Got a laugh out of these I saw on Yahoo's news site:
"My wife just sent me a meme proclaiming, 'Tim Walz is the guy who asks if you need help with a creepy dude at the bar. J.D. Vance is the creepy dude at the bar.'"
"Tim Walz is the guy who will mow your lawn when you break your leg. J.D. Vance is the guy who reports your overgrown lawn to the HOA."
."Tim Walz is the neighbor who helps your little sister study for her geography test. J.D. Vance is the neighbor who says your little sister will be hot in a few years."
."Tim Walz is the guy who puts menstrual products in school restrooms. J.D. Vance is the guy who points and laughs at girls with stains."
."Tim Walz is the guy who tells a funny joke at a party. J.D. Vance is the guy who opens your medicine cabinet."
"Tim Walz is the guy who leaves a good tip and says thanks. J.D. Vance is the guy who screams at the waitress."
"Tim Walz is the guy who thinks 10-year-olds should get school lunches. J.D. Vance is the guy who thinks 10-year-olds have to carry a baby to term."
."Tim Walz is the guy who smiles to himself when he hears the neighborhood children laughing and playing outside on a summer day. J.D. Vance is the guy who calls the police about a loud noise complaint."
"Tim Walz is the guy who brings over some tools to help you fix a problem. J.D. Vance is the neighbor who borrows your tools and never returns them."
"Tim Walz is the guy that helps you fix your car. J.D. Vance is the guy who tells you that you can’t park there when it breaks down."
"Tim Walz is the type of guy you would ask to walk you home after a late class. J.D. Vance is the reason you need to ask Tim Walz to walk you home after a late class."
"Tim Walz is the guy who will lend you $20 and never think about it again. J.D. Vance is the guy that will lend you $20 and then charge hourly interest compounded, increased for inflation, and then sue you for $1,000 in small claims court."
"Tim Walz is the guy who will make sure everyone has a voice at the town meeting. J.D. Vance is the guy who will call others stupid for asking questions."
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Republican who voted to convict Trump says he’ll support him in November
Former Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) says he plans to vote for former President Donald Trump this November, even though he voted to convict Trump at his second impeachment trial.
Spectrum News spoke with Burr in July at the historic Monocle Restaurant near the Capitol, where he spent a decade in the House and 18 years in the Senate before declining to run for re-election two years ago. It was his first television interview in years.
“There’s a period of time that you’re a contributor, and when you’re no longer a contributor, it’s time to get out and let somebody else do it,” Burr said. “And I think my timing was pretty good.”
Impeachment vote
Trump’s second impeachment trial, which was held in early 2021, ended up isolating Burr from a large part of the Republican Party.
The House voted to impeach Trump for inciting the insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6. Burr was one of just seven Republican senators who voted against Trump, 10 short of the number needed to convict him.
“My vote on the president wasn’t on anything the House presented… it was on the fact that I thought that the president leaving the vice president, without surging to Capitol Hill a protective detail, to take a vice president with a nuclear football, and to make him secure was a breach of office,” Burr said.
Burr told Spectrum News he didn’t tell his colleagues before he voted.
“I think some were shocked. I think some might have voted a different way if I had told them. Very possibly. Very possibly,” Burr said.
After the vote, the North Carolina GOP voted to censure him because he was labeled a RINO (Republican in Name Only).
“My wife would tell you it was relief because I no longer had to travel around the state speaking to Republican groups. I could go sort of do my thing. And that’s what I did,” Burr said.
Will he vote for Trump?
Despite Burr’s tense relationship with his party, he still identifies as a Republican and plans to vote for Trump in November.
“Maybe someone will have a hard time squaring with it. I don’t have a hard time squaring with it because I firmly understood why I voted for impeachment. And l like I said, that’s not a disqualifier as to whether you can serve. It’s a bad choice I thought a president made one time,” Burr said.
Asked if there was a contradiction between planning to vote for Trump and voting to convict him, which would have barred Trump from running again, Burr said his decision to convict wasn’t an attempt to disqualify but rather a response to Trump’s actions on Jan. 6.
Senate career
A lot of his time in the Senate was focused on health care and issues of national security. He had a critical role on the Senate Intelligence Committee when it found Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election.
“It continues from Russia, it’s very aggressive from China and it’s overly aggressive from Iran right now. That’s straight out of the mouths of the DNI in a report this week so I’m not reporting anything that’s not public. It’s something we need to be concerned with,” Burr said.
