Turns out that that Kelcy Warren, owner of Energy Transfer Partners – “the DAPL people” – is a huge folk music fan. He created the Cherokee Creek Music Festival in Texas, and is a megafanboi of Jackson Browne, having produced a tribute album to him.
Too bad Browne – along with the Indigo Girls, Shawn Colvin, Joan Osborne, and several other musicians – isn’t returning the love. They’ve written an open letter to him decrying DAPL and announcing a boycott of his festival and studio:
“[W]e realize the bucolic setting of your festival and the image it projects is in direct conflict with the proposed Dakota Access Pipeline … This pipeline violates the Standing Rock Sioux Nation’s treaty rights, endangers the vital Missouri River, and continues the trajectory of genocide against Native Peoples.” The letter concludes, “In order to stay true to our music and respect the Native Nations that are united against the Dakota Access Pipeline, we will no longer play your festival or participate in Music Road Records recordings.”
I must have missed the folk music genre that celebrates despoiling the earth while trampling on Native American rights and attacking peaceful protesters with tanks and dogs.
PS – This Atlantic piece provides a good overview of some of the legal issues, and outlines some of the shenanigans the folk music enthusiast’s company pulled.
Edit: Open Thread! I always forget that.
Ken Houghton
Cue West Wing reference (S 2, e 1): Josh and Sam talking about how things changed since their days at Princeton:
Sam (roughly): “I’m helping an oil company buy cheap, dangerous tankers.”
Josh: “They should write a folk song about that.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmdRVcChzCA
piratedan
sorry to be OT on the first post… but apparently Faux News is walking back their report yesterday of Hillary’s imminent indictment with the usual “sorry, not sorry” mealymouthed sincerity.
Hillary Rettig
@piratedan: just made it an open thread!
Hillary Rettig
@Ken Houghton: holy crap, that’s apt
PaulWartenberg2016
Just remember every vote FOR Hillary is a poke in the eye of the F…B…I…
FlipYrWhig
@PaulWartenberg2016: Annoy the G-men: Vote Hillary
Anoniminous
@piratedan:
Doesn’t matter if they walk it back. Research shows once someone accepts information from a trusted source any attempt to dissuade only reinforces the original
propagandamessage.Iowa Old Lady
Someone on one of my writer boards just said that a woman coach at her daughter’s HS in Ohio was arrested on charges of selling heroin. As I recall, the heroin epidemic was one of the issues HRC grew to see as more important as a result of the listening tour she did at the start of her campaign.
patrick II
O/T, but this is an open thread.
Yesterday one of the commentators had a link to some republican running for congress who was talking about too many Arab immigrants, and they brought disease and crime and didn’t believe in American values.
Last night I stopped for gas and forgot to put the gas cap back on. I heard it rattle as I drove. I pulled off to a quiet side rode, put on my emergency lights and and got out to screw the cap back on. A car going down the road stopped, the window rolled down and an obvious Arab immigrant in the passenger seat asks: “Are you alright? Do you need some help?”
I told them no, I had just forgot to screw on the gas cap and they said ok and drove on.
Small, minor experiences, but I couldn’t help but note the difference between the fervid, fearful imagination of the congressman and the reality of the two guys stopping to help — or maybe in the congressman’s version of American values helping others isn’t on the list.
RK
Albert Z.
ICYMI Louis C.K. Is All In For Hillary
“IF you vote for Hillary, you’re a grownup. If you vote for Trump, you’re a sucker. And if you don’t vote at all, you’re an asshole.”
schrodinger's cat
I am utterly charmed by this lilting melody in Punjabi, from a Hindi movie romance set in Mumbai, starring Siddharth Malhotra and Parineeti Chopra (Priyanka’s cousin).
Lovely lyrics, Mumbai in its monsoon glory and totally adorable Siddharth, what else could ask for.
Ishq Bulava (Call of love)
Rough translation:
You don’t know when love will call
call of love will come when it does
I want to be with you
I want to sit with you
Keep looking at you
You keep smiling
And I’ll keep making you smile
Chris
@patrick II:
Those of us who live close to any concentration at all of immigrants know better.
