(This was going to be a “taking tonight off” post, but I had to record this information somewhere.)
(Also, I was arguing with my wife, who discovered this information, about whether this was “our” Bill Stodden, until seeing that look on his face in this picture. Yeah, that’s him.)
I’ve got a few things rattling around in my brain, none enough for a whole post, so let’s just toss all three of them together. Why not, right?
FIRST: That game up there? Was crafted deep in the bowels of Hell, on the lower foothills of Mount Sonofabitch. I just beat the game’s third major boss tonight, after, no shit, probably five or six hours of attempts and farming over the last few days. The recommended level for his area? Seventeen. My level when I finally took him down about half an hour ago? Forty-five. And the next area promptly beat the shit out of me again.
SECOND: You may have heard the godawful fucking story about the people Trump effectively sold as slaves to El Salvador, including a number of them who were accused of no crime at all other than being brown. Now, before I ask this, I want to be crystal fucking clear that this is horrible and the people responsible should rot in Hell. Okay? We’ve got that? Everybody understand? Good. Because while I’m having some trouble untangling the court cases, what with not being a lawyer and all, it looks like a judge ordered the government to produce one of the men involved by midnight tonight? And there may or may not be a temporary stay on that order, or maybe SCOTUS just overturned it, I dunno, it looks like things changed while I was playing video games. But here’s my question: Does the court, any court, have the ability to order other entities to do literally impossible things? Because part of the whole point of selling these men to El Salvador was to put them beyond the reach of US courts. Short of invasion, which Trump obviously isn’t going to do, we don’t really have a way to compel El Salvador to return any of these people, and certainly not to do so in the next three hours and eighteen minutes. The judge has no jurisdiction. Again, yes, I recognize that there’s something horrible about taking the situation these human beings are in and reducing it to a legal hypothetical, which is part of why I’m doing it on my blog and not, say, BlueSky– but does anyone actually have any authority to compel this to happen right now? The courts can order the government to do shit all they want. What happens if they just … can’t?
THIRD: I don’t remember the goddamn third thing. Fuck. I’ve had this post in the back of my head all day and now that it’s time to write it Thing Three is gone.
…
Right, shit, the economy went to hell today too. So I, personally, with very modest investments in, until yesterday, the low (very low) five figures, have lost about a thousand bucks in the last few days. I do not expect things to get better anytime soon, for obvious reasons. I have been contributing a couple hundred a month to an account managed through MetLife that I deliberately rarely look at, and $100 a week to an Acorns account that I monitor perhaps more carefully than I ought to. Yesterday I reset a bunch of stuff on Acorns so that now that $100 a week goes directly to my savings account and is not invested in anything. My understanding of how this works is even if the value of individual shares of a given stock are falling, buying more of them means a faster theoretical recovery later on, since I’ll own more stock, assuming that the companies I’m investing in don’t go under, in which case that money is just gone. But if I think it might be years before the market recovers– and I do– isn’t there more value in socking that money away into a savings account, where it’s not going to just vanish? Or at least is much less likely? The interest rate is going to be a lot lower but at least it’ll be positive.
Help me out if you know anything about investments. I’m sure there are better ideas than the binary I’ve set up here, but if you’re going to give advice at least tell me which of those two is a better idea right now before telling me about your third thing, okay? Thanks.
… but I did have a slice of abso-damn-lutely delicious carrot cake for dessert that I grabbed from our local grocery on a whim, and I’m so sugared up right now that I might die, and that’s fine, and if you’re one of those people who doesn’t like carrot cake you may have a regular carrot and find an alternate use for it. Carrot cake is Goddamned awesome and I have it maybe once a year, and tonight decided to be the night.
And I think I’m going to leave it at that, because I just found out that the Post Office is cutting 10,000 jobs and anything else I have to say is going to attract the attention of the FBI. The Indianapolis post office distribution hub may already be the most fucked place in the country— I’ve had a package sitting there for two weeks with no information at all– and … yeah. I’mma stop there.
Sometimes I think about how I thought I hated George W. Bush, and how that doesn’t even vaguely compare to the quality and quantity of hatred that continues to blacken my soul every fucking day in 2025. So I’m going to go back to thinking about the rest of that carrot cake, because otherwise I start wondering about what a regular civilian normal person might be able to do to damage someone who owns a private jet, and that seems like a bad idea.
