By David Futrelle
If you haven’t already, GO VOTE and then come back to enjoy(?) this open thread. Tell us how it went. Talk about any shady sit the GOP tries to pull today. Discuss the results as they come in. Talk about your hobbies. Post pictures of animals. Post videos. Whatever it takes to get through this incredibly nerve-wracking day.
No trolls.
On behalf of my state, I apologize that Florida once again has it’s head up it’s ass.
At least voting rights for ex-felons passed.
And a big relief that the House really did go blue.
We’ve had a bit of a political shakeup here in Canada. Conservative Tony Clement, a major figure during the Stephen Harper years, has resigned from his parliamentary duties after being the victim of an attempted extortion. Clement admitted to sharing sexually explicit pictures and video with what he thought was a consenting woman, but was apparently someone seeking blackmail material. Given that he was a member of the new National Security Committee, which is charged with overseeing Canada’s intelligence activities, the obvious question is whether a foreign intelligence agency was in any way involved.
@Gaebolga, hopefully the Florida state legislature won’t try to overturn those voting rights.
Waiting for results in my state. They won’t release any results until everyone who was in line when the polls closed is able to cast their ballot.
Polls closed two hours ago and we’re still waiting.
@tim gueguen: I’d say this would be an awesome opportunity for the right wing to re-evaluate their devotion to victim-blaming around revenge porn, but white male conservatives have a long history of gladly shooting themselves in the balls as long as it maintains the status quo.
I feel like MMA fighter, lawer, and congress person is on paper something that the alt-right and misogynistic men would admire as totally alpha.
Except that said congressperson elect is Sharice Davids. Lesbian, Native American, and Democrat. This must be misandry and white genocide.
Some under the radar good news, the North Carolina courts race has gone Democratic, which means that the GOP effort to rig the vote in the state is in danger.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/11/6/1810593/-N-Carolina-elections-are-a-huge-win-for-democracy-paving-the-way-to-strike-down-GOP-gerrymandering
We needed this to have a shot at the state in 2020.
Spamming again, but one of the best reasons to be excited about Angie Craig winning in MN2? GOP incumbent Jason Lewis is basically an MRA.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/18/politics/kfile-jason-lewis/index.html
I mean
Lewis, who was a regular fill-in for Limbaugh’s national radio show, also offered a defense of the right-wing radio host for his comments on Fluke, saying, “Now Limbaugh’s reasoning was, look, if you’re demanding that the taxpayers pay for your contraception, you must use a lot of them and therefore, ergo, you’re very sexually active and in the old days, what we used to call people who were in college or even graduate school who were sexually active, we called them sluts.”
A GOP congressman once lamented not being able to call women ‘sluts’ anymore
By Andrew Kaczynski, Chris Massie and Nathan McDermott, CNN
Updated 4:32 PM ET, Wed July 18, 2018
(CNN)A Republican congressman from Minnesota has a long history of making deeply misogynistic comments on the radio, including lamenting that women can no longer be called “sluts.”
CNN’s KFile reviewed several months of audio from Rep. Jason Lewis on the “Jason Lewis Show,” a syndicated radio program Lewis hosted from 2009 until 2014 with the tagline “America’s Mr. Right.” In one instance, while arguing that “young single women” vote based on coverage of birth control pills, Lewis said those women were not human beings and were without brains.
Lewis, who was narrowly elected to represent Minnesota’s 2nd District in 2016, is considered one of the most endangered House Republicans in the midterm election. CNN rates the race as a “toss up,” the most competitive designation.
Lewis can be heard on the radio repeatedly demeaning women, and particularly women voters, in 15 months of audio provided to KFile by Michael Brodkorb, the former deputy chair of the Republican Party of Minnesota. Brodkorb, who is currently a columnist for the MinnPost and works in public affairs, initially revealed some of Lewis’ radio comments in a column in February 2016. KFile contacted Brodkorb after seeing his 2016 column and requested raw audio files of Lewis’ show, which he provided.
When radio host Rush Limbaugh called women’s rights activists and then-graduate student Sandra Fluke “a slut” in February 2012, Lewis repeatedly expressed disbelief that people could no longer refer to women as sluts.
“Well, the thing is, can we call anybody a slut? This is what begs the question. Take this woman out of it, take Rush out of it for a moment,” Lewis said in a March 2012 episode. “Does a woman now have the right to behave — and I know there’s a double standard between the way men chase women and running and running around — you know, I’m not going to get there, but you know what I’m talking about. But it used to be that women were held to a little bit of a higher standard. We required modesty from women. Now, are we beyond those days where a woman can behave as a slut, but you can’t call her a slut?”
