People that you've never heard of, people that are in the dark shadows -- US Politics September 2020

lindsey graham, we knew you as a man of honor

they prefer Biden to Trump on SCOTUS?

Maybe Trump will peacefully stand down if we allow him to remain President of Mar-a-Lagoo.

nonsense, that's a fox news poll. you can't trust socialist fox news

They should bury him in Mar-a-Lago, preferably tomorrow.

I'll let him be the President of Polyps

More pleasant news:

President Donald Trump is on the defensive in three red states he carried in 2016, narrowly trailing Joe Biden in Iowa and battling to stay ahead of him in Georgia and Texas, as Trump continues to face a wall of opposition from women that has also endangered his party’s control of the Senate, according to a poll conducted by The New York Times and Siena College...

in the "or at least that's what i heard" department,

The U.S. Attorney’s office of the Middle District of Pennsylvania issued a bizarre press release Thursday announcing that it was in the midst of an inquiry into “potential issues” with military ballots cast in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania.

The fact that feds were looking into the issue — which was described by the DOJ as a “small number of military ballots” that “were discarded” — wasn’t necessarily surprising, former Justice Department officials told TPM.

But publicizing the pending inquiry while selectively releasing details of what it found so far raised the question: Why was the U.S. Attorney’s office running afoul of DOJ policy regarding the announcements of such investigations?

Gerry Hebert, a former DOJ official who for several years worked in its voting section, said in an email that Thursday’s press release was “inconsistent with DOJ handbook for prosecuting election cases, which generally discourage public statements by DOJ re: ongoing investigations.”

A spokesperson for U.S. Attorney David Freed’s office told TPM the office had no further comment outside of the statement.

“DOJ policy provides that the government should not confirm or deny the existence of an investigation,” Barbara McQuade, a former U.S. attorney under President Obama, told TPM in an email. “There is an exception where necessary to assure the public. The question here is whether the prosecutor is seeking to assure or alarm the public.”

The weirdest detail of all was that, in its initial press release, the DOJ said it had identified only some of the voters who had cast the ballots in question, but “[a]ll nine ballots were cast for presidential candidate Donald Trump.”

Within a few hours the press release was taken down and a revised press release issued to clarify that of “the nine ballots that were discarded and then recovered, 7 were cast for presidential candidate Donald Trump.”

“Two of the discarded ballots had been resealed inside their appropriate envelopes by Luzerne elections staff prior to recovery by the FBI and the contents of those 2 ballots are unknown,” the revised press release said.

But the clarification came after a prominent Trump campaign official tweeted sensationally that “100% of” the ballots “were cast for President Trump” and that “Democrats are trying to steal the election.”

As far as October surprises, if they had anything meaningful on Biden it would have been leaked months ago... with Bannon out of the picture, there is no strategy.

Whose turn is it to slap some sense into Cory Booker?

Probably Moe.

The wait to cast a ballot Thursday at the Lake County Courthouse in Waukegan, Ill., north of Chicago, was as long as two and half hours as the first day of early voting kicked off in the state. The first voter showed up at 8 a.m. — an hour before the doors opened — and by midafternoon, at least 300 people had filed through, according to Lake County Clerk Robin O’Connor. The turnout was so unexpected that O’Connor said she plans to add a fourth voting machine Friday to accommodate the demand.

People stood six feet apart inside the modern annex, checking their phones or waiting quietly. “They’re courteous, they’re being polite, they’re following the rules, it’s beautiful. It’s truly beautiful,” O’Connor said.

Socorro Herrera, 36, came out on the first day because, she said, “I wanted to make sure I set an example for people.”

“I checked in on Facebook. I am wearing my sticker. I told my 18-year-old to vote,” she said. “We are all busy, but you can vote too. I want my young kids to know this is important — we all lead busy lives. It’s a privilege, it really is.”

Michael Barr, 54, said he waited in line for two hours and 45 minutes to vote, even though he was only able to pay for two hours of parking at a city meter. “I don’t trust mail-in voting,” Barr said. “We already don’t get regular mail, like bills, on time. There’s no way to trust the mail system to vote.”

Toby Wong, 68, said she voted early because as an immigrant from Canada, “I take my voting rights seriously.”

“I wasn’t going to let fear about the coronavirus stop me,” Wong added. “I am going to make sure my vote counts.”

