in a few minutes we get to watch the brother of the man who utterly botched the Iraq war blame its failure on someone else
what a country
— Simon Maloy (@SimonMaloy) August 12, 2015
This makes sense. Who else could possibly be responsible? pic.twitter.com/gGwUnkrhTc
— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) August 12, 2015
"We're not part of the community of nations." – Jeb Bush, just now, relieving his brother and Sarah Palin of their duties as "the dumb one"
— Oliver Willis (@owillis) August 12, 2015
from Jeb's speech last night — isn't this the exact opposite of what is happening? pic.twitter.com/nrmDIezsbI
— Simon Maloy (@SimonMaloy) August 12, 2015
here's hillary clinton "keeping her head low" on the iran deal http://t.co/JSZMQae2iW https://t.co/TKexpPZE6T
— Oliver Willis (@owillis) August 12, 2015
Science fiction fandom has a useful neologism – sercon, short for “serious & constructive”. As in Enough with the cheap sarcasm! We need to be sercon about this issue! or This is a sercon review of a genre masterpiece — stop laughing! Theoretically, it could be used un-ironically, although I never heard anyone do so.
JEB! Bush is the Sercon Candidate of 2016. He’s supposed to be the Permanent GOP Establishment’s Very Serious Choice. Every time he opens his mouth, he does his campaign — and the Republican Party — a little more damage.
***********
Apart from malign idiots getting attention they don’t deserve, what’s on the agenda for the evening?
Coda:
Walk into one of the bars near the GM plant in Flint and there's a guy wearing a @BernieSanders shirt.
— daveweigel (@daveweigel) August 12, 2015
Keith G
News reports that Jimmy Carter has liver(?) cancer. It has spread to other areas.
I am so sad.
bobbo
A guy wearing a Bernie Sanders shirt?!?!? Holy cow! This is the most persuasive piece of entirely anecdotal evidence I have ever heard !!!! Peggy Noonan would be impressed!
Baud
Potentially massive industrial explosion in China. Waiting to see how bad it really is in terms of lives lost.
Betty Cracker
I keep hoping his fat stacks will pull him through because I want the Democrat to win.
@Keith G: Me too. He’s a good man.
Baud
I don’t know if Hillary will be beaten by Bernie, but win or lose this is the right approach.
Baud
Is Oliver Willis being snarky, because I thought Hillary came out in support of the Iran deal on Day 1?
Iowa Old Lady
@bobbo: I like hearing anecdotes from posters’ daily lives. They’re like little glimpses of life outside what the MSM shows. They’re obviously not statistical evidence, but they’re fun.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
The fuck? I haven’t seen that reported. Anyone know the context? Poppy used to say “the family of nations” when talking about Saddam (he rhymed with “madam”) who was worse than Hitler
@Baud: I think every poll should be linked to the polls from them same weeks in ’08 and ’12. It would at least be a good marketing thing for a given site.
Keith G
@Baud: Sarcasm, Re: the opinion that HRC is not supporting Obama’s plans.
beltane
I am extremely pleased by Hillary’s strong and unequivocal support of the Iran deal.
Anne Laurie
@Baud: Yes, Willis is snarking. This is one tweet from a series where he mocked the JEB! handlers for not doing their research (‘they wouldn’t even need a NEXIS subscription, CNN.com is free!’). Are they lazy, or are they lying? Indicators point to “both”…
Anne Laurie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
JEB!’s speech last night. Something about how we don’t havta bow down to those Iranian tricksters, cuz we’re special…
beltane
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Jeb! says the same stupid things as his brother, except more clearly, so the stupidity is not hidden by malaprops and faulty grammer.
Baud
@Keith G:
Thanks. I think Bernie expressed his support also, although I believe it took him a couple of weeks FWIW. Haven’t heard on O’Malley, but I’d be surprised if he took a different tack.
Tree With Water
About that h-lited bit about “the means to win”? Charles Pierce of Esquire.com reminded me today that $10 billion vanished into thin air in Iraq during the Bush-Cheney years, and doggone it, no one yet has a clue where it went except the thieves themselves.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@beltane: @Anne Laurie: are we really back to Old Europe and the little chocolate making countries?
srv
This is what bravery looks like:
NonyNony
@beltane:
Actually the stuff that Jeb! says is, in terms of someone running a political campaign, even stupider than anything W said on the campaign trail. Malapropisms and all.
It’s become clear to me over the past few months that Jeb! is completely unsuited for a national political campaign. He may actually be a better administrator than his brother (though sources in Florida tell me that this is “unlikely”), but he’s certainly nowhere near the campaigner his brother was. W was a masterful campaigner – not in Obama’s league but probably as good as (Bill) Clinton with their respective audiences. Jeb! is just awful – he’s actually making Mitt Romney’s 2012 run look good.
Baud
TPM
BillinGlendaleCA
@Tree With Water: Hookers and Blow.
Tree With Water
@NonyNony: Agreed. The question is becoming seriously serious- if not Jeb!, then who?
beltane
@NonyNony: W very obviously enjoyed campaigning. It’s something you’re either born with or not, and Jeb! wasn’t born with the gift.
dmsilev
@Baud: We haven’t seen Right 2 Rise since the debate, have we? So much for that “nuke” that Bush was going to drop on Trump.
Sniff. We can’t even depend on our trolls anymore. Is nothing sacred?
