A Lot of Empty Space Voted for Cheetoh Twitler

Alan Cole‏Verified account @AlanMColeMore






This map is a brilliant data visualization. Here's a brief thread on why it's so much better than past efforts. https://xkcd.com/1939/

Kill the Electoral College.  Do it now.

"But Her Emails" Explained

Yeah, motherfucking Comey shivved her, but she was vulnerable for another reason.

Scott Lemieux at LGM:

The fact that the several of the news organizations that decided that a bunch of inane bullshit they have never thought was important before or since pertaining to Hillary Clinton was as or more scandalous than Donald Trump literally boasting about serial sexual assault were rife with sexual harassment and exploitation isn’t a coincidence. It would be extraordinary if these assumptions didn’t shape coverage.

Comey's Treasonous Sabotage

Yeah, he's under investigation. For seven days until AG Jeff Sessions cancels the investigation and promotes Comey to Deputy AG.

Kevin Drum has the proof, and it's overwhelming:

If it weren't for Comey, Hillary Clinton would have won the popular vote by about 6 points and the Electoral College by 70 or more. And that might have turned into control of the Senate as well, though that's a little more speculative.

Democrats clearly need to focus attention on state and local races, where they have done steadily worse throughout the Obama years. But at the national level, they should resolutely avoid the circular firing squad. They didn't lose because their message was unpopular or because they're out of touch or because they're insufficiently centrist or insufficiently leftist. That just wasn't the problem. The Democratic message was fine; Democrats are perfectly well in touch with their constituencies; and they weren't perceived as too unwilling to shake things up. Even with eight years of Democratic rule acting as a headwind, Hillary Clinton's default performance was a substantial win.

The only reason it didn't happen is because James Comey basically decided to call her a liar and a crook—based on absolutely no new evidence and with everyone in the world advising him not to—with 12 days left in the election. That was something she couldn't overcome, and it has nothing to do with the basic Democratic message.

And it gets worse:

From Digby:

All we can say for sure right now is that this is a perfect illustration of the way Comey improperly inserted himself into the election. These scandalous rumors connecting Trump to the Russian government information are unproven and unverified, and the FBI director was right not to reveal this material prior to the election. He completely ignored that principle when it came to Clinton, and there can be no doubt that it made a difference in the outcome. The fact that Comey clearly knew at the time it was at least possible that Trump had been compromised by a foreign government makes his decision even more shameful.

The FBI Committed Treason to Get Trump Close Enough to Steal the Election

Hillary won, by three million votes.  The Electoral College is an inexcusable remnant of the Slave Power, which 150 years after being outlawed is still undermining Democracy.

A rogue FBI is the consequence of Democrats letting repugs get away with treason for the past 42 years: pardoning Nixon, letting Ronnie Raygun and Bush Sr. skate on Iran-Contra, Pelosi and Obama refusing to prosecute Smirky-Darth for war crimes.  All in the name of "moving forward."

The result is we are sprinting backward toward the feudal brutality the Kochs and Exxon-Mobil have finally achieved.

Kevin Drum:

Here's a quick review:

• Goaded by rabid congressional Republicans, the FBI spent prodigious resources on Hillary Clinton's email server, even though there was never a shred of evidence that national security had been compromised in any way.
   
• In July, Comey broke precedent by calling a press conference and delivering a self-righteous speech about Clinton's "carelessness." Why did he do this, when FBI protocol is to decline comment on cases after investigations are finished? The answer is almost certainly that he wanted to insulate himself from Republican criticism for not recommending charges against Clinton.
   
• Weeks later, Comey finally released the investigation's interview notes. Only the most devoted reader of bureaucratic prose was likely to suss out their real meaning: there had never been much of a case in the first place, and contrary to Comey's accusation, Clinton had never been careless with classified material. Like everyone else, she and her staff worked hard to exchange only unclassified material on unclassified networks (state.gov, gmail, private servers, etc.). There was a difference of opinion between State and CIA about what counted as classified, but this squabbling had been going on forever, and had driven previous Secretaries of State nuts too.
   
• As Podesta notes, the FBI took a preposterously lackadaisical attitude toward Russia's hacking of the DNC server. Outside of a badly-written novel, it's hard to believe that any law enforcement organization would do as little as the FBI did against a major assault from a hostile foreign power aimed at one of America's main political parties.
   
• Even when plenty of evidence was amassed about Russia's actions, Comey downplayed it in private briefings. This gave Republicans the cover they needed to insist that Obama not mention anything about it during the campaign.
   
