Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I did not have telepathic declassification on my 2022 bingo card.

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

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

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

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

This fight is for everything.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

Second rate reporter says what?

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

The willow is too close to the house.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Let there be snark.

After roe, women are no longer free.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

You are here: Home / Politics / Domestic Politics / Loser losing it over the prospect of losing

Loser losing it over the prospect of losing

by | 183 Comments

This post is in: , , ,

Of course, he doesn’t have the power to do this:

Loser losing it about losing

But it must remain scandalous that a sitting POTUS wants to delay the election, even if he can’t do it. I’m calling each of my federal representatives to ask if they agree. It won’t do any good since they’re all Republican Trump enablers (pardon the redundancy), but hassling their interns is the least I can do.

Trump can’t delay the election, but he can maximize the chaos surrounding it. Sowing division and fomenting chaos are his only talents, and his capacity to do both are horrifyingly magnified by the power of the office he occupies. Case in point: the low-quality hire Trump sleazed into the Postmaster General position is deliberately slowing mail delivery and sabotaging post office operations already.

We’ll just have to adjust until we get rid of these people. If they blow up mail-in voting, I’ll vote in person. If I have to stand in line for 12 hours with diseased Trump supporters in the middle of a hurricane that’s blowing medical waste into the crowd to vote, I’ll do it. It kinda feels like this is our last chance.

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

183Comments

  1. 1.

    Eunicecycle

    Just saw the first commercial for Joe in Ohio! I am so glad he is competing here. And as I think about it, I have seen fewer Trump commercials lately.

  2. 2.

    chopper

    he’s not going to delay the election but he will ratfuck the shit out of the USPS right before if he thinks mail-in voting is going to get more people to vote. bank on it.

  3. 3.

    HalfAssedHomesteader

    If Trumpkins want to delay their vote until after Nov 3rd who am I to tell them no?

  4. 4.

    SFAW

    This reminds me a little of the time Tom Delay held open a House vote — against House rules — for a number of hours, so he and his thugs could browbeat a recalcitrant Rethug into voting the way Delay wanted. In the end, he won that vote. Fortunately, the Murderer-in-Chief doesn’t appear to have any legal authority to do the same.
    And if he tries anything funny, I hope that Roberts sends the Marshal of the Supreme Court to haul in the Traitor-in-Chief’s obese ass

    ETA: I look forward to the day that the Truth and Retribution Commission /Tribunal hauls his immense ass before them, and renders a verdict of “Guilty! Guilty Guilty GUILTY!”

  7. 7.

    PenAndKey

    @chopper: he’s not going to delay the election but he will ratfuck the shit out of the USPS right before if he thinks mail-in voting is going to get more people to vote. bank on it.

    He’s already doing so by having his appointed stooge cut operating hours and attempt to close mailing locations to “save money”.

  8. 8.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @SFAW:

    If he tries anything funny during the lame duck, I hope Milley takes care of it at the Resolute Desk.

    President Biden can issue the pardon and award him the Medal of Honor on January 21.

  9. 9.

    WaterGirl

    @chopper: That’s why we all need to have our ballots early and return them at the earliest possible date.  Get them in before they really ramp up to full obstruction mode.

  10. 10.

    cope

    Not exactly sure where I am on my wildly fluctuation spectrum from hope to despair today (trending hopeful, I think) but I am with you on just toughing it out until we can vote, one way or another. We get mail in ballots but I take them in personally on election day to drop them off and follow up with “track my ballot” online to be sure it gets counted. I have just started reading “Nixonland” and can see that Nixon, rather than Reagan, was patient zero in the prion disease that has turned the Republican Party into such a menacing coalition of insanics.

  11. 11.

    TS (the original)

    Just commented on the last thread, I think that tweet was in response to President Obama’s tweet on “vote by mail day”. Trump is so full of hate for anything Obama says or does – and everyone then suffers.

    Late in my world but I want to watch at least some of  the John Lewis funeral – spend some time with good thoughts in my mind, remember good people and listen to President Obama.

  12. 12.

    SFAW

    I would like it if every non-RWMF news/media outlet started a drumbeat of “Every accusation he makes is a confession of what HE has done, or will TRY to do.” Eventually, it will sink in with those voters who don’t pay as much attention as we would like them to, to this stuff.

  15. 15.

    Joe Falco

    Even if he doesn’t have the power to do so, Trump will assert that he does and take power if he chooses whether by inciting his base and/or leaning on fellow Republicans and judges to do it. He won’t be constrained by opposing court decisions, laws or norms if he decides to go all in.

  16. 16.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    I am going to mask up, shield up, and vote in person, even if it means crawling over broken glass through a minefield staffed by Trump private militia dropping tear gas.

  17. 17.

    OzarkHillbilly

    If they blow up mail-in voting, I’ll vote in person. If I have to stand in line for 12 hours

    I long ago decided that no matter what I am voting in person, then I read that up to 20% of mail in ballots are disqualified for one piddly reason or other and that just sealed the deal.

  22. 22.

    Matt McIrvin

    The thing about deciding to vote by mail or in person is that you have to make the decision in advance–you can’t wait to see whether one is screwed up to do the other. Trump is going to try his best to shut down both. One good detail is that some swing states that had Republican governments in 2016 don’t any more.

  24. 24.

    trnc

    @WaterGirl:

    I hope Milley takes care of it at the Resolute Desk.

     

    What does that mean?

    The less we know, the better. Plausible deniability and all that.

  25. 25.

