Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

Quote tweet friends, screenshot enemies.

When the time comes to make an endorsement, the pain of NYT editors will be palpable as they reluctantly whisper “Biden.”

Let’s show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

I also would like a pony to improve my balloon juice experience.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

Books are my comfort food!

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

The Supreme Court is corrupt. Democrats must win in November and force court reform.

Republicans would impeach Biden if he bit into a whole Kit Kat rather than breaking the sections apart.

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

Never give a known liar the benefit of the doubt.

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

You are here: Home / Elections / Biden-Harris 2020 / TGIFriday Morning Open Thread: Democrats, Getting It Done

TGIFriday Morning Open Thread: Democrats, Getting It Done

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265Comments

  1. 1.

    Zzyzx

    I miss having hope. Despite the polls, it just feels like Trump is going to cobble together a win out of the court cheating…

    Winter is coming, I haven’t seen a friend since March, I have no plans ever, and the world just feels so so bleak.

  3. 3.

    debbie

    That task force is such a great idea! No better way to show the world we are coming back from the brink of insanity.

  6. 6.

    p.a.

    Somewhere in the first 100 days there has to be big work on beginning to rectify the federal judicial system. IF the current federal judicial system allows a *mostly* honest election. *Mostly* should be enough to win. What the crooks might be reduced to is not winning, but minimizing the loss to prevent activist Dem majorities. And the Senate is still close close close.

  8. 8.

    Zzyzx

    @Baud: It just looks like Florida isn’t coming through (go figure), PA is going to have all of our votes thrown out, and it’s not like counting on Texas seems like a plan B.

    Maybe this is just my Seattle sports fan/lifelong Democratic voter who came of age during Reagan pessimism speaking, or maybe it’s Corona fatigue, but even with the polls, I’m just expecting a court fueled slight Trump win due to the PA vote just stopped.

  9. 9.

    gkoutnik

    A few days ago, Doug put up a fundraising post for Four Directions, a GOTV organization “dedicated to getting Native Americans to the polls.” I thought it was a good idea (everybody votes!) and donated, and then the link appeared in comments the next day. I thought it was still a good idea and added a little more.

    Yesterday I got a phone call from Lewis Cohen, Finance Director for Four Directions, thanking me for the donation. Then he said, “Let me ask you what may seem to be a strange question, but… where did you hear about us?”

    Turns out they had a big spike in donations, mostly from some place called “Balloon Juice.” They had no idea who we were or how we found them. I described BJ as best I could (that was interesting) and he again expressed his gratitude.

    Their motto seems to be: “Advancing equality at the ballot box across Indian Country.” So – thanks, folks, from Indian Country.

  10. 10.

    Immanentize

    Blech to the BLECH!  It turned cold and is only going to get colder.  It’s 35 now and going into the 20s tonight.  I’m going out in a bit to yank what remaining tomatoes are on the plants.  Green, but I’ll try…

    But I voted yesterday!

  11. 11.

    Narya

    Also, from Maddow last night, electronic vulnerabilities.
    I am so out of can’t-evens.
    Also also wik: will assemble kitchen pics for respite

  13. 13.

    Betty Cracker

    No one trusts Florida or the youth vote — for good reason! But if younger voter turnout doesn’t make a difference this year, it won’t be because the Parkland survivors didn’t work their asses off. Still so proud of those kids young adults. They stayed laser-focused on voting from the get-go. When the primary didn’t turn out as they’d hoped, they immediately got behind Biden. I heard the other day (on NPR, I think) that youth turnout in Florida during the early voting period exceeds 2016 totals by hundreds of thousands. In a state that is usually decided by less than a point, that’s important.

  14. 14.

    Baud

    @gkoutnik:

    Turns out they had a big spike in donations, mostly from some place called “Balloon Juice.” They had no idea who we were or how we found them. I described BJ as best I could (that was interesting) and he again expressed his gratitude.  returned the money.

    If he were smart.

  16. 16.

    gkoutnik

    @NotMax: God help me, but my first thought when considering the need to get out into the streets following a stolen election was – “Wait – I’m a really old guy – where are the bathrooms?”

  17. 17.

    Zzyzx

    @Baud: thanks.

    I’ve created a calming playlist to try to get through this next week but it’s not helping this morning.

    And it’s good to remember that this is a great place that’s been actually helping.

  19. 19.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    Wouldn’t it be ironic if, in places like Texas, that the people finding themselves in long lines with interminable waits who get locked out of polling places happen to be RWNJs?

  20. 20.

    gkoutnik

    @Betty Cracker: In a really general way – a political blog with a large community which has a history of activism and very generous support of progressive candidates and initiatives.  I’m not sure he was a blog person, and I didn’t want to scare him off, so I left it at that.  I also gave him the web address.

  21. 21.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @gkoutnik: At the first Women’s March I was very disappointed to find that the organizers did not consider that issue at all and at the 3/4 mark I was forced to go find a parking garage.

  22. 22.

    Immanentize

    @Baud: I’m not sure how they are going to stop states from counting ballots generally when under their own rules counting must continue..  I do think the “received late” question will be a version of voter suppression in some states.

  24. 24.

    Johnnybuck

    Day 2 without power from a tropical storm in Atlanta.

    I feel fairly optimistic about Georgia. I think the racists around here are in for a rude awakening. The slumbering giant that is the Democratic coalition is coming.

  26. 26.

    Geminid

    I am in Virginia, but the Charlotte clear channel AM station comes in during the night, so I’ve been checking out the political ads. Jaime Harrison was on one, citing the Contitution Party Senate candidate’s hardline positions on abortion, gun rights, concluding that “Dr. ______ is too conservative for South Carolina.”        Dr. _____ has dropped out, urging his supporters to vote for Lindsay Graham. But Graham has a reputation for being a soft conservative, and the Democrats hope to divert conservative voters away from Graham.

  28. 28.

    Kay

    @Zzyzx:

    PA is going to have all of our votes thrown out

    No they won’t. Biden will win Pennsylvania. The only reason anyone is worried about Pennsylvania is because they’ll count slowly, Trump will be up initially, and he’ll declare victory. But only in Pennsylvania because he won’t have enough even with Pennsylvania. The Plan B isn’t Texas. It’s one, two or three of FL, NC (64/65 Biden) or GA (57 Biden) and that doesn’t even include Arizona, which is 67 Biden. That’s a very solid Plan B.

  29. 29.

    OzarkHillbilly

    I’ll be honest.

    I just can’t bring myself to take any of the scenarios where a president who has spent the vast majority of his term at 45% or lower approval, has always trailed his opponent and is currently within kissing cousins of losing by a double digit popular vote margin and wins reelection anyway, serious. Neither do I believe any of the imagined court machinations will be successful enough to overturn such a vote, especially when the state level polling is so against him, and it is backed up by state level polling showing that his fellow party members are scratching and clawing for their political lives in such stalwart red states like KS, SC, IA, GA.

    And I haven’t even mentioned Texas which just might have a blue House next year.

    So…

    I acknowledge the fact that the future is unknowable, that it is in fact possible trump might actually dive thru a second electoral needle at 60 mph, but that is not the way I bet. I put several hundreds of dollars on the bet that not only would he lose but he would cost the GOP the Senate and even more house seats.

    If I am wrong, than I will deal with it on Nov 4th.

  32. 32.

    Immanentize

    @Baud: It’s funny, but after voting yesterday my conspiratorial angst fell off considerably.  Like so many things, stopping the vote count theory is probably a fear-based extension of some of the crap that is really happening like not allowing states to expand return date periods.  But it really doesn’t make sense unless the plan is to take over every county in the country with armed troops and seize the whole of the government of several states on November 4.  And if that happens, as they say, we got more problems than counting.

