Trent and Todd on election twitter: doom doom doom im scared of my MAGA relatives
Black women in the real world:
— AreYouTheStan (@areyouthestann) October 19, 2024
VP SCHEDULE:
MONDAY
Campaign events in Chester County, PA; Oakland County, MI; and Waukesha County, MI with Liz Cheney
TUESDAY
Interview- NBC News Hallie Jackson
WEDNESDAY
CNN Town Hall
THURSDAY
Campaign event in Georgia
SATURDAY
Campaign event in Michigan— KAMALA NATION (@KamalaNation) October 21, 2024
We're just going to leave this here. pic.twitter.com/ZHHih1fUTQ
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) October 20, 2024
This feels like he meant it to be an insult, but it reads like a compliment. pic.twitter.com/TeLKTbz4l1
— Terry Lee Watkins Jr. ??????? (@TerryWatkinsJr1) October 20, 2024
NOW is the time VIPs, our Volunteers In Politics.
The most IMPACTFUL thing you can do is #VoteBlue and VOLUNTEER to Get Out The Vote for Democrats!
??President Kamala Harris
??Vice President Tim Walz
??Speaker Hakeem JeffriesSign up NOW! https://t.co/wZ38rH1p92
— Nancy Pelosi (@TeamPelosi) October 19, 2024
Sorry, our venue isn't big enough for a Kamala rally. We could fit a Trump rally easily, though. https://t.co/cugILMWH2P
— Four Seasons Total Landscaping (@TotalSeasons) October 19, 2024
And the examples of why she's a shitty candidates are often things her supporters and even some progressives critical of her think are the strongest aspects of her candidacy:
Stuff like, "Republicans are weird," "JD Vance fucks a couch" "Republicans want women to die" The Joy…
— Nicky Frank (@NickyFrank30) October 19, 2024
On The Road – Albatrossity – California 2024 – 1
Trivia Man
Small fact check – Waukesha Wisconsin. Not MI as noted for liz event. Very crucial area fir WI politics.
The WOW countries were the core for scott walker, TCFG, and a couple state supreme court races that put us in this mess.
White suburbs of Milwaukee… Waukesha, Ozaukee, and Washington. Historically republican but more importantly the source of big numbers of raw vote counts in state races. Big margins there is how walker won.
Baud
“Any campaign not tailored to me specifically is shitty.”
Don’t care cuz there’s no place on the ballot for feelings.
Trivia Man
@Trivia Man: Ne supreme court race in particular about 10 years ago. Dem was up about 4,000 votes statewide. County clerk said “let me double check our counts.” Went into her office alone, about 2 am, came out 30 minutes later and said “ooops, our first report was wrong. GOP has 5,000 more than first reported.” Final margin was well within that 5k.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
The reply to the Hallmark card is great:
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
I’m a white guy…I guess I don’t see how the campaign she’s running is shitty. Must not be bro-y enough.
Trump on the other hand.. his campaign seems pretty lame and I can’t recall anything humorous he’s said anytime recently. Funny? Maybe not funny ha ha but funny as in there’s something wrong with that dude.
Baud
First they came after Pluto, and I said nothing…
Baud
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:
I mean, to be fair, she hasn’t spoken about anyone’s genatalia yet.
TBone
Senator Blumenthal took on Medicare Advantage – and the report he issued is disturbing. I hope this doesn’t get lost in the memory hole (but looks like it already has).
https://insideinvestigator.org/blumenthal-releases-scathing-medicare-advantage-report/
Another Scott
Meanwhile, … WhiteHouse.gov:
Good, good.
Biden-Harris – still doing the work.
Forward!!
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
In all seriousness, if I didn’t care about the damage to the country and to innocents, I’d want Trump to win, because he would absolutely destroy the Republican Party.
IMHO, a Harris win gives Republicans the best chance at coming back strong. It’s a chance worth taking and that needs to be taken, but I think that’s a big reason why we will get significant cross over votes.
Baud
@TBone:
Save it for after the election.
JerseyBeard
@Baud: The Pluto thing never happened. We don’t VOTE on science.
Ken
@Baud: Weird paper, or more likely incompetent science reporting. If they are arguing the Eurasian and North American plates aren’t separate, why point to Iceland? There are other places where those plates border, most notably where they are colliding at the Chersky Range in eastern Siberia.
TBone
@Baud: since this relates to VP Harris’s campaign promise about long term care and health services for seniors, I deem it relevant. But I will bookmark it for later too!
Marmot
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:
Yeah! Were these bros complaining that calling Repubs weird wasn’t effective? I’m not on Twitter, and can’t understand why it still exists, so I’m not among the dudes in question.
Like Limbaugh—it’s all ritual ridicule.
Baud
@TBone:
Then you can use your social media voice to talk about it if you think it’s helpful. But posting a link and then worrying that it’ll be buried doesn’t do much. Very few people will have interest right now in reading about a policy paper.
New Deal democrat
@Ken: Got my nerdy attention early in the morning too. I agree with your take, the study reads like clickbait. North America and Eurasia can be separate continents, even if as you point out, there are remaking points of contact like in eastern Siberia.
We get a distorted view because typically we look at the globe from an equatorial point of view. If instead you look from a viewpoint directly over the Kamchatka peninsula, the dynamic looks very different. On one side of that fulcrum (through the Arctic Ocean into the Atlantic), the plates are spreading apart. On the Eastern Hemisphere side, all the plates are rotating towards a central point focused roughly where the line of Emperor Seamounts is subducting into eastern Siberia on the Kamchatka peninsula.
different-church-lady
@Baud: The big damage social media did was convincing people that everyone has an opinion worth hearing.
New Deal democrat
FWIW, and at risk of starting a pie fight, here’s a clip of Astead White making the case that Democrats’ hold on young black men, and young men generally, has been slipping* because Democrats come across as elitist and condescending:
https://nitter.poast.org/DTheKingpin/status/1846934795483259078#m
*”slipping” being a very relative term where you are still getting 80% of that vote.
Chief Oshkosh
@TBone: I would expect that this is a pre-election marker and that he’ll keep hammering this even after the election.
Mousebumples
Agree/confirm. Ozaukee and Waukesha have been trending more purplish. I think Washington is still ruby red.
I remember tracking the Walker recall election night here. We thought the recall would be victorious… Until Waukesha County found like 10K uncounted ballots. 🤔
Baud
@New Deal democrat:
It’s been discussed here. We’re not making course corrections two weeks before the election, even assuming we need to.
Parties realign, and people shift which party they identify with.
Mr. Mack
@Baud: This. Smart Repubs will play the long game…MAGA may likely be a much smaller part of it and they can flirt with more centrist positions. 2028 is within their grasp. Haley will run.
TBone
@Chief Oshkosh: 💜
Seems like I’m always “doing it wrong!” Thank you – I wasn’t referring to any BJ memory hole, but to the MSM memory hole in my comment.
Chief Oshkosh
@New Deal democrat: There will always be insecure people. Some of that insecurity is based on good self-assessment. They know or suspect that they’re weak and can’t compete. The rightwing is tailor-made for those people (including the horse-shoe left bros).
I don’t really see what the left can do about that as we’re all about competence.
New Deal democrat
@Baud:
Show me where I said that we needed to make a course correction two weeks before the election. As opposed to potentially a longer term issue.
Hildebrand
My daughter commented this morning that while she fully understands the need for MVP to campaign with Liz Cheney, she really looks forward to her not needing to be around Cheney so often. ‘I look forward to the neo-cons going back under their rocks.’
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Baud: IDK people have been saying for 8 years that Trump is going to destroy the Republican Party. If January 6 plus COVID response didn’t do it I’m not sure what will. Plus there’s a good chance if he gets back in power there won’t be free and fair elections in the US for who knows how long so it won’t matter what kind of shape the party is in because they’ll rig things so they win anyway.
@Marmot: So they’re for ritual ridicule, but think the whole weird thing is a bridge too far? I can find humor in certain kinds of ridicule when it’s executed by someone with some comic talent but Trump doesn’t have an iota of comic talent IMO so nothing he says seems intentionally funny ha ha to me.
Baud
@New Deal democrat:
I didn’t say you said anything. I commented on the subject you brought up. I’m not sure why Astead White thought now was a good time to raise the issue, but if it’s raised here, I’ll express my opinion about it.
Chief Oshkosh
@TBone: I don’t think you’re doing it wrong at all. There’s no downside to Blumenthal releasing this now, IMO. Thanks for bringing it to our attention.
Chief Oshkosh
@Chief Oshkosh: But that’s just me being condescending.
;)
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊 😊 😊
Baud
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:
There’s a reason he lost reelection the first time. And he’s in far worse shape now, as is the Republican Party organizationally. The cult of Trump is what’s powerful, along with their allies of various groups that hate Dems first.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
New Deal democrat
@Baud: White raised it because he was asked about the subject in a televised interview (as is obvious if someone were to click on the link). His response appeared to be a thoughtful one and worth sharing, even if people disagreed with him.
Baud
@New Deal democrat:
OK, thanks for the information.
As I said the other day when this came up, we should always think about what we can do, but we should never accept fault for other people’s decisions.
