CNN/ORC poll: President Obama's approval rating of 55% now outpaces Ronald Reagan's 51% at this time in 1988 https://t.co/KeVfZdmRFQ pic.twitter.com/vHQyzXG82k
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) October 28, 2016
.@POTUS approval rating: 55%.
54% say things in the country are going well — CNN/ORC. https://t.co/OPosBVuUAa
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) October 27, 2016
Politico finds itself agog:
In what’s supposed to be an anti-establishment year, Barack Obama is feeling like the man.
The White House is mapping out the final two weeks until Election Day to take advantage of a president who all of a sudden everyone wants to see more of. Not only will he be out on the trail almost every day of the final week, but he’ll also be targeting millennials on late-night shows, online outlets and radio; taping more robo-calls and radio ads for the down-ballot candidates he’s prioritized; and hitting Donald Trump. He’ll also be making the positive case for Hillary Clinton and the rest of the Democrats…
Obama is having a really, really, really good time, loving the love, loving all the people now knocking on the White House doors appealing for his help — and he wants everyone to know it.
“You’re still fired up,” Obama said, as he entered to cheers in the backyard of one of his early donors Monday morning in La Jolla, California, looking out at the Pacific Ocean in front of him.
The polls help: He’s supercompetitive, and there’s nothing he likes more than winning. Except, maybe, a crowd going wild cheering for him. Or making fun of Trump. Or sticking it to the Republicans who did everything they could to attack him the past eight years, only to produce this campaign. Or most of all: watching all the things people said would sink his presidency — from Obamacare to the Iran nuclear deal and everything in between — looking like they’re all about to be cemented with Clinton being elected president.
Aides are bubbling. Longtime supporters feel like they’re finally getting the president they thought they elected eight years ago, cutting down and through his opponents, proudly talking about liberal policy and neither apologizing for it nor getting into the pragmatic talk about compromising.
Now he’s looking to drive it home…
Asked whether Obama feels vindicated, Earnest — who’s been with Obama since he was campaigning in Iowa in 2007 — suppressed a smile.
“He feels good that the argument he is making to the country is resonating not just deeply in the Democratic base, but all across the country. That’s a very satisfying thing,” Earnest said. “The president is pleased about the current trajectory of the race.”…
***********
With that cheery thought in mind, what’s on the agenda as we wrap up the week?
NobodySpecial
Getting semi-ready for my first NaNoWriMo, which means getting ready to type a few thousand loosely connected words badly.
craigie
I am very happy about all of this. However, it’s a fucked up world where 55% is considered a slam dunk.
amk
@craigie: In a country where the rabid dog (R) gets the 45% of the votes, this is the best one could hope for.
shecky
I wonder if this approval is the result of the no-fucks-left-to-give lame duck Obama, free to “speak his mind”? Because I see him doing a lot more of that lately. Though if it is, it’s curious that would make him so popular. “Speaking his mind” is a theme that seemed to make Trump such a stand out, according to so many of the early adopters. Could it be that people like their politicians to be a bit asshole, willing to kick up some dirt the faces of their enemies? Maybe that counts for more than being an “outsider”?
amk
@shecky:
Obama speaking his mind is actually telling it like it is, while the carnival barker speaking his mind is a total word salad of bs, lies and racist invective. Nice false equivalence though.
aimai
People don’t mean that they like Trump for “speakign his mind.” They mean they like him for speaking their mind. They’ve always said they like Trump because he “tells it like it is” and he doesn’t allow “political correctness” to keep him down. Well–people like Obama right now for some of the same reasons. HE’s not just popular across the board with republicans–that 55 percent is a firmed up liberal base, as well, that loves it when the President speaks their mind. Loves it when the President doesn’t take a verbal beat down from his/our enemies when he could shiv them instead. When Obama doesn’t take their shit, his voters remember that they don’t have to take their shit.
Hal
I posted this yesterday but ended up in moderation.
Still makes me chuckle
Dog Dawg Damn
I really do hope after it loses, the Great Orange Menace comes out to a large rally and makes an absolute fool of himself.
Calls the country stupid. Rails against Paul Ryan and the Republican back-stabbers. The immigrants who voted illegally. The black who never game him a chance. And, of course, the ultimate meltdown–blaming the Jews.
I want the whole world to see what their party stands for, and no wiggling out of the disaster that women, minorities, PoC, gays, and college educated whites are saving them from. They should be saying THANK YOU to everyone else on November 9th, but of course, they won’t.
Mustang Bobby
@NobodySpecial: Coincidentally, I will finish a novel I started a few years ago and picked up this summer. Trying to keep it under 55,000 words.
rikyrah
Good Morning?,Everyone?
Mustang Bobby
The Trumpistas keep talking about having a “revolution” when Hillary Clinton wins, but they want someone else to do it; the most standing up they’ve done is to get the bag of Cheetos off the top shelf.
I think the real revolution that’s coming is when all these fervent Trump followers figure out that they got conned. Not just out of the money they’ve been sending into Trump Inc. but conned into believing that Donald Trump is actually on their side and cares about their problems. And when it finally dawns on them that they got suckered in hook, line, and sinker, it’s not Hillary Clinton they’re going to go after, assuming they can get off the couch.
Citizen Scientist
@rikyrah: Good Morning!
On my way to Minneapolis for a working weekend this morning. I LOVE security theater! Hope everyone else has a great day!
David ?▶️Bad Hombres▶️? Koch
I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken
I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children
Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley
I met another man who was wounded in hatred
And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard… and it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.
Gonna be a hard rain on November 8th — Romney election nite shock & awe 2.0
Betty Cracker
Back in 2007, PBO said his goal was to be as transformative a president for the Democrats as Reagan was for the Republicans. At the time, that remark made many a PUMA hit the fainting couch and bleat about Obama praising Reagan, but that missed the point entirely: Reagan was a shitty but consequential president. He set the pendulum in motion toward the right. Obama has been a great and consequential president because he stopped the rightward motion and started the pendulum swinging the other way. It’s up to us to keep it headed in the right (left!) direction.
Baud
@shecky: Some of it is the fact that he’s about to ride off into the sunset. Forces people to appreciate what they had.
germy
David ?▶️Bad Hombres▶️? Koch
White People Mourning Romney
Page 14 (photos)
Page 15 (photos)
Billo (photo)
Jeffro
PBO’s the gold standard for the foreseeable future…calm, cool, collected, not playing the win-the-news-cycle game…heck, Dems will have a built in advantage, candidate-quality-wise, just with the simple expectation that future D candidates will need to come as close as possible to his example.
(Well, until we all start to forget, anyway…we’re Americans after all. Let’s say the gold standard until 2024.)
On a less snarky note, I’m excited (generally) that he gets to be NFLTG Obama for the next 30-40 years, and excited (specifically) about his focus on voting rights issues. HUGE unaddressed needs there.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
Something cool.
Jeffro
@Mustang Bobby:
It might be coming quicker than we think…Trump TV’s launch is just a couple short weeks away, and yet, another rabid-R media outlet doesn’t seem to be what those folks want (especially if they have to pay for it).
It will be kind of funny watching Cruz try to be the smarter, strategic, not-racist, and yet still inflammatory New Donald. I have a feeling no one’s willing to pay much for that either.
Anyway, I didn’t hear anything back from the Rs I sent yesterday’s Bloomberg article to, that’s for sure. No crowing about voter suppression, nothing about Bannon being a great strategist, nothing about next steps. I think knowing how well they’ve been micro-targeted, and possibly the beginnings of knowing that things just aren’t that bad here in the good ol’ USA, might have a few of them wondering about what it is they’re supporting. Just a few but it’s a start.
John S.
Some people don’t like Trump, but will still vote for him because of really stupid ideas they convince themselves are smart. Behold this gem I pulled off Facebook yesterday:
Seriously, that is some weapons-grade derp.
