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You are here: Home / Politics / America / Let’s Check In and See What the Leader of the Free World Was Up to Today

Let’s Check In and See What the Leader of the Free World Was Up to Today

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Oh, and the President spent most of the day on Air Force 1 live tweeting Fox News conspiracy mongering about the ongoing counting of ballots in Florida and Arizona! Though the President, like Fox News employees and others can’t seem to get their heads around that they’re still counting ballots cast, not conducting recounts yet.

Semi Break

A number of folks are expressing concern that a second Brooks Brothers Riot could take place again in south Florida. Aside from the fact that Matt Schlapp now has to shop at the Big & Tall store, which takes Brooks Brothers out of play, I don’t expect a bunch of MAGA hatted nuts having much impact this time around. The Democrats learned the lessons of 2000 well. Marc Elias, who is the top elections lawyer in the country, is working for Senator Nelson, as well as Congresswoman Sinema in Arizona, to ensure that every ballot is counted and that any recount necessary is completed properly. Barry Richards, who was the Bush/Cheney 2000 campaign’s election attorney in and from Florida during the 2000 recounts and is the in the state of Florida equivalent to Marc Elias, is working for Mayor Gillum’s campaign. This is the A-Team of election attorneys.

Additionally, this isn’t 2000. Almost everyone has a smart phone. We have social media (for good and ill). People that try to shut down the actual counting of ballots, let alone recounts, by force will have their faces broadcast to the world. They’ll be identified. They’ll face actual consequences because unlike in 2000, these folks don’t work for members of Congress, the Republican National Committee, and/or the Bush-Cheney 2000 campaign.

(Matt Schlapp is at #6 in the green shirt)

The local supervisors of election aren’t having any of the President’s or anyone else’s crap either:

And the Florida Department of Law Enforcement isn’t having any of Governor Scott’s conspiracy mongering either:

It’s going to be a wild few days. But I wouldn’t bet against either Marc Elias or Barry Richards. They will ensure that every vote that is eligible to be counted is counted and that the recounts are done correctly.

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

170Comments

  1. 1.

    Corner Stone

    Sooo….I guess we aren’t going to get any Mueller related indictments on this Friday? Damn you, Jeffro Mensch!

  2. 2.

    TenguPhule

    Barry Richards, who was the Bush/Cheney 2000 campaign’s election attorney in and from Florida during the 2000 recounts

    I keep seeing this and I am not comforted. Is he a mercenary or a true believer?

    This guy was one of the fuckers who helped ratfuck us.

  5. 5.

    Adam L Silverman

    @TenguPhule: Regardless of his own personal political views, he’s officially non-partisan. He’ll work for whoever hires him. And in this case Gillum hired him. He’s very up front about this. He is the type of attorney you want for this type of fight.

  9. 9.

    Adam L Silverman

    @debbie: Some of these aren’t even provisional. They’re actual ballots cast absentee/vote by mail that were dropped off or mailed in and have to still be counted. I think there may also be some ballots cast at the polls on Tuesday that are also still awaiting being counted too. These are large, urban/suburban counties with a lot of people in them. You can’t count and tally this stuff as quickly as you can in mostly rural counties.

  12. 12.

    Jeffro

    Aside from the fact that Matt Schlapp now has to shop at the Big & Tall store, which takes Brooks Brothers out of play,

    “Hello 911? I’m calling to report a brutal, brutal smackdown here on teh Internets…”

  13. 13.

    Corner Stone

    @Mnemosyne:

    Googling to find out why Chris Pine’s peni$ is trending on Twitter. It clearly was a far more productive use of my time than seeing what the president* was saying.

    Either way it’s trying to find out more info about a dick.

  15. 15.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @TenguPhule: he’s a lawyer, they are supposed to be mercs.

    Also, keep in mind, a non-evil-idiot conservative is going to get the value of count every vote. There is no reason why those ballots all favor the democrats.

  16. 16.

    TenguPhule

    @Adam L Silverman:

    My guess is he’s waiting for the election to be completely finalized before he does anything.

