#list of republican run states

[latestnews69]

West African bloc approves historic exit of military-run states

Leaders of the West African regional grouping, Ecowas, have approved the withdrawal of three countries ruled by the military from the bloc, but have offered a six-month grace period for them to reconsider.

Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger plan to withdraw from Ecowas in January after refusing the bloc's demand to restore democratic rule.

The three departing countries were founding members when Ecowas was established in 1975 to improve economic and political integration in West Africa, so this is a huge blow to what was Africa's most developed trade grouping.

Citizens of all Ecowas countries currently have the right to live and work in all member states, while goods can circulate freely.

Read more

[orcelito]

Reading up on the people on my election ballot and there's some combination of "can ANYONE tell me what their policies actually are???" (Specifically with the smaller offices) VS "Oh, so YOU'RE the reason why Indiana has an abortion ban! Duly noted!"

[anistarrose]

Please don't tune out when you get to the non-partisan section of your ballot this November. First off, where state Supreme Court justices are elected, Republicans are trying their darndest to elect candidates who will destroy reproductive freedom, gut voting rights, and do everything in their power to give "contested" elections to Republicans. Contrast Wisconsin electing a justice in 2023 who helped rule two partisan gerrymanders unconstitutional, versus North Carolina electing a conservative majority in 2022, who upheld a racist voter ID law and a partisan gerrymander that liberal justices had previously struck down both of.

Second, local judicial offices will make infinitely more of an impact on your community than a divided state or federal legislature will. District and circuit courts, especially, are where criminalization of homelessness and poverty play out, and where electing a progressive judge with a commitment to criminal justice reform can make an immediate difference in people's lives.

It's a premier example of buying people time, and doing profound-short-term good, while we work to eventually change the system. You might not think there will be any such progressive justices running in your district, but you won't know unless you do your research. (More on "research" in a moment.)

The candidates you elect to your non-partisan city council will determine whether those laws criminalizing homelessness get passed, how many blank checks the police get to surveil and oppress, and whether lifesaving harm reduction programs, like needle exchanges and even fentanyl test strips, are legal in your municipality. Your non-partisan school board might need your vote to fend off Moms for Liberty candidates and their ilk, who want to ban every book with a queer person or acknowledgement of racism in it.

Of course, this begs the question — if these candidates are non-partisan, and often hyper-local, then how do I research them? There's so much less information and press about them, so how do I make an informed decision?

I'm not an expert, myself. But I do think/hope I have enough tips to consist of a useful conclusion to this post:

Plan ahead. If you vote in person, figure out what's on your ballot before you show up and get jumpscared by names you don't know. Find out what's on your ballot beforehand, and bring notes with you when you vote. Your city website should have a sample ballot, and if they drop the ball, go to Ballotpedia.

Ballotpedia in general, speaking of which. Candidates often answer Ballotpedia's interviews, and if you're lucky, you'll also get all the dirt on who's donating to their campaign.

Check endorsements. Usually candidates are very vocal about these on their websites. If local/state progressive leaders and a couple unions (not counting police unions lol) are endorsing a candidate, then that's not the end of my personal research process per se, but it usually speeds things up.

Check the back of the ballot. That's where non-partisan races usually bleed over to. This is the other reason why notes are helpful, because they can confirm you're not missing anything.

I've seen some misconceptions in the reblogs, so an addendum to my point about bringing notes on the candidates: I strongly suggest making those notes a physical list that you bring polling place with you. Many states do allow phones at the polling place, but several states explicitly don't — Nevada, Maryland, and Texas all ban phones, and that may not be an exhaustive list. There may also be states that allow individual city clerks to set policies.

You should also pause and think before you take a photo of your ballot, because even some states that don't ban phones still ban ballot photographs. But whether it's a photo, or just having your phone in general — in an environment as high-risk for voter suppression as the current one, you don't want even a little bit of ambiguity about your conduct. Physical notes are your friends.

[fandomtrumpshate]

Defeating Tr*mp and the Republican party: how you can help

So as you've probably heard, there is a presidential election coming up in the US this November. You may even be experiencing some concern about the outcome of that election -- given both the high stakes and the active efforts by Republicans to suppress the vote -- and wondering what more you can do to stave off the possibility of a literal fascist takeover of the United States.

The good news is: you're not helpless. There are wonderful organizations out there -- staffed by knowledgeable, talented people with their feet already on the ground -- and they could use your help.

Here are a few of them:

VoteBeat offers deeply-researched local reporting about elections, which is both valuable and rare in the current news environment. A spinoff of ChalkBeat, it was founded and is run by journalists from ProPublica.

Spread the Vote is an organization that works on the ground to help every eligible voter secure the documentation and the access they need to make their voices heard. In particular, StV runs a program called Vote by Mail in Jail to help ensure that incarcerated persons also have access to these rights.

VoteRiders, like StV, works to ensure that every American has the opportunity to vote. In particular, they provide financial and practical support to trans people so that they can get hold of the documentation they need and can vote safely and confidently.

FairVote advocates for ranked-choice voting, a system in wide use outside the US which far more effectively captures the will of the electorate. (we don't have an individual feature page for them, but FV was one of FTH's supported orgs in 2020.)

(This is just a short starter list of amazing organizations, pulled from FTH's supported orgs list in past years; there are plenty of others. Please feel free to add them in reblogs!)

Ways you can help

Donate to one (or more!) of these organizations. These are all fairly small operations, even if their goals and their impact is large; they could use the help!

Volunteer your time. Many of these organizations rely on volunteers to make their day-to-day operations work. Sometimes it's necessary to do this volunteering in person, but often there is a remote option for volunteering if that's what works for you.

Run a fanworks auction to raise money. FTH recently rolled out a full and detailed playbook, sharing all of our organizational materials and step-by-step guides for how to use them and adapt them to your needs. This is a great moment to put that to work! Whether you want to raise money for one of the organizations listed above, or for some other nonprofit, or even for a progressive local candidate that could use the support (FTH doesn't do individual candidates, but you shouldn't let that stop you!) you can make a real difference while also helping to put more fanworks into the world.

[qqueenofhades]

I am FULLY ONBOARD the Harris/Waltz train, tho before this i was leaning towards Mark Kelly (AZ is a swing state! He's an ASTRONAUT!) If you want or have time, no pressure, but any thoughts on what makes Waltz a better pick?

I like Mark Kelly too, and since he's married to Gabby Giffords (having run for public office after she got shot and could no longer do so) he would have been an amazing pick in terms of supporting the first female POTUS. But he is a less charismatic public speaker than Walz (for whatever that's worth, but politics is a mess of Aesthetics and Vibes that matter as much and/or more than actual facts) and more moderate/conservative. He's been a great senator and picking him would defuse some of the BORDER IMMIGRATION BLAH BLAH!!! scaremongering that Republicans love to run on, but it would also leave open the possibility of losing a special election and other dangers with the Democratic senate that we really need to minimize. So Walz is a better choice for that alone, but also:

He really has serious progressive credentials as governor, even if he was a fairly mainstream Democrat (who flipped a rural red House district in Minnesota that Democrats have not been able to win again after he left) during his 12 years in the House. This is an INCOMPLETE LIST of what he was able to do in two years with a one-seat Democratic majority in Minnesota:

A Climate Action Plan that included:

Investing in energy infrastructure

100% carbon-free electricity by 2040 goal

Transition off of fossil fuels and onto clean energy resources

Building more electric vehicle charging stations

Providing funding to help workers acquire new skills through apprenticeship programs in clean energy fields

Direct state funding for transit

Money for rail

Tax credit for e-bikes

Permitting form to fast-track clean energy projects

And that was in addition to:

Codified abortion access in Minnesota

Guaranteed paid sick time and paid family and medical leave

Funded replacing ALL LEAD PIPES IN THE STATE

Free school breakfasts and lunches for all

Made public college free

Stronger labor protections

Drivers’ Licenses for All

Voting Rights Act to reverse recent court rulings that make voting harder, including restored voting rights to convicted felons

Banning medical debt from credit bureaus

The "Taylor Swift Bill" requiring all ticket "junk fees" be shown up front

Banning most "junk fees"

No book bans

Protection for tipped workers

Banned non-competes

Legalized recreational cannabis

Gun control, including increased penalties for straw purchases of firearms, expanded background checks and enacted red-flag laws, passing gun safety measures that the GOP has thwarted for years

Made MN a Trans Refuge State, and required health plans to cover “medically necessary gender-affirming care.”

