdD: You do know that he got that just for you.
Chris
@RaflW:
No, he didn’t.
geg6
@Belafon:
RDJ was a great actor looooooooooong before he sold out to Marvel. His Chaplin is one of the great acting performances I’ve seen. I hate what he’s done to himself by tying his career to what I consider pre-pubescent boy movies. He should do more like his work in Oppenheimer. But he just keeps chasing the $$, I guess. It’s sad.
schrodingers_cat
@moonbat: Agreed.
Frankensteinbeck
@Chris:
“You have 24 hours to stop a nuclear bomb from destroying New York City. You catch one of the terrorists. Do you torture him to save the city???”
Well, I mean, I could, then I’d waste those 24 hours chasing after the lie he told me because he said whatever he thought would make me stop torturing him, not the actual truth.
geg6
@zhena gogolia:
Yup. But I’m a stubborn bitch and only took a break only to come back as full of fire as ever. Perhaps even more.
zhena gogolia
@OId Man Shadow: We’ll see. But I’m pretty confident she’ll do well.
zhena gogolia
@geg6: Good!
Chris
@Dave:
Honor Harrington by any chance?
I get most of my sci-fi from movies and TV rather than books. But I remember reading one book of that series, and while there were no blatant real-life villains that I could discern, I remember that part of the thing with their Revolutionary France stand-in is that they’re expansionist because they have such a lavish welfare state, and it’s going to bankrupt them if they stay as is, so they have to keep conquering neighboring planets and gobbling up all their resources to prevent the system from collapsing…
The book overall just didn’t grab me, but I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t also an element of “I watched Tom Clancy degenerate over the course of a dozen novels as success went to his head and there was less and less of a filter between his brain and his keyboard, I’m not that interested in risking it with another right-winger.”
NutmegAgain
@rikyrah: Accusing Elena Kagan of treason? Hmm. Can’t wait to hear the garbage they hurl at Justice Jackson. “That train ain’t never late” And here it comes.
UncleEbeneezer
@Mike E: Goodnight & Good Luck is such an amazing film. Clooney and Downey Jr. were both good but really David Strathairn completely steals the show. I always loved the way the film made the audience feel the incredibly high stakes and danger of what Murrow and his staff did. You could cut the tension with a knife in so many scenes.
Chris
@Frankensteinbeck:
Ugh, fucking 24.
Looking back with two decades and change of hindsight, I think Burn Notice might have been the best TV show we got out of the war on terror, and part of the reason for it is that it came out really strongly as “fuck torture, it doesn’t work and it’s for sadists and thugs” right from its very first episode.
Gin & Tonic
@Sallycat: New here?
UncleEbeneezer
@geg6: Chaplin was amazing but I thought his role in Oppenheimer was kinda meh, personally. I also think Chaplin was an exponentially better movie than Oppenheimer.
Downey Jr., is also great in The Sympathizer although he does the Eddie Murphy thing where he plays like five major characters, all very well but it’s very distracting and imo, would’ve been better to just give more actors some chances to play those roles. But his truly greatest performance is in Tropic Thunder.
OId Man Shadow
@Frankensteinbeck: And if it did work, you do what you have to do, then you surrender yourself to arrest and face trial and judgement for your actions and you present your defense.
What they want… what they’ve always wanted is to be above the law and above consequences.
And now, at least, the President is.
Kosh III
Where is that $20 million down ballot money going? I’m guessing Gloria Johnson in Tenn. won’t get a penny since the D’s abandoned this state years ago.
sdhays
@Soprano2: It’s a pretty crazy level of delusion to be confident about your opponent struggling to “keep the train on the tracks” for 60 days when your latest “brilliant” attack is questioning her on work experience flipping burgers at McDonald’s.
Dave
@Chris: Harrington in particular though Weber made the most use of that trope in his other series. Various other military sci-fi authors use those tropes. From relatively anodyne to essentially humans are space-Nazis with the serial numbers filed off and that’s a good thing.
Honor Harrington wasn’t that bad for the first few books it’s in the background but that stuff works best when it’s plucky but uber-capable Captain commanding at most a small task force.