ETA: I rarely click on links, and I’m pretty sure that’s a common practice. FWIW.
Princess
Hallmark is synonymous right now with those Christmas specials which millions of women adore and look forward to binge-watching right about this time of year.
And lay off the GoP interns, Matt.
Kosh III
I always thought Europe and Asia were just one continent.
ArchTeryx
@Baud: The tens of millions of people targeted for death in Project 2025 make that a bit of a costly thing to wish for.
Jeffro
Matt Bai, helping Amenesiac America remember the most obvious reason for not returning trumpov to power: he’s a complete fuck-up.
Receipts
(*oh is that what we’re calling it now? instead of outright corruption? sigh…please proceed, Matt)
I think it was Jamelle Bouie who made the point some time ago that’s it’s just astounding how trumpov gets a pass for completely fucking up our nation’s pandemic response, to say nothing of turning it into yet another partisan bonfire. “The virus wasn’t his fault!”, the MAGAts say. Well no…but our complete non-response was. Every president faces at least one grave test, and trumpov failed his so utterly that America had the worst per-capita Covid-19 death rate in the entire developed world.
That alone is a DQ, or should be for any sane voter.
Princess
@Trivia Man: A friend posted she had a great day yesterday canvassing a bit north of there in Sheboygan county. Lots of enthusiasm including from former Trump voters. Huge houses, lots of money, should be a GoP stronghold.
Gvg
We need to win several elections in a row, preferably some by big margins to kill the most noxious trends society is facing. So we need to keep our coalition together and snip off some of theirs for now.
After that, they should die and realign. We will be affected by that and lose some of ours. This may be an early indication of the next form. Not racism, but misogyny. Not great. So we i guess need to be telling our kids nobody is entitled, everyone has to work at everything including relationships and there is still luck involved. Tell them about whiners? Warn them about depression and blame?
Baud
@Princess:
👍
Kosh III
@TBone: Thanks for posting this. I am about to retire; I’m looking at Cigna MA or Plan G. I am leaning towards Plan G but it puts a substantial hole in our income.
TBone
Heh. Meme of the Day:
Picture: Happy thumbs up Jesus.
“Being told ‘If these girls didn’t have sex, they wouldn’t get pregnant’ by a religion founded on a girl who didn’t have sex, and got pregnant.”
Frankensteinbeck
@Baud:
I said a lot. I still say a lot at every opportunity, like the one you just gave me.
It was so arbitrary. A tiny subset of international astronomers got together and literally sorted through ways to define a planet until they found one that excludes Pluto.
I get why. They realized that if you include Pluto you have to include Charon and Ceres and Eris and you start looking at as many as 23 planets, which is a long list to teach to kids and offends their delicate sensibilities about planets being special. A long list of planets is slightly impractical.
But if that’s how it is, suck it up. That’s how Science is supposed to work. An object has a consistent orbit around the Sun and is big enough to reach hydrostatic equilibrium (it’s round). That matches what we think of as a planet, and they’re real traits with practical effects.
But they added ‘owns its orbit’ and that’s jackass. Nothing 100% owns its orbit. The solar system is full of stuff. It’s just a mathematical calculation of how much a planet dominates its orbit, always. Unless you really super do not own the orbit, it has no practical effects.
What it does do is specifically wipe out anything beyond Neptune from consideration. The farther out you get, the more of your orbit is waaaaay away where your gravity doesn’t affect it, right? So they literally picked a qualifying percentage not based on anything except it makes it impossible for objects beyond Neptune to qualify. Totally arbitrary.
It toasts my biscuits. That and not admitting Pluto and Charon are a binary planet, not a planet and it’s moon.
TBone
@Kosh III: 💙 thank you, choose wisely!
(I wish I could tattoo that statement on all the MAGA foreheads like that girl has “Trump” across hers and is doing a Go Fund Me for tattoo removal.)
hrprogressive
Can’t claim MVP is running a “perfect” campaign because nobody’s perfect, but I think she’s generally been hitting home runs nearly every time she gets up to bat.
I don’t need her to single me out. I need her to promise to handle the myriad of problems plaguing America & the Globe.
So far, so good.
Signed,
Boring White Guy.
TBone
@hrprogressive: 💙
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Princess: The Hallmark reference is another sign of their disdain for women
Baud
@Frankensteinbeck:
TIL I have reached hydrostatic equilibrium.
Soprano2
So as if the stress of the election wasn’t enough, hubby is back in the hospital again. I mentioned it on a thread late last night. His kidney function took a dive, maybe because of the new meds he’s on for multiple myeloma. They aren’t sure yet, because nothing else has changed that would make this happen. I’m glad I’m better at picking up on the clues and getting him in right away. It occurs to me that this will be my life for the foreseeable future. The nephrologist said things like this can happen, where everything is OK then suddenly the myeloma causes a release of abnormal proteins which then affect the functioning of the kidneys. I suspect in the end it’ll be his kidney problems that do him in, well before the dementia advances enough to cause life-threatening problems. He’s still pretty lucid, although he no longer knows what year it is. When the ER nurse asked him who the president was, he said “Not me”, then told him it was Joe Biden, so he still has the same sense of humor. LOL I came to work this morning; I’ll probably go to the hospital later this afternoon. I’ve learned that it’s a fools game to try to wait for the doctor; they can come as early as 6:00 a.m. or as late as 3:00 p.m., and my husband mostly sleeps, so there’s no reason for me to sit there all day and all night. If he were at death’s door, then yeah it would be different, but so far that’s not happening. I did get to meet his new nephrologist last night – he’s a young guy, but seems competent as far as I can tell. *sigh
Gin & Tonic
@Baud:
I’m so old I can remember when “hyperlinks” were the whole raison d’etre of this thing they called the World Wide Web.
Geminid
@Mr. Mack: I also think that Haley will run; as Lincoln put it, the worm of presidential ambition “gnaws deep.” I don’t think she’ll get much traction though.
Haley managed to win a consistent 20 per cent of primary voters, and that’s a respectable showing considering she ran against a quasi-incumbent. But many if most of those votes were not so much for Haley as against Trump.
So I question whether Haley has much of a base of support among Republican voters. Despite her current support for Trump, his supporters will never forgive her primary challenge. And the Chamber of Commerce-types will have successful male politicians with less baggage to choose from, like Kemp and Youngkin.
Gin & Tonic
@Princess:
They have already started airing. Ask me how I know this.
Betty
@Princess: So, in other words, something that makes people feel good, especially women. And Matt thinks that’s bad?
Baud
@Soprano2:
Another reason we need to win: so hospital patients can answer the question with pride.
🤞
Soprano2
@New Deal democrat: I’m not sure what candidates can do about this, either. I need to listen to what he said, but if it tracks with other things I’ve heard it’s that they feel like their parents are telling them what to do, and they don’t like it. Our candidates can’t be like TCFG, that’s for sure, so if that’s what appeals to them there I don’t think there’s much we can do. I sure don’t hear the “lecturing” tone from Harris when she speaks. I think Obama lecturing them wasn’t the best use of his time, however. Shaming isn’t the way you get people to vote for your candidate.
Princess
Gah. Another friend is married to a local PA politician important enough to meet MVP at Air Force one. He took his toddler. MVP and toddler and fancy plane photos. SO cute. Iz ded.
Baud
@Gin & Tonic:
They’re like endnotes. They’re there for people who are interested. They aren’t part of the narrative.
Bupalos
@Trivia Man: are you alleging fraud? If so by what mechanism? Was this election audited?
Princess
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Exactly.
Another Scott
@Ken: I rarely trust the popular press covering scientific papers. (I haven’t read the paper.)
I think Wikipedia has it right:
Europe never seemed like a continent to me. It seemed like yet more “old white guy” defining the terms to make them seem more important, yet again. (Like the “standard” map projections making Africa look small.)
YMMV!
Cheers,
Scott.
Scout211
It’s Politico but still an interesting read, for the most part.
TBone
Whelp, as we all knew, states’ rights are only valid when those states are rethuglican. Any Dem win must be a fraud. This fucking guy, again.
https://crooksandliars.com/2024/10/desantis-and-his-allies-charge-fraud-if
https://www.sun-sentinel.com/2024/10/20/as-floridians-vote-on-abortion-rights-opponents-plan-court-battle-to-void-results/
Such a shameless dick.
Soprano2
I agree, but I think the problem is people just want to forget 2020 and 2021 ever happened. I wish Harris could tell the truth when she’s asked the “are you better off than 4 years ago?” question, which would be a version “Of course we’re better off you fuckwit. Four years ago we were worried about a virus that we had no vaccine for, that you could get from any random stranger or your loved ones, and that could kill you. Businesses were either shut down or operating on a limited schedule. Countless events were cancelled because it was dangerous for large groups of people to gather. And on top of all of that, there were vicious political fights about the best ways to mitigate the risk of contracting the disease. Is there anyone who thinks we were better off then than we are now?” She won’t say that, though, because people don’t want to be reminded of Covid.
The Audacity of Krope
So, I just went to track my ballot and it looks like it’s already on its way to the house. I decided no more in-person voting when I realized two years ago none of the hyper-local races (e.g. school board) were on my sample ballot and I was surprised with a bunch of names at the little cubicle.
