Observations on the 2012 Election 11.7

Doug Mills/The New York Times

I'm so tired after a long but historic day yesterday, still some thoughts while they are still fresh in my mind. To start Barack Obama won a second term as President of the United States. I really don't know what else to say at the moment. I was sure he would win, again I told you so, but still it's just such a totally amazing thing to be able to say that. One thing it does mean is the country really does have a health care plan for all Americans now. Also we can finally now say that the white male political establishment will never again be the same again, never. Never again will a party win the presidency with just white men, they will need a mix including those 'brown people' and women and poor that the current Republican Party so despises. Welcome to the 21^st Century.

This is something I have been thinking for some time. The Republican side is now for all practical purposes politically bankrupt. For the past four years their only plan was to deny President Obama a second term and they failed. There is no plan B for them. That realization was highlighted last night by an epic meltdown on Fox News and Donald Trump's tweeting for revolution, tweets that he quickly deleted when it was brought to his attention that what he was saying was legally treason. In his concession speech the candidate himself rose above that and showed that he probably is a good man and was brought down by his own party with their archaic ideas. Mitt Romney, Governor of Massachusetts, might have won yesterday.

So where are we now? Hard to tell, a cynic will expect nothing to change. The thing is a second term president is a totally different beast who really has nothing to worry about but his or her legacy. There are no more elections down the road for Obama. The Republicans will have to work with him now or watch their once great party slide into that proverbial dustbin of history. Perfect time for Steven Spielberg's Lincoln to be in theaters.

The American people proved something too. We might disagree on so many issues but don't ever say we cant't vote and don't think you can buy the Presidency of the United States. Karl Rove, the Koch brothers, and all the others could have just thrown all their millions of dollars into a dumpster for all the good it did them.

How historic was yesterday? I'll get back to you, that question has to wait until I have some coffee and ponder it some.

Observations on Election Day 2012

I'm not sure how much I'm going to do here tonight, I seem to be spending too much time on twitter, but I have one thing for you to keep an eye on. The Republican attempt to limit voting in Florida may have backfired as there are reports of record turnout in that state. People don't like being told they can't do something that they have every right to do. Florida covers two time zones so even though the polls close at 7 PM it will be 8 PM EST until we know anything from there. A win by President Obama in Florida would be huge because it might make Ohio, and any possible recount there, a little less crucial.

8:50PM - With pro-choice Independent Angus King replacing Republican Olympia Snowe in Maine and Democrat Chris Murphy easily defeating Republican Linda McMahon, who spent $77 million, in Connecticut it seems the Senate will stay safely Democratic. Still early though. The Connecticut seat was Joe Lieberman's who was Independent but leaned Republican so the King win is a good trade.

10:00PM - SENATOR Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin becomes the first openly gay member of the United States Senate. No matter what else happens tonight it has been a historic election.

11:12PM - With wins in Ohio and Iowa President Obama declared winner of the 2012 Presidential Election. I told you so ...

Observations on Election Day

Generation Vote

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Published by IVOTEnation
We ARE knowledgeable, we ARE passionate, and we WILL vote.
On November 6th, it's Our Turn.

Please Vote

When I first voted in the Village a few years ago I was a little uncomfortable, I was never quite sure why. Either it was a feeling I didn't belong there or the fact that after years of voting in a firehouse I was now voting in St. Anthony's Church, it just didn't seem right. I was up early today to vote before the lines got too long and I didn't have that feeling at all but I was uncomfortable for another reason. After a seemingly endless campaign it's finally over but I'm not sure a majority of Americans have any idea what it was about or just how important this election is. The winner of today will in all likelihood appoint more than one Supreme Court Justice, four of the current justices are 74 or more years old, and decide the direction of this country for generations to come. The addition of just one more conservative member to the court would completely tip the balance of the court and women, minorities, and the poor could say goodbye to any rights they once had.

So please go vote, it really is that important.

For the record I voted for President Obama and Senator Gillibrand.