Burr worked closely with the panel’s senior Democrat Virginia Senator Mark Warner.
The committee was praised for its bipartisanship, which is a word that became synonymous with Burr, especially in the later part of his career.
He voted for the bipartisan gun safety law, the infrastructure law and CHIPS legislation.
“Senator Helms used to look at me and say, 'you’re more Conservative than I am.' I relish back to those comments,” Burr said. “I think as we age, we all start to look at things through a different frame.”
Burr recounted a vote he once took on gay individuals serving in the military.
“My colleagues looked at me and said, ‘what are you doing?’ And I said, ‘you know, my kids at home said I was crazy. Why would I be against this? They’re with this every day of their lives,'” Burr said. “I realized you have to consider the feelings of the next generation and the next generation. I mellowed in part because I saw things differently, but I also understood more the responsibly I had as a member [of Congress], that we have to get things done.”
Burr, who still lives in North Carolina but works as a policy advisor for a law firm in D.C., is the first tell you Democrats are needed to get anything done in Congress. It's a lesson for an institution plagued in division.
“30 years ago, when I would come home from Washington, and if somebody asked me what we did that week, and I said nothing, they cheered. And now, all of a sudden, we are consumed with what Washington hasn’t done, and that’s a big reversal in 30 years,” Burr said. “But it tells us we got a lot of work to do. And what America want us to do is return to a period we don’t need Washington to do something.”
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Did someone take a family member hostage? I'm not surprised, exactly, but I struggle to understand why even retired Republicans do this.
Maybe they're worried that Cult45 will attack them, their families, and their property if they don't worship the orange god.
I guess it boils down to their last hope at power for a generation is Trump.
Once he’s gone MAGA goes back to moonshine, crack and fentanyl. Coalition shrinks by 10%.
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Regarding the Trump/Vance ticket.
I may be wrong but I think that Jim Vance is finding that when he decided to play in the Big League, that a lot’a birds are coming home to roost!
His “cat-ladies” remark; if I’m not wrong must have pissed of a lot of DINKS, and single professional Republican women!
Then pictures him having dressed up in drag, at a college Halloween dress-up party, must have done the same, with some of the more conservative Republican voters.
Just wondering if Trump might not consider him a mill-stone around his ankles, and decide to cut him loose?
Is that even possible, this late in the campaign? Has it ever been done before?
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This story has gotten ridiculous. Bottomline is anyone who was in the Guard and/or Reserves in 2003-06 or worked with them knew rumors were rampant about unit orders. A rumor could say you were going to Iraq. You get an official Warning Order 3 months later that says Afghanistan. 9 months later when you were mobilized and almost done with your deployment training you got ordered to Africa. Happened all the time. Bottomline is this is a nothing burger. And keep in mind he had an infant daughter and a noncommunicative autistic preschool son at home. All this is also as he was deciding to run for Congress as a Democrat in a Red District and knew he had a lot of work to do. He gave all his country asked of him.
Tim Walz couldn't possibly know his unit would deploy before he retired, DoD info shows (bostonherald.com)
Minnesota National Guard officials weigh in on Walz service
Claims the VP candidate abandoned unit don’t match reality, officials say
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the running mate of Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, is pictured at a campaign rally in Philadelphia, Aug. 6, 2024.
By Matthew Medsger | [email protected] | Boston Herald
UPDATED: August 13, 2024 at 1:29 p.m.
It’s unlikey that Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic nominee to the vice presidency, knew that his unit would receive mobilization orders not long after he retired in 2005, sources with the Minnesota National Guard told the Herald.
Since the announcement he would join Vice President Kamala Harris atop the party ticket, Walz has come under sustained fire over his decision to retire following 24 years of service in various Guard units while his battalion was allegedly under orders to deploy or set to soon receive orders, and over his use of the Command Sergeant Major rank in campaign messaging.
However, according to information shared by multiple official sources within the MNG, Walz earned that rank and would need either the gift of prophecy or a time machine to use the deployment as an excuse to leave the service, as his May 2005 retirement date came months before the 1-125th Battalion of the 1st Brigade Combat Team learned they would mobilize and most of a year before the unit was actually deployed to Iraq for what would become a historically long, 22-month tour.
According to Lt. Col. Kristen Augé, the MNG’s State Public Affairs Officer, Walz “served from April 8, 1981, to May 16, 2005″ during which time he “held multiple positions within field artillery such as firing battery chief, operations sergeant, first sergeant, and culminated his career serving as the command sergeant major for the battalion.”
