Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

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

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

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Putin dreamed of ending NATO, and now it’s Finnish-ed.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

No Justins, No Peace

No one could have predicted…

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

Happy indictment week to all who celebrate!

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

I didn’t have alien invasion on my 2023 BINGO card.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

Joe Lieberman disappointingly reemerged to remind us that he’s still alive.

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

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / I keep holding on

I keep holding on

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Our system is fucked up, yes.

There’s going to be all kinds of shenanigans. I don’t think they’ll be enough to keep Biden from a pretty decisive victory. But, yes, is stresses me out a bit.

If you’d like to do any last minute stress giving, the two Georgia Senate races are a good place to give, because they are likely to go to run-offs.

Raphael Warnock, Georgia Senate (special election)

Goal Thermometer

Jon Ossoff, Georgia Senate (regular election)

Goal Thermometer

Ballot access is *always* a good place to give and this is one is among our readers’ favorites.

Four Directions (ballot access for Native people)

Goal Thermometer

You can see everyone we are supporting here.

Reader Interactions

76Comments

  2. 2.

    germy

    the trump campaign’s public position is that the president can only win if a large number of ballots are not counted in key states, and the media should be very clear about that for the next 48 hours.— mike casca (@cascamike) November 1, 2020

  3. 3.

    germy

    A party that can only win by taking away your right to vote is out of ideas and no longer part of the American democratic framework.

    — Joshua Zeitz (@JoshuaMZeitz) October 31, 2020

  4. 4.

    debbie

    @germy:

    How many years has it been since we’ve heard Rethuglicans talk about their principles the way William F. Buckley did? It feels like forever and that’s because they abandoned them back when Reagan made them feel like only they could govern the country.

  5. 5.

    Old Dan and Little Ann

    I was gonna vote on Tuesday but then realized, fuck it.  I went today and waited about 30 minutes in the cold rain.  All the people inside were super friendly and I have never been happier filling in those ovals. Eye on the prize.

  7. 7.

    WaterGirl

    In case you guys missed it, gkoutnik posted this comment the other day.

    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.

  8. 8.

    Luciamia

    And if Trump was way behind and they were ready to call it for Biden election night, you can bet ‘ counting every vote’ would suddenly become sacred.

  11. 11.

    Redshift

    I saw that Rick Klein tweet, and it should be exhibit A in how not to handle disinformation. I’m sure he thinks he did just fine by posting the “point” by itself and then saying of course it’s all BS in the follow-up tweet, but he absolutely didn’t. This is just endemic in the media, put the outrageous quote in the headline, then debunk it in the body. In a world where the headline is what gets seen on social media, that just amplifies the lie.

  13. 13.

    rikyrah

    Jerry Falwell Jr. and his wife ‘played game where they ranked which Liberty University students they wanted to have sex with’, says student who ‘had sexual affair with Becki after band practice with her son’

    • They allegedly enjoyed playing ‘would you rather’ as they walked around campus
    • ‘She didn’t go into specifics, but said, ‘Oh, me and Jerry play games all the time, like ‘Would you rather?’ with people on campus,’the former student alleges 
    • Jerry and Becki have denied the game allegation, saying it is ‘completely false’
    • Student spoke out in August to claim Becki performed oral sex on him in 2008
    • Days earlier Falwell Jr was forced to resign as president of Liberty University
    • That came after a a pool boy came forward alleging he had an affair with the pair
    •  Giancarlo Granda said Jerry would watch him having sex with Becki
    • The couple are also said to have used the university’s private jet for their personal travel and their family kept on the university payroll 

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8903045/Falwells-played-game-ranked-Liberty-Uni-student-sex-with.html?ito=push-notification&ci=46698&si=733427

  15. 15.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    trump was in Michigan– the fabled Macomb County, where all the women are strong, and all the voters are Reagan Democrats– whining about the cold earlier today (he’s now in Iowa, twitter tells me)

    Daniel Dale @ddale8
    Trump, talking about the uncomfortable weather, says he’s been to concerts where Pavarotti, “the greatest of all divas,” would say (Italian accent) “no no no no, I do not feel good, I will not sing tonight,” but anyway, “he liked me” even though he was “terrible to other people.”

