we could all use a Good News Tuesday by Jeff Tiedrich

(More good news, after Scottie’s video, as to the early voting news! Blue language alert, so no reading until you’re not somewhere the f-word is not acceptable. Else scroll just a bit, because of course the first sentence is joyous and contains the f-word. Also, italicized script beneath the suns are by the author, Jeff Tiedrich.)

Kamala’s up and Donny’s down Read on Substack

LA LA LA LA no reading here if you’re at work,

LA LA LA LA no reading here if you’re at work.

LA LA LA LA no reading here if you’re at work,

LA LA LA LA no reading here if you’re at work!

🌞 🌞 🌞 🌞 🌞

Okay. Next line,

fuck this fucking nail-biter of an election. good news is out there — let’s have a look.

undecideds are deciding — and they’re breaking towards Kamala Harris.

A majority of voters (80%) say they made up their minds about which candidate to support over a month ago, while 11% made up their minds in the last month, 6% made up their minds in the past week, and 3% still have not made up their mind. 

“Voters who made their decision on who to support over a month ago break for Trump, 52% to 48%, while voters who made up their mind in the last month or week break for Harris, 60% to 36%,” Kimball said. “The three percent of voters who said they could still change their mind currently favor Harris, 48% to 43%.”

I know, right? who could be undecided in a race that’s basically everyone gets a puppy vs diarrhea forever?

but there are huge swaths of votes who just don’t pay attention to politics until the very last minute — and now that they’re finally tuned in, it’s dawning on them that wait, one of the candidates is ass-spraying mayhem? oh, fuck that shit.

think back to 1980. polling showed the race was a dead heat — but in the final weeks, just about every goddamned undecided broke towards Reagan, and what looked like a nail-biter ended up being a blowout.

this year, however, it looks like the fence-sitters are doing the right thing.


hang on, you need some more good polling news? fine, be that way.

Kamala leads dong-obsessed fry chef Donny Convict in favorability by 11 percentage points, while 58% of registered voters fucking loathe Donny.

The nationwide poll, conducted last week, found Harris’s favorability to be significantly higher than Trump’s, with 51 percent of registered voters viewing Harris as a favorable candidate compared to just 40 percent who felt the same about Trump. Independent voters, notably, were equally split on their opinions of Harris, while the majority of independent voters—58 percent—felt negatively about Trump.

don’t forget that this is going to be the first post-Roe national election.

But perhaps no Democratic stance resonated more with voters than abortion, which saw Harris lead Trump by 23 percent.

reproductive rights continues to be a losing issue for Donny, and he’s still bragging about being the guy who shitcanned Roe.


Donny is being abandoned by his base.

white folks who never went to college have long been Donny’s most hardcore cultists — but this year they seem to be suffering from Dear Leader Fatigue.

here’s CNN’s Harry Enten to explain.

“it’s been a key demographic for him — his base. and this is what’s so interesting … in fact, it’s moving away from him. this is Trump’s margin with non-college white voters. this group is not moving towards him. it’s moving slightly away. go back eight years ago, he won it by 33. you go back four years ago, he won it be 31. now we see he’s only up by 27.”

Donny’s losing the people who have been filing out of his hate-rallies early.

after a half hour of listening to him drone on about sharks and batteries and Hannibal Lecter wants to have you for dinner, they turn to their spouse and say Lurleen, let’s go home and see if NASCAR’s on TV.

plus-27 is still a fuck-ton of support from Donny’s base — but in a close election, he can’t afford to lose the additional 6% who voted for him in 2016. these people may never vote for Komrade Kamala, but enough of them may stay home on election day to make a difference.

we’re all worried about post-election fuckery, but let’s not forget that nearly all swing state governors are Democrats.

here’s WaPo’s Jennifer Rubin to talk us all down off that ledge.

