I don’t know about y’all, but I can take much more of this waiting shit. I know we’re in a much better position with the vote counting than Team Orange Fart Cloud. But I’m never making an assumption about an election outcome again, ever, and this goddamned rollercoaster is killing me.
I suck at math in the best of times, and I haven’t slept more than two hours straight since Tuesday. So mulling over percentages and the number of outstanding ballots, etc., in several states every hour makes me want to pour a quart of rum in a half-eaten container of pineapple sorbet and call it lunch. Count faster, states, and put us out of our misery! Speaking of the Count:
— Rose Judson (@rosejudson) November 5, 2020
Remember yesterday when I said I was going to try to stop caring as much about politics going forward? Yeah, fuck that. I lasted maybe three hours. But I did go on a nice boat ride, and I saw some pretty birds. Here’s a Double-Crested Cormorant:
And a shy Limpkin:
Is today the day we’ll get resolution on this election? Please let it be so. I almost cried when I realized today isn’t Friday. It feels like NEXT Friday.
Open thread.
PS: Trump is bellowing on Twitter in ALL CAPS and getting his tweets hidden by the Twitter cops for misleading information about the election, so that’s how his day is going. Good. I hope it stings like rubbing alcohol on road rash.
Almost Retired
I did election protection work in Nevada at the end of October. Last week, I felt like protecting voters. This week, I feel like slugging them.
Baud
I’m in the same boat, fellow future normie. But as much as I want them to count faster for my own peace of mind and sound sleep, it’s important they do it right and by the book.
I really need to learn to compartmentalize. I’m in awe of those who can.
Gin & Tonic
“to pour a quart of rum in a half-eaten container of pineapple sorbet and call it lunch”
Wow, nutritional recommendations too – truly a full-service blog.
Elizabelle
I will take a shy Limpkin over a shy Trump voter any day of the week. Bring on the birds.
MattF
Pretty detailed NYT article on current situation. I confess I didn’t read the whole thing.
dmsilev
He’s got Loser Stink all over himself, so Twitter etc. don’t feel quite so compelled to bend their rules in his favor. See also: Fox sticking with their “Biden wins Arizona” call.
Nicole
I hear you. I have a lot of paperwork that needs to get done, and here I am, frantically refreshing Twitter every 90 seconds.
mali muso
Yeah, I have pretty much given up the idea of getting anything productive done at work this week. The confidence that analysts like Dave Wasserman seem to have about PA is helping keep me sane, but the waiting is excruciating.
catclub
don’t sell yourself short. That is a high quality daiquiri recipe!
NotMax
Silly Betty, that’s breakfast.
:)
WaterGirl
Betty, may I join you for lunch? That sounds delicious!
JPL
They keep finding more votes to count in democratic leaning counties in GA. hmmm,,
Aleta
catclub
In investing, they now realize those people are sociopaths.
feebog
I have a doctor’s appointment this morning and after that, at the computer working. Going to check the numbers every couple hours, but otherwise not sweat it. More concerned about the two Georgia Senate seats and what we can do to take them right now.
dmsilev
@MattF: Summary of the article:
PA: Biden a heavy favorite to win, probably by 100k+ votes
AZ: Will be very close. Probably Biden holds his (thin) lead.
GA: Will be very close. Not clear how many ballots are left to count, but Biden has a good chance of pulling ahead.
NV: Biden probably will win.
NC: ???
In terms of reaching 270, Biden winning either PA or any two of the others would do it. Trump would have to both win PA and take 3 of the remaining 4.
Baud
@catclub:
Then why am I so bad at it?
Boris, Rasputin's Evil Twin
@WaterGirl: Change that to vodka and orange sorbet, and that’s MY lunch these days.
Kay
I’m for counting the votes but it will piss me off if they don’t call it for Biden when it’s clearly Biden because that to me means Donald Trump is still cowing this country into submission with his temper tantrums and threats.
I’m sick of him getting special treatment.
JPL
Rev. Warnock is getting ready for the negative ads.
https://twitter.com/ReverendWarnock/status/1324321816102506497
RandomMonster
Shy Limpkin would be great band name.
Baud
@Kay:
Yeah, people are projecting at least a 100K win in PA, but no one wants to call it.
cope
Love limpkins, cormorants…meh. Funny Autocorrect changed limpkins to pumpkins four fucking times! Why must the universe torment me so?
I’m helping my wife make a birthday cake for our grandson who becomes a teenager tomorrow. She is ambitiously making a tiered checkerboard cake with red velvet and white cakes. She is taking this on for the first time without a net. I’m there for moral support only.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Agreed. One thing I find mildly encouraging: the MSM is mostly responding to his stupid tantrums in a dismissive way.
WaterGirl
@Boris, Rasputin’s Evil Twin: Boris, have you seen my notes saying that your comments ALWAYS have to be manually released because of the apostrophe in your nym?
mali muso
I think I am going to run an errand to keep my mind busy. Our local bookstore let me know that my book order is ready for pickup. Two kids books for my kiddo celebrating her natural hair (Hair Love and Don’t Touch my Hair!) Could have gotten them on Amazon, but I’m trying to make an effort to support local business. Please FSM let there be some good news when I get back!!!
cain
I woke up today in dread – thinking shit would have gone off the rails or something. Horrible. Ready for this day to be over and have Biden as president.
McConnell that motherfucker is already plotting – and indicating that the senate is only going to allow him to have centrist cabinet positions – Republican centrists is probably just be no Qanons. Who the fuck is he to dictate to the president who he can put. But yeah, already I can see we are in for a rough ride.
ETA – he’s going to reject every one of the Dems we’ve all been talking about to run the various cabinet positions.
Kay
@Baud:
And they would have called it any other year, but once again we all have to defer to the feelings of the Trump Family.
They get special rules. All of a sudden all of the processes we’ve used for the last 50 years are now suspect? Bullshit. It’s a capitulation to this asshole family. Enough. The public shouldn’t be held hostage to this ridiculous sleazy family and their demands.
WaterGirl
@JPL: That is an awesome ad.
O. Felix Culpa
@cain: Acting cabinet secretaries. Each and every one of them. The precedent has already been set.
OldDave
Could be worse – there’s a video clip making the rounds of some poor bicyclist who ran off-road into a cactus. Bits of thorny plant attached to pretty much all of his body.
Kay
Jerking around the public, adding all this manufactured chaos, simply to kowtow to Donald Trump and his awful fucking family. We’re hostages to this reality tv show they have created.
NotMax
@cope
It’s a tough job but someone has to lick the bowls.
:)
Checkerboard cake? Color me impressed.
donnah
When is your book coming out, Betty? Because I would buy a hundred copies and share your hilarious writing with everyone I know.
Baud
@Kay:
I think part of it is ratings. Once they call PA, it’s over. How many people will stop watching?
Soprano2
Already McConnell is out there saying he’s basically going to choose Biden’s cabinet. I predict that the press will shrug their shoulders and say “ho-hum, no big deal”, rather than screaming about how the president should get to choose the cabinet he wants. The Biden people better get out there right away and push back hard on that crap.
James E Powell
@MattF:
I read it. I feel better. I am going to eat oatmeal now
ETA – @dmsilev: Excellent summary. If we were in college, I would want your notes.
Kay
Donald Trump was permitted to enjoy his tiny razor thin win in 2016 and no one got in the way of that. But because we all have decided the Trump Family can upend process, we all have to pretend no one can call anything now without 100% of the vote in.
O. Felix Culpa
@Kay: True. And when the vote is finally called, let us savor.
Villago Delenda Est
LIVE footage of Donald reacting to Wisconsin being called for Biden.
Frank McCormick
Betty,
I’m presuming you already know that next Friday is the Thirteenth?
Starfish
Betty, there was a video I saw on Twitter that described this feeling perfectly. It was this one.
Yutsano
@cope: My rule re: cakes. If Chef John hasn’t made it, I ain’t trying it!
Gin & Tonic
I want this to be resolved today, because I’m heading down to see my grandkids tomorrow and I want to be calm. They are blessedly too young to care who wins.
Kay
@Baud:
It makes us look like a banana republic. Who said we have to abandon how we’ve handled every election call for the last 50 years because Jared Kushner is having a spoiled brat hissy fit? Coddled.
WaterGirl
@SiubhanDuinne: The lunch crowd at Betty’s place is gonna get pretty crowded. Or it would, if not for COVID.
Ksmiami
@cain: Biden can say we are in a national emergency and appoint acting cabinet members fast… fuck Mitch how dare he
cmorenc
Georgia as of 10:37am:
– 61,367 ballots are still left to count
– Biden is behind by 18,546
Biden needs to get 65.2% of the remaining 61,367 ballots to win Georgia.
(Calculated by following method):
61,367 – 18,546 = 42,821
So Biden needs to get ((42,821 / 2) + 18, 546) + 1 ballots to win = 39,957 total Biden votes from 61,367
or 65.2 %
catclub
This is where I go in and 1) find and 2) fix the dictionary that Autocorrect uses.
Fix may end up meaning break painfully.
Boris Rasputin (the evil twin)
@WaterGirl: Sorry, I had started today with liquid lunch.
For the past few months, it’s been hard for Grigori and me to decide if the bottles in front of us are the last of the night, or the first of the day. Damn Trump.
Parfigliano
@O. Felix Culpa: Yup. Acting Cabinet Sec positions. Let the GOPers howl…Fuck em
NotMax
@Yutsano
“Stir in the shredded coconut. And a generous sprinkle of cayenne.”
:)
Villago Delenda Est
@Kay: Donald could use some special treatment. Just not the sort he wants.
Kay
@O. Felix Culpa:
Do more than savor. Hammer it home to these people that Biden’s win will be much bigger than Trump’s was in 2016. There’s really no need to kiss their asses.
Democrats accepted the results in 2000 and 2016 with much smaller margins than this one. No one coddled us. Why the different treatment? Because they pitch fits and threaten violence?
I won’t coddle them and I resent these cable news people bringing me in to their cowardly inability to deal. I’m not on board.
catclub
@Starfish: That is the first cat I have ever seen responding to music.
Yutsano
This sounds fun.
EDIT: my Interwebs are sooooo slow right now.
By Rook or by Crook
I am suspiciously serene during this counting limbo. Without a blue tsunami call on election night, I have to find joy in the schadenfreude of Wingnuts tears. I am not proud of myself, but seeing a reflection of my own angst from 4 years ago soothes me. Biden will win. The count continues. The inexorable tide rolls in for all of the rights flailing around the waves.
Also, Betty, you need a little something to cut all that sweet of the rum and sorbet to round out your lunch. There is plenty of salt around.
catclub
I sure hope California is the future, because the vote margin in California alone is bigger than the entire national margin of votes. This election sure would have been easy with NPV
SiubhanDuinne
(Reposted to fix formatting)
This is a bad thing how, exactly?
cmorenc
Wouldn’t it be sweet if Biden’s net winning margin in either:
– Georgia;
– Az and/or Nevada
or Pa
…wound up being EXACTLY 537
(hint: Florida 2000)
Of course, we’re hoping at least one of these three possibilities ends up being comfortably much larger (several thousand votes) – but if one of the paths gives a Biden win by 537…well it was good enough for George W Bush, it’s good enough for us.
