Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Democracy cannot function without a free press.

Shut up, hissy kitty!

Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

The snowflake in chief appeared visibly frustrated when questioned by a reporter about egg prices.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

One lie, alone, tears the fabric of reality.

Disappointing to see gov. newsom with his finger to the wind.

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

Dumb motherfuckers cannot understand a consequence that most 4 year olds have fully sorted out.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

The republican caucus is covering themselves with something, and it is not glory.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

You passed on an opportunity to be offended? What are you even doing here?

Today in our ongoing national embarrassment…

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

You are here: Home / Elections 2024 / Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Good for Gov. Walz!

Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Good for Gov. Walz!

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Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Good for Gov. Walz!

(John Deering via GoComics.com)

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149Comments

  2. 2.

    Yarrow

    That cartoon. I keep hearing anecdotes about women who won’t/can’t tell their husbands that they’re voting for Harris. Encouraging for the election and also a sad statement about the marriages some women are in.

  3. 3.

    Chief Oshkosh

    Welp, I’ve sent all my postcards, voted, and cleared all my folks to take a free day on Nov. 5, even if they’ve already voted. Maybe they’ll take someone to the polling station. I’ll be checking with the IBEW about any in-person initiatives I can help with when I get back from this bigness trip next week.

  8. 8.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    That last cartoon.

    I keep hearing stories. An 81-year-old widow who is finally able to vote for the first time because her husband died. A woman whose ballot was fraudulently filled out and mailed in by her husband. Wives and daughters being followed into the voting booth to make sure they “vote right”.

    I’ve been watching an early-vote tracking site. Women are outnumbering men, 55-45%, in every case I’ve checked. It’s a remarkably consistent statistic even while other percentages vary.

  9. 9.

    satby

    @Baud: my late and much missed friend Meghan Buell worked mostly in deep red rural communities where she’d be an obvious target. When I expressed some concern about her safety, she told me that she found “most people want to be nice, most people one on one are kind” (I’m paraphrasing). If she could see that, damnit, so can I.

  10. 10.

    thruppence

    I’m gonna try to get the 5th and 6th off for either joy or despair. I recently quit drinking but this election is trying to shove me back.

  13. 13.

    Baud

    @satby:

    I think there have been a handful of people killed because they were Dems or perceived to be Dems. Inexcusable terrorism, but being strong and confident about ourselves is still one of the less risky things we can do.*

    *The exception may be people in unfortunate employment situations where they have to keep their views on the down low.

  14. 14.

    TBone

    @thruppence: when I was newly quit, all I had to do to strengthen my resolve was to remember what being hungover feels like.  Laying down on the cool tile floor of the bathroom while hugging a toilet is no way to start a day.

    Hope this helps.

  19. 19.

    Kay

    I’m officially done at the law office in July – as long as my replacement passes the bar, which he will.
    We’re going to live part time in MI, NY and Denmark to be near grandchildren.

    I would like to be a Tic Tok fragrance influencer as a 3rd career.

  20. 20.

    martha

    Well, I know that anecdotal stories are pretty useless, but 3 of my husband’s Republican golfing buddies cannot vote for the foul mouthed one, Two have said they’re voting for Harris and one is keeping quiet. And this was before he defamed Arnold Palmer, a golf god to many, many white men of a certain age. Normally, most of them never talk politics, but there have been some private emails floating around. I’ll take the quiet votes for her or Reagan write-ins!

  22. 22.

    Gin & Tonic

    Good article in Wired if you follow the Twitter link, about russian disinfo targeting Walz.

    SCOOP:
    Remember the baseless conspiracy being pushed on here last week about Tim Walz abusing a former student?

    Turns out, it came from Russia…https://t.co/YCejpBjzVa

    — David Gilbert (@daithaigilbert) October 21, 2024

    Here is the actual link if you don’t want to click on Elmo’s site. Think of this as a footnote, Baud.

  23. 23.

    sab

    Donald Trump has never changed a tire, but the late queen of England was a trained diesel mechanic (WWII service.) I wonder what that thought would do to his illusions of grandeur.

  25. 25.

    BritinChicago

    @Yarrow: Yes! That’s one of the things that gives me hope, along with the newly registered (and still registering) voters, especially young people and women.

  27. 27.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    I’m trying to hunt down a few election-related Bloom County strips from my childhood – Berke Breathed loves to make fun of politics, and he had Donald Trump’s number back in 1988 or 1989, although he wasn’t prescient enough to combine the two topics.

    I hope I found a harbinger in Bill the Cat and Opus going from forty points up (due to the “Bush Quayle Dukakis Bentsen factor”) to thirty points down (due to an unauthorized biography painting Bill as a vegisexual, a Nazi, and a liberal) in the space of six days (October 31 to November 5, 1988).

    I also found a strip from April 1984 which probably exceeds the limits of sanewashing, and probably has to be seen to be fully appreciated, so that’s the one I’m going to link: https://www.gocomics.com/bloomcounty/1984/04/20

    And now I need to do something more relaxing than worrying about the upcoming election. I’m thinking of booking a retrophrenology session (see Terry Pratchett for that one).

  28. 28.

    satby

    @Baud: there have been way more people killed because they were trans, Baud.  You didn’t click the link I suppose, but Meghan was trans, and pretty obviously so.

