Is there any chance that this year, the media won’t write articles about how black turn-out is disappointing BEFORE the election occurs, the way they did in Virginia last fall?
The truth is, blacks voted at a slightly lower rate than whites before about 2000 and mostly at the same rate (higher in 2008 and 2012) since 2000. Given that voting rates correlate closely with income, and that many states put in rules specifically designed to depress black turn-out, this is fairly remarkable.
Let’s make this the year that they retire the myth that African-Americans don’t vote.
Roger Moore
The media will continue to concern troll the Democrats until there’s a complete change in our whole political system. We just need to get over it and keep fighting.
schrodingers_cat
@Roger Moore: They are Republicans, of the polite variety.
germy
I don’t want to see any articles like that unless they start seriously talking about attempts at voter suppression.
Kay
Let’s become the Party of voting rights. It’s beautiful on so many levels. The best thing about it is there is NO competition. As recently as the 1990’s Republicans at least mouthed voting rights platitudes. That’s no longer true. One can go head to head with them on suppression and they not only don’t hide it, they RUN on it. Engage, boldy. PICK a fight on this one if necessary. We’ll win.
The response to the election in Alabama should be Democrats investing serious money in protecting existing voting systems and expanding access. If we want to “reward” the voters in Alabama we should reward them with support so they can run their OWN local candidates and win local and state elections. Don’t thank them. Support their efforts to win and govern locally – on school boards, city councils, tax boards, water boards, all the ways resources are meted out to exclude and cheat them. Make a long term commitment especially in southern states.
Baud
WaPo did something similar before the Alabama race. I’ll see if I can find it.
Villago Delenda Est
The Village? Give up one of their narratives like that? Over their dead bodies!
Oh, wait…
Baud
@Baud:
Oopsie
Davebo
@Baud: Alabama has one of the toughest voter suppression laws in the country.
And yet… idiotic claims of illegal voting.
WereBear
@Kay: So true, and why hasn’t there been enough pushback?!?!
It is utterly foundational.
O. Felix Culpa
@Baud:
I read the article at the time and wondered where the authors got their information. Seemed of the made up out of whole cloth variety even then.
O. Felix Culpa
@WereBear:
What constitutes “enough?” There’s tons of pushback through various organizations, both grassroots and nationally. What are you doing to support voting rights? I’m getting seriously irked at comments that suggest it’s someone else’s responsibility, especially some nebulous higher-ups who should take matters in hand for us. Particularly on MLK Day. His success was due in no small part to the many private unnamed citizens who put their reputations and bodies on the line for justice. Go and do likewise.
Kay
@WereBear:
The nonprofits and all that are nice, but that’s a LEGAL strategy. Take it out of court. Democrats are ready for it in a way they weren’t even in 2008 and 2010. The sad truth is even many Democrats bought the voter fraud bullshit. That’s changed. They’re just waiting for the Party to jump in a serious, top-tier issue way. Parties make their own rules. I think they could make a STRONG suggestion that any Democratic candidate who wants state Party or national Party support has to make voting rights part of their campaign. Has to allocate X amount of resources and time to on the ground voter protection and access efforts.
I would make it a percentage but I’m a stern authoritarian and the cats would screech if they’re herded to that extent – also it might be illegal :)
STRONG suggestion. I can live with that.
cmorenc
Targeted voter suppression includes election-day practices that handicap even minority voters who have the requisite voter I.D., such as:
– selectively shorting minority-dominant precincts of voting machines, making for longer lines and time investment needed to vote. This is why in nearly every closely contested election, it’s nearly always minority-dominant precincts where a judge orders voting to stay open past the normal poll closing deadline due to logistical problems at the voting site.
– loosening the requirements for poll observers to challenge voter qualifications (slows down the line, longer waits).
Consider why at most predominately white suburban polling places, voters cruise through the entire process at a fairly quick pace, whereas the long lines are predominately at minority-dominant precinct polling places.
CarolDuhart2
https://www.c-span.org/video/?431526-1/dnc-voting-rights-commission-holds-news-conference
Tom Perez started a Voting Rights Commission that is going to be a permanent part of the DNC.
O. Felix Culpa
@Kay:
Excellent suggestion. I recommend putting it forward to your county and state parties, perhaps to their platform committees. I will do the same. Party leaders are volunteers up through the state level – including the state party chair – and I can tell you they’re juggling many many worthwhile balls all at once. Help them out.
Raoul
Along these lines, who is doing the best work on voter registration and get-em-to-the-polls work? I donated to an NAACP ActBlue Charities thing a while back that I thing Dough set up. I’d be willing to be a monthly donor to a group that is doing solid AA/POC voter legwork, esp is swing states.
I already am an annual donor to the regular NAACP and NAACP LDF (who does court work on voting rights issues).
I can give to partisan or C(4) groups too, doesn’t have to be a charitable org. I’d also be willing to volunteer. I feel like we need a kind of a ‘freedom summer’ this year that gets lots of folks registered and equipped. In a lot of states, that means starting soon so that if citizens have to contend with f’ked up ID laws, birth certificates, marriage licenses etc we have time to get the resources and paperwork done!
WereBear
@O. Felix Culpa: I am saying it should come out of every Democratic leaders mouth every time they speak. President Obama gets it. ALL of our party’s leaders should get it so much.
Kay
@O. Felix Culpa:
I do. Not always but I even go to the incredibly boring state conventions :)
I’m excited about this, because if your thing is voting rights 90% of the action is at the state level:
Governors. There’s a WaPo piece that says the new guv of NJ is “the Scott Walker of the Democrats”. Delightful! We need 8 more of those governors. Pronto. Democrats state level have been quietly expanding voting rights in blue states. Virginia is the best recent example.
O. Felix Culpa
@Raoul: The League of Women Voters, Rock the Vote, and VoteRiders come to mind. Our local Democratic Party works hard on voter registration and education. Other suggestions?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
just turned on MSNBC and Lindsey Graham is mewling about how Dr King’s values are the glue that hold us together– I’m sure he would say that the other 364 days of the year. Makes me wonder what South Carolina’s voting laws are, and how Lindsey would address them in light of Dr King’s values.
ETA: a very strange interview, he keeps looking off shifting his eyes around, not looking at the camera or the interviewer
WereBear
@CarolDuhart2: THAT is what I am talking about.
Just One More Canuck
@Villago Delenda Est:
Your proposal is acceptable
O. Felix Culpa
@Kay:
Absolutely true. That’s why we worked diligently to win the Secretary of State in 2016, which made a HUGE difference when Dolt45’s bogus Voter Commission came calling (she unequivocally refused to cooperate – yay!). We have a Republican governor (for now), and a Republican Secretary of State would have been a double-whammy for voting rights. We’re organizing to take the governorship back this year. Fingers crossed.
ETA: I’m running as a delegate for our upcoming pre-primary convention, which votes on who gets on the primary ballot for statewide positions. If elected, this would be my first.
Chyron HR
@CarolDuhart2:
Can’t he call it something like a White People’s Voting Rights commission to keep Our Revolution from throwing a fit about it?
O. Felix Culpa
@WereBear: I agree that our leaders need to highlight voting rights as often as possible. Glad to see CarolDurhart’s reminder that Tom Perez established the Voting Rights Commission at the DNC level.
The Thin Black Duke
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Oddly enough, creatures like Graham only found their admiration for Dr. King’s “values” after the civil rights icon was assasinated. Just a coincidence, I’m sure.
H.E.Wolf
WereBear, Raoul, O. Felix Culpa, Kay, CarolDuhart2: Amen to all your great recommendations. I’ll be walking today in our local MLK Jr. Day march, with voter registration forms.
Amaranthine RBG
Indeed, it’s clear that the democratic path to victory runs through the house or apartment or every Black woman in America.
