I went and voted in person (trading my mail-in ballot for a regular ballot) and there was no wait at all. Since I live pretty close to the University, I'm definitely in the part of Pittsburgh, PA that is heavily pro-Biden and thus almost everyone had voted by mail already. There is a visible plane banner flying over Pittsburgh with a "Vote Trump" message - not sure if anyone is going to be swayed by that.
We drove by Carnegie Mellon when we drive through Pittsburgh to get to Philly. It's a pretty neat neighborhood. No 2 got in but they only offered 36K of need based aid and that was about 50% of the cost. But I think CMU would've been better for him than Vandy for CS/Math, but Vandy covered 70 of 72K so it was an easy decision for him.
I happened by two polling places in DC on my run this morning and there were more canvassers outside than voters. I went by my normal polling place and the same. I kind of expected that since Arlington had almost two-thirds of active voters already having voted. But there was something going on at Trump campaign HQ which is only a couple blocks away. A charter bus was out front of the building and there were a bunch of government SUVs parked on the street nearby and lots of white guys in blue suits hanging around.
It's so slow that you can DBD? Did they have any rules about things like not being on your phone? I assume you can't do stuff like wear Biden gear or a Fuck Trump tshirt.
538-cinados are pouring over party ID live updates from each county in Florida. They are getting cautiously optimistic. I think it is way too early to even speculate.
This is interesting. Looks like Republicans turned out like crazy early in the morning but their margins have been dropping as the day goes on. (I think this is considered typical in Florida -- the old people go vote first.) Dems have a slim advantage in early voting.
Anyway, if the trend holds and the polls are roughly accurate about how many Rs defect to Biden and Biden holding an advantage among independents, then PROBABLY that means he's in good shape in Florida? Never put too much hope in Florida, though.
Never put too much hope in Florida. Florida is basically controlled by Cersei so don’t expect them to come to our aid in the Great War against the MAGA Walkers.
"Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, has become the latest associate of the president to appear on the Russian state-owned TV channel RT.
Giuliani’s live, election-morning appearance on the RT program “Going Underground” comes days after White House coronavirus adviser Scott Atlas apologized for appearing on the same show. In his apology Sunday, Atlas said he was unaware that the news outlet RT is registered as a foreign agent."
Local news station (that is also the flagship (flag row boat) station for the local university not only editorialized that voter harassment is ok because it didn't really happen because the only persons to report it were the persons who were harassed, and it also didn't actually happen if local police choose to not pursue it.
I literally have no idea how to deal with this line of thinking. But because it came from the flagship station, it must be true (or so I'm told).
In the next election day segment, said that when the Governor explained making contingency plans in case of violence by white supremacists, it was the biggest insult America could have received.
The time post election should be real interesting...
Never get shot in cars period. But then the same guy who said that if the police didn't take action, there must not have been anything to it in the next segment blasted the police for only arresting 2 people at a protest.
But if they only arrested 2 people, it must not have been a big incident, right?
I think Texas will go blue tonight. The early votes have been counted in most places and the Republicans are totally shitting themselves. Comments like "We still think we can pull this out if we get a huge turnout today". The tone by itself is shocking to me. That's "we need a Hail Mary to win" language.
I would be stunned if Hegar beats Cornyn. I dont see it... I still have no idea what she stands for frankly. Her entire campaign has been "I did 3 tours as a chopper pilot in Afghanistan and got a purple heart. I have 2 kids. I ride a motorcycle A LOT". Cornyn is old school Texas Republican bullshit but the suburbanites like him. They despise Trump... One of my best friends voted straight ticket Republican...except for Donald. There will be a lot of that
Yeah I've been following Dave Wasserman and he's kind of been hinting at this possibility. In general he thinks the Sun Belt state polling is underestimating Democrats. Combine that with unprecedented turnout and Texas is in play.
Though he also thinks Trump hangs on to Florida, because Florida gonna Florida.
I think he reads a lot into each counties demographics. Which is fine for discussing the generalities of elections and electioneering, but gets muddy in the details.
Hah, people are going crazy over all these election guys' Tweets (Nate Silver, et al), even when they don't really say anything surprising. Wasserman's Tweets about Florida this morning were freaking people out, even though he was just saying what everyone expects: that Republicans will dominate turnout early on Election Day.
