Milking two races out of a single poll they sponsored to get two articles out of it, WRAL on Tuesday followed up on their finding via SurveyUSA that Vice President Kamala Harris is leading convicted felon former President Trump 49 to 46 percent among likely voters with the responses for the gubernatorial race and damn is it bloody: Dem Attorney General Josh Stein (not Shapiro) leads obese right wing psychopath porn addict Republican Lt Governor Mark Robinson 51 to 37 percent with 11 percent undecided at a “credibility interval” (not margin of error) of 4.9 percent.

There will be plenty of time to nerd out with the numbers and see if maybe somehow there was a reverse coattails effect in the state, but only if both Stein and more importantly Harris win there in November. No point in even entertaining it now when everything else hangs in the balance.

A new Public Religion Research Institute survey finds 32 percent of Trump fans and more than a 27 percent of Republican respondents overall say political violence is acceptable if they believe an election was “compromised,” USA Today reports on a finding that’s probably lowballing it if we’re being really honest here. There’s gotta be some “Bradley Effect” type thing going on here.

Just 10 percent of independents and 8 percent of Dem respondents said they agree that “patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.” PRRI President Robert Jones said the results are clear. “This is not just a partisan issue. It’s a Trump and MAGA issue. It’s the kind of Trumpian takeover of the Republican Party,” said Jones and maybe the both-sidesy media should kind of take a fucking hint from what an actual professional political scientist is saying here.

Jones linked support for political violence to support for authoritarianism. The study found that 67 percent of Republicans scored high on an authoritarian scale devised by PRRI, including 75 percent of Trump-favoring Republicans, compared to 35 percent of independents and 28 percent of Democrats. “Even those Americans who see themselves as a Republican but have an unfavorable view of Trump, they are far less likely to have this kind of authoritarian orientation that goes along with support for political violence,” said Jones. Meaning don’t feel shy about calling them Nazis.

The Missouri State Supreme Court on Tuesday overturned Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft’s weasely move to take the abortion rights referendum off the November ballot, ruling en banc “by a majority vote of this Court, the circuit court’s judgment is reversed. Respondent John R Ashcroft shall certify to local election authorities that Amendment 3 be placed on the November 5, 2024, general election ballot and shall take all steps necessary to ensure that it is on said ballot.”

In related news, the opposite happened with Robert F Kennedy Jr in North Carolina as that state Supreme Court on Monday ordered election officials to piss away hundreds of thousands of dollars and delay early voting by at least a week to remove the Roadkill collector from those ballots.

Obliging the letter if maybe not the spirit of convicted felon former President Trump’s demand that his debate opponent Vice President Kamala Harris not be permitted to have any “boxes or artificial lifts” to make her seem less short in comparison, Axios reports that ABC News is instead giving her a shorter podium so that her 5 ft 4 inch stature would not look so tiny in comparison to the Orange Slob’s self-reported 6 ft 3 inches during Tuesday night’s big debate in Philadelphia.

Former New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo, a piece of shit who resigned in disgrace for sexually harassing female employees and God knows what else, will still probably come out of this looking better than the House Republicans who tried to use his handling of nursing homes during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic to excuse convicted felon former President Trump’s far, far worse conduct during the crisis. What’s funny here is how unnecessary this all is, that this investigation is meant to try to polish Trump’s record when they probably would’ve been better off leaving it alone rather than bringing it up again in the home stretch of the election when a large part of Trump’s comeback pitch is to get voters to forget how badly he fucked it all up.

“If Republicans in the House, and Senate, don’t get absolute assurances on Election Security, THEY SHOULD, IN NO WAY, SHAPE, OR FORM, GO FORWARD WITH A CONTINUING RESOLUTION ON THE BUDGET. THE DEMOCRATS ARE TRYING TO ‘STUFF’ VOTER REGISTRATIONS WITH ILLEGAL ALIENS. DON’T LET IT HAPPEN – CLOSE IT DOWN!!!” posted convicted felon former President Trump on Tuesday, plainly agitated over the all-but-certain failure of his lowly supplicant Speaker Mike Johnson’s attempt to force a vote on the SAVE Act – banning non-citizens from voting in federal elections, which is already illegal – by attaching it to a continuing resolution to fund the government.

