Keeping the Faith

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

didyouthinkitwouldbeeasy

In honor of our election, the Merriam-Webster site changed the word of the day to Gotterdammerung.

I’d very much like to think they were joking.

I woke up feeling queasy.  No matter who wins we lose.  Even when I held my nose in previous times, I could think “my guy winning is so much better.”  In this case, all I can tell you that if Trump wins, we MIGHT have a chance.  I give it less than 25% chance that we actually do. If Hillary wins, we have no chance.  We’re going to go down for the long count, and we can only hope that we teach our children well, because we might not see the revival of the republic even to the level it is today.

If Trump wins, we are buying that slim chance at the cost of having effective opposition to the left, and of enshrining a lot of national-socialist attitudes antithetical to our Constitution.

In any case, and whoever wins, we’re going to have a jolly good oldfashioned world war.  Possibly faster under Hillary, because she’ll have to distract us.  But the war thing is not solely in our hands.  I hear people say things like “Putin has nothing to win by going to war with us” and I hit my head on my desk.

Other nations aren’t the US.  They don’t go to war for philanthropic or clear self interest reasons.  They go for war for reasons of culture and of “face” as much as anything else.  (This is something that even Heinlein didn’t seem to understand.  I think you need to be born and raised in another country to get it.)  Russia needs a war.  It needs its empire back.  There are many people raised with the USSR as their only religion who are ready to fight to restore it.

China– do I need to go there?

There will be war.  I’ll be very shocked if it doesn’t come in the next four years, and I have military age sons, third son by adoption, and adopted grandson is a boy, should our jolly war last that long or have a sequel.  Not that granddaughter by adoption is safe either, in these days.  (Consuming your child-bearing age girls in war is lunacy.  Possibly unsurvivable.  Israel sends them to war because they HAVE to.  We don’t have to.)

There will also be an economic crash either way.  Wall Street seems convinced that they get Bill Clinton back, and think Bill Clinton is a financial genius, because of what the republicans forced them to do.  So they’ve come out against Trump, because they think Hillary is all that.

Only Hillary is not all that, but just another old, doddering socialist, and her vp is a communist.  Their solutions will make us Venezuela.

This, btw, is another of those “A generation that doesn’t know history has no past and no future.”  Heinlein was right.

These poor guys were taught falsified history.  And it might destroy us all.

In the meantime, if Trump wins, we crash harder and faster, because the media will do their best to drive us off the cliff.

Of course the chances of Trump winning were minimal, always.  In the primaries, he was the one GOP candidate (He’s not a republican) who tested worst against Hillary.  In fact we know now, from the emails, what we tried to tell Trump supporters before: he was the only one that Hillary wanted to run against.

BUT the press didn’t report/obfuscated that, and his supporters were convinced he was the only one who COULD win.

In the same vein, I watched the media turn the first time that GOP candidates talked back, spear-headed by Cruz into “only Trump fights.”  And I watched people buy it.

Which brings us to where we are today.

And speaking of the media: yesterday, on an fb friend’s page I found out that Newsweek has already sent out copies of its “Madame President” commemorative issue (I hope they sell so few it sends them out of business for good.) BTW snopes at the same time admits they only printed one version — Hillary’s — and already shipped it, but rates this as false, because “they made a mock up of Trump’s too, and if he wins, the Hillary ones will be trashed and Trump’s rushed to press.”  Guys, let’s take a deep breath.  This magazine is running close to the bone (they all are) and if they have to RECALL AND THRASH an entire edition, they’re done.  But they’re so sure of this that they rushed to press, despite the business risk.  Yes, yes, this means the fix is in. As we now know from Podestas emails (along with a lot of things we’d rather NOT know, things that make Imperial Rome seem tame) the press is fully an arm of the democrat power elite, and they know when the fix is in.

At any rate anyone who’s been awake since 2000 knows that.  The fury at George Bush is because he beat the margin of fraud installed and put in place by Clinton’s Motor Voter bill.

They were fortunate that Ol’ George was soft on the left (being a Christian socialist, himself) and therefore didn’t want to fully investigate them.  Or perhaps he was trying for national unity.  And then there was the war. The reason they need to be in power is that they’ve committed acts that would see them dangling from lampposts while the populace spit on their dead bodies.  Insert here Biblical rant about “in the days of judgement there will be more mercy for Sodom and Gomorrah.”  They are fully that despicable from stealing from Hatians to pay for the Clinton’s princess’ lavish wedding, to child sex involvement, to rigging the elections and the press coverage, to things that sane minds would surely recoil from.

They are not going to give us a chance to surprise them.  Yesterday, while at the voting place, taking our ballots in, we met the two people whose votes cancelled ours.  They claimed they tried to sign up to vote, but it didn’t work.  Their licenses were still from California, but they had mail, addressed to them.  And they were allowed to register and vote the same day.

Guys, I’m not even a good techy, but I could print mail with my address on my printer today.  Or with anyone’s address, really.  Now, it’s possible these idiots were plants, and it’s possible they were just dopey (possibly literally, one of the downsides of legalizing ahead of California.) But if the hole is there, it WILL be exploited.  To believe otherwise is to believe that humans are more honest in the matter of elections than in any other matter in their lives.  Dishonest humans exist, therefore fraud will happen.  Our elites have a desperate need to cover up their egregious misdeeds, therefore fraud will be organized on an epic scale.

Which is why I voted for Trump who, while he’s one of them, is also a little crazy.  There comes that 25% or less chance he’ll turn on them.  But I also know it’s a quixotic act, because the fix is in.

Bringing us back to my friend’s post.  IMMEDIATELY one of his female — of course — friends said, well, it was a little presumptuous, but of course we all know Hillary is going to win and she’ll be a great first woman president, because all women will hold her to it.

These same women, apparently are unaware that she first caused, then lied about Benghazi, set fire to the Middle East, wasted the opportunity of rebellion in Iran, kept a private server for her classified emails, so as to avoid answering FOIA requests, lied to the commission investigating the server, seems to have run a pay-per-play system at the state department, sold our uranium to Russia, enriched herself at the expense of Hatian orphans, and other stuff I’m sure I’m forgetting.

What about the godmother of pedophiles and patron saint of traitors says she’ll be a “good president” and who do these women think will show up to take the oath of office.

Ah — the media again.  All these bunnies know is what they heard on the view.  And this passes for voting age adults, ladies and gentlemen.

Well, some of us took an oath too.  It goes like this:

“I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.”

 

And some of us don’t know how to not fulfill our promises.  We’re broken that way.

There’s a very good chance we’re going down for the long count, but America is not territory.  America is not blood.  America is a belief in the causes of Life, liberty and individual pursuit of happiness.  America is a faith in a nation of laws, in which everyone is equal before the law.  A nation now in abeyance but alive in all of our hearts.

Today we mourn.  I’m treating myself as though I were bereaved.  Favorite foods, some alcohol and being rather gentle with myself and mine, as if we were a family at a Wake, waiting for the funeral.

Tomorrow we fight.  We fight with words now, we fight for hearts and minds.  There might come a time when we fight other ways, but the time is not yet, and if we don’t win hearts and minds in the meantime, we’ll lose that fight even if we win.

Teach, build, create.

Even if we fail, we’ll win because our struggle will pass on the ideas to generations yet unborn.  Maybe at sixth or seventh remove, but it will happen.

We’re Americans and America is alive and well in our hearts.

504 thoughts on “Keeping the Faith”

      2. I have that dream sometimes. Punches don’t do anything. They keep on coming.

        Generally I tear their limbs off when the punches don’t do anything. They get all upset and complain about that.

        Haven’t had that dream since I stopped working at the hospital. Self employment is excellent. ~:)

        1. My reoccurring nightmares are weird: there’s either “The Radio Station That Doesn’t Work” where I come on shift, have to go live in about five minutes, and can’t find the music I need, because the library is gone verruckt. Or the control board has been radically changed around and none of the controls work as they ought and it’s two minutes to airtime and I can’t figure it out. I know that I am really stressing about something when I have that one. I haven’t set foot in a radio studio for ages.

          Then there’s the one where I come off work … and can’t find my car in the parking lot. (Which actually did happen to me once, when I was temping at this HUUUUUUGE banking and insurance campus in San Antonio.) I walk all over, in an increasing state of panic, looking for my car.

  3. Haven’t even read it all yet, but talking with clerk at hardware store, “We’re f—ed either way.”

    Realized I had a choice of a red or a blue shirt for work. Packed a black (and M.C. Escher in white) shirt that I changed into before voting. Symbolic confusion? Perhaps.

    Voted. Had a decent meal. And broke resolve and mixed a drink. Yes, the Aunt Roberta. No, not full strength. Ox slow, not f—ing stupid, or suicidal. 1 part as 0.5 oz. Potent.

    $HOUSEMATE left with this thought, “Our long national nightmare is almost over – we just don’t know which nightmare will replace it.”

    I put it that I voted to put the plane down in the cornfield, not the pine forest. Yeah, it’ll be banged up bad and take a lot of work to get right again, but at least it will still be a plane, rather than so much scrap. A runway or more altitude and airspeed would be better.. but it’s cornfield or pine trees.

      4. You have told us about the village life of Portugal you experienced when you were young and how this still effects you. It is certainly clear you were are an American through and through, though born out of place. Keeping this in mind, my first reaction the question as to why you were wearing black was, ‘Of course, doesn’t any woman in the village over a certain age perpetually wear black?’

        In truth, I think you were wearing black because you like it and it becomes you. You know that as long as you and others like you are around the country we love has not died.

    4. I’m wearing my black “Cthulhu: Don’t Settle for the Lesser of Two Evils” t-shirt with the green printing. We’ve been selling a lot of them this year, although we didn’t take them to Youmacon last weekend because the screenprinter was there and selling them.

      1. I think it was ’96 when I was almost turned away from the polling place while wearing one of those… no electioneering, you know.

        1. I thought that too. I have one of those cute iHeartDogs shirts with open boxes beside the patriotic elephant and jackass, then there is a similar iconic representation of a dog, with the box checked. I was afraid it might be too political. I also passed by on my 2008 ‘Debt Star – this is not the hope we were looking for’ shirt.

          1. IIRC, there were 3 poll workers… 2 were classic little old ladies who had no idea who Cthulhu was. The 3rd was a college (or at least college-aged) kid who laughed and assured the others that it wasn’t a serious shirt and the “candidate” wasn’t real.

            Wish I’d thought of this sooner, but this year would have been good for a Shakespearean Party t-shirt, featuring Mercutio for the campaign slogan.

  4. When forced to play Russian roulette and given a choice between the traditional 1 in 6 chance revolver (Trump) and the fully-loaded semi-automatic (Hillary) I’d pick the revolver every time.

  5. You are so right. If Trump doesn’t win, the US is so over and the remaining productive middle class citizens will be nothing but a resource to be harvested by Hillary to give their income to her dependent class of former illegals. The rich will prosper and the poor will receive transfer payments in exchange for their eternal loyalty. The middle will be gradually sucked dry and eliminated. It will be time to leave, but where to go. No where seems safe.

