Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

How can republicans represent us when they don’t trust women?

“Joe Biden deserved better than he got from some folks in his own party.”

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

Donald Jessica Trump found guilty as fuck – May 30, 2024!

We are aware of all internet traditions.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

I was promised a recession.

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

Don’t expect peaches from an apple tree.

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

I’m more Christian than these people and I’m an atheist.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

The words do not have to be perfect.

“Loving your country does not mean lying about it’s history.”

“woke” is the new caravan.

Fight them, without becoming them!

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

If you’re looking for someone who’s young and athletic, go watch a fucking movie.

If you are in line to indict donald trump, stay in line.

You are here: Home / Elections 2024 / Saturday Morning Open Thread: Madam Vice President Is Not Wasting Time

Saturday Morning Open Thread: Madam Vice President Is Not Wasting Time

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(I almost hate to let y’all in on this, but Port City‘s Tasty Ranch Dill pretzels are every bit as good as they’re advertised.)

But then again, per Our Very Serious Media…

Long-ish — and basically ‘fair’ — article, but that’s one reason I saved it for Saturday. Per the Washington Post, “Kamala Harris ran her office like a prosecutor. Not everyone liked that” [gift link]:

On the day after President Joe Biden decided to end his reelection bid in July, more than 300 former staffers for Vice President Kamala Harris publicly endorsed her candidacy — a flurry of alumni support with little precedent in this already unusual campaign.

“We were able to witness her leadership firsthand,” the former staffers wrote in a letter, attesting to Harris’s behavior on and off camera. “She is an extraordinary leader of great character.”

The rapidly assembled letter was a spontaneous outpouring of affection for Harris, said Rachel Palermo, who worked for Harris for three years in the vice president’s office and coordinated the effort.

But in interviews, former staff who signed the letter acknowledged it also addressed one of Harris’s perceived weaknesses as a candidate and elected official: her demanding management style. People who have worked for Harris say her interactions with staff can resemble a prosecutor prying details from a witness, asking pointed questions about everything from her schedule to policy briefings. And her cautious approach to big decisions has frustrated deputies rather than inspire them.

Harris’s record as a boss has been the focus of news stories throughout her career and amplified by high-profile staff departures…

The staff churn has spawned accusations of mismanagement by the vice president, but many Harris allies say that critique is overblown, sometimes rooted in her gender and race. By the same measure, for instance, her predecessor Mike Pence saw 83 percent turnover in his vice-presidential office. And former president Donald Trump’s White House staff was infamous for its turnover; one of his communications directors, Anthony Scaramucci, lasted just 11 days before his firing…

But interviews with 33 current and former staffers and allies show that Harris herself — and the team around her — have undergone important changes since the most difficult days of her first year as vice president. These people close to Harris, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of assessing the Democratic nominee’s leadership, say she grew into the role, found policy issues that more closely aligned with her comfort areas and replaced key aides with staffers who responded better to her management style.

Now her approach faces its biggest test yet, a supercharged national political campaign to win the White House in 60 days. Harris suddenly took over a vast and growing operation whose leadership includes operatives installed long ago by Biden as well as her own recruits, a balancing act of egos and ambitions. If elected, Harris will inherit a far larger management challenge: the vast federal bureaucracy.

People close to Harris say her widely praised presidential rollout, in which she quickly locked down the Democratic nomination following Biden’s withdrawal and moved to capitalize on her party’s enthusiasm and energy, are testaments to her management. They also point to the growing pool of alumni who have rejoined her team, particularly this summer. At least 20 staffers who previously worked for Harris are now working on her campaign, such as policy experts Rohini Kosoglu and Ike Irby, veterans of both her Senate and vice president’s office.

Those allies and staffers say that Harris’s management style hasn’t changed — but the circumstances have. Rather than trying to find her voice as a first-time presidential candidate or brand-new vice president, she has suddenly become the party’s standard-bearer. Office disputes during the height of the pandemic are now viewed as minor frustrations as Harris fights to keep Trump out of the White House…

“The VP has been policed in ways that other politicians I worked for weren’t policed,” said one former Harris staffer, who’s worked for other top Democrats. “People from outside our office came to me, wanting to change how she laughed. I can’t remember anyone ever trying to change how Mike Pence or Joe Biden laughed.”

Some of Harris’s staffers-turned-critics are quietly rethinking their views, declining questions about their prior complaints.

Duran — the former aide in Harris’s California attorney general’s office who was once dubbed “the go-to anti-Harris quote” by Politico — said he’s swallowing his criticism too.

“There’s no question in my mind that whatever Harris’s flaws are, Donald Trump is much, much worse,” Duran said.

Reader Interactions

307Comments

  2. 2.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    “You can’t come to the vice president and just ask her to do something,”, said another staffer. “You need to have a why.”

    “…her demanding management style.”

    Former staffers who think the above are weaknesses or something out of the ordinary from people at that level of government need to be beaten thoroughly and repeatedly with a clue stick. And of course our Beltway Media Corpse finds them and drags those kinds of observations out of them.

    I worked for 1-3 star admirals (and a couple of generals) back in my days as an intel officer at the Pentagon. I briefed the Sec Def, Dep SecDef, various Joint Chiefs, etc.

    They all had this in common, it’s typical and not some sign of bad leadership. Now, did I have some terrible J2s to work for, real assholes? Sure, but their assholishness was something completely different.

    I can tell you from personal experience that Colin Fucking Powell was no different than how Harris is being described when he was Chairman and yet, where were all those stories?

    Oh yeah, he was a) a Republican, and more importantly, b) a man.

  3. 3.

    TS

    reposting from end of last thread

    I only just saw this one – another way for trump & his bff RFK to make a mockery of the election rules and processes. They will try anything. They OWN the judiciary in many places. They cannot win a fair election, so they do this.

    North Carolina court ruling on RFK Jr. threatens to disrupt mail voting

    A state appeals panel upended election preparations in North Carolina on Friday, ordering a halt to the distribution of mail ballots in the battleground state after granting Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s request that his name be removed from contention for the presidency.

    Friday was the deadline for local election officials to mail ballots to the roughly 130,000 North Carolinians who had requested them so far. County offices had been preparing for weeks with ballot design, printing orders and envelope preparation.

    That effort immediately stopped under instructions from the State Board of Elections following the court ruling, and officials estimated it will take a minimum of two weeks and more than $1 million — borne by cash-strapped county offices — to design, print and prepare new ballots.

    gift link

    https://wapo.st/4dSApTg

  4. 4.

    Doc H

    Port City Pretzels are news to me! About to bike in to Portsmouth for the Farmer’s Market – I’ll have to keep my eyes peeled for a place to pick up a bag on the ride home!! THE MOAR YOU KNOW 🌈

  7. 7.

    Suzanne

    As for being asked why…… haven’t these people ever used Lean tools? Five whys? Running government like a business?

  8. 8.

    TS

    I’m panicking again with all the democrats continuously having to fight the republicans and the judiciary – what is Nate silver up to as per the fox news tweet above? Is he trump’s man now – how does Silver get paid? Is he part of an MSM group? I still remember his first interview with Colbert pre Obama’s first election. How different are things now.

  10. 10.

    Kay

    @TS:

    The PA polls are too close for comfort but I think Nate Silver is bitter and angry and takes his work way too personal. He’s just too thin skinned to have so public facing a job, IMO. Huge ego. He gets so fucking mad when he’s criticized- it’s childish.

    With the exception of PA we’re in good shape. But he’s not wrong about PA – I just think he overweights it. He’s another middle aged white guy who went off the deep end with covid and BLM and Me Too. It happened to a lot of them. Rigid, brittle people who have trouble adapting to changing conditions.

  11. 11.

    Matt McIrvin

    @TS: Consider this: Kamala Harris’s campaign is citing Nate Silver’s model in their fundraising pitches, since its pessimistic lean is exactly the message they need for that. These things have their uses.

  14. 14.

    TS

    @Baud: its “and the judiciary” this time around – not to mention the GOP states suppressing the vote by all and any means. For someone outside of the US political world but knowing the result will have a major effect on their lives, it just seems unbelievable for a democracy to have to fight for an honest election.

    Guess I’ll go away & try to calm down.

  15. 15.

    Another Scott

    @Baud: I haven’t read the story, but I often wonder about the thought and decision process, and the sourcing, of stories like this…

    Reporter has sources who don’t like boss.  Reporter pitches story to editor – Powerful woman Dem in Disarray, Part MCMIL.  Twitter will eat it up!!

    Editor says Run with it!!

    :-/

    The whole premise seems to be “I’m an important reporter with inside sources.  Be nice to me and send me juicy stories or I’ll hurt you, even if the reality is innocuous” and it’s a turn off to me.