    Is this before or after the inevitable recounts and appeals?

    I remember how long it took to get Al Franken seated.

  17. 17.

    Corner Stone

    It’s way past too late for Mueller to be playing by the “rules” any longer. Jesus fuck.

  18. 18.

    Jeffro

    @Corner Stone:

    Sooo….I guess we aren’t going to get any Mueller related indictments on this Friday? Damn you, Jeffro Mensch!

    Come on now Corner, you KNOW if there was anything coming down the pike, I would have passed that along in my own special all-knowing, yet-knowing-absolutely-nothing way ;)

    Hundreds of indictments against dozens of people. The obstruction case along is going to need a forklift. Patience!

  21. 21.

    Adam L Silverman

    @TenguPhule: Believe it or not, I don’t actually work for the Special Counsel and when I provide analysis here it is semi-informed, but that’s all it is.

  23. 23.

    TenguPhule

    @Adam L Silverman: Not meaning to harp on you. The whole rolling pukefunnel going on in the federal government is making me queasy.

    ETA: Also, I am seeing Christmas Decorations going up and I want those fucking metal reindeer off my lawn. /

  29. 29.

    TenguPhule

    Trump said he hadn’t made a decision when asked by a reporter how long Acosta would remain in the “penalty box.” But he said there could be others.

    “When you’re in the White House, this is a very sacred place to be,” he said. “This is a very special place. You have to treat the White House with respect. You have to treat the presidency with respect.”

    I can’t watch Irony’s corpse being violated like this.

  31. 31.

    jl

    Thanks for informative post. Looks like news reports relayed in previous thread, and Talkingpointsmemo report I read, are a little inaccurate.
    From the tweet posted here, looks like FL law enforcement did, in fact, not do anything and told Scott to buzz off (euphemism alert!) until he had a plausible justification for an investigation of any kind or of anybody.

  32. 32.

    Cheryl Rofer

    Adam, you left one out.

    Also, it turns out that Trump set up the trip to Paris during his snit that he couldn’t have his military parade. Emmanuel Macron set up a meeting of 80 world leaders called the Paris Peace Forum. That’s why Putin will be there. It looks like Trump will leave just before the Peace Forum meetings commence. It would be funny as trolling, if it weren’t that Trump is taking the US out of the world, and others are only too happy to fill the void.

  33. 33.

    germy

    Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein just called Matt Whitaker “a superb choice for attorney general,” saying Whitaker “certainly understands the work, understands the priorities of the department.” Then I asked him if he’s worried at all about the Mueller probe. He walked off.— Mike Levine (@MLevineReports) November 9, 2018

    In his remarks about apolitical law enforcement, Rosenstein cited Marbury v. Madison — a case Whitaker has publicly questioned. One person in the room laughed when Rosenstein mentioned the case, recognizing the timing as Whitaker is now being criticized for his comments on case.— Mike Levine (@MLevineReports) November 9, 2018

  35. 35.

    TenguPhule

    @germy:

    Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein just called Matt Whitaker “a superb choice for attorney general,” saying Whitaker “certainly understands the work, understands the priorities of the department.” Then I asked him if he’s worried at all about the Mueller probe. He walked off.

    I better check on the new bullet resistant vest order again.

  36. 36.

    TenguPhule

    @Yarrow:

    How are you only just seeing Christmas decorations go up now? They’ve been up already for a month.

    I live in Hawaii and we were still taking down the Halloween decorations.

  39. 39.

    Adam L Silverman

    @jl: They did something, the contacted the Florida Secretary of State’s Office, asked if they had something that needed investigating, were told there was not anything that needed investigating, and then reported that they’d done this, had nothing further to do at this time, but are, of course, ready if they are needed.

  40. 40.

    Yarrow

    @TenguPhule: I think the first ones I saw up on some shopping center were at the beginning of October. I couldn’t quite believe it since we were still a month away from Halloween.

  43. 43.

    TenguPhule

    @Yarrow:

    I think the first ones I saw up on some shopping center were at the beginning of October. I couldn’t quite believe it since we were still a month away from Halloween.

