Because I’m secretly in love with Joss Whedon, this brightened my entire morning:
It’s Joss Whedon’s world, we just live in it.
Don’t boo. Vote.
Open thread.
ETA: Because I love you – if you haven’t seen Michelle Obama’s impression of her husband, you must watch this:
Chyron HR
I only recognize a few of those superheroes. I guess the rest are from Agents of
SHITSHIELD.Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Chyron HR: Yup, kinda made me feel like my dad. Was the woman whose voice was trembling like she was about to cry, is that a riff on a character she plays?
I’ve seen Downey listed as a “Hollywood conservative”, and I thought Ruffalo was in the Hillary-is-worse-than-Bush (if not Trump) camp
Albert Z.
That made me chuckle until I started reading the Youtube comments. That was a big mistake on my part, wasn’t it?
schrodinger's cat
That is one hideous outfit. Although it looks better on her than it would on 90% of the female population because she is statuesque. One of her rare fashion misses.
RaflW
@Chyron HR: I am apparently old and avoid most entertainment, so I just had to take their word for it that they are famous.
RaflW
@Albert Z.: Yes it was. Just remember, all comment sections are sewers (Good morning everyone!).
I was also pissed that with 5000 or so views, it had more down votes than up. WTF.
gogol's wife
Again, why do all the PSAs for our side have to be insufferably smartass?
Don’t know who half of them are. Onion on my belt is getting uncomfortable.
Ruffalo’s awfully cute, though.
donnah
I watched Stephen Colbert’s show last night and was reminded how lucky we have been these past eight years. Having Barack and Michelle Obama and their girls as our First Family has been a privilege and an honor. She’s beautiful, she’s funny, and she has a heart full of good things.
I’m really going to miss them!
hovercraft
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Trembly voice is from Blindspot. Never seen the SHIELD.
hovercraft
@donnah:
I saw it too, but I’m not buying her explanation for that picture where they’re looking at each other. I think she was promising him that if he behaved himself and let the photographers do their job he would be rewarded later. That’s my theory and I’m sticking to it.
gogol's wife
God, Michelle is gorgeous! Now that’s a celebrity!
gogol's wife
@schrodinger’s cat:
If you’re talking about Michelle, I totally disagree!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@donnah: I remember MO’s appearance on the old (and lamented) Colbert show in ’08, I think during the primaries, she was very stiff and wary. It’s amazing how much she’s evolved as a public figure. I think that may be the reason I often think she looks younger now than she did eight years ago.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
OT
For something other than being a paid surrogate of a campaign, which I’m pretty sure they’ve known for months?
RaflW
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: She has become a remarkable public figure. She seems very in touch with herself, in a way that says to me she really likes the policy/activist/mom/wife/community person she is.
And as hokey as the concept is, I loved her in that Carpool Karaoke.
SenyorDave
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Every person who knew about his being paid by Trump once he was hired, and did nothing to remove him should be fired (assuming they were in positions involving hiring/firing).
eclare
@schrodinger’s cat: Totally agree. What was she thinking with a sweater tucked into those pants? Looked a lot better on her than it would have on me, but, no.
Lurker
@donnah:
Ditto! I’ll miss the Obamas! Gracious, dignified, courageous, classy, intelligent, compassionate… And they raised their two girls to be exactly like them.
schrodinger's cat
@gogol’s wife: I am talking about her outfit which I did not like.
hovercraft
@gogol’s wife:
Me too, I think she looks great. It would look like crap on me, but it works on her.
amk
Great videos. Thanks.
germy shoemangler
Does anybody know if they saw “Southside With You” and if so, what they had to say about it?
raven
Trump is all concerned about Tulsa and fucking Don King is standing next to him screaming!
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
Only SHIELD person I recognized was Clark Gregg. That cast is pretty international, so I wouldn’t expect most of them to show up.
I’m assuming there’s a lot of ex-Buffy and ex-Angel people in there.
schrodinger's cat
@raven: I am sure immigrants are responsible for that as well.
piratedan
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: better late than never… although I’m sure that HE got due process.
amk
toon of the day.
maurinsky
My favorite person in the video is Tom Lenk, who was in Buffy and Angel, Cabin in the Woods, Much Ado About Nothing, and is currently getting marginally semi-famous with his “Lenk LewK for Less, where he recreates red carpet outfits from items found in his household.
My husband and I saw him a couple of months ago in a one man play which was inspired by an item read in a book about Barbra Streisand’s passion for decorating – she has a mall in the basement of her house. In the play, the actor plays Barbra in addition to her assistant and the person she hires to work in her basement mall.
Waldo
@gogol’s wife: I thought it was really well done.
