Objectively intelligent.

[Icky Thump]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Libertarian Sen. Rand Paul wants to subpoena antifa travel records.

And I will subpoena Christianity.

[Icky Thump]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Got it. Missed the end of that thread. That makes sense.

Twitter is not designed for the 22 tweet thread.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Talked to a Swedish friend today.

They are well and truly fucked.

Totally fucked.

[Icky Thump]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

Talked to a Swedish friend today.

They are well and truly fucked.

Totally fucked.

Please to esplain.

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Libertarian Sen. Rand Paul wants to subpoena antifa travel records.

I haven't been anywhere since February, unless you count jaunts to central Texas four times to see my parents.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Replaced_Texan

I haven't been anywhere since February, unless you count jaunts to central Texas four times to see my parents.

I need people to get back on airplanes. The Penske fam flew today!

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Icky Thump

You have to click to read more

https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/sta...671781376?s=20


I'm saying that if the military had *feared* Trump's cold/flu was the result of a weaponized virus, he'd have been rushed to Walter Reed.

Would they? It's hospital with other patients, and he reportedly traveled with his physician in the car. If the feared a weaponized contagion, wouldn't they not want to expose him to others. Wouldn't they go to a bio-defense facility like Fort Detrick?

Abramson is sketchy. This seems like not terribly convincing speculation. It's not really consistent with the fact that he only spent and hour at Walker Reed.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

What do you mean Harris? It's the planeload of dark guys people are really worried about.

The fracking folks are frightened of Harris, not any planeloads of people.

Seriously, any group of outside protestors/looters/agitators won't do well in rural PA. Recall what Carville said about PA being a northern Alabama? It's also crooked as all fuck. They'd disappear a handful of members of any Portland-like riot group, beat the rest to concussions, and no one would investigate anything. The blue dogs and right wingers would put aside differences and unite in that behavior. And I say this as someone who has had a shotgun pulled on him in rural parts for merely driving on someone's alleged land. The hillbillies in rural PA will. kill. you. And then they might re-enact the scene from Deliverance on your corpse. They aren't friendly sorts like you'll find in West Virginia. They are mean fuckers - generations of angry inbred coal crackers mixed with some East Coast nihilism they picked up from being close to coastal sorts (think a hardass New Yorker or South Philly person crossed with a nothing-to-lose redneck). And while PA is a hotbed of KKK (yup), that's a small fringe element. The hardasses who'd go medeival on any riot aren't racists. They Don't Like Anyone. (And that frequently that includes their own siblings and neighbors.) Pure misanthropes of the most vicious stripe.

So no... The people in PA you think are worried about planeloads of any kind of person aren't the same ones who worry about Harris fiddling with the fracking industry. The people worried about that are people with jobs in fracking, or businesses dependent on fracking multiplier effects.

The people you think are worried about planeloads of people coming into town actually aren't afraid of anything. They'd love a riot. Good excuse to kill someone.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Icky Thump

Please to esplain.

Their attempt to develop herd immunity is a total disaster. Current rates are higher than most of Europe even though way down from the worst, but their government and healthcare system have lost a lot of credibility and no one trusts them now. A lot of people trying to protect themselves and staying away even when they're sick. People going abroad when they can.

He said it sounds like they're heading into a Trump-style nightmare.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

The fracking folks are frightened of Harris, not any planeloads of people.

Seriously, any group of outside protestors/looters/agitators won't do well in rural PA. Recall what Carville said about PA being a northern Alabama? It's also crooked as all fuck. They'd disappear a handful of members of any Portland-like riot group, beat the rest to concussions, and no one would investigate anything. The blue dogs and right wingers would put aside differences and unite in that behavior. And I say this as someone who has had a shotgun pulled on him in rural parts for merely driving on someone's alleged land. The hillbillies in rural PA will. kill. you. And then they might re-enact the scene from Deliverance on your corpse. They aren't friendly sorts like you'll find in West Virginia. They are mean fuckers - generations of angry inbred coal crackers mixed with some East Coast nihilism they picked up from being close to coastal sorts (think a hardass New Yorker or South Philly person crossed with a nothing-to-lose redneck). And while PA is a hotbed of KKK (yup), that's a small fringe element. The hardasses who'd go medeival on any riot aren't racists. They Don't Like Anyone. (And that frequently that includes their own siblings and neighbors.) Pure misanthropes of the most vicious stripe.

So no... The people in PA you think are worried about planeloads of any kind of person aren't the same ones who worry about Harris fiddling with the fracking industry. The people worried about that are people with jobs in fracking, or businesses dependent on fracking multiplier effects.

The people you think are worried about planeloads of people coming into town actually aren't afraid of anything. They'd love a riot. Good excuse to kill someone.

All those folks you're worried about are my cousins. You just can't take a joke, complaining about some gun getting pulled on you. I mean, if they wanted to hurt you they wouldn't be showing you the gun, you'd just feel the impact. That's just their (nice) way of making clear that you really do need to get off their land.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

The fracking folks are frightened of Harris....

That's silly, but here's a book you'll like.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

All those folks you're worried about are my cousins. You just can't take a joke, complaining about some gun getting pulled on you. I mean, if they wanted to hurt you they wouldn't be showing you the gun, you'd just feel the impact. That's just their (nice) way of making clear that you really do need to get off their land.

