“We’re fortunate that Joe’s got what it takes to be President and already carries himself that way,” former President Barack Obama said in a statement congratulating Joe Biden. https://t.co/u1ubqVPaDT pic.twitter.com/eKNGqFTds4
— CNN (@CNN) November 7, 2020
At the end of the Civil War, asked if he ever doubted the Union would win, Lincoln quoted Seward: “There was always just enough virtue in this republic to save it; sometimes none to spare, but still enough to meet the emergency.”
— Tom Malinowski (@Malinowski) November 7, 2020
Congratulations to President-elect Joe Biden! His German Shepherd, Major, is set to become the first shelter dog in the White House. The Bidens adopted the German shepherd from the Delaware Humane Association two years ago after initially fostering him. pic.twitter.com/qv37hAjVWO
— Humane Rescue (@HumaneRescue) November 8, 2020
This is the future liberals want. https://t.co/H6xro6yP3K
— Jeff Fecke (@jkfecke) November 8, 2020
Asian markets rallied on Monday on hopes that the #Election2020 win for Joe Biden will usher in a calmer period of global trade https://t.co/QvOpxnwNCG pic.twitter.com/WJTuH4UNan
— Reuters (@Reuters) November 9, 2020
Oh won’t these guys just take a moment and shut the fuck up and listen to _US_ for a while? Trust us, pompous white men, you’re heard. https://t.co/bxpoIrxmAj
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) November 8, 2020
and this should be the only story when reporting on unhappy trump voters who think the election was stolen. it really *was* stolen, and trump is the thief.
— kilgore trout, four seasons appreciator (@KT_So_It_Goes) November 8, 2020
Baud
And it is your responsibility to vote for Democrats in every election.
Gin & Tonic
I’m eagerly awaiting ten thousand anthropological discourses into the mind and motivations of the Biden voter. I’m sure the NYT has a team of crack reporters scouring the bagel shops of Brooklyn to find those rare specimens.
debbie
I love the quizzical look on Major’s face.
Baud
@Gin & Tonic:
I actually am interested in that. All we’ve heard since the election is how many people Trump turned out. I want to know the makeup of the people we turned out.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Major is what we in the foster business call a “Failed Foster”.
We’ve had four “failed foster” kittehs over the years of fostering when back in Central Misery.
Major the Dog: First Failed Foster. We’re chuckling over that.
MJS
Obama’s quote is spot on, and thank God for that. There isn’t going to be any real transition, so Joe is going to have to stand up a shadow government for the next 2+ months. Were fortunate that we have elected someone who was prepared to step into the presidency on a moment’s notice for 8 years.
JPL
@Gin & Tonic: The NYTimes reporters are busy searching for republican politicos to ask them what they expect from the Biden administration.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Gin & Tonic:
We can’t call it a Cletus Safari so what would be the appropriate label? Oh yeah, none because as we all know, the FTFNYT won’t ever go on one.
Baud
@JPL:
How it will be reported.
Punchy
Are we certain that 5 justices wont pithly issue a statement saying “Due to the various unknowns surrounding pandemic voting, all ballots are suspect and we must conclude that the election is tainted. As such, Trump is declared the winner; suck it, libs. Fuck yoose.”
After all, that would be considered actionable, right? Who could say otherwise?
Baud
@Punchy:
Yes. It’s over.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Same. We’ll have to look hard for that info, though; it won’t be served up on the regular in the big dailies. Even our locally owned little rag quoted a Dem saying that since Trump was able to turn out even more deplorables in 2020, we need to understand their issues better. I mean, on one level, I get that? Winning races is about addition. But I still wanted to hunt her down and smack her over the head with a frozen mackerel.
Punchy
@Baud: you have waaaaaaaay more faith in the honesty of Thomas and Crew than I do.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Biden says it better: “We need to talk to each other again.” No special onus on Democrats.
Mustang Bobby
Greetings from inside one of the outer bands of Eta. To put it delicately, it is raining like a cow pissing on a flat rock.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Must accept? I have a better idea, Marc D’Amico and any other Hair Furor supporter whose fee fees are hurting, take your feelings, put them in a jar, then take them home and show em to your kids and bury them in the backyard.
HinTN
@Baud: I prefer, “Fuck Your Feelings” but what do I know about civility…
germy
I hope Biden brings his dog when he has the traditional “sit down” meeting with Trump in front of reporters
I know it won’t happen but it’d be funny to see Major eyeing Trump suspiciously.
Geminid
Major is the first shelter dog in the White House. I’m up north, and I listened to news on WBZ (Boston) last night. A newswoman pointed out that Jill Biden is the first First Lady with a Ph.D.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
This is the future liberals want:
Everybody Must Get Stoned?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fm-po_FUmvM
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Re that Malinowski tweet. I don’t think Lincoln was giving interviews after the War due to being dead.
But it was just a matter of a few weeks so I guess the judges can allow it.
Baud
@HinTN:
In the end, I want to demonize haters on the right. The stuff they say about us is disgusting. We shouldn’t have to tolerate it.
satby
@Baud: My problem is I don’t want to talk to any Trump voters. IRL or online. I don’t care about their half-assed thoughts on the world, their shriveled little psyches or souls, or their political needs. Fuckem.
Which is why we need politicians like Biden.
Baud
@satby:
Exactly. Everyone has their role.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@satby:
You just summed up the Gilliard Doctrine.
http://stevegilliard.blogspot.com/2005/01/about-yesterday.html
And yeah, that’s why I’m not bothered when Biden talks about “reaching across the aisle” and other happy horseshit (as my late mother used to say) because somebody has to do it. You just don’t give up the farm when doing it.
Baud
Today show doing a good debunking of election fraud claims. But it’s too nice to conspiracy theorists.
zhena gogolia
That Malinowski tweet is beautiful. My feelings exactly.
debbie
Someone with a microphone (not Biden) needs to point out that the ballots Trump claims are illegal are the mail-in ballots he thought he’d buried in the depths of the USPS.
zhena gogolia
@debbie:
Me too.
