I’m with respected blog colleague Kay in thinking that it makes little sense to blame the Youngs for the horrifying possibility that Trump could be elected because of millennials’ insufficient fealty to the Democratic nominee. Yes, anyone who is determined to throw a vote away on sentient Caucasian dreadlock Jill Stein* or human bong avatar Gary Johnson deserves a clue-by-four upside the noggin.
But it’s the Olds — specifically, older white folks — who weaponized the ferret-wearing shit-gibbon. Let’s put the lion’s share of the blame where it truly belongs.
I think I’ve talked all the millennials in my purview into backing Clinton. (Or possibly they’re lying to me to shut me the hell up.) That said, this piece from Tooney of the Twitters might be good Facebook fodder for the young idealists in your feed who’ve bought into the purity brigade’s anti-Clinton smears:
Everyone needs to share this on their Facebooks and whatnots.
Like, now. pic.twitter.com/NHww27xqm2
— Tooney (@rumproast) September 17, 2016
In conclusion, here’s a front-page shout-out to indefatigable campaign volunteer recruiter BR, who had this to say in the morning thread:
Morning reminder to sign up to volunteer for the campaign. Just takes 30 seconds and is crucial for November. There are lots of things you can do, so please sign up today for just one event. Let me know if you have questions.
Well done, BR. And thank you!
*H/T Sam Bee
Trentrunner
According to Sam Wang, we need to gird ourselves for the next week, as state polls tighten (lagging indicator of the national polls’ have already tightened).
I choose to see it as Clinton’s nadir, just before the big comeback of next Monday’s debate performance.
Trentrunner
According to Sam Wang, next week expect state polls to tighten (lagging behind already-tightened national polls) and thus Hillary’s current electoral lead to vanish.
I will choose to view this as Clinton’s nadir, before next Monday night’s stellar debate comeback performance.
I also may develop stress tremors and start drinking.
Arclite
Vote for Hillary or else!
:D
Mai.naem.mobile
I think it’s time to take a page out of the Republicans playbook and tell people that a Dem Senate would be the only check on a GOP nutjob POTUS and nutty House. I don’t see any negative consequences at this point. It might get more Dems to go vote period and drag Hilz and some Senate and House critters across the line.
Amir Khalid
I can only wish you all good luck from my side of the planet, but I am very much with you in wanting the best candidate to win the presidency. And if you’re reading this, NR, that’s Hillary Clinton I’m referring to.
Elmo
Bah. All my Faceboook feuding is with Trumpenvolk. And I’m so damn tired of it.
Just got back from a week in San Diego, my original hometown and still home to my two Trump-loving brothers. My wife wanted a visit with her elderly mother, so we took her and my wife’s brother out to lunch at an old fave spot.
I visited with friends from high school I haven’t seen in 30 years, and got to go to my favorite beach (North Mission, for you SD peeps).
Didn’t even tell my brothers I was in town. This election is a test of decency, and they’ve failed it. I’m ashamed of them.
Hillary Rettig
Good points, Betty!
And I hope I’m not OT, but I wonder what the intersection is between the set that votes for Trump and the set who supports Penn State’s celebration of child-molester-enabling Joe Paterno and is currently heaping abuse on a student editor who questioned that decision.
I guess I’m linking them because both mindsets show really bad priorities, judgment, and behavior; as well as a pretty serious lack of empathy.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
Lets do the math here. The “olds” – are polling 46% Hillary – 48% for Trump. The “youngs” are polling 48% Hillary to 28% Trump. So of course the latter group is to blame if Trump gets elected. I think this data is from the NYT poll.
Kay
My middle son was a Bernfeeler but I heard him tell a Clinton canvasser on the phone he’s voting for Clinton so I’m relieved.
Remember the first rule of sales! You have to ask! :)
No matter how annoying “asking” for something this patently obvious may be!
Shell
And Takei gives the back-hand to Trumps whiny tweet.
Donald Trump (@realDonaldTrump): Why isn’t President Obama working instead of campaigning for Hillary Clinton?
George Takei (@GeorgeTakei): As Commander-in-Chief, he is sworn to protect us from threats both foreign and domestic. You, sir, are the latter.
(And while you’re at it, Trump. Why don’t you ask Congress that same question?)
dmsilev
@Hillary Rettig: I read that story yesterday; just appalling behavior. Anyone who is so wound up in their football fandom that they are willing to excuse decades of turning a blind eye towards child molestation is just, well, we know which basket to put them in.
Frankensteinbeck
It turns out, a majority of whites in America will vote for racism over every single other issue if that’s what the choice comes down to. I am ashamed, but not at all surprised.
Mike J
SFAW
Interesting (to me, at least) comment at Electoral-Vote.com regarding Hillary’s “relationship” with the MSM. It references a Politico piece by Todd Purdum.
This is nothing particularly new — some of the details I had either forgotten, or perhaps never knew — but I am hopeful that Purdum’s article might cause some in the MSM to stop trying to find newer and “better” reasons to trash her. Those motherfuckers made her into how she comes across today. Maybe, instead of Ave Marias and Paternosters, they will actually do something meaningful to help fix things. [Yes, I realize that’s about as likely as Corrupt Deadbeat Donnie stop being an asshole.]
And Fuck Michael Kelly (in Hell, one hopes) and the New York Times (who are helping create Hell on Earth). FUCK YOU, PINCH!
Betty Cracker
@Shell: Phaser set on maximum stun!
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Hillary Rettig: I’d imagine there’s a significant overlap. I have a cousin who lives in the State College area and gets the local paper. The fall before last when I was visiting them during football season there was an article in said local paper about the family of a player on the opposing team being abused with racial epithets (said family was black). Not everyone associated with that university is unenlightened but there’s a significant chunk of the fanbase that is Trumpish.
Mnemosyne
@Mike J:
And then some whiny jackass replied that activism is more important than voting and s/he wasn’t going to let him/herself be shamed into voting for an imperialist capitalist pig like Hillary. Sigh.
One wonders if these people think the Voting Rights Act and Civil Rights Act were magically wished into existence instead of, y’know, being voted into law by our congressional representatives.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
There’s the rub right there. The thing is, she’s been in a no-win situation with the media since the 1990s. If she doesn’t say anything, they accuse her of being too secretive and hostile to the press. If she says something, they twist it to portray it in the worst possible light. But it’s all her fault not the fault of the media!
I mean, here’s a guy who catalogues some of the ways the media has treated her unfairly over the years, only to turn around and blame her for the fact that they’ve been treating her unfairly.
NorthLeft12
Why do people constantly and continuously avoid assigning the blame for Trump to where it belongs? Yes, old, white, men, and Republicans are the people who are supporting and enabling Deadbeat Donald.
You can tell that this group is rightly ashamed of their greedy foolishness because they are trying to blame Hillary, Dems, “the elites”, millennial, and the media [well they might have that one right at least] to try and distract the public.
Villago Delenda Est
@Shell: Great comment on George’s tweet by Michael Lampers: “Set phasers on burn”
Litlebritdifrnt
My husband announced yesterday that he is voting for Hillary “because if she’s good enough for Michelle Obama she’s good enough for me”. This is a guy who said 6 months ago that he would write in Mickey Mouse before he would vote for Hillary who he called ‘the beast”. Yay Michelle!
Villago Delenda Est
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: Her major fault was apparently marrying that damn hillbilly in the first place. Oh, the fainting couches damaged at Sally Quinn’s place by that.
opiejeanne
@Amir Khalid: You’re good people. NR, not so much.
Villago Delenda Est
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: State College is located smack dab in the middle of Pennsyltucky, so there’s that.
Villago Delenda Est
@srv: HODOR!
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
Speaking of Trump, it looks like rooms in the Old Post Office are already being discounted. For a single room non-refundable “deluxe” room for the 2nd week of October (just as an example), Expedia says it’s $609 a night.
Kinda funny how the financing The Trump Organization Old Post Office projectchanged just a few months ago:
There’s that foreign money again…
The food court at the Old Post Office was a good place to go to on DC visits years ago. It was a kind of a sad use for such a unique and historic building, but it was a good place for real people. I can’t see Trump doing well with a hotel there – there’s too much competition from places with actual hotel history and better locations.
How long before he dumps it or is forced out? 2 years? That sounds reasonable to me, especially
ifwhen he loses in a historic blowout in November. ;-)Cheers,
Scott.
geg6
@Hillary Rettig:
There is not a bit of linkage there. And I can say this with great authority because I live this every day of my life. I probably know more Penn State students and alumni than anyone else on this blog and I can say with great confidence that the majority of them are liberals who will be voting for Hillary with no qualms. That majority will also defend Paterno to the end of time and they do not feel he has any responsibility for Sandusky, saying that poor JoePa, who ran that program with an iron hand (for good and bad), simply didn’t and couldn’t have known, all evidence to the contrary. I can’t explain it but I can vouch that it’s so.
opiejeanne
@Elmo: I blocked Trump voters over a year ago.
I’ve posted something like this several weeks and I stopped going to Facebook three weeks ago because of the derp. The sore Bernie supporters among my friends are being stupid and there’s no talking to them without setting them off. The family members are voting for Hillary but the rest of them are good friends and I have to stop reading Fb to keep from screaming at them. They have swallowed whole the RW lies about her without questioning them. No talking to them at all.
Ruckus
@Shell:
Go George! Direct hit.
Peale
@NorthLeft12: yep. No need for the circular squad. We didn’t vote for him. There may not be enough of us, but I’m pretty sure we’ll all suffer greatly if she loses. And it will be a long time to dig our country out.
Pretty much every group that’s being targeted will be voting for her at least 70-30. Let’s not take it out on each other
Amir Khalid
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
And how many working people are going to get IOUs instead of their wages, as the Donald runs into cash flow problems?
Betty Cracker
@Villago Delenda Est: I used to think what’s-s-face was a performance art troll, but now I’m convince he’s actually a simple program someone wrote to illustrate Cleek’s Law.
geg6
@Villago Delenda Est:
The locals are, no doubt about it, the backward hillbillies you find all over central PA. They are not, however, the vast majority of the PSU fanbase. That would be the students, staff (the majority of which, at the main campus, are alumni) and the alumni. They are from everywhere and are everywhere, all over the world. Something like one of every 120 college grads in the US are PSU alumni. Townies are idiots, but you can’t say the same about all those BA/BSs, master’s degree holders and PhDs, JDs and MDs.
Ruckus
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:
Are you saying that the MSM is conservative, whose major trait is always, always avoiding any blame for everything they do?
That old saw about them just reporting the news, not making it is, was and always will be bullshit. One article may not change/alter opinions but their tone is effective over time. One trains dogs, not by showing them once but by repetition. We really aren’t any different.
Peale
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: hmm. Deutsche bank. Funny that they’d arrange a big loan with Trump after all those bankruptcies. Could it be perhaps they are thinking that a $14 billion fine would go away?
Hillary Rettig
@dmsilev: we actually drove past penn state last summer. it was really freaky how the football stadium was the hugest and most dominant structure in the whole area.
J R in WV
@Betty Cracker:
Sweet one. Read a comment, parse it, reverse some meaningful words to opposite terms, parse it, publish it.
