This cat won Halloween. https://t.co/0pzzwr36Ni
— Trudy (@thetrudz) October 31, 2016
They'll never find me here… pic.twitter.com/SOcJn9Ku3l
— Dick King-Smith HQ (@DickKingSmith) October 29, 2016
The day I write that the race is so emotional that no minds will change, everyone writes me in hysterics. Awesome. https://t.co/bfcfw94fmm
— Sam Wang (@SamWangPhD) October 30, 2016
… This is actually a good thing. This is an opportunity to apply lessons from this season to predict what happens next.
First, the starting points:
– For twenty years, polarization has made voters increasingly emotional and less likely to change their views. Donald Trump represents the culmination of this trend.
– On time scales of a week, journalists get bored with a storyline, and look for ways that the trend is being violated. Until Friday, the developing story was “Clinton is coasting to victory.”
– Whichever major party you support, your optimal strategy as a citizen is to focus on knife-edge cases, i.e. cases where the outcome is in doubt.From these, I suggest the following consequences:
The national race will not change meaningfully. This is not a story that changes anyone’s mind. Maybe the margin (national or Meta) between the two candidates will move by 1 percentage point when aggregated…2 points max. It doesn’t change the high likelihood of a Clinton win.
Journalists and pundits will continue to feed hysterics by fussing over the Comey story. They may even attempt to use polling evidence to justify their coverage. However, note that national polls had already tightened by 1-2 percentage points, even before Comeygate.
Keep your eye on the ball, which is downticket….
Oh, I’ll go out on a limb on one last item: there is time for one more weird twist in the campaign. Considering the life cycle of journalists’ hidden thought processes, I’ll say it is Donald Trump’s turn for the next adverse story.
***********
Apart from waiting for that ‘one more weird twist’, what’s on the agenda as we start the last week before the election?
JPL
Good Morning!
raven
Love the DVR, Cubs WIN!!!!!!
rikyrah
Good Morning?,Everyone?
rikyrah
Cubs win?☺???
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: @rikyrah: Pfffffffffthththththththththth….
NotMax
Halloween tradition.
Baud
Baud! 2016! is back!
Happy Halloween, everyone.
JPL
How’s Morning Joe?
Baud
@JPL: I’m going to guess awful.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: From what I hear, a fairly safe bet.
Kristine
@rikyrah: Finally get the chance to say Good Morning back.
Good Morning!
Joel
My quibble with Wang is the use of the word journalist, when referring to purported election reporters.
Most of them are nothing of the sort.
Mustang Bobby
Good morning, rikyrah and all.
So, don’t tell me, let me guess: Morning Joe is convinced the race it over and Hillary will be frogmarched out of Brooklyn by nightfall amirite?
BlueDWarrior
@OzarkHillbilly: I’m not even bothering this morning. I’m pretty sure everyone is going on about how Clinton is certainly DOOMED even if she wins, because now Republicans will impeach her even if she so much as sneezes out of turn.
Because they totally weren’t going to do that anyway.
Meh, I got enough stress hoping for a G7 in the World Series to bother with “Whatever did happen to that Intern, Mr.” Scarborough.
NotMax
@NotMax
And a late (pun intended) happy birthday to John Zacherle, who turned 98 last month.
p.a.
This has been the longest Halloween season ever. I really deplore the trend of Klan and Brownshirt costumes. Especially since they’re not costumes.
Hal
Yeah, I can see another Trump tape dropping. Maybe by this Friday. This is going to be a fun 9 days.
gogol's wife
@NotMax:
I’m sorry to tell you, but his obituary was in the NYTimes the other day.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@JPL: I only lasted 15 minutes, when they turned to Ron Fournier for his comments.
NotMax
@gogol’s wife
Aw, crap.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@gogol’s wife: I think that’s why he said “pun intended”.
NotMax
@gogol’s wife
Never knew this.
JPL
@Hal: Wishful thinking. I just hope that Comey doesn’t attempt to do more damage to Clinton.
?BillinGlendaleCA
You see, according to Joe of the Morning, Comey had no choice since G-men and attorneys in the agency were going to leak this information. So, if you have no choice, go ahead and break the law. I guess you can take that to the bank since Joe of the Morning is a simple country lawyer.
ETA: I guess the G-men working on the case felt slighted that Comey didn’t empanel a grand jury back in July.
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Comey has already received more benefit of the doubt than Clinton ever has.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Now Baud, you know how much I respect you. But Joe of the Morning is a simple country lawyer, he’s even gotten away with having a dead intern in his office. Have you had a dead intern in your office?
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA: No. Not in my office.
OzarkHillbilly
@JPL: Doesn’t matter what he does. At this point the man has totally destroyed whatever nonpartisan reputation he had and replaced it with “Either he is a moron or a coward, or more than likely a moronic coward.” Outside of committing seppuku, I doubt there is a person on either side of the aisle cares what he does.
JPL
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Since there weren’t leaks before, why did Joe think that they would happen now?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@JPL: I guess they were getting tired of Comey dragging his feet, and isn’t there something happening in 8 days?
Baud
GMA all over Comey. Good start.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Sounds a bit kinky.
kd bart
When even Joe Walsh questions your timing, you know you’ve done something horribly wrong.
Elizabelle
We’d be better off if Comey/the FBI/Loretta Lynch (?) would announce they are investigating the FBI rogue agent/leakers, and suspend a bunch of them while they pursue an investigation. Rogue FBI agents acting to try to throw an election is terrifying, and they need to be gone.
This shit with the FBI and Chaffetz etc. has to stop. It’s poison.
I know we’re saying “yeah, right, like that’s going to happen.” But normalizing all this bad behavior has to stop. We’re better off with standards for professionalism.
I think rogue FBI agents is a way more interesting story than the fucking Clinton emails! Benghazi! stuff anyway. I hope several journalists are on it. You know there have to be good FBI agents who are appalled this kind of stuff is going on.
The emails are just masturbation aids for Republicans. And Andrea Greenspan. Period.
Elizabelle
Good morning all.
And Boo!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Elizabelle:
I think you just repeated yourself there.
OzarkHillbilly
@JPL: There have been leaks all along. That’s what reporters were writing about.
Elizabelle
@?BillinGlendaleCA: True. No coffee yet.
satby
@Elizabelle: This. All of it.
And good morning to everyone! Only 9 days to go including today. We will survive.
Kay
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
I love this excuse so much. These are the same people who have been moaning about the security risk of Clinton’s server for 24 months right?
I think I found the weak link in security and professionalism. It isn’t Hillary Clinton.
OzarkHillbilly
Sign #3,948,754,819,555,626 that we have it way too good, far better than we deserve: Should I let my dog lick my face?
Patricia Kayden
Now Native American protesters are being placed in dog kennels. I really wish there was more coverage of the horror going on in North Dakota and that the Federal government could step in to stop the abuse.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: Heh. Good spot.
Kay
@Elizabelle:
I’m baffled why selective leaking in an ongoing investigation by the FBI is fine and to be expected but Hillary Clinton’s emails are a grave threat to national security.
Even if I accept that leaks in general are standard practice at the FBI shouldn’t the FBI agents and FBI lawyers also be contacting the WSJ to leak information on the Donald Trump/Russian connections investigation or the Wikileaks investigation?
This isn’t just “leaks”. It’s “we all know the FBI will selectively leak information but only if it’s related to Hillary Clinton”.
NorthLeft12
@BillinGlendaleCA: Joe is simple alright, but a lawyer?
I am guessing that it never occurred to Joe or Comey that keeping quiet about this, and letting the leakers do their worst was a potential option?
If the leaks occurred a simple “The FBI has no comment on these stories.” or “The investigation is ongoing with nothing to report at this time.” would work, legally and ethically.
Baud
@Kay: Are you talking about the FBI or Wikileaks? Hard to tell the difference these days.
Cermet
Its fucking monday morning – what is so good about that?
@Baud: So, Baud is saying he has had a dead intern but just not in his office?
