Mostly Monday Reads: Record Early Voting and MacDonald’s Cosplay

“Health Departments will be deregulated under the next trump administration.” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

Last year in Louisiana, a number of folks yawned off the election, and this is what we got. “Is Jeff Landry the Worst Governor in America? From prisons and policing to the environment, Louisiana’s new leader is making everything worse.” It’s a lesson the entire country needs. This is what happens when you stay home. 

The title is a provocative question, I know. After all, the competition for “worst governor” is stiff. There’s Ron DeSantis in Florida, banning library books and making life harder for transgender people every chance he gets. There’s Greg Abbott in Texas, putting circular saw blades in the Rio Grande to kill and maim immigrants who try to swim across. There are lesser-known menaces like Alabama’s Kay Ivey, a particularly venomous union-buster, or South Dakota’s Kristi Noem (hide your dog!). But I think there’s a case that Jeff Landry, the recently elected governor of Louisiana, may surpass them all.

Landry is, of course, terrible in all the ways that Republican governors like Abbott and DeSantis are terrible. He’s a climate change denier and a loyal ally to the fossil fuel industry, which has poisoned Louisiana’s majority-Black neighborhoods along the stretch of the Mississippi River known as “Cancer Alley.” He’s also appointed former oil, gas, and coal executives to several important environmental positions within his administration. (Keep in mind, Louisiana has been hit especially hard by climate-related disasters like hurricanes, so this is a direct threat to his constituents’ safety!) As a state representative and later Louisiana’s attorney general, he went out of his way to oppose LGBTQ rights on numerous occasions, and has even been condemned by his own brother (who’s gay) for his homophobic politics. He’s trying to dismantle and privatize the Louisiana education system, promoting so-called “education savings accounts” that allow public money to be spent on private school tuition. He wants censorship in public libraries, and may soon sign a bill to require the Ten Commandments to be displayed in public schools. He praised the recent brutal police crackdown on students protesting for Palestine at Tulane University. There’s little need to go into further detail here, since Landry’s policies and actions are so similar to those of his fellow Republicans; just read a profile of Ron DeSantis, and 90 percent of it will also apply to him. But there are a handful of factors that are unique to Landry, and that make him especially dangerous.

At that time, The Louisiana Illuminator had this headline. “Louisiana’s low voter turnout attributed to apathy, mistrust.” It never makes sense to me when no one shows up to vote, and we get the worst person ever.

In an important election year — featuring races for governor, lieutenant governor, treasurer, secretary of state, attorney general and several local government seats — Louisiana saw historically low voter turnout. Experts are still looking at why.

Only about 36% of registered voters cast ballots in October’s primary election, marking the lowest turnout in a Louisiana gubernatorial primary since 2011. The general election in November saw even lower turnout, when only about 23% of registered voters made it to the polls.

“This entire state didn’t show up,” said Ashley Shelton, president and CEO of the Power Coalition, a nonpartisan civic engagement group.

Turnout was significantly down among Democrats and Black Louisianans. And it was down in areas that traditionally lean more Democratic, like New Orleans.

Primary election turnout in Orleans Parish was about 27% — down by more than 11% compared to the 2019 gubernatorial primary. And a lower percentage of Orleans residents voted for Shawn Wilson, the only high-profile Democratic candidate in the governor’s race, than for outgoing Gov. John Bel Edwards in 2019.

All told, Wilson brought in only 26% of the votes cast in the primary election. His main opponent, Republican Jeff Landry, brought in 52%.

“I think people had a foregone conclusion that every Democrat makes it to the runoff when that is absolutely not the case when you’ve got other voters more energized and engaged than you,” Wilson said in an interview after his loss.

Friday’s headline in the Illuminator is hopefully an example of what should happen. “New Louisiana record: Nearly 177,000 cast ballots on first day of early voting.”  What’s exciting is we seem to be part of a nationwide trend.   Here’s the good news today from USA Today. “Harris leads Trump 2-1 among the earliest voters, many driven by abortion access: new poll.” Susan Page reports the story.

