The New Target for MAGA Bigots?

Over on Xitter, where I haven't been for months, conservatives are yelping about El-Sayed's wife wearing a hijab and a long dress with long sleeves.

For the most part these are the same group of Christian Nationalists that have been yelping about how women should dress modestly, by which they mean clothing that covers everything and isn't tight, even for toddlers. These are the same people who think women shouldn't vote, or use birth control, or control any aspect of their own lives. These are the people who wanted Roe v Wade overturned, and achieved that.

So clearly this isn't an objection having to do with women's agency, anymore than their fury about trans girls playing sports has anything to do with their zeal to protect women in sports. (Mostly Christian Nationalists think girls shouldn't play sports, since that will make them uppity.)

What is it, then?

Based on what I'm seeing from YouTube and conservative blogs, this is purely a hatred of Islam and of Muslims. One blog said El-Sayed should not be sworn in, since Muslims are commanded to lie to and about "infidels," (which I guess in this case means Christian Nationalists) so his oath would mean nothing.

Are MAGAts and conservatives moving on from using immigrants and trans people to whip up their base? Will they now use Muslims?

In other news, someone posted that old joke on FB, how El-Sayed and Mamdani are going to force children in school to learn Arabic numbers, and the fury from uneducated conservatives (but I repeat myself) was something to see.

The Argument from the Right

I've been browsing around on MAGA blogs, and most people seem to be accepting the Blue Tsunami (though they're still bitter and sulky about it). On the other hand, this take is something else. 

It boils down to, "The results can't be legitimate because too many people voted."

Or, "No one I know supports the Left!"

As I've said before, the real bubble is the one MAGA lives in.

The End of America

 Alexandra Petri is a national treasure.

Each city is being issued its own Mayor Zohran Mamdani; check your bus or train schedules (the only permissible forms of transportation) to see when yours will arrive. Go quietly to turn in your guns and flannel; one will be destroyed and the other will be redistributed to people with Subarus.

Also!

I think there's a lot of truth to this. 

Watching ICE shoot those people, and kidnap people off the streets, including that little boy in his blue hat -- and then watching MN resist and resist and resist -- I think that gave us all hope that MAGA could be defeated.

The resistance of Minnesotans this winter changed the trajectory of our country and that cannot be overstated.

— Liam Davis Temple (@liam2manynames.bsky.social) 12:10 AM · Nov 4, 2026

A Gift Links from the Atlantic Monthly

About how good it feels to rebuke MAGA.

I mean honestly, fuck them guys.

From the article:

Honestly, voters are so ungrateful. You break your promises, make stuff more expensive, and champion a slate of gargoyles distinguished only by their slavish loyalty to you, and suddenly everyone is all “Do we really need a ballroom, sir?” and “Could you talk less about glutes and more about grocery prices, Mr. President?”

And here's another. 

If this is America’s response to what has been almost two years of a president flouting norms, driving up prices, breaking promises, raking in billions of dollars, and running roughshod over ethical guardrails, it is an unmistakably emphatic one. Democrats, independents, and Republicans turned out in massive numbers to showcase their displeasure with Trump and his party, flipping the Senate and making the GOP sweat even in contests that were not previously considered competitive.

And here's Scalzi: 

Do you understand how much you have to have fucked up that Kansas elected a Democratic senator? 

 

Good News at Last

We took the Senate. We took the House. Texas is blue, as is Georgia and Illinois and Ohio.

The GOP lost seven senate seats and 25 House seats.

Now if only the Democrats grow a spine.

Arkansas, of course, stayed Red. But Hallie came closer to unseating Tom Cotton than anyone has done in awhile; and overall we shifted more than seven points toward Blue, as compared to the Trumpian election.

 

Election Day

If you haven't yet voted, get out there and vote.

I concur with Scalzi on this one.

On his watch and with his approval we’ve gotten into a war we had no plan for, the cost of gas and groceries have spiked, measles and other easily curable diseases have come roaring back, a masked, internal secret police is snatching people from the streets without due process, white supremacy has shoved its way back into official policy, and he’s turned his back on long-standing allies to gleefully lick the boots of the worst authoritarians in the world.

Tom Cotton

One More Day

I'm trying not to be tense about the midterms. 

