In case you need more good news about the likely Biden win, Russian state TV is in mourning today. Now shifting to saying that democracy is just chaos, and Russia is lucky not to have to deal with such things thanks to Putin!
— Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) November 4, 2020
From a smart netizen: pic.twitter.com/cUzqXgFaB7
— Hu Xijin ??? (@HuXijin_GT) November 5, 2020
On The Road – J R in WV – Election Respite, Southwest Edition
Mike in DC
Oh, that first face to face between President Biden and President Putin will be something else.
Yutsano
The Russians are about to lose their biggest influence tool? GOOD.
Alison Rose
@Mike in DC: Is it too much for me to hope Biden strides into the room (masked up and stopping six feet away, of course) and says “WHAT’S UP, FUCKER, HOW YOU LIKE THE USA NOW?”
Martin
One of the firefighters injured in the Silverado blaze near me just died. One still in the hospital. Both had 2nd-3rd degree burns over 50+% of their body.
Sebastian
Per Al Giordano on Twitter (he protects his tweets, limited sharing options) 15 minutes ago
@AlGiordano
“The plot thickens. Fulton County, Georgia clerks & volunteers have decided, Secretary of State be damned, they’re staying up tonight until all their votes are counted. They’ll dump the results of 17,000 more ballots *tonight*.”
Sally
Anne, if you’re reading tonight, I sent you an email of a cartoon I thought was very poignant and pertinent. Hope you like it.
Amir Khalid
@Alison Rose:
Joe will certainly make clear that his administration is not going to put up with any of Putin’s malarkey.
smike
@Mike in DC:
Helps me hopefully gloat a bit.
NotMax
@Sebastian
They’ve been opening and processing between 2000 and 3000 ballots per hour. Picking the middle of 2500, that’s nearly 7 more hours.
Would rather they knock off, get some shuteye and return in the morning, frankly. Tired and rushed people are more prone to mistakes.
Sebastian
Maricopa counts through the night
Geoduck
As Sebastian noted, there’s an angry mob at the Maricopa Elections building. At least the police are protecting the workers…
Sebastian
@NotMax:
I hear ya but this is their hour. It’s Georgia man, Georgia! If they want to carry this over the finish line, by God they’ve earned it
Anne Laurie
@Alison Rose: It’ll be a while before Biden & Putin meet face-to-face. Last I read, Putin — who is, not unrealistically, terrified of catching the virus — was requiring all persons asking to meet him to quarantine for 14 days, and then run an actual barricade of full-body germicidal spray(s).
Sure, Putin’s a dictator on a scale our homegrown Squatter-in-Chief can only dream of, but he’s *not* a happy man right now. The pandemic has hit Russia at least as badly as it has the US, as have the ‘side effects’ of climate change. And the Russian economy had far less slack to start with.
Doubt he’s liable to reach out the hand of friendship to Biden, but from everything I’ve seen in the general news media over the past few months (BBC World, Reuters, Moscow Times), Putin has decided Trump is one of those sunk costs that get abandoned while he focuses his government forces on stuff he might be able to control.
MobiusKlein
How the hell is it OK to have angry mobs outside of vote tally centers? This is some serious banana republic shit.
smike
@MobiusKlein:
Isn’t it about time for Obi-Wan to show up? I mean, come on…
NotMax
@MobiusKlein
From what’s been shown on the TV “angry mobs” is pushing it.
Animated throng of maybe a hundred or so is more like it – thus far. Also too, not just one side has assembled.
HumboldtBlue
@Alison Rose:
It will never be too much to ask.
Sebastian
Just in. They’ll be done in 4-5 hours in GA. Biden will be in lead in 1 or 2 hours?
TriassicSands
A Biden/Harris win is a good thing, no question about it.
But the bad news is that, even after Trump’s disastrous four-year audition, there are nearly seventy million Americans willing to vote for the ignorant, fascist thug. He’s getting more votes than he got in 2016. For the US, that is like a person trying to swim the English Channel with a grand piano tied around her neck.
NotMax
@Sebastian
Gap is around 23,000 now so will be much narrowed but not reversed (yet) solely from Fulton.
Sebastian
@NotMax:
It’s quite confusing because different tables have different delta. Is 23k the current gap? I could have sworn I saw something lower but it could have been the catchup of a batch
Sebastian
@NotMax:
23k gap was for 70k left to count per some tweets.
mrmoshpotato
What are they going to steal?
And does the Soviet shitpile mobster conman know you can’t drive trucks from DC to Russia?
mrmoshpotato
@Mike in DC:
He should send Hillary as his surrogate.
Sebastian
@mrmoshpotato:
Yeah, Hillary as SoS!!