      1. I’ve already posted elsewhere that whatever happens, I’m not leaving. Someone has to hang around to glue the bits back together. And I see no reason that should be left to the bozos that broke it all in the first place.

          1. I’ve noted before that someone has to run the underground railroad. I’m not going anywhere.

          2. First thing we do is clear the rubble of the MSM.

            Then we pay attention to the fact that in the states, closest to where people live, the GOP is cleaning Democrats’ clocks. Have patience — it is the conservative virtue.

            Meanwhile, Power Line looks to Politico and asks: DID THE DEMOCRATS HELP TRUMP?

            I wonder where the reporting was all along, and I wonder when conservatives will stop allowing Democracy’s enemies to select our commanders.

            1. Of course they helped him. He’s the Republican candidate of their wildest wet-dreams.

              1. and was/is, until he went to his meeting with the Clintons just before tossing his hat in, a Dem.
                I’ve not enough booze in me yet.
                I’ll stop here

            1. The fun thing is that here, we can be pretty sure saying ‘I’m good at organizing things’ means ‘when I go in and organize stuff it works,’ rather than ‘I make pretty theories that I’m sure would be great if folks would just do their job.’

          8. First Page:

            “It’s just some crazy woman and an ox. Not worth bothering with. Get back to the real work.”

            [vast imagination goes here, folks]

            Last Page:

            “What the f— just happened?”
            “No idea, but I thought saw that crazy woman and an ox. The ones ‘not worth bothering with’.”
            “Oops?”

      2. After 30+ million permanent dependent illegals are made legal and registered to vote plus no telling how many Muslim refugees including ISIS and other Islamist fighters, there will never again be a national GOP candidate victor. Redress within the system will be impossible so anyone wanting to stay and fight had better think hard about what is going to be required.

        1. Our only chance is to make them American. They are still human. STILL NOT LEAVING. When America sneezes, the world catches pneumonia, and this is not just economic.
          As for 30+ million. BAH after economic gotterdamerung they will leave. A lot have already.

          1. Just note that no matter what happens, historically when gotterdamerung is falling it always seems to land on Germany.

          2. Most will not leave; they are being paid with our assets to stay. Obama is even flying in some of them from Latin American countries. The government is actively remaking the demographics of America to be more to their liking. There is an old joke about a government that can’t get support of the populace. The government then decides to fire the people and replace them with another. That is what is happening here.

              1. Well, yes, but that is the road warrior future where the US is a burned out wasteland less attractive than the disasters from which all the invaders have come.

                1. Oh my heavens. No. It’s the near future. They only come here because we’re MORE organized and wealthier.
                  No Road Warrior future is plausible. Because at some point we fight back and build. If people worked the way you thin, the US would not exist.

                  1. Obama has been remaking the military and all of the enforcement agencies of the Federal government for 8 years. Many of them will fire on American citizens. It would take a lot more that I see in the citizenry to postulate an armed uprising to throw off the oppressors, particularly when half of the population supports them.

                    3. Obama THINKS he’s been remaking the military. If you believe him, you must be like the liberals more interested in the wrapper than the present.
                      There is an inherent mindset to those who volunteer to serve. There will always be REMFs. They will never be a majority.

                    4. Hope you are right and the people stop a tyrannical Federal government (if Trump doesn’t win and then maybe we can help shape what he does.)

                    5. Obama has been remaking the military and all of the enforcement agencies of the Federal government for 8 years.

                      Bullshit.

                      He’s been TRYING to do it.

                      That is a far, far cry from actually managing it– especially when their model of how people work is so incredibly wrong.

                      Don’t go and HAND them the victory they couldn’t get if they had a road map and a compass.

                    6. Hell, he hasn’t even been able to remake the FBI, a much smaller organization with far less unit cohesion and much more direct oversight.

                      They might be able to hold sway over the Coasts but flyover will never bend the knee.

                    7. He’s been working on the generals and admirals and top-rank NCOs. How far down the rot goes is open to question, for which I have no answer.

                    8. Basically, for the last 4 years, the military has been dropping officers above O-3 (Captain) and enlisted E-5 (Tech Sgt) on any excuse they can get; any sort of overt Christian faith has been a favorite. There’s probably an equal number who simply don’t want to deal with the changes destroying military effectiveness. At the same time, the military has has a program to enlist legal immigrants as a path to citizenship. Obama has expanded it and dropped the standards. The training has been changed to emphasize political correctness and de-emphasize patriotism.

                    9. That’s exact the kind of faulty understanding of human nature I mean– they start to persecute outspoken members of a faith that grows the more its followers are abused and then assume that because they’re not as easy to see anymore, they’re not there.

                      Since the (tiny percent, though one is too many) of folks being hassled for their religion has started, I’ve found folks to be more religious.

                      The churches in the catacombs are filling up, and the twits are busy going “well, nobody is standing here yelling ‘I’m a sucker,’ so we must be winning!”

                      They just don’t make it easy for the SOBs to find them.

                    10. They are working from the premise that as long actual martyrdoms don’t happen, they can just ruin lives and any response other than taking it will be either futile or illegal, so it isn’t a problem.

                    12. While the trends you describe might increase political reliability for Democrats it also, as emphasizing political reliability tends to do to militaries, it reduces field effectiveness a great deal.

                    13. You clearly don’t know your fellow citizens. As I’ve said elsewhere, I’m from Tennessee. There’s is absolutely no way the folks around here would put up with that. Those army units that tried this would have no possibility of re-enlistment, if you know what I mean…

                    14. I’m In the Army Guard and work with regular Army frequently. I call BS on that statement, take (politely in deference to our hostess) offense, and ask you to provide some evidence.

                    15. While the trends you describe might increase political reliability for Democrats it also, as emphasizing political reliability tends to do to militaries, it reduces field effectiveness a great deal.
                      ——————–

                      They don’t care. They think that real war is a thing of the past. From what I heard at the time, the general reaction by those in power to Putin’s adventures in Ukraine was basically along the lines of, “Doesn’t that backward Russian know that wars are a waste of time, and no one starts them anymore!?”

                    16. If they intend to order them to fire on an armed US populace then they need to care and they will learn how wrong they are about war being a thing of the past.

                      DC could because come the US “Green Zone” quicker than they realize.

                2. While a fun movie and great RPG world Road Warrior is non-functional. Without the requisite infrastructure most automobiles would be non-functional in five years. Look at what is done to keep them running in Cuba and that’s the first world compared to a Road Warrior world.

                  Breakdown on that level will lead to small, self-sufficient communities on lower tech and most of the bandit types being chased off by slightly smarter bandity types providing protection for in kind payment. Some form of feudalism seems to naturally arise in these situations.

                  So unless you have dice and a rulebook forget the Road Warrior fantasies and learn how to farm, tan, spin, weave, or protect those who can.

                  1. The Road warrior reference was shorthand to societal collapse. Think Venezuela with a ruling elite, enforcers and a mass of dependent citizens. The question is can the populace throw off the yoke of the oppressors.

                    1. I think Venezuela is a bad comparison…there wasn’t nearly as much momentum. Take Argentina circa 1900 and roll it to today. Then, figure out how long it would take to roll the US to 1900 and add that time.

                      That’s roughly what it would take to get the US to Argentina today which is still better than Venezuela.

                      Actually, I’d say halve that time but still…

                      And Venezuela is not Road Warrior…not even close if for no other reason than the rest of the world still exists which it does not in the Road Warrior scenario.

                    2. You also don’t understand Venezuela. My relatives there aren’t starving. It’s always “the poor”. Granted they’re sending their kids out of the country if they can, because there’s no future, but they’re not starving.
                      America’s view of the world is a little weird. We’ll leave it at that.

                    3. “America’s view of the world is a little weird.”

                      Not even possible! All of our world news is filtered through the very best reporters, editors and camera-persons CNN can afford. We know what sacrifices they made to maintain bureaus in Baghdad under Saddam and in Cuba, so how could our understanding of the world be less than pure*?

                      *Pure what is speculation left to the reader

            2. A lot of the folks here illegally left when the economy tanked in 2008. They’ve since come back, but just watch how many stick around if and when the US tries to finally stand in the way of the Shirtless Tsar re-establishing the Russian Empire, resuting in active combat.

              I’m betting most of the “undocumented workers” are not going to line up at the recruiting offices.

              Some will, though, and those will be the ones that we’ve successfully turned into Americans.

          3. Our only chance is to make them American.

            That will involve expecting them to abandon the ways and language and blood-feuds of the old country, and adopt our ways.

            Which won’t happen as long as we have multiculti indoctrination in schools.

              1. Alternately, since the US tends to skim off the brightest and most motivated of other countries’ people, we can force them to repatriate so that they can use that brightness and motivation to benefit their home countries.

                Which I see as more likely than the multicuti going away.

        2. I disagree with your analysis that we are DOOMED!!! The 30 million you speak of are not evenly spread around so the effect on the electorate would be patchwork not wholesale.

          We’re depressed already without your assistance. I prefer to focus on the work we have before us. If you won’t listen to the arguments by people smarter than me, you show yourself as a stubborn donkey not a true Usaian.

            1. I think that is part of what caused last night…people saw what was being done.

              That’s the “racist” dog whistle Trump has supposedly been making. Apparently now wanting your country to not be altered beyond recognition by new comers as opposed to people who wanted to come here start acting like they live here is racist.

      3. D@MN Straight! I took an oath, too. When I enlisted. Enlistment’s over, oath still in force.

        3. I’ve heard a lot of vets make that observation. Some of them are in bad health, and wouldn’t in the least mind going out like Walt Kowalski.

      4. Yup. I’m from Tennessee. The standard response to something like that is, “Oh HAIL no!”

      5. Eh… we left Mexico when Santa Anna wanted to be the Napoleon of the West and that turned out okay. It’s good to know this morning, though, that we won’t be looking at the Mao of the West and making the same calculations.

    2. The French flee marching armies; the Russians burn the land until the bastards are starving and then turn around to fight,

      The Russian Empire, somewhat attenuated, still exists.

      The French Empire is history.

      Don’t leave; put the kids safely in the next county then when you’ve shot your last round burn your house down around you with them in it.

      We know how to build and they don’t…that’s why even if some of us have to burn down a building while keeping them trapped in it with us we can win as long as we remember we can build. It is why the West prospered and communism fell (some parts of Eastern Europe hadn’t rebuilt when the Wall fell as well as Western Europe had before I was born and I was in my 20s when the wall fell).

      The secret is to keep the children safe and with the knowledge of how to build. If you know how to build then while burning things down is inconvenient it isn’t fatal. They can’t risk burning the house down as they can’t replace it…while the current fashionable version of their inability is Venezuela look at Argentina to see how it can even happen slow motion.

    4. If Hillary wins I expect to be shot dead in my front yard before the 2020 election when I tell the Sheriff “out of my cold, dead hands”.

          1. Are you kidding? In New York State* it’s the same.

            *Not city. Offer applies in rural counties only, past performance no predictor of future results. YMMV.

