SCOOP: The Biden-Harris campaign is rolling out official yard signs for Animal Crossing: New Horizons today. It's part of the campaign's broader initiative to meet voters where they are online. https://t.co/wQ0WkPfCGL
— Makena Kelly (@kellymakena) September 1, 2020
given the mostly piss-poor job white house correspondents specifically and national media more generally have done with the current occupant, i'm okay with bypassing the press conferences for now. https://t.co/4ShaqklxR6
— golikehellmachine (@golikehellmachi) September 1, 2020
Congratulations to the blue checks who said the ad sucked. https://t.co/YqzuPgQiqW
— Tentin Quarantino (@agraybee) September 2, 2020
They topped a quarter of a billion *in a month.*
Enough with any enthusiasm questions. https://t.co/21DbGDiTVd
— Max Steele (@maxasteele) September 1, 2020
Our daily tracking shows Trump trailing Biden by 8 points among likely voters – identical to a polling before the DNC.
That figure comes after a narrow improvement in Trump’s standing against Biden on Friday. That post-RNC bump proved to be fleeting.https://t.co/oUTQ8yAh8D pic.twitter.com/pwEJ978plm
— Morning Consult (@MorningConsult) September 1, 2020
Republicans disbelieve polls to fool themselves into thinking they're winning and Democrats disbelieve polls to fool themselves into thinking they're losing.
— Tentin Quarantino (@agraybee) September 1, 2020
NEW: Joe Biden will be running this ad in 9 battleground states to condemn the violence and divisiveness of Donald Trump’s American. pic.twitter.com/ktErqqLv2D
— United for the People ???? (@people4kam) September 2, 2020
debbie
I am glad to hear the CDC has ordered the moratorium against evictions to be extended through the end of the year. Not sure how they have authority to do this, but this is a very good thing. Certainly more so than demanding Big 10 football return.
oatler.
oh dear Lord three things I pray.
Baud
Self-disinformation is just as harmful as third-party disinformation.
The polls are what they are.
Anne Laurie
@debbie: First off, it’s only for Federal-controlled housing, and from what I’m reading even that may be more than Trump can actually enforce.
Second, as a lot of alarmed experts are pointing out, it’s a stay, not a payment — those missed rental payments will still be due, all at once, come January. And the people who can’t afford to pay a month’s rent now are unlikely to have 4, 6, or 8 months’ rent on hand then.
But it will be after the election, which is all that matters to the Squatter-in-Chief and his minions!
One more reason to vote Biden, bigly: We need to have a better tactic come January than we’ll ever get from the GOP. Of course “we” won’t be able to pass legislation by January 1st, but Biden / Pelosi / Schumer are sure to have made public some wide-ranging recovery plans that hopefully will keep people from being thrown out of their homes in mid-winter.
Sloane Ranger
Open thread so, Extinction Rebellion protests in their 2nd day here in the UK. There were 160 arrests for various public order offences yesterday. There is currently a large crowd outside the Houses of Parliament. According to the BBC most are wearing face coverings and trying to socially distance as much as possible. They interviewed one of the organisers who said this had been an important part of their planning.
There is apparently a miniscule counter protest nearby. How anyone can be in favour of, or in denial of, climate change with the evidence all about us is a mystery to me.
I hope the protests continue to be mostly peaceful. Last time this happened idiots did stupid things like super glueing themselves to tube trains, loosing a lot of public support.
Baud
@Sloane Ranger:
Yeah, same thing happening here. BLM losing support because protests get hijacked by non-BLM troublemakers.
Steeplejack
Newsy niblets today: Justice Department zeroing in on longtime GOP fundraiser Elliott Broidy (story by Matt Zapotosky, Carol D. Leonnig and Rosalind Helderman):
Baud
Desperate and silly (Politico)
Baud
Kay
Well, we know more than we did 2 weeks ago. We know they’ve settled on a Biden attack they think is working after cycling thru 5 or 6. The only question is whether this one works.
Gravenstone
@Baud: Wouldn’t a Kennedy win have been more evidence of ‘radical leftists’ in ascension?
I know, logic not exactly a Trump long suit.
MagdaInBlack
@Baud:
Yeah…I was just digesting that tidbit.
John S.
@Baud: Hauling in over $350M in a single month is another strong indicator. The majority of people are fed up and want the orange clown and his army of idiots gone.
People should forget about the loudmouth neighbor with the red hat, the crazy uncle posting on Facebook, and the bots swarming Twitter. That’s anecdote, not data.
Baud
@Gravenstone:
Had Kennedy won, the attack would have been the same with the names reversed.
Baud
It would be cool if the far left actually took umbrage over the idea that attacking a candidate as far left is a winning argument.
Kay
@Baud:
And ultimately futile. In their desperation to deny that he’s destroying the country and normalize him they’re ensuring he destroys the country. They’ll lose what they think they’re protecting anyway. You can’t wish it away. There won’t be a “normal” to return to.
Matt McIrvin
@Gravenstone: Not particularly, since the Bernie/Our Revolution left generally endorsed Markey and the perception was that Kennedy was the relative centrist in the race. But Markey is the incumbent! He’s been in Congress forever! He’s not some new development.
Baud
Good. Don’t get distracted by Trump’s antics.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I need a new mouse pad. Where can I buy one that will benefit the election?
OzarkHillbilly
The Mole Agent: the story of the most unusual documentary of the year
I hope I get to see this one.
