JD is, in essence a stalking horse (of sorts) for a certain group of people in the GoP--mostly the financial/tech bro contingent. He is a wholly owned subsidiary of Peter Thiel. His ownership and the backing of Tucker landed him his VP candidate spot. Basically a quid pro quo of sorts.
Gonna go outon a limb here and say I would not be totally surprised that, at some point, if/when Trump appears non compos mentos enough (which is going to happen), they try and 25th Amendment him and replace him with JD. Who will be absolutely controllable.
Because he lacks charisma and an independent dedicated base of cultists. He would largely be hanging in the wind.
I am not saying that this is definately going to happen or that it would work if they tried it. But it seems like something that would happen (or be seriously considered) in a cult movement like MAGA that is being used as a front by people like Thiel.
I'm positive that Vance will figuratively or literally stab the Orange Snake if he becomes VP. He'll become P, and Thiel or Tucker or whomever's, puppet.
If you’d like to be impressed by Sharpton, take a few minutes to listen to his account of why he requested leniency for his own assassin after he was stabbed in the chest:
We can’t support this Mark Robinson if these allegations are true because we need to focus on what’s important: making sure the honorable, decent statesman Donald Trump whom I did vote to impeach & bar from office for an insurrection to steal the last election wins my state and the White House
Careful, Rajeev. You may find yourself in demand as a speechwriter for the likes of Tillis, Alabama's Tommy Gooberville and a "roast" of other Republicans.
Off-topic: has anyone seen that TFG has been told (by our gov't.) about serious threats from Iran to assassinate him? He bleeped about it, correctly attributing it to Iran. But how long 'til he starts claiming Biden / Harris / Walz are behind it? And can you imagine the chaos if Iran succeeds - which is apparently their goal?
Does anyone else ever feel like we're sitting on a powder keg?
The Comcast move supporting an anti-abortion PAC is pretty common for corporations even if not always so obvious. Their corporate connected PACs (supported by voluntary donations by employees) often give money to candidates whose legislative stances are great for the company (low taxes) but violate some employee personal priorities. A corporation could give to a candidate who tries to disenfranchise the very employee voters who gave the money to the PAC. The corporate line is “what’s good for us is good for you because…jobs.” But that same company is happy to lay off the employee who donated their own money to the corporate PAC. It’s not an equal relationship.
From the newsletter: "They also raise questions as to how an individual comfortable deploying casually violent rhetoric managed to ascend to remarkable heights of political power."
Well, the leader of the Republican Party is at his most comfortable when deploying violent rhetoric, and it seems to bring all the boys to the yard. I'm guessing that's the answer to this somewhat silly question. Hint: Some people like violent rhetoric quite a lot.
Andrew, when you say the Robinson campaign declined to comment, whom exactly did you ask for comment? Didn't the entire campaign staff resign last week? I would assume that means nobody is there to respond to press requests. Did you try sending a request to minisoldr@yahoo.com ?
Everybody keep shouting that the Senate will be decided in Montana, and then use our inside voices, just here in the comments, to talk about what we are doing to help in Texas and Nebraska.
What is written regarding the Senate is correct. It will be a nail biter for both parties. However, the immoral behavior of both Robinson and cognitive deterioration of Trump during the debate with Harris,, will probably suppress GOP voter turnout. The Vice Presidential debate may actually make matters worse for the GOP. Vance carries too much baggage into his debate with Walz to have any positive affect. Both campaigns are watching and anticipating their parties turnout during the election.
I think we are in for 2 October surprises that may influence the election.
The first is the VP debate where the odds are high JD Vance will look bad in too many ways to count.
The second is more powerful. Jack Smith will file apparently up to 180 pages of evidence for the 6 January trial which will dominate the news cycle for days as journalists and interested voters digest the evidence. That will put Trump and hopefully the repubs who supported him on the defensive and could be akin to the Comey announcement on the emails right before the election.
I do not think either one of those things is actually going to move the needle much. Both JD and Trump are known quantities at this point. You have either made up your mind or (if "undecided") waiting for some excuse to vote for them.
Because if you have not decided to NOT vote for them at this point, it most likely indicates that you are just waiting for some excuse to not vote for the Black/Indian woman--and tht there isn't an excuse that will actually drive you the other way.
