#the margin of victory is less than 10%

[when-did-this-become-difficult]

OHIOANS VOTE JULY 2023

JULY 11, 2023 EARLY VOTING OPEN TODAY IN OHIO

Skip the lines and go to your early vote location! The last day you can vote is August 8, Election Day (it's an early election day, yes we also have a November election because the Ohio state legislature is so so so so stupid) but anyways

VOTE NO ON ISSUE #1 🙏🙏🙏

a) it's the right thing to do

b) it's pretty easy cause you have a whole month to get it done early

c) fuck em

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Dan Pfeiffer at The Message Box:

Poring through the aftermath of a brutal defeat, Democrats are now in their worst position in at least 20 years. Republicans have the White House and the Senate and an excellent chance to capture the House. Trump is only the second Republican since 1988 to win the popular vote, and he made huge gains across the country, building a multi-racial working-class coalition.

For many of you, I imagine this is painful to read. Trust me. It is even more painful to write. Most of my career has been spent within the machinery of the Democratic Party. I worked in the White House and Senate leadership. I worked for Democratic governors and other party organizations. It pains me to see the party in this state of disfavor only eight years after Barack Obama left the White House. The coalition that Obama built has crumbled. There are millions of reasons why we are in this position — COVID, inflation, an unpopular President, several political miscalculations, and a failure to adapt to a changed media environment. Ultimately, I am less interested in how we got into this mess than in how we get out of it.

The press continues to second-guess and Monday-morning quarterback various tactical decisions of the Harris campaign. I am also not particularly interested in that debate. Two things can be true at the same time. Kamala Harris ran a great campaign in a brutal political environment under an impossible timeline, and Democrats just got their ass kicked by a failed President and convicted criminal who could have been sentenced to jail if he lost the election. Where Democrats go from here is a conversation that will be an ongoing part of this newsletter in the months to come. There is no singular or simple answer, and many strawman arguments are being offered up on Twitter and cable. The solution is more complex than being more left or centrist or less woke. I don’t have the answers. Like the rest of you, I am still processing what happened on Tuesday. As part of my personal therapy, I wanted to do a bit of brain dump on the road ahead for Democrats as we confront another four years of Trump.

1. Recognize the Scale of the Problem

On one level, Trump’s win isn’t that big. His popular vote margin will end up being lower than Hillary Clinton’s when she lost the Presidency. This was far from a landslide. It looks nothing like Reagan’s victories in 1980 and 1984 or Obama’s win in 2008. But we shouldn’t sugarcoat the size and scope of Trump’s victory. Trump improved on his 2020 performance nearly everywhere in the country and with every type of voter. There was a six-point shift to the right in the country from 2020. Trump did 10 points better in Democratic strongholds like New York, New Jersey, and Rhode Island. He gained ground with men, women, Latinos, Black voters, and voters under 30. If the GOP can maintain that coalition post-Trump, Democrats will have no shot at the White House or the Senate for the foreseeable future. We are in a deep hole, and because of that, it is essential that we contemplate radical solutions about how we communicate, campaign, and govern. Every option should be on the table and every prior should be questioned. Yes, it was a brutal political environment, but this failure was a long time in the making.

2. Understand Why We Keep Losing on the Economy

Post-COVID inflation is the biggest factor in this election. It’s why incumbent parties all over the world have been getting slaughtered in election after election. It’s almost impossible to win an election when, according to the exit polls, 68% of voters rate the economy negatively, 75% say inflation caused them harm, and only 24% of voters say their financial situation is better off than four years ago. But if Democrats just blame inflation for voter distrust on the economy, we will be whistling past the graveyard. Democrats have lost economically-focused voters in every election since 2012. Even in the 2018 and 2022 midterms, which saw huge Democratic gains, we lost the voters who said the economy was their top issue by an average of 36 points!

President Biden passed a bunch of very consequential and popular policies. Yet, his ratings on the economy worsened over time. While I think we should revisit our policy agenda to look for new, bolder ideas that better speak to people’s concerns, this is largely not a policy problem. It’s a brand problem. When you do a blind taste test, our policies are more popular. This is why ballot initiatives like raising the minimum wage and allowing collective bargaining often pass in very Red states where Democrats have no chance of winning elected office. On economic issues, Democrats have a cultural problem; regardless of our policies, voters in the toughest economic situations simply don’t think Democrats care about them, and they haven’t since Barack Obama left office. Republicans have done an excellent job — with some inadvertent help from Democrats — branding our party as the party of elites even though the GOP standard bearer is a wannabe billionaire who offers tax cuts to other billionaires in exchange for campaign contributions. There is little question that we would benefit from more full-throated populism.

3. Close the Communications Chasm

Democrats are losing the information war. Trump and the Republicans are relentlessly communicating their narrative to a wide swath of the electorate, while Democrats are mostly still playing by an old set of rules. The Right is dominating the information space. In the battleground states where Democrats could spend more than a billion dollars communicating to voters on TV and digital platforms, Trump gained three points over his 2020 performance. In the rest of the country, which saw no paid Democratic messaging, Trump gained six points. This means that Democrats got absolutely battered in earned and social media. An average American who just turned on their TV or unlocked their phone or tablet was getting much more pro-Trump and anti-Democratic messaging. This situation is not unique to the Harris campaign. It’s been a problem for Democrats for more than a decade. Democrats cannot reach the wide swath of voters who don’t actively consume political news. According to polling from Data for Progress, here’s the statistics showing how people voted based on the amount they paid attention to political news:

a great deal: Harris +8

a lot: Harris +5

a moderate amount: Trump +1

a little: Trump +8 -

none at all: Trump +15

If you read the New York Times or watch CNN, Democrats know how to reach you. The problem is that we already have those voters. It's very clear that most of Democratic communications is a circular conversation with the people who already agree with us on everything. The rest of the electorate can’t hear us. They are getting no countervailing information to counter the Right Wing caricature of Democrats. Because of Fox News and other Right Wing outlets, Republicans have long had an asymmetric media advantage. However, in recent years, Right Wing messaging has come to dominate non-political online spaces centered on topics like comedy, gaming, gambling, and wellness.

Most Democrats continued running the same communications playbook for the entire Trump era despite massive changes in the media ecosystem. We haven’t incubated our progressive political media enough nor have we been willing to go into the non-political spaces where the most critical segment of voters are getting their info.

Dan Pfeiffer has yet another home run column on how the Democrats can roar back from their shock 2024 losses.

[anghraine]

I'm trying to redirect my political thoughts from my fandom escape blog again, but I found something interesting enough that I thought I'd talk a little about it.

Occasionally I choose suffering (looking at the more granular 2024 exit poll breakdowns rather than the summaries that I mostly don't trust much at this point). Anyway, I did find something intriguing, if not particularly surprising, in the CNN exit polls, which were done in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin with a sample size of 22,914 voters.

(I mention the specific states forming the sample because this pretty notably excludes any blue states while including some reliably Republican ones.)

Anyway, most exit polls including CNN's let respondents identify their place on the US political spectrum: conservative, moderate, or liberal (reminder that "liberal" in US usage can be a pejorative for "less leftist than me" but also a shorthand for "radical leftist" but also for "anyone who doesn't seek a cishet white Christian ethnostate", but also can be a more neutral synonym for progressives and/or leftists and is often used that way, as here). So you can look at the election results for each of these ideological factions and what share of the overall sample size they represent.

The interesting thing: this "liberal" category accounted for very similar proportions to 2020 of the overall vote in the sample (24% in 2020, 23% in 2024—a difference well within the margin of error of exit polling). There is no need to explain liberals/leftists staying home in 2024: at least in terms of proportions of the overall electorate, they didn't. Just under 1/4 of voters in 2024 were liberals or leftists, just as in 2020.

Okay, if the most leftwards faction of the US political spectrum actually formed a similar proportion of the electorate, then who did they vote for?

Harris. In CNN's own exit polls from 2020, 89% of this faction voted for Biden, and (surprisingly!) a full 10% voted for Trump. God knows what motivated that 10% Trump share after four years of his hellscape of an administration at the height of COVID, but in any case, that support cratered in 2024. 91% of this group voted for Harris and only 4% for Trump. It's an estimate, but it looks like these very peculiar Trump voters had enough of him in 2024 and around half either voted third party this time or for Harris.

So which faction is Trump's victory coming from? Further consolidation of the far right?

In part, yes! 90% of conservatives voted for Trump in 2024, vs 85% in 2020—likely, some conservatives who voted third party or even for Biden in 2020 came "home" this year. However, conservative turnout was actually a little down in 2024, proportionally speaking: conservatives dropped from 38% of the sample in 2020 to 34% in 2024.

But there's one more major faction in all this: "moderates" or centrists. To be clear, we're talking about the US version of centrism, given that this is a US organization polling US voters about US politicians, not "Bernie would be center-right in Denmark" or whatever. This moderate faction jumped from 38% of the overall sample in 2020 to 42% in 2024, and they swung hard towards Trump, though Harris still won a plurality of them. In 2020, 64% of moderates voted for Biden vs 34% for Trump. In 2024, 57% of them voted for Harris vs 40% for Trump—that is, the Democratic lead among centrists dropped precipitously from +30 to +17.

Tl;dr—ideologically speaking, this data suggests that Trump owes his victory to gains among both right-wing and centrist voters rather than some faction of would-be leftists or progressives apathetically staying home or voting third-party or otherwise deserting Democrats (because they're insufficiently radical or for any other reason).

Oh, and if you're curious as to how this compares to CNN's 2016 exit polls, I also checked those! Harris's 84-point lead among the most leftwards faction is a significant improvement from HRC's 74-point lead in 2016. Trump also got 10% of that group in 2016, as in 2020, so it's this campaign—not Hillary's or Biden's—that managed to eat into whatever the hell is going on with that group.

Harris's +17 with moderates is actually a slight improvement on Hillary's +12 in 2016. Biden's jump to a +30 lead among centrists in 2020 represented either a backlash against Trump from centrists, or Biden's own rapport with that group, or some mysterious issue some of those voters had with both HRC and Harris (I wonder what it could be!!), or some combination thereof. Regardless, there are a lot of actual ideologically centrist voters in the USA and not just would-be leftists who haven't heard the good news of Marx yet. And Trump has an iron grip on the right wing at this point: he beat Hillary with conservatives by +65 in 2016, then beat Biden with an even larger margin of +71, then leapt to a 81-point lead over Harris with right-wing voters this year.

[mariacallous]

Targeted outreach to ethnic groups—Latino voters, for example—has long been a staple of U.S. presidential campaigns. But it’s been decades since Americans of Central and Eastern European descent figured much in a candidate’s electoral calculus.