Immanentize
@Kay: Which one? They are still running several:
— Joe is senile
— Radical Bernie took over
— Dark shadowy street figures (AKA African Americans) control Biden
— Biden hates police
–. Joos and Sorros run the country and Joe
— Blacks are coming for your wimmins
I am sure there are others
Kay
@Baud:
I think they have to respond to real threats though and they think it’s a real threat, we must assume if we think they know what they’re doing and we do. Worse would be pretending it’s not and sleeping on it.
p.a.
What is (is there) a process for removing someone from the Oval Office who refuses to go? Would love to see him frog-marched out on livet.v.
Maybe just start serving vegetarian meals in the W.H.
Baud
@Kay:
The main post shows they’re not ignoring it. In fact, they’re taking it to Trump on safety. Offense. I like it.
Immanentize
@Baud: Of course, here in Mass., Many on the far left were pissed that Markey claimed he was a leftie because as on guy said, “Markey is right of Pelosi!” That of course horrified many leftylefts.
Steeplejack
Interesting Republican apologia from never-Trumper Tom Nichols, defending against the “You Republicans were always like this” charge. He traces the die-out of “good Republicans” to the 1990s and the rise of “dipshit College Republican types.”
Nichols is responding to Anne Applebaum’s July 16 piece “Laura Ingraham’s Descent into Despair” in The Atlantic. “At some point, her Reaganite optimism slowly hardened into something better described as a form of apocalyptic pessimism.”
Nichols’s thread is worth a read, and it prompted a lot of interesting comments about the decline of the GOP into Trumpism.
Immanentize
@Matt McIrvin: The left kind of split on this race. The racial justice/poor peoples’ caucus group went to Kennedy. The environs and techies (white) lefties went with Markey.
Baud
@Immanentize:
Massachusetts is lucky to have such nice choices.
sanjeevs
The Biden ad is good.
You can see why he was the candidate the GOP really didn’t want to run against.
Baud
Fauci on today show. He’s back to talking.
Kay
@Immanentize:
They probably have polling and Biden does too. They’re both putting money into it, so they think this attack is more productive for Trump than the others. They always have congressional district polling because the candidates and parties poll those and they don’t just poll the congressional race, they poll the presidential. It’s more granular than the state polls we get. Less reliable because it’s smaller sample than a state poll, but more specific to areas of swing states.
Biden already knows what he needs in X county in each swing state. It’s just +, +, + = some number
It’s fine. This is the attack – there was going to be one. They were going to find something that was more or less “effective”, the whole question is contained within “more or less” :)
Sleepy Joe and Corrupt Joe and Dementia Joe were losers. So now we see whether “weak on crime” Joe is.
Zinsky
@oatler.: I like the ‘Godspell’ reference! Clever!
Also, I wonder if anyone else saw the Rachel Maddow interview with Melania’s former BFF and chief of staff last night? It was almost uncomfortable to watch as this Stephanie Winston-whatever ripped Melania a new one for being cold and callous about the plight of migrant children. Brutal.
She also noted that she is cooperating in three separate investigations of the 2016 Trump Inauguration, where about $40 million has turned up missing! It could be she fingers the Trump grifters in a very huge embezzlement scheme! One of the Juicers upthread noted Elliot Briody about to be indicted. He may also rat out the Trumps about their involvement in this very large grift. Shit could get real soon!!
Watch here: https://youtu.be/e-CodQInsEM
Ken
Because the last time Trump got involved with a football league worked out so well.
Maybe he could borrow Obama’s time machine to go back eight months and convince himself that COVID was not a hoax and needed a real response. Or five years and convince himself not to run for president. Or eighty years and convince his father to get a vasectomy.
Immanentize
@Baud: No doubt! There actually is a deep bench here. When Markey or Warren retire or move to the admin., Don’t forget we have Pressley as a truly excellent Senate possibility too. And others!
Dorothy A. Winsor
I liked the Biden ad. To some degree, it depends on visual allusions though. People have to be able to very quickly recognize scenes like Charlottesville or Trump’s truck caravan in Portland and place them for what they are–not BLM but Trump people.
debbie
@Anne Laurie:
I figured it was basically kicking the can down the road, but there are plenty of people around here with zero chance of making their September rent payments.
Baud
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone ???
debbie
@Baud:
Guess he’s not spending all day on Twitter and Fox. //
Kay
@Immanentize:
They put a lot into corrupt Joe, recall, and corrupt Joe failed. They were so confident of corrupt Joe working they put the Trump appointees in the DOJ and the State Department on it- it still failed. Fox did “corrupt Joe” for weeks. Still failed.
There’s no more “corrupt Joe” campaign because the effort failed. This one they think will work but they also thought the others would.
Baud
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Didn’t the Trump caravan carry big Trump flags?
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
SFAW
@Baud:
And then, of course, there’s Joe “Me, ME, ME!!!” Kennedy’s now-open seat which runs the risk of Auchincloss — a Repub now claiming to be a Dem — winning the Dem primary. [Disclaimer: it’s neck-and-neck between him and Mermell, an actual Dem, with around 25 percent each, and I have no idea if there can/will be a runoff.]
I guess the Dems are in no danger of losing the seat, but will the new Rep be a Steven Lynch-type Dem, or an actual liberal? Thanks, Joe, for making it “interesting.”
germy
Kenosha business owner declines President Trump photo-op, former owner replaces him
A Kenosha business owner is accusing President Donald Trump of using his destroyed store for political gain.
