Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

White supremacy is terrorism.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

If rights aren’t universal, they are privilege, not rights.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Anne Laurie is a fucking hero in so many ways. ~ Betty Cracker

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

We can’t confuse what’s necessary to win elections with the policies that we want to implement when we do.

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

So many bastards, so little time.

I like political parties that aren’t owned by foreign adversaries.

I really should read my own blog.

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

When I was faster i was always behind.

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

Welcome to day five of every-bit-as-bad-as-you-thought-it-would-be.

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

The low info voters probably won’t even notice or remember by their next lap around the goldfish bowl.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Radicalized white males who support Trump are pitching a tent in the abyss.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

You are here: Home / Elections / Biden-Harris 2020 / Monday Morning Open Thread: Indigenous Peoples Day

Monday Morning Open Thread: Indigenous Peoples Day

by | 134 Comments

This post is in: , ,

Flyover country!

Reader Interactions

134Comments

  1. 1.

    Biff Baxter

    Early in person voting starts at 8 today in Georgia. Already on line, 5th, and there’s a line behind me.

  7. 7.

    Martin

    As encouraging as a +11 polling advantage is, it’s small comfort when you realize 100 million people still look at Trump and say ‘yeah, I’m with that guy’.

  11. 11.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    I think I said my mail in ballot was sent to Iowa, not here. I asked to have that one voided and another issued, but the “track my ballot” site still shows only the original ballot. Given the holiday, nothing will probably happen today.

    This is the first time I’ve tried vote-by-mail. Until now, I always voted early in person. I feel like this is all out of my control and it’s stressing me out.

  14. 14.

    Eural Joiner

    Somebody help me out here re: Trump and the Superman shirt stunt idea.

    Years ago I taught a history class where we looked at Latin American dictators (briefly, this is high school!) and I found a great documentary on the then very much alive Hugo Chavez who was quit the showman. I seem to remember scenes of him doing exactly this in front of massive crowds of cheering Venezuelans. He also used to have someone in the crowd show up as the Devil (red costume, pitchfork and all) cloaked in an American flag who would dance and jeer as the he was heckled by the mob.

    Does this ring a bell with anyone?

  17. 17.

    TS (the original)

    Been watching the very serious people on MJ talk about what could swing things to trump – the best on offer was Trump announcing a vaccine for covid.

    Meanwhile Jaime Harrison said to be next up (Never too sure until it actually happens – Susan Page never turned up despite that she was coming up)

    And …. we have reverted to Joe talking about when he was elected.  If the republicans could just mimic Joe they would be winners

    Edit: Jaime is on – he’s good.

  18. 18.

    Mai Naem mobile

    @Martin: it’s a cult. Anybody know how to do a countrywide intervention? I don’t think the Germans had to do it with E. Germany.

    Yesterday Tom Perez and Phx Mayor Kate Gallego had an event in an upper income N Phoenix park(David Schweikert’s district which Hiral Tiperneni is trying to flip.) I drove by just to see the turnout etc. I happened to pull right before the bus pulled up. I am not good with crowd estimates but my guess would be 50-75. Not bad for the area and that it was Tom Perez who isn’t that well known.

  21. 21.

    Evap

    @Biff Baxter:  starts at 7 in Dekalb. I’m in line! I had planned to wait a few days, but I walked by an early voting location and the line isn’t too bad, so here I am!

  22. 22.

    JPL

    Because of my age, I made a decision not to stand in a line more than ten long, and today that is not possible Decided to go to the Roswell Library since they normally have more voting booths. At 7:30 there were at least 80 plus people in line waiting for the door to open, and the parking lot was full

    My sons are trying different places in Fulton Cty and will update me.

  23. 23.

    Evap

    @JPL: if you’re over 70? 65? You can go to the head of the line.   Also if you’re disabled.  It’s a law I think

  26. 26.

    Bruce K

    Apropos of nothing, it occurred to me that one thing that Democrats in the Senate might do to subtly indicate the court packing already in progress thanks to Moscow Mitch would be whenever they have an opportunity to ask a question of Judge Barrett, consistently mis-name her as Judge Garland.