Quinerly
Just briefly popping in. Apologies if this has been posted. Don’t have time to read thru the comments. WE HAVE TO BEAT THESE MOTHERFUCKERS IN NOVEMBER: http://news.gallup.com/poll/225413/highest-gop-satisfaction-direction-2007.aspx
Barbara
@Baud:
Living in Virginia, I have a running tab of WaPo’s coverage of the governor’s race. They not only did multiple articles about how uninspiring a candidate Northam was to African Americans, but they also published an article implying that Northam had “dissed” the candidate for Lt. Gov., Justin Fairfax, the lone African American on the ticket. The truth is that an independent labor group kept Fairfax’s picture off of a flyer it had published itself for its members to use, because Fairfax opposed a local pipeline, which they favored. Then, it published anecdata about the impact of Gillespie’s odious “MS-13” TV spots getting traction in exurban counties, and THEN it published an article that was highly critical of a Latino group’s advertisement showing Latino kids being scared by a white guy in a truck. Only in that article did they accuse anyone of being bigoted. Can’t ever imply that any white people, even a lone white guy, is a bigot. But those MS-13 spots . . . were just appealing to public safety! Finally, they published articles about how the polls were getting closer. I can’t tell whether they were trying to make sure no one took the outcome for granted or whether they really believed those things. it made me nervous enough to do election day phone banking.
Baud
@Amaranthine RBG: True, plus the rest of us that share their morals and values and decency.
rikyrah
In honor of MLK day,
This has always been my favorite section of Letter from a Birmingham Jail:
Feathers
@Kay: It’s the virtue trap every time. Republicans come up with something that sounds like a good thing “save precious babies,” “keep your hard earned money” or “stop voter fraud.” All of which are noble goals (in theory), but the Republican cure is far worse than the disease. Even if the capitulation ends the immediate crisis, it will inevitably come back in a far worse form in a generation, after the compromise becomes the hated norm – see the Hyde Amendment becoming the Hobby Lobby, private insurance doesn’t have to cover birth control.
It’s a media problem as much as a political one.
Thoughtful David
Yeah, that’s gonna happen. The Republicans have been playing the refs for 50 years. And it works. They now have the media completely cowed (yes, you too, WaPo), and always thinking how to present the Republican point of view. The media now have their narrative down pat, and they will have to be fought against for another 50 years by us for us to be able to kill these myths.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Always on point, Kay.
Always on point.
Scotian
@Just One More Canuck:
This feels a little too eliminationist for my tastes, especially from another Canuck. Their professional corpses, THAT I can get behind, but one of the things that needs to always be watched for WHATEVER side is involved is absolutist language verging into this kind of eliminationist speaking./thinking, as well deserved as it may seem or even be (because the underlying critique of those “professionals” is if anything understating in my view), it is IMNSHO too dangerous a linguistic tool/pattern to ever use in a political context, especially where domestic internal politics of a society is concerned. The ends and means thing, and in this case such language can preclude the ends being sought or worse, bring about their opposite.
Yes, I know, probably too snowflakey for some, but this is an important battle, and one the GOP and the Right understood decades ago SEMANTICS MATTER!!! I watched this shift happen, I understood it in real time, kept trying to get people to pay attention and STILL I more often than not seem to hit walls in the process, but this is one fight I will never stop fighting. I am fine with fighting, I just want it to be smart AND I want it to be in ways that do not end up with meaningless/empty or worse victories at best, if even that much, and that is where this path goes in my estimation. The way to deal the deathblow to this kind of power the GOP has in the media is through reclaiming the meaning of words to their actual meanings! Where context is understood to always be needed to understand what was said and meant. When the rhetoric user is allowed to make anything gray, then nothing is clear, and I once heard the Right go into years of uproar for “depends on the definition is what “is” is”, well now we see the definition of shithole or shithouse somehow making a difference for the GOP Senators to call fellow Senators liars while defending their President from his obviously racist remarks in a substantive policy meeting that he himself said just last Tuesday publicly he wanted! This has GOT to be fought back on the same battlefield/battlespace.
Sorry, not meaning to be too harsh here on the person quoted, more using their point to underscore a wider point about language, particularly political language, which given this day in the USA and what has been “evolved” in the discussion of President Shit-for-brains seems especially relevant and worth noting. I know that here on a blog like this it isn’t going to make much difference how someone says something, but elsewhere it can, and this is one of those things I find is best focused on all the time, both for how the enemies can use it against your own side and argument (a tactic the GOP has sadly far outplayed the Dems on for decades now) and for the blind spots it can create in your own perceptions (which in some ways I see as even MORE important) as witnessed by so many hear and throughout the left in 2016 missing that Trump could win. It was an important part why I kept trying to get folks in my circles at the time to understand this could really happen, in no small part because of how he speaks and the way he uses language (well that and his freewheeling BSing which he was allowed to get away with while HRC was held to standards beyond all reason on that front, optics you know are always much worse than actual deeds, at least when it was her).
Rant done, going out for the afternoon, hope all have a nice day despite the reality we are all having to live in.
Scotian
Oh yes, one other comment..Kay’s comments at the beginning of this thread are ones I agree with in toto with ZERO disagreement. I think that approach is the best political fighting strategy that could be employed by Dems and the left, and I truly hope to see it happen!
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Times change Doug, That’s Bush era stuff, this is the Trump / Alex Jones era on the right. More like stories of voter fraud or how Hillary Clinton is at her kitchen table with a soldering iron rigging voting machines to give the wrong results.
Thoughtful David
@Barbara: Yes. The WaPo is garbage. Maybe not as low as the Vichy Times, but garbage nonetheless.
Whenever I write this, I get pushback from people on this blog defending the FTFWaPo’s coverage of Trump. Ok, it’s better than the FTFNYT’s, but that is a damned low bar. I mean Plank-length low. FTFWaPo is culpable in the election of Trump, and that can never be forgiven.
Amaranthine RBG
@Baud:
Omarosa thanks you!
Somewhere, deep beneath an office building in Bethesda, scores of wonky guys with Poli-Sci degrees from Rutgers are brainstorming about how to get Omarosa’s vote. Democracy depends on it!
Amaranthine RBG
@Thoughtful David:
The NYT is “all in” protecting Trump.
And the WaPo put him in office in the first place !!!
Feathers
One thing that really might work is boycotting voter ID states. That seems to get some traction.
The real issue is we don’t have a system for dealing with failed elections, with the consequence that looking too closely at whether the vote totals accurately reflect the ballots cast, or that every voter got to cast a ballot, just doesn’t happen. People are afraid of what they might find.
That has to end. The very simple but entirely verifiable paper systems used elsewhere must become the norm.
H.E.Wolf
@rikyrah:
Yes. Thank you for posting that excerpt!
Baud
@Amaranthine RBG: Nah, we are aware of the 27% rule and which demos meet or beat it. Can’t reach them all.
Lapassionara
@Raoul: This!
mai naem mobile
This is my experience and anecdotal..I deal with a lot of people in their early to late 20 in my work. Quite a few are AA. The vast majority didn’t vote. One who did vote is a first generation immigrant. The other one who unfortunately I don’t deal with any more brought up the Russian hacking quite a bit before the election when I wasn’t even paying attention to the Russian hacking and basically pooh poohed it when she brought it up. All the older AAs I know all voted. I don’t know what you do about it. They’re a very cynical bunch and really.believe government can’t and doesn’t do anything to help them. They don’t understand basic civics and don’t follow the news. Not sure JayZ,Lady Gaga and John Legend telling then to go vote is accomplishing anything.
Another Scott
@Kay: Agreed that pushing for expanded voting access is crucial.
But I think a lot of stuff is going on that we don’t know about. E.g. the DNC on Voting Rights.
It would be great if we could get someone really plugged-in to expanding voting access efforts to post here as a Front Pager periodically. I support VoteRiders.org and LWV.org, but it’s a huge topic and no handful of groups can do enough on their own.
I plan on being at the March on the Polls event in DC on 1/20, and I’ll look for signs of a coordinated voting access effort.
Cheers,
Scott.
Ben Cisco
@Doug!
Media in the Netherlands, pretty good chance. The shitshow we’ve got? NOT A CHANCE. We simply have to let them know IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT YOU THINK!
@Amaranthine RBG: Nobody’s talking about trying to get the votes of would-be overseers. You HAD to have known that.
Amaranthine RBG
@Baud:
Obviously, the key to defeating the unshakeable 27% is to focus entirely on getting the vote of 5% of the population.
