“If you vote for someone other than Hillary, or if you don’t vote at all, you are helping to elect Hillary’s opponent”
.
What’s on the agenda as we start another countdown week?
.
Something to make you feel good about the world for once. https://t.co/qK8zX0uYCI
— Ben Yelin (@byelin) October 17, 2016
Less than 40 mins after going public, we met our goal and then some! Thank you all for showing that Americans are thirsty for civility and decency, and that we love our democracy above all our differences.
If you came in order to make a donation, might we suggest contributing to a North Carolina classroom through DonorsChoose?
Central Planning
Impressive that a democratic group raised over $13k to help re-open the Republican’s office.
I’m off to Miami for 3 nights and 2 days of work-related hijinks. Hopefully I won’t get teh zikas. Good thing we’re done having kids!
Jeffro
The conspiracy theorists are going to have a field day here…oh well, if we put them and their wacky concerns first, we’d never get anything done. Nice work Dems!!
Balconesfault
Everyone should add … Even if you think Hillary will win your state easily… She needs a big margin of victory to repudiate Trump’s inevitable claim that the election was stolen from him. Run up the score if you want to protect our Democracy!
Applejinx
Interesting tactic. “Here! Have your fucking Reichstag back, ya happy?”
It makes the Republicans into helpless powerless takers, first deprived of their base through supposedly ‘Democrat terrorism’ and then before they can do anything, it’s replaced with more money probably than they had of their own. The Democrats take, the Democrats restore: THEY are passive and can’t do anything for themselves.
Let’s not get carried away and flood them with money with which they will do fucked-up fascist things (NC GOP are kinda notorious for being assholes), but I like this framing. They can be the pet Republicans, and you gotta spend a lot of money on Republicans and red states or they’ll die off. Consider it a conservation effort, or protecting a rare species of shit-eating fuckweevil.
Zinsky
Classy move by the Dems. My family and I have a little running joke – we refer to people like Donald Trump as “NCAA material” – No Class At All! This was definitely NOT an NCAA move…
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Applejinx: No risk of getting carried away. GoFundMe doesn’t like people hitting completed projects. Have to enable javascript to view the entire page on my phone, but GFM throws me to a “Sorry, this is complete. Here’s other projects in the area!” page with no way to get back.
Coming to my desktop, I see that it’s actually an overlay that is too big for my mobile screen. The closing X is hanging off in space somewhere. Pfeh. Stupid overlays should be outlawed.
Cermet
Bet the rump never speaks a word on what the dems just did; nor the fake news – worse, more than likely thugs did this just for the attention.
toschek
Compare & Contrast:
toschek
Makes you wonder what kind of animals they were too. If black bears (the largest predatory wild animal in NC) have learned to make Molotov cocktails, use spray paint and spell “Nazis” we are all well and truly fucked.
MattF
Looks like ratfker Roger Stone is considering his options.
rikyrah
Good Morning ?. Everyone ☺
Baud
@toschek: Which candidate is the classy one again?
Schlemazel
@MattF:
It is what rats do when the ship is sinking
Mustang Bobby
@Central Planning: Welcome to my town. I hope you enjoy your stay. If you’re near the north end of the downtown area (Arsht Performing Arts Center), wave.
Jeff Spender
Apparently the news is Assange had his internet cut off because of sexual grooming claims.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@Applejinx: Or, maybe you do it because it’s the right thing to do, whether you can spin it with PR or not.
NotMax
If the singed shoe were on the other foot, Trump would send steaks.
“Well, they’re having a fire anyway, so might as well get the best steak dinner in the history of the world out of it.”
Patricia Kayden
@Balconesfault: Those same Republicans were perfectly okay when Bush was given the Presidency in 2000 after vote counting was shut down in Florida so why should I be concerned about their opinion now? But yes, your point is correct that given who she is running against, Secretary Clinton should win in a landslide. But even if she just squeaks by, she’ll be the legitimate President and anyone who declares otherwise should be ostracized from polite society.
Baud
@Patricia Kayden: This.
Patricia Kayden
@Cermet: More than likely it was a Rightwing thug who destroyed the NC GOP building as a way to besmirch Democrats. Wouldn’t put it past that lot.
raven
The dog parade was a great success!
BillinGlendaleCA
Shorter Meeka and Joe, Both Sides!
OzarkHillbilly
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: Hmmmmm….. Naaahhhhh. I like @Applejinx: approach better.
Schlemazel
@Patricia Kayden:
I expect, if the ever figure out who lit it up, that we will find it is a variation on the backward “B” gitl. SOmeone desperate to show us all how dangerous the Dems really are so we will vote GOP.
JAFD
Greetings from New Jersey !
Tuesday – that’s tomorrow – is the registration deadline here. If you aren’t listed on the books, get thee to the courthouse.
If you register right before the deadline, and you’re not in the ‘poll book’, ask the worker to check the Supplemental Pages at the back of the book.