• Two weeks before Election Day, Comey authorized a search of Anthony Weiner's laptop, even though there was no reason to think any of the emails it contained were new, or that any of them posed a threat to national security. Then he issued a public letter making sure that everyone knew about the new evidence, and carefully phrased the letter in the most damaging possible way.

Any one of these things could be just an accident. Put them all together, and you need to be pretty obtuse not to see the partisan pattern. In every single case, Comey and the FBI did what was best for Republicans and worst for Democrats. In. Every. Single. Case.

If you want to believe this is just a coincidence, go ahead. But nobody with a room temperature IQ credits that. The FBI has spent the entire past year doing everything it could to favor one party over the other in a presidential campaign. Democrats ought to be in a seething fury about this. Instead, they're arguing about a few thousand white rural voters in Wisconsin and whether Hillary Clinton should have visited Michigan a few more times in October.

Not How It Works

I wish I were confident that future historians will treat this with the horror and contempt that it deserves, but I'm still waiting for historians to do that with Ronnie Raygun.

Digby on ill presidente's announcement that he will not throw Hillary Clinton in jail for not being corrupt.

So our dictator-elect is benevolent after all.

The government didn't used to work this way, of course.  BT (before Trump) presidents didn't "decide" whether to prosecute their former rivals. But apparently they do now. And when they decide not to do it, those who followed the former rivals are to be grateful and worshipful that he decided to heal the nation rather than doing what he promised to do. Thank you oh benevolent President Trump!

At least that's what they're saying. Rudy Giuliani smirked through an interview in the lobby of Trump tower this morning, saying that he thinks Clinton voters should take another look at Trump now that he's shown his generosity --- by saying he's not going to do something that he never had the authority to do and which law enforcement said wasn't criminal in the first place. 

KellyAnne Conway went further and said Trump wasn't just trying to heal the nation, he was trying to help Hillary Clinton heal:

She is the worst person in the world. And so are all the people who chanted "lock her up" like a bunch of slavering, witch-hunting monsters. It was one of the most sickening displays of a sickening campaign. Trump said he'd put her in jail --- to her face --- in the presidential debate. He gets no moral credit for saying he won't pursue it now.

As someone said to me on twitter, this is classic abuser behavior: "why do you make me hurt you, baby? But hey, I didn't kill you so it's all good, amirite? Now go make me dinner."

I don't think I have ever loathed these people more than I do right now.  And, buhlee me, that's saying something.

Meanwhile, the real president-elect is winning by a landslide

If the results were reversed and Hillary had won the Electoral College with a minority of the popular vote, there would be genuine riots in the streets and the media would be screaming for her to concede to the vulgar talking yam.

International Business Times, via Crooks and Liars:

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s popular vote victory continued to grow Monday as millions of ballots remained uncounted, according to the latest ballot tally published by the Cook Political Report. The first female major-party nominee has secured nearly 2 million more votes than her opponent, billionaire Donald Trump, despite an Electoral College vote in his favor.

Trump managed to secure well over the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the presidency, but Clinton appears to have soundly won the popular vote by an ever-expanding margin. She received about 63,600,000 votes to the president-elect's 61,900,000, according to the Cook Political Report. Updated ballot counts show her receiving at least 48 percent of the national vote compared to Trump’s 46.7 percent.

Clinton’s lead has already exceeded the 540,520-vote gap former Democratic candidate Al Gore maintained over former President George W. Bush before the former conceded in the 2000 election.

Empty Land Handed Election to the Orange Menace

This is what the Electoral College does: gives more power to millions of acres of dry land empty of people than to cities full of millions of people.

 

Via Digby:

For the Non-Crime of Emailing While in Possession of a Vagina

Amazing how they don't know or care what their hate reveals.

Digby:

Meanwhile, the FBI is leaking like the Titanic. Right wing authoritarian thugs want to put Hillary Clinton in jail not only for a crime she didn't commit but for something that isn't even a crime. They just hate her --- for reasons that have nothing to do with politics and everything to do with something dark and ugly inside themselves and their institution.  And this country.

Defending Your For-Clinton Vote

There are literally no persuadable voters in this election, so trying to pull repug voters over to the dem side is a waste of time and energy.

Preventing Trump from getting within a light-year of the presidency is more than sufficient justification for a vote for Hillary Clinton, but if you need to defend your vote from a positive perspective, Political Animal has what you need:

Clinton has a whole array of proposals that would actually benefit white middle and working class Americans.

