Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

A dilettante blog from the great progressive state of West Virginia.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

A Senator Walker would also be an insult to reason, rationality, and decency.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

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

Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

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

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

“More of this”, i said to the dog.

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

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

No one could have predicted…

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

You are here: Home / Past Elections / 2020 Elections / Election 2020 Open Thread: Discord in the Villages

Election 2020 Open Thread: Discord in the Villages

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Well worth a click, if only for the photos:

Sara Branscome’s golf cart whizzed down the smooth asphalt path that winds through The Villages, the nation’s largest retirement community, an expanse of beautiful homes, shops and entertainment venues that bills itself as “Florida’s Friendliest Hometown.”

Branscome’s cart was festooned with two American flags that flapped in the warm afternoon breeze. A line of oncoming carts bedecked with balloons and patriotic streamers chugged past while honking. Branscome jabbed her left foot on the horn pedal, then gave a thumbs-up.

“This gets you rejuvenated and ready for the next month or so, so we can do this and win. It gives you hope,” the 60-year-old retiree said.

Then she let out a whoop and two surprising words: “Go Biden!”…

Mostly, it seems, older voters have been put off by Trump’s handling of the coronavirus, which affects these voters more acutely than others. They were particularly alarmed by Trump’s performances at daily task force briefings in the spring because his remarks showed an uneven handling of the crisis and inspired little confidence…

Last fall, Trump picked The Villages to promote his support for Medicare and its private insurance option.

But on Wednesday, the scene told a markedly different story. An armada of as many as 500 golf carts gathered at the Sea Breeze Recreation Center to caravan to the nearby elections office, so folks could drop off ballots for Biden.

As each cart rolled into the parking lot and slid a ballot into a locked box under the watchful eye of elections supervisors, dozens lined the sidewalk, cheering and clapping every time a vote was cast.

“I think we all came out of the closet for this election,” said Branscome…

It’s not a cry that might be expected to resound in The Villages, and it’s certainly not one that is encouraging to President Donald Trump. Older voters helped propel him to the White House — the Pew Research Center estimates Trump led among voters 65 and older by 9 percentage points in 2016 — and his campaign hoped they would be a bulwark to cement a second term…

***********
On the other side… here’s part of a thread from an overseas (Telegraph) correspondent:

You’re not supposed to cull your voters until after the election, Dense!

Reader Interactions

354Comments

  1. 1.

    OzarkHillbilly

    “I’m not worried about me, but I’m worried about other people here because obese people get it. I don’t hang around with overweight people so I’ll be fine”

    America’s last words.

  3. 3.

    Sab

    @OzarkHillbilly: Why I quit my last job. Obese 60+ year old maskless co-worker told me she didn’t worry about covid because she didn’t have any underlying health issues.

  4. 4.

    John S.

    If there are that many voters in The Villages who are willing to openly support Biden, Trump really is done here in Florida. That place is literally a Fox News bubble.

    My wife and I both completed our straight DEM ballots in solid blue Broward, and we’re just waiting for the ballot drop off to open on the 19th.

    Tick tock, motherfuckers!

  5. 5.

    OzarkHillbilly

    An open letter that made headlines calling for a herd immunity approach to Covid-19 lists a number of apparently fake names among its expert signatories, including “Dr Johnny Bananas” and “Professor Cominic Dummings”.

    The Great Barrington declaration, which was said to have been signed by more than 15,000 scientists and medical practitioners around the world, was found by Sky News to contain numerous false names, as well as those of several homeopaths.

    Others listed include a resident at the “university of your mum” and another supposed specialist whose name was the first verse of the Macarena.

    Sky News discovered 18 self-declared homeopaths in the list of expert names and more than 100 therapists whose expertise included massage, hypnotherapy and Mongolian khoomii singing.
    ……………………………………
    Individual academics from the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Stanford, Nottingham, Edinburgh, Exeter, Sussex and York were among experts from around the world who signed the declaration. However, the declaration’s website allows anyone to add their name to the list if they provide an email address, home city, postcode and name.

    Signatories also tell the site whether they are a medical and public health scientist, a medical practitioner or a member of the general public – of whom almost 160,000 claim to have signed.

    It is not clear how many of the names in the declaration’s list of experts are fake, or when they appeared. However, many scientists have already criticised the letter’s conclusions.

    Something tells me the eminent and world renowned physicians Doctors Fine, Howard, and Fine are among the signatories.

  10. 10.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Quote of the day:
    “I accept this award today with an abiding faith in America and an audacious faith in the future of mankind. I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history.”

    -Martin Luther King in his acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize

    source.

  12. 12.

    RedDirtGirl

    Good morning, jackals. I just learned that my father died this morning. He was 88 and had health issues, so not completely unexpected. He lived in Madrid and went in for prostate surgery last week. Recovery was talking longer than it should have, but his heart has been compromised by amyloidosis for the past few years, and while I don’t have all the details, I imagine it just gave out on him.

    I’m sad, but also glad that he is no longer suffering. He had be struggling with manic depression for the last decade, bouts of deep lows, and soaring highs. I don’t think he enjoyed life much anymore, but was also afraid for the end to come. He was a complicated, prickly man, selfish and stubborn. And he was my father, and I loved him.

  17. 17.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Arwa Mahdawi is, again, not mincing words:

    Terrorists (noun): evil brown people.

    Thugs (noun): violent black people.

    Militia (noun): misunderstood white men. Groups of heavily armed individuals whose actions, while not exactly ideal, deserve compassion and should be looked at within a wider socioeconomic context. Instead of rushing to judgment or making generalisations, one must consider the complex causes (economic anxiety, video games, mental health issues) that have triggered these poor guys into committing mass murder, conspiring to violently overthrow the state or plotting to kidnap government officials.

  24. 24.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    “I think we all came out of the closet for this election,” said Branscome…

    I get this. I live in an over-55 condo building that’s overwhelmingly Republican. The Democrats among us carefully identify one another by little hints before we put our heads together and say that Trump and the enabling Republicans are monsters. One woman told me she knew I was all right when I mentioned I’d been listening to a Chris Hayes podcast.

  26. 26.

    Immanentize

    @RedDirtGirl: I am both sorry for his loss to you and those who loved him and also relieved to hear his death was a type of release/relief.

    They say every man needs protection
    They say that every man must fall
    Yet I swear I see my reflection
    Somewhere so high above this wall

    I hope you are doing OK?

  27. 27.

    trnc

    Does it seem odd to anyone else how many blue shirts there are on the WH lawn during yesterday’s ego trip?


  29. 29.

    John S.

    @RedDirtGirl: My sincere condolences. My father is 85 and lives in the Philippines, and I fear I will be thinking/writing very similar words soon. I hope you have some good memories of your father to reflect upon.

    People are complicated. Love is not.

  34. 34.

    RedDirtGirl

    Thank you all. It might seem strange to share this with “strangers”, but at a time when I can’t get hugs even from those near and dear, kind words from you all mean a lot. (Not that they wouldn’t also mean something without the covid isolation.) ???

  37. 37.

    MagdaInBlack

    @RedDirtGirl: That mixed emotion grief is an odd feeling. I felt it when, after several years of illness, my father passed. My deepest sympathies to you and yours.

  38. 38.

    Immanentize

    I am in the land in which I was born — the Southern Tier of New York.  The prison warden agreed to a compassionate furlough for my Mother yesterday of two hours — She is in an independent living apartment, which itself is in a larger retirement care facility up to and including full end of life care.  So they are super careful about Covid and so far have had none across the facility.

    I took her to a park near where I spent most of my childhood.  We wandered around, chatted about her life over the years, what it’s like now.  Then I took her out to the local cider mill where we picked up some fresh cider, apples (Empire for her, Northern Spy for me), sharp cheddar, a strawberry rhubarb pie half, and O.F. cinnamon doughnuts.  Then back to her lockdown.  Yea Rhoda Thelma!  Born October 11, 1930.

  40. 40.

    NeenerNeener

    @trnc: I’m not sure why the blue shirts, but these folks were from  Candace Owens’ “Blexit” convention, trying to get African Americans to leave the Democrats. At least, that’s how I understand it…

  41. 41.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @RedDirtGirl: My wife’s father died when she was far away as well. To say that she was bereft is putting it lightly, made all the worse by her inability to get her passport out of the bank’s vault over a holiday wkend. I hope that in this time of Covid you will be allowed to go home to mourn with other family members. It was a succor for my wife.

  43. 43.

    NeenerNeener

    @Immanentize: Was that The Cider Mill in Endicott? They used to make the best cinnamon sugar donuts. I haven’t been there in many years, but it will always mean fall in Broome County to me.

  49. 49.

    Baud

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    I live in an over-55 condo building that’s overwhelmingly Republican. The Democrats among us carefully identify one another by little hints before we put our heads together and say that Trump and the enabling Republicans are monsters

    I would like to start a program in which young black men from Chicago visit people like you in places like that.  I feel that would send appropriate signals.

  51. 51.

    Immanentize

    @NeenerNeener: Yes it was that very cider mill.  And it means fall to me too.  The only real difference from days of old is that they now have to pasteurize their cider instead of selling it raw.  But it is still fabulous.

  52. 52.

    Skepticat

    @RedDirtGirl: I hold you in my heart. When my very accomplished and beloved father died after a devastating head injury led to Alzheimer’s, I wasn’t as sad about his death as about how he’d been living. May you father rest in peace now. And as John S said so perfectly, people are complicated. Love is not.

