Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Gastritis Broke My Calculator

Han shot first.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense.

Saul Alinsky is my co-pilot

What fresh hell is this?

Word salad with all caps

We Survived Breitbartpocalypse!

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

We still have time to mess this up!

This Blog Goes to 11…

This blog will pay for itself.

Screw the Judean People’s Front. Splitters.

An army of rabid, anonymous commenters

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Wetsuit optional.

We have all the best words.

A snarling mass of vitriolic vicious jackals

This is a big f—–g deal.

How has Obama failed you today?

Yes we did.

Naturally gregarious and alpha

Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack!

It’s a tarp!

The Math Demands It!

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Don't Agonize - Organize

Monday Morning Open Thread: Really Absolutely Mundanely 2020, Now

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Parties are over, back to the real-as-we-know-it world…

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Wednesday Morning Open Thread: DUMP TRUMP

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It’s the theme of the day! From the Washington Post:

… Protesters in the dark of a snowy New England evening chanted “Dump Trump,” while those marching in the warmth of southern Florida brandished signs reading “Impeach Putin’s Puppet.” In Republican-dominated Kansas, they repeated a mantra: “Country over party.” In Texas, they fretted that despite the House’s vote, Trump will get away with it all.

Organizers said that there were more than 600 protests nationwide — from Hawaii to Maine — with the goal of demonstrating “to our lawmakers that their constituents are behind them to defend the Constitution.”

In many places, the rallies functioned less as a chance to vent about Trump’s Ukraine dealings — the matter for which he faces impeachment — than as an opportunity for collective catharsis over the entire track record of a president disapproved of by slightly more than half the country…

The House hearings are due to start around 9am EST; actual voting is expected “around” 6:30-7:30pm, depending on the Repubs’ performative stamina, or any ‘surprises’ from the Oval Office squatters.

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Friday Night Impeachment Watch: Nancy Pelosi Talks to Steven Colbert

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Good for Madam Speaker, now and forever…

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Wednesday Morning Open Thread: New Story (Old Narrative)

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Meanwhile, across the aisle: ‘… Because our lips get tired!’


SRSLY:

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Accidental Open Thread (Texas)

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This outdated partial draft got front-paged while I wasn’t around. I’d take it down now, if not for the conversations in the comments. Won’t happen again, I *hope*!

***********

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/take-texas-seriously-gop-anxiety-spikes-after-retirements-democratic-gains/2019/08/02/d9e9942c-b4b8-11e9-8949-5f36ff92706e_story.html

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Thursday Morning Open Thread: Smash the Green Lantern (Theory)

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Open Thread: A Reminder That the Electoral College Needs to Go

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It’s now part of the official GOP program for keeping “America” in the hands of the rich, white, and Republican. Once again, Trump says the quiet parts out loud.

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Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Readership Capture

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Vanity Fair:

… Obama announced his intention to tackle the issue earlier this year, combining his Organizing for America organization with former Attorney General Eric Holder’s redistricting efforts to create the organization All On The Line, which describes itself as a “national campaign to restore fairness to our democracy and ensure every American has an equal say in our government” by fighting against gerrymandering and advocating for fair maps nationwide. On Monday, Obama went one step further by announcing Redistricting U, a new extension of All On The Line which will provide free, in-person training for redistricting activists…

… While All On The Line’s activism will take place nationwide, the organization says that its efforts will particularly be targeting Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin…

 

Viola Davis is set to portray Michelle Obama in First Ladies, a one-hour White House drama that has been put on fast-track development at Showtime with a three-script commitment. Davis will executive produce the project, which hails from writer Aaron Cooley (novels Four Seats: A Thriller of the Supreme Court, The Guns of Ridgewood), Davis and Julius Tennon’s JuVee Productions, Cathy Schulman’s Welle Entertainment (Otherhood), Jeff Gaspin’s Gaspin Media (LA’s Finest) and Brad Kaplan (The Intruder). Showtime and Lionsgate TV co-produce…

Davis stars in How to Get Away with Murder, which begins its sixth and final season this fall on ABC. She and Tennon most recently executive produced with Steph Curry the documentary Emanuel, about the mass shooting at Emanuel AME Church on June 17, 2015. JuVee’s Davis and Tennon also are executive producing Fast Color, a TV series based on the 2018 sci-fi film, for Amazon.

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Open Thread: Barney Frank Should Live A Thousand Years

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[For the record: I had this in draft *before* BettyC’s last post.]

In the New Yorker, Isaac Chotiner — who is usually smarter than this — get his lunch handed to him: “Barney Frank Defends Nancy Pelosi from Her Critics“:

… To discuss the state of the Democratic Party, and Pelosi’s leadership, I spoke by phone on Monday with Barney Frank, the former congressman, who represented his district in Massachusetts for more than three decades in the House before retiring, in 2013. He is best known for his outspokenness and his role in crafting the eponymous Dodd-Frank Act, which sought to regulate the financial industry after the crash last decade. During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed why he thinks the criticism of Pelosi is unfair, whether there is a divide in the Democratic Party, and his belief that this dispute is not really a generational one.

What have you made of the internal split between Pelosi and some of her members?

