Despite years of claiming that the election was stolen, he presented no evidence that any entity, foreign or domestic, manipulated votes or
Yunior Rivas at Democracy Docket:
President Donald Trump used a primetime address Thursday to resurrect debunked claims about the 2020 election, allege sweeping foreign interference in voting and pressure Congress to pass the anti-voting SAVE America Act.
But despite years of claiming that the election was stolen, he presented no evidence that any entity, foreign or domestic, manipulated votes or registration records, or in any way altered the outcome of the 2020 election. In fact, he didn’t even assert it.
In a disjointed speech, Trump claimed China obtained 220 million U.S. voter files and accused intelligence officials — whom he termed the “Deep State” — of concealing election threats. And he suggested electronic voting systems had previously been compromised.
Trump also announced that his administration would declassify intelligence documents supposedly backing his claims.
In fact, the U.S. intelligence community previously concluded that no foreign actor attempted to alter voter registration, ballot casting, vote tabulation or the reporting of results in 2020. Federal agencies also rejected claims that Venezuela, China or other foreign governments controlled voting equipment or manipulated vote totals.
Trump nevertheless described the newly released material as “brand new and irrefutable information” and said his administration would notify states about alleged vulnerabilities before the midterms.
Then he pivoted to pushing SAVE, his pet legislative project that election experts call “the most restrictive voting bill ever.”
“Addressing this crisis of election security demands that Congress must pass the SAVE America Act,” Trump said. “The only reason you wouldn’t do it is if you want to cheat.”
The massive anti-voting bill, which has stalled in the Senate, would require voters to show photo identification and provide documentary proof of citizenship. Trump also demanded an effective end to mail voting, falsely calling the practice “inherently corrupt.”
In pushing SAVE, Trump has regularly claimed — falsely — that illegal voting by noncitizens is widespread in U.S. elections.
During his speech Thursday, the president went further, saying that an investigation by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had identified 278,000 noncitizens registered to vote in federal elections.
He then directed DHS to notify states about these supposed noncitizens on the voter rolls and order their removal.
Trump also called for federal investigations, firings and possible criminal charges against officials he accused of suppressing intelligence.
“Today, I’m asking the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Department of Justice, the FBI and the CIA to investigate how and why such crucial information was hidden,” Trump said. “To investigate how and why information about China’s election meddling and related security breaches was suppressed, and to fire those responsible for the cover-up.”
[...]
Declassified files tell different story
Journalists and experts who began reviewing the newly released documents noticed that some of the records appeared to contradict Trump’s central claims that China sought to interfere in the 2020 election against him.
Journalist Sam Stein noted that one intelligence assessment stated Chinese cyber actors targeted Joe Biden’s campaign for intelligence gathering, but also concluded that China “does not currently intend to covertly interfere to try and sway the outcome of the election.”
Will Sommers also pointed to another declassified document showing that Russia — not China — was the only country assessed to have taken steps targeting the U.S. election process in 2020.
“Russia was the only country trying to meddle in American voting systems,” the document concluded.
Garrett Archer, a former senior elections analyst at the Arizona secretary of state’s office, likewise said the records did not support Trump’s assertion that China hacked election infrastructure.
Last night, Donald Trump delivered the same tired pablum of lies about election security and the 2020 elections. He also called for the passage of the anti-voting rights bill SAVE America Act.
See Also:
Daily Kos: Trump spews unhinged election conspiracy theories in speech TV networks refused to air
The Guardian: How Trump’s address was bluntly aimed at destabilizing the US electoral system
The Guardian: Trump makes unverified claims of China ‘election meddling’ as critics fear ploy to challenge midterm results
America, America (Steven Beschloss): The Liars and Sycophants Are Trying So Hard
Hello bitches, I request some advice. I am 26, and therefore no longer on my parents insurance, so it is now tied to my newly (!!) full-time retail job. I would also like to go back to school sometime in the next few years. However, before I even think about what to go for, I'm trying to figure out if its more financially viable to go to school part time and continue full time work and therefore have the health insurance tied to my employment (and therefore have school take longer), or to go on an LOA (they've been chill about students doing this for school at my workplace in the past) during school months and go to classes full time, therefore not having insurance and potentially having to get some through government marketplace sources. What are your thoughts?
In our experience, getting healthcare through an employer is generally cheaper and higher quality than the individual option. I, Piggy, am currently self-employed and my insurance is more expensive and covers less than the insurance I had through my last employer.
So if you have the bandwidth, and you can maintain your insurance while working part-time and going to school, go for it! Here's more:
Our (Ridiculously Simple) Method for Choosing the Right Healthcare Plan For You
Hello! I don’t really have anyone else to talk to about it but I’m starting a degree in something I really like doing and I’m worried that making into a degree or career will make me hate it but I’ve also paid for my classes and idk what to do 🫠
What you do is you take the classes you've paid for and you experience life as it comes. There's no guarantee that studying this subject will destroy your passion for it! It could give you a greater appreciation for the subject. You could love it!
And if the opposite happens... oh well! You tried something and you learned something. I personally don't think that's ever bad. Here's more:
Don’t Turn Your Passions Into Work
The Actually Helpful, Nuanced, Non-Bullshit Way to Choose a Future Career
Smoke from wildfires — which are burning more of the Northern Hemisphere as Earth warms — attacks nearly every system in the human body, kil
Excerpt from this Chicago Tribune story:
Smoke from wildfires — which are burning more of the Northern Hemisphere as Earth warms — attacks nearly every system in the human body, killing tens of thousands of people a year, numerous medical studies show.
It attacks the body immediately, spiking asthma cases with increased ambulance runs within hours, swamps emergency rooms in a day or so with people suffering from heart attacks and other cardiovascular and lung issues, as well as mental health issues, doctors and scientists told The Associated Press.