  56. 56.

    Yutsano

    @trnc: You have to remember: these are not smart people. They are arrogant and haughty yes, but definitely not smart. Owens most likely just wanted one single colour as some show of solidarity. It wouldn’t shock me if she picked the blue.

  57. 57.

    frosty

    @RedDirtGirl: It was a relief for me when both my parents passed. My dad had Parkinson’s so over the span of 10 years I grieved a little more every time I saw what he had lost. My mom had vascular dementia and was ready to go. At one point she told us kids “I don’t want to be here.” We told her the CCR she was in was the best place for her and she said “No. Planet Earth.”

    I’m sorry for your loss in the midst of COVID.

  59. 59.

    Immanentize

    @WaterGirl: Very hard to go.  There was a small hassle at the end — it seems they forgot to tell me she had to stop by at another building if she “left campus” at all for a temperature check.  But a few women in their 80s and 90s with, I think, machetes, barred the doors and gave us firm instructions on how to proceed and where to go.?

  62. 62.

    Gin & Tonic

    @RedDirtGirl: Sorry for your loss. Next year will mark 40 years since I lost my father, and I still ask myself on occasion how he would react to something. May you have many years of fond memories.

  64. 64.

    Marcopolo

    Wow! I have been telling friends & family that I thought most of the D senate candidates have been raising enough money to run good competitive races but this figure actually leaves me speechless:

    NEW: Senate candidate @harrisonjaime announcing this morning that he has raised a record $57 million in the Q3 in his race against @LindseyGrahamSC.This is the highest quarterly amount raised by a Senate candidate in US history. Brings his total haul to an unfathomable $86M. pic.twitter.com/daESP7DOIQ— Meg Kinnard (@MegKinnardAP) October 11, 2020

    Really speaks to how much folks hate hate hate Lindsay Graham at this point. Also, how the hell do you even spend this much money?

  65. 65.

    Nicole

    “I’m not worried about me, but I’m worried about other people here because obese people get it. I don’t hang around with overweight people so I’ll be fine”

    How did some of these people manage to live long enough to become seniors? That’s Darwin Award level stupidity.

  67. 67.

    Kay

    The Trump people here are holding a rally at the fairgrounds. It was in the paper yesterday. It’s Trump + Blue Lives Matter. What was interesting to me was that neither of the local candidates for sheriff are speaking (an R and and an Independent). They have a former sheriff from Indiana coming in as the speaker, which is really odd because the sheriff’s election here is the most hotly contested local race.

  75. 75.

    Marcopolo

    @RedDirtGirl:   My condolences.  My father died over a decade ago but we are in the process of moving my mom to another house where she can age in place (56 years in the current home) and I have been going through box after box of photos.  Apparently my dad singlehandedly kept Kodak in business for a few decades.  Due to the sheer volume I’ve been reduced to pitching most of them (neither I or my brother have kids so the line ends with us) but it’s been quite a trip down memory lane.

  77. 77.

    Immanentize

    @OzarkHillbilly: I think the law is he is allowed to go there, but he has to leave by sunset?  Did you see what Graham said about that? (slight paraphrase only):. “Black people can get ahead in South Carolina if they are conservative.”. The dog whistles Graham is using have summoned Cerberus.

  81. 81.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @RedDirtGirl:

    My condolences to you. I’m glad your father now has the peace that eluded him in his last years. And please take care of yourself — grief can sneak up on you and take hold when you least expect it. Sending you a virtual hug.

  82. 82.

    Matt McIrvin

    @OzarkHillbilly: Not just America’s.

    There’s this guy in Australia I’ve been following for a long time on Facebook. Something of a self-righteous environmentalist and fitness/cycling/motorcycling hobbyist.

    Now he’s gone full contrarian over Australia’s lockdown and wants it lifted. His argument? The cost-benefit calculation should be made using quality-of-life-adjusted years of life lost. He argues that the excess suicide rate caused by the psychological stress of lockdown outweighs the deaths of all the old people who would die of COVID, because they’ve only got a few miserable years of life left, whereas the suicides are young, so their lives are worth several times more. He got a lot of “ooh, you’ll get flamed for that, getting the popcorn now” responses.

    My immediate reaction (speaking as a resident of a COVID hot zone!) is that that kind of calculation puts any society down a bad, bad path. And it also confirms the whiff of ableism I was getting in his previous railing against lazy fatasses. Couldn’t take following him any more.

  84. 84.

    Marcopolo

    Speaking of the ‘Rona, take a look at this post by my soon to be new Congresswoman (its a map of the US showing per capita increase in Covid cases over the past week):

    One state is not like the others. Here are some clues about the Governor:– He said, “We gotta move on…We can’t just let this thing stop us in our tracks.”- He refuses to put in a mask mandate for the state.- He recently contracted COVID-19.Any guesses? pic.twitter.com/DyouJyV9Yu— Cori Bush (@CoriBush) October 10, 2020

    For some context, over the past 3 days reported new cases of Covid-19 were ~1250 on Thursday, ~2400 on Friday, and then ~5000 yesterday. And while the majority of cases are, of course, being reported in the population centers (St Louis City/County & Kansas City) the per capita new cases, as you can see in that map, are just as bad or worse in the rural areas where there is no longer much medical infrastructure–at least half a dozen rural hospitals have closed over the past decade here in MO.

    It’s a truly horrendous situation (I mean we had more new cases yesterday than IL our neighbor to the east with a much larger pop). I sure hope that maybe this gets a few more votes for Nicole Galloway, our D candidate for Governor who has been spotlighting healthcare in her campaign.

  85. 85.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Immanentize: It’s even worse in context:

    He made the remark in the context of political careers, and said Harrison would lose because he is a Democrat, not because he is Black.

    “Do I believe our cops are systemically racist? No. Do I believe South Carolina is a racist state? No. Let me tell you why. To young people out there, young people of color, young immigrants, this is a great state, but one thing I can say without any doubt, you can be an African American and go to the Senate but you just have to share our values.”

    He went on to say: “If you’re a young, African American or an immigrant, you can go anywhere in this state, you just need to be conservative, not liberal”.

    Considering the lack of values in today’s GOP… (outside of Cleek’s law anyway)

  88. 88.

    Ramalama

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:  Excellent. I have niece-nephew-children who are not doing well under pandemic, e-learning. I thought of starting a little newsletter to send them by mail (who doesn’t like to get an actual letter these days but lazy me, I need to get stamps…), but how many times can I talk about the neighbor who burns leaves out of an old oil drum which is a human rights violation from the smell…maybe I should just start sending them books with age-appropriate, and interesting stories. Yours looks like a perfect way to start.

  90. 90.

    JPL

    @RedDirtGirl: Depression by itself is a cruel disease, not only for the one suffering from the illness but for family also.   I’m so sorry for your loss and take sometime for yourself to heal.

  95. 95.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Marcopolo: I had read that we exploded over the past few days but Misery’s dashboard is lagging 4 days now. The 7 day avg has been far worse in several rural counties than it is in STL or KC environs but it is hard to tell that from just looking at the site. For some reason or other, I don’t think that is accidental either.

    Thanx for the actual numbers, the articles I read were vague.

  99. 99.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Immanentize:
    Happy 90th birthday to your mom! You gave her a glorious day, one that both of you will cherish in memory for a long, long time.

    You’re not just a good father — you’re a good son.

  105. 105.

    zhena gogolia

    I went out this morning to get the paper and found my Biden-Harris sign in the dirt, its supports deliberately bent. The Trump signs across the street are quite intact.

    I started screaming “FUCK TRUMP!” all over the neighborhood.

    Not going to church session today. I’m done with Christianity. They helped make this happen.

  110. 110.

    germy

    @zhena gogolia:

    I’m not surprised.  Where I live, I wouldn’t even bother putting out a Biden sign because I know it would either be stolen or vandalized before daybreak.  But I know how we’re voting, and that’s what matters.

  112. 112.

    germy

    The Herman Cain account continuing to post COVID-truther tweets after Herman Cain died of COVID is a good example of how how conservatives now think and act: every challenge just means doubling-down and lying harder, even to the point of lunacy. https://t.co/FA4GL0jK7B

    — Roy Edroso (@edroso) October 11, 2020

  114. 114.

    Baud

    Not gonna link but in honor of the superspreader event yesterday, Politico has an article up about young black people who are choosing the GOP.  On a quick skim, it seems to have the same old themes.

  115. 115.

    germy

    @zhena gogolia:

    DALTON, Ma. – A Berkshire County man is under arrest, accused of setting fire to and trying to destroy a show of support for the Biden-Harris presidential ticket in Dalton, Massachusetts.

    The display was made out of painted hay bales, which were arranged on North Street across from Holiday Brook Farm.

    Farmers there set it up on Thursday evening. Less than 24 hours later someone set it on fire.

    Fortunately, they were able to save a few of the bales to arrange into a new display and police have already found the person they say is responsible for setting the fire.