It isn't like there is any actual great mystery here about these candidates or what they stand for, despite the complaints of the media about harris not talking to them.
Yeah, I agree with you. I don’t expect much from the debate, although I predict Vance will win. He’s smart and quick on his feet. I can’t imagine any new, let alone earth-shattering, evidence from Smith’s 180 pages. I do dread an October surprise, but they won’t be it.
While he IS smart, he isn't actually quick on his feet, judging by his performance to date as a VP candidate. He has no actual charisma. He doesn't interact with people well. The reality is that he is a terrible political candidate.
He is not actually likeable. his unfavorability rating is through the bottom.
He comes across as creepy/wierd to most anayone outside of MAGA.
He WILL be prepared (unlike Trump who doesn't think he neds to prepare and is unable to, anyway, given his pathologies). He WILL have q script. He also has the ability to stay on it (even when it is a bad script).
He will do better than Trump did. But that is a low bar.
Well, it does seem as if there is some, (a lot?) of likelihood that Republicans will take the Senate based on current polling. However recall that in 2018, 2020 and 2022, many polls got it wrong. No one will miss either Manchin or Sinema who failed to support Democratic policies all too often. Andrew didn't mention my state, Maryland, where Prince George's County Executive Angela Alsobrooks (a black woman) leads former two term Republican Governor Larry Hogan (a white man) 47.5 to 41..6 according to 538 (as of 9/25.) Granted, Maryland is now a lovely blue state but voters here did elect Hogan twice, so I was worried that they might go back to him. It looks like that won't happen, but who knows. As Bill pointed out yesterday, on Sunday polls looked great for Harris. On Monday, not so much. I have decided to ignore the polls and keep on volunteering as much as I can for Harris and Alsobrooks. I hope everyone else does the same in their state. We still have time to get the leadership we want elected if we all work as hard as we can to achieve that result.
I will miss them. Sinema has been the most effective legislator in the Congress over the past several years. She has been at the center of negotiations for most of the bipartisan legislation during the Biden administration.
I think you are very wrong about missing Manchin. He's the best (flawed though he is and was) that was going to come out of WV for a long, long time to come. The Senate is a numbers game, and a 70%* blue seat is going to be replaced with a 100% red seat. There's a good chance Minority Leader Schumer misses him quite a bit.
I understand what you are saying about the numbers game, and you may be entirely correct However, I suspect that the citizens of West Virginia who after all elected him may not miss him all that much. I wish them well with whomever they elect. Manchin has not done much for them. He's been in the Senate since 2010. Most recent U.S. News reports rank West Virginia as 46th in Education, 47th in Health Care and 46th in Best State overall to live in. I think it's a little pathetic that a person who is retiring at age 77 and claimed for most of his career to be a Democrat makes his parting statement a refusal to endorse Harris because she said she would work to eliminate the filibuster. Like everyone else, he has two (2) choices in November Harris or Trump. So does he like Trump better? He won't be around to see in person what happens if Trump is elected.
And he understands rural, blue collar America better. His comments on permitting reform are practical. I read Biden override environmental concerns to ensure the chip factories go forward.
Manchin understands working and rural men and women that Democrats struggle to reach in today's politics. Democrats would be wise to embrace him instead of shunning him.
I’m wondering, aloud, how many other tech-naive ‘candidates’ have such glaring, barely hidden, examples of their hypocrisy tucked away in their tweets and online ramblings? Robinson’s creepiness is offset by his stupidity, running for office with a sordid and shameful past just inches from full disclosure and public humiliation. Are there others, waiting to be discovered as our October Surprises?
If, as Robinson declared on porn sites as minisoldr, “Obama IS a blackface step-in fetch-it [sic] for liberal white America,” does that mean that Robinson IS a blackface step-in-fetch-it [sic] for conservative white America? His self loathing is on full display for ALL to see!
You hit on something I haven't seen/heard mentioned anywhere else, but which I've been thinking myself. Robinson's self-loathing must be literally off the charts.
