Category Archives: Election

The Granite-Headed State

BEDFORD, N.H. — A “non-masked voting” tent in New Hampshire collapsed around midday Tuesday, sending a 72-year-old poll worker to the hospital and forcing election officials to find another option for voters who preferred to cast ballots while not wearing a mask.

...

One poll worker suffered a laceration to his face; Klein had to find a way to move “non-masked” voters into a room inside the school, safely separated from voters wearing masks to protect themselves and others from the possible spread of the coronavirus.

DB8

We watched about 30 minutes of the VP debate last night. Seemed like a pretty traditional debate, therefore boring. But what got us to turn it off was when the local Fox channel we were watching it on (they were the first channel we found that was carrying it) cut into the debate with about ten seconds of a ludicrous anti-Biden smear ad.

America’s perfection shall not be questioned, except by me

We’re discussing the legacy and persistence of racism more now than in decades. And Trump understands that all this talk about institutional racism and White privilege makes many White people feel attacked and defensive, as though they’re being personally accused of sins they feel they haven’t committed.

So in response he gives them permission to stop feeling bad. Not only will I protect Confederate statues and banish talk of racism from schools, he claims, I’ll convince everyone that the real thing we need to eradicate isn’t racism itself but talking about racism.

Call it the White Innocence Project.

...

This is the message Trump wants those supporters to hear: We’re done talking about slavery and racism. You don’t have to do any soul-searching, you don’t have to question how American institutions operate, and you sure as hell don’t have to feel guilty about anything. You, beleaguered White man, are the best there is, because you are America, not them.

Stimulus

Kevin is puzzled.

So what’s the problem? We know that the vast majority of Republicans don’t really care about the budget deficit, so it can’t be that. Relieving the financial stress on millions of voters would surely be good for Donald Trump, so partisan politics can’t be the answer. Everyone in Congress represents a state that desperately needs help, so it can’t be a geographic thing.

And yet Republicans refuse to support a serious stimulus/rescue plan. I really, truly don’t understand. Is it just habit? Automatic opposition to anything Democrats like? What on earth is the problem?

Lemme esplain.

They're going to use Dems' refusal to vote for the stimulus bill in campaign ads.

They're not going to say "Senator Foo wouldn't vote for COVID19 stimulus relief because he thought it was too skimpy." They're just going to say the first part.

You're welcome.

Delusions of Autocracy

President Donald Trump's campaign is demanding CNN retract and apologize for a recent poll that showed him well behind presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.

The demand, coming in the form of a cease and desist letter to CNN President Jeff Zucker that contained numerous incorrect and misleading claims, was immediately rejected by the network.

"We stand by our poll," said Matt Dornic, a CNN spokesman.

Vote By Mail!

Did you know that Donald Trump votes by mail? You’d be forgiven if you didn’t, especially if you’ve read any of his error-ridden tweets or watched his unhinged briefings trashing the practice.

Vice President Mike Pence also votes by mail. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has voted by mail for the last 15 years. Other senior members of the Trump administration, like Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, cast their ballots by mail, too.

Yet, for weeks, Trump has used the White House podium to denigrate the very practice he’s been taking advantage of, and he’s deployed his Republican cronies to spread mail in voting conspiracies to the public.

...

He’s called voting by mail “corrupt” while the Republican National Committee sent mailers to conservative voters in Pennsylvania urging them to send in their mail-in ballot and saying that “voting by mail is an easy, convenient and secure way to cast your ballot.” And those mailers were sent the same week that RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel penned an op-ed pushing the widely discredited claim that mail-in voting is akin to ballot harvesting. Even this weekend he went so far as to call for ballots cast by mail to be thrown out after California implemented mail-in voting statewide last week.

Well yeah. It's The Law.