Election Day 2018
Willie Nelson at a September rally for Beto O'Rourke:
New York Times: "New York Times journalists are reporting from around the country as candidates make their final pitches to the voters who will help reshape the United States for the next two years.... Storms are expected to hit much of the Eastern United States on Tuesday, which could depress turnout in some places. According to AccuWeather, severe thunderstorms will pass through parts of New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia. Some wind gusts could exceed 50 miles per hour." Mrs. McC: Get out your brelly, your old Mac & your grammy's galoshes, and go to the polls. Your vote matters. These are entries from Monday. ...
... Here are the NYT updates for today.
... Here are the Washington Post's live updates.
Michelle Goldberg: "The last two years have been a stress test for American democracy, and they've revealed this country and its worst and at its best. We've seen how quickly an entire political party ... has capitulated to authoritarianism, white-nationalist demagogy and naked cruelty. Trump's Republican Party has shattered whatever was left of the civic compact binding this country together, abandoning American ideals that transcend blood and soil, and American values that transcend brute power. It's fitting that the president is closing this political season with an ad so racist that even Fox News has pulled it off the air. Yet if the past two years have given lie to the myth of American exceptionalism -- a system that elevates a person like Trump is by definition not the best in the world -- they have also revealed an enduring strain of actual American greatness.... Millions of Americans who oppose Trump have responded to him with an enormous civic revival. They have marched, organized Resistance groups, and reinvigorated American politics at every level. In the face of an existential threat to democracy, they've rededicated themselves to its practice."
** Democracy on Life Support. Ian Millhiser of ThinkProgress: "[In] the 2010 election..., Republican House candidates won the national popular vote by 6.8 percentage points and took a commanding majority as a result. Now imagine ... Democrats win the popular vote by the exact same 6.8 point margin. In this scenario, 2018 may be no less of a disaster for the Democratic Party than 2010. Thanks to gerrymandering and other factors related to redistricting, Democrats probably have to win the House popular vote by seven points in order to gain a bare majority. Republicans could suffer a crippling loss at the polls, and still walk away with a majority.... Democrats could absolutely trounce Republicans in the national popular vote -- potentially by ten points or more -- and still lose a seat or two in the Senate.... But if Republicans hold onto the House and pick up just one seat in the Senate -- a plausible outcome if the GOP loses the popular vote by 'only' 6.8 points -- they will have the votes they need to sentence thousands of Americans with treatable conditions to death. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that one version of the Republican health plan would cause 24 million people to lose health insurance by 2026. The Trump White House estimated ... 26 million." --s ...
... Paul Krugman: "It's a near-certainty that Democrats will receive more votes than Republicans, with polling suggesting a margin in votes cast for the House of Representatives of seven or more percentage points -- which would make it the biggest landslide of modern times. However, gerrymandering and other factors have severely tilted the playing field, so that even this might not be enough to bring control of the chamber.... Ugly as the scene will be if Democrats win, it will be far worse if they lose. In fact, it's not hyperbole to say that if the G.O.P. holds the line on Tuesday, it may be the last even halfway fair elections we'll ever have.... Everything we've seen says that Republicans will do anything they can to take and hold power, and Tuesday's elections may be the last chance to stop them from locking in permanent rule."
Jessica Guynn of USA Today: "Acting on a tip from law enforcement, Facebook has removed more than 100 accounts -- 30 on Facebook, 85 on Instagram -- engaging in coordinated activity in French, English and Russian, raising the possibility that foreign actors are attempting to meddle on the eve of the U.S. midterm elections. Facebook said it was alerted Sunday night to the suspicious activity that law enforcement believe may be linked to foreign entities and blocked the accounts in question. Almost all the Facebook pages appear to be in French or Russian while the Instagram accounts were mostly in English. Some were focused on celebrities, others on political debate, Facebook said."