The polls will open at 6 AM, close at 8 PM (if you’re in line at the stroke of 8, we’ll be open until everyone’s done)
Unless you’re taking pictures of a candidate casting her vote, don’t take pictures in the polling place.
In NJ, there’s a ‘no electioneering’ zone for 100 feet around the polling place. Please don’t wear campaign buttons or hats or Tshirts or ??? to the polls.
If you’ve gotten a mail ballot, and haven’t mailed it, take it to the County Courthouse before 8 PM election day. Don’t bring it to your local polling place – that does no good at all.
When you’re finished picking your candidates, be sure to press the ‘Cast Vote’ button at the bottom right. If you’re bringing your child (Sorry, that doesn’t get you 1 1/2 votes) into the booth, have him stand at your left so he doesn’t press it by accident.
Please don’t hang around the polling place after you’re finished. There are laws about ‘loitering’ at the polling places…
If you’re a new voter and listed in book as ‘ID Required, the acceptable list is “such as (but not limited)”:
Valid and Current Photo ID:
NJ Drivers’ License
Job or Student ID
Store Membership ID
US Passport
Military / Government ID
MVC Non-Driver’s ID Card
Current document with name and address such as:
Non-photo Driver’s License
Govenment Check
Paycheck
Public Assistance Card
Rent Receipt
Sample Ballot
Utility Bill
If you have not something equally convincing, we have to give you a Provisional Ballot.
If you are voting by Provisional Ballot, DON’T DETACH THE AFFIRMATION FROM THE BALLOT ENVELOPE.
If you need assistance casting your vote, you can ask anyone except:
a candidate
your employer or a representative of your employer
an official or agent of your union (but a co-worker or fellow union member are OK)
When you sign the poll book, we have to announce your name and address, loud enough for the board members and possible Challengers – candidates and Official Challengers (go to County Board of Elections to get Challenger’s Permit) to hear.
Voters can be challenged for Age, Citizenship, Residence, Criminal Disqualifications.
Voters CANNOT be challenged on grounds of Expected Manner of Voting, Race, Ethnic Origin, or Residence in a particlar ward, housing complex, or neighborhood. You can present ID if challenged, and appeal to a Judge of the Superior Court if denied.
If a voter is deceased or moved away, write that on the Sample Ballot, and drop it back into the mail.
And, from the New Jersey Statutes Annotated, 1934-29:
No person shall
by abduction, duress
or any forcible or fraudulent
devise or contrivance whatever,
impede, prevent or otherwise interfere
with the free exercise of the elective franchise by any voter;
or compel, induce or prevail upon any voter
either to vote or to refrain from voting at any election,
or to vote or refrain from voting for
any particular person or persons at any election.
Ghod, I love that sentence.
OK, said most of that in June at our primary day, but if you aint heard it yet…
Supposed to be 80 here today, 85 tomorrow…
(add joke here, about young ladies exercising their right to bare arms ;-) )
Have great week, everyone!
BillinGlendaleCA
We’ve been getting light rain here in LA for the last hour or two.
BillinGlendaleCA
…and now Joe of the Morning goes off to wikileaks, CLICK!
OzarkHillbilly
What is a taoiseach? The word means “chieftain” or “leader” in Irish and was adopted in the 1937 Constitution of Ireland as the title of the prime minister.
If I’m learning Gaelic at 5:23 AM, I may just take the rest of the day off.
PIGL
@rikyrah: even earlier than usual, I see. good morning!
David ?▶️Hillary/Harley Quinn 2016▶️? Koch
@Patricia Kayden: Exactly. Remember back to 2008 when some idiot carved the letter B on her face and said some black Obama supporter did it, but it turned out the B was written backwards, meaning she had did it herself by looking in a mirror. But for 24 hrs, until the scam was exposed, Politico was screaming blacks will be terrorizing whites if Obama was elected.
satby
@rikyrah: Good morning to you and the rest of the morning crew.
I just caught up on some night threads and saw Villago Delenda Est’s sad news about his mom, so if you’re lurking VDE, deepest condolences. No matter how prepared you think you are, it’s always hard. May she rest in peace.
OzarkHillbilly
@NotMax: Trump Steaks that is, and make them pay shipping and handling.
TS
@BillinGlendaleCA: After attacking Hillary because no-one “trusts” her – yet everyone trusts that straight talking racist bigot. Also both sides – because look what the dems did in SC (and no-one yet know who was responsible).
Said small fingered misogynist has something on Joke – no other reason for them to come out EVERY morning and attack Sec Clinton.
Baud
@satby:
Oh no. Condolences, VDE.
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: I had Gaelic readers from my great-aunt when I was very young. The BBC used to have a set of Gaelic language lessons on their educational site.
Baud
@Jeff Spender:
What is that?
TS
And am I sick of hearing about the “both sides” dysfunction in congress. When will the media put the blame where it belongs – 100% on the GOP. The party who determined January 2009 to always say NO to the President.
MattF
@Baud: Abusers ‘groom’ prospective victims, befriending them etc.
raven
@TS: North Carolina
BillinGlendaleCA
I’m think about taking a photography class or two.