Pay increase for Uber and Lyft drivers

Elimination of the so-called “gay panic defense”

A ban on “doxxing” election workers

A prohibition on “swatting” elected officials

In March, during the height of the Gaza/uncommitted primary protests against Biden, Walz said that young people should be listened to and they had a right to be speaking up and the situation in Gaza was horrible and intolerable, without directly slamming Biden or getting involved in the issue in a way to draw negative headlines. Regardless of what you think about any of it, that is a very deft way to handle it and pairs well with Kamala's better responsiveness on the Gaza issue overall. That was a big part of the reason why Gen Z/younger voters were very excited about Walz despite him being an "old" (actually the same age as Kamala but he has joked that teaching high school for 20 years will do that to a guy) white guy. If half the battle in politics is making the right pick to excite your core voters and reach out to new ones, then Harris nailed it. As I have said in earlier posts, there was just too much energy with young voters FINALLY checking in when Harris became the candidate, to risk introducing a big ideological split with Shapiro.

Aside from that: the most insufferable Smart White-Bro Political Pundits (TM) are big mad about Walz, many Never Trumper Republicans thought they were entitled to a "moderate" in exchange for oh-so-generously lending us their vote against Trump and not run the risk that we might end up with someone *gasp* progressive, and the regular MAGA Republicans are hysterical, which means they're terrified. It's also incredibly hard to paint Literal Midwestern Stereotype Dad (football coach, social studies high school teacher, military veteran, etc) as THE EVIL END OF AMERICA in the way they desperately want to do, though the fact that they're trying shows that they've got literally nothing. The fact that Kamala picked Walz against the PREVAILING WISDOM!!! that she had to take Shapiro (for whatever reason that might have been) is also a good sign, because by far the most genuine and extensive enthusiasm that I have seen from Democratic voters, especially those feeling burned out or disillusioned or angry with specific policy choices of the current administration, was for Walz. Having everyone excited for the pick beforehand, effectively using the "weird" line, and rallying behind the guy, only for her to actually go for him, is inspiring. It makes people feel like they're being heard and the Democrats have decided to win by being progressive, and not just endlessly Catering To The (Imaginary) Middle as they have always been told to do (and often done). That alone is MASSIVE.

Walz is tremendously funny, personable, has Democrats from AOC to Joe Manchin praising it (again, shocking), was right out the gate supporting Kamala, has already been majorly successful on TV, was by far the most progressive-on-policy picks of the VP finalists, is incredibly, hilariously wholesome and small-town Midwestern (he's the JD Vance that they wish JD Vance was), and is already sending ActBlue gangbusters with donations again. And when you're getting this kind of response on the Cursed Bird Hellsite, just:

Just. I don't know what's happening either. But let's enjoy it, and then work hard, because we gotta fucking do this and for possibly the first time this entire year, I really think we might. Heck yeah.

[sirfrogsworth]

Early voting to beat the lines... the best-laid schemes of mice and men often go awry.

So... yesterday was quite the day.

After being stuck in bed for the past 6 weeks with some mystery slump, I was finally feeling better. So I decided I would try to cram as many errands into my day as possible. That works better for me when I drive out into the world because I end up only having to do one big recovery instead of a bunch of little recoveries.

My to-do list...

Go to the doctor

Vote early

Return oxygen machine to FedEx store for scammy eBay guy

Return Amazon package to the UPS store

Get gasoline for my whip

Go to Discount Tire to get my tires filled for free

Drop a check off for my lawn guy

Mail a secret package to Katrina at the US Post Office

It would have been nice if I could have gone to just one shipping place instead of all three, but the universe has a sense of humor and likes to do shit like that to me on a regular basis.

So, I get my checkup, it goes quick, no long wait, I'm feeling good.

As I get in my car, it starts to rain. It was an ugly day and it actually has not stopped raining to this very moment a day later. Just gray, windy, chilly, and wet. I look up the voting place and start the GPS.

Wipers and music on full blast, it's time to get my vote on.

When I reach my destination, I realize early voting is at some kind of private golf club. And at the center is a recreation center—which is a public building.

So it's like this private/public turducken situation.

I was expecting this errand to take 20 minutes. Because early voting always seemed like a way to get in before the crowds of election day for a more convenient voting experience.

But the parking lot was packed and I feared my expectations were about to be subverted.

As I walk through the parking lot I see a bunch of signs in the ground.

And a particular one caught my eye.

This is bullshit.

Like, just a straight up lie. No truth to it whatsoever.

Amendment 3 in Missouri basically restores abortion rights in the state. And Republicans have taken issue with the following language...

"The Government shall not deny or infringe upon a person's fundamental right to reproductive freedom, which is the right to make and carry out decisions about all matters relating to reproductive health care, including but not limited to prenatal care, childbirth, postpartum care, birth control, abortion care, miscarriage care, and respectful birthing conditions."

They claim the phrasing "but not limited to" means you can give an 8-year-old kid "sex change surgery."

This is how their online flyer puts it...

It could also include a free puppy.

Or a zillion bucks.

Or a clown will come to your house after the abortion and honk your nose.

It's ridiculous and desperate. I honestly don't know how it is legal for them to put a lie like that outside of a polling location, but here we are.

The organization "Missouri Stands with Women" is run by... a man.

It was set up by a lawyer named "Edward Greim" on behalf of the Federalist Society.

His law firm has a lovely biography about him. And a bunch of publicly available contact information. I say that for no reason whatsoever.

The Federalist Society funds all kinds of shit like this. Their main thing is installing conservative judges all over the country who will reinterpret or negate legislation. And they do it all to "stand with women" by taking away their reproductive rights.

Here is the board of directors of the Federalist Society.

Ya know, before I looked this up, I said to myself, "I bet it's going to be a sausage fest." I am psychic.

I think it would be more accurate to say they stand with A woman.

Just one.

And she sucks.

Nicole is a law professor at Notre Dame. She chose her Catholicism over her right to choose. The Catholic Church will fuck your rights and your children and Nicole will help them do it.

Anyway... back to my quick and easy voting experience...

So as I'm walking in to vote I keep passing a ton of these awful signs. I notice an older woman standing next to the aforementioned "child sex change" sign and she says, "Can I talk to you about Amendment 3?"

At this point, I'm pretty angry. I look her dead in the eyes and say with my most assholish tone, "NO." as I walk past her.

And then she finishes her sentence...

"...to protect the reproductive rights of women."

Ah, dammit.

