I keep a list of states I won’t set foot in.

Let me just fix that headline: “Head of insanely wealthy organization that has sexually abused children for hundreds of years feels justified in calling someone evil.”

edit 2: for whoever downvoted, I would love to hear why.

Probably because you told/showed them what they don’t want to hear.

It is almost half. There’s a spectrum on the right (as there is on the left of course). The hardcore maga cultists are a little over a third – like you say, 35-37%. But then there are the conservatives who aren’t extremists like them but are still very conservative, so yes, it’s almost half the population. Trump has 42-45% who are definitely going to vote for him no matter what–the rest beyond the maga contingent are the conservatives such as the one-issue anti-abortion segment and the rich who want his tax and deregulation policies; they don’t care about his character flaws or even preserving democracy for that matter.

There are also some conservatives, not many, who previously voted for him and would again, but have come to recognize that trump is so extreme and dangerous that they either won’t vote for him or will hold their nose and vote for a Dem this time, hopefully enough to tip the election in her favor.

Almost half the country is right wing and the electoral college gives their votes much more weight. That’s just a fact. That means you can’t win a national election without tacking toward their views in some areas, mainly the areas of concern to those in the swing states that will decide the election. You can’t win by pleasing only your own base. Until we either abolish the electoral college and move to popular vote, or liberals/left wing/whatever you want to call it, reach a majority of the population substantial enough to overcome the electoral college.

Neither of those things looks likely to happen anytime soon, so the only option is to deal with our current reality and develop a strategy to win under these circumstances, but at the same time we should also be working to create a movement to amend the constitution to decide national elections by popular vote.

edit to change “half” to “almost half”–gotta recognize there are some more in the middle.

According to Taylor Swift’s post, Trump and his propagandists posting fake pictures of Swift implying she was endorsing him is one reason she went ahead and came out with this statement endorsing Harris now, to refute the fake stuff they are circulating. So their stupid plan massively backfired.

Maybe Swift would have come out to endorse Harris at some point anyway, but doing it now gives people more time to get registered before the deadline.

1. Polls haven’t been accurate for years and Silver takes and massages them to come up with his predictions. Always make sure you VOTE, no matter what any polls or pundits are saying.

2. The Center Square is a conservative publication. Nate Silver currently works for Polymarket, an online betting company funded by Peter Thiel and crypto bros. So it’s to both of their advantages to paint a picture that looks better for Trump. Remember, those who want to get trump in power need magats to believe that trump will surely win and that if he doesn’t, it can only because the election was rigged by evil democrats. That way they give cover for corrupt red state election boards to refuse to certify their votes and red state legislatures to challenge results in the courts, force recounts and delays, certify and send invalid electors next January, and have a cohort of people ready and willing to fight or be violent if needed.

3. Yes, the election is close, so make sure you VOTE no matter how optimistic or pessimistic you may feel about all this and no matter what state you live in, no matter whether it’s a red, blue, or swing state. The margins need to be as large as possible in every state and the popular vote margin also as huge as possible so there is no question of the will of the people.

If the sun were to go out it would take 8 minutes for the light to stop but 13 years for the sound to stop.

Kind of like when you kill an enderman. 🤔

There was a pile of dead mosquitos on the floor beneath where he was standing. Looking at them under a microscope they appeared to have died in agony.

I’m still flabbergasted at how badly this “weird” label has affected him and Vance. OTOH, my not being able to even conceive of how their minds work is reassuring. But I love how they can’t get over it. I hope Tim can come up with another one.

None of that makes sense as a truthful story. First I don’t think a grandmother would use that “want to suck dicks” phrasing when speaking to her grandson, but also the laughing at him and saying “fucking idiot, how would you know you’re gay?” is in direct contradiction to the later “it would be OK, god would still love you” line. Those two things wouldn’t come from one person. I think it’s a cobbled together story of things he heard from different people at different times, presented as a conversation with his grandmother.

Oh, I thought “the weave” was how they weave his hairs together to hold them in place to cover the bald spots.

I saw a clip of an ex-republican voter saying the republican party is like a mattress with bedbugs. You can’t save it by spraying with insecticide, you have to take it out and burn it and buy a new mattress. I thought that was a pretty good analogy, but the bedbugs/magas will still be out there and there’s a huge number of them.

It’s possible–if he would even want a position that is. He did cross the aisle to vote with Dems a couple times. I think he was the only R who voted to raise the debt ceiling to prevent a shutdown. But I’d bet on someone with a lower profile and in any case, a less consequential position like agriculture (Walz probably knows an R who’d be good for that) or transportation.

She didn’t exactly “pledge” to appoint a Republican. The interviewer asked, “You had republicans speaking at the convention, will you appoint a republican to your cabinet?” and she answered, “Yes, I would.” then went on with what is quoted above. I took “would” as meaning she would consider it or that she probably would, but the media wants to turn it into a definite pledge that they can hold over her and criticize her if she doesn’t.

But it’s no big deal to do. In the before times, it was common for a president to appoint members of the other party to a post or two. She can easily find at least one never trumper to put in one of the more routine positions who won’t be a problem and she can point to as fulfilling the “pledge”.

OK I was with him for the first 4 minutes about why Windows is unusable, but this was so irritating to watch. Hyperactive videos like this drive me nuts, someone talking loud and fast and editing so there is not even a millisecond gap between sentences. But the audio aspect still isn’t hyper enough for this guy, no! the video has to be the same way, showing just his hands, gesticulating wildly the whole time. UGH.

So anyway, once I got to where he finally gets to the subject of Linux and immediately launches into the typical bullshit where he says to use Linux, you have to use the terminal and know how to write scripts, I quit watching. Most of these “I tried Linux!” videos are like this. I only clicked on it because the title said he actually switched to Linux.

I agree, I’ve voted in every election since I was old enough to vote. I’m pretty old so that’s a lot of elections. I wish civics was still taught in school. We were taught that voting is a civic duty and that you have to constantly defend your rights or you will lose them. Anyone who doubted that can no longer deny it or be shocked at how quickly it can happen.

The thing is, whether Harris would win without your vote or not, you still have to vote for all the other offices too, so we can have a Dem majority in the House and Senate, and more Dems at your State level in the legislature, governor’s office, AG, election board, school board, etc. Those things are just as important as POTUS. Not to mention that even in states Harris winds up losing, the margins need to be made as small as possible to show how much support she really has in all states (very important for both parties to see this–it impacts what policies get implemented, what they think they can get away with), also for future funding allocation of candidates by the parties, etc.

Bottom line is that voting is tremendously important to do, no matter what! Not voting just has too many negative consequences.

… setting aside a requirement for knowing the Russian language, history and basic laws, and Jones urged his followers to consider sanctuary there.

Makes sense. After all you won’t need to know any of that stuff out on the front lines in Ukraine.

And if they try to come back here later we can tell them our borders are closed!