  36. 36.

    NotMax

    @Immanentize

    IANAL but don’t any such shenanigans need to at minimum first prove to the satisfaction of a court

    1) Standing
    2) Evidence of demonstrable harm (whether verified, categorically absolute or imminently clear-cut)

  38. 38.

    debbie

    @Immanentize:

    In all of this stopping the vote bullshit, I haven’t heard anyone bringing up the fact that military votes received after Election Day wouldn’t be counted. This surprises me.

  40. 40.

    OzarkHillbilly

    So we finally heard from the NOLA son yesterday and they are fine. Still without power, lost their back fence but otherwise good. My DiL posted a video of the house next door going up in flames when a transformer +/ power line landed on it. My oldest says, “and there is C, running to see if they are OK. Getting run over by a truck didn’t teach him a damn thing.”

  42. 42.

    Kay

    President Trump has called off plans to appear at the Trump International Hotel on election night and is likely to be at the White House instead, according to a person familiar with the plans.
    Advisers had said privately that Mr. Trump was going to appear at his namesake hotel in Washington for an election night party for which his campaign had sent out multiple fund-raising solicitations to his supporters.
    “November 3rd will go down in history as the night we won FOUR MORE YEARS. It will be absolutely EPIC, and the only thing that could make it better is having YOU there,” read one solicitation from the president that included an image of Mr. Trump and the first lady, Melania Trump, under the words “Join us on election night.”

  43. 43.

    EveryDayIhaveTheBlues

    @OzarkHillbilly: I agree whole-heartedly. This rings true and one feels cautiously optimistic.

    There are just way too few probabilistic paths for a Fascist victory. Of course, I’m constantly asking folks if they’ve voted and urging people to go to the polls, etc.

    Part of the optimism is because the alternative is quite horrible and I’d not like to begin planning for the calamity until its here…

  44. 44.

    Betty Cracker

    @OzarkHillbilly: Agree. We all knew the horserace bullshit and Trump’s desperate machinations would get cranked up to 11 in the final days. We’ll get through it. No choice!

  47. 47.

    Nina

    Three years ago today, Mark Halperin was Me Too’d out of the media.

     

    Sometimes the good guys win.

  48. 48.

    NotMax

    @debbie

    They must be, by both federal* (MOVE Act, among others) and state statute. Cut-off dates for valid receipt do vary by state, though.

    *Unless the Secretary of Defense, acting as defined in federal law as a designee, specifically and overtly rules otherwise in each separate instance.

  49. 49.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Immanentize:

    stopping the vote count theory is probably a fear-based extension of some of the crap that is really happening like not allowing states to expand return date periods.

    Well, that, and it’s a direct transliteration of things Donald Trump himself is now saying. Mind you, Donald Trump says a lot of things.

  51. 51.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Baud:

    Too many olds who no longer have a stake in the game vote to perpetuate a 1950s that terrorized wide swaths of people and which weren’t all that magical for those who ostensibly benefitted from the predominant social order.

  53. 53.

    Kay

    @WereBear:

    I think he’s acting like he knows he’s losing too. His rallies have turned into him working thru losing, up there on stage. I think it’s good. He’ll be less of a problem for the country if he gets it all out among his loyal cult members.

  55. 55.

    Kathleen

    My mantra is “It’s time for the power of the Light to vanquish Evil.” That is my focus the next few days. I’m literally sick of giving my power to these demons.

  56. 56.

    NotMax

    @NotMax

    To clarify, by each separate instance my understanding is that means a ruling by DoD on each individual vote brought into question, not any kind of blanket kibosh.

    Again, IANAL.

  57. 57.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: I saw that this morning, and this part made me laugh out loud:

    It was unclear why the plans had changed. But the prospect of the president appearing on the night of the election at the hotel was certain to reinforce concerns about Mr. Trump mingling the office with his business.

    Whose “concerns” are they talking about? They can’t possibly mean Trump or anyone connected with him. They just cut a campaign ad of a fake SCOTUS swearing-in from the fucking White House!

    It would also reinforce questions about whether the hotel would be in violation of Washington coronavirus restrictions limiting gatherings to 50 people. And a party would have to be paid for by the campaign, which is facing a cash crunch in the final weeks of the race.

    Again, since when does Trump give a fuck about that? And he’d have no problem stiffing his own hotel, so that’s not it either.

    I think what’s happening here is that he knows there’s a good chance he’s about to suffer a humiliating defeat, and he’d rather tweet-scream about ELECTION FRAUD!!! while locked in the residence stress-eating Big Macs than have to face even his toadies. Losing is an extinction-level event for his ego, and I hope he’s terrified at the prospect..

  58. 58.

    Zzyzx

    Sorry about the pessimism. I’ll try to keep my bleakness to myself going down the road. I have a friend who is pretty dialed in with the Democratic Party and he’s started posting a lot of “This is starting to slip away from us “ posts that might just be his way of fighting complacency but it’s been terrorizing me.

  59. 59.

    Matt McIrvin

    @debbie: I’ve heard it brought up.

    I suspect that suppressing the military vote is actually part of the plan–there have been indications that the military would at this point NOT vote for Donald Trump. They hate the guy.

  61. 61.

    TS (the original)

    @Zzyzx:

    Here is an upbeat message from ElectoralVote to cheer you up (my bold)

    Today’s Presidential Polls
    Wow. Look at all those polls. You will notice the paucity of red in the table, excepting a couple of states that have no business being anything other than red. Meanwhile, Donald Trump goes 0-5 in Florida, 0-2 in Georgia, 0-3-1 in North Carolina, 1-1 in Ohio, 0-4 in Pennsylvania, and 2-1 in Texas. That’s very poor, especially the Florida polls. (Z)

  62. 62.

    John S.

    @OzarkHillbilly: I’m right there with you. But in the off chance that orange fart cloud steals his way to victory, I have already made arrangements with my employer to be transferred to our office in Canada.

    My wife thought I was crazy when I first mentioned it, but now she knows that I’m serious. You have to draw the line somewhere, and my Jewish instincts are tingling telling me that if there is a second Trump term, it’s time to go.

  63. 63.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Betty Cracker: From people who have been on the disinfo beat for some time, the feeling is it’s too late for anything on that front. Now the worriers can worry about a disruption of some kind on the day – let’s say a car bomb goes off a block from a polling place in Pittsburgh at 10:00 am Tuesday. What does that do to PA turnout?

  67. 67.

    John S.

    @NotMax: LOL, it’s real I tell you.

    And believe me, if I had a few more years, I would be moving out your way for good. My wife and I have spent a lot of time in Hawaii over the years, and had been planning to relocate there for some time.

  71. 71.

    hueyplong

    Stupid/obese Hitler is just yammering about non-existent divisions and miracle weapons as the Allies close in.  We’re running him out of town on a rail, and it’s time we stopped scurrying behind the sofa when we hear a newspaper being rattled because of 2016.

    Georgia could make it a great night, driving a stake through Trump’s chest cavity while assuring a blue Senate so that the government can undertake the difficult task of fixing the many things that have been broken by these miscreants.

  73. 73.

    Bluegirlfromwyo

    @Zzyzx: Does your dialed in friend say how it’s slipping away or what we should be doing about it that we’re not? If not, might be nerves. We’re all on edge lately.