I mean, elections are lost/won by less than 5% usually – so that is where to focus. Find 5% of the voters and focus on them like a laser.
Mnemosyne
@CarolDuhart2:
I am willing to forgive Perez for his Unity Tour BS because of the DNC’s smart support of Black voters in Alabama. Clearly he’s doing the stuff behind the scenes that we most wanted him to do.
H.E.Wolf
@Scotian:
Thank you. Eliminationist rhetoric is toxic, and it gives me the shivers when it’s used. Down that road is horror.
Among the reasons that Gandhi and MLK Jr. were honoured and feared is that nonviolent resistance is a force of immense power. On this day of all days, let’s walk in their footsteps.
Marcopolo
@H.E.Wolf: Yes, more of this please! I have a personal goal of registering 100 voters this year. Still researching who is doing that in St Louis but have calls in to both the local NAACP & LOWV. I’d particularly like to reach out to ex-felons. I’d love it if everyone here would go out and register a few folks—and give some cash to groups coordinating these kinds of efforts.
In the meantime, my local Indivisible group has this January already written & mailed more than 10,000 GOTV postcards to D registered voters in four MO state legislative special elections scheduled for early Feb. Heh, I just realized we haven’t discussed doing voter registration. Guess it is time to have that conversation.
And to all the BJers, good morning!
Amaranthine RBG
@Ben Cisco:
Now, now hold up. You are saying that the democrats don’t need to focus on getting the entire vote of the 5%? That there is some percent of the 5% that is unreachable? So what are we pursuing here – 4%? 4.9%? I don’t see how we can afford to write of the overseers, as you call them.
Baud
@Amaranthine RBG: Will do.
Mnemosyne
@Amaranthine RBG:
Awww, is white dudebro’s fee-fees hurt that he was 100 percent wrong about the elections in Virginia and Alabama?
Poor baby.
Mnemosyne
@Ben Cisco:
There’s no point in pretending that ARGB is even attempting to make arguments given that he was 100 percent wrong about both VA and AL.
The only logical action now is mockery.
Amaranthine RBG
@Mnemosyne:
She is willing to forgive Perez? SHE is willing to FORGIVE Perez?
Yeah, I mean because there is this one person who drives national campaigns and directs strategy and then there is the other person who’s job it is to judge all that. Like someone with an asymmetrical haircut and jorts who storms out of the mini-van in the drive through line to come INTO the Starbucks and set the barista straight about what, exactly goes into a double shot frappucino with TWO (goddamnit only two) pumps of caramel!!!
Baud
@Mnemosyne:
I read the final report. I feared the worst, but it was ok (although I could quibble here and there). If Perez helped defuse that bomb somewhat (still undetermined) then he did good.
Amaranthine RBG
@Mnemosyne:
Isn’t there a harasser at Disney that you need to help covering for?
As in, John Lasseter never groped ME, so …
WaterGirl
@rikyrah: Scary black man who doesn’t know his place is only revered, instead of reviled, after he has been assassinated Murdered. I hate all the hypocrites.
Ben Cisco
@Mnemosyne: I knew better when I was typing that – I normally wouldn’t make that mistake.
That said, your proposal is valid.
Kelly
@Kay:
Yes this! A thousand times this!
Just One More Canuck
@Scotian: It’s a reference to Men in Black, where Vincent D’Onofrio tells an alien that he can have his gun when he pries it from his cold, dead hands – the alien replies by saying, “Your proposal is acceptable”
H.E.Wolf
@Marcopolo:
I salute both you and your Indivisible group – that’s phenomenal! Go Saint Louis!
NAACP and LWV are very committed to voter registration efforts – thank you for the reminder to check in with them.
Who else might be actively involved in this work… Local ACLU chapters? Local chapter of what the nonpartisan LWV calls “the party of your choice”? Local churches? Local high schools/colleges?
(I too would be delighted to see some front-page posts on these topics.)
Fair Economist
This pie filter is amazing! Who wrote all the jokes?
Amaranthine RBG
@Kay:
The Party of Voting Rights FOR BLACK WOMEN, I think you mean.
There’s really no point in trying to register white people, or old people, or rural votors – except for the black women within those categories.
Mnemosyne
@Amaranthine RBG:
Yes, it is my job to judge Perez’s performance as head of the DNC, because I’m a member of the Democratic Party. He is accountable to me and millions of Democrats like me.
Fortunately for the Democrats, Perez is conscious of that reality, unlike you.
marcopolo
@mai naem mobile: As someone who is looking backwards at 50, I don’t pretend to be in touch with “the Youth of today (with the understanding that clumping everyone under 30 into one big group is totally preposterous).” But I’d guess the best way to motivate younger folks who are currently alienated from our political process to get out and vote would be to embrace (and get on the local, state, and national ballots) issues that they care about which might include increasing the minimum wage, making higher education (or any post high school education or training) more affordable, and legalizing pot (though there are also plenty of folks my age that would motivate). I think emphasizing the local and state ballot aspect of this is important because winning at this level can have a faster more direct effect on their lives than changing national policy and there is nothing better than getting instant gratification for your efforts. Anyways, I’m not the first person to have these thoughts (I recall one candidate in 2016 who pushed some of those issues hard). That’s my two cents.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: I don’t think it’s fair to blame Perez for the unity tour. He’s trying to deal with the corn field kid from that Twilight Zone episode who won’t take yes for an answer.
Steve had like seven double espressos this morning
MisterForkbeard
Oh look, Trump officially stated he’s “the least racist person” and didn’t say the Haiti thing. Even though, you know, he called around bragging about it.
Sigh.
mainmata
The GOP apparently is concerned about the potential for a Democratic wave election in 2018 despite all of the many structural obstacles in the state electoral systems that they have put in place, especially in the last decade in order to ensure that GOP seats remain safe. Many African-Americans are fully aware of this neo-Jim Crow, which partly accounts for their increased turnout since 2000. The mainstream media, which is either owned by the corporate rightwing or which responds mainly to GOP messaging will naturally be primed to spread a massive disinformation effort this Fall for sure.
Immanentize
@Kay: @Kelly:
I don’t see why this hasn’t happened. Do the democrats feel burned by the experience of passing the Voting Rights Act and losing the South? Do they just not believe in voting rights?
Of course, there is no clear “Right to Vote” in the constitution. It just saus that whatever right you may have, cannot be abridged based on land ownership, race, gender, age (above 18). But it can be limited in all sorts of other ways as we have seen. What, from a legal standpoint, needs to happen is that the presumption of the right to vote needs to flip — currently you must be prove you were prevented from voting. Flipping would mean the state has to prove you were not obstructed from voting. How does this happen? A constitutional amendment enshrining the right of all citizens over the age of 18 to vote, unencumbered. It would be a great single issue to take to the nation. Old people, people of color, poor people can all get behind that, because they think it is a right they already have. They do not.
Amaranthine RBG
@Mnemosyne:
“Two pumps of caramel! Don’t you understand. Just because it is a caramel frappucino, that doesn’t mean that it should be ALL caramel. There has to be a balance. If I had wanted EXTRA caramel, I would have ordered 4 pumps of caramel. Or two EXTRA pumps. Because it is known that a caramel frappucino is TWO pumps. No more, no less. What is the point of even have a name for something if any barista can just decide on the spot how many pumps to put in? Don’t look at me that way, I have TWO film degrees.”
japa21
Boy, someone is being even more obnoxious than usual today.
trollhattan
@MisterForkbeard:
So very telling he has Republican senators lying that he didn’t use That Word. They’re all in, no matter what they may tell Tapper.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
MLK Day is hard on him.
O. Felix Culpa
@Amaranthine RBG:
Your mind-reading powers are amazing! I’m sure that’s EXACTLY what Kay DIDN”T say or mean. Voting rights is a universal term, or hadn’t you heard? And, yes, black women are a mighty part of our coalition.* All kudos to them for turning out!
*[Coalition: an alliance of different groups to pursue a common foe or common goal.]
Chyron HR
@japa21:
Well, yeah, it must really sting to see the country celebrating Dr. King’s legacy, and yet nobody even mentions that MLK was merely the sidekick of the TRUE leader of the civil rights movement, B***** S******.