Observations on Election Day 11.5

My brother sent me a text today saying he saw a billboard truck driving around in Pennsylvania that said "Be Ready To Show Your Photo When Voting." That just shows how ugly this election could become because the court ruled that you can be asked for the photo ID but you don't need to show one to vote. My brother and sis have come up with a little family protest and are going to be sure they don't have any approved ID when they vote. That is going to go over awesomely in our small conservative hometown. I really wish I could be there.

Donald Trump tweeted that you should be sure to vote (for Romney) because we need real change this time. Yes for real change cast your vote for the rich old white man, that always seems to work. I think the first thing I do after the election is remove the 'real Donald Trump' from any of my twitter lists he happens to be on. He doesn't even entertain me anymore but just shows how ignorant some Americans can still be. And while I'm at it I might have to purge my twitter of people that just complain but wont vote for this reason or that. I don't have the time or patience for the ignorance or poor spelling.

Something to keep in mind; in the key states of Colorado, Florida, and Ohio if the winning margin is less than .5 percent an automatic recount is triggered. The recounts are overseen by each state's Secretary of State who in each case just happens to be a Republican.

Considering its not yet election day it's probably early to picking a quote of the day but it will be hard to top this from Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. "If I hear anybody say it was because Romney wasn't conservative enough I’m going to go nuts. We’re not losing 95% of African Americans and two-thirds of Hispanics and voters under 30 because we’re not being hard-ass enough."

Polls open in Dixville Notch, New Hampshire at midnight and New York City at 6 AM.

late update - Tonight Jeff Greenfield of Yahoo! News made a heartfelt plea to undecided voters that I totally agree with, please just stay home.
"And after all this time, you’re still trying to make up your minds. The overwhelmingly likely reason is this: You have the reasoning power of a baked potato."

12:15AM - The long awaited Dixville Notch vote ended in a 5-5 tie. Get some sleep people, it's going to be one hell of a long day.

Observations on the 2012 Election

The election is almost here, proven by the fact that all my favorite people from Alex Wagner to Rachel Maddow to Krystal Ball are all working on a Sunday night. I suppose if I want to act like I know anything at all about politics I must offer my prediction and not wait till the votes are finally counted. Saying I told you so just wouldn't be as much fun if I didn't tell you so in the first place so here is my pick for winner of the 2012 Presidential election.

I'm that rare person who is sometimes accused of being overly cynical but at other times, times usually involving politics, accused of being overly optimistic. That being said I think Tuesday President Obama will win re-election and will win by a margin not as close as the national polls are showing.

You might tell me to look at those polls again but the thing is I don't think late national polls mean as much as they once did for one simple reason. By the time polls open Tuesday more than 29 million people will have already voted, a record any way you look at it. You can ignore that if you want but another problem with national polls is that they are national in the first place. In some southern states Romney is ahead by twenty or thirty points which throws off the national averages yet doesn't effect the final electoral count in the least, Mississippi still has six electoral votes and California has fifty-five in the only poll that matters.

Another reason I don't believe the polls involves women. President Obama is way ahead among single women, younger women, and single mothers yet Romney is ahead among married women of all ages. Are married women and single women that different? I really don't think so, unless they are voting for Romney just because their husbands are voting for Romney but I'm not going there, I don't have the time for ignorance on that level. Another possible reason, and slightly more understandable, is that they don't want their husbands to know who they are voting for.

As always I may be wrong, one way or the other we'll all know together in about forty-eight hours.

Sunday Observations 11.4

As I write this it is only 40 hours till election day ....

It has been one hell of a week so I don't have much this Sunday but I did have one thing I wanted to pass on. Congresswoman and Chair of the Democratic National Committee Debbie Wassermann Schultz is one of my favorite politicians for a number of reasons not the least of which is that she is a cancer survivor. I was catching up on some reading this week and read an article on her in the October issue of Vogue.

"Her seemingly inexorable rise was interrupted in 2007, when she found a lump in her breast while doing a self-exam in the shower. The cancer was at an early stage, but because of a history of cancer in her family, she was advised to undergo genetic testing for the BRCA mutation. "When the tests came back I realized there were too many people in the room for them to be negative," she says. With her BRCA2 mutation the odds were as high as 80 percent that she would eventually develop ovarian cancer, with a similarly high risk of her breast cancer recurring. She opted to have the most aggressive preventative treatment possible: surgical removal of her ovaries and a double mastectomy."

