I’m basically just following my poliwonks list on Twitter today while considering switching away from the repetitive News24 coverage and getting in some Netflix. Since many of the tweeps on my list are Aussie or otherwise non-USAn I’m at least getting to see some other world news of the day beyond #USADecides. How about you?
It is rather delicious to see some of the ignorance on display amongst the Trolls for Trump crowd though:
One of the things upsetting the #MAGA crowd is “undercover political operative” Michael O’Keefe making a fuss about the longstanding, traditional #GOTV activities by both partisan and non-partisan volunteers such as driving buses to transport people who otherwise couldn’t get to the polls:
Mind you, if they had adequate polling stations for every district in every state most of those buses wouldn’t be necessary. The appalling logistical shortcomings of the US polling station setups (and I know that in some areas that is a deliberate partisan “feature” of the system rather than a bug) still gobsmacks me after all these years of watching it pan out yet again.
What news story/commentary/analysis has grabbed your attention lately?
As usual for media circus threads, please share your bouquets and brickbats for particular items in the mass media, or highlight cogent analysis or pointed twitterstorms etc in new media. Discuss any current sociopolitical issue (the theme of each edition is merely for discussion-starter purposes – all current news items are on topic!).
Categories: media, parties and factions, Politics
Media Circus: Parliament Resumes Edition 
Media Circus: USA Convention Season Edition 
96th Down Under Feminists Carnival 
Hoyden About Town 
Since I seriously cut back on drinking this year, it only took two shots to anaesthetise my shock last night. Polls didn’t reflect the true voting intentions of white male voters without college degrees, but it was also wealthier & better educated whites who voted for Trump according to exit polls. Meanwhile states such as Wisconsin that Trump won by 27,000 votes recently disenfranchised 300,000 voters.
Can’t happen here-ism. Except it just did.
In retrospect it seems that Trump paid attention to the rhetoric that worked in the Brexit campaign and doubled-down on it.
Comment text deleted by moderator 2016-12-26, as this commentor has seen fit to email me a trolling "War On Christmas" email a few days ago because there was no thread currently open for comments. This sort of vigor in aggravating/vexatious comment reminds me of certain persons who have previously been banned from commenting here, so bye-bye "John Hall". Other comments you left recently have been deleted, your commenting privileges have been revoked.Being the winner of the popular vote means a lot more in a representative democracy such as the USA that is not run along Westminster lines, and where one can see so clearly how the Electoral College distorts the will of the voters. That’s before all the gerrymandering and voter suppression is taken into account, which has surgically targeted working-class minority voters since the gutting of the Voters Rights Act, and those working-class minority voters turned out in record numbers for Hillary wherever they had not yet been struck off the rolls. No such voter suppression took place in Australia in ’98 (although there was a fair bit of gerrymandering).