I wish Oliver had done this piece before the primaries, when it might have had more of an effect on his wrap-up…
“Between the lack of accountability and the bad behavior, state [legislatures] are not so much the laboratories of government, as the frat houses of government. And yet, they get no attention. Perhaps that’s because it’s very hard for us to be angry with people whose names we don’t know…”
Mike E
So, here’s the final tally from my little phone bank:
130,000+ numbers dialed
14,000 conversations
7,500+ said yes, they’ll vote
I’d be happy if half of them did. Onward.
Gin & Tonic
For the election enthusiasts in the crowd, the photo accompanying this article in The Guardian is great. It shows Alexander Zakharchenko, the rebel leader in Donetsk, on his way to vote yesterday in the unrecognized-by-anyone-except-Russia elections in the breakaway regions of eastern Ukraine.
The added fillip is that the ASCE (trying to be like the OSCE, but basically like Rand Paul’s medical accrediting body) observers were among the worst of European far-rightists. I’ve yet to see any among the “Kiev is all Nazis” crowd process this cognitive dissonance.
NotMax
As his show began at the very end of April, would have been quite a trick.
Just sayin’.
beltane
@Gin & Tonic
Give it time. Now that you’ve brought the subject up, the crowd (of one, at least) will appear to explain this all to us.
pseudonymous in nc
I think it takes an outsider — especially a British one — to recognise that state legislatures are the scariest bit of American “democracy”, because they have a massive amount of power and fuck-all accountability. I am still staggered at not only the corruption of state legislatures, but the incompetence: “state legislator says something fucking ridiculous, news at 11” is a thing. In Britain, politicians that stupid and craven would be at best county councillors, because the truly fuckwitted generally don’t become MPs. In the US, they have power over polities the size of Belgium, and nobody seems to care.
srv
Plan B not working so great:
I foresee some openings at the NSC very shortly. I hear Liz Cheney is available.
NotMax
@beltane
And mewl that the entirety of the front page of the Gray Lady is not dedicated solely to coverage of it, to boot.
PsiFighter37
I hope tomorrow turns out as well as I think it will. It seems like almost all the prognosticators at DKE are giving the GOP 51 or 52 seats…and I’m giving Democrats 53 in my predictions (although I have Louisiana going to a runoff and Landrieu prevailing).
Either I’m horribly off, or my gut instinct – which is that polling has gotten exponentially harder over the past couple of years, the quality has gotten worse, and the number of shitty polls being pushed is way up – is spot-on.
It will be an interesting night, and I definitely am cutting against the grain. That said, I nailed my 2012 predictions (Obama wins, nailed the EV count, Romney gets 47% of the popular vote, Democrats pick up House & Senate seats) – the only thing I missed was Cantor not overthrowing Orange Julius…ironic that he lost his primary earlier this year. So I feel confident in myself, and I think Bannock Street is going to surprise a lot – A LOT – of people come tomorrow night.
50D – 3I – 47R – let’s see how it holds up!
El Caganer
@srv: So to beat ISIS, it’s gonna be either US troops or the Syrian Army. I have no idea how this story is going to end.
gogol's wife
I didn’t want to continue OT in the thread below, but Schlemazel asked my opinion of Clara Bow — all I can say is that is the first silent film I have willingly watched, and enjoyed, from beginning to end. She was charming, and so expressive. I really liked the two guys too, neither of whom I had ever heard of. The music was by Carl Davis, who wrote the music for the 1995 Pride and Prejudice — he’s a genius!
(I unwillingly watched Napoleon from beginning to end because I had to stay in the theater.)
skerry
Referencing all the recent talk about street harassment, I came across this article written in 2009: SCHRÖDINGER’S RAPIST: OR A GUY’S GUIDE TO APPROACHING STRANGE WOMEN WITHOUT BEING MACED (sorry for the shouting, I just cut/pasted the title)
Omnes Omnibus
@skerry: This is something that bothers me. As a minor offshoot of the harm that rapists do, they make make women fear me. It is, as I said, minor compared to the harm that they do to their victims, but it is yet another reason that men in general should not tolerate shitty behavior from their co-genderists. It is wrong in general and it makes us all look bad.
srv
@El Caganer: I think it’s time for Putin to come to thre rescue again.
Ukraine is for wimps, Chechnya was for real men.
Gin & Tonic
@efgoldman: I don’t follow football at all, at any level, so this may very well be a stupid question, but when a team has over 100,000 people on a waiting list to spend multiple thousands of dollars for a seat, and when the television revenue is shared equally, what earthly difference does it make if they win or lose games?
