The Democrats Will Also Shit Themselves.

[Brantly B.]

The more they go on about what Barack Obama did today the more it becomes apparent that they have nothing good on Joe.

[Mongrel]

Well, uh, Joe's done lots of shit and everyone kind of threw everything Joe did at Joe and no one cared, so

Though there's an interesting mystery there. Joe's doing (some) shit that Obama should have been doing the first time around, even if it is only in response to the pandemic. Given Joe's a semi-vegetable and these are measures are far more generous than Joe was ever observed as being politically for most of his career, who's behind that? (It could still be Joe himself... maybe)

It would be fascinating and somewhat redemptive if it turned out that under the hood this really was Obama's 3rd term.

[Mongrel]

Anyway regardless of the politics or the optics, apparently 74 people on Martha's Vineyard have tested positive for Covid in the wake of the Masque Of The Red Death birthday bash, which is the most in several months.

Could be just the 4th wave being the 4th wave, but, y'know I'm inclined to believe the giant, obvious superspreader event MAY have had something to do with it.

[Yoji]

Is this the right place to talk about the recall election in California? Because holy cow there's a lot of candidates, so lots of potential to split the vote. Also doesn't help that the first democrat on the list is a vaccine skeptic.

[Mongrel]

a vaccine skeptic.

No need to be polite. It's okay to just go ahead and call them "a subhuman piece of anti-vax trash". Or "A fucking murderer" even.

[Upthorn]

The safest bet is just to vote for keeping Newsom in office. I have my share of issues with him, but all the replacement candidates are varying degrees of worse.

[Friday]

Newsom is problematic, but let's be clear: trolling for recalls is something the GOP does in California because they know their best best (and probably only chance at this point) to get a GOP Governor is by recall followed by special election.

If you have problems with Newsom, wait until a normal election and vote then. Under no circumstances play into the GOP's plan by voting to recall.

[Yoji]

Okay, I should've made it clear that I'm voting NO on recall since nobody's articulated why he should be recalled beyond "ratfucking GOP hissy fit." Doesn't help that I hear one of the GOP frontrunners is a Trump wannabe who... um, I think he said wanted to put the minimum wage at $0/h?

If memory serves, I wasn't too crazy for Newsom and didn't vote for him in the primary, but you gotta dance with the democrat ya brung, what with the republicans being a death cult more than a political party. And if there's someone better, this isn't really the time or place.

In the meantime, I need to figure out a backup in case California hammers its own dick and votes YES on recall. That's not looking easy, what with 7 declared democrats and 9 oddballs.

[Thad]

If you have problems with Newsom, wait until a normal election and vote then. Under no circumstances play into the GOP's plan by voting to recall.

Yeah, Tempe had a recall election for our mayor, Neil Giuliano, back in '01. He was a Republican, but it was Republicans who were trying to recall him, and they were trying to recall him because he's gay. They didn't come right out and say that, of course; they made up a bunch of justifications about how he'd mismanaged the budget. But they were trying to recall him because he's gay and everybody knew it.

I didn't actually get to vote in that election -- I was at NAU at the time, and I got my ballot too late to mail it in -- but I would have voted to retain him. I believe what I said at the time was "I have my disagreements with what he's done as mayor, but that's not what this is really about." Tempe voters seem to have agreed with me, as the recall failed. (Though I don't know what kind of turnout that election saw -- the date was September 11, 2001, and I imagine a lot of people were otherwise occupied that day.)

[Friday]

Yeah I have no idea who to vote for if the recall goes through. I'll cross that particular bridge when California hammers its own dick to it.

[Thad]

It's the same ballot. First question is "should Newsom be recalled?", second question is "in the event that Newsom is recalled, who should replace him?" So you're still going to want to know who your second choice is even if California doesn't hammer its own dick to it.

[Friday]

oh god damn it.

[Upthorn]

Oh. Ohhh. Goddammit.

[Mongrel]

So, they're trying to get a free poll out of this? Ha.

[Friday]

Paffrath, a 29-year-old who has made millions of dollars on his "Meet Kevin" YouTube channel, is leading in a recent poll from SurveyUSA among respondents planning to vote in next month's recall election of Gov. Gavin Newsom.

The survey shows Paffrath leading 46 candidates, including conservative talk show host Larry Elder and former Olympic athlete Caitlyn Jenner, with 27% of the vote.

He also plans to make COVID-19 safety measures optional and says he will clear the homeless population from the streets within his first 60 days in office.

60 days huh

so just like, flamethrowers?

"Just grind 'em up, melt em' down, and feed them intravenously to the living," Paffrath was quoted as saying. "I saw the Matrix when I was 10 and when Morpheus said that line, I got shivers. I immediately thought 'why not?' It seems so obvious. Newsom is a fool for not taking advantage of this obvious and efficient tactic. Is that the kind of leader you want for your kids? One who won't melt down anything that you don't like and feed it to them?"

[Thad]

...imagine having parents named Kilpatrick who decided to name you Patrick. I feel like that would do things to a kid.

[Thad]

This person is (allegedly) a real candidate.

[Friday]

Doing research on these fucklugs is making my head hurt.

And I'm tossing out every GOP candidate just automatically.

Meanwhile, the Democrats are telling everyone to not vote for any candidate, because they haven't endorsed anyone. So if the recall DOES go through, there will be no voting focus from the dems, which will almost certainly result in a GOP victory.

[Upthorn]

I went through all the D candidates and did a quick sieve: throwing out all the candidates who either say that we should immediately remove all covid restrictions, or say nothing about covid whatsoever[strike], leaves three:
John Drake, Jacqueline McGowan, and Joel Ventresca

Of these, I agree most with

• McGowan on Covid
• Drake on everything else
• Ventresca on the chance of people actually voting for him.

So, because the CA recall election process is fucked, my official endorsement is "No" "Joel Ventresca"[/strike]

Edit: I somehow missed that Kevin Paffrath's covid policies aren't a complete disgrace (though not as good as Newsom's) and he's #2 in the polls.
Probably a better use of a vote than any of the other three. But I'm still hoping like hell that the recall fails.

[Yoji]

I'm already getting anxious about this Paffrath character. Boisterous real estate bozo whose mouth seems to write checks his butt can't cash? GEE WHERE HAVE I HEARD THIS STORY BEFORE

And a talk about Mando while we're at it: A quick look at a Q&A on the San Diego Tribune is... well...

Vaccines should be mandated on all foreigners coming into the United States. As long as infected foreigners keep coming into California, this pandemic will not end for us. Americans are not the problem or the root cause of COVID-19. The virus originated in China, the Delta variant originated in India, the Lambda variant originated in Peru, none originated in the United States so we need to stop blaming Americans who have not been vaccinated and blame the source of this pandemic -- China.

Mmmhm, right. Democrat, you say? Very interesting. Now please excuse yourself and go fuck a rock.