Today’s news, fermented:
The sun still rose today.
Before I woke up, I dreamed (hallucinated?) of waking up to a solidly blue electoral map. Now that I am awake, I know that we know just about what we thought we would, which is almost nothing.
As I’ve begun to read results—first, that the presidential election will be so close, followed by a few Republican upset victories for House seats—I have become more and more angry. At the Americans who continue to uphold a white supremacist precedent; at the Democratic party, which failed repeatedly to support candidates who excited voters, instead sticking with centrist white people.
Meanwhile, the ‘president’ made false claims about winning the election. This is what we’ve been waiting, been planning for, but it is still another false obstacle in the path of democracy.
My intrepid mama also wrote about the state of things today. We have long been discussing the need to count every vote, and the necessity of being in the streets to do so, especially in the face of USPS weirdness to the tune of 300,000 missing ballots.
Track your ballot, and tell everyone you know, especially voters in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, Maine, and Nevada. I have no idea what happens if you find that your ballot has gone missing—but I’m hoping that this will get discussed in a way that reaches those hundreds of thousands of voters.
That’s all for now. See you in the streets.
Here’s a Pine Siskin, which unlike us, is having a really good year
(via)
*Hot Goss*
Brought to you by the superb Latifah Azlan.
We made it. We survived the night, yall. And as a reward, I am going to present you with this gem of a spreadsheet put together by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Titled "PSA Celebrity Tracker," the HHS compiled this spreadsheet to produce a public service announcement titled "Helping the President will Help the Country," a campaign that the HHS stated was intended to combat the COVID-19 pandemic rather than being political. But we can all read, okay? And the title of the campaign alone betrays the true nature of this multi-million dollar project -- money that could have gone to actual pandemic prevention and response measures than this glorified Instareel.
Anyway, Politico actually managed to get a hold of the spreadsheet, which lists more than 200 celebrities complete with their political leanings and any other additional notes about sought-after stars the HHS hoped to include in their COVID-19 PSAs. And no joke, it's 34 pages of hilarity. Some of my favorites include:
And the creme de la creme of celebrities with the various states of their sex tapes:
First of all, I just want to say that whoever at HHS had to do all this compiling and tracking did a shit job with the formatting. Also the fact that they included BRITISH celebrities like Lewis Hamilton, David Beckham, and Milly Bobby Brown (who is also 12 and can't vote?) indicates to me that this person put no thought into creating this list. But otherwise, I would like to apply for this position. Writing about celebrities and creating the new Hollywood Blacklist? Yes, sign me up. Never mind the fact that the money used for this project could have gone to better things, or that the three actual videos produced will now never see the light of day because this campaign is currently under investigation by the House Oversight Committee.
As we wait for official results to be called for yesterday's election (if we are still waiting by the time this goes out), I want us all to take a page out of Guy Fieri's book and be confident in declining offers or invitations that may come our way in the next couple of days to protect our time, health, and wellbeing.