David ?▶️Bad Hombres▶️? Koch
@Betty Cracker:
(cover photo #1)
(cover photo #2)
(cover photo #3)
H.K. Anders
@craigie: In an electorate this polarized, 55% is a slam dunk. That’s a great number.
kd bart
@David Bad Hombres Koch: “How could Nixon have won. No one I know voted for him.”
Betty Cracker
@David ?▶️Bad Hombres▶️? Koch: My daughter and I were watching MSNBC to see the returns come in on election night 2012. She suggested we switch to Fox to take in the schadenfreude, and that’s how we got to see Karl Rove’s meltdown on live TV. It was glorious.
Baud
@Betty Cracker: Thankfully (or not), this year the outcome will not be a surprise for anyone in the media.
Rabid Trump supporters are another matter.
NorthLeft12
I would like to be able to say to President Obama, “Lean back, relax, you deserve this.”, but unfortunately his legacy is at stake here.
So instead I’ll say, “Please proceed, Mr. President.”
Betty Cracker
@NorthLeft12: I think he’s enjoying every minute of it! :)
Another Scott
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: Nice. I like that the last rung is “Presidency” – it is a big step.
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
NorthLeft12
@craigie: I think you have to remember that 27% are so rabidly insane against anything connected to the Dems, and another 15% cannot make up their minds about anything political, that 54% looks a lot better.
hueyplong
The whole Trump experience is proof that, so long as they’re getting their “facts” from Fox News, Breitbart, and their elected officials, right wingers never find out they’ve been conned. Instead, they find out that yet another election has been stolen by the takers.
It’s creepy, the extent to which people I encounter think that the court-imposed lack of a photo ID requirement in NC this year is the end of the world.
They either win or they are jobbed. That mindset allows the con to continue indefinitely.
NorthLeft12
I am looking forward to the upcoming Republican great gathering to analyze how everything went wrong…..again. I’m wondering which of those boobs will be first to say, “Hey, didn’t we do this back in 2012?”
Then they will look at those conclusions and recommendations, realize they doubled down on all the wrong things, and did nothing to change to attract new voters, and go back and double down again. It’s all they really know.
Chet
@Betty Cracker: Right on. I’m all on board for the Obama-as-Democratic-Reagan mass-naming project and canonization movement.
Matt McIrvin
@Mustang Bobby:
They’ll go after their wives and girlfriends and children. There’s going to be a lot of domestic abuse and minor violence that doesn’t register as political. Some family annihilations.
NorthLeft12
@hueyplong:
I like to quote Mark Twain on these occasions; “It is easier to fool a man, than to convince him he has been fooled.”
Chet
@David ?▶️Bad Hombres▶️? Koch: they have their math; we have THE math.
Baud
Caught Joe before clicking and they are saying Biden is being considered for State.
OzarkHillbilly
I love it. Denial is not just a river in Egypt, or a character trait of Republicans, it also infects some of the finest scientific minds of the ESA:
Only a blind man could not see the win. They win. They just win all the time. With these guys, you will win so much you will get sick of winning.
Tokyokie
@hueyplong: Like Bullwinkle trying to pull the rabbit out of his hat. “This time for sure!” About as smart, but not nearly as lovable.
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pc4IFIXcDcs
craigie
I wonder where else the 27% rule holds. Do 27% of the people think the earth is flat, for example? Can I get 27% to sign up for a belief in unicorns?
How deep does this go!?
Keith G
We are very lucky to have two apex political leaders on the stage at the same time. I mean really, think of it. Can anyone cite another handoff from one president to the other under the conditions where both are successful, top of the list politicians from the same united party? Both have weaknesses to be sure, but both are fiercely smart and have other-worldly drive and resilience.
Hal
Why on earth does Chris Hayes insist on having AJ Delgado on his show? I tuned in last night and she was unhinged and ridiculous. Why aren’t we talking about real issues?! Something about a sick woman and struggling blah blah, and at one point screamed that’s not true! When talking about racists supporting Trump. I’m shocked she’s a Harvard Law graduate.
amk
@NorthLeft12: the congress and the senate are a boon and a bane at the same time for the gopee.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud:
I think there are a few people who are trying desperately to convince themselves that Trump has a chance. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Morning Joe do the Karl Rove thing.
But the Senate, man. Nobody knows what’s going to happen with the Senate. Sam Wang is starting to act like his hair is on fire about it.
I’m more and more convinced that if the Republicans keep the Senate, they are going to at least attempt to block 100% of nominations. Executive, judicial. The emphasis will be that Hillary is an illegitimate President who has to be prevented from governing, and the process of government has to be broken utterly if she’s in place.
bemused
@David ?▶️Bad Hombres▶️? Koch:
After scrolling through the photos of white people mourning Mitt, it hit me how neatly dressed, groomed and pretty normal most of them looked. I can’t help but hope there is a white people/men mourning Trump site after Nov 8. Yes, I am shallow for thinking it will be a sea of angry, out of shape white guys wearing disgusting anti-Hillary t-shirts and other bizarre getups with grotesque snarls on their faces.
amk
@Hal:
You mean this ‘what was the context? I gotta be fair balanced here’, chris fucking hayes?
Matt McIrvin
@OzarkHillbilly: To be fair to them, Schiaparelli was not really a science mission; it was a technology demonstrator for the landing apparatus for their ExoMars rover. If they learn something that saves ExoMars (or learn that they need to go back to the drawing board completely), that’s real value.
Jeffro
@kd bart:
Dems may really have to drill down and work on educational materials for the public, specifically, the definition of ‘availability bias’
MomSense
@bemused:
It’s going to be a mash of white people mourning Trump and people who shop at Walmart with moar militia.
Jeffro
@Matt McIrvin:
Given the degree to which they’ve slimed her for over 3 decades, they almost have no choice – their base will eat them alive if they work with HRC on anything, much less (gasp) confirm any of her judges.
NorthLeft12
@amk: Yes, as long as those maroons keep getting elected, they will just look around and go, “No problem here!”
Cermet
Goona miss, Dad …(he is Dad to all of us); very glad people are waking up to how lucky we all have been. Damn unhappy this is the only office that has a term limit.
Soylent Green
@Mustang Bobby:
They all have Agent Mulder’s “I Want to Believe” poster on the wall. When they lose, most will go right on swimming laps across their social media cesspool. Many will blame Trump for not being sufficiently vile. (“He shoulda taken the gloves off…)
The Malheur verdict has schooled me on how many of my fellow Americans have lost their minds.
Iowa Old Lady
@David ?▶️Bad Hombres▶️? Koch: We were out to dinner last night and at the next table were two, white, forty-something couples opining that Trump was going to win the election because all these unexpected and unpolled voters were going to come out and vote for him. They looked sane and capable of holding jobs and everything. It’s just stunning.
Jeffro
I wonder just how bad
1) post-election revelations about Trump (personally, his for-profit campaign, and ties to Russia)
2) the GOP infighting over ‘where to go from here’, aka Autopsy 2016
3) the Trump vs RNC fighting over voter info/lists
are going to be.
I keep forgetting just how much bad karma all of the above players have earned for what they’ve put America through this cycle. Good times!
Cermet
@OzarkHillbilly: Remember, the primary probe is in orbit; the probe that crashed was a side issue and even if it landed and functioned, its batteries would have lasted only a few days. The landing probe was just a minor side experiment that had little to do with the mission. The orbiting probe, which is 95% of the mission, is working perfectly.
Jeffro
@Iowa Old Lady:
Oh good, more Gen Xer wisdom and love of country…sigh…
Baud
@Jeffro: She will break them.