Bruce K
Morning, gang (or afternoon, as the case may be). I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m looking forward to this campaign season being over just so I can wake up in the morning without having to dig into the newspapers’ web sites to find out what fresh insanity cropped up while I was asleep.
For some reason, I’m reminded of the bit out of Machiavelli’s The Prince in which he warns that although it’s okay for the Prince to get people to fear him if he can’t get them to love him, he needs to be careful that he doesn’t get them to hate him. I think he was trying to warn that if people hated the Prince enough, it’d overcome their fear of him so they’d become a threat to him; however, in our case today, it may be a matter of the carefully stoked hatred and fear jumping over the firebreaks, as it were, and causing people on the other side of the line to act on their own hatred and fear.
I don’t know. It’s a sad commentary on the United States in 2016.
TS
@raven: Of course – I am so upside down with what is happening I’ve mixed my norths and souths
Baud
@MattF: Thanks.
Kay
Just a reminder: this has always been true. Over the last ten years of GOP claims of “voter fraud” this was always true. There have always been GOP Bds of Elections members and GOP pollworkers. US elections have always been decentralized.
Something like 70% of their base voters believe elections are rigged. There’s a reason for that. It’s because everyone from the Wall Street Journal to officials in the Bush Administration told them that was true.
I live in a 60% R county. Every single local elected official is a Republican. A fair number of them were on the ballot in 2012. They won. Still, there are a huge group of ordinary Republicans here who believe there is massive voter fraud. No explanation for why the massive voter fraud that elected Obama didn’t influence any down-ballot races.
It NEVER made any sense, yet most Republican elected officials and many Right-leaning media outlets promoted it.
This guy is the most prominent voter fraud conspiracy theorist in the country. He went to Harvard and Yale. He was a consultant to Mitt Romney.
toschek
@Jeff Spender:
I don’t doubt this for one minute, Assange is a world-class shitbird. If you have a source for this though I would love to see it. I have several “friends” who are rabid former Bernie Bros who started supporting of Lady Nader after Bernie sold out the movement when he endorsed Clinton. They’ve been as excited about every Wikileaks dump like a 5 year old is about Santa Claus and since I can’t get them to get off their purity ponies at the very least I enjoy rubbing their faces in what an absolute piece of shit sexual predator Assange is. After all — if you can’t get them to join you, beat them mercilessly about the head and neck (with votes).
OzarkHillbilly
@BillinGlendaleCA: By all means, do. Back in the day I went to an NCRC week long training seminar. Learned buttloads of cave rescue techniques and I found that it all applied to caving in general too. I learned more in 5 days than I had in all the years before.
Srv
Go high? Looks like I picked the right morning to keep sniffing glue.
Baud
@toschek: Yep. Some people are lost causes. Just remember who they are and you know who you can’t trust.
Kay
Here’s FOX News promoting voter fraud conspiracy theories in 2016.
The WSJ editorial page? Still promoting it. In 2016.
They can’t put this on Donald Trump. It was a decade-long campaign. It was the reason for the Bush US Attorney scandal. They wanted US Attorneys who would promote voter fraud conspiracy theories.
Kay
2012:
That’s not Donald Trump’s fault. It got worse every year from 2000 on. More and more Republicans believed it. Now a majority believe it- it’s not fringe in that Party. Most Republicans believe it.
BillinGlendaleCA
@OzarkHillbilly: The intro course may just fill in some gaps, it’s a prerequisite for the lighting courses which I know I need. They also have a photography certificate program. The intro class would be 4 days a week for 5 weeks.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: Not to be too both-sidesy… is the idea that elections are rigged any less common on the left? Our stories are different; we tend to think it’s the voting machines doing it, or invalid registration suppression.
A lot of this came out of the 2000 election fiasco and the responses to it, and it was often based on what look to me like completely valid concerns about the insecurity of electronic voting systems. But there are people like Greg Palast who have made a career out of taking these valid concerns and blowing them up into claims that some kind of fix flipped the result of practically every election. There are the people who go “One word… Diebold” every damn time.
This time around, Trump seems to have seized on Bernie Sanders’ supporters’ claims that Hillary Clinton somehow rigged the primary (often in states where Republicans controlled the election process).
BillinGlendaleCA
@Srv: Did mom come home and change your Depends?
debbie
@Central Planning:
Trump’s still trying to figure out how to get a tax break out of the bombing.
rikyrah
@Patricia Kayden:
Me too. That is what I think.
rikyrah
@raven:
Pictures??
debbie
@Kay:
You left out the best part of Husted’s statement: “Enough already.”
Have you seen Ted’s latest ad calling Rob Portman a coward for running away from Trump after months of supporting him?
Darkrose
@Patricia Kayden: I’ve been wondering that. It just doesn’t seem like the Democrats’ style. On the other hand, it certainly reminded me of someone carving a backwards “B” onto her face and blaming it on Obama supporters.
