72 Comments on “One More Day”

1. (b)athetic (p)athos I see what you did there… :>)

2. I have voted in the early. I believe it is important to vote how you have decided, and I won’t see who I voted for. It is a private matter, and my business. I believe we are all concerned for our country, and those who are elected will be in there for another four years. Then we vote them out, or in. ..depending on whether they will run again! Control doesn’t matter in the voting. I believe those who are to serve will get enough votes to be in the White House. This year the struggle was deciding who was most experienced, and would do a good job.

3. “… he three decades of animus she’s accrued…”
   This is why I never wanted Clinton to run, either in 2008 or 2016. Even though I think she’s supremely well qualified and I agree with most of her policy positions, I thought all that ill-will was just too much to overcome. I’m just glad Trump is her opposition and I hope she gets a Senate majority to work with.

4. Thanks for this. I’ve had to turn off all media for the last several days because it’s too infuriating that the race is close at all. Btw, you wrote “where it’s pretty clear the game is done, it’s just that the timer has run out yet,” Should it be *hasn’t*?

5. Gen:

   Fixed.

6. Thanks for “bathetic”, I’ve not come across that word before – very useful!

7. I’m just surprised how many Trump supporters refuse the evidence of their own eyes. Many I suspect, will now claim that Comey was pressurized by the WhiteHouse to say they didn’t find something.

   I’ve tried using facts, like articles from the NYTimes, charity watch.org to show that what they were saying was wrong and it got me no where. Truly depressing.

   Hopefully we’ll find out they are in a minority tomorrow (and if you really want to be depressed, google clinton’s email server and see how much bunk appears in the search results).

8. but obviously you should vote for whichever candidates are most congenial to your particular world view

   Actually, that’s not obvious. I personally think you should vote for whichever candidate is most likely to contribute to the outcome most congenial to your world view. For some voters, that’s not the same candidate. And some of them don’t agree with me on this point at all.

9. (And since that disagreement is itself part of one’s world view, I suppose the distinction has little practical effect.)

10. For instance, if you think we should probably nuke Europe, and that the decision should be left to someone whose campaign has benefitted hugely from “not letting him use a Twitter account anymore”, you should definitely consider voting for Trump!

11. “the latinx voters”
    Is that a Californiaism?

12. I getting vote reminders from Google every time I start a browser window, and presume some very high percentage of people in the US are too.

13. Thanks for helping to keep me (and other moderate-to-liberal people) sane and centered over these tumultuous months. I always get a bit stressed at election time, but this one has really walloped me. In addition to actually liking Clinton and agreeing with most of her main objectives, I’m genuinely scared of what a President Trump could mean for America, for the world, and for many innocent people. I hope this comes out in the wash, but I also hope those of us who aren’t buying what Trump and his ilk are selling don’t forget it and lapse back into complacency.

14. I really don’t see how Comey should survive this, but he’ll probably find a way to weasel through, particularly if he has successfully sabotaged the down-ballot vote and the Senate stays Republican.

15. As regards point #2. I have no doubt at all some FBI folks want to swing the election to Trump. He’ll let them get away with literal and figurative murder. James Comey was an idiot to jump in front of that train.

    I’ll be at the polls tomorrow. Not many of my fellow neighbors will vote Clinton, but not many of them have the guts to have Trump signs in their yards either. I think the stigma of openly supporting Trump in a town that has a lot of people who aren’t white scares them, as it should.

16. @Wiredog

    No–it’s recognizing that “Hispanic” isn’t the preferred term by that community anymore and that “Latino” erases all non-male (female, genderqueer, intersex, etc.) members of the community. It’s called being inclusive and kind. That’s not supposed to be a strictly Californian trait.

17. I read your balloon metaphor a bit too quickly as “left a balloon out in the rain” and now I have images of Donald sitting sad and alone in the middle of a rain-soaked MacArthrur Park on Wednesday morning. Apparently I need more coffee…

18. Part of the problem for me is that there have been so many “never before in my lifetime” moments (the FBI acting like Roseanne Roseannadanna???) that I feel numbed and caught in a closed loop of “the only normal is that there is no longer normal”. That will not, however, discourage me from voting with a certain amount of gusto (which is kind of hard to express on a touch-screen machine).