Constitutional expert Richard H. Pildes reminded us that scenarios involving mischief by governors are unlikely. “In nearly all the swing states, the governors are Democrats, who are hardly going to be receptive to any entreaties by Trump,” he wrote. Even in Georgia, Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, both Republicans, “have done as much under fire as any political officials to prove their commitment to certifying an accurate, lawful count.” And although a few local boards might refuse to certify, there are remedies in court. (A Georgia court recently rejected the notion that officials could refuse to certify results.)

and, on that note, some Arizona dipshit who thought she could fuck around with certifying her state’s 2022 senate race is now learning that finding out truly sucks.

An Arizona County elections official has agreed to plead guilty after she refused to certify the 2022 election in which Kari Lake lost to Katie Hobbs.

The Washington Post reported Monday that Peggy Judd, who helps lead Cochise County southeast of Phoenix, was indicted last year for allegedly “flouting the state’s deadlines” for the 2022 election certification.

actions, consequences. it’s nice when things work out in that order.


Jill Stein might be hurting Donny this year.

perpetual Kremlin dinner guest Jill Stein is like some fucked-up asteroid. every four years, her weird-ass orbit swings her too close to the Earth, and she ends up dicking with the tides and screwing with our electoral magnetic field.

Jilly’s back, but a new poll apparently indicates that this year, she’s taking away votes from Donny.

A new poll suggests that Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein is drawing more voters from former President Donald Trump than from Vice President Kamala Harris.

The poll shows Harris leading Trump 49 percent to 47 percent. However, with Stein in the race, Trump’s support dips to 46 percent, while Harris maintains her 49 percent backing, suggesting that Stein draws more support from Trump than from Harris. Though Stein’s voter base remains relatively small, at about 1 percent, it could prove crucial in an election that hinges on tight margins in swing states.


the five innocent and exonerated black men known as the Central Park Five are suing Donny for defamation.

The five men who make up the Central Park Five and now call themselves the Exonerated Five have filed a defamation lawsuit against Donald Trump over his remarks during the presidential debate last month.

During the debate he said: “They admitted — they said, they pled guilty. And I said, well, if they pled guilty they badly hurt a person, killed a person ultimately. And if they pled guilty — then they pled we’re not guilty.”

At the time of the trials, each had pleaded not guilty, and the victim of the attack survived.

ok, this one is not election-related news — but it still makes me laugh to see Donny get served another big, fat slice of Justice Pie.


Donny continues to be an increasingly-deteriorating imbecile.

“it’s as big a water— y’know, it’s as big a water-storm, they say, as we’ve ever seen.”

‘water-storm?’ the word is hurricane, you decompensating dotard.

Alexa, what’s aphasia?

Aphasia is a language disorder that affects how you communicate. It’s caused by damage in the area of the brain that controls language expression and comprehension. Aphasia leaves a person unable to communicate effectively with others.

Alexa, can aphasia be a sign of dementia?

what the fuck do you think?


so, there’s lots of good news all around — but as a commenter under yesterday’s post said, “we still have to fight like we’re ten points down.” that person is exactly right. we don’t have the luxury of complacency. that’s how we fucked it up in 2016 — we all thought Hillary’s got this in the bag, and so we blew up the balloons and popped the champagne way too early, and too many of us decided it was totes okay stay home on election day. after all, Nate Silver promised us that Hillary had a 99% chance of victory, right? but polls don’t vote — people do.

this year, we all understand the assignment.

Kamala understands the assignment, too. unlike the email lady in 2016, Kamala and Uncle Tim are hitting all the swing states. meanwhile, Donny Convict is squandering his time doing vanity rallies in places like California and New York — states he hasn’t a snowball’s chance of winning.

14 days to the election. if we vote, we win.

Here’s some news worth noting:

NBC apologizes for the Don becoming our problem, AI audiobooks; well, are all books just AI now? and an orange hair in your fries. Enjoy! The AI one is long; it is of interest, though, and is important to authors and readers, and not only romance authors and readers. A great deal of work & lots of info went into the article.

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We Created a Monster: Trump Was a TV Fantasy Invented for ‘The Apprentice’

NBC’s former chief marketer regrets selling an illusion that has had dire consequences for the world.

By John D. Miller | ContributorOct. 16, 2024, at 5:35 p.m.

I want to apologize to America. I helped create a monster.