Amaranthine RBG
@O. Felix Culpa:
When has a coalition ever, and I mean ever, won an election?
Ha haha ha …. ha.
satby
So evidently Bill Penzy heard from some butthurt Republicans who said they voted third party after his Racism post. His response is perfect:
Amaranthine RBG
@Chyron HR:
Well, MLK was with Bernie when Bernie was marching in Montgomery.
Ruckus
@schrodingers_cat:
They stopped being polite when they elected the shitgibbon. They’ve only gotten worse since.
Another Scott
@trollhattan:
– Very Serious Paulie Blue Eyes
Have you seen the tweet he posted today, stroking his chin in front of the MLK bust in the Capitol? (E.g. via Cheryl’s timeline.) He’s shameless.
Grrr…
Cheers,
Scott.
Mnemosyne
@Amaranthine RBG:
Yes, holding our elected officials accountable is just like throwing a fit at Starbucks. Who are we to question the wisdom of our party leaders? That’s why you’ve been whining for months about the DNC foisting a “terrible” candidate like Hillary on us — because you always accept the wisdom of our leaders, unlike the rest of us rabble.
O. Felix Culpa
@Mnemosyne: I’m thinking it’s pie time. What’s your favorite? I like cherry from Traverse City, Michigan. Lemon meringue too, although it’s hard to find these days. Sad.
Amaranthine RBG
@Mnemosyne:
“Ummmmkaaaaay…. Imma need to talk to the manager in here.”
Steeplejack (phone)
Dolores O’Riordan of the Cranberries dead at 46.
Amaranthine RBG
@O. Felix Culpa:
Let us take a little trip friends. To a place where not only are people so self-regarding that they can’t tolerate hearing the slightest bit of variance in the political realm, no, they also have to talk about their inability to tolerate dissent and in fact they celebrate it making post after post after post about how they do not have to read things that they don’t want to read because, really, what better way to not have to deal with things you don’t like than constantly talking about them?
#WINNING
Quinerly
@rikyrah: Thanks for posting this.
Amaranthine RBG
@Steeplejack (phone):
Well, goddamn.
Mnemosyne
@O. Felix Culpa:
One of our local pie places (Republic of Pie) makes a fabulous chocolate banana cream pie. It’s my new go-to when I need to bring a dessert somewhere.
O. Felix Culpa
@Mnemosyne: The coconut cream pie at Santa Fe’s Plaza Restaurant (where Trotsky’s assassins met to plan their attack) is to die for. :)
Amaranthine RBG
@Baud:
It is! Because I ask myself, why on this special day are we celebrating a black MAN? Isn’t the best way to honor the legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, to appreciate the contributions of black women?
#PATRIARCHY .
schrodingers_cat
@Ruckus: The media is polite to the Republicans even now. That’s because they (media bots) are receptive to Republican ideas or are Republicans themselves
CarolDuhart2
@Amaranthine RBG: This black woman thinks you are obnoxious
Baud
@Amaranthine RBG: There are three months without federal holidays. I hope they are filled with days honoring a diverse array of women. But to get there, we first have to overcome people like you. Soon.
Mnemosyne
@Amaranthine RBG:
Poor ARGB, watching the world pass him by as he mutters, Why won’t they abandon their successful electoral strategy and listen to mmmmeeeeeee?!?!?
It would be pathetic if it wasn’t so damn funny. ?
Amaranthine RBG
@CarolDuhart2:
Do you know where your polling place is? Do you need transportation?
Miss Bianca
@Steeplejack (phone): Oh, no! I loved her voice so much. Sadness. : (
Ruckus
@cmorenc:
In OH for 2000 we had 4 precincts voting at one church with 4 machines. For 2004 we had 8 precincts and only 2 machines. It took 4 hrs to vote and people did leave without. It was a predominantly a white area but voted pretty reliably democratic.
Point is that it wasn’t just the black precincts that Ken Blackwell screwed. It was systematic and it was intentional.
Amaranthine RBG
@Mnemosyne:
“Look, I don’t want to make a big deal of this. Maybe the barista is just having a bad day or something. But I really think YOU should be concerned about the damage being done to the Starbucks BRAND here when people are just putting howevermany caramel pumps they feel like into the Caramel Frappucinos.”
Mnemosyne
@Miss Bianca:
I vaguely recall that she had a chronic illness, but I can’t Google it from my phone.
Thoughtful David
@satby:
He’s way nicer than I would be. Two reasons:
1. I call bullshit on the “I’m a Republican but I didn’t vote for Trump.” We’ll be hearing more and more of this, and more and more of it will be bullshit. Almost all Republicans voted for him.
2. I f you’re still willing to call yourself a Republican, that means you support the Republican Party, and that party and all of its leaders support Trump, so you do too.
Republican=Trump. Of they don’t like it they can join another party.
Scotian
@Just One More Canuck:
Yet that does not in any way alter the point being made, nor does it make it any less eliminationist in nature. Indeed, the reference underscores that point. I’m not sure I see the point you are trying to make here, if anything you underscored my point about it being eliminationist given what happens in that scene, and in this context of political discourse is still something I find of concern. Now, that really is my last word for several hours, I did a quick check before going out the door and felt I had to reply.
Miss Bianca
@Amaranthine RBG: Let’s take a sidetrip, ‘friend’…to a place where you actually had something meaningful to contribute, rather than knee-jerk contrarianism that you obviously consider ‘edgy’ but is, in fact, tired, stale, and would be just plain sad except for the fact that you’re a smug white racist jerk, and you’re not ashamed to show it.
Oh, wait. THAT place is off the map and is, in fact, imaginary.
japa21
Gallup is doing their Trump polling differently this year. Instead of daily reporting with a 3 day rolling average, they are going to weekly polling. Also they have dropped their sample size from 3,500 to 1,500. A week ago they had him at 37/58. Today at 38/57. This is, quite honestly, insane.
Barbara
@Amaranthine RBG: So you, a white man, get to decide which African Americans are deserving of a holiday? Have you polled any black women to see if they view MLK first as an African American hero who happens to be a man, or as an outstanding man who happens to be African American? When people celebrate MLK Day, they aren’t singing songs to patriarchy.
Baud
@japa21: Apparently, Rasmussen is the only one doing daily polling now. Let that sink in.
Ksmiami
@Ben Cisco: burn the gop to the ground. Make them afraid. we can win and shove these a holes back into hell. Not a speck of decency in that party. We just need to speak up for the American ideal
Mnemosyne
@Amaranthine RBG:
If you were as hip as you like to think you are, you would be quoting this week’s episode of “The Good Place.”
Amaranthine RBG
@japa21:
Is the change an attempt to help his numbers? Or and acknowledgement that they they are so bad that there’s really no point in polling much anymore?
Ruckus
@rikyrah:
Wow.
The man was a gift to humanity.
Kelly
@O. Felix Culpa: It’s not pie but I had marvelous blackberry crumble for breakfast. Wild blackberries my wife and I picked along the river on a beautiful summer afternoon.
Mnemosyne
@Barbara:
He’s just butthurt that the electoral strategies he’s been preaching for years are now shown to be totally useless, but he must cling to them or else his whole life and career are pointless. I wonder if scientists at Cal Tech could make a violin small enough to show the amount of sympathy I have right now.
Amaranthine RBG
@Mnemosyne:
“Because, ahem, I happen to know a little bit about brands. Ahem. Ahem. Notice the employee badge. Now what is that a picture of right there? Hmmmm. So maybe now you’ll know who you’re dealing with …”
Yutsano
@Steeplejack (phone): Oh damn. For some reason I’m thinking cancer. But she was my age, Wow.
CarolDuhart2
@Amaranthine RBG: I live next door to mine and have voted in just about every election since I could. Child of people who appreciated unions and the importance of voting in regard to worker rights. Minimum wage and Social Security did not rise out of the forehead of Athena. People voted for people who supported such policies. Voting Rights Acts did not spring out of nowhere either. So I vote for people (mostly Democrats) who support those things and who are at least not going to dismantle them.