I’m having to take a break from our weekly church Zoom prayer sessions. The very first prayer was for us to be nice to our Trump-voting neighbors. Fuck that shit.
You were entitled to vote for Hitler in the 1930s, and I’m entitled to shun and revile you for it.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Baud:
True but the fact that our Feckless Corporate Media Reporters are pushing back to this extent is downright bold of them. We can’t expect them to go all-in at once. I’ll take what I can get from them at this stage.
catclub
Of course, to both sides it, they are also looking for ultra progressives that are disappointed in Biden.
WaterGirl
@debbie: I know! Every time I see that photo of Biden and Major, I think “Major is a goofball.” And I mean that in the best possible way; I love dogs that are goofballs.
zhena gogolia
@catclub:
We had one of those in our prayer meeting as well.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@debbie: Major is a good boy.
As for admonitions to think of the Trump voters, Biden had me at “Would you shut up, man?”
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
Abandon Christianity.
Follow Baudism!
We turn other people’s cheeks.
SFAW
@HinTN:
Not sure I understand. It seems far more civil than anything we’d get from Trumpistas.
WaterGirl
@Baud: At least 75% of Independents are Republicans who don’t want to admit it out loud.
So yeah, let’s definitely look to them for direction. And Bernie!
I mean, really, why would we want to ask actual Democrats?
WaterGirl
@Mustang Bobby: It’s really nice to be seeing you here more again lately! Congratulations on your 17 years of blogging. :-)
Kay
I do want to be nicer to people though. I mean, I aspire to that :)
Here’s the thing. The President is supposed to set a high bar. Obviously it doesn’t mean you have to follow it – it’s not an order- but I think it’s worthwhile that he does it anyway. The alternative is the President sets a low bar and do we really need that? Given how mean many of us (me) are anyway?
We have a lot of critics of Trump voters! I just don’t think the President of the United States needs to be one.
It’s a good impulse that people want to be kinder to other people. Biden should encourage it because the alternative is ginning up hatred and division and that’s obviously not helpful.
Dorothy A. Winsor
This is like asking the abused wife to consider her husband’s feelings and why he turned out the way he did. First, he has to be put in a position where he can never hurt her again. She does not meet him half way
SFAW
@zhena gogolia:
Mrs. SFAW Zoom-attends her weekly UU worship service. I didn’t think to ask her if anything like that occurred (and UUs being what they are, it would surprise me not-at-all if it had). Either way, I’m with you.
Elizabelle
You guys had some really good threads overnight. (As in, anything after Medium Cool! I have been turning in early ever since the election, and see that other jackals are also extra tired. No doubt it is a symptom to having been overstressed, for months.)
boatboy_srq
The last time the world faced off against fascists it ended with the leadership tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity. I don’t see why this should be any different. We’re not talking about people who “happen to disagree”: we’re talking about a movement that insists that nobody outside its own little sphere is even human, let alone a worthy opponent. We should be treating its criminality as just that, it’s lawbreaking as such, and its classless know-nothingness as the willful ignorance it is. And whining that they deserve the very thing they denied anyone they dismissed as evil or subhuman is just as unattractive as all the other stuff they did.
Emma from FL
@Punchy: The majority is evil but not yet stupid. Yet.
Frankensteinbeck
@Punchy:
We are certain. The SCOTUS watching experts have said there is zero chance. More importantly, they have already judged some of these suits. The results are clear: SCOTUS wants nothing to do with the judicial branch overturning this election and whatever the state government decided, goes. Even heavily Trumpy lower court judges are throwing out his law suits, because they are based on nothing. You have to give a biased judge something to work with. To quote the judge when Trump’s lawyers admitted their observers actually were allowed in the building after all, “Then why are you here?”
Baud
It is a mainstream view in the GOP that the Democratic Party is a child sex ring operation. Our knee jerk response is to explain why that is unproven oe factually wrong. Our response should be that the accusation is immoral and that the people who make them are bad people.
SFAW
@Baud:
As opposed to Auntie-Baudism, where they pinch other people’s cheeks?
I’ll see myself out. [Waves to NotMax while departing.]
WaterGirl
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
That was so good that I wanted to see it again.
SFAW
@Frankensteinbeck:
Wasn’t that the case where the judge got the plaintiffs to admit/state (as opposed to agree) that Rethug observers were allowed in, and he/she would not proceed until the Rethug mouthpieces made that statement?
different-church-lady
@Baud: If it’s all the same to you, I’m just going to continue to avoid having any reason to interact with them in any way, thanks.
WaterGirl
@Frankensteinbeck:
But the judge still gave them something for their troubles, right? They got to be 6 feet away instead of 20 feet away, and that surely seriously increases the COVID risk.
(unless I am conflating two of the lawsuits)
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Baud: I find their obsession with pedophilia bizarre. We judge what other people would do by what we would do ourselves. So what does this say about them? I don’t think they’re all pedophiles. So where is this coming from?
@WaterGirl: They are such whiners.
Kay
@Baud:
Absolutely. I already decided I’m not getting into election conspiracy theories with Trump people here.
It’s not my job to explain this to them because all of the demands for explanations are bad faith anyway. I refuse to defend. They can go elsewhere for their quasi legal questions.
Baud
@Baud:
I understand and like that Dems are less religious nowadays, but we’ve lost something when it comes to speaking with moral authority. We tie morality to public policy but we also need to be able to speak to basic human decency.
I think part of it is that we are so nervous about “punching down” that we are tentative about punching back at GOP foot soldiers who demonize us.
Frankensteinbeck
@WaterGirl:
The court gave them nothing and said (paraphrased), “Work it out yourselves.” The state government was willing to give them the 6 foot thing.
@SFAW:
I didn’t hear that part, but I think it’s the same case.
