Tag: Elections

Yeah, This Is Appalling

No Comments

Talk about burying the lede.

 In a Washington Post story about Republicans pressuring the (Republican) Secretary of State to throw out legal ballots, we find this bit of horror from Lindsay Graham:

In the interview, Raffensperger also said he spoke on Friday to Graham, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who has echoed Trump’s unfounded claims about voting irregularities.

In their conversation, Graham questioned Raffensperger about the state’s signature-matching law and whether political bias could have prompted poll workers to accept ballots with nonmatching signatures, according to Raffensperger. Graham also asked whether Raffensperger had the power to toss all mail ballots in counties found to have higher rates of nonmatching signatures, Raffensperger said.

Raffensperger said he was stunned that Graham appeared to suggest that he find a way to toss legally cast ballots. Absent court intervention, Raffensperger doesn’t have the power to do what Graham suggested because counties administer elections in Georgia.

“It sure looked like he was wanting to go down that road,” Raffensperger said.

(emphasis mine)

The road that Graham was speeding down was, “Invalidate all the mail in ballots from counties with lots of black and brown people.”

This has been a core Republican value since (checks notes) before John Roberts worked at the Reagan White House.

The party of Abraham Lincoln is now the party of  Jefferson Davis, and one of their most important values is, “Stop n****** from voting.”

I do not know how you find common ground with that.

Again, I invoke Robert Graves’ paraphrase of Germanicus Caesar.

H/t Atrios. 

Political Data Point of the Day

No Comments

In an OP/ED, Bernie Sanders notes that the people supporting a bold progressive agenda won while the conservative careerists lost:

………

Now, with the blame game erupting, corporate Democrats are attacking so-called far-left policies like Medicare for All and the Green New Deal for election defeats in the House and the Senate. They are dead wrong.

Here are the facts:

  • 112 co-sponsors of Medicare for All were on the ballot in November. All 112 of them won their races.
  • 98 co-sponsors of the Green New Deal were on the ballot in November. Only one of them have lost an election.


It turns out that supporting universal health care during a pandemic and enacting major investments in renewable energy as we face the existential threat to our planet from climate change is not just good public policy. It also is good politics. According to an exit poll from Fox News, no bastion of socialism, 72% of voters favored the change “to a government-run health care plan” and 70% of voters supported “increasing government spending on green and renewable energy.”

The lesson is not to abandon popular policies like Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, living wage jobs, criminal justice reform and universal child care, but to enact an agenda that speaks to the economic desperation being felt by the working class — Black, white, Latino, Asian American and Native American. People are hurting, and they are crying out for help. We must respond.

The Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) has been aggressively recruiting candidates with no moral compass beyond political careerism.

It works for the political consultants, because these folks spend their time and effort on fund raising rather than policy,  which means that there is more money going to the consultants, but it also means that at best the Democratic Party is a bunch of folks who don’t do anything.

It doesn’t win elections, and it does not benefit the republic.

Barr is Still Trying to Rat-F%$# the Election

1 Comment

William Barr just issued a memo directing US prosecutors to directly intervene in (non-existent) claims of vote fraud in state courts. 

In response, Richard Pilger, who oversaw voter fraud investigations at the Public Integrity Section of the DoJ, resigned immediately.

Mr. Barr’s authorization prompted the Justice Department official who oversees investigations of voter fraud, Richard Pilger, to step down from the post within hours, according to an email Mr. Pilger sent to colleagues that was obtained by The New York Times.

………

Mr. Pilger, a career prosecutor in the department’s Public Integrity Section who oversaw voting-fraud-related investigations, told colleagues he would move to a nonsupervisory role working on corruption prosecutions.

“Having familiarized myself with the new policy and its ramifications,” he wrote, “I must regretfully resign from my role as director of the Election Crimes Branch.” A Justice Department spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Mr. Pilger’s message.

Justice Department policies prohibit federal prosecutors from taking overt steps, like questioning witnesses or securing subpoenas for documents, to open a criminal investigation into any election-related matter until after voting results have been certified to keep their existence from spilling into public view and influencing either voters or local election officials who ensure the integrity of the results.