The best part: Having it start out as your basic boring, nonpartisan GOTV message before shifting gears midstream to “Holy shit — there’s a racist lunatic this close to getting nukes! Don’t just sit there!”
And, yeah, funny, too. More of that, please.
StringOnAStick
@Albert Z.: Never, ever read Youtube comments, otherwise you’ll end up wanting to change your species.
Mike J
@donnah: NFLTG is true of both Obamas.
mike in dc
Corey was still on the payroll of the Trump campaign, not just getting “severance payments” like he assured CNN. The good news is that CNN is going to have to go a bit harder on Trump, to demonstrate that they’re not in the tank for him.
Feathers
@Albert Z.: I watched on embed, thus avoiding the comments, but there is probably real ire over Robert Downey, Jr.’s participation. He is one of the few out Republicans in Hollywood, so that’s gotta hurt. i liked the way it started like one of the usual non-partisan please just vote PSAs, but then went full anti-Trump.
LAO
To those of you on twitter — I’ve recently become obsessed with Tom Colicchio’s twitter feed (@tomcolicchio). He is a super Hillary supporter (and Democrat, I’m assuming) with a tremendous twitter game — not snarky — but rational engagement with Trump/Stein supporters. It is well worth checking out.
ETA: because I don’t read before I post.
slag
Loved and laughed at both videos. Much more than I thought I would, quite frankly.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Waldo: I’m also assuming this is aimed at those “millennials” we’ve been hearing so much about
Caravelle
Wow… Michelle Obama laughed REALLY HARD at that NSA joke didn’t she ?
I wonder if there’s something she knows that we don’t that’s worth knowing there.
Caravelle
That’s a paranoid thing to write, what I mean is that she had a kind of double-laugh, a “you made a joke” laugh that morphed into an “oh man I just got the joke/thought of something funny” laugh. I kind of wonder what prompted the second one.
germy shoemangler
So… Lester Holt is a registered Republican, and Chris Wallace is a registered Democrat.
Interesting…
Elmo
Ye gods, Bradley Whitford (Josh from West Wing) has gone all OLD and shit! He looks the same age as Martin Sheen!
(and my ability to recognize waaaaaay too many of the people in that video means I have no life, but it was still fun to do the Hey it’s That Guy!)
GregB
@raven:
Whom the God’s will destroy they first drive mad.
I don’t know if that applies to the Republican Party or the United States.
eclare
@germy shoemangler: I hadn’t heard that, but I saw Chris Wallace interviewed, maybe on Colbert, and he talked about vacationing with George Clooney in Italy. Seemed…odd.
Waldo
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: For sure. I’ll be sharing it on my millennial brood’s new-fangled socialist media thingies, too.
Miss Bianca
OK, I liked both videos, *and* I thought Michelle O rocked that outfit. I was like, “elephant pants! I love ’em – but man, only the FLOTUS can wear elephant pants these days and make them look cool!”
delk
Two good videos, a donation to Hillary, and my first post-op shower. Pretty good morning so far.
Ceci n'est pas mon nym
@Elmo: My heart bleeds for you. I’m unable to get used to guys like Robert Redford and Paul McCartney getting old and craggy, let alone Billy Crystal cracking old-Jewish-Guy jokes (e.g. that he could now play Miracle Max without makeup) and playing grandpas in movies (“Parental Guidance” which admittedly was pretty funny).
Tony Kormheiser (WaPo writer who had a humor column for a while) once gave a list of age markers. The last one was “you’re older than the new Pope. And then he dies.” I’m not there yet but I hit “you’re older than the President.” Thanks Obama!
Amir Khalid
@Ceci n’est pas mon nym:
I hit the “You’re older than POTUS” landmark with Obama myself: he’s all of two and a half weeks younger than I am. If all goes well, the next POTUS younger than I am will be elected in 2024, and I’ll be 63 going on 64 then.
JMG
Well, the next President will be older than me no matter what, but it’ll be close, and the contenders are both old.
catclub
@mike in dc: I think the Trump Foundation item that will hurt him most is the cheating at golf one – where they promise $1M for a hole in one, but then disqualify any hole shorter than 150yds, and also shorten the par 3 hole to be under that limit.
Easy to understand. Cheating at golf.
Shell
Would it require a constitutional amendment to change Election day to Saturday?
catclub
@Ceci n’est pas mon nym: I
Is “your dentist appears to be a teenager” one of the old man markers?
Amir Khalid
Oh, by the way: CNN has stated that Corey Lewandowski is not suspended,CNN pulled Lewandowski from a broadcast because it had learned the Trump campaign is still paying him, apart from what he’s collecting as severance.