Cermet
@cain: Then we do as Rump did – fill with a temp and laugh if they complain; tell them to tell it to the IG (who we ignore) and further laugh when they appeal to the JD. Exactly what they did.
NotMax
@SiubhanDuinne
Adding sliced banana makes it health food.
;)
GoBlueInOak
@dmsilev: Fox News calling AZ a no lose proposition. Biden wins, they claim it shows they are fair and balanced brain geniuses. Trump wins it, they crow about Trump’s amazing “comeback”.
Yutsano
@NotMax: If the main base is chocolate…that would actually work. :P
dmsilev
@James E Powell:
My handwriting is horrible.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: @Kay: They should call it. Why are they dragging it out.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Baud: A lot to be said for that, remember Trump and all these news people are basically entertainers and they all know the shows over because Biden is an adult.
The Daily Show posted a video of the absurd scandles the media had to make up with Obama.
R-Jud
My friend brought over four fresh-baked scones about two hours ago. “Eat them all by Saturday!” he shouted from my drive.
They’re gone already. With butter, jam and clotted cream, as God intended.
WaterGirl
@Boris Rasputin (the evil twin): No apologies! But if it were me, I would want my comments to post right away, and not have to wait for a front pager to spot them.
I don’t think any of us are functioning at our best these days. I am certainly not.
dmsilev
@Baud:
Nobody is going to call PA until Biden is actually in the lead with counted votes.
Edit: Yes, it’s nearly inevitable given how things are going and what’s still left to count. But they’re still going to wait until Biden passes Trump.
mad citizen
I logged off from here about 8o minutes ago, telling myself not to look for a while. Anyhoo, went to bed Tuesday night late feeling awful, but it was your post Betty in the early a.m. that led with orangestain saying he had won. I’ve been on the good half of feeling better ever since (of course with frequent terror thoughts), because a couple minutes after reading that I thought, well, he is wrong about just everything, so I’ll have to assume he will be wrong about this.
Well, checking back later but appreciate all the jackals providing good feeling updates about PA. Got to go to a video call.
Ohio Mom
I’m having flashbacks to Ohio Dad’s heart surgery. Which felt like it took forever (it took as long as I was told it would take).
I knew the odds were on our side but still…a harrowing day.
Yutsano
@R-Jud: Wait…was he expecting otherwise? I get a fresh scone like that it’s going in mah belleh. Plus he knows you have a child right?
gene108
@Soprano2:
No surprise. I’ll be impressed, if Biden can fully staff the Executive branch. A Republican controlled Senate may fight this tooth and nail.
And since the media treats politics like a horse race, it’s boing to be how McConnell is ahead of Biden in scheming, and can Biden close the gap type of coverage.
The Moar You Know
@Boris, Rasputin’s Evil Twin: My wife’s cousin introduced me a satanic concoction of vanilla vodka and orange juice. Wow! Tasted like orange Julius – exactly. No kick at all! I can drink these all night!
Then I tried to stand up about midway through the second one and fell onto the floor. Holy fuck.
SenyorDave
We are a failed state. I suspect half the third world countries can run elections better than the US.
R-Jud
@Yutsano: Thankfully, The Child only likes chocolate things. And she never saw them, so even if she were pro-scone, she’d be none the wiser.
cain
@O. Felix Culpa:
There is going to be a lot of primal screams in this blog about McConnell I’m going to bet – the man has effectively trying to become the new head of govt.
We’ll just replace “KHAAAAAAN!!” with “MC.. CONNNELLLLL!”
The Trump set will be laughing their ass off. I think we need to do some DOJ investigations around his wife’s businesses.
WaterGirl
@gene108: That from McConnell writes the perfect ad for the runoff races in GA. During a pandemic? With all the challenges facing up? Mitch McConnell wants to block everything the president tries to do? Vote them out.
Jess
As much as this sucks for us, imagine how much worse it must be for trump and his supporters. Hehehe.
Miss Bianca
@catclub: Well, Colorado – by a fairly comfortable margin, I might add, which surprised me – just voted to join the NPV. One more state down, something like – what, 20? – to go!
Platonicspoof
In the Bunker Down post, NeenerNeener needed a response to someone who thought more votes had been cast for Biden than there were registered voters in Wisconsin. Since I expect this will be a recurring claim elsewhere, here in Oregon the Secretary of State’s office has summaries of eligible voters, registered voters, votes, etc., even broken down to the county level.
Hopefully every state’s SoS has this kind of info available to kill some of the lies.
cain
Yeah, that’s what I am thinking – besides we are going to need everyone in our senate to fight this malignant turtle and his hacks.
Just fill em up with temp people – hell we all can take a turn. We’re goign to have to prep for the mid terms starting now and get our fights started.
the danger here is that the American public will lose their shit again because nothing has changed and go back to electing Republicans. I hate these people.
Full Metal Wingnut
@dmsilev: still freaking out about that. After 2016 my mind is just not accepting that that will happen.
Miss Bianca
@Cermet: I second that emotion. : )
Ridnik Chrome
@RandomMonster: “Shy Limpkin, a Boston-area trio, make sophisticated chamber pop reminiscent of early Van Dyke Parks. Their songs on their latest album consist entirely of sampled bird calls and ambient rainforest sounds . Pitchfork gives it a 6.5.”
Felanius Kootea
@cain: Maybe he doesn’t get to do that if we take the Senate seats in Georgia. Seriously, who leads the Senate when there’s a 50-50 tie? I honestly don’t know whether it defaults to the party of the president in that case or whether the Senate has some other rule for determining the majority leader.
satby
@WaterGirl: Email is a miraculous thing.
Omnes Omnibus
I am okay with waiting. We don’t need to know right now. We need to know it’s right. Then again, I crashed sometime between 9:00 and 10:00 last night and slept through until 8:00 this morning.* I feel calm and serene about this. We got it.
*I got maybe three hours of crappy sleep Tuesday night.
Baud
@Felanius Kootea: Party of the president. Dems control in a 50-50 scenario.
Miss Bianca
@R-Jud: Yummm….gotta get my particular friend (who is the baker in my tiny crowd) to take on scones, because I loves them.
He’s already mastered biscotti, and bread, and moved on to a divine apple tart as his specialties. Pretzels have started popping up in the queue. But oh, some big fat flaky currant scones, studded with coarse sugar on top…what would not be to love??
Cheryl Rofer
The math is on Biden’s side. I’m feeling good about it.
Nevada is scheduled to release its latest results on the next hour. If y’all will start pronouncing Nevada correctly.
Starfish
@catclub: I think the cat is a meme that is being inserted in stuff and may not actually be there. I have seen the cat inserted in the videos of Paula White’s video where she is trying to get everyone to pray hard enough for Trump. ?
cain
@Felanius Kootea:
Effectively? Probably the VP at that point. Tie breaker.
NotMax
@cain
As little respect as I have for him, should the Senate end up 51 R, I think Romney might rent a backbone just long enough to make the votes for cabinet positions 50-50 and give Harris the deciding vote.
Gin & Tonic
Pretty funny here:
raven
I’m not sure what I’m doing. Had blood drawn @ 7:30, PT at 8 and then off to get the MRI/xrays for my visit to the neuro doc tomorrow. The boss lady is busy making masks before she heads to the garden and I’ll probably take my daily loud truck drive around town.
O. Felix Culpa
@Omnes Omnibus: You and me both. I finally slept last night and am actually feeling chipper. We got this.
JustRuss
Betty, do you still have your motorcycle? I find that’s a great way to disengage and get to my happy place.
Subsole
@Gin & Tonic: You don’t even need the rest of the internet, really.
cain
@NotMax:
Or maybe Lisa and Susan Collins – given how close it was – she’ll be on notice.
But I would really hate to see these 3 have any kind of power in the Senate – we would be under their whims and of course the blue dogs as well.
p.a.
tRump taking it to the courts. The rubber hits the road.
dmsilev
@Cheryl Rofer:
I’m told that the proper pronunciation is “Throatwobbler Mangrove”.
Barbara
@cain: The other strategy is to get whoever you can in and then at the highest level and then make them “acting” for all the other cabinet level positions, while the deputies effectively carry out policy. This seems to be what Trump has been doing with a variety of positions. The only one that doesn’t work for is Secretary of State. IMHO. You could also use your awesomely talented VP to become the de facto AG.
sdhays
@SenyorDave: We are, at least, a partial failed state. The cult has seen to that. But we’re not a failed state because we’re counting votes “slowly”. Lots of countries don’t even bother pretending they’re going to have a result for a week or two, and there’s nothing nefarious going on. California, which is decidedly NOT a failed state, is going to take the rest of the month to get it right.
I want to see the remaining states called too, and our elections could definitely be managed better, but there’s enough wrong with this country without shitting over the things its doing somewhat competently.
Subsole
@Baud: Gunshy after the polling blew up in their face?
I mean, we know it’s a different beast altogether. But imagine if you get the polling AND the count wrong.
So I’m saying pundits are actually discovering what it’s like to be a sports reporter. Finally.
Aleta
I remember those new touchscreen voting machines in NC that were rushed in for some counties without the proper certification process because the manufacturing company said they didn’t have enough of the certified machines to fill the order.
Dec 6 2019 https://carolinapublicpress.org/29617/bait-and-switch-by-maker-of-voting-system-for-nc/
Dec 14 2019, Charlotte Observer, A divided NC Elections Board narrowly approves newly ‘tweaked’ voting machines
April 2020 (About the NAACP lawsuit) https://www.courthousenews.com/naacp-sues-north-carolina-over-new-voting-machines/
Miss Bianca
@Omnes Omnibus: You and I passed similar Tuesday and Wednesday nights, I see…
I kept waking up in the middle in the night on Tuesday and having panic attacks. Kept having to say “Inshallah”, over and over, and practicing my deep breathing.
Last night I got in a couple chapters of the comfort read I had started on Tuesday night to stave off following election news (Subaru Diane will be pleased to note that it was Gaudy Night), crashed at 9:30, and then slept like the dead till Watson pawed me awake at 6:30 with an important message from Dog!
Baud
@sdhays: Agree. Various issue in this election, but the counting of votes seems to be orderly, even if it’s taking longer than we’d like.
NotMax
@cain
Wouldn’t hold out any hope regarding Collins, not for a millisecond. The only notice she’s on is that it will be six years before she has to deal with those pesky voters again.
Baud
@Subsole: Fair enough. If you mis-call a state early on, no big deal. If you mis-call THE state that determines the election, it’s hard to walk that back with any dignity.
Omnes Omnibus
@SenyorDave: Black men voted wrong. Counting the votes is taking too long. I don’t like carrots. Are we there yet? This museum is boring.