But yeah, Wasserman's "thing" is digging into the district details. That made him a really good follow during the midterms for determining how many seats Democrats would pick up, and also for how the late counts would break after Election Day.
Early post poll closure results are a tenuous lead for Biden. If this slips away, Biden's decision to make almost no effort in a thought to be lost state that local boots on the ground made a contest will go down as the worst mistake of the entire election.
Also, I think Beto is a near shoe-in for Governor in '22 already. The network he has set up to get the vote out is unmatched nationally. Calling that one now as well.
That's the whispers I have been hearing locally. He is gearing up to take on Abbott in '22. Cruz is in office til '24 and Cornyn is likely re-lected tonight to go to '26.
That sounds good to me. One of the knocks on him for president was “hasn’t put in the work.” He’s shown now he can do that in Texas and I’d like to see someone building skill in unfucking red state voting rules while building up party resources in what could be an increasingly purple state. FS would know better than me obviously but it’s my $0.02
it all depends on how much of a lead the Dems have in Texas right now. You look at the raw numbers. There are ~17M registered voters but 9.7M voted early. That's over 57%. Considering Texas is usually in the mid 50's% you wonder how many more votes are actually out there to be cast. 67% turnout equates to ~1.66M votes today. 70% turnout is 2.1M and would be beyond historic in terms of numbers. If the early count is already known and only 1.5-2M votes are out there, even a 70/30 Republican split today only catches Trump up by 650-800K votes...and I dont think it'll be 70/30. The lower turnout counties are almost all super rural (with minimal quantities of votes) or Hispanic heavy (like El Paso and the Valley). The big suburb counties that Trump could count on are close to 70% already. Bexar, Dallas and Harris are under 60% voted and are heavily Democrat centric so have room for more votes to be cast.
Yes they did but Harris County still closed 9/10 of their drive through voting centers at of fear they could later be challenged and votes cast in them could be tossed. So while the GOP lost the battle, they basically won the war on that case.
meh, voting in person is comparatively light today. There might be another 150K votes in Harris county but thats it. Shutting the drive throughs down now isn't a massive loss for today's election IMO
Elsewhere in college, Wisconsin has had to cancel a 2nd game, this week at home against Purdue. Their facility continues to be closed as well, due to Covid cases.
Go Bears!!! 5 more days til kickoff. We are supposed to be getting windy and cold weather starting Friday with a chance of precipitation. Depending on how dry the air is we may be getting another red flag fire alert for the Berkeley Hills, something that's necessary but has become a bit tiresome. Hopefully by Saturday eve the conditions will be mitigated a bit.
I don't what the wife is making for dinner tonight - but I will have one of my daughter's most excellent Halloween cupcakes, and maybe, just maybe open the last bottle of the glorious '73 Bas Armagnac...
Will be having rigatoni with meatballs and sausage, smothered in pasta sauce. Also have a bottle of champagne I procured yesterday for a late night reverie if the right candidate wins.
I think Keyshawn Johnson on LA sports radio talked about limiting red meat and fun food to Friday night to Saturday night, and eating healthy in the interim. I think it might be a good way to transition. I want the HSA that we were all talking about a few weeks ago to grow for at least a few extra decades before I have to use it all on self-inflicted clogged arteries.
Not really comfort food but for lunch I'm probably going to have leftover chicken parm over some spaghetti I made on Fri night. I used the Cook's Illustrated recipe.
Walked around downtown Walnut Creek over the weekend while his car was getting worked on. Saw people boarding up the windows. Getting ready for post-election rioting.
I wonder how much protesting will happen if Biden wins. Or if there is right wing protesting and looting also occurs, I assume the left will be blamed for the looting, especially by Fox.
Biden supporters will only riot if courts get involved early. If there are states that have not decided, there will be some people out expressing themselves, but not burning it down. Except maybe the new White House wall will become some sort of focal point.
Time will tell but since I'll be downtown visiting a museum tomorrow afternoon I may wander near the White House to see what's going on. Weeks ago they closed off Lafayette Park to begin prep work for the viewing stand for the inauguration so closest you can get is BLM Plaza. I'm more likely to stop by if it is a celebration.