Okay, I’m confused. What is this money that Trump is paying Lewandowski, if it’s not a salary and not severance?
Miss Bianca
@catclub: If nothing else, maybe that will finally make an impression on my WASP male relatives. Because, cheating at golf, well, that’s just not Country Club.
Oh, wait. One of them does (or did) cheat at golf. However, that was a long time ago, he is now stationed overseas with the diplomatic corps, and somehow…I get the feeling that he of all of them has the clearest understanding of how gravely the American brand would be damaged by the Trump brand.
ETA: @catclub: yes. I must be officially an Old, because my dentist does, in fact, look like a teenager! (and a very cute teenager, at that, altho’ I don’t normally go for blonds, and besides he trips my gaydar. But he is both competent *and* easy on the eye).
lurker dean
nice.
Andy Richter @AndyRichter 4m4 minutes ago
8 yrs of not a single idea other than “stymie Obama” & @DouthatNYT blanches & fans himself at liberals’ frustration and impatience
gvg
@Shell: apparently it’s up to Congress, except it has to be the same day throughout the country.
Amir Khalid
@Shell:
Saturday would be a bad choice, I think, because then Jews who observe the Sabbath (like Ivanka and Jared Kushner) couldn’t vote.
NotMax
@Ceci n’est pas mon nym
Gray is the new black.
@shell
No, not an amendment. Article 2 grants Congress the responsibility to designate a national election day.
Saturday, however, would for all intents and purposes shut out strictly observant Jews.
Kay
@Amir Khalid:
The attacks on the NYTimes ignore CNN. They’re the worst this cycle, hand’s down.
I exclude FOX in my rankings because they’re a sewer where the employees are threatened daily, apparently, so I don’t think they should be grouped within “news” anymore. They are more like hostages.
Miss Bianca
@Amir Khalid: Besidea, I think people are forgetting that no matter what day it is, and whether it’s a holiday or not, someone’s going to have to be working. Hospitals, gas stations, grocery stores…they all have to stay open on holidays. What I’d like to see is mandated, paid break time for everyone on that day to go vote, if not an actual full-day holiday.
dr. luba
@RaflW: It’s been posted to Facebook, too, where it’s has 576K views so far.
artem1s
loved Nathan’s shoutout to immigrants! He is clearly dangerous; by his pretty floral bonnet he will end Trump, with votes!
dr. luba
@Miss Bianca: Or absentee voting for anyone who wants it. Not just old people…….most of whom have plenty of free time to get out and vote.
Enhanced Voting Techinques
@Feathers: Curious this comes after Trump’s infocomerial last Friday. Almost like CNN is angry Trump is using them for free advertsiment.
singfoom
@Miss Bianca: That’s true. Somebody is always going to be working. So the easy solution to that is to have a Federally Mandated Holiday and/or Weekend Voting. There’s a 501c3 organization that’s been working on this since 2005:
Why Tuesday?
Of course there are roughly 288 people in Washington D.C. (assuming all Senate and House Democrats would support it, which I don’t think is a given) that will absolutely resist this because they are paid to willfully misunderstand it. While it’s true that Democrats do better with larger turnout, at a certain level I think that Democratic incumbents would prefer to remain safe. YMMV, Cheers.
hovercraft
@germy shoemangler:
No, but since John Legend who produced it is a friend, I suspect he sent them a copy for a private screening at the White House.
Bruce K
By a stunning coincidence, while I was watching the “Save the Day” video, I got a ping from my phone notifying me that my absentee ballot is ready to be downloaded. I don’t know whether to print it out and send it off and be done with it, or make a ceremony out of casting my vote this time around.
Peale
@Kay: Yep. Look, I have no doubt that the news networks were going to have former campaign officials on. They hire them whenever they can and love having them on those we’ve-got-six-talking-heads-watch-us-make-em-squabble rooster fights they seem to enjoy. But hiring a Trump campaign manager for an exclusive seems utterly shamless. Pay him his $1,500 appearance fee and be done with him. CNN is awful.
JR in WV
@Amir Khalid:
So, Amir, you’re what we here call a spring chicken, that is, a very young fresh bird! I’ll be way older than that, as I turned 65 last winter. Which didn’t make me feel old.
Getting both shoulders replaced, and all the PT that goes with, now that made me feel old. And I’m not too sure about that knee, either!!! Hoping I get a little bit of travel in before that knee gives it up!
You take care, now, really! We need you here for your wit, and your encyclopedic knowledge of so many places and languages!
You young whippersnapper! And stay off my lawn !! [ Huge joke as I have no lawn AND you would be welcome on it had I one.]