    Meyerman

    I think that we may have missed our chance to hold off catastrophic temperature increases in my children’s lifetimes. I don’t think the country will survive four more years of Trump and that will bring disaster even more quickly. I will do whatever it takes to make sure that vote is counted. This is our last chance. I hope enough Americans recognize that to ensure that Trump is crushed at the polls.

  26. 26.

    waspuppet

    @cope: Oh absolutely. Nixon just didn’t have the votes.

    As for this would-be Saddam we’ve got now, let’s review: We should delay the election because we can’t trust the Postal Service that he gutted, so we have to wait until it’s safe to vote in person because the pandemic which he allowed to blow out of control makes it too dangerous right now, and also kids should go to school and businesses should be open because everything is actually fine.

    And that’s today’s episode of Why This Presidency Reminds Me of My First Marriage.

  29. 29.

    Bill Arnold

    There is a trap here BTW. Even well-done analyses demonstrating that mail-in voting is at least as secure and perhaps more secure than in-person voting will to some extent play into his narrative that there will be massive election fraud. A Democratic narrative that focuses on improving election security might be the way to counter this. Rule of projection means that he was planning to cheat massively on the election and that mail-in voting is trowing a wrench into his plans.

    Oh and this would be another violation of D.J. Trump’s oath of office, except that he has never actually read the US constitution.  As said upthread, I will very much enjoy D.J. Trump’s trial. This “delay thge election” suggestion might be preparation for a dementia defense.  :-)

  31. 31.

    Raoul Paste

    “That’s blowing medical waste into the crowd… “

    It’s the little extras like that that really made me laugh

  34. 34.

    Marcopolo

    Calling my Rep & Senators this morning about this election tweet and to demand, in light of today’s economic news, that they finish passing the House Heroes bill which has been sitting on McConnell’s desk since May 15th.

    Also, good morning everyone.

  35. 35.

    Formerly disgruntled in Oregon

    One quirk of our weird federal system is that the States run elections, not the Feds.

    Not always ideal, but certainly helps with today’s “unusual” situation. (i.e. Lincoln didn’t propose postponing elections in 1864, FDR didn’t in 1944, etc. fer Pete’s sake!)

    Thanks, US Constitution!

  36. 36.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Eunicecycle:

    I guess the Demon Semen lady will have to take over the Black Voices for Trump organization. Between her and Allen West, that’s powerful.

  37. 37.

    Eunicecycle

    @OzarkHillbilly: I heard speculation when he was diagnosed that he may have contracted it at the Tulsa rally. He was seen there shoulder to shoulder with others and not wearing a mask.

  38. 38.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Joe Falco:

    Irrelevant.  What are Republicans going to do?  Have only blue states vote?  Then only Democrats go to congress and only Biden gets votes in the electoral college.  Trump cannot cancel the election, and that he’s whining about wanting to proves he has no secret plan to win.

  39. 39.

    Salty Sam

    If I have to stand in line for 12 hours with diseased Trump supporters in the middle of a hurricane that’s blowing medical waste into the crowd to vote, I’ll do it. It kinda feels like this is our last chance.

    We made the same decision Betty.

    Wife and I just discussed this a couple of days ago- we just mailed our applications for vote-by-Mail ballots, and since we both have a high expectation that the Texas Secretary of State will do everything in his power to ratfuck the Mail-in vote, we have made plans to return to Texas to vote, if we don’t get our ballots back soon enough (as happened last time we attempted this).
    Agree, this is a “last chance” election.

  43. 43.

    JPL

    For those in mourning for Cain, thoughts and prayers.   Let us remember though it will be one less hateful voice on talk radio.

  49. 49.

    Jinchi

    @Eunicecycle: Just saw the same, and wasn’t sure if it was legitimate or a troll. Maggie Haberman tweeted that NewsMax reported it, but I don’t see it on any of the major news sites.

  50. 50.

    MattF

    Just applied for a Maryland absentee ballot. Either use Vote.org or go directly to your state’s voting website. DO IT NOW.

  52. 52.

    PPCLI

    @OzarkHillbilly: 

    I’m voting in person too. In addition to the issue you mentioned, I’m worried that if Biden voters vote overwhelmingly by mail in battleground states, Trump will jump out to a substantial early lead in counting in-person ballots, and then act to shut down further “fraudulent” voting.

    People who are voting by mail should do everything they can to get the votes to a secure dropbox rather than use UPS.

  53. 53.

    germy

    The Associated Press:

    WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump is for the first time floating a “delay” to the Nov. 3 presidential election, as he makes unsubstantiated allegations that increased mail-in voting will result in fraud.

    The dates of presidential elections – the Tuesday after the first Monday in November in every fourth year – are enshrined in federal law and would require an act of Congress to change. The Constitution makes no provisions for a delay to the Jan. 20, 2021 presidential inauguration.

    Still, the mere suggestion of the delay was extraordinary in a nation that has held itself up as a beacon to the world for its history of peaceful transfer of power.

    Trump tweeted Thursday: “With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???”

    Trump’s tweet came on a day of bad economic news and amid a dark political patch for his reelection effort.

  55. 55.

    trollhattan

    In case anybody’s feeling verklempt about Cain.

    On Sunday night, Politico revealed that two female employees of the National Restaurant Association had received payouts after making harassment claims against Cain while he was the organisation’s president.

    According to Politico, the women left the association after complaining about inappropriate behaviour by Cain that made them angry and uncomfortable. They reportedly received settlements in return for signing non-disclosure agreements.