  74. 74.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Headline of the day: ‘He couldn’t move’: New York City man falls into sinkhole full of rats

    And just in case you can’t quite visualize the full horror:

    Shoulders was waiting for a bus in the Bronx when suddenly the concrete beneath his feet cracked open and he plummeted into a hole, breaking his arm and leg, according to his brother, Greg White.

    White told the New York Daily News: “He couldn’t move, and the rats were crawling all over him. He didn’t scream, because he didn’t want the rats going into his mouth.”

    Firefighters eventually took half an hour to extricate Shoulders from the rat-filled cavity and he was taken to a local hospital, where he is recovering.

  82. 82.

    TS (the original)

    @Kay:  From your link

    It was unclear why the plans had changed. But the prospect of the president appearing on the night of the election at the hotel was certain to reinforce concerns about Mr. Trump mingling the office with his business.

    I live with no hope that the NYT reporters might one day truthfully say – it is obvious why his plans have changed

    1. He has collected the money from deplorables wanting to be at the party
    2. He does not wish to party with deplorables
    3. He wants to be in a place where he can easily hide from the media when he sees the avalanche of votes for Biden that will ensure he is a one term president*

    Edit:  or what @Betty Cracker:   said above

  83. 83.

    There go two miscreants

    @Zzyzx: “This is starting to slip away from us ”

    That has been the tenor of almost every email I’ve received from the campaigns I contributed to. It is actually very annoying! Once in a while there will be a positive one, but mostly doom and gloom (and URGENT! doom and gloom). I find it hard to believe that these emails are helpful, but I’m probably not typical in that respect.

  84. 84.

    Zzyzx

    @Bluegirlfromwyo: just generic work harder and focus on PA/FL/MN. I don’t know if he really knows anything or if he’s just one of those “fight like you’re 10 points down!” people but as much as the polls look good, it’s going to be a loooong weekend.

  85. 85.

    hueyplong

    @TS (the original): And of those 5 states, in only one of them (PA) is Biden playing defense on the normal Path To 270 field.

    Biden winning any one of NC, TX, FL and OH effectively writes finis to this sad era.

  86. 86.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Zzyzx:

    he’s started posting a lot of “This is starting to slip away from us “ posts

    There are a lot of horse-race stories going around now about the race tightening. But if you look at the actual numbers, it’s this minuscule tightening off a big lead, and some of it seems to be driven by partisan Republican polls that are trying to game polling averages. They’re all thinking about 2016, but the corresponding situation in 2016 was the first week of November after the Comey letter–nothing like that is happening now.

    And about half of the stories aren’t even really about the race tightening, they’re about the party breakdown of the early vote–OF COURSE there would be more registered Republicans voting now than there were earlier; the early mail-in vote was so lopsidedly Democratic, there’s no statistical way it could be otherwise. Most Republicans are going to vote sometime.

    I’m worried about a lot of things, which I’m actively trying not to talk about here because it bothers people. But Trump winning fair and square is pretty low on the list.

  87. 87.

    Jeffro

    Did y’all catch trumpov’s full-scale panic attack 3am tweet?  Holeeeeeee shit!

    The orange clown is melting down (hey that rhymes!) BIGTIME!!

    We are coming for you, Donnie.  It’s allllll going to come out: the child separations, your skimming, your tax fraud ALL of it.

  90. 90.

    Puddinhead

    @Zzyzx: just one state or the whole shebang? I am concerned about Election Day turnout in key states including FL. Don’t want anyone to think that the early voting push means it’s in the bag. That was only step 1. Need follow-through on Nov. 3rd.

  91. 91.

    Princess

    Don’t get me wrong. The child reunification plan is the right thing to do solely on its merits. But it’s also smart politics. It’s an issue that truly moves what they’re calling suburban women this go-around. Being reminded of it could cause some of those GOP women to leave the top line blank. My guess is it can also motivate Hispanic voters but that’s not my block so i won’t speak for them.

  92. 92.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Matt McIrvin: Polls always tighten in the last few days. It’s a function of “undecideds” becoming honest with themselves and admitting they are going to vote as they always have in the past. Fact is tho, there just aren’t that many undecideds this year.

  93. 93.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Matt McIrvin:

    the military would at this point NOT vote for Donald Trump. They hate the guy.

    Though it makes sense, and I’d love it if true, is there any such thing as polling of military members? Are there other data? At a guess, my family, friends, or acquaintances who are in the military, vets, or in the MIC are breaking even.

  94. 94.

    John S.

    @Matt McIrvin: To be honest, I truly cannot fathom the cultish following and level of support Trump has given ample empirical evidence of what a colossal fuckup he is.

    I read this earlier in USA Today, and just had to shake my head:

    “This is all a hoax,’’ his uncle said of the virus that had taken his sister’s life. “It was sent from China … to disrupt the election. But this is nothing more than the flu.’’

    Hughes looked at him, bewildered. “We just buried Mom,’’ he said. “It’s not just the flu.’’

    Apparently unconvinced, his uncle rose and, without another word, walked away.

    I mean, to be sitting at your own sister’s funeral after she died from COVID… the mind just feels. 

  95. 95.

    TS (the original)

    @hueyplong:

    I would like it to be Texas – how glorious would that be – or if not Texas, Ohio.  I want to see Karl Rove relive Ohio 2012.

  96. 96.

    Jeffro

    @Zzyzx: “If Sleepy Joe Biden is actually elected President, the 4 Justices (plus 1) that helped make such a ridiculous win possible would be relegated to sitting on not only a heavily PACKED COURT but probably a REVOLVING COURT as well.  At least the many new Justices will be Radical Left!”

     

    I think we can all translate that, can’t we?

  97. 97.

    Zzyzx

    I think part of my frustration is living in Seattle. It would be a 20+ hour drive just to get to a swing state. If I could feel like my vote or getting my friends out or offering rides to the polls would help, that would be something but I’m in a deep blue state with nothing but similar ones to the south and deep red ones to the east.

  99. 99.

    There go two miscreants

    @OzarkHillbilly:  I don’t read most of them either. This was a somewhat masochistic experiment to see if there would be useful info. Next go-round I’ll just unsubscribe from them after contributing.

  101. 101.

    Jeffro

    @OzarkHillbilly: I have been kidding with my co-workers that they don’t need to worry too much about the undecideds breaking for trumpov this time around…after all, there’s only three of them.

    ”but…but what if ALL THREE go for trumpov, Jeffro, what THEN?”

    sigh…

    they’re just so wound up!

  102. 102.

    Soprano2

    I’ve actually been feeling cautiously optimistic about the election. All this early voting means those votes are already banked, and most likely won’t even be challenged. The one thing I’m worried about was mentioned in that Atlantic article – Trump’s people trying to challenge all of the mail-in absentee ballots in certain states, slowing the process to a crawl, or even trying to get all the votes that arrive after Election Day thrown out. I do wonder, though, will they be able to challenge them in just certain counties? What people never think about are all the down ballot races that are also affected by doing something like that. Those people could say they would be damaged, and might persuade the court to rule in their favor. I know, not likely, but still……

    My biggest heartburn right now is at work, where it’s week 4 of a program I use for a big part of my job not functioning, and no one in our IT department seems to be able to figure out how to fix it! My co-worker and & are certain it’s a network/permissions problem, but we don’t even know if they’ve put a network person on the problem yet! I’m about an inch from picking up the phone and just yelling at the head of the IT department; I hate being “that person”. I know yelling at her won’t help, but it sure would make me feel better. When they send out e-mails they ask us to evaluate their “excellent” customer service. I’m so tempted to do just that…..