19. “…the FBI acting like Roseanne Roseannadanna???”

    Thought it was Emily Litella. “Never mind!”

20. “Latinx” looks silly and doesn’t lend itself to easy pronunciation. If we want a gender-neutral alternative to “Latino” and “Latina”, I’d suggest dropping, rather than dispacing, the final letter.

    I already voted via absentee ballot. Sweating out the next 30 hours or so.

21. And thank you for saying it over and over again– it’s important!

22. “Latinx” looks silly and doesn’t lend itself to easy pronunciation.

    Hm. Latin-EX. Seems simple to me. Use it a lot at theatre gatherings. Was encouraged to do so by Latinx theatre artists. So I’m taking their suggestion (because I deal with that segment more than other segments of the Latinx community).

    Absentee sent, and acknowledged. I’m really in favor of lowering the bar against voting as much as possible.

23. For what little it’s worth, I’m on team “latinx looks dumb.” Spell it LatinX and it looks like an ethnically-marketed energy drink, and those cause kidney failure, which is bad.

    Back on topic, I’m one of those who has already voted (I love Oregon’s mail in ballots) and yet I’m still seeing 72 minutes of political ads during every hour of television. I thought those were supposed to stop after you voted? I’m quite sure the cable company could manage that.

    That’s actually not a bad idea. If I could tell my TV that I’ve already voted, it could stop showing me ads that will have no effect on me and instead show me ads that are still relevant. The political campaigns will save a tenth of a penny and the makers of the ads I do see would pay another tenth of a cent. You give me a good enough questionnaire and I could see nothing but ads for movies, car insurance and beer. None of which I’m likely to consume, but I like to know about movies, I think the Flo and Geico commercials are funny, and beer commercials are good as long as they’re not trying to convince me that low-carb beer is super manly. Maybe I could tune it so I see nothing but Miller Lite commercials from the 80s. That was truly a golden age.

24. Let’s table the “latinx” discussion, please. It’s not directly on topic.

25. I would remind people that citizenship is a year round thing: Even in Russia they have voters.

    All year I hope to contribute and participate and yes, complain. It’s too bad complaining overlaps so much with not-voting, (funny how human nature works that way) but still, I would not go so far as to say you can’t complain if you don’t vote. That sounds too weak and defeatist, as if we are merely helpless serfs who occasionally vote.

26. Thank you, Mr. S., for your calm assessment of the situation. I come here whenever I get frustrated with this election, because you’ve said what I’m feeling, far better than I’m capable of.

    I want to watch the election results come in, but at this point I’m not sure I can stand ANY of the broadcast news stations without throwing something through my TV.

    I’d like to nominate @scalzi for political commentator of the year, along with John Oliver and Trevor Noah. Maybe tomorrow I’ll just open up their three twitter feeds, and watch that rather than have the TV on for election returns. That might keep me sane.

27. To get back on topic, I commend to your attention the League of Women Voters website at http://www.vote411.org/.

    They will tell you where your polling location is (if you aren’t already aware of it). They also have voter’s guides available to give you information about the other candidates you’ll be voting for besides President.

28. Well, once again from the other side of the pond, please vote for Hillary Clinton, because on this side of the pond we are seeing the results of allowing ourselves to be sucked into fact free non-reality, and it’s really not fun.

    I’d like to draw your attention to the behaviour of one of Trump’s British buddies, a guy called Nigel Farage, leading light in the Brexit campaign for leaving the European Union, with a disdain for facts which equals Trump himself. Farage’s many proven lies don’t bother him at all, just as Trump’s proven lies don’t bother him at all; ordinary people do tend to at least notice that they’ve been rumbled, but the Farage/Trumps of this world simply don’t care because there’s an ample supply of more lies to tell.

    Farage, having spent time at the court of King Trump, is now back in England sulking because his demand that we be subject to British law with British judges resulted in a case of British law, decided by British judges. He doesn’t like the judgement, notwithstanding the fact that this is what he said he was fighting for, so his latest plan is to lead 100,000 people to the Supreme Court which will be hearing the appeal against the judgement which he really doesn’t like. What the 100,000 people propose to do is anybody’s guess; apparently Farage feels that a display of his supporters, a group of people not hitherto known for their interest in Constitutional law, will persuade all the eleven Justices in the Supreme Court that they really should decide the case in the way he wants, because otherwise there will be big time trouble.

