How the Trump Campaign Plowed Through a $1 Billion War Chest ; How Claims of Voter Fraud in Florida Fell Apart ; and More Picks 10/26
Why Do Nonwhite Georgia Voters Have to Wait in Line for Hours? (Gerry)
From ProPublica: “The clogged polling locations in metro Atlanta reflect an underlying pattern: the number of places to vote has shrunk statewide, with little recourse. Although the reduction in polling places has taken place across racial lines, it has primarily caused long lines in nonwhite neighborhoods where voter registration has surged and more residents cast ballots in person on Election Day. The pruning of polling places started long before the pandemic, which has discouraged people from voting in person.”
How the Trump Campaign Plowed Through a $1 Billion War Chest and Lost Its Cash Advantage (Reader Steve)
The author writes, “President Donald Trump’s sprawling political operation has raised well over $1 billion since he took the White House in 2017 — and set a lot of it on fire. Trump bought a $10 million Super Bowl ad when he didn’t yet have a challenger. He tapped his political organization to cover exorbitant legal fees related to his impeachment. Aides made flashy displays of their newfound wealth — including a fleet of luxury vehicles purchased by Brad Parscale, his former campaign manager. … Now, just two weeks out from the election, some campaign aides privately acknowledge they are facing difficult spending decisions at a time when Democratic nominee Joe Biden has flooded the airwaves with advertising.”
How Claims of Voter Fraud in Florida Fell Apart (Dan)
From Reveal: “John Johnson isn’t dead. Nor is Lillian Shuster. Or Stanley Ellis. These three lifelong voters, all residents of Palm Beach County, Florida, are very much alive, healthy and ready to vote in November. But all three, along with several other Florida voters contacted by Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting, were flagged last year by an eight-year-old conservative nonprofit named the Public Interest Legal Foundation, or PILF. In May 2019, PILF sent Palm Beach County election officials a list of voters who they claimed had cast ballots in recent elections despite having died years before. These votes, PILF claimed, were evidence of widespread voter fraud in a county that will be critical to Democratic hopes in November.”
Did America Have a ‘Good Relationship’ with Hitler? What Joe Biden Got Right and Wrong About That History During the Debate (Dana)
The author writes, “After President Trump said that it was a good thing that he had a good relationship with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, as Presidents are supposed to maintain good relationships with other world leaders, Democratic candidate Joe Biden fired back: ‘We had a good relationship with Hitler before he, in fact, invaded Europe, the rest of Europe. Come on.’ Some pundits shared that one-line comparison without any additional context, while others pointed to the trope known as ‘Godwin’s Law’: the idea that, allowed to go on long enough, any online debate will eventually end in a comparison being made to Adolf Hitler or Nazism. Other Twitter users, however, concentrated on whether the analogy was historically accurate.”
Racist Past of Glendale Arrives at Its Reckoning (Peg)
The author writes, “When Tanita Harris-Ligons moved to Glendale in 2008, she said locals kept asking her where she was visiting from. ‘If you’re Black, they didn’t believe you lived there,’ she said of the city that was once a bastion for white supremacy groups and a so-called sundown town, where Black people weren’t welcome after dark. … The city’s racist past has cast a long, dark shadow that Glendale is now taking steps to remedy. It is the first city in California, and just the third in the nation, to pass a resolution apologizing for its history of racial exclusion — an action shepherded by Black in Glendale and other advocacy groups.”
There’s Drama in the Queer Penguin Community (Dana)
The author writes, “Drama is afoot in the Dutch queer penguin community after two gay lovers with a reputation for trouble stole an entire nest of eggs from a neighboring lesbian couple at the same zoo. Within the queer penguin community at large, fostering eggs is relatively common: On multiple occasions, zoos and aquariums have gifted unhatched eggs to gay and lesbian couples exhibiting behavior that suggests they’re desperate for a chick, like building mock nests out of pebbles. But rather than demanding the same of their caretakers, one pair of African penguins at the DierenPark zoo in Amersfoort instead took the matter into their own claws by snatching eggs from two mothers-to-be. … The conniving boys have since been sharing caregiving duties, taking turns keeping the eggs warm and foraging for fish.”
