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July 31, 2024 12:24 AM UTC

Wednesday Open Thread

  • 35 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

“It ain’t the heat, it’s the humility.”

–Yogi Berra

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35 thoughts on “Wednesday Open Thread”

    1. Given the fact that he is running in a Republican-leaning district against a bland, traditional Republican, I'm guessing he will continue to insist that he is an independent type of Democrat.

      He no longer has the advantage of running against a nasty lunatic.

      1. But he has the great advantage of running against a truly nasty, lunatic Republican Party.

        You want Abortion Bans? – vote Republican.

        You liked the Jan 6 insurrection? – vote Republican.

        You like Christian Ethno-Nationalism? – vote Republican

        Those are the Republican Party values, not just a few, weird MAGA individuals. 

          1. Yeah but…

            They are very noisy; out of proportion to their actual numbers. There are a lot more people (even who identify as Republican) and particularly women, who do not want a "menstrual police", and who really do think JD Vance is weird.

              1. He reminds me, in some ways, of Ron DeSantis who is so craven he will do or say anything to get what he wants.

                And he does it in a weird and goofy way.

            2. Right. Sooner or later these hayseed cowboys, the Oily Boyz, the gunheads, and the American Taliban will need to  get over themselves and the rest of us need to stand up to them…not pretend to be one of them. It is the Democratic party who is fighting for our Constitution here. 

              We should be proud of that and not be afraid to say who we are. 

              1. Totally agree. I don't believe the factions you mentioned will ever get over themselves. But Democrats – and Democratic candidates – have terrific values and policies to support and run on. Neither Frisch nor any other candidate should shy away from being a Democrat. We have always been about freedom and liberty and now the message can be clearer because the new GOP is about anything but those values – they love authoritarianism. They want their Dear Leader (whether political or religious) to tell them what to do and not do every minute of the day. 

        1. Cheer up, Duke …. the DINO from Aspen is probably not going anywhere anyway.

          Larry Sabato has changed his rating of CO-3 from "Leans Republican" to "Likely Republican."

          The House: District by District Slugfest Endures Amidst Top of the Ticket Turmoil – Sabato's Crystal Ball (centerforpolitics.org)

          CO-8 is where the fight will be and where the $$$ needs to go. (He changed that rating from "Leans Democratic" to "Toss Up."

           

    2. I think any discussion of Frisch requires the memory that he has pledged to join the Problem Solvers Caucus if he is elected. That's a group supported by No Labels, which is financed by Michael Smith of Freeport LNG, Tom McInerny, Harlan Crow and the Kochs. If he gets elected we will need to hold his feet to the fire. I still remember John Salazar's vote in favor of the changes to bankruptcy law which hurt middle class and poor folks.

      1. I definitely think a vote for Frisch is a vote to cut into an R majority or hopefully get a D majority. He is definitely not on the side of working people.

  2. I wonder what wardrobe Tina has picked out for her red carpet stroll into the courtroom today?

    I hope the jury dispassionately weighs the evidence on this scoundral including the testimony of previous employees and arrives at a just decision.

    1. "I hope the jury dispassionately weighs the evidence on this scoundral including the testimony of previous employees and arrives at a just decision."

      You are talking about a jury drawn from Mesa County. (No offense, Duke. There are many of you who are not crazy.)

      But there will be at least one True Believer who will get seated and refuse to convict.

      I'm expecting a hung jury (11 to 1 in favor of convicting) followed by a retrial followed by another hung jury followed by another retrial.

      1. If there is a hung jury Rubinstein will never retry this case. He will breathe a sigh of relief and move on. I don't believe he ever wanted to have this case in the first place. He was hoping the Feds would take it. I'm hoping for a conviction, but not holding my breath.

      2. So you are saying that the whole trial comes down to jury selection? I hope the DA is up to the task. He has the evidence and witnesses. Now he needs some real patriots who will make America a lawful land again.