For nearly 25 years, I led marketing at NBC and NBCUniversal. I led the team that marketed “The Apprentice,” the reality show that made Donald Trump a household name outside of New York City, where he was better known for overextending his empire and appearing in celebrity gossip columns.

To sell the show, we created the narrative that Trump was a super-successful businessman who lived like royalty. That was the conceit of the show. At the very least, it was a substantial exaggeration; at worst, it created a false narrative by making him seem more successful than he was.

In fact, Trump declared business bankruptcy four times before the show went into production, and at least twice more during his 14 seasons hosting. The imposing board room where he famously fired contestants was a set, because his real boardroom was too old and shabby for TV.

Trump may have been the perfect choice to be the boss of this show, because more successful CEOs were too busy to get involved in reality TV and didn’t want to hire random game show winners onto their executive teams. Trump had no such concerns. He had plenty of time for filming, he loved the attention and it painted a positive picture of him that wasn’t true. (snip-MORE. And US News and World Report leans right, even. It’s a fine read.)

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AI Audiobook Narrators in OverDrive and the Issue of Library AI Circulation Policy

by SB Sarah · Oct 21, 2024 at 6:00 am

OverDrive is the company that provides a lot of digital content to libraries. If you’ve borrowed an ebook or an audiobook in Libby,  or read a magazine in Kanopy, that’s OverDrive.

It seems there is some AI weirdness with audiobook narration on OverDrive, and the narrator is only part of the story.

On Monday, October 14, librarian Robin Bradford posted on Bluesky that she’d purchased an AI audiobook for her library system and she was really upset about it: (the Bluesky post is embedded; I can’t get it here.)

Over 100 titles by AI “narrators” were in their catalog, and Robin was having trouble finding indications that the authors themselves are real?

Interesting. (snip-MORE)

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This is fun, also full of info.

An orange hair in your fries

It’s Monday. There are 15 days until Election Day. Elon tries to buy America, the Central Park Five sue Trump and America loves Harris-Walz.

ADAM PARKHOMENKO AND SAM YOUNGMAN OCT 21, 2024

Be advised: This newsletter uses profanity like it just found a gross orange hair in its fries. 

Note: Sexy Patriots! It’s so great to see you. We missed you yesterday, but it’s probably best that we took the day off. Otherwise we were gonna do one of our fake interviews with one of Arnold Palmer’s testicles (it was the left one), and nobody needs that. But can you really judge us for being a little goddamn loopy these days? This shit is intense! And dumb. So so dumb…

What the effing fuck?! Look, there are a million things that bothered us about Trump’s cheap stunt yesterday — the credulity of the media, his ducking questions about raising the minimum wage, the fact that his man boobs clearly dipped into the french fry grease — but we’re oddly stuck on this notion that Trump voters are so goddamn dumb that they had to practice going through the drive-thru…

Is this it? Am I doing it right?

No, Brenda. You’re talking to a trash can. Try talking to the box with the speaker. 

This is so confusing! Am I doing it right?

No, Brenda. You just stuck a chicken McNugget in your ass.

Oh no! I’m going to starve to death! 

Anyway, America, be smart and be healthy and just say no to Trump and McDonald’s. Y’all have a blessed day.

Note two: How’s everybody holding up? Yeah, we’re pretty freaked the eff out and fired the eff up too. It’s a weird and exhausting combination of emotions. The good news is we got one of those polls you should admire. It’s been a while since we’ve seen some high-quality polling, and today we got some swing state polls from the Washington Post that show Kamala Harris winning a tight race after taking Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. The poll has us tied in Nevada and losing in Arizona and North Carolina. Let’s run the table and end this fucker. More: Washington Post

Note three: Yikes! The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget says that Trump’s proposals would drain Social Security in six years. It’s kind of amazing how all of Trump’s plans would be totally destructive. There aren’t even any that are like neutral. They’re just all dumb and dangerous. More: CRFB

Note four: VP Harris’ fundraising will be studied for years because she has just crushed it. Politico reported over the weekend that the VP outraised Trump 3-to-1 in September. Dayum. She brought in $222 million for the month while Trump limped to the barn with $63 million for the month. Hers is bigger. More: Politico (snip-MORE)

Agreed!

Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for October 20, 2024

Pearls Before Swine Comic Strip for October 20, 2024

https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2024/10/20

Better News

Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for October 11, 2024

Pearls Before Swine Comic Strip for October 11, 2024

https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2024/10/11

I bet Da Vinci had this same problem with cats. by Jenny Lawson (thebloggess)

(Quick, off topic, except for cats, distraction. Medieval art is part of this post, NSFW. But not gratuitous.)

Jenny Lawson (thebloggess) Oct 07, 2024 Read on Substack

This week I started a drawing that was all vines and flowers and it was fine, but a little boring and so I decided to add Hunter S. Thomcat to it because he’s always trying to add himself to drawings anyway. Exhibit A:

And it was a very good idea in theory but somehow it turned…weird? And I kept trying to fix it and it kept getting worse and I would like this to be one of those stories that ends with, “AND EMBRACING THE FLAWS MADE IT EVEN BETTER” but that did not happen because, well…look:

Why does he look vaguely human?

Anyway, I gave up and started another drawing but I’m not finished with it yet and I was feeling a little disappointed in my myself until I saw this collection of medieval cat paintings:

Turns out cats have been fucking up art for centuries because they are enigmatic and mysterious:

And comparatively, my cat drawing became slightly less unnerving.

It important to remember…they’re not all going to be winners.

Or…you know…always make sense?

But since I don’t have a finished drawing I do have this for you…a drawing a did awhile ago that I added color to before I realized that I’m actually not that great at color combinations.

It’s no medieval cat eating a dismembered penis, but then again…what is?

Hugs, sweet friends.

~me

I had to!

Free Range by Bill Whitehead for September 29, 2024

Free Range Comic Strip for September 29, 2024

https://www.gocomics.com/freerange/2024/09/29

Live From New York!

I Love Leslie Jones

I watched this late in the evening yesterday (it was a hard day,) and it was just what I needed while I was watching. I hope everyone enjoys it, too.

BAD BAD – a Parody | Freedom Toast & Cinebot Video

So I did a thing a few days ago,

I do it now and then, hadn’t in a while but really liked one so I did it but didn’t turn it in. (It’ll become clear.) Then I got a bunch of GOTV postcards done, and there it was, at the bottom of that stack. It so happened that another came along that I really liked (this one below,) so I added it, then submitted it. It got posted today, and even though it’s really not at all good, it’s funny, it was fun, and I thought I’d share. I’ve sent in several over the past year; dotted amongst the posts. The best one was of two dogs discussing a thing; a similar scenario as below, but not exactly the same. And I might try this one, too. I can draw fish. Anyway, here is this.

Cartoon Eight Nine Four by Josh Lieb

Limits Read on Substack

Underwater. A group of fish laugh at a wild-eyed fish, who glares at them with impotent rage. One of the laughing fish says: “Go ahead, Throckmorton! Tell us more about the ‘land’ outside the pond.”

First they laugh at you…

It’s Two-for-Tuesday, and that means for the second day in a row, we’re graced with an Ali Redford original. Today she tries her hand at eight nine one:

A SURPRISE IN HELL

It’s simple, it’s bleak — I love it. And I love what a great contrast it makes with Margreet de Heer’s version from last week. Margreet, of course, is one of the world’s great cartoonists; Ali is a writer like me (though she does draw better than I do). It’s fascinating to see what the same cartoon looks like filtered through two very different brains.

Margreet’s doomed souls strained helplessly to pull the lever. Ali’s sufferer merely looks at it, puzzled. It’s the same set-up, the same pieces of furniture, but the joke is very different. This is the beauty of collaboration.

Thanks, Ali (and Margreet again). It’s great.

The rest of you — get off your duffs (or, more accurately, on them) and draw. (snip)

So now you know I thing I do when I’m not writing postcards or congresscritters, or cleaning house, or walking Corky, and so forth. Once in a while, I “draw”, sometimes even manage to really draw a cartoon based on a professional writer’s scene.