The Audacity of Krope
To a Republican fraud = results I don’t like.
New Deal democrat
@Soprano2: Also of interest is that it isn’t about using big words or concepts. If you go back and read political speeches from 100-150 years ago, politicians of all stripes tried to sound as erudite as possible. They weren’t talking down to their audiences: rather, they talking “up” to them. They treated them as Big Boys who could understand Big Concepts.
Again, FWIW.
Soprano2
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Yes it is. They’ll opine about how great “Fast and Furious” is, or all the superhero movies, but somehow movies that appeal more to women are silly and pointless. *rolleyes
Salty Sam
Think hard on this- the hole in your income with Plan G is nothing compared to what would happen with a serious illness under MA…
Sure Lurkalot
@Kosh III: This is an important decision and unfortunately, the way it’s structured, you usually get one bite at the apple. Meaning, it can be difficult if not impossible and/or prohibitively expensive to return to Medicare after electing MA.
MA is less expensive for a reason and it’s easy to like when relatively healthy. But denial of service is real and being locked into a network can have a bad effect on care. Not to mention being at the mercy of private health insurers whose business model is not centered on people’s health.
I’d like to see efforts to close the 20% gap that requires a supplemental policy. Republicans wanted skin in the game, literally in this case. It’s a pain in the ass to have to price out policies every year too.
Good luck with navigating this and happy retirement!
Soprano2
@Gin & Tonic: You do know they never actually stop, right? LOL
zhena gogolia
@Hildebrand: I’ll take them over some backstabbing Democrats.
TBone
@Princess: 😍
SiubhanDuinne
@Gin & Tonic:
I’ve always thought it was curious that it takes three times as long to say the abbreviation for World Wide Web as it does to say World Wide Web.
Jeffg166
@The Audacity of Krope:
That’s why I like a mailing in ballot. I can look up who the people running are. Plus what party they are. I find republicans go to great lengths not to show party affiliation.
Shalimar
@TBone: I despise all the tv ads for Medicare Advantage programs. Mom has dementia. She also has Tricare from my step-dad’s decades of military service. None of the Medicare Advantage plans are remotely as good as Tricare, but I had to watch her carefully for several years after she would see these commercials promising wonderful benefits, to make sure she didn’t switch plans.
topclimber
@Jeffro: So the American economy (Biden/Harris) is the envy of the developed world (per the Economist), our Covid response (Trump) just the opposite.
Jeffro
Btw this one from J-Rubs brings up a really good point we’ve discussed here often (hmmm…): Harris’ unconventional media strategy is working
Rubin adds: Harris should keep it up, even after she’s elected President
yes please
YES PLEASE
Betty
@TBone: He is just petty and can’t admit he is wrong.. If he hopes for any future in elected politics, this is a sure loser position. The people have spoken and will continue to speak on this.
TBone
@The Audacity of Krope: yep, every last one of ’em. The rethugs who WON on the very same 2020 ballots that Donold LOST on, are especially a special case of dickitude.
Baud
@Jeffro:
If I still read pundits, I would read Jen Rubin. She’s been stellar since she came over from the dark side.
Soprano2
@New Deal democrat: I think it’s about multiple things. One is that not all of the issues Democrats talk about are directed at young men, even though these things affect them or could affect them in the future, and they don’t like that (I remember when we were told to soft pedal “women’s issues” because they turned men off). Another is that the party gives more power to women, and some young men are threatened by this. I think a lot of the men who didn’t like Hillary Clinton felt like she was their mother or mother-in-law trying to tell them what to do, and they hated that. I think it all depends on how you take in the message (although what Obama did was clearly lecturing, I get how they would be offended by that).
Another Scott
@Soprano2: I’m sorry you, and he, are going through this. It’s hard.
Bodies are complicated and there’s still so much we don’t know about how they work and how to fix them. Magic salt shakers are still a ways away in our futures.
Take care of yourself. Fingers crossed.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Princess
@Another Scott: The origin of Europe as a continent is the Bible — each of Noah’s three sons getting a different territory: Europe, Africa and Asia. Then something called a TO map, a circle with a T in it dividing the globe into three labeled continents. So you are correct.
TBone
@Shalimar: hugs, I’m glad she has you!
Jeffro
yup
And let’s not forget the heir apparent, Ron DeSantis. And ol’ JD. And maybe Don Jr himself?
Lots of good choices there for the GOP! I’m confident they will pick a moderate, electorally-appealing winner. ;)
NeenerNeener
I just got both an email and a text message from Ballot Scout that the ballot I mailed on 10/10 was finally received at the local Election Office on 10/19. Woo hoo! I’ve voted by mail!
Starfish
@Soprano2: Your family has had a rough go of it, and I am always thinking of you.
Barbara
@Dorothy A. Winsor: He said it as if being a Hallmark card was obviously a bad thing. Whatever happened to “it’s morning in America,” which is probably as close to a Hallmark style political sentiment you can get? Matt Schlapp is not smart.
TBone
@Jeffg166: yep, here in PA we can’t vote a straight party ticket anymore – there is no option for that now. You have to vote each candidate.
Still waiting on our mail ballots to arrive here …😡
snoey
@Baud: My mom when TFG was in office: “I know who it is but I won’t say his name”.
sab
@TBone: Medicare Advantage plans are huge advertisers, so of course they won’t get bad coverage from the MSM.
NotMax
@SiubhanDuinne
W is the 23rd letter of the English alphabet.
2 × 3 = 6.
Therefore WWW is 666.
:)
TBone
@sab: 🎯 huge, major conflict of interest. There is a very long ad playing on my TV right now.
TS
@TBone:
I cannot imagine what harm it does to any of them if an eighteen year old single lass has an abortion because of an unwanted pregnancy, or if a married 30 year old has an unviable pregnancy that needs to be terminated.
It is all about control and hate – as were the “unmarried mothers” homes run by so many churches in the mid/later 20th century. They will fight until they die to get in the last word & it spreads so much hate that we have to fight through the courts & end up at the biased SCOTUS provided per the presidency of trump & those who took advantage of his stupidity.
Soprano2
This is why I don’t believe it when undecided voters say they don’t know enough about her, or about her policies and positions. There is plenty of info out there that you could access; most all of these interviews are either on YouTube or in a podcast or both, so if you truly wanted this information it’s easy to get. Plus, you could go to her web site. I think what they’re really saying is that they want it to be spoon fed to them, otherwise they don’t know anything about it.
Soprano2
@Another Scott: Yep, I wish there was a magic salt shaker that could cure his kidney problems. I’m trying to be as realistic as I can, because I figure there’s no percentage in fooling myself.
Starfish
@TBone: If we get an Anderson post, repost this there.
Barbara
@Soprano2: Sorry to hear this. It’s possible that the drugs are to blame, but in any event I hope the doctors figure it out so that can come home soon.
TBone
@TS: now I can hear Sinead in my head…
Soprano2
@Starfish: Thank you, I appreciate that. I’m really hoping this is just a one or two day thing.
TBone
@Starfish: 👍
Soprano2
@TBone: We can’t do that in MO either, the R’s did away with it. I think that hurt them more than it did Democrats.
Bupalos
@New Deal democrat: I don’t hear him exactly saying that dems come off as elitist to young (and particularly black) men. I think he’s saying there’s a mismatch in priority of concerns.
Geminid
@Jeffro: Yeah, J.D. Vance will likely be in the mix. But his Ohio Senate seat comes up in 2028 and he’ll have to make a choice.
Sure Lurkalot
@Soprano2:
I agree but I have no idea how to reach young men attracted to the Joe Rogan/Tate Brothers model of masculinity. I also think “elitist condescension” is such a tired trope like “woke”. “Grow up, you’re not the only one in the world” is not elitism, just advice.
So sorry to hear your husband is ill, hopefully his time in the hospital will be short.
snoey
@Soprano2: Anti drunk driving billboard a couple of years ago in Wyoming had a picture of a woman lawyer in a power suit with the slogan “DUI – your new bff is $400 an hour”. Every bro’s worst nightmare.
sab
@TBone: And a lot of the west coast jackals think voting by mail is some sort of miracle solution. Around here mail service is so spotty that everyone uses extremely expensive FedEx for anything important or time sensitive.
Baud
@Soprano2:
IMHO, we need to learn to these sham excuses. We can’t just call them liars, because that’ll just drive them away and many of them may be lying to themselves about the reason they havent made a decision. OTOH, believing that they’re sincere leads to poor responses. I don’t have any good answers.
Marmot
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:
maybe this is addressed further down thread, but I’ve never understood what anybody means when they say the Republican party will be destroyed. Will somebody please tell me what this means?
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: You and me both, sisterfriend.
jonas
@Baud: I’m going to put my fist through the computer/car radio/tv or whatever device I’m listening to the next time I hear some “undecided voter” tell a reporter that Harris “hasn’t earned my vote yet” by failing to sufficiently address some specific issue they want (e.g. student loans, Israel/Palestine, gas prices, etc.).
This election’s not about you and your pet issue, bub. It’s about whether the country gets turned into a fascist hellscape starting next year or not. Full stop.