    But, as I said, I haven’t read it.

    FWIW.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  17. 17.

    Kay

    We have a zoomer employee – I like her a lot- but she does the “why” thing in an annoying way. She reads novels on her breaks – which is great! But she reads them sitting at her desk which is visible to the waiting room and also where they answer phones so it’s not quiet. Everyone else takes breaks in the unused conference room. So I suggested this to her and she said “why?” and I thought “am I YOUR MOM?”

  19. 19.

    Fair Economist

    @TS: Nate Silver now works for a crypto betting and derivatives site, Polymarket. The founder of Polymarket, Shayne Coplan, is very coy about his political leanings at breakfast with people like Ron DeSantis.

    So, yeah, Silver is working for the Republicans.

  21. 21.

    catclub

    @TS: what is Nate silver up to as per the fox news tweet above? Is he trump’s man now – how does Silver get paid?

     

    Excellent questions!  I think the nicest explanation for what he is doing is making money on volatility by jumping up Trump’s numbers.

  22. 22.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    I backed Shapiro but just as kind of almost superstitious “insurance” – I don’t really think he would carry PA for her. But you’re right – media will scream, including Silver who I believe also backed Shapiro.

    That’s what I mean about him being thin skinned. Christ buddy you make a ton of money in a public facing career. Stop taking everything so personal. What a goddamned ego he has. He’s going to exact REVENGE for Harris daring to defy him! I used to defend him but no more – he’s insufferable.

  23. 23.

    bbleh

    My takeaway from this “story” — and it’s been around a while! — is “is that all you got?  Really?!”

    So we have, on the one hand, a lifelong liar and cheat, multiply convicted fraudster, and repeatedly unfaithful sexual batterer who is showing every sign of serious and progressing dementia, and on the other hand … someone with a demanding management style?

    Bothsides!

  24. 24.

    PAM Dirac

    I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if most of the complainers were Ivy League grads who are bitter that a HBCU grad doesn’t acknowledge their superiority.

  27. 27.

    Anne Laurie

    @TS: what is Nate silver up to as per the fox news tweet above? Is he trump’s man now – how does Silver get paid?

    Silver has his own ‘prediction consulting’ business, which is owned (sponsored?) by Peter ‘Bathory’ Thiel.  Who declared he was not going to make any more political donations this cycle, but apparently doesn’t consider buying ‘influencers’ or right-wing politicians (JD Vance, for example) as donations.

  28. 28.

    charon

    @TS:

    what is Nate silver up to as per the fox news tweet above? Is he trump’s man now – how does Silver get paid?

    Refer to Adam Silverman in last night’s Ukraine thread. Nate Silver appears to be Russia influenced  (Peter Thiel being Russia influenced).

  29. 29.

    Starfish

    @Anne Laurie:

    Thiel … doesn’t consider buying ‘influencers’ or right-wing politicians (JD Vance, for example) as donations.

    The JD Vance was a very generous donation to the Democratic Party.

  31. 31.

    Betty Cracker

    Trump’s NYC “news conference” yesterday is getting some negative coverage, including front page treatment in the Times and Post. He took no questions and whined for 45 minutes about the many women who have accused him of sexual assault, explaining that he couldn’t be guilty because they weren’t attractive enough to be “the chosen one.” (Actual quote.) What a revolting pig.

  32. 32.

    H.E.Wolf

    Panicking uses a lot of energy.
    So does spending 1 hour volunteering for GOTV.
    Only 1 of those activities will help Democrats win.

    If panic is impossible to get rid of, then do both activities simultaneously.

    The upside is that taking one small, concrete action will lessen the panic.

  33. 33.

    oldgold

    Thiel, Musk and Murdoch, not border crossers, are the immigrants that pose greatest to threat to our Republic.

  34. 34.

    Mousebumples

    @TS: https://bsky.app/profile/emptywheel.bsky.social/post/3l3ko57str22o

    If a certain top election forecaster now working for a gambling site has a gambling addiction, would he:

    1) Be floating a pump & dump to make $$ to pay bills

    2) Be floating a pump & dump so people they owe can make $$

    3) Be following orders fr someone who wants to seed false election fraud claims

     

    https://bsky.app/profile/redsonja.bsky.social/post/3l3krwogwwl25

    I said this elsewhere, but isn’t it enough that he works for a site backed by Peter Thiel to make one suspicious of his predictions? Because he likely makes enough money to pay for an expensive NYC lifestyle+gamble.

    Your milage may vary.

  40. 40.

    Scout211

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage: Oh yeah, he was a) a Republican, and more importantly, b) a man.

    Exactly.  Especially the part about Powell being a man and Kamala Harris being a woman.  She was a prosecutor and an Attorney General and she should defer to her staff and rubber stamp everything they do? And most of all, “be nice” about it? I don’t think so. And more importantly, it would not be expected of a man.

  41. 41.

    TS

    @charon:

    Reading the indictment against the two russians has been interesting – apparently hundreds of people paid to carry the GOP messages in all strands of the media. And some of the suggested items to discuss we see every day. Who should have been picked as VP was probably one of them

    The majority of BJ supported Walz, the media, including Silver wanted Shapiro. I read a multitude of opinions on BJ – would take their selection any time over MSM or social media. Now I am thinking the Russians wanted Shapiro – so Walz was an even better selection. MVP  definitely gets most of the decisions right – bodes well for the future of democracy in the USA.

  45. 45.

    narya

    @Betty Cracker: In the same vein: it was entertaining to see Liz Cheney call the R ticket out as “misogynisitic pigs.” (I saw it on Joy Reid last night.)  I mean, again with the Cheney-isn’t-to-be-trusted of course, but that outright labeling of their behavior was interesting.

  47. 47.

    Ken

    @Suzanne: Five whys?

    I always botch that by getting to the root cause too quickly, then in the writeup I have to stick in extra steps earlier in the chain.

  50. 50.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    “88 business leaders from companies like Ford, Starbucks, Pepsi, and Lyft endorsed Vice President Harris…”

    So we’re about to see 88 tweets about how Ford makes terrible cars, Starbucks is a failing company, Pepsi is the worst drink in the world, etc…

    He can do 88 tweets easily in one insomniac night.

  51. 51.

    Ken

    @Betty Cracker: He took no questions and whined for 45 minutes about the many women who have accused him of sexual assault

    “Trump discusses women’s rights and court system reform.”

    You said the NYT was behaving themselves for once, but I’ll assume the Fox and/or Newsmax chyron was something like that.

  55. 55.

    Mousebumples

    @TS: you’re very welcome. I’ve been skeptical of his persona for awhile, but recent gambling revelations (eg his recent book) make me look at him even more side eyed.

  56. 56.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @TS: I recommend Hopium Chronicles for reassurance.

    I was on a Zoom event a couple of nights ago with Simon Rosenburg, the writer of Hopium Chronicles, and he did not have kind things to say about Nate Silver. He’s knowingly including junk polls according to Rosenburg. As @Betty said at #12, I think he’s now owned by Peter Thiel, like J. D. Vance. So his models say what Thiel wants them to say.

  58. 58.

    MazeDancer

    It’s 270 no matter how you get there. Win GA and NC, screw PA.

     But PA going for Biden (knock wood).  Voting for Biden, then electing Shapiro and Fetterman, state-wide, and now going for Trump? Makes no sense.

    Also makes no sense for those pampered staffers to think you bring anything other than your A++ game to the VP’s office.

    “She wants to know ‘why’, boo-hoo”.  When I read about that, thought this has to be made up. The VP didn’t sound any different than anyone in advertising, ffs. Not like she’s trying to maintain order and stability in the free world, or anything important.

  61. 61.

    Trivia Man

    @Scout211: I call it the Condaleeza Rice fallacy of expectations. I despise her and nearly every policy she supports. But you cant deny her qualifications. Very intelligent, widely knowledgeable about a wide variety of subjects, talented at everything she tries, effective at results for her evil goals… a shining example of what humans can do.

    But even she was criticized as an affirmative action hire and suffered many of the same criticisms about “tone” and “style”.

  65. 65.

    TBone

    It’s new Covid booster day, off to CVS to get the shot.

    Yes, I am urging anyone who hasn’t done so to make an appointment, if appropriate.

  66. 66.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @bbleh: The media is hoping it will trigger fear of the Angry Black Woman in voters.  They just want to bring Dems down.  It’s what they do.

  67. 67.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Baud: I agree that we’re not fighting the judiciary – we’ve apparently nearly given up. But from Dobbs to the most recent self-policing of Merchan, and all points in between, overall the judiciary is definitely helping the Republicans. It’s backed into the system at this point.