This came out in the hysteria over the Ground Zero Mosque (which was not a mosque and was not at Ground Zero); while a significant majority of Americans disapproved of the mosque, once you actually looked at the breakdown, that number got smaller the closer you got to Ground Zero, culminating in a majority of people in Lower Manhattan having no problem with it.
Arclite
I saw the article on “Call the top 10 contacts in your phone” app. Thing is, all my contacts (except 1) is in the bag for Hill, and my entire state is +19 for Clinton and all down ballot races are projected Dem wins (We haven’t voted in a Republican in a regular election since ’87). So what can I do to help?
md S Oregon
My son is among the clergy at Standing Rock. If I were better at tech stuff, I would share a link. Would love to share a picture of him that someone took. He was only there because many family and friends urged him to go and dangled a bunch of money in front of him! We made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. I couldn’t be more proud.
Major Major Major Major
@piratedan: shocked, gambling, etc.
Doug R
Do they do any Investigating anymore? Or maybe they should change their name to the Federal Slander Bureau, or are the initials FSB taken already?
trollhattan
In which Brian Williams actually does something useful–calling out Halperin to his unhappy face.
History will not treat Trump enablers kindly (except for Texas schoolbooks, which will discuss this sadly failed last attempt to save Western civilization).
Bill E Pilgrim
@Anoniminous: It’s even been codified into “Cokie’s Law”
Arclite
Sam Wang is calling it for Hill. 538 says Trump is just a polling error away from victory.
Fuck I hate this election.
Major Major Major Major
@Arclite: Just ignore Nate Silver.
Arclite
@md S Oregon:
Just be careful who you tell that to, or we’ll wake up to Fox News announcing “Liberals pay protesters cash at Dakota Access Pipeline!”
I’m proud of him too. Americans don’t protest enough these days.
gogol's wife
Reposting from dead thread below: Just got screamed at (for the second day in a row) by a man calling Hillary Clinton a “criminal” (yesterday) and a “felon” (today). Today it was a stranger in the grocery store who butted in on my conversation with two employees (women of color). I end up responding so weakly, because the truth never sounds as convincing as a firmly shouted lie. The one today then said, “The FBI is going to get her! I mean the CIA!” I walked away, saying, “I think you do mean the FBI.” And I am in a Democratic state. This is depressing the hell out of me, even though I know it has no statistical significance. But I’ve never had this experience before.
GrandJury
@Ken Houghton: Loved West Wing.
WaterGirl
Paging Steeplejack…
Major Major Major Major
@gogol’s wife: Somebody in Reno threatened to shoot me in 2012 but I think that’s just what canvassing in Nevada is always like.
Roger Moore
@Chris:
This. Immigrants are their own best advertisement. Get to know a few, and you realize that we should be encouraging more people who are actually excited and willing to jump through hoops to be Americans.
@Arclite:
Which they should know is BS. The whole point of poll aggregation is to minimize the noisiness of the individual polls. If it were just one poll saying that Hillary is 3 points ahead of Trump, there would be real cause for worry because it might be wrong. But we actually have many polls that average to give her that 3 point lead, and they broadly agree with state-level polling that gives her a solid advantage in the Electoral College. That makes it exceptionally unlikely that her lead is just a result of a random polling error. It’s possible that there’s a 3 point systematic error in her favor, but I’d like to see some justification for that before freaking out.
md S Oregon
@Arclite: His uncle, affectionately known as Hippy Hal was one of his biggest pushers. He would have gone as well, but isn’t quite up to hopping on freight trains any longer.
Chris
@Major Major Major Major:
Whatever the commentary may say, Silver’s model has had Hillary with a very comfortable probability of winning for pretty much the entire time.
schrodinger's cat
@gogol’s wife: Don’t let the assholes get to you. They have to yell and shout to overcome their disadvantage in logic and numbers.
Mnemosyne
I need to watch that PBS series about cats referenced in the thread below. Our middle cat Annie loves to watch other cats on TV and sat through an entire episode of “Cats 101,” getting up just as the credits started to roll.
And, yes, we already knew that our cats would be willing to kill and eat us if they could. Even when he was a kitten, Keaton knew to lunge for our joints when we would play-wrestle.
