My Twitter feed right now is about evenly divided between people saying that Trump’s speech is a terrible thing for democracy in America and all future elections and others making fun of him.
As Daniel Dale said, it contained more lies than any Trump speech he has seen. And it was written down, presumably by Stephen Miller and other apparatchiks. Trump took no questions.
He was low-energy throughout, and his voice got husky toward the end.
The networks all cut away early on and provided some facts. A few Republicans are repudiating it.
It is true that 70 million plus or minus Americans voted for him, and some of them are rabid. But very few are turning out to “watch” the polls or generally threaten people. The low energy of the speech seems unlikely to inspire them to do any more than they’ve done. I could barely keep track of the accusations and doubt that his devotees will get any more out of it than “We got robbed.”
I’m with the people who are making fun of him. It’s a great way to discredit a would-be dictator. American values have taken a beating throughout his presidency, and we will need to mend them. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are already starting on that.
We do have to kick this guy to the curb, and it looks like many of his former allies will help with that. Maybe we can just let them do it.
Open thread.
ALurkSupreme
And the horse he rode in on.
Sebastian
Laugh at the pathetic loser. He has lost all power.
Celebrate!
Zzyzx
Basically I think the Republicans decided that it’s more fun to be obstructionists than bow down to this jerk. The courts already have their posts so what do they care?
When you make it all about you, you can’t expect people to protect you when your power is gone. We were given the chance to open the door to a dictatorship and the American people looked at each other and asked, “So what’s on TV?”
WereBear
I always said it would be Hitler in the bunker. It’s not over yet.
Baud
Agreed with his take. But we do have to be prepared for random acts of domestic terrorism.
Calouste
One thing you have to keep in mind is that conservatives are lazy. That’s why they want to all those unearned privileges over the outgroups, and are prime targets for get-rich-quick schemes. Protesting is work, hard work, they’re not going to do that.
Barbara
I now understand why he was so angry that Arizona was called. The plan was to discredit any state that remained uncertain after Election Day. I am so wound up I feel like throwing things and all I want is to never have to pay attention to Donald Trump ever again.
dmsilev
Much as I’d like this to be definitively over, I am enjoying watching Trump dealing with the drip drip drip inevitable counting of votes and slowly realizing that the end is near.
chopper
“i moved on america like a bitch. but I couldn’t get there.”
cain
Oh no, I plan on making myself scarce – I’m almost certain some of these assholes are going to try to find a black person and try to harass them.
debbie
He’s never deserved respect? Why start now?
Jeffro
Just rooting for GOP injuries here and no others
Chetan Murthy
I read that both Rev. Warnock and John Ossoff have made it to the runoff. “In for a dime, in for a dollar”. I know of Souls to the Polls, and gave their Milwaukee org money (couldn’t find one for Georgia). Um …. anybody know what GOTV orgs I should be look at for donations? I guess early money is better than late, so I should do it soonish.
Maybe more $$ to Black Voters Matter, maybe the GA NAACP?
I’m resigned to losing these seats, b/c “It’s the South” but I am -sure- not resigned to letting our voters there down.
Splitting Image
In the 1919 World Series, Eddie Cicotte beaned a guy in the first game to signal to Arnold Rothstein’s guys that the fix was on.
I’m thinking that Murdoch calling Arizona prematurely may ultimately be the same thing. It was the sign to any wavering rats that it was time to jump ship.
As of today, the GOP is no longer Trump’s party. He’s about to get memory-holed.
Cheryl Rofer
David ?Booooooo!? Koch
Yarrow
@Chetan Murthy: Stacey Abrams org Fair Fight is still registering voters ahead of the runoff. They are a lot responsible for the great GA turnout.
Cheryl Rofer
The cats are demanding that I retire to the living room to read dead-tree magazines and provide a lap for them. Will be back later.
Baud
Harry Reid on MSNBC.
sanjeevs
Pretty sure the Republicans would love to do a GWB on Trump now and just disappear the guy so they can start the next personality cult, using all the tools they learned with this cycle.
The best thing is that he sticks around and divides the GOP as much as possible. Its our best hope of getting out of this mess.
cain
@dmsilev:
Not doing great on my nerves though.
dmsilev
@Cheryl Rofer: Trump’s Twitter account is going to be toast roughly 30 seconds after he leaves office.
NotMax
Halfprice.com gonna have to rustle up more warehouse space for all the leftover MAGA hats.
“Damn things still not moving. Maybe we can shred them and use as packing material.”
//
patroclus
Biden’s lead narrows in Zona to 58,953.
Jeffro
Anderson Cooper just called Trumpov “an obese turtle on his back flailing around in the hot sun”
YEOWCH!!
Starfish
What @Yarrow said.
Barbara
@Yarrow: I donated in advance of the election and plan to do so again. I am also going to investigate what kind of assistance they could use.
trollhattan
In related news, Denver petitioning the NFL to award them the winner’s trophy for Super Bowl XII.
Omnes Omnibus
@Splitting Image: How can they miss him if he won’t go away?
Jeffro
@Cheryl Rofer: good!
I am hoping that the FBI brings charges.
Cheryl Rofer
Barbara
@Cheryl Rofer: He called for Anthony Fauci to be beheaded, though I don’t think that was on Twitter.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@trollhattan: Did they say “hereby”? Because if you say that, it happens. Like a magic word.
Spanky
Hail no! They can have whatever’s left after the real Democrats are done.
cain
@dmsilev:
He’ll do it himself – there are a LOT of damning things he’s said on that account that can be used against him.
Splitting Image
@Omnes Omnibus:
They can have a guy at the door ready to give him a shove if he shows up and say “No one-termers”.
Jean
Harry Reid on MSNBC is confident Biden will win. And in response to the question of how will Biden and the Republican majority on the senate work together? Reid says, we may net another senate seat or two and Kamala Harris can break the tie. HA
trollhattan
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Heh, leavened nicely by a “forthwith.”
David ?Booooooo!? Koch
@Baud: Good point. We should expect McVeighs and Eric Rudolphs to come out of the wood work.
Felanius Kootea
@Zzyzx: Because this one was a narcissist, incapable of caring about anyone but himself. Thank God for that.
“Successful” dictators take care of other members of the group in power.
I shudder to think who the GOP will nominate in 2024, but I’m heartened by the fact that if it’s not a celebrity, he or she won’t have the cult following that this one does.
cain
@Jean:
I’m not a fan of that answer – his answer should be something along the lines of “we are going to move on McConnell like a bitch”
AndoChronic
Sorry if previously posted, but Jesus. Per Raw Story:
“The move comes after former White House adviser Steve Bannon called for the beheading of FBI Director Christopher Wray and Dr. Anthony Fauci. Under normal circumstances, calling for the assassination of a public official results in charges, but it’s unclear if that will apply given Bannon is a prominent Trump ally.”
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/11/donald-trump-jr-called-for-total-war-and-people-cant-look-away-from-the-meltdown/
LurkerNoLonger
@patroclus: I don’t think there’s enough votes left in AZ for Trump to make up the difference. We’re just waiting on PA and NV. I’m not sure why they haven’t called NV yet.
Roger Moore
@trollhattan:
I can get behind that.
zhena gogolia
sanjeevs
@Felanius Kootea: Whoever it is, they will attempt to build a cult of personality. Boris Johnson, Modi, Erdogan – that’s how the right rolls these days.
Barbara
@patroclus: Looks like Yavapai and Pinal are coming in.
Old Dan and Little Ann
Jesus fucking Christ! Is the winner of this election going to be a Friday NIght News Dump?
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
Damn. Not even a single reference to Hunter Biden’s laptop.
Roger Moore
@AndoChronic:
At the very least, it should result in his bail being rescinded.
jl
The GOP has decided that Trump’s job here is done. He was thrust upon them against their will four years ago, but he had some use, even as his movement threatened their political existence. They, like everyone else who is not a slavish abject Trump flunky, hate his guts.
So, too bad. Politics, running for office, governing, has been a ruthless, very brutal unforgiving line of work for all of human history all over the world. You’d have to be a very stupid, arrogant and ignorant person not to know that. So… too bad, guys….
Trumpers Lash Out As Establishment GOP Shoves Them To Arms Length
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/trumpers-lash-out-as-establishment-gop-shoves-them-to-arms-length
cain
It seems Pelosi doesn’t want us to discuss our plans until after the Georgia primaries – or that is how I interpreted it – but I think though we should not be afraid – we’ve been talking about the same damn platform all this time.. it’s already considered socialism by the right.
jonas
Maybe it’s just me, but I’m getting the feeling that a lot of elected Republicans are pivoting to a “now that Trump’s gone, we can proceed with Trumpism, but without the bloviating asshole saying all the quiet parts out loud any more”. This is the challenge of the next four years: Trumpism — the anti-capitalist populism, the nativism, the racism, the religious bigotry — has a lot of appeal with the Republican base. Many people were just turned off by Trump’s transparent idiocy and corruption, to say nothing of his pathetic response to the pandemic. But does Trumpism essentially wither, or does it “grow more powerful than you can possibly imagine” under the banner of a, to all appearances, more mellow, but equally evil, successor? And what’s the Democratic response to that going to be. Remember, several QAnon followers will be part of the new GOP caucus in the House. Lord help us all.
