There's so many things it could be and pretty much all are negative: COVID hands? Health issues that he doesn't want to reveal this close to the election? Just finished burying the homeless man he ran over? Ligature marks from his strangling of Democracy? Vampirically draining life from other humans to stay alive?

There are so many believable options here.

SI

She's the top ten prospect that just never quite put it all together. Her first ads were great, she has a ton of money, has a good bio, but she just isn't that good on the trail and never quite found the message that would appeal to all the Breshear voters.

Blackface is hard to wash off.

Serious answer is probably just that he has a worse case of the hand problems a lot of older politicians get from shaking hands a bazillion times while campaigning combined with some underlying health issue.

We had one here in Lexington around New Circle/4 a couple of weeks ago. I stayed put in Versailles.

self tattoos and strip club stains?

What has Oklahoma done to Trump to blame it all on them that he's the president now?

Maybe his dominatrix went too far with the wrist restraints.

Me and wife's theory: the ghost of RBG pushed him down a flight of stairs.

I did want to put some BDSM option in my original post but couldn't come up with the wording for a good enough joke (even by my low standards for my jokes)

SI

The most reasonable explanation I've heard was excessive bruising due to blood thinners.

Or the drifter killing thing

SI

The Florida Rep who tweeted about his wife's "premonition" ... these people are truly screwed in the head. Either way you look at it, whether it's true or whether it's being done jjust to scare people. What a bunch of raving lunatics. The fact that these people feel comfortable saying something like that out loud says a lot about their constituents.

Someone in the White House thought it was a good idea to just go with "the parents don't want the kids back" to explain the ~550 kids they can't reunite with their parents?

Trump 2nd Term:

MARS BITCHES!

For the group that never shuts up about snowflakes, they seem terrified of everything.

McConnell rushing through confirming a SCOTUS Justice hours before he dies of Stage 10 Leukemia would be pretty on brand.

I don't see any "civil war". Most people have it good here and aren't putting their lives on the line for some dumb culture war. Wealthy people still call the shots and they won't allow any disruption to business.

You'll have your domestic terrorists and we're seeing that ramp up. But that's been a right-wing thing for decades now and just something the country has to deal with.

Good news about Sudan and Israel.

Don't know what the internal politicking going on inside SA, but have to believe SA will, sooner or later, also "normalize" relationships which would be great news. If I was SA, I'd probably wait till after Jan and leverage the decision with whoever the next president is. Wonder if it's Kushner or Pompeo driving this.

Com'on, do you believe in the kid's fairy tales?

It's pretty obvious he's been bitten and slowing transforming into a zombie.

Who knows. The Sudanese PM said the deal would have to be approved by the transitional parliament, but they've been trying to form a transitional parliament for over a year without it getting done.

Makes me wonder what the Sudanese got in exchange for this announcement.

Everything's a con.

Actually I thought it was the start of....you know....when old married couples start to look like one another.

Got removed from the state sponsors terrorism list. But yeah, think there was probably some additional stuff.

For SA ...

"Hey by 20xx we won't need your heavy crude as much anymore and we can bail from the ME. If you want us to stay around to help out with Iran (and Yemen :)), sign here"

My kids are currently stuck in traffic on 275 thanks to these imbeciles.

It was reported that MBS said he'd be killed if he signed a deal with Israel.

Trump is going to be really really pissed if he ever hears half of what happens in Borat 2

He's a Wight Supremacist.

Is McConnell going to be all wight?

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I'm just tired of all his wightsplaining.

He should get those hands wight washed

Googled and found a couple articles on this. There is definite risks to MBS but this just a convenient excuse IMO.

There's no doubt he is a Jekyll (opening up SA, women's rights, reigning in religious police, modernization etc.) & Hyde (murdering SOB). BTW - I know some here criticize him for Yemen but I lean towards thinking it's one that SA needs to win.

He is effectively a benevolent dictator for life. He's had several years to consolidate his power (e.g. the imprisoning of all those relatives and rich billionaires). If there is one person that can do it, it's him. Definitely risks to him but Iran is the real & present danger, and my guess is Iran can roll over SA without US support.


