Click for full size. This is from Lars Leber Photography (find his works here), he’s one of my favorite Colorado photographers. This was out on the Eastern Plains of the state. But this one…from my backyard:
Saturday Morning Open Thread: The News Never Stops
It is a legitimately great thing that we got Shawn Fain and Scranton Joe at the same time, if we get a second Biden term and anything resembling a legislative majority I think we can get some durable progress on labor issues https://t.co/H2Ggjp5spr
— vituperativeerb (@vituperativeerb) May 10, 2024
Eric Robert Stolz w/Laborers 113 wanted to see Biden in Racine after hearing criticism over how the president struggled to walk & talk. In person, Stolz saw no issues.
Biden made “good eye contact … I started clapping. He looked right at me. I was like, ‘what up, Joe?’” pic.twitter.com/rQ9CmdAf8X
— Natasha Korecki (@natashakorecki) May 8, 2024
By sharing the letter with Fox first, the Biden campaign ensures that Fox will cover it, and gets a positive link to amplify from a pro-Trump media outlet: https://t.co/IPXeKZr11w
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) May 9, 2024
If you wonder why #Gilead and #HandmaidsTale have been trending…
BREAKING: Potential Trump VP nominee, Katie Britt, announces a plan to create a database of pregnant women. This is a clear plan to help Trump monitor and potentially prosecute women who have abortions. Retweet so all Americans know how dangerous Trump is. pic.twitter.com/txErtX1QxX
— Biden’s Wins (@BidensWins) May 11, 2024
Saturday Morning Open Thread: The News Never StopsPost + Comments (213)
Cold Grey Dawn Open Thread: The Secret Service Is Not Impressed By the RNC
NEW: In a tense meeting Thursday, Secret Service officials told GOP leaders they were not moving protesters farther from convention arena — as GOP is urging— and were not granting GOP a meeting with the agency’s director. Now, a pressure campaign is on. https://t.co/fA6jnU0pEs
— Josh Dawsey (@jdawsey1) May 10, 2024
The RNC demanded to Speak to the Manager, and the manager told them to cry harder… Yes, I originally posted about this a few days ago, but the latest schadenfreude is too tasty not to share. Per the Washington Post, “GOP escalates fight with Secret Service over convention protesters”:
Top Republican Party officials are escalating their fight with the Secret Service over the party’s convention in Milwaukee in July, demanding that the agency expand the security perimeter of the event so that protesters can be moved farther away from the arena where the main events will be held.
A cadre of senior GOP officials had a lengthy argument with Secret Service officials in Milwaukee on Thursday afternoon, according to three people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a private meeting. The Republicans repeatedly pushed the agency to widen the perimeter so that a prominent city park about a quarter-mile from the arena could not be used by the city for a designated protest zone. The Republicans also again demanded a meeting with the head of the Secret Service to no avail, the people familiar with the meeting said.
The Secret Service officials — which included two senior officers — told the Republican National Committee that its director was not inclined to meet with them and that the agency was not planning to expand the perimeter to include the park, according to a person with direct knowledge of the meeting. That infuriated party officials.
Republican Party officials are now encouraging other top lawmakers to weigh in, with just two months before the convention…
The plan is being “overseen by an executive steering committee made up of Secret Service personnel on the ground, as well as representatives from other federal, state, and local agencies, who have the greatest understanding of the host city and the expected security environment for the event,” Anthony Guglielmi, chief of communications for the Secret Service, said in a statement Friday afternoon. “The development of the security plan is based on security considerations, including risk and threat assessments, and is not a political matter.”…
Cold Grey Dawn Open Thread: The Secret Service Is Not Impressed By the RNCPost + Comments (69)
War for Ukraine Day 807: Russia’s Invasion of Kharkiv Oblast Has Begun!
(Image by NEIVANMADE)
A quick housekeeping note: I just want to clarify that the reason we’ve put a temporary pause on starting the GoFundMe for Rosie has nothing to do with how Rosie is doing. It is not a sign that she’s not doing well. She is, in fact, doing very well. The systemic support the vet is doing along with the chemo is working well. She has a massive appetite, is active, is putting weight back on, wants attention. And the vet estimated that after just the first two treatments that Rosie is at 80% remission. Her lymph nodes have also shrunk back to normal size. She goes for the fourth treatment of the first cycle on Monday and then she has two weeks of recovery before she starts the second cycle. The stuff with the GoFundMe is just dotting the final “i”s and crossing the final “t”s to ensure I won’t have issues with my clearance. That’s it. We expect it’ll go back up by Monday or so.