Trivia Man
@Trivia Man: Worse than that. Prosser was down 1,000. She found 14,000 uncounted votes in Brookfield that broke 11k to 3k and sealed the election. That judge was then key in breaking the teachers union, solidifying the assembly gerrymandering, and empowering walker even more.
jonas
@Marmot: That the MAGA-fied Republican brand eventually becomes so extreme and unpalatable to a majority of Americans that no-one will vote for anyone with an R next to their name again.
It turns out that large pluralities of Americans are in fact fine with anti-democratic authoritarianism and Christian nationalism, however, so rumors of the GOP’s death have been greatly exaggerated, I think.
Trivia Man
@Mousebumples: Prosser election i believe. 14,000 in Brookfield “hadnt been logged” and broke 11,000 to 3,000.
Shalimar
@TBone: thanks)
Baud
@Marmot:
@jonas:
It means the GOP won’t be competitive, like in California. Trump has a cult but the rest of them need an organization, and Trump is destroying that.
TS
@TBone: I think much closer to home & remember friends “disowned and disgraced”. And the imbeciles want to bring that back.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
We’ve got a front-pager here who writes about this kind of stuff all the time.
Also, given the demographics of us jackals, information about how Medicare Advantage is ripping people off might contribute to the decisions that people here need to make.
Scout211
That’s why we have various different ways to turn in our ballots. We have official drop boxes that most voters use, and BallotTrax is helpful in that the bar code is scanned when the ballot is first mailed to us and if voters want to return their ballot via USPS, it is also scanned at the post office so BallotTrax has the record that it was mailed. It’s not a miracle but it is very convenient for voters. In California, we can also vote early in person at voting centers.
TBone
@Soprano2: I hope so! And I’m sending a boatload of best wishes to you and your hubby, today and always. That’s not a Hallmark sentiment, it is an IRL phenom.
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
Great. So read it.
ETA: The problem I had with the original comment wasn’t the link, it was the negative assertion about its impact.
Shalimar
@sab: That is the part that pisses me off the most. This is government money they are getting. They spend a huge amount of it on advertising and also take profits. How good could their plans be comparatively? The insurance companies are convincing a lot of people to short-change the coverage they should be getting.
Scout211
@Soprano2: I’m always thinking of you and sending you strength. Being a spousal caregiver is so exhausting. Take care of yourself, please. ❤️
Booger
@Kosh III: Continence issues come with age.
TBone
@sab: ugh. That’s screwed up! We here in Pennsyltucky are usually accustomed to prompt, no matter what, postal service delivery. I had to install a new mailbox when I moved into my very rural cabin, and never had a problem in the backwoods! Now I’m town-adjacent and waiting on tenterhooks. They’d snow plow the dirt road so the mail could get through!
Omnes Omnibus
I have posted the reports from both the WI GAB and the independent counsel investigation of the 2011 Waukesha election fiasco multiple times in the past.* The end result of the investigations was that Kathy Nickolaus (Waukesha county clerk)fucked up some and sent in a report showing zero votes in Brookfield and then realized her mistake and corrected it to show the 14,000 votes actually cast. She made a number of other procedural error that resulted in her being remove from any responsibility for election administration going forward. I was working at the GAB at this time and I know the people who did the investigation. I have know doubt that their conclusions that the final tally and the election result was accurate was the appropriate conclusion.
*I don’t have the time to find the full reports, but here is a summary.
TBone
@Shalimar: 👍 the ACA requirement about what portion can be spent on administrative and other costs is completely ignored because…Advantage is not ACA coverage, I guess.
Ohio Mom
@TBone: It is embarrassing to me that it was Bill Clinton who signed Medicare Advantage into law. From the start it was obviously one of those privatize-it-to-be-able-to-skim -government-money scams.
I hate it when it’s Democrats who are responsible for stupid programs.
It is also an example of “the poor pay more.” Traditional Medicare requires a lot of paying up front, Medicare Advantage is cheaper and comes with more services. Looks like a bargain for retirees with limited financial resources. As your link shows though, they end up paying more in their health when on the end they are denied needed health care.
Geminid
@Booger: I answered you yesterday about my shrip and grits source, but I was late so I’ll repeat it: the Hunt Country Store, opposite the Foxfield race track and six miles west of Charlottesville. They have an excellent kitchen operation
Bupalos
I share this sentiment in spades, while also seeing it’s appearance in public election discourse as a huge warning sign.
elections should always be about the individual interests of people voting in the election and are always about the individual interests of the people voting in the election.
the disconnect is when people themselves mistake those interests, and the solution generally can’t be to tell them to put their personal interest aside. It has to be to explain how we meet their concerns better than the other guys.
TBone
@TS: 💔
satby
It’s pretty obviously a common practice, and I generally think an unfortunate one, at least since I try to share links I think are worth reading, as I’m sure others do. Though it’s possible to overshare. But I agree: 15 days to go needs some single minded focus, because the Democrats need to win up and down the ballot for any of the other stuff to get done.
TBone
@Ohio Mom: hard agree on all of what you said.
Baud
@Ohio Mom:
The history is more complicated than that. Lots of steps along the way
ETA: also, every survey I’ve seen says that Medicare Advantage plans are really popular. Going to be tough to reform.
Jeffro
110%
“All the info in the world out there; can’t be bothered to take five minutes and look it up, though”
Just not serious people
New Deal democrat
@Sure Lurkalot:
I think there are a lot of (especially younger) men who want a leader who is spoiling for at least a couple of fights.
Think Teddy Roosevelt’s “speak softly and carry a big stick,” Truman’s “I just tell the truth and they call it hell,” Reagan’s “I *PAID* for this microphone!”, or Bill Clinton’s “Sister Soulja” moment.
Put another way, “he’s an @$$hole, but he’s *my* @$$hole.”
And women can qualify as well. The standout example is the Iron Lady Margaret Thatcher. Picked a fight with unions, took back the Falklands from Argentina, etc. A lot of men respond very positively to that.
I do think that it is one opportunity that Harris has had, and has missed. Namely, picking a fight with the NY Times. Lots of people hate the media, and the NYT has absolutely had it coming. I think Harris would have gotten a big, positive reaction even from a large portion of the Joe Rogan type crowd had she done that.
My two cents, fwiw.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
BREAKING: Trump fired after cash register comes up short in first shift at McDonald’s.
Baud
@satby:
I think it’s unavoidable. Not even every comment or social media post gets read. You can’t expect a ton of people to always click on a hyperlink and check out something else somewhere else. That’s why God invented click bait.
Trivia Man
@Omnes Omnibus: Thank you fir clarifying. I moved out if state shortly after and didn’t realize it had been solved.
Baud
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Heh.
TBone
Courtesy of Humboldt Blue in earlier thread, I hope this anger translator goes viral!
https://www.tiktok.com/@chiodosupplyofficial/video/7427854203243990302
Seems like we could use some of this venting if he didn’t cuss so much, but that’s part of why it’s an effective anger translator. This all *waves hand around election anxiety* makes me cuss too.
Omnes Omnibus
@satby: Providing links to support a position one is asserting or simply to provide information or entertainment is a good thing. OTOH, providing a link to something does not create an obligation on anyone’s part to click on the link.
Bupalos
@Frankensteinbeck: I’m not into astronomy but I guess everyone has heard the kerfluffle and this sounds like a really good explanation of the dynamics of conflict.
I think they should apply the Late-Stage Gillian’s Island Theme Solution. List off the one’s you’re sure about and deal with Pluto and all those others that may come and go with a single “and the rest.” reference.
Omnes Omnibus
@Trivia Man: That conspiracy theory is a bit a pet peeve for me.
JCJ
@Omnes Omnibus: Thank you. This has been covered here and elsewhere several times. My view of this as a resident of the City of Brookfield is that the numbers made sense since there is always a high voter turnout in both the City of Brookfield and the Town of Brookfield (no, I don’t really understand the difference after 31 years) and the partisan split sounds about like what I would have expected at that time. Not that it means anything, but there are a lot more Harris signs this year than I have ever seen for a Democrat in Brookfield as well as other parts of Waukesha County
satby
@schrodingers_cat: Hard agree with you both! @zhena gogolia:
Jeffro
@Geminid: it’ll be interesting to see which GOP candidates take a look at the fractured mess that is the Republican Party and decide, “sure…I’m the one who can bring all my fellow crabs together and get us out of this bucket”
(I know big egos are not in short supply in politics, but still…it’s a tall order!)
lowtechcyclist
@New Deal democrat:
That makes no sense to me, because the Democratic leadership is heavily populated by people of color: Kamala Harris, current VP and our next POTUS if all goes well; Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic Leader (ETA: and the next Speaker, if all goes well); Jaime Harrison, DNC chair. President Biden is white, of course, but he’s made no bones about the degree to which he owes Black people for their role in his nomination and election in 2020.
So there’s no question in my mind that the Democratic Party is less prone to taking persons of color for granted than any time in my memory. In any situation where there’s a proverbial ‘room where it happens,’ Blacks will be well represented in that room, unless the bad guys win and Dems are shut out of such rooms altogether.