It goes on to describe how the hardest part for her was keeping the news from her kids until she knew she would be fine and from her colleagues because she didn't want any special treatment. During the 2008 presidential election she campaigned for now President Obama even as she underwent seven operations. I wish I could link to the full article, it's very good, but it isn't online anywhere. Wasserman Schultz is now one of the leading candidates to replace Nancy Pelosi as House Minority Leader if she steps down after the election.

Observations on Sandy 11.3

And than yesterday it happened, slowly lights began to spread across lower Manhattan. It started in the East Village where the sub-station had exploded during the storm than spread to Chelsea, SoHo, and finally the Village. You would have thought it was New Years Eve the way people were honking their car horns and yelling in the streets. The gallery is in the East Village and was in the first wave so that's where we spent the evening until we heard our building had power sometime around 11, than it was off to a now well lit and warm apartment. One would think a party was called for but after a small celebration at the gallery all I really wanted to do was crash in a warm bed.

It's nice to have our power back but as I write this there are still a million people without power in New York City alone. Some loose ends ...

I still haven't had much first hand news from Stone Harbor but I saw a headline that said Wildwood and Ocean City were the two hardest hit areas in Cape May County, New Jersey. One is to the south of Stone Harbor while the other is to the north. The storm gods must have smiled on Stone Harbor a bit.

Yesterday afternoon we could hear explosions in the city, under the circumstances not exactly what one wanted to hear. Turns out the NYPD was exploding what they called "damaged munitions" out in the harbor. A heads up would have been very nice, very nice indeed.

Some laughed when Goldman Sachs totally sandbagged their building before Sandy hit, the joke being that maybe they wouldn't take away the bags after the storm passed. Nobody laughed afterwards because their building was the only one in the Financial District not flooded and due to their massive generator it was also the only area that never went dark. The dark area immediately bordering Sachs' building became known as the dead zone.

I never thought much about who lived in our neighborhood a century or more ago until Halloween this year. Street after street of darkened apartment buildings and store fronts looking like one huge eerie haunted village. It wasn't hard to picture ghosts peaking out of the windows and zombies running across the wet streets. You don't believe in zombies? Just wait, if Willard wins Tuesday's election the zombie apocalypse will be upon us for sure.

One important lesson I learned during the blackout was that I can survive for a time on bottled water, those little Via Coffee packs by Starbucks, peanut butter, and Ritz crackers. Good to know.

Sandy

This is another video taken during Sandy that a friend sent me and I never got posted. You may have already seen it because I think its been everywhere but I thought I would post it anyway. It's a great vid but all I could think when I first saw it was 'what idiots,' I mean who rides bikes in a storm like that? This coming from the person who wanders around in storms with water almost up to my knees. For my dad's sake I should add I'm speaking hypothetically. I like the description that follows.

Hurricane Sandy on Bikes in NYC


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Published on Oct 31, 2012 by caseyneistat
Do not try this. also, i know i spelled incident wrong. but thank you for letting me know that over and over again. you see, in addition to the entire city being flooded we also lost electricity. editing video is tricky with no electricity. most of this video was edited at a starbucks in harlem, where there was electricity and some corners were cut. all that and i can't spell very well. i really did think incident was spelled
with two e's.

Observations on the 2012 Election 11.2

The election is only days, literally hours, away now but it really hasn't been on my mind much. I know, I must be ill, but somehow living in the dark zone seems to do that to you. Still I'm still breathing ....

Yesterday, in a totally surprise move, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg endorsed President Obama in Tuesday's election. Bloomberg had stated all summer long that he wouldn't endorse anybody, probably because he thinks the best person for the job is Michael Bloomberg. In all honesty sometimes, especially after the past few days, I think the same thing.

On his website Bloomberg, who is both an ex-Democrat and an ex-republican, said this; "One sees climate change as an urgent problem that threatens our planet; one does not. I want our president to place scientific evidence and risk management above electoral politics." Also important in his decision were education, marriage equality, and women's rights. Bloomberg added that if the Willard of old were running for president he would have voted for him, but he isn't, well not today, maybe he will be tomorrow.

