Taking a short break from NaNoWriMo to share some more news links.
Lost causes, from the Confederacy to Trump.
The Lost Cause of the Trumpocracy.
‘Million MAGA March’ Falls More Than 900,000 Short of a Full Deck.
Donald Trump’s “Million MAGA March” Draws 5K People In DC.
White supremacists, far-right groups behind most US domestic terror incidents in 2020.
Continuing to put most of my writing energy into NaNoWriMo, here’s a gifset swiped from harry-styles.tumblr.com:
I’m with you brother. Bonus if he’s in handcuffs…
Still trying to put most of my energy into NaNoWrMo, so once more, not much in the way of a substantive blog post.
The Best Four Seasons Total Landscaping Memes For Your Viewing Pleasure.
How to reuse or recycle political signs instead of adding to landfills.
Fox News Did The Bare Minimum And Finally Stopped Showing The Trump Team’s Latest Election Lies.
Rupert Murdoch ‘told Trump he had lost’ after he whinged about Fox coverage.
Elseweb, people asked how my NaNoWriMo word count was going. As you can see in the above image, not badly at all, thank you.
Finally, let’s let the great Kate McKinnon finish things off:
SNL’s Kate McKinnon and Colin Jost Totally Lose It Ridiculing Rudy Giuliani Over His ‘Four Seasons’ Trump Lawsuit Press Conference:
(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)
Pro-Trump Mobs Try To Disrupt Voting Counts In Contested States.
As America waits, demonstrators demand to count (or stop counting) the votes.
Trump demands that legitimately cast votes stop being counted.
Watch people across the world celebrate Joe Biden’s win.
AP, major networks call presidential race for Biden.
“It’s just the networks,” a certain barely animate ghoul said in another news conference… except for weeks the pussy-grabber-in-chief the ghoul works for has been insisting that whoever is called the official winner on Election Night was the true winner. And who calls it all election night? The networks! Not one state in the union certifies their final vote until weeks after. That’s how it’s always been, because counting millions of votes and auditing the counts takes time.
But it isn’t just the networks, because yesterday Reports: Secret Service ramping up Joe Biden protection. On the news late last night (I’ve been listening while working on NaNoWriMo), a reporter outside Biden headquarters in Delaware commented that when he and the comeraman arrived earlier in the day, the amount of Secret Service security they had to go through to get to their spot was siginificantly more complicated than it had been the day before.
But let’s move on a bit…
Biden Celebrations Erupt On Streets Of USA.
Obama Congratulates Biden On “Decisive Victory”.
World Leaders Congratulate Biden And Harris.
I laughed last night when, in a segment discussing how every other losing president before the current person has graciously conceded and started the process of working with the new candidate’s transition team when the news anchor said, “…but this is undoubtably the most incompetent, corrupt administration in the history of the nation, so even if they were so inclined, are they even capable of managing a transition?”
And proving the point this morning:
Trump lawyers hold presser at landscape company; vow fight is not over in Philly and pledge new lawsuits. Let me lead with this quote, and then explain:
Trump announced his lawyers’ news conference on Twitter just hours earlier — first saying it would take place at Center City’s posh Four Seasons Hotel, only later to delete his tweet and name the correct venue: outside Four Seasons Total Landscaping in Holmesburg, in Philadelphia’s 65th Ward.
What seems to have happened is that in a rush to get people in front of the cameras to denounce what networks calling Pennsylvania for Biden, someone in the campaign was tasked with booking a conference room or something at the Four Seasons Hotel… but apparently they called the wrong business.
I am informed by my husband that people are posting screen grabs online where you can see the adult bookstore that is next to the landscaping business behind Giuliani’s head.
