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Widdershins, we did it! The election was two weeks ago, and it was indeed a blue tsunami. 40 House seats, holy banana pants! Not to mention all the governor’s races, state houses and other awesomeness we, as card-carrying members of #TheResistance, made happen. Yay, us! (And 60 million other people.)
We deserve a break. To me, the idea of getting together with friends and/or family and eating and drinking myself into oblivion sounds really, really good right now. And I am really thankful that I have this opportunity, not taking it for granted at all.
Food-wise, I am especially looking forward to the barbecued turkey my sister-in-law’s dad makes every year. It is really good (he makes it in a Weber charcoal grill). Oddly, I am also looking forward to the fresh green beans. They are my favorite vegetable. No casserole, just yummy beans sautéed in oil, garlic and a few herbs.
What are your plans for Thanksgiving, and what are you looking forward to the most? Are you preparing this?
In case you’ve never seen this creation before, meet the TurKracken: a turkey, stuffed with an octopus, garnished with crab’s legs and artistically striped with bacon. MMMMmmmmm!
Relax and build up your strength, O Resisters. 2020 will be here before you know it, and we’ve got a lot of work to do before then!
This is an open thread.
I’m going to repeat something that every Widdershin already knows: There is no significant voter fraud in America.
The Brennan Center’s seminal report “The Truth About Voter Fraud” conclusively demonstrated most allegations of fraud turn out to be baseless — and that of the few allegations remaining, most reveal election irregularities and other forms of election misconduct. And numerous other studies have reached the same conclusion. In a recent report, “Noncitizen Voting: The Missing Millions,” the Brennan Center debunked President Trump’s claim that millions improperly voted in the 2016 election.
Yet, the topic of voter fraud always seems to be at the tip of Republican tongues, whether they be mouth-breathing MAGAs or petulant white, male, wealthy underachievers outraged that uppity wimminz and minorities would dare to vote against them.
Here’s what Democrats should do every time a Republican shitbird starts talking about this long, long debunked fairy tale in which everyone loves him, he is married to June Cleaver, who vacuums in pearls and pumps, and no black people exist anywhere:
“It’s not voter fraud that’s the problem. It’s Republican election fraud.”
Then sit back and watch the exploding heads, because no. one. ever. calls. them. on. this.
Ever.
The way I see it, we have not had an honest federal election in this country since 2000, when Gore won the popular vote by 500,000 votes, but still did not become President, because, Florida. Remember Florida, where Dubya’s paid operatives stormed down there in their Brooks Brothers shirts and demonstrated against the recount? And a Republican Secretary of State and Republican Supreme Court colluded to ensure that Bush won even though his margin was 537 votes?
Once that snarling weasel and his psychopathic VP took office, all bets were off. Electronic voting machines with no paper trails that switched votes to Bush from Kerry; gerrymandering and massive voter suppression became their M.O. And let’s not forget the Republican-controlled Supreme Court, which gutted a critical portion of the Voting Rights Act, opening the door to election fraud that was previously illegal, but now could be considered to fall into a grey area.
Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U.S. ___ (2013), is a landmark[1] United States Supreme Court case regarding the constitutionality of two provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965: Section 5, which requires certain states and local governments to obtain federal preclearance before implementing any changes to their voting laws or practices; and Section 4(b), which contains the coverage formula that determines which jurisdictions are subjected to preclearance based on their histories of discrimination in voting.[2][3]
On June 25, 2013, the Court ruled by a 5-to-4 vote that Section 4(b) is unconstitutional because the coverage formula is based on data over 40 years old, making it no longer responsive to current needs and therefore an impermissible burden on the constitutional principles of federalism and equal sovereignty of the states.[2][3] The Court did not strike down Section 5, but without Section 4(b), no jurisdiction will be subject to Section 5 preclearance unless Congress enacts a new coverage formula.[4]
Five years after the ruling, nearly a thousand polling places had been closed in the country, with many of the closed polling places in predominantly African-American counties. Research shows that the changing of voter locations and reduction in voting locations can reduce voter turnout.[5]
But even with all of the storied examples of Republican election fraud, all of which continued in 2018, our current pResident took it to a level never seen in American history when he conspired with a hostile foreign government to steal the Presidential election of 2016. Let’s face it, the Mango Moron did not win legitimately. Russia viciously attacked our election, influencing tens of millions of voters through fake news and bots on social media, hacking into Hillary’s and Podesta’s emails and leaking them for months, and invading voter databases, “not changing results.” Sure, if I were an evil tyrant roaming around voter databases for months uncaught, and I wanted one candidate to win, I absolutely would not change a thing!
