Aug. 31 Open Thread: Trump Still More Popular Than Cancer, Genital Warts

New polls show Trump entering Dick Cheney levels of unpopularity, as his unfavorable rating rose to 60%, a level familiar only to the architect of the Iraq War.

Andrew Gillum’s victory in the Florida Democratic primary shocked pollsters. No poll had him winning, and in the aggregate he was expected to finish fourth, with 12% of the vote. He won with 34%. Compared to that miss, President Hillary looks accurate. Wha’ happened? Vox asked eight pollsters and got the answers you’d expect: Turnout models were wrong in both who would show up and in what numbers. Gillum drew more young people and minorities to the polls than expected, and 35% more Democrats voted than two years ago. Establishment Democrats are so excited by the new voters they’re talking optimistically about Gillum’s presence on the ballot injecting some life into incumbent Bill Nelson, who’s running behind Rick Scott — actually more like sauntering, as the doddering Nelson makes Tom Carper look like a whippersnapper. Which, incidentally, is why Carper doesn’t think he’s old — he’s often surrounded by Senate colleagues who date to the Triassic.

You’ve probably heard about ICE’s newest anti-Latino measure: They are treating U.S. citizens born near the border in southeastern Texas as immigrants, based on cases of midwives who falsified documents decades ago. As Vox explains, Trump is using this fig leaf because he can. Charlie Pierce says denying people a passport is straight-up fascism.

The Metoo movement continues to claim victims. Now it’s NBC itself, which famously spiked Ronan Farrow’s story on Harvey Weinstein. Now Farrow’s producer on the piece has quit the network and is talking about it. Apparently the network kept trying to kill the story even after Farrow left

Josh Marshall sees a dark few months ahead:

[I]f we look at the totality of the Special Counsel’s investigation it seems very likely that there are things the investigators know about Manafort’s activities that can never be made public in a courtroom. They are likely inadmissible and even if they were admissible would involve jeopardizing intelligence sources. The most plausible logic of all the charges that have been brought against Manafort is that they want him to admit what they know to be true based on highly classified information that cannot be presented in a courtroom. That is why President Trump is so intent on pardoning him.

CNN is running a series of stories based on a new Mike Pence biography, and he’s apparently been an asshole for quite some time. He was raised Catholic but turned fundie in college, but even so I’m loathe to blame religion for Pence ratting out his fraternity over a kegger. It’s true, your honor — this man has no dick.

In his quest to piss on everyone’s bed, Trump announced a pay freeze for 1.2 million federal employees, which should make for 1.2 million motivated midterm voters.

An arbitrator ruled Thursday that Colin Kaepernick’s collusion case against NFL owners could move forward, which creates several potential headaches for the league.