So this crossed my radar this morning. As I heard the voice on this recording, I knew exactly whose it was — the Board of Elections trainer who led my class back in September:
More documented fraud : pic.twitter.com/96W7Jf3BiN
— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) November 5, 2020
James Woods has 2.7 million Twitter followers, and god knows how many the TikTok user who originated this thing has, so if someone sends you this, please explain to them what’s going on here: She’s explaining the procedure for what happens when someone shows up to vote and doesn’t have an ID and can’t confirm their address, or otherwise has a problem. Those voters sign affidavits swearing to their identity and are issued “provisional” ballots; depending on some other factors, one type goes into the tabulator, and others go into an envelope. An envelope ballot is, essentially, a kick upstairs to an election inspector with higher authority, who will determine whether to count it. All day at my precinct, I think we had one envelope ballot, maybe two. (EDIT: Just checked my notes. We had four.) It’s a pretty rare occurrence. The “six days” thing is a reference to the time period the Board has to examine all envelope ballots to make this determination.
(Fun fact: A few years ago, when James O’Keefe, the Project Veritas troll, showed up at a Michigan polling place and told them he was Brian Dickerson, the Free Press editorial-page editor, this is the ballot he would have been issued, if it had gotten that far. And the affidavit he signed to receive it would be a felony.)
There’s an edit at the part about “destroy it,” and I don’t know what she’s talking about. All I can tell you is, she wasn’t advocating anyone trash ballots. More on that in a sec.
She was a great trainer. Big big voice and a sense of humor: “Read your training manuals! I know some of you have done this before, but things change! I used to be a size 4!”
The musical underlay I can’t explain. Ask James Woods. Ask his psychiatrist.
Anyway, I mention all this because I’m astonished – and I really shouldn’t be – by the amount of lying surrounding this election here, especially the absentee counts. Generally speaking I avoid the darkest sub-basements of the media ecosphere; the vending machines at the elite-media level are so much better. But even though it flourishes best there, this stuff has a way of making it to the president’s tiny, pudgy fingers, and so here we are.
I want to stress something right here. I am not widely experienced in Detroit election procedure, but I have more than 99 percent of the people opining on it. I’ve worked two elections now, and gone through three separate trainings, and I can say this: These people — and here I mean Detroiters, mostly black people — are deadly serious about voting. In every situation, the aim is to protect the vote. In dodgy situations like the one I just described, there are procedures to check, double-check, triple-check, and check again before accepting it or throwing it away. They are not fucking around, I promise you. When I spent a week processing absentee applications, if we had questions about any application — a signature that didn’t match was the most common — the answer was never, “Oh, this man is old and his child or caregiver probably filled this out for him, just let it through.” It was always “put it in the problem pile.” The problem pile went back to the Board of Elections for further review. I guess it’s possible the BofE was sitting around eating Cheetos and rubber-stamping these problem apps, but from the behavior of the employees I saw, I doubt it.
Early on primary day, in August, I was working under the same chairperson I was this week — it’s the young man in the photo yesterday. One of the first voters in the other precinct in the room was someone he knew, although they didn’t talk. As the other guy left, he raised his hand in our direction and called out, “First of all, we vote!” and the chairperson echoed it back to him.
What is that, I asked, and he explained it’s a bedrock tenet of Alpha Phi Alpha, the fraternity they both pledged in college. APA does extensive voter-participation work, for active members and alums, he said.
On Tuesday, when we talked between voters, he told me more about it. Apparently the fraternity has a procedure to join after college, if you didn’t go to a school with a chapter. And it’s not easy getting in; one of the things they consider is your voter participation, a public record. If the admissions board for your chapter includes an older man, a veteran of civil-rights struggles, and he sees that you were a non-voter for years on end? Expect to be questioned sharply about it, especially by that man, and watch your chance of admission fall.
All of which is to say that all this wink-and-nudge crap in the right-wing media sphere about corrupt Detroit is deeply, deeply racist. I stopped into my favorite dress shop today when I was downtown, picking up my check for the work I did for the Board in October. The owner was an ACLU observer in the AV count room Tuesday night, and we talked about it. Here were the rules and the setup: The city has 134 counting boards, and by law, each party can assign one trained, certified challenger to each board. Each counting board has five people, and they worked at these rectangular table setups:
As I think I mentioned earlier, the process is an assembly line: One person does this, hands the ballot to the next person, and it goes around the table until enough are in the pile, and then it goes to the tabulator, i.e., the counting machine, about the size of a photocopier. So: These two challengers, per table, are free to wander around and observe this to their hearts’ content. Poll watchers could also observe, but I’m not sure what their rules and restrictions are. I do know that there was a capacity limit, because of Covid but also because these people are working, and need to work efficiently, and having a bunch of people breathing down their necks is not conducive to that.
What happened was, at some point in the night, rumors began to fly around social media. I saw them around midnight, when I was trying to settle into some sleep. Someone just dropped off a box of 30,000 ballots out of nowhere! Need challengers at TCF Center NOW!!! That sort of thing. From what my friend at the dress shop said, these were military ballots, which they were told would be arriving. They were expected and they had staff to count them. Then, rumors being what they are, this figure ballooned to 130,000 on social media, and elaborate narratives were woven around them; my favorite was some Karen on Facebook Live claiming they were delivered by “a white van, a Chrysler 300 and a Ferrari.” By late afternoon, it had gotten ridiculous — people were arriving at the TCF Center and demanding to be admitted, but weren’t because the room was at capacity and work was ongoing.