  105. 105.

    John S.

    @Jeffro: If the SCOTUS doesn’t find a way to hand me a victory after all I’ve done for them, they get what they deserve!!! ?

  107. 107.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Chief Oshkosh: There was a survey in, I think, Stars and Stripes that showed an astonishing lean toward Biden–and their sample was whiter than the military as a whole.

    It was probably not a very scientific poll. Of course, the military leans right historically. I suspect they are at the very least not leaning as right as they usually do.

  108. 108.

    Kirk Spencer

    @Zzyzx: if I may, I’d suggest that a calming playlist is a mistake. It clears the mind but does little to reorient.

    Pick the active mindset you want, then make a playlist aimed that way. Me, I tend to open with “Can you hear the people sing” and run from there. Marching through Georgia always comes up, as do Lavatos Warrior and Aguilera’s Fighter.

    Just a thought.

  110. 110.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Tourist blames 6-year-old son for how her gun got stashed outside Magic Kingdom

    The situation unfolded as a hospital employee who checked visitors’ temperatures at the Magic Kingdom’s Ticket and Transportation Center noticed Temple take something from her stroller and leave it behind the planters by the tents, the arrest report said. The employee notified Disney Security, who contacted nearby Orange County Deputy Nadia Engwall.

    Engwall found a pink purse containing the gun behind the planter. The 9mm gun was loaded with 10 bullets, including one in the chamber. “Upon opening the purse, I recognized the butt of a firearm, readily accessible once opened,” the deputy wrote in her report. That’s when Temple approached and said, “Ma’am, that’s mine.” Engwall asked Temple why she had a gun at Disney World.

    “I had told my son to hold it for me and stand right here” while she went to get her brother to take the purse and gun back to the car, the report quotes Temple as saying.

    The deputy determined Temple didn’t have a concealed weapon permit for Florida or Georgia. Temple was arrested and also banned from Walt Disney World property. She did not return a message on her cell phone and she did not have a lawyer listed on court records.

  112. 112.

    germy

    Open enrollment goes through at least December 15th for everyone.  States that run their own exchanges may go longer.

    If someone loses their job (and insurance) in February or March, can they enroll?  Or do they need to wait until Nov.?

  114. 114.

    Geminid

    Montana State U.-Billings released a poll taken Oct. 19-25. It showed Steve Bullock up 48-47, 5% undecided. Democratic congressional candidate Williams was down 47-46, 6% undecided. Independents favored the Democratic candidates by a 15-18% margin.  trump was up over Biden by only 7 points, 52-45%.

  115. 115.

    TS (the original)

    @Zzyzx:  Your vote will add to the utter humiliation of trump losing the popular vote by millions more than has been seen in a very long time.  And blue states are only reliably blue because people who live there go out and vote.

  117. 117.

    Citizen Scientist

    Good morning everyone.  Like some here have expressed, my election-related anxiety is starting to go back up.  I’m an optimist at heart, but am just waiting for ballot shenanigans from the Repubs here in PA.  Luckily, I have the early voting statistics to help increase that feeling. The percentage of D returned ballots has been more or less steadily going up the last several days, but as of yesterday we’re only at ~73% returned.  Keeping my fingers crossed that we get to at least 90% today.

    Have a great day all. Love to those in wildfire and hurricane impacted areas of the country.

  119. 119.

    Matt McIrvin

    @OzarkHillbilly: They don’t always tighten! Events can intervene. Obama’s lead blew out bigger right at the end in 2012, for instance. He’d have been in serious trouble if it didn’t.

    2016 was a situation where there was a huge number of “undecideds” who I suspect were leaning Trump but really disliked both candidates on a personal level, but the Comey letter (and Trump staying mostly off Twitter for the last week) gave them the final excuse they needed to jump. That reservoir of undecideds isn’t there this year.

  120. 120.

    Citizen Scientist

    @Kay: Kay, thanks for this perspective.  I do think Joe and Kamala will win PA, it’s just getting there is a little nerve wracking.  The waiting is the hardest part like Mr. Petty said.

  122. 122.

    Matt McIrvin

    (Incidentally, anyone comparing timelines to 2016 should be reminded that Election Day was 5 days later that year, so the day corresponding to today wasn’t October 30, it was November 4. The October Surprise drama stretched well into November.)

  123. 123.

    Kay

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    I love how he continues to announce to the country that his judges are corrupt. No one else has to criticize these judges- Trump tells us every day that he’s ordering them to steal an election, and, well, he picked em. He knows them better than we do.
    “Corrupt judges! Attention please! Do my bidding!” He discredits them himself.

  127. 127.

    tarragon

    A Green, nutjob[1], acquaintance of mine posted his “10 reasons to vote for Howie”.  Including, “Democrats just lost a supreme court seat without even fighting for it.”

    I just about exploded.  I’m not usually a violent person but he’s lucky we aren’t doing in person events anytime soon.

    I’m so stressed right now.

    [1] But I repeat myself

  128. 128.

    Kay

    @Steeplejack:

    I’m surprised he cancelled the party. It would be much more like him to just leave them standing in his stupid hotel “ballroom” for hours.

  130. 130.

    Geminid

    @Geminid: The Montana Democrat running for the at-large congressional seat is three term state legislator Kathleen Williams. She ran in 2018, lost to Greg Gianforte by 5 points.

  132. 132.

    frosty

    @Zzyzx: You’re not the only one feeling bleak here. I’m happy to see that several of our fellow jackals are helping to talk you back. I saw a good clip of the head of the Biden/Harris legal team shooting down a lot of our worries.

    So other than lit drops, I think I’ll call Gov Wolf today and leave a message that we need to count all the votes. And tell him I approve of going all Andy Jackson: “John Roberts has made his decision. Now let him enforce it.”

  134. 134.

    satby

    @Soprano2: Do it, don’t yell but say this is unacceptable and you need updates from not only the regular problem resolution team, but the network team as well or you’ll escalate it up the chain to the top if you need to, starting today.

  135. 135.

    Kay

    My husband had outpatient surgery yesterday- he plays a lot of tennis and he tore his shoulder cuff. So the doc comes in to talk to me after and shows me photos, none of which I can decipher but he mentions “my PA said.. ” several times and then he leaves. About 20 minutes later a younger man in scrubs comes in and starts showing me more photos of a surgery so I think “he’s the PA? This is a little redundant”.

    On the way home the outpatient surgery clinic calls me- the 2nd person was a surgeon and he was talking about a completely different patient. He went to the wrong “loved ones room”. So I have these photos of someone elses surgery, which I will send back to the hospital

  136. 136.

    lowtechcyclist

    Here’s the new Biden/Harris family separation ad, if you haven’t seen it, calling for the creation of a federal task force to reunite on day one if they win. Multiple current career government officials told me today they would join immediately if asked.

    Hell yes. I’m a government statistician, so this is way out of my area and I’m sure there’d be no role for my particular skill set on such a task force.  But if there were, I’d be there in a fucking heartbeat.

  138. 138.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Kay:

    “Corrupt judges! Attention please! Do my bidding!” He discredits them himself.

    To the Republican mind that’s how it’s supposed to work. The highest value is “strength”. Being able to order judges around is an indication of how strong you are. As I said before, “discrediting them” just translates to “making liberals cry”. It’s pure id.

  140. 140.

    H.E.Wolf

    @Zzyzx: I think part of my frustration is living in Seattle. It would be a 20+ hour drive just to get to a swing state. If I could feel like my vote or getting my friends out or offering rides to the polls would help, that would be something but I’m in a deep blue state with nothing but similar ones to the south and deep red ones to the east.