KG
@efgoldman: i have a degree in political science and a law degree. i follow (or have followed) politics pretty closely since the late 80s, when i was still in elementary school. and i’ll admit that i’ve left more than a few down ballot votes blank over the years when i don’t know anything about the candidates. i’ve also voted third party when i’ve found both the R and D choices lacking on high ballot lines.
Omnes Omnibus
@Gin & Tonic: The players care, the coaches care, and the fans care. I don’t know if it matters to owners – OTOH, is a sports team a good investment, as a rule, or is it an ego thing? I say ego. People want to win, at whatever level. The owners care (except, possibly, for Bill Wirtz).
KG
@Gin & Tonic: because it’s an advanced form of tribalism that allows one city to say they beat another city without dead bodies in the streets.
burnspbesq
@efgoldman:
On the book of faces yesterday, I asked which was the best team in East Rutherford, Giants, Jets, or the 7-1 Becton Regional Wildcats. Looks like the case for Becton is getting stronger every day.
skerry
@Omnes Omnibus: I’m not sure I agree with your use of the word “minor”. It is an fear that every woman lives with daily, albeit to varying degrees. It is something that we all think about and make adjustments to our lives and our travels in ways that men don’t have to do. Not sure how something that affects 50% of the population can be classified as “minor”. Constant fear takes a toll.
I agree totally that men have to take responsibility to force a change on other men’s behaviors. Right now, this behavior is tolerated at its best, and encouraged at its worst.
Take a look at Elon’s twitter @elonjames over the last couple of days. He has taken tremendous heat over standing up for women about this issue. I particularly liked his hashtag #DudesGreetingDudes
NotMax
@gogol’s wife
Saw your mention of Pola Negri earlier.
Another forgotten superstar of the era actress rarely (as in practically never) showing up is the vamp’s vamp, Theda Bara. (Granted, most of her films were lost to fire in the thirties.)
Omnes Omnibus
@KG: Me, BA in Government and JD. I skipped one election (1988) because I bought into the idea that army officers should be apolitical. I have never voted for a Republican. I got a bit DLC oriented in the late 80s/early 90s, but that is it.
KG
@Omnes Omnibus: if you’re talking one of the four major pro leagues in the US, buying one is a helluva investment. especially right now with the TV deals going crazy. apparently the average value of NBA teams jumped 25% last year. NFL teams are up 23% from last year. that’s dotcom bubble types of returns.
Tree With Water
Oliver is turning into a regular De Tocqueville, isn’t he?
Gin & Tonic
@Omnes Omnibus: the fans care
That seems to be a fact not in evidence, when the stadiums are equally full for good and poor teams.
KG
@Gin & Tonic: for football, it’s a super limited supply, you get 8 home games a year and most teams are in markets big enough that you can get about 800,000 to go to a game without much trouble. baseball, basketball, and hockey have a harder time because they have a lot more games.
Omnes Omnibus
@skerry: I wasn’t intending to deny or diminish your concerns. I was trying to suggest that an additional negative effect of the problem is that decent men get suspected. It is a much smaller and less significant concern. OTOH, if mentioning it causes a couple of people to become more concerned….
Omnes Omnibus
@KG: @Gin & Tonic: You both seem to assume that money is the only factor at play here. My argument is that it isn’t. Fan approval seems to mean a lot to players. So does winning.
Mnemosyne
We turned on Stripes about halfway through. Not exactly fine cinema, but it has its moments. Plus it has Warren Oates, who’s probably one of the most underrated supporting actors in American film.
Also, too, it turns out that Shane Black stole the “I’m too old for this shit” line from Stripes.
Mike E
@Omnes Omnibus: That’s funny, in ’88 I passed on voting for president (I filled out the rest of the ballot tho) out of utter disgust that the Dem was losing to such a panty waist. I vowed to never do that again, and that promise made me hold my nose and put a check mark next to Al Gore’s name on the 2000 ballot. Heh.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: He could have come up with it independently, especially since it is a common refrain among aging cops and military NCOs.
Gin & Tonic
@Omnes Omnibus: And yet, from what I can see, the “NY” Jets have the 4th-highest home attendance so far this season.
burnspbesq
@Gin & Tonic:
The accounts of the Jets’ suckitude are so implausible and over-the-top that people refuse to believe they are true until they’ve seen it with their own eyes.
The truly scary thing is that the Raiders appear to be even worse.
