Less than 48 hours to go before election day. More than a few ballots have already been submitted and the votes have been more in favor of Harris than Trump. The GOP has long been against early voting for this kind of reason, but every so often they realize that they need their voters to vote early before flipping back to early voting is bad.
There’s another kind of early voting that is a standard part of the voting process. It’s also one that can appear misleading. That early voting is when counties in each state finish counting the votes and report the totals.
A county with fewer voters will finish counting early. These are rural counties. A county with a large number of voters will need extra time to finish counting the votes. These are counties with large urban areas.
Republicans often live in rural and less densely-populated areas, so vote counting is completed faster and it tends to favor Republicans in elections. This is called the Red Mirage because they take an early lead.
Democrats often live in urban and more densely-populated areas where vote counting takes longer. When the votes favor Democrats in these areas and the lead Republicans had decreases or is erased, it’s called the Blue Shift.
Despite whatever claims of fraud or shenanigans may be made about votes seemingly growing up out of nowhere, it’s simple math. Nothing else.
If anyone says it’s not math, it’s nefarious actions, ask them to count to 20,000 and then count to 200,000, going by ones each time and not skipping any numbers. Which takes longer? (Answer: 5 hours, 33 minutes and 20 seconds to reach 20K, and over 2 days to reach 200K.)
RFK Jr. dropped out of the race not long ago and cast his lot in with Trump. RFK Jr tried to get his name removed from the ballot in several states so it wouldn’t dilute the votes going to Trump. RFK Jr didn’t drop out of the race early enough and didn’t submit his requests to election officials early enough, so he’s still on the ballot.
As a reward for giving his votes to Trump (or at least trying to), Trump promised RFK Jr he will be in charge of the public health agencies such as HHS, CDC, FDA, NIH, a few others, and the USDA.
Trump said this recently about it: “I’ve been friends of his for a long time, and, uh, I’m going to let him go wild on health. I’m going to let him go wild on the food. I’m going to let him go wild on medicines.”
Anyone who has looked into his views on medicine and public health knows they’re not the best and many are harmful. But look at Trump’s statement. He will let RFK Jr to go wild on all of it. Think back. What was the last thing you remember Trump saying would be “wild”. How did that turn out?
How’s your finances? Doing good? Got a big buffer built up to handle unexpected expenses?
Hope you do, because Donald Trump’s choice for an economy and efficiency expert, Elon Musk, said Americans will need to be ready to face hardship as he makes his cuts. But don’t worry. Once he gets rid of all the fat and waste, everything will be right as rain and stronger than ever.
Did you know that Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson have a little secret? Yeah, they do. At a rally last week, Trump looked over at Johnson and told the crowd that the two of them have a little secret. They’re not going to tell anyone what it is until after the election. But they’ve got a little secret.
Cue the questions to Mike Johnson: What’s this secret you and Trump have? Johnson first says it’s a secret and by the name itself, you don’t say what it is. Then he backpedals after he keeps getting asked about it and says it’s getting more people to vote.
Let me get this straight. You want more people to vote and you’re doing something to get more people to vote, but you won’t tell anyone what that is. <voice = “Dr. Evil”>Right.< /voice>
The concern is the little secret is what’s already known and what Johnson has re-confirmed recently: he will definitely certify the results of the electoral college vote on January 6, 2025… if it’s a free and fair election. If his definition of a “free and fair election” is “Donald Trump wins”, you have your answer.
Another concern is there’s wording in the Twelfth Amendment that makes it possible for the House of Representatives to be the ones that decides who wins the election for President. It’s along the lines of if you don’t have a majority vote in situation A and in situation B, the House votes. It would get to that point if enough votes from the electoral college are thrown out so that neither Trump or Harris reach 270 votes.
The wrinkle is members of the House are sworn in on January 3rd. If Democrats retake the House, and there’s a good possibility they will, they could adhere to the actual results of the election and help prevent alternate slates of fake electors from skewing things towards Trump. As a reminder, when the idea was first proposed after the 2020 election, the electors were specifically identified as “fake electors”. Then someone in the group pointed out it wasn’t a good idea to call them “fake electors” if you’re going to try and pass them off as official and legitimate.
One more item before I bring back our favorite pillow salesman. Trump’s campaign was engineered around Biden being too old to be President. The concerns of Trump being almost as old were brushed aside. Then Biden dropped out and suddenly, Trump was officially the oldest person to run for President in the entire history of our country. (Trump is 78½ right now and Biden was just shy of 78 when he was elected.)
Relying on a cognitive test that is now way out of date, various people and media organizations making excuses for him, and his own excuses like “I’m not rambling, I’m weaving”, Trump has been able to keep pushing age concerns aside. Those age concerns are becoming more and more noticeable, to the point where the people and media organizations making excuses for him aren’t able to be as convincing any more.
A recent example is when Biden decided to weigh in on the comedian at the Trump rally in Madison Square Garden making a joke about Puerto Rico being a floating island of garbage. (Massive backlash on that, if you haven’t heard, with Trump doing his Sgt. Schultz routine again when asked about it.) The way Biden said the only garbage he saw implied he was speaking about Trump supporters.
Republicans leapt at this. Trump decides he’s going to own it and adds an orange reflective vest and a garbage truck to his campaign props. He slowly walks to the garbage truck, reaches for the handle, misses, reaches for it again and misses again, and he starts to fall over before stopping himself. Climbing up into the truck was also slow and took obvious effort.
The election going on right now isn’t just about whose policies and beliefs you feel are better for the country. It’s about electing someone who is now in the same position he so vehemently decried as little as five months ago. Someone who is showing more and more evidence of mental, psychological, emotional and physical decline.
It’s also no longer about electing a Vice President who’s there as a backup on the off chance that something happens to the President. It’s about electing a Vice President who is more and more likely to be called to take over for Trump if he becomes President when Trump can no longer be shielded and protected after his mental, psychological, emotional and physical health decline even further.
The debate between J.D. Vance and Tim Walz showed Vance is intelligent, articulate, coherent and competent, the things Trump no longer is, regardless of how you view what amount of those he had before. A lot of what’s been working against Trump has come from Trump himself. Vance as President would not have those kinds of hindrances.
Mike Lindell, founder of a pillow empire, can’t make up his mind as to whether his company is doing fine or is going down the toilet. One day he’ll say that any statements about his company dying are wrong, then on other days, he’ll tell you that himself.
Well, the answer definitely is the latter because he took out a $600K loan last month with a 340% interest rate. Not 3.40%. 340.00%. It will cost him $16K a day in interest.
The way the company offering the loan got around restrictions on what interest rates can be placed on the loan is they classified it as a purchase of unpaid MyPillow invoices.
The loan became public knowledge when Lindell immediately filed a lawsuit claiming the terms are so bad they’re unenforceable and they’re loan sharking. But they are terms he agreed to because as he said twice in the lawsuit, his is a cash-strapped company and he had to proceed. Must have been out of luck getting a loan from any other financial institution, I guess.
My take is he saw an opportunity to get free money and not pay it back. He knew the terms were unreasonable but agreed to them anyway because he was going to contest them in court. The key will be whether the terms were hidden from him when he had the pen in hand to sign the papers, or were changed after signing. If knowledge of the terms was withheld or were changed afterward, his lawsuit has merit. If not, it doesn’t.
If my take is correct, then Lindell has decided “Render unto Cesar what is Cesar’s” is just a nice little saying that doesn’t mean anything, not something that came from the source of the faith he says he belongs to.
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