ETA: @David ?▶️Hillary/Harley Quinn 2016▶️? Koch: Beat me to it.
debbie
@Matt McIrvin:
Diebold is far more credible. Don’t forget their CEO promising to deliver Ohio to the GOP. He wasn’t talking about upping his financial contributions.
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
It is less common on the Left, if by “Left” you mean Democrats. I’ve been involved with it for a decade. As far as grass roots Democrats versus grass roots Republicans there’s no comparison. It’s mainstream on the Right. It’s not mainstream among Democrats.
Frankly, most of the claims of fraud on the Left (in Ohio anyway) can be traced to the Green Party. It isn’t hard to “trace”. They file bullshit lawsuits. There’s a record. They do it to add to their list and divide the Democratic Party.
This sort of hackishness? It’s been going on for years in the GOP:
Notice what he does there? It’s “Philly/Chicago”. It’s not NYC. Why isn’t it NYC? Because he won in NYC.
The WSJ editorial page ran what was a years-long propaganda campaign alleging voter fraud in Milwaukee. They ran it UNTIL Scott Walker won the state, then it ended, because obviously it’s ridiculous to claim massive voter fraud when Republicans are winning state races.
Mike E
@BillinGlendaleCA: I think Srv is srv’s mom
Matt McIrvin
@debbie: It does bother me a little that they kept complaining about Diebold even after Diebold sold its voting-machine division to somebody else.
Srv
Mom won’t change them anymore. Make America chafe again!
rikyrah
@Kay:
Said it before…
John Fund has never seen a LEGITIMATE Black voter .??
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
It’s just a belief on the Right now. In 2008 I worked the primary as a pollworker. The mayor lives in my precinct and his wife is a pollworker. They’re as mainstream as Republicans get. I sat with her for 12 hours and she regaled me with tales of voter fraud in Ohio. She’s sitting there witnessing that this isn’t happening! She’s an election official! She believes all of it- the white vans full of illegal immigrants and black people, the dead people voting, all of it.
Ohio HAS voter ID. Doesn’t matter. Hasn’t reassured them at all.
You should know better...
@toschek: Hey dood… it’s right there in the Constitution…
2nd Amendment…
The right to ARM BEARS…
Baud
@Kay: Matt’s right about our primary. The allegations that were being thrown out there were offensive.
Kay
@rikyrah:
John Fund is no outlier and he was happily spreading this bullshit a decade before Donald Trump appeared on the scene. It was always racist and it was always paranoid and it never made any sense. “Voter impersonation fraud” is ridiculous on its face.
Cermet
@Matt McIrvin: Yet the point you appear to miss is that the thug in charge of voting in Fl in 2000 had purged the voting rolls of suspected felons, and other types; strange but the vast majority she purged were all black voters in predominately democratic districts: nothing to see here; move along.
rikyrah
@Kay:
There are a lot of people whose jobs it is to run elections. They are professionals, and they get a paycheck every two weeks to make sure that the elections run smoothly. The machines are under lock and key. They can tell you which machine is going where. They are individually set for each precinct. The only real gap is mail ballots, and from the moment Mail Ballots are released by the election authority in my neck of the woods, until the end of the election, there is never anyone ALONE with them. That includes mail pickup from the Post office.
I get offended, because the worker bees whose job is elections, take it very seriously. ??
Kay
@Baud:
But we don’t have a President (George W Bush) or Dem Sec of States or pollworkers spreading it. Sanders voters don’t understand the basic mechanism of primaries. They seem to believe a primary is a general election and they also believe state Parties are “the state”- their whole argument was built on a category error.
Baud
@Kay:
I completely agree. What the GOP and Trump are doing is different in kind and scale.
Botsplainer
@Kay:
We had a chance for FEMA reeducation camps for white Christian conservatives, but blew it.
Thanks a lot, Obama…
rikyrah
@Kay:
Their arguments against Early Voting is a crock, because EV was the one time where you had to show an ID.
The one place in voting with the possibility of wide spread voter fraud is MAIL BALLOTS…
But, the GOP doesn’t attack that….. Hmmmmm ???
Kay
@rikyrah:
I just object to Republicans pretending this is “Donald Trump”. They all did it. Happily. They passed state laws to address their conspiracy theory. They made this electorate they have, because they lied to them constantly.
Msb
And if you registered to vote from overseas, you should have received your ballot by now. If not, go to http://www.fvap.gov and do a Federal Write-in Absentee Ballot and send it in. If your regular ballot arrives after that, vote and return it, too, and let your local election official decide which one to count.
If you haven’t registered yet, don’t give up. 30 states let you use the FWAB to register, and let you return it electronically. Go to http://www.fvap.gov And find its “FWAB reference” for a list of these states, as well as the FWAB.
Iowa Old Lady
@satby: My condolences to Villago Delenda Est.
Kay
@Baud:
Rolling Stone published an error-ridden piece on the 2004 election in Ohio. It was full of mistakes. It got whole sections of Ohio voting process wrong. It was “viral” on the Left. That’s where a lot of the fear came from.
