Election 2024: The Quest for Peace

[Mongrel]

This is quite a chart

[Crick]

I know the RNC has no money, but are they throwing it all at PA because it's his most likely path to winning? Or is that where he has the best chance of flipping?

[Mongrel]

At this point, who knows. They're reportedly working with extremely bad data because not only is it filtered through consultants, so many of those guys are grifting the machine and hiring paid operators who're also defrauding them in turn.

Good place for me to drop this article from June of last year about how bad the Republican ground game has gotten, and why, and then consider the fact that we know how much worse this has gotten since then because the end of the article describes DeSantis' campaign as both using these 3rd-party services the most heavily and supposedly better-off for staffing than the GOP at large.

[Thad]

I know the RNC has no money, but are they throwing it all at PA because it's his most likely path to winning? Or is that where he has the best chance of flipping?

I can't speak to Pennsylvania but they're definitely trying to steal Georgia.

[Mongrel]

Liz Cheney just announced she is both officially endorsing Harris and explicitly voting for her this November.

I think we're getting closer to an interesting and not-implausible future where Cheney takes a run at a Wyoming senate seat as an independent.

[Mongrel]

Strong news day today.

House and Senate Republicans are starting to panic about a huge money gap with Democrats (via Politico)

I'm sure a rabid panic won't lead to an even worse lack of oversight on spending either.

[Cait]

I know the RNC has no money, but are they throwing it all at PA because it's his most likely path to winning? Or is that where he has the best chance of flipping?

My understanding is that it's the opposite, that the electoral college map currently has no plausible path to victory for Trump without PA.

[Mongrel]

Judge Chutkan sets schedule for next steps in DC Trump prosecution: presidential immunity filings due 9/26, 10/17, 10/29

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap ... 33.0_2.pdf

tl;dr, the judge on the voter interference case is continuing to move things along, while now taking into account the immunity decision.

Also, regarding upcoming steps:

Merchan is due on the 16th to grant or not the motion to vacate the 34 unanimous guilty verdicts, then on the 18th is the sentencing for the said verdicts. Tomorrow the NY Appellate court will start hearing TFG's legal team on why they should throw out the 5 million verdict.

I'm unsure if this means anything will stick to Trump in spite of the immunity ruling, but the judges involved are certainly going to try.

[Metal Slime]

[Mongrel]

Amazing.

[Mongrel]

Wired: DOJ: Russia Aimed Propaganda at Gamers, Minorities to Swing 2024 Election

Newly unsealed court documents reveal in unprecedented detail a campaign called the "Good Old USA Project", which Russian authorities believed could impact the US election.

[...]

The plan lists a variety of audiences the campaign specifically wants to target, including residents of swing states, American Jews, “US citizens of Hispanic descent,” and the “community of American gamers, users of Reddit and image boards, such as 4chan.”

The document describes this category of gamers and chatroom users as the "backbone of the right-wing trends in the US segment of the Internet.”

tl;dr, more Russian influencer indictments to come.

[Mongrel]

I can't stop laughing at this.

[Thad]

Philip Bump: Rumors about an Ohio town show the scale of the right-wing bubble

They're literally accusing Black immigrants of stealing and eating people's pets. That is some oldschool-ass racism right there.

[Mongrel]

This isn't actually very surprising - I've mentioned before the educational requirements of the US military, even for enlisted personnel, are high. Nor is it likely to move the needle. But a statement so strongly in favour of one candidate with this many ex-high-ranking names on it is somewhat unprecedented.



In theory there's a "Soldiers, even retired, shouldn't get involved in politics" criticism which you can bet RW idiots to start yapping about if this becomes at all newsworthy, but like, the US is also a country where military service is practically requirement for high office (which has its pros and cons), so.

[Mongrel]

Trump called for the GOP to set fire to itself (again) today.



Seriously, I know we're cynical and all, but if he actually forces this instead of forgetting about it by bedtime, it would absolutely do real damage to the Republicans at the best possible time. There is basically no way a total shutdown for demonstrably spurious reasons plays well with anyone outside the absolute diehards.

[Mongrel]

@Thad

[Thad]

I'm trying to decide whether watching the thing tonight or not watching the thing tonight will make me more anxious.

I think the best solution is probably to put it on but play a game on a handheld or something. The Pocket just got a Lynx core; maybe I could try that out.

[Mongrel]

[Friday]

Yeah, if you can distract yourself, that seems to be the best thing to do.

[Friday]

Cons: the eating cats and dogs thing will promote racism and racist attitudes, leading to more suffering for POCs in this country

Pros: maybe people will keep their cats indoors more, reducing the amount of ecological damage done by cats