    I’m so old I remember when the thought of the Christmas season starting before Thanksgiving was even over was heresy.

  44. 44.

    jl

    @Adam L Silverman: OK, thanks for the giving the full protocol. Some stories suggested they actually did something more than a pro forma phone call. If they did more than that, I would find it worrying, even it would lave been intended just as going through the motions to deep six Scott’s attempt to corrupt the election.

    Edit: I understand that in large organizations, there is a protocol for telling your boss to GTFO.

  47. 47.

    TenguPhule

    In one of his final actions as attorney general, Sessions moves to restrict police reform agreements

    And Keebler Krackpot flings one last FU to the racial minorities in America on his way out.

  48. 48.

    Mart

    @trollhattan: When I was about thirteen my 25 year old brother-in-law wanted to show me how to speed up my incipient campfire’s progress by pouring lantern oil over it. My cat like reflexes saved me harm, but the BIL lost his eyebrows and a good chunk of hippie hair. It was an awesome lesson in campfire safety. Too bad my sister and he divorced, or I would still be giving him shit.

  49. 49.

    Corner Stone

    @germy: What are the odds that Rosenstein is happy now to release the management of the Russia Investigation VS Rod is dropping dry AF sarcasm and filling sandbags around his office?

  52. 52.

    Yarrow

    @TenguPhule: I caught some segment on the so-called news this week about how the holiday shopping season has already started, some “early Black Friday” deals are better now than they will be on Black Friday and the whole time from now until Christmas is one be shopping frenzy. Ugh.

  53. 53.

    TenguPhule

    @Yarrow:

    and the whole time from now until Christmas is one be shopping frenzy. Ugh.

    Except for that pesky trade war with China.

    I foresee shortages this Christmas.

  55. 55.

    TenguPhule

    @TenguPhule:

    Civil rights leaders lashed out Friday at Jeff Sessions, who in one of his last acts as attorney general approved an order restricting the federal government’s ability to enforce changes at state and local law enforcement agencies accused of abuse.

    In a memo released late Thursday by the Justice Department and praised by police organizations, Sessions added new requirements to court-enforced “consent decrees” reached with state and local government entities. Sessions signed the memo Wednesday, the day he resigned.

    It says that two senior political appointees at the Justice Department must approve nearly all future agreements. The decrees also are to have a “sunset” provision, limiting them to no more than three years. And Justice attorneys now must meet additional requirements beyond establishing that a police department repeatedly violated the Constitution.

    In one of his final actions as attorney general, Sessions moves to restrict police reform agreements

    Between him and Pruitt, they both should be hounded after leaving office. Their shit should not be given a free pass simply because they’re no longer on the job.

    They broke shit.

  56. 56.

    jl

    @Corner Stone: Trumpism has transformed Kremlinology and imported it to the US as Trumplinology.

    We know Rosenstein had to commit a public genuflection to the Great Leader. We are left to decipher the reason he felt he had to hew so closely the correct protocol for such a high level of dishonest praise, and parse the meaning of the walk off in response to the final question. Probably need to examine video in slow mo, do a facial expression analysis and look closely at the kernings.

  59. 59.

    trollhattan

    @Mart:
    How did we all survive? A BIL started a trash fire (rural Missouri SOP) with gasoline and received 2nd degree burns across the face, arms and chest for his troubles. My wife swears it cleared up his acne, so there’s something.

  60. 60.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    @TenguPhule:
    I don’t know why they bother going to these press conferences. They don’t learn anything new. It’s either more lies or just more evidence that he’s slowly losing his mind.

  61. 61.

    Adam L Silverman

    @jl:

  63. 63.

    Corner Stone

    I really wish MSNBC would stop interviewing Ben Wittes on anything. He is extraordinarily dumb.

  65. 65.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    @Adam L Silverman:
    Wow. What a fucking idiot. Fire can leap up through a stream of pouring gasoline to the container. I bet even Trump knows not to do that!