Gin & Tonic
@sdhays: Ukraine, population ~44 million, votes in one day and has complete and accurate results available in less than 24 hours. This isn’t rocket science.
Jim Appleton
@Soprano2:
What’s the likelihood that a Biden WH with investigative authority could look under rocks and shorten Yertle’s wait for indictments?
Yutsano
@Felanius Kootea:
In that case, control goes to whoever controls the office of the Vice President. So the Democrats would take over with Kamala Harris available to break any ties.
@Miss Bianca: Looks like Colorado was already a member and the vote was to repeal that. But frabjous day! It went down in flames.
I need to check if all the stupid tax increases the Washington leg tried to pass went down in flames.
trollhattan
NPR did a solid this a.m. playing audio of Trump protests shouting “Stop the count” in one state and “Do the count” in another immediately after.
And no, I can’t retain my focus on it either. I remember 2000 all too well.
Barbara
@Baud: I agree that counting slowly is totally okay. What is not okay is the naked political gamesmanship on display at various levels of state government. For instance, the legislature in Pennsylvania prohibiting the voting of mail in ballots prior to the close of election day voting in order to maximize the chance that it will have seemed like Trump won — or the Georgia Secretary of State deliberately ignoring burst water pipes in order to delay counting absentee ballots.
There is nothing that we can really do about these things. And I love how Trump is jumping up and down like a banshee over the rules in Pennsylvania that allow ballots to be counted if they are postmarked on e-day and received by Friday, but is totally silent on rules in NC that allow mail-in ballots to be received for 10 days after e-day.
Subsole
@Boris Rasputin (the evil twin): As one approaches the event horizon temporal distortions increase.
Pass the gin, please. These cheerios are still a mite crisp.
SiubhanDuinne
@Miss Bianca:
Ha! I’ve been putting myself to sleep the last few nights listening to Ian Carmichael’s audio narration of Gaudy Night!
Dorothy A. Winsor
Am I correct in saying Trump is squealing stop counting the vote but the states are ignoring him and following their own procedures? That’s encouraging.
Omnes Omnibus
@Miss Bianca: Was the message “It’s time for breakfast” or “I need to pee” or a combo?
cain
@trollhattan:
I’m sure we could turn all this into a monty python sketch.
trollhattan
@Yutsano:
You never know, Gavin could appoint a Republican senator as a goodwill gesture. That’s one way to get Nunes out of the House.
Ian G.
@Gin & Tonic:
Nobody noticed the writing on the building that isn’t even in the Roman alphabet?
Immanentize
@Miss Bianca: Scones are sooooo easy. Just a version of a biscuit.
trollhattan
@cain:
“Upperclass Twit of the Year” competition comes to mind.
cain
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
He has no power over the states – he can’t go to the courts they are not going to entertain basically stopping democracy.
Baud
@Barbara:
I thought those were segregated. They’re under court challenge. We need to win PA not relying on those, because that’s something the current Court can go all Bush v. Gore with. Assuming we don’t win the other states we need, making PA moot.
Benw
I am screaming inside my heart
Omnes Omnibus
@Gin & Tonic: Parliamentary election? In person?
cain
@trollhattan:
I have “Holy Grail” with “run away!” or “brave brave ass Trump”
MomSense
You gave it a good try and got some nice pictures from the attempt. At least you know who your people are. All of us are swearing, failing to sleep, and nervous AF.
Baud
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Yeah, no one is listening to Trump. This will rise or fall on the tabulation of votes and the EC.
Subsole
@Kay: We all need to let every rep we can reach know we feel that way. I think they’re mad enough to fight, if they know we’re behind them.
Also, if they held on against the GOP high tide last night (edit: night before last. It has been 2 days now. Jesus.) they might figure they are on solid enough footing to be a little aggressive.
Kent
It’s all bullshit and everyone who counts already knows this. If he wins, Biden will have absolute control over the executive branch and can have anyone he wants running every executive agency. If McConnell stalls cabinet secretary nominations, Biden just appoints badass partisans into acting roles in assistant secretary positions who will be running the show until Biden’s nominees get confirmed. Trump built his wall, re-wrote immigration and asylum law, and put children in cages with a series of acting secretaries of homeland security. Relax.
Biden will get his Cabinet Secretaries unless they are unusually controversial for some reason.
Judges are a whole different story because there are no ‘acting’ judges.
Miss Bianca
@Yutsano: Oh, you are right, my bad! I forgot – the state revanchists were screaming “GUBMINT OPPRESSION!!11!!” because Governor Polis had authorized it and insisted it get put on the ballot. Turns out most of the state is OK with it.
On the whole, even tho’ I am disappointed with some of the election results (principally the fact that my Congressional rep and the new DA are both law-breaking, gun-toting, unqualified Sarah Palin knock-offs) pretty pleased with how the CO ballot initiatives went. Although I am rolling my eyes over the “lower the state income tax” vote. Seriously, people? We are going to be staring down a massive state deficit from COVID and oh, hey, let’s just collect less money? Le sigh. We’ve always been a fucking freaky state when it comes to taxation issues.
piratedan
@Gin & Tonic: really, does Ukraine have local Sherriff’s and county commissioners and judges on their ballots?
I understand that the parliamentary system has its benefits, but when you have only three to five items to decide upon versus three pages… its not the best comparison to make.
Immanentize
@dmsilev: Excellent use of a favorite
cain
@Baud:
The moment he loses – the wolves will fall upon him. He knows this. (I should use something other than wolves – who are in fact not bad creatures)
Zelma
Re McConnell and obstruction: there are lots more Republican Senate seats in 2022 than Democratic. Some are real possibilities. Tomey is not running so PA can turn. Portman in Ohio could be vulnerable. Grassley’s seat in Iowa is a possibility (is he running again? he’s 86). We could look at Kennedy in LA. Burr’s seat in NC could be turned. All of the Democratic seats look pretty safe.
I think the Dems could run against McConnell in 2022 if he obstructs and it will be a good tactic in GA for the run off. The problem for sane Republicans is that their base is insane. I would think that there are a lot of Rethug pols who would really like Trump to disappear.
We have to start working on 2022 immediately. We need strong candidates and lots of money. I’m going to start giving to the DSCC as soon as I finish giving to Warnock and hopefully Ossoff.
leeleeFL
@cain: Orks!?
The Moar You Know
@raven: What is it about trucks? I got rid of mine in 2017; couldn’t fit the wife and dog in it at the same time (insert joke here).
Replaced it with a Subaru Forester. Far more comfortable. Tall as my old Toyota truck. Much easier on my music gear when I have gigs – nothing slides around. Can do ten hour road trips with not even a bit of soreness. Easily 50% better gas mileage. Far more power, acceleration, and handles like a fighter plane in comparison to the Toyota. Fits wife AND dog. Dog does not ride in the bed; that’s a rule.
So why do I STILL miss my truck? Four years. I still miss it.
Subsole
@By Rook or by Crook: Don’t know if you are on twitter but there is a 4chan cope thread that is beyond glorious.
Fuck them. Let ’em writhe like a roach on a red-hot skillet.
Gin & Tonic
@Omnes Omnibus: Parliamentary, Presidential, local, doesn’t matter. All in-person, all done in a day. Includes Ukrainian citizens living abroad who vote at their Embassy or consulate.
Omnes Omnibus
@cain: Tearing Trump apart is not necessarily the act of a bad creature.
Miss Bianca
@SiubhanDuinne: Ha! Indeed! Virtual fist bump!
Love Ian Carmichael, bless him, he’s the one who first introduced me to Lord Peter Wimsey, in the BBC version of Five Red Herrings.
@Omnes Omnibus: Combo
cain
In fact, he can put in very dangerous demogogues in exchange for more “reasonable” ones – enough so that business interests will be yelling at McConnell to accept the more “reasonable” ones vs the ones who have an ax to grind.
We are in free fall in terms of comity – McConnell has shown us that we don’t have to give a FUCK about what these iconoclasts think. The only tut-tutting is going to be the media and they can go fuck themselves too.
The new rules are clear now.
bluefoot
Taking breaks is good. Taking breaks by going on a boat ride even better. I can’t seem to manage breaks – my brain won’t disengage. And when I sleep, I wake up hyperventilating. I think I am going to have to resort to comfort baking. The problem with the pandemic is with whom do I share the cookies/bread/pies? We need a BJ distribution center.
It’s stressful waiting, but every vote for all the elections need to be counted. my real concern about the time is that the longer it takes, the longer Trump has to come up with was to f*ck with the results.
Kent
Orcs.
MomSense
Anyone see this tweet from KellyO’Donnell?
https://twitter.com/kellyo/status/1324372366974160897?s=21
Trump campaign manager says “Donald Trump is alive and well”
My kids have been joking about it. Here is oldest kid’s latest.
”“We could tell you wondering so we wanted to assure you, we did not roll up the presidents lifeless body in a rug and drive him out in a moving truck while awaiting important election results. He is alive and has been tweeting very strongly with his very alive and large hands coursing with warm and, again, very alive blood”
The Thin Black Duke
Biden was Obama’s VP for eight years. He remembers what bastards the GOP were during those two terms. I don’t think he’s going to be a pushover, oh no.
Immanentize
@Omnes Omnibus: That guy is a jackass
Obama agrees!
Gvg
This blog is generally pro mail in vote, but remember, this slow counting results are more likely with it. We may need to become used to this. It shouldn’t be excruciating in normal election years if we ever have one again.
I do think more states are going to modernize their voting after the virus. It’s made people in difficult states aware that residents of other states have more convenient methods. Especially no excuse needed early vote.
Omnes Omnibus
@Gin & Tonic: We had the in-person votes pretty much counted on election day. The mail-ins and early votes are the issue. It’s not a valid comparison.
cain
like nature’s garbage disposal.
Bill Arnold
@Aleta:
If they were compromised, all it takes is one person willing to suffer the personal costs for talking, and/or one engineer reverse-engineering[1] the machine (probably in violation of DMCA or whatever, or other legal action, another personal risk) and finding nefariousness.
ETA a friend (who lives in NC now, FWIW) has done a lot of consulting on voting machine security (he is a specialist on in tamper-resistance/tamper-detection but knows the rest as well) and he was quite happy with the security of the machines that they actually evaluated.
[1] doable, though slow. And from many reports, the NSA-released open source tool ghidra is quite good.
rikyrah
@cain:
Acting heads
James E Powell
@Kay:
Is it Trump they are bowing to or the hordes of Trump supporters? Some of them have been known to show up at government offices with guns.
NotMax
@cain
Flesh-eating bacteria?
//
Subsole
@Felanius Kootea: VP Kamala Motherfuckin’ Harris would cast the deciding vote in that case, I believe.
different-church-lady
You say “pour a quart of rum in a half-eaten container of pineapple sorbet and call it lunch” like it’s a bad thing.