Proud Black Woman
trollhattan
@Steeplejack (phone):
A great voice, silenced far, far too soon. Very sad to hear.
Kelly
@Ruckus:
Vote by mail fixes that.
Amaranthine RBG
@CarolDuhart2:
Well, okay, here, take this brochure.
Can I mark you down as a 4, meaning strongly likely to vote for the democrat?
Villago Delenda Est
@Amaranthine RBG: Isn’t there a fire with your name on it that you should go jump into?
Kelly
Vote by mail is such a simple fix. Paper trail, very few places to to erect bottlenecks.
Amaranthine RBG
@Villago Delenda Est:
What would the world be without your clever contributions? You are exactly what this thread was missing.
Mnemosyne
@Kelly:
My issue with “vote by mail” as a one size fits all solution is that it’s only being used in blue states right now. I’m not sure that its proponents have thought through the kinds of protections that would be needed to prevent it from being fucked with in red states, like voters in certain zip codes mysteriously never receiving their ballots at all.
Amir Khalid
@Steeplejack (phone):
Damn. She was only 46. Far too young to go.
Barbara
@Mnemosyne: I know. His usual bellyaching is about our failure to appreciate and court the WWC and make electoral strategy revolve around their needs.
Kelly
@Mnemosyne: Anything can be fucked with. If for instance certain zip codes were skipped it would show well before election day. Gives the good guys time to ride in and help out. I suspect the folks in the skipped zips would be highly motivated.
Kay
@Immanentize:
That’s good but Democrats and liberals always reach for federal law and while that has good and sensible reasons for minority rights it’s not the only avenue.
Obama talked about this in one of his books (that I didn’t read but I read excerpts)- that federal courts are only ONE avenue and are supposed to be a kind of last resort when the political branches fail. This is a good political issue for Democrats. It unites us. We all agree. Conservatives all disagree. It can and should be defining on every level- local, state and federal. Federal laws and court cases, sure, but also precinct level commitment. Because if you ARE a minority you don’t just need representation in Congress, you need representation at the level where public ASSETS are allocated- water, schools, property. That’s the historical inequity. Discrimination was and is very PRACTICAL. There was an objective. The objective was not just to deny abstract rights- it was to keep some groups secure and other groups poor and powerless.
The great part is we don’t have to choose. We can attack it comprehensively. You could have a long term strategy and a short term strategy. The “commitment” I’m asking for is a dedicated amount of Party or campaign funding designated for voter protections activity. That’s why I like the idea of a percentage (which I won’t get) – because it has to be reliable and sustained.
It seems like political ads on tv have less and less value. Maybe that money could be partially re-allocated to organizing around voting rights? You would take a city like Milwaukee (Milwaukee was Patient Zero for the bullshit voter fraud con, so that would be a fun place to start) and you would say “we usually spend X in Milwaukee on a Democratic campaign for Senator. So we’ll take 10% of that number and dedicate it to voting organization, specifically”
Kelly
Faced with vote by mail Republicans would double down on registration roadblocks.
Aleta
And make this the year that every representative who won’t publicly denounce white supremacy and Tr’s racist obscenities is hounded and removed from office.
CaseyL
@Yutsano: Yutsano! Glad to run into you here! You said some time back you might be in Seattle this month – I have a vague memory of the weekend of the 21st?? I’m volunteering that day and unfortunately won’t be able to plan a BJ Meetup, but another Seattle area BJer could do so, if they have the date(s) you’ll be here.
Yutsano
@Mnemosyne: What’s amazing, at least in the Washington system, is how easy your ballot is to track. I’m talking from when it leaves the auditor’s office to when I drop it off. I always drop it off because it does make me feel more secure plus the poll workers are so cheery about it. And this was happening with our Republican secretary of state, It does take a strong system backing the voting rights up true, but once the system is in place it works really well.
The major problem with red states being reluctant I see is being able to suppress votes, I’m not saying your chicanery couldn’t happen, but if it were to do so the lawsuits would be numerous.
patrick II
@japa21:
I switched to the 538 daily poll which runs a little higher for Trump. But I am looking for trends more than absolute numbers, so its ok.
trnc
@Kay: Remember, the same people who support voter ID because “one illegal vote is too many” are cool with an as yet undetermined number of firearm deaths (apparently, 33,000/year doesn’t even come close to cause for concern).
Miss Bianca
Completely o/t, but even in the midst of the storm of “shithole” fallout, how did I miss the news that Trey Gowdy had resigned from the Ethics Committee?
Kelly
@Yutsano: Oregon ballot tracking is also easy.
Mnemosyne
@Kelly:
“Highly motivated” doesn’t help if the county clerk insists that the ballots were mailed and you have to talk to the Post Office, but the Post Office says they don’t have them. And then you have to take a day off work to drive or take the bus to the clerk’s office so you can wait in line for 4 hours to show your ID and get a substitute ballot.
This is the kind of shit you need to think about and prevent ahead of time rather than assuming that the election officials in Washington and Alabama are equally interested in making sure that all eligible voters are able to vote. I absolutely guarantee you that assholes like Kris Kobach already have detailed plans written for how to suppress vote by mail.
Yutsano
@CaseyL: 20th through the 23rd, So no big deal on that Sunday I have other options and zero plans. Except I have to stuff a Mormon soldier full of musubi* and might do brunch with an old friend Sunday.
Thinking casual dinner Monday night the 22nd? I did e-mail AL about it.
*This is not a euphemism. We’re going to find the best Hawai’ian food in Seattle.
Ruckus
@schrodingers_cat:
I think I misunderstood. I thought you meant republicans were polite, not the media. So yes I agree with you, the media is polite to fucking republicans. Republicans on the other hand are fucking assholes and have curb stomped the very idea of polite. They have gone all in on being thieving, racist fucks. Every last one of them.
Mnemosyne
@Yutsano:
As we’ve already seen, after-the-fact lawsuits don’t do much to help, especially when there is already an entrenched bureaucracy opposed to letting people of color vote. That’s why we need to consider stuff like this before VBM is implemented in red states and counter it.
germy
@Miss Bianca:
He said he wanted to cut back on his workload. We should all try that on our jobs.
I suspect he was one of the most disappointed folks in washington when drumpf won. He had it all planned out! He was going to hound HRC every day of her administration and make her life a living hell. But instead… this.
Kelly
My county elections office sends out an email when the ballots are mailed to anyone that signs up for the list. Includes a link for tracking.
Brachiator
@MisterForkbeard:
As an antidote to our dumbass president and his dumbass remarks, and for MLK day, Charlie Migus and Haitian Fight Song.
From the album, appropriately titled, The Clown
Yutsano
@Mnemosyne: The nice part about VBM (as mentioned above) is that you’ll know pretty far in advance if you’re not getting your ballot. If it’s not there two weeks before election I can request a new one. If it’s not there the week before I can go to the auditor and request one in person. But those are the safeguards that have to come with VBM. And they have to be enforceable.
I need a shower, cereal, and cold meds. And coffee. Back in a short while.
Mnemosyne
@Kelly:
Not everyone has email, even in 2017. My spouse works in a library and they have people come in every day who don’t own a computer or have an email address and need help to set one up.
The digital divide is real, and it mostly affects poor people, especially poor people of color.
Again, I’m not saying that we shouldn’t push for VBM. I’m saying we need to think ahead to the roadblocks that determined conservatives will throw in the way.
Kelly
@Mnemosyne:
Ballots must be mailed before the election. This creates a before the fact window for lawsuits, protests, press coverage.
Kay
@Kelly:
I would love vote by mail. As a formal postal worker the mail system lines up really well with the voting system. Poll worker duty is a lot like postal work :)
I use early vote because it makes so much sense to me to reduce pressure on the system by stretching it out longer than 12 frantic hours.
Mnemosyne
@Kelly:
How many elections in WA and OR have been postponed because people say they haven’t received their ballots? As we’ve seen in AL and VA, preventing just 3 percent of voters from getting their ballots would flip a closely contested election, and it’s a small enough number that it could fly under the radar until after Election Day.