Iowa Old Lady
@Elizabelle: I have a friend who’s an agent who is “sick about this.” The DOJ has to root out rogue agents before the culture of the agency is completely polluted.
NorthLeft12
@Kay: But Kay, you don’t understand…….these are good leaks that serve the cause of democracy and freedom. It’s completely different from the traitorous and seditious information that Hillary slipped to her organization.
And by organization I don’t mean the State Department, the Clinton Foundation, or even the HRC Election Committee.
Remember? The one that Obama and Hillary founded?
JMG
These low-level agents are a preview of the FBI in a Trump administration. Probably be used to drum up criminal charges against the women he abused.
JPL
It appears that the server that Clinton used was secure, since Putin has released emails from that account.
debbie
@Baud:
I think there’s a reason he physically resembles John Ashcroft. They’re both without scruples.
Kay
I have to go work.
I’ll check the news later to see which information about an ongoing investigation the law enforcement and national security professionals at the FBI selectively leaked today.
I remember being baffled by how they couldn’t catch that abortion clinic bomber who was hiding in the woods for 2 years. Mystery solved.
Baud
@Cermet: Let’s get back to the real issue, which is Comey’s conduct.
Baud
@JPL: Missing a not somewhere?
debbie
@Kay:
Wasn’t it illegal for Comey to make that statement before obtaining a warrant?
Bill E Pilgrim
@Kay: Also the idea that he was forced to violate agency policy because otherwise someone else might violate agency policy is an….. interesting approach to law enforcement.
Baud
Quantico made the FBI seem so competent. Sexy and competent.
Bill E Pilgrim
I only lasted two minutes watching Joe this time. Seems it’s all Bill Clinton’s fault, because he met with Loretta Lynch for 45 minutes on a plane. So, you know, what choice did Comey have? Ron Fournier agreed so Joe must be right.
Baud
@Bill E Pilgrim: Ha! I had to shoot to suspect dead to prevent some rogue FBI agent from doing it.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Baud: If they end up personally going around robbing federal banks as “preventative law enforcement” because “hey, if we don’t, someone else will” don’t say we weren’t warned. Or at least there were clues.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud:
Nononooooo, the real issue is HILLARY IS EEEEEVIL!!!!
JPL
@Baud: Lack of sleep..
Elizabelle
@Iowa Old Lady:
That’s what I think. And fast. Hang them out to dry. Publicly suspend them, and let them twist in the wind while the investigation proceeds.
All this radical politicization is killing our democracy. It needs to stop.**
Good FBI agents need to step up and stop it. They need to demand that the rogue agents not get away with this.
I am sick of the crotchety old uncle types who believe everything they hear on Fox News. It’s bad enough when they’re your relatives. It is terrifying when it is FBI agents behaving like that, or pursuing grudges.
** And maybe both Obamas could be out, speaking on that. His approval rating is only going to go up once he’s out of office.
Peale
@Iowa Old Lady: leak the leakers. They’re FBI Agents. Put their names and photos on TV. Heck, do profiles of them. Show pictures of their houses. Let the public come over to congratulate them on jobs well done.
JPL
@Peale: Let the public come over to congratulate them on jobs well done.
They could at least check out the counter tops.
Kay
There are reports that Trump supporters are bothering AA voters at early vote locations in Ohio. If those Trump supporters are anything like the people leading his effort where I live those reports are true. I don’t think I’ve ever encountered so many older people who regularly use profane terms when referring to other people as I have since meeting Team Trump. It’s odd to hear these 70 year old guys using “you suck” or “fuck you”. That hasn’t been standard practice in campaigns here until Mr. Trump.
I’d suggest the FBI investigate but I found out yesterday they’re on Team Trump so I guess the other 50% of us can’t expect them to do their jobs. That’s a bridge too far- they can’t be expected to serve and protect if it gets in the way of their ideology. Good to know.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: I was told it was Hillary’s emails.
@OzarkHillbilly: Exactly!
Baud
@Kay: Where can I donate to the New Black Panthers?
Bill E Pilgrim
From Eric Holder’s piece politely condemning Comey:
It also created the main talking point used by Donald Trump, Mike Pence, and all other Republicans in attacking Hillary Clinton for this entire campaign. The haranguing lecture by Comey basically gave them the opportunity to turn it into the “She was guilty of crimes, but the head of the FBI was nice and let her off” narrative, which you hear reflected in the opinion of Republican voters all the time. You can see the trend line in the polls drop precipitously at that point, for example.
So Comey already adversely, and hugely, affected this election. She’s going to win, and always would have, but his partisan breaks with policy have no doubt dented the blowout it would have been otherwise, affecting downticket races for example.
Peale
@Baud: black people didn’t cause this problem. White people need to solve the problem of their sick old relatives for a change. Must be all their absent fathers and drug use.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Baud: Panthers are the new black?
Baud
@Peale: Hell, I’m ready to put every black voter on Mt. Rushmore.
Peale
@Bill E Pilgrim: yep. But you see, careers are made hurling stuff at the Clintons. And these FBI agents have families to feed. And future audis to buy.
No one who has harassed them ever gets punished. Only promoted. For all the alleged murders, the Clintons only seem to whack their friends.
OGLiberal
Happy Halloween! One of my kids’ favorite holidays. Believe it or not, one of our busiest in the kitchen…all kinds of stuff to make and kids add to list each year. Daughter is going as Mal from “The Descendants” (Disney movie, not punk band) and son is going to be Foxy from the Five Nights at Freddie’s video game.
While I look to a fun day I am sad that I have to worry about this election because Comey dropped a norhingburger. Seems white America is looking for any reason to vote for a fascist/racist/misogynist. Give ’em any reason – vague email references – and they’ll take it. My working class, historically Dem, very white but with an increasing population of scary brown folks hometown is all on the Trump train. (I no longer live there) I now live in a more polite Republican hood where there are few Trump signs but more signs for GOPers for House and township committee. (the latter have no chance – deep blue town outside my hood) I’m just sick that at this point of the race with this bozo running against my candidate, I have to worry.
This is not a critique of Dems or Clinton or young voters or liberals. This is me lamenting that even when everything goes right, 47 percent of this country – sometimes more – will vote for somebody who is not the Democrat because brown people. That is reality and makes me very sad for this country. Trump’s claim to make America great again lies in putting the browns back down. I’d argue that we still are not yet great because we have yet to overcome white male supremacy.
Disclosure…I’m as white as they come, a man, and I work for a Wall St. firm. I have no current issues beyond income stagnation but for a variety of reasons know that at any given time, I may need government to help me out. Not sure why others don’t see that. Maybe they do, just as long as brown folks don’t get the same kind of help.
And no amount of phone banking or GOTV will change the minds of that 47 percent. I’m worried because the media sucks but pretty certain I’ll be happy next Tuesday/Wednesday. What depresses me is that 47 percent…not enough to win but enough to make me very sad. And that 47 percent seems static…are the children of the dying ones raising their kids to be a-holes as well? (my generation is the worst…Reagan kids…many with solid blue parents are wingnuts)
Mary G
@Kay: Does the local Democratic Party have lawyers on tap who can challenge the intimidation? Or if not, the voters being targeted can video the harassment on their cell phones and put the footage on line or send it to local reporters?
Or maybe the two New Black Panthers from Philadelphia could come over ?? ??
OzarkHillbilly
@Peale:
Whadya mean, they were born weren’t they?
JMG
I wish I could feel good about this election, but I just can’t. I know it’s my own neurosis, but I keep foreseeing a Trump victory in another race as close as Gore and Bush. It is driving my sleep down to about four hours a night.
I have already voted and donated, BTW, so please don’t offer that advice. I’m not trying to be a troll, honest, but this is a place where I feel safe to share my troubles.
Botsplainer
@Elizabelle:
Chaffetz has a Welch-McCarthy moment coming soon, and it will be glorious.
Just a question of how long and with which witness or lawyer.
To refresh memories, Welch delivered a big “fuck you, we’re not going to let you expand your investigation to the lawyers anymore”.
