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The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

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You are here: Home / Elections / Biden-Harris 2020 / Friday Morning Open Thread: No Sooner Than Time

Friday Morning Open Thread: No Sooner Than Time

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(Apparently it was HuffPost‘s S.V. Date. Wish the next reporter had followed up!)

Reader Interactions

138Comments

  1. 1.

    SFAW

    Two questions:

    Is the Yamiche Alcindor tweet an actual exchange? Or just a wished-for/hypothetical? [Yeah I know Paula Reid (I think) asked a similar set of questions, but didn’t recall if she used the word “lying.”]

    What the feck is Fecke on about? To whom is he speaking? “It’s our turn”?? WTF?

    Yeah, I can count. So sue me.

  3. 3.

    JPL

    @SFAW: Yes.   Someone asked if about lying.   I think it was someone who worked at HuffPost, and trump should be asked that question every time he’s available for questions.

  5. 5.

    Punchy

    I find it odd that “young voters” needed KamHa on the ticket to find it palatable for electing.  Heads up yoots:  if Trump gets another 4 yrs, you may not have a inhabitable planet on which to live when you reach your 50s.  You certainly wont have many rights and freedoms….

  6. 6.

    Anne Laurie

    @SFAW: Added a Guardian link with video — it was an actual question!

    And Trump didn’t explode (he honestly doesn’t seem to have understood the question); his handlers must’ve had him on a heavy dose of tranquilizers for this particular press.

    As for Jeff Fecke’s tweet… We’re a little better than that here, mostly, but too many ‘true progressive’ Democrats are still whining about how Nancy Pelosi / Neera Tanden / Joe Biden should Do Something, wave a magic wand, to make Trump, McConnell, and the rest of the GOP Death Cult just STOP already.  It’s not that simple.  We have to keep reminding our ‘allies’ — it’s never that simple!

  8. 8.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @SFAW: I took Fecke to mean it’s our turn to do something, which is vote. The Ds have already done what they can from their constricted position. We need to stand up and get this done ourselves.

  9. 9.

    Ken

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: They can send in Trump’s Florida application, which used a business address (Mar-a-Lago, IIRC) rather than a residence and so constitutes fraud under Florida election law.

  10. 10.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @SFAW:

    No, it was a real question. If we had a decent political media, the next reporter called would have said “I’d like you to answer his question“.

  11. 11.

    Ken

    @JPL: trump should be asked that question every time he’s available for questions.

    But he’d just stop making himself avail —

    Never mind. Brilliant idea.

  12. 12.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @SFAW: ‘Do you regret all your lying?’ White House reporter’s question startles Trump

    V Dáte had waited five long years to ask Donald Trump one question: “Mr President, after three and a half years [of Trump’s presidency], do you regret at all, all the lying you’ve done to the American people?”

    Confronted with Dáte’s question at Thursday’s White House briefing, Trump responded with a question of his own. “All the what?” he said.

    Dáte: “All the lying, all the dishonesties.”

    Trump: “That who has done?”

    “You have done,” said Dáte, who is the Huffington Post’s White House correspondent. “Tens of thousan–”, he began to say, before Trump cut him off and called on another journalist, who asked a question about payroll tax.
    …………………..
    Speaking to the Guardian, Dáte said that he asked the question because it was the first time that he had had the chance.

    “I don’t know why he called on me, because I’ve tried to ask him before [in March] and he’s cut me off mid-question. Maybe he didn’t recognise me this time,” he said. “You know, he has this group of folks that he normally asks questions of.”

    It was Dáte’s turn on White House in press pool, and so he had a prominent seat. “I had always thought that if he ever did call on me, this is the one thing that is really central to his presidency,” he said.

  13. 13.

    JPL

    @Anne Laurie: Patricia Kayden posted this below.   Another real question and answer from our racist pres.

    A moment to behold.Q: What do you mean by an “invasion” in the suburbs if VP Joe Biden is elected?President Trump: “They’re going to destroy suburbia. And 30 percent of the people in suburbia are minorities. They say 35 percent, but I like to cut it lower.”— Yamiche Alcindor (@Yamiche) August 12, 2020

  15. 15.

