134 Comments

I think we all expected this; we saw it in 2020 and 2022. What worries me is the coming violence when Harris wins, we need to be ready for it.

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The big difference this time around is that Trump isn't holding the levers of power, Biden is. And many of the contested 2020 states changed leadership since the last election and are now blue, not red. After seeing what's happened to over 1000 dolts who answered Trump's call for violence to overturn the 2020 election, I think even most die-hard Trumpers will think twice. After all, it was the low-level foot soldiers who went to jail last time, while Trump has yet to be tried for his crimes.

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Trumpian potential rioters might think about this: Donald Trump was still president for two weeks after January 6. He could have pardoned the suckers he incited to riot then and there. But there was no advantage to him for doing so then, so he left them out to dry. It’s DEPLORABLE how MAGA folks let themselves be victimized.

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Absolutely right, Mitchell. There was no personal advantage to Trump in granting all those people pardons. They were much more valuable to him as campaign props, and dangling the carrot of pardons so his gutter cult would vote for him again. THAT's where Trump's personal advantage was.

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The thing about a pardon is that the person who accepts the pardon also accepts his guilt of the accusation. Trump didn't want the J6 rioters to be guilty - they were far more valuable to him as innocent political hostages.

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That's possible, Andy. But it's just as likely he didn't care about their guilt as long as he could lay it off on them and have it touch him.

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Last time it was $2,000,000 per pardon. Cash talks, BS rots in jail.

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Yet…but it’s coming.

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Only if Kamala Harris wins. 🤞

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When Harris wins!

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My Madam President lawn sign is just waiting for the high sign!

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True

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I think Trumper violence will mostly amount to middle-of-the-night vandalism. That's bad enough, but after so many J6ers went to prison - and Trump didn't pay their legal bills - they don't want to get caught.

And I just finished reading the book by Michael Fanone, the J6 cop who has been very publicly anti-Trump. He asked the FBI if the J6 arrestees were resisting arrest. The FBI agent said most of them cried. Just like Trump, their tough guy persona is mostly a front. Not saying that there won't be isolated incidents here and there, but I don't think it will be widespread.

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“Most of them cried”. Proud boys indeed. I remember a cartoon of a little boy peeing his pants with the label “Proud Boy”.

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I always call them the Pissy Boys.

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I hope you're right 🙏🏻✌🏻💙

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The Guard has been called out from Ohio and I’m sure other states as well. They are gathering at DC.

There will be no repeat.

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Not to minimize any kind of violence, but I do think it will be isolated and from lone incel types just like today. It's not like all of Peoria is gonna rise up and march to Chicago to start a civil war.

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I hope you're right, most of them are cowards. It's the real hard core maga cult members that worry me, and the militias have all been keeping a low profile. I'm pretty well know as a democrat where I live, and I started driving a different way to work.

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I live behind the lines, too, but I live in a sanctuary city, Atlanta, so I consider myself safe. I guess you nailed the biggest concern here that I did not consider — those of us living in heavy Trump neighborhoods and counties. I think a landslide will help, and I do believe that is a possibility. Stay safe!

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Stay safe, Charles!

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Always! You do the same.

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Stay safe, Chris!

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I think the suggestion that Proud Boys and such are cowards might just hold true. In my blue West Coast village containing the most elders in the State of Washington, the Proud Boys showed up from Oregon to try to incite a fight on a local issue. Young women sat in the street as if daring the Boys on the Bikes to run them down. When a friend went up to the Boys to look them in the eye, they couldn't make eye contact. That's just anecdotal, and we all know our country is filled with gun-happy people, but most bullies - Trump for example - are chickens. Whoops! No offense to chickens.

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While I think most of us will be safe from more than 'nuisance' violence, I do worry about groups who may be visible targets for them to vent their ire upon. I have a transgender family member and Latino family members, I worry about their safety.

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Me too. That’s the initial thing to be wary of and to take precautions against. And helping potential targets, a list that’s pretty big, stay safe. But it will fade under Kamala. The general anger that is consuming this country will, too. Trump will finally go to prison, which may trigger a brief backlash, but with the head of the hydra put away, it will be the last gasp of the Obama backlash.

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Don’t think for one minute that the Biden administration is not ready and prepared for this.

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Precisely. The Biden administration is taking the threat of violence seriously and preparing to head it off. There won't be a repeat of J6th.

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Worried about that too.

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Even though I’m in a very blue neighborhood in a very blue borough (Brooklyn) of a very blue city, I’m stocking up on food so my partner and I won’t have to go out right after November 5, just in case of “unrest.”

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This again is not evidence of fraud or even voter suppression, but of a county being told to bend its rules to allow late-arriving voters to cast their mail-in ballots in person."

Now, remarkably - and ironically! - enough, this "bending of rules" had occurred in many voting jurisdictions during the "pandemic" election in 2020, and which of course was the subject of dozens if not hundreds of tRump campaign/GOP lawsuits challenging the propriety of "rules bending" as contravention of state election laws, blah-blah.