Subsole
@patroclus:
How many votes left?
WaterGirl
@Chetan Murthy: I would recommend Stacey Abrams and her Fair Fight organization. She is how we are where we are with Georgia right now. You couldn’t spend your money in a better place.
Honus
@Calouste: yep. Even the tea party protests were more like fin outings for people with nothing else to do, dressing up in costumes and riding hoverrounds.
Redshift
@Barbara:
Oh, definitely. The two things that undermined his genius plan were that and the fact that the Election Day counting took long enough that his attempt to claim victory happened at 2:30 in the morning.
I still think the media were actually prepared enough that it wouldn’t have had a serious chance, but with those two hits, it was just pathetic from the start.
Spanky
@sanjeevs: Judge Judy, the Lawn Order Candidate!
patroclus
18,936 ballots still to be counted in Georgia (excluding military, overseas and provisionals) – most in Dem-leaning areas. Current margin still 3,486.
trollhattan
@AndoChronic:
The fucker is out on bail. What does the presiding judge think of this shenanigan?
Baud
@patroclus:
I like those numbers. I’m getting optimistic.
Jeffro
@jl: yes Yes YES!!!
let the long-awaited Republican Civil War begin.
White & Gold Purgatorian
@Spanky:
”Hail no! They can have whatever’s left after the real
DemocratsAmericans are done.“Fixed that for you!
jl
What must really sting is that even the Trump judges have decided that the results are not close enough to risk it. The long term reactionary project is worth more than Trump himself. Trump orders ridiculous lawsuits thrown into the courtroom, and they are immediately thrown back out into his face, and he is told to not come back with them.
Of course, many of the Trump judges were selected and confirmed by McConnell and associated GOP forces. Trump was an intermediate rubber stamp. A mere way station.
Subsole
@David ?Booooooo!? Koch:
If they start blowing shit up they WILL lose the ‘burbs again. I can’t think of anything that will turn people off faster. That shit happens in nasty third world places, not here, after all…
McVeigh did his mov’t a lot of damage, as I recall.
patroclus
Pa. difference currently 63,725 – a slight narrowing.
David ?Booooooo!? Koch
@patroclus: Math – how does it work?
Subsole
@AndoChronic: If the statute extends to when we have a Democratic DoJ, it damn well better apply.
jl
@Jeffro: Yes. They’ll have to worry about the GOP Trump base later. Right now, this jackass on center stage risks stinking up their brand long enough to affect public perception of their move on to ruthless obstruction, the stink may stick to the midterms. Need to get Trump out asap, then worry about collateral damage later.
Edit: the GOP does understand decision theory.
Sebastian
I am so fucking proud of this country right now
patrick II
It was his strategy to get in front with live voting and declare victory — and now he believes it.
sanjeevs
And so it begins
https://www.thedailybeast.com/special-counsels-office-opens-hatch-act-investigation-into-trumps-use-of-white-house-for-campaign-events
Baud
NV, PA, and GA are looking so good right now I’m less concerned about AZ.
patroclus
@Subsole: In Arizona, we don’t know for sure how many are left. Compared to other states – quite a lot. I’d guess around 170,000.
trollhattan
@Honus:
I observed a couple of the Tea Party things and was flummoxed by the political theater aspect, theater with some obvious deep pockets funding it. The attendees were odd.
cain
@Spanky:
Not a “Lawn and Order” Judge?
Baud
Koemacki is all but calling PA.
Subsole
@patroclus: Awesome.
jl
@patroclus: OK, thanks. Why are people making fun of NV then? I am seriously triggered by that. NV is my favorite next door neighbor state, for both laudable and somewhat less laudable reasons.
NV state government does a damn good job, despite being ruled by a legislature that is periodically completely insane.
Kristine
This tweet gets me.
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
Koemacki?
Subsole
@jl:
“If you don’t know who the mark is…”
Zzyzx
@jl: but if Trump doesn’t want to go away and a large chunk of the voters don’t want him to go away, the party can’t just make him vanish.
zhena gogolia
@Kristine:
That’s me!!!!
Redshift
@jonas:
The one piece that I have no idea how it will go is the anti-capitalist populism. It worked for the GOP with Trump because he didn’t really have any beliefs, he just said whatever made people cheer, so it was easy enough for everyone else in the GOP to do nothing with his anti-capitalism (and as with so many things, the base is too stupid to get that it’s all talk and they’re getting screwed.)
It seems like something where the incompetence saved them from an internal battle, and a “competent Trump” might not. I dunno.
jl
@Kristine: NO, that is a type of sympathetic magic that really works. I can prove it with strict geometrical logic!
Baud
Biden may win PA by 67,000 if current trends continue.
Ksmiami
@WereBear: and I always said Mussolini on scaffolding so we’ll see
Subsole
@patroclus: Yeah, I heard we have a ways to go there, but Biden’s lead is holding.
Kent
It’s not just Trump. It’s all of Trump world from Javanka to Steven Miller to Bill Barr. Watching their world slowly go up in smoke.
Steeplejack (phone)
jl
@Subsole: Trump thought the GOP was a bunch of mooks and dupes. In reality it was mongoose and cobra fight that lasted four years. Sad… very sad… fascinating (if not for the consequences) and very sad (or hilarious for a certain type of person).
patroclus
Biden verging on a 4 million lead in the nationwide popular vote. With California, Illinois and New York still counting, this will only grow bigly. It’s only a 3% lead now, but it will widen – possibly making the polls look less wrong.
Barbara
@patroclus: what seems to be happening is that in many counties, even red ones, mail in ballots are significantly more Democratic. The mail ins completely turned the outcome around in Erie, PA. I am nervous too but I can’t remember such a difference in any prior election.
Baud
@patroclus:
We’ll need to work on the EC. Biden will win, but the difference will be worse than in 2016.
bcw
Anderson’s take https://twitter.com/DianaYYZ/status/1324504959505911811
Spanky
@Baud: Fucking Kornacki? What, did he say he hereby calls PA for Biden? We know it’s close, but let’s wait until Pennsylvania makes the call.
Martin
I’ve now seen the PA gov, Lt gov, SOS and AG on tv, and as a former PA resident, I would like to commend our current PA residents on a stellar job of filling those seats. Your legislature can DIAF, but your executive slate is outstanding.
OGLiberal
@LurkerNoLonger: Even if there are I just want them to wrap up PA so I can stop thinking about Arizona. And from a future perspective, I’d much rather get GA. I’ll be happy enough that both senators from AZ are/will be Dems.
Chetan Murthy
@Yarrow: @WaterGirl: Thank you both! Fair Fight it is! I always prefer writing one check, anyway.
jl
@patroclus: Thanks for the current stats and reminder. Very premature to start judging the polls. Also, need to be careful about who is making the judgments, many people, maybe some consultants in campaigns, don’t understand what they are or how to use them, probably no matter how many times the competent pollsters try to explain (and some political pollsters are not competent, and some are running a racket, or both).
Baud
@Spanky:
He was saying what was left to count, how those votes were breaking, and what that would mean for the final count.
trnc
I wouldn’t go that far, but certainly marginally happier if it goes Biden’s way.
Spanky
@patroclus: And wholly irrelevant, sadly.
Kent
Absentees used to trend GOP back in the pre-Trump era. When it was mostly people like snowbirds sending their ballots back to their home state from their RV park in Florida or Arizona.
But Trump spent a whole year screaming about mail vote fraud and convinced most of his people not to use them. Meanwhile covid pushed most rational Democrats to use mail ballots when they could. So it has been a complete switch this year.
That’s why even in red counties the mail-in ballots are coming in blue.
patroclus
@Barbara: It’s because of COVID and Biden’s specific strategy to encourage mail-in votes and Trump’s mockery of same. This is a COVID-influenced election like no other. In all past elections in modern times, the elderly usually did mail-in votes mostly and they have skewed Republican lately. Not so this year.
Martin
@Spanky: Kornacki doesn’t call a state. The election analysts do. My guess is PA gets called first among remaining states. Then NV. Then AZ. Then GA.
They’ve got enough uncertainty about the remaining ballot data. Kornacki is assuming a certain profile among the remaining votes, but that might not be a good assumption. How many overseas/military, etc. The analysts would know that better than Kornacki.
bcw
@Baud:
Get with the program, Hunter’s laptop is clearly where all the stolen votes are being manufactured.
Spanky
Having been born and raised in PA, I find the Erie results amazing. And yeah, my freud is being totally schadened by this excruciatingly drawn out defeat, engineered by Trump’s own geniuses.
topclimber
@cain: It’s a Politico story, so skepticism is always in order.