    And if Moscow Mitch doesn’t like it, hey, he’s the one who refused to even give Judge Garland a hearing.

  27. 27.

    Betty Cracker

    Did a grocery run in my little Trumpy-ass town on Friday, and there was a “Trump rally” near the courthouse — a few dozen or so people waving signs and Trump flags. I got stopped at a traffic light in the middle of them, with my Biden-Harris and Literally Anyone Else bumper stickers.

    They were screaming TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP in my direction, so I gave them thumbs-down. Very polite and G-rated, I thought, since it could have been the middle finger! They all went ape-shit and I laughed. The light changed, and I drove on.

    When I was loading my groceries into the car a little while later, an older white dude driving past stopped, rolled down his window, pointed to my bumper sticker and said, “Biden-Harris!” and gave me the thumbs UP! Woohoo! :)

  28. 28.

    Nicole

    I saw my first Trump sign here in Manhattan, yesterday.

    Someone had stuck a teeny tiny “TRUMP 2020” flag into a pile of dog poop.

    (As an NYC dog owner, I am usually pretty irritated at people who don’t follow the law and clean up after their dogs, but in this case, I’ll allow it.)

  34. 34.

    Waldo

    JEleven hundred miles from DC and I can smell desperation and flop sweat from here.

    @Danielx: No amount of corruption and incompetence can dissuade the cultists, but that loser stank could crater his support.

  35. 35.

    OzarkHillbilly

    When Reyna* took a taxi to Al-Awir prison in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, she was hoping to turn herself in and be admitted as an inmate. The former domestic worker from the Philippines had brought her three-month-old son along with her.

    Reyna lost her job during the pandemic; she can no longer pay for their rent or food and wants to return to her homeland. But in order to be permitted to leave the UAE she must first serve a jail sentence for having sex outside marriage, which is illegal under the country’s Islamic laws.

    A UAE-based official confirmed to the Guardian there are several thousand cases of migrant mothers with children born outside marriage in the country.

    Reyna’s son – the evidence of her crime – is stateless, since his birth has not been registered. This means that he has no access to healthcare, including vaccinations.

    “It’s hard here. I have no money, no visa. If I was alone I could go home. But I can’t. The problem is the baby,” says Reyna, 30.

    Her request for imprisonment was denied. To minimise the spread of Covid-19 in UAE jails, the country has reduced the number of those being incarcerated during the pandemic. This has left unmarried migrant mothers stranded in the Gulf country because they are still required to serve a jail sentence – at some point – before they are allowed to leave.

    “For unmarried mothers, the authorities will not readily forgive the ‘love crime’. The mothers have to be punished,” says Barney Almazar, an attorney at Gulf Law who also provides free legal aid to migrant workers.

    I’m sure the fathers have to be punished as well.
    .
    .
    .
    .
    .
    BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…. Sometimes I just crack me up.

  37. 37.

    The Thin Black Duke

    When he tested positive for the coronavirus, that was the day when Trump became an ex-President.

  38. 38.

    Kay

    Joe Biden is set to make a general election campaign visit Monday to Ohio, signaling the former vice president’s hopes of winning the state Democrats lost by a significant margin in the 2016 election.
    The Biden campaign said the former vice president plans an afternoon campaign speech in Toledo, then will head to Cincinnati for a voter mobilization event.
    Biden extended his Ohio advertising presence in Ohio last week, adding money notably to radio in rural western counties and in the state’s eastern and southeastern Appalachian counties, where Trump won big four years ago.

    Toledo and the top half of the state aren’t an expansion for Biden, but eastern and southern Appalachian counties are. They wouldn’t be thinking they would win those- they would just want to cut into Trump’s margin. I still don’t think Biden will win Ohio, but it’s very bad for Trump that it’s so tight here. Trump won Ohio by eight. He has lost a lot of ground.

  39. 39.

    mrmoshpotato

    @OzarkHillbilly: The bastards welcomed the stink for decades as long as it didn’t get on them.

    Oops!  Should’ve cleaned out the fridge years ago.  Now the whole kitchen stinks to high heaven!

    Obligatory SAD!

  42. 42.

    germy

    Let’s run government like a business.