GrandJury
@Albert Z.: Louie is more anti-Trump though. He’s consistently left leaning but he did say early on that he doesn’t think Dems should win after 2 terms of Obama.
His point was that it should switch every 4-8 years. I had a problem with that comment. Not only because the alternative was Trump, but that it didn’t take into account the repub senate and repub house. Not to mention all the repub controlled states
He was talking about it like there is only the one level of gov’t.
Mnemosyne
@gogol’s wife:
We are the Silent Majority — they are the Obnoxious Minority. Hang tough.
bemused
@gogol’s wife:
That’s really unhinged when people are so worked up that they scream at strangers in grocery stores. Out of control. Damn the far right wing conspiracy crowd and media. They have a lot to answer for but I don’t expect they will ever have to pay a price for their machinations.
? Martin
@Arclite: I actually agree with how Nate models. The big uncertainty in every model is who will actually turn out, not who they will vote for. It determines who you ask and if you are asking the wrong people, then you’re going to be pretty wrong. Worse, your turnout model is generally a systemic problem – it likely affects every poll you’re running.
Nate is guarding against the potential that latinos don’t turn out, or young people don’t, or that some normally non-voting group turns out for Trump. And if you see that, it’ll hit across the board. And that’s not an idle issue – that’s what happened in 2012 with Obama turning voters out much better than the poll suggested (to the extent that you had the Fox News perp walk when Ohio was called) and in 2014 when Republicans outperformed polls because they turned out better.
Now, with all the attention being given to early voting, the size of early voting, and the information we have on early voting, that model should be able to firm up a LOT with that data, and that part doesn’t really seem to be happening. All ground data suggests that Clinton will outperform polls, not Trump. Nate is saying ‘look if there’s a systemic problem in the polls, Clinton’s lead is not so insurmountable that this couldn’t come to Trump’. And I see that as well. If Clinton were polling above 50% in most swing states, then that risk would largely go away, but unfortunately she isn’t. Obama was.
scuffletuffle
@gogol’s wife: correct response is “Fuck right on out of my conversation you decrepit old prick.”
At least, thats what I usually say…
Roger Moore
@Major Major Major Major:
Just to watch you die?
Arclite
@patrick II: I’ve been annoyed at the Skittles analogy ever since I heard it, because it doesn’t make any goddamn sense. The main problem is that poison Skittles would kill you, as if a few terrorists who come in with Syrian refugees would be able to kill every man, woman, and child in the USA.
Skittles are disgusting regardless.
Also, the guy that took the Skittles picture never allowed for it to be used and is suing for copyright infringement.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Arclite: If the aggregate has her at 48.5% and him at 45.6%. a 2.7 point margin of error could also mean that she’s really at 51.2% and he’s really at 42.9%.
I keep seeing people on TV saying that if the lead is not larger than the margin of error, then it’s “a tie”. It could be, but they don’t know that from the numbers.
schrodinger's cat
@Roger Moore: Johnny Cat version of the same:
I once clawed a man in Reno
Just to watch him cry.
WaterGirl
@Ken Houghton: When this election is over I am gonna have to re-watch The West Wing from start to finish. Or maybe I’ll wait until inauguration day when I am sadder than sad that Barack Obama will no longer be our president. I think I will start watching on January 20. Thanks for the link, it was fun. Barack really has been the real deal.
joel hanes
@gogol’s wife:
got screamed at
My invariable reply in such situations :
“It looks to me as if the people you trust have been lying to you, because none of that is actually true.”
Then walk away.
Calouste
@ Martin:
The pollsters already do that for him. A lot of them have likely voter models that closely resemble the 2004 turnout (74% non-Hispanic white).
Arclite
@scuffletuffle: Also, Trump is a criminal too. I’m pretty sure raping 13 year olds isn’t legal.
Gin & Tonic
Here in multicultural America, my Uber driver, identified as Pablo, pretty clearly Hispanic, has the radio tuned to country music and his Uber nav app talking to him in Italian.
hovercraft
GrandJury
@piratedan: Were we supposed to believe the original indictment story from Faux Noise in the first place???