………

Mr. Barr’s memo allows U.S. attorneys to bypass that career prosecutor and take their requests to his office for approval, effectively weakening a key safeguard that prevents political interference in an election by the party in power.

Barr is the most corrupt US Attorney General ever, but unlike the distant number 2, John Mitchell, he won’t go to jail, because we don’t do that to powerful white men any more.

Lawers, particularly the professional staff at the DoJ, need to file complaints Bar Associations where he has been admitted to practice law.

In related news, the allegations of voting irregularities are so fact free that expensive white shoe law firms are getting skittish about taking the Trump campaign’s money:

Like many big law firms, Jones Day, whose roots go back to Cleveland in the late 1800s, has prided itself on representing controversial clients.

There was Big Tobacco. There was the Bin Laden family. There was even the hated owner of the Cleveland Browns football team as he moved the franchise to Baltimore.

Now Jones Day is the most prominent firm representing President Trump and the Republican Party as they prepare to wage a legal war challenging the results of the election. The work is intensifying concerns inside the firm about the propriety and wisdom of working for Mr. Trump, according to lawyers at the firm.

Doing business with Mr. Trump — with his history of inflammatory rhetoric, meritless lawsuits and refusal to pay what he owes — has long induced heartburn among lawyers, contractors, suppliers and lenders. But the concerns are taking on new urgency as the president seeks to raise doubts about the election results.

Some senior lawyers at Jones Day, one of the country’s largest law firms, are worried that it is advancing arguments that lack evidence and may be helping Mr. Trump and his allies undermine the integrity of American elections, according to interviews with nine partners and associates, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect their jobs.

At another large firm, Porter Wright Morris & Arthur, based in Columbus, Ohio, lawyers have held internal meetings to voice similar concerns about their firm’s election-related work for Mr. Trump and the Republican Party, according to people at the firm. At least one lawyer quit in protest.

I’m not saying that Donald Trump should have competent and aggressive legal counsel.  EVERYONE should have competent and aggressive legal counsel.

What I am saying is that the rats are leaving the sinking ship, and I am very amused.

And the Election is Finally Called

No Comments

Get over it

The have called the election for Joe Biden by all the major media organizations now.

Pennsylvania was called for Biden earlier today, giving him a total of 279 electoral college, though when Arizona and Georgia (!) finish counting, the total is likely be be 306.

A number of people have suggested that we give a few days for the Trump supporters to deal this emotionally.

F%$# that.

They are a bunch of f%$#ing snowflakes, and so I am to channel my inner Trump voter, and tell them to get the f%$# over it, and to get the f%$# over themselves.

I’m not going out and stomping on Cheetos® right now, though I did try to convince the family to go to the White House and start chanting, “Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey, goodbye.”

They wisely decided to take a nap instead.

The Poor Showing in the House Races

2 Comments

6 incumbent house Democrats have been defeated.

The caucus memberships, and politics, of the 6 losers are interesting:

  • Kendra Horn, Caucuses: Blue Dog, New Dem
  • Collin Peterson, Caucuses: Blue Dog
  • Xochitl Torres Small, Caucuses: Blue Dog, New Dem
  • Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, Caucuses: New Dem
  • Joe Cunningham, Caucuses: Blue Dog, New Dem
  • Donna Shalala: Caucuses: None that matter, but ineluctably tied to both Clintons, and facilitated a union busting campaign while president of the University of Miami.

I was hoping that it would be one more, but the contemptible Cheri Bustos pulled out a squeaker. 

The policy of the DCC, DNC and DSCC to actively support conservative Democrats, even where it does not match the electorate is a losing proposition.

Do not give to these organizations.  Give to the candidates directly, via Act Blue or the like.

What a Dump F%$#ing Mook

No Comments

Ironically, this is also the name of serial malpractice political consultant Robbie Mook.

