Don't blame me, I voted for the other guy. (Politics General)

Nope, because that’s not how ad-buys work.

Ad-buys are done months in advance, because companies and websites have limited space/time, and because ad prices go up the closer to the day they intend to start. Buying an ad space a month out will be vastly cheaper than one the day before.

Most of Harris’s ad spending is for ads that will run in October.

Also, direct campaign contributions and self funding get discounts for ad buys, PAC money pays full price. Harris’s funding is largely through individual donations, where Trump’s is through PACs. So not only are Republicans getting less ads, they’re paying more for them.

The Feds need to step in and arrest that fuck:

@CaptainXtra
They’re almost likely going to keep doing this until it rolls in Trump’s favor and as close as possible to election day.

A good reminder for everyone to check their voter registration.

@Zincy
I keep doing it in the State where I am at.

The average deadline to register is like a month before the election. That still leaves you about 2 weeks left to register/check if you’re still registered.

I’ll be voting in a new district this year since I moved in 2023.

Just to give folks an idea of Dems’ fundraising advantage this year: The Democrat running in my state Senate district is now running TV ads. That does NOT fricking happen in my state.

My state reminding everyone that it’s still relatively GOP; the Georgia Board of Elections voted 3-2 to impose a rule requiring all ballots to be counted by hand on election night, a rule even conservatives say will cause chaos due to how close it is to election day.

It will almost certainly be challenged, but can you really trust the same state Supreme Court that upheld Kemp’s abortion restrictions to strike the rule down?

@SleepySteve
I mean it usually takes days.

@igotnopicks
It only takes hours in other countries, though (including mine, which has six times Georgia’s population and where you usually know the results before midnight, the morning after at worst).

Sworn affidavits from three witnesses allege that Representative Matt Gaetz attended a 2017 sex party involving a 17-year old girl. The documents were submitted by lawyers attempting to recoup legal fees in a lawsuit filed by Chris Dorworth - a lobbyist friend of Gaetz.

More Far-Right/Alt-Right/Nazi Election interference:

Republicans are making it obvious that the only way they win is by cheating, only issue is they’re being overt about it now. It won’t work though, there’s too much momentum against Trump and the right.

Yeah, I noticed that when you’re as overt about it, it tends to galvanize and embolden the targeted populace. See: Ken Paxton’s attempt to intimidate America’s oldest Latino advocacy group.

For the first time of this cycle, a poll showed Ted Cruz behind, by one point.

Look, I’m not going to get my hopes up about flipping anything in Texas. But the fact that there is an actual viable path to do so at all is pretty fucking mental.

It’s what Dems have been chomping at the bit for since Lloyd Bentsen vacated his seat. I too think there’s long odds just from the extent to which Repubs have been suppressing the vote, but that’s what has been buying them time for the past 12-16 years. Their time will be up sooner or later.

Hell even if the Dems still lose the statewide races, if it’s close enough it will further erode Republican majorities in the state legislature.

Patent system is already bad and in the US it’s even worse (software patents are mental). That’s why there is not one but two attempts to make it worse still.

Patent Eligibility Restoration Act (PERA) would allow patenting generic, computer-related ideas like crowdfunding, tracking packages, photo contests, watching an ad online, computer bingo, or upselling. (All real life examples!) It would also allow patenting human genes (WTF?).

PREVAIL Act makes it way harder for the public to challenge shit patents.

Vote is September 26. More info: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/09/senate-vote-tomorrow-could-give-helping-hand-patent-trolls

I’m not a US citizen, but US decisions on things like patents or copyright have enormous impact on other countries, so I’d appreciate if people from US would contact their lawmakers and demand an explanation. The link above has a tool that makes it easy. You can tell them that shit like this makes you wanna vote for the other party. Elections are coming, they will listen.

@Zincy
If there is anyone that I want to lose more it’s Ted Cruz.

@BlitztheDragon
The issue for republicans now is that everyone can see what they’re saying. They can lie but those lies only help to maintain their base, their lies only repel new voters

Bill Maher rarely has any takes that aren’t just plain wrong, but I do believe he had one of those “broken clock is right” moment when he did his 2022 take on how the 2024 election is going to go.

The Vance VP pick was a staggeringly arrogant move, one you’d expect to see from a party so confident in their victory that they’d abandon all strategy just to BM all over the opposition and rub it in their face that nothing can be done against them. Even with all the wins the Kamala campaign is racking, we’re still not seeing any shift, if anything they’ve fully embraced doubling and tripling down on the awful shit, making it part of their core platform and outright mocking the moderate audience they should be desperate to bring on their side.

This reeks of a party that already has all the pieces into play to win and is just doing clean up to make sure none of them will get cold feet come election day. We already 100% know what Dear Leader is going to do on the night of the election: declare victory, demand that Kamala concedes and walk off taking no questions. The Russian propaganda apparatus will repeat ad nauseam that he’s the true winner, bots will flood social media to drown out everyone else, Twitter will mass ban all dissent, and days will pass with the media basically going “We just don’t know who really won :(” in fear of being targeted.

Even if state legislation is properly brought up, who’s going to enforce it? Those that have been targeted for retaliation along with their families if they dare to apply the law and deny a GOP victory?

It’s clear that they’ve been abandoning the concept of a democracy for a while now, but lately they’ve been straight up casting away even the illusion of respecting it. This shit is scary as fuck.

It’s a darn shame Covid and the lockdowns broke his brain.

He was never a good commentator, mind you, but he at least had a good take every once in a blue moon. His analogy about how ‘Democrats used to be seen as the over-nurturing mother, and the Republicans as the stern father, and both were needed to raise the kids. But now the Republicans are more like the deadbeat father who went out for cigarettes and never came back’ really resonated.

Now he spends his time getting high and telling sex jokes to minors on his podcast.

Crypto Bros seem to be popping up across Twitter like crazy right now.

As expected they’re all voting for Trump.

@CaptainXtra
Makes sense. They couldn’t make a good business decision to save their life, so they’re voting for someone relatable.

@Poison Trail
It’s ridiculous, but I’m having the same concerns too. What if the Republicans have everything ready to go to steal the election, and this is all just some farce? Trump might be stupid, but I dunno about the rest of the right wing.