  30. 30.

    thruppence

    Doing some remodeling in the basement and digging through opera and classical LPs that probably no one has listened to for decades. Found a copy of “The First Family” a comedy impersonation album of the Kennedy administration (!) Must be at least 62 years old.

  31. 31.

    sab

    @martha: Our family lawyer, whom I have known since college, was the most Republican person I had ever met (and my parents were Republicans.) He isn’t a Republican at all any more. Respect for Rule of Law overrode his party loyalty.

  32. 32.

    Princess

    @Yarrow: This is why it was important, maybe crucial for Harris to go on Fox. Lots of women sitting there beside their husbands who have never really had a chance to hear her speak to them.

    At the same time, I recognize what a huge ask it was to make a Black woman candidate do that. Another on the huge pile of expectations we’ve put on her.

  34. 34.

    Baud

    @Princess:

    No one made her do it. She took the risk because she believed it would pay off and she succeeded. A leader shouldn’t be reckless, but needs to take some risks.

    The bigger problem is that we as a polity put too much responsibility on the leader and treat the team as a sideshow.

  35. 35.

    thruppence

    @sab: We hope that we can find someone who wants these. They’re not mint condition, but it would be a shame to just toss them in the dumpster. Some online marketplace, perhaps. I think I’ll hang on to The First Family, but I can’t see buying a turntable just to listen to that. It’s probably all on YouTube somewhere.

  36. 36.

    dmsilev

    @Yarrow:

    That cartoon. I keep hearing anecdotes about women who won’t/can’t tell their husbands that they’re voting for Harris. Encouraging for the election and also a sad statement about the marriages some women are in.

    It’s one thing which makes me nervous about mail-in voting, particularly the few states that are 100% mail-in without in-person options. The overbearing or abusive spouse leaning over their victim to “check” that they’re voting “the right way”.

  37. 37.

    martha

    @sab: Yes, that’s the motivation for the 3, also just his insane, profane behavior. There are a couple of others that might fall into the “don’t vote the top of the ticket” group (my brother is one of those as well). We can continue to hope.

  40. 40.

    Jeffro

    @Bruce K in ATH-GR: the only things better than Bloom County were Calvin & Hobbes and The Far Side.

    I read those collections so much as a teen that I practically have them memorized, and even my kids – who have never seen them – know about The Far Side cartoon where one caveman (waiting ashore with a spear) is using another as fish bait.

    “Throw, Thag.  Throw…THROW…throwthrowthrowthrow!”

    LOLOL

  41. 41.

    Suzanne

    Walz is 100% correct: exhausted by the TFG chaos. Also exhausted by the unceasing situational awareness required knowing that there are MAGAts with guns everywhere.

  42. 42.

    Scout211

    LOL

    Trump ground game faces new fraud claims as video shows door-knock hack

    Exclusive: clip from canvasser for Musk’s America Pac reveals apparent ease in which GPS location can be spoofed

    Donald Trump’s ground game  in Arizona and Nevada may be undercut by canvassers working for America Pac using GPS spoofing to pretend they have knocked on doors when they haven’t, according to multiple people familiar with the practice and a leaked how-to-fake-location video.

    The ramifications for Trump may be far reaching, given America Pac has taken on the bulk of the Trump campaign’s ground game in the battleground states, and the election increasingly appears set to be decided by turnout.

    A bootleg how-to-spoof video, made by an America Pac canvasser in Nevada and obtained by the Guardian, shows the apparent ease with which locations can be changed to fake door-knocks, calling into question how many Trump voters have actually been reached by the field operation.

    The video, shared with a few hundred canvassers, walks through the setup: a user downloads a GPS-spoofing app to falsely place themself at the door of a Trump voter, fakes responses to the survey and takes steps to cover up the fraud by varying the survey responses to make it believable.

    . . .

    The problem of suspicious doors in the America Pac field operation underscores the risk of outsourcing a ground-game program, where paid canvassers are typically not as invested in their candidate’s victory compared with traditional volunteers or campaign staff​.

    Really?  You mean actual volunteers are more invested than paid canvassers? Unpossible.

    A big thank you (from me) this morning to all the jackals who are volunteering for this election.  You are awesome!

  43. 43.

    dmsilev

    @martha: I had a dismaying anecdote in the other direction a few days ago. We had a visitor at work and chatting with her it turned out that we had a mutual acquaintance, a coworker of mine at a previous job. She then asked a deliberately loaded question: “what do you know about his politics” and my response was “when I knew him, which was about ten years ago, he was a Republican”. And she shook her head and sadly said “yes, and he still is”.

    Pretty unusual trajectory for a scientist, and I decided I’d be happier not knowing the details.

  44. 44.

    Nelle

    New reason to vote for Harris/Walz.  I spent yesterday afternoon with a former student (over 40 years ago!!!) who is working for the Harris campaign.  She’s a business lawyer, fluent in Chinese, who spent eleven years working in Shanghai.  She’d be great in a Harris administration, right?

    She radiates Hope and Joy, relishing the good work that she is doing.  May we all join her, in whatever way that we are able, for the next two weeks.

  46. 46.

    Starfish

    @Kay: A TikTok fragrance influencer 😂

    I find video is a great medium for relaying information about fragrances.

    Wait, are there fragrance influencers on TikTok?

  47. 47.

    dmsilev

    @Scout211: See, this is why Elon Musk plans to replace all human GOTV workers with robots transported by self-driving cars. They’ll never spoof their GPS. Problem solved.