I am fully fucking aware that, lead times being what they are on comic books, this was definitely written, if perhaps not completely drawn, before the Current Unpleasantness actually began. But once we realized we were going to publish it during the Current Unpleasantness, and that it scans as really fucking unsubtle given the Current Unpleasantness, maybe we reconsider the entire fucking thing? Because I don’t need this shit in my life at all, much less in a medium that’s supposed to be fucking escapism:
And fuck me dead if this very same Fantastic Four comic book doesn’t use vampires as a persecuted minority that Doom is scapegoating later on in the damn issue. Using Doom as a stand-in for the shitgibbon is one thing. Using vampires as a stand-in for trans people is deeply fucked up.
I recognize that there is literally no way that Marvel is gonna reconsider or reschedule any of this, but I wanted to register my protest anyway.
I don’t think I’m recovered from the election yet, and I think yesterday’s illness may have been more along the lines of a panic attack than an actual illness. I have been edgy and stressed the fuck out all day long, to the point where I haven’t been able to read because I can’t focus on anything enough to do it.
I genuinely don’t know how I’m going to make it through another four years of this. I really don’t.
(Hits “publish,” opens BlueSky, discovers Trump has apparently named a Fox News host as Secretary of Defense.)
I don’t have a lot to say, and I’m not going to use that as a launch into a ten thousand word post. I said plenty last night. America has demonstrated rather conclusively that she will choose any man, no matter how mediocre, over any woman, no matter how talented, and she has now demonstrated that twice. I am deeply disappointed, but I cannot claim to be surprised. I didn’t think this was going to happen, but unlike 2016, I didn’t think it was impossible.
I am writing through a fog of brain pills; I finally went to bed around 1:30, got up at 7, went back to bed at nine and slept past noon. I am pretty sure I am going to work tomorrow, and the day after that.
We can always hope he dies before January, I suppose. Elon Musk and Peter Thiel are still going to run the country either way, and RFK is about to singlehandedly ruin everything they don’t ruin, but maybe his heart will finally give out. JD Vance will be President before 2028; the only question is how long it takes.
6:33 PM: I am sitting on my couch, iPad in my lap, phone to my right, MSNBC streaming on the television in front of me. The polls in Indiana closed half an hour ago and the state has not been called yet, which I’m choosing to believe is a good thing despite the fact that Trump is up 60-40 with 3% of the vote in. I can’t promise regular updates or that I’ll not abandon this in a fit of depression in a couple hours but We. Are. Live.
6:40 PM: I know I said this yesterday but I actually do think we’ll have an idea of who the winner is in a few hours. Will it be literally called? Probably not, but I think the writing will be large and glowing on the wall. I’m sure I’m wrong.
6:41 PM: This Philadelphia DA really should have just said “Fuck around.” If you’re gonna repeat “eff around and find out” four or five times just say fuck.
6:45: One of my cats spies a random other cat through our front window and starts making absolutely psychotic noises at it, causing the whole house to temporarily freak out and descend upon the room he’s in.
6:50: I take a few minutes to track down useful local race coverage. It occurs to me that the school board races are probably the first things I’ll know about definitively tonight. Mike Braun and Todd Rokita are both up but there’s only about 10% of the vote in and I’m not worrying about it right now. No matter how things go nationally the local races in Indiana are probably not going to be good news.
6:54: Reports of multiple bomb threats in Democratic areas in Georgia, which … sadly fails to surprise me.
7:00: A whole lot of states are about to close, and meanwhile … this, from Rush County, IN. I don’t actually know where these results are from; they were just posted to BlueSky.
My wife has had a theory that Kennedy was going to do unexpectedly well in Indiana that she has been talking about for a while; we’ll see.
7:06: It does look like that data was flipped, and everybody’s called Indiana. They called Banks for Senate too, fuck. Oh well.
7:17: They’re chattering about Georgia and I’m reloading the local races over and over. I really want to see School Board results, dammit!
7:22: Mental note that I’m not allowed to look at the New York Times website tonight, first, because fuck the fucking New York Times, and second, because their tech people are on strike and I don’t cross picket lines.
I’m gonna have to figure out a way to charge my phone from the couch. Hmm. Surely the boy has a charger around here somewhere. He lives on the couch.