Miss Bianca
o/t, but do all y’all realize how difficult it is to work when The Cutest Kitten in All The World is attacking you?
ETA: I know, I know…First World Problems… ; )
NotMax
@Miss Bianca
While a holiday is not necessarily a bad idea, it brings up questions of jurisdiction as the running of election is a state by state process (plus whether Congress has authority to set a national holiday which individual states must observe is a fuzzy area). Better might be pushing states to offer a full 24 hour period for voting, to accommodate as many voters as possible. That would involve some added expense but less than the costs of shutting down state and local government offices for a full-blown holiday.
hovercraft
@Amir Khalid:
Apparently his agreement/ contract said he would be paid for the duration of the campaign regardless of whether he was still on the campaign or not.
Patricia Kayden
@LAO: Love him! Also love Top Chef which is the cooking competition show he hosts along with Padma Lakshmi. He has had a few food-related specials on MSNBC as well.
geg6
I have no idea who Joss Whedon is, so no…I do not live in his world. And based on the comments here, I don’t want to. Superheros and Buffy. No, thank you very much.
But I will say that Michelle was freakin’ awesome on Colbert’s show last night. I just adore her and I have no idea why anyone would think she looked awful. She looked fabulous and sexy in that outfit. And the bit in the fort with Stephen was great.
JR in WV
@Miss Bianca:
All of you guys are missing the point on election day – it should NOT be A Day, it should be at least a week, with generous absentee rules that are inclusive. And maybe there should be a penalty if you miss an election altogether, like in Australia, which requires voting and has a 99+% participation rate.
Or would that (required voting) lead to too many voters ignorant of the issues and answers getting it all wrong? Because there are so many people who haven’t a clue about so many things out there.
ETA – fix stupid mistake
Amir Khalid
@hovercraft:
Yeah, but what about the payments over and above his salary? If he was staff, why pay him consultancy fees as well? If he was a consultant, why was he on a salary?
Miss Bianca
@NotMax: That would be an interesting solution to the problem. Plus, the absentee ballot on demand might help. Here in CO we’ve gone to full mail-in ballots for all elections – I mean, you can still drop in on Election Day, but you have a lot of time at your disposal to fill out your ballot.
I wonder how they handle these access/timing problems in countries where voting is mandatory. Plus, I’d love to see wingnut heads explode at the notion that we might do the same here, since so many reactionaries are so devoted to voter suppression.
ETA: @JR in WV: As I said…we in CO have a lot longer than some folks elsewhere to get our ballots in.
Kay
@Peale:
Morning Joe hosts met with Trump himself or Trump campaign people last week. Today they had “tough questions” for Clinton.
Please. This is clownish. There are no standards! They should stop pretending there are. I have no earthly idea how many conflicts these people have and neither does anyone else in the public.
Patricia Kayden
@Bruce K: I voted by mail in 2008 and then in person on 2012. Voting in person wasn’t as dramatic as I expected since there was no line up and I was over within 5 minutes. Was kind of fun though to go through that process.
I’m hearing a lot of panic from leftwing radio pundits. Where is Shomi when you need him/her? LOL.
singfoom
@JR in WV: I agree with you that the voting period should be greater than a day. I think a week is a bit generous and harder to implement, but I don’t think it would be that difficult to keep the final election day on the Tuesday that it is already on and have the polls open Saturday/Sunday/Monday/Tuesday with absentee / mail in voting options as well.
But as I said above, there’s at least 288 people in Congress who will fight any attempt to make voting easier with everything they have and that’s assuming all Democrats would support the measure. If we’re lucky enough to sweep the Senate and the House this year, it’s a possibility, but I won’t hold my breath. Incumbents like to be safe.
ETA: I don’t think required voting is a good thing. Now, incentivizing voting via a small tax deduction, fine, but mandatory voting seems the wrong way to go to me. People should be free to not vote if they don’t want to vote.
Roger Moore
@NotMax:
Not if the polls close well after sundown.
hovercraft
@Amir Khalid:
And Seventh Day Adventists, who also keep the ‘original’ Sabbath, Saturday. Depending on how devout they are many don’t watch TV or do anything non church related. My Mom and Sister spend virtually all of Saturday at church between the service itself and then the after lunch activities, they usually make it back home between 6 and 7 at night. Incidentally they have a distinctive ‘prepper’ vibe going on with them. There is a program called “Adventurers” which prepares Adventists from a age to live in the wild without modern conveniences. I find this strange because you would think they would all be raptured, no? Or is it that man will destroy the earth before Armageddon and they will have to rough it till the rapture. Makes no sense.
lamh36
Yup!