    Trump ends his Pavarotti story, which featured two instances of him talking in an “Italian” accent, by saying that he, unlike Pavarotti, won’t leave because it’s uncomfortable, because “I’m not a diva.”

    because all the grizzled retired auto workers love a good opera singer story

  16. 16.

    germy

    Why did Attorney General Bill Barr meet & pray with Dave Daubenmire, a deeply bigoted, anti-Semitic, anti-choice, anti-LGBTQ right-wing conspiracy theorist who has called interracial marriage “spiritual AIDS” and demanded that Hillary Clinton be executed? https://t.co/XJD3jgjBhI

    — Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) November 1, 2020

  18. 18.

    rikyrah

    Raphael Warnock, Georgia Senate (special election)

     

    Warnock is not a bad candidate. When it all began, the ‘ names’ didn’t want to run. He stepped up to the plate. Can’t be more of a 180 compared to the current Senator.

  19. 19.

    germy

    Trump supporter Betsy: "I'm getting a little bit nervous for election time in that if Trump does win, I'm afraid of violence, & I don't think there's any chance that Trump won't win unless it's massive voter fraud. So I've signed up to be a challenger, to watch out at the polls." pic.twitter.com/8pNeJjLQeh

    — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 1, 2020

  22. 22.

    WaterGirl

    @Luciamia: You’ve got that right!  We may even get to see that play out exactly that way on election night.  Which would reveal them to be the hypocrites that they are.  But then anyone willing to see it already knows that.

  25. 25.

    japa21

    @germy: I don’t know what state she is in, but she has to get special documentation in a lot of states to be a poll watcher. Signing up with the campaign won’t do it. Usually has to be certified by the county. Also, she can challenge all she wants, but the election workers get to decide if the challenge is valid. I have a hunch they are not training the Trump people.

  28. 28.

    What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?

    Just to calm nerves, according to 538 Biden’s national polling lead with 3 days to go is larger than Obama’s in 2008. He’s less than two points from where HW was in 1988, and you have to go back to Clinton in 1996 to find the last candidate with a bigger lead at this point in the race.

  29. 29.

    japa21

    Haven’t been keeping up today, but I just something about the GOP’s attempt to get the curbside votes in Houston thrown out was rejected.

  33. 33.

    Comrade Colette Collaboratrice

    I did the Choose Democracy online training on How to Beat an Election-Related Power Grab. It’s excellent, and somehow reassuring despite the need for such a training to exist. There’s one again today at 5PM Pacific/8PM Eastern, and another (except we really, really hope not) on November 5.

    It’s led by George Lakey, a longtime and immensely experienced Quaker civil rights activist and professor, and part of the fun (!) for me was the flashback to my Quaker college days. If you can, do it. If you can’t, read this article in the Atlantic about it.

  34. 34.

    WaterGirl

    @japa21: I thought that was scheduled to be heard on Monday?

    There were two similar cases (not to have the votes thrown out but to shut down the voting from the car) that were shut down by the Texas Supreme Court.

    But the most recent one – in federal court – is supposed to be heard on Monday.  Do you have a way to check whether what you heard was federal court or the TX supreme court?

  40. 40.

    Ocotillo

    Mrs. O worked as an Election Judge for early voting this year.  I say that in the past tense today because she is not going to work Election Day even though she was supposed to.  She has a underlying condition so I had tried to talk her out of working but she has been cooped up since March and wanted to get out of the house.  Poll workers are required to wear masks.  Voters are not.  She set up her location in such a manner that everyone that came in would get their hands sanitized and be given a glove to use the touch screen voting machine.  Terminals were set up at roughly six foot intervals.  One of the machines was designated to be used if an unmasked person came in.  Out of over 22,000 votes cast, she approximated maybe 6 people did not wear a mask.  They did not create a scene, if it was a couple, one was asked to wait outside while the other used the designated voting machine.

    Friday was the last day of early voting which would end at 10:00pm.  At 7:00, an unmasked poll watcher showed up.  Due to the limited space inside the facility, it was determined a maximum of 2 poll watchers could be in at a time.  The unmasked poll watcher asked to speak with one of the 2 that were already in the facility.  The person who had been poll watching agreed to leave and give up her spot to the unmasked poll watcher.  Mrs. O asked her to put a mask on.  She refused.  The Elections Office was phoned and ruled the poll watcher could not be compelled to put a mask on.  This upset Mrs. O.

    Mrs. O and the alternate Election Judge (a non-practicing Medical Doctor) decided they would not continue to work at the poll if they would be compelled to be exposed to an unmasked person for more than the amount of time it took to vote.  The poll watcher stayed for 3 hour and due to limited spacing, where she chose to sit took away the ability to use to voting machines because she was too close to the machines.  There was nowhere else to put her.

    Voting was constant although there was not a long line, people just kept showing up.

    When Mrs. O spoke with the county Elections Office and explained why she would not be reporting on Tuesday (nor the alternate judge) of course it put them in a tough spot.  They were empathetic and apologized and said they understood her reasoning but the Governor (Abbott) had ruled they could not compel poll watchers to wear a mask.

