In case you didn’t see it, Saturday Night Live’s take on the Democratic debate:
Larry David absolutely nailed Bernie’s accent and mannerisms.
Open thread!
by Betty Cracker| 126 Comments
This post is in: Election 2016, Open Threads
In case you didn’t see it, Saturday Night Live’s take on the Democratic debate:
Larry David absolutely nailed Bernie’s accent and mannerisms.
Open thread!
This post is in: Election 2016, Open Threads
Scoop: @Lessig's campaign is submitting paperwork to NBC for "equal time" — since Hillary had 3 min, 12 sec on "SNL" http://t.co/yhZPeIqFem
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) October 18, 2015
From the CNN article:
… “We’re not trying to get Larry onto ‘Saturday Night Live,’ of course — we just want to protect his equal right to speak to viewers,” Lessig campaign counsel Adam Bonin said in a statement to CNNMoney…
Clinton’s cameo on “SNL” lasted 3 minutes and 12 seconds, according to the memo. So Lessig would like the same amount of time, perhaps for informative ads about his campaign, which is focused on fixing what he says are the corrupting effects of money in politics…
On Saturday, Lessig reversed course on a pledge he had made to resign immediately after passing campaign finance reform if he were elected. He now says he would serve a full term, saying he decided his pledge had undermined his campaign.
His equal time request was sent October 10 to NBC’s top 35 affiliates plus those in states with early primaries. NBC responded on October 12 and asked for proof that both Lessig and Clinton are “legally qualified” candidates. The law calls for proof before equal air time is granted…
There is video (six-plus minutes, since we’re counting), but I can’t be that cruel to you guys this early in the morning.
*************
Apart from hopeless clowns with big dreams, what’s on the agenda for the start of another week?
Monday Morning Open Thread: Not the <em>Onion</em>Post + Comments (168)
This post is in: Election 2016, Clap Louder!, Clown Shoes
Putting the vanity in vanity candidate:
I had an idea. It proved right. It proved wrong. Can I act on the right bit, despite the wrong?
In July, I decided to try something that no one else had done: to launch a campaign for a “referendum president,” focused on ending the system of corruption that has crippled our government. Whether it’s a minimum wage that’s a living wage, or making social security secure, or assuring clean air and safe water, or taking on Wall Street, or health-care reform that would make health insurance affordable—none of these issues, or any other important issue, can be addressed sensibly in America until we fix this corruption, first.
Related StoryThis corruption has a cause. Its cause is inequality. Not the inequality of wealth—though that is made more extreme by the inequality I mean. Instead, the inequality of citizens. Americans have allowed an extraordinary inequality among citizens to grow within our so-called “representative democracy.” The consequence is a “democracy” ripe for capture by cronies and worse, while unresponsive to average voters. Corruption is the disease. Equality is the cure. My campaign would be a referendum demanding the changes that would restore citizen equality, so as to crack the corruption that has crippled our Congress and hence our government.
The idea of a “referendum president” has three parts:
First, it is focused on the need to fix our democracy first—to take it back from the billionaires and corporations, so we’d have a chance of addressing sensibly the host of critical problems that we face as a nation.
Second, it would be led by a political outsider, someone we could trust who was not tied to the system, and was thus free to change it.
And third, it would be self-limiting: Once the reform was enacted, the referendum president would step down.
On August 11, I launched an exploratory committee, promising I’d enter the race if we raised $1 million in commitments in less than 30 days. We crossed that line early, with more than 10,000 donations. On September 9, I entered the race at an event in Claremont, New Hampshire. Immediately after, I began campaigning across New Hampshire and the country.
Lawrence Lessig had one issue he was running on- elect me, I will change how politics work, then quit. Seriously- that was it. It was the underpants gnome campaign:
1.) Elect Lessig and enact Citizen Equality Act.
2.) …
3.) PROFIT!
And that really was it. He would resign after somehow getting a Republican House (because he would have no coattails as an outsider) to pass a bill the Senate would not filibuster and the right wing junta in the Court would not strike down, he’d sign it, and then we’d be in the land of milk and honey, bitches!