I went to go vote early yesterday and decided to fill in my mail in ballot and drop it off there. I hadn't wanted to mail it in but decided dropping it off at the early voting location (local library parking lot) was better than mailing it in. We'll see if that's true. I don't know if the mail in ballot tracking properly will track it if it's dropped off.
It might vary from state to state but I believe counting can't take place before election day? Some states can count as soon as polls open while others have to wait until they close.
California can start counting the night before the election. The results released at 8PM on election day are generally the mail in ballots received up to the day prior. I think they may have moved that to counting 3 days before the election this year, but I am too lazy to verify.
I think it was a week or two ago when we discovered that the odious Ben Shapiro has an attractive sister who had decided to ride that rightist wave. Someone retweeted her nonsense (Halloween costume like the gun couple in St Louis) into my Twitter feed. Went to take a look and it was about what you’d expect - lots of “here’s why we all hate liberals” content and then! An ad for some depilatory device because “liberal feminists might like hairy armpits but I don’t!”
Which leads me to this: if you were going to get on that right wing mail order bandwagon, what product would you be pushing?
All that weird tacti-cool, wannabe-military gear (sunglasses, flashlights, etc.) that occasionally gets advertised on ESPN/NBA Network/NFL Network/MLB Network.
I think I’d double down on the Brett Favre plan and offer chairs with copper wire in the cushions, so that people would believe their asses were being kept strong and healthy while they watched Fox News
OUR CRUMBLING DEMOCRACY
My district: Very light turn out, but over 70% turnout before today.
I went and voted in person (trading my mail-in ballot for a regular ballot) and there was no wait at all. Since I live pretty close to the University, I'm definitely in the part of Pittsburgh, PA that is heavily pro-Biden and thus almost everyone had voted by mail already. There is a visible plane banner flying over Pittsburgh with a "Vote Trump" message - not sure if anyone is going to be swayed by that.
We drove by Carnegie Mellon when we drive through Pittsburgh to get to Philly. It's a pretty neat neighborhood. No 2 got in but they only offered 36K of need based aid and that was about 50% of the cost. But I think CMU would've been better for him than Vandy for CS/Math, but Vandy covered 70 of 72K so it was an easy decision for him.
Guess who eats at the Carnegie deli? Bowser from Sha Na Na and Arthur Fonzarelli....
maybe. these things are hard to tell. often a good struggle is good for you.
also, is there any consensus on if Vanderbilt or Carnegie had more $$$ ?
my guess is Vanderbilt just because of all the lavish things left over.
I know that Vandy offers 100% of demonstrated need. I assume Carnegie doesn't offer 100%. He just didn't want us on the hook for 35K/year.
I happened by two polling places in DC on my run this morning and there were more canvassers outside than voters. I went by my normal polling place and the same. I kind of expected that since Arlington had almost two-thirds of active voters already having voted. But there was something going on at Trump campaign HQ which is only a couple blocks away. A charter bus was out front of the building and there were a bunch of government SUVs parked on the street nearby and lots of white guys in blue suits hanging around.
Well CNN was saying that drumpf was going to be in Arlington.
Currently speaking in my hood. Hopefully it will soon be safe to walk on that street again soon.
how long does it take to pressure wash santorum off concrete?
ew.
Local web news site just posted a story he is due here sometime around now. I'd go out and counter protest but feel like he's not worth it.
Charter bus sized shredders?
so less likely for you to arrest someone. Kinda disappointing.
The day is young!
Mostly GOP voters so far
It's so slow that you can DBD? Did they have any rules about things like not being on your phone? I assume you can't do stuff like wear Biden gear or a Fuck Trump tshirt.
Yep. No photos, but DBDing during slow times is allowed.
@how can you tell?@
Dropped off at ballot box in DeFremmery Park; all accepted.
My ballot has been accepted for counting. Not a surprise as my vote was in person and early.
We mailed in our ballots the day after receiving them, used the ballot tracker and both were accepted and will be counted.
Looking like Florida is another lost opportunity for Biden, close, but not close enough.
538-cinados are pouring over party ID live updates from each county in Florida. They are getting cautiously optimistic. I think it is way too early to even speculate.
This is interesting. Looks like Republicans turned out like crazy early in the morning but their margins have been dropping as the day goes on. (I think this is considered typical in Florida -- the old people go vote first.) Dems have a slim advantage in early voting.