    Dalton police charged Lonnie Durfee, 49, with burning personal property in the incident.

    https://wnyt.com/albany-new-york-news/berkshire-co-man-arrested-for-setting-fire-to-biden-harris-hay-bales/5890323/?cat=10114

  116. 116.

    artem1s

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    The Democrats among us carefully identify one another by little hints before we put our heads together

    I hope those folks in the Villages and other ‘red’ communities can finally have the confidence to come out of the closet permanently. Power in numbers doesn’t mean you have to go to the dark side of cultism, fear and intimidation. If there is anything to Biden’s Gettysburg reconciliation speech, maybe it’s the message that there is a safe place for those who are surrounded by Trumpsters and racists but are sick of the racism and hate and want to leave their cult.  Perhaps there are some who are willing to risk being ostracized by their usual community and learn something new, if they only had a friend or two left afterward.  I would have never expected that putting a Black Lives Matters sign in your front lawn or wearing BLM gear was going to be the equivalent of coming out of the closet for progressives, but here we are.  It’s a nice change from four years ago when I was afraid of sporting Hillary gear for fear I’d get attacked by both right and left.

  118. 118.

    OzarkHillbilly

    The 50 Richest Americans Are Worth as Much as the Poorest 165 Million

    The 50 richest Americans now hold almost as much wealth as half of the U.S., as Covid-19 transforms the economy in ways that have disproportionately rewarded a small class of billionaires.

    New data from the U.S. Federal Reserve, a comprehensive look at U.S. wealth through the first half of 2020, show stark disparities by race, age and class. While the top 1% of Americans have a combined net worth of $34.2 trillion, the poorest 50% — about 165 million people — hold just $2.08 trillion, or 1.9% of all household wealth.

    The 50 richest people in the country, meanwhile, are worth almost $2 trillion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, up $339 billion from the beginning of 2020.

    Covid-19 has exacerbated inequality in the U.S., with job losses falling heavily on low-wage service workers and the virus disproportionately infecting and killing people of color. Meanwhile, many upper-middle class professionals are working from home, watching their retirement accounts rise in value after the U.S. Treasury and Fed pumped stimulus into the economy and markets.

    Another key reason for the wealth disparity is that the vast majority of Americans aren’t benefiting from rising stock prices. The bottom 90%’s exposure to the stock market has been dropping for almost two decades. Since peaking at 21.4% in 2002, upper middle class Americans have seen a 10 percentage point decline in their equity interest in companies. A similar pattern is seen among the bottom half.

    The wealthiest 1% own more than 50% of the equity in corporations and in mutual fund shares, the Fed data show. The next 9% of the wealthiest own more than a third of equity positions — meaning that the top 10% of Americans hold more than 88% of shares.

    More at the link.

  119. 119.

    debbie

    @zhena gogolia:

    It always turns out to be the Trumpies who do this kind of thing. Put the sign back up closer to your house or even inside a window.

    Yesterday, I walked in a nearby neighborhood just to see the sign coverage. In 28 minutes, I saw 37 homes with Biden signs vs. 1 home with Trump signs. Laughably, that home had four signs arranged across his property in a row. Like someone would think that meant there was more support for Trump. The homes on either side and across the street all had Biden signs. I have to remember to keep checking to see how this “skirmish” turns out.

  120. 120.

    Matt McIrvin

    @OzarkHillbilly: This is the time-honored racist-Southern-white-dude attitude. “I’m not prejudiced, as long as they act exactly like us I don’t care if they’re black, white or purple.”

  122. 122.

    Baud

    @Baud:

    I’d like to see stories about white people in red areas who are rejection the Republican party.  But that may be harder since many probably feel to threatened to talk.

  124. 124.

    germy

    @Marcopolo:

    One part of me says “Yay!  Look at all the money we raised!!”

    And the other part of me wonders about this system where a candidate needs to raise huge sums of cash to participate in our political system.

     

    It’s funny, though.  They wanted “Citizens United” and well, we’re united now.  Against them.

  129. 129.

    Chief Oshkosh

    So of course CBS Sunday morning starts with images of the Trump “rally” on the WH lawn. No mention of Hatch Act violations, paid attendees (Candice Owens?), potential to be another super-spreader event, and whether or not Trump is Patient Zero. Nope, just a quick message that he’s been cleared by…someone…and he’s back!

    What a bunch of truly awful…people(?).

  132. 132.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @zhena gogolia: I’m not putting a Biden sign up for 2 reasons: First, it wouldn’t last one day. Secondly, it would probably result in the end of my “NO on Amendment 3” sign too.

    If the No on 3 sign goes up by itself, there are a # of trumpers who might be reminded to vote against it. They are among the 60+% who voted for the Amendment the state GOP is trying to overturn with Amendment 3.

  133. 133.

    zhena gogolia

    @debbie:

    My husband took a walk on the cross street yesterday, going quite a distance, and he said he saw only Biden signs and BLM signs, lots of them. We are a really mixed neighborhood.

  134. 134.

    Dopey-o

    @RedDirtGirl: Grief must find an outlet. Warmth from any source will comfort the soul.

    Death has been too close to us for too long. I hope you can endure.

  135. 135.

    Humanities Prof

    @germy:  I’m pretty shocked that we’ve only had 1 Biden sign disappear yet this year. It’s happened a lot throughout the county, but not much in our subdivision. At least whoever did it left our other signs (for local candidates) alone.

    In ’08 and ’12, we had lots of Obama signs stolen (or, in one case, burned), when living in 2 different towns. In ’12, I caught one of my neighbors stealing a sign from our yard. Things have been a bit more civilized since (said nutjob neighbors moved a couple of years ago).

    This one didn’t inconvenience us much. Mrs. HP and I both belong to the county Democratic Party, and our county chair has plenty of signs, so we had a new one up in about 12 hours. Was actually an upgrade, as our old sign was simply a “Biden” sign (got it before he’d announced Harris as his running mate). So now we have a Biden/Harris sign instead, and I’ve got a spare one waiting in my garage just in case.

  137. 137.

    Ramalama

    @satby: Allrighty then. Also, have you prodded your kids to write a review of Dorothy A Windsor’s books on Amazon? It helps her stats incredibly if they do. Her street cred, if you will.

  138. 138.

    Jeffro

    I’m still having trouble processing the scale of the corruption listed in the NYT’s latest, “The Swamp That trumpov Built”

    As president-elect, he had pledged to step back from the Trump Organization and recuse himself from his private company’s operation. As president, he built a system of direct presidential influence-peddling unrivaled in modern American politics.
    Federal tax-return data for Mr. Trump and his business empire, which was disclosed by The New York Times last month, showed that even as he leveraged his image as a successful businessman to win the presidency, large swaths of his real estate holdings were under financial stress, racking up losses over the preceding decades.  But once Mr. Trump was in the White House, his family business discovered a lucrative new revenue stream: people who wanted something from the president

    All of the absolutely worst people, all cozying up to trumpov and spending bigly at his stupid clubs and hotels.  HUGE return on their ‘investment’, of course.  ugh!!!

  139. 139.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud:But that may be harder since many probably feel to threatened to talk.

    I have yet to be threatened (tho I suppose the hate honk might count). I think it’s just most people don’t like to stand out from the crowd. They don’t want to draw attention to themselves. Even when I get a compliment, it’s usually in a very quiet voice.

  143. 143.

    Jeffro

    @Humanities Prof: now we have a Biden/Harris sign instead, and I’ve got a spare one waiting in my garage just in case.

    That is too funny – same here w/ having a spare in the garage!  =)

    I have a ‘Biden/Harris/Warner/Webb’ sign + a (solo) Webb one up in our front yard, near the house, angled so that incoming drivers will see it every time.

    I’ve been amazed to see the number of Biden/Harris and Webb signs on the main road to our development.  Then it dawned on me: the road is so winding and hilly, with no sidewalks, that it’s virtually impossible for anyone to drive along stealing other folks’ signs…if they stopped, they’d get creamed by a driver coming up behind them!

    We even saw a ‘flush the Turd’ one with trumpov wearing a blonde poop emoji on his head – LOL.  Maybe these VA exurbs aren’t quite as red as people think!

  144. 144.

    WaterGirl

    @Immanentize: Darn it.  Stress at the end wouldn’t have been on anybody’s wish list.  I am perplexed at the temperature check after being gone for only 2 hours, but hey, if they have been COVID free, they must be doing something right!

  145. 145.

    Spanky

    @RedDirtGirl:  Hugs to you. I have nothing to add that others haven’t already said. It’s a near-universal feeling of grief, and yet deeply personal. Celebrate who he was, and bear in mind you’re carrying him forward.

  146. 146.

    Ken

    @Immanentize: Does he get three votes?

    I hope not, because I heard the hydra is voting Trump this year.

    Agatha Christie wrote a series of Hercule Poirot stories where Poirot took cases that paralleled the labors of Hercules.  Anyone care to do the same for this year’s election?  The Augean stables are obvious.

  147. 147.

    donnah

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: I’m glad they resumed the regular selling price. I wrote a book on rug hooking years ago (talk about your niche market!) and a few years after that I found three of them in an overstock book store. I was so dismayed that I bought all of them.

  150. 150.

    taumaturgo

    @RedDirtGirl:

    “You can cry because he’s gone or you can smile because he’s lived. you can close your eyes and pray that he will come back or you can open them and see everything he has left behind; your heart may be empty because you cannot see it or it may be filled with the love you share; you can cry, close your mind, feel the void, turn your back or you can do what you would like: smile, open your eyes, love and follow” (Scottish poem).

  151. 151.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @Ramalama: To my dismay, I’m not sure Satby’s kid friends can leave reviews on Amazon, though they may be able to on Goodreads, which Amazon owns. But the last I saw on Amazon, they required you to have your own account on which you’d bought at least $50 worth of goods. There may also be age limits. I don’t know. Amazon is annoying.

