Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Tide comes in. Tide goes out. You can’t explain that.

We can show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

This country desperately needs a functioning fourth estate.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

Polls are now a reliable indicator of what corporate Republicans want us to think.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Cancel the cowardly Times and Post and set up an equivalent monthly donation to ProPublica.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

One lie, alone, tears the fabric of reality.

It is not hopeless, and we are not helpless.

Republicans in disarray!

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I like political parties that aren’t owned by foreign adversaries.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

the 10% who apparently lack object permanence

“I was told there would be no fact checking.”

You are here: Home / Elections 2024 / I Just Can Not Do It

Reader Interactions

188Comments

  2. 2.

    scav

    Even my mother has come to distrust the FTFNYT.

     

    (ETA: @ yesterday about 2:30 PST or PDT or whatever flavor of time we’ve currently got going in the PNW.  For the historians.)

  4. 4.

    UncleEbeneezer

    Wise move.  This is my mindset as well.

    Polling has been terrible the past few elections.  Polls like the Siena poll that show Ind Women heavily moving toward GOP are extremely suspect to me.  Also, none of the polls are very good at capturing the sentiments of young voters, who seem to be turning out at very high levels.  I will continue to encourage people to vote and vote DEM, but otherwise I’m not sharing anything that helps depress turnout and spreads voter apathy/defeatism.

  8. 8.

    H.E.Wolf

    Consuming media despair & doom can be much like consuming a paralysis drug.

    Vote; and help to get out the vote. Then celebrate our efforts… and keep going.

    The US Civil Rights movement worked and persevered through circumstances much uglier than we’re in now. If they could keep on, so can I.

  10. 10.

    Baud

    @scav: Good on your mom.  The NYT is garbage.

     

     

    @UncleEbeneezer:

    I hope the young people show up.  There’s been too much talk by and about them, but not enough action.  Millennials and younger (Gen Z) are a majority now.

    ETA: Fixed some funky autocorrect stuff.

  11. 11.

    The Moar You Know

    Thank you, John Cole

    What happens, happens.  I cannot control my fellow citizens.  So whatever will happen, is gonna happen.  I will have done my part for what I see as the good.

  12. 12.

    MattF

    All the usual suspects have made their usual predictions, as far as I can tell. I’ve voted, so I’ve done my bit.

  13. 13.

    geg6

    Come sit next to me, John.  Can we get a lot of pet, culture and British government shitshow posts for the next three week, please?  I’m staying out of all politics posts and refusing to watch any news shows on tv for the duration.​
     
    ETA: Or how about some food posts? We haven’t had any of those for eons.

  14. 14.

    cain

    Hear Hear – the media have their own story they are pushing. We should not listen to them. They are all owned by companies that prefer a GOP administration. We really need to make news something that is not a money maker. Social media has ruined news as we know it.

  15. 15.

    schrodingers_cat

    BJ folks who have been around for a while, was the news media always this terrible or are they getting worse. I could use some perspective. I think they are getting worse even from the 90s to right now.

  16. 16.

    SiubhanDuinne

    I’m early voting this afternoon. Raphael Warnock, Stacey Abrams, Bee Nguyen, Lucy McBath — anyone on my ballot sporting a D after their name gets my vote.

  17. 17.

    West of the Rockies

    I’m sick of smug little dweebs like Peter Baker (the bobblehead of bothersiderism) noting supposed failures of Democrats.   No, the party ain’t flawless, but his tight, toothless smile/grimace that concludes his every appearance on MSNBC is annoying.

  18. 18.

    WaterGirl

    It’s all about no regrets.

    Do what you can, give what you can, encourage others when you can.

    That’s what we can do, and if we all do that, the odds look pretty good to me

    see also, the first line.

    edit: Assumes that you are already voting and encouraging others to vote.

  21. 21.

    Josie

    @geg6: ​ Can I sit on the couch next to you and John? I don’t want to read any more posts or comments that worry about how we are doing. We all need to do what we can and ignore the rest. I look forward to TaMara’s posts every day.​
     ETA: Also, WaterGirl’s great work on fundraising.

  22. 22.

    wmd

    @The Moar You Know: ​
     
    GoTV can make a different in what happens. Cole is doing that with this post, albeit with a group that needs no prodding to vote.

    A post listing autodialers for swing-able districts doing GoTV for early voting would be very welcome. Putting in 15 minutes a day 4 days a week is likely within most of the commentariat’s capacity.

    Seems like the kind of thing the DNC, DCCC, DSCC and state parties would want to publicize, but they still are concentrating on asking for funding. Surprisingly I can’t recall PCCC doing it yet – they were fairly early in both 2018 and 2020. Individual campaigns have asked – Fetterman in particular.

  23. 23.

    hells littlest angel

    I simply can not and will not read, link, or share any of these fucking clickbait articles predicting doom and gloom for the Democrats.

    Hear, hear!

  24. 24.

    West of the Cascades

    I thought I saw an article picking apart some of the assumptions on which that Siena/FTFNYT poll was based, but can’t find it – a series of modeling inputs that guaranteed it skewed right. Or was I imagining that

    ETA I am fully on board with avoiding doom/gloom articles, but have trouble avoiding doom/gloom headlines (hence I have heightened attention when I see something debunking those).

  25. 25.

    way2blue

    One of the most infuriating traits of a certain flavor of Democrats is the hand wringing when faced with a slog.  (Lincoln Project denizen tweets keep my spirits up as they only know full speed ahead.)