                1. California’s got a ballot initiative up for vote this year that will allow the state to restrict the sale of ammunition. Hopefully it doesn’t pass.

    5. I’m planning for a long stint of sullen, uncooperative round of Irish democracy. Cash economy, barter with neighbors, report as little of my income to the fed-gov as possible.
      Oh, and boycott as many of those Hilary-adoring tools as possible.

        1. Which makes it interesting that our sales at Youmacon last week were between three fourths and four fifths cash. Given how many large bills we got, it looked like people were hitting the ATM to make a cash withdrawal from their bank accounts before coming into the dealers’ room.

          1. Our last two market events had most of our sales in cash as well. Which is quite odd, for last year, most sales were through credit card through Paypal.

        2. They eliminate cash and local script will appear pretty quickly. It did in the Depression due to lack of cash; I don’t see how this will be different.

          1. Partial list of current local scrips:

            The use of locally issued scrip accepted by multiple businesses within a community has increased during the Late-2000s recession. Community-wide scrip usage has begun or is on the rise in Ithaca, New York; Detroit; The Berkshires; Pittsboro, North Carolina; Traverse City, Michigan; Lamar, Colorado; Calgary, Canada and Hagen, Germany.[8][9][10][11]

            Wiki is wrong on one count, Ithaca Hours are over 20 years old and depositable in a local credit union.

            http%3A%2F%2Fwww.coincommunity.com%2Fforum%2Fuploaded%2Fdreamstones%2F2009427_ithacanotes.jpg&f=1

            1. Ugh

              The basis is a bit Marxist but no one has insisted than an hour of labor is an hour of labor regardless of the skill of the task. If someone wanted to use them to pay me I’d value them at local minimum wage minus a discount based on how common they’d become locally.

              1. Oh, for…This is the silliest thing I’ve ever seen.

                I’m sorry, but an hour of neurosurgery is not the same as an hour of stocking shelves. Nor is an hour of me doing graphic design or art for someone in any way the same as an hour of running a cash register or preparing fast food. >.<

                1. I said it was a bit Marxist but you’ll notice “receive one eight hour labor or its negotiated value in goods or services”.

                  My impression (I have not lived there so I’m relying on various articles) is the hour is pretty strictly interpreted as “manual, unskilled labor hour”. Neurosurgery, graphic design, and so on would count not as labor but as services. Regardless the articles all indicate that pricing in “hours” is not on a strict “it takes me an hour to do this so it is an hour”.

                  I still think we’re likely to see scripts spread (I still expect a cash crunch in the US sometime in the next decade). I’d push for a local one to be a “Peach” but an hour of unskilled labor is as good as any other. That would have a fixed exchange to the dollar at minimum wage and you could price from there.

                  1. I admit I did not see the fine print (elderly monitor here at work). I suppose if there was the caveat of negotiating what the exact nature of the labor/services was, and it’s actual value it might work.

                    Of course, most of the folks I know are shocked when I tell them what I would charge for my artwork. “But it’s just art! It didn’t take you that long to do it!” (I am, see, a fairly fast worker, especially with drawing.) They have no concept that it’s not the actual time spent they’re paying for, and the cost of the materials is only a small portion of it. (Well, maybe not hugely small, considering how bloody expensive art supplies are.) What they’re paying for is a lifetime of practice–and not just schooling, either.

                    Perhaps, then, it’s just that we all need to be better informed regarding what services or even labor really mean. I might grumble at how expensive an electrician is…but I also know that I’m not paying for the work done on the ground so much as I am the years of training and experience. 😀

                    1. What they’re paying for is a lifetime of practice–and not just schooling, either.

                      There is a story of a woman who goes into a hat shop and inquires about the price of a hat in the window. When the milliner tells her the price she is shocked. ‘But it is only a piece of ribbon!’ she gasps.

                      The milliner comments that at the price it is a bargain. He takes it apart, rolls up the ribbon and hands that to the women saying, ‘Here, take it.’

                      ‘What good is that?’ the woman asks.

                      The milliner replies, ‘The ribbon is free. The skill to make the hat? That is priceless.’

    6. I’m mentally preparing for the possibility that, depending on what happens in the next few months (regardless of whether it is Trump or Hillary who is our Destructor), we will have to move to America.

      Of course, living in a Western State, I might not actually have to *physically* move: my State could very well move for me instead…

    7. My oath wasn’t the same one Sarah swore but it was similar. Even if I wasn’t oath bound, this is my country. You leave. You give up. YOU go, but don’t drag others down with you. Especially not those willing to throw you a line.

    2. The sad thing about that oath is the majority of citizens are never required to take it.

      To truly be a nation beyond borders and blood we need to make taking that oath and proving you mean it the requirement for citizenship.

      Until then we can have natural born citizens like Hillary and Obama running for and being President.

      1. We’re not beyond blood, but we have redefined it. And we’re certainly not beyond borders. That way lies madness.

        Embrace the power of “and.” America was a nation of blood. We were a nation of territory, like every other nation.

        AND with blood, sweat and tears, we made ourselves a nation of liberty and law.

        We’ve been lied to and mal-educated by the numbers.

        1. I’m not disagreeing but I think perhaps too much is made of immigrants being America instantly.

          Many are…historically most. Our gracious hostess has discussed how hard it was.

          We quit demanding that hard work be required roughly the time I was born and it is time to get back to it and holding up people like our hostess as the icon of immigrants and not the ones we are getting.

          The American proposition is one of willingness to adopt those who want to be in the family in a way no other nation has but wanting to be in the family isn’t just about getting a good job. It needs be more like getting married to us instead of being hired by us.

          1. It’s why the “Magic Dirt” meme is so effective. It’s snarky, but true. And a reproach to both complacent conservatives like yours truly, and malicious liberals.

            Those underlying realities: blood and soil? Everyone has them. Pretending we don’t is like pretending human nature… isn’t. Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret

            Of course, I have very little patience, either, with those who assume that human nature is ALL we have. But I try. (My poor husband gets the brunt of me yelling about the sheer willful obstusness of some people.)

            Right now all of us fighting the Hillaries & Dilmas of this world need to hang together. We all have strengths, we all have blind spots.

            May God have mercy on us and grant us wisdom.

            We have to keep the pitchforks manned if we want to win this.

              1. Plfft. Only if “here” is Canada. Or a free state. And only if the slave -catchers don’t find him.

                Why… it’s almost as if a metaphysical, moral principle were involved .somehow 🙂

        2. No. You don’t need to be born of any specific blood to become American. If you’re willing to acculturate, you can.
          Borders: well a nation without borders is not a nation. BUT I can see an America in space, some day. And it will be as much America.

          1. I’m more complaining that blood and borders are sufficient not claiming they are necessary.

            You are not a native born citizen and can’t be President. Obama is and was. I know which one of the two of you I consider to be American culturally.

            I think the AR types are right in that we don’t have a proposition nation because:

            1. You still had to come and live here to be a citizen.
            2. Any baby popped out here is a citizen.
            3. Anyone with a citizen parent is one.

            Where I differ from them is instead of condemning #1 and demanding we only use #2&3 I’m very open to the idea of kill #2&3 and instituting oath and trial for anyone to become a citizen. Probably due to reading Starship Troopers early and often.

            I am concerned about immigrant who fail to assimilate but I’m more concerned about the native born who refuse to and demand to be citizens of the world while voting in our elections. The former I at least understand and can respect somewhat. The latter are poison.

            1. Do you remember that some clever idiot tried to argue that Senator McCain was unqualified to run for President because he was born in Panama? (His father was posted there at the time.)

          2. Longer letter later, but. No. Whatever daughter nation comes to be on a space station, or Mars, won’t be the United States of America. Any more than Canada is Australia.

            Though if it’s citizens are fortunate, they’ll be America-like.

          2. So you will be taking my money when?

            Speaking of, are you still considering leaving PayPal for Patreon (fingers crossed)?

  7. “because.. woman/women”? Oh, that person should here what the women here in “Hooterville”[1] have to say about Hillary. The men are mostly silent or just say they “don’t like” or maybe “can’t stand” her. The women… use language best not repeated.

    [1] Have decided that since I am in “flyover country” I might as well refer to where I am as ‘Hooterville’… it’s a close enough idea.[2]

    [2] I haven’t kept up, but are there *any* ‘rural’ TV shows now? That don’t just make fun of anyone not BigCity, that is?[3]

    [3] I might be going mad (or maybe it’s the half-cocktail) but I am actually considering blowing a few dollars on a TV antenna to if anything might be picked up in the wilds. Will NOT be ordered until at least after last polling place closes. And would not (I hope!) arrived until after things have been decided.[4]

    [4] Might lie down and see if that helps.[5]

    [5] There is no 5. Yes there is, this. Oh, crud.

    4. [2] I haven’t kept up, but are there *any* ‘rural’ TV shows now? That don’t just make fun of anyone not BigCity, that is?[3]
      ———————
      Is Longmire still on the air?

        4. Yep. The new season of Longmire on Netflix came out in…August or September. It did start on A&E, and was their most successful show…and for some inexplicable reason they opted to cancel it. So Netflix snapped it up.

          I like it for many reasons, but one of the chief ones is…it’s a show set in Wyoming that actually looks like it was set in Wyoming. (It’s actually filmed in New Mexico–but it’s a part of NM that looks like large chunks of Wyoming. 😀 )

  9. Not 50, but 70 words. Prompt: “Election”:

    “What did those damn fools American do this time, elect a drunken minotaur President?”

    “No, Sir.”

    “Ah, finally they came to their senses, did they?”

    “No. Even a drunken minotaur doesn’t want the job.”

    “The Hell? What did they do?”

    “We… still don’t know for sure. They’re choosing between a narcissistic nincompoop and an outright crook.”

    “And the minotaur?”

    “Is looking for the way IN to the labyrinth.”

    “Aww, sh*t.”

  12. Wall Street may not be thinking a Clinton in the White House is a good thing, but rather fear the Republican Jinx. That’s the tendency of stocks to go down the first year of a Republican presidency. Or so they think. I’m surprised they don’t sell rabbit’s feet and four leaf clovers on Wall Street.

    1. Financials want Hillary…they figure nothing will change while with Trump they have no idea what will happen. Financial markets hate uncertainty, which is why I wish they wouldn’t bake in outcomes so much.

      Trump wins and hedging against volatility for a week will be hell…glad I’m back office and not a trader.

      1. From the wisdom of crowds and idiocy of masses department, a quick peek has two of the better stock market performers today being Smith & Wesson and Ruger.

        Though they are currently both down from earlier highs.

    2. Obama has artificially kept the interest rate at 0%. Hillary will likely continue that policy.

      Trump, on the other hand, might set it free.

      I suspect that’s why Wall Street is concerned.

      1. Big reason although as a banker than should make me happy.

        With the short sighted shorting of our debt instruments for the UST from Clinton on, however, it will blow up the budget.

        1. The problem is that interest rates aren’t just a demand function for money to borrow; they’re also an attempt to price in risk. That’s been suppressed too.