BillinGlendaleCA
@dmsilev: RtR was here a day or two after the debate; telling us how well jeb! did.
ETA: Who ya gona believe? Me or ya lying eyes?
Baud
@dmsilev:
No kidding. It’s pretty pathetic. Maybe he’ll come back as Classy Republican after Trump wins the nom.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@dmsilev: Maybe Jeb!’s Rove had to send their flying monkeys to Red State and… NewsMax or whatever GOOPers read
Cervantes
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Simple enough, in a Bushy sort of way:
Tree With Water
There’s been a terrible explosion at a Chinese port city: “..The first blast was equal in strength to the detonation of three tons of TNT, while the second was the equivalent of 21 tons of the explosive..:.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/12/explosion-chinese-port-city-tianjin
beltane
@dmsilev: Bush inadvertently dropped the nuke on his own foot. Have no fear, once the mess is cleaned up he’ll right the ship and emerge as the clear front runner. You can take it to the bank.
Baud
@beltane:
You are the troll whisperer.
BillinGlendaleCA
@beltane: I think you could get paid for that.
Turgidson
@bobbo:
Nah, Noonan needs to see cold, hard data to believe that Sanders has real support. I speak, of course, of yard signs.
BillinGlendaleCA
I got one of these today: Intel Compute Stick.
I’m doing the upgrade to Win10.
Mike in NC
@NonyNony: Dubya was a masterful campaigner simply because he only had to face adoring, carefully selected crowds of evangelical GOP voters. No dissent was tolerated, and even their clothing was scrutinized.
NonyNony
@Tree With Water:
The real problem for Jeb! right now is that there are 16 other candidates in the race and at least 3 of them are fighting for the same pool of voters he is (Rubio, Kasich and Walker). If Jeb! were the clear “reasonable Republican” then I think his numbers would be competitive with Trump’s. And he’d start an “inevitable winner” effect that would rally more votes to him – people like to back a winner, and right now Jeb! is losing out because he doesn’t look like a winner anymore.
So if not Jeb! I suspect that Rubio, Kasich or Walker will pick up those voters looking for a “reasonable Republican” (they’re “tone voters” – they’re just as hateful and ignorant as Trump’s supporters, but they don’t want to be called out for it and don’t want to support someone who is so obvious about it because it makes them look bad). It’s all a question of who gets forced out the fastest.
That said – Trump is really solidifying the crazy this cycle. I don’t know what effect he’s going to have – Romney benefited from a whole lot of crazy spread across a number of candidates who fell in and out of favor with the GOP base through the course of the primary season. If all of those crazies decided to back Trump and stick with Trump, and if there are at least two “reasonable Republicans” to split the rest of the votes, then holy cow Trump could actually have enough support to be a kingmaker at the convention.
(I’m starting to get a bit worried about Trump, even though I know his unfavorables are really bad. With the clown car he could potentially win the nomination with 33% support of the entire GOP. And I contend that no matter who the GOP nominee is his floor is 46% – even with his unfavorables even Trump could win it if the economy takes a hit during the election cycle. I’m still trying to figure out if having Trump – an obvious crazy – in office is better or worse for the country than having one of the stealth crazies. I just dunno.)
jl
Here is link to the text of Jeb!’s ridiculous speech. I don’t see the phrase ‘community of nations’ in it. Was that an ad lib, or did he say it someplace else.
Anyway, the speech makes not sense, unless you swallow the dishonest and anti-historical ‘stab-in-the-back’ theory on developments in Iran that the Cheney neocons are pushing.
Full text of Jeb Bush’s foreign policy speech
http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/the-buzz-florida-politics/full-text-of-jeb-bushs-foreign-policy-speech/2240942
dmsilev
@beltane: Looking at Pollster’s aggregations, Trump is leading Bush in _Florida_. And everywhere else.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@bobbo:
Let us savor.
Anya
Gary Samore who was untill Monday, the president of the ‘bipartisan’ advocacy group, United Against Nuclear Iran resigned and he’s now backing the deal.
Head of Group Opposing Iran Accord Quits Post, Saying He Backs Deal
Do you think the MSM will make a big deal about this?
jl
@srv: Webb should switch, he would do better in the GOP primary, a fiscally liberal version of Kasich. There sure is room for a few more over there.
Schumer’s problem is not lack of loyalty, it is that, from what I have seen, his arguments for opposition to the Iran deal are BS.
Betty Cracker
@srv: Webb’s against the Iran deal? Damn, hadn’t heard that. Probably because no one gives a shit what Webb thinks about anything except the goons at Fox, who are desperate for “Dems in disarray” stories to take the focus off their own shit-show.
Webb is right that the focus of the politicians should be on what’s best for the country rather than the party or the president. But where are the deal supporters who are trying to justify it on loyalty grounds? Lame-brained cheerleaders on blogs don’t count; which politicians who actually have a vote are justifying support for the deal based on party loyalty?
Turgidson
@Anya:
Samore’s replacement? None other than sanctimonious warmongering prick “I won’t become a lobbyist when I leave office….BAHAHA yeah I will” Joementum Lieberman.
burnspbesq
@srv:
Looks more like stupidity, TBPH. Yours or Webb’s, I leave to each individual to decide for himself/herself.
jl
@jl: if Samore has expertise in arms control, I doubt the media will report about the resignation and his support. Will be considered wonky and boring.