I know their mouth breather Trump supporters will believe it and ignore any walk backs but that’s just business as usual and doesn’t change anything with anyone else.
gogol's wife
@Major Major Major Major:
Just to watch you die?
Calouste
@Arclite: The guy who took the Skittles picture is a refugee btw. Fled Cyprus to the UK in 1974 after the Turkish invasion.
gogol's wife
@schrodinger’s cat:
Thanks, I try to tell myself that!
Major Major Major Major
@Bill E Pilgrim: That’s because people don’t know how math works.
@Calouste: This is what I was going to write. Nate is double-(at least)-hedging his model.
Chris
@GrandJury:
Has anyone ever heard a Republican say this? Has anyone ever heard somebody advocate own goals for the purpose of some broader concept of ideal governance who wasn’t a liberal?
And yes, I understand that there are more important things than winning and lines that you can’t cross and that being the only party interested in governance means it’s more important, not less, that you continue to hold to these lines. But for fuck’s sake, when you’re at the point where you think it’d be good for your side to lose elections…
gogol's wife
@scuffletuffle:
He looked younger than me, so that wouldn’t work . . . .
gogol's wife
@Roger Moore:
oops, should have read the whole thread before answering.
Bill E Pilgrim
@gogol’s wife: Some raw material here in case it’s ever useful, lots of debunking details all in one piece.
Arclite
@Calouste:
That’s incredibly ironic.
schrodinger's cat
@Major Major Major Major: Most journalists don’t even understand percentages, forget more complicated stats stuff.
bemused
@joel hanes:
Or just say, hey, free speech in America. It’s not my problem you don’t like me using it.
Chris
Huh, according to Nate’s model, the state that’s the most absolutely a sure bet is Maryland, with more than a 99.9% chance of Hillary winning, and a less than 0.1% chance of Trump winning. Every other state, the losing candidate has at least 0.1% or more.
I knew I made the right choice moving back here.
Major Major Major Major
@Chris: I’ve never even heard a democrat say that. Just high-minded independent ‘radical centrist’ types, or morons who don’t understand how the government operates.
Now, nobody ever said CK was smart…
Shell
Always laughed at that Skittles ad…Would you take a handful if you knew one was poisoned..
Well, Homer Simpson would (Ummmm, forbidden Skittle.) And you can’t get more average American than himl
hovercraft
@piratedan: @GrandJury:
Even in his apology he is still insisting that there is an ongoing investigation into the Clinton foundation, he is only walking back saying that an indictment is imminent. Watch Bret Breir still an asshole.
Roger Moore
@? Martin:
I understand your comment, but I think it’s basically wrong for two reasons:
1) It isn’t just one pollster with one methodology; it’s multiple different pollsters with different methodologies. That should reduce the risk of a large systematic error from a flawed turnout model.
2) I’m skeptical of his modeling of that uncertainty. If we really don’t know how the turnout will go, you can’t just throw in an uncertainty factor without justifying it, and I’ve never seen a good justification for the size of uncertainty he uses. In contrast Sam Wang at PEC had a productive discussion of how he was going to model uncertainty in his predictions, and it actually convinced him to go with a low uncertainty model.
trollhattan
@Roger Moore:
But Johnny died in 2003…or did he?{experts disagree}
gogol's wife
@Bill E Pilgrim:
Thank you, that is excellent. I sent it to the one of the two men whose name I know.
Mary G
Hillary has signed up 99,120 people to make phone calls from home. Make it an even 100,000.
You can choose a state and read a script for that state so you know what to say. The first goal is five calls. Do at least that much.
WaterGirl
Could someone please click this link and see if it takes you to Alain’s testing thread this morning? Then check to see if comment #25 is a naked link to a chocolate chip cookie recipe, posted by WaterGirl?
Thanks!
Major Major Major Major
@WaterGirl: Done. The link is there.
trollhattan
@gogol’s wife:
I almost never think of a good line at the time…brainfreeze or something. Approached in a group like you were, a go-to is “Isn’t it sad when cousins marry?” Got that from Martin Mull.