After delivering donuts to Democratic campaign workers in Northern Virginia, President Obama speaks (in a very hoarse voice) about what's on the ballot:
Peter Baker, et al., of the New York Times: "President Trump on Monday closed out an us-against-them midterm election campaign that was built on dark themes of fear, nationalism and racial animosity in an effort to salvage Republican control of Congress for the remaining two years of his term.... Mr. Trump spent Monday barnstorming the Midwest on behalf of allies in close races, drawing loud and enthusiastic crowds of thousands. At rallies in Cleveland; Fort Wayne, Ind.; and finally ... in Cape Girardeau, [Mo.,] his remarks were laced with his usual acerbic attacks on his adversaries -- 'radical,' 'left-wing socialists,' 'corrupt,' 'the Democrat mob' -- and accusations that Democrats would raise taxes, destroy Medicare and take over the American health care system. But he again reserved his most vitriolic language for immigration, repeatedly prompting loud boos as he warned that if Democrats win, they would invite murderers to come into the United States to kill men, women and children." ...
... Annals of "Journalism," Ha Ha Ha. David Bauder of the AP: "Sean Hannity spoke from the stage of ... Donald Trump's last midterm election rally on Monday, after Fox News Channel and its most popular personality had insisted all day that he wouldn't. Hannity appeared on the podium in a Missouri arena after being called to the stage by Trump. Another Fox News host, Jeanine Pirro, also appeared onstage with the president. 'By the way, all those people in the back are fake news,' Hannity told the audience. It was an extraordinary scene after the news network had worked Monday to establish distance between Hannity and the campaign. Trump's campaign had billed Hannity as a 'special guest' at the rally, but Fox had said that wasn't so. Hannity himself had tweeted: 'To be clear, I will not be on stage campaigning with the president. I am covering final rally for the show.''... In 2016, [Hannity] was part of a Trump political video, which Fox said it had not known about in advance and told Hannity not to do so again.... Hannity's prime-time show aired from the rally site. He played the role of cheerleader from the side as the crowd waited for Trump's appearance. He pleaded with viewers to vote Republican on Tuesday to support Trump, and his opening monologue echoed a campaign slogan seen on signs at the arena: 'Promises made, promises kept.'" ...
... The Faux News Presidency. Brett Samuels & Jordan Fabian of The Hill: "As Trump took the stage, Hannity high-fived White House communications director and former Fox News executive Bill Shine, who was observing the event from the wings of the arena.... Another Fox News host, 'Fox & Friends' host Brian Kilmeade, last month acknowledged that he mistakenly donated roughly $600 to the Trump campaign." --s ...
... Eric Wemple of the Washington Post: "One pro-Trump cheer after another has solidified 'Hannity' as the No. 1 program on cable news. And that consideration appears to outweigh any ethical concerns at Fox News that 'Hannity' has become a wholly owned subsidiary of WhiteHouse.gov. All signposts are arrayed in one direction: Hannity owns Fox News."
Voter Intimidation, Trump Edition. Ed Kilgore: "Aficionados of last-minute ElectionDay dirty tricks are familiar with a ploy Republicans have mastered over the years of intimidating voters with threats that law-enforcement officers will be giving them some extra scrutiny in the vicinity of polling places.... Sometimes this intimidation technique comes from organized and publicly identified groups like True the Vote, though more often it's deployed by anonymous schmos operating black-bag operations on the margins of politics.... It says a lot about how far this country has devolved in respecting voting rights that this year the old 'police are watching' gambit is coming from the Oval Office: 'Law Enforcement has been strongly notified to watch closely for any ILLEGAL VOTING which may take place in Tuesday's Election (or Early Voting). Anyone caught will be subject to the Maximum Criminal Penalties allowed by law. Thank you!' [-- Donald Trump, in a tweet Monday]" ...
... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: WTF does "has been strongly notified" mean? Who did the "strong notifying," & how does "strong notifying" differ from "notifying"? Who got the "strong notifications"? Local cops? The FBI? The white militia? This is Threat by Word Salad. Then again, as Ron Klain points out, word salad matters: "Hey, you know what else is illegal? Any effort to 'intimidate, threaten, or coerce any other person for the purpose of interfering with the right of such other person to vote.' (18 U.S.C. 594). Don't you think you've gotten yourself in enough trouble, already?" ...
