I’ve been staying out of the other Senate race in Georgia (the one that’s not Ossoff-Perdue) because there’s a jungle primary coming up and while I have a preference for one of the Dems (Raphael Warnock) in it, I didn’t feel confident enough in this to raise money for him over the other leading Democratic candidate. I’ve since learned, though, that the other Democratic candidate is Joe Lieberman’s son so fuck him.
Raphael Warnock seems like a great candidate, and the perfect one for this particular moment. I think this is a good one to give to because the Republican incumbent (Loeffler) is a complete crook and the other leading Republican candidate, Doug Collins, is also shitty. It’s also flying a bit under the radar for now.
Baud
Sometimes the apple does fall far from the tree (both good and bad apples). I wouldn’t necessarily assume based on parentage.
dm
I’d think Stacy Abrams’ endorsement would be enough reason to support Ralph Warnock:
https://www.ajc.com/blog/politics/stacey-abrams-backs-warnock-bid-for-senate-calling-him-proven-leader/yAI5GslTCYKrDssh0YAE9J/
Omnes Omnibus
I don’t think that Joe Lieberman spent his time chasing women and drinking. The world might have been a better place if he had.
Another Scott
@dm: I’m normally apprehensive about donating to novices for important offices, but Stacy knows.
Donated.
Cheers,
Scott.
Noncarborundum
Geoboy
Isn’t Lieberman’s son the one who wrote slavery porn in the not too distant past and then tried to pass it off as a lesson in critical thinking? Sounds perfect for represnting the citizens of Georgia.
Shalimar
Matt Lieberman seems to be a lot more progressive than Joe, so it would still be a good thing if he beat Loeffler or Collins. Agree that Warnock is a better candidate.
Mary G
Warnock was the main pastor at John Lewis’ funeral – he presides at MLK’s old church. I started donating to him last month and have gotten emails from all kinds of big names, like Michelle Obama, asking for more money. Several a day lately. It’s a bit annoying, but I liked him at that service and Kelly is so horrible – picking fights with the players on the WNBA team she partly owns about demanding they not put “Black Lives Matter” on their uniforms – I think he has at least a shot.
artem1s
Carpetbagging in GA? srsly?
Mart
I saw Matt Lieberman on a TV puff piece. He came across as a progressive liberal, nothing like his Dad. Googled his slave porn. Said he did not mean it the way the NAACP read it. I don’t think he will get far in Georgia.
DougJ
@Shalimar:
I will most likely raise money for him if it comes down to him versus a Republican.
Edmund Dantes
Pelosi backing Kennedy against Markey.
hmm… guess she isn’t as progressive as she likes to claim or always for incumbents.
SiubhanDuinne
@Geoboy:
As a citizen of Georgia, I’d appreciate a little less of the painting with broad strokes. Thank you very much.
Served
Between Pelosi endorsing Kennedy and that WSJ article with a Biden camp person shooting up deficit hawk signals, it’s a great Dems in Disarray Day to close the convention.
WaterGirl
@Edmund Dantes: That’s shocking. I think I read that Adam Schiff also endorsed Kennedy. Name or no name, I don’t get it.
What did Markey do to piss these guys off?
eric
@WaterGirl: my guess, access to even more kennedy family and relatives’ money
Ken
@Served: Though at least the Dems don’t have to deal with multiple indictments, plus unfavorable court rulings in cases investigating taxes and
rapedefamation.Another Scott
@Served: Dean Baker has a counterpoint to Ted Kaufman
https://cepr.net/the-burden-of-the-debt-lessons-for-biden-adviser-ted-kaufman/
I think most people are inured to scare stories about Teh Debt That Will Kill Us In Our Beds!!1 now.
Cheers,
Scott.
WhatsMyNym
@Another Scott:Next…we will be hearing about runaway inflation : (
Ken
@WhatsMyNym: Eventually, all the Fed chairs will have been born after 1980 and won’t have any experience of runaway inflation (and precious little of ordinary inflation). Whether that will be a good thing or not, I do not know.
Edmund Dantes
@WaterGirl: as a democratic voter how is Kennedy an improvement in anyway over Markey?
i would love to hear her say. Cause I am pretty sure it’s as others said. Money and connections. (But that rings hollow as Markey isn’t some fresh off the boat challenger. He’s been running and winning elections for awhile in MA).
