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

Good morning

Where’s the mail in ballots?

I’m sure this will go somewhere

“The market’s troubles have caught the attention of Congress — with one New York lawmaker calling it a “ticking time bomb” for banks as nearly $1 trillion in commercial real estate loans are coming due this year. Faced with vacant office buildings and a shortage of millions of homes to meet demand, a bipartisan group of lawmakers is trying to make it easier for developers to convert underused properties into housing.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/09/02/office-property-values-fed-00174697

cc unperson is this a big deal?

Been hearing whispers that the Tester camp has quite a dossier of oppo against Sheehy

They may be holding most of their fire until post-Labor Day when voters are paying closer attention

Hard to say how electorally potent this kind of stuff will be but could be the first of many https://t.co/bppGjJqzwf pic.twitter.com/YaLJnf7fEw

— Adam Carlson (@admcrlsn) September 2, 2024

Xp to Ray, not a terrible idea, but I doubt Congress will be able to pass anything, or if so, something ineffective.

Oh, I agree! I don’t have faith in their ability to take this anywhere, especially right now. (But it would be cool)

I feel like "convert the empty commercial building to residential" has been discussed here before, and iirc a big issue is that the plumbing is done completely differently, with bathrooms centralized, it's not insurmountable but you can't just convert w/no remodeling

oh boy, the legendary oppo dump rumor, now that one takes me back

it's going to be a huge oppo dump, the biggest of them all. it will be apocalyptic in the sense that everyone knows it's coming but no one knows the exact time.
it will start with a plop and then turn into a torrential downpour with fizzy-bursts with announcements, and it will destroy the entire system. there will be splashback of an extent which cannot be predicted. the bottom of the toilet lid will be covered with human shit

^^that's the poop joke i would have made years ago during the legendary oppo dump rumor era, but you could say i've done some growing up between then and now

skyscrapers of tribal families with communal bathrooms and no cooking areas and no means of getting out alive is how i understand most of the world anyway tbh

see thread title

jd vance says the things about jokes that we're all thinking but are afraid to say!

jeezus biden won't stop talking. let kamala talk please. i know i know IT'S NOT A JOKE.

i think he had 25 "folks" and 25 "it's not a joke".

that's number one number two

If you already know who you are voting for, why would you waste your time watching political speeches? It’s nonsense. Anything noteworthy will immediately be clipped online. Nothing is going to change anyone’s mind.

i have problems apparently. i haven't really been feeling the nfl lately. i guess i just feel like following something. tim walz was good today. all union gung ho. they are all in on the union gung ho. i keep waiting for walz to bust out with "BROTHERS AND SISTERS BROTHERS AND SISTERS IT'S TIME TO...KICK OUT THE JAMS MOTHERFUCKERS". if he did that in a detroit union hall i think people would lose their shit.

Kick out the Vance MFers

Rama lama fafafa poll-lead reducer

brother dont i know it

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GWh2QC4W4AEWsWy?format=jpg&name=medium

now here's a scoop

listen bud cornpop is my friend and theres nothing you or anyone else can do to change that

We used to have Scoop

BUT ITS OVER NOWWWW

Not many posts this month...long weekend? Nothing happening? Or: the early rush of excitement has levelled off, some anxiety creeping in?

Long weekend, no anxiety yet.

No one pays attention to the Presidential race until after, uh, yesterday

Lolz at mark g

Anyway it's all over:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/politics/2024/09/03/kamala-harris-beats-donald-trump-us-election-poll/

saw some thing predicting whoever won PA had a 90%+ chance of taking the whole thing

Basically if Harris wins PA she can afford to lose most of the other swing states

(xpost) Your hero agrees.

https://i.postimg.cc/rmCYKLsk/nate.jpg

Anecdotal indicator: In 2008 and 2012 when I drove around North Philly there were Obama signs everywhere. Thus far I don't see too many Harris signs. Maybe too early.

Right, the point is, these are all correlated, so a candidate who wins one is disproportionately likely to win all three

vote power index, love me some vpi, gimme vpi alerts on my phone

Apparently signs keep selling out, was told there won’t be more until sometime this month.

Signs, signs--everywhere a sign.

(xpost) Your hero agrees.