“Governor Walz served in the Minnesota National Guard’s 1st Battalion, 125th Field Artillery after transferring from the Nebraska National Guard in 1996. While serving in Minnesota, his military occupational specialties were 13B – a cannon crewmember who operates and maintains cannons and 13Z – field artillery senior sergeant. In Nebraska, he served as a 11Z – infantry senior sergeant, and a 71L – administrative specialist,” Augé said.
Walz’s official May retirement date came almost two full months before the 1-125 Field Artillery found out they would likely mobilize. An official order was not issued until a month after that, about 90 days after Walz left the service, according to information provided by Lt. Col. Ryan Rossman, the MNG’s Director of Operations.
“Minnesota National Guard’s 1st Battalion, 125th Field Artillery received an alert order for mobilization to Iraq on July 14, 2005. The official Department of the Army mobilization order was received on August 14, 2005,” Rossman said.
The unit mobilized on October 12 — nearly five months after Walz left the service — and deployed in late March of the 2006 after training in Camp Shelby, Mississippi, according to Rossman. That’s a full 10 months after Walz reentered civilian life.
Any assertions that Walz’s unit was warned of a possible deployment ahead of the July 14 mobilization order is questionable, according to DoD officials, as they amount to little more than repeated and misplaced barracks rumors.
First of all, almost every unit and member of the U.S. Military is subject to potential deployment at some point in the future and trains constantly toward that inevitability. Second, the U.S. Army’s current practice of officially notifying a unit ahead of an upcoming deployment via a “Notification of Sourcing” wasn’t implemented until 2009. Back in 2005, any hint a unit might mobilize that made its way out of the Department of the Army Headquarters would be considered unofficial and subject to change pending actual mobilization orders.
Additionally, according to officers serving with the MNG, in order for Walz to retire, he would have had to clear his plans through his unit commander, who would have had to sign off on Walz’s retirement paperwork — Form DD 2656. There is no indication Walz’s commanding officer acted to prevent or stall his request to retire.
“We value all citizens who serve in our Armed Forces. Each service member’s service journey is unique, and when they decide to leave military service, it is a personal decision. Less than 1 percent of Americans serve in our nation’s military, and an even smaller percent reach retirement eligibility. We are grateful for citizens who commit to serving, whether on their initial contract or for 20 years. When a service member reaches 20 years of service, they can submit a request to retire even if there is time remaining on their enlisted contractual agreement. Their request is reviewed and must be approved by leadership,” MNG Joint Chief of Staff Col. Scott Rohweder told the Herald.
“Leadership reviews and approves all requests to retire,” Army Col. Ryan Cochran, Minnesota National Guard’s Director of Manpower and Personnel, said in a statement.
On top of this, Walz had apparently returned home from a mobilization and deployment — the full length of which occurred while he was entirely eligible to drop his retirement paperwork — that ended just over a year before he began the process of leaving the military.
“Governor Tim Walz received his notification of eligibility for retirement on August 3, 2002,” Cochran said. “He retired from the Minnesota National Guard on May 16, 2005.”
“Governor Tim Walz mobilized with the Minnesota National Guard’s 1st Battalion, 125th Field Artillery on Aug. 3, 2003, to support Operation Enduring Freedom. The battalion supported security missions at various locations in Europe and Turkey. Governor Walz was stationed at Vicenza, Italy, during his deployment. He returned to Minnesota in April, 2004,” Augé told the Herald.
His retirement announcement also came after his years working with artillery had led to “bilateral hearing loss and tinnitus,” according to a medical retention board Walz was forced to stand before in 2002 over his injuries. Walz required ear surgery in 2005 for installation of prosthetic bones.
Further allegations Walz is misrepresenting his rank are also unfounded, according to the MNG. Walz was indeed wearing a Command Sgt. Major’s stripes on the day he officially took off his uniform for the last time, but since he was unable to complete the 750 hours of coursework required to meet the conditions of Army Regulation 600-8-19 before he retired, he can’t be paid that rank’s retirement rate.
“He retired as a master sergeant in 2005 for benefit purposes because he did not complete additional coursework at the U.S. Army Sergeants Major Academy,” Augé said.
“He was promoted to sergeant major (E-9) on September 17, 2004, and immediately began serving as the command sergeant major for the 1st Battalion, 125th Field Artillery while his packet was submitted to the National Guard Bureau to appoint him to command sergeant major (E-9). Once approved by NGB, he was laterally appointed to command sergeant major (E-9) on April 1, 2005,” Cochran said.