Why would lefty Dems push the envelope in a lame duck session when bitter baby Donald and the Grim Reaper can easily block them? As for the next Congress, it will barely be organizing itself by the time the runoffs happen. “Wild socialist ideas” will have a grand total of two days to influence the narrative.
Perhaps Nancy just wants to raise the specter of lefty dominance that has no traction so that GOP and the media can run with it during the Georgia elections. Because why not feed the beast with a worry that has no substance? Because it is dumb, that’s why. Nancy is not dumb.
Personally, I don’t buy it. But as ever, I am open to evidence. It could be she is afraid the left wing will blow up a COVID relief package she has negotiated for lame duck passage, with wild rhetoric and Trotskyite demands. Uh, no.
dmsilev
@Baud: None of the actual network state-call people will do anything until Biden moves into the lead in actual votes counted. And that’s fine; it’s not like there’s any legal force behind a CNN BREAKING NEWS alert.
mrmoshpotato
Yes. So true. Every Biden vote is a punch to Dump’s Kremlin-humping, orange face.
WaterGirl
@Baud: I’m starting to lose my mind. Weren’t we way down in PA, trying to get even, and then ahead? Same in GA. Right?
So where is “we could win by 67k” coming from?
Apologies if I have this goofed up. it’s been a long few days and I’m very tired.
OGLiberal
@LurkerNoLonger: “I’m not sure why they haven’t called NV yet.”
It’s clear Biden will win it but there are still a lot of votes not counted, or at least not reported. Plus, it would force Fox and AP to call it as well which means they would also have to call the whole thing for Biden. Not sure if Fox or AP want to do that but the other nets probably want to try to see if they can be first to call the whole thing instead.
patroclus
Pa. difference narrows to 58,286.
Martin
@patroclus: CA still has 4.5 million ballots uncounted. If the current trend holds for those, Biden will get 1.5 million more of a vote gap over Trump.
Quinerly
@WereBear: I’m with you. And… I don’t care, do you?
geg6
@Jeffro:
Jake Tapper called him pitiful. ???
Baud
@WaterGirl:
Number of ballots outstanding and the breakdown of how those ballots have been shaking out.
Cacti
After seeing Trump top 69 million votes, I’m afraid I’m going to have to agree with Jimmy Kimmel.
I’ve gravely overestimated the basic goodness of a lot of Americans.
HumboldtBlue
@trollhattan:
Please have a “forsooth!”
James E Powell
Here is a website if you want to follow the numbers in every state that is yet to be called.
It is fed with the data from the NYT, but has gap, change, & rate of change.
Kent
PA vote difference now down to 58,000 per MSNBC.
mrmoshpotato
@patroclus: It’s the popular vote punch to Dump’s fucking orange fascist face that a democracy deserves.
jl
@cain: There is already talk of trying to replace Pelosi. I’m not a big Pelosi fan, so that is OK with me, except with whom? It’s ot clear anyone could do a better job right now (Edit: OK, it is actually clear, isn’t anyone right now, except maybe a couple of Pelosi lieutenants who won’t cooperate).
The faction I’ve heard mentioned who are coup plotting is the entitled useless mediocre corporate white man caucus, probably lead by Ryan. They’d go even more in the hunker down, pretend to be moderate Republicans, direction.
Not a good time or situation to switch now, IMHO. But in any case, will be a lot of trial ballooning, flag pole running up goofy plans, insinuendo mongering, strategic BS put out there.
Martin
@WaterGirl: PA wasn’t allowed to count vote by mail until Tuesday, and many places didn’t start until yesterday. Because Dems pushed so hard for Dem voters to vote by mail and vote early, they’ve just been sitting in boxes uncounted. So Tuesday was same day polling place votes and heavily Trump favored, and now the fucking massive collection of Dem mail votes are being counted. They are like 80% Biden votes.
It was almost like having registered Republicans vote on Tuesday and registered Dems vote on Thursday.
Biden will easily win PA.
dmsilev
@WaterGirl: No, Biden has never been ahead in either PA or GA. Trump had a big lead in both states on Tuesday, and then as the mail-in votes started to be counted, those leads have shrunk continuously. Biden is on the verge of taking the lead in both states, but it hasn’t happened yet.
And yes, it’s been a hell of a week.
zhena gogolia
@WaterGirl:
I’m not even trying to understand these comments. I just want JOE WIN
burnspbesq
@AndoChronic:
A hypothetical Attorney General Healy would have plenty of time left on the statute of limitation if she wanted to go after Bannon.
Quinerly
@Cheryl Rofer: I’m late to the thread.
Earlier Bannon said that Fauci should be beheaded.
Chetan Murthy
@topclimber:
This. And I agree with her: it can’t hurt us to stay “centrist” and stick to things that don’t inflame the shitgibbon’s feculent horde. I fear that some po-po will go and execute some innocent person of color, and then the protests will start back up again [and to be sure, those protestors would be in the right]. If we can just have a calm country for the next few months, so Rev. Warnock and Mr. Ossoff can have the best chance to win …..
And, yeah, AFTER THAT I want my fully-automated luxury gay space Communism! I paid for it this cycle and last, and I wanna TAKE DELIVERY!
NotMax
Now we’re getting down to brass tacks. Kornacki has removed his wristwatch.
;)
Kent
Ain’t gonna happen.
mrmoshpotato
@Cacti: Oh, it’s goddamn disgusting that he got even one more vote this time around.
patroclus
@LurkerNoLonger: Nevada is in the same category as North Carolina – knowable but not callable. The difference is still too narrow and there are way more than enough outstanding ballots to say with certainty that Biden will win. But Ralston is confident and so is Baud, so I’m optimistic.
Tony Jay
Sooooo…. despite the fact that he’s still in office for three months or so, it’s looking more and more like ‘President Trump’ isn’t really anyone’s President anymore?
Sweet.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Okay, and I see that we are still behind, so I am not crazy. Happy to know that.
Are we thinking we’ll know anything for certain tonight? Will any state be called, do you think?
West of the Rockies
@jonas:
I’d love to see the QAnon/Tea Bagger Venn diagram. I bet there’s some real crossover.
zhena gogolia
This made me smile.
Subsole
@Quinerly: Bold shot from a man out on bail.
dmsilev
@Tony Jay: They call it a ‘lame duck’ session for good reason.
mad citizen
@zhena gogolia: Same. Trying to stay away (liked the name of this post). Once I bring up BJ, hit the down arrow and start reading from bottom up to see what is happening.
mrmoshpotato
Has Steve’s head exploded yet? Has an intern brought him a pot brownie yet? “Dude, chill the fuck out.”
NotMax
Melania online, shopping for bolts of black crepe with which to drape around the Xmas trees this year.
//
Baud
@WaterGirl:
Brian Williams just teased they might announce in a couple of hours. I think they are expecting Biden to take the lead in )A soon.
edit: )A should be PA.
Martin
@Quinerly: Calling for Fauci was of course bad, but calling for the current head of the FBI to be beheaded is, at a minimum, a pretty grievous tactical error.
Kent
Don’t fall for this sort of take.
This isn’t a baseball game. There are a fixed number of votes cast and a fixed percentage are for Biden. The order in which they are counted is meaningless. Biden was leading in Ohio on Tuesday until late because Ohio counted their mail ballots first.
JoyceH
Out of morbid curiosity, I watched all the Trump thing. And gotta wonder – have they FINALLY cut him off from the steroids?
Matt McIrvin
@WaterGirl: When we talk about Biden winning PA and (maybe) GA, we’re extrapolating from the number of ballots out and the rate at which they seem to be going to him. He hasn’t been ahead in either state yet, but it’s a good bet he will be at least in PA. GA is more uncertain.
Dan B
@cain: Stay safe!
Our neighborhood is 85% minority, 15% white and I doubt any bigot would try anything but Portland has a different feel.
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
Where is )A?
oatler.
@Omnes Omnibus:
We’re so miserable without him it’s almost like having him here.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
PA
WaterGirl
@Baud: I assume that is supposed to be GA?
patroclus
@WaterGirl: Called? Who knows? Georgia is expected to be complete by the end of tonight (except for military, overseas and provisionals). So it’s like Wisconsin two nights ago – we’ll know where we stand. The Pa. SoS said this afternoon that Pa. will also be finished tonight, but I have my doubts there. Nevada is tomorrow morning at 10:00 local time. North Carolina not for another week. Arizona is tonight too, but they’ve got a lot to do, so I think it’ll be tomorrow (or later) for them too. Alaska? Your guess is as good as mine.
Pa. now down to 53,221.
burnspbesq
@Baud:
I found his analysis pretty convincing.
Tony Jay
@dmsilev:
Yeah, but with everyone backing swiftly away and even the formerly compliant Media hitting the Off switch he’s not so much a lame duck as, I dunno….. pâté?