Tom Gram’s century-old camera shop burned to the ground a week ago during the unrest in Uptown Kenosha. Gram said he declined President Trump’s request to be a part of his tour of damage Tuesday in Kenosha. Instead, a former owner of the shop was invited and he praised the president’s efforts.
https://www.tmj4.com/news/local-news/kenosha-business-owner-declines-president-trump-photo-op-former-owner-replaces-him
Betty Cracker
Biden has a great ad team. IMO, the ad ably countered Trump’s lies about Biden not condemning looting and violence, then it jujitsu’d the civil unrest back on Trump by pointing out that he always pours gasoline on fires and never calls out the “very fine” Nazis and MAGA troublemakers who support Trump.
I also liked that Biden worked the phrase “armed militias” into the speech. Armed right-wing goons strutting around statehouses, cities and towns is scarier than that big ol’ vegan teddy bear Cory Booker. I’m not a “suburban housewife,” but I’m adjacent enough to the type to believe they’ll have a similar reaction.
trnc
Regardless of the lousy press, I’m not sure what the downside would be for Biden to have press conferences. Any bullshit gotcha question he gets, he’d probably put the reporter on the spot if he said, “What was DT’s answer to that?”
ETA: That’s not to say that I care about what press-conference-botherers say.
debbie
@Immanentize:
Around here, the GOP focuses on AOC. You’d think they’ve totally forgotten that old man.
Steeplejack
@rikyrah:
Good morning! ?
Immanentize
@Ken: I should add, the hootie hoos at the Big Ten (plus four?) Really really want to play — but the virus is not cooperating. Schools are starting to get hit and some will be closing again. UT just reported community transmission in two dorms (one of which, Jestor, is huge — 3200 student cap.) And then, there are the players who actually have a say.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Baud: He’s less hoarse since his vocal cord surgery.
@Zinsky: I saw part of that Maddow interview last night. A whole lot of inauguration money disappeared. The Trump people make me the think of the end of Fargo, where Marge is taking in the bad guy and she marvels, “You did all that for what? Money?” The destructiveness and risk just go so far beyond what they gain.
Kay
@Baud:
Oh, I’m glad. That’s one of the polls national pundity use.
I don’t want Democrats to freak out but I do want them to be prepared for the hard part- the hard part is after Labor Day and that’s always been true. It hasn’t gotten rough yet, but it will. These people are absolutely desperate to hang onto power because they have to dismantle all of the checks because they’re criminals. We’ve just scratched the surface of the rot on the Right – they’re doing all they can to protect themselves- and STILL it’s bubbling up enough to lead to indictments; the NRA, Bannon, Falwell. They’re all fucking dirty.
It will be hard to win but it was always going to be hard to win.
Princess
@Steeplejack: This is interesting. The problem with Nichols though is that he’s a guy who dislikes the Democrats for aesthetic reasons but fundamentally, in terms of what he believes about policies, he’s a Democrat and always has been, albeit at the moderate end of the party. He wrote a kind of manifesto about what he thinks a while back and it all could fit neatly within the Democratic party. But he got convinced early on that the Dems were annoying feckless scolds, and he’s a bit of a contrarian, so he shunned them.
Matt McIrvin
@p.a.: The Secret Service Uniformed Division, which guards the White House and its grounds, is responsible for ejecting trespassers to the White House. Regardless of what Trump does, if he loses the election he ceases to be President at noon on Inauguration Day. From then on, he’s a trespasser.
Needless to say, this only applies if they actually follow the law, but I don’t get the impression these people have any great love for Trump.
SFAW
@Kay:
I’m still waiting for some slicker variation of “Biden is a COVID-19 supporter/enabler.”
Also: The Traitor Shill Barr hasn’t yet ramped up the various Ukraine/China-related corruption investigations of Biden. I give it two or three weeks.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Baud: I read that they did, but I don’t know what a Trump flag looks like and I couldn’t identify one from that clip. Maybe I’m underestimating other folks who will see the ad. I’m just conscious that I’m on twitter and watch a lot of MSNBC, so I always worry I’m in a bubble.
Immanentize
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Fargo:.
Not sure I agree 100%…
Baud
@Kay:
I want Dems to get voters to understand that Dems are better at national security, the economy, and “law and order.”
There’s absolutely no reason for the GOP to continue to have an automatic edge on those issues, if there ever was.
germy
“I THINK WHAT NO ONE IN THIS ROOM WANTS TO ADMIT IS THAT TRUMP HAS HELPED ALL OF YOU….HE COULDN’T SELL STEAKS OR VODKA OR WATER OR COLLEGE OR TIES OR ERIC BUT HE HAS HELPED YOU. HE HAS HELPED YOU SELL YOUR PAPERS AND YOUR BOOKS AND YOUR TV. YOU HELPED CREATE THIS MONSTER AND NOW YOU ARE PROFITING OFF OF HIM.”
(Michelle Wolf, to the beltway press)
Amir Khalid
@Steeplejack:
I would find it too, too sweet if your president were directly embroiled in our 1MDB scandal. Maybe we could then extradite him to Malaysia to stand trial.
Steeplejack
@Zinsky:
That interview with Stephanie Winston Wolkoff was very interesting. She came across (to me) as very shallow—you could see why she and Melania would be “ladies who lunch” BFFs—but also very fearful and feeling trapped in something much bigger than she bargained for.
Apparently she has audiotapes of conversations with Melania, which she started making after she realized that she was being underbussed. They formed some of the basis for her book, e.g., Melania’s insensitive comments about caged kids at the border. Those could be even more inflammatory if they become public.
hueyplong
@Kay: To some unmeasurable extent, it’s possible that the racial attacks are a combination of Trump’s default settings in his advancing neurological failure and Putin’s idea of a good plan. Trump talks to him a lot and (for reasons we often guess at) is incapable of disagreeing with anything Putin suggests.
