TUESDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2024
Perhaps no more fish today: We expect to be losing a large chunk of time today. Yesterday, some encouraging news came in.
For the record, there's no way to tell from the various polls who is going to win the election. But as of Monday morning, the new poll from ABC News/Ipsos had Harris ahead among likely voters nationwide, 51-47.
We saw those numbers on Monday's Morning Joe. Later, up jumped Drum with virtually identical numbers from a different polling outfit:
CES says Kamala Harris is comfortably in the lead
The 2024 CES pre-election survey, based on a huge sample of nearly 80,000 adults, puts Kamala Harris ahead of Donald Trump 51-47% among likely voters. She's ahead 52-46% among very likely voters. Here's their breakdown by age and gender...
At Drum's post, a graphic displays those breakdowns by age and gender.
There's no way to know who's going to win. That will remain true until the votes get counted.
Still, this was the first encouraging news of this type in a while. And, of course, the possibility exists that Candidate Trump's "Garden Party" will turn out to be this year's "October surprise"—will turn out to be a self-inflicted wound which helps decide the election.
Or not, of course.
Concerning that pitiful Garden Party, Mediaite has captured some of the reaction on Monday morning on the "cable news" show, Fox & Friends.
In this post, Colby Hall records the behavior of Trump spokesperson Karoline Leavitt, who said this to the friends:
"I think it is sad that the media will pick up on one joke that was made by a comedian rather than the truths that were shared by the phenomenal list of speakers that we had."
One joke? Is that all there was? Sadly, we have more on that construct below.
Earlier on yesterday's Fox & Friends show, Brian Kilmeade had jumped in to explain how bogus the criticisms had been, with the other friends playing along. For Hall's report on that exchange, you can just click this.
So it went on Monday morning's Fox & Friends. Sadly, Leavitt wasn't alone in framing this matter as a flap about just "one joke." We saw an array of other broadcasters adopting that framework last night, not excluding Lester Holt and Wolf Blitzer.
In a display we'd regard as instructional, the sexual insults directed at Candidate Harris went completely unmentioned. Sid Rosenberg's thoughtful remarks about Hillary Clinton had also disappeared. It's much as we've noted in the past:
There is no cure for human.
For denizens of Blue America, the largest challenge remains unchanged. We need to become a great deal more clear about how we ever got to this place—about the various ways our own instincts and our own behaviors may have helped create the dangerous situation we're now in.
In the short run, has the Garden Party become this year's (self-inflicted) October Surprise? As of now, there's no way to know.
For ourselves, we're supporting medical science today! We may not be back on our sprawling campus until mid-afternoon. We may have no more fish today.
PP,
ReplyDeleteKaroline Leavitt stole your shtick.
You should sue her for plagiarism.
"It's much as we've noted in the past:
ReplyDeleteThere is no cure for human."
When people behave badly, it is their fault. Generalizing their bad behavior to all of humanity, or attributing it to being a human being when it comes from a bad decision by the person engaging in that behavier, implies that they couldn't help what they did, couldn't have done better, that others would have done the same (when people typically do not) and excuses them.
That rally in MSG was not business as usual. It was not a typical political rally, because most politicians would not want to represent themselves the way these people did. They own what they did, and it was not being human as usual but being bad by violating norms and hurting other people. It was wrong, proscribed behavior not permitted in most cultures and in our society as a whole.
The Republicans who participated in that rally need to apologize to those they maligned and to their own attendees. And Somerby needs to recognize that this is not normal human behavior, not typical, not acceptable, and way outside the pale.
All societies have boundaries that define what is OK for people to do and what is not. This rally behavior crossed that line. And humanity is not typified by this but rather by the limits we set and enforce for what humanity may do and still be included in community.
That rally exemplifies why I dislike MAGA. It seems to give permission to Republicans to behave badly. Here is another example, from Mar a Lago in FL:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/10/28/2280457/-Gun-threats-amid-chaos-at-polling-stations-near-Mar-A-Lago?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web
Harrassing people waiting to vote is not part of campaigning. It is illegal and those laws should have been enforced by those MAGA hat wearing police officers. It shouldn't be left to the poll workers to keep MAGA assholes under control.
If MAGAs are given more power by being elected to office, this may become business as usual. That's another reason why we need to vote against MAGA candidates up and down the ballot. We are a society that respects other people by following rules and treating others with courtesy.
And Somerby should not be here excusing this wrong behavior by calling it normal. That is the normalizing and sane-washing of Trump's behavior, applied to a crowd full of miscreants. This is not OK and we all need to say so, including Somerby.
Trump, threatening to pardon Antifa for their actions on January 6th, 2021 should energize Republican voters.
ReplyDeleteLOL.
Hinchcliffe/ Trump 2024!