So — and this is the part you might have seen on the news — these lunatics stood outside the glass walls of the counting room and began banging on the windows, howling Stop the count!, etc. The call had gone out to College Republicans at U-M and Hillsdale, and they all piled in cars to join the party. Imagine the scene: About 500 election workers, mostly black and female, working a locked-in shift, trying to get through 160,000 ballots, while Hillsdale students, freelance preachers, drama queens and assorted Karens and Kens — all of them white — screamed at them on the other side of the glass. I put together this aggregation this morning, before my sense of humor deserted me.
Then the police put up pizza boxes and poster paper on the glass walls to block the view, and they really went insane.
All this is over now, but the White House has spent the day whipping things up, and oh look what was just tweeted 15 minutes ago:
“Kid Rock’s restaurant is closed. You can go home now.” Counterprotesters in Detroit are taunting militia members who have shown up at the convention center pic.twitter.com/Xba8fMNrWW
— Moriah Balingit (@ByMoriah) November 5, 2020
I am so, so, SO sick of this.
I’ve gone on long enough. But this is where we are as a country, and it’s not over yet, and it might even be getting worse.
I hope those healthy balances in everyone’s 401K was worth it.
Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on November 5, 2020 at 9:01 pm
Great overview, Nancy. Thank you.
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LAMary said on November 5, 2020 at 9:22 pm
The trump address to the nation was awful. Not just because it was all lies, or that it was racist, or that he offered no proof of anything he was saying. It was awful because he was encouraging the faithful to go bang on those windows or worse.
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Sherri said on November 5, 2020 at 10:49 pm
Four million more people voted for Biden, yet here we are sweating out a stupid artifact invented to preserved slavery.
Add together the populations of Wyoming, Vermont, Alaska, and the Dakotas, and you don’t get 4 million.
It. Is. Always. About. Race.
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Andrea said on November 5, 2020 at 11:12 pm
Thank you for doing this work and for sharing your insights and experience with us. The deliberate disinformation campaign is insidious and disgusting. And yes, Sherri, I agree it is all about race.
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Mark P said on November 6, 2020 at 12:06 am
I was pretty skeptical about Georgia’s voting process because it’s being run by a Republican secretary of state, but I am feeling a lot better about the process after having seen a lot of responsible reporting about it. You may have heard about the stupid suit brought by stupid Republicans because some stupid Republican said they saw a bunch of invalid ballots placed with a bunch of valid ballots. A judge heard some testimony from election officials about real life and simply dismissed the suit.
I just checked the Georgia results (just before midnight), and Biden is less than 2000 votes behind Trump. The stupid Libertarian has 61,000 votes, but I’m guessing she took those from Trump, since most Libertarians are just Republicans who add odd to stupid.
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Sherri said on November 6, 2020 at 1:21 am
So, Mark, should we all move to Georgia for a few months to vote in the runoff?
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Dexter Friend said on November 6, 2020 at 5:08 am
Thanks Deborah, Connie, and Dorothy for the thoughts. Connie, if it does come to amputation, I’ll contact you through here.
My daughter has cancer reconstruction surgery (it seemingly never ends)in a few hours and cannot possibly help in Carla Lee’s transportation to Defiance on Tuesday, so it will be a true all-nighter for me, leaving here at midnight, going to pick her up, and getting her to Defiance by like 7:00 AM. I would gladly pay for an Uber but she needs a big sedan to ride in with that knee. I dream of a personal helicopter sometimes. No, I never piloted one, but I flew in many.
So…Biden closing in. Georgia is in play, Pennsylvania back in play. I am disappointed in Ohio voters. We’re red now. Trump still off his rocker, the networks and msnbc both cut away when Trump started making shit up again. We are all sick of this bullshit. A woman made small talk in the first waiting room Wednesday as I waited for my wife. She started praising Jim Jordan. But I was cool. Everybody’s got an opinion.
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alex said on November 6, 2020 at 7:25 am
Biden’s now leading in Georgia. And in Michigan it’s reported that Trump got more votes from Detroit than any Republican presidential candidate ever has, and he’s still losing bigly (and sorely).
Looks like it’s gonna be another lovely summerlike day here and I’ll have to discipline myself to stay at my desk and put in my obligatory eight hours, even though I’d rather go play.
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FDChief said on November 6, 2020 at 8:04 am
Confronted between the choice of a bland corporate technocrat who would put in place the sort of commonsense public health measures that have tamped down a pandemic disease in places as far apart as Germany and South Korea, and a raging, thieving, lying dumpster fire of a hominid whose insane incompetence has helped kill a quarter of a million of their fellow citizens, nearly half of the U.S. public screamed “FUCK YES!!! I WANT MORE PLAGUE!!!”
I don’t care how much you love your guns, or your God, or your tax cuts.
It’s the fucking Plague!
Half the goddamn US public can’t vote to escape the fucking 14th Century.
Jesus wept.
Actually…I do have this to say; the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate is someone named “Jo Rae Perkins”. There’s a picture of her at her website holding up a little sticker that reads “WWG1WGA”
I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you’re not sunk ass-deep in the wingnut fever swamp, so you won’t recognize the acronym from little sticker she’s holding.
It’s a QAnon thing; “Where we go one, we go all”.
Yep. Perkins is a QANut. A drooling, gibbering looney who has no business being let off Monkey Island, much less into the U.S.Senate. And yet…
Oregon is listed by Teh Google as containing about 4.2 million people.
As of this morning a total of 2,125,047 had voted in this race.
That ‘s about 50.6% of the people in Oregon. Let’s assume that about a quarter are underage, or otherwise unable to vote legally. That brings the total up to about two-thirds, 67%.
