We Need to Prepare Ourselves for One of the Most Intensely Monitored Elections in American History

11 min readOut on the Weekend(Permanent Musical Accompaniment to the Last Post of the Week from the Blog's Favourite Living Canadian)It's beginning already. The rats are already fcking themselves silly up by the Arctic Circle. From the CNBC:The Department of Justice filed an extraordinary lawsuitseeking to block Alaska from certifying the winner of its upcoming U.S. Senate election if incumbent Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan loses the contest. The lawsuit, filed less than two weeks before the Nov. 3 election, cites what it argues is likely voter confusion from the name of another candidate appearing on the ballot, retired teacher Daniel J. Sullivan. The suit asks a federal judge in Alaska to bar the state from certifying “any result that may be impacted by voter confusion ... pending an investigation to determine whether votes cast for Daniel J. Sullivan were meant to be cast for Senator Sullivan.” The DOJ did not say how anyone could determine a voter’s intent. Doing so might be impossible, given the anonymity of ballots.They don't have to explain themselves. The Master has given them their orders.“I’m the one that said ‘do it,’” Trump said. “They have two guys ... named Dan Sullivan, so the democrats put up a guy.”The Attorney General chipped in with some authentic lickspittle gibberish.Before the suit was filed Thursday, Attorney General Todd Blanche told reporters that the DOJ had no plans to “improperly interfere with elections or the state confirmation process or certification process.” “There’s no circumstances that we would ever do that,” he said at a press conference. “Of course I’m not going to say that. But am I planning my days around the election to be somewhere to not certify? Of course not, no, not at all."The invaluable David Weigel posted a picture of the Alaskan ballot. On it, the incumbent Dan Sullivan is described as “Sullivan, Dan S. (Registered Republican) Incumbent.” And the other Dan Sullivan is described simply as, “Sullivan, Dan J.” The Alaska Supreme Court already has dealt with this question when it allowed both Dan Sullivans to appear on the ballot. Chances are that the first federal judge that gets handed this nonsense will laugh it off his docket. But the point is not to win the lawsuit. It's to sow enough fear and chaos to win the election.Elsewhere, the Department of Justice has its own menagerie of libidinous rodents, and they are going to be dispatched on Election Day. From NPR:Counties in Colorado, Florida, Minnesota, Texas, and Washington have received notifications from the Justice Department so far, but the list seems to be growing in real time. The department has long deployed monitors to ensure compliance with voting laws, but the Trump administration's unprecedented steps to try to wrestle control over elections from local and state governments have led to new concerns about DOJ monitoring this year. And already this week, at least one county official is raising questions about why his locality is on the DOJ's list....The Justice Department routinely observes elections. The department under President Biden monitored 64 jurisdictions in 24 states on Election Day in the last midterm year, 2022. But to many local officials and experts, this year is different. President Trump continues to falsely maintain that he won the 2020 election and that election fraud is more widespread than it has ever been proven to be. Experts worry federal law enforcement could potentially use those false claims—or others generated this year—as pretext to try to seize ballots during the counting period, or interfere in the process in some other way.My God, this election is going to be a brawl.Not all the rats are being fcked on the campaign trail. Congress has its share of libidinous rodents as well. FromThe Hill:Rep. Randy Fine (R-Fla.) said Friday he plans to introduce a resolution to expel Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) if a federal investigation finds she broke the law....Fine told The Hill’s broadcast partner NewsNation he had already reached out to the Department of Justice (DOJ) to ask for more details on the investigation into Omar. Omar’s Washington home was raided by federal immigration authorities October 12 as part of a criminal investigation into her immigration status. Born in Somalia, Omar became a U.S. citizen in 2000 after her father was naturalized, but some on the right have long accused her of marrying her brother to obtain citizenship. Omar has repeatedly denied those claims. The DOJ typically does not pursue law enforcement actions against political candidates this close to an election. Omar is running for reelection in this year’s midterms.This is pure, unadulterated racism. Fine is a typical Florida conservative nuisance, which he proudly announced before he even was elected. From The Hill:House Republican candidate and Florida state Sen. Randy Fine (R) said Tuesday that progressive Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) should consider leaving Congress if he is elected. “The Hebrew Hammer is coming,” Fine, who is Jewish, wrote in a post on the social platform