Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

This really is a full service blog.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

The willow is too close to the house.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

Infrastructure week. at last.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

The revolution will be supervised.

White supremacy is terrorism.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

American History and Black History Cannot Be Separated

You are here: Home / Past Elections / Election 2016 / Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Inch by Inch, State by State

Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Inch by Inch, State by State

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Apart from running the numbers, what’s on the agenda for the day?
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Reader Interactions

182Comments

  1. 1.

    Splitting Image

    “Inch by inch, state by state,
    I’m gonna make this country great.”

    Oops. Wrong campaign. Carry on.

  5. 5.

    Mustang Bobby

    I’ve been submitting plays — both full-length and short pieces — to a variety of theatres all over the country, including a conference in Valdez, Alaska, next summer. If they choose me, I have to go. Chances are I’d be the farthest-traveled entrant — Miami is about as far as you can get from there and still be in the U.S. Airfares are stupidly high, but I think I have enough miles to make the trip. Anybody here ever been there?

  6. 6.

    Schlemazel

    @MattF:
    I was never a stooges fan so my opinion probably does not count but that bit always puzzled me. Why is that funny? Rhetorical question, as I said, they were not my favorite as a kid.

    OTOH, has everyone forgotten ’08 and ’12? Some people were panicking then when the forces of evil appeared to be closing in on our champion. But when the time came the majority of voters were smart enough to figure it out (and the ground game helped a lot). Be calm, ignore the polls & volunteer!

  8. 8.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Mustang Bobby: I took a tour of Price William Sound twice on business trips to Anchorage that went through Vadez. It’s a nice small town. Trivia, they had to move the town after the 1964 earthquake.

  10. 10.

    OzarkHillbilly

    “That’s it, man. Game over, man. Game over! What the fuck are we gonna do now? What are we gonna do?”

    Oh wait a minute, that was Bailey a few days ago. Today it’s Shomi’s turn to show up and tell everyone what a bunch of pants wetters everyone is. Sorry ’bout that. I get so confused.

  12. 12.

    geg6

    @Mustang Bobby:

    Never been to Valdez but Alaska is breathtakingly beautiful. The ex and I visited his brother who lived in Eagle River, not far from Anchorage, and we were just blown away by the place.

  13. 13.

    Ceci n'est pas mon nym

    @rikyrah: I’m a stats geek and it’s puzzling me, to the point that I might write Silver and ask him to show the math. I would like an explanation for how, IF THE STATES ARE TREATED AS INDEPENDENT (which of course they aren’t), Trump wins 90% of the time that he wins, for instance, Wisconsin but no other state is changed.

    What I suspect is that he’s not varying the state outcomes independently, but that he’s got some underlying “swing” variables that cause the states to fluctuate in blocks. So in 90% of the scenarios where Armageddon occurs, the US goes Mad Max, Cthulhu rises and Wisconsin goes for Trump, he also wins 270+ electoral votes elsewhere. But I’d like to see the analysis.

    @Schlemazel:

    Why is that funny?

    I suspect that particular bit goes back to Vaudeville. The only place I saw it was on an old “Lucy”, and my young daughter was rolling on the floor laughing, so something about it hits little-kid humor. But I’m going to vote with those who say it’s funny. I dunno why. As Mel Brooks was once quoted as saying when trying to explain a joke, “funny is funny”. And no joke is funny to everybody.

    A lot of it is the physical humor of the performers I think.

  14. 14.

    Immanentize

    Hello, All. I am off to Denver this afternoon for a conference. I hope the weather will be crisp. But It looks like cool nights and muggy days

  15. 15.

    Schlemazel

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    What is weird is that I actually liked the recent movie that everyone hated. The jokes were actually funny & the personal injury stuff was less evident.

    Never claimed not to be an oddball

  17. 17.

    Ceci n'est pas mon nym

    Not to inject a note of sadness, but my sister is dealing with the bizarre loss of a pet this week. Their beloved year-old pup, not a small dog, was romping in the park near their house, leaped into a canal and… was eaten by a gator (this being South Florida). Yes there are lots of questions which I am not going to ask like… wait you have alligators that big ON YOUR BLOCK? Was the dog supposed to be loose in that park? (I suspect not, so add guilt to the mix).

    Having a pet be eaten is something I know I’d have a hard time getting through, let alone witnessing. But I know that BJers have dealt with it. I’ve heard a number of you mention coyotes before. I never even got a chance to meet this dog and I can’t let this go, I can’t imagine what their family is dealing with.

  19. 19.

    eclare

    @Mustang Bobby: Been there once, spent most of the time on the Kenai peninsula, looking at glaciers, taking boat trips to see animals. We did go up to Denali NP, where we saw tons of bears, but I preferred the landscape of the Kenai area. Plus it is very rare to actually see Denali in the summer, which was disappointing.

  20. 20.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    @rikyrah: Because it’s not actually clear just from the chart what it’s supposed to be.

    I think it’s the data from Silver’s What to expect from the Electoral College presented a little differently. If Clinton wins Florida, 94% of the time she wins it all, and 6% of the time she loses anyway.

    I haven’t been following Silver much this year, so I have no idea if he’s discussed the model underlying the Electoral College simulations. I have been enjoying playing with his states flipper, though. That’s a cool toy.

  22. 22.

    Mustang Bobby

    @Ceci n’est pas mon nym: I’ve heard of that happening down here, and when I moved back 15 years ago I had a waking nightmare that it would happen to my Sam. (He died of cancer, actually.) But I know what you’re feeling. I live on a canal that’s part of the South Florida Water Management District and I tell people that just because you see ducks and waterfowl swimming in it doesn’t mean there aren’t gators. I tell them to keep their dogs on a leash at all times.

  23. 23.

    Ceci n'est pas mon nym

    @Mustang Bobby: Just to clarify, my sister is in Florida. I’m in PA where we have seasons, and don’t have gators or (mostly) hurricanes. And happy to be here. I have never in my life had any desire to live down there.

    So I’m hearing this whole story via e-mail.

    My last visit down there we were visiting a bird refuge that also had gators, but they were “small” ones and everyone kept telling me they were no danger at all. Except to my sister’s chihuahua, who I was walking and who every single person who passed me warned me to keep him away from the water.

  24. 24.

    RK

    Was reading about the impact of debates and came across this in the WaPo from 2012:

    Several studies suggest that a candidate’s appearance during the debates could have a big impact. MIT’s Gabriel Lenz and Chappell Lawson have found that attractive candidates disproportionately benefit from debates, with new support coming especially from less informed voters. The College of Wooster’s Angela Bos, Bas van Doorn and Abbey Smanik found that HDTV hurt John McCain in 2008, with viewers reacting negatively to his appearance on higher-resolution screens.