Democrat Kamala Harris has a sweeping lead over Republican Donald Trump − among voters who have already cast their ballots, that is.

A new USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll shows the vice president leading the former president by 63%-34%, close to 2-1, among those who have already voted.

That preference turns around among those who plan to wait until Election Day to vote, with Trump ahead 52%-35%.

As some states have begun early mail-in and in-person voting, one in seven respondents said they had already voted. A third said they plan to vote early; that group supported Harris by 52%-39%. And nearly half said they’ll wait until Election Day.

Overall, Harris was favored by 45%, Trump by 44% − a coin-toss contest.

The poll of 1,000 likely voters, taken by landline and cell phone Oct. 14-18, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

Among those who have already voted, one in five volunteered “abortion rights/women’s rights” as their most important issue, second only to the economy/inflation.

This CNN headline says it all. “Infants died at higher rates after abortion bans in the US, research shows.”  This isn’t a poll.  This is data.

In the year and a half following the Supreme Court Dobbs decision that revoked the federal right to an abortion, hundreds more infants died than expected in the United States, new research shows. The vast majority of those infants had congenital anomalies, or birth defects.

Earlier research – spurred by a CNN investigative report – found that infant mortality spiked in Texas after a 6-week abortion ban took effect in 2021, and experts say the new data suggests that the impacts of the bans and restrictions enacted by some states post-Dobbs have been large enough to affect broader trends.

“This is evidence of a national ripple effect, regardless of state-level status,” said Dr. Parvati Singh, an assistant professor of epidemiology with The Ohio State University College of Public Health and lead author of the new study.

In the new paper, published Monday in JAMA Pediatrics, Singh and co-author Dr. Maria Gallo, a professor of epidemiology and associate dean of research with the Ohio State University College of Public Health, compared infant mortality rates for the 18 months following the Dobbs decision against historical trends.

They found that infant mortality was higher than usual in the US in several months after the Dobbs decision and never dropped to rates that were lower than expected.

In the months that infant mortality was higher than expected – October 2022, March 2023 and April 2023 – rates were about 7% higher than typical, leading to an average of 247 more infant deaths in each of those months.

About 80% of those additional infant deaths could be attributed to congenital anomalies, which were higher than expected in six of the 18 months following the Dobbs decision, according to the new research. Congenital anomalies can range from mild to severe cases, and some of the most common types can affect an infant’s heart or spine. In some cases, babies with a birth defect may only survive a few months.

“This is the tip of the iceberg,” Singh said. “Mortality is the ultimate outcome of any health condition. This is a very, very acute indicator. It could be representative of underlying morbidity and underlying hardship.”

Other research has found that births have increased in states with abortion bans, and experts say that some of that increase is linked to a disproportionate rise in the number of women who are carrying fetuses with lethal congenital anomalies to term.

As we all know, Polls recently have been wrong quite a few times. So, no one can take any one of them seriously.  I did run across this interesting article on the consultant who does the election analysis for Faux News.    He is that guy that pissed all the Trumperz and the Big Orange Muffin Monster last time by calling Arizona for Biden.  It’s in Politico.

The man who may call the winner of the 2024 presidential election is ready to make a prediction for at least when the news will come.

“The over/under is Saturday,” said Arnon Mishkin, the head of Fox News’ decision desk. “Which was when the call was made last time.”

…

So would you say that makes the job harder in 2024 than it was in 2020? Because we don’t necessarily know that, “Oh, all the Democrats are going to vote early or by mail, and all the Republicans are going to vote on Election Day.”

Yeah, I think it’s going to be a little harder. On the other hand, I think that some of our models have gotten better. We’ve created a new model based on the vote count which is much more focused on either getting vote by type and then using that in the model, or knowing that you’re not going to get vote by type and then making estimates around on that. And then I think our FNVA — because we ask people how they vote, it’s self-reported — we have a pretty good idea of what the skew is. And that number has been pretty accurate over the years.