... Update. Okay, Amy Gardner of the Washington Post just posted the answer: "President Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Monday issued strong warnings about the threat of voter fraud in Tuesday's elections, echoing the president's baseless claims that massive voter fraud marred his 2016 election and prompting accusations that his administration is trying to intimidate voters.... Sessions, in a statement laying out the Justice Department's plans to monitor ballot access on Election Day, said 'fraud in the voting process will not be tolerated. Fraud also corrupts the integrity of the ballot.'... In his statement, Sessions said the Justice Department will follow its usual protocol of sending monitors across the country to protect against voter suppression, intimidation and discrimination; this year, staff will travel to 35 jurisdictions in 19 states to monitor compliance with voting laws. In past years, Justice Department officials have not listed voter fraud as a top concern when announcing the deployment of election monitors, as Sessions did Monday.... In remarks to reporters on his way to a campaign rally in Cleveland, Trump also falsely claimed that voter fraud is commonplace.... Voting rights advocates denounced Trump's remarks as a blatant attempt to intimidate voters on the eve of Election Day -- and part of a pattern among Republicans, they said, to curtail voting access with strict rules that disproportionately affect voters of color who tend to vote Democratic."
Trump's Closing Argument. Andy Borowitz of the New Yorker (satire): "Employing the fear tactics that have typified his midterm campaigning, Donald J. Trump told a rally audience on Sunday that electing Democrats would drag the nation back to the dark days of tolerance and decorum. Trump made his closing argument to the Chattanooga, Tennessee, audience by raising the spectre of a return to the dignified and restrained discourse that plagued the nation during the regime of his predecessor, Barack Obama." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Budapest, U.S.A. David Leonhardt of the New York Times: "I was in Hungary for several days last week and was alarmed at how much the autocratic ruling party there reminded me of the Republican Party here in the United States. And the most alarming thing was how normal Hungary feels to a Westerner.... Like Viktor Orbán's Fidesz party in Hungary, today's Republican Party has repeatedly been willing to subvert democracy for the sake of power. It's the single biggest reason that Republicans need to be held accountable in tomorrow's elections.... What Orbán has done is to squash political competition. He has gerrymandered and changed election rules, so that he doesn't need a majority of votes to control the government. He has rushed bills through Parliament with little debate. He has relied on friendly media to echo his message and smear opponents. He has stocked the courts with allies. He has overseen rampant corruption. He has cozied up to Putin. To justify his rule, Orbán has cited external threats -- especially Muslim immigrants and George Soros, the Jewish Hungarian-born investor -- and said that his party is the only one that represents the real people. Does any of this sound familiar?" Mrs. McC: Leonhardt has two pieces likening Hungary to the GOP, & I borrowed from both of them in this summary. The columns are here and here.
** Jonathan Chait: "Trump Isn't Inciting Violence by Mistake, But on Purpose. He Just Told Us." Chait analyzes remarks Trump made at a rally over the weekend & to Jim Vandehei of Axios. Trump says pretty plainly that his goal in inciting violence against journalists is to frighten them into writing favorable reports about him. Mrs. McC: Think about that: a POTUS* threatening reporters' lives if they don't write pro-Trump reports. You thought it could happen only in Russia & China? It's true Trump probably won't direct a hitman to kill an American reporter; he'll keep his hands "clean" by encouraging someone else to shoot a reporter in the middle of Fifth Avenue.
Georgia. Jack Gillum, et al., of ProPublica: "Georgia Officials [Are] Quietly Patched Security Holes They Said Didn't Exist. A ProPublica analysis found that the state was busily fixing problems in its voter registration hours after the office of Secretary of State Brian Kemp, the Republican candidate for governor, had insisted the system was secure.... Kemp's campaign showed no signs of relenting Monday. 'In an act of desperation, the Democrats tried to expose vulnerabilities in Georgia's voter registration system,' spokesman Ryan Mahoney said in a statement. 'This was a 4th-quarter, Hail Mary pass that was intercepted in the end zone. Thanks to the systems and protocols established by Secretary of State Brian Kemp, no personal information was breached.' 'These power-hungry radicals should be held accountable for their criminal behavior,' he said."
... Mrs. McC: As the article makes clear, every part of Mahoney's statement is a lie. Democrats merely alerted state officials to security breaches a cybersecurity expert had discovered & which Kemp claimed didn't exist. ...