IOW, what Astead White is saying makes no sense to me. Sure, there have always been Dems who are elitist and condescending to people of color among others, but ISTM that that’s less of a thing now than it’s been anytime in his lifetime.
Marmot
@jonas:
Thank you. And yep, this here is the reason I never understood what “the GOP will be destroyed” means.
Frankensteinbeck
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
I laughed.
satby
@Baud: but they always click on click bait. Which is usually crap.
All this yammer about appealing to “my personal interest” or “earn my vote” misses the point of voting, IMO. It’s a collective action that we take to improve the common good as we see it (and obviously several of us see things very differently). I’m happy to see that aspect being talked about by the Democrats more; rugged individualism has caused a lot of the biggest problems this society has.
Marmot
@Baud:
Thanks, Baud. I hope you’re right.
I feel like California’s situation results from population density, not necessarily policy. But you’re right that absent a demagogue, the wind is gonna get sucked out of some GOP turnout.
Fair Economist
@Frankensteinbeck:
Not quite. The possible Planet Nine being investigated now is being looked for because something seems to have driven many distant minor planets into odd orbits. If it exists (looking less likely, IMO) it has cleared its orbit.
Pluto hasn’t cleared its orbit because it’s small. Effectively *Neptune* cleared its orbit, because Pluto is in resonance with Neptune.
Sure Lurkalot
@New Deal democrat: Kamala did pick a fight with the NYT and IMHO, at least at this point, she is winning. They are reluctantly covering topics she raises. She’s a major contributor to why the concept of sanewashing is front and center now. More people are taking notice.
There is more than one way to fight. It’s not all no quarter.
satby
@Omnes Omnibus: I agree. And I also think it helps if a link furthers the discussion rather than veering off in another direction. But as I said on the bad place about a link I put up where someone critiqued the subject after clearly not reading it “read it, don’t read it, IDGAF; but don’t critique an article you haven’t read first.”
Melancholy Jaques
@New Deal democrat:
That same story has been told in every election this century except for the two when Obama was running.
Soprano2
@Scout211: Thanks, I will. I think about you too, as well as others on here who are in the same boat. It can be both rewarding and exhausting. At least I’m getting better on picking up the signs when something is wrong, because he never tells me he feels bad.
Geminid
@Marmot: Another relevant feature of the California electorate is that it’s only 50% White (or Anglo). For most states White voters are still a large majority; I think they are just under 70% in Virginia, for instance.
Bupalos
@Jeffro: whenever we’re just doing this “voters are stupid or lying” thing I think we’re losing.
the reality is that largely doe to American democratic incapacity, maybe 5% of the laundry list has a chance of happening. Voters know this, and they know what you’re really committing to trying hard on is the 2 or 3 things you loudly promise over and over. Even when those things are also not possible, they’re the things that count as signaling because you’re kind of putting your reputation on it.
Trump of course has this kind of policy commitment and makes sure even in disgusting lurid ways like “they’re eating the dogs” that everyone down to 8 year olds knows what they are.
It really is true that our campaigns struggle badly with this, and it’s fair to say that our strongest policy promises in this vein are to frustrate Trumpism. Our chant is “we’re not going back.” A lot of this is dictated by our increasingly complicated coalition and the reality of increasing democratic incapacity which the right wing both feeds and feeds off of.
I don’t really have a strong critique or prescription for our campaigns here. This is largely dictated by forces beyond our control right now. But I think it’s worth understanding the dynamic here and that there is something very real and deep behind voters’ shallow sentiment that they don’t have a good idea of what Harris will do.
Mousebumples
@Trivia Man: I remember the Walker recall explicitly. So maybe it was both! No reason not to go back to the same bag of tricks.
Every accusation is a confession, etc.
Mousebumples
@Omnes Omnibus: thanks for the insight. I think you’ve said this before, but thanks for repeating it.
narya
@Soprano2: Or, to put it a little differently: they feel bad because women, including women of color, are acting like they have the right to TALK, and BE LISTENED TO, and RUN THINGS, without asking for permission from or checking in on what the men think. Those women, having AGENCY!
narya
@Soprano2: Oof. So sorry to hear this; sending all good thoughts your and his way.
PST
I’m leaving now to vote. It’s a beautiful day for it here in Chicago. I’ll never miss the days of worrying what Election Day weather will be. I’m glad to at least run up the popular vote margin.
FelonyGovt
@Princess: That’a great. I keep hearing positive news from “on the ground” despite the news telling me that the race is tightening. My friend who spends a lot of time in Phoenix AZ says he’s amazed at the large number of “Republicans for Harris” signs he’s seeing there.
Bupalos
@Omnes Omnibus: Thank you. I’m not sure if people understand that Putin would be just as happy to pay for the promulgation of Democratic conspiracy theories as Republican ones. They accomplish the exact same thing, a thing that is very valuable to despots here and abroad.
Meaningful voter fraud is flatly impossible to achieve in the U.S. at this time.
twbrandt
@Baud: maybe we can join the EU.
Marmot
@Geminid:
I’m of two minds here. My hometown is like 70% Latino, and while it’s reliably Dem, there’s no shortage of conservative Latinos. And that’s a fact that White folks in predominately White areas don’t see. Under some conditions, Dems don’t have the traditional advantages.
RaflW
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: I’d say that Trump has destroyed the Republican party as we’ve known it. What’s keeping it alive is a combination of a few dozen ultra rich people (Timothy Mellon, Miriam Adelson, Muskmellon, a few others) who can give massive bribes/donations, and a corporate system of support for House & Sen. Republicans that has not been able to recalibrate itself as the party as metasticized.
As the Economist says, the US has the best economy in the fucking WORLD. They cannot credit Biden with this because it shatters their view that Democrats are good for business. So they still fund the party that will vote for big tariffs and thus a global trade war, a labor shock (and a demand shock) assuming that even 1M of the projected 10M get deported, and all sorts of other yet-to-be-imagined strokes of incompetence + overheated right wing ideology creating greater instability.
It’s insane. But it takes a long time for realignments already under way to actually register. Harris winning will give us 2 or 4 years to work on that, though a bigger struggle if the Rs retake the Senate this cycle. We have got to win the House. No matter what.
The next 25 months will be a wild ride. Eeep.
Soprano2
@Jeffro: It’s crazy, you can listen to a podcast while you do other things, it’s not that hard! It’s so much easier to find out about candidates now than it was in the 1980’s and 1990’s, to me there’s really no excuse for not knowing unless you just don’t want to.
twbrandt
@Soprano2: That’s so much to deal with, and I’m so sorry you have to deal with it. Remember to take care of yourself too.
Baud
@FelonyGovt:
The only negative thing right now is the polling, which shows a tight race. We’ll learn in a few weeks about how reliable the polls are.
RaflW
@Geminid: I don’t think Republican base voters have an appetite for a woman candidate. At least not one who can be painted as a moderate squish.
If there were a credible Republican woman who came across in a sort of Thatcherite, hardboiled way (and no, the dog-shooter does not come across like that), then maybe.
But the party of putting women back in the kitchen and popping out babies is not likely to embrace Haley.
Doc Sardonic
@Soprano2: Late in the thread, but, wishing you and your husband strength and a quick recovery.
zhena gogolia
@Bupalos: By some strange chance, Putin never seems to pay for things that benefit Democrats.
Could it be because the values of Democrats are not in line with Putin’s values?
NotMax
@zhena gogolia
Rubles are directed to the rubes.
//
Baud
@RaflW:
I don’t think Haley will be the nominee, but Republicans love it when women lead the charge against women.
Melancholy Jaques
@Bupalos:
I guess higher wages and more affordable health care just don’t have the appeal they once did. Abortion rights seem to be of some interest to some voters. I’m pretty sure voters have clear idea of what Harris will do on that issue
ETA – Something deep behind voters’ shallow sentiment? Shouldn’t it be beneath voters’ shallow sentiment? Is it possible that the voters, themselves, are shallow?
Bupalos
@zhena gogolia: Don’t mistake my saying he loves election conspiracy theories of whatever stripe with him being indifferent to electoral outcomes. He definitely prefers Trump win, and definitely wants Trump-enabling Republicans to win within our existing system. That is his short term interest. His long term interest is in discrediting and eroding democracy as a whole, leaving us further incapacitated to make any meaningful decisions that impact his kleptocracy. which election conspiracies do very nicely whether they come from the right or the left.
my motive in challenging the Wi conspiracy theory one of our members here seemed to allege comes from this perspective.
Soprano2
@narya: I think you’ve got most of it. The problem is that when these things aren’t said explicitly it’s hard to address them, so we get “I feel like I’m being condescended to” when the real issue is “I don’t like that a woman is in charge, it bothers me” or “I don’t like that lots of people of color are in charge, it bothers me”. That’s why when you try to address their specific complaints it doesn’t do any good, because what they’re saying out loud isn’t the real thing they are unhappy about. Lots of young men have an attitude about anyone telling them anything, especially a woman. It’s always been that way. One of the things that most attracted me to my husband was that he was confident about who he was, and didn’t have any of that “I have to prove my manhood” bullshit about him. I was tired of that crap. I wish more young men understood that this attitude turns a lot of women off.
