I learned my lesson about optimism and predictions last time. So I don't want to do that again. But I do speculate and hope that there are unaccounted for synergies. Like, if a bunch of locals turn out for a school district race, won't they mostly also vote at the top of the ballot? And vice versa? I know that people are working so hard on either of those races, and I am hoping that they'll add up to be more than we expect.
Because apparently I can't help it with the optimism. The next two weeks will be nerve-wracking.
There's a great publicly-shared spreadsheet at whatsontheballot.com tracking all sorts of things one might be interested in, and I believe promising updates on election night. Overall Senate and House results, specific bellwether races, state referenda by topic, control of state legislatures, governorships, even important judicial and county races.
Also I figure following this tracker will give us at least some victories to hold to on election night.
The better ads are making me all teary. I could watch the one for Sri Kulkarni on repeat all day.
I only just learned that the Mississippi senate race might be competitive - it's a top-two race with two Rs and one D, and although the R with better prospects would beat the D, the other R would likely not. And the runoff won't be until late November.
We're going to need very high turnout, especially here, to get Kathleen Williams in, but a defeat for Gianforte would be something of a vindication for civilization.
Kinda the reverse of the Alaska governor's race before the incumbent dropped out and endorsed the Dem.
It all feels so make-or-break. Will we turn the tide, bring all the awesomeness back, have a redemption narrative OR will we be free-falling into fascism and children in cages and stupid fucking men being stupid and in power forever?
6: That would certainly be nice.
I am too enraged by the feckless media coverage of any fucking thing Trump comes up with to respond rationally.
Caravan! Middle Class tax cut!! Ebola! Emails!
I fucking can't.
Some of the most competitive races have no polling at all, so we're likely to see some surprises somewhere.
It's remarkable what a big difference Walker dropping out has already made in the governor's race here, just in terms of palpable energy and enthusiasm on the left. The AFL-CIO switched its endorsement to Begich yesterday.
10. Wait. Is this a thing? I don't see it anywhere (/nothanks, Google), just a lot of "Walker is in trouble."
Because apparently I can't help it with the optimism. The next two weeks will be nerve-wracking.
This is me, too. I compulsively spin out positive narratives and have to intentionally, consciously walk it back and feel tiny heartbreaks to prevent a gigantic heartbreak a la 2016.
VA-02 and Va-07 are reliably R Districts. Generally the Va-O7 District is trending to the Dems. Va-02 really isnt.
But the Dems need to and really should win both. Spanberger has been working super hard, and is very impressive.
I think the most reliable source is Dave Wasserman for seeing what might happen:
https://twitter.com/redistrict?lang=en
The first day of early voting was yesterday, and all the reports of long lines are making me snarl and ill-tempered. Not because of inadequate polling locations, but because I think it feeds an overhyping narrative. Of course the first day is packed - the people who usually vote are insanely angry. It doesn't portend yet to anything else until it does.
I don't understand why there is so little polling in some areas. Is polling that expensive? Or is too much of it concentrated in too few areas?
Polling is like a box of chocolates. It's really hard to use in very specific geographic areas now that nobody has a landline that they will answer.
On the trans thing, I have a short module in a couple of my classes discussing how the binary sex model is itself problematic. See https://www.nature.com/news/sex-redefined-1.16943 for a short overview. There's also this twitter thread that seems to be trending: https://twitter.com/sciencevet2/status/1035246030500061184?s=21
12, 16: Yes, sorry for the confusion. Alaska Governor Bill Walker dropped out of the three-way race last week and threw his support to the Democrat, Mark Begich.
19 Been thinking of submitting a FPP on the topic for awhile now, primarily about the bizarre obsession with trans issues (transphobia) in certain feminist (TERF) discourse primarily in the UK but things have seemed to moved on here (and it's all rather inchoate, and I'm all fairly drunk, and it's all very disturbing.).
The TERF thing is so mindboggling to me. I have the luxury of course of never having seen it up close, but it feels like an error message/does not compute - how could people that have generally been on the right side of history be so maliciously wrong?!?
And I say this as someone who had to wake up and get used to trans-rights and trans-issues and was not instinctively on the right side of things from day one.
12, 16: it's going to take me another minute or so to come down from that euphoria spike, sigh.
20. Ah, thanks. As bad as Kennedys from and not from MA.
21: A good American example would be Je/sse Sin/gal, but yeah, TERFs seem so much more organized in the UK (and I imagine that'll happen over here once they've found winning messaging). It's pretty disturbing. Expect to hear more "TERF is a slur!" rhetoric.
