By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
2016
Days until: 0. This is it! This seems a propos:
We've updated our Twitter header in honor of the election. pic.twitter.com/mOFT8sUlVD
— Merriam-Webster (@MerriamWebster) November 7, 2016
The Voters
“The Final Forecasts” [Taegan Goddard]. “Every single major electoral vote forecast also gives the advantage to Hillary Clinton. The consensus electoral map that we put together for members over the weekend — join today! — has Hillary Clinton winning with 322 electoral votes with Donald Trump at 215 electoral votes.” 2012: 332 Obama, 206 Romney. After all the sound and fury…
“The moment of truth arrives for the USC/L.A. Times tracking poll” [Los Angeles Times]. “The USC/L.A. Times “Daybreak” tracking poll has been the great outlier of the 2016 campaign. Since it started in July, the poll has consistently shown a better result for Donald Trump than other major surveys. Most of the summer and fall, the poll’s results have been about six points more favorable to the Republican than the polling averages… Some of the worst failures of polling have come about because pollsters, whether deliberately or not, converged on a single view of an election, in what is often referred to as ‘herding.'” Which is the weakness of an approach centered on averages, a la RCP (which I’ve adopted). If all the lemmings are headed over the cliff, then the spread between lemmings doesn’t matter very much. Importantly:
The poll asked respondents whether they were comfortable talking to people about their vote. The survey found that Trump supporters reported themselves as being slightly more comfortable than Clinton voters in talking to family members and acquaintances about their choice.
But Trump voters were notably less comfortable about telling a telephone pollster about their vote. Voters who backed a third-party candidate were even less comfortable responding to a poll. Women who said they backed Trump were particularly less likely to say they would be comfortable talking to a pollster about their vote.
So there really are shy Trump voters!
“The spread of early balloting is forging new habits that are forcing campaigns to rethink how they allocate their resources. And it tends to favor those campaigns that are more technologically sophisticated and can identify, draw out and measure its support over a longer voting period” [New York Times].
“Exit Polls Aren’t What You Think They Are” [Medium]. Because statistics. “[Exit] polls are designed first to get granular demographic information, and only as a secondary feature to predict the overall outcome of the election.”
“Are There Really Bellwether Electoral Districts?” [Edward Tufte and Richard Sun]. No.
Downballot
“These four races will decide who controls Senate” [MarketWatch]. The tossups, incumbents if any marked with “*”: New Hampshire: Kelly Ayotte (R)* v. Maggie Hassan (D); Indiana: Evan Bayh (D) v. Todd Young (R); North Carolina: Richard Burr (R)* v. Deborah Ross (D); Nevada: Catherine Cortez Masto (D) v. Joe Heck (R).
The Trail
“But what almost no one is talking about is that for Trump to get to 270 electoral votes, he has to carry Maine’s 2nd congressional district, which has exactly one electoral vote. Maine is one of just two states that apportions electoral votes by congressional district and not by the total state count. The state has four total votes. Two go to the statewide winner, and one each goes to the winner in the two congressional districts. District 1 along the coast is firmly Democratic. And up until either yesterday, District 2 had been in the Clinton tally, too. [But] ME2 is now red, potentially giving Trump the one vote he needs for a win” [John Mauldin, Econintersect]. Which would be why Trump visited Bangor.
Maine CD 2 is the quintessential battleground of frustrated America. The paper mills and other industries have been closing down, and the solid union jobs are not so slowly going away. It’s a hard-knock life for many of the residents. When you go out in a fishing boat with a few economists and financial industry types, those guides listen. You become friends after a few days, and they begin to ask very pointed questions, trying to figure out how our conversations about national and global issues affect their lives. Honestly – and you have to be honest with someone who becomes your friend over the years – I cannot tell them that things are going to get any better for a while. In their eyes, of course, I am one of the elites they are frustrated with. I have an easy job, traveling around the world and writing, reading, and talking to people.
And when you go into town and you talk to people, you hear about one hardship after another. So I think it’s fitting that this one small district has the potential to determine the future of our country. This is the America I grew up in. I readily admit that it’s not the America I live in, but it fits the image that many of us hold in our minds when we think of America. Not the beat of the city, but the pulse of the country.
“When we think of America.” Economically, at least.
“[Trump’s] threat to jail his political opponent will be discussed and criticized for centuries” [Calculated Risk]. “Centuries.” Goodness.
“If we elect a woman as our national leader for the first time in the history of the republic, eight years after electing an African-American man, we may be moving toward democracy at last” [Gloria Steinem, Financial Times, “Clinton has been swiftboated by Trump and his acolytes”]. A strange view of democracy; it seems that identity politicians have their own ideas on legitimacy. And then there’s this:
Mr Trump may not have a choice, but American voters do. If Hillary Clinton survives this campaign that has so distorted who she is and always has been, she will stand for women’s rights as human rights; for economic ties and in-depth diplomacy; for women as peace negotiators; for an administration that looks like the country; and for a foreign policy that considers the status of women in other countries. As David Gergen, an adviser to four US presidents of both parties, has said, “to empower women … would do so much to advance the world, but it would also restore America’s moral standing”.
Leaving aside the rich irony of feminist icon Gloria Steinem treating bipartisan hack David Gergen as authoritative, when I read that Clinton would “stand for” “women as peace negotiators,” I threw up a little in my mouth. What, after ginning up a war scare with Putin? Tipping the balance toward Libyan intervention? Not to mention Honduras and Iraq? Sad, and clarifying, what’s become of Steinem.
Realignment
“But considering that the signs point to something of a split decision in the election — Democrats retaining the White House, the GOP in charge in the House and the Senate in precarious balance — it’s hard to imagine sunny political skies in the forecast any time soon” [Chuck Todd, NBC]. “Sunny” for whom?
“The Worst Election Coverage Ever” [Eschaton]. “[T]his year, coverage of a white nationalist presidential campaign, and the concerns of its supporters, was given top billing at every step.” Contrast Sanders:
I do not believe that most of the people who are thinking about voting for Mr. Trump are racist or sexist.
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) November 5, 2016
I think the Brock wing of the Democrat Party, and the Sanders wing of the Democrat Party have some conflicts about strategy.
Fun fact:
Today is #18brumaire. Hold onto your hats, everybody. https://t.co/12BeK9kVuz
— Brandiann Molby (@brandibkworm) November 8, 2016
Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add:
the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce… Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living. And just as they seem to be occupied with revolutionizing themselves and things, creating something that did not exist before, precisely in such epochs of revolutionary crisis they anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service, borrowing from them names, battle slogans, and costumes in order to present this new scene in world history in time-honored disguise and borrowed language. Thus Luther put on the mask of the Apostle Paul, the Revolution of 1789 – 1814 draped itself alternately in the guise of the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, and the Revolution of 1848 knew nothing better to do than to parody, now 1789, now the revolutionary tradition of 1793-95.If you ever wondered where that quote came from, now you know! A fine example from the 2016 election is commentators comparing Clinton to Lincoln.
Stats Watch
NFIB Small Business Optimism Index, October 2016: “The small business optimism index rose 0.8 points in October to 94.9, slightly exceeding expectations and extending a rebound from the 2-year low at 92.6 set in April” [Econoday]. “A net 25 percent of owners reported raising worker compensation, a 3 point increase from September. Capital outlays, a leading strength of the index recently and important for future growth, remained at a strong 27 percent, the second highest reading of the recovery.” But the NFIB’s press release says: “Small business owners are rattled by uncertainty and unable to decide whether to expand, whether to hire, or whether to make other important decisions that might boost the economy” [Econoday]. And: “the highest level this year” [Calculated Risk].
JOLTS, September 2016: “Job openings rose to 5.486 million in September, up from a revised 5.453 million in August but still on the low side of this year’s trend. Hires are down in the September data, to 5.081 million from August’s 5.268 million to suggest that employers are having a hard time filling slots” [Econoday]. “With it hard to find the right person for the right job, employers are holding onto their existing employees closely as the layoff rate fell… [I’m so old I remember when you could get training at your job! Good times….] Though hiring is down, these numbers nevertheless will confirm worries that wage inflation may be approaching, that employers will have to offer more to bring in the workers they need.” Time to screw the workers take away the punch bowl, Janet! And: “The data overall suggests that there was a slight cooling in the labour market during the third quarter, but not enough to discourage a December rate increase from the Federal Reserve” [Economic Calendar]. And: “[A]nother solid report” [Calculated Risk].
Fed Loan Officer Survey: “The latest Federal Reserve senior loan officer survey on bank lending standards reported that standards were basically unchanged for the commercial sector during the third quarter of 2016. There had, however, been some tightening of conditions on Commercial Real Estate (CRE) loans” [Economic Calendar]. And: “Bank credit tends to tighten up as the economy slows, which slows lending and makes matters worse.The buzz word is ‘pro cyclical'” [Mosler Economics]. As we’ve seen, the bright spot in CRE is supply-chain related, e.g. distribution centers. And that’s a bet on globalization, no?
