yeah, that was a WTF moment. Does he really think people will buy he didn't know what he was saying.

That being said, he is doing better than I thought.

I'm shocked. However, let's see where this goes next year. A lot of the economy has so far been propped up by the $2.2T from CARES and $3.5T from the Fed. The annual GDP is around $20T so that's more than 1/4th of the economy. If the GOP suddenly re-discovers deficit Jesus and tries to cut off any government aid to crush the Dems in 2022, there's still a chance for a nasty(ier) fall.

Also, it's been a very uneven recession. College degree jobs are basically where they were before COVID. But some segments of the population have been decimated: those with lower income jobs, those with jobs with lower education requirements, women, and minorities.

SI

I think that rate has also been tied in more heavily than some want to admit to the extra unemployment benefits. Not everyone making an hourly wage is an idiot, and some made the economically smarter (or at least fairly revenue neutral) short term choice to abstain from a job.

We'll see how it plays out - it's clear that entire sectors are basically done, but other new opportunities have arisen. The Dem version of +benefits isn't sustainable medium term, but if it's an option it'll slightly delay the economic paradigm shift.

I think the unevenness is going to hang around, but the overall picture is more important. One of those situations where the better the economy as a whole does, the better the most affected parts of the population will be able to find different opportunities.

I assume Caroline Giuliani hasn't gone through near the trauma Claudia has with her 2 parents actively against each other politically. Going public by writing a piece for Vanity Fair is reasonable.

Attention Required! | Cloudflare

WTF was that Roe V Wade answer.

Oh, and the red glasses lady about to go viral

No but he has a message for ya

https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/15/polit...ent/index.html

Rudy fucked anything that moved and treated her mother like yesterday's garbage. I'm not surprised the daughter is a bit angry.

There are a lot of places the economy could improve as a whole so I'm open to the idea that this may be better in the long run.

Of course, what I fear will happen (is happening/has already happened) that we're just getting a greater and greater consolidation of wealth at the top. And that is bad for everyone (except those at the top, of course). Even those in the top half to about top 10%, most of those jobs depend on having a robust middle class. If that's decimated, those other jobs dry up pretty fast. There's no need for the millions of accountants, nurses, managers, retail sales, AAs, etc if there are only relatively few people who can afford those services.

SI

Interesting to see how this plays out. It seems Trump & Dems are okay with $2.2T+ bill but McConnell is not. If Trump & Pelosi agree on a deal it would put a lot of pressure on McConnell and GOP senators looking for Trump support this cycle.

No idea who is going to win this one. But talks continuing is good. I'm leaning towards passing something soon to help the unemployed and economy/markets. And after Feb, pass another one if needed.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/15/mnuc...th-pelosi.html

The most prestigious medical journal in the US; The New England Journal of Medicine, has posted its first editorial in its 200+ yr history. I wonder what they had to say that was so important?

https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMe2029812

There isn't any radical left.

Can’t make this shit up.

https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/...328730625?s=21

HA! I can't believe that's not down yet. Or is this a double hoax?

Boomers seem particularly bad at detecting satire. My father in law has an unimpeachable academic record (Duke undergraduate and med school, John’s Hopkins residency,) but he and several others in his age bracket have reacted with consternation multiple times at the over-the-top content of Babylon Bee articles I’ve posted on FB, complete with “lol” emojis and/or a comment from me along the lines of “The Bee does it again!” Is satire a “new” form of humor that goes over their heads? Is it that they grew up in an era where they assumed everything they read to be true? What’s the deal?

100% they're just bad at detecting satire, and also they are more prone to believe anything bad or stupid about Democrats, so if it's that, they'll just absorb into their worldview without thinking twice.

I'm not gonna say I haven't been guilty of believing a headline for a moment until I see the byline of a satirical site in the past.

It hasn’t just been bad stuff about Dems. The Bee does a good bit of satire of Christian sub-culture. I’ve probably posted more of that than political satire from there, with the same confused/concerned reactions.

I have thought about this a decent amount because my Mother in Law believes everything she sees despite evidence to the contrary. I remember us getting in to a horrific argument over the doctored Pelosi video.