Certainly the way they’re handling protests and the post office is Putinesque. Why not the rest?
SFAW
@germy:
I’ve stopped trying to guess what new insanity/fuckery those mofos will come up with next, because my (so-called) mind can’t come up with scenarios stupid/insane enough.
WereBear
@Steeplejack: from the article
Like what? Since when? Honestagawd, someone tell me ONE “conservative principle” that either works in real life (apparently W’s two terms was their Dream List) or they actually do (like their concerns about deficits).
It’s bullshit and incompetence and corruption, all the way down.
Immanentize
@Kay: I have another thought too — the Trump team always signalled that they would run on law and order — that they would run out Nixon’s ’72 (Now more than ever!) Campaign. And they had that in the can. The caravans was a preview as was the Trump innaugral. But then, Corona virus hit and the great economy part of Nixon 72 disappeared. But Trump people couldn’t adapt at all. They just kept running the planned campaign which requires them to create the carnage, not just say it’s happening.
Kay
This is anecdotal and it may be because I live in a Trumpy area of Ohio, but the online commentary that only “very online” Dems think it will be close is the opposite of what I see. Our people who are NOT online- those who get most of their news from tv- always thought it would be close. They’re treating it like a 2 point election and always have.
My son, who is a (union) electrician and somewhat active in his union said to me the other day genuinely perplexed “you didn’t think it would be close? Everyone I know thinks it will be close”
IMO the NOT “very online” people are less confident than the online people, perhaps because of the different media “diets” the two groups consume.
MattF
@Steeplejack: Didn’t know that Laura Ingraham is a ‘serious’ RW crazy person. Not sure what to do with that piece of information.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: “Law and order” doesn’t mean law and it doesn’t mean order. Democrats can’t and shouldn’t be better at what it really means.
germy
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
It doesn’t mean that to the GOP. But the public doesn’t want crime. I don’t care what label we use to convey that, but we should not give the issue away to the GOP.
Matt McIrvin
@Steeplejack: He’s still delusional. I was around then. The “Reaganite wing” WAS the College Republican dipshits. They were one and the same.
Kay
@Immanentize:
I agree 100%. I didn’t realize until I read Dave Weigel’s twitter (he pointed it out) that some of these attacks are EXACTLY what they used in ’18- same idea.
Frankly, it’s all they have. Everything else they tried failed. So there’s that too- the money could be going not to an “effective” attack but to the only attack they’ve come up with.
Immanentize
@Baud: What Max Planck said about (science) fits this problem:
(Political understanding) progresses one funeral at a time
Steeplejack
@Princess:
That’s true. One of the things that Trumpism is revealing is the surprising (to me) number of Republicans who cannot consider voting for a Democrat under any circumstances—even with an existential threat to the republic. And, as you said, when their own positions are mostly (rightish) Democratic in all but name only.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: I think the “corrupt Joe” and “sleepy/dementia Joe” attack angles were doomed because they don’t pass the laugh test when coming from Trump. Even a mostly bullshit line of attack has to come from someone with a leg to stand on.
Similar attacks worked against Clinton because so many people already hated her, and they thought Trump was the reality TV show guy. Now he’s the president whose entire campaign staff has been indicted and jailed and who says crazy shit all the time.
One vulnerability the Trump people could maybe exploit would be Biden’s 40+ years in politics. They do go to that well occasionally, but it’s not the main focus.
It’s tough but not impossible for an awful person who’s been in office to pull that “outsider” shtick off — Rick Scott did against Bill Nelson in Florida. But Rick Scott is ten times more smart and disciplined than Donald Trump.
Betty
@p.a.: I would say that sitting in the White House. Joe can be President from anywhere.
Betty
Sorry I couldn’t edit my comment. Sitting in the White House does not make you President. If Joe is elected, he will be President wherever he lives.
SFAW
@Baud:
And I want to be 30 years younger, and have a full head of hair.
To be more serious: a large part of that would require “working the refs” (i.e., the MSM) for a decade or more. Long-term campaigns — ones related to issues, not specific candidates — have not been a strong suit of the Dems, but maybe they can learn.
hueyplong
@MattF: That article smells a lot like an Ingraham contingency plan for positioning herself as a serious person forced to play an awkward campaign role in case she finds herself living in a post-Trump apocalypse, pimping for Tom Cotton.
It will all be forgotten if, instead, we see her doing her Heil Trump act at a second, thinly-attended Inaugural.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Gravenstone: This illustrates the ancient scientific principle of “change the data to fit the theory.”
Baud
@SFAW:
Agree. It’ll take a long term effort. But so will making a lot of these red states blue. But it’s worth it. We shouldnt be handing any serious issues to the GOP.
SFAW
@WereBear:
Steve Gilliard’s “I’m a Fighting Liberal” addressed that to some extent.
SFAW
@Baud:
Yeah. I hope I live long enough to see it happen. [I’m relatively healthy, so maybe I will.]
Amir Khalid
@p.a.:
My understanding is that, if Trump loses the vote and then in the Electoral College, the transfer of the Presidency to Joe Biden in January is automatic. And if he thereafter insists on being a squatter in the White House — well, like Joe said, the US Government knows how to deal with that.