Uncle Cosmo
@srv: Fuck off & die, shitstain.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Ruckus: I’m not necessarily saying they’re conservative, just that they’re anti-Hillary and it’s their own damn fault, not hers. But your dog training analogy is a spot on description of how they’re hamstringing her.
Major Major Major Major
@Mnemosyne: and signed by LBJ, who I imagine would be unfathomably horrid to today’s purity brigade.
MomSense
I must confess I have a bit of a crush on Eric Boehlert but I still think I am being objective when I say that he made great points on Joy’s show this morning about the media’s false transparency complaint against Clinton. She has disclosed an unprecedented amount of information about her finances, correspondence, and the Clinton Foundation (she didn’t have to even). She is not rewarded for this transparency instead accused of being secretive. And when news organizations make accusations, then investigate and find nothing they switch instantly to the optics. It is a completely media driven bogus loop of calls for more info, mischaracterizatuon of the info, and then the fall back on optics after finding nothing. They create the mistrust meme and then turn around and ask why people mistrust her as if they had nothing to do with it.
I’m lucky that my millennial spawn are tried and true Clinton supporters but they have been working on persuading their friends. One of the things they tell them is that if you hate corporate media and realize how they manipulate then the best way to stand up to them is to support the person they have been unfairly targeting for 30 years
Hillary Rettig
@geg6: interesting! so compartmentalization or something else? b/c most liberals would probably not be into sanitizing the legacy of a guy who provided shelter for a serial child molester.
Major Major Major Major
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: by any conceivable legitimate reckoning, voting is more of an action than not voting. I’ll place the blame on the backs of the tens of millions of racists voting for mister fascist before I will ten million people NOT voting.
ETA: except in the case of willful withholding of one’s vote, but the vast majority of millennial non-voters are just non-voters who happen to be millennial.
dmsilev
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: $609 is the _discounted_ rate for a hotel room? Yeesh.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Villago Delenda Est: Yup. Go to nearby Millheim (which has a festival called Crickfest every fall and also has an excellent brew pub called the Elk Creek Cafe) and you’ll see more Confederate flags flying than you do down south. The thing is off campus I have never, ever seen a black person anywhere in the State College area, so why they need to fly the flag of sedition and treason I don’t know. There aren’t any black people there to “keep in line.” Also, their forebears fought and died on the right side of that war. You’d think they’d want to celebrate that fact rather than desecrate it.
Cermet
Scary that so many whites will vote their ticket just because it is their party; actual policy, and values be damned. Racism for a large percentage trumps even intelligence. This country can’t elect such a ass wipe and give the moneyed elite all the power – we are past the point of real trouble for AGW and millions will suffer and die because of our current policies; I shudder to think what those ass wipe thugs in congress will do with that pile of shit tRump running the white house.
Peale
@Peale: maybe someone should look into that hotel financing deal more carefully. Ask some questions. Because it does not seem that the ability to make a fine for mortgage security fraud go away wouldn’t have factored into deutsche banks decision there.
Betty Cracker
@geg6: I’m always happy when PSU loses because I know it makes my evil ex-stepfather, a PSU alum, unhappy.
Iowa Old Lady
@Mnemosyne: I can’t stand it when people treat their vote as only a symbolic action, not something that has actual consequences. John Lewis says our vote is the most powerful non-violent tool at our disposal. Throwing away that power is sinful.
Major Major Major Major
@srv: objectively!
geg6
@Hillary Rettig:
Their entire image is caught up in being a Penn Stater. And Penn State is the best, most virtuous, most committed to humanitarianism and scholarship of any university in the nation (in their eyes). Granted, JoePa made sure his football players graduated (mostly), there is a commitment to academic rigor and excellence and the student run philanthropy THON is the largest organization of its sort, raising $12 million+ for research and treatment of pediatric cancer every year. So I can see why they would be proud of that. But the blindness to JoePa’s faults is pathological. It creates so much cognitive dissonance that they reflexively defend him, although many, I know, are deeply ashamed.
Amir Khalid
@dmsilev:
Still about half again the local going rate. I’ve read that because of how the hotel is being financed, Donald has to charge twice what comparable DC hotels are charging to make a profit — would any sane person pay twice as much for a room just because it was in a Trump-branded hotel?
jo6pac
I’ll be voting Green again.
Major Major Major Major
@Amir Khalid:
Well there’s the flaw in your question.
jimmiraybob
Since “human bong avatar Gary Johnson” is far from a pure libertarian…or all that close for that matter of fact…, the perfect protest vote….the perfect stick in the eye if you’re leaning Libertarian would be a vote for the Hill. This would at least preserve a status quo in which a more profound libertarian would stand a chance of cracking double digits in 2020…or 2024…or somewhere down the line. After a Trump/Republican presidential disaster deconstruction period people will be clamoring for the good old days of republican (small r) and democratic (small d) Democratic (big D) sanity with much less sympathy for more radical libertarian ideas. Legends of King Author’s ….. I mean sane president Obama’s court will abound.
Major Major Major Major
@jo6pac: you strike me as the sort of person who is a self-important preening asshole with total contempt for your fellow countrypeople, and that’s just because you named ANY candidate who isn’t Hillary. That said candidate is Jill Stein suggests you’re also an idiot.
Major Major Major Major
@jo6pac: you’re also new here. How much are you getting paid?
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@dmsilev: The claimed list is $675 or so for that room.
There are almost always ways to get discounts on rooms, but it’s a little surprising to me to see discounts so large and so easily already.
Other than the novelty value, or the chance at YouTube notoriety (assuming Trump didn’t sue you for “unauthorized videography”), I don’t think anyone sensible would stay there over, say, the Willard Intercontinental at ~ $423/night (except that the Willard is sold out those days. Hmmm…)
Cheers,
Scott.
geg6
@Major Major Major Major:
Seriously. Anyone who votes for Jill Stein is too stupid to breathe.
Major Major Major Major
@geg6: this is, unfortunately, apparently not true.
Amir Khalid
@jimmiraybob:
Isn’t Gary Johnson really a Republican sailing under a flag of convenience?
geg6
@Major Major Major Major:
Heh. Well, they need instructions to do it.
Frankensteinbeck
@Amir Khalid:
So are libertarians. The Kochs are a fine example. They really, really work hard on getting out a public message that they’re purely for personal liberties and small government, but they funded the tea party and their chosen candidates were hardcore, nay, batshit insane, cultural conservatives.
Gin & Tonic
@jo6pac: Thanks for sharing that.
tobie
@jo6pac:
Sorry, the choice is binary in a Presidential as opposed to a parliamentary system. You really achieve nothing with your vote in choosing a third party except in the case of swing elections where if you vote green, you swing it for the GOP. Perhaps that’s what you want. The end to civil rights; the end to environmental protections; the end to research; the end to public education; the end to medicare and subsidized health care; the end to financial regulations; the end to progressive taxation; etc. etc. etc.
You are not voting your conscience–you are voting your vanity.
You are not voting wisely–you’re voting foolishly, cutting your nose to spite your face.
Don’t kid yourself that you’re being smart. You’re not. Glad to hear that you’re so insulated from all economic and environmental issues that nothing’s at stake for you in this election. Some of us not only can’t be but also don’t want to be so cavalier.
D58826
@Trentrunner: Please tell me that this is some kind of nightmare that we will wake up from before No.8th.
Major Major Major Major
@Frankensteinbeck: Johnson is more of a libertarian than the Kochs; they’re just cranky old Birchers. Johnson seems to believe what he says.
germy
@srv: From the article you linked to:
Cacti
@Amir Khalid:
Libertarian = Republican who enjoys smoking marijuana and/or isn’t religiously insane.
Lyrebird
@geg6: Yep. State College is a blue dot in the sea of red where I live… And um
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: the elk creek cafe is awesome, so is the gallery across the street, and the crowd there is very white, BUT um there’s an African-American community in State College, professor’s famillies, coaches’ families, students…
Anyhow, yes VOTE help others VOTE and maybe go mock the Trump campaign’s t-shirts?
Or just be depressed that “liar liar pants on fire” is on an authorized campaign t-shirt in this country of ours?? (not joking, go look…)
So I gave some money to MoveOn for GOTV and to some Senate campaigns. Now I click on Trump ads here and at GOS, RawStory, trying to help them waste money!!!
Gindy51
NYT on Trump’s HUGE tax breaks… http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/18/nyregion/donald-trump-tax-breaks-real-estate.html
JordanRules
@tobie: Beautiful response.
Lyrebird
Could a moderator peek and see why my other comment is not there? I used a link for the one URL included but I was replying to geg6 and someone else, might have garbled something.
bemused
Ferret head is on my tv. He is so low energy that I’d have to turn up the volume to hear what he is saying clearly. Really sounds groggy, maybe he’s coming down with something, cough, cough.
Amir Khalid
Trump has appropriated Do You Hear the People Sing? from Les Miz to use as his entrance music at a rally. Someone in the comments has noted that Master of The House is a more apt choice, especially the verse where Mme. Thenardier sings about M. Thenardier’s, um, shortcomings.
Applejinx
@opiejeanne: Most of the sore Bernie supporters on my Facebook are planning to vote for Hillary.
You know what? All it will take for her to both win, and get resoundingly re-elected, is for her to be telling the truth about MOST of what she’s telling people she will do, THIS time. I’m serious. If it simply isn’t all bullshit, she will end up serving eight glorious years and very likely being the second Clinton to lead us into economic boom times.
It’s not through genius, it’s just because everybody else is fucking things up THAT MUCH WORSE.
This is not hard. Just plain wonky mostly-good governance would be a huge massive improvement. People overlook how fucked we currently are, or buy into Villager narratives that define ‘neoliberal’ more than Hillary ever could. We’re very close to needing guillotines and the Village will tell you to eat cake. Fuck them, the Trump-advertisement-facilitating shitweasels.
It does not take an exceptional dutiful wonk to set things right. If Hillary sticks with HALF of what she’s promised the Bernie wing of the party, we will thrive. Even just half. Guy only succeeded as much as he did because he was telling the obvious truth about our lives.
msdc
Just got back from a canvassing shift in Northern Virginia. Suburban neighborhood with lots of Latino, Asian, and Muslim families. Lots of support for Clinton, and not a lot for Trump. (Although thank you, 31-year-old white guy, for telling me that both candidates are terrible and you’re voting third party. Maybe talk to your neighbors more.)
The Clinton campaign was very professional, very organized. Campaign and neighborhood both feel a lot like the Obama campaigns in ’08 and ’12. Keep knocking on those doors and we’ll win this thing.
Major Major Major Major
@bemused: I heard he’s dying.
@Amir Khalid: I saw a headline that he was using *a* song from Les Miz, but didn’t know it was that. Wow.
Hal
One of my evangelical conservative facebook friends officially wants a do over instead of having to vote for Trump (he hates Hillary Clinton) and another feel the Bern friend has been posting pro-Clinton stuff lately, so she’s definitely voting Hillary.
I’m just wondering [wishing] Trump’s latest bout of birtherism hasn’t started a slow tilt back in favor of Hillary Clinton. I’m not unskewing anything, but superior ground game and gotv efforts along with Trump’s abysmal performance amongst women and minorities and younger folks has to count for something, doesn’t it?
