I’d be equally happy with torturing all of the conservative justices by packing the court with liberals. I’d bet $ to donuts that several would retire rather than be the minority in a Warren or Burger-like court.
I think you provided a good service with that thread, so I’d agree it’s worth keeping.
Having said that, I signed up for her newsletter, which arrives every day in my email inbox without me having to go to any site.
Thanks, I think I’ll do it. We could probably use it here as much for another discussion springboard as for anything else, especially during the next week or so (but hopefully not for weeks on end after that!).
Did you have to sign up thru substack? I deleted my account because I was sick of all the places I had to click to stop the emails without stopping just HCR
This should work for anyone:
Just click on which plan you want (which includes FREE). No log-in required.
I would say yes, please keep doing so but mainly because that was the laziest option for me and was always part of my daily routine since you started doing it.
Local-level election fuckery, thankful my state is getting ahead of it:
TL;DR the previous township/election clerk was stalked and harassed until she resigned. Lo’ and behold, the appointee who replaced her has a unique interpretation of the constitution in which he is the supreme authority for elections in the township, and no county, state, or federal government has jurisdiction over him. Now he’s not allowed to do jack shit with the election.
ETA: Oh yeah, local elections matter!!! And telling Nazis to shut the fuck up and crawl back under the rocks from whence they came, when possible.
I’ve been watching X’s “Election Integrity Community” balloon this week from <13K on Monday to >45K as I write this. It’s a stew of rumors & misleadingly framed examples & conspiracy theories - a perfect example of what UW CIP calls “evidence generation infrastructure” https://www.cip.uw.edu/2024/10/29/evidence-generation-infrastructure-2024-election/
https://www.cip.uw.edu/2024/10/29/evidence-generation-infrastructure-2024-election/
One defining feature of the 2024 election is the maturation of an infrastructure that supports the generation of “evidence” — often in the form videos, images, or data that fuel false or misleading rumors about election fraud — that feeds political and legal action that can be used to contest election results. We have seen this dynamic in action previously, during the 2020 presidential election and 2022 midterms. However, the machinery is increasingly well-oiled.
Self-described election integrity organizations, many of which are sympathetic to presidential candidate Donald Trump, have developed new tools and repurposed existing infrastructure to encourage the capture and digital sharing of “evidence” of perceived election fraud. Often, this evidence is misinterpreted or intentionally mischaracterized to fit a dominant narrative that has been seeded and repeated throughout this election cycle (and prior ones), alleging that the election will be fraudulent. In 2020, this “rigged election” narrative set an expectation and later a false perception that mail-in ballots — among other objects — would be a vector for voter fraud and that Democrats would “steal” the election. This cycle, the narrative backdrop centers on the allegation that this election will be rife with illegal voting from non-citizens.
Much like 2020, we have seen an organized effort to lay the groundwork to “prove” election fraud integrating three interconnected components: 1) persuasion of conservative audiences that voter fraud will happen en masse , 2) solicitation of volunteer poll watchers and others to share “evidence” of fraud via social media as well as dedicated digital apps and hotlines, and 3) use of that evidence to motivate lawsuits, protests, and other efforts to contest undesirable results. Though organic in places, this process of motivating, gathering, and mobilizing “evidence” of election fraud appears to be part of a political strategy. Depending upon the outcomes and margins of certain high-profile races, we anticipate that this evidence could be used to attempt to make the case — rhetorically, politically, and legally — that the 2024 election is full of fraud and, potentially, illegitimate. This evidence generation infrastructure could also be deployed in more targeted ways to argue that certain races should not be certified and that counting procedures — for example, around provisional ballots — should be changed in specific places.
While we saw these informational and organizational dynamics at play in 2020 as a result of evidence generation infrastructure, in 2024 our analysis suggests that the infrastructure is much more mature and robust. There appears to be more organized efforts to recruit volunteers for election integrity efforts and more apps to collect evidence. We anticipate more election litigation, motivated and scaffolded by the crowdsourced “evidence” of fraud. There is already an unprecedented amount of pre-election civil suits, with the GOP boasting over 130 cases.
In this post, we describe a strategic but loosely organized political infrastructure — consisting of political organizing, partisan media, social media, technological platforms, and a growing legal apparatus — and explain how this infrastructure is strategically employed to gather so-called “evidence” of voter fraud and use that evidence to motivate and mobilize political and legal action.
There’s been a lot of blowback in the right-wing press about Biden calling T****’s supporters “garbage” but tough shit. They are. If they haven’t figured out that T**** is every sort of bigot and a fascist as well by now, there’s no reaching them. And, let’s be honest, at this point every supporter who is left is also a fascist.
I don’t think this will affect Harris at the polls the way HCR’s “deplorable” comment did because 1. It’s too late before the election, 2. It wasn’t Harris saying it, 3. Anyone who is offended by it is a pre-melted snowflake in the context of every nasty thing T**** has said in the last 48 hours alone.
Indeed. I was about to post this screengrab from CNN. Along with something like,
Come on CNN, it’s not that big a deal, stop trying to make it one!
“Garbage” is too kind of a word to describe them
I’ve seen so many articles about it being difficult to parse what he was saying… Hell, it was Trump’s supporters who made all the racist remarks at that rally, it was Trump’s supporters who cheered, and it’s Trump himself who has been going around calling the entire country garbage! Anyone pissed about Biden’s statement has their head permanently up their arse.
If I was writing that headline, it would be
Democrats privately high-fiving Biden after ‘garbage’ comment
The president’s remark has led to many sprained wrists at the White House
-Analysis: California experiences 3.8 magnitude earthquake due to simultaneous eye rolling of millions of Democrats as MAGA chuds feign offense
And so it begins
Fuckin’ crybaby.
Enraged by “garbage” comment, Democrats demand Biden step down sometime in late January.