Some of us pointed this out. Some of us noticed he might probably not get elected on one issue that has no chance of passing and that he might just possibly want to expand his campaign to cover, I dunno, the other 10,000 issues out there. Instead, he complained about the Democrats not including him in the debate and so on and so forth. So back to the drawing board it is, and his lesson was…
The people want him so badly he would change his plan and not resign. Seriously, that was his takeaway:
Had Westen’s survey shown that both ideas were a flop—the idea of a reform campaign, and the idea of resigning once reform was passed—then it would be back to the drawing board, and home to my family.
Had the survey shown that both ideas were winners, then I would power on, more disciplined about controlling the message, but reinforced in the truth of the ultimate plan.
But what’s the right thing to do when the substance of the idea is confirmed, but its implementing strategy rejected? Is there a way back from the commitment to both?
(Cue Lyle Lovett, from “Here I am”:
He’s also begun to discuss the other issues, although not on his website. He’s not too bad on the issues, I will add, but appears to be completely clueless and indifferent regarding the entire political process.
Personally, I would not mind him in the debates- yank Webb and Chaffee and put in Lessig. But he still has no chance.
Gosh, Guys, I Didn’t Notice You Loved Me So MuchPost + Comments (145)
This post is in: Election 2016, Hail to the Hairpiece, JEB! = John Ellis Not-Bush 2016, Open Threads, Republican Stupidity
History's Greatest Mulligan https://t.co/nrJNMqscsL
— Simon Maloy (@SimonMaloy) October 16, 2015
How pathetic for @realdonaldtrump to criticize the president for 9/11. We were attacked & my brother kept us safe.
— Jeb Bush (@JebBush) October 16, 2015
This statement doesn’t make sense. https://t.co/wyCMTnQMHJ
— BOO Wexler (@wexler) October 16, 2015
Not just what it says! The fact Jeb Bush thought it was a good idea to seem real angry *about 9/11* *on Twitter* at *Donald Trump*.
— Jonathan Shainin (@jonathanshainin) October 16, 2015
Jeb's! quote, dumb as it seems, is more understandable when you recall he got away with line in the Fox debate. Must've thought that was it.
— Howard French (@hofrench) October 16, 2015
Maybe Jeb should switch from "My brother kept us safe" to "Welp, it could have been worse."
— Bob Schooley (@Rschooley) October 17, 2015
Open Thread: <del>PUTZ!</del> JAB!… er, JEB!!!Post + Comments (207)
This post is in: Election 2016, Hail to the Hairpiece, Hillary Clinton 2016, Open Threads, Proud to Be A Democrat, Republican Stupidity, Assholes, Our Failed Media Experiment
Homecoming Queen of the WSJ Conventional Wisdom Parade Peggy Noonan has a big sad, because she was licking her lips over the chance to be mean about Crazy Joe Biden instead of that bookworm Hildebeast’s cankles, for a change. “The Biden Eclipse and the Trump Plateau“:
Something big happened at the Democratic debate. It didn’t have to do with Hillary Clinton besting Bernie Sanders or Jim Webb. What she had to do, after the long, battering summer, was show she is up to the battle, ready for it, capable—that she can do this. She did. She was crisp, lively, a presence. In demonstrating that she is up to the race she deprived Vice President Joe Biden of his rationale for getting into it. People say he didn’t have a rationale but of course he did, it just wasn’t something he could say or leak. His rationale, at 72 and having recently experienced great loss, was: The party’s in trouble, the front-runner can’t win, she’s too encrusted by scandal, in an act of heroic sacrifice I’m going to swoop in and save the day…
Too bad! Mr. Biden would have added a layer of affection to a so-far cold enterprise. He would have added an element of old-time normality to the field. He would have been as entertaining in his way as Donald Trump, and it would have been instructive to see how Democrats respond to the entrance of President Obama’s two-term vice president. Who has the party’s heart?…
Luck matters in politics as in life and Mrs. Clinton has now been lucky twice in a short time. Kevin McCarthy blunted Republican arrows on Benghazi, then Bernie Sanders blunted arrows by saying the email scandal doesn’t matter. To many of his supporters, presumably, it did. Now all Democrats have permission not to care. It’s nice to get a pass like that!