          1. Maybe…at least at the UST but not at all levels.

            Glad I’m still at home because I wouldn’t post this from work but the fact is about 2-2.5 years ago we noticed something (remember, my group’s origin and still core function is hedging MBS/MSR portfolio) is that UST/LIBOR and mortgages had largely decoupled. Traditionally the spread between cost of funding and mortgages was a fairly tight spread. This is no longer true as we’ve seen the natural floor below which no one is going to write mortgages.

            That floor is a risk function (mostly risk of having to borrow at higher rates than we have lent).

            1. I don’t know, Herb; we’ve already seen an attempt to recreate the housing bubble, and extend it to car loans. What was that except to try and take out the risk premium by moving the risk to the UST? As it is, I predict that we are going to see a lot of wailing if that policy is reversed.

              1. As I said, the danger in the UST is how much and how often we roll over the Federal Debt. 75% is Notes and Bill meaning the maturity is within 10 years (longest bond maturity). Some of the other 25% matures within 10 years as well (older bonds). 12% is bills which mature within a year (all bills mature in 1 year from issue).

                That means 10+% of the debt will roll within a year of a rate increase. As soon as rates go up it’ll bust the budget because instead of wisely getting 30 year money we wanted to save 100-200bps now and screw ourselves immediately when rates go up.

    1. I am terrified of the possibility that no candidate gets enough electoral college votes to become President, and so the decision goes to the House…and after a lot of bickering, they decide to just choose someone at random…and that person ends up being me…

      Last night, I realized that one reason I’m terrified of the possibility is that I actually *hope* for that to happen…

      And if it happened, I think the comic still applies…

      1. The House is only allowed to choose between candidates with electoral votes — the top three in the count. So unless a faithless elector gives you electoral votes, you’re safe from becoming president.

      2. Well, don’t worry too much. If it goes to the House, they’ll have to choose from the top 3 electoral-college-vote-getters. Unless you win the election in some state (or get a vote in Nebraska or Maine), you’re in the clear.

        1. There’s that elector in Washington that says he won’t vote for Clinton. We should lobby him to vote for Alpheus.

  15. If we truly get into an existential war, I think we’ll see either an election or a coup that brings into power somebody whose ideology won’t hobble the military. That requires more realism than our would-be lords and masters possess. I don’t think our constitution will survive such actions intact. I expect we would see the Starship Troopers / Balboa solution.

    I swore an oath to the constitution, but I can live with that. Universal suffrage is an experiment, and if it fails, it fails.

  16. Consuming your child-bearing age girls in war is lunacy.  Possibly unsurvivable.  Israel sends them to war because they HAVE to.  We don’t have to.

    They’re horrified about married 19 year olds that have a kids, assume that if you have two girls the only reason you’d be pregnant is because you’re trying for a boy (got really, really tired of being told that I’d fill the house with girls trying to get a boy) and further both abuse as a moron anyone who has kids and bemoan about how kids are dumb because only dumb people are reproducing.

    I know that it’s pretty much traditional now to go to thirty year old song lyrics for “wisdom,” but this is was lame when it came out:

    Been around the world and found
    That only stupid people are breeding
    The cretins cloning and feeding

    and doesn’t say much for the “smart” folks if they can’t figure out reproduction.

    1. Consuming your child-bearing age girls in war is lunacy. Possibly unsurvivable. Israel sends them to war because they HAVE to. We don’t have to.

      There is a reason they were trolled with the #DraftOurDaughters memes and a reason they hit close to home.

      Their philosophy is one of death and one of the great proofs is that they consider a woman SEAL more important, and more valuable, than a mother.

      1. BTW, short of a short period during the really desperate war of independence (a war in which Israel lost 1% of its population – not the military age, the population in total), Israel hasn’t. Women have always been drafted, but not for combat roles.

        1. Ah. I was raised on tales of brave girls defending Israel during the sixth day war. Not trusting mom’s history is always a good idea. (Our cat was Moshe Dayan. No, seriously. He was born without an eye and mom named him. Having her call him for dinner was a trip. I have no idea what the neighbors thought.)

          2. As I recall, the problem was less “letting gurls fight” and more “stoopid effing Arabs won’t surrender to gurls.”

            Keep in mind that in the six-day war “girls defending Israel” could simply have been akin to America’s frontier women defending the homestead during Injun attacks. In such conflicts not all battles are fought by the military.

            1. During a war where the Arabs were enjoying success, I believe there was a tale of a unit of Israeli females that got overrun by the Arabs. It was tank training unit, IIRC, and the Arabs paid a high price…. and after what they did to the women they captured, few were subsequently taken prisoner.

            2. Wouldn’t be surprised if the Arab surrender issue was true. But from what I’ve heard, there have been other issues, primarily due to friendly male soldiers. Specifically, male soldiers were endangering themselves to try and protect the women.

          3. Israeli women generally are not placed in front line combat roles, but they are most certainly trained to serve in such as needs must.
            As for Arab soldiers refusing to surrender to females, there’s a simple solution to that. Very similar to what the US Marines adopted with Japanese troops in the Pacific in WWII.

            1. “Trained” is a questionable term. I has male non combatant basic training, four weeks during which I shot maybe forty bullets. Women got an even shorter version, two weeks.

        2. And that is good to know, and answers a question I had just thought of — it seems that when I hear of Israeli soldiers killed, it’s always guys, not young women. So I figured they must be keeping the girls out of combat. That is smarter than our military.

        1. Men can be effective SEALS…in theory women can be effective SEALS.

          I know of no theory where a man can be a mother.

          If you have two jobs and two people only one of whom can do one of the jobs you are a moron to put them in the other.

          1. “I know of no theory where a man can be a mother.”

            Surely you do. Perhaps transgenderism would term the situation a child-bearing father, but I think genderfluid would allow for it…

    2. I do remember an essay by a mother about Twilight and Hunger Games. Her first impulse was to prefer Katniss to Bella, but then it occurred to her — she would really hate so much for her daughter to have a baby at 17 than she’d rather have her kill people?

      Of course, the answer is that is that — wouldn’t it depend on the circumstances? There are times where she probably should be killing rather than having a baby, albeit rather nasty ones.

      1. Um, doesn’t one of those two become a thing that is supposed to eat people?

        I take a third option–if I have to go through a wall to get it!

      2. The problem with Bella isn’t that she has a kid at 17. The problem is that she’s a narcissistic twit with few to no redeeming qualities.

  17. Sarah, I extend my sympathies.
    Here in NC the governor’s race is all about HB2, about whether Tarheels are whores, willing to sell our principles for a few lousy bucks (as the argument against HB2 and McCrory has been that the stand cost jobs, NBA All-Star games and never over the principle of privacy in the loo, how else should one define it?)

    I see that in Colorado you’re voting to commit Sanderscide: Colorado to consider landmark single-payer healthcare system
    Colorado could become the first state in the nation to adopt a single-payer healthcare system, but a unique bipartisan coalition is fighting it.

    The state’s residents will vote Tuesday on whether to adopt ColoradoCare, which would create the state’s own healthcare system that would cover all healthcare services for residents. It would come with much higher taxes to the tune of 10 percent payroll and 10 percent non-payroll taxes.

    The ballot referendum comes after Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders advocated for a national single-payer system.

    However, in a unique twist, traditionally Democratic allies such as abortion rights groups and the state’s governor oppose the Colorado measure.
    — — —
    Read the whole absurd thing. These idiots can’t make change but presume to play with economics.

    1. I can’t remember which Eastern State tried to establish single-payer (it may have even been by ballot, but it could have been a proposal in their State congress) — think it was Vermont, because it was a particularly socialist State! — but they rejected it by a large margin.

      The issue at the forefront was the realization that the State couldn’t handle the huge tax increase required.

      1. It was Vermont…then they figured out how much it would cost.

        Megan McArdle at Bloomberg has done great work on the topic of Obamacare, single payer, and why health care costs what it does.

        1. Forgive me, but you talk about health care and health insurance as though they were one and the same. We are well on the way to achieving a national realization that the two are very different.

          1. I know they are not the same. One reason we are in this pickle is they are confused but the reason you can’t have single payer health care is because health care is not insurance and no government in the US is willing to tax at the rate single payer health care would require.

            I would hazard to say health insurance has not been insurance but a prepay system for health care in the US my entire life. Anything that covers predictable costs is not insurance but a billing system.

            Health care costs are also very path dependent so single payer will not magically change cost structures (hint: two insurers in the US already have more scale than many of the European nations who are proving single payer creates efficiency of scale that we should adopt).

            1. The ACA isn’t an insurance program at all. What it attempts to do is take wealth from the earners and redistribute it to those in need. It’s just based on a major critical need, health care. We actually adopted a minimalistic version of this when we collectively agreed that anyone could go to a hospital ER and get care with no regard as to ability to pay. That worked after a fashion, but expanding that to provide universal full health care only works in the minds of folks who failed their math classes in grade school.
              Single payer is nothing more than the ACA on steroids. And what you wind up with is the sort of actual health care that we find in our VA hospitals.
              To take a page from Maggie Thatcher’s notebook, once you’ve robbed the wealth creators of everything they make you suddenly find yourself with no one left to rob. And very shortly after that you find, as all governments eventually do, that printing pretty pictures on high quality paper is not the same thing as creating wealth.

              1. We actually adopted a minimalistic version of this when we collectively agreed that anyone could go to a hospital ER and get care with no regard as to ability to pay.

                They made that work by making it so hospitals can write off the bills like that which go unpaid– we were offered the chance to write off our first daughter’s birth, because our payments were so small. (We didn’t, and I’m still conflicted about it. Kept our honor, but the hospital really would’ve much rather we’d used the write-off program….)

                1. When I took the class in accounting for government, hospitals and NFP one of the things that stuck out like a sore thumb hand was the fact that hospitals cannot legally (at that time, circa 1990) track costs written off. Businesses are required to maintain an “Allowance for Doubtful Accounts” which is an offset against Accounts Receivable reflecting the premise that not all receivables will be received; a business with an aggressive credit extension policy will have a larger allowance because they know more of their customers will end up not paying.

                  Hospitals are required to write-off uncollectable debts but forbidden tracking those losses for reasons that are probably fairly intuitive. There’s no point explaining the mechanics of the process, but those anticipated losses are budgeted into the charges billed to private pay customers, insurance agencies and government.

                  The write-off of your daughter’s birth would have been cooked into their budget and the cost of processing your payments was probably looked at as higher than the income.

                  Government and Not For Profit accounting is even stranger.

            2. Earlier this afternoon I wrote a check for my co-pay for a pair of hearing aids. I paid $990; Blue Cross supposedly paid $2710.

              However, my co-pay is of the retail price. Blue Cross isn’t paying retail; I would be astonished if they were paying more than a few hundred dollars. The $3900 “price” of the hearing aids is entirely imaginary.

              I’m reliably informed the actual production cost is in the vicinity of $65.

              Pretty much the same applies to any devices, prescriptions, or services the medical industry handles.

              1. Prepaying through a third party is an assured way to get ripped off in any area. Why should medicine be any different.

                Of course, now the government requires us to do such prepayment and the leftists want to give the government monopoly on the prepayment will will make it all better I’m sure.

