SATURDAY, AUGUST 15, 2026
In search of the real Suzanne Scott: In yesterday afternoon's report, we noted the fact that Candidate El-Sayed is behind by four points in Michigan, according to a new survey by the Fox News polling unit.
Sherrod Brown is ahead by eight in Ohio, we noted, also according to Fox.
We're concerned about Michigan, where "prickly" is unlikely to win (or so it seems to us). That said, we thought you should hear the rest of the story, at least as told by Jessica Tarlov yesterday on The Five.
Her presentation starts here. After saying that El-Sayed will be hurt by his association with Hasan Piker, she went ahead and said this:
TARLOV (8/14/26): [El-Sayed] is trailing Mike Rogers by four points. And I understand why Republicans want to look to that facet of the Fox poll, because everything else is a disaster for Republicans, except the Michigan race.
You have Ossoff up 13, Cooper up 9, Brown up 8, Turek up 4, Talarico up 3, and Jackson up 2, and then El-Sayed trailing by 4, so there is definitely work to do.
So Tarlov said. She was referring to Democratic Party leads by these Senate candidates in these six states, according to Fox polls:
Jon Ossoff in Georgia (+13)
Roy Cooper in North Carolina (+9)
Sherrod Brown in Ohio (+8)
Josh Turek in Iowa (+4)
James Talarico in Texas (+3)
Troy Jackson in Maine (+2)
Is that a disaster for Republicans? Not necessarily, no.
Will those leads hold up in the end? We have no idea.
That said, our nation is in a world of extremely serious hurt, and Blue America's largest news orgs (and best-known journalists) just keep playing it safe—just keep averting their gaze.
For reasons too depressing to state, we don't think a "prickly" approach will work for Candidate El-Sayed. With respect to life at the bottom of the barrel, consider the way El-Sayed is being portrayed by the droogs of the Fox News Channel as our Blue stars look away.
Gutfeld! is the third most-watched program in American "cable news." Its viewership more than doubles that of corresponding shows on MS NOW, with CNN's viewership lagging behind even that.
Gutfeld! is a corporate messaging vehicle being misidentified as a "late night comedy" program. (It airs at 7 p.m. in the west!) Last night, in his handful of opening jokes, its host hit these favorite themes:
Rosie O'Donnell is too fat
Michelle Obama is too big and too strong
Something's wrong with Nancy Pelosi's face
Hillary Clinton likes to kill people
A certain pattern may seem to obtain. Along the way, he included this messaging moment with respect to El-Sayed:
GUTFELD (8/14/26): You know, the Internet was amused over Abdul El-Sayed's Blue's Clues parody video.
[Brief excerpt from El-Sayed video]
Except the part where he stones Dora the Explorer to death for traveling alone.
AUDIENCE: [General puzzlement]
(Blue's Clues? What's that? Just click here.)
Understandably, the audience seemed a bit bewildered by that rather obscure presentation. That said, this was meant to deliver the message that El-Sayed is a violent "Muslim extremist" who would stone a little girl to death if she dared to venture out alone.
This sort of sickness is now standard fare on this inexcusable "cable news" program. As people like Jeff Greenfield refuse to notice, the program's host is constantly suggesting that, just as Hillary Clinton likes to kill people, Mayor Mamdani and Candidate El-Sayed like to fly planes into the side of buildings or, in this particular case, are inclined to stone people to death.
This is ugly, prehistoric fare. CEO Suzanne Scott is now paying this man to do this sort of thing on a nightly basis.
None of Blue America's news orgs are willing to report the fact that Suzanne Scott is doing this. No one is willing to ask her why she would do such a thing.
This is ugly behavior of an undisguised, unmistakable kind. As our nation continues to slide toward the sea, the point of this conduct is obvious.
The point of this ugly conduct is obvious. Maddow and French and all the stars are all averting their gaze.
"This is ugly behavior of an undisguised, unmistakable kind."
