Dec. 7 Open Thread: Beto’s the One to Beat, and the Beatings Have Begun

If he isn’t, why are rhetorical knife fights already breaking out over him? Ben Mathis-Lilley surveys the skirmish that’s starting to shape up as the Battle of Bull Run in this cycle’s Democratic civil war.

Political writers trying to explain why the GOP is so scared of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez aren’t going to have to try so hard now that she’s spilling the beans on the “bipartisan” House orientation talks she and fellow newcomers were dragooned into. Her tweet pointed out that they heard from four corporate lobbyists and none from labor or anywhere else. My favorite part: Where the Goldman Sachs guy tells them they’re all in over their heads. He doesn’t understand that some people intend to drain the swamp, not just stock it with their pet alligators.

Author Seth Abramson is frequently dismissed as a conspiracy theorist for his history of highlighting how the various threads of Trump venalityall seem tied together. His assessment of where we are on the road to justice seems pretty clear-eyed to me.

Suspicious about the timing of the migrant Caravan of Doom that headed for the American border just as the U.S. midterms approached? So were the folks at BuzzFeed, who dug into it and found a fake Facebook account played a key role. The account is gone but Facebook won’t say who was behind it. Because they care so much about privacy.

I’m fielding a lot of questions about my sojourn in France, which ended just before the gilets jaunes protests erupted. Yes, I’m well aware that France is not paradise. For those unaware of that, this ex-pat reporter provides reality check — the French have the same widening income gap plaguing late-stage capitalism everywhere, but their poor don’t live in their cities and their middle class doesn’t live in suburbs, so a gas tax falls especially hard there on people who can least afford it.