I’m disappointed by it. I think the first thing to say is that it is not nearly as big a split as people think. They are a fraction, a splinter. The overwhelming majority of the Democrats agree with [Pelosi]. Frankly, I think there is a conspiracy among Ocasio-Cortez, the media, and the Republican Party to make her look much more influential than she is. Every time I debate a Republican, they want to talk about them. And I think, in fact, that there is not such a big splinter. There have always been, on the Democratic side—Howard Dean, etc.—people who are very passionate and are frustrated because reality isn’t as pliable as they wish. They are people who I think make the fundamental mistake—I often agree with them on substance—but they make the fundamental mistake of thinking the general public is much more in agreement with them than it is, and forget about or just reject the notion of trying to figure out how to get things done.

I agree with you that Ocasio-Cortez represents a minority of the Party, even though I think she is probably fairly similar on politics to [Bernie] Sanders and [Elizabeth] Warren, who I think combined make up a somewhat—

No, here’s the fundamental difference. I said I agree with a lot of them on substance. The issue is not substance. I have worked very closely with Elizabeth Warren. The fundamental difference is that these people—certainly Ocasio-Cortez—they appear to think that the majority is ready to adopt what they want, and it’s a strategic and tactical difference.

Elizabeth Warren would never have had a sit-in protesting Nancy Pelosi. It’s a matter of how you go about things. It is their view that the only reason that their platform isn’t being adopted is the political timidity, maybe the malign influence of money. The notion that there is significant political opposition among many people, including maybe a majority on some issues, they disregard that and denounce other Democrats, saying they don’t have the courage. It’s not the courage. We don’t have the votes sometimes. Sanders did that a little bit more. Elizabeth never does that…

I understand not wanting to do impeachment, even if you think the President deserves to be impeached. I understand—

By the way, two-thirds of the House Democrats agree with [Pelosi].

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Russiagate Open Thread: One Step At A Time…

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Note carefully, he’s not disagreeing with Pelosi — this is the next step in the essential choreography to block off every Repub bolthole:

Former Senate majority leader Harry Reid, who as recently as last month cautioned Democrats about the perils of pursuing President Trump’s impeachment, now says the House should open an impeachment inquiry that might or might not lead to a formal effort to remove him from office.

“It’s not the right thing to do nothing,” Reid said in an interview Monday with USA TODAY. “It’s not the right thing to jump into impeachment without doing an inquiry.”

The most important goal, he said, would be to “give the American people a view of what’s going on.”

The House could establish an impeachment panel to investigate the allegations that some say amount to the “high crimes and misdemeanors” necessary under the Constitution to remove a president from office. But such a panel wouldn’t necessarily vote to impeach Trump — that is, to approve Articles of Impeachment that would send the process to the Senate for a trial….

Reid’s comments are also notable because he had what he called “a front-row seat” at the nation’s last impeachment trial, when Reid was Senate minority leader. Then, the Republican-controlled House voted to impeach Clinton, but the Senate didn’t convict him in the trial that followed.

That impeachment effort rebounded politically against GOP candidates in the 1998 midterm elections.

Reid acknowledged the potential political blowback and the likelihood that the current GOP-controlled Senate would never vote to remove Trump from office…

In the end, he said, “I just think that Republicans are going arm-in-arm with Trump, right over the cliff.” But he said public opinion might be affected by a systematic effort to explore allegations that Trump tried to obstruct the special counsel’s investigation and engaged in other wrongdoing….

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Ohio Jackals – Contact Info For Your Legislators

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If you are enraged about Ohio’s vile forced-pregnancy bill (H.B. 182), debbie has compiled a list of the sponsor and co-sponsors the members of the Insurance Committee who began hearings on the bill last week.. I’m going to put them below the fold. Keep in mind that the Insurance Committee is hearing the bill and is not responsible for it. The Sponsor and Co-Sponsors want the bill to become law. Write, call, demonstrate! Let these people know what you think!

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Registration tables vs. Mortality tables

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American politics right now is basically a race of the registration tables against the mortality  tables.

Charles Franklin has a great graph on Twitter looking at mid-term voter participation rates by age for 2010, 2014, and 2018.

There are a few take-aways here. First, the probability of voting by age pretty steadily increases as cohorts age until about age 75 or so and then it drops off. Secondly, the slopes are fairly similar over time; it is a matter of levels for the differences in turn-out.  Young voters increased their voting rates faster than almost any one else in 2018.

Age is a strong dividing line. Pew shows this nicely from a poll in January 2019:

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Thursday Morning Open Thread: Tell It, Senator Warren!

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As is her wont, Warren is serving as point-person here. And — as is hers — Speaker Pelosi is proceeding, with all due deliberation, along the same path:

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Late Night Schadenfreude Open Thread: Lock HIM Up!

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Politico, “Democrats weigh a ‘Benghazi Trump’ strategy”:

Democrats may not be able to saddle President Donald Trump with impeachment proceedings or pry documents from his administration, but they have another means of bludgeoning him: hearings, hearings and more hearings.

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Calling the Traitor(s) in the White House to Account

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Counter-argument, which refutes itself in the person of the panty-sniffer making it:

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