ReplyDeleteKarma's a bitch, Bob. You should've objected to ugly behavior when your Dumbocrat comrades started it, back in 2016.
Republicans have been pouring a ton of money into trying to defeat El-Sayed. Somerby's recent several essays are evidence of that. El-Sayed has refused corporate and PAC funding because progressives do not believe in buying elections. His primary win was accomplished with grassroots funding. If he is going to win now, he will need more campaign funding from us grassroots Democrats. I you care about this race, send him some money.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, Somerby is pretending that his opposition to El-Sayed is about his "prickly" style, because he talked back to Trump's crass attacks on him. Young voters like that kind of aggressiveness. Somerby is a school-marm if he thinks correcting someone's impolite speech (under attack) is going to put off anyone on the left.
What matters to us is pushing back against Trump and his Republican goons. If a candidate cannot do that, they are not electable. Of course, Somerby is not trying to election El-Sayed. He is against him and is just digging around for reasons -- as he did when he decided Harris had too nice a smile and then he lied about her border policy (and Biden's). And now he wants to say that El-Sayed's sister is too extreme for his taste -- even though she is a separate person, is unconnected to his campaign and is not running for anything.
Somerby has blown his cover. There is nothing El-Sayed could say or do that would induce Somerby to support him because Somerby's job here is to push right wing talking points. Defeating El-Sayed is certainly a big one -- that's why he has spent several days saying nothing except the right wing goop (he's foreign, he's prickly, he's Piker, he's too extreme, he's a socialist/communist/immigrant loving prickly loudmouth).
Somerby is too dainty to list any of the guy's accomplishments, his strengths, his policies and what he stands for, just that he is prickly because he talks back to Trump, then it is easier to see the basis for Somerby's choice of who to support -- prickliness is not really a thing, but Somerby is putting Somerby off El-Sayed and he doesn't want to say what it really is. I think we can guess.
Spot on.
DeleteLook at the way Somerby carefully transcribes and repeats the slurs on Mamdani and El-Sayed, while being shocked (I, tells you), shocked about how crass Gutfeld is!
ReplyDeleteHere are El-Sayed's accomplishments:
"Abdul rebuilt a government agency to make it actually work — and then he did it again. He rebuilt Detroit’s Health Department after bankruptcy. Then he restructured Wayne County’s Department of Health, Human & Veterans Services, serving 1.8 million Michiganders in the state’s largest and most diverse county. As a public servant, Abdul secured free glasses for kids who needed them, removed lead from Detroit’s elementary schools, took on Michigan’s biggest polluters, and made life-saving Narcan universally accessible. He also spearheaded a program that will cancel up to $700 million in medical debt for 300,000 Michiganders over 2 years. His work earned him recognition as “Public Official of the Year” by the Michigan LCV and a spot on Crain’s Detroit Business 40 Under 40 list."
But Somerby finds him too prickly! Because he talked back to Trump when Trump smeared him. For me, the rabid opposition of the right would be another reason to ignore Somerby's idiocy and support the guy. He has already proven he knows how to fix what's broken, and there is a lot that needs to be repaired after Trump's rampage. That's what matters.
It’s starts with you. Ignore Somerby.
DeleteI am ignoring Somerby by supporting El-Sayed, who does not deserve to be smeared by both Gutfeld and Somerby, who trails along behind him to amplify his smears in case anyone missed Gutfeld's show.
Delete"Look at the way Somerby carefully transcribes and repeats the slurs on Mamdani and El-Sayed"
DeleteIllogical. One cannot criticize a given slur without repeating it. Otherwise one's criticism would be vacuous.
Of course you can criticize a slur without repeating it. If Somerby said Gutfeld made a few anti-Muslim slurs, we would all know what was going on. When someone says a person dropped an F-bomb, we know what was said without repeating the word. Somerby can characterize Gutfeld's fat jokes about Behar without saying she is big as a whale. Somerby is here to promote Gutfeld's show, not to criticize his jokes.