Shipping: “Investors are following online retailers into warehouses” [Wall Street Journal]. “Singapore’s sovereign-wealth fund agreed to pay $2.7 billion for P3 Logistics Parks and its portfolio of European warehouses… in one of the biggest real-estate deals in Europe this year. The high returns on the industrial properties are a big draw, but the bigger attraction over the long term is the growing need for space to serve e-commerce customers in a European market with a limited number of high-quality warehouses. This is the second big buy in logistics for Singapore’s GIC Pte. fund, which bought the Blackstone Group LP’s IndCor Properties and its network of U.S. warehouses. The upheaval in the market likely isn’t over—another Blackstone property, Logicor, is exploring either an outright sale or an initial public offering of a business that owns 660 warehouses in 18 European countries.”
Shipping: “The top U.S. maritime regulator [Federal Maritime Commission Chairman Mario Cordero] says the ongoing consolidation in the shipping industry isn’t leading to collusion to fix freight rates” [Wall Street Journal]. Of course not. That’s
Shipping: “The Port of Oakland said today its October export volumes reached a three-year high, increasing 20 percent over 2015 levels and posting the fourth-largest monthly total in its history” [DC Velocity]. “Port executives said that export volumes benefitted from weakness in the U.S. dollar that made U.S. exports more competitive in world markets and a strong agricultural harvest. Oakland is the closet seaport to the verdant growing areas of the Central, Napa, and Salinas valleys, and as a result handles much of the state’s agricultural export cargo. The port reported that containerized import cargo volume increased 2 percent in October. Overall loaded container volume—imports and exports—was up 11.4 percent, the port said.”
Shipping: “[UPS] is buying medical-logistics specialist Marken Ltd., pushing deeper into the highly specialized and very profitable business of healthcare industry deliveries. The move is a play for high-yield business when many traditional industrial and retail customers are opting for slower, cheaper shipping….Closely-held Marken specializes in transporting clinical trial materials and medicine between 49,000 clinical trial locations around the world, work that is particularly sensitive in terms of time and temperature” [Wall Street Journal]. “For UPS, it also delivers a bigger entry into a growing market, particularly as aging populations in the developed world spend more on health care and clinical research expands.”
Shipping: “Packaging machinery shipments in U.S. could reach $8.5 billion in 2020” [DC Velocity] “[T]he fastest-growing machinery types scored by CAGR through 2020 will be the labeling, decorating, and coding (3.9 percent) and the case handling (2.5 percent) machinery groups. That rapid growth is largely a result of new legislation demanding increased labeling and coding, continuing developments in printing technologies, and the proliferation of SKUs, PMMI said. The other machinery groups include: filling and dosing; bottling line; form, fill, and seal; cartoning; palletizing; closing; and wrapping and bundling.” Fascinating to see the interface between big data and stuff.
Shipping: “Container ship demolition hits record high” [Journal of Commerce]. “Shipowners have demolished 4.2 times more 20-foot-equivalent units so far this year than in the same period of 2015, with 500,000 TEUs. Most of the activity has occurred in the last three months, which accounted for 41 percent of the demolition thus far in 2016. The demolition activity in the last three months surprised BIMCO [Baltic and International Maritime Council] positively and it exceeded our initial expectation based on the appalling 2015 demolition activity,’ said Peter Sand, chief shipping analyst, BIMCO. “The advance is a push in the right direction, as demolition activity is one of the essential measures needed to be taken to rebalance the container shipping industry.'” “Rebalance.” No Pakistanis burned to death lately, so we’re good!
Shipping: “Southern California chassis shortages recede as Hanjin boxes are cleared” [Lloyd’s List].
Retail: “Panjiva Research Director Chris Rogers told Logistics Management that when specifically looking at import numbers for things like apparel, especially winter clothing, and toys, which are both down, it suggests that retailers are not feeling ‘hugely confident’ about the state of consumer spending. And he added that it is in direct contrast to recent data issued by the National Retail Federation, which is calling for holiday shipping season (the months of November and December) to be up 3.6 percent” [Modern Materials Handling]. From October. But still.
Retail: “A recent survey of shoppers weighed in with their answer to the question, “Do you like Black Friday?” Only 14.7% said that they love it, while 50.7% said it was okay. More than a third — 35.3% — said they hated it. A rather staggering 85% of those surveyed either hated Black Friday or didn’t care much about it” [247 Wall Street] (original survey). Throw me in the “hate” bucket!
Housing: “It is so interesting to once again see the ‘drive until you qualify’ meme permeating the housing industry. People seem to think this is now a new permanent plateau, a new normal, yet ignore the low home ownership rate and the reality that momentum is turning. But of course many are not paying attention – they are stuck in traffic apparently. Mega commutes, rental Armageddon, and insane prices for crap shacks are all part of the game today” [Dr. Housing Bubble]. “If you look at the rise in these mega commutes in the Bay Area and Silicon Valley it shot up in 2010… Something fundamentally shifted here. Of course you have your house humpers saying that this is great and somehow reflects a healthy market but in reality, it simply shows a hyper manic market of people desperate to claw into a crap shack. And many are now having to endure Clockwork Orange like torture in traffic. Many Millennials are simply saying no and are renting closer to work (or living at home with parents).”
Honey for the Bears: “The restaurant recession has arrived” [MarketWatch]. “One factor is pressure on discretionary income from the rising costs of staples such as rent, medicine and education. Then there’s the steady rise in the cost of eating out, which has come just as grocery bills are getting cheaper. The cost of food purchased for home use—that is, groceries—has fallen 2.4% in the past year, government data showed in October. That’s the biggest decline over a 12-month period since the end of the Great Recession in 2009… Food costs have shrunk because of a global glut in farm products such as wheat, rice, soy and corn. Then there’s the effect of U.S. producers increasing the size of egg-laying chicken flocks and cattle herds, which has helped bring down the cost of eggs, beef and milk—egg prices alone have tumbled a staggering 50% in the last year.”
The Bezzle: “Amazon.com Inc. could be in the crosshairs of Europe’s taxman” [Wall Street Journal, “Europe’s Taxman Could Have Amazon in Its Crosshairs”]. “That could be material for Amazon, which operates on thin margins for a large tech company. In 2015, it reported $596 million in profit on $107 billion in revenue—a profit margin of 0.56%.”
Currency: “Taking the nation by surprise, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday night announced demonetisation of Rs. 1000 and Rs. 500 notes with effect from midnight, making these notes invalid in a major assault on black money, fake currency and corruption” [The Hindu].
Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 29 Fear (previous close: 26, Fear) [CNN]. One week ago: 22 (Extreme Fear). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Nov 8 at 11:22am. Mr. Market’s knuckles were white there, for a bit.
Guillotine Watch
“Amtrak boosts Wi-Fi speed on Acela Express” [Progressive Railroading]. Moar cowbell.
News of the Wired
“You Can Have Emotions You Don’t Feel” [Nautil.us].
“6 reasons to think twice before moving to Canada” [MarketWatch].
Readers, feel free to contact me with (a) links, and even better (b) sources I should curate regularly, and (c) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi are deemed to be honorary plants! See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. And here’s today’s plant:
Because it’s all about the lettuce, right?
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193 comments
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Lifelong (I). Switched to (D) in March to vote in CA Primary for Bernie.
Switched back to (I) on June 8 after obviously fixed primary and massive voter disenfranchisement.
Show up to polls today – suddenly I’m a vote-by-mail voter! Never voted by mail in my life and voted in person LESS THAN 6 MONTHS AGO AT SAME LOCATION. 4 little old ladies have no idea how it happened, but you can cast a provisional ballot!
I’m sure it has nothing to do with CA SoS Julian Castro openly campaigning for Clinton (in violation of his office). I’m sure I’m the only (D)-to-(I) from June 8 who had to cast a provisional (quick primer: provisional = your vote didn’t count). I’m sure it’s purely a coincidence. It’s not like leaving the (D) party the day after the fixed primary told them who I was going to vote for (just who I was voting against. Wasn’t even voting Trump but this spineless Oligarchy can never be too sure even in a ‘safe’ state like CA.)
This Oligarchy is so in your face about it. Hope I live long enough to watch them all burn.
I agree with you. If these vile thieves do manage to steal the election, all bets are off.
Sad for them, but I think these thieves will find out that rather than stealing an election like they thought they stole an IED with a short fuse.
Which vile thieves? Why an IED? God, IEDs and guts made America great?
corruption, graft and warmongering made america great?
…and a lot of Good (=Dead) “Indians…”
And CNN says there’s no credible reports of voter fraud!
That’s not voter fraud. It’s election fraud, something certain groups pretend doesn’t exist so they van keep having their rigged elections.