X. “[Rashida Tlaib] and [Ilhan Omar] might consider leaving before I get there.”They're all half-bright, angry children, one and all.Weekly WWOZ Pick to Click: "Cristo Redemptor" (Charlie Musselwhite): Yeah, I pretty much still love New Orleans.Weekly Visit to the Pathé Archives: Seventy years ago this Friday, the Hungarian people rose in revolt against the occupying Soviet Union. Here is a montage of the brief success and ultimate crushing of the revolution. The Hungarian leader Imre Nagy was secretly tried and executed. Some 2,700 Hungarians died and over 200,000 fled the country, mostly across the border into Austria. Here, the Eisenhower administration resisted all calls for direct military intervention. According to documents unearthed by the National Security Archive, the U.S. strategy was to slowly melt the Soviet bloc by "keeping the pot boiling."The United States’ cautious response to the unexpectedly powerful popular uprising in Hungary in 1956 grew out of the Eisenhower administration’s policy of “keeping the pot boiling” in Eastern Europe without having it “boil over” into a possible nuclear conflict, according to an unpublished Defense Department historical study posted for the first time by the National Security Archive at The George Washington University.Eisenhower and his top aides, including Secretary of State John Foster Dulles—often seen as one of the most aggressive Cold Warriors—opted for the long view of encouraging a gradual erosion of Soviet domination of the socialist camp.Defending Eisenhower’s reticence to take stiffer action, including covertly assisting the Hungarian rebels or threatening to use tactical nuclear weapons on supply routes into Hungary, the study notes his concerns about inadvertently touching off a nuclear war with the USSR.At the same time, the author points out that Eisenhower “let the matter slide” by early in the crisis rejecting a recommendation that he convene a special meeting of the National Security Council to consider possible responses, which “undercut the urgency for action.”Despite Ike's understandable reluctance to get involved, the memory of Imre Nagy and 1956 deserved a helluva lot better legacy than Viktor Orban. And the Ukrainians deserve better than being abandoned to the mercies of Vladimir Putin's Russia.History is so cool.Back in my daily sportswriting days, it was always a good day when Tony Kornheiser or Michael Wilbon showed up for The Washington Post. I covered Big East basketball in the 1980s, so I saw more of Wilbon than I did of Kornheiser, who was a columnist. Little did I know I was hanging with two potential television stars. This week, they celebrated the 25th anniversary of Pardon the Interruption, their national water-cooler for sports discussion. Genuine chemistry between two people in this context has been drowned out by elephantine bellowing. I celebrate a daily exhibition of true friendship as a balm and a blessing. Long may you run, veteran scribes.Elsewhere in the world of sports, we lost one of college basketball's true eccentrics on Friday when former LSU coach Dale Brown passed away at the age of 90. He is the last link to the likes of Abe Lemons and the sainted Alfred McGuire, gone now all of them because college basketball has run out all the poets and brought in all the salesmen. Almost everyone who covered the game in those days has a Dale Brown story. Mine involves a column I wrote for a basketball magazine when Dale was trying to recruit Arvydas Sabonis, the great Lithuanian big man who, at that point, was still dragooned into playing for the USSR. I wrote that Dale's pursuit of Sabonis was a fool's errand.A couple of weeks later, I was working in our basement when I heard the phone ring upstairs. My wife picked it up and I assumed she was talking to a friend. But after about 15 minutes, she called down to me. "There's a Coach Brown on the phone." I was curious about what Dale and my wife talked about, but it turned out he wanted to talk to me about the Sabonis column. He didn't mind what I wrote, he said, but he was concerned that my column might damage the thawing of the Cold War that was underway. I nearly fell down laughing. "Coach, " I spluttered, "don't worry. I don't think Gorbachev's copy of Basketball Times has gotten to the Kremlin yet."His most conspicuous contribution to basketball, however, was finding Shaquille O'Neal at a basketball clinic in Germany. Sail on, Coach.Mark this down as one of the signifying fck ups of this chestnut blight of an administration. From The Washington Post:Two floor globes said to be used by Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower during World War II are housed in the Pentagon, where subsequent generations of Army leaders became custodians of the artifacts, according to people familiar with their lineage and an accompanying plaque dating them to the 1930s.The historical significance was attractive to Hegseth, these people said, and his staff requested that the secretary’s office become the new home to one of the 30-inch globes.Ordinarily, moving historical items within the building is a deliberate process overseen by trained curators. Instead, Hegseth’s staff dispatched its own team to relocate an Eisenhower