More intimate story and mostly backburners the questionable politics. Inevitably thought they end up at turgid scenes where 5,000 Super Dreadnaughts fire a 1,000,000 missiles blah blah blah and the real action is showing how awesome space-Libertarianism and space-Monarchy especially contrasted with any sort state that actually engages in social spending.
There are plenty of the genre I throw aside (and I have a high tolerance for genre crap) but probably the worst was one that decided to sneak Young Earth Creationism into the second book. I actually to go find my partner and vent about how jarring that was.
Baud
@Chris:
Good show.
Kent
They were both right. I have 3 daughters, two of whom will be voting in their first presidential election. They were all completely disengaged with the idea of a choice between two geriatric 80-something year-olds. Since Harris has entered the race they have become completely energized and motivated and engaged in campaigning. And that isn’t about the mainstream media dissing Biden. They don’t even watch or read the mainstream media.
Since when did we become the “emperor has no clothes” party? Leave that crap for the Republicans.
sdhays
@RaflW: Wow. So, either the Donvict’s employee’s are completely incompetent (nice job hiring, boss!) or he can’t remember where he’s going day to day. or both!
Definitely screams “Presidential material” …or something…
Steve in the ATL
@Sallycat: thank you. We had no idea.
Misterpuff
From my weekend of watching college football, the Trump campaign is trying to Willie Horton Madam Vice President with released foreign gang members that went on to murder women. Its pur fear mongering with immigration overtones.
dc
@cmorenc: Going or not going to a Clooney movie neither helps nor hurts Harris/Walz.
scribbler
@Betty Cracker: I read almost every comment on every post during those long rough fighting days, and the idea that Biden should stay was the “overwhelming consensus” was not my impression at all. Far from it.
SatanicPanic
@geg6: he’d have to believe it was wrong and I don’t think he does. I don’t either.
SatanicPanic
@Kent: I think having concerns about the switch was defensible before it happened. Being upset that it happened now– that’s absurd. We were losing by every available measure except that clown Lichtman and his 13 keys. Now we’ve got a generational political talent paired with the most perfect VP candidate I’ve ever seen and they’re not happy? We’re winning or at least tied by most available measures and anecdotally people IRL are actually excited. Makes no sense. I can’t believe people are still hanging on to this.
JML
@Dave: I enjoy the early Harrington books quite a bit, but every time Weber tries to do domestic politics he really shits the bed. He’s very much in the “great man” theory of politics where it doesn’t matter what the systems are so long as you have wonderful noble people running things. he’s also convinced himself that even in aristocratic systems that he loves that they will always spot and nurture grins minds and talent…
He’s gotten worse as he’s gone on, where he’s no longer editable and feels freer to let his politics flow into his books.
Baud
@SatanicPanic:
You don’t have to believe it. You just have to respect it, if you want to be a team player.
Origuy
@Misterpuff: Trump commuted the sentence of a cop-killer who was just convicted again, this time for domestic abuse of his wife.
SatanicPanic
@Baud: I agree with you that it doesn’t matter what we say. I accept that people believe it and I don’t think it’s worth fighting over. But it is weird.
JML
@SatanicPanic: I think it’s still two fold: 1) many of saw Biden as having been a pretty great president and the idea of losing that and having him pushed aside for the unknown felt wrong and dangerous; 2) it often feels like the people who were pushing for Biden to step out didn’t recognize then or acknowledge it now just how high risk a move it really was. If Harris had messed up the hand-off even a little, or some of the other potential contenders had decided to put ambition ahead of unity we could have had the utter chaos and disaster that the media was begging for from us.
we were basically the utter rookie walking the tightrope with no balancer across the grand canyon without a net in high winds. It worked, but for a lot of us (especially people like me who have worked many campaigns) it felt like a 100:1 odds coming in. I’m happy with where we’ve landed, I’ve always been a fan of Harris and I go back a ways with walz so i know how good he is. But the path was utterly terrifying.