They grew up in an era where the only way you got your news was at 6 or 11 from Cronkite, Rather, Brokaw, etc...or in the newspaper. There was very little opinion pieces, no instant video updates, etc...I think because of this they can't blur the line between opinion and news, and trust what they see. If it confirms their biases all the better.

I watched Fox News for 5 minutes last night as I was flipping through. There was some guy shouting about Biden emails coming out, and him needing to step down from the ticket because he was compromised. With the Giuliani news and the Trump 450B debt to foreign unknowns, I thought he was being satirical. When you are constantly pounded with misinformation that gives you confirmation bias, you have lost all sense in real vs satire.

Saw Trump camp complaining about NBC questions, so I looked them up:

When did you get sick
Should you wear a mask
Do you believe in herd immunity
Why share a Bin Laden conspiracy
Do you denounce QAnon
Will you accept losing

— Rory Cooper (@rorycooper) October 16, 2020

Trump regularly gets softball questions that become hand grenades because he's a dangerous sociopath who believes in multiple conspiracy theories.

Humor has also gotten better and more subtle.

Watch some old comedy. With very few exceptions, it's not that funny. And, more to the point, it really hit you over the head. You couldn't miss that it was "supposed" to be funny.

All the stuff that we take for granted in comedy now: subtlety/4th wall breaking/bending-the-line-between-real-and-fake is relatively new.

So I think when they see a parody that does not include Moe Howard hitting Larry in the face with a pie, they have a harder time realizing that it's comedy.

A decent guy, but what a stupid choice.

Scoop w/ @ErinatThePost: Turned off by President Trump, Maryland’s GOP governor Larry Hogan casts write-in vote for Ronald Reagan... https://t.co/U36tp4WXEz

— Robert Costa (@costareports) October 16, 2020

I agree with this, but I also see quite a bit of the phenomena from those in their 20s and 30s. That's not as easily explained (or corrected).

My speculation would be because they grew up only getting their media/news online through social media so that is the outlet they trust. The concept of sitting down every night at 6 or having to wait until the next morning to see who won a ballgame is alien to them.

Most of us here, mid 30s to mid 50s grew up in a unique time where we literally saw the information explosion first hand, and were really the first ones to embrace it. Sure now our parents have facebook, etc...but in the late 90s early 2000s a lot of tech was still alien to them. I think it positions us uniquely to see just what is going on in terms of media manipulation, etc...

That being said there is also always going to be a healthy dose of confirmation bias.

I think some of it is tied to what I posted in the Random Thoughts thread about so much stuff flying by on people's timelines. It's easy to mistake one type of comment/story for another. I bet at least 90% of commenters don't do anything but read the headline, don't click the link. Think of how ridiculous some of the topics being covered by the news are (by comparison to years ago), and it's all kinda the same thing - it's hard to tell at a quick glance sometimes what is real and what is not. And many people skimming through aren't paying attention to who is posting it, just the content.

There's no going back, but I think that sports and politics reporting were a lot better when you didn't have huge media apparatuses that depend on 24 hour programming.

"Last night, LeBron brushed past KD and didn't acknowledge him. We have a panel of 6 guys who are going to scream at each other for the next 8 hours about what it might mean!"

This is right on. There have been plenty of times I've seen someone post a clickbait sort of title, clicked the link, and the story is far different than you'd expect. Then the fun part is when you mention what the story actually says - the original poster will either go one of two ways: 1) oh, I didn't read the article, thanks for clarifying, 2) doubling down on the headline and acting like you are bad for reading the story and clarifying what it says.

Or "Well, maybe Trump didn't actually eat a baby. But it sure says something that Trump is so horrible that it is believable that he would eat a baby."

Absolutely. It would have happened sooner than later, but the first Gulf War threw us into that 24 hour news cycle and basically required so much "analysis" of what used to be 30 minutes of national news every night that it overtook the primary purpose for news stations. And it just feeds the "National Enquirer" psyche of humans to want to believe the most outrageous crap that a "news" outlet feeds them.