Somewhat related to our oil dependency, it was reported the Venezuela opposition leader left the country. I really don't get why we did not impact change there at the height of the crisis. Strong and friendly relationship with Venezuela will have helped us significantly in this transitionary time to oil independence (hurry up Elon Musk and like).

Everything's a con.

We quit.

Mark Meadows on CNN: “We are not going to get control of the pandemic.”

Says we will instead try to get therapeutics and vaccines rather than trying to control the spread.

— Toluse Olorunnipa (@ToluseO) October 25, 2020

Yup.

Can y'all do me a favor?

Next time a major political party/movement runs on the platform that government is not capable of solving problems, could y'all do me a solid and not vote to put them in charge of the government?

Prophesies have a way of fulfilling themselves.

Incredibly stupid thing to say a week before Election Day...

Yeah. Biden needs to make this a commercial today and blast it all over Sunday night football and MNF.

Meadows' claim to fame was as chair of the Freedom Caucus. He seems more comfortable in the opposition than in charge.

I wonder if he, personally, has decided that shit's gonna be real bad for the next 5 or so years (a pretty reasonable prediction), and it is better for the GOP to lose bigly in 2020 so it can blame the Dems for everything and come back in 2024/2028.

dola:

Reagan dressing Mondale in a gimp costume and parading him around the country in 1984 was a mere 10 years after Nixon resigning.

People have short memories. Even shorter now than they did in the 70s/80s

If the GOP plans this right, they can easily come back stronger than ever much sooner than you would think.

That thought has occurred to me as well. Obama was punished in 12 for the increase in spending and deficit in 08 that he inherited. Any D is going to be punished for the fallout from the absolute destruction of any sort of fiscal responsibility by trump. The trillion dollar tax cut, followed by a complete clusterfuck of decision making (or lack thereof) will resonate for well over the next 4 years.

It's all the GOP has done for a generation. Yet people keep electing them. They keep talking about how government doesn't work and is the problem - not in the sense of "we have a better way" but in the "so we'll destroy it" way. And people are surprised when they ineptly run it.

SI

Fair point. Tanking may be their best strategy.

This would be a particularly bad year for the GOP to get blown out though with redistricting coming. No more tilted board to play on. Or a board tilting against them.

This isn't any different than what they've been saying for months. Trump keeps up with his "turning the corner" crap as we breaking records on the daily for positive tests. They're saying these things for the folks who believe the test results are corrupt. I just saw 1 on FB "explaining" how 1 test result can be reported 3-4 times by different counties, suggesting results are being purposely inflated.

One year ago today, so this isn't some sort of Covid, hindsight "the election is a week away" candidate-speak.

We are not prepared for a pandemic. Trump has rolled back progress President Obama and I made to strengthen global health security. We need leadership that builds public trust, focuses on real threats, and mobilizes the world to stop outbreaks before they reach our shores. https://t.co/1qqpgayUEX

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) October 25, 2019

Nothing says American greatness more than "WE QUIT"

That's why Dems have to restore majority rule. They can't let Mitch sabotage the country by blocking any relief legislation.

Yes to the above point that 2020 is important because it's a redistricting year. The problem s the GOP is going to ratfuck the census and reapportionment.

I always feel compelled to add that Mark Meadows lied about having a bachelor's degree for years & was born in France.

I can already hear Tucker Carlson speculating how Biden knew about the pandemic in October

"We have to learn how to live with the virus!"

Okay. Masks on, lather up, keep your distance, shut things down, cancel gatherings, be careful.

"No. We have to learn how to LIVE WITH it."

Payments to everyone to keep things afloat?

"No. LIVE WITH it."

...do you mean die?

— 63" Inch Long Lost Alexandra Erin (@AlexandraErin) October 25, 2020

Hell, we had the chief of staff announce on CNN that they're not going to even try to contain it today.