NorthLeft12
@Jeffro: Unfortunately, I agree with what you are predicting……unless they are booted out in this election. I heard some Trump defenders rationalizing their support for Deadbeat Donald by saying they felt the last eight years were extremely divisive and painful, and that they thought it would be even worse with Hillary Clinton. I know how horrible and stupid that sounds, but it is a continuation of the GOP tradition of blaming the victim. Sad.
Baud
@NorthLeft12: Lincoln was divisive.
Jeffro
@Baud:
Hillary Drago Clinton? I like it!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Matt McIrvin:
I’m convinced if they do that, many will become former Senators.
Another Scott
@Baud: I don’t think it will be Smilin’ Joe .
The US political press is so incestuous it’s just an echo chamber (to mix a few metaphors). Whoever figured out the secret sauce to make Politico the “gold standard” of insidery political news would be worthy of Mt. Rushmore if they could apply it to things that really matter…
Cheers,
Scott.
Another Scott
@Another Scott: Moderation? Really??
(sigh)
Cheers,
Scott.
Mustang Bobby
@Iowa Old Lady: I remember the same scenario years ago, but in that case it was Goldwater. (I was 12). My parents’ friends were absolutely stunned that he lost, and one said, “No, the winner was Lee Harvey Oswald,”
David ?▶️Bad Hombres▶️? Koch
@Iowa Old Lady: you would think they would remember February’s iowa caucus.
the polling average had Trump winning by 4.7%. But because he had no ground game he lost by 3.3% – an 8 pt turnaround.
amk
@Baud: Fuck
LBJLincoln ?Another Scott
@Baud: As I said in my moderated comment, I don’t think it will be Smilin’ Joe.
Cheers,
Scott.
hueyplong
I see another Utah Republican has announced he’ll vote for Trump. Between that and Pence’s visit in the last 2 weeks of the campaign, its pretty easy to draw the conclusion that internal polling is telling Utah GOPers that McMullen is poised to prevail in that state.
I had hoped for a world in which Clinton took 36% and we sat back to hope that the split of the remaining 64% was even enough to give her the state, but it looks like she can’t get there.
So all we’ve got is the Schadenfreude of watching the execrable Chaffetz sow salt on his moral high ground before taking on the role of Grand Inquisitor next January.
Baud
@David ?▶️Bad Hombres▶️? Koch: Man, what I wouldn’t give for that to repeat itself on Nov 8.
amk
@David ?▶️Bad Hombres▶️? Koch: And then he said, ‘how stupid is Iowa?’ and they are bent on proving how, come nov.
OzarkHillbilly
@Matt McIrvin:
To be fair to them, It was “a technology demonstrator for the landing apparatus for their ExoMars rover” that in addition to a successful landing was supposed to do science. Instead, they have a black smear and a crater on the surface of Mars.
Let us see if they can learn to say, “We fucked up.” If they can’t learn even that, what are the chances of them learning what happened? And what incentive will people have to pony up the 300 million Euros they need for the ExoMars rover mission if they can’t do that? The ESA seems to be developing a habit of dumping space explorers on the surface of Mars.
And yes, I know that last IS an unfair shot at ESA. There is a long history of failed missions to Mars by NASA too. But that is not what I am pointing at and laughing at. Imagine the looks on all the faces in Mission Control when the lander went silent. How many broadly smiling faces do you see? Cheers echoing off the walls? High fives being traded? What I am making fun of is the weak, obvious attempt at putting a happy face on what is anything but a success.
Matt McIrvin
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Not many people really care about this stuff. They don’t even know that Congress makes laws, let alone confirms nominations. Look at midterm turnout–most Democrats believe that if a Democratic President is in, everything’s basically all right. Any chaos that happens in the Clinton administration as a result of that obstruction will be blamed on Hillary, and mostly hurt her chances for reelection in 2020.
The Senate map is very favorable to Republicans for 2018, and midterms usually go against the party with the White House absent extraordinary circumstances, so Republicans probably figure correctly that if they have a Senate majority after November, they can basically do anything they want there and still keep the Senate. People will vote by party, and Republican voters undoubtedly want their Senators to go with maximum obstruction. I think there would be close to zero effect on their prospects.
SiubhanDuinne
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
Isn’t that great? I saw it on Digby a few days ago and saved it to my photo library so I can use it as my FB profile on November 9.
Such prescience, almost a century ago.
Matt McIrvin
@hueyplong: Hillary should pull completely out of Utah at this point. She’s the spoiler there; she’s helping Trump by campaigning in the state.
Chyron HR
@Cermet:
Also, too, the probe didn’t crash, it’s just chilling out farming potatoes and listening to disco music.
Peale
@John S.: ah. So that was why Bush appointed all those young, conservative judges. He was a Tao master just trying to restore balance.
hueyplong
@Matt McIrvin:
I think the Clinton campaign was trying to draw to an inside straight in Utah. Now that we’re seeing some polls showing the standard “voters coming home” tightening of the races in some swing states, they’ll probably reallocate as you suggest.
Put in house-of-games-of-chance terminology, I think Utah was just a temporary “playing with house money” thing.
Kay
Just don’t freak out. It was 100% predictable that self-identified R’s would go toward Trump. The whole 3rd party thing was their usual bullshit fake-principled stand. Except Utah. They’re principled :)
Another Scott
@OzarkHillbilly: There’s a difference between the scientists and engineers working to figure out what happened so that it doesn’t happen again, and the management and press people putting the best spin possible on the reporting. Yeah, it looks bad that they’re apparently trying it spin it as a great success, but it doesn’t mean that when they try again they won’t have learned the correct lessons.
Even if it’s something as stupid as – “Whoops! Decimal place in the wrong place! We meant 30s and typed 3s!!” – they’ll get it figured out and that particular error won’t happen again.
NASA had similar problems with the Mars Climate Orbiter:
Details matter, and there are lots and lots of details in something as complex as landing on another planet…
Cheers,
Scott.
debbie
@Baud:
Or regret they didn’t make better use of that time.
debbie
@germy:
Barbara Corcoran the realtor?
Baud
@debbie: This. Squandered.
David ?▶️Bad Hombres▶️? Koch
satby
Good morning!
A really good one for students of defunct for-profit schools!
Baud
@Kay: Chris Hayes thinks +4 is where the race has always been at.
Saddened that Trump will get above 40%.
OzarkHillbilly
@Cermet: Repeat after me: The probe crashed. That is not a success. The probe crashed. That is not a success. The probe crashed. That is not a success. The probe crashed. That is not a success. The probe crashed. That is not a success. The probe crashed. That is not a success. The probe crashed. That is not a success. The probe crashed. That is not a success. The probe crashed. That is not a success. The probe crashed. That is not a success. The probe crashed. That is not a success. The probe crashed. That is not a success. The probe crashed. That is not a success. The probe crashed. That is not a success. The probe crashed. That is not a success. The probe crashed. That is not a success.
The next time I go the grocery store, get all the groceries we need for the week, and wreck my truck in the driveway, I’ll just tell my wife, “See all the groceries? Mission accomplished!”
Baud
@David ?▶️Bad Hombres▶️? Koch: Nice.
TS
@Baud: I don’t think he would take it – being away so often – family situation
SiubhanDuinne
@Matt McIrvin:
Possibly also an uptick in “road rage” incidents. If you’re already feeling aggrieved, if it seems that the entire universe is conspiring against you, if you believe everything is completely unfair — then your last straw might well be the driver immediately in front of you who declined to turn left against an amber light.
amk
@Kay: And the deadbeat’s fav poll IBD has her at +3. So, it’s a wash and the congress will elect that utah guy as prezzie. Problem solved.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: This is random noise. Hillary’s national lead in poll aggregates has been 6 or 7 points and nearly flat for weeks.
Kay
@satby:
John McCain takes tons of donations from for-profits, which I did not know. They want people with pull on military because they target veterans.
It’s just gross.
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
Oh, I’m fine. I knew self-identified Republicans would vote for him.