  69. 69.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Betty Cracker:

    I heard a few clips of that yesterday, and when he was relating (his version of) the story about his seatmate in first class on a plane, I noticed the he pronounced it “aeroplane.”  Three syllables — aer-o-plane. Who pronounces it that way any more? A supremely minor thing to notice, considering the source, but for some reason it caught my attention and I thought it was … weird.

  70. 70.

    Betty Cracker

    @TBone: DeSantis is also corruptly using the state’s health agency to campaign against the amendment. He has corrupted just about agency and institution in the state, following the Viktor Orbán playbook to the letter.

    Thank dog DeSantis has all the charisma of a concussed garden snail and will thus probably never be president. He’s a much more efficient autocrat than Trump.

    @SiubhanDuinne: That bit of weirdness jumped out at me too.

  71. 71.

    Betsy

    These people have never been to law school, where you learn to think and not just string words together that seem to make sense.

  72. 72.

    oldgoldp

    We do have an extraordinarily serious immigration problem. But, it is not the one being  exploited by MAGA

    Unlike the likes of Musk, Murdoch and Thiel, the border crossers do not pose an existential threat to our Republic. These foreign born oligarchs do.

  73. 73.

    Steve LaBonne

    @UncleEbeneezer: Especially ridiculous when, back in what we used to know as reality, Harris is one of the most joyful and uplifting national politicians to come along in years, and Trump is perpetually angry.

  74. 74.

    oldgold

    We do have an extraordinarily serious immigration problem. But, it is not the one being  exploited by MAGA

    Unlike the likes of Musk, Murdoch and Thiel, the border crossers do not pose an existential threat to our Republic. These foreign born oligarchs do.

  75. 75.

    M31

    BREAKING NEWS: Alan Dershowitz announces he has left the Democratic Party.

    well shit, we’re really in trouble now

    no linky because really who gives a fuck

  78. 78.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage:I can tell you from personal experience that Colin Fucking Powell was no different than how Harris is being described when he was Chairman and yet, where were all those stories?

    Oh yeah, he was a) a Republican, and more importantly, b) a man.

    c) that was twenty years ago.

    The entire article is basically a big whine that Harris isn’t phoning it in.  I think that says a lot about how depraved the MSM is now  that having someone diligently doing their job and not sitting around BSing all day is horrifying and confusing to them.

  80. 80.

    Another Scott

    Her media team is doing the work, also too.

    Lauren Hitt@LaurenHitt
    1h

    The Harris-Walz campaign is launching a new ad campaign ahead of Tuesday’s debate on reproductive freedom. The three ads feature Trump’s own words saying he is “proud” to have overturned Roe, as well as two women who have been directly affected by Trump’s abortion bans.
    [video]

    Sep 7, 2024 · 11:42 AM UTC

    Alabamian Latorya Beasley was trying to grow her family through IVF this spring, only to have her procedure canceled just eight days prior, because of the extreme Alabama Supreme Court ruling made possible by Donald Trump.

    [ video ]

    A Kenosha, Wisconsin resident, Laurel faced dangerous delays in care after experiencing pregnancy complications and severe bleeding due to the state’s cruel 1849 statute.

    [ video ]

    Good, good.

    Forward!!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  81. 81.

    Weftage

    That tweet from Emhoff…. All I can think is “Put your hands together for Madame VP and the Valuable Pretzels!!!”

  82. 82.

    JML

    @MazeDancer: You’d be surprised at how many politicians don’t care about the why. They only want to know why when it’s something they don’t want to do. It’s also how some staff loses the plot on their role and starts thinking they matter more than they do: because of the control they’ve had over moving a candidate around from place to place or advancing a policy, they start to think they deserve to be the one always calling the shots, and get very pissy when someone yanks them back or they go work for someone who wants to know the why or expects more backing every time you want them to do or say something.

    It’s also important to remember that the best and the brightest aren’t always landing as senate staff: DC is an expensive effing city, most of the staff jobs pay garbage (and the internships that can get you the staff job pay less or nothing), and you’d be amazed how much congressional staff is being subsidized by mommy & daddy. People without money churn because they can only take being broke AF for so long and people who aren’t necessarily the best get jobs and stay because they have other sources of income.

    If this is the best they can come up with for oppo is “the VP demanded quality staff work!” they’re really stretching. But the DC media craves this kind of gossipy insider BS, and they got tons o f it under TFG. They’ve gotten little under Biden and they hate it.

  83. 83.

    charon

    @Trivia Man:

     

    Condaleeza Rice

    Credentials do not equal competence. Rice is great at piano playing and figure skating. Apart from those, she has been a fuckup at everything she has ever done.

  84. 84.

    Weftage

    @M31:

    BREAKING NEWS: Alan Dershowitz announces he has left the Democratic Party.

    “Teeears as big as horse turds rolllled down my cheeks”

    (Dershowitz is still alive? Who knew?)

  85. 85.

    Ken

    @M31: Alan Dershowitz announces he has left the Democratic Party.

    As with the Cheney announcements, that can only improve the Democrats’ acceptability to conservatives.

  86. 86.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Starfish: The JD Vance was a very generous donation to the Democratic Party.

    And look at the Theil’s time in Californian politics, he’s done his best to keep the Blue Super-majority going with his attempts to make turn the game Bioshock into a reality. He is exactly the kind of conservative billion air activist a liberal could want.

  88. 88.

    trnc

    @TS: Instead of just ordering signs to be posted at each polling site that Kennedy has dropped out of the race.

    JFC, this state sometimes.

  89. 89.

    Trivia Man

    @charon: a fuck up? Really? Do you think she is a dumb DEI hire only given work as a token? I dont think her intelligence is at all in question. The goals she pursued and the devils she supported are what i oppose but to me she looks capable and accomplished.

  90. 90.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @UncleEbeneezer:

    The media is hoping it will trigger fear of the Angry Black Woman in voters.

    Fear? Shit, I’m COUNTING ON an elected “Black Woman” to be angry. I hope the nut-cutting starts the day after the election, which I hope will see wins of angry black/white/brown/multiracial women up and down the ticket and all over the nation, all smart, focused, and ANGRY.

    And I’m an old ‘white’ dude!

  92. 92.

    hueyplong

    @Betty Cracker: “… explaining that he couldn’t be guilty because they weren’t attractive enough to be ‘the chosen one.’”

    So Trump admits that he rapes the ones who meet his standards of attractiveness?  Would love to see a follow up question in which someone asks him for an example of a woman other than one of his wives who qualifies.  No matter what he answered, it would be creepy at a moment when we’re nearing a tipping point in the public’s acceptance of his daily spouting of offensive shit.

  95. 95.

    Hungry Joe

    POSTCARD UPDATE — SERIES 2

    Postcards to Swing States:

    Yesterday — 11

    Running total — 193

  96. 96.

    Ken

    Radley Balko on the Cheney endorsement:

    Imagine being Nikki Haley. You endure all the racism, threats, and hate from running against Trump in the primary, then eat your last shred of dignity and endorse him anyway. Then Dick fucking Cheney comes along and shows how low the bar for moral courage is that you couldn’t clear.

  98. 98.

    hueyplong

    If there were no FoxNews, Dershowitz would cease to exist.  Glad he is confined to an EPA media superfund site without a current “D” label.

  99. 99.

    Fair Economist

    “You can’t come to the vice president and just ask her to do something,”, said another staffer. “You need to have a why.”

    “…her demanding management style.”

    So, MVP Harris knows her stuff, and expects staffers giving her recommendations to know *their* stuff and –

    The media is trying to say this is a bad thing?

  101. 101.

    Fair Economist

    @hueyplong: I’m amazing the media hasn’t pointed out that he claimed Jean Carroll wasn’t attractive enough to rape (barf) – but in a court of law he confused her with his then-wife, Marla Maples!

  102. 102.

    Mai Naem mobile

    I can’t keep track of the details of TFG’s court cases but what happens to the one where he had put up the truth social stock as bond, now that its tanked?  I’m assuming it’s not worth the amount of the bond since IIRC it’s dropped >70%.

  103. 103.

    Baud

    @Mai Naem mobile:

    First I heard of it. If he got a private bond by pledging his stock, then it’s up to the bond issuer to decide what to do. Which is probably nothing

    ETA: I doubt a court would accept stock as bond directly.

  104. 104.

    Mai Naem mobile

    I guess the media would find it much more interesting to have Harris insist on cartoon style briefings with lots of pictures. Also sprinkled in has to be flattering Harris if silly different ways.

  108. 108.