Blackbox voting machines, mail ins, no need for ID laws. They all serve the same purpose.
Just a contrasting anecdote: I switched “(D)-to-(I)” here in San Francisco after the primary as well. But I had no problem voting today.
I’m not saying that vote will be counted. And I’m certainly not saying the election isn’t rigged. Of course it is. Open and honest elections just aren’t America’s thing, and that will remain the case at least until we go to hand-marked paper ballots (the case here in SF) publicly tabulated (not the case here in SF).
You’re from the Bay Area and thus can be reasonably depended on to know who the right person to vote for is.
I’m from a red part of FarNorCal where (I) usually means “I hate both parties but skew conservative because the Republicans aren’t conservative enough for me”.
Aka I was flagged as a likely deplorable and disenfranchised. Thanks, Castro!
Hell of a banana republic we got going here.
State of Jefferson country?
Why Castro? I would think Pinochet to be a better reference. Or Air Vice Marshall Ky perhaps.
“Little old ladies” AKA election judges, at least in my state. A little respect, please! They have been trained for their very long day’s work (effectively double shift) and will be paid probably something on the order of $10 an hour unless California is much more generous than Maryland. In all probability they are personally committed to fair elections and deeply offended by problems generated in the main office (of which yours is probably only one of many).
Assuming you did vote provisionally, be sure to follow up with your board of elections. Phone early and often to find out whether your ballot will be counted, not to mention giving your opinion of the error in their records. And if anyone (ACLU or other group?) is collecting reports of registration irregularities, do please let them have the information, as being able to point to large numbers of problems increases the odds of getting them taken seriously.
Wait, what? CA=California? 1) independents were allowed to vote in the dem primary (semi-open); 2) SoS is Alex Padilla (Clinton partisan). Julian Castro is US HUD secretary.
Even in liberal CA you can take no chances. When registering voters I gave instructions as to the benefit of registering D versus I and if choosing to vote for a D, they would need to demand a D ballot. The ballot is only as good as the training… i.e. in a few situations elections workers were erroneously given instructions during the primary to give independents provisional ballots.
Same here, lifelong Independent, switched the D about a month before the primaries to vote for Sanders here in CA. No problems at the polls then. After the vote I was going to switch back, but thought about it for awhile and figured they would screw it up, intentionally or not. So I decided to wait until after this is over.
After your experience, I’m glad I did… plus it was fun to be a registered Dem and not vote for HRC.
Interestingly, other than Stein there was not one single Green Party candidate on the ballot here in the N. Mojave Desert. No wonder they can’t win.
Fixed Link for “You Can Have Emotions You Don’t Feel”
http://nautil.us/blog/you-can-have-emotions-you-dont-feel
>Sigmund Freud agreed: “It is surely of the essence of an emotion,” he wrote, “that we should feel it, i.e. that it should enter consciousness.”
A handy rule of thumb for anything related to brain science: If Freud said it, it’s wrong. He aggressively did not know what he was talking about. He didn’t do science; he didn’t experiment to try and figure things out about people. He just made shit up. He did the science equivalent of showing up a worksite with a hardhat and a clipboard and pretending like you belong.
True, but even so…just look what Bernays managed to do with all that bullshit…
Interesting comment, in light of the fact that Freud trained as a neuroscientist.
If you happen to be a dualist with physicalist assumptions, it’s still possible that he investigated the ‘conscious’ correlates of neural states in a methodical way.
Neuroscience is still a fledgling field, making promises it hasn’t delivered on in 50-100 years. But in another decade (it’s always a decade), we’ll all be cyberimmortals.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/neurophilosophy/2014/mar/10/neuroscience-history-science
i don’t think much training in neuroscience was possible back then.
He abandoned objective science and didn’t conduct experiments to actually test any of his ideas.
And I’m anything but a dualist.
Oh, FFS.
1. Neuroscience =/= Psychology.
2. “Neuroscience” c. 1900 =/= Neuroscience c. 2016
3. Yes, Neuroscience most certainly has delivered on its potential: it’s why the vast majority of people with epilepsy are allowed to drive. This was not the case in the 1930s before effective antiepileptics were developed.
4. The real elephant in the room is Psychology and Psychiatry, both of which are bulls*** pseudosciences that are bought and paid for by big pharma. Moreover, they’re quietly replacing private prisons as the Giant Cement Boxes where we warehouse our Dangerous Populations (while conveniently making a tidy profit).
NYC voters complain of long lines, broken scanners [NYDN]
Hard to pin this on Putinzilla.
Well our Dems are pretty garbage, from Christie/Trump clone Cuomo to the woeful loser de Blasio…
His hacking skills are seriously just that good. You were worried about the machines. It is the elderly leaning (at least in my experience) poll workers who are the Russian Plants. Hacking, the old fashioned way.
They are all Russian agents. Except for the ones blocking Trump voters, who are good patriotic Americans.
When are they going to blame 9/11 on Putin?
During the impeachment?
Putin 9/11 ?…didnt you get the memo…it was his fault…with all those bony records…duh…chechnya and Afghanistan…putin was flying and parachuted out at the george washington bridge…made his way to Brooklyn and put on a ukranian accent…
Oh wait…are you cleared for that…?
Monica Lewinsky was a Russian Agent.
““[Trump’s] threat to jail his political opponent will be discussed and criticized for centuries” [Calculated Risk]. “Centuries.” Goodness.
Liberals with their nickers twisted around a Trumpe-l’oeil unanimously forget that their little icon Wilson actually jailed his political opponent and forget even more emphatically that their big icon, Jefferson, actually tried to have his opponent killed for “treason” and was stopped only when that old Tory, John Marshall, noticed that Aaron Burr had committed no crime whatsoever. And (except for the great Gore Vidal) nobody seems to have discussed and criticized *him* “for centuries.” Goodness.
Remember me … for centuries …
man these people are bad pop music mostly.
“Trumpe-l’oeil”
Oh, that is delish!
That looks awfully similar to a beet!
Or mustard greens, spicy!
Maybe red giant mustard? Got some in our CSA bag last week—gorgeous and hot.
Could it be a relative of the Skunk Cabbage? In honour of the ‘Skunk Party?’
Those are Scarlet Frills. They are a mustard green. They are very spicy. And they are delicious.
Yes, red mustard. My favorite green.
Don’t think so. I’d vote for beet greens.
Looks like mustard greens to me. Something quite familiar to my garden. And quite capable of reproducing without any help year after year.
Re: Chuck Todd’s article on cleaning up after the election:
Funny, because I fall into exactly none of the categories he listed (Democrats, GOP, Hillary, the Media, Congress), so what responsibility do I have for the dumpster fire? I didn’t vote for either of these idiots in the primaries. I changed affiliation to vote for the hippie.
His conclusions at the end are important, playing to something I suspected was the case as soon as I started reading about: that this election was a realigning election, like 1828/Jackson/Democrats, and 1964/68/LBJ/Nixon/Southern Strategy.
Yes, the stench of corruption is so purifying.
Hmm, Cleansing Fire? As in – you’re fired?
The premature death/cull of the Baby Boomers could mean that a lot of new home buyers in flyover cities will be taken off the market.
The kid moves into the inner suburb house owned by the (prematurely dead) parents. (If he’s been living in the basement, he won’t even have to move).
Or let one of the kids rent it, and split the profit/number of kids.
Report from small town PA. Pulled the lever for Stein at 1:45. Election personnel told me that turnout is up about 30% (Which does not really amount to much here to be honest). My partner has told me that she has a handful of friends in their mid 30’s that are first time voters, and they are all voting for Trump.
Another thing that some of you might find interesting. I have a relative on the election board in the neighboring township. They told me that in our county, and the next county over, the senior board member for each polling place actually picks up the voting machines at the county courthouse on the Friday before the election, and then keeps the voting machines at their residence until Tuesday morning. I was rendered speechless. I am not sure how many counties this occurs in, but there are at least two in Pennsylvania. That’s some high security, right there. I really hope none of those people are Russian spies……….
Just out of interest, is your partner’s name Charybdis?
(Sorry, couldn’t resist! The effects of election night beverages (20:50 here in the EU)…)
Heh, no, but I do get asked that question pretty frequently! It goes with the territory, I suppose. Enjoy your beverages. I will be having some after dinner myself.
Unfortunately this is standard procedure in many places (maybe in most places). It’s been like this since these machines have been used. Another glaring chain of custody problem.
Clinton didn’t just tip the balance towards the Libyan intervention. She also refused to negotiate for peace when Qaddafi sent his son to do the negotiating. Refusal to negotiate, btw, was in direct contravention of the UNSC resolution on Libya.
So as there will obviously be no UNSC resolution on Syria (Russian veto) I wonder just what legal fig leaf a Pres Hillary would use to justify a no fly zone over Syria. The AUMF? Wouldn’t that simply make the legal justification “might makes right” or, in the quaint words of Tom Friedman, “suck on this”?