Joe Falco
@debbie: AOC has replaced Pelosi as the “scary liberal” to tie Democratic candidates with in Georgia. A more local version is former gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams. The back-and-forth attacks ads between sitting Senator Kelly Loeffler and Trump’s huckleberry attack hound, Rep. Doug Collins, are racing to see who can attach Abrams to the other in the back of the mind of GOP voters.
catclub
@Steeplejack: I thought the only reason to go after him was he did not get a cut to Trump
Steeplejack
@WereBear:
They hand-wave about “fiscally responsible, small-c conservatism that also values government action when more efficient in serving the greater good.” That’s a direct quote from one of the thread commenters. The kicker: “Kasich possesses this.” ?
Nichols also doesn’t address the fact that the demise of the Soviet Union took away a lot of the GOP’s fear-mongering talking points.
sanjeevs
News to make you vomit
https://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-sarah-sanders-one-for-team-kim-jong-un-2020-9
Baud
@Steeplejack:
Good point. Without the USSR as a foil, all they have is racism and taxes.
catclub
also there is no civil war in the Democratic Party this year.
and the economy has shrunk 20% versus all good in 1972.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Amir Khalid: The House can always cut off funding for the WH.
@catclub: True. Trump tends to think of all donations to his campaign or inauguration as “his” money.
sanjeevs
@Amir Khalid: He learned from 2016 that if he breaks the law to win he can then obstruct justice.
catclub
@Immanentize: what happened to Neal in western Mass?
Baud
@catclub:
I think I read he won.
rp
That Applebaum article is idiotic. She’s trying to come across as a reasonable conservative, but it was obvious in the mid-90s that they were full of s***. And she’s still talking about “cancel culture” being a real problem that society needs to address. What the f*** ever.
Immanentize
Thanksgiving at the Kennedy compound:
Joe3 in Corner: silent
Bobby Kennedy 3 : well, someone had to fail the family. Thanks, cuz.
Maria Shriver Terminator: oh leave him alone, we all know he tried. Didn’t you, Joe.
RFK Jr. I told you he never should have been vaccinated.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
“Regular” Democrats (not very online obsessives) are kind of “behind”. So, for example, I’ll try to cheer them up and say “Biden’s polling is good” and they say “the polls were wrong last time”
The last they saw the polls were wrong. They never got to the whole post-election “they were RIGHT for the popular vote margin but flawed at the state level due to not weighting for education….”
Only very online people know that shit. I know I’m talking to one of “us” when I get this granular, up to the minute analysis. Regular Democrats are like “will we win?” – very wary.
I hope it helps turnout. Massive turnout cures a lot of the uncertainty.
Steeplejack
@Matt McIrvin:
He gets dragged for that in the comments. People also pointing out that Pat Buchanan and William Kristol et al. weren’t College Republican dipshits in the ’90s.
TS (the original)
@Baud:
is best served via trade and treaties and good relationships with other countries. Trump has burned them all. This should not be hard for democrats to emphasize.
Immanentize
@catclub: Neal was crushing his opponent when I stopped looking by like 20 points.
ETA. Yes, Neal Beat Morse. It was 61/39 when the AP called it.
MattF
@hueyplong: It’s fair to say that being mentored by Pat Buchanan and partying with David Brooks is cause for suspicion. And I didn’t know that Applebaum was so deeply into the RW scene. I guess I’ve assumed that bitter, sectarian ideological division was a distinguishing feature of left-wing politics, but not so much for the right-wing. But, after all, ex-Trotskyites are everywhere on the political spectrum.
Baud
The horse race headlines are talking about Joe Biden’s lead “narrowing” to seven points (right after the GOP convention).
Trumpmemtum!
Joe Falco
@Baud:
Don’t worry. They still have “TERRORISTS” to fall back on whenever it’s convenient for them.
Immanentize
@Baud: Didn’t Kay say, “you mean we had to endure all that for one or two points?”
Immanentize
@Joe Falco: Sorry, we already beat all the terrorists.
Nicole
@oatler.:
Oh, you’re right; that’s probably what she meant. My brain went straight to The Hooters’ 1985 single and I thought, “deep cut!”
SFAW
@catclub:
Neal won by a bigger margin than Markey did. Maybe NOW he’ll start acting like a Committee chair that takes his oversight duties seriously. [Yes, I realize that my wish is not logical — a near-loss to someone (theoretically) more lefty would probably push him to go after Trump a little harder, not vice versa.]
SFAW
@Immanentize:
That “facts” and “reality” shit is a non-starter. you know.
Joe Falco
@Immanentize:
Oho?
*Pulls out the ANTIFA card*
You forgot the “domestic terrorists”!
rp
@Steeplejack: His argument (and Applebaum’s) is pretty weak overall. I can accept that there were different types of republicans and that he actually believed in a positive vision of conservatism based on free trade and democracy, but why did it take Donald Trump for him to break with the party? Even if he was young and naive in the mid-90s (a stretch, obviously), it was obvious long before 2016 that the party was dominated by racists, religious zealots, and grifters.
Spanky
@Amir Khalid: Do you have the death penalty?
Asking for a friend(ly country).
Immanentize
@Joe Falco: I see you are willing to play the Mace Card!
SFAW
@Joe Falco:
What kind of perqs do you get with that card? I mean, outside of the “this card allows you to attempt to overthrow the government without killing or injuring anyone.”
MattF
@Baud: Historically, margins of error get smaller and polls become more predictive as Election Day approaches. But the numerical value of Trump’s deficit in polling depends a lot on what is happening in the tails of distributions, and that’s harder to predict. I’m unconvinced that anything significant is happening.
germy
germy
Free airline miles.