    Nukular Biskits

    @Kay:

    With the exception of PA we’re in good shape. But he’s not wrong about PA – I just think he overweights it. He’s another middle aged white guy who went off the deep end with covid and BLM and Me Too. It happened to a lot of them. Rigid, brittle people who have trouble adapting to changing conditions.

    Trumpism in a nutshell.

  112. 112.

    Jackie

    What can be done when over $5M is raised in ONE MONTH!

    “Spectators at the University of Michigan football game against Texas on Saturday will be reminded of a different rival before the game: Ohio State,” CBS News reports.

    “At the Big House in Ann Arbor, Michigan, an aerial banner paid for by the Democratic National Committee will read: ‘JD Vance <3 Ohio State + Project 2025.’ It’s a tongue-in-cheek reference to the Republican vice presidential nominee, who got his bachelor’s degree from Ohio State University, and the dense conservative blueprint by the Heritage Foundation for a potential second Trump term.”

    “From the tailgates until kickoff, fans at four separate college football games in battleground states on Saturday will see aerial banners paid for by the Democratic National Committee.”

  114. 114.

    Gin & Tonic

    @TS: Re: Nate. Read Adam’s thread and one of the BlueSky or Twitter threads linked in the comments.

    “We’re just haggling about the price.”

  115. 115.

    trnc

    @Scout211: ​
      Not to mention the difference between Harris insistence that staffers be prepared and DT just being obstinate and pitching a fit if he hears something he doesn’t like because he isn’t prepared.

  118. 118.

    Ken

    @trnc: Subheader is good too.

    The Republican nominee spoke in an appearance billed as a ‘press conference’ that sometimes verged into a stream of consciousness that was hard to follow. He took no questions.

    Though why they didn’t say that about last week’s “economics” presser is still a good question.

  121. 121.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    @Ken: Wait, Dershowitz was still a Dem until now? I thought he’d broken with the Democratic Party something like fifteen or twenty years ago.

  122. 122.

    narya

    And, of course, if Harris weren’t so prepared, the spin would be that she’s an empty vessel who only exists/succeeds because of the talent of her staff propping her up. So tiresome . . . and at this point, there are a whole LOT of women who’ve been dealing with this for decades.

  124. 124.

    Baud

    @narya:

    the spin would be that she’s an empty vessel who only exists/succeeds because of the talent of her staff propping her up

     
    They’ll probably do that too. They’ve never been slaves to consistency.

  125. 125.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Baud: Dobbs was their misguided wet dream that we fought tooth and nail against. It soaked up effort for decades. So, hooray that it’s upset the voters, finally, after 30-40 years of fighting? Uh, ok. Our loss there definitely has a lot of voters motivated. And so I guess that’s true for every currently-unpopular judicial act. To say that we’re not fighting against those, too, suggests that we differ in what “fighting” means.

  126. 126.

    Baud

    @Chief Oshkosh:

    I was responding to your assertion that Dobbs was helping Republicans. I suppose the Dobbs 6 thought that’s what they were doing, but early indications are that it’s hurting them. Of course, November could prove that the woman hating side is in fact stronger, and Dobbs motivated them than it did us.

  127. 127.

    narya

    @Baud: Yup. I do think that there is a much larger contingent of women who’ve heard this shit forfuckingever and are just . . . as rikyrah would say, LIPS SO PURSED.

  131. 131.

    charon

    @Trivia Man:

     

    but to me she looks capable and accomplished.

    Oh indeed, I don’t doubt her talent for seeming capable, competent, talented. She is very good at that.

    But tell me something she has actually accomplished

    (This is about Condaleeza Rice, people)

  132. 132.

    Nukular Biskits

    @TBone:

    What’s interesting about that DeSantis/FL/petition story on MSN is Twitter will not “preview” that link (I posted it on my account).

    I wouldn’t be surprised if that fuckhead Musk disallows that for certain sites.

  133. 133.

    different-church-lady

    I finally did it! Loomis banned me on LGM! And I wasn’t even all that obnoxious to him!

  136. 136.

    narya

    @Baud: I’m hoping that there is also a contingent of people who are just tired of the orange menace, and another contingent (Sarah Longwell interviews some of them) who were truly appalled by J6, and Dobbs, and and and. For those of us who knew what he was from the beginning, none of it is news. I’m appalled that it’s so close, though; it’s depressing to see his vile crap and know that there are people saying “Yes! Exactly what I want!”

  137. 137.

    BR

    My head is hurting with all the progressives who don’t understand politics who are saying that Dick Cheney’s support means that Harris supports Halliburton or whatever — I mean we’re talking about literally the most progressive Dem we’ve ever had in the general election, and we’re talking about a nominee who AOC is very vocally supporting. Wtf people.

  138. 138.

    TS

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Thanks, someone else directed me there. Adam is so good at this type of analysis. As a couple of folks said on that thread – Nate silver was just a statistical nerd, that we heard about in 2008. How money can make fools out of so many. I still argue it is good to have enough, to be able to pay the rent/mortgage & handle the cost of the air con dying in the middle of summer. But those ideas are lost in the desire to have it all – to laud over those who do not. I like to think they eventually have to pay the piper.

  141. 141.

    Trivia Man

    @charon: Provost at Stanford, solved their budget deficit. Brokered a major oil  deal with Kazakstan for Chevron. Started an after school program fir liw income high school students that changed lives. NSA Director, Secretary of State. Influential in diplomacy around the world – for evil goals but successful at getting W at least tepid global cover for his wars.

     

    Any examples of fuck ups you want to share?

  142. 142.

    BR

    We don’t really need Nate Silver or election forecasters this year. Polling averages from the swing states are enough. 538 or Nate Silver don’t add much value beyond that. It all comes down to how accurate swing state polls are, and nobody knows that.

  143. 143.

    JWR

    Last Thursday or Friday night, NBC’s regular news did a longish story on voting in Georgia, and the pillar of this quite well run system was none other than Brad Raffensperger, one of those most effective at stripping the voter rolls of valid voters. They didn’t mention that.

    But I’m feeling really excited about this Harris person! I hope she crushes it not only in this “Debate of the Century”, (not!) but also at the polls come November 5th. And I mean CRUSHES it! By 15% to 20%! (Yeah, dream on.)

  144. 144.

    TBone

    BTW last night’s kickoff to TCM’s series, Making Change, was fabulous.  Michael Tomasky (of The New Republic Magazine, that did the ranking) introduced the number one most significant political film of all time, The Battle of Algiers.

    Bush/Cheney used that film to prepare their bootlickers troops for what fighting a modern day guerilla war would look like.

    Then All the Kings Men (Broderick Crawford) and The Great Dictator (Chaplin) were shown.  The movies aren’t being shown in order of ranking, other than the first, most significant one being shown first.

  145. 145.

    Another Scott

    Meanwhile, … TimesofIsrael.com:

    […]

    The US and the United Kingdom are both staunch allies of Israel and have both supported the war, though London diverged from Washington on Monday by suspending some arms exports to Israel due to risk that they could be used to break international law.

    At a Financial Times event in London alongside [MI6 chief] Moore on Saturday, [CIA chief] Burns said that a more detailed proposal for a deal will be made in the coming days but would require both sides to make some tough decisions.

    “We will make this more detailed proposal, I hope in the next several days, and then we’ll see,” Burns stated.

    “I cannot tell you how close we are right now,” Burns said.

    He said that while 90 percent of the text has been agreed between the warring sides, “the last 10% is the last 10% for a reason because it’s the hardest part to do.”

    He added that it was a question of political will and he hoped leaders on both sides recognized “the time has come finally to make some hard choices and some difficult compromises.”

    Additionally, Moore said he believes Iran is still planning to retaliate for the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, which took place in Tehran in late July and which Iran blames on Israel.

    “I suspect they will try and we won’t be able to let our guard down for the type of activity that the Iranians might try and prosecute in that direction,” Moore said when asked about whether Iran would retaliate.

    […]

    TCFFG and his minions would make the situation worse. We need to keep our eyes on the prizes and keep the monsters out of office.

    Forward!!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  146. 146.

    BR

    @Baud:

    There’s been a flurry of Jill Stein discourse online lately. She has been interjecting herself into things and getting amplified. Speaking of Putin’s people.

    Fortunately there’s been a good amount of pushback too, but I dunno whether people get suckered by her.

  148. 148.

    Anonymous At Work

    Still disturbed that DICK CHENEY is voting for Harris.  I cannot voting the same way as him.  On trips to Houston, I routinely roll down the window and flip the bird to KBR (the company he ran and then rewarded during Iraq War) when I pass it.