Gin & Tonic
@piratedan: Yes, there are multiple layers of state and local (district, township) governments which are elected by the people. Stop pretending this is somehow a hard problem.
cain
@Kent:
I’m good with orcs. A perfect caricature of your average Republican side business enthusiast.
trollhattan
@cain:
That works, or the Black Knight:
“Oh so that’s it eh, running away? Come back and fight!”
“What are you going to do, bleed on me?”
.
Kent
Yep, that’s how it’s done. And these aren’t new rules. And not “dangerous demagogues” just hardass partisans.
Let Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders pick your acting assistant Secretary of Treasury who will run the show until Biden’s mainstream pick gets confirmed.
When it comes to running the executive branch of the government, the president has tremendous power. Congress can rein him in, but that requires actual LEGISLATION which would mean getting the House to go along and then over-riding a presidential veto. The president holds all the cards when it comes to management of the executive branch.
Subsole
@dmsilev: “Well you’ve already had the operation, you silly person.”
Immanentize
@The Moar You Know: Have you never seen raven’s truck? You would never think about getting rid of that truck!
cain
@NotMax:
I will also accept piranhas and fire ants.
Leto
@Immanentize: when introducing our British friends to biscuits and gravy, the first response from them was: why would you put gravy on a biscuit? And their face would screw up in the way you’d expect from someone who just let the dog poop on the carpet. But then we explained that an American biscuit is similar to a scone, but they were still skeptical. Then I made biscuits and sausage gravy for them, and they were converts.
Changing hearts, mind, and tummies. Diplomacy at it’s finest :P
MisterForkbeard
I know what the intent was but a post entitled “endless screaming” just makes my blood pressure go up. :)
I do think they should have called it by now, but I don’t think this is actually special treatment. There’s a non-zero chance that they’re wrong (maybe 2-4%) and Trump somehow ekes out a win, and the networks REALLY don’t want to blow that. Especially after so much of the polling was off. They’re being understandably careful.
Miss Bianca
@MomSense: Haha, sounds like that xkcd cartoon that different-church-lady used to love to quote. Too big a stretch to say your kids are fans? : )
Villago Delenda Est
@Aleta: Touchscreen voting machines should be banned. The ONLY acceptable method is paper ballots that are scanned. Everything else is just too subject to fraud, and Rethugs will exploit them because they can’t win without cheating.
trollhattan
@The Thin Black Duke:
Agree 100%. He’ll begin by trying to establish normal working relationships (whatever “normal” means to Republicans I can’t begin to guess) but his underlying pragmatism will carry the day after they rebuff his entres. Which will take seconds.
Joe’s not an idealist and has not promised kitten baskets. Puppies, maybe.
guachi
LOL. Perdue is currently at 49.997% of the vote in GA.
cain
Yeah, this isn’t goign to be like Obama’s administration or any past Democratic administration – everything is on the table – we can thank McConnell for that. I hope Biden gets set of very aggressive, piranha like pool of pols that is willing to push the limits like McConnell is.
McConnell has always in the past bet on the Dems need for comity and process to get what he’s accomplished – that shit is OVER.
Luciamia
Love the Limpkin. Sweet.
danielx
@cain:
Do a Trump – make them all “acting”, replace as needed with others following the same plan/program.
RobertB
@The Moar You Know: You miss it for that one time every couple of years that you and yours need a truck.
Gin & Tonic
@Omnes Omnibus: I understand some legislatures put impediments in place, but that’s a political problem, not a technical one. Voting and counting the votes is a solved problem in many countries – and in many states. I voted in RI in October (early, in-person) and nearly a third of the voters voted mail-in. My results were recorded with the in-person votes and available about a half-hour after polls closed. All counting of all votes was completed by 1:00 am. There is no reason whatsoever that this shouldn’t be the norm.
mrmoshpotato
My kinda thread!
If only Tom were still with us for the waiting… ?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Villago Delenda Est: What they really should do is have national standards on the voting, but that’s not going to happen for a while because Right are all sticks in the mud. The light bulb has always been out, so why replace it?
Immanentize
@Leto:
That right there is my complete surrender food. I’ll tell you anything, I’ll rat out my mom, I’ll work for Hobby Lobby….
ETA (or should it be EAT?): You were probably changing their arteries as well….
Bill Arnold
@NotMax:
And/or Brain-eating amoebae? (Deserves the wolves++ no matter what.)
Miss Bianca
@guachi: The mills of God grind slowly, but let’s hope they end up grinding that dude into powder so fine it can only be seen with a microscope.
The Moar You Know
@Immanentize: Never thought about getting rid of mine until it became obvious it wasn’t going to work for one of the core things I needed a vehicle for (I had not planned on the dog!). They’re magic. I miss mine to this day.
patroclus
Trump’s Georgia lead down to 14,000+.
Full Metal Wingnut
@patroclus: oh please oh please
MisterForkbeard
@cain: Honestly, I think Biden should tell McConnell to go fuck himself if that’s the case.
Put acting people in temporarily. Pressure McConnell to put in votes on them. Be LOUD that they were perfectly fine approving nutcases like DNI Ratcliffe and were also fine with permanent acting secretaries under Trump. And state straight out that Republicans are making the country ungovernable.
Make it part of the 2022 narrative. Don’t give into these fuckwads.
SFAW
@Platonicspoof:
Possible response: “You’re either insane or a fucking moron if you believe that idiocy. That’s yet another lie from the people who would keep licking Trump’s humongous ass while he takes a large dump on them. Do you also believe there are One Billion people living in the United States? GTF outta here until you can find someone to do your thinking for you, dumbass.’
My only worry is that the above might be too subtle for whomever NeenerNeener is responding to.
Matt McIrvin
@Villago Delenda Est: Paper ballots counted by hand are fine too (as long as you trust the election workers, and if you don’t, there’s really nothing that will work anyway).
But that’s slow and labor-intensive.
Immanentize
@Gin & Tonic: Congress certainly has the power to do that. And regulate gerrymandering as well.
Aleta
@raven: “my daily loud truck drive around town”
lol I think I know your cousin. Does he end up at the quarry relaxing in his truck every day around 5:30?
JPL
@guachi: Biden is less then 15,000 with around 50,000 to 60,000 left to count.
NotMax
@Immanentize
“Do you expect me to talk?”
“No, Mr.
BondImmanentize, I expect you to eat.”MisterForkbeard
@guachi: I’m sure that’ll go down if votes keep going Biden’s way, but if I was Purdue I’d ask for a recount/canvas on that to get myself over 50%.
hueyplong
Has Trump screamed about fraud in GA? Maybe difficult to do with his minions running the place.
Redshift
This is the time when being unreasonably optimistic plays to my advantage. I would say I’m not still tense, but with the reassurances from the Biden team, multiple states looking good, and the utter incompetence of Trump’s legal “brain trust,” half of my mind is already at “we know what the answer is, just waiting for it to be official.”
Subsole
@cain: Yep. Fuck him. Tarleton’s Quarter for the GOP.
Jinchi
That’s partly true, but in Pennsylvania Republicans specifically prohibited early counting of the mail-in votes.
piratedan
@Gin & Tonic: and you need to stop pretending that all of the players here are interested in clean, efficient elections… that each state, each city, each county aren’t entrenched in decades, if not a century of various degrees of voter suppression against one group or another, working against or sometimes even with crony political machines and are all being operated by people that can’t find their asses with two hands….
Immanentize
@The Moar You Know: I have never had a truck. Just about bought a pickemup when I was in San Antonio — but we moved and not only didn’t I get a truck, we went from two cats to one. I think it’s been better this way?
SFAW
@MisterForkbeard:
Traitor Turtle will be only too happy to tell his caucus to vote down every nominee to the left of Rushbo (or the equivalent RWMF).
MazeDancer
It’s official! Double runoffs in Georgia!!
mrmoshpotato
@JPL: LMAO! Good on the good Reverend for preemptively attacking the coming attack ads.
Subsole
@MomSense: Your oldest has a good sense of humor.
Villago Delenda Est
@Matt McIrvin: Somehow the British manage to do this in the 21st Century and still have results fairly quickly. Perhaps we should send observers? To a more advanced country than ours?
Splitting Image
The math is on Nancy Pelosi’s side too. Conor Lamb and Matt Cartwright seem to have pulled ahead in their House races. They were trailing late last night.
The PA gap is down to 125,000 now. 500,000 or so votes still out there.
In Georgia, Perdue is now under 50% by about 300 votes. If this holds, there will be a runoff.
Immanentize
@MazeDancer: not official until every vote is counted.
Repatriated
@Villago Delenda Est:
Not just paper ballots, but ones where the output presented to the counting device is human-readable (like the CA mail-in ballots). None of this “generate a 2-D barcode” business. The voter has no way to tell if the barcode matches the list of candidates the marking device printed out on the ballot.
Scantron type ballots like the older ink-a-vote system work too, if the voter cross-checks after filling it out.
There has to be direct verification (without machine interpretation) at every step.
Barbara
@Gin & Tonic: Right, with the only votes requiring post-election counting being those that are received on or after election day. In California, that will be a lot of votes, but in most states, it will only be relatively few. Legislatures and other state and county authorities are deliberately sowing chaos and confusion so that they can undermine valid results that don’t go their way. It sucks.
Full Metal Wingnut
@Redshift: I mean, Biden’s team wants volunteers to help with stuff still like remediation. There’s no reason to concede yet. But yeah, I guess it’s a good thing.
Subsole
@The Thin Black Duke: Yep. Our nation has the very unfortunate habit of confusing “nice” with “doormat”.
Some folks are gonna learn.
NotMax
@Bill Arnold
Pity the poor creatures. They’d starve to death on Dolt 45’s culinary offerings.
:)
Kent
Voting is ridiculously easy here in WA. Everyone got their ballots 3-weeks before election day. There are a bazillion drop boxes all over the city if you don’t want to mail. There are central voting locations with computerized machines for disabled voters who can’t do paper ballots (like the blind). The state has plenty of machines to get the count done relatively fast.
The problem is partisan foot dragging in some GOP states.
My solution would be to use the USPS in a more overt way to Federally assist with election. But that requires a post-DeJoy USPS. But there is no reason why official FEDERAL USPS drop boxes couldn’t be installed in front of every post office in the country. Republicans couldn’t fuck with them like they tried to in TX and OH because they are Federal not state. Houston has something like 50 different USPS locations, for example. Install Red USPS ballot drop boxes outside every one of those post offices. You can still stick your ballot in the regular blue box, but the red one would be more expedited. Then no more sorting and shit by the USPS, they just deliver the contents straight to the elections offices, or they come get it. The USPS handles millions of ballots already, why not make it more official and easier.
As for speeding the processing and counting? That’s simply a question of technology and money and standardization. What we really need is to get around the damn signature thing which is 19th Century and come up with a new and better way to do it that is less likely to be rejected.
RobertB
XKCD on online voting.
Subsole
@cain: In that case I move we replace the wolves with fire ants.