Meanwhile Syria hawk Cameron is gone and Syria hawk Hollande has a 4 percent approval rating and may be impeached. So who would be in her fictional “coalition”? As Katniss says this woman must be stopped but it may not have to be today. Indeed with the Trump issue settled the American people could finally find their voice–and their sanity.
Of course if Trump wins she will be stopped for sure. What follows will be…????
to beat a dead horse…Libya only had 6-ish million people, less than the 5 boroughs of NYC. Syria has 18 million.
If the US can’t fix the mess in Libya, no way that the US, by itself, can both oust Assad and then clean up everything in a pro-US manner.
Afghanistan is still a basket case after 15 years of US intervention.
Afghanistan was a basket case before US Intervention.
a lot of countries that intervened in afghanistan wound up being basket cases, as well. being the chew toy being fought over by various empires kept them a basket case.
US intervention began under Brzezinski/Carter when Afghanistan was no “basket case” but a developing country with a progressive and secular government. The US’s Islamic insurrection plus a brutally clumsy Russian intervention (le pavé de l’urss) on behalf of the Afghan government put an end to that and gave us our present basket (of heroin) case.
The US never had any concern for the Libyans; their ruined lives are merely “collateral damage” from the sowing of chaos the US practices.
The US State Dept. aided transporting weapons and takiris from Libya to Turkey (Incirlic), so they could easily enter Syria and create mayhem and chaos there.
Here is my proposal for the Coalition: Palau (repeating after their successful role in the Iraq one), Bhutan, Grenada, Antigua and Barbuda, St. Nevis and Kitts, the dutch side of St Maarten, the rebel held areas in Central Republic of Congo and last, but by no means least, the international research station in Antartica.
You forgot Poland…
Tasmania? or would the Australian government throw a hissy fit? Maybe then Kangaroo island?
Hillary is stupid enough to launch missiles and expect a “democratic smart war” to shield her. She is still a deeply racist person. I don’t think she grasps or could ever grasp the concept of missiles being lobbed at our ships and drone bases from the “primitives.”
Remember Russians are as dumb as Yaknov Smirnov and as insidious as Lex Luthor. Team Blue went off the deep end some time ago. Talking like George Bush and showin’ Republicans they can be tough and listen to Katy Perry, Roar, is a winning strategy for the irrational Democrat.
On a more serious note, I’m reminded of portrayals of the Japanese before Pearl Harbor. “Those goldfish farmers!”- Mr. Burns
To NotTimothyGeithner’s comment, “I’m reminded of portrayals of the Japanese before Pearl Harbor.”
Interesting reminder. I’m slowly coming to the opinion the US is the 21st century iteration of 1941 Japan —
with oil replacing iron?
And of course, the Russian air defences are no issue whatsoever (being a generation ahead of anybody else’s…)
$hillary…legal fig leaf 2 justify ? The same 1 $he has milked 4 almost 20 years…because bill did that thang in the oval office and
“therefore the world owes me…”
Now kiss the ring and stop asking such silly questions b4 I have the court jester escort you 2 the new govt accounting office in the dungeon…
Now kiss the ring? That’s so European.
Now kiss my a..? That how America works!!
For Gloria Steinem to associate Hillary with “women as peace negotiators” is a gross insult to real peace negotiators (the ones who don’t enable or start wars in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen…) and to real feminists who understand that just because a candidate is a woman doesn’t automatically mean she deserves one’s vote.
And David Gergen… the quintessential Washington establishment “bi-partisan” insider? What’s he done for real world peace lately?
Christ, this election year has really destroyed a few reputations, hasn’t it?
As a woman of a certain age, I say: ‘Shame on Gloria Steinem. Are you really that ignorant?
There’s a place in hell…’
Gloria Steinem is an (admitted) CIA asset, and she’s always worked to further monsters like Hillary. Steinem is as elite establishment as it gets, like when she was dating the deputy director of Nixon’s FBI.
Speaking of the establishment, Rush Limbaugh like the broken clock is right twice a year. I stumbled on this at The Hill (my emphasis):
–Limbaugh: George W. Bush, Laura Bush voted for Clinton
George Carlin couldn’t have put it better, though he did so more concisely. This one quote sums up the entire farce of US “democracy”.
Well she is there unofficial sister-in-law, since supposedly Poppy and Barbara think of Bill like another son, so it is still all in the family as well. Can’t get more establishment than that.
Evening news reported that a BushBoy spokesman said Bush did not vote for president at all, but did vote for all the downticket R’s.
Gloria has always been a careerist (see her CIA days). Hillary is just kindred spirit. Gloria’s insecurity WRT this shone through when the inevitable left critiques of Hillary trickled in. Maybe it felt like the critiques were poking her as well.
“6 reasons to think twice before moving to Canada”
Argh! Not very unique to Canada: immigration costs a lot in other countries too (Ireland was €900 to apply) but it was MORE expensive here for my husband, because of the labyrinthine rules and the unhelpful info on the INS site made us opt for a lawyer. And I am pretty certain you have to pay US taxes no matter where you go with possible exceptions of places like Saudi Arabia. I believe that the US is unique in taxing its citizens abroad. And if you think Canada puts your marriage under the microscope! . . . Here we had to provide family and friends’ statements, notarized, plus emails, photos, and letters showing we knew each other “back when”, plus bills and leases, etc. and then finally get interviewed for a half hour by An INS employee… And as for missing one’s chain stores… Fah! My point is it’s not particularly onerous when compared to other countries, including ours.
A friend at work, who is voting for Clinton but should know better, said one day if Trump won she was going to move to Canada. I didn’t have the heart to tell her she didn’t have a shot in hell of doing it legally (She is over 60 and not remotely wealthy.) And unlike her imaginings this is not draft dodging in the seventies, the country was not going to become some imaginary haven for disaffected liberals.
There is also the border patrol to consider: http://i.imgur.com/stYMnGM.jpg
Slate’s VoteCastr is definitely predicting a big Clinton victory. She’s only losing Iowa of the states they monitor. And winning big in Florida.
Being from a country having a two-days ban on polls, up to polling station closing in the whole country, I really feel, considering the long lines, it can push some to skip it and go home.
But their editor-in-chief said that “The role of journalists is to bring information to people, not to protect them from it” so I guess that’s okay. Weasel words for “if it’s not illegal let’s publish it.”
You can’t rig predictions.
When they start reporting, that’s when we start worrying about rigged reporting.
The predictions rig the expectations. I’m expecting a ‘big Clinton “win” ‘ based on what I saw in the primaries, especially California.
NC will be more important than ever to separate the economic facts from the “preferred narrative.”
It goes both ways. Clinton voters will be assured of their victory and go home. Trump voters probably pay little attention to “innovative” tech companies with deleted-vowel names
Latest from that source, FLA per votecstr:
CLINTON
4,225,249 estimated votes so far
2012 OBAMA TURNOUT: 4,161,850
TRUMP
3,947,947 estimated votes so far
2012 ROMNEY TURNOUT: 4,050,540
If this is near to being correct, it’s all over but the shouting and Hillary should cruise the rest of the way.
I always assumed Clinton was a sure thing. I’m actually more interested in a lot of the other races and issues on various ballots. There’s a lot of interesting stuff going on, even just here in WA State.
How reliable are they?
Is this something new or does it have a record?
Hey we have a country that can declare a winner before the polls close. Of course they are trying to manage expectations. They have for years. This will just be worse.
from the site:
“Each candidate’s vote total is calculated based on the number of ballots cast during early voting and on Election Day at a sampling of polling places; voters’ candidate preferences as derived from pre-election polls and microtargeting models”
Slate never made it out of the ’90’s.
A recent article said early voting numbers are not predictive of final results. No time to find the cite.
If it’s anything like a horse race or a baseball game, we will have to watch all the way to the finish line.
Help me a bit, when did Wagner’s last opera in “The Ring” go from a loose translation of Ragnarok (a loaded word to begin with) to the definition given by Merriam-Webster? I get the metaphor, but is it a high-brow joke or has this been an official definition thing for a while and I’m out of the loop?
The “Gotterdammerung” was to be played by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra over the German radio waves April 11th 1945 as a sign for all “connected” Germans that the end was nigh. Get out of town, especially Berlin. It actually happened that way.
Cool bit of info.
Interesting, much clearer now. Thanks!
I’ll be voting for the two greens on the ballot down here in Metairie, LA. I suspect many of the votes for David Duke, who famously ran against Edwin Edawrds for Governor sparking the “vote for the crook” meme, will come from this district. And who else is from my district?! Why, none other than Rep Steve Scalise!
Vote Jill Stein!
FUCK THE ESTABLISHMENT
We had two very qualified Greens on the ballot, in addition to Jill Stein: U.S. Senate and State Comptroller. I voted for all three Greens.