  67. 67.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Corner Stone: The latter. There are three types of political appointees:
    1) The competent ones who act in a professional and non-partisan manner.
    2) The component ones who are clearly partisan picks.
    3) Partisan hacks that are incompetent.

    The career folks love getting the first type. Will live with and even be supportive of the second type. They hate the 3rd type. Whitaker is the third type. Rosenstein was, for a long time, a career DOJ guy before becoming a political appointee himself. So…

  75. 75.

    chris

    Some good news.

    Arizona Republicans and Democrats have agreed to give rural voters an extra chance to fix problems with their ballots in the count of the state’s tight Senate race.

    That’s a compromise after Republicans filed a lawsuit seeking to stop urban voters from using those procedures. The settlement was announced in a Phoenix courtroom Friday afternoon.

    The counties have until Nov. 14 to address the issue.

    Source

  76. 76.

    The Dangerman

    @Adam L Silverman:

    You can’t count and tally this stuff as quickly as you can in mostly rural counties.

    Well, sure, but might as well try to count Red Counties quickly and then say game over; this an imaginative tactic. I think all touchdowns by Tom Brady should only count for 4 point, too.

    Now, I’ll go back to watching SoCal burn.

  77. 77.

    Mart

    @Corner Stone: My mind is telling me that I protested his impending action and started peddling backwards, and he said it was safe as kerosene was not anything like gasoline… but it was nearly forty years ago. The pour from the yellow jug, fire flash, and resulting burnt head are hard wired into my brain.

  79. 79.

    jl

    @TenguPhule: You need to read the fine print on a bet like that. If Trump is too damn lazy to ever do enough work to ever possibly even get in that situation, do you win or lose or is the bet voided?

  80. 80.

    trollhattan

    The Atlantic published this backgrounder today.

    How Mueller Could Defend the Russia Investigation From Interference An excerpt.

    Questions over Whitaker’s legitimacy could work to Mueller’s advantage, according to Jens David Ohlin, a professor at Cornell Law School who specializes in criminal law. Ohlin explained that Mueller could challenge Whitaker’s appointment in federal court on both statutory and constitutional grounds, the latter of which is “most likely to succeed.”

    “In order to get either of these issues before a federal court, someone needs standing to bring the claim, which means they’ve been specifically harmed,” Ohlin told me. “If Mueller is fired, which is Whitaker’s ‘nuclear option,’ Mueller certainly has standing to object to Whitaker’s appointment.”

    He added that Trump’s decision to appoint a “constitutional nobody” to head the Justice Department “is so far from mainstream practice” that a federal court would likely “scrutinize this carefully and would be skeptical that this is consistent with the [Constitution’s] Appointments Clause,” which outlines how appointments are to be made. Before he went to work at the Justice Department under Sessions, Whitaker served as the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Iowa from 2004 to 2009, then worked in private practice and appeared as a cable-news pundit throughout 2017.

    Marty Lederman, who served as the deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel under Obama, is less sure, writing Thursday that the constitutionality of Whitaker’s appointment is “technically an open question.” But he tentatively assumed that “anyone who suffers an ‘injury in fact’ by virtue of something Whitaker does would have … standing to challenge his appointment in court.”

  82. 82.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    @Yarrow:
    According to CNBC, this is why:

    Stocks fell across the board Friday as declines in oil prices and skepticism about a trade deal with China raised concerns that economic growth is headed for a slowdown. Thursday’s report from the Federal Reserve pointing to future rate hikes compounded worries and sent investors fleeing from tech companies, which are particularly susceptible to swings in the economy.

    Tech stocks are coming off their worst month since 2008. The Nasdaq closed October down 9.2 percent, with Amazon and Alphabet leading the decline down 20 percent and 9.7 percent, respectively.

    Analysts were underwhelmed by recent tech earnings reports, including those from Amazon, Apple and Alphabet. Amazon gave lower-than-expected guidance going into the holiday season and Apple announced it would no longer disclose unit sales for iPhone, iPad and Mac devices.