D58826
As a financially secure 70 yr old white male I will be voting for Hillary. I’m doing that for a number of reasons not the least of which is I would like to leave this a better country for the younin’s than it was when when I first strted voting. I think we have made a lot of progress in the task of forming a more perfect union but it’s not done yet. Trump specifically and the GOP in general are dedicated to the proposition that the 1% by divine right are entitled to every last piece of wealth in this country. Trump in the WH and the GOP controlling congress will return the country to the 18th century. Short of nuclear war I probably won’t be affected by any of this but my 30 something nieces will be. For their sake I just hope the nightmare does not come true.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@bemused: He’s projecting again on Twitter just now:
Nice touch for him to throw neurotic in there.
Who did Donnie have with him when he introduced his new hotel?
Donnie’s supporters are “neurotic” in Tillis’s construction. It’s hard to believe that Maureen is a Trump supporter. So, projection again.
;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
gogol's wife
@Mike J:
Why doesn’t it say Vote for Clinton?
liberal
Anyone know of a good site that tells you the best races to contribute to in terms of bang-for-the-buck?
Sam Wang has such info, and I pretty much trust him, but I wanted more than one opinion. (I’m interested in Senate races, since I think we’re not going to retake the House.)
gogol's wife
@Amir Khalid:
Oh, God, that’s terrible. I’ve just become a Les Miz fan girl, having listened to the 10th anniversary concert. It’s terribly schmaltzy, but really good.
Major Major Major Major
@liberal: as far as a literal listing of that, Sam’s got the only one I know of, but you could always go to 538 or pollster or RCP and just decide based on polls.
Cacti
@Hal:
Even with the polls tightening up, Trump hasn’t moved above 44% nationally. With his post convention bounce, his ceiling was about 45%. At his best, Trump has been near tied with Clinton, and at his worst, far behind. If Clinton rallies the Obama coalition, she wins. Trump has alienated too many groups to nudge his support much higher than the mid 40s.
Betty
@geg6: Gotta say I resent your gross overgeneralization of the mid-state population.
Corner Stone
@Applejinx: God. Shut…Up.
Jeffro
@Cacti: “libertarian” = ” I hate paying taxes and will go to any length to justify not paying “
Amir Khalid
@gogol’s wife:
Maybe some people in showbiz are bound by contractual obligation not to let their partisan flag fly, lest they jeopardise any ticket sales.
germy
@Lyrebird: Like naked mole rats, naked links are not popular here.
D58826
Coulkd not link this from Huffington but did find it on KOS
FSM help us.
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/9/17/1571266/-Too-Funny-Pence-Says-Half-of-Drumpence-s-Supporters-are-Deplorables-Not-an-Onion-Article
The Lodger
@Shell: If there isn’t already a National Medal of Snark, the President should originate it and Takei should receive it for that tweet.
SFAW
@gogol’s wife:
So are you and Mnemosyne going to drop the gloves over Les Miz vs. Hamilton?
hovercraft
This man is a national treasure, his tweets are up there with John Dingell.
germy
@D58826: Fine. A religious nutjob a heartbeat away from the presidency.
Amir Khalid
@gogol’s wife:
I became a fan because of the movie of the musical, which is rather more faithful to Hugo’s novel than the stage show.
Major Major Major Major
@Corner Stone: well, jinx isn’t wrong that Hillary’s policies would be great for the country. The rest is bullshit, yes, but not that part.
Omnes Omnibus
@SFAW: This isn’t an official (ice) hockey thread. Under the new rules, I don’t believe you are allowed to use hockey terms here.
Gin & Tonic
@Omnes Omnibus: There are new rules?
Corner Stone
@germy: How’s about naked commenters?
Haaayyy-OOOO!!! Who’s with me?!
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@D58826: Holy crap. The Onion is dead if that sort of thing keeps happening. There’s nothing left to lampoon.
SFAW
@D58826:
Written by Republican Jesus.
Cermet
As a white, college educated, guy on the high side of 50 but the very low side of making six figures, I will vote straight democratic – always; as will my daughter and all my friends. I do have morals. Anyone voting tRump is either stupid, racist, or have their heads so far up their ass’s that they might as well just do every one a favor and not vote. What this country has done to blacks and other groups is unbelievable but these whites want more harm? Any one with children who votes tRump or third party needs to be put in a home with other mentally disturbed patients when their children grow up and realize what their parents did to the world and their future.
SFAW
@Omnes Omnibus:
I thought those applied only to threads regarding “football” and “furriner football.” Apparently I misunderstood.
Omnes Omnibus
@Gin & Tonic: Well, football is now football. And we can only talk about football in football threads. At the same time, football is also football.
Gin & Tonic
@Corner Stone: I’d join, but I don’t think the other passengers on the train would be happy.
Major Major Major Major
@Cermet: what bugs me is the people who have morals but suck at ethics and can’t be arsed to sully their precious souls by voting for the lesser of two evils.
SFAW
@Omnes Omnibus:
The party of the first part shall be known as “The party of the first part.”
germy
For the “just following orders” file:
Major Major Major Major
@SFAW: the first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club
gogol's wife
@SFAW:
No way, I’m Hamilton all the way. I could go into a dissertation about why what Miranda does with schmaltz is so much more skillful and moving than the Les Miz version, but that would bore you.
But I’ll confess I’m going to dust off my Hugo. It was my favorite Classics Illustrated comic book, but I’ve never been able to read the actual novel. I always quit a few pages after the silver candlesticks.
Corner Stone
@Gin & Tonic: Well, I had to wait until my mom and sister left. Technically, I didn’t have to wait, but when I started stretching and opining about “man’s inherent sense for freedom shall not be impinged upon” they decided it was time for lunch.
germy
gene108
@jimmiraybob:
Only among those of us in the
RebellionResistanceUndergroundrag tag opposition group to Republican rule, who meet secretly in people’s basements, so as not to draw unwanted attention from the Secret Police of the Trump-State.tobie
@germy: Sheesh. Time to do some research on Andrew Lack. A friend perhaps of Jared Kushner?
gogol's wife
@germy:
She left out flinging poo.
Corner Stone
@gogol’s wife:
Looks like I’ve got at least one with me! Let’s do this!
SFAW
@Major Major Major Major:
Groucho did it better.
germy
@gogol’s wife:
He has people doing that for him on CNN.
geg6
@Betty:
Are you claiming the population there is cosmopolitan, sophisticated, well educated, tolerant, prosperous and welcoming of diversity? Are you claiming that there isn’t one of the largest KKK and white identity concentrations in the north there? Are you seriously telling me that their lives and views differ significantly from those who live any holler in WV or KY or TN? Sorry, but I’m a native PAer from, granted, Western PA but from a county that is more closely compared politically and educationally to, say, Somerset or Franklin County than our next-door neighbors in Allegheny County. I also own a weekend cabin outside of Titusville. am not blind to the sort of people my neighbors are. They are, for the most part, ignorant and racist hicks, perfectly happy to vote against their own interests if it pokes the eeeevul libtards and nig-clangs in the eye.
Gin & Tonic
@Corner Stone: Is that what they call it now?
bemused
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
I’ve missed the Maureen Dowd-Trump kerfuffle or whatever happened. Was it interesting enough to look up?
SFAW
@gogol’s wife:
Never let it be said that you don’t know your audience.
@gogol’s wife:
Well, then, I’ll try not to give away the ending.
Corner Stone
@D58826: There is no way that is a real article and real interview with real quotes. I refuse!
jimmiraybob
@Amir Khalid:
I don’t follow the libertarian cause all that closely but that’s my understanding – more Republican but leans libertarian.
joel hanes
@Corner Stone:
naked commenters?
Will there be mops? This blog has long-standing traditions about such things. When in Rome …
Amir Khalid
@gogol’s wife:
Be warned: Les Miserables is over 1,000 pages long. (It was originally published in five volumes.) It is notorious for its very long digressions into such topics as sewage, cloistered orders, and especially the 19-chapter description of the Battle of Waterloo, which is not part of the plot but merely scene-setting for a brief meeting between two characters.
different-church-lady
In other words, we’re giving up on pushing back against the cartoon evil-icky Hillary and going with a hold-your-nose/eat-your-vegetables strategy?
In a sane world “Voting for Clinton” wouldn’t be something to be ashamed of.
bemused
@D58826:
Gah! He’s even dumber than Louie Gohmert.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@germy: Given that Andrew Lack is apparently the guy responsible for the great liberal purge and the hiring of Hugh Hewitt at MSNBC, there’s not much I’d put past him, but I don’t know how he could have gotten into Lauer’s head enough to frame that pretzel logic question about how, as Commander in Chief, she could look at Iraq vets and tell them their service was wasted. He deserves to be boiled in a vat of waste from an industrial hog farm for that one.
Bubblegum Tate
This needs to be spread far and wide: “A fucking music critic did more research waiting for his kid to come home from a playdate than most political/financial beat reporters do.”
This guy did a better investigation into the absolute sham that is (and most likely highly illegal operations of) the Donald Trump Foundation than anybody this side of David Fahrenthold.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@bemused: MoDo is claiming Trump said the violence at his rallies adds a frisson of excitement. I am not the first to be skeptical that Trump said “frisson“
Kay
Celebrities attacking other celebrities.
Can we get some disclosure from the NYTimes how well they know this guy? Is this a long friendship between these two?
Fucking ridiculous. Like an insular little club.
Betty Cracker
@Omnes Omnibus: Y’all can talk about anything you want in MY football thread. I just thought it would be good to have an NCAA football plus a non-football open thread so people who don’t give a shit about football won’t have to scroll through the sports chat and vice versa. As for soccer/futbol, I don’t think R would mind folks chatting about non-soccer/futbol topics, but apparently people were bellyaching about the existence of a soccer/futbol thread at all last week, which I think is kinda douchey. But whatever.
bemused
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Exactly my thought. Trump would think it was a fancy type of hair goop.
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Very insidery. How well does she know him. I wonder? Can we get some statehouse reporter who makes 30k a year and isn’t starstruck to cover this guy? A lot of them are unemployed. We could get a hundred for what she’s paid.
piratedan
@liberal: I think that you could help out in the following:
North Carolina
New Hampshire
Nevada
Missouri
Arizona
From my understanding they are all competitive, others may add their own insight and suggestions
SFAW
@Amir Khalid:
… and was titled “A la recherche du chandelier d’argent perdu.”
Betty Cracker
@different-church-lady: Only with a specific subset of voters, i.e., those “who’ve bought into the purity brigade’s anti-Clinton smears.” My BernFeelers are already on board with Clinton, but from what others report, that is not universally the case, hence, a pitch that might persuade them.
bemused
Via Kevin Drum: Tax Policy Center said Paul Ryan’s plan gives 99% of tax cuts to top %1. They really want the rest of to be destitute and/or dying.
Villago Delenda Est
@geg6: A friend of mine who is an enthusiastic Green party supporter has had serious second thoughts about casting a ballot for Stein, given her tendency to woo the woo crowd. Anti-vax and ZOMG WiFi causes cancer! stuff has driven him to think twice about supporting Stein, despite that his ballot would be basically for giving the Pacific Greens some support to meet the “major party” threshold here in Oregon.