That has changed in this campaign, as became evident during the presidential debate in Philadelphia on Sept. 10, when Democratic candidate and Vice President Kamala Harris appealed directly to the “800,000 Polish Americans right here in Pennsylvania.” Russian President Vladimir Putin, she told her opponent, is “a dictator who would eat you for lunch.” Arguing that Poland would be the Kremlin’s next target if Russia wins in Ukraine, Harris said that if Republican candidate and former President Donald Trump were president, “Putin would be sitting in Kyiv right now.”

Key battleground states that will likely decide the outcome of the November election—including Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin—have significant populations of Polish, Ukrainian, Czech, Hungarian, Slovak, and Baltic Americans. Before the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, these groups were an important electoral factor, often backing Republican candidates who promised to be tough on Moscow, in whose empire their home countries lay. Politicians of either party ignored these voters at their peril, especially the millions of Polish Americans that made up the largest of the Eastern European voter blocs.

But since the end of the Cold War and the collapse of Soviet control over their homelands, these communities have been largely outside the radar of political strategists.

Today, the fate of Central and Eastern Europe is once again at issue amid Russia’s brutal all-out war against Ukraine. Leaders in Poland, the Czech Republic, and the Baltic states speak openly about the danger of Russian aggression against their own countries if Putin is not stopped in Ukraine. And so, Americans connected with these countries are suddenly being wooed again.

Take Pennsylvania, one of the most important swing states, with 19 electoral votes and a margin of victory of only 80,550 votes in the 2020 presidential election. Even a small shift among the state’s roughly 800,000 Polish Americans and more than 100,000 Ukrainian Americans could have a decisive effect.

And while few Americans are single-issue voters, among foreign-born and first-generation Eastern European voters, anxiety over the physical safety of their homelands may prove to be a decisive factor in their electoral choices. But even among voters with a less direct connection to the lands of their ancestors, distrust of Russia runs deep. Eastern European communities in the United States have also mobilized to raise millions of dollars to support Ukraine’s war effort and provide humanitarian assistance.

The Harris campaign began its outreach to Eastern European voters during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August, when a range of national security speakers addressed the Russian threat in Ukraine and beyond. This confluence of circumstances has given Harris the opportunity to strike a tone reminiscent of former President Ronald Reagan and other Cold War-era leaders in her discussion of the Russia-Ukraine war: “As president, I will stand strong with Ukraine and our NATO allies,” she said during her convention speech.

During the September presidential debate, Trump twice refused to give a clear answer regarding whether he wants Ukraine to win its war with Russia. Harris, by contrast, made it clear that she sided with Ukraine and pushed back against Trump’s claim that he would end the war. “The reason that … Trump says that this war would be over within 24 hours is because he would just give [Ukraine] up, and that’s not who we are as Americans,” she asserted.

Ulana Mazurkevich, a Ukrainian American living in Pennsylvania and the co-chair of a group called United Ethnic Women for Harris-Walz, believes that Eastern European voters could be significant. “We are making the case to conservative ethnic voters that Trump’s unwillingness to firmly support Ukraine represents a grave threat to their countries of origin,” she told Foreign Policy. “We feel our message can move a few thousand Ukrainian, Polish, and Lithuanian voters in Pennsylvania, and this can prove decisive.”

Such a focused stance on the security of Eastern Europe by a Democratic Party candidate has a precedent. In 1992, then-presidential candidate Bill Clinton and his campaign similarly understood the electoral significance of events in Eastern and Central Europe to voters from those regions. The Cold War had just ended, and these diaspora groups would soon turn to mainly domestic concerns. But Clinton also knew that these constituencies wanted their ancestral homelands to transform into prosperous, stable, and secure democracies. For his campaign, I co-authored—with the late Penn Kemble and the support of Richard Schifter—a background paper in which we looked at how Clinton might flip traditionally Republican-leaning Eastern European voters.

During that campaign, we successfully secured the inclusion of a democracy assistance program for East-Central Europe—as well as support for newly independent Ukraine and the Baltic states—in Clinton’s agenda. We also argued that these constituencies would welcome a discussion of early NATO membership for the Central European states, an idea that found sympathy among key Clinton advisors such as Sandy Berger, Anthony Lake, and Nancy Soderberg.

While still campaigning, Clinton soon made large-scale financial and technical aid to Poland, Hungary, and what was then still Czechoslovakia a key focus of his foreign policy message. And he criticized the Bush administration for being too slow in grasping the opportunity to stabilize democracy in Central Europe. In speeches at Georgetown University and in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Clinton addressed the concerns of Central European, Baltic, and Ukrainian Americans; he also dispatched his foreign policy advisors and surrogates from the U.S. Congress to meet with leaders and voters from these communities. Not surprisingly, Clinton carried Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania—three of which Bush had won during the previous election..

Today, the Harris campaign’s focus on Ukraine and Eastern Europe has echoes of 1992. Two Democratic activists—former U.S. Rep. Tom Malinowski (who was born in Poland) and Maryland State Sen. James Rosapepe (with whom I worked during the 1992 Clinton presidential campaign)—have established a political action committee named America’s Future Majority Fund. The group runs ads focusing on Russia’s aggression, wrapping its pro-Harris message in Cold War-era realism and mentioning both Reagan and former President John F. Kennedy in an effort to reach centrist and conservative voters.

More recently, Harris campaign ads targeted at Pennsylvania have evoked Polish heroes and focused on the long history of Russian imperialism. The campaign is also supporting a bus tour scheduled for mid-October that will visit Polish and Eastern European communities in the Pennsylvanian towns of Doylestown and Wilkes-Barre. The latter is in Luzerne County, which is the only county in the United States with a plurality of Polish Americans.

Trump has tried to make his case to Eastern European voters as well, claiming that the war would “never have happened” under his watch. (Never mind that Russia and Ukraine were fighting each other in eastern Ukraine during the entire Trump presidency.) He also claims that he will quickly end the war if he wins in November. At the same time, Trump has spoken out strongly against further aid to Ukraine, scorned Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for allegedly making off with billions in U.S. taxpayer dollars, and accused him of refusing to negotiate peace with Putin.

This demagogy—coupled with his running mate J.D. Vance’s past remarks that “I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine”—are giving some Eastern European voters pause. Whereas Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, have embraced a strong pro-NATO posture, Trump has repeatedly argued against continued support for Ukraine and said he would encourage Russia “to do whatever the hell they want” to delinquent European allies.

Unlike other, riskier targeted strategies that could alienate swing voters in the political center—a hypothetical move to woo Arab Americans with a more anti-Israel stance, for example—Ukraine has created a clear opening for Harris. Trump’s attacks on Zelensky and calls to stop aiding Ukraine go against the grain of widespread support for Ukraine across both parties’ supporters.

And Trump advisors’ worries that his stance on Russia and Ukraine is unpopular may well have been the reason that Trump—who had initially refused to meet with Zelensky—relented just days after publicly mocking him. In a brief and awkward press conference, Trump refrained from criticizing Zelensky but emphasized his “good relationship” with Putin.

I was in Poland in late September and met with several Polish leaders, all of whom expressed worry about Trump’s position on Ukraine and relationship to Putin. Serious voices in Poland are discussing the high likelihood of having to fight a war against Russia. Without question, this sense of urgency is widely shared among recent Polish and Ukrainian immigrants. At a meeting of Eastern European community leaders in New York City on Sept. 21, the vice president of the Polish American Congress, Bozena Kaminska, reflected this worry. “For years, Poland was a secure democracy,” she said. “Since the war in Ukraine, our security is at risk.”

The votes of Polish, Ukrainian, Czech, Slovak, and Baltic Americans have returned to the forefront of electoral strategies in a handful of swing states. With the stakes so high and the races so close, small shifts among these culturally conservative constituencies could well provide the crucial margin of victory on Nov. 5. Given their track record on Russia and Ukraine, there is little that Trump and Vance can do to turn the tide in their favor; they will have to hope that Eastern Europeans’ voting decisions will be driven by other concerns.

Harris, in contrast, is betting on a combination of targeted outreach and continued missteps by her opponents on Russian aggression. Once again, a crucial immigrant community could help bring about a presidential victory.

[foreverlogical]

Dueling primaries in the critical swing state of Michigan added some new data points and, in many ways, built on several preexisting narratives. Here's a basic roundup.

1. Donald Trump underperformed the polling again!

Congrats to Trump on his 42-percentage-point victory over rival Nikki Haley, but the polls still love him more than the people do—a consistent phenomenon this cycle. 

With 98% of the vote in, Trump holds a roughly 42-point edge over Haley, nothing close to his predicted margin. The final 538 polling average had Trump winning by 57 points, meaning he underperformed his polls by about 15 points. 

Since the GOP primary has become a two-person race, Trump has consistently underperformed his polls. Across the four contests so far (excluding Nevada’s overcomplicated primary/caucus system), he has now underperformed his 538 polling average by 9 points. One way or the other, it can’t be bad for Biden. 

2. "Uncommitted" passed their 10,000-vote goal, but President Joe Biden still finished strong 

The "uncommitted" vote—an effort to challenge President Joe Biden's pro-Israel stance on the war in Gaza—set a low bar of getting 10,000 votes in this Democratic primary and easily surpassed it, clearing the 100,000 mark. 

Hillary Clinton famously lost Michigan to Trump by about 10,000 votes. So Tuesday night's results revealed a meaningful level of concern about Biden's support for Israel in a key swing state with a large number of Arab American voters. 

That said, the overall percentage of "uncommitted" voters—a little over 13%—only modestly surpassed the 11% share of uncommitted voters in 2012, the last time a Democratic incumbent president faced a virtually uncontested primary. Later that year, President Barack Obama went on to win the state by nearly 450,000 votes.

The bottom line is that the uncommitted protest vote made a statement, but Biden still finished strong, with more than 80% of the vote in a primary where voters had three other options (uncommitted, author Marianne Williamson, and Rep. Dean Phillips).

3. Marianne Williamson (who wasn't running) bests Rep. Dean Phillips (who was running)

Big night for Williamson, who had suspended her campaign and has now unsuspended it after blowing out Phillips by less than half a point, 3.0% to 2.7%.

Phillips is toast. And Williamson's move to re-enter the race is a laughable over-read of her “victory” over Phillips, who, again, is toast. “Uncommitted” beat both by double digits.

4. The Trump protest vote was far more meaningful than the Biden protest vote

More than 30% of voters in the state’s Republican primary cast what is functionally a protest vote against Trump, who's won every state so far. Haley garnered the majority of those votes and will likely finish with north of 26%. 

At the same time, just under 20% of voters in the state’s Democratic primary didn’t vote for Biden. 

In other words, Biden will win Michigan’s Democratic primary with more than 80% of the vote, despite a lot of suspense around the uncommitted vote, but Trump will win the Republican primary with under 70% of the vote, despite his diehard supporters surely wanting to make a statement against Haley and all non-MAGA Republicans.

