Poll Workers Count, DisElect College, Misinfo, Lotsa Luck Biden, Bye Bond
- In Scotties Toy Box, poll workers sign up as a part of good citizenship. They work to help voters and find themselves targets of abuse that sometimes goes to physical assault. Thank you Mr. Trump.
- In Letters from an American, Heather Cox Richardson advises patience. Careful counting of ballots may seem slow, and it is. But, as she reminds us, that care is a good thing. She notes the turmoil, much of it generated by Trump camp angst. At the center, election workers calmly keep on totaling.
- At The Moderate Voice, Kate Starbird reads social media for falsehoods and warns of the five most common types of misinformation.
- Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger notes an alarming election trend.
- Max’s Dad thinks about the number of people who would vote for a child caging, fascist, sexist, homophobic white supremacist, considers one or two horrible new representatives, celebrates a prospective Biden victory, and wishes the new President luck in cleaning up the mess.
- Libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara holds that critics of the electoral college fail to understand America. Well that settles it, right?
I respectfully disagree. (sort of respectfully)
- On January 20, 2009, minutes after Barack Obama became President Obama, Mitch McConnell met with Republican Senators and conservative lobbyists to plan the following four years. At the center was a firm resolution to fight against any and every proposal the new President might make, no matter how valid, how necessary for the protection of the nation. The Senate filibuster as it then existed would enable their obstruction. Their only objective would be to prevent a second Obama term.
Twelve years later, there are a couple of outstanding Senate runoffs in Georgia. But it looks like an extreme longshot to take the Senate back from McConnell’s current Republican majority. So here we go again. Infidel753 comes up with a simple, elegant idea on how incoming President Joe Biden can frustrate this term’s McConnell obstruction. AND he can show great bi-partisan reconciliation while doing it. Presumably he can smile while sprinkling peace and friendliness along every flowery step.
- Lie, lie, lie!! At The Onion, both-sides-do-it media condemns Biden for his false claim that, as the election counting concludes, the nation will come together.
Continue reading “Poll Workers Count, DisElect College, Misinfo, Lotsa Luck Biden, Bye Bond”
Good Advice for Mr. Trump
At some point today, an honorable President would do this:
Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney: “I think what the president needs to do is, frankly, put his big boy pants on." pic.twitter.com/yfMGPTUN8V
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) November 6, 2020
Transcript:
I think what the president needs to do is, frankly, put his big boy pants on. He needs to acknowledge the fact that he lost.
And he needs to congratulate the winner, just as Jimmy Carter did, just as George H. W. Bush did, and frankly just as Al Gore did. And stop this and let us move forward as a country.
And that’s my feeling. I doubt he’ll listen to me but that’s it.
How to Say Our Chances are Not So Bad
Biden is now ahead in Georgia
With a few thousand mail-in ballots left to count:
Mail in ballots so far having gone overwhelming for Biden.
Not definitely, no.
But the odds against are not dissimilar from getting hit by a drunk driver while standing in your driveway while every driver in your household is accounted for and you aren't expecting friends over.
— This Hobbit (@hobbit179) November 6, 2020
Trump Claims Ownership of Four Critical States
Note from Burr:
This comment was clearly accurate by yesterday afternoon
From Cato’s Julian Sanchez:
Fox has called exactly one of these states—Michigan—and they’ve called it for Biden. It is difficult to see any rationale for these claims other than setting his supporters up to wrongly mistrust the real results.
— Julian Sanchez (@normative) November 4, 2020
We Were Wrong About America
From North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz:
The delayed results of the presidential election will be revealed soon, but in many ways, those results will be secondary to what we already know now: we were wrong about America.
The fact that it was even close, the fact that more people voted for him a second time, the fact that a higher number of white women inexplicably affirmed him—it is all confirmation that whether we remove the very visible, unsightly symptom or not, the pervasive disease is still horribly afflicting us.
A Wonderful Takedown of a Submitted Scientific Paper
From Professor PZ Myers:
The Grand Prize for Pseudoscientific Gobbledygook goes to…the University of Pittsburgh!
I read the whole paper by Moses Turkle Bility. It was a wild ride. Let me try to summarize the whole thing in non-gibberish.
- They had two rooms full of immunocompromised experimental rats.
- These rats had been surgically implanted with fetal human hematopoietic tissue for reasons unknown, but for an experiment that had been approved by the university.
- A respiratory disease swept through the colony, affecting one room more than the other. Nothing is made of this observation.
- COVID-19 is a respiratory disease. Therefore they called this a COVID-19-like disease. Gotta cash in on the hot topics, you know!
- They dissected the dead rats and found hemorrhagic patches and silicate/glass-like structures in their lungs. These are not clearly evident in the photos, but OK…
- Silicate/glass-like structures? Surely, this means the phenomenon is similar to the phenomenon of serpentization in geology! (I’m wobbly on what serpentization is, but here’s a short definition.)