  153. 153.

    Ken

    @Immanentize: I think such a group in such a place is called a “cell”.

    Are you sure?  That sounds like one of those nouns that undergoes declension, depending on who’s in the group.  See the example OzarkHillbilly posted above.

  154. 154.

    Marcopolo

    @OzarkHillbilly: The numbers I posted were from an article in the Post-Dispatch yesterday. MO redid their Covid-19 dashboard a week or two ago. The numbers have pretty suspect since then.

  160. 160.

    germy

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    Continuing my habit of reading Shirley Jackson’s books, I’m now reading her memoir about raising her kids.

    There’s a scene where she presents herself at the maternity hospital (she takes a cab, her husband stays home) and when they ask her occupation, she tells them “writer.”

    And so they put “housewife” down on the form.

  163. 163.

    Jinchi

    People have pushed their socially distanced chairs together.

    I never understand this tactic from the right-wingers. Keep your chairs twice as far apart and it looks like the crowd is twice as large. The Tulsa rally looked tinier than it actually was because, while everyone was crammed tightly together, the focus was on row after row of empty seats in the stadium.

  165. 165.

    A Ghost to Most

    @zhena gogolia:

    Not going to church session today. I’m done with Christianity. They helped make this happen.

    I’m not easily shocked, but you’ve gone and done it.

    It’s easy. Just follow the light of reason.

  166. 166.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Marcopolo: A couple days ago I couldn’t even get into it. I have never trusted their numbers. The covid tracking project gives them a grade of B fairly consistently tho, so I guess it ain’t all bad.

  167. 167.

    Aleta

    @RedDirtGirl:    {{   }}   My sympathy.  ? ?

    It’s always a shock, never easy, I’ve found for me with my family.   When my bio-father died prematurely, I was living 8,000 miles away.  He was difficult,  as well as having untreated, unadmitted mental illness and other disorders and illnesses.   He’d attributed to me (and misunderstood) all the problems between us (literally since I was born, in his telling of it).  I remember my main thought right after the phone call was, “Now no more information  will be coming in that I’ll have to react to, incorporate into the picture.”   I was OK about that part ending.  His words and acts still haunt sometimes.

    Later that day a friend said to me (something like), “My father’s gone too, and Yvette’s is too.  Now you’re in with us, one of those who understand what it’s like.”  I was grateful for that.

    Take good care of yourself esp. for the next few weeks.   ?

  171. 171.

    Ken

    @Amir Khalid: “And lo, in the ninth month an angel of the Lord smote them, and plague broke out and held illimitable dominion over all.”  That sort of thing?

  173. 173.

    PPCLI

    @OzarkHillbilly: And don’t forget that what counts as “terroristic conspiracy to kidnap, blow up bridges, thinly veiled threats of murder, etc.” for most people is “intent to make a felony arrest” for heavily armed fanatic white supremacists.

  174. 174.

    Suzanne

    @zhena gogolia:  My neighborhood is majority no signs, with quite a few Biden signs, but there’s a couple of obnoxious Trumpy people. One house has a sign that reads “Trump 2020 Make Liberals Cry Again”.

    Yesterday, Mr. Suzanne and I took the younger Spawns to Ohiopyle to enjoy some autumn colors. We drove through some very well-to-do suburbs on the way, and there were many, MANY Trump signs in front of these godawful McMansions right next to the country club. Then we got out into the more rural areas and there were many Trump signs. One douchebag actually spray painted “Trump 2020” on the roadway right outside Ohiopyle. We passed one craptacular-looking shed where they had signs saying “We have Trump merch!”. The place literally looked like trash. Which reminded me that I am much happier in my urban surrounds.

    We picked up Thai food on the way home and I felt grateful for the vast and varied tapestry that makes up American society, no matter what these backwater dipshits or these nouveau riche garbage people think.

    Very weird to find myself in the tipping-point state this cycle. All three of the adults in this house are set to vote, though we have to go in person, as it is our first election in the state.

  175. 175.

    lamh36

    Record breaking haul for Jaimie Harrison in SC.

    would love to hear any “boots on the ground” info about how the race seems to be going?

    Anyone canvassing or phone/text banking in South Carolina? I’d love to hear any anecdotal information in the Harrison vs Graham race.?

  177. 177.

    Amir Khalid

    @JPL:

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    @Ken:

    A while back, Subaru Diane started something she wrote in the style of the King James V Bible. She got as far as a few short chapters. There has of course been much more to write about since then.

  181. 181.

    narya

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: I have been thinking about this a lot. I live in a blue ward in a blue city in a blue state, but may need to move sometime (I’m over 60 now, but still working). I’ve already decided that I have absolutely no desire to live in a republican-dense place–it’s a non-negotiable. My parents have sussed out the other Dems in their development (another over-55 place), but I don’t want to have to go to that trouble.

  182. 182.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Amir Khalid: I know, my statement was in reference to the interminable amount of time it has been getting written (is it only 3 3/4 years? feels more like decades), than it was any kind of critique of the book itself.

    @Baud: Not too smart, is it?

  183. 183.

    germy

    @narya:

    I remember when I subscribed to AARP magazine, almost every issue they’d run a Here’s the top ten places to retire! listicle and some of those places… I think they were sundown towns back in the day!

    Some places were out in the sticks (“low cost of living!”), and the AARP editors didn’t account for the locals’ resentment of “outsiders” moving in.  I don’t want to retire among people who look at me and my wife sideways.

  184. 184.

    Marcopolo

    @lamh36: Not boots on the ground, but I’ve watched all or parts of 5 Senate debates now and Jamie Harrison was by far and away the best debater.  Period.  That includes D’s, R’s, and anyone else whose been on stage.

    Al Gross was okay last night, but the stand out performer in the AK debate was the moderator who was great a maintaining order & getting actual answers to questions.

  185. 185.

    Ramalama

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: OK, busted. I don’t have children so only know a few rules in general. Of course they don’t have their own Amazon accounts. Only a couple of them have started with me on facebook (I know, I know, I use it to joke w friends and family, but I haven’t perfected my own forum website yet – saying this only half in jest).

  186. 186.

    Suzanne

    @germy: Those listicles also seldom take into account the need for healthcare. Like, moving to some rural place where the nearest hospital is an hour away and there’s no advanced cancer care or trauma center. People don’t think about that stuff until after they need it.

  189. 189.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @RedDirtGirl: My deep condolences.  Been there, done that.  My father, who was an athlete earlier in life (he was a member of the Arkansas state champion basketball team in 1939) had been deteriorating as well, unable to negotiate five stairs without stopping at the third one.  His passing wasn’t unexpected, but still a shock.   Your dad rests in peace and power now.

  190. 190.

    J R in WV

    @RedDirtGirl:

    I just learned that my father died this morning. He was 88 and had health issues…

    I’m sad, but also glad that he is no longer suffering… And he was my father, and I loved him.

    That last sentence, that’s the one that counts, isn’t it! So sorry for your loss. My dad spent his last 5 or 6 years in a knock down, drag out fight with leukemia, and lasted until 3 weeks before his 81st birthday.

    Again, condolences for your loss.

    Take care and keep in touch.

  191. 191.

    geg6

    My John was out on the front lawn with one of the dogs who was peeing near where we have our Biden/Harris, Lamb and Williams signs on Friday. Some fat asshole in a giant pickup was driving by and felt he had to turn around and drive by again, slowly, so he could yell at him for being a “fucking liberal piece of shit” and other incomprehensible obscenities. John laughed and gave him the two middle finger salute. I laughed when he told me but cautioned him that those people are nuts and maybe the signs are enough provocation to these snowflakes, seeing as the majority of signs for a two mile long stretch of our road (a major two-lane through most of the southern and central part of the county) are Biden and Lamb signs.  It’s heartening to see in this very Trumpy place.

  193. 193.

    Ramalama

    @RedDirtGirl: It’s a tough one, losing a parent. It’s also tough having had a parent with Manic Depression, which is an old expression, back when my Dad was diagnosed with it. Which makes me wonder how long your Dad suffered with it. Rick Perlstein wrote a book about America in the 1970s called the Invisible Bridge. It was so vivid that it brought back to me the early years of my own Dad’s diagnosis, which took years to get it right, along with all of the name calling and poverty and lack of family support (‘he didn’t get it from my side’) that came with it. I told Rick Perlstein recently that I could not read his book because it was so well written that it brought back all of my own family history. He had a friend who felt as I did btw.

    Things that helped me grieve the loss of my difficult, lovely parent: 2 books:

    Grief is the Thing with Feathers – Max Porter

    H is for Hawk – Helen MacDonald

    Also the movie “What Happened Miss Simone?” Total fan of Nina Simone, I’ve been to 2 of her concerts. I play her music endlessly sometimes (to the detriment of others in the house). I didn’t know she was bi-polar until I saw the movie. And for some reason I could ‘enjoy’ the movie in a way that I could not with Rick Perlstein’s book.

    Long winded way of offering my condolences.

  194. 194.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Today in Rep. Jason Smith is a complete idiot: Smith says Harry, Meghan interfering in U.S. election

    And that news story shows just exactly why that idiot will get reelected time and again.

    Apparently nobody in SE Misery is aware of the fact that #1 Meghan is a US citizen and #2 she and Harry are no longer the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. I’d write them a letter but it really isn’t my job to educate the ignorant.