I thought she was an old Karen but she was cool as heck. Standing out in the rain telling people the sign is bullshit. I wanted to turn around and apologize but I was stuck in full social anxiety mode so I just kept walking.

If that old lady happens to have a Tumblr and follows me and is willing to read this giant story... I just want to say I am sorry. I thought you were awful and I should have let you finish your sentence. You're super cool and I'm happy there are folks like you fighting for what is right.

I get inside and a young woman greets me. She tells me the line is in the next room and points. I still wasn't quite sure what the situation was. The parking lot being full gave me pause, but I was still hopeful I could have a swift early voting experience.

But I walk through the doors and into a huge gymnasium and my heart sinks.

It's hard to represent in pictures how long this line is.

It goes all the way to the end of the gym, loops around, and comes back. At first I was not too discouraged, because there was a nice gentle ramp at the start of the line.

But then I notice several sets of stairs at different stages of the line. And I'm just thinking how hard it would be to stand in this line and then also having to go up and down several sets of stairs.

So I go back to the young woman working there and ask what their accessible voting options are. And she told me I could do curbside voting and points outside. I then notice a line of cars wrapped around the parking lot. I don't know how I didn't see them walking in, but I guess I was too busy being a jerk to elderly progressive women.

My biggest concern was time.

The longer this takes, the more energy I use up, the longer my eventual recovery will be.

They tell me the car option is the slowest. And I could be in line for 2 to 3 hours. And then an old man who seemed to be in charge walks over and tells me the fastest option is to stand in line.

So I walk back out to my car and grab my cane and decide to try the long serpentine gynasium line.

I start walking up the ramp and some of the other folks see how slow and labored I'm walking and they start encouraging me. "You can do it! You got this!" Which I suppose was meant to be a positive helpful thing. But I found it to be embarrassing.

I get to the end of the line and notice most of the line has bleachers directly next to it. So I decide to sit down and rest and figure out how I am going to survive this experience.

It took me a while to recover from the long walk to this spot. I watched a bunch of people pass me by and the line was actually getting much longer as I rested. I was not really sure what to do. I was trying to problem-solve this situation but the answer that kept popping up in my mind was just... "go home."

But I felt this was too important and that wasn't really an option.

My best idea was to ask someone if they would hold my spot in line. Perhaps I could just sit in the bleachers and follow them around in the line, staying as close to them as I could. But my social anxiety was set to maximum and I was not finding the courage to ask someone.

After about 10 minutes of sitting, resting, and thinking, I basically say, "Fuck it, I'll try to stand in line."

I get up and start walking to the end of the line.

Then I hear a voice yell out to me.

"Hey, man! Come over here! This is your spot!"

A young man was waving at me. He was accompanied by his wife. Both of them were dressed in black and they had a sort of goth skater aesthetic going on. He had a competitively bushy beard, but with less gray. And she had very vivid purple hair.

I was a little confused and still processing what was happening. Then they both started waving at me to join them in line. They remembered I got there just before and told me I should be in front of them. I walk over and thank them. Then he suggests...

"Hey, why don't you just sit in the bleachers and follow us around the line."

He suggested my idea!

Without me asking!

I felt like he read my mind or something.

Can bearded people read each others' minds? Was this some beard skill I was unaware of?

"I got you, man. You just sit and we'll keep your place."

And his violet hair'd significant other agreed. "Yeah, we got you."

The kindness of strangers was more accessible than my polling place and I was just so thankful in that moment.

So I sat in the bleachers and watched them traverse the line. In the middle of the gym there were some teenagers playing basketball. And so I just rested and watched them play.

That young man in the red pants was like a goddamn Harlem Globetrotter. He was just embarrassing the others. He was bouncing the ball behind his back and through his legs and then he just danced around his opponents like a figure skater. It was such an unbalanced matchup. He might as well have been playing 4th graders. Not only was he significantly faster and more maneuverable, but he was consistently hitting 3-pointers.

And then during a break, he ran towards the hoop, jumped from the free throw line, flew all the way to the net, grabbed onto the rim, and proceeded to do several pull ups as if they were the easiest thing in the world. I don't think I've seen anyone jump that far and that high in real life and it was just a bonkers display of athleticism.

I spent the entire wait watching him humiliate the others—hoping he would get a full ride scholarship to some prestigious university.

And I hoped the other boys paid attention in school and got straight As, because basketball was not going to work out for them.

As my new goth skater friends progressed through the line, I would make sure to keep sight of them. Every once in a while I'd give them a head nod to acknowledge we were in this together. After an hour and a half they were at the final segment of the line, so I sat next to the wheelchair folks.

I probably could have argued to sit with them in the first place. But I really did not feel like making the case that I was just as disabled as them and needed that level of consideration. The old man running things seemed quite stressed and was putting out 8 fires at once. And my anxiety wasn't really cooperating enough to be assertive in my needs.

But it worked out in the end, so I'm not going to dwell on the lack of accommodation for people who weren't *visually* disabled.

My new bearded friend neared the end and waved me over. I thanked him and his wife profusely.

I joked, "Thank you for adopting a voter."

They seemed confused by my joke.

"No problem, man. Happy to help."

I told him and his wife they truly saved me. "I honestly don't think I would have made it through the line." And then I looked back...

I said, "As crazy as this is, I do find this kind of turnout encouraging." His wife agreed and said, "We were saying the same thing!" And then I thought, "Can the wives of bearded people absorb the mind reading ability? I hope she can't read my mind right now. Although, I'm mostly thinking that her hair is a really cool shade of purple, so she'd probably find that complimentary."

As I waited to get my ballot I could hear the happy couple behind me. They were very cute. They were making fun of each other in a very lovey-dovey fashion. I had high hopes they were going to grow old and gray and purple together based on their chemistry. And I was just so thankful they were able to recognize that I needed help without me asking. Because I probably would have just caved to my anxiety and not asked for help otherwise.

I got my ballot and sat down to fill in all of the appropriate squares. Thankfully I had prepared a cheat sheet on my phone.

It was an exact replica so I was able to copy it and finish quite rapidly.

Then I fed my votes into the vote-eating monster and they gave me a sticker.

My quick 20 minute adventure to vote early only took 2.5 hours!

And because I didn't want to buck tradition, I stood outside in the wind and the rain and took a voting selfie.

Yep, that seems about right.

Ah, crap... that was only the second thing on my to-do list.

Let's speedrun the rest of this story, shall we?

I drove to FedEx. I hauled a 40 pound box inside. I plopped it on the counter and said, "Man, this thing is heavy!" as I tried to catch my breath. The 20 year old working there then lifted it like it was a feather and I felt great about that.

I drove to the gas station because I was nearly on empty—that is both a metaphor and not a metaphor. I filled my ride with go juice.

I noticed I was a mile from the tire store and they fill up tires for free. So I did that and the guy was super nice and complimented my tires. I felt both weird and proud about having my tires complimented. Like, I had nothing to do with my tires being nice. But I accepted the praise on their behalf.

I drove to the UPS store. The last time I was there I made a scene. They refused to box up a return and I got upset and wasn't feeling well and they had to find a chair for me to sit in because I was going to faint. So I was hoping the same woman wasn't there, but she was. She didn't recognize me, so it was fine.

I drove to my lawn guy's house. He wasn't home. I dropped a check in his mailbox. My checks have corgis on them. My checks are cute.

I drove to the post office. I sent a secret package to my bestie, Katrina. I'd tell you what is in it, but it is an inside joke and you wouldn't get it. The woman noticed my voting sticker and I couldn't help thinking about what I just accomplished to get that sticker.