Well that part is nonsense. What isn't nonsense though is that a lot of media is breathlessly reporting numbers without context. For example, in Michigan there's a lot of wringing of hands about the fact that we are getting more positive tests than April for the first time ... while ignoring the fact that we are testing orders of magnitude more people than we were then. It's always much easier to talk about the simple, sensationalized headline than educate about an issue. So it's not like we aren't giving these people plenty of ammunition (in this and other previously-discussed ways)

KY is breaking records for positive tests left and right, but our positivity rate has also increased from finally getting it under 4% to now approaching 6%. And of course the lagging deaths have finally started catching up, as we're reporting double digits on the daily. 3-4 weeks from now, 20+ deaths a day will probably be common here.

The other thing bothering me is the "can't stop it anyway" fatalism. Even now the bugger is operating on less than half it's cylinders so to speak. An R of 1,3 or 1,5 is terrible, but still a far cry from what would happen if the majority gave up. Remember estimates and measurements are around 3 (3,3 in Germany f.e. early March. And we have a few structural advantages re: healthcare/sick leave/sick payments)

lol

Trump claiming this morning that COVID media coverage is a violation of election laws.

So the real quote was

"I could shoot 1,000 people a day in the middle of 5th Avenue, and then I'd sue the media to keep them from covering it."

This is pretty interesting...

In Texas an incredible 1,855,744 votes have been cast by voters who didn't turn out in 2016. These voters are 8 pts more Dem than those who did vote in '16.

Unmarried women make up 1 out of 3 of these surge voters. pic.twitter.com/iKPsoky30h

— Tom Bonier (@tbonier) October 26, 2020

Wow.. it does seem turnout is WAAAY up in a lot of places. It's really heartening to see.

And people wonder why Biden is keeping a lid on a week before the election? These people are his best campaign ad!

Jared on black folks: "President Trump's policies are the policies that can help people break out of the problems that they're complaining about but he can't want them to be successful more than that they want to be successful " pic.twitter.com/TBWigtq0zs

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) October 26, 2020

What's so different about this year versus previous years?

People are tired of Trump?
People want to support Trump?
Lots of campaigns to get people to vote?

A combination of all of it?

My daughter turns 18 in January. I'm disappointed she missed a Presidential election by a few months. When we talk about it, she doesn't give a shit. She has no interest in politics, much like me when I was her age.

That one. A lot of this explosion in early voting is by those who lean Democrat. We always knew that Covid is going to lead to massive gains in early voting, but there are reports of groups (like the 65+ African Americans in Georgia) already voting at higher numbers than 4 years ago.

People are definitely tired of Trump.

There has been a media blitz around voting like no other I've seen. I don't remember seeing ads during football games and regular TV talking just about "voting" and encouraging people to do so.

Trump's base is his base, and I don't think they're any more enthusiastic than normal really. But the enthusiasm on the other side surpasses the anti-Clinton sentiment by quite a bit, IMO. I guess we'll find out in 9 days.

I'd like to think it's people who are tired of Trump's shit, and are turning out to get rid of the bastard.

Watched "Walking Dead: World Beyond" last night and caught a Trump commercial essentially characterizing Biden as a zombie. It caught me by surprise and I chuckled at it as I'm sure they created because of the series, appreciate the creativity.

But I thought it was kinda wasted advertising $, it would be more effective to spend the $ with an attack on Hunter.

My 21 year old daughter is not political but hates Trump and couldn't wait to vote.

I think that the Hunter thing appeals to the base and nothing else.

What's funny is that even if there were meat on the bones of the Hunter story, they would still have trouble getting people to believe it because the President was impeached for trying to create dirt on Hunter Biden.

It makes the whole "Oh my goodness! Look what just appeared! Some dirt on Hunter Biden! And right in the middle of October! What a remarkable surprise and coincidence!" thing a bit hard for people who are not already true believers to swallow.

US threatens to destroy Iranian missiles shipped to Venezuela

Nothing like good old military threats to drum up support.

Are those all ballots or just those that made the cut ? (meaning definitely not thrown out for missing envelopes, mismatched signatures, using the wrong colour or other shit)

If they have been 'cast' that usually means accepted ballots.