I overheard an older couple talking about the election. The man said “you saw the video- she has health problems if she can’t walk” – the woman said “grow up”. I had to suppress a guffaw.
amk
@OzarkHillbilly: Jeez. All the other stuff prior to that is just bs? You should read about Edison.
Peale
@OzarkHillbilly: This isn’t rocket science, people. It’s how you feel about the probe that matters. That lander had the right tone. You just had to spend 3 seconds with it to understand its charisma. Feel the afterburn people.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: I think that when people gush about these double-digit outlier leads they’re setting themselves up for a freakout when they see the number regress to the mean, as it does.
satby
@Kay: just another reason to hate McCain. The vile Virginia Fox of NC also gets large donations from the for-profit colleges.
NotMax
@SiubhanDuinne
Nah, those described wouldn’t be caught dead turning left.
;)
Hal
@Kay: Wasn’t that poll way over everyone else’s in terms of Clinton’s lead? I didn’t believe it when it was released, so this isn’t surprising.
Baud
@Kay:
Says a guy who’s probably on Viagra.
Another Scott
@Matt McIrvin: I think it’s really, really hard to predict what’s going to happen in DC in the next two years. The GOP had their knives out for Hillary for decades, but they didn’t really cause that much trouble for her during her SoS confirmation hearing or while she was SoS – until it became clear that they could beat up on Obama through her (Benghazi!!11). It’s not automatic that they’ll block everything (though of course they might).
A lot depends on whether the Senate is 50:50 or 51:49. A lot depends on whether there are any GOP Senators who are tired of the insanity and can be persuaded to switch parties. (You know that the GOP will try to flip D Senators – it happened in VA couple of years ago and sealed the fate of Medicaid expansion here.)
There’s still no budget. There’s still a 4:4 SCOTUS. There’s still still a whole host of domestic and foreign issues that need to be addressed. Hillary will be doing her best to put the GOP on the defensive and may have a stronger hand to play than Obama did. If we can keep up the voter registration and GOTV efforts beyond November (VA has state elections in 2017), we can strengthen her hand and keep the GOP on the defensive in 2018.
But I’d really like us to do what we can now to make sure she has the strongest hand possible. I’d like to think that having 200M registered voters is a game-changer for Team D and throws a monkey wrench in the polling margins, but we’ll have to see.
Cheers,
Scott.
OzarkHillbilly
@Another Scott:
Hence my stating of the obvious:
Baud
@Another Scott: Remember when the media freaked out because the Dems didn’t have a budget.
Peale
@Kay: yep. I’m glad she didn’t spend too much time “pivoting” to try to capture republican voters. She sowed dissension with her “good vs bad republican” speech, but didn’t follow that up with any policy announcements that might get their votes. She seems to be more interested in Democratic voters than republican ones. Because unlike 1992, there are enough of those to win.
FlipYrWhig
@John S.:
And I’m sure he’d be making the same argument if it had been Ginsburg that died. “It has to be a liberal — for balance!”
Another Scott
@OzarkHillbilly: Indeed. I wasn’t criticizing your post as much as offering a slightly different perspective.
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
OzarkHillbilly
@amk: And what was Edison’s most oft repeated statement? “Well, that didn’t work.” Not “SUCCESS!!!!!” or can you not tell the difference between the 2 sentences?
Aunt Kathy
Change election, my patoot. I’ve been thinking for years now that the whole “right track/wrong direction” polling questions don’t really paint an accurate picture. If I were to get a polling call right now, I would absolutely say that the country is on the wrong track, but I would NEVER lay that at the feet of Obama or the Dems. I have in mind the rigid inflexibility of constitutional originalists on the Supreme Court;The fact the one party is not only interested in less govt,
they are actually devoted to tearing the very fabric of our institutions (again, see the 8-member court); the gerrymandering of Congressional districts so that a minority of the country can still try to control womens’ health and reproduction; the conservative effort to suppress the vote; The fact that one party is devoted to collecting a salary while sitting on their hands and obstructing actions that the majority in the country clearly want. My God, there’s so much more.
Yep, as a country, we’re on the wrong track. Doesn’t mean we need less Dems in office. We need more.
debbie
@debbie:
Asked, Googled, and Answered. It is. I didn’t realize she was on Shark Tank.
That is very nervy of Trump. Corcoran is a powerhouse in the NYC real estate market and talking to her as if she was just a secretarial piece of tail is as offensive as it is outrageous.
Some Dude
I’d like for the election to be a blowout. I’ve already voted, so I’m encouraging others to vote, no matter what the latest polls announce. It doesn’t matter until the results are tallied, and if someone thinks that Clinton has it made, so they don’t need to vote, I point out that there is other stuff on the ballot beyond who is to be the next President. I’ve had to explain the voting for Judges, why who is on the Corporation Commission matters, heck – I’ve had to say something about School Board candidates – and this state (AZ) has a gaping chest wound when it comes to education. Sigh. With as much grumbling about ‘the government’, I get exasperated at folks who don’t understand their part in it. We may get the government we deserve, and not the one we want, but I’m trying to tip the balance…
nonynony
@Kay:
Because I’m a pessimist, I’m still standing by my prediction that Trump will get 45% of the vote in the end. I have a bet with a friend because of my big mouth that if he gets less than 40 or Clinton beats him by 9 or more points I have to eat my hat, so that may just be my digestive system talking, but I really don’t think enough GOPers are going to abandon Trump in the end to drive him below McCain’s floor of 45% in 2008. They just can’t do it – they can’t bring themselves to not show up and vote Republican. If they couldn’t do it after the disaster of George W Bush how can they do it after 8 years of watching a Dem actually manage to not drive the country into the ditch?
amk
@OzarkHillbilly: I can, but it’s obvious you can’t, given your hyperbole.
“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
Matt McIrvin
@Another Scott:
See, I think most of that (apart from Romney’s initial, flopped attempt at making it a campaign issue) was really beating up on Hillary Clinton through Obama. What caused the hate to explode was that it was becoming clear that she was going to run for President.
They hate Obama, but the notion of President Hillary is the apocalyptic scenario that Republicans have been having furious nightmares about ever since 1992. I don’t think we’ve even seen the beginning of it. Trump is riding on the mood–even after he’s gone, they are going to be openly talking about the violent overthrow of the government. If they can just break it internally, that’s all to the good.
WereBear
A few days ago, there was a commenter asking about:
Grooming Care of the Senior Cat
And while I came late to the thread then, I have written a post on it now.
Patricia Kayden
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Why would Republican Senators who thwart President Hillary Clinton at every turn become former Senators when they come from states which vote for them to do exactly that? What makes you believe that their constituents won’t hate Clinton just as much as the Senators they vote for do?
Peale
@David ?▶️Bad Hombres▶️? Koch: well, you’d think they’d remember that he called Iowa republicans stupid for not voting for him. If they can’t be bothered to remember that, they can forget anything.
David ?▶️Bad Hombres▶️? Koch
can’t believe people are arguing about a probe
c’mon. did anyone believe the russians could land something? if it wasn’t for gravity it probably would have gone backwards.
Matt McIrvin
@David ?▶️Bad Hombres▶️? Koch: The Russians (and the Soviets before them) have had terrible luck with Mars, but they actually had a lot of success with the Moon and Venus. They were the kings of landing things on Venus for a while there.
Patricia Kayden
@Some Dude:
It’s sad when you have to explain to adults why they need to vote. You would think it would be evident to any thinking person that you vote not only for President but for local offices as well. Sigh.
OzarkHillbilly
@amk: 10,001.
amk
@OzarkHillbilly: Research.
debbie
@Matt McIrvin:
Well, if they sent Putin up there in a shirtless spacesuit, I’m sure he’d land it perfectly.
Another Scott
@Aunt Kathy: Cosign.