Marshawn Lynch speaks about Colin Kaepernick national anthem controversy – KOMO News: Yahoo TV (blog)Marshawn…
Matt McIrvin
@JR in WV: Early voting is an excellent thing. We’re doing it in my state for the first time this year, but a lot of municipalities are not making it very convenient.
Cacti
Former Congressman Wiener may soon be on his way to prison.
Was having a months-long sexting relationship with a 15-year old.
Cacti
Stuck in moderation hell. Help please.
hovercraft
@Amir Khalid:
Grifters gotta grift, it’s the Trump campaign, why would you expect anything they do to be regular?
NotMax
@JR in WV
Making not voting a crime rubs the wrong way, IMHO. As does instituting what is essentially a reverse poll tax.
germy shoemangler
@hovercraft:
I’d love to hear their reactions as they watched the film. I really enjoyed it, especially the speech he gives about the community center, and the glimpses of Michelle’s parents.
Now we’re looking forward to seeing “Hidden Figures” (it will be a great date night for us on our 28th wedding anniversary)
Larkspur
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: Including one of my favorites: The Missing Lenk! (Tom Lenk). That was a fun thing to watch. So smart. No I didn’t recognize everyone, but damn, it was good.
germy shoemangler
@Cacti:
Surrounded by unbaptized babies and people who ate ham sandwiches on Friday?
germy shoemangler
@JR in WV:
Exactly.
CaseyL
@JR in WV:
Yeah, and a lot of them already vote. Honestly, I don’t know if it’s overall better or worse to require that people vote. But I do know that if we make voting a requirements, we’d damn well also better make sure it’s possible for everyone to vote. No standing in line for hours because there aren’t enough working voting machines/booths; no needing to take time off work and risk losing pay – or losing the job for taking the time off!; and so on.
Washington state has all vote-by-mail. It’s the Best Thing Ever. I wish there was a way to nationalize vote-by-mail – though it relies heavily on the state being honest and honorable about how the ballots are mailed out, and processed when they’re mailed back in. I guess there are lots of ways to sabotage voting by mail if a state wants to…
JR in WV
I posted about this late yesterday, but want to talk about it again, because…
I went into town yesterday afternoon and phone banked for Hillary for the first time this election cycle, 2016.
We did quite a bit or phoning for a senatorial race in 2012, and it wasn’t so much fun, many people were hostile in odd ways. “God said in the Bible that “Thou shalt not put a woman above a Man!” so I can’t vote in this race!” was odd but not hostile, I won’t quote any of the hostility.
But yesterday afternoon I was alone in the room, mostly, working from a print out of Dems, going down a sheet that had names, ages, addresses, etc. Many were not home, not available, went instantly to voice mail (which was usually full), which is normal at 3 or 4.
But every single person who answered the phone told me, no need to call, they were already decided to support Clinton this year’s election!~! “We’re all going to vote for Clinton this year, my kids, my BIL…” usually a long list of all the friends and relatives.
Many had already volunteered, or wanted the address and phone number for the office in order to volunteer, which was so encouraging.
And so many of the women were so happy about their choice! Being able to vote not just for a woman for president, but a woman who is obviously the most competent candidate in the current race. I had a great run, batting a thousand if I were an MLB oriented person! Not what I expected.
Get out and work for Hillary this election, even if it’s only a couple of hours at a time!! You will be glad you did!
Matt McIrvin
@singfoom: Early-voting stations with longer periods than that already exist in many states. The period should include some late evenings and at least one entire weekend, to accommodate both work and religious obstructions–you ought to be able to find somebody who can work the site for both days.
Cacti
@germy shoemangler:
No, something must have been buggy about a link I posted. ;-)
The story was, Anthony Weiner had been sexting for months with a 15 year old girl. He’s in some serious trouble.
Brachiator
@Ceci n’est pas mon nym:
Well, you can watch the Ron Howard documentary, “Eight Days a Week: The Touring Years” and see McCartney in his young Beatles glory.
