Election 2020 Open Thread: There’s Worse Fates Than Being ‘the Consensus Candidate’

by 2:00 pm. It has 233 Comments.

Even if it is Politico announcing it — “Warren emerges as potential compromise nominee”:

… With 99 town halls and 30,000 selfies under her belt, Warren has offered a level of access that has disarmed some critics. She’s also made a point of traveling to some of the reddest of red-state locales — Mississippi, Utah and West Virginia, among them…

Polling suggests that at least one of Warren’s lightning-rod proposals — taxing the net worth of the wealthiest Americans — has support that extends beyond progressive circles. According to a recent Morning Consult survey, 61 percent of all voters favored her 2 percent wealth tax on households worth at least $50 million. Among Democrats, 74 percent favored the plan…

Ezra Klein, at Vox, had an excellent interview before the current ‘surge’ on “Elizabeth Warren’s plan to pass her plans” — I’d read this if nothing else:

… Ezra Klein: How different would it be for Democrats — or in this case for you — to run against Donald Trump in 2020 after he has passed all this agenda, the Republican agenda, versus in 2016, when he was claimed to be a populist running to reform the Republican Party. In polls, people thought Donald Trump was quite moderate in 2016. It seems running actually having a record now is going to snap what he is into place in a way that makes his reelection campaign very different.

Elizabeth Warren: He’s now got a record. Over and over, you can say he gave away a trillion-and-a-half dollars that just all went to the rich guys. The tariffs are killing you. It’s the ability now to come back and just say here are the facts. Here’s what happens and just hold him to it.

Now I don’t want to kid myself about it. He is a master at distraction and will want to talk about something else. I think part of this will be talking about what he’s done, but I think the much more central part will be, as Democrats, are we just going to be not-Trump? In which case, we ignore the fact something was broken in this country to elect a guy like Trump. Or are we going to be the party that says we get what’s wrong, we have a plan to fix it, and we’re going to build a grassroots movement to make that happen?…

Cole linked to Dahlia Lithwick’s Slate article when it first appeared, but it’s worth highlighting:

… [T]he women who come to these early Warren rallies like being addressed by an adult as adults. At a time when America has devalued teachers, empathy, expertise, and planning for the future, Elizabeth Warren serves as one reminder of what we have lost. It doesn’t mean the voters will necessarily throng to her side. It just means that the women I spoke to, and more and more of the women I know, don’t mind being educated about how everything went so terribly wrong in their political lifetimes. Elizabeth Warren can explain it, and has a plan for it, and believes she can fix it. It’s not glittery, and it may not make your heart beat faster in a stadium. But in a world of noise and bluster, her clarity has its own sort of charm.

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Saturday Morning Open Thread: Nice Weekend for A Southern Fish Fry

by 4:39 am. It has 122 Comments.

Dan Merica, at CNN:

… It was the first time most of the sprawling Democratic field has appeared together on one stage. Clyburn’s grand gathering was short on private moments — or quiet spaces — as the candidates bounced up against each other as the program stretched late into the Columbia night.

By the time host kicked off the speeches, the fish was out of sight and the beating sun was a memory. As the humidity lingered, thousands of onlookers shuffled toward the stage for the candidates they liked — and away when some of the lesser known hopefuls took their turn…

… The evening began in earnest with representatives from 21 campaigns standing in a backroom, Clyburn presiding, trying to hash out the Democratic Party’s most pressing issue: The speaking order.

Beto O’Rourke, lagging in the polls, emerged at the top of this contest. It was the second random draw a week that began with a lottery that decided how the 20 qualifying candidates would line up, and when, during next week’s hotly anticipated debates…

If there was a clear winner on this night, it was Clyburn. The third-ranking House Democrat’s Fish Fry is a long-running rite of election season, but the turnout — of candidates and voters — seemed to exceed even his most optimistic prediction.

Asked if he’d ever planned for the scenes all around him, Clyburn’s couldn’t hide his delight.

“No!,” he said. “I never thought so. But I always hoped!”…


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Late Night Open Thread: The Vital Questions for 2020

by 12:33 am. It has 51 Comments.

The NYTimes has an intensive ‘interactive’ video-piece — “18 Questions.
21 Democrats.” — interspersing worthy-if-anodyne questions (Would your focus be improving the Affordable Care Act or replacing it with single payer?… Do you think illegal immigration is a major problem in the United States?) with ones like “What is your comfort food on the campaign trail?”