SFAW
@Baud:
Nit: “Democrat Party”
Our response should be “With you mofos, every accusation has been a confession, so tell us about the child sex rings you guys have been running.” We should beat them senseless, rhetorically, every damn day. [“Rhetorically” == beating them over the head with rhetoric.]
Baud
@Kay:
Right. I remember when”creation science” was being pushed, and it was important not to debate them as if they were a real scientific theory.
It’s hard to respond without legitimizing, but that’s something we need to try to do.
Geminid
Why is this D’amico guy so concerned about how his side is treated? A guilty conscience?
Dorothy A. Winsor
Today I have to edit a short story about a magician who retired and moved into an over-55 condo community in the Chicago suburbs to find lots of bizarre stuff going on. It’s almost ready for me to send it out into the cold, cruel world.
Then I have a book coming out in March and yesterday my editor asked me for a draft of the back cover blurb. I realized I have no memory of what happens in this book. I haven’t seen it in nearly a year. So after I kick the short story out of the nest, I’ll skim that book.
artem1s
@germy:
don’t worry, BIden will have a cadre of thoughtful, competent advisors with him. That’s enough to spook Donnie, but good, as he’s never actually seen one before.
different-church-lady
@Gin & Tonic: Nobody seems to understand how this works: we’re going to have four years of features about understanding the disappointed bitter Trump dead-enders. Not because we don’t understand them, but because the culture of NYTs writers and editors views them as something like chimpanzees to be studied with fascination and wonder.
Punchy
@Frankensteinbeck: I would quibble that you must give a non-SCOTUS biased judge something to work with, because a judgement from whole cloth will certainly be appealed and reversed. But theres no appeals to what SCOTUS says; they could simply say all votes counted after midnight are tainted, and therefore must be excluded. Crazy? Yup. But actionable? I would think so…..not sure if PA would obey this tho…
jonas
I like how it’s never the responsibility of Trump voters to submit to having their feelings fucked and offer unquestioning loyalty to Biden. That is, after all, all they asked of us the past four years.
Immanentize
@Kay: My general response is to laugh a bitter little “ha” and move on. Derision is all such views deserve.
Amir Khalid
@WaterGirl:
And what are “undecided voters”? The ones I saw in the post-debate focus groups struck me as really confused people.
artem1s
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
takeaway I guess? … this election was brought to you by a bunch of dirty hippy stoners who are going to infect your suburban kids with refer madness?
different-church-lady
@SFAW: “How is it you know so much about pedophelia?” would be a really fun question to ask.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Amir Khalid: To quote Betty, in this case undecided voters are the stupidest goddam people on the face of the earth.
Frankensteinbeck
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I got my editing notes for I’m Late To Alchemy Class on the night PA became blatantly impossible for Trump, and processed/returned them on the day victory was declared. It STILL feels like every day is a year and I don’t know how far back that was. They’re just much better years!
Citizen Alan
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
For nearly 50 years, they have had incredible electoral success by using honest disagreements about the ethics of abortion as an excuse to call all democrats baby killers and to equate voting for Democrats with murdering babies. This is merely an extension of that to its logical conclusion.
Baud
Regarding the turnout for Trump, we should have a serious discussion about whether Corey Booker is scarier than we realized.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Frankensteinbeck: I feel so much better. I feel like part of my back brain was constantly engaged in worry and now it’s free to do other things.
Also, you’re fast!
SFAW
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I imagine it comes from their need to demonize the opposition in extremis. If their opponents are child-sex traffickers, then that opposition is irredeemable, and thus it’s OK to do whatever is necessary to harm that opposition. It’s not that far removed from various anti-Semitic tropes over the years, especially in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s.
Baud
@different-church-lady:
He who smelt it, dealt it.
Gin & Tonic
@different-church-lady: Do I need to apply the damn sarcasm tag these days? I thought it was obvious.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: That’s 100% true, that we should expect better of the POTUS, and if we don’t, that means Trump trashed that standard forever. As ordinary citizens, WE aren’t obligated to coddle the extra-dainty feelings of Trump voters, but the president is supposed to act like everyone’s president, and it was jarring and scary when the current shitty president made it clear that he only served people who feed his ego.
It may be yet another standard that only Democrats are held to (by themselves and the media) going forward. I don’t see Repubs going back to kinder-gentler now that they’ve had a taste of asymmetrical warfare. But here we are.
jonas
@different-church-lady: Yep. The Cletus Safari is pretty much a regular beat now. By the end of Biden’s term it will actually be a full-color weekend insert in the Sunday NYT.
SFAW
@Amir Khalid:
I’m amazed that you were able to hear them, what with their heads being shoved so far up their asses.
Gin & Tonic
@Amir Khalid:
Otherwise known as the common clay of the new West…
mad citizen
@Baud: Yup! I was thinking over the weekend about how the Dems need to frame ALL the debates, all the questions. The EC will never go away unless we talk about it and work it incessantly.
I never expected “kindness and decency” from trump; a narcissist doesn’t change his ways. Yet those qualities are the lowest base for human behavior, not “over and above”, which is what you really want in a leader (and what Joe Biden has quietly over and over again).
WaterGirl
@Frankensteinbeck: Glad to know that, thank you. The state was foolish then, and I don’t think they did right by their vote counters.
germy
Maybe change it to an unlisted number?
Al Z.
I’m more than willing to treat Trump voters with decency and kindness but I will reserve that for those who are not denialists in terms of climate, COVID, or fair elections. And I have no such inclination whatsoever for racists, misogynists, xenophobes, or QAnon whack-jobs.
Wait? Who am I supposed be to kind and decent to?
germy
Concede then, already.
Frankensteinbeck
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Not so much fast, as my writing process is unusually organized compared to most authors. I’ve already spent the time that normally goes into story and line edits hacking at every chapter after I write it. By the time my editors get the book, they rarely have anything to do but proofread.
different-church-lady
@Betty Cracker: We ALREADY KNOW what their fucking issues are. We just don’t know what to do about any of it, because there’s no quick cure for irrational hatred and resentment.