Gelfling 545
@Kay: CNN is always like that. A couple, three years back they were covering a story of parts of my area got up to 7 feet of snow. It was pretty bad in some of the hard hit areas but CNN – I was stuck in a hotel in Albany at the time so couldn’t get back that day- covered it like it was an apocalypse. Switching to local stations gave a better picture of what was really going on. When stuck in a place where I can’t avoid CNN I have noticed that their people have mastered the significant pause and the selective emphasis of certain words or phrases more appropriate to actors than reporters/news readers.
rikyrah
Quick Takes: The Suit and Tie Version of White Supremacists
by Nancy LeTourneau
September 20, 2016 5:17 PM
* Some of the members of the alt-right have been described as the “suit and tie version of the white supremacists of old.” I’m ready to call it – Donald Trump, Jr. seems to be part of that deplorable group. We know that he recently loved the idea of being cast with the white supremacists meme about Pepe the Frog. We also know that he has a persistent habit of re-tweeting white supremacists and was interviewed on the radio show of one of them. Finally, in a period of less that 24 hours, here are two things he tweeted:
This image says it all. Let’s end the politically correct agenda that doesn’t put America first. #trump2016
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) September 19, 2016
Europe’s Rape Epidemic: Western Women Will Be Sacrificed At The Altar Of Mass Migration via @BreitbartNews
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) September 20, 2016
To get the significance of that first one, I suggest reading this article by Naomi LaChance. The second one sounds just like something Dylan Roof would say and harkens back to the pointy-hooded guys who starred in the original 1915 version of “The Birth of a Nation.”
Brachiator
@lamh36:
There are people who still think it’s a controversy??
eclare
Where I live we have early voting for 2 weeks, 6 days a week. I forget the hours on Saturday, but during the week it’s 10-7. I always early vote.
Shell
Theres always ‘A Hard Days Night.’
JR in WV
@NotMax:
Well, we can agree to agree, maybe. I’m not demanding it, just trying to discuss it.
And if a Poll Tax is a bad thing, which of course it is, maybe a Reverse Poll Tax would be a good thing? Maybe $20 off your IRS bill if you vote?
I like voting in person on election day; I get to meet neighborhood folks I only see as poll workers twice every two years.
In 2012 we had to wait in line in the Middle school gym, and people sat on the bottom row of bleacher seats and chatted until a voting station opened up for them. We scooted along as new people needed seats or people at the head of the line got up to vote.
Early voting here starts October 26th, almost two weeks early. I’ll probably vote early for the first time, and volunteer to work somewhere, maybe up in Ohio, driving people to vote or something. I’ll talk to people with the campaign about it and see how it works.
I’ve never done anything but contribute and vote before!
PaulWartenberg2016
that tearful blonde was the waitress that flirted with Cap in the first Avengers movie.
Oh, and I think I saw Lou Ferrigno.
Betsy
@Bruce K: Send it and be done with it. You never know what might happen to mess up your day on Election Day — and more than that, youu’ll free up space, lines, and personnel resources on Election Day so that the voters can vote without delays, lines, and other problems (that disproportionately affect certain voters, such as the transportation-challenged, lower-income workers, the young, and minorities).
LAO
LMAO — Cole’s tweet on Elizabeth Warren made it on to Buzzfeed!. He’s really made it now. lol.
Botsplainer
So there was an interesting article at the Intercept which did a pretty decent job of drawing comparisons between the skittles meme and persistent hate speech promulgated by Julius Streicher (whose neck got stretched at Nuremburg). Judging by the comment section, the place is infested with alt-right readers now. They’ve gone so far left they’re now on the right.
It’s really ugly. Greenwald has really dug a cesspool this time. Whoever has been saying they’re anticipating that he goes full fascist is correct.
rikyrah
How’s That Pivot Going?
by Nancy LeTourneau
September 20, 2016 4:28 PM
If Patrick Murray (Director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute) is correct, all of Kellyanne Conway’s work to construct an alternative Donald Trump that would appeal to white suburban women has gone for naught.
head of @MonmouthPoll on CNN: birther hurt Trump badly, esp among suburban college-educated women.
— Eric Boehlert (@EricBoehlert) September 20, 2016
So much for the great Trump pivot, huh? I’m sure they’ll keep at it and we’ll see him bouncing back and forth between being wrong and downright deplorable over the next couple of months.
Elizabelle
I would like to see voting by mail, lots of early voting for at least a month, and a rolling Election “Day” that stretches from Saturday morning to Tuesday night close of polls. Does not have to be every polling location: could be a few central locations in a county, which are accessible by public transportation (where available) and the individual precincts are open Tuesday. Make it as easy to cast a vote as possible.
And no poll results released after the previous Wednesday. Stop the jackals from doing their horse race crap. It would be lovely to have no more political advertising once “Election Day” arrives too. They’ve had months upon months to smear their opponents.
I would like to see a Presidential Commission on shortening and tightening our federal elections. Stop the permanent campaign, and make the candidates disclose.
It would seem there should be federal standards and federal oversight for federal elections (Congress, Senate, President). [I’d like to see the off year elections conducted the same time as federal; less costly and the reason for holding them off-year is purely to reduce the voting participation.]
There’s a permanent campaign horserace industry, and it’s got to stop. It’s profiting that industry at the cost of demoralizing and cynicizing our democracy.