Gin & Tonic
@WaterGirl: Yes and yes.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
So, like, how do we fix the fact that there seems to be a cabal within the FBI that is working with Russian Oligarchs to influence our election? Seriously, the guys supposedly protecting America from threats foreign and domestic are aiding and abetting Putin/Russia and pissing off all our longest standing and staunchest allies. Maybe they’re not doing it intentionally but they’re doing it nonetheless.
WaterGirl
@Major Major Major Major: Yay! Just testing Alain’s fix to the naked link problem.
Naked links are back in at Balloon Juice!
WaterGirl
@Gin & Tonic: thank you!
Albert Z.
@GrandJury: Yeah. Some of his political commentary has been a way too both-Siderism for my tastes. That’s why I thought his unequivocal endorsement of Hillary was surprising. Otherwise it was some fairly light comedy for an open thread. I am otherwise in a media/Facebook blackout until next week. But I’m enjoying my time here though.
Roger Moore
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:
What should happen is that their immediate supervisors handle it through normal disciplinary channels. They’re clearly violating Bureau policy, and there should be serious consequences for that. But we want it to be clear that this is something that’s happening as a result of normal practice, not as a result of political pressure from higher up.
bemused
@trollhattan:
Actually I probably wouldn’t respond. If someone is angry enough to scream at a stranger over politics, I’d worry how rational he was and if he’d follow me out the door, be threatening. I just don’t think you can know for sure with Hillary haters or Trumpheads. We wouldn’t even consider putting up lawn signs. People are out of their minds.
Peale
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: Obviously, they have too much time on their hands. Lets all go register with the Communist Party and go to Amazon and order pressure cookers, nails and fireworks. Lets make them feel surrounded and keep them so busy conducting background checks on us that they die under a mound of paperwork.
Major Major Major Major
@Albert Z.:
This is a very good idea. Perhaps I’ll just play Fallout 4 this weekend. If nothing else it will be good practice for in case Trump wins.
Roger Moore
@WaterGirl:
To go with the naked mopping.
catclub
@Chris:
It shows that Louis CK does not have a side, he just decided to pay attention for 60 seconds, and saw that Trump was crazy, while Hillary was only suspect.
He doesn’t have a side so he thinks both sides should take turns.
catclub
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:
it is more like parallel play of two year olds than ‘working with’.
jenn
Just saw this on the twitters – thanks “Justice” Roberts:
dmsilev
@Major Major Major Major: I’m playing Civ Vi. That will give me the necessary experience to take over the world after we’re blasted back to the Stone Age. Step one: build some archers and conquer the neighboring city.
tarragon
@trollhattan:
Or Steve Martin’s “I remember my first beer.”
catclub
@jenn: That could easily be a really bad ‘we need numerical context’ report.
How many counties? How many polling places per county?
Suppose there are 1000 counties and each one has 35 polling places. How about 50 counties and each one has 20 polling places?
It would pay to know which.
Chris
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:
As someone else said the other day, this can go down in history as the election where the KKK, the FBI and the KGB all supported the same candidate.
It already impressed me how movement conservatism in this day and age manages to take all the worst aspects of our history (the police-state ambitions of COINTELPRO and CREEP in the sixties and seventies, the robber-baron economics from the turn of the century, the racial supremacism from the Civil War and the Indian wars, the controlling busybody puritanism from the days of the Salem witch trials) and combine them all into some extra-concentrated “Bad America” epitome. Except apparently, it’s not even Bad America anymore: the League of Evil is going global.
Jeffro
@trollhattan:
I was just coming here to post that very thing…isn’t it Just. BEAUTIFUL?!?!? so ouchie! much sting!!
trollhattan
@Jeffro:
Halperin tears are a miracle drug. Thanks, Obama.
geg6
@bemused:
My John and I have quit going out to the places we usually go to on Friday nights because of the obnoxiousness of the Trumpsters around here. We’re down to two places left where we won’t be either assaulted by Trump talking points all evening or screamed at by them if we speak up. We can go to the Chinese place down the street or we can go to the local Applebees. That’s it.
It really pisses me off because we love the little Greek-specialty bar/restaurant just across the street from us, but we can’t go there anymore because the Trumpsters polute the place and, being bullies just like him, are loud and aggressive about anything to do with Trump/Hillary. Last time I was there, John had to drag me out because I got so incensed by one of these idiots that we literally almost came to blows. Such a big brave guy, threatening to hit a 120 lb. woman twenty years older than him. Typical Trumpster.