    Dude. This is the 3rd decade of the 21st century, in an election where textbanking and phonebanking are needed.

    Like many of us, you live in a state that has an exciting US Congressional campaign in a purple district (in your case, it’s WA-03).

    If you want to work as well as worry during the next few days, here’s one option: https://www.wa-democrats.org

    Tell ’em H. Wolf sent you. :)

    [ETA to say I totally sympathize with the worry.]

  141. 141.

    WaterGirl

    @gkoutnik:  I love that story, thank you.

    DougJ put up that link up after Kattails posted a comment about 4 groups that were working together to set up a shuttle service to get Navajo voters to the polls, many of whom live 50 miles from a polling station; they hope to mobilize 38,000 voters.

    There was no ActBlue activity for the 4 groups, but one of those groups was Four Directions, which MazeDancer has also talked about in the past, and they did have an ActBlue presence, and it turns out we already had a BJ thermometer for them from some previous effort.

    Four Directions

    Goal Thermometer

  143. 143.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay: HA! Maybe they need to put the patients name and birthdate on your forehead in permanent marker too.

  144. 144.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Matt McIrvin: (Incidentally, anyone comparing timelines to 2016 should be reminded that Election Day was 5 days later that year, so the day corresponding to today wasn’t October 30, it was November 4. The October Surprise drama stretched well into November.)

    If the 2016 election had been held on November 3 instead of November 8, Clinton would have won.  But her support kept dropping during those last several days, and it took all of that time to get MI, PA, and WI to the point where she could narrowly lose them.

  145. 145.

    zhena gogolia

    @OzarkHillbilly: 
    This reminds me of waiting in a bed for a colonoscopy (after answering all the usual questions multiple times), and a brisk lady comes in and starts wheeling me off, saying, “Going for a colon resection . . .” and I screamed.

  146. 146.

    germy

    “It always cracks me up when the left is referred to as “radical” like the left is running around carrying assault rifles, denying science, and discussing not accepting the results of an election”

    — Etan Thomas (@etanthomas36) October 30, 2020

  152. 152.

    geg6

    @Zzyzx: 

    Have you been hanging around with Goku?

    I can’t with the doom porn. I am not going to submit to it. I am going out there and doing something to try to make good things happen. Just donated to Joe for the last time and making plans with the local Dems to man a polling place with sample ballots and literature on Tuesday. Find something to do with your nervous energy other than gaming disaster scenarios for the next four days.

  153. 153.

    germy

    He’s fighting with Chris Hayes now.

    Now that Glenn's free from the 'shackles' of editorial censorship, he has more time to focus on the journalistic endeavors that truly matter to him; his incredibly petty squabbles with literally everyone who has ever criticized him. pic.twitter.com/rPguhiYIts— Centrism Fan Acct ? (@Wilson__Valdez) October 30, 2020

  156. 156.

    chrome agnomen

    @sanjeevs:

    ‘…Tucker 2024 to lose momentum…”

    hey, when one door closes, another one opens.   donnie jr 2024!!!    now excuse me while i go and vomit.

  157. 157.

    call_me_ishmael

    @Zzyzx: I wouldn’t say it was in the bag or anything like that but I don’t see Trump adding any new voters to his aging 2016 cohort. The Dem’s clearly have a different mindset than they did, witness the insane participation levels in early voting.

    Also, these kids are voting this time, and I find them pretty inspirational.

    If you worked for the party, it would be a tough messaging straddle to keep ppl from becoming complacent (ie”its gonna be close, make sure you vote”) without being demotivating (“we’re in danger of losing, make sure you vote”). The horserace press is gonna horserace every 30 minutes too, because that’s what they know how to do.

    If we step back and look at the big picture though, Dems are super motivated and swing Repub’s are ashamed and leaking oil. It is beyond the courts ability to change that and all of the vote stifling shenanigans get the Dems more motivated, I reckon. The only persuadable voters left are those in a very low info bubble and Biden’s got a mountain of money to burn on TV this week while Trump’s out of cash and cancelling his victory party.

  158. 158.

    Kay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I told my husband to look at the bright side. His surgeon found the right room. A+

    I haven’t told him he can’t ski this winter yet, but he can’t. It takes 6 months to heal completely.

  159. 159.

    Matt McIrvin

    There’s this rhetorical move they keep using on 538 that I really dislike: they say “the race isn’t really tightening, except that there’s some in Pennsylvania, and we’re watching that closely because according to our model, it’s the state most likely to decide the Electoral College.”

    But that’s misleading: it implies that as goes Pennsylvania, so goes the Electoral College. But if Pennsylvania flips R and the other states don’t, all that means is that Pennsylvania isn’t the one that flips it to Biden; it’s some other state instead.

    Now, they’ve got these correlations built into their model that imply that if PA goes to Trump, a bunch of other states might too. But if those correlations are real, they go the other way too, right? Wouldn’t the widening Biden lead in, say, Wisconsin be evidence that PA is less likely to flip? I don’t know, seems like they’re trying to generate drama out of nothing.

  160. 160.

    WaterGirl

    @Zzyzx:  For what it’s worth, I don’t think you have anything to apologize for.  You shared your concerns, hopefully you are feeling less bleak, and all of us got to hear some things we needed to hear in order to help keep our anxiety at a manageable level.

    It’s not like you are bringing that to every thread, every day.  Or if you are doing that, I have missed it, and you should stop doing that!  :-)

  161. 161.

    Kay

    @frosty:

    Well, his surgeon was correct. The 2nd surgeon made the error. And they do mark with a sharpie. My youngest was born with a bad eye and he had it corrected at a children’s hospital and I was impressed with the process. Every single RN or doc who entered his room checked that it was the correct eye. Over and over and over. Because that’s a catastrophe, right? They screw up the one good eye and leave him with the bad.

  163. 163.

    Kay

    @Matt McIrvin:

    I agree but I’m ok with it because the fact is Biden has a wealth of possibilities and Trump has almost none, and it’s been that way for months.

  169. 169.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay: They screw up the one good eye and leave him with the bad.

    And that has happened. I read of a guy who went in to have his leg amputated and they took the wrong one.

  170. 170.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    Anyone have any thoughts on surviving Election Day? I don’t expect any reporting of results, even of early votes, till polls close. But I don’t expect to be able to focus on anything all day.

    So I have no idea how I’m going to distract myself and not go crazy with worry.

  171. 171.

    RobertB

    @OzarkHillbilly: Not that it’s foolproof, but the local hospital that I usually use will ask several times to explain what you’re in there for, to the point of annoyance.  I guess I’d rather be annoyed than short one good leg.

  174. 174.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Zzyzx: I will repeat this again, if Trump was that smart he could pull of win like that, he would have simply done his job in April and be a shoe for re-election right now.

    And stop with the stupid media narratives dude; it’s all ready been show 2016 was a vote against Hillary, not some vote for Orange Dumbass.  Trump lucked out in so many stupid ways; sucky opponents just phoning it in, peak boomer, a media filled with his buddies, the opioid epidemic with all those stoners looking for voice.

  176. 176.

    thruppence

    Well, our Biden / Harris yard sign disappeared overnight, but they left our Any Functioning Adult 2020 sign. Also, our next door neighbors’ Trump / Pence sign is gone. Radical anti-partisans? Competing bands of jerks?

  178. 178.