Omnes Omnibus
@Gin & Tonic: I wasn’t saying that winning alone affects attendance. I was saying that caring about winning affects attendance. Teams like the Packers, Bears, and some others will have support during lean years, because the fans feel like they were rewarded by the wins and they were a part of it, it is only fair that they stay with the team in bad times. It’s fandom.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
If it was a writer other than Shane Black, maybe. But Black is one of those Tarantino-like obsessives who’ve seen every movie every made and loves to mash them together, so the “swiping” theory seems more plausible when it comes to him.
Mandalay
@pseudonymous in nc:
But even councillors can cause massive harm with nobody looking. A case in point from Britain:
Over 1,400 girls have had their lives destroyed and a big chunk of the responsibility for that lies with local councillors, some of whom will probably end up behind bars.
In Britain and the United States by far the most important qualification for becoming a politician at any level is the ability get elected. Anything beyond that – including competence and integrity – is gravy.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: I’ll defer to your greater knowledge.
NotMax
@Mnemosyne
Surely there are earlier cases, but wasn’t that also a line in one of Bakshi’s movies? Perhaps it was Wizards (1977), pre-Stripes.
A for “swiping,” believe the CYA term is “homage.” :)
beltane
A glimmer of good news from Alaska? http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/11/03/1341506/-AK-Sen-Daily-Caller-Freaks-Out-About-Mark-Begich-D-Leading-Dan-Sullivan-R-In-Early-Voting
Omnes Omnibus
@Mandalay: Golly, you are right. Everyone sucks. Congrats on focusing on trees and missing the forest again.
Joe Falco
@NotMax: In your state, sure, but there were also primaries still going on in other states at the time.
Really, this message by John is more important way before the general election and the primaries. It’s important during the time when people can enter these local races and announce their candidacy. One of the biggest takeaways in that segment is that however important these local races are, we (the sane ones that are not rabidly racist, corrupt, creepy, etc.) are not engaged enough in the process to challenge these loons so at least they don’t go on to run unopposed. The crazies probably did have some challenges from other crazies in the race to become the Crazy Heir Apparent, but that’s not helpful to anyone.
Tomorrow, my congressional representative, Paul “Lies from the Pit of Hell” Broun, will most likely be replaced by my former pastor, Jody Hice. You can imagine how excited I am that my area is going to be represented by Broun 2.0.
KG
@Omnes Omnibus: I agree with you, I was just addressing the issue of whether owning a team was a good investment, and if you’ve got a spare couple billion bucks, I’d rather you buy a team than a senator. To your point, rarely is money the only driving factor in any decision
Omnes Omnibus
@KG: It is like buying racehorses writ large. Some do it as an investment; most do it because they want a winner.
ETA: Or they want to be part of the game with a chance at a winner.
NotMax
@Joe Falco
Um, the primary here was held August 9.
The point was that his show started into the primary season and by the time it built up any sort of regular viewership most of the action had passed.
El Caganer
@srv: Putin? I think he’s having a good laugh over this one. If he does anything, it might be to ship some anti-aircraft missiles to the Syrian government, just to piss us off. He’s got his hands on enough stuff now to keep him from screwing around there.
NotMax
@Joe Falco
Strictly IMHO – Broun is a dope, whereas Hice is a loon.
Joe Falco
@NotMax: Hice is an opportunistic snake in the grass. Strictly IMHO, of course.
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
Ex NCO here and I’d say it’s about 6-7th on the all time list. I was 22. And still too old for some of that shit.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ruckus: My NCOs were always 5 to 10 years older than me. I found that it (the excuse) came up more often when I wanted something physical to come from my guys.
NotMax
Here’s a Constitutional nightmare scenario:
Senate ends up split 50/50 after all seats are decided. Biden keels over dead after new Congress begins, and the Senate Republicans refuse to provide a single vote to provide the required majority for whomever Obama nominates as replacement Veep (ditto in the House, no majority for confirmation).
Omnes Omnibus
@NotMax:
A meteor hits… Come the fuck on.
NotMax
@Omnes Omnibus
Still got quatloos riding on the Vogon constructor fleet showing up.
pseudonymous in nc
@Mandalay:
Indeed. And if you’re a subscriber to Private Eye, which I am, you know all about rotten boroughs of all parties.
But that’s a bit of a deflection: state legislatures have powers only slightly less than those of a nation state, and Americans mostly give not a fuck about who’s running them. People moan here about Andrew Cuomo, but he’s very much representative of a shitty state legislature. The US gave the world the concept of federalism, and has mostly sat on that concept for the past 200 years while other countries have actually created powerful sub-national entities with legislative power over millions of people that their respective electorates give a fuck about.
srv
@NotMax: John Boehner Wins!