    I guess he’s doing it since only a Cheney will end democracy.  Dunno.  Still very disturbed.

  149. 149.

    MinuteMan

    When Clinton was President the press was big on the always-the-smartest-man-in-the-room meme. So much depends on the feelings of the writer.

  150. 150.

    Scout211

    LOL.  Things are uncertain in the KC Chiefs WAG group.  From Fox News comes a very “controversial” new development.  Taylor Swift did not sit next to Brittany Mahomes at the game Thursday “among Trump support controversy.” Yes, big “controversy.”

    Background (in case you all are not up to date on this) Brittany Mahomes has come out in support of Trump.  She got some criticism on social media and she pushed back.

    So TSwift not sitting next to her on Thursday at the game means something.   Well, to Fox News it does.  It appears that Fox News is breathlessly awaiting Taylor Swift’s endorsement of Kamala Harris so they can do what they do to make her look bad.  They have the script written already, I imagine.  But so far, Taylor Swift has not made any endorsements.

    This is just ridiculous, but there you have it.  WAGs are not sitting together! It’s a big controversy!  Fox News is on it!!11!

  153. 153.

    artem1s

    “People from outside our office came to me, wanting to change how she laughed. I can’t remember anyone ever trying to change how Mike Pence or Joe Biden laughed.”

    Not important now but eventually I’d love to know who was behind that bullshit. Very important now is that Joe Biden didn’t listen them and that he didn’t start second guessing his choice. This is why the MSM is so pissed at him and her and that they don’t have the power to get voters to second guess her. From this point forward the standard response to tone policing competent women should be fuck the hell off.

  155. 155.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

    I seem to remember pundits in 2016 whining that Hillary was “overprepared”.

    This year, we’re not contending with people of the mindsets formed by Mark Halperin , Matt Lauer or Chuck Todd, so that’s better.

    Sadly, Andrea Mitchell hasn’t shuffled this mortal coil and we’re stuck with Dana Bash for decades to come.

  158. 158.

    Kayla Rudbek

    @TBone: I went yesterday evening. I should have counted on Walgreens to be running late as usual; I actually drove my car so i wouldn’t be late and I had enough time with their delay that I could have walked.

  159. 159.

    Kay

    They’re really never going to release the Trump campaign emails they all have.

    Extraordinary pro Trump bias. I honestly believed one media outlet would leave the pro Trump cartel and release the information they’re sitting on to the public, but not one outlet is willing to do the job they’re paid to do.

    What shitty, low quality work. Absolute chicken shits. It’s really unfair to real journalists that we include political media in the category. They should be in the “entertainment media” category.

  162. 162.

    RandomMonster

    @Baud: God, I hope we don’t lose PA. The media will crow about how Harris should have picked Shapiro.

    We’ll have bigger problems than that if we lose PA.

  167. 167.

    BR

    All I hope for is that someone has some juicy Trump or Vance story that they’re going to drop on Monday. We want Trump rage tweeting all night on Monday night so he’s tired going into the debate.

  168. 168.

    Kayla Rudbek

    @Betsy: you can get away with that if you’re a member of the Federalist Society practicing before the Republican judges.  I say we should bring back the ancient principle of “false in one thing, false in all things”. (That saying is so old that it was first written down in Latin). Right now it seems to have taken refuge in patent law but it needs to be applied to all law in my arrogant opinion.

  170. 170.

    The Pale Scot

    Gift Link? that gets me “Create an account to redeem your FREE article”

    FY Wapo, this “we want to know who you are shit” is getting ridiculous, shows the power that third party data brokers have

  173. 173.

    RandomMonster

    @Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: I seem to remember pundits in 2016 whining that Hillary was “overprepared”.

    I get similarly annoyed when someone tells me that something is “overdesigned”. Something can be poorly designed, or a design can be compromised due to competing or contradictory objectives. “Overprepared” sounds like similar bullshit.

  174. 174.

    TBone

    @Kayla Rudbek: the important part is you got the shot! Yay!  I got mine earlier and the pharmacy nurse is so good at her job that I literally did not feel the needle at all!  I told her “Did you really inject me?” and she had a good laugh – then I said she must have lots of practice by now and she bragged about how many vaccine shots she’s given there and we celebrated uptake together. So glad you’re protected!

  175. 175.

    BR

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: ​

    Took some doing but I found that Spanish-media interview from the Univision Tweet. It was conducted in English.

    I’m interested to hear how the election is being viewed in the Latino community in the swing states. The little I’m seeing on social media is that young Latinas are generally pretty excited for Harris but beyond that I don’t know.

  176. 176.

    TBone

    @Nukular Biskits: yes!!! 💙 I didn’t even feel it this time, CVS pharmacy tech so good at it (see above reply).

    CVS has them and takes appointments online. My shot was free (covered by insurance).

  178. 178.

    Matt McIrvin

    @BR: Yeah, that’s where I am. The experience of 2016 proved to us that the possibility of systematic error from large changes in turnout patterns limits what you can actually say on the basis of these state poll aggregations. 2008 and 2012 made them look almost like crystal balls, and you could even go back to 2004 and argue that it would have worked then. But these seem to have been lucky breaks.

    The thing about changes in turnout patterns is, they’re not random variables. People can do things to affect them. And that’s an effect that’s not going to show up in the poll aggregates at all, just in the actual election.

    Both sides are obviously going all in on Pennsylvania. It’s just a question of who turns out to be more effective. We don’t know that. No sufficiently sophisticated manipulation of poll data is going to tell you.

  180. 180.

    rikyrah

    @TS:

    Nate is PAID BY THIEL

     

    He will forever be suspect to me until that changes.

    He will not be taken seriously by me.

     

    You can decide for yourself if you trust him

  187. 187.

    rikyrah

    @TS:

    I really want the Government to expose them all. Tell us who they ALL ARE😡😡

    We need to know . Across these social media platforms. Who is getting that Russian Check

  189. 189.

    sab

    I remember dropping off my mother’s absentee ballot because we didn’t trust mail delivery anymore.

    In Ohio, if she were still alive, now I would have to trundle her and her walker down to the board of elections because they can’t trust me to drop off her ballot.

    Maybe we should go back to my first year voting when I had to get my absentee ballot notarized.

    Have I mentionned lately how much I dislike Frank LaRose our Sec od State?

  191. 191.

    TS

    @Anonymous At Work:

    It was discussed on earlier threads. best way to think about it

    The enemy of my enemy is my friend. It is not a lasting friendship. Their vote will have no meaning – they are not in a swing state, but if their comments let others – who are in swing states – realise it is OK to vote for VP Harris, that is a good result for democracy and the US.

  192. 192.

    rikyrah

    @BR:

    The simple mindedness of those who just can’t say….

     

    I know that Cheney is The Evil One

    but, we welcome the.public support..

     

    Is maddening.

    Grow up

    Understand the stakes.

    It’s sort of scary that someone like Cheney thinks the Orange Menace is a threat like we do.

    Just validates our thoughts about the Orange Menace.

  195. 195.

    M31

    @Another Scott: lol that is awesome! he’s really good at this

    lol and did you catch him telling her “your sister said she’d babysit so you can make some calls too”

    hahaha I don’t think she ever said that, so Tim is getting some extra campaign workers

    Fox News: “WALZ LIES TO COERCE FREE LABOR THIS IS WORSE THAN SLAVERY”

  197. 197.

    Mike E

    @rikyrah: I’ve been avoiding any coverage of Turd Man like the plague but now that his media-aided diaper is slipping off (no matter what the NYT et al tell us his “intent” could be), each time he appears in front of video cameras really works against the notion that he’s an attractive candidate to even casual voters.

    More of this.

  198. 198.

    Anoniminous

    @RandomMonster:

    “Over designed” is an engineering term meaning ‘overly complex, needlessly exceeding standards, the perfect being the enemy of the good-enough.’

  199. 199.

    Citizen Alan

    @RandomMonster: I would say that the term “overdesigned” means that something is needlessly complicated at the design level and could have benefited from editing to simplify things. That’s a legitimate basis for criticism.

    “Overprepared,” on the other hand, Is a sign that the person making the criticism is fundamentally lazy and cannot conceive of why another person would put in more effort than seems necessary

    Was it chuck todd or wolf blitzer who made that famously asinine comment about hillary? I think it was chuck todd, but whenever I hear someone whining about another person being overprepared, my brain immediately goes to that sad picture of wolf blitzer on celebrity jeopardy, ending with negative 3600 points.

  201. 201.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Anoniminous: That’s possible! Running a Black woman may also be a bigger motivator for MAGA white guys to turn out and vote against her than we had running with Biden in 2020. Trump and Vance are certainly moving from dogwhistles to klaxons to make that happen. It’s just an unknown.