All of this is at odds with assertions to the contrary, like those made by Republican Vice Presidential candidate U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance, who served four years in the U.S. Marine Corps and claims that Walz is misrepresenting his military service.
“Do not pretend to be something that you’re not,” Vance said last Wednesday. “I’d be ashamed if I was saying that I lied about my military service like you did.”
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Originally posted by TopHatter View PostWith over 577,000 signatures verified, Arizona will put abortion rights on the ballot
FILE - Arizona abortion-rights supporters gather for a news conference prior to delivering more than 800,000 petition signatures to the state Capitol to get abortion rights on the November general election ballot, July 3, 2024, in Phoenix.
Arizona voters will get to decide in November whether to add the right to an abortion to the state constitution.
The Arizona secretary of state's office said Monday that it had certified 577,971 signatures — far above the required number that the coalition supporting the ballot measure had to submit in order to put the question before voters.
The coalition, Arizona for Abortion Access, said it is the most signatures validated for a citizens initiative in state history.
“This is a huge win for Arizona voters who will now get to vote YES on restoring and protecting the right to access abortion care, free from political interference, once and for all,” campaign manager Cheryl Bruce said in a statement.
Democrats have made abortion rights a central message since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022 — and it is a key part of their efforts in this year’s elections.
The issue already is set to go before voters this year in Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Nevada, New York and South Dakota.
Arizona law currently bans abortions after 15 weeks. The ban, which was signed into law in 2022, includes exceptions in cases of medical emergencies but has restrictions on non-surgical abortion. It also requires an ultrasound before an abortion is done, as well as parental consent for minors.
The proposed amendment would allow abortions until a fetus could survive outside the womb, typically around 24 weeks, with exceptions to save the mother’s life or to protect her physical or mental health. It would restrict the state from adopting or enforcing any law that would prohibit access to the procedure.
Organizers said they initially submitted 823,685 signatures, more than double the 383,923 required from registered voters.
Opponents of the measure say it goes too far and could lead to unlimited and unregulated abortions in Arizona.
Supporters, meanwhile, say a constitutional amendment ensures that abortion rights cannot be easily erased by a court decision or legislative vote.
In April, the Arizona Supreme Court upheld an 1864 abortion ban that permitted abortions only to save the mother’s life and provided no exceptions for survivors of rape or incest, but the Republican-controlled Legislature voted for a repeal of the Civil War-era ban, and Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs quickly signed it.
The 19th century law had been blocked since the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that eliminated constitutional protections for abortion.
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Christofascist fucks gonna find out, just like they did in Kansas
Hey, Kari, have you made up your mind yet or are you still flopping all over the place, LMAO...
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With over 577,000 signatures verified, Arizona will put abortion rights on the ballot
FILE - Arizona abortion-rights supporters gather for a news conference prior to delivering more than 800,000 petition signatures to the state Capitol to get abortion rights on the November general election ballot, July 3, 2024, in Phoenix.
Arizona voters will get to decide in November whether to add the right to an abortion to the state constitution.
The Arizona secretary of state's office said Monday that it had certified 577,971 signatures — far above the required number that the coalition supporting the ballot measure had to submit in order to put the question before voters.
The coalition, Arizona for Abortion Access, said it is the most signatures validated for a citizens initiative in state history.
“This is a huge win for Arizona voters who will now get to vote YES on restoring and protecting the right to access abortion care, free from political interference, once and for all,” campaign manager Cheryl Bruce said in a statement.
Democrats have made abortion rights a central message since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022 — and it is a key part of their efforts in this year’s elections.
The issue already is set to go before voters this year in Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Nevada, New York and South Dakota.
Arizona law currently bans abortions after 15 weeks. The ban, which was signed into law in 2022, includes exceptions in cases of medical emergencies but has restrictions on non-surgical abortion. It also requires an ultrasound before an abortion is done, as well as parental consent for minors.
The proposed amendment would allow abortions until a fetus could survive outside the womb, typically around 24 weeks, with exceptions to save the mother’s life or to protect her physical or mental health. It would restrict the state from adopting or enforcing any law that would prohibit access to the procedure.
Organizers said they initially submitted 823,685 signatures, more than double the 383,923 required from registered voters.
Opponents of the measure say it goes too far and could lead to unlimited and unregulated abortions in Arizona.