Respectable, but, still…in the most consequential election in our generation a third of the supposed “citizens” couldn’t be arsed to request, or complete, a paper ballot.
And of the group that did, about 835,000 voted for this loon. That’s roughly 26% of the vote.
That’s the Crazification Modulus. That was the “approval” percentage Dick Cheney was riding in 2008, after eight years of nonstop lies, bullshit, and fuckery.
That’s what this loon got twelve years later.
I don’t care how much you love your guns, or your God, or your tax cuts.
This nitwit has no more business in the U.S. Senate that she does being the Dragon Queen of Bhutan. And if you think she does, YOU have no business being allowed to handle firearms, operate a motor vehicle, or vote in a democratic republic.
You’re demonstrably completely fucking unfit to associate with actual humans.
And these hominids are a quarter of the U.S. public and half the nutbag of hammers who voted for MOAR PLAGUE! who voted for this loon.
I have no idea how the hell you run a democratic republic with a quarter of the occupants utterly bugnuts crazy. Ever tried to do something difficult and complex with ONE person in the room bouncing around in a freaking gibbering frenzy?
Now try it with a quarter of the room doing that.
Back in the old Intel Dump days those of us not drunk with the Dubya Kool-ade had an acronym for it, and I think it’s appropriate for the moment:
WASF.
We are so, so, so, so, SO, SO Fucked.
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FDChief said on November 6, 2020 at 8:06 am
I’m so sick of Trump.
Makes me hope that Biden will be in some staff meeting where one of his legal staff brings up some Trump thing and Biden snarls “Will no one rid me of this meddlesome shitgibbon?” and six hours later Kamala Harris, Huma Abedin, John Hickenlooper, and Robert Reich show up at Mar-a-Lago and beat Trump to death with rolled-up back-issues of Spy magazine.
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Mark P said on November 6, 2020 at 8:29 am
Sherri, yes, please come and establish residence in Georgia and vote in the Senate runoff! I’m afraid we won’t be able to pull off an upset. The Democratic Party should bring 10,000 people in to make sure EVERYONE votes.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on November 6, 2020 at 8:43 am
My wife tells me no, we can’t take our retirement and buy a small TV station in Georgia. But oh my, the ad dollars that are going to fly down there with TWO runoffs and no good way to get at voters other than on the air.
Still waiting on the military mail-in ballots before I breathe a sigh of relief for the Peach State. Fort Benning could be a wild card there.
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4dbirds said on November 6, 2020 at 9:13 am
Thank you Nancy. That was a great description. Also Dexter, I am so sorry you are going through this nightmare. I can empathize since I too am stressed to the gills by my daughter’s brain tumor treatment and her wildly erratic behavior caused by said tumor.
I follow James Woods on twitter. He is a pretty good poker player so that’s why I first followed but his politics are idiotic. I troll him now when he tweets.
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4dbirds said on November 6, 2020 at 9:15 am
I mean really? Voter fraud? Why didn’t we fraud our way to win the Senate?
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Deborah said on November 6, 2020 at 9:26 am
Has a date been set for the Georgia Senate runoff? I will be giving money for sure. Has Perdue dipped below 50% yet triggering a second runoff? We have friends who moved from Chicago to an island off the coast in GA near Savannah when they retired, they must be ecstatic.
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Mark P said on November 6, 2020 at 9:42 am
Jeff (tmmo) I just realized we’re going to have another couple of months of political ads. Crap!
But Raphael Warnock has a great one. At the end he’s holding a beagle, and he says, “And, by the way, I love puppies.” That was so cool and unexpected. Compare to Brian Kemp’s gubernatorial ad where he threatens to shoot his daughter’s potential boyfriend, and another failed Republican senatorial candidate who appeared with a gun. I wonder if any Republicans get it. Nah. Too subtle.
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Julie Robinson said on November 6, 2020 at 10:07 am
Deborah, the Georgia runoffs are January 5, 2021.
It was quite a moment when NBC broke into 45’s “speech” and you could see the steam coming from everyone’s ears as they refuted his claims. A couple of days ago I said I was numb, but I think it’s become more zen now. I have no idea why, because I agree with everyone’s outrage. I guess it’s the peace that passes all understanding.
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Jeff Borden said on November 6, 2020 at 10:22 am
tRump looked terrible in his “lie conference” last night, which all TV news organizations except CNN and Fucks simply dropped while the Orange King was still flinging poop at the camera. He looked especially orange, but sounded haggard, tired, dispirited. He’s one of the most unaware people to ever walk the earth, but perhaps it is finally dawning on him that he’ll soon be shorn of his federal protection and will face a mountain of legal and financial obstacles when he returns to private life. I hope so.
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Sherri said on November 6, 2020 at 11:00 am
Another story from the TCF Center: https://twitter.com/juliecmoroney/status/1324558603961991169
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Scout said on November 6, 2020 at 11:06 am
All you journos will appreciate this Kenyan journalist describing the US election using the tropes Western media deploys in Africa:
https://twitter.com/gathara/status/1324530587294728193?s=20
Speaking of Twitter, I am in Twitmo for a week because some snowflake reported a tweet of mine saying that DT will not be able to run in 2024 because he will either have choked on a Filet of Fish or he’ll be in jail. Apparently that was considered ‘threatening violence’. Whatever.
But hey, nothing can get me down now that Joemala are headed to 306!!! Who will be the first to call it, I wonder?
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Sherri said on November 6, 2020 at 11:15 am
I don’t know when the media will call Biden president, but I know the moment they knew the race was over and trump had lost. That was when they all started cutting away from his remarks and calling him a liar in headlines.