David ?Booooooo!? Koch
Tick tock, motherfucker
mrmoshpotato
@smike:
Help us Obi-Wan Kenobi. You up for punching some Trump trash in the balls?
Mary G
I just can’t read the details of this stuff. I’ll just peek into BJ every couple of hours to get the general drift of things.
ETA: This just cheered me up a bit:
mrmoshpotato
@Mary G: I know of two sitting US Senators from Georgia who should be indicted.
Winston
Philadelphia County should swing Biden/Harris into the lead. There are still a lot of votes to be counted in PA outside Philadelphia. They should mostly swing to Biden as they are the remnant of the mail in ballots. Right?
Just woke up from a daylong napping spree. Feeling better today. And it looks like Arizona is going Biden/Harris. Otherwise why would the Gopees be chanting “Stop the count”?
Winston
@mrmoshpotato: I saw this on twitter earlier. Indict those two, get them to resign, pick up two senate seats. Sounds good to me. ?
MomSense
I cannot handle much more. I just want to know Biden won so I can sleep again.
(((CassandraLeo)))
What Russian state TV isn’t saying is that a large part of the reason “democracy is just chaos” is because of Russia’s actions. It’s like Jack the Ripper telling us that sex work in Whitechapel is a dangerous occupation. Yeah, mostly because you made it that way!
I am schadening all the freude when it comes to these stories about Trump freaking out. Evidently he yelled at Rupert Murdoch over the phone last night trying to get him to un-call AZ, and Murdoch refused. Inject that shit right into my veins. I can’t even say how much I needed this. I’m super fucking disappointed about the Senate*, and the Supreme Court*, and the probable loss of the ACA (and my probable pending loss of health insurance) due to that case the Court* will take on the 10th, so just give me this, dammit.
*yes, both of them get asterisks now because none of this fucking shit is legit
Cēterum cēnseō factiōnem Rēpūblicānam esse dēlendam īgnī ferrōque.
Winston
I am glad some ones made this:
https://twitter.com/i/status/1324078979775684608
Calouste
@(((CassandraLeo))): Yeah, that was Emperor Rupert giving the thumbs down to the gladiator. Funny side-effect: the cultists are now upset with Fox News and it looks like some of them will be blaming it for the loss. Keep in mind that Fox is probably the most mainstream news these people watch. They don’t know AZ is also called by the AP among others.
David ?Booooooo!? Koch
@MomSense:
David ?Booooooo!? Koch
Reporter covering count for Atlanta Journal Constitution.
In other words, Tick Tock Motherfucker
prostratedragon
@NotMax:
According to msnbc they’re getting fresh troops every few hours.
Meanwhile …
Luciamia
@mrmoshpotato: The usual joke would be, ” count the silverware!” But my thought is “guard the paintings and other artwork in the WH “
Tony Jay
Well this is better news to wake up to. Went to bed early last night and slept like a log. What a difference a buffer in the EC makes.
Of course this means that all of Flobalob Johnson’s big talk about a US/UK trade deal after Brexit is worth exactly as much as every one of his other promises. The Good Friday Agreement stands, no customs border on the island of Ireland. The US and EU will be mending fences just as the mouldy fruits of the Brexit tree start splatting around our ankles. Spin that one you tubby case of bell-rot.
Anyway. Congratulations Democrats. Keep on fighting, enjoy your victories, learn from your failures, because 2022 isn’t far away.
mrmoshpotato
@Calouste:
Haha! SAD!
mrmoshpotato
@Tony Jay:
Awwww……poor pile of shit BoJo. Are he and Nigel going to try fleeing to Russia too?
Winston
Apparently the sheriffs are busting up the Gopee riot outside the Maricopa County vote counting facility. The vote counting goes on, however.
https://twitter.com/alexadobrien/status/1324217524809060354
Tony Jay
@mrmoshpotato:
Nah, not yet. Johnson rode out the revelation that he and his Party were a franchise of Russian Intelligence because the UK media are utterly complicit, and Farage is trying to recast his Brexit Party as the froggy-face of anti-Lockdown hysteria, which will guarantee him another period of ‘credibility’ from the BBC.
British politics isn’t capable of flushing any of our national turds, not at present.
mrmoshpotato
@Winston: Did they beat and tear gas the Trump trash?
Oh, they’re all white. I see…
Brachiator
@Martin:
Very sad news.
mrmoshpotato
@Tony Jay:
Yeah. That’s absolutely pathetic.
Brachiator
@Tony Jay:
Wasn’t Johnson supposed to wrap BREXIT up or walk away by the end of October?
At this point it seems that Boris is trying to lockdown BREXIT and come up with an “oven ready” cure for Covid-19.