Major Major Major Major
@geg6: Jesus christ. What the hell is wrong with this country.
gogol's wife
@geg6:
I’m at the point where I feel I can tell by the way these guys are driving that they’re Trumpsters. I’ve gotten tailgated a lot more aggressively since I put my Hillary bumper sticker on.
gogol's wife
And on the way home from the store, I saw a yard that had a bunch of signs for Democratic candidates, and used to also have a Hillary sign. Now it has a handmade sign that says, “You stole our sign but you can’t steal our votes.” It made me sad.
Brachiator
@Roger Moore:
@Chris:
RE: So, like, how do we fix the fact that there seems to be a cabal within the FBI that is working with Russian Oligarchs to influence our election?
What if the supervisors are members of Trumplandia as well as the staff they oversee?
This is crazy. Articles in the Guardian and Newsweek suggest that there are competing intelligence factions in the US government. A group within the FBI love Trump. But the national security agencies and many high ranking generals despise him. And instead of making America great again, some of our allies would be wary of sharing sensitive information with Trump for fear that he might share it with his buddy Putin.
Trump might actually be the one who finally turns the US into a second rank country ignored by new major power China (Russia’s continued rise is not secure, and Vladimir is just an oligarch’s whim away from overthrow). Who’d have thought this would where we would be. The polls are supposedly tightening and we are a knife edge away from …?
Chris
@geg6:
Good idea. If you run into David Brooks at the salad bar, do say hello.
WaterGirl
@Roger Moore: Absolutely! Every naked link honors John Cole.
geg6
@? Martin:
Seriously, how do you know? Nate doesn’t have any transparency into his model, so you don’t really know that. I think his model is not very good, myself.
Betty Cracker
Since it’s an open thread, a question for y’all: Does anyone know of a site or other resource that tells what broadband services are available in a given area, by ZIP code, address, etc.? I Googled it, of course, but came up with mostly ads and other hinky-looking resources, so I’m consulting the hive mind. Thanks!
dmsilev
@Brachiator:
Then it’s incumbent upon the Director, or one of his immediate subordinates, to put appropriate people in charge of that office. And if the Director can’t or won’t do so, well then we need a new Director. How plausible that is, I don’t know. If Hillary tries to fire Comey, Republican lawmakers will be racing each other to see who can be the first to file articles of impeachment, no matter how justified the action would be.
WaterGirl
@dmsilev: That’s why I think Obama has to fire Comey before he leaves office. The sooner the better, I would think, after the election.
Betty Cracker
@scuffletuffle: I like the cut of your jib! :)
catclub
@WaterGirl: is there a mop emoji that can bet attached to naked links?
Steeplejack
@WaterGirl:
Checking e-mail now.
dmsilev
@Betty Cracker: It’s hard to get that information reliably; there are all sorts of stories of people getting confirmations that a particular cable or phone company services some location only to be told when they try to sign up that “sorry, our wires don’t run there, but we’d be happy to expand our service if you pay $20K in construction costs”. Talking to the people who actually live in the neighborhood at question seems to be the only actually reliable approach; even calling the ISP and asking is not necessarily accurate.
Major Major Major Major
@dmsilev: Obama forces Comey out, then Obama and then Hillary get to play “if you won’t clean this place up I’ll keep firing the acting director until I find somebody who will”. What’ll they impeach her for, being the executive?
dexwood
@gogol’s wife:
Saw a handmade sign next to a Hillary sign yesterday that said, “Every time you steal my Hillary sign I contribute another $100 to her campaign”. Made me smile.
dmsilev
@Major Major Major Major:
I think first in the queue is impeaching her for rigging the election.
Honus
@Iowa Old Lady: yeah but it’s Donald Trump who really connects with these rural working class voters and understands their concerns and economic anxiety.