Fluke, a law student at Georgetown at the time, found herself at the center of a national controversy in early 2012 after Limbaugh attacked her following her testimony to a Democratic congressional group. In her testimony, Fluke said that students paid as much as $1,000 a year for contraceptives and made the case that religious institutions should cover birth control. She said she was “stunned” and “outraged” by Limbaugh’s remarks.
Lewis, who was a regular fill-in for Limbaugh’s national radio show, also offered a defense of the right-wing radio host for his comments on Fluke, saying, “Now Limbaugh’s reasoning was, look, if you’re demanding that the taxpayers pay for your contraception, you must use a lot of them and therefore, ergo, you’re very sexually active and in the old days, what we used to call people who were in college or even graduate school who were sexually active, we called them sluts.”
He continued, “Especially if you want somebody to pay for it. Now you know, obviously that’s a stretch. It was meant as an aspect of entertainment radio.”
He continued, “But have we really got to the point where you can’t refer to Madonna as a slut without being sued? I mean, Madonna has had a series of lovers, as have many in Hollywood. Now in the old days, what did we call this? Madonna dresses up in these sorts of prostitute-like outfits on stage, and she goes there and she sings and she shows half of her body. What did we call those people? 30 years ago? 40 years ago? 50 years ago? You can’t do that today, it’s too politically incorrect?”
Lewis, during a December 2012 segment on changes in the culture, said, “Only we can tell our young women, ‘don’t look like some slut and you won’t get hit on.'”
A GOP congressman once lamented not being able to call women ‘sluts’ anymore
By Andrew Kaczynski, Chris Massie and Nathan McDermott, CNN
Updated 4:32 PM ET, Wed July 18, 2018
Lewis, during a December 2012 segment on changes in the culture, said, “Only we can tell our young women, ‘don’t look like some slut and you won’t get hit on.'”
@Jane Done
About the youtube videos: I got really sick being inundated with alt right stuff whenever I would look at any political stuff too (Top 10 SJW FAILS,etc.) Eventually, after YouTube didn’t really change anything (even if I said I didn’t like those videos) I found a few extensions that will allow you to block YT from suggesting videos from specific channels. Once I blocked all the big troublemakers (Lauren Southern, Milo, Ben Shapiro, Thunderf00t etc) I have been getting almost no alt right suggestions, or least way, way less. The one I’m currently using is called BlockTube. It might sound like a lot of work to block all those channels and it will take a while, but it’s very easy to add them to your block list. Personally, I think it’s worth it, and I’m very proud of my blocked channels list. 🙂
Holy fuck. Blockquote Mammoth made a return. Sorry about that.
Anyway, spamming again, but I just found out that Dave Hutch won my county’s (Hennepin) sheriff race. Incumbent Rich Stanek sent cops to Standing Rock to put down the protests, coordinates with ICE and has been all pissy about Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey’s commitment to having us as a sanctuary city.
So glad Stanek is ousted. People don’t normally pay attention to sheriff races, but Hennepin county voters clearly wanted to vote against ICE tonight. Yay!
Well, it looks like things turned out more or less as the polls predicted. Actually, in terms of tangible losses I think the GOP got off relatively easy. They lost the House, but did very well in the Senate, and they won a few high-profile gubernatorial races… so to me, it looks like a wave election, but not one of historic significance. You can’t lose ground in the Senate and call it a tsunami.
The margin of the Democrats’ popular vote win is interesting, though – IIRC, roughly in line with the Republicans’ margin in 2010. But while it’s a nice talking point, in the ends it’s seats that matter.
A good night for the Democrats, but not a great one. As a “wave” it seems roughly in line with the 2014 midterms: that year the GOP won REALLY big in the Senate but only added a handful of representatives and governorships.
With the Dems winning the House, I have 2 hopes:
That the Repubs will realize their slavish boot licking of Trump won’t get them elected, so they can start acting like they represent their electorate, and stop ass kissing the wanna-be dictator.
And that the wanna-be dictator gets so outraged by the outcome that he pulls a Rumplestiltskin. (Apparently, he is still baffled at why Roy Moore lost after he stumped for him.)
Something odd: on Saturday Nov 3, I found a door hanger for Stacey Abrams on my porch with my polling place listed (a tabernacle).