Edit: and anyway, he is a loser, he is ‘out’ now. So, who is he anyway, anymore?
beltane
@jl: Worse, his replacement is the one-and-only Joe Lieberman, adored fixture of the Village media.
Anoniminous
Single hardest thing in primary politics is to turn supporters into voters. JEB! has the national, state, and local organizations to do that. Trump doesn’t and by this WSJ article:
has no plans to acquire one.
Tripod
@Baud:
They’ve got Hillary vs. Bernie 58/32 w/o Biden.
Tree With Water
@NonyNony: I doubt that even Deep South voters (state by state) are/would be stupid enough to extend Trump even a single electoral vote.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
I think Webb’s schtick is to be against Obama.
jl
@jl:
Meant to type:
” Anyway, the speech makes no sense, unless you swallow the dishonest and anti-historical ‘stab-in-the-back’ theory on developments in IRAQ that the Cheney neocons are pushing. ”
But as long as I typoed ‘Iran’ the assumptions re Iran and Iraq behind Jeb!’s proposed policy for Iraq are absurd.
Cervantes
@jl:
Back to his day job — at Harvard.
Brachiator
Nothing much going on. Jeb!’s an idiot, Trump marches on. I wish President Jimmy Carter strength and hope. I think I will do a movie night and watch Ip Man 2, because Ip Man was so cool (Chinese martial arts bio).
Cervantes
@jl:
Said transcript must not cover the Q & A session that took place after the speech.
Turgidson
@Betty Cracker:
I’d also like to hear Webb take a stab at defending the arguments (I feel I’m being charitable in even calling them that) put forth by the deal’s naysayers. I haven’t heard a convincing defense of the position yet that doesn’t ultimately reveal that the critic: (1) is entirely unmoored from reality (get a better deal!), (2) plainly prefers a war with Iran (neocons); and/or (3) lying (Bibi’s “this deal paves Iran’s path to a bomb” horseshit). Often all three, of course, are true.
Schumer tried to be the guy who said “I’ve thought really hard about this, weighed the pros and cons, and here is why I’m against it” and like all the other armchair warmongers, the logic of his argument comes down to “I’m willing to risk letting Iran sprint to a bomb in 6 months because this deal might allow them to sprint to a bomb in 10-15 years.” The fact that this is allowed to stand as an intellectually defensible position, and has even been praised for its rigor in some places, is dumbfounding.
raven
@Tree With Water: You’re not from around here are you?
Baud
@Tripod:
Sounds about right for where things are. I think Iowa and New Hampshire play into Bernie’s strengths.
trollhattan
@Tree With Water:
That vile twit Walker, if he can avoid stepping on his own dick, could still nab it when everybody else does.
Chris
@NonyNony:
I’m worried about Trump too, but really, any one of them would be a disaster and any one of them can count on at least 45% of the vote. So as long as it’s only a primary, I’m just going to enjoy the shit show.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Brilliant strategy for the Democratic primary, considering that Obama remains incredibly popular among Democrats.
@Turgidson: I consider your take very wise as it mirrors my own. ;-)
beltane
@Turgidson: If the deal falls through due, Iran would actually be well-advised to get their bomb ASAP. The neocons will have no one to blame but themselves, though they will blame Obama anyway.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
I don’t know what he’s doing in the race.
BillinGlendaleCA
@trollhattan: He stepped on it and ground his heal into it like he was snuffing out a butt during the debate.
trollhattan
@BillinGlendaleCA:
And also, too, Carly!(tm) had cemented her place as the veep nod. It’s in the bag–book it, Libs.
Cervantes
@Baud:
That makes two of you.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Anoniminous:
I still don’t think Trump is a “serious” candidate, as in he’s someone who’s willing to actually put some effort into winning. I think his attitude is that if the suckers want to vote for him and give him attention, he’s not going to say no.
dedc79
@Turgidson:
Oh, man, that just prompted me to revisit her spot-on prediction for the 2012 presidential election. It is as hilarious today as it was on election night:
A Ghost To Most
http://gawker.com/50-years-after-the-riots-watts-projects-and-lapd-learn-1723326136?google_editors_picks=true
After yesterday’s hullabaloo, I came across this article about a new way of policing that appears to be working in Los Angeles (!).
It is worth a read.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Maybe the wife wanted to get him out of the house, she’s young(cute too) and has young children.
JPL
Someone needs to ask Jeb, if he would have broken the deal his brother signed, and stayed. Of course, there was not guarantee that the troops couldn’t be arrested for petty crimes.
Tom Q
@NonyNony: I mostly agree with this analysis, except I don’t see Walker as among those fighting for the (relatively) reasonable vote. On the other hand, I think Fiorina’s sudden leap to double digits means she’ll be drawing heavily from that pool — reinforcing your chief point, that Bush doesn’t seem to be having the luck Romney did, of watching the crazy crowd divide their share and coast to winner-take-alls as the only moderate-sounding candidate.
Walker, in fact, was who I thought would be the righties’ coalesce-around candidate — but it turned out the more caffeinated Trump sucked up all that energy. For now. Lots of ways this wheel can turn.
Sam
I was in Iraq on fobs in 07-08. Anyone with real experience of the country would be disgusted by the tissue of exculpatory mendacity in that speech. We had no friends in Iraq, just some purchased help. It wouldn’t matter whether we were there another decade or not – the internal civil war to divide the pie was always going to continue until the pie is divided. Those with the small piece, the Sunni, will keep fighting, because there is limited downside.