ReplyDeleteThe right is saying that Barron Trump recommended Hinchcliffe for the program. That tells you what your intellectual level is. Personally, I think it is rotten to blame the kid. It is like when gangs recruit young teens to commit crimes, because they will be punished as a juvenile.
DeleteIt also shows that we need to stop Trumpism before another generation takes over.
"We need to become a great deal more clear about how we ever got to this place—about the various ways our own instincts and our own behaviors may have helped create the dangerous situation we're now in."
ReplyDeleteI do not participate in and I did not cause the bad behavior being displayed on the right. If this situation is dangerous, it is because those right wing assholes made it so. They need to stand down and Trump needs to tell them so. Failing that, he should never be elected to anything again, especially not president. This is irresponsible of the right, and they alone own this situation. It is an outrage when Somerby tries to shift the blame to the left, when it is the right wing and its belief in the use of violence to attain political goals that has created the mess we find ourselves in.
Yes, the press should do more to point out how wrong this behavior is, but the main responsibility lies with the people doing the bad acts. I don't blame the press when someone robs a convenience store or when a corporation fails to pay its taxes, why should I blame the press when right wing yahoos break all the rules to get ahead? And I certainly don't blame myself when criminals do their crimes. So why should I blame myself for what the right wing criminals are doing now (creating chaos at polls and burning ballots).
Somerby is closer to the standup community than I am. Perhaps it is Somerby who should have objected a long time ago, and those guys should never have let Andrew Dice Clay anywhere near a stage.
I feel sorry for the people who paid money to attend that rally and then left early. Once again they have been robbed by the grifter, but presumably they knew what they were getting (or not getting).
ReplyDeleteI don't feel the least bit sorry for them.
Delete""We have to stop getting so offended at every little thing," Vance said Monday. "I'm just so over it."
ReplyDeleteThat's easy for him to say, he isn't Puerto Rican. Was it every little thing when Trump refused to send aid to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria?
""We have to stop getting so offended at every little thing," Vance said Monday. "I'm just so over it."
DeleteWay ahead of you, JD. I was pointing out Republican voters care about nothing but bigotry and white supremacy, before it was cool.
11:09 Your posts have been prescient.
DeleteVance is just clearly stating the 100% double standard that Republicans have invented for themselves. They get to say whatever they want, and no one is supposed to take offense. Say something mean about them, and they run off in a huff to declare Armageddon.
DeletePerhaps what Somerby means is that we have allowed The Others to live inside a bubble too long, as Jeff Tiedrich explains today:
ReplyDelete"...what kind of reckless dipshit stands up on one of the world’s biggest stages and announces that Puerto Rico is a floating island of garbage?
a reckless dipshit who lives inside a bubble, that’s who.
specifically, one who lives inside the Wingnut Grievance Bubble — the self-enclosed feedback loop where lunatic fantasies, feverish delusions, nutty conspiracies, repugnant behavior, harebrained notions — and shitty, racist jokes — are amplified. these people watch themselves on Fox News and Newsmax all day long. whatever crackpot ideas rattle around in their heads are never challenged.
naturally, any time a cultist steps outside of the Bubble and into the real world, they end up stepping on an endless series of rakes.
the most famous self-inflicted casualty of the Grievance Bubble is Scott Adams, who took his multi-million-dollar Dilbert empire and fucked it straight into nothingness. one fine February morning in 2023, out of the clear blue, Adams tweeted out a video in which he doled the following sage counsel:
“the best advice I would give to white people is to stay the hell away from black people.”
and just like that, Adams found himself holding the wrong end of the career-ending shit-stick.
sayonara, newspaper syndication. au revoir, book contracts.
why would Adams say such an obviously racist thing? because he’d been in the Bubble too long. inside the Bubble, everyone knows that white people should stay away from black people, because everyone knows that white people should stay away from black people. that’s the kind of vile shit they say to each other.
Adam had been inside the Grievance Bubble for so long that he forgot that out in the real world, there are consequences for being a racist asshole."
But it isn't like we haven't warned right wingers that this stuff is racist and wrong. In fact, Somerby has complained for years that liberals shouldn't scold right wingers when they say right wing shit. So what else are we supposed to do? Perhaps Somerby thinks we should live in that bubble with them, letting them say whatever they want, but many of us are sickened by right wing hate. Physically sickened. Why should we have to ruin our lives by hanging around people like that?
I stopped reading Dilbert when his portrayals of women became uglier and uglier -- they were never funny but they kept getting worse and I asked myself why I should voluntarily put myself in the position of being insulted over and over. I do that with right wingers too. Is that why Somerby is blaming us for their screwup? Because we are not masochists? That makes no sense at all.
Actions have consequences. They are going to learn that now and I hope it costs Trump the election.
A bigoted joke was presented at a Walz rally. The supposedly funny point was the implication that Mexicans are thieves. It hasn't gotten much coverage, so I'm presenting for you.