When do you think you’re going to be able to call this election? Do you think it’s going to be the night of? A week later? Possibly longer? The race seems so close.

The race seems very, very close. It is dependent on a number of states, like Pennsylvania, that we believe are going to be reporting in a pattern similar to the way they have reported in the past. So I’d say, the over/under is Saturday. Which was when the call was made last time. Which is when Pennsylvania is likely to come in.

I think we have to accept the reality that we don’t really know how close this election is going to be. I’m pretty sure it’s going to be close. I see some polls that say, “Actually, it ain’t going to be close. It’s going to be one way or the other.” There’s some reporting that Trump is sort of gaining. Some of the polls have showed he’s gaining. There’s another sense I have that actually he may be declining. I think the real issue is what happens to Trump. I’ve always thought this about this election: It’s less about who’s running against him than it’s about Trump.

But it’s his vote share, you mean? Which was 46 percent and 47 in his two elections.

It was 46.1 percent in 2016. It was 46.7 or 46.8 in 2020.

46.1 and a very low turnout — his advantage in the Electoral College allowed him to win in 2016. With a very heavy turnout and him at roughly 47 in 2020, his Electoral College advantage meant it was a really close election in the Electoral College.

So, again, take nothing for granted.  Just get out there and do it for all the people in your life who were disenfranchised from voting over the decades. I always vote for my grandmothers who couldn’t vote until they were well into middle age.  Unlike them, if Trump gets into office, I may not have Social Security six years from now. This is from the Washington Post. Trump proposals could drain Social Security in 6 years, budget group says. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget predicts that many of Trump’s policies could hasten the looming depletion of the Social Security Trust Fund.”

A new report projects that the Social Security Trust Fund might run out of money within six years under a Donald Trump presidency, while Vice President Kamala Harris’s proposed policies would not meaningfully change the current trajectory

Social Security faces a looming funding crisis in an aging country, with trustees most recently predicting that the retirement and disability program’s trust fund will become insolvent in 2035. Many of Trump’s campaign proposals would accelerate that timeline, potentially by years, said the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan group that opposes large federal deficits.

In a report released Monday, the organization concluded that many of Trump’s proposed second-term agenda items all work in the same direction when it comes to the Social Security Trust Fund. The budget group did not produce a similar report on Harris’s policies because they would have a negligible effect measured only in weeks or months rather than years, said Marc Goldwein, CRFB’s senior policy director.

Compared to prior presidential campaigns, Goldwein said, “I can’t think of anything that would be this order of magnitude” in its detrimental effect on Social Security’s bottom line compared to the policies Trump has proposed.

Anyone who isn’t a washed-up Reality Star or someone who thinks those reality shows are staged was probably as weirded out by Trump’s stage MacDonald’s Act that appeared aimed at the Vice President.  He is acting weird at a privately owned McDonald’s, which closed down for the day and specifically coached chosen customers to be good foils. This antic has so many obvious mistakes that it’s like an outtake from a bad movie.  He wasn’t wearing a hat/hair net, gloves, etc.  You actually have to have food handler training and certification to do the job. He’s a felon.  MacDonald’s doesn’t hire felons.  The Independent’s  Kelly Rismann reports it far better than me.  All I can say is they probably had to scrub the entire place down between his farting and hair loss issues.  He probably didn’t even wash his hands. “McDonald’s workers roast Trump over ‘insulting cosplay’ stunt at restaurant that failed health inspection. Trump sported neither gloves not a hair net as he worked at a branch of the fast food chain in Pennsylvania.”

Donald Trump’s obsession with questioning Kamala Harris’ work experience at McDonald’s peaked over the weekend when he worked the fry cooker at a Pennsylvania branch — without a hairnet or gloves.

McDonald’s workers have now given their verdict on the former president’s performance – and came away less than impressed.