    Harris may be ideologically a completely standard liberal, but the identity angle here amounts to turning up the heat as far as it will go. Will that be good for us, or bad? Remains to be seen.

  202. 202.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Baud:

    was responding to your assertion that Dobbs was helping Republicans.

    Not what I meant. Please do a better job of reading my mind next time.

    ;)

  203. 203.

    Mike E

    @zhena gogolia: I’m with Michelle Obama: we don’t have time for this foolishness so peeps better get their big boy/big girl/non-binary pants/kilts on and vote Harris Walz Dem all the way down their ballots.

  204. 204.

    rikyrah

    @sab:

    As someone who lives in a voting jurisdiction where there will be a mail Ballot drop box at every one of our 52 early voting sites, I find the actions of the Ohio Secretary of State infuriating.

     

    Once again, I am so glad that Illinois is a decentralized state where voting is concerned. I would be climbing the walls if someone who didn’t even live in our jurisdiction was making decisions like this 😒😒

     

    They debated a few years ago to make it a more centralized system ,but the larger jurisdictions said…

    Nah, we good.😒 And used our political allies to put the kabosh on that BULLSHYT 😡

  206. 206.

    TBone

    @Baud: the horseshoe lefty website I check on has still made no mention of the Tenet Media influencers wingers (Tim Pool, et al.) who were paid by the Kremlin through RT.

    Only one post today about the other prosecution of cybercrimes. I think they know they’re next! This is the only news mentioned in their long daily lineup of news links:

    https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-disrupts-covert-russian-government-sponsored-foreign-malign-influence

  207. 207.

    Matt McIrvin

    @rikyrah: Cheney’s endorsement is an obvious gimme to the Jacobin/Greenwald crowd of pseudo-leftists, but their public influence at this point is very low. I think it was higher when the big campaign stories were dumps of “Hillary emails” coming through Wikileaks.

  209. 209.

    SatanicPanic

    Harris might be a tough boss but I don’t remember any of her former employees showing up at the RNC to urge a vote for Trump. Trump barely had any of his own former employees endorsing him.

  210. 210.

    sab

    I love that article about VP Harris’s staff churn. She lost staff members when they found out she was competent and couldn’t be manipulated. Interesting contrast to Ohio’s lieutenant governor under Kasich (Mary Taylor) who lost staff when they found out she was incompetent and couldn’t be persuaded to follow the law.

  212. 212.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Anonymous At Work: I don’t like the guy, and whenever he comes up in the news it evokes bad feelings, but I don’t think his endorsement says anything bad about Harris, just that he sees Trump as one of the Bad Guys he used to urge fighting wars against. Which, you know, is a fair assessment. I’ll take it.

  213. 213.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    @Trivia Man: “Bin Laden Determined To Strike In United States”. As Jon Stewart put it, “you’re f@%!ing kidding me, right? Please tell me you’re f@%!ing kidding me…”

  214. 214.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Baud: When your class of shitlib sellouts has expanded to include Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders, I think you’ve effectively self-marginalized.

  215. 215.

    Steve LaBonne

    @The Pale Scot: Sometimes I use Firefox with NoScript running, other times I use archive.ph. Some paywalls are vulnerable to one but not the other. Some smarter ones can’t be bypassed either way.

  216. 216.

    Anoniminous

    Again I say ….

    Poll shows Kansans closely divided on constitutional amendment on abortion

    “As things stand in the Co/efficient poll shared with FiveThirtyEight, 47% of the more than 1,500 voters sampled support the so-called “Value Them Both” amendment, and 43% are against it. The remaining 10% are undecided.”

    The Abortion Vote In Kansas Looks Like It’s Going To Be Close

    “On Aug. 2, Kansans will vote on a state constitutional amendment that would clarify that the state’s bill of rights does not protect Kansans’ right to an abortion. And even though the state leans Republican, new polling and fundraising numbers suggest it’s a close race.”

    Kansas voters defeat abortion amendment in unexpected landslide

    “Kansas voters in a landslide Tuesday defeated a constitutional amendment that would have stripped residents of abortion rights, defying polling and political observers who expected a close result.

    The ballot measure was failing by a 60-40 margin late Tuesday after voters responded to an intense and costly campaign marked by dubious claims by amendment supporters and the unraveling of protections by the U.S. Supreme Court.”

  217. 217.

    Matt McIrvin

    @sab: They’re trying to repeat the Amy Klobuchar, Evil Boss story from some years back. It doesn’t sound the same though. Just sounds like the kind of “high expectations” management doctrine that’s supposed to be the road to success in the startup world.

  218. 218.

    TBone

    @rikyrah: in the meantime, this guy identifies them

    https://vatniksoup.com/

    I feel like it is important to introduce these bad actors along with the strategies they employ in the information space. Only this way we can pursue the one thing that’s usually referred to as the first victim of the war: truth.

  219. 219.

    sdhays

    I wrote this earlier, FYWP seems to have eaten it:

    As we’re talking about executive management styles, I think it’s worthwhile to remember again that MVP’s opponent’s management style includes throwing ketchup at staff and regularly going into such a rage that a staffer has to be on hand with the music of Cats in order to calm him.

    That’s not “truthiness”. That’s real. It actually happened.

  220. 220.

    SatanicPanic

    I don’t know if this was posted here but that California state senator who made a big deal about leaving the Democratic Party is being sued:

    SACRAMENTO, California — State Sen. Marie Alvarado-Gil’s former chief of staff has sued her for alleged sexual harassment and creating a hostile work environment, claiming in a lengthy complaint that the Central Valley Republican pressured him into performing sex acts and then fired him when he resisted.

    …

    The suit comes a month after Alvarado-Gil switched parties. She declared on Fox News in August, “The Democratic Party of today, in California, I do not recognize it.”

    “I didn’t leave the party, the party wouldn’t let me fuck him so I fired him. I mean the party, I fired the party”

  224. 224.

    Geminid

    @BR: I check out those circles from time to time and one observation is that some of Harris’s detractors on the Left have a bad case of Sour Grapes. There was a time not so long ago, roughly 2015 to 2021, when they thought they were going to take the Democrats over. They couldn’t so now they trash the Party.

    I liken them to a band of vicious pirates who, having failed to storm a city, poison the wells on the way back to their ships. I’m speaking here of people like Sirota, Klippenstein, N. Turner and the like; the Jerkobin crowd.

    I don’t think they sway a very sizeable group of voters though, so I mainly see them as an irritant. And they are irritating as hell..

  230. 230.

    TBone

    @Matt McIrvin: don’t have to tear down our own team – they are popular and have been stumping for US while doing their work for the team!

    Sorry, I was distracted by the latest sexual harassment allegations and didn’t fully comprehend your comment till now.

  231. 231.

    Ken

    @JWR: I hope she crushes it not only in this “Debate of the Century”, (not!)

    You don’t think it will be bigger than the Abraham Lincoln – Frederick Douglass debates?

  234. 234.

    Scout211

    @SatanicPanic: I read that this morning but didn’t post the link.  The details are awful, if found to be true.

    Her former chief of staff, Chad Condit, filed the civil lawsuit in Sacramento Superior Court on Thursday. The lawsuit includes allegations of sexual harassment, discrimination, retaliation and violations of other state labor laws. Condit portrayed Alvardo-Gil as an erratic, controlling, sexually abusive authority figure. “This was a sex-based quid pro quo relationship of unwelcome advances and sexual behaviors coupled with punishment and flexing of power,” Condit alleged.

    But the strange twist is this:

    Condit is the son of former Congressman, Gary Condit. He faced scrutiny in the high-profile death of Chandra Levy in 2001.

  235. 235.

    Baud

    @M31:

    Germany and the USSR were roughly equal powers at the time. The right dominates the left today, both here and worldwide.

  238. 238.

    Ken

    @Scout211: Taylor Swift did not sit next to Brittany Mahomes

    Are we all supposed to squeal “OMG I can’t wait to get to sixth period history so I can tell Madison!!!”

    Aside from that, I notice that as usual conservatives have no agency — they don’t say that Brittany did not sit next to Taylor.

  239. 239.

    Anoniminous

    @Matt McIrvin:

    I don’t see where these new MAGA voters would come from.  Trump amp’ed his 2020 vote by ~400,000 over 2016 and still lost.  Oh there will be some white voters who go for Trump because Harris is black.  IMO there’ll be a shit ton more black voters who vote for Harris because she is black and women voters going for Harris because she is a woman.  And we can’t discount a number of loosely attached GOP voters fed-up with Trump’s BS who will sit out.