Leto
@Immanentize:
Hahaha, no… between the amount of beef, sausage, bacon, and other fatty shit they eat (fish and chips… omg), in addition to the amount of American fast food has been imported there (little America, the entire isle), that was probably on the lighter side that day.
When all this shit is over, and I/we head up to Boston, we’ll stop by for a cookout.
SFAW
@Subsole:
Well, if it’s a really dry gin, that might not help. On the other hand, who needs soggy Cheerios?
cain
As I said, Joe has no need to play by the previous playbooks anymore. McConnell schtick depends on Dems wanting to play by the playbooks of the past – that should no longer be the case and I hope Joe gets that – nobody expects him to play by old outdated rules that the other party is no longer playing by.
MisterForkbeard
@SFAW: Great! That’s even better. It’s not even silent obstruction where nominees just don’t get votes. It’s Republicans and McConnell actively sabotaging the presidency with very public votes.
Fuck ’em. Make them work for it.
Sab
@cope: Good luck to her wirh that. I did a checkerboard cake for the first time in 30 years in June, and it actually worked. I didn’t think so when the layers came out the oven, but once assembled they looked properly checkerboardish.
Immanentize
@Splitting Image: Just like 2018. Election night -+ “We are doomed, Democrats have failed us again, burn the witches!”
Two weeks later: “I knew we would always crush those bastards. Yay me!”
SFAW
@RobertB:
Randall Munroe should get the Nobel Peace Prize for Literature.
cain
@MisterForkbeard:
Hey now, it’s Perdue – don’t take my alma mater in vain like that! :D
patroclus
Trump’s Pennsylvania lead down to 122,000.
RandomMonster
@Ridnik Chrome: LOL
Immanentize
@Leto: You got it, bruh. Make sure Avalune joins you to keep things on the up and up?
Aleta
@Immanentize: I still remember the time I almost bought a boat. And I still think about the silver pickup truck the rental place gave me in place of a car the last time I was in NM.
Subsole
@mrmoshpotato: Ooof. Now I’m gonna have to go listen to the old boy.
We got lucky when he found us, didn’t we?
hueyplong
A Trump lead number for PA is best appreciated if teamed with an indication of outstanding votes to be counted.
Immanentize
@cain: Did you see that Perdue chicken put out a tweet explaining Senator Perdue has no connection to Perdue Chicken? I laughed.
Kent
There’s going to be a conflict between Trump who many not want a recount/recanvas in GA if he has a sliver of lead and Purdue who may want one if his margin is slightly under 50%.
What happens if a recanvas or recount for Purdue turns up more Biden votes at the same time? Oops.
mali muso
Not sure why, but I’m kind of obsessing with Georgia at the moment.
SFAW
@MisterForkbeard:
I understand your point, but I worry that the (IhopeIhopeIhope) Biden Administration will lose valuable time dealing with Traitor Turtle.
Maybe I’m putting too much store in the position, but I want a Chief of Staff with a long history of kicking the shit out of Rethugs and RWMFs, and who also knows how government works — both the public part of governing and the behind-the-scenes parts. I currently have no idea who that would be.
zzyzx
@patroclus: I wanted it to be under 100k by the time I got back damnit. But it’s still under 90% on AP so plenty of votes to go.
Miss Bianca
@JPL:
Huh? I’m getting a “this is not available to you” message. Then again, Balloon Juice was stalling big time on Safari, had to switch to Firefox to catch up on comments. Hmm. Some internet fuckery afoot this am in my quarter of the globe, it seems.
laura
Just checking in to say that I’m missing efgoldman and Schlemazel of late….
Immanentize
@NotMax: I would be so doomed.
hueyplong
@mali muso: Whoa. That’s reason to obsess on GA.
Subsole
@MazeDancer:
HELL FUCKIN’ YEAH!!!
Yarrow
What do people think about this take? I’ve been wondering how all that out-of-state money was actually working.
Redshift
I’m also enjoying seeing legal experts on every channel (not just MSNBC, I’m talking BBC here) saying the Trump team’s legal filings don’t have any legal theory to them, they’re just complaining.
I’m thinking the low-quality hires are doing the same kind of lawsuits from his business days, that got a settlement because it would cost the target more to fight it. That’s not gonna fly against a state government.
SiubhanDuinne
@SFAW:
Andrew Cuomo? (ETA: I honestly don’t know that much about him except for his daily pandemic briefings last spring, which impressed me. Seems as though he can be super-tough when necessary, but also knows how and when to compromise. And AFAIK he’s been a pretty good administrator. Happy to be set right by people more familiar with him as Gov.)
Matt McIrvin
@Villago Delenda Est: British general elections are simple, aren’t they? You basically just vote for your MP. No list of 10 national, state and local offices and 15 ballot initiatives.
patroclus
@Redshift: Litigators gonna litigate.
Yarrow
@Miss Bianca: Click on the link. It should open a new tab. If you get the “this content is not available to you” message then refresh the tab. If it’s still not working, copy the url, paste it into the tab, or into a fresh tab, and go. That should work. Twitter is weird sometimes on lin-throughs.
cain
Very good, fire ants it is!
raven
@The Moar You Know: Yea, I’ve had this or my short bed 62 Gimmy since about 72!
hueyplong
@SiubhanDuinne: I’ve already heard McFaul mentioned as Biden’s choice.
different-church-lady
@Miss Bianca: “Not available to you” is a prevalent Twitter-via-WWW bug. The message is misleading: just click on the url and reload and it will come up reliably. But the key is you need to click on the URL, not just refresh the page as-is.
Subsole
@SFAW: Good point. I’ll just throw em out and replace ’em with gin.
Immanentize
@Redshift: As some wag said:
Trump’s legal papers are just tweets with filing fees.
Miss Bianca
@Yarrow: Isn’t Dave Wasserman sort of a professional contrarian? Or is that Dave Weigel? I get my media Daves confused at times.
Splitting Image
@Immanentize:
Yep, although I admit my own heart sank when I realized Tuesday night that they were going to win Florida. But it still seemed that Biden had enough states to take it, and that’s all that mattered.
Seriously though, if anyone had told me six months ago that Trump would find six million more votes for himself, and probably eight million by the time everything is counted, but that Biden would pull it out anyway, the House would hold, and the Democrats would still have a chance at winning the Senate, I’d have taken it.
Not the landslide I wanted, but this is a big win. And worth waiting an extra day or two for.
patroclus
Trump’s Pa. lead down to 116,000/
zzyzx
I actually used some algebra this morning. I was trying to figure out what Biden’s vote share would be needed to tie. To do so, take the vote difference, divided it by the remaining votes left. Take that, add one, and divide it by 2.
So down 122k with 500k votes left that’s
x – (1-x) = .244
or 2x = 1.244
So in that case, Biden would need 62% of the remaining vote.
That ignores 3rd parties to simplify but it gets you in the ballpark.
Jeffro
@different-church-lady: it IS bad…it should be orange or lime sherbet ;)
MomSense
@Miss Bianca:
Yuuge fans!
Yutsano
@patroclus: To quote our esteemed Omnes Omnibus:
“Billable hours.”
MattF
@Subsole: Are your Cheerios combustible?
Subsole
@cain: Huzzah!
piratedan
@Miss Bianca: Weigel is the clued in Libertarian who sometimes has some very significant insight into Team Red, Wasserman is the elections wonk who dives down into the deep dirt to act as indian guide to the way that votes/elections are trending
Omnes Omnibus
@patroclus: Gotta avoid sanctions for frivolous filings.
Miss Bianca
@different-church-lady: ha, ok, I got it. And yeah, that ad is pretty funny!
NotMax
@raven
Score something good on your trek to Gwinnett?
Subsole
@Miss Bianca: Weigel is the sort of contrarian guy. Does some solid work though, too.
Baud
@patroclus: ?
Subsole
@MattF: With enough gin, maybe.
Also lol.
Brachiator
Are we there yet?
There is not much point to worrying or watching. I guess at this point the important thing to know is that both candidates have a shot at winning, which is fucked up, but still…
I am just going to try to run a few errands and enjoy the rest of the day as best I can. Fretting will not speed up the counting.
raven
@NotMax: We didn’t go. The girl had a walking date with her pal and I didn’t want to interfere.
Ghost of Joe Liebling*s Dog
@trollhattan:
Inskeep’s new co-host (whose name I really should learn so I can credit her properly) handled that segment. She’s far better at this than he is (or ever was, if I can trust my memory — he’s been a profoundly mediocre sausage-case full of dead air for many years now — so it’s no high bar to clear, but she was good).
patroclus
@Brachiator: I disagree. I think it’s about to be called nationwide. By contrast, I don’t think there was much point in watching the last two days. Now, I’m constantly hitting “refresh” on various SoS sites. It helps that I’ve got the day off from work.
The Moar You Know
@Yarrow: I think people need to be careful. That Lucy McGrath got a hundred million dollars for a race she could not possibly win was a horrific waste of money that was desperately needed elsewhere.
Baud
Via reddit
https://i.redd.it/felw4jtxyex51.png
patroclus
Biden’s Nevada lead up to 12,000+
Redshift
@Kent:
We need to get rid of it entirely. Mark Elias (top Democratic election lawyer) pointed out in the Preet Bharara interview that almost no federal legal proceedings use signatures any more, nor do credit cards mostly. (Even when you sign a credit card receipt, no one checks it.)
Fraud is prevented by auditing and investigating irregularities. Everything else is either unintentional voter suppression (“we’ve always done it this way”) or deliberate voter suppression.
Baud
@patroclus: ??
NotMax
Biden lead in NV just now jumped from 7600 to 12,000.
WaterGirl
@danielx: And be very vocal about it, and point out that the Republicans refuse to let divided government work, so if they want to see something get done, vote for senators to give a De majority in the senate.
Scott P.
@SenyorDave:
That’s unfair to the legions of tireless and dedicated workers who work the polls for very little pay and do so professionally and efficiently.
Baud
@The Moar You Know:
How do you get thousands of donors to follow objective criteria in deciding how to allocate their donations?
raven
Land doesn’t vote, people do.
tam1MI
@The Moar You Know: was there a Dem candidate shorted on money this year that needed it?
Omnes Omnibus
True.
mrmoshpotato
@Brachiator:
Can we throw the Soviet shitpile mobster crime family out of the people’s house now?
WaterGirl
@hueyplong: He can’t scream fraud in GA until he knows he is losing. If there’s a chance he might win, a sane person would not claim fraud.
Trump, however, is not sane. So all bets are off.
taumaturgo
@SFAW: Who do you have in mind? I can’t think of one establishment Democrat in the current leadership that has gone out of the way to bash the GOP on a consistent basis for propping and supporting Trump and being complicit in the current health and economic clusterfuck. Only the Justice Democrats have done so in Congress against the wishes of the leadership.
Brachiator
@Matt McIrvin:
Gets more complicated when you consider Northern Ireland, or devolved entities like Scotland and Wales.