Amir Khalid
@Spanky:
Yes. My own opposition to it is very much the minority opinion.
SFAW
@germy:
Will I have to dress in black?
germy
Matt McIrvin
Campos thinks the betting sites are correct to have Trump at even money because he’s gonna cheat:
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2020/09/fair-rigged-and-fake-elections-or-why-donald-trump-is-even-money-to-get-re-elected
Steeplejack
@hueyplong:
Did you read Applebaum’s article? It’s hardly a “contingency plan” for Ingraham. It is of a piece with Applebaum’s history of reportage on authoritarianism, including cheerleaders for the regime.
Steeplejack
@Baud:
Two out of three’s not bad!
MattF
@Matt McIrvin: I think ‘even money’ == ‘I don’t know’. Which is where we all are these days.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@debbie:
It is another busted norm about “rule by decree” and is a poison pill that will ruin hundreds of thousands of small landlords through the end of the year and throughout 2021.
Most landlords aren’t evil. This amounts to a taking without compensation, call it a condemnation without any recourse for the person whose income source was condemned.
Joe Falco
@SFAW:
All kinds really if you know how to play your card! You get curfew breakers (an insidious lot them), traffic blockers (denying freedom of movement to America-loving Trump truck drivers), and, worst of all, looters (damaging property, the greatest crime in this nation)!
germy
Danielx
@Baud:
page unavailable…clearly a coinky-dink, as Molly Ivins used to say.
hueyplong
@Steeplejack: It’s still a rationale where no reasonable one actually exists. How is that different from what I said?
Amir Khalid
@Amir Khalid:
@Spanky:
You were asking what Trump might be sentenced to in the unlikely event he were tried and convicted here. Because corruption/embezzlement is not a capital crime in Malaysia, Trump would most likely get a long stretch in jail like Najib got. I don’t see Donald Trump thriving in a Malaysian prison.
cmorenc
If Biden’s lead stays steady past Labor Day weekend, it will be interesting to watch which Republican Senate incumbents in competitive races start to openly try to separate themselves from Trump. To some extent, it’s already happening – for example, in Tom Tillis’s ads in his NC race against democrat Cal Cunningham, I have so far seen no mention of Trump whatever, nada, none. Instead, his ads are all about cutting taxes, regulation, etc.
Steeplejack
FYWP.
Duplicate deleted.
Steeplejack
@SFAW:
And you can’t check your “gear.” You have to carry it on.
Baud
@germy:
Haha. DougJ is going to be the next Onion.
Matt McIrvin
@germy: For a long time I honestly could not tell if New York Times Pitchbot was just repeating actual headlines.
germy
@Matt McIrvin:
I only lurk on LGM, but I always appreciate your comments there.
Matt McIrvin
@germy: You probably shouldn’t.
germy
@Baud:
Doug’s done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more.
germy
@Matt McIrvin:
Lurk or appreciate?
PPCLI
@Amir Khalid: Maybe Trump will get the CDC/HHS to extend and expand the Federal Housing eviction moratorium?
Steeplejack
@hueyplong:
I don’t think Applebaum is trying to offer a “reasonable” rationale. She is attempting some analysis deeper than “Ingraham’s a fascist nut—screw her!”
Matt McIrvin
@germy: Lurking is fine.
Uncle Cosmo
@Steeplejack: I enjoyed this bit from Nichols’ tweets:
“Maze-bright rats” – proficient at one very narrow skill, which pays off really well, until the cosmic axis shifts and the need for that skill vanishes. The human equivalent of buggy-whip manufacturers.
OzarkHillbilly
Two strangers, with the same first name, and a terrifying story about ketamine in policing
A pretty thorough dive into the use of ketamine for “policing” purposes.
rp
@Steeplejack: I think that’s a ridiculous argument. Does she really think Ingraham is completely sincere and isn’t a cynical opportunist? And she seems to be suggesting that there’s some truth to Ingraham’s vision of the US, which is completely insane.
Betty Cracker
@Steeplejack: Agreed. But after reading Applebaum’s analysis, my conclusion was “Ingraham’s a fascist nut—screw her!”
germy
I’ve always seen her as a True Believer.
Steeplejack
@Betty Cracker:
I agree. But I think it’s useful to try to get some of the “story behind the story,” if only to head off the next batch of fascist nuts. Same with Nichols’s blinkered view of GOP history.
Danielx
@germy:
Aaaand….wait for it….Dems In Disarray!
Immanentize
@Danielx: I’m a Dem. My house is totally in dissaray. Does that count as NYT front page worthy?
Baud
@germy: Same here.
germy
SFAW
@germy:
One hopes you don’t mean that in the Frederick Douglass sense.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Betty Cracker: I remember Laura Ingram in the 90s, when she was part of Bill Maher’s stable of young, rightwing women who would wear mini-skirts and sorta-kinda flirt with him as they spewed nonsense, along with Kellyanne, Coulter, the I’m-not-a-witch Christine (who now that I think of it never wore miniskirts cause her whole schtick was nice Xian girl) and a few others. She was always a nasty shit-flinger, sneering and obnoxious. I even remember reading that article that featured her drunk-driving to Buckwheat Zydeco, and only being surprised that we liked the same band.
I have some temperamental sympathy with Nichols as a phlegmatic curmudgeon, but it’s kind of odd to see that his answer to “You guys were always like this” is, ‘Nuh-uh, only since 1995!”