Look, just because some stoned kid and his buddies get lost and meander into your field of dirt does not give you the right to pull a 12 gauge.

Maybe a pistol, maybe even brandish a knife, or your granddaddy's Civil War sword... But pulling out the shotgun and aiming it from the hip? Come on. It isn't like I drove over your field of marijuana. (Then I probably would get shot.)

It probably didn't help to be driving a Japanese SUV and have deadheads with me. We had "dirty hippies" written all over us.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

There was always going to be a Democratic freak-out, and just after the RNC and just before Labor Day is the perfect time for it.

From Josh's lips to God's ear:

Trump Losing on ‘Law and Order’

It’s easy to get lost in the big muddy river of polling data and headlines. But before we get further into the day I wanted to discuss a new group of polls that came out yesterday. This was the first batch of quality polls entirely after the GOP convention. The upshot of really all of them is that “law and order” is not only not helping Trump cut into Biden’s lead. Trump appears to be losing that debate on its own terms. When pollsters ask voters which candidate they trust more to handle civil unrest, protests or crime, they’re picking Biden.

In a sense this mirrors polling from mid-June. Many commentators predicted that the protests in response to the murder of George Floyd in late May and early June would shift the 2020 campaign into a 1968 redux, with the more ideological left flank of the Democratic party alienating suburban and white voters and giving the race to the GOP. Subsequent polls almost universally showed something different. There was actually a decisive shift in favor of support for the Black Lives Matter movement and the belief that police abuse of African-Americans is a real and urgent issue.

But what’s happened in recent weeks has been different. At least in the media’s presentation – and to a significant degree in reality – the ratio of protests to vandalism and civil unrest has weighed much more into the latter category. In other words, Trump’s had more to work with. And yet still, it largely hasn’t worked.

Basically all the polls tell this basic story. But the most notable is a Fox News poll of Wisconsin which shows Biden with a healthy 8 point lead among likely voters 50%-42%. But in the internals there’s this question: “Policing and criminal justice: Regardless of how you might vote, who do you trust to do a better job on each of the following — Joe Biden or Donald Trump?” Among likely voters Biden’s topped Trump by 5 points.

The context is complicated. But Wisconsin is not only critical electorally it has a unique demographic makeup and geography that should make it particularly susceptible to these kinds of appeals. But it simply hasn’t worked.

Most of the answer here is that we’re not living in 1968. And what this new reality is we’re only learning dimly and through a mirror as we go. We also have a President who lacks credibility, is unpopular and is visibly inciting unrest rather than calming it. But there’s one other element people have perhaps ignored. There is always a certain appeal to leaders who can settle an unstable and chaotic situation. If President Trump could end the unrest in Portland and other cities, even by unacceptable means, I don’t think there’s much doubt that some people would support that. But he hasn’t done that or even really tried to. He’s mainly just played up the scary pictures, blamed other people and bragged about how he could end it if he wanted to, or if mayors asked nicely or similar claims. To most of us it’s obvious that he’s the one inciting most of the unrest. But there’s no second step. Cynical leaders often incite unrest with the aim of cracking down on it. But he’s not actually cracking down or to the extent he is it’s not effective. As a crackdown politician he’s failing on his own terms.

TPM

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

From Josh's lips to God's ear:



TPM

There's a lot more wishful pontificating there than there is actual data. I couldn't read the whole story as it's subscriber-only, but in the section you've cited Marshall hangs his hat on the answer to one question. Then he extrapolates from there - quite liberally - to guess what pitches will and will not work in Wisconsin.

Here's a counter, offered with more data:

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/tr...st-11598901254

I can tell you because I interact with Rust Belt Democrats and Republicans all the time, moderates on both sides do not like the riots, or the "defund the police" stuff. Marshall can present a cherry picked poll answer and then fictionalize about how the riots are impacting voters in a manner that fits what he wants that impact to be, but he's talking out of his ass.

Biden's leading, but the riots are hurting him. Marshall is correct that Trump has not capitalized on the riots yet as he might, but I have three observations in response to that which are so obvious it makes me wonder how Marshall gets paid to write what he wrote there:

1. It's all about timing. If Trump crushes the riots right now, he's too close to the election. The value of his doing so is potentially forgotten or diminished by November 3.

2. Trump's bet on young progressives is that in the states that count, They Don't Vote. BUT, if he has a Kent State on his hands because he fucks up the response to the riots, young progressives might actually vote. Why take that risk now, when they could register in time to vote? Take that risk closer to election day, when they won't be able to do so as easily.

3. The riots are helping Trump. He's out there, telecasting to fence-sitting voters that if re-elected, These Riots Will End. You don't squash the riots when the riots are helping you until the moment that squashing them can provide a bigger boost than not squashing them. You ride that wave of fear. And you say this on TV all the time: "When re-elected, when I have nothing to fear from a lying media which will portray law and order in a bad light, we are going to end these riots. For good."

Is Trump that smart? Maybe. Maybe not.

[Hank Chinaski]

https://www.freep.com/story/opinion/...P5nPmMrAgeZJT4

This guy was pretty popular. Things are coming around hopefully.