5. Haley isn't done bashing Trump

Despite her loss, Haley vowed to stay in the Republican primary until at least Super Tuesday. She is also on pace to hold at least 10 fundraisers in the 10 days before those contests ensue, according to Andrew Romano of Yahoo News. 

Haley also used her spotlight Monday evening to make some astute observations about Trump and the Republican Party. 

"What I am saying to my Republican Party family is, we are in a ship with a hole in it," Haley said.

"The RNC is not about winning races up and down the ticket. The RNC is now about Donald Trump," Haley argued, calling the organization Trump's "legal slush fund."

The Biden-Harris rapid-response account helpfully tweeted out the clip.

[accursedkaleeshi]

Accursed Izvoshra: Bentilais san Sk’ar

Behold! The only Izvoshra to be (retroactively) named & expanded upon in the source material! After surviving both the shuttle crash that took Grievous from his people & Thrawn’s orbital bombardment of his colony on Oben, Sk’ar was put to work as an Imperial General. That’s Legends canon bruv. The rest of this is community headcanon!

Long before that Sk’ar was the Prince of Kaleela & the Hand of the West. When he met Qymaen & Ronderu he was young, younger than them by a couple years, but already 9 standard feet tall & accomplished enough to be the Khan of his father’s military. Through the Huk war he would be instrumental in the defeat of the yam’rii & even kept getting bigger, just under 10 feet at his largest. Out of all Kalee, Bentilais worked closest to Grievous for the longest. They were comrades in arms in a way that the term best friends didn’t really seem to cover.

How did big Benny meet Qymaen & Ronderu? I asked some of the other Grievous nerds what they thought & outsourced really liked what TB came up with. Meet-cute under the cut by @tuberculosis-bot-9000. (The Consumption. #bentalais, Kaleeaboos. Discord, July 7, 2023.)

Kaleela is in and of itself a nation. Located on the convergence of multiple major trade routes by land and sea, it’s the largest city on Kalee by a massive margin. It’s influence is incredibly widespread. The Kaleela Tongue is a pidgin language that is spoken almost globally, as a lingua franca is some places and as the default in others. The state-sponsored faith is the most codified “church” type thing Kalee has. The pockets of Kaleela’s elite are deeper than some countries. And all of it bows to the Emperor.

The Emperor of Kaleela is… not what you expect when you imagine the most important person on Kalee. He’s miserly, he’s physically unimpressive, and he’s ancient as shit. He’s a hop, skip, and a jump away from being a skeksis. And he’s Sk’ar’s father.

Because Kaleela is untouched by the war! Yes, the outlying colonies to the east are bedeviled with rumors of invaders, and the southern territories are all but wiped out, and more and more refugees are flooding in by the day, but the Jewel City is safe. There is no war in Kaleela. The Emperor sees no reason to join the war effort, much less bend the knee to some backwoods eastern barbarian.

This makes Q+R very mad.

They just park their army in the city and start making other connections. It’s a careful song and dance convincing cushy nobles to lend their strength and resources, but it’s one they play well. They have to. Kaleela is the crux of it all. Without Kaleela’s army and navy, the war will eventually end in a Yam’rii victory.

Then, at a party, they meet the prince. It’s a celebration of his recent appointment as Khan of Kaleela. He’s the one that controls Kaleela’s military now. So they have to be precise.

Sk’ar is intrigued by the demigods. He’s heard tales of their glory, their cunning, their prowess in battle. He knows the skinny man with a rifle is the best shot on the planet and the woman with the mane and swords moves faster than the eye can see. And he knows he’s got them on the back foot. He’s interested in seeing what they do more than what they say.

They tell him, in no uncertain terms, that the war will come, and sooner rather than later. The Emperor wants to hide behind his money and his wives and his 88,888 things, but the bugs don’t care. They’ll drag him off his throne, crack open his skull, and eat him before his mewling pups if something isn’t done. Sk’ar finds the idea hilarious. He knows his father is weak. But he wants to know why he should follow Qymaen rather than take a throne by himself. He certainly has enough money and warriors for it. Qymaen just shrugs. If he wants to do it that way, he can, and Qymaen will take what remains when the bugs rout the Kaleela prince. Sk’ar throws his head back and laughs. The gall!

He agrees.

(Thank you @tuberculosis-bot-9000 for letting me use your words & the Benny braincell!)

[reasoningdaily]

WASHINGTON (AP) — With Donald Trump facing felony charges over his attempts to overturn the 2020 election, the former president is flooding the airwaves and his social media platform with distortions, misinformation and unfounded conspiracy theories about his defeat.

It’s part of a multiyear effort to undermine public confidence in the American electoral process as he seeks to chart a return to the White House in 2024. There is evidence that his lies are resonating: New polling from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows that 57% of Republicans believe Democrat Joe Biden was not legitimately elected as president.

Here are the facts about Trump’s loss in the last presidential election:

REVIEWS AND RECOUNTS CONFIRM BIDEN’S VICTORY

Biden’s victory over Trump in 2020 was not particularly close. He won the Electoral College with 306 votes to Trump’s 232, and the popular vote by more than 7 million ballots.

Because the Electoral College ultimately determines the presidency, the race was decided by a few battleground states. Many of those states conducted recounts or thorough reviews of the results, all of which confirmed Biden’s victory.

In Arizona, a six-month review of ballots in the state’s largest county, Maricopa, that was commissioned by Republican state legislators not only affirmed Biden’s victory but determined that he should have won by 306 more votes than the officially certified statewide margin of 10,457.

In Georgia, where Trump was recently indicted for his efforts to overturn the 2020 result there, state officials led by both a Republican governor and secretary of state recertified Biden’s win after conducting three statewide counts. The final official recount narrowed Biden’s victory in the state from just shy of 13,000 votes to just shy of 12,000 votes.

In Michigan, a committee led by Republican state senators concluded there was no widespread or systematic fraud in the state in 2020 after conducting a monthslong investigation. Michigan, where Biden defeated Trump by almost 155,000 votes, or 2.8 percentage points, was less competitive compared with other battleground states, although the result in Wayne County, home of Detroit, was targeted by Trump and his supporters with unfounded voter fraud claims, as were key urban jurisdictions across the country.

In Nevada, the then-secretary of state, Republican Barbara Cegavske, and her office reviewed tens of thousands of allegations of possible voter fraud identified by the Nevada Republican Party but found that almost all were based on incomplete information and a lack of understanding of the state’s voting and registration procedures. For example, Cegavske’s investigation found that of 1,506 alleged instances of ballots being cast in the name of deceased individuals, only 10 warranted further investigation by law enforcement. Similarly, 10 out of 1,778 allegations of double-voting called for further investigation. Biden won Nevada by 33,596 votes, or 2.4 percentage points.

In Pennsylvania, the final certified results had Biden with an 80,555-vote margin over Trump, or 1.2 percentage points. Efforts to overturn Pennsylvania’s election failed in state and federal courts, while no prosecutor, judge or election official in Pennsylvania has raised a concern about widespread fraud. State Republicans continue to attempt their own review of the 2020 results, but that effort has been tied up in the courts and Democrats have called it a “partisan fishing expedition.”

In Wisconsin, a recount slightly improved Biden’s victory over Trump by 87 votes, increasing Biden’s statewide lead to 20,682, or 0.6 percentage points. A nonpartisan audit that concluded a year after the election made recommendations on how to improve future elections in Wisconsin but did not uncover evidence of widespread voter fraud in the state, leading the Republican co-chair of the audit committee to declare that “the election was largely safe and secure.” The state’s Assembly speaker, a Republican, ordered a separate review, which a state judge said found “absolutely no evidence of election fraud.”

AP INVESTIGATION FINDS MINIMAL VOTER FRAUD IN SWING STATES

An exhaustive AP investigation in 2021 found fewer than 475 instances of confirmed voter fraud across six battleground states — nowhere near the magnitude required to sway the outcome of the presidential election.

The review of ballots and records from more than 300 local elections offices found that almost every instance of voter fraud was committed by individuals acting alone and not the result of a massive, coordinated conspiracy to rig the election. The cases involved both registered Democrats and Republicans, and the culprits were almost always caught before the fraudulent ballot was counted.

Some of the cases appeared to be intentional attempts to commit fraud, while others seemed to involve either administrative error or voter confusion, including the case of one Wisconsin man who cast a ballot for Trump but said he was unaware that he was ineligible to vote because he was on parole for a felony conviction.

The AP review also produced no evidence to support Trump’s claims that states tabulated more votes than there are registered voters.

Biden won Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and their 79 Electoral College votes by a combined 311,257 votes out of 25.5 million ballots cast. The disputed ballots represent just 0.15% of his victory margin in those states.

TRUMP’S OWN ADMINISTRATION FOUND NO WIDESPREAD FRAUD

Trump was repeatedly advised by members of his own administration that there was no evidence of widespread fraud.

Nine days after the 2020 election, the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency issued a statement saying, “The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history.” The statement was co-written by the groups representing the top elections officials in every state.

Less than three weeks later, then-Attorney General William Barr declared that a Justice Department investigation had not uncovered evidence of the widespread voter fraud that Trump had claimed was at the center of a massive conspiracy to steal the election. Barr, who had directed U.S. attorneys and FBI agents across the country to pursue “substantial allegations” of voting irregularities, said, “To date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.”

The Jan. 6 House committee report details additional instances where administration officials and White House staff refuted Trump’s various allegations of voter fraud.

COURTS HEARD TRUMP’S LEGAL CHALLENGES AND REJECTED THEM

The Trump campaign and its backers pursued numerous legal challenges to the election in court and alleged a variety of voter fraud and misconduct. The cases were heard and roundly rejected by dozens of courts at both state and federal levels, including by judges whom Trump appointed.

One of them, U.S. Circuit Judge Stephanos Bibas, was on a federal panel that declined a request to stop Pennsylvania from certifying its results, saying, “Voters, not lawyers, choose the president. Ballots, not briefs, decide elections.”

The U.S. Supreme Court also rejected several efforts in the weeks after Election Day to overturn the election results in various battleground states that Biden won.

CONSPIRACY THEORIES ABOUT VOTING MACHINES WERE UNFOUNDED

Many of the claims Trump and his team advanced about a stolen election dealt with the equipment voters used to cast their ballots.

At various times, Trump and his legal team falsely alleged that voting machines were built in Venezuela at the direction of President Hugo Chavez, who died in 2013; that machines were designed to delete or flip votes cast for Trump; and that the U.S. Army had seized a computer server in Germany that held secrets to U.S. voting irregularities.

None of those claims was ever substantiated or corroborated. CISA’s joint statement released after the election said, “There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes or was in any way compromised.”

Nonetheless, many of these and other unfounded claims were repeated on Fox News, both by members of the Trump team as well as by some of the network’s on-air personalities. Dominion Voting Systems sued the network for $1.6 billion, claiming the outlet’s airing of these allegations amounted to defamation.