Jeffro
@WaterGirl:
Let’s see…late in the afternoon on Friday the 11th, that would work.
trollhattan
@Betty Cracker:
See if the FCC maps might help.
geg6
@? Martin:
Isn’t that something that the pollsters do and so would make it redundant for him to do? I’m not seeing the need for him to do that when it’s baked into polling methods. He’s aggregator, not the pollster. He shouldn’t be duplicating their work. I would think that would be one of the reasons his model hasn’t been very good the last couple of elections.
Lizzy L
OT: I just gave Doug Applegate (running against Darrell Issa) another contribution. That’s it for me, I think. Now to survive until Tuesday. Fortunately I have a busy weekend planned, with stuff that will keep me from engaging with the election until Monday, and on Monday I will do whatever I can do on the phone.
I want to join the chorus of what was said upthread about immigrant communities. I live in one. My neighbors, apart from the few jerks and jackasses, are generally great neighbors. Even the neighborhood drunk, when he stops me on the street to ask me for money to buy booze, which he knows I won’t give him because I never do, is polite. In fact, I suspect my neighborhood is much like my great-grand-parents’ neighborhood was when they got off the boat at Ellis Island in the 1880s and found a place to live in a crowded tenement, not literally, because that was in NYC and I live in a blue-collar suburb across the bay from SF, but at heart, and in spirit.
Brachiator
@WaterGirl:
This gets complicated. Assuming that Hillary wins the election, Obama might want to broker a deal to get Garland appointed to the Supreme Court as soon as possible. This would be complicated by firing Comey; any action against him will look like Obama was trying to shield Clinton and enrage the Republicans.
If Trump somehow (gasp) wins, firing Comey might look like a no-brainer. But the GOP probably don’t like him anyway and would love it if Obama got rid of him, letting the Republicans keep their hands clean. And they would still go after Hillary. Unless Obama fires Comey and pardons Hillary.
My totally ignorant speculative guess is that Comey will be out one way or another. I’d like to see him resign after Hillary takes office. This would allow for some face saving and pretend soothing of political wounds.
Chris
@Brachiator:
If nothing else, I’d like to hope that the FBI’s public image takes a hit from this one. Between all the Repubs who think he’s crooked for not getting Hillary, and those of us who’re paying attention, it should at least make a bit of a dent.
sunny raines
for too many, money corrupts absolutely.
Roger Moore
@geg6:
Except he’s probably younger than typical. A typical Trumpster threatening to hit a woman 20 years older than him would be abusing a corpse.
Chris
@Roger Moore:
Wouldn’t put that past them, either.
Betty Cracker
@dmsilev: That scenario you describe is exactly what I’m trying to avoid — I work at home and have to have reliable internet. I’ll ask prospective neighbors. Thanks!
Old Dan and Little Anne
I’ve been waiting all day for a video of drumph and underage Russian girls. Where’s the big Friday bombshell?
PPCLI
.
AnotherBruce
@schrodinger’s cat: I’m an aggressive guy, so I would have no problem saying “Mind your own business, asshole” And very loudly. But you probably shouldn’t act the way I would.
bemused
@geg6:
Yeah, it’s ugly. They all need to be driven back underground but I don’t know how it will happen, at least not any time soon. They won’t give up being loud assholes in public until enough people shame and shun them and for long enough for it to sink into their thick heads.
Betty Cracker
@trollhattan: Thank you! The map shows that the road on which my prospective ranch is located is the border between a “fixed broadband” and “no fixed broadband” area. I’m on the side of the road that supposedly has broadband (there probably isn’t high demand from the cattle across the road), but I’m gonna have to ask neighbors and nail down a provider before committing to that property. Lack of fixed broadband is a deal-breaker for me!
Brachiator
@Chris:
I don’t really care about that. The idea of a group of FBI agents in effect running their own foreign policy desk and attempting to influence an election is jaw dropping. One thing that comes to mind as a comparison is the more of less confirmed analysis that the Pakistan military and intelligence services have their own interests which are independent of that of the established government. There may have been aspects of this even in past US administrations, but never anything so blatant.
A black eye to the FBI’s public image is inconsequential compared to the larger ramifications of what is happening here.
BTW: I always wondered if Dick Cheney stuck people in various agencies who supported his distortions of intelligence to get the verdict that he wanted against Saddam Hussein, and what happened to these people after Bush left office.
trollhattan
@Betty Cracker:
Sounds promising…fingers crossed.
