“Strategy of Tension” week almost over at the factory for Conspiracy-Theory Machines

By ann summers

They’ve broken out of mothballs or scraped the bottom of the barrel of favorite CTs, only this time it seems the FBI has decided, in their best J. Edgar finery, that tension at the polls needs a boost, or at least to be squeezed by a bustier.

Vince Foster has returned from the grave via an FOIA request that delivers nothing new, except that the FBI allowed itself to be another tension-producing political instrument of the RWNJs.

But more interesting is a recent story about Richard Spencer, that major theoretician of the alt-right frogmen whose blather has helped the fiction of Bubba’s bastard, among other pieces of disinformation in the election run-up.

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As with the giant orange pustule, apparently elections exist to promote indy film and media projects in the advancement of a rump conservatism.

Such a conservatism is at best a loose collection of ideas about a naive reactionary folk theory that can rationalize ideology based on skin color or some facile ancestral genealogy. This is okay just as long as one doesn’t look at real DNA details, because then one would actually have to deal with how racial purity standards transcend lookism.

Posted in 2016 Election, Conservatives, Neoconservatives, Neoliberals, Polls, Propaganda, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | 6 Comments

ON THIS DAY: November 4, 2016

November 4th is

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King Tut Day *

National Candy Day

Fountain Pen Day

Punkin Chunkin Opening Day *

Sausage and Kraut Day

Use Your Common Sense Day *

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MORE! Mozart, Nellie Tayloe Ross and Will Rogers, click

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Word Cloud: NOVEMBER

Word Cloud Resized

by NONA BLYTH CLOUD

November. Depending on where you live, it’s still autumn, or already winter, or spring-into-summer if you’re south of the equator. Here in America, we’re going off Daylight Savings Time this weekend, and it will get dark by five o’clock in the afternoon again.

November is a time of transition no matter where you live. So I’ve rounded up some poets with very different views of the month to take us into the change.

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Emily Dickinson spent her whole life on the edge of things, in a very small corner of the world, but she was a peerless observer of every shift and variation around her.

Nature, Poem 49: November

By Emily Dickinsonswirling-leaves

Besides the autumn poets sing,
A few prosaic days
A little this side of the snow
And that side of the haze.

A few incisive mornings,
A few ascetic eyes, —
Gone Mr. Bryant’s golden-rod,
And Mr. Thomson’s sheaves.

swirling-leaves

Still is the bustle in the brook,
Sealed are the spicy valves;
Mesmeric fingers softly touch
The eyes of many elves.

Perhaps a squirrel may remain,
My sentiments to share.
Grant me, O Lord, a sunny mind,
Thy windy will to bear!

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ON THIS DAY: November 3, 2016

November 3rd is

jellyfish-day

Cliché Day

Housewife’s Day

Jellyfish Day

Men Make Dinner Day *

Project Management Day *

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MORE! Leonardo DaVinci,  John Barry and  Carol Moseley-Braun, click

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ON THIS DAY: November 2, 2016

November 2nd is

stress-awareness-advice

Deviled Egg Day

Traffic Directors Day *

Stress Awareness Day *

International Day to End Impunity
for Crimes against Journalists *

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MORE! Peter the Great, Moa Martinson and Harry Truman, click

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ON THIS DAY: November 1, 2016

November 1st is

National Author’s Day *

National Bison Day *native-american-heritage-month

Extra Mile Day *

Native American Heritage Month *

Prime Meridian Day *

World Vegan Day *

Zero Tasking Day *

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MORE!  Michelangelo, William Shakespeare and Annie Oakley, click 

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ON THIS DAY: October 31, 2016


October 31st is

Halloweenbooks-for-treats-day-logo

Books for Treats Day *

National Caramel Apple Day

Day of the Seven Billion *

National Magic Day *

National UNICEF Day *

Nevada Day *

Reformation Day *

U.N. World Cities Day

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MORE! Martin Luther, Juliette Gordon Low and Chiang Kai-Shek, click

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TCS: Mad Englishman Near the Midnight Sun – Part 13

Good Morning!

Coffee cup

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Welcome to The Coffee Shop, just for you early risers on Monday mornings. This is an Open Thread forum, so if you have an off-topic opinion burning a hole in your brainpan, feel free to add a comment.
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male-chinook-salmon-spawning-colors

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Appropriately, our 13th episode falls on Halloween, and it is a bit gruesome. Bertie meets up with a dedicated band of guys trying to save the Chinook Salmon from extinction, but their methods are not for the faint of heart. So be warned – blood ahead! 

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Posted in Music, Photography, Short Video, The Coffee Shop | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

ON THIS DAY: October 30, 2016

October 30th is

preflight-checklist-g-raphic-by-brent-swain

National Candy Corn Day

Checklist Day *

Create a Great Funeral Day *

Haunted Refrigerator Night *

World Audio Drama Day *

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MORE! Cecil Rhodes, Martha Grahame and War of the Worlds, click

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Vote-trading is nothing like spouse swapping in key swing states

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By ann summers

There are some thought experiments that arise each election cycle and the regularity of the question does raise other useful questions that would take far too long to resolve. For example, the issue of why an Electoral College persists even as majoritarian popular votes in a national General Election are less controversial in the main.

To be clear, I try to respect democratic reciprocity, but it seems also clear in an age of $7,000 Wrigley Field tickets for the World Series, that rather than discussing the getting rid of the electoral college (towards more direct democracy), one might be better served in subverting it.

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the last gasp of Trumpism may rely on “faithless electors” en.wikipedia.org/…
  • I have in my hand a California absentee ballot. I might be willing to swap votes before I decide to finally send it in next week to arrive in time to be counted, but…
  • I now probably won’t, simply because I don’t know any one I trust in any of the swing states who are willing to swap votes… but there are certainly other and better reasons.

That being said, it is a useful thought experiment if only to consider both the problem of commodifying one’s franchise and the possibility that democracy might be better served.

Some contingencies and basic premises for an exchange of one’s political vote in the 2016 General Election namely: Vote Trading, or the transfer/change of one vote by one individual with another individual as a single exchange. Continue reading

Posted in 2016 Election, California, Media, Ohio, Politics, Presidential Elections, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Vote-trading is nothing like spouse swapping in key swing states