The county has also seen a huge demand for vote-by-mail ballots: more than 126,000 have been sent out so far to voters, quadruple the number of people who voted by mail in the 2016 general election. O’Connor said she expects to receive “well over 100,000 back” through the mail or via dropboxes located both inside and outside the courthouse.

“Usually by the first day, we never have this kind of volume. We didn’t expect so many people,” said Chief Deputy County Clerk Todd Govain. “This year is very different.”
Statewide, more than 1.8 million Illinois voters had requested mail ballots by Wednesday, according to the state board of elections. In the 2016 election, 370,000 votes were cast by mail in Illinois — a record at the time, and one that is expected to be easily broken this year.

A pro-Cornyn Super PAC is using a photo of my tattoos to make me seem "radical." That's pretty funny to me.

You think I'm ashamed of them? They cover my shrapnel wounds from when my helicopter was shot down. They're a mark of my service to our country. I'm damn proud of them. pic.twitter.com/HrqX68ZzKa

— MJ Hegar (@mjhegar) September 24, 2020

who wants to get a tattoo of Trump insulting gold star families

Can't wait to vote for MJ Hegar

that Trump 10 years/6 years thing is maybe the best recent example of something that, 20-30 years ago, would have been late-show joke fodder for a month. like dan quayle and "potatoe," or those little books of "bush-isms" from the pre-9/11 GWB presidency. look at this laughably doltish remark! and currently the president has one of those at least once a day, but (a) the nature of the internet now is by the time any professional were to muster a joke about any of them, i'd be preemptively sick and bored of it aka Covfefe syndrome; and (b) i'm in no mood to find any of it funny unless you count a mouth frozen in a stunned rictus for six months as laughter.

a mouth frozen in a stunned rictus for six months

...is the new "a boot stamping on a human face forever."

Erm...

"-Bob Marley"

xp i thought something similar earlier today. the thing with quayle and potatoe is that at least he was phonetically pretty close, and also it was about the spelling of goddamn potato. the 10/6 thing is a step or two dumber but also a revealingly empty boast about AIDS research at the same time. it feels like a new level of rot

"The rot is coming from inside the house!"

the 6 years/10 years thing is barely a story because everyone already knows Trump is a dipshit.
similarly, Obama talking about 57 states was barely a story because no one really thought he was stupid.
Quayle seemed kind of dim, and video of him incorrectly correcting elementary school kids confirmed that.

and yet inexplicably he got potato wrong because the cue card he was looking at had it spelled wrong, so who completed THAT card, and who is dumb enough to let a cue card shame them into spelling potato wrong.

A funny joke, ha ha:

POLL: Which member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff would you prefer to run the interim government after the December 2020 military coup?

— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) September 25, 2020

you should probably not even talk about the concept of joking for a while

Yeah, not funny

Why in god's name do we want to "save the Senate"? It's an anti-democratic abomination. There's so much dumb going around. https://t.co/5sGI3hYCe4

— Doug Henwood (@DougHenwood) September 25, 2020

The wording of Klein's tweet isn't great, but the actual article is better.

It is not a bad article - but Klein remains remarkably credulous. "Democrats are now considering reforms that are, from the standpoint of democratic governance, overdue, but that were, from the standpoint of Senate traditions and mores, unthinkable: eliminating the filibuster, adding DC and Puerto Rico as states, even changing the composition of the Supreme Court." - none of that is happening.

I would give eliminating the filibuster pretty decent odds of happening, statehood less so.

how is adding more states unthinkable? we've clearly done it at least 37 times

statehood already passed the house iirc

eliminating the filibuster is going to be required to pass even a budget

the House of Representatives is much more democratic than the US Senate, but tbf the House has a larger percentage of members who are as dumb as a bag of hammers.

Disagree. If 70% of the senate is dumber than a bag of hammers (conservatively speaking) the the house is only like 45% as dumb

There are more House members, therefore more dumb assholes.

rate stats, silly

brain cells below replacement

feels like desantis deciding to open everything up in late sept/early oct is a blatant ploy to depress turnout, either by creating an excuse to close polling places when cases inevitably increase, or by making it so people who are worried about the virus (aka democrats) have more to fear from voting in person

As a political independent & centrist, I’ve voted for both parties in the past. In this critical presidential election, I’m endorsing @JoeBiden & @KamalaHarris.