    Elon is a very smart man and I’m sure nothing else will go wrong.

  48. 48.

    Suzanne

    @dmsilev:

    It’s one thing which makes me nervous about mail-in voting, particularly the few states that are 100% mail-in without in-person options. The overbearing or abusive spouse leaning over their victim to “check” that they’re voting “the right way”.

    This is the kind of stuff that happens, and then I hear “NOT ALL MEN!”…… and I just think “STILL TOO MANY MEN!”.

  49. 49.

    Kay

    @sab:

    Ha! I’m a cold weather person. I love to visit warm places but I could not live in one.
    We leave for two weeks in Portugal the day after the election. I’ve never been.  I’m optimistic and I plan to be celebrating a Harris win.  We’re meeting the Denmark contingent in Portugal for one of the two weeks.

  50. 50.

    Soprano2

    @Princess: Plus, we’ve all had the experience of the man who won’t let us string two sentences together without interrupting us. I don’t know if Bret did that on purpose, but it made him look extremely rude to me.

  51. 51.

    Jeffro

    Folks, the WaPo has up an interactive quiz that readers can take – either the 8-question short version or the 125-question long version – to see who you line up with on the issues, trumpov or MVP.

    I was surprised to find that I agreed with trumpov on 9 issues.  Of course, I agreed with MVP on 60.  =)

    Here’s a gift link

    And here’s some annoying shit: I get that the office of VP is a highly invisible one to normies, and that MVP has had relatively little time to introduce herself to the country this campaign, but still…laying any of the blame on Harris for voters’ ignorance here is BS

    One big takeaway from the YouGov data is that Harris (and those of us in the media) have done a poor job communicating what Harris stands for. Meanwhile, Republicans have often succeeded in defining her brand for her.

    To wit: Voters sometimes mistakenly attribute Harris’s winningest “law and order”-type ideas to Trump.

    YouGov separately asked respondents to guess which candidate had proposed each policy. Harris’s policy to help law enforcement detect fentanyl at the border — the most popular idea in our entire dataset, for either candidate — was more likely to be attributed to Trump than to Harris. In reality, not only is this policy absent from the Trump agenda, but Trump is responsible for blocking it from becoming law because he effectively tanked the bipartisan border deal that contained it.

    Additionally, Harris sometimes fails to get credit when both candidates embrace a popular idea. For example, both candidates support increasing domestic gas and oil production. When voters were asked which candidate(s) are behind this idea, 60 percent named Trump alone.

    Now, a policy’s popularity is not necessarily evidence of its substantive merit. Plenty of ideas that are initially appealing can backfire. For example, half of registered voters support Trump’s universal tariffs. But such tariffs would almost certainly raise consumer prices — which would probably infuriate voters.

    Finally: Voters obviously don’t weigh all policy issues equally. They might be willing to overlook disagreements on a random tax break if they agree with a candidate on abortion. But ideally, voters would at least know where the candidates stand on the issues and how well those stances align with their own. Our findings suggest they often don’t.

    You don’t say…

  52. 52.

    Nelle

    @Princess:  As I’ve said, I have about 68 households that I’m herding through the election season.  I estimate that at least five of them are from households where the husband is hostile to the wife’s inquiries or inclinations as to things not MAGA.  In one case, the husband slammed the door when she was on the porch, talking to me.  In another, the wife comes onto the porch and whispers, looking furtively over her shoulder, back into the house.  These are professional women, both with advanced degrees.  It saddens me.

  54. 54.

    Josie

    @Kay: ​
     Sounds like a life affirming plan. It was never in my to do list to live in Houston, Texas, but this is where the grandchildren are. I wouldn’t change my decision for anything in the world. In the final analysis, family is where it’s at.

  55. 55.

    TBone

    Lifted from elsewhere, seems like great news!

    The New Orleans 5th Circuit Court has shut down the Texas Federal judge, over demands by Twitter, that Media Matters release its full donor list, in an ongoing court case.

    https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/musks-x-likely-lose-records-appeal-media-matters-case-court-says-2024-10-21/

    “We doubt that X Corp. needs the identity of Media Matters’s every donor, big or small, to advance its theories,” the panel said, ruling that the information “could enable others to harass or intimidate Media Matters or its donors.”

  56. 56.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Starfish:

    Wait, are there fragrance influencers on TikTok?

    There needs to be a TikTok analogue to Rule 34: if you can imagine it, there’s a TikTok influencer for it.

  57. 57.

    Kay

    I’m in a book club that is 80% GOP or Right leaning women and last month we read The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store (James McBride). If you’ve read McBride (The Color of Water) you know that he approaches racial and class issues in a very sort of generous (to white and rich people) way – he is in no way preachy or strident.

    But TO A WOMAN the GOP members of our club whined that they are tired of hearing about “division”, meaning they don’t want to read anything that touches on any experience other than their own.

    The cold hard fact is these people just do not want anything that makes them even slightly uncomfortable mentioned, not just in politics but across whole cultural areas. You cannot please these fucking people. They were primed to label McBride an angry Black man and they did. That’s Trump’s 46%. I dropped out of the discussion. They’re exhausting and depressing. I won’t be sad to put this book club in the rear view mirror.

  59. 59.

    Jeffro

    Ezra Klein spends a lot of time getting to the point: trump himself is only half (if that) of the reason we must turn out, and win, two weeks from today

    But Trump’s age is not what worries me most. This was not a man possessed of personal restraint in 2016 or 2020, either.  What has changed even more than Trump are the people and institutions around him.