If you are unemployed, she has a plan to create thousands of new jobs via an investment in infrastructure.

If you aren’t earning enough money to make ends meet, she wants to raise the minimum wage.

If you want to go to college or are weighed down with college debt, she has a plan to make college debt-free and to allow former students to refinance their debt.

If you are elderly and trying to make it on Social Security alone, she has a plan to shore up the Social Security Trust Fund and increase benefits to the elderly poor.

If you are raising a family or taking care of elderly relatives, she has a plan for paid family and medial leave.

If you need affordable child care, she has a plan to make pre-k universal and ensure that no one pays more than 10% of their income on high-quality childcare.

If you are living in poverty, she has a plan to change the refundability threshold of the child tax credit.

If you live in coal country, she has a plan to revitalize your community.

Beyond that, a President Clinton would continue the executive orders issued by President Obama on things like overtime pay and the fiduciary responsibilities of investment advisors.

"Do You Think She's Going to Win?"

Yeah, yeah: one person, one anecdote, I know.  Bite me.

She glanced at my shirt as she was taking my order.  Middle-aged white woman working food service in Kentucky.

"Do you think she's going to win?" Her voice was wistful, almost pleading.

It took me a second to realize she was referring to the Hillary 2016 image on my T-shirt.

"Oh, yes she is," I said in my most encouraging voice.

"I really hope so."  She took my money and gave me my food.

"Be sure to vote!" I sang as I turned away.

It didn't hit me until later.  As bad as a Trump presidency would be for people like me, it would be infinitely worse for minimum-wage workers like the woman who had just sold me some food.

Maybe I imagined the longing and hope I heard in her voice.

But when I vote on November 8 - no early voting in Kentucky without proof you will be out of the state on Election Day - I will be voting for more than just a* historic victory for progressives, Democrats and women.

I will be voting for - and with - the ignored, unsung working poor women of Kentucky for whom Hillary is more than a symbol.


* Yes, "a historic."  "Historic" has an aspirate "h," meaning it is pronounced, not silent, and therefore takes the article "a," not "an."  "An historic" is illiterate.

Vote, you little shits. Or Else!

Via Crooks and Liars:

The Ones Who Are With Her

A Hillary Rant for Your Weekend

Via Political Animal:

Wisdom from Black Mountain: "The most extraordinary candidate she has ever seen."

Read and pass on.

From the Courier Journal Guest columnist: A shout-out for Hillary from one who’s seen our history

Helen Graves of Black Mountain, age 102, enthusiastic supporter of Hillary Clinton, remembers well the ratification of the 19th amendment in 1920: “I went with my mother when she voted for the first time. She told me I would probably live to see a woman elected President of the United States.”

Helen continues, “I have been interested in women’s issues all my life. I began to admire Hillary when both she and my youngest daughter, who are contemporaries, became lawyers for children.” She feels that Hillary is the most extraordinary candidate she has ever seen.

 

Extraordinary indeed. No other American in history has matched Hillary’s qualifications for the presidency on state, national, and international levels. She has already worked in both a state House and the White House. She traveled to 102 countries as Secretary of State and now personally knows their leaders, their problems. Only six presidents have also served as Secretary of State; only three have served both as Secretary of State and in Congress.

 

Equally extraordinary is the fact that Hillary, like no other American in our time, has been subjected for 25 years to partisan vilifying, which began with a scathing 1996 essay titled “Blizzard of Lies” by William Safire. Safire’s points were eventually disproved, but Republicans had their drum to beat. Investigate Hillary mercilessly. Spend any amount of taxpayers’ money. Probe every aspect of her personal, financial and professional life.

 

Whitewater: Seven years, more than $50 million in taxpayer dollars, and six independent counsels led to a conclusion of “insufficient evidence” to bring charges against the Clintons.

 

Benghazi: The Benghazi Select Committee, given an unlimited budget, began work after seven previous congressional committees had filed reports. More than 100,000 pages of documents were provided to the committee, whose staff collected $3.59 million in salary in 2015 alone. This investigation fizzled after Hillary’s marathon 11 hours of testifying on camera proved her focus and stamina beyond any doubt.

 

Emails, Clinton Foundation: A Boston Globe editorial states, “Clinton’s email scandals are pure fiction.” So, of course is the recent brouhaha concerning the charitable work of the Clinton Foundation. FBI Director James Comey concluded that “no reasonable prosecutor” would bring a case against Secretary Clinton for using a private server. Matthew Yglesias writes in Vox, “Colin Powell’s Foundation and Hillary Clinton’s are treated very differently.”

