Mike's Blog Round Up

Two weeks from Tuesday, millions of voters across the country will fan out to polling places. And when they do, there will reportedly be a GOP-backed, 200,000-strong army of volunteers watching them. Their task? “Establish the battlefield” to challenge the results of the election, should former president Donald Trump lose. That’s according to a new report in the New Yorker that sheds light on the inner workings of the Republican National Committee’s plan—led by Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara and Michael Whatley, its co-chairs—to use a giant grassroots group of Trump worshippers to question the integrity of the election. In June, the RNC announced that the so-called “Protect the Vote” tour would make a series of stops in swing states to “train volunteers to ensure it is easy to vote and hard to cheat this November.” (Never mind that research shows voter fraud is quite rare; that Republican-led gerrymandering has helped enshrine minority rule, as my colleague Ari Berman has covered; and that Trump still refuses to admit he lost the 2020 election—despite more than 60 failed legal challenges affirming that he did.) According to the New Yorker, much of the RNC’s strategy relies on indulging supporters’ paranoia over conspiracy theories about a Democrat-coordinated campaign to steal the election—via the usual suspects, undocumented immigrants and dead people—and training volunteers to be “the eyes and the ears of the Trump campaign,” as far-right Internet personality Jack Posobiec put it.

WASHINGTON — Jill Biden trained her educator’s eye on the White House public tour and on Monday is unveiling an updated version she helped design to teach visitors more about the mansion’s history and events that unfolded in some of its famous rooms. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] A new stop on the tour is the Diplomatic Reception Room, previously off-limits.

The Trump fast food images curiously channel the works of Los Angeles artist Marc Trujillo.

Inquiring minds would like to know.

and the Harris-Biden administration is letting them.

Logansport, Indiana becomes the new Springfield, Ohio.