Honestly, I think the interest in this election is super high for two reasons.

One, Folks are tired of the "Trump Show." Every day it seems like there's new mind-boggling twists. Many folks are just tired of being mind-boggled all the time. If this was a TV show it would have jumped the shark around year 2.5 . To continue the TV show analogy, Finally, the Trump Show is up for renewal or cancellation and people are tired of it.

Two) All the threats of vote-by-mail fuckery and "fraud", have people wanting to make sure that their vote is counted.

And as a bonus, Three) People are convinced on both sides, that this is an "apocalyptic" election with dire consequences should "they" win.

Edit: Think of it this way: President Trump was in the hospital with COVID and decided to go for a ride-about in a hermetically sealed vehicle, exposing secret service folks to it, possibly. That seems like forever ago.

That was three weeks ago. Barely.

That is one where I owe an apology of sorts to Vic. He joked/complained about how every election was presented as the MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION OF OUR LIVES. And I sort of thought that was a bit of an exaggeration.

But looking at how GOP voters really see this as some last stand against socialism, Satanism, and pedophilia has been instructive.

I was wrong. There is a ton of MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION OF OUR LIVES going on.

Nearly 2/3 of people think Trump lies a lot, so it's really hard for his attacks to stick because people outside of his base just assume it's all lies.

A safe assumption.

It reminds me of the Book of Mormon musical when Joseph Smith is talking about finding the plaques in his back yard. This laptop repairman guy just happened to turn the data he copied over to Rudy Giuliani in time for the election.

My daughter is 24, and this is the first election she had voted in. She only moderately kept up with politics (she and her friends were all big Bernie supporters 4 years ago, but not a one of them were registered to vote). She was motivated by how activily the whole GOP seems to be working to take away her rights.

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RE: electoral importance and the right wing...

I'm seeing lots of folks on the right who think this is FAR more important than '16. If Trump loses, the police will be abolished, guns will be confiscated, socialism will be instituted within a matter of months, all statues of and references to George Washington and Thomas Jefferson will be illegal, and men will dominate women's sports. And I'm just *barely* exaggerating what some otherwise-intelligent people I know are truly thinking. They are absolutely terrified--probably even more terrified than the fringes of the left were when Trump won the election. So, yeah, I'd expect right-wing turnout to be up as well. I still think Biden wins fairly handily, but I'm not gonna be shocked by anything that happens next week.

You keep saying "otherwise-intelligent" but I keep hearing more and more non-intelligent beliefs...

This is...uhh...less than ideal.

MI election officials are relaying concerns that local sheriffs have made clear they won’t enforce voter intimidation laws November 3.

The message to them: if local sheriffs don’t comply, call the Michigan State Police.https://t.co/wWTePb8HGe pic.twitter.com/2Ty5ev6PEU

— Tim Alberta (@TimAlberta) October 26, 2020

Every state should eliminate elections for Sheriffs. Sheriffs should be appointed by the Governor.

No kidding. These were my choices for county Sheriff:

Ed Troyer has served as the high-profile spokesperson for the Pierce County Sheriff's Department for 19 years. In addition to his work with the sheriff's department, Troyer has served as the executive director of CrimeStoppers for 17 years. He has a long track record of defending police violence and has been criticized for his role in the department's lack of transparency and failure to comply with I-940 after Ellis' killing.

Lieutenant Cyndie Fajardo is a 32-year veteran of the Pierce County Sheriff's Department who manages the search and rescue program. From 1999 through 2003, Fajardo served as the interim chief for the Steilacoom Public Safety Department, which encompasses police, fire, and emergency medical services. Unfortunately, a drug unit Fajardo supervised was recently disbanded and is under investigation for misconduct, including falsifying records. As a result, the Pierce County Prosecutor’s Office added Fajardo to their “potential impeachment list” of staff who have been found to be dishonest.

Interesting. I just saw someone post that, on balance, COVID has helped incumbents around the world win reelection. That makes sense--rally around the flag and all that.

The USA is, of course, an exception, because the party in charge has refused to give us anything around which to rally.

