Monday Mood [DOT 4/11/24]

4/11/24 MegMegMcGee 56

It’s election eve, how are you feeling? I saw on Twitter someone said they were feeling Nauseously Optimistic. If anyone wants to join the Zoom starting at 8EST on Tuesday, send me a DM and I will get you the link.

Down to the wire

Harris and Trump race to deliver closing pitches with 2 days to election

https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/trump-harris-election-11-03-24/index.html

Losers leave bruh

Trump says ‘I shouldn’t have left’ White House, despite losing 2020 election

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/03/trump-election-pennsylvania-rally

Stonks!

Stock futures inch lower as Wall Street readies for U.S. presidential election: Live updates

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/11/03/stock-market-today-live-updates.html

🙁

Remains of beloved Grizzly No 399 killed by car returned to Wyoming park

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/03/grizzly-no-399-ashes-grand-teton-park

Twitter posts won’t embed, so I have nothing cute to show you. Have a great day! Don’t forget to DM if you want to Zoom tomorrow night.

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56 Comments

  2. I’ve been quiet for me lately. Last week, I had a painful discussion with my siblings about mom after I gave the nurse their phone numbers (I am tough to reach on nights.)

    I spent the last week and a half visiting mom at the hospital before I went home after work… I really hate going to the hospital (after dealing with my late friend who died of pancreatic cancer and now my parents.)

    The situation as is, the docs couldn’t get mom to open up her throat (I suspect that her autonomic brain functions are being destroyed by her dementia) so we decided it was best to put her in palliative care. The hardest part was not trying to tear/choke up while explaining mom’s situation to dad (next year would have been their 60th anniversary.) He took it better than I thought, but I still feel like shit.

    Mom is basically in a coma now. Had to make some calls to family (even family I don’t like) as I had to tell them mom is going to die.

    Last night I went to visit mom and I saw a hearse sitting outside the seniors home and two well dressed attendants moving a body bag into the hearse. I suddenly got anxious and asked if it was mom and fortunately the body wasn’t mom.

  3. can we get the election over with yet?

    i am so tired of my news reporting the *close* race

    if its meant to raise tention….it doesnt

    just means one of two things…

    1 : the news is lying to me

    2 : over half of america is fuckwits

    i really hope its not the latter

    • Another thing I’ve been checking that makes me happy. Early voting by state and party affiliation.

      https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-elections/early-vote

      I call your attention to the swing states:

      Arizona R 42%/D 33%/Other 25%

      Georgia R 48/D 45/Other 7

      Michigan R 43/D 46/Other 11

      Nevada R 38/ D 34/ Other 28

      North Carolina R 33/D 32/Other 35

      Pennsylvania R 33/D 57 / Other 10

      Wisconsin R 26/D 34 / Other 40

      This is why the MAGAs “strategists” are shitting their pants. While you can’t absolutely say someone will vote their party, it’s much more likely that Republicans are crossing over than Democrats. Independents are going for Harris (one poll showed 52% vs. 36% for Trump). And just look at Pennsylvania, the top prize among swing states. Wisconsin and Michigan are the rest of the important swing states, and D is the frontrunner in Wisconsin (though the 40% of independents is a big wild card). D is in front in Michigan as well, though the margin is smaller than the other two.

      And remember, these are votes already cast, not weirdly massaged pollster numbers.

       

      • I hate to quote Nate Silver, but these early vote totals seem more like ‘noise’ than ‘signal’. It seems to give a sense of false hope. Take PA, the early vote totals are about 1.1m, but the total vote will be about 7m. Although I do agree that there will be more Republican defectors than Democrat.

        Big picture: In ’16 Trump needed a perfect storm of R voter turnout and D voter non-turnout. In ’20, D’s showed up. Currently, after Jan 6 and Roe, he’s got no shot.

        • Always remember Nate Silver has a vested financial interest in everyone considering him the most fabulous pollster ever, but his accuracy has been declining since his heyday in 2016. Dude’s got gambling debts to pay, so he’s gonna sell to the highest bidder.

          That said, 1.1 million is a vastly higher sample pool than Silver ever dreamed of. I haven’t been able to find any coherent breakdowns on early voters (I’ve seen that both Dems and Repubs vote early — no real consensus). Dem defections in 2020 were about 5 percent, with Republican defections ranging up to 15%. Again, not definitive, but indicative.