  26. 26.

    Schlemazel

    @Ceci n’est pas mon nym:
    I always worried about the kids running around the neighborhood when we lived in FLA. Canals everywhere & the water was always black. Yes, there were gators. Sad way to lose the little guy.

    An 80 YO woman got eaten while we were down there. She had fallen asleep near a pond. The damn things are dangerous & we just don’t think of that.

  27. 27.

    SenyorDave

    I looked at the NYT website, and I don’t see anything about the $258k theft by Trump from his charity. WTF?

  32. 32.

    Immanentize

    @rikyrah: the chart is a little different than what Railgun suggests. It really shows the path or must win states for each candidate. Look at Florida – if Clinton wins Florida, she has a 94% chance of winning the election. But even if she loses Florida, she still has a 28% chance to win it all. But if Trump loses Florida, he only has a 6% chance to win the election. Meanwhile, Trump’s path seems to be through the rust belt like Pennsylvania and Michigan (which he really won’t win).

  35. 35.

    Kay

    @SenyorDave:

    It doesn’t matter though- it was a direct hit, that story. Trumpsters are freaking out and attacking the reporter

    They have to get the tax returns. If this is the “charitable foundation” the taxes are a goldmine.

    There have to be property transfer records for Trump, Inc. if he bought or sold real estate. There’s a lot of info in those if you know what to look for. Also, what about the bankruptcy filings? Where are those? How many times has he filed bankruptcy? There must be thousands of pages.

    He hasn’t released anything but property transfer and bankruptcy should leave a trail.

  37. 37.

    Ceci n'est pas mon nym

    @Mustang Bobby: OK, I feel marginally less guilty for not responding to your opening sentence when I first responded to your comment. But only marginally. It’s always hard.

    Schlemazel’s comment about an 80-year-old woman made me google for fatal alligator attacks. Found a Wikipedia article which lists some, but doesn’t mention that particular incident. It does contain this Darwin-award candidate:

    Warning signs had been posted after the alligator had been spotted in the water, but Woodward ignored the signs and his friends’ pleas not to swim; he reportedly taunted the alligator before jumping in.

  42. 42.

    SenyorDave

    @Kay: I agree on the tax returns. As a matter of fact, I think you put it very well, if this is his charity, what do we think is in the taxes.
    This should be the focus of many campaign ads. I could see an ad that basically says Donald Trump used his own charity to pay his bills. Let’ see the taxes, Donals

  45. 45.

    Betty Cracker

    @Ceci n’est pas mon nym: I’ve lived in Florida all my life, and losing a pet that way has always been a nightmare scenario for me, so I keep a tight leash on my dogs around fresh water. I’ve known people whose dogs have been taken by a gator but have fortunately never witnessed such a horror. I’m so sorry for your sister. It would be a difficult thing to get past, and as you say, there’s guilt involved.

    Down here, you just have to assume alligators are everywhere because they are, but it’s easy to let your guard down in the moment — even for us natives. I once went to retrieve an errant drive from the edge of a pond on a golf course and found myself looking at a broad snout as I was reaching for my golf ball. That kind of thing happens a lot. I was furious at myself for forgetting, as I backed the hell away. But gators rarely attack humans.

    Sometimes I think we should start making brief cases and shoes out of the bastards again, but they belong here as much as we do.

  46. 46.

    Mustang Bobby

    @Betty Cracker: There used to be a golf course down in what is now the middle of Pinecrest, and I played there a couple of times when I was in college. They had gator warning signs along the canals. I thought it was funny, but not any more.

  47. 47.

    Betty Cracker

    @Mustang Bobby: If it’s cooked right, it’s delish. If not, it’s like eating pencil erasers. My stepmom makes the best gator nuggets! My dad hunts them whenever he can, so she often has a freezer full.

  48. 48.

    BobbyThomson

    @Ceci n’est pas mon nym: 538 is not at all transparent about their models, but I think what they do is assume several different levels of turnout of different demographics nationwide, so in the scenarios where Trump wins Wisconsin he’s also winning other states that aren’t as demographically favorable.

  49. 49.

    Betty Cracker

    @Mustang Bobby: I went to UF, and there’s a pond on campus with BIG gators in it (at least there were back then — mid-80s). You’d see them sunning themselves along the banks, with jogging paths and picnic areas nearby. I always thought it was a tragedy waiting to happen — it’s hard to believe some stupid frat boy hasn’t gotten himself killed trying to swim across the pond. But as far as I know, no one has ever been injured by a gator of the reptile variety at UF.

  50. 50.

    greennotGreen

    @Mustang Bobby: I’ve had it in New Orleans. Tastes like chicken.

    When I would visit my parents in central Florida I would always keep my small dog on a leash when we were near water. Even so, at one point when we were strolling in a park I realized we had walked within about eight feet of a gator.

    Here our most worrisome predators are coyotes and raccoons. Because I would one day like to have some livestock I’ve spent a considerable amount of time investigating livestock guardian animals. All dreams as long as cancer hangs over my head (or abdomen, more precisely.)

  51. 51.

    Kay

    @SenyorDave:

    The only way to vet Trump is when he brushes up against a mandatory filing or regulation.

    There have to be more than tax returns and the charitable foundation though. Media could hire someone who knows what to look for in the bankruptcies- a former bankruptcy trustee would be a good choice. They call hinky patterns in bankruptcy filings “badges of fraud”- they’re recognizable by people who see a lot of them. You would have to look at all the filings in sequence – cross check one with the next and see if they’re consistent. You’d need an expert.

    They could do the same with property transfers. He has to record those. He has no choice.

    You could also roll in his testimony in the various lawsuits. He’s both testified in court and he’s been deposed. See if there’s consistency between what he said in the lawsuits and what he filed.

    I just don’t believe there’s no way to investigate this person unless he voluntarily releases his tax returns. The Washington Post investigated Obama’s home mortgage in ’08. They got the information that “raised questions” from property records.

  53. 53.

    Jeffro

    Morning everyone!

    SO…had my mom over for dinner last night (this is my ‘religious-right-but-detests-and-will-not-vote-for-Trump-under-any-circumstances’ mom). Good time but she was awfully quiet. I had to get to my daughter’s school’s open house night, but my mom stayed and chatted with Mrs. Jeffro for a bit.

    Turns out Mom was at bible study earlier in the day, and – by accident or design – the study group got to talking about how under President Clinton, churches would be getting taxed out of existence. So of course Mom is now conflicted.