    Which brings us back to Trump, who has a very similar perspective on life; on this side of the Pond we are arguing that the Government cannot use the Royal Prerogative to strip us of rights, because only the British Parliament has the power to take away rights which Parliament has given to us. People may have heard of the Magna Carta, signed in 1215, but we fought a Civil War in the 17th century, to bind the unfettered power of the Crown, and we have carried on fighting on a host of issues, like the right to vote.

    We are experiencing what happens when people become complacent; all of a sudden what looked, at first sight, to be about economic issues with a side order of Parliamentary Sovereignty, has turned out to be much, much more than that. Rights which we have taken for granted can apparently disappear with a wave of the Prime Minister’s hand, and our Judges have been attacked with absolute vitriol. If you are an openly gay former Olympic Class fencer who also is one of our country’s finest Judges then your picture, together with that description -minus the country’s finest Judges bit- will be all over the front pages of tabloids who are accusing you of betraying your country.

    This really isn’t fun, and I do not think you would enjoy it, so please vote for Hillary Clinton. Learn from our example, and vote for the candidate who is not one of Nigel Farage’s buddies.

29. As of this instant I am 538-comfortable. I voted thru early ballot and feel done and done. I’m mad over the FBI and would like to see their budget trimmed to reflect what they’ve wasted over email investigations. I’m concerned over the fair few disenfranchised in my area, who didn’t make voter registration. I tried to help some but restrictions like dates are non-negotiable. I would be well pleased to see some restrictions lessened in the future.

    Everyone who lives around me should be given every possibility to vote for our common good. OK 1person=1vote and I won’t fault that; but can’t we try to allow everyone a best chance at that? I hate seeing a final tally that’s possibly skewed from stratagems.

30. @starbird2005: I’ve had this same debate at length with friends online and in person, and the only conclusion that I can come to is that decision to vote for Trump is primarily an emotional choice. Either they just can’t even contemplate voting for Hillary (for vague, often unspecified reasons), or they think that something is “wrong” with the country and that Trump will “fix” it. After all, I’ve never heard anyone say to me at the outset that they really considered the candidates’ different positions and they just decided to vote for Trump because of his policies on X, Y, or Z. And I think that this is why the Trump supporters have such a hard time accepting the possibility that he might lose. If he loses, then it’s over, and there’s nothing left to make them feel better. From a how-to-govern-the-country standpoint, this is a stupid way to pick a leader, But if you’re stressed out about “where this country is headed” and letting your lizard brain do the driving, voting for Trump might make sense no matter how many awful things he does or says.

31. I’m a worrier by nature, so although I’m reasonably confident that Clinton will win both the popular and electoral vote, I’m nowhere near as sanguine about her having an effective majority in the Senate. If she doesn’t, her legislative prospects are zilch, and she won’t be able to fill any vacancies on the Supreme Court (no, I don’t thing the Republicans are going to return to normal comity in the foreseeable future). And that’s without the possibility of legal and physical protests over the legitimacy of the election.

32. My wife and I voted this past Saturday. We waited two and a half hours in line at one of the two polling locations in this county open for early voting (dozens more will be open on Tuesday). It was gratifying to see so many people out for the occasion, despite the outcome for the presidential and senatorial elections being all but foreordained and no one even bothering to run against the incumbent congressman for our district. I’m looking forward to the results of the state and county races and for a batch of unusually significant state questions.

    (For what it’s worth, I voted for all the state questions placed on the ballot by initiative petition, including a couple of criminal justice reforms that would get legislators who promoted them labelled as “soft on crime.” In contrast, I voted for only one of the SQ’s put on the ballot by the legislature, a long-needed update of this state’s antediluvian liquor laws. Legislative referenda I voted against included one that would place factory farming on the same exalted legal level as gun ownership and freedom of speech, as well as a repeal of the portion of the state constitution disallowing the promotion of religion with public money. I take the relatively high quality of the current crop of initiative petition proposals as a hopeful sign that this state’s voters are smarter – or at least more politically serious – than its current governing class.)