    The leader of the House Republicans is Mike Johnson, not Paul Ryan. Mitch McConnell is stepping down from Senate leadership. And while I do not consider McConnell a profile in courage, his successor will be more in need of Trump’s patronage.

    Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, for all their flaws, are out, while Don Jr. and Lara Trump are in. JD Vance wormed his way onto the ticket by promising to do what Mike Pence would not. Elon Musk is doing everything in his power to buy influence, centrality even, in another Trump administration. The Supreme Court has given Trump immunity from prosecution for official presidential actions.

    Republicans have spent four years plotting to take control of the administrative state — to stock it with loyalists who would never, ever do anything to impede Trump — and turn the entire machinery of the government to Trump’s whims.

    Donald Trump is not cognitively fit to be president. The presidency is a position that requires an occupant able to act strategically and carefully. That Trump is not such a person is obvious if you watch the man. And so, for years, his supporters have said: Don’t watch the man. Don’t listen to what he says. Look at the results. But those results reflected the power and ability of others to check Trump, to inhibit him when he could not inhibit himself. It is not just the man who is now unfit; it is the people and institutions that surround him.

    …What we saw on that stage in Pennsylvania, as Trump D.J.’d, was not Donald Trump frozen, paralyzed, uncertain. It was the people around him frozen, paralyzed, uncertain. He knew exactly where he was. He was doing exactly what he wanted to do. But there was no one there, or no one left, who could stop him.

  61. 61.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    I get it. I hang out here instead of at MAGA blogs because I’m not interested in hearing what they have to say. 

  62. 62.

    Kay

    @Josie:

    Agree. NY is too expensive for me – it offends my frugal nature – but the two little girls are so much fun and I want to be around for them.

    We’ve really grown to love Copenhagen. Three months a year there in the spring sounds great. I have an older friend who told me “do it now because you won’t travel like that in ten years” and that was a real push for me – that’s true.

  63. 63.

    Soprano2

    @Jeffro: I wonder how many of the comments are some version of “If only there was a profession whose job it was to communicate to voters what policies the candidates are promoting, wouldn’t that be great?”. LOL-

    ETA – I’m starting to get really infuriated at all the stories about how Democrats have “alienated” voter group “x”, and they ask Democratic officials “How are you going to get those voters back?”. Are they asking Republicans about the literally thousands of Republicans who have publicly said they have left the party because of what it’s become, and asking them how they’re going to get those voters back? If they are asking that, I haven’t heard it yet.

  64. 64.

    Suzanne

    @Kay:

    But TO A WOMAN the GOP members of our club whined that they are tired of hearing about “division”, meaning they don’t want to read anything that touches on any experience other than their own. 

    This is the most exhausting thing about these people: their utter lack of curiosity, empathy, understanding of other people’s lives. They’re like parrots, who will talk to themselves in the mirror, thinking it’s another parrot. PRETTY BIRD!

  65. 65.

    Soprano2

    @Nelle: That saddens me, too. It broke my heart to read about the 81-year-old woman who voted for the first time this year because her husband died, and she had never voted because he didn’t want her to!

  67. 67.

    sab

    @dmsilev: My brief career as a lawyer was heavily into divorce law. I agree with you on this. A lot of spouses are control freak assholes.

  68. 68.

    Nelle

    @Kay: We’re in Iowa, solely because of the grandchildren.  I’ve made a decent life here, because that is what I do, no matter where we live (eight states, two countries in our 44+ years of married life).  But never would I have picked this place.  I also don’t guarantee we’ll stay if the lump takes the presidency.  We have dual citizenship and my son, who was a minor then, got permanent residency, in our other country.  Maybe we all go as a group.

  69. 69.

    skerry

    I spoke with my dyed-in-the-wool central Indiana Republican brother yesterday. He told me he “no longer has a party.” He’s following Liz Cheney and voting for Harris.

    Also, Maryland emailed me to notify me that my ballot has been counted.

    Not a bad day

  70. 70.

    Belafon

    @satby: Being where I am in Texas, I have neighbors and coworkers that are those kind of people. They are very nice, when you need help. It’s great, and I return it in kind. But they will also complain about those “others” getting things they don’t deserve, and they are great at compartmentalizing. They can tell you that their Mexican neighbor is great, and vote for a guy who will deport him. They can talk about how America is dangerous, and yet somehow leave their house every morning and go shopping without worry. They can talk complain about intrusive government and think that government should prevent women from getting abortions.

  71. 71.

    Torrey

    @sab:

      Not only was Lieut. Elizabeth Windsor a trained mechanic–certainly more than diesel–but the story is that when her father came by to inspect the facility in the course of his normal duties, he identified the vehicle she’d be working on as part of the demonstration, quietly removed an important part, and stood there while she worked to figure out why the vehicle suddenly wouldn’t start. So not only was Her Late Majesty a trained mechanic, but her father, the King, knew his way around an engine.

    Apparently, once she had figured out who had sabotaged her vehicle, the lieutenant appreciated the joke and didn’t even whine that she was “treated very unfairly.”