Kay
The celebrity media reality show is now clashing with the Donald Trump show:
Is Lauer some kind of hostage? He was told what to say? He just bought a 35 million dollar house. That’s a lot to pay a parrot.
Villago Delenda Est
@Jeffro: Libertarian = “I don’t want to pay taxes, I want to freeload on all the infrastructure, both tangible and intangible, of civilization.”
geg6
@Kay:
Yeah, this sounds like a bunch of ass covering by Lauer lackeys to me.
Ruckus
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:
But I am saying they are conservative. Not looking at or acknowledging reality, casting aspersions that are actually seen in a mirror, wanting to always go down the same path, always looking backwards…….
They may not think of themselves in the political conservative manner but they are conservative, they refuse to look forward, they refuse to see the facts in front of them, they desire to have life a certain way, even when it hurts others and gains them nothing positive.
gene108
@Major Major Major Major:
Why settle for the lesser evil? Cthulu 2016
Omnes Omnibus
@Betty Cracker:
I agree.
germy
@geg6: Covering his ass by blaming his boss? Not sure that’s such a… wise move.
Ruckus
@Amir Khalid:
I wouldn’t pay 1/10 that much to stay in a Trump hotel. Actually I think I’d have to be paid much more than that just to consider it, let alone actually check in.
gene108
@germy: I
Lauer probably has a pretty damn tight contract, written by the best lawyers he could afford with his 8 figure salary.
The suits cannot touch him, until the contract ends.
He’s not some poor shlub at-will employee line cook flipping burgers at the diner making $10/hr, with no benefits.
Lauer’s class of people enjoy both huge pay checks and great job security.
Shell
Gag. Everytime I see one of Trumps tweets Im struck by how juvenile his vocabulary is.
Schlemazel
@Villago Delenda Est:
And smoke dope!
Villago Delenda Est
@Ruckus: They are not “conservative” in the same sense that say Bismarck was. Bismarck wanted to insure the survival of his class. To do that, he was willing to do things that alienated the more blockheaded Junkers out there. The very concept of Social Security was introduced in Germany by Bismarck to steal a march from the Social Democrats. By making that concession, he preserved his class. It’s too bad for his class descendants that Hitler wiped them out by launching then losing WWII.
rikyrah
@Litlebritdifrnt:
She is the Closer
Barry
@Hillary Rettig: “I guess I’m linking them because both mindsets show really bad priorities, judgment, and behavior; as well as a pretty serious lack of empathy.”
There’s a point where it’s no long bad priorities, etc, but evil.
That point was years ago.
JPL
@Kay: It will be interesting to see if they can buy off Lester Holt. After reading that article, I had to wonder whether or not Trump will have the questions before hand.
Mike in NC
At a wine tasting with some friends today, my wife and I both suddenly realized that today is our 22nd anniversary. Oops.
SFAW
@Shell:
No kidding. It amazes me that there aren’t more people who say “Vote for that childish, clueless, arrogant asshole? No fucking way!” In a rational country/world, his polling numbers would be below 27 percent, and would stay there.
JPL
link
Iowa Old Lady
@Mike in NC: Congrats from one long-married person to another.
germy
@JPL: I don’t know how Trump feels about Holt. I saw one quote a few weeks ago where Trump praised him. And now more recently I saw Trump criticizing him.
Is Trump Caligula?
Schlemazel
@Betty Cracker:
I don’t understand why we have to have these damned political posts on this blog!!! Nobody follows this crap. The NCAA Cross Country season is in full swing and here we are ignoring that to talk about politics.
Maybe it is because I know I follow a niche subdomain of a niche sport I am used to my fav being ignored so I don’t expect threads. Interestingly enough the Primer League thread has 80-some comments, the NCAA one 60-some and this one has 150-some . . . its almost as if people come here for particular topics more than others.
SFAW
@Schlemazel:
Did I miss X-C Opening Day again? SHIT!
ChrisGrrr
@tobie: Excellent post.
A useful rephrasing of what I didn’t know in ’00, when my ignorance “called on” me to vote for Nadir (typo intentional). I was in CA, but still.
Villago Delenda Est
@srv: HODOR!
That said, fuck all white supremacist scum.
germy
@srv: Will there be a place for srv in the new Trump administration? Press Secretary? Chief of Staff?
Think big!
Ruckus
@Villago Delenda Est:
It’s nice to compare today’s American conservatives with past history, there are many connections. But we are talking about current American conservatives and there are some differences, especially as we have to have people actually vote for being totally fucked over. European conservatives may be looking at the world out their anuses, just like ours, but their trip to getting their heads stuck in that orifice was and is different.
Villago Delenda Est
@Ruckus: Hence my use of “conservatives” for the current American flavor.
moderateindy
People seem to be confused about why young people have no use for Hillary. Why would they? What does she have to offer them other than the same crappy system that they have been living with for the past 15 years? They don’t have enough perspective to understand the potential train wreck that a President Trump could become.
Hillary Clinton also has a huge problem. She has the charisma of a sloth. She inspires nobody that isn’t already a rank and file Dem. You don’t have to go back very far to find a smart, competent Dem nominee that was also dull as dishwater, who also lost to a Repub that had some odd appeal to the uninformed voter. She is Al Gore 2.0. Bush was, “a guy you wanted to have a beer with” Trump is, “a guy who speaks his mind” In both cases the Republican seemed more genuine, and the Dem more of a “politician”.
So many people on this blog said they were supporting Hillary over Bernie because she was more electable. My main argument against that was Bernie would get all the rank and file Hillary voters, plus the young voters that he was inspiring in droves, while Hillary would not get the Sanders supporters that were new to the process. It wasn’t a hard prediction, and it is playing out exactly like expected.
The other big problem with Hillary, is that she seems disingenuous. People don’t trust her, and it is a perception that she has largely earned. Yes, she has been relentlessly attacked over the years, but the stuff that lands with people that do, and might support her, are self-inflicted. Setting up her own e-mail server, not disclosing a health issue, speeches to Wall Street, etc. These are all things that make her seem like she is hiding something, or worse trying to get away with something. That’s why she scores so low on the trustworthy poll. It is hardly mysterious why she fell in the polls after the health scare. It just reinforced the perception that she is a person that isn’t particularly up front about anything, and does, not what’s right, or what’s best for the country, but what she thinks she can get away with politically.
The problem with her as far as a campaigner is concerned is that she delivers a speech like a high school Salutatorian, that would have been Valedictorian if she hadn’t got a B- in speech class. She’s just completely mediocre at it. I don’t expect her to be Obama, or her husband, but watching her give her stump speech is bordering on painful.
So young people look at her and go, Meh. Then they look at Trump and go, yuck. So that leaves Stein, Johnson , and none of the above. And NOTA probably comes out on top, and I can’t blame them, because how many of us were truly politically engaged when we were that age?
D58826
I keep reading that it will all come down to the debates. I beg to differ. At this point only someone living under the moon rocks at Mission Control has not formed some type of opinion about Trump and Hillary. Short of Trump cooking and eating puppies and kittens on stage, nothing he says or does will change anyone’s mind. Hillary can arrive on a giant cloud in a flaming chariot driven by the angel of the Lord and it will not make one whit of difference.
This all come down to turnout on election day. If the Obama coalition turns out in force she wins. If it doesn’t then ………………………………I can’t even type it
Major Major Major Major
@srv: he hates the soon-to-be-half of the country that isn’t white.
Dadadadadadada
@Hillary Rettig: I bet a lot of liberals are into sanitizing the legacies of slave-bangers like Tom Jefferson. The Paterno apologists are just a few hundred years ahead of the curve.
Major Major Major Major
@moderateindy:
Well that isn’t true.
Speaking for myself and I imagine most Hillary supporters, we thought she would be a better president than Bernie Sanders. The electability argument was YOURS, and y’all kept pointing at polls that showed Bernie doing better against Trump.
Dread
Jesus Christ, let’s not get to the ‘woe is me, it’s all over’ stage when we’ve still go 6 weeks and three debates to go.
Chyron HR
@moderateindy:
We’ve gone from True Progressives hating Gore to lionizing him and now they’re back to hating him?
Major Major Major Major
@Chyron HR: hating Hillary Clinton beyond reason requires a lot of mental gymnastics.
JMG
@moderateindy: If she’s such a lousy campaigner, how come Sanders isn’t the nominee? PS: On the Wall Street speeches, I agree with you. The other two are nothing burgers. If there’s an American who hasn’t gone to work sick and told family and friends “I’m fine” when they felt like hell, I have yet to meet ’em.
JPL
@germy: I don’t want to find out.
D58826
@moderateindy: While I agree with some of this, it still comes down to a binary choice – Trump or Hillary. On Nov. 9th one will be the President-elect. THe younins have 4 choices:
1. sit it out and probably tip the election to Trump
2. vote 3rd party which is probably the same as option 1
3.vote for the high school Salutatorian
4. vote for Trump.
If those had been my choices in my first election, even then I had enough common sense to see that Hillary with all her faults (real and alleged) was the only choice. And if they (as well as the not so yuounins chose other wise then they will have the rest of their lives to regret it. Four years of the GOP control in Washington will create a political environment where the democrats will win in New York, Philly and San Francisco and not much else.
Major Major Major Major
@JMG: if she’s such a lousy campaigner and Obama is so great, how come she damn near beat him (and might have it MI and FL had gone different)?
I think her campaign has been pretty good, certainly none of the bumbling and backbiting and whatnot you normally see. Just quietly competent. Makes me very optimistic for the ground operation.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@bemused: Dunno. I just check his Twitterings occasionally and that was on top when I looked. I don’t read Maureen either. ;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
Major Major Major Major
@D58826:
How do you figure?
Frankensteinbeck
@Major Major Major Major:
I’m going to be fair. There were several people here early on who said they liked Bernie’s stances more, but didn’t think he could win the general. When they got a good look at Hillary’s stances, they came to like her. When they got a good look at Sanders’ stances, they realized he was all empty talking points. When they saw both campaigns in action, they concluded that Hillary’s competence would be way more effective in the general than Sanders’ grifting, whiny shit show.
SiubhanDuinne
@D58826:
@germy:
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:
It may not technically be from The Onion, but I’m positive it’s some very fine satire. Even with our crack media, there’s just no way Pence could say these things at a presser and not have his comments reported anywhere, by anyone, apart from this one professor of sports journalism.
germy
Doug R
@Omnes Omnibus: I believe your remark may be offside.
Iowa Old Lady
I am so sick of people whining they can’t vote for Clinton because she didn’t give them unicorns and ponies. My first vote was a choice between Nixon and Humphrey. I have no sympathy.
Tom Q
@moderateindy: “That same crappy system they’ve been living with for the past 15 years” — you mean that crappy system that brought us out of an economic meltdown, gave health insurance to millions and legalized gay marriage nationwide? That crappy system?
It’s fantasy to think Bernie Sanders would have got the same amount of the party-regulars vote as Hillary is. To say nothing of all the former Republican administration officials who’ve come out for her, or Michael Bloomberg (and these prominent folk represent lots of everyday voters I know, who’ve gone GOP in some recent elections but are solid Hillary now). Sanders would NEVER have got these people, and the uptick in youth vote he might have got wouldn’t have been nearly enough to offset those losses (esp. given youth’s well-known tendency to blow off voting — that age group’s best turnout years pale next to older folk).