    (Also at the early-voting the other day, adding a much-needed touch of surrealism – without which local electoral politics would seem incomplete – was a car that drove by the line a couple of times blasting “I Want It That Way” from the stereo. Wonder if that was somebody’s idea of a political message….)

    Anyway, even if you’re sure your vote for president won’t make a difference, there’s bound to be other stuff on your local ballot worth waiting two-and-a-half hours to vote on.

33. @Craig Steffen – yes, Messieurs Scalzi, Oliver and Noah have pretty much kept me laughing (somewhat hysterically at times) but sane over the past few months. The whole Comey/FBI thing has really thrown me for a loop. I am thunderstruck that there aren’t more people in an uproar over such obvious election tampering, right here in our own country!!

34. I voted by mail, and sent in my ballot in time.

    What worries me are all the people who still think their votes don’t matter or that it somehow encourages the continuation of a corrupt system. The Teabaggers made significant inroads into Congress in an election where nationally slightly over a third of the U.S. population voted. From where I stand, it looks to me like the votes of those who did show up for the Teabaggers certainly counted.

    As for those feeling there’s something allegedly noble in not voting for Clinton, I’d give more credibility to that position if there was a reasonable alternative which would also keep Trump out of the White House. Neither Stein nor Johnson display the type of political support that would make that a reality. So my encouraging words would be to vote Clinton, who is at least not an utter douche like The Donald. But also vote for or lend support to candidates like Pramila Jayapal, who can help provide a corrective to Clinton’s worse instincts.

35. Hey, John, should I actually go out and vote? You’re kind of wishy-washy on that subject here. :)

36. In hindsight, I think the FBI news helped Clinton. Otherwise, the headlines last week would have been about the insurance premium increases, and that would have a more damaging effect on Clinton this week.

37. Question – what websites/twitter feeds/etc will you be following for real honest-to-goodness updates tomorrow?

38. At the risk of going off topic, I really DON’T like governments that restrict early voting—not even getting into voter registration, I just think that making it easier to vote is a good thing for everyone.

    Second, I vote strategically. What choice do I make gets me closer to where I want to go? That doesn’t mean my favored candidate is who gets me there…it’s my choice that gets me to where I want to go.

39. @ Dave Branson
    Apologies to Scalzi, but I’d say the “three decades of animus ginned up against her”. In ’08, I was happy to vote for Obama but recognized it would be easier to get action on his ideas if the candidate from Illinois had had blue eyes and blond hair and was called Brad O’Hara. I knew there would be opposition to Obama, but didn’t dream of the obstruction and abuse he would face. Nevertheless, I thought we needed to have this fight. And I think we need to have the same fight with the misogyny that I believe fuels the harrying of Hillary Clinton. It won’t be fun (see the cesspool of the Trump campaign) bit we need to do it.

40. This has been the most fucked up presidential election ever.

    Go Hillary, and may the Dems sweep the senate.

41. We got a phone call yesterday from a campaign for a local measure. Told the caller that we had both already voted. She sounded surprised. :-) I mean, why wouldn’t you vote early if you can?

    btw it gave me a deep existential pleasure to vote for HRC and one of our two female Democrat candidates for senator. Some guy somewhere said that choosing one of two women isn’t as effective as voting for a woman or a Democrat over a man or a Republican. I was like, first of all, irrelevant, but I will continue to be full of glee that my two very good options were TWO WOMEN.

42. It’s more of an Internet-ism than a California-ism – in writing, it’s becoming common to use “Latinx” because the “x” at the end acts as a placeholder for the masculine/feminine -o/-a endings in Spanish (and the -e ending some Spanish speakers who prefer not to use the other two options have coined). It was started by Spanish-speaking feminists and LGBT+ activists to be a gender-neutral option, and has spread to some English speakers in the U.S. as well. But I’ve never heard it used in real life, as a Californian myself. I can’t immediately think of how it would be pronounced.

43. Sorry – didn’t see that we were tabling the Latinx topic; feel free to delete.

44. I finished a 6-page paper on antisemitism last night.

    Then this morning Donald Trump’s new campaign ad came out, and I watched it, and it was just antisemitic enough to scare the shit out of me without being technically hate speech.

