US Politics: Biden our time while Trump's on the stump

[Maithanet]

If Trump continues running as badly as he is, it's just a matter of time before other Republicans start campaigning with "we need a check on Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi!" This looks like the first step on that path.  

16 more weeks till election day.  

[Fez]

11 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

If Trump continues running as badly as he is, it's just a matter of time before other Republicans start campaigning with "we need a check on Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi!" This looks like the first step on that path.  

16 more weeks till election day.  

It might work for Fitzpatrick; he regularly gets support from usually Democratic-aligned groups (e.g. he was the one Republican endorsed by the AFL-CIO in 2018). But I suspect that strategy will fail for most Republicans.

It does look like more Republicans are looking to the post-Trump future though. Larry Hogan has a blistering op-ed this morning about how terrible Trump's COVID-19 response has been.

On the other hand, it looked like things would completely fall apart in 2016 too, after the Access Hollywood tape dropped. So we'll see.

[Maithanet]

Just now, Fez said:

On the other hand, it looked like things would completely fall apart in 2016 too, after the Access Hollywood tape dropped. So we'll see.

Fitzpatrick does have an unusually strong brand that very few Republicans (particularly in the House) can manage. 

As for the falling apart, I distinctly remember hearing ads in Virginia that said "we need to ensure we have a check on Hillary Clinton in Congress".  It's possible they even went so far as to say "President Hillary Clinton".  And that was like mid-October. 

[Fez]

Per Biden's Q2 FEC filing, James Murdoch is among the donors who gave at least $500,000 to the campaign. 

Seems to me he could be making a much larger in-kind donation if he did something from his position on the News Corp board of directors about the current tenor of Fox News. Maybe have a couple conversations with his brother, Lachlan.

[Fragile Bird]

I’m watching some idiot named Hogan Gidley, National Press Secretary for the 2020 Campaign being interviewed on CNN. My God, if this is an example of what the Trump campaign is going to be like for the next 110 days, my television set is in serious danger of being hit by a shoe.

‘Joe Biden has crushed the American middle class for 50 years’.

’Hilary Clinton said she was going to raise taxes by $1.5 Trillion and Joe Biden said, hold my beer, I’m raising taxes by $4 Trillion’.

’Compare and contrast what this president has done for the country compared to 50 years of Biden’s failures.’

’Coronavirus in America is the fault of Gov. Cuomo, who refused to clean the subways until it was too late’.

eta: oh, and this gem, CNN, “Americans can’t even travel to Canada”, Gidley, “Who would want to travel to Canada when the USA is the greatest country in the world”

And much much more.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

3 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

I’m watching some idiot named Hogan Gidley, 

He's such a shit heel. He was anti-Trump until they offered him a job. A complete and worthless phony. 

Quote

my television set is in serious danger of being hit by a shoe.

Huh, what do you know. My favorite radio show/podcast is based out of South Miami and is Cuban themed. Today they were wondering if mothers and grandmothers from other cultures also threw sandals/shoes as a sign of disgust and/or anger. It appears you have some cultural overlaps.  

[Fragile Bird]

4 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

He's such a shit heel. He was anti-Trump until they offered him a job. A complete and worthless phony. 

Good to know my instincts are right!

5 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Huh, what do you know. My favorite radio show/podcast is based out of South Miami and is Cuban themed. Today they were wondering if mothers and grandmothers from other cultures also threw sandals/shoes as a sign of disgust and/or anger. It appears you have some cultural overlaps.  

Hey, you can learn stuff from the Iraqi people!

[Ran]

8 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

He's such a shit heel. He was anti-Trump until they offered him a job. A complete and worthless phony. 

Huh, what do you know. My favorite radio show/podcast is based out of South Miami and is Cuban themed. Today they were wondering if mothers and grandmothers from other cultures also threw sandals/shoes as a sign of disgust and/or anger.

El poder de la chancla!

 

[aceluby]

10 minutes ago, Triskele said:

What's more important, what I'd really like to know, is how does Fauci look this good at 79?  This is the critical healthcare question.

Trump only hires those with the best batteries.  THE BEST!

[Ormond]

1 hour ago, Triskele said:

What's more important, what I'd really like to know, is how does Fauci look this good at 79?  This is the critical healthcare question.

Well, one thing he does is walk 3.5 miles a day.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/16/white-house-advisor-dr-anthony-fauci-power-walks-with-wife-to-relax.html

But I'm sure he also has other healthy habits and good heredity. 

[DMC]

6 hours ago, Fez said:

On the other hand, it looked like things would completely fall apart in 2016 too, after the Access Hollywood tape dropped. So we'll see.

I think that's a very insightful analogy.  The first couple days after the tape came out, much of the GOP was calling on him to drop out.  In early October.  That's..unlikely to happen this time.  I mean, I'm sure Trump is going to create more of his own scandals in the next four months, but I it's hard to think what could come to light that would make his base abandon him at this point.  What's different is he's now consistently down by significantly more than he ever was against Hillary, and he barely defeated her.  So, will GOP members steer away from Trump?  Yes, and they already are.  But it will be just not mentioning him, not denouncing him.  You don't denounce a president that has >90% approval within your party.

On Trump firing Pascale, the writing's been on the wall since Tulsa.  I mean, almost every campaign that is struggling this much fires the manager as a signal to donors.  And hiring Stepien is not surprising in the least.  Like Kal said, this is the guy who originally wanted Paul Manafort to run his general election campaign, who even then was essentially a known criminal.