 

If she were not a woman, not a Democrat, not a Clinton, she would not be investigated — just as, in 2007, no Republican peeped after Congress learned that the Bush administration could not produce emails concerning the firing of eight U.S. attorneys. These had been sent on a private server run by the RNC, from which potentially 22 million emails were deleted.

 

Expect more releases of cherry-picked, headline-seeking Clinton emails before the election. Drums will beat, smoke will blow, pundits will chatter. Donald Trump supporters will call for her to be shot or worse. People will say they can’t trust her.

 

Writer Michael Arnovitz explains that women pushing against a glass ceiling are often portrayed as “unfeminine, aggressive, deviant.” Data expert Nate Silver has shown that Hillary’s popularity diminishes whenever she reaches for power, but increases afterward. She was popular after Bill’s infidelity became public, popular as Senator from New York (winning by 36 points in 2006). When she left office as Secretary of State in 2013, she was one of the most popular politicians in the country. 

Hillary’s real story is this: She is a caring, talented woman who has built a long career of excellent service and who, in spite of a few flaws, a few mistakes, has worked harder and achieved more than most people. Even Jill Abramson, a former reporter for the Wall Street Journal, recently wrote in the Guardian that “Hillary Clinton is fundamentally honest and trustworthy.”

 

Helen Graves, who has a long memory, remembers Hillary’s life. She remembers a younger Hillary working for the Children’s Defense Fund on behalf of lower-income children. At that time, Trump’s company was being sued for prohibiting minorities from renting apartments in Brooklyn and Queens. After 9/11, Hillary as Senator lobbied Congress to make money available for small businesses destroyed when the towers fell. Trump, whose properties were undamaged, made sure he received one of those small business loans intended for victims.

 

Each day Helen Graves asks her daughter, Cannan Hyde, “How’s Hillary doing?” Cannan replies, “She’s doing just fine, Mother.” Helen went with her mother to vote for the first time 96 years ago, and will go with her daughter to vote for the first time for a woman, Hillary Clinton, for president of the United States.

 

Jean Franklin is a retired English teacher living in Black Mountain.

Bevin Calls for Bloodshed If Trump Loses

Really, motherfucker? Thanks for revealing your true authoritarian colors.

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.  Not to mention illegal, unconstitutional, un-democratic and un-American.

But it's the way of the tyrant.

In December 2000, when it was crystal clear to everyone that Al Gore had won the election - popular vote AND electoral college - and that the repug Supreme Court had committed treason by unconstitutionally appointing the election loser to the presidency, Democratic voters did not respond with violence.

Smirky/Darth had perpetrated an actual coup, one that genuinely merited a rebellious response, but Democrats shed no blood, because we cherish the Constitution and the rule of law above all.

Bevin just made clear that he and the other Trumpists shit on the Constitution. They shit on the rule of law. They shit on our Democratic republic.

They demand a tyrant, and to get him they will destroy everything we have built over 400 years.

Josh Marshall at TPM:

I'm not sure how I missed this. At the Family Research Council Action convention last week, where Trump spoke, Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin (R) both lamented and called for revolution and bloodshed to "redeem" what will be lost if Hillary is victorious.

AttN Dem Hillary Haters: You've Swallowed Repug Lies

Yeah, all you "Democrats" who just can't bring yourselves to vote for the super-qualified candidate: you're falling for the same freakazoid hate-driven lies that hanged and burned to death a million women who dared to step an inch out of line.

Like them, Clinton is innocent of all charges.  Twenty-five years of the most ridiculous, hysterical claims and yet dozens of enemy investigations have turned up exactly bupkis.  

You're refusing to vote for her not because you question her honesty or competence.  You're refusing to vote for her because she doesn't have a penis and therefore is evil.

You're all morons and you're going to get exactly the president you deserve, because he's going to kill everyone one of you before the sun sets on his inauguration.

Digby:

I think Rebecca Traister has the right answer in her latest piece which delves into this growing theme of Clinton stealing the election:

It’s true that the major hit on Hillary Clinton has long been that she is untrustworthy, which makes it a short step to suggesting that her electoral victories are fraudulent. Surely some of this stems from a reputation and history particular to her. But it seems unlikely that Clinton is, by political standards, uniquely dishonest; former New York Times editor Jill Abramson has written of how her many journalistic investigations into Clintonian malfeasance revealed that Clinton was “fundamentally honest and trustworthy.” The fact that “she can be so seamlessly rendered synonymous with all things untrue,” says Tillet, is at least in part because “religious narratives tell us that women are inherently untrustworthy … The idea of woman as a liar and as evil goes back to the Bible.”