Records of internal communications at Fox News unearthed in the case showed that the network aired the claims even though its biggest stars, including Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson, as well as the company’s chairman, Rupert Murdoch, did not believe they were true.

Dominion and Fox News settled out of court for $787.5 million.

CLAIMS INVOLVING SUITCASES AND BALLOT MULES ARE DEBUNKED

Trump and his supporters also have claimed that a number of other factors contributed to a broader effort to steal the presidential election.

One theory advanced by both Trump and one of his lawyers, Rudy Giuliani, is that “suitcases” full of fraudulent ballots in Georgia cost Trump the election there.

Then-Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen told the Jan. 6 House committee that he personally reviewed the video purported to show the fraud allegation in question. He recounted telling Trump: “It wasn’t a suitcase. It was a bin. That’s what they use when they’re counting ballots. It’s benign.”

State and county officials also had confirmed the containers were regular ballot containers on wheels, which are used in normal ballot processing.

But a week later, Trump publicly repeated the suitcase theory, saying, “There is even security camera footage from Georgia that shows officials telling poll watchers to leave the room before pulling suitcases of ballots out from under the tables and continuing to count for hours.”

Richard Donoghue, the former acting deputy attorney general, told the Jan. 6 committee that, days later, he told Trump that “these allegations about ballots being smuggled in in a suitcase and run through the machine several times, it was not true. … We looked at the video, we interviewed the witnesses.” But Trump continued to repeat the false claim.

Another debunked claim spinning a tale of 2,000 so-called ballot mules was featured in a film that ran in hundreds of theaters last spring. The film alleges that Democrat-aligned individuals were paid to illegally collect and drop ballots in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. But the AP determined that the allegations were based on flawed analysis of cellphone location data and drop box surveillance footage.

[ssss-character-smackdown]

Stats time! All in the Family Round 1 results

Tuulikki Hotakainen v Veeti Hollola - 24 to 17 - I mean, we all wanted to squish wee Lalli, did we not?

Árni Reynisson v Ulf & Elvira Västerström - 34 to 3 - Árni has written an acceptance speech, "Dear fans, how are you? I am fine. I just wanted to s"Thankyouverymuch, Árni! *ahem*

Bjarni Árnason v Michael Madsen (Mikkel's twin) - 26 to 19 - like the battle between Leaftroll & Hilja, Michael was declared the winner at the end of the Forum voting, but Bjarni garnered at least 4 more votes after the poll officially closed.  However, the tumblr vote went decidedly Bjarni's way, so now he knows what victory looks like.

Signe Sørensen v Aksel Eide - 33 to 13 - even with 2 'can't decide' votes, the margin was so overwhelmingly for Signe on the Forum.

the Terrible Trio v Michael Madsen (Prologue) - 20 to 19 - this was a dead heat in tumblr and only a snip of 1 vote margin on the Forum.  Thus ends the hope of both Michael Madsens.

Mia Västerström v Kaino Hotakainen - 14 to 25 - at least Kaino will have more of a story here than in canon?

Sigríður Jónsdóttir v Berit Eide - 11 to 30 - whoa, a complete shut-out on the Forum, with stronger support here on tumblr!

Tuuli Hollola v Asbjørn & Solveig Eide - 13 to 22 - Tuuli possibly got a late vote or two, because the Forum said the Generals Eide won, as well as winning handily on tumblr.

Magnus (the cat) v Reynir's fylgja - 10 to 19 - the battle of the cuties, with 3 'can't decide' votes

Guðrun Árnasdóttir v Saku Hotakainen - 10 to 50 - Holy smokes, we love a sad sack Hotakainen!

Sigrun Larsen v Ukko-Pekka - 31 to 17 - another case of the Forum winner at poll closing getting dunked by late voting, but Sigrun Larsen had a 2:1 margin on tumblr, so, yeah, sorry dude whoever you really were.  (Possibly a harbinger of how the polling is going to go once her namesake enters the fray?)

Ensi Hotakainen v Ingrid Pedersen & Gøran Anderson - 45 to 4 - by far the biggest margin!  I admit I set up an easy one there.

Jukka & Juha Hotakainen v Ragnar Árnason - 24 to 14 - the hair was indeed epic, but the twins won this one.

Aino Hotakainen v Frida Eide - 40 to 8 - so far, if the name is Hotakainen, the character is a winner (see, Ukko-Pekka, if you'd hung around & taken the name Hotakainen, you'd'a bin a contender).  We shall see what happens in later rounds!

Whew!  Round 2 will be coming soon for these families, but there's less than 1 day to get your vote in the Round 2 of Gods & m0nSTeRs.

[dankusner]

Republicans flip 2 Texas House seats

Election tilts lower chamber further right

In a disappointing night for Texas Democrats and a success for Gov. Greg Abbott, Republicans flipped two seats in the state House on Tuesday, shifting the majority-GOP lower chamber further to the right and forging a path forward for a school voucher program next year.

GOP candidates picked up two seats currently occupied by retiring Democrats in districts including Corpus Christi and Uvalde.

Republicans successfully defended all their spots in the state Capitol, including with victories in San Antonio and Dallas suburbs.

The party rode on the coattails of President-elect Donald Trump to snag the additional victories, as several large counties that voted for Democratic President Joe Biden in 2020 went to the GOP nominee, including in purple Williamson County north of Austin.

Majority-Latino and border regions in particular significantly increased margins of victory for the president-elect in Texas.

Taking a victory lap on social media Tuesday night, Abbott attributed Republicans’ success in Texas to their positions on immigration, transgender issues and “school choice,” a program also known as vouchers that would make public money available for private education.

“Looks like Texans don’t like open borders and boys in girls sports after all,” Abbott wrote in a social media post around 10 p.m. Tuesday.

“Thanks Texans, for KEEPING Texas, Texas!”

The third-term governor also boasted that he now has “more than enough votes” to get a school voucher bill passed in the next legislative session.

Democrats and a coalition of 21 mostly rural Republicans defeated the measure in the 2023 session, but Abbott campaigned heavily and used a massive campaign war chest – including $10 million from Pennsylvania billionaire Jeff Yass – to oust GOP voucher opponents in the primaries and oppose Democrats in the general election.

Democratic state Rep. Vikki Goodwin learned she won reelection in her western Travis County district early Tuesday night, but she lamented that the statewide results showed that “we’re not going to have it our way” in the Legislature.

She said Democrats fell short on their messaging on women’s reproductive rights and the detriments of Abbott’s school voucher proposal.

Democrats had a less straightforward argument to make, she said:

“Republicans in public will say they support public schools,” and voters may have taken that at face value.

“‘Choice,’ that sounds good, but they had to really understand that (the vouchers proposal) was going to underfund our public schools,” she said.

The next session “will be a big challenge. We will push as hard as we can (against school vouchers). … We will certainly not bow down on that.”

That’ll be the same strategy for women’s reproductive rights, she said.

“Getting the stories out of the women who were harmed” by being unable to access health care when they were most vulnerable.

“I’m not sure that message reached everyone.”

Here’s a roundup of competitive races and their complete but still unofficial results:

Austin area House District 52: Round Rock Republican Caroline Harris Davila comfortably wins reelection

State Rep. Caroline Harris Davila, RRound Rock, will return to the Capitol for a second term after securing a comfortable, 12-point victory over challenger Jennie Birkholz.

Harris Davila worked as a legislative aide in the Senate for several years, while Birkholz is a health care consultant and president of Access Education Round Rock ISD.

San Antonio area

In close and wildly expensive races, Republicans maintained control of two San Antonio seats that Democrats had sought to flip in the Texas House.

House District 118: Rep. John Lujan secures reelection, defeating Democrat Kristian Carranza

In a 52-48 victory, Republican state Rep. John Lujan, a former sheriff’s deputy and firefighter, won a third term representing House District 118.

Lujan defeated Kristian Carranza, a Democratic legislative staffer who made abortion rights and public school funding central to her campaign.

House District 121:

Marc LaHood, favored by Abbott and Tim Dunn, defeats Laurel Jordan Swift

Criminal defense attorney Marc La-Hood secured a 6-point margin of victory against Laurel Jordan Swift, a moderate Democrat, for House District 121.

LaHood won the GOP nomination after Abbott helped him oust incumbent Rep. Steve Allison, R-San Antonio, in the primary. Allison, who earned Abbott’s wrath for opposing school vouchers, crossed party lines to endorse Swift.

LaHood also took more than $75,000 in donations from the Texans for a United Conservative Majority, a political action committee funded by West Texas oil billionaires Tim Dunn and Ferris Wilks.

Dunn and Wilks are associated with the Christian nationalist movement.

Dallas area House District 108:

Rep. Morgan Meyer wins in blowout

State Rep. Morgan Meyer, R-University Park, won in a landslide, despite the state Democratic party targeting his Dallas County seat for a potential flip.

The moderate Republican secured 58% of the vote, while his opponent, progressive Democrat Elizabeth Ginsberg, won 42%. In 2022, she lost by a smaller margin: 12 points.

Meyer, an attorney who is chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, will return to the Capitol for a seventh term.

He was also a manager in Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s impeachment, which landed him in a primary challenge earlier this year. Paxton and then-presidential candidate Donald Trump endorsed Meyer’s primary opponent.

House District 112:

Republican State Rep. Angie Chen Button defeats Averie Bishop

In Dallas County, state Rep. Angie Chen Button, R-Richardson, won reelection 54% to 46% against Democratic challenger Averie Bishop.

Chen Button, who will begin a ninth term in January, won by 2 points less than her margin of victory in 2022, potentially reflecting demographic shifts in the rapidly growing suburbs.

The Republican is a certified public accountant, while Bishop is a recent law school graduate and former Miss Texas.

House District 70:

Democratic State Rep. Mihaela Plesa beats out Abbott-backed challenger

State Rep. Mihaela Plesa survived a challenge from Republican Steve Kinard in a 52-48 race, becoming one of the only Democrats with an Abbott-backed opponent to live to tell the tale this election cycle.

Abbott saw Plesa’s race as an opportunity to further nail down the votes he needs to pass a school voucher bill, which was turned down last year by Democratic and some rural Republican lawmakers out of concern such proposal would drain much-needed education funding from public schools.

South Texas

House District 34: Denise Villalobos defeats Solomon Ortiz Jr., flips seat for GOP

In Nueces County, oil and gas engineer and project manager Denise Villalobos, a Republican, won 55% of the unofficial vote to flip the seat held by retiring state Rep. Abel Herrero, a conservative Democrat from Corpus Christi.

With backing from Abbott, she defeated former Democratic state Rep. Solomon Ortiz Jr., a criminal defense attorney.

The loss was among the most stinging for Democrats: In 2022, Herrero won reelection by 15 points.

This time, a Republican won by 10 points.