I’m reminded of the 2004 exit poll question about “moral values”:
“Clearly” is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.
Just because one party has hijacked a perfectly sensible term (“moral values” or “right track” or “culture of life” or whatever) and applied it to a meme, doesn’t mean that it actually means what the pollsters think it means any more. Kerry’s voters didn’t somehow lack “moral values” and the framing is dishonest and wrong. Polling questions should be direct and unambiguous, not wink-wink-nudge-nudge tickling of tribal memes.
Cheers,
Scott.
tobie
@amk: The week started with news of huge rate hikes on the healthcare exchanges and Obamacare’s collapse; then ‘clouds’ of suspicion were raised about pay-to-play with the Clinton Foundation thanks to Wikileaks; then news came of the Bloomberg poll of FL showing Trump with a 2-point lead. The media went on a feeding frenzy, eager to have start a horse race again.
ALL THIS is reflected in the tracking polls now. The good news is it will also fade soon, like by next Monday. Cable’s rush to make news and to have a horse race means–for better and for worse–that all news is evanescent.
David ?▶️Bad Hombres▶️? Koch
@Matt McIrvin: Meh. Our ex german rocket engineers are better than their ex german engineers.
OzarkHillbilly
@David ?▶️Bad Hombres▶️? Koch: Heh.
Patricia Kayden
@Aunt Kathy:
True. I’m hoping our side is voting a straight Democratic ticket. We need to take back Congress. Republicans have shown that they have no desire to work with a Democratic President to get anything done and they shouldn’t be rewarded for their obstructionism. Chaffetz and McCain have already forecasted what Republicans will do if they retain both chambers.
nonynony
@Aunt Kathy:
Yup – this was never a “change” election. The media wanted to push a “change” narrative because what’s going on in the GOP right now is crazy.
On the GOP side what we’re seeing is the ongoing faction war between the various groups in the GOP. It was supposed to be the year that the Real True Christians finally put a knife in the back of the Chamber of Commerce Moneymen and took over the party. The Moneymen picked the stupidest legacy pick they could possibly have landed on because of old debts owed to the Bush family and the leadership was finally ripe to be knifed. But then Trump came along and – to the amazement of the Real True Christian faction – showed them that their faction was less than half the size they thought it was. Turns out that most of the Real True Christians were actually members of the not-so-secret White Resentment faction and have been dying for a leader who would get rid of the fake Christian veneer and just talk shit about the people they hated. Who knew? (Well, except for pretty much every Democrat in the country I guess).
On the Dem side we had our usual fight between people who want change to happen and people who want change to happen faster. But because Clinton was the nominee and she has the baggage of 30 years of smears and slanders and politics behind her, there were also a lot of “anybody but Clinton” people on the “make change happen faster” side this time around who normally would have probably been on the other side in previous years. (And that “anybody but Clinton” faction includes people who were actually “anybody but a woman” – the continuing shakeout of the Democrats shifting from the party they were pre-1960 to the party they are post-1990).
If you completely ignore what’s going on in both parties you can make the narrative “the voters on both sides are fed up and want change”, but the dynamic on both sides is completely different. The Democrats always have a sizeable faction of people who want change to happen faster than our politics generally allows (hell, I’m in that group) and there’s always a vote for the furthest left person on the ballot (again – I’m in that group) and they were joined by an anti-Clinton group that made them bigger than usual. The Republicans have had a faction war going on since the 1960s that was blown up by the failure of W and is slowly playing out its third Act this year (God willing it’s the third Act – I’m worried that we might just be seeing the end of the second Act). These are completely different dynamics and to call it the same thing and to chalk it up to some kind of nation-wide sentiment about needing change is just stupid.
David ?▶️Bad Hombres▶️? Koch
Speaking of german engineering:
Deutschland midfielder Melanie Leupolz (photo)
Uncle Cosmo
@amk: USAns ought to understand that; this is the home of the “overnight success” with decades of unnoticed failures (& often personal & societal wreckage) that preceded it, the Land Of The Nth Chance where N keeps increasing so long as the con artist can find suckers for her/his latest con…
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Baud:
He’s at 28% in California:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/ca/california_trump_vs_clinton-5849.html
The Crazification Factor once again proves itself!
donnah
I have a good friend who would probably be categorized as more Libertarian than Republican, but she’s backing Trump. Yard sign, bumper stickers, the whole nine yards. I’m appalled. We’ve been friends for a long time and she’s always been politically the opposite of me, but we’ve never let politics divide our friendship.
So one of my problems is figuring out why she would hate Hillary so much, enough to back a man who says and does what Trump says and does. My friend is a very strong supporter of women and has an adult daughter and granddaughters…just how can she believe Trump is fit to run the country?
She knows how I feel and I know how she feels, and neither of us is going to concede. I’m not letting it break our friendship, but it saddens me that she can be so stubborn and so wrong. And she probably thinks same thing about me!
OzarkHillbilly
@Matt McIrvin:
That would make them the king of burning things up in Venus’s hellish heat. Kind of amazing to me that Venus is so hot no lander has lasted more than 87 minutes there (IIRC).
Patricia Kayden
@nonynony:
And these Real True Christians don’t care if that leader is a nominal Christian (“Two Corinthians”) who has been married three times, has admitted to sexually assaulting women (grabbing them by their pussies) and boasted about ogling teenage girls. In other words, their leader lacks the moral fortitude Real True Christians constantly talk about.
Some Dude
@Patricia Kayden: I have had to explain to people that a two minute google search can find lots of information about local candidates. There were three forums held for the School Board, well documented online, which made it clear how the various candidates stood on the issues facing this district, and state education as a whole. I may be better than some with the google, but just type in “Candidate Name and School District”, and boom – you get links served up in seconds flat. But some folks don’t trust the internets, and would prefer the voter guides put out by the newspaper….
OzarkHillbilly
@amk: Getting what people say wrong is research? The things I learn here.
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: He’d find a 2,000 year old Greek amphora.
nonynony
@Matt McIrvin:
The truly sad thing is that they don’t even remember why they were nightmares. Back then they were more afraid of her as a successful woman in politics than they were of any of her policy suggestions. It’s kind of shocking to look back and remember just how sexist the late 80s and early 90s were, even having lived through it.
Botsplainer
@Aunt Kathy:
Interesting query – is the ACLU actually doing anything about voting integrity (particularly on 45,000 seized applications in Indiana), or are they just talking a good game on their website while being all principled and heroic in assertively championing seditious and violent rhetoric and conspiracy by neo-nazis and klukkers?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Mustang Bobby:
Think “shock jock”, that’s basically what Trump is. Since he’s gone threw racism and rape, treason and sedition is were has to go to keep is audience thrilled. After that, does Trump go, full Ozzy and bite the head of a bat off at a rally?
Him and his followers are treating rage like a drug and sooner or later they are going to run out of things to get that fix and just crash.
satby
@WereBear: Thanks for this, it will help with my fussy senior who hates to be groomed.
And I ended up with 8 foster cats, not 6. So far all still hiding in the room where I put them, so no pictures yet. The Ragdolls are gorgeous though, and the others may have some Maine Coon, but aren’t purebred. And two are short hair regular cats.
So for those keeping count, that’s 17 animals and I hope my neighbors didn’t notice all the carriers coming in last night! ?
OzarkHillbilly
@Another Scott: To be honest, I have always known just exactly what was meant by the phrase “moral values”, and always voted against any politician running on them. That does not mean I have none. It just means the pharse has been poisoned by those who co-opted it.
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: much as “Christian” has. When someone offers that info about themselves when we aren’t talking about religion, I have a visceral negative reaction.
Jeffro
@Patricia Kayden: true.
It’s funny, thinking about the Right these days: I’m an atheist but I’m a better Christian than these folks; I’m a progressive but I’m a better small-c conservative than these folks; and I’m definitely know my history, constitution, and American values better than these folks.