Supporters, meanwhile, say a constitutional amendment ensures that abortion rights cannot be easily erased by a court decision or legislative vote.
In April, the Arizona Supreme Court upheld an 1864 abortion ban that permitted abortions only to save the mother’s life and provided no exceptions for survivors of rape or incest, but the Republican-controlled Legislature voted for a repeal of the Civil War-era ban, and Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs quickly signed it.
The 19th century law had been blocked since the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that eliminated constitutional protections for abortion.
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Christofascist fucks gonna find out, just like they did in Kansas
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Originally posted by Ironduke View PostI wonder how the MAGA base is going to respond to JD Vance's transvestism. Well, we figured out where he learned how to apply his eyeliner.
Here he is in drag, standing next to a 6 foot pile of horse shit:
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Originally posted by DOR View Postbut otherwise has said he is not planning to hit the road until after the Democratic National Convention concludes next week, an odd lack of campaigning at this point in a presidential contest.
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Read this on another platform and she really hits it. Love reading DR Richardson!
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The Atlantic
Aug 12, 2024,
Letter From America
by Heather Cox Richardson
The 2024 election is shaping up to be bizarre on the Republican side. The party’s presidential nominee, former president Donald Trump, has largely stayed home and posted on social media while his vice presidential running mate J.D. Vance has been trying to cover the campaigning for the team. Indeed, Vance’s offer on Wednesday during a rally in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, to debate Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris suggests that Vance is not unwilling to be seen as the face, if not the leader, of the Republican ticket.
The actual presidential nominee appears even more unstable than usual, and it certainly appears that his handlers are trying to keep him off stage. As Tom Nichols of The Atlantic noted yesterday, “When Trump is on TV a lot, his approval goes down. When he’s in hiding and his surrogates are rearranging his bonkers crazypants word salads into something like real thoughts, his approval goes up.”
Observers, including Jackie Calmes of the Los Angeles Times, have been clear that “Donald Trump’s state of mind should be under debate.” “Trump’s fire hose of cray-cray has inured Americans to his outrages,” Calmes wrote today. “But now that President Biden, a normal and empathetic man, has been pushed out of the 2024 race over concerns about his age and mental acuity, Trump’s more manifest unfitness for office should be ignored no longer—by the media, former advisors and military leaders who remain silent and, yes, Republicans.”
Trump held a surprise “press conference” on Thursday, where, according to a team of reporters and editors at NPR, he misstated things, exaggerated, or lied outright at least 162 times in 64 minutes, a rate of more than two times a minute.
He said that the United States “is in the most dangerous position it’s ever been in from an economic standpoint,” and warned we could end up in another depression like the Great Depression of the 1930s. In fact, the economy is strong and growing at a faster rate than it did in three of the four years of Trump’s presidency.
He warned of a national crime wave although crime has been plummeting after a surge in 2020, during Trump’s term, and said that we are “very close to a world war,” which illustrates that Trump’s main lever to turn out voters is fear. With the successes of the Biden-Harris administration having neutralized the economic fears that worked in the past, and with the goals of antiabortion activists achieved in 2022 with the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, Trump is apparently going for broke with the threat of World War III.
Altogether, the event did Trump no favors.
Poll numbers for Harris and her running mate Minnesota governor Tim Walz have climbed since President Joe Biden announced on July 21 he would not accept the Democratic nomination, and observers have reported that Trump’s anger is leading him into unforced errors, picking fights with allies and seemingly unable to let go of his focus on the lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him, a focus that his advisors warn is turning off voters.
Trump has repeatedly seemed to fantasize that Biden will return to the head of the Democratic ticket, and on Sunday, seemingly frantic about Harris’s huge rallies while he can no longer attract big crowds, released a rant accusing Vice President Harris of using AI to create fake footage showing large groups of supporters greeting her airplane. Faking crowds with AI is a technique we know Trump uses, but there is no evidence Harris does. Immediately, people who attended her events released their own videos proving the size of the crowds, and political pundits openly questioned Trump’s mental health.
Then, this morning, Trump posted on his social media channel: “I’m doing really well in the Presidential Race, leading in almost all of the REAL Polls, and this despite the Democrats unprecedentedly changing their Primary Winning Candidate, Sleepy Joe Biden, midstream.” He went on until his closing: “We are going to WIN BIG and take our Country back from the Radical Left Losers, Fascists, and Communists. We will, very quickly, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” This afternoon, Five Thirty Eight showed Harris up 2.7 points in the national polling average.