    MJS

    I need some advice. I just saw an article that says the USPS may not be able to get ballots out to everyone in PA in time for the election. I’ve never voted in any other way than in-person, and am thinking I should probably do so again in November, so that my request for a mail-in ballot doesn’t add to that workload. I’m thinking I should leave the mail-in ballots to those who can’t make it to their polling place, for whatever reason. Thoughts?

  19. 19.

    John S.

    I don’t know about other parts of the country, but here in South Florida we can use our mail in ballots without having to use the mail.

    The counties all have numerous drop boxes setup — some are open only during early voting hours in polling places, others are open 24/7. That means voters do not have to take the risk of voting in person OR take the risk that the USPS will deliver their ballot in time.

  21. 21.

    debbie

    @John S.:

    In Ohio, the SoS is only allowing one dropbox per county, outside the county’s BoE. One county (Cuyahoga, I think) has one million registered voters! The SoS’s excuse is that there isn’t enough time before the election and it’s too expensive.

  23. 23.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @MJS: Come Nov 3rd I will drag my broken masked body thru broken glass to my polling station so I can cast my vote. I’m not trusting any other method in this failed state.

  24. 24.

    Ken

    @Peale: Possibly it’s a mis-transcription, he does slur[*] a lot.  Instead of “I like to cut it lower,” he may have said “I like to keep it lower.”

    * In several senses of the word.

  25. 25.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @satby: Actually, Anne got there first. She added the link and video to the post.  :-)

     

    ETA Well, maybe not the video, I can only see text in tweets.

  26. 26.

    SFAW

    Thanks all for the explanations. I hadn’t heard about the SV Date interchange. I would love it if the MSM started doing their jobs, but I’d also love to be 30 years younger. On the plus side: at least with the MSM, there is a non-zero probability.

  28. 28.

    SFAW

    @debbie:

    In Ohio, the SoS is only allowing one dropbox per county, outside the county’s BoE. One county (Cuyahoga, I think) has one million registered voters! The SoS’s excuse is that there isn’t enough time before the election and it’s too expensive.

    I imagine Traitor Ken Blackwell is on the SoS’s payroll.

  30. 30.

    debbie

    @Ken:

    Or, it’s in keeping with his lifelong obsession with practicing redlining and racial housing discrimination.  ?

  31. 31.

    satby

    I just am wondering when the lawsuits about Trump admitting to the federal offense of mail tampering will drop. Trump might be immune from prosecution, but his PMG is not.

  32. 32.

    Argiope

    @MJS: Can you vote early in person at your local BOE?  I’m considering that.  I don’t want to wait until in person on election day because a lot can go wrong in 30 days, including the possibility of illness for me.  But I can go early, masked up, to my BOE and vote on their machines.  If the concern is receiving your mail-in-ballot, not returning it, I’d go the early in person route if your state allows it.

  36. 36.

    SFAW

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    A federal court in Pennsylvania has ordered the Trump campaign to produce what evidence they have of mail-in voter fraud. I think the Trump campaign is suing to curtail mail-in voting because of possible fraud, and the judge is saying put up or shut up.

    I keep hoping that when the Murderer-in-Chief spouts that crap during his “coronavirus briefings,” some reporter(s) will ask him to tell America what specific evidence he has which led him to make that clearly false claim.

  38. 38.

    germy

    @Anne Laurie:  And Trump didn’t explode (he honestly doesn’t seem to have understood the question); his handlers must’ve had him on a heavy dose of tranquilizers for this particular press.

    Tranquilizers or not, if a woman had asked the question I believe he would have exploded with a flurry of insults directed at the reporter.  Instead he just ignored the man’s question and moved on to the next question.

    I doubt we’ll see that particular reporter again, though. He probably got scolded by Jonathan Karl after the presser:  “We don’t talk like that here in the Beltway media.”

  39. 39.

    trnc

    @Peale: @JPL:

    what does that even mean? He wants to push 5% of the minorities out of the suburbs?

    The safe bet would be that he wants 100% of the minorities out of the suburbs. And the metro areas. And the rural areas.

  40. 40.

    Brachiator

    @Punchy:

    I find it odd that “young voters” needed KamHa on the ticket to find it palatable for electing.

    Whatever gets young people out to vote is fine with me.

  44. 44.

    MJS

    @rikyrah: Unfortunately, no early voting in PA, so I’ll be voting in-person, come hell or high water. Neither rain nor snow nor heat will stay me from my appointed round. (Gloom of night excluded because I’ll be voting long before the sun goes down).