  195. 195.

    geg6

    @RedDirtGirl:

    My sympathies.  I do know the feeling of being sad but glad when a parent passes.  My mom suffered from breast cancer that spread to her bones and eventually broke her neck. She lived with a broken neck for another two years before she finally passed.  Honestly, it was a relief.  Sad but a relief.  Feel how you feel and don’t beat yourself up about it.  Remember what you loved about him and keep that always in your heart.

  198. 198.

    Suzanne

    @geg6: Dood. Being new here…. the urban/rural divide in the candidates’ support is shocking. In AZ, it was nowhere near that clear. There are plenty of rural places there that are blue. But here it is almost a visible line. Very weird.

  199. 199.

    Aleta

    McConnell’s laughing like that demented toy head I remember from somewhere.

    NB NOLA @psddluva4evah
    ·
    Here is McConnell admitting that the last 2yrs of the Obama administration he prevented Obama and Biden from appointing any judges. Then proceeded to PACK the court w/200+ judges that he denied Obama…”packing the court”
    so media GTFOH with ya bullshit

    https://twitter.com/psddluva4evah/status/1315306092008804352

  200. 200.

    Suzanne

    @OzarkHillbilly: There’s also a difference between encouraging people to vote, encouraging people to vote for a specific candidate or platform in a transparent and honest fashion, and engaging in nefarious dishonestly and lying to manipulate people into voting the way you want them to.

    Of course the GOP can’t see the difference.

  201. 201.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @OzarkHillbilly: Somebody needs to inform the Guardian as well:

    The Duchess of Sussex has revealed she was told last year that she was the “most trolled person in the entire world” in a podcast in which she opened up about the “almost unsurvivable” online abuse she has experienced.

    Meghan and her husband, the Duke of Sussex, joined three Californian high school students during an episode of their podcast, Teenager Therapy, and discussed topics including mental health stigma, self-care and online abuse.
     

  202. 202.

    Barbara

    @germy: Even in my midnight blue county in Virginia, Biden signs have been vandalized. Neighbor’s door cam caught a guy in flagrante, getting out of his car to do it. If they can expand they could probably get his license plate. Basically, at the core of many if not most Trump voters lies someone who just cannot stand the idea of not getting their own way. And yes, the culprit was a 50 something balding white guy.

  203. 203.

    geg6

    @Suzanne:

    Inorite? The sad thing is that Beaver County was Democratic stronghold for most of my life.  Incomprehensible to me that it has turned into this insanely GOPer place in the last dozen or so years.  But I guess that’s the underlying racism of my neighbors coming out strong in response to Obama and Trump.

    ETA:  And we aren’t really all that rural.  Some of the communities here are but most of the county is small towns and suburbia.  Center Township, where I live, could be the dictionary picture next to the definition of suburbia.

  204. 204.

    Amir Khalid

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Actually, they are still the Duke and Duchess of Essex. What they quit was being senior royals — whose job, let’s call it that, is attending royal events and being in the national spotlight 24/7 — a situation that Harry feels did his mother a lot of harm.

  205. 205.

    J R in WV

    @germy:

    Maine Police Chief Resigns Amid Accusations He Strangled Mistress https://t.co/kCd4ojXKDk

    It was quieter that way.

    Wife said “More hands on.”

    Lately it seems black humor is the most common sort.  I guess that’s appropriate under the circumstances.

  208. 208.

    Barbara

    @geg6: It is so sad to see how successfully GOP has been able to instill zero sum thinking in so many white people, basically, convincing them that any Black progress means they lose. Meanwhile, the pickpocketing continues.

  210. 210.

    JanieM

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    #2 she and Harry are no longer the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.

    You say it isn’t your job to educate the ignorant, so I suppose you won’t provide a link even if asked. But if I ask google whether they’re still the Duke and Duchess, I get an endless stream of articles explaining that they are in fact still the Duke and Duchess, they just can’t use the HRH titles anymore.

  214. 214.

    Suzanne

    @geg6: Honestly, when we talked with real estate agents about where to live, we told them that we didn’t want to live in Republican areas. We were straight up about it, and all of the ones we talked to said that they heard plenty of other people say things like that, either one way or the other. Mr. Suzanne would probably have preferred to have a newer home in a more suburban setting than we bought, but he and I very much did not want to live in in an area under Republican control. Not just because we wanted more choices in restaurants than pizza places and sandwich shops.

  219. 219.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Jeffro: I knew things had changed when I heard that Prince William County is now deep-blue territory. That was deep in the Confederacy when I was a lad.

  220. 220.

    Ken

    @zhena gogolia: I think these people drove over it. So now it’s next to a big boulder.

    You are a better person than I.  My idea would be to scatter caltrops in the lawn around the sign.

  223. 223.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Barbara: Lawn signs mean you can publicly support the candidate and not be afraid of your neighbors. Vandalized lawn signs say “fear your neighbors”. It’s visceral politics.

  224. 224.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @OzarkHillbilly: How many of these doctor’s specialty is infectious disease? This is just a repeat of Big Tobaccos fake doctors who say tobacco doesn’t cause cancer, Big Oil fake scientist who claim Climate Change isn’t happening and the Creationists fake biologists who claim there is no such thing as evolution.

  226. 226.

    Old Dan and Little Ann

    We’ve had our Biden-Harris sign up for weeks.  There are more Black Lives Matter signs up in our neck of the woods.  The only real class act in our hood is the boyfriend of a lady who lives 5 houses from me. His license plate frame reads”Proud Enemy of Islam.”  He is 100% mouth-breather.

  227. 227.

    J R in WV

    @Humanities Prof:

    We live at the end of a quarter-mile gravel driveway, off a dead end county road, so a sign would be kind of a waste. But out neighbors, who share a bit of that quarter-mile driveway, put out a Biden sign anyway, she is quite an activist.

    I would recommend to all the folks who have trouble keeping a Biden-Harris sign, perhaps consider taking it in at dark, and setting it out again in the very early morning. Most of those despicable vandals won’t work in the daylight.

    Or get a game camera and use it to ID whoever comes onto your yard… if you position it correctly you can get both the individual and their license plate. They don’t cost much any more.

  228. 228.

    frosty

    @Suzanne: Glad to have your 3 more votes in PA! I think you’ve nailed the Trump demographic.

    I was in Bucks County a few weeks ago. The rural areas were Trumpy, then as I got into suburbs it was mixed, then when I got to New Hope (upscale, arty) it was all Biden.
    It was a relief compared to South PA where I live.

  229. 229.

    Suzanne

    @geg6: It was interesting seeing AZ become bluer. I lived there from 1988 until earlier this year. Phoenix and Tucson just exploded during that time, and had to deal with the urban issues that come with a rapidly growing population in cities that are very car-dependent and built up against reservations, water issues, and the constant flux that comes from being close to the border. The suburbs there used to be all GOP, but as the cities expanded, the suburbs there got much purpler. The Latino population grew and now AZ is majority-minority in the under-18 population.  But there are still many places north of the Rim that are overwhelmingly white, and the Native communities are still experiencing staggering levels of poverty. But there is definitely a more urban mindset there than there used to be.

  231. 231.

    bemused

    @geg6:

    We haven’t put up presidential signs since Obama/Biden or even earlier 2004, John Kerry. We live in a NE Minnesota  District that has been turning red and already the yahoos were getting angrier and more nutty.

    Friends live on a straight stretch of highway to a large popular lake. They used to put up liberal message homemade signs year round, not just campaign signs during presidential elections but trumper type people driving by would yell, curse and some even make a point to drive very close to the friends if they were walking along the highway. This year they put up a single Biden/Harris sign and were sitting outside with a visitor, some type of federal law enforcement officer with ties to the area when they watched the pickups with trump or confederate flags yell fuck you and similar. Their visitor said ” why do they even care?” followed by “They are or could be dangerous”.

    I can’t imagine any Dems I know that would tear down, steal trumps signs or get so riled up just seeing the signs that they would act like rabid dogs, filled with hate.

  232. 232.

    PPCLI

    Among the astonishing number of things that the media has allowed to be memory-holed is trump tweeting video of one of his Villages supporters shouting “White Power, White Power” at the camera as he rides by on a golf cart. When spokeswoman MAGA Magda was asked about it, acted as if it was terribly unfair to point this out, and said he was just trying to showcase enthusiasm by his supporters. There was no condemnation of the remarks, and of course neither did we hear a condemnation.

  236. 236.

    Humanities Prof

    @Bill Arnold: That is SOOOOOOooooo true.

    I’m reminded of a line from a short story by sci-fi author David Drake.  It’s along the lines of “Anything that happens between two consenting adults in the privacy of their own rooms is bound to be completely disgusting.”

  239. 239.

    a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio

    @RedDirtGirl: I’m so sorry. It’s always hard to lose someone, and current events make it so much harder, especially with any distance involved.

  240. 240.

    Formerly disgruntled in Oregon

    From today’s WaPo article on their latest national poll (Biden up by 12%! 54-42)

    Amid his frequent and false criticisms of mail-in voting, the president has refused to pledge a peaceful transfer of power, should he lose the election. Overwhelmingly, Americans say they are prepared to accept the results, though Biden supporters are slightly more likely to say they are prepared to accept the results than Trump supporters (83 percent vs. 74 percent). Among Trump supporters, 15 percent say they are not prepared to accept the results as legitimate, while 7 percent volunteered that it “depends.”