    I’m not going to push too hard on this w/ her. All I mentioned via email was that certain stuff gets trotted out every election to scare people, and that she should vote based on people’s actual deeds/record. (Trump’s paying his legal bills with charity money certainly is a timely story there – THANK YOU David Fahrenthold!) So we’ll see.

    In the meantime, I couldn’t think of a better reason to renew my antipathy towards the churches and church leaders that manage to forget Jesus’ actual teachings every election.

  54. 54.

    Kay

    Listening to Warren on Wells Fargo it occurred to me that millions of people have their entire retirement savings in stock plans.

    Gosh, I hope there aren’t a lot of companies out there that increased the value of their stock by robbing people. We MAY not have a reliable measure of what this shit is worth :)

  55. 55.

    eclare

    @Jeffro: Trump has been saying he would repeal the Johnson Amendment that prevents entities that have a 501(c)(3) exemption from political speech. Clinton just wants to maintain the status quo. But yeah, I’m sure that got spun into Clinton wanting to tax all churches out of existence. Good luck!

  56. 56.

    satby

    Good morning! So, speaking of injured dogs, my big idiot who slammed his head into a metal file cabinet during the dogfight had oral surgery on Monday and fortunately had only dislodged one large canine tooth without breaking off the root in his jaw. His jaw wasn’t broken, what I thought was bone was the base of the tooth sticking out. He’s doing well in his cone of shame, and the older dogs are now separated from the younger ones permanently again.
    Last week was a terrible week between that and the sewer line backing up, but things are coming along.
    Being back at work on top of all that and a move is kicking my butt, however.

  57. 57.

    Kay

    @Jeffro:

    I’m in a book club with (mostly) Republican women. 6 of the 8 Republicans hate Trump. The exceptions are the religious conservative and the woman who doesn’t read any news “because it’s depressing”.

  58. 58.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Scientists continue to skew the weather data:

    The U.S. as a nation set a record for the hottest nighttime temperatures on average this summer, Arndt said. Tallahassee, Fla. for example, went 74 consecutive days where the nighttime temperature didn’t dip below 72. From May 1 to Sept. 12, nearly 15,000 daily records for warmest nighttime lows were set in the United States, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data.

    “This is one of the clearest signals we expect for climate change,” said Mark Bove, a New Jersey-based senior research meteorologist for reinsurance giant Munich RE, which tracks natural disasters. “It keeps a blanket on you particularly at night. We cannot radiate the heat away at night as the planet used to.”

    …

    Climate scientists say what’s happened pretty much fits with what they’ve been saying would occur as the world warms. For most of the extreme events, they haven’t done the precise and detailed studies that can show that man-made climate change is to blame for certain extreme weather events. But they did do that for the Louisiana flooding, which NOAA said had its chances boosted by 40 percent because of heat-trapping gasses.

    NASA chief climate scientist Gavin Schmidt said that the records kept showing the planet warming and that “since we kind of predicted these things, we know what we’re talking about.”

    Perhaps the most noticeable case of this being predicted was in a 1988 study by James Hansen, Schmidt’s predecessor as head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. In that study, using what scientists now call a crude computer model, Hansen forecast what was likely to happen to Earth’s climate. With one of his scenarios, Hansen not only got the global temperature rise about right, he forecast big changes in the number of days when the overnight temperatures would not go below 75 and the daytime highs would exceed 95 in four cities by the 2010s. He was right — or underestimated how hot it would be — in six of eight categories.

    “The fact it’s come out with more or less around what was predicted is not surprising,” Hansen said. “The summer is when things show up easiest because the natural variability is the least in the summer. You notice the change more readily in the warm season.”

    Republicans have responded by prohibiting NOAA from collecting this data and have stripped funding for any research into climate change.**

    **sarcasm- they haven’t done that yet.

  61. 61.

    Botsplainer

    @Kay:

    Wife has a portfolio still (it is pretty healthy compared to what happened to it from 2007-2008, but we are gun shy on pulling it out at the moment due to its diversification), but I walked out of the casino years ago and will never return. My whole retirement plan is to eliminate debt, buy capital items for children, to live my resources and remain liquid. Her excess is now going into money market funds. Of course, we’ve got the luxury of doing this – I have no siblings while my folks have a really nice paid for home and an extensive antique, and wife’s father is very well off due to an inherited land transaction in western Connecticut in the early ’00s (that and he’s a triple dipper in retirement – he has more money coming in via retirement than he ever made either in the military or working).

  62. 62.

    Kay

    CNN asks: “does bombing suspect deserve due process?”

    They all have to quit and go back to 7th grade. Just start over. Start at the beginning and see if you get it this time.

    They’re making this too complicated :) These things have been decided. Not up for debate, no matter how many GOP operatives call them.

    They could use index cards. “Due process? Yes. Move on.”

  63. 63.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:
    The taxes will show :
    1. He is not as rich as he says he is
    2. That he has done every scam possible, and does not pay ANY taxes
    3. Just how deep he is in hockey to foreign entities hostile to the United States.

  65. 65.

    Botsplainer

    Wife has a portfolio still (it is pretty healthy compared to what happened to it from 2007-2008, but we are gun shy on pulling it out at the moment due to its diversification), but I walked out of the cas!no years ago and will never return. My whole retirement plan is to eliminate debt, buy capital items for children, to live my resources and remain liquid. Her excess is now going into money market funds. Of course, we’ve got the luxury of doing this – I have no siblings while my folks have a really nice paid for home and an extensive antique collection and wife’s father is very well off due to an inherited land transaction in western Connecticut in the early ’00s (that and he’s a triple dipper in retirement – he has more money coming in via retirement than he ever made either in the military or working).

  69. 69.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Jeffro:

    churches would be getting taxed out of existence.

    Damn, we need to get on the ball and do that with a number of entities, starting with the NRA.

  70. 70.

    debbie

    @Kay:

    Gosh, I hope there aren’t a lot of companies out there that increased the value of their stock by robbing people.

    Golly, I sure hope they learned their lesson from the Great Recession.

  71. 71.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:
    I am still thinking about that story. They faked accounts. Used MONEY FROM REAL CUSTOMERS. Threw those customers accounts into chaos. Charged them millions in overdraft fees. The entire scam infuriates. ???

    And this was all found out by the agency that the GOP would dismantle in a heartbeat.

  72. 72.

    Elizabelle

    @Jeffro: That’s interesting to me. The church group couldn’t make a case that Donald Trump cares about the poor, or would do anything for them — they’re just marks and losers to him — so they raise the specter of taxing churches out of existence.