Markey has shown he can win state wide office. Kennedy hasn’t
Markey is more progressive of the two in a very blue state (even with their stupid we want a GOP governor streak).
I haven’t ever heard of Markey not being a good fundraiser or always cash strapped.
So really why would she prefer Kennedy over Markey? Why stick her nose into a primary with an incumbent? (Open seat primaries are a different beast even though Dem leadership should stay out of those most of the time too)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@WaterGirl: Lauren Underwood, Sharice Davids and a number of other freshman flippers endorsed Kennedy, too. I don’t get it. Markey has always struck me as rock-solid.
MisterForkbeard
@WaterGirl: Honestly, it could just be that they’ve worked with Kennedy in the House and they like him/want someone younger.
The whole thing seems fairly ‘eh’ to me. Not much of a huge story, certainly not a ‘Dems in Disarray’ story.
Mary G
O/T dog goes grocery shopping in Japan:
Yutsano
@Mary G: I’m thinking Taiwan, but I need to get a better look at the currency. Also: I wish Chinese celery was more common in the West. Doggo is being best doggo!
Another Scott
@Ken: Yup.
The 10 year Treasury yield (0.68%) shows that nobody with money to invest is worried about US inflation.
https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/interest-rates/pages/textview.aspx?data=yield
I’ve mentioned before that I recall a short Economist story about the price of bread in England going back about 400 years. Significant inflation was very, very rare.
I think that a lot of people learned the wrong lessons about the oil shocks in the 1970s and wage inflation. One-time shocks (the Arab Oil Embargo) cause pain for a while, but the economy adjusts. It doesn’t mean that inflation will go on forever. Wage inflation similarly has been shown in the last 40 years to be an anomaly. It’s hard to imagine that wage inflation will be an issue anytime soon, either. (Companies move production to lower-labor-rates areas, and there’s been an automation push for, what 219 years or so?)
Worrying about inflation/Teh Debt is just a smokescreen for wanting to keep millions of people from getting ahead and for keeping a supply of desperate labor available…
Grr…
Cheers,
Scott.
DougJ
Contested primaries in Democratic states are the only thing standing between us and a lifetime of Bill de Blasios.
Yutsano
@DougJ: Did you just tweet that? :P
PsiFighter37
@MisterForkbeard: Markey was in the House before getting elected to Kerry’s seat…Pelosi knew / worked with him for arguably even longer. Not sure I understand why she feels it is worth putting her political capital behind Kennedy, who seems to have a pretty decent shot at losing and hasn’t really made any waves in the race (as far as I can tell).
PsiFighter37
@DougJ: Unsure if that’s snark or not, but to be fair, de Blasio won the 2013 primary in a contested fashion fair and square. He probably would not have won if a) Anthony Weiner could have stopped taking dick pics for any period of time, and b) Christine Quinn was not viewed as being Bloomberg’s lackey / toady, especially on the one-time term limits extension, while running the City Council. I do hope that NYC gets a mayor who cares and isn’t a lazy asshole like de Blasio next time around, because after the pandemic, it is going to be a Herculean lift to get this city back on its feet.
Hoodie
@SiubhanDuinne: Seconded. Georgia is not Alabama or Mississippi, more like NC, slightly less blue but arguably a deeper bench in the Dem party.
Baud
@Served: I don’t agree with Ted’s take, but if that’s all it takes for Dems to be in Disarray, then we have no business running government.
Lyrebird
@eric: @PsiFighter37:
Uh, maybe y’all are right, but maybe Kennedy being 34 years further from retirement age might have something to do with it? I was pulling for Markey due to JK having ties to anti-vaxxers, but I can certainly understand wanting to move things along. NDP herself was gonna retire when the Orange Menace showed up and started throwing the country out the window.
Trusting NDP has been a pretty good bet thus far.
LuciaMia
On CNN they reported that Trump was ‘hell-bent’ on making the R convention different from the Dem.
The mind reels.
Another Scott
@Edmund Dantes: https://www.masslive.com/politics/2020/08/nancy-pelosi-endorses-joe-kennedy-in-senate-primary-against-ed-markey.html
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
Lyrebird
@SiubhanDuinne: All good regards to our esteemed Subaru Diane! Belated Happy B’day too.
Yeah I dunno, those strokes were so broad I thought it was just the invisible sarcasm font, i.e. commenter saying ML would be totally wrong for GA. But I frequently misunderstand.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@LuciaMia: I assume they don’t mean “incompetent” and “unengaging.” But who knows?