A major Illinois issue this year is a state constitutional amendment to ensure that all the highway taxes we pay (gas taxes, license fees, etc.) are used only for building and maintaining roads and are not grabbed by the politicians for other purposes. It was an important reason to vote even if you didn’t care for any of the individuals running for office.
Agree that down ticket races and referendums/amendments are the best reason to vote this year. The states are where the action is. Pretty important measures on my state’s ballot.
I voted for Jill Stein in DC. If I lived in Virginia, I would have considered trading my Stein vote for a Clinton vote in a solid blue state. Alas I wasn’t forced to consider that Faustian bargain.
I asked Eleanor Holmes Norton’s office if she opposed a lame duck TPP vote. I never got a straight answer so I voted Green for the DC congressional delegate.
Hi grayslady, am wondering about the actual effect of your highway tax amendment. When I lived in MI I saw the effect of highway taxes (and motorcycle license fees, gun, hunting and fishing licenses, etc, etc) that had been earmarked for highway maintenance, driver training, hunter safety instruction, conservation, and in general, stuff related to the activity licensed/taxed, under Engler were all thrown into the ‘general fund’. IOW, could be used for *anything* and therefore a justification for slashing taxes. Which they did.
Here in Toronto we are having a dispute (mostly on talk radio and such, at least so far) about how bicycles should be paying for bike infrastructure. Hello!!!!!!! Bike infrastructure is mostly paint, well OK, some planters and bollards. Car infrastructure includes our two-level downtown highway (“the Gardiner/Lakeshore”) not to mention snow plowing (which the bike lanes mostly don’t get), huge amounts of real estate for driving, parking (half of our streets are filled half or more of the time with parked cars, who pays for that?), and a *whole* lot of pothole repair. Meanwhile, we pay the same property taxes as car drivers. And here in TO much of the road upkeep has been ‘downloaded’ onto the city, so pd by property taxes, while out-of-towners, including the road-busting trucks, do not. Well!
I think this is yet another example of divide and conquer.
I would vote for the highway initiative if it said highways may be funded only through gas taxes. General taxpayers shouldn’t have to fund new state highways that make possible Walmarts or other big box stores. State DOTs are notorious for these kinds of wasteful and corrupt big road projects.
Went to vote still undecided about what to do or whether to even bother. I was probably going to vote for Stein, but she wasn’t on the ballot. Actually I was surprised. This left me with a feeling I can only describe by comparing it to being asked to decide which side of my head I’d prefer to shoot myself through – the right temple or the left temple? So much hangs in the balance!
I went with “right”. It was the only way to register my disgust with the status quo and to tell all those people trying to tell me what’s good for me and what I must think to go fuck themselves. They’re just as bad as the people on the other side they claim to be morally and intellectually superior to. If anything they’re worse because they’re even more hypocritical and self-deceived about their claimed virtues. The other side is more forthright about pursuing their self-interest. I don’t know if I hope there are enough people feeling the same way that “right temple entrance wound. left temple blowout” wins. Whatever.
Save us Giant Meteor – you’re our only hope!
Someone I know shared a picture of a Godzilla figure with an “I Voted” sticker today. I would gladly except Godzilla as our President elect.
Intersecting between Godzilla and politics: Hideako Anno’s new Godzilla interpretation was really good and had some cool satire of massive bureaucracy, specifically of the Japanese government, but it felt applicable to general society as well.
Watch out for cool satires of the bureaucracy. They’re very funny. However…. That’s what they used to win support for the attempt to dismantle the Post Office – (to be replaced by expensive private contractors, of course.) It’s what they use to win support for public/private partnerships, and for charter schools.
Yeah, not looking forward to tomorrow. Lose-lose, for sure, but the stakes might be more than I can manage. And I am just your neighbour to the north.
If Harper was your Shrub and Trudeau Jr your Obama, who will be your Trump and Hillary?
Dunno. Harper wasn’t our Shrub, he was our Thatcher. That is, he was his own boss, and ran wild on his own pet peeves — gutted the CBC, the arts, scientific research up to and including Environment Canada, the people who predict our weather — kinda important, since so many of us farm and fish, you’d think — and sports. Sports! The explanation was that spending money on junior sports was a waste, wait until you get promising athletes at 14 or 15 and fund them then.
We don’t have to mirror you guys, we have our own weenies here, thank you very much. Last election we had Parsifal Trudeau, whose *ss is home to many arms, much older and less pretty than he, some Conservative named Harper, another Conservative named Mulcair, and the Bloc Quebecois. Stats and stuff here.
You can have motions you don’t feel.
The fault lies with the guy who invented the word, emotion.
He defined it as something you could feel.
He should have warned that there would be emotions you couldn’t feel, 500 or 1,000 years ago.
Those English majors…shaking my head.
Halfway down Silver’s “final update” is a chart noting that the undecided/other count is higher than it was in 2000, 9.6% then vs 12.5% now (it was in the 3% range in ’04, ’08 and ’12). This figure combined with the shy Trump voter syndrome could mean a surprise or a long night tonight.
For people still intending to vote for Stein here’s a list where she’s on the ballot or has met state requirements for write-in. I’m not sure, but I think one may need to jump thru some hoops to do a write-in as the names of officially eligible write-in candidates don’t necessarily appear on the ballot. Ask a poll worker.
http://www.jill2016.com/ballot_access
Voted for Stein today and marym, you were correct yesterday, she was on the ballot in Maine along with Johnson, not as a write-in. After a lot of internal deliberation I walked out feeling like I didn’t compromise and I’m with her!
It’s my understanding that the countries Americans would most want to move to (Australia, Canada, NZ, the Netherlands, etc.) have rather strict immigration policies, and unless you have a needed, very specific skill set (or $$$$$), you wouldn’t be allowed to move there. They are rather Trump-like.
Hahaha! Too right. And the only country that by law has to take me in is Israel–another set of Trumpean immigration rules.
Ireland I guess fits that too. The requirements (if you can’t show that you are the descendant of Irish diaspora): money enough to keep yourself and pay the fee, 5 years in the country before application, and patience because they have only two part-timers vetting the applications, and who disappear entirely over Christmas and the World Cup. Then you see a judge, pick your provincial Gaelic Game team, and Bobs your uncle.
Sooo… Need money, patience, and sense of humor…. Maybe trumpian… Certainly very Irish.
Try it, you could.
The Netherlands is full of maroccans and Arabs, who have zero skills, so those strict immigration policies are clearly not universally applied.
– Which is just another reason why we Europeans are getting really hacked off over “globalisation”.
In my experience this election, yes. My mother refused to admit she was voting for Trump until she had a couple of glasses of wine one night last week and made an impassioned plea to me to vote Trump. We all knew she would vote Trump; she had been getting flyers from him in the mail for months, but she would not admit it out loud.
My FB feed is largely dominated by Clinton supporters, but in the last week, several Usual Suspects have finally come out and admitted they were voting for Trump. Again, no one was a real surprise, but it took getting down to the wire (and Comey’s last email blow up) to bring them out from under their rocks.
But then, amongst my friends and family, I am not going to admit that I voted for Stein. I am sure they suspect since I have voted 3rd Party since 2008, but I guess I am shy, too.
I voted Stein in PA, which matters more than any other state by some estimates, and told some family and friends but not others. It isn’t shyness, it is flat out adult bullying that I am avoiding consciously. It isn’t worth the fight to tell them the truth. I’m sure as hell not shy.
Here in SW Oklahoma things at our polling place were steady rather than busy (around 11 am). We even got to sit down with our ballot papers – a benefit to me whose third only General this is (being a relative newcomer to these shores – 2004, US citizen 2008). Ballot papers here still seem more like exam papers to me, as compared to British ballot papers (one X and done!)
We had only HRC , DT and Gary Johnson on the president list. No write-ins allowed. Wary of leaving anything blank I voted (but only as a protest vote) for Johnson the Libertarian. OK will go red as always, though oddly enough they didn’t go for Trump or Clinton in the primaries , Cruz and Bernie won then.
Best wishes to all, and many thanks to Yves and Lambert for all their efforts during this season of madness. Y’all are the best – crème de la crème.
My working class town in north Iowa is an economic basket case. In presidential elections it usually goes 60-40 democrat. Obama won the county caucus in 2008 with Hillary placing third. Sanders beat out Hillary easily this year county-wide.
I would be very surprised if Trump doesn’t win here. Sanders would have carried the town and the state in a cakewalk. They just don’t like Hillary, and haven’t since 2008.
There were no lines when I voted for Stein.