I mean some of it is just so stupid: they asked Supreme Court Justice Alito to stop the vote counting in Philadelphia (after lower courts had refused to do so), on the grounds that ballots which came in after the normal deadline should be segregated until the lower courts decided what to do about that fact that the governor and state supreme court had worked out a deal to had three days for the mail-in ballots to arrive because between the pandemic and all of the effort’s of tRump’s post master general to hobble the postal service, there was reason to believe ballots that should have arrived on time wouldn’t. The state responded that they had already segregated the ballots and were not counting them, yet. Alito’s ordered them to keep the ballots segregated and continue counting the others.
tRump’s team thought that was a win. But if you understand judge-speak and look at the order, Alito (who is very conservative and prone to be in favor of the administration) essentially said, “Why are you bothering me with this? They’re already doing what they ought.”
And I want to point out: they were asking for the vote counting to stop at a point where Biden was winning. The only way, at that point, for Trump to win, was not if they stopped counting, but rather if they kept counting and by some miracle nearly every single uncounting ballot was for Trump, and virtually none were for Biden.
I recognize that the narcissistic grifter in charge is screaming at people to file lawsuits and do something about it, but there isn’t anything to do. He’s lost.
EXPLAINER: Why AP called Pennsylvania for Biden.
Trump Can Try, but the Courts Won’t Decide the Election.
Trump’s last-ditch US election lawsuits not going well for president, experts say.
Of course, he’s mostly trying to stir up his base in some delusional belief that a civil war will break out and that he will win. And so far his gun-nut supporters have been more bluster (with some tragic exceptions) than bite.
Let’s move on…
Earlier in the week I was getting irritated at tRump-supporters who were throwing around the word “statistics” when they clearly didn’t actually understand any of the mathematical subjects they were trying to invoke (Because I majored in math at university and statistics/game theory is almost certainly what I would have studied if I’d gone to grad school). But I’m supposed to be doing NaNoWriMo, not write long blog posts, so I didn’t. Fortunately, Camestros Felapton came to my rescue:
The GoP War on the word “statistically”.
I Guess I’m Talking About Benford’s Law.
He has some really pretty graphs in the second one…
Anyway, I think I’m going to go out for a celebratory latte… which I hope to get in a Starbucks Christmas cup!
Edited to Add: Reuters: Record-Shattering 95 Million Early Voted By Today.
Edited to Add 2: Since it was asked elseweb, yes, I’ve already voted. We filled out and dropped off our ballots well more than a week ago. I have verified that my ballot was received and my signature verified.
I’d rather just be posting a bunch of Happy Halloween images, but here we are:
Biden Team Cancels Texas Event After Highway ‘Ambush’ by MAGA Cavalry – Dozens of pickup trucks, many with Trump flags, surrounded a Biden campaign bus as it traveled from San Antonio to Austin. The trump supporters, many heavily armed, outnumber police 50-to-1.
Very fine people, I’m sure. And so brave to confront a bus full of “libruhl snowflakes” like that…
“Proud Boy” Charged In Polling Station Bomb Threat.
Woman accused of impersonating prosecutor, dropping criminal charges against herself.
Jerry Falwell Jr. Sues Liberty University: You Damaged My Reputation And The Lincoln Project Is Behind It All. I don’t know what to say about this. It’s there a point where the judge can say (looking at the mountain of news covered that came out over the course of years ranging from the two pool boys to the sketchy real estate deals, to his own posting of the questionable drunken picture on his own Instagram account), “You had no reputation left to destroy”?
I’m not sure it’s so much a shift, as simply stopping hard on the accelerator in the direct the party steered toward first under Nixon, but what do I know? I’ve just spent the last 50 years reading the news and debating Republican supporters in real time…
I can’t deal with any more of this depressing news. Let’s move on.
It’s Halloween! Here’s a spooky song:
Ryan Adams – Gimme Something Good (with an assist from Elvira, Mistress of the Dark):
(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)
My weekends have been crazy lately, so I seldom manage to finish one of these Weekend Update posts. The idea for these is that if there is news to broke (or came to my attention) after I finished compiled the Friday Five, or if I become aware of updates or new developments in a news story that I have previously linked to, and especially if I want to make a bit more commentary on it that what happens in a Friday Five, I put them in a Weekend Update to share on a Saturday or Sunday. So, jump right in!
