Sunday Funnies

Election developments move quickly after latest Trump embarrassment

-- Paul Ryan canceled Trump's appearance at a campaign swing through Wisconsin the two were scheduled to make today.  Sen. Mike Lee of Utah took to Facebook Live to urge Trump to quit the race.  There were denouncements aplenty, but essentially nobody except Lee withdrawing their endorsement.  Update: there's a growing list of Republicans calling for him to drop out.  But of course he won't, and he can't anyway; voting is already happening in nearly two dozen states, including mail ballots like Texas and expats overseas.  The GOP is stuck with him, and the nightmare for downballot Republicans is real.

Update II: Both Vox and Rick Hasen outline some highly implausible scenarios -- Hasen calls them 'unlikely contingencies' -- whereby if Trump chose to drop out, the GOP could finagle the Electoral College representatives to be counted for both Trump and whoever might replace him.

Trump apologized on video, but more in defiance than in contrition, and promised he would strike back at Clinton using her husband's old track record.  That portends a lively yet revolting set-to for Sunday night's second debate.  Trump's polling continues to slide even before the impact of yesterday's sexist insults tape can be measured, which leads to more predictions falling in behind mine on Monday that Trump is finished.

Despite all of this, I still do not think he can lose Texas.

-- Meanwhile, Wikileaks released some of John Podesta's emails, which confirmed Hillary's shilling for Wall Street.  Still not quite the October Surprise her political opponents have been eagerly anticipating, though the RNC is seizing on it to distract themselves us from Trump's implosion.  We get another "it's the Russians" reaction from Democrats, and sputtering outrage from all the usual alt-right suspects, who have forced a "Bill Clinton is a rapist" Twitter hashtag to trend.  Some lay blame on the media, another predictable response.

-- All of this noise has drowned out the capture and subsequent release of several peace activists by the Israeli navy as they attempted to land at Gaza, the devastation wrought by Hurricane Matthew, the New Cold War with Putin and Russia, the hot proxy war we're fighting with them in Syria, more devastating climate change statistics, and a host of other things that are more important than Trump's sophomoric frat boy behavior or Clinton's latest email dump.  But at least it knocked Kim Kardashian's robbery back to the entertainment section.

-- In brighter news, Jill Stein is returning to Texas at the end of next week, with stops in El Paso, San Antonio, and Houston, at the Last Concert Cafe' on Saturday, October 15.  I'm delighted that she has long seen the Lone Star State as a tremendous growth opportunity for the Green Party.

It's not a protest vote, not a wasted vote.  It's an eviction notice.

Some offbeat election news, scatter-shot

-- Darrell Castle, the Constitution Party's presidential nominee -- "on thirty-five state ballots (twenty-four, actually) and maybe the only social conservative running" -- has the ultimate putdown to those who still parrot the fallacy that a vote for the lesser evil is your only option.

“People say, ‘Well I have to vote for the lesser of two evils because if I don’t Mrs. Clinton may get elected,'” he says. “But I speak to a lot of Christians, and I tell them as a Christian you cannot do that if you have some regard for scripture because Romans 3:8 says you’re prohibited from trying to achieve a good result by doing evil.” 

There you go, evangelicals and Ted Cruz supporters.  Get Castle's polling moving upward.

-- I had a bizarre conversation with a California Berniecrat who is voting for Clinton because he isn't certain whether Clinton could carry his state (a fairly delusional thought, unless you just can't believe the polls or fear the election is going to be hacked by the Russians, or something).  Bizarre, at least, until I read this.

Whether Donald Trump is entitled to California's 55 Electoral College votes would be called into question if Trump wins the state's popular vote, a Trump-supporting third party and election law experts are warning.

It's an unusual situation and everyone seems to agree there's a potential problem, but they disagree on the severity and likely resolution if Trump defies polls and wins the state.

[...]

The problem arises from the fact that Trump is nominated by both the Republican Party and the state branch of the American Independent Party, and the two parties did not agree on a joint slate of electors, Just two names overlap on lists submitted earlier this week, bringing the total number of Trump electors to 108.

California ballots will list the two nominations together near Trump’s name, with “Republican, American Independent” or some abbreviation – and ballots don't list individual electors. But if on the evening of Nov. 8 it becomes clear he has won the state, the two nominations will net Trump nearly twice the number of electors allowed.

Go read it; it's kinda fun.  And not so much bizarre, but about as possible a scenario as a swarm of undocumented immigrant conservative Yetis helping the GOP hold the line in Orange County.

-- I think writing in Bernie Sanders' name is ridiculous and a little sad, but I do not think that any vote cast is a wasted one.  This is debatable, however, as I will explain in a moment.  But for now, and as a matter of public service ...

In Texas, a write-in vote for any candidate in any office who has not been certified by the state of Texas is a vote that will not appear in the official canvass.  Strangely, there will be a record of it kept by your county clerk, but that will not be made public.  Perhaps the clerk's office would respond to a FOIA request and announce the number of votes cast for Hypnotoad, or Jesus Christ, or Mickey Mouse for President some time after the election.  Otherwise we'll never know how many votes were "wasted" in this fashion ... the only way you can waste a vote, other than by not casting it at all.

