As it should be

Some good ideas

For any Dem candidate.  Not just Joe Biden.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Cambridge Analytica re-exposed

Terry Gross talks to Christopher Wylie about his work at and why he quit Cambridge Analytica.  Bottom line:  The same people are still at it, working for the Trump 2020 campaign.

h/t Glenna

Awesome, Dukes

Bet Fox won't use it.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

GOP still determined to stick with Trump

President Donald Trump is planning to roll out an unprecedented structure for his 2020 reelection, a streamlined organization that incorporates the Republican National Committee and the president’s campaign into a single entity.

It’s a stark expression of Trump’s stranglehold over the Republican Party: Traditionally, a presidential reelection committee has worked in tandem with the national party committee, not subsumed it.

Under the plan, which has been in the works for several weeks, the Trump reelection campaign and the RNC will merge their field and fundraising programs into a joint outfit dubbed Trump Victory. The two teams will also share office space rather than operate out of separate buildings, as has been custom.

[...]

“We are going to streamline this presidential campaign like no presidential campaign has been streamlined before,” said Chris Carr, a veteran party strategist who has been tapped to serve as political director on the Trump reelection effort.

  Politico

Well, at least they've got Trump talk down pat.

They're making an attempt to ward off any primary challenge, I guess. What happens if they're candidate is under indictment? Or in some New York state criminal court? Surely he'll be under impeachment proceedings.

“There are some people who choose for whatever reason to handcuff themselves to the Titanic,” said John Weaver, an adviser to Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who is considering challenging Trump in the Republican primary. “Why, I have no idea.”

Perhaps the RNC is in trouble, too, if Trump loses the office.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

FOIA filed for FBI info leaked to Rudy Giuliania during 2016 campaign

This should be interesting.

CREW sent a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the FBI [in April] calling for the release of all records pertaining to an investigation of the source that leaked information to Rudy Giuliani in October 2016, days before FBI Director James Comey’s announcement that the FBI was reopening the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails. Comey announced the investigation on October 28, 2016 in a letter to Congress on the basis that new information had been found but not yet examined by the FBI.

Two days before Comey’s letter announcing the reopening of the investigation, Giuliani appeared on Fox News and gave a statement indicating he was given information that had not been yet made public regarding the Clinton probe.

“I do think that all of these revelations about Hillary Clinton finally are beginning to have an impact,” he said on the October 26 program. “He’s got a surprise or two that you’re going to hear about in the next two days.”

  Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Left Underreported Lately

In all the reporting and speculation about Junior outing himself along with Manafort and Kushner, I'm not seeing (or maybe just not registering) the fact mentioned that the US intelligence community has already unanimously determined that Russia was interfering in the 2016 election with the intention of getting Donald Trump elected to office. Whatever the rest of us think about Trump campaign collusion, with that background, I think this admission of Junior's (actually the discovery of the meeting/Goldmanemail exchange) amounts to an admission that they were working with the Russians (or at least eager to get help from them), and will be treated as such by the Intel Committees investigating possible collusion and the Mueller investigation into all kinds of things. So I think the Trump cabal is in serious trouble.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Evolution of the Modern American Campaign

In Matt Taibbi's new book, he writes about his days on campaign trails, and most specifically on the campaign trail of The Insane Clown President Trump. Here he speculates about the future:

To campaign professionals, real people became fodder for stylized visual backgrounds and nothing more.

[...]

Campaigns needed “people” only as props. If a candi­date wanted to show that he or she was with it on racial is­sues, that candidate would visit a predominantly black high school and be photographed clapping to a school band per­formance. If he wanted a worker-friendly image, he’d visit a robotics factory in Wisconsin and be photographed wear­ing a hard hat and goggles. And so on.

[...]

In a less self-deceiving future—perhaps under a leader like Donald Trump who better understands that presidential races are now really just big television shows—they will conduct campaigns from a single soundstage in a place like Burbank and just blue-screen in the different crowds and locations.

  Penguin

And why not? It would reduce the costs of campaigns enormously, and we'd get the exact same relevance from them.

So, now that we're actually where we were headed (and btw: YWA's handbasket subhead - originated in 2003 - turned out to be rather prescient, don't you think?), here's Matt's Rolling Stone article wherein he gives us once again, drinking rules for the occasion:

I have a funeral to go to.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.