    Despite Trump’s BS, not accepting the the results of the election doesn’t even hit the 27% crazyfication contingent among Trump supporters!

  242. 242.

    Salty Sam

    @Immanentize:  Thanks for that lovely story Imm.  I have shared here the difficulties I’ve had with my Mom the last few years due to politics (fuck Fox News), but your story broke something loose in me, and all that is running through my mind now is pleasant memories.  I learned a deep appreciation for cooking and eating well from that woman, and I’m deeply appreciative of that right now.

    Thanks again.

  243. 243.

    There go two miscreants

    @Immanentize: they now have to pasteurize their cider instead of selling it raw.

    Got a laugh from this. There is a similar “means Fall to me” cider mill near where I grew up. It’s a bit further drive from where I now live, but (in the before times) I would still go there to get cider and apples. I had to special order raw cider (I like it to turn hard) and sign  a waiver!

  244. 244.

    trollhattan

    @Barbara:

    My shocked face :-/

    Confess I could not have contrived an October remotely like the one we’re experiencing, with Trump doing everything he possibly can to ruin his reelection chances. To which I can only say, “Thank you, sir, you’re doing amazing things.”

    I hear he likes that.

    Figured it would be a nail-biter down to the wire. Maybe the nails will survive.

  245. 245.

    bemused

    @J R in WV:

    Not long ago, a resort, iirc, owner on north shore of Lake Superior put up a painted plywood BLM sign which was vandalized multiple times. He put up another and a security camera. Caught an older couple tourists from out of state and a retired deputy sheriff from a different county.

  246. 246.

    debbie

    @WaterGirl:

    We need to start pointing out to Republicans that McConnell is one of the major reasons they’ve become so reviled. Maybe they’ll turn against him like some are against Trump.

  249. 249.

    J R in WV

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    She [the Duchess] is still a US citizen tho.

    I’m not sure of that. She may have given up her citizenship to marry Harry… the Brits can be odd about those things. No telling what the rules are for Royals…

  250. 250.

    Kay

    Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s opening statement before the Senate Judiciary Committee this week:

    I ask myself how would I view the decision if one of my children was the party I was ruling against: Even though I would not like the result, would I understand that the decision was fairly reasoned and grounded in the law? That is the standard I set for myself in every case, and it is the standard I will follow as long as I am a judge on any court.

    Yeah, I’m not one of Judge Barrett’s children and I would prefer she not treat me like one.
    While you people may not like the result, will you understand that it was fair? Or will the far Right majority they’re jamming thru with no real hearings or questions or analysis of her work at all have to continue to punish you until you see reason?
    Another scolding, patronizing lecture from the Right, who inexplicably continue to see themselves as our moral betters. Insufferable.
    Oh, well. Her statement is all you’ll get. Any questions about her work are now either attacks on her family or religious discrimination. Nothing like a phony “hearing” packed with simpering, careerist ass kissers to restore legitimacy to that court. Calling it a “hearing” is bastardization of the word- it’s a Trump campaign ad. The only people who will be “heard” are the judge and her fawning supporters.

  252. 252.

    narya

    @germy: Yeah, it’s really at the top of my list. I also want to be able to get to the grocery store–or get groceries–without a vehicle. I wouldn’t mind staying where I am if I can, though there are stairs. Not a problem now (I run 20-25 miles/week . . . ) but there’s no knowing how long that lasts.

  253. 253.

    cain

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: 
    I love fantasy and am an avid reader. My two nephews don’t seem to be particularly motivated by reading – at least not fiction. One is definitely into video games – almost single minded. He’ll get straight As just so he can spend time on games and models. The other one is more interested in going around and looking at frogs, amphibians and what not. So all his books are around biology – he likes to quote animal facts to me on a constant basis. His ability to recall facts and numbers is pretty impressive. I was never like that.

  255. 255.

    Kay

    We’ll all have to send more money to Biden/Harris. Donald Trump gets three days of free campaign ads next week when they hold a show hearing to confirm his SCOTUS justice.

    One more plunder of the public funds before we throw their asses out. This is the last Trump campaign event I’ll be funding. Hopefully this one won’t end up with 30 people infected with a disease, like the last Barrett/Trump campaign event did.

  256. 256.

    Miss Bianca

    Fun article, great photos!

    So, was there some kind of “all Trumpies on deck all over” bat signal for yesterday or something? I was unpleasantly surprised to drive by a Trump rally outside our post office.

    >: <

  257. 257.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Looks like Eric trump put on quite a show on ABC today, in an apparent effort to wrest the “Dumber of the Two Fredos” back from his brother.

  258. 258.

    J R in WV

    @Kay:

    Is Senator Kamala Harris on the Judiciary committee? She asks good questions, and is always polite, even to really evil people!

    Perhaps the judge can be gently led into perjury, and later on prosecuted for that. Hard to be a Justice from a jail cell!!

    Fuck those RWNJs if they don’t want real questions asked and answered.

  262. 262.

    PJ

    @RedDirtGirl: Condolences on the death of your father.  The death of a parent is a hard thing, and sometimes harder when that parent was a difficult person, and the relationship was not easy.

  263. 263.

    cain

    @zhena gogolia:

    Somebody stole my sign back in 2008. If I put up a sign again I intend to add some interesting bits to it that would make anyone regret putting hands on that sign.

  264. 264.

    Kay

    No matter what propaganda the Right pumps out in the Trump campaign event they’re calling a hearing next week, know this:

    The Swamp That Trump Built A businessman-president transplanted favor-seeking in Washington to his family’s hotels and resorts — and earned millions as a gatekeeper to his own administration.

    This is the biggest corruption scandal in US history and the entire Right wing supported the Trump Family plundering and robbing the public every step of the way. Remember that when they’re scolding us all on morality next week- this is the kind of sleazy, rotten government they produce. They’re thieves. They robbed hundreds of millions of dollars from the public and every single one of them will be there next week with bells on promoting Donald Trump and the Trump Family, and throwing in a morality lecture on top of it.
    This is a road map for a prosecutor. Let’s see if we have any real prosecutors left, or if they’re all spineless weaklings. They should get the public money back. That’s what we pay them for. I want it back.

  265. 265.

    Kelly

    @RedDirtGirl: My condolences. My father died of a sudden heart attack in 1992 at the age of 58. Generous to a fault one of his friends said “Chuck, it’s too easy for a fella to get his legs under your table.” Eldest of 9 he always took care of friends and family when there was a disaster like a death, a flood or a fire. Comforting and confident I could do anything I set my mind to. He ran heavy equipment. He lost his temper easily, loudly but not violently. His creative profanity at recalcitrant objects was unmatched.

  269. 269.

    Kay

    @J R in WV:

    I don’t think there’s any way to ask her a real question. Her and her supporters have run a really slick political campaign to shut down any inquiry. I watched some of her colleagues at Notre Dame attack a reporter this weekend on Twitter for simply reporting that she failed to disclose statements and letters and lectures where she opined on Roe and (specifically) Joe Biden’s Catholicism. And she did fail to disclose them, as evidenced by the fact that she did a Friday night dump of all the material.

    I’d like her to address if she still believes Joe Biden is immoral, especially because the President announced he was seating to hear election challenges. But no one will ask. Real questions are off limits. You may inquire as to her family and health and then you may sit down and shut up. That’s the rules of this Soviet-style “hearing”.

  270. 270.

    frosty

    @cain: My plan for theft-proofing a sign was glitter. I didn’t get any farther than that, though, since we decided not to do the sign on our street (all Trump no Biden).
    Including the “No More Bullshit” flag next door.

  271. 271.

    dnfree

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:  we are seeing more signs for Biden and other Democrats than we expected to see in our over-55 community in Elgin. Back last fall our representative, Sean Casten, held a town hall here and we were pleased to see more than a handful of people. His opponent is a real right-wing extremist. On one street near us, nearly every home has one of her signs, but two homes have Casten signs. I think people are getting braver.

  274. 274.

    Elizabelle

    From photos on earlier threads:  I am glad that somebody else noticed that that awful White House crowd yesterday, in light blue shirts with deplorable red hats, looked like the coronavirus personified.

    Cartoonists everywhere are thinking “this is just too easy.”

  276. 276.

    PPCLI

    @Kay: In addition to digging through the sleaze of Trump corruption, I’d like to see massive prosecutions for Hatch Act violations. I’ve heard it said that nobody is scared of that because the penalties are so slender, but at this point the violations have been so habitual that there are no doubt people with dozens of them racked up, and counting. At $1000 a violation, those could really add up.

    Also, the Trump people have no doubt burrowed a bunch of RWNJs into career civil service positions. If any of them committed Hatch act violations, it would be good to have them removed from government work for 5 years. Another possible penalty.

    Though I’m not a lawyer, and I don’t know how things really work so this may be entirely a misunderstanding.

    But somehow the rules against corrupting the executive branch have to be given teeth.

  277. 277.

    A Ghost to Most

    @zhena gogolia: Good on you.

    Beware, though. 50 years of conscientiously standing in these (and worse) people’s faces has bent me, as I’m sure you know. All I ever wanted was to live free of it, but they weren’t having it. They didn’t reckon on my stubbornness.

  278. 278.