Other nations don’t conduct their elections like this. We shouldn’t either. It’s madness. It tunes voters out.
Botsplainer
@Botsplainer:
Linky to the rank assholism at Greenwald’s shop…
PaulWartenberg2016
ways to fix voting:
open precincts. we shouldn’t be forced to travel miles to get to a poll to vote just because we have to do it within a spot on the map. the Early voting places have ways of printing out the exact ballot you need for where you live, so any location within your county – between your home and your workplace – ought to be able to print it out and scan / input it in for you.
same-day registration. we have never had any serious voter fraud involving people signing up at the precinct and then voting, and then trying to sneak off somewhere to vote again. so why can’t we do this?
moving election days to weekends. no-brainer.
if a state wants to require photo ID, fine. MAKE THE PHOTO IDS FREE OF CHARGE.
Switch from district mapping (which induces gerrymandering abuse and fostering of low turnouts) to proportional seating for Congressional House and State-level legislative elections. With that, every vote literally does matter, encouraging turnout (and encouraging parties to veer back to more moderate, broad-appeal candidates).
Psych evaluations for party officials. Anyone showing up with a narcissistic / sociopathic personality gets lined up against the wall, muthaf-ckers.
Bruce K
I probably should have clarified about my absentee ballot: I’m in Greece, a true absentee, so I’ll be seven time zones from the nearest polling place. I was just wondering whether I should do something silly like break out a fountain pen for the occasion.
I’ll fill it out and be done with it, I suppose. It’s too bad I’m not in a position to volunteer here; I remember working for Kerry, being scared of what would happen if GWB was re-elected, and despairing when the results came in.
Cripes, I was naive back then.
Ceci n'est pas mon nym
@Brachiator: On the flip side flip side of seeing the aging versions of celebrities you saw when young (“flip side,” there’s an Old reference) is discovering the young version of someone you only know as old. On that subject I recommend the 1939 “Of Mice and Men” with a young Burgess Meredith. Lon Chaney Jr as Lenny, a chance to show his dramatic chops. A production I like for lots of reasons.
On the subject of dentists looking like teenagers: I complained a week or two back about my iPhone 6 having no GPS and poor WiFi. I went to the Apple Store and the guy at the Genius Bar was approximately 12 I estimate. But in fact smart and knowledgeable. He spotted a subtle bend in the frame of the phone indicating that I’d probably stressed it by carrying it in my pocket and likely did just enough damage to chipset that handles WiFi and GPS to cause my symptoms. Got me a new one under warranty. Almost made me forgive Apple the 3 hour wait.
I take back most of what I said about the iPhone. WiFi still sees noticeably less signal than other devices around me but works pretty well, and GPS is working flawlessly. And the Genius bar actually can offer advice beyond how to reboot. I am not a crank or a paid shill for Apple.
NotMax
@JR in WV
You bring up a point that has always sort of bothered me about statewide mail-in voting, that it moves people a step away from participating in a group exercise in and of democracy and experiencing the process of “we the people.”
hitchhiker
@germy shoemangler:
That made me laugh. My 8-yr-old self once tried to keep the communion wafer from dissolving on my tongue because i’d sneaked a piece of Easter candy on the way out the door to church. Three hours! You’re gonna really annoy God if you don’t fast for three whole hours before you take Jesus into your mouth!
PaulWartenberg2016
@rikyrah:
I’d like to see more accurate polling on this, as well as genuine evidence that Trump is sliding into the low 30s where he belongs.
There is no sane way he should be anywhere near 40 percent, and yet he is.
Damn our partisan political nature. there are too many actual decent Republicans forced by fate to support this bastard, and they can’t shake the decades of emotional conditioning that have hardwired them to back all Republicans / hate all Democrats.
Betsy
@singfoom: not only *should* they be free to not vote, but under our Constitution, they *are* free to not vote.
There would be serious Constitutional problems with mandatory voting. It would violate the First Amendment six ways from Sunday, and other provisions/amendments as well.
rikyrah
Pearl-Clutching Conservatives Like Trump More When He’s Winning
by John Stoehr
September 21, 2016 12:36 PM
Over the preceding months, we have seen the rise of what I’ll call the pearl-clutching conservative.
This is a high-minded man or woman predisposed to the theory and practice of limited government who has declared one way or another that it would be unthinkable to support a cad like businessman Donald Trump. He is too offensive, too crude, too bigoted, they said, to be the standard bearer of a principled Republican Party. But mostly, they thought he’d lose.
