US Politics, November 2019: These people are truly sick.

There are lots of polls that measure that take into account people who say there’s absolutely no they’d vote for trump. Also, lots of pills measuring republican hatred for _any_ democratic candidate, which is a proxy for total trump support

Sorry, derp posting on my phone

Even from this far away, I can sense Nate Silver beginning to salivate.

This is the first time it really feels like that famous 'like to see ol' donny trump wriggle his way out of *this* jam' might have finally been superseded by events.

And of course it was one of his big donors. Of course.

Look, I am not assuming so many people hate Donald Trump that there is no way he won't win re-election. I'm assuming that if we assume that we have to have the perfect candidate in order to win, we are letting ourselves off the hook if we lose because we can just blame circumstances/the insufficiently Obama-like candidate/black people rather than our own complacency.

i'm not a fan of Diamond Joe or Mayor Pete but they don't have the same radioactive reputation as HRC. Their effort to find a scandal to tie Biden to shows their desperate efforts at making it work a second time around. I'm not sure people are going to look at their policies and say "hmm they're worse than HRC so i better throw a vote to Trump again/sit this one out since it doesn't matter." i'm not saying Trump can't win again, but idk...a lot does depend on the next year and momentum. I also don't think Trump's got the same energy and i don't know that his campaign trail bullshit will seem so "fresh" this time.

yea I tend to agree with this take - HRC was the least popular Dem nominee ever and it still took an October surprise & the workings of the electoral college to beat her. I've never seen a politician inspire the sort of batshit conspiracy theorizing that Hillary did. even today. Republicans can't get enough of her

why are we pretending like it's the black vote that fucks everything up?

I'm not "pretending" that just happened to be the example I picked. We could argue about non-college educated white men Dem voters if you want to (and I just *know* everybody wants to)

It is worth noting that broadly speaking African American turnout drives Dem victories in key states, and a lot has been written about this. They are just one part of the Democratic coalition, but they are a critical part.

xps

yeah, i would rather argue about one's own demographic that keeps failing everyone else. the black vote doesn't.

in my world of Democrats, everyone has their fav candidate (or 2) but all of them are just extremely eager to vote AGAINST Trump. akin to me voting against my US Rep Gosar. I don't even know who I actually voted FOR.

I think it's unfair to characterize my position as being the black vote "failing". Like wtf

also I am not a non-college educated white man but hey keep talking

xps

didn't the Dems win big in 2018 by making the election a referendum on Trump

I'm happy to bitch all day about Republican-voting Jews though, if you want to hear that

xps

one's own demographic that keeps failing everyone else.

as a boomer, this is one painful fact I would prefer weren't true. even from the standpoint of purely democratic politics, HRC rode to the nomination because dem boomers favored her over Sanders.

first question from jim jordan, the brains of the operation:

JORDAN: "MR. SONDLAND, WHEN DID IT HAPPEN!?!??!"

SONDLAND: "...when did what happen?"

Does Jim Jordan realize he has a microphone in front of him, and that it's turned on?

sondland (who is a complete jackass) appears to be on the brink of rolling his eyes at jordan. maybe he has been all day - i've been listening, but just now pulled up the video feed

trump tweeted about all this. he says Sondland exonerated him (big surprise) and the witch hunt is over.

Impeachment Witch Hunt is now OVER! Ambassador Sondland asks U.S. President (me): “What do you want from Ukraine? I keep hearing all these different ideas & theories. What do you want? It was a very abrupt conversation. He was not in a good mood. He (the President) just said,”...

....”I WANT NOTHING! I WANT NOTHING! I WANT NO QUID PRO QUO! TELL PRESIDENT ZELENSKY TO DO THE RIGHT THING!” Later, Ambassador Sondland said that I told him, “Good, go tell the truth!” This Witch Hunt must end NOW. So bad for our Country!

the best people: Gordon Sundland

This is a huge point that I don't think people — who are used to having two sane candidates on the ballot — are fully dealing with yet. The sheer flames-on-the-side-of-the-face hatred people have for Donald Trump is something political journalists and pollsters refuse to acknowledge or ask about.

― shared unit of analysis (unperson), Wednesday, November 20, 2019 1:37 PM (twenty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

#Trump's Nov. 1 visit to support Tate Reeves boosted Republican voter turnout in Northeast #Mississippi by 5%, but gave Democrats in the region a 12% boost, Chism Strategies wrote in an "Open Letter to Mississippi Democrats" late last week. #mselex #msgov https://t.co/Sd87fplsB3 pic.twitter.com/DFl5Y2ADwb

— Jackson Free Press (@JxnFreePress) November 19, 2019

Gordon Shumway

I see someone hears the bus approaching

Republican lawyer doesn’t do his own research and preparation, and is instead picking up Democrat lies, shame.

Allow me to inform him: I have NO financial interests in Ukraine, NONE! I would appreciate his apology.

— Rudy Giuliani (@RudyGiuliani) November 20, 2019

it is very normal, when not committing crimes, to answer the question "what do you want?" with "I WANT NOTHING! I WANT NOTHING! I WANT NO QUID PRO QUO!"

lol. jfc

What do you want?