Butter Emails
Reasons why Pelosi, others support Kennedy
Personally, I’m voting for Markey.
PsiFighter37
@Lyrebird: I’m not going to blame Kennedy for being related to RFK Jr.
As for the age thing – this is Massachusetts…there’s no reason to rush. I mentioned in some other thread, but it’s highly likely that both Markey and Warren are going to retire, so there would be 2 cracks at an open seat. I have yet to see how Kennedy has distinguished himself in the House to the point that primarying a fairly liberal Democrat makes any sense. I would also say it is different from the House primaries, where you had a lot of senior Dems get lazy and just sit on their seats while their districts changed around them.
Ken
The Democratic convention has been well-organized, tech-savvy, inclusive, inspiring, amusing, focused, widely-watched, unifying, …
Yeah, I think Trump has a good chance of making something completely different.
Barbara
@Hoodie: Georgia has the advantage of having a truly large city in Atlanta, where people can demonstrate their mettle and get important experience, whereas, North Carolina does not, not the same way. There may be other differences as well, but it is striking.
Gin & Tonic
@Lyrebird:
In fairness, the anti-vaxxer is his uncle. I’m not sure this Kennedy has taken a public position. The problem I have with him, contra DougJ’s comment above about the necessity of primaries, is that his victory would move rightward, not leftward, which is dumb in Mass.
Gin & Tonic
@PsiFighter37: Maybe Quinn could have avoided being viewed as a Bloomberg lackey by the simple expedient of not being a Bloomberg lackey.
Barbara
@LuciaMia: “Different,” as in, no hosts who are dark skinned, nobody under the age of 30 offering their own point of view, and certainly no immigrants getting to speak, not to mention no former presidents getting the opportunity to speak, and so on. It shouldn’t be that hard.
Marcopolo
@LuciaMia: I think this means much less professional with lots of technical glitches.
In ballot access news, Kanye has NOT made it on to the MT ballot (under 4,000 of the 8,800 signatures he submitted were good and you need 5,000 to qualify). And yesterday the Montana Supreme Court barred the Green party from the ballot as well stating their application and activities to get on the ballot were actually a partisan plot by the GOP. So far so good.
Gin & Tonic
@PsiFighter37: Being in a media market that covers Kennedy’s CD, I see his TV ads all the fucking time. One commercial block could have two of his ads.
Barbara
@Gin & Tonic: I think it was the third term that did it, and she probably thought that she would be a shoo in with Bloomberg’s support, which she obviously thought she would get if she supported the third term. But the thing is, she would have had a strong chance even without Bloomberg’s support, and anyone could see that the third term was a lightning rod. De Blasio is such a poser, though, it’s hard to see how Quinn could have been worse. When De Blasio ran for president he might as well have announced, “yes, I am a totally deluded egocentric fool who has no idea how other people see me.”
Lyrebird
@PsiFighter37: @Gin & Tonic:
Thanks, I should’ve read further to see it was his uncle… Can’t blame the nephew for that, after all, didn’t both Ronald R (never a hero to me) and GWB raise some great kids? Was it a Reagan brother, I don’t know.
Anyhow, I’m also puzzled on this one, but I’m not gonna write off NDP *or* Markey either.
Ken
That’s rather easy since there’s only one candidate, and he’s not all that impressed with Trump. Maybe he’ll show up tonight…
wetzel
I’ve been thinking a lot about the end-game of the Trump plan to undermine USPS. I don’t think they’re planning on it throwing the vote. It’s going to hurt GOP voters nearly as badly (though they may be marginally more inclined to vote in person thinking the virus is a hoax) I just think they’re hoping the logistical problems allow them to cast doubt on election night and mire the election in controversy, hoping for another Brooks Brothers riot to throw it to the Supreme Court and maybe the House, where they have the advantage in states.
I saw today that flipping one congressional seat in each of Pennsylvania, Florida and Montana would ensure Democratic majorities in just over half the House delegations, and the Democrats could prevail over any attempt to undo the election results through subverting the Electoral College outcome.
Maybe a bit of fundraising energy in that direction would be a good idea. Maybe Kathleen Williams to win the at-large house seat in Montana would give the most bang for the buck here. The race is neck-and-neck, apparently. https://kathleenformontana.com/
Just thought I’d put that out there.