  27. 27.

    gwangung

    @way2blue: Yeah. Sustaining focus is a big problem for these folks. And irritating as hell to other folks in the coalition.

    Not sure they understand the folks they oppose do WAY more politicking to get their policies enacted.

  28. 28.

    piratedan

    I will make one modest suggestion to the Democratic Party Media Savvy….

     

    It would be nice if the powers that be, finally kicked away the fallacy that Dems are soft on immigration and crime…

    A simple ad pointing out that this message is the usual GOP ploy at election time and is a message regarding racism

    the biggest high crime states are Red states

    the percentage of crimes being closed versus crimes committed

    immigration crime rates are lower than those of current citizens

    the utter lack of gun control legislation coming from the GOP

    If you want to help police, you need to clear automatic weapons from the street, push for mental health outreach, stop lethal use of force for all situations. – reform.

  31. 31.

    Anyway

    @Baud:

    I hope the young people show up.  There’s been too much talk by and about them, but not enough action.  Millennials and younger (Gen Z) are a majority now.

    Cite? Curious about the data for this… is it broken down by state?

  32. 32.

    Ohio Mom

    That is where I am. Unfortunately, Ohio Dad is still reading and wallowing in the doom-and-gloom. This is why marriage is a character-building exercise, learning to not let that affect me and trying ever so gently to move him to a different mind set.

    IIRC, comparing polling and results helps election monitors judge if a vote count is legit. If the polls are trustworthy and the election results are much different than expected, eyebrows are raised. So we’d better hope pollsters are able to repair their methods.

  33. 33.

    Ocotillo

    Yeah, even the last few days, my Twitter feed has been spammed with GOP tweets because people I follow, follow them.  I want to engage with them but my time is so much better spent on other things.

  34. 34.

    Baud

    @Anyway:

    I’ve read it in a bunch of places that they are a majority of eligible voters, but I don’t have it at my fingertips.  Also haven’t seen it broken down.

  36. 36.

    Mousebumples

    1. Vote – and bring friends!
    2. Donate – whether time or money – to your preferred candidates, party groups, and associated organizations

    For every dumb clickbait article I see, I send more postcards. Hard to make the call/text GOTV schedules work with 2 little ones, but I can write postcards after their bedtimes.

  40. 40.

    BruceFromOhio

    Lololol I saw some twatter link with DEMS ARE DOOOOMED and the next time I turn around its a fucking deluge of this crap. Looks the order went out to our vaunted Guardians Of Truth in the fourth estate.

  41. 41.

    Baud

    In alternative news, I’m surprised Anne Laurie hasn’t had a post about this bit of craziness.

    The Line (Arabic: ذا لاين) is a proposed smart linear city in Saudi Arabia in Neom, Tabuk, currently under construction, which is designed to have no cars, streets or carbon emissions.[2][3][4][5] The 170-kilometre (110 mi) long city is part of Saudi Vision 2030 project, which Saudi Arabia claims will create 380,000 jobs and add $48 billion to the country’s GDP.[2] The Line will be the first development in Neom, a planned $500 billion city.[6][7] The city’s plans anticipate a population of 9 million.[8]

    Apparently, construction just started.

  42. 42.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    I’ve sent in my absentee ballot from Greece. So have both my parents. I assume my brother has done the same.

    Being a third of a planet away does give a certain sense of helplessness, but on the bright side, we’re not being bombarded by GQP political advertising.

  43. 43.

    The Moar You Know

    BJ folks who have been around for a while, was the news media always this terrible or are they getting worse. I could use some perspective. I think they are getting worse even from the 90s to right now.

    @schrodingers_cat: The changes I’ve seen in my lifetime are staggering.

    When I was a kid, the difference between the two parties was not that great.  But that was because the media was, more or less, monolithic.  There wasn’t any variation in viewpoint on the television and not that much in the newspapers.  So the window of acceptable expression, if you will, was minimal.  On the one hand, reforming anything (poverty, voting rights, civil rights) under such conditions was very difficult.  On the other hand, being an extremist asshole was also very, very difficult.  You’d have no friends, no media, no support network.  Those folks were out there but they had no clout and unless you ran into the John Birch table at the fairgrounds, you’d never have to know that those people even existed.  They were shut out.

    I’m really beginning to see the value in that.

    But there is no stuffing the Internet back into the bottle; that world and media environment no longer exists.

    Most importantly, the media is now chasing views rather than dictating to them.  This has led to what we have now, and if you see the media having a huge rightward slant (and I’d agree with that) it’s because America has a very sizable united right-wing bloc of voters, and a sizable, completely non-united bloc of disorganized and apathetic centrist voters.  Actual left-wing voters in the US are minimal but even more disorganized than the center.

    So yes, the media is worse, but that’s because the voters are worse, and that is because there’s a medium (the Internet and the social media platforms it fostered) that panders best to the worst among us.

  44. 44.

    brantl

    @schrodingers_cat:  They’ve gotten further every year into the unending he-said-she-said version of “news” without fact-checking, rebuttal or context. It’s been like being eaten by a python, an inch at a time. They no longer do their jobs of being a megaphone for what’s actually happening, and providing context for how good or bad for people it is.

  46. 46.

    guachi

    At the end of the day a majority of Americans care more about inflation than democracy or women’s rights.

  48. 48.

    geg6

    @Josie: ​
     
    *pats couch cushion next to me*
    Have a seat and get comfy.
    The really bad thing is that the one thing that gets me out of the doldrums, The Great British Bake-Off, is on what I consider it’s worst season ever. I am not impressed by any of the bakers and I haven’t yet found one I want to root for. Really depressing for me.

  50. 50.

    Jackie

    @West of the Cascades:

    “I thought I saw an article picking apart some of the assumptions on which that Siena/FTFNYT poll was based, but can’t find it – a series of modeling inputs that guaranteed it skewed right. Or was I imagining that”

    No, someone posted a linked tweet listing all the reasons that article was BS. I also saw a pundit on MSNBC also pointing out how skewed it was.

    Whatever, we’ll learn how wrong or right the polls were Nov 8.

  52. 52.

    Almost Retired

    I find inspiration in Val Demings debate clips where she surgically eviscerates Li’l Marco and his flopping dumbo ears on crime and guns.  Fuck the media with the “Democrats can’t effectively talk about crime and immigration” message.  It’s not true.  Marco was sweating so hard I thought his Toppik fibers would start running down his face.

  53. 53.

    Raoul Paste

    Somehow I don’t remember commercial product TV advertising highlighting inflation during the high inflation Reagent years .  Yet there is a LOT of that today

    There seems to be a full court press by a lot of Big Money to help elect Republicans, even though they are more extremist and corrupt than I’ve ever seen them

    They fear the blue wave, and it’s coming

  54. 54.

    Bupalos

    I’m not going to doom out on it, but I will say I think we’re going to underperform, and the global reason is that we’re still mostly not running future-oriented campaigns. The campaigns themselves are a kind of doomscroll. “We must stop the Republicans from dragging us backwards in time” just isn’t much of a winner, in fact it kind of plays their game, tacitly accepting that going backwards is an actual possibility, when it’s not.

    Overall people seem to think they want to go backwards in time. Even in spaces like this there’s a lot of background  “well before Reagan, before the southern strategy.”

    I heard almost zero from any of these campaigns about our landmark legislation addressing climate change and building 21st century infrastructure. We actually did BIG SHIT that will be part of a better future, while the other party is still milling around the Capitol, breaking windows and looking for bamboo fibers in ballots from 2020- so we can go back to 2016 – so we can go back to 1950. And we can’t seem to talk about that difference of past versus future. About actually doing stuff versus playing pretend. Until we’re willing to confront the fascists on those terms, we’re going to be surprised by how hard this all is and how stupid everyone is and going “Jesus Christ what is wrong with everyone?!!?”

  55. 55.

    Betty Cracker

    @West of the Cascades: Steve M at No More Mr. Nice Blog questioned the NYT/Siena poll in a post recently. IIRC, his theory is that the pollsters are so afraid of underestimating GOP strength again that they might have overcorrected.

  56. 56.

    Josie

    @geg6: True, but even if I’m not impressed with the contestants, I like looking at the silver haired gentleman (can’t remember his name) who is a judge on the show.

  58. 58.

    Brachiator

    I fucking refuse. Go out and vote. The fucking end.

    Good advice. Which reminds me, I got to find my sample ballot.

  60. 60.

    Ohio Mom

    @piratedan: The entire immigration debate drives me bonkers. It’s almost all regurgitated talking points, very little hard data.

    You hear all the time that “illegals” steal our jobs. Okay, I’ll bite. How many immigrants, documented or not, “steal” how many jobs? What kinds of jobs? It’s usually implied that “illegals” are “stealing” so-called unskilled jobs, unless you are talking to engineers. Then you’ll hear about HB-1 visas.

    You can’t make a workable policy out without numbers. I know my area needs more affordable rental units because someone has defined what “affordable” means, counted the number of rental units at various price points, compared that to the number of low-income households, and come up with the number of units needed. You can argue that no one is working very hard at meeting that need but at least there is target.

    If that type of data exists for immigration, I’m not seeing it. The exception is the data that undocumented immigrants don’t commit very much crime. That makes intuitive sense as well, because they are trying to lay low and not attract attention from the authorities.

  61. 61.

    Ruckus

    @schrodingers_cat:

    I’ve been around since TV started and no the news was not as bad. First we basically only got news for less than an hour a night, not 24 hrs a day. Second, there were not a thousand channels bullshitting us, telling us how their products would change our lives (although that did happen – there was a car dealer here in SoCal something Jones Chevrolet with some really bad commercials. Also TV generally didn’t happen at night except one of the 3 channels ran movies. Thing was a lot of people didn’t have a TV, they were expensive and not all that good and B&W. We had a 9 inch that was inhabited by ghosts, a not unusual situation for TV at the time. Not everyone had a car so auto accidents were not NEWS. It slowly got a lot worse. But the worst concept that has ruined TV was about 30 yrs ago we got Faux Bullshit and Lying Sacks of Crap TV personalities. It started slowly but then built up rather rapidly as their retarded bullshit built up momentum to what they have been for what, over 20 yrs now.  And that is BullShitCentral. Everything is wrong and is ruining the country. That is both their guideline and my opinion of them.

    And for the most part that is now pretty widely across the board. Because it made money and continues to make money. Lots of money. It’s the old adage, “You can sell anything to some and something to everyone.” And no one who is in the ownership level of TV wants that to stop, slow down or change in any way. Because they make money – lots of money.

  62. 62.

    EarthWindFire

    @H.E.Wolf: The US Civil Rights movement worked and persevered through circumstances much uglier than we’re in now. If they could keep on, so can I.

     Yep. Same goes if the doomsayers turn out to be right. Like WG says, no regrets.

  64. 64.

    geg6

    @Ruckus:

    The end of the Fairness Doctrine is what killed broadcast news as an entity one can trust.  Fuck Reagan.  Fuck that fucking mother fucker.

  68. 68.

    cain

    @piratedan:

    It would be nice if the powers that be, finally kicked away the fallacy that Dems are soft on immigration and crime…

    I think that’s hard to do. It’s because the media always talks about GOP and the common wisdom that they are not soft on crime. It’s really lazy thinking.

    Let me give you an example of this kind of bullshit that isn’t politics. Rush the band, started gaining popularity, but their initial sound always sounded like Led Zeppelin. So journalists who always seem irritated with Rush’s success – always, always mention that they sounded like Led Zeppelin even though that was only the first album. Yet, for 30 years it gets a mention every time. Used to drive us fans crazy – but that’s how conventional wisdom sneaks into it. Same thing with small towns being the heartland. The number of people who actually own farms has dwindled quite a bit, but they are still stuck in 1950s America.

  70. 70.

    Tony Jay

    Meh. It’s the same everywhere.

    Right Wing Media want Conservatives elected because that’s what they exist to do and their owners benefit financially from it. There’s no upside to them in reporting honestly.

    ‘Centrist’ Media want Conservatives elected because they sell more units reporting on the craziness than the boring work of ‘liberals’ and their owners benefit financially from it. There’s no upside to them in reporting honestly.

    In short. Fuck em and just vote.

  71. 71.

    cain

    @Bupalos: I agree that’s true – but I wonder if that is because you donated and you’re getting that messaging as a Democrat. In those comms, they are trying to get you to donate.

    I dont know what is being said to independents or “persuadable voters” whatever the fuck that is.

    The biggest thing that is affecting us is that we have a fairly large portion of the electorate that thinks all this is noise primarily because the media makes everything into a horse race. It’s just two sides just fighting out and the system will just auto-correct. The reason it is auto-correcting is because there are partisans that are working hard to protect our democracy.

  72. 72.

    Hungry Joe

    The easiest way to contribute: Vote early. Vote TODAY, if you haven’t already. In most places the Registrar (or whatever entity runs the local election) makes available a record of who has voted; local Dems will then take you off their list and send no more mailers to your mailbox, texts to your phone,* or door-knockers to your door. They’ll re-direct their efforts to those who haven’t voted yet.

    * Apparently, word that you’ve voted does not get outside your precinct: Good morning AGAIN Val, Beto, Rafael, Stacy …

  74. 74.

    NotMax

    Headline from a newspaper which dropped through a wormhole from early November.

    “In a stunning loss for the party, Democrats maintain slim majority in the House.”

    //

  75. 75.

    Betty Cracker

    @geg6: I’m rooting for Janusz and Syabira, mostly. But what the hell was Syabira thinking when she used watermelon essence the other day? I’ve learned exactly TWO durable (though useless*) lessons from watching this show: 1) Don’t use essence or the judges will say it tastes fake (BECAUSE IT IS!), 2) For the love of sweet, weeping Jeebus, don’t use a fucking chocolate collar! It almost never works. I think I’ve seen it work ONCE in all the seasons I’ve watched, which is all of them.

    *Useless because I’ll never be a baking show contestant. 

  77. 77.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Baud: I’ve seen some videos from urban planning/transit fans talking about how dumb it is. If you want dense transit-oriented development you don’t put it in a straight line. Sure, it simplifies the transit, but distances are as long as they can possibly be

    It’s one of those projects that seems inspired by someone’s desire to realize a science-fiction story, in this case Heinlein’s “The Roads Must Roll” (which is all about how fragile the system is, to the point that union-busting becomes a moral necessity–hey, maybe don’t build it like that if that’s going to happen…)

  79. 79.

    NotMax

    @Betty Cracker

    So appearance on So You Think You Can Bake? is out of the question?

    Unrelated: Does anyone, anywhere, make Nesselrode pie anymore? Haven’t seen it on a menu since FSM knows when.

  84. 84.

    Betty Cracker

    Charlie Crist is debating DeSantis this week — maybe today, I’m not sure because I don’t plan on watching it, but on the off chance Crist reads this blog, I have some advice: CALL THAT MOTHERFUCKER DESANTIS OUT ON IMMIGRATION! I’ve never seen a better set up for a Democrat to call a Republican out on immigration demagoguery than the current situation.

  85. 85.

    Juliet

    @Ohio Mom: i have one of those husbands and he is driving me crazy! I am being optimistic for the family and he is always telling me what tv pontificators are pontificating about. He also refuses to read blogs.

  89. 89.

    WaterGirl

    @Betty Cracker:

    DeSantis-Crist Debate Re-Scheduled for Monday Oct. 24 in Fort Pierce

    That’s one I’ll watch because I want to see Crist wipe the floor with the lying sociopath.  I’ll put up a post, even though you won’t be watching!

  90. 90.

    Edmund Dantes

    Already voted and counted. Got the alert earlier this week my ballot was accepted and counted.

    Everyone should have access to no reason permanent vote by mail.

  92. 92.

    Aussie Sheila

    @VOR: I get the ‘vibe’, but isn’t it a bit condescending? How easy is it for young people, especially working class kids working casual shifts at any and all hours to be able to wait in infernal lines for four hours just to vote?  Retirees are more regular voters I guess in the US because they have the time, and state governments make it easy for them to vote. It’s simply heartbreaking for me to read about the voter suppression permitted in the US.