Field report from NW DC: Went to vote @3:30 p.m. Sailed right in. No line. Approximately three other voters on the premises. Was allowed the option of a paper or electronic ballot; opted for paper, although it’s scanned in by a machine at the end so who knows how accurately (or if) it is tabulated? Have had several conversations today with people who are genuinely fearful and expecting major civil unrest. I on the other hand am at peace. It felt very satisfying to vote my conscience, even though many might opine that I “threw away my vote” by declining to vote for either major-party candidate for President.
I wouldn’t worry about throwing away your vote in DC. Last I checked it went 90% democrat last election. Now at least you will stand out from the crowd ;)
The Eschaton link–
I clicked it and read some of the comments which are pretty disgusting. It seems that “deplorables” is the new “N” word suitable for usage by the “progressive” blogosphere.
seriously, the media coverage was pro trump? i stopped reading the comments after 20 or so.
Eschaton comments? Scary. Almost DKos level of Hillbot douchenozzlery.
One fact (disconnect) has (really) confused me. The media (everywhere it seems, certainly in NZ) does not have an unequivocally good word to say about Donald Trump. There is always at least a “but” in any praise. I would say that is also true of 90% of the NC commentariat. Trump is clearly unpopular.
However, Trump has massive cheering crowds everywhere he goes.
On the other hand. The “clearly” very very popular Hillary Clinton (not on NC, thank God) has tiny crowds where ever she goes, unless there is a free rock star show on offer. If only a tiny percentage of Hillary’s fervent supporters (seemingly everywhere; on TV, on blogs, in the newspapers, on the streets…) came to her infrequent rallies, there would be thousands in attendance and thousands turned away for lack of room. It does not happen. You would at least expect 20,000 bankers to show up for her?
It is Lao Tzu’ish. The unpopular IS popular (Trump) and the popular (Clinton) is unpopular.
On another note, I watched “Made in the USA” Bruce Springsteen at a Hillary rally. He was wearing a cowboy shirt with the sleeves rolled up and a pair of beaten up blue jeans. He did the Woody Guthrie/Pete Seeger harmonica thing, and talked in that old-time, whiny, dust bowl voice. (Grapes of Wrath). Another “good cop”, softening us of for the “bad cop” to slap us around after they come back from their donut break.
For those who need a break from our creaky democracy in action and would like to enjoy and oldie but goodie about democracy in public transport, someone in the office made me think of this….
https://www.ted.com/talks/enrique_penalosa_why_buses_represent_democracy_in_action?language=en
Like Atrios I also deplore the reporting on this election. I deplore the fact that more attention was not paid to Clinton’s actual record as Secretary of State. I deplore the fact that few if any of our media noted how often the Clinton campaign and its people claimed to be the victim of actions they themselves were taking. I deplore the fact that while noting the sexist, racist things Trump has said and often done, they ignore Clinton’s long record of supporting racist programs and situations. And the pompous entitled attitude of her supporters. Our media has truly failed this election season, but it isn’t just their coverage of Trump. It is also their fluffing of Clinton. Frankly it was as if the primary was all about ignoring Trump and the general was all about ignoring Clinton, the real ones, not the images.
And if you want to look at hatred and intolerance just click on that link and read the first few comments. That is some real hatred there. No walk a mile in others shoes to figure out how people got where they are. No, just out right hate. I don’t hate either Trump or Clinton voters. Everyone has to choose based on what is best in their life. Even if that included denial and delusion on both groups. I will be sure to tell both groups they bought it, but I don’t hate them. The ones I will hate are the gate keepers and the owners and willing factotums that have brought us to this point.
I have more sympathy for Trump voters than Clinton voters actually. Does anybody feel the opposite?
Oh and there was still a line at my polling place but it was for one district when I got there mid afternoon. Mine had no one waiting, and the other three had two people at most. I have to give a thank you to my neighbor who told me the line was not for our district and to walk in and check before getting on it.
No broken scanners, so I don’t know what the delays were for that one district. Interesting.
Oh, and my vote was for Stein. I also voted Green for Senator. My Congressman, State Senator and State Assembly were on the Democratic line, but did throw a bone by voting the Working Family Party line for them. Despite their gutless cave in to Cuomo (and support of Clinton), I would still rather help them with ballot access than give even that bone to the Dems.
I keep wondering when or if there will be any reporting about the number of voters who refused to vote for Clinton or Trump.
I guess if it’s not a “Nader lost FL for Gore,” there’s little interest, but the Dems ought to be taking a look at the number of people who refused to support them this year.
Also disappointed re the lack of follow-up questions to Trump voters, particularly those “working class whites” in MI, OH, PA, etc.: “if Bernie were running, would you have voted for him rather than Trump?”
I doubt there will be a peep about Stein. Maybe Johnson, but in most cases, we’ll be forced to do the quick math (100% – HRC % – Trump %) to get a clue about how many in each state didn’t don their blue or red jerseys today.
But if HRC were to somehow lose, lord knows disaffected “Bernie Bros” would no doubt be added to Comey and other outward reasons for a loss.
given the level of hatred, i would expect left wing bloggers to be targeted as well.
Well . . . if Clinton were actually defeated and legally acknowledged as having been defeated, let the Clintonites hate the Left and the Bitter Berners all they want.
Let them hate us, as long as they fear us.
Apropos of who is likely to become president elect at some point this evening, also from the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (my favorite Marx, btw):
Happy Election Day, everyone!
And:
In the orgies that Bonaparte kept up every night with men and women of the “swell mob,” as soon as the hour of midnight approached and copious potations had loosened tongues and fired imaginations, the coup d’etat was fixed for the following morning. Swords were drawn, glasses clinked, the representatives were thrown out the window, the imperial mantle fell upon Bonaparte’s shoulders, until the following morning banished the ghost once more and astonished Paris learned, from vestals of little reticence and from indiscreet paladins, of the danger it had once again escaped. [LINK]
It’s just about over – for now!
Regarding the link about moving to Canada, I am thrilled to be posting from Uruguay, my new home. I arrived on Sunday, after a year of planning and six months of living here temporarily earlier this year. I returned to the US in August and quickly sold two houses in Sacramento CA, negotiated a one year leave of absence from work and gave away 97% of my worldly possessions. That last part was the most difficult, but seemed appropriate given my decision to make a leftist South American country my new home…
Sometime next week I can post about my experience with the RE transactions, if anyone is interested.
I am. I might only be able to do the nosebleed seats, but doesn’t mean I don’t like watching.
Would definitely like to hear about your new home and the country in general! Yeah, giving stuff away is hard, but I did the same, it’s even harder to move country with a bunch of clobber. I kept maybe 10 medium-sized boxes of paperwork and mementos in a shared storage unit here, and sent maybe 30 of the same size, plus my bike and bike trailer, to my new country. Then comes the fun of experiencing one’s new home!
I will be waiting and watching for your posts from Uruguay. Very exciting!
that is amazing. why?
if you had, say 97 t-shirts and old shoes and 3 gold bars worth $1,000,000, was the 3% you kept the gold bars?
There’s volume and there’s density, both count.
I’m about ready to do something similar. Fortunately, New Yoarke isn’t really the U.S. New Joisy is and so is Lon Guyland. Southern Connecticut is another planet mostly. I wouldn’t consider that even America.
So right now it’s mostly just staying inside New Yoarke and living in a purely imaginary world. Eventually I may have to move though. If somebody wins the Presidential election it might make it more tempting to move. Imagining either one of them as president is very depressing; nothing personal, Trump amuses me and Hillary I could see her as a school administrator or a company president. I don’t get angry at them, but I’m shocked that one of them might win. Maybe they can tie. I noticed the Redskins tied the Bengals last week in London. That was a bit of an odd game. The play wasn’t very good and the officiating wasn’t very good. A little bit like this election. It’s easy to be cynical though. I sometimes wonder if I ran for president I bet somebody could make me out to be the 2nd coming of Hitler, if not the anti-Christ. it makes you wonder. it makes me wonder. Fortunately there’s no risk of that happening, me running that is. Even if I did nobody would even notice. It takes a lot of something I don’t have to get elected president. Money is one thing. Persuasive skills is another. I just tell it like it is and frankly don’t care if anyone is persuaded. It’s all so obvious, that if they can’t see it themselves there’s almost nothing I can do.
Congrats on the move. I hope you enjoy.
My wife and i were joking about selling the house and spending some time in her native Brazil, but i don’t have the courage. Adventures like that are harder with kids.
There are two ways to move:
1 Pack and take everything.
2 Pack and take one suitcase.
Anything else requires too many decisions.
My expertise: I’ve lived in 8 Countries and 7 US states, and visited over 50 countries. My favorite place is Mutare in Zimbabwe.
Why Uruguay?
Re: the 18th Brumaire … an all time fav. Marx in journalism mode is a very funny writer, if you like your humor bone dry.
The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living.
There’s another translation I like better:
The tradition of all dead generations weighs like an alp on the brains of the living.
Apparently, retaining the German word “alp” is mistaken, since “alp” should translate as “incubus” or “nightmare.” But keeping the word “alp” (as in mountain) retains something of the original pun, and goes well with “weighs.”