DeleteHow do you criticize the Dora the explorer statement? Maybe it was intended to reflect some purported “truth” about Mamdani, but it seems framed as a joke. I will point out, yet again, that Somerby has repeatedly claimed in the past that Gutfeld’s jokes contain kernels of truth. Is this an example of that in his mind, Dr Logic?
DeleteMeant to say el-Sayed in the above comment @1:23.
DeleteIt seems likely that Somerby believes this anti-immigrant crap.
DeleteNeither Piker nor Sayed is an immigrant. They are both born in the USA and are Muslims, which is one of diverse religions in our country where only 68% are Christians.
Delete"It seems likely that Somerby believes this anti-immigrant crap."
DeleteThe voters are what count, not Somerby.
Ok, 2:47: In what way would it influence voters or help el-sayed if Maddow or French talked about Gutfeld, assuming Somerby is correct that they don’t? Rogers core constituency watches Gutfeld; few if any Michigan voters watch Maddow and even fewer read French. Besides, the media are reporting Trump’s Islamophobic attacks; how would reporting specifically on Gutfeld add to that or change anyone’s mind?
DeleteThey watch the mainstream news. What the mainstream news covers, and how they do it, influences the small number of voters who decide any close election. Once upon a time Somerby used to focus on mainstream news outlets and their many shortcomings; these days he scolds "us Blues," and the nearly irrelevant segment of media that caters to them.
DeleteWhy wouldn’t Michigan voters follow Maddow?
DeleteIf a Michigan -- or any other -- voter is following Maddow, in what direction do you think they vote? Any additive value of her show is limited to keeping "us Blues" involved in the political process by keeping a flow of left wing outrage flowing. The same is true of "those Reds," although their audience is 3 or 4 times as big as that of "us Blue's" side. The important audience is consuming a steady diet of bothsidesism from the MSM. They're important, because their vote is in play -- they decide the competitive elections. And as Somerby understands but never directly says, a lot of them are prone to bigotry and parochialism.
Delete"This is ugly behavior of an undisguised, unmistakable kind. As our nation continues to slide toward the sea, the point of this conduct is obvious.
ReplyDeleteThe point of this ugly conduct is obvious. Maddow and French and all the stars are all averting their gaze."
Has Somerby ever told us which sea our nation is sliding into? Is everything going toward the Pacific or the Atlantic, or is it going both directions from the Continental Divide?
Whenever a Republican behaves like a Republican, Somerby blames random Democrats. It wasn't Rachel Maddow's turn to keep Suzanne Scott in line this week. Is Somerby suggesting Maddow should have flown a plane into the Fox corporate building, because nothing short of that is going to change how Fox operates from the top to the lowliest staffer. And they have the right to do what they do, under the First Amendment (free speech) of our Constitution. Even if they are pricklier than El-Sayed.
What is wrong with Somerby that he writes this ridiculous nonsense day after day? Is he an attention-seeking goofball, or does he get paid to promote Gutfeld. Is he the guy in the flashy suit who stands on the street steering tourists into the metaphorical strip joints? Whatever he is doing here, it is his fault Trump was reelected, since Hillary was also too prickly to support and Biden was too old, so now we are stuck with an even older demented asshole who is bankrupting everything he touches. El-Sayed has a funny name and he talked back to Trump! That makes him unelectable, Somerby hints. Maddow should say or do something!
Stay out of metaphorical strip joints.
DeleteSomerby doesn't have any opinions without metaphors and nuance.
DeleteHence the calls to quote Somerby's exact words as proof of his viewpoints.
Exactly. Somerby's job is to muddy the waters.
DeleteFox is so inexcusable that Somerby cannot take his eyes off it.
ReplyDeleteGutfeld's sickness is so bad that Somerby has to make certain no one missed it.
DeleteRosie O'Donnell says that Gutfeld (and Trump) are the only ones keeping her famous.