As for the scary bearded ones, they are most assuredly NOT the biggest threat to this country, ask the joint chiefs or dni.
Jeb! Never had my vote, but I see this as stupid on a par with Terri schiavo. He may be the dumbest candidate running, and that is saying a lot because Perry hasn’t quit yet
srv
This man is the only real threat to Trump:
Trump/Carson. I think that’s a real winner.
Shana
@Iowa Old Lady: So far this cycle in NoVA, which is the blue part of the state, I’ve seen three 2016 bumper stickers, all for Carson. All driven by old (retired-aged) men.
One for Hillary.
beltane
Switzerland lifted its sanctions against Iran as of today: http://time.com/3994588/switzerland-iran-sanctions/
No, they’re not in the EU or NATO, but I also doubt the US is going to be able to stop the rest of the planet from lifting sanctions as well. Maybe when Jeb said the US is not part of the “community of nations” he meant that he wants us to be sidelined as a global power.
jl
@Turgidson: @beltane:
From what I can see, Jeb!’s dishonest and asinine speech is completely silent on a proposal for dealing with the Iranian nuclear program if the deal is rejected. Some might say it is a very significant omission from the speech.
Also, several places in the speech we see the hand of the Dub-Cheney crew, False implications by juxtaposition: used in regard to Iran and ISIS in one place. Right out of playbook horrible dishonest arguments for Iraq invasion from 2002. I hope that these murderous clowns are Jeb!’s foreign policy advisers gets a lot of attention.
Jeb! is vile disgusting sleazy dishonest politician of the lowest order. I do hope he keeps his incompetence up with the rest of his lack of abilities.
Turgidson
@NonyNony:
I think Jeb(!) views himself as a bright, well-prepared candidate who can connect with the voters without having to dumb everything down and speak strictly in slogans, catchphrases and false bravado. Which of course was the path W took, out of necessity, because he was not particularly bright or well-prepared.
But Jeb overestimates his talents, a lot. He might be better-equipped to actually be a president than W. was, but it’s not a night and day difference and he’s not as well-spoken on the issues as he thinks he is (or as well-spoken as Obama, the Clintons, and most prominent Dems tend to be).
W. could fall back on a charisma that I personally never understood and found off-putting, but obviously worked on a lot of voters and our idiot media. Jeb has no such fallback plan. He’ll rise and fall trying to be a brainy wonk. Two huge problems with that – his party has no use for such a candidate, and even worse, he sucks at it anyway and would probably lose that competition to Kasich anyway.
beltane
@dedc79: If yard signs could vote, Ron Paul would be president for life.
Cervantes
@beltane:
You’re close. He has used that phrase numerous times, always scornfully.
bobbo
Gotta respect her cojones on that.
jl
@beltane: Well, Switzerland would not have dared if we had shown proper firmness and resolve in world leaderering, and the brilliance of The Surge was properly recognized and celebrated. QED.
(I larned that from Jeb!’s speech).
Steeplejack (tablet)
@BillinGlendaleCA:
GTFO! That is seriously cool.
jl
@Turgidson: Jeb! is stringing up a bunch of misstatements about domestic and foreign policy that indicate to me he is either very ignorant and very arrogant, or very dishonest. So, I guess you are saying it is the latter.
Cervantes
@dedc79:
Well, Romney was a thief — so there’s that.
Anoniminous
Romney as the GOP Establishment Candidate got ~10,000,000 votes in 2014. The Clown Car got ~8,000,000. JEB! should do roughly as well as Romney. I don’t see how any of the Clown Car including Trump can make-up the difference.
In the votes that actually matter, i.e., convention delegates, I figure JEB! as the Establishment and Bush Machine Candidate starts somewhere between 400 and 500 from national and state elected officials and party officers, needing only another 700 or so from the actual primaries. And being the Establishment candidate means an existing, in place, GOTV operation.
A look back at the polls shows both McCain and Romney were running with about the same support in the summer before the actual election started.
So, existing conditions and recent history both indicate JEB! is the guy.
Turgidson
@jl:
To paraphrase a recent candidate for national office, “All of the…..any of them, Katie.”
Tripod
When it gets down to it, Jeb represents enough entrenched interests that he can whack the nominee upside the head for the VP slot.
Anoniminous
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
I agree he isn’t a serious candidate and once we look under the hood he isn’t even pretending to be. He’s a creature of our vacuous Infotainment Industry.
Elie
@Turgidson:
I find Jeb to be a very physically unattractive candidate with no “presence” to speak of. The slightly crossed eyes, and poor posture do not look even remotely Presidential. I don’t know if his family sees a different candidate than I do, but the polls speak for themselves. Besides having no content or vision to share, he is ugly and no personality.
Sam
@Anoniminous: From what I have seen jeb will make a truly awful candidate. Scripted, nonsensical word salads delivered with no affect at all.
Frankensteinbeck
@Anoniminous:
In 2012, Romney had no opposition. He had a succession of unserious clowns who had no organizations. As each one fell on his shiny red honker, the base moved to the next one. Trump may well count as one of those, as in this thread someone said Trump is refusing to put together a proper ground campaign. Don’t Kasich and Walker at least have organizations? Jeb is only going to pull this out if he’s the only candidate with anything like a competent organization. He’s too damn good at falling on his shiny red honker, otherwise. He’s Rick Perry.
sinnedbackwards
Consuming my agenda is tweaking the financial report for the Business Meeting at the World Science Fiction Convention next week in Spokane (no snickers now, last year it was in London). Sasquan is a pretty cool name, though!