― clemenza, Tuesday, September 3, 2024 12:44 PM (twenty-five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

that was the thing i saw lol

Just fuck up vote certs in georgia pa and mich then? mich has made that a little harder by law and has a dem gov, dunno about pa hit it seems like shapiro has some authority over it, and ga seems like a playground with a gop gov. def start by fucking up ga.

https://www.votebeat.org/2024/08/22/presidential-election-certification-delays-trump-republicans-disputes-georgia-board-rule/

Ah but Georgia's governor hates Trump

he does but he also supports him. that said I think GA would be foolish to allow the sort of fuck ups he pushed for last time this time around.

the good thing re: PA is that it's a big union state and unions really dislike Vance. also I don't think Trump palling around with Elon Musk is gonna be doing him any favors

saw some thing predicting whoever won PA had a 90%+ chance of taking the whole thing

― lag∞n, Tuesday, September 3, 2024 12:38 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

Basically if Harris wins PA she can afford to lose most of the other swing states

― There’s a Monster in my Vance (President Keyes), Tuesday, September 3, 2024 12:39 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

first point is true, winning PA makes you very likely to win, but only because winning PA is correlated with winning a bunch of other states. it does not mean you can lose most of the other all the other states. and winning PA does not *cause* you to win the states.

the tourist shop near my office has been selling trump t-shirts since the conviction/assassination. no Biden shirts. they added Harris t-shirts last week. I've seen enough.

how many of these did they have
https://res.cloudinary.com/teepublic/image/private/s--NyV2QroO--/t_Resized%20Artwork/c_crop,x_10,y_10/c_fit,w_470/c_crop,g_north_west,h_626,w_470,x_0,y_0/g_north_west,u_upload:v1571669489:production:blanks:jaeeqnv4r8crsxalh03n,x_-395,y_-325/b_rgb:eeeeee/c_limit,f_auto,h_630,q_auto:good:420,w_630/v1723928254/production/designs/64600815_1.jpg

is Russia bad now it's so confusing

If Harris wins PA along with MI, and WI (where she's ahead) she will have 270 EVs and can afford to lose AZ, NV, NC and GA, which are "most" of the swing states.

and its hard to envision her winning PA without winning both WI and MI

Likewise, if Trump wins PA, along with NC and GA he would have 270 and could afford to lose MI, WI, NV and AZ

He ends with "You should hide your head in a bag."

Someone should end him

This is amazing. Quoted from Matt Levine's Money Stuff column.

A day after an apparent assassination attempt against former President Donald J. Trump, he appeared on a livestream on Monday to champion his latest business venture: cryptocurrencies.

“Crypto is one of those things we have to do,” Mr. Trump said on X. “Whether we like it or not, I have to do it.”
Beside him were his collaborators, including a family friend; Mr. Trump’s two oldest sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump; and two little-known crypto entrepreneurs with no experience running a high-profile business. Together, they were rolling out Mr. Trump’s crypto venture, World Liberty Financial, a project that has already raised concerns about the former president’s conflicts of interest and even alarmed some of his most vocal supporters in the industry.

Mr. Trump has promoted the venture since August, but its exact purpose remains unclear. No official launch date has been set. On the livestream, he did not address the project directly, leaving the details to the two entrepreneurs, Chase Herro and Zachary Folkman. Mr. Herro has described himself as “the dirtbag of the internet,” while Mr. Folkman used to teach classes on how to seduce women.

grifters gonna grift

He ends with "You should hide your head in a bag."

― There’s a Monster in my Vance (President Keyes), Tuesday, September 17, 2024 3:06 PM (eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

unbelievable

she said "no" like 100 times

the question itself was hateful and offensive. but she was not equivocating.

“ You can literally sell s– in a can, wrapped in piss, covered in human skin, for a billion dollars if the story’s right, because people will buy it,” Herro said about crypto in a 2018 YouTube video recorded as he drove in a Rolls-Royce. “I’m not going to question the right and wrong of all that.”

Trump pals vmic

Berry was more restrained than I would have been.

guy keeps finding new ways to be weird

Vance: This country never healed from the assassination of Robert F Kennedy Jr. pic.twitter.com/JA6mo1GfHZ

— Acyn (@Acyn) September 17, 2024

what a way to find out.

That settles it. Vance is from the future.

CRISWELL VANCE PREDICTS!

Stuart Rothenberg, ultra-mainstream columnist for Roll Call, says there's a definite chance of a Harris blowout:

If there is one thing on which liberals and conservatives, Republicans and Democrats, journalists and political partisans all agree, it’s that the 2024 presidential race is too close to call.

Vice President Kamala Harris may have a slight advantage nationally and in a couple of competitive states, but polling in at least half a dozen swing states – including Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, North Carolina, Michigan and Wisconsin – shows that the presidential race between Harris and former president Donald Trump is separated by only a percentage point or two.

As the New York Times wrote on Sept. 8 and updated three days later, “The national results are in line with polls in the seven battleground states that will decide the presidential election, where Ms. Harris is tied with Mr. Trump or holds slim leads, according to New York Times polling averages. Taken together, they show a tight race that remains either candidate’s to win or lose.”