ReplyDeleteI didn't hear Somerby promoting Haley Stevens during the primary. Given that he didn't support her less prickly candidacy, one can only assume he is in favor of Rogers (the Republican) and not any Democrat. Or maybe it is that she is female? You would think Somerby would appreciate those less prickly women running for office on the left, but he didn't like Hong either. And today he is attacking Suzanne Scott (for being a CEO!) and Rachel Maddow (an old favorite target) for letting Gutfeld do his thing. Given how often Gutfeld attacks women, that is blaming the victims. Women are not forcing Gutfeld (and Somerby) to be such assholes. Gutfeld is solely responsible for his own mouth. Just as Somerby is solely responsible for what he writes here.
ReplyDeleteIf El-Sayed wants to talk back to Trump, it is about time someone did, and more power to him. I would vote for him if I lived in his state, if only for that act of courage.
"Given that he didn't support her less prickly candidacy, one can only assume he is in favor of Rogers (the Republican) and not any Democrat."
DeleteNot a very logical assumption. Somerby may well 'support' a particular candidate while not expressing it in his blog, which is focused on the media and its thought processes.
It is entirely logical given Somerby's ongoing disdain for female political candidates.
DeleteWhen Somerby writes about Gutfeld, he is not engaging in media analysis. For real media analysis, I recommend Steve M. at No More Mister Nice Blog, or Yastreblansky at Rectification of Names, or Digby. Repeating Gutfeld's jokes and calling names is not media analysis.
“focused on the media and its thought processes.”
DeleteSure. That’s why he chides “us blues”. Because…media.
I’m sure when he admonished el-sayed for being prickly and purportedly turning off voters, that was just analyzing “The media and its thought processes. “
"... which is focused on the media and its thought processes."
DeleteIncreasingly, to use one of Somerby's favorite words back when he was laser focused on Rachel Maddow, Somerby's focus seems to be to scold Democrats for anything and everything. Any "media analysis" that happens along the way is practically accidental.
"Maddow and French and all the stars are all averting their gaze."
ReplyDeleteWho is French?
Either a character in the TV show A Family Affair, or David French, NYT columnist.
Delete"David French is a conservative attorney, veteran, and opinion columnist for The New York Times who is widely known for his fierce opposition to Donald Trump and Christian nationalism."
DeleteThis is the guy who is supposed to be policing Gutfeld? How? And why him?
Well, presumably he can do a better job of it than Mr. French, although Mr. French did look kind of old time police-y in his bowler hat.
DeleteFirst Somerby complains that Dem orgs are "playing it safe" by "averting their eyes" and then he complains because El-Sayed is too prickly, in the very next sentence. Apparently there is a sweet spot somewhere between the two, but where is it? Somerby doesn't say.
ReplyDeleteWhy must Dems tiptoe around and have to watch our language? Who does Somerby think will be offended? Trump supporters, perhaps, but I don't know any Dems who would be upset by what El-Sayed said about Trump. This isn't a nation where Trump and the right get to say whatever they want, all the time, but Dems must watch our tongues for fear of upsetting someone, who?
"SATURDAY: Dems are leading in six states!"
ReplyDeleteDems are not just leading in 6 states. There are 35 states up for contention. There are safe Dem and safe Repub states. Dems are leading in 6 possible swing states beyond their safe states. It is a small thing, but somehow Somerby's odd language choices always seem to diminish Democrats, in this case with a misleading statement about how many states Democrats will win.
What matters is whether Democrats win a majority in the House and Senate, not how many swing states we win, or which ones.
Somerby knows this, but he wants to create an impression that everything rests on El-Sayed's election and we Dems are blowing it because we (or El-Sayed) are being mean to Trump and/or Republicans. He is using this prickly non-problem as an excuse to denigrate El-Sayed, who has an admirable background and won his primary and is now turning to focus on the general election.
Dems should be able to speak our minds without hesitation. Somerby is trying to convince us to shut up and sit down, for fear of jeopardizing our election prospects. We will not win by soft-peddling our criticisms of the right.