Either that or he is throwing himself into a ditch with Cummings and Gove.
Also, Farage is quite the extremist butterfly. Just when you think he has finally gone away, he is flits back attached to some nonsensical right wing endeavor. It was strange enough seeing him as a surprise guest at one of the last Trump super spreader rallies.
Winston
@mrmoshpotato: There were a couple of deputies dressed up in riot gear, though.
mrmoshpotato
@Winston: See 27.
mrmoshpotato
Time for some sleep before checking my phone in the morning to see if we have President-Elect Biden yet.
?
scott (the other one)
Hillary Clinton was a very good Secretary of State, and if McConnell really doesn’t allow Biden to seat an actual cabinet, making her acting SoS is an excellent idea. I think he should pretty much offer her any position she wants, and if that’s SoS, groovy.
But for sheer trolling power? Making her acting Attorney General. Just imagine the sphincter-tightening that move would engender in the entire Trump Syndicate.
Bruce K
@scott (the other one): Hillary as acting Attorney General sounds pretty good. Honestly, for acting Secretary of State, I can’t think of anyone much better than Barack Obama.
NotMax
@Winston
Incredibly, incredibly fortunate that Arpaio is no longer the sheriff there.
rikyrah
@David ?Booooooo!? Koch:
Why is Alaska not called?
??
rikyrah
@David ?Booooooo!? Koch: I thought that NC was called??
David ?Booooooo!? Koch
@rikyrah: Last I looked only 50% of the vote had been counted in Alaska, which tells me it was majority mail in and that is slow processing. They interviewed a worker on CNN tonight and she said she personally processed about 100 per hour.
NC permits mail-in ballots to be received to be received 7 to 9 days after election day. The margin is about 1.5%. So they’re gonna wait to see if enough ballots are received and processed to change the lead.
trnc
No kidding. I just said this to my wife when we woke up and turned on the tv to see what was going on. I really expected that an evening break would be taken. This is insane, unless there’s actually a stash of fresh vote counters. JFC.
Tony Jay
@Brachiator:
Oh yes, but the only value the far-Right loons running the modern day Conservative Party place on a deadline, especially a self-imposed one, stems from its PR value in the British Media. Without the mirage of a ‘world-beating’ trade deal with Humpty Trumpty to wave around it’s only a matter of time before they execute yet another screeching u-turn and go cap in hand to the EU looking to spin their latest capitulation as yet another ripping triumph for British (English) bravery over the shifty foreign hordes. Without the British Media to run cover for them they wouldn’t be able to even begin contemplating getting away with it, but they know they can, so they do, and they will (mostly) until the time comes for another Tory saviour to be anointed in Johnson’s place.
As for Farage, he’s the living embodiment of that old saw about the ‘leader’ who asks where the people are going so that he can run to the front and ‘lead’ them. Except in this fucker’s case the ‘people’ are all mind-blowingly rich right-wing donors and he’s not so much leading as he is functioning as a human trumpet with a direct pipeline to the far-Right Chaos Industry shoved up his arse and his mouth always wide open.
You think America has problems? Hold our china teacup and watch this. ;-)
Steeplejack (phone)
@prostratedragon:
Pharoah Sanders, “Harvest Time,” for me.
NotMax
@rikyrah
Previously announced by Alaska that results would not be officially released until at a minimum seven days after Election Day.
No fuzziness about which way their electoral votes will be awarded to any paying the least attention, it’s just that there won’t be an official tally for a week as there is such a (relatively) large tranche of absentee ballots to be reviewed (and have discrepancies procedurally addressed as required by a 2016 law there).
NotMax
@rikyrah
NC numerical results for all intents and purposes sealed in carbonite until November 12 and will be updated then.
trnc
I just saw some talk about whether Pelosi will be reelected as speaker due to a shrinking majority. I don’t blame her a bit for that and I think she has been awesome, but FFS, groom someone else instead of going for it again, especially if Biden wins. Out of over 200 caucus members, there’s got to be someone under 65 with the experience and skills to do this.
Tony Jay
@trnc:
But could they do it as well? And depending on how the Senate shakes out it could well be that the Democrats’ best strategy is for Nancy to keep on wrangling majorities for great legislation that Joe promotes and popularises from the Presidential pulpit with Necro-Mitch in the middle finally forced to explain why he won’t even let his caucus vote on all these nice things.
The 2022 Congressional campaign started yestetday, after all.
NotMax
@NotMax
Amended.
NC numerical results for all intents and purposes sealed in carbonite until November 12 and will be updated then or quite possibly not until Friday the 13th.
trnc
@Tony Jay: Fair point, but the vote wrangling is also the job of the Whip. I love the work that she does, but I’m not always super excited at her interviews, and being the public face is part of the job.