Why are Republicans play acting giving Robinson the benefit of the doubt here? Tillis knows this is who Robinson is and that he did all of this, and so much more we don't even know about. His staff didn't need to offer him help then quit when he refused it; it was a nice gesture, and showed a ludicrous degree of confidence in his innocence, but everyone knows the score here. Everyone has known the score for nine long years now. Robinson is Trump is Santos is Gaetz is Loomer is Bannon is Lewandowski is Stone and on and on and on and on. They're all the same, they're all malevolent liars, and even thinking any of them deserves the benefit of the doubt on anything, whether it's "blood bath" or "very fine people on both sides" or "maybe AI did it" or anything else, please stop.
The constant gaslighting is wringing the energy for compassion out of me. I'm sure that's part of its purpose. Tillis knows Robinson is Trump is Santos is Gaetz etc etc. And he knows that we know it.
It's not clear anyone deserves compassion here, so don't feel too bad. Even the voters who are lied to; when you have your guru, and the guru says the world will end tomorrow, and tomorrow comes and goes and we're all still here, and the guru says something like, "I misread the prophecy, the world really ends next Tuesday," or, "The world did end, you're now in heaven, and you just have no memory of the apocalypse," and you still stick with that guru, I'm not sure contempt isn't a better reaction than compassion. But, alas, contempt doesn't help anything either, it doesn't even help me, and it's hard to know what the answer is.
The dynamic that's so frustrating is how people believe the liar, then you prove to them that he's a liar and a lot of other things, then they get mad at you and double down on defending the liar, because apparently being swindled hurts less than accepting the truth.
For those of you in FL, you've got a bona fide hurricane heading your way. Stay safe!
Interesting, a bit off topic. But the Orange Snake is getting some pushback about his beautiful, wonderful plan to put 200%, or whatever his latest brain "storm" is, tariffs on everything. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/9/25/2272765/-Mitch-McConnell-is-the-latest-to-trash-Trump-plan-that-will-raise-prices?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=top_news_slot_2&pm_medium=web
Only if you are referring to a parallel universe does this fool look anything like MLK on Steroids.
JD is, in essence a stalking horse (of sorts) for a certain group of people in the GoP--mostly the financial/tech bro contingent. He is a wholly owned subsidiary of Peter Thiel. His ownership and the backing of Tucker landed him his VP candidate spot. Basically a quid pro quo of sorts.
Gonna go outon a limb here and say I would not be totally surprised that, at some point, if/when Trump appears non compos mentos enough (which is going to happen), they try and 25th Amendment him and replace him with JD. Who will be absolutely controllable.
Because he lacks charisma and an independent dedicated base of cultists. He would largely be hanging in the wind.
I am not saying that this is definately going to happen or that it would work if they tried it. But it seems like something that would happen (or be seriously considered) in a cult movement like MAGA that is being used as a front by people like Thiel.
I'm positive that Vance will figuratively or literally stab the Orange Snake if he becomes VP. He'll become P, and Thiel or Tucker or whomever's, puppet.
If you’d like to be impressed by Sharpton, take a few minutes to listen to his account of why he requested leniency for his own assassin after he was stabbed in the chest:
• https://themoth.org/stories/conviction
Gotta love Thom Tillis:
We can’t support this Mark Robinson if these allegations are true because we need to focus on what’s important: making sure the honorable, decent statesman Donald Trump whom I did vote to impeach & bar from office for an insurrection to steal the last election wins my state and the White House
Careful, Rajeev. You may find yourself in demand as a speechwriter for the likes of Tillis, Alabama's Tommy Gooberville and a "roast" of other Republicans.
Off-topic: has anyone seen that TFG has been told (by our gov't.) about serious threats from Iran to assassinate him? He bleeped about it, correctly attributing it to Iran. But how long 'til he starts claiming Biden / Harris / Walz are behind it? And can you imagine the chaos if Iran succeeds - which is apparently their goal?
Does anyone else ever feel like we're sitting on a powder keg?
The Comcast move supporting an anti-abortion PAC is pretty common for corporations even if not always so obvious. Their corporate connected PACs (supported by voluntary donations by employees) often give money to candidates whose legislative stances are great for the company (low taxes) but violate some employee personal priorities. A corporation could give to a candidate who tries to disenfranchise the very employee voters who gave the money to the PAC. The corporate line is “what’s good for us is good for you because…jobs.” But that same company is happy to lay off the employee who donated their own money to the corporate PAC. It’s not an equal relationship.