    The Trump administration labeled its vaccine czar a “contractor” to sidestep rules against personally profiting from government positions. The man holding this position owns $10 million in stock of a company working with his team to develop a vaccine. https://t.co/V2aEHc9X4D

    — ProPublica (@propublica) October 11, 2020

  43. 43.

    hueyplong

    Can’t say I’m disappointed to learn that a GOPer is talking about “developing a strategy” on October 12.  And saying it in public in a desperate attempt to overturn what was apparently a rejection of that “strategy” in private.

    Hey, GOP, what you need it more, not less, blind devotion to Trump.  Drop all Senate ads and convert those buys into paeans to Dear Leader’s miracle “cure” that he promises to all oldsters but hasn’t yet given to any of the 34 White House staffers/workers who have the Rona right now.

  45. 45.

    Immanentize

    @Baud: politico loves a fight even if it’s fake.  I don’t think this is really a big deal.  Joe isn’t “setting up” anything as he and Warren seem to look at these issues in pretty much the same way.

  46. 46.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: Biden was in Congress for decades and had a ringside view of the buzz saw the Obama agenda ran into after the 2010 election. If he wins (please FSM), my guess is he’ll do whatever he can to keep the winning coalition together.

  47. 47.

    Baud

    @Immanentize:

    Yep. They’ve started up with the “let’s you and them fight” reporting of the Biden administration.  But it’s the only way the media will cover the issue at all, and I guess it’s good that they’re confident in a Biden win.

  49. 49.

    germy

    Someday I'll get what I want and there'll be a full Busby Berkeley musical number featuring my neighbors and their leaf blowers.

    — Elizabeth Hackett (@LizHackett) October 7, 2020

  50. 50.

    Kay

    In 2014, the board of trustees of Trinity Schools Incorporated, which also runs two other schools, adopted a policy not to accept children of unmarried couples. Indiana was then in the middle of an intense legal battle to overturn its ban on same-sex marriage.
    Jon Balsbaugh, the organization’s president, said the school’s position then and now was that marriage should be between a man and woman, and ex-Trinity staff members said the admissions policy effectively excluded students of gay parents. Mr. Balsbaugh said the policy was not mentioned in minutes of board meetings that Ms. Barrett had attended, but ex-staff members said it was enforced during her tenure. A person involved in the confirmation process said she did not participate in creating the policy

    So incredibly dishonest. She supports the school’s policy of barring admission to the children of unmarried parents. Fact. That they’re all playing this ridiculous coy game goes to “morality” too- it goes to honesty, which the last time I checked was supposedly a Christian value.
    If the public schools where I live, a county that went 70% for Trump, barred the children of unmarried parents 50% of students wouldn’t be able to attend school.
    This whole political campaign Barrett has run is notable in it’s dishonesty. It’s all deflect and deny. She’s a true MAGA judge- the same ethical standards as her employer.

  52. 52.

    JPL

    @debbie: I’m pleased at the turn out at that location, because it’s a more progressive part of town.    I am going to try again though, but probably another location.

  54. 54.

    Kay

    @debbie:

    I don’t think anyone said Trump was pulling out of Ohio. Pence is in Columbus today.

    They’ll never pull out of Ohio. It would be an admission of defeat. He won’t get close to 270 without Ohio.

  56. 56.

    Gin & Tonic

    @debbie: I’m seeing Biden ads pretty regularly during the relatively infrequent times the TV is on. In the RI-MA media market, where the only question is how much he’ll win by. Have yet to see a Trump ad.

  57. 57.

    JPL

    Eager Georgia voters swarmed to polling places Monday morning for the start of three weeks of early voting before Election Day

    Voters waited in lines and filled parking lots to lock in their choices in advance of Nov. 3.

    ajc.com

  58. 58.

    Ian

    @Eural Joiner: It adds a visual portion to the audio events being used in the theatrical event.  Most people learn through 4 ways, seeing something done, doing something, verbally instructing themselves or someone else through it, or least common, dry reading something.  Planning for teaching you want to include all four aspects so that as many students will learn the lesson as possible.