  72. 72.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: I hope you can find a better book club in your new places. I know people like this – they complain about how there are so many black and Hispanic people in the commercials these days – “Why are there so many of them on TV, there aren’t that many of them in the country!”. I’ve heard this kind of thing from more than one person here. They don’t like the visibility of gay people, either – they want them to go back into the closet. The reason they long for the 1950’s (a decade most of them only know from history) is because everyone but straight, Christian white people was invisible almost everywhere, and that’s how they want it to be now. I live in a place that’s overwhelmingly white, I have to remind myself that every place isn’t like the place where I live.  I’ve seen the movie “When Worlds Collide” – they don’t even think about saving anyone but white people! It’s something that probably wasn’t even noticed when the movie was made, now it’s glaring.

  73. 73.

    Soprano2

    @Suzanne: They want us to understand and empathize with them, but they refuse to do the same with us. The press acts like that, too – notice that there is rarely a story about how conservative MAGA’s should try to understand liberals. They treat it as if them treating us as weird and unusual is OK.

  74. 74.

    Ohio Mom

    @thruppence: Just donate the albums — Goodwill, the public library resale shop, if you have one, whatever. Save yourself the time and effort of trying to sell them.

    Ohio Son collects old comedy records (he has that JFK one), and most old records are a dime a dozen. After all, they were mass produced and as a result, there are masses of them.

    We have a joke in our family, “If you save that (fill in blank with any sort of item), one day it wil be very, very old.”

  75. 75.

    JML

    @Torrey: The British Royal Family is a mess and the trappings of royalty seem totally out of place in the USA…but I have occasionally wondered if we would think about and treat our billionaire class a little differently if there was an actual US Royalty (with no power but their ceremonial duties) to absorb that innate need some people have to place someone above themselves…

  76. 76.

    BlueGuitarist

    @sab:

    A passing reference to divorce law as “emotionally unsanitary work” is one of the many observations i recall from Dan Zegart,  Civil Warriors: The Legal Siege on the Tobacco Industry (2000).

  78. 78.

    Raoul Paste

    @Kay:  The Portugal trip sounds wonderful.  Please report back on places of interest, if you go sightseeing there.  We are always looking for places to travel to while we are still respectably ambulatory.

  81. 81.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Ohio Mom: ​
     
    On the other hand, some things increase in value for weird reasons. I was very into Lego when I was young; when I had kids I thought I could pass that interest along. Of course it didn’t work, so I have sets I bought 30-35 years ago, some having never been opened. I’ve rekindled my old flame of interest a while ago, and sort of follow the resale market (although I prefer new sets for my own enjoyment.) A week or two ago I found an old, sealed set in the basement that I bought new in the early 1990’s. Turns out it’s rare and desirable, with the occasional one turning up on eBay and selling for four-figure sums.

  82. 82.

    ArchTeryx

    @Baud: I think this election has held a mirror to the American people in a way very few others have since before the Civil War. The monsters are outing themselves right and left — even my dip into the BlueSky troll thread had the monsters out themselves instantly.

    But not just the monsters are outing themselves. our allies are too. And we’re going to need them if, God help us all, TCFG wins. Because that will tell us just what kind of a country we live in, and that we in the cities are on our own.

  83. 83.

    SatanicPanic

    @Nelle: that’s really sad that women are stuck in these relationships (or at least feel they have no better alternative). Hard to be proud of the USA when so many are still born into second-class citizenship.

  84. 84.

    Torrey

    @JML:

      The main benefit of the British royal family that I can see is that they absorb the ceremonial duties, freeing up the actual elected government officials to do their jobs. Sadly, as Tony Jay has been pointing out, that doesn’t seem to have been a net positive for the British government. Countries that have both a president and a prime minister manage to divide the duties to a degree.

    The only other benefit the BRF provides, IMO, is their entertainment value. Of course, they provide that for us Americans, too, and we don’t even have to pay them for it.

  85. 85.

    jonas

    @Belafon: Classic conservatism: the law is there to protect, but not constrain, them, and to constrain, but not protect, others. Also, the nagging fear that somewhere, somehow, an undeserving minority is receiving public benefits.

  86. 86.

    Ohio Mom

    @Suzanne: What is the point of reading novels, if not to vicariously experience others’ lives? You don’t have to read novels, it’s an optional pastime, what did these women think they were signing up for when they chose to join a book club?

  87. 87.

    SatanicPanic

    @Gin & Tonic: I now have two generations worth of LEGOs in my son’s closet (mine and his). Most are in good enough condition to play with still. It was really smart of them to keep them compatible. Someday maybe he’ll have kids and we can all enjoy them together

  88. 88.

    ArchTeryx

    @dmsilev: In the South they’ll do that right in the voting booth, and I’ve heard PLENTY of tell of wives having their husbands accompany them right into the booth, WITH the (illegal) permission of the poll workers. That seems to not be uncommon in rural polling stations down there. And I’ve also read plenty of stories of wives whose husbands threatened to kill them if they didn’t vote Trump, and they checked their ballots at the polling station to make sure. This is a cult, and cults are ruthless in enforcing loyalty

    Alot of those women may be literally voting at gunpoint for TCFG. That’s how it’s done in rural America

    From what I’m given to understand that sort of fraud is far less common in mail-in states like Oregon, but that’s also because they tend to be blue states, and there’s less coercion in general there? Correct me if I’m wrong, Jackals.

  89. 89.

    Tazj

    @Jeffro: Johnson is awful, a true believer who thinks he’s on a mission from God. He’ll say and do anything to help Trump and Republicans stay in power.