Full Endorsement

Observations on Sandy 11.1

The 'Escape from New York' edition, not the old movie but the story in which the gods conspire to keep us in this cold darkened city. I woke up this morning and it was cold, not arctic clipper sub-freezing cold but hundred year old walls don't keep out the chill and it's 40° but feels a lot worse cold. Plan B call for our escape to my dad's for the weekend but the plan has run into some serious issues. The first being a total lack of gas in Foxy's tank. I know I should have filled it Sunday night but I had just gotten back from the Penn State game and I had other things to do. That and I'm not one to panic, I usually expect the worst but that doesn't mean I always prepare for it.

Buy gas you say, easier said than done. There is none to be had in lower Manhattan and even if there was there is no power to run the pumps. If I took my usual route through the Holland Tunnel I might have enough gas to get to Jersey, where gas lines are a half mile long, but the tunnel is still closed which means I either use the Lincoln Tunnel or George Washington Bridge. The GWB is only 15 miles away but would take an hour to get to in this mess, I don't have the gas. The Lincoln is half the distance but has a totally different issue.

Yesterday traffic in the city was brutal, everybody from the burbs trying to get to work without trains running (fools) and just parking their cars anywhere they felt like. Because of that Mayor Bloomberg announced a three passenger rule for the rest of the week, no car is allowed into Manhattan without at least three passengers. You might laugh but it is being enforced with checkpoints outside the city and if you don't have three or more in the car they send you down an off-ramp, supposedly waiting lines from Connecticut are miles long this morning. I probably could make it to the Lincoln and get gas in Jersey but I have to check on the line first, wouldn't due me any good to run out of gas and have to push Foxy back to the garage.

In other traffic news garages are full, buses are full and drive right by and also don't go south of 23^rd Street after dark, and even though the rule has been waved some cabbies refuse to take multiple fares. I can only think some of them didn't understand the memo because honestly sometimes they don't even understand where you want to go. For now the fastest form of transportation seems to be walking.

3:50PM - At the moment Camp Daddywood seems to be on hold until I can appropriate a few gallons of gas, maybe tomorrow or maybe not, I have no clue at this point.

Under the circumstances I think the city and mayor have done a totally awesome job here but there are a couple things I do disagree with. One is opening everything up so soon instead of waiting till maybe this weekend because it just created total gridlock. I spent half the day just getting uptown to charge some batteries and find some food. I'm sure there are perfectly wonderful financial reasons to do it but just get the brokerages going again if you must and let the rest of us die in peace. The other thing I disagree with is running the New York Marathon this Sunday. Hopefully I wont be here for it but I just don't get running it. The city doesn't even know where to put the people, hotels are all full and such. I know it's not something that can be postponed for a week, I understand that, so just cancel it.

Cell service in lower Manhattan is getting worse and worse, sometimes I get a connection and sometimes not. For good WiFi you have to get yourself above 39^th Street or squeeze into a library because somehow those wizards have managed to get their WiFi back on without power. The library people are quite proud of that fact and by the gods they have every right to be.

Earlier today Mayor Bloomberg endorsed President Obama today citing climate change as his main reason. Imagine that.

Sandy

I can't take credit for the video, and the gods know not the tune, but when I saw the video today this tune instinctively started playing in my head. The video is awesome on its own but it has no sound so I thought I needed to add some. What you need to do is click the music link, it will open in a new window, wait for the tune to start, and than come back and click the video. Or you can just watch the video, after 48 hours without power I really don't care what you do, they do seem made for each other though. You might want to watch the video full screen too because it's just awesome that way. Sadly beautiful.

video link
music link

Observations on Sandy 10.31

ghost on flickr

With power in the Village out for at best a few more days, and the temperature plunging into the forties, it just may be time to activate plan B. I hope my dad is ready for company because ready or not it's going to be there soon, probably for the weekend.

The photo above is one I took of a friend of mine during the storm. We were down near Hudson River Park and the visibility was atrocious so I really didn't think I had any shots worth keeping, including this one. But the more I looked at this the more I liked it, sometimes bad visibility is actually a good thing, the lesson being don't delete your shots on first impression.