And folks who don’t like the Electoral College should consider that Boris Johnson is prime minister in part because 92,000 Conservative Party members voted him the leader of the party in 2019.
taumaturgo
@SiubhanDuinne: Compromise? That just got an additional six million votes for Trump.
Barbara
@NotMax: If you were sitting here I would hug you. I just cannot convey how stressed I am. I have lost three pounds this week. I can’t make myself eat.
WaterGirl
@Miss Bianca: What device were you using? iPads have been having problems with the front page. But I am not aware of other devices having issues, so please let me know.
SFAW
@Subsole:
I’ll be right over to help. How many olives should I bring?
patroclus
Biden now 11,791 up in Nevada. Slight narrowing.
mrmoshpotato
@SenyorDave: Dude, we had unprecedented voter turnout, and it wasn’t the Biden blowout we hoped for.
Re-lax. Just keep
swimmingcounting.WaterGirl
@Yarrow: the twitter thing with the error messages is a twitter issue. The iPads stalling on the front page is our site having trouble with twitters recent changes.
Brachiator
@patroclus:
I am in Southern California. I will have a late breakfast and then check to see what is happening. I thought that PA was going to have some kind of press conference late this evening, and that there were lots of votes to be counted in Georgia.
Then there is the craziness of whatever Trump’s legal challenges will be. I have not read or watched a nanosecond of this. I don’t much care right now what plans he may be hatching. I do think, however, that any schemes to stop counting votes hurts him, unless he goes for this hail Mary: stop the count with no one at 270 votes and throw the election to Congress.
Kent
She may have gotten too much money. But you absolutely run your best candidates everywhere and you give them full support. McConnell is old and increasingly feeble. He could have caught covid and gone into a coma. There could have been some scandal that caused him to drop out. That’s how we got 2 years of Doug Jones in AL. You NEVER cede a race anywhere.
Baud
@patroclus: ?
JMG
Just to add to the stress, Allegheny County, Pa. (Pittsburgh) has 29,000 mail/absentee ballots that cannot legally be counted until tomorrow because they are replacements for the defective ballots supplied by that Trumpy printing firm in Ohio. Board of elections has to meet to approve them like it’s kosher meats or something.
WaterGirl
@patroclus: Can you guys let us know how many votes are left when you announce how much we are down in a state?
Because 116,000 sounds terrible unless you know the number of votes not counted yet.
MisterForkbeard
@SFAW: I get this, but if your choice is between a desirable acting secretary and then a civil service acting secretary (and potentially a good cabinet confirmed secretary) or… a centrist “from civil service-type” secretary, I’d go for the first. Considerable upside, no real downside or time lost other than getting a permanent person in the position.
mrmoshpotato
@Barbara: Hold on there Miss Missy. There’re still social distancing guidelines in place.
germy
SFAW
@taumaturgo:
No one in particular that I can currently think of. However, to your point about non-Justice-Dems going after Rethugs: Adam Schiff and Ted Lieu have been pretty good. Not sure I want either of them as CoS, but I think they’re both great.
Miss Bianca
@WaterGirl:
My Mac Powerbook. It’s older, but not yet antique.
Omnes Omnibus
Just an observation: I noticed some old and familiar ‘nyms showed up in the first say or so after the election to bag on Democrats. Last time I saw most of them was in November of 2016. As Biden’s lead has become larger and the down ballot situation has started looking better, I notice that they have wandered away again. Funny that.
FWIW, this thought was brought on by taumaturgo who I see as a cartoon lefty but one who bothers to show up and plague us at all times. Respect.
Gravenstone
@cain: Trump showed that acting department heads and Cabinet officials is perfectly fine. Turtle’s threats are hollow.
Sab
@Cheryl Rofer: The only networks that are reliable about pronouncing Nevada correctly are Telemundo and Univision. I find that hilarious. Their anchors realize that as an American state it has an American pronuciation.
British reporters manage to mispronounce almost every syllable of Las Vegas Nevada. Flat a for Las and long a for vad. Jez. At least be consistent.
Baud
@JMG: Given the estimates about how large Biden’s win in PA will be, those ballots shouldn’t keep Biden from taking the lead.
Omnes Omnibus
@taumaturgo: Proof?
hueyplong
@JMG: If it’s in Pittsburgh, it adds to our comfort, not our stress. Those will be Biden votes, and Trump can spend more time on the rack wating for them while we drink.
WaterGirl
@Miss Bianca: Are you having trouble on the front page or within individual threads?
zzyzx
@patroclus:
That’s after Elko and Lyon.
I’ll take the trade of 4k more for Biden from Clark and then losing a few hundred from the rurals.
Omnes Omnibus
I understand your point, but I take issue with this sentence.
zzyzx
@WaterGirl:
We would if we knew!
SFAW
@MisterForkbeard:
I think we’re in agreement, but just to clarify: I would prefer an acting whatever to a Mitch-approved (or denied) whatever, if “negotiating” with Mitch takes more than a few days. For an acting whatever, I want someone like Acting AG Kamala Harris-type (philosophically speaking), not an Acting SoS Warren Christopher-type.
pacem appellant
@germy: I’ve been asking about this for the last two days on dKos and BJ! Though I understand that it’s exactly the priority, we need to figure out how to 1) motivate dems GA, 2) demotivate Repubs in GA, and 3) get Ossoff to the Senate!
germy
Miss Bianca
@Omnes Omnibus: Yet another one of those aggressive badgerers and nitpickers who, when challenged on his more asinine/out there assertions, always rolls himself up into a little prickly defensive ball and mewls, “it’s not MY job to provide the evidence, YOU’RE the ones who love all these squishy neoliberal corporoDems, so YOU prove me wrong!”
Kinda annoying/infuriating in that sticky, unhygenic way, like gum stuck to the bottom of your nicest pair of shoes.
taumaturgo
@SFAW: Somewhat, their main thrust has been to follow the leadership line Russia, Russia, Russia and Trump is bad without making a direct correlation to the GOP individuals that without their support Trump would have been toast long ago.
Miss Bianca
@WaterGirl: I was refreshing comments on this very post, in fact.
germy
@pacem appellant:
If four years of Trump can’t motivate Georgia Democrats, I don’t know what will.
Maybe McConnell on endless loop?
Baud
@germy: Fuck Elko.
Omnes Omnibus
I have a meeting at 1:00 CST. I want to workout and shower first, but I can’t leave my computer in case something happens. I think the workout is going to get skipped. The shower won’t be.
Yarrow
I watched the Lincoln Project TV thing last night for a bit because I’d found it calming on election night. It was interesting. Tara Setmayer is the host and on last night’s show she officially announced that she has left the Republican party. It was quite a thing to behold. She went off on how people she had worked with for 20 years just abandoned principles she thought they all shared and she simply couldn’t be part of it anymore. She called Trump a toxic sociopath. She was pissed off. It was kind of funny.
germy
@taumaturgo:
The same GOP individuals who traveled to Russia Russia Russia on July 4th?
patroclus
@zzyzx: Indeed. We don’t know. I’m constantly shifting between Fox, CNN and MSNBC and they’re all mentioning different figures, which means (to me) that they don’t know either. I don’t like to just guess or give inaccurate info, so I’m just going to go by the raw vote and hope that there’s enough (in Pa. and Georgia) and not enough (in Nevada and Zona) to change the current trajectory.
Gravenstone
@Gin & Tonic: Hey, it worked for Dannon back in the day.
Baud
@Yarrow:
It’ll be interesting to see what the LP folks do now that they know that GOP voters enthusiastically chose Trump over their vision of the GOP.
mrmoshpotato
@Baud: Dude, 11,500 votes for Biden.
germy
WaterGirl
@SFAW: Appoint the acting folks on Day 1, someone who is way more political than the Rs would want, and then nominate who you really want and see if they are smart enough to take that over the acting person.
Baud
@mrmoshpotato: No thanks to Elko!
hueyplong
Lyon County NV vote is in and it was so insignificant that Ralston didn’t bother to note the amount.
Starting to get confident again about NV. I think Clark (Las Vegas) isn’t done yet.
mrmoshpotato
@Omnes Omnibus: Maybe you working out will speed up the counting. Go exercise.
Miss Bianca
@Yarrow: It sounds, from what people were saying about watching LP folks on Election Night, like a lot of them have had a collective come to
JesusCole moment with regard to leaving (“first slowly, then suddenly”) the Republican Party for good. If some of them take a long hard look at just how much they helped create the monster they now repudiate, and turn their capacity for media mayhem against it on the side of the Democrats, I’m cool with having them in my (anti-Fox) foxhole.Jinchi
That was a slight narrowing immediately after a large increase. Biden’s lead was listed at less than 8,000 an hour earlier.
hueyplong
When Winnemucca fails to move the dial, I’ll be all in on Nevada.
germy
The king is always the last to know.
mrmoshpotato
@Gin & Tonic: Whale of a fail.
Yarrow
@pacem appellant: I think demotivating Republicans could happen naturally because Trump won’t be on the ballot. If Trump wins the presidential election he’ll have a zillion rallies there, because he loves rallies (they’re all about him), and that will motivate people. But if Biden wins (fingers crossed), Trump as a toxic narcissist, will not be working to elect people who “hurt him” (by not electing him). There’s nothing in that for Trump. He might snipe from the sidelines on Twitter and he might have some rallies just for that dopamine hit but he’s not going to be asking people to vote for someone else. That’s not how narcissists work.
Kent
It’s going to be interesting. Without Trump on the ballot (and possibly with a lame Duck Trump not giving a shit anymore to go campaign) the electorate could be a lot different than it was Tuesday. Normally that would help the GOP but we aren’t in normal times and the current Trump electorate isn’t the normal GOP electorate either as we found in 2018.
Omnes Omnibus
@mrmoshpotato: BUT WHAT IF I MISS SOMETHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!
NotMax
@hueyplong
Would be mucho ironic if this time it is the casinos which bankrupt Trump.
taumaturgo
@Omnes Omnibus: Another respectable conservative democrat who cares more about party unity, civility, and preserving the status quo. Maybe this mindset could be one reason Trump garner an additional six million votes. Democrats are supposed to be the smart, tolerant ones and Republicans are hideous and stupid. I wonder.
WaterGirl
Wait, have we changed states? What state is Elko in? Are these numbers for Nevada?
So they didn’t make an announcement at noon like they said they would? Can someone catch me up?
Dahlia
@cain: Killer shrews?
hueyplong
Appropos of little, Spiro Agnew’s Ghost refers to Trump’s crack legal team as “Squeal Team 6”
germy
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Yarrow:
I think it certainly gives Rs a talking point, but not much more than that. Jaime Harrison was always a long shot, and party-building move; Amy McGrath was throwing good money after bad, in my not so humble opinion; Sarah Gideon seems to have been hurt by not being a native Mainer compared to Collins five generations, so the out of state money played into that….
JPL
@Miss Bianca: Washington Post has the Warnock ad at their site.
link
Full Metal Wingnut
@hueyplong: when will we know? Christ.