House Dems Adam Smith, Jamie Raskin, and Mark Takano tell the New Republic that they haven’t heard back from the US Army on their request for information about convicted felon former President Trump’s assault on an employee at Arlington National Cemetery during a campaign event two weeks ago and say they’re renewing the push for answers and accountability for Team Orange.

“The alleged assault of an Arlington staff member by Trump campaign staff requires a strong official response,” the Dems said in a statement provided to The New Republic, adding the “failure to properly investigate this egregious incident in a timely manner and hold violators accountable undermines the integrity and honor of Arlington National Cemetery” eroding “norms requiring nonpartisanship in the military. We urge the US Army to immediately provide information regarding how the event was coordinated,” meaning they want to get to the bottom of how and why the cemetery was staged to make it look like President Biden and VP Harris didn’t show up to honor those killed in the Afghanistan withdrawal when they weren’t even invited in the first place.

OPEC continued to interfere in the election Tuesday as the price of a barrel of crude oil sank to $65.78, threatening lower gas prices when Republicans need voters to suffer, Bloomberg reports.

Yes this is a real billboard in Arizona😂

The media is going all out to cover up these stories about illegal aliens eating people’s pets

They don’t want the truth out there

Too late! pic.twitter.com/I1ASM0TnzR

— DC_Draino (@DC_Draino) September 10, 2024

Really showing us in “the media” for “covering up” the murder and consumption of cats. But what if it’s the billboard that’s a lie too? How could we ever prove that it’s a Photoshopped image?

We had to add that parenthetical qualifier to the headline after realizing that it’s perfectly plausible, by Florida’s standards, that an 84 year-old woman could conceivably punch an alligator in the face, completely unprovoked. It’s just simply not that big of a stretch given National Zero’s lengthy archive of reporting picked up from the Sunshine State, much of it involving alligators.

Anyway, Fox News reports North Fort Myers Dolores Boppel is lucky to be alive after an encounter with one of the vicious reptiles. Boppel told local media she had been feeling uneasy while she was out walking her dog on Thursday night just before the beast emerged suddenly from a pond near her trailer park. “All of a sudden, I had a premonition, I’m telling you,” Boppel said. “It was like, ‘Uh-oh’. It was like a torpedo. I didn’t see anything go that fast in my life.” Boppel tossed her Shih-Tzu, Queen, aside and took the brunt of the attack, with the gator biting into her legs.

Boppel then bopped it in the face, causing the alligator to retreat and give her time to escape with her dog. A neighbor heard screams helped Boppel inside and quickly called 911. Bodycam footage recorded by responding sheriff’s deputies caught Boppel saying “Ma’am, God bless you. The park’s gonna pay for this son of a bitch,” to an EMT who was treating her wounds. Florida Fish and Wildlife officials sent a trapper who found the alligator and relocated it to parts unknown.

An investor who backed convicted felon Billy McFarland’s first Fyre Festival has warned that the second go could end up being a quagmire for backers and attendees, the BBC reports.

“Proceed with caution,” Andy King warned those who might be swayed by McFarland’s charms into writing a big check to a guy who stranded thousands of influencers and Instagram-selfie loving millennials on a remote Bahamian island for days after promises of a destination concert festival replete with luxury villas and a whole bunch of other shit he couldn’t deliver upon, an infamous episode King says “known for the biggest failure in pop culture and wants to flip the script. But I’m not sure he’s going about it the right way.” King added that he met with McFarland a few months ago but the guy hasn’t “learned a lot in prison… he’s shooting from the hip again”.

“Billy has a gift. He’s got a lot of charisma. He knows how to pull people in,” King continued. We would be eager to hear King’s sage wisdom on whether the US should elect Donald Trump again.