Can we, like, wait till election day before we decide how good or bad a candidate Hillary is? I’m betting she, like Reagan ’80, performs way at the top of her polling and wins a convincing victory. Everything between now and then is pure speculation and blather.
ruemara
I agree. My friends who were diehard Bernie fans, upset at me for pointing out his problems with race, women’s issues, etc., they are over it and working for HRC.
The old hippie males however, dangerously angry & now furiously working for Jill Stein.
Doug R
@SFAW: Football
gwangung
@moderateindy:
Many more said she was COMPETENT.
Begone, troll.
Shell
Sigh. On MSNBC they said Trumps polling numbers went up after that Birther fiasco. I swear…I just despair of this country.
Major Major Major Major
@Frankensteinbeck: fair is fair.
SiubhanDuinne
@JPL:
Never heard of VICE News, but I have to say that is absolutely chilling. And I would say that even if it were Breitbart that got that kind of treatment. Time for some First Amendment solutions?
Major Major Major Major
@Shell: huh? According to what polls, the bar they went to last night?
D58826
@Major Major Major Major: OK a bit of an exaggeration. They should win in DC and Atlanta also. But the point is with a compliant SCOTUS voter id laws and other voter suppression tactics will be legalized. The Koch’s et.al. will continue to buy elections at the state and local level. The House will be in GOP hands till at least 2030. And I can’t see a GOP Senate letting the democrats use the filibuster to stop the GOP agenda the way McConnell used it to try and stop Obama. Given the craven attitude of the GOP in going along with Trump to regain power I’m not sure what they would stop at to make sure the GOP is the only party that has any political power.
@SiubhanDuinne: Comments at KOS are leaning in the satire direction.
If it is satire what makes it so good is it is believable. Tina Fey’s you can see Russia was funny and believable because of what Palin did say. Bible thumpers have been making all kinds of claims about God’s plan and how to read the Bible so this isn’t so far out.
Kay
@JPL:
I love how they think “Trump is good television” is a defense. Fine. Stop calling it news, then. Call it entertainment.
The NYTimes isn’t even the worst. CNN is the worst. They suck at “news”. All of them.
p.a.
@Frankensteinbeck: That’s me. Bernie I guess you could say was right (or right-er) on ‘One Big Thing’, but much of the rest of his political philosophy is smoke and mirrors. Hillary may have been pushed left on economics, but how much of that is due to the Dem base, or Bernie, or recent history and her reaction to it, is irrelevant to this election. Her politics are much fuller, more mature than B’s. She’s probably decent on the stump, but looks weak compared to O & Bill.
SiubhanDuinne
@germy:
Caligula was the epitome of sanity in comparison.
Omnes Omnibus
@Doug R: Football, football, hockey, or rugby offside?
Major Major Major Major
@p.a.: I love that. “Probably decent on the stump.” I don’t know either, since nobody plays her damn speeches!
D58826
@Iowa Old Lady: So was mine and I pulled the lever for HH without a single second thought. H+ll I would have voted for LBJ in 68 if he had been running
chopper
it’s true that the olds are more to blame here. but i take issue with anyone who won’t crawl over broken glass to cast a vote against trump. it doesn’t matter if the dems put a turnip on the ticket.
Peale
@SiubhanDuinne: at least Caligula got along with his mother
SRW1
@Amir Khalid:
You can check for yourself. Nancy LeTourneau at the Washington Monthly has the crib notes on his domestic policy positions.
Don’t ask about foreign policy. That’s a bit Aleppo for Gary.
SFAW
@moderateindy:
Excellent point. Please report back to us in 25 years, after having someone powerful shit on you the entire time, to let us know how it hasn’t changed how you deal with certain quarters.
Yeah, I’ve been reading tons of reports regarding the break-in/hacking of that unprotected server — which no one in the history of SoS had ever had.
I think she should have said something last Friday, not after the “bad optics” moment of 9/11. On the other hand, given the reaction, which continued even after the pneumonia was disclosed, I can see why she might have been hesitant. I still think she should have been the first one to mention it, but I can understand and empathize with her initial response.
And as far as the “Hey, they’re young, they don’t know from nothin’ ” argument, and whether they’re “politically engaged”: that’s either a cop-out, or bullshit, your choice. It’s pretty clear what a President Trump will do to this country, There has been no “pivot,” as everyone thought there would be, so that Trump could get the non-crazy vote. He’s still an asshole, he still responds to any slight (real or perceived) the way a 12-year-old bully (who thinks he can’t be touched) responds, his non-Teleprompter speeches are gobbledygook, his endlessly telling EVERYONE how his dick is the BIGGEST EVAH (figuratively speaking) shows how shallow and stupid he is. And he’s not sending off warning bells for the “non-politically engaged” crowd? That goes beyond being not “politically engaged” — that’s bordering on clueless. Or maybe they think they’ll get a pony for maintaining their purity.
JPL
@Kay: A few minutes ago, I streamed CNN, and they were wondering whether or not his plan was reasonable. When the introduced a renowned economist, Ben Stein, I shut it down. Since when is a lawyer, speechwriter an economist.
SiubhanDuinne
@bemused:
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
I am guessing he’s just read (or had read to him) excerpts from MoDo’s new book, The Year of Voting Dangerously, which from what little I’ve seen is a compilation of all her columns on Clinton and/or Trump going back to forever.
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
@moderateindy: So you are essentially saying young voters will deliver Trump to us.
jeffreyw
@Amir Khalid:
That sounds like a really long intro until I consider that the entire history of the world has been a lead-up to me sitting here, today, reading this blog.
Villago Delenda Est
@moderateindy: Congratulations on totally buying into the MSM smear campaign against Clinton. You must feel so proud.
JMG
@Shell: Who said it? Was it a newsperson, or some Trump talking head? Was it a freeped unscientific Internet poll? There have been no public published polls today except an Ipsos one that ended Thursday. There has not been time to poll this issue
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
@Villago Delenda Est: Really, they hit all the important talking points. That was a scorching hot take for sure.
Major Major Major Major
@jeffreyw: yeah, but that doesn’t mean you wanna read about it.
SFAW
@D58826:
Careful! Raven might hear you.
SiubhanDuinne
@D58826:
Oh, I quite agree. It’s only because I had a little time to kill and looked to see if any other reporters had covered this supposed Pence press conference and came up with nothing that I realized it was satire, not fact. It’s very well done, and I commend the author.
But I have a sinking feeling that I’m going to be seeing it all over liberal sites on FB, reacting in horror as if it were Gospel Truth, and that kind of thing never helps our side.
D58826
@Major Major Major Major: Well with surrogates like Obama, Michelle, Uncle Joe, Prof. Warren and the Big Dawg, even Cicero would suffer in comparison.
And as long as Trump’s speeches are covered like a PT Barnum event she can’t catch a break
Redshift
@moderateindy:
Ah, “the system.” I sympathize with millennials’ economic situation, they got truly screwed, and many will continue to suffer the aftereffects of starting a rung or two lower for their entire lives.
But they didn’t get screwed by “the system,” they got screwed by Republican economic policies-trickle down, deregulation, anti-redistribution, and more, and by their intransigence against effective responses to the economic crash. If they don’t think electing Democrats who don’t promise to blow up “the system” will make any difference, then they’ll continue to get screwed. And if they respond with a “meh” to Democrats who propose detailed policies that will in fact make things better because they’re not charismatic enough, then they’ll get screwed even harder.
ThresherK
@Chyron HR: Hillary is Al Gore 2.0 in one respect: The press corpse hates her and is willing to latch onto anything to make her look bad.
Krugthulu probably had that apt column (Hillary Clinton is getting Gored) written in February.
Villago Delenda Est
@Frankensteinbeck: Sanders’ huge problem was yeah, his positions were attractive, but he demonstrated during the campaign that he didn’t have the slightest idea how to put them into practice. I assume he would wave his wand, say “Eccio Polices!” and they’d all come to pass.
Hillary has a clue as how to get ideas into law. Sanders, not so much.
jeffreyw
@Major Major Major Major:
Well, I wouldn’t mind reading some of the highlights, but I would definitely leave out that weekend down in Georgia.
SiubhanDuinne
@Kay:
You may not have seen yet, the NYT has a new long-form investigative piece up about Trump’s empire built on “insider connections” and tax breaks. Disclaimer: I haven’t read it yet, but it may provide answers to some of the questions you’ve been concerned about.
rikyrah
Sopan DebVerified account
@SopanDeb
Via @wsj: Five Years of Donald Trump’s ‘Birther’ Statements
SFAW
@Villago Delenda Est:
Your tolerance level for the MSM seems a trifle higher than usual today. Are you feeling OK?
SiubhanDuinne
@D58826:
Good thing Raven’s out of town.
rikyrah
Fox Panel Actually Debates Whether Birtherism Is Racist or Not
7:46 pm, September 16th, 2016
Tonight Fox News’ On the Record debated whether birtherism is inherently racist:
Brit Hume raised the question tonight and actually read the dictionary definition of racism on the air to ask whether birtherism is, in fact, racist.
Washington Times writer Stephen Dinan said it’s certainly ridiculous and “ignorant,” but while “there are probably racists who are birthers,” it’s not necessarily inherently racist “to question where the president was born.”
USA Today‘s Heidi Przybyla agreed it’s not necessarily the “textbook definition” of racism, but pointed out it was an effort to delegitimize the first black president, so…
Hume said it’s clear it was a nasty, horrible effort to delegitimize President Obama, but said, “I just always wonder when that word ‘racism’ begins to be flung around.”
geg6
@germy:
He’s not saying it. His lackeys are.
D58826
@Redshift: I have been telling my 30 something nieces just that. We baby boomers, after all of the campus protests against the system, turned around and enough of us voted GOP to get us where we are. Hopefully they and their cohort will realize that even if Hillary is the lesser of two evils, Trump is so much the greater evil that the choice should be a no brainer.
As far as which cohort of voters to blame if Hillary loses then it will be the fault of those who did not like the choice and stayed home and the ones who voted for the carnival barker.
Villago Delenda Est
@rikyrah: Because, Brit, you are one, you maggot.
SiubhanDuinne
@Peale:
and Trump gets along with his daughter.
geg6
@moderateindy:
That stupid, venal bitch that reminds me of my fifth grade teacher should just go DIAF, amirite? Bernie 4ever!
rikyrah
Birther Nation: Alive and Well
Whatever Trump said yesterday, his supporters know he’s privately agreed with them all along.
By MICHAEL GRUNWALD
September 17, 2016
MIAMI—Many of Donald Trump’s supporters at his raucous rally here Friday night still believe President Obama was born in Kenya. “I know it in my heart,” said Pedro Almeyda, an elevator engineer. Others still aren’t sure. “He doesn’t show love for this country, but who knows?” asked Carmen Suarez, a retired nurse. And still others always knew Obama is a native-born American. “I never took that stuff seriously,” said James Fry, the owner of a real estate firm.