In 2016, he ran Hillary Clinton’s campaign, and lost to an inverted traffic cone, and now:

The Democratic Super PAC in charge of House races is going to face serious questions about how it lost seats when projected to pick them up.

House Majority PAC’s president is Robby Mook.

— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) November 5, 2020

So the guy who lost by neglecting the ground game and local reports in 2016, lost in 2020 by doing the same thing.

Why does this motherf%$#er have a job? 

Seriously, when it comes to failing up, Dick Cheney looks at Robby Mook, and thinks:

There Have Have Been Some Other Races, You Know

No Comments

The Good:

  • Charmaine McGuffey beat incumbent Bruce Hoffbauer for Hamilton County sheriff in Ohio. This is a big deal because Hoffbauer fired her for being gay.
  • Incumbent Jackie Johnson was defeated as  Glynn County District Attorney by Keith Higgins.  Johnson was notorious for attempting to bury the lynching of Ahmaud Arbery by a former employee of hers.
  • California proposition 17, giving the vote to parolees won. 
  • California proposition 20, making a number of misdemeanors felonies lost.
  • California proposition 24, expanding data privacy won.
  • Massachusetts question 1, expanding the right to repair for independent shops and individuals won. 
  • Minimum wage hikes and marijuana legalization generally won.
  • Colorado proposition 113, allocating electors on the basis of the national popular vote, won.
  • Colorado proposition 115, restricting abortions, lost.
  • Colorado proposition 118, paid family and medical leave, won.
  • Virginia question 1, establishing a non-partisan redistricting commission won.

The Bad:

  • California proposition 21, expanding rent control lost.
  • California proposition 15, allowing for higher property taxes of businesses lost. (A partial repeal of the disastrous proposition 13)
  • Louisiana amendment 1, removing the right to an abortion won.
  • Illinois rejected a constitutional amendment allowing for a progressive income tax.

The Ugly:

  • California proposition 22, Uber and Lyft bought themselves an election so that they can continue mistreat their employees.
  • Florida amendment 1, which is intended to foster bogus citizenship challenges against voters, won.

The Greatest Quarterback of All Time

No Comments

Patrick Mahomes asked the Chiefs to turn Arrowhead Stadium into an Election Day voting site, but the election board said no due to a lack of voting machines.

Instead of giving up, Mahomes bought new machines — splitting the “six-figure investment” with the Chiefs.

He gets it. pic.twitter.com/IfbUJ6zp0l

— Joe Pompliano (@JoePompliano) November 4, 2020

I am not a Kansas City Chefs fan, but I am a fan of their quarterback Patrick Mahomes.

This is a Metaphor for Something………

No Comments

In North Dakota, the uncool Dakota, a dead man won a seat in the state house.

Honestly, if there is a better metaphor for the incompetent Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment), I have not seen it:

David Andahl died of covid-19 in early October, just as the coronavirus was pummeling his home state of North Dakota. But that did not keep the 55-year-old rancher from winning his race for the state House of Representatives on Tuesday.

With an apparent victory in North Dakota’s 8th District, Andahl’s election marks an unusual overlap between two of the most consequential events in the United States this year: a pandemic that has killed at least 232,000 people in the United States and the unprecedented election season it upended in the process.

………

A cattle rancher and land developer, Andahl had spent 16 years serving on the zoning and planning commission in Burleigh County, including eight years as its chair, according to the Bismarck Tribune. Earlier this year, he won a heated GOP primary against longtime state Rep. Jeff Delzer, who chaired the chamber’s powerful Appropriations Committee.

………

When the coronavirus reached North Dakota, Andahl — who was already grappling with several health issues — was “very cautious,” his family wrote on Facebook. They did not elaborate on what medical challenges he was facing.

As the largely rural state saw a sharp increase in coronavirus cases this fall — at one point leading the country in the number of new cases per capita — Andahl contracted the potentially deadly virus. After four days in the hospital, he died Oct. 5.

The Democratic Party lost to a dead man, and right now, it’s still not settled in the Presidential campaign when they are running against a man whose brain serves only as a launch pad for his hair. 