ReplyDelete"Donald Trump said he was gonna build the wall, and George Lopez said: 'You better build it in one day because if you leave that material out there over night...,'" Lopez said at a campaign rally for vice presidential candidate Tim Walz in Phoenix, implying that the material would be stolen.
Sorry dude, Lopez was making a joke about his own ethnicity in the same way that Chris Rock can joke about black people and culture. Not being Jewish I cannot make stereotypical jokes about Jews. A Jew can, however. You don't want to get it. Your favorite xenophobic and racist presidential candidate is cooked. They showed us who they are.
DeleteI tend to agree, @11:45. It's a little subtle, but I think Lopez intended to mock the stereotype of Mexicans being thieves rather than mocking Mexicans.
DeleteBut, suppose Lopez had told that identical joke at Trump's MSG rally. You and I both know that the media would ignore the subtle point and accuse Trump of implying that Mexicans are thieves.
And you, DIC, in your countless misinformative and ignorant posts have shown us the same. Schedule an appointment with your physician and get on some meds after the election.
DeleteAs has been explained all over the internet, George Lopez is making a joke about himself, because he is Mexican. Second, he was imitating Trump when he said it. The guy who called Puerto Rico garbage was not Puerto Rican, not joking about himself.
DeleteI am Hispanic and I don't find George Lopez's self-referential humor very funny, but he has the right to make jokes about his own ethnicity.
Similarly, a female comedian who says to her audience "Women, amirite?" is going to come across differently than a man who says "Women, amirite?" One is acknowledging shared traits in a funny way, while the other is launching a mean-spirited attack because he is not part of the group he is mocking.
This is just another version of "why can't we white people use the n-word when rappers use it all the time?" Everyone knows this, so David's complaint comes across as an attempt to legitimize hate speech.
There is nothing subtle about it. For the record, I find comics who use their ethnicity as fodder uninteresting and less funny than their fans do. If Lopez told a stereotypical joke about Blacks or Muslims, that would be the analogy. Not subtle.
DeleteSomeone drops a coffee cup on the floor and then says "I'm so clumsy." You should be able to see how that is different than when the same person drops the coffee cup and a bystander says "you're so clumsy". The latter is going to hurt feelings. The former is accepted as an apology.
Delete@11:53 - I don't know where you got the impression that I was trying to legitimize the joke about Puerto Rican garbage. To be clear, I found that joke offensive, ugly and inappropriate.
DeleteRight, Dickhead, and you will crawl through a sanitary sewer to vote for the abomination who unleashed this hell on our country.
DeleteThen why did you quote the right wing bullshit about the Dems being just as bad because of what George Lopez said? It is both-sidesing, and the purpose of both-sidesing something is to portray it as OK because everyone does it, which is legitimizing it. If you find these sorts of jokes offensive, ugly and inappropriate, don't repeat them and don't excuse them.
DeleteSomerby is obnoxious because he repeats Gutfeld's unfunny jokes, while pretending to tear his hair over them. That's why I don't believe Somerby really dislikes such jokes. And the same goes for you.
Mexicans would get upset at Harris if SHE were to say the things Lopez did. But we all know who Lopez is and that mocking his own culture is his schtick -- have you ever watched any of his TV sitcoms? Harris has no right to make such jokes about Mexicans but she could engage in Tyler Perry style humor about her own family. Or she could stand up and say "We Dems..." and then make a woke joke, but that too is hateful when Trump does it. Remember Joan Rivers? She always made horrible jokes about herself. I didn't like that, but she and Carol Burnett made their careers on saying things no man could get away with saying, without seeming misogynistic. I hope we are beyond that now.
Somerby understands this dynamic, as a comedian should, but he didn't bother talking about it, perhaps because that would help the Dems and his goal here is to further Republican talking points, not neutralize them.
@12:10 asks, "why did you quote the right wing bullshit about the Dems being just as bad because of what George Lopez said? " I thought I was pretty clear. As I said, I was complaining about how the media is covering the election.
DeleteBy the way, DiC, a speaker at Trump’s rally said ALL Democrats are degenerate Jew-hating lowlifes. That speaker was not a comedian.
DeleteYes, @12:30 -- That's a wild exaggeration,. However it's sadly true Jew-hating is sadly now there's now more antisemitism by the left. Look at anti-semites Tlaib and Sharpton, who are respected members of the Democratic party., Look at the pro-Hamas, antisemitic demonstrations being perpetrated by the left. Compare Harris's anti-Israel, anti-Netanyahu comments with Trump's positive comments. Notice how the Jews are no longer a reliable Democratic constituency.
DeleteYou never answered my question from the other day, Dickhead in Cal.