    Fuck this election.

45. My suspicion about Comey is that he’s out within a year. Should Sec. Clinton win tomorrow, I don’t think she’ll fire him outright, but I suspect he’ll quickly see the wisdom of resigning on the basis of not having the confidence of the President. Should Mr. Trump win, he might just fire him in a fit of pique, or if he fails/refuses to recommend charges.

    Congress could remove him, but I don’t see that happening.

46. I’m hoping for a Brexit type of situation.

47. I am Canadian and I urge you to vote. Everyone vote. This is the only way to make the electoral system work. I know the options may not be what you are hoping for but do make a choice and cast your vote. This Canadian will appreciate it.

48. O.W.M. 504: So in other words, Trump wins a majority of electoral votes to everyone’s surprise, most of his voters regret their choice in the morning, the dollar and the stock market crashes, and the country spends the next year trying to figure out technically legal ways not to have to swear him in as president?

    That kind of a Brexit type of situation? Well, it would look entertaining from the outside, I’ll give you that.

49. @O.W.M. 504: “Brexit type of situation.”

    Brexit type of situation? We’ve already been there and done that. In retrospect, we could call it the Confederexit. It lasted about four years and only cost 600,000 lives.

50. I’m nowhere near as sanguine about her having an effective majority in the Senate. If she doesn’t, her legislative prospects are zilch, and she won’t be able to fill any vacancies on the Supreme Court (no, I don’t thing the Republicans are going to return to normal comity in the foreseeable future).

    They argued (wrongly, IMO) that Obama did not have the right to nominate to the SC during the last three months of his presidency; can they really expect to be taken seriously making the same claim for four years?

51. Voting, to be followed by home improvement. Not sure which I’m anticipating more.

52. (1) Saw a Trump supporter post an article about evil Hillary. It said that Hillary had refused to help a Nigerian Prince. Link went to an article saying the prince needed her bank account number and SSN, but Hillary left him to rot.

    The Trump supporter posted this in all seriousness as evidence that Hillary was bad.

    So looking forward to wednesday.

    (2) i have been working on rules for a election day drinking game. note it will be a long, slow night, so best played at a bar that can mix drinks for you while you watch the TVs on the wall.

    “pundit calls race before polls close == Bull Shot. Then throw empty at pundits head (you may have to drive to studio).”

    “Suggestion of impending indictment against Hillary for blah==Corpse Reviver #2”

    “Russia hacks voting machines==Kremlin Colonel”

    “Hillary wins==My Fair Lady”

    “Trump win==Damn the Weather”

    Other suggestions?

    (3) If Obama had any sense, he would have a converstion with Comey and make it clear that if he doesnt resign, he’ll be brought up on charges the next day for election interference and fired. If he resigns now, with an apology about casting a shadow on democracy, he can go quietly.

    Obama is on his way out, so he could fire Comey and has little political baggage to worry about. If Hillary fires him, right wingers will add it to their list of her alleged crimes and have to deal with that the next 4/8 years.

53. O.W.M. 504: Brexit type situation? You lost your mind? Look, one of my best friends is from England and wonders what her fellow citizens were thinking. She hopes like hell that Trump doesn’t win. Not that it’s HER country, she just has good sense.

54. Polls announce they are closed before they officially close==Hanky Panky

    Firearms visible at polling place==Gunfire

    Voting line wait time exceeds 4 hours==tequilla sunrise

    Tear gas is deployed==Agent Orange

    Candidate declares themself the winner prematurely==Ceasar

    Election too close to call and news cast ends without declared winner, i.e. 4 or 5 am==Breakfast Martini

    Politically motivated arson==Backdraft

    Somebody streaks near polling place==Sex on the Beach

    One candidate exceeds 400 electoral votes==Mudslide

    Talking head refers to female reproductive organs by name (ovaries, vagina, pussy) ==Slippery Nipple

    Fisticuffs at polling place==Pucker Up

    Talking head says the word ISIS, ISIL, or al Queda==B52

    Talking head says “rape” or “sexual assault”==Brass Monkey

55. It’s Tuesday 8 November here in Australia. I am looking forward to tomorrow (more or less) because by then, hopefully, it will all be OVER, after the better part of two years constant racket, and maybe, just maybe, your country can actually start functioning again. I mean, it’s scary the way the US governmental system appears to pretty much shut down entirely (or be shut down entirely) whenever there’s a presidential campaign on. I still have nightmares about 2008, and the mess we found on the doormat when the campaign ended then. What can we look forward to this year, I wonder?