I'm leaning more toward what albion said about humor in general, though, at least for the folks I'm talking about. I've had cases of people *definitely* reading the article and even posting a quote from it. It's not all just flybys. In many cases, they're missing satire as humor entirely. However, albion's post also made me think of how many of my friends have said "my parents have no sense of humor," and I'm also now recalling listening recently to some stand-up comedy on Pandora by some back-in-the-day folks like Redd Foxx that popped up on my comedy station before I thumbs-downed all of it. It's just...not all that funny to our generation. Mostly "a guy walks into a bar..." type stuff. (Side note, it's interesting how today's simple change from "a man was walking down the street" to "I was walking down the street" makes a gigantic difference in comedy...)

I've had both conservatives and liberals do this when called out on something that was demonstrably false. Most recent one was a memed Ben Carson "quote" that was from a radio show that simply never happened. It was a horrific "quote" about slavery, fully "sourced" with a date that he was on a radio show and said it. It took me like 20 seconds of googling to find the show transcript for the date in question and determine that Carson was neither on the show, nor was the word "Carson" anywhere in the transcript for that date. (I can't recall with certainty who the host was, but I *think* it was Michael Savage.) And yeah, the guy's response was "WELL, IT'S JUST LIKE SOMETHING HE WOULD SAY!" Truth didn't even matter as long as he could do a gotcha on the other side. :( (FWIW, in the Carson incident, it was a millennial former YoungLifer. In the right-wing cases, it has always been boomers.)

trump couldn't win a home run derby if they moved the fences in 2ft from home plate because he would be complaining about the tee they put the ball on.

So my daughter has to stay away from college for 14 days, but the President can go to rallies. Ah, division.

Some people are just complainers.

Worked with a guy who won $200 cash at a company function and complained all night long that they gave it to him in ones.

These are some of the most irritating people I can think of. There's no pleasing people like that no matter what you do.

Do you work at a strip club?

I think that's three Republican governors who said they won't vote for him.

It just shows how strong a connection to someone's party can be. There must be many who don't like him but just could never, ever, vote for an evil Democrat. If those people decide they're going to stay home, or vote for Ronald Reagan or John Wayne, that's at least a statement of some kind. We know about the "shy Trump voter" who was underrepresented in polls, I wonder if there's a significant number of people ingrained in Republican culture through their families, communities, and churches, but who will quietly stay home on election day, or vote another way privately

And... whoops

Initial Nielsen ratings show Biden garnered more viewers than Trump at their simultaneous town halls. Biden drew 12.7 million viewers from 8-9 p.m. on ABC. On NBC alone, Trump got 10.4 million viewers in the same time slothttps://t.co/Rnru3RjJSq

— Emma Kinery (@EmmaKinery) October 16, 2020

SI


Isn't the math simpler for those in elected office? They're getting a ton of their money from the party and if they do that, it's a lot harder to keep getting elected.

SI

Nowhere else to go for Hogan in Maryland, so he probably figures it a) keeps. him distanced from Trump and b) voting for a D can't be used against him if/when he runs for the R nomination.

No, unfortunately.

The company I worked for had about 200 employees and we had quarterly town halls. The owner of the company would always do things like that for comedy.

I'd respect him more if he voted for a living Republican. Reagan is a cowardly choice.

trump keeps losing by almost 3 million. Too bad for him there is no Electoral Nielson ratings.

:D

Well you got to figure in that millions of illegal immigrants tuned in to watch Biden.

Something I'd never thought of before that I just saw.

I'm in favor of expanding the size of the House because reps would be more responsive if they had less constituents.

But this plan would have the bonus effect of diluting the effect of the Senate on the EC.

More reps means that those 100 EC spots mean less as a proportional matter than they do now.

The Constitution sets a limit--no more than one rep per 30,000 people--but that would be over 10,000 representatives. So I don't think you need to go nearly that far.

But maybe set it to 1 rep per 300,000 people. That would be about 1,000 reps right now.

So, my thoughts on what the Dems should do as a structural matter if the pull off the triple in November. None of these require a Constitutional Amendment.

Eliminate Filibuster

Expand SCOTUS, Federal Circuit Courts, and Federal District Courts

Expand size of House

Institute New Voting Rights Act and strip the federal courts of jurisdiction to declare it unconstitutional

Declare that all residents 18 and over can vote in federal elections.