Let’s start with some good news: First U.S. Asian giant hornet nest found in east Blaine. These are the so-called murder hornets, and the danger is that if they get established, they can wipe out native honey bees, which has a scary impact on agriculture. All the signs have so far indicated that there is probably only one next in Washington state. So, this one (and its hornets) will be destroyed and we can all breathe a little easier.
In other news: NC Man Arrested In Terror Plot To Kill Biden, Vehicle Found With Explosives, Assault Rifle, $509,000 In Cash. He’s a 19-year-old originally from Seattle who last fall came into a large inheritance which apparently he’s been carrying around all in cash. He was initially arrested because when someone reported what they thought was an abandoned van in a bank parking long in North Carolina, the responding officers could see the stash of ammo, guns, and explosives through the windows. And when the kid came back to his van, he had concealed weapons on him for which he doesn’t have permits. He’s currently being held of child pornography charges, while a joint terrorism task force is continuing to build the case from messages he posted on white supremacist web sites and journals.
He was arrested back in May, and police have since shown that he was near the former Vice Presidents home in April, which is when he was posting online about killing Biden. I want to point out that his plot to kill Biden was not motivated by a desire to help Trump. His aim was to “save” Bernie Sanders. Again demonstrating the fact I’ve pointed out several times since 2016 that a significant fraction of Bernie Bros have ties to the same white supremacist communities that support Trump.
But this is a weekend update, not a blog post where I explain the origins of certain political factions. So let’s move on to Rightwing Agitator Shot Up Minneapolis Police Precinct In May, And He Is Under Arrest. Yet another example of a white supremacist guy hoping to start a race war by causing violence that he can hope to pin on the Black Lives Matters folks. What’s more scary than his actions are some of the others who he was coordinating with who actually succeeding in killing some cops elsewhere. And like the story above, this was some young guy traveling out of the state where he lives to go stir up the trouble.
Let’s move on…
I did not watch the debate. I urged people I knew not to watch it. Fortunately, we have a great (and more than slightly sarcastic) sum o of the debate by Chicago Tribune columnist Rex Huppke. I’ll just quote my favorite bit:
“Demonstrating a striking change in tone from the first presidential debate, Trump did not come across as a writhing, angry body inhabited by the spirit of Charles Manson. Instead, he took on the more affable demeanor of a writhing, angry body inhabited by the spirit of Charles Manson on a day when Manson didn’t interrupt people quite so much.”
AOC Rips Trump For Disrespecting Her During Final Debate. Of course, Donald disrespects everyone. I don’t think he knows how to respect someone, just as I don’t believe he has one iota of empathy in his being. But that is a bit of her point: just because he does it all the time doesn’t make it right. And just because the Republicans in general disrespect anyone they disagree with doesn’t mean we should let it pass without some pushback.
Trump’s Strangest Lie: A Plague of Suicides Under His Watch – Social distancing hasn’t led to an increase in suicide rates, despite the president’s claims. But a prolonged pandemic might. I’m not sure I agree this is his strangest lie, because he tenaciously retells a lot of lies about extremely trivial stuff.
I suspect the author hasn’t had enough experience beating his head against a brick wall talking with Trump supporters. And the thing you have to remember is that Trump is always talking to his supporters. He doesn’t believe anyone else matters. He isn’t trying to appeal to voters outside his base. Trump’s base firmly believe that the quarantines are unnecessary and are a liberal plot being forced on them in order to undermine Trump. They sincerely believe that. And therefore, if the lockdowns were causing suicides to increase (which they aren’t), but if they were, those suicides wouldn’t be happening on Trump’s watch. Those suicides would all be the fault of the evil libruhls
The author of the article expects Trump and his supporters to think like normal people. In a normal election, people tend to blame bad things happening right now on the incumbent President. But trumpkins don’t think like that. They live in the world of all those conspiracy theories. Bad things are always the fault of those other guys.