WaterGirl
@Dorothy A. Winsor: @Amir Khalid:
Thanks for taking that one, Dorothy! I was going to go with “Stupid or disingenuous, or both” but yours is better.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@WaterGirl: Kaleigh McEnany tweeted this morning that their observers were not allowed in so fraud! I was tempted to engage but decided it’s time for my walk and who cares? She’ll soon go away and hopefully I’ll never have to see her again.
SFAW
@germy:
“Your proposal is acceptable.
ETA: Graham-a Wormtongue is such a fucking asshole
WaterGirl
@Citizen Alan: Maybe the response should be:
jonas
@Dorothy A. Winsor: As far as we know, the only major institution in recent memory *actually* involved in a massive conspiracy to cover up child sex abuse was…the Catholic Church.
The whole “international globalist cabal preying on children” thing is just the ancient Jewish blood libel legend reheated and served up with a side of extra stupidity to appeal to Republicans. Anyone with a passing familiarity with the history of antisemitism can see immediately what QAnon is really up to.
germy
Meanwhile, in Estonia:
Kay
@germy:
Remember when the Trump Family all told us they had fabulous lives before this and were successful in their own right and were making a huge sacrifice when they took the nepotism jobs Daddy gave them?
Clinging to the best job they ever had and will ever get again, refusing to clean out their desks and go home after being fired.
Ken
I would have preferred “Thirty days and a $50,000 fine for lying to this court,” but will settle for the snark.
germy
different-church-lady
okay, okay,lemme see if I got this:
I need to talk nicely and show empathy…
to a bunch of people who were willing to let others die…
and allow the country to collapse…
despite the fact that for the past five years they been outright saying…
the thing that matters to them more than anything else…
is that I feel sad.
Do I have this right?
prostratedragon
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Not sure if it gives comfort or despair that such an accomplished author can have a “”Who wrote that?” moment. I guess it’s been a rough and eventful year.
germy
Yes, I remember them acting like they were doing us all a tremendous favor.
Kay
@different-church-lady:
It’s just amusing that after Trump won we were ordered to understand Trump voters, and now that he’s lost we’re again ordered to understand Trump voters.
Whatever happened we were never going to talk about Clinton or Biden voters.
different-church-lady
@germy: So already more Estonians will resign over sabotaging American elections than will Amercans.
Kay
@germy:
You would think they would be skipping out the door back to their fabulous lives in the private sector- instead they’re behaving like stalkers who refuse to take no for an answer.
This is why you don’t hire your entire family. If you get fired your entire family gets fired too. I get that it’s extra humiliating for them because we’re rejecting all of them instead of just Daddy, but I didn’t tell them to leech off of him.
danielx
Must? Must, you say?
I never sought decency and kindness from Trump, since I knew he didn’t possess either. As for his voters, I’ll be happy to treat them with decency and kindness as soon they demonstrate that they do possess those traits themselves. Until then, fuck those guys.
zhena gogolia
@Kay:
Yes, I agree with you on this. I think Biden will have a good effect on everybody.
germy
Gin & Tonic
@Kay: Call me catty, but now that Trump has lost and is rapidly shrinking, I wonder how long Kimberly Guilfoyle hangs around with Don Jr.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@zhena gogolia:
I’m not attending our Orthodox parish these days. My paternal grandparents were among the first families that attended it, but Christianity is like ash in my mouth anymore. Plus, the new priest is a convert (we ducked a bullet by dumping that clown Mark Maymon who found a home in OCA/ROCOR, but converts in leadership is still a problem). Anyway, new priest is trying to follow the rules but he’s a slave to the old ladies and too prone to demand asceticism for my tastes – and now, he’s got COVID.
I find myself wondering why he’s not seeking out people who haven’t been attending and seeing what needs or concerns he might be able to address, but instead, nada.
Betty Cracker
@different-church-lady: Stupidity seems to be a big factor in Florida and perhaps elsewhere. I mean, how goddamned dumb do you have to be to believe that Joe Biden is the love child of Castro and Maduro? But people swallowed that bullshit, and Trump turned out the usual racist whites, and that was that.
Sab
@WaterGirl: Major looks like his play drive is about 12 on a 10 point scale. I wander how many shoes he has eaten in his life.
zhena gogolia
@different-church-lady: Dean Baquet (or someone signing the message with his name) actually gave me a similar answer to one of my million complaints about this. He said that people living in New York City were thoroughly familiar with and surrounded by Hillary Clinton supporters, so it wasn’t interesting to read about them.
Kay
@zhena gogolia:
I hope he goes back to a more removed role. We don’t really need commentary on the electorate, or womens soccer, or Goya beans. We’ll handle all that. He’s supposed to set an example. Obviously we’re adults and we don’t have to follow it, but it’s important that he try.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Gin & Tonic:
She’s a famef***er. Attractive enough to get into the circle, but batshit crazy and dangerous.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Sab:
That dog looks like he could devour a couch in under 40 minutes. After that, he starts on the baseboards.
LurkerNoLonger
I shudder to think what a group of Trump voters smell like.
Ken
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Is it usual for the author to write the back-cover blurb? I’ve read a few that had blatant spoilers, for example, and I would be surprised to find the author had done that.
I’ve also read some that didn’t seem to have anything to do with the book, but now you’ve explained that :-) .
Frankensteinbeck
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
…of course, just because there was nothing to edit didn’t mean it wasn’t edited anyway. I’ve got some horror stories, like the editor who tried to rewrite the voice of the main character of one book. I was looking at those notes and thinking stuff like, “Uh, lady, Penny does not use the word ‘jammies’.” At least five notes like that per page, just rephrasing sentences that had no grammatical or clarity issues. That was a ghastly editing session, especially since I had to pore through all of that to find the actual legitimate editing notes and couldn’t give my editor the benefit of the doubt in disagreements like I usually do.