SatanicPanic
@JML: yeah I understand the fear going into it. I didn’t think it was a fool-proof plan by any means. But for me it was the difference between certain loss with Biden and maybe a win with Harris. I thought the concerns about a brokered convention weren’t compelling but otherwise I understand the hesitance.
But now? It turned out better than anyone predicted. There’s no rational argument that Harris isn’t a better candidate. So we’re left with “they did it the wrong way “. Like there was obvious right way.
zhena gogolia
@SatanicPanic: We’ll never know if Biden was a certain loss, will we?
Misterpuff
@Origuy: Cop-killer and drug dealer.
So should Harris rack up similiar fear-mongering ads?
SatanicPanic
@zhena gogolia: Are you suggesting that Harris isn’t an obvious upgrade given what we know now?
zhena gogolia
@SatanicPanic: I said this once and said I would not repeat it (and got dumped on for it), but since you’re asking:
Is Harris a better campaigner than Biden? Absolutely.
Will she be a better president than he has been? I’m not sure.
Will Walz be a better VP than Harris was, given her Senate connections? I’m not sure.
I’ll add for you: Will we ever know if Biden would have won if his party had stood behind him? No, we won’t.
SatanicPanic
@zhena gogolia: right, so she’s a better campaigner.
Why would want a worse campaigner in the race? There’s downballot to think of. There’s the new voters who are excited about Harris that likely will turn into regular, consistent voters. Theres the extra money that is going to congressional races. There’s the intangible value of cultural relevance that makes Democrats look good. None of this happens with Biden.
zhena gogolia
@SatanicPanic: Our nominee was the sitting president of the United States, the one with the record to run on. The millions of people who voted for him to be the candidate were disenfranchised. I don’t think this is a good way to operate. But here we are. I will do everything I can to get Harris-Walz elected, and then I will register as an independent.
SatanicPanic
@zhena gogolia: Because Democrats took a gamble that paid off?
zhena gogolia
@SatanicPanic: It’s supposed to be a political party, not a gambling club.
And may I point out that we haven’t won yet.
SatanicPanic
@zhena gogolia: they didn’t do it for fun. We HAVE to win this one. And we’re in a better place now. I don’t see why you’d want a party that puts one guys feelings over millions of others
TurnItOffAndOnAgain
@geg6: It might have something to do with the fact he’s credited the Marvel movies with keeping him clean and sober. That they’ve motivated him to keep it together for the younger fans.
zhena gogolia
@SatanicPanic: I’m not talking about one guy’s feelings, as you know. I’m talking about the Democratic primary process in which millions of us voted. But I’m done because you are not arguing in good faith.
Msb
@Frankensteinbeck:
“what if she’s a whore?” without any further thought involved.”
one response might be, what did any baby do to deserve that for a parent? Another: since when did parenthood cure promiscuity? Another: how do you know and what business is it of yours?
dnfree
@zhena gogolia: “No, we must bow down and acknowledge that the push-Biden-out people were always correct about everything and knew exactly what was going to happen and were correct about publicly humiliating an excellent president because of his age and speech impediment.”
It’s the hyperbole that bothers me. No one has said you must “bow down”. No one says “the ‘push Biden-out people were ALWAYS correct about EVERYTHING”. No one says anyone “knew exactly what was going to happen”. No one WANTED to humiliate an excellent president (which he certainly was and is) “because of his age and speech impediment”.
The way he looked on that debate stage to many of us wasn’t just a problem with age and speech. He looked to many of us (YMMV) like he didn’t even know where he was for a while there. It cemented existing worries for many.
The comments that were being directed at those who were concerned felt like attacks on their loyalty to the cause of defeating Trump, and their failure to back Biden even in the face of what many saw as possible disaster. If Biden could look that bad in July, what was to keep him from looking worse in October?
It was a big risk. Things might have worked out much worse EITHER WAY, whether Biden stayed in or dropped out. No one of us knew anything about that. Your concern for Biden being treated fairly and honorably is admirable. Your disdain for those who saw things differently is and was disturbing.
SatanicPanic
@zhena gogolia: nah , I’m arguing in good faith and I’m not taking that accusation. If you don’t want to talk to me it’s fine but that’s out of line.
zhena gogolia
@SatanicPanic: You characterized my argument as being about “one guy’s feelings.” I never said that.