If Trump loses, the story might end up being a simple one. A big problem came. The GOP decided to not solve it. So they lost. If they had instead worked to solve the problem, they would have won.

I'm not going to give aid to you people if your governor asks for it because I don't like him, but vote me anyway. Seems like an odd strategy.

Trump warns PA's governor that he won't forget how Wolf supposedly made it hard for him to secure a rally venue: "I'll remember it, Tom. I'm gonna remember it, Tom. 'Hello, Mr. President, this is Governor Wolf, I need help, I need help.' You know what? These people are bad."

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) October 26, 2020

dola: that said, I can see why the GOP didn't want to solve the problem. Containing COVID required an acknowledgement that we are all in this together--a focus on shared sacrifice that kind of runs counter to their entire worldview. It's deeper than simply "they didn't want government spending." They didn't, of course.

But it was more what the spending represented. That government can work. That we can help each other. That you should listen to experts. That you can trust and depend on your neighbor. That we ALL need to sacrifice--not just people different that you.

Fear is a POWERFUL thing. Can fear and intellect live side by side? Hard to say philosophically, but it sure seems that way practically. Or perhaps it's that they are SO fear-driven that they let the fears rule over their intellects? I dunno. What I do know is that because of my upbringing and both personal and professional lives, I know and have interacted with a lot of people from different stations in life, but the one significant demographic that I've had the least interaction with would be "poorly educated white people." The overwhelming majority of white people I've known over the years are somewhere in the range of "moderate to highly educated," the primary exception to that being the white kids from my 3rd-6th grade years, when my neighborhood was bused to a school that was largely known as a "white trash" school. No, I'm talking about credentialed, pedigreed folks who believe only a somewhat-blunted version of the above. Remove all exaggeration for effect from above, they don't think socialism will be instituted in 6 months, but they think that if we don't control the left, their children and/or grandchildren will live in a socialist county. They don't think Biden's going to send in troops to round up their guns on 1/21/2021, but they think they'll have to register them with the government eventually. Etc. Etc. Etc.

Oh, but many of them DO believe that Biden will allow transitioned biological males to play women's sports. There's some Bill or Act that supposedly he has endorsed that allegedly forces all states to let everyone play high school sports as their gender of choice. I've seen it referenced at least half a dozen times in the last couple of weeks, and (tangent, not really related to my point, but I'm on a roll) there are at least two Gen X family members (I'd get it if they were boomers, but really? Gen X???? DO BETTER!) on my wife's side with advanced degrees who are actively trying to avoid the typical huge extended-family Christmas gathering--not because, you know, it might be a terrible idea for 30+ people who live in at least 8 different metro areas in 4 different states to be in the same house for 6 or more hours--BUT BECAUSE THERE IS ONE 17-YEAR-OLD ATTENDING WHO IS UNSURE ABOUT HIS/HER GENDER AND SEXUAL IDENTITY. Unsure. Not "I'm in the process of transitioning." Not "I'm gay." But simply "I want to be called by my androgynous middle name instead of my clearly-feminine first name, and I now dress in a conservative but gender-neutral manner." These folks are terrified that this person is going to have some adverse impact on their son, so they're trying to come up with an excuse not to attend. However, despite the fact that the two folks wanting to sit it out are both medical professionals, "uhhhhh....maybe we shouldn't go because of the virus" isn't an option because, you know, the virus is a liberal thing and they can't let anyone think they might possibly be liberal. :banghead::banghead::banghead::banghead:

they banked on it resolving itself. that was a trump gamble, and a combined effort of not wanting 'government interference' and also that so many positions had been cut, cast off, that the fundamental operation of it was weak from the start.

They absolutely could have started early, taken it by the horns, and in retrospect I think they might, but they played the wrong hand and it's killing them.

That, and Trump in particular believes admitting to being wrong or reversing course is a sign of weakness, and he's a man's man, incapable of being wrong.

