34 thoughts on “Are Your Kids Better Off?”

  1. Texas is doing its part in voter suppression.  The official website says voting locations will be populated two days prior to Election Day.

    Well, early voting starts today.  Luckily, I know registered voters can early vote at any location.  So, I will just stop by every school and library on my way home.

    I had them mail me ballots before, as I couldn’t physically handle it in person.

    I was hoping to vote today, while Trump was here promoting Lying Ted.

  3. the debate as covered by the NY Times:
    MIAMI — Ron DeSantis and Andrew Gillum delivered fiery exchanges in their first debate on Sunday night, showing a national audience why they are locked in a fierce, closely matched race to become Florida’s next governor. They differed not only on their strikingly opposite policy positions, but also on matters of personal integrity and character that have shaped the election.
    The debate underscored that the contest between Mr. DeSantis, a Republican, and Mr. Gillum, a Democrat, both of whom won their primaries as unapologetic partisans, reflects the national ideological battle being waged inside their parties — Republicans trying to align themselves with President Trump, and Democrats weighing the appeal of a more progressive message.
    Mr. Gillum, who has served as Tallahassee’s mayor since 2014, dismissed Mr. DeSantis as Mr. Trump’s “stooge.” But Mr. DeSantis, a former three-term congressman, named areas where he had disagreed with the president — such as when the administration briefly moved to open Florida’s coast to offshore oil drilling.
    From the start, Mr. DeSantis went on the offensive, characterizing Mr. Gillum as a “failed mayor.” “He’s presided over a crime-ridden city,” Mr. DeSantis said. “He’s involved in corruption. He’s not the guy to lead our state.”
    Mr. Gillum chuckled — “Well, that was a mouthful,” he said — and launched into a direct appeal to Florida voters, a theme he returned to throughout the hourlong CNN debate, held in Tampa, Fla.
    “I’m here this evening standing for anybody that’s ever been told that they don’t belong,” Mr. Gillum said. “That they didn’t come from the right background or the right pedigree. I’m here fighting for everyday Floridians so that this is a state that works for all again.”
    The debate came at a crucial moment in the campaign: 16 days from the Nov. 6 election, and the night before early voting sites open in some of the state’s biggest counties. Most polls suggest the race is effectively tied, as is typical in Florida, the nation’s largest presidential swing state.
    As has seemed inevitable this midterm year, much of the discussion centered on the president.
    “Donald Trump is weak, and he performs as all weak people do: They become bullies,” Mr. Gillum said. “And Mr. DeSantis is his acolyte.”
    Mr. DeSantis, who has been one of the president’s most enthusiastic devotees, did not answer a question about whether Mr. Trump is a good role model for children. Instead, he praised the president for moving the American embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
    Mr. Trump will be more agreeable to offering the full weight of the federal government’s resources to a state with a friendly governor, Mr. DeSantis insisted, an assertion sharply rejected by Mr. Gillum, who said that any sort of loyalty test was undemocratic.
    “This is not Russia,” Mr. Gillum said. “You shouldn’t have to kiss the ring of the president of the United States for the president to see to the good of the third-largest state.”
    (After the debate, Mr. Trump lauded Mr. DeSantis’s performance on Twitter.)
    Mr. Gillum managed to keep attention on health care, an issue Democrats see as crucial this year, and highlighted that Mr. DeSantis has not released a health care policy plan during the campaign.
    When Jake Tapper, the debate’s moderator, asked Mr. Gillum, who favors Medicare for all and campaigned in the primary with Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, why it would be wrong for Mr. DeSantis to call him a “socialist,” Mr. Gillum defended expanding Medicaid coverage under the Affordable Care Act.
    Mr. DeSantis pounced on Mr. Gillum for wanting to abolish the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, and Mr. Gillum said he would favor placing the agency under the oversight of the Department of Justice, rather than the Department of Homeland Security.
    Both Mr. Gillum, 39, and Mr. DeSantis, 40, proved to be confident and effective debaters. Mr. Gillum shared his life story as the fifth of seven children in a loving, working-class family. Mr. DeSantis emphasized his sterling résumé: Yale, Harvard, Iraq. The candidates seized Sunday’s debate as an opportunity to show off their hard edges in front of a national audience.
    Mr. DeSantis cast Mr. Gillum as bad for the economy, soft on crime and keen on higher taxes. He also hammered him over a continuing F.B.I. investigation into possible corruption at Tallahassee City Hall.