And now the one candidate who could have derailed her will likely not get in. She is on a roll…
While we’re sweeping out the bar, someone check if Maureen Dowd has passed out face-down in the ladies’ room, again.
But this is the Noonan nugget that’s really got all us moonbats in an uproar, for good reason:
The only thing I feel certain of is how we got here. There are many reasons we’re at this moment, but the essential political one is this: Mr. Obama lowered the bar. He was a literal unknown, an obscure former state legislator who hadn’t completed his single term as U.S. senator, but he was charismatic, canny, compelling. He came from nowhere and won it all twice. All previously prevailing standards, all usual expectations, were thrown out the window…
Steve M at No More Mister Nice Blog hits the tenpenny nail on the head:
… Who really lowered the bar? I’d say it was the party that not only reveres an ex-actor and insult comic named Ronald Reagan but seriously considered him as a possible presidential candidate when he’d been in elective office less than two years. I’d say it’s the party that put George W. Bush and Dan Quayle on two tickets each. I’d say it’s the party that gave respectful consideration to presidential aspirants such as Pat Robertson, Alan Keyes, Pat Buchanan, Michele Bachmann, and Herman Cain. And I say it’s the party that made Sarah Palin its vice presidential candidate, then made her a superstar.
If the bar’s low, Peggy, your party’s voters are the reason.
Noonan, of course, didn’t just somehow overlook Reagan’s career — she was a prime enabler, who first made her GOP celebrity bones writing “morning in America” pap for that second-banana aged-out-of-Hollywood-pretty-boy figurehead. “No, no — Gary Cooper for President, Ronald Reagan for best friend!” we joked. Those were more innocent days.
Anyone can run for president now, and in the future anyone will. In 2020 and 2024 we’ll look back on 2016 as the sober good ol’ days. “At least Trump had business experience. He wasn’t just a rock star! He wasn’t just a cable talk-show host!”
Or a B-movie actor, Peggy! To paraphrase Mr. Pierce: Clio the Proclaimer, Muse of History, needs that alcoholic anesthesia more than you ladies right now.
Open Thread: Someone Pry That Bottle Out of Ms Noonan’s GraspPost + Comments (99)
This post is in: Election 2012, Election 2014, Election 2016, Open Threads, Politics, Democratic Stupidity, General Stupidity
Which is the more competent chair? I think it’s the one on the left:
The NYT has the latest on the ongoing kerfluffle between DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz and other party members over the number of debates:
R.T. Rybak, the former mayor of Minneapolis and a vice chairman of the Democratic National Committee, on Thursday accused the party’s leader, Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, of making “flat-out not true” statements about another top party officer, questioned her political skills and said he had “serious questions” about her suitability for the job.
The broadside from Mr. Rybak, which came in an interview late Thursday afternoon, followed weeks of internal party dissension over the number and timing of the presidential debates it has scheduled, capped by an acrimonious public dispute over whether Ms. Wasserman Schultz had punitively barred a Democratic vice chairwoman, Tulsi Gabbard, from the first debate, held on Tuesday in Las Vegas.
The comments from Mr. Rybak, who was interested in replacing Ms. Wasserman Schultz in 2013 and who was the favored choice of some of President Obama’s aides, were notable in part because he is not known as a public complainer. But by the evening’s end, most of the other party officers issued statements strongly supporting Ms. Wasserman Schultz and calling for an end to the public rancor.
A lot of Democrats seem to dislike DWS and blame her for the party’s lousy showing in midterm elections. I don’t — I blame the idiot voters who can’t get excited about politics unless there’s the grand reality show drama of a presidential election to make them all tingly. It’s not DWS’s fault that these short-sighted mopes stay home and allow their city councils, school boards and state legislatures to be taken over by local Sarah Palin knock-offs.