globe. They lost control of the artifact and dropped it, sending the globe crashing onto its base and impaling the fragile shell near Antarctica, according to those familiar with the incident. The resulting gash appears to be several inches wide.Now the Secretary of Talking About War has his very own reflecting pool bungle of which to be proud. Everybody in this crowd is a vandal. It's only a matter of time before Doug Burgum gets caught pouring cement into Old Faithful.Discovery Corner: Hey, look at what we found! From Arkeonews:Archaeologists excavating the ancient city of Troy in northwestern Türkiye have discovered a 2,800-year-old bone flute and a 4,500-year-old human-shaped idol head. The flute is particularly remarkable: despite more than 160 years of archaeological excavations at the legendary site, it is the first musical instrument ever identified there. The two discoveries provide new evidence of musical traditions and symbolic practices during different periods of Troy’s long history.Any discovery news containing the word, "Troy" is guaranteed to grab my attention. My bucket list is limited but one of the items on it is to walk the walls at Hisslarik in Turkiye. I became fascinated by Greek mythology at an early age, and the Trojan War narrative was my serious jam. (I even liked the movie with Brad Pitt as Surfer Dude Achilles because Sean Bean's Odysseus was worth the ticket price.) I am happy to learn that folks are still digging at the site because Heinrich Schliemann's story of his obsession with finding the site was just as fascinating to me as Homer was.Hey, CTV News.Is it a good day for dinosaur news? It's always a good day for dinosaur news!Jackpot!Paleontologists are working carefully to unearth ancient dinosaur fossils in southeastern Utah, but they’re already liking what they’re finding. “I think we’ve added up like four different kinds of dinosaur here right now,” Utah State Paleontologist Jim Kirkland told FOX 13 News on Monday. The site, in a remote part of desert near Moab, is unique because it may be the scene of a mass extinction event. Paleontologists also believe they are discovering some entirely new species of dinosaur.The site was discovered by assistant Utah State paleontologist Don DeBlieux, who was hiking in the area.“I wandered over here and found an Ankylosaurus humorous [sic] and scapula eroding out of these green rocks here,” he told FOX 13 News. Since then, work has been done by the Utah Geological Survey to carefully extract the fossils and determine what happened. Kirkland has a theory that an asteroid hit in what is now known as the Pacific Ocean and wiped out the dinosaurs of the Jurassic period. What emerged is buried here and some of it is like nothing else on the planet. “We know that everything we find here is going to be brand new to science,” DeBlieux said.They congregated there then to make him happy now.I'll be back on Monday for whatever fresh hell awaits. Be well and play nice, ya bastids. Stay above the snake-line and wear the damn masks, and take the damn shots, especially the boosters and any New One. In your spare time, spare a thought for all the victims of our current epidemics, including the killer countertops, and for the victims of the horrific glacial collapse and flood in Nepal, and for Rep. Max Miller's wife and child, and for the Iranian people, and the Lebanese people and all the other people downrange in our newest war, and all the people in ICE detention,and the victims of ICE violence, and the Epstein victims, and Eric Swalwell's victims,and the victims of the storms in Hawaii, and the victims of the Canadian wildfires, and also the ones in Spain, and the victims of the floods in Missouri, and the victims of the heat domes, and those affected around the world by wildfires, and the victims of the Venezuelan earthguake, and for the victims of the earthquake in Japan, and the victims and their families in the Tumbler Ridge school shooting in Canada, and for the shooting victims in Austin, and for the families of the victims of the mosque shooting in San Diego, and in Michigan, and in Virginia, and in Louisiana, and for the victims and their families of the shootings in Wilmington, Delaware and Kansas City, and for the families and victims of the mass shooting in Midland, Texas, and for the brilliant journalists of the Washington Post, and for the citizens of the occupied city of Minneapolis and South Burlington, Vermont, and for all the people recovering from Hurricane Isaiah, and the people in the flooded areas of southern Africa, and in the flooded areas in Ireland, and in the flooded areas of Brazil, and the flooded areas of Nepal, and for the storm-clobbered, flooded areas of the upper Midwest, including my alma mater, and in Georgia, and for the people affected by the tornados in Mississippi, and for people suffering from the hantavirus outbreak on the Hondius, the plague outbreak in Siberia, the Ebola outbreak in the DRC, the outbreaks of measles, the Hegseth Flu down in Texas, the explosive diarrhea bug, and the Legionnaire's disease outbreak in Harlem, and the victims of the heat wave in Europe, and for our LGBTQ+ citizens, who deserve so much more from this country than they're getting.