    Zzyzx

    @WaterGirl: thanks. It’s really hard to figure out right now what is election stress, what is winter depression, and what is that I haven’t seen a friend in 8 months and since my wife works a swing shift I spend 95% of my time alone with the cats.

  179. 179.

    bemused

    I’m beside myself, so anxious for trump booted out but I just don’t know if that will happen and how I will cope with that possibility. A friend said if not for the pandemic debacle trump made, he might have won handily and not in the bag yet. It’s all so horrifying. I have a general doc appointment the day b4 election and didn’t think I’d ever ask for some kind of med to calm me down in the last four years but now I will.

  180. 180.

    Just One More Canuck

    @Zzyzx: 270towin.com runs 25,000 simulations each day based on data from one of their partners as well as other forecasters. Yesterday’s run showed Biden winning 86% of the time, and there’s more chance of getting more than 400 electoral votes than Trump winning at all. The median votes for Biden is 349. You can also run your own simulations which I have been doing to give myself some peace of mind. It gives you a breakdown of who wins each state, so you can see that there is a non-zero chance of Biden winning Mississippi, Kansas and Utah (!), and a surprisingly good chance at Texas, Georgia and even Alaska.

  181. 181.

    germy

    Breaking: Texas just surpassed its 2016 total votes cast w/ one day of early voting & Election Day left to go.

    The state is reporting 9,009,850 votes already cast, vs. the all-time record of 8,969,226 in 2016. This is massive.

    — Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) October 30, 2020

  183. 183.

    Isua

    Just threw in for Four Directions. My first political contribution this season, after joining the gig economy (yaaaaaaaaay), but it seemed like a way to do something in these last days.

  184. 184.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @OzarkHillbilly:And I haven’t even mentioned Texas which just might have a blue House next year.

    Speaking of Texas, someone at the Orange Websight that shall not be named that during the blue wave in 2018 the Dems took control of Travis county and upped the election budget from 4 million to 32 million which why all the early voting and the strong Democrat vote so far. Sort of makes one wonder were else has team blue reformed their county’s voting process and brought it out of the stone age.

  185. 185.

    schrodingers_cat

    @bemused: This narrative is BS, that the Orange Clown would have won had the pandemic not happened. Rs lost big in 2018 that was before the pandemic. He has never broken 45% approval let alone 50%.
    What he is good at is gaslighting and manipulating the media. Don’t fall for those tactics. He is a troll who was installed into Presidency by the Russians, racists and Republicans. He is deeply unpopular and has been since he was elected.

  187. 187.

    TS (the original)

    @Matt McIrvin:

    I don’t know, seems like they’re trying to generate drama out of nothing.

    You’ve discovered the plan of every political pundit.

  188. 188.

    Baud

    @bemused:

    A friend said if not for the pandemic debacle trump made, he might have won handily

    A lie.  Trump has always been behind in be polls.  He might have had a better chance of winning but he would not have won handily.

  189. 189.

    frosty

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: I’m signed up for poll watching, which will kill the afternoon and evening, at the least. I haven’t heard back about where I’m supposed to be, though.

    It will give me something to do and focus on, and limit the time available to obsessively check B-J and other news.

  190. 190.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Baud: Yes, were do they get this BS? that primary was packed full of Democrats who were just slobbering over themselves to get a chance at Trump because they smelled weakness.

  196. 196.

    germy

    This story about the toddler who was used as a public relations tool by police :

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/10/30/philadelphia-fop-posts-toddler/

    The policewoman who held the child didn’t even wear a mask.  Police falsely claimed they found the toddler “wandering barefoot” in the streets, as if Black parents would simply abandon an infant in order to protest.

    (The police removed it from their social media after complaints from the family’s lawyer)

  198. 198.

    Chyron HR

    @bemused:

    A friend said if not for the pandemic debacle trump made, he might have won handily

    So if Trump wasn’t such a terrible president he wouldn’t be so far behind in the polls? I find your friend’s ideas intriguing and wish to subscribe to their newsletter.

  199. 199.

    Ken

    @schrodingers_cat: @geg6: Thank you. Don’t believe I’ve ever wandered over there, sounds like it’s not recommended?

    Say, is there an equivalent of Yelp for rating blogs and websites?  “Four and one-half stars. Brilliant front-pagers and engaging comments section, had to take off a half star for not quite living up to its claim to be a full-service blog.”

  203. 203.

    MattF

    It’s a detail at this point, but I’ve just checked with the MD BOE, and my ballot status is ACCEPTED, which, according to the website, means counted. YAY.

  204. 204.

    germy

    Elizabeth Warren wants to be Joe Biden's Treasury secretary and will make her case for it if he wins next week, according to three Democratic officials who have spoken with her inner circle.

    "She wants it," two of them said matter-of-factly. https://t.co/guBFJkv99Z

    — Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) October 30, 2020

  207. 207.

    Barbara

    @Zzyzx:  I actually resent the level of hysteria in many of the emails I receive from points far and wide, whether from specific candidates or on behalf of various official Democratic party organizations. First, I don’t know how much of the information is real, and how much just trying to stoke fear to counter complacency, and I can see how countering any sense of complacency would be especially important in Pennsylvania. But I get emails like this in Virginia as well and it drives me a little nuts. Everyone’s anxiety level is high, and the volume and tenor of these emails is starting to be counterproductive for people like me, and probably you as well. But we are probably following things more closely than the average person. So do yourself a favor and delete or block these emails once you have given the amount of money or time that you have set aside for that purpose.

  208. 208.

    Kay

    @KenK:

    So, Trump pockets the donations??!! Heh.

    Guffaw. One of the things I’m looking forward to after he loses is the campaign finance review of his campaign. Good God, the grifting and skimming will be epic.

    People sent the Trump Family a billion dollars – in cash! Okay, after the skimming by the low quality hires that’s at least half a billion for them to pocket.

  210. 210.

    debbie

    It’s somewhat enjoyable listening to Bill O’Reilly detailing how he’s sure Biden will lose. The proof is in all the rallies Biden’s scheduled.

    ETA: His “proof” is that Michelle Obama isn’t out stumping for Biden.

  211. 211.

    bemused

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Yes, I know this mentally but emotionally a wreck.

    2 judges ruled MN absentee ballots have to be in by 8pm, Nov 3.

    Trump rally in Rochester, MN today, home of Mayo Clinic. Rochester didn’t want him there at all but his campaign agreed to 250 person limit at airport. No news on other MN guidelines. I have my doubts he and staff will actually obey that attendance cap.

  213. 213.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Kay:

    the 2nd person was a surgeon and he was talking about a completely different patient. He went to the wrong “loved ones room”.

    Another Trump hire.

  216. 216.

    danielx

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Obligatory: “but the laptop…”

    But I worry. It doesn’t matter how big Biden’s margin of victory is (fingers crossed, FSM willing and all that). Trump is going to claim he was cheated, robbed, swindled. I don’t know whether it’s to try to win via means other than counted votes or whether he really believes it’s impossible for him to lose. It doesn’t matter which, since his stance is that if you aren’t cheating you aren’t trying hard enough – and he believes everyone thinks that way, and if they don’t they are weak and foolish. All that matters to him is winning, by whatever mean necessary. Unfortunately, he’s convinced a lot of his followers also that the only way he can lose is because of voter fraud, and they own a shit ton of firearms.

    Which truly annoys me – not the firearms so much as the fact that they believe him no matter what evidence to the contrary they see and hear. He’s a lying sonofabitch, proven many times over, and they would believe him if he said the laws of physics have been repealed. If he tells them to go out in the streets with rifles they’ll do it, hell, they’ve done it already.