This is some deep primal stuff and non-GOP voters of all ages should take a gut check on this Clinton meme and ask themselves some hard questions. There's something wrong with it and it's not that Hillary Clinton is unusually dishonest or untrustworthy. I expect right wingers to say that. They have primitive views of women. Liberals and progressives should know better. Her policies and her record are all fair game and should be criticized. But this rampant "she's a liar" character smear is something else altogether.

No, no difference between the parties at all.

You only hear that from white, straight men.  The ones who have nothing to fear from the violent hatred animating the repugs.  Everybody else has everything to fear from the trumpists.

And everything to gain from the Democratic Party.  Let the presidential nominee explain:

When we publish transcripts of speeches it's usually in our news pages, not the Editors' Blog. But I think Hillary Clinton's speech on the Trump campaign and the mainstreaming of white supremacists hate groups into the GOP is one of the more important speeches of the election cycle. So I'm putting the transcript here in full, after the jump.

And here's the video:
 

Fuck Off, Hillary-Loving Repugs

Like I been sayin' for years now: no repug is ever, ever, EVER going to vote for a Democratic candidate.

 

Rude Pundit nails it.

The second Clinton is inaugurated, impeachment proceedings will begin because that's what these GOP fuckers do. And every single one of them will run like baby rats back to their rat mother's teats and join the party in condemning Clinton for whatever made up shit they crap out this time. Their support of Clinton is just fucking cover so that they can say they turned away from Trump when he finally melts down and starts calling for death squads (which, again, would make Negroponte fucking hard).

If I were Clinton, I'd demand that each of these assholes scrambling to get away from Trump join the Democratic Party. Don't make it easy on this scum. Tell them they need abandon their party or tell them to go to hell with Trump. Leave the GOP to the extremists and the racists and the nutzoids. You know climate change is real. You know gun laws need to be passed. You fucking know that the tax laws are tilted radically towards the wealthy. You know that LGBT issues are done. You know that unless you get down and dirty with the fundamentalists and nationalists and the remnants of the Tea Party, you will be primaried. So fuck you and your support. Show you mean it. Then we can fight about the identity of the Democratic Party, which we're gonna have to do anyway.

Ru Paul Nails It

Via Digby:

Do you want a pompous braggart who doesn't know anything about diplomacy? Or do you want a badass bitch who knows how to get shit done? That's really the question.

KY Berners Are All Right

Maybe in states so blue that repugs can't win no matter what they do, Democrats can afford to vote third-party or to sit at home and not vote at all.

 

We Democratic voters in red states know better.  We have long experience voting for imperfect Democratic candidates because that candidate is the only thing standing between us and the repug catastrophe of Kansas and Louisiana and Wisconsin.

 

We will fight to the end for our preferred candidate, but when the convention does end, and our candidate has conceded, we know our responsibility.  We know our duty.

 

We KY Berners will be voting for Hillary.

From the Courier before the convention:

Kentucky Democrats split almost evenly between Sanders and Clinton during the primary earlier this year. Of the state’s 55 pledged delegates, 28 are for Clinton and 27 are for Sanders.

There are signs within the Kentucky delegation that the two camps are finding common ground. Several Sanders delegates stood and applauded speakers who endorsed Clinton Monday night, and several Clinton delegates waved Sanders’ campaign signs when the Vermont senator took the stage at the end of the night.

“It started with a decent amount of divisiveness and then it started to come together toward the end of the night,” Bugg said about Monday's convention action. Speeches by first lady Michelle Obama, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Sanders himself were helpful, he said.

SNIP

 

“I think if she continues to speak very boldly on those issues, articulates them as the deep moral center of Democratic Party, demonstrates she is committed, then she can earn many Bernie supporters and maybe even more importantly some of those volunteer hours,” Westphal said.

Two Clinton advocates who addressed the Kentucky delegation Tuesday morning used the specter of a Donald Trump presidency to woo Sanders voters and urge them to focus on electing Democrats at the state and local levels.

SNIP

 

Former Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear said the odds of Clinton winning Kentucky in the fall are long, but any efforts on her behalf will help the party in the long run.

“I’ve lost political races and I know how Bernie and his supporters feel, but in the end Sanders and Clinton supporters understand there really is no choice in November and that the only way this country is going to move forward is to elect Hillary Clinton,” Beshear said.