In the words of Samuel Vimes, just because someone is a member of an oppressed group doesn't mean they can't also be a nasty mean-minded little jerk.
I just saw a FB post in a group for flat post-mastectomy women that I'm a member of, that asked about transgender women being allowed. The moderator was a firm no. She phrased it in very anti-trans terms "born women" but elsewhere I've seen it phrased in terms of cancer - breasts removed for cancer or cancer-risk only. We do have a woman that lost her breasts due to an incredibly nasty complication from mastitis, however.
I'm having trouble sorting out the issues at play here. Is the moderator wrong for excluding trans-women from a group like this?
If it's only people who had a mastectomy because of cancer or risk of cancer, I think you should exclude anybody else.
Seriously asking: what thing is damaged by having a transgender woman involved? A sense of being able to talk about missing previously existing boobs? Being able to talk about old ways to have sex with boobs that aren't still there?
Some things are not imperiled: discussing fitting clothes to shape, how to wear bras, etc.
But I bet even the moderator who declined the person can't say what the group could previously discuss without a transwomen that it will not be able to discuss with a transwoman in the mix. Like, what harm is done by inclusion? If nothing, or minor, then kindness and inclusion is the right guide.
More on what Moby said. Is it more of a group about having had breast cancer, or more of a group on living now without breasts?
It's not clear - there are actually three flat groups that I'm a part of. This is occurring in the one with the least activity, and it's specifically about finding fashion choices while flat, and thus it's the clearest case that it must just be transphobia operating in excluding trans women. But I'm pretty sure there would be a similar policy in the largest of the three groups, which is run by a very finicky moderator who actually doesn't allow any talk of cancer because she says it's triggering, and there are constantly women who innocently misstep there and are redirected to a sister site - flat & cancer - which I'm not a part of for obvious reasons.
A definite theme is loss of breasts - what people miss and what they don't. Clearly, being inclusive wouldn't harm that conversation one iota, but conceivably someone could make the case that that was central to the purpose of the group.
Shame that the writer of multiple beloved-to-many Britcoms now spends his days terfing.
If it's only people who had a mastectomy because of cancer or risk of cancer, I think you should exclude anybody else.
And clearly the mastitis woman was included because of numbers - she's just one and it's a bizarre one-time thing.
Which leads me to speculate: maybe there's a fear of being overrun by transgender women? Both groups are tiny percentages of the population, but maybe the moderator believes that word-of-mouth could lead to a majority-transgender group? (of course there is transphobia baked into that fear.)
a very finicky moderator who actually doesn't allow any talk of cancer because she says it's triggering,
To clarify - medical problems/complications of the mastectomy operation are allowed. Just not talk of chemo, etc. People get into fights over these distinctions, unsurprisingly.
(The third group was formed as a spin-off because people were so annoyed with the rules of the biggest group. So there, cancer-talk is allowed and frequent. The moderator of this group, however, is the most progressive-vibe of the moderators, and I'd suspect that she'd either allow transgender women or has given it thought and is restricting to cancer-related mastectomies.)
If you join a shitty choir, you could be part of four flat groups.
I'm in a group of people who are triggered by cancer and make shitty jokes about it.
Latest Isaac Chotiner interview: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/10/david-gelernter-donald-trump-why-liberals-hate-trump-op-ed.html
Fishing cat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPMX9PJMTD4
I feel like I shouldn't bother to read 42.1. I like my current answer (because he has asked for it both explicitly and implicitly) better than anything else I'm likely to hear.
If you're the kind who attaches weight to omens, this happened today.
Oh, you won't learn anything about Trump or liberals, but it's a virtuosic display of... something.
You write that one of the reasons liberals dislike Trump is because he embodies the average American. Can you explain that idea? (The original words quoted were "And it does mean, I believe, that the Trump-hater truly does hate the average American--male or female, black or white. Often he hates America, too." Also: "[Trump] is a typical American--except exaggerated.")
I absolutely did not say that. I don't say that. I don't believe that liberals dislike Trump because he embodies the virtues of the average American. I don't think it's ever occurred to them. In fact, I know it's never occurred to them. It's never occurred to me until I wrote this piece and until I had cause to write it.
It's all like that. The guy is a Yale professor.
He didn't say what he wrote, I guess because at Yale they learn to read without moving lips.
The guy is a Yale professor
Kids these days. Gelernter used to be a lot more famous; partly for his comp sci work, partly for being a right-wing nutcase, and mostly for being a victim of the Unabomber. If this is mansplaining something you already know, fuck you.