And I’ll remind everyone, Trump has been calling for jailing her lawyer – he learned well from his good friend Roy Cohn (McCarthy’s chief aide).
Kay
@Baud:
It’s been horrible to watch what Trump does to people. The behavior he inspires.
It’s odd in real life- like they think it’s reality tv- just a normal interaction goes from 0 to 60 in seconds and it’s all “you suck!” or “fuck you!” Almost like they’re performing-how reality tv rewards the most over-the-top insane behavior but plunked down into real life. It doesn’t really “fit”.
Baud
@JMG: It’s ok to be stressed. It’s the people who try to stress out others that are the problem.
NotMax
@Cermet
He shares one with the other offices on the same floor.
His day is Thursday. ;)
Baud
@Kay: Don’t forgive or forget. It’s time for the non-deplorables to take on the moral leadership of this country.
Another Scott
@JMG: Sam Wang at the PEC is probably right: Trump has never had the lead and Hillary will win comfortably. Any surprises are more likely to be on the upside than the down.
But we’ll see.
Hang in there.
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
Benen is awesome
JPL
@OGLiberal: Trump rallies are filled with deplorable people. At times I despair about the future of our country when so many are openly racist. Trump gave them a voice.
Kay
@Mary G:
There are lots of lawyer volunteers but this is early vote. They can’t assign a volunteer lawyer to every early vote location for 2 weeks.
Also, I hate to be a pain in the ass “citizen” but I don’t think we can forget that we pay a huge group of people to enforce laws. There are people who are paid to do this, whether they support Dear Leader or not. I don’t feel like “do your basic job” is a tall order.
JPL
Hillary is airing this ad. Daisy
Hopefully, this will motivate some to get to the polls.
OzarkHillbilly
@JMG:
Have you tried drinking more? Always works for me.
Elizabelle
@JMG:
Hugs. However, do you have any idea what a downer your comments are? You are not the “worst” here in that respect, but could some of you just man/woman up and stop acting like we are going to have President Trump? The other thing that drives me nuts is “oh, even if we win, 2018 is going to be hard.” Shut the fuck up.
Because we are not going to have President Trump. And your comments demoralize people who need to get out there and help pull in votes for Democrats. We need the Senate, and as many House seats as we can turn.
I don’t see what good sitting around whingeing on a blog does in the last week we can really make a difference in this election.
If you are feeling afraid for the country, get on the phone and call other Democrats to remind them to vote/thank them for doing so. It will lift your spirits as much as it does theirs. You might be calling folks who think they live in Republicanstan too.
I’m not plugged in to the websites, but surely there’s a tool for volunteers to call voters in their own/other states? (Apologies for being clueless. I decided I would just canvass, and haven’t done anything else.)
Don’t want to be mean, but get a hold of yourselves, folks. Get out there and do something. Don’t tremble and whinge. You bring us all down with that.
Another Scott
@OGLiberal:
Changing someone’s political views is a very long term process. It’s very, very hard.
That’s not the way to win near-term elections.
The way to win near-term elections is to get Democrats to turn out to vote. When Democrats turn out, Democrats win. There are more of us than them (nationally – of course local distributions vary and matter a lot). Once a critical-mass is in place, then sensible redistricting happens and that’s when things will really start to change for the better. Look at what happened in California when the GOP no longer had control over redistricting. Texas is going to flip that way, too.
We don’t need to change the minds of the 47%. We need to have their proportion fall to match their actual strength in the population by having more people vote.
Incremental progress…
Cheers,
Scott.
FlipYrWhig
@Kay: There was a commercial for some local Republican candidate that aired last night. It consisted entirely of heavy-set veterans yelling directly at the camera about how the Democratic opponent–and Hillary Clinton, natch–believed in giving health care to able-bodied young people WHO DON’T EVEN WORK! Fat, cranky white guys yelling about welfare and disrespect. This is the Republican Party in the 21st century.
NotMax
@Kay
Would that a group could be created with the standing to file a class action suit against the Senate GOPers for dereliction of duty.
Elizabelle
@Botsplainer: Yeah, I think so. Chaffetz is odious, and he has to be brought back down.
Issa losing would be marvelously instructive. Go Californians!!
carolineblue
Hi everyone. I’ve been lurking here for years, but this election has had me so on edge, I finally had to post. I’m in NC, and I was so ticked off about what Comey did that I signed up to make calls this week. We’re going blue this year, dagnabbit! Also, got tickets to see Obama Wednesday. Super excited about that.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Obviously, Benen doesn’t watch the local NBC station here.
Elizabelle
@FlipYrWhig: I would love to see that commercial. Pointing and laughing territory.
germy
Kay
@Baud:
I’m doing a high school election presentation Thursday. I’m always polite and I volunteer in the school quite a bit so I have relationships and a reputation as a check on behavior but I don’t plan on serving as the liberal punching bag either. They have to behave within normal bounds. I’m not starting a response that is predicated on accepting “crooked Hillary” or any of this other shit they sling like it’s acceptable. It’s not.
JMG
@OzarkHillbilly: As Frank Sullivan, a Red Sox and Phillies pitcher of the 50s and 60s said once at spring training. “We’re not going to drink any more. Of course, we’re not going to drink any less, either.” Alcohol does help put me to sleep, but unfortunately, it also makes my sinuses go wild when I sleep, waking me up.
FlipYrWhig
@OGLiberal:
Same as it ever was. Outvote them, laugh at them, and wait for them to die.
debbie
@JPL:
Interesting that Joe’s in that ad, too.
OGLiberal
@Kay: What’s horrible is how easily he can do it. A few catch phrases from him and these people let loose. What’s kind of refreshing is seeing them do it – better to have them exposed. I’ve long felt that there was a large population of white folks in this country who were ready to go full blown KKK if only somebody in “authority” gave them the green light. Trump has done that and they love him for that…not just love, adore. They don’t care about any of his policies outside of those that hurt brown people. He makes it “OK” to be racist. For 47 percent of this country, that’s all it takes.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@OzarkHillbilly: I tried that in the Bush administration, it has it’s limits.
Elizabelle
@Baud:
Yes!!! Courage, people.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Heh.
debbie
@Elizabelle:
Don’t stop at Chaffetz. Go after all of them. Gohmert, Gowdy, Lee, even Ryan.
Elizabelle
I need to scrape some kind of Halloween costume together, however rudimentary. We are canvassing for votes tonight too. Maybe there will be candy.
Obviously, a witch costume is out.
FlipYrWhig
@Elizabelle: Doesn’t seem to have made it to YouTube. Seems to be a North Carolina state senate race. I’m in Southeast Virginia but it’s the same media market. Good lord was it contemptible.
debbie
@FlipYrWhig:
Here, they’re pinning Trump on every GOP candidate, including the county prosecutor. I’m hoping it will have some effect.
Barbara
@Kay: You mean sort of like a regular person has no choice but to rob a bank because he has a sick child at home? Excuses seem to be a one way trip in the U.S.
Elizabelle
@debbie: Yeah. I think so.
People are truly and honestly fearful this election. Maybe turn that anxiety into action after. Get the bad actors out over the next four years.
We can’t let people let their inner deplorable out like this. It hurts all of us.
Iowa Old Lady
@Kay: I think often of your theory that Trump makes everyone he’s associated with become worse. Comey is just a recent, public example.
@OGLiberal: That’s exactly how I’m feeling these days. I’m stunned that so many of my fellow citizens will vote for Trump. I can’t fathom it.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Elizabelle:
Right, the deplorables will think you’re Hillary.
Kay
@OGLiberal:
I have to say I disagree with that. It gets worse the more they indulge in it. They’re feeding off themselves. They self-escalate. The behavioral norms were checks on people who needed a check. All those people who resent that they can’t treat other people like shit or they get shunned? The shunning was the check they need. They can’t self-police.
FlipYrWhig
@Iowa Old Lady: I’m surprised that so many people can’t fathom it. People, in general, are assholes, and a high proportion of assholes are resentful, thoughtless, and hideous. Basic human decency surprises me.