    In his first comments, Cain confirmed that he had been the subject of sexual harassment complaints involving two female workers in the restaurant industry‚ but said he had been “falsely accused”.

    Fvck that guy.

  56. 56.

    germy

    It will be a great embarrassment to the USA.

    Are we sure Barr didn’t write this?  Can Trump really spell “embarrassment”  ??

  57. 57.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    but hassling their interns is the least I can do.

    that’s the frustrating part. Odds are Republican interns larval versions of the freak show they work for– either bug-eyed Bible-thumping whackadoos or smug country club boat shoes sneering at their own base, and what do they do with all my outrage? put a tally mark under “for” or “against”? Do they even do that?

    that said: Shouldn’t we also be focusing on our state governments? asking those moderately successful insurance brokers of varying sanity, competence and ambition who represent us in the state lege to support the Secretary of State in maintaining the integrity of our votes?

  59. 59.

    Ruckus

    @Suzanne:

    Me too! Lives on hold, living in purgatory, waiting for the shit to stop hitting the fan, every fucking day, more shit, more fans, finish line always just out of reach.

    Which of course is exactly what the shit operators are hoping for. It’s why I had to stand in line, in the rain for 4 hrs in 2004 to vote, Ken Blackwell was fucking with the democratic areas of OH by combining precincts and reducing the number of machines in order to fix the vote. It’s why that one place closed the doors at the theoretical poll closing time with hundreds of people standing in line in this years primary. That 4 hr wait I did, quite a few people left in disgust, did they come back later?

    I get it, I’m about as on edge as I’ve ever been, between the shit maladministration and the pandemic which shitforbrains is try to kill us with, using shear malice of no thought, this is probably the fight of our lives.

    So I ask, what choice do we have?

  60. 60.

    Marcopolo

    @Bill Arnold:   Look, before Trump was claiming that mail-in voting was fraudulent he was claiming in-person voting was fixed.  Look at his effing comments in the lead up to the 2016 election.

    “The election is going to be rigged—I’m going to be honest,” Donald Trump said to a rowdy crowd in August, at a rally in Columbus, Ohio. “People are going to walk in and they’re going to vote ten times, maybe,” Trump told an interviewer later. A few days afterward, in Pennsylvania, where Trump was then lagging by nine points in the polls, he warned supporters that “the only way we can lose . . . is if cheating goes on.” That week, a new page appeared on his campaign Web site, inviting concerned citizens to volunteer to be “Trump Election Observers” so that they could “help me stop Crooked Hillary from rigging this election!”

    Then he managed to eke out a win–somehow–and shut up about it.

    Trump’s play here is to just make as many people as possible question the result of any election for which he is on the ballot so he can use un-democratic tactics to hold on to power.

    Our only recourse in fighting this is to: 1) make sure he loses by as large a margin as is humanly possible on Nov. 3; 2) fully fund and staff election protection organizations and their lawyers in every state in the U.S. (this would include regular folks doing election monitoring if they feel comfortable in the current environment); 3) push back immediately on any reporting that provides an ounce of legitimacy to any of Trump or the Republicans claims that election fraud is at all common.

  61. 61.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Joe Falco:

    His goon squad?  The tiny pack of assholes whose accomplishments are ‘harass protestors in a three block area in one city’?  And that’s the BEST he’s got.  Trump can’t do shit to mess up the election.  I always expected him to ask for it, like I expected him to ask the military to shoot Americans.  He’s getting neither.

  62. 62.

    schrodingers_cat

    I saw this coming when he won. I was in a deep funk for two months after that. We had just bought a new house and moved in a week before the elections. We hadn’t even completely unpacked. I even tried to figure how much of my stuff I could fit in my car in my mind’s eye along with my two cats in the car. I wondered if my Canadian relatives could take us in till we found our feet again. It took me until the second week of January to decide to apply for naturalization. I sent in my application one day before the nightmare officially began, the day of the inauguration. I was physically sick months after November.
    It was a nightmare for me and I know that I am one of the lucky ones.

  63. 63.

    WaterGirl

    I agree with Baud.  Vote early if it’s allowed.  The Dems won’t keep contacting you, and they can put their resources elsewhere.

    What if you sprain your ankle on Nov 2?  Shit happens.  We need every single vote this year.

    edited

  65. 65.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @germy: probably wasn’t trump, he would’ve Capitalized “Great” and “Embarrassment”. Also, more or less proper use of a comma in that last wet brain fart. Total absence of Exclamation Points!

  66. 66.

    Benw

    Been on vacay and barely following news. Reading that tweet after a week of no Trump felt like a cold slap

  67. 67.

    Suzanne

    Herman Cain died?!

    This is just….. so fucking weird. Everything about Trump and this timeline he has created is weird.

  69. 69.

    Jinchi

    @OzarkHillbilly: I long ago decided that no matter what I am voting in person, then I read that up to 20% of mail in ballots are disqualified for one piddly reason or other and that just sealed the deal.

    I understand you’re concern, but (at least in California) you can confirm whether your mail in ballot was received and accepted, well before election day and do something about it. There’s no redo if you discover your polling place has been closed and you can’t get to the new one before it closes. That happened to my SIL in Wisconsin on primary day.

    Mail in voting will undoubtedly increase voter turnout this year. That’s a good thing for Democrats.

  71. 71.

    TS (the original)

    @Eunicecycle:

    Less than two weeks before receiving his diagnosis, Cain had attended Trump’s rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the marquee event for the president’s self-proclaimed reelection campaign kickoff.