LuciaMia
endless screaming is right. This drip-drip-drip of info is maddening. Any chance Nev. and Arizona will be called by today?
germy
@WaterGirl:
Elko, Nevada.
hueyplong
@WaterGirl: Nev going well. That’s where Elko is.
mrmoshpotato
@Omnes Omnibus: The world is conspiring to hide the results from you anyway…
Yarrow
@Baud: That’s partly why I’m watching it off and on. They are disappointed and a bit thrown off by the result. They really had hoped for a repudiation of Trump and they didn’t get it. They’re having to adjust to this new reality just like all of us. They’ve said they’ll be in Georgia for the runoff(s) so that’s what they’ll be doing short term anyway.
germy
@LuciaMia:
schrodingers_cat
@Omnes Omnibus: Putin’s ruble store keyboard warriors.
hueyplong
@Full Metal Wingnut: Funny, that’s what Trump said.
It’s ok for him to suffer a while longer, isn’t it?
Baud
@Yarrow:
Despite their history, I have to respect that. They’re aren’t simply going back to who they were now that the presidential election is done (or almost done).
Omnes Omnibus
@taumaturgo: Oddly enough, I was complimenting you.
White & Gold Purgatorian
@pacem appellant: Not sure how to motivate Georgia Dems more, but I think some helpful organization should mount a write in campaign — Donald J. Trump for Senate. Lame duck Trump won’t be much interested I getting his voters out for Loeffler or Purdue, but his supporters are going to be heartbroken for him if he loses the presidency and some would surely write him in as a way to honor their fallen hero.
Is this even possible in a runoff? I don’t know, but it would be fun to see someone try it. Picking off even 1% might tip the scale.
gwangung
Heh. Elko….I knew it well….did some geologic research there in my undergraduate days, I knew immediately where it was from.
Barbara
@hueyplong: Only real issue now is Nye, which is basically an exurb of Las Vegas, which is very pro-Trump.
dearmaizie
Thanks for the bird pics. Suggest you focus on the utter deliciousness of trump’s desperation rather than the vote count. This is the day we’ve been waiting for, to see him get what he richly deserves. Relish in the fact that at this moment he is suffering like he’s never suffered in his life. It’s just a pittance of what he deserves after everything he’s done to us, not to mention killing over 200,000 of us.
Close your eyes, breathe deeply and imagine his terror.
patroclus
@LuciaMia: I’m just a stupid individual citizen, but I think we’re gonna find out about Georgia, Nevada, Arizona and enough about Pennsylvania today (possibly soon – probably by end of day/night). The last two days weren’t worth watching or obsessing – I think today is.
Omnes Omnibus
@mrmoshpotato: Too late now. That window has closed. Maybe when I get home.
Steeplejack
@Aleta:
I love Eva Victor! I still laugh about her “straight pride” piece:
Yarrow
@Miss Bianca: I’d agree with that. Stuart Stevens of the LP wrote a book called “It Was All A Lie” about how he’s looked at what he did in the Republican party, what he thought it stood for, how things have gone, and what reality is. At least that’s my best assessment from interviews and reviews I’ve seen – I haven’t read it myself. Tara Setmayer referred to it last night and how it got her looking long and hard at the R’s and what they really were. I’m kind of interested in reading it just to figure out how someone who was so involved in R politics comes to a realization that the party is a lie.
zzyzx
I posted a different tweet from this person in a thread this morning, but some AZ confidence:
MisterForkbeard
@SFAW: Adam Schiff and Ted Lieu have both been pretty good about this.
I know Pelosi has made some statements around this as well. So has Schumer. I would have preferred “constant haranguing” rather than “statements which get ignored”.
They all have a different set of communication rules than the Justice Dems, who are generally fairly low ranking and without large platforms.
MisterForkbeard
@SFAW: Maybe Kamala can ALSO be DOJ head. <grin>
hueyplong
@Barbara: Probably true that lots more Clark remaining than Nye.
Which is why I’m feeling better. If Nye reports first Biden might trail for a while (heavens!), but then we’ll probably see Biden put it away with the remaining Clark vote.
Kay
@germy:
Yes, it’d unimaginable that they would behave like every other losing candidate. WAY too high a standard.
They get shitty behavior from Republicans because they excuse shitty behavior from Republicans.
germy
@gwangung:
I always thought Elko was the 5th Marx Brother… the one with the antlers.
Miss Bianca
@taumaturgo: You know what? Fuck you, you little turd. You make these grotesque presumptions about people here who have, jointly and severally, done MORE to drag this country back from the precipice of fascism than you could accomplish in 100 lifetimes.
In fact, what exactly have you accomplished that’s so great, hm? You mighty, mighty, bosstone keyboard radical, you? How many of your fire-breathing progressive warriors have you worked to get elected? Hey, how many of them actually GOT elected? What ballot initiatives have you helped get over the wire? What local issue are you working on to correct in your community? I’m betting “Jack” and “Shit” would be your answers if you bothered to be honest. Much easier to sit there and sneer and jeer at the efforts of people who actually a). know how to get shit done politically, and b). are willing to put in the time and effort and money to get it done.
Go find a nice pointy stick, sit on it, and spin for a while.
hueyplong
@patroclus: The brief interruption of the Philly count might push back PA a little, but that doesn’t mean we wouldn’t pretty much know (i.e., see Biden overtake Trump and leave the final margin one of only historical interest).
gwangung
@germy: More like the sixth brother….with absolutely gorgeous high desert mountain scenery and absolutely no people.
Sorta got the idea I wasn’t suited for geology around that time…but I plowed ahead for two more years….
sgrAstar
@cain: fuck yertle. Hasn’t he ever heard of ACTING cabinet secs? All the rage these days.
Yarrow
@Kay: I always feel like these people would be terrible parents. They have no idea how to set boundaries and have consequences when they’re broken. Like Chris Wallace at that debate. He let Trump roll right over him. Just stop the damn debate (“don’t make me stop this car!”) and give everyone a time out if they can’t get it together. Same with this campaign and these stupid lawsuits. It’s like the campaign is throwing a tantrum and threatening to run away from home if they don’t get their way and Republicans are all, “Oh, no! Don’t do that! Here’s the sugary sweet candy bar you wanted and of course you can eat it right now!” Or, of course we’ll file these stupid lawsuits.
SiubhanDuinne
@hueyplong:
Hmm. Don’t know much about him beyond the fact that he was Obama’s Ambo to Russia. Will have to learn more about him. I do trust Biden to make the best choice. He doesn’t need my, or our, help. (But it’s fun to populate a fantasy cabinet and senior staff in the same way it’s amusing to cast the movie adaptation of a favourite novel.)
germy
zhena gogolia
@Miss Bianca:
Come sit by me, six feet apart. I almost never use the pie filter but I made an exception yesterday. The downside was I got so damn hungry!
mrmoshpotato
No uncalled states on this map.
SiubhanDuinne
@Miss Bianca:
I need about a carton of cigarettes now.
Baud
@germy: That’s scary good.
mad citizen
@Kent: I can’t help my stupid thoughts. Re: the cult of trump, I wonder if the future R nominee will feel like wearing the orange makeup will help their cause. It’s a “brand” at this point. Orange face, yellow hair, red hat. Jeez, you’d think I was describing a cartoon.
topclimber
@cain: I know Trump used the trick of putting someone who has already passed Senate approval into a different cabinet position–apparently no need for a Senate OK on taking the new job.
Not sure if it applies to folks in the cabinet of a prior administration, or whether Biden wants any of Obama’s cast. But perhaps a weapon to keep in mind.
In the meantime, acting secy of state or AG Hillary Clinton would really mess with little GOP minds.
MisterForkbeard
@Kay: Right. I think it’s really pathetic about how we all just expect Republicans to be sociopathic and to cause problems just because they can.
They’ve successfully lowered the bar. They toddlers and we’re supposed to treat them that way in terms of our expectations, but also simultaneously treat them with respect. It’s maddening.
Omnes Omnibus
@SiubhanDuinne: I really was trying to say something nice about tomato in my original comment. I guess it came out wrong. Darn it to heck.
germy
Here’s something to cheer everyone up:
frosty
Deleted; should’ve read the whole thing before commenting.
The Thin Black Duke
Don’t feed the troll.
Omnes Omnibus
@The Thin Black Duke: YOU’RE NOT MY SUPERVISOR!
patroclus
@germy: What would really cheer me up is Philadelphia, Fulton, DeKalb, Clark and Maricopa Counties coming in fully with overwhelming Biden votes.
Yarrow
Lol. You gotta click through to see this image but Trump is panicking for sure.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@topclimber: Hillary has already had senate confirmation….just saying.
trollhattan
@Baud:
Little known fact: Elko is an Italian elk.
mrmoshpotato
@germy: That was great. Thanks.
The Thin Black Duke
@Omnes Omnibus: WHAT? I CAN’T HEAR YOU!
marcopolo
@SiubhanDuinne: I’m willing to put money down that Ron Klain will be Biden’s CoS. He did a great job in that position when Biden was VP, they know each other, they like each other.
One of the biggest mistakes Obama made entering the oval office was picking Rahm Emmanuel as CoS because he’d be good at wrangling Obama’s agenda through the House of Representatives and he vaguely knew him from IL politics. What Emmanuel wound up being good at was stifling Obama’s progressive tendencies and pushing policies that rewarded big money D’s.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Yarrow: So the latest plot twist is Fox News is now a wing of the Democrats?
divF
@Omnes Omnibus: I’d like to speak to your supervisor, then.
hueyplong
@Yarrow: Schadenfreudelicious
Baud
@Yarrow: In fairness, AZ does seem like it shouldn’t have been called. That said, screw Trump.
cain
@Immanentize:
HAHAHA! I love it!
Omnes Omnibus
@divF: She’s on break.
japa21
@Yarrow: It’s like they think a network call makes it official.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@hueyplong: I hadn’t heard McFaul mentioned as CoS. I think Klain is still the front-runner. He’s a legendary behind-the-scenes guy, and I think just who we want overseeing the distribution of a vaccine (fingers crossed). They say Biden still has a grudge that he publicly signed on with HRC before Biden had made up his mind on ’16, but I don’t think Joe will get hung up on that for long.
LuciaMia
My favorite line from the past 24 hours is still, “The only way Trump can get to 270 now is to lose 50 pounds.”
Doc Sardonic
@mad citizen: Tweak the makeup a bit and you have Ronald McDonald.
cain
@SiubhanDuinne:
This will be very unpopular but I feel like Steve Schmidt would be awesome – putting the apostate against his former colleagues would be the kind of energy I want to see.
But at the same time, haven’t we had enough of Republican tools? Still…
hueyplong
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: You’re right. I switched the names in my head. Your guy is the one I was trying to say.
mrmoshpotato
@germy:
Has the traitorous, orange Soviet shitpile tried yelling at the top of his fat, orange, fascist lungs that the “loser states have to treat me tremendous bigly?”
Elie
We are counting these votes one split pea at a time…. why was it this close????