So the Democrats should start talking about this, loudly and often. Perhaps some already are.
This is an open thread.
This little girl’s frustration has been yours, mine and ours…but today, it seems like she should be smiling. I’ll show you some numbers that will give you hope.
For decades, older voters have dominated the electorate in non-presidential years. But early and absentee voting among youth aged 18 to 29 has increased dramatically in several states with hotly contested races – including Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Nevada and Texas – compared to the 2014 midterm races.
(snip)
More than 35 million Americans have already cast their midterm election ballots, a 75 percent increase over the roughly 20 million who cast ballots ahead of Election Day 2014.
Nationally, voters aged 18 to 39 have nearly tripled their early voting rate since 2014. That’s increased their share of the early vote by more than 3 percentage points.
The early voting share of voters aged 50 to 64, meanwhile, has fallen by more than 2.5 percentage points. The share of those 65 and older has fallen nearly 5 points.
In Georgia, where Democrat Stacey Abrams is looking to become the first black female governor in the nation’s history, youth voters cast nearly 215,000 ballots as of Saturday – a 362 percent increase over the same point in the 2014 election, according to TargetSmart, a Democratic political data services firm.
No one knows what will happen, but…that being said, the Republicans seem resigned to losing the House. There’s a reason for that: internal polling isn’t good, plus, Independents, some GOP defectors and those over 65 seem to be going hard blue.
And Steve Schmidt has just said on Brian Williams’ show that those thinking a wave will hit the House and not the Senate, are like people thinking a tsunami will hit the Coast and miss Oregon.
Stay positive, mes amis. Whatever happens, we’ll be here together.
As Our Girl said so well, and I believe she won the popular vote (and probably the electoral college) because of it:
#LoveTrumpsHate
This is an open thread.
I am writing today’s post with tears in my eyes and fury in my heart. For over three years now, we’ve seen the horrific evil of the worst of America become ascendant, and the media deliberately turn a blind eye to it; in fact, we’ve seen them refuse to call it by its name.
Let’s be very, very clear. The modern Republican party, once home to noble public servants like Abraham Lincoln and Dwight D. Eisenhower, has become a refuge for the most deplorable sub-human creatures that ever crawled upon the surface of the earth.
There is no longer any difference between Republicans and Nazis.
Shall I present the evidence?
Amazingly, today in 2018, Nazis, neo-Nazis, Holocaust deniers, white supremacists and those who align with them are running for Congress — all under the Republican banner.
Arthur Jones of Illinois is an actual Nazi. John Fitzgerald of California is a Holocaust denier. Corey Stewart of Virginia has taken pro-Confederate and alt-right stances. Bill Fawell of Illinois thinks Israel was one of the “masterminds” of 9/11. House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) all but admitted the truth of allegations that he addressed a white supremacist rally. Reps. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) and Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) held a fundraiser in July with Holocaust denier Charles Johnson after both had previously been criticized for associating with Johnson.
And those are just some of the Republicans running for Congress. The GOP is also plagued with candidates at the state level like Steve West, who promotes anti-Semitic conspiracy theories on his radio show and said “Hitler was right.” On Aug. 7, he won a contested Republican Missouri House of Representatives primary with more than 49 percent of the vote.
Some of us, in fact many of us, saw this right away. We were able to draw a direct line from Drumpf’s entry into the 2016 race, in which he announced that Mexicans were rapists, to his descriptions of women as dogs, to his mocking of a disabled reporter, to his description of African countries as “sh*tholes,” to his description of Nazis in Charlottesville as “very fine people,” to his railing against LEGAL IMMIGRANTS and ripping their babies from their arms, through to his blatant and amoral disregard of the terrible consequences of his hateful and fearmongering rhetoric this past week.