Barbara
@Bill E Pilgrim: Not only was it wrong but I bet it signaled to agents who thought that there should have been an indictment that Comey was really on their side but was acting for political reasons. Ergo, it gave them reason to believe that they had cover to keep going.
OGLiberal
@Another Scott: Very good points. I need to work harder in non-presidential year elections because of their importance. GOTV in presidential years recently not an issue for Dems. Off years a problem. My one disappointmet with Obama is that OFA didn’t do that post 2008. Was led to believe that was their intention.
Live in deep blue NJ and the fact that we continue to elect d-bags like Christie as gov (or deeply flawed machines Dems like McGreevey) is a problem. As is my town getting redistricted out of the very good Frank Pallone’s district and into “abortion is everything” Chris Smith’s district. I no longer have a voice in Congress and the current district map has a lot of rich people. (Not my town….we’re blue, solidly)
HRA
@Elizabelle:
Thank you for posting what I have been thinking and not writing here. It is demoralizing to continue the whining when there is work to do in winning this election for the right candidate. Like stated in one comment here, have a nice drink to calm yourself. Get involved in the campaign. We can do it!
OzarkHillbilly
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Well, you had a drinking problem, you couldn’t drink enough. ;-)
@JMG: Try am!tr!ptal!n then. That stuff knocked me out for 24 hrs straight. (and never took it again, I hated it)
OzarkHillbilly
Former SC Justice John Paul Stevens attended World Series games at Wrigley Field in 1929, 1932, and 2016
It’s for all the old die hard Cubs fans who kept the faith all these years (like my old man did) that I hope the Cubs win. Then I think of how insufferable all their new found fans will be and I think, “Nahhhh, screw that.”
Kay
Shades of Bush v Gore. My favorite part of Bush v Gore was when all of media announced they had counted the votes and Bush won.
They bent over backwards to ensure there would be no investigation or accountability. They’re not the vote counters but everyone was “okay- these non-transparent private entities counted the votes and announced the winner!”
Peale
@FlipYrWhig: I really want to tell a right wing veteran thay if he continues to elect people who threaten to privatize my social security, I’m going to elect people who will cut off his government backed home loan, phony disability pension. let them support themselves through their phony charities.
OGLiberal
@Kay: But isn’t it bad if you never change the behavior? The end of slavery gave us Jim Crow. The Great Society gave us stop and frisk and Ferguson and any number of other instances of cops shooting folks for being black. Are these 47 percent a constant – just unchangeable. I think so. So maybe better they are in the shadows? Don’t know. If they aren’t going to change then maybe better I/we know what they think. The 3-5 percent outside of the 47 percent may feel shamed unto disavowing the overt racist if the keep seeing stuff like a dude yelling Jew-S-A orna black Trump supporter getting kicked out of a Trump rally.
OzarkHillbilly
@Elizabelle:
May I suggest a clown?
Barbara
@OGLiberal: I demur. I think for about 30-35% that’s all it takes. The other 12 to 15% are voting Republican by reflex or local allegiance or the traditional pet social issues or low taxes. They are racists in the way that Paul Ryan is: it’s just not important to them that their pet issue requires voter suppression and other anti-democratic tactics, not to mention differential law enforcement. And for all that, they are very good at displaying all the awareness that might come with living in a cave, and tuning out the racial resentment bordering on paranoia of the rest. Or maybe the allocation of the various constituents is different and many are overlapping. But here is where the media has really failed. Seriously, that NYT video of the Trump rally where people are using openly violent racist language should have been duplicated for every story that was written about Trump speaking at large venues.
JPL
@debbie: I thought it was great to use the actress who was in the original ad.
Joe is probably sad.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@OzarkHillbilly: Just avoid orange make-up and green hair.
Barbara
@Elizabelle: My husband told me of a costume where somebody strapped a box of Cheerios to their chest and drove a knife through the box, and had a little banner underneath that said “Cereal Killer.” That would be pretty easy to get together. I am not sure I would wear it while canvassing, however. If you have the right kind of clothes you could go as Cinderella’s fairy godmother or Glenda Good Witch — a twist on the theme of the wicked witch.
Elizabelle
@OzarkHillbilly: You made me laugh.
Shalimar
The poor alt-eight trolls like Milo picked the wrong side. Look at the postal story. One tweet from a guy in California claiming to be an Ohio postal worker has set Trump off for days, claiming a vast conspiracy. He is the most trollable person in history, and rather than take advantage of the opportunity to see their work repeated to crowds of thousands, they are on his side. Sad.
Elizabelle
@Barbara: Oooh! I like the good witch idea.
Am thinking maybe face paint, though. Or just me. Maybe they would still give us candy.
low-tech cyclist
Sam Wang:
Since it’s Halloween, it seems appropriate to quote the R.L. Stine character in Goosebumps:
JPL
hmm Time for Weld to openly support Hillary. His political career is over anyway.
OzarkHillbilly
@Barbara: They aren’t racist, but their friends are? Hmmmmm, not sure that actually gets them off the hook.
OzarkHillbilly
@?BillinGlendaleCA: And RWNJs patrolling the streets with AR-15s.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@OGLiberal:
I think it’s even loonier than that with them; 27% of the population is rabidly afraid of anyone who isn’t exactly like them and the 20% have been browbeaten by the 27% into voting for GOP as a matter of tribal and class identity.
Barbara
@OzarkHillbilly: I am not letting them off the hook. But when we point to the loudest, most revolting elements of Trump’s support in disgust we are to some extent letting people think that being a racist means hurling ugly epithets and threatening violence. Most elements of racism are not personal — they are institutional mechanisms to keep certain races down and elevate others. When you are not concerned that your desire to prohibit abortion requires you to elect someone who terrorizes people of color and suppresses their votes, you are a racist. You are willing to benefit from the racism of others. It’s too easy for people like Paul Ryan to piously bray about not having a racist bone in his body. The point is, he doesn’t need one, the same way King Henry didn’t need to get his hands bloody by taking out Thomas a Becket. He has other people to do that sort of thing.
ETA: And if it isn’t clear, those people who are not the ones hurling the epithets can reassure themselves that they THEY are not racist. We are probably never going to persuade the true deplorables — we might have some chance with those currently willing to benefit from their dirty work.
greennotGreen
Could one of you dear people out there canvass for me? I had volunteered to do door-to-door, then promptly had to go back on chemo and haven’t been able to do anything. Maybe I’ll be able to drive people to the polls on Tuesday…unless I have infusion that day.
Gosh, just think how awesome a President Trump would be for folks like me! My taxes probably wouldn’t change, but the stock market would probably dive, especially when the U.S. would no longer be paying its debts, and then money to the NIH would dry up, so no new therapies for cancer. With Obamacare wiped out, the indigent who go to my teaching hospital wouldn’t have insurance to pay their bills, so prices for people like me would go up which would be okay until Medicare got cut. Sick and bankrupt too! Will that make America great again?
OzarkHillbilly
@Elizabelle: Mission accomplished.
Robert Sneddon
@OzarkHillbilly: Mild correction — Associate Justice Stevens is still a member of the US Supreme Court (as is Sandra Day O’Connor and David H. Souter). He is, however, retired and does not take part in deliberations of the regular Court like his fellow retired Justices.
JPL
@OzarkHillbilly: A close friend is voting third party, and in GA it probably doesn’t matter. I still wasn’t kind with my words. I mentioned that if Trump won, I’d probably make a few financial changes, but that’s it. My sons have health care and their jobs appear to be recession proof. Her family is financially very comfortable(1%), but they face other challenges because of the color of their skin. I said good luck with a racist, pig in office.
gogol's wife
@carolineblue:
Good for you!
OzarkHillbilly
@Barbara:
To which I have always replied, “So what? All your policies have a racist effect.”
Barbara
@JPL: I try to tell people like that what I told my husband during the 2008 crash: they are deluding themselves if they think they can insulate themselves from a grand scale catastrophe like Donald Trump. One of the saddest things about our polarized polity is that whether we like it or not we are in this together. There will always be unforeseen difficulties and challenges, but a candidate who intentionally pushes us apart is going to be bad for the country because he will make meeting every and any challenge even harder.