Matt McIrvin
@WaterGirl: Apparently Pelosi was pissed off because Markey cut an ad quoting JFK to attack Kennedy in a way she thought was unseemly. It’s all kind of weird.
Whatever, I already voted for Markey.
Another Scott
@wetzel: There’s little doubt that Donnie’s minions are hoping to get to get their people out to vote in person and hoping to have the race be close enough so that they can declare victory that night, while the rest of the world waits for the tens of millions of absentee ballots to be counted the next day or within the next 7-10 days (depending on the state). They want to pull another Bill-Barr-Summary-Of-Mueller’s-Report on the country.
That’s one of the reasons why I haven’t decided yet to vote absentee as opposed to voting early in person yet, myself.
Cheers,
Scott.
CaseyL
Considering that our Presidential candidate is 77, and Pelosi is 80, I’m not sure saying Kennedy is better because he’s younger than 74-year old Markey is a winning argument.
I grew up loving the Kennedys, but this rankles, and I don’t know what Pelosi’s reasoning is.
Geminid
The late John Lewis signed off on a fundraising letter for Kennedy, and Adam Schiff, among other House Democrats, also endorsed him. I just take this as a matter of them knowing Kennedy as a hard-working and likeable colleague. Now “progressives” are slamming Pelosi for endorsing Kennedy, even though there are few policy differences between him and Markey. But these people use any and all opportunities to bash the Speaker and the rest of the Democratic leadership, so that is no surprise. This a matter for Massachusetts Democrats to decide, and this Virginia Democrat is fine with either Markey or Kennedy. However, I am skeptical of Markey’s Green New Deal proposal. It called for a carbon neutral U.S. economy by 2030, even though the IPCC report issued fall of 2018 called for a carbon neutral world economy by 2050, to limit global warming to 1.5° over pre-industrial level. As economist Robert Pollin commented, just cutting carbon emissions in half by 2035 will be a heavy lift. I think that if we want a sustainable planet we have to have a sustainable political policy to get there. The Markey plan struck me as unsustainable politically. Its proponents argued that we could achieve that goal by a WWII style mobilization. But in WWII the allies beat Nazi Germany 3 1/2 years after Pearl Harbor. 4 1/2 years could have been too late if the Germans had developed atomic weapons. Robert Pollin’s very informative critique of Markey’s Green New Deal can be found in the March 2019 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. They’re the folks with the doomsday clock on the cover, and they do some good reporting on climate issues.
Nicole
@Barbara:
I also think there were some shenanigans- not necessarily illegal, but I think some deals were struck. And, I know how tinfoil hat this sounds, but I think it was over the carriage horses. The carriage horse stables are in midtown, on the West Side, and the land those old stables are on is now worth millions and millions to developers. And some of the stables they can’t get as long as the industry exists; for example, one of the stables is collectively owned by drivers, who bought it 20-25 years ago.
Quinn was asked about getting rid of the carriage horses and she said, “Uh, what?” while de Blasio came out as saying he’d ban carriage horses on Day 1 (to which the average NYC’er said, “Uh, what?” as it seemed like something that should be kinda low on the priority list) but suddenly there was the Anyone But Quinn PAC spending lots of money on torpedoing her primary bid. And sure enough, de Blasio used a lot of political capital trying to get the carriage horses banned, without ever being able to give an actual reason for it, other than claiming it was inhumane, which numerous veterinarians and equine folk have said, no, it’s not. (And, as a horse person myself, who’s seen the stables, it’s not.) It was incredibly unpopular with NYC’ers, all 3 papers were against it, and the main driving force behind a ban was/is NYCLASS, which advocates for “safe, clean and livable streets,” which sounds like a white-led organization if ever there was one, and their big backer, Steve Nislick, is a real estate guy (and a former owner of event horses himself, but he chucked them when he started the NYCLASS stuff as it made him look a bit hypocritical; eventing is much harder on a horse than carriage work).
The drivers are unionized and the Teamsters came to their rescue when it looked like there might be a vote on the industry, and the City Council backed down. de Blasio has done his best to kill the industry, and he has hamstrung it a bit, but if it dies out it’ll be Covid-19 that does it, not de Blasio, I don’t think.
So this is my tinfoil, long-winded way of saying the NYC real estate mafia put de Blasio in there, and, because he’s lazy and incompetent, he’s ended up being a fairly poor return on their investment as best I can tell, which, insert Grumpy Cat’s GOOD right here.