... Oh, and this from Amy Gardner's WashPo story, linked above: "Kemp also tweeted an article Monday from Breitbart, a conservative news outlet that regularly publishes right-wing conspiracy theories, claiming that 'armed Blank Panthers' support [his Democratic opponent Stacey] Abrams. The racially charged article featured photographs of black men carrying guns and holding Abrams signs." Mrs. McC: "Racially charged"? Make that "racist." See John Bowden's story, linked below.
... Zak Cheney-Rice of New York points out that Brian Kemp isn't working alone to suppress the votes of black Georgians. Ordinary white citizens, with the aid of police, are helping out Kemp.
Iowa. Steve King Not Satisfied Limiting Himself to Racist Remarks. Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Post: "Hours before he was set to appear with Iowa's governor in an election-eve rally, Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, said Monday that he hopes Supreme Court Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor 'will elope to Cuba.' King has a long history of making inflammatory comments on race and immigration." ...
... Oh, Wait. There's More. Aidan McLaughlin of Mediaite: "Rep. Steve King (R-IA) blasted the National Republican Congressional Committee on Monday for supporting a gay candidate. 'They sent money over to support a candidate in a primary in California who had a same-sex partner that they put all over glossy mailers,' King said on Monday night, in a video posted to Twitter. 'I don't know if they were holding hands or what was the deal....'" ...
... The New York Times Got Real about King. John Bowden of the Hill (Nov. 3): "The New York Times on Saturday issued an update to a news story about Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) which changed a description of his past controversial remarks to label them 'racist.' In a tweet, the Times wrote that the change was done to 'more accurately' describe King's history of remarks about immigrants and diversity, which the newspaper previously referred to as 'racially tinged.'"
Minnesota. Matt Shuham of TPM: "An incumbent Republican congressman mocked his Democratic opponent as 'manufactured' in a campaign video released Monday. But the video, which shows the congressman acting like he's canvassing voters in a suburban Minnesota neighborhood, doesn't appear to have been filmed in the congressman’s actual district. Instead, Rep. Jason Lewis (R-MN) apparently filmed it in the suburb he calls home, one district north of the area he represents in Congress.... Greg Hansen, an electrician who has volunteered for the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party in Minnesota for years, told TPM ... that when he saw the video, 'I just thought to myself, the irony of an attack on authenticity when you're door-knocking in your own neighborhood, which is in Rep. [Betty] McCollum's district, is kind of funny to me.'" --s
Wisconsin: Uh, Mark Sommerhauser of the Wisconsin State Journal reports that Gov. Scott Walker (R-Suppression) has called out the National Guard to protect voters against a Canadian invasion cybersecurity breach of voter machines. Fix bayonets, boys.
AND Leave Us Not Forget the Confederate Supremes. Matt Ford of the New Republic on "How the Roberts Court Caused Georgia's Election Mess." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: I happen to agree with the Court's opinion that the Voting Rights Act is discriminatory in that it limits pre-clearance to certain states & districts. Confederate voter suppression has crept north & (especially) west, and I think a new voting rights act should apply to all states for all forms of voter discrimination, including that effected by gerrymandering.
Niraj Chokshi & Daniel Victor of the New York Times: "An ad created by President Trump's campaign committee tying together Democrats, a notorious murderer and a caravan of asylum-seeking migrants in Mexico embroiled NBC in controversy overnight, prompting the network to backpedal and pull it from the air. Critics had denounced the ad as false and inflammatory, and CNN had refused to broadcast a longer version, calling it racist. But NBC put it up during the ratings giant 'Sunday Night Football.'... Even Fox News, which has made the caravan a staple of its midterm elections coverage, announced that it had decided on Sunday to stop running it and Facebook removed the ad, which had been targeted at users in key electoral battlegrounds, like Florida and Arizona. Mr. Trump, speaking to reporters on Monday before boarding Air Force One, said he was unaware of the controversy. 'You're telling me something I don't know about,' he said. 'We have a lot of ads and they certainly are effective, based on the numbers that we're seeing.' Mr. Trump also dismissed the complaints over the ad. 'A lot of things are offensive,' he said. 'Your questions are offensive a lot of time, so, you know.'" This is an update to a story linked yesterday. ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Nice timing, NBC. According to the story, the ad passed NBC's standards & practices tests. The network should fire the head of S&P. Meanwhile, as usual, Trump is lying. He posted a 53-second version of the ad on his Twitter account. And comparing a racist ad to journalists' questions is, of course, inappropriate, inflammatory and, well, offensive.