That said, DWS is annoyingly chummy with the wingnut delegation from South Florida — to the point where it’s reasonable to wonder if she’d like to see them replaced with Democrats — and hasn’t exactly distinguished herself in her current gig. At the very least, a competent chair should be able to keep a lid on infighting such as the type the NYT is covering.
Regarding the number of debates, what do you think? DWS is accused of limiting it to six to stack the deck for HRC, and maybe that’s true; I honestly don’t know. But do we really need a gazillion debates? If no one can pick Martin O’Malley out of a line-up after #6, I’m not sure further debates would help.
Absent an even more public and open revolt, it seems unlikely the party will get rid of DWS just as an important election is heating up. But maybe President Hillary or President Bernie can appoint her as HUD Secretary or something so she’ll go away and someone more effective can take on the role. Not sure who that would be, but the chair pictured at left above might be a good candidate.
This post is in: Election 2016, JEB! = John Ellis Not-Bush 2016, Open Threads, Republican Stupidity, Assholes
Classic Jeb! pic.twitter.com/E3qj1SvstY
— Bob Schooley (@Rschooley) October 16, 2015
Guy seems to be turning into Willard Romney before our very eyes, falling into the Uncanny Valley where a close-but-not-perfect simulacra of humanity disturbs our identification. If he weren’t a member of the Bush crime syndicate clan, one might wonder if his heart was in this campaign. This was the NYTimes, last week — “Jeb Bush Says Campaign Attacks on Him Are Keeping His Ailing Father Strong“:
… Chatting with voters at a coffee shop here on Wednesday morning, Jeb Bush was asked how his parents were doing. His mother Barbara remained the matriarch, he said — a “blessing from God” who is nonetheless “not always right.” (Mrs. Bush famously said there had been “enough Bushes” in the White House, before coming around on the idea of a third one.)
Mr. Bush’s father, George H.W. Bush, is “91 years old, but he’s just as strong as a goat,” he said. The elder Mr. Bush now wears a neck brace and cannot walk. And yet, Mr. Bush suggested, for his father — and by all accounts, no one else — the 2016 presidential campaign had proved a health boon.
“I feel like I’m participating in this a little bit because my candidacy has lifted his spirits,” he said. “I notice he’s not watching ‘CSI’ reruns anymore. He’s watching Fox, getting mad at people that attack me and stuff like that. I feel like I’m making a contribution to keep him strong.”
The Bush family has taken an active role in fund-raising for the campaign, but aides to Mr. Bush have weighed the merits and pitfalls of featuring George W. Bush as a public surrogate. Asked about a New York Times article this week outlining his campaign’s dilemma, Mr. Bush offered a shrug to reporters, saying there was “no grappling going on.”
“There may be a lot of grappling going on outside of my realm,” he said. “My realm on the road is maybe different than people in the campaign. You have to ask them.”
He repeated that he was happy to have his brother’s support, though another endorsement seemed to have required more handiwork.
“I’m happy I got my mom’s support,” he said. “That was huge. That was a big first step.”
And then, those vast “GOP Establishment” cash reserves don’t seem to be doing him much good, per TPM:
The $4.8 million TV and radio ad blitz in New Hampshire by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and his associated super Pacs has done little to bump up his polling in the state, which is considered crucial to his campaign.
A report by Politico Thursday notes that in the weeks since the ad buy — which has pro-Bush ads taking up 60 percent of the political airspace in the state — the former governor’s average poll numbers have actually dipped down, from 9 percent to 8.7 percent…
It’s a real mystery why the GOP base does not want this guy to lead them into battle pic.twitter.com/FraK2yu8oj
— daveweigel (@daveweigel) October 15, 2015
@daveweigel Oh, he's not going to "lead" anyone to battle. He'll be well behind your children in any conflict.
— No Way (@gamerdave69) October 15, 2015
Open Thread: Jeb Bush Is A Deeply Weird EntityPost + Comments (250)