NOTHING!

When do you want it?

NO QUID PRO QUO

That's not what I asked..

honestly, i think he probably does think that exonerates him, because he has a lifetime's experience covering up his crimes by using indirect mobspeak to order people to do things, allowing him to cast enough doubt later on to tie up the whole thing in litigation for years

I've always thought "I Want Nothing" was the most under-appreciated Whitney single

I have NO financial interests in Ukraine, NONE!

I'm guessing that depends on what the meaning of "have" and "in" are.

btw, as josh marshall reminds, this whole "NO QUID PRO!" barking from trump came AFTER the whistleblower report was making it's way up the chain:

Clarifying many points in the Ukraine scandal drama requires simply stating the obvious. And nowhere more so than in this now notorious Trump/Sondland phone call in which the President barked “no quid pro quo” to Sondland multiple times and said he wanted “nothing” from President Zelensky of Ukraine. The President and his supporters have rather implausibly put this forward as total exoneration. After all, in a private call, when asked what he wanted he said “no quid pro quo.”

But of course the timing and even the contextual logic is key.

The Trump/Sondland call was on September 9th. As we know, just two days later on September 11th the President did in fact release the aid because they’d been caught. The existence of the whistleblower report was going public. The jig was up.

More than a week earlier the acting Director of National Intelligence had gone to the White House Counsel’s office to get guidance on what to do with the whistleblower report on the President’s actions. This was after the White House Counsel’s office had learned that someone at the CIA had raised concerns. But at that point they knew definitively that there was a whistleblower report. The White House and the Justice Department went to great lengths to keep the report secret and avoid the statutory requirement to share it with the congressional intelligence committees. The DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel issued a report on September 3rd that the report did not have to be shared with Congress.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/quid-pro-quo-the-critical-backstory

I fed the first part of Trump's I WANT NOTHING note into @OpenAI's Neural Network on https://t.co/SlTLJPJh3z and the computer did the rest pic.twitter.com/fS43ZLoEoY

— Emily Heller (@MrEmilyHeller) November 20, 2019

Gordon Shumway

I approve of this ad
https://youtu.be/pkTx6sm4S-U

So Mike Turner and Mark Meadows's entire argument is because Trump didn't say "I am directing u 2 do a quid pro quo", that it wasn't one?

Brb, "obtaining" money from the bank

This is a huge point that I don't think people — who are used to having two sane candidates on the ballot — are fully dealing with yet. The sheer flames-on-the-side-of-the-face hatred people have for Donald Trump is something political journalists and pollsters refuse to acknowledge or ask about.

Well, if you're not having that emotion in a folksy midwestern diner, are you really having it at all?

Folksy midwestern diners are our only reliable means of measuring political sentiment, per NYT

Removal won't happen but at least today's testimony will make the post-exoneration backlash against Congressional Democrats look ridiculous.

Republicans must really be confused when they watch mob movies. Luca Brasi obviously has an underwater bunker where he goes to sleep at night.

The NYT just asks the gaggle of old men in feed caps drinking Folger's from a heavy white china mug in Carly's Hometown Café at the corner table in the back. They'll tell you the price of soybeans has taken a hit, but if it takes those damn Chinese down a peg, then its their patriotic duty to back the president and the USA. QED.

Who was that clown who got elected to Congress and admitted that he had to look up 'extortion' in the dictionary this morning?

*whitney houston voice* I WANT NOTHING! NOTHING! NOTHIIIIING! WITH NO QUID.... PRO QUOOOOO

I've always thought "I Want Nothing" was the most under-appreciated Whitney single

― brigadier pudding (DJP), Wednesday, November 20, 2019 12:08 PM (thirty-eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

ah shit i missed this lol

well he's no lawyer dontcha know xxp

I've always thought "I Want Nothing" was the most under-appreciated Whitney single

― brigadier pudding (DJP),

fuck I was gonna make this joke, I won't go to lunch next time.

Sure glad we have Republicans to keep reminding me that Javelin missiles are better than blankets.

GOP going down some serious Chewbacca Defense rabbit holes today.

WHY IS HUNTER BIDEN NOT TESTIFYING BEFORE THIS COMMITTEE? WHYEEEEEEE?!?

Javelin missiles are better than blankets.

have they inadvertently discovered the solution to the problem of homelessness in our cities?

lol, I scooped Brad AND Alfred

my work here is done

take a bow, sir

xp
"I CAN'T PULL THE WING OVER MY EYEBALL" is the NEW "I CAN'T TURN MY FACE INTO A HEART."

this is the kind of thing that worries me about the Dem field

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/471335-poll-trump-leads-top-democratic-opponents-in-wisconsin

in case anybody thinks I'm ignoring anything, voter suppression in 2016 (via the voter ID law) significantly forced down the African American vote, making the "swing" votes of non-college-educated white men more impactful.

that law is still on the books...

who is Val Demmings? I like her.