I’d like to do more today, but I’m about to leave to see Megan, my PCP, to go over labs finalize on 300 mg gabapentin per day, and for a foot care solution that Medicare will cover. Tomorrow I will put up a mostly empty Election Day article and update it throughout the day and evening with whatever I can find. I’ll add more after I return.
I’m back, and TriMet Lift was horrid today. My 45 minute appointment took me 5 1/2 hours, and on the way home I was in the bus with a screamer for over 1/2 hour. I don’t blame the woman. That is the nature of her disability, but sending a bus full with three other people way out of the way to be subjected to that was inconsiderate to all. ARGH!!! On the plus side, my A1C was down to 0.6% from 0.72%, and all my other labs looked good and getting better.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 4:40 (average 5:27). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Extreme Religious Agony:
They wiped the floor with us. The score does nor reflect just how ugly a beating it was.
Short Takes:
From Daily Kos: …Whether Trump himself is an anti-Semite or is merely willing to lend his name to the effort is beside the larger point; his campaign had time for one last showy pitch, one last argument for voters to keep in mind as they filed into the polls. The campaign chose an ad intended to resonate explicitly with the paranoias of the anti-Semitic far right. Trump began his campaign talking about the inherent criminality of the non-white; he moved through the primaries by appealing to raw racism in a manner that even the farthest-right of his opponents were reluctant to match; he promised mass deportations and other solutions to the nation’s problems that, in his rhetoric, required only an authoritarian resolve; he surrounded himself with those that would feed his appetite for bizarre but self-promoting conspiracy theories; his new staff guided him from primaries to general election not by toning or polishing his rhetoric, but adding new enemies to his list of anti-American dangers so that it would more fully encompass not just paranoias about Latino enemies but “inner city” black Americans (described as living in cesspools of violence and in need of more rigorous policing, as cribbed from militant groups and the NRA) and “international” Jewish plotters (as cribbed from the white nationalists that rushed to Trump’s side.)
This has gone quite beyond Trump at this point. He is not screaming into the void but catering to a pre-made Republican audience that continues to be obsessively receptive to his messages. The Republican elites that have condemned him are, among leadership, Not Many; the Republican House Speaker himself "came home" dramatically these last few days with a message that regardless of Trump’s words or deeds the needs of the party still come first; rumor mills continue to churn over whether the end result of this will be a new arch-right network promoting the malevolent messages the Trump campaign has proven would have a receptive and paranoid audience. Trump, meanwhile, continues to stoke claims that even the election itself may be illegitimate, if it produces the wrong result.
Racism, misogyny, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, and nationalism promoted through blatant misinformation and the peddling of an unending stream of conspiracy theories; a distain for both the opposition party and democracy itself; this describes not just Trump, but his audience. But come home, say Republican leaders to the segment of the party uneasy with such things; we can work with this. This is no reason to leave.
And that’s more alarming than what Trump or his own campaign may say. The Trump campaign will soon be ending, but the movement it caters to will be seeking a new leader and new banner—and even now, there are few among current Republican leaders who would turn them away. [emphasis added]
Click through for more about Trumps Alt-Right anti-Semitic GOTV ad. I say it again. The Republican Party’s only problem with Trump is that they wish he didn’t state openly want they believe and keep doing, without admitting it.
From The New Yorker: James Comey, the F.B.I. director, held a press conference on Sunday to “regretfully announce” that Hillary Clinton had committed no crimes related to her e-mails while Secretary of State.
“It is with a deep sense of sadness in my heart that I report that Hillary Clinton committed no crimes,” a visibly emotional Comey said.
Calling the discovery that Clinton could not be prosecuted for wrongdoing “probably the darkest hour of my career at the F.B.I.,” Comey said that he would try to move on from what he called “a shattering disappointment for me personally.”
“No one ever said this job would be a picnic,” he said. “As dismayed as I was to learn that Hillary Clinton committed no crimes, it’s my duty as a professional to find a way forward somehow.”
Comey doesn’t have to worry, Andy. The seditious damage he did to America will stand, because 90% of the people who know of his original disclosure, without understanding that it was a partisan violation of the Hatch Act, will never hear about his retraction, and half of those that do won’t believe it anyway.
From NY Times: Donald J. Trump maligned undocumented immigrants as murderers and rapists. Hillary Clinton hired a woman who had lived undocumented for many years as her national director of Latino outreach.
Clinton organizers rolled through the streets of Orlando, Fla., blasting reggaeton music from their cars, calling out to Puerto Rican residents to vote for the woman many of them know as “La Hillary.”
And in Arizona, a grass-roots group released an online video game that rewards players with points every time they smack Mr. Trump and the Maricopa County sheriff, Joe Arpaio, in the face with a flip-flop, but that also tells those who play where to vote.
Many votes have yet to be counted, but this much is already clear: Hispanic America has been mobilized like never before in the 2016 election, and is emerging as a formidable force with the power to elect a president.
Wooo Hooo!! I played the game and scored 59!! How did you do? Seriously, this increase won’t be reflected in the polls, because pollsters use past participation levels to allocate demographic categories, so this Latinos are under-polled.
Cartoon:
\
\