Anyway, if the trend holds and the polls are roughly accurate about how many Rs defect to Biden and Biden holding an advantage among independents, then PROBABLY that means he's in good shape in Florida? Never put too much hope in Florida, though.
Never put too much hope in Florida. Florida is basically controlled by Cersei so don’t expect them to come to our aid in the Great War against the MAGA Walkers.
Yup, never count on Florida.
we have had quite a high early turn out, we'll see how the full situation looks.
After my next meeting, my parents and I are going to Costco to stock up in case there is (more) mayhem in the next bit of time.
"Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, has become the latest associate of the president to appear on the Russian state-owned TV channel RT.
Giuliani’s live, election-morning appearance on the RT program “Going Underground” comes days after White House coronavirus adviser Scott Atlas apologized for appearing on the same show. In his apology Sunday, Atlas said he was unaware that the news outlet RT is registered as a foreign agent."
WaPo
jfc.
Local news station (that is also the flagship (flag row boat) station for the local university not only editorialized that voter harassment is ok because it didn't really happen because the only persons to report it were the persons who were harassed, and it also didn't actually happen if local police choose to not pursue it.
I literally have no idea how to deal with this line of thinking. But because it came from the flagship station, it must be true (or so I'm told).
Specific comment was "When was anyone ever shot in their car? That never happens."
In the next election day segment, said that when the Governor explained making contingency plans in case of violence by white supremacists, it was the biggest insult America could have received.
The time post election should be real interesting...
People never get shot in cars related to voter harassment or people never get shot in cars period...?
Never get shot in cars period. But then the same guy who said that if the police didn't take action, there must not have been anything to it in the next segment blasted the police for only arresting 2 people at a protest.
But if they only arrested 2 people, it must not have been a big incident, right?
Can "Make America Respectable Again" be a thing?
Make America Respectable, Sane, Honest Again--We Need it.
Or, MARSHAWN for short.
Marshawn for VP!! Could you imagine?
With the clowns in office right now, I don't have to imagine. Things would be far more sane and mature.
It's not in the vein of Make America ... Again, but saw a sign this morning that said Decency Honesty Science. That about sums it up.
I’ve also seen blue hats that say “Make America Moral Again”
“Again” doing a lot of work there
I’ve seen blue hats that say “Make America Think Again”
Make America Good Again
I think Texas will go blue tonight. The early votes have been counted in most places and the Republicans are totally shitting themselves. Comments like "We still think we can pull this out if we get a huge turnout today". The tone by itself is shocking to me. That's "we need a Hail Mary to win" language.
You're just setting me up for heartbreak.
But joke's on you--you can't break something that's already broken.
If it does, I don't think there is a way for T to get enough electoral votes, regardless of courtroom shenanigans.
If Biden gets Texas it is basically a wrap for Trump and the GOP senate race in Texas.
I would be stunned if Hegar beats Cornyn. I dont see it... I still have no idea what she stands for frankly. Her entire campaign has been "I did 3 tours as a chopper pilot in Afghanistan and got a purple heart. I have 2 kids. I ride a motorcycle A LOT". Cornyn is old school Texas Republican bullshit but the suburbanites like him. They despise Trump... One of my best friends voted straight ticket Republican...except for Donald. There will be a lot of that
Eh, no, maybe but that's not for sure; I can definitely see some vote splitting there.
Yeah I suppose you are right on split tickets.
Biden has been polling ahead of Hegar.
Yeah I've been following Dave Wasserman and he's kind of been hinting at this possibility. In general he thinks the Sun Belt state polling is underestimating Democrats. Combine that with unprecedented turnout and Texas is in play.
Though he also thinks Trump hangs on to Florida, because Florida gonna Florida.
People are going crazy over his tweets about one or two counties in particular.
I think he reads a lot into each counties demographics. Which is fine for discussing the generalities of elections and electioneering, but gets muddy in the details.
Hah, people are going crazy over all these election guys' Tweets (Nate Silver, et al), even when they don't really say anything surprising. Wasserman's Tweets about Florida this morning were freaking people out, even though he was just saying what everyone expects: that Republicans will dominate turnout early on Election Day.