Tom Q
@Anoniminous: You’re going to have to link me to polls showing Romney in single digits at this point in 2011, given that’s where Bush has shown in some polls this week. McCain, yeah — he famously was down and out the summer before voting. But my recollection is Romney, though he trailed a succession of clownish candidates, had a base in the mid-teens that always had him seriously in the running.
And the point a lot of us are making, which you seem to be dismissing, is that Bush 1) doesn’t hold that single-serious-prospect position that Romney had — Kasich/Fiorina/Rubio are also fighting hard for it — and 2) has shown very poorly so far in debates, much worse than Romney, making one wonder if the establishment will stick with him forever, given they have far better alternatives than they did in 2012.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Zounds! This is Walter Jones, as in Walter “Freedom Fries” Jones, still a Republican, still a Congresman, and he apparently made this statement specifically in the context of his reflections on the Iran vote
I’ll be surprised if he votes with Obama, but I wonder how many ‘critters, and not just the R’s, are thinking of this in terms of the Iraq vote 12 years ago.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Yeah, the clowns each seemed to take a turn in the number one spot, but I don’t remember Romney ever being as far behind as Bush, not just in his support numbers, but his rank. But the pessimist in me still doesn’t dare hope Jeb! flames out completely. I want him humiliated, and his parents and brother and son with him.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Steeplejack (tablet): It’s at 18% on the Win10 upgrade. It’s pretty nifty.
Tokyokie
@Brachiator: Wong Kar-wai’s The Grandmaster is a much better take on the same historical figure. And, being a Wong Kar-wai film, much more filled with regret and sorrow.
jl
@Elie:
” no personality. ”
Gracious of you. If you can’t say anything good….
I try to obey that rule, but sometimes, it is hard.
jl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
” I want him humiliated, and his parents and brother and son with him. ”
Open question whether it is safer and better to do that more thoroughly in the primary or the general.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Rand Paul’s oppo research on Trump gives the DNC a commercial
The bold-face is mine.
gene108
@Mike in NC:
Bush Jr could stay on message. He may not have been able to enunciate any other coherent sentences, but no matter what questions he was asked or where he was speaking he stuck to his talking points almost all the time. You rarely saw him flubbing around the way John Ellis is, with regards to his campaign message.
Anya
@Turgidson: I’ve forgotten about Joementum. Is the media still in love with him?
Iowa Old Lady
Jeb gives the impression that he’s surprised by every question, like he never thought about that. And in the debate, he seemed low energy.
He seems more fired up and, obviously, articulate in prepared speeches. Off the cuff, he seems bewildered.
jl
@gene108: Agree. Dub rarely misspoke to the point that he had to take something back, even once. Let along multiple times, creating confusion and contradiction. And then finding it necessary to just issue a final definitive contraction with a resentful sneer. Edit: but with Jeb!, the more complicated and counterproductive procedure is SOP by now.
Splitting Image
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
This, basically. The harder Jeb falls, the better, but I’m going to have trouble betting against him until the actual primaries are underway. Jeb has a lot more institutional support than McCain or Romney ever did, so he may outlast his competition even if he does spend the rest of this year stumbling around like a moron. (Which is looking quite likely.)
Splitting Image
@jl:
That’s easy: the primary.
If Jeb is the nominee, all he has to do to make a “respectable” showing is to win Florida. Then even if he loses, at least he did better than Romney or McCain and his relative success will be attributed to the Bush name.
On the other hand, if he spends $100 million and only wins a handful of delegates, he will be as thoroughly discredited as Rudy Giuliani, who hasn’t been able to show his face anywhere except the major news outlets since the 2008 campaign.
gelfling545
@dmsilev: If I were to be called for a poll (per impossible) I’d probably say I support Trump just to make the Republicans a bit more miserable.
joel hanes
@A Ghost To Most:
Yup, community policing is known to work.
Cops hate it because it requires them to get out of their safe, comfy, isolating patrol cars.
So it takes strong political leadership to impose community policing, because the cops are unwilling to do it themselves.
SiubhanDuinne
@Baud:
The “took him a couple of weeks” bit troubles me not at all, either with Bernie or anyone else on our side (which is to say, the side of reason, rationality, common sense, and basic intelligence).
President Obama rightly went after the many Republicans who came out for killing the deal despite having not even read it. By the same token, shouldn’t we expect Democrats (yeah, yeah, and Democratic Socialists) to read, analyze and absorb the details in the agreement before they decide to vote for it?
Omnes Omnibus
@gelfling545: I don’t think I could bring myself to do it.
tokyo expat
@A Ghost To Most: Thanks for the link. It’s a little bright spot in otherwise depressing news about policing in the US.
jl
@joel hanes: If by ‘community policing’ you mean training and programs that make the police part of the community that they patrol, I Imagine the most racist and corrupt cops hate it the most. You have to go to neighborhood meetings, get-to-know-you picnics and play sports and after school stuff, generally and mingle with ‘those people’. Run into poor schlubs you pumped money out of with a bogus citation. When you drive from the ‘good’ neighborhood you’re patrolling to the ‘bad’ neighborhood to make your ticket and stop and frisk and bust quotas, you will run into people you have met and know.