BR
This TikToker’s videos are hilarious…the ending on this one about the fake McDonalds photo op was amazing:
https://www.tiktok.com/@theempresscjj/video/7428224197916167467
Soprano2
@FelonyGovt: I think it’s impossible for pollsters to correctly model the electorate for this election. It’s too different from previous elections.
Melancholy Jaques
@RaflW:
Mostly agree, but I think it is more than a few dozen ultra rich. There are several thousand “local rich” people who keep the party and its candidates going in counties all over America. What I call the Buddy Garrity Class.
Then there are the thousands of “Christian” churches where hatred of everything Democrats stand for is preached every Sunday.
None of them are going away just because Trump loses.
RaflW
@Baud: Yep. The GOP values Aunts, who will shame and seek to control other women like in Gilead.
p.a
D Anderson is the man for the topic, but I believe MedAd has been reformed and re-jiggered since the original authorization, which was pretty straight Rethug ideology & therefore junk. Every attempt to improve leads to more insurance company ratfucking. CMS looks like a flamenco dancer trying to exterminate a cockroach hotel.
RaflW
@Melancholy Jaques: Agree. But I think Trump losing may at least begin the process of less-insane Republicans getting back into the fight to lead the party. I could absolutely be wrong. I did see a skeet the other day asserting that when right wing movements lose, they move further right in response.
Another Scott
@Baud: Or, it could mean something like what happened to the GQP in Virginia. The crazies took over and implemented their purity purges. The only way they can win now is with a rich outsider (Gov Fuzzy Vest) who can lie and lie and lie some more and has no political record to be attacked and who can avoid answering sensible questions from voters and the press. And a Democratic candidate with a good record but who trips himself during a debate question on education during a pandemic and a (sensible given the circumstances) weak GOTV effort. And the rich guy has enough coat-tails to elect statewide crazies with him.
The GQP isn’t going away, but they will find it very, very difficult to win fair contests except in blood-red areas.
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
UncleEbeneezer
Always worth remembering that Mehdi Hasan gets his paycheck from the same country that funds Hamas:
catclub
yeah, but who are these voters that care about this issue? It is a mystery.
Bupalos
@Melancholy Jaques: Abortion is certainly Harris’s clearest commitment and probably the policy that is most tied to the “not going back” chant. And that’s powerful. It still does have the context that even there the promise appears to be a status quo ante where the ante references Trump.
as for the wages and healthcare and environment and everything else, I’m certainly not saying we don’t have these policies, I’m strictly saying they aren’t being communicated as the kind of priority promise that break through to less political folks. They stay in laundry-list land.
This isn’t a criticism. I don’t think it’s possible for us to deliver essentially populist messaging right now in this election beyond abortion rights, which just isn’t going to hit with the constituencies we’ve been bleeding. And we may be able to win without it. But I think those days are numbered. We are going to have to incorporate a left populism at some point.
wjca
As always, the issue starts with definitions. In this case, What do we mean by “continent”? After all, you can also make a pretty good case that, rather than Europe and North America being (still) a single continent, Europe and Asia can’t really be considered separate continents. As reflected in just how arbitrary, and disputable the border between the two is.
Jeffro
@Bupalos: but I didn’t say all voters were stupid or lying. I just strongly alluded to the fact that ‘undecided’ voters are either stupid, lying, or lazy.
(And that observation has nothing to do with thinking we’re losing. I have thought it for years…decades…winning, losing, and everywhere in between.)
To be undecided at this point, or to not know what each candidate stands for…stupid, lying, or lazy. Let’s not help them pretend it involves anything real-er or deeper than that.
Jeffro
@Soprano2: thank you
A world of info out there but “I just don’t know enough about X”??
pul-leeze!
Sure Lurkalot
@Baud: Haley 2028: “Yes we can go back.”
catclub
If trump just allows the US government to work a little better fighting Covid, and just shuts up.
he gets re-elected in a landslide.
If the vaccine get approved about a month earlier than it was? A bigger landslide.
Ain’t alternative history fun?
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Soprano2 @Jeffro: Forgive me if what I write overlooks something, I haven’t read the whole thread.
I just want to point out that although a tremendous amount of information is available at one’s fingertips these days, searching and distinguishing between noise and signal is a skill not everyone has. Bemused Senior was an expert. She recognized that it’s a skill that needs to be taught and developed.
catclub
What the Democratic candidate cannot do: Tell people that we now have a Democratic Admin but divided government, and under that situation, not a lot gets done, or gets done fast. On the other hand this admin makes real efforts to not make things worse for the non-99% classes. That is the best we can offer. And is better for you than the alternative.
PST
Back from the polling place. I thought of walking there with my dog, Bernie, but decided to cycle and then go for a spin afterwards. I was therefore chagrined to find that all the other voters had dogs with them. Fortunately, one man had two dogs, so cosmic balance was maintained. I was especially pleased to be able to vote for Joy Cunningham for the Illinois Supreme Court. I recall having the pleasure of meeting with her from time to time years ago when she was the General Counsel of Northwestern Memorial Hospital. She was appointed to the court after a retirement two years ago and is running for the first time, so if any of you other Illinois jackals are in the habit of ignoring judicial ballot lines please don’t pass her by.
Bupalos
@Jeffro: without weighing in on the particular vices that dominate in undecided voters or disagreeing with you, my point is that thinking in these terms is electorally counterproductive. And maybe keeps us from seeing the structural issues we’re facing.
the specific reason the laundry-lists are discounted and why voters will side eye you on “go to my website” is that American democracy has been incapacitated. I think they’re aware that you aren’t likely to be able to accomplish even the one thing you scream loudest about, let alone the 5 you buried on your website.
So I think what those voters are really saying when they say they don’t know Harris’s policies is that they don’t care about the one she is really inhabiting, and that she doesn’t sound like she’s intensely committed to ones they do care about. “See my website” doesn’t help with that.
Belafon
@Soprano2: Inflation.
That is all they remember now about the pandemic. That is why she answers the way she does.
Another Scott
@Soprano2: I really think that there are too many people out there who really don’t want to have to decide. They want candidates to come to them and convince them and supply arguments that will convince their cohorts (so that they aren’t politically alone in their social support group). How big a group of people are like that, as opposed to performative independents, etc., I dunno. But they’re out there.
There’s too little emphasis these days on the fact that voting isn’t picking a mate or a financial adviser or a home remodeling contractor. It’s like taking out the trash. You won’t find some giant Convince Americans to Take Out The Trash industry to convince you to do so. You won’t get prizes or get to go to a party with famous musicians and good food. No, taking out the trash is a job that you have to do every week, without encouragement, without someone convincing you. Why? Because very bad things will happen if you don’t!
Looking at the candidates, and the amendments, and the bond issues, and voting for those that better reflect your values, is a responsibility. It’s a job. You need to do it because very bad things will happen if you don’t!
[ /soapbox ]
Cheers,
Scott.
Another Scott
@Baud: Anita Bryant is on line 1.
Grr…,
Scott.
Soprano2
@Mr. Bemused Senior: I agree, FWIW. My point is that she’s done all kinds of interviews at this point that are easily searchable, so if they truly want to know what she’s saying they can find out. They don’t have to read hefty white papers or navigate a web site, all they have to do is listen to the interviews. If they truly wanted to know, it’s easy enough to do it. That’s why I think it’s bullshit, and they actually mean something else.
UncleEbeneezer
@Another Scott: I come from a family of Libertarians who will tell you that expecting them to vote is worse than Slavery. It’s a frighteningly common attitude of entitlement.
wjca
I wonder if the attraction is that it is something that they see as achievable. At least in theory. Whereas, for whatever reason, they have trouble even imagining successfully achieving another model. That’s part of what makes Walz so effective. They can look at him and say to themselves, “Hey, I could do that.”
PST
In defense of Europe as a continent, I’m sure that made much more sense in the ancient Mediterranean world, where the vast expanse of Asia was unknown, Asia meant primarily Asia Minor and beyond, and the Bosporus and Black Sea offered a logical place to divide the world.
Marmot
@Bupalos:
What does Occam’s Razor tell you? It says you first gotta rule out “stupid, lying, or lazy.”
In the last most-important-election-of-our-lives, lots of people interviewed by NPR and the teevee outlets said Biden only complained about Trump, rather than telling everyone what he stood for. Of course, this was the high-repetition claim on Fox News at the time.
Now it’s “she doesn’t explain what she stands for.” Mary-Louise Kelly on NPR was telling me a couple days ago that Harris has been unable to get her issues into voters’ minds because of something about explaining them too late in her public statements. (Like, she’d explain in the second sentence or something.)
You’d think Mary-Louise could just explain, but apparently that’s not her job. And it’s really apparently not her job to point out that these voters are just repeating the nearest lazy criticism at hand.
Geminid
@Marmot: I don’t assume Hispanic voters are inherently liberal any more than I assume Black voters are. But voting patterns these days are conditioned to an extent by ethnicity, especially when Republicans at the national level are leaning into racism and Nativism so hard.
That can hurt them among non-White voters. California Republicans famously scored an own goal some years back with nativist-inspired legislation, and many say this was an inflection point for California politics.