          The gold standard in polling is likely voters. These votes aren’t likely — they already did it. If I was sitting in Trump campaign headquarters, I’d be sweating buckets.

    • I don’t believe, but I don’t disbelieve them either. I think when pressed pollsters aren’t all that confident either, and they’ve been saying it in their technical ways.

      I think when this is all over we’re going to see a lot of the professional data people thrown under the bus by the execs and pundit class who are going to do their best to rationalize why they spent so much time promoting polls.

      They’re trying to confuse the issue of uncertainty with closeness. They’re really not the same thing.

  6. This is a pleasant bit of distraction from a couple of weeks ago in Canada that I just heard about:

    Susan Holt leads Liberals to majority, Blaine Higgs loses seat

    First woman to win premier’s job in New Brunswick history

    https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/nb-election-2024-1.7358873

    New Brunswickers have voted for change — and helped make some history too.

    Susan Holt led her Liberal team to a solid majority government Monday, bringing an end to six years of Progressive Conservative rule. Even Premier Blaine Higgs lost his seat in the red tide of change.

    The final tally is 31 seats for the Liberals, 16 for the Progressive Conservatives and two for the Greens, including Green Party Leader David Coon….

    When the results started to roll in within minutes of the polls closing, what was looking like a close race, according to opinion polls, soon became an obvious Liberal win.

    By 9:15 p.m., Higgs took to the podium at his headquarters in Quispamsis to concede defeat.

    He said it was “not the night we hoped for.”

    Holt is the first woman to win the premier’s job in New Brunswick history.

    Higgs was a divisive hard right tool of the oil company which dominates New Brunswick. Not any more.

      • That seems to be the official name up there. The dude was evidently hugely anti Native Canadian, anti French Canadian, homophobic, transphobic, and out to gut the safety net.

        • You basically described Pee Pee aka Pierre Pollieve the supposed future PM and current Federal Conservative Leader.

          Despite his French name and origins, he is the Canada Version of Steve Miller (not the Billy Jo and Bobby Sue Band.)

      • Back in the day, the Cons actually tried to be progressive (like Nixon) and tried to implement decent social legislation.

        However, most of the PC types were driven out by the hard line Reformer types. The Federal level Conservatives got rid of their Progressive part in the name because it offended them.

    • Aka the theme song from the Canadian Game Show Definition (Canada Wheel of Fortune minus Vanna and decent prizes) which is why Austin Powers uses it as “his” theme song.

    • In Conversation: Quincy Jones The music legend on the secret Michael Jackson, his relationship with the Trumps, and the problem with modern pop.

      https://www.vulture.com/article/quincy-jones-in-conversation.html

      What’s stirred everything up? Is it all about Trumpism?

      It’s Trump and uneducated rednecks. Trump is just telling them what they want to hear. I used to hang out with him. He’s a crazy motherfucker. Limited mentally — a megalomaniac, narcissistic. I can’t stand him. I used to date Ivanka, you know.

      • That’s a great interview!  My buddy decided to join the Seattle Jazz Society when he was a kid and would show up for the meetings.  Quincy was the head of the group and was a little shocked when this little white kid showed up but he said that they welcomed him and made him feel like he was a part of the group off the bat.

  10. Great job, Sulzberger.

    The New York Times Tech Guild is on strike / One day before the US Presidential election, the famed newspaper’s tech backend is without its workers.

    https://www.theverge.com/2024/11/4/24287600/new-york-times-tech-guild-strike-before-presidential-election

    The guild has been bargaining since 2022 for its first union contract with the company. Negotiations between it and the Times hit logjams over things like a “just cause” provision that prevents the company from firing workers unless it’s for something like misconduct, as well as pay increases, pay equity, and return-to-office policies, reports the Times. The guild says on a GoFundMe page for the workers that it’s working to address racial differences in pay and discipline that disproportionately targets women and people of color.

    Times services — including games like Wordle and the NYT Cooking app — are still functional. (The guild, which will be picketing in front of the paper’s Times Square office every day, asks that readers honor its picket line by not using any of those services, according to The Washington Post.) But the Times’ election coverage is heavily tech-driven and could suffer without union worker support. A pledge signed by over 750 of its journalists said they can’t do their jobs without the workers, whose efforts are crucial when things go wrong with key coverage features like the Times election needle.

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