Smoke also harms pregnant women, increasing the risk of premature births and low-weight babies who could have breathing problems the rest of their lives, doctors and studies say. And then there are long-term risks connecting prolonged smoke and other air pollution exposure to some cancers and dementia.
After huge global fires in 2018 and 2019, the medical and science communities started looking at the health effects from the smoke with “more and more studies coming out finding that there’s all types of impacts that may not have been so obvious before,” said Dr. Mary Johnson, a Harvard School of Public Health environmental health scientist.
Smoke causes inflammation by triggering the body’s immune system to go into overtime to fight the irritant. Scientists have found it can harm the brain, the skin and men’s sperm, with almost no system of the body spared, Johnson said. People over 60 become more prone to stroke in wildfire smoke, she said.
“Wildfire smoke is the toxic product of combustion of whatever burned,” which could include houses and cars, said Dr. Courtney Howard, an emergency room physician, chair of the Global Climate and Health Alliance and president-elect of the Canadian Medical Association.
“So really it’s a big giant toxic soup of particles and gases.”
Scientists have counted at least 1,000 toxins in wildfire smoke, according to Colorado State University environmental toxicologist Luke Montrose.
“If I gave you a list, you would recognize some of these as being very bad, oftentimes associated with the burning of diesel fuel or cigarette smoke, things like formaldehyde or volatile organic compounds,” Montrose said. “So just the smoke itself can be bad.”
Last week, White House Deputy Chief of Staff and xenophobic racist Stephen Miller attacked Democratic Texas US Senate candidate James Talarico with the level of class and dignity typical of MAGA.
Responding to a boilerplate Talarico campaign announcement posted by the Democrats’ account on X, Miller responded, “The Democrats made history in Texas by nominating their first transgender senate candidate.” Miller later doubled down on Fox News, claiming that Talarico was “transitioning into a female.”
Miller is lying; Talarico is cis, not trans. It’s also grotesquely bigoted; Miller is attempting to smear Talarico by suggesting that being trans should be disqualifying from participating in public life.
But this ugly attack is very much in line with the GOP strategy in Texas which has centered obsessively, and repulsively, on attempting to feminize and misgender Talarico. Rather than talk about issues, records, or even personalities, Republicans have simply started bellowing “WE ARE MEN! THEY NOT MEN! MEN GOOD! NOT MEN BAD!” over and over again in a toxic masculine fugue of bile and sweat.
It’s a repulsive spectacle. But it’s also a clarifying one. Republicans could not make it much clearer that their party is entirely given over to bigotry, rage, and bullying. There are no issues to compromise on, no middle ground to occupy. The only question is whether women, queer people, non-white people, and indeed Democrats as a whole are human beings with a stake in democracy, or if non-Republicans are all simply vermin to be subjugated.
Faced with that stark choice, the Talarico campaign, and Democrats in general, have responded by standing firm rather than folding. That’s a welcome change from early in Trump’s term — and it’s also a hopeful sign that Democrats are starting belatedly to realize that the only way forward is fighting back.
Everything is gender
Last week, Republicans held their run-off primary election. Incumbent John Cornyn lost; the GOP’s candidate is instead the disgustingly corrupt state Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is so obviously unfit his own party tried to impeach him.
Talarico, a member of the Texas House, is, by contrast, a talented communicator who has made his progressive Christian faith a center of his campaign.
[...]
Paxton and the entire GOP have responded to this tough electoral situation by turning hard right and spiraling into semi-incomprehensible smears and conspiracy theories centered on the fantasy that Talarico is not a man or is doing manhood wrong.
The big Republicans scandal moment of the campaign so far came a couple weeks ago when Talarico ordered a potato, egg, and cheese taco.
An innocuous moment, you say? Well, yes. But every Republican with access to a keyboard rushed over to X to declaim that ordering an egg taco meant that Talarico was a vegetarian (he is not) and/or a vegan (vegans don’t eat eggs!).
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said that Talarico “was not beating the vegetarian allegations” (why are they allegations?!). Donald Trump said, “You can’t get elected as a vegan in Texas.” Ken Paxton called his opponent “Tofu Talerico.” And on and on.
Other similar nonsense followed. Dan Weldon, a Florida congressional candidate, popped up to say that Talarico didn’t look like he could name “a single obscure wide receiver from the early 2000s.” And in his first general election add, Paxton claimed that Talarico was “low-T.” This is a common insult on the manosphere right, where testosterone is conflated with strength, resolve, and virtue.
Not coincidentally, Democratic representatives, and Democratic voters, are often not straight men. LGBT voters and women both disproportionately support Democrats, which of course is the party that broadly supports abortion rights and LGBT rights. In contrast, Republicans are viciously opposed to both — and are even flirting with the idea of trying to disenfranchise women altogether.
The attacks on Talarico are not, then, simply attacks on one politician. They are an attack on the Democratic coalition, and on the idea that women, queer people, or anyone who supports women and queer people should have any role in government or public life. Paxton’s campaign is saying that Democrats are illegitimate because they are not manly men, and that women and LGBT people are illegitimate because they are Democrats. Only manly Republican bullies are fit to rule.
[...]
Go further
Democrats have belatedly but thankfully concluded that the way to deal with bullies is to hit back harder. They’ve decided that the way to deal with vaunting toxic masculinity is to point out that it is ridiculous and repulsive, and to connect it to abuse and corruption.
This is all to the good. In addition, though, Democrats could take the Talarico campaign as a moment to recognize that there’s little point in trying to meet Republicans halfway, either on policy or on candidate selection.
Republicans are going all in on the James Talarico “isn’t a real man” smears to deride his manhood.
gracieabrams
origamiaround
baratheonpilled
turnnoffyourmind
amandla