DeleteAnonymousOctober 28, 2024 at 5:02 PM
Question for you, Dickhead in Cal>
What did you think of the speaker at the Bund Rally at MSG yesterday saying we shouldn't be sending our money to support Israel or the Palestinians, which was greeted by loud applause. What the fuck, Dickhead? That was your Nuremberg Rally, why would he fuck it up like that?
Dickhead in Cal, can you clarify please. Are you an American citizen or an Israeli citizen?
DeleteThere is virtually no antisemitism on the Left, definitionally.
DeleteTliab is not antisemitic, Sharpton's case is debatable and dates back to the early 90s, and Sharpton is not on the Left.
You can not just pull claims out of your backside, you have to substantiate them with credible evidence.
Republicans routinely engage in antisemitism, Dems do not. Within the Republican bubble, "globalist" is a derogatory term referring to Jews, and Repubs throw this word around constantly, including Trump.
This past weekend Republicans recreated the 1939 Nazi rally at the MSG, and unsurprisingly engaged in antisemitism.
The recent college demonstrations were pro Palestinian, not pro Hamas; most Palestinians do not support Hamas. Netanyahu permitted a single election in Gaza, at the peak of Hamas popularity in 2004, and Hamas could only garner 40%, a bit less than the same percent that Republicans can get nationally, which is telling - in Gaza they have about the same percentage of right wing loons as we do.
Jews in America vote overwhelmingly for Dems, and at the same rate they always have, according to polling.
Trump harshly trashed Netanyahu back in 2021, merely because Netanyahu congratulated Biden for winning; now they are back to being friends, Trump hosted Netanyahu at his "resort" and told him with respect to Israel's genocide to "finish the job". There is nothing positive about Trump's stance on Jews/Israel.
"Notice how the Jews are no longer a reliable Democratic constituency."
DeleteNotice how Israel is butchering the Palestinians.
@1:07 I'm Jewish. When 1,400 innocent civilian attendees at a music festival are murdered, raped, tortured and kidnapped just because they were Jewish I have particular sympathy for them. When Jews on campus are molested just because they're Jews, I have particular sympathy for them. Also, these events make me feel threatened that my loved ones and I are at risk.
DeleteIf some racists went into black community and without provocation murdered 1400 blacks, would you mock a black person for being particularly concerned?
Dickhead, I thought you were an atheist? There has to be some degree of proportionality to the response, David. Perhaps if Netanyahu was doing his job that attack would have never gotten off the ground. From all evidence, Netanyahu who is corrupt and cannot give up his position in government will not allow the hostilities to end.
DeleteLike most people who claim "America First", David means if you don't count Russia and Israel.
Delete@2:09 - Hamas didn't ask the Jews they murdered about their degree of belief in God. Nor did the campus demonstrators who molest Jewish students. Even if I didn't identify as Jewish, enemies of the Jews would still attack me.
DeleteYou have it backwards regarding ending the hostilities. Hamas is committed to Israel's destruction. A cease fire would produce a temporary lull. But the hostilities would resume once Hamas had time to re-build their military.
The only real way to end the hostilities would be total victory.
@12:55 asks a good question: Should we stop sending our money to support Israel and the Palestinians?
DeleteAnything would be more sensible than our current policy today. It's the the worst of all worlds. We support both sides, and they use our money to kill each other.
Stop hijacking threads to talk about Israel.
Delete2:09 DIC is a situational Jew. When necessary, to beat down on the Blacks, he is the only Jew in a Christian financial services company, looked down on by the goyem above him, overcoming the odds through hard work. Unlike the Blacks. He is an atheist, on the other hand, when his online commentary is inconvenienced by that religion. Today he is a Jew.
DeleteFor the love of God, please end this hell we've been enduring for the last 10 years with that orange abomination next week. What the hell has he done to this country. And Dickhead in Cal can go crawl back in his sewer.
ReplyDeleteEveryone I talk to is voting for Trump.
DeleteYou need to find a new crew.
Delete"Everyone I talk to ...."
DeleteLeft hand or right hand?
I can't wait until this party of fascist hate, moral depravity, and racism is kicked out of power. So I voted early for Trump.
ReplyDeleteSorry. It's been 56 years since I was in First Grade. Remind me again; which one of us is rubber and which one of us is glue?
DeleteI see what you did there. So will Big Brother after Project 2025 installs the cameras.
DeleteTrump often expressed admiration for Hitler. That included keeping a collection of Hitler figurines by his bedside. It has included his support and defense of neo-Nazi groups. He desecrated Arlington National Cemetery for a photo op. Donald Trump is a man who is willing to gas his own people.
DeleteBut he is running against Kamala Harris. So I voted early for Trump.
At least you put some thought into it.
DeleteYour vote is your secret. He'll never know. Vote for Harris.
ReplyDeleteThe polls show America favors Kamala.
ReplyDelete