    So yeah, I worry about blood in the streets, because Dems are not going to take another court-mandated or Electoral College loss lying down.

  217. 217.

    Another Scott

    @Zzyzx: Donnie barely won in 2016 because of Comey and all the rest.  Democrats picked up seats (just about) everywhere else (House, Senate, state houses).

    Since January 2017, Democrats have averaged ~ 10+ points higher results than 2016.

    It’s not going to be easy, but Democrats are still fired up and turning out and voting.  We can’t be complacent (the GOP picked up local seats in a small town in VA over the summer), but if people turn out we will win on 11/3.  So far, turnout looks very high…

    Hang in there.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  221. 221.

    columbusqueen

    @TS (the original): Especially since that fat prick Karl is here trying to swing the state Supreme Court races in a big way. Am hoping Jennifer Brunner wins & kicks Karl in the nutsack.

  222. 222.

    Matt McIrvin

    @danielx: I’ve heard “the laptop” described as a cargo-cult reenactment of But Her Emails. They’ve got the outward forms but the underlying mechanism isn’t there.

  224. 224.

    Jeffro

    @rp: nope, LOL

    I think he’s talking about how the Dems might find a way to institute 18-year terms for SCOTUS justices: rotate on for 18 years, rotate back out to the federal courts.

    All that malicious, murderous enabling by the GOP and they’re going to be back at square one within a year, easy.  Sad!

  225. 225.

    Jeffro

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: and at 3am, too!

    He should be completely out of his gourd by Tuesday if he’s not sleeping at all.  It’s the least he deserves.

    On a side note: once trumpov realizes that the GOP’s not going to be able to intervene in Nov/Dec to save him…he should be absolutely. off. the. hook.  Just wait and see the things he says about GOP senators, SCOTUS justices, and his own voters.

  226. 226.

    Ken

    @debbie: His “proof” is that Michelle Obama isn’t out stumping for Biden.

    Versus the huge number of former First Ladies endorsing Trump.  Former Presidents, for that matter – and secretaries of defense, state, treasury, commerce, ….

  228. 228.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Betty Cracker: The LA Times took a look at young (18-29) voters in several states the other day (thread)

    Los Angeles Times @latimes · Oct 28
    TargetSmart data shows:
    Young Florida voters have cast 569,000 ballots, a 42% increase over their 2016 total.
    Some 404,000 young North Carolinians have voted, a 63% jump.
    Young people in Georgia have expanded their vote by 82% to more than 340,000.

    Younger voters tend to favor Democratic candidates by a 30-point margin, according Tufts University experts. “That alone could make the traditionally red state of Georgia more competitive.”

    the comparisons are to 2016, I’d be curious, to see the numbers compared to 2018, especially in Georgia.

    Another Demo that’s breaking turn-out records in important states: African American voters over 65

  229. 229.

    Jeffro

    @germy:It always cracks me up when the left is referred to as “radical” like the left is running around carrying assault rifles, denying science, and discussing not accepting the results of an election

    I am completely, now and forever, stealing and using that.

  230. 230.

    MattF

    @Matt McIrvin: 538 is pretty much in full-clickbait mode. The graphs are somewhat informative, the algorithms are ‘way too complex, IMO. My opinion is that there’s a point at which increasing the amount of correction of current data with past trends alters the question you are asking— you start ‘predicting the past’, which is easier than describing the present but not what you want.

  231. 231.

    Mousebumples

    At work so I cant check to see if someone else already posted this, but I thought this was a great video/ad –

    The Hoarse Whisperer (@TheRealHoarse) tweeted at 9:30 AM on Fri, Oct 30, 2020:
    Taylor Swift has 87.3 million followers on Twitter – the exact same number as Trump.

    This is the first campaign ad she has ever given permission to use her music.

    #onlytheyoung

    https://t.co/6TohIvM5Mz
    (https://twitter.com/TheRealHoarse/status/1322184161571020803?s=03)

    And I have literal tears pouring down my face now. Only a few more days. We can do this.

  234. 234.

    geg6

    @Ken:

    DK is not so bad.  It was nuts in 2016 when, for some reason, Bernie Bros seemed to have taken over everything but staffer posts, but it’s gotten sane again.  I tend to stay away from most posts from the community (and never, ever venture into comments), but the stuff from the staffers tends to be pretty good.  Check it out.  I mostly read their morning pundit roundups.

  237. 237.

    Baud

    @geg6: Even if they’re good, they won’t stay good.  I left there for NJ in 2010 because the proto-Bros were shitting all over Obama’s first two years.  I’d be surprised if the first two years of Biden’s term will be any better.

  238. 238.

    evodevo

    @Kay: Yes.  This.  and tell him to pay strict attention to the physical therapy and do the home exercises they will give him…makes the difference between a success and a shoulder that is still messed up a couple years later…

  240. 240.

    Matt McIrvin

    @MattF: The whole appeal of the “data-driven” approach was supposed to be that it was the antidote to old-fashioned punditry about bellwethers and such. But everything eventually seems to turn into the thing it was trying to supplant

    (Semi-related, I was just comparing electoral-vote.com’s news blog 4 days out from the 2016 election to today. Back then, Hillary seemed to be well ahead on the electoral map but her support was palpably softening across the country, and e-v.com was adamantly denying that there would be a wave of shy Trump voters. This year, Biden’s map seems much more solid but they’re fretting about signs of tightening.)

  241. 241.

    Another Scott

    @NotMax: No doubt.  Signups have been on the low side since they kicked Parscale out.  He got millions to sign up for that thing in Tulsa, didn’t he???  He had a knack that Donnie’s campaign could use right now…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  244. 244.

    geg6

    @Baud:

    Yeah, you’re probably right.  I’ll still always check out the morning pundit roundups, though.  I almost always end up clicking on a link there to something I would not have read otherwise.

  245. 245.

    germy

    @Jeffro:

    listening to an interview w mitch mcconnell and the way he tries to argue that if *chuck schumer* becomes senate majority leader that things will go "radical" is hilarious. and he says it with what appears to be a straight face.— Oliver Willis (@owillis) October 30, 2020

  246. 246.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Baud: heh, you remind me of the final podcast of Dan Pfeiffer and Jon Favreau in 2016, when they were still on the Ringer platform, Keeping It 1600. Pretty sure it was Pfeiffer who gave a long speech about how political junkies want elections to be a great novel, when it’s boring old math. Listen to the quants, he said (remember all the talk of “quants”?). I did. Then we lived out an election co-written by Lovecraft and Cormac McCarthy.

  247. 247.

    Barbara

    @geg6: Agree re DK.  I might venture back, but the willingness to sabotage and self-sabotage was so high in 2016 that I abandoned it altogether.  I used to follow it on election nights, but I found better ways to follow along without having to read the navel gazing negative comments.

  248. 248.

    Another Scott

    @Chief Oshkosh: GovExec has numbers on donations by federal employees:

    Federal employees have donated at least $1.8 million to the major candidates for president in 2020, with nearly 60% of that total going to former Vice President Joe Biden.

    Since the start of 2019, Biden has raised $1.06 million and Trump has raised about $743,000 from federal workers at cabinet-level agencies, according to data from the Federal Election Commission and compiled by Government Executive. That marks a significant change from 2016, when 95% of federal employee donations went to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

    Trump’s donations overwhelmingly came from the two largest departments in the federal government: Defense and Homeland Security, which made up 58% of his federal workforce contributions. By contrast, Defense and DHS employee donations made up just 24% of Biden’s total haul. Some labor groups at DHS, including the council representing Border Patrol workers, have endorsed Trump and fervently supported his presidency. Trump has frequently touted the support he holds among the law enforcement community writ large.