The current Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) is incredibly, and ineluctably, incompetent.

We cold fire them all and replace them with drinking bird toys, and get better results.

Live/Drunk Blogging the Election

No Comments

11:40pm:
Massachusetts approves right to repair legislation.

People do not want to be screwed by their car dealers, at least now without lube.

Good night all.

11:38pm:
I am going to leave you with a thought from P.C. Hodgell:

“That which can be destroyed by the truth, should be.”

11:32pm:
I’m drunk, and tired, and I’m shutting down.

My final thought: America is broken, and Biden was running on a “Return to Normalcy,” and this is unsustainable.

11:24pm:
If we had nominated Bernie, we’d have already crossed the 270 threshold, but the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment), needed to keep their gravy train rolling.

11:20pm:
Florida approves a $15/hr minimum wage, New Jersey approves recreatinal marijuana.

The initiatives that I am most interested in are right to repair in Massachusetts, and Uber’s attempt to re-institute gig-economy slavery in California.

11:17pm:
I think that I might be too drunk to blog, which is WAY less interesting than the Dead Kennedys album “Too Drunk to F%$#.”

11:13pm:
I need to note that I am NOT going to stay up beyond midnight, so we are probably not gboing to get a final result for this post.

You might want to check out the cat that went to the beach and hated the wind.

11:11pm:
McConnell didn’t just beat McGrath, he destroyed her, and the consultants got a cut of all that money set on fire.

11:03pm:
California, Oregon, and Washington went for Biden, but we knew that this would happen.

Switching to The Daily Show.

10:57pm:
Lindsay Graham (SC) looks to win reelection, but in Georgia, it looks like the Senate race is heading to a runoff.

10:41pm:
Arizona is definitely in play.  Interesting.

10:37pm:
McConnell won reelection against the hapless, and anti-ideological campaign of Amy McGrath, favored by the DNC, the DSCC, and the DNC, has failed because, as I have said, , “You can’t beat something with nothing, even if the something is awful.”

She lost to a f%$#ing box turtle.

10:35pm:
Remembering 2000, please God, let it not come down to Florida.

BTW, it looks like the highest turnout in decades.

10:34pm:
Most of the states out of the Pacific time zone have closed polled.

10:22pm:
Breaking for dinner.  Having some Romenesko Broccoli and cheese soup.

10:21pm:
Doug Jones loses in Alabama.  Not a surprise.  He’s not running against a pedophile this year.

10:18pm:
It looks like Florida is going to go for Trump.

Way to go Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment).

10:12pm:
I have a prediction:  That I will be seriously shicker (drunk) within the next 15 minutes.

10:09pm:
Arizona, which is always just one election away from turning Democratic Party, appears to remain one election away.

The consultants don’t care.  They get their vig win or lose.

10:04pm:
The BBC is strongly implying that Trump will pull this out.

The Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) appears to have screwed the pooch once again.

The Iron Law of Institutions, which states that power WITHIN an organization is pursued at the expense of the power OF that organization, may once again end up f%$#ing us all.

10:02pm:
Crap.  It appears that they will be calling Florida for Trump soon.

I wonder how they will blame the progressives for this.

9:59pm:
I took a break to cuddle with Meatball, because I needed some Kitteh:

9:53pm:
For my Jewish friends, if you want to make Aliyah to Israel, you can go to this link.

If you are not Jewish, consider getting a circumcision.

9:47pm:
Democratic party stalwarts are sounding remarkably subdued, because this is NOT the blowout that they expected.

I’ve said this a number of times, “You can’t beat something with nothing, even if the something is awful.”

9:45pm:
Why can’t Comedy Central do coverage of the elections?  It would be so much more pleasant.

Switching to the Beeb.  (BBC)

9:43pm:
Turning off Taibbi and Halper, mostly they are looking for drinking points for their game.

