crickets
crickets's JournalThis was wonderful! So hopeful, so positive and forward focused.
The only part where he lost the audience was when he talked about cooperation. I know that was a sop to the Repubs, and likely was a wasted effort. It put a chill on the audience for a moment, but good for him for bothering to extend the respect. A lesser man would not have bothered. He may want to clarify that wanting cooperation does not mean DEMS will be 'reaching across the aisle' but that MITCH needs to get over himself.
Also, I want to have these speeches outside forever more. Car horns and fireworks are way too cool to give up. Beats the heck out of balloons every time.
Absolutely beautiful to hear the poem read by Joe.
Like the bells ringing in Paris today, this tribute has me in tears, tears of joy. Thanks for sharing it, nolabear.
"There was some expectation that foreign leaders would wait
until a Trump concession before congratulating Biden. The fact so many didn’t speaks to the momentum behind Biden and foreign assessments of Trump’s legal arguments."
https://twitter.com/mradamtaylor/status/1325165834310856704
Leaders from country after country have been congratulating Joe and Kamala since late this morning. It's wonderful!
https://twitter.com/i/events/1325143166773653505
Exactly. I turned it all off within two minutes of turning it on.
Even Claire McCaskill was annoying me. Sixty seconds into discussing Kamala Harris' history making moment, Claire pivots to talk about trump being a 'kingmaker' for 'years to come.' Only if you and the media keep paying attention to him, Claire. Stop. Just stop.
I'd like to point out an observation about the Biden campaign:
Let's not allow a re-writing of history on the campaign Biden ran, and ran very, very well in spite of a pandemic. There might be room for improvement in hindsight, but no one has ever had to run a campaign like this before, so a great deal of the Monday morning quarterbacking is unfair. Joe and Kamala did a great job, and they've succeeded.
Things like this and the ballooning COVID numbers are why I'm losing patience with
the cable news stations still going 24/7 on the election. They could at least split time with the rest of the news. I don't need somebody to explain voting patterns in Allegheny County to me one more time. They've milked this election cash cow longer than necessary. Put up the numbers every half hour and start finding time for making people aware of all the other things going on.
USPS processed 150,000 ballots after Election Day, jeopardizing thousands of votes
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/11/05/usps-late-ballots-election/November 5, 2020 at 6:17 p.m. EST -- The number of mailed ballots not delivered by Nov. 3 is expected to grow as more postal data is released in the coming days.
Despite assurances from Postal Service leaders that agency officials were conducting daily sweeps for misplaced ballots, the mail service acknowledged in a court filing Thursday that thousands of ballots had not been processed in time, and that more ballots were processed Wednesday than on Election Day.
The number of mailed ballots the Postal Service did not deliver by Election Day is expected to grow as more data is released in the coming days. Some election experts worry such delays could run up against even more generous ballot acceptance windows that some states have granted.
In several swing states, late ballots will still be counted as long as they were postmarked by Election Day and received by Friday, according to state law. They include Nevada, where 4,518 ballots arrived after Election Day, as well as North Carolina (2,958) and Pennsylvania (3,439). But in other states — such as Arizona, where 864 ballots were delayed, and Georgia, where 853 were delayed — votes that did not reach election officials by Nov. 3 will be disqualified.
Because the counts are not done in those states, it is unclear whether undelivered ballots would have made a difference in deciding the presidential election. But the delivery failures highlight the risks in relying on the mail service to deliver ballots close to Election Day.
[more]
Thank you for mentioning The Brainwashing of my Dad, Bradshaw.
It's a good film, and an important data point in understanding how anyone potentially can be changed by relentless propaganda. You make an excellent point that the brainwashing isn't just happening on the right; I'd add that the entrenched opinion that anyone on the far right can never be reached and should be considered forever gone and forever an enemy is as dangerous in its way as the far right itself. The 'formers' are out there, and they are working for change.
The interview and the article below are quite long, but well worth the read for anyone who wants to understand more about why and how some white supremacists get caught up in the hate, and why and how they leave and try to help others get out as well.
A Former Neo-Nazi [Christian Picciolini] Explains Why Hate Drew Him In — And How He Got Out
https://www.npr.org/transcripts/578745514
Inside the Radical, Uncomfortable Movement to Reform White Supremacists
As hate groups have surged, so has the number of extremists trying to escape.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/07/reform-white-supremacists-shane-johnson-life-after-hate/
👆 Important post. Thanks for the link, lobo.
While the Senate Intelligence Committee’s findings were bipartisan, they came on a day when Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, moved again to block consideration of election security legislation put forward by Democrats. [snip]
And despite the warnings about the Russia threat, he argues that Congress has already done enough — passing $380 million worth of grants for states to update their election systems and supporting executive branch agencies as they make their own changes. Some administration officials have suggested that the issue is not getting enough high-level attention because President Trump equates any public discussion of malign Russian election activity with questions about the legitimacy of his victory. [snip]
Mr. McConnell has held fast to his position despite withering criticism from Democrats, and agitation from some in his party who want the Senate to move more modest, bipartisan legislation. The Democratic proposal, already passed by the House, would have given the states hundreds of millions of dollars in grants, mandated the use of backup paper ballots and required risk-limiting postelection audits.
Moscow Mitch has earned his nickname for many reasons.
I never thought an airspace announcement could be so exciting.
Just received a flash of insight about cat "zoomies." Holy cow, adrenaline rush!
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