On my way out I noticed a miracle.

2 of the 4 doors were fixed!

I mean, I don't know why they couldn't fix all 4, but now the employees won't freeze in the winter. So I take that as a win. It only took a year and a half to accomplish and I'm sure all of my phone calls and emails did not help at all. But I'm going to pretend I saved the day regardless.

And then... I drove home.

5 hours of errands.

I was so fucking tired. My back was on fire with pain. I immediately collapsed into my bed. I passed out. And I slept for 14 hours.

The End

[meret118]

“I have yet to find one of them that I felt was credible enough for me to actually file documentation for that voter,” he said. “So as a good steward for voter registration, which is what I’m charged with doing, I should not act upon stuff that is proven to be not credible.

”This year, election officials like Wilcox have spent valuable time sorting through pages of these mass voter challenges. And voting rights advocates worry that the trend could result in eligible voters being removed from the rolls, or from accommodations like being on lists to automatically receive ballots in the mail.

. . .

But experts and election officials who spoke to HuffPost said voters should confirm their registration status now — before the November election season heats up — just to be safe.

. . .

The month following that election, True the Vote teamed up with Georgia Republicans to challenge the eligibility of more than 364,000 voters in the state, based in part on U.S. Postal Service address-change data.

. . .

Some voters only found out their registrations had been challenged when they didn’t receive requested ballots in the mail for Georgia’s January 2021 U.S. Senate run-off election. Ultimately — after courts stepped in — the vast majority of these challenges were rejected. True the Vote’s list “utterly lacked reliability” and “verge[d] on recklessness,” a federal judge later observed.

. . .

At least one Georgia county has signed a contract to use the software, and in May, the director of the Florida Division of Elections sent county officials a list of 10,000 names to review that a local “concerned citizen” had generated with EagleAI.

. . .

Other efforts are state-based, including the “Pigpen Project” in Nevada and “Soles to the Rolls” in Michigan. Some even go so far as to go door to door to ask voters to confirm their information, raising concerns about intimidation. The Republican Party is also involved in the effort — in June, a federal judge rejected a GOP lawsuit alleging Nevada officials had failed to properly maintain voter rolls. (The GOP’s data was “highly flawed,” the state said.) A similar suit, against the state of Michigan, is ongoing.

And some states have made mass challenges even easier. In Georgia, S.B. 202, passed in 2021, allowed anyone to formally challenge an unlimited number of registrations, and S.B. 189, passed this year, requires voters to defend their registration against even frivolous challenges, sometimes at in-person hearings. It faces a lawsuit.

More at the link. Check your registration!

[cumbunnywitch]

I've seen at least one, but posts saying not to blame the people who didn't vote for Harris because whatever are fully in the wrong and they always will be.

You chose moral high grounding and purity culture over the possibility that our protests would work. You chose "she leaned too right in her campaign" over "Trump and the people who want to puppeteer him are going to get a lot of people killed." You chose the democrats being idiots over the republicans want a racist rapist.

You didn't choose? No, you had a choice. You used yours. If you chose not to vote because you wanted to use your non-vote as a voice to show the democrats that they have to win your vote, you're still going to get your face eaten by the leopards. They aren't going to hear you anyway.

Protests work on the left side of our shit-ass two party system because they at least pretend to care.

Here's just, off the top of my head, the things you decided were less important than telling the democratic party "No you have to be good enough":

Student Loan Forgiveness or Relief

Healthcare

Trans Rights

LGBTQIA Safety

Abortion rights

Palestine/Gaza

Ukraine

Industry Regulation(notice all those recalls on food lately?)

Cost of Living

Police Reform

Taxes

There's no such thing as a single-issue voter, not anymore. The right is diametrically opposed to making any of the above better for anyone, whether or not they voted for that shitstain, unless you're very rich, and very white, and a very straight man.

Honestly, if you voted for Jill Stein, at least you fucking voted. Her numbers won her absolutely nothing but at least you voted.

But no. "Don't vote for Harris because she's not good enough! She's running a campaign to secure moderate republicans!" Yea no fucking shit. That's what they've been doing for the last forever. Yea, it still sucks. But most moderate liberals who actually vote still struggle with that list up there. There's literally a democrat trans woman who just got voted in who wants to support Israel's genocidal campaign of murdering every Palestinian.

And you know what? If she sees that line, she might actually stop and think and move a little bit over to my perspective. Every conservative sees that line and immediately thinks "Yea kill the fuckin' brown people!" because they don't consider them fucking people.

If you didn't vote because you saw people saying Harris wasn't leftist enough, not liberal enough, she was a former prosecutor or the democrats haven't done enough for you in the last 4 years, you fell for the Russian psyop. You fell for the propaganda.

Does it suck that Harris wanted to court the swing states and their moderately conservative voting base over to vote for the first woman president? Yea, it's been a shitty idea for decades and they've been doing it for as long as I've been voting. Obama was the center-ist centerist ever, and he still got healthcare reform passed. He also drone striked a lot of people and gave banks billions of dollars when the financial sector faceplanted after trying to balance on a pin for the longest time.

I was gonna add a read-more or chop this up better but no. You get to read the whole thing. If you didn't vote, or you voted for trump, I want you gone. Unfollow me, block me, because you clearly either don't care enough to prevent our slide into authoritarianism and a fixed court for the next 60 years, or you actively hate me.

[angelsndragons]

okay so as a federal worker, i tell you this not to make you panic but to give you time to do what you need to do:

it's the holiday season. in addition to the federal holidays, federal workers build up leave throughout the year. the longer you've been with the federal government, the more leave you accumulate. this time of year, many federal workers will be taking their "use or lose" leave, aka the leave they've accumulated that's over the 240 hour cap you can carry into the next calendar year.

that means if you have any renewals or want to apply to anything that requires the federal government, DO IT NOW. many departments are already understaffed but this time of year? yeah, skeleton crews are the norm.

please be patient. you can check in every week or two to see where your stuff is but please be patient. many of us are going to be working our butts off in the next three months to ensure your stuff gets done. but we're only human. if you have an agency number, calling is often better than emailing. yes, even if you have to wait on the line for a while.

notaries can be extremely backed up. if you have an appointment which requires a notary's signature, make sure that you have every single thing ready the second you walk in. you don't want to have to come back.

understand that the ship of state turns slowly. we do have a lot of mechanisms in place to keep things from falling apart completely HOWEVER this time the Executive Leadership is directly coming at us with the intention of fully dismantling certain departments. chief on their list that i've seen is the department of education. if you have a special needs child in a special ed program or are one yourself, check to see who's funding the program (feds, state, local, etc) and plan accordingly. if the feds pull out their money, you need to know who's handling the gap and what happens if it can't be filled. that goes for other programs like housing.

if the republicans control the house, senate, and white house, expect them to defund everything you care about. the only spending i can see them increasing is the department of defense and border patrol. everything else? huge budget crunch. if you think the government is slow now, is unresponsive now, oh boy, just you wait. this will send a shock wave through the economy - the feds are huge spenders in many areas (sometimes the only thing keeping places afloat). much of the government is too big and unwieldy to dismantle all at once (particularly the pieces entwined with big business) but that doesn't mean they can't launch giant holes into the things they really hate. plan accordingly.

the fda director will try to ban sending abortion pills in the mail. plan accordingly. does this step on the usps' toes? yes. do they care? nope, republicans have been trying to privatize them for years. plan accordingly.

if you want to know the baseline fuckery you'll be expected to deal with, the department of veterans' affairs was shadow run by marvel executives for two years last time. i'm not joking. the white house is going to bypass any pretense of confirming executive leadership by making every single one of them "acting director of such and such." those don't require congressional approval.

if you're a dreamer and you've applied for some kind of federal relief, i would advise you to be extremely careful. your information is in a federal database and the republicans want to round up everyone of latino descent. they've already confirmed that they want to deport whole families irrespective of citizenship to "stop family separation."

stay calm and plan accordingly.