Kay
@germy:
Chalk up another win for the worst case scenario people. Every single time we’re told “the institutions” will uphold something, “the institutions” fail.
He’s burning it down on the way out, as predicted. I will say though, Republicans don’t know how this will play out in terms of their self interest. Telling people elections are invalid probably depresses turn out.
danielx
@germy:
Be nice to have a president who does some actual, you know, work – as opposed to spending his days rage-tweeting semi-literate blatherings and watching tv to stoke his grievances.
germy
Thankyou Mr. Ex-President.
zhena gogolia
@Ken:
The author is usually asked for a draft, which then the marketing people turn into a kind of hash, which then the author can try to fix but probably won’t get very far.
But that’s for academic presses. Probably with trade presses the author has very little input or veto power.
MomSense
@artem1s:
I hope they are all wearing respirators. I don’t want Biden going anywhere near that germ ridden place.
Kay
Just want to point out the really definitive quality of the Trump Administration- they never do any actual work. It’s easy to get distracted with their huge effort to lie to people and feather their own bed, because it sort of looks like “work” but none of the low quality hires actually do any of the work that they are paid to do.
Another 90 days where these people collect a paycheck and do nothing for it.
Frankensteinbeck
@Kay:
Chalk up another win for the best case scenario people. The institutions are giving Trump the middle finger as he whines like every narcissist who loses does. Courts and Republican legislatures have said they will not overturn this election based on Trump’s conspiracies.
EDIT – @Kay:
It’s tempting to say this, but I don’t think it’s true. It looks true because none of it is work that we would do. One of the biggest reasons the last four years have been nonstop pain is because every god damn day they found some new asshole way to abuse their government positions. Shit like transgender bans and firing large swathes of various departments, that is work. I might go for ‘they, and especially Trump, do vastly less work than most administrations’, but I only wish it was ‘none’.
germy
@zhena gogolia:
Dean is pretending that the NYT’s readership doesn’t extend beyond Manhattan.
Their stupid opinion pieces and cletus safaris are reprinted and rebroadcast to outlets all over the country.
Kay
Good for them. The shiftless low quality hires were probably trying to take credit for it.
prostratedragon
@Betty Cracker: If those appeals were really what happened in Miami-Dade, nothing at all else need be said. Maybe, I don’t know, mass cognitive therapy?
Kay
@Frankensteinbeck:
I don’t think they’ll overturn the results, but only because of the “back up states”. If this thing hinged on PA alone we’d be in a different place.
different-church-lady
@zhena gogolia: And yet somehow the same logic does not apply to the Style section.
Baud
@germy: Thank you for your civility. :)
germy
My own workplace experience over the past 42+ years:
Coworkers who were the most hardworking were the ones who considered themselves liberals. Supported other employees, worked hard to get projects done, etc.
Coworkers who were the most problematic were the conservatives. The Rush Limbaugh fans, the talk radio listeners. They were the ones who took frequent smoke breaks, left their work unfinished for others to deal with, blamed other employees for their mistakes . Gossiped and created the most office “intrigue” etc. Always had to have an enemy.
Anecdotal, I know, but it’s been my experience, without exception.
So I see these high status grifters as just wealthier versions of the people who made my jobs over the years more unpleasant than they should have been.
Betty Cracker
@prostratedragon: It’s too soon to draw any firm conclusions. Exit polls are already suspect, and that goes double for 2020 IMO. But one reason I suspect that may be the case is because Rick Scott came in at the last minute and opened up his wallet to lie in Spanish about Biden being a socialist in the final weeks. Scott is evil but not stupid. He probably saw an opportunity.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
Ohio is out as a “battleground” too but I’m embracing it. New states, new map, new people.
Frankensteinbeck
@Kay:
Why? The SCOTUS and lower courts had made rulings before PA was called, when it still looked like Trump would win. They were consistent and gave no sign that anybody intended to overturn anything. As much as we hate the asshole Republicans on SCOTUS there is no evidence at all they would be on board with an openly obvious overturning of the election under any circumstances. Bush/Gore was a very, very different situation.
JPL
@germy: Since Pfizer was working with a German company to come up with the formula, I have no idea why it wasn’t announced last week. Oh and that company was started by immigrants. I am sure that it’s just coincidental.
germy
@JPL:
Well, Don Jr. is suspicious:
Kay
@germy:
I think people would love it if Biden’s team kept their heads down and just worked really hard. His campaign was like that. The work ethic starts at the top. We don’t need more political celebrities. Let’s just have arts and entertainment and sports celebrities. That category is full and they’re better looking :)
Baud
@Frankensteinbeck:
I think SCOTUS would have overturned PA if the difference were based on late arriving ballots. Thankfully, it looks like we’ll beat that margin by a good bit.
Frankensteinbeck
@Baud:
If it were based on actually shaky situations, yeah, they might have. That would have given them a pretty good fig leaf, and might have fit into their ‘whatever the state goverment’s policy says, goes’ attitude. That’s not where we are, though, and the institutions have responded to Trump’s attempts to overturn the election with “Yeah, whatever, loser.” The institutions held. The system that ushered Trump in is ushering him out.
Kay
@Frankensteinbeck:
I don’t think there’s any point in arguing about it. I think there are two kinds of people re: Trump. The people who thought it was a real danger and the people who didn’t. There’s a lot of both, but I’m in the first category. I think we came really close to losing everything. I’m profoundly disappointed in how weak our institutions were and I think that indicates they were weak going in. I don’t think they’ll do any reflection on that, but they should. They failed. Over and over and over. Because I also believe organizations and entities are only as strong as the members, I think we have a kind of quality crisis that is bigger than the Trump Administration.
Mary G
I didn’t link it here, because it seemed like a parody: there was a tweet that said that the entirety of the “evidence” in one of the voter fraud suits was a single Post-it note with a hearsay of a hearsay scribbled on it.