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
I like the idea that you’re just inventing new states for Biden to win.
ByRookorbyCrook
@Tony Jay: We may have to (temporarily) replace the eagle on the presidential seal with an obese turtle on it’s back. Trump is about to become the lamest of lame ducks.
guachi
PA down to 53,000 vote margin.
It is so awesome that Trump’s plan was to delay counting of mail in ballots and all that it’s done is prolong his agony.
Delicious.
Matt McIrvin
@zhena gogolia: Parenthylvania
Kent
Poor Kornacki. He doesn’t even get commercial breaks. MSNBC has a the Kornacki Cam on him even during the commercials. My wife is thrilled.
zhena gogolia
@Matt McIrvin:
Hahaha
Spanky
@Tony Jay: Who?
kindness
In Trump’s press show tonight he said the election is going to have to be decided by the Supreme Court. If this Supreme Court pulls a Bush/Gore on us I fear an actual civil war will take place with modern weaponry. This could get very ugly fast if the Supreme’s stop any vote counts or start throwing out votes.
jl
@Kent: The Ryan caucus was one of the groups that tried to replace her last time, and it was so ridiculous that I wondered whether it was a PR stunt to curry favor with their big donors.
They did nothing but sit in their offices and make grand pronouncements and make ridiculous claims. When Pelosi offered to bargain, they did exactly nothing, had no ask and no proposals, just nothing. They didn’t even show up.
And funny, the AOC bunch kind of piggybacked and did show up to bargain, figuring it was a good time, even though they didn’t start the coup plotting (as far as I know), reached a deal, and moved the party further away from what the Ryan bunch claimed that they wanted.
I would let that that bunch run an empty candy wrapper blowing across a parking lot.
Barbara
@Martin: It’s like he thinks he is living in Rwanda in 1995. It’s actually kind of scary that someone could be so unhinged.
Jeffro
@geg6: here for it! ?
Matt McIrvin
@kindness: This is why media openly saying he’s full of shit is so important. There may not be the means for court-packing but the Supreme Court likely knows which way the wind blows.
Marcopolo
Okay, I think it’s time to start the Trump pardon pool. How many pardons will Trump issue before he leaves office:
1-25
26-50
50-100
100-200
200-400
400+
Keep in mind that it’s entirely conceivable that Trump might issue pardons to Executive Branch employees well beyond his close circle strictly as a tactic to frustrate any investigations into misconduct by him or those around him after he is no longer in office.
Bonus question: is there anyone named Trump (aside from Barron) who does not get a pardon (I’d include Jared in this group).
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
Testing my strategy for the next primary.
Tony Jay
@ByRookorbyCrook:
I believe if you check his office Necro-Mitch already has that crest on the wall, between the Dixie Swastika and the family heirloom noose.
Only the turtle looks….. kind of animated.
Kent
@jl: After Pelosi’s last two years of masterfully managing her caucus and Trump there is no way she is in the slightest danger. A few disgruntled blue dogs blovating in front of cameras means nothing.
zhena gogolia
@kindness:
I don’t think that’s going to happen.
Bush/Gore was an entirely different situation.
cmorenc
@Baud:
A substantial portion of which will be an inside job from the outgoing President and Administration.
Jeffro
@Tony Jay: I’m sure he will do the GOP proud with his behavior over the next 11 weeks…
…NOT ???
Splitting Image
@WaterGirl:
Pennsylvania will likely be called as soon as Biden pulls ahead, which should be later tonight, although they might leave it until the morning to be on the safe side.
Georgia won’t be called because if Biden does pull ahead it will be close enough to demand a recount, and the same will likely be true if Trump catches up in Arizona.
I think that they are stalling on Nevada to keep Biden from going over 270 just in case they have to recall Arizona. They’ll probably call it five minutes after Pennsylvania.
David ?Booooooo!? Koch
@Marcopolo: Pardons will only make investigations easier, not harder, as the person would no longer be able to invoke their 5th amendment right.
Spanky
@Kent: What if he needs to pee?
Kent
Alternate Bonus Question. Is there anyone NOT named Trump who gets a pardon? My money is on no.
moops
I think it is time to create a strategy to end the GOP Fox nexus. We spent over $2B this year on a campaign, and we are going to dump hundreds of millions into the Georgia run offs. This is an extremely low ROI.
If we can raise $2B is cash-on-hand from small and medium donors (with no tax deductions) for one round of election, then maybe we should be taking aim at the propaganda system. A buyout out of a controlling share in Fox Corporation is possible. The current market cap is $15B, but that is a high point because they made super bank this election year.
We could go after Fox. Taking control of the board means taking control of the big name content and raises and the whole direction they slant things. Viewers wouldn’t even have to know their TV-drug has changed slant.
patroclus
@Tony Jay: Well, his term ends at noon on 1/20. But lame duck Presidents still have a lot of power and can do damage with pardons and wars and other stuff. Both Biden and Pelosi have signaled that Boris’ desired Free Trade Agreement isn’t going to be all that favorable to the U.K. though. You can have Turnberry…
Brachiator
@Marcopolo:
Melania.
hueyplong
@WaterGirl: Trump told his cult not to vote by mail.
Dems either voted early or by mail.
PA didn’t start counting the latter until the same day vote was totalled.
So Biden has been banking votes at an 80-20 rate for two days and it’s stroking Trump out.
Trump isn’t a smart guy so he can’t understand what’s happening to him.
It is restoring my belief in God, and I’m here for the fact that it’s an Old Testament God with a side of Rod Serling
VOR
@Spanky: I was listening to news on public radio about 45 minutes ago and the speaker said normally Pennsylvania would be called for Biden by now. However, they are acutely conscious that Biden winning Pennsylvania means he wins the whole thing so they are being very cautious with the call.
Jeffro
@Matt McIrvin: )win(
Matt McIrvin
@moops: It got a lot easier since the largest part of the company got bitten off by a mouse.
jl
@Spanky: “What if he needs to pee? ”
They have bags for that. These corporate media outfits have big budgets. Maybe they got him one that astronauts use. (Edit: ha ha, I was joking, they got him a cheap job you see on bad infomercials at 3 AM. Poor Kornacki, probably very chafed by now.)
Mike J
I whipped up a map of where the mail in votes remain to be counted in PA. Data from PA SoS, Tiger shapefiles.
https://twitter.com/emmeyekayeee/status/1324527119771185152?s=20
Martin
@Kent: Kornacki has been carrying a lot of us through this. I appreciate how hard that is as I do a lot of ‘hey, let’s ask Martin this obscure data thing’ in a meeting and have to pull an analysis together on the fly, from memory, etc. Can’t imagine trying to do that on TV.
He’s really good, and entertaining.
Tony Jay
@Spanky:
You remember. Fat guy, lots of make-up, couldn’t dance, had a thing for his daughter so he paired her with a eunuch.
No? Must have been something I saw on TV after a bag of dried shrooms.
RobertB
@Baud: ) isn’t a usual wildcard, but you be you!
WaterGirl
@Baud: I took the liberty of editing so a hundred people wouldn’t be confused by )A. Hope that’s okay. :-)
Splitting Image
@Marcopolo:
Two. Himself and Ivanka. The rest can fend for themselves.
CindyH
@jonas: qft
moops
I mean, they have tremendous power in our politics. I say we buy the fuckers.
Quinerly
@mrmoshpotato: personally, I’m loving it.
Marcopolo
@Kent: Not Stephen Miller or Ghouliani, or good old Hope Hicks?
NotMax
@zhena gogolia
With you on that. Enough of even this court can recognize a 50 foot high radioactive spiny sea urchin when they see it and aren’t about to touch it by axing initial counting.
JMG
@AndoChronic: Bannon’s under federal indictment. That’s the kind of talk that gets bail revoked. He won’t much like Manhattan FCI.
WaterGirl
@Splitting Image: Even in my tired state, that is very clear. Thanks for that!
sanjeevs
Kellyanne says its inappropriate for Biden to call himself the next President when we’re still counting the votes.
patroclus
Arizona data dump in 10 minutes or so. Probably about 100,000 votes. This could determine it. Mostly Maricopa…
WaterGirl
@hueyplong: that made me laugh.
Kent
Maybe Hope Hicks because she is Melania 2.0 (or Ivana 4.0 however you are counting) but none of the rest. Trump is loyal to no one. He’ll let them all burn.
NotMax
@jl
Off-camera urinal attached to the back of the big board.
zhena gogolia
@sanjeevs:
When did Biden do that?
moops
@JMG: Federal indictment means a federal offense, and Trump can pardon him. But he won’t. Bannon doesn’t have any dirt on DJT, and can’t bring him votes. The latter is now also irrelevant.
…unless Bannon knows something about Russia helping the 2016 campaign.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Martin:
Kornacki started off as a numbers guy.
Fraud Guy
Living with a Trump convert, they are getting their energy from their network of email chains and conspiracy websites.
