Random Thoughts: Ballsy Move by Linda Koop

Tweets from November, 2020:

• 2020-11-01: Ballsy move by Linda Koop.
• 2020-11-01: Linda Koop throws Trump under the bus (but with plausible deniability).
• 2020-11-01: Tonight's the night to set our clocks back. I just realized that because of coronavirus we don't use our cars enough for it to matter. Wait six months and hope it'll be under control
• 2020-11-01: "Boris Johnson accused of 'giving in to scientific advisers' as England heads for lockdown." Sounds like something a medieval cardinal might warn the Pope against concerning Galileo. "Giving in to science." Let that sink in.

After the jump, more random thoughts.

---

• 2020-11-01: For over 200 years, Americans have relished the story of overthrowing "Mad" King George III. Today, America has its own "Mad King Donald." And we can't blame a hereditary monarchy -- we elected him freely. Edge to England.
• 2020-11-02: Angie Chen Button's seat is expected to flip.
• 2020-11-02: "We will dethrone the failed political class," says the man on the throne, Donald Trump.
• 2020-11-02: That big dot in the north? That's Richardson Civic Center.
• 2020-11-03: Texas is on the bottom.
• 2020-11-04: My morning after take on things: The trends visible late last night are still in place. Biden 270 is possible. So is Biden 290. A Trump win is also possible. What hasn't changed, is that we are still a deeply divided nation, no matter who ultimately wins this election.
• 2020-11-04: The reason there are so many Covid cases is because of all the tests. - Donald Trump.
  The reason there are so many Biden votes is because of all the counting. - also Donald Trump, presumably.
• 2020-11-05: My morning take on Election day three: Nevada, Arizona, Pennsylvania all look like tossups. Georgia, too, but it's irrelevant for getting to 270 for either candidate. As always, we are still a deeply divided nation, no matter who ultimately wins this election.
• 2020-11-05: Emily in Paris (TV 2020): Young American Instagram influencer gets transferred to Paris where she flirts with every handsome or rich French man. Could be a 1960s TV show updated for today, maybe "Gidget Gets Laid." Every cliche about French snobbery and dumb American overseas. C+
• 2020-11-05: In these last few days, has anything felt as stale and outdated before you even see it as a printed newspaper?
• 2020-11-06: My morning take on Election day four: Overnight vote counting of hard-to-count mail-in ballots has led to the "blue shift" analysts have predicted for months would happen. Biden now leads in GA and PA, putting him firmly on the path to becoming President.
• 2020-11-06: Review: A Burning: Novel set in Kolkata about a young woman wrongly charged with terrorism. Indian justice and American justice, funhouse mirror images of each other. Neither flawed. Short, gripping, and relentless. And you learn a little something about life in Kolkata slums. B+
• 2020-11-06: Election Week >> Shark Week
• 2020-11-06: Breaking: Harold Stassen (finally) wins.
• 2020-11-06: Don't forget, "The Art of the Deal" was only Trump's first book. He also wrote, "The Art of the Comeback."
• 2020-11-06: John Lewis (GA) and John McCain (AZ) deserve a little credit for Trump's defeat.
• 2020-11-06: There's always a tweet. This one from 2016. Trump never loses an election; it's always stolen.
• 2020-11-07: My morning take on Election day five: Same as day four. A Biden victory seems all but inevitable. PA may be called Saturday. NV will get called Sat or Sun. GA won't get called for Biden pending a recount. That leaves AZ as the only state where Trump has a slim but legit chance.
• 2020-11-07: P.S. NBC and CNN and BBC have called PA. It's over. There won't be a need for an Election day six update.
• 2020-11-07: Mayor of Paris: "Welcome back America."
• 2020-11-07: Blue Shifts Matter.
• 2020-11-07: There's always a tweet. This one from Kellyanne Conway after the 2016 election. "306. Landslide. Blowout. Historic."
• 2020-11-08: Joe Biden: "We stand at an inflection point." And with vocabulary again, we know we're leaving Trump behind.
• 2020-11-08: Joe Biden wins the War on Christmas.
• 2020-11-08: I received 29 fundraising emails from Trump since the election was called for Biden. It seems the fundraising might not have been about the election at all. Maybe it was only ever about just separating his followers from their money.
• 2020-11-08: You might have watched too much television election coverage if you think you'd like to adopt Steve Kornacki.
• 2020-11-08: Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania: the blue wall. Biden built the wall and got Trump to pay for it.
• 2020-11-08: There's always a tweet. This from the day after the 2016 election, when Trump had no problem with the media calling the result of the election.
• 2020-11-09: The Queen's Gambit (TV 2020): Orphaned chess prodigy works through childhood traumas, struggles with alcohol and pills, and her own genius. It's a "sports story" like no other. None of the usual characters act to cliched form. It's her life story that steals our attention. A+
• 2020-11-09: "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Middle America." -- LBJ
• 2020-11-09: Trump fundraising emails are still arriving, with subject lines like "The Official Election Defense Fund." But the fine print says "60% to DJTP for deposit in DJT's 2020 General Election Account for the retirement of general election debt." The grift goes on.