Declare that all federal elections must have verifiable paper-trail ballots (and give the states the money for the equipment)

Do it early. In the age of the 24 hour news cycle, it will be forgotten by the time 2022 comes around.

And dead people.

And the radical leftists that voted more than once.

Not sure what was a realistic outcome that would classify as less "stupid" than this. He was elected twice as a Republican. He is actively campaigning for Republicans. He is seemingly shaping up as a leading voice for the post-Trump Republican Party and what it could be about.

How would it be sensible for him to endorse, or even just announce that he himself is voting for, the Democratic challenger?

He's not one of these guys already resigned to drifting into yet another "roll-up-our-sleeves-America" non- or bi- or post-partisan coalition in some grand, expensive way to conjure up 1% support - he's trying to remain a winner as a Republican.

To me - Reagan is the safest way to easily communicate that he's still GOP, just not this and he believes in the stuff that triggered a revival of the party to begin with. For what it's worth, in 2016 he announced he had written in his own father, a former GOP Congressman who was among the first to turn on Nixon leading up to the Watergate final chapters.

Yeah, I could see Hogan as trying to run for President in 2024. And this vote is a symbolic future political gesture.

I suppose the counterpoint is Kasich, who we presume sees a lane as being aggressively anti-Trump, and hoping what remains as an actual party will forgive him for betraying this party during these times. I guess I see that as a reasonable play as well, even if it is merely 100% tactical (and for him I don't believe that it is).

And watched on more than one TV.

And then you have this guy:



The competition to be the most racist Trump is fierce.

But Melania is making a strong last minute push.

Y'all please don't le this distract you from all of Melania Trump's important work. pic.twitter.com/7fBC6LCg36

— Andrew Fleischman (@ASFleischman) October 16, 2020

That's a line I wont cross!

I don't think it's stupid in the sense that it will hurt his prospects, honestly, I'm not sure there's much of anything that could change his good prospects in MD and his poor prospects nationally. I just think it's a dumb stunt to broadcast how cleverly he found a way to be against Trump but for the GOP. Not only is Reagan dead, but Reaganism is dead. If the best you have to offer is a rather hollow outreach to a mythical past, just keep your vote to yourself.

And this is being said with a firm belief that the country would be much better off if the GOP was built around people like Hogan and Baker, Scott and local GOPers like my county executive.

Reconsider for future competing events or you may find yourself removed from Antifa Chapter 62954. We're watching.

Ever seen Anchorman 2 ;)

Looks like I really didn't think this one out. I better change my way of thinking or those Soros checks are going to stop showing up.

Isn't that the same group who cosplays as the 501st Stormtrooper legion?

If you had played Wasteland 3 you would know why this was a brilliant move. He is just getting ahead of the future.

Bonzo for VP

This country is doomed.

In a heated exchange during Thursday night’s town hall, Pres. Trump once again refused to denounce the QAnon conspiracy theory.@GaryTuchmanCNN speaks to Trump supporters at the President’s rally in Macon, Georgia, about how he is addressing QAnon. https://t.co/PgbiVBA3Xm pic.twitter.com/5ZQTBGDLBp

— Anderson Cooper 360° (@AC360) October 17, 2020

Pretty amazing you can get that many idiots in one place

Screw 'enlightened' Europe, in NZ even the sorta right wing populist party's (right in the name "New Zealand First") leader is doing this when he heard the "what virus ?" question once to often:

Twitter

"Sorry sunshine, wrong place." Like that.

This is just too scary:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/15/us/qa...7T11%3A31%3A06

It really has so many parallels with the "third wave" social experiment, taken to a blown up, national level. It hits all those sweet spots for the same people who want to separate one group from another, a strong, secret leader who will bring everyone together and lead the uprising, while stamping out the enemy of the people.

Many religions in general also insist on deference to an unseen authority, with promises of deliverance, good v. evil, so it makes total sense that there are people involved in both. It simply fits their worldview. It's a major threat to our political stability.