What the hell is going on with this country? I thought that I was living in country X (that was having some bad times through horrible, mistaken leadership), only to find out that a significant — yes almost majority LIKE that horrible, evil, mean leadership!!! I’m actually in “country Y” I am trying to get my trust lined up again with reality. Where are we? I’m having a dissonance I did not expect at all! Why didn’t we capture the senate hands down? Why didn’t we get the state legislatures we targeted? I was assuming that our citizens wanted the liberation from this evil administration and now I’m not sure what reality is anymore….What were all the polls measuring — the many surveys of this and that? I feel really lost…. and I worked in my county to “help fix things” again — to bring my country back…
hueyplong
I don’t understand the weakness-signalling whine that AP and Fox rescind their call on Arizona. Can’t Trump just tweet: “I hereby claim RESCISSION of the Arizona call”?
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@The Moar You Know:
That 100M would have been better spent as a bribe to McConnell to retire and stay out of politics forever.
AnotherBruce
@Gin & Tonic: Yes, but Ukraine doesnt have an electoral college.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@The Thin Black Duke:
Especially not to lend credence to the idea that Dems just need to be more emo, then THE PEOPLE WILL SEE!
This is communications advice from people who think “Look out the window, Mitch” is a can’t-fail legislative strategy, and that Biden would’ve won Florida and Texas if he had made AOC (!) the face of his campaign.
mrmoshpotato
@Yarrow: LOL! The Kremlin’s bitch is SAD!
mad citizen
@Elie: This post is so yesterday. Not making fun at all, we’re all moving back and forth along the grief/celebration continuum in real time as they say. My stepson from Sac texted me to ask how things were here (Indiana). I said we’ve bought a house in Italy for 1 Euro, moving next month.
The sheer number of votes for the orange criminal and his party will not leave my mind. Cannot comprehend.
cain
Absolutely – the primal scream from the party and their enablers will filll me with delight.
Jinchi
Could you send that message to me two days ago?
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: I saw that.
Steve in the ATL
@mad citizen:
The 1990’s called and Hillary Duff wants her catchphrase back!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@cain:
Schmidt strikes me as a decent guy who genuinely believes in a lot of hothouse Republican ideas about “small government”, i.e., get rid of the safety net because churches and communities. Or something. Rick Wilson let it be known on his last podcast that he’s gonna be gunning for Little Marco in ’22. Between Wilson and Ana Navarro (who is a apparently a big deal in FL GOP politics, especially that complicated and diverse Hispanic community) on the one side, and DUI Matty Gaetz on the other, Li’l M may just follow through on his dream to retire to full-time lobbying, whether he wants to or not.
divF
@Omnes Omnibus: I’ll stay on the line until she gets back.
The Moar You Know
@Yarrow: He’s got this, as soon as Gen. Steiner shows up they’ll repel the invaders and…vhere ist Steiner?
Steeplejack
@catclub:
Somebody out of frame is manipulating it. Twitter/TikTok 101.
Elie
@mad citizen:
I totally get what you are saying and yes, I am moving back and forth along some sort of grief/awareness continuum. Sorry to bust in here with a comment like that, but I just got gripped by it… it comes in waves… I can’t always control it…
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Miss Bianca:
I love you.
Got a spouse you want a short, tawdry break from? *swoon
MisterForkbeard
@Baud: Eh. I think calling AZ was pretty defensible and it looks like it’ll be born out. In an ordinary year I don’t think anyone would have cared.
Ruckus
People have talked about compartmentalizing on BJ for a number of days now. And yes it seems like weeks. Part of the way it works is realizing that the first step is walking away, actually or figuratively. Turn off the news, watch a movie or read a book or take a nap or if you can work. People who have been compartmentalizing for a long time make it seem easy. It’s not. It takes practice and learning your buttons, so that you can cover them or turn them off. But it starts by walking away, turning it off, putting down the book, picking up the book, changing your environment. The one around you or the one in your head.
The Moar You Know
@Elie: Bolded parts are where your brain made crucial mistakes. There is no “bringing our country back”…because this was never the nation you thought it was.
ETA: might sound cruel but I hope a lot of our citizens are having the same moment you are. In order to solve a problem you first need to be aware that you have one. I hope more than a few Americans might finally be realizing that now.
Juju
@mad citizen: Indiana was a stronghold for the Klan in the 1920’s. There is a history of racism In that state.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@cain:
I was thinking along those lines, too.
How about this – Comms Chief Rick Wilson?
Yutsano
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
She’s an ultimate immigrant story. Came from Nicaragua when she was 9 with her family. Went big on Republicanism because of Reagan’s support of the Contras. Started getting more flexible in her views as early as 2013 over equal marriage. But Dolt45 shot her over the edge. It wouldn’t shock me if she came gunning for Lil Marco hard.
EDIT: okay so maybe I just want to contribute to the upcoming T-Bogg. Sue me. :P
taumaturgo
The whole GOP, each one of them.
mrmoshpotato
@cain:
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: How about Rick Wilson, Steve Schmidt and everyone else at The Lincoln Project going and fucking themselves?
taumaturgo
@Yutsano: And this is why we lose, no message, no convictions of our own, just borrow and promote Republican-lite ideas and individuals.
LuciaMia
One respite: All Christmas-themed episodes of the Simpsons on the Freeform channel.
Captain C
@Kent: Not to mention what may happen if Biden’s Acting AG starts poking under the rocks in Elaine Chao’s family’s business.
pat
@Miss Bianca:
When I get that “not available to you,” I open it in a new private window (Firefox).
topclimber
@taumaturgo: So tempted to feed the troll…MUST RESIST!
taumaturgo
@topclimber: What is your counter-argument?
cain
The man would take the money and still do whatever the fuck he wants and he would laugh in your face.
topclimber
@taumaturgo: See #445.
cain
When republicans fight – we all win. Steve will destroy his former comrades. I think he’s broken his own bubble and if he has indeed gone full Cole – he’s going to keep his powder dry and he’s going to be gunning for them all. I say lets give him that.
mad citizen
@Juju: Yup. The Klan controlled our state government. I was thinking about it Tuesday night. It wasn’t until the leader raped and killed a woman that they were not in control anymore.
Also, the song Strange Fruit had roots in a photo of a lynching in Marion Indiana; https://www.biography.com/news/billie-holiday-strange-fruit
“Strange Fruit” was originally a poem
Holiday may have popularized “Strange Fruit” and turned it into a work of art, but it was a Jewish communist teacher and civil rights activist from the Bronx, Abel Meeropol, who wrote it, first as a poem, then later as a song.
His inspiration? Meeropol came across a 1930 photo that captured the lynching of two Black men in Indiana. The visceral image haunted him for days and prompted him to put pen to paper.
After he published “Strange Fruit” in a teachers union publication, Meeropol composed it into a song and passed it onto a nightclub owner, who then introduced it to Holiday.
Jinchi
People invested in races that were high-risk, high reward. I have no problem with that. I’m more upset that Tom Cotton won his race, unopposed, than that Lindsay Graham won his race against Harrison.
Collins, a long time incumbent, got just barely over 50% of the vote. Down from 68% in 2014. That race was clearly winnable if it had been a slightly more favorable year and she’s lost her status as a centrist forever. Georgia looks even odds of swinging towards Biden and both Senate races are going to runoffs. That was inconceivable 10 years ago and largely the result investments in candidates like Stacey Abrams who would’ve been considered a shiny object not very long ago.
Democrats challenging Republicans on their own turf is a good sign. There is little point in investing only in guaranteed wins.
Yutsano
@taumaturgo: Well Sparky…you totally missed my point.
Or you’re obtuse.
Or both.
mad citizen
@Yutsano: I would like to see Ana Navarro run against Marco, not just work against his election. Not sure if I’d want her to primary him or run as a D–I’m not up on her views. Been a few years now since I’ve had cable so I haven’t seen in a while, but I remember she has that DGAF thing I like. She lays it out there, plain speaker.
zzyzx
PA SoS said that there are about 550k votes left.
So…. current gap 112k, 550k left…. Biden just needs to split the rest of the vote about 60/40 to catch up. He’s far out pacing it. (OK, 60.181818…%)
Yutsano
@mad citizen: I don’t think she would run against him. I could totally see someone like Matt Gaetz primarying him. I could definitely see her working against them both (with the Democrat although I don’t know who that would be right now) because oh man is she bitter.
pacem appellant
@germy: @Yarrow: @Kent: @White & Gold Purgatorian:
We need to talk about this more after the election, but every time we motivate our base, theirs gets excited too. We drove up Dem participation like crazy this election, and that pushed deplorables into a frothing frenzy of hatred that they also came out to vote their spite. It’s not just that we win when we vote, we win when we vote more, and the other side votes less.
I hope w/o Trump it’ll demoralize the GOP in GA, but I can just as easily imagine a scenario where they get extra angry that their guy lost due to “voter fraud” or whatever Limbaugh and Fox rant about on their propaganda mouthpieces, and that motivates to hate on immigrants, gays, and libs all the more.
catclub
@Felanius Kootea: I see no way perdue faces a runoff. Trump leads by 1.4% but perdue leads by 2.5%
The Thin Black Duke
Elie
@The Moar You Know:
You don’t have to “school” me. It would be much nicer — and effective if you could acknowledge my grief instead of saying nya nya nya, you dared to have ideals.
I have not considered myself to be some naive lass who sees the world through rose colored glasses. I have been involved working locally especially, in politics all of my life and I am 70 years old. I reserve the right to be shocked about what I am seeing, having worked to make things better for our people a good long time. On a good note in this election, we put two wonderful young women in the WA state legislature — so I believe in the hard work of democracy does bear fruit…
Save your bitterness and turn it into action. That is what I plan to do. And may I advise you to be kind these days when people express their sadness and grief. Always be kind– unless you want to emulate someone else..
sgrAstar
@taumaturgo: really? There are tons of DC-knowledgeable dem lawyers who have been bashing trump consistently across multiple platforms. Ron Klain(biden’s former CoS) is one of em. The CoS has to know where all the bodies are buried, and have the knife skills to help the Cabinet Secs expose and remove them from every branch. In addition to knowing how to yank Senate chains, of course.
?
Gravenstone
@Omnes Omnibus: I would take issue with the fact that we’ve been reduced to that particular reality. But it’s goose/gander time until we can get an actually functioning Senate again.
pacem appellant
@The Thin Black Duke: I hope my tone didn’t convey that we should try to Claire McCaskill our out out of this. Juck no. I can’t stand the mushy middle on FB who think Trump did as well as he did because of all the riot and looting and civil unrest pushed, nay, forced them, to vote for “law and order”(obviously, it is neither). It makes me so angry I can hardly work today. I want to know how to make our side vote in high even numbers to drown out the racists and fascists. Demoralize them for a few election cycles so they can die off of natural causes and covid.
Jim Appleton
Because TBogg unit approaching …
J R in WV
@Omnes Omnibus: