That horrible anti-trans ad Trump is running? Yeah, that trans policy was crafted under his administration. That our trans brothers and sisters are being used in such a foul manner for political gain is all we need to know about the GOP. As if we needed another fucking lesson.
@HumboldtBlue: Transphobia is the ideal test to tell whether a person who seems superficially decent actually is. It’s depressing how many fail that test.
I voted! A group of five of us Olds went on a stroll to the polls for the first day of early voting in Chicago, and then we repaired to a local coffee shop, where one person (who has registered a bunch of people to vote and who has been canvassing in WI) added addresses to GOTV postcards with the help of another person, and I crafted the message that she’ll add to the postcard. A local tavern owner stopped by and said that they had sent out more than 8,000 (!!) postcards through their establishment.
Did you guys see that Trump is being sued for defamation again? This time it’s the Central Park Five alleging (with perfect truth) that Trump defamed them during the Presidential debate. Will Trump even have any money left by the time this case gets to court?
Yesterday I watched Will & Harper (netflix, recent release). About Will Farrell & his very longstanding friendship with Harper Steele, former head writer for SNL.
Harper has come out as trans, and the two go on a pretty intense road trip. I know a film like this won’t persuade any MAGA choads, but maybe it can stiffen the spines of some of the folks in the middle who still need help figuring out why being a public ally — and just a goddam good friend! — is well and good and the path to starting to push back the transphobia of the GOP.
“Billionaire Mark Cuban told CNBC on Monday that he offered to arrange a live X interview between Kamala Harris and fellow billionaire Elon Musk, but was told no by Harris’ campaign,” Politico reports.
My wife and I got our ballots a few weeks ago, but I didn’t want to mail them back so we waited until Berks County PA’s drop boxes opend for business today. We have 3 dropboxes in the county and they are all guarded by 2 Sherriff’s Deputies while open. We dropped ours off an hour ago and there was a steady stream of people. The deputies are making sure that people have signed and dated the outer envelopes as required by law and upheld by the courts, even though the dating is unnecessary. since they must be returned by 8 pm on election day to be counted!
Some counties have a lot more boxes and I believe some red/rural counties have none. The decision is made by the County Comissioners and Berks is majority Republican 2:1 Democrat, but the repubs don’t seem to be magats. And we only had 2 dropboxes in 2020. I think wwe should have at least 2 or 3 more to cover a county this big with over 430K people.
Anti-Biden, now anti-Harris left-wing protestors worked hard to communicate that the Biden-Harris admin is world historically evil and that their priority is for Democrats to lose the election, and now lament that after multiple goalpost moves Dems have accepted that they mean it
@JoyceH: We inow how much lawyers live specific mesnings for specific words. 💩 said “they pled guilty”. Flat out false. They DID ‘confess’ under duress while questioned. In court their plea was Not Guilty,
I have voted; it was a short ballot, as nearly all our local things were covered in August, although there was a single ballot initiative item for Nashville.
There was a very long line, although there were plenty of both poll workers and voting equipment—the one thing they could have used more of was parking.
I do wish my vote for President counted.
Coming home I went past the IBEW union hall; there was no question about the union’s official position; their HARRIS/WALZ sign could be seen from blocks away!
Watching from over here I can say with all due respect 🫡 🖕🏻that I haven’t seen a national campaign face plant this badly since the Tories in July.
Stench/Snowball ‘24 – The Second Time As Farce doesn’t seem to have posted any genuine wins in months, and with a couple of weeks to go to Schadenfreudemas, it’s harder than ice on the moons of Jupiter to see where their last minute gains are going to come from.
I know that nothing is in the bag until the Horned Lady has counted her chickens, but I know which side I’d rather be rooting for going into the final quarter.
Just had a mildly distressing episode with my mother. We almost never talk politics, for years now, since it became clear that our conversations just get us upset with each other. She just asked me what I think of the election. Reasonable, since this is obviously a huge topic. She ventured that I’m not into Trump. I said “yeah”, and she rightly didn’t press me any further about my own personal views. But she did say “she fears for our country” and, about Kamala, what says is “word salad”. The former I let slide, because I think it’s just part and parcel of our melodramatic political vocabulary these days, both on the left and right. But the idea that what Kamala says is “word salad”? That was a real eye opener. I’d never heard that. Seems like pure projection to me, or a mere aping of what we say about Trump. To her credit, she didn’t have anything positive to say about Trump but did gush about Vance.
On Election Day, as workers tabulate ballots behind new fencing and concrete barriers, drones will patrol the skies overhead, police snipers will perch on rooftops and mounted patrols will stand ready.
Across the state, election workers have gone through active-shooter drills and learned to barricade themselves or wield fire hoses to repel armed mobs. At the ready are trauma kits containing tourniquets and bandages designed to pack chest wounds and stanch serious bleeding.
Arizona has been fortifying its systems against cyberattacks, monitoring social media threats, and training staff to spot AI deepfakes. Elections facilities have added bulletproof glass, bollards, and cameras, and have been giving tours to try to reassure the conspiracy-minded, but it doesn’t seem to be helping much.
The media is completely giving it over to the ‘undecideds’ in rural Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin & N. Carolina. Georgia, not so much. It isn’t any different than the Trump polls being released. These ‘undecideds’ all seem to believe Fox News talking points.
The MSM loves them some Republican daddies. Rinse & repeat.
ONLY rationale I can craft for Cuban is he believed Musk would have to admit Harris is pretty great, which seems too elebenty-dimensional chess to possibly work. I would expect his to take up all the oxygen in the room moaning about how “Kamala ruined California. I had to leave it got so bad!”
@Belafon: Yep, as I said. But I think literal millions of mainstream people should see the film. It’s the squishy middle that is not sure where they are on trans issues and would learn a lot in under two hours — and mostly probably enjoy the ride!
WOO HOO! I just voted !! Yay. At my town hall. Early voting has opened today in CT.
Idea for the great and the good among us, e.g., the FPs: might it be possible or worth the time to create a grid or list of all the states with early voting or mail in voting, so people could just look up their state?
@Jesse: Remember, the coconut tree discourse originated with Republicans trying to make her appear incoherent. But what she is saying in all of this is an aspirational appeal for people to be better and do better without any negativity.
And the attacks on incoherence are lazily recycling the attacks that they had on Joe Biden
I bet the people complaining about incoherence are being fed chopped up and spliced speeches and not watching more than a minute’s worth of continuous content at a time.
Sam Alito: “Running for President is an official act. Even if you aren’t the incumbent, and you lose the election. But only if your first name is Donald and your last name is Trump.
I voted! A group of five of us Olds went on a stroll to the polls for the first day of early voting in Chicago, and then we repaired to a local coffee shop
This Chicago Old did much the same, except I am now drinking a fine local beer and eating some delicious tacos.
@HumboldtBlue: Transphobia is the ideal test to tell whether a person who seems superficially decent actually is. It’s depressing how many fail that test.
I like the idea I read somewhere of asking people what they think about furries as a litmus test. It’s a group of people that a lot of people find weird and even gross, but very clearly isn’t hurting, or really affecting in any meaningful way, people who aren’t them. And yet it’s a group of people that aren’t currently the focus of any grand political debate, so people haven’t been primed by their party identities to think about it in a certain way. So it’s a great way to ask a question “in a vacuum,” removing all the political background noise, while still getting an answer that’s going to reveal a lot about the person’s politics.
With the opposing team stuck on their own 45 yard line, half their offensive line fighting with each other, their Quarterback too busy shouting at the scoreboard to throw and the last minute draft pick their sponsors insisted on shoehorning into the team sneaking up on him with a bared stiletto while the crowd chants “He’s behind you!”
It may be taking place on the pitch, but it ain’t football.
@Jesse: Who was recently it who said the trumpers’ entire campaign strategy is “No, U”?
Trump has quintupled-down on his special “Camilla are stoopid” refrain, and all his adoring flock are parroting it in unison 24/7. They likely have convinced themselves that it’s true. (Well, very few people in their milieu are using any intelligence, so it may be that they just can’t identify it when they see it.)
@HumboldtBlue: Small world. Dr. Nusbacher and I were part of the same trans online forum back in the day. She transitioned at least a decade ago, and I’ve seen here on other history programs from time to time. I do wonder if she’s still a Tory in light of how they helped turn the UK into TERF Island, especially now that some NIH doctors are refusing to provide hormone therapy for trans adults.
Meanwhile Trump today is once again promising to ban gender surgery by schools — which of course has not ever happened — doubling down on the lie that your boy goes off to school in the morning and comes back that afternoon as a girl. (Not to mention, as someone who actually had genital reassignment surgery, it meant a week in the hospital for post-surgical recovery.)
I thought participation trophies were one of those things that really piss off the RWNJs. And used to piss off RW sane folks, when there were still any left.
Anti-Biden, now anti-Harris left-wing protestors worked hard to communicate that the Biden-Harris admin is world historically evil and that their priority is for Democrats to lose the election, and now lament that after multiple goalpost moves Dems have accepted that they mean it
Leftists: There’s nothing Harris can do to get me to vote for her.
Harris: OK, then we’ll go after other potential voters who can be persuaded.
Leftists: I’m not going be ignored. <starts broiling bunnies>
A lot people don’t know what “furries” are. I’m not even sure, I’ll admit, and the term covers a lot of ground, ranging from “anime fans who engage in cosplay that involved costuming up as animal characters” (something that has nothing to do with sex), to “people who dress up as animals for sexual purposes”…. to (by crude and offensive analogy to trans community) “people who dress up as animals because they ‘consider themselves’ to be animals, including patently ridiculous thing like shitting in litter boxes.”
The latter I’ve never heard of, outside of right-wing media bubbles, where the existence of “transspecies” individuals is taken for granted.
Meanwhile Trump today is once again promising to ban gender surgery by schools — which of course has not ever happened — doubling down on the lie that your boy goes off to school in the morning and comes back that afternoon as a girl. (Not to mention, as someone who actually had genital reassignment surgery, it meant a week in the hospital for post-surgical recovery.)
My kids’ school calls me to give permission to provide Advil.
Got a text from King County Elections that they’ve gotten my ballot, verified my signature, and my ballot will be counted. I love effective governance.
what is worse: concluding that Kamala spouts “word salad” of the basis of watching actual coverage of her — not just snippets or edits?
or: watching snippets or edits that make her sound asinine or deluded?
or: watching deepfakes in which she is made to be insane?
or: mere textual description coming from influencers, social networks, thought leaders, who themselves know better but push the strategy of “Kamala word salad”?
They have to invent or imagine them, because there aren’t any left. There are Republican drunk uncles, there are Republican racists and fascists, but what nationally well-known Republican would anyone want for their daddy?
Unless one thought the Rethug in question was rich and had a good chance of dying soon, but other than that…?
But she did say “she fears for our country” and, about Kamala, what says is “word salad”. The former I let slide, because I think it’s just part and parcel of our melodramatic political vocabulary these days, both on the left and right. But the idea that what Kamala says is “word salad”? That was a real eye opener. I’d never heard that.
As I get older, one of the things I get increasingly irritated by is the number of people offering an opinion who’re clearly just repeating somebody else’s talking point, which is what her statement reeks of.
This happens repeatedly with my dad, though at least his poison of choice is the New York Times and not Fox News. But like, right after 1/6, he was emphatically insisting that Trump was finished in politics, which I knew was absolute bullshit even then. Then for most of 2022 and 2023 he couldn’t stop talking about the danger of the DeSantis candidacy, and eventually the hopeful moderation of the Nikki Haley candidacy, even though I knew and told him over and over that neither of them was going anywhere. Would you believe that last July he dutifully climbed on board not only the “Biden should drop down” train, but specifically the “we should have an open convention” train? Listening to him is just a greatest hits of “today’s digest of what the New York Times’ headlines and the New York Times’ op-ed page want you to think.”
I constantly feel like Frank Oz’s character in Knives Out, visibly holding back an eyeroll and asking “did you just google that?” in response to a person saying something way too distinctive.
@Mike S. (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!): howdy neighbor. We mailed ours back in as we didn’t want to wait till the 21st. They arrived back last week and we got an email confirming they’d arrived. Wish they would open the drop locations earlier so basically as soon as they are mailed we can go drop them off. But still happy to have it done with.
I did not realize she had transitioned in 2007. I watch a lot of older videos, and it wasn’t until last year I learned she had transitioned by seeing her on TV. Odd, that.
Apropos of nothing, I’m now at the point in day 8 of my cold (three negative Covid tests in the past 5 days, and it also just doesn’t feel like my one COVID bout felt), where my ribs and related muscles now hurt when I cough.
Those couple years when we all masked a lot were actually (if only in terms of not getting colds!) amazing.
Time for more ginger tea.
(Just looked, got my last whooping cough shot two years ago, so that shouldn’t be it at least!!)
@Jesse: Who was recently it who said the trumpers’ entire campaign strategy is “No, U”?
Started long before Trump, too. The obsession with Obama’s teleprompter was them taking a line of attack that had been far more justifiably thrown at Dubya for his entire time in office. Then when Hurricane Sandy hit they were certain it was going to be “Obama’s Katrina,” and were furious at the unfairness when it turned out that, no, if you didn’t cripple your FEMA it would actually do a pretty good job, and at least at the time the media wasn’t willing to take the bait.
Part of it is strategic, but part of it is a genuine childish sense that it’s not fair for someone to criticize you for something if they’re not going to criticize the next person for it too. Never mind whether or not the next person actually deserves the criticism. Most of us grow out of this at some point. Conservatives, not so much.
New York magazine and Olivia Nuzzi ,the magazine’s political reporter who had a personal relationship with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., have parted ways.
“Nuzzi is a uniquely talented writer and we have been proud to publish her work over her nearly eight years as our Washington Correspondent,” the magazine said on its website. “We wish her the best.”
Least surprising gossip news of the current news cycle. Bless your heart, Olivia.
@Weftage: Every day and every way, Trump calls Harris stupid. It’s infuriating and yet I don’t want him to stop. Because I guarantee that’s costing him women voters.
My mom was a lifelong Republican- until 1991. What sent her stomping out of the party was their treatment of Anita Hill. Her feeling was how accomplished and poised and dignified does a woman have to be to get a little respect in this joint?
And when Mom was a Republican she just voted Republican. As a Democrat she not only voted, she contributed. The mailers that came to my house after she died! Granted, she was a retired teacher and didn’t give big sums, but multiply by a few hundred pissed off women and it starts to add up. And I suspect that just about every woman has had the experience of being insulted and treated dismissively by a less competent male – those are Republican women for Kamala. They might be quiet about it, but it’s a seething quiet
Then when Hurricane Sandy hit they were certain it was going to be “Obama’s Katrina,”
One of many things that were going to be “Obama’s Katrina,” IIRC, but none of them turned out to be, because Obama hired competent people rather than bozos.
I admit, I was mildly surprised, and then she came forth with her depth of knowledge and all was normal again.
One of my oldest friends (1979), father of 3 adult women, one grandchild, remarried about 10 years ago after leaving wife #1 (a certifiable, cable-TV-show-eligible-hoarder).
He came out to our little group from college about a year ago, Steve wanted to be known as Stefi. Mild surprise (as you indicated) was our collective reaction.
And 8 weeks ago, Stefi underwent a form of transitional surgery she best describes as “turning me into a Barbie doll down there.”
The hardest part in all of this? Pronouns. You get sooooo used to calling somebody in everyday conversation “he”, it’s been a bitch to transition. One of our group simply says “Stefi” all the time so that we feel like we’re in an episode of the “Bob Newhart” show.
@JaySinWA: BallotTrax, the one used here in California, allows you to set your notifications. You can opt for text, email or phone call. Or more than one.
@Chris: Remember, though, there are people who think that the point of the litter boxes in classrooms was because children were starting to identify as furries.
@Sister Golden Bear: I was going to make almost this exact joke on Twitter but my account is limited now to like four responses per day unless I upgrade to a paying subscription. Talk about FREE SPEECH!…
@Baud: The twisted Republican logic is that somehow you’ll want to have more children by carrying one you know is going to die until they are born and you can watch them die in your arms.
@lowtechcyclist: But won’t all these little trophies, participation or otherwise, look such a treat over his left breast pocket when he stomps around in his new suit with the scrambled eggs on the shoulders and swagger stick?
The dangly golden fries with that medal; the vroom vroom order of the tooted truck horn; the gilded bone spur of deferment; the purple heart of disco engagement; the teeny little Time magazine covers . . . HOW he will sparkle before his minions!
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: A coworker transitioned, and it took about 3 months for me to get her pronouns right, and that was me actively engaging with her and her (future) wife who worked with her.
@JaySinWA: From the “track my ballot” page you can set up text and/or email alerts. Of course, once the signature is verified and ballot is out of the envelope, it won’t be tracked, because it is anonymous
ETA: I’m in King County, and dunno if all counties have similar page setups.
@rikyrah: It was quite the collection–multiracial, multi-gender, multi-sexual preference–but all OLD. Oh, and all Democratic, which, in the People’s Republic of Rogers Park, is pretty much to be expected.
My husband and I just voted! For the first time in our new state (moved from WV to Virginia in July). We wanted to scope it out so tomorrow we’ll take his 86-y.o. mom to vote. Bonus – she despises TCFG.
My husband and I sent our California ballots in last week via dropbox and I got messaged Friday mine had been received and set for counting. One less thing to worry about.
@RaflW: I still mask in enclosed public spaces. I also have the advantage of living alone, so I don’t have to deal with the stress of possible exposure through carelessness of another person. I’ve never gotten sick with covid, and I plan to keep it that way.
Don’t have that much extra money but have given, by my count about $200 during this year for various races, mostly in my district/state but also abroad in the U.S.
I will probably give a little more (I mostly give via ActBlue for convenience) but not much more. I’m fatigued and I could really use that money for my two sons, one in college, the other JUST got a job after college so I have expenses. (We moved my older son up to Manassas recently and we are providing most everything for him until he gets his first real paycheck when he can slowly start taking over things like auto insurance, health, etc.).
Like I said, I’m fatigued and my wife probably won’t like me giving more away (nor do I really) but feel it’s necessary to protect our democracy or what’s left of it after the corrupt Citizens decision. I’m just so tired of it all. This is the result, rank and file having to spend their money when such things really ought to be publicly financed and only last 4 weeks long, not two years!
That’s all I’m saying. Please, no one take offence. You’re doing a good job here along with several other sites. Oh, there is so much to fix since the degradation began (IMO) under Nixon (then RayGun, then Bush, then SHRUB… Clinton didn’t help either with media ownership & other changes he signed). Sigh…
Most people are at least aware of them without really knowing the details of what they are (and yeah, to some extent that includes me too), but I don’t think that changes things; most people are quite a bit hazy on what “transgender” entails, too. Since the point of the question is “what do you think of this community that isn’t like you but has never hurt you,” if anything, the vagueness of knowledge just makes their reaction even more useful in knowing how they respond to the unfamiliar.
Republicans back then didn’t have a god-king like Trump to spread the message, but it didn’t hurt that the media wasn’t yet quite as bad then as it is today. They’ve really plumbed new depths in the 2020s.
@Wapiti: I’m in King County too, I checked again and sure enough it allows you to opt in for text or email alerts right above the status of my ballot.
I don’t know how I missed that before.
You ain’t never lied. My neighbor transitioned from male to female over the course of the past few years. I met Charlie when he still has a beard, and during the transition I would regularly use “he” instead of “she” and Charlie understood, and I always apologized profusely. It’s embarrassing when I do it now, never to her anymore, but to someone else when I speak about her.
Had a cognitive test today, and aced 10/10 words. I hear if you can remember 5/5 words, you’re qualified to be president, so I think that means I’m qualified to be TWO presidents! Woo-hoo!
(A worry in the back of my mind is that they’ll think I cheated because you’re not really expected to remember all 10. This was administered over the phone.)
@Baud: The US already had double the rate of maternal deaths even compared to some “third world” countries. You’d think that would have concerned “pro life” people but you’d think wrong.
@Chris: most people are quite a bit hazy on what “transgender” entails, too.
I’ve been pondering gender for the last few days, with no real answers. It started with watching the documentary “Will & Harper”, about a cross-country road trip with Will Ferrell and a former writer of his who has decided to transition at the age of 61. Highly recommend.
They meet with another late-in-life trans individual in a bar, who talks about being in kindergarten and sitting with the girls, identifying with the girls, and being told by her parents, “you’re not a girl (because of body parts).” This started me thinking about something which I’m ashamed to admit I never thought about before: what does it mean to feel like a boy or to feel like a girl? We aren’t really worried about secondary sexual characteristics at that age, we aren’t peeking to see which one we have to decide which group we’re going to sit with. There’s something much more instinctual going on. What?
I have no idea. But I think I’m finally starting to understand what trans people have been saying about their gender identity. It’s that instinctual whatever it is.
@karen marie: My partner and I vary our protocols depending on the local wastewater data and what we have planned for the next few weeks to month.
We were on high alert in September when numbers were bad and our Europe trip was coming up. Once there, I probably got the cold from one of my cousins in Sweden. It was more important for us to connect and be present than to be “shields up”.
We also got the latest jabs a few weeks before travel. Doesn’t prevent COVID (though it can) but we put all that into our internal risk-o-meter and try to carry on with life.
Some of our friends are just totally done masking, will go anywhere indoors any time, etc. We are not those people.
But I also just could not sustain the isolation of the first 20 or so months of COVID. I respect what other people chose, within limits (ie: I don’t have to respect people being anti-vax or going around unmasked while they know they’re ill.)
@JaySinWA: You’re doing better than I am. Found the tracking notification, followed directions to send VOTE to code number, received a text with a link and voila! The link sent me right back to the instructions I just followed. 🤷🏼♀️🤦🏼♀️
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: I’ve been part of an ephemeral community that calls ourselves the Radical Faeries since 1995, the year I moved to MN.
Part of the thing has been to play with gender. There’s a lot of encouragement to think of clothing, accessories, even tools (from chainsaws to spatulas) and the like as forms of “drag”.
Like coming to dinner circle in Carhartt work jeans with a tutu over it. Or high concept drag. Or naked but with a fierce Sunday go to church hat. Whatever.
It’s fascinating to see people (myself included) realize that whatever childhood age the dress up box got closed was a sad and limiting day, and that we can just say “Whatever, not my rules anymore!” to.
And it does, I think, lead to deeper explorations of what gender expression mean for many of us who try on Faerie camp. (A few just stick firmly to “boy drag” and that’s absolutely ok too. We also have trans members, and cis women. Even had a few straight cis guys stop in for a spell!)
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Just as white privilege includes not having to think about our race, cis privilege includes not having to think about our gender identity. We overcome both by developing our capacity for empathy and respect, because we will never really know “what it feels like” and we don’t need to.
@RaflW: It’s so heartening to see so many young folks (like the young female-presenting nonbinary president of my UU congregation) refuse to be put in neatly labeled gender boxes that they don’t feel they belong in. It’s a significant step in human liberation.
@UncleEbeneezer: This shit is why I abandoned Naked Capitalism a decade ago – I followed Susan’s blog for years after 2007 because of her thorough knowledge of the world of Wall St. finance and the banksters. However, by 2011-12 it started to go horseshoe left and bonkers over Obama. I gradually peeled away and haven’t been back there for a LONG time. They still send me fundraising emails tho, which I ignore…
@JaySinWA: And I just received an email notification from King County that my ballot has been counted, so it wasn’t too late to register for notifications for this years ballot, even though I had verified it earlier.
I just had conversations with a couple of sweet older ladies at a rare Monday garage sale near my house. One of the women had a Harris/Walz sign in her yard and we started chatting. Her friend seemed a little hesitant, suggested that her circle of family and friends were rather GOP/Trump oriented, reflecting sentiments of longtime residents in an area that has turned from ruby red to light blue in recent years as explosive growth brought in many newcomers.
But as she warmed up, she expressed disdain for Trump and finally said she was voting early for Harris. “But if anyone asks,” she said, “I voted for Trump.”
I told her I suspect there might be a lot of stealth Harris voters like her out there.
@JoyceH: 1990 was about when my Mum switched to Dem too! She thought GHWB was unworthy of reelection and so Clinton was her first dem vote for Pres..
She had personally been steamed about unequal treatment of women since her 1936 HS graduation when a male studeent with lower grades than her’s was class validctorian an honor which couldn’t go to her as a girl. I heard about that pretty often my whole life and it sank in!
@Juju: Didn’t somebody used to say something like that about Rand Paul? Or Ron Paul? That he sounded perfectly reasonable for 5 minutes but starting at 5:01 the words coming out of his mouth were totally batshit?
@evodevo: Naked Capitalism became suddenly pro-Russian at the same time they went horseshoe left. They were bought. I guess Yves Smith didn’t make enough from her book.
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: An old friend of mine also left his wife of 30 years and started living her real and best life as Lauren. She dresses and identifies as a woman but has told me she is not interested in any surgical procedures.
95% of the time I use the right pronoun but a couple of mutual friends, probably closer friends to her than I am, still call her Steven and use male pronouns. They are accepting (frankly, what choice do/should they have?) but all I can do is correct them (which I do).
She left wife of 25 years not because of the gender issues, he (at the time) left her because she was whackadoodle and he simply couldn’t handle it anymore. Youngest daughter was 14, the others were out of the house. Youngest daughter followed him as she couldn’t stand the hoarding anymore.
Wife #2 has deadbeat kids from prior marriages but knew about Steve’s actual gender identification from the gitgo as did Wife #1. He made it clear to both of them what the deal was.
It wasn’t until the environment here, plus meeting some people in a support group that had their shit together post coming out, that he came out as she.
And yeah, we all slip up on the damned pronouns but always then catch ourselves and correct each other. Probably will still be doing that when we’re dead.
@RaflW: You’re evaluating risk – always a good thing. The pandemic only had a minimal effect on my life because I’ve been WFH since the mid ’80s. If I still lived in Boston, I might find it difficult to mask as much as I do, because there are just too many delicious restaurants that I would not be able to resist enjoying.
Living in Arizona, it’s not hard. This place is a fucking food desert. In 12 years I have not found a single restaurant I’d be willing to risk covid to have a sit-down meal.
@RaflW: I went to the memorial service for Harry Hay in SF. It was a beautiful service. I actually saw Harry’s spirit there, smiling, wearing a purple velvet robe, and holding a white hydrangea flower. I wanted to tell his widow John about it, but I didn’t know either of them personally, so I chickened out from mentioning it.
@like a metaphor: Harry Hay … one of my heroes! Kicked out of both Communist and proto-gay movements because he wouldn’t follow their rules. And the Radical Faeries are some of the nicest people I know.
@Suzanne: She/they doesn’t make sense grammatically, does it?
She is my friend. I like her.
They are my friend. I like them.
She/them would be a valid combination, it seems to me, but still confusing.
One of my daughters explained to me that for she/they you’re supposed to use them alternately, but that seems like a lot to ask of people. Can’t they just pick one or the other, she/her or they/them?
rikyrah
UH HUH
UH HUH
ark Joseph Stern
@mjs_DC
Wow: The Florida official who sent letters threatening TV stations for airing pro-choice ads has filed a declaration in federal court stating that (1) DeSantis’ office directed him to send them, and (2) he resigned rather than sending more. https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/25244734/ex-a-wilson-affidavit.pdf
https://x.com/mjs_DC/status/1848374186814620151
Baud
We sure could!
HumboldtBlue
The absolute WORST drive-thru experience ever!
Baud
@rikyrah:
Why do Democrats hate free speech? /Elon
rikyrah
Kamala HQ
@KamalaHQ
Reporter: A brand new analysis finds that Social Security would run out in six years if Trump’s agenda is enacted
https://x.com/KamalaHQ/status/1848373823961178358
WaterGirl
@Baud: without my laptop I am like a fish without water!
HumboldtBlue
That horrible anti-trans ad Trump is running? Yeah, that trans policy was crafted under his administration. That our trans brothers and sisters are being used in such a foul manner for political gain is all we need to know about the GOP. As if we needed another fucking lesson.
Steve LaBonne
@HumboldtBlue: Transphobia is the ideal test to tell whether a person who seems superficially decent actually is. It’s depressing how many fail that test.
narya
I voted! A group of five of us Olds went on a stroll to the polls for the first day of early voting in Chicago, and then we repaired to a local coffee shop, where one person (who has registered a bunch of people to vote and who has been canvassing in WI) added addresses to GOTV postcards with the help of another person, and I crafted the message that she’ll add to the postcard. A local tavern owner stopped by and said that they had sent out more than 8,000 (!!) postcards through their establishment.
JoyceH
Did you guys see that Trump is being sued for defamation again? This time it’s the Central Park Five alleging (with perfect truth) that Trump defamed them during the Presidential debate. Will Trump even have any money left by the time this case gets to court?
karen marie
@rikyrah: “Wow” is right!
catclub
If it gets to court, that is a win.
twbrandt
About to mail 30 more postcards. Total postcards this cycle is 120.
rikyrah
@narya:
Makes me happy :)
RaflW
Yesterday I watched Will & Harper (netflix, recent release). About Will Farrell & his very longstanding friendship with Harper Steele, former head writer for SNL.
Harper has come out as trans, and the two go on a pretty intense road trip. I know a film like this won’t persuade any MAGA choads, but maybe it can stiffen the spines of some of the folks in the middle who still need help figuring out why being a public ally — and just a goddam good friend! — is well and good and the path to starting to push back the transphobia of the GOP.
If you have netflix, I recommend it.
TBone
@RaflW: thanks, that sounds like time well spent! The trailer looks great, I’ma watch this.
trollhattan
“If you only got to know him better.”
“Ewww.”
HumboldtBlue
@RaflW:
I regularly watch military history videos, and many of those videos feature historians from The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.
I first met Dr. Nusbacher from watching those videos and last year a new documentary came out, and I was introduced to Dr. Lynette Nusbacher.
I admit, I was mildly surprised, and then she came forth with her depth of knowledge and all was normal again.
Mike S. (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)
My wife and I got our ballots a few weeks ago, but I didn’t want to mail them back so we waited until Berks County PA’s drop boxes opend for business today. We have 3 dropboxes in the county and they are all guarded by 2 Sherriff’s Deputies while open. We dropped ours off an hour ago and there was a steady stream of people. The deputies are making sure that people have signed and dated the outer envelopes as required by law and upheld by the courts, even though the dating is unnecessary. since they must be returned by 8 pm on election day to be counted!
Some counties have a lot more boxes and I believe some red/rural counties have none. The decision is made by the County Comissioners and Berks is majority Republican 2:1 Democrat, but the repubs don’t seem to be magats. And we only had 2 dropboxes in 2020. I think wwe should have at least 2 or 3 more to cover a county this big with over 430K people.
The boxes are open:
Monday, Oct. 21: Monday – Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Saturday, Nov. 2, 8 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Sunday, Nov. 3, noon to 4 p.m.
Monday, Nov. 4, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Tuesday, Nov. 5, 7 a.m. – 8 p.m.
UncleEbeneezer
Nicholas Grossman on Twitter:
HumboldtBlue
So a right-wing fuckbag is shocked, SHOCKED I SAY!!!! That young women take their healthcare and their reproductive rights seriously, and it’s the reason they’re voting for Kamala Harris.
Trivia Man
@JoyceH: We inow how much lawyers live specific mesnings for specific words. 💩 said “they pled guilty”. Flat out false. They DID ‘confess’ under duress while questioned. In court their plea was Not Guilty,
Jay
Despite a massive years long campaign by ruZZia, that included threats, disinfo, bribes, vote buying and sabotage,
Moldova has voted to join the EU, by a hair,
and Maia Sandu, the current President placed first in the Presidential votes, but with not enough votes to win outright, so it goes to a runoff.
a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
I have voted; it was a short ballot, as nearly all our local things were covered in August, although there was a single ballot initiative item for Nashville.
There was a very long line, although there were plenty of both poll workers and voting equipment—the one thing they could have used more of was parking.
I do wish my vote for President counted.
Coming home I went past the IBEW union hall; there was no question about the union’s official position; their HARRIS/WALZ sign could be seen from blocks away!
Steve LaBonne
@UncleEbeneezer: Future Fascists of America.
Spanky
@Mike S. (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!):
Not my sister’s experience in Richmond Twp., but happy to hear that that isn’t true across the county.
Tony Jay
Watching from over here I can say with all due respect 🫡 🖕🏻that I haven’t seen a national campaign face plant this badly since the Tories in July.
Stench/Snowball ‘24 – The Second Time As Farce doesn’t seem to have posted any genuine wins in months, and with a couple of weeks to go to Schadenfreudemas, it’s harder than ice on the moons of Jupiter to see where their last minute gains are going to come from.
I know that nothing is in the bag until the Horned Lady has counted her chickens, but I know which side I’d rather be rooting for going into the final quarter.
Jesse
Just had a mildly distressing episode with my mother. We almost never talk politics, for years now, since it became clear that our conversations just get us upset with each other. She just asked me what I think of the election. Reasonable, since this is obviously a huge topic. She ventured that I’m not into Trump. I said “yeah”, and she rightly didn’t press me any further about my own personal views. But she did say “she fears for our country” and, about Kamala, what says is “word salad”. The former I let slide, because I think it’s just part and parcel of our melodramatic political vocabulary these days, both on the left and right. But the idea that what Kamala says is “word salad”? That was a real eye opener. I’d never heard that. Seems like pure projection to me, or a mere aping of what we say about Trump. To her credit, she didn’t have anything positive to say about Trump but did gush about Vance.
Jay
https://www.wonkette.com/p/elections-officials-prepping-for
RaflW
@a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio): The electoral college is a crap vestige of our slaveholding founders, and makes many votes not count.
And yet, and yet!, I want to see Dems roll up the score in popular vote. So, thank you. It matters, even if it doesn’t count.
Baud
@trollhattan:
Cuban’s a good guy, but that’s dumb. Musk is basically part of Trump’s campaign team.
Belafon
@RaflW: I doubt it will change many of the MAGA minds. A lot of them will react the way the patrons in Amarillo did.
Baud
@Jesse:
She seems to have a preference for young white dudes.
Baud
@a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio):
/r/IBEW on reddit has been phenomenal. Exactly what we’d like to see from labor.
HumboldtBlue
Sweet Jesus beating a toddler with a happy meal, Trump was just given a participation trophy for his McDonald’s bullshit. I kid you not.
Jay
@Baud
Sadly, there are a lot of people who still think Apartheid Clyde is smart and sane.
Merrick Garland should be the one interviewing Apartheid Clyde.
kindness
The media is completely giving it over to the ‘undecideds’ in rural Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin & N. Carolina. Georgia, not so much. It isn’t any different than the Trump polls being released. These ‘undecideds’ all seem to believe Fox News talking points.
The MSM loves them some Republican daddies. Rinse & repeat.
trollhattan
@Baud:
ONLY rationale I can craft for Cuban is he believed Musk would have to admit Harris is pretty great, which seems too elebenty-dimensional chess to possibly work. I would expect his to take up all the oxygen in the room moaning about how “Kamala ruined California. I had to leave it got so bad!”
trollhattan
@Jesse: “gushed about Vance” indicates somebody needs a checkup, stat.
And hide the car keys.
RaflW
@Belafon: Yep, as I said. But I think literal millions of mainstream people should see the film. It’s the squishy middle that is not sure where they are on trans issues and would learn a lot in under two hours — and mostly probably enjoy the ride!
Baud
@kindness:
Remember, for the media, “undecided” means someone who says they’re going to vote for Trump but says they have an open mind.
trollhattan
@Tony Jay:
Two weeks out this go feels to me like we’re on 27 minutes of stoppage time.
WaterGirl
@Baud: I know! I had the same thought – it does not compute!
NutmegAgain
WOO HOO! I just voted !! Yay. At my town hall. Early voting has opened today in CT.
Idea for the great and the good among us, e.g., the FPs: might it be possible or worth the time to create a grid or list of all the states with early voting or mail in voting, so people could just look up their state?
Starfish
@Jesse: Remember, the coconut tree discourse originated with Republicans trying to make her appear incoherent. But what she is saying in all of this is an aspirational appeal for people to be better and do better without any negativity.
And the attacks on incoherence are lazily recycling the attacks that they had on Joe Biden
I bet the people complaining about incoherence are being fed chopped up and spliced speeches and not watching more than a minute’s worth of continuous content at a time.
NutmegAgain
@Jesse: I believe Drumpf used that expression to describe VP Harris. Because with the GOP jokers, every accusation is a confession.
Trivia Man
@Jesse: In the last 2 weeks about 90% of wingnut radio is “word salad” and THE POLLS PROVE HE IS CRUSHING HER*
*and if he loses the count the polls prove it was a stolen election
EngineerScotty
@catclub:
Sam Alito: “Running for President is an official act. Even if you aren’t the incumbent, and you lose the election. But only if your first name is Donald and your last name is Trump.
Immune.”
Jesse
@trollhattan: The thinking was similar to what we saw after the debate: wow, he’s polished!
the substance of what he said doesn’t figure into the argument. Countless negative stories about him never even came up.
PST
@narya:
This Chicago Old did much the same, except I am now drinking a fine local beer and eating some delicious tacos.
Mike S. (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)
@Spanky: I meant the repub Commisioners, There are more than enough magats in my area. But I think not quite as many signs as in 2020.
Chris
@Steve LaBonne:
I like the idea I read somewhere of asking people what they think about furries as a litmus test. It’s a group of people that a lot of people find weird and even gross, but very clearly isn’t hurting, or really affecting in any meaningful way, people who aren’t them. And yet it’s a group of people that aren’t currently the focus of any grand political debate, so people haven’t been primed by their party identities to think about it in a certain way. So it’s a great way to ask a question “in a vacuum,” removing all the political background noise, while still getting an answer that’s going to reveal a lot about the person’s politics.
Tony Jay
@trollhattan:
With the opposing team stuck on their own 45 yard line, half their offensive line fighting with each other, their Quarterback too busy shouting at the scoreboard to throw and the last minute draft pick their sponsors insisted on shoehorning into the team sneaking up on him with a bared stiletto while the crowd chants “He’s behind you!”
It may be taking place on the pitch, but it ain’t football.
Weftage
@Jesse: Who was recently it who said the trumpers’ entire campaign strategy is “No, U”?
Trump has quintupled-down on his special “Camilla are stoopid” refrain, and all his adoring flock are parroting it in unison 24/7. They likely have convinced themselves that it’s true. (Well, very few people in their milieu are using any intelligence, so it may be that they just can’t identify it when they see it.)
trollhattan
@PST: Must point out had it not been for the Rooshins in 2016, you could have been enjoying those tacos at the corner taco truck.
EngineerScotty
@Starfish: Social media is full of faked/altered Kamala videos where she comes off sounding like a blithering idiot.
Wapiti
@Baud: Agreed. Top of the ticket debates top of the ticket. Second debates second.
Outside wankers with a lot of money get to buy media outlets and social media platforms, that’s it. That’s the rules.
If Trump is so impaired that he can’t do the job, he should stand down.
Sister Golden Bear
@HumboldtBlue: Small world. Dr. Nusbacher and I were part of the same trans online forum back in the day. She transitioned at least a decade ago, and I’ve seen here on other history programs from time to time. I do wonder if she’s still a Tory in light of how they helped turn the UK into TERF Island, especially now that some NIH doctors are refusing to provide hormone therapy for trans adults.
Meanwhile Trump today is once again promising to ban gender surgery by schools — which of course has not ever happened — doubling down on the lie that your boy goes off to school in the morning and comes back that afternoon as a girl. (Not to mention, as someone who actually had genital reassignment surgery, it meant a week in the hospital for post-surgical recovery.)
lowtechcyclist
@HumboldtBlue:
I thought participation trophies were one of those things that really piss off the RWNJs. And used to piss off RW sane folks, when there were still any left.
Sister Golden Bear
@UncleEbeneezer:
Leftists: There’s nothing Harris can do to get me to vote for her.
Harris: OK, then we’ll go after other potential voters who can be persuaded.
Leftists: I’m not going be ignored. <starts broiling bunnies>
EngineerScotty
@Chris:
A lot people don’t know what “furries” are. I’m not even sure, I’ll admit, and the term covers a lot of ground, ranging from “anime fans who engage in cosplay that involved costuming up as animal characters” (something that has nothing to do with sex), to “people who dress up as animals for sexual purposes”…. to (by crude and offensive analogy to trans community) “people who dress up as animals because they ‘consider themselves’ to be animals, including patently ridiculous thing like shitting in litter boxes.”
The latter I’ve never heard of, outside of right-wing media bubbles, where the existence of “transspecies” individuals is taken for granted.
EngineerScotty
@Sister Golden Bear:
It’s more like this:
Leftists: There’s nothing Harris can do to get me to vote for her.
Harris: OK, then we’ll go after other potential voters who can be persuaded.
Leftists: I’m not going be ignored. <announces intent to vote for Trump>
Lapassionara
@Jesse: does she know their plans to destroy Social Security? Might be worth asking.
Suzanne
@Sister Golden Bear:
My kids’ school calls me to give permission to provide Advil.
Wapiti
Got a text from King County Elections that they’ve gotten my ballot, verified my signature, and my ballot will be counted. I love effective governance.
Jesse
@EngineerScotty: This is really insane stuff.
what is worse: concluding that Kamala spouts “word salad” of the basis of watching actual coverage of her — not just snippets or edits?
or: watching snippets or edits that make her sound asinine or deluded?
or: watching deepfakes in which she is made to be insane?
or: mere textual description coming from influencers, social networks, thought leaders, who themselves know better but push the strategy of “Kamala word salad”?
lowtechcyclist
@kindness:
They have to invent or imagine them, because there aren’t any left. There are Republican drunk uncles, there are Republican racists and fascists, but what nationally well-known Republican would anyone want for their daddy?
Unless one thought the Rethug in question was rich and had a good chance of dying soon, but other than that…?
Jackie
@HumboldtBlue:
I watched that this morning. MJ was incensed about it.
How soon will the Harris campaign start running ads during televised sports showing this law was signed into law BY TCFG in 2018???
I’m hoping the first one airs tonight during MNF.
Chris
@Jesse:
As I get older, one of the things I get increasingly irritated by is the number of people offering an opinion who’re clearly just repeating somebody else’s talking point, which is what her statement reeks of.
This happens repeatedly with my dad, though at least his poison of choice is the New York Times and not Fox News. But like, right after 1/6, he was emphatically insisting that Trump was finished in politics, which I knew was absolute bullshit even then. Then for most of 2022 and 2023 he couldn’t stop talking about the danger of the DeSantis candidacy, and eventually the hopeful moderation of the Nikki Haley candidacy, even though I knew and told him over and over that neither of them was going anywhere. Would you believe that last July he dutifully climbed on board not only the “Biden should drop down” train, but specifically the “we should have an open convention” train? Listening to him is just a greatest hits of “today’s digest of what the New York Times’ headlines and the New York Times’ op-ed page want you to think.”
I constantly feel like Frank Oz’s character in Knives Out, visibly holding back an eyeroll and asking “did you just google that?” in response to a person saying something way too distinctive.
Leto
@Mike S. (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!): howdy neighbor. We mailed ours back in as we didn’t want to wait till the 21st. They arrived back last week and we got an email confirming they’d arrived. Wish they would open the drop locations earlier so basically as soon as they are mailed we can go drop them off. But still happy to have it done with.
EngineerScotty
@Tony Jay: The sort of football that is played on a “pitch” doesn’t have a 45 yard line or a quarterback involved. :)
(The word “pitch” has a different meaning in pointy football, referring to a short toss of the ball, often lateral, to a receiver).
HumboldtBlue
@Sister Golden Bear:
I did not realize she had transitioned in 2007. I watch a lot of older videos, and it wasn’t until last year I learned she had transitioned by seeing her on TV. Odd, that.
RaflW
Apropos of nothing, I’m now at the point in day 8 of my cold (three negative Covid tests in the past 5 days, and it also just doesn’t feel like my one COVID bout felt), where my ribs and related muscles now hurt when I cough.
Those couple years when we all masked a lot were actually (if only in terms of not getting colds!) amazing.
Time for more ginger tea.
(Just looked, got my last whooping cough shot two years ago, so that shouldn’t be it at least!!)
PST
@trollhattan: Sure, but no beer at the taco truck.
japa21
First day of early voting in suburban Cook County. I am working the polls and just getting my first break. Nonstop voters, all age groups.
Chris
@Weftage:
Started long before Trump, too. The obsession with Obama’s teleprompter was them taking a line of attack that had been far more justifiably thrown at Dubya for his entire time in office. Then when Hurricane Sandy hit they were certain it was going to be “Obama’s Katrina,” and were furious at the unfairness when it turned out that, no, if you didn’t cripple your FEMA it would actually do a pretty good job, and at least at the time the media wasn’t willing to take the bait.
Part of it is strategic, but part of it is a genuine childish sense that it’s not fair for someone to criticize you for something if they’re not going to criticize the next person for it too. Never mind whether or not the next person actually deserves the criticism. Most of us grow out of this at some point. Conservatives, not so much.
Baud
Via reddit
lowtechcyclist
@PST:
You’d just bring your own. After all, the taco truck would have been right there on the nearest corner.
Suzanne
@Leto: I accidentally sent mine back without a stamp — because stamps were not needed in AZ! — and it still got delivered and counted.
Scout211
Least surprising
gossipnews of the current news cycle. Bless your heart, Olivia.JaySinWA
@Wapiti: You get texts? We checked the track my ballot page. Ours show as having been counted as well.
JoyceH
@Weftage: Every day and every way, Trump calls Harris stupid. It’s infuriating and yet I don’t want him to stop. Because I guarantee that’s costing him women voters.
My mom was a lifelong Republican- until 1991. What sent her stomping out of the party was their treatment of Anita Hill. Her feeling was how accomplished and poised and dignified does a woman have to be to get a little respect in this joint?
And when Mom was a Republican she just voted Republican. As a Democrat she not only voted, she contributed. The mailers that came to my house after she died! Granted, she was a retired teacher and didn’t give big sums, but multiply by a few hundred pissed off women and it starts to add up. And I suspect that just about every woman has had the experience of being insulted and treated dismissively by a less competent male – those are Republican women for Kamala. They might be quiet about it, but it’s a seething quiet
lowtechcyclist
@Chris:
One of many things that were going to be “Obama’s Katrina,” IIRC, but none of them turned out to be, because Obama hired competent people rather than bozos.
DivF
@trollhattan: “To barely know him is to know him well. “ –The Philadelphia Story
TBone
@HumboldtBlue: they are not capable of embarrassment. No matter how hard I wish they were! 😆
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@HumboldtBlue:
One of my oldest friends (1979), father of 3 adult women, one grandchild, remarried about 10 years ago after leaving wife #1 (a certifiable, cable-TV-show-eligible-hoarder).
He came out to our little group from college about a year ago, Steve wanted to be known as Stefi. Mild surprise (as you indicated) was our collective reaction.
And 8 weeks ago, Stefi underwent a form of transitional surgery she best describes as “turning me into a Barbie doll down there.”
The hardest part in all of this? Pronouns. You get sooooo used to calling somebody in everyday conversation “he”, it’s been a bitch to transition. One of our group simply says “Stefi” all the time so that we feel like we’re in an episode of the “Bob Newhart” show.
rikyrah
@Jesse:
Ok, I’ll bite. What positive is there to be said about Vance?
Scout211
@JaySinWA: BallotTrax, the one used here in California, allows you to set your notifications. You can opt for text, email or phone call. Or more than one.
Belafon
@Chris: Remember, though, there are people who think that the point of the litter boxes in classrooms was because children were starting to identify as furries.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@rikyrah: He doesn’t drug the furniture before molesting it?
zhena gogolia
@rikyrah: The conventional wisdom after the VP debate is that Vance is very smooth and articulate.
I know, sigh.
UncleEbeneezer
@Sister Golden Bear: I was going to make almost this exact joke on Twitter but my account is limited now to like four responses per day unless I upgrade to a paying subscription. Talk about FREE SPEECH!…
Belafon
@Baud: The twisted Republican logic is that somehow you’ll want to have more children by carrying one you know is going to die until they are born and you can watch them die in your arms.
scav
@lowtechcyclist: But won’t all these little trophies, participation or otherwise, look such a treat over his left breast pocket when he stomps around in his new suit with the scrambled eggs on the shoulders and swagger stick?
The dangly golden fries with that medal; the vroom vroom order of the tooted truck horn; the gilded bone spur of deferment; the purple heart of disco engagement; the teeny little Time magazine covers . . . HOW he will sparkle before his minions!
RaflW
@zhena gogolia: Smooth, huh. I wouldn’t buy a used Kia from a guy that slippery.
Though I’m a just world, that’d be about JDs career level.
Tony Jay
@EngineerScotty:
Buggeration! This is like that scene in Inglorious Basterds where Fassbender’s character sticks up the wrong fingers to order three drinks.
Right down to the bad guys being Nazis.
Belafon
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: A coworker transitioned, and it took about 3 months for me to get her pronouns right, and that was me actively engaging with her and her (future) wife who worked with her.
Wapiti
@JaySinWA: From the “track my ballot” page you can set up text and/or email alerts. Of course, once the signature is verified and ballot is out of the envelope, it won’t be tracked, because it is anonymous
ETA: I’m in King County, and dunno if all counties have similar page setups.
narya
@rikyrah: It was quite the collection–multiracial, multi-gender, multi-sexual preference–but all OLD. Oh, and all Democratic, which, in the People’s Republic of Rogers Park, is pretty much to be expected.
rikyrah
@HumboldtBlue:
yeah.
that silly body autonomy…
how dare that be important to women….
RaflW
@lowtechcyclist: Republicans hadn’t yet figured out to lie brazenly and repeatedly about Obama’s FEMA response.
karen marie
@Baud: Harris’s refusal to being interviewed by Musk will be reported as a refusal to meet with Musk.
When she wins, Musk will accuse the Harris admin of political persecution when he’s not given bags of cash or allowed to break any law he wants.
WV Blonde
My husband and I just voted! For the first time in our new state (moved from WV to Virginia in July). We wanted to scope it out so tomorrow we’ll take his 86-y.o. mom to vote. Bonus – she despises TCFG.
Jackie
@JaySinWA: I was wondering about Wapiti’s getting a text, too!
I just checked my ballot status online (dropped into drop box Fri) and got this reassurance:
I have to check back in another day or so to see if my ballot has been validated and counted.
I, too, want to receive a text notification! I always add my phone number on the envelope in case of date/signature concerns.
Fair Economist
My husband and I sent our California ballots in last week via dropbox and I got messaged Friday mine had been received and set for counting. One less thing to worry about.
karen marie
@RaflW: I still mask in enclosed public spaces. I also have the advantage of living alone, so I don’t have to deal with the stress of possible exposure through carelessness of another person. I’ve never gotten sick with covid, and I plan to keep it that way.
Scout211
@Jackie: Log into the tracking site. Most will allow you to set your notifications.
G K
Don’t have that much extra money but have given, by my count about $200 during this year for various races, mostly in my district/state but also abroad in the U.S.
I will probably give a little more (I mostly give via ActBlue for convenience) but not much more. I’m fatigued and I could really use that money for my two sons, one in college, the other JUST got a job after college so I have expenses. (We moved my older son up to Manassas recently and we are providing most everything for him until he gets his first real paycheck when he can slowly start taking over things like auto insurance, health, etc.).
Like I said, I’m fatigued and my wife probably won’t like me giving more away (nor do I really) but feel it’s necessary to protect our democracy or what’s left of it after the corrupt Citizens decision. I’m just so tired of it all. This is the result, rank and file having to spend their money when such things really ought to be publicly financed and only last 4 weeks long, not two years!
That’s all I’m saying. Please, no one take offence. You’re doing a good job here along with several other sites. Oh, there is so much to fix since the degradation began (IMO) under Nixon (then RayGun, then Bush, then SHRUB… Clinton didn’t help either with media ownership & other changes he signed). Sigh…
Chris
@EngineerScotty:
Most people are at least aware of them without really knowing the details of what they are (and yeah, to some extent that includes me too), but I don’t think that changes things; most people are quite a bit hazy on what “transgender” entails, too. Since the point of the question is “what do you think of this community that isn’t like you but has never hurt you,” if anything, the vagueness of knowledge just makes their reaction even more useful in knowing how they respond to the unfamiliar.
karen marie
@Baud: Maternal deaths have skyrocketed.
Suzanne
@Belafon: I had one colleague who used she/they pronouns, and I was able to adapt easily to “she”, but I kept messing up “they” and using “her”.
Chris
@RaflW:
Republicans back then didn’t have a god-king like Trump to spread the message, but it didn’t hurt that the media wasn’t yet quite as bad then as it is today. They’ve really plumbed new depths in the 2020s.
JaySinWA
@Wapiti: I’m in King County too, I checked again and sure enough it allows you to opt in for text or email alerts right above the status of my ballot.
I don’t know how I missed that before.
Thanks
ETA I just opted for email notifications.
Baud
@karen marie:
It’s a lose-lose, except for the people who crave power over others.
HumboldtBlue
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
You ain’t never lied. My neighbor transitioned from male to female over the course of the past few years. I met Charlie when he still has a beard, and during the transition I would regularly use “he” instead of “she” and Charlie understood, and I always apologized profusely. It’s embarrassing when I do it now, never to her anymore, but to someone else when I speak about her.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Had a cognitive test today, and aced 10/10 words. I hear if you can remember 5/5 words, you’re qualified to be president, so I think that means I’m qualified to be TWO presidents! Woo-hoo!
(A worry in the back of my mind is that they’ll think I cheated because you’re not really expected to remember all 10. This was administered over the phone.)
karen marie
@Baud: The US already had double the rate of maternal deaths even compared to some “third world” countries. You’d think that would have concerned “pro life” people but you’d think wrong.
Jackie
@Scout211: @JaySinWA:
I tried ballottrax wa and it links back to the website I use to check ballot status. No option for text, email offered.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
I’ve been pondering gender for the last few days, with no real answers. It started with watching the documentary “Will & Harper”, about a cross-country road trip with Will Ferrell and a former writer of his who has decided to transition at the age of 61. Highly recommend.
They meet with another late-in-life trans individual in a bar, who talks about being in kindergarten and sitting with the girls, identifying with the girls, and being told by her parents, “you’re not a girl (because of body parts).” This started me thinking about something which I’m ashamed to admit I never thought about before: what does it mean to feel like a boy or to feel like a girl? We aren’t really worried about secondary sexual characteristics at that age, we aren’t peeking to see which one we have to decide which group we’re going to sit with. There’s something much more instinctual going on. What?
I have no idea. But I think I’m finally starting to understand what trans people have been saying about their gender identity. It’s that instinctual whatever it is.