[batboyblog]

How are you feeling about the election currently?

I'm optimistic, so far basically all nation wide polls show Harris ahead.

now we don't vote nationally, we vote by state in the electoral college and that picture is messier with the polls of the swing states, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada being kinda all over the place.

however, basically every poll of the swing states together show Harris leading in enough of them to win, now which ones she's ahead and by how much is very kinda all over the place with different polls showing different states up and down.

but on the other hand, the Democrats running for Senate in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Nevada, and the Democrat running for Governor in North Carolina are all showing MUCH! stronger numbers, winning by A LOT. Which is hopeful, that their strength is a side of Harris' strength and that undecideds will break her way.

That being said, NO! ONE! should take the election for granted, look at one good poll, or what I say and go "oh I can relax" no, it is dead tie, a neck in neck race, basically a tie. We are with-in the margin of effort, we are in a place where each and every person who volunteers has the power to change the outcome of this election. so please please please

VOLUNTEER

last weekend I volunteered up in northern Maine, Maine splits it's electoral votes and Trump in 2016 and 2020 won an electoral vote for the 2nd Congressional District in Northern Maine. So I went up there and knocked doors, talked to a dozen or so voters. This is just a little snap shot, but I was talking to voters who were not sure thing Dems, independent voters mostly. And all of them, pretty much, were very enthusiastic about Harris, even the one Republican (not on my list) I ran into had nothing to say about Trump, nothing, liked the District's Democratic Congressman (a lot). Walking around and driving I didn't see one Trump sign, not one sign for the Republican running for Congress either. I saw a number of signs (in lawns) for Harris/Walz I also saw no Trump signs on the road up. Rural Maine used to be infested with Trump signs, they've disappeared. Does that mean anything? idk, but take my little snapshot to say, come out and canvas right now guys, people are friendly and pumped up and will thank you and you'll feel great.

The only cure to election fear and stress is to do something, to volunteer and talk to voters.

[griseldagimpel]

How to Punish Democrats in the United States for Being Pro-Genocide

I've seen a lot of posts about abandoning the Democratic party. (Because, really, is Be Anti-Genocide really that much of a fucking ask??)

And I've seen a lot of posts about how not voting Democrat means the Republicans will win, which means we'll end up with politicians that are both pro-genocide and a bunch of other awful shit. (Yep. This is true.)

But I haven't seen a lot of posts going around about other things people could do, especially with primaries literally being next year in which the entire House of Representatives and a third of the Senate are up for re-election.

For those not familiar with primaries, they are elections that take place before the general election and are the mechanism for how the general election candidate for a political party is selected. So a primary won't be Democrat vs Republican, it'll be Democrat vs Democrat or Republican vs Republican.

To start, yes, a lot of the below require a lot of time and effort. Yeah, the reality is is that the world's a shitty place because people who want to change it are struggling to exist under late stage capitalism. If there's something on this list you can't do, that's fine. What can you do?

This post is mostly not going to focus on Biden. He's not the sum total of the Democratic party, and if more of the party was against him, he'd have a harder time getting traction. That said, if you do have a presidential primary with him on the ballot, you should absolutely vote against him, just on principle.

Depending on the state, you may need to be a registered member of the Democratic Party to vote in the Democratic Party Primary. And, look, registering as a Democrat doesn't mean you have a legal obligation to vote for a Democratic candidate in the general election. There's no loyalty pledge you have to sign that says you agree with every single position the Democratic Party holds. There's not a membership fee. Literally, all it does is mean that your little voting card says you're a Democrat, which establishes that you want to have a say in how the Democratic Party is run. That's it.

Alright, first step. Who are your two Senators and one House Representative? Here's a link to find that information: https://www.usa.gov/elected-officials

Second step: Are your elected officials Democrats? (Or Independents that caucus with the Democrats?) And are they pro-Genocide?

If they're a Republican, than your goal is to elect an anti-Genocide Democrat. (Or anti-Genocide Independent who'll caucus with the Democrats. Same difference. I'm just going to use "Democrat" from here on out, and you can substitute in "Independent" if it applies.) You still care about primaries, though. It's just that in the General election, the Republican candidate will be incumbent rather than the challenger.

If they're a anti-Genocide Democrat, send them a letter telling them you appreciate their position, and most of the rest of this post doesn't apply to you.

If they're a pro-Genocide Democrat, is there someone running against them in the primary? https://ballotpedia.org/ is a great resource here.

If they've got a primary challenger, is their primary challenger anti-Genocide? If they are, write them and tell them you appreciate their position. Then write to the incumbent and tell them that them being pro-Genocide is why you aren't voting for them in the primary. If the primary challenger is pro-Genocide or doesn't have a stated position, write to them and try to get them to adopt an anti-Genocide position. Pay attention to town hall events, and don't hesitate to contact the campaign. Primaries don't get a lot of attention, so if you can get a primary challenger to switch positions, there's not a big risk of blow back for them doing so. (In a general election, switching positions can get a candidate labeled a flip-flop, so keep that in mind.)

If there's not a primary challenger or if you need a better primary challenger, who in your community can run as one? Check with your local leftist organizations. Check deadlines and requirements to get a candidate on the ballot. It usually requires getting a certain number of signatures on a petition from people in your area.

Now that you've got an anti-Genocide primary challenger, consider volunteering for their campaign. And, something to keep in mind, turn out for primaries tends to be low, and the smaller the population size of the district, the lower that number will be. It may only take a few hundred votes to swing a primary election, if you've got a smaller district.

While all this is going on, you will no doubt be flooded with messages from Democratic candidates begging for money. For each, check their position. If they're pro-Genocide, don't give them money and then call, email, or write them telling them that their pro-Genocide position is why they aren't getting money. If they're anti-Genocide, and you can afford it, give them a bit of money. Yeah, in the bigger elections, there's ridiculous amounts of money in play, but a primary challenger might not necessarily be rolling in it.

Finally, vote in the primaries.

[misfitwashere]

Rejected Cabinet Nominees

Some historical guidance

TIMOTHY SNYDER

JAN 16

Historically, nominees for cabinet positions have been rejected by the Senate or have withdrawn their candidacies in order to prevent that outcome. It is not common, but nor is it abnormal. The power of "advice and consent" granted to the Senate by the Constitution has been exercised in practice. 

A number of Trump's appointments are simply outrageous by historical, ethical, strategic, or any other standards. The ongoing confirmation hearings tend to normalize the bizarre (although Democrats and a couple of Republicans have asked meaningful questions.)

So a few examples of failed nominations might serve as one tool among others to keep the events of the moment in perspective.

Secretary of Defense

John Tower was the first George H.W. Bush nominee for secretary of defense. He has served in the Senate for more than twenty years, and had chaired its Armed Services Committee. He was an author of the Tower Commission report on the Iran-Contra Affair. He was questioned by Senators about his past alcohol use and womanizing.