    I see the Republicans, who aren’t Trump have settled on a closing argument. Johnson said it the other day when being interviewed by Jake Tapper. Oh, forget about Trump’s silly comment about Palmer. According to them, Harris won’t answer the question whether we are better off now than four years ago. Of course, we are, but they’re counting on people remembering the cheap gas and eggs and forgetting all the death.

    It didn’t help that the media is finally coming around to calling this economy good a mere two weeks before the election.

  91. 91.

    JML

    @Torrey: Yeah, I don’t think it would actually work any better here (the Scandinavian countries seem to have a solid setup with their royals at this point?) but I hate how wealth, no matter how it was acquired, can inspire idolatry so easily here. There seems to be a deep-seated need in some people to have that. not sure there’s a harmless way to divert that energy?

  92. 92.

    TBone

    It seems that our mail ballots are leaving the local branch post office in a mere trickle.  Our lovely mail carrier stopped her truck between us and our next door neighbors today, and both me and my Dem neighbor asked where our ballots are.  It’s at least good to know that other Dems here also have not received ballots with only two weeks to go (I was thinking maybe someone stole out of our mailbox).  My neighbor told me he went to the County Election office about this yesterday (and I have called that same office), so it’s good to have him as ‘Exhibit B.’  An online tracking of my ballot confirms a mail date of Oct 7, and today I’m going into our local Democratic Headquarters office on the main drag in town to raise the alarm.  Do you have to cite a specific crime to report this to the feds (Postal Inspector), I wonder… 

  93. 93.

    BC in Illinois

    Today is the day that early voting starts in Missouri, so Mrs BC and I are going to our St Louis County voting site and then we will celebrate at the St Louis City Haitian restaurant.

    [ My Marie on Cherokee Street.]

    + + +

    [Note: “BC in Illinois” has lived in St Louis County since 2015.]

    In 2016, We were both — along with her sister, “Alternate Hillary Clinton Delegates” from Jefferson Township to the 2nd Congressional District Democratic convention, to select delegates to the Missouri State Democratic Convention. The township sent three Clinton delegates and two for Bernie Sanders.

  94. 94.

    Jeffro

    @Soprano2:

    Are they asking Republicans about the literally thousands of Republicans who have publicly said they have left the party because of what it’s become, and asking them how they’re going to get those voters back? If they are asking that, I haven’t heard it yet.

    right??

    and even if/when they did ask, this would be the response:

    “trump showed that we don’t need those voters back!”

    um, pssst GOP, no he didn’t…you guys have lost 3 straight election cycles with him + a MAGA “platform” (if you can call “openly hating on who we wanna hate on” a platform)

    I hope they keep it up with the MAGA purity contests forever and a day

  95. 95.

    frosty

    @Gin & Tonic: @Ohio Mom: Nice! Many years ago I checked out a book on record album value to see if I had any rarities. There were a couple but not four-figures!

    My decluttering plan is to find a store, give them my list, and take half of retail or what they’ll offer. I think generic used but not scratched would get me $0.50 each.

    I took my box of comics to the local comic store (yes, we have one!) and they gave me $50.00. I haven’t made any progress on the rest of the crap though. (Carlin: You’re stuff is shit, my shit is stuff).

  97. 97.

    Scout211

    @TBone: Wow. Your story is scary and your local USPS’s behavior is unacceptable.  The only other thing I would recommend is calling your Secretary of States’s office to report this.

  99. 99.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Ohio Mom: My wife and I met in the disco era and I brought a blue leisure suit to the marriage. At some point she gave it away to charity. Just think what that thing might be worth today! I’ll bet it might be worth $5, even $10 at the thrift store.

  100. 100.

    Jeffro

    @Tazj: It didn’t help that the media is finally coming around to calling this economy good a mere two weeks before the election.

    EXACTLY

    Any GOP president, and the media would be tap-dancing and singing his/her praises, all agog that we managed to pull off a “soft landing”, omg how amazing, so super talented, etc etc.

    It’s infuriating

  101. 101.

    TerryC

    @Princess: I see a last-minute “you can vote for anyone” campaign of handwritten post-it notes on the inside of women’s bathroom stalls!

  103. 103.

    Jackie

    Sorry if this has been posted, but this surprised me!

    Vice President Kamala Harris is heading to Houston on Friday for a campaign rally, a surprise visit that comes in the closing weeks of a campaign in which she has largely focused her efforts on other states seen as more competitive.

    *snip*

    The location of Harris’ rally has yet to be announced. It is slated to take place at some point between 3 and 8 p.m. Friday, according to a Democratic National Committee event page.

    Harris’ visit signals national Democrats’ renewed interest in the race between Republican Sen. Ted Cruz and his Democratic challenger, U.S. Rep. Colin Allred of Dallas. Though Cruz remains favored, the contest is seen as one of Democrats’ few viable options to pick up a seat in the upper chamber, and an Allred win would be critical to Harris’ hopes of working with a Democratic Senate majority should she win in November.

    https://www.texastribune.org/2024/10/22/kamala-harris-texas-visit-houston-rally/

    There’s no mention if Allred will be there; I tend to think not, UNLESS Liz Cheney also attends?

  105. 105.

    Citizen Alan

    @JML: What always astonishes me about it is that jesus actually and specifically warned his followers that you cannot follow both god and mammon. Prosperity gospel is, in my opinion, one of the most pernicious and widespread heresies of the last one hundred years.