I worked really hard for Kerry in 2004. I knew by August he would lose Ohio. The difference between me and a lot of other Democrats at that time? I wasn’t following election news on the internet in 2004. I had no idea Kos and others were telling people Kerry was winning. I was following the real race, without the hysteria.
OzarkHillbilly
@BillinGlendaleCA:
We all have gaps in our knowledge and they are what hold us back. There is also the added bonus of meeting people who are just as interested as you in the subject. You can take photo trips together and take pics of the same subject (and diff subjects too of course) and discuss why you approached the subject in different ways, what works in one and not in another (and why one thought a rock was fascinating while the other thought a weed was lit interestingly) etc etc
Good times await.
rikyrah
@Matt McIrvin:
Folks on the left speak of
VOTER SUPPRESSION.
purging thousands off voter rolls
Voter ID laws, where a School ID isn’t good enough, but a gun card is.
Cutting out things that make voting easier
Consolidating polling places and then putting them in venues that are out of the way, and away from accessible public transportation.
These things, unlike voter fraud..
ARE VERY REAL. ???
rikyrah
@satby:
So sorry about VDE’s mother. RIP.
Starfish
@rikyrah: All of our federal election ballots are mail ballots. You are demoralizing me.
Eric S.
On the El heading back to work after a fantastic 3 day weekend. Two days (Friday and Saturday) of driving twisty, country lanes with the Porsche club. When we weren’t driving I met a new set of people at the scheduled social events. A task I’m not always good at accomplishing. I made an effort not to be a wall flower.
Then Sunday was a lazy drive home with just my copilot. We took some of the same roads but at a much more leisurely pace so I could enjoy the scenery more. I totally forgot about the work and personal life stress for 72 hours. It was just what I needed.
Matt McIrvin
@Cermet: I didn’t say the 2000 election wasn’t rigged. This stuff goes on. I also think Palast routinely overstates his case; he’ll look at a case of inappropriate voter purges and calculate the effect by assuming that 100% of the purged people would have shown up and voted Democratic (or for Bernie Sanders or whoever).
Many Democrats believe the 2004 election was stolen, one way or another. I think Ken Blackwell was trying his hardest to suppress the vote in majority-black areas in Ohio; I also think the late polling suggests that the effect wasn’t large enough to flip the election. I don’t think the results were pure electronic fabrications.
Baud
@Kay:
We have issues on our side. It doesn’t seem worth discussing sometimes because of how bad the other side is, but we shouldn’t ignore it completely.
Kay
8 is huge. They’re pumping the Wikileaks thing hard but even if you shave 2 off that 6 is huge.
I don’t know anything solid about Wikileaks or why they’re trying to throw a US election, but it strikes me as incredibly stupid for all of media and the whole Republican Party to be celebrating stolen information. That is GUARANTEED to come back to bite them. It’s that arrogance again- the idea that bad things happen to other people and can’t happen to a cable celebrity or a GOP pol. Their communications are insecure too and no one will defend them when they’re stolen because they so relished Clinton’s emails being stolen.
BillinGlendaleCA
@OzarkHillbilly: Wait; talk to other humans, like face to face?
(Runs and hides.)
Kay
@Baud:
I don’t dismiss it completely. The 2012 voting machine conspiracy spread by the Green Party had the potential to disenfranchise Ohio voters. They wanted an injunction. That would have thrown the whole system into chaos. They did it to add to their list and fund raise.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: There were leaks of incomplete exit-poll results early on election day 2004 that suggested that Kerry was greatly outperforming his election-eve polling, and winning the election. At the time, it was a common folk belief (maybe still is) that exit polls were the most accurate type of polls, and that you could use them to detect voting irregularities. So when people heard that Kerry had won the exit polling and then they heard he’d lost the election, they assumed it was evidence that the election was rigged.
Part of it was that 2004 was really the first year that anyone was doing the online state-poll-aggregation thing (Sam Wang, RCP, electoral-vote.com), and it wasn’t until 2008 that Nate Silver came on the scene and made it an object of popular fascination. So people weren’t paying much attention, and the popular attitude toward polling on the Democratic side was not very sophisticated. But in hindsight, I think it’s interesting that even in ’04, when the election was almost as knife-edge close as in 2000, the polling in the last few days of the campaign basically called the results correctly. (Wang called it wrong, but only because he put in a fudge term based on an incorrect theory of undecided voters.)
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: There were recent election “irregularities” in a couple of Dem primary elections in STL. In both races that were overturned it was the processing of absentee ballots that were the problem. There was a long historical record of a particular political family benefiting in a very lopsided way from absentee ballots ( in one race the state rep lost the election day polls by 47-53%, but won the absentee ballots by 87-13%) Investigations turned up many anecdotal irregularities in their handling but nothing that could be considered criminally provable (at least at this time, investigations continue) but the races were overturned because the ballots were not returned to the elections office in the legal signed and sealed envelopes provided for that purpose, which was a clear violation of election law.