But this much was clear: Trump’s sudden abandonment of his five-year birther crusade on Friday does not seem to have changed how his supporters view either him or Obama. In interviews at the rally, the birthers and non-birthers all seemed to think that Trump has privately agreed with them all along, and all praised his flip-flop as a shrewd political stratagem to change an inconvenient subject. Most of them also trashed Obama as an unpatriotic disaster, whether or not they thought he was really born here.
“I never believed Obama was a real American, but really, I could give a crap,” said Jim Neubauer, a self-employed inventor who came to the rally with his grandson. “He’s been terrible, Trump will be great, and Democrats are just using this to try to call him racist. Let’s talk about stuff that matters.”
Gindy51
@Peale: And his sisters…..
Redshift
@rikyrah: Since the Fox crew, I’m sure, don’t see race (a la Stephen Colbert), I can see why it would be difficult for them to notice that the only president for whom ‘it’s not necessarily inherently racist “to question where the president was born.”’ just happens to be black.
Total coincidence, I’m sure.
JMG
@rikyrah: Dumb, hateful and frightened is no way to go through life. If these folks weren’t so full of hate, I’d feel sorry for them.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@JPL: He’s an economist because he mentioned economics in a John Hughs movie once, in 1986, 30 years ago.
Villago Delenda Est
@JMG: They live in fear that when they’re solidly in the minority, those they oppressed will reciprocate that which they did that they are secretly ashamed of.
Iowa Old Lady
I see Scott Walker is going to play Tim Kaine in Pence’s debate prep. I always wonder how good these roll players are at acting like the other party’s nominee. It seems likely they’d give in to the own stereotypes of what the person is like. Especially someone like Walker who’s–how shall I put this?–not too bright.
Betty Cracker
@Tom Q: Well said, sir.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@D58826: Boomers were the one age group that Reagan lost in 1980.
Omnes Omnibus
@Iowa Old Lady:
I would phrase it differently. “Dumb as a bag of hair” comes to mind.
p.a.
@?BillinGlendaleCA: It’s ALWAYS the Olds!!! ?
Villago Delenda Est
@Iowa Old Lady: Just the way the Koch Brothers like their stooges.
Betty Cracker
@rikyrah: A minor point, perhaps, but in addition to the horror of witnessing so much racist stupidity, we learn that at least one of the men responsible for elevator safety is a blithering idiot.
SFAW
@Villago Delenda Est:
And can you blame them? I mean, after all, look at all the race-based genocide visited by the Coloreds in South Africa on the white folks who so graciously allowed them to become human. How many
realwhite South Africans were murdered – something like 20 million, right?rikyrah
Brasilmagic
@Brasilmagic
Samantha Bee on fact-checking Trump’s campaign: “Calling a liar a liar isn’t an opinion if you can prove it”
Bonnie
I had my 71st birthday a week ago; and, I am a Hilary supporter all the way. I am a woman and looking forward to the United States of America having it’s first Woman President. I will settle for nothing less.
Doug R
New picture from Curiosity here.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@germy: Yes, I mean seriously, I’ve haven’t seen anyone Right or Left changing their opinion that Trump is a cheese. Maybe I am missing something but the vibe I get is the conservatives are talking themselves into Pence will be defacto president like Cheny was (and that turned out so well) and that basically the Trump “surge”
D58826
@SiubhanDuinne: Not one of his heroes I take it. But if my choice was Tricky Dick or LBJ I would have gone LBJ. Obviously would have preferred a different choice but Presidential elections are binary choices – one or the other even if it is the lesser of two evils.
p.a.
@SFAW: Losing dominance= psychic death.
Chyron HR
@Doug R:
Oh shit, it’s a quarry! Doctor Who was right all along!
rikyrah
Josh MarshallVerified account
@joshtpm
Still works 40 hrs a week > A 93-Year Journey From a Former Slave’s Lap to the Electoral College
SFAW
@D58826:
Yeah, you might say that.
D58826
@Doug R: @?BillinGlendaleCA: hope for us yet?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@D58826: If it’s true and not BS, it could be the VP debate is a big deal because it seems like the conservatives thing Pence is going to play Cheny to Trump’s Bush. So if it turns out Bush all the way down…
p.a.
@D58826: Don’t know if it’s true, but CW is Humphrey would have won if he distanced himself from LBJ’s VietNam policy, and Gore would have won if he embraced Clenis heartily. If true, where might we be now?…
? Martin
@chopper:
They are voting against Trump. They just don’t realize that the only way to vote against Trump is to vote for Clinton. They weren’t around in 2000 to learn that lesson.
Doug R
@Chyron HR: NASA page on the new pictures here.
rikyrah
Yeah….
THE SEATTLE SEAHAWKS ARE SOME BITCHES. I’M ACTIVELY ROOTING AGAINST THEM ALL SEASON.
Panama Jackson, 9/17/16
The entire Seattle Seahawks team is a bunch of bitches.
Since Colin Kaepernick’s protest against the anthem became public, several players (and teams) from the amateur ranks all the way to the professional have joined in in hopes of pushing forward a conversation to spearhead change. The protests have seeped into other professional sports and will likely continue to do so for a while to come.
Unfortunately, and despite the point of the protest to shed light on and move the needle on injustice and police brutality, especially towards people of color, lots of people don’t get it. That’s expected. Many, many people, especially smart people, are intentionally obtuse and dense when it comes to the plight of others. Even some of the “others” don’t realize that racism is still a thing. I’m looking at you Lil Wayne. Just because white people come to your shows doesn’t mean racism isn’t a thing, you dolt. And Cam Newton? #girlIguess. Both of y’all are some bitches, too.
But they aren’t bigger bitches than the Seattle Seahawks. Shortly before Week 1 of the NFL season began, Doug Baldwin of the Bitchass Seattle Seahawks let it be known that the entire Seahawks team was going to participate in a team-wide demonstration. In some way, they’d been moved to action, but as opposed to a single man, such as Kaepernick, taking the burden, the entire team was joining the fray.
Could it be that an entire roster of NFL players would stand on the side of injustice anywhere is a threat to justice anywhere? Could it be?
Calouste
@Villago Delenda Est: Sanders also demonstrated, by stonewalling the release of his tax returns and other financial statements, that he says one thing and does the other.
SFAW
@Chyron HR:
Don’t get the “quarry” ref — not enough of a Whovian, I guess — but, if you’re referring to the person, not the show itself, then I think it’s supposed to be “The Doctor.”
Ruckus
Hillary Clinton is not the lesser of 2 evils as that is commonly known. A lesser of 2 evils choice is about both being bad but one is worse. Clinton is not a bad choice. President Obama was not a bad choice. In the case of President Obama he was a basically unknown who could charm the pants off about anyone. Turns out that wasn’t just charm, he is very, very good. Has/does he make all the choices I’d like? Of course not but his choices have been/are pretty damn good in the long run, with a couple of losers, like the education guy or the FBI director. Is Clinton great? We won’t know until she is actually on the job but she carries herself very well. She has good policies, she has a lot of experience in politics and in the WH/senate/SoS office. Will she do everything in the way I’d like to see it get done? No, but then who will/would? She’s not the least worst choice, she is a great choice for president. Now her opposition……..
rikyrah
The video in this tweet is a little too deep for words. When it is said that slavery left no corner of this country untouched….well, this video proves that….over 150 years later.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
You know the other thing. If Trump seriously thinks he’s going to win, then why the stupid Inforcomerical yesterday? That sounds like he fully expects to be running hotels next February.
Chyron HR
@SFAW:
Quarries were used by the speculative fiction series Doctor Who to represent alien landscapes.
Chyron HR
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
He expects to be doing both. They only pay the President $400,000 a year, right?
gwangung
@Ruckus:
This is not the opinion of many white progressives.
Said white progressives have their had up their asses, but it is their opinion.
SFAW
@? Martin:
Oh, stop it. If only Al Gore had run a better campaign, he would have won by 370 EV and 12,000,000 votes. I know this because I read it from some Naderites.
ETA: And if he didn’t get fat later on.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Chyron HR: Then he’s in for quite the shock of his life. The president has almost no free time.
SFAW
@Chyron HR:
OK, thanks. Apologies for not giving you enough credit beforehand.
WarMunchkin
@Redshift:
Which brings us back to start. Younger voters are going for the Democrats in overwhelming numbers. Atrios also made this point a few days ago – there’s no sense in yelling at the youngs (of which I am a member) when we’re doing better than every other demographic in terms of voting for Democrats.
Or, to put it another way, every generation and every cross section of American society (except the rich tax cut beneficiaries) got screwed by Republicans, albeit in different ways. And the response has largely been frustration at the most Democratic age demographic for not being Democratic enough.
? Martin
@SFAW: I’m not passing any judgement on any of that. I’m merely noting that the Electoral College means that any candidate that cannot win an EV is a vote that doesn’t has no impact on the result. That’s just basic logic. Now, if we could get the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact in place, then there’d be at least some point voting for 3rd parties.
The Lodger
@SiubhanDuinne: There was a Beverly Hillbillies episode where Granny Clampett changed the sign on her bank office door from “Vice President” to “Nice President.” Granny wasn’t having anything to do with vice, that’s for sure.
piratedan
to a degree I can understand where moderateindy is coming from…
its like so much in this election and our modern society and media today… every fucking thing is NOW… and the youngsters have no idea on how hard fought those items in the tweet were and what it took to get them. They have no idea on the potential concept of what its like to NOT have safe food, clean water, clean air and something in place to ensure that we have them and if not, to go to and get them fixed.
If the GOP can fuck up the water in Flint, what about YOUR water? If we relax the EPA standards, what’s the recourse for any industry to just dump it and forget it? To burn whatever the fuck they want. Our generation has lived through 3 mile island, Erin Brockovich, superfund sites. Do they really think an unrestrained GOP is going to give a fuck about them? Do they want to fight these battles again? At what fucking cost?
I understand they they think we’re at some fucking status quo where things look shitty, but so many of them have no fucking clue about what its taken to even get us HERE.
TY for the link to the tweet at the TOP, it really does try and help explain why this is so incredibly important. I think of the progress that could have been made if we could have returned a Dem congress in 2010… and it makes me want to fucking scream.
Ruckus
@gwangung:
And they were/are wrong. 100% wrong.
SiubhanDuinne
@The Lodger:
Ha! That’s funny! (I have seen occasional episodes of TBH but am far from an expert on the series.)
But maybe that’s where the writer got the idea in the first place.
Iowa Old Lady
@Ruckus: Thank you.
moderateindy
@Tilda Swinton’s Bald Cap: Pretty much. The olds tend to favor Trump. This will probably come down to turnout, and if younger people don’t turn out we may be in a world of hurt.
SFAW
@? Martin:
Martin, old sod, I was joking.
ETA: Re: Gore, that is.
D58826
@moderateindy: so all you young folks (i.e. less than 70) get out and vote!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
JMG
@moderateindy: Just as close games in any sport make TV ratings go up, the perception of a close election drives turnout up. I believe the largest percentage increase in turnout is still the uptick from 1956 to Kennedy-Nixon.
JordanRules
@rikyrah: Wow. Not even sure what to say yet.
D58826
@piratedan: My nieces can’t imagine a world w/o VCR and PCs. I can’t imagine a world w/o TV and where you listened to the Lone Ranger on radio.
The younger generation always takes for granted the things that the older generation had to fight for.