    Is there any tracing done to determine how many people who attended that rally have/had coronavirus?

    With the current outbreaks in my world at the moment, wherever possible new local cases are linked to the event that relates to each person i.e. we have particular hotels, churches, family parties, care homes, restaurants etc that are linked to multiple people having COVID-19.

  73. 73.

    Eunicecycle

    @oatler.: Ugh. He is still advertising here, it just seems like there is less. I used to have to mute the TV more often.

    ETA: maybe he stopped advertising on shows I watch.

  76. 76.

    Ruckus

    @WaterGirl:

    Get your mail in ballot. And drop it off, rather than mail it in.

    I did this in the primary and it worked, it’s easy peasy. Now sure in CA the polling places were open more than just election day, but a lot of states are sending out ballots to everyone it seems.

  77. 77.

    Betty Cracker

    @Matt McIrvin:

    The thing about deciding to vote by mail or in person is that you have to make the decision in advance–you can’t wait to see whether one is screwed up to do the other.

    That’s not the case in my county. The Supervisor of Elections is required to mail ballots to voters no later than 33 days before the election. Voters who decide to vote in person after requesting a mail-in ballot can do so as long as they bring their mail-in ballot to the voting site.

  78. 78.

    Jinchi

    @Marcopolo: Look, before Trump was claiming that mail-in voting was fraudulent he was claiming in-person voting was fixed.

    I think the common theme is that voting is fraudulent.

  80. 80.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    in other important news our Chief Executive has his eagle eye on amid the multi-faceted crises the Republic is facing:

    Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump 19m
    Support Patio Pizza and its wonderful owner, Guy Caligiuri, in St. James, Long Island (N.Y.). Great Pizza!!! @Varneyco

    Stuart Varney has the morning show on Fox Business Channel

  82. 82.

    Ken

    @Eunicecycle: Just saw the first commercial for Joe in Ohio! I am so glad he is competing here. And as I think about it, I have seen fewer Trump commercials lately.

    Trump threw a tantrum in 2016 because his campaign chair was spending “his money.” He probably still thinks of the funds as his, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he cut back on the ad spending.

  86. 86.

    David Hunt

    Of course, he doesn’t have the power to do this:

    He doesn’t have the authority. If he tries, we’ll see if he has the power. Success on his part means that he did.

    I mean, it’s blatantly unconstitutional. Even suggesting it should be so scandalous that it sinks his re-election prospects and trying should get him immediately impeached. But…if he tries it, will he be stopped?

  89. 89.

    satby

    Said it before and I’ll say it again, calling them “low quality hires” assumes they were hired to actually run their agencies, not impede and destroy them from within. Considering how successful they’ve been at that, those hires are exactly the quality that was sought.

    High quality ratfuckers is what they are.

  90. 90.

    schrodingers_cat

    Fear is a mind killer. He wants us to be afraid. We can control our own actions and our reactions to the resident evil in the WH.  Take charge and do what you can to get as many Ds elected up and down the ballot. That’s what has worked for me. YMMV.

  91. 91.

    Wyatt Salamanca

    Trump has scaled new heights of batshit crazy.  Any Republican or conservative with a conscience needs to denounce this despicable suggestion by our wannabe dictator.  With 150,000 dead and still counting, Trump’s tenure has been a goddamn crime against humanity.  May he rot in Hell.

  93. 93.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    good day to get off the tubes if you’ve been needing a break

    The Hoarse Whisperer @HoarseWisperer 18m
    There is very little in the world Trump’s fragile ego can handle less than Obama showing what a president looks like. Trump is going to launch nonstop battshittery today.

    CNN @CNN · 30m
    Inside Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s church in Atlanta, former President Barack Obama — who has acknowledged there only was a Black president because of what civil rights icon John Lewis sacrificed — will deliver the eulogy for the late congressman 

    I’m sure it will be live. Watch one great man pay tribute to another. Forget The Beast for an hour.

  94. 94.

    PenAndKey

    Re: Herman Cane’s death, it’s being reported from his official site. The news is fresh, but I also saw a Sinclair Group site reporting it as of a couple minutes ago so I’m guessing everyone will be within the next 30-60 minutes.

  96. 96.

    Jinchi

    @TS (the original): Is there any tracing done to determine how many people who attended that rally have/had coronavirus?

    I remember seeing pictures of Caine sitting on a rally bus and then in the arena surrounded by about 20-30 black voters for Trump. It seems like tracing on that front should be pretty straightforward.

    Honestly I feel sorry for Caine and his family. There’s only one person in the country I’d like to see catch this virus, if only to get him out of the loop long enough that other people can manage to solve the crisis.

  98. 98.

    Ken

    @TS (the original): Is there any tracing done to determine how many people who attended that rally have/had coronavirus?

    That would require that the Trump campaign has an accurate list of the attendees, and that Oklahoma have a track-trace system. So I’m guessing no.

  100. 100.

    Jinchi

    @Baud: Trump will insist on giving the eulogy

    I’ll be surprised if Trump even mentions Caine’s name again. He’s known for abandoning allies on their deathbed and Caine dying of a fake virus after attending that fiasco of a rally in Tulsa looks bad for Trump’s image.

  101. 101.

    Elizabelle

    Can we have a fresh thread on John Lewis, his funeral and his wonderful essay published today?

    Why spend more time with this loser (trump)?

  102. 102.

