Thursday Open Thread [7.9.15]

This compilation of images from hazard-avoidance cameras on NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity between January 2004 and April 2015 shows the rover’s-eye-view of the Martian marathon covering 26.2 miles(42.2 kilometers) from its landing location. A map of the rover’s path is on the right.

NORTH CAROLINA–PRESIDENT–REPUBLICAN PRIMARY–Public Policy Polling: Trump 16, Bush 12, Walker 12, Huckabee 11, Carson 9, Rubio 9, Paul 7, Cruz 6, Christie 5, Fiorina 4, Perry 2, Graham 1, Jindal 1, Santorum 1, Kasich 0, Pataki 0, Gilmore 0

NORTH CAROLINA–PRESIDENT–DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY–Public Policy Polling: Clinton 55, Sanders 20, Webb 7, Chafee 4, O’Malley 4.

NORTH CAROLINA–PRESIDENT–Public Policy Polling:

Clinton 47, Trump 44
Clinton 46, Christie 43
Clinton 45, Bush 43
Clinton 47, Cruz 46
Clinton 45, Fiorina 45
Huckabee 49, Clinton 45
Walker 47, Clinton 43
Carson 47, Clinton 44
Rubio 47, Clinton 46
Paul 46, Clinton 45

Walker 43, Sanders 35
Walker 44, Webb 31
Walker 43, Chafee 29
Walker 45, O’Malley 29

I was traveling around yesterday on business, so I got to listen to CNN and MSNBC in the car. It was amusing to hear them all freak out about the three computer glitches at the NYSE, United Airlines and the Wall Street Journal. But then the Trump interview went up on MSNBC, and then it was all both networks could talk about. Trump is like catnip to the media.

One observation that I agreed with was that Trump always speaks in absolutes. Everything is the best, or the most, or conversely the worst. Everything is huge. The biggest. The largest.

My diagnosis: Donald Trump has a serious inferiority complex.

And he is still a birther. Which means he is insane, which explains comments like “I will win the Latino vote in 2016.” That’s like me saying “I am going to sleep with Gisele Bundchen in 2015.” Both statements are counter-factuals and will not happen.

Nate Silver says Sen. Bernie Sanders could beat Hillary Clinton in Iowa and New Hampshire and lose everywhere else.

“Democratic caucus-goers in Iowa and Democratic primary voters in New Hampshire are really liberal and really white, and that’s the core of Sanders’s support.”

Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball: “Hillary Clinton is very, very likely to be the Democratic nominee, not Bernie Sanders. That’s true even if Sanders manages to upset Clinton in both Iowa and New Hampshire. The fact is, the key constituencies of the Democratic Party are likely to back Clinton, and big Sanders audiences aren’t going to change that.”

Nate Cohn says the Sanders surge “is about to hit a wall: the rank and file of the Democratic primary electorate.”

Greg Sargent:

Trump’s comments — he referred to undocumented immigrants as drug dealers and rapists — have been properly condemned by some of the GOP candidates. But as Graham suggests, they are a reminder of a lingering, deeper fundamental difference between the parties that could prove crucial to deciding the Latino vote and the 2016 outcome. Broadly speaking, many Democratic officials think undocumented immigrants have something positive to contribute to American life, and many Republican officials don’t. Or, even if they do, they are just not willing to countenance legally integrating them — because of their previous lawbreaking — under any set of workable conditions.

I love what Jeb Lund has to say:

The party has run so long on nativist anxiety about foreigners plundering lady liberty, stealing jobs and slowly strangling the republic to death that the next step is just calling immigrants rapists, thieves and murderers. And thanks to years of purity testing in Republican primaries, after trying to ignore the issue for weeks, the remaining candidates have only two options left: try to join or outflank Trump to the right or try to non-ignore ignore him by writing him off as “inappropriate.”
The rest of the world can just call Trump an idiot, a man with few ambitions outside of being Trumpy, whose remaining strands of what one might call policy are wisps of spun sugar extruded by hot air, reminding everyone of the tacky coif that sits atop his blanched Smithfield Ham of a face. The Republican Party can’t even luxuriate in ad hominem. Yeah, they could call him an empty suit and a bozo, but that stops working the moment anyone notices that he sounds like a slightly loaded version of themselves.

Donald Trump is everyone’s drunk belligerent uncle. That racist piece of shit that always ruins Thanksgiving.

Step 1: Yeah, we have weekends, 8 hour work days, work safety rules, child labor laws, etc. What do we need unions for anymore?

Step 2: Get rid of unions.

Step 3: The 1880’s return.

Ed Kilgore writes “Obama, Dean, McCarthy: What Presidential Candidate Does Bernie Sanders Most Resemble?”:

Some Democrats hope Sanders can thread the needle of “keeping Hillary honest” and moving the Democratic Party elites closer to “the base” on financial and trade issues, without helping produce the Republican victories that spoiled previous moments of Democratic self-renewal in 1968 and 1972 and 1984 and 2004 (and for that matter, 1896, 1900 and 1904, the Bryan trifecta of prophetic but unsuccessful campaigns). The high stakes Democrats are increasingly perceiving in 2016 could, however, undermine the high spirits Bernie is presently inspiring. At some point, early-state caucus and primary voters may be affected by watching their Republican neighbors snake-dancing to the polls full of excitement at the prospect of demolishing Obama’s and Clinton’s accomplishments before turning their jack-hammers on the broader edifice of the New Deal and Great Society.

“If you’re too tired to defend this country, if you’re too war-weary, don’t vote for me.” — Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), quoted by National Journal.

Deal.