One thing that really leaps out in the Collins statement: She's not going to make any effort to slow down the process. If McConnell can get his fifty votes, she won't be a speed bump.
And of course she's left herself a lot of wiggle room. She could have said "I will vote no on any vote before the election, and on any vote held during the lame duck in the event of a Trump loss." She didn't. But the statement reflects the bind she's in with the voters of Maine.
And because of that bind, this statement ensures that Collins is going to spend the next few weeks being asked incessantly to make a clearer, more explicit statement on her intentions. Which should be a comfy, familiar feeling for her, if nothing else.
(I deleted the first tweet in this thread, quote-tweeting Collins' statement, because it didn't really reflect the tone of the rest of the thread. Here's the original statement.)
What seems to be bubbling up this afternoon is that a vote before Election Day is unlikely for a bunch of reasons.
If that winds up being the case, the upshot of Collins' statement is this: (1) She's not going to slow down the process between now and Election Day. (2) She thinks there shouldn't be a post-ED vote if Trump loses. But (3) she's not saying how she'll vote if such a vote is held.
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(I tweeted about it last night, but as I sometimes do, I frontloaded conclusions rather than explanation, so I'm rebooting.)
There are a lot of people around—including a lot of people in my comments—who start from the premise that tearing down these posters is hostile to free expression, and so what happened to this guy was a free-speech victory. Let's unpack that.
I ran the first paragraph of Orwell's 1984 through ChatGPT, asking it to fix any "spelling, grammatical, or usage errors."
I think my copyediting gig is safe. Check it out:
Orwell: "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. Winston Smith, his chin nuzzled into his breast in an effort to escape the vile wind, slipped quickly through the glass doors of Victory Mansions..."
ChatGPT: "It was a bright, cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. Winston Smith, with his chin nuzzled into his chest in an effort to escape the vile wind, slipped rapidly through the glass doors of Victory Mansions..."
It's only—the quoted text—not dangerous because it's so ignorant. If your goal is to "evaluate grammar" in order to determine whether a manuscript is publishably competently written, all you need to do is have a copy editor spend three minutes reading a random page. (1/?)
It's not an onerous task. But it's not also a useful task. Because lots of books that get published are written by authors who have a shaky grasp of grammar. Lots of GOOD books are written by such authors. Such manuscripts are the baby, not the bathwater.
Me, to my partner, also a copy editor, or vice versa: "How's the book you're working on going?"
Them, to me, or v-v: "It's fine. The author doesn't know how commas work, but it's fine."
"Meryl Streep is grievously miscast in Postcards from the Edge."
My view: Streep was perfect in the breakup scene with Dennis Quaid and a few others, but she needed to (1) be meaner to, and more like, her mom and (2) give the impression that she'd be a fun person to get high with.
I can buy Streep being Maclaine's daughter in Postcards, and I can buy her living the life she's living in the movie, but to believe the former I have to disbelieve the latter, and vice versa.
It would have been SO EASY to leverage the cachet of the celeb blue-checks in monetizing the new buy-in system. It really is astonishingly perverse how far he’s gone to do the opposite.
Seems like this may be about to reach exit velocity, so to be clear: I'm applauding Megan Hunt here. She is upholding and insisting upon decency by refusing to reciprocate empty civility from her colleagues.
Don't hurt my family and send me a Christmas card. Don't reveal yourself to be a bigot and ask me how my weekend went. Don't vote for evil and assume my ongoing goodwill. Don't be indecent and expect civility in return.