The state GOP of course has jumped all over this with accusations of voter fraud and renewed calls for voter ID (which is once again on the ballot this year) but nary a mention that photo ID will not fix absentee ballot fraud and zero proposals to tighten up the a-b process.
Kay
One thing I learned yesterday that I didn’t know- white working class women rate national security very high on their list of issues. They’re breaking for Clinton because she’s perceived as competent on that.
I wouldn’t have said that was their issue and I also wouldn’t have said that would push them TOWARD Clinton and away from Trump. The whole thing with the split between white working class men and women is fascinating. Arguably, looking at polling, white college grad men are as Right leaning as white working class women.
OzarkHillbilly
@Srv: HA! Touche.
MattF
@OzarkHillbilly: Yeah. One discovers, at some point, that introspection is not a good method for learning new things.
rikyrah
@Starfish:
Don’t mean to upset you because that is not easy to do either. The ballot is returned. And if the signature does not match the one on file, the ballot is kicked out and given to the Mail voter worker bees. They will then do due diligence to get another signature sample from the voter. If they get it, the ballot is accepted. If no signature proof is provided, the ballot is rejected. There are safeguards all along the way to ensure the validity of the process.
OldDave
@Eric S.:
Well, color me jealous. Was this a PCA event? I’m going to have to do that sometime, assuming my poor car ever gets out of the shop (a hit and run driver put it on the disabled list). Today marks two months without. It grows old, as do I.
Betty Cracker
The Democratic fundraising for the firebombed GOP office was wildly controversial on Twitter. I can see merit in the arguments from both factions. I guess I’m not cut out for Twitter.
Baud
@Kay:
People who want Dems to be less hawkish need to figure out how to sell that politically.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
That’s unusual.
OzarkHillbilly
@Eric S.: Nice.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Betty Cracker:
Me either, I’m not a twit.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: I recall that back in 2004, “security moms”, middle-class women who were mostly concerned about national security, were supposedly an important part of George W. Bush’s coalition. There were a lot of articles handwringing about how Democrats had no credible story for these people; I remember Heather Hurlburt writing about it.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
It gets me that the generic GOP still scores better in polls on national security and the economy. I feel like the Dems have done more than enough to prove their superiority on both issues.
Iowa Old Lady
@Betty Cracker: How’s the ankle, Betty?
I was just reading the Pundit Roundup on Kos and Dworkin “storifies” tweet storms–puts them together in little slide shows. That should ease the problem of multiple tweets, but I realized I’m too lazy to have to click each time I want to see a new tweet.
JMG
@Matt McIrvin: I believe that in this case “national security” is a synonym for “not crazy as a bedbug.” Default foreign policy position of all Americans is we should get our way without having to spend any money or lives in the process. Obama has threaded that impossible needle about as well as anyone can, and he gets negative ratings on foreign policy.
Matt McIrvin
@Cermet: …I should add, I think the only reason the 2000 election could be stolen was that it was incredibly, improbably close in the first place. But the people who are really into conspiracy-theorizing about this stuff will claim that elections have been stolen that weren’t that close at all. We saw a lot of that during the 2016 primary: Sanders supporters thought primaries had been rigged when Clinton won them nearly 60-40.
OzarkHillbilly
@MattF: We aren’t very honest with ourselves about that subject nearest and dearest to our hearts: Ourselves.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly: Meh, if I were honest with myself, I wouldn’t like myself very much.
peter
@Bruce K: Trump and his campaign look like what you’d get if you read The Prince and decided to do everything Machiavelli tells you not to do, and not to do everything Machiavelli recommends.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud:
Except selling that fact.
Starfish
@Betty Cracker: Everything is wildly controversial on Twitter.
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
My sense was they were talking about college grad women, just because they kept saying “suburban” and pundits are ridiculously squeamish about class and “suburban” is often code for higher income and income goes along with education. But- I remember the “security moms” too.
One of the things I agree with “The Left” on is Americans won’t talk about class honestly. Higher income people don’t want to talk about it because it takes away from the idea they love that they made it on merit, and lower income people don’t want to talk about it because they perceive their situation as shameful.
It’s how we end up with these ridiculous situations, where Hannity is ranting about “elite pundits”- Hannity has a private plane and makes millions of dollars a year. He’s WAY more elite than any newspaper reporter.
MattF
@Iowa Old Lady: It’s irritating that each time a reply is added to a tweetstorm, the whole set goes to the top of my timeline– again and again. Tweeters who do that too often get unfollowed.
Matt McIrvin
@OzarkHillbilly: I recall St. Louis being the locus of a popular Republican claim about voter fraud that some of my conservative friends used to go on about years ago. Something about a demolished housing project that was full of active voters?
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Self loathing is proof that the truth hurts.
Kay
@OzarkHillbilly:
They can’t sell it though- a large portion of their base perceives claiming superiority on national security is a reason NOT to vote for Democrats. It’s portrayed as hawkish and fear-mongering.