I personally recommend skipping straight to NYMag‘s quasi-mocking “10 Takeaways From the Times’ Interview With 21 Democratic Candidates”, but I’m a cynic:

The Democratic Party’s first primary debate is still six days away. But if you can’t wait to watch Team Blue’s 2020 contenders — along with a random assortment of back-bench congressmen and rich people who got bored enough to run for president — give largely similar answers to a single set of questions, the New York Times has you covered. The paper just released a video series in which all 21 of the Democrats’ non–Joe Biden candidates answer the same 18 questions…

In any case, I misdoubt Senator Booker is doing himself any favors with the average American voter by advocating for veganism, but the man leans in…





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Test the Damn Coatdress!!!!!!

by 9:24 pm. It has 68 Comments.

Earlier today, New York Magazine reported that longtime Elle advice columnist, E. Jean Carroll, was raped by the President 25 years ago in the ladies changing room at Bergdorf Goodman’s in New York.

The article is gripping, angering, and frustrating to read. And I’m a guy whose never been sexually assaulted – and yes, that happens to guys sometimes. I cannot imagine how hard it was to read for those, women or men, who have been sexually assaulted and/or raped.

I want to focus on something, however, that I’ve not yet seen addressed: that the coatdress that Ms. Carroll wore when she alleges the President raped her has been hanging on her closet door ever since. (emphasis mine)

The Donna Karan coatdress still hangs on the back of my closet door, unworn and unlaundered since that evening.

TEST THE DAMN COATDRESS!!!!!!!!!!

If someone had accused President Obama or President Clinton or a prominent Democratic elected or appointed official, hell if someone had accused Secretary Clinton, of sexually assaulting and/or raping them, and had also reported they had the clothing they wore that day and it has been unworn and unwashed ever since, Roger Stone, Steve Bannon, David Bossie, Karl Rove – okay, Rove would hire someone as he can’t waddle that fast, Matt Schlapp – possibly same problem as Rove, Rudy Giuliani, Jacob Wohl, Ben Shapiro, Candace Owens, Chuck “Rage Furby” Johnson, whichever Breitbrat is on duty this weekend, and 1/2 a dozen other people affiliated with the  Republican Party, the conservative movement, the alt-right, the Trump campaign or other supporting organization like his SuperPAC, Leonard Leo, Don McGahn on behalf of his real boss Mitch McConnell, and Matt Gaetz in an attempt to get Gym Jordan and Mark Meadows to stop wedgying him in the cloak room and giving him swirlies in the House locker room, would all be converging on the accusers home to GET THE DAMN COATDRESS AND TEST IT FOR THE DNA OF THE PERSON ACCUSED OF COMMITTING THE SEXUAL ASSAULT AND/OR RAPE!!!!!!

This isn’t chutes and ladders. It isn’t tic tac toe. There are no Marquess of Queensbury Rules. No one cares about good ring generalship, there’s no four knock down rule, you’re not going to be saved by the bell. What is needed here is effective aggression!

Get the coatdress. Have it tested for DNA. That is the only way you’re ever going to see any accountability here. Because as riveting as Carroll’s article is, it will not bring accountability. It will simply disappear into the 24/7/365 information panopticon that the President and his supporters have created. By tomorrow or Sunday it will be gone, surpassed by something to do with Iran. Or tariffs with China. Or that his golf game got rained out.

Test the damn coatdress!!!

Open thread!





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Sean Hannity Conspired With Paul Manafort To Launder Information Through His Show On Fox and Then Back Into Manafort’s Legal Filings in Court

by 7:13 pm. It has 92 Comments.

Earlier today new documents were unsealed from the Manafort case. They are chat logs from 2017 and include text messages between Hannity and Manafort during the investigation into and prosecution of Manafort. They can be found at this link or below.

Manafort_Texts

Among other interesting, not so interesting, and explosive information in them, it appears that Manafort was using Hannity and his Fox News show to launder information into his legal filings with the court. This was done through Sara Carter, who claims to be a national security specialist (she isn’t), but who is a protege of the execrable John Solomon who has been laundering right wing conspiracy theories since the late 1980s/early 1990s.

Here’s the specific section that was tweeted by Brad Heath and that Mariotti is referring to:

Here’s another one tweeted by Heath where Manafort is complaining about former Attorney General Jeff Sessions with an empathetic Hannity.

I haven’t had a chance to read through all 56 pages yet, but it is very interesting that Hannity is Client 3, in touch with Julian Assange in an attempt to get information to broadcast, and is in touch with Manafort in an attempt to get information to broadcast that is then laundered back into Manafort’s court filings.

Just one more bit of evidence about how Fox News coordinates the information that it broadcasts with Republican and conservative movement elites and notables. Makes you wonder who else Hannity regularly texts with and what about?

Open thread!





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