    Public speaking is somewhat like managing a herd of kindergartners.  People’s attention and focus go down in large groups.  Hitting all four themes ensures that the four different types of learners receive the message in the manner most likely to stick in their brains.

    Usually the theme and message being used to reach a particular kind of learner (visual in this instance) makes very little sense to other styles of learners.  When you add in the fact that it was a dumb message to start with it makes even less sense.  The only worse outcome would have been if he had tried to pull off the superman stunt and couldn’t rip the buttons off :)

  59. 59.

    Kay

    @JPL:

    Didn’t you read it? She wasn’t at the board meetings where it appears in the minutes. Check and mate, libs.

    It’s the response of someone running for office on the MAGA ticket.

  60. 60.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Baud:

    Joe Biden has reached 270 electoral votes for the first time

    Might just be me, but I’ll be happier when he reaches 270 on November 3 or 4.

  63. 63.

    germy

    This election is a tough call because one candidate was endorsed by both the Taliban and the KKK and the other was endorsed by a broad bipartisan coalition and the New England Journal of Medicine.

    — Bess Kalb (@bessbell) October 11, 2020

  64. 64.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: She’ll demure and deflect on every controversy and get away with it, I suppose. The Dems can’t stop the nomination, but I hope they make the most of the opportunity to expose her as the extremist fraud she is.

  65. 65.

    Kay

    @JPL:

    I mean, I assume the far Right is proud of their principled positions on returning the country to 1860. Why conduct a whole political campaign for this justice around denying it? It’s dishonest.

  68. 68.

    Baud

    @Betty Cracker:

    Six in 10 registered voters say the U.S. Supreme Court should uphold Roe v. Wade as the basis of abortion law in the United States, and a majority in an ABC News/Washington Post poll — albeit now a narrow one — says the Senate should delay filling the court’s current vacancy.

    …

    Separately, 52% say filling the seat opened by the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg last month should be left to the winner of the presidential election and a Senate vote next year. Forty-four percent instead say the current Senate should vote on Trump’s nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the position.

    Maximize the electoral gains and then maintain the political pressure on the Court by keeping judicial reform on the front burner.

  70. 70.

    A Ghost to Most

    California’s top election official is investigating reports that the state’s Republican Party has set up unauthorized ballot drop boxes posing as “official” in several major counties, an illegal practice that could deceive voters into depositing their ballots at unsecure locations.

    As predicted.

  71. 71.

    Geminid

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: I’m hoping that Casten and the other 40 freshmen who flipped seats in 2018 will win a second term. Casten will have good work to do on upcoming climate legislation. He’s one of many impressive congresspeople in the class of ’18. A very consequential election that brought a lot of new talent to the Democratic Caucus.

  72. 72.

    Gaffa

    Speaking as one of the few lurking native North Dakotans here, that farmer is based out of Sheyenne, which is about as close to the middle of nowhere you can get in North Dakota even compared to the rest of the state. Too far west to get the good soil of the Red River Valley, too far east to get the good oil fields; farms near many Reservations are usually not prime location for anything but despair. It’s literally fly-over country to fellow *North Dakotans*.

    Which makes this a particularly bold move! That part of the state is usually unrepentantly leopards-eating-my-face politics wise, so it’s a very cheerful and delightful thing to see here in the newly-anointed COVID capital of the world.

  74. 74.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    It’s a really slick campaign. She should have run for senate in Indiana- it looks exactly like a senate campaign- but I suppose she’d have much less success imposing a far Right agenda as one of 100 in a minority instead of as one of nine.

    This morning there is the wholly predictable chorus from elite lawyers insisting she’s a moderate. If we win this and get rid of Trump when we look back the entire role of lawyers will have been to insist everything is FINE. They have just failed utterly in rising to this occasion. They’re simply too frightened to contemplate that the country might be in real trouble- secure, comfortable, clinging to the hope that nothing and no one will disrupt their lives. The stubborn refusal to even recognize extremism let alone do anything practical or useful to push back against it is so disheartening.

  75. 75.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: In New Mexico, you can vote in-person even if you requested an absentee ballot, whether it arrives or not. You need to sign an affidavit at the polling place saying that you haven’t already voted absentee and won’t do so, and then you get a regular ballot for voting right then and there.