    That issue should  be numero uno for Dems-more than Roe, more than anything else. The franchise isn’t important-its everything in a democracy.

  93. 93.

    Ken

    All right, all right, I’ve filled out my mail-in ballot, and I’ll try to get it in the mail by election day, November 28.

  95. 95.

    Matt McIrvin

    @schrodingers_cat: The news media were considerably better than they are now from about the 1960s through the 1980s. But the other side of the coin was that they reflected a sort of default consensus view of the world that was, itself, probably way to the right of what we here would consider acceptable, though it played to many as stinking liberal.

    But it got lazier, more sensationalistic, and ultimately more reactionary. The high crime rates of the 1970s and ’80s led to “if it bleeds it leads” local coverage which was one of the things that got us where we are today. And the “political analysis” shows gradually turned into these shouting-battle spectacles and then just mouthpieces for the right.

  97. 97.

    matt

    Same. I did send some money to Kotek to try not to have a Republican governor of my state, although I couldn’t send as much as Phil Knight sent to the fascists.

  98. 98.

    Matt McIrvin

    In-person early voting in my town starts on Saturday. I was planning on just voting on Election Day but I might as well do it.

  99. 99.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

    The Guardian had a nice bit on what fetal tissue actually looks like up to 10 weeks, which puts the lie to the whole fetal heartbeat bullshit.

    Would have been nice if over the past 40 years, we’d have seen great pieces on science, fact, policy and consequences, as opposed to the scorekeeping “what it all means for victory” bullshit.

  100. 100.

    geg6

    @Betty Cracker:

    Completely agree.

    However, last week had nothing like the horror that was Mexican week.  Worst hour of food tv I’ve ever watched.  Just horrible stuff.

  106. 106.

    hedgehog mobile

    Ballots were mailed here in Colorado this week; I should get mine today.  I’ve had my election judge training, first shift is November 4.  I’m writing letters to voters vis Vote Forward.  Along with John, I’m ignoring the news and the polls.

  107. 107.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

    Imagine robust journalism in 1977-1980 talking about the artificiality of Volcker’s rate hikes addressing something that didn’t need addressing, and how they were actually driving a good chunk of the inflation (along with energy futures). It should have pushed him to defend it-instead, it was a pile-on of Carter for pursuing sensible policy.

    Or how about treating requests to economize as being something that wouldn’t materially affect lifestyles, but could address waste and overuse.

    Overpopulation? Point out potential resource crowding and transport/pollution issues.

  108. 108.

    Betty Cracker

    @NotMax: No thank you — I heard enough of his droning, adenoidal voice before and after the hurricane to last 10,000 lifetimes!

  109. 109.

    Rusty

    Amen.  (and I will drag myself on my hands and knees over broken glass and used hypodermic needles to vote if that is what it takes).

    Also apologies for my doom and gloom comments yesterday.  They aren’t helplful.

  112. 112.

    geg6

    @Josie:

    Nothing even vaguely resembling Mexican food, that’s for sure.  The cold open was stone cold racist, every judge and contestant admitted that they knew nothing at all about Mexican food except for fajitas and have no idea what a Mexican person might bake.  Plus Paul called pico de gallo “pickoducallow” and someone (I purposely forgot) used a potato peeler to take the skin off an avocado.

    The signature was tacos.  Seriously.  Nothing about tacos is baked.  Ever.  They had to make conchas for the technical but didn’t give them enough time for the dough to rise.  And the showstopper was a tres leches, but they had to stack it.  You cannot expect anyone to stack a super wet type of cake.  Ugh.

  113. 113.

    The Moar You Know

    Let me give you an example of this kind of bullshit that isn’t politics. Rush the band, started gaining popularity, but their initial sound always sounded like Led Zeppelin. So journalists who always seem irritated with Rush’s success – always, always mention that they sounded like Led Zeppelin even though that was only the first album. Yet, for 30 years it gets a mention every time. 

    @cain: “Helium-voiced Geddy Lee” will be that poor fucker’s epitaph even though decades of smoking has dropped his pitch down to somewhere nearer Eddie Vedder’s rather than Roger Hodgson’s range.

  114. 114.

    Betty Cracker

    @Josie: They made tacos, tres leche cakes and something else I can’t remember. It was pretty bad. Maybe Mexican food isn’t a big thing in the UK? They did about as well as I would if someone asked me to cook creative variations on the national dishes of Liechtenstein.

    ETA: @geg6: Stacked wet cakes! What could possibly go wrong?

  115. 115.

    Jackie

    Should get my ballot today. I only need help with figuring out which district judges are the least MAGA. Because they are non-partisan – HAH!

    Once that dilemma is resolved, ballot will be dropped off. Not mailing it as I don’t trust/know my mail carrier – and I get lots of mailers from Democratic sources.

  116. 116.

    NotMax

    @geg6

    You cannot expect anyone to stack a super wet type of cake.

    That’s why you place a doubled up stack of tortillas between the layers.

    :)

  117. 117.

    Princess

    @Aussie Sheila: No one should stand in a four hour line to vote and four hour lines do exist. But you may be getting the wrong impression from the coverage you see of them. Most voters don’t have anything like that long a line to vote. I’ve never spent longer than fifteen minutes to vote in my precinct.

  118. 118.

    Josie

    @geg6: Good grief. That sounds awful. I’m surprised they would include Mexican baking on their show if they knew nothing about it.

    Interesting side fact. For the book I’m writing, I had some beta readers from England. One of them questioned the existence and purpose of a split skirt worn by the heroine. Mind you, this was in the early 1900’s. Just goes to show that they know as little about our history and customs as we do about theirs.