To the latter: over 50% of the American people will waste their votes in this manner, as they remain unregistered to vote, and about 50% of those registered, give or take a few, will likewise fail to get themselves counted.  Those who do not exercise their citizenship are doomed to be governed by their inferiors, so the saying goes, and have earned no right to complain.

-- I have seen some really interesting voting rationales by some 'friends' on Facebook.  The most creative one recently was a woman who said she could not vote for Jill Stein in Texas because the GP "doesn't do party-building" between presidential elections (an atrociously misinformed statement coming from an otherwise bright but binary-thinking progressive Democrat).  In the same paragraph she said she would vote for down-ballot Greens "to show support for having additional options".  That's really something, isn't it?  A Catch 22 that she puts herself into and takes herself out of at the same time.  I suppose the Greens should be happy with whatever vote for them she can muster.

A rationale that a fearful or recalcitrant liberal might employ in deciding to vote for Hillary in a close county -- like Harris -- might be in order to help the Dems retake majority status, with the presiding judges in all precincts and at early voting locations.  Note that this would have nothing to do with turning Texas blue, as it won't.  Similarly, and as the anonymous person mentioned in the previous graf has indicated she will do, here's the best reason to vote for Jill Stein and the Green candidates running in Texas (there will be four or five dozen on the ballot throughout the state, not all of them on your ballot, because they're running for county offices and things like SBOE, which are multi-county in a specific region):

If Jill Stein and Ajamu Baraka receive 5% of the national vote, the Green Party will qualify for general election public funding in 2020 that will be worth over $10 million dollars.

Securing 5% of the popular vote will also guarantee state ballot access lines for the next election cycle, saving the Green Party time and money that could be spent where (the GP) needs it most. 

Charles Kuffner, as you might have guessed, is contemptuous.  It is indeed going to be one giant leap for mankind if the Greens can pull it off, as someone on another celestial plane once said.  With respect to those who would rather focus on a brand new Congress, I applaud the efforts of BernieDems, etc. in working to reform that party on the inside, but I spent the past ten years heavily involved in that effort, and you can see the fruits of that harvest came in spoiled rotten every single year.  Been there, done that, just took the forty T-shirts I got for it to Goodwill.

I would sooner join al-Qaeda and try to reform it from within.  A decade of my life spent demonstrating the definition of insanity is far too much.  I'm going to do something different from now on.  I'd be happy to have your help if you're so inclined.

Libertarian candidates falter

Gary Johnson seems to be having a personal crisis.  AKA meltdown.

In an interview on CNN early yesterday [...] Johnson explains why if "crossing 'i's and dotting 't's" on international political leaders and geography is more important than the policy itself and than admitting mistakes, he’s not meant to be president (but if honesty and peace are what voters want, then he is).

Jeremy Binckes at Salon told Johnson he looked 'jittery' and 'in need of sleep'.

If it makes you feel any better, your excuse makes sense, even the way you phrased it on CNN: “OK so I point out an elected leader that I admire, and then all of a sudden I have to defend them against things that I’m not even aware of,” Johnson said. “If that’s a disqualifier to run for president, so be it.”

I hate to break it to you, but that’s sort of what international politics is about. The U.S. has allies, and they sometimes come for dinner. It’s really not good if you insult them on their special day.

... (Y)ou also tried to explain away your gaffes by saying that you have “never been in politics before.” Are you forgetting that you were a two-term governor of New Mexico, and that you actually ran for president in 2012 (as a Republican first, then as a Libertarian after you couldn’t get in the debates)?

You’re starting to see the truth here, though, when you say, “I guess I wasn’t meant to be president.”

It’s understandable. Running for president is hard, even if you’re running as the candidate for the “we want to vote for a Republican, but not that Republican” crowd — and especially if it seems that you haven’t done your international relations homework.

But back to how you’re feeling. You look jittery. You need sleep. If only there were something you could take to make you nice and sleepy, and, ya know, mellow out a bit.

This comes alongside Bill Weld's odd capitulation.

Gary Johnson’s hapless running mate, William Weld, is essentially giving up on the presidential race and wants to spend its last few weeks attacking Donald Trump.

The same day Johnson admitted he’s not keeping up with world affairs, Weld told The Boston Globe Trump is his only priority from now until November 8.

[...]

The Globe said Weld also hinted that he might abandon the Libertarian Party altogether, although he said he’s “certainly not going to drop them this year.”

Still, he said his priority after the election could be working with Republicans like Mitt Romney to rebuild the GOP.

When Weld, a former Republican governor of Massachusetts, joined Johnson on the Libertarian ticket, he said he would be a Libertarian for life and fight to make sure his running mate became the next President of the United States.

But Weld apparently wised up after Johnson’s month of stunning gaffes, with the third-party contender consistently failing to know anything about current events or foreign affairs. When Johnson couldn’t name a single world leader he admired during an MSNBC town hall, Weld stepped in as his hype man, reminding him of a couple names.

Johnson spent his Tuesday morning arguing on national TV that his ignorance about the world could be a virtue, because it would prevent him from sending soldiers to dangerous countries.

Weld last week told MSNBC he’s “not sure anybody is more qualified than Hillary Clinton to be president of the United States.”

Kind of a humiliating way to wind down a presidential campaign, isn't it?