If Republicans can convince El-Sayed to avoid Piker, then El-Sayed will forfeit votes of young people and bros and lose ground in the Fall. It isn't as if any of Piker's fans will switch to Rogers, but that they may not support El-Sayed or may not vote. Piker has been helping El-Sayed, not hurting him. Similarly, by convincing El-Sayed to back off attacking Trump, Somerby and right hopes to hurt El-Sayed's vote count. Don't listen to Somerby.
DeleteI pity those who take Somerby rants at face value.
DeleteWords have meanings. This is the "can't you take a joke" defense.
DeleteSomerby's "advice" on strategy will hurt Dems.
DeleteIt isn't that America is sliding into the sea. It is that the ocean waters are rising due to global warming and the melting of ice at the poles. The extreme heat in Europe is partially due to changes in the currents in the oceans. To prevent sliding into the sea, we must get Trump and Republicans out of office, so that we can once again address global warming and climate change. Trump has been undoing the progress under Biden, which Somerby too derailed by attacking the Dems and putting Trump back into office. When Somerby tries to point a finger about sliding into the sea, he needs to examine his own conscience. This may seem like politics to him (or a meal ticket) but it is life and death for those affected by changes in sea level and currents.
ReplyDeleteGutfeld is making the same attacks as Trump and many prominent republicans. These attacks are being reported. Gutfeld is hardly unique.
ReplyDeleteFox News Grandpa Knows Best
ReplyDelete"Trump released an order directing new Ford-class aircraft carriers to go back to using steam propulsion systems to launch and recover aircraft, an older technology that has been replaced by electromagnetic systems.
The modifications demanded by Trump “is highly unusual and disruptive for the Navy — especially since these are changes the Navy did not request,” said Todd Harrison, an Air Force veteran and longtime defense budget analyst at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.
General Atomics, the company that makes electronic catapults, said in a statement that work on the catapults was halfway complete and that changing course now “would introduce significant cost, schedule, and integration risks.”
If they just drag their feet complying with this order, Trump will be out of office again before any real changes are made.
DeleteIn another few months, they can tell Trump he reversed this order himself, and he will believe it.
DeleteWith his strong background in science and his genius IQ, Trump is legitimately worried that magnets will fail in water.
DeleteGutfeld! is the third most-watched program in American "cable news." Its viewership more than doubles that of corresponding shows...
ReplyDeleteBob exaggerates the importance of FoxNews by omitting actual numbers. Relative to the US population, the FoxNews audience rounds off to zero percent, which is indeed double that of corresponding shows, whose viewership also rounds off to zero percent.
Bob should be critiquing social media where most Americans get our news.
Fuck you, dickface
DeleteDiC is sad that Somerby repeatedly calls out dic’s favorite show.
DeleteRepublican playbook: force democrats, ALL democrats, to deal with “x”, in this case Piker, for example, and direct the conversation away from el-sayed’s policy views. Somerby could be seen as playing along, because he faults the “blues” for not directing the conversation to piker.
ReplyDeleteDon’t read this blog.
ReplyDeleteI take my distractions from the Epstein files where I can find them.
DeleteHere is some right wing dishonesty aimed at El-Sayed. Somerby doesn't repeat it because he doesn't appear to be a dog person, but here in CO where I live, dog ownership is practically mandatory. So this is an effective attack on Democratic support for my state:
ReplyDelete"A NEW MAGA ATTACK on Abdul El-Sayed is making the rounds. This one is about his tenure as public health director in Detroit, and how he supposedly oversaw an animal control unit that was rife with abuse and cruelty. The unit was a “slaughterhouse,” according to a Thursday Daily Mail headline that by now has almost certainly landed in millions of social media feeds, thanks to retweets from prominent right-wing influencers and Republican politicians.
But the attack appears to be nonsense.
Not spin. Not shading of the truth. Total, utter nonsense—the kind that tells the very opposite of the actual story.