Morzer
@Gin & Tonic:
Yes, but that’s mostly because people see them as a comedy troupe that happens to play in the NFL. They’ve now added the Butt Touchdown (Buttdown?) to the Buttfumble, so their repertoire is quite impressive.
SRW1
@srv:
Maybe that connection also explains the report in The Independent that the islamists in Syria have got their hands on US-made guided missles.
pseudonymous in nc
@Joe Falco:
His point is that a state has powers to affect people’s lives close to that of a nation state, perhaps more so on a daily basis than the US Congress. The decisions made in state legislatures actually matter, and the people elected to serve there actually matter, and the fact that it’s very easy to buy up those people and replace their function with a set of PDFs download from ALEC HQ in DC fucking well ought to matter.
These aren’t even “local races”. These are races affecting populations of 3 million, 4 million, 9 million, These are races that, from John Oliver’s perspective, affect populations the size of Lithuania, Croatia, Denmark, Sweden. Populations the size of actual countries. And that’s before considering the states with 20 or 30 or 40 million people.
The takeaway is that you should treat state legislative races like national elections because they are the functional equivalent of national elections. And Americans treat state legislative elections like, I dunno, something that affects other people. And then get surprised when they find a pack of fuckwits making laws in their state capitals.
Mandalay
@pseudonymous in nc: Yes, The Eye do a great job with Rotten Boroughs, but they can only do so much, and the demise of local newspapers will surely have a negative effect with respect to local government. Electing better local politicians is one thing, but the monitoring of them will decrease without local/state papers monitoring their misbehavior. That applies both here and in Britain of course.
But as you suggest, the root issue here is to get people to give a fuck about who represents them. Australia has compulsory voting, and I’m warming to the idea. Make people think of voting as a responsibility and a civic obligation, just like jury duty. That wouldn’t solve everything, but I think it might be a step in the right direction.
Mandalay
@SRW1:
The article you linked to mentions other intriguing possibilities as well:
I’m sure our vigilant media will be grilling John McCain about that on Sunday. Or not.
Calouste
@pseudonymous in nc: About 40% of the Tories would fit right in with the GOP. And then we’re not even talking about UKIP (anti-European parties from all countries in the European Parliament display Palin-levels of gift). The only effective difference is that in the UK candidates are nominated by the local party organization, not via primaries, so anyone with a complete lack of social skills doesn’t make it through, unlike in the US where you can win a primary (and in a lot of gerrymandered cases that means winning the general) as long as you can get your name on the ballot and you can get the votes of a majority of the 300 or so people that show up.
Morzer
@Calouste:
In UKIP (and the BNP from whom they have inherited quite a few supporters) lack of social skills might actually be part of the appeal – it manifests an “authenticity” lacking in London-based mainstream politicians who are parachuted into safe seats by their metropolitan chums. Farage himself is boorish enough, but Godfrey Bloom was even more crass and obviously bigoted.
NotMax
@Morzer
Sounding more and more as if they’re competing to be Alan B’Stard.
Morzer
@NotMax:
I would guess that was several notches on the social scale above their ambitions. What they really aspire to be is Norman Tebbit – an ideological thug of limited intelligence and less charm, eternally toadying to the Dear Leader. Or, among British contemporary politicians, Eric Pickles who blends the godlike physique of Karl Rove with the witty charm of Alan Simpson and the humble compassion of Newt Gingrich.
Morzer
After mentioning my trip to the Yoichi distillery in Japan, I might as well note for the record that a seismic shift is apparently happening in the world of whisky:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/04/suntory-time-japanese-whisky-named-worlds-best-in-sour-dram-for-scotland
NotMax
@Morzer
The generation of young flunkies such as the one depicted herein are now the ones seated in the ample chairs behind the Big Desks.
Another Holocene Human
@Omnes Omnibus: For you, since you’re a decent person, you react this way.
You shoulda been in online atheism when the nerdrage was spewing about women thinking a guy who didn’t respect her boundaries might be a rapist. That’s not FAIR. I’m a NICE GUY. I’ll never get LAID. What about MY human rights? If everybody thought like YOU the HUMAN RACE would DIE OUT. argle bargle
Another Holocene Human
@pseudonymous in nc: oh no, unless many state executives, cuomo was in a position to–and did–make his state lege shittier. get it right, credit where due, etc.