Uncle Cosmo
@Joel:
Try “urinalist”: Most of them are just pissing against a wall hoping something will stick, & most all their stinking stuff just runs off into the sewer.
OzarkHillbilly
@Robert Sneddon: Thanx, you are of course correct. My bad.
JPL
Trump’s America
Washington Post link
Elizabelle
@greennotGreen: Hope you are feeling spiffier, soonest.
Barbara
@OzarkHillbilly: And my point is not that they have a racist effect but that he depends on racial animus and exclusionary racial practices like gerrymandering and voter suppression to stay in power. Because he can depend on racial exclusion to maintain power he never feels the need to collaborate or compromise with any interest group except racists and those who are willing to overlook racism in others.
Matt McIrvin
@BlueDWarrior:
Hillary wishes a motherfucker would impeach her.
Patricia Kayden
@Kay: Real Clear Politics shows Clinton’s lead shaved down to +1. Thank goodness for the electoral college. It appears that Comey’s interference has had its desired effect. Sigh.
@greennotGreen: So sorry to hear about the chemo. I applaud your efforts to get the only qualified candidate elected.
JPL
@greennotGreen: Just be ready to celebrate with us, after Hillary’s victory!
Matt McIrvin
@Elizabelle: “Rogue FBI agents” stories don’t actually help Clinton at this point, though, because even if the content is pro-Clinton, it’s still a story about her emails at the top of the front page and on the Sunday shows. It’s not about Trump. She needs to find a way to get the spotlight back on Trump.
hueyplong
@OzarkHillbilly:
FWIW, and it’s fine if no one cares, the item from LGM asks if anyone knows why Lefty Grove didn’t start any games in the 1929 World Series. The Cubs had only one LH hitter in the lineup, so Mack went crazy platoon and only started RHPs. That meant both Grove and Rube Walberg were in the bullpen.
Major Major Major Major
@Patricia Kayden: All of the movement there (and it’s well within the range of noise) is Republicans coming home. This is not unexpected. Add to that the fact that both candidates are polling… basically where they were in February, before any drama, and no, Comey’s actions have actually had no effect whatsoever.
ETA: Also, HuffPost/Pollster shows no changes. Now, there may be a change that just hasn’t shown up yet, but there have been no real changes anywhere that would affect anything as of this writing. There’s a lot of bad polling out there right now to boot.
Elizabelle
@Matt McIrvin: I disagree. Rogue FBI agents is huge. They’re more a menace to the public than emails.
And the double standard Kay mentioned is interesting. Don’t ignore that.
You have a candidate who has refused to release his tax returns, whose second or third manager quit because of ties to Russians, and the candidate himself may very well be compromised. In real life. Not just “emails!! There must be something here!”
And widely different treatment. Voters get that. Actual journalists might too. It’s a big story.
OzarkHillbilly
@JPL:
I know this is not a popular point of view around here but I never tell other people that their 3rd party vote is a waste or that they will be responsible if the truly reprehensible ends up winning. People have a right to vote as their conscience dictates. I might think their candidate is an idiot and if I do I am all too likely to express that exact opinion, but I won’t ridicule them for not voting as I might see fit. It just seems undemocratic to me.
Now, if they don’t vote at all? That’s a different story.
Xecky Gilchrist
Sam Wang is one of my heroes for his steady, rigorous reporting, and I silently thank him daily.
I hope he’s right about Trump representing the culmination of the emotional approach – but that sounds an awful lot like he’s saying we’ve reached Peak Wingnut, and here on Balloon Juice we know there is no Peak Wingnut.
Major Major Major Major
@OzarkHillbilly:
And I have the right to call them unserious morons with the political philosophy of a 17-year-old.
Betty Cracker
@JPL: He’s been all but openly campaigning for Clinton for weeks now. I agree — time to call a press conference and make it official.
Patricia Kayden
@JPL: And the White man who assaulted the kid wasn’t charged with anything at all. Just another day.
Barbara
@Patricia Kayden: Looking for patterns and cause and effect is what humans do, and patterns don’t have to be right, they just have to make sense for most people to be satisfied. For instance, many white people appear to attribute declining wages to black people and immigrants stealing their jobs, because of a temporal correlation between the decline in real wages and civil rights and immigration. They are wrong every which way to Sunday but it helps them “make sense” of their world. Don’t be like them.
JMG
@Major Major Major Major: Just checked RCP and average was Clinton up 2.9.
Patricia Kayden
@Major Major Major Major: Okay. So glad that we are almost at the finished line.
Major Major Major Major
@JMG: Ha, I just looked at the graph without even checking out the numbers. ‘Tis early.
waysel
@NotMax: I wondered too if a class action suit against Comey is a possibility. It would be too late to affect this election, but the man needs to pay the public for what he has cost this election. Bigly.
OzarkHillbilly
@Elizabelle:
Actual facts in evidence say otherwise. It SHOULD be a big story, but it isn’t.
Elizabelle
@OzarkHillbilly: I tell them about the horrible butterfly ballot design in Palm Beach County in 2000. Lots of people remember Nader; fewer remember that ballot. Especially if they are young voters. Without that butterfly ballot debacle, GW Bush would never have been close enough to steal the election. Thousands of votes intended for Al Gore went to Pat Buchanan. Buchanan was the first to admit that. That ballot design problem, more than Nader, gave Jeb! and Katherine Harris the opening.
(Conventional wisdom and too many reporters want to go with the “oh, Al Gore was so unpopular, it was his fault” but that’s not the full story, which would put the lie to their preferred narrative.)
I warn them that sometimes something you don’t expect turns up, like that butterfly ballot that cost Al Gore thousands of votes (miscast for Pat Buchanan) and that this is not the year for a protest vote. You can’t always see the unexpected that might crop up at last moment.
Third party does not sound so honorable to me when you have two vanity candidates who are unqualified.
But I am polite to the third party types. They might support us on other issues.
sunny raines
there are dozens of trump stories not being pursued by the corporate media: his upcoming court appearances, his Russian connection, his misuse of foundation money, his incitement of poll watching and voter suppression, and many, many others. But the biggest item is that no one seems to be putting together his Russian hacking connection and his projection of election rigging to be concerned what it means for electronic voting machines, i.e., is anyone making sure electronic voting machines used widely across the country are not subject to Russian hacking.
MomSense
@JMG:
I’ve found a quick donation to the Clinton campaign helps. You can even set it up to do it by text message. Giving a quick $3 or $5 extra scares the worries away.
OzarkHillbilly
@Major Major Major Major: Accomplishing exactly what? You are trying to accomplish something, aren’t you? Presumably something other than asserting your superiority that is.
Patricia Kayden
@Barbara: I guess it’s just scary that the polls are so tight but the electoral college still heavily favors Secretary Clinton so I’ll stop hyperventilating. Kudos to all the folks here who are working hard to get out the vote for Clinton. You’re doing the Lord’s work.
Uncle Cosmo
@JPL:
Dang, kanya bleeve they actually tracked down the Daisy Girl from 52 years back???!!??!? That’s the kind of leave-no-stone-unturned leader I want in the White House…
(BTW & FTR, one more vote for Her, Van Hollen, Elijah Cummings & every other Democrat on the downballot as of last Saturday.)
Patricia Kayden
@sunny raines: According to this article, our voting machines cannot be hacked.
Major Major Major Major
@OzarkHillbilly: I wasn’t aware that all conversations had to have a purpose.
@sunny raines: Voting machines are actually not spectacularly hackable, at least not in the sense you’re probably thinking. Individually, with the right cable, they’re easy to hack, but this won’t actually affect an election.
Mary G
@greennotGreen: I can’t canvas and it’s not really needed here in CA, but I will do about extra shift of phone calls for you.
WereBear
Over the weekend I finished a Cracked Podcast, What you don’t know about Trump voters, something like that. They are a wacky comedy site, but they also have some very informative/serious kinds of articles.