  107. 107.

    catclub

    @Baud: She took the risk because she believed it would pay off and she succeeded.

     

    Yes, apparently all many GOPer’s knew about Kamala Harris was a caricature by Trump, so if she can go on FOX and make sensible answers and talk about policy without a teleprompter, that is a huge win, relative to what their viewership expects.

     

    Now how they could have watched the debate and still think that, I don’t know.  But not everyone watched it.

  110. 110.

    JML

    @Citizen Alan: seriously. I always wonder how people get swindled into craziness like Prosperity Gospel and so forth, but then I remember what Jim Bakker was like. This is just a new way for people to justify their greed.

  111. 111.

    EngineerScotty

    Drove from Portland to Eugene, OR on Sunday.  I-5 in the Willamette Valley is generally rural outside the cities (the freeway skips most of the small town), and the farmers who own the land alongside are all Republican, unsurprisingly.

    Saw lots of signs for Mike Erickson, the GOP candidate for OR-6.  (Neither the governor nor either of our Senators are up for re-election in 2024, so other than the Presidential race, the House races are the next big-ticket things on the ballot).

    Saw only one sign for Trump–it was being held by a dude on overpass, and for some reason was printed backwards, like the how word “ambulance” is rendered on the front of an ambulance so it can be read correctly in a car’s rear-view mirror.

    Trump has virtually no presence in Oregon; this is a safe state for Harris.  The campaign didn’t even bother to pay the $2500 to purchase a candidate’s statement in the Voter’s Pamphlet, which caused some brief issues last week when it was published without it, causing some local MAGAs to accuse the Secretary of State’s office of skullduggery.

    See similar in Southwest Washington–signs for the local GOP candidates for office, but not for Trump.

    Trump campaign being cheap?  State GOPs preferring to keep him at a distance?  Or lots of local Republican landowners (the sort of people who have land that fronts freeways) not supporting him?  I suspect it’s more the first two–but his on-the-ground presence here is MUCH smaller than 2020, when pickups festooned with Trump flags were a regular sight even in the city, and some of the small towns were scary to drive through.

  112. 112.

    EngineerScotty

    Yesterday, Simon Rosenberg was late with his daily dose of hopium, which had me worried.  He eventually came through and did not disappoint.

    Today, a few “higher quality” (meaning: not obvious GOP shills) polls showed up at 538, generally showing Harris at +3 or +4… and lots of ratfuck polls with the race tied or at Trump +1.

    But the Harris campaign is not acting like it’s losing.  And despite the fact that this past weekend’s number in the averages were worse than the past one, I’ve seen less online bedwetting this week than early last week.

  113. 113.

    zhena gogolia

    @EngineerScotty: Here is my highly unscientific signal.

    All through the Trump administration, I would wake up at 3:00 AM and worry.

    All through the Biden administration, at least until they started trying to push him out, I would sleep through the night.

    From Biden’s debate until this week, I’ve been waking up at 3:00 AM.

    This week I’ve been sleeping through the night. I must think she’s going to win.

  114. 114.

    Kathleen

    @Jeffro: Is this the “Washington It’s Not Our Job To Tell Readers What Harris and Walz are saying at rallies because our job is to tell you that Democrats don’t message their positions clearly Post”?

  115. 115.

    Soprano2

    @Tazj: Honestly, I’m fervently hoping nothing happens before Election Day to raise the price of gas. Believe it or not that has a not insignificant amount to do with how people feel about the economy in general.

  117. 117.

    geg6

    @Suzanne:

    I hate these people.  I’ve never experienced hating so hard in my life.  And I’ve never been known as someone who is tolerant of stupid, selfish assholes.  I would not be able to keep my mouth shut in a book club with these entitled idiots.  This is why I don’t do in person canvassing anymore.  I can’t be trusted to be gracious enough to do it.  I’m too much of a tell it like it is person and I have trouble holding it back, even more so as I approach old age.

  119. 119.

    Another Scott

    @Jackie:

    Anna Elsasser@AnnaElsasser
    12h

    “Imagine being a U.S. Senator and having all your state’s biggest newspapers come out against you.” Tough week for Ted Cruz when @ColinAllredTX picks up ALL 5 of the biggest newspapers in Texas’ endorsements. That’s what we call a clean sweep 🧹

    [ 32 second Maddow clip ]

    Oct 22, 2024 · 3:14 AM UTC

    Good, good.

    Forward!!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  121. 121.

    Weftage

    @dmsilev: You actually can vote in-person in Oregon, but you have to go to your county elections office to do it. If somebody is being controlled to the degree that somebody is going to coerce their vote, it’s hard to imagine them being able to get to the county office undetected.

    There’s no way to know what level of domestic ballot coercion there may be in the mail ballot system. As @ArchTeryx correctly points out, in-person voting also does not guarantee an uncoerced vote.  We don’t know to what degree this may affect (may have always affected?) the outcome of elections.

    Mail voting is also at the mercy of the postal system, as @TBone‘s experience shows.

    So far, Oregonians’ consensus is that the advantages of mail voting outweigh these potential issues. That doesn’t mean we aren’t aware of them or don’t take them seriously.

    We can speculate/hope that domestic coercion will decrease as women increasingly are able to reject marriage to authoritarian men.