    Even with Friday’s losses, the Nasdaq and S&P tech index finished the week up, as did shares of Amazon, Microsoft and Alphabet.

  83. 83.

    Belafon

    As a member of CERT, I take SkyWarn training every year. And one of the things they tell us is to not report what the radar on TV says because they can see it as well.

    Trump needs that training.

    Also, make sure you mock your conservative relatives who freaked out over Trumps warning of the oncoming horde.

  85. 85.

    Kent

    @trollhattan:

    Not sure why but that video has just made my afternoon. Bonus Quatloos for managing to hit a tree with the burning can of gasoline.

    I wanna know what happens next. Does his whole yard burn down?

  87. 87.

    Kent

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??:

    It wasn’t a particulary big up or down day Wall Street today. Pretty ordinary. It has been bouncing around a lot more lately. It was way up on Weds. This is just a bit of slackening. The big tech companies combined have such astronomical market caps that even an ordinary day on the stock markets looks like a huge amount of money.

  88. 88.

    Mart

    @Kent:

    Does his whole yard burn down?

    Probably not. Gasoline vaporizes quickly in a fire’s heat and then the fuel is gone. Mixing it with oil and/or Styrofoam gives it more staying power.

  89. 89.

    jl

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??: Better a gradual correction of overvalued stocks than a sudden bursting of a big bubble. I don’t see anything worrying about it, apart from the fact that new earnings reports are consistent with late stage of an expansion.

    If you were some famous conperson using the stock market as a bogus sign of your genius at boosting the economy forever, and trying to fool people that your idiot tax cuts would pay for themselves and actually be a gold mine, like many famous almost top 10,000 blogs, then you might throw a tantrum and recklessly blame random people for what was going to happen anyway.

  91. 91.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    @Adam L Silverman:
    It’s so sad that something so basic and fundamental is being turned into a partisan fight by the GOP. I sometimes wonder if current times are something of a return to what party politics were like in the 19th century as opposed to the Cold War Consensus we have grown accustomed to.

  92. 92.

    Syd from Pasadena

    Ahh. Tom Pyle. My old friend from USC. The place he got his undergrad in ratfuxing. When sugar(land) daddy went to jail he found a new love in a kock-funded pro fracking concern.

  93. 93.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Kent: Looks like the house is not far from the tree, and neither is his fence. So I see a nice toasty fence fire and roof fire in his future.

    I learned years ago, when I was at a company barbecue and nobody remembered lighter fluid, that it’s just as easy or easier to start your charcoal with a small wood fire made of a few small twigs. So I haven’t had any accelerants in my house for many years.

  95. 95.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Belafon:

    I take SkyWarn training every year. And one of the things they tell us is to not report what the radar on TV says because they can see it as well.

    Trump needs that training.

    Trump needs the kind of socialization training that most of us get in kindergarten. He’s got a ways to go in his training schedule before he gets to professional-level training.

  96. 96.

    MomSense

    @debbie:

    I don’t know why but your comment made me laugh. I yell things like that at my radio and tv all the time. It’s like a kind of Tourette’s.

  98. 98.

    Steve in the ATL

    @TenguPhule:

    Except for that pesky trade war with China.

    Was chatting with a lawyer from dollar general last night. They are rather concerned about the impact to their merchandise, prices, and profit margins.

    Of course, they are headquartered in the red state of North Carolina, so they may be part of the problem.

  102. 102.

    Barbara

    @joel hanes: Best campfire starters ever: dryer lint in a cardboard egg container, with melted paraffin poured on top. You rip off one at a time. My husband also fills empty toilet paper rolls with the lint and uses them without paraffin. But I am going to try the old candle stumps, because they are something I hate throwing away and yet they are basically useless.

  105. 105.

    StringOnAStick

    @jl: Market pros will tell you that the daily “this is why the market did this today” is mostly just fluff to fill the airwaves and provide a sense of order, but what you wrote is exactly right: late stage economic expansion looks like the general lay of the land, the day to day stuff is just noise.