    Because they can’t have your mom look honestly at Hillary’s record of caring for children and communities and families. It takes a village. Hillary’s got an op ed in the NY Times today: My Plan for Helping America’s Poor

    Hillary takes a good whack at Trump at the end, and it’s true:

    Donald J. Trump has a different approach. He divides America into winners and losers. And he doesn’t seem to spend much time worrying about people in poverty. In fact, his economic plans would overwhelmingly benefit the wealthiest Americans, and would include an estimated $4 billion tax cut for his own family just by eliminating the estate tax. He has actually said that wages are too high. One independent economic analysis revealed that with Mr. Trump’s proposals in place, our economy would fall back into recession and inevitably push more families into poverty.

    This November, the American people will have to choose between an economy that works for everyone and an economy that benefits the well off at the expense of everyone else. The choice couldn’t be clearer.

  74. 74.

    Kay

    @rikyrah:

    I’m worried about the focus on the taxes. I wonder if the focus on the taxes has caused them NOT to look at other sources of information on Trump.

    He’s 70. He’s done thousands of transactions that involve mandatory government documentation. It can’t just be taxes or nothing.

    It worries me because we just saw it happen. They focused on the emails for 18 months and no one did anything else. What they DON’T do is as or more important than what they DO. The mistake will be an omission, a failure to look rather than a failure to find, because it almost always is.

  76. 76.

    eclare

    @debbie: Looking forward to his show after the debate. Also, Samantha Bee’s show next week has been moved to Wednesday, so that should be good.

  78. 78.

    Betty Cracker

    @rikyrah: I think Democrats should just assume that is the case and talk about it as if it were a proven fact, and some, including Harry Reid, are doing just that. Put the onus on Trump to disprove it. He doesn’t get the presumption of fair conduct, not with his record of running scams and refusal to supply the documents every president for the last several decades has.

  79. 79.

    Botsplainer

    @Kay:

    I’ve long been of the opinion that favorable gains treatment in the tax code has led to huge structural deficiencies.

    If I were given tax czar status, I’d give the favorable treatment to dividends issued due to domestic production – a big set of favorables. Make gains on the sale of stock held under 5 years, it gets taxed at ordinary rates unless it is sold to finance an education for taxpayers earning under $250,000 per household.

  80. 80.

    Mustang Bobby

    @Kay: Lindsey Graham (whose drag name is Hedda Lettuce) says the NY/NJ bomber should be considered an “enemy combatant” since he was working as a terrorist.

    Do the same for Dylan Roof, the Charleston church shooter, and we have a deal, honey.

  81. 81.

    JMG

    @Botsplainer: This would have a secondary benefit. It’d encourage people to buy and hold, thus increasing the chances of their portfolios growing due to fewer fees deducted.

  83. 83.

    Kay

    So explain to me how we get an investigation into Obama’s home mortgage in ’08 (which I don’t mind- go crazy- look at anything) and yet we get NO investigation into the Trump family properties.

    How were they financed? How much debt is there and from whom did they borrow? Come on. There have to be more records than the tax returns and the charitable foundation! He’s been in business 40 years.

    I don’t even know where he lives. What is his main residence?

  84. 84.

    Kay

    Trump says he has “thousands” of employees. You have to file documentation when you hire someone. We could just start with the basics – how many employees does he actually have?

    This is just one aspect of that:

    U.S. law requires companies to employ only individuals who may legally work in the United States – either U.S. citizens, or foreign citizens who have the necessary authorization. This diverse workforce contributes greatly to the vibrancy and strength of our economy, but that same strength also attracts unauthorized employment.
    E-Verify is an Internet-based system that allows businesses to determine the eligibility of their employees to work in the United States. E-Verify is fast, free and easy to use – and it’s the best way employers can ensure a legal workforce.

    Immigration is a focus of his campaign. Does he comply with immigration laws? Doesn’t that seem like an ordinary thing to investigate? What gives with this insistence we can’t find anything out unless he voluntarily and honestly tells us? This has never applied to any other candidate. We don’t wait around for them to tell us.

  85. 85.

    Botsplainer

    @JMG:

    Exactly – computerized trading would go away as well, greatly diminishing a “black swan” potential.

    Betcha I could structure something similarly on commodity futures. Get rid of the “sell on any instability or minor event” crowd.

  87. 87.

    OzarkHillbilly

    The mysterious lynching of Frank Little: activist who fought inequality and lost 1879-1979

    Business owners hated and feared Little. Newspapers denounced him and police jailed him. When that didn’t work, hired thugs beat him up – but that didn’t work either. Little was the “hobo agitator”, fighting for freedom of speech and catching trains to flashpoints in Washington, California, New Mexico, anywhere where he could stir things up.

    ….

    A horrific accident in June 1917 killed 168 miners, infuriating survivors and giving the IWW, Little hoped, a chance to recruit. He arrived on 18 July. He was 38 and a physical wreck – thin, ill, a broken leg in a cast. Even so, he gave a barnstorming address to miners. He spoke with “maniacal fury” and “practically threatened the United States government with revolution”, the pro-company Butte Miner newspaper reported. For two weeks Little kept at it, urging miners to strike and “fight the capitalists but not the Germans”.

    Newspapers demanded authorities crack down “without gloves” on such “sedition” and “treasonable tirades”. In retrospect it was a death foretold, but Little ignored warnings. Maybe he thought he would escape with just a beating. Maybe he knew what was coming. “It would be better to go down slugging,” he had told colleagues.

    ….

    Little’s grave sits amid yellowing grass and weeds in a lonely corner of the Mountain View cemetery, drawing few pilgrims. “Slain by capitalist interests for organizing and inspiring his fellow men,” says the headstone. Cemetery signposts direct visitors to another grave, one adorned with flags and offerings. There rests Evel Knievel, the type of hero America remembers.

    I had not heard of this man.

  88. 88.

    Botsplainer

    @Botsplainer:

    And now that I think about it, it is entirely fitting that I refer to him as I would a Spaniard, his life and family relationships resembling another Spaniard so well.

    Meet Rodrigo, Lucrezia, Cesare and Juan…

  90. 90.

    eclare

    @Kay: Trump Tower when he’s in NYC. Thing is, I bet he has tons of different entities set up to make it very hard to determine who exactly owns which properties. I’d be willing to say he probably personally owns very little, all properties are owned through private entities. Guessing limited liability corporations. And since those entities are private, and we don’t have his tax returns, not much to find. Don’t know anything about bankruptcy filings…

  92. 92.