  120. 120.

    zhena gogolia

    @Betty Cracker: Vanity Fair has a story by Gabriel Sherman, and the tag line is something like “He’s the polished, competent alternative to Trump.” What???

  121. 121.

    zhena gogolia

    @geg6: I saw an article about that in the (forgive me) Times yesterday. I couldn’t believe it! They have jumped the shark.

  122. 122.

    narya

    I was saving this season of GBBS to binge over thanksgiving . . . and it sounds like there’s one episode i should very much skip.

  124. 124.

    trollhattan

    @NotMax: IDK where they get them, but we have Mexican joints who make ginormous burritos that require tortillas that must approach a couple feet in diameter. I expect their potential for working with various baked goods is pretty high. What was that Dubya said about “piling the pie higher”?

  125. 125.

    Jackie

    @Kelly: I just looked at this and all states are listed alphabetically UP TO UTAH. V – W are omitted. Of course I live in WA. :(

  127. 127.

    Ken

    @Josie: I’m surprised they would include Mexican baking on their show if they knew nothing about it.

    In their defense, GBBS often includes British baking that nobody knows anything about.  “Now today we’ll be making a traditional 13th-century dish, and you will be judged on the symmetry of the herrings’ heads and peacock feathers…”

  129. 129.

    Ruckus

    @geg6:

    Yes. I forgot about that but then that was about money as well.

    Conservatives – always helping themselves to fucking over the world at $1.95 per fuck, which has now ballooned up to $199.95. Still very, very overpriced. And I believe it should have been called the Unfairness Doctrine.

  130. 130.

    trollhattan

    Leadery leadership that leads. Republicans have the pulse on what truly concerns you.

    October 20, 2022 at 1:10 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard

    House Republicans introduced a bill that would prohibit using federal funds to teach children under 10 about LGBTQ+ issues, a sign of the party’s planned agenda if they retake Congress in the midterms, The Guardian reports.

    The bill also gives parents the ability to sue in federal court if their child is exposed to the barred material that is funded “in whole or in part” by federal funds.

  134. 134.

    NotMax

    @Ken

    “While the judges unanimously agree it’s tasty, we’re forced ti disqualify it as we counted only 23 blackbirds.”

  137. 137.

    Ruckus

    @cain:

    I think you are off by 100 yrs.

    They are stuck in 1850 not 1950. Conservatives haven’t progressed in the last 170+ yrs.

  138. 138.

    Kelly

    @Jackie: A couple methods I’ve used to ferret out which obscure candidates to vote against are noticing which signs are adjacent at local properties owned by known right wingers and checking who my local timber barons have contributed money to. The local gravel pit operator is also a reliable guy to point out who to vote against.

  139. 139.

    Betty Cracker

    @Geminid: DeSantis is smarter than Trump, which is admittedly a low bar. Unlike Trump, he didn’t inherit money; he got into elite schools on merit. Trump has a conman’s cunning that DeSantis lacks, but DeSantis is at least smart enough to recognize the deficiency, so he studied Trump and can fake it well enough to get as far as he has. We’ll see how far it takes him. Hopefully no further, but I wouldn’t bet the farm on it.

  140. 140.

    The Moar You Know

    Maybe Mexican food isn’t a big thing in the UK? 

    @Betty Cracker: it is not.  I’m very confident that when I went to London in 2016, my family were the best Mexican cooks in the entire city if not the nation.

    A lot of the ingredients are not quite right either.  They have tortillas.  They have Mission brand tortillas!  But damn, they aren’t like any tortilla I ever had before and I don’t mean that in a good way.

    Also, while their chorizo is epic, it is Spanish-style, not Mexican, and those are very different things as it turns out.

  141. 141.

    Kropacetic

    @schrodingers_cat: I’m going to vote yes on all four.

    Three is only provisional until I look into it more. I hear the independent liquor stores are supporting it, though, which was my benchmark for that one.

  142. 142.

    Betty Cracker

    @The Moar You Know: Interesting. The chorizo I grew up with is Cuban style, which is very different from Mexican style, which I learned about much later. I wonder if Cuban style is closer to the Spanish variety or a different kind altogether.

  143. 143.

    Jackie

    From Political Wire:

    “Former RNC Chairman Michael Steele warned his former party against legitimizing some Trump-aligned figures as political leaders, calling them “fleas,” “lice” and “blood-sucking ticks” whom potential House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), would have to “lay down with,” Fox News reports.”

    I didn’t click on the link, but I did laugh! Steele has so much derision for his former party. He and Jennifer Ruben.

  144. 144.

    sheila in nc

    All I can say is: my mom moved to this state a few weeks ago, on a Monday. On Wednesday I had pulled her into the county Board of Elections office to register. Not taking any chances.

  145. 145.

    Matt McIrvin

    @schrodingers_cat: I’m leaning yes, yes, no, yes. But #2 is the one I’m actually not sure about.

    #3 is another installment in the endless war between the liquor stores and the supermarkets over alcoholic beverage sales. Most of the initiatives to liberalize this come from the supermarkets’ side, but this one is actually coming from the liquor stores and seems to have some provisions in it designed to make life tougher for the supermarkets, which why the liquor store chains are all for it and the food store chains are against it. So I’m inclined to vote No.