RaflW
@karen marie: My partner and I vary our protocols depending on the local wastewater data and what we have planned for the next few weeks to month.
We were on high alert in September when numbers were bad and our Europe trip was coming up. Once there, I probably got the cold from one of my cousins in Sweden. It was more important for us to connect and be present than to be “shields up”.
We also got the latest jabs a few weeks before travel. Doesn’t prevent COVID (though it can) but we put all that into our internal risk-o-meter and try to carry on with life.
Some of our friends are just totally done masking, will go anywhere indoors any time, etc. We are not those people.
But I also just could not sustain the isolation of the first 20 or so months of COVID. I respect what other people chose, within limits (ie: I don’t have to respect people being anti-vax or going around unmasked while they know they’re ill.)
Jackie
@JaySinWA: You’re doing better than I am. Found the tracking notification, followed directions to send VOTE to code number, received a text with a link and voila! The link sent me right back to the instructions I just followed. 🤷🏼♀️🤦🏼♀️
Ah well… I’ll try again AFTER the election.
JaySinWA
@Jackie: I didn’t try the text notification. I received an email telling me I was now registered for email notifications.
RaflW
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: I’ve been part of an ephemeral community that calls ourselves the Radical Faeries since 1995, the year I moved to MN.
Part of the thing has been to play with gender. There’s a lot of encouragement to think of clothing, accessories, even tools (from chainsaws to spatulas) and the like as forms of “drag”.
Like coming to dinner circle in Carhartt work jeans with a tutu over it. Or high concept drag. Or naked but with a fierce Sunday go to church hat. Whatever.
It’s fascinating to see people (myself included) realize that whatever childhood age the dress up box got closed was a sad and limiting day, and that we can just say “Whatever, not my rules anymore!” to.
And it does, I think, lead to deeper explorations of what gender expression mean for many of us who try on Faerie camp. (A few just stick firmly to “boy drag” and that’s absolutely ok too. We also have trans members, and cis women. Even had a few straight cis guys stop in for a spell!)
Steve LaBonne
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Just as white privilege includes not having to think about our race, cis privilege includes not having to think about our gender identity. We overcome both by developing our capacity for empathy and respect, because we will never really know “what it feels like” and we don’t need to.
Steve LaBonne
@RaflW: It’s so heartening to see so many young folks (like the young female-presenting nonbinary president of my UU congregation) refuse to be put in neatly labeled gender boxes that they don’t feel they belong in. It’s a significant step in human liberation.
evodevo
@UncleEbeneezer: This shit is why I abandoned Naked Capitalism a decade ago – I followed Susan’s blog for years after 2007 because of her thorough knowledge of the world of Wall St. finance and the banksters. However, by 2011-12 it started to go horseshoe left and bonkers over Obama. I gradually peeled away and haven’t been back there for a LONG time. They still send me fundraising emails tho, which I ignore…
Mike S. (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)
@Suzanne: Interesting, Ours said no postage necessary in the stamp spot.
Steve LaBonne
@karen marie: Let’s make him big big mad by nationalizing SpaceX.
JaySinWA
@JaySinWA: And I just received an email notification from King County that my ballot has been counted, so it wasn’t too late to register for notifications for this years ballot, even though I had verified it earlier.
Juju
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: Snort.
catclub
@Jackie: massachusetts vote by mail recording works.
date mailed to voter, date voted, all ok.
jackmac
I just had conversations with a couple of sweet older ladies at a rare Monday garage sale near my house. One of the women had a Harris/Walz sign in her yard and we started chatting. Her friend seemed a little hesitant, suggested that her circle of family and friends were rather GOP/Trump oriented, reflecting sentiments of longtime residents in an area that has turned from ruby red to light blue in recent years as explosive growth brought in many newcomers.
But as she warmed up, she expressed disdain for Trump and finally said she was voting early for Harris. “But if anyone asks,” she said, “I voted for Trump.”
I told her I suspect there might be a lot of stealth Harris voters like her out there.
Mike S. (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)
@JoyceH: 1990 was about when my Mum switched to Dem too! She thought GHWB was unworthy of reelection and so Clinton was her first dem vote for Pres..
She had personally been steamed about unequal treatment of women since her 1936 HS graduation when a male studeent with lower grades than her’s was class validctorian an honor which couldn’t go to her as a girl. I heard about that pretty often my whole life and it sank in!
Juju
@zhena gogolia: One can be smooth and articulate and still be nuts.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Juju: Didn’t somebody used to say something like that about Rand Paul? Or Ron Paul? That he sounded perfectly reasonable for 5 minutes but starting at 5:01 the words coming out of his mouth were totally batshit?
Juju
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: I don’t know about that, but it certainly sounds correct.
G K
@Mike S. (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!):
What took her so long?
Fair Economist
@evodevo: Naked Capitalism became suddenly pro-Russian at the same time they went horseshoe left. They were bought. I guess Yves Smith didn’t make enough from her book.
HumboldtBlue
Kamala Harris live in Michigan with Cheney on MSNBC
HumboldtBlue
I believe Patty Lupone speaks for all of us when she relates her feelings about Trump.
Sure Lurkalot
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: An old friend of mine also left his wife of 30 years and started living her real and best life as Lauren. She dresses and identifies as a woman but has told me she is not interested in any surgical procedures.
95% of the time I use the right pronoun but a couple of mutual friends, probably closer friends to her than I am, still call her Steven and use male pronouns. They are accepting (frankly, what choice do/should they have?) but all I can do is correct them (which I do).
TBone
@HumboldtBlue: 👑
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Sure Lurkalot:
She left wife of 25 years not because of the gender issues, he (at the time) left her because she was whackadoodle and he simply couldn’t handle it anymore. Youngest daughter was 14, the others were out of the house. Youngest daughter followed him as she couldn’t stand the hoarding anymore.
Wife #2 has deadbeat kids from prior marriages but knew about Steve’s actual gender identification from the gitgo as did Wife #1. He made it clear to both of them what the deal was.
It wasn’t until the environment here, plus meeting some people in a support group that had their shit together post coming out, that he came out as she.
And yeah, we all slip up on the damned pronouns but always then catch ourselves and correct each other. Probably will still be doing that when we’re dead.
karen marie
@RaflW: You’re evaluating risk – always a good thing. The pandemic only had a minimal effect on my life because I’ve been WFH since the mid ’80s. If I still lived in Boston, I might find it difficult to mask as much as I do, because there are just too many delicious restaurants that I would not be able to resist enjoying.
Living in Arizona, it’s not hard. This place is a fucking food desert. In 12 years I have not found a single restaurant I’d be willing to risk covid to have a sit-down meal.
like a metaphor
@RaflW: I went to the memorial service for Harry Hay in SF. It was a beautiful service. I actually saw Harry’s spirit there, smiling, wearing a purple velvet robe, and holding a white hydrangea flower. I wanted to tell his widow John about it, but I didn’t know either of them personally, so I chickened out from mentioning it.
Joe Falco
I just did the civic duty and cast my vote in Georgia! Harris/Walz all the way!
Mike S. (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)
@G K: She was an Eisenhower Republican.
zhena gogolia
@HumboldtBlue: She’s a goddess!
BretH
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: that would be Charles P. Pierce and his 5-minute rule for the Pauls.
ColoradoGuy
@like a metaphor: Harry Hay … one of my heroes! Kicked out of both Communist and proto-gay movements because he wouldn’t follow their rules. And the Radical Faeries are some of the nicest people I know.
Lyrebird
@Suzanne: Yeah – I think I’d have to have a note from the doctor’s office even for that in NY State.
@Sister Golden Bear: GRRRRRRRRRRR!
dnfree
@Suzanne: She/they doesn’t make sense grammatically, does it?
She is my friend. I like her.
They are my friend. I like them.
She/them would be a valid combination, it seems to me, but still confusing.
One of my daughters explained to me that for she/they you’re supposed to use them alternately, but that seems like a lot to ask of people. Can’t they just pick one or the other, she/her or they/them?