    JMG

    @shomi: I do not know what your deal is, but you really come off as an unpleasant person on this board. How can you be so belligerent at this hour of the morning?

  93. 93.

    Botsplainer

    @eclare:

    I haven’t checked PACER, but am guessing that the most interesting ones are old enough to have not been digitized. All I’d see would be docket history.

  95. 95.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay:

    U.S. law requires companies to employ only individuals who may legally work in the United States

    Have you ever noticed how in every single debate about illegal immigration nobody ever calls for the arrest and imprisonment of the people who benefit the most from illegal immigrants? Those who hire them?

  96. 96.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: The Tampa Bay Times did a lengthy story on Trump’s FL property shenanigans this week. They portrayed him as one of a piece with the eccentric hucksters who have always operated in FL and pointed out that he hasn’t been as savvy as he claims and in fact got fleeced on the Doral deal he’s always bragging about:

    The story goes that he and his daughter Ivanka walked into closing with a contract to buy Doral for $170 million. But when it came time to do the deal, Trump told the crowd, he got the sudden urge to show off.

    There he was, Trump said, staring across the bargaining table at the other dealmakers, who all were beautiful men, “like from a movie, better looking than Tom Cruise,” and who were wearing red suspenders and had gone to the best schools. And what did Trump do? He started ranting like a lunatic about the terrible shape the property was in.

    Within about two minutes, Trump told the crowd, the movie stars in red suspenders took $20 million off the price tag. He got the place for just $150 million. And then he tore it down and built it up again.

    This is what he wants to do with America, he said. Acquire it, gut it to the steel and remake it in his own image.

    It didn’t matter that the story Trump told was exaggerated. That Ivanka was said to have worked out most of the deal by herself. That people on the other side of the deal believed Trump had overpaid for the property by as much as $60 million — even at the lowered sale price — and were giddy at landing such an unexpected windfall. That contractors Trump hired to make the resort great again were filing liens against him because he hadn’t paid them for their work. That rooms in the redone hotel could be booked, same-day, on Priceline.com for $160, which was $9 cheaper than rooms at the nearby Courtyard Miami and $109 cheaper than the Marriott Vacation Club just a few blocks away.

    None of that mattered to the crowd at Doral on Oct. 23, 2015. What mattered was the image being put in front of them.

    He’s a real estate developer / conman — pardon the redundancy — and there’s a sucker born every minute.

  97. 97.

    Cermet

    @Ceci n’est pas mon nym: He explains the very question you have (which you partly answered yourself.) If the Rump wins PA, for instance, that tends to mean NH and OH are certain to be lost by Hillary since the populations of those area’s tend to have similar views due to similar economic and social relationships/feelings. Winning just FL but no other ‘new’ (ie blue) state will not give the percentage you are seeing. It is that wiing specific states are “bell weather” indicators that say a series of other States will likely follow a similar trend for similar reasons.

  98. 98.

    Ivan X

    @shomi:
    As trolls go, you’re amateur hour compared to srv. Work on better concealing your preening self-satisfaction, so that others might take your bait at face value. Whatever it’s doing for you, simply saying “I’m smarter than you, nyah” fails to engage. Most people prefer to pleasure themselves in private.

  100. 100.

    Keith P.

    Oh, lord, Farenthold’s now reporting that Trump used Foundation funds to buy a newspaper ad for one of his hotels. And he found a TripAdvisor pic of one of the paintings the Foundation bought hanging in Mar-a-Lagoat Doral. Somewhere, Marsha Stewart is chanting “Lock him up!”

  103. 103.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @JMG: S/He is really a very small minded individual toiling away in anonymity while living a very meager existence. Despite all of the evidence surrounding him/her in their daily existence, he/she is absolutely certain of the superiority of their intellect and must constantly assert it by putting down the lesser mortals that surround them on the internet.

    S/He has to do this in the anonymity of the internet, because reality is a bitch.

  104. 104.

    Jeffro

    @Betty Cracker:

    I think Democrats should just assume that is the case and talk about it as if it were a proven fact, and some, including Harry Reid, are doing just that. Put the onus on Trump to disprove it. He doesn’t get the presumption of fair conduct, not with his record of running scams and refusal to supply the documents every president for the last several decades has.

    I agree with this completely (and can almost hear the voiceover in the TV ads): “Trump’s taxes? What taxes? He hasn’t paid any in decades…” and so on.

  105. 105.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Jeffro: Show Trump’s lifestyle, his plane, and all the crap and say he doesn’t pay any taxes and you’re paying for this.

  106. 106.

    Peale

    @Mustang Bobby: it really is sickening the way they want to recreate the fiasco that is Guantanamo. But then their presidential candidate wants to throw out the Geneva convention and his supporters revel in the idea of torture. Something something “get tough. Gotta get tough” These people have no positive core values.

  107. 107.

    Betty Cracker

    @Botsplainer: My fervent hope is that Trump’s running for president as a racist, sexist, xenophobic demagogue will utterly destroy the Trump brand and that the three worthless adult children who are trying to foist their vile father off on this country will be forced to compete for jobs in the actual marketplace. Unlikely, I know. But it would be poetic justice.

  110. 110.

    Jeffro

    @eclare: @Kay: @FlipYrWhig:

    Thanks everyone for the comments (especially FlipYrWhig for the article links – much appreciated!)

    It’s one of those things where unfortunately a lot of folks are choosing not to look too deeply at the actual facts, and are just settling for this whole “two bad choices” bit. That has to be challenged at every opportunity.

    I noticed that Trump’s pushback on the Fahrenthold story is to simply deny it and accuse Clinton of doing the very same thing. It’s going to take more brains and interest than most low-info voters are probably willing to expend in order to see through what’s going on there – most will just see two politicians arguing and quickly revert to, “there they go again” (which effectively gets Trump off the hook, or at least minimizes the damage).

  111. 111.

    Botsplainer

    @Betty Cracker:

    I note that Lucrezia has been somewhat successful at keeping enough distance so that the stink doesn’t completely envelop her. Cesare and Juan, however, are even deeper in the muck than Rodrigo….

  113. 113.

    Eric S.

    @Mustang Bobby: my golfing days are years behind me (I’m terrible) but I played in Florida once. One of my buddies went to college there. I still remember him warning me not to look for any ball out of sight because of gators and poisonous snakes. I think that round cost me 5 sleeves of balls. Like I said, I’m terrible at that game.

  117. 117.

