StrangeSox

That's what the latest tape of Laura Trump was about, her offering Omaraso an indefinite position in the campaign not really doing much but earning $15k/month. Laura even mentioned in the tape that the money for the payments would be coming from donors and mainly small dollar donors. Trump's former bodyman Keith Schiller has been getting $15k/month from the RNC in what appears to be a very similar hush money situation. https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/21/politics/donald-trump-keith-schiller-rnc-contract/index.html

First concert would have been one of those Q101 Twisted Christmas shows as my friend's dad's work had a skybox at the UC back in the 90's. Probably was excited to go see Everclear or some other 90's garbage at the time, but I did get to see The Cure and I've liked them ever since. I have tinnitus now from way too many shows at Metro, Fireside Bowl, etc. in the late 90's through the mid 00's.

Georgia GOP planning on closing 7 of 9 polling places in majority minority county https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2018/08/15/us/ap-us-polling-places-proposed-closures.html If Roberts and the rest of the conservatives on the court hadn't gutted the VRA back in 2013 with one of the worst rulings in generations, this wouldn't be possible. But they had no problem enabling the conservative movement's goal of suppressing as many voters as possible. Looking forward to decades more of these rulings from an increasingly illegitimate court.

also, rasmussen Pew put trump's approval among black people at 14% back in June http://www.people-press.org/2018/06/20/1-views-of-donald-trump/

gonna start feeling that trickle down any minute... e:

Yes https://www.bbc.com/news/world-44209971

listen, buddy, we must hear out both sides of the "hitler was right/kill all jews and minorities" debate until the end of time in the name of Free Speech, but I will NOT have any of this discussing insane radical ideas like "not letting people unnecessarily suffer and die in the wealthiest country on the planet. we must have boundaries for reasonable discourse. I was curious to see how many of my IL-3 neighbors voted for a literal Nazi in this year's primary: slightly more than 20,000! anyway it's gotta just be a really, really weird coincidence that all of these open Nazis keep running as Republicans, and also that the Trump admin seems to be packed to the brim with insane racist conspiracy theorists. can't possibly say anything about the underlying ideology though.

It's 301 out of something like 1700 total in PA. That's a pretty substantial percentage. e: this report also excluded Philly, which has been investigated separately.

You have to imagine that the same sort of investigation in other states would come up with similar results. And it's not just a US thing either.

Yikes

There's still a chance that you may not be registered even in an AVR state on election day for various reasons, or if its a closed primary state maybe you want to pull a certain party's ballot but didn't make that decision at least 25 days ahead of time. Here's a good article back from 2016 on all the hurdles NY throws up to voting: https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-problem-with-voting-rights-in-new-york Cuomo has worked with Republicans in the state house to help block voting reform in the state because he is awful.

Same day registration and automatic registration in all fifty states imo

Their registration process is ridiculous, months and months before the primary iirc.

"where people live, Democrat, gigantic open areas with more cows than people, Republican"

A lot of that just comes down to people actually following protocol/procedures. You don't get full pat-downs and checked to see if you're wearing a wire whenever you enter a secured area. The background check and clearance process is supposed to help ensure that you only have competent and trustworthy people. They also weren't having a classified discussion there so she probably didn't break any security laws, and DC is a one-party consent law for recordings. This is for a $200k/year job directly advising the most powerful office in the country:

I didn't really say "the GOP is dying" there. I said people generally don't actually get more conservative as they age. http://www.people-press.org/2018/03/20/1-trends-in-party-affiliation-among-demographic-groups/ Look at these graphs. Party affiliation by generation is nearly flat for everyone but Silent (did get more conservative) and millenials (getting much less GOP friendly). I also don't think as many people love FYIGM politics, or at least the GOP's version of "fuck you, more money for the rich and no public services" politics as you might assume. There's a reason why voter suppression and gerrymandering are key parts of the GOP's electoral strategies! and the gender gap for millenial aged women (22-37 yo's) is gigantic. Maybe that means "the GOP is dead/dying," maybe it doesn't, maybe it isn't even particularly relevant but I think it's interesting!

Some pretty serious domestic abuse allegations against Ellison coming out

They are perfect for each other

I was never a big fan of Lieberman, Nelson etc. I'll always appreciate pelosi for actually getting a public option through the House.

We can actually blame one specific senator, Joe Lieberman, for tanking an expanded Medicare buy-in from the ACA. That's not an extremist policy.

Massachusetts became the sixth state in the country to enact automatic voter registration today.