I was super pissed at Quinn for voting a 3rd term for Bloomberg, and I don’t doubt that hurt her (I didn’t vote for her in the primaries, and I was unaware of de Blasio’s stance on the carriage horses; I would NEVER have voted for him if I’d known), but I really think it was a lot of real estate backing de Blasio that got him into office.
Matt McIrvin
@Another Scott: I requested mail ballots for both the primary we’ve been talking about here, and the general election. I was interested to see how long it would take to vote by mail in the primary (with, always, caveats that this may not reflect the situation for the general election).
Massachusetts has a pretty good ballot-tracking site, and they also explicitly say that you can vote in person if they don’t have the ballot by Election Day, so the risk of your vote being lost entirely is actually relatively low. So I voted in the primary by mail.
It was faster than I thought, given all the troubles of the USPS. The ballot was mailed out on August 12th and got to me on the 17th. I just put it in my curbside mailbox on the morning of the 18th, and it was marked “Accepted” on the website on the 19th–so it got back in their hands in one day, a pretty good turnaround. In-person early voting isn’t even open yet.
It’s making me think this may actually be viable for the general election, though of course I’ll be watching developments carefully.
Another Scott
@Nicole: Makes sense. Real estate is a huge, huge deal in NYC.
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Priest
Georgia’s runoff provision pretty much means that a Dem that doesn’t win 50%+1 on general election day has lost (e.g. Ossoff with a 49% plurality); the likelihood of any candidate getting over 50% in the special election is pretty much nil. The most recent runoff example is 2008, where Jim Martin finished 3%/+100,000 votes behind Chambliss on election day, in the runoff turnout was 57% of the general and Martin finished 15%/+300,000 votes behind.
WaterGirl
@LuciaMia:
It was always going to be different. It should be different.
WaterGirl
@Another Scott: “Markey claims to have closed the gap” is bullshit.
They should either quote the polling or say nothing. This implies that Markey is full of shit. I am so tired of terrible. lazy reporting.
CaseyL
@Nicole: I remember the fight about the carriage horses! And I thought then it seemed a
bullhorseshit campaign, because the horses looked like they were treated very well and enjoyed what they were doing.I am not surprised to hear it was a gentrification/real estate grab attempt.
WaterGirl
@PsiFighter37: What makes you think Warren is going to retire?
I suspect she feels like she has at least 5 years of work yet to do.
WaterGirl
@Matt McIrvin: Now that, I can believe.
Matt McIrvin
@Another Scott: …Note also, at least in my state, in-person early voting and mail-in early voting are essentially the same from an election-mechanics perspective. I’ve done in-person before: you fill out the ballot at City Hall and put it in a signed envelope that is identical to the inner envelope for a mail ballot.
Either way, the ballots go in a box that gets delivered to your regular polling site on the day of the election, where they presumably check the names on the envelopes against the voter list, then open and scan them with the other ballots.
So it’s mostly just a question of whether you think you can get the mail ballot back in a timely fashion. It is possible to hand-deliver them to the city clerk’s office, though I don’t know whether the setup there is more or less onerous than going to the early voting station (don’t know if they just have a drop or if you have to stand in the same line as other business).
Nicole
@Another Scott: As a horse-crazy person myself, I followed the whole carriage horse thing closely, because I care deeply about equine welfare, and it was really bananas. The stuff being said about the horses’ lives had no connection with the reality of their experience, and the NYCLASS people would just flat-out lie, and post supposedly incriminating photos of recent accidents that turned out to be 20 years old, and de Blasio wouldn’t even meet with the carriage drivers or visit the stables. There was all this hand-waving about their jobs (“they can drive electric cars through the park!”) and about the horses, most of whom are already into a second career, being former Amish farm work or racetrack trotters (“we have loving homes for ALL the horses!” These alleged homes never appeared and an actual retirement home for the carriage horses, that took some of them after they hit mandatory retirement age at 25, was actually harassed out of doing it anymore by the anti-carriage activists).
It was like listening to Trump lie about things, but in my allegedly liberal city, and it was really disheartening. A well-regulated carriage horse industry (which NYC’s is), is a great place to send a couple hundred unwanted horses, who get safe, easy work for most of the rest of their lives, and the (unionized) drivers make an okay living at it- not great, but solid. And for a lot of kids here in NYC, it’s the only time they get to see a live horse.