  3. Why Weirdness Messes with Republican Minds. Noah Smith

    He's basically saying that Conservatives have lost the culture wars – sex, marijuana, rock-and-roll, atheism, and even African American culture are mainstream. Conservatives are "Standing athwart history yelling – STOP!" (William F. Buckley)

    Instead, it was conservatives who felt out of place in the liberal knowledge-worker enclaves that my generation carved out. If you admitted to being gay in my hometown, you might have been shunned, or even bullied; in San Francisco in the 2010s, it would be as normal as admitting you were left-handed. But whereas if you declared that “Christ is King” in my hometown, you would have elicited nods of assent from most people, if you declared that in a room full of Silicon Valley tech workers in 2015, you might generate some uncomfortable stares.

    This inversion of ingroup and outgroup naturally dismays and rankles conservatives — especially educated ones who live in blue cities, but also those who are bombarded with liberal culture in TV, movies, and music all the time. Their everyday experience is as a counterculture and an outgroup, but they still have the cultural memory of when they were the “normal” majority. This manifests as a profound sense of loss and dispossession. 

    When Democrats like Kamala Harris call conservatives “weird”, I think it presses directly on this open wound. It’s a bitter reminder of the hegemony they’ve lost since 1990, and the exile in which they now wander. “Weird”, to conservatives, means “outgroup”, and that’s why they hate it so much.

    1. Noah Smith Continues:

      “I do not think Democrats are using “weird” as a taunt about cultural hegemony, even if that’s how many Republicans take it. Instead, I think Democrats are using the term to represent the chaos and unrest of the 2010s — something they associate with Trump, and which they increasingly want to leave behind them. “

      Consider this op-ed by Rex Huppke in USA Today. Huppke takes the opportunity to vent about all the genuinely creepy and wacky behavior that has come to be associated with the MAGA movement:

      There are millions upon millions of American voters ‒ certainly liberals and independents, and I’d bet a decent slice of conservatives ‒ who have spent the past eight or so years watching Trump and the MAGA circus and thinking: “Wow, this is all very weird.”…

      The rise of Trumpism and the bizarre chaos it ushered in ‒ from family members lost down conspiratorial rabbit holes to the denial of facts and abandonment of shared reality ‒ has given us election lies and Trump-branded Bibles and Rudy Giuliani giving an insane news conferenceoutside a landscaping business in Philadelphia and a dude called the QAnon Shaman wearing a horned fur cap as he joined an attack of the U.S. Capitol…

      It’s certainly the most apt label for Trump and his unhinged rants, his nonsensical stories about sharks or Hannibal Lecter, his blabbering cruelty and unfiltered spouting of whatever odd thought passes through his hate-addled mind…He is supported by slavish Republicans who once openly denounced him, and their hypocrisy is weird…The GOP presidential nominee is a twice-impeached, one-term president who was convicted of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in a case involving hush money paid to an adult film star. He has had multiple bankruptcies, faces hundreds of millions of dollars in fines from a civil fraud ruling and was found liable of sexual abuse. And he is revered by the Republican Party’s evangelical base…

      Do you want to know what’s weird to a majority of Americans who are just trying to live their lives? EVERYTHING IN THOSE PREVIOUS THREE PARAGRAPHS!

      1. I hate to pile on to all the overthinking of the word "weird" but I'm going to anyways…

        I think "weird" is a welcome scaling-back of the outrage towards MAGA and could absolutely help Democrats attract right-leaning independents and reluctant Trump voters.

        Trump attracts many different assholes: racists, anti-semites, islamophobes, misogynists, homophobes, transphobes, people who are just jerks, etc. He says and does things that are anti-democratic, criminal, hateful and literally un-American.

        But calling out those things are too specific. The Trump campaign has so successfully made the Republican Party into Team Trump that mentioning any of those specific traits is an accusation against anyone who may vote for Trump, reluctantly or proudly. It rankles people into thinking things like "I'm not <specific trait>! By saying Trump/Republicans are <specific trait>, you are calling me that! Screw you! I'll vote Republican just to spite you!"

        "Weird" invites those same rankled people to separate themselves from the… well… weird ones. It invites them to think things like "I mght not be comfortable with transgender people, and I feel bad about that but at least I'm not suggesting weird things like checking the genitals of kids before they go into a restroom. That's weird. I don't want to be that kind of weird."