- Therefore, we must immediately delve deep into geological processes and oscillations in planetary electromagnetic fields. Ta da!
- We assume “Long-Wavelength Magnetic Anomalies Induces COVID-19 Via Magnetic Catalysis”, not that silly germ theory or zoonotic infection by a zoonotically-derived virus. I guess we know what causes COVID-19 now, and it isn’t a virus.
- “Nephrite-Jade Amulets Interacts With LWMAs (long-wavelength magnetic anomalies) and prevents disease in thoracic organs”. I guess we know what cures COVID-19 now.
- There was no test of the effect of LWMAs on the rats. They also didn’t make itty-bitty jade amulets for them.
That’s all remarkable bullshit presented in a kind of rabid stream-of-consciousness form, with the major conclusions neither tested nor even logically implied by the circumstances that triggered the “study”. It was not so much a “study” as some guy’s rat lab being devastated by a disease, so he retreats to his office to make a lengthy rationalization based on Traditional Chinese Medicine and half-assed geology. No experiments were done, yet he leaps to all these bizarre conclusions. Just look at the diagram above, most of which is irrelevant noise stitched together with unjustified premises!
Win or Lose, Trump Shows His Unfitness
From Jonathan Bernstein:
The president’s grossly irresponsible claims aside, the only thing to do now is wait for votes to be counted.
As I write this, some eight states still haven’t been called for president, and millions of regular, lawful ballots haven’t been counted. President Donald Trump nevertheless falsely claimed early Wednesday morning that he has won re-election — and that all the states where he was currently trailing would eventually be his once the ballots were counted, whereas all the states in which he was currently leading were obviously victories for him and that the Supreme Court should cut off the counts, thanks to what he falsely called “fraud” without even a hint of evidence.
In other words, win or lose, Trump has demonstrated once again that he is fully unfit for the office that he seeks to hold for a second term.
Of course, Trump’s words have no legal importance whatsoever. He doesn’t get to decide who wins and whose votes get to be counted. In fact, it’s quite possible that his wild accusations may backfire. Several Republican politicians who back the president, along with several Fox News on-air hosts, criticized him immediately. So, of course, did Democrats and the “neutral” media. Obviously, that doesn’t affect the basic math as the tabulation continues to accumulate — and it’s still quite likely that there will be a clear winner once all the votes are counted. But it’s not impossible that it could affect what happens in the courts, or even (gulp) if Congress winds up having to sort it all out.
Media Scorecard – Better, Not Good
From Mock Paper Scissors:
Our Failed Social Media did better but were not great.
- Twitter flagged Prznint Stupid’s claim of victory as being misleading and hid it from view and disabled replies and likes.
- Facebook and Instagram added a generic note that said that votes were still being counted and that the winner of the election had not yet been projected. Facebook also added a label to the video of the speech itself that reads: “Final results may be different from initial vote counts, as ballot counting will continue for days or weeks after polls close.”
That said, you can still find the video of his victory speech and watch it.
On Twitter, it sits on Prznint Stupid’s timeline right above his earlier hidden post about election stealing. The WaPo Reports that Twitter says the video does not violate its policies.
This is how you do it: NBC News cut Trump off mid-speech as soon as he started lying about winning.
Gonna re-up what we said about social media the other day: There’ll be mountains of bad information. Don’t waste time on it, and don’t share it.
Sarah Cooper Knows How to Election Night
My drug of choice tonight is hearing Sean Hannity say “President Biden”
— Sarah Cooper (@sarahcpr) November 4, 2020
This is the slowest heart attack
— Sarah Cooper (@sarahcpr) November 4, 2020
Not taking this off until all the votes are counted pic.twitter.com/kgtdhzosHx
— Sarah Cooper (@sarahcpr) November 4, 2020
Has anyone else reached the “husband playing guitar alone in the bedroom” phase of Election Day
— Sarah Cooper (@sarahcpr) November 3, 2020
I’ve now reached the “ordered $80 worth of sushi but now can’t eat” phase of election night
— Sarah Cooper (@sarahcpr) November 4, 2020
I’m now at the “should I get high or is that a terrible idea” phase of election night
— Sarah Cooper (@sarahcpr) November 4, 2020
I’m at the “just bet my husband a blowjob that Biden will win Florida” phase of election night
— Sarah Cooper (@sarahcpr) November 4, 2020
…stress eating chocolate chip cookies…
— Sarah Cooper (@sarahcpr) November 4, 2020
I’ve reached the “cursing the fuck out of jo jorgensen” phase of election night
— Sarah Cooper (@sarahcpr) November 4, 2020
I am now at the… exhausted but can’t sleep… phase of election night
— Sarah Cooper (@sarahcpr) November 4, 2020
He spent 4 years golfing. And people are still voting for him. I will never understand it
— Sarah Cooper (@sarahcpr) November 4, 2020
The NYTimes election results tracker needs to have a PTSD warning
— Sarah Cooper (@sarahcpr) November 3, 2020