“More Republicans trust Trump and his campaign (67 percent) than government certifications of election results (51 percent) for accurate information on the outcome of the November election. In contrast, Democrats show similar levels of trust in government certifications (87 percent) and Harris and her campaign (82 percent),” says the write-up of an AP-NORC poll.

Well it won’t be like we didn’t see it coming should (God willing) the fat fuck lose to Harris in November. Hell we saw it coming back in 2020. Feels like the unrest could get uglier than that interregnum since Trump was in office then and the fanboys continued to hold out hope until the last minute that he could declare martial law. And that if he didn’t at least Joe Biden’s a white man so the indignities of him winning weren’t as awful. In that sense the risk of any coup attempt succeeding is far lower which actually paradoxically increases the risk of violence, much of it probably directed at election officials in swing states or simply just indiscriminate massacres of perceived Dem voters.

An inspiring story out of California: A controlled burn meant to clear dry vegetation from the outskirts of Cleveland National Forest in Orange County broke free Monday from its enslavers on a county public works crew as if to say “No! I will NOT be contained!” spreading its cry of glorious liberation across at least 5,432 acres of wild, mountainous terrain, the Desert Sun reports.

For those keeping track, this one’s called the “Airport Fire,” because it began at a small airfield used by hobbyists for launching model planes in the preserve. Not bad, if maybe a bit on the generic side.

We wonder where the dispatcher ballsy enough to call one the “Forest Fire” or the “Smoky Fire” is.

In short, don't let the crybabies in the media dissuade you, fellow patriots.

Keep the cat memes flowing.

— JD Vance (@JDVance) September 10, 2024

“In the last several weeks, my office has received many inquiries from actual residents of Springfield who’ve said their neighbors’ pets or local wildlife were abducted by Haitian migrants. It’s possible, of course, that all of these rumors will turn out to be false. Do you know what’s confirmed? That a child was murdered by a Haitian migrant who had no right to be here. That local health services have been overwhelmed. That communicable diseases – like TB and HIV – have been on the rise. That local schools have struggled to keep up with newcomers who don’t know English.”

“That rents have risen so fast that many Springfield families can’t afford to put a roof over their head. If you’re a reporter, or an activist, who didn’t give a shit about these suffering Americans until yesterday, I have some advice: Spare your outrage for your fellow citizens suffering under Kamala Harris’s policies. Be outraged at yourself for letting this happen. In short, don’t let the crybabies in the media dissuade you, fellow patriots. Keep the cat memes flowing,” tweeted Vice Presidential candidate and US Senator JD Vance on Tuesday and yes this is real, you can see it above.

Where to even start with this batshittery? Can he be more specific about how exactly the Haitians are bringing HIV to his white constituents? When was this white kid murdered? Where are any of these “inquiries” and why the fuck would people be complaining to a United States senator about their dog or cat going missing rather than local police or animal control? Say what you will about Mike Pence, but in what fucking universe would he have tweeted something like this?

Adding to the Guardian’s Monday report about some of the Republican National Committee’s old, pre-Trump takeover guard calling the new GOTV operation regime a mess that could doom the Orange God Emperor to defeat, Semafor on Tuesday follows up with more urinary incontinence, writing that “top members of the party are already whispering concerns, pointing fingers, and offering pushback as it relates to” the “unconventional approach” of outsourcing canvassing to PACs like Charlie Kirk and Elon Musk’s scam outfits and the paid door-knockers from Turnout America.

Swing state Republican senators are particularly nervous that the Trump operation is too focused on fighting the last war, specifically that they had the run of the field when Democrats were holding back due to self-imposed COVID restrictions, with North Carolina’s Thomas Tillis telling Semafor that the state GOP’s ground operation is not where it was in 2020 anyway and the convicted felon former president has “got to be able to match up… What we’re seeing in North Carolina that we haven’t seen for a time, though, is a really well organized ground game by the Democrats.”