    “We all have friends that sometimes let us down,” Mr. Gillum said. Then, he made the sort of declaration that politicians dread making on national television: “Let me be very clear about what the record is: I am not under F.B.I. investigation.”
    Mr. Gillum suggested that the fact he is African-American had something to do with Mr. DeSantis’s attacks, including his questions about a pair of 2016 trips to a luxury villa in Costa Rica and a Broadway production in New York, revealed to the public in documents subpoenaed by the F.B.I. The trips are now under state ethics investigation.
    “The question is, did you pay for the ‘Hamilton’ ticket, or did the undercover F.B.I. agent pay for the ‘Hamilton’ ticket?” Mr. DeSantis asked. “Did you pay to stay in the villa in Costa Rica?”
    “I didn’t take free trips from anybody,” retorted Mr. Gillum, who later accused Mr. DeSantis of “showboating.” “I’m a hardworking person. I know that may not fit your description of what you think people like me do. But I’ve worked hard for everything that I’ve gotten in my life, and I don’t need anybody handing me anything for free.”
    Mr. DeSantis, who has declined to return campaign contributions from a supporter who was forced to apologize for calling President Barack Obama a racist slur, said he served in Iraq with military personnel of all races. “I will be a governor for all Floridians,” he said.
    Later, Mr. Gillum, who would be Florida’s first African-American governor, elaborated on the subject of race, mentioning Mr. DeSantis’s comment the day after the primary that voting for Mr. Gillum’s agenda for Florida would “monkey this up.”
    “You know what, I’m black. I’ve been black my whole life — so far as I know, I will die black,” Mr. Gillum said to laughter from the audience. “But this is the point: The only color that the people of the state of Florida care about is the blue-green algae flowing out of the east and the west side of this state. And they deserve a governor who is going to protect this environment.”

    Both candidates made several references to the environment, though neither delved into much detail about their proposals. This being Florida, which faces a threat from rising seas, the first debate question was about climate change. Mr. DeSantis said he supports “resiliency” efforts but does not want to be a climate “alarmist”; Mr. Gillum said he will be a governor “who believes in science.”
    Mr. Gillum and Mr. DeSantis were supposed to face off last Tuesday in a debate that was called off because of Hurricane Michael. The Category 4 storm paralyzed campaign efforts in the Florida Panhandle and kept Mr. Gillum away from the trail for 10 days as his city prepared for and recovered from its brush with the tropical cyclone. A second debate is scheduled for Wednesday.
    Perhaps the most surprising moment came at the start of the debate, when Mr. Tapper noted that Mr. Gillum and Mr. DeSantis had just met for the first time — a sign of how the nation’s polarized politics have given elected leaders infrequent opportunities to overlap.
    “Good to meet you, Andrew,” Mr. DeSantis said in his closing statement. “It’s been a fun night.”
    “I wish you well,” Mr. Gillum said, as the rivals shook hands.
     

  4. Miami herald:
    Ahead of his first debate with Democrat Andrew Gillum Sunday, GOP governor nominee Ron DeSantis had some strong words — for CNN.
     
    DeSantis’ campaign went off on the network for releasing a “misleading” poll hours before the 8 p.m. event showing Gillum up 12 points in the race for governor. The poll, conducted by SSRS, showed Gillum with 54 percent support to DeSantis’ 42 percent, with a margin of error of 4.2 percent. It also had U.S. Senator Bill Nelson leading Gov. Rick Scott by a 50 to 45 margin.
     
    Both results are outliers in what otherwise have been shown as tight races.
     
    A Real Clear Politics average of polls in the U.S. Senate race has Nelson ahead by 1.3 points. In the race for governor, Gillum has been consistently ahead in public polling. Yet polls over the last three weeks have shown Gillum ahead by only one or two points, and DeSantis’ campaign said Sunday that their own internal polling has the Republican up two.

    […]
    Later Sunday, SEA Polling, a firm that typically works for Democratic clients, released a different poll showing Gillum up 48 to 42 on DeSantis. The breakdown of that poll, based on likely voters and their actual registration, was 39 percent Democrat, 41 percent Republican and 20 percent “something else.”