Do we have the Harris campaign, Marc Elias, the DNC, or ANYBODY filing a lawsuit against Bucks County election officials, or appealing the court's decision? Shit, no, because it was a common-sense decision, benefitting voters, and NOT an "election fraud" move. See the difference?

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If his lips are moving, he's lying!

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And you are one of the best at debunking all this nonsense. Thank you, Jay, for explaining things for the rest of us.

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Seconded, and thirded.

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Yeah, I definitely am feeling like a lot of their stuff - not just this latest campaign to spread election/voting lies, but all of it, is a signal that their internal polling has them freaked out.

I wonder if some of that is this VERY simple little bit of information in the 2025 Medicare pamphlet I received this year. This, alone, should be enough for any senior to vote for Dems.

This is on Page 2 under the heading, "What's New and Important:"

"Because of President Biden's new prescription drug law, in 2025, your yearly out-of-pocket drug costs will be capped at $2,000. If you have Medicare drug coverage (Part D) and your drug costs are high enough to reach this cap, you don’t have to pay a copayment or coinsurance for Part D drugs for the rest of the calendar year. Starting in 2025, you’ll also have the option of spreading your drug costs across monthly payments throughout the year. Go to page 83."

All seniors get this pamphlet, and you have to read it if you want to make the right decisions about how to configure your Medicare.

Why isn't this cap being broadcast far and wide? It's a life changer for some people. I don't currently have any scripts, but I will, someday, and I know damn well that Republicans will try to strip this out.

Not even the Harris/Walz campaign seems to be broadcasting this much, though I may have missed it amongst all the other noise.

This is real life stuff. The Republicans are focusing on bizarre lies like trans kids getting operated on in schools.

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All these trans operation lies are driving me nuts! I'm 40, transmasc, at extremely high risk of breast cancer because of a family history, and live in a country that actually offers gender affirming care on the public system and gives it, and I'm STILL having to jump through a simply ridiculous number of hoops to GET the damn surgery because... hell if I know! I've been through significantly more invasive and prolonged procedures with nothing worse than nausea from the anaesthetic, but somehow it's still too much to expect to actually get anything done without fifty calls to my therapist, my GP, my parents, my non-existant partner...

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Tristram, the day will soon be upon us when you can get the care you so richly deserve. Have faith and know there are people here that empathize with you and care about you.

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And I don’t even know how to help other than to say that you’re loved and appreciated by, hopefully most of us.I want to say this will pass. And I will say that confidently if Kamala wins. The level of disinformation, though, is ghastly, and it will continue to be a fight because many people believe some of the lies that aren’t so obviously ridiculous. Some of these lies break through to the mainstream, so even after she wins, you’ll need our support to help counter the disinformation. Speaking for myself, this you shall have.

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Awwww, thank you. I've been really lucky in the people I've met since started transitioning, everyone's been just plain great. It's a nice reminder that while the online space can be terrifying, reality is filled with lots of people who are kind.

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In my experience, most people are decent. The loudmouths and mean people have a much bigger footprint, though, so it seems like the world is an awful place. And it only takes one person to commit a terrible act to make it all look even worse. In our current environment, the existence of Trump sort of normalizes mendacity, and these people feel emboldened to come out from under their rocks and wreak havoc. I’m not saying there isn’t mainstream bias against the trans community. But I think it’s led more by ignorance, and fed by the rock dwellers. After Kamala wins, we all have a lot of work to do to help educate the public on this and other issues.

I’m old enough to remember when it wasn’t okay to even be gay. That seems like a very strange thing nowadays. Again, I’m not saying there isn’t still an unacceptable level of prejudice there, too. But it’s no longer mainstream. So hang in there. We’re almost there.

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Yeah, being gay was illegal in my state until I was in my teens. (And we were the last state to decriminalise it, because our GOP equivalent clung to power here like angry gorillas.) It's still so wild to me that these changes have been happening within my lifetime. I've been marching and protesting for various rights since I was twelve...

Progress has been made, and progress will continue to be made, and men like Trump will be remembered as the backwards manchildren they are.

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Trumps pollster, Tony Fabrizio, sent out a memo to the campaign that "trump is on the verge of victory." But he failed to actually provide any poll numbers, and only showed the polling average from Real Clear Politics - a right wing site. They are stirring the pot for trying to steal the election; they know they are losing. At least in my opinion.

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Harris certainly mentions some of this in her stump speech. I wouldn't know if it is in any of her ads because I don't live in a swing state.

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That's good to know, thanks! I don't listen to her speeches often (already sold!). Usually the video I watch of her is when she's interacting with voters, which are a lot of fun. She seems like such a normal human in those things.

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You should go look up J Lo's speech/introduction of Kamala in Las Vegas the other day.

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I will do that!

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Trans kids getting operated on in schools.

Teachers are spending their own money on crayons, and on gender-affirming operations on children.

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And let’s not even get started on the cats and dogs that public schools are serving in their cafeterias these days (although, in their defense, it’s because they have no money).

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The whole "schools are giving out surgeries to make kids trans" is so absolutely ridiculous on it's face, for a whole host of reasons (there isn't a single person that has claimed this happened to them, for instance) but it's the part you called out that should make it obviously false to everyone.