One example is contraceptives. Access is pretty much taken for granted today but before 1967 it was a different story. An important case in the quest for reproductive rights, Griswold v. Connecticut established a constitutional right to marital privacy involving the use of contraceptives — essentially setting the stage for what would later become the main argument in the landmark case of Roe v. Wade.
Redshift
@WarMunchkin: I’m not yelling at the youngs, I’m just yelling at indy. ;-)
Generally, I agree with you; the youngest generation is the most Democratic since the Depression, the real battle (which is nothing new) is to try to get then to turn out in numbers closer to those of older voters. That makes comments like indy’s especially frustrating and worthy of pushback, but I don’t for a minute believe that indy’s opinions are necessarily a more accurate representation of “all millennials” than anyone else’s.
SiubhanDuinne
@Bonnie:
You and my cousin are almost exact contemporaries (he is September 7, 1945).
My mother was born three years before women had the right to vote in this country.
Doug R
@rikyrah: Didn’t CK also say Hillary should be in jail?
SiubhanDuinne
@D58826:
I just badgered my server at the restaurant into promising to register this week. If he doesn’t, I’ll continue to badger him until he does. I told him that once he is registered, I’m going to badger him about voting. (He’s low-info, but I know he’ll vote for HRC over Trump — assuming I can badger him into actually showing up at the polls.)
No offence to badgers.
Suzanne
@piratedan: I agree with you on all of that, and though I am now heading into old-ass territory, I am young enough to be called a Millenial sometimes (born in 1980). And you know what, sorry, but fuck the old people who bitch about the young. FUCK IT. I just had to have a niiiiiice talk with my student loan servicer. I will never pay this shit off. My douchebag father who took off and never paid a dime in child support or for any of my education has a Facebook page FULL of pro-Trump shit. I take care of my mom, as well as my kids. I am well and truly financially fucked by the Baby Boomers in a wide variety of ways (both personal and systematic) and listening to handwringing from them about the young not voting the right way in large enough numbers is the real joke. We aren’t the “greed is good” generation.
Barry
@SFAW: “Did I miss X-C Opening Day again? SHIT!”
The play-by-play is stupifyingly boring: ‘Matt takes a step, Joe takes a step,…,Matt takes a *second* step,…’
Emma
@Suzanne: Brava!
piratedan
@Suzanne: I hear you Suzanne, its just tough to keep the uphill slog against forces that seemingly are all IGMFY all the time and I can understand the disdain and the feeling that none of it matters, until it does….
Hell, it seems like the only think that can save bigoted white people from themselves are people who aren’t.
Barry
@D58826:
“Four years of the GOP control in Washington will create a political environment where the democrats will win in New York, Philly and San Francisco and not much else.”
@Major Major Major Major: “How do you figure?”
It’s not honestly deniable that (a) the right’s main strategy is voter suppression, (b) the ‘liberal’ MSM is on a good day only slightly opposed and (c) that the Federalist Society judges are 100% on board.
Throw in a 5-4 or 6-3 GOP SCOTUS and every one of the recently overturned voter suppression laws is back in force, plus 100 more. Every GOP-dominated state government will act like the Soviet Union.
Iowa Old Lady
We’re getting crabby. Here’s a video of a service dog being reunited with the soldier he served with.
The Lodger
@SiubhanDuinne: Granny had a lot less tolerance for nonsense than Pence, that’s for sure.
moderateindy
@Redshift: I think that you don’t get that centrist democrats that helped pass NAFTA, draconian crime legislation, and the commodity futures modernization act, along with many other pieces of legislation that have gotten us where were at, are indeed part of the system. And Hillary is the poster child for the dems that are center on most social issues, and center right economically. Servile to Wall Street and corporate interests, and standard bearers of the status quo. The major part of the blame does lie with the Repubs, but dems have plenty of culpability as well.
So the argument that ya try to make to millenials is, sure your screwed now, but if you don’t vote for more of the same, you’ll really be screwed, might fall on deaf ears.
Marc McKenzie
@Mnemosyne: One wonders if these people think the Voting Rights Act and Civil Rights Act were magically wished into existence instead of, y’know, being voted into law by our congressional representatives.
Nice.
Of course, I honestly think that these people would not care if the Voting Rights Act or the Civil Rights Act disappeared, since they never seem to give a shit about the Supreme Court or view it as a “scare tactic”. Hence their flight to Stein or Johnson (and Nader in 2000)–candidates who have said nothing about the SC but have talked plenty about weed legalization and in Stein’s case, about how “both parties are the same, but Hillary is worse!!”.
Because that’s all that matters–purity and not much else.
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
@moderateindy: So Democrats are responsible for all the bad things in this country?
Suzanne
@piratedan: Oh, I agree that it matters. Fuck. I will be out tomorrow canvassing in the ridiculous freakin’ heat. It absolutely matters. I just don’t like the blame. Mr. Suzanne and I both came from families that are middle-class, but on the broke-ass side of middle-class, and while we both had moral support, we did not have much financial support. We have student loans that exceed our mortgage, but we would also be making half what we make now if we hadn’t gotten graduate degrees. And we already have my mom, and when his parents get to that point, we’ll likely be the ones to care for them, too, since my brothers-in-law are still dependent on their parents for living. It’s ridiculous. We fucking busted our asses, got pretty significant scholarships, and we have both worked to climb our respective career ladders as quickly as possible, and yet there is no way out of this hole. We won’t be able to help our kids with college at all. Then hearing that the Baby Boomers, WHO CREATED THIS FUCKING MESS, are now bitter that the young don’t seem thrilled to pull them out in the manner they find acceptable?!?! Absolutely not. No. I am voting for Hillary and I am encouraging everyone I know to do the same, but it’s the white resentment and selfish olds that are propping up Trump. Blame those people.
Matt McIrvin
@germy: Alt-right Nazis and Scott Adams will tell you flat-out that this is what is great about Trump. They see all human interactions in terms of dominance rituals, and Donald Trump as the ultimate alpha.
Marc McKenzie
@moderateindy: So in other words….they’re okay with the country getting fucked in the ass by Trump and over 90 years of progressive achievements getting flushed down the crapper because they want to be pure.
Great.
Sixteen years ago I heard the same shit from the Naderites in regards to Gore. Sad to say that a new generation is okay with making the same mistake, but with even more dire consequences.
Doug R
@moderateindy: So Bernie’s a moderate democrat then?
Marc McKenzie
@Cermet: Good points–but remember, some will dismiss it because, you know, “both parties are the same, but Hillary is worse”.
Don’t believe me? Check out the crap that Ron Chisud pens over at Liberal Values.
moderateindy
@gwangung: That’s right, I don’t love Hillz with all my heart so I must be a troll! Look at the numbers, re: how many people are enthusiastic about voting for Hillary. Pretty pathetic considering it was a poll of people planning on voting for Hillary. Look at her trustworthy numbers among Dems. You are the outlier here not me.
But , but, but.. the mainstream media….. I am in the35-55 demographic, and have not watched the main stream media with any consistency since Bush was elected. Unless Rachel Maddow, and a few others at MSNBC are part of the MSM cabal. What’s more, millenials completely ignore the MSM, and yet their opinions, while slightly more favorable than the rest, are still fairly consistent with the other demographics on the Democratic side of the ledger. So when I hear the people on this site whining about the MSM, all I think is “my how Republican you sound”.
Marc McKenzie
@Iowa Old Lady: John Lewis says our vote is the most powerful non-violent tool at our disposal.
Yep. Because John Lewis had to march in protest to ensure that his right to vote was finally guaranteed–that he could vote freely and fairly without his life being threatened, since he is African-American. And of course he got his head bashed in during the movement.
Contrast that with the privileged purists who think they can toss their votes away because they want to “send a message”. They don’t care about the price many had to pay to ensure the right to vote for everyone; they don’t care about the Supreme Court or Roe v. Wade.
To me, that makes them worse than the Republicans, because they should know better.
Marc McKenzie
@moderateindy: Zzzzzz….
gene108
@moderateindy:
Crime was a really, really big fucking problem in cities, back in the 1990’s. No one fucking new that crime rates would plunge to their lowest levels in over 50 years, for reasons we are still not able to fully explain.
People openly questioned, if large cities could survive. New York, Philadelphia, etc. had all been losing people to the suburbs for decades, as well as losing the jobs that held middle class people there.
The crime bill needs to be revisited but it was an actual response to an actual problem.
Dodd-Frank undoes the problems in the commodity futures modernization act.
Even without the financial crisis, the economic gains of the 1990’s, were being reversed under Bush, Jr. Wage growth fell flat and was slowly declining for average workers, which is one reason people started borrowing so heavily to maintain their standard of living.
Bush, Jr’s economic agenda was centered around two massive tax cuts, the second of which was so unnecessary and controversial it only passed the Senate on Cheney’s tie-breaking vote. Lax DOL regulations, with regards to wage laws, along with an overall lax attitude to worker’s issues, and with the tax cuts helped funnel more wealth to the wealthy than at any time in modern history.
Bush, Jr was a rampaging elephant smashing policies through that favored the rich.
By all accounts Trump will be Godzilla like in his destruction of the bottom 99% economically.
Also, too Democrats got us here by passing Social Security, Medicare, Family Medical Leace Act, Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, Title IX, the minimum wage, overtime laws, background checks for firearm purchases, Dodd-Frank, Obamacare, unemployment insurance, etc.
There maybe some laws you do not like, but the reason America progressed from the Gilded Age is because of Democrats. The reason we have any nice things at all is because of Democrats.
Democrats have done more good than bad over the last 84 years.
Marc McKenzie
@Cermet: Oh it’s easy–they’re going to toss the country over the fence and give it the business with no vaseline. It will be Bush II on steroids. Hell, we may look back on Bush II as being better.
Civil Rights, Abortion rights, the environment, the economy, the infrastructure, education–all down the fucking toilet. The ACA–gone. The Supreme Court–6-3 for another 25+ years. And (nuclear) bombs bursting in air over the Middle East, with Putin getting favored treatment.
Of course, some will cheer because “shit will burn down” and then, the revolution in 2020.
Marc McKenzie
@gene108: Well said, gene.
But I’m afraid that some people will simply not accept this. The “both parties are the same!!” belief is strong in some, no matter how much evidence shows that it is simply not true and that Democrats have done far more good for the country for nearly 90 years.
Ruckus
@Suzanne:
I have said on here lots of times I’m a white geezer and you might think I’d take offense at what you say but I can’t. You are right. The olds have been screwing the youngs for ever politically and this is not new this time around. Well a way too big portion of the olds that is. This is nothing new. I think and hope that it can change. As a few have pointed out the youngs are polling mostly dems or independents. So at least not repubs like a lot of their parents/grandparents. And there is a not insignificant portion of the olds that are voting dem as well. The thing that disappoints me most is that a lot of olds are suffering right along with you. I’m doing OK for an old but either I’ll have to work til I drop or my retirement will not be worth actually doing.
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
@moderateindy: I think you are misguided and somewhat ignorant of politics, but when I read this:
I realized your just completely clueless.
moderateindy
@Major Major Major Major:
Because she had a ridiculous built in advantage in a primary, being the wife of a popular former POTUS, with basically universal name recognition up against 2 virtual unknowns. One a freshman Senator who’s only real national exposure was a speech he gave at a convention, and a Senator from a small state that wasn’t even a party member. She lost to the first, and barely beat the “socialist”.