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LAMary said on November 6, 2020 at 11:20 am
The Q presence on social media has either grown or they’re just more vocal. I’ve been told about Biden’s pedophilia and murdering nature a half dozen times. When I disagree about the veracity that statement I’m told to do the research. Biden has been known for years as someone with a great deal of empathy. Among all of trump’s shortcomings, and there are plenty of them, the lack of empathy is the one that stood out to me. No empathy for caged children, no empathy for people sick and dying of Covid. It’s astonishing. Over 200,000 dead and no compassion or sorrow. He’s gone through the motions while sticking to the script on a couple of occasions, but it was not genuine. So while I’m not ecstatic about Biden and I will beyond happy to see the orange turd get flushed, I am grateful that we will have leader who understands that every death is one of us and that every lost child belongs to all us.
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alex said on November 6, 2020 at 11:28 am
LAMary, I’ve been seeing the same kind of crap. The laptop story has been twisted into a child porn story. All sortsa nutso-kookoo. You can’t argue with these idjits and they all say “do the research.” They might as well be saying drink the Kool-Aid. My parents have pretty much lost a lifelong friend who’s talking cray-cray and insists that they need to “do the research.”
Not looking forward to our return to the office. I can’t have a civil discussion about anything with people who are going to insist that the election was stolen and the media are covering it up.
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David C said on November 6, 2020 at 11:29 am
I think the runoffs being two months away is the best thing ever. tRump isn’t going to do anything to help because he’ll be whining about his own problems and he’s going to keep doing shit that’ll motivate Dems to show up. Sorry everyone in Georgia for the ads I’m going to help pay for but you’re going to have to take one for us.
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Deborah said on November 6, 2020 at 11:48 am
Julie, because you said “runoffs” does that mean Perdue is expected to continue to be below 50%? Mark P and JC is this true, I think you both live in GA?
Edit: I realize there will be a runoff between Warnock and whatever her name is.
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Jakash said on November 6, 2020 at 11:49 am
I just think it’s impressive how nn.c has managed to place correspondents in so many key locations throughout the country, the Proprietress herself right at one of the centers of the storm with this fine post. I guess the Philadelphia source, whoever they may be, has been on a bender — rightfully so. 😉
The “do the research” line is so infuriating, when the folks uttering it can’t be bothered to read a fucking newspaper.
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Mark P said on November 6, 2020 at 11:49 am
David C, I’m not looking forward to two months of ads, but I’m going to help pay for them, too. And I’m going to urge every person I meet who’s not an old white man to vote in the runoffs.
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LAMary said on November 6, 2020 at 11:51 am
The pedophilia stuff has been Q’s thing for years. The laptop ploy was clearly designed to feed into it. One of my sons was sucked in, partially, for a while back in June. I talked him off the ledge. He was convinced that both Clintons, both Obamas, Biden, Pelosi, Shumer etc. were all pedophiles. He wanted to know why people weren’t marching in the streets protesting elites being pedophiles. He’s not stupid. I have no idea who pumped that crap into his brain but he’s over it. He never bought into JFK Jr and Osama bin Laden being alive and living in Texas, or that Obama had all the members of Seal Team 6 murdered so they wouldn’t reveal that they killed an Osama bin Laden body double.
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Suzanne said on November 6, 2020 at 11:58 am
My son was watching FOX during the Trumpian meltdown just to see what they would say and he said even they stopped airing it.
I agree with so many of you about the impossibility of reaching out to people who don’t share the same reality we inhabit. How can you have a rational conversation with someone who isn’t rational? My father, who passed in July, had dementia so having a real conversation with him was impossible. I feel the same about most Trump supporters. It’s like talking to someone with a non-working brain.
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Jakash said on November 6, 2020 at 12:29 pm
The devolution on the Right has briskly proceeded from the relative sanity of the “I am not a crook” crook, to the crookedness of the Iran-Contra guy to the cluelessness of the “Mission Accomplished” guy to the evil of the “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president” guy to the utter incompetence and treason of the reality-tv host guy. That this devolution has now reached the point at which Republicans are putting QAnon loonies in the U. S. Senate seems pretty on-brand. Heck of a job, Fox News.
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Sherri said on November 6, 2020 at 12:32 pm
I’m not wasting my time and efforts with trump supporters. Without shared values and a shared reality, there is no basis for relationship.
Instead, I’m going to work to diminish their power, and strengthen the power of the marginalized. I’m going to call out white supremacy even when it makes people uncomfortable, I’m going to challenge the status quo and ignore the whining of people unwilling to relinquish power they think is their birthright.
I don’t have to cut them out of my life, but I don’t have to tolerate their bigotry just because they’re “good people.” One advantage of my upbringing is that I learned early that being a good person didn’t mean you couldn’t be a racist, though they liked to think so.
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Sherri said on November 6, 2020 at 12:48 pm
Two thoughts:
I certainly hope we see lots of NYTimes profiles about the voters who flipped Georgia, like we saw about all those trump voters in 2016.
I’m already seeing Dems saying we went too far left, oh no! Bullshit. Liberals spend way too much time worrying about how conservatives will paint them. What they fail to realize is, it doesn’t matter, conservatives will paint them that way even if they have to make it up!
Dems need to get out of their heads and take a few strong stands and run like hell on them, and center the base, not disaffected Republican white men. Ignore what the other side says and does, stick to your message, and turn your people out. Give them a reason to believe.