    FlyingToaster

    I’ll likely be voting in person, both for the MA primary (1 Sept) and the federal (3 Nov).  But that’s because I’m in Massachusetts, where the precincts are tiny and most of the oldest folks will vote early or by mail.  I live 4 blocks from my current polling place; in the 33 years I’ve lived here, I’ve never been more than 9 blocks from the polls.

    We did get our “apply for your mail-in ballot” postcard, which is retained in case things get worse.  As Tom Levenson noted, we’ve got a distinct rise in cases with Phase 3 (which opened about a month too early, IMNSHO), so things may change drastically if our only moderately competent governor can’t get his ass in gear.

  104. 104.

    Joe Falco

    @Jinchi: I can think of one more person to add to that list if only because a President Pelosi would actually move to get things done.

  105. 105.

    TS (the original)

    @trollhattan:

    I’m just underwhelmed by what is not happening in the US in regard to COVID-19 Back in the day this was the country that solved all the epidemic issues – led the field – helped other countries – were respected for what they did.

    How things change. Everyone at that event, especially the group sitting with Cain should have been traced and warned.

    Now I’ll go watch the good folks & listen to a real President talk about a real hero.

  106. 106.

    Kay

    I don’t think it’s possible for the D base to be any more fired up to get rid of Trump, but if it is possible, Republicans are trying :)

  108. 108.

    prufrock

    @Betty Cracker: I do vote by mail in Pinellas county, but I always drop the ballot off at the Election Clerk office, because it’s a mile from work.  Best of both worlds, really.

  109. 109.

    PST

    @FlyingToaster: I have similar good fortune here in Chicago. Plenty of time is available for early voting and sites are numerous. I’ve always been able to walk to one and vote quickly with little wait, often in a mostly empty room. That may be even more true this year with so many voting by mail. Voting by mail is great, but I want to help run up the election-night count since I can do so without inconvenience or danger. Of course, one expects Illinois to be called early no matter what.

  110. 110.

    Matt McIrvin

    @FlyingToaster:

    We did get our “apply for your mail-in ballot” postcard, which is retained in case things get worse.  As Tom Levenson noted, we’ve got a distinct rise in cases with Phase 3 (which opened about a month too early, IMNSHO), so things may change drastically if our only moderately competent governor can’t get his ass in gear.

    I sent mine in–I’m voting by mail for both the September primary (Markey v. Kennedy, etc.) and the general, as early as I possibly can. I figure either method is relatively likely to work fine here in Mass., but for the last couple of state elections I voted early just to try to normalize the practice.

    Voting early is nearly identical to mail voting except you put the envelope in a box at City Hall. Will be trying hard to get everything right with respect to signatures on envelopes, etc., and I have some practice there.

  112. 112.

    Elizabelle

    C-Span link to funeral     https://www.c-span.org/video/?474223-1/representative-john-lewis-funeral-service-atlanta-georgia&live

    essay:  https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/30/opinion/john-lewis-civil-rights-america.html

  113. 113.

    Kristine

    @Matt McIrvin: at least in Illinois, you can bring your mail-in ballot to your polling place, surrender it, and vote in person. I need to reread my manual, but I believe if you don’t bring your mail-in ballot for surrender, you can vote provisionally.

  116. 116.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Kay:

    Manu Raju  @mkraju·58m

    Sen. Lindsey Graham told me this morning about Trump’s call to delay the election: “I don’t think that’s a particularly good idea.” He declined further comment.

    “Not answering any questions,” said Sen. Joni Ernst, who is in a tough race, when I asked about Trump’s tweet.

    I hope Greenfield and Axne and ol’ Tom Harkin and everyone else have sent this out to their lists and asked them to light up her office phones.

  117. 117.

    feebog

    In California you can deposit you absentee ballot at early voting locations or on November 3 at any polling location.  That is exactly what I am going to do.  You don’t have to wait in line to do that, just walk in with your ballot and deposit it in a box or hand it to a poll worker and observe them deposit it.  It goes in right along with the ballots cast in person that day.  I worked for the USPS for 40 years and always had complete faith in the system, but Trump and his henchman are going to ratfuck the shit out of early voting.

  118. 118.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    When I see people mistakenly add the “e” to Herman Cain’s name, I can’t help but chuckle at the similarities between Trump and Commander Queeg, another man who was nuts and really bad at his job.

  119. 119.

    ET

    The shitty economic numbers out today will be followed by shitty labor numbers tomorrow. This is definitely distraction but it is a dangerous distraction that needs to be shouted down because his zombie follower are stupid and will likely think it is a great idea and have no idea he can’t actually do it.

  120. 120.

    cmorenc

    @cope:

    I have just started reading “Nixonland” and can see that Nixon, rather than Reagan, was patient zero in the prion disease that has turned the Republican Party into such a menacing coalition of insanics.

    The irony is that aside from pioneering the use of “race-baiting” to attract working-class white northern voters and to provoke southern voters to begin the switch in party-voting habits from democrat to republican – Nixon’s actual domestic policies were outright progressive for the era, and would make him a RINO socialist outcast in today’s Republican party.  Much of the cornerstone environmental legislation (EPA, clean air act, clean water act) were passed with the full support of the Nixon Administration, and Nixon himself believed in what amounted to a living wage policy for working-class types of jobs, even though that aspect of his domestic policy produced vastly less actual accomplishment during his Presidency than the environmental legislation.

  121. 121.

    Shakti

    We’ll just have to adjust until we get rid of these people. If they blow up mail-in voting, I’ll vote in person. If I have to stand in line for 12 hours with diseased Trump supporters in the middle of a hurricane that’s blowing medical waste into the crowd to vote, I’ll do it.