  45. 45.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @satby: Here, they are proud of our vote suppression. They don’t exactly brag about it but it’s pretty blatant. I guess IN still has a sense of shame, something we are entirely lacking,

  46. 46.

    WereBear

    @Anne Laurie: There are postal inspectors. Where are they? Why can’t they start cracking down?

    Aren’t there ANY sheriffs in town?

    Last night Mr WereBear and I decided we can’t mail our ballot. For the good of the nation, we will risk our lives by using the early election period.

    I STILL refuse to accept that there’s “nothing to be done.” Think outside the usual boxes.

    Because Trump is acting outside of them.

  47. 47.

    John S.

    @debbie:

    That’s ridiculous. Broward County has 22 ballot boxes in place, and they did it relatively quickly. But then, our SOE is a solid Democrat with a vested interest in making it EASIER for people to vote — not HARDER.

  48. 48.

    Kay

    @Brachiator:

    It’s 62% favorable with Kamala vs 60% favorable with Biden. There’s no difference :)

    But 60 (or 62%) favorable is high, so that’s good.

  49. 49.

    SFAW

    Re: the various Fecke-explicatory responses: thanks. I don’t read it the same way. It’s probably some innate bias of mine (re: how I read it), but when I’ve seen “it’s our turn,” it has typically been used in a “get TF out of the way, boomers/DNC/group-we-don’t-like-or-respect” sense. I’m guessing/hoping he meant to write “It’s our turn to step up and do what’s necessary, stop looking to others to solve our problems,” and decided the last 15 words were implied/obvious.

    Person, woman, man, camera, blog.

  51. 51.

    gene108

    @debbie:

    In NJ we have 5 drop boxes per county and this feels inadequate

    Only good thing for me is one drop box is near where I live.

    Having one per county is obscene

  52. 52.

    OzarkHillbilly

    A star is reborn: dust cloud blamed for dimming of Betelgeuse

    The sudden dimming of one of the Milky Way’s brightest stars, Betelgeuse, could be due to a dust cloud spewing up from its surface, astronomers have said. The mystery has enthralled skywatchers since the star – part of the Orion constellation – began to lose luminosity last October, with some experts suggesting it could herald its explosion into a supernova.

    But researchers working with the Hubble telescope now have a clearer picture, seeing superhot plasma being unleashed from the star’s surface, cooling in the outer layers of the atmosphere and eventually turning to dust.

    “The resulting cloud blocked light from about a quarter of the star’s surface,” the European Space Agency said in a statement, adding that the star has since returned to its normal brightness. “With Hubble, we see the material as it left the star’s visible surface and moved out through the atmosphere, before the dust formed that caused the star to appear to dim,” said lead researcher Andrea Dupree of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in the United States. “We could see the effect of a dense, hot region in the southeast part of the star moving outward.”

  53. 53.

    Kay

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) remains the top-rated agency, with 74% saying it is doing an “excellent” or “good” job. This conforms with its No. 1 status in all prior years Gallup measured it, including 2014, 2017 and 2018.

    ICE is the least popular. The US Department of Education is also very unpopular, which I suspect is because of student loans. I suspect a student loan is the only interaction most people have with them.

  54. 54.

    Matt McIrvin

    @WereBear:

    I STILL refuse to accept that there’s “nothing to be done.” Think outside the usual boxes.

    I’m not getting a gun, so what else is there? I think that may be where we are.

  56. 56.

    Ohio Mom

    I haven’t gotten over having the Ohio March primary election abruptly cancelled by the Governor — it was cancelled because it was the start of the first big Covid surge, and I eventually was able to mail-in a ballot, but I am traumatized for life.

    All set for the short walk to my polling place, suitable all-blue outfit ready (I always wear blue to vote) and POOF!

    I will be voting early AT the Board of Elections. I can’t ever imagine waiting until Election Day ever again.

    The funny thing is, I’ve had mixed feelings about early voting. I’m not against the practice but I think depending on the schedule, some early voting can be TOO early: the campaigns aren’t finished, things could happen that will still change those critical “undecideds” minds. I hate that we are dependent on people too lazy to develop a coherent political philosophy but that’s where we are.

  57. 57.