As to the wonderful optimism of Ronald Regan, I wonder if any black conservative is ever gonna address Philadelphia MS and “states’ rights”
rp
@germy: Really? What about Coulter, D’Souza, et al? (didn’t she date d’souza at Dartmouth?)
I’ve always lumped them together as shallow, attention seeking aholes who are 80% cynical opportunists and 20% actual ideologues. The “maze bright rat” description is a good one.
Danielx
@Immanentize:
@Baud:
Yep, clearly. Same here, it’s a scandal waiting to happen. If a FTFNYT reporter/photographer ever sees the inside of my house there will be tears and pearl-clutching the length of the Acela Corridor.
Baud
I appreciate you people who make fine distinctions among right-wingers. They’re all one big grey soulless lump to me.
Miss Bianca
@Steeplejack: Nichols is now to the “mistakes were made” phase, but still defending an entirely rotten, bankrupt intellectual and political heritage. Fucker worships Reagan, and anyone who can’t see how deep the rot was with that guy just doesn’t want to see it.
Upgraded from “Fail” to “D-“. Still not an impressive grade.
Baud
@Danielx:
“Clouds continue to cast shadow over DanielX’s abode.”
Gin & Tonic
Germany saying Navalny was poisoned with Novichok.
Immanentize
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Nichols is sorta leaving out the fact that Regan’s right-wing optimism was largely a product of happy dementia.
True story — A one-time colleague was an investigator in the Iran Contra probe in the early Bush I years. He was involved in dozens of depositions of high ranking Regan officials. The stories he told — but here is my favorite:
One high up official from State met with Regan a lot. But Regan insisted that he always tell a joke before the briefing. He put these on 3×5 cards he tucked into his briefing folder. This guy said that always during some huge crisis — like the shooting down of the Korean jet airline by the Soviets — he had to scream at his aides: “Where’s my fucking joke card?!!” Before he could go brief the President.
OzarkHillbilly
@Miss Bianca: If we were grading on a curve he’d be at an A- just for his trump opposition alone.
Steeplejack
@germy:
Reply from @Vandalay_Inc: “Dems Are in Array, and That’s a Bad Thing.”
Immanentize
@Gin & Tonic: no shit? They didn’t even try to disguise it?
Russia gets everything they wanted — evil West fake news! But also — everyone knows we can reach them anywhere.
I guess they really wanted Navalny dead and that didn’t happen
SiubhanDuinne
@Baud:
Didn’t watch the Today Show, but I heard him a day or two ago. He has a lovely, very sexy speaking voice now that the raspiness is gone. I guess he had some vocal cord nodules removed? Glad he’s back in the game.
Gin & Tonic
@germy:
Did they retire after they were arrested? You get to do that?
Jay C
I regret I have but one upding for this gem.
Gin & Tonic
@Immanentize: I’m not sure they wanted him dead so much as they wanted him an example. If he’s medevaced to Germany and the Germans say what happened, then people will believe them (people in Russia, I mean.) The potential next Navalny sees that.
Danielx
@Baud:
Omigawd, there’s a rented Range Rover out front!
Immanentize
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: When I find out that someone who I consider odious has gone to see a cool band I like, I just chalk it up to them wanting to be publicly fake cool.
ETA. I saw Warhol at a Psychedelic Furs concert at the Ritz in the early ’80s (for example, but I don’t find him odious, just a cool hunter)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Miss Bianca: and between Reagan and Gingrich was Poppy Bush. Before he was the nice old gent who jumped out of airplanes and wished his boy hadn’t gotten us involved in all that Iraq unpleasantness, he was the guy who ran on recycled, half-assed McCarthyism (‘card-carrying member of the ACLU’, the Pledge of Allegiance) and the same kind of racism trump is peddling (Willie Horton), as president tore the country apart to get a reliable theocrat vote on the Court, and used the same sort of dumb jingoism his son would exploit in foreign policy– correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t it Poppy and his people who made Lee Greenwood the bard of Real Americans, ten years before 9/11? “I’m proud to be an American, etc etc”. And he still couldn’t keep the Two Pats on a leash (and before there was Reagan or Poppy or Gingrich or Robertson, there was Pat Buchanan, who as I understand is still with us and belching out the occasional op-ed)
TS (the original)
@germy:
Odds are based on who the punters think are going to win. It would seem there are a number of trump supporters who gamble – so they will lose their money which is a good thing to happen to them.
Bobby Thomson
@Kay: I think it’s less poll-driven and more the thought that “crime” (i.e., the ability for police to discriminate against and even murder Americans) is an issue where they can force Biden to “pick a side” and shrink his coalition. It’s a multi-prong strategy and the inciting of riots is a critical component of it.
Frankensteinbeck
@Gin & Tonic:
One of the biggest problems with police misconduct is that the police unions are powerful enough to negotiate truly insane contracts where it is next to impossible to punish bad actors.
Aleta
@Immanentize: If you still had a live-in barista, yes.
Bobby Thomson
@Immanentize: Don Regan never succeeded to the presidency.
Immanentize
@Immanentize: Sorry about my Reagan spelling. But I thought I did it right but it was autocorrected? Did Don Regan’s ghost get ahold of WordPress? A fitting revenge to Nancy if so.
Immanentize
@SiubhanDuinne: I bet he will not go to the hospital again until January 21, 2021 even if he is having a heart attack. Those fuckers did him dirt.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Steeplejack: From the Atlantic article
My god, sounds like a scene from a Hammer Horror movie lol
Bobby Thomson
@Matt McIrvin: that still doesn’t explain their sudden shift. Corruption should already have been baked into the price.
