US Politics, September 2024 -- “I’m Not Going to Apologize For Posting a Joke”

according to a new poll commissioned by AARP

About the only people I'd trust to poll Montana TBH. This is a gray-haired state.

And didn't Tester say two weeks ago that he wasn't endorsing Harris?

I don't think he said anything explicit, but he was one of Montana's electors and he didn't vote to certify her.

He said he's not going to make an endorsement in the Presidential race.

FTR, here's what I said elsewhere today:

Tester really seems to be running what looks *to me* like a very bad campaign, playing defense ("yeah, I'm a Democrat, but not like those others") when offense ("fuck these assholes! if you're a decent human being, you should vote for me") is what's called for. I'm seeing good "Tim Sheehy is a crooked piece of shit" messages from third party organizations, but the Tester campaign is falling down on the job IMO.

I think gubernatorial candidate Ryan Busse is running the campaign Tester should be running — his slogan, "let's get your Montana back," is very strong, and considering his focus on property taxes, access to public lands, and abortion rights and the fact that current governor Gianforte's approval rating is below 40 percent, I think he's got a real shot. I'd like to see Monica Tranel (who's running against Ryan Zinke) take it, too, but I can't really gauge her appeal right now based on nothing but a few YouTube ads (I don't have TV).

from the Guardian.. a good response to all the GOP 'socialist' talk

To state the obvious: free lunches – ensuring that poor kids won’t go hungry – are not communism. The one time in recent history that the US clearly resembled the Soviet Union – empty shelves and long lines outside shops – was under Trump; to be sure, other countries also had supply chain problems during Covid-19, but the former president proved exceptionally irresponsible and incompetent. But there’s another, less obvious similarity with the late Soviet Union in particular: the experience of being at the mercy of bureaucrats. No, not the DMV, but vast private corporations with quasi-monopoly power, something with which Trump’s Republican party, unlike the Biden administration, is evidently fine.

Fucking Karl Marx heading the Dems:

Ms. Harris has at the same time effectively embraced much of her Republican opponent’s signature legislative achievement by pledging not to raise taxes for any household making less than $400,000 a year, which amounts to roughly 98 percent of the population.

Campaigning in Nevada last month, she also adopted Mr. Trump’s plan to exempt tips from taxes, despite economists and tax experts having criticized the idea. She has also floated several additional tax cuts, like offering a larger child tax credit and expanding a deduction for new businesses, and at times she has adopted traditionally conservative rhetoric about taxes on the campaign trail, emphasizing that she would want to cut taxes for many Americans to allow them to “keep more of your hard-earned money.”

So what's the deal with Harris' father? He doesn't seem to support her in any way--like he wasn't at the DNC or anything. Also, he sent out a nasty press release when she made a joke about Jamaica and pot smoking back in 2020.

Harris 2024: "You Gonna Finish That?"

― There’s a Monster in my Vance (President Keyes), Thursday, September 5, 2024 9:48 AM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

“Guys, there’s gonna be a lot of things we don’t tell Mr. Emhoff.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYt0khR_ej0

Haven't seen that for ages--great! "There's gonna be a whole bunch of things we don't tell Mrs. Clinton."

(Which, yes, is lot more of a problem today than then.)

Looks like the Magic Oracle is going with Harris.. (he thought Biden should've stayed in the race)

A notable elections forecaster predicted Vice President Harris will win November’s election, according to his model of 13 keys.

Allan Lichtman, a historian who has successfully predicted the outcome of nine of the last 10 presidential elections, revealed in a New York Times video that he believes that Harris will clinch a victory over former President Trump. His election model is based on 13 true-or-false questions that ignore polls and pollsters.

“Kamala Harris will be the next president of the United States — at least that’s my prediction for this race, but the outcome is up to you, so get out and vote,” he said at the end of the video.

two of his 13 points of prediction lol

* The incumbent party candidate has charisma
* The challenger is uncharismatic

* The incumbent party candidate is a drunkard

both those things are very important and def I think a big part of why Trump beat Clinton, worth mentioning that Trump looks and sounds like shit these days though

xp she should start appearing with a carafe of cabernet on the lectern, it'd be good for California vintners

Trump is absolutely repellent to a wide swath of the American electorate

Sadly he was not repellent to 74,223,975 people last time.

but his repellence did inspire 81,283,501 to vote for the animal magnetism of Joe Biden

Ah yes:

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_fullsize/plain/did:plc:3dy6xttodkmml2c6crmm75ps/bafkreibhdvo6lkvkyakosvptzlqx3sifficrhyaaxqhgdqki6ihr3kbwn4@jpeg

is that specific enough for you?

What the fuck is he even saying?!?

"mmm pizza"

i can't believe anyone suggests that Kamala produces word salad when there's a full Jello Waldorf salad running against her

https://i.imgur.com/oMYyGhN.jpg

here's hoping terrines & aspics never make a comeback

So Trump wants Musk to run a Government Audit...

well look what he did for twitter, dude know his stuff

I'm cool with aspic making a comeback in album titles for a future nostalgic revival of King Crimson style progressive rock

I don’t think Texas (presidential or senate) is going to flip any time soon but you can make a polling case that dems would be better directing senate money there (or Florida) than Montana.