But if you are something of a gambler and everyone you know believes the 2024 presidential contest is and will remain extremely close, you probably should put a few dollars on the possibility that November will produce a clear and convincing win for Harris.

I've had some of the same thoughts as Rothenburg, but don't want to get too far into hopium. Her winning if it happens will be sufficient, if it's a bigger win than the polling models expect then that's peachy. I agree that it very much doesn't feel like a year that we decide to do Trump all over again. But vibes are only worth so much. But what the hell, he stuck his neck out and if he's right he can give Nate Silver a noogie.

There will be a line.

xxp that's a lot of words to say "https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2024-election-forecast/";

Former President Donald Trump dropped below a 40 percent chance of an election victory for the first time on Tuesday, according to a forecast by a major polling aggregator.

FiveThirtyEight's election forecast gave the Republican candidate a 39 percent chance of winning the Electoral College, after a slate of strong polling for Vice President Kamala Harris boosted her odds to greater than 60 percent.

Previously, Trump had been performing close to the margin of error between the two candidates. When the model first relaunched following the replacement of President Joe Biden, it gave Trump a 41 percent chance of winning, which was rising steadily before the ABC debate on September 10.

Since then, Harris has received strong polls both nationally and in key swing states that have boosted her chances. However, FiveThirtyEight's model weighs surveys by geographical region, so while they show Harris doing well in Iowa, which is in the Midwest, she is unlikely to carry the state itself.

lot of ink shed over 40/60 vs 60/40 vs 50/50 but the one unchanging thing about all these forecasts agree on is that a blowout is not likely, but is much more likely for harris than for trump. you don't need pundits who have spoken to like seven voters to learn that.

part of that is this structure of the electoral college, and the fact that states like texas and florida are relatively close. this is why "democrat blowout is more likely than republican blowout" has been true for the past few elections.

part of it is that, right now, the polls are at something like +3 +/- MOE. If the MOE is at the limits in favor of harris, we get into blowout territory. If they are the limits in favor of trump we get a 2016 type result.

I assume the numbers will become more lopsided as Election Day approaches, though who knows which way it will fall.

Early voting starts in a month here, comin' up soon!

god, I so appreciate this abridged campaign schedule. Having el viejito on the campaign trail while I covered my eyes every time he rasped was not a pleasure I was looking forward to.

yeah its crazy the election is so soon

Seven weeks from today, we're now under the 50 day out mark.

more of this please

Former President Trump expressed his dislike Sunday of pop superstar Taylor Swift on Truth Social.

“I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT!” the former president said in his post.

around here we just post in the “shit i don’t care bout” thread to be do thet

to be do thet

(Taylor's Version)

Harris currently speaking/taking questions at NABJ, wonder if this will go better for her than it did for Trump https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2024/09/17/watch_live_kamala_harris_will_take_questions_from_national_association_of_black_journalists.html

Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1968 tbf.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s brain was assassinated by a worm in 2005

GPT refused to let me depict any specific political figures, but I came close

https://scontent-bos5-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/460645509_10169311451100304_9038359875630762042_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_p526x296&_nc_cat=101&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=127cfc&_nc_ohc=Wp_3BTO_8ZcQ7kNvgFKo4gY&_nc_ht=scontent-bos5-1.xx&oh=00_AYCeFh4qjFJilpF0TAttrc31DOxik7Q_tXDa0xYXao03ow&oe=66EFC677

The Times is gonna keep stamping their feet until Harris gives them an interview. If she's smart, she never will. (Gift link.)

She has hosted a convention, weathered a debate, held her first sit-down interview with a major television network.

Now the question for Vice President Kamala Harris’s media strategists is: What should she do next?

With no more mass-audience events remaining before Election Day, and former President Donald J. Trump declaring, for now, that he will not submit to another debate, Ms. Harris must determine the best way to keep introducing herself to voters who still have questions about her policies and plans for the nation.

During her 2020 campaign and early in her vice presidency, some of Ms. Harris’s biggest missteps came during unscripted encounters with journalists. To avoid taking chances, she has granted only six interviews in the 58 days since President Biden withdrew from the race, three with friendly radio hosts. Even the press-averse Mr. Biden took more questions in the final two months of his campaign than Ms. Harris has in what is nearly the first two months of hers.

...

Every big news network has a standing request with the Harris campaign for an interview. One potential appearance could be on CBS News’s “60 Minutes,” the country’s most-watched news program, which is planning its quadrennial election special on Oct. 7 and has requested interviews with both candidates.