Benjamin Goggin of Business Insider: "Ivanka Trump ... won initial approval for 16 Chinese trademarks despite the company shutting its doors in July, according to records released by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. The trademarks are the largest grouping approved in a single month for the brand since Trump's election, and raise questions surrounding continued conflicts of interest for one of Trump's senior advisers. The applications for the trademarks, which were pertain to everything from bags to umbrellas to sausages, were filed in May 2016, but were notably not withdrawn when Ivanka's business was shuttered. But according to an unnamed source from a July report in The Washington Post, the president's daughter planned to continue to seek trademarks, even after her company shut down." --s ...
... WTF? Rebekah Entrelago of ThinkProgress: "The new trademarks will remain in her name regardless of her decision to shutter the business. Several of them will remain active until 2028 at the latest -- leaving open the possibility that the first daughter can return to the business after she leaves the White House and continue to profit off of the connections she's made there.... [T]his recent slate of Chinese trademarks, which Trump's business applied for in 2016, include some rather random and questionable items like sausage casing, nursing homes, and -- most surprisingly -- voting machines." --s
Ted Hesson of Politico: "The Justice Department on Monday petitioned the Supreme Court to intervene in several cases over the termination of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. The move comes on the eve of Tuesday's midterm elections -- and after weeks of fiery anti-immigration rhetoric from ... Donald Trump. Republican voters consider immigration a top issue and Trump has plied them with a range of hard-line policy proposals." ...
... Ian Millhiser: "Since Donald Trump took office, the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division has not filed a single lawsuit enforcing a crucial law intended to prevent racial voter discrimination. By contrast, according to a Justice Department website disclosing the Civil Rights Division's case filings, the Obama administration filed 5 lawsuits under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act -- the primary provision permitting lawsuits alleging voter discrimination on the basis of race. The second Bush administration filed 15, and the Clinton administration filed 16." --s
Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post: "Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke continued to engage in discussions involving his family foundation's property in summer 2017 despite the fact that he had pledged to recuse himself from such matters for a year, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post. At issue is an August 2017 email exchange with David Taylor, the city planner for Whitefish, Mont. Zinke authorized him to access the property and explained that he was engaged in negotiations with a real estate developer over building a parking lot on his foundation's land. But under an ethics pledge he signed Jan. 10, 2017, Zinke vowed to step down from his position as president of the Great Northern Veterans Peace Park Foundation after winning confirmation and refrain from participating in any matters concerning the group for one year. Zinke won confirmation on March 1, 2017, but state records and the foundation's 2018 annual report listed him as continuing to serve as a foundation officer months after that. Zinke later said the foundation's report was in error.... Zinke's involvement in a land development deal involving the park, backed by David J. Lesar, chairman of the oil services firm Halliburton, is under scrutiny from the Justice Department and the Interior Department's Office of Inspector General."
