This is October, the best month of the year IMO. Have you already eaten your first bag of Halloween candy? (Hides empty bag. Bags.) Yes, it means there are 30-some days until the election, but we’ve finally made it to October, and I’m stoked.
Good News for the election
LeBron James’s effort to attract more poll workers nets 10,000 volunteers
LeBron and some friends heard that polls were having trouble finding poll workers. They fixed it.
More Than a Vote, the collective of athletes headlined by the basketball superstar LeBron James, will announce Wednesday that its initiative to increase the number of poll workers in Black electoral districts had amassed 10,000 volunteers since it began. ...
In a release provided to The New York Times, More Than a Vote and the Legal Defense Fund said the second phase of their push would be more targeted, aimed at 11 cities “where significant poll worker shortages remain,” the release said.
Those cities include Black voter hubs in the South, like Birmingham, Jackson, Houston, San Antonio and Montgomery, as well as cities with significant Black populations in critical battleground states: Charlotte, Cleveland, Detroit, Flint, Milwaukee and Philadelphia.
The GOP is worried about surge of Democratic voters. Boohoo.
Early surge of Democratic mail voting sparks worry inside GOP
You can read the article at the link, and I recommend it, but spoiler — we are killing it with getting absentee ballots returned. Elderly GOP voters, you should be careful about your health (your candidate doesn’t care about you). Stay home on Nov 3. (Here is a similar link not behind a paywall: Trump foils his own plot to suppress mail-in voting amid record Democratic turnout)
Democratic voters who have requested mail ballots — and returned them — greatly outnumber Republicans so far in key battleground states, causing alarm among GOP party leaders and strategists ...
Of the more than 9 million voters who requested mail ballots through Monday in Florida, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Maine and Iowa, the five battleground states where such data is publicly available, 52 percent were Democrats. Twenty-eight percent were Republicans, and 20 percent were unaffiliated.
…
The margins are “stunning” — and bad news for Republicans up and down the ballot, said longtime GOP pollster Whit Ayres. While the Republican Party is focused on getting voters out on Election Day, he noted that older voters who have traditionally supported Republicans are most concerned about being infected with the novel coronavirus and could choose to stay home if the outbreak intensifies as the election nears.
Neither rain nor sleet nor dark of night nor asshole-in-charge stays these couriers ….
Postal Service workers quietly resist DeJoy’s changes with eye on election
This summer, as controversial new procedures at the U.S. Postal Service snarled the nation’s mail delivery and stirred fears of how the agency would handle the election, rank-and-file workers quietly began to resist.
Mechanics in New York drew out the dismantling and removal of mail-sorting machines until their supervisor gave up on the order. In Michigan, a group of letter carriers did an end run around a supervisor’s directive to leave election mail behind, starting their routes late to sift through it. In Ohio, postal clerks culled prescriptions and benefit checks from bins of stalled mail to make sure they were delivered, while some carriers ran late items out on their own time. In Pennsylvania, some postal workers looked for any excuse — a missed turn, heavy traffic, a rowdy dog — to buy enough time to finish their daily rounds.
“I can’t see any postal worker not bending those rules,” one Philadelphia staffer said in an interview.
Hooray for our Postal workers, but the Postal Service is in a world of hurt. The next administration really needs to address the needs of our Postal Service.
Good News about the debate
I turned it on and didn’t last past the 5 minute mark. I relied on the live stream here to tell me I did the right thing. Nonetheless, the right-wing punditry has been somewhat entertaining as they try to spin this mess. Here is Fox News. (Safe link, it goes to Raw Story)
Even Fox News can’t defend the president
Hair Shitstormtrooper gets help from Old Frothy himself. (This is a real quote)
Former Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., now CNN’s resident Trump defender, claimed after the debate that Trump had refused to condemn white supremacists, because he does not like to criticize his supporters.
“He was asking the president to do something he knows the president doesn’t like to do,” Santorum said of Wallace. “Which is say something bad about people who support him . . . talking about the white supremacists, number one.”
That bomb fell so badly they sent in Donald Jr to try to do damage control.
“I don’t know if that was a misspeak, but he was talking about having them stand down,” he told CBS News. “He’s more than happy to condemn that.”
Right, Donnie Jr.
How about Fox and Friends?
“Donald Trump blew the biggest layup in the history of debates by not condemning white supremacists,” “Fox & Friends” co-host Brian Kilmeade said. “I don’t know if he didn’t hear it, but he’s got to clarify that right away. That’s like, ‘Are you against evil?'”
Biden Campaign Claims Record Fundraising After Fiery First Debate With Trump
Tuesday’s blistering debate between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden led to a fundraising boom for the Democratic challenger and his party as a whole.
By Wednesday morning, ActBlue’s live ticker reportedly showed that at least $25 million had been raised for various Democratic campaigns on the November ballot.
Good News that is not political
The doggies are sniffing out COVID-19 at the Helsinki Airport
Travelers arriving at Helsinki’s airport are being offered a voluntary coronavirus test that takes 10 seconds with no uncomfortable nasal swab needed. And the test is done by a dog.
A couple of coronavirus-sniffing canines began work at the Finnish airport on Wednesday as part of a pilot program that aims to detect infections using the sweat collected on wipes from arriving passengers.…
[Dogs have] been able to detect illnesses such as cancer and malaria. So in the middle of a pandemic, training dogs to detect Covid-19 became an obvious choice, said Anna Hielm-Bjorkman, a researcher at the University of Helsinki who is monitoring the trial. ...
In Finland, researchers say that if the pilot programs prove effective, dogs could be used in retirement homes to screen residents or in hospitals to avoid unnecessary quarantines for health care professionals. ...
“We could keep our country open if we had enough dogs,” [Ms. Perala, of the Evidensia network], said.
The full park experience is closed, but Knott’s Berry Farm is still awesome!
Sold-Out Knott’s Taste of Fall-O-Ween 2020 is Impressive
Knott’s has been amazingly creative with keeping things alive. They’ve been doing Taste of Calico every night where people can buy a ticket and come to the park for good food served safely outside. One night, a group of Disney execs were even spotted sampling the food and atmosphere. Way to go, Knott’s!
Hey! We didn’t have a dinosaur extinction event last week!
Tiny Asteroid Buzzes by Earth – the Closest Flyby on Record
It was so close, it was actually inside the man-made satellite range. This drawing shows how the path of the asteroid was bent by Earth’s gravity.
Good News from my hometown
I’ve been watching the smoke from the baby-reveal fire near my home for weeks now, but this morning I noticed the air is noticeably clearer. The fire is reported to be 93% contained. It is burning now in remote areas and is expected to burn for several weeks yet, but is not threatening any structures. All roads are open. The expectant parents have not been charged.
Good News Graffiti
Mountain lion kittens! Lots of 'em!
Five litters (and counting) of new mountain lion cuties. Keep your pets indoors, but for now, aaawww.
Sex cult leader sentenced
Clare Bronfman, one of the leaders of the NXIVM sex cult is sentenced to six years and nine months in prison.
I’ll just leave this here: Eric Trump comes out as not-gay
Sometimes, leaving your party is especially painful: Why I’m Removing My Republican Tattoo After 21 Years In The GO
For this month, I’m obsessed with the Maven of the Eventide. She loves vampires and reading about vampires. She’s a hoot. Here she is her latest. She got a mystery box from a vampire store.
My first GNRU as a retired person! Whoop!