    I never voted absentee when I lived in Chicago, so I don’t know what the rules are in Illinois. Maybe call into your local Dem party or the elections board?

    Obviously this method negates the distance voting strategy, but my experience at the polls was that it is no more risky than grocery shopping – and probably less so. Fewer calories, for sure, and you get that nifty “I Voted” sticker.

  80. 80.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: That they’re all playing this ridiculous coy game goes to “morality” too- it goes to honesty, which the last time I checked was supposedly a Christian value.

    At this point I think everyone who is paying attention knows that these people don’t care at all about their alleged “values”, all they care about is keeping power so that they can shove their “values” down all our throats – no access to safe legal abortion (those sluts have to be punished, after all!), no sex without marriage, no safe effective birth control, no gay people out in public at all (they’re OK as long as they stay in the closet), legally re-segregate the schools so they can have their separate all-white religious schools (they might even go back to the public schools if there aren’t any of those awful minorities there!),  taxpayer funding of their kid’s religious education, re-establish (their form of) Christian prayer in the schools led by teachers over the intercom every day, and so on. They’re so butt-hurt that they lost the culture wars, they’re trying to do everything they can to force all of us to live by what they want the culture to be so they can be comfortable again. They want to make us follow all their “values” while giving themselves a complete pass, because they are “forgiven”.

    I listened to a Fresh Air interview of Sarah Posner from July where she talked about Christian evangelical’s love affair with Donald Trump. He feeds their grievances about not being the dominant culture anymore, and they have hope that he will help them use the law and the courts to force us all back to the world they are comfortable with. He let them all run HHS, with the predictable terrible results. They aren’t really “pro-life” either (as if we didn’t already know that), they give him a total pass on all the COIVD deaths. If they were really pro-life wouldn’t they care that all those people died unnecessarily? All they want is power, religious belief is really secondary to them. They don’t care if we believe as long as they can force us to live the same way they do.

  81. 81.

    Kay

    @JPL:

    It’ll be a Trump campaign ad so I’m glad Democrats are showing up. They can at least do their own campaign ads in opposition to the MAGA judge’s campaign. She’s a formidable political opponent. Very slick and professional campaign she’s run. Another person would have run a campaign like this for a senate seat, but obviously a senate seat is much less powerful so I understand why she went this route.

  82. 82.

    Salty Sam

    @Betty Cracker: so I gave them thumbs-down.

    My brother had the same experience last week in Ft. Collins CO- gave the Trumpers the thumbs down, and in return he got the upside down “OK” hand sign for White Power…

  83. 83.

    Ken

    electoral-vote.com had a headline “Time to Rewrite the History Books”.  I thought it might be about the Trump push to change the history curriculum, or perhaps the NYT’s editorial against the NYTs 1619 project, but no.  They go there in the first line of the article:

    High school history books generally portray Warren Harding as the most corrupt president ever.

  84. 84.

    Karen S.

    A childhood friend of mine who now lives two houses down from my parents in the suburb where I grew up has a huge banner hanging in her garage that reads “Trump 2020 Fuck Your Feelings.” My younger brother, who’s visiting my mother and father for a couple of weeks, saw the banner when he was out for a walk Saturday morning. It’s always been a conservative area, so I can’t say I’m surprised. Not sure why she isn’t displaying it proudly on her front lawn or draping it on the front of her house, though. Could be that it’s actually something her two sons got or maybe it’s her boyfriend’s doing. They also have a lot of vehicles (a couple of SUVs, a sedan of some description, a boat and the boyfriend’s little red, mid-life crisis sports car) crammed into the driveway. Oh, and my childhood friend is (or was) my hometown’s finance director, so she’s a Trumper government employee. My wife gave her house the finger as we drove by over the weekend. A small act of defiance that made me laugh.

  87. 87.

    BRyan

    Surprised to see several references to people opting for “a different voting site” in a search for shorter lines.  Unless voting absentee, here (Ohio) we’re required to vote at our assigned precincts.  Is that not a usual thing?