Trump’s advisors are pleading with him to stop name-calling and to stay on message. His campaign began today to run ads on X that look like his tweets but are much more like standard political ads.
Tonight, X owner Elon Musk planned to “interview” Trump, although it seemed pretty clear the event was intended simply to be a long advertisement for him. European Union commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton wrote an open letter to Musk warning about E.U. laws against amplifying harmful content “that promotes hatred, disorder, incitement to violence, or certain instances of disinformation.” Breton warned that his team “will be extremely vigilant” about protecting “E.U. citizens from serious harm.” Musk responded with a meme that said: “TAKE A BIG STEP BACK AND LITERALLY, F*CK YOUR OWN FACE!”
Last month the European Union charged X with failing to respect its social media law by letting disinformation and illegal content run rampant. X faces fines of up to several million euros.
In the end, technical difficulties delayed the start of the X Spaces event. Instead, wrote BBC journalist Shayan Sardarizadeh, who specializes in exposing disinformation, a “deepfake livestream of the Trump-Musk interview” was playing “on a fake Tesla channel on YouTube, with 200,000 people watching.” Sardarizadeh noted that the channel was running a crypto scam, and YouTube finally suspended it. When the real X channel finally began to function, it showed Musk and Trump heaping praise on each other. But Trump was slurring his words, and when HuffPost White House journalist S.V. Dáte asked the campaign about his inability to articulate, it answered: “Must be your sh*tty hearing. Get your ears checked out.”
Trump went to Montana on Friday in support of Republican candidate Tim Sheehy, who is running to unseat popular Democrat Jon Tester, but otherwise has said he is not planning to hit the road until after the Democratic National Convention concludes next week, an odd lack of campaigning at this point in a presidential contest. He seems to be trying to regain control of the political narrative through tweets and social media. Today he said he is suing the government over the raid on Mar-a-Lago that recovered hundreds of classified national security documents, but this is almost certainly posturing to try to make him look strong: he would never be willing to undergo the discovery phase of such a lawsuit.
In the midst of Trump’s frenzy, J.D. Vance has been doing the usual appearances of a campaign, although, unable to generate rally crowds himself, he has been reduced to following Harris and Walz to theirs and trying to grab headlines there.
On Sunday he did the rounds of the morning talk shows, where on CNN he complained that Democrats are bullying him by calling the MAGA Republicans “weird.” Political journalist Brian Tyler Cohen promptly answered: “Crooked Hillary, Crazy Nancy Pelosi, Sleepy Joe, Coco Chow, Lyin Ted, Ron DeSanctimonious, Birdbrain Nikki Haley, Old Crow McConnell, Gavin Newscum, Pencil Neck Schiff, Pocahontas, Cryin Chuck, and Kamabla would all like a word.”
Republicans have made punching down a key part of their rhetoric since at least the 1980s, and Vance’s frustration that the tables have turned feels a bit as if someone is finally standing up to the schoolyard bully.
Outside of the MAGA frenzy, Harris and Walz last week held big, joyous rallies in the swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, and Nevada, contrasting their happy campaign with the MAGA Republicans’ drumbeat of carnage and revenge. A cover article from Time magazine today by Charlotte Alter described the scene of one of her rallies as a mashup of a Beyoncé concert, Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, and “the early days of Barack Obama”: “a kind of reception a Democratic presidential candidate hasn’t gotten in years. Fans packed into overflow spaces, waving homemade signs made of glitter and glue as drumlines roared. When Harris introduced her new running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, the cheering lasted more than a minute.”
At the same time, the grave issues that are propelling the Democrats continue to gain traction. The Associated Press today reported that in the wake of the 2022 Dobbs decision, more than 100 pregnant women have been treated negligently or turned away from emergency rooms despite federal law. Two women, each of whom lost a fallopian tube to an undertreated ectopic pregnancy—one also lost 75% of one of her ovaries, and the other nearly bled to death—have asked the federal government to investigate whether the hospitals that sent them home to miscarry without medical assistance violated federal law.
On Saturday, Trump’s campaign said it had been hacked, after Politico reported that it had received communication from an account called “Robert” about internal Trump campaign documents. David Kurtz of Talking Points Memo put together a helpful timeline of the story today, explaining that on Sunday the Washington Post said it had also received some of that information and said it believed the information to be that referred to in an August 9 warning from Microsoft that Iran was engaged in an influence campaign. Today the New York Times also said it had received the information, and this afternoon the FBI said it is investigating attempted hacking against both the Trump-Vance and Harris-Walz campaigns.