It is a lie: quarantining and lockdowns are no causing suicides. But if you understand Trump and his supporters, it isn’t that strange at all.
I’m going to let Stephen Colbert take us out:
Trump Trashes New York, Joe Unveils ‘Bidencare’ At Final Debate – Stephen Colbert’s LIVE Monologue What’s got Steven Colbert feeling optimistic after last night’s debate? The fact that we’ll (hopefully) never have to watch Donald Trump debate ever again:
(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)
I frequently save memes, cartoons, and the like to use as an illustration for a blog post or Friday Five. I always gather a lot more than I can actually use, so every now and then I share some the I didn’t use.
I originally started this post as a Weekend Update on Sunday morning. And various things conspired to interrupt me and get me working on other things, which is fine. So then I figured on Monday I could finish it up and queue it as a Tuesday Tidbits… and between a very stressful work day where I didn’t stop for a real lunch and I worked late, and then I just didn’t want to put words in sentences… and then Tuesday I woke up with a horrific sinus headache. Wound up having to take a couple breaks from work that involved naps, and didn’t finish until late and here we are.
So, not a usual Weekend Update nor Tuesday Tidbits, but a weird bit of this and that. Note that I’m going to list news that should not cause anxiety or outrage first, and give a warning so you can stop reading once I get to the outrage-inducing stuff.
First, some local stuff: WEST SEATTLE BIRDS: 8 views. The blog that link to this collection of photos of birds people have taken in Seattle mentioned that the most exotic bird the blogger has seen out the window of his Seattle apartment were scrub jays. And I was certain that scrub jays weren’t found this far north, but a quick search of the web turned up an article from two years ago about how the California Scrub Jay’s range used to only extend into Oregon, but thanks to climate change they are now living as far north as here.
Two days later, I saw a Scrub Jay on my own bird feeder. The only jays I’d ever seen here before were Stellar’s Jays.
Lightning knocks Washington state ferry out of service.
EF-1 tornado knocks down trees in Grays Harbor County, NWS confirm.
I grew up in tornado country, which also meant lots and lots of thunderstorms. One of the things I loved about living in the Pacific Northwest is that we used to almost never get thunderstorms and certainly not tornadoes. Thank you climate change?
We’re 9 days past National Coming Out Day, but I like this story. ABC News’ James Longman on coming out: ‘I could never imagine then the life I have now’.
Denver is sending mental health experts instead of cops in response to nonviolent calls. This is what we mean by defunding the police: taking tasks which should never have been given to police in the first place and instead sending people trained to deal with it.
Billy Porter Says To ‘Get Your Little Asses to The Polls!’. Vote like your life depends on it! (Because a lot of lived do depend on it!)
If you don’t want to be outraged, stop reading now!
Here’s a cut picture of a kitten with a pumpkin. Don’t scroll past it and you’ll be fine.
So, about the other kinds of news…
As Virus Spread, Reports of Trump Administration’s Private Briefings Fueled Sell-Off – A hedge fund consultant’s summary of private presentations by White House economic advisers fanned investor worries. We all suspected this, but now we have the proof. While they were lying to us, they were warning their rich friends so that could cut their losses.
Calls intensify for resignation of Michigan sheriff who shared stage with militia. I bet if we looked hard enough we could even find some things to prosecute him for related to this…
Trump Has Previously Unknown Bank Account In China. You don’t say…
Tiffany Trump holds trainwreck LGBTQ event for dad’s reelection: ‘Prior to politics, he supported gays’. Best description of the speech: “She’s like a drunk, malfunctioning robot.” Also, this big supposedly pro-gay event? Had only a dozen attendees…
‘Proud Boys’ Send Threatening Emails To FL Dems – Emails sent from the “Proud Boys” to Florida Democrats, telling them to vote for Trump “or we will come after you,” are being investigated by the FBI and the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office. Yeah, that’s really something to be proud of…
Font Folly 