I'm not sure Tester can even accept dirty demoncrat money

In re Trump's rambling incoherence, this Parker Molloy piece from the New Republic may have already been posted here (apologies if so) but it does a good job of calling out how crazy it is the way Trump gets reported on. Like, just no indication that what he's actually saying at any of these events is bizarro nonsense. I know it's partly because of Trump fatigue all the way around and a sense that "people already know what he's like," but they actually DON'T know necessarily. Any given speech or appearance he says 4 or 5 things that would have ended the careers of generations of candidates before him, and a lot of them only get reported by partisans on social media.

https://newrepublic.com/article/185530/media-criticism-trump-sanewashing-problem

The consequences of this journalistic malpractice extend far beyond misleading headlines. By laundering Trump’s words in this fashion, the media is actively participating in the erosion of our shared reality. When major news outlets consistently present a polished version of Trump’s statements, they create an alternate narrative that exists alongside the unfiltered truth available on social media and in unedited footage.

Voters who rely solely on traditional news sources are presented with a version of Trump that bears little resemblance to reality.

here's hoping terrines & aspics never make a comeback

I know it was a long weekend, but what he said last Friday about public schools as trans factories should've gotten end-to-end coverage. We know why not.

_here's hoping terrines & aspics never make a comeback_

I’m pretty sure that aspic salad would be making a comeback shortly after I ate it

My Story.
My Perspective.
The Truth. https://t.co/ZCTwZSqZND pic.twitter.com/HHGQaA6d5v

— MELANIA TRUMP (@MELANIATRUMP) September 5, 2024

these people are fucking loons.

that just makes me realize how little I've heard her speak. not since her 2016 convention speech, maybe.

Is this going to be the most purchased and least read book in history?

this'll be at the Dollar Tree in three months, max

His name is PBKR.

many xps, but wanted to say that tipsy is 1000% otm

interesting to think about what punishment these conservative 'influencers' wouldn't have faced in 1959 for accepting Russian money to distribute propaganda domestically

^^^ WOULD've

I know it was a long weekend, but what he said last Friday about public schools as trans factories should've gotten end-to-end coverage. We know why not.

Yep. Its pathetic that this insane assertion that public school employees are doing sexual reassignment surgery has gone nearly unmentioned. But he also gets to keep repeating his assertions that immigrants are from insane asylums and countless other lies constantly with no pushback

"We know why not" = gays are cool, trans people aren't cool, as we know from the NYT's coverage.

The Times was doing to gays in the 80s what they’re doing now to trans people.

1) Yes, the column by @GregTSargent is very forceful and important.

2) Yes, @mikebarnicle had an important and on-point blast this morning about the incredible, irresponsible, and un-changing "normalization" by main outlets.

3) Yes, Trump's performance last night would lead to… https://t.co/ECUy5jXMxV

— James Fallows (@JamesFallows) September 5, 2024

fallows always been such a resistance dem or is he losing it a bit

Fallows has been leaning more into media criticism lately, esp. in his newsletter Breaking the News (an extension of a book he wrote in the '90s with that title). I think he generally makes some astute points on the subject, in the vein of folks like Jay Rosen and Margaret Sullivan, who have also examined how the media's biases and incentives often benefit Republicans and downplay the danger they pose, but this kind of thing can sometimes tip into hysterical exasperation when expressed on Twitter.

I know my boy Rick Scott has never won anything but a nailbiter but this surprises me:

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) and former Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (D-Fla.) are locked in a dead heat in Florida’s Senate race, according to polling released Friday by The Hill and Emerson College Polling.

Scott leads Mucarsel-Powell 46 percent to 45 percent among likely Florida voters, well within the survey’s plus or minus 3.4 point margin of error. Nine percent of voters said they are undecided.

Among independent voters, 47 percent said they back Mucarsel-Powell and 34 percent broke for Scott, while 19 percent said they are undecided. Mucarsel-Powell leads Scott by 5 points among women voters, and Scott led Mucarsel-Powell by 8 points among men.

The poll also found Mucarsel-Powell polling ahead of Scott with the state’s Hispanic vote by 6 points, while Scott led Mucarsel-Powell by 19 points among white voters.

The Hill/Emerson College Polling survey shows the tightest race yet between the two Floridians.

A Florida Atlantic University poll released last month found Scott leading Mucarsel-Powell 47 percent to 43 percent among likely voters, while a University of North Florida poll also released last month showed the same margin. Prior to the poll’s release, The Hill’s Decision Desk HQ average showed Scott leading by 4.3 points.

Greg Sargent touches on the most frustrating aspect of all this for me, it’s absolutely wild that the media cannot just come out and say the man has no fucking clue what he’s talking about, he has no actual policy, he is rapidly losing his mind and at this point would likely fail literally any job interview. It’s one thing to launder his extreme views, they’ve been doing that for years, but now they’re laundering how utterly incoherent he is, pretending he actually has something to say, it’s maddening. Fuck I’m getting mad about it right now!!

why wouldn't they do this? they want him to win