House District 37:

Rep. Janie Lopez wins with backing from Abbott

In another 55-45 race, state Rep. Janie Lopez, R-San Benito, fended off a challenge from Democrat Jonathan Gracia by a much larger margin than the one by which she defeated her opponent in 2022.

She won by a 10-point margin Tuesday compared with a 3.6-point margin of victory in 2022.

Lopez is a former school counselor and San Benito school board member who voted to impeach Paxton.

House District 80: Former Uvalde mayor Don McLaughlin flips seat held by retiring Democrat

In another landslide race for Republicans, former Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin flipped a seat formerly held by conservative Democratic Rep. Tracy King in state House District 80.

He led Democratic opponent Cecilia Castellano by 20 points in a 60-40 race that was expected to favor Republicans.

[newstfionline]

Sunday, August 11, 2024

Half a century ago, Nixon became the only president to resign (NPR) It was no longer a surprise, but it was still a shock. On a Thursday night in August 50 years ago, Americans turned on the evening news to be told the president of the United States would resign the next day. Nothing remotely like this had ever happened before; but for those who had been paying attention, it was increasingly difficult to imagine any other outcome. The resignation of Richard Nixon was the culmination of two years of swirling controversy that began with a burglary at the Democratic National Committee offices in the Watergate complex in June 1972. While initially viewed as a minor event, burglary was connected to Nixon’s reelection campaign and the White House was involved in the subsequent cover-up. There had been two years of persistent probes and damning reports, mounting evidence and a steady erosion of Nixon’s support in his party and from the public at large. A Harris Poll published the week of the resignation found two-thirds of Americans thought it was time for Nixon to be impeached and tried. Could this man reading a farewell statement straight to camera from the Oval Office on August 8 be the same Nixon who had carried 49 states in winning a second term as president just 21 months earlier?

Video and Airplane Sketch Raise New Questions About Saudi Ties to 9/11 (NYT) A trove of evidence seized by British authorities from the home of a Saudi national with ties to the Sept. 11 Al Qaeda hijackers is now being made public for the first time as part of a long-running lawsuit against the kingdom’s government by the families of some of the victims. Former U.S. intelligence officials say the new evidence could change the story of the 2001 attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people, and of the possible involvement in the plot of Omar al-Bayoumi, the Saudi national. The officials also question why some of the evidence was not shared with the 9/11 Commission, a bipartisan group of lawmakers and experts who were tasked with writing the definitive account of the attacks. George Tenet, who led the C.I.A. at the time of the attacks, said that the new evidence was significant enough to require further evaluation, according to a spokesman. “The 9/11 families deserve no less,” Mr. Tenet said through the spokesman.

Maduro goes after X and WhatsApp as pressure mounts to back up his claim to victory in Venezuela (AP) Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro is trying to accomplish something that seems impossible in the South American country: steer people away from WhatsApp and X. Maduro’s announcement this week that he had ordered a 10-day block on access to X in Venezuela is the latest in a series of efforts by his government to try to suppress information sharing among people voicing doubts about his claim to victory in the July 28 presidential election. It also reveals how every aspect of Venezuela’s government is subject to Maduro’s wants and needs, as he went from demanding his Cabinet to retweet his posts in May to ordering the nation’s telecommunications agency on Thursday to block access to X. Electoral authorities declared Maduro the winner of the highly anticipated election, but unlike previous presidential contests, they have yet to produce detailed voting tallies to back up their claim. Meanwhile, the opposition revealed it collected tally sheets from more than 80% of the 30,000 electronic voting machines nationwide showing he lost by a more than 2-to-1 margin.

As Ukraine Pushes Deeper Into Russia, Moscow Sends Reinforcements (NYT) Ukrainian forces pressed deeper into Russia on Friday, trying to capitalize on their surprise cross-border offensive, as Moscow moved quickly to shore up its defenses against the largest assault on Russian soil since the war began. After capturing several small settlements the last few days, Ukraine was battling to take full control of a town near the border and sending small units to conduct raids farther into the southwestern Russian region of Kursk. At the same time, the Russian military announced it was sending more troops and armored vehicles to try to repel the attack. Russian television released videos of columns of military trucks carrying artillery pieces, heavy machine guns and tanks.

Iran to deliver hundreds of ballistic missiles to Russia soon, intel sources say (Reuters) Dozens of Russian military personnel are being trained in Iran to use the Fath-360 close-range ballistic missile system, two European intelligence sources told Reuters, adding that they expected the imminent delivery of hundreds of the satellite-guided weapons to Russia for its war in Ukraine. Russian defence ministry representatives are believed to have signed a contract on Dec. 13 in Tehran with Iranian officials for the Fath-360 and another ballistic missile system built by Iran's government-owned Aerospace Industries Organization (AIO) called the Ababil, said the two intelligence officials. Moscow possesses its own ballistic missiles, but the supply of Fath-360s could allow Russia to use more of its arsenal for targets beyond the front line, while employing Iranian warheads for closer-range targets, a military expert said.

Making House Calls to Mongolia’s Herders (NYT) Shurentsetseg Ganbold is a health worker in Mongolia whose job involves an unusual amount of travel. She serves the Dukhas, a community of semi-nomadic reindeer herders in a remote part of the north, who follow their herd wherever they roam. And wherever the herders settle for the season, Ms. Shurentsetseg has to find them, too, sometimes on horseback, along forest paths in East Taiga. She makes house calls to respond to emergencies, treat minor illnesses and vaccinate children. Her patients call her Dr. Shuree. Community health workers like Ms. Shurentsetseg are the backbone of the health system in Mongolia, one of the most sparsely populated countries in the world. They travel great distances to provide basic health services to people like the nomads who live far from city clinics and hospitals. Reindeer herders live so far from country roads that she sometimes has to rent horses to reach them. When no horses are available, she rides a reindeer to get from one tepee-like tent, called an ortz, to another. Growing up in a nomadic family, she had taught herself how to ride a horse at age 5. These days, riding to patients both calms and energizes her. “My spirit is lifted,” she said.

China’s Great Wall of Villages (NYT) Qionglin New Village sits deep in the Himalayas, just three miles from a region where a heavy military buildup and confrontations between Chinese and Indian troops have brought fears of a border war. The land was once an empty valley, more than 10,000 feet above the sea, traversed only by local hunters. Then Chinese officials built Qionglin, a village of cookie-cutter homes and finely paved roads, and paid people to move there from other settlements. Qionglin’s villagers are essentially sentries on the front line of China’s claim to Arunachal Pradesh, India’s easternmost state, which Beijing insists is part of Chinese-ruled Tibet. Many villages like Qionglin have sprung up. In China’s west, they give its sovereignty a new, undeniable permanence along boundaries contested by India, Bhutan and Nepal. In its north, the settlements bolster security and promote trade with Central Asia. In the south, they guard against the flow of drugs and crime from Southeast Asia. The buildup is the clearest sign that Mr. Xi is using civilian settlements to quietly solidify China’s control in far-flung frontiers, just as he has with fishing militias and islands in the disputed South China Sea.

The threat Israel didn’t foresee: Hezbollah’s growing drone power (AP) Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group launched one of its deepest strikes into Israel in mid-May, using an explosive drone that scored a direct hit on one of Israel’s most significant air force surveillance systems. This and other successful drone attacks have given the Iranian-backed militant group another deadly option for an expected retaliation against Israel for its airstrike in Beirut last month that killed top Hezbollah military commander Fouad Shukur. While Israel has built air defense systems, including the Iron Dome and David’s Sling to guard against Hezbollah’s rocket and missile arsenal, there has been less focus on the drone threat. Since the near daily exchange of fire along the Lebanon-Israel border began in early October, Hezbollah has used drones more to bypass Israeli air defense systems and strike its military posts along the border, as well as deep inside Israel.

Israel Launches Another Offensive in Gaza’s South Amid Push for Truce (NYT) An Israeli ground assault in the southern Gaza Strip on Friday forced tens of thousands of Palestinians to flee their homes and shelters, many for a third time or more, even as the United States and some Arab allies pressed both Israel and Hamas to restart peace talks. Between 60,000 and 70,000 people had fled by Thursday evening after the Israeli military ordered people in the city of Khan Younis to leave, according to UNRWA, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees. More continued to flee into the night and into Friday. Under a blazing sun, women carrying babies and blankets, men pushing carts and wheelchairs over sandy roads and young children carrying suitcases and backpacks have walked away from homes and shelters and toward unknown destinations. Some were in tears. “People are sleeping in the streets. Children and women are on the ground without mattresses,” Yafa Abu Aker, a resident of Khan Younis and an independent journalist, told The New York Times in a text message. “Death is better,” an older woman said on Thursday, in video from the Reuters news agency. “We’re fed up. We’ve already died. We’re dead.”

As South Sudan’s oil revenues dwindle, even the security forces haven’t been paid in months (AP) The recent rupture of a crucial oil pipeline has sent fresh pain through the economy of South Sudan, where even the security forces haven’t been paid in nine months. Some soldiers and civil servants are turning to side hustles or abandoning their jobs. South Sudan’s economy largely depends on the oil it exports via neighboring Sudan. But war in Sudan has created widespread chaos, and the pipeline in an area of fighting ruptured in February. The drop in oil revenues has compounded South Sudan’s long problem of official mismanagement. Now the already fragile country is seeing protests in the capital over lack of pay, with more expected. In recent weeks, The Associated Press visited government ministries and other offices in Juba and found them mostly empty during working hours. Remaining employees said colleagues had left after getting tired of working without pay since October. One government worker said her salary—when it came—was the equivalent of $8 a month. She has since found work at a restaurant and makes about $20.

For a celestial spectacle this weekend, look up (NYT) The universe is chock-full of cosmic wonder, but the vast majority of it is too distant to witness with the naked eye. For those without a telescope, this weekend is one of your best chances to catch a natural fireworks show: The Perseids meteor shower will reach its peak on Sunday night, lighting up the night sky with as many as 100 colorful streaks per hour.

[ledenews]

ON THE NAIL! - In Contention with 19 Games to Go

The Nailers bookended a win on Saturday with two more losses against Fort Wayne and Kalamazoo. What happened in those three games that caused the results to be what they were?