                First, if we want health insurance then we should be allowed to buy that: health insurance. Then we need to accept responsibility for those aspects of health care which are predictable instead of semi-random from prescriptions to checkups to pregnancy.

                But that would require people act as grown ups.

                  1. *Raises paw* And none of my physicians take my “insurance”, so I’m still paying out of pocket for all my care. In addition to the ObamaCare tax paid through [redacted] Insurance Company.

                    1. If my college didn’t require students to have insurance, I would be paying my “shared responsibility payment” rather than have insurance.

                  1. Neither are prescriptions. Even with the routine stuff. My wife takes Premarin. The pharmacy switched her to a generic version, and she ended up with a major depression episode until we got the script changed back, even though the insurance company didn’t like it.

                    1. I know some insurance plans were covering vaccinations and such because it saved them money–private business with gov’t as enforcer would work out the details better.

                  2. Perhaps, but routine pregnancy care shouldn’t be insured just the things that can but don’t go wrong often and are very expensive.

                    Risk is cost*odds. Only things that have high cost if they occur or high odds and at least medium cost should be insured as a general rule.

                    1. Perhaps, but routine pregnancy care shouldn’t be insured just the things that can but don’t go wrong often and are very expensive.

                      Says who? Not any doctor I’ve spoken to– they notice that ‘routine pregnancy care’ is the route that helps you totally avoid the stuff that can go wrong, or catch it while it’s cheap.

                      Shouldn’t it be up to the insurance company and the people buying their product to figure out what shouldn’t be covered, rather than folks trying to make insurance make sense via their philosophy?

                    3. Problem being that, as I pointed out, not covering various ‘oil change’ type things ended up costing them more.

                      There’s also the not inconsiderable consideration of the risk of your customers leaving if you don’t cover what they think you should.

                      Can’t know what’s going to be the accurate predictors of risk unless you let it shake out.

                    5. Exactly why I am so very set against imposing a “should” on insurance– it’s going to have hard enough to get rid of all the bad stuff that’s required without having to fight against “but it makes sense” errors in the opposite direction.

                    6. I regret the word should in this context because it makes it sound like advocating law instead of arguing what actuaries are going to say and what would, at least initially, shape most policies.

              2. The price is “how much we have to charge so that MediCare/MedicAid doesn’t put us out of business,” medical device taxes and operating costs, how much BlueWhatzit pays is “how much do we have to charge to not go out of business with as likely as you are to pay us.”

                Honest folks that don’t have insurance get screwed.

              3. In a Los Angeles county clinic there is an astonishing schedule of fees for prepaid services, the most expensive of which is:

                Any surgery: $400

                A startled patron asked the desk nurse why so low, when the least of surgeries would be well up in five figures at the regular hospital, and she responded, “That’s our actual cost. The price is so low because if you pay in advance we don’t have to chase you around to collect it.”

      1. No, that was Romneycare, one of the inspirations for Obamacare. (To do Romney justice, many of the worst bits of Romney/Obamacare, such as the (job-killing) employer mandate, were passed over his veto.)

        1. As I recall it, my impression of Romneycare was that the Massachusetts legislature was damned and determined to go there and Romney, as governor, felt it his duty to ameliorate the worst of the damage.

          Sort of like the Dems declaring, “We’re driving this car over that cliff, and it’s gonna FLY!” and Romney saying, “At least put on your seatbelts.”

          1. Sometimes a veto that you know will be overridden is worth doing.

            For Romney that seatbelt trapped him on the issue that should have made him president.

            Imagine if he could have campaigned on “I vetoed it then, but will sign the repeal now.”

          2. Pretty much.

            And unfortunately, the first time that I saw an article that actually explained what happened in Massachusetts was an NRO article a couple of months *after* the 2012 election.

    3. However, in a unique twist, traditionally Democratic allies such as abortion rights groups and the state’s governor oppose the Colorado measure.

      I love their rationale for opposing the measure: because only the federal government should institute a single payer system.

      1. One does wonder how many Coloradans would be moving to another state, but I would guess they would be the generally healthy ones.

  19. The part about ‘because women will hold her to it’…
    Just went through some crap because I had the unfeeling maleness to state that voting for Clinton because of her genitals was stupid. “I never thought the day would come that I could vote for a woman for President!”(my unspoken question: You didn’t? Why the hell not?), and “All the other candidates are always MALE, you don’t know what it means to women to vote for a woman!” Apparently even if the woman is a corrupt lies-by-reflex politician who thinks the law is something that applies to other people(having a vagina apparently cancels all that out).

    It’s enough to cause despair, if I weren’t already infected.

    1. As I said recently over at Old NFO’s place, that’s the sort of thinking that makes me want to see if I can get my second X chromosome swapped for a Y just so I don’t share biology with that kind of [twit].

      1. Given the way Hillary lies, I wouldn’t lay any great amount of money on her having two X chromosomes…

    2. “All the other candidates are always MALE, you don’t know what it means to women to vote for a woman!”

      That’s why women voted in droves for McCain/ Palin, given the concerns about McCain’s age.

                1. If you’d like…due to my social connections my view on genderqueer, gender fluid, and transgender is more than a little mixed.

                    2. ugh…herb@[my full first name]nowell.com

                      Also, anyone who comments here and every wants to mail me, even something mean, is welcome to it.

                1. FWIW the NYT, which I do not expect pro-Trump spin from, is giving a > 95% chance of a Trump win based on a combination of reported results and prior voting patterns.

                  It is almost assured he out polls Romney in the Electoral College based on the Ohio flip.

                    1. I am hoping tomorrow the Dem after action argument is “Anyone but Hillary could have beaten Trump” for two dimensions of irony.

                      I’m glad I didn’t look until 11 though.

                    2. The RNC supposedly did in order to make up at least some of the slack. They were complaining about how having to do Trump’s legwork meant that they couldn’t devote as many resources toward down ballot races.

                    3. I also wondering how he’d done if a huge swath of the party and punditry had resisted the desire to morally preen and just kept their mouth shut even as they voted against him.

                    4. Hah – as if that could happen!

                      Shutting yaps and falling in line is what we are supposed to do, not them.

                    5. It wasn’t that they didn’t want to support them that galled me as much as how much in 08 and 12 they used the “a third party vote is a vote for Obama” to try and keep us in line.

                      Live by the sword and all that…

                  2. In fact drilling down what I consider Trump’s best case scenario is pretty much their worst for him at 272 electoral votes.

                    1. Even if Trump’s lead doesn’t hold it will be close as a tick’s tummy and should scare the bejabbers out of Hillary. As it stands, all Trump really has to do is hold the Romney states.

                      More likely, in event of a Hillary win she will start implementing her Payback List.

                    3. Welllll … I wouldn’t like to be James Comey’s life insurance underwriter.

                      I don’t think I would like to be the person at Clinton campaign headquarters bearing the cost of replacing broken lamps, ash trays, dishes, book ends, knick-knacks, small items of furniture …

                      On the plus side, maybe Hillary will give us a concession speech expressing the way she talks to her security detail?

                    7. An American presidential election is awfully hard to fix — the areas most likely to fix an election are isolated in states where their side is already likely to win.

                      That is the genius of the Electoral College.

                    8. As I told someone (Sara the Red?) on an earlier thread, thank the deity of your choice the UniParty hasn’t thrown out the Electoral College. Yet.

                    9. My sister just posted on Facebook that she wouldn’t want to be anywhere near Hillary tonight if Trump wins.

                    11. I’m online…sounds like you’re watching CNN.

                      If I turn on the TV it will be hard to choose Fox or MSNBC, the latter to roll around in the sin of schadenfreude.

                    13. lol, I don’t recall if it was me re: the electoral college. Probably.

                      And I have reluctantly accepted that, yes, it still serves a purpose. Not convinced it doesn’t need an overhaul of some kind (though I am of the view that *everything* politics/government related in this country needs that, with an eye towards reducing opportunities for graft, etc), but it’s certainly given us the less-horrific of two horrific options.

                      I was faintly surprised, this morning, upon looking at the results (I refused to check at all last night, I voted and went home and watched superhero movies instead), that I felt a touch more relief than I did horror. So that’s something! 😀

                    14. Perhaps there out be a cap on the percentage of electoral votes any state can control? That would diminish the malign influence of California’s one party state. Either break up California or require states above fifteen EV to apportion them as Maine does, by Congressional district?

  20. I’m not sayin’ it’s related, but these last few days I have noticed a significant uptick in email purporting to be from banks and credit card issuers — Chase, BoA and others.

    Just sayin’ …

    1. got one today in my work email from “Your Health Insurance”
      nice,
      What company might you be?
      I’ll just copy it, here for giggles:

      Dear john.kalishek, this is from the insurance company concerning with your health insurance.
      The new insurance contract is attached.
      Please look over it and let us know if you have questions.

      Best Wishes,
      Leland Cervantes

      BTW, no attachment got through the spam filter.
      Our insurance is actually company owned, and we have a choice of either BC/BS or Aetna to administer the details. Any “contract” to go over is electronic and through the HR website, so the email would be internal ourHR@company.com and certainly not be: Leland Cervantes [Cervantes782@cable.net.co]
      TelMex Colombia has nothing to do with my health insurance.

      1. Heh. I generally take “weak” grammar as a sign it was not actually from a legitimate business, although these days I am less confident.

  22. This useful thought — Hillary’s Dems may be the NY Yankees of politics, holding all the power, glory and glamour, but they’re an old team laden with past-their-prime players and they’ve got near nuthin’ in their farm system. They’ve burned through their capital with the MSM, exposing the reporters as so many home-rooters willing to praise whatever their team tells them to.

    Last Night Was the High-Point of the Democratic Party’s Cool
    [SNIP]
    Clinton aside, the Democratic party is in an odd position. Who are its leaders? Elizabeth Warren, one of the “radicals of the future,” is 67. Bernie Sanders, that inspirer of youth, is 75. Nancy Pelosi, the would-be Speaker of the House, is 76. Chuck Schumer, the would-be Senate Majority Leader, is 65. All of them are old. All of them are white. All of them are out of ideas. None of them is Barack Obama. The White House to one side, the last six years have taken a serious toll on the Democrats’ bench. Looking at the party’s future prospects, a handful of names come to mind — Cory Booker, Kirsten Gilibrand, Tammy Duckworth, the eternally over-hyped Castro Brothers — but one cannot help but be impressed by how limited the selection is.

    The Republicans, by contrast, are younger, more diverse, and come from a broader collection of states. The GOP is never going to be cool — a certain squareness is in the nature of conservatism — and, if the party continues as it has this year, it is never going to be taken seriously, either. But if it does decide to change, it seems well-set to do so nevertheless. Who are its leaders? The Senate Majority Leader is 74, so we can put him in the same camp as Warren, Sanders, Clinton, and co. But Paul Ryan, the Speaker of the House, is 46. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, the runners up in this year’s primaries, are both 45. And, going forward, the GOP has a strong range of younger guns just waiting to take the reins. Among them are: Cory Gardner (42), Tim Scott (51), Nikki Haley (44), Susanna Martinez (57), Tom Cotton (39), Dan Sullivan (51), Ben Sasse (44), Joni Ernst (46), Rand Paul (53), Scott Walker (49), Brian Sandoval (53) — and, for now, Kelly Ayotte (48). The oldest governor in the country is a California Democrat; the youngest is a Southern Republican. The oldest senator in the country is a California Democrat; the youngest is a Southern Republican. All is not as it seems in paradise.