        "Weird" seems to be less about identity and more about actions where "deplorables" was accusatory towards peoples' identities? That sounds close to right. "Weird" is less hyperbolic than accuations like "authoritarian" and all the specific accuations which makes people a little less likely to immediately get defensive and maybe listen a little longer.

        2. I think another value to the word weird is that it's not an overly emotional response of outrage like you mentioned Chickenheed, because MAGA world loves to "own the libs" and get them all upset and perplexed. It's very blase and dismissive without being emotionally invested, and I think that is the key to why it works so well. I hope it drives MAGA crazy for the next 98 days.

        4. Weird seems to be a more relatable term than deplorable. One everyone understands because most people have an uncle who fits the description. The other is high faluting which makes people uncomfortable.

  4. Bigger than Colorado.

    J.D. Vance’s Disregard for the Rule of Law
    The senator appears willing to ignore court rulings, undermining the balance of powers.

    “J.D. Vance is unfit to be vice president of the United States for many reasons, chiefly because he has shown a disregard for the constitutional balance of powers and the rule of law.”

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/j-d-vances-disregard-for-the-rule-of-law-court-rulings-balance-of-powers-bda0d4df?st=j7ugug8jk1hqz7n&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

  5. Bugs Bunny vs Elmer Fudd. Mahablog.

    This whole article is worth reading.

    Big events tend to resonate with the myths deeply buried in human psyches from ancient times. U.S. presidential elections sometimes take on vibes from one of our great myths, the eternal struggle between Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd. This may not always be true. But when it is true, the candidate who most energetically channels Bugs Bunny is going to win. Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, in different ways, were clearly the Bugs Bunny candidates against Elmer Fudds — George H.W. Bush, Bob Dole, John McCain, and Mitt Romney. Although he probably really didn’t win, I’d have to say that George W. Bush was more Bugs Bunny than earnest Al Gore, alas. And maybe Hillary Clinton’s real problem was that she didn’t have it in her to be Bugs Bunny.

    Donald Trump lacks the self-awareness and basic cool to ever be Bugs Bunny. On a good day, Joe Biden’s “Dark Brandon” persona was much closer. But the spirit of Bugs abandoned Joe when he most needed it. And Donald, with his weird riffs on sharks and Hannibal Lechter, might have seemed kind of Bugs Bunny-ish to his followers, although a true Bugs is never a hater or a bully. It seems to me that what’s happening now is that Kamala Harris has embodied the Bugs Bunny role, and Trump is revealed as an exceptionally ugly Elmer Fudd. If she can keep this up, she’ll win.

  6. Weird, Not Weird? Via Emptywheel.

    "Multiple outlets are publishing the forward that JD Vance did for Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts, including his adoption of Roberts’ call to “circle the wagons and load the muskets” to take out government."

    Vance has deep ties to the Heritage Foundation, and in particular to Kevin Roberts, who has been president of the right-wing think tank since 2021 and is the architect of Project 2025. Vance has praised Roberts for helping to turn the organization “into the de facto institutional home of Trumpism” and has endorsed elements of Project 2025. Vance is also the author of the foreword to Roberts’s upcoming book, Dawn’s Early Light, which The New Republic has obtained in full even though the book’s publisher, HarperCollins’s Broadside Books, has apparently tried to suppress it amid the scrutiny of Project 2025 and Vance’s ties to Roberts.

    The subtitle and cover of Roberts’s book were softened as scrutiny of the Trump campaign’s ties to Project 2025 grew. The book was originally announced with the subtitle “Burning Down Washington to Save America” and featured a match on the center of its cover. The subtitle is now “Taking Back Washington to Save America,” and the match is nowhere to be seen. Promotional language invoking conservatives on the “warpath” to “burn down … institutions” like the FBI, the Department of Justice, and universities has also been removed or toned down, though it is still present in some sales pages.