California’s jungle primary system also sets it apart from other states (with the exception of Washington). It was adopted 12 years ago and I’m not sure its ramifications are fully developed yet.
This is all to say that I am sceptical of the notion that other states politics will eventually resemble California’s. I know you did not make this assertion but it’s not an uncommon one among people trying to project the future of the Republican Party.
Soprano2
@Belafon: Yep, I agree. People want to forget that it ever happened. The same thing happened with the 1918 pandemic.
Brant Lamb
@Mr. Mack: For the last time Haley isn’t centrist she’s Stumpy in a skirt.
Mr. Bemused Senior
Agreed. We’re talking about a large number of people though. I don’t fully agree with @Bupalos point of view, though there’s a kernel of truth in it. Somehow we have to break through whatever is blocking people from taking this seriously.
wjca
You see that. But from their perspective, Trump was President before and the country didn’t turn into a fascist hellscale. Sure, we know the reasons why, and that those reasons won’t apply next time. But they aren’t tuned in to the details of what happens within the government.
The best shot isn’t to argue that issue. It’s to show clips of Trump boasting about getting Roe overturned. And then ask, What will he trash next? That’s a message they can grasp, even without knowing the details.
Soprano2
@Another Scott: I talked with our karaoke DJ about this stuff some on Saturday evening. He says he was a Bernie supporter, but he’s not happy about either candidate and it sounds like he won’t even vote. He says he wants “better choices”, but I wasn’t able to glean exactly what he meant by that. He’s upset that “my generation” can’t afford to buy a house, for example. I didn’t point out to him that his choices about what kind of career to pursue might have something to do with that. *sigh* I told him that we can’t pick our ideal candidate, we have to pick from the two who are running, and that our system isn’t amenable to third parties. He thinks that if enough people sat things out a third, better party would spring up. He’s also got some of that “everything is a CIA conspiracy” thing going on. He’s not a dumb guy, and he’s very good at his job, but this is the kind of thing we’re trying to fight. I don’t know how you do that.
Next weekend I’m going to encourage him to at least go vote for Amendment 3 (if he’s even registered to vote!). That’s the one to legalize abortion. The ironic thing is that he’s got plenty of gay friends, and at least one trans friend who comes to the bar sometimes, and yet he isn’t happy with the Democrats. *shrug* I don’t know how to address that.
Baud
Via reddit
Baud
Via reddit
Soprano2
@Mr. Bemused Senior: I also come from remembering when it was a lot harder to find out what candidates stood for. You had to listen to their speeches and interviews in person or on TV if you were lucky. You had to read stuff in the paper and magazines. You weren’t able to listen to their speeches and interviews at the click of a button. You couldn’t record something and then watch it later, at least until the advent of the VCR. That’s why this comes across to me as so much whining.
Scout211
Opinion piece in FTFNYT (web archive version) this morning with a dual byline of Gail Collins and Bret Stephens is awkward and odd.
So there you have it. Bret effing Stephens admits he is
voting against Trumpvoting for Kamala Harris, right there in print!These pundits are weird. But if it moves a few Republican moderates, I guess it’s a good thing? Maybe??
Sure Lurkalot
@Melancholy Jaques:
My nephew’s wife (fundy, successfully converted my nephew, kids no choice) posted a video of her pastor preaching politics from behind his tax exempt pulpit (in this case, a YouTube in his car). Don’t you know that Jesus said “we are the salt of the earth” and (pastor splaning) salt is a preservative that prevents decay. Jesus says it’s ok to pick one of the two flawed humans but pick the one whose policies will prevent “societal decay” and we all know who that means (wink, wink).
Baud
@Scout211:
I hate the NYT, but that’s a win. I have no idea if it’ll have any impact
ETA: that dialog transcript format is stupid.
Barbara
@Baud: It’s about time. I think that the Central Park Five really just wanted to get on with their lives and not have to get bogged down again and again in reliving the horror of what happened to them, but the idea that TFG can keep stating that they are guilty when they have been proven 100% to be not guilty is really outrageous.
@Sure Lurkalot: I wouldn’t but I would be sorely tempted to ask wife why I should give a flying fuck what her pastor thinks.
frosty
@Kosh III: I don’t know if this fits your situation, but we went with Medigap instead of MA because our doctors are in Maryland. Turns out when you need health care while traveling Medicare+Medigap is easy. There was no messing around trying to find if whatever you needed was in whoever’s network, and nobody looking over your shoulder to deny your claim.
Marmot
@Geminid:
It’s crazy, but xenophobia works really well with certain Latino Americans. And anti-communism. It’s different from the liberal/conservative divides we’re accustomed to.
I’d like to believe Prop. 187 (right?) drove Latinos from the Repubs all by itself, but I’m skeptical. (And I’d love some datums on the subject, if anyone’s got ’em!)
I agree with you. I probably put too much emphasis on non-policy factors, like population density, but I’m happy to be proved wrong.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
Which assertion, the one where Sen. Blumenthal found it disturbing, or the one about its being memory-holed?
Those were TBone’s only assertions in that comment.
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
Memory holed.
Baud
@Sure Lurkalot:
I know what that means to me, but it probably means something different to them.
NotMax
@Scout211
“Completely out of context. I obviously was saying I have a concept of a plan to vote Harris.”
//
Scout211
Is Elon going to fix this fake attack on Walz? Ha ha, just kidding. He’ll probably promote it.
John Swain on X
Baud
Via reddit, cute meme.
SatanicPanic
@wjca: I agree. You can show people Jan 6 footage but it’s still a tough job to convince people that Trump is a unique threat when, for the most part, the average person sees Trump as mostly talk.
Harping on his age and mental acuity seems like a better plan.
Gloria DryGarden
@Scout211: may it move the needle.
Ellenr
@different-church-lady: Not worth hearing, it’s that ones opinion doesn’t have to be taken seriously.
Gloria DryGarden
@SatanicPanic: harping on if you vote trump, you get jd Vance… that’s my thought of what I’ll say next
Sure Lurkalot
@Barbara:
Sorely tempted to ask/say way more than that.
Unfortunately, she’s more than knee deep…she works for the church too, her job is mostly how to insert its activities into as many secular spaces as possible. There is no live and let live with such people. Dominion is their goal and flock is their place.
SatanicPanic
@Marmot: I don’t think anyone would suggest that it was just prop 187. But Latinos famously hated it, along with Pete Wilson and I don’t think there are too many good competing explanations.
frosty
@Scout211: My County has NO drop boxes. You can return it to the Board of Elections office, which at least is in the center of the County, I wouldn’t trust the mail for a ballot.
The script for the postcards I was writing said “Bring your mail ballot to …” not “Mail your ballot …”
SatanicPanic
@Gloria DryGarden: That’s a nice follow-up!
Soprano2
@SatanicPanic: Our karaoke DJ is convinced that they let those people into the Capitol. I told him “look at all the videos of them fighting their way in”, but he’s convinced otherwise. I also told him that 140 police officers were injured in that attack, but he was dubious. I told him I got a lot of my information about Jan. 6th from the Congressional hearings, where people who worked for TCFG testified about what happened under oath. He wanted me to give him a source, and I told him to look it up. He asked me why, and I said that it’s my experience these days that if I give someone a source, they look at it and say “fake news”, so what’s the point. He said that if he searched he’d probably find something different than I do, which I agree with, but if you want to watch the testimony of the Jan. 6th hearings that’s pretty cut and dried. I also told him to search about the 140 police officers, because that was widely reported. I have no idea where he gets his information, but he’s definitely not a TCFG supporter. It gets weird when you talk to people like that.
HumboldtBlue
@FelonyGovt:
Arizona is heavily Mormon, and the Mormons have no love for Trump. That Arizona Repubs are supporting Harris shouldn’t be much of a surprise anymore. I think it was the GOP Mormon mayor of Mesa who came out last month in full throated support of Harris.
Gloria DryGarden
@Baud: I was in the hospital at the time of that icky man’s inauguration. January 2017. I used my smart phone to get info, and refused the tv, but I knew some of what was happening.
The morning after my surgery, the doc intern came for rounds and woke me at 6 am, and I asked him to please tell me all about my broken ankle, and the surgery, but no alternative facts please. He kind of gasped. I was basically telling him I knew what was going on. It’s rare to be so lucid at 6 am; I definitely had my wits about me.
I was not proud that such a person had become president, and not pleased about the alternative facts universe. How was this a thing to openly discuss? Wtf, oh, now we’re lying openly?
Marmot
@SatanicPanic: This is great! Thanks. I think it pretty handily proves the point that Prop. 187 led to CA’s Repubs’ unpopularity. (And from a hostile witness, sort of.)
I’d like to think we’ll see the same here in TX, but so far we haven’t. And it’s not like the current Repub. xenophobia is any less racist than the Prop. 187 campaign. Here’s where my personal experiences try to fill the gap, though I know they’re just anecdotes, and probably worthless.
Kathleen
@Baud: They’ll have to pry my Medicare Advantage card from my cold, withered, arthritic fingers.