SatanicPanic
@dnfree: it was weird to hear the disloyalty claims from people who were slagging off the majority of elected Dems. The party is more the Joe Biden and the handful of randos obviously supporting him for strategic reasons
Msb
@Dave: yep, one of the reasons I gave up on David Weber was his introducing a Clinton character in every book, e.g. Lt Rodham …
SatanicPanic
@zhena gogolia: since we know things are better now I don’t see how it would be about anything else, right? Do we have evidence that even a majority of primary voters are upset about Biden not being the nominee?
Msb
@SatanicPanic: everybody here supports Harris/Walz. Why not just take the win? Hint: if the person you’re talking to doubts your good faith, why not consider why they might think that?
From where I sit, you’re demanding that everyone see the situation and feel about it the way you do – at the same time you utterly reject the validity of a viewpoint you disagree with. That looks like a kind of monstrous consistency – my way or the highway – or a willingness to dish it out and an unwillingness to take it. I don’t know you, so am reluctant to make assumptions about the answer.
SatanicPanic
@Msb: so far as I can tell no one disagrees that Harris is a better candidate than Biden. I think it’s fair to ask why people are still harping on something that worked out so well, you know?
I don’t expect everyone to agree with me on everything- I said above it was fine to be nervous about the switch
SatanicPanic
I don’t really care to keep arguing this though it’s just something I find annoying
Manyakitty
@rikyrah: and Clooney is near the top of that list. 🤬
Manyakitty
@MomSense: fuck you and your whining. Who was the bully again? Wasn’t the people standing up for a decent man. It was YOU and the few others who couldn’t stop calling us weak and stupid. It was YOU and the few others who are still running your victory laps and cry like a baby when anyone dares to stand up to you and the other few self-appointed queens of the world. Fuck you and fuck them. Are your tiny feefees hurt? Good. Fuck you again.
Manyakitty
@Betty Cracker: if you think they were poor, misunderstood innocents, you missed a lot.
MomSense
@Manyakitty:
I never called you weak or stupid.
Captain C
@Falling Diphthong:
I assume they think this would apply even if one of the sides was represented by Mr. Rogers and the other by, well, TCFG. I’m pretty sure if you’re pissing Mr. Rogers off, you’re the asshole.
Manyakitty
@MomSense: that’s your stand? GTFO.
Msb
@SatanicPanic: it’s fair to ask any honest question. It’s not fair to keep asking it until you get an answer you like. It’s also not productive in achieving our shared goal or promoting the health of this community.
MomSense
@Manyakitty:
Ok I will write this one time – I didn’t do any of the things you are accusing me of. I said repeatedly that both Biden staying and Biden stepping aside were high risk but I felt we at least had a shot at winning and saving down ballot candidates with Harris as the nominee. When I didn’t comment for 10 days or so and just lurked the subject was raised in every thread by the Biden staying commenters (the vast majority). It was in every thread because it was being talked about in the world and we talk about topical issues. You guys were bringing it up. We were called trolls because we disagreed but you all were talking about this issue constantly. I never said anyone was weak or dumb. I said I didn’t know who was right but I felt that with the polling and the number of Democratic candidates in tough races who were saying he was hurting their chances I didn’t think he could continue. I also said I didn’t think he could campaign effectively anymore because the more voters were seeing him the more it reinforced the idea that he was too old. Voters had been expressing that concern since 2020. The campaign had spent over 100 million in swing state ads and his poll numbers went down. I had harsh criticism for his campaign for not being honest with him. I still say not being honest with him was the most disrespectful thing they could have done. I said that I respect him and thought he was a great president and this whole situation pained me. Then there was all the polling showing how much his support had dropped with Latin and Black voters which was bad enough it spooked the campaign before the debate. Majorities or pluralities of Black and Latin/hispanic (depending on the wording in the polls). Voters wanted him to step aside. Twitter, especially since Melon Husk took over is not indicative of support with POC.