    1. But just 10 years ago a little known state senator made his way to the us Senate. Reps typically need a pedigree. Dems just ethnicity.

    2. For one, it is pretty obvious that the Clintons have poisoned any other potential rivals for this very election.

  23. And speaking of the media: yesterday, on an fb friend’s page I found out that Newsweek has already sent out copies of its “Madame President” commemorative issue (I hope they sell so few it sends them out of business for good.)

    Or they are setting themselves up for a great embarrassing moment like the one the Chicago Tribune experienced when the victorious Truman held up their edition where the front page banner read Dewey defeats Truman.

    President Truman holding the infamous issue of the Chicago Daily Tribune, telling the press, “That ain’t the way I heard it!”

    1. No, they just already have the vote counts.

      Remember, it doesn’t matter who votes but who counts the votes. The GOP before most of us were born entered into a consent degree that limits its ability to contest elections. Don’t thing the Dems don’t know and use that.

  24. I have been reading a history of the goings on in Philadelphia during the late spring and summer of 1776. Today I covered the first four days of July. Where true liberty and equality under the law are sought things have not, do not and will not come easy. (Throughout history there have always been a good number of people who prefer easy.)

    The United States has never done a perfect job, this is true. It is a work in progress. The country is attempting something that has never been done before. Right now what we are being offered in the name of liberty and equality? I don’t think so.

  25. Beautifully stated.

    I took that oath, too.
    I did not take it lightly, and I will keep it.
    And I am not going anywhere. This is MY country. This is MY unique experiment in individual liberty in the ocean of vile collectivism.
    This is MY Constitution.
    And it is worth fighting for.

  26. Been depressed all morning about the election, wondering whether Scylla or Charybdis will be elected. Ended up donating some cash to one of my charities, which made me feel better.

  29. I think I read it here a couple days ago, but the “bright side” perspective is that no matter who wins, tomorrow we can point at the loser and say “at least we don’t have to put up with that!”

  30. FYI Sarah, it looks like your “pocketed sticker” link in Insty and resulting instalanch have drowned Cedar’s poor server…

      1. Eh, she can speak for herself, but I view a comatose web server due to an Instalanch as tangible proof you’ve arrived.

  31. I voted but I’ll think I know go reread David Weber’s newest Safehold novel.

    Oh, at the risk of spoilers, I’ll say that the Good Guys won on Safehold. 😉

      1. I’ve been reading “At The Sign Of Triumph” off and on all night. It’s keeping me sane. Ish.

  32. Was that really the word of the day? I just looked and it is currently “bully pulpit”. Yours was better.

  33. Voted earlier today. I thought I would feel bad no matter who I decided to support at the polls. I was right.

    Hillary will not be my president, no matter if she gets elected. I will never bend the knee or “respect the office of the presidency” for such a blatant criminal. I might be called unAmerican for that, but I don’t care.

    Not that the alternative would thrill me…

    1. I don’t “respect the presidency.” The incumbent is my *employee*, not my master. Even if I only own 1/300,000,000th of them, and can’t fire them.

    1. You wish….. they’ve got to raise money to pay off campaign debts. Hillary won’t have a problem accepting foreign donations.

      1. No, the drop in political fundraising and pollster calls will just let all the boiler room home remodeling scam calls get through easier.

        1. “Oh, so glad you called. Send someone right over! Just bought the place and it needs more work than I’d expected. The address is $SEWAGE_TREATMENT_ADDRESS.”

          If they’re gonna be sh*ts, send them to the correct place.

  35. On a hopeful note; my sister had a little boy today. He’s a healthy little guy. So at least that’s some good news.

  36. Starting it down here to get off the wall …

    Bet Hillary’s glad she cancelled the fireworks on the Hudson.

    1. I see a report that Colorado has voted to leaglize physician-assisted suicide.

      That’ll probably come in handy.

    2. Apparently Canada’s immigration site has crashed from libs loading it.

      Half of me wants to say, “if only they would”.

      1. And half of me wants to say “We didn’t give Tories any other choice last time; why mess with success?”

    3. Paul Krugman on Trump appearing to be winning: “What we do know is that people like me, and probably like most readers of The New York Times, truly didn’t understand the country we live in.”

      No sh!t Sherlock.

      1. Krugman and the Times’ readers only live in the United States physically; mentally they live in Europe (and resent the rest of the country for not making it so.)

      2. Oh, did you see his earlier one? Something about if Trump wins it will be because the GOP suppressed the black vote.

          1. I rather suspect that was the criteria of a good many folks. Trump is an idiotic manchild…but “not Clinton” in the end became a pretty damn compelling feature.

    1. Yeah…

      If Fox (probably most pro-Trump calling) is right Trump only needs to pick up the last two Romney states they haven’t called and one uncalled toss up.

      The NYT is now reporting PA leaning Trump and with 238. MSNBC gives him 244.

      I suspect a lot of kingmakers in the punditry who said Romney was the most electable and Trump was the only one who can’t beat Hillary should be learning humility right now.

      They probably won’t but they should.

      1. There was a story in Politico about the Hillary campaign wanting Trump as their opponent. The Carter reelection campaign wanted Reagan as their opponent, too.

        Be careful what you wish for.

        1. Problem is, it’s not clear whether the problem is that Trump was that good, or Hillary that bad. My suspicion is that it’s mostly the latter. But at this point, who knows?

          2. Neither. Synergy between Mr Trump and the alt-media. He fought (because shameless narcissist) and inspired them to fight. Old school conservatives don’t make – or inspire young firebrands to make – Chelsea Clinton / Haitian orphan dress memes.

          1. I look forward to seeing the breakdown of campaign spending. I think Hillary outspent Trump by what, 20 to 1, when you figure in PAC spending?

            Plus she had herself, her husband, Kaine, both Obamas and Joe Biden out on the campaign trail flogging her. The Conventional Wisdom just went weird.

            2. Yeah. Decision desk has him at 254.

              I’m not certain he’ll win yet, but it is past time to admit that I’m wrong.

        3. What the Dems entirely failed (or refused, more likely) to see was that most of the country was well and truly fed up with them. I’ve gotten the impression all along that they expected Clinton to win solely on account of her ladyparts…but we’ve just had 8 years of up-close evidence of what happened when people elected someone based on his skin color, and while I can’t say that electing Trump wasn’t a stupid decision, it was less stupid than electing Clinton. So here’s me, finding I’m actually a little relieved amidst the horror of “OMG what is this lunatic going to do?!”

          (I’m sad McMullin didn’t win Utah after all. But it was always a long shot, and he started to late in the game, I think, to really gain the necessary momentum. I am hoping very much he runs again in four years.)

    2. This started showing up in reports a couple of months ago, actually. I’m guessing it’s due to the shifting priorities of the Libertarian Party these days to a more “let the state take care of me while I enjoy my legalized weed” attitude by the party.

    3. Why?
      He was a golden example of a bad Libertarian– he’d hide behind the “oh, the philosophy won’t allow me to do that” dodge unless it was something he really wanted, and those things are Progressive side, not Conservative side.

      1. I’m probably stuck in 1992, that’s why. This despite me saying LP stands for “legalize pot”.

        1. I think despite all the bloggers I found screaming to vote for Hillary rather than third party, I may have underestimated how many Democrats didn’t actually want to….

          1. Part of the problem is that eight years ago we also had a lot of angry Democrats who swore that they weren’t going to vote for Obama because of how Hillary had been treated during the primaries.

            Spoiler Alert – The vast majority of them ended up voting for Obama anyway.

            This year we once again had a lot of angry Democrats. And unlike eight years ago, this time they might have decided not to vote for their designated candidate.

            1. This year we once again had a lot of angry Democrats. And unlike eight years ago, this time they might have decided not to vote for their designated candidate.

              I’m looking forward to seeing the voter turnout statistics.

          2. Folks keep forgetting that an awful lot of Millennials either joined the military, or have talked to their buddies who did– 9/11 generation, y’know?

            “Stupid stuff you got stuck with because of classification junk” is a ginormous chunk of the complaints I’ve heard– especially since a lot of folks got bit on it from being on Facebook, so even folks who were only dealing with “sensitive” information got an earful.

            And the rumors I’ve been hearing are that the various agencies they’ve been abusing, especially abusing their very valuable secrets, are seriously pissed. You spend 30 years working your tail off,going through all the hoops, and this gal sets them on fire and laughs?

            That’s a lot of angry. And they’ve been training us, since I was small, to not let it be known that you’re angry at the Democrats. That’s just asking for attacks.

            I’m actually all knot-in-stomached, I didn’t expect this much of a chance to not have Hillary. Still not really thinking Trump will win, but there’s a bit of hope.

        2. Blame it on an outbreak of Puddleglum– after roughly a generation, there are some folks who (gasp!) actually THINK about libertarianism, rather than making it the whole “free to do exactly what I want them to do” version.

          1. Well, you would. O.K., the special effects are cheesy, starting at 6:22:

            Madame, there is one thing to say. Suppose … suppose we have only dreamed and made up these things like sun, sky, stars and moon. And Aslan himself. In that case it seems to me that the made up things are a good deal better than the real ones. And if this black pit of a kingdom is the best you can make then its a poor world and we four can make a dream world to lick your real one hollow.

            …

            As for me, I shall live like a Narnian, even if there isn’t any Narnia. So thanking you very much for supper we are going to leave your court at once and make our way across your great darkness to search for our land above.

            As for me, I shall live like a USAian.

            2. Extra bonus points for having the best Doctor (the fourth one, of course) playing Puddleglum. Yes, if anyone didn’t recognize him, that’s Tom Baker.

    1. Yeah, it’s starting to look like Trump might actually pull it off.

      The comments starting to turn up from some of my lefty friends (most of whom have claimed that they weren’t biased against either candidate, even as they only posted stuff attacking Trump) have been interesting.

        1. Fox is saying Michigan isn’t being called due to Detroit…am I paranoid thinking they are waking the dead to get the “right” result.

          1. Maybe. But the city’s enough of a mess that it’s also possible that there are legitimate delays.

            1. FNC is calling the Toomey race for Toomey, guaranteeing GOP control over the Senate as well as the House.

              1. So you’re saying that for the next two years, the press will think that the filibuster is one of the most wonderful things ever thought up?

                😛

                  1. I’m actually okay with that. I think leaving the SCUS at 8 (or another even number) is something we need to consider.

                  2. Supreme Court nominations are actually the one thing that hasn’t been filibustered, so far. Though I’m sure that the left could rationalize it pretty quickly if the mood struck them.