Well, that’s not exactly how you want the weekend to go.  Especially with games against teams that are hot on your heels in the standings.  And now, both teams are magically only five points behind the third place Nailers, with the K-Wings having three games in hand.   Things have really taken a bit of a dip over the last couple weekends now, but we’ll get more into that after bit. Friday’s game started off very well for the Nailers, as they jumped on the Komets early and often.  Tanner Laderoute got Wheeling on the board just over three minutes into the game, followed by Matthew Quercia, and less than halfway through the first period, Wheeling was already up 2-0.  It really had the feeling that all the Nailers had to do was keep pushing, try to get one more in the cage, and they could really open things up.  However, Fort Wayne found a way to beat Jaxon Castor with just under seven minutes left in the frame, followed by a second goal only 22 seconds later to tie the game before the intermission, and it became apparent this would be a dogfight. The second period featured quite a bit of back-and-forth action, with both teams getting good scoring chances.  Finally, after almost eight and a half minutes of play, the Komets got another one past Castor to break the deadlock and take their first lead of the game.  Wheeling tried to push to get the goal back, but it felt like momentum had shifted pretty strong in favor of the visitors.  Finally, with just over four minutes left in the period, Sebastian Dirven took a sharp wrister from the point that found its way through to tie the game back up in time for the final frame.

In said final frame, the game went quite a bit like it had been, with neither team finding a way to break it open.  Unfortunately, with 10:15 remaining in regulation, Shaw Boomhower was called for an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty, followed by a 10-minute misconduct, and the Komets were able to cash in on the ensuing power play, their only score on four chances with the man advantage.  Wheeling tried their hardest to put Fort Wayne into tough situations and force them to play back a bit, and it paid off with a late power play.  Coach Army tried to shift things in their favor even more by pulling the goalie to give them a 6-on-4 advantage on the ice, but the Komets got possession of the puck and put it in the empty net to earn the 5-3 victory despite the tough play of the Nailers. The opponent might have changed for Saturday’s game, but you could tell the Nailers were frustrated with how the night before had gone, despite their best efforts.  Wheeling brought the game to Kalamazoo, peppering the Wings goalie as if he was standing up to a firing squad.  Shots in the period ended up 14-7 in favor of the Nailers, but neither team was able to find enough space for the puck and the game was tied 0-0 after 20 minutes. The second period was quite similar to the first, with Wheeling yet again winning the shooting battle, this time by a 13-8 margin.  As the clock ticked later and later, it felt like neither team would find a way to capitalize again until the Nailers got a 5-on-3 power play chance late and cashed in off the stick of Justin Lee to take the lead late.  Nine seconds after the goal, Kalamazoo took another penalty to put Wheeling on another 5-on-3, and this time, Jordan Frasca was the one to put the puck into the net to make it 2-0 Nailers going to the third. In the third period, despite Wheeling leading in shots yet again with a 12-9 tally in the period, it felt quite a bit more back and forth.  The Nailers had moments where they were back on their heels, but then they’d complete a line change, and the next group out would force play back into the Wings zone.  Late in the game, Kalamazoo pulled their goaltender to try and get one, which they finally did with less than a minute left on the clock.  The final 52 seconds ticked by slowly, with the K-Wings trying to maintain possession and tie the game, but Wheeling finished things off and earned the victory. Going into the last game of the weekend, the Nailer fans heading into the building had to be hoping for more of what they saw the first two periods the night before rather than the last.  Unfortunately, Kalamazoo came out hopping, while Wheeling looked like they were playing their third game of the weekend.  The Nailers found themselves down 2-0 just over six minutes into the game when, 37 seconds after the second tally, Wheeling finally found the scoreboard off the stick of Jordan Martel, and the fans came to life and tried to infuse the team with some energy.  However, with just under seven minutes left in the period, the K-Wings were able to put another shot in behind Taylor Gauthier to push it to 3-1 after 20 minutes of play. The second period was a little more even, as Wheeling got into the swing of things and tried to erase a multi-goal deficit.  The pressure by the Nailers eventually caused them to get called for a penalty, as Thimo Nickl took an interference penalty, and Kalamazoo found a way to capitalize with the advantage, their second power play goal of the game to make it a 4-1 advantage for the visitors.  Wheeling continued to force the issue, playing a little more loose, but still couldn’t get one and went to the final period of the weekend with a three-goal deficit. In the final frame, Isaac Belliveau tried to will the Nailers to get back into the game, scoring twice a little more than four minutes apart to bring it back to 4-3 Kalamazoo with just under four minutes left in regulation.  If Wheeling could’ve found a way to get one more goal and possibly force overtime, it felt like the momentum would carry them to earning the additional point.  Wheeling pulled their goalie late in the hopes of getting that tying goal, but the Wings got possession and put it into the empty net, earning the 5-3 win to keep pace with the Nailers in the standings for the weekend.

Wheeling couldn’t complete the season sweep over Reading on Tuesday, losing 4-0 on the road.  How did the Royals finally pull one off against the Nailers?

It’s not easy, when you face a team nine times in a season, to sweep the entire season against them.  Wheeling had the chance to do just that with a victory in Reading, but the Royals were up to the task and avoided the embarrassment of having that happen to them.  The first period was quite even, with the Nailers receiving an early power play under two minutes into the game, but they couldn’t do anything with it.  The referees then got Matt Koopman for a trip with about seven minutes left in the period, and the Royals were able to do what Wheeling couldn’t and cashed in to take the 1-0 lead, which was the difference into the intermission. In the second period, Justin Lee lost his composure big time and received two-, five-, and ten-minute penalties in one fell swoop, and Reading yet again took advantage of the extra player on the ice to make it 2-0 then, only 15 second later, punched yet another one in to make it 3-0, and this time, it felt like Wheeling didn’t have it in them to come back despite their considerable lead in shots.  In the third period, the Royals got another goal just under three minutes into the period and didn’t look back, as Wheeling was shut out for the first time since December 27th against Indy. The good news is, Reading only managed to get 23 shots on goal, which was the 17th time in the last 18 games that the Nailers managed to keep their opponent below 30 shots on goal for the game.  They have managed to do that 32 times in the 52 games they’ve played this season, and they currently sit sixth in the ECHL in shots against per game at 28.74.  The problem is the quality of the shots that are getting through has improved.  During their winning streak, shots reaching the goal were clearly seen by the goalies, allowing them to make saves, and a lot of the shots were coming from further out from the net.  Lately, shots are coming from close range, or with more screens in front of the net, and they’re finding their way through.  That being said, you still have to be able to count on your keeper to make the saves they need to make but giving them a chance to make the save is just as important, and it’s what Wheeling needs to get back to doing.

The Nailers start March with two road games in Cincinnati and Fort Wayne, followed by a Sunday home game against the Cyclones.  What do they need to do in order to maximize their points from these games?

Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but these are games the Nailers need to take advantage of.  Cincinnati has not been having a very good season this year, sitting in sixth place in the division with 51 standings points, 11 behind the Nailers and six behind Fort Wayne for the fourth and final playoff spot in the division.  Their record at home this season is one game above .500, while their road record leaves a lot to be desired and they are currently on a four-game winless streak.  The real problem for the Cyclones this year when playing away from Cincy has been their penalty kill group, which is 26th out of 28 teams in the league.  If Wheeling can force Cincinnati to take some penalties and cash in with the extra skater, there’s no reason they can’t come away from those games with a couple wins. As for Fort Wayne, the Nailers need to get payback for their loss last weekend on home ice.  They currently sit five points behind Wheeling, with both teams having played 53 games on the season.  The good news for the Nailers is just how bad the Komets have been at home this season, with a record of 10-12-1-2 on their own ice.  Two things to watch for in this game is their man advantage group, which is the second-best unit on home ice in the entire league, with a 27.2% success rate.  If Wheeling spends too much time shorthanded, this could be a long game for them.  The other thing is Fort Wayne doesn’t score the first goal in their games very often, converting first in only 45% of their games thus far, with a record of 16-7-1 in said games.  Wheeling, on the other hand, usually sees a lot of success when scoring first.  So, if the Nailers can score quickly and put the pressure on the Komets, they have a good chance of coming away with the two points.

Since their 12-game win streak came to an end, the Nailers have a record of 2-5.  How can they reverse that trend and get back to playing winning hockey more consistently?

It’s not overly surprising the Nailers have struggled a bit since tying the longest winning streak in team history.  Most teams who are able to go on such extended streaks experience a bit of a letdown when it ends.  When you’re in the midst of the streak, you try to just focus on continuing to do the things that are working.  You might eat the same midday meal every game day, take your pregame nap at the same time (at least, as much as you can with spending time on the road and such), and continue to focus on the parts of your game that got you to that point.  Suddenly, something changes and it’s not enough anymore, and you find your team losing games they would’ve found ways to win just a few weeks ago. In cases like this, the best thing to do is to get back to basics.  Each player has to look in the mirror at their own game and figure out what they were doing to contribute to winning hockey being played.  As I said last week, there have been a number of player movements, and some guys in the lineup now didn’t get to be a part of that streak.  Those guys need to consider what they’re replacing in the lineup and figure out how their game helps this team.  I’m sure Coach Army has been working hard with the guys to put a lineup together that gives them the best chance to win games, and I have the utmost confidence that they’ll put it together again here soon and make that strong push with just over a month left in the regular season.

Another rough month for the Nailers, as they only have five home games in the entire month of March.  How do you think that affects the boys in black and gold?

You know, it was nice back in November when the Nailers had only five games on the road for the entire month.  Then in December, when Wheeling only went on the road four times that month.  The problem with that is, then you run into a month like January, where you only have three games on home ice in the entire month.  And again, here in March, where the Nailers will play at home this Sunday, then four games in a row later in the month, but that’s it. It's definitely a bit of a double-edged sword, where you had the chance to spend a lot of time at home in other months just to have to spend extra time on the road later.  The good news for the Nailers is they have found a way to improve their record on the road from what it was earlier in the season.  Despite losing three of their last four on the road (with two of those losses coming on the other side of the country in Utah), Wheeling had managed to win their previous seven road games in a row, and their current record away from the Friendly City for the season is 14-11-1.  To be successful in most pro sports leagues, teams want to find a way to be over .500 on the road, so if Wheeling can keep this up over this month, there’s no reason to think they won’t find a way to play later in April. Just as important though are those five games they get to play at home.  When a team doesn’t get to play in front of their fans much in a month, they really count on having that support in their building when they are there.  They have to go into hostile buildings nine times in the month of March and perform at their best without that fan support.  When they’re back home, we have to find a way to be there for them and support them and help them find ways to win at home.  I hope to see everyone there when given the chance. Read the full article

[arpov-blog-blog]

..."The idea that a “unity ticket” featuring a Republican and a Democrat could somehow produce a nominee with “a clear path to victory” is worse than a political fiction. The group behind it, No Labels, is pushing a dangerous lie that would simply serve to put Trump back in the White House.

How can I be so certain? Look at the last half-century of election results. In modern U.S. presidential history, third parties have not won much. In 1968, George Wallace won 46 electoral votes by running a regionally-targeted (and racist) campaign. Since then, they’ve won zilch — not a single state. Not Gary Johnson or Jill Stein in 2016, and not Ralph Nader in 2000. None of them broke 5 percent of the vote.