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LAMary said on November 6, 2020 at 12:56 pm
My favorite aunt had dementia for couple of years before she died. She was moved into a nursing home and I sent her flowers on her birthday. She said she never got them. I called the nurses station. They told me she got them and even described the bouquet to me. I had some specific things I wanted included in the bouquet and those things were in the description. So I figured it was just part of her dementia and let it go. Next time I talked to her she told me that a little man was getting into her room through the keyhole and was eating her cookies and fruit and moving her belongings around. I talked to the nurses again and they said that sort of thing was common. So ok. I called my extremely way out there right wing brother and told him that our aunt was imagining some pretty odd things. He told me I was lying or that the nurses were lying. That our aunt was totally lucid. No amount of gently saying, no, she’s pretty far into some other zone convinced him. He told me to stop talking to those nurses. They’re probably stealing her stuff and he’s not surprised since they were all black. He really got worked up about it. He’s very trump positive btw. He was throwing all sorts of crazy statistics about mail fraud issues with voting, about ballot harvesting and tossing in some Q-ish stuff about Biden and Hillary and Obama. My brother and I have different politics but this was scaring me. I told him to step away from the Murdoch media.
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Sherri said on November 6, 2020 at 1:41 pm
This is a good idea.
https://twitter.com/AnandWrites/status/1324781937530183681
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Sherri said on November 6, 2020 at 3:31 pm
Another person who deserves a shoutout in Georgia for fighting against the voter suppression efforts is Andrea Young, the ED of the ACLU affiliate in Georgia. She has revitalized that affiliate in the last several years and is doing amazing work.
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LAMary said on November 6, 2020 at 3:35 pm
I read Andrea Young as Andrew Young at first. I guess she’s his daughter. The one short bio I read mentioned collaborating with him on a book.
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Suzanne said on November 6, 2020 at 4:02 pm
I find this hilarious but hoping it doesn’t give tRump any ideas
https://twitter.com/kurteichenwald/status/1324792290825637888?s=21
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Sherri said on November 6, 2020 at 4:30 pm
Andrea is Andrew’s daughter, and she’s been a transformative leader at the ACLU of Georgia, after the previous leader quit because she disagreed with the organization’s stance on transgender people. I just saw her on an ACLU town hall, and was reminded again of how impressive I find her every time I see her.
Anthony Romero, the national ED, shared something that brings a smile to his face and made me laugh out loud: thinking about Dreamers to nominate to take over Stephen Miller’s office, after a thorough fumigation.
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Charlotte said on November 6, 2020 at 5:21 pm
Welp, our state-wide races were a huge bummer here in MT. Looks like we’re getting a sales tax, losing the Medicare extension and Gianforte’s ginning up to sell off whatever public lands he can get away with. But at least weed will be legal!
On the other hand — Bullock hasn’t been shy about lobbying for Interior (or Ag) and he’d be a terrific secretary of either. I was hoping for a Dem governor so we could put Tester up for Ag — the idea of an actual working organic rancher at Ag is kind of my dream — but we can’t lose him in the Senate.
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Dave said on November 6, 2020 at 6:32 pm
Dexter, I unfriended a guy over Jordan. He posted that Jordan is a great patriot and anyone who disagreed could unfriend him right now. No problem. He sent me an e-mail a while later and asked me if I was ok.
I thought Jesus told Pat Robertson that Orange was going to win. I guess we can add that to the list of things Jesus lied to Pat about.
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Jakash said on November 6, 2020 at 6:40 pm
You know, there’s been a lot of wild-eyed talk about the similarities between America during Trump’s reign and Germany under the Nazis. But, c’mon, there are huge differences. For instance, in the last free election in Germany, in 1932, the Nazis only got 33% of the vote. Then Germans never really had another chance to vote Hitler out.
Meanwhile, here in the land of the free and the home of the brave, where “antifascist” is now supposed to be a bad word, our rickety system survives. Voters had a chance to see what our Fuhrer-wannabe was up to and take action! After 4 years of watching him embarrass the nation on an almost-daily basis, seeing his racism, corruption, and incompetence in a crisis, they knew what they had to do. And the patriotic burghers across the land took their second opportunity to reject this divisive regime and … gave their cult leader 7 million more votes than last time. Ain’t that America.
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LAMary said on November 6, 2020 at 10:38 pm
I’m going to go out on on a limb and say that Pat Robertson lied about Jesus telling him anything at all about the election.
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Sherri said on November 7, 2020 at 2:17 am
Can anybody make an argument for the Electoral College that doesn’t break down to preserving white supremacy?
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Jeff Borden said on November 7, 2020 at 10:43 am
Sherri,
Nope. The GOP makes it all about “giving smaller states a voice” and they’ll fight tooth and nail to preserve the Electoral College because it has been a boon to the party.
Six 1988, Republican presidential candidates have only won the popular vote once: W. over Kerry in 2004. But twice in that time the EC has awarded them the presidency, which has gifted us with a hard-right SCOTUS, the aftermaths of the Iraq War and the housing meltdown of 2008 along with the ensuing Great Recession and the scandalously terrible response to the coronavirus and our current economic downturn, not to mention a greatly diminished standing internationally.
So, yeah, the Electoral College has really worked out great. For Republicans.
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LAMary said on November 7, 2020 at 11:19 am
Matt Gaetz has covid 19. Clearly he’s been listening to trump for his medical advice.
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Sherri said on November 7, 2020 at 11:31 am
The small state argument gets repeated like it means something, but what small states have ever had a voice due to the EC? Iowa and NH do, because of their early primaries, not the EC. Nevada, I guess, but not really; the only reason it’s meager 6 EC votes haven’t been called for Biden is some outlets have called Arizona and some haven’t, and so no one wants to get too far ahead in declaring Biden the winner.