I think some jurisdictions have decided to implement the ‘broken windows’ (which has morphed into harassment and tax farming by police dept) and stop and frisk policies and call them ‘community policing’, so the term is tricky to use in some places. Sanders is wise to stop a moment and explain what the term means to him whenever he mentions it.
PurpleGirl
@Tree With Water: The Bead Society of Greater New York had a guest speaker who was an Army colonel working in Community Relations. He had come to thank us for beads and supplies we had donated to a program for Iraqi girls. He told us about the stacks of money kept in his office — millions of dollars kept loose. A man from his office would be going out to see a community leader and would take money off the stack. No note made of how much or to whom it was being given. Just picked the cash up and off the officer would go. No one was keeping track of the money. It was just there for the taking.
Baud
@SiubhanDuinne:
Didn’t bother me either. Some people care about who has acted first, however, so I thought I’d provide the info.
Anne Laurie
@Tom Q:
My guess, if the election were held this evening (& I wouldn’t put more than a single store-bought cookie on it) is that the “Establishment” Repubs & the Koch-insurgent ditto declare a truce, get together to nominate Walker as long as he promises to pick Carly as his
babysitterVP candidate. Of course both of those candidates have a documented history of breaking their promises whenever it’s more convenient not to keep them — not to mention shivving their underlings — so the permutations for betrayal would be yooooge. (But not at all classy.)Tree With Water
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Jones comprehended the enormity of his error in judgement years ago. Which makes sense, as his district includes a military base. The late congressman Murtaugh (later slandered by the vile Michelle Bachman), combat leader and Vietnam vet, spoke in the same vein once he came to see the light. I especially regretted to hear of his death for that very reason. As with Jones, I believe he had much yet to say about the Bush-Cheney War that would have done the people of this country much good to hear. He was also a Pennsylvania democrat.
Anne Laurie
@beltane:
Quoted For Truth!
jl
@Baud: Sanders said that he was very inclined to support it right from the day the deal was finalized, and but he said that he had to perform due diligence and read the whole thing carefully and consult with experts. So, I don’t hold the delay against him.
Every time I have heard him speak about it, he explains clearly that if this deal is sunk, then Iran is free to make as much progress as they can towards a bomb in the immediate future, reminds how badly the Dub-Cheney crew messed up with North Korean nuclear program and says the only real alternative available is a very prolonged, very dangerous war, very risky and costly in lives and dollars. So, I think Sanders has done a good job on Iran deal.
Anoniminous
@Tom Q:
Romney was running in the mid 20s in August 2011 and then fell in October to 15 – 17% range. Curiously Santorum was polling in the ones and twos only to end-up with the most delegates out of the Truly Weird Brigade. So you are right JEB! is running behind RomBot at this stage of the game but looking at the others in the race … does it matter? The two almost sane candidates: Kaisch and Walker, maybe have a shot at winning some races but neither of them – AFAICT – have the money or the people or the national or the state organizations to take them through the primaries.
Jeffro
Looks like the Rand Paul/Donald Trump war is heating up:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/08/12/new-rand-paul-video-basically-calls-donald-trump-a-closet-democrat/?tid=pm_pop_b
You know, if there is one airhead who might be able to go bluster-for-bluster with Trump…think about it…Paul is perfect!
(Won’t do a thing to Trump’s poll numbers of course – these two voter bases are a Venn Diagram with two non-touching circles)
Jeffro
@Anoniminous: Walker doesn’t have a strong organization behind him? Why do I get the feeling there’s a good pro-union joke to be had there?
jl
@Jeffro: They both whine like champ complainers, but Trump does it more classier, and stately, with a (relatively speaking) deeper luxurious and classy mahogany voice, and Trump is better at slapping people in the face with classy and blunt insults.
I think we can cal this next round for Trump, If Paul comes back for more, can it last long enough to be TKO, is the only question.
Edit: in other words, Trump blusters and stomps, Paul blathers and drones.
Jeffro
@jl: Does Paul really have any choice at this point but to keep going nuclear on The Donald? His (Paul’s) numbers are going nowhere, and trying to take on Hillary Clinton at every turn (usually with weird stuff, too) isn’t working real well for him. If he goes another round, Trump is going to get very personal I’m sure.
Who knew that golf buddies could fall out like this? Heavens to murgatroid!
Tree With Water
@Jeffro: No one can “go nuclear” on Trump in talking absolute rubbish. It is literally impossible. The man cannot be Trumped [exit laughing until you cry].
Jeffro
@Tree With Water: What happens if Trump should pass the event horizon of…the Wingularity? Or, is he the Wingularity itself?
jl
@Jeffro: I wonder if Paul’s attacks can hurt Trump much. Krugman speculated that Trump’s support is mostly among bitter racist better educated and higher income teabaggers.
But someplace I saw polling that indicated most of Trump’s support comes from less educated and less ideological parts of the GOP base. If that is so, his supporters might not care that much. They may want a ‘winner’ rather than hypocritical two-faced loser operators who they suspect of betraying them.
Will be interesting to see what Trump can come up with for good responses after he does his ‘research’ (whatever that might mean to him, probably contract it out like Rodney Dangerfield did in the Back to School movie) to develop the policy proposals he has promised. I am not at all hopeful but I am curious to see what he comes up with.