    Keith G

    As I said in an earlier post, once the attention is on Donald Trump his support regresses to the mean, if not lower. It seems Hillary has four jobs to do in order to seal up this election good and tight. First, continue the good job her campaign has been doing recently working the refs. Second, she and her surrogates have to avoid doing anything silly that put the spotlight back on them. Third, as in today’s New York Times editorial penned by Hillary, the campaign has to continue to give the as yet unenthusiastic voters more motivation to lean her way. And finally, just take care of business during the debates. I didn’t add in get-out-the-vote since they are already doing that quite well as evidenced by the several emails I have gotten this week asking me to meet with other volunteers in Houston in their neighborhood organization drives.

  118. 118.

    singfoom

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Have you ever noticed how in every single debate about illegal immigration nobody ever calls for the arrest and imprisonment of the people who benefit the most from illegal immigrants? Those who hire them?

    Laws are for little people. We wouldn’t want owners of capital to be bothered with such trifles would we?

  119. 119.

    Keith P.

    @Betty Cracker: He was on MSNBC and just got savaged for deferring on explaining the Clinton position on Syria. They kept hammering him on saying what the policy is, and every time he just said “I’ll let Senator Clinton’s words speak for themselves.”
    He would have looked better if he just said “To be honest, I am not familiar enough with the specifics of that particular policy to comment accurately. Let me get back with you on that after I confirm with Senator Clinton my understanding of it. In the meantime, just read her website” Instead, they were able to draw similarities with Trump’s complete lack of policy to do the false equivalency thing (Katy Tur said Clinton has “a bit more policy spelled out”

  121. 121.

    Central Planning

    @Immanentize: I was there last week. Weather was cooler nights, warmer days (mid 60’s to low 80’s). It was great.

    I found a dispensary near my hotel but didn’t stop in to get anything – I didn’t feel right getting some edibles and then eating them alone in my room. My hotel was far enough away from other coworkers that we couldn’t get together and sit around and be goofballs (without having to drive 30 minutes to get home). Ah, the joys of corporate travel…

  125. 125.

    greennotGreen

    @Jeffro: Absolutely! And more ads from contractors (small business owners) who haven’t been paid by Trump. Not just one guy, but a bunch in a row. Trump supporters are aggrieved and for some reason think Trump’s going to “stick it to the man.” We need to show them that he’s the Man that’s been sticking them with the bill for a long time.

  126. 126.

    GregB

    There is the back story to why the character has such a strong reaction to the name Niagra Falls.

    I can’t renember the exact reason, bad business, lost love etc…..

    So Niagra Falls is the call back trigger that essentially induces psychosis.

    Back then psychotic episodes were a hoot!

  127. 127.

    Cat48

    Russia or Assad has hit Aid convoys on Monday and late Tuesday nite in Aleppo. They say they didn’t do it. Bald face lies from Russia. Why can’t we just drop them supplies from an air carrier instead of sending convoys in? Does anyone know?

    I see why Obama’s hair is so gray.

  128. 128.

    Elizabelle

    @Mustang Bobby: you could not make me click on Douthat, and especially that.

    If anyone else has, what is the Samantha Bee problem? That she’s kicking ass and taking names and that’s bad for Hillary?

    All those wimmens hang together. They’re so hormonal clear eyed killer.

  129. 129.

    DCrefugee

    @Mustang Bobby: I was in Valdez in 1998, about 10 years after the oil spill. I remember it now as a small fishing community, not unlike something in New England. It’s the end of the oil pipeline, so there will be roughnecks as well as fishing types. Everything you buy there will be expensive and everything you receive will be cheap.

  130. 130.

    Jeffro

    @greennotGreen: Yes!

    BTW and OMG – hysterical Tweet making the rounds about Trump and Skittles…(wish I knew how to post Tweets)…the pic is of a bowl of Skittles with one orange Skittle sitting outside the bowl. Text: “If I had a bowl of Skittles and I told you that one very orange Skittle wanted to deport all the green Skittles and called the purple Skittles rapists and said that “many Skittles are saying” that the Skittle president was really an M&M and that same orange Skittle was given $1million by his father but still managed to declare bankruptcy four times and refuses to release his tax returns because he’s not as rich as he claims to be…

    …would you elect that orange Skittle president of the United States of America?”

    BOOM! goes the dynamite!!!

  131. 131.

    JMG

    Shorter Douthat: If you call white men out for being assholes, they’ll get mad at you. Gets the big bucks for that. I wonder if he ever wrote something like that about Jon Stewart? Probably did.

  133. 133.

    PaulWartenberg2016

    I won’t feel comfortable about the poll numbers until Hillary is leading by 5 points in ALL 50 STATES PLUS DC.

    Christ, Gods Help Us. Trump should not even be allowed to place THIRD in this election.

  135. 135.

    Kropadope

    @Keith P.:

    He was on MSNBC and just got savaged for deferring on explaining the Clinton position on Syria.

    If they pushed one quarter as hard on Trump as they do on anyone in Clinton’s orbit, he would crack.

  136. 136.

    Kay

    @PaulWartenberg2016:

    in ALL 50 STATES PLUS DC.

    :)

    I had a local Democrat come by my house to fret last night. I feel like we’ve reached “peak fretting” :)

    It’s part of the personality. It’s who we ARE

  137. 137.

    Kay

    @Jeffro:

    I would be so mad if I owned Skittles and the Trump family smeared my brand with their toxic shit.

    They’re victims in all this.

  138. 138.

    nonynony

    @PaulWartenberg2016:

    Christ, Gods Help Us. Trump should not even be allowed to place THIRD in this election.

    We live in a fallen world. Trump will net McCain/Palin levels of support at a minimum – 45%. Prepare yourself for it – set your expectations for your fellow Americans low so that you won’t be disappointed. (And hey – if it turns out that he only manages 40% then you can feel pleasantly surprised by the humanity of your fellow man instead of disgusted by the inhumanity of that 40%).

  139. 139.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    Ivanka met with Paul Ryan this week on her “family agenda”. I knew the kids would appoint themselves policy czars. It’s in keeping with their whole lives.

    How many of Paul Ryan’s actual constituents get a private meeting? Um, NONE? Privilege, baby. They’re swimming in it.

  140. 140.

    Jeffro

    @Kay: Yes they are. Did you see Skittles’ (Mars’ Co’s) response to Trump Jr’s nonsense? It was exceptionally tasteful: “Skittles are candy, refugees are people. We respectfully refrain from further comment, as that could be misinterpreted as marketing”

  141. 141.

    eclare

    @Kay: That occurred to me too. Especially if the white supremacists take over “Skittles” like they took over the frog. I get a fairly diverse crowd on Halloween, don’t know that I would feel ok handing them out.

  142. 142.