Pete Hegseth, unlike Tower, has zero knowledge, experience, or qualifications for the of running the Department of Defense. His program, judging from his books, is to ignore foreign enemies, politicize the armed forces, and carry out a "Holy War" against Americans. Pete Hegseth's womanizing and alcohol use, by his own account, far exceed Tower's. Unlike Tower, Hegseth paid off a woman who filed a police report accusing him of sexual assault in circumstances that, by her account, strongly suggest the use of a rape drug. Hegseth had to resign from both of the advocacy groups he ran because of incompetence and drunkenness. He regularly had to be physically carried away from events because he was too drunk to stand. In once case he had to be prevented from joining strippers on a stage. He also displayed total financial and budgetary incompetence. In this connection it is worth mentioning that the Department of Defense has the largest budget of any government in history.

There is a disturbing tendency to forgive Hegseth everything because he is a veteran. This seems unfair to veterans who do not display his failures of character. But it also contains within itself the troubling idea that soldiers can do no wrong: an idea that Hegseth himself seems to hold. That way lies military dictatorship. In any event: Tower served in the Pacific Theater during the Second World War and was in the reserve for decades.

The Senate rejected Tower.

Director of National Intelligence.

This position was created relatively recently and elevated to cabinet rank still more recently. It is meant to oversee the work of all American intelligence agencies. So a relevant historical comparison will be to the position of director of central intelligence.

Anthony Lake was second-term Bill Clinton's nominee for the position of director of central intelligence. Lake was eminently qualified. He is one of the most accomplished American diplomats of the post-1945 period. Among many other positions he was Director of Policy Planning in the State Department under Carter, and National Security Advisor during Clinton's first term. His nomination ran into trouble because of two occasions when his deputies on the National Security Council failed to inform him of discussions with the chairman of the Democratic National Committee about donor access to the White House.

Tulsi Gabbard has no qualifications to be Director of National Intelligence. A very long list of Americans with national security experience regard her as a danger to the safety of Americans. She is known abroad as a supporter of two of the world's most violent dictators, Bashar al-Assad and Vladimir Putin. As a congresswomen she consistently made excuses for Assad, whose regime killed something like half a million people before it was overthrown. She proposed that the Russo-Ukrainian war could be ended "in the spirit of aloha" and repeats Russian propaganda tropes. Russian media refer to Gabbard as "comrade" and "girlfriend" and "our agent."

Under Senate pressure, Lake withdrew his candidacy.

Attorney General

Zoe Baird was nominated by Bill Clinton for attorney general at the beginning of his first term in 1993. She was eminently qualified professionally for the job. She had however hired undocumented immigrants in her household and had not paid Social Security taxes for them.

Pam Bondi is Donald Trump's nominee for the same position. As part of Donald Trump's legal team, she sought to justify his attempt to overturn the results of an election. As Florida attorney general, she accepted luxurious perks from relevant parties in cases she was considering. In that capacity she also failed to pursue a case against Trump University after a political group supporting received a check, an illegal donation, from Trump's foundation signed by Trump. As a lobbyist she represented a Russian money manager convicted in Kuwait and served as a public relations representative for the government of Qatar. She was paid more than $100,000 a month just for that assignment, which she left in order to defend Trump from conviction after his first impeachment. Then she went back to working for Qatar.

Under Senate pressure, Baird withdrew her candidacy.

Succeeding events created the closest thing we have to a historical standard for rejecting cabinet nominees by Republican Senators: the employment of undocumented workers.

After Baird withdrew, Clinton nominated Kimba Wood. She too was eminently qualified to serve as attorney general. It emerged that she too had hired an undocumented worker as a nanny. Wood did so at a time when this was legal, and she paid the appropriate taxes. Nevertheless, the mere fact that she had employed one undocumented person, entirely legally, stopped her candidacy. in 2001, President George W. Bush nominated Linda Chavez to be secretary of labor. She then withdrew her candidacy after it emerged that she had paid an undocumented person to work in her household.

So one might move beyond the obvious point that Bondi's scandals dwarf Baird's (and Hegseth's those of Tower, and Gabbard's those of Lake) and propose a pragmatic line of questioning that would apply to Trump's other nominees. Have they or their companies employed undocumented workers? It seems a reasonable question to ask, especially of the billionaires. Given the coming administration's oft-declared hard line on illegal immigration, this would seem to be a minimum standard for its cabinet nominees.

The Senate has a constitutional role, and in the past has exercised it. Some of the nominees presented to them this month are wildly inappropriate to the point of risking the integrity of American national security and calling into question basic principles of the rule of law. The history of failed nominations reminds us just how far some of these people fall below any reasonable standard.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

1939 MSG Nazi rally

+

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

October 27, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Oct 28, 2024

I stand corrected. I thought this year’s October surprise was the reality that Trump’s mental state had slipped so badly he could not campaign in any coherent way. 

It turns out that the 2024 October surprise was the Trump campaign’s fascist rally at Madison Square Garden, a rally so extreme that Republicans running for office have been denouncing it all over social media tonight. 

There was never any question that this rally was going to be anything but an attempt to inflame Trump’s base. The plan for a rally at Madison Square Garden itself deliberately evoked its predecessor: a Nazi rally at the old Madison Square Garden on February 20, 1939. About 18,000 people showed up for that “true Americanism” event, held on a stage that featured a huge portrait of George Washington in his Continental Army uniform flanked by swastikas. 

Like that earlier event, Trump’s rally was supposed to demonstrate power and inspire his base to violence.  

Apparently in anticipation of the rally, Trump on Friday night replaced his signature blue suit and red tie with the black and gold of the neofascist Proud Boys. That extremist group was central to the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and has been rebuilding to support Trump again in 2024. 

On Saturday the Trump campaign released a list of 29 people set to be on the stage at the rally. Notably, the list was all MAGA Republicans, including vice presidential nominee Ohio senator J.D. Vance, House speaker Mike Johnson (LA), Representative Elise Stefanik (NY), Representative Byron Donalds (FL), Trump backer Elon Musk, Trump ally Rudy Giuliani, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., right-wing host Tucker Carlson, Trump sons Don Jr. and Eric, and Eric’s wife, Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump. 

Libbey Dean of NewsNation noted that none of the seven Republicans running in New York’s competitive House races were on the list. When asked why not, according to Dean, Trump senior advisor Jason Miller said: “The demand, the request for people to speak, is quite extensive.” Asked if the campaign had turned down anyone who asked to speak, Miller said no.  

Meanwhile, the decision of the owners of the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post not to endorse Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris seems to have sparked a backlash. As Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Inquirer noted, “in a strange way the papers did perform a public service: showing American voters what life under a dictator would feel like.”

Early on October 26, the Washington Post itself went after Trump backer billionaire Elon Musk with a major story highlighting the information that Musk, an immigrant from South Africa, had worked illegally when he started his career in the U.S. Musk “did not have the legal right to work” in the U.S. when he started his first successful company. As part of the Trump campaign, Musk has emphasized his opposition to undocumented immigrants.

The New York Times has tended to downplay Trump’s outrageous statements, but on Saturday it ran a round-up of Trump’s threats in the center of the front page, above the fold. It noted that Trump has vowed to expand presidential power, prosecute his political opponents, and crack down on immigration with mass deportations and detention camps. It went on to list his determination to undermine the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), use the U.S. military against Mexican drug cartels “in potential violation of international law,” and use federal troops against U.S. citizens. It added that he plans to “upend trade” with sweeping new tariffs that will raise consumer prices, and to rein in regulatory agencies. 