  7. Loved the audience laughing when Gillum asked for the question to be repeated.  Obviously DeSantis was playing to the elderly Jewish population in Florida.  Hopefully they don’t fall for it.

    oh yeah…  IMO, trump isn’t a role model for adults, let alone kids…

  8. Message from Blonde Wino

    Hello…thanks for thinking of me.  Hello to RR, too.  I have moved over to twitter to join the resistance.  The trail was too hard to load, and I got tired of the scoldings over small stuff…we have bigger fish to fry.  Hubby had another biopsy last week and it was in another city and turned-out-to be a bad trip.  Same old stuff.   I hate exchanging war stories, sorry.  Tougher times under trump.   I have already voted.  Vote straight dem

  10. The Pervericator In Chief is no role model!

    I know role models including my three children, they are bright,  compassionate and empathetic. They have more than just a passing knowledge of the truth and they all vote Democrat. They know so much more than I do. They would be deeply offended by the suggestion that the garbage bag in the White House serve as some sort of role model for them.They are my role models ,along with millions like them who wouldn’t give Trump the time of day.

  12. KGC… thanks for the update on BlondeWino.  Sorry her husband got bad news.  Joining the resistance on twitter….  that’s exactly what OldSeaHag and Tony did too.  Hope they are all putting up a good fight.

  13. Would prefer a pic of dogs playing poker to the one of Republican swine playing with democracy.

    My Republican family is still firmly entrenched in Trump’s ditch.  Treading lightly there.

    You would think folks would be ashamed to say things that align them with Trump. Clueless bastards?  Arrogant bastards?  Greedy bastards?

    History will not be kind to them.  And, now we can go to the tape, so they can’t backtrack.

  14. Trump is doing Putin’s dirty work, again.

    Withdrawing from the intermediate-range nuke treaty that Putie wanted to go away.

    Doing it just as elections are gearing up to obfuscate his dirty deed.

    Shame, shame

  15. Oh, and three pieces of misdirected mail from Dem State Election…to two different cities.   I can see “BETO” through the envelopes.   Off they go to the post office for redelivery to the correct addresses…but my guess is they will end up in a bin, as our post offices are not particularly reliable here.  It happens every week, but usually for an address down the street, not neighboring cities.

  16. hated to see blonde wino was experiencing problems with the trail in her “The trail was too hard to load, and I got tired of the scoldings over small stuff…we have bigger fish to fry.”  

    renee, is that also why tony and old sea left the fold?   sure do miss those folks.  they had/have a lot of good insights.

     

  22. I’ve had some bad ones including spending the night in a gas station off the PA turnpike — they closed the turnpike due to ice — we had to sleep in the car

  23. Today I heard Jared Kusner speak the truth for the very first time.

    He said he would decide which facts were true in the murder of the Saudi Journalist

  25. Everyone else had the same idea today.  I can’t stand in lines & will try tomorrow.

    The good news (I hope) is high turnout.

  26. If Jared is going to decide which facts re: Khashoggi’s murder are true, like the answer to the age old questions “How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Toostie Roll Pop” we may never know (but we know that the truth won’t be what he says it is anymore than there are contracts for $115B in arms sales to the Saudis that will generate 500,000, 600,000 or 1,000,000 American jobs).

  28. Apparently Jared will need some of those alternative facts.

    The man was murdered and he is dead. Those facts are hard to refute much less reverse. Jared is talking to hear himself talk. Don’t know that anybody is listening to him.

     

  29. hey hey hey  everyone carries a bone saw when they visit Turkey — they heard the kafte are tough there

  30. The asshats at Future 45 just bought ad time & the piece of crap was, well, it looks like they took a page from the Russkie troll farm.   Voting for “ANY” Dem brings on the apocalypse.

    It’s shameful that they hate America so much that they lie like Russians.

  31. Not that he hasn’t done something on this level before but today’s NYTimes story on Trump’s plans for transgender legislation is appalling on so many levels but this is a community that lives with daily violence.

    Trump has no intention of doing this – it’s just to incite his base before the election.  The problem is his base when incited does more than vote.   I’d say any violence against transgender people can be laid at his feet this day forward.

  32. We must make absolutely sure that our good friend, BB, is honored and respected for the public spirited woman and friend that she is. We are so fortunate that she has chosen to sit around our camp fire

  34. Yes, BB.  What Flatus said so very well.

     

    The histrionic, right wing ads and the evening news focusing on refugees trying to head north may energize Trump’s base.   No idea if the high number of early votes weighs more heavily one way or t’other.

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