Jeffro
By the way folks there is a column in today’s USA today calling for the GOP to have a “designated conceder” on election night since Trump clearly is going to melt down right into the core of the earth.
If they are taking nominations I can think of no one better to officially kick off the Republican Civil War than Paul Ryan.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly: Then I guess denial is the root of happiness.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay:
Yes, though it usually devolves into an intra-left fight about class vs. race intersectionality–are we talking about class to avoid talking about race, or vice versa? We couldn’t possibly talk about two related but distinct things at the same time!
FlipYrWhig
@Kay:
I’m not surprised. And I’m guessing Bernie Sanders wouldn’t have been able to round up those particular votes.
Kay
@Jeffro:
I’m sick of everyone kowtowing to their insanity. Enough. They made up conspiracies about voter fraud for a decade, and as usual, they have dragged the entire country along on their political tactic. They have to stop damaging things to win elections. It isn’t all about them. When they come up with one of these bullshit campaigns next time maybe everyone could agree not to treat it as fact? We spend a good part of every day undoing their damage.
This is nice, though:
GWU/Battleground poll:
Clinton 47
Trump 39
8 is big :) Even if they cut into it with this 24/7 wikileaks bullshit 6 is still big.
OzarkHillbilly
@Matt McIrvin: Don’t know, hadn’t heard that one. Of course, everyone knows public housing projects are full of illegitimate voters, and Pruitt-Igoe is the most famous failed public housing project in the history of mankind so it would not surprise me in the least if the 2 were conflated.
Kay
@FlipYrWhig:
Everyone I know was assuming they were voting on “kitchen table” economic issues. which is actually pretty sexist.
That’s part of the rigid gender roles in US politics- women vote on “soft” stuff- minimum wage, health care, while manly men concern themselves with matters of international import.
FlipYrWhig
@Kay:
I’m not sure Americans see class as part of their identity. They see “hardworking” as a character attribute and not a class signifier. The wishful thinking of the left is that working-class people will organize and make demands _as a class_ (which comes straight out of Marx), but they don’t.
Starfish
@Matt McIrvin:
@Baud said that we have our own problems on the left, and the identity-politics circular firing squad is definitely one.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: Damned if we do, damned if we don’t.
FlipYrWhig
@Kay: Well observed.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Nah, it’s a river in Egypt.
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
This is an unpopular opinion, but I think the main reason we don’t talk about it most pundits are college educated and talking about class really DOES cut into peoples’ ideas about how they made it on merit. That’s a cherished myth and not only on the Right.
I cannot tell you how many otherwise “liberal” people have given me droning recitations about how they worked hard to ace the SAT. It’s really common. Obama actually talked about it in one of his books. He said there is a variety of liberal donor who want to believe this- it’s why they always approach poverty through education and not wages or subsidies. They want to believe it’s simply a matter of tweaking the existing system to allow some others into the pure meritocracy they succeeded in :)
You’re taking something from them when you question “merit”. It’s personal.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay:
QFT
Matt McIrvin
@Kay:
Well, they probably did! I certainly did. But they don’t see all the class advantages they had that allowed them to even get to the point of being able to think about that. Or the class advantages that leveraged turning the SAT score into a fancy-looking degree.
The same thing happens with race, though: white working-class people find it tremendously offensive when they’re told they have white privilege, because they know achingly that they sure as hell don’t have class privilege, so how can you call them privileged?
Patricia Kayden
@rikyrah: Preach!! Voter suppression is all too real. I would add dirty tricks like flyers or robocalls targeting inner city communities with the wrong election date as another voter suppression tactic. In my opinion, those of us on the left aren’t doing enough to address voter suppression and I’m not sure why.
aimai
@Kay: Maybe the fact that white working class men and white college educated men are polling alike (more pro trump than willing to break for clinton) is because sexism and misogyny are a bigger force for them than for white working class women? The only constant there is, of course, gender identification in an oppositional sense. I’d also want to look at the way this is broken out by party ID because it is more surprising to me when a previously dem identified white guy chooses Trump–that’s a big–BIG–statement about where his real interests are–than when a previously republican ID’d guy chooses Trump.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: …Anyway, I think we actually are seeing the beginnings of a concept of class identity among working-class white people. The problem there is that it’s also bound up in white racial resentment: the notion that minorities got their affirmative action but poor white people didn’t.
Starfish
@Matt McIrvin: The discussion of identity politics has become a status thing on the left. “I am more aware than you because I recognize privilege on a given number of axes” whether or not I am doing any work on the matter or witness these disparities in my day-to-day life. It has become pretty gross.
Matt McIrvin
@Starfish: I think a lot of that sort of Tumblr identity oneupmanship is just young people being young. Of course one problem is that any kind of gentle objection to its excesses gets seized on by the worst people in the world (e. g. what happened to “political correctness”).
Betty Cracker
@Iowa Old Lady: Much better! Still hobbling around like an old woman, but I am healing.