                    2. Yeah, he made it clear before the election that if the Dems got power in the Senate, he was going to do away with what little of the filibuster he hadn’t already gotten rid of.

                      But the Dems didn’t get power back in the Senate.

                    3. Live by the sword, die by the sword. McConnell is a fool if he doesn’t return the favor if they filibuster a Trump nominee.

                    4. Schmuck Chumer would have to be nuts to give McConnell the opportunity, especially as the Dems are the ones running in two years with a 5:2 disadvantage.

                    5. Supreme Court nominations are actually the one thing that hasn’t been filibustered, so far.

                      Obama, Biden, Clinton, Kerry, Kennedy, Reid, etc. certainly tried.

                  3. And we’ll get to see Vichy Mitchy agree with them. Instead of nuking the filibuster so we can get some actual conservatives to the SC.

                    But shhhhhh! The GOPe was and is doing all it could, right? Or is that alt-right?

                    This election season has been an unexpectedly unpleasant revelation.

                    2. Oh, absolutely. I dropped by Bill Quick’s site and was heartily amused by his ravings about “personnel is policy” and the revenge is coming for everyone who didn’t kiss Trump’s ass all along (specifically Ted Cruz) ….. and no mention of this little personnel pick. I’ll probably go over there and remind him of what I told him earlier: Voting Trump was a necessity; it became a pleasure as a hearty “Fuck You” to everyone who was insisting the nominee had to be supported at all costs —- and then crawfished. But if you believed he’d actually do even 10% you were naive.

                    3. “Winners” would do well to assume this was not a vote for Trump so much as a vote against Hillary and her clique.

          2. Detroit? That is located in Wayne County, which has 98.9% reporting and about 7,500 votes to go. Washtenaw County, just to the east of Wayne has 81.1% reporting, which, as best I can figure, leaves over 40,000 votes remaining there.

      2. And I just unfriended someone on Facebook. Too bad, too, as I know her in real life.

        But I contradicted her narrative about “racism”, and she quietly deleted my post without even having the courtesy to let me know. If she’s not going to suffer my arguments, then I don’t want to have her whining show up in my feed.

        1. “Vote late so the SOB’s don’t know how many votes to steal.” Oh, Sarah, how right you were!

          2. Yeah, I got a friend on FB telling me that all signatures were most carefully checked and there were NO fraud incidents in CO, and…
            We have SAME DAY REGISTRATION. And we know for a fact dead people (and people who never voted) vote. Bah. If you leave the door open for fraud, they’ll do it.

            1. That doesn’t pass the laugh test.

              Why?

              Well, I know I voted on my ballot… and I got a “please sign this to say that you really are yourself” letter, because my signatures were juuuuust different enough to not be sure.

              Happened to my husband last year, too.

              1. Yes. I know that, Foxfier, and YET we do get the dead voting and same day registration with arbitrary (based on bill) address. Think on it. If the registration is phony, the signatures WILL match.

  40. I was in error.

    I was wrong to predict a certain Trump loss.

    I was wrong to suggest that support for Trump is objectively pro-Clinton.

    My talk of third party viability? Apparently completely unhinged.

    My apologies, especially to everyone here who I may have mistreated.

    1. Given I was someone who warned Trump would win the primary and then advocated him after he won the nomination I thought he was going to lose and that it would be bad.

      We all make our best guesses.

      The key thing is tomorrow the work really starts…I’m hoping if Trump wins it means the work will be peaceful.

      Today the GOP ran no one for most of our county offices. I swore about the GOP and now Trump has won.

      Maybe I need to get more active than ever before and make sure we have those spots filled even if one has to be my name.

      Maybe…

      1. Definitely agree more work to be done, and desirability of peaceful means. Internal violence sucks.

        Anyone hear much about the shooting in California, apparently near a poll?

        2. I forgot Coast to Coast AM isn’t on tonight, listening to their home station– they haven’t said anything about it, guessing it might just be one of those “thing happened in a mile of X object big in the news, report it as ‘near'” events.

    2. I haven’t given up hope of still making a third party viable–if only in terms of replacing one or the other of the current parties, heh. It’s happened before, it could happen again! 😀

      1. Yes, but that will require, probably, building from the ground up. My suggestion that it would happen significantly in this election is not in evidence.

  41. Hmmm … So much for legacies.

    President-elect Trump
    By NR Staff — November 9, 2016

    The folks at Decision Desk HQ are calling Arizona and Pennsylvania for Trump — and with them, the 2016 race for the White House:

    Ok all.
    Its the big one.

    We project Trump wins Arizona…

    and the state of Pennsylvania.
    He’s President-elect.
    — Decision Desk HQ (@DecisionDeskHQ) November 9, 2016

      2. I hope so.

        Still worried about some of the “under-reporting” districts having 199% voter turnout, and 99% in one direction.

      3. Oh, the Washington Times is already showcasing how there will be lots of executive orders, hastily published “regulations”, and pardons between now and January 20.

        1. A pardon for the Dowager Empress of Chappaqua “to help heal the nation” covering both the classified information issues and the Clinton Foundation pay-for-play stuff is something I expect by next week.

          I would not be surprised if that pardon is not fought overmuch by the Trump transition team in order to manage The Donald by closing him off from having his new AG seat a special prosecutor.

          1. Negotiating that Trump provides the pardon would do a lot more healing but I doubt the Dems would trust him to do it and I doubt he would.

            1. No pardon. Establish a “Blue Ribbon” panel to do a thorough review of American cyber-security weaknesses (headed by Peter Theil?) to evaluate and propose new standards.

              Any cooperating persons are forgiven (prosecutorial discretion) past transgressions but non-cooperating persons can be subject to prosecution. All forgiven are cautioned that repeat misbehaviour will not be taken lightly. They could even “launder” Snowden as a sop to those who objected to NSA overreach.

              Hillary won’t live long enough to be worth prosecution anyway.

  42. Podesta is coming to the Hillary victory party without Hillary and the AP and NYT have called PA for Trump.

    Is she sending a flunky to give a concession speech.

    If she loses, my working theory is enough Sanders voters reacted to the rigging and went Johnson.

      1. Or the loss triggered another attack of whatever hit her at the campaign event a couple of months ago.

          1. Embrace the Power of And.

            (“The Dowager Empress is In Her Cups” was actually my first thought when they reported Podesta was heading over to the funereal hall without her. Well, that and they likely didn’t want to pay to keep the lights on anymore – all that unspent campaign money they could spend on dresses for Chelsea and ‘personal assistants’ for Bill.)

    2. That’s a problem with talking about how you’re an idealist and all…be too obvious with the thumb on the scale and you lose people.

      1. FNC was reporting there was a record turnout by Evangelical voters, so I guess we’re back to …

        1. I swear I will unfriend people on FB if a new version of that shows up…I’m sick of that crap.

        2. Saw some pro-life Catholics (Like the real pro-lifers– not the “well, I don’t like abortion, but welfare and insurance are so awesome, plus the death penalty!” kind.) who I very much suspect either voted D or went third party who are ranting about how the “religious right” have totally betrayed everything they stand for.

          I saw an argument the other day– where everyone involved is absolutely sure of the human dignity of humans at all ages, even if they’re not born!– where folks were saying that pointing out that one party says killing unborn is a good thing and basic right, while the other says it’s bad and shouldn’t be allowed is using the unborn for political gain.

          This is freaking wacked….

  43. Podesta just made his “we can’t say anything until tomorrow because we’re busy printing the votes we need to win” speech.

    1. And Fox is saying Michigan is waiting on Detroit absentee ballots…guess the ones mailed in from heaven and hell are taking time to get in.

      1. From: Office of the Recording Angel (gabriel@heaven.org)
        Re: Detroit

        I have the honour to inform you that in order to save time and effort, people who die in Detroit go directly to Hell. If they deserve Hell, they get it. If they don’t deserve Hell, they at least get something better than Detroit. Many of them never actually realize that they’re not in Heaven.

        Yours faithfully,
        (signed, etc.)

      1. The magic needed to make her look human requires a few pure souls, and do you know how hard those are to find right now?

  44. 50-word short story:

    Daniel picked up the newspaper. “President-Elect Donald Trump congratulates Chicago Cubs on World Series Win”, read the headline. “Ah,” thought Daniel, “Good old Onion! Muggeridge’s Law be damned; there’s no way that THAT headline will ever be anything but satire!”

    He checked the paper’s name. “New York Times”, it read.

  45. Yet another NYT headline I didn’t think I’d read:

    BREAKING NEWS Republicans will maintain control of the Senate, after winning Missouri and riding Donald Trump’s strength in key battleground states

    Wasn’t he supposed to COST the GOP the Senate by hurting down ticket races?

    1. He might’ve hurt down ticket races. There are some questions about fundraising and GOTV efforts that I don’t have any way of answering conclusively. Your estimates are most likely more sound than mine.

      1. If it is not about how to construct a financial model, the history of D&D, or Perl programming consider everything I say is spoken by an idiot. Your estimates are as good as mine.

        Mine is he probably helped Toomey and was neutral on the rest.

        1. One of the big things about politics is there is plenty of room for spin, because the system is so complex that nobody can reasonably cite any single element as the critical element.

          Maybe Trump’s forcing the state parties to perform the GOTV pushed them to treat it seriously rather than as an opportunity to feed off the presidential campaign. Maybe Trump’s campaign HQ would be dancing and splashing champagne right now if Trump had put some money into the GOTV effort.

          There’s no way to now, which doesn’t mean the broadcasters and papers won’t spend the next weeks and months credibly explaining how this election does not actually represent a victory for Republicanism.

          FNC just called PA for Trump, giving hm 274 EV.

          1. I’ve embarrassed myself a bunch making assertions that were proven wrong. Maybe I’ll shut up before the late night helps me dig myself some new holes.

            1. Don’t sweat it — there are 330+ million Americans and hardly any of us know more than a quarter of them. What is amazing is not that so many of us mistake the national mood, what is amazing is that anybody ever guesses it right.

              Sure wish I’d dropped a G Monday on Trump winning tonight.

              Sure wish I thought I had a G to lose … or even a fin.

          3. AP and the NYT actually called it before Fox.

            And Hillary has called Trump to concede.

            Only MSNBC seems to be holding out.

                1. Apparently the disloyal opposition is already forming:

                  Van Jones Tears Up on CNN: ‘This Is a White-lash against a Black President’
                  By NR Staff — November 9, 2016

                  Van Jones appeared to tear up on CNN while discussing the prospects of a Trump victory, calling it a “nightmare” and a “white-lash” that will make parents “afraid of breakfast” with their children in the morning:

                  It’s hard to be a parent tonight for a lot of us. You tell your kids, “Don’t be a bully.” You tell your kids, “Don’t be a bigot.” You tell your kids, “Do your homework and be prepared.” Then you have this outcome and you have people putting children to bed tonight. They’re afraid of breakfast. They’re afraid of “How do I explain this to my children?” I have Muslim friends who are texting me tonight saying, “Should I leave the country?” I have families of immigrants that are terrified tonight. . . .

                  This was a white-lash. This was a white-lash against a changing country. It was a white-lash against a black president in part, and that’s the part where the pain comes.

