Polling Here At Home

Blue Virginia:

Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton holds a 9 percentage point lead over Republican Donald Trump among likely voters in Virginia (45%-36%), according to The Roanoke College Poll. Libertarian Gary Johnson trails with 7 percent of likely voters, while Independent Evan McMullin and Green Party candidate Jill Stein each garner 1 percent. Ten percent of likely voters remain undecided. In a two-way matchup, Clinton’s lead extends to 13 points (51%-38%). Clinton led by 7 percentage points in the September Roanoke College Poll (44%-37%).

The Roanoke College Poll interviewed 814 likely voters in Virginia between October 2 and October 6 and has a margin of error of +3.4 percent. The poll was conducted after the first presidential debate and prior to both the second debate and the release of the videotape of Donald Trump making vulgar comments about women.

Virginia's looking like a bellwether - a leading indicator kinda thing.  Increasing buzz going on about how If HRC's lead goes up a lousy two points here in The Old Dominion over the next coupla weeks, we could be in for a regular tsunami.

And Now For Something Different

This whole campaign cycle is a freak show without the tent, and so the only thing that could possibly occur that would seem odd is if somebody actually came up with a policy idea on what we might try in order to make a few improvements - and wow, look at that, it's Hillary Clinton, trying to get us to talk about something other than what Donald Trump is doing with his tiny orange hands.

Vox:

On Tuesday, Hillary Clinton unveiled what is arguably among the most important policies she’s announced during her entire presidential campaign. It is an ambitious but politically attainable plan that will lift huge numbers of families with children out of poverty. It is targeted exclusively at the poor, and the extreme poor in particular, with no money spent on the middle class or rich.

Specifically, Clinton is calling for a change in the refundability threshold of the child tax credit. Those sound like technical changes, but it has tremendous ramifications. Currently, the poorest American families can’t claim the credit, which is a mainstay of the tax returns of most middle-class families. That’s because households that make less than $3,000 a year — the truly, desperately poor — are excluded entirely, and households making under $9,666.67 can’t get the full credit.

Clinton would change the law so that families start getting the credit with the first dollar they earn. That would effectively increase the tax refunds of the poorest families with children. In addition, Clinton would double the credit for children 4 and under, something that helps both poor and middle-class families with young kids, and she’d make the credit phase in much faster for families with kids in that age range.

I make no claims to knowledge of such things beyond the single Econ course I barely muddled thru in one of my abortive attempts at going to college, but I managed to learn that the more people who can participate in an economy, the better that economy works; and that the best way to circulate money thru an economy is to pump it up through the roots instead of sprinkling it on the leaves.  It's basic Keanesian stuff and it's what works best - which seems like a fairly simple concept, but it's something that's proved to be a little elusive for the average "conservative".

I'm a Bernie guy - and I think Bernie'd be good with an initiative like this because it means his challenge for the nomination showed HRC that moving her agenda a little to the left is a good and appropriate and politically safe thing to do, plus it signals Hillary's willingness to fix one of the big problems created by the Welfare Reform thing in the mid-90s, which is something Bernie kept hammering her on. 

So - yays all around.

Today's Keith

Watch this video on The Scene.

Samantha Bee

As is frequently the case when we have to address something Donald Trump has said or done, this is NSFW.

Today's Tweet

HILLARY: i told you he'd fuck the chair
TRUMP: *while fucking the chair* I never fucked the chair pic.twitter.com/QACRSry4SG

— michael koh (@ughHugs) October 10, 2016

John Oliver

"...we got a lotta cowards in this country." --Larry Wilkerson

Today's Today

"Let us, in the name of The Holy Trinity, go on sending all the slaves that can be sold."  

--Christopher Columbus

hat tip = @JohnFugelsang (the quote is via Howard Zinn - and it may be apocryphal)

From Indian Country Today:

On the second Monday of October each year, Native Americans cringe at the thought of honoring a man who committed atrocities against Indigenous Peoples.

Columbus Day was conceived by the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic Fraternal organization, in the 1930s because they wanted a Catholic hero. After President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the day into law as a federal holiday in 1937, the rest has been history.

In an attempt to further thwart the celebration of this “holiday,” we at ICTMN have outlined eight misnomers and bloody, greedy, sexually perverse and horrendous atrocities committed by Columbus and his men.