They put forth a very sympathetic point of view from the perspective of two young men who “escaped from Trump country.” I also found some parallels with the book Hillbilly Elegy, which describes the white working class culture all through the Appalachian states, the South, and the industrial Midwest.
In essence: it’s a culture problem.
Many of these folks are trapped by their upbringing, their town, and the entire culture which is all they have ever known. One man on the podcast pointed out that, growing up, he never saw anything sympathetic about inner city black people, just riots and crime. And what television wasn’t trashing, the church was; and this was all they knew. With Faux News and the like these days, it has only gotten worse.
I’m a small town escapee myself, so I can see both sides. We must have a way of reaching out to those who would really like to escape their dead end lives; because that culture does not set anyone up for any kind of success in the 21st Century.
Matt McIrvin
@Major Major Major Major: Unless election officials are themselves deliberately rigging the election–and there are all sorts of ways they could do that. Surreptitiously installing malicious software on some voting machines is something a relatively small number of people could arrange if they had direct physical access to the machines, though, which makes it a bit easier than other forms of election tampering.
What you can’t do is hack them over the Internet. But you might be able to attack computers that tabulate or store vote totals, if somebody has been careless. The goal would probably be less to falsify the result than to wipe it out or take the system down and create chaos and mistrust.
Major Major Major Major
@Matt McIrvin: Much easier to just lose ballots from black neighborhoods. I wouldn’t worry about voting machines.
ETA: I don’t even know if scantrons are networked? But at that point you have a paper record.
OzarkHillbilly
@Elizabelle
But who decides whether it’s a protest vote? Certainly not me. I’m not God, able to see what is in the hearts and minds of men. And if it is a protest vote, is that not their right? As to “seeing the unexpected” I suspect if I could see it then I would be expecting them…. ;-) ….but there are always unexpected events.
greennotGreen
@Elizabelle: Thanks, I already am because Science! I just like to point out that any government that doesn’t value and support science puts us all at risk.
Major Major Major Major
@OzarkHillbilly:
Third-party voters tend to make a habit of telling you what’s in their hearts and minds. Sometimes they even tell you what’s in your heart and mind!
Mary G
Not linking (Politico), but Darrell Issa is claiming he’d advise Hillary if she asked and he’s really a bipartisan guy. He’s covered in flop sweat because the latest poll has him down four points and Hillary up 14 in our formerly R+8 district.
Revenge is sweet. I still have a really snotty letter he sent me after I called his office two or three times demanding gun control after Sandy Hook.
If he loses, I’m going to send it to him and say who’s your momma now?
OzarkHillbilly
@Major Major Major Major:
I wasn’t aware that people converse with out a purpose. If there is no purpose to a conversation, I just STFU.
Chris
@Iowa Old Lady:
As my multiple references to J. Edgar Hoover over the weekend probably hinted, my question is to what extent the entire agency culture has always been polluted. Now that we’re seeing an FBI director, forty years after Hoover’s death, behaving in much the same way and apparently a lot of agents who are doing the same, it seems fair to ask: has the FBI in fact ever been anything but a rogue agency acting on its own political prejudices?
As for your friend, I’m sure there are good FBI agents doing good on the micro level and for whom the entire thing doesn’t sit well, but the same is true in police departments – lots of individual good apples, but their department’s leadership isn’t among them, nor does it punish ordinary members who aren’t good apples.
greennotGreen
@Mary G: Thank you!
OzarkHillbilly
@Major Major Major Major:
It is surprising the ability of the human mind to lie to itself, quite often people don’t even know why they do the things they do. As to the 2nd point, they sure do, but I’ve noticed that 1st and 2nd party voters are all too happy to do the same.
Major Major Major Major
@OzarkHillbilly: Agreed on all counts.
Chris
@greennotGreen:
I’ve been doing it for a couple of months, so consider it done. Although I may be relapsing into a nasty cold (the man who cures that will truly be a benefactor to mankind), so we’ll see how much of it I can do this week. It wouldn’t do to get voters too sick to get to the polls.
liberal
@FlipYrWhig: amen (no snark)
tarragon
OMFG. Right now there’s a guy standing in the next cube over explaining, loudly, that Hillary is evil, should be in jail, and (this one is new to me) will get us into a shooting war with Russia and China to personally enrich herself.
I want to argue. But… it won’t help, I started today with a headache that’s fucking with how I think so can’t make a coherent statement anyway, and anyway I’m a contractor so I don’t want to rock the boat.
I hope wingnut tears are as delicious as everyone claims. I be seeing a lot of them on the 9th.
srv
There is just no way 650,000 emails in her Outlook cache could possibly be relevant.
We need a President who will just ignore legal FOIA requests and be more protective of the sanctity of the unitary executive.
Chris
@OzarkHillbilly:
I never do it, but mostly because the potential third-partiers I know are all Republicans who would otherwise be voting for Trump, and I want them to piss away their votes.
wake me when this is over
bleh, Maddow opened her last segment with the Cap Weinberger indictment coming down 4 days before the Bush/Clinton/Perot election. Equating actual war crimes that have been proven to have happened, with multiple investigations that resulted in actual prison time for Bush insiders, with the Huma/Weinergate emails. This is obscene. She should be fired along with every other TV pundit/talkinghead/hairdoo. James Comey should be investigated for trying to reimage himself as J.Edgar alone. Maybe there will be investigation on whether he has violated the Hatch Act, probably not. But he can only get away with this BS because the media refuses to actual do journalism and learn the difference between sensationalist tabloid crap and actual news and law.
Major Major Major Major
@srv: I don’t usually laugh this early in the morning but that’s pathetic even by your standards.
Iowa Old Lady
@Kay: I’m reading a novel called TWO IF BY SEA, and in it, a little boy can mentally compel people to do what he likes. He’s a good kid, so what he usually tells them is “Be nice!” He says most people want to anyway in some part of them.
Trump is the opposite of that kid. He says “Be racist!” “Be sexist!” “Be anti-Semitic!” “Be hateful!” “Be violent!” And some people want that permission.
OzarkHillbilly
@Chris: Another possible benefit. :-)
Major Major Major Major
@OzarkHillbilly: oh, ok fair enough. Most of the third party folks out here in Sam Francisco are greens/libertarians and they’re annoying AF. I do know several Colorado-based mormons who will be voting for Johnson, in which case good for them!
Cermet
@WereBear: You touch upon the single most critical problem that most people (whites) in Appalachia face in order to escape is how to get the fuck out; without family/friends already established somewhere so they can get a start; or enough money, one can’t just move hoping to find work. Since the schools are terrible, their children find the trap is just as bad.
gogol's wife
@wake me when this is over:
Maddow was interviewed together with Doris Kearns Goodwin in yesterday’s NYTimes, and they both agreed at the end of the interview that although everyone was all worried about Dubya, he grew into the office of president and everything was fine.
They seem to have missed several disastrous wars and a financial meltdown somewhere in there. I am not at all impressed with Maddow’s intelligence / integrity.
chopper
@Kay:
yeah, irony died a long time ago but this is just digging up and mutilating the corpse.
Joel
@Kay: Gotta use that cell phone camera. Put it up on Facebook. Circulate the footage among AA and other minority advocacy groups.
Iowa Old Lady
@Mary G:
You go, girl!
OzarkHillbilly
@Major Major Major Major:
I know the type all too well. Around here most are libertarians and have about as much influence on elections as Dems do.
dww44
@JPL: @Elizabelle: Scrolled by my local Fox affiliate yesterday morning and although they don’t have a nightly national news broadcast they do run the Sunday morning Fox news talk and roundtable. There was a young attractive and not blond female sitting at the table who said “We’ve never had a Presidential candidate under FBI investigation”. This is all those on the right need to hear, whether old or not.. They will willfully disregard any mitigating information.