Arizona and Wisconsin are the only other two swing states that are outside the top quartile in population, at 14 and 20.
It was about giving “small” states a voice when those states enslaved a significant fraction of their population and didn’t want to outvoted on that subject. It was never about giving Rhode Island a voice.
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Deborah said on November 7, 2020 at 11:34 am
Mark Meadows has the virus too. Maybe quarantine will keep them out of the picture for a while, but I guess they can still tweet and use Facebook to get their vile messages out.
Totally off topic: have you guys been able to find Jonathan apples? I can’t find them anywhere in Chicago, not even the farmers markets. All I’ve seen everywhere are those gigantic types like honey crisp, which are delicious but so enormous you can hardly open your mouth wide enough to get a bite out of one. Strawberries and blueberries are also ginormous these days. With strawberries it has changed the way they taste, to the negative.
And since I’m on the topic of not being able to find something: I can’t find skinny denim jeans in dark brown, I’ve been looking for ages, for dark grey too. I found dark green ones in NM, but mostly they just have blue (overwhelmingly) and black. I have seen some bright red and pink ones, but no thanks. I must be the only one who wants dark color in jeans besides.
HOLY SHIT! Wow as I’ve been typing this Biden has won!!!
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Heather said on November 7, 2020 at 11:35 am
Well, it’s official. BYEDON!!!
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David C said on November 7, 2020 at 11:48 am
Finding apples, unless you want Honeycrisp, is getting infuriating. I don’t think it’s that good of an apple. We took our annual trip down to Weston’s Antique Apples in Milwaukee to get Northern Spies and Cortlands. We could always find Cortlands up here but not this year.
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Dorothy said on November 7, 2020 at 11:49 am
At last we can all breathe correctly again – it might be a little shaky until Inauguration Day but boy howdy it feels marvelous, doesn’t it?!
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Deborah said on November 7, 2020 at 12:05 pm
I want the media to stop letting us know Trump’s every move from now on. I don’t care what he thinks or does from here on out, and I sure as heck don’t want to hear about it. I want focus on what Biden and Harris are doing, every single second.
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Sherri said on November 7, 2020 at 12:19 pm
First woman elected to the Vice Presidency. Bout Damn Time.
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Sherri said on November 7, 2020 at 12:45 pm
When his term expires, he’ll lose his biggest platform: Twitter.
https://twitter.com/williamlegate/status/1324512677033660416
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susan said on November 7, 2020 at 12:49 pm
Fittingly, FatNixon was off playing golf when his number came up: LOSER!
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on November 7, 2020 at 1:03 pm
Buying some groceries early before the Saturday rush for a few elderly households, and I was surprised as I went in to see two police officers at one door of the big box store, three at the other as I left. Heading to deliver my pick-ups, the other big box down the main drag was likewise secured. Word had gone out to batten down hatches here in our bright red locale; the twin city to our south I learned on social media is likewise guarded. Passed a Trump truck train on the highway as I headed home before hearing the news flash about the big guy on the golf course. Guiltily, I am so glad I don’t have to go to any church in this county tomorrow. My messages online are clogged with angry queries as to how I feel about turning the nation over to God-hating rioting deviants . . . I feel fine for the country, thank you very much, but I don’t feel as at home here anymore. Ironically, just two weeks after selling my childhood home. Looking forward to hunkering down and listening to Joe tonight at 8 pm, but I suspect around me most will be watching the Buckeyes game which starts at the same time!
Charles Pierce on Twitter had a good one: I hope they told him on his backswing.
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Marge Taylor said on November 7, 2020 at 1:13 pm
Debra, a hint on the strawberries, when you clean the berry, add sugar free
Jello. This gives the berries a strawberry taste. These are raised to
last on shipping, not flavor.
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Mark P said on November 7, 2020 at 1:59 pm
Have you seen the joyful crowds in DC? BIGGEST CROWDS EVER TO CHEER FOR A SITTING PRESIDENT’S LOSS!
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Peter said on November 7, 2020 at 2:20 pm
“Hey Joe, did Trump call to congratulate you?”
“No, I called him – I told him the only way he’s going to get to 270 is if he loses 80 pounds.”
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Deborah said on November 7, 2020 at 2:41 pm
I went to 2 different Bank of America places near us and they are completely boarded up can’t get in at all and I don’t do online banking. Damn.
Lots of cars honking on the streets.
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Jakash said on November 7, 2020 at 2:53 pm
I can’t say that our long, national nightmare is over, but this will do for now. Quite a relief.
In the “there’s a tweet for everything” category, there are a number of tweets for what might transpire soon.
Daniel Dale: “It remains very possible that Biden will earn 306 electoral votes, precisely the number Trump earned in 2016 before faithless electors. Here’s how Trump has described such an Electoral College total:”
Spoiler alert: 306 was a “landslide.”
https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/1324748924591181831
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LAMary said on November 7, 2020 at 2:58 pm
I’ve been seeing three sort of new apple varieties: Jazz, Envy and Disney. None of them bad but none of them great either. Not seeing any Jonathans or MacIntosh.
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Sherri said on November 7, 2020 at 4:03 pm
If a Dem billionaire wanted to do some good, they could pay a bunch of people to move to GA right now and register to vote.
But billionaires are probably happier with divided government.
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Mark P said on November 7, 2020 at 4:10 pm
A Democratic Senate win is possible in Georgia, but every eligible Democratic voter has to vote. Every single one.
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Maria said on November 7, 2020 at 4:16 pm
If anyone here lives in the Virginia-Maryland-Pennsylvania area, farmers markets have Cortlands, Staymens, Northern Spy, Granny Smith, Pink Lady, as well as honey crisp. The farmer we buy from lives near Gettysburg.