But yeah, Wasserman's "thing" is digging into the district details. That made him a really good follow during the midterms for determining how many seats Democrats would pick up, and also for how the late counts would break after Election Day.
My heart say yes but my head says no.
Early post poll closure results are a tenuous lead for Biden. If this slips away, Biden's decision to make almost no effort in a thought to be lost state that local boots on the ground made a contest will go down as the worst mistake of the entire election.
Also, I think Beto is a near shoe-in for Governor in '22 already. The network he has set up to get the vote out is unmatched nationally. Calling that one now as well.
You think Beto would run for Governor? I would like to see that but I think he gets a job in the Biden administration and then runs for senate again.
That's the whispers I have been hearing locally. He is gearing up to take on Abbott in '22. Cruz is in office til '24 and Cornyn is likely re-lected tonight to go to '26.
That sounds good to me. One of the knocks on him for president was “hasn’t put in the work.” He’s shown now he can do that in Texas and I’d like to see someone building skill in unfucking red state voting rules while building up party resources in what could be an increasingly purple state. FS would know better than me obviously but it’s my $0.02
He should have challenged for Cornyn's seat instead of president this cycle.
might depend on how large the blue is.
it all depends on how much of a lead the Dems have in Texas right now. You look at the raw numbers. There are ~17M registered voters but 9.7M voted early. That's over 57%. Considering Texas is usually in the mid 50's% you wonder how many more votes are actually out there to be cast. 67% turnout equates to ~1.66M votes today. 70% turnout is 2.1M and would be beyond historic in terms of numbers. If the early count is already known and only 1.5-2M votes are out there, even a 70/30 Republican split today only catches Trump up by 650-800K votes...and I dont think it'll be 70/30. The lower turnout counties are almost all super rural (with minimal quantities of votes) or Hispanic heavy (like El Paso and the Valley). The big suburb counties that Trump could count on are close to 70% already. Bexar, Dallas and Harris are under 60% voted and are heavily Democrat centric so have room for more votes to be cast.
That would be YUGE
Yes, yes it would be.
fingers and toes crossed
They got their asses handed to them over drive through voting in Harris County. Which is good.
Yes they did but Harris County still closed 9/10 of their drive through voting centers at of fear they could later be challenged and votes cast in them could be tossed. So while the GOP lost the battle, they basically won the war on that case.
meh, voting in person is comparatively light today. There might be another 150K votes in Harris county but thats it. Shutting the drive throughs down now isn't a massive loss for today's election IMO
That’s great to know! Thanks for the update on that.
not really, as there are still 120K votes that are in through the drive ups. just slowed the advance.
Winning the war would until negating those votes, right?
The first war is voter suppression, the second is negations votes that have been cast.
PRO
CAL
Elsewhere in college, Wisconsin has had to cancel a 2nd game, this week at home against Purdue. Their facility continues to be closed as well, due to Covid cases.
If you read the NYT article about Cal practices, (fingers crossed) I don't think we'll have this problem.
Go Bears!!! 5 more days til kickoff. We are supposed to be getting windy and cold weather starting Friday with a chance of precipitation. Depending on how dry the air is we may be getting another red flag fire alert for the Berkeley Hills, something that's necessary but has become a bit tiresome. Hopefully by Saturday eve the conditions will be mitigated a bit.
Also, the Bears are now favored by 1 in the latest line against Washington...
TheScientist01912 min
You're just setting me up for heartbreak.
But joke's on you--you can't break something that's already broken.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/10/30/style/election-stress-relief.html#growplant
thank you. that was a nice little escape
Sniff. I just got a FB friend suggestion for Reef.
John Elway has COVID. Ya just hate to see it. https://twitter.com/Broncos/status/1323680669361270784/photo/1
Is this the first reported case of COVID infecting a horse?
:flames: get some aloe for that burn...
Election comfort food
We're trying to decide what we'll be drinking tonight...
I’ve got a couple bottles of champagne on ice to celebrate a Biden/Dem win.
I’ve got a bottle of whiskey to drink away a loss.
We've got a bottle of Veuve if all goes well.
Mac and cheese with bacon, which is what I served at my 2008 watch party when the Good Guys won.
I don't what the wife is making for dinner tonight - but I will have one of my daughter's most excellent Halloween cupcakes, and maybe, just maybe open the last bottle of the glorious '73 Bas Armagnac...