The Four Seasons Landscaping press conference happened makes me wonder if it might be true. It’s why treating Twitler’s voters with respect and kindness is something I feel no responsibility to do. The Republicans did not do it from 2016 to 2020. Demands for civility are just another excuse for supressing our voices.
Wanderer
Glad the Biden team will provide their own transition. Pres. Elect has deep bench of contacts and good will so will be able to get relevant information without risk of face to face meetings in White House. As with all other issues during loser 45’s term it is ‘do it yourself’.
Baud
@Frankensteinbeck:
The whole institutions held/failed debate is misguided. It’s not a binary state. Institutions were weakened, but in the end most people got to vote and that’s what decided the presidential election. There will be no coup, but there are a lot of syst problems we will have to deal with.
Barbara
@germy: This stuff from Graham gives me shivers. It’s the kind of reasoning that Southerners used in the lead up to the Civil War. I don’t expect actual war, of course, but it traces a similar demand for fealty from those who disagree with you, even though they outnumber you. Even after Graham acknowledges defeat, he will demand that the losers get the same prerogatives as if they had won. And the fallout will be all our fault for not having agreed to capitulate. One of my cousins talks like this, basically saying that if we kept up our vocal disagreement with Trump and Trump supporters it would be all our fault if they felt the need to use violence against us. That’s when I tuned out of FB.
prostratedragon
@Betty Cracker: Might be worth asking a large sample of voters what materials they saw. Surely the Democrats had some Spanish materials to distribute, but maybe they needed more that went into Biden’s and Harris’s history of public service. Scott’s stuff could only have been egregious howlers.
Kay
@Baud:
I do too and I think they telegraphed their willingness to do that, hence my absolute panic when I found out there were 100k provisionals and no one knew the ratio. That was terrifying and I won’t forget it.
We were 50k out from disaster in PA w/out the backup states. That’s pretty fucking close.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
We’ll have to have a debate about whether the “socialism” label is good or bad for us and how we deal with the answer.
Ken
It’s the scruffy beard, but that seems to be the style.
As for his suspicions, paranoia is one of the side effects of certain self-medications. Fortunately substance dependency and mental-health counseling are covered under the ACA.
Spanky
@germy: Jesus Christ. Dow up 1500 right now. Talk about irrational exuberance.
Get back to me at 4 PM with the closing numbers. I suspect it might settle down “a bit”.
Mai Naem mobile
@debbie: I would like Judge Emmett Sullivan to order those ballots to be segregated and counted wherever they were supposed to go to just to get the numbers. I know they can’t be counted in the election but I would like the numbers to see if the election results would have been closer to the polling.
Citizen_X
Fuck off, Karen.
I cannot imagine the sheer balls it takes to DEMAND your opponents be “civil.”
That is not civility, asshole. Fuck right off until you can recognize that and deal with us as equals. (Note: That will never happen for a lot of them.)
Kay
@Baud:
The last and least powerful (individually) institution held. Voters held. That’s inspiring and very small d democratic but it was also the last line. Everything up to that failed.
We did our job, but we were the only ones.
Barbara
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
This was my experience in the Catholic church I stopped attending. However, thinking it through, I realized that most likely if the priest thought about it at all (I was fairly active at the time), he knew the issues and knew there was nothing he could say.
Soprano2
I hadn’t thought of it this way, but I think this is it exactly. Pedophiles are seen as the lowest of the low, not deserving of any consideration or mercy at all, so if they can characterize all Democrats this way it gives them an excuse for their behavior and attitude.
On one thread on FB where a friend who is a Democrat was fighting with some Trump supporters, I simply posted “I just can’t forget this picture” with the two Trump supporters in the “Fuck your Feelings” T-shirts. Thought that said it better than anything else I could say.
mad citizen
@Kay: I watched a 60 Minutes story on the (worst-ever-named operation) Warp Speed last night, and recalled Pfizer mentioned. So, maybe Pfizer didn’t take government money for the R&D part, but for sure they have sold $2 billion worth of doses with an option for more to the government. I was kinda wondering why the military has been tasked to distribute the vaccine, etc., and not sure it was ever asked by the Pentagon reporter (full disclosure I was in the other room listening to 60 minutes). But whatever, hope it works. The 4 Star in charge seems to be good.
from CBS: ”
Pfizer did, however, strike a large-scale production and delivery deal with the U.S. government, worth up to $1.95 billion, to secure an initial 100 million doses of its vaccine, following its approval, and the option to purchase 500 million more, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.
There will be some obstacles to delivery. Unlike some of the other vaccines in the works, the Pfizer cocktail needs to be kept very cold.”
WaterGirl
@Sab: that is one happy boy!
Kay
@Baud:
I will never forget that elite legal institutions failed. So few of them broke ranks. So much for “the rule of law”. Compare the refusal to bow under to Trump between medical institutions and legal institutions. It’s embarrassing. You can’t even say they collapsed. They didn’t even try.
Kathleen
@jonas: Which will then publish a coffee table book. As joint promo to accompany release of Hillbilly Elegy which is based in OHIO.
Edmund Dantes
I really wish people would connect the dots. The pedophilia thing was to get to the idea that lots of young children and babies around. Then they can get to the other nefarious uses the Dems are up to. Along with their Jewish benefactors Soros. Drinking the blood.
this is all anti-Semitic blood libel dressed up in new clothes.
Ken
I hope every report is adding “on the news that Joe Biden has been elected President,” just to torment Trump.
It might even be true, but I am deeply mistrustful of facile one-issue explanations for market behavior.
debbie
LOL, Steve Schmidt is being interviewed on BBC about Trump, Fox, Trumpism, etc. Blunt, bombastic, the whole nine yards!
SiubhanDuinne
@Dorothy A. Winsor: (ETA: Sorry, replied to the wrong DAW comment. This is in response to #59.)
Well, I hope you send it our
cold, crueldirection the first minute you can! What a great premise for a short story — in fact, just from that brief description, it sounds as though there could be a whole collection of shorts about this character.Can’t wait to read it!