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ROGirl said on November 7, 2020 at 4:35 pm
I like jonagolds. They’re firm and crisp, slightly tart.
And the fat fuck is a loser!
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Deborah said on November 7, 2020 at 4:51 pm
Went to 2 more Bank of America places and no luck, all 4 we went to today near us were boarded completely up.
Michigan Ave is bursting with happy people, honking, dancing, cheering. It’s wonderful.
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LAMary said on November 7, 2020 at 4:58 pm
Pink Lady apples are really good. They were available here last year but I haven’t seen them yet this year. When I lived back east we used to go apple picking and we got romes, macintosh, cortlands.
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Little Bird said on November 7, 2020 at 5:06 pm
Best comment I’ve seen all day: Live your life in such a way that the entire planet doesn’t dance in the streets when you lose your job.
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Sherri said on November 7, 2020 at 5:34 pm
Do I have to start going to Starbucks every day now, or not until January 20? And do I still get the taco truck on my corner from 2016? (I really want my taco truck. We need more taco trucks!)
I understand some are going to call to bind up the wounds and come together as a country. Sorry, the wounds I want to bind are those inflicted by 45 and his enablers, so I’m going to be a little too busy to have time to address the hurt feelings of those who imagine themselves to be victims just because they didn’t get their way.
I’m not interested in vengeance, but I do care about accountability, and I hold them responsible for great harm.
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Deborah said on November 7, 2020 at 5:47 pm
Our friends in France have been celebrating. I read that the bells in Paris were ringing. Our friends in Marseilles texted us and said they were on their second bottle of champagne and it’s quite late there now. I’ve been messaging with my Chicago friend who moved to Paris and he’s ecstatic. This is all so wonderful.
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4dbird said on November 7, 2020 at 6:06 pm
I’m feeling quite pleased right now but am looking for how I can help in the Georgia special elections. If my daughter is stable, I will take vacation time to go down and knock on doors.
Barbara
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Peter said on November 7, 2020 at 6:17 pm
Deborah, the Bank of America’s by my house have been boarded up as well, and I’m a good ten miles from the Loop. Gee, you think they’re overreacting?
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beb said on November 7, 2020 at 6:40 pm
I’d like to argue with Sherri that the Electoral College wasn’t about slavery, but I don’t know enough history. I am convinced that the EC was to protect the aristocracy from the masses. The Senate was another institution that was designed specifically to counter the differences in populations between states. And I think there was a lot more deference to the states being sort of sovereign. But mostly the EC was to avoid the mob selecting a president.
What screws up the EC is the low population states of the Great Plains. These were added to to inflate the number of Republican senators to counter the rise of Democrats as Jim Crow took hold. These low voter states give Republicans a 100 vote boost in the EC
Maybe because Detroit is closer to the orchards ut we’ve had Jonathan apples in stores. Those oversize strawberries are a bane to society. We need to start talking about heirloom strawberries the way we talk about heirloom tomatoes.
Deborah@51 Sorry to be a downer but the media is wired for Republicans. As long as he is still president the media with hang on his every (demented) word. When Biden is sworn in the media will hang on the every word of the (dis)loyal opposition. They will rag on Biden the way they never did with Trump.
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Suzanne said on November 7, 2020 at 7:51 pm
This is worth your time. From Ireland
https://twitter.com/markmobility/status/1325204628850487296?s=21
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LAMary said on November 7, 2020 at 8:03 pm
I only had good strawberries once or twice this year and very few nice tomatoes other than the ones we’ve grown. I bought a box of tomatoes on the vine last week and I swear they have no discernable flavor. You could think you have a covid symptom biting into one of those tomatoes.
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susan said on November 7, 2020 at 9:01 pm
4dbird @71 – I got this email from Stacey Abrams today:
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Mark P said on November 7, 2020 at 9:33 pm
Susan — no time like the present. I just contributed to FairFight.
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susan said on November 7, 2020 at 9:58 pm
Moi, aussi, this afternoon. Enough for both Senators-to-be and Fair Fight. It would be just so swell if both Warnock and Ossoff won. That would tie the Senate. And guess who the tie-breaker would be? Heh.
DONATE!
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Sherri said on November 7, 2020 at 11:08 pm
AOC explains exactly why I haven’t contributed to the Democratic Party or the DCCC in years: because they’re incompetent.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/07/us/politics/aoc-biden-progressives.html
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Jakash said on November 7, 2020 at 11:27 pm
“it started on a golden escalator. it ended at Four Seasons Total Landscaping, an affordable local provider of home landscaping and lawn services in the greater Philadelphia area.
this is the story of President Donald Trump.”
https://twitter.com/RobDenBleyker/status/1325257998269378560
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Dexter Friend said on November 8, 2020 at 2:34 am
My trip to Britton, MI was fruitful 3 weeks ago as I snagged two huge bags of Jonathons. This year, not the exploding cinnamon-y snappy flavor like usual, but the apples had been picked 3 weeks before I got there , to Kapnick’s Orchard on Rogers Highway. Still damn good. No Cortlands for my wife. I have 45 hours before my all-nighter to Columbus and back to Defiance. It’s just the hours. I am going to take caffeinated sodas as well as my large thermos of strong black coffee. Of course my wife is nervous, and tired of these countless surgeries. Also, sad news from Las Vegas as daughter Lori is feeling very ill with those bowel surgery after-effects, after 2 surgeries. Younger daughter Vanessa’s breast reconstruction surgery was postponed until Tuesday.
