Archive for October, 2016
The October 16, 2016 Thread
Matt Taibbi on how the GOP came to Trump: “The party spent 50 years preaching rich people bromides like ‘trickle-down economics’ and ‘picking yourself up by your bootstraps’ as solutions to the growing alienation and financial privation of the ordinary voter. In place of jobs, exported overseas by the millions by their financial backers, Republicans glibly offered the flag, Jesus and Willie Horton.”
“In recent years it all went stale. They started to run out of lines to sell the public. Things got so desperate that during the Tea Party phase, some GOP candidates began dabbling in the truth. They told voters that all Washington politicians, including their own leaders, had abandoned them and become whores for special interests. It was a slapstick routine: Throw us bums out!”
“Republican voters ate it up and spent the whole of last primary season howling for blood as Trump shredded one party-approved hack after another. By the time the other 16 candidates finished their mass-suicide-squad routine, a tail-chasing, sewer-mouthed septuagenarian New Yorker was accepting the nomination of the Family Values Party.”
The October 15, 2016 Thread
The New York Times says Trump’s Heated Rhetoric Has No Precedent: “On Thursday and Friday alone, Mr. Trump unleashed a barrage of near-apocalyptic warnings about the potential destruction of the country, broad accusations about the illegitimacy of American democracy, and crude innuendo about his opponent that is almost without precedent in modern presidential history.”
“He warned that Hillary Clinton was conspiring with financiers to destroy American sovereignty, claimed the fate of civilization depended on his victory and ridiculed the appearance of the one of the women accusing him of sexual harassment, while also deriding Mrs. Clinton’s looks and saying she ought to be in prison. He also said the presidential election amounted to ‘a big ugly lie.’”
“While delighting his partisans, Mr. Trump’s rhetorical shooting spree has enraged Democrats and unnerved many Republicans, who believe he is acting out a political death wish.”
Do you get a flu shot?
I don’t. Not on some crazy anti-vaxxer grounds, I just never have. And I’ve never been seriously laid up with the flu, so if my opting out isn’t working, it is also not, not-working.
Anyway, I know many people who do get one. The CDC says:
#WhyWomenDontReport
Exhibit A:
A day after Jessica Leeds accused Donald Trump of sexual assault in a story reported by the New York Times, Fox Business anchor Lou Dobbs used his large audience on Twitter — roughly 797K followers — to advertise the woman’s New York address and telephone number.
Exhibit B:
“Take a look. You take a look. Look at her. Look at her words. You tell me what you think. I don’t think so. I don’t think so.” – Donald Trump
Exhibit C:
#WhyWomenDontReport (Amazing Twitter thread)
The Playing Field (Not a 62 District Project)
There are 41 State House Districts. 23 of them, or 56% of them, will be uncontested by a major party. Which means either the incumbent Representative currently holding the seat is running for reelection either completely unopposed, or opposed by minor third parties. Of those 23 Representatives, 17 are Democrats and 6 are Republicans. So already, the race for the House is pretty much over. Because to gain a majority, the state GOP would need to win 21 seats. They have 6 in the bank. So they need to pick up another 15. There are only 18 contested races. So to win the house, the GOP would have to basically run the table and win everything. Good luck. The Senate is another story….
Something I Learned Today: Friday, Oct. 14
Need advice on your next wine purchase? Today I learned that, in the future, electronic tongues may well help guide you: The ‘tongue’ is made of gold, platinum and carbon electrodes, and measures the electro-chemical signals of sugars, phenolics and other compounds present in wine, according to its designers. They added that it might even […]
Charlie Copeland still “fully supports” Donald Trump for President
57% of DL readers think that his support is based on a searing hatred for Hillary Clinton. I don’t happen to buy that. While there are a great many Republicans who are viscerally impulsive slaves to their lizard brain. Copeland doesn’t strike me as that type of Republican. There is something else at work…
The October 14, 2016 Thread
It was Obama day yesterday on the campaign trail.
President Obama told Republicans they are responsible for allowing Donald Trump to become the Republican nominee by “feeding their base all kinds of crazy for years” at the annual Ohio Democrats’ dinner Thursday night, TPM reports. It was a no shit moment for all us liberals and Democrats. And it is long past time Democrats on the trail begin telling voters that all Republicans in office everywhere deserve to be punished for giving us Trump.
Said Obama: “The problem is not that all Republicans think the way this guy does. The problem is that they’ve been riding this tiger for a long time. They’ve been feeding their base all kinds of crazy for years, primarily for political expedience. So if Trump was running around saying I wasn’t born here, they were okay with that as long as it helped them with votes. If some of these folks on talk radio talked about how I was the antichrist, that’s just politics.”
He added: “They stood by while this happened. And Donald Trump–as he’s prone to do—he didn’t build the building himself, he just slapped his name on it and took credit for it. And that’s what happened in their party.”
And then there was Michelle. If you have not watched her speech, you are required by law to stop what you are doing and watch it right now:
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