Gin & Tonic
@Spanky: Like somebody said on Twitter, I mistakenly bought 100 shares of Pfizer Total Landscaping.
Baud
@Gin & Tonic: Hahaha. Perfect.
Barbara
@Edmund Dantes: I agree that psychologically, it serves the same justification, to leverage a point on which no reasonable person can disagree — pedophilia is horrible — and thereby assign your opponent to a moral trash heap from which redemption or any potential compromise is impossible. You can’t negotiate with terrorists. You must stop pedophiles. It feeds into the maximalist language being used by Graham and others to justify no surrender.
Mai Naem mobile
@Betty Cracker: its not Biden they talk about its Kamala Harris. Dontcha know Biden is some old man with dementia who will be taking orders from the pinko commie blackity black woman Kamala Harris from San Francisco?
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Ken: I don’t know what’s “usual.” My publisher is small so there are fewer people with specialized roles to do things. You might think marketing people would write the blurb at a big place, but my understanding is they usually don’t read the book.
Kay
The text we get from the school when there’s a positive result (so exposure to X number where X number have to quarantine) is “we have covid in the building”
I’ve now gotten 9 of those over 2 weeks.
Be nice to your local public school people. This is really hard.
Spanky
@Ken: Probably as much or more on the Pfizer news, I’m thinking.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Frankensteinbeck: I think I remember when that happened. That does sound like a horror story.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: That argument’s in full swing, and in the dumbest most destructive possible way, IMO. I’ve considered posting about it, but it seems to soon to harsh our mellow. :)
JPL
@germy: HA Because of the amount of mail in ballots, it’s doubtful that an announcement last week would have changed the election.
Llelldorin
@Betty Cracker:
I’m actually wondering what little closed loop of social media and conservative news sources these guys were watching. You’re right—you’d have to be awfully dumb to believe that if the news you consume has any connection to reality.
This is a puzzle I have no idea how to crack—how do we get actual news to the millions of Americans who are living entirely within a conservative fantasy news universe? It seems like we need something like VOA aimed internally.
SiubhanDuinne
@Gin & Tonic:
Reminds me of the countless analyses and long-form think-pieces we’ve seen over the past four years about the motivations and blazing disappointment of Hillary’s 2016 voters.
Oh wait, that never happened.
Frankensteinbeck
@Kay:
If they had, Biden would be in jail, like Trump twice ordered Barr to arrange. The ‘the institutions failed’ rhetoric is wrong. Some failed, some held. We certainly got a damned good up-close look at the cracks in our system, but it was far, far from being a one-sided tale of institutional failure. For example, the military gave Trump what he had a legal right to – the transgender ban and some ghastly orders to fuck up the Middle East – and told him no when he wanted to send them to shoot Americans, specifically stating they would take no part on any side in the election.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@SiubhanDuinne: Let’s hope a magazine editor feels the same way. The short story market is brutal.
Frankensteinbeck
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
One of the weirdest lessons for me, that I guess should have been obvious going in, is that almost no one involved in the process will read the book. It takes too long. The cover artist won’t. The marketers won’t. Toss-up whether the people deciding to publish it at all will. I have to write my own blurbs. On the one hand, it is a miserable process, some of the most difficult writing I have to do. If the book could be reduced to one page, I wouldn’t have to write it! On the other hand, who could possibly do a better job than me? If they could write better, they wouldn’t need me!
germy
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
The golden age of the short story market is definitely over.
I’m still amazed that Shirley Jackson was the main breadwinner in her house, earning more from her stories and novels than her husband, the college professor
And yet when she showed up at the maternity ward and answered “Writer” when they asked her occupation, they wrote down “Housewife”.
WaterGirl
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Since when would that stop anyone! :-)
SiubhanDuinne
Market seems to be happy enough with the Biden win: the Dow opened ⬆️ 1,100 points.
hueyplong
1. Trump Jr isn’t going to shut up until advised to do so by his criminal atty.
2. Pfizer kind of dropping a FU on Trump with this announcement. I’m ok with that.
3. Watch Trump take credit for the market burst based on (a) his own loss and (b) a COVID response deliberately not done in association with the administration because to do so would have been to FUBAR it.
4. How long until the conspiracy theorists start in on Bill Barr for not protecting Trump?
5. “Let them fight.”
Ken
Years ago I stumbled across a site that collected book covers where it was obvious the artist hadn’t read it. Wuthering Heights with a painting of an Italianate villa atop a Mediterranean sea cliff, Lord of the Flies with a pentagram and Beelzebub, that sort of thing.
Kattails
@Baud: Yeah, I tried that in an email to my mother explaining to her that she was repeating horrible lies about Biden and needed to heed her own religion’s admonitions about that. Got rather a PO’d note back from her husband telling me that I needed to be careful about being so angry and that as a non-believer I had no business telling her about her religion. Not that he and I have ever discussed what my beliefs actually are, mind you. It was interesting.
The lie, by the way, was that babies would be killed at birth under Biden, which is just the most despicable garbage. So yes, I am of the same opinion. I refuse to let this shit slide. The right has made the grossest lies on an endless tape loop. We need to burn that right down.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Geminid: Dr. Biden has an EdD, not a PhD. Both Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama have JD’s.
schrodingers_cat
@Mai Naem mobile: I have seen this on Indian Twitter too both RWNJ and the purity left
Omnes Omnibus
@Frankensteinbeck: I come down on your side in the argument about institutions.
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I have been informed many times on this site that a JD is not a real doctorate.
schrodingers_cat
@Frankensteinbeck: I agree. And I am sick of all prestige media takes about how the Ds failed because they didn’t get a landslide.
Barbara
@schrodingers_cat: The contortionist effort to make it seem that even when we win we lose. We are never allowed to celebrate and there is always someone at the ready to steal our joy.