  125. 125.

    unrelatedwaffle

    I live in a vote-by-mail state that started doing “I voted!” stickers just this year, during the primaries. But in addition I bought a bunch of 3″ blank labels to hand draw some for my neighbors, but only one person in the neighborhood chat asked for one, womp womp. Maybe I’ll have some out on the candy table during Halloween. My yard sign should also be here by then!

  126. 126.

    Kathleen

    @Jackie: I just read that Tim Walz is coming to Kentucky to raise money for Harris. He was also here in Cincinnati and I assume for the same reason. I don’t think campaign targeting Ohio for electoral victory.

  128. 128.

    JoyceH

    I watch the news and they talk about how tight this race is, tighter than 2020, and I start to stress. But then my brain says, wait a minute.

    Look, for Trump to win, there has to be a lot of people, MILLIONS of them, who didn’t vote for him in 2020 but will vote for him in 2024. Biden won by over 7 million. So where are Trump’s 7 million pickup? But he needs more than that. Because we know there are a lot of people who voted for Trump in 2020 who are voting for Harris this time. I heard a poll that said that Harris is picking up eight percent of Trump 2020 voters. Not sure if I’d go that far – that would create a landslide of epic proportions. But say it’s two percent. Since every switch is a two vote swing, that would increase Harris’ numbers by three million, so now Trump needs ten million votes more than last time.

    Okay, but what about the other side? Maybe Harris won’t get as many base voters as Biden did? Do we see any evidence of that? Are the Democrats less motivated to get out and vote than they were in the middle of a pandemic, before J6 and Dobbs?

    I just can’t see a realistic possibility where Trump wins, even if he were a sane and disciplined candidate.

    But that’s just me.

  129. 129.

    Kathleen

    @zhena gogolia: You could create a new political consultant “niche” with your revolutionary “Zhena Sleeps” strategy! I can see you on an MSNBC panel nodding away (which would be a GOOD thing for a Democratic candidate)! Love it!

  130. 130.

    NotMax

    @catclub

    Been tried a lo-o-o-ong time/

    Smell-O-Vision is a system that released odor during the projection of a film so that the viewer could “smell” what was happening in the movie. Created by Hans Laube, the technique made its only appearance in the 1960 film Scent of Mystery, produced by Mike Todd Jr., son of film producer Mike Todd. The process injected 30 odors into a movie theater’s seats when triggered by the film’s soundtrack.

    Roughly similar concepts integrating odor experiences into entertainment performances date back at least to 1868 for live theatre, with the first film usage in 1906. Other approaches include General Electric’s “Smell-O-Rama” in 1953 and the rival “AromaRama” system in 1959. In cheeky homage to this era, John Waters enhanced his 1981 film Polyester with an “Odorama” scratch-n-sniff card. Source

    And then there was the flop of iSmell.

  131. 131.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @JoyceH: I agree with all of that.

    Also, “likely voter” models in polls are filtering out all or nearly all the newly-activated voters. I heard a story of 94% of some group being filtered out who had indicated they were very likely or extremely likely to vote. And then there’s that famous poll here in PA from a week or two ago who kept only 12 Philadelphia voters in their sample of representative PA voters.

    The enthusiasm is real. The models are hopelessly broken.

  133. 133.

    Anoniminous

    @Ohio Mom:

    Friend had a re-sale shop.  I got real world/real time verification of the saying going around Antique circles, “You don’t want your grandmothers china and neither does anyone else.”

  135. 135.

    Manyakitty

    I got a text poll that I answered. Also, I can’t remember which company it was, but someone had an exit poll set up to catch people after early voting here in Ohio, so I participated in that one, too.

  136. 136.

    NotMax

    @JML

    Ever see that syndicated Reverend Ike program? It was a real thing.

    “Want a Cadillac? Send in a donation and pray for a Cadillac!”

  138. 138.

    unrelatedwaffle

    @Kay: The deep insecurity that white people have about someone else getting any attention keeps us from getting anywhere. I learned that ugly stuff from my “progressive” but extremely racist dad (“notice how on TV all the black people are cool but the white people are square?” “huh???” “why do black people get a whole history month? why does MLK get his own holiday?”), and it took several years out of his house and reading lots of books by black authors to move forward.

    But a lot of these people just refuse to read, and by extension, refuse to listen, to anything outside of their realm of experience.

  139. 139.

    Anoniminous

    @JoyceH:

    Agree wholeheartedly.  I can’t find a single structural reason for Harris to lose Pennsylvania or Michigan.  Those two states get her to 260.  Any of the three Biden squeaker states: Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, gets her to 270.

  142. 142.

    Jackie

    @Kathleen: Kentucky?!!

    Boy, I’m curious what the Harris Champaign knows that we don’t. This brings back memories of Kellyanne Conway’s smirky hints about Wisconsin and Michigan late Oct ‘16 right around this time. Dems laughed at the thought of those two reliably Blue states flipping to TCFG.

  144. 144.

    Geminid

    @Jackie: Walz’s Kentucky stop trip might be just for rhe fundraising. Red state money spends just as good as blue state money.

  147. 147.

    Glidwrith

    @TBone: Raise the alarm with the Postal Inspector, your state and federal representatives and senators. If one postal branch is doing this, how many others need a fire lit under them?

  149. 149.

    Situation Normal

    @NotMax: (and @ others) not to mention: “We’re having our own party…” I think I was 12 when that album came out. We did a mimic of it in 7th grade, similar stuff with a classmate who could imitate Vaughn Meader, sort of.

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