                  Video at link.

                  1. > should I leave the country?

                    The only appropriate response to that level of cluelessness is “Get out before the stampede!”

              2. It’s going to be a busy day at work, and I don’t even know if I can check on at lunch. But we were so convinced that Hillary would narrowly win that we didn’t watch the returns, and put off checking the news as long as we could this morning. First, I have high blood pressure. Second, I was expecting the mainline media to hold a Hillary pep rally, and I didn’t feel like vomiting.

                This means we only learned the results a few minutes ago. My wife’s voice almost cracked for joy when she yelled “Hillary got beat!” After watching a few minutes of the news, I said “I never thought I’d be happy to see Trump win.” But as I gave the cat his medicine, I thought I’m not happy, I’m relieved. If you notice, my wife didn’t yell “Trump won!” but “Hillary got beat!” and that pretty well sums up our feelings.

                Still hard times ahead, but maybe the corruption won’t be as entrenched. Trump’s no great shakes, but at least he’s no Hillary.

                1. ^ This. SO MUCH this. When I checked the news at 5am this morning, I realized that it was profound relief I felt. I’m not happy Trump won. But boy, am I relieved…

                2. Yes. Same here. Only we went out to dinner btw, place with tv, everyone watching BASEBALL. Came out and Trump was ahead. Grabbed whiskey bottle and crashed the vodkapundits.

        2. You probably know more about money than I do, and have much more hands on experience volunteering for GOP campaigns.

          My gut instinct is that my ‘still hurt down ticket’ is unmeasurable.

  46. I’m curious how many Democrats who were so against the Electoral College back in 2000 will be pro- Electoral College should it be close, with Donald ahead in the Popular Vote?

  48. FNC reports Hillary called Trump to concede.

    Arizona looks likely to fall into the Trump column. Sheriff Joe Arpaio has apparently lost.

    2. Whoever that teenager standing to his left is, looks like he’s up way past his bedtime. ^_^

        1. “Hillary got seriously rekt in the polling.”

          HA! Shadow, that’s hillarious! Beauty! ~:D

          1. Yeah I saw that big solid blue bar on the left side of the US and Rhys was shaking his head at how much of a count Hillary got just from winning that side.

            (Here in Australia, Western Australia sort of distances itself from the shennanigans of the eastern side, or so popular description goes…)

    3. That is a very good sign. We don’t know that much about him as a leader, this suggests genuine humility.

  50. It will be very interesting to see his cabinet nominees/appointments (with GOP control over the Senate, all ought slide through.)

    Trump could do himself a good turn in the Senate by nominating Ted Cruz to the Supreme Court’s Scalia Seat (lessee, Cruz was born in 1970, so if he lives to be eighty he could occupy that seat for thirty-four years.) Pull a thorn from the McConnell’s paw and put the first Cuban-American on the Court.

    1. Never happen. At least not until after 2018. Vichy and crew would never allow it, and since he won’t nuke the filibuster, he’ll probably have an easy out.

  51. “To those who didn’t support me I ask your advice now in making our nation great again”.

    “To make this truly historic we have to do a good job.”

    I am hoping my theory that we, all of us, enthused supporters, middle finger supporters, let me wake up from this supporters, die hard #NeverTrumpers, and Hillary voters are looking at him as a politician and thus have no clue his motivations or goals or method and he might just surprise us all.

    I know it is too much to ask of even the most benevolent God but that is my prayer tonight after all this.

    2. Yep. The prayer that Clinton would not win has been–to my surprise–answered (and I’m someone who deeply believes in answered prayers!). Now for the next long-shot prayer, that Trump will surprise us all and actually do a decent job…

      1. our church distributed a prayer card to “save America” to put on our refrigerator doors. FIRST TIME EVER. I walked out of church for a year in 12 (different church) because the minister said whoever won, we should respect and obey, and Obama was a good president.

        1. Ugh, I don’t blame you. I’m grateful that the upper levels of my church’s leadership officially frown on open political pushing from the pulpit. Every time an election rolls around, we get a letter saying, in effect, “Vote your conscience, and behave like civil human beings, and no we aren’t going to tell you who to vote for.” They still get involved in politics more than I like as it is–but I also admit the bad person in me very much hopes that Trump learns early on why You Do Not Piss Off The Mormons. But the official stance is political neutrality, and should be so. 😀

          1. Biggest problem with being “politically neutral” is that you can’t make it so that if THEY make an established teaching “political,” you stop teaching that.

            Getting really, really tired of folks who decide something is political and then attack the Church for “getting involved” in something that’s been a binding teaching for longer than our freaking language has existed.

        2. My home parish had to expand their “rosary for America” offerings– it’s been going since about a month before the 4th– because of how many folks were showing up.

          ❤

  53. Well, it’s great that Hillary lost. Now we get to see if Trump will actually do a good job.

    I left the President/Vice President section blank on my ballot. So I am not taking credit for “helping” his victory. I am hoping that my fears will prove incorrect.

    (I was tempted to write-in Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man, but remembered reading something about ballots w/ridiculous write-ins would get discarded and I didn’t want to have my down-ticket votes lost so I didn’t make the write-in option.)

  54. Did he actually win?

    Oh, bugger. I suppose one of them did, rather than them both somehow losing… *chuckle* Could’ve been worse. Well, we’re in for another tough job folks. Let’s be after it, eh?

  55. What’s that saying about there’s nothing so dreary as a battle won save a battle lost? That is—now what?

    And Governor McCory is 5,000 votes behind.

    2. The results of the North Carolina Gubernatorial race are not expected until November 18th at earliest. They will now be counting all the provisional ballots. The difference at present is 4,772 votes, around 0.1% of the vote. This puts it well within the margin where the candidate with less votes may request a recount.

  56. Thought this morning:
    Thinking of two stick figures, one with woman’s hair, standing in a garbage pile of Hillary signs. The male says to the woman: “When I said I was standing with you, I didn’t think -”
    Woman says “Shaddup.”

  57. Tuesday afternoon The Spouse and I went out to vote. Afterwards we were ran a few necessary errands, as I had been out of town.

    The woman working the check out line at the grocery began to tell us about some people who had been in earlier. They were buying wine and told her it was for the celebration. She said that she asked them what they were celebrating, and they replied, ‘We’re celebrating the first woman President.’ Having told us all this she commented, ‘The votes are yet to be counted.’

    I thought about this on the way home. Those people who were getting ready to celebrate were not planning to celebrate the victory of a candidate who they wanted, a candidate they cared about. They were getting ready to celebrate a symbolic gesture the candidate represented, which, in the end, they didn’t even get. Pitiable.

    1. Yes. To be so attached to the symbol and “our moment” that they are willing to ignore the realities around that symbol is truly pitiable. And to refuse to realize that others want to see past the symbol to the substance . . .

  58. Google was supporting Hillary. And now their famous changing banner is… their default banner.

    Comcast’s default page at least acknowledges the election…

    1. Google pissed a lot of people off this year with their shenanigans. I think there may be consequences for Silicon Valley over the next few years with people ditching the most egregious examples, like Twitter and Facebook.

      1. I left Twitter about a year ago. I haven’t missed it much, just Iowahawk really. I’ve had to return to FB for business after years away, and the Diner and its denizens have made it tolerable. Still, if I didn’t need it as a selling platform, I’d be off it in a heartbeat.

  60. (Scene: Rubble falling. Sounds of stone grinding against stone.Head cautiously peeking past cave entrance.) Is it over? Can it really be over? (meekly) Erm…uh.. yay. I can visit the intertubes again.

    1. Parts…my FB today is interesting in terms of just how many Americans are racist (among other things…BernieBro friends going, “Don’t look at us you nominated her”).

      1. Only racist? Lucky. I’m getting some racist, but some of my ex-girlfriends are having a meltdown about how homophobic xenophobic racist America’s going to take away their marriages and stone them or something. *facepalm*

        But of course the one acquaintance that really, really needs to move to Canada so she can get her mind completely blown at the fundamental fact that the rest of the world isn’t just like her friends, only with funny accents and weird food, has now declared that she needs to stay and fight for the still-oppressed. *rolls eyes*

        I was so hoping she’d move! Not only would it be a great learning experience for her, but it’d also give me another excuse to visit BC, where they never export the best wines, and there are hot springs and airplanes on floats, and coastlines, and many of the good things in life for holidays!

        1. So the same country that elected Obama twice is now Nazi Germany?

          Leftist logic at its finest.

          1. She’s applying to art school. I know you have enough idiots (and she’d be in good company in art school, because art school), but even the act of renting an apartment, and paying GST on everything, and negotiating an actual single-payer health care that she thinks she wants so badly because it’d be perfect (I’m not saying your health care sucks, I’m saying it’s different, and not perfect. She needs to learn that not being American doesn’t mean it must be instant perfection)… and then running face-first into “Um, this isn’t America. Stop protesting about the first amendment, because we’re don’t have that. Nope, no bill of rights. Yeah, and you’re not a citizen. And you’re going to get taxed twice, because the IRS has a long reach.”

            For the price of accepting her tuition, rent, and living expenses, I think you could give her a gentle lesson about how the rest of the world really doesn’t run by American standards, or American politics, or American causes du jour. And how they really don’t get America, and don’t care.

            …and if you bet she’d run away at the first winter, I wouldn’t bet against you.

              1. No shortage of home grown idiots, that’s for sure. You should see the haircuts on men in Toronto. Holy Mother of Pearl.

            2. “I’m not saying your health care sucks, I’m saying it’s different…”

              No, it really does suck. All the bad things you’ve heard about the VA system? Multiply by two, and realized that there is NO ALTERNATIVE. That’s what “single payer” means. Monopoly.

              “Nope, no bill of rights.”

              Another interesting thing, as a -visitor- in Arizona I have more rights than I do as a native born citizen in Canada. That’ll drive her bonkers.

              “…and if you bet she’d run away at the first winter, I wouldn’t bet against you.”

              Lefties loooove them some bicycles. Toronto has completely f-ed downtown this year, putting in bike lanes. Driving an F-150 around downtown is a test of skill. Not kidding, my skillz of Truck-Fu were tested.

              Spring and fall are the times when even the most dedicated cyclists realize that Canadian weather is hellish. Winter is the time when even the most dedicated are A) walking and B) hating it while they C) look at cars for sale on their phones while they wait for the bus. Which is late.

        4. Trump seems to have drunk the LGBT flavored political kool-aid and will very likely pull the Republican Party in that direction.

          It is very likely he will give partisan cover to the child molestation supporters in the Federal Department of Education, and make it harder to counter them with the State level nuclear option.

  61. The election’s over. Hillary lost. I can now take a few days to savor those two facts before worrying about lesser matters: Russia, China, ISIS, a Trump Presidency…

  62. Some of us took a similar oath, and, like yours, ours doesn’t have an expiration date. It went like this:
    “I, (state name of enlistee), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.”

    1. Interestingly, when I took mine, they put ‘lawfully appointed’ in there. (We also got a lot of briefings on what a lawful order actually was.)

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