    #2 is similarly a shot in a battle between dental providers and dental insurers. On the one hand, the orthodontist who sponsored it seems to be kind of a nut, it’s apparently kind of unusual as state insurance regulations go, and it might theoretically produce a small increase in the cost of dental services. On the other hand, fuck the insurers, anything they hate but the dentists like is probably good on balance.

    #1 and #4 are slam-dunk Yes votes.

  146. 146.

    Madeleine

    A couple days ago I heard about a website called BallotReady that, given your address, gives at least basic information about all the candidates for all the offices in the election, as well as any ballot measures. It includes, for example, local judges. The woman who started it had had too many offices to vote for and decided a resource was needed.

  147. 147.

    Kropacetic

    @Ruckus: Conservatives haven’t progressed in the last 170+ yrs.

    They should find an area to isolate themselves that they can run as backwards as they want, like a 50 year update on the Amish.

  148. 148.

    Bupalos

    @brantl:

    How if the f*ck do you get the idea that they can’t take us backwards? They already DID.

    They really didn’t. And that really isn’t possible.

    As has been noted here with great insight, the post-Roe reality doesn’t and isn’t going to look like the pre-Roe reality, even as regards reproductive freedom. In ways it will be better, in ways it will be worse. But the point is that the reason many voters are going along with the fascist turn is not because they actually support the specific fascist policies. What they are gravitating to is an impossible thing, a wholesale turning back the clock to a mythical  “simpler time.” Which means a time when they felt more optimistic, safer and more powerful.  They can’t actually get any of that through the signal policies the fascist politicians are selling, and I don’t really think they expect to, exactly.

    The signal forced-birtherism is selling itself on is something like this: wouldn’t it be nice to go back to a more explicitly religious national existence and one with more defined gender roles and hierarchies? That’s its symbolic meaning and that isn’t going to happen, and no one really believes it’s actually going to happen. But it feels better to these people to fantasize about that world that they think used to exist, and to kind of participate in it here in the present by action. I think many of the emotions they are operating on are similar to the good feelings people get who participate in medieval fairs.

    Where I think we make part of our mistake is to look at these SCA people and say “don’t let them take us back!” At some level everyone involved knows that is impossible, that this is more a kind of performance-art expression of discomfort in modernity. But the thing is, almost everyone is feeling that discomfort, and ends up with some basic sympathy for the act being presented insofar as it points away from the present. When we spend time on this “don’t take us back” message, I think we’re both wasting our chance and subtly reinforcing the phenomena.

    The way to break the spell of the medieval fair is to say “sure it looks charming to you from here, these ruffles and bustles and suits of armor. But that’s actually almost completely fake, and here is what medieval life really was- slavery, starvation, early death, a radical lack of freedom for almost everyone-  and it was really bad, you would actually hate it. And yeah the present has problems and the future is unknown- but actually here’s why the present is almost infinitely better than that past, and here’s how we’re going to make the future better yet.

    Something like that.

  150. 150.

    Kropacetic

    @TaMara: MA’s first day of early voting is Saturday. I’m going day one so I can spend the rest of that time needling some younger, less enthusiastic but right thinking, friends to the polls whenever we can find a spare moment.

  151. 151.

    Ruckus

    @Betty Cracker:

    Why would they slaughter Mexican food? Are they a band of bigots? Mexican food is amazing and yes I’ve eaten REAL Mexican food – in Mexico. Also in SoCal, which possibly might be the considered part of Mexico, all things considered. Some of the best food I’ve eaten in my 7+ decades was Mexican food cooked by Mexicans. There was a gourmet Mexican restaurant a block away from the San Gabriel Mission that we used to eat at, best food ever, Panchito’s. The owners passed away about 12-15 yrs ago but it closed in 1993.

  152. 152.

    Redshift

    @JPL:

    CNBC has Biden’s approval at 46 percent. It’d be better over 50 percent but those are not doom and gloom numbers .

    Especially since you can count on one hand the number of months TFG’s approval was ever that high, but it never produced the same doom and gloom (though they did do pretty badly in the midterms.)

  154. 154.

    Eljai

    @TaMara: Thank you!  This is key because young voters are not early voters.  They like to show up on election day.  This is a good sign.

  156. 156.

    Eljai

    The WSJ had a story yesterday about some republican women in Michigan voting for Democrats because of the abortion issue.  For pundits to assert that the “abortion bump” is gone — well it’s ignorant and offensive.  Also, Georgia is experiencing record early turnout for the 3rd day in a row.  Are these republican voters?  No, I don’t think so.  Yet, the beltway press is too busy talking about gas prices and rooting for a recession to notice.

    Well, that was a long winded way of me agreeing with Cole.  Turn off the news, get out and vote.  And take a few friends with you.

  157. 157.

    Kathleen

    @Baud: I think it’s very simple. The only reason the media “report” polling is to manipulate public opinion in favor of the fascists and suppress Democratic voters. I’m sure there are pollsters who do good work and provide useful analysis to campaigns but we the great unwashed get polling as part of our regular diet of propaganda and lies and should not give it anymore credence than we gave to the breathless pronouncements that TFG “pivoted” on any given day.

  158. 158.

    JMG

    Nobody but nobody knows how this election will turn out. All scenarios, from a convincing Republican to convincing Democratic victory and everything in between, are possible, indeed, plausible. So Cole is right. Why pay attention to news that is not news, but pure spitballing?

  159. 159.