I was told today that Girmo is open for all the Democratic governors who didn’t listen to Pompeo plus all the rest of the elected leadership.
Yes, I’m exhausted listening to it.
trollhattan
@sanjeevs:
Kellyanne can jump into a wood chipper. Ain’t nobody wants to hear from that hag ever again.
Or let her daughter handle her. She’s pretty good at it.
zhena gogolia
@Fraud Guy:
Oh, man, you have my sympathies.
Spanky
@Mike J: Thanks! 72K in Philly! Not good news for the orange man!
West of the Cascades
@Marcopolo: 400+, Tiffany.
cmorenc
@kindness:
I strongly think Roberts will successfully talk enough of his RW colleagues on the court down off going out on that ledge, because he does not want to risk de-legitimizing the court now that he has a solid majority at least the next decade or so to consolidate a firm conservative direction for the court’s decisions. He will convince most (or at least enough) or his RW colleagues on the court that their interests are sharply divergent from keeping Trump in office, and that with the failure of the “blue wave”, particularly in the Senate, a conservative-dominated judiciary can safely withstand an interim period of a relatively moderate D president like Biden, whose respect for government institutions indirectly reinforces the Supreme Court itself. I think it likely he will even talk Barrett into this long-view – don’t be surprised if Barrett’s vote on Trump’s election lawsuits is a deep disappointment to Trump.
Tony Jay
@patroclus:
Let’s be real. There’s zero chance that anything in Flobalob’s mythical Free Trade deal with White Tang would ever have been of actual benefit to the UK. To the Conservative Party’s wealthiest donors and various foreign investment portfolios, yes, but despite what they think they are not the UK.
Whatever happens after January 1st we are going down the pan rapido, but at least this Election has confirmed that the toilet we go down won’t be blocked with a wad of Trump-brand toilet paper.
Quinerly
@mrmoshpotato: he must have 10 pairs of the same pants or as I said earlier has not changed them since the weekend.
I feel like tonight is the night FOX calls it for Biden. I have champagne chilled.
WaterGirl
@sanjeevs: Kellyanne no longer needs to spend more time with her family?
And I guess they all recovered from COVID?
jl
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
” Kornacki started off as a numbers guy. ”
How does he find time to run the numbers if the bigshots are forcing him to wander around in front of the cameras 24/7?
Maybe Baud could do it. A mortal, no, never
Edit: Todd started off as a numbers guy too. They can go south if not kept in training.
Humanities Prof
@sanjeevs: Couldn’t have done this three months ago, of course. Can’t move against the Emperor until the dagger’s already been sunk into his back.
WaterGirl
@patroclus: As I understand it, Maricopa is supposed to be more mixed than we were thinking oriiginally.
patroclus
Zona difference currently 56,833. Trump needs 60%+ to catch up. Overall, Maricopa is currently a slight Biden lead, but most of these votes should be mail-in.
Spanky
@Fraud Guy: “Girmo”? Surely you mean “Gizmo”.
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: Biden did not do that.
Bident most specifically said he was not going to declare himself the winner.
These people make shit up to stir up the cult members.
Splitting Image
@WaterGirl:
No worries.
Sleep well tonight. The counting has been slow, but this is all over but the concession. Even Trump has realized it by now.
The Moar You Know
Trump’s Twitter account is going to be toast roughly 30 seconds after he leaves office.
@dmsilev: I think he’s going to get suspended within a week or so. Truly. He never had any impulse control and isn’t about to discover it on his own, and he’s either going to make an explicit call to violence, or threaten/shittalk Jack direct, and that will be the end of that.
kindness
But I don’t think we are going to war. Trump is pulling off his schtick terribly and the press ain’t buying it.
NotMax
@Quinerly
Strangely enough, earlier on Maddow assured the viewing audience that he has several pair of the same style and color pants.
West of the Rockies
Will we hear from Nevada this evening?
Matt McIrvin
@patroclus: So those would need to run about 60% Biden for him to pull it out in GA, more if the outstanding ballots are an issue.
Ocotillo
I saw one of the Red Hats on my Book of Faces hating on Fox News for calling Arizona. She said she was done with them and hoped NewsMax would start a network and hire Tucker and Sean. SMDH
patroclus
@West of the Rockies: Nevada will be 10:00 a.m. local time tomorrow.
Peale
@Tony Jay: Wish I could help you guys out with a trade deal. But if there is one thing our leftist betters have told us – if we want to win back the WWC in our country, no more trade deals. That said, now that Trump is gone, annexation of Greenland is completely of the table for us open for Boris to claim! Be a fair place to send him into exile.
Kayla Rudbek
@dmsilev: wouldn’t Twitter have to archive the account somehow as being a federal record? Although I suppose that they could lock him out from posting anything further after his term is up…
Dan B
@WaterGirl: There were 300,000+ ballots left to count in PA an hour ago. Trump was ahead by less than 80,000. If 60% of the remaining ballots go Biden that’s 180,000. Subtract 80,000 for Trump = 100,000 lead for Biden.
Kornacki doesn’t put all eggs in one basket so ~ 70,000 approx.
Spanky
I gotta lay off these M&Ms. I’m starting to bounce off the walls from the caffeine.
Yeah, it’s been a LOT of M&Ms.
ETA: Left over Halloween candy, btw.
WaterGirl
@Matt McIrvin: Who is “him”?
mrmoshpotato
Loser! La-who-za-her!
Kent
Another PA ballot drop. Difference is now down to 50,000 votes
It was about 64,000 when this thread started.
patroclus
@Matt McIrvin: Percentage? Schmercentage!! Biden needs at least a 3487 margin to take a lead in Georgia and we want as many as we can possibly get.
Matt McIrvin
@WaterGirl: Biden.
Tony Jay
Right, time for bed. Hopefully I’ll wake up to the first bit of good news in what seems like years.
And once again, congratulations on getting this done. You slew the beast and maybe, if the bones fall right, Georgia might also turn out to be the place where Mitch McConnell was made to cry tears of embalming fluid.
And on that bombshell…
CaseyL
I went into the office today, to continue being trained on the call schedule, and a coworker and I talked about how insane the week has been, and how we’re obsessively watching the news (her) and online (me) to follow the whole crazy thing.
I figured Dolt45 would remain in his own little LaLa Land. But I guess enough reality seeped through that he knows things aren’t looking so good for him.
I’m not sure FSM loves us enough for him to require being heavily sedated and put in restraints by the end of the week. But it’s something I enjoy thinking about.
Marcopolo
@West of the Cascades: Now that’s the ticket! I mean you know in your heart that our sleepy Commerce Secretary has broken at least one law, right? Then there’s Barr, DeVos, Pompeo, all the Actings…the list could be huge.
NotMax
@Splitting Image
Nitpick.
Counting has not been slow, counting has been meticulous and deliberate
jl
I don’t know enough about PA economic geography to be sure, but looks like Philadelphia, and Pittsburg stand pat for Dems, low income PA Appalachia stand pat for Trump. Big move to Dems in middle and working class areas west of Philly.
” The pattern of Biden over-performance over Clinton in the completed PA counties tells you a lot about what you need to know about where this is heading ”
https://twitter.com/Nate_Cohn/status/1324486342873669638
Quinerly
@hueyplong: the little bit of that “presser” I saw earlier tonight, Trump was bitching and moaning that the mail in ballots were heavily skewed for Biden….that he wasn’t getting any and, of course, that was some sort of fraud… Nevermind he told his disciples to not vote by mail.
Spanky
@NotMax:
Each one with a tag with a day of the week on it.
WaterGirl
@Dan B: I didn’t think there were anywhere near that number of ballots left in PA. They must have found more when I wasn’t looking.
Or maybe I was thinking of Georgia’s numbers.
Peale
@Ocotillo: Yeah. I think its possible we do well in the runoffs in GA if we can make the Trump voters doubt the right wing cred of their candidate. Did he stand up for Trump in his greatest hour? No! Coward! Purdue is why Trump Lost Georgia!
Sadly, the Democrats don’t do that kind of social media engineering thing. Though I hope they claim the Purduethetraitor.com and just fill it up with vile stuff about pedophilia and anti-trump treachery.
raven
@Martin: I agree.
patroclus
@Tony Jay: Thanks to our British friends! It’s not over here though until it’s over. Hopefully, it’s gonna happen tonight, but probably another day or so.
jl
@NotMax: The swing states really upped their counting game since the midterms. Glad to see some corporate network news orgs pointing this out.
raven
@Peale: Perdue damn it.
Bill Arnold
@Cheryl Rofer:
This makes me unreasonably happy. (OK, unreasonably is a stretch.) Bannon has committed so many sins! Was beginning to wonder if he had enough self control to (barely) not self-destruct because he hadn’t, yet. (Suspensions, need to find out how long.)
patroclus
Ga. down to 2487!! Arizona announcing right now. Biden lead down to 46,287.
Biden goes 4 million up nationally.