7:27: I mentioned this in other places earlier, but I dressed in blue from head to toe today without even realizing I was doing it. I just changed into comfy pants and those are blue too. Meanwhile, I can’t find a charger cord long enough for my phone, and my son’s charger is Lightning, not USB-C, so I’m screwed there. Somebody bring me a ten foot USB-C cable.
7:29: The Vermont Senate race is called for Bernie Sanders, who I didn’t realize was running again. Does he know how Goddamned old he is?
7:30: A few more states’ polls close and West Virginia gets called immediately for Trump. What a Goddamn surprise. Meanwhile, Joe Manchin’s Senate seat goes to a Republican. Sigh.
7:36: Still waiting impatiently for my county to report literally anything.
7:38: I threw $20 at Slingbox for a month of CNN and MSNBC, by the way. I’ll cancel it in a couple of days because once the election’s over I don’t need it any longer and the second month will be twice as expensive.
7:42: Some dude is on a college campus in Arizona talking to students waiting in line, and apparently some male student told him that he voted for Trump because Kamala Harris didn’t go on Joe Rogan’s podcast and he didn’t know what she stood for, and I think it’s fine if that kid is never allowed to vote again.
7:43: Apparently that dude is at Arizona State and his name is… Gottie? I dunno, Rachel didn’t spell it.
7:44: Sigh. AP has called the IN governor’s race for Mike Braun, which not only means that we have him in office but his Christianist, psychopathic running mate, who makes him look like Mitt Romney by comparison.
7:52: I swear to Christ that if Kamala should have done Joe Rogan makes its way into The Discourse I’m gonna commit some crimes. I don’t even know which ones. Some of the crimier ones.
7:58: The way I can tell all the MSNBC people are my age is that they just interviewed De La Soul and all of the anchors are losing their minds over it.
8:00: Seeing online that Mark Robinson has lost the Gubernatorial race in North Carolina. Florida just got called immediately which kind of catches me off guard. It probably shouldn’t, though. So far no real surprises anywhere.
Illinois being “too early to call” is kind of alarming, though. Then again, so was Indiana.
8:03: This is unreasonable but right here at this exact second is the first moment of real dread tonight. Rick Scott is projected in Florida, too.
8:06: I want a Big Board.
8:10: GOD DAMN IT ST. JOE COUNTY DO YOU NEED ME TO COME HELP COUNT THE POLLS HAVE BEEN CLOSED FOR TWO FUCKING HOURS REPORT SOME VOTES
8:20: Not a lot going on and one of the cats is trying really hard to move into my lap, which is already occupied.
8:21: Rachel Maddow says thirty-two different places have received bomb threats in Georgia today. Christ.
8:28: Fuuuuuck I do not want Mike Braun to be my governor. Again, it’s not surprising at all, nothing that has happened tonight has been a surprise yet, but I’d like some good news other than the North Carolina governor’s race.
8:30: Florida’s abortion amendment is running at 57% but Rick Scott has already been called as winning the Senate race and Trump has been called for the state. Make it make fucking sense.
8:44: Kind of in a holding pattern until 9:00 hits and a bunch more states’ polls close. We’re in the doldrums part of the evening right now and I don’t think things are going to be getting better for an hour or so. That’s if we’re lucky.
A tranche of votes hit in St. Joe County, and with a quarter of the vote in the guy I really don’t want on the school board is in second place, which puts him on the school board. No idea where the votes are from, though; there’s no way I’m getting precinct-level data on school board votes.
8:47: I just saw an actual TV ad for … a podcast? Seriously? We’re doing that now?
8:49: Oh, there were bomb threats called into Navajo areas in Arizona too? Really? Weird how these keep happening to Democratic areas.
8:59: How horrible will the next minute of my life be? Stay tuned!
9:00: Nobody’s talking about the House at all. Anything changing there? Anyone wanna mention that?
9:01: Pretty fucking horrible, as Texas got called fucking immediately. We can still hope for Cruz to go down, I suppose, but Texas continues to disappoint.
9:06: Wait, NBC hasn’t called Illinois or New York yet? Come on.
9:14: Big Board dude is going on about how suburban and rural counties are moving more to Trump, which is true, but a difference of 200 votes isn’t really going to make much of a difference if the cities move by the same percentage and have twenty times as many people.
9:20: OH MY GOD STOP SAYING SLIPPAGE. PLEASE. IT HURTS.