     

    My modus is to drop off my ballot at the election commissioners or one of their drop off locations because I have name match issues. [Thanks to my asshole parents!!!] I don’t want to take a chance that a poll worker will look at my id and  decide to exact match my name out of voting.

     

    Per their website, 8.59% of eligible voters have already turned out through mail and slightly more Democrats than Republicans have already sent in a ballot.

  122. 122.

    sherparick

    I just saw this over the wire.  It is practically a murder/suicide. I am gobsmacked that Trump and the RW Infotainment Industry is so high on their own supply that they can’t wrap their heads around the fact that a contagious respiratory virus does not give a shit about whether Ayn Rand’s supermen or not, that epidemiology cannot be trumped by magical thinking about cures or wishes “that it will just go away.”

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-30/herman-cain-pizza-ceo-turned-white-house-contender-dies-at-74

  123. 123.

    Betty Cracker

    @Jinchi: The timing sure does suggest Cain’s illness was connected to the super-spreader event in Tulsa. From what I’ve read of outbreak investigations involving non-politicians, it’s easy to connect the dots too — down to the house party. But IIRC, Tulsa is run by Trump-humping goobers, so they’ll probably suppress that information.

  124. 124.

    geg6

    @JPL: 
    It’s looking to me like they have given up on PA. I haven’t seen a Trump ad all week. They were blanketing the airwaves just last week.

  127. 127.

    MattF

    @sherparick:  Trump goes with his gut, and his gut is the gut of a moron, so it’s often wrong. And that’s really all there is– appeals to Ms. Rand notwithstanding.

  129. 129.

    Elizabelle

    Pastor speaks of someone in office “better at division than vision.”  And calls out the fake patriots supporting him.

    Could not catch the whole quote, but it was excellent.

    We will want to read the transcript of this, after the fact.

  130. 130.

    Kay

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    “Not answering any questions,” said Sen. Joni Ernst

    Guffaw. They are the biggest cowards in the world.
    She can’t be a senator because she’s too much of a fucking wreck to function at all. How about that?
    Interesting times, huh? I don’t care anymore. I’m ready for whatever fight is ahead. These people will kill us if they stay in power. They’re killing their own! We’re next.

  132. 132.

    cmorenc

    @Shakti:

    Per their website, 8.59% of eligible voters have already turned out through mail and slightly more Democrats than Republicans have already sent in a ballot.

    To the extent that small difference in party affiliation means anything, it depends on the location distribution of the votes cast so far.  If a disproportionate % of the D ballots are from reliably blue states, versus a disproportionate % of the R ballots are from much more closely contested states, there is no advantage whatever so far in there being a small overall difference in the D’s favor in overall ballots.

  134. 134.

    Gravenstone

    @Eunicecycle: Given the timing of his diagnosis relative to the rally, that was the immediate speculation. Of course no one was ever going to be able to corroborate that or other possible exposure in the same time frame. So let’s blame Trump and his arrogance just to help hammer it all home.

  135. 135.

    Edmund Dantes

    @Jinchi: not in the least feel bad for Cain. He actively was against masks. He even tweeted about masks not being mandatory and people being fed up at the Tulsa rally.

    so. Fuck em

  136. 136.

    Elizabelle

    @Baud:

    Two Herman Cain threads. Not one John Lewis thread.

    Yeah.  That fucking sucks.  Perspective, people.

  137. 137.

    Chyron HR

    Boy, cancelling “delaying” elections sure sounds kinda fascist to me.  But the antifas on Twitter have assured me that Nancy Pelosi eating ice cream is the real fascism, so never mind.

  138. 138.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @David Hunt:

    He literally does not have the power.  How can Trump delay the election?  Executive order?  What will that do?  It’s like when he gave governors orders about lockdowns.  He’s not part of that system and they ignored him.  It will be damned hard for a state to delay/cancel their election.  Only red states will even consider it.  If they (somehow) do, only Democrats will be elected.  Trump physically cannot atop the election.  He is fucked and he’s whining about how it’s not fair.  That is all this is.

  141. 141.

    Gravenstone

    @Baud: I doubt he even acknowledges Cain’s existence, let alone passing. He prefers suck ups who don’t die to a ‘China virus’ after all.

  142. 142.

    Betty Cracker

    @Elizabelle & @Baud: WG just put up a new thread, but speaking of perspective, everyone who posts here does it for free in their spare time, and most of us have full time jobs.

  143. 143.

    cmorenc

    @Frankensteinbeck:

     Trump cannot cancel the election, and that he’s whining about wanting to proves he has no secret plan to win.

    You’re missing the main point of Trump’s whining about possibly postponing the election – which is to do as much as possible to discredit the results of the election in November if Trump is the apparent loser according to the accumulating count after the polls close.  Not that Trump wouldn’t postpone the election if he could, to give the economy more time to hopefully recover and claim credit for it, but even he likely realizes that he will be unable to pull off actually postponing the election.  Being contrary to actual fact has never yet stopped Trump from indulging in fraudulent hucksterism to sell notions to credulous people.

  144. 144.

    SFAW

    @Jinchi:

    I think the common theme is that voting is fraudulent.

    Almost. Voting by people they hate or people who vote for Democrats is fraudulent.

  145. 145.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Betty Cracker: fair point, but you gotta admit it’s hard not to notice what motivates Cole to stop tweeting about pickling and his socks and remember he has a political blog

    (I finally got myself banned, didn’t I?)