Jay C
@Immanentize:
Somebody once wrote that the Reagan Presidency could be summed up as a TV Guide synopsis:
“The President of The United States is replaced by an actor, and no one notices”
Immanentize
@Aleta: Damn! I missed front page fame by one month!!!!
debbie
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
They also need a break, but turning thousands of people out on the streets isn’t the solution.
Immanentize
@Bobby Thomson: such a judger! ? (See my apology right after your comment)
Kilgore Trout
@Immanentize: This is spot on – Trump is entirely dependent on denying the reality of the pandemic. The killer ad will be a montage of his constant moving of the goalposts for “success” against the ever rising graph of deaths.
debbie
@Kilgore Trout:
Hope they’ll include the couple of weeks Trump wasted trying to label the pandemic as nothing more than a “Democrat hoax.”
Amir Khalid
@PPCLI:
I think I see a problem with that. Trump is not a tenant renting the White House from a landlord; he’s in employee housing, provided by his employer the American people, and if the American people don’t renew his work contract he has no right to stay on.
Immanentize
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Now there would be an appropriate fact check — what does David Brock think about Ingraham (and Nichols)?
SiubhanDuinne
@Betty Cracker:
❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Miss Bianca
@OzarkHillbilly: If we were grading on *The* Bell Curve, Nichols would be at F- because of the race traitordom implied by his Never-Trumpism.
Immanentize
@debbie: Trump was more savvy than usual on the “Hoax” thing. He didn’t push it full bore like others in that rage-viroment. Someone obviously told him, ix-nay on the oax-hay alk-tay.
OzarkHillbilly
@Miss Bianca: Heh. What would we get if he was graded on an “S” curve? A car wreck?
taumaturgo
@Gravenstone: No, Markley is a liberal who co-sponsored with AOC the Green the New Deal and he also supports M4A. Kennedy had the unconditional support of the corporate Democrats seeing in him someone who could defeat these two important planks.
OzarkHillbilly
The Latina Progressive Who Faced Down Texas Republicans
A nice piece on Lina Hidalgo, the county judge of Harris County.
Miss Bianca
@taumaturgo: At first I thought, wow, this is a DougJ-esque-level parody of how brain-dead “lesser of two evils” lefties think. Then I saw your nym and realized, “no, it really IS a brain-dead ‘lesser of two evils’ lefty”.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steeplejack: I am not sure that is necessary. “Ingraham’s a fascist nut – screw her” works for me.
catclub
I think the explanation that Kennedy is a much better fundraiser for other Democrats, is a more realistic explanation.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@OzarkHillbilly:
We saw it at True/False in Columbia earlier this year.
Everybody should go to True/False.
Omnes Omnibus
@Immanentize: Isn’t that how all hipsters identify the people they don’t like? True fan who understands and appreciates the art v. poseur who is just there to be part of the scene?
catclub
Alexandra Petri at WAPO is GREAT!
Yutsano
@SiubhanDuinne: If there was one person about whom I wish the gay rumour was true…alas is just such a thing.
Immanentize
@Miss Bianca: heh indeedy
Immanentize
@Omnes Omnibus: Absolutely! And it works every time!
Yutsano
@Immanentize: Sometimes you can catch them making a normal comment…and then their true nature pops up. Happens every time. It’s not even a stopped clock situation.
Omnes Omnibus
@Immanentize: I know. Those fuckers who always hang out in the back right of the concert venue at every concert I go to and hang out at the back left just don’t get it and they write for and read the wrong alt weekly. I hate them.
Immanentize
@Omnes Omnibus: I never hang out in either place!
Ruckus
@hueyplong:
vlad is shitforbrains father figure.
Dad gave him everything. Well that’s not true, but what dad didn’t give him he managed to steal from the rest of the family, which would probably have made dad happy on some level.
Matt McIrvin
@Bobby Thomson: My personal attitude toward all this is something that, I think, Nate Silver said many years ago: we should think of anything between about 10% and 90% as a toss-up. It hardly matters whether Trump’s chance of winning is 30% or 70%; the takeaway should be “it could go either way”, which is highly disturbing.
Ruckus
@WereBear:
I believe they have that engraved in fake marble somewhere as their major guiding principle.
Subsole
@Amir Khalid:
Yeah, the language barrier might be a bit of a hurdle…
James E Powell
I know it’s a big ask, but does anyone have a cabin in the woods where they could keep Ed Rendell until at least election day and maybe longer if it’s not too much trouble. I’d definitely kick in on the upkeep.
There’s always a market for Democrats who will criticize Democrats.
Ruckus
@Amir Khalid:
He could get 20 yrs and that would be sufficient without affecting any of us who do not think a country should kill it’s citizens for any reason. Hell he might not make the next 4 months, considering that he’s very likely had at least one stroke and has such a healthy lifestyle.
JAFD
@James E Powell: Y’have to remember that most of the population of Delaware gets its TV from the Philly stations, so Rendell always saw Biden as ‘rival for airtime’ – frenemy, maybe, long way back they go – or maybe Ed goes – don’t think Biden goes there.
joel hanes
@debbie:
48% of Iowans who rent are unable to make September rent.
Suzanne
@germy: He’s my favorite Doug, him.
J R in WV
@Baud:
deleted
J R in WV
@Steeplejack:
And no one that God really speaks to is actually Republican, nor attending a Mega-Church with a private jet for Pastor.
J R in WV
@Amir Khalid:
Hell, The Don isn’t thriving in the White House. But we can hope he continues to not thrive!