9:21: Quit talking about Georgia and give me some numbers from Iowa.
9:24: Hey, good news! Sarah McBride wins a House seat in Delaware, making her the first transgender woman elected to the House. That’s a big deal. And apparently Fani Willis just got re-elected, too.
9:25: The FBI says the Russians are calling in hoax bomb threats all over the place, in case that single minute of good news made you feel any better.
9:26: I don’t know who any of these people who aren’t Rachel Maddow are, but the old white guy just chimed in to say that we “never had bomb threats at polling places before Donald Trump was a presidential candidate.” That is utter bullshit, as any primarily-Black precinct in the fucking South could tell you. Christ, what ahistorical nonsense.
9:33: I think right here is where I abandon the idea that we’re going to know anything tonight. I was hoping for a scenario where we’d be overperforming the polls— the shy Harris voter thing— but it doesn’t seem to be happening.
9:37: Continuing tonight’s theme of Not Surprising but Still Depressing, Marjorie Taylor Greene is projected to win reelection. Which makes me wonder if Colorado’s polls have closed yet. I think they have; I’m gonna go check on Boebert.
9:39: She’s up ten points with 2/3 of the vote in, so she’s probably reelected too.
9:42: I know I’ve talked some shit about this costume for the new Superman movie, but I am hugely in love with this picture even if the S-shield is wrong and I can see the stupid high collar.
9:49: I would like Rachel Maddow to explain what the fuck is the difference between “too early to call” and “too close to call.” Do they just change the language when a certain percentage of the votes come in? Is it possible to flip back to “too early”?
9:52: Two hundred years since he first ran for president, I still do not understand how this guy is getting even a single vote.
10:09: Fifteen minutes of talking my brother off the ledge via text message. Having eerie flashbacks to having a similar conversation with my mother in 2016. Colorado called for Harris.
10:18: Seeing a report on BlueSky that the Dems are now projected to take the House? Assuming it’s nonsense for now; it’s way too early, but Goddammit the way I have no information at my fingertips about it is driving me insane.
10:19: Steve Karnacki, whose name I am almost certainly misspelling, continues his infuriating habit of talking about candidates outperforming or underperforming 2020’s vote totals without referencing the absolute number of votes being discussed. 50% of the vote in Philadelphia is in and Harris stands to net at least another 200,000 votes when the rest of it comes in, which erases slight Trump gains in dozens of podunk rural counties.
10:22: God damn it, MSNBC calls Iowa for Trump. And fucking Cruz in Texas. Fuck. Fuck. The fabled Seltzer poll appears to have missed the mark.
10:32: Speaking of “shit I saw on BlueSky,” somebody’s called Georgia for Trump? That’s bad. That’s the first genuinely no-shit really bad sign of the night.
10:39: I’m starting to get deeper into the weeds in looking at county-by-county results in individual states. I’m getting depressed and scared and starting to contemplate taking brain meds. The bomb threats across Georgia are starting to look like they flipped the state.
10:43: Also assuming that the “we’ve taken the House” report was bullshit at this point.
10:58: Okay, new plan is never pay attention to BlueSky again; I don’t like what I’m seeing in Georgia, but people are literally still voting and if anyone has called it I haven’t heard about it other than that one post.
11:00: God, I hate this. But I’m pretty sure I felt the exact same way at this time in 2020. Polls in California have closed and it’s called immediately for Harris. Trump takes Idaho. Still no surprises.
11:02: HOW IS NORTH CAROLINA TOO EARLY TO CALL, RACHEL MADDOW. PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST AND ALL THAT IS HOLY TAKE THIRTY SECONDS AND EXPLAIN WHAT THE FUCK THAT MEANS.
11:03: Dare I look at Montana and see what’s going on with Tester’s race, or is it going to just depress me more?
11:05: Okay, only about six percent of the vote is in. Nothing to see here yet.
11:16: NBC calls the Ohio Senate race for Bernie Moreno, which means that we have lost the Senate. Even if we pick up the seat in … what is it, Nebraska? and hold Montana, the Senate’s gone.
11:21: AP has called North Carolina for Trump. And I know that this is more or less exactly where we were at this point four years ago, but I think I’m done now. I’m sweaty and tired and I need brain medication. We haven’t seen a single state flip yet but the only one I feel good about is Pennsylvania and there are going to be flips somewhere.
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