    So here is GOP ruled Texas, Abbott’s need to play along with the Covidiots not only risked exposure of poll workers and voters.  The unmasked poll watchers “right” to not wear a mask also took two voting machines out of a commission for three hours.

    Keep in mind, a fair number of the poll workers are senior citizens doing a temporary job.  Mrs. O worked over 75 hours this past week so I empathize with the full time Elections people and the temporary poll workers who are doing amazing work under stressful conditions.  It is really despicable the behavior of Republicans in this election process to really take away the right to vote.  If only they valued the right to vote as much as the right to bear arms.

  41. 41.

    J R in WV

    Did Balloon Juice actually raise nearly a Quarter of a Million $$$$$$ for Jon’s Senate race in GA? $240,000 specifically! Or are there others contributing to that funding…

    So glad to see folks kicking in to Four Directions, which I first donated to in the 2016 cycle IIRC.

  46. 46.

    japa21

    @Leto: I haven’t followed this too closely, but if the votes were cast, how do they know which ones were the ones they are arguing against. Or does TX do early voting in a way none of the ballots are actually submitted until election day?

  48. 48.

    James E Powell

    I am tapped out on cash donations. I’ve already donated the equivalent of the VOX AC 15c1 I have been thinking about for the last two years.

    But I have time, so I’m texting to my beloved home state of Ohio. Response rate is below 10% – I’ve received a few horrible responses from Trump voters, a few “voting for Biden” replies, but mostly people texting STOP!

    I’m doing this because I hate phone banking and I hate phone banking because I hate getting phone calls from people I don’t know, but don’t mind texts. I do wonder if this stuff works.

  49. 49.

    Obdurodon

    That exchange with the finance director from Four Directions just warmed my heart. If anyone deserves more help with having their voices heard, it’s the people they represent. And yeah, I did put my money where my big mouth is.

  50. 50.

    WaterGirl

    @James E Powell: The Pod Save America guys pointed out that if you get even 2 or 3 good responses out of 100, when you multiply that by the number of people who are doing it, that could make the difference between winning a state and losing it.

  51. 51.

    PJ

    @James E Powell: I hate getting texts from people I don’t know.  Maybe this is a generational thing, but it irritates me more and takes more mental energy for me to type STOP (or to find the unsubscribe link and type out my email in the unsubscribe box) than to have a discussion with someone.

  52. 52.

    Quiltingfool

    @raven: OT:  Luxury vinyl tile, from previous post, re what does my husband think of it.  Well, I can tell you he has installed vinyl tile, but he hates it, and he also hates Berber carpet.  His dislike of vinyl tile is that it tears easily and really doesn’t wear well.  He likes tile better for floors in kitchens, bathrooms, laundry rooms.  He will tell you Berber carpet wears like iron, but he thinks it is very rough and scratchy.  However, whatever a customer wants, a customer gets.

    The Busch family (beer guys) had a compound at Lake of the Ozark, and my husband helped install pure wool carpeting in the houses.  Very expensive stuff.  I asked him why someone would spend so much on wool, as I thought it would wear out quickly.  He told me that wool actually wears quite well, much better than acrylic fibers.

  53. 53.

    Matt McIrvin

    Just saw my first comment with peculiar spelling on 538 confidently predicting that Massachusetts will go for Trump! I’d seen several people insisting that California would vote for Trump but this is the first time they’ve been that confident.

  54. 54.

    James E Powell

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Just trolls. Trump supporters – unlike some Democrat I know – never do that “OMG! Just saw another poll that says we’re losing!” thing.

  58. 58.

    mrmoshpotato

    “We first gotta beat Donald Trump!  He’s the virus!”

    – Joe Biden in Philly right now talking about beating COVID-19.

  61. 61.

    David ?Booooooo!? Koch

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:  That said, I love the Met Opera’s “Nixon in China” production.

    The guy playing Mao is off the charts:

     

    Our armies do not go abroad.
    Why should they?
    We have all we need.


    New missionaries, businesslike,
    survey the field and the attack,
    promise to change our rice to bread,
    and wash us in our brothers’ blood,

    ** and give us beads **

    and crucify us on a cross of usury.
    After them come the Green Berets,
    insuring their securities.

     
    Smedley Butler couldn’t have said it better.

  62. 62.

    Barbara

    @Quiltingfool: I had LVT installed in my kitchen after my laminated flooring was ruined by a water leak.  I think it was around 15 years ago.  The brand is Amtico and I love it to bits.  I would never, ever have tile flooring in a kitchen.

  65. 65.