Miss Bianca
@debbie: I think Major and Joe kind of look alike. : )
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
Forgive me if this has already been noted but here are several organizations who will be working on registering new voters and getting people to the Polls for the Georgia January run-off:
How to donate 8 ways to the Georgia runoff election
Scamp Dog
@Betty Cracker: I’ve come to the conclusion that the unstated conservative definition of socialism is “any cooperation between people outside the context of a private corporation, law enforcement, the military, or a suitably conservative religious organization.” Back when I started learning about politics and economics (in high school, in the late ’70s), socialism was about the government controlling the means of production and maybe the elimination of private property, but now it’s mostly things wealthy Americans don’t like.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Well, he is a vegan.
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@catclub: Exactly, and four years ago did any of them ask dozens (or any) Hillary Clinton voters what they expected of Trump or ask any Southern Dems what they thought??…NOPE they went on on more damn Cletus safaris. My nephew in rural, middle Tennessee is (very quietly) celebrating BIden’s win because he is afraid of his bat-shit , over armed neighbors.
JPL
@Kattails: I’m fearful that if one miscarries, they are going to have to explain the situation in a court of law. We could be entering Terry Schiavo territory where infants who have no chance of survival are put on life support.
germy
Miss Bianca
@SiubhanDuinne:
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I admit my first thought on reading this synopsis was, “Magicians can retire?” and then my second thought was: “What do their 401k options look like?” : )
Ksmiami
@germy: threaten to pull Fox off the air and class action suits for sedition and deaths caused by their propaganda machine
Old School
@germy: Trump had 304 electoral votes in 2016, so 306 would beat his total.
germy
@Old School:
I thought he had 306.
Old School
@germy: It seems there were two faithless electors. He won 306, but one voted for Ron Paul and one for John Kasich. So I guess we are both right.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ksmiami: There is no sense in threatening things that are simply not going to happen.
SFAW
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’m amazed that a person of your intelligence and education would need to be “informed many times on this site”; I would have thought you had learned that many years ago.
WaterGirl
@germy: Trump won 304, I thought. Were there 2 faithless electors who jumped over to Trump?
Omnes Omnibus
@SFAW: Part of my putative education was earning a JD, so….
SFAW
@Omnes Omnibus:
Seems kinda self-referential, or circular logic, or Ouroborosean, or something.
patroclus
Well, I disagree with the general premise of most of the comments on this thread. I think the next 10 weeks are the time for bipartisanship and legitimate attempts to reach across the aisle. We should pass a COVID stimulus package to help struggling people and industries deal with the pandemic’s economic effects, we should keep the government open to keep government services flowing, we should get the transition process up and running and we should allow the Trump campaign to pursue their complaints through the legal system. And all that sort of necessitates lowering our rhetoric and treating our opponents with respect.
Only after they swat our efforts away should we go back to criticism and treating their concerns with disdain. Biden and Harris are our leaders now and they clearly want to at least make the effort. I think we should follow their lead during the transition period – which is a dangerous period that I would rather see as productive rather than destructive. We won. let’s at least try to be gracious about it.
Old School
@WaterGirl: There were seven faithless electors in total. Two Trump voters and five Clinton. So the official total was 304 -227, but it should have been 306 – 232.
debbie
@Miss Bianca:
It’s in their eyes!
Peale
@Miss Bianca: most magicians don’t invest any longer. The older generation tried to, but when it came time to retire, they found that the money had largely vanished into thin air.
Captain C
@Gin & Tonic:
They are no doubt doing that, but looking for “progressive” voters with trust funds who once again did not vote Democratic for Reasons and are happy to pin all the world’s problem on the DNC, as opposed to Republicans who have controlled most of the Federal Government for the last 4 years.
Captain C
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Hipster Safari? Cosplay Revolutionary-with-a-Trust-Fund is a bit too verbose.
the mugster
@Geminid:
Not to cavil here, but her terminal degree is an Ed.D. Just like mine, and we’re both perfectly happy with them!
Kayla Rudbek
@Llelldorin: co-sign on the domestic VOA
Captain C
@Baud: “Relaxing in their 3-bedroom condo on the Upper East Side, Bob, a consultant*, and Jane, a homemaker**, say they are committed centrists and think Biden should follow the Republican platform to show his bipartisanship. ‘He really needs to reach out to us, er, those Republicans,’ said Bob.
‘It’s the only way to heal the country,’ added Jane. ‘Following Republican policies and forgetting the partisan rancor of the last four years…’ ‘Which was totally the fault of the Democrats,’ interjected her totally independent and neutral husband. ‘…Absolutely, dear,’ she continues, ‘…anyway, giving the Republicans most of the seats at the table is the only way to show that he’s fair, or almost as fair as Donald Trump…'”
*for a highly partisan firm working exclusively for Republicans.
**actually a fundraiser for Conservative causes and politicians.
louc
@Dorothy A. Winsor: And if you know any Q-Anoners, blow their minds with this little stat.
MisterForkbeard
@Betty Cracker: Honestly, LGM had a good article about this:
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2020/11/neither-progressives-nor-moderates-deserve-blame-for-the-outcome-of-the-2020-election
Basically, the problem is that some states respond better to moderate solutions and some to progressive solutions. But the real big problem is that Trumpists love Trump and Trumpism, and there’s not a whole lot you can do about that.
What we need to do is maintain that we’re a big party and we’re going to fix things, but that we have to go with the solutions most acceptable to all our voters, which is going to be somewhere between the moderate/progressive camps.
LadySuzy
@Old School: That’s why I’m watching the Arizona results page many times a day. I want the total to be 306 so it can beat Trump’s 304 of 2016.
Just to make Trump even more miserable.
Miss Bianca
@Peale: Ha ha *groan* ha ha
Captain C
@zhena gogolia: So he’s essentially saying that the FTFNYT is just a parochial NYC paper, not The Paper Of Record™?
Captain C
@germy:
Most cokeheads are, after awhile.