Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    <scribbled by lperson Wed 6 Nov 24 10:20>
  

    
Oh, Van. Van, Van, Van. Remember when he was the golden boy?

>>Jones, a former special adviser to President Barack Obama, said
Harris’ “star-studded” campaign events in the days leading up to the
election felt eerily similar to the final days of Hillary Clinton’s
failed White House bid in 2016 ... he was skeptical that her final
swing-state push, which has featured celebs like Katy Perry, Lady
Gaga and Oprah Winfrey, will actually convince working-class people
to vote blue. “The other thing that makes me nervous, in 2016, we
had a big star-studded event right on the edge of the election, and
we lost the state,” Jones said on CNN Monday.

“I don’t think people understand, working people sometimes have to
choose. ‘Am I going to go to the big, cool concert and pay for
babysitting for that or am I going to figure out a way to get to the
polls?’ I don‘t like these big, star-studded events,” he said. “I
don’t want people going to concerts. I want people out there
knocking on doors, I want people out there fighting for this
thing.”<<

THEY'VE BEEN FUCKING KNOCKING ON DOORS FOR WEEKS, VAN. And tweeting,
and texting, and calling, and emailing, and sending postcards.

Jeezus.
  

    
Meanwhile, the NY Times has introduced a half-circle-style meter,
with the needle wavering back and forth between Kamala and the Sweet
Potato Hitler with every new number coming in. In case you're not
fretting enough.

<https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/11/05/us/elections/results-president-
forecast-needle.html>
  

    <scribbled by lperson Wed 6 Nov 24 10:21>
  

    

here in Oregon i will be looking at the District 5 race for US Congress.
i'm in the new D5. the Republicans saw a clear threat to their (awful,
awful!) incumbent, Lori Chavez-DeRemer, and poured PAC money into the
campaign. 

i wrote about her here: 
https://www.nuggetnews.com/story/2024/10/23/opinion/in-the-pines-our-wiggly-di
strict/37024.html

i suspect she will win again. but it'd be nice if i were wrong.
  

    
I keep switching between CNN and MSNBC during commercial breaks.
  

    
Same. Stupid concept, not remotely informative.

slippage
  

    
From WaPo:


Mark Robinson, Trump-endorsed Republican linked to an offensive porn
site account, is projected to lose N.C. gubernatorial race

Attorney General Josh Stein (D) beat Robinson, according to the
Associated Press, keeping the North Carolina governorship in
Democratic hands. Robinson was linked to the account of a porn site
user who once argued for the reinstatement of slavery, detailed an
affair with his wife’s sister, called himself a “black NAZI” and
praised Adolf Hitler’s book “Mein Kampf” as “a good read.” Robinson
denied the posts were his.
  

    

The abortion rights proposition in Florida has failed. 57% voted in
favor, but the state's threshold for approval is 60%. 
  

    <scribbled by lperson Wed 6 Nov 24 10:21>
  

    <scribbled>
  

    <scribbled by lperson Wed 6 Nov 24 10:21>
  

    
EXCELLENT!
  

    
Premise: a Trump loss means a Tesla loss. Discuss.

<https://jalopnik.com/what-happens-to-tesla-if-trump-loses-1851689129>

>>If investors get spooked, things could very quickly go from bad to
worse for Musk and Tesla. SpaceX is valuable in terms of government
contracts, but it isn’t a publicly traded company he can use to fund
his lifestyle. He needs Tesla to remain overvalued to keep this
whole thing going, and a few big investors exiting could be the
falling domino that eventually brings it all down. If the stock
price is based on vibes anyway, bad vibes could easily snowball into
a situation where everyone’s desperate to jump ship before the price
falls even further. <<

The article also argues that Joe Schmo won't be keen on staying with
the Musky One:

>>In a situation where Trump loses, and Musk tries to go back to
being his pre-Twitter-takeover self, it’s still easy to see a lot of
potential customers deciding they don’t want to give their money to
someone so unapologetically right-wing. I mean, he’s already telling
people he plans to crash the economy when he guts the federal
government like a private equity CEO who just acquired a media
company from Univision. Regular people don’t tend to like guys like
that.<<

I dunno. My impression has always been that people considering the
social and political impacts of their purchases are in a distinct
minority. Witness Amazon.
  

    <scribbled by lperson Wed 6 Nov 24 10:22>
  

    

NYTimes needle-o-meter is pointing toward a Trump win.

i am so sick of this shit. this dysfunctional country with our intense
partisanship and just plain different values. it's not all geographical. if
it were i'd suggest secession. 
  

    
So far so good.
  

    <scribbled by lperson Wed 6 Nov 24 10:22>
  

    
Don't despair yet, magdalen, no matter how tempting. Everyone and
his dog predicted the "red mirage". These are the in-person votes;
the GOP regularly derides mail-in votes, so they show up in droves
at the polls.

The absentee and provisional votes get counted last.

<https://www.axios.com/2024/11/05/trump-harris-2024-election-absentee-voting-re
d-mirage>
  

    
Slippage!
  

    <scribbled by lperson Wed 6 Nov 24 10:22>
  

    <scribbled by lperson Wed 6 Nov 24 10:22>
  

    
Guilty. I saw the reports and saw something so expected as to seem
almost normal, and didn't think beyond that. But now that you put it
that way ... holy crap.

At least some of those efforts have been identified, so we're not
entirely oblivious. I'm not positing that as reassurance, of course.
  

    
<We are under attack by foreign countries trying to help Trump>

They're told we're under attack by immigrants and foreign cultures. 

But I think this really is a global struggle, and it's one I never
imagined would happen, especially our doom coming in the form of
Donald Trump. He was always just a minor, slimy character in the
American story, and he suddenly rose up as a legitimate threat to
the established order, his all-consuming ego destroying everything
in its way.

It's just a twist I didn't see coming.