The Snapping Pussy song: (obviously NSFW)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shBwZfUDPY4

Back when porn had a budget for art direction and production values.

Doug Jones wins the Alabama Senate seat, with a margin of about 21,000 votes out of 1.34M cast. Write-ins totaled 22,819 votes. By state law, if the margin of victory is less than 0.5%, an automatic recount occurs. Right now, Jones' margin is about 1.4%, pending the counting of provisional ballots and ballots from overseas. My guess is that those ballots will close the margin somewhat, but not enough to change the outcome or trigger a recount.

If the write-ins exceed the margin of victory after all ballots are counted, then by law they must be tallied individually. Presumably, they will not change the outcome (who writes in a candidate that is already on the ballot?), but it will be interesting to see the breakdown. Normally, in a statewide election, we see less than 1000 write-ins, so 22,000 is an extraordinary number.

Hanukkah, Pokemon Style

https://twitter.com/nekoama/status/940638404143996928

By state law, if the margin of victory is less than 0.5%, an automatic recount occurs. ~ Cousin Dave at December 13, 2017 6:00 AM

I guess they won't have to count any trunk ballots in this one.

> Awesome to watch the MSM self destruct:
>
> [...]
>
> Snoopy at December 12, 2017 7:36 PM

God in Heaven, Oh dear Lord the Creator, what a glorious morning you have given us in the United States of America.

A little cold in Midwest, but still.

The ancient Babylonians used to hang the heads of their enemies on the trees.

https://twitter.com/Alex_Bermingham/status/940330369215352843

Amy dukes it out on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/amyalkon/status/940831531714732037

Supporters, who include musician and animal rights activist Moby and the feminist lawyer Lisa Bloom, say that is one of the selling points: to make L.A. shelter dogs the vanguard of a meat-free movement.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/animalia/wp/2017/12/12/shelter-dogs-could-go-vegan-in-los-angeles/

Munchausen by proxy: Mom arrested after son has 323 hospital visits, 13 surgeries

https://twitter.com/kytxcbs19/status/940967069742436352

Did someone said pie?

http://cdn-webimages.wimages.net/0541e3d1efd1105195546bcfe23c4a758536bf-wide-thumbnail.jpg

No pie, please.

Meanwhiles, can we add Jenny McCarthy to the Weinsteinian Matrix?

http://althouse.blogspot.com/2017/12/sexually-assaulted-in-full-view-of.html

The Volokh Conspiracy has moved.

http://reason.com/volokh/2017/12/13/weve-moved-to-reason

She's a little too exuberant over the defeat of Roy Jones, methinks . . .

WHO? Sheila Jackson Lee Thanks 'Doug Moore' For His Alabama Victory

Even the Best Laws Cannot Save Our Society. Here’s What We Need.

The Euro Uber-Nanny State in Action:

Future of kebabs to be decided today in key vote

The BBC had some amusing comments on the election. One person pointed out that even if ALL the not-yet-counted votes turn out to be for Moore, they still would not trigger the automatic recount - and also said that, judging from the Republicans' comments about respect for due process (or something like that), they are NOT willing to pay for a recount themselves. All of which makes Moore's current stubbornness look ridiculous.

Oh, and here -

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/12/12/more-black-abortions-neo-nazis-sharp-edged-radio-ads-target-alabamas-black-vote/?utm_term=.73a4721bd1be

By David Weigel December 12 at 3:39 PM

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — The ad from Stars and Stripes Forever runs only infrequently; the conservative super PAC has spent just $4,720 to put it on some of Alabama’s black radio stations. But like all of the super PAC’s work, it grabs the listener’s attention with a fictional conversation between two fictional black voters about Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Doug Jones.

“I heard Doug Jones would add even more black babies to the 300,000 already being aborted this year,” a female voice says.

“Three hundred thousand black babies aborted?” a shocked male voice responds.

“A vote for Doug Jones is a vote for more black abortions, no school choice and higher taxes for job creators,” the first voice says.

“So he says whatever he needs to get our votes …”

. . . then keeps us down once he’s elected.”

(snip)

One of the top-rated comments:

whatsdanoos: "I'm confused. Is this supposed to deter black voters from voting for Jones, or ENCOURAGE white supremacists to vote FOR him?"
___________________________________________

In the meantime, I heard something recently I hadn't heard before - that if only Doug Jones had been anti-abortion, he would have likely won by a landslide. (Also, that if Jones had been running against any Republican other than Moore, he couldn't have won.)

So that would suggest that while average white Alabamians might dislike white supremacists, they hate other people's access to abortion far more. (Hint: Any state that makes it difficult to get an abortion isn't likely to make it easy to get access to safe, effective, affordable contraception either. Half of all women who get abortions WERE using contraception when they got pregnant.)