One anonymously quoted GOP strategist based in an unspecified swing state said they’re “as plugged in as they get – and yet I don’t even know who my friends and family back home can contact for a yard sign or to knock doors in their precinct.” Another questioned whether the several PACs working for Trump are even sharing data or otherwise coordinating. A third swing state GOP operative said he’s seen “no ground activity at all” and complained that the usual nuts and bolts canvassing work had been crowded out by “election integrity” bullshit. “They’re really only focused on recruiting folks to volunteer to be poll watchers,” the person said. “I mean, they do a lot of that shit. But what’s the point of watching the vote if you haven’t turned out the vote?”

Even the RNC’s feckless former figurehead herself, Ronna Not-Romney McDaniel, is in on the panicking, per Semafor, who unfortunately don’t have a direct or indirect quote from that moron. It’ll be hilarious if Trump loses but they find some way to blame her for having sabotaged them.

“There is a danger of life-threatening storm surge for portions of the Upper Texas and Louisiana coastlines where a Storm Surge Warning is in effect. Residents in the warning area should follow advice, including evacuation orders, given by local officials. Damaging and life-threatening hurricane-force winds are expected in portions of southern Louisiana Wednesday, where a Hurricane Warning is in effect. Preparations to protect life and property should be complete by tonight, since tropical storm conditions are expected to begin within this area early Wednesday.”

“Francine is expected to bring heavy rainfall and the risk of considerable flash flooding for much of Louisiana and Mississippi through Thursday. Flash and urban flooding is probable across portions of northeast Mexico and far southern Texas into early Wednesday, and the Mid-South Wednesday night into Friday morning,” says a National Hurricane Center bulletin as the storm intensifies.

There’s no estimate yet of actual strength of the storm when (not if) it hits the Gulf coast, but it does not at this point seem as if this will be an apocalyptic deluge on the scale of Katrina.

Fox and Friends host Brian Kilmeade on Tuesday seemed more than just a wee bit apprehensive of how the debate’s going to go for his Orange Allah, rattling off some very exacting specifications for the content of the moderators’ questions as too much abortion and not enough economy would mean ABC is trying to keep up the “perfect score” of pro-Harris coverage that he assumes the viewers are already encyclopedically familiar with (they probably are, let’s be honest).

Jesus Dork House Speaker Mike Johnson’s plan to force a vote on the stupid SAVE Act – banning non-citizens from voting in federal elections, which is already illegal – by attaching it to a continuing resolution to fund the government steadily imploded Monday into Tuesday, as Punchbowl reports that the right wingers normally on board with “election integrity” performance theater are very much opposed to having to pass repeated stopgap bills to keep the government’s lights on.

Former Heritage Foundation gauleiter Paul Dans, who was (likely temporarily) forced out of his post at the fascist think tank in July on the orders of Trump campaign minions Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, tells the New York Times that the two have committed “malpractice” by trying to distance the convicted felon former president from the plot to end American democracy and that Trump’s chances are in doubt because of their mismanagement. “Trump should be running like Secretariat at the Belmont, but instead it’s a race to the wire,” Dans said, urging Trump to fire the duo.

Dans said he was “blindsided” by Donald’s Truth Social posts falsely trying to disown Project 2025, saying it was all LaCivita and Wiles spewing “RINO” venom in to the fat bastard’s ear. “They took the bait,” Dans continued, pointing to LaCivita’s comments at the RNC in July, where he called Project 2025 a “pain in the ass” and said that the people behind it “do not speak for the campaign.”

Irrespective of the Project 2025 drama, Dans specifically called the pair out for accepting Joe Biden’s debate challenge in May, setting in motion the events that led to Trump facing Vice President Kamala Harris on ABC in 13 hours and 35 minutes. “They pushed Biden off the stage and they had no plans for Harris,” Dans said. “That is on par with historic campaign malpractice.” Dans further worried that Trump’s campaign is in danger of losing support from his fellow fascist apparatchiks. “Who is going to work the polls? Who is going to fight for you? There’s no transition without winning and there’s no winning without those loyalists putting their boots on the ground.”