Didn’t Marx also write a wonderful takedown of the FIRE sector of his day (and today really) called something like The Roving Cavaliers of Credit ?
No. Sorry that was the title of a Steve Keen piece where he’d quoted something Marx wrote on the financial crash of 1857.
He did. You can find it here: Marx, Capital Volume III, Chapter 33, The medium of circulation in the credit system, pp. 544-45 [Progress Press].
“The Roving Cavaliers of Credit” is title of an article from Steve Keen, reprinted on NC, and is also when I discovered NC. That means I’ve been hooked to this site for almost 8 years!!
Anyhow, you can reread both Steve and Charlie, and both were right – and still are.
Can someone with more talent than I create a satirical song about “The Roving Cavaliers of Credit” sung to the tune of “Dedicated Follower of Fashion”?
I believe also that nightmare, back in the day, referred more to sleep paralysis; waking up and feeling like something is sitting on your chest. I’m just talking out of my butt here though, that usage may have already been generalized by then.
i think some kinds of demons were supposed to sit on peoples’ chest while they slept. maybe that’s where the myth of cats stealing the breath of sleeping humans came from
It’s also an (in)famous painting by Fuseli. A demon sits on a sleeping woman’s chest. (Safe for work.)
See:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nightmare
Hmm. A couple of hours ago Wikileaks posted on Twitter, for safekeeping of future publications, three encrypted torrent files. The peculiarity is that, unlike their large recent dumps, these files are very small — 30.1KB, 13.4KB, and 5.5KB.
Short-and-sweet, post-election humdingers?
Buttinsky, no, .torrent files, as in control files for identifying and exchanging a particular set of objects of arbitrary size over the BitTorrent network. The objects themselves could be single aes256 keys (64 characters in hex) or whole virtual-machine images. Apparently we have to elect Clinton to see what’s in them, or something… :)
Thanks for the technical clarification!
Alas, if you’re right, we won’t get to seem them.
The US.aes256 file is almost 3 GB.
18 Brumaire was 9 November, 1799. I.e., tomorrow not today. Quand même….
“Sad, and clarifying, what’s become of Steinem.”
We all get old. She sounds like she’s losing it to me (I think she’s a little older), but maybe it’s just campaign derangement. I don’t think it adds any clarity, except perhaps on how a section of the women’s movement lost its way.
Steinem was actually an important influence in my life, because I was a founding subscriber to Ms. Magazine. It and Women’s Liberation were formative experiences for me (I thought the idea was a no-brainer). Eventually, I saw the magazine (and Steinem?) turn more and more anti-male, not part of the original idea. I dropped my subscription because I felt assaulted – and thought their sexism was showing.
Despite that partial disillusionment, seeing her deteriorate like this is very sad.
People over eighty do sometimes deteriorate, and even if they are not actively shedding marbles the stress of a too-active life may produce some temporary muddle. Assuming some of Steinem’s old friends are still close to her, I hope they encourage her to back off a bit and consider where she is in her life. The things I’ve read in the past year are so unlike what she used to be capable of, even unlike what she provided in 2003 before the invasion of Iraq. It is sad; I hate seeing people whose thinking and expression were sometimes powerful lose that power. But it happens.
So haven’t talked about voting yet… Depressing…. Hurts… But just FYI, voted early in Oregon, for Jill and Baraka, and for Green Secty of State and Treasurer. Hadn’t planned to, but the Secty candidate wanted to reform voting in his statement (although will need a shove in the hand-counted direction), and the treasurer candidate was for divesting from PE (I wish someone had mentioned support for a state bank a la North Dakota).
I certainly voted 3rd party against Wyden, and also wrote a letter to the Eugene Weekly, a supposedly progressive tabloid, taking them to task for endorsing him- sensed some laziness with that call, because I am fairly certain they don’t support TPP. As for initiatives: yes on 97 (increasing corporate tax), and no on most others.
I am surprised sometimes at some of these that are aimed at amending the constitution rather than creating or modifying statutes. I just believe that a Constitution should be relatively spare and used to enshrine and codify more fundamental tenets, like “We believe in equal access to third level education for citizens of our state regardless of (list of human attributes used to slice-n-dice us).” And then laws that do not support or that chip away at those tenets are unconstitutional and are struck down.
I just think stuff like “095: AMENDS CONSTITUTION: ALLOWS INVESTMENTS IN EQUITIES BY PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES TO REDUCE FINANCIAL RISK” (which I would vote against regardless) isn’t “constitutional” material.
I would welcome other opinions from people!
Welcome to Oregon! And thanks for voting Green.
I agree that it’s too easy to change the constitution by initiative in Oregon. I believe it’s done mainly to stop the Legislature from messing with initiatives after they’re passed.
The election reform our Sec. of State candidate means is primarily Ranked Choice/Instant Runoff Voting, which is on the ballot in Benton County (next door, if you’re in Eugene) largely because of him. Hopefully you’ll have a chance to vote on it soon. Oregon already has paper ballots, and the counting is done in front of various representatives of the public. A key point is that the count is audited and the ballots are kept for years, so checking up is easy. Holding the count in the gymnasium would be fun, though. A very visible exercise in democracy.
Brill! thanks. I know how it goes in Lane County cuz I work for the county. Wasn’t sure about other counties, the only other ones I lived in was Multnomah and Marion, and not since 1992, moved down here July of that year.
I do get that stuffing laws into the Constitution keeps it out of the hands of the Sizemores of the world, but it is getting pretty cluttered.
I agree. Unfortunately, it’s become the only way to do an end run around a legislature. Possibly some sort of optional direct democracy would ameliorate the need for it.
Any 97 money will go to PERS…
From the Oregon Voters Pamphlet:
Section 3. All of the revenue generated from the increase in the tax created by this 2016 Act shall be used to provide additional funding for: public early childhood and kindergarten through twelfth grade education; healthcare; and, services for senior citizens. Revenue distributed pursuant to this section shall be in addition to other funds distributed for: public early childhood and kindergarten through twelfth grade education; healthcare; and, services for senior citizens.
So unless they are lying like rugs (always a possibility) or creating PERS accounts for kindergarteners, I don’t think that’s correct.
Being a county employee, I would benefit from them topping up PERS, but since I am told that we public employees are all lazy, nasty people getting Cadillac pay packages and pensions while having a nap under our desks, I would not believe such a measure could get enough signatures to make it to the ballot.
I voted this morning in Eastern Nebraska right as the polls opened at 8am. Took about 20 minutes waiting in line but other than that no real issues.
There was a guy who had recently moved to the area. Was registered in another precinct, had no proof of the move and hadn’t updated his ID, yet was mad they wouldn’t let him vote in this place (he was told he needed to go to the precinct in which he was registered.) I thought that the rules seemed reasonable especially since Nebraska also has mail-in voting that he could have done ahead of time if he didn’t want to travel.
We did have one confusing ballot initiative that even John Oliver talked about on Last Week Tonight. The legislature previously voted to repeal the death penalty. Our asshat governor Pete Ricketts (who you might have heard of when he tried to illegally buy lethal injection drugs from India) vetoed the bill, but his veto got overturned. He then proceeded to spend a lot of his own money to get the matter on the ballot. To make sure it’s confusing as shit, an affirmative vote on the ballot measure is to repeal the repeal of the death penalty. I did my research ahead of time to make sure I was marking it correctly, but how many people are going to get confused into re-instating the death penalty?
This is one hell of a poll. Either way the election goes there are going to be a lot of disappointed people.
U.S. voters want leader to end advantage of rich and powerful: Reuters/Ipsos
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-poll-mood-idUSKBN1332NC
The poll of more than 10,000 people who have already cast their ballots in the presidential election showed a majority of voters are worried about their ability to get ahead and have little confidence in political parties or the media to improve their situation. A majority also feel that the economy is rigged to mostly help the wealthy.
Right up there with screwing for chastity. What could have been a useful result — the destruction of the class system inherent in US government — was watered down by the faith-based axiom that people need to be led.
Screwing for Chasity !BAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!
i wanna be respected I WANNA BE ELECTED
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KN6ngThqMEs
The Plantidote is red mustard – my favorite green, but a short season.
“Hegel remarks somewhere that blah, blah…” — I’ll see your hifalutin quoted historical exegesis and raise you a “Hegel, like most post-ancients philosophers, was a cloistered academic twat who couldn’t simply recognize that we humans are inherently and profoundly an imitative species, because that insight wouldn’t be nearly ‘profound’ enough.”
… and, terminal IMHO, Hegel insisted on (ab)using CAPITALS at every opportunity. Textual shouting 150 years before email/Twitter. Reading him is like being by hit in the face by the philosophical equivalent of lead piping … in the library of course.