Miranda Green of The Hill: "Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Chief of Staff Ryan Jackson on Monday told employees that the EPA 'has no tolerance for racism' and will investigate recent incidents of offensive words scrawled on whiteboards at the agency's headquarters in Washington.... Jackson also asked the inspector general's office to investigate the racist messages, which include the N-word and were first reported by Politico last week.... The all-staff email comes after reports that EPA headquarters has been battling a number of anonymously written racist messages on the whiteboard of the agency's Office of Public Affairs since the summer. Politico reported that last week's message was one of at least six since August.... In a separate instance this fall, EPA acting administrator Andrew Wheeler was criticized for liking a racist meme on Facebook.... Wheeler said in a statement provided to The Hill that he didn't remember liking the post." --s
Lydia Wheeler & Harper Neidig of the Hill: "The Supreme Court on Monday put an end to a legal battle over the Obama administration's net neutrality rules, refusing to hear an appeal of a lower court ruling that upheld the 2015 regulations. The court declined to hear the appeal from the trade group USTelecom, which represents internet service providers, and Century Link Inc. without explanation. The internet service providers, along with the Trump administration, had asked the justices to toss out the ruling from the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals." Mrs. McC: The decision is unsigned, but one can extrapolate from the report who made it: Thomas, Alito & Gorsuch opposed it; Roberts & Kavanaugh recused themselves. That leaves Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor & Kagan as the "deciders." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Mrs. McCrabbie: I recommend your reading this story in Slate by Judi Hershman, a life-long, activist Republican who travelled to North Dakota to work for Sen. Heidi Heitkamp's (D) re-election. Hershman writes about a brief encounter she had with Brett Kavanaugh when they were both working on the Starr investigation. Unless you assume women are inherently hysterical, there is no way you can believe Hershman made up the encounter. But you won't be surprised to learn Ken Starr forgot all about it. Because the old boys can't face the fact that Brett's behavior is erratic & he really likes to intimidate & frighten women.
Beyond the Beltway
Innocence Project Press Release: "After more than 14 years behind bars -- including a decade on Florida's death row -- Clemente Javier Aguirre was exonerated of all charges [Monday] in the 2004 stabbing deaths of his former neighbors Cheryl Williams and Carole Bareis. In a Seminole County courtroom, Circuit Judge John D. Galluzzo dismissed all charges against Aguirre after prosecutors announced today, in the middle of jury selection, that they will not proceed with the retrial. Aguirre, who is now 38 years old, maintained his innocence from the time of his arrest at age 24 in June 2004. He was originally convicted of the murders and sentenced to death in 2006. In 2016, the Florida Supreme Court unanimously overturned Aguirre's conviction and death sentence based on new evidence of innocence that his original jury never heard. The new evidence included DNA testing of multiple pieces of crime scene evidence that exculpated Aguirre and implicated another suspect -- the victims' daughter and granddaughter, Samantha Williams. The state Supreme Court also learned of evidence that, in the years after Aguirre's trial, Samantha Williams confessed that she committed the murders to numerous friends and acquaintances who had no connection to Aguirre. Despite the new evidence, however, State Attorney Phil Archer had announced that the state would not only retry Aguirre, but also seek the death penalty a second time. Today's decision by prosecutors not to proceed came after additional evidence undermining Williams' alibi and further implicating her emerged in recent pretrial proceedings."
Way Beyond
David Cay Johnston of D.C.Report: "A human rights organization has asked Dutch prosecutors to open a criminal investigation into multi-billion dollar money laundering schemes that they say were aided by Donald Trump's lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and his old law firm. The complaint is clearly aimed at examining how much money stolen from a former Soviet satellite ended up benefitting Trump. He is named 16 times in the complaint's footnotes. The complaint describes 'one of the biggest fraud cases ever' in which 'some of these money flows ultimately ended up in the Netherlands' because 'Dutch service providers helped to cover up the money laundering acts.'... The complaint asserts that a small slice of the missing billions was run through Dutch shell corporations with help from Rudy Giuliani's old law firm, Bracewell & Giuliani. Until 2016, Giuliani was a partner in the 470-lawyer firm." --s
Share Article
Reader Comments (16)
The mailbox lately has been tipping over with mailers and various election pamphlets from wingers all claiming to be more Trumpy than the next guy (no women on local ballots). And I’ve been noticing that candidates for local office, in addition to promising to end the scourge of Liberals trying to close their churches and defile the name of Lord and savior, Jesus Christ, (??) all tout their bond fides as warriors against the Democrat Party’s sneaky attempts at voter fraud and election rigging. On the local level!
Right.
Besides myself there are probably eight other Democrats in the entire county, which is mostly rural farmers with the usual complement of meth lab trailers. The others are the only black family in the county (I’m guessing) and a couple of 90 year old holdovers from the New Deal whom the locals deem crazy for not joining up with the Glorious Leader.
But it’s these promises to root out election fraud locally that I find truly disturbing. Trump’s lies and fear-mongering rants have filtered down to the level of dirt and gravel back roads where most people don’t even know a Democrat personally.