    Miss Bianca

    @bemused: And yet, I know I feel the impulse to vandalize, deface, or otherwise dispose of Trump signs I see. So I understand it – I guess the difference between me and a mouth-breather is that I wouldn’t actually do it.

    Just thankful none of my neighbors have put out any Trump signs. Already I feel differently about one dear old gent because I saw him wearing a MAGA hat one time (not, I hasten to add, recently).

  280. 280.

    Baud

    Readership capture.

    Indeed, the average of polls has Biden at around 52% or 53% and up by somewhere between 10 and 11 points. This is an unprecedented position for a challenger with a mere 23 days to go until Election Day.

    In the 21 previous presidential elections since 1936, there have only been five challengers who led at this time. Of those five, only one (Bill Clinton in 1992) was ahead by more than 5 points. None of those five were earning more than 48% of the vote in the polls.

    In other words, Biden is the first challenger to be above 50% at this late juncture in the campaign.

  281. 281.

    Another Scott

    @Kay:

    https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/520530-read-barretts-opening-remarks

    I also clerked for Justice Scalia, and like many law students, I felt like I knewthe justice before I ever met him, because I had read so many of his colorful,accessible opinions. More than the style of his writing, though, it was the content of
    Justice Scalia’s reasoning that shaped me.

    Even if Moscow Mitch hadn’t burned the Constitutional requirements for advise and consent with Garland, that there is enough reason to say that she should never get a seat on the SCOTUS. Scalia was a monster who “reasoned” backwards from his desired result, twisting the law and precedent to get his way.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  285. 285.

    Mike in NC

    Apparently many people don’t like it when some dipshit con artist urges them to drink bleach and inject disinfectant into their veins to fight a deadly virus. Imagine that.

    Still, the sheer volume of Trump yard signs around here just screams “white supremacy”. We need to destroy this cult once and for all.

  287. 287.

    Jeffro

    OT just turned on the TV to watch a little football pregame show here in central Virginia, and low and behold, I see a Bob good (CD 5) ad featuring none other than trumpov

    ugh

    but in a way, I am glad. Let trumpov drag Good down.  Go Cameron Webb!! ?

  288. 288.

    Elizabelle

    @Kay:

    This is a road map for a prosecutor. Let’s see if we have any real prosecutors left, or if they’re all spineless weaklings. They should get the public money back. That’s what we pay them for. I want it back.

    Yes, yes, yes, yes.

    And we must annihilate the media (and political/social) enablers who talk about playing politics with justice.

    The Haw-Haws need to go, too.  We cannot afford them.

  290. 290.

    JPL

    @Jeffro: In the olden days, the MSM would cover this non stop, but those days are long gone.   Now it  is imperative to know whether or not Joe packs the court.

  292. 292.

    trollhattan

    @Mike in NC:

    BBC World Service isn’t above conducting their own posh Cletus roundups and the other night gave airtime to two college Republicans, who competed with one another to give the bestest “President Trump is showing strong leadership of the strongest nation the planet has ever known” declaration, along with an Alabama old lady who protested “The flu kills more people every year than this virus and besides, banning China flights fixed everything” but allowed as to how she would take coronavirus more seriously if Trump declared it to be, well, serious.

    In sum, I feel like the newsies now have to slice the really gristly bits off the carcass to find Trump true believers. As to “undecideds?” Fuck them.

  293. 293.

    Kay

    @Another Scott:

    Forget Scalia. Barrett thinks Scalia is a squish:

    Barrett, President Donald Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court, once worked as a law clerk for Scalia. Whereas the late Supreme Court justice referred to himself as a “faint-hearted originalist,” who was willing to allow case precedent to influence what he believed to be the original intent of the framers of the Constitution, Barrett makes no such concession. She wrote in a 2013 law-review article that stare decisis — the principle that courts should follow prior case decisions — is a “soft rule,” not an “inexorable command,” with “constitutional cases the easiest to overrule.” In that same article, Barrett went on to say words that should shake fear into the two-thirds of Americans who support the Court’s 1973 decision to protect abortion rights in Roe v. Wade: “I tend to agree with those who say that a justice’s duty is to the Constitution and that it is thus more legitimate for her to enforce her best understanding of the Constitution than a precedent that she thinks clearly in conflict with it.”

    They shut down debate for a reason.

    Biden’s campaign is great and I trust their judgment but I wish we had counter programming for what will be a Trump campaign rally presented as a “hearing”. None of our folks will be permitted to speak anyway- they know if they do the MAGA-hatted Amy fans will immediately paint them as anti-Catholic or attacks on her children. There’s nothing else to talk about. She has a really thin record. There’s only so long you can talk about her anti-Roe, anti-Biden politicking or a law review article.
    They’ve also portrayed her as not political, which is more bullshit. She was on the Bush v Gore team. She’s another Right wing activist elite lawyer. There are already three of them on that court. She makes four.
    We cannot let them get a dispositive election question. If we do, Trump is handed a second term, guaranteed. We have to win big.

  294. 294.

    JPL

    @Jeffro:  The ads in the Atlanta area are all about trump.   McBath’s (D) ads are tying the Republican to trump, and Handel (R) is doing the same.    Within the onslaught of negative Biden ads, it’s encouraging that they are tied.

    Tomorrow I hope to vote.

  296. 296.

    Kay

    @Elizabelle:

    People would love a trial and a monetary recovery. They would love that. It would restore credibility. Do federal prosecutors not know this? Every county court judge knows it. People want it HEARD. You learn it your first year of practice. Trials are not just about a standard of proof and winning and losing- that’s for lawyers and judges. For the public they’re accountability and transparency.

  300. 300.

    FlyingToaster

    @zhena gogolia: 
    My condolences. It’s tough living amongst the barbarians.

    I don’t put out political signs, and I won’t allow a bumper sticker on the ToasterVan. Although I’m in a heavily Blue area, we have at least 2 known racist fuckwads within spitting distance who like vandalizing stuff. Since they’re white and over 65, good luck prosecuting them.

    Fortunately, I live in a house-of-unusual-color, which signals our political leanings without attracting further damage*.

    *Joan likes to mess with the flowers in my hellstrip. Fuck her Trumpista ass.

  302. 302.

    PPCLI

    What I’d like to see Biden do in response to the court-packing questions is to start pushing back on the presumption that the Republicans haven’t been court-packing for decades. Highlight things like the National Review editors describing it as “court packing” when Obama nominated judges to sit on open seats for the DC circuit, to name one example. “I hear a lot of Republican complaints about “court-packing”, but you have to understand what they mean by that. According to the editors of National Review, court-packing occurs whenever a Democratic president nominates qualified judges to federal Courts. And I assure you I will nominate qualified judges to open seats in Federal Courts.”

  304. 304.

    germy

    I just learned various local folks we interact with regularly are hard-core Trump. One of them boasted to a friend yesterday that his cop friend showed up at the the black lives matter rally in a nearby town with weapons to intimidate the unarmed protesters. Today I am chilled.— Xeni Jardin (@xeni) October 11, 2020

    The focus from here on out for me in any interactions with neighbors and folks in town is: non-confrontational. Gentle. Keeping my head all the way down.— Xeni Jardin (@xeni) October 11, 2020

  305. 305.

    Kay

    We have such a funny disagreement in our local Biden campaign office. I bought postcards for the volunteers to do while they’re manning the office. We made our own list from voterfile- we ranked D voters from 1 to 4- 1 is most reliable, 4 is pain in the ass sporadic. So we’re sending postcards to the 3s and 4s, or they are- all I did was buy the postcards. They texted me last night- the Biden Republicans want do postcards telling them to “vote”. Like we’re… general voting enthusiasts? I did not pay 66 dollars to promote the concept of voting :)

    Anyway- nixed!  I think they’re just uncomfortable behaving as actual Democrats, which I sort of get, but no, we’re not doing that. They were good about it, BTW. It was a very polite disagreement.

  306. 306.

    Jeffro

    OT: I am really glad that Democrats are ramping up their arguments for expanding the federal courts to include SCOTUS and pointing out how McConnell “unpacked” The courts for years and how the GOP was preparing to deny Clinton judges for her whole term

    it is an easy to understand issue and we absolutely, positively need to go for broke once Biden is an office

  307. 307.

    West of the Rockies

    @RedDirtGirl:

    Please accept my sympathies, too.  I lost my father in similar circumstances on ’08.  What guided and aided me most was this:  live the life you know he would want for you.

  308. 308.

    Kay

    @Jeffro:

    I’ve said from the start it was all about the money with the Trumps. Russia, all of it, is all about the money they needed to keep their garbage fake empire sort of standing. Their whole miserable lives are in service to this elaborate lie they’ve been telling for 50 years.

    So that’s good. It’s all about the money with me too. I want it back.

  311. 311.

    LurkerNoLonger

    @Kay:

    You’re  really working yourself into a lather over this, Kay. It’s not good for you health. Take a breather.

  312. 312.

    cain

    @frosty:

    IT’s annoying as fuck to also think people who fly the american flag are also Trumpers. It really pisses me off that I think that way but they have co-opted the flag and made it their own.

  313. 313.

    germy

    A small South Dakota town put the Confederate flag on its police cars and uniforms in 2009.

    Now, a Black man who’s lived there for 4 years is leading the push to remove the flag – and dealing w/ a racist backlash.

    That man is George Floyd’s uncle. https://t.co/VDyrkFIWzT

    — Bill Grueskin (@BGrueskin) October 11, 2020

    Hmmm… What else happened in 2009?