9:36pm:
Checking the NY Times map, and it has:

  • Biden winning Colorado, New Mexico, Illinois, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, DC, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts.
  • Trump winnign, North & South Dakota, Georgia, Wyoming, Nebraska, Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Louuisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and South Carolina.

Ohio is in play in a number of reports.

I need to drink more.

9:31pm:
Crap, the awful Susan Collins looking good right now.  She is the epitome of everything that is wrong with politics.

9:27pm:
Live streaming Matt Taibbi and Katie Halper as well.

They seem bummed, and Virginia seems to be in play.

We are f%$#ed if that is true.

9:21pm:
Switching to MSNBC.

Rachel Maddow, as always is chipper, which I find grating as hell.  I have since she, at the behest of her corporate masters at MSNBC, tried to queer the California primary in 2016.

9:18pm:
Well, here we go.  I’ve poured myself a stiff rum and (flat) Coke, and I am ready to turn to the news.

A Fitting Capstone to the Elections

No Comments

A group of noe-Nazis defaced a Jewish cemetery in Michigan, but instead of Swastikas, we goe “Donald Trump” and “MAGA”.

The world is a truly horrible place:

The red spray-painted letters were first spotted on Monday morning, scrawled on the tombstones in a century-old Jewish cemetery in Grand Rapids, Mich.

“TRUMP,” they combined to read across several headstones. Two more gravesites displayed another message in red graffiti: “MAGA.”

This act of vandalism at Ahavas Israel Cemetery, discovered hours before President Trump arrived across town to stage his final rally of the campaign, has rattled the tightknit Jewish community in western Michigan’s largest city. The crime is being investigated by law enforcement officials, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

Near the end of a bitter, divisive presidential campaign, the desecration marks yet another instance of political tensions apparently producing ugly and sometimes violent attacks. In Florida and the Berkshires, yard signs have been bulldozed and lit on fire. In Boston and Southern California, ballot drop-off boxes have burned to the ground. Across the country, dueling political rallies and protests have devolved into physical confrontations.

Jews need to remember that even if they aren’t first on some bigot’s hit parade, they are ALWAYS second.

I Am So Eager for This to Be over, and I So Dread Tomorrow

No Comments

I am sure that I am not the only one.

I want this to end, but tomorrow will be pure hell.

Even if it is a Biden blowout, I will have to be watching the new coverage, which means that I will have to watch the pundits pontificate.

Well, I refuse to do this sober.

BTW, my prediction. (joking)


Click the map to create your own at 270toWin.com

Now Its Up to the Federal Court

No Comments

(Update:  The federal judge that it was brought to, the most deranged right-winger in the 5th circuit, has rejected the application for lack of standing.)

The Texas Supreme Court has rejected an effort by Republicans to throw out 127,000 votes in Houston:

A legal cloud hanging over nearly 127,000 votes already cast in Harris County was at least temporarily lifted Sunday when the Texas Supreme Court rejected a request by several conservative Republican activists and candidates to preemptively throw out early balloting from drive-thru polling sites in the state’s most populous, and largely Democratic, county.

The all-Republican court denied the request without an order or opinion, as justices did last month in a similar lawsuit brought by some of the same plaintiffs.

The Republican plaintiffs, however, are pursuing a similar lawsuit in federal court, hoping to get the votes thrown out by arguing that drive-thru voting violates the U.S. constitution. A hearing in that case is set for Monday morning in a Houston-based federal district court, one day before Election Day. A rejection of the votes would constitute a monumental disenfranchisement of voters — drive-thru ballots account for about 10% of all in-person ballots cast during early voting in Harris County.

………

The Harris County Clerk’s Office argued that its drive-thru locations are separate polling places, distinct from attached curbside spots, and therefore can be available to all voters. The clerk’s filing with the Supreme Court in the earlier lawsuit also said the Texas secretary of state’s office had approved of drive-thru voting. Keith Ingram, the state’s chief election official, said in a court hearing last month in another lawsuit that drive-thru voting is “a creative approach that is probably okay legally,” according to court transcripts.

