"Will you shut up, man?" US Politics October 2020

Boring - when I look back on the 20th century I remember some following works of enviro- and enviro-adjacent alarm-bell-ringing:

1. The Population Bomb, Ehrlich, 1968. Influential but also, perversely, somewhat counterproductive. My (hazy) memory of public perception was that there were catastrophic predictions of imminent resource shortages. When those shortages failed to happen (or failed to come to public attention), people wrote off the whole premise as being Chicken Littleism.

2. Diet for a New America, Robbins, 1987. The messages about how much land and water were going into meat production - and the unsustainability thereof - were either a wake-up call, or yet more Chicken Little alarmism, depending on your point of view.

3. Who Will Feed China, Brown, 1995, noted that as people move up the economic ladder they "eat higher on the food chain," which brings us back to Robbins; the general thrust was that feeding the Chinese people would soon become impossible.

I was working in environmental journalism at the time, and "climate" was still a ways away as a central concern for most people.

But everyone had heard DIRE PREDICTIONS about the polar ice caps and overpopulation and resource scarcity. "By the year 2000, X"; "By the year 2020; Y" were common (though poorly understood) phrases in yr typical Time magazine story.

And the predictions had mostly not come true (in common public perception, anyway). So lots of people developed a carapace of indifference. If Paul Ehrlich had said the planet would be uninhabitable in 30 years (or whatever), and here we are 30 years on and it hasn't come to pass, than why is anyone taking these doomsayers seriously?

Lather, rinse, repeat.

for anyone wondering, like me, if their state counts mailed ballots early or if they're forced to wait until election day, this is a handy breakdown.

https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/vopp-table-16-when-absentee-mail-ballot-processing-and-counting-can-begin.aspx

(IL has to wait until 7pm on election day, which sucks, but i suppose we'll still be able to call it for biden on election night)

I was looking at the RCP (with toss-ups) map, and Biden looks good, though not exactly primed for the blowout I was hoping for. He's got 226 EV pretty much locked up. If he wins Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan--where he has 6.0+ leads in all--that gets him to 282. Nevada, where he's also up 6, would put him at 288. The other toss-ups are close. He'll probably win some, but I guess he could conceivably lose all of them. But that 288 looks fairly solid.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/2020_elections_electoral_college_map.html

frogbs I think you mean “completing the second half of the President’s annual physical”

(Usual disclaimer: in a non-rigged election.)

Some xposts to YMP: that's what I was saying way above. Of course the public mind wasn't there, but there's been some warning of what we now call anthropogenic climate destabilization for more than four decades.

So the important thing is to watch Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, and Arizona...if Biden takes any of those it's pretty much over

Whoa.

Texas added almost 300,000 more voters in 2 weeks just before the registration deadline. We're up 16.9 million voters.

That is 1.8 million more voters than 2016 in Texas
https://t.co/httCD4aWTj

— Jeremy Wallace (@JeremySWallace) October 12, 2020

Which 3 counties have added the most voters since 2016?
Harris -238,698
Bexar -136,889
Travis - 126,155

That is a half million more voters in three VERY blue counties than in 2016.

— Jeremy Wallace (@JeremySWallace) October 12, 2020

FWIW, ExxonMobil was aware of climate change in 1977 (x-posts)

Texas added almost 300,000 more voters in 2 weeks just before the registration deadline.

It beggars belief to think that such a jump comes from a ton of would-be Republicans rushing to get their chance to vote for the status quo.

16.9 million voters queueing at 3 ballot drop boxes

the ballot drop box thing is bad, but there's still three weeks of early voting, which you can do anywhere... I'm going in the morning.

Most people in Texas couldn't get an absentee ballot to put in the drop box anyway - you have to be over 65 or be out of the area for election day and the entirety of early voting.

Fun little Lincoln Project reminder thread:

How it started. How it ended.

We were so "naive how racism was so imbedded in the party." Lincoln Project pic.twitter.com/ZSNoPyU6uJ

— Nadine van der Velde 🕊(she/her) (@nadinevdVelde) October 12, 2020

Yeah Texas (despite the drop-box problem) will know early.

I would not bet on TX or SC flipping this time, but it is pretty heartening that they are even getting talked about.

However, to permit myself a fantasy scenario... As has been noted, calling Texas for Biden would mean an epic blowout, and an early night. It would make PA / FL / OH suddenly irrelevant, for perhaps the first time in our lives.

this is admittedly pretty funny, but will it get ol' joe into a spot of trouble?

Donald Trump is running TV ads taking Dr. Fauci out of context and without his permission.

So, here’s a message from the President in his own words. pic.twitter.com/WCYbIfrQLR

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) October 12, 2020

Nah.