56. While Comey has screwed up time and again since his original statement in July, may I make a modest suggestion: If you don’t want the FBI influencing the outcome of presidential elections, don’t nominate a candidate under FBI investigation. If Hillary had only used the State Department server. . .

57. rubbahslippah81: I’d pick any of those things to having to listen to one more campaign ad. And in any case, probably home improvement, particularly if it’s the “demolish this wall by hand with a hammer” type.

    Also, folks: The “let’s have a brexit situation” person is presumably just a troll. No reason to engage; let it go.

    People watching election results should have a drinking game. What about these as a few preliminary rules (not dependent on your candidate or who wins):
    Take a drink when:
    – Anyone saying “pantsuit”
    – Anyone mentioning the Brexit vote
    – “wall”
    – “Thanks Obama” (either derisively OR ironically)
    – “FiveThirtyEight”
    – “FBI”
    – Candidate mentions their children
    – Commentators trying to talk around the slang for “cat” that Trump is famous for saying (and grabbing)
    – “Secret Service”
    – “Surrogate”
    – “Saturday Night Live”

    I might just do that.
    (Realistically, what I’ll probably do is have the TV on but on mute, and watch youtube videos on the laptop.)

58. They argued (wrongly, IMO) that Obama did not have the right to nominate to the SC during the last three months of his presidency; can they really expect to be taken seriously making the same claim for four years?

    You seem to be the under the impression that they give a damn /what/ anyone thinks about it. Didn’t stop them this time, isn’t liable to stop them then.

59. @Pete (1:46 PM)

    You might want to reconsider your desire for targeted ads on cable. It’s creepy enough on the internet already, and cable companies want those advertising dollars back.

    Your comment made me realize that we haven’t seen any political ads this cycle. We dropped cable a year ago, and haven’t watched broadcast TV in six months (had a long remodel and I haven’t moved the antenna back yet). Even without seeing any political ads, this election has nearly done me in. I get some of the slime secondhand from legitimate news sites. We watched the debates over streaming, and I periodically check Trump’s twitter feed to verify that his comments aren’t being misrepresented. All this is bad enough. How do those of you subjected to the raw sewage feed of political ads stand it?

    @Scalzi

    My wife just read the first chapter of Android’s Dream. Without giving it away, I had told her that it was a unique milestone in modern fiction. She agrees that I did not oversell it. Thanks for helping people get through troubling times.

60. znepj: John McCain (AZ), Richard Burr (NC), Ted Cruz (TX) and others have already suggested that a Republican Senate should reject every Clinton nominee for being too liberal, so yes, they would be willing to refuse to do their job for 4 years. Also, Obama nominated Merrick with 10 months left in his term, not 3 months.

61. >> John McCain (AZ), Richard Burr (NC), Ted Cruz (TX) and others have already suggested that a Republican Senate should reject every Clinton nominee for being too liberal, so yes, they would be willing to refuse to do their job for 4 years. >>

    Or at least are willing to say so to try to look good to their base.

    I don’t think McCain would actually do that. Burr, maybe, but hopefully he won’t have the opportunity after Deb Ross beats his ass (fingers crossed). Cruz, yeah, he’d definitely do it.

62. To me, it seems like it would have been worse if the FBI had found something and sprung it on everyone the day before the election, or worse, waited until after (when it would likely have poisoned Clinton’s presidency). I wish it hadn’t happened, but I think saying they were checking and then checking and confirming there wasn’t anything new was better than the (small?) chance of finding something problematic and holding back until close to (or past) the election.

    Since the polls are 0.25 mi down the street from my house and on the way to preschool, I was lazy and figured I would vote after my older sprog goes to school. I will bring my other one’s Leapster and my reading in case the line is as long as it could be.