WaterGirl
@Spanky: I wonder if he might be color blind.
Kent
Georgia now down to 2497 vote difference.
Matt McIrvin
@Dan B: (edited to delete my math which I think is wrong)
Peale
@jl: I hate to say it, but Nate Cohn needs to work on his infographics. It looks like PA is being invaded from Delaware and Ohio.
Martin
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Oh, I realize that. He’s very good. But networks don’t put the analysts in front of cameras. Think of them as the career professional class of the network, vs the onscreen talent as the elected class. The elected class may well be fully qualified to do the other job, but they maintain a firewall there to preserve objectivity.
Kornacki isn’t allowed to call a state as part of his job. He can be front of house or back of house, but not both.
WaterGirl
@patroclus: Arizona announcing what?
jl
@Peale: Even though I think PA is a weird place, it really doesn’t deserve such a ghastly fate.
Omnes Omnibus
How do you know that it isn’t?
Dan B
@Chetan Murthy: Congratulations! Your luxury Gay meet badge, ID, and Gaay Agenda are on their way!!
Oh, and what is your address and SS #?
Baud
@Peale:
OMG he leaked the plan!
raven
@WaterGirl: down another 100K still the 59% shithead needs.
Martin
@jl: Todd is a good example of the Peter Principle. He was a good numbers guy.
rk
@Peale:
I was thinking that myself. How do you destroy the movement. Simply telling the truth and pointing out lies does not work. You have to follow the British strategy of divide and conquer. Sow division and discord between republicans, pit one against the other. How that’s to be done I don’t know. But it has to be done or we’ll be finished. We have to stop with the “when they go low we go high” BS.
Redshift
@Peale:
Well, though it’s not social media (as fas as I know), Jaime Harrison did the whole thing of running ads “against” the Libertarian candidate for being “too conservative.” And Biden’s social media team is excellent, so they may surprise us.
sdhays
It’s kind of interesting that the Republicans’ plan all along was to set up a narrative of Dump lead while the poor elections officials plodded through millions of mostly Democratic mail-in ballots, and yet they really weren’t particularly prepared to sell it.
Part of that is probably that they made it too obvious beforehand, but still…
guachi
A tiny drop of 1319 votes in GA and Biden got 1154 of them to net 989 votes.
Quinerly
@NotMax: I missed that. Damn. The pants situation has been of much interest to me this week. Long week. I have spent more time lately with Kornacki than my last 3 year serious relationship.
patroclus
@WaterGirl: 100,000 new votes. Trump got 50,000+; Biden got 30,000+. The difference narrowed to 46,257.
Gin & Tonic
@cain:
Have lost 8 seats in this cycle so far. I know the commentariat considers her a saint, but another cycle like this and say hello to Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
West of the Rockies
@patroclus:
Thanks. Ugh.
Bill Arnold
@sanjeevs:
Laura Ingraham agrees: “Whatever happens, Donald Trump is the current and future leader of the Republican party. Certainly until at least someone else comes along with his stamina, charisma, and drive.” – https://twitter.com/jeremymbarr/status/1324187388617379840
Sab
@Spanky: I had done okay with my weight this year, but I put on the quarantine 15 lbs just this week.
Baud
@Gin & Tonic:
Is there a tradition of getting rid of Speakers when they lose a few seats?
Martin
@sdhays: I think it’s a bit more than that. I think they were also relying on the USPS simply not delivering those votes, and the courts siding with the GOP on suppression, and neither of those came through as big as they needed.
Omnes Omnibus
@Gin & Tonic: Wait ’til everything is counted.
Also, who crapped in your cornflakes?
guachi
@patroclus: AZ has Trump steadily getting what he needs to win like PA and GA have been for Biden.
Wonder if that can continue in AZ. Clearly, there are professionals who think not.
WaterGirl
@raven: I am trying to decipher that sentence. Needs more words.
Kent
PA gap drops to 48,854
patroclus
Pa. difference now 48,854.
dmsilev
@Martin: And to expand on that, nobody would ever call the Fox News anchors and announcers and commentators “unbiased” or “objective”, but their behind-the-scenes election analysis crew actually rises to that level. As evidenced by that famous episode in 2012 when Megyn Kelly went down to their lair to hear first-hand the news that, yes, Romney was losing. If memory serves, the Fox analysts were firewalled from the cameras well enough that the first they knew that she was inbound was via a heads-up phone call from one of their competitors who did have a Fox video feed as part of their information flow.
raven
Still on track in Pennsylvania .
Kent
This was a Trump election. Pelosi had very little to do with it.
Jean
Trump is closing in on Biden in AZ . Biden is now leading by 40,000 votes with more to come from Maricopa which favors Trump. We won’t need it if Biden wins PA, which looks likely.
NotMax
@jl
That the unprecedented and sudden massive increase of mailed ballots didn’t crash or otherwise bollix up the systems speaks well of what is in place. Not perfect systems yet mighty impressive in their operation under the prevailing conditions.
Sab
@sdhays: Local politicians want their voters’ votes counted. And I bet they were expecting a lot of split votes.
raven
@WaterGirl: doesn’t matter, other people said it better
rikyrah
@Kent:
Dear lord???
sanjeevs
@Bill Arnold: I think you may be focusing too much on Ingraham’s first sentence and not the second.
Spanky
@Quinerly:
If that bastard makes you cry, us Juicers will mess his shit UP!
LeftCoastYankee
It probably wasn’t a great idea for President Baldrick to announce his cunning (election stealing) plan out loud beforehand….
It does seem the media’s “respect for the office” gloves are off.
Omnes Omnibus
@NotMax: That is my take as well.
patroclus
@guachi: I think Trump’s getting just short of what he needs in Zona, but what do I know?
CNN hyping Biden’s Ga. chances – 5726 votes in Clayton County about to come in, which might put Biden over the top.
WaterGirl
@Sab: Did you see that I replied to the photos text with questions? Photo #1 is Meg.
What are the names of the kitties in photo #2 and photo #3?
They said “stars cream” and “starts team” and I have no idea what that means.
Thanks for sending the pics!
Martin
@Baud: Somewhat. Certainly losing seats in an election where you expected to win doesn’t help.
I think Dems need to do a more measured analysis here. Why did we lose some latino voters? Did we lose seats because gerrymandering collided with much bigger turnout by both parties? If we pick up state legs and can remedy the gerrymandering problem, then it’s not a big deal.
Pelosi has 2 months to make her case. We’ll know everything we need by then.
I think one thing that hurt us was SO much money flowing into KY and SC senate races that should instead have gone to DougJs lists. Another thing that hurt us is that the GOP did not slow down their ground games due to Covid, they just went for it, while Dems backed off. Was that a bad decision? I don’t think so, but it’s also not an enduring problem.
Humanities Prof
@VOR: This makes sense, IMHO.
Again, I’m pretty sure that in 2012, Fox News called Ohio for Barack Obama at a point when Mitt Romney was still up by around 50,000 votes. But Fox knew how many votes hadn’t been counted yet, and knew that they were almost all from either Cuyahoga County (Cleveland) or Lucas County (Toledo), both Democratic strongholds where Obama was going to run up huge numbers.
Looks like a similar thing’s happening in Pennsylvania this go-round.
Quinerly
@Spanky: ?
different-church-lady
WILL SOMEONE PLEASE MAKE THIS ASSHOLE GO AWAY ONCE AND FOR ALL???
raven
Paul W.
Insane if true and I don’t know if I believe it but I certainly won’t get my hopes up.
https://twitter.com/dralgrossak/status/1324520257885773824?s=21
Dr Gross claiming that once all votes are counted he will win?!
Bill Arnold
@cain:
There are complete archives of Trump’s twitter, and this is true for most high-profile accounts.
jl
@Kent: regardless of what one thinks of Pelosi, only alternative right now seems to be a bunch of corporate Dem goofballs, who have demonstrated only that they would be far worse.
James E Powell
@Jean:
I don’t think Maricopa favors Trump. It depends on what kind of votes they are, not just where they are from. The locals were saying Maricopa’s remaining ballots would be close to 50/50 with a slight Biden lean.
Dan B
@Matt McIrvin: WIN! LOL!!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Obama did talk about the 57 states, worked well for him.
Martin
@patroclus: That’s my sense as well, but it’s going to be damn close.
I don’t think GA is that close. I think Biden ends up with a bigger lead there than in AZ. I think PA, NV are basically slam dunks right now, but we have a President losing his mind and I’m betting the networks are now all communicating with each other about when they’re going to call this and they’ll do it more-or-less together so nobody gets singled out like Fox has been over the AZ call.
guachi
@patroclus: Everyone seems to think so. There were some vote dumps awhile ago that were REALLY good for Trump where he was getting 2/3 of 200,000 votes. So he ran ahead of that “Trump needs 59% of the vote” stuff we’d been hearing driving his win down to needing something less.
My count says out of the last 481,712 votes Trump has gotten 61.53% of them.