Progress takes courage, humanity, empathy, strength, KINDNESS & RESPECT.

We must ALL VOTE: https://t.co/rZi1mxh8DC pic.twitter.com/auLbc8xDBv

— Dwayne Johnson (@TheRock) September 27, 2020

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wy18AEE9JDk

That is pretty surprising that the Rock would go there given that he seems like a "protect your brand at all costs" guy.

The Rock, for whom I feel an abiding devotion, has endorsed Biden/Harris. I worry that casual observers will not realize just how profoundly damning this superficially vague and bloodless endorsement is. https://t.co/VzThg73SLv

— Tom Lee (@tjl) September 27, 2020

This is a man who, in an age of of endless partisan fracture, has maintained such widespread palatability that he is not only America’s top grossing movie star but mentioned as a plausible political candidate (generally assumed to be a corporatist FL Republican who who knows)

— Tom Lee (@tjl) September 27, 2020

If you are a student of The Rock’s instagram you will learn he studiously avoids taking positions on ANYTHING except:
- hard work (pro)
- fans (pro)
- troops (pro)
- his heritage (pro but in a nonthreatening way! it’s all good bro)
- his tequila company (pro)
- negativity (anti!)

— Tom Lee (@tjl) September 27, 2020

Picking a winner in this context means he’s seeing such a profound loser that there are no real costs involved

cf Swift, Taylor

— Tom Lee (@tjl) September 27, 2020

He spoke at the RNC in 2000 too

Kinda wish there was video of his meeting with Biden. I have no clue wtf they would talk about

Probably everything in that bulleted list except the tequila part

The UK's ITV news reporting live from a failed state spiraling into factionalist warfare (aka Kentucky):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Re8jUhGOZu4

wow. did anyone else watch that?

i'm sitting here trying to think of what i am going to say when my friends start supporting the left-wing militias. for those who don't have the time to watch, the left-wing section doesn't come until near the end, and it's very clear that militias are almost entirely right-wing racists. i honestly have never seen a real left-wing militia, in formation marching, with guns.

also disturbing is that of course in many ways i sympathize with them - they've always lived with the constant threat and execution of physical violence by white people, they have more of a justification to form a militia and form their own protection, independent of the state, than just anyone i can think of, because the state itself is the one perpetrating the violence. i think they are living the REAL version of the bullshit that rightwing militias propagate. white supremacists always believe that either they are under direct attack or that the mob is at the gates. black people really have always been under attack.

but still, agh, get me out of here. i think i'm pretty categorically anti-marching with guns in neighborhoods

Imagine donating to the Lincoln Project so this guy could buy a speedboat https://t.co/1Gh6T3Vbvc

— Aaron (@BobbyBigWheel) September 27, 2020

"i'm sitting here trying to think of what i am going to say when my friends start supporting the left-wing militias" there is a decent piece on CNN this weekend about the concern that pretty soon, there is going to be armed conflict between black and white militias:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/26/us/black-white-militias-violence-blake/index.html

Frankly if it gets to this point, I'm leaving the US, fuck this. This is what the right wants, armed conflict, race war, fucking Wild West where everyone walks around armed. No thanks.

I know the left long ago gave up on taking the flag as it’s own symbol, for understandable reasons. But 50 years ago the refusal to cede that symbol—to take it back from these fuckers—was a powerful antiwar optic. It’s unfortunate that to most Americans even if only subconsciously these shitheads own the flag completely now and that it facilitates their bullshit patriots-vs-infidels narrative.

(this difference is thrown esp. into relief in the context of that video—the prospect of “symmetrical” warfare and what that will look like on TV)

Heard an interview with some experts on extremism a couple of weeks ago, after the Portland shooting that killed some right winger. It pointed to the murder as a potential inflection point, as the extremism stuff overwhelmingly tilts right, but there has been growing concern that the far left would take up arms as well. Of course, that was the case in the 60s, it's just been a few decades since we've have to live with and through such extreme bothsidesism. Been trying to think if there's anything specific that could take it over the edge, like repealing the ACA or outlawing abortion, and I'm not sure. Maybe it's just inevitable, no matter how stuff like that shakes out in the next few years.