  240. 240.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Geminid: Their supposed vehicle for doing this was going to be Bernie Sanders. Sanders is stumping for Harris.

    Meanwhile, a lot of the economic-Left positions Sanders symbolized became mainstream Democratic doctrine. Biden has been extraordinarily pro-organized-labor even by historical Democratic Party standards. The party has unabashedly embraced Keynesian stimulus in the wake of COVID, even with some bipartisan support though the Republicans won’t admit it now. Larry Summers isn’t driving the truck.

    A lot of the antiliberal-left people were mostly for an isolationist foreign policy, though, and they’ve got more allies in the MAGA camp there, which is why some of them jumped ship.

  242. 242.

    sab

    @rikyrah: In Ohio’s defense, at least we have a system where there are equal representation of democrats and republicans on every county board of elections. Sec of State breaks the ties, but he cannot dominate like the Sec of State does in Florida.

    But yes, I am infuriated by how much power he has. We hadn’t noticed because almost always we voted in lawyers who at least understand the law. This guy is just a nitwit from a family of beer and wine distributors.

  243. 243.

    JWR

    @Geminid: I’m almost certain I heard about Middle East Eye here, from you, (and thank you!), and the editor was interviewed last Wednesday afternoon. I was only half-listening, but he didn’t sound very hopeful to me. Thought you might be interested.

    Background Briefing with Ian Masters
    ‎September ‎4, ‎2024
    Could the Arsonist Netanyahu Spark a Wider War With Jordan a Powder Keg About to Explode (19:54)
    Joining us is David Hearst, the Editor of Middle East Eye…

  247. 247.

    Baud

    Via reddit

    Like all of us, Harmeet Dhillon, who served as legal advisor to the Trump 2020 campaign and most recently slapped her name on Elon Musk’s dumbest lawsuit, continues to absorb the federal indictment alleging a campaign on the part of Russian intelligence to fund Trump-friendly media and the subsequent charges filed against a former Trump advisor for laundering Russian funds to evade sanctions. Coupled with the potentially unrelated but nonetheless curiously timed memo from the Trump campaign warning everyone to stop talking and special counsel Jack Smith filing an “Ex Parte, In Camera, and Under Seal Notice Regarding Classified Discovery” notice in the insurrection case, everyone in MAGAland is just a little edgy about the bill coming due in the form of criminal liability and denominated in Rubles.

     

    Dhillon recently took to social media to remind the extended MAGAverse that they should probably lawyer up before mouthing off to law enforcement… and some corners have thrown some shade on this message.

  248. 248.

    Ruckus

    @bbleh:

    someone with a demanding management style

    I’d imagine that running something like a country with over 330 million people might actually need a demanding management style.

    I had employees, a handful, not a large country full, and on rare occasions, one had to be at least slightly forceful. I also ran a department on a US navy vessel many moons ago and that was even more fun….. Some days a demanding style was the only workable option. That or the option of them swimming home – a few hundred miles…. Because no matter if it is an option or not, many people really do not like being told what to do or how to do it. And those seem to be the people that need a least some structure the most.

  249. 249.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @sdhays: a staffer has to be on hand with the music of Cats in order to calm him.

    Wait, what? That’s the first I’ve heard of that.

    If somebody started blasting “Memory” at me, *I* might start throwing ketchup at the walls.

  250. 250.

    Msb

    @Anonymous At Work: you’re really going to stop doing something that you think is good and right because an evil person whom you hate is also going to do it? Really? Why give him so much power over your decisions (especially as you know he is evil)?

  251. 251.

    TBone

    @hueyplong: I can see why, but

    Truly, it’s like a movie scene. Like divine intervention. So, Hall sang at the coffee shop for the next two weekends. But the owner wanted her to stay on an additional two, which she obliged. That’s when her life really changed. That’s when the now-legendary artist Sérgio Mendes entered her life. His band at the time, Brasil ’65, was breaking up and the musicians were all headed home. But Mendes wanted to give a new group one last shot.

    “He’d heard about me on the street and came to the club between shows and he just watched me from the entrance of the door and after I finished, he came up to me and said, ‘I’m putting a group together and I want you to be the lead singer.’ I said, ‘You’ll have to ask my father,’” Hall recalls.

    https://americansongwriter.com/lani-hall-talks-miracle-life-story-husband-herb-alpert-and-new-lp-seasons-of-love/

  252. 252.

    Bill Arnold

    @TS:

    how does Silver get paid?

    I would not be surprised to learn that he is making large personal monetary bets on the outcomes of the 2024 elections. He has a history, and now advises a betting company that handles political betting (Polymarket) in a paid position.
    If he is, then anything he says and any modeling work he does should be interpreted as possible attempts to affect the outcomes of said bets.

  256. 256.

    Trivia Man

    @Bruce K in ATH-GR: Again, this proves my point. As NSA she got it to the president. That was her job and she was competent at escalating the information. I suspect she was not opposed to the W/ Cheney dream of a war to enrich haliburton and hurt middle east countries. She was successful at that, no?

  258. 258.

    Ruckus

    @BR:

    Some people are not going to like a woman running the country. There are myriad reasons and some, if about the actual person and not their gender may be legit. But every candidate is going to have some reason, for some person, legit or not. It’s a big world and we are not all the same in so many ways, other than being human. Which is part of the issue or the main issue. Many people cannot look at a candidate and decide based upon their ACTUAL merits. The point should be “Can this person do this job?” Not a myriad of bullshit issues that have nothing to do with the results and everything to do with prejudice, be it color, gender or whatever. But. For many people separating out those is impossible. As a former employer and a department supervisor on a navel vessel, you get who you get, in the military you have zero choice, in real life it’s often the same – you need that paycheck and there may not be a lot of options. In this case it is a woman who is more than capable or a far worse than useless old man showing many signs of dementia, and stupidity. It really shouldn’t be any sort of tough question. But it’s humanity, so it will be for some.

  260. 260.

    zhena gogolia

    I just tried to post a new comment and it told me I’d already said that.

    ETA: Okay, well, there it is, #258, but I only said it once, I swear!

  261. 261.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Mai Naem mobile: Conveniently, Wonkette just posted an article that has this summary of the lawsuits he is currently fighting.

    …trying to weasel out of his $5 million judgment in the E. Jean Carroll defamation case.

    Which is not to be confused with the $83.3 million judgment (with interest) that Trump got for defaming her again. Or Trump’s appeal for his New York civil fraud judgment, which is now up to $476 million, and is on the schedule for September 26.

    I hadn’t heard that anybody had accepted Truth Social stock to post a bond, but it has to be for one of those if so.

  263. 263.

    RandomMonster

    @Citizen Alan: I would say that the term “overdesigned” means that something is needlessly complicated at the design level and could have benefited from editing to simplify things. That’s a legitimate basis for criticism.

    Editing and simplifying are legitimate and valuable design activities. I will argue that a designer who did not edit and simplify has not “overdesigned”, they have skipped vital design steps.

  264. 264.

    Geminid

    @JWR: I learned of Middle East Eye through their Turkiye bureau chief Ragip Soylu. I learned of him through American journalist Laura Rozen, and I learned of Rozen though Cheryl Rofer, back in the day when she wad on Twitter.

    Middle East Eye also carries reporting from Istanbul-based security analyst Levant Kemal. Kemal covers conlicts in the Middle East and Africa and posts about the Gaza war when he sees a significant development. Yesterday he posted this:

      The US is preparing for the collapse of the ceasefire talks amid fears that their breakdown could spark a wider regional conflict. US officials have described the talks as 90% complete but admit difficult issues remain.

    Kemal was summarizing a Financial Times article and linked to it.

    Soylu and Kemal post often about the human toll in Gaza but are not that hostile towards Israel itself, just towards its practices in Gaza and the West Bank. Turkiye was the first Muslim nation to recognize Israel, in 1948, and were the only one until Egypt established a cold peace in 1978 with the Camp David peace treaty.

    The two Turkish journalists are part of what I think is a general regional consensus: that Israel is here to stay, but the region cannot be stabilized without a Two-State resolution to the Palestinian question. They think that it’s time to get on with it, and the neccesary first step is a ceasefire in Gaza. The danger is that a wider war could break out without one.

  269. 269.

    wjca

    @Mai Naem mobile: so the bondsman is on the hook for the money? That sounds risky with somebody like TFG.

    It sounds like the bondsman was an idiot.  It’s not risky, it’s flat out stupid.

    Any New Yorker has to know what Trump is like when money is involved.  If you are going to put up a bond for him, get something tangible, like property, to secure it.  And do a title search on it first!   Also, get a lein on it, so he can’t sell it out from under you.  Otherwise, you’re just asking to get stiffed.