I honestly think if Trump took that approach he would have lost worse than he's going to. He might have won some independents, but Democrats obviously weren't going to vote for him anyway and turnout from his base would have been a lot lower. I think albionmoonlight is right that it's about what the spending would have represented, but shared sacrifice isn't the issue so much as living in fear, perceived loss of freedom, unnecessarily tanking the economy, etc. The number of people who didn't even vote for Trump, nevermind those who did, and think this way is substantial.

My kid couldn't wait to cast his ballot against trump. My youngest one missed by a year, but he would have been right there too.

Since Quik posted this, I've run numerous self-defeating things Trump has done through this filter, and it has yet to fail to explain it.

One thing that is continually underestimated IMO is just how differently people think. There are people way smarter than you (you used generically here, applies to anyone) who believe things you 'know' to be nonsensical. Often those people are wrong on those subjects, but it's not for lack of intelligence. People just think differently, period. There are brilliant conspiracy theorists. It's just the way the human brain works.

Interesting to see these two posts side-by-side. Team Trump did appear to take it seriously for a short time ("15 days to flatten the curve," was it?) and Cult45 was with him for that short time, but after a few weeks, when Hannity, Ingraham, F&F, et al started calling for the country to re-open, he did likewise. He didn't admit he was wrong; he just said "ok, we've done enough," and acted like it was just time to reopen. I tend to lean toward Brian's point of view here: much of the right would have been furious with him if he hadn't switched gears.

Which is so weird.

I live in fear--because we are surrounded by a virus that we could have controlled.

I have lost freedom--because I can't go places that I would like because we are surrounded by a virus that we could have controlled.

Our economy is unnecessarily tanked--because Congress and the President gave us one inadequate round of stimulus.

I still remember this article from May 2017 - not even 6 months into the Trump administration: "Trump’s real undoing may be the creeping fatigue"

Trump’s real undoing may be the creeping fatigue

It basically talked about how Nixon’s undoing was that people just got tired of being stressed about everything:



Instead of every morning paper, it’s that dread of not wanting to check out my phone every Friday afternoon to see what really bad thing he saved to try and dump at the end of the week.

I think the bulk of people don't want to be constantly reminded what divides them - we'd rather remember what keeps us together.

SI

I think the second post helps explains why incumbents have won in other regions. This notion of shared sacrifice and how their leaders have brought the country together to help deal with this deadly virus has elevated a lot of leaders... our President decided to split the country apart and not use the notion of shared sacrifice.

My personal view on this is that the right (mainly Fox News/Rush and that wing of the media) has done an incredible job of instilling fear into as much of the right voter base as possible going back to the early 2000s and George W Bush. "taking our guns" is an imminent threat every election, every democrat will be coming for your guns. All policies of the left are socialism no matter how moderate, etc etc.

My point is... how much ADDITIONAL fearmongering is available on top of what is done on a day to day basis, and will it really increase turnout in a significant way? Obviously the protests and the Black Lives Matter movement this year adds a new element, but I guess my instinct has always been that the fear well is tapped pretty close to dry already. How wrong am I? :D

I read something a while ago about how Trump was obsessed with the book, The Power of Positive Thinking. That approach, thinking positively and changing the nature of a problem, is what Trump tried with the virus. All of the, it's going to disappear, stuff is just positive thinking in action.

I think the problem with the Hunter thing is they haven't really been able to tie it to anything. Like it's not even clear what the scandal was supposed to be, or how it's supposed to involve Biden. It's e-mails, laptop, China, ooooooh it's so scary! They just haven't done a good job simplifying the scandal for people. The Hillary thing was easier to explain to the average voter.

When I see the "socialism" tactics and he is going to "take our guns" charges leveled at JOE BIDEN, then I know the fear tactics can't possibly be ramped up any further.

Blazing Saddles proves this is a great idea.

Ahh, but does "highly educated" always mean "intelligent." ;)

(I generally think that yes, they correlate, but sometimes I wonder just how many of the "highly educated" are so because of money and familial status. Or, to use a popular term, because of "privilege." As an ironworker's son who attended a fancy college with rich kids who eh, maybe they weren't all that smart. Of course I have to remind myself of this when I get all diploma-snobby.)