Also, I saw this article from 538 that shows the updated Martin-Quinn scores.  Now, one of my advisors would never forgive me if I did not emphasize the Martin-Quinn scores are..a very questionable measure, but they're still widely cited and it's interesting to see those results.  Two takeaways - Kagan as being the most moderate of the four liberals suggests she's taken over leadership of the bloc and is the one that negotiates with Roberts.  Two, Kavanaugh is less conservative than Gorsuch?  That's surprising, and might be why these scores are kinda based on nothing.

[Kalbear]

Meanwhile, rapid action Trump team LEAPS into action

 

 

[DanteGabriel]

14 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Meanwhile, rapid action Trump team LEAPS into action

 

 

Maybe he just needed to change his personal news cycle after being the asshole who tried to attack Joe Biden with a picture of him and his kid from like 40 years ago?

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/rnc-spokesperson-deletes-bizarre-tweet-attacking-biden-family-photo

[HoodedCrow]

Ormond, this may surprise you, but shorter people live longer, when SES is controlled! Yes I’m sure Fauci has great habits as he seems very responsible, and if he is Italian in ethnicity, perhaps he drinks red wine, and might have a Mediterranean diet.

Loved his response to the reporter. Let’s stop this nonsense and get on with dealing with the pandemic. 

 

[The Mance]

*sigh*

Twenty some years ago we named our second daughter, "Bailey".  We thought it had a pleasant, ol' timey sound, without being too gendered.   Since then I've encountered at least a dozen dogs, a few horses, two male classmates, a guinea pig, and a C-Sec officer, named Bailey.  But whatever, she is crushing life and absolutely owns her name.  I just wish she never had to endure that moment of cringe whenever she shares a name with somebody's pet.

[Tywin Manderly]

On 7/15/2020 at 4:32 AM, Martell Spy said:

Just When You Thought Ivanka Trump Couldn’t Get More Out Of Touch
Suggesting people simply find new jobs during an unprecedented economic crisis is a new level of chutzpah.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ivanka-trump-coronavirus-jobs_n_5f0dfc6cc5b6df6cc0b233b1

Let them eat cake 2020. . . 

The arrogance, out-of-touchness and vacuousness of that entitled, incompetent, spoilt and idiotic airhead never ceases to amaze me. 

[DMC]

23 minutes ago, Tywin Manderly said:

Let them eat cake 2020. . . 

It's more than just out of touch.  The right has always been threatened by academia and now they feel emboldened to weaponize that resentment.  Take this op-ed from major league douchebag former Senator Jim Demint (who, btw, god his MBA from Clemson):

Quote

America’s college campuses are the intellectual headwaters of the “woke” mob now poisoning the great rivers of freedom in our country. This mob has taken over the political left, devastated our cities and now threatens every American with traditional values and common-sense conservative views. 

Colleges and universities have been a bastion of liberalism and progressivism for so long it’s a cliché. But that cliché has led to complacency. Conservatives don’t like that college campuses have always been hotbeds of bad ideas – from communism to anti-Semitism to the so-called “critical theory” behind woke-ism. But the campus left has rarely been more than an irritant. Conservatives on the whole haven’t taken radical professors, brainwashed students and cowardly university administrators seriously because they were unserious people spouting unserious ideas. 

He pretty much directly says education - and knowledge - is antithetical to the conservative cause.  Why?  Because they know the best chance they have to win elections is to keep the general public as uneducated as possible.  It's always been pathetic, but this new effort is naked in its motives.  The Dems should focus on that when calling them out.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, The Mance said:

*sigh*

Twenty some years ago we named our second daughter, "Bailey".  We thought it had a pleasant, ol' timey sound, without being too gendered.   Since then I've encountered at least a dozen dogs, a few horses, two male classmates, a guinea pig, and a C-Sec officer, named Bailey.  But whatever, she is crushing life and absolutely owns her name.  I just wish she never had to endure that moment of cringe whenever she shares a name with somebody's pet.

My dog's name is Bailey too. 

In other news, nearly 1 in 3 Florida children who've been tested came up positive for COVID-19. But what could go wrong with sending kids back to school, especially without reduced class sizes, when your state is one of the hottest spots in the world for the pandemic? 

[Martell Spy]

Really pathetic. The Roberts Court continues its unhinged assault on voting rights.

 

Supreme Court allows limits on felon voting in Florida

https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2020/07/16/supreme-court-allows-limits-on-felon-voting-in-florida-1301508

Quote

 

TALLAHASSEE — In a blow to voting rights that could have consequences for the presidential election, the U.S. Supreme Court let stand for now a Florida law that restricts the ability of felons to cast ballots at the polls.

The result is that hundreds of thousands of people with past felony convictions in the battleground state likely will be ineligible to vote in the August state primaries and, possibly, the November presidential election in which Donald Trump and Joe Biden are on the ballot.

The high court on Thursday did not explain its decision.

 

 

[The Anti-Targ]

2 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

My dog's name is Bailey too. 

In other news, nearly 1 in 3 Florida children who've been tested came up positive for COVID-19. But what could go wrong with sending kids back to school, especially without reduced class sizes, when your state is one of the hottest spots in the world for the pandemic? 

I guess that means kids are half-way to herd immunity. Keep it up for a bit longer and school might end up being one of the safer places to be in a close, mask-less crowd. Though not necessarily safer than being in a spread out, masked-up crowd.