The flooding in the subways is so bad that something called the "unwatering team" from the Army Corps of Engineers is in the city, I have no idea what it is but I like the name and I wouldn't mind having one of their jackets as a souvenir. Seriously, one of those blue jackets with "Unwatering Team" across the back in big yellow letters. No?

I haven't been online much because cell phone service is getting increasingly spotty around here. I think one of the reasons for that spottiness is mental; Monday was the day of the apocalypse, Tuesday was the day to look around and take a deep breath, and today was the day to get back into it (Ash started living on her cell again), whatever your it happens to be. Another reason is purely technical, the backup batteries on the cell phone towers are going dead and have no way to recharge. The truly ironic thing is that the POTS lines are working just fine, not that anybody has them anymore.

I finally had some news about Stone Harbor today. My dad has had no info and with the spotty cell service I couldn't find anything out myself. What video I had seen from the shore so sad, places I had been totally devastated. Earlier today I had an email from a friend who had heard an interview from Stone Harbor on NPR and said it sounded good. That was so awesome to hear and I hope I thanked her for emailing me.

Finally a fashion note, I've been getting some rave compliments on my Timberland hiking boots, mountain holdovers that have come in damn handy lately.

Happy Halloween

Observations on Sandy 10.30

Thought I would throw up a quick post before I wander out to see what's happening. Just shy of two million without power in the city and as of now I have no idea for how long. I have double batteries for everything so I should be okay for now and I can always go uptown for a charge but than I'm sure everybody has the same idea. The apartment smells of wet clothes and something electrical. The latter isn't anything here, I think it's coming from the subways, probably everything shorting out overnight. As with the power there isn't any timetable for when the subways will be back, than again I suppose there can't be without knowing about the power first. It's either a vicious cycle or I'm still mentally wiped, hard to tell at this point.

I guess I'm just an adrenalin junkie because I need to get out and look around while the VQs seem to be perfectly happy watching a movie and contemplating empty wine bottles, probably mentally calculating how many they have left and how long they will last. As for myself, I went up on the roof when i woke up and what stuck me was just how quiet it is, unreal how a city this size can be so quiet.

12:45PM - Surviving so far, actually I'll be happy as long as I have batteries and a 4G connection and those are a few things I do have. Well I have batteries and Ash has the 4G but she doesn't need it to drink wine and watch movies so I claimed it. Latest is the power could be out here for two or three days but that is subject to change. All the subway tunnels in lower Manhattan are flooded and it's a total mess in the streets, trash, trees, leaves blowing everywhere. Haven't heard anything about Stone Harbor yet, my dad said it could be days till anybody gets in there too. I was looking at photos I took yesterday and so far I'm unimpressed, visibility was terrible, it was more like a blizzard than like Irene. As always we shall see, maybe with some work. Now I'm off to check on Foxy.

5:40PM - The sun returned to the Village an hour or so ago, briefly, but it was there, I know it was, I saw it, maybe. Anyway, when I checked on Foxy I found the family had sustained an injury, Foxy has a massive scratch on her hood. The garage manager said some branches had blown in and one landed right on her. Pisses me off cause that may be the biggest scratch in all the time I own her. The latest on the power situation is four days, via Reuters not ConEd, but we have come up with a wonderful plan in the event it drags on, it seems my dad is going to get some company. There is nothing much to keep us here without power so some outlet shopping may be called for plus I can get an estimate on a paint job while I'm there because I am not about to pay what they would gouge me up here.

Geek notes, I know it's probably something not worth mentioning but don't forget you can always use your cell phone as a Wi-Fi hotspot if you lose your Wi-Fi. Also there are some decently priced battery packs out there that can run your comp for up to 6 hours, I just grabbed a Duracell model today.

Political note, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie was asked on Fox News whether Willard would tour damage in his state and said; "I have no idea, nor am I the least bit concerned or interested. I have a job to do in New Jersey that is much bigger than presidential politics. If you think right now I give a damn about president politics, then you don’t know me." So some Republicans still really are relatively sane, too bad their party despises them for it. Today was probably the day Christie lost the 2016 Republican nomination for president.