Wapiti
@NobodySpecial: Good luck with NaNoWriMo. I did it the last three years; my technique was to make sure I wrote more than my daily quota for the first half of the month. After the halfway point, the meat of the story is there and it gets harder to come up with stuff, so being ahead helped me.
debit
@satby: Oh my god, I can’t even imagine how many litter boxes you’ve had to set out. Here’s hoping they get re-homed soon.
waysel
@Betty Cracker: I caught Roves 2012 election night melt down and I’m pretty convinced that he had a pre paid fix in for Ohio, and could not believe that his fixers took the money and runned, without delivering. The way he was acting, it wouldn’t have surprised me if he had blurted out those very words. And, Scalia is still dead. Woot.
Uncle Cosmo
@OzarkHillbilly: That’s a remarkably ignorant comment. It’s not exactly a trivial matter to construct a device light, compact & rugged enough to survive launch from Earth’s surface, acceleration to >25,000 mph, months coasting in hard vacuum & the >500-degree-Fahrenheit temperature differential between sunlight & shadow, descent through a corrosive hellish atmosphere shedding all that speed in the process to a landing soft enough not to destroy the payload, and at the end of it all still function as a scientific research device in surface temperatures where lead would run like water (>850 deg F) & pressures that would collapse a Seawolf-class attack submarine (90 atmospheres). Mars surface probes are a fucking walk in the park by comparison.
You gotta give this to Sergei Korolyov & the old Soviet space program: They knew from rugged.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@waysel: It’s even funnier than that – the guys Rove hired to do the Rommey Campaign internal polling “unskewed” to keep their employers happy.
tobie
Just saw this: US economic growth in the 3rd quarter: 2.9%. This is huge. Eat that orange-hair monkey!
Joel
Sasha Baron Cohen revealed the truth of our country (back when he was funny/relevant).
greennotGreen
@satby: As someone who grew up in the church (although I’m a pagan now,) it does make me sad that people for whom Christianity is a cover for their racism, misogyny, and homophobia have poisoned that term. There are good, decent people who are Christians, people who walk the walk, not just talk the talk.
I long ago came to be believe that every person finds a way to express his or her spiritual evolution. For some that means finding a community that best fits and perhaps reinforces their experience of reality; others may not need or want that community. The point is, there are good, decent people of all faiths and of no faith.
kd bart
@Matt McIrvin: She never had a 12 point lead. Daily tracking polls can fluctuate like crazy. That’s why Gallop stopped doing one. The race has always been in that 4-6 point range.
OldDave
@Uncle Cosmo:
Space is hard. And sometimes the best laid plans go wrong, such as Venera 14. Its (spring loaded?) soil sample probe, which had just once chance for success, sampled … the lander’s lens cap (the image on the left).
Hill Dweller
@waysel: Kasich also guaranteed Romney would win Ohio.
Chris
@nonynony:
It’s always shocking to realize just how recent the progress we take for granted is, even if we actually remember how it happened.
That’s in no small part because conservatives are constantly rewriting and whitewashing their own history and, once something becomes unacceptable, denying that they ever had anything to do with it. I only learned the term “gaslighting” this year, but it explains a lot of American politics and memory.
amk
@tobie: hackperin: It’s great news for
mccaintrump.Chris
@OzarkHillbilly:
QFT. Ditto “patriotism,” ditto “Christianity.”
satby
@greennotGreen: If course. And the Christians who can best lay claim to that title are the ones who follow Christ’s teaching in Mathew 6:6.
Elizabelle
@Patricia Kayden: we should just call them “political Christians.” I like how Andrew Sullivan called them “Christianists.”
But love (and respect) for your fellow man and woman? Nope.
OzarkHillbilly
@Uncle Cosmo: WTF?????? That’s a remarkable example of taking offense at meaning that was never behind what I wrote. (which for the record was a simple factual statement) Here, let me try again:
87 mins**. 87 FUCKING MINUTES!!! Venus is so hellish that nothing has lasted there for more than 87 fucking minutes!!!!! 864 fucking degrees Fahrenheit!!!! Of course they burned up. EVERYTHING we puny humans send BURNS UP in that environment! Sending something there is KNOWING it will burn up!!! Getting any kind of science out of that place is AMAZING!!
Do you now get my awe at conditions on the Venusian surface? In what way is that awe a slight on what the Russians have done there? If anything, I admire their attempts at learning what that place is like even more. And that is because of my knowledge, and awe, of it.
** again, IIRC
Wapiti
@Chris: ditto “Law and Order”.
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: Heh. I have Matthew 6: 5-6 on the back of my truck. I can’t count the # of people who ask me what it means. I always tell them that if they don’t know it’s because the message wasn’t meant for them. When they press I quote and then translate:
“Neither Jesus nor I are impressed with public displays of piety.”
Soylent Green
@nonynony:
I will take the same bet.
OzarkHillbilly
@Wapiti: And “Pro-Life”.
amk
perfect con couple. he should marry her.
germy
Twin Intolerables
Chris
@OzarkHillbilly:
Is that the one that says “when you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites who do it in public, but go to your room and close the door?”
Procopius
@shecky: Yeah, I was going to suggest that having that big, big empty box of f*cks to give is the difference. Since the first of the year he’s seemed to decide that they’re going to hate him so there’s no point in playing up to them (when people on the left have been telling him for seven and a half years). I think if he had taken this approach seven and a half years ago instead of desperately trying to woo them he would have had a lot more public support than what we saw. Well, too late now, but this is more fun and with Hillary coming up fast I need all the comfort I can get.
WereBear
@satby: Hopefully enough of them resemble each other than a true count is deniable :)
Robert Sneddon
@Matt McIrvin: The Russians also hold the landing record for Earth, by a long way. A couple of Soyuz capsules have had trouble on the way down but almost all of the passengers survived.
germy
@Robert Sneddon: Didn’t they also have the first female astronauts?
Matt McIrvin
@Uncle Cosmo: Though one advantage with Venus (by my understanding) is that because of the super-thick atmosphere, the terminal phase of the landing is pretty easy, once you’ve successfully handled the initial entry and gotten a parachute deployed. That last bit is really hard on Mars.
The hard bit is surviving for very long on the surface afterward. I’ve seen designs being kicked around for Venus rovers that use clockwork logic like a Charles Babbage computer so it can’t get fried.
OzarkHillbilly
@amk: Josh Marshall-
Made me laugh.
OzarkHillbilly
@Chris: That’s the one.
Matt McIrvin
@Robert Sneddon: The Soyuz safety record is actually amazingly good. All the deaths in the program were in the first few years, when the design wasn’t mature yet. It’s a testament to the power of slow design iteration.
NobodySpecial
@Matt McIrvin: Screw that, I want someone to figure out an orbital insert that lets them deploy a balloon about 50k up with stuff attached. That’s where we’ll end up colonizing Venus if ever, where the temps are near Earth normal and all you have to worry about is the wind and a way to make oxygen.
OzarkHillbilly
@germy: Yes.
Procopius
@Betty Cracker: I’m sorry, but I don’t see that Obama did anything to stop the swing of the pendulum to the right. Remember he voted for immunity for the telecoms in the FISA Court Amendment Act. He did some good, with the very flawed PPACA, but remember how persistent he was trying to get his Grand Bargain through. It was only the nuts of the Freedom Caucus who saved us. He did a lot to entrench, normalize, and expand the power of the Security State. I like him, and I’m glad he was our President the last seven and a half years, but the forces arising to slow the swing of the pendulum are in opposition to a lot of what he acquiesced in. I hope we can keep some of those forces working after Election Day, but I’m not optimistic.
Matt McIrvin
@germy: The first one–Valentina Tereshkova, one of the unbelievable badasses who flew in the original Vostok spheres.