Lincoln Project still getting it better

I have read Lincoln Project's ads are done by FuckJerry (at least that's what Vic Berger is claiming; they apparently also ripped him off, but the one ad I watched where he claimed that didn't seem like a rip off). I do think the LP ads are good. But that Biden ad is great.

dems going to be lining up to gargle LP ass n balls

your outlook is refreshing

dems going to be lining up to gargle LP ass n balls

― A-B-C. A-Always, B-Be, C-Chooglin (will)

you have a problem with gargling ass and balls, sailor?

I mean it’s not as funky fresh as ‘Iran’s going to murder Trump to make Biden look bad’

you tell me

you have a problem with gargling ass and balls, sailor?

https://images.app.goo.gl/QMKknAX43RHyMUGRA

They're that desperate, are they? (They would absolutely not be spending ANYTHING there unless they were really worried.)

Senate GOP's campaign arm is officially going up in Alaska https://t.co/y8L4m0QmwI

— Sam Brodey (@sambrodey) October 12, 2020

aight y’all I came in too hot. sorry about that.

if the LP wants to rake in and spend $$$ dunking on Trump it’s *clearly* better than them lining up to back him.

But prior to the Trump era these folks were quite literally the Worst People in American Politics. They’re part of the reason Bush got two terms. They’re the reason you even know Sarah Palin exists. I just think it’s incumbent upon liberals, progressives, salty internet leftists, angry soccer moms, and urban Home Depot dads to eye them with a healthy suspicion.

DON: Well, yeah.

Dude, will...who exactly the fuck do you think you're proselytizing to itt?

Lincoln Project people are republicans and ergo trash. They're theoretically useful trash atm but no one with a brain is going to magically forget that they're trash.

I suspect the Lincoln Project will "magically disappear" if Trump loses, unless they really feel the need to crush those Q people in primaries.

Dude, will...who exactly the fuck do you think you're proselytizing to itt?

The Lincoln Project people backing Trump would have zero effect on the election. Never Trump Republicans have no actual constituency.

Which is reason enough to shit on them regularly, because their danger is that they can build a constituency with centrist melt Democrats.

as the old saying goes, it all depends on whose ox cock and balls is being gored gargled

Early voting total now over ten million.

https://electproject.github.io/Early-Vote-2020G/index.html

An interesting detail:

.@KansasSOS reports 444,392 mail ballots requests have been processed statewide, just under 24 % of all registered voters in Kansas. That's more than double the total of requests for 2016 or 2018. Douglas leads in percentage with 36.6 %, followed by JoCo with 33.3 %. #ksleg

— Bryan Lowry (@BryanLowry3) October 12, 2020

what's the matter with ka-

oh, nevermind. carry on kansas.

There's no question about what's the matter with Georgia:

This is a picture of voter suppression. Why do Americans have to wait in lines this long? This is the line in Suwannee Georgia today to vote. pic.twitter.com/rHl4Gr5kEi

— Claire McCaskill (@clairecmc) October 12, 2020

This is terrible, but I imagine distancing and eagerness to vote are a big factor.

Austin, TX does a good job of accommodating early voters, but I fully expect it to be a shitshow when polls open tomorrow.

I'm voting tomorrow morning in Austin, but I'll be on campus which I predict will be less crowded than other places in town.

Let us know how it goes, I wanted to vote as soon as possible, but realized the first couple days might be bad.

early voting in Georgia is today through October 30, so I think the big lines shown above are more an expression of pent-up angst than a sign of suppression

as I read the data, there are almost 1 million more active voters in Georgia now than there were in 2016 ... not saying, just saying

having to wait longer than 10 minutes to cast your vote is suppression imo

elections should be funded fucking appropriately

Which is reason enough to shit on them regularly, because their danger is that they can build a constituency with centrist melt Democrats.

yeah, this is the thing. the members* themselves are (probably, mostly) sincerely never-Trumps, but TLP is a grift/psyops project to get money and ongoing attention/admiration from Dem voters who "don't really pay attention to politics" and ppl with Sorkin brain sydnrome.

*ie not FuckJerry

Tombot otm, also obv election day should be a national holiday

lest my comments be misconstrued, organized voter suppression efforts by the Georgia GOP are definitely still a thing, but they've been set back pretty hard by enforced compliance with the Motor Voter Act (thank you, ACLU) and the efforts led by Stacey Abrams

personally i think the lincoln project are greater americans than abraham lincoln

McConnell’s gleeful laugh when McGrath talks about his failures on COVID is...something pic.twitter.com/axoFqqGG8D

— Don Moynihan (@donmoyn) October 13, 2020

personally i think the lincoln project are greater americans than abraham lincoln

smile when you say that, pardner, or we might not take it kindly