CNN national security and justice reporter Zachary Cohen reported tonight that the hackers apparently were able to access the campaign by compromising the personal email account of Trump operative Roger Stone.
“Buckle up,” Chris Krebs, the former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, wrote on X. “Someone is running the 2016 playbook, expect continued efforts to stoke fires in society and go after election systems—95% votes on paper ballots is a strong resilience measure, combined with audits. But the chaos is the point….”
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Originally posted by TopHatter View PostJust a brief aside, it looks like so far Walz was a good choice.
And holy shit did Trump step in it with choosing Vance.
Still wondering how long the Harris Honeymoon is going to last though.
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Originally posted by TopHatter View PostGet Ready Now: Republicans Will Refuse to Certify a Harris Win
Trumpist county election officials are preparing to throw the process into chaos.
1. Trump’s Not Taking the L. . .
The last two weeks—the unveiling of the Harris-Walz ticket, and Kamala Harris’s surge in the polls—feels like some surreal dream state. Everything has changed. Have you noticed Harris has pushed Donald Trump right out of the comfy lead he’s held for an entire year? He’s noticed. From FiveThirtyEight to RealClearPolitics—pick your polling average—they all now show Harris out in front after only two and a half weeks.
Trump is no longer on track to win the election—which he has been for more than six straight months. Instead, the momentum, money, voter registration, volunteering, grassroots organizing, polling, and online engagement all favor the Democrats and it looks now like Trump could easily lose.
But that won’t happen, because Trump doesn’t lose. He beat Joe Biden in 2020—remember? So if he’s not the rightful victor on November 5, an entire army of Republicans is ready to block certification of the election at the local level.
No need to worry about mayhem on January 6, 2025 when Congress meets in joint session; the election deniers plan to stop a result right away if it looks like Harris is winning. Their goal: Refuse to certify anywhere—even a county that Trump won—and prevent certification in that state, which prevents certification of the presidential election.
A Harris victory could become a nightmare.
An investigation by Rolling Stone identified “in the swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania . . . at least 70 pro-Trump election conspiracists currently working as county election officials who have questioned the validity of elections or delayed or refused to certify results.” Of those 70, 22 of them already have “refused or delayed certification” in recent past elections. Nationwide, Republicans have refused to certify results at least 25 times since 2020, in eight states—the most in Georgia.
The article describes social media posts from the zealots who have infiltrated election administration as showing “unapologetic belief in Trump’s election lies, support for political violence, themes of Christian nationalism, and controversial race-based views.”
There are more than enough such individuals in these key posts to bring us to a constitutional crisis.
“I think we are going to see mass refusals to certify the election” in November, Democratic election lawyer Marc Elias told Rolling Stone. “Everything we are seeing about this election is that the other side is more organized, more ruthless, and more prepared.”
Sit with that.
Then there is this. Trump’s self-destructive attacks on Georgia’s popular governor made the headlines from his Atlanta rally last Saturday, but he also singled out for praise three little-known Georgians—Janice Johnston, Rick Jeffares, and Janelle King—calling them “pitbulls fighting for honesty, transparency, and victory.”
Who are Johnston, Jeffares, and King? They are three of the five members of Georgia’s State Election Board. Three days after Trump’s speech, this past Tuesday, those three Republicans approved a new rule requiring a “reasonable inquiry” prior to election certification that—while vague and undefined—could be exploited to delay certification and threaten the statewide election certification deadline of November 22.
The law in Georgia, where Trump and fourteen1 others are charged with plotting to overturn the 2020 election result, requires county election boards to certify results “not later than 5:00 P.M. on the Monday following the date on which such election was held”—so this year, by the evening of November 11. The secretary of state is then to certify the statewide results “not later than 5:00 P.M. on the seventeenth day” after the election, so November 22.
Across the country, the November election results will have to be certified in more than 3,000 counties, and all state results must be final by the time electors meet in each state on December 17. Members of county election boards are not tasked with resolving election issues; certification is mandatory and “ministerial,” not discretionary. Disputes over ballot issues are separate from the certification process—investigated and adjudicated by district attorneys, state election boards, and in court.
Election experts say the new rule could disrupt the entire process across the state by allowing local partisans to reject results. And Georgia appears to be at the center of Trump’s plans. Casting doubt on Fulton County, which makes up the bulk of Democratic votes in the state, will help him claim he won the Peach State as the rest of the results come in red.