I believe that’s a German typographical convention. No reason to use it in translations, though.
How would that translate then. Inverted bookend exclamation marks?
integer
November 6, 2016 at 8:29 am
Note that it appears Bernie’s tweet was the first in a series of three. The second and third read:
– Some are, but I think most are people who are hurting, they’re worried about their kids, they’re working longer hours for lower wages.
– Our job is to reach out to Trump voters to tell them that we’re going to create an economy that works for all of us, not just a few.
https://twitter.com/BernieSanders/status/794941635931099136
So Bernie neither demonizes Trump supporters nor denies that some among them are racist and sexist. He does not demonize those with concerns about racism and sexism either, just as ever focuses on the positive, on the shared humanity, on what we all have in common.
So what’s with for the second time in a couple of days sharing just the one out of his three tweets? I despise Clinton’s exploitation of identity politics but do not think it is helpful to pretend that expressing any concerns about the dog-whistling and the elements who would exploit it is somehow equivalent to calling ALL Trump supporters racist and sexist, or letting Clinton off the hook for her own failures to do better by the disenfranchised, whether by color, gender, or class.
It’s imperative to a lot of people’s worldviews apparently to pretend no real racism exists at this point in this country (except maybe in institutions like prisons and criminal justice, and well maybe in *unconscious* bias, but not anything as overt as conscious racism by *ordinary* people). They are wrong. But maybe socialize primarily with racially tolerant people so they don’t even know how VERY wrong they are.
Sanders 3 tweets are completely reasonable. What a sensible man.
Pleas explain how this is more that either complete bullshit, or delusional thinking.
I’d like it to be true. Please explain the implementation plan.
I don’t think its possible with Hillary given her record and her husband’s administration. Sanders would have had a better opportunity. As long as the Democrats embrace Clintonism and now Wall Street, it won’t happen.
Once trust is broken, it’s gone.
I do hope Evan Bayh loses. He’s a dumb and unpleasant Mark Warner.
Looks like he lost. It’s an achievement to end up a carpetbagger in the state you were born in, give him credit. Didn’t even bother to memorize the address he was using for his residency.
I voted in Lebanon, NH around 530ish and Faithless’s Mass Destruction was on the ipod. No line at all. The ladies said it had been steady. They looked exhausted. There was an independent running for Senator, so I gave him my vote instead of Ayotte or Hassan. I highly dislike them both. I only voted D for Gov, because the R was yet another Sununu, heaven forbid. There was another Independent for something so I gave that one a vote, too, instead of the 2 main parties. It was still quite busy at the Hanover polling station from what I could tell when I drove by this evening. In the booth there was a flyer hung warning people about writing someone in. Hadn’t seen that before. Have now moved into the Pink Floyd section of my evening. Cheers, friends. Y’all are the best.
That sound like such a good idea, why not share?
Actually, this is Comfortably Numb, David Gilmour version Live In Gdansk.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaQrO55xmBs
However, since it was recorded in Poland, beware, Soros may have encoded it with “vote for Hillary” subliminal messaging. Vote BEFORE listening. Seriously.
I dunno, The Fletcher Memorial Home seemed appropriate, too…great pick, though!
Star Trek TNG is on now. Fighting off some kind of cold, I think, so early to bed with me-if my dogs would cooperate! Unconscious tonight=good.
Scream Thy Last Scream from the end of the Syd Barrett era might be more suitable. Or perhaps Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun since this election is probably going to mark the point at which the U.S. went past a point of no return.
Good luck everyone. Unless you’ve already got a large interstellar spacecraft that can sustain you in physical, mental and spiritual comfort for the rest of your life, or something like the Hindmost’s Refuge in the Fleet of Worlds books to run to, you’re going to need it.
Or any song from “Animals” – or “Wearing the Inside Out” – or David Gilmour solo: “There’s No Way Out of Here”
I heard that the Huffington Post gave odds 97% to 3%. They seem to think that the fix was in.
In 2012, Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson received 1% of the vote and Green candidate Jill Stein got 0.36%.
The current RealClearPolitics polling average for today’s election has Johnson getting 4.7% and Stein receiving 1.9%.
We’ll see what the actual totals are in a few hours, but those seem like significant improvements for both parties.
Voted working families for all except Pres – wrote in Bernie Sanders. My voting area at 5 pm in NYC borough was “packed” – more crowded than the first Obama. Why is C. Schumer WF??!! LOL. Slim pickings in my neck of the woods. Not sure if Clinton will win. Lots of angry people out there – even in my solidly middle class/upper middle class NYC office. I think people will vote for Trump to send a message. Question is….if Clinton is elected, will the message be received? Personally I think we are clearly at a tipping point and at an historic transformation in America. I’m hoping it won’t be too painful but I seem to be strangely drawn to off the grid homesteading blogs these days :)
Moved my family from the Boulder CO area three years ago to central Maine in pursuit of an off grid homestead. Not there yet, but making progress towards our goal.
Working toward urban off-grid and solidarity with neighbours. Don’t think it will save me, but it’s a pleasant way to spend the rest of my time.
Anyone keeping an eye on ColoradoCare? That’s probably the only thing that has a potentially good and interesting outcome to me, other than the various marijuana initiatives.
Answering my own questions, seems like its pretty much a surefire no. Majority of Democrats are opposed lol. Sounds like the health “care” industry did a pretty good job of burying it.
Yes, things are not looking good.
With 34% reporting, it looks like people believe healthcare is bad (69; because taxes) and that democracy is getting out of hand, so it should be curtailed (71; higher signature requirements for initiatives).
Removing the “exception” for slavery is running neck and neck. Jeez.
But assisted suicide looks like it will pass, which means that people did think about the consequences of voting against 69 and for 71.
Yea we always hear that “the real thing that people are upset about is health care costs” and so on and so forth, but it often seems when people get a REAL and direct chance to vote for improvements on these “real things” they often don’t. So maybe not so much so.
First time as tragedy, second as farce….
Yes indeed, this election seems to shape up as a farcical replay of 1912. You remember: A vicious lying warmonger who had stolen his party’s nomination from a real populist; a pseudo-populist madman; a dull mediocre Republican; a great socialist. Finishing in that order. Just like our own 2016 except for the paleness of the four imitations. And except for the fact that now it is the impending tragedy which makes that of 1917 look farcical.
where’s the party Lambert?
i gotta a bottle of Armand de Brignac Midas chill’n for ya…
And if I am elected
I promise the formation of a new party
A third party, the Wild Party!
I know we have problems,
We got problems right here in Central City,
We have problems on the North, South, East and West,
New York City, Saint Louis, Philadelphia, Los Angeles,
Detroit, Chicago,
Everybody has problems,
And personally, I don’t care. Alice Cooper
RE: Steinem “If we elect a woman as our national leader for the first time in the history of the republic, eight years after electing an African-American man, we may be moving toward democracy at last” WTF? Setting aside how ridiculous the statement is taken at face value (That in order to be moving towards democracy first an African-American man must be elected to two terms and then a woman must be elected, like it’s the fulfillment of some prophecy as you might find in a third rate sword & sorcery novel), isn’t she implicitly stating that if HRC gets the presidency the U.S. will be just STARTING to move towards democracy? And so stating that this election is not democratic? This also implies that a Clinton presidency will not have any democratic legitimacy or a mandate from the citizenry.
She only got the nomination due to lying, collusion and manipulation in the first place so I have trouble with describing her as being democratically elected but one would think one of her supporters would be OK with it! The sloppiness of the thinking demonstrated in the piece makes me think that Steinem really is declining mentally.
FWIW: Normally vote around 4 pm so I can query the poll workers about turnout. Today I didn’t get there until 5 pm. Only a couple of people in front of me but by the time I finished there were about 10 people backed up in line. Asked one poll worker if they had a feel for the turnout. She said, “Heavy. Lots of red lines”, and held up the roster where they line out your name in red when they hand you a ballot. Considering that absentee/mail in voters are still listed on those same roster pages, I’d guess that turnout here by the beach in SoCal was heavy.
Now to await the results from here, and nationwide.
Evan Bay lost. HAHAHA! Oh if only he didn’t show judgement and backed out of the 2010 Senate race, he could have lost then too. His opponent could be the Trump/Hillary love child child or all I care.
Voted on the east side of St. Paul. Parking lot was full so I drove home and walked from there. The line to register was the same length when I left as it was when I got there, but it moved quickly- there were greeters moving down the queue to determine if folks were already registered and shoo’ing them into the polls if they were.
There were seven third-party presidential candidates on the bill: Reform, Independent, Green, Libertarian, Legalize Marijuana Now, ADP, and Socialist Worker. None of these were running down-ballot candidates except Legalize Marijuana Now, which was fielding someone for the MN 4th Congressional district against Betty McCollum and the poor soul who managed to pony up the fund-raising minimum required by the MN-GOP for endorsement.