This is why what Comey did is just so egregious. Even if there were agents who were going to leak the existence of the emails on Weiner’s laptop,that would not have been as damaging as what he did. And if there is a another Trump story out there, a la the Rick Wilson’s mentions in Levenson’s thread from last night, it needs to come out sooner rather than later. This weekend is too late to help imo..
Major Major Major Major
@OzarkHillbilly: well, I think libertarians are unserious morons with the political philosophy of a 17-year-old.
srv
Oops:
Peale
@dww44: YEP. and we’ve never had a candidate who’s fraud trial has been postponed because he’s running for office. And we’ve never had a candidate who’s deducted his son’s Boy Scout member fees from his taxes using a phony foundation. I’m sure that got mentioned, too.
Major Major Major Major
@srv: maybe you should come back once you’ve had some coffee.
PAM Dirac
@Chris: The FBI’s reputation as a competent, professional, and fair organization is almost entirely based on movies and television. Even after Hoover’s death, lying, scapegoating, harassment and disregard of sound science is the rule, not the exception. For anyone who cares to look at the actual record, Comey’s nonsense is fully in keeping with what that organization really is.
Barbara
@gogol’s wife: If it doesn’t happen here it doesn’t happen. Our myopia is too deep to make us reliably safe as a world power.
OzarkHillbilly
@dww44:
Oh bullshit. One look at Hoover’s files proves that EVERY presidential candidate we had while he was running things was under FBI investigation (maybe not official investigation).
On further thought, I have to wonder, which candidate was she referring to? Trump’s relationship to Russia is being looked into too.
WereBear
I know the parents are often motivated by fear of their children moving away; but trapping them in a dead end life is no way to love them. They don’t see education and skills as anything but the means for their children to leave, so they don’t support their acquisition. But it’s not possible to make a decent living without something to offer… once upon a time a strong body was all one needed, but those days are far in the past.
To me, Wal-Mart sums it up: Wal-Mart is destroying their towns and their livelihoods for the chance to both work and struggle on welfare. For cheap merchandise which falls apart so quickly.
They are being conned by their leaders, and hate us for trying to help! There has to be a way to revitalize these rural areas. Because we do still need to eat, and some people are just not going to be happy in the big city, either.
OzarkHillbilly
@Major Major Major Major: They are.
Stan
@OGLiberal:
Not so, and it is really important that people know this. Slavery ended in 1865 with the US Army’s victory over the confederates and the passage of the 13th amendment.
From 1865 to 1876, the Army tried to produce something like peaceful government and fair elections in the former confederate states. Not saying they succeeded fully, but, they were trying. It may be the only time in US history before the 1960s that the government gave a damn about black people.
After the election of 1876, when the first reconstruction ended, the last Army units were withdrawn from the former confederacy…. the “state’s rights” phonies were able to terrorize their way back into power. THAT’S when Jim Crow got going. it didn’t even peak until the 1890s-1900s.
My point is that we should remember that federal authority really did and can make a difference in what i still refer to as the former confederacy. (and I refer to them that way because a majority of their voters justify it, sorry)
NorthLeft12
@FlipYrWhig:
I will never, ever, understand how a lot of you Americans think. To believe that health care and the basic necessities of life are all privileges that should only be for the “deserving” in your society just astounds me. The use of the word “entitlement” [especially wrt Social Security which people pay all their lives into] has become an epithet to degrade those who receive it. The connotations of “welfare” are even worse.
How about you show the rest of the world what kind of society the majority of Americans really want?
Matt McIrvin
The DAPL pipeline story is being pushed by third-partyish folks in my Facebook feed as a reason not to vote for Clinton.
Patricia Kayden
@tarragon:
Make sure you ask srv for his/her tears. He/she can mail them to you for enjoyment on November 9th.
Patricia Kayden
@Matt McIrvin: Because Trump’s investment in DAPL is irrelevant?
D58826
@Major Major Major Major: What about the data link between polling places and the election board headquarters? Or do they move the vote totals by phone or car? And the election board computers? Not saying it is happening but seems like there are better places to hack than an individual machine.
Major Major Major Major
SiubhanDuinne
@Major Major Major Major:
Or, you know, not.
OzarkHillbilly
@srv: OH MY GAWD!!!!! THE CRIME OF THE CENTURY!!! SOMEBODY SOMEWHERE HINTED AT A QUESTION HILLARY MIGHT GET!!!! CALL THE FBI!!!
in other news trump denied having sex with a shaved goat while in possession of a large can of crisco at a campaign event last week saying “does that look like a goat i would have sex with? just look at her teats! sad!”
Peale
@Matt McIrvin: Yep. Look, the Administration’s hands are a little tied here as is the court that gave the notice that work could continue while lawsuits to stop it move forward. I don’t know if they can stop the work. They CAN however, insert themselves into investigating civil rights violations and hope they do that soon.
Major Major Major Major
@D58826: I don’t remember how they transfer vote totals. It probably is different everywhere. The hacking would have to be so bespoke that anything affecting the election is basically impossible.
@Matt McIrvin: all my lefty friends on Facebook are checking in to Standing Rock on Facebook right now. I guess it’s the new changing your location to Tehran. Maybe they’ll make their profile pictures green next!
NorthLeft12
@FlipYrWhig:
Chris
@PAM Dirac:
That’s my impression too, and the fact that I know the FBI is an incredibly PR-conscious organization (again, has been since Hoover’s days) – especially in re self-promotion through movies and TV and the like – is part of the reason I distrust them: I’m increasingly coming around to the notion that the more people have a “Mr. Clean” reputation in the media (certainly the more they try to build one), the more full of crap they are. I was mostly curious in terms of how, if at all, the bureau had changed since Hoover and whether there had ever even been any attempts at real reform, other than the ten-year limit.
I know they’ve improved in at least a couple fields – they actually did start taking Mafia-busting seriously in the last few decades of the twentieth century, and also did a better job of targeting hate groups and far right militias instead of just left-wing movements (both anathema to Hoover, who either wouldn’t do these things or had to be kicked in the ass really hard by higher authorities before he did).
Against that, you have things like the Whitey Bulger disaster, using the Aldrich Ames investigation to settle scores with the CIA, failing to spot Robert Hanssen for twenty/twenty-five years. And a willingness to cooperate with right wing allies and thuggish police departments (see Comey’s BLM crock of shit). And now, this.
Chris
@NorthLeft12:
The fact that our society considers gun ownership a right, but health insurance and college education to be “privileges,” “luxuries” and “entitlements,” is a fairly concise illustration of how incredibly fucked up our conception of these things is.
Major Major Major Major
@Chris: the FBI has always been a disgusting and corrupt arm of the police state that, unfortunately, does a lot of good work, so it can’t just be nuked from orbit.
@Chris: Maybe they’d agree that your employer gets to determine what kind of gun you can buy.
Origuy
A Russian-American friend of mine claimed on Facebook that today is the day we’ll find out about Trump’s Russian investors. I don’t know where he gets his information–and he says it’s only a guess–but he is been pretty perceptive about Putin before.
Iowa Old Lady
@OzarkHillbilly: And isn’t Trump under investigation? Isn’t that what Reid’s letter claimed?
D58826
Most of election stuff on my twitter is e-mail realted. Some about latets silly thing Trump said.
This weeks Newsweek cover story on Trump shredding documents/e=mails etc related to various law suits – one entry
here is the link:http://www.newsweek.com/2016/11/11/donald-trump-companies-destroyed-emails-documents-515120.html
NorthLeft12
@gogol’s wife:
FFS, the huge step backwards for US society during the Dubya/Cheney years is a cost that you guys will continue to pay for an entire generation. Either the Iraq war or Katrina or the 2008 Recession are events that severely damaged your faith in your government and each other, nearly on a level as the Vietnam War.
I am assuming that this is another example of the extremely low bar that Republican Presidents have. If a Pres. Trump leaves office with the US in a recession, in two major and three minor wars, and riots in US cities on a daily basis, I guess some people will shrug their shoulders and say “It could have been worse, right?”
debbie
@Iowa Old Lady:
Could Billy Mumy have been warning us about Trump?