{edit: I'll add that when you combine it with the quality to manipulate audio/video, and create successful deep fakes, you now have the ability to make anyone say anything you want. The more confusion, the more uncertainty, the better the place to fertilize the sorts of things that we see with Q. The similarities to recruiting techniques used by ISIS is striking.}

I’m Joe Biden and I approve this message. pic.twitter.com/TuRZXPE5xK

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) September 20, 2020

That was pretty satisfying.

My wife: "Aw, we've become the butt of the world's jokes"
Me: "We deserve it, in this case"

SI

The shame. But well deserved.

Sent from my Pixel 4 XL using Tapatalk

I am more than willing to chip in on a ticket, as long as it is somewhere without cameras or internet.

+1

So Trump said he might have to leave the country if he loses to Biden. I still say there's a non-trivial chance he goes to a non-extradition country in early January and simply never comes back.

I would love to see the dude punished but I don't think it will ever happen. He's managed to avoid it for this long.

Serious question re: Transmission of power. If Trump is send packing, do his cronies at agencies stay till Inauguration ? When can Biden et al actually start influencing the Covid response ?

Because guys like Scott Atlas seem to be gearing up big time for some good old scorched earth with his Herd Immunity and anti-mask push, quoting 'science' in the form of pseudo-scientific garbage mashing up new age shit with some big words and pullink rank and/or unsubstantiated annecdotal 'evidence'

(Fun thing today: in a twitter thread discussing it someone brought up how "thousands" of suicides were caused in Australia, which for once was easily disproved because they keep track of those and it'actually been the same this/last year through september)

If Team Trump doesn't want to cooperate with Team Biden, there's not really anything that can be done unless it's somehow so egregious that the R Senate would agree to do something.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

SI

Hey, I said "somehow!" :D


(Seriously, though, if there's some nonsense with the transition, I could see lame duck R Senators saying "Eff this Trump clown. I stuck with him and now my career is over. I'll help bring him down.")

I have heard this tossed around, and until rather recently completely discounted the idea.

However... I guess with the relative success he's had with hits like "the fake news is out to get me" and "the deep state" and "i don't pay taxes because i am teh smart" -- maybe there's a legit angle here. He dodges out, blames everything on Sleepy Joe or whatever, and convinces the faithful that he's a great guy and just being persecuted unfairly. And then he launches the media stuff, without setting foot on US soil any more. Sure, I guess, could happen. JFC

If that happens, then I think they underestimate how much they can put that genie back in the bottle.

SI

Like a low IQ banana republic Rupert Murdoch?

SI

The movies that are made about this administration, provided they aren't propagandist movies touting our 'Great Leader', are going to be stunning.

Short answer; yes. Until Biden officially takes office he can't appoint anyone, even the people that don't need Senate confirmation. He can plan and interview and vet I'm sure he will do all of those things much better than Trump barring a reversal of fortunes for the election itself, but Trump is still the POTUS until the inauguration with all the authority and responsibilities that go with that.

Art of the Deal

Inside Foxconn’s empty buildings, empty factories, and empty promises in Wisconsin

Ho hum. Just another day where the clown talks about how he accepts/would accept bribes

Weird how those originalists sided with overriding a state Supreme Court. Almost like the "originalists" is just an excuse to side on certain issues.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/202...m_npd_nn_tw_ma

By that logic a state Supreme Court could cancel the election and pre-emptively certify the electors in favor of one candidate or another. There's no judicial philosophy that holds there's never a reason to override a state.

When a state supreme court interprets the laws of the state constitution, it should be a pretty high bar for SCOTUS to rule that interpretation invalid. That certainly doesn't seem to be what happened here. It's hard to see what federal law is being violated by allowing ballots postmarked before or on election day to be counted even if they arrive after election day.

Based on what I know about the case I agree, though I'll wait to see the decisions before making a firm conclusion.

The GOP talking points are getting out quickly on this one, I see. They are so far ahead of the Dems on spinning issues related to the courts. :-(

Anyway, to the extent it matters, this argument is not correct. If a state supreme court took the action you outlined, it would violate (at least) the Guarantee Clause and the Equal Protection Clause (see Baker v. Carr).

So a couple of "break glass in case of emergency" clauses exist to help prevent the extreme situation you posit.

Of course, the current right-wingers on the Court do not want to invoke these clauses because they imply a right to vote and for everyone's vote to be treated equally. But that does not mean that they don't exist.

