Saturday, October 03, 2020

Sunday "Karma Runs Over Dogma" Funnies



Mike Peterson at The Daily Cartoonist has a list of cartoonists’ Patreon and other support sites. As newspapers and media companies continue to shed staff positions, direct support from readers becomes ever more important. Please check it out and consider giving support where you can.
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Friday, October 02, 2020

1600 Pennsavainyah Update



The cartoon at the top of yesterday's post takes on additional meaning in light of the president's overnight diagnosis.  I'm not one to dance on peoples' graves -- that's for Mitch McConnell and his slimy ilk -- but Trump is certainly going to find a way to politically capitalize on his health development.  Should he survive it.

If he does not, then it's Pence who wins, by default and perhaps by ballot too.

And what if Biden should turn up infected, incapacitated, or something worse?  Obviously IMO the DNC will roll with the zero-delegate-earning veep selection made by Old Joe -- again, it's her name on the ticket -- and not the man who received the second-most delegates in their primaries.  In the fine Democrat tradition first established (as best I know) in 1944.

Good times.

I hope everyone understands why I and so many others no longer want to be associated with this two-headed monster.  There's a lot of Constitutional wrestling for Ds and Rs to do in order to save themselves from extinction.  Climate chaos is more likely to get us all anyway, if COVID-19 -- or the next novel coronavirus after this one -- doesn't.

In the meanwhile, we'll rearrange the Titanic's deck chairs.  (Hey, if you're not feeling pessimistically existential or nihilistic, or both, this morning ... WTF is wrong with you?)

-- How about a real civilized debate next week, since those others may be canceled now?



Regrettably, Mark Charles was not invited.


It appears he was unable to qualify for write-in status in Texas.


Mark Jones Tweeted a list of all Texas write-ins, from the top of your ballot down, that I posted in Monday's Wrangle.  Remember: only "qualified" write-in votes count, so don't bother writing in Bernie, or Mickey Mouse, or Hypnotoad, or anybody else not on the TXSoS' list.

I had a lot more for this post, but circumstances nuked much of the relevance.  So like you -- and everyone else -- I'll wait and watch and see what happens next.
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Thursday, October 01, 2020

Sleepy Joe versus The Volcano


I put off this post-mortem as long as possible, because honestly, who looks forward to cleaning up projectile vomit?  But the toonmeisters have come to my rescue once again.



(Apropos of barely anything: some of you may remember this, but Beaumont was one of Gallagher's favorite stops when he was still touring.)

There were plenty of shitshow moments, but "Shut Up Man" and "Stand Down and Stand By" will be the ones remembered the longest.




There's always a backlash, as they say.


Turning point?  Pivotal moment?  I suppose we'll see polling reflecting something soon.  In the meantime, I want to blog twice more; a Far Left Texas Roundup (update, 10/3: this will wait for its usual Monday publication) and a White House Race posting that doesn't mention these two.

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Tuesday, September 29, 2020

An actual pissing match



Trump and Biden meet tonight in Cleveland for their first of three debates -- a socially distanced affair in which the candidates won't shake hands. Fox News host Chris Wallace is the moderator.

The audience, at about 70, will be limited compared with previous debates, and everyone attending the event at Case Western Reserve University will undergo testing for Covid-19 and follow other health safety protocols.

The debate is set for 9 p.m. Eastern time, and will last 90 minutes without any commercial breaks. The topics for the debate are "The Trump and Biden Records," "The Supreme Court," "Covid-19," "The Economy," "Race and Violence in our Cities" and "The Integrity of the Election," according to the Commission on Presidential Debates.


That Trump is not rehearsing is a strong hint about his strategy.

Efforts to focus the preparation-averse Trump on the upcoming debate have occurred in sporadic bursts, including one 30-minute session last weekend. This past Sunday they resumed with a short question-and-answer period utilizing the flashcards campaign advisers prepared to try and hone what have so far been unwieldy attempts to define Democratic rival Joe Biden. Trump did less than two hours of prep total, a person familiar told CNN.


(Trump) has expressed a desire to get under Biden's skin by waging brutal personal attacks against members of his family, including his son Hunter and brandishing questions about Biden's past -- from old plagiarism incidents to more recent allegations of sexual misconduct -- that he hopes will rattle the former vice president. He has already baselessly accused Biden of taking performance-enhancing drugs ahead of the debate and some aides expect him to raise it during the event itself.



This might work, since Biden has demonstrated a severe irritation to these questions.


So there's one thing we can count on ...


“I will be strongly demanding a Drug Test of Sleepy Joe Biden prior to, or after, the Debate on Tuesday night. Naturally, I will agree to take one also,” Trump wrote. “His Debate performances have been record setting UNEVEN, to put it mildly. Only drugs could have caused this discrepancy???”

[...]

“Vice President Biden intends to deliver his debate answers in words. If the president thinks his best case is made in urine he can have at it,” said Kate Bedingfield, Biden’s deputy campaign manager. “We’d expect nothing less from Donald Trump, who pissed away the chance to protect the lives of 200K Americans when he didn't make a plan to stop COVID-19.”


Sounds a little golden shower-y.  I'll be watching baseball (and following the debate on Twitter).
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Monday, September 28, 2020

The Weekly TexLeftBlog Wrangle


Texas lefty bloggers and Tweeters are gearing up for the first Biden-Trump debate after steeling themselves from being triggered by the first half of "The Comey Rule", which aired last night on Showtime.  Brendan Gleeson -- starring as The President -- makes his grand entrance tonight on the last episode of the two-part docu-drama.  To say that there's been some PTSD suffered across the nation is understating the situation.


Anyway, we have lots of Lone Star Tweets and news to read and talk about (mostly election- and COVID-related today; other topics at the end of the week).  First and again from the courtroom:


Kuff stayed on top of the voting litigation news with updates about the wingnut assault on early voting, and the probably short-lived reinstatement of straight-ticket voting.  Corona Connor drew some interesting maps of CD10, one of the three Congressional districts that Beto carried in 2018 but the Republican incumbent won.  In your best-read of the week, Ben Wofford at Wired (republished at Portside so you don't have any paywall issues) details the decades-long give-and take between Travis County Clerk Dana Debeauvoir and Rice University professor Dan Wallach -- and many others -- over secure voting machines.



A few SD30 special election updates.


Ross Ramsey at the TexTrib via Progrexas says "keep calm and vote on".


The Texas Politics Project has the executive summary of several of the above news items for those of you with limited reading time.


And looking past November ...


Following up on the growing divide between Texas Republicans, this next story was first referenced in the Friday 9/18 Round-up (scroll down to "Speaking of stupid").


As James Barragan Tweeted in last Friday's Round-up, the Lege must deal with the most ominous revenue shortfall (related to COVID and the crashing of oil, of course) in almost a century.  All tax streams must be on the table.  A full legalization of casino gambling and cannabis, with an appropriate taxing mechanism, should be under careful consideration.  The TXGOP cannot continue to allow the Evangelical Caucus to hinder progress for the sick (Medicaid expansion) the young (our public school system) and the old (our seniors' assisted living challenges during these crises).

In one of the more ridiculous election-related developments last week, Texas Monthly has a few questions about that Dan Crenshaw ad.


And the TexTrib provides the segue between politics and pandemic.


Erin Garcia de Jesus at the San Antonio Current worries about the "twindemic" of COVID plus influenza.


And we all hope we don't have a new environmental problem to be concerned about, after the weekend brought this tragic news.


More economic, ecological, and social justice headlines later.  Ending here today on as upbeat a message as possible.

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