    Kay

    @Jeffro:

    I’m addicted to fruity candy. I sometimes eat it for lunch :)

    I like any of the Kool Aid flavors in my “food”. Skittles are delicious.

  143. 143.

    nonynony

    @Kay:

    Ivanka met with Paul Ryan this week on her “family agenda”. I knew the kids would appoint themselves policy czars. It’s in keeping with their whole lives.

    It’s really weird. I guess that comes from the fact that he seems to be unable to take advice from anyone but himself. Maybe his kids are close enough to him that he’ll at least seem to be taking their advice since they’re telling him what he wants to hear anyway?

  144. 144.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: You pegged them yesterday: They’re basically mobsters, only without the toughness. Second- and third-generation mobsters raised on milk and snails!

  146. 146.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Mustang Bobby: Doesn’t even require a gator: Long, long ago I was briefly involved with a slightly-older woman who’d lost her only child to the canals of South Florida. The little girl was living with her father’s parents while her own parents were divorcing; in a tragic & unintended moment of grandparental inattention, she wandered off behind their house, fell into the water & drowned.

  147. 147.

    Miss Bianca

    @Mustang Bobby: Not Valdez, but across the bay in Homer – over 30 years ago. The most beautiful place I have ever seen. I was so close to just staying there and never coming back to the lower 48…

  148. 148.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Jeffro: That’s why you pay your PR people real money. Most of what they do is fluff, but when you need them, you need them.

  150. 150.

    Miss Bianca

    @Ceci n’est pas mon nym: Yes, we can lose dogs to coyotes, mountain lions, bears, and rattlers out here in CO, as well as the occasional pissed-off rancher or drunken hunter but somehow, death by gator seems even more horrible than any of those. Sorry to hear it.

  151. 151.

    Elizabelle

    @Betty Cracker:

    Second- and third-generation mobsters raised on milk and snails!

    Gad. If there was a blog Pulitzer … Samantha Bee might hire you away from us, one of these days

  152. 152.

    SenyorDave

    @Kay: In some ways I find her more vile than his evil male spawn. Being males I assume they were totally infected by dad. My guess is that other than lusting after her, Donald left his daughter alone. She knows better, whereas the two sons are mini-mes of Trump. Hopefully he’ll lose, and the kids can go slink off into the sunset.

    When Thomas Friedman said that Trump is a disgusting human being and his children should be ashamed of him, he must have forgotten they are disgusting human beings in their own right.

  153. 153.

    Waldo

    @Betty Cracker:

    there’s a pond on campus with BIG gators in it. … I always thought it was a tragedy waiting to happen — it’s hard to believe some stupid frat boy hasn’t gotten himself killed trying to swim across the pond.

    I’m not seeing the tragedy in that scenario.

  154. 154.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay: I thought she was doing it to fluff up her ego: “I am doing just as much to help families as Hillary Clinton.”

  155. 155.

    Patricia Kayden

    @OzarkHillbilly: What a tragic story. Sad that standing up for working people could lead to one’s lynching in the land of the brave and free. Explains why unions are so sparse and largely powerless here.

  156. 156.

    Dave

    @Waldo: Well some stupid frat boys do manage to become decent human beings. Admittedly the odds are no forever in their favor but it does happen.

  157. 157.

    RaflW

    @Immanentize: I don’t think Denver has ever had a muggy day. Hot? Yes. But the humidity is expected to be about 22% this afternoon when it’s in the low 80s. Denver this time of year is glorious! Enjoy.

  158. 158.

    Elizabelle

    @p.a.: Thank you for the head’s up. Ta-Nehisi Coates has some great stuff up on his Atlantic blog.

    How Breitbart Conquered the Media

    The Atlantic titled it: Why the Media Didn’t Bother to Verify [if HRC’s “Deplorables” remark] was True

    … what Breitbart understood, what his spiritual heir Donald Trump has banked on, what Hillary Clinton’s recent pillorying has clarified, is that white grievance, no matter how ill-founded, can never be humiliating nor disqualifying. On the contrary, it is a right to be respected at every level of American society from the beer-hall to the penthouse to the newsroom.

    The comment was “a self-inflicted wound” claimed the Washington Post reporter Dan Balz. “It was very close to the dictionary definition of bigoted,” asserted John Heilemann. My colleague Ron Fournier and the Post’s Aaron Blake were both taken aback by the implicit math of Clinton’s statement. “Clinton appeared to be slapping the ‘racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic’ label on about 20 percent of the country,” wrote Blake in a post whose headline echoed that of the Trump campaign manager’s website. “That’s no small thing.” Whether or not it was a false thing remained uninvestigated.

    [TNC provides a Reuters link on a poll of Trump supporters’ views on African Americans.]

    …. For much of this campaign journalists have attacked Hillary Clinton for being evasive and avoiding hard questioning from their ranks. And then the second Clinton is forthright and says something revealing, she is attacked—not for the substance of what she’s said—but simply for having said it. This hypocrisy carries a chilling implicit message: Lie to me. Lie to the country. Lie to everyone. This weekend was not just another misanalysis, it was a shocking betrayal of the journalistic mission….

    Have we seen any reporting in mass media on the possible accuracy of Hillary’s “Deplorables” remark?

  159. 159.

    Feathers

    @OzarkHillbilly: When folks rail against illegal immigration, I point out that one change would end it. Change the IRS tax code so that wages paid to persons not eligible to work legally in the US are not deductible business expenses. It’s already true that illegal payments, bribes for one, aren’t deductible, why not wages to workers not eligible for employment? I know that this would cause massive problems now, both logistically and morally, but it should be in the package going forward in any immigration reform.

    The other issue is that companies hiring undocumented workers are usually fairly shady anyway. An INS raid (or whoever does them now) should be followed by a wage and labor audit for all employees, as well as OSHA and EPA inspections.

    While I’m at it, the process for getting an employer getting H1B visa approval needs to include a posting of the job with their state’s employment agency, as well as a diversity report, age, race and gender. H1B is basically a scam to allow tech companies to maintain a young, male workforce. This is to say nothing against the people who come here to work under H1B, they are usually great folks, but any talk about gender imbalance in tech needs to face up to the ways that H1B reinforces it.

  160. 160.

    Feathers

    @Jeffro: Last night Colbert said: You know why the Trumps eat Skittles and not M&M’s – there aren’t any brown ones. Of course, he phrased it better, I’m sure.

  162. 162.

