Please pardon my brevity. Nameless seems to have reached out and touched me with a case of Republicosis, so I’m making intermittent trips to the throne room.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 3:33 (average 4:45). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From Daily Kos: …According to the Pew Research Center, The pool of self-identified independent voters is larger than either Republicans and Democrats; but despite not being card-carrying members, they still tend to lean towards one party or another. With leanings factored in, 87% of Americans identify either directly or indirectly towards either the Republican or Democrat parties. That leaves 13% of the voting population to divvy up among third party, which ties into the second issue: party size and influence.
Second, the viability of a third party Presidential campaign is directly tied to the size and influence of the third party in question. A Presidential campaign timeline looks something like this (immensely simplified):
Step 1: Announce your are running.
Step 2: Win your party.
Step 3: Win enough Electoral College votes to win the national election.
If you are a Republican or Democrat, Step 3 is merely difficult—you have a pretty sizeable base, and you are pretty much guaranteed that some subset of that party base is going to vote for you no matter what, so winning means adding to that base in the right parts of the country to get enough votes. For any third party, they have no base to start from, which means their entire strategy revolves around Democrat and Republican attrition. In other words, they have to do twice as much work as your average Republican or Democratic candidate. In today’s political climate, a third party has zero chance of winning the election.
How does a third party truly have a chance? By growing the base large enough so that your built-in support base is comparable to the others. Large enough that you can win significant numbers of governor seats and Congress seats. And this is something that neither the Green Party nor the Libertarian party has done, or will have done between now and November. Instead, they treat the Presidential race as an advertising campaign for their party, hoping to draw in a few more disenfranchised Republican or Democrat voters.
Let’s put this in concrete terms for Gary Johnson, the only third party blipping on the national poll radar. The current projections at fivethirtyeight as of this writing give Gary Johnson 0.6 electoral votes—in other words, he’ll be lucky to get a single Electoral College vote anywhere in the country. But it also gives him 7.7% of the popular vote. Right now, those same projections have a 1.4% gap between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, which means that the 7.7% of the population tilting at windmills to get a single Electoral College vote for Gary Johnson could very easily put Donald Trump in the White House… [emphasis added]
Every lefty that listens to Regressives and votes for a third party is casting a vote for Donald Trump, the true beneficiary of those third party votes.
From Media Matters: Fox News ignored a speech by the father of U.S. Army Captain Humayun Khan, who was killed in 2004 in the Iraq war, instead opting to air commercials during the speech. Fox later went live to a song by pop singer Katy Perry after the speech.
During the final night of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, PA, Khizr Khan spoke about the honor he felt to be present at the convention with his wife, “as patriotic American Muslims with undivided loyalty to our country.” Khan’s speech was preceded by a video that showed Hillary Clinton calling Captain Khan “the best of America” and explaining the circumstances of his death, for which he was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star and Purple Heart.
It is so typical of the Republican Rectumite Reichsministry of Propaganda, Faux Noise, to hide the truth behind Benghazi bullshit!
From Alternet: In an extraordinary ruling, a federal appeals court overturned a lower court ruling and granted a broad injunction against North Carolina Republicans’ sweeping voter suppression law. Crucially, the appeals court found that the legislation, which created a strict voter ID requirement, ended same-day registration, out-of-precinct voting, and pre-registration, was “passed with racially discriminatory intent.” And unlike recent rulings against new voter ID law in Texas and Wisconsin, which only ameliorated the impact of those laws, this decision blocks North Carolina’s entire voter ID measure.
This ruling is an enormous victory for voting rights, and not just because voter ID will no longer be required at the polls. The finding of discriminatory intent is key because it could ultimately serve as future grounds for placing North Carolina back under the Department of Justice’s “preclearance” regime for 10 years.
That certainly is good news. DOJ preclearance is needed in all states, with Republican legislatures, so it should be required in all states.
20 Responses to “Open Thread – 7/30/2016”
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4:11 The flower looks like it might be a double rosebud. Vitamin C, if so.
DKos – Yes indeed. I also saw this this morning on Daily Kos. I found it illuminating.
Media Matters – I have found a radio station that broadcasts a live (or recorded live) opera performance EVERY Saturday at 11:00 a.m., not just during the Metropolitan and/or Chicago Lyric seasons, which is great for me. This morning the opera was a very little-known one, even many opera goers may have never or barely heard of it. It deals with a father whose son is killed in circumstances creditable to the son. I'm not sure how I managed to read even more about the Khan family while listening without collapsing into a puddle of tears. Yet here I am. I think it's worth it.
AlterNet. This is indeed great news. I still believe, however, that EVERY state and territory should be under preclearance. Then there is no discrimitation against states at all.
