Open Mic for the week of 10/14/2024
There’s a phenomenon where someone writes an essay about this or that but someone else wants to discuss something that has not yet made it to the front page.
This is unfair to everybody involved. It’s unfair to the guy who wrote the original essay because, presumably, he wants to talk about his original essay. It’s unfair to the guy who wants to talk about his link because it looks like he’s trying to change the subject. It’s unfair to the people who go to the comments to read up on the thoughts of the commentariat for the original essay and now we’re talking about some other guy’s links.
So!
The intention is to have a new one of these every week. If you want to talk about a link, post it here! Or, heck, use it as an open thread.
And, if it rolls off, we’ll make a new one. With a preamble just like this one.
Happy Canadian Thanksgiving! I hope that Sandy McTire put tons of Coffee Crisp in your shoes overnight!Report
Someone help me, I’m going to post hopium, early/mail in voting seems to be going quite well for Democrats in key states:
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-elections/early-voteReport
More hopium: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/half-voters-plan-cast-ballots-early-huge-partisan-split-rcna172253
“Fifty-one percent of voters say they’ll vote early, either by mail or in person, with Vice President Kamala Harris leading former President Donald Trump 61%-35% (a 26-point margin) among those voters.
By comparison, Trump leads by 20 points, 57%-37%, with the group of voters who plan to vote on Election Day, which accounts for 45% of the electorate in the poll. It’s a smaller lead among a slightly smaller share of the electorate than Harris has over those early voters.
“Either the margin has to close among [those] voting early, or Republican margins on Election Day have to be bigger than this to win,” said Bill McInturff, the Republican pollster who conducted the NBC News poll with Jeff Horwitt of Hart Research Associates.
The massive political difference of early and Election Day voters is the latest evidence of a dramatic and enduring shift in the Trump years.
In the final NBC News/Wall Street Journal polls of the 2012 and 2016 cycles, majorities said they planned to vote on Election Day, not early.”
I also have hard times with the polling that shows Trump crushing Harris in Arizona but shows Gallego crushing Lake. Gallego himself stated Harris wins Arizona if he wins by +7. North Carolina is similar to me. Stein currently polls at +10 to +15. I suppose it is possible a lot of people vote Trump and leave the governor slot blank but I think if Stein wins by such a huge margin, Harris likely wins NC as well.Report
Eh, it looks like Kamala Harris plagiarized for her book “Smart on Crime”.
But what *IS* plagiarism, anyway? Is it just the unattributed copying of someone else’s words?
Or is it something more than that?
And since Kamala obviously used a ghostwriter, shouldn’t this be exculpatory for her and the blame put on her ghostwriter?Report
You don’t get to claim your wrote a book and then throw your ghostwriter under the bus.Report
This was a big topic of discussion on the other blog yesterday but apparently Hamas wanted Iran to participate in 10/7. The Iranian government had at least the intelligence to say no. Hamas seemed to have been fanatical that with Iranian participation, they could have destroyed Israel and make all the Jews go away. There is so much stupidity in Hamas’ plan that the intent had to be malicious and they were basically not even thinking about what could possibly go wrong for them.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/12/world/middleeast/hamas-israel-war.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Rk4.t5oe.XnIWQ5Wgm8QC&smid=url-shareReport
I’m coming to the conclusion that Iran is more interested in challenging the Saudis for regional dominance than fighting Israel.
They greenlit the attacks, but won’t do more than perfunctory missile barrage.
But the the rapproachment between the Arab states and Israel was a threat to them and their surrogates Hamas and Hezbollah.
I could be wrong but that’s how it looks to me.Report
The Iranian Clerical Regimes knows that if they did a direct attack against Israel besides a performative rocket barrage that it would be the end of the road for them. I think you are right about the strategy. They need to keep up the Death to Israel chest thumping for political reasons but really want to challenge the Saudis.Report
That’s a really interesting link and it’s not behind a paywall.
Things to take away:
1) Hamas has agency, vision, and determination. All the good behavior we’ve seen in recent years has been a deliberate ploy to get Israel to lower it’s guard in prep for 10-7.
2) Hamas is serious about its goal being the destruction of Israel and the killing of all Jews. Killing every civilian they could find was the end goal, over running the military bases was just done to make that easier.
3) Although they are allied with Iran, they’re not puppets. Hamas put a lot of working and planning into this, Iran really didn’t.Report
Harris agrees to interview on Fox News: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/14/business/media/fox-news-kamala-harris-interview.htmlReport
What are her internals saying?Report
Well, mostly her internals are making a blorbly blorbbing noise with the occasional rattling gurgle. There’s windy sproinging sounds if she’s eaten raw garlic recently.Report
I think her internals are irrelevant here. But this is a kind of goes into the Lion Den move that is smart. Can you consider Trump going on MSNBC to be interviewed by Chris Hayes? He won’t go anywhere he will be challenged.Report
Didn’t Trump get yelled at when he went to the National Association of Black Journalists Conference?
Anyway, Hillary’s interview with Fox was the best of the election cycle. It’s one of the things she did which was pretty smart.
Let’s hope Harris does well.Report