If Trump is smart, he would just say Paul is a stupid loser and con man, and point out the Reagan started as a Democrat and was not the pure ideological fanatic that the current batch of GOP LOSERS(!) claim that he was. And like Reagan, Trump is a WINNER, NOT A LOSER!
If Trump is capable of something like that, he is real possibly fatal trouble for a big chunk of the GOP con game.
BillinGlendaleCA
@jl: That’s what Trump said, are you writing for him? Over at LGF, Charles called the GOP field “ferrets on bath salts”.
jl
@BillinGlendaleCA: You serious? I didn’t know Trump had responded already. Don’t pull my leg like that. Get the F outta here.
Edit: you gotta link?
NonyNony
@Tree With Water:
45.7% – that’s the floor of the popular vote we should assume any GOP candidate will get until proven otherwise.
That number comes from the percentage of the popular vote attained by McCain/Palin after the single most disastrous Republican presidency since Herbert Hoover. Arguably worse than Hoover since Hoover just presided over a tanked economy while W aggravated a tanking economy while also starting two wars on credit.
Regardless – despite the obviously massive fuckup and despite McCain selecting Sarah Palin as his running mate – the GOP still got 45.7% of the popular vote. And ALL of the Southern state electoral votes save Virginia, NC and Florida.
I suspect that Trump could do better than that. There are enough die-hard Republican voters out there that, should Trump actually get the nomination, I suspect that no matter who Trump is up against he at least matches Romney’s performance in 2012.
(I don’t think Trump will get the nom, though – if he has to, Reince Preibus will go out and kidnap candidates and hold them hostage until they drop out if it looks like Trump isn’t ready to self destruct by Iowa.)
jl
@BillinGlendaleCA: Oops. Never mind. I just watched the video in the link before, I see below Trump swatted it away like a dying mosquito. Paul should just lay off Trump and drop out of the race right now, unless he likes eating sh**fly pie in front of the whole country an a regular basis.
Chris
@jl:
I buy that. There’s a lot of the GOP base that seems to listen to tone rather than message, that’s not looking for policy statements that they probably wouldn’t understand anyway, just looking for someone who’s loudly and obnoxiously angry in the general direction of the same people they hate. Trump has that in spades.
(I used to think Christie had a good shot precisely because of this factor – being an in-your-face bully is so much a part of his personality that I thought Republicans would be delighted at the prospect of him doing it from the White House for four or eight years. But his star kind of died out before he even ran for office).
Debbie
@gelfling545:
That would probably get you on the Call Ceaselessly list.
Tom Q
@Anoniminous: I’d say it definitely matters if Jeb can’t get mch voter interest; the establishment can help him over hurdles, but they can’t propel him from ground level. Romney, as those polls show, started from somewhere way stronger than Jeb does now. (For contrast: Romney got close enough in Iowa to be declared faux-winner four years ago; Jeb is running something like seventh in the polling there today)
I don’t think there’s any comparison between the quality of the field four years ago and the one we see now. Romney had exactly one opponent who, by credentials, wasn’t a laughable, sure 30-35-state loser: Rick Perry (until he knocked himself out by alienating the righties with his immigration reasonableness and the sensate with his “I can’t remember my list of three”). The rest consisted of a pizza magnate, a man who’d left the Speakership in disgrace 14 years earlier, a Senator who’d last been seen losing his re-election bid by 18 points, and a wackbrain from a deeply GOP district who was proposing investigating Democrats for treason. I’m not impressed that the GOP establishment maneuvered Romney to a win over that group; I’m embarrassed it took them as deep into the season as it did to make the sale.
We may dismiss this year’s crop as equally out-there in policy terms, but in credentials they’re head and shoulders above — sitting governors and Senators, multi-term former governors who left office popular. Only Trump and Carson match the “are you kidding me?” level of the ’12 crowd. And as far as money: half of them have billionaires backing them, so they’re not apt to run out soon…and all that’s before the Koch Brothers settle on a candidate.
I think saying “It’ll be Bush, just like it was Romney” is shallow reasoning. There are a lot more moving parts this year — we don’t know if the votes on the far right will split for as long as they did last time, nor whether the establishment vote will divide up, as it NEVER did last time. And the cast of characters is way different. I’m not saying Bush CAN’T be the nominee; I’m just saying it’s a different ball game, in a different league, and recent history isn’t terribly analogous.
BillinGlendaleCA
@jl: Here’s the LGF post the original article is from the WaPo.
Jeffro
@BillinGlendaleCA: @jl: I was just gonna say the same thing (about Trump’s response). Yes he really went there and schooled Rand.
As for the attacks, Paul: if Trump disappeared tomorrow, I can see Rubio, Walker, and especially Cruz getting his supporters. I cannot picture a single Trump voter going, “You know…that Paul, he’s my man”
I genuinely do not see how this works itself it out (not just Paul vs. Trump – the whole GOP primary). They’ve got a ridiculous amount of people running, half of them just for the grift of it. The only differences between them (their views on immigration & climate change, plus their willingness to be 110% vs 110% religious right) are places where they can’t go, for fear of upsetting their base. No one in the party is big enough to sit these guys down – I mean, Romney? W? Darth Cheney, even? – and make them behave or cut some deals prior to what looks like will be a bloodbath from now through next summer.
And the only one willing to fall on his sword to make something happen is…Rand Paul?
Wowzers.