• 2020-11-10: This sounds like an admission that GOP voters in GA (and the rest of the US) are easily impressed. Kemp is vowing to do what happens all the time everywhere in every election. No one is asking for anything else. Dems would be just as incensed as GOP if illegal votes are counted.
• 2020-11-10: Secrets of the Saqqara Tomb (2020): Documentary about the recent discovery and excavation of a noble's tomb near Cairo. Some scenes show the nearby step pyramid, which we visited just after this documentary was filmed. It needs fewer scenes of digging and more history. C+
• 2020-11-12: Beth Harmon to Trump's election lawyers:
• 2020-11-15: DMN front-page story: "Is Cruz angling for bid in '24?" Of course he is. Is DMN promoting him? Again, yes of course. DMN calls him the "Trumpiest" candidate, which I think they consider a compliment.
• 2020-11-15: Still getting lots of Trump fundraising pitches. Like this one, "Update on the ballots" that didn't contain any update, just a pitch for money, promising a "1000% offer" with a button saying, "Contribute $20 = $220". Maybe that math is like how Trump counts ballots.
• 2020-11-15: Profiles in courage.
• 2020-11-16: Dolittle (2020): Dr. Dolittle is not a swashbuckling sea captain on an adventure to find the Tree of Eden. Plot is plodding. Dialog is dull. Robert Downey Jr is wasted in a lethargic role. Good CGI animals. Maybe little kids will like that, but that's about it. C-
• 2020-11-19: "Poll: 77% of GOP voters blame fraud for Biden's win." I remember in 2016 being shocked that enough voters wanted Trump that he was elected. I never considered that the voting machines and counting were rigged. Are GOP voters that different?
• 2020-11-19: Parents, start thinking about your answer when your worried kids this Christmas start asking about the consequences on world health if, as Santa makes his rounds to all the girls' and boys' houses in the world, he is COVID-19 positive.
• 2020-11-19: "Ted Cruz Calls Democratic Senator a "Complete Ass" for Wearing Mask on Senate Floor." Crazy Cruz? Crazy as a fox maybe. Cruz's statements make more sense if you read them as part of a 2024 run for President as the Trumpiest candidate on the right.
• 2020-11-19: The Catholic Church had a reputation for principled stands when it avoided getting entangled in politics. It has shredded that reputation in the last couple of decades.
• 2020-11-19: Sun Tzu: a coup is easier to pull off if you distract your victims with a village idiot as your front man. #FakeSunTzu
• 2020-11-20: Review: Piranesi: A wonderfully imagined world consisting solely of a mansion with endless halls filled with marble statues, populated solely by Piranesi and the mysterious "Other." Is it real? Fantasy? Magical realism? It'll keep you guessing all the way to the end. B+
• 2020-11-21: Trump as a verb: I thought the term was already in use, by businesses stiffed by Donald Trump - e.g. Have you been Trumped?
• 2020-11-21: I've always thought that if Greg Abbott didn't uncover the epidemic of voter fraud he insisted existed, it just didn't exist. He had the belief it did, the incentive to uncover it, and the power as atty general of Texas to reveal it. And after all that? Nothing. It was all a con.
• 2020-11-21: Usually by this time of year, I'd have received several 2021 calendars in the mail. This year I haven't received any. Do you think they know something I don't?
• 2020-11-23: Ronald Reagan said, "I didn't leave the Democratic Party, the party left me." We need more Republicans to emulate the Reagan they profess to admire and recognize that the Republican Party has left them.
• 2020-11-23: "If there's anyone who has mistakenly attached themselves to our party in the belief that we are not open to citizens of every race and religion, then let me remind you...the exits which are clearly marked are for you to walk out of." Bob Dole, convention speech 1996.
• 2020-11-23: Everyone must have moved to the new social media site Parler. Everyone is saying so...on Twitter.
• 2020-11-23: Everyone is praising Biden for appointing people to his administration that "look like America." Excuse me, I don't recall seeing any grifter-Americans.
• 2020-11-24: How many times is Trump going to insist on losing this election?
• 2020-11-24: Sen. Ted Cruz: "The left today is so angry. They're shrill. They're often hateful. We should not respond in kind." He says with anger and hate disguised as reason.
• 2020-11-24: Ordeal by Innocence (TV 2018): 3 episode adaptation of Agatha Christie mystery. Matriarch of large, rich family is murdered. Plenty of suspects. The relationships are as tangled as the possible motives. Killer can be figured out (I didn't), as can the twist (I did, kinda). B-
• 2020-11-25: Succession - Season 2 (TV 2019): The noose tightens around Logan Roy's empire. Debt, Congressional hearings, hostile takeover, skittish shareholders, scandals and backstabbing. It couldn't happen to a more evil family. Not the Trumps, but close. Lots of deserved Emmy nods. B+
• 2020-11-27: Hillbilly Elegy (2020): Forget the book. The movie is not a look at white, working-class alienation in hollowed-out steel and coal country. It's a soap opera about three generations of a dysfunctional family. Mostly depressing. Critics hated it; I kind of liked it. B-
• 2020-11-30: Between the World and Me (2020): Documentary. Readings from Ta-Nehisi Coates' 2015 letter to his son, passing on his wisdom of what it means to be Black in America. Faithful to the book, even more relevant in this year of Black Lives Matter. See the movie, then read the book. B+