It would help if every single MAGA, GOP member, and conservative in this country wasn't such an asshole. Too much to ask for, I guess.

I remember like ten years ago? Or maybe it was 20? There were relatively decent conservatives in this country. Now, everyone who is voting red is either dumb as a rock or filled with hate. That's their whole base. It's disgusting.

 

Fall Back

I forgot we put the clocks back today.

Luckily my phone remembered.

Sunset is at 5:12 this evening. We're heading for winter now.

Reddit LOL

I saw Trump called "Temu Hitler" on Reddit today, and it's cracking me up.

Apparently it's not original with Reddit, but it's still funny.

Hallowe'en Rained out

We barely got any trick-r-treaters here last year, and last night there was a steady cold rain, and we got none.

Now I have three pounds of candy I have to find a home for. Previously, I would take it to school with me and distribute it among my students. Maybe I can get the kid to give it to his students.

LOL

This cracked me up:

(Alt text: Your password must contain two characters who talk to each other about something other than a man)

Project Dumb-Ass

So James O'Keefe, famous for creating (heavily edited) videos which purport to show terrible behavior on the part of progressives, tried again.

Moriarty said that O’Keefe used the names of deceased Minnesotans and a Minnesotan who was alive and had voted in the primary. She said she was unaware how they received those names. The men allegedly tried to vote at four different polling places, asking questions of various election judges about the process while falsely identifying who they were. Moriarty said neither man received an actual ballot or cast a vote and that they left one polling place after being asked for identification.

He went to Minnesota, dressed up in faux Middle-Eastern garb, and tried to obtain a ballot using false names -- one of someone who was dead, one of someone who had already voted. He and his friend did this four times, and in none of these cases did they actually obtain a ballot.

In other words, the system in Minnesota worked.

Yet all over conservative FB and conservative blogs, I'm seeing the claim that actually O'Keefe exposed the ease with which people could commit voter fraud in Minnesota, and that this made 'the libs' mad and that's why they arrested him. He's a political prisoner!

O'Keefe has apparently posted yet another heavily edited video, and this is probably where conservatives are getting their mistaken conviction that O'Keefe managed to actually commit voter fraud, or that this was an exposure of the ease with which people can commit voter fraud in MN, instead of an exposure of how they can't.

Or they may be getting it from conservative news sources, which are pushing the same lie.

Also from the article:

Minnesota’s unlawful voting act states that “no individual shall intentionally misrepresent the individuals’ identity in applying for a ballot.” The charges allege that O’Keefe and Higby committed identity theft because O’Keefe “used multiple identities that are not his own with the intent to commit and aid in the commission of an unlawful activity” that included aiding Higby’s attempts to vote in several precincts.

And:

“It is not against the law to be performative, it is not against the law to be offensive, it is not against the law to say the things they said standing outside the polling place,” Moriarty said. “The fundamental issue here is you cannot go into a polling place and misidentify yourself and use other people’s identity and say that to our election judges when you apply for a ballot, whether or not you intend to vote.”

I'm with PZ Myers.  Lock this weasel up.

Voting Accomplished

 We have early voting here in Arkansas, so Dr Skull and I and the kids went to vote at the library today, and then went to eat Italian food after.

They gave me a sticker. 

The line was very short, and the whole process took like ten minutes. 

Vote, y'all!

When You Have Too Much Money

Look at this article.

In case you don't want to click through, or hit a paywall, it's a story about billionaires in Boston who built a $45 million dollar house, furnished it, and then decided, nah, we won't move in after all, we're good.

As the story goes on to relate, this is happening all over America. Apparently buying or building, furnishing, and decorating appallingly expensive homes, penthouses, and estates which you then never live in is a kind of expensive hobby for American billionaires.  (As one comment notes, "But we don't need a tax on them?") Nothing else to do with your weekend? Hell, let's buy/build another house. Maybe that will make us happy.

The linked houses and penthouses in the article as all astoundingly ugly (though I realize tastes differ). I wouldn't want to live in them either. But holy hell, what a waste of resources.

And yes, let's tax billionaires now, please.

The house in question:

In contrast, have a look at this house, which is also too expensive for me, but absolutely beautiful. (Skip the first two minutes or so, which is just the guy boosting himself.)