Tatarigami and his team have a full battlespace assessment of the Russian invasion of Kharkiv Oblast, I’ll post the whole thing after the jump.
Russia began its invasion of Kharkiv Oblast early this morning. As I type this the only part of Ukraine with an air raid alert, other than Luhansk and Crimea as they always have air raid alerts, is Kharkiv.
https://twitter.com/IrynaVoichuk/status/1788810245034197227
https://twitter.com/maria_avdv/status/1789018462565667061
https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1789004098009710759
The air raid alert in Kharkiv region has lasted continuously for 12.5 hours today.
It was announced at 9.03 am.
According to local blogs, this is the longest air raid alert in the region since the beginning of the full-scale war.
My native city. It’s so hard to see what Kharkiv is going through.
📹- kharkiv_city/TikTok
https://twitter.com/IrynaVoichuk/status/1788901871043670440
https://twitter.com/maria_avdv/status/1788988674777977321
If you’re wondering, the below is what the Russians have in store for the Ukrainian citizens of Kharkiv Oblast, as well as every other part of Ukraine:
https://twitter.com/den_kazansky/status/1788840375538384956
Here is President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump.
War for Ukraine Day 807: Russia’s Invasion of Kharkiv Oblast Has Begun!Post + Comments (15)
Friday Evening Open Thread: Damn You, P-Bump!
Posting things online is not actually more useful for winning elections than talking to voters. https://t.co/e2I1rmVJqh
— Philip Bump (@pbump) May 8, 2024
But seriously: Philip Bump, writing for the Washington Post, is always informative — “No, posting is not better political activism than talking to voters” [gift link]:
Matt Yglesias is one of the more popular voices on the pro-Biden internet. That’s his framing, not mine; his newsletter “Slow Boring” is targeted to centrist Democrats interested in the nuances of how policy can address the country’s problems or at least people who like to think that they are. To use another metric to establish his bona fides, Yglesias is at the level of a commentator who gets profiled in The Washington Post.
Because he has that influence, his offering Tuesday morning deserves a response. Not because it is too generous or insufficiently generous to President Biden as it attempts to explain to readers how they can best aid Biden’s reelection. Instead, it is because it offers a notably bad assessment of the relative values of posting stuff on the internet vs. talking to actual voters.
The post is titled “How to make a difference in the 2024 election” and offers advice to that effect.
“I think it’s actually true that two of the best things you can do to defeat the MAGA movement do, in fact, happen online: giving money intelligently and posting mindfully,” Yglesias wrote…
This is bad advice, regardless of who you want elected.
We should start by reviewing what political campaigns want to do. The short version is “get votes.” But peel off the top layer and you can see the complexity underneath. Campaigns don’t get votes by encouraging everyone to vote, just adults who are registered to do so. And they don’t want to spend time getting every registered voter to cast a ballot, only the ones they think — or know — will vote for their candidate.
That part alone is complicated. Campaigns conduct polls to get a sense of who generally supports their candidates. If they find, for example, that White women over 65 overwhelmingly do, then they are going to do their best to get those White women to vote. They will, at times, engage in efforts to ensure those women know where, when and how to cast a ballot.
If they learn that Hispanic men under 45 can be persuaded by a particular argument, on the other hand, they will try to make that argument to those men. That includes direct mail and television ads in places those voters will be watching, sure. But it also means reaching out directly — presenting the argument to specific Hispanic men in that age group and recording whether it was effective. By which I mean: Asking the voters if they’ll vote for their candidate and writing it down, so that those who are convinced can be reminded where, when and how to cast their ballots.
You can see the points where legwork is required. The more volunteers a campaign has, the more specific, registered White women it can ensure vote before or on Election Day by reminding them with phone calls or by knocking on their doors. The more volunteers, the better the campaign can talk to those Hispanic men in the relevant electoral district and then engage in that same get-out-the-vote messaging with the ones who have been persuaded…
And here I am… posting on the internet, yes. But whatever my personal efforts, Mr. Bump’s argument is worth reading in full. I don’t know if you can subscribe to his weekly How to Read This Chart newsletter if you’re not a WaPo subscriber, but I’d recommend it!