    But the inspiration for that extreme language can be found in Vance’s foreword, which ends with a call for followers to “circle the wagons and load the muskets,” and describes Roberts’s ideas as an “essential weapon” in the “fights that lay [sic] ahead.” (The New Republic downloaded Dawn’s Early Light earlier this month from NetGalley, which provides advance copies of books to reviewers and booksellers. Copies were removed from the platform earlier this month.)

    2. Remember ” the best is yet to come ” speech ? That was exceptionally weird. The duck lips are weird and phony too, kind of like orange makeup, or Butthead’s botox.

  8. 24K Landslide. H/T Michael Moore

    "THERE ARE MORE OF US THAN THERE ARE OF THEM!"

    Here’s what the New America looks like:

    Seventy-nine percent of the United States is either Female (51% of the country), Persons of Color (42% of the country is now Black, Brown, Asian or Indigenous), or Young Adults between 18 and 39 (the Gen Z-ers and Millennials now make up 42% of the country!) — or some combination thereof of these three demographics.

    This Country Is Female, Young and Not-So-White Anymore.

    Not the best place to run for President if your three main personality traits are misogyny, bigotry, and sounding like everyone’s Uncle Don.

    Oh — and then there’s this…

    Here’s the truth about who our fellow Americans really are (and here’s the list nobody has bothered to show you because, well, we need to keep perpetuating our own belief that we are stuck living in a white, Christian Nationalist, conservative, red-neck, deep-fried-Oreo-loving country — when, in fact, the vast bulk of the United States is not like that anymore):

    69% of Americans support legal abortion.

    72% of Americans don’t own a gun.

    90% of the country wants more gun control laws.

    72% of us believe the Climate Crisis is real.

    71% of all Americans approve of labor unions.

    79% of us insist the rich must pay more in taxes.

    76% of us want a much higher minimum wage.

    70% of all voters believe marijuana should be legal.

    73% of the country want student loan debt relief.

    74% of Americans want more affordable homes.

    65% support term limits on all Supreme Court justices.

    84% of Americans want free Pre-k and 3-k.

    69% of Americans support same-sex marriage.

    65% of Americans want to end the electoral college.

    89% of Americans oppose gerrymandering.

    70% of us are demanding a permanent ceasefire in Gaza NOW!

    72% of all Americans want money removed from politics!

    70% of Millennials say they would likely vote for a Socialist candidate.

    THAT is who we are.

    Mr. Trump — how do you expect to win when what you believe in is the opposite of what more than two-thirds of the country believes regarding many of the major issues of the day?! You are running as a right wing whackadoodle in a country that has seriously become more open and progressive. The majority of Americans HATE what you stand for. Just look at those poll numbers I listed above. Those percentages don’t come from me, they come from Gallup, the Associated Press, PEW Research, CNN and others. They come from the American people.

    The Republicans have LOST the popular vote in 7 of the last 8 Presidential elections! Since 1988, the American people have made it abundantly clear: They don’t want a Republican running the country. The ONLY reason we were stuck with Bush and Trump is because the Founders created the Electoral College in order to appease the slave states and try to avoid a Civil War (and that seemed to work out ok).

    But here’s the kicker: The majority of these 3 groups — women, young people, People of Color — vote Democratic in every election! The statistics don’t lie: 51% of women are Democrats, as are 61% of young people, and 83% of African Americans.

  9. The Blitz – Republicans in Disarray. Josh Marshal.

    Military doctrine speaks of the "OODA Loop" (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act). In other words, get inside the reaction time of your oponent. By the time they're deciding how to react, you are on the next attack.

    The Trump campaign is obviously furious about the switch. Vance called it a sucker punch. They essentially wasted their convention on the wrong candidate. You can understand why they’re mad.

    But the key part that stands out to me is this: a huge amount of modern Republican campaigns are based on wearing down a Democratic politician over months and years in the right-wing echo chamber. We saw it with Clinton, Obama, Clinton, Biden, Kerry. It’s a well, well worn thing. But it takes time. There are seldom knock-out punches. It’s a slow osmotic process. And the critical part of it takes place at the nexus where what’s happening in the right wing echo chamber bleeds into and begins to shape mainstream media reporting.

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