  146. 146.

    SFAW

    @Betty Cracker:

    and most of us have full time jobs.

    Oh, right — as if ANY Demon-rat moocher does anything but collect welfare and live off the fruits of the labors of the top 1 percent, i.e., Jaaaahb Creators.

  149. 149.

    Elizabelle

    @Betty Cracker:   I know, Betty.

    But not like John Lewis’s funeral was “breaking news.”

    I think at BJ there is a lot of glomming onto the negative and derisive, and it is grace to be able to celebrate his life with fellow jackals.

  151. 151.

    geg6

    @Betty Cracker:

    I believe that when there was a jump in Tulsa cases, they were able to track many of them back to the Trump rally.  No doubt Cain was one of them.  I have no doubt about that at all.

  152. 152.

    Jerzy Russian

    @Betty Cracker:

    everyone who posts here does it for free in their spare time, and most of us have full time jobs.

    Along those lines, everyone who comments here comments from work, so it balances out.

  153. 153.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @cmorenc:

    do as much as possible to discredit the results of the election in November if Trump is the apparent loser according to the accumulating count after the polls close.

    And that accomplishes… what?  What, exactly?  It’s not even going to court.  He can whine all he wants.  He still loses.  Are red states going to secede?  No, they’re not.  ‘Democrats cheated!’ has been tried repeatedly on state elections.  It goes nowhere.  Republicans are going to huff around that Democrats are illegitimate anyway.  That’s what they do, so there are no ramifications for Biden’s administration.  ‘Discredit’ is meaningless.

    And frankly, that sounds like a plan.  Trump just whines.  This is the tantrum of a spoiled asshole complaining that it’s not fair he has to compete.  It is sound and fury, signifying nothing.

  154. 154.

    Marcopolo

    @WaterGirl:  A number of Secretaries of State have suggested folks using mail in ballots give them 14 days to be returned.  So mail them in by Oct. 20th.  The folks in this household have already decided we will be doing in person absentee voting some time between Sept. 22 (when it starts here) and the first week of Oct.

  156. 156.

    A Ghost to Most

    The Flat Earthist realized as he flew through the skies
    The curve of the horizon as he fell
    He saw the world was round just before he hit the ground
    And gravity called out to close the deal

    Loyalty oaths can be deadly, Herman.
    Thoughts and prayers.

  157. 157.

    Galahad Threepwood

    @Frankensteinbeck: Dude I hope you’re right.  With unaccountable Federal police on the ground in Portland (did they withdraw after all, or are they still there?  There was a lot of confusion about that yesterday from what I saw), Bill Barr being noncommittal about accepting the results of the election, and now this, I am nervous.  I said this elsewhere, but while Trump can’t cancel the election, he might be able to convince other people to do so, and that might accomplish what he’s after.  Even in a best case scenario, he’s created more chaos and sowed even more disinformation about voter fraud into the system.  November 3rd looks like it’s a million miles away right now.

  158. 158.

    frosty

    @Betty Cracker: … speaking of perspective, everyone who posts here does it for free in their spare time, and most of us have full time jobs.

    It doesn’t get said often enough, but thank you all so much for this. Also, I’m impressed that you can come up with wordsmithing the way you do while on the clock. I quote your stuff to my wife all the time!

  160. 160.

    Humdog

    @geg6: In California at least, if you do not live in the town you contracted COVID from, you will not be listed as having it in that town. We have many Temporary itinerant workers in the south of our county. We hear of a large outbreak down there but because the infected come here from homes elsewhere they are not included in our COVID count.

  161. 161.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Galahad Threepwood:

    With unaccountable Federal police on the ground in Portland

    Trump has about a hundred (I’ve heard 80 and I’ve heard 120) guys whose accomplishments consist of harassing unarmed protestors in a tiny area and cowering when they’re outnumbered.  They can only do that because a vaguely worded legal clause gives them police powers in that small area, AND Portland has shown itself to be one of or perhaps the worst asshole police cities in the US.  In three and a half years, this is the best Stormtrooper Army his aides have been able to cobble together for him, and they lost to unarmed protestors.  What are they supposed to do about a national election?  Disrupt two polling places?  Even that requires strategy and competency that no one in the Trump administration has displayed, including Barr.

    Bill Barr being noncommittal about accepting the results of the election

    Barr can sit right next to Trump as the lights are shut off in the White House on the 20th and Biden starts his presidency elsewhere.  Assuming President Biden is that nice about it.  Never admitting they lost is standard narcissist behavior.  It’s damn near the essence of narcissist behavior.  They still lose.  Trump loses a lot.

    he might be able to convince other people to do so

    Who?  Who, exactly?  He would have to convince entire state governments to do it.  Democrats won’t, and if only fully red states refuse to vote, hey, less power to them, because that’s what happens.  They don’t get congressmen or electors.

    he’s created more chaos and sowed even more disinformation about voter fraud into the system

    He tried that at the beginning with his voter fraud committee and the five million illegals and yadda yadda.  There’s nothing his ‘chaos’ and ‘disinformation’ can change.  It hasn’t changed any of the elections Republicans have lost in the last three years, and they’ve thrown a fit about cheating almost every time.

    November 3rd looks like it’s a million miles away right now.