Ruckus
@Kelly:
Oh how well I know this. I am back living in CA and am a permanent vote by mail voter. When I lived in norcal I had a hard time getting the registrar to accept my mailing address as my voting address because it was a business address, not residential. I asked what homeless people do to vote. She looked at me for a moment and realized she didn’t want to go there at all and registered me at my business address. One may not need to own property to vote but you do need an address that you pay money to in one way or another to vote in this country.
WaterGirl
@Yutsano:
Thanks for the laugh out loud.
Mnemosyne
@Kay:
Just to be clear, I’m assuming that county clerks would blame the Post Office, not that the Post Office would be in on the suppression scheme. ?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Here’s a twisted though; that “s-hole country” comment. I wonder – the only thing Trump understands is real-estate, losing money, hotels and being pretentious. did Trump really meant “If we just let anyone into the US then being a US citizen loses it’s glamour” in a kind of silly Studio 51 velvet rope kind of way. He wants more Norwegians because IKA is fashion and doesn’t like Haitians because they are to poor to order Trump’s steaks, that kind of nonsense. Thinks the whole idea is to attract the fat, dumb and happy, not the hungry who need a second chance.
Mnemosyne
@Ruckus:
Not necessarily! When I did voter registration in Las Vegas last year, we were told that homeless people could register using an intersection since the information was primarily used to assign them to a precinct. I was able to register a homeless man on that basis — hopefully he was ultimately able to vote, because he was pretty excited to be able to register after all.
Kelly
@Mnemosyne: Can’t stop all the cheating but we can make it harder and more obvious. My lesson from the 2016 election is we’ll be fighting the assholes forever just like I’ll be picking up trash in the park forever.
Kay
Matthew Yglesias
74% of those polled said the mass marches would HURT the cause. Completely believable. It would happen now too. “Well, THAT’S a big loser” would be the consensus :)
So. Polling isn’t everything and either is “popular”.
trnc
@Amaranthine RBG: I guess I haven’t been paying enough attention to specific commenters, so it’s only been in a couple of recent posts that I’ve noticed a pattern with your comments. Who hurt you? I mean, besides the DNC and everyone on Balloon Juice who ever disagreed with you?
Mnemosyne
@Kelly:
Of course but, like I said, we need to at least try to game this stuff out before we start trying to get places like Mississippi to implement VBM, because we know the bad guys already have. What works in OR and WA may need some additional safeguards in other states.
Aleta
Dolores O’Riordan (The Cranberries), Andy Rourke (The Smiths) and Olé Koretsky, performing ‘Watch Out’ live in rehearsals on December 6th 2015.
(She has died.)
Amaranthine RBG
@trnc:
Zooey Deshanel took my parking space.
Kelly
@Mnemosyne: Yeah, the assholes in Mississippi will think of cheats that would never get off the ground in Oregon.
tybee
@Steeplejack (phone): fuck
WaterGirl
So much pie in the threads today. I have never understood why people interact with known trolls.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Miss Bianca:
A more detailed story from The Hill.
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
Like I said I did get to vote by mail. But I had to push the system, here in CA to make it happen. It was an out of the norm situation, like the intersection/address thing that you saw. It only took moments but what if I hadn’t thought to ask a relevant question? Would I have been left with shouting at the clerk, which would have been of course, very helpful……? What if my mail address was a PO box? What if I really was homeless and lived in my van? (and that was a real possibility/probability for me in 2012) It wasn’t that the system was trying to stop me from voting, but no one had worked out all the chess moves that can happen to/in people’s lives, exactly what you have been saying to Kelly about VBM.
Amir Khalid
@trnc:
Nobody here hurt the amaranthine one. He just treats Balloon Juice as Argument Clinic without the £5 fee.
Peale
@cmorenc: Yep. And Democratic pundits on the TV will laud those long early voter lines in minority districts as signs of the victory to come. But in reality they should be asking “why are those lines so long.” Like long lines are some kind of Democratic party value.
Kelly
@Ruckus: My mailing address is a PO Box. In a different county. My home is adjacent to the county line. Never had a problem.
Ruckus
@trnc:
You may not have meant it this way but I got a chuckle out of this question.
It was probably no one, would be my guess. Some things are just the way they are. You know some people just like to butt heads against walls. We think it must hurt but in reality they may just like it.
Ruckus
@WaterGirl:
Some people like a challenge.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
To make more pie!
SFAW
@Amir Khalid:
No he doesn’t.
But I’d rather he attend “Getting Hit On The Head” lessons.
Miss Bianca
@Steeplejack (phone): thanks. “Challenging workload” – is that what they’re calling it these days?
Barbara
@Mnemosyne: I agree that the digital divide makes moving to a different voting system more complex. However, one thing about doing early in-person voting or VBM is that it doesn’t need to be instead of traditional in-person voting. In 2008 I worked as a poll watcher at my local poll, and later heard that more than half of voters took advantage of our early “absentee” voting (which requires you to cite a reason for voting early, which, I can tell you, many people resent). Which meant that even though turn out ended up being really high, there were no lines at the polls on Election Day itself (compared to 1992, when I waited in line for nearly an hour, with an infant). Which meant that the guy working at the polls (who formerly worked at the DOJ’s voting rights section) was able to spend a lot of time sorting out problems of individual voters to make sure they were able to vote. Most common problem was a change in polling location.
SFAW
@trnc:
People who did not properly appreciate his whiteness, wisdom, and whining.
And Bernie. He’s really pissed that people don’t appreciate the Wise, White, Whining Sage of the White Mountains as much as he’d like.
[NB: Yes, I know Vermont is the Green Mountains. Just work with me on this one, OK?]
Cheryl from Maryland
The Democratic Party needs to ensure every county has people like this woman in Alabama and fund them. Her mission is that everyone who can in her county is registered and votes.
Amaranthine RBG
@SFAW:
YESSSSSSSS … at last somebody has the bravery to want to argue about the 2016 primary again.
You are the hero we deserve.
SFAW
@Amaranthine RBG:
Trying to hit a TBogg unit devoted primarily to your white whines, are you? Must be nice being unemployed, to have so much time on your flippers.
Ruckus
@Kelly:
If you mentioned it I didn’t notice but I take it you live in WA.
How long did it take to implement VBM in WA? What was the process like to make it the only way?
We have had VBM here in CA for a very long time but it is not the only way to vote. There are still polling places, I can drop off my VBM ballot there if I forget to send it in. It doesn’t reduce the need for additional workers at voting time to deal with the mail and in CA we have a slightly larger population than some other states so the volume of mail is a real logistics issue. In CA a question would be do the ballots all go to say Sacramento, rather than being counted in each county, do the ballots go to each county and if so how is that increased volume of mail handled? Logistics can be a real concern in VBM and have to be accounted for. It’s not an easy peasy deal, to change the way people vote.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Remember those cheesy paintings of the Founders and Lincoln and TR gazing with loving approval at Dumbya? I miss the dignitude of Gubmint
Kelly
@Mnemosyne: The digital divide isn’t just the poor. My Mom is 81 and I go over often to help her with things that must be done online.
Brachiator
Is it the general rule with states that have vote by mail (VBM) that they ballot must be received or postmarked by election day?
Amaranthine RBG
@SFAW:
Yes, because here in America – everyone is expected to work on MLK day.
Only people with flippers have the day off. And all those fuckers go to the goddamn zoo to watch the fucking penguins.
SFAW
@SFAW:
In light of my comment at 177, I think it is incumbent upon a Front Pager to post a “White Whines” Open Thread, so that ArgleBargle can devote all of his magnificent brain power to that thread. He has enough righteous
wankeranger — because none of us appreciates that very stable brain, the BEST brain — to get to a double TBogg unit, without our help.Frankensteinbeck
@trnc:
Amarinthine is a troll in the most classic sense, someone who has no interest in honest debate and is just trying to start a fight. I have tested that. There is no point in trying to engage, but they don’t call Balloon Juice a den of snarling jackals for nothing, and some people here really like a verbal fight.
Kelly
@Ruckus: I’m in Oregon. The transition was so smooth I barely remember it. If I recall correctly you were able to vote absentee without giving a reason for a very long time. But you had to request it every election. Then there was quite a while you could be a permanent absentee. The finally transition to all VBM was presented as a cost saving measure.
satby
@Steeplejack (phone): I’m at work but was coming to post that. How sad.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
You may know this but yes, in CA your ballot must be postmarked on or before Election Day and received by your county elections office no later than 3 days after Election Day.