Why did the bull cross the road? To sext the sheep in 4k video.
AnotherBruce
@WaterGirl: Early in the morning, Call him at 5:00 a.m.
Roger Moore
@Brachiator:
Then the supervisors one level further up have to get involved. That sounds unlikely, though. My understanding is that the agents involved are disgruntled because their supervisors didn’t support their investigations, which doesn’t sound likely if the whole office was a hotbed of Trumpism.
WaterGirl
@catclub: Great idea. Someone here should create a mop emoji, and then the emoji could be automatically added to the nym if there was a naked link in a comment.
Mary G
@Lizzy L: Anybody in the area Monday, Doug Applegate and Kamala Harris are having a rally at UCSD. Come and meet our new Senator and Representative!
10:00 a.m. to 11:30 Monday, Nov. 7
Price Center’s East Ballroom
9500 Gilman Dr., La Jolla, CA
Text “Rally” to 228466 to RSVP and GOTV.
Keep running Republicans out of California’s Congressmembers! Tell Darrell Issa to GO AWAY!
#Flipthe49th!
Roger Moore
@geg6:
The big problem is that he has a strong incentive to hedge his bet by putting in uncertainty. Basically, if Hillary wins, he can claim to have predicted it correctly whether he gave her a 70% chance or a 99.9% chance of winning, but if Trump wins he looks a lot better if he gave him a 30% chance than a 0.1% chance. Sam Wang is going out on a limb by saying Hillary has a 99+% chance, which he can get away with because he doesn’t have a whole commercial web site depending on his reputation as a prognosticator.
trollhattan
@Mary G:
Boy oh boy, if you guys can kick Issa to the curb my Tuesday night will be complete!
First time in my life I was able to select women for president, senator and representative on my ballot. A great moment.
Roger Moore
@geg6:
The basic problem is that 538 has a strong incentive to hedge its predictions. They look good as long as they get the top line answer right, whether they gave Hillary a 70% or 99.9% chance of victory. But they look a lot worse if Trump won after they gave him a 0.1% chance than if they gave him a 30% chance. So they stick in a lot of uncertainty to prevent the model from making really strong claims. Sam Wang is going way further out on a limb, and he ought to get some extra credit if he gets the prediction correct.
Mary G
Even the WSJ is worried:
THIS YEAR!!!
workworkwork
@geg6: My wife is in respite care, which has a heavy concentration of older folks.
So when I was having lunch with her the other day, I overheard a lady at the next table with the latest right-wing craziness:
California is letting illegal aliens vote in this election, THEREFORE, all of California’s votes will be rejected because we can’t tell which ones are illegal.
philadelphialawyer
@? Martin: Silver is a full of shit, click baiting asshole. End of story.
WaterGirl
@AnotherBruce: I was thinking maybe it should be the 3 am phone call. Call with a fake crisis and let him jump into Director mode on the phone and then say “oh by the way, you’re not director of the FBI anymore”.
Cowgirl in the Sandi
@Mary G:
I just signed up and did 10 calls but of the 10, 9 went to voicemail and the script said no messages. But, the one person I talked to had already voted for Hillary ( in Colorado!).
schrodinger's cat
@AnotherBruce: I am tiny woman of 5ft 2 but I have no problem telling people to mind their own damn business, even if I choose to not call them names. Were you responding to gogol’s wife?
Major Major Major Major
@Brachiator:
Then broker a deal, get Garland’s nomination confirmed, and then renege and fire Comey.
Wapiti
I think it’s premature to fire Comey. Investigate first – so likely need an independent or special prosecutor. Do it above board, get people under oath as to what happened, and track down the leakers. The FBI seems to have a bunch of Snowden-wannabes, and the intel and law enforcement branches should have systems in place by now to find such leakers. Execute the plan the FBI has, find the leakers, and go where the investigation takes us.
sukabi
@Roger Moore: According to this article Nate Silver knows his model is crap this tiMe…
sukabi
@WaterGirl: yep. Obama has to remove him before his term is up and Appoint an interim director.