Kay
@aimai:
Right, that’s what I think. I deal with a lot of white working class women and I don’t think they get enough credit for feminist leanings. There is a LOT of talk about unfairness in the workplace, for example, which makes sense. They would have less leverage than college educated women. If it’s bad for us it’s probably worse for them.
WereBear
When you unmoor your brain from Reality, anything goes.
OzarkHillbilly
@Matt McIrvin: Speaking as a white working class person, my white privilege has always been achingly obvious. That probably has more than a little to do with the fact that my working career began in the mid ’70s and at that time one had to work at not seeing the open racism. Being naturally introverted I spent more than a little time observing those around me and watching the evolution of their behaviors. Open racism is largely gone from the work place** but there resides in it’s place an inherent bias that can be far worse in it’s effects.
**there is no shortage of openly racist people on construction job sites in STL but they rarely get into a position where they can do anything more than inflict their rhetoric on their coworkers.
Botsplainer
@JMG:
Let’s not forget Trump’s stated national security positions:
– a promise of grandiose bellicosity;
– abandonment of the key alliance with the nations of NATO;
– a stated desire to upgrade and enhance the already bloated, expensive and useless nuclear arsenal;
– a high likelihood of focusing on coming up with a renewed missile defense boondoggle;
– an apparent desire to use nuclear weapons for tangential regional conflicts;
– a promise of trade wars via renunciation of a multitude of decades old trade and security treaties.
He’s dangerous, and that doesn’t even get to the racism or the antagonism he’s promising to engender with Mexico (a country where most vehicles are American, where USD spends in retailers without so much as a blink, where high schools are outfitted with American lined football fields, where you can shop at Costco, Home Depot and Walmart, all while employees speak better English than you do).
Chyron HR
@Starfish:
Fixed.
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker: Good to hear.
Starfish
@Chyron HR: The gender wars have gotten me down, and you cheered me up.
bystander
Moanin’ Joe and Meeka enthralled with the ABC poll showing a 4 point spread. Within the margin of error! Not so thrilled with the poll of their own network – double digit lead for Clinton – and no mention of the GWU poll.
Meanwhile, the lifeless discussion of the wikileaks dump did elicit a nice slap down of Joe by Sam Stein. Stein pointed out that Joe was misreading the source of the oppo arguments as a Clinton affiliate. The hypothetical points of attack on Obama were from a report commissioned by the DNC to analyze issues in advance. Joe kept saying that was the same as if Clinton had hired the report and then pretended she had implemented the attacks.
WereBear
@Betty Cracker: Good. Those things can be tricky.
Elizabelle
Hello pals. I have been in North Carolina for a few days; will be here until we win. Beautiful here, although leaves are very dry, even as they’re coloring.
Am in Wake County (Raleigh). This firebombing happened two counties over. I did not even hear about it until I got back to HQ after dark. And that was from checking the NY Times website. Hillary organizers not talking about it. Nobody mentioned it at the doors.
My first thought: I bet they did it themselves.
ruemara
@rikyrah: POC on the left. Non-POC very much believe they are victims of fraud when their candidate doesn’t win the primaries. This is where the Hillary’s a fraud comes from via the Greens and he Bernie Busters.
While I’m glad we got to grandstand for our enemies, I’m rather in the camp of POC, LGBTQIA & women’s rights activists. Never got this level of support and we are your stalwart voting base. I hope the good deed pays off, but it pissed a lot of people off.
Shana
@Cermet: Actually, my first thought was that it was Trump supporters who were mad at the GOP for rebuking Trump. I’ll continue with that thought until shown otherwise.
sunny raines
How does this make anyone feel good about the world? Although by no means perfect, but on an every day scale, the psyche of the Dem “base” is not the problem. This does not in anyway address the very real problem of the violently insane, reality-free republican base.
sunny raines
@Shana: agreed. IMO, the chance of this being the handiwork trump supporters is WAY higher than it is anyone being a Democrat supporter.
The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
@satby: Amen to this. Villa, our thoughts and prayers and vibes and (insert supportive gesture here) are with you. I’m so sorry for your loss.
EBT
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: AdBlock browser. You have to deal with using Firefox which is it’s usual gaping shitpile. But at least you don’t have pop ups or overlays.
JR in WV
@Botsplainer:
Actually, I’ve shopped at a Arizona Walmart (the closest local shopping center, which is why I was shopping there), maybe 200 yards from the Mexican border on the USA side, and had brief problems finding staff for directions who spoke ANY English.
The Mexican city across the border apparently has 250,000 people, while the American town on our side, where the Walmart is, has more like 12,000. So obviously lots of business from Sonora, the state in Mexico just over the border. You see lots of nice vehicles with Sonoran license plates in the area.
Interestingly, the parking lot is shaded, by a huge solar panel array which covers most of the whole lot, a common practice in Arizona. Walmart Corp must make a profit from installing those panels, or they wouldn’t be there, and the lot would be a frying pan in the summertime.