Schools can't afford basic supplies, do they really think they're spending their extremely limited resources on costly surgeries? Where is all of the money to do this coming from? Teachers have to spend their own money to adequately supply their classrooms ffs, this is common knowledge.

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Unfortunately, this is par for the course, and just the tip of many icebergs. If trump has taught us nothing else, he's taught us that he'll stop at nothing to stay out of prison and enrich himself. And he won't just do one thing - he'll attack from all angles to ensure maximum chaos and seek to find weaknesses. Our best hope is an unequivocal and overwhelming defeat, for him and any of his enablers. A massive BLUE WAVE can wash away the toxic RED TIDE!

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He’s also shown us (in case we didn’t already know this) that almost half of our country is susceptible to becoming cultists of a fascist.

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Legal Eagle and his team did a great video about this exact subject a couple of days ago. It's all part of their desperate attempt to steal the election just like they tried to in 2020, and it's just as doomed to fail.

Personally I'm just disgusted by these jerks using an abbey as 'proof' of their lies. I'm not religious but nuns deserve to be left alone to do their thing ffs, especially when that thing is exercising their right to free speech and democracy.

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I love Legal Eagle, but I was afraid to watch that one. Basically because they don't lie to you if things don't look good. Now I have to watch it.

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Good God when is this shit gonna be finally over with????? I’m not talking about Jay. I’m talking about Trump. Fer Christ’s sake enough already. K?

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Folks who haven't heard about it yet should look up the Indiana case where a Republican precinct committee person who signed up for an election test stole two ballots, and then publicly said that the voting system was fraudulent because the resulting ballots counts didn't match.

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Then claimed they were free samples, like in a grocery store. Then, of course, he blamed democrats, and whined it was a witch hunt.

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Dude was doing it ON CAMERA. I've been trying to figure out lately just how much stupid you have to possess to become a MAGAt cultist. I don't know where the tipping point is, but man there is a LOT of straight-up stoopid out there.

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These disturbances in voting have all been planned for months at least, we know that. We know many more are coming, probably more egregious. So it seems like we should stop talking about these incidents like they're random acts of election violence.

Slipping past in the turmoil is the fact that the Supreme Court this week allowed Virginia to keep purging voter rolls, even though it is explicitly illegal to do so this close to an election. Joyce Vance quoted the DOJ summary of this provision of federal law: "Under Section 8(c)(2), States must complete any program that systematically removes the names of ineligible voters from the official list of eligible voters no later than 90 days before a primary election or general election for federal office. In other words, once an election for federal office is less than 90 days away, processing and removals based on systematic list maintenance must cease."

But the Supreme Court just flat ignored the law. To me, this, together with the "presidential immunity" fabrication among others, is a blood-red flag. Any case coming out of the election that gets up to SCOTUS will be ruled in Trump's favor, regardless of what the law, other federal judges, law professors, or reasonable people think. They plan to throw the election to the House of Representatives.

At least, that's the plan. Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett, and Roberts have the last word. How can they be stopped, Jay?

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We need to neutralize them with new appointments in my view.

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I agree, & really wish that Biden had placed at least a couple more Justices, over these past few years. But for whatever his reasons, he resisted doing that.

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He cannot do that unilaterally, you know. Requires an act of Congress, which was not going to happen. He had to use his political capital getting the programs that actually helped people and the economy through, and even with a majority, we had two Senators who were not going to allow it.

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I apologize, but I guess I just didn't realize Biden needed an act of Congress to add more Justices. 😞

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How is this going to happen within the next two months? If this is the best answer there is, then we are in even much deeper shit than you've been letting on, Jay.

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Interesting column. If Trump actually wanted to win in PA he might have spent more time there rather than campaigning in CA where his chances are zero. He might have had that big rally in PA instead of NY, where his chances are zero.

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His ego demands bigger crowds, and in PA they are over him.

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Nah...the blame is never on that 'Very Special Boy', Trump. The blame is ALWAYS cast elsewhere.

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And they couldn't get the arena they wanted in Albuquerque because they still owed a half million dollars from 2020.

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I hope the Harris campaign or one of the aligned operations, maybe The Lincoln Project or Meidas Touch, launch a series of SORE LOSER ads aimed at Trump and his whining campaign for not accepting the will of the voters. Again.

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Yes, and they should conclude each one with the advice to grow the hell up.

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YES!

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Yes! Ha ha! Ads showing the (only) three aspects of the psychopath’s personality: the Charming Man, the Guy Selling His Sob Story all over town, and then the Raging Psychopath cuz he didn’t win.

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A giant toddler with a dirty diaper screaming his head off works, too.

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Sadly, not unexpected

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Great reporting. Thanks.

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Not the least bit believable. Smacks of desperation. Even so the bonkers lies need to be debunked.

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Wow! The Benedictine Sisters of Erie are fairly well known to Catholics. (Sr. Joan Chittester, anyone?) So that’s an attack path for MAGA?

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They're probably not the "right" kind of Catholic, according to Vance.

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Yeah. They are women.

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CHILDLESS women. And celibate. Therefore of no use to the cult.

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