But they weren’t that committed to it. The second woman in space only few in the 1980s, and Sally Ride was the third, after which the US started hiring a fairly large number of female astronauts, and the Soviets/Russians didn’t. The fourth Russian woman in space only went up a few years ago, though of course many women from other countries have ridden on their spacecraft by now.
Joel
@kd bart: Clinton’s national polling is +5.2 (RCP), +6 (Wang), or +7 (Pollster) with some variance.
Depends on which pollsters you include.
Gin & Tonic
@OzarkHillbilly: Apparently the donations from Don Jr., Ivanka, Chris Christie and Mike Flynn, in total, add up to the exact same amount that I have contributed to the Trump campaign.
NobodySpecial
PS who still cares about national polling averages? State by state, she’s cleaning his clock.
http://www.electoral-vote.com/
germy
@NobodySpecial:
Wouldn’t radiation be a problem?
amk
@OzarkHillbilly: LOL. He is not above conning himself.
Matt McIrvin
@NobodySpecial: The Soviets actually did that–they sent a couple of Venus balloon probes in the 1980s that flew at about 54 km altitude.
Matt McIrvin
@germy: Not really; the biggest problem at that altitude is all the sulfuric acid, and the lack of a breathable atmosphere. But Geoffey Landis has pointed out that breathable air is a lifting gas under those conditions, so you could just live inside a big balloon as long as it’s corrosion-resistant.
Rock the World
Here’s he dirty little secret: *whispers*….Trump….Surge.
It’s happening.
redundant backup of kitteh haz all your meme
The a$$hole is so confident it’s gonna be a YOOOGE bigly win for him that he’s already made up a lame excuse for when he loses….bigly.
germy
Matt McIrvin
@OzarkHillbilly: They even managed to get pictures back from the surface of Venus, with 1970s tech. All the photos from the surface of Venus we have are from the Soviets. (The US did land some probes in 1978, but they were intended as atmospheric probes rather than landers and they didn’t have cameras. One survived for a short time on the surface.)
MomSense
@germy:
I think the whole problem is that we are earth creatures. We are not going to thrive on Mars or Venus or anyplace else for multiple reasons that the experts cannot imagine. We should put all our focus on trying to keep our planet habitable. Space exploration is fine and interesting but I’m not going to sign up to populate Mars.
Matt McIrvin
@germy: Yeah, but the atmosphere of Venus is super-thick. There’s still a lot of shielding from cosmic and solar radiation at 54 km.
Hal
Don’t take the bait folks.
Uncle Cosmo
@OzarkHillbilly:
Sorry if I misconstrued your meaning, OH, but IMHO it’s kind of hard to read that first sentence without visualizing an accompanying sneer. Blame the electrons, ah spoze.
And just FTR, the second sentence is inaccurate:
(source)
(FYI That Wiki entry describes a couple of very clever ideas for future surface exploration: a lander/aircraft pair where the most heat- & pressure-sensitive devices stay in a (relatively) benign environment aloft, and a nuclear-powered Stirling-cycle-cooled rover keeping its innards at a (relatively) comfortable 200 deg C.)
How beauteous science is! O brave new worlds, that have such wonders in them!
germy
@MomSense:
Paul in KY
@Chet: Me too! Airports, dams, forests, etc. etc. Alot of them in ‘red’ states, too.
Paul in KY
@Mustang Bobby: They thought Goldwater was going to win in 64?!?! Man, they had really, really drunk the koolaid. Jeezus, dogs & cats in 64 knew Johnson was going to destroy him.
liberal
The powers that be have habitually exaggerated Reagan’s popularity.
liberal
@MomSense: I think that’s not quite right.
I’m sure we could “thrive” on Mars. But what’s the point? It’s going to be expensive as hell to get there. Antarctica looks like the Garden of Eden by comparison. So why not colonize Antarctica instead? It’s just stupid masturbation, and I say that as someone who reads Sci Fi regularly.
liberal
@tobie: Sad thing is that in the old days, that’d be pretty mediocre growth. Not that that’s Obama’s fault.
Betty Cracker
@Procopius: Enshrining equal marriage as the law of the land isn’t bending the arc toward justice? Establishing the concept that it IS the government’s business to ensure every citizen has access to healthcare, eliminating preexisting conditions and ensuring that 20 million or so additional people now have healthcare isn’t swinging the pendulum? Pulling us out of the Great Recession? Overseeing passage of banking reforms and the establishment of the CFPB? Opening relations with Cuba? Leading on the Iran treaty? I could go on all day. No, he’s not perfect; no politician is. I don’t agree with everything he does. But I’ll say it again: PBO has been every bit as consequential a president for Democrats as Ronald Reagan was for Republicans.
Chris
@Betty Cracker:
Last week, The West Wing came up in conversation with an aquaintance, and we both agreed that Barack Obama’s presidential resume in real life makes Jed Bartlett’s resume in fiction look pitiful. A mere ten years later.
Matt McIrvin
@liberal: Reagan was popular when it counted: when he was actually up for election. He took a big, big hit from Iran-contra.
hovercraft
My fellow juicers, we have all failed, except srv, shomi and NR. Trump will be our next president.
See if only you had made more FACEBOOK mentions, we could have won, but you didn’t
Another Scott
@Procopius: I see the zombie “Grand Bargain” idea just won’t die for some people.
What did he actually say in January 2009?
Yeah, Obama really wanted to sell us out and we were only saved by the Teabaggers. Clear as day.
(groucho-roll-eyes.gif)
There’s nothing controversial or nefarious about what Obama wanted to do. He wasn’t going to sign off unless everyone had “skin in the game”. The middle-class and lower classes already have lost plenty of skin – there’s nothing in Obama’s proposals to indicate that he thought they should be skinned even more.
HTH.
Cheers,
Scott.
catclub
@Jeffro:
Jackie Robinson dealt with a lot of stress and died young. Obama seems to be in better shape in that regard. l’chaim
catclub
@liberal: yes, but growth twice as good as the previous quarter – things are getting better! – is great for Democrats and the opposite of what the GOP is hoping for.
catclub
@germy:
Do you know what this means? I don’t.
germy
@catclub: Inner ear fluid. Balance, hearing
catclub
@germy: Thanks!
Tripod
@hueyplong:
The Dick Cheney goes to Hawaii gambit – it’s FUD directed at undisciplined, and or poorly organized opponents.
MomSense
@liberal:
I think a very small number of humans could exist but I really don’t see us thriving. FFS many of us turn into zombies when we lose hours of sunlight. SAD! sucks bigly.
Tripod
@Hal:
What about the workers paradise?!?!
@Matt McIrvin:
Obama was right – Reagan presented as the candidate of tomorrow. What the public projected upon that, and his actual policies are another issue. In ’84 Mondale was road kill. A tired, out of date, New Deal DFL warrior, beholden to Democratic constituencies that could no longer deliver.
The Golux
@David ?▶️Bad Hombres▶️? Koch:
That is comedy gold, right there.
More proof, as if any were needed, that there is more dignity in being a registered sex offender than a registered Republican.
Hal
@hovercraft: I was just looking at 538. Polls only forecast has Clinton at 81% and man, are there tons of Trump trolls on that twitter feed. Soon Trump and Clinton will be 50-50! Do people realize the election is 11 days away? The only thing happening is the collapse of Johnson in the polls. I would throw Stein in there also, but she seemed like she was never much of a challenge.
Man I can’t wait for this election to be over.
Waynski
@Jeffro: Oh good, more Gen Xer wisdom and love of country…sigh…
I’m a Gen Xer and Hillary supporter. WTF is that all about?
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Rock the World:
LOL. Clinton’s campaigning in ARIZONA next week. Trump is using money from his campaign to pay Eric Trump Wine Manufacturing LLC.