You want proof that she’s not a good candidate? She’s tied with the most repugnant human being I can ever remember running for POTUS. By the way that includes people like Pat Buchanan, and Robertson.
nutella
@D58826:
And all of that could be gone within a year if any Republican chooses Supreme Court justices.
gwangung
@moderateindy:
Demonstably untrue, and lacks historical context (ie., shallow and dumb).
Geddoudda here!
gwangung
@moderateindy:
Take the next step; correlate that historically with subsequent voting behavior and resulting wins (making sure you’re working with a decently sampled survey).
By the way, I think you’re a troll because you seize on shallow points like
without understanding that these are initial advantages that don’t play as well in later stages of a campaign.
And you’ll never do the homework that shows a greater understanding of how electorates and campaigns work.
Suzanne
@Ruckus: Yeah, it is certainly not universal. Of course, #notallbabyboomers. But people my age and younger are facing some pretty significant structural barriers to even equaling the Baby Boomers in quality of life and prosperity, and it wasn’t us that voted for this shit. And we’re not voting for it now. I am a big believer in remembering who the real enemy is. Trump’s supporters, who are overwhelmingly white, many are uneducated, and almost all are resentful—and they are the ones that need to be marginalized and defeated. We need to reduce their numbers or at least make their votes irrelevant by outnumbering them.
Turgidson
@Iowa Old Lady:
I think Pence wants to at least make sure he wins his practice debates, so he went out and found a sack of hammers even dumber than he is.
Kaine seems like he might be too much of a softie/nice guy to really put the screws to Pence, but I’ve read that he did well in debates in his Virginia campaigns, so hopefully he’ll be ready.
Chyron HR
@moderateindy:
Then why isn’t she the one posting on websites as a self-proclaimed “moderate”?
Mr Stagger Lee
@Hillary Rettig: I remember when JoePa was fired, the image of two guys kneeling in prayer. On Netflix there is a documentary called Happy Valley about Penn State and the aftermath of the scandal.
SFAW
@moderateindy:
You’re all over the place. You’re mixing millennial-focused something-or-other with MSM with I’m-not-sure-what. So let’s see if we can try apples and apples
You talked about the millennials seeing Hillary as part of the centrist-Democrat problem, which apparently is almost as bad (like, within an Angstrom or something) as being a Republican, because NAFTA, etc. Ignoring, of course, that the Dems have controlled both houses of Congress for eight years out of the last 25, and that even when they had control of the Senate during Obama’s first term, they only had a filibuster-proof Senate for a few months. Out of which, we got Obamacare. When the Rethugs controlled Congress — BEFORE their recent “Let’s destroy the workings of Government” binge — politics involved compromise. That results in bills less liberal than a lot of us would like. Sucks, but that’s how it goes. If the millennials have a problem with the lack of progress, 80 percent (my pull-it-out-of-my-ass estimate) of the blame falls on the Rethugs. But it’s the Dems not being liberal enough that’s the problem? Right.
Re: the MSM: yes, we olds realize that all you youngsters get your news from all the various social media, from Jon Stewart (figuratively speaking), and so forth. But there is still a significant portion of the electorate that gets its news (and opinions, and being told how to think) from the MSM. You said you “have not watched the main stream media with any consistency since Bush was elected,” and yet you’re opining on the problems with the no-longer-liberal MSM that many of us have been describing and cataloging. A number of us have witnessed the “working the refs” done by the Rethugs over the last 35 or 40 years (or more). We have not seen things improve. And given that, until yesterday, much of the MSM has let Trump’s multitudinous lies go unanswered, and that most people probably don’t know what a corrupt, lying fraud Trump is — they think “successful businessman, he must be smart!” — and the MSM doesn’t disabuse them of that belief, then yes, the MSM is a big problem.
Trump is a lying, corrupt, fake “success,” with a history of stiffing his contractors, with a string of bankruptcies, with the temperament of a 12-year-old bully — but it’s Hillary that’s the problem, because the economy isn’t as good as we need it to be, and why didn’t the Dems do more?
So, please forgive me if I am unpersuaded by your “arguments.”
opiejeanne
@Corner Stone: Thank you.
opiejeanne
@Amir Khalid: Not him. He is pro-HIllary and his current show was used as a fund-raiser one night.
SFAW
@moderateindy:
You really have little, if any, idea of what you’re talking about. Hillary had a built-in advantage? Right. Two years ago, Hillary’s favorability numbers were approximately the reverse of where they are now. Then the Rethugs started throwing any bullshit they could at her, because they knew she’d be running. In addition, the right wing — and even the allegedly-liberal NY Times — have been going after her to varying degrees since 1993.
Hillary is not as liberal as I’d like, but she’s a gazillion times better than Trump. And if the only reason you or your cohort are not voting for her is because “she’s not liberal enough,” or she’s a “corporate Dem,” or who-knows-what other “she ain’t pure enough, but Bernie was,” then you might consider that y’all are not looking at this rationally. Reminds me of Trelane at the end.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Suzanne: As I pointed out in an earlier comment, Boomers were the only age group that didn’t vote for Reagan in 1980.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@moderateindy: You don’t need to “fall in love” with a candidate. You’re hiring someone to do a job, not marry.
Ruckus
@Suzanne:
Agreed 100%
Bonnie
@moderateindy: @SiubhanDuinne: My birthday was September 9. Interesting. I think there will be a large turnout of women this election; and, that will be all she wrote for Trump.
D58826
@Suzanne: As a boomer, I agree pretty much with what you are saying. My early 30’s nieces have much less to show for their efforts at this stage in life than I did. I think the issue isn’t that the complaints are not legitimate but what are you going to do about it. Based on a later comment your out push for Hillary. She may not be perfect but she is far and away better than the other three. It’s about folks who say I don’t like my choices and then stay home or vote a 3rd party candidate who has no chance of winning but can tip the results between the two major party candidates. They then spend the next four years complaining that the politicians don’t listened.
There is a lot of griping about the two party system and how we need to open it up to more parties. Fine, rewrite the Constitution and replace the Federal system with a parliamentary system. The founders didn’t intend there to be political parties but human nature is tribal and they grew up very quickly. Funny how over 230+ there are still only two major parties. Maybe it has something to do with the way the constitution has set up the government? Or maybe its just that corrupt Debbie Wasserman Schultz putting her thumb on the scale for Hillary (snark)
Ruckus
@Bonnie:
I hope so. Although I do know women who distrust Clinton, because while they don’t get anything but hate from Trump, they refuse to look for anything else from Clinton. The media/conservative bullshit worked. Let’s hope not well enough.
moderateindy
@gwangung:
I’m sorry but what the hell does that have to do with the point I was making about the fact that people like you who are over the top for Hillary are in the minority even among the people that plan on voting for her?
As far as your garbage about how name recognition like Hillary had doesn’t mean anything once the campaign gets later in the cycle is moronic, since it pre-supposes that people don’t solidify who they favor until theyv’e heard all the info, which is patently untrue. That is why it is called a built in advantage dufus. Ask GW Bush if he thinks having the last name Bush mattered or not.
tybee
@Doug R:
rugged place
moderateindy
@JMG:
This is a big part of what Clinton supporters don’t get. They justify, ignore, and dismiss her shortcomings, and fail to recognize what is often at the core of her problems with many voters, even those that plan on voting for her. Even something as innocuous as not revealing being ill, by itself is nothing. But it didn’t happen in a vacuum. It’s all part of a pattern which then becomes a narrative that Clinton does things that are needlessly secretive, or sketchy ethically, and that is why her trustworthiness levels are so bad.
Also, regarding the private e-mail server, and the deleted e-mails. People seem to have a very short memory about how much outrage there was on the blogs, and rightly so, when The Bushies deleted, or “lost” a bunch of e-mails, or when the Repubs were using private RNC servers for gov’t biz (not quite the same thing on the server thing, but still).
Ask yourself, what was the purpose of setting up her own? Why not use the governments, and follow all the rules regarding government record keeping? There is no reasonable explanation, and no, being more convenient is not a reason, it is an excuse. And a poor one at that. You might as well come out, and say you’re lazy.
Ruckus
@moderateindy:
You are a fucking idiot. You try to make point after point, but you use republican talking points and all that does is make you lame and ignorant. I’d say grow up but that looks impossible. So go away little boy.
martian
@rikyrah:
I wish the family involved could be talked into giving that to a museum. People need to know. And it shouldn’t be kept, they have no moral right to it, it’s like the children of a murderer keeping his murder weapons for the sentimental family history. Vile. If the family can’t do right, I hope the people refinishing the chair can at least free those remains to be respectfully disposed of. What a horror.
J R in WV
@Kay:
But, what do you think that little flesh-colored transparent doo-hickey in his ear is for?
He’s being paid (at least partly – maybe mostly) for the ability to listen to the voice in one ear telling him what to do next, while listening to the voice in his other ear telling the answers he asked for.
The voice in his ear that no one else can hear, that’s his boss telling him to “Ask her to hurry up, so she can’t answer your question…!!”
Then they can pound her or not answering the questions they asked and didn’t give her time to answer.
SFAW
@moderateindy:
E-mail servers: you are abso-fucking-lutely spot on. Why, I can recall months — no, make that years — of Congressional investigations of Bush and Cheney regarding the millions of deleted e-mails. It’s a good thing Bush had a sympathetic Senate, and they did not vote to convict him after being impeached by the House.
I was holding off on the idea of you actually being a troll, but your bullshit arguments, followed by your bullshit responses to pushback, coupled with your ever-changing “this is why Hillary doesn’t deserve MY precious vote” rationales, means I was being naive.
SFAW
@J R in WV:
no No NO! It was Hitlary who had the earpiece! Didn’t you get the Reinhard von Priebus memo?
Applejinx
@moderateindy:
No no. HAS BEEN. Not ‘is’. That’s what I’m saying, and the only hope we’ve really got.
Yes, she WAS that but she doesn’t have to be and that’s not how she’s campaigning now. You think she wouldn’t be campaigning for the TPP and ‘get American in business again!’ if she thought that would work? She’s made some drastic course corrections just to by god NOT lose this time.
They are good course corrections. They will work. She does not have to be this poster child you speak of.
Pisses me off quite a bit when people cop a big attitude just because Hillary has learned a LOT during this campaign, and they don’t want to admit it. Some of you guys are Hillary’s worst enemy as she tries to reinvent herself for the rapidly changing times.
She’s way, way better than some of you posters. (thank goodness)
Applejinx
@gene108:
But what have you done for them within their or their parents’ lifetimes? o_O
Ruckus
@Applejinx:
How about the last 8 yrs?
pea
one of the greatest misconceptions in the world is that “baby boomers” were all pot smoking, woodstock attending, anti- war hippies who reneged on their ideals and buckled to the system.
the majority of “baby boomers” were exactly like their parents – got jobs, got married, had babies, and, like tom brokaw, pretended to be “hippies” on weekends…
Sondra
Thank you for that one paragraph of brilliance to get out the vote.