  88. 88.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: I’m glad the Dems are showing up too. At first, I wondered if it would be better to boycott the hearings to underscore that it’s an illegitimate proceeding. But you’re right — it’s not a judicial process at all; it’s a political campaign, so the opposing party can’t leave the field.

    I’ll be interested to hear what Klobuchar has to say. She’s really passionate about this screw-job, as we found out when she ripped Ted Cruz’s hypocritical face off.

  89. 89.

    Betty Cracker

    @BRyan: Here in FL, you can vote at any site for early voting. Election Day, you have to go to your designated polling place.

  90. 90.

    TS (the original)

    @Kay: That is so cruel. They do not allow birth control or abortion, yet the worst sin of a single woman is to become a mother.

    The true Christian way of visiting the sins of the fathers unto the sons (except in this case it is always the sins of the mothers)

  91. 91.

    Kay

    @JPL:

    The line the far Right judges robotically repeat that they don’t let their personal views inform their work is a direct contradiction of their campaigns for the bench, which rely almost completely on biography.

    Barrett can’t have it both ways. She can’t say she should be on the bench because her experiences with her family inform her work, but her experiences with a far Right church don’t. It’s nonsense. She’s picking and choosing which parts of her personal life inform her work, and she’s picking them due to POLITICAL considerations- which ones would be politically marketable and which ones she should hide.

    Liberal judges don’t do this- they say their personal experiences DO inform their work. The liberals don’t just have the “better” argument, the basic conservative argument is dishonest and makes no sense. If she’s sympathetic to working mothers because she is one, then why wouldn’t she be sympathetic to far Right religious because she is one? Either both are true or neither is true.

  92. 92.

    topclimber

    @Martin: As Lincoln famously said, “You can fool between 27% to 40% of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all the people all the time.”

  93. 93.

    Sally

    @Baud: Yes, I was thinking this too. I won’t do thumbs up anymore, feels trumpy and slimy. The divers “ok” is now White supremacy. So what can I do to signal ok, fine, perfect? I need a semaphore.

  97. 97.

    germy

    Lindsey Graham opens the proceedings by saying “to all the people going to work today, I hope your employer is providing healthcare.”

     

    Okay, then….

  107. 107.

    NotMax

    Coming on TCM Tuesday at (I think*) 7:30 a.m. is the kind of movie only the British could get away with. The Runaway Bus is an uneasy and barely compatible amalgam of burlesque comedy, heist caper and murder mystery. Whatever its ragged shortcomings, Margaret Rutherford is, as always, a delight.

    *Since TCM changed – for the worse – the format of their schedule page the times there have been off kilter, so best guess on my part.

  108. 108.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @germy: For a while in the 80s there was an annual parade in DC called the Gross National Parade. As I recall, the Lawnmower Precision Drill Team was one of the crowd favorites.

  110. 110.

    topclimber

    @Kay: Yes, but any board member who misses a meeting and then doesn’t read the minutes of it is surely derelict in her duty. Such lack of due diligence speaks poorly of her judicial temperament.

  111. 111.

    Kay

    @topclimber:

    It’s a lie. She would be fully aware of such a radical, restrictive policy at the school she chose. Again- this policy would exclude more than half of children who attend public schools. They would not be able to attend school.

  116. 116.

    Immanentize

    @Karen S.: I wonder if Trump would have more support today if his supporters were not such obvious assholes.  They go out of their way to insult and denigrate and create needless conflict.  Sure, they have been riding high, but people only stand for mean gloating after a big win for so long.  “If that is the kind of person who supports Trump, well….”

  117. 117.

    Kathleen

    @Baud: That post was a walk down memory lane for me as I lived in Minnesota in the early/mid 60’s and was very active in the YDFL which included stint as volunteer for McCarthy’s Senate campaign. I admired him and despised RFK and I thought he grabbed McCarthy’s coattails when he announced his primary run. Funny how it seems McCarthy took a nasty turn and RFK evolved into the more humanitarian candidate whom I grew to respect.

  118. 118.

    Karen S.

    @Immanentize: I wonder that, too. Trump is obviously the #1 asshole, but his surrogates and supporters are almost worse than he is. It’s a cumulative effect, I think. Or maybe they are worse than he is.