Plus, the county argued in a Friday filing that Texas’ election code, along with court rulings, have determined that even if the drive-thru locations are violations, votes cast there are still valid.

“More than a century of Texas case law requires that votes be counted even if election official[s] violate directory election laws,” the filing said.

The challenge was the latest in a flurry of lawsuits on Texas voting procedures filed in recent months, with Democrats and voting rights groups pushing for expanded voting access in the pandemic and Republicans seeking to limit voting options. In this case, the lawsuit filed Tuesday asked the state Supreme Court to close Harris County’s 10 new drive-thru polling places and not count votes that had been cast at them during early voting.

Seriously, this Republican Jihad against voting is a clear and present danger to the Republic, and this needs to be dealt with.

Making a common cause is not possible at this point.

My suggestion is that we take the suggestion historian and author Robert Graves regarding the Germanic tribes during the Roman empire:

Spaniards can be impressed by the courtesy of the conqueror, French by his riches, Greeks by his respect for the arts, Jews by his moral integrity, Africans by his calm and authoritative bearing, but Germans are impressed by none of these things. They must be struck into the dust, struck down again as they rise. Struck again while they lie groaning, while their wounds still pain them; they will respect the hand that dealt them.”

—Germanicus Caesar, Roman general
(15 B.C.- 19 A.D.)

 We need to stop trying to accommodate them. 

And in the Continued War on Voting

No Comments

In Minneapolis, a Trump official and the police union are trying to bring in retired officers to intimidate voters.

The fact that a Trump administration is trying to gin up a voter suppression effort is no surprise, but the involvement of the PBA, and it’s notoriously president belligerent Bob Kroll in actively recruiting thugs to suppress the vote is crossing the line from the thin blue line to active criminality:

The Minneapolis police union put out a call this week for retired officers to help serve as “eyes and ears” at polling sites in “problem” areas across the city on Election Day, at the request of an attorney for President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign.

The request was made by William Willingham, whose e-mail signature identifies him as a senior legal adviser and director of Election Day operations for the Trump campaign.

In an e-mail Wednesday morning to Minneapolis Police Federation President Lt. Bob Kroll, Willingham asked the union president about recruiting 20 to 30 former officers to serve as “poll challengers” to work either a four- or eight-hour shift in a “problem area.”

“Poll Challengers do not ‘stop’ people, per se, but act as our eyes and ears in the field and call our hotline to document fraud,” the e-mail read. “We don’t necessarily want our Poll Challengers to look intimidating, they cannot carry a weapon in the polls due to state law. … We just want people who won’t be afraid in rough neighborhoods or intimidating situations.”

Kroll then passed on the request to federation members, saying “Please share, and e-mail me if you are willing to assist,” according to a copy obtained by the Star Tribune.

Neither Willingham nor Kroll responded to requests for comment Wednesday.

Bob Kroll is a menace to the citizens of Minneapolis.

About F%$#ing Time

No Comments

Chile has finally a ditched the neoliberal Milton Friedman abomination of a constitution that the murderous Agusto Pinochet foisted on them almost 40 years ago.

Over 70% of voters have approved a plebiscite to replace that constitution.

Milton Friedman, and his “Chicago Boys” made Chile, and the rest of the world a much worse place.

At some point, we should total up the deaths from their machinations.

I don’t think that they would beat out Josef Stalin, but I’m pretty sure that they make Pol Pot look a piker.

We Are Definitely in the Political Weird Season

No Comments

As a part of the get out the vote efforts, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez headlined an Among Us gaming session on Twitch to almost ½ a million viewers.

I’m not sure if this is brilliant, or just silly:

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) drew more than 430,000 concurrent viewers to her first-ever Twitch stream Tuesday night.

Ocasio-Cortez’s 3.5 hour Among Us session—which she used in part to encourage viewers to vote—included fellow Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and popular streamers like Pokimane and Disguised Toast, who responded rapidly to an off-handed tweet invite on Monday. And just in case you were wondering, Omar tweeted out the specs of her (very nice) gaming rig.