    Argiope

    @Kay: Me too.  Frees me up to do GOTV volunteering or poll monitoring on the day itself. Plus, I’m sure nothing will get in the way of my voting that day because I’ve already done it.

  58. 58.

    Starfish

    @Punchy:  She is more popular. Young voters like her better. I still see some people who are complete dodos calling her a cop though because young voters are not a monolith.

  59. 59.

    satby

    So O.T. personal news, the eye doctor got hold of me Tuesday and asked if I would be available to work if the manager was no longer there (at least as a fill in). Since business is down and there’s no travel in the future for probably a year, I said I could for limited days /hours. Might as well, the cats and dogs are sick of always having me underfoot.

  60. 60.

    Kay

    When I worked as a manager in the postal service we would have meetings on how we were doing and the measure they used was comparisons to other countries. For some reason I remember “Germany” coming up constantly but I’m sure there were other countries.

    Anyway- we measured up quite well:

    Efficiency may not be the first word that comes to mind when Americans think of the USPS, but U.S. mail carriers are better at using their limited resources than any of their counterparts, according to OSC’s study. In one year, America’s mailmen and women delivered 268,894 letters and 2,633 parcels per carrier — more than any other country — to 151 million addresses. All told, the USPS accounts for 40 percent of the world’s mail volume. And despite complaints about customer service, when researchers in a different study tested 159 countries’ post offices on how fast an average letter sent to a fake address would be returned, the United States also came in first.

  62. 62.

    WereBear

    @satby: I was startled when I read an early pioneer memoir which stated something like, “Indiana acts like it has a conformist requirement in the state constitution, though I looked and it’s not written down.”

    The man and his family moved on :)

  63. 63.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Ohio Mom: One thing I like about early voting is that the October Surprise crap that pops right at the end usually subtracts information and intelligence rather than adding it. If people vote before all that, it’s probably actually a more thoughtful vote. I voted early in 2016 and I got my ballot in before the entire Comey letter drama dropped. Imagine if more people had!

  67. 67.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @satby: I’m assuming the eye doc is taking the same kind of care I’ve seen in doc offices around here. And it would be nice to have something different happen. Assuming “different” isn’t a euphemism for “disaster.”

  69. 69.

    Matt McIrvin

    @gene108: Massachusetts leaves it up to the city or town and as far as I know, mine does not have drop boxes. But every town has in-person early voting, so I may do that.

    I requested a mail ballot for the Sept. 1 state primary (Markey v. Kennedy, some uncontested races too) and the state says it mailed out in August 12th, which, you will note, is already close enough to the election that it may be too close (it has to be RECEIVED by election day). The ballot is not here yet. I’m going to see how many days it takes to get here and use that as a rough gauge as to whether I can risk sending it in. If I do send it in, I’ll watch the same website to see how long it takes for them to get it. It will be an interesting experiment, though it may not have bearing on what state the USPS will be in by October for the general election.

  70. 70.

    Sab

    @SFAW: No. Ken Blackwell went off to work for a right wing think tank years ago. ALL Ohio Republican SOS do this stuff.

  73. 73.

    Kay

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    Democrats and voting rights advocates (but I repeat myself) have done a good job expanding access in various ways the last ten years. Early vote is one, automatic registration is another. They’ve gotten a lot accomplished. Next they need to work on this:

    In many states, processing of absentee ballots can begin before they are actually counted. “Processing” means different things in different states, but typically the first step is comparing the affidavit signature on the outside of the return envelope against the voter’s signature on record to ensure a match, or otherwise verify the voter’s identity. See the section titled, “Processing, Verifying, and Counting Absentee Ballots.”In some states once the signature is verified the envelope can then be opened and the ballot prepared for tabulation. In essence, states that begin processing before Election Day can “tee up” absentee ballots so that they are ready to be counted as soon as the law allows. By permitting election officials to do a lot of the work ahead of time, the counting process on Election Day (and election results reporting) are quicker. Results are not released ahead of time.

    You want them to be able to count the absentees before election day. It’s a felony to release results early and a lot of states have been counting absentees prior to close of polls for years with no problems.

  74. 74.

    NotMax

    Ducked into Costco yesterday after dropping landlady off to see her eye doctor in order to check whether an item they were out of during my earlier regular shopping trip had been restocked (it had).