Once the lies become this strongly rooted in a small rural electorate, I fear they’ll never be extirpated. If a single a Democrat wins in any nearby county, it’s a lead pipe cinch that they’ll be eyed warily as cheaters who have run a successful scam on decent, god-fearing, real ‘mericans.
As the primary carrier of this anti-American, anti-democratic plague, Fox truly has a lot to answer for.
The Fat Fascist’s closing argument, the reason he demands to be handed unlimited power, his vision for the nation?
Midnight again in America.
If voters who are not already completely okay with a country whose organizing principles are bigotry, hatred, violence, murder, mayhem, and an end to participatory democracy for any American not a Kool-Aid guzzling member of the Party of Traitors do not show up today to say so, the darkness will descend over us all and snuff out the lights lit by the founders, for the rest of our lives, perhaps forever.
Rome ended because of a combination of dissolution and corruption from within and emboldened enemies from without. America may be the first great world power to kill itself.
Or it can stand up and reject the hemlock.
We’ll see today.
I gots me brelly, me old MAC and me grammy's beat up galoshes and am on my way to VOTE.
With fingers crossed and a full heart.
Soooo nervous. I have never seen or heard such vitriolic lies coming from people's mouths and written in blood. I guess there have been nasty people like this in other times, but now we get to hear and see them over and over and over. Even the ones on MSNBC who claim to be against the Orange Slimeball can't look away from these people-- I can't watch Matthews anymore because he plays more rally clips than anyone else and he ALWAYS DID, since this disaster started. On Morning Schmoe while I was putting my lunch for work together, I thought I heard 45 say that Christine Blasey Ford admitted she made the whole thing up... Did he really say that? My god. This goes beyond lies into total fabrication and probable delusion/dementia-- he needs to be put in a cave and kept there.
And with respect to the lies and vitriol coming from the right generally and the Orange Monster and his sycophants specifically, as Jeanne mentions, I have to say how completely fed up I am with the know-nothing imbeciles who think both sides are the same.
This morning I heard a bit of a person on the street interview on NPR with some idiot whining about how awful it was that both sides are so bad, they attack each other and they don't listen to the other side and there are so many problems and blah, blah, blah.
No, person of tiny intellect and zero attention span, both sides are not the same. If you want to suggest that Democrats, because they feel obliged to stand up to the lies, corruption and hatred on the right are engaging in "attacks", I have to say grow the fuck up and pay attention.
There is only one side that relies on serial lies, vote suppression, hatred, and corruption.
The other side is trying to save your rights and protect the America you grew up in.
So figure it out and vote, or shut up.
Akhilleus, regardless of the outcome, be assured that the Fat Fascist will declare victory.
°Rain and potential tornados east of the Mississippi
°God-like devotional following from his Belieber Crew
°Baffling all-time high presidential approval rating (mid-40s)
°2 years of normalizing chaos
°A campaign wholly built on mendacious lies drilled into the skulls of the unsuspecting
°The death of "facts", "truth", and fact-based science in political discourse
°An unsustainably high primed economy driven by massive debt no voter knows or cares about
°Kool-Aid fountains pouring from right-wing media
°The nation's most popular "news" network (vomit), Fox News, literally campaigning for Republicans, while all of ther MSM still practices "neutrality/both-siderism"
°Fake populism preached to the cynical and gullible
°Ever-stronger social media bubbles (filled with lies)
°Political tribalism gone mad, killing off bipartisanship
°Foreign meddling left to Mark f@kn Zuckerburg to weed out
°A 6.8% minimum handicap nationwide to overcome.
°Decades of baked-in gerrymandering and redistricting
°Judges letting blatant voter suppression slide in key states
°Massive ongoing voter suppression rackets (again thanks to the Supreme Court of "justice"
°Unashamed fear mongering and racist ploys to scare vulnerable whites
Sorry to be Negative Nancy (apologies to all the real Nancys out there), and forgive me for not believing a "blue wave" crests over all those daunting obstacles.
As negative as it all sounds (and it could be much worse--everything on Safari's litany of loutish malfeasance is, depressingly, too true), I'm hoping for a huge turnout today from decent citizens who resent their country being raped and plundered by a minority of vicious vermin and their avatar of avarice, Fat Donnie.