Baud
@James E Powell:
The batch that just dropped had Trump winning 59%, which is right about where he needs to be to draw even.
West of the Cascades
@Martin: Dems lost state legislative elections badly where there had been hope of affecting redistricting (TX, KS). Lost two Senate seats in WI. Lots of unhappy down ballot results. Lots to ponder between now and 2022.
ByRookorbyCrook
I am willing to give Pelosi a bit of slack on the House seats. What strategy did we not use? I know my Congress Critter (Brindisi) in cherry red Central New York was toast no matter what. Claudia Tenney ran totally on a platform of being the best Trump toady in the world. Here yard signs were a picture of her standing with Trump. The MAGA came out and voted. Dem turnout was great but we are outnumbered.
We need to be motivated in non-presidential years and we can make gains that can hopefully translate into better control, but 2 years in opposition with nothing other than failed impeachment to show does not a majority keep.
Matt McIrvin
@Humanities Prof: This year, some networks called Virginia for Biden when Trump was still leading, because they understood that there were a lot of late outstanding votes in the Northern Virginia counties. That’s the usual pattern for Virginia. Given how things were going generally I was still nervous.
Chris Johnson
@Matt McIrvin: Sir, we are deeply humbled :)
jl
@Martin: ” Another thing that hurt us is that the GOP did not slow down their ground games due to Covid, they just went for it, while Dems backed off. Was that a bad decision? I don’t think so, but it’s also not an enduring problem. ”
I’ve also read that the state GOP GOTV operations did some quick strikes close the election, door to door and phone, in places where they saw Democratic vulnerabilities, and Dem GOTV missed it.
But yes, plenty of time to find out what happened. Only alternatives to Pelosi right now look far worse.
Martin
@Bill Arnold: There are complete archives of EVERYONEs twitter. There’s I think 6 outfits that have full access to the Twitter API including tweet archives, DMs, etc. I think they’re all used for analytics, though.
Mallard Filmore
@Kent:
Barr will insist on one for himself, or he will draw up a defective self-pardon for Trump.
John S.
There are 420,000 votes remaining in AZ. The last dump from Maricopa broke 5:3 for Trump, or 62.5%. If Trump stays at that level, he will get 262,500 compared to 157,500 — for a swing of 105,000 votes. So it’s possible Trump can win.
Except that overall, Maricopa is only breaking at 47% for Trump, so it seems unlikely he will continue to perform at much higher levels for the remaining ballots.
Sab
@Gin & Tonic: Every Republican I know is appalled by Trump, but that doesn’t mean they have forsaken the party. So I am not surprised that we lost borderline seats we got in 2018. In 2018 the only way to vote against Trump was to vote for Democrats. Not true this time. That is hardly Pelosi’s fault.
trnc
I think it’s just one more sign of their ineptitude and allergy to any sort of prep work. They probably didn’t bother to find out that some states start to count their mail ballots before election day. Also, most people in DT’s primary vote demographic still remember the 2000 election wasn’t decided until December. Finally, the idea that the courts would just stop vote counting was ludicrous without 2 or 3 Reos in every circuit.
Gin & Tonic
@Omnes Omnibus: What did I say that was incorrect?
jl
@Mallard Filmore: Trump should have thought about what kind of defective pardon Barr would hand him to sign before he started trashing his loyal flunky AG. Trump better get someone else to type it up.
Baud
MSNBC says Biden camp still feels confident about AZ. We’ll see.
patroclus
Slight Trump gain in Pa. – difference now 51,000+
Gin & Tonic
@Kent: And 2022 will be a mid-term, in which the party of the President historically loses seats.
Like I said, Speaker McCarthy.
Baud
@jl:
It’ll be written in Sharpie.
jl
@Baud: Baud XXXX!! will insist on crayon, being a man of the people. No high toned elitist sharpie crap.
Edit: or half dried out bic, found behind the couch cushions.
Omnes Omnibus
@Gin & Tonic: I didn’t say you were incorrect. But on matters of interpretation the past couple of days, you have been rather dyspeptic. YMMV.
West of the Cascades
@Paul W.: Alaska allows up to 10 days for receipt of ballots postmarked by Election Day. Given covid and the nature of the state, and the state Supreme Court’s waiver of the witness signature requirement for absentee ballots in 2020 (and no reason required), ability to request absentee ballots on-line, the Democrats were heavily pushing vote-by-mail there this year. So there’s a good chance that the uncounted vote will be disproportionately for Dr. Gross … but who knows if it’ll be enough to overcome the “banked” vote already in for Sullivan.
sdhays
@Martin: One of the striking things to me is that there’s a pretty decent argument to be made that COVID was a wash. I know before the election there was a lot of hand-wringing that Dump would be favored to win except for his disastrous COVID response. But even 2 years out, Biden’s national polling lead was almost identical to what he had on Monday.
Now, I’m not point to the number itself, just its stability. If the Republican Party wasn’t a cult, the bottom would have fallen out for Dump after COVID hit, but people in the cult remained in the cult even with 230,000 people dead.
We’re winning with the people who were done with Dump in 2018. COVID’s effect is, at best, on the margins related to mail-in votes and GOTV. For all we know, with know COVID and super-charged, normal Democratic GOTV effort, the Democratic margins would be higher still.
patroclus
@guachi: I’ll buy your math. I’m really just focused on the raw vote totals. But if most of it remains Maricopa, that’s about a 50-50 split; not a 59% Trump gain.
Matt McIrvin
@jl: I remember during the last effort to oust Pelosi, there was a lot of excitement from not-very-clued-in leftists that it was some kind of progressive insurgency, when in fact it was a centrist insurgency and their main argument was that Republicans hated Pelosi too much.
Quinerly
When you have lost Santorum(?)
Rick Santorum, a former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania and now a CNN analyst, said the President hadn’t presented any evidence for his claims of election fraud, then pointed out the obvious truth: His lead was diminishing as elections officials counted ballots cast by-mail.
“Democrats voted by mail, that’s why your lead went away,” Santorum said.
jl
@West of the Cascades: Alaska is wild. Low proportion of ballots counted so far, big gap, small numbers, so can be big swings.
localcomment
@ByRookorbyCrook: I’m in the next district over and her “Brindisi – a liberal and a liar”, Pelosi loving cop hater commercials ran constantly although Katko using the disabled vet to slander Balter was the worst of the cycle.
Sab
@WaterGirl: Starscream. He types badly with those little paws. He also might be in the background in Meg’s
Pick whichever pic of him you think is best. I couldn’t decide.
jl
@Matt McIrvin: For some reason, media news outlets kept selling it as a lefty AOC thing until late in the drama. I could never figure out why. Suddenly they realized it was Ryan and ran to his office, where he spouted ridiculous crap every other day.
Edit: and the hilarity, at least to me, was that other factions realized Pelosi would do bargains then, so ran to bargain. Ryan and his gang of headless nothings sat in their offices and spouted nonsense.
sdhays
@Mallard Filmore: I wonder how long Dump waits for the pardons. Does he wait, as is customary, for the day before he’s kicked out of the White House, or does he just “get ‘er done” and to hell with the Georgia Senate races?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@jl: Seems like Kornacki’s stayed a bit more in the game than Todd did.
One of the Many Jens
Re Dems losing downballot races, I think all the talk about packing the court was a motivation. It may have encouraged more ticket-splitting, even among those who voted for Biden. I think Biden’s goal to make the election a referendum on Trump was right – unfortunately all the talk about court packing may have resulted in two referenda in many voters’ minds.
Felanius Kootea
@jl: I never understood the centrist Dem strategy of “let’s get rid of our best speaker in eons … because the other side doesn’t like her.” Gobsmackingly stupid.
Kent
@sdhays: MSNBC talked an hour ago about how of the 300 highest percentage Trump counties in the country, 93 of them are also have the highest covid rates in the country. They were talking about how Covid didn’t cause people to vote against Trump.
I think they have it exactly backwards. Trump counties are catching higher rates of Covid exactly BECAUSE they are Trump counties.
In other words, Trump is CAUSING the covid outbreaks in Trump country through his denial and behavior. Rather than Covid affecting the vote results.
WaterGirl
@Sab: Okay, just two kitties. Same kitty in #2 and #3, and lurking :-) in the background in #1.
Got it!
edit: Wait! What about Shadow and Mouf and Mac???
Omnes Omnibus
The next post up as a pretty good take on the down ballot races. Go look.
hueyplong
@patroclus: Philly will dump a tsunami in the gop teacup.
jl
@One of the Many Jens: Will be very interesting to see if anything to the GOP Trump defector ticket splitter theory.
Did anyone see it coming, if in fact it turns out be true? In any case, I think it’s a reminder that for high stake situations, strategies should red-blue teamed to the max to game out possibilities. I wonder if political campaigns do that.