As usual, 2 things: 

First, Columbus was a man of his times. Those times could be dispassionately brutal and uncaring, so they produced people who often behaved as compassionless brutes.

Second, we apply a very liberal amount of hagiographic cleanser to the stories, and hey look - a brand new gold-plated sparkling American hero.

I have no problem celebrating all the really great things we want this country to be and to stand for and to characterize for the rest of the world to emulate, but when we learn that the guy who's supposed to embody all that awesomely awesome awesomeness was a complete asshole by every modern standard (standards we claim to hold dear) - we gotta make some changes.

Today's Keith

Watch this video on The Scene.

Debate Recap

No quarter. No mercy. No prisoners. Lay waste, leaving nothing but ash and the tears of impotent rage.

We don't have to like it. It's not fair that we have to do it, but it's our turn.  We are called to make this right again.  This is our time, and so this is our fight.  We rise to the challenge.  We will not be beaten.

Fair Point

To the Republicans saying they want Pence: uhhh, why? No one voted for Pence. He was *picked*. BY THE GUY YOU NOW AGREE HAS SHITTY JUDGMENT.

— Craig Mazin (@clmazin) October 9, 2016

Gotta Get Back To It

Good Harvest

Woodstock

Eating Their Own

And all the usual spinners popped up to deflect and do The Tu Quoque Shuffle.

And then there's Red State.  These guys can be pretty vile when it comes to pimping the "conservative" philosophy of "I've got mine - and all those others would be fine if they'd just stop being so poor or so black or so woman-y, but they refuse to be like us - so fuck 'em".

But at least they have enough self-awareness to know they can't ignore the kind of shit Trump and his minions are flinging regarding Pussygate, and more importantly, they see the impact all the shit-flinging is having on their chances of winning almost any election at any level beyond Board of Supervisors in Pokacuzzin County Alabama.

Red State:

Then there were those whose morals are more flexible, more forgiving if one has the right letter in front of their name. Trump himself released a campaign statement initially calling the conversation “locker room talk.” He added, “I apologize ifanyone was offended.” He did later release a video apologizing and then bringing up Bill Clinton’s sordid history with women.

And here is only a small sample of what avid Trump supporters have been saying in defense of Donald Trump, as if there is any defense, mostly by bringing up Bill Clinton:

Media who dismissed women's charges of RAPE & ASSAULT bc Bill Clinton was the accused have ZERO cred on this. It's all political.

— Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) October 8, 2016

Lol. So you only want to talk about @realDonaldTrump but not @HillaryClinton and her husband. YOU ARE THE SHILL! https://t.co/YWgQQ12lhG

— Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) October 8, 2016

--and--

Disgusting, abhorrent, nauseating justifications. Maximum spin. Pushing false narratives. The list goes on.

Let’s get one thing straight. As terrible a person as Bill Clinton is, Bill Clinton is not running for president. Bill Clinton’s name is not on the ballot anywhere. If someone wants to have a conversation about Hillary Clinton’s own personal treatment and degradation of women, let’s have the conversation. That could actually be a fruitful discussion.

But if we are going to fault a woman for simply being married to someone who turned out to be a bad man, we are opening the door to all the judgment the left has been placing on us for years. We are hypocrites, we are misogynists, we are simply holier-than-thou-jerks.

We cannot in good conscience go around touting the sanctity of marriage and the importance of marriage vows, and then turn around and judge a woman for staying in a marriage, for whatever reason. We cannot assign blame to Hillary Clinton for her husband’s indiscretions.

You guys knew what he was when you got in bed with him. Nobody's interested in listening to you bitch about fleas - especially not the fleas on somebody else's dog.

Sometimes, It's Just Too Easy

...but a married white woman?

B-I-N-G-O! https://t.co/wFED5AdMrn

— Tengrain (@Tengrain) October 9, 2016

Today's Tweet

Poor, @realDonaldTrump. Drove the entire Republican Party over a cliff, and nobody likes his LOSER ass, anymore. pic.twitter.com/WRp01tm5s6

— Monkeyfister (@Monkeyfister1) October 8, 2016

Dots They Be Connectin'

Donald Trump enters, and every woman who knows him knows where her hands need to be.

hat tip = @SweetPeaPatsy