Here's to America!
Unlike the Trumps, we care.
To the president* it won't matter what happens tomorrow. He's
gonna declare that this was the biggest, mostest turn out in the
history of the country and all because of his greatness that he
got voters so excited (frustrated?). He'll still be president* and
all the other liars will still be there propping him up. Sad.
Should have said what happens today. We may find out tomorrow,
or not.
Well, so much for optimism.
Here are some election day updates, courtesy of Slate:
At a polling place in Michigan, a public school, officials there decided to hold an armed intruder exercise. They've told prospective voters not to be alarmed if they hear gunshots and see suspicious looking people carrying guns being chased by the police. Yeah. I'm sure that'll bring in the voters.
Assholes from El Paso (apologies to Kinky Friedman) are holding a "crowd control" exercise for the Border Patrol. Where will they be doing this? In a Latino neighborhood, natch. This should be a nice enticement to go vote, right?
As to both of these "exercises", why today? This is all last minute ratfucking.
There's more. In Detroit (home to blah people) voters going to the Martin Luther King, Jr. School were unable to vote when they showed up this morning. Someone misplaced the voting machines. Oops. Soooooorrrry.
In Maricopa County, AZ, wingers are announcing that there are "building issues" at some polling places. You can bet it's not happening in any white, Republican areas.
Expect a lot more of this all day. Election rigging is well underway.
Once again, NBC helps Trump.
Fatty became a pseudo-C list celebrity during the run of his terrible and stupid "reality" show in which he played a successful business genius (fictional show) which ran on NBC.
The other night, during Sunday Night Football (as Marie mentioned yesterday in a link), NBC ran Trump's outrageously racist ad blaming Democrats for the release of a cop killer, a murderer here illegally who was actually released by Trump BFF Sheriff Joe Arpaio. This morning it was announced that the audience for Sunday night's game was the biggest in that show's 15 year history. A huge national audience tuning in to see what was billed as the battle of two of the greatest quarterbacks of all time, Tom Brady of the Patriots and Aaron Rodgers of the Green Bay Packers.
Bear in mind that this is an ad so dementedly racist and mendacious that even Fox decided not to run it (after it had done so for a week or so). But NBC showed it to an enormous national audience.
Thanks again, NBC, for helping support fascism in the United States! Good job.
What liberal media?
Voting Problems in a Predominantly Black County in Georgia! What a Surprise!
Remember those articles about how wonderful douchebag vote suppression officials like Brian Kemp (the guy who is running for governor AND controlling who gets to vote) are doing making sure the vote is "secure"?
Well, how 'bout this?
"According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, machines in at least four voting locations in Gwinnett County temporarily went down, causing voters to resort to paper ballots. The issues further extended long lines at polling locations...Gwinnett County is the second-largest county in the state and...has gone from '67 percent white in 2000 to 62 percent nonwhite' in 2017."
Clearly Confederates in the state, under the direction of possibly soon to be Governor (ratfuck all them darkies) Kemp, have decided differently.
No word of electoral problems in white Trump districts.
Nor will there be.
Surprised?
@Ak
It's not just Georgia...
"Broken voting machines were reported in at least 12 states by noon (1700 GMT) on Tuesday, according to an “election protection” coalition of more than 100 groups that set up a national hotline for reporting irregularities."
I'm not declaring they're all cases of voter suppression, but geezus, isn't this something like the Greatest Democracy on Earth or something? And come voting day, the f@k'n machines are still locked in the closet? Or missing extension cords? Do we have the 3 stooges prepping the poll stations?
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-suppression/a-dozen-u-s-states-see-problems-with-voting-machines-rights-groups-idUSKCN1NB1D4?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2FtopNews+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Top+News%29
Here's a conspiracy theory that I made up reading that daughter
secured Chinese trademarks for voting machines, among other
things, like sausages. Daughter thinks that father will become
dictator so she will hold the manufacturing rights to all of the new
voting machines, which will be inststalled all over the country
which will only record votes for the FATuous one.
Sausages?
Bea, those bees have to be about 5 miles away or they will return to the original area.