Obviously, it’s too early for Katie Porter, but she’s articulate and she seems like someone who would have the skills. Isn’t there a 4 or 5 term version of her?
trnc
Anyone know when we get more results from Pa?
I’m going back to bed.
Tony Jay
@trnc:
I get your point. You’re right, there should be someone stepping up right now who can display the necessary combination of charm, smarm and willingness to do harm required of a vote-wrangling spokesperson for the only legitimate political party currently functioning in the United States. I don’t know enough to say who that could or should be, but I’d bet every bitcoin in my virtual sack that Nancy Pelosi does. She’s a seasoned pro and very good at her job, one important part of which is picking, training and empowering a (team of) successor(s).
Chyron HR
@trnc:
“Republican voters are monsters? Quick, blame a powerful woman!” Haven’t we done this dance before?
JPL
Steny Hoyer should be replaced imo. That’s where someone younger can step up.
Yutsano
@Tony Jay: Nancy has firmly stated she will no longer be Speaker after 2022. My hope is that’s because she’ll have a successor and not because they lose the House. I am all for a fervent debate on this matter, but I totally see her going back to being a nonna (as in leaving her seat entirely) after 2022. But if the Senate is gone in 2021 we’ll need her just for this session.
NotMax
@trnc
Slime-covered softball lobbed from some dank corner of the political nether regions as an attempt to drum up an “Ooh, shiny!” attention diversion, as well as yet again pump adrenaline into the decrepit Democrats In Disarray narrative.
Tony Jay
@Yutsano:
That sounds very sensible. She’s earned the right to set her own timetable and I’m given to understand she’s pretty likely to have gamed it out to perfection.
If this is to be a period of performative legislating (because of Necro-Mitch blocking the way) then it would seem a good time for her to chair the (officially) unofficial championship try-outs for her successor. Who has the skills and the style to general the Democratic Army in the House? And, equally as importantly, who doesn’t have what it takes and needs to be given the opportunity to prove it to the caucus before it gets down to nut-cutting time?
Geminid
@Yutsano: for a while, Ben Ray Lujan(D-NM) was thought have the inside track to be the next Speaker. But he ran for and won the Udall’s Senate seat. If I had to bet, I would put my money on Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries (D-Brooklyn). A very hardworking, very talented man. And a fine orator when the occasion calls for it. Jeffries’ nomination of Nancy Pelosi for Speaker January 2019 is a classic. By the end, he had Pelosi grinning. Worth checking out on you-tube if anyone needs cheering up.
mrmoshpotato
@rikyrah:
Called for what? Dinner? On the carpet for all of its bears undoubtedly scaring the bejesus out of Stephen Colbert?
Matt McIrvin
@Brachiator: When Farage’s video was going around about how his party was going to rebrand as the anti-lockdown resistance, I immediately noticed he was sitting in the atrium of the Trump International Hotel (Old Post Office) in Washington, DC.
YY_Sima Qian
CCP propaganda is harping on the democracy is chaos tune, and Trump is doing his best to demonstrate that very thing to the world. CCP propaganda has always harped on that tune, but the more political aware people in China did not quite buy into that narrative. In the past 5 years the UK and the US has done hard work for the CCP. Of course, you will not find CCP propaganda focusing on New Zealand or Germany, where liberal democracy is still functioning as intended.
From a geopolitical perspective, I think the 2020 election results developed into the best scenario that the CCP regime’s could conceive. Biden election means probable stabilization of the relationship and bounded great power competition, scope for collaboration to address international problems (such as the pandemic and Climate Change). Divided government means Biden Administration will be constrained in addressing the US’ myriad of structural problems and actually keep the US ahead of China. The lack of indisputable repudiation of Trump and his GOP continues to sow doubt concerning the US’ credibility and reliability (will any deal struck with Biden administration outlive any change in government?). A lot of people in China and in the world believe that the country is on the trajectory to eventually overtake the US even when HRC was expected to win in 2016 (I don’t think they are wrong). Trump accelerated that process, but also might overturn the whole sandbox that everyone is playing in.
The only scenarios where China does not eventually eclipse the US is if the whole world falls into chaos, or the US and China engage in ruinous conflict, or China itself falters due to mis-rule. Biden administration makes the first 2 much less likely over the next 4 years. Naturally, the CCP regime and most observers in China do not expect the 3rd scenario to happen, but it is something that can never be discounted (either domestic decay or foreign overreach).
Chris Johnson
@Luciamia: Fuck the paintings. If that’s the cost of getting our republic back, I don’t care if they torch the place in a fit of pique.
We can rebuild buildings.