Yes, of course the assault accusations against Moore made a difference - but plenty of people who already supported Moore just didn't believe them. So I'm not about to guess just where Alabamians rank those crimes on the list.

More details:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/how-abortion-became-roy-moores-response-to-sexual-misconduct-allegations/2017/12/12/677f774e-deb8-11e7-8679-a9728984779c_story.html?utm_term=.4fb796f973aa

Excerpts:

By Marc Fisher December 12 at 7:34 PM

...Moore’s campaign injected the issue into the race as a time-tested way of painting Democrats as extremists, said Drew Halfmann, a sociologist at the University of California at Davis who focuses on the politics of abortion.

“The Republicans used abortion as a very effective signaling device,” Halfmann said. “For a time, they used same-sex marriage to keep the pot boiling but now that that controversy has been resolved, they’re back to abortion.”...

...But most Alabama voters did not put abortion atop their list of defining issues, according to a Washington Post-Schar School poll in late November. The survey found that 41 percent of voters thought a candidate’s views on health care were most important, followed by moral conduct at 26 percent. Abortion trailed well behind at 14 percent.

Abortion remains one of the few issues that most voters call an absolute litmus test; that is, along with health care, same-sex marriage and immigration, abortion is a rare issue on which a majority of voters say they could not bring themselves to vote for a candidate who disagrees with them.

But in Tuesday’s vote, many did exactly that — an indication, some scholars said, that as Americans, even in the Deep South, become more secular, abortion politics no longer wields the same sway it once did...

...But there’s been no such stability when it comes to how attitudes on abortion line up with Americans’ political affiliation. From the late 1970s through the early 1980s, Democrats and Republicans were equally likely to say they supported women’s rights to an abortion for any cause. It was only in 1998 that the percentage of Republicans supporting abortion collapsed, remaining at or below 30 percent ever since. And it wasn’t until this decade that a majority of Democrats embraced that stand.

From the start of the abortion reform movement in the 1960s until at least Ronald Reagan’s 1980 campaign, many Republicans were pro abortion rights, seeing legalized abortion as an expression of individual rights and therefore a traditionally GOP issue, Taranto said.

“Abortion and family values weren’t political issues until the modern women’s movement made the personal political,” she said.

Only in the 1980s did a conservative backlash over feminism persuade many GOP politicians that there was a strategic advantage to joining abortion and family values to law and order and anti-communism as core elements of what it meant to be a Republican.

“In the ’70s, the focus on abortion and homosexuality brought together groups that previously despised each other — evangelicals, Mormons and Catholics,” Leslie Reagan said.

(end)

"In the meantime, I heard something recently I hadn't heard before - that if only Doug Jones had been anti-abortion, he would have likely won by a landslide. (Also, that if Jones had been running against any Republican other than Moore, he couldn't have won.)"

Very true. Moore is a loony and Jones is a nut. Both options sucked. But no, I doubt the allegations against Moore had much effect. Everyone knew he was a loony long before and few locals cared. It was just a good rally cry for those who already were going to vote against him.

Today in #FakeNews:

-CNN said Anderson Cooper's assistant had his phone stolen, and the thief then posted one tweet and returned the phone afterwards

-MSM reports that the secret service had to physically remove Omarosa out of the White House. Secret service has to issue press release denying this.

Kentucky State Rep commits suicide after being accused of sexual misconduct and denying it:

http://www.wdrb.com/story/37062873/kentucky-state-rep-dan-johnson-commits-suicide-on-bridge-in-mt-washington

"By David Weigel"

I know a hell of a lot more about Washington that David Weigel knows about Alabama. And I'm not being hyperbolic in saying that.

More on the Anderson Cooper thingie:

CNN’s Anderson Cooper Blasts Trump — ‘You Tool! Pathetic Loser’ (Update: Hacked?)

The inevitable backlash begins, starting with women's rugby.

I know a hell of a lot more about Washington that David Weigel knows about Alabama. And I'm not being hyperbolic in saying that.
_____________________________________

How do you know he doesn't know a lot? And what's your point?

Even most Third Worlders know what "Washington, D.C." means. Doesn't mean they necessarily have even heard of Alabama. Besides, reporters often have to write stories in a hurry on subjects they haven't studied in depth in the past, so they can only do so much research before the deadline.

and Jones is a nut.
_________________________________

I'm curious - how is he a nut?

Btw, conservative columnist Jeff Jacoby wrote just before the election that if Roy Moore were to win, it would be a disaster for anti-abortion groups. Maybe, but we'll never know now.