Friday Evening Open Thread: <em>Damn You, P-Bump!</em>Post + Comments (124)
Trump’s NY Criminal Trial, Day 15
.It’s Day 11 of the actual trial! Day 15 if you include jury selection.
It looks like Michael Cohen will be testifying on Monday!
Best sources of live blogging that I have found. It looks like some of them are only live blogging for the “big” witnesses. We’ll see.
Josh Kovensky (TPM) live blogging (not up today)
Mark Sumner (Daily Kos) live blogging (not up yet today)
Tyler McBrien (Lawfare) on twitter (not live blogging today)
Anna Bower (Lawfare) on twitter (inside the courtroom)
Good morning from 100 Centre Street, where Donald Trump’s criminal trial is set to resume.
Stormy Daniels wrapped up her testimony yesterday, but it’s a cloudy—some might even say stormy—day in Manhattan.
Follow along as I live tweet for @lawfare 👇 ⬇️: pic.twitter.com/S5AG5Kqgv5
— Anna Bower (@AnnaBower) May 10, 2024
Adam Klasfeld on twitter (not up yet today)
NBC live blogging and BBC live blogging have also been recommended by BJ peeps.
Still loving this awesome image. When you get tired of it, let me know.
Open thread.
Late Night Open Thread: Brain Worms!
new rfk junior campaign patch is a banger
— not an art thief (@famousartthief.bsky.social) May 8, 2024 at 3:42 PM
Plot twist: He actually did need the Ivermectin https://t.co/ZSSpXFFgtv
— Rebecca Cohen (@GynoStar) May 8, 2024
Jr won't produce medical records to settle the question objectively, so we're left with claims that were self-serving at the time, but are now politically damaging. https://t.co/LVdjlwQviu
— Lindsay Beyerstein (@beyerstein) May 9, 2024
Mr. Charles P. Pierce, at Esquire — “We Are Very Sorry To Hear About RFK Jr.’s Brain Worm And Mercury Poisoning”:
The New York Times took a deep dive on Tuesday into the medical history of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., whose raison d’etre as a presidential candidate is primarily based on crazy-assed Do Your Own Research vaccine denialism and the fact that the two major candidates are older than he is and, therefore, not up to the job, cognitively. Judging from the Times story, RFKJ needs to find himself some new raisons d’etre tout suite.
Several doctors noticed a dark spot on the younger Mr. Kennedy’s brain scans and concluded that he had a tumor, he said in a 2012 deposition reviewed by The New York Times… [A] doctor at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital who had a different opinion: Mr. Kennedy, he believed, had a dead parasite in his head. The doctor believed that the abnormality seen on his scans “was caused by a worm that got into my brain and ate a portion of it and then died,” Mr. Kennedy said in the deposition.
Well, that sounds awful.
For decades, Mr. Kennedy suffered from atrial fibrillation, a common heartbeat abnormality that increases the risk of stroke or heart failure. He has been hospitalized at least four times for episodes, although in an interview with The Times this winter, he said he had not had an incident in more than a decade and believed the condition had disappeared. About the same time he learned of the parasite, he said, he was also diagnosed with mercury poisoning, most likely from ingesting too much fish containing the dangerous heavy metal, which can cause serious neurological issues. “I have cognitive problems, clearly,” he said in the 2012 deposition. “I have short-term memory loss, and I have longer-term memory loss that affects me.”
Mr. Kennedy said he was then subsisting on a diet heavy on predatory fish, notably tuna and perch, both known to have elevated mercury levels. In the interview with The Times, he said that he had experienced “severe brain fog” and had trouble retrieving words. Mr. Kennedy, an environmental lawyer who has railed against the dangers of mercury contamination in fish from coal-fired power plants, had his blood tested. He said the tests showed his mercury levels were 10 times what the Environmental Protection Agency considers safe.
Brainworms? Poisoned fish? Holy Lord, this poor bastard has a medical history that makes him sound like one of Magellan’s sailors. How did he avoid scurvy?…
His medical history is now a legitimate topic for political discussion because he chose to engage in long-distance diagnoses of the president. Every one of his verbal stumbles and every moment of public forgetfulness is going to be counted against his fitness for office because that’s the field on which he’s chosen to compete. Personally now, I think he should stop with the YouTube calisthenics and the TikTok iron-pumping and accept the fact that he’s not that much younger than the president is.
Late Night Open Thread: <em>Brain Worms!</em>Post + Comments (106)