Instead, they--much more disturbingly--would rely here on complete deference to state legislatures, without giving any deference to the state's ability to determine the method through which its legislature operates.

***

This shit gets ferociously complicated, so I will try to give a nutshell.

This (almost) ruling seems less unprecedented and disturbing than it is because we are used to the Supreme Court sometimes reviewing and reversing state courts.

But, in those cases, the Supreme Court is reviewing the state courts' interpretation of federal law. Quick example: State X bans flag burning. A citizen burns a flag and is prosecuted. He says that the law is invalid because it violates his Free Speech rights as guaranteed in the US Constitution. So he appeals his conviction all the way to State X's Supreme Court, which holds that the First Amendment does not protect flag burning. The US Supreme Court then hears the case and holds that the First Amendment does protect flag burning.

In that example, the US Supreme Court is reviewing the State Supreme Court's interpretation of the US Constitution. That is well accepted.

But lets change our example a little: Assume State X had a state constitutional provision saying "no law prosecuting the burning of flags shall be valid." And the State Supreme Court overturned that guy's conviction based on that reading of the state constitution without any regard to the US Constitution's First Amendment. Then the Supreme Court would have no place there, even if the state wanted them to hear the case.

States are independent sovereigns, and the federal courts (even the Supreme Court) lack the power to usurp state interpretations of state law.*

Here, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court interpreted state law. It did not interpret one sentence, one word, or one letter of federal law. It held that the state constitution, which created both the State Supreme Court and the State Legislature, compelled a certain result. Sure, a state could make its "legislature" a body that is not restrained by its state constitution. But that's not what Pennsylvania did. The "legislature" includes the natural restrictions placed on it by the state constitution. That is a matter 100% for the people of Pennsylvania to decide, and they decided it.

And 4 Justices (soon to be 5 based on everything we know about ACB), would have nonetheless reached down and basically reordered the most fundamental workings of Pennsylvania's state government.

I guess I will have to ask y'all to take my word on this to some extent, but it is hard to convey just how radical and flat-out wrong this theory is.

People lack the imagination to understand just how fundamental a change this 6 justice majority is going to bring to the country.

*That is why, when a federal court has to apply a state law as part of a case, it does not ask "what does this law mean?" It asks "what would the state Supreme Court say this law means?" It is a subtle, but critical, distinction. Like I said, this stuff gets complicated..

Mostly disappointed in Gorsuch here, who I was counting on to prevent any election related shenanigans.

It's definitely a reminder that while every once in a while Gorsuch or Kavanaugh might side with the left, they're still Federalist judges which means they will almost always rule in favor first of big business and second of the GOP.

SI

I'm well aware of this distinction. I was responding to a post that, at least as it reads on the surface, argued that any overriding of a state court was hypocritical.


I'll repeat what I already said in a previous post since it seems to have not gotten through; I don't disagree with a word of this. Pennsylvania should have - and at least for the moment, still does - every right to handle its own elections this way.

Socialism is bad and wrong.

Unless you are a farmer when the GOP is in charge.

Then it is good and right.

https://twitter.com/chrislhayes/stat...930048/photo/1

But they promised they'd care about stare decisis!

Isn't it huge just in that you have to have 4 justices vote to take up a case and, in the past, if Roberts said "nope, we're not going to touch it" and took Gorsuch with him, that prevented some of the shenanigans that we're going to see going forward, too?

SI

Cool.

I wish the dissenters (not quite the right term, but you know what I mean) had written explaining their reasoning.

I am kind of shocked that the trump justice department actually filed an anti-trust case. Who would have ever figured that? Maybe they see it as the elimination of the toxic champions of the left, but I think it's more likely that they are replaced by 4-5 companies that simply fulfill the same mindset as Alphabet.

dola

Of course, the administration spins this as ending censorship.

Of course, the only federally protected free speech rules state that the government cannot punish people over speech. Last time I looked the internet, nor social media were government controlled entities.

Smart move by Biden camp to get it out there that Kasich, Flake and Dent are being considered for cabinet positions. To the extent there is any rational person on the fence concerned that the liberals are going to overrun the administration, this might help.