New topic – Great nickname – new to me – from a Daily Kos comment: Chupacabra Naranja de dRumpf
Cartoon – That would be an a$$teroid? (Or a hemorrhoid?)
Cool about the promises. The highesat was thew period from 1932 – 1964.
fox news is a republitard station. i saw those parents and my heart broke for them.
DK: Yes, I'll keep swimming, thank you. 🙂
MM: How disrespectful of them. I saw that….and his Powerful and Truthful words from a grieving father who knows.
AN: Great news!!! Indeed!! Hope that Texas is listening….
Cartoon: What Joanne said. Oh, how hilarious!!
Hope that you stay hydrated, enjoy the rest of your day, take care, and Thanks, Tom.
Clinton is the regressive in your story per the term's definition TC.
Several national polls that I've read about have been including Stein along with Johnson and many had their numbers similar.
The Media Matters and Alternet portions do not include factual errors. You really shouldn't trust DK on the election with how large their admitted bias has been for months.
Hey, if Hillary wants to regress to the principles of the FDR administration, including pre-Citizens United rules on money in politics, I'll take it.
Amen JD!!
Not Oxford's 1st definition.
Hope your Republicosis goes away soon!
Daily Kos: And this is exactly why we need to vote for Clinton. A third party candidate has no chance to win this time. I agree that we do need another party that will counter balance the power the two major ones have, but that is going to take a lot of work. Voting your conscience is a noble gesture, but think of the consequences of Trump wins! I don't want my granddaughter to inherit that world.
Media Matters: Fox is so disgusting. I like Katy Perry, but really, airing her and not the parents of a soldier killed in action? How low can they go, well, we all know that all ready.
Alternet: I heard this yesterday and was relieved that at least one of our courts ruled in favor of fairness instead of discrimination.
Cartoon: One can only hope this happens.
I think this says a lot!
Is it any wonder why Drumpf likes uneducated people?!
Wow! Drumpf really said this in 1998! This should get out to all of the GOP/TP and regressive people.
This is what Drumpf thinks of his supportive "voters".
Thanks for this bit of informative news quote. Awesome!
Well, except Trump NEVER said that:
http://www.snopes.com/1998-trump-people-quote/
http://www.factcheck.org/2015/11/bogus-meme-targets-trump/
https://www.truthorfiction.com/donald-trump-said-republicans-are-the-dumbest-group-of-voters/
BINGO!!
Puzzle — 3:05 The honey is sweet!
Daily Kos — "Every lefty that listens to Regressives and votes for a third party is casting a vote for Donald Trump, the true beneficiary of those third party votes." — Amen! I hope those wanting a sane government realise this.
Media Matters — It weas a wonderful speech from the heart. I read in an email I think that Drumpf referred to his speech as slander and inaccurate. He further questioned why Mrs Khan had not spoken. What an ass!
Alternet — Great news! I wonder if this will also affect other states in time. Pre-clearance should be mandatory for all states which think they can effectively disenfranchise big chunks of their populations.
Cartoon — Make it so #1!
3:17 Thanks Lynn. You left me a couple of drops. I am afraid that TomCat is not going to find any.
Sorry to hear about the Republicosis, TomCat. I hope it isn't a side effect of the famed chili you said you were going to make. 😉
DK: Third parties at this point in time are not in the race to compete for the presidency but to advertise for their party. At any other time I would applaud advertising for third, fourth and even fifth parties and making their base and influence grow, but too much is at stake here right now to throw away votes. Wasn't it JFK who in his inaugural address said: "And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country"? Vote Blue.
MM: Actually I had expected Faux News to skip the Democratic Convention all together. But that would have been a bit too obvious, even for Faux News. Though skipping Khizr Khan's speech with a commercial break and returning for a musical interlude is Republican enough for Rupert and for their audience, I suppose.
Alternet: Wonderful news and just in time too, at least for North Carolina. This court has made it very clear that this law was voter suppression and racist and served no other purpose than that. I'm also very happy to read that although North Carolina's Republican legislators could appeal this decision to to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals and to the Supreme Court – without much chance of success – the ruling has effectively blocked this voting law for the 2016 election anyway.
Cartoon: Let it fall from the sky, but burn up completely before it hits the ground and do more damage.
I haven't made the chili yet.
Thanks all. Hugs!!
The intrent of the cartoon wwas that, when the Republican Party crashes to earth and explodes, itr will do considerable damage. The scary part is that I made it five years ago.
DK: Point excellently made! VOTE BLUE!!!!!!!
MM: This is just what Roger Ailes wants! And if he was gone by then, it is his cess pool legacy living on.
Alternet: Great news; I put a posting into C2 about it.
"Toon: Burn, baby, burn!!!! My "feeling" on this is that the GOPigs will suffer a bloody major loss!