Chris
@Tom Q:
It’s early to judge, but 2016 so far seems to be 2012 in reverse. In 2012, the establishment settled on a candidate early (Romney), while the right wing base had a ton of weak-ass candidates to choose from, none of them with any staying power. This time, seems like it’s the right wing base that’s settled on a candidate (Trump), and the establishment that has too many candidates (Bush, Walker, Kasich) all of which are failing hard at making an impression.
Jeffro
@Tom Q:
I dunno about that – most of them are pretty unpopular even in their home states at this point, some especially so (Christie, Jindal). Your point about their billionaire backing dragging out the process, though, agreed. It would be ironic to see campaign finance reform become a GOP pet issue w/ the mess it has made of their party. (They won’t, though – they just can’t give up that ‘lean’ towards the interests of the 1%, no matter what it does to them)
Jeffro
@Jeffro: Whoops, that was supposed to read, “110% vs 100% religious right”.
tybee
@BillinGlendaleCA:
win10? seriously? it seems to be a privacy nightmare.
Tom Q
@Jeffro: “Most” are unpopular? For openers, I’m talking about the prime-time debaters, so Jindal doesn’t count. And Christie’s a special case, in that he was re-elected thumpingly, but then ran himself into a brick wall.
But Bush and Huckabee left office popular; Cruz and Paul seem very well-liked in their states (however horrifying that may be); Kasich and Walker were just re-elected last year (I know Walker’s in a polling slump now, but those things can shift). Rubio’s I guess in mediocre territory in FL, but I’d hardly call him unpopular.
The point is, these people hold or have held serious governing jobs, and are thought to have done them competently. None of this could be said of the non-Romney 2012 group.
NonyNony
@Anoniminous:
This heartens me a lot.
If he’s also failing to invest in GOTV infrastructure, then he’ll be done. Elections in the USA are almost entirely about pushing supporters to the polls. If you don’t have a GOTV infrastructure you can forgetaboutit. Obama knew this and so did W – both of them spent quite a bit of bank on organizations to get people who nominally supported them to the polls to turn that nominal support into actual votes. And you build that infrastructure during the primaries and then have it in place for the general. If you don’t do that, you’re screwed in this country. I really wonder if Trump is so myopic that he doesn’t understand that this is literally the single most important thing that a campaign machine needs to do to win an election.
BillinGlendaleCA
@tybee: Meh. Privacy ceased to exist when you got an internet connection.
Chris
@NonyNony:
Part of me’s still wondering if he’s actually running, or if he’s just trolling for attention and will eventually get tired and go back to something else.
I mean, I don’t think he is, but it would explain why he doesn’t give enough of a shit to invest in a campaign machine.
Jeffro
@Tom Q: Walker’s unpopular, as are Jindal and Christie
http://www.usnews.com/news/the-report/articles/2015/07/10/hey-scott-walker-unpopular-governors-dont-get-elected-president
Rubio does not appear all that popular in FL; Bush neither
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/416863/poll-florida-voters-not-eager-see-bush-rubio-run-president-andrew-johnson
Cruz: harder to find good numbers on his Texas popularity, and Slate is always questionable
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/02/18/ted_cruz_polling_numbers_not_a_lot_of_republicans_want_the_texas_senator.html
And for what it’s worth: Rand Paul and KY: http://www.kentucky.com/2015/05/13/3849945/bluegrass-poll-kentucky-republicans.html
I guess my point is, I hear you that this GOP field is more “credentialed” than the last – the problem is, “credentialed” does not mean well thought of, even by their own folks. Just like a lot of you all, I see people with “credentials” apply for positions at my workplace but their references are iffy at best I don’t think anyone but the DC/NY media is impressed by this field’s “credentials”, given how abysmally they have governed (and therefore, how they’re regarded.)
BillinGlendaleCA
@NonyNony: You’re thinking like a loser. Trump will buy the ground game if and when he needs it. Seriously, free publicity on the TV machine is working well for him, if he needs more, he’ll buy it.
jl
@BillinGlendaleCA: Sounds like the Romney approach. towards some technical aspects of running for office: pay some guys who a guy knows who you know to do it. Some things are easier to contract out than others.
But Trump can sue the GOTV contractor when he craters in the first primaries? Can recoup some of the campaign expense that way. It’s a lark and a speculative business deal to him.
Peale
@Chris: I’m going with not seriously running. I still think the reason Paul is attacking Trump is that Trump is taking away Paul’s father’s supporters. But if Trump doesn’t bother to get on the ballots, how is he supposed to make it through Super Tuesday?
Smiling Mortician
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
That’s awesome. I’ve already written the ad.
TRUMP: The economy does better under the Democrats than the Republicans.
VO: It’s true.
[A few good charts showing economic improvements under Obama & Clinton compared to Bush, Bush & Reagan, with suitable VO explanation]
VO: But it’s not enough just to vote for [DEM NOMINEE] for president. Take it from The Donald:
TRUMP: The economy does better under the Democrats than the Republicans.
VO: Vote Democratic for president, for the U.S. Senate, for Congress, for governor and other statewide offices, for county and municipal offices. Why? Because
TRUMP: The economy does better under the Democrats than the Republicans.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
Boy, Jeb! still seems to believe the family can, in the words of his brother (or his advisers) “create their own reality” when it comes to the WOT. Personally I don’t think he’s convincing enough to make it work.