Instead of sympathizing with Democrats and the news media who have been targets of assassination, he doubles down and continues to attack them. Instead of respecting the wishes of the Jews in Pittsburgh and staying away, he decides to punch back by insisting he will come “grieve with them.” Spare us all! This sociopathic slimeball has never grieved for anything or anyone except himself and his vast echoing hungry shell of a heart. He is an excrescence on the sphincter of humanity.
Donald Trump, like his father, is a Nazi. He has always been a Nazi. He will always be a Nazi. He is running on the Nazi platform of “blood and soil:” ‘pure’ white blood and American soil is what all of his campaigns are about. Make America Hate Again is his true slogan.
The news media would do well to remember that, while the primary targets of Nazis were indeed Jews (some in my family, in fact), there were many more that did not fit Hitler’s idea of what human beings should look like. Romanians. Catholics. LGBT. They were all targets of Nazi rage. Why did no one want to admit the ideological connection until 11 Jews died while naming a baby? (Sorry, crying again.)
As Republicans continue to call out to hatred and fear of The Other, let’s hope more and more pundits and journalists have the courage to call them out for being Nazis. This hate speech has thrived long enough.
Hillary’s campaign was prescient. She said “Love Trumps Hate.” And it must.
We must remove Nazis from our public airwaves, from our state houses and from our federal government.
And we must never, never forget that the First Amendment does not protect the man calling “Fire” in a crowded theater.
This is an open thread.
Hello Widdershins, and happy Tuesday!
This is going to be a short one. Hang in there, all. Take care of yourselves, and eat your Wheaties. We’ve got voting and volunteering to do!
This is an open thread.
Hello Widdershins! This past Sunday, Mr. MadamaB and I went to an Indivisible GOTV event in San Francisco. I thought I’d share how it went with you.
The event was a postcard/letter writing party at a local bar. (It’s a fun place – Tommy’s Joynt.) It started out a bit rocky. We arrived on time, but as more and more people arrived, we were still waiting for the organizers. It turned out that there was a mix-up – we were supposed to have gone to another place (Standard Deviant – cute name, eh?), but never got the memo. As I quoted at the time, “I don’t belong to an organized political party – I’m a Democrat.”
Eventually we got in touch with one of the event’s leaders, and she came to Tommy’s with supplies in hand. She told us that while postcards are good, the data has shown, the letter is better!
The way it works is, you have a form letter with a few empty spots you fill in, for that personal touch. On Sunday, we were writing to registered Democrats in Florida who don’t typically vote in mid-term elections. (Yes, I know – Florida. These were residents of Miami and Miami Beach, so I think they had mailboxes – and houses.) At the bottom of each letter is a different addressee’s name and address, and we hand-addressed each salutation. The text of the letter is mostly filled in, and is encouraging and non-partisan.
It was up to us to write something personal after the sentence, “I vote in every election because…” and we couldn’t write things like, “I’m not a f*cking ingrate” or “I care what happens to this country, unlike you” or “You didn’t vote in 2016. The Mango Moron is your fault!” SIGH. They’re quashing my creativity! So I wrote two things, either “I am proud to live in a country where voting is my right and privilege” or “I want high-quality health care for everyone,” depending on my mood. Hubby wrote “the future of this nation is in our hands.”
At the bottom we signed our first names, and then we hand-addressed each envelope, hubby complaining all the way. (Yes, our hands got tired. Amazing how we’ve all gotten used to typing, right?)
I have to say, the whole experience was pretty great. We met some really nice people, including our tablemate who brought us a song to get us in the mood (she had written a version of “Swing Low” that went “Swing Left.”), and who told us she gets emails from conservative political operatives at Townhall, who are freaking out over the election. Another tablemate explained to us that she was originally from Missoula, Montana, and it’s a liberal place, and that Drumpf would NOT be welcome there. And she was right! He had to change the original location – hahahahaha.