Philbert
Happy Halloween indeed! I woke at 2am to some ceiling and window noise. A squirrel? A rat? I turn on the light and it’s a FUCKING BAT IN MY BEDROOM!
Gelfling 545
@Major Major Major Major: And it’s a pretty safe bet that if your conscience only extends to what you want to do and can ignore the effects on millions of other people, it’s somewhat under-developed.
Calouste
@Peale: On the other hand, the US probably has had a candidate who called people from another country rapists and murderers. And called for banning vast numbers of foreigners from entering the country.
Matt McIrvin
@Elizabelle: Remember, people don’t actually read news stories, they read headlines. If the headline has “Clinton” and “emails” in it, it’s still bad.
Matt McIrvin
@Philbert: “That’s it… Criminals are a superstitious, cowardly lot… I shall become a bat!”
sigaba
@Matt McIrvin: I got a meme on Instagram yesterday which suggested the Bundy’s and the DAPL protestors were on the same side against a corrupt police state.
(This is from a militant vegan and ALFer.)
Feathers
@WereBear: Highly recommend putting in the time to watch the Frontline multipart series Country Boys. Filmmaker David Sutherland follows two poor boys in an alternative high school for several years. You really see how family can be a trap. Even (especially!) a loving one can pull you down hard, if it is dysfunctional and clannish.
@Iowa Old Lady: I was born and raised “inside the Beltway.” When I return home from Boston, i am horrified by how many old friends (and relatives) who are now law enforcement, national security, and military are complete Limbaugh/Fox News/wingnut drones. It’s really dangerous, the way normal “my boss sucks” attitude gets melded into blaming everything on the Democrats, Obama and Clinton. Even shit that they will admit to Republicans doing only happened because the Democrats are worse. It’s this delirious combo of always-being-right, never having to think for yourself, while constantly being praised for being smart enough to see through the lies. I’m sure it is why the Secret Security quality has nose-dived. The FBI has the additional burden of screening standards that disallow any one with even a cursory personal knowledge of drugs or left wing thought. The joke is that they’ve created background checks that only Mormons can pass. (In many ways not a joke.) So there is this (no gays!) Boy Scout attitude that can curdle in ugly ways. The other issue is that the culture of and legal requirement for secrecy allows for a rumor mill that can whip the ugliest stories around, coming from “a friend who knows,” but “keep it to yourself.” This is the fever swamp that all of the Clinton lies burble up out of. I have no doubt at all that the lies that Donald Trump keeps telling were fed to him by former (or current) FBI or other national security agents. I’ve never been able to watch The West Wing because I hate Alan Sorkin with the heat of a thousand suns for that “You can’t handle the truth.” line. It’s become the mantra of the army of natsec goons who run around thinking they are saving the country by destroying it.
So, yes, I agree something needs to be done about rogue FBI agents.
Feathers
@NorthLeft12: and Doris Kearns Goodwin equating Clinton hate and Bush hate. What I find is that when you ask why someone hates the Clintons, they just sputter and start talking about personal characteristics and “crooked,” but when asked about Bush(es)/Reagan, you get reasons/AKA things they’ve done.
What’s strange with the current media is that it is actually easier for them to cover something that isn’t really an issue, because it can be debated endlessly, while actual, truly bad shit makes for bad news because, well, facts are inconvenient when it comes to blathering on and on.
WereBear
Thanks for film tip, will have to track that down.
Intelligence, maturity, and even mere competence can absolutely be a curse in a dysfunctional family. They start to depend on that person and keep them from fulfilling their promise. It’s not just the white working class; it’s also the poorer African Americans — ironically, they have the same cultural problems! Even if they are expressed differently.
I just finished The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace: A Brilliant Young Man Who Left Newark for the Ivy League by Jeff Hobbs. This brilliant, kind, and extraordinarily mature young man did everything right to fulfill his promise, including graduating from Yale, but growing up in a rough inner-city neighborhood eventually pulled him down to his doom.
Out of loyalty, he tried to keep a foot in both worlds… and failed.
The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
@Stan: Exactly. It’s one of those moments in American history where we got to see what an alternative approach could produce, and it worked. There’s been a genuine concerted effort to erase the successes of reconstruction from American history, because acknowledging the fact that it was working means we might have to take a look at why we stopped trying.
TerryC
I was born in Appalachia in 1947 and was the only member of my generation to “get out” at an early age. The factors that negatively influenced me were more social and familial. I have at times found it difficult to cope with successes over the years because I didn’t know what to do with success. Still don’t, but it matters less at my age ?
Chris
@Feathers:
I think Aaron Sorkin is a smug, sanctimonious, and elitist douchebag who isn’t nearly as liberal as he’s given credit for, but FWIW, I don’t fault him in this case. “You can’t handle the truth!” is one of these unintentional break-out memes that people think is awesome even though the actual message is about how dangerous they are (kind of like Starship Troopers picking up an unironic hyper-militarist following even though it’s a parody of that mindset. Or the Colbert Report picking up supporters who think it’s conservative).
In-universe, it’s pretty clear that Colonel Jessup is a snake in the grass, shamelessly hiding behind the good reputation of the military service in order to cover his own ass. In other words, exactly the sort of soldier or cop who, after a police murder or war crime is exposed, instantly goes on an off-tangent whine about how cops/soldiers like him are the only thing that keeps civilians safe and nobody appreciates them enough, as if that should somehow excuse them when they commit a crime.
Chris
@Feathers:
I tell this story from time to time because it’s an illustration of something that terrifies me in this: I had a friend in undergrad, one of my few Republican friends, who graduated with a degree in national security studies and international relations… and who, I discovered some time after we graduated (so 2009 or 2010, long after the 2003 invasion of Iraq) was actually completely unaware that we’d never found any WMDs in Iraq. After a few seconds to think it through, she immediately came up with the canard that “well, he must’ve moved them to Syria then [because obviously he had to have them].”
She is now employed at some security agency or other.
Like, political appointees at the higher levels, who’re ideologically blinkered because that’s the kind of thing they’re into, I always knew that existed. What terrifies me is the notion of self-lobotomized right wing drones coming fresh into the service at an entry-level position with just as many delusions as a high-ranking political appointee, because they’ve grown up their entire life in the Fox News bubble. Which, I increasingly realize, is a hell of a lot of people.
sigaba
@The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion: We stopped trying because Rutherford B. Hayes bought votes off of Democratic members of the House to defeat Tilden in a deadlocked Electoral College.
There’s nothing really to confront it this, which is extremely distressing. It was just a bargain, there was no really concrete or positive reason, it was just a deal someone made.
(I GUESS I could point out the fact that bargaining away the rights of blacks is a really common occurrence in American history, for the very good reason that the Constitution was positively designed to weaken northerners and urban interests in order to hold slavery’s chin above water and to force compromises with white supremacy, no matter how unpopular or politically irrelevant it may be.)
EthylEster
OT and nitpicky BUT….including PhD in your signature block or nym is cringe-worthy IMO.
Matt McIrvin
@Chris: In Sorkin’s writing, the right-wing “bad guys” always talk a better line than you’d expect, and use rhetoric in their own defense that is emotionally affecting, because that makes for a more exciting and challenging story (and, also, because I think he sincerely believes in a politics based on civics-class ideals of fair debate). You see it on his TV shows as well. He’s always got to remind you that the other guys are not just snickering melodrama villains and inarticulate idiots. Even when, in real life, they are.
Chris
@Matt McIrvin:
To be fair, everybody in Sorkin’s fiction talks prettier than they would in real life. That’s actually one of the most basic problems I have with his work. The first time you come across it, the dialogue is delightful. But by the time you’re on your third or fourth show/movie, you become painfully aware that 1) everybody sounds the same and 2) that’s really not how human beings talk.
(I like Joss Whedon a whole lot more than I do Sorkin, but the same problem occurs there).
Agree that Sorkin’s vision of politics is basically about civics class debates.
catclub
@WereBear: Reminds me of the Shameless(?) TV series. I think the US version I watched was adapted from the British version.