Den Of Spies

A state judge on Wednesday blocked seven rule changes passed in recent months by the pro-Trump majority on the Georgia State Election Board, finding the board “lacked constitutional authority” to enact them. It was the third ruling in two days that dealt a blow to election deniers in the state. On Tuesday, a different judge in Fulton County, Robert McBurney, held that county election boards must certify election rules and also blocked a new rule requiring a hand count of ballots on Election Night for the 2024 election, which election officials feared could delay vote counts and sow distrust in the election process. Fulton County Superior Court Judge Thomas Cox went further in Wednesday’s ruling, permanently blocking the hand count requirement, along with other new rules requiring counties to undertake a “reasonable inquiry” before certifying election results and giving county officials access to “all election-related documentation.” Democrats, voting rights groups, and even some Republicans feared that these rules could be used by GOP county officials as a pretext not to certify the election results if Vice President Kamala Harris carried the state.

Joseph Patrick Kelly, College of Charleston Lying about Black people is nothing new in political campaigning. Despite the thorough debunking of false rumors that Haitian immigrants were eating cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio, former President Donald Trump and his GOP allies insist on repeating the lies. “If I have to create stories,” admitted JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, “that’s what I’m going to do.” While many political observers believe that these lies have, as The New York Times columnist Lydia Polgreen described, finally “crossed a truly unacceptable line,” in fact, white politicians have told brazen, fearmongering, racist lies about Black people for over the past 100 years.read more

Typically, I don’t watch reality television for the politics. After a day spent covering topics like climate misinformation, our crumbling democracy, and the literal death of nature, I watch reality TV to escape politics. Which is why, last week, I was eager to throw on a pair of sweatpants, pop some corn, melt into my couch, and binge the seventh season of Netflix’s Love Is Blind, cocooned in blankets and romanticist fluff.

Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday greeted what may have been his dream audience: a roomful of seemingly adoring women. The squeals and claps seem confounding when you consider Trump’s history with—and impacts on—women: He has been found liable of sexual assault against a woman; he was found guilty of 34 felony counts related to buying a porn star’s silence, after he allegedly cheated on his wife with her; and he appointed three of the five Supreme Court justices who overruled Roe v.

Yesterday, Axios reporter Barak Ravid published a copy of a letter from Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to Israel urging the country to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza—and, in a rare move for the Biden administration, backing that request up by publicly threatening to remove some military aid.

It’s so weird how you never see anyone running toward tyrannical regimes—but this doesn’t click for the Democrat voters pushing for a Kamala Harris installation.