“To help achieve these and other goals,” the paper concluded, “his advisers are vetting lawyers seen as more likely to embrace aggressive legal theories about the scope of his power.” 

On Sunday the front page of the New York Times opinion section read, in giant capital letters: “DONALD TRUMP/ SAYS HE WILL PROSECUTE HIS ENEMIES/ ORDER MASS DEPORTATIONS/ USE SOLDIERS AGAINST CITIZENS/ ABANDON ALLIES/ PLAY POLITICS WITH DISASTERS/ BELIEVE HIM.” And then, inside the section, the paper provided the receipts: Trump’s own words outlining his fascist plans. “BELIEVE HIM,” the paper said. 

On CNN’s State of the Union this morning, host Jake Tapper refused to permit Trump’s running mate, Ohio senator J.D. Vance, to gaslight viewers. Vance angrily denied that Trump has repeatedly called for using the U.S. military against Americans, but Tapper came with receipts that proved the very things Vance denied. 

Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden began in the early afternoon. The hateful performances of the early participants set the tone for the rally. Early on, comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who goes by Kill Tony, delivered a steamingly racist set. He said, for example: “There’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico.” He went on: “And these Latinos, they love making babies too. Just know that. They do. They do. There’s no pulling out. They don’t do that. They come inside. Just like they did to our country.” Hinchcliffe also talked about Black people carving watermelons instead of pumpkins. 

The speakers who followed Hinchcliffe called Vice President Kamala Harris “the Antichrist” and “the devil.” They called former secretary of state Hillary Clinton “a sick son of a b*tch,” and they railed against “f*cking illegals.” They insulted Latinos generally, Black Americans, Palestinians and Jews. Trump advisor Stephen Miller’s claim that “America is for Americans and Americans only” directly echoed the statement of Adolf Hitler that "Germany is for Germans and Germans only.” 

Trump took the stage about two hours late, prompting people to stream toward the exits before he finished speaking. He hit his usual highlights, notably undermining Vance’s argument from earlier in the day by saying that, indeed, he believes fellow Americans are “the enemy within.”  

But Trump perhaps gave away the game with his inflammatory language and with an aside, seemingly aimed at House speaker Johnson. “I think with our little secret we are gonna do really well with the House, right? Our little secret is having a big impact, he and I have a secret, we will tell you what it is when the race is over,” Trump said. 

It seems possible—probable, even—that Trump was alluding to putting in play the plan his people tried in 2020. That plan was to create enough chaos over the certification of electoral votes in the states to throw the election into the House of Representatives. There, each state delegation gets a single vote, so if the Republicans have control of more states than the Democrats, Trump could pull out a victory even if he had dramatically lost the popular vote.

Since he has made virtually no effort to win votes in 2024, this seems his likely plan. 

But to do that, he needs at least a plausibly close election, or at least to convince his supporters that the election has been stolen from him. Tonight’s rally badly hurt that plan. 

As Hinchcliffe was talking about Puerto Rico as a floating island of garbage, Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris was at a Puerto Rican restaurant in Philadelphia talking about her plan to spread her opportunity economy to Puerto Rico. She has called for strengthening Puerto Rico’s energy grid and making it easier to get permits to build there. 

After the “floating island of garbage” comment, Puerto Rican superstar musician Bad Bunny, who has more than 45 million followers on Instagram, posted Harris’s plan for Puerto Rico, and his spokesperson said he is endorsing Harris. 

Puerto Rican singer and actor Ricky Martin shared a clip from Hinchcliffe’s set with his 16 million followers. His caption read: “This is what they think of us.” Singer and actress Jennifer Lopez, who has 250 million Instagram followers, posted Harris’s plan. Later, singer-songwriter and actress Ariana Grande posted that she had voted for Harris. Grande has 376 million followers on Instagram. Singer Luis Fonsi, who has 16 million followers, also called out the “constant hate.”

The headlines were brutal. “MAGA speakers unleash ugly rhetoric at Trump's MSG rally,” read Axios. Politico wrote: “Trump’s New York homecoming sparks backlash over racist and vulgar remarks.” “Racist Remarks and Insults Mark Trump’s Madison Square Garden Rally,” the New York Times announced. “Speakers at Trump rally make racist comments, hurl insults,” read CNN.

But the biggest sign of the damage the rally did was the frantic backpedaling from Republicans in tight elections, who distanced themselves as fast as they could from the insults against Puerto Ricans, especially. The Trump campaign itself tried to distance itself from the “floating island of garbage” quotation, only to be met with comments pointing out that Hinchcliffe’s set had been vetted and uploaded to the teleprompters. 

As the clips spread like wildfire, political writer Charlotte Clymer pointed out that almost 6 million Puerto Ricans live in the states—about a million in Florida, half a million in Pennsylvania, 100,000 in Georgia, 100,000 in Michigan, 100,000 in North Carolina, 45,000 in Arizona, and 40,000 in Nevada—and that over half of them voted in 2020. 

In 1939, as about 18,000 American Nazis rallied inside Madison Square Garden, newspapers reported that a crowd of about 100,000 anti-Nazis gathered outside to protest. It took 1,700 police officers, the largest number of officers ever before detailed for a single event, to hold them back from storming the venue.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[qqueenofhades]

AAAAHHHHHHHH It's TIM! 1000% strong MN girl here and boy it's been real fun to watch Tim (and Peggy! Our amazing lieutenant governor) take a small small Democratic majority and do incredible things. My kid ate two meals at school every day for free. DELIGHTED that he's the VP pick. LET'S GOOOOOOOO!!!!

Listen, I am just ECSTATIC. Ever since I seriously became tuned into the veepstakes, he was my number one pick (I mean, I was not immune to the brief flirtation everyone had with Beshear/Buttigieg/etc), but yes. Walz was my top pick and I was trying desperately not to get my heart too set on him in case it fell through, but he was the obvious best choice of the contenders by a country mile. He has an almost absurdly Midwestern pro-America background (military veteran, public school teacher, football coach from a small rural town, etc) AND he has managed to enact a long list of progressive policies in Minnesota with a very narrow majority in the state legislature. Also, you're going to be seeing a lot of this video, for good reason:

Also.... let's be real, Shapiro would have been an incredible distraction/drag on the ticket, unfortunately. We don't need to deal with his retrograde views on Gaza and his other baggage, and while he is a very popular governor in Pennsylvania, it's less certain that his appeal would translate to other states. We can argue (or you know, let's not and move on) about whether or not that was fair, but this is just not the year to try to win the most critical high-stakes election ever by pissing off young voters. Shapiro has done plenty of good things and has time to develop his career further, but he would have been a BAD pick for 2024 and I was alarmed at how many Respected Pundits (tm) were pulling for him. Reuters even claimed that picking him would "defang Republican attempts to make Israel-Gaza a wedge issue for Democrats," which is such a mind-bogglingly stupid statement that it makes you wonder how anyone writing it actually got paid for their political insight, but it also explains a lot about mainstream media these days. Picking Shapiro would have been an absolute gift to the Republicans and bad-faith actors and others (plus like, I don't want to have to spend time winning back the young voters who are actually once more engaged in the process!) and would have led to the media eagerly jumping into the feeding frenzy (because they're desperate to have a reason not to cover Trump's increasingly crazy-ass shit) and other Democratic-on-Democratic infighting. And it goes without saying that WE CANNOT AFFORD THAT.