As it happens, that actual story is politically relevant. There really were big problems with animal control in Detroit. But El-Sayed didn’t create them. He inherited them when he became Detroit’s public health director. And according to every source I could find on Friday, as this controversy was ricocheting across the internet, El-Sayed’s efforts helped to make those problems better.
A single set of figures illustrates the progress during his sixteen-month tenure. The “save” rate—meaning, the percentage of animals not euthanized—was no higher than 26 percent when he took over in 2015, and probably lower. (The exact figure is unclear because of some data issues back then.¹)
In 2016, the first full year animal control was under his management, the save rate was up to around 60 percent. By the time he left in 2017, in order to run for governor, it was approaching 70 percent.²
Those numbers come from Melissa Miller, the animal rights advocate and expert whom El-Sayed had put in charge of animal control—and who told me during a phone interview Friday that she was furious about the stories circulating on social media, because they were so off-base. Miller described El-Sayed as “transformational,” explaining that “he inherited an extremely dysfunctional and inhumane department” and yet managed to bring in new management and start changing the culture within a few weeks."
You can't trust Republicans. To the extent that Somerby advances right wing talking points, you can't trust him either.
El-Sayed isn't running in CO, but voters in Michigan are likely to be pet owners too.
Delete"Political Leanings and Pet Types
Dog Owners: Tend to lean more conservative or Republican. Data from the 2024 presidential election showed that dog owners favored Donald Trump over Kamala Harris (55% to 44%). State-level data also links higher rates of dog ownership with conservative voting patterns.
Cat Owners: Tend to lean more liberal or Democratic. Research shows liberals have a higher implicit and explicit preference for cats. In the 2024 election, cat-only owners were more split, though female cat owners heavily favored Democratic candidates."
Only Kristi Noem would actually shoot a puppy in the face.
Jonathan Cohn, The Bulwark
DeleteI bet that dog owner trend can be disaggregated, with owners of large violent dogs like pit bulls and rottweilers voting Republican while owners of retrievers and huskies and pomeranians vote for Dems.
DeleteFrench is a never-Trump Republican and not a representative voice of democratic policies. He was a both-sider hire and to include him in the mix of democratic media types advances the Overton Window's rightward shift.
ReplyDeleteYup.
Delete“At least I don’t let mine go in the middle of the Oval Office.”
ReplyDeleteWe True Blues cheer. How about swing voters? Will getting down in the mud with Trump work electorally?
Or do you have to be a closet Red to wonder?
Dumbest Comment of the Year.
DeleteWell played, you earned that award.
If anyone is still supporting Trump, they won’t vote for El-Sayed. Winning is about motivating his own voters to come out and vote.
DeleteTwo votes for getting down in the mud with Trump. So much for the Obama teaching that we go high when they go low.
DeleteObama can take that advice and shove it up his worthless ass
DeletePlaying dead in response to Trump doesn’t work for anyone but Republicans.
DeleteSaturday is for having, not writing a new blog entry, so Somerby trots out a rehash of his typical whining about Gutfeld being bad for Republican branding.
ReplyDeletefor having...?
Deletewouldn't you like to know ;)
DeleteDraining the Swamp, Sir!
ReplyDelete"On Tuesday, the Treasury Department announced that businesses formed in the United States would no longer need to disclose their actual owners, and that nearly all the data already gathered on such companies would be destroyed.
This move, which Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called “a victory for common sense and American small businesses,” effectively undoes years of progress in curbing devious financial networks, both domestic and foreign. It also delivers a new shelter for wealthy Americans who wish to dodge taxes and move money around undetected.
Corporate entities that allow owners to stay anonymous are handy vehicles for corruption—they enable dodgy characters from around the world to stash their proceeds in an otherwise legal American business. After a brief experiment cracking down on these black boxes, the U.S. has decided to let them multiply instead."
This is a victory for our Money Launderer in Chief.
DeleteMTP promises to be X-rated tomorrow as hostess Kristen Welker gets down on her knees to welcome the newly minted AG, otherwise known as trump’s fucking lawyer
ReplyDelete