    Very true, but don’t give Trump credit for powers he doesn’t have, and don’t get sucked into panic spirals based on nebulous 1)  Trump whines 2)  … 3)  Trump steals the election rumors.  We’ve been hearing that Trump is about to jail his political enemies, send troops everywhere, and so on, and so on, for three and a half years.  We’re all traumatized, and we leap to imagine the worst, usually in vague ways because vagueness leaves nothing to disprove.  Trump cannot cancel this election, and if he’s whining like this, it means he doesn’t see any way to win.

  162. 162.

    Soprano2

    It’s gonna be funny to see the compilation of Republicans avoiding answering a question about this tweet. Portraits in courage, those Republicans.

  163. 163.

    mrmoshpotato

    I was told there’d be cake so much winning we’d get sick of all the winning.

  164. 164.

    Kay

    Ronald Brownstein
    @RonBrownstein
    ·12m
    Hillary Clinton beat Trump in NH by about 3k votes (less than 1 percentage point). The new UNH poll shows Biden leading Trump by 13 points overall, including an 18 pt lead w/college+ men, 53 (!) pts w/college+ women & 36 pts w/voters under 35. Trump also losing non-col women.

  165. 165.

    Kay

    Ronald Brownstein
    @RonBrownstein
    ·2h
    “We’re still in a desperate situation,” said Diane Swonk, chief economist at the accounting firm Grant Thornton in Chicago. “Everyone wants to keep putting on rose-colored glasses, but it’s blinding us to the reality of the situation and what we have to deal with.”

    Well, ‘everyone’. Economists and financial people who insanely kept insisting it was a “V shaped recovery”. They really, really need to occasionally be right.

  166. 166.

    J R in WV

    @Matt McIrvin: 

    The thing about deciding to vote by mail or in person is that you have to make the decision in advance–you can’t wait to see whether one is screwed up to do the other. Trump is going to try his best to shut down both. One good detail is that some swing states that had Republican governments in 2016 don’t any more.

    You evidently don’t know a dammed thing about voting — early voting in person is pretty common, even here in a backwards state like West Virginia. I’m not going to do the Google work YOU should be doing before you comment, but I suspect a majority of states have some form of early voting.

    In our rural county, Wife and I plan to mask up, and go to either the county seat or the nearby early voting location in a community center to vote early, as early as we can. Dangerous for Wife, with a damaged immune system from an illness years ago. But once that ballot is cast, it is cast. We will have done our share.

  167. 167.

    Galahad Threepwood

    I am going to frame this response & refer to it when I start panicking again. You’re right, I was traumatized by 2016 and I keep thinking Trump will find some way out of this because he has avoided accountability so far elsewhere. And the closer the election gets the more nervous I get and the more far fetched my fears get. I am going to take a deep breath and relax.

  168. 168.

    cmorenc

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    And that accomplishes… what?  What, exactly?  It’s not even going to court.  He can whine all he wants.  He still loses.

    A second Trump/GOP objective of seeking to discredit an apparent loss in November is to justify a strategy of maximum obstruction to Biden’s presidency to try to make it fail as much as possible, just like McConnell did to Obama back in 2008 – with the result that the Rs re-took the House and Senate in 2010.  After the Republicans’ great victory with Reagan back in 1980, they have never since regarded a Democratic president as legitimate, nor ceased a relentless campaign to undermine and discredit any D incumbent.  The viciousness and scorched-earth obstruction tactics will be amped up past 11 once Biden takes office.

  170. 170.

    PenAndKey

    @cmorenc: After the Republicans’ great victory with Reagan back in 1980, they have never since regarded a Democratic president as legitimate, nor ceased a relentless campaign to undermine and discredit any D incumbent.  The viciousness and scorched-earth obstruction tactics will be amped up past 11 once Biden takes office.

    You just described the Obama years. IF McConnell holds on to his seat past November you may be right, but that’s hardly a change from the previous GOP norm.

  171. 171.

    rikyrah

    @OzarkHillbilly:

     

    I long ago decided that no matter what I am voting in person, then I read that up to 20% of mail in ballots are disqualified for one piddly reason or other and that just sealed the deal.

     

    I understand

  172. 172.

    J R in WV

    @Suzanne:

    @Ruckus: I don’t know if I have ever been this fucking scared for a sustained period of time.

    I was scared for most of my Navy service, sleeping above a bay filled with hundreds of old torpedoes on board a ship laid down in 1942.

    Then I was scared by Ronald Reagan.

    Then I was scared by Dick Cheney and his puppet W Bush.

    Then Trump was elected. Really scared then. Now there’s the Trump Plague on top of the political fear.

    A long way around to say I agree with you, totally! Scared!!

  179. 179.

    A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)

    @Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: That was my first thought, too.  We didn’t postpone elections in the midst of a civil war, or during WWII.  I’ve read there was concern on how soldiers would be able to vote in the civil war, and that it was their votes which actually reelected Lincoln.

  180. 180.

    A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)

    @cmorenc: And you reminded me of the old Vulcan proverb “Only Nixon could go to China”.  Nixon was terrible in so many ways, but the EPA was established during his administration, with his support.

  181. 181.

    artem1s

    ugh so tired of this racist dog whistle framing of absentee (white old people) and mail-in (those people) voting.

  182. 182.

    Jane Austin

    @WaterGirl:

    Here in Travis County Texas, you can slide your mail-in ballot into a drive-by ballot box outside the District Clerk’s office.

    Everybody over 65 needs no other reason to request an absentee ballot.

    If other counties have those on-site ballot boxes, and you’re not incapacitated, I strongly urge people to go around the USPS and take their mail-in ballots directly to the District Clerk’s office.

Comments are closed.