    While ambling around to eat up time, saw that the formerly wide open to view bakery work area has now been completely sealed off, floor to ceiling, from the display and shopping areas. Also that the variety of baked goods for sale is maybe 75% of what it has always been. Something’s up.

  75. 75.

    Matt McIrvin

    @raven: fuck no, will never have one. There’s a child in this household, for one thing, and I read statistics. We might need an army in coming months but I don’t think I can be in it.

  76. 76.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @MJS: PA Dept of State emailed me yesterday to say that we would be getting ballots in Sept or Oct and since we’d used the mail in process for the primary, we didn’t even need to request them again. (Although we had).

    They got the job done for the primary, only slightly glitchy. We got the ballots Monday night before Primary Day, too late to mail in. And info on drop boxes was hard to find.

    I think they’ll have their act together this round. Even with the federal attack. Primaries were a dry run for all of us, voters, poll workers and state govt.

  77. 77.

    narya

    My state (IL) doesn’t start counting mail-in ballots until polls close, so I am going to suck it up and early vote. My first home project was stripping the MANY layers of paint off of the bricks in the sunroom. The more I did it, the more I masked up–and last week I found three N95 masks from my last effort (more than two years ago), so I at least have that for going out. I’ll need it next week, too, as I have a dentist appointment and will have to take public transport there and back. I’m nervous about it, but I have a chipped tooth and I don’t want it to get worse.

  78. 78.

    Kay

    Scott MacFarlane
    @MacFarlaneNews
    NOT JUST DEMOCRATS: GOP Senator (who’s up for re-election) fires off letter to Postmaster General worried about mail delivery times.

    Defending the postal service is a political no-brainer. Donald Trump doesn’t know anything about how the country actually works so he doesn’t know this, but it’s true. This senator is Montana but the odious Susan Collins is also concerned.
    Just go crazy on the Trump Administration ruining the post office. Can’t be too vitriolic on this one :)

  79. 79.

    NotMax

    @NotMax

    Also noticed the outside food court (which had already been cut back to sodas, pizza and hot dogs only, as well as removal of all tables and seating) was shut down, locked up and unapproachable as there was a line of eight foot high towers of pallets blocking anyone from getting close.

  80. 80.

    Obdurodon

    Maybe this is a controversial opinion, but I think the “do you regret all the lies” question was a waste of time. Just like “have you stopped beating your wife” there’s no real answer. Is any politician ever really going to say yes? Or no? Pretty sure that if Biden were faced with the same question he’d react the same way. Moving on was the right thing to do. Surely that same time could have been better used pressing Trump on something where his answer would actually tell us something (even if it’s not what he meant it to) like why he’s having a campaign megadonor destroy the USPS or how he feels about Alexander Lukashenko. Notice how he has had nothing whatsoever to say about that?

  83. 83.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Kay: RI is a heavily-Dem state and has a good and effective SoS; this year they’ve introduced early in-person voting, which I think I will take advantage of. I’ve voted absentee several times due to travel, and it’s always been pretty frictionless here.

  84. 84.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: I think using the mail in any way is just going to be impossible–there’s no act to get together there. They’re going to have to switch gears to telling everyone to vote in person.

  88. 88.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Matt McIrvin: Apparently I missed a story in the Philadelphia Inquirer that the USPS told PA back in July that they weren’t going to deliver the ballots on time.

    That makes me very curious now why PA decided to send out that email yesterday promising ballots in September or October.

    If you still live in the same county as when you applied, you do not need to re-apply for a mail-in ballot. You will receive a ballot in the mail in September or October, and you will be able to securely vote from the comfort and safety of your home. We are contacting all mail-in ballot applicants, so they do not mistakenly submit duplicate requests.

    As of right now I’m planning on voting by mail, but I have to see how the war of states vs USPS continues to play out.

  90. 90.

    rikyrah

    @narya:

    early voting begins October 19th in Illinois

    And, the hours for Early Voting have expanded. They will be late hours from the very beginning, instead just the second week.

    it will be everyday through November 2nd.

  92. 92.