  271. 271.

    zhena gogolia

    @TBone: James Darren also died. Not as notable for his music as for being, I believe, the last living member of the Guns of Navarone crew!

  273. 273.

    Ruckus

    @narya:

    We have an almost 80 yr old deranged, senile old man or a 60 yr old reasonable woman. The choice is hate, stupidity and destruction or someone qualified for the job. As someone who hired people for my business and ran a department on a US navy vessel I can tell you without hesitation that one will not often find the perfect person for the job, but very good beats very shitty, hands down.

  274. 274.

    JWR

    @Geminid: This is where I hope Harris will have just a little less love for Israel, and a little bit more for the Palestinians. In any case, staying out of jail seems a powerful motivator for Netanyahu, and if that means stoking a wider war, then who’s gonna tell him that no, it really isn’t? :(

  277. 277.

    Suzanne

    @Ken:

    I always botch that by getting to the root cause too quickly, then in the writeup I have to stick in extra steps earlier in the chain. 

    I have struggled with that, too. Like, the third why is “because he’s an idiot”.

  278. 278.

    artem1s

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage: ​ 

    Former staffers who think the above are weaknesses or something out of the ordinary from people at that level of government need to be beaten thoroughly and repeatedly with a clue stick. And of course our Beltway Media Corpse finds them and drags those kinds of observations out of them.

    The staffers who think this way do because they are used to working for ‘businessmen’ like TCF who think their only job is to collect a paycheck and occasionally show up to a board meeting. They expect to have everything spoon fed to them so they can pull a Ken Lay and say they had no idea what was going on when they finally FO after fucking around with the company’s money.
    And of course we have the performance artists in the House whose only job is to peddle the pre-written scripts and bills fed to them by the Federalist Society. They never ask ‘why’ they only ask ‘how much are you going to ‘donate’ to my campaign?’

  279. 279.

    K-Mo

     

    Harris is one of the most joyful and uplifting national politicians to come along in years

    @Steve LaBonne: This is a very important point.  She is not going to be vulnerable to this attack in the way Hilary was because it just doesn’t fit with a coherent narrative.

  280. 280.

    Betty Cracker

    @Geminid: Depending on how you define “the left” (always tricky in this space), you could argue their takeover plan was a huge success. Throughout his career, Joe Biden has been a fulcrum that marks the consensus view of the Democratic Party. He’s moved way to the left. Figures like AOC and Jayapal are influential. Dinosaurs like Manchin and Sinema have lumbered off to the tar pits.

  283. 283.

    prostratedragon

    @sab:  Fair point, but being whose daughter she is some of the worst offenders might not have revealed themselves to her untilbrecently. Note, I think this was prompted by private behavior and not misogynistic policies. But having started down this road she could find it hard to stop.

  284. 284.

    Anonymous At Work

    @Msb: Mostly sarcasm guys.  I’ve already donated and my building doesn’t allow outdoor signs, or they’d be a wall of signs on all my windows.

    More upset that people think Dick Cheney’s endorsement counts for anything.  What votes does this event actually move?

  286. 286.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @TBone: let us know if it involves a day sick in bed, after.

    I need my next booster; my work has been with 4 year olds for 15 years, and I’m scared about returning to work. I don’t really want a third bout of Covid.  I really don’t want.
    Just this mild ongoing long Covid is plenty.
    king scoopers keeps texting me; I should go find out.

  288. 288.

    Jinchi

    Harris’s record as a boss has been the focus of news stories throughout her career and amplified by high-profile staff departures…

    One the one hand, numerous Trump employees have been indicted and convicted of crimes in his service, or fired and threatened if they refuse.

    On the other hand, Kamala reads her staff reports.

  289. 289.

    Ken

    @Suzanne: Like, the third why is “because he’s an idiot”.

    Yeah, and there’s really no place to go from there, other than “Because you hired him” which isn’t conducive to your career.

  290. 290.

    Lyrebird

    @SiubhanDuinne: FWIW, so do the Red Hot Chili Peppers

    “music is my aer-o-plane!”

    but what a total defiant scumbag he is, that orange menace.

    Glad Liz Cheney is speaking plainly (thanks  @narya: ! )  …that should boost Allred’s chances.  In my exp., at least, Texans appreciate directness.

  292. 292.

    TBone

    @Gloria DryGarden: so far, I’m just a little extra tired, with a sore arm.  I haven’t had any major reaction to any of my other Covid boosters either.  Now, the flu shot I had last year kicked my ass so bad I almost went to the hospital, but Covid shots haven’t ever done anything but a sore arm, take a little nap (I just woke up).

    Do you have long Covid too???

  293. 293.

    a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)

    @Anonymous At Work: Think of it as positioning himself to moon Trump, making sure there’s a build-up for maximum attention.
    I don’t think he cares about Harris beyond her being Not-Trump.

  294. 294.

    JWR

    @NotMax:

    Starred in The Time Tunnel, also too.

    Ooo yes, 1960’s SciFi TV! I often mix him up with Frankie Avalon, or that other Bobby floating around back then, but not Bobby Rydell.

  295. 295.

    Bill Arnold

    @Ken:

    I always botch that by getting to the root cause too quickly, then in the writeup I have to stick in extra steps earlier in the chain.

    Likewise, though RCAs are not my regular activity.
    Was once asked “how did you do that so fast?”
    Answered by describing an investigation path going down a chain of columns in database tables some related timings, and certain log entries (with no backtracking :-) , but really wanted to say
    “because the other ways were slower”.

  296. 296.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Betty Cracker: Right, exactly. I think on economics, the further left has actually succeeded greatly in pulling the Democratic Party toward their POV–they haven’t become a socialist party but they’ve become far more pro-labor, far more pro-public-stimulus and less austerian than they were even during the early Great Recession.

    But there are a lot of “left” people who mostly seem to care about opposing interventionist US foreign policy. We did get out of Iraq and Afghanistan, but modern Democrats are not isolationists the way they’d like.

  300. 300.

    sab

    I just woke up from my nap and I realized I love my new house woodwork because it exactly matches my pitbull/staffordshire terrier’s fur. Brown orange. Appparently that is maple these days. I thought it was brown dog

    ETA She is a very orange brown dog.

  301. 301.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Anonymous At Work: Maybe not many votes. But there are a lot of people who will vote for even loathsome Republicans that they probably should know better than to vote for, because they feel that people like them always vote Republican. And if more prominent Republicans jump ship, signaling that something’s so seriously wrong that they’ll consider this, maybe that’s a permission structure.

  302. 302.

    Bill Arnold

    @Baud:

    Keep working the refs. All we can do.

    Working the refs (journalists and their ownersemployers, in this case) can be very effective, and everyone can participate. The right wing nuts certainly do.

  303. 303.

    Soprano2

    As for the difference in how men and women are supposed to act, I was told to take a course to help me learn to be nicer to people because I don’t always keep it to myself when I’m upset with people. I also finally asked a co- worker who was always telling me to smile “Why?” He said it was because I look more pleasant when I smile. I said well, sometimes I’m not happy or I’m thinking about something, that’s why I’m not always smiling. He quit asking me to smile after that.

  304. 304.

    Geminid

     

     

    @Betty Cracker: The people I named are not satisfied with Reps. Jayapal or Ocasio-Cortez, and say that they and the other Progressive Caucus members are sell-outs. They wanted a Left party but instead they got a more progressive iteration of a Center-Left Party.

    A much larger and more pragmatic portion of the Democratic Party’s “Left” wing accepts this, but the soreheads I refer to do not. They try to undermine Democrats and drive the same old wedges when they can. I don’t think this works for them anymore, and I’ve pretty much stopped worrying about them.

  305. 305.

    lowtechcyclist

    @M31:

    BREAKING NEWS: Alan Dershowitz announces he has left the Democratic Party.

    well shit, we’re really in trouble now

    no linky because really who gives a fuck

    I believe the correct response to him is “don’t let the door hit you where the good Lord split you”

  306. 306.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Geminid: In 2016, these sorts of people were major figures in the Bernie Sanders movement, and became major headaches when they decided to start actively sabotaging the Democrats later in the campaign, because they’d been part of something that was big and serious. But I think their time is long past.

  307. 307.

    K-Mo

    @mrmoshpotato: True.  But IMHO Hilary was also not a natural politician.  She was a policy wonk not a charismatic figure.  Yes, I know some of this gets tied up in gender biases.  But it’s not completely due to gender.  Hilary was more like Al Gore- nerdy and right but not inspiring. Kamala is more like Bill Clinton.  She has a natural warmth, coupled with leader vibes.

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