MomSense
@Steeplejack (phone):
Oh no. Fuck.
SFAW
@Frankensteinbeck:
But is mocking ArgleBargle truly “trying to engage”? If so, then maybe I should stop mocking him. Even if he is among the most-mockable commenters. (He would have the top spot all to himself, if he told us he had FAXed Cole his credenza, of course.)
Kelly
Regarding the digital divide. If anyone else out there is tech support for elderly relatives and friends get them Chromebooks. I picked up a $160 Chromebook for my 81 year old Mom and it’s been great for both of us.
Brachiator
@SFAW:
Bernie had a recent piece in The Guardian meant to rally the faithful. And I think he has some kind of Town Meeting thing coming up soon. He will no doubt be singing his greatest hits.
Kelly
@Ruckus: Oregon mailed ballots must be at the elections office on election day. Postmarks don’t count. There are also many drop off sites where they can be left up to and including election day.
Amaranthine RBG
@SFAW:
Speaking of shrill: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/am-i-a-bad-feminist/article37591823/
Ruckus
@Kelly:
For some reason I thought that WA was the only all VBM state. Right now it is in the only method in 3 states, OR, WA and CO.
I see that vote percentage is higher in those states so that may be a real reason that some states don’t want to implement it. Can’t have a higher democratic turn out, the voters may kick their republican asses to the curb.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@Amir Khalid:
The Argument Clinic is next door.
Baud
@Kelly: Oh sure, start an Apple/Gooogle fight now. Just what this thread needs.
gbbalto
@Amir Khalid: Well put!
Baud
@West of the Rockies (been a while): No, it’s not.
Brachiator
@Ruckus:
I knew this except for the “no later than 3 days after election day” rule. I’m curious about other states as well.
I tend not to use VBM because of state and local ballot issues, local elections, etc. I’m sometimes still reading up on ballot propositions on election day. I’d like to see online voting, but I don’t think that these systems are reliable yet.
ETA: A BBC political satire show claimed that they still used ballots that have to be marked in with little pencils.
Kelly
@Ruckus:
Yep
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Baud:
The Great and Powerful Google rules. The rotten fruit false god sucks.
Ruckus
@Kelly:
That makes some sense if you can’t drop off your ballet at a local voting location, because there are none.
Because you have had VBM in OR for 17 yrs now I’d imagine that everyone has had more than ample opportunity to get used to it and appreciate it. In every other state, even WA and CO that isn’t true. I’ve used it for years, it’s fine and has worked for me and is even better than it used to be now that I can be a permanent vote by mailer. I even voted by absentee ballot, by mail of course, while in the navy, over 45 yrs ago.
trollhattan
@Amir Khalid:
But this is Abuse! Argument is down the hall.
Just One More Canuck
@Scotian: I don’t know what to say to you. It was a line from a comedy in response to someone whose name means the village must be destroyed. If you choose to see that as eliminationist rhetoric, that’s your privilege
Kay
@Kelly:
Chromebooks dominate in schools now. The youths will be so familiar with them they won’t know anything else. My son and his friends are so funny- they reject tablets because they say tablets are for older people and babies. They make that poking motion with one finger. Marketing people must just shudder when they turn en masse like that. For babies :)
Baud
@Kay:
I’ve never used a Chromebook. What input mechanism do they have?
Steeplejack
@Miss Bianca:
I agree that he was probably slavering at the thought of nipping at Hillary’s heels for four years, but now that gigantic, radioactive ethical problems for the GOP are littering the landscape he wants to relocate to the Sgt. Schultz “I know nuthink!” neutral zone.
Kelly
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
We have a neighbor couple in their 80’s that have very nice windows notebooks. About twice a year they call and tell us the displays have been taken over by flashing stuff or performance has ground to a halt. My wife or I go over and delete a bunch of crapware they inadvertently installed.
Suzanne
@Mnemosyne:
We are doing it in Arizona. When I canvass, one of the things I do is help people sign up for the PEVL (Permanent Early Voting List). If one registers for it, one receives a mail-in ballot for every election, not just the vote-by-mail elections, which are usually local. The mail-in ballots can be mailed up to approximately 7 days before the election, or they can be hand-delivered to our polling places.
I was resistant to signing up for it, because I enjoy the experience of going to the polls and voting. But after the disastrous primary here in AZ which resulted in four-hour waits in hot weather and the County Recorder losing her job, I signed up for it. It is indeed pretty rad. I can do the long ballots at the kitchen table with the internet nearby.
germy
@Kay: I’m interested in a chromebook. Do they come with disc drives for CD or DVD?
Adria McDowell
@Steeplejack (phone): WHAT?! No….I loved her voice.
Rose Twitter/Bernie Brigade on Twitter is trying to appropriate MLK Day for Saint Bernard of the Whiteland. Shameful.
Another Scott
@Baud: Chromebooks are laptops that run Google’s ChromeOS. Keyboards and trackpads and USB ports for mice. Newer ones have touch screens.
I’ve got a couple. They’re excellent for many things, and better (for me!) for browsing than a tablet, but most of them are slow (because they’re aiming for very low price points and have slow processors).
HTH.
Cheers,
Scott.
Steeplejack
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
And we laugh at those North Korean generals following Kim Jong-un around like lapdogs.
ETA: Of course, the sinister side of this is that it makes it more likely that McCarthy will be the last one to have a private word with El Presidente and that Trump will be prone to take McCarthy’s advice.
Baud
@Another Scott: I have an iPad which is fine, but I agree the touch input on a bigger (non-phone) screen is not fun. But I don’t understand why Chromebook users would look down on it.
Kelly
@Ruckus: If I recall correctly during the permanent absentee voter era the percentage of permanent absentees climbed to a high percentage of all registered voters. People that signed up for permanent absentee seldom saw any reason to go back to voting in person. It was a small administrative clean up issue when we went to all VBM.
Kay
@Baud:
They have a regular keyboard. That’s why we bought them at the school. They have a lot of work to do! They write a lot. They need a proper tool for that.
The poking motion refers to tablets. It’s meant to depict people who can’t type – in their world that’s just babies and old people.
Google for Education is kind of scary. They’re huge. They’re consuming the whole sphere and of course they’re getting them so young they’ll probably keep them. The value was too good to pass up though so our local school went with them. It fits the job perfectly.
Adria McDowell
@Mnemosyne: My issue with vote by mail is this- remember those images of both Trump Sr. and Trump Jr. looking over their wives shoulders on Election Day, peeking at their votes? In patriarchal and/or abusive households, the same thing will happen.
Another Scott
@Baud: I assume Kay was referring to the way The Yoot often divide themselves into the Kool Group and others as Not. Or maybe they like that Doppledinner Progressive commercial (0:31).
Apple’s “What’s a Computer” commercial is very well done, but I think messing around with fingers on a screen is still far-sub-optimal for my way of working. It seems like lots of people agree because tablets are far less popular than they were…
Cheers,
Scott.
Sab
@Mnemosyne: In a mayoral race in Akron OH a few years back 10% of the absentee ballots were not counted because they went off for postal processing in Cleveland and were not postmarked, bpard of elections had no proof that they were timely mailed.
trollhattan
@Kay:
Apple still predominates in our district–trying to forge a cohort of lifetime buyers I guess. Got pretty sick of trying to convert Pages files into Word so my kid could work on them at home. Have yet to see a Chromebook but we’re past grade school so who knows.
Kelly
@germy: Chromebooks are adequate, cheap and reliable if all you do is browsing, email small spreadsheet and documents. Very limited onboard storage. All the ones I’ve used depend on a Wifi internet connection and cloud storage. I haven’t seen one with an ethernet port. You need a “Google Cloud Ready” printer. Integrate well with Android phones.
Only capable of rudimentary photo or video editing.