    Soprano2

    Evidently the officials at our county jail just this week heard about this virus called COVID-19, and have decided now that they had a big outbreak perhaps they should provide the guards and inmates with face masks! That’s with a mask ordinance in our city. I have no idea what these idiots were thinking. So, our numbers in this county spiked up despite the mask ordinance because of this. Who knows how many cases they’ll find if they test all 750 inmates and 102 officers. Good Lord…… news-leader.com/story/news/local/ozarks/2020/08/13/covid-outbreak-greene-county-jail-inmates-speak-o…

  94. 94.

    rikyrah

    I ordered a mail ballot for this election. The most important thing is that it gets to me. Once it gets to me, I will hand deliver it back to my election authority.

    My sister is going to early vote. It is only 5 minutes from out house. I will send her the first day, when it opens.

  97. 97.

    JPL

    @narya: Because of the HIV crisis in the eighties, dental offices have used best practices for decades.   I did wear goggles during the appt though and asked her not to put me to far back.   AC systems are still problematic.

  99. 99.

    Kathleen

    @SFAW: He’s now a “Fellow” at Family Research Council. Fun fact – during his college years at Xavier and his early years in Cincy city govt he was very liberal. A friend who worked as legislative aid for councilman at that time (early 70’s) said he and Jerry Springer were the most talented and charismatic politicians she’d ever seen. And she knows everyone in local politics.

  100. 100.

    PenandKey

    @Starfish: She is more popular. Young voters like her better. I still see some people who are complete dodos calling her a cop though because young voters are not a monolith.

    I just found out yesterday that you can almost add my 31 year old brother to that category of “complete dodos”. He’s extremely liberal and has every intention of voting for the straight Democrat this year. So good, but he asked me my take on Harris getting the VP nod and it turns out he’s a strong believer in the “Biden’s mind is addled” and “She’s a rudderless neocon only out for her own ambition” lies that have been peddled by the Bernie Bros, GRU, and the GOP since the contest started.

    So yay to voting right, but man is it disheartening to see even someone who should know better and who knows how to vet sources fall for a blatant disinformation campaign.

    @raven: Southerner? I’ve only been here 35 years.

    And I’ve only been a Wisconsin resident for 35 years. Or any resident, for that matter. But then being born at the tail end of 1984 will do that. Sorry raven, you’re a Southerner ;)

  101. 101.

    hueyplong

    I’m with Ozark and Kay.  Going to vote in person, but early.  The more people do that, the less Trump gets to talk about how he was ahead before they started counting the rigged mail-in vote.

    It’s more dangerous, but voting against Trump in a swing state at some point prior to Nov 3 will be the most important thing I ever do in my life, and Trump is putting an element of doubt into whether that vote will be counted.

  102. 102.

    Kathleen

    @Kay: I do also but this year I’m voting by mail for the first time and have mailed my ballot application. Now I’m second guessing myself. I early voted in the primary and voted 3 days before DeWine cancelled in person voting.

  103. 103.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Kay: Calling the postal service a joke and pushing for it to be eliminated or privatized is one of those 1970s-80s resentment politics things, like fearmongering about minorities invading your suburb and complaining about low-flow plumbing. I expect him to start grousing about the metric system initiative and the Panama Canal at any moment.

  105. 105.

    Kathleen

    @SFAW: I’ve followed him for awhile now and he was referring to complainers who blame Dems for “not doing something”. He’ saying we have to also take action. He’s a good guy in my opinion.

  107. 107.

    Kay

    @Matt McIrvin:

    That’s true. The whole Trump Family are weirdly dated. It’s like they are frozen in time. Even Ivanka and Jared are like 1980’s people.

    When I worked for the postal service (always in smaller rural offices except for a brief stint at the Detroit sorting facility) older men (always men) would come in and bitch about how inefficient we were- “gubmint jobs”. Often I was the only employee there- the carriers go out in the morning so they’re gone- and I would give them shit right back, tell them “I’m the only one here- if I get cut the door is locked and you have nowhere to go at 11 am every day”.

  108. 108.

    Matt McIrvin

    @raven: There’s a bunch of LGM commenters who have been urging everyone on the left to get a gun and learn to shoot. I think there are important caveats to be attached to that exhortation. There are many, many people for whom this is a deadly hazard, maybe a bigger hazard than Trump.

  109. 109.

    SFAW

    @raven:

    Southerner? I’ve only been here 35 years.

    I’ve been a Masshole for 40-plus years, but still am, at some level, a Noo Yawkuh. [As partly-evidenced by my love of the Mets and my hatred of the Wilpons.]