The Bernie/Hillary divide did manifest itself a bit. There was a couple in their 30’s that came in and sat at a small table by themselves…eventually the woman started talking, and she said, “I think if everyone has a good education and health care, all our problems will be solved.”
Did I mention she and her husband were white and clearly well-off? And that they had self-identified earlier, in a shrugging and somewhat embarrassed way, as Bernie supporters?
When I heard that talking point, I couldn’t help weighing in. I mentioned that racism and sexism won’t be cured by the existence of universal health care (DUH), and that racism and sexism were key motivators for Trumpsters, and really, all Republicans now. Eventually the tension dissolved as I agreed with the point that early education, especially progressive education, can only help open peoples’ minds to other points of view. But man, these people can be thick!
Anyway, I can’t wait to do it again, and I highly recommend you go out and do something like it. It will really make you feel good, and it will do good too. We ended up, as a group, writing about 2500 letters in just a few hours. Not bad for a day’s work.
This is an open thread.
Have you all seen this video of Lady Gaga on Stephen Colbert’s show? It’s gone viral. For the words about the Kavanaugh confirmation, start around 3 minutes in.
A bell rang deep within me when Gaga said that trauma changes the brain; that the brain puts the pain in a box and shuts it, so we can survive. I realized that, since the day Drumpf stole the Presidency, I have been living with the pain of that day, and that box, while shut, has had some leaks.
Since November 8, 2016, I have lost some of my sparkle, my joie de vivre. My writing has become more direct, more bland, more generic. Satire is impossible; nothing is more absurd than the fantasy world the Republicans are trying to force down our throats. The plays I used to write don’t come out any more, as I have trouble finding humor in almost anything.
My brain functions more slowly now…I struggle to form sentences quickly and speak smoothly, as I used to. I lose focus at work, because my full heart isn’t in it. I am more prone to depression, to tears, to anxiety.
I’m a natural extrovert; yet, I’ve become more retiring, more reluctant to meet new people. I’m afraid any new person I meet may have voted for the Mango Moron, and I just don’t want people like that in my life. I don’t want to speak to them; I don’t want to sympathize with them; I don’t want to hear their excuses for voting for a racist, misogynist, authoritarian thug.
I have been changed, while the box strained and bulged and the pain and sorrow leaked through.
When the story about Dr. Ford broke, that box opened for me. All the psychic trauma of the past two years came rushing out, along with the memories of my own experiences with threatening men and sexual harassment. Online, I read countless, horrifying stories of women and men, recounting their own #MeToo moments.
Yet as terrible as this was to go through, something unexpected happened after Kavanaugh was confirmed.
I felt better. No, not just better: I felt my brain start to work again. The pall over my emotions lifted. I suddenly realized what was wrong, and that clarity gave me the strength to deal with it.
I was changed again.
Make no mistake, we are living in dreadful times. Drumpf now says he won’t fire Rosenstein. Why should he? Rosenstein helped rig the sham FBI investigation that Flake and Collins used as an excuse to vote for Kavanaugh, and Kavanaugh is the guy Trump thinks will fix any consequences of the Mueller investigation for him and his children. More than that – he will help get all of Drumpf’s dreadful, un-American initiatives past court challenges that have, so far, held them up. The Muslim ban. The transgender ban in the military. Family separation. Babies in jail. Overturning Roe v. Wade. Killing the Affordable Care Act. Deporting legal immigrants back to their “shithole countries.” Etc., etc., etc.
But there’s nothing we can do about that now. We all did everything we could, and we caused a lot of “good trouble,” as John Lewis called it. In the end, the Republicans narrowly managed to elevate their pet sociopath to the Supreme Court.
Now, we focus like lasers on getting out the vote on November 6th. Because if we can get control of Congress, impeachment will be on the table – not just for Drumpf, but for Kavanaugh.
I’m sharp, I’m feeling everything, and I’m ready to work hard for the #BlueTsunami.
How about you?
This is an open thread.
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