Air Force One flies into Hopkins

Seen overhead at 3:23pm

Pat Dooley Photography   

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Drunk blogging tonight's debate

 

Most of us will be watching this evening's debate on TV or on livestream . . . assuming the debate actually takes place.  Good news, though.  You don't have to watch it, since Mr. Vodkapundit will be live drunkblogging it.  Here's his announcement from PJ Media:

Programming note:  Come back to the PJ Media homepage tonight at about 8:45pm Eastern/5:45pm Pacific for the Official VodkaPundit Debate Drunkblog.

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Verifying signatures on absentee ballots: a win in Ohio

 

Andrew J. Tobias reports at cleveland.com:

A group of voting-rights activists has suffered a legal defeat
in their attempt to challenge Ohio's system of verifying signatures
on absentee ballot applications.

A federal judge has ruled Ohio’s system of verifying signatures on absentee ballot applications is not burdensome enough to be struck down as illegal, rejecting arguments made by a coalition of voting-rights groups that sued the state.

U.S. District Judge Michael Watson wrote that while Ohio’s signature-matching requirements impose a “moderate" burden on voters, they have other options to cast a ballot if their vote is improperly rejected, including casting a provisional ballot on Election Day. He agreed with Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose that the state has a legitimate interest in promoting an orderly and secure election, justifying that burden.

. . .

Watson’s ruling is technically just an early loss for the voting-rights groups, which could continue to seek a trial or appeal to a higher court. But it makes it significantly less likely their case will succeed, especially given that the election is only 37 days away.

Read the full report here.

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Precedents in SCOTUS nominations

 

Instapundit has the goods (click to embiggen if necessary):

DON’T KNOW MUCH ABOUT HISTORY: But the important thing to Alyssa Milano is that someone is paying attention to Alyssa Milano.

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193

Pamela Geller: Big Tech censorship and the Election

 

At American Thinker, Pamela Geller comments on Allum Bokhari’s new book on Big Tech censorship.  It’s worse than we thought.  Ms. Geller begins:

Allum Bokhari, the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News, has performed an extraordinarily valuable service by giving us his new book #Deleted: Big Tech’s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal the Election. 

. . .

In #Deleted, Allum Bokhari tells the whole shocking story. For those who don’t realize the implications of what is going on, he includes a Prologue entitled “The Typewriter That Talked Back” that is as amusing as it is disturbing, and that makes abundantly clear even to the most technically challenged among us what is really happening to our foremost and most important freedom, right under our noses. Bokhari paints a vivid picture of a 1968 in which a typewriter refuses to type, typing instead its own message: “We regret to inform you that your last letter violated our terms of service (Rule 32: Abusive & Offensive Content). We have suspended access to your typewriter for 24 hours.” Newsstands remove from sale magazines that third-party “fact-checkers” have deemed to be “fake news.” The Post Office returns your mail because you told a joke in a letter that a censor found offensive.

It’s all funny until you realize that all this is exactly what email providers and big tech censors are doing to Americans today, every day on the Internet. In the pre-Internet world of 1968, it would have been preposterous. Americans would not have accepted it. But it has all happened gradually, as we gave away our freedom by clicking our agreement to dense and unreadable Terms of Service that turned over our right to say what we believe to shadowy, anonymous guardians of acceptable opinion. Most Americans today are only dimly aware, at best, that it is happening at all, and those that are approach it with grim resignation. After all, what are you going to do? Start your own Facebook?

Having been one of the early targets of social media censorship on Facebook, YouTube et al, I have for many years advocated for anti-trust action against these bullying behemoths. Bokhari makes an airtight case in #Deleted for why such action is necessary.

Read the full column here.  And it’s scary to think that even if millions of Facebook users cancelled their accounts, nothing would change.

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Today’s meme on next week's debate

The Trump - Biden debate is scheduled for next Tuesday, Sept. 29 in Cleveland.  Will it actually take place? Meme via Patriot Post:

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Boos for Gov. DeWine

 

Paula Bolyard at PJ Media reports on the Trump rally in Dayton and his introduction of Gov. Mike DeWine:

President Trump, as is customary at these events, introduced Republican Gov. Mike DeWine at his rally in Dayton, Ohio, on Monday—only to have the audience loudly boo the governor, who had imposed a statewide masking order in July that has been wildly unpopular with the president’s base.

“We’re joined today by a real good friend of mine, somebody that’s been with me from the beginning and I’ve been with him from the beginning, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine,” the president began. “Where’s Mike?” he asked, to a spattering of applause. Trump looked around, seemingly unable to spot DeWine in the crowd—and then the boos began. “What’s that all about?” he quipped, looking a bit confused. “He’s opening up,” Trump said, trying to defend the governor. “He’s a good man.”

The rest of the report is here.  President Trump describes Gov. DeWine as “a good man”?  The Ohio Governor who keeps moving the goalposts on mask mandates and onerous regulations that hamper opening up businesses?  Gov. DeWine seems to have been enjoying his role as a petty tyrant.  Not good.

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