The Moar You Know
@Chetan Murthy
I’m in. Straights can play, right? I want a robot butler. Masseuse too. And space tourism, but to interesting places, not that caulked-up dumpster in space we call a space station.
I personally am STILL waiting for a taco truck on my corner, but unlike the zero-sum Republicans, I DON’T SEE WHY WE CAN’T HAVE BOTH.
Kent
Personally I doubt that 1 in 1000 voters made their choice based on court packing.
The only down ballot races that matter in terms of court packing are the Senate races and they were always going to be stretches. Cunningham probably lost his race because he couldn’t keep his pants zipped up. The GA races were always long shots as were IA and MT which are red states. ME is a disappointment but unseating a crusty old incumbent in a state full of old people is a tough sell.
Martin
@Baud: Yeah, based on my experience with CA ballot counting, these ballots toward the end are not homogenous.
CA has 4.5M uncounted ballots.
4,079K are mail in.
68K are provisional.
286K are conditional voter registration provisional.
90K are ‘other’.
The mail in get processed the fastest, so they get reported first. The provisional take a while. The conditional voter registration provisional take quite a bit longer. Are they all similar in terms of vote breakdown? Probably not as they vary a LOT by county. Those provisional often correlate to a problem with the ballot in a given district that may have a very different trend than the county overall, let alone the state overall.
You could get a LOT of trend reinforcement though the counting of those 4M mail in and then suddenly it shifts to conditional provisional and you get an entirely different trend. You can extrapolate a lot, but when things get tight, when you get out on the long tail of the vote, you really have to back off on that. Much as we’ve been speculating on the breakdown of the overseas military votes.
That’s why the races aren’t being called – either there’s enough variability in the remaining ballots that you can’t extrapolate, or the variability is unknown. What’s that 90K ‘other’ in CA? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯:
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Felanius Kootea: I think a couple of those people were sincere, and at least one– Tim Ryan– has admitted he was wrong, but someone like Conor Lamb, for example, I think was just doing what he had to do in his district, and nobody understands that better than Nancy D’Alessandro
Miss Bianca
@NotMax: Oh, shit, that just made me LOL. I need that right now!
Sab
@sdhays: Covid hasn’t really hit the white midwest badly yet. Nothing like NY or Boston experienced. We are all going inside for the winter soon, and the holidays are coming up and people are not as concerned as they should be.
We are following the same pattern as 1918
ETA in Ohio DeWine just replaced Amy Acton with a non-medical rabid Right-to-Lifer transferred over from Bureau of Workers Comp. That should help our pandemic reponse enormously.
Martin
@Kent: Exactly.
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@Omnes Omnibus:
OPSEC! So much for that.
Kent
PA difference down to 42,142
It was in the 64,000 range when this thread started.
Omnes Omnibus
@Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho: You are back! Yippee!
jl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: But what puzzles me about Ryan and some of his close associates, is they never did one damn thing, just sat in their offices and spouted. If you know different let me know. So, Ryan was sincere about what, exactly? That is an honest question, not snark.
Kent
Georgia down to 1900 votes
Quinerly
@Kent: GA is tied!
49.4% to 49.4
99% vote in.
Sab
@WaterGirl: I thoought I had sent Shadow ( gray kitty) , Mouf ( looks like Steve Cole.)
different-church-lady
Reminder to all: this is going to be a multi-step process that does not end at 270.
a) Gain 270
b) Wait for recounts (which are not likely to change things)
c) Defend from lawsuits
d) Defend from supreme court fuckery
No sleep ’til January.
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@Omnes Omnibus: Thanks! Good to see you.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@jl: he was younger and from a midwestern, union-heavy district. I didn’t say he was smart, I said he was sincere in believing that somehow qualified him for Speaker. And I believe he ran for president for an hour so. Same with Seth Moulton, who was not alone in falling in love with his bio. Lamb strikes me as smarter.
hueyplong
@sdhays: I agree. The people voting Trump out disliked him before the first COVID death, and his supporters think it’s just the flu and won’t wear masks.
Miss Bianca
@Kent:
That’s it. In a weird way, the asshole GOP state legislatures of MI, WI, and PA may have actually done us a favor – by insisting on an electoral process that dragged things out, there’s some kind of poetic justice there in having punctured the Trump balloon – and we are witnessing it flying around and around the room before it finally sinks into a seeping, whining, huddled heap in the corner.
Likewise, it’s hard to muster the rat fuckers when the rats are squealing and scrabbling to get away from it and each other as the Trump balloon goes WHEEEEEE.
Damn –
The Moar You Know
@Tony Jay: If you don’t supremely fuck up in your second term, like…well, like Obama, Reagan and no other president in my lifetime, your last three months are pretty nice. Fuck up and they won’t be. Fuck up for your one term (Carter, Bush I, Trump) and you’re going to have a pretty bad time, but the treatment Trump is already staring to get from both the media and other politicians is like nothing that I’ve ever seen before and I suspect it’s going to get a lot worse within two weeks at most. Couldn’t happen to a more deserving piece of crap.
different-church-lady
@different-church-lady: I forgot:
e) Worry about faithless electors
Matt McIrvin
@different-church-lady: Faithless electors are a big problem in the 270-269 scenario. If there’s any cushion at all over that, I wouldn’t worry. There were a lot of faithless electors in 2016 (a historic, bizarre number actually), but I suspect that if Hillary Clinton had actually won, the Democratic ones wouldn’t have felt such license to screw around. In a more typical election there’s between zero and one.
Subsole
@Kent: How many left to count?
Aziz, light!
@Kent: I think this look at a rural town, Ozarks public health workers feel ‘hated’ in Covid-19 spike, conveys the truth. Covid is spreading in Trump counties not because of Trump per se but because people believe they shouldn’t have to care about Covid and they shame anyone who does. They don’t like being told what to do.
Matt McIrvin
When people give the vote difference without also giving the number of outstanding ballots, it makes it hard to figure out what the number means.
Miss Bianca
@NotMax:
Damn it, that’s the *second* time you’ve killed me tonight! It’s a damn good thing I haven’t started drinking anything yet!
Sab
@WaterGirl: Did you get Shadow and Mouf yet?
WaterGirl
@Sab:
only got 3 pics that I described. try again with the others?The first 3 pics came to me in Messages on my MacBook. I just checked my phone – the other two pics must have come from a different phone that is not an iPhone.
Yes, I have Mouf and Shadow!
Frank McCormick
Ridicule should have been a significant part of our strategy from the very beginning.
But it’s nice that, now that Trump has acquired the stench of loser, political pundits and the media have joined in.
Sab
@jl: Ryan spends all his time in his district instead of Washington. He would probably be more useful if he spent more time in DC. He lives at the other end of the district from me, but we do not feel neglected at all.
Sab
@Felanius Kootea: Ryan isn’t centrist at all, but he is very Catholic so it took forever and marriage to a teacher to bring him around on abortion and guns.
2016 election really shocked him, so he jumped the wrong way.
Bill Arnold
@Kayla Rudbek:
Sure, but there are other archives of realDonaldTrump twitter and other high-profile accounts.
I just grabbed one now of tweet texts for realDonaldTrump (no images, just the text), using a python tool called twint.
Will grab some others while I’m playing, just to have them before they get deleted.
Miss Bianca
@Martin:
I certainly think that was a contributing factor in Diane Mitsch Bush’s lackluster performance in CO CD-3.
Cheryl Rofer
@The Moar You Know: This is one of the things I’ve hoped would happen. It’s happening earlier and more strongly than I expected, but if Trump is thoroughly discredited, there will be more room for Biden to, say, work with the governors on a COVID strategy.
The Moar You Know
@Cheryl Rofer: I think Trump’s own kids will be running away from him within a few weeks. He’s fucking radioactive.
Quinerly
Clayton County, GA coming in soon. Will Rep John Lewis’s old district put Biden over the top in GA?
???❤️?♥️
Bill Arnold
@rk:
A PAC could do it; it wouldn’t even need a lot of funding; mainly it needs talent and skill and a sufficient lack of squeamishness. There are established techniques (Russian especially but the US is no slouch, and other countries are also competent) that Adam could provide a reading list for, but skill and talent are also required. These dark arts are not openly taught, as far as I know, but the literature is large.
mrmoshpotato
Reading through Kurt Eichenwald’s Twitter account…
Adorable Tom! Now what about the past forty years, bucko?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@different-church-lady: Many states have laws against faithless electors, the USSC upheld those laws recently.
Bill Arnold
@sdhays:
COVID-19, specifically the D.J.Trump Administration’s willfully inept (or criminal) response, dominated a lot of news cycles that Trump might have otherwise filled with toxic crap.
I don’t know the net effect of COVID-19 (and the response) itself on the electorate[1], but the flooding of the news cycles was important; Democrats still aren’t as good at that game as Republicans.
[1] The effects will be actively studied by sociologists/political scientists.
Steeplejack
@Spanky:
Management of one’s tactical gear is mission-critical.