And I heard those bells ringing in France; it was shown and heard on Saturday Night Live. The cast was jazzed, man, and Dave Chappelle and Foo Fighters headlined. Good stuff, brutal for Trump.
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beb said on November 8, 2020 at 4:39 am
I heard that the French churches started ringing their bells after the news that Biden had won. I so damned impressed. It wasn’t even their election but they still cheered or Biden.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on November 8, 2020 at 8:33 am
Dang. I wake up at 8 after staying up til 2 to see what else Dave Chapelle would do on SNL (after an amazing monologue, turns out not much), but I have hopes. According to Twitter, there might be some sports updates here, but no. Nothing about putt putt golf.
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alex said on November 8, 2020 at 8:59 am
Today’s banner headline in the Herald Republican, a local small-town rag: Biden Lays Claim to Presidency.
I guess “Biden Wins” would be a bridge too far for the nincompoops around here and it would result in many cancelled subscriptions.
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LAMary said on November 8, 2020 at 10:31 am
Dave Chapelle was great and I love Kate McKinnon’s Rudy Giuliani and Maya Rudolph’s Kamala Harris. The level of craziness Kate give Rudy is perfect.
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Sherri said on November 8, 2020 at 12:40 pm
An excellent Venn diagram: https://twitter.com/prof_mirya/status/1325478910608420865
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Sherri said on November 8, 2020 at 1:05 pm
Beb@73, I’d claim that the 3/5 clause is evidence that the EC was more about slavery than avoiding mob rule, but let’s look at how avoiding the popular vote winner has worked in practice.
Does the EC save us from terrible outcomes and install a better choice?
John Quincy Adams vs Andrew Jackson? Andrew Jackson was terrible, but the corrupt bargain made Quincy Adams made with Clay probably boosted the chances of Jackson winning four years later, so unclear the EC saved us anything here.
Rutherford B Hayes vs Samuel Tilden? One of the most corrupt elections ever, the deal Hayes made to get the Presidency ensured the end of Reconstruction and the beginning of Jim Crow. Terrible.
Benjamin Harrison vs Grover Cleveland? Harrison slipped in there between Cleveland’s two terms, so no, I wouldn’t call this a save.
Bush vs Gore? Enough said.
Trump vs Clinton? Obviously terrible.
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4dbirds said on November 8, 2020 at 1:59 pm
Thanks for Fair Fight’s link!
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MarkH said on November 8, 2020 at 2:02 pm
Alex Trebek has died.
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/alex-trebek-dead-after-pancreatic-cancer-battle-173556813.html?soc_src=yahooapp
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Sherri said on November 8, 2020 at 4:08 pm
I’ve donated to Fair Fight, Warnock’s and Ossoff’s campaigns, and to the New Georgia Project. Here’s a good interview with the head of the New Georgia Project: https://www.npr.org/2020/11/07/932422815/voting-rights-organizers-claim-victory-as-biden-takes-narrow-lead-in-georgia
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susan said on November 8, 2020 at 4:37 pm
Warnock
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susan said on November 8, 2020 at 4:38 pm
Ossoff
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Mark P said on November 8, 2020 at 4:49 pm
Alex lasted longer than my brother. My brother died five months after his diagnosis.
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LAMary said on November 8, 2020 at 6:34 pm
A doctor friend once told me that oncologists joke that they ask to be paid in advance by pancreatic cancer patients. Cancer humor.
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Dorothy said on November 8, 2020 at 7:08 pm
I know so many people who have died from pancreatic cancer. When Aretha Franklin died, I’m positive I saw something about Gladys Knight having it, too. But she’s still alive. My son’s father-in-law lasted about a year. A co-worker’s mom lasted 4-5 months. RBG survived it, I believe, but then she had other kinds of cancer after that.
Jeopardy has not announced a new host yet, and Alex Trebek’s last episode will air on Christmas Day I read today. His last day at work was 10/29, ten days before he passed. What a guy!
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LAMary said on November 8, 2020 at 7:58 pm
People are still partying in the streets here in LA. One of my sons was down at City Hall making noise, joining the conga lines.
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LAMary said on November 8, 2020 at 8:04 pm
Remember Kenneth Copeland maniacally blowing away Covid, eyes bulging, grinning in a deranged sort of way? Well here’s this:
https://twitter.com/RightWingWatch/status/1325513157926932480
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Icarus said on November 8, 2020 at 9:45 pm
Is it to early to worry about faithless electors?
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Dexter Friend said on November 9, 2020 at 2:33 am
Jared Kushner is advising Trump to take it to the limit as he sees a clear path to re:election. Eric Trump is jumping around right wing microphones screaming this is not over at all, and when the votes get disqualified, Trump wins. Serious. And I heard a professor on msnbc ( forgot his name) say it may be close to the day in December when the electors vote before judges silence this insane Trump clan and Joe is officially elected. Meaning the electors can’t vote until this nonsense has all been dismissed.
Not all is cheery: The Lions were slaughtered in Minnesota. This time tomorrow I’ll be driving approaching Marysville on US 33,with still an hour to go, heading to pick up Carla Lee and returning to Defiance Mercy for her surgery. I have good vision but I’m too old for this activity, all the driving.
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alex said on November 9, 2020 at 8:05 am
Anyone see any news about Jeanine Pirro getting fired by Fox? I don’t see anything confirming it but the right-wingers are posting about it on Facebook and using it as evidence that Fox is a left-wing Trojan horse.
I wouldn’t even be looking at such garbage except that my curiosity got the better of me. I wanted to see how some of my partner’s family members were handling the election. Apparently it has only made them crazier.
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