    However, Tuesday is a big day with regards to Italy and the EU. Italy’s economy has been shrinking (funny how one result is a rise in neofascism with an Italian face, isn’t it?) so their debt is at 130% of their GDP and the EU prefers 60%, max, so there will be some fuss about this. The new leaders in Italy are far right and have adopted the “oh yeah, how ya gonna make me?” approach to their financial obligations and agreements with the EU. It could get……messy.

  106. 106.

    Gravenstone

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??: Fire does not propagate through the liquid. It is only the vapor at the surface that burns. But yes, a highly volatile and flammable liquid like gasoline can have flame quickly propagate along the surface. Hence the flame at the spout, which in turn ignited the spilled contents when he panicked and chucked it behind him.

  108. 108.

    debbie

    @MomSense:

    It’s ridiculous, right? It’s not just the news, I’m even yelling at the reporters: “Shut up, Steve, stop rephrasing every answer you get!” “Ailsa, you whore! Give them a chance to answer!”

  109. 109.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Steve in the ATL:

    the red state of North Carolina

    North Carolina is an excellent microcosm of the United States. It is deeply divided, with a larger liberal than conservative population, but when conservatives got lucky enough to control the government they gerrymandered it to all Hell and back, and since then have piled on the ruthless attempts to cheat the system and freeze out Democrats at every level. Despite most of the population disagreeing with them, the conservatives in charge are absolute batshit insane extremists.

  110. 110.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @trollhattan: Looks like the Woolsey fire is going to burn to Malibu and may link up with the Hill fire at the coast; can’t burn any further than that. I went out to Franklin Canyon today today to take some pics and you could see the massive smoke plume to the west.

  112. 112.

    Corner Stone

    @burnspbesq: You’re as fucking dumb as Wittes is. Tell us again what a Great Man Brett Kavanaugh is, Counselor. You’re too stupid to really look at who Ben Wittes actually is and understand he is dumb and has God awful judgment. Go Fuck Yourself.

  114. 114.

    lamh36

    Soooo… Acosta still aint’ got his privileges back?

    Cause his fellow high profile reporters are certaintly quiet now.

    Guess the WHPA really ain’t planning to do nothing

  117. 117.

    feebog

    I am on vacation in Puerto Vallarta this week, and have nothing to add except I got to play golf twice this week. But this thread has been BJ gold standard. Thanks for the laffs. Gunna go eat tacos now.

  119. 119.

    trollhattan

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:
    Ugh. Wasn’t that long ago the only fires this time of year were in southern pockets of the state but they now have to keep stations opened and crewed from border to border, waiting for the storms to arrive. And nobody’s predicting that.

  120. 120.

    Ruckus

    @Kent:
    Many have made this point many times. It seems to only sink in a very short depth.
    Do remember though that in historical timeframes it was not that long ago that the Dow was not in the 26,000 range or anywhere near it and a change like we just saw would be a much larger percentage indicator of the basic idea of the index, to give an overall picture of the stock market. As it is it’s up over 700 points on the week, down .04% from yesterday.
    OMG the market is crumbling!!!!! Not.

  122. 122.

    Origuy

    I have no opinion on the presence or absence of Chris Pine’s junk, but Outlaw King is getting good reviews from people who know Scottish history. Certainly better than the Mel Gibson atrocity. Even though they appear to have left out my ancestor, Roger de Kirkpatrick.

  123. 123.

    whomever

    I’m really going to miss Angela Merkel. Ironically a number of my German friends are down on her because they consider her too conservative. But she has a PhD in Quantum Chemistry, can you imagine what it’s like for her to have to deal with certain leaders who don’t even know what Quantum Chemistry is?

  124. 124.

    Mnemosyne

    @lamh36:

    His nude scene in Shame is so famous that George Clooney made a joke about it at the Golden Globes the year Fassbinder was nominated. ?

  125. 125.

    Mnemosyne

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    My brother and his family are all packed up to evacuate, but there are no hotels available close by, so they would have to go to one of the emergency shelters in a pinch. Their only option is to go north and west — the fires have them cut off from the other directions.