Then there’s Ross Perot, who No Labels aspires to emulate for his appeal to “the vast middle of the electorate.” Despite unlimited cash and facing an unpopular incumbent in George H.W. Bush and a near-unknown in Bill Clinton, Perot failed to win a single state. Can No Labels twist the data and make an argument that Perot could have won if he had done things differently? Sure! But that’s like saying I could have been the quarterback of the Denver Broncos — technically true, but come on!

There’s a reason for this lack of success: Our political system isn’t designed to support third parties at the presidential level.

The biggest barrier is the Electoral College. States use a “winner takes all” system to distribute their electoral votes, which is why Perot won nearly 20 percent of the popular vote but got a big fat zero from the Electoral College. This leads to two practical effects: First, parties are incentivized to form the largest coalitions possible, which naturally leads to a two-party system. Second, many voters don’t want to “waste” their vote on a candidate with no chance of winning, so they default to the major parties. Both effects make it harder for third parties to compete.

The question of whether Americans are willing to vote for a third party comes up every presidential cycle. Consider this: Two months before the 2016 election, Gary Johnson polled at 10 percent. In June 1992, Perot led all candidates at 39 percent. These polls were mirages — neither got anything close to that number of votes. Third parties often poll well during a campaign, but that support vanishes on Election Day.

This points to a larger truth: Americans think a third party is needed, even if they won’t vote for one. Voters want to express discontent with their party. Sure, nearly half of the electorate thinks a third party is necessary, but No Labels mistakenly assumes this means those voters will actually vote for one. Once Americans get a good look at the alternatives, like Perot or Johnson, they end up sticking with the major parties.

In 2016, Trump’s margin of victory was less than 50,000 votes in these states, and third parties won significantly more votes than that in each one. Did they flip the election for Trump? It’s possible. In 2020, with no third parties to contend with, Biden beat Trump in Michigan by 154,188 votes, Pennsylvania by 80,555 votes and Wisconsin by 20,682. All of those margins are smaller than what third parties received in 2016. These Blue Wall states will be close again in 2024, and if third parties perform similarly in 2024 as they did in 2016, they will deny Biden a second term.

This alone should give any responsible person pause. A No Labels candidate in these states could easily hand the election to Trump. But maybe that’s the goal. Whatever their original intentions, the people behind No Labels — including Harlan Crow, the GOP mega-donor who gifted travel and luxury vacations to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas — are using dark money on this folly. The group is working to raise $70 million and has already qualified for the ballot in 12 states, including states that could be pivotal to the outcome, such as Arizona, Nevada and North Carolina.

There are serious questions about how the group’s ticket would be picked (likely behind closed doors) and whether acting like a political party without registering as one is legal. Not to mention, its own founders and staff are in “open revolt” over the group’s current aspirations.

While I’m not a fan of polling done more than a year out (seriously), The Wall Street Journal did an analysis that showed third parties would more likely draw votes from Biden. The report points to an NBC survey that has Biden and Trump tied head to head, but if you add a third-party candidate, Trump leads by 3 percent. (Of course, this math might change if Liz Cheney or RFK Jr. make a serious run.) New polling of young voters shows a similar dynamic, shrinking Biden’s lead with the introduction of third parties.

Historical data suggests the same. Based on exit polling (a highly flawed metric), No Labels believes Perot in 1992 may have siphoned votes from both parties equally. However, an American Journal of Political Science study concluded that Perot increased turnout by 3 percent and decreased Clinton’s margin of victory by 7 percent.

If we look at who helped Biden win last time, they are the type of voters who might switch parties: Voters who selected a third party in 2016 voted for Biden by 29 percent. Those voters could be the difference for Biden in 2024."

[biblenewsprophecy]

‘Will America Make It Until November 5, 2024?’

COGwriter

NBC reported the following:

November 7, 2023

WASHINGTON — Pick a metaphor: President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign is a “five-alarm fire.” It’s a cardiac case in need of a “defibrillator.” Or a lemming on course to “slowly march into the sea and drown.”

All come from Democratic strategists whose low-boil frustrations with Biden’s candidacy erupted over the weekend amid a spate of bleak polling numbers. No less a party mastermind than David Axelrod, architect of Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, suggested in a social media post that Biden consider dropping out of the race and letting someone more electable take his place as the Democratic presidential nominee.

The 2024 presidential election looks increasingly like it will be a rematch of four years ago, and Democrats are more and more worried that the outcome may not swing their way this time. Yet at this point, they’re stuck with Biden — whether they like it or not.

Biden has given no indication he is interested in dropping out. Nor does his campaign team seem to be sweating the New York Times/Siena College poll that showed him losing to Republican Donald Trump in five of the six swing states that he captured in his 2020 victory.

Troubling signs for Democrats jump out from the poll. The party’s bedrock constituency, Black voters, appears to be eroding. In 2020, Black voters favored Biden over Trump by a margin of 78 percentage points. In the new survey, Biden’s margin had dropped to 49 points. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/joe-biden/democratic-frustrations-biden-spill-open-five-alarm-fire-rcna123841?cid=sm_npd_nn_tw_ma&taid=654a26c66de02a00016ad2be&utm_campaign=trueanthem&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter

Yes, unless Joe Biden or Donald Trump die, pull out, or are so impacted by legal matters, a rematch of 2020 is the position of most pundits.

Related to the two of them and 2020, the Continuing Church of God (CCOG) put together the following video on our Bible News Prophecy YouTube channel:

10:25

Biden, Trump, and the Bible

The USA presidential campaign is in full swing. Though Democratic party candidate Joe Biden and Republican party candidate Donald Trump have differing economic and climate policies as well as different views on abortion and racial matters, there are many similarities both share. Do they have policies that they share that are leading to the destruction of the USA? What do Bible prophecies reveal about sexual immorality, debt, and hypocrisy? What are some of the national sins of the USA? Does the Bible endorse voting? What did Jesus teach related to what to seek and pray for? What does the New Testament teach that Christians are to do related to leaders? Is the lesser of two evils still evil? Dr. Thiel goes over these matters, including going over eleven similarities the two major party candidates share and some of what the Bible teaches about evil.

Here is a link to our sermonette video: Biden, Trump, and the Bible.

Both Joe Biden and Donald Trump have also taken steps consistent with my published warnings about them in my respective books (Biden-Harris: Prophecies and Destruction and Donald Trump and America’s Apocalypse).

Furthermore, the USA is becoming more and more divided. As Jesus said:

25 Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself will not stand. (Matthew 12:25)

17 Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and a house divided against a house falls. (Luke 11:17)

The divide in the USA is growing as many of its sins (including hypocrisy) become more blatant.

As far as the fall of the USA goes, a reader sent me a link to the following:

Will America Make It Until November 5, 2024?

November 6, 2023

This past weekend, America hit an important, although a bit overlooked, milestone. As of Sunday, we are exactly 366 days until the 2024 presidential election. ..

A question I, and I believe so many other Americans, have begun to ponder also popped back into my head. So I am going to ask it out loud. Can America make it to November 5, 2024? …

While it might sound a bit melodramatic, I can’t help but think that so many Americans are feeling the same way. For the first time in their lives, they are truly frightened for the future of our country. Not because of any one thing specifically, but the entire toxic stew that seems to be bubbling up, and no one in any position of authority is competent enough, or even seems to care enough, to handle it. …

But the one thing that chills me to the bone is the byproduct of this potential World War III scenario — the virulent, unrelenting, and pathological antisemitism that has reared its head in a nation founded as the refuge for freedom and liberty for anyone seeking it in the world. It is an ugliness that many Americans, including myself, would have never thought we would see anywhere else in the world ever again, much less in America. Add in the fact that Iran, already funding Hamas, has threatened to become even more involved in the powder keg that is the Middle East, as have other nations. …

But the collective threats America now faces could easily erupt into utter unmanageability well before the 2024 election, and we would have few options as to how to proceed. This game of beat-the-clock is a scary proposition, but if little old me is thinking about it, others surely are, too. https://redstate.com/beckynoble/2023/11/06/will-america-make-it-until-november-5-2024-n2165961

While the USA will make it past 2024, yes many in the USA are uneasy.

And yes, many are uneasy about a Joe Biden or Donald Trump re-election.

But WWIII is not about to begin–that is at least 3 1/2 years away (cf. Daniel 9:27, see also The ‘Peace Deal’ of Daniel 9:27) –but it is getting closer.

As far as how long the USA may last, the Continuing Church of God (CCOG) put out the following video on our Bible News Prophecy YouTube channel:

34:10

Is the USA prophesied to be destroyed by 2028?

Are there prophetic reasons to believe that the USA will not last two complete presidential terms? Yes. There is a tradition attributed to the Hebrew prophet Elijah that humanity had 6,000 years to live before being replaced by God’s Kingdom. There are scriptures, writings in the Talmud, early Christian teachings that support this. Also, even certain Hindu writings support it.

Here is a summary of ten items to consider: 1. If as the School of Elijah taught, that God inspired Elijah to state that the world as we have known it would last 6,000 years, to be followed by a thousand year sabbatical time, which Jewish tradition (Talmud, Tractate Sanhedrin [97a]) and early Christian traditions records (e.g. Irenaeus, a hearer of Polycarp. Adversus haereses, Book V, Chapter 30:4), then we are getting close to the end of that time.

2. And if, consistent with scriptures in both the Old and New Testaments, we can apply the concept that a thousand years is as a day to God (Psalm 90:4; 2 Peter 3:8).

3. And if, as generally understood in the Church of God that Jesus was killed and resurrected no later than the Spring of 31 A.D. on Passover.

4. And if we can presume that the “last days” of a 7,000 year prophetic week began AFTER the middle day (day 4), then the last days prior to the “sabbatical” time, which some would refer to as the millennial Kingdom of God would last two thousand years.

5. And if when Peter referred to being in the last days (Acts 2:17-18) and since Hebrews 1:1-12 teaches that “God … has in these last days spoken to us by His Son.”

6. Then adding 2,000 years to a period of time leads to the end of the 6,000 years no later than 2031 (and it could be earlier than that).

7. Since the Great Tribulation is expected to start 3 1/2 years prior to that (cf. Revelation 12:14; 13:5) subtracting 3 1/2 years from the Spring of 2031 would be late in 2027.

8. Understand that the U.S.A. is prophesied to be taken over near the rise of the Beast and start of the Great Tribulation (cf. Daniel 11:39; Jeremiah 30:7; Matthew 24:21-22).

9. Therefore, since the end of two full U.S.A. presidential terms would end in January of 2029, these prophetic understandings point to the end of the U.S.A. prior to two full presidential terms.

10. This is also consistent with certain Hindu and Roman Catholic prophetic writings as well. This video gives more details and quotes which point to the destruction of the United States of America by 2028.

Here is a link to the video: Is the USA prophesied to be destroyed by 2028?

That said, some see hope in Joe Biden and others in Donald Trump. I do not (though one could be better for the economy than the other).