Trump has baselessly called his Democratic opponent’s summer stint at a McDonald’s “a lie,” so he decided to try his hand at the fast-food chain himself, shutting down a Bucks County restaurant to do so.

While serving food through the drive-thru window and working the fry cooker, some have pointed out that he wasn’t taking proper precautions — at a location that has previously been cited for health code violations.

Earlier this year, this location didn’t meet the compliance requirements of the Bucks County Health Department. A health inspection in March at the Feasterville-Trevose location resulted in four violations, including citing employees not having their “hands clean & properly washed.”

It was likely just a playdate that made him feel good about himself, but this Independent Headline was harsh.”Is this the publicity stunt that secures the White House for ‘McDonald Trump’? If Donald Trump serving fries at a Pennsylvania drive-thru doesn’t clinch him the swing state, then a side order of Elon Musk just might, says Sean O’Grady.”  His staff was likely relieved he didn’t get a chance to talk about Arnold Palmer’s Penis or telling a little boy there would be no more cows if the Vice President became President.

Nascistic, babyish, menacing monster that he is, the Donald Trump we saw in the footage of him visiting a McDonald’s yesterday came across as… somewhat genuine and relatable. Even if he wore cufflinks while handing out Happy Meals.

Donald “aced” the fries, as he might put it, and managed to hand over huge bags of fast food to stunned customers without swearing once. That’s a bigger feat for him than it might sound, now that he’s gotten a bit more uninhibited lately.

He didn’t demean anyone or threaten them with vengeful vexatious prosecution as he did after the last election (“Would you like a lawsuit with that?”). Nor did he bring up that “a lot of people” tell him how intelligent he is. He didn’t even do those inane dances he does when he’s run out of things to say.

Dare I say it: “McTrump” was almost… charming. Almost.

But, of course, this scene was all a ruse. He did not, as his PR team would have you believe, put in a full shift at the drive-thru in Feasterville (yes, really), Pennsylvania. Rather, he was there for one hour max, in a carefully controlled environment.

The proud Americans he served prefer Big Macs and Filet-O-Fish to eating pet dogs and cats or (as per the Trumpian fantasy) wild geese like those nasty illegal immigrants – and so found themselves worthy of Trump’s courtesy.

But, nice as he was, he’s fooling no one. Those who choose to believe in Trump – and there are many who do – will also choose to believe that he’s just like they are; kinda relatable. And those who despise him, an equally large group, will dismiss the exercise as a stunt driven by Kamala Harris’ more substantial experience at the sharp end of the fast-food business.

In terms of McDonald’s, after all, the super-sized Trump has spent a lot more time guzzling burgers than flipping them. Despite liking a Big Mac, Trump and the life he has always led are about as far away from the average Pennsylvanian as, let’s say, the human settlement on Mars that Elon Musk is preparing for them to migrate to.

Which brings us nicely, like a Musk starship being eased back to base, to the role now being performed by the world’s richest man to get Trump back into the White House.

While the McDonald’s appearance is unlikely to shift the vote much in the crucial swing state of Pennsylvania, Musk’s “win a million dollars” lottery might.

As a stunt, this is the one that has the capacity to do much more damage – not so much to the outcome in the state and thus the electoral college (a vital 19 votes, which could get the Orange Man over the line of 270 to win), but to the wider integrity of the system – to the notion (and the law) that people shouldn’t be bribed to vote or even to register to vote.

So what about this latest Musk attempt to get voters in Pennslyvania for Trump?  This is from CNN’s Marshall Cohen. “Elon Musk’s daily $1 million giveaway to registered voters could be illegal, experts say.”  Do tell.

While stumping for former President Donald Trump on Saturday, tech billionaire Elon Musk announced that he will give away $1 million each day to registered voters in battleground states, immediately drawing scrutiny from election law experts who said the sweepstakes could violate laws against paying people to register.