Except my polling place is my local elementary school – I double checked it last week and after I got the door hanger.
Hubby & I voted early, at a different location, so it didn’t matter to us, but I can only wonder if it was an accident (someone crossed a precinct boundary & didn’t realize it) or something more nefarious?
@Jane Done, WWTH: Possibly the problem videos are paid placements. There’s a lot of dark money backing right wing causes, from the older usual suspects like the Kochs and from the newer ones like Putin’s goons.
AnyBeth You deserve a medal, or at least, a gold plated “I Voted” sticker.
I should think that using a building without handicap access as a polling place would be illegal. Is there any state that doesn’t require public buildings to be handicap accessible (though churches might be exempt from these laws)?
Trans and in Florida here. I won’t pretend I’m not disappointed with the results, but I’m trying to look at the fact that it was so close and take it to mean that more people care around here than I thought.
Either way, I still hate the weather, so this is hopefully the last time I vote in Florida. I’ve been eyeballing Seattle, but if anyone’s got a recommendation for me, I could certainly use some more options to research.
And I lament that women can no longer slap men across the face when they behave like sexist cads and their menfolk can’t take them out behind the barn to thrash some manners into them.
I mean, that would be assault & illegal (just like touching women without their consent) so I really don’t advocate for it but if you are longing for the “good old days”, are you advocating for this too?
May it be so. . . .
Opinion
US midterms 2018
Donald Trump’s unchecked hold on power has come to an end
Richard Wolffe
The midterm elections just fundamentally changed the president’s life. He may not know it yet, but he soon will
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/07/trump-unchecked-power-end-midterms
As far as I know, Youtube hasn’t been recommending me much in the way of right-wing videos. I mean, I’ve got video game and tabletop gaming interests, which sometimes intersect with entitled dudebros, but on the rare occasions where I stumble across someone overtly right-wing, I scrub them from my watch history and that all but removes those suggestions entirely.
It’s not impossible that some of the more apolitical channels I watch secretly harbor right-wing views, but if they do, they keep it under their hats pretty well.
I get a ton of leftie-type suggestions. Contrapoints, Seth Meyers, Lindsay Ellis, etc. And I mean I click on them a lot so I guess the algorithm has got my number.
(The most baffling suggestions I got were the dashcam car crash compilations. I’m not sure why Youtube thinks I want to see those. I guess because sometimes there are cool things that get caught on dashcam footage and youtube assumes I like all dashcam footage.)
I wonder if living in Canada makes a difference- maybe the right-wing targeting is focused on bigger-ticket places like the States.
@calmdown: awesome, thanks for the recommendation. And it’s no bother, blocking shitty people is one of my favourite pastimes, in no small part because it pisses off alt-right trolls when they’re not allowed to shove their disgusting views in your face.
@Surplus: yeah I have no doubt money is involved, just surprised at the sudden change and the in-your-face-ness of it all, especially on a platform that demonitises and shadowbans respectful, humanising lgbt content. Oh, wait, guess that kind of explains it.
@Catalpa: see, that’s the thing. Obviously on my main channel I don’t get anything nasty recommended, but on my secondary channels that, for lack of a better term, are apolitical and only have music etc in watch history, I get alt-right suggestions. It’s like the default is alt-right, or rather that everyone is attempted to being indoctrinated.
@Jane Done
“blocking shitty people is one of my favourite pastimes”
Honestly, same.
*or rather youtube attempts to indoctrinate everyone, until their left-leaning views are confirmed (damn edit time limit, can’t grammar under stress)
I voted early and, to my great joy, just saw our wonderful Kate Brown retain her job as Oregon governor! Plus, Democrat Peter DeFazio once again is going to D.C. as our Congressman. So far, almost all in my state went Democrat.
On an equally happy note, we now have more women governors and more women in Congress. And they are a full rainbow of colors! Yay! Something is shifting and I sincerely hope that this is just the beginning.
I know that quite a few Native Americans, many women, also ran for office. Anyone know how many made it?
Oh, one more thing – I am given to understand that one of the first things the new House will do is subpoena Trumps tax returns.
I am Soooo excited! I cannot wait to see that evil being revealed for the liar and thief that he is.
Via The Guardian:
Of course he is…
I’m mostly going to be intrigued by the voter turnout results, and what they augur for 2020.
Scott Walker just went down. And I don’t mean the singer, or in the fun way.