    StringOnAStick

    @Mustang Bobby: Valdez is interesting. The town isn’t much to look at since it was moved and rebuilt after the 1964 earthquake, but the surrounding mountains are amazing. Two things I remember from being there in the spring: the best restaurant in town was in a metal quonset (sp?) building and any dumpster was great for bald eagle viewing, especially close to the water. Try to at least drive out of town a bit and get up to the pass, the views are worth it. Also, summer = mosquitoes of amazing numbers and tenacity.

  163. 163.

    Feathers

    @schrodinger’s cat: But the fraud problem with the tech visas is large enough that it must be addressed. Workarounds for the other categories may be necessary, i.e. applying for an H1B visa for someone who is already here on another visa, as opposed to getting the visa for someone who currently does not already hold a visa. I know there are valid complaints about the anti-H1B visa push being racist, but as it exists the H1B visa program is being used in the service of misogyny and racism against black and hispanic workers.

  164. 164.

    D58826

    @Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: Tell me that none of this is happening. Six weeks ago most of the models had Hillary in the 85-90% win range. Now we are arguing whither the poll that shows her at 53% is more accurate than the one that shows her at 60%.

    I understand post-convention bumps, statistical noise, an outlier that skews a model on occasion but the trend across all of the models has been negative for Hillary. Trump hasn’t changed one bit in the past 6 weeks. Sure he has cut back a bit on the calls to assassinate Hillary and he has fudged his Muslim ban but basically it is the same message – white people be afraid of the Other and you are being screwed so be very very afraid.We are even getting reporting on the various scams that Trump has run, the bribes he has paid and his hopelessly entangled business dealings; but it makes no difference. The media still makes more of Hillary’s cough than Trumps bribes. I realize that racism is America’s original sin but are there that many Americans willing to vote for a candidate who is openly supported by fascists/neo-Nazis and the KKK.

  165. 165.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @D58826:

    Six weeks ago most of the models had Hillary in the 85-90% win range. Now we are arguing whither the poll that shows her at 53% is more accurate than the one that shows her at 60%.

    You seem to be conflating two sets of percentages. The prediction of her odds of winning expressed as a percentage and the percentage of likely/registered voters who intend to vote for based on current polls. There was no 30 point fall off.

  166. 166.

    D58826

    @Omnes Omnibus: @Omnes Omnibus: Maybe but just following the banner on Kos w/o looking at any of the details and her electoral forcast has been dropping. Or in other terms she has gone from 320+ EV to 283. Silver for better or worse is now calling it a toss up. Last time I looked at Wang her numbers had dropped from a 90% forecast to under 80. Now I make no claim to understanding statistics. Heck I have trouble counting to ten if I’m wearing mittens. But all of the different modeling groups, which I’m sure use different methodologies and sampling techniques, show the same decline. If the models are showing that she has gone from a projected 320+ EV victory to just 283 then she is now trailing in some states that she was leading in before and that Obama won in 2008/2012.

    I could understand this if it was a Hillary vs Jeb race or a Hillary vs. Kaish or even a Hillary vs Christie. But TRUMP!!!!!!

  171. 171.

    gvg

    Floridians mostly ignore Gators because they aren’t that aggressive compared to their size and potential. Crocodiles are much more aggressive but are very rare here, where as the gators are in the millions and just a few attacks over decades. Dog snacking though is totally different. Gators seem t really find dogs tasty and will climb fences to get to them. We don’t leave our dogs out when we aren’t home because of gators. you do have to be careful around water but still it’s bad luck and you can go decades walking your dog and have nothing happen. In the 70’s they were getting rare and in decline because chemical pollution was making reptiles and amphibians sterile with odd mutations in frogs. Hunting restrictions and water clean up brought them back. People from elsewhere seem to find them very frightening of not be cautious at all. People will pay to see gators……for a scare thrill I guess. Other tourists hold their baby down close to see them better……..and get mad at hotel people who stop them. Reckless drivers are more dangerous to us really and lots more pets get killed by cars.

  173. 173.

    sukabi

    @Kay: jjust putting this out there, because why not, it could be that since it IS known that drumpf likes to listen in on his “guests” phone conversations, that he collects interesting information that he uses at a later date to achieve
    1) favorable press
    2) Selective blindness and silence

    And if he’s an eavesdropper, which he is, he’s probably also a high tech peeping tom…you can “buy” a lot of silence, favors, positive press if you have the right kind of leverage.

  174. 174.

    ruckus

    @Ceci n’est pas mon nym:
    I have/had a decent grasp of stats and I don’t see how the chart makes sense the way it’s shown. It doesn’t seem to have any relationship, one state to each other. He’s not going to win one state and get 270.

  175. 175.

    Jeffro

    @Waldo:

    I’m not seeing the tragedy in that scenario.

    a gator with painful indigestion?

    ETA: ack! I see catclub beat me to it…great minds and all that…

  176. 176.

    Chris

    @Kay: Starbursts….Rips….Wild Berry Skittles…(for real…try the Rips if you like sour fruity stuff..they’re great.)

  177. 177.

    JR in WV

    @Mustang Bobby:

    It’s really popular in New Orleans, all of LA in fact. Sausage, stir fry, everywhere you can use meat, there’s ‘gator in most foody joints.

    Not bad, I prefer the leather used in belts and boots, but if I lived in rural Louisiana, I wouldn’t mind using it for protein. And keeping the population down is obviously a good thing. Our dogs like water, being lab mixes. So in FL we would have to keep a tight grip on them.

  178. 178.

    SFAW

    @shomi:

    I actually mean what I say and don’t give a flying fuck if anyone responds to me or not.

    Ah, but you DO care, because you have responded numerous times after people push back on your “you all fucking suck!” schtick, and so on. You’re not quite as thin-skinned as your idol, Corrupt Deadbeat Donnie, but not too far away.

  179. 179.

    JR in WV

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Republicans have responded by prohibiting NOAA from collecting this data and have stripped funding for any research into climate change.**

    **sarcasm- they haven’t done that yet.

    Actually, when they can, they have. In Florida right-wing Republican Governor Rick Skull Scott has banned state employees from uttering the words themselves, much less discussing the effects of Global Climate Change with the public.

    In Virginia former Governor Bob McDonnell (R) attempted to use the power of the state against climate scientists at the University of Virginia. The plan was to prove that they were using grant monies wrongly, and they were seeking all the information on paper from every source – public and private.

    Only the wisdom of judges stopped that despicable action by Republican McDonnell. Probably appointed by Democratic administrations, though I can’t know that.

  181. 181.

    JR in WV

    @Kay:

    I’ve always liked Skittles, they’re more tart than lots of candies. But, honestly, I’ve never liked the orange ones. My special favorites are the tropical flavors.

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