From the interview:
One reason that people dislike the president is that he expresses racism and misogyny and contempt for other groups of people, and that turns off a lot--
Those are assertions that, to me, are crazy and sound, like, slanderous.
What did you think birtherism was?
Birtherism, these tags are meaningless. If you're referring to them specifically, tell me what it is.
Calling into question whether or not Barack Obama was born in America.
What's wrong with calling that into question? A lot of people were not born in America. Don't restrict my freedom to ask questions that are perfectly legitimate, that cast no aspersion unless you choose to take them that way. Most of my best friends were not born in America.
Well, that's fantastic.
He seems right at home in Yale, those responses are exactly the bullshit you'd expect in a freshman ivy league dorm. "Like, that's you're opinion, man. What is race, really? How can you think something until you've thought it? Whooooaaaa."
Fuck, your opinion. Fuck your opinion. Whhooooooaaaaa.
"Yale is full of asshats"
Now I'm learning.
A lot of people were not born in America. Statistically, if you consider the world population in Obama's year of birth, there's only a 6% chance he was born in America. See, I figured that out using Google, that's why I'm a computer scientist too. In fact, a better question is why didn't you ask more questions about it, Mr. Liberal Reporter, given the 94% chance that he wasn't born in America?
she's just one and it's a bizarre one-time thing
When I was having recurrent non-lactational mastitis they were very worried about abscesses because unlike the milk-duct kind, the damage can happen so deep in the breast you might not know what's going on until too late. Most of the doctors I saw also thought I was bizarre and freaky even without complications, so I'm not trying to contradict you. I just wonder if there's a lot more out there getting overlooked.
Anyway, Yale = Asshats. That's easy to remember and useful.
Also, the guy is a CS professor. There's absolutely no reason whatsoever he should have special insights into politics.
26 He retweeted a tweet of mine a couple of weeks ago and there was a time I would have been overwhelmingly thrilled about that instead of the feeling of disgust I had so that I momentarily considered deleting the tweet (I think it was about the Khashoggi affair).
I think I'm now on my second Yale-educated boss. They've both been fine. I think I must be a good influence on people.
I just wonder if there's a lot more out there getting overlooked.
My suspicion is that they probably don't know about the group unless they went searching, but that they'd be welcomed for having gone through a mastectomy.
Moby! I'm not actually gone, just don't comment much.
And yeah to 59. When I was trying to talk my surgeon into a breast reduction she wasn't optimistic because she thought they'd have to do a full mastectomy and even that might not get rid of enough problem tissue to stop the pain, which did indeed sound like a bad outcome. And then I lost my COBRA so the end anyway.
Kids these days.
I was mansplaining to Moby! Jesus.
I believe I actually bought a copy of one of Gelernter's books at one point, probably while in the freshman dorm. I really, really, really wanted the key to all mythologies. This interview makes me wonder if he decided we were all approaching the Turing test from the wrong side, though.
That doesn't even make sense. Anyway, one of you mentioned Chotiner's interviews as something like a genre, so I thought I'd pass it along given that this might be the peak of disingenuousness + entrapment.
Gelernter is morbidly fascinating to me: this is what happens when you crank up the interest in humanities and put one of these guys in the ivory tower instead of showering them with money? I would almost conclude that it's a condemnation of the liberal academy to engender so distorted a shadow-self, but I believe in personal responsibility.
In the 1980s, he made seminal [some Wikipedia dude is super proud of this, hurr] contributions to the field of parallel computation, specifically the tuple space coordination model, as embodied by the Linda programming system (named for Linda Lovelace ... mocking [the programming language] Ada's tribute to Ada Lovelace).
There, now we're back to gender.
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Have any of you folks been watching the Romanoffs. Just saw the Isabelle Huppert episode. Holy crap!
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55/58: Dahlia Lithwick was a Yalie. Were you a good influence on her, too?
This feels like a trap. Maybe I'll check the news first to be sure they haven't recently found her with a basement full of chained orphans making waffles for sale on the street.
I have an essay, too large for this comment box, proving that computers don't have butts, but that the concept of computers having butts is both real and necessary.
Gelernter is a fraud. He has some minor idea that would have been completely forgotten if he wasn't at Yale. A thousand people would have invented the same idea independently (and probably have). Google engineers probably come up with 100 more profound ideas a year.
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a proclamation that fixed the head tax at 3.50 baht per eligible male (chai chakan) - a category excluding those under eighteen and over sixty years of age, the disabled, those serving in government service, local gentry and their families, Siamese officials, foreigners, ascetics and monks, artisans, and rich persons.Just so the class basis of the regime was 100% clear to everyone.