  126. 126.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    @Ruckus:
    Just so you know, I wasn’t making that point. I was just answering Yarrow’s question about what was causing the market share of Google, et al to decrease by $75 million

  127. 127.

    Ruckus

    @debbie:
    I have an ex marine buddy who does this. And he gets worked up like he’s going to do something destructive to something/someone, soon, and with grave force. Right up till the moment his wife comes in and tells him to use his indoor voice. If I hadn’t seen it for over 40 yrs it would probably concern me. BTW he’s also a liberal. Hates republicans.

  130. 130.

    lamh36

    @mkraju
    Follow Follow @mkraju
    More
    Pelosi detractors plot their first steps in hopes of generating more support to deny her votes on floor, beginning with debate next week in caucus over a rules change. No candidate yet but they say at least 12 will hold together. w/ ⁦@KilloughCNN⁩

    @sethmoulton
    Leadership asking new members to make a choice: break campaign promise on your 1st vote, or stand up to a status quo that will punish you. We’ve been fielding lots of calls from incumbents. We’re the voices of a silent majority who want new leadership & to protect new members

    like someone said…this is no longer play time…this is the BIG LEAGUES with big stakes.

  132. 132.

    Villago Delenda Est

    I am just checking in to let you all know that I am alive and kicking, but my old ISP is not, and that a new ISP (Xfinity? Oh my!) is on the way. My posting will be sparse-to non existent over the next week or two.

    Also, how about that Dana Rohrabacher? What a delightful ex-congressman he will be!

    Also, fuck Trump.

  134. 134.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @lamh36: Seth Moulton needs to take a long walk off a short pier. He is no leader at all…he’s just an asshole who happens to be a Democrat.

  136. 136.

    tobie

    @lamh36: I saw Spannberger on CNN pledge to vote against Pelosi as Speaker. What was frustrating is that she wouldn’t give any reason for this decision except that the caucus needs a new face. Newness is overrated IMO.

  145. 145.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Origuy:

    Even though they appear to have left out my ancestor, Roger de Kirkpatrick.

    No offense but everyone knows he was a wanker.

  147. 147.

    Yarrow

    WTF, Florida!

    NEW: I obtained photos that appear to show tons of uncounted ballots sitting inside a Miami-area mailroom in Opa-locka. Miami-Dade Elections spox says they're aware of the reported ballots but can't do anything: https://t.co/DkqdnODIjD— Jerry Iannelli (@jerryiannelli) November 9, 2018

  149. 149.

    Platonailedit

    @Yarrow:

    Miami-Dade Elections spokesperson said that it was on voters to mail ballots back to the county by 7 p.m. on election day, but multiple sources tell me they're worried that USPS had left ballots sitting inside the mailroom that could have been counted:

    https://t.co/DkqdnODIjD— Jerry Iannelli (@jerryiannelli) November 9, 2018

    Looks like vote by mail is not the be all , end all to prevent the gop’s electoral malpractices.

  154. 154.

    Adam L Silverman

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??: @Yarrow: Florida election regs state that other than ballots coming from overseas, all absentee/vote by mail ballots must be in possession of each supervisor of elections office by the time the polls close on election day. So if the Post Office screwed up, as in these were post marked/mailed far enough in advance to arrive by the time the polls closed on election day, and didn’t get these delivered in time, this is a Post Office problem. If these were all mailed too late to be delivered by the deadline, that’s on the voters. As to whether this regulation is a good one, I personally think they should be counted if they’re post marked by election day, but I don’t make the rules.

    ETA: It is possible that when either Elias, Richards, or both find out about this they’ll seek a court order to have them counted, but that is also out of my control.

  155. 155.

    tobie

    I made fun of my folks for insisting on voting on election day in Florida instead of doing vote by mail. My mother said she didn’t trust Rick Scott to count all votes by mail. She was right. I have to hand it to her. This is just one SNAFU after another on top of one of the most massive voter suppression efforts we’ve seen in history. I feel bad for all the vote canvassers in southern Florida. People mess up when undue pressure is brought to bear on them. The pressure on these folks right now is unbearable.