Gloria DryGarden
Thats the thing. They’re trampling on my civil rights, my religious rights, the rights of my friends and allies and community. I want to employ a battering ram and run into their closed doors, their certainty that it’s ok to crush, and dis and destroy, and shun and exclude others lives and beliefs.
wjca
It’s enough to make a person start to think that Utah (even more heavily Mormon) might be in play. :-)
Gloria DryGarden
@Another Scott: deeply interesting.
still trying to comprehend the undecideds, and even those trump supporters. I get that it’s the middle 50% that we’re trying to get persuaded. But still, if it’s not clear yet, what’s it going to take?
wjca
It’s true that correlation is not causation. But anyone arguing that Prop 187 was not what kicked off the descent of the California GOP into irrelevance should be asked for an alternative explanation. I mean, the state had been reliably Republican for decades. Except for Governor Brown (father and son) pretty much every California governor for almost a century was a Republican. Since then? Nada.** Clearly something happened. What?
** Arnold Schwarzenegger was a special case. He couldn’t even have been nominated outside the peculiar circumstances of a recall. And only got about 1/3 of the vote, IIRC.
Geminid
@HumboldtBlue: Arizona probably has a larger percentage of LDS members than any state besides Utah; they’re still only 6% of the populace though.
But like you say, Trump is not very popular among LDS members even though most tend to be politically conservative. That might be due to a history of persecution in the by bigoted majorities in the 19th century. They know this could happen again if the hate Trump generates gets turned against them.
I think they also noticed the contrast between the tepid support the upright Romney received from Evangelical leaders in 2012 and the enthusiastic support those leaders gave the reprobate Trump four years later. That was a lesson about their place in the Republican Party.
Citizen Alan
@Baud: I’ll say it again. Conservatives are the worst. But conservative women are the worst of the worst. Because they hate themselves for not being men and they want to punish all women who have any sense of self-worth not derived entirely from being a doting wife and mother.
Gloria DryGarden
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I’m a bit tired of their disdain for us.
Here’s a pleasant women’s anthem.
oh dear it’s @ TikTok, embedded in Facebook, I’m sorry.
Suzanne
@Geminid:
The Phoenix East Valley, which includes Mesa, is the 2nd-largest LDS community in the world. For most of that area, their representative is Andy Biggs, who is LDS and also one of the most terrible people in government.
They don’t particularly like Trump, because he is so flagrantly gross, and there are definitely a few LDS liberals…… but do not be fooled into thinking that they’re becoming especially liberal. They will absolutely vote for Nice Polite Evil.
Gloria DryGarden
We are the women, anthem, in tiktok format
Geminid
@Suzanne: I’m not sure there was anything in my comment indicating that I was in danger of being “fooled that [Mormons] are becoming especially liberal.” I even said that “most tend to be politically conservative.”
artem1s
On what planet is reproductive rights not a populist issue? Bodily autonomy, reproductive rights and the right to healthcare affects everyone. Ordinary people understand abortion isn’t solely a women’s issue. The GOP has wrongly been marginalizing reproductive health care as a feminist, elitist and niche issue since Roe was codified. JV thinks no one over 50 should care about Dodd or Roe. Do you agree with him?
Another Scott
A reminder that it’s all just mouth noises for TCFFG and his minions and enablers:
“Here, right matters.” – Col. Alexander Vindman
Truth matters.
We can’t let them gaslight us.
Forward!!
Cheers,
Scott.
Gloria DryGarden
@Sure Lurkalot: re “dominion is their goal, and flock is their place”
such an apt summary, albeit chilling
dominion/ dominance/ domination/ to dominate.
win lose thinking is embedded in their model.
I’m beginning to think win win thinking needs to be more overtly trained into us, built into our values. And built into corporate charters. It’s an old idea, I’m just fanning the embers.
Ksmiami
@Bupalos: I’d just like non extreme, insane Supreme Court decisions.
Suzanne
@Geminid: I wasn’t asserting that I don’t agree. Just adding a supplement to your comment.
Biggs is absolute trash.
There was an interesting issue a few years ago. Rep. Matt Salmon, who is also LDS, ran for Governor and got beat by Janet Napolitano. He cited some apparently abnormal number of ballots in which the voter voted straight Republican but left the Governor race empty. Salmon asserted that it was due to anti-Mormon bias.
Ksmiami
@Gloria DryGarden: I will do it back to them if it becomes necessary.
Ksmiami
@Sure Lurkalot: remind her that we are a secular nation and that actually prevents the US from succumbing to religious wars.
Scout211
Independent candidate for Senate from Nebraska Dan Osborn is saying that he won’t caucus with either major party.
. . .
Ksmiami
@Bupalos: protecting labor rights, increasing minimum wage, aiding in building more housing, repatriating manufacturing and shoring up social security etc ARE populist policies. The fact that a sect of white men will never be satisfied is just human nature.
SatanicPanic
@Soprano2: He sounds pretty out there
Belafon
@Scout211: So he doesn’t know how the Senate actually works. “George Washington said there should be no parties, so I’m gonna act like there aren’t any.”
Geminid
@Suzanne: Salmon might have been right about the reason for those blank ballots. While I have not seen evidence to back this up, I suspect Romney underperformed among Evangelicals in 2012. Some Evangelicals are very hostile to Mormonism and simply will not vote for an LDS member.
That might have been the case with Salmon. He had to swim upstream against an extra-heavy current.
Speaking of swimming Mormons, I read an op-ed piece by Jeff Flake in the Deseret News a few months ago that led off with him bragging about swimming the Bosphorus. Flake said he didn’t mean to brag, but just wanted to illustrate how Istanbul is placed at the crossroads of Europe and Asia.
Of course, Flake was bragging some but he made a good point before going on to discuss a Turkish/American project to produce 155mm artillery shells in Texas.
Flake was posted to Ankara as U.S. Ambassador three years ago, and he has done a good job helping mend our tattered relationship with Turkey. He’ll probably come back soon, but I assume the Flake is done with elective politics.
The Audacity of Krope
Too cute by half? Or not cute enough? YMMV.
The Audacity of Krope
As long as this is coming from sort of ideologically coherent place and isn’t just open corruption supported by bullshit argumentation (a la Manchinema), this is fine.
Suzanne
@Geminid: Yeah, there is definitely a cohort of Evangelicals that definitely has an issue with Mormons. (Many of them seem to be getting over their issue with Catholics, though. They don’t know enough Orthodox to matter and already think mainline Protestants are fake.)
I will note that Democrats made Harry Reid their leader.
surfk9
@Belafon: Washington ran as a
Federalist
dnfree
@Kosh III: When I retired I went to a Medicare Advantage sales presentation. The salesman said, in response to a question, “IF you have known medical issues, and IF you can afford it, you’re better off with traditional Medicare and a supplement plan.” I have Plan G and a supplement and virtually my only medical out-of-pocket is the deductible. I do have to pay dental and vision, although vision exams are covered as medical because of diabetes.
Chris
@Gvg:
At this point, what we need is for Republicans to be as thoroughly and lengthily marginalized as Democrats were after the Civil War and Republicans were after the Great Depression.
Geminid
@The Audacity of Krope: I’m a sucker for a fish joke.
Chris
@Frankensteinbeck:
As a kid with a mild interest in astronomy, I did think Pluto would eventually have its status redefined. But, like you, I thought it would be by identifying Pluto/Charon as a binary planet, rather than just dumping Pluto’s planetary status altogether.
Heck, there’s even a ready-made pop cultural definition for it. “You know how Tatooine’s suns work? Same thing, but with planets.”
Belafon
@surfk9: Yes, but you’re not thinking as an “I must be ideologically pure” type.
Geminid
@Chris: The Roosevelt Coalition held up for five straight Presidential elections, 1932 to 1948. Democrats are working now with the coalition Obama put together in 2008, and I think it could prove even more durable than Roosevelt’s.
For one thing, the coalition’s demographic components are growing faster than those of the Republicans. For another, Biden and Congressional Democrats laid the foundation for a strong economy with legislation like the Infrastructure, CHIPS and IRA bills passed in the last Congress.
Anotherlurker
@Geminid: I’m not particularly into fish jokes, but sometimes I’ll read them just for the Halibut.
The Lodger
@dnfree: You had a trustwoonerthy salesman. Right now at least one of my six MD practices will not deal with my Med Adv provider. I can’t get any of them to honor the Medicare part alone. Maybe I can get a supplemental plan next year.
Ksmiami
@Geminid: at this point, I’m hoping we just retain the senate and flip the house. This country fucking sucks.
Barry
@Baud: “I’d want Trump to win, because he would absolutely destroy the Republican Party.”
Not in any real sense.
Geminid
@Ksmiami: I’m pretty confident we’ll flip the House, and by a good margin. The Senate’s a big question mark with one Democratic seat (Montana) and a couple Republican seats up in the air.
But I think the Senate races look better for Dems next cycle, and I think we’ll keep the House into the next decade provided Harris wins this time. Which I believe she will.
Juliet
@TBone: i thank you for this comment. I’m retired and my prior employer only pays a medical subsidy for us to use Unitedhealth care which is referenced in the article. Our health care provider has already publicly stated they may stop working with United so we have a lot of new decisions to make now in the enrollment period.