Have any of you folks been watching the Romanoffs.
I was wondering if this was worth watching. I take it your answer is 'yes'?
||Supply-side economics and everything:
Prince Sanphasit especially excluded "artisans" and "rich persons" in order to stimulate economic development.|>
I'm sure he had met numerous rich persons.
"Rich persons" were determined by the number of large animals (cattle, buffaloes, horses, elephants) owned.And as we know, Thai monarchy is all about the elephants.
64, 70: I'm looting this as a post idea, loosely speaking.
And now people have mailed bombs to Obama and to Hillary Clinton.
The people opening mail for somebody like Bernie Sanders got to be dreading the office today.
70 The wife and I would give different answers.
76: And have seen reports the WH as well, and CNN (Time-Warner) building now evacuated.
And the fracking NYTimes still manages a massive WTF in their story. Last paragraph:
Facing significant debts from the legal troubles that dogged Mr. Clinton's presidency, the Clinton's were able to buy the house after their chief fund-raiser, Terry McAuliffe, personally secured a loan.
You be you, you fucking unspeakable fuckheads.
Update to 79.1:
UPDATE: Reuters reports, citing a person familiar with the situation, that there was no suspicious package addressed to the White House.
It had been reported on CNN.
So, as always, fog of breaking events caveats.
The best events are those eaten by caveats and collected from their shit.
79.last: I don't seen any mention of it on @nyt_diff, but it looks like they removed it.
82: Yep. They went with a bit of stock both-siderism*:
Early this month, federal authorities said they intercepted multiple packages suspected of containing the lethal substance ricin, addressed to President Trump and at least two top Pentagon officials.
*In a fair world this is the kind of context that is probably appropriate, but I ain't giving these a-holes that credit given how rarely they contextualize anything. (Also they've had two big above-the-fold caravan pics this week.)
I don't think they deserve any credit. Their bias is subtle but pervasive.
cut and paste from CNN homepage --
Secret Service has not intercepted a suspicious package addressed to the White House
Does that mean that they let the suspicious package go by? Maybe hand-delivered it to Trump?
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Fivethirtyeight has something today in which Nate Silver imagines what it would look like if either (a) the Republicans did 3-4 points better than their current standing in the aggregate polls or (B) the Democrats do 3-4 points better than their current standing.
It's short, well done and, personally, I found it terrifying. Because the bad outcome is far more upsetting to imagine than the good outcome is exhilarating.
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Basically, after Dred Scott, they no longer viewed the Supreme Court as legitimate, and said so loudly and constantly - and that includes Lincoln. They added one seat in 1863, but bigger, the government also more or less cowed the Court into not challenging any of its actions.
(Not in the thread, but a piece of court-packing I didn't understand before: they added a tenth justice in 1863, then let the court shrink by three deaths/retirements without replacement.)
86: Thanks. 538 did something similar in 2016 - five possible outcomes pre-written - which I appreciated as keeping me grounded in both October and November, since the last story it told more or less came true. (As I look back at it, it even got the swing in the House right, to within one seat.)
San Diego Union-Tribune building too. Holy fuck
That's weird, that's a pretty reactionary paper as they go. Probably still not enough these days for the Birchers or whatever they go by now. Might imply they're based in that area too.
Oh, they're saying a Kamala Harris field office is in the same building in San Diego.
Josh Marshall says we can maybe possibly calm down about the supposed shift in the Dems' ability to take the House:
Kraabie, if you want to sift through Texas tea leaves, , enjoy this day-by-day, county-by-county voter total.
Several counties are exceeding their Day 2 totals for the 2012 presidential election.
I am going to be realistic and not optimistic and not get my heart broken. I am going to be realistic and not optimistic and not get my heart broken.
It's more convincing because you said it twice.
I only just got an alarming email from the Courage Campaign about how way more R than D ballots are getting returned in certain California House districts. I tried clicking around on https://www.politicaldata.com/absentee-vote-tracker/, but couldn't work out whether this is any kind of alarming new development, or if it's always the case that lots of Republican ballots get returned early and the Courage Campaign is just trying to shake up people's complacency, which, fair enough.
The particular alarm bells were over CD22 and CD50, which are unlikely flips anyway.
78: What's your answer, and why would your wife disagree?
It's quirky and unpredictable, which I like more than she does. Soundtrack works better for me than for her.
97: I got my heart up for CA22, but...