The debut instantly made Ocasio-Cortez—who admitted to having little experience with Among Us beforehand—one of the most popular streamers on the Amazon-owned video streaming service. Her peak of 435,000 viewers put her in the top 20 most popular streams ever on the site, according to data gathered by TwitchTracker, an echelon that’s dominated by major gaming brands with massive marketing departments. As of this writing, the AOC Twitch account has over 571,000 followers, and her debut video clip has attracted over 4.73 million views.

In between gasp-filled games full of Among Us‘ usual accusations and back-biting, Ocasio-Cortez directed viewers to “make a voting plan” via IwillVote.com. She also found time to talk about universal health care with her fellow players and share some thoughts on the world-building of Among Us itself. “When it comes to video games, it’s the lore,” she said on the stream. “How did these people get here? What year are we in? Et cetera.”

My son watched some clips, and thought it was brilliant.

Me, I’m dubious, but maybe I’m just an old fart.

Vote Early and Often

No Comments

The whole family voted today.

We got absentee ballots and then drove to Hannah Moore park to drop them off.

I voted for Biden, though the I was very tempted to vote for the Bread and Roses Party candidate, they are socialists on the ballot only in non-swing states like Maryland, but in the end, my family’s arguments prevailed.

I wanted to stop at the marijuana dispensary down the street after voting though.

It took about 15 minutes, and we caught it on video:

Fascists Defeated in Bolivia

No Comments

Despite the best efforts to destroy the left wing Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) by the racist white elites in La Paz, as well as efforts by tye US state seucrity apparatus to overthrow the government, including a fraudulent claim of electoral fraud by the OAS, they outright won the first round of elections today.

The election, though the numbers are not official yet, are so overwhelming that the people who promulgated the coup have conceded.

My guess is that during the interregnum, the right will attempt to do whatever they can to privatize public resources and otherwise hamstring the MAS, despite the fact that the MAS presided over historic economic success and a reduction in poverty over its 14 years in power.

 Actually, the right will try to hamstring MAS BECAUSE it presided over historic economic success and a reduction in poverty over its 14 years in power.

After all, the exiting president was not only a right winger, but she thought that the indigenous populace was literally Satanic: 

Evo Morales’s leftwing party is celebrating a stunning political comeback after its candidate appeared to trounce rivals in Bolivia’s presidential election.

The official results of Sunday’s twice-postponed election had yet to be announced on Monday afternoon, but exit polls projected that Luis Arce, the candidate for Morales’s Movimiento al Socialismo (Mas), had secured more than 50% of the vote while his closest rival, the centrist former president Carlos Mesa, received about 30%.

Mesa conceded defeat on Monday lunchtime, telling supporters that a quick count showed a “very convincing and very clear” result. “There is a large gap between the first-placed candidate and us … and, as believers in democracy, it now falls to us … to recognise that there is a winner in this election,” Mesa said

Arce, a former finance minister under Morales, had earlier claimed victory in a late-night broadcast from La Paz. “We have reclaimed democracy and above all we have reclaimed hope,” said the 57-year-old UK-educated economist, who is widely known as Lucho.

………

Even Morales’s nemesis, the rightwing interim president, Jeanine Áñez, conceded that the left had come out on top. “We do not yet have the official count, but the data we do have shows that Mr Arce [has] … won the election. I congratulate the winners and ask them to govern thinking of Bolivia and of democracy,” Áñez tweeted.

………

For Áñez’s outgoing conservative interim government, which took power after Morales’s banishment, it was a stinging rebuke. “It tells us that the rightwing in Bolivia has no broad political support – not even close,” Shultz said. “The rightwing was given a chance to govern and proved that it is only interested in its own power and in itself and has contempt for the indigenous and poor of the country. They demonstrated that by pretending they had legitimacy that they didn’t, by overseeing real human rights abuses and impunity, and by being incompetent and corrupt in their governance. And people weren’t going to have it.” 

I expect to see more attempts by both the right in Bolivia, as well as by the US state security apparatus to overthrow this government.