  120. 120.

    Immanentize

    @Karen S.: Trump has the power, so he is worse.  But what a bunch of hooting baboons.  These are not nice people.  And most people I know, regardless of their politics, prefer to live among polite, helpful neighbors.  Trump ruined a bunch of neighborhoods.

  122. 122.

    The Moar You Know

    Anybody know how to do a countrywide intervention? I don’t think the Germans had to do it with E. Germany.

    @Mai Naem mobile: as it turns out, they should have. Ostlanders – East Germans – have been the people driving Germany’s new Nazi problem.

    And they have got one hell of a problem on their hands at this point precisely because they were unwilling to address it when it was a “fringe” movement.

  123. 123.

    Kathleen

    @Immanentize: Thank you for helping me expand my knowledge. McGovern was my first Presidential vote. I have not followed the trajectories of McCarthy or McGovern after my burst of youthful enthusiasm. I’m going to check McGovern out now. I really admired McCarthy and Humphrey who delivered barn burner of a speech about Civil Rights at 1948 Democratic Convention which prompted mass walkout by enraged Dixiecrats.

  124. 124.

    Timill

    @Betty Cracker: Same in Tennessee, I believe. It’s possible that, if your designated polling place is open, you have to use it. Mine’s closed for early voting, so I go into Oak Ridge to vote.

  125. 125.

    BRyan

    @Betty Cracker: oh, thanks, Betty, I guess that makes sense.  We only have one in-person early voting location (the board of elections, also currently the sole location for the ballot drop-off box) for the county, so no choice comes into it.

  126. 126.

    Jinchi

    @OzarkHillbilly: she can no longer pay for their rent or food and wants to return to her homeland. But in order to be permitted to leave the UAE she must first serve a jail sentence for having sex outside marriage

    There’s a whole lot of awful in that story, but ….what?

    Why does she need permission to leave if she’s a citizen of a foreign country?  And why will they only give it if she’s thrown in jail? You’d think the UAE would be happy to give an unemployed, homeless mother with an infant child permission to be someone else’s problem.

  127. 127.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    Just got the email and confirmed online that our votes were recorded in our PA county. Ballots dropped off in-person at the county election office, about 45 minutes after they arrived.

    I feel this enormous feeling of relief. It just feels huge this year to know my vote is counted, and I’ve had a low level anxiety about something going wrong with it for months.

  128. 128.

    Gvg

    @BRyan: No, I have never heard of that.

    in Florida, early voting is in a few places. In my county it’s the public libraries. In my last county which was more rural and had about 6,000 population, it was just the courthouse.

    In normal elections, not as many people use early voting, there is a lot more time, and you pop in when you have time, so it needs to be somewhere convenient. More and more people use it in this state even pre virus, but because we have 3 weeks, people are more spread out and usually don’t have lines. You just don’t need as many sites. Also with computers, they know if you have voted instantly, and your precinct ballot is printed on the spot.

    manning all sites full time for weeks, would be difficult, maybe not even doable. That would be a lot of poll workers.

  129. 129.

    dnfree

     

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:  I can’t speak for your county, but when we voted early at the courthouse in Geneva, Kane county, there were people who had requested a ballot and hadn’t received it, and they just had to sign an affidavit that they wouldn’t use it. (Other people who had their mail ballots turned them in.). If you’re at all comfortable with voting in person early, you could call the county clerk and see what the possibilities are.

  132. 132.

    Wolf

    Decent people need a hand sign.  Two suggestions:

    Peace sign & the two-handed love sign!

    Peace & Love ;)

  133. 133.

    VOR

    @Immanentize: Trump brought out their worst behavior. His behavior told the boors, the misogynists, the bigots,  and the assholes that it was okay to wave their freak flag. He validated them.

  134. 134.

    Mary Ellen Sandahl

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:DW, I live in northern NJ, and am curious to know what environmental group or groups your SIL belongs to. There are a good number of them, with different focuses, local emphases, etc. I’ve been thinking of getting involved with more than contributions to the big national orgs, but it’s kind of an embarrassment of riches around here. A nice place to be! But I’d like a bit of input from an actual activist

Comments are closed.