But aides say Ms. Harris is more likely to spend time answering questions from inquisitors with smaller, more niche audiences that include many voters in battleground states. These interviewers include drive-time radio hosts and anchors from the local evening news — particularly those who, like the television reporter from Philadelphia, tend not to ask follow-ups if and when Ms. Harris filibusters or dodges their questions.

“There are big pluses to do local media; there’s no urgency for her to do national press,” said John Del Cecato, who was a media strategist for Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns. “There’s no soft spots that she’s desperate to keep armored. She simply has better ways to deliver her message to people than in national interviews.”

Y'all shouldn't read the Luntz return to the youth focus group post-debate.

I'd rather poke my eyes out

don't know if it's been discussed here, but the newest right wing outrage is a 'whistleblower' allegation that ABC secretly supplied the questions to Team Harris before the debate

Y'all shouldn't read the Luntz return to the youth focus group post-debate.

Definitely read Jamelle Bouie's comments on it on Bluesky, though. (Reminder: Bouie also works for the Times.)

these focus groups are really a good reminder that undecided voters are people who don’t actually care about politics

also “abigail” is basically regurgitating online republican cant and is almost certainly lying about voting biden in 2020. i’m also doubtful that any of the people who did not vote in 2020 will vote this year

lastly, i find it striking that some of these people are able to watch trump be completely incoherent & then go “well maybe he’ll be a good president.” it’s like the fact that he is a white guy in a suit overrides everything else. (also the fact that they were literal children when he was president)

In response to someone who commented, "don't forget that he's also loud and confident, which in additional to being white and in a suit is probably all that makes up these people's idea of what a president is":

it is super interesting to me that they read harris being prepared as being “fake,” as if the only way to be a president is to be a loudmouthed idiot

That ABC "whistleblower allegation" appears to be just entirely fabricated from one anonymous post, it's a literal nothing — there's not even one lady in Canton who slipped her one question — but it's just a thing to say. Among the many dumb things about it is that all of the questions were about totally obvious things that anyone could have predicted would be asked. Oh, they're gonna ask about the economy? And Gaza? And abortion? Phew, thanks for the heads up.

There's also this fallacy that debates are where You Explain Policy.

yeah, I think they're trying to gin up some excuse for Trump's poor performance, so 'SHE CHEATED!' works as good as anything

“Supplying the questions in advance” is such a ridiculous attack. It’s not a trivia contest. The economy, the border, abortion. I’m sure both teams prepared for these topics; if Trump decided to revert to cats and dogs it’s because he’s a moron.

Or, what Tipsy said.

the allegation that she had access to questions in advance is really funny considering their immediate post-debate spin was that she didn't actually answer any of the questions

or considering that literally nothing about what went terribly for Trump in that debate had to do with how prepared either were for the questions

It’s not a pop quiz!

also Trump said that he won the debate bigly. so what's the problem?

Trump is a big problem. Yuge.

he destroyed kamala in the debate but she cheated and abc should be put in prison. makes no sense. he makes no sense. where is his sense?

part of it is that, right now, the polls are at something like +3 +/- MOE. If the MOE is at the limits in favor of harris, we get into blowout territory. If they are the limits in favor of trump we get a 2016 type result.

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Tuesday, September 17, 2024 3:06 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

one comforting thought is that polling methodology has changed since 2020, apparently for the last two pollsters would get a number of respondants who would just yell "TRUMP!!" and hang up, in the past they wouldn't count those, but they've since realized those people probably are reliable Trump votes, so now they're counting them. apparently this is what accounts for a big portion of the polling miss in 2016 and 2020.

obviously you cant really predict which direction the polls are gonna miss in but I have to think the advantage Harris has in cash, field offices, and overall enthusiasm matters some. I mean until the vote is cast there's no one who is actually 100% certain to vote. it does seem like people are way more motivated to get this guy out of the picture than they are to give him 4 more years in office. even the idiots I know who are voting for him solely because they really do think tarriffs are gonna solve inflation are saying stuff like "look, it's only 4 more years, then we can be done with him". I have to think there's a chance some of these people just say, "eh, fuck it" on election day.

one comforting thought is that polling methodology has changed since 2020, apparently for the last two pollsters would get a number of respondants who would just yell "TRUMP!!" and hang up, in the past they wouldn't count those, but they've since realized those people probably are reliable Trump votes, so now they're counting them. apparently this is what accounts for a big portion of the polling miss in 2016 and 2020

this is nyt siena poll, which is an outlier in terms of trump polling well (last one had him at +2 nationally)

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/01/upshot/nyt-siena-poll-2024.html