    Kathleen

    @germy: I don’t see what the problem is. I’m sure NYT would refer to him as an “avid Trump supporter” which in their minds makes him cuddly.

  68. 68.

    different-church-lady

    A view from the NYTs:

    Trump’s apparent weakness in many of the country’s largest electoral prizes leaves him with a narrow path to the 270 Electoral College votes required to claim victory, short of a major upset or a systemic error in opinion polling surpassing even the missteps preceding the 2016 election.

  69. 69.

    different-church-lady

    Shit! NOVEMBER SHOCKER! FBI ANNOUNCES INVESTIGATION!!!

    FBI investigating alleged harassment of Biden campaign bus by vehicles flying Trump flags

    The FBI confirmed an investigation has been launched into the incident

  72. 72.

    Goku (Amerikan Baka)

    @Redshift:

    I saw this come across my dash on Tumblr a few weeks ago about:

    Things about journalism that tumblr never seems to grasp

    Headlines have to be as streamline as possible.  Aka, they can’t include names unless the article is about a well-known public figure.

    Those “water is wet” articles do more then explain what you already know, they’re providing evidence and sources that support/explain what you already know.

    Oh my god, there’s information after the headline.

     

    Good journalism is trying to start conversations, explain ideas and answer questions. Not simplify issues, prove why x, y and z are true or serve as a battering ram for whatever opinion you already agreee with.

    Journalists are people and absolutely have opinions and thoughts about what they cover. No one is a blank slate! Is that going to influence their coverage? Yeah, probably. But damn if they’re not trying to get the full picture.

    Journalists are going to treat their sources with respect and fairness. Even if a journalist feels someone’s ideas are a flaming pile of garbage—that person is a human who has taken the time to share their flaming pile of garbage ideas with the reporter and the press does not exist to drag people publicly. (e.g. journalists do not write things to the affect of “public official/local resident is a liar and also stupid, can you believe they told me this crap? Everyone should hate them”)

    ?This is not to say good journalism will not provide facts and other voices that point out the ways in whoch flaming piles of garbage ideas are on fire?

    —>Is someone saying something stupid? Look to the next paragraph, your reporter friend will probably provide a quote or information from a credible authority that’s serving to point out that some idiot just had a really bad take on something. (e.g. “person said that they are upset because they think the government is overreacting to global pandemic and that they think everything is being blown out of proportion” (next paragraph) “Health experts say that global pandemic is not being blown out of proportion and everyone should wear a g-d damn mask”). The journalist is expecting the reader to recognize the credibility of the expert saying that an idea is stupid. (Every journalist is like “I’m not allowed to insult the guests directly”)

    Journalists are not paid for their opinions or ideas. That’s what columnists and late-night comedy hosts get paid for. If it’s not factual or attributable, it’s not going in the story.

    The rumor you heard 2 months ago from your friend who has a friend probably isn’t news.

    —>Additionally, if you’re not willing to go on record or point to someone who can answer questions/verify information on the record and use their name, there’s not much  the journalist can do. Anonymous sourcing is not taken lightly. Like, you better be a top ranking government official spilling ethics violations and willing to point in directions and drop names and be in some sort of danger if you’re asking to be anonymous.

    These people are idiots

  73. 73.

    J R in WV

    @Quiltingfool:

    …my husband helped install pure wool carpeting in the houses. Very expensive stuff. I asked him why someone would spend so much on wool, as I thought it would wear out quickly. He told me that wool actually wears quite well, much better than acrylic fibers.

    My grandparents built a house just down the ridge top from our house.All that land was bought back in the 20s or 30s and gifted to all the aunts and uncles and my dad… ot keep the family together, which worked pretty well.

    Part had parquet oak flooring, but the living room/dining room had grey wool carpet. Was really nice, but as a V young child, I spent a lot of time on that floor, and it was kinda itchy.

    Granddad had a clue about all his grandchildren… to have them around all summer, he built a little concrete pond. This was before pools with heaters and filters, it was just a concrete box with spigots at the top and a drain at the bottom.

    We drained it every 6 weeks, scrubbed it with lysol filled it back up with ice cold city water straight from a trout creek. And by “we” I mean the grandkids!

    But we were there a whole lot as kids.

  74. 74.

    sdhays

    @Leto: The Republican Speaker of the Texas House:

    The lawsuit attempting to disenfranchise more than 100,000 voters in Harris County is patently wrong. #txlege pic.twitter.com/rk6eWXgPrK— Joe Straus (@SpeakerStraus) November 1, 2020

    ETA: He goes on to add that Republicans should be trying to win people over with their ideas rather than trying to prevent people from being able to vote. What a concept!

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