I tried to say repeatedly that I didn’t know what the best option would be but that I felt strongly it would be for Harris to take over. The stay side commenters were insulting us constantly with words like brainwashed, traitorous, perfidy, of low moral character, bedwetters, racist, ageist, untrustworthy, etc. There were constant passive aggressive comments, talk of settling scores, and on and on.
The stakes are incredibly high in this election and we all desperately want to preserve our democracy and protect people we care about. There was no need to insult the few that disagreed with the majority on this site. One commenter was told they wished they and their mom would die. And when it comes to the outcome, I knew because of campaign finance laws, the party leaders who were organizing this, and because of the politics that Harris would be the nominee. Lawrence O’Donnell said the same thing in one of his segments after the fact. I said that all the pundits had no idea what would happen. I tried to explain that we did in fact have an open convention – it was less than a day but that was what the rules called for. I never thought we would have a contested convention. I tried to explain that with the Republicans whining about a coup that of course Pelosi and others would say things like mini primary or open convention but the campaign cash on hand and the desire to avoid disruption to the campaign staff and offices would make Harris the only logical choice.
We were all and still are afraid. We responded to fear differently. Also you are basically saying that only your feelings and the feeling of the majority of commenters matter. In a crisis you wanted only information and opinions that were in agreement with the majority opinion. Anyone who disagreed was subjected to bullying and abuse. I think that is really messed up.
O. Felix Culpa
@MomSense:
LOL. I’ve been on this blog for decades, and never experienced such a vile, vicious attack as the one I got from you. It was indeed really messed up.
satby
@MomSense: your opinion. Others differed. And you and your fellows showed absolutely none of the consideration you’re demanding for yourself.
MomSense
@O. Felix Culpa:
Well right back at you. You joined in with someone who had been making passive aggressive comments for weeks and saying awful things. I kept trying to respond and she just kept accusing me of things I hadn’t done or said. Then you tried to weasel out of it by saying you weren’t talking to me even though you were clearly addressing your statements to me. Whatever I’m sorry I told you to fuck off. I shouldn’t have wasted my time with your insulting accusations.
Also in the 15 or so years I’ve been here I have never disagreed with Schrodinger’s Cat. This is the first time. And in the weeks before that happened when multiple people were saying terrible things to me in every thread none of you felt like you could say hey we don’t need to call people names?
Manyakitty
@MomSense: you’re adorable for thinking that. I’m not about go sift through the thousands of posts to find examples, but it’s a thing you did. I go out of my way to be nice or say nothing, but you and your fellow self-appointed arbiters of culture and politics are the embodiment of hypocrisy. As Satby said, you demand consideration for your views but can’t be bothered to offer the same.
Take a look in the mirror and think about it. We can all do better.
O. Felix Culpa
@MomSense: Keeping it classy, I see. It’s clear that only your hurt feefees count. FWIW, we’ve all experienced pushback when expressing unpopular opinions. Among adults, it’s called disagreement. But feel free to continue nailing yourself to the cross.
As for the originating comments:
1. Commenters including yourself often talk amongst each other. But apparently it becomes “passive- aggressive” when you don’t like what others say.
2. I addressed you directly.
3. “Weasel” — lol. An interesting way of framing my puzzlement at your ugly attack and my subsequent efforts to seek understanding.
4. Referring back to #1, if it’s not about you, then it’s not about you.
O. Felix Culpa
@O. Felix Culpa:
Addendum to #4: If you think it is about you, then self-reflection regarding the validity–or not–of the comments may be useful, even if uncomfortable.
O. Felix Culpa
@MomSense:
My final comment on this topic. Your last sentence is an example of goalpost moving, universalization, and deflection:
First, every commenter has agency and is responsible for their own behavior and whether or not they engage in name-calling.
Second, who is “none of you” in a response to me?
Lastly, it happens that I did in fact post comments against name-calling. While I’m not responsible for other commenters’ choices, I did think that the commentary sometimes got unnecessarily ugly and ad hominem. On both sides, I’ll add. Consider that you might not have seen every comment made by every commenter. Also consider holding yourself to the same standard that you hold others to.
With that, I’m done.