“We want to try to get over a million, maybe 2 million voters in the battleground states to sign the petition in support of the First and Second Amendment. … We are going to be awarding $1 million randomly to people who have signed the petition, every day, from now until the election,” Musk said at a campaign event in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

The X owner and Tesla CEO was referring to a petition launched by his political action committee affirming support for the rights to free speech and to bear arms. The website, launched shortly before some registration deadlines, says, “this program is exclusively open to registered voters in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nevada, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin and North Carolina.”

Musk, the richest man in the world, has given more than $75 million to his pro-Trump super PAC, and said he hopes the sweepstakes will boost registration among Trump voters. He recently hit the campaign trail in Pennsylvania, holding events advocating for Trump, promoting his petition and spreading conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.

“This is a one-time ask,” Musk told the crowd shortly after announcing the $1 million prize. “Just go out there and talk to your friends and family and acquaintances and people you meet in the street and … convince them to vote. Obviously you gotta get registered, make sure they’re registered and … make sure they vote.”

The first million-dollar winner was named Saturday, with Musk handing a giant check to a Trump supporter at his event in Harrisburg, saying, “So anyway, you’re welcome.” He announced the second winner Sunday afternoon during an event in Pittsburgh, handing out another check on a stage adorned with big signs reading, “VOTE EARLY.”

In an interview Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said Musk’s giveaway was “deeply concerning” and is “something that law enforcement could take a look at.” Shapiro, a Democrat, was previously the state attorney general. In response to Shapiro’s comments, Musk posted on X that it was “concerning that he would say such a thing.”

Federal law makes it a crime for anyone who “pays or offers to pay or accepts payment either for registration to vote or for voting.” It’s punishable by up to five years in prison. After legal outcry over the weekend, Musk’s group tweaked some of their language around the sweepstakes.

“When you start limiting prizes or giveaways to only registered voters or only people who have voted, that’s where bribery concerns arise,” said Derek Muller, an election law expert who teaches at Notre Dame Law School. “By limiting a giveaway only to registered voters, it looks like you’re giving cash for voter registration.”

Offering money to people who were already registered before the cash prize was announced could violate federal law, Muller said, but the offer also “can include people who are not yet registered,” and the potential “inducements for new registrations is far more problematic.”

Alright, I’ll stop here.  I’m jittery enough. I’ve got Schrödinger’s election box syndrome.  I really want this over, but I’m so afraid of the bad outcome that I’d rather not see what’s inside the box. Every encounter with MAGA is abuse.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

Dum, dum, dum, honey, what have you done?
Dum, dum, dum, it’s the sound of my gun
Dum, dum, dum, honey, what have you done?
Dum, dum, dum, it’s the sound
Janie’s got a gun
Janie’s got a gun
Her whole world’s come undone
From lookin’ straight at the sun
What did her daddy do?
What did he put you through?
They said when Janie was arrested
They found him underneath a train
But man, he had it comin’, now that Janie’s got a gun
She ain’t never gonna be the same
Janie’s got a gun
Janie’s got a gun
Her dog day’s just begun
Now everybody is on the run
Tell me now it’s untrue, what did her daddy do?
He jacked a little bitty baby; the man has got to be insane
They say the spell that he was under the lightning and
The thunder knew that someone had to stop the rain
Run away, run away from the pain, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Run away, run away from the pain, yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Run away, run away, run, run away
Janie’s got a gun
Janie’s got a gun
Her dog day’s just begun
Now everybody is on the run
What did her daddy do?
It’s Janie’s last I.O.U
She had to take him down easy and put a bullet in his brain
She said, “‘Cause nobody believes me, the man was such a sleaze”
He ain’t never gonna be the same
Run away, run away from the pain yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah, yeah
Run away, run away from the pain, yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Run away, run away, run, run away
Janie’s got a gun
Janie’s got a gun
Janie’s got a gun
Everybody is on the run
Janie’s got a gun
Her dog day’s just begun
Now everybody is on the run
Because Janie’s got a gun
Janie’s got a gun
Her dog day’s just begun
Now everybody is on the run
Janie’s got a gun
Janie’s got a gun