But even without an explicitly permitted “inquiry” like the new Georgia rule provides, Republicans in other swing states still plan on acting at the county level to slow or stop certification. Because questioning the outcome at the very start of the process will create delay. Any doubt and confusion, and perhaps even violence, makes it easier to miss essential deadlines and can threaten the chance that the rightful winner prevails.
Election deniers also hope that sowing chaos might prompt GOP legislatures to intervene—in Georgia, Arizona, or Wisconsin for example—a dangerous scenario I wrote about in April.
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2) How Is This Happening All Over Again?
With all that has transpired since November 3, 2020, why are we here again?
Four years later we must ask this question. Our entire country has been held hostage by Trump’s mental and emotional deficits. He doesn’t “lose.” He is unwell and cannot publicly acknowledge defeat. Democracy was vulnerable before Trump, but its fragility could be fatal because of him.
The Big Lie, born from his pathological insecurity, led to a failed coup and a deadly insurrection. We had hoped those two things would undo or, at least, diminish the power of the Big Lie. Yet it has only grown more potent and widespread. It is an article of faith in the GOP base, with polls estimating that roughly two-thirds of Republicans are bought in.
These voters know there was no “evidence” that passed legal muster in court in more than 60 separate cases.
They know multiple recounts and audits in swing states certified Biden the winner.
They know Trump’s own Department of Justice concluded the same and that his own Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency called the election “the most secure in American history.”
But they cling to his lies, and to conspiracy, because Trump’s cult provides a sense of belonging more nourishing than truth, and more compelling than facts.
Most GOP elected representatives and leaders do not believe the Big Lie—after all, they never questionedtheir own victories or losses in 2020. But they are cowards, so to stay in power they have perpetuated Trump’s mass delusion through their silence or their bandwagoning—which Liz Cheney details in her enraging book Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning. Those named in her account of the aftermath of the 2020 election know what is coming this November if Trump loses, from House Speaker Mike Johnson on down.
So Trump knows there are millions among us who believe him when he says Democrats can only win if they cheat and who believe dark forces are at work to thwart him again. And Trump needs to be president again. He wants to get his criminal cases thrown out, and to stay out of jail.
There is nothing he won’t try.
3) Who Can Stop It?
Courts have already intervened to stop efforts like this. At least ten counties refused certification in the primaries in 2022, followed by two counties—in Arizona and Pennsylvania—refusing to certify general election results that year. They lost in court and the results were certified. Participants in fake elector schemes have been prosecuted.
In retrospect, those efforts look like initial probes—like a bank robber casing the joint, figuring out where the guards stand and the cameras are while planning the real heist. Elias wrote last week that “Republicans are building an election subversion war machine.” It sure doesn’t appear that the law is going to deter them from launching an unprecedented attack on our elections.
And the ways that the potential scale of the assault will test the legal system is, in and of itself, daunting. The Brennan Center for Justice wrote, “little academic attention has been paid to the mechanics of state certification processes, leaving many in the legal community bewildered by the recent string of attacks.”
The Washington Post reported in June that “in some states, election administrators have already identified voters in each county who could serve as plaintiffs in emergency lawsuits to force county boards to certify results. In others, state administrators are sending detailed instructions to county officials laying out the limits of their power to block certification.”
It’s crucial that these plans are widely publicized. And they can be. Just like Project 2025, which was virtually unheard of and is now in the forefront of the political debate. Putting a media spotlight on this issue will force Republican officials to address what they are well aware of and are refusing to call out.
Yesterday CBS News reported Biden said in his first interview since leaving the presidential race he is “not confident at all” there will be a peaceful transfer of power if Trump loses. Harris isn’t likely to talk about this in her campaign, so it’s critical that other high-profile surrogates do. President Obama, President Clinton, Hillary Clinton, and others must educate voters about the plot underway to force more public pressure and accountability on the process.
Every Republican must be asked about local certification of elections, electors honoring the popular vote of their state, preventing political violence—all of it. Repeatedly.
As Elias told an interviewer, there are things we can do, as citizens willing to invest some time, to take action.
This isn’t a threat from abroad. This year—and likely for years to come—we will all have to continue to fight against what our fellow Americans are doing to subvert elections. Because without free elections—and facts and truth—we cannot be a free country.
We are forewarned.
It’s too easy to predict.Last edited by statquo; 10 Aug 24,, 21:29.
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