Donald Trump has now united his base and narrowed the polling gap against Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton. His success has illustrated what Clinton herself has long expected — that the election is going to be close. Those same pearl-clutching conservatives are now demonstrating that conservative philosophy, nice as it is, is now secondary to their interest in party and power.
Case in point is Tucker Carlson. To my amazement, and the amazement of many, he manages to be taken seriously by Washington media, even the “liberal” National Public Radio, as the editor in chief of the laughable “news” site, the Daily Caller. As such, he on NPR Monday, where he was asked about the role of “birtherism” among Trump’s supporters. He, like other “conservatives,” trivialized its significance.
“He owns [birtherism], for sure, whatever its origins,” Carlson told NPR. “I mean, he gave press conferences about it. But, I mean, he’s clearly ridden immigration and trade to the position he’s in now. I think his bringing this up again was a godsend for the Hillary people.”
PaulWartenberg2016
@Ceci n’est pas mon nym:
I love my Samsung – aside from the blowing up and stuff – so don’t you go taunting me with this Apple brainwashing.
Botsplainer
@hitchhiker:
Back when I still did confession (up to about 10 years ago), I made a conscious calculation to hold things back. So silly, what we tell ourselves.
Shell
Those tweets supposedly from Trump today about those police shootings certainly didn’t sound like Trump.
scav
@NotMax: Can’t close certain services for a holiday anyway: Hospitals gotta Hospice (and similar), Carers gotta care, letting all the kids out of school introduces different problems — other solutions needed in addition to freeing up the work responsibilities.
Kenneth Kohl
@hovercraft: I respectfully disagree. I think the “promise” was she’d kick his ass if he didn’t get through the photo shoot as she wanted.
My wife is Celtic, so I’m just goin’ on past experience.. ;)
Joyce H
@RaflW:
I recognized a few of them. One of the guys is apparently a famous comedian, but I only know him as the fellow who’s going to Jordan and Chelsea’s wedding. “Rooooad Trip!”
Elizabelle
@JR in WV: Proud of you on the phonebanking! Could get to be habit-forming.
Plus, it ameliorates the worried negativity here.
And good on the early voting too. Ohio needs you, maybe for door knocking the weekend before too, and who knows what the weather will bring.
bobbo
@NotMax:
Make it a national holiday.
JR in WV
@Betsy:
Not so, because just because you have to show up and enter a voting booth doesn’t force you to actually vote. You can cast a ballot with only a meaningless vote for county surveyor (which here is an un-paid position with no duties or requirements).
Or no votes at all, which kind of defeats the purpose, but at least you showed up.
Brachiator
@Ceci n’est pas mon nym:
I ran across a recent link to The Presidents of the United States: When They Were Young and Hunky which was pretty funny.
I think the movie “Glory” depicted Frederick Douglass as being older than he actually was so that viewers would more easily recognize the character.
sukabi
@SenyorDave: the problem with that is I think it was Jeff Zucker that was responsible for his hiring…and he’s standing by that decision
Shana
@Amir Khalid: That’s what absentee voting is for (Saturdays for observant jews). I think you’d get way more people who can’t miss hours of work on a Tuesday than you’d lose otherwise.
Shana
@Bruce K: in re: absentee ballots. Please check your state’s rules. Something I just learned about for Virginia this past week is that if you’ve requested an absentee ballot and it’s been delivered to you but you decide to vote in person, you need to bring in your UNOPENED absentee ballot in order to vote in person.
Brachiator
@Shell:
The rule used to be that if the tweet came from an Android phone, it was really Trump. If it came from another device, it was from one of his strategists.
Betsy
@JR in WV: No, there are still plenty of Constitutional limitations that would prevent the governments (federal or state) from forcing people to go through the motions, or penalizing them for not doing so. Some of them are explicit (freedom of association, limitations on the police power), some of them are implicit (unenumerated rights and penumbral stuff), and some are jurisprudential (for example, procedural and substantive due porcess protections).
J.
THANK YOU for posting those two awesome videos! This post made my day. :-)
Gravenstone
@Ceci n’est pas mon nym: Haven’t hit the “older than the President” yet (hes about 18 months older). But I had my first brush with feeling old at a ridiculously young age in college. Playboy Playmate of the year (Penny Baker) was younger than my little sister. That one shocked me a bit.
Miss Bianca
@Brachiator: I posted that one here a few days back, but I think it’s been making the rounds…
TR is still my man, but I was actually shocked at how hunky young Richard Nixon was…(shudder – part of me can’t believe I’m saying that).
Brachiator
@Miss Bianca:
Yes! I happily give you full credit.
I can see what you mean about Nixon, though young Andrew Jackson looks like a man who would kill someone for his woman.
redshirt
Joss Whedon is my master now.