Jay S
@germy: I doubt any Chromebook comes with a built in optical drive. You can connect an external drive but apparently the function is limited to file formats that Chromebook understands, with no codec support for Video DVDs or Audio CDs. http://www.chromebookhq.com/chromebook-dvd-drive/
Brachiator
@germy:
They do not come with CD/DVD drives. And from Chromebook HQ:
If you want to play music and video from a CD/DVD you have to look elsewhere.
OTOH, you can download video or other media from Google Play or stream it.
Kay
@germy:
No. But they don’t use disc drives anyway. The models they sell to schools are heavier and sturdier than the one we have. They have a better quality keyboard too. They’re cheap enough that they dropped the insurance this year. They were having to hound parents for the insurance payment anyway and it was waived if you’re free or reduced lunch and that’s half our kids.
Kay
@trollhattan:
I think it does help them with organization because everything they turn in is on the chromebook.
Remember that? How there were always people didn’t have “their papers”? So much of school was carting paper back and forth; handing them out, passing them in, looking for them. They don’t even carry textbooks anymore. They sometimes use them but they stay in the classroom.
I used to love to read the names of the people who had the book before me. That’s what I was doing when I was supposed to be working :)
Jay S
@Brachiator: I seem to have lost the comment with the same reference. Note that the USB remark is not quite right, they do support writing to flash drives (I just tested copy and paste) ETA also to my Seagate backup plus hard drive.
Benjamin Mays
On the DNC Voter registration/protection issue. I have two old friends on the DNC from Virginia. They say the party generally works through the state party apparatus (Duh!, when I think about it.) So they suggest looking at your state party websites, to begin with. One of them also forwarded this link on what went right last fall
“https://www.demrulz.org/wp-content/files/DNC_Post_Election_2017.pdf”
Brachiator
@Jay S:
Good catch. I missed that. Yep. Chromebooks work very well with USB drives. My Chromebook also has an SD card slot and will read/write to that device.
debbie
@Steeplejack (phone):
Thanks. I too missed this. I’m going to jump to the conclusion that Gowdy has personal reasons for leaving Ethics behind.
Kay
So much of MLK was about organizing and collective action but conservatives always focus on the singular- “each one teach one” sort of thing. It wasn’t a charity. It very much was NOT about “one person making a difference”, in my view. The message seems to me to be “oh, you’ll need MANY more than one person!”
It’s in areas like this that I feel there’s a real ideological divide. I just understand this thing differently. Civil rights movement members planned A LOT and they were really disciplined and controlled. It wasn’t just ad hoc “helping your neighbor” or “being nice”. Focused. Goal oriented. Strategic and tactical.
debbie
@Kay:
Oh please. Conservatives say stuff like this because they think it makes them look compassionate. As if.
bemused
@Kay:
Ah, those young whippersnappers with nimble, non-arthritic fingers. Your day will come when your grands will be giggling about your age related issues.
Aleta
Just in case this importance has not been mentioned yet:
Msb
From your keyboard to God’s ears!
Another Scott
@Benjamin Mays: Thanks very much for the pointer. It’s an excellent read (and only 2 pages).
Excellent. But we need more. We have to continue to fight for every vote.
Cheers,
Scott.
Benjamin Mays
@Another Scott: @Another Scott: This was courtesy of Frank Leone from Arlington. He’s been fighting in the trenches since we were Young Democrats in the political wilderness of the Reagan years.
Jay S
@Brachiator: Actually I see VLC for chromebook has support for DVD and CD ISO images now as well. I just saw a 2015 video using VLC to play directly from an optical drive.
Fair Economist
@Ruckus:
The best system, IMO. VBM is great for most people, but in person voting is useful for people who don’t want their family to have access to their ballot or people the authorities are trying to deprive of a ballot, or just plain old procrastinators. As many ways as possible and as easy as possible.
Aleta
Even though this is well-known, I’d like to add it.
From hillpress
http://www.hillpress.org/2018/01/these-9-current-members-of-congress.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
trnc
@Frankensteinbeck: Yeah, I’m not sure why it took me so long to notice. I guess the layers upon layers of subprime snark mitigated some of the trollishness.
Thanks to all for your answers.
SgrAstar
@Thoughtful David: pedantry alert: you mean PLANCK length. Planks have nothing to do with it.
cain
@O. Felix Culpa:
I’m going to be helping Jena Griswold on her run for SoS in Colorado. I met her about two months ago. Really nice person. SoS and Governors should the two positions we need to control across state houses everywhere.
Finally, we need to get universal vote by mail for the entire country. That’s gotta happen first thing. In many ways, I wish when we had 2 branches, we should have made it voting easy across the country just prior to healthcare. That would have stopped local legislatures from doing these anti-vote things. Ah well.
schrodingers_cat
@Kay: Same with Gandhi too. It was not one person, or the kindness of the British, it was organization, mobilizing thousands upon thousands of ordinary people to a cause higher themselves, that could endanger their lives in more ways than one (getting beaten up, thrown in jail without due process for years, etc.)
SgrAstar
@Mnemosyne: We have vote-by-mail in super-red Utah. It appears to be working fine…possibly due to the overwhelming majority of reliable repub voters.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Kelly:
Don’t know about video editing, but Photo Editor Pro is a pretty good(almost as good as Lightroom) and is available on Chrombook(and Windows, Mac, and Linux).
@Kay: This old had a Typing class in Middle School.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: I got madame a 10″ Windows tablet that came with a keyboard and pen(the screen has 2048 levels of pressure sensitivity).
Mnemosyne
@germy:
Dead thread, but I bought a Chromebook for writing and I’ve been very happy with it. I specifically wanted something stripped-down with as few potential distractions as possible. It’s more like a tablet with a keyboard than a laptop. I tried using my iPad and a Bluetooth keyboard, but I’m a fast typist and the lag time drove me nuts. No problems with the Chromebook since it’s a built-in keyboard.
Citizen Alan
@Amaranthine RBG:
What the everloving fuck are you babbling about, you brain-dead choad?!?
Ruckus
@Fair Economist:
I should have been a bit clearer. We’ve had vote by mail for a long time, we haven’t had permanent vote by mail for all that long. Not that long ago you had to apply for a mail ballot every election. On the other hand I haven’t voted in CA at a polling place in decades. And when I did in OH it was a major pain in the ass. I get the idea of people demanding how one votes in your home but why the fuck would you stay there if someone is trying that hard to run your life? (that was sort of a rhetorical question, I understand many reasons why someone might make that choice) As Kelly has so may times told us, VBM works in OR because they took their time to get people accustomed to it. VBM works and I’d bet it’s far cheaper to use over all and it solves the limited voting due to poll hours. And if you are worried about the SoS fucking up votes, what about those machines that have no backup, no paper trail? Or my story from 2004 in OH where the more liberal areas were shortchanged on machines and stuffed into too small of facilities for the number of voters? Yes things can go wrong, it is after all run by humans, some of whom wouldn’t mind if a not insignificant % of your fellow citizens would fuck off and die, just for not looking exactly like them.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
In “You can’t make this shit up”, Trump’s defense is now he said “shit house countries” not “shit hole countries” and “shit house” is totally NOT racist, so suck on it your libretards.
Ruckus
@Citizen Alan:
I like non subtleness, get right to the point, don’t pull any punches.
How do you really feel?
Kay
@bemused:
They already do! They have this thing that makes me laugh. It took me a while to figure it out. They use names that they think are old fashioned to refer to women (and men) my age. So they will says “this Debbie told us to get off the library steps” or “A Paul told us to be quiet”. I think it’s hysterical. The first name is a group identifier for people of a certain age because they have different first names, right? They have “Conner” or “Austin” or some such.
They regularly hurt my feelings. Not the boys so much but the girls. Maybe because I was a girl. I was driving them around once and I realized two girls in the backseat were making fun of my haircut. So mean.
I basically eavesdrop on them so it’s my fault.
AnotherBruce
@Kelly: Yes, we have it (voting by mail) in Washington. It’s pretty simple, the only problem with it is that you have to pay postage. It’s not a big deal, but I think it voting should be free, in every sense of the word.
J R in WV
@Amaranthine RBG:
How can one person be both as stupid and evil as you are? I bet your pie sucks!!!
AND you vote Russian!