63. Hey, so, I was thinking about the senate promising to block Hillary putting anyone on the supreme court. So, assuming Hillary wins but the dems dont get the senate: One way to give her some leverage would be for Obama to appoint an *extremely* liberal/progressive left wing lawyer while the senate is in recess. Recess appointments are automatically put on the court and stay ther until the end of the next senate session. Hillary then nominates a moderate left wing candidate with somid background and presents them to the senate. Senate can either do nothing and let extreme judge serve for the remainder of their session or confirm the moderate judge.

    The senate could risk doing nothing, and then the court accepts a case about gun control and they might suddenly find motivation to vote.

    With the senate blocking Merrick Garland for a record breaking amount of time, I think most Americans would see breaking the blockade as neccessary. Repeat as neccessary for next 4 years.

    Hopefully dems win the senate, but if not, i cant imagine the damage that will happen if the supreme court is blockaded for years.

64. I don’t think McCain would actually do that.

    There are a whole lot of things I used to think McCain wouldn’t do.

65. It’s sad that keeping Trump out became more important than putting a good person in. Hillary is a money-and-power-grubber who massed a billion dollar war chest in her quest to be President. Vote? Absolutely, but bear in mind the importance of checks and balances. Full Democratic control gave us Obamacare, and wait until you see next years’ insurance bill!

    I’m no big fan of the GOP’s ‘party of ‘no’ ‘ stance but I think it is important that they counter the worse of Hillary’s impulses.

66. No matter who wins this election, we need to have a serious conversation about literally dividing America into separate nations. We have 240 years of evidence showing that we are never going to integrate what is essentially the old North/South divide in the US, the left vs right, multicultural vs monocultural beliefs that split us. (Same for our news sources these days: multi-sourced vs. only-Fox-News.)

    Too much of the right wing simply does not want to peacefully coexist with the rest of us. The widespread talk about revolution from Trump supporters is evidence of this, and so is the rise in hate groups, and the increasing openness of the KKK, and so on.

    We need to find a way to have a Civil Divorce before we end up having a Second Civil War.

    Let’s hope it’s not too late.

67. Full Democratic control gave us Obamacare, and wait until you see next years’ insurance bill!

    maybe i missed something, but wasn’t the ACA a crappy compromise required because the Republicans were going to block anything more effective?

    I think it is important that they counter the worse of Hillary’s impulses.

    i’m sure they will. and the best of her impulses. and everything else she does, because apparently the only thing the GOP is capable of these days is compulsive, nihilistic obstruction. “checks and balances” is all well and good, but it relies on there being some willingness and ability to come to an agreement.

68. While I am hugely grateful that you give us a non-rabid, non-panicky place to get political news, I think a post headed “one more day” ought to have video of you singing songs from Les Miserable, preferably in costume, waving a flag!

69. Read following report to learn how a single mom was able to make $89,854/year in her spare time on her computer withoutt selling anything>>>>>>> MomJob70.Tk

70. Just, FYI, This American Life did an episode about the email “scandal” that I think summed it up much better than anything else I have read/heard: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/601/master-of-her-domain-name

    I think Hillary is a good choice, and a better choice (by several orders of magnitude) than Trump. But, to me, the fact that in 2016 we have two candidates for president who can’t use a desktop computer is indicative of the severe limitations of the two party system. More competition means higher quality and more diversity of choices. That said I won’t harp on the system too much today. Today is a day to celebrate our system of peaceful transfer of power!!! The most exciting part of democracy in action is that the actual act of democracy is a bit boring!!

    P.S.
    I just learned that in India (the world’s largest democracy) their goal is that no voter needs to travel more than 2km to a polling place, and no polling place needs to handle more than 1500 voters! That is IMPRESSIVE!!
    http://eci.nic.in/eci_main1/the_function.aspx#howthevoting

    P.P.S. Sorry for all the exclamation marks, but election day gets me excited!!!!

71. “…the new email scandal lasted just long enough, in fact, for the press to winkle out that at least some of the FBI New York office has it in for Clinton.”

    Can anyone point me to a news article on this? My Google-fu is weak and so far I’ve only found loads of opinions and commentary, not evidence.

72. @themaefly: see the links rounded up here: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/there-s-a-problem-at-the-fbi