    ETA: But to the rest of the world, I’m a Masshole. Well, sometimes the “M” is silent, but you get the idea.

  110. 110.

    Kathleen

    @Kay: I worked as casual at PO a few times and I have tremendous respect for the people there who were some of the coolest people I ever worked with. When I was crew leader for census my letter carrier was very helpful as he could be (there were boundaries). He was like the neighborhood archivist because he interacted with so many neighbors. It’s sad that we are losing that.

  111. 111.

    SFAW

    @Kay:

    and I would give them shit right back, tell them “I’m the only one here- if I get cut the door is locked and you have nowhere to go at 11 am every day”.

    Your self-restraint was/is admirable. I would have told them that the USPS is only open to non-moron customers, so if they want to come back later, after they smarten their asses up a little …

  112. 112.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Kay: Goddamn catalytic converters, you’ll never catch me keeping one of those newfangled gadgets on MY car!!!

  113. 113.

    Kay

    @Gin & Tonic:

    early in-person voting

    I’m to the point where I just want to do every step of the process myself. I file my own appeals too- carry them to the clerk and file them myself. My assistant gets a little insulted and she’s great but I just don’t want to worry that someone else made a mistake with drop dead dates. If it’s a fuck up it’s going to be mine.

  114. 114.

    sheila in nc

    I’m a precinct official here so I vote early every year because I’m going flat-out from pre-dawn to post-dusk on Election Day. Set up for polls has to begin by about 5:45 am, polls open at 6:30, polls close 7:30 pm, then shutdown and I have to personally account for all the ballots and tabulator tapes and drive them up to the county seat. Officials cannot leave the precinct premises for any reason during election day.

    I have been agonizing about whether to work. I think the work is so important, but I’m 65 (many of our poll officials nationwide are retirees; I’m not, but I’m in the age category.) My husband is starting to make snarling noises about my decision to work. Our usual precinct site was already declared too small to use, but I’ve had no word about where we would be moved to or whether there will be a plan for flow of foot traffic, etc. I’m going to have a chat with my doctor to see if she can add any useful information to consider in my decision. Our county is actually doing pretty well right now with a low rate of new cases, but who knows what we will look like in November after the students have been back for a couple months. Argh

    Anyway, please vote early if you can. Lines are much shorter and it makes life much easier for actual election day workers. NC has no-excuse absentee voting. Actually, technically an in-person early vote is treated as an absentee vote; if you look up your voter records you can see your early votes listed as absentee.

  116. 116.

    Amir Khalid

    Restricting funding to the US Postal Service to combat the all but nonexistent crime of vote-by-mail fraud makes sense only if you think the USPS, a Federal agency, actually abets such fraud — which of course it does not. This one’s a doozy even by Trump’s high standard of not making sense.

  117. 117.

    Mai naem mobile

    @SFAW: I know it’s already been answered – SV Date he wrote a piece in Huffpo earlier this year about Donnie lying.

    m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5e0bac46e4b0843d360c94ea/amp?__twitter_impression=true

    Hes a good follow on Twitter. I think Donny didnt recognize him because of the mask. Date keeps track of the days and  cost of Donnys golfing.  His golf tweets inevitably have replies from Trumpers  about why he doesn’t talk about Obama’s golfing which he always mentions in his HuffPo pieces as a comparison .

  118. 118.

    Matt McIrvin

    @sheila in nc: As I mentioned, I did in-person early voting in MA for the last couple of cycles where it was available, and I’ll probably do it for at least the general election this time. The process seems to be identical to mail voting (not absentee voting–in MA the two systems are actually different!), except that you do it at City Hall instead of at home, and after you fill out and sign the affidavit on the envelope, you stick it in a box and they haul it to your precinct on Election Day.

    I just hope the in-person early voting system isn’t ITSELF dependent on the Postal Service somehow.

    I’m just completely pissed at how this cycle made mail voting seem like a complete no-brainer until Trump realized the USPS was the one lever he had remaining to fuck directly with the election. I still think there may not be time for us to pull out of this, since we did all the hard work of convincing everyone on our side that mail voting was the best, most secure way. It opened us up to fatal ratfucking–we just didn’t think any administration would be willing to kill the entire country’s postal system IN THE MIDDLE OF A PANDEMIC to stop it, but here we are. COVID-19 may end up helping Trump yet.