Ruckus
@Soylent Green:
Hard to lose something you never had in the first place. Remember averages and median, they mean something here. Add in racism and misogyny to the mix and one should almost be amazed at that 55%.
chopper
@OzarkHillbilly:
I just got back from grocery shopping. on the way back I tried while driving to throw a can of beans I bought at a stop sign. unfortunately I missed, so my grocery errand was a failure.
redshirt
@catclub: Obvious I know, but it’s still rather shocking that the Republican Party actively roots for America to fail, if a Democrat is in charge. They’d be thrilled with a poor economy, failed diplomacy, and a disaster overseas for our troops. They’re rooting for it.
PsiFighter37
News hitting the tape that the FBI is reopening the investigation on emails.
Bring on the fucking meteor NOW. And fuck James Comey.
Mel
@Mustang Bobby: @Mustang Bobby: Congratulations!!! That’s fantastic!!
liberal
@Matt McIrvin: Not denying that. I’m talking about the role of the press in making him seem like the Second Coming (or First, depending on your religious preferences).
hovercraft
@Hal:
Chuck Todd of all people has been telling the republicans and Morning Joe who are all a flutter about polls tightening, that it’s simply the third party voters reverting to the norm. He points out that their numbers have been slowly fading since the first debate. Additionally the republicans are coming home, the race has been steady since January, she has been ahead and remains so. Tightening is normal.
Deep breath.
liberal
@Hal: Why read 538 when you can read Sam Wang, who has HRC at 97%/99%, depending on what basic assumptions you use?
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@PsiFighter37: Got a real source for that? The only thing close to a real report I see is from the Mirror and sourced to a tweet from Jason Chaffetz.
liberal
@Betty Cracker:
The CFPB is great and all, but it’s mostly focussed on the consumer end of things, which is frankly a small part of the problem. Wall Street is as big a leech and as bad a threat to stability as ever.
Those things are great.
Would that it were so.
PsiFighter37
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: It is all they are talking about on CNBC right now.
Comey probably had no intention of going public unless there was something more concrete, but of course that asshole Chaffetz couldn’t keep his fucking trap shut.
hovercraft
@Waynski:
There was a conversation about which generation did more, to create our problems, was more capable of fixing them, it was the whole Boomers are terrible, no Gen Xers are terrible, and them I threw in a Dana Millbank column from the other day claiming that Gen X was poised to usher off the last of the troublesome Boomers, and would then fix the world.
wenchacha
Fucking Comey and the Feebs. CNN says they will be looking at more of HRC’s emails. What was the stuff we couldn’t talk about re Dubya before the elections because it would be prejudicial?
NotoriousJRT
@John S.:
Yeah, like Clarence Thomas was a fine trade for Thurgood Marshall.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@PsiFighter37: Ah. The only places I’m seeing it show up are the Washington Times et al, so yeah, skeptical. Don’t know how much I would trust Chaffetz’ twitter feed as a source.
Bill Arnold
@craigie:
It is a fundamental, dimensionless constant of human nature. Since you asked.
hovercraft
Americans are tuning out Trump’s ugly lies. This new poll proves it.
By Greg Sargent
Ruckus
@Some Dude:
I like the old folks who say, “I don’t have any kids in school, why should I pay for them?” So the kids can grow up and have jobs and careers that support SS and Medicare, so that you don’t die far earlier than you normally would, you idiot. “I don’t drive any more so I don’t car about roads.” Yes but you take the bus and get carted around by the senior transport services and still complain about the shitty ride on the crappy roads, and which is why you also complain about the senior transport services and their young drivers who load your ass and wheelchair while smiling to take you on those crappy roads to your fucking bingo sessions.
Maybe being a selfish, republican old is just bad for your health.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: And now the letter is leaked. Looks like a due diligence to me. Wonder what the unrelated case is.
hovercraft
@PsiFighter37: @Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: @wenchacha:
Not Over Yet: FBI Says It’s Looking At Additional Clinton Private Server Emails
From TPM
Origuy
Dog having a religious experience.
Ruckus
@debbie:
Wouldn’t it be better if they just sent him shirtless? That spacesuit might just block some angle for the photo and that would be terrible.
Ruckus
@OzarkHillbilly:
I always thought that politicians running on “moral values” were actually looking for some, as they either never had any or lost them all when they turned 13.
Bill Arnold
@Jeffro:
Democrats/progressives need to work on/engage with the Republican base, in a deep, respectful way. It is vulnerable to big shifts.
E.g. my favorite wingnut’s most common complaint about Obamacare is that his patients can’t take time off from work to see him for fear of being fired. Seriously! (Yes, it does not make sense.) He’s a budding socialist (!) and doesn’t realize it due to immersion in the Fox News/right-wing-website-news-feeds bubble.
Another potential shift will be emerging serious concern about climate change (2017/2018 my gut says). We can’t let the self-interested fossil-fuel-money (politely put) completely control that narrative through the right wing media.
Ruckus
@NobodySpecial:
If it is that unfriendly, why try to live there at all? Scientific research, absolutely, but live? Do we intend to try to live on the sun? For all practical purposes both are just non existent future homes. And how much have we found out that humans living anywhere off this planet is a lot harder than was imagined just 50 yrs ago?
Ruckus
@germy:
Controlled radiation is bad enough, take my experienced word for it.
Uncontrolled, from every direction? 10,000 times worse.
Ruckus
@Paul in KY:
Dogs and cats in 64 were smarter. Dogs and cats in 64 still are smarter than the hard core republicans or at least better life forms.
Bill Arnold
@Matt McIrvin:
If Rs keep the Senate and they attempt that, at least one will defect to vote with the Democrats, out of professed (and probably actual and believable) Love of Country.
And the knives will be out; the rest will need to simultaneously watch their backs and worry about reelection.
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
And a whole lot better consequential president for humans than Reagan was.
Origuy
@Bill Arnold:
So Obamacare is preventing him from having Saturday hours?
Bill Arnold
@David ?▶️Bad Hombres▶️? Koch:
So, vaguely related, and brilliant and funny, If Women Wrote Men the Way Men Write Women
(Apologies if somebody has already linked this.)
glory b
Supposedly the FBI sent a letter to Chaffetz saying that it seems some of the newly hacked emails “might” be related. He’s talking about denying Hillary classified briefings.
FBI says it can’t assess whether or not it’s significant.
It’s on msnbc and huffington.
Bill Arnold
@waysel:
Interesting. I had that intuition too. (A 60% probability feeling iirc) Wondering now if it was actually true, and etc.
Edit ah, Enhanced Voting Techniques has a better explanation (skewed polling, believed by believers.)
Bill Arnold
@Origuy:
Guy works 7 days a week and has Saturday hours and sees patients who beg every Sunday.
Workaholic, and approves of hard work in others.
waysel
@Bill Arnold: Was that the election with the Diebold head noodle openly stating that he would do whatever he could to see the Republican get elected?
Bill Arnold
@waysel:
Dead thread, but yes, it was. Only the “principle of least conspiracy” saves the skewed polling believed by believers explanation. Personally, I think the conspiracy was at least as likely. Have no good information supporting it though.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Bill Arnold:
No, the “Diebold promise” election was 2004, not 2012.
Matt McIrvin
@Bill Arnold: They could undo the nuclear option and reinstitute the filibuster for all appointments; then they’d only need 41 votes.
waysel
@Bill Arnold: Deader thread now. In 2012 Ohios John Husted installed last minute secret software- un approved. I think Anonymous later claimed they circumvented the fix.
NobodySpecial
@Ruckus: If you’re thinking extremely long term, extinction level events are a thing. Humanity has a better survival rate if they’re in more places.
Secondly, scientific growth pertaining to learning how to live in hellish greenhouse gas environments might be something to look into, given how we’re fucking up this planet. Just my two cents.