From the newsletter: "They also raise questions as to how an individual comfortable deploying casually violent rhetoric managed to ascend to remarkable heights of political power."
Well, the leader of the Republican Party is at his most comfortable when deploying violent rhetoric, and it seems to bring all the boys to the yard. I'm guessing that's the answer to this somewhat silly question. Hint: Some people like violent rhetoric quite a lot.
Andrew, when you say the Robinson campaign declined to comment, whom exactly did you ask for comment? Didn't the entire campaign staff resign last week? I would assume that means nobody is there to respond to press requests. Did you try sending a request to minisoldr@yahoo.com ?
ROFLMAO
They've still got a couple press guys hanging around!
Ya gotta be tough to be a press guy.
Maybe it was his wife's sister manning the phones (smirk).
Everybody keep shouting that the Senate will be decided in Montana, and then use our inside voices, just here in the comments, to talk about what we are doing to help in Texas and Nebraska.
You forgot Florida....
I did not, that one I think is a mirage (would love to be wrong)
What is written regarding the Senate is correct. It will be a nail biter for both parties. However, the immoral behavior of both Robinson and cognitive deterioration of Trump during the debate with Harris,, will probably suppress GOP voter turnout. The Vice Presidential debate may actually make matters worse for the GOP. Vance carries too much baggage into his debate with Walz to have any positive affect. Both campaigns are watching and anticipating their parties turnout during the election.
I think we are in for 2 October surprises that may influence the election.
The first is the VP debate where the odds are high JD Vance will look bad in too many ways to count.
The second is more powerful. Jack Smith will file apparently up to 180 pages of evidence for the 6 January trial which will dominate the news cycle for days as journalists and interested voters digest the evidence. That will put Trump and hopefully the repubs who supported him on the defensive and could be akin to the Comey announcement on the emails right before the election.
The VP debate won't move the needle even by a millimeter. Heck the presidential debate barely moved the needle.
And the Jack Smith court filing won't move the needle either. That cake is already baked. I wish I was wrong, but I know I am not.
I do not think either one of those things is actually going to move the needle much. Both JD and Trump are known quantities at this point. You have either made up your mind or (if "undecided") waiting for some excuse to vote for them.
Because if you have not decided to NOT vote for them at this point, it most likely indicates that you are just waiting for some excuse to not vote for the Black/Indian woman--and tht there isn't an excuse that will actually drive you the other way.
It isn't like there is any actual great mystery here about these candidates or what they stand for, despite the complaints of the media about harris not talking to them.
Yeah, I agree with you. I don’t expect much from the debate, although I predict Vance will win. He’s smart and quick on his feet. I can’t imagine any new, let alone earth-shattering, evidence from Smith’s 180 pages. I do dread an October surprise, but they won’t be it.
I don't think Vance will win.
While he IS smart, he isn't actually quick on his feet, judging by his performance to date as a VP candidate. He has no actual charisma. He doesn't interact with people well. The reality is that he is a terrible political candidate.
He is not actually likeable. his unfavorability rating is through the bottom.
He comes across as creepy/wierd to most anayone outside of MAGA.
He WILL be prepared (unlike Trump who doesn't think he neds to prepare and is unable to, anyway, given his pathologies). He WILL have q script. He also has the ability to stay on it (even when it is a bad script).
He will do better than Trump did. But that is a low bar.
Well, it does seem as if there is some, (a lot?) of likelihood that Republicans will take the Senate based on current polling. However recall that in 2018, 2020 and 2022, many polls got it wrong. No one will miss either Manchin or Sinema who failed to support Democratic policies all too often. Andrew didn't mention my state, Maryland, where Prince George's County Executive Angela Alsobrooks (a black woman) leads former two term Republican Governor Larry Hogan (a white man) 47.5 to 41..6 according to 538 (as of 9/25.) Granted, Maryland is now a lovely blue state but voters here did elect Hogan twice, so I was worried that they might go back to him. It looks like that won't happen, but who knows. As Bill pointed out yesterday, on Sunday polls looked great for Harris. On Monday, not so much. I have decided to ignore the polls and keep on volunteering as much as I can for Harris and Alsobrooks. I hope everyone else does the same in their state. We still have time to get the leadership we want elected if we all work as hard as we can to achieve that result.