  157. 157.

    TenguPhule

    @Yarrow:

    NANCY SMASH FOREVER.

    or at least long enough to train up a new generation to select a successor from.

    We can’t rely on her to bail out the caucus forever.

  159. 159.

    Fair Economist

    @StringOnAStick:

    The new leaders in Italy are far right and have adopted the “oh yeah, how ya gonna make me?” approach to their financial obligations and agreements with the EU. It could get……messy.

    It’s a little more complex than that. The ruling coalition in Italy is an alliance of a rightist group, the Northern League, with a weird left-leaning populist party, 5 Star. 5 Star has been heavily infiltrated by Russian agents, but it is still formally pushing more leftist policies like a universal basic income. The Northern League is going along because it gets tax cuts and deregulation. It’s like a coalition of Mitt Romney and Bernie Sanders.

  160. 160.

    TenguPhule

    @Fair Economist:

    It’s like a coalition of Mitt Romney and Bernie Sanders.

    That might be giving the Italian political parties too much credit. As mindboggling as that might sound.

  161. 161.

    Fair Economist

    I adore Pelosi as a Congressional Leader, but although it would be sad if she got passed over for Speaker because of some idiotic promises by new members, it wouldn’t be the end of the world if she were Majority Leader with somebody good and compatible as Speaker. The CBC has been making noise about being somewhat short in leadership positions – perhaps we could get Barbara Lee as Speaker and kill two birds with one stone?

  166. 166.

    Jackie

    @TenguPhule: No defense. I might not like her politics, but she’s a human being. And has pets. Everyone fleeing their homes/losing their homes deserves respect and compassion.

  167. 167.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @John Revolta: It may have something to do with the political climate of the state in question. Oregon and Washington have never had problems like these, but they’re blue states. Florida, OTOH, is competing with New Jersey in the shitty political climate sweepstakes.

  168. 168.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Jackie: Her pets might deserve compassion, but she does not. No one who supported Donald is deserving of it. That ship sailed two years ago.

  169. 169.

    J R in WV

    This US Post Office mail center with “tons” of undelivered ballots is – to me – a huge problem. We know who is in charge of the Federal government today, and as independent as the USPS is in theory, how do we know that a few managers, in love with herr Drumpf, didn’t so as asked and store these ballots until they turned stale.

    If much of the nation is going to depend upon mail-in ballots, perhaps post office staff that fuck with ballots should be imprisoned for years, and lose their pension, health care, etc. If the postmarks on these ballots show that they should have been delivered before close of business election day (whenever the regs say!) then shit should hit the fan, and the ballots should be counted.

    In any case, hard questions should be asked, like late at night right away, and all day the next day. Then prosecutions should commence. This pisses me off as much as anything Trump as done so far.

  170. 170.

    sdhays

    @Fair Economist: It’s stupid to engage on whether or not you’re going to vote for a particular leader in Congress during your campaign, especially when it’s not clear who would replace the person you’re not in favor of. You’re just playing on the opposition’s turf. None of those new Congresspeople won their elections because they said they’d vote against Nancy Pelosi; they simply forced themselves into a fight they don’t need right after an historic victory.

    I don’t know why any Democrat would want to go into the next two years with anyone other than Nancy Pelosi at the helm because she’s skilled and tenacious. Maybe someone else would be good too, but I don’t see why we need to dick around about that with all of the shit going on; at least get us past 2020 and hopefully a new Democratic President. And if numb-nuts Hoyer’s the one who benefits from these people throwing a hissy fit over their ill-considered “promise” (which, as far as I can see, is the most logical conclusion at this stage), what, I will ask, was the fucking point?

    Maybe a truly fresh face would get the opportunity to succeed Pelosi and might be awesome, but, damn, none of these idiots should get it in their heads that the new face won’t be demonized by Spankee and Fux News the very next day as much or more than they’ve demonized Nancy Smash. It’s an awful time to have “someone learning the ropes” as Speaker…

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