    Ruckus

    @Princess:

    I stood in line to vote for just over 4 hrs in the rain in OH almost 20 yrs ago because gov Bob Taft pulled out voting machines and combined precincts in democratic areas of OH to make voting far more of a pain in the ass. We had about 2 times the precincts voting in the same polling location and 1 machine to vote on rather than 3 the election before. Some people waited in line for a while and walked away, visibly pissed off. Most of us stayed, also pissed off, especially when I got inside and saw only one machine. I am so glad to be back in CA, where voting is extremely easy and massively encouraged. I can vote at any location by computer, vote by ballot and drop off or mail.

  160. 160.

    RobertB

    @Ruckus: Yep.  Where I live out in the western suburbs it’s mostly Republican, and we had a 10-minute wait.  My brother lived on the NE side of Columbus proper, and had that four-hour wait.

  161. 161.

    Ruckus

    @Geminid:

    That one thing that death santis has over SFB makes him worse. SFB comes by his shittyness honestly, death santis works at it, and is thereby worse.

  163. 163.

    dww44

    @zhena gogolia: Can I just say that Gabriel Sherman has always been a fake liberal MSNBC/NBC reporter?  He’s kinda a Republican adjacent supporter, but tries to present as a neutral observer.  Even his smile is exceedingly fake.

  165. 165.

    dww44

    @Betty Cracker: ​
      and what he has just done to those Florida voters from 2020 is, to me, even more despicable. Purely a political ploy to suppress turnout among minority voters by the simple method of intimidation. Thank goodness, the Tampa Bay Times is putting that video out there. In a just world, this surely would turn the tide against Republican. Have they all forgotten the conception of fairness?

  167. 167.

    dww44

    @SiubhanDuinne: ​
      Can you or anyone else here provide a link to a list or something of all the election deniers on the ballot in Georgia. I know there are 2 of the fake electors who won’t disown their anti-democratic support from 2020. But there are a whole other list of national and state Republicans who still believe that the 2020 election was stolen. Most of our Congressional delegation are still election deniers.

    I’d like to get local media to look at those people and ask them if they believe that Trump won in 2020. While they likely won’t call them out, at least voters will know. Maybe enough of them will pause before they select the candidate with an “R” by his or her name.

  170. 170.

    AWOL

    @Jackie: MSNBC is a big, generous ATM for Steele. He’s goaded Joy Reid on her own show about the inferiority of the Democratic Party. That network seems to be a place where Geo W Bush lunatics hang out hoping to regain power.

  171. 171.

    cain

    @The Moar You Know: haha – yeah, he’s definitely was high pitched. I actually like it that he sings in a lower key. One would not call him particularly melodious but damn he’s a good bass player.

  172. 172.

    Soprano2

    @schrodingers_cat: I can only echo what others have said about the news getting worse. My local NPR station used to play some kind of music most of the time. Now it’s music between 10-1 M-F and some after 7pm and early Sunday morning. All the rest is some kind of news or talk, and that is because that’s what people want. I blame talk radio for that. Plus that whole death of newspapers thing is a big problem, too.

  173. 173.

    cain

    @trollhattan: The GOP showing that they are the big tent party. I wonder if they realize that there are LBGTQ+ GOP voters.. of course, they are stupid enough to vote GOP because they are probably rich and white and taxes is all that matters to them.

  174. 174.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    Eyes on the prize, John. Fuck our fucking worthless presstitutes and the rich pimps who they front for.

    I’d wipe my ass with their drivel except for it would be a waste of good ink and paper.

  175. 175.

    Kropacetic

    @Ruckus: Amish are far better people. They mind their own business.

    Exactly why I proposed that solution for the MAGA nationalists. Get those motherfuckers out of our hair and let them live in the time they want. Let’s call it antebellum. They can decide which of their own they want to enslave. My money is on the Irish.

    @Soprano2: Plus that whole death of newspapers thing is a big problem, too.

    Don’t be fooled. The newspapers are getting worse too.

  177. 177.

    sab

    I am doing election monitoring ! Hoping it will be extremely boring, voters trooping in and out.

  178. 178.

    WaterGirl

    @dww44: I had a tab open to something like that for all the states.  I swear I saved it to my reading list, but it’s not there.

    Sorry

    edit: i did a search.  There are two Washington Post articles.  Do you subscribe?

    First

    Second

  180. 180.

    Elizabelle

    I am going to save this thread for company, if I am ever feeling low.

    In the meantime, on the couch with John, geg, Josie, several other jackals and pets.  Pets probably getting the best seats.

  182. 182.

    kalakal

    @cain: It can be worse in the opposite chronological direction. I have a fear Robert Fripp is going to end up being better known for a lot of silly youtube videos ( Toyah & Robert’s Sunday Lunch) than for King Crimson

  183. 183.

    lurker

    have not read every comment, and while i agree with the sentiment of the OP, the fact that John wrote a lesser version of goodbye cruel (political) world and it got over 180 comments suggests that he managed to write a clickbait post about being tired of clickbait…

    cool ?!? … hmm…

  184. 184.

    TheTruffle

    The good news is…New York State now has early voting.

    The bad news…it starts next week.

    At least it’s a step in the right direction. I so love early voting.

  185. 185.

    WaterGirl

    @lurker:

    I will not read, link, or share any of these fucking clickbait articles predicting doom and gloom for the Democrats.

    I think maybe you missed the part that’s bolded?  Because that’s what John said he wants no part of.

  186. 186.

    Ken_L

    JIMMY CARTER’S SECOND TERM SEES RED WAVE ACROSS THE NATION

    This has been the Washington Press Rabble’s chosen narrative since February last year. They got very nervous a few months back, but you can sense their relief at getting back on track,

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