I will miss them. Sinema has been the most effective legislator in the Congress over the past several years. She has been at the center of negotiations for most of the bipartisan legislation during the Biden administration.
I think you are very wrong about missing Manchin. He's the best (flawed though he is and was) that was going to come out of WV for a long, long time to come. The Senate is a numbers game, and a 70%* blue seat is going to be replaced with a 100% red seat. There's a good chance Minority Leader Schumer misses him quite a bit.
* made up number
I understand what you are saying about the numbers game, and you may be entirely correct However, I suspect that the citizens of West Virginia who after all elected him may not miss him all that much. I wish them well with whomever they elect. Manchin has not done much for them. He's been in the Senate since 2010. Most recent U.S. News reports rank West Virginia as 46th in Education, 47th in Health Care and 46th in Best State overall to live in. I think it's a little pathetic that a person who is retiring at age 77 and claimed for most of his career to be a Democrat makes his parting statement a refusal to endorse Harris because she said she would work to eliminate the filibuster. Like everyone else, he has two (2) choices in November Harris or Trump. So does he like Trump better? He won't be around to see in person what happens if Trump is elected.
Manchin is an institutionalist who believes in bipartisanship. That's why he supports the filibuster. And he's right about that.
And he understands rural, blue collar America better. His comments on permitting reform are practical. I read Biden override environmental concerns to ensure the chip factories go forward.
Manchin understands working and rural men and women that Democrats struggle to reach in today's politics. Democrats would be wise to embrace him instead of shunning him.
I’m wondering, aloud, how many other tech-naive ‘candidates’ have such glaring, barely hidden, examples of their hypocrisy tucked away in their tweets and online ramblings? Robinson’s creepiness is offset by his stupidity, running for office with a sordid and shameful past just inches from full disclosure and public humiliation. Are there others, waiting to be discovered as our October Surprises?
If, as Robinson declared on porn sites as minisoldr, “Obama IS a blackface step-in fetch-it [sic] for liberal white America,” does that mean that Robinson IS a blackface step-in-fetch-it [sic] for conservative white America? His self loathing is on full display for ALL to see!
You hit on something I haven't seen/heard mentioned anywhere else, but which I've been thinking myself. Robinson's self-loathing must be literally off the charts.
Why are Republicans play acting giving Robinson the benefit of the doubt here? Tillis knows this is who Robinson is and that he did all of this, and so much more we don't even know about. His staff didn't need to offer him help then quit when he refused it; it was a nice gesture, and showed a ludicrous degree of confidence in his innocence, but everyone knows the score here. Everyone has known the score for nine long years now. Robinson is Trump is Santos is Gaetz is Loomer is Bannon is Lewandowski is Stone and on and on and on and on. They're all the same, they're all malevolent liars, and even thinking any of them deserves the benefit of the doubt on anything, whether it's "blood bath" or "very fine people on both sides" or "maybe AI did it" or anything else, please stop.
The constant gaslighting is wringing the energy for compassion out of me. I'm sure that's part of its purpose. Tillis knows Robinson is Trump is Santos is Gaetz etc etc. And he knows that we know it.
It's not clear anyone deserves compassion here, so don't feel too bad. Even the voters who are lied to; when you have your guru, and the guru says the world will end tomorrow, and tomorrow comes and goes and we're all still here, and the guru says something like, "I misread the prophecy, the world really ends next Tuesday," or, "The world did end, you're now in heaven, and you just have no memory of the apocalypse," and you still stick with that guru, I'm not sure contempt isn't a better reaction than compassion. But, alas, contempt doesn't help anything either, it doesn't even help me, and it's hard to know what the answer is.
The dynamic that's so frustrating is how people believe the liar, then you prove to them that he's a liar and a lot of other things, then they get mad at you and double down on defending the liar, because apparently being swindled hurts less than accepting the truth.