    Labor Department workers donated most overwhelmingly to Biden, with 91% of their total dollars going to the Democratic nominee. That was followed by the Justice Department at 85%, the Education Department at 84% and the State Department. Trump’s top donating agencies were DHS at 65% of contributed dollars, Defense at 63% and the Energy Department at 48%. Biden also held only a narrow advantage from employees at the departments of Commerce and Agriculture.

    State employees donated the most generously, with an average contribution of nearly $200 and $300 to Biden and Trump, respectively. Overall, federal workers gave Biden a much larger average contribution of $104, compared to $69 for Trump.

    Biden’s lead in campaign contributions among the federal workforce nearly matches his spread over Trump in the head-to-head matchup among the same group. A survey by GovExec and the Government Business Council last month found the former vice president up 60% to 32% over Trump with federal employees.

    According to an analysis by The Hill four years ago, federal employees had contributed about $2 million in the presidential race, with about $1.9 million going to Clinton. In 2012, The Hill found, 14% of contributions from feds went to Republican nominee Mitt Romney.

    […]

    Understanding that most people (federal employees or not) do not donate to candidates, Defense donors (on average) like Donnie, but on the whole Democrats continue to do much better with the federal donors.

    FWIW.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  249. 249.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Scrolling through the thread, I haven’t seen this particular set of goat entrails posted. Divine away!

    The Hoarse Whisperer @TheRealHoarse ·2h
    CNN reporting Trump has canceled plans to appear at his hotel on Election Night. Will stay at the White House instead. He knows he’s toast.

  250. 250.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @NotMax: There’s an app for that: although some might rush to dismiss this as a piddling matter….

    As we say in the old country, Wee-wee, mon sewer!

    Back in the BOGOD** the prime reason for visitors to central & eastern Europe to know the location of the nearest McDonalds was as a reliable source of clean and free toilet facilities when out & about.***

    The experience of those public Your-In-Alls – fishing in one’s pocket for unfamiliar change to put on the attendant’s plate while hopping from one foot to the other, then whizzing away while said attendant (usually older female) was mopping between one’s feet … let’s just say it was an experience typical of the time & place worth remembering (as I do now after ~30 years).

    ** The Bad Old Good Old Days, roughly 1985-95, just prior to & after the collapse of the Warsaw Pact

    ** The other good reason was to be reminded of the local language’s version of “thank you” printed on the depository flap of the trash receptables.

  251. 251.

    sdhays

    @Betty Cracker: Or is it simply that the campaign doesn’t have the money to pay Dump Hotel, and he’s not going to stiff himself? Better to have a cheaper event at home at taxpayers expense (at least partially) than having to eat the costs of his loser party.

  252. 252.

    MisterForkbeard

    @germy: My feelings on this will depend entirely on how well we do in the Senate. :)

    If we get a wave and have 53-54 senators, I’m a lot less concerned about this and I think she’d do a fantastic job. If we’re at 50 or 51 senators then it gets a lot more dicey.

  256. 256.

    Croaker

    Uncertainty in Pennsylvania – a crucial swing state pickup for both President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden – on Election Night will likely have an effect on the entire race and could delay the time, or even date, by which prognosticators may declare a winner.

    But while the message may be alarming to some, it’s not completely abnormal, Wolf and Bookvar said. The secretary of state reminded people that official results are never certified on Election Night and that the state has up to 20 days after the election to certify them.

    A handful of counties have also signaled that they won’t start counting mail-in ballots until the day after the election. Boockvar said she and other officials within the Department of State have been in contact with those counties and offered resources to help them begin their counts on Election Day, but it’s not certain if those measures will dissuade county officials to back off their plans.

    The 3 million mail-in ballots that are expected to be cast by Nov. 3 would represent about half of the 6.1 million votes cast by Pennsylvania in 2016. This year’s vote total is expected to eclipse the figure set four years ago, with more than 9 million people registered to vote – a state record.

    Both Woolf and Boockvar also urged people who have requested and received a mail-in ballot but have not returned it yet to avoid a potential Post Office slow-down and “just walk it in” to their county election office, satellite election office or secured drop box before Nov. 3.

    That is an important option for voters as President Trump’s administration continues to try to limit in court the date by which mail ballots can be tallied.

    Wolf’s administration got only a partial win this week as the Supreme Court refused to review a state Republican attempt to limit mail-in ballots received after Election Day. The decision, at least for now, would allow the state to count absentee ballots received up until 5 p.m. on Nov. 6, though these ballots would still have to have been sent by Nov. 3 at the latest.

  258. 258.

    J R in WV

    @Chief Oshkosh: 

    There is polling of military, by the press which specializes in covering the military “family” like Military Times, etc. It shows that more members of the military family than you might suspect have learned not to trust Trump as far as a big strong SEAL can drop him from a flying vehicle.

  259. 259.

    James E Powell

    @germy:

    It always cracks me up when the left is referred to as “radical” like the left is running around carrying assault rifles, denying science, and discussing not accepting the results of an election

    I always cracks me up that people talk about Democratic policy ideas like they haven’t been around for a hundred years, like they have been applied in other places and found to work much better than right-wing ideas.

    And another thing, the only real Marxists in America are academics for whom Marxism is less about the life of working class people and more about analyzing Jane Austen novels.

  261. 261.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Too many olds who no longer have a stake in the game vote to perpetuate a 1950s that terrorized wide swaths of people and which weren’t all that magical for those who ostensibly benefitted from the predominant social order.

    You think not? Guys like Dad would have disagreed vehemently. He graduated from HS in the teeth of the Depression, made do as best he could during the 30s, went off to war & was lucky enough to come home in one piece…& was grateful to the end of his days to work a semiskilled job (for which he was overeducated) & earn enough to buy a house, buy a brand-new car every few years, vacation with family every summer, send his sons to college, and retire comfortably. And he passed away at age 85 a happy man.

    It’s true enough that all that depended upon (among other things) the rest of the industrialized world busy digging itself out of the ruins, a corporate US scared spitless of the return of the Depression, and a strong but restrained union culture. And it’s true enough that the benefits weren’t shared equally with minorities and women.** But their Earthly Paradise from the glorious days-gone-by is & always was the white not-well-educated male’s version.

    ** It can be argued that the Civil RIghts movement’s successes in that period were critically dependent on the economic boom: Harder to deny people wanting more of the pie when it comes out of a pie is getting bigger by the day. Compare that with the viciousness of the current zero-sum shitpile after the owners skim off all the productivity increases.

  262. 262.

    JAFD

    Re Pennsylvania: Please remember that in last year’s election the county governments in Delaware and Chester Counties – Philadelphia suburbs, had been GOP or Whig since the Year One – switched t o Democratic.  The Keystone State, I am not worried about

  263. 263.

    JAFD

    @Uncle Cosmo: Note that I’m 70, which means I was 10 years old when the ’50’s ended.  I had a reasonably happy childhood (if I had kept my toy closet intact till now, could probably sell contents for several thousand).

    But those who remember the Eisenhower years as adults are few these days (and you should think about recording them for history)

  264. 264.

    JAFD

    @Uncle Cosmo: This is, actually, serious.  Have been on ‘water pills’ since my heart attack.  Feel sometimes I oughta be classed with the ‘mobility-restricted’, with public bathrooms made scarce.

    Let me know when they make app like that for NYC and northern NJ, please.

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