As well, picking Shapiro just because you need to win PA this election cycle is yet another example of why the Electoral College sucks, and the polling averages in PA have been moving solidly blue anyway. You can just park Shapiro there and have him campaign in the state as the sitting popular governor, rather than expose him to the liability of a nationwide campaign where, as noted, all the other stuff would be a drag. If it's true that the establishment was pushing Harris to pick Shapiro and she picked Walz instead, a) GOOD! and b) if anything, this election cycle needs to fucking teach us that we have got to stop going with the Conventional Wisdom Tee Em. Walz was already out there, he was already popular with the public/energizing the grassroots, AND he was the guy who coined the "Weird" attack line that is actually effective and organically popular against the Republicans and drives them batshit. So for Kamala to lean into that and take him as her running mate is... zomgz... smart, and I am not used to the Democrats playing smart and aggressive and not just passive-defensive. I don't understand. Wow.

Anyway, now watch the New York Times (and the others, lbr, but especially the NYT) desperately try to dig up scandalous stories about that time Walz didn't stop at the 4H booth at the county fair, or walked past someone without saying "Ope just gonna sneak by ya first" or some other terrible Midwestern sin, but fuck those guys. I am EXCITED I am ENERGIZED I am THRILLED. This is a GREAT new ticket that came together at incredibly short notice and completely changed the dynamics everywhere, Walz is gonna make JD Vance cry (unsure whether I want to see Harris demolish Trumpster or Midwestern Dad to turn the cranks on Weird Couchfucking Fascist Skidmark more, but both, both, both is good). LET'S GO GET THOSE WEIRD MOTHERFUCKERS, Y'ALL!!

HARRIS/WALZ 2024!

[vague-humanoid]

A far-right activist group that is doxxing college students who engage in pro-Palestinian protests revealed that it is funded by top Republican political donors and nonprofits backed by wealthy business leaders, a tax return reviewed by CNBC shows.

The group, Accuracy in Media, publicly disclosed on its federal tax return a list of donors who combined to contribute nearly $1.9 million to the tax-exempt nonprofit between May 2022 and April of last year.

The contributors listed on the tax return include billionaire Republican megadonor Jeff Yass, who Accuracy in Media said gave it $1 million.

The family foundation of shipping supply magnate Richard Uihlein is also identified on the tax return, which says the Ed Uihlein Family Foundation gave $10,000. The Milstein Family Foundation, which is run by real estate executive and Republican donor Adam Milstein, gave another $10,000, the group reported to the IRS.

According to its tax return, Accuracy in Media said it received $15,000 from the Coors brewing family’s charitable foundation. The Adolph Coors Foundation is chaired by former Molson Coors executive Peter H. Coors, according to the foundation’s latest tax records.

Yass, Uihlein, Milstein and Coors have all donated regularly to Republican campaigns over the past decade.

But Yass stands apart from the others. The co-founder of options trading powerhouse Susquehanna International Group and his wife Janine are the biggest political donors of the 2024 election. So far, Yass and his wife have contributed $70 million to dozens of Republican candidates and committees, according to the nonpartisan campaign finance database OpenSecrets.

Much of the cardboard and paper goods strewn about our homes — the mail-order boxes and grocery store bags — are sold by a single private company, with its name, Uline, stamped on the bottom. Few Americans know that a multibillion-dollar fortune made on those ubiquitous products is now fueling election deniers and other far-right candidates across the country.

Dick and Liz Uihlein of Illinois are the largest contributors to Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano, who attended the Jan. 6 rally and was linked to a prominent antisemite, and have given to Jim Marchant, the Nevada Secretary of State nominee who says he opposed the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory in 2020. They are major funders to groups spreading election falsehoods, including Restoration of America, which, according to an internal document obtained by ProPublica, aims to “get on God’s side of the issues and stay there” and “punish leftists.”

[contemplatingoutlander]

The House GOP is a circus. The chaos has one source.

Republicans spent two years sabotaging the U.S. House. Another two years would be ruinous.

Dana Milbank does a masterful job of describing just how dysfunctional the House GOP members have been in the past two years.

This is a gift🎁link for the entire article. Below are some highlights:

The Lord works in mysterious ways. Six weeks after his improbable rise from obscurity to speaker of the House in late 2023, Louisiana’s Mike Johnson decided to break bread with a group of Christian nationalists. [...] “I’ll tell you a secret, since media is not here,” Johnson teased the group, unaware that his hosts were streaming video of the event. Johnson informed his audience that God “had been speaking to me” about becoming speaker, communicating “very specifically,” in fact, waking him at night and giving him “plans and procedures.” [...] Today, Johnson’s run looks anything but heaven-sent. In the first 18 months of this Congress, only 70 laws were enacted. Calculations by political scientist Tobin Grant, who tracks congressional output over time, put this Congress on course to be the do-nothingest since 1859-1861 — when the Union was dissolving. But Johnson’s House isn’t merely unproductive; it is positively lunatic. Republicans have filled their committee hearings and their bills with white nationalist attacks on racial diversity and immigrants, attempts to ban abortion and to expand access to the sort of guns used in mass shootings, incessant harassment of LGBTQ Americans, and even routine potshots at the U.S. military. They insulted each other’s private parts, accused each other of sexual and financial crimes, and scuffled with each other in the Capitol basement. They screamed “Bullshit!” at President Joe Biden during the State of the Union address. They stood up for the Confederacy and used their official powers to spread conspiracy theories about the “Deep State.” Some even lent credence to the idea that there has been a century-old Deep State coverup of space aliens, with possible involvement by Mussolini and the Vatican.

The above article was adapted from Dana Milbank's (2024) book: Fools on the HILL: The Hooligans, Saboteurs, Conspiracy Theorists, and Dunces Who Burned Down the House.

[See more below the cut.]

And this is on top of the well-known pratfalls: The 15-ballot marathon to elect a speaker, the 22-day shutdown of the House to find another speaker, the routine threats of government shutdowns and a near-default on the federal debt that hurt the nation’s credit rating. They devoted 18 months to a failed attempt to impeach Biden, which produced nothing but Marjorie Taylor Greene publicly displaying posters of Hunter Biden engaging in sex acts. One “whistleblower” defected to Russia, another worked with Russian intelligence and is under indictment for fabricating his claims, and still another is on the lam, evading charges of being a Chinese agent. As soon as Biden withdrew his candidacy, they promptly forgot their probe of Biden’s “corruption” and rushed to launch a new series of investigations into Kamala Harris (over her record on border security) and Tim Walz (over his military service and “cozy relationship” with China). After a number of failed attempts, they did impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas (the first such action against a Cabinet officer since 1876) without identifying any high crimes or misdemeanors he had committed; the Senate dismissed the articles without a trial. House Republicans created a “weaponization committee” under the excitable Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), but it was panned even by right-wing commentators when it produced little more than a list of conspiracy theories from the likes of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard. They lapsed repeatedly into fits of censure resolutions, contempt citations and other pointless acts of vengeance. In all of its history, the House had voted to censure one of its own members only seven times; in the two weeks after Johnson became speaker, members of the House tried to censure each other eight times. [...] In lieu of consequential legislating, they passed bills such as the Refrigerator Freedom Act, the Gas Stove Protection and Freedom Act and the Stop Unaffordable Dishwasher Standards (SUDS) Act. On the House floor, the Republican majority suffered one failure after another, even on routine procedural votes. Seven times (and counting), House Republicans voted down their own leaders’ routine attempts to begin floor debates — something that hadn’t happened once in the previous 20 years.