Voting for Donald Trump or voting in Republicans will not stop the decline of the USA.

Voting for Joe Biden or voting in Democrats will not stop the decline of the USA.

The Bible warns:

20 Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil (Isaiah 5:20).

I am NOT a voter nor a Democrat nor a Republican –I am a non-partisan Christian looking for the return of Jesus and the establishment of the Kingdom of God.

Notice two translations of Psalm 146:3:

Don’t put your confidence in powerful people; there is no help for you there. (New Living Translation)

Do not put your trust in princes, Nor in a son of man, in whom there is no help. (NKJV)

The Book of Psalms also teaches:

8 It is better to trust in the Lord Than to put confidence in man. 9 It is better to trust in the Lord Than to put confidence in princes.  (Psalms 118:8-9)

From a Christian perspective, consider that neither Donald Trump nor Joe Biden advocate national repentance nor the kingdom of God.

So, what should a Christian do?

Well, one thing is to pray:

1 Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, 2 for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. 3 For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, 4 who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.  (1 Timothy 2:1-4)

9 In this manner, therefore, pray:

Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. 10 Your kingdom come. Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven.  (Matthew 6:9-10)

Understand that neither Joe Biden nor Donald Trump will change what will happen to the USA without national repentance.

The USA needs the return of Jesus and the coming Kingdom of God.

The Feast of Tabernacles, which was observed last month, is a foretaste of the Kingdom of God. One in which:

15 … “The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever!” (Revelation 11:15)

So, yes, there is good news, despite what goes on with the governments of this age. Related Items:

USA in Prophecy: The Strongest Fortresses Can you point to scriptures, like Daniel 11:39, that point to the USA in the 21st century? This article does. Two related sermon are available: Identifying the USA and its Destruction in Prophecy and Do these 7 prophesies point to the end of the USA?

Who is the King of the West? Why is there no Final End-Time King of the West in Bible Prophecy? Is the United States the King of the West? Here is a version in the Spanish language: ¿Quién es el Rey del Occidente? ¿Por qué no hay un Rey del Occidente en la profecía del tiempo del fin? A related sermon is also available: The Bible, the USA, and the King of the West.

Christian Repentance Do you know what repentance is? Is it really necessary for salvation? Two related sermons about this are also available: Real Repentance and Real Christian Repentance.

Is God Calling You? This booklet discusses topics including calling, election, and selection. If God is calling you, how will you respond? Here is are links to related sermons: Christian Election: Is God Calling YOU? and Predestination and Your Selection. A short animation is also available: Is God Calling You?

Might the U.S.A. Be Gone by 2028? Are there prophetic reasons to believe that the USA will not last two complete presidential terms? Yes. There is a tradition attributed to the Hebrew prophet Elijah that humanity had 6,000 years to live before being replaced by God’s Kingdom. There are scriptures, writings in the Talmud, early Christian teachings that support this. Also, even certain Hindu writings support it. Here is a link to a related video: Is the USA prophesied to be destroyed by 2028? In Spanish: Seran los Estados Unidos Destruidos en el 2028?

Donald Trump and America’s Apocalypse This 188 page book is for people truly interested in prophecies related to Donald Trump and the United States, including learning about several that have already been fulfilled and those that will be fulfilled in the future. The physical book can be purchased at Amazon for $12.99 from the following link: Donald Trump and America’s Apocalypse.

Donald Trump and America’s Apocalypse-Kindle Edition This electronic version of the 188 page print edition is available for only US$3.99. And you do not need an actual Kindle device to read it. Why? Amazon will allow you to download it to almost any device: Please click HERE to download one of Amazon s Free Reader Apps. After you go to for your free Kindle reader and then go to Donald Trump and America’s Apocalypse-Kindle Edition.

Biden-Harris: Prophecies and Destruction Can the USA survive two full presidential terms? In what ways are Joe Biden and Kamala Harris apocalyptic? This book has hundreds of prophecies and scriptures to provide details. A Kindle version is also available and you do not need an actual Kindle device to read it. Why? Amazon will allow you to download it to almost any device: Please click HERE to download one of Amazon s Free Reader Apps. After you go to your free Kindle reader app (or if you already have one or a Kindle), you can go to: Biden-Harris: Prophecies and Destruction (Kindle) to get the book in seconds.

The Gospel of the Kingdom of God This free online pdf booklet has answers many questions people have about the Gospel of the Kingdom of God and explains why it is the solution to the issues the world is facing. It is available in hundreds of languages at ccog.org. Here are links to four kingdom-related sermons:  The Fantastic Gospel of the Kingdom of God!, The World’s False Gospel, The Gospel of the Kingdom: From the New and Old Testaments, and The Kingdom of God is the Solution.

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[f1]

Wolff: F1 had two cars fighting when Mercedes dominated unlike now | 2023 Belgian Grand Prix

Mercedes’ spell of dominance in Formula 1 brought more to the sport because there was a close competition between its drivers, team principal Toto Wolff has claimed. His team’s drivers won every championship from 2014 to 2020. All bar one of those titles was taken by Lewis Hamilton, but the 2014 and 2016 contests were decided in final-race showdowns between him and team mate Nico Rosberg. At the halfway point this season, Max Verstappen has won all bar two of the 11 grands prix and leads the championship with 281 points to team mate Sergio Perez’s 171. Red Bull have more than twice as many points as their closest rival. While Mercedes regularly won the constructors championship by huge margins in the mid-2010s, Wolff said the contest between their drivers made those seasons more entertaining than today. Hamilton and Rosberg fought each other hard at Mercedes “I don’t know whether our dominance was similar or less [than Red Bull’s],” he told media including RaceFans yesterday. “I think we had years where we did it in the same way. “But at least we had two cars that were fighting each other so that caused a little bit of entertainment for everyone. And that’s not the case at the moment.” Mercedes is the only team besides Red Bull to have won a race in the last 12 months. However following George Russell’s victory at Interlagos in the penultimate race of last season, Mercedes dropped far back from their rivals during the winter. Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free Wolff admitted the scale of Red Bull’s margin over the competition had taken them by surprise. “I often say that it’s a meritocracy and it’s up to us to fight back. Did we expect that gap? Certainly not. Poll: Rate the 2023 Belgian Grand Prix sprint race “I think with the last step of upgrade it seem they have another advantage that they were able to exploit. But again it always gets me back to the point of we’ve just got to dig in and and do the best possible job.” Red Bull scored their 12th consecutive grand prix victory in Hungary last week. That broke the record set by McLaren in 1988, when the team had its famed all-star line-up of Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost. Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said Verstappen, who is on course to win his third world championship this year, deserves to be regarded on the same level as that pair. “It’s so difficult to compare drivers from different generations but Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost, both legends of the sport and I think Max is rapidly joining that group.” However pairing two drivers of that calibre brings challenges, said Horner, noting Senna and Prost “got pretty sparky between the two of them” before the latter left McLaren the following year. “Two alphas is always a difficult one to manage,” he added. Bringing the F1 news from the source RaceFans strives to bring its readers news directly from the key players in Formula 1. We are able to do this thanks in part to the generous backing of our RaceFans Supporters. By contributing £1 per month or £12 per year (or the equivalent in other currencies) you can help cover the costs involved in producing original journalism: Travelling, writing, creating, hosting, contacting and developing. We have been proudly supported by our readers for over 10 years. If you enjoy our independent coverage, please consider becoming a RaceFans Supporter today. As a bonus, all our Supporters can also browse the site ad-free. Sign up or find out more via the links below: Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free 2023 Belgian Grand Prix Browse all 2023 Belgian Grand Prix articles via RaceFans - Independent Motorsport Coverage https://www.racefans.net/

[newstodayjournal]

Denmark’s Jonas Vingegaard Nears Victory in the Tour de France

Jonas Vingegaard fired off a blistering ride on a hilly time trial in the Tour de France on Tuesday, winning the stage and seizing control of the race with less than a week until its finish in Paris. His time over the 14 miles was a yawning 1 minute 38 seconds better than that of his rival, Tadej Pogacar, and that lengthened his 10-second overall lead to 1:48, potentially a decisive margin. For…

[darkmaga-returns]

An exaggerated performance of fetishized features that reinforces existing power structures

Toby Rogers

Oct 18, 2024

Historically, public health was a radical profession. It challenged power and built large public works projects (sewers and sanitation) that dramatically improved lives. But the field of public health today bears almost no resemblance to the efforts from a century ago. Instead, public health today is this weird, exaggerated, corporatized performance of things that kinda sorta sound like health by people who have no understanding of science and medicine. After years of personal observation, reflection, and engagement it seems to me that public health today is best described as a drag performance by marginalized people who allow themselves to be used by the fascist Pharma state because it makes them feel powerful.

The particular case study that draws my ire today is an editorial written by Rick Bright titled “A Trump Victory Would be a Public Health Disaster” published in the NY Times on October 10.

For those who are not familiar with Rick Bright’s crimes, here are the facts:

The CDC’s own research showed that, “Chloroquine is a potent inhibitor of SARS coronavirus infection and spread” (Virology Journal, 2005).

FOR THAT REASON, the U.S. had a national stockpile of chloroquine in the event of a SARS coronavirus outbreak.

In 2020, there was a SARS coronavirus outbreak. So the President of the United States ordered Rick Bright, then the Director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), to release the national stockpile of chloroquine.

Rick Bright refused to release the chloroquine from the national stockpile because he decided it’s unsafe even though it’s on the WHO Model List of Essential Medicines and has safely been used billions of times around the world.

Bright was soon pushed out of his job. It is unclear why Trump failed to then send in the military to distribute the chloroquine instead. Someone (Jared Kushner? Scott Gottlieb? Deborah Birx?) must have gotten to Trump in the meantime.

Bright then declared himself a “whistleblower” (which makes no sense) and he was warmly embraced by the Media Industrial Complex because he looked the part — a beta male, clueless, and raging with Trump Derangement Syndrome.

By any objective measure, Rick Bright killed tens of thousands of Americans through his illegal and unscientific action.

No evidence has emerged in the last five years to exonerate him. Other than Tony Fauci, Ralph Baric, Peter Daszak, etc. who created SARS-CoV-2, Rick Bright is the man most responsible for its spread and death toll in the United States.

Rick Bright is one of the most heinous mass murderers in history. If the rule of law still existed in this country Bright would have already been prosecuted for crimes against humanity.

Now Rick Bright spends all day every day trying to create a panic about bird flu to turn that into the next pandemic. His profitable hysteria is welcomed by the pandemic industrial complex and he is given a platform to spread his lies by the mainstream media.

Rick Bright’s actions show that he knows less than nothing about public health. He cherishes a certain left, postmodern, bougie ideology and rejects scientific evidence that contradicts his worldview. The net result is thousands of dead Americans who could have been saved by simple, straightforward, evidence-based practice.