  119. 119.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Amir Khalid: This one’s a doozy even by Trump’s high standard of not making sense.

    So far. But I’m beginning to worry that the last-ditch line of defense will be ordering postal employees to separate out and destroy mail-in ballots, i.e., commit mail fraud.

  120. 120.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Kay: We have optical-scan paper ballots here too, so you go between Oct 14 and Nov 2, fill out the ballot, insert it in the machine and watch the counter register it.

    My local Board of Canvassers is in Town Hall, which I have to drive past to go almost anywhere, so it’s super-convenient.

  121. 121.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: Yeah. Even if some place has a postmark rule, the USPS can fuck with the postmarks, or just outright drop your ballot in the shredder. Even if it all gets found out afterward–what can anyone do about it? No do-overs. None dare call it treason.

  122. 122.

    Mai naem mobile

    @SFAW: I know it’s already been answered – SV Date he wrote a piece in Huffpo earlier this year about Donnie lying.

    m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5e0bac46e4b0843d360c94ea/amp?__twitter_impression=true

    Hes a good follow on Twitter. I think Donny didnt recognize him because of the mask. Date keeps track of the days and  cost of Donnys golfing.  His golf tweets inevitably have replies from Trumpers  about why he doesn’t talk about Obama’s golfing which he always mentions in his HuffPo pieces as a comparison .

  123. 123.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Gin & Tonic: Here, if you do early voting, the box you stick it in contains the equivalent of a mail-in ballot envelope with your ballot in it. The actual scanning and counting doesn’t get done until Election Day, when the ballot gets delivered to your normal precinct voting site, and they take them out of the envelopes and scan them.

  124. 124.

    sheila in nc

    @Matt McIrvin: Our NC voting is like Gin & Tonic’s. You fill out a ballot and feed it yourself into the tabulator. Some other advantages of in-person early voting: 1.as long as you are in your county of residence, you can go to any of six voting sites (on election day you MUST go to your own precinct); 2. if for some reason your voter registration has been deactivated or otherwise messed up, you can fix it right then — actually, if you are unregistered you may register during early voting but not on Election Day; 3. if you spoil a ballot, you can just hand it back to the worker and get another. Also, I’ve never voted absentee by mail, so I really don’t know what my official signature looks like any more. I’d hate to send in a ballot and have it rejected because the reviewer didn’t think my signature matched.

  125. 125.

    Kay

    @Kathleen:

    as casual

    Oh, I’m glad. I have a lot of affection for the USPS. I liked working there and they gave me a lot of training and were constantly trying to promote me. They sent me to Detroit for training which I think was supposed to be the start of my more-regional career but I took an OIC (like a fill in postmaster) position instead, because I wanted to see my children and it was front loaded- start really early, quit early. I still get up early and I can still nap at the drop of a hat- which is what I did between 1st shift (at the PO) and 2nd shift (caring for children). Napping can be learned :)

  127. 127.

    Captain C

    @germy:

    He probably got scolded by Jonathan Karl after the presser:  “We don’t talk like that here in the Beltway media.”

    I think the correct response would be, “maybe you don’t, Mr. Stenographer.”

  129. 129.

    Honus

    @Argiope: here in Charlottesville we had curbside early voting at the BOE and I’m told it will be available again for the general election beginning September 18.

  130. 130.

    raven

    @Kay: I worked as a mail handler at the SCF in Champaign (home of Columbia Records returns!) and go fired because I didn’t put some negative info from the Army on it. I have always thought, along with breaking my back causing me to go back to school, it was the best thing that ever happened to me. I hated it.

  132. 132.

    a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio

    Here’s Ballotpedia’s page on early voting, with a link for each of the 40 states that have some form of early voting, with rules and dates: ballotpedia.org/Early_voting

    Vote.org also has information on early voting

  135. 135.

    Ian

    @Peale: 
    From a math perspective he is saying he wants to push 5% of the population out of whatever he considers the suburbs to be. If the other figure he is using is true, the 30-35%, then he would want to kick out about 1 out of every seven minorities in the suburbs.

    Still not clear what he defines as suburbs or minorities in this weird plan.

  137. 137.

    randy

    @Ian: Stewardess, I speak math idiot. He means that he would estimate it lower than 35, subtract more fudge factors.

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