A few years back, a veterinarian made a surprise visit to one of the carriage stables, and inspected the horses. The only complaint she had about their condition was that some of them suffered from, as she put it, “over nutrition,” which was a polite way of saying they were fat. As any horse owner can tell you, a stressed-out, suffering horse doesn’t eat. It still makes me laugh. “Over nutrition.”
WaterGirl
@Another Scott: What worries me is that they have no shame and are willing to behave lawlessly right in plain view, so they may pull something in the final days of voting, when it’s too late for people to change their voting plan.
WaterGirl
@CaseyL: It rankles for me, too. Especially since Kennedy came off like an entitled dick in his interview on
Pod Save AmericaLovett or Leave It.LuciaMia
Well, theres only Dubya left and he doesn’t even want to breath the same air as him.
PsiFighter37
@WaterGirl: Within the next decade – I absolutely think so. I would argue it’s an open question as to whether she would want to run for reelection in 2024 or retire (she’d be 74 at that point).
gwangung
@WaterGirl: Yeah, outright attacks and vandalism of ballot boxes come to mind.
Kay
The crime reports in local media often don’t include that the perpetrators are Q people. The incidents include the Q person screaming about the cult, but there seems to be some hesitancy in mentioning it.
There was one in Massachusetts where the Q person was driving 110 with his children in the car, “saving them” from pedophiles and police had tape of him praying to Donald Trump but that was excluded from the newspaper article. I don’t think it’s a conspiracy- I just think it’s interesting that local media are so uncomfortable with this that they’re essentially self-censoring.
Baud
@Kay: I think it’s still pretty novel. It took me a while to get my head around it.
Another Scott
@Matt McIrvin: Thanks.
I just checked Virginia’s process again at vote411.org (run by the LWV). Virginia will accept mailed ballots until noon on the 3rd day after the election if they’re postmarked by election day.
I’m not worried about my ballot not arriving in time or not being counted, more the appearances, and trying to game out ways that Donnie can’t declare a fake victory…
But I shouldn’t even worry about that.
https://ballotpedia.org/Election_results_certification_dates,_2018 shows that most states take 2, 3, or 4 weeks to do a canvass and certify their results. Donnie can yell and scream that he won bigly, but states aren’t going to rush their official results no matter what he cries about.
(Yeah, I remember Florida in 2000. If elections aren’t close, then we don’t have to worry about that either. ;-)
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Butter emails
@Matt McIrvin:
Saw the add. Loved the add.
Geminid
@Geminid: When I say “these people use any and all opportunities to bash the Speaker…” I’m talking about the professional Left- Brianna Joy Gray, Alexandra Rojas of the Justice Democrats, etc. Not commenters here, and certainly not Massachusetts Democrats.
WaterGirl
@Another Scott: What if some R candidate in your state files something to protest the country and it goes to the supreme court again and they stop the counting.
They were able to stop the counting in Florida in 2000. There’s nothing that Bill Barr won’t do, no crime he won’t commit, to make sure he and Donnie stay in power.
Baud
@WaterGirl: They stopped the recount in Florida, IIRC. The state had already declared Bush the winner in the initial count.
Another Scott
@WaterGirl: There have been some weird** elections in VA recently, and some court cases that are still going on***, but it hasn’t stopped the results from being certified.
** A state legislature race that had a few voters in two precincts mixed up so that a few people weren’t able to vote. The results were close enough to be decided by a coin toss.
*** https://bluevirginia.us/2020/08/icymi-assistant-commonwealth-attorney-confirms-scott-taylor-and-his-campaign-are-still-under-investigation-for-election-fraud
Biden’s up something like 11 points here and is expected to win easily. The Virginia GOP is a hapless basket case and keeps doubling down on the crazy****.
**** https://bluevirginia.us/2020/08/audio-amanda-chase-doubles-down-claims-there-is-an-all-out-attack-on-folks-that-are-white-asks-why-is-it-we-can-talk-about-black-history-and-people-dont-flinch
HTH.
Cheers,
Scott.
Matt McIrvin
@Another Scott: Main thing I’d say is, whether you do it by mail or in person, endeavor to get your vote in as early as you can. Beyond that, trying to do circumvent anything Trump might pull to obstruct or taint the vote is a sort of Whack-a-Mole game; nothing’s going to be bulletproof.
The whole point of these early-voting methods that Trump is trying to discredit is already to get around Election Day interference, and it’s not clear to me that any of them are riskier than leaving it to then.
