Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

The GOP couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

The revolution will be supervised.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

White supremacy is terrorism.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

“woke” is the new caravan.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

He really is that stupid.

If you are still in the GOP, you are an extremist.

Everybody saw this coming.

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Election 2016

*Another* DNC Debate! Open Thread (Joe vs. Bernie Edition)

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Barring the Oval Office Occupant finds a way to fvck this up too during his immanent ‘briefing’, here’s the word per CNN:

The Democratic debate scheduled for Sunday will be moved from Arizona to Washington, DC, the Democratic National Committee announced Thursday.

“Out of an abundance of caution and in order to reduce cross-country travel, all parties have decided that the best path forward is to hold Sunday’s debate at CNN’s studio in Washington, D.C., with no live audience,” DNC communications director Xochitl Hinojosa said in a statement.

Additionally, Univision’s Jorge Ramos was possibly exposed to coronavirus. While he is not exhibiting any symptoms, he has has stepped down from his role as one of the moderators for the debate, the DNC said. The network’s Ilia Calderón will take his place, alongside CNN’s Dana Bash and Jake Tapper. The debate is still set to take place 8 to 10 p.m. ET Sunday.…

The debate partners had previously announced that there would be no live audience, press filing center or spin room at the event.

The debate will air exclusively live on CNN, CNN en Español, CNN International, and Univision at 8 p.m. ET. The debate will stream live in its entirety, without requiring log-in to a cable provider, on CNN.com’s homepage, across mobile devices via CNN’s apps for iOS and Android, and via CNNgo apps for Apple TV, Roku, Amazon Fire, Chromecast and Android TV, as well as Univision’s digital properties. The full debate will be available exclusively the day following the airing on demand via cable/satellite systems, on CNNgo (at CNN.com/go on your desktop, smartphone, and tablets, and via CNNgo OTT apps), and CNN mobile apps on iOS and Android.

There’s supposed to be one last, as yet unscheduled, debate after this… but Vox says it will presumably be cancelled if ‘a candidate’ has ‘the nomination sewn up’ by then.

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Election Year “Respite” (!!!) Open Thread: Scrabbling Through the Ashes

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Yes, I am a terrible terrible excuse for a human being (yet a proud Democrat). For those of you who share my weakness: Let. Us. Savor…

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Late Night Change of Topic Open Thread: Cue the Exploding Vape Pen

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Yeah, about that…

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Election Year Open Thread: Another Note Before the Florida Primary

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Maybe it’s ideological commitment, or maybe it’s just a stubborn inability to see beyond his own point of view. The Cuban government was treating Bernie Sanders very nicely — why should anyone else have complaints?

From the local Miami Herald:

… “I don’t know what’s so wrong about this country,” Sanders said during a one-hour meeting with the prisoner and two other members of Congress visiting Havana, Gross told the Miami Herald.

“I thought it was a pretty insensitive thing for him to say,” Gross said. “Couldn’t he see, with his own eyes, what was going on around the country that he’s been traveling through? And I was a hostage to the government of the country that he didn’t see anything wrong with.”

Gross said he didn’t reply to the senator. Although there were no guards present, Gross suspects Cuban authorities were recording the conversation…

Sanders’ campaign did not respond Wednesday to Gross’ comments, published first by NPR Wednesday less than two weeks before the March 17 Florida Democratic primary…

Sanders’ comment on Cuba in 2014 came almost at the end of an hour of an “engaging conversation,” said Gross. Sanders was part of a congressional delegation that visited Cuba in February 2014. He met with Gross along with Sens. Heidi Heitkamp and Jon Tester.

Sanders was not “really involved” in most of the talk, Gross said.

Gross does not remember the details of the discussion other than that the subject of U.S. policy towards Cuba came up. Being imprisoned with little food available, he said what he remembered the most was that Heitkamp and Tester brought him two bags of cookies and a “giant” package of M&Ms with peanuts.

“I appreciated the visit,” Gross said. “Each one of them wanted to see me free. I had no contact with any of them before that time or after.”…

At the time he was imprisoned in Cuba, Gross was working as a subcontractor for the U.S. Agency for International Development in a project to expand internet access for the Jewish community on the island. He was not the only one sneaking in internet technology banned by the Cuban authorities. Radio and TV Martí, two US government stations broadcasting to Cuba, also introduced satellite communication equipment into the country.

But Gross, a U.S. citizen, was the only one arrested in 2009 and charged with espionage. He was sentenced to 15 years. He was finally released on Dec. 17, 2014, in a prisoner exchange in which the Barack Obama government returned three Cuban spies to the island…

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Election Year Open Thread: If I Can’t Vote for Warren, Biden’s Looking Better All the Time

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This morning:

This afternoon:

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Election Year Horrorshow Open Thread: These Are Not Serious People

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Potentially dangerous, yes — but not serious.

This was not a last-minute “response” rally; it was scheduled in advance of the Biden/Buttigieg/Klobuchar lovefest tonight:


I checked the ‘donate’ link; the funds go to Bernie, through Williamson’s account — I assume she takes a percentage, but I’m a cynic that way. But the rally is credited as “Featuring Spiritual Teacher and Author Marianne Williamson and Bernie’s Daughter Heather Titus, Director of Sedona Yoga Festival,” so I guess it’s a joint grift.

Meanwhile, in Minnesota:

Attract a clown, expect a circus…

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Wednesday Morning Open Thread: After the Brawl

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The consensus I’m seeing is that, whatever might be said about the other candidates, Bernie Sanders did not have a good debate. Buttigieg, Biden, and Bloomberg all did well attacking him — and Warren, praise Murphy the Trickster God, finally got around to pointing out that while her ‘friend’ had some excellent ideas, she had those same ideas plus an actual record of implementing hers.

On the other hand, the South Carolina audience did not preserve the decorum suddenly considered desirable by the out-of-their-depth (un)moderators, which at least gave the Bernistas a chance to unleash their second favorite pastime, insisting that the seating had been ‘rigged’. (It was not rigged; people just disagreed with Sanders, unthinkable as that seemed to his supporters.)

Josh Marshall, at TPM:

… Especially on the first hour it felt like all the contenders finally understood the true terms of the contest and had been given one last two hour chance to level the attacks they wished they’d starting leveling three months ago. The mix of antic questions and desperate attacks made it feel like two hours packed with chaos and bad energy.

Debates only matter inasmuch as they affect the outcome of the race. The rest is just theater criticism about canned answers and yelling. The big question in this primary battle is whether Bernie Sanders builds on his momentum coming out of the first three contests and goes on to a string of victories in Super Tuesday which make it hard for any other candidate to overtake him….

We can talk about who did well, who had what strategy, who should get votes. But this seems like the one operative question, which of these two scenarios happens: Sanders building on his momentum and moving into a dominating lead or Biden using a South Carolina win to check Sanders’ drive and shift the contest to something like a two or three person race.

On those terms I think Biden had about as good a night as he could have hoped for. He himself had a strong debate. But it was more the other things that happened – mainly, Elizabeth Warren continuing to savage Mike Bloomberg; everyone else beating up on Sanders; and Tom Steyer giving a mainly anemic performance. (Steyer may seem like an irrelevancy but he’s actually Biden’s biggest problem in South Carolina.)

Even though it’s usually hyperbole, the next seven days do seem critical for the whole contest.

Things are unlikely to change much before Saturday’s South Carolina primary… although I personally think the Social-Security-eligible candidates should take this opportunity to announce their VP picks, because if Goddess forbid something should happen between now and November (worse: January), I for one would like to know whether it would be Kamala Harris, Julian Castro, or Tulsi Gabbard picking up the fallen torch.

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