October 21, 2024

The Stuttering Lede, Oct. 21st, 2024

14 days until we find out if we can stop fascism

"The world is absolutely out of control now and is not going to be saved by any reason or unreason." Robert Lowell

Elections 2024

• Trump: "Arnold Palmer was all man and I say that in all due respect to women, and I love women, but this is a guy that was all man...When he took showers with the other pros they came out of there, they said, ‘Oh my God. That's unbelievable.’”

• Trump says criminal activity is genetic. Nazis showed where such talk can lead.

• The Very Real Scenario Where Trump Loses and Takes Power Anyway.

• Trump on North Korea, China, and Russia: “The so-called enemies…They might not be enemies.”

• Trump Administration supported “gender-affirming” care for convicts while Trump was president—DESPITE their nonstop attack ads against Harris on the same topic.

• The Lancaster County elections office is giving students a hard time about registering to vote.

• When fascism finally went mainstream in America it came hawking a $60 made-in-China Bible and shadowed by a 50-foot American flag braced by construction cranes — and it opened with a story about Arnold Palmer’s private parts.

• Trump reportedly shows 'textbook' symptoms of untreated mental health disorder.

• According to Newsweek, it's "likely," but not certain, that the image below is AI-generated.

• As the NYT reported earlier this fall, "he uses swearwords 69 percent more often than he did when he first ran, a trend that could reflect what experts call disinhibition."

• Elon Musk is openly trying to buy this election for Trump. He is skating close to the legal line when he offers rewards to voters, but Citizens United opened the floodgates for billionaires to have outsized power in elections. Voters can resist oligarchy.

• This seems less than legal.

  

• Worth Noting: a New Apostolic Reformation church hosted Elon Musk’s town hall in Harrisburg over the weekend. Life Center was Sean Feucht's home church for years & all the NAR circles in PA overlap there. NAR + Silicon Valley oligarchs = bad news!

• A Montana park ranger and a former Navy SEAL are both speaking out to dispute Tim Sheehy’s account of a wartime injury.

• Trump may fail to reach thousands of voters in AZ and NV, with roughly 25% of door-knocks done by Elon Musk’s America PAC this week flagged internally as potentially fraudulent, per leaked data and people familiar.

• The danger is greater than 2020. Don't fret, worry or doomscroll. Get off this website. Here is a list of things you an do instead. In this article, and in the threat that follows.

• In Pennsylvania: “I think Trump is the Antichrist,” said Susan, 72. “This man is so despicable, the way he puts down people, degrades people, lies constantly, calls everybody names. She said she plans to vote for the first time in her life this fall…”

• Gov Tim Walz "shows you can be masculine, but also not threatened by women as equals, or women who are in positions of power. In fact, you can be cheerleaders for them."

• “Male loneliness” is quickly becoming to 2024 what “economic anxiety” was in 2016: a euphemism meant to disguise a dominant group’s turn to Trump out of status and identity grievance as a kind of reaction to their supposed victimization.

Politics

• Twelve Million Deportations: And an altered America."

• Cuba’s power grid failed and the nation plunged into darkness, less than a day after the country announced emergency measures to save electricity.

• Biden’s policy toward Cuba leaves the island in a wreckage.

• IV shortage after hurricane Helene.

• Farmers are old enough to remember how President Donald Trump’s trade war cost them overseas customers and dragged the state’s agriculture industry.

• It’s not just Manhattan: Queens, with 47.5% foreign born, is the 4th-safest large county in America.

• Donald Trump said he’d consider exempting police officers, firefighters, active duty military and veterans from paying taxes, the Republican nominee’s latest campaign trail idea to deliver tax breaks to key groups of supporters.

• Florida Republicans literally threatened prosecution over political advertisements that displeased the Governor. So much for free speech. Glad this direct attack on the 1st Amendment was quickly shot down in court.

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• “If we can replicate the innovations of states and cities for chipping away at voter cynicism, there just might be a way back from the brink.”

• The University of Michigan Doubled Down on D.E.I. What Went Wrong?

• The most American headline potentially ever: “A deaf Black man with cerebral palsy will no longer face charges over an incident in which he was repeatedly Tasered and punched by Phoenix police.”

• Italian parents who have made the often difficult and expensive decision to have children through surrogacy abroad have been thrown into a state of fear after a sudden shift in the country’s already strict restrictions on bringing those children up in Italy.

Russia/Ukraine

• According to Yonhap news agency, North Korea has sent 12,000 troops, including special forces, to support Russia’s war in Ukraine, per their source in South Korea’s Intelligence. This aligns with an earlier statement from Ukraine's military intelligence (GUR).

• The advantage of spending some time in Gagauzia, Southern Moldova: Russian TV & press are freely available here, so you get the news Western media are hiding from you. For example: Did you know about the secret deal between aliens & NATO/USA? No? There you go.

  

Middle East

• This is ethnic cleansing: After the elimination of Sinwar: hundreds of citizens evacuated from Jabaliya to the south - after months of prolonged pressure.

• Internal Meta records show the company's dedicated liaison to the Israeli government has repeatedly tried to censor Instagram posts belonging to pro-Palestinian student protest groups and other content related to the war.

• U.S. officials are extremely concerned about a potentially major security breach after two alleged U.S. intelligence documents about Israel's preparations for an attack on Iran were published by a Telegram account affiliated with Iran.

Tech

• Musk, like Trump, seemingly considers himself above the law. Copyright infringement, buying votes, suspect campaign PAC activities, even questionable activities with or for US foreign adversaries.

• Musk is not just an eccentric tech guru, he is the world's richest political operative and most influential propagandist. His "vision of the future," of Tesla's robot servants and robo taxis, is also a vision of mass deportation and anti-trans policies.

• Musk is simultaneously in fights with the FAA, DOJ, FCC, FTC, Interior, EEOC, NLRB, EPA, etc. Now Musk has nudged Trump to put him in charge of an effort to curb government rules. Why is Musk working so hard to get Trump elected?

• “Elon Musk is abusing his privileged position as owner of a small, but politically influential, social media platform to sow disinformation that generates discord and distrust."

Women Rights

• Two things are abundantly clear: 1. Republicans don’t want this election to be about abortion rights. 2. This election is about abortion rights.

• GOP US Senate candidate Sam Brown says he hasn’t decided how he will vote on Nevada’s abortion rights ballot initiative: “I hadn’t even thought about that. That’s an interesting question. So thanks for giving me something to ponder.”

• The New Yorker sent the country's best (male) interviewer to talk to one of the best (male) election analysts about how Kamala Harris changed the race. It’s 3256 words long. They did not mention “abortion,” “Roe,” or “Dobbs” once.

Climate Change

• Researchers discovered what may be the smallest reptile on the planet in the rainforests of northern Madagascar.

Misc.

• List of the 114 books in International Space Station.

• Investigating children as young as 11 working the overnight shift at Tyson processing plant in Arkansas.

• Michigan evangelical church worship leader & christian recording artist, Zachary Radcliff, has been arrested for child sex crimes.

• Dressed in their costumes—which often include pointy hats and billowing robes—the paddling witches and warlocks become striking silhouettes on the horizon.

• The aesculapian snake got its name as it was thought to be the snake shown wrapped round the Staff of Aesculapius, a symbol of medicine. Some think the symbol was in fact inspired by the practice of removing guinea worm parasites by winding them around a stick.

Humor