For this election, liquor and lots of it.
Will be having rigatoni with meatballs and sausage, smothered in pasta sauce. Also have a bottle of champagne I procured yesterday for a late night reverie if the right candidate wins.
I'd never thought I'd say this, but I'm sick and tired of red meat and greasy food. My comfort food will likely be fish and a light salad.
shut your whore mouth!
We can't all have BBQ from Fire Starkey Ranch every day.
made a Prime brisket on Sunday... so much yum
I think Keyshawn Johnson on LA sports radio talked about limiting red meat and fun food to Friday night to Saturday night, and eating healthy in the interim. I think it might be a good way to transition. I want the HSA that we were all talking about a few weeks ago to grow for at least a few extra decades before I have to use it all on self-inflicted clogged arteries.
When I've had leftover salmon I make a salmon caesar salad. Ends up being filling but I don't feel extra full.
Not really comfort food but for lunch I'm probably going to have leftover chicken parm over some spaghetti I made on Fri night. I used the Cook's Illustrated recipe.
or most likely, Election comfort drinking
Walked around downtown Walnut Creek over the weekend while his car was getting worked on. Saw people boarding up the windows. Getting ready for post-election rioting.
The election rioting situation seems very fear mongering and over blown. Even with Trump egging on his supporters.
I wonder how much protesting will happen if Biden wins. Or if there is right wing protesting and looting also occurs, I assume the left will be blamed for the looting, especially by Fox.
Biden supporters will only riot if courts get involved early. If there are states that have not decided, there will be some people out expressing themselves, but not burning it down. Except maybe the new White House wall will become some sort of focal point.
Time will tell but since I'll be downtown visiting a museum tomorrow afternoon I may wander near the White House to see what's going on. Weeks ago they closed off Lafayette Park to begin prep work for the viewing stand for the inauguration so closest you can get is BLM Plaza. I'm more likely to stop by if it is a celebration.
Heard on the news they put up another chainlink fence.
I dropped off my ballot in the drop box maybe two weeks ago. I tracked it on
https://www.acvote.org/index
and it is listed as received. Still has not been counted yet though.
I went to go vote early yesterday and decided to fill in my mail in ballot and drop it off there. I hadn't wanted to mail it in but decided dropping it off at the early voting location (local library parking lot) was better than mailing it in. We'll see if that's true. I don't know if the mail in ballot tracking properly will track it if it's dropped off.
I dropped off my mail-in ballot on Saturday and have been able to track it. So far it's been received but not yet counted.
ok. I didn't get an update last night so they probably haven't gotten around to processing it yet.
Mine took a couple days to show up at the County Board of Elections.
It might vary from state to state but I believe counting can't take place before election day? Some states can count as soon as polls open while others have to wait until they close.
California can start counting the night before the election. The results released at 8PM on election day are generally the mail in ballots received up to the day prior. I think they may have moved that to counting 3 days before the election this year, but I am too lazy to verify.
Some states count them early.
GET THAT GRIFT
I think it was a week or two ago when we discovered that the odious Ben Shapiro has an attractive sister who had decided to ride that rightist wave. Someone retweeted her nonsense (Halloween costume like the gun couple in St Louis) into my Twitter feed. Went to take a look and it was about what you’d expect - lots of “here’s why we all hate liberals” content and then! An ad for some depilatory device because “liberal feminists might like hairy armpits but I don’t!”
Which leads me to this: if you were going to get on that right wing mail order bandwagon, what product would you be pushing?
All that weird tacti-cool, wannabe-military gear (sunglasses, flashlights, etc.) that occasionally gets advertised on ESPN/NBA Network/NFL Network/MLB Network.
Sell franchise rights to a 5-eleven alternative and then declare bankruptcy
Liquor, because that is only way I'd be able to cope with becoming a shitty shitstain.
I think I’d double down on the Brett Favre plan and offer chairs with copper wire in the cushions, so that people would believe their asses were being kept strong and healthy while they watched Fox News
pqtm
Also is she broadcasting from the early 80s with the exhumed jokes about hairy feminists?
even then I didn't know many hairy feminists, and I spent those years in Berkeley.
The only particularly hairy feminists I know are men.