Yutsano
@WaterGirl:
I could see this for some place like Florida (again!) and possiby Wisconsin but he’d only do it if he was ahead. My understanding (and our local cheeseheads will correct me) is that the Secretary of State in Wisconsin is a Republican but not an insane one. Florida is gonna be a massive Charlie Foxtrot no matter what unless Biden does end up so far ahead there it doesn’t matter. If we run up the score in these two states the lawsuits will be moot. It won’t stop him, but we need to make sure blue voters vote as early and in as many numbers as possible.
WaterGirl
@Another Scott: So crazy that your chance of participating in a free and fair NATIONAL election depends on what state you live in.
lgerard
Mike Cooney, Dem candidate for Montana governor on Kanye West not qualifying for Montana ballot:
“Yeezy come, yeezy go.”
WaterGirl
@lgerard: For real? Real or not, that’s funny.
Matt McIrvin
@WaterGirl: It may be the only thing that keeps it from being completely rigged nationwide–Trump isn’t running the election. The USPS is the only bit he’s got any control of.
MomSense
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
All I know is a union guy (Boston Fire) that I went to high school with loves Markey. This classmate of mine votes straight R otherwise and is super racist. I’ve never been able to figure it out, but it has always made me wonder.
WaterGirl
@Matt McIrvin:
The USPS, the Attorney General Bill Barr, and a bunch of justices on the supreme court who care nothing about the law or about our democracy.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Ron Reagan might be a good example.
lgerard
@WaterGirl:
It;s real
https://twitter.com/Bencjacobs/status/1296520092830883840
WaterGirl
@lgerard: I love it even more… knowing it’s for real.
WaterGirl
I can’t tell you how much i love this:
Calouste
@lgerard: Clinton lost Montana by 20% 4 years ago, so either the GOP is wasting resources trying to ratfuck the election there, or they’re really scared. Either is fine by me.
RaflW
@Edmund Dantes: To the extent that he’s been in the House, she’d probably in a tight spot.
But she’s Nancy Pelosi, a person who allegedly thrives on tight spots. I’m not sure why she decided to antagonize a sitting Dem Senator. And a lot of progressive Dem voters. During the danged convention.
So today I gave a nice sized gift to Markey. I’ve kind of been fond of him ever since he did a phone call with a bunch of climate activist people probably 10+ years ago.
Another Scott
@Served: Horse’s mouth (Biden campaign spokesmodel):
https://twitter.com/ddayen/status/1296517572540559361/photo/1
HTH.
Cheers,
Scott.
Aleta
What I also remember about Fla. in 2000 was the intimidation. When it was happening it seemed eccentric — ‘Why are these young white male Repub idiots doing this? They should let the workers do their job w/o harassing them.’ But what I read later was that it did have an effect on people who were making decisions on chads and whether to throw out a ballot. Though we’re more aware now than I was, and more prepared, they’ve become more vicious and will try unexpected behavior that has shock value, to stun and slow reactions.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@WaterGirl: Campbell Soup Harris, hah!
WaterGirl
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I preferred Calamari Harrison, myself. :-)
WaterGirl
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I watched it again. I had forgotten about Candalabra Harris. :-)
?BillinGlendaleCA
OMG, we’re screwed, Jared is running the RNC and they’re still planning it. It starts Monday
ETA: Wasn’t Rudy(Mr. Noun Verb 9-11) supposed to drop some info that would destroy Joe Biden
ETA2: When are Trump’s people going to go to Auckland to find Candalabra Harris’ real birth certificate.
Subsole
@Kay:
Two things:
1. WHY are they uncomfortable, do you suppose? If a Dem did this and got busted drunkenly praying to Obama, I don’t see them ‘self-censoring’.
2. She is 30 years old. Bear that in mind when people tell you that we just have to wait for the inevitability of history’s arc to sweep Conservatism onto the trash-heap.
Geminid
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I think Guliani was going to preside over the release of a doctored video purporting to show Biden’s cognitive decline. That slur is being pushed hard by trump advocates, and gets some traction among the uninformed and misinformed. It’s advocates amplify it with Big Lie techniques: repeat, repeat , take it as a given and posit the ramifications, repeat, repeat etc. I think this question will be put to rest at the debates, which I believe will happen. Unless trump chickens out by making unreasonable demands as to number and format.