  317. 317.

    Kay

    @Peale:

    I guffawed when I got the text. I had to wait three minutes and pretend I was considering it. My son makes fun of me for how fast I text back “no” to him, which was an important insight.

  318. 318.

    Ohio Mom

    Red Dirt Girl: My sympathies. Please be extra kind to yourself in the coming weeks and months.

    Remember what you already know, that whatever you find yourself feeling is legitimate and right, even if it is unexpected. Grieving can be a little big process. Here’s to reaching the other side of it.

  319. 319.

    J R in WV

    @Kay:

    I watched some of her colleagues at Notre Dame attack a reporter this weekend on Twitter for simply reporting that she failed to disclose statements and letters and lectures where she opined on Roe and (specifically) Joe Biden’s Catholicism. And she did fail to disclose them, as evidenced by the fact that she did a Friday night dump of all the material.

    How about reading from her own writing, and then asking “Is this what you wrote (date) in (publication)? Yes or no!”

    Then ask “Do you still believe those strong opinions you expressed on (date)? Yes or no!”

    “Don’t you think someone who has expressed that sort of certainty on these current legal issues should decline nomination to judicial positions?”

    “Why not? Aren’t judges supposed to be open minded going into any hearing?”

    If anyone jumps on those questions, attack them!

    Just because they think they’ve got this set up, we don’t have to yield to their false ambitions!

  320. 320.

    Peale

    @Baud: I wish they’d actually list who those challengers were. My guess the reason they don’t is that most of the, still ended up losing.

  322. 322.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @germy: Gettysburg, South Dakota, embraced the confederate flag.

    Fire all the writers of this timeline

    The reaction within the town settled by Union soldiers and named after a Northern victory over the proslavery South didn’t surprise Jones.

  323. 323.

    germy

    Confidential to the guy who tried to chat me up while walking the dog this morning: if you’re not willing to wear a mask during a pandemic, we’re pretty sure you won’t wear a condom, either. Pass.

    — Laura Anne Gilman (@LAGilman) October 11, 2020

  325. 325.

    germy

    Village of Ames homeowners Patrick Bakker and Nick Drummond heard rumors that their house was once owned by a local bootlegger. While the story was always interesting, it remained just lore until recently, when, while working on their home, the couple discovered several hidden caches of oddly bundled whiskey bottles dating to 1923.

    About a week ago, Drummond was repairing trim below a mudroom at the rear of the house. Removing a board from the mudroom’s foundation to install installation, he found that the slab he pried off had a bottom: “Which is weird,” he explained, because that’s typical of a wall — not of a crawlspace.

    In the moment, “I didn’t think much of it and kept prying them off,” Drummond said.
    “And then, the first package fell out and I didn’t know exactly what it was.”

    Simple home repairs suddenly turned into an unexpected excavation, with Bakker and Drummond uncovering a hidden space containing seven bundles of whiskey bottles dating back almost 100 years. Each bundle, said Drummond, “was perfectly sized for the wall.”

    The space, “fit all of the packages absolutely perfectly.”

    https://dailygazette.com/2020/10/10/spirits-of-the-past/

  327. 327.

    Kay

    @J R in WV:

    I’m just thinking of it as the last big Trump campaign event of the season, which they’ve all admitted as much that it is. If one side observes norms/rules and the other doesn’t, the side observing the norms/rules is at a disadvantage. The judge knows this. It’s why we all have to follow rules in court. You can’t reward the rule breakers or they’ll continue to violate because obviously exempting yourself from the rules that constrain others is a huge advantage in an adversarial proceeding.

    It’s a Trump campaign event. Treat it like one.

  329. 329.

    Kay

    @J R in WV:

    Incidentally this is WHY they observed the norm that you don’t jam in a judge a week before an election. Because now the people who might pose real questions to the judge are constrained by the fact that Republicans have told us they’ll portray any questions as attacks on Catholicism and we all know that’s an important group. She’s not just violating the norm- she’s benefiting from the reason for not violating the norm. Very slick.

  330. 330.

    Kay

    RNC Research
    @RNCResearch
    · 2h
    CNN’s Jake Tapper confronts Democrat Sen. Mazie Hirono for questioning Judge Barrett’s religious beliefs

    Told ya. No questions of any kind will be permitted. Skip the Barrett Trump campaign rally and do your own rally. This is another publicly funded MAGA show.

  331. 331.

    J R in WV

    @Alice:

    Meghan is still an American – she did not live in the UK long enough to apply for citizenship there.

    You don’t suspect there might be a different set of rules for the Royals? Austrian/Russian/Belgian princess marries a British prince, instantly becomes a British citizen?

  333. 333.

    Kay

    David Frum
    @davidfrum
    My cynical guess: the issue of the number of justices on Supreme Court fades away in 2021 as the high court out of institutional self-interest behaves super-circumspectly in the face of Democratic congressional majorities.

    Sucker or stupid, one or the other. But social class sticks together, always. Just don’t let the 6 MAGAS get a dispositive Trump v Biden question and I can learn to live with the rest.

  337. 337.

    frosty

    @cain: The American flag got co-opted by Nixon’s* hardhats. It was briefly a symbol for the whole nation again after 9/11 but Cheney stole it back from us with the Iraq debacle. And here we are.

    * Fuck Nixon (h/t Raven)

  338. 338.

    Ruckus

    @frosty:

    My dad had Alzheimers. I first noticed the signs 19 yrs before he passed, and knew it was the beginning of dementia but had never heard the word Alzheimers, as his parents lived with us when his mother had dementia. He never seemed angry, just as his mother hadn’t. But 19 yrs in dementia is a long time. I was lucky, he died in bed, in a hospital, with my arm around him. That was 19 yrs ago and still feels like it was yesterday. It was strange feeling that life just gone, one second it’s there and then it slips away, peacefully. No one else in the room even knew he was gone. It wasn’t easy, it still isn’t. But it was best for him, that suffering was over. That’s not an easy thing to feel, to acknowledge, even more to believe, because alive is really all any of us have. Alive is the cake, everything else is icing.

  339. 339.

    Nutmeg again

    Around my part of CT I’d say there are maybe 60% Biden/Harris or local Dems lawn signs to 40% Repub. But the really noticeable (and galling) thing is that the GOP signs are about the size of bed sheets. These are for local races.  The folks hosting the giant signs seem to specialize in putting them right up exactly on the property line–especially if there are Democratic signs next door. It comes across as super obnoxious, and really, just says so much more about the owners and the candidates. I think it broadcasts a really bad message that likely was not intended. Interesting, since I’ve seen only good mask compliance everywhere here.

  340. 340.

    cain

    @germy: I’m not surprised. Where I live, I wouldn’t even bother putting out a Biden sign because I know it would either be stolen or vandalized before daybreak. But I know how we’re voting, and that’s what matters.

    Apparently, this is a thing:

    https://twitter.com/rjnerd/status/1315341250669801472

    Puts a permanent blue stain on your fingers until it flakes off by itself. That should fix them.

  342. 342.

    Ruckus

    @Nicole:

    Strange isn’t it, someone can actually live long enough to win a Darwin award? That level of ignorance seems impossible, but then one looks at our president and sees so many Darwin awards proudly displayed and repeated proof that he’s earned every single one.

  345. 345.

    Ruckus

    @cain:

    Used this for decades at work, that is exactly the stuff that would do it. Right color, what it takes to get it off your hands is a bucket of acetone. Not a suggested nor at all healthy wash, but the only other options are far worse to stick your hands into. Sure soap will work. Eventually.

  346. 346.

    Alice

    @J R in WV: I suppose it might have been possible to get special dispensation if they’d wanted, but they probably didn’t see any reason to not to follow the standard procedure. Wouldn’t want the regular folk and tabloids to be able to say she was line-jumping. Regardless, Meghan has said repeatedly she is voting in this election, so she is still an American citizen.

  347. 347.

    Ruckus

    @Marcopolo:

    Remember when ActBlue went over 7 billion, when was that, feels like months ago, wait it was this last week wasn’t it? It’s now up another 123 million, on it’s way rapidly to $7,124,000,000. The hate for trump is real, and it’s still growing.

  348. 348.

    Ruckus

    @Jinchi:

    We are talking about people for whom trump is their leader.

    There is no common sense at the top, that doesn’t instill a lot of use for common sense at the bottom. Or anywhere inbetween.

    As a prof of mine once said, “Common sense would be much more common if more people had some.”

  350. 350.

    The Golux

    @Gin & Tonic:

    I still ask myself on occasion how he would react to something.

    Same here.  I’m living in the house he designed, and I often wonder if he would approve of the (relatively minor) changes we’ve made.  I’ve often imagined talking to him about the amazing run to the World Series title by the Red Sox in 2004.  He missed it by 26 years (and Bucky Fucking Dent by two months).

  351. 351.

    chopper

    @RedDirtGirl:

    i’m so sorry to hear this. it’s so difficult to deal with loss of a loved one during this crisis, more so than it would otherwise be. take care of yourself.

  352. 352.

    J R in WV

    @Alice:

    …Regardless, Meghan has said repeatedly she is voting in this election, so she is still an American citizen.

    OK, I’ll stop now. Sorry to have hassled you! I’m obviously not a “Royal” follower, we fought a war to get rid of that kind of thing, only wonder why so many US folks have any interest at all.

Comments are closed.