Donald Trump's Republican allies have suffered a string of courtroom setbacks in battleground U.S. presidential election states as Election Day draws closer, losses that could boost voter turnout and speed certification of the eventual winner.
In the past three weeks, Trump's allies have been dealt at least 10 court losses in battleground states that could decide the outcome of the Nov. 5 contest between Republican former President Trump and his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris.On Friday, they were dealt another loss in Virginia, when a federal judge blocked the state's removal of people it said had not proved their citizenship from its voter rolls.U.S. District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles said the removal ran afoul of a federal prohibition on purging large numbers of voters in the 90 days before an election. The state, which is not a swing state this election, said it would appeal.The other decisions include four rulings against Republicans in Georgia, where judges have blocked last-minute changes to election rules championed by Trump's allies, including one that would have required poll workers to hand count ballots, as well as cases seeking to purge voter rolls and block some Americans who are living overseas from voting.The party's recent losses suggest its legal strategy is coming up short in court, which some legal experts said will likely be a net positive for voter turnout. The losses in Georgia, meanwhile, will likely make it easier for officials there to quickly count and certify vote totals, the experts said."If courts had accepted some of these arguments, it could have had a huge impact on voter disenfranchisement," said Richard Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles... (our emphasis)
As we head into the final stretch of the cycle, Donald Trump, who has made his entire candidacy a referendum on immigration, will not discuss his mass deportation plans in detail—not in a recent Univision town hall nor his one debate with Kamala Harris. That’s a tell.
Since those debates, Trump has only leaned deeper into mass deportations, while Harris has aggressively made her case about how she will help Latinos economically, a telling reset to reach Latino voters in the final weeks of the election.
Trump knows that explaining what mass deportations entail would be a disaster for him. Yes, some polls show an alarming rise in support for mass deportations. However, when voters are made aware of how much it costs and the human toll it would take in terms of family separations and the removal of decades-long residents, mass deportation becomes politically toxic.
Mass deportations would be ugly; they would require local law enforcement to work with federal law enforcement to remove law-abiding residents, many of whom have woven their lives and livelihoods into the fabric of their communities. It would separate mixed-status families, leaving children who have been here their whole lives without their parents. We are still dealing with the aftermath of the last time the Trump administration separated families at our southern border—one of the ugliest moments in the modern history of our country. [snip]
"We have to tell that story and not let Trump define immigration for our country," Valiente Action Fund executive director Maria Rodriguez said. "When we identify the specifics of what Trump is proposing with mass deportations, as was done in the ad Playbook 2025, and tell the story of what he is planning on doing on immigration, it moves voters." ... (our emphasis)
Beyond the human cost, the economic cost of the Malignant Loser's fascistic plan would be catastrophic. But, there was more last night at Madison Square Garden --
Donald Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden, billed as a triumphant homecoming, turned into a political fiasco on Sunday night as a pro-Trump comedian’s racist diatribe drew furious condemnation, including from prominent Republicans.
The rally, held just more than a week before Election Day, was intended to serve as a platform for Trump to make his closing argument. But the racist slurs and vulgarity of the former president’s opening acts were so striking — and sparked such backlash — that his campaign was left on the defensive and issued a disavowal.
The event began with comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, host of the “Kill Tony” podcast, who opened the rally with a set replete with slurs about Latinos, African Americans and other groups that Trump’s campaign is actively targeting to turn out for the former president.
Latinos “love making babies. There’s no pulling out. They come inside, just like they do to our country,” Hinchcliffe said to laughter inside the arena. He added: “There’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico.” [snip]
But his derogatory comments and the slew of offensive remarks offered up by the pillars of Trump’s political movement throughout the hours-long program quickly overshadowed the spectacle of the event that drew thousands of MAGA faithful to the heart of Manhattan and was designed to serve as a capstone to the former president’s two-year attempt at a political comeback.
Trump supporter David Rem called Harris the “anti-Christ.” Businessman Grant Cardone claimed Harris has “pimp handlers.” Radio host Sid Rosenberg called Hillary Clinton, Trump’s 2016 rival and a former secretary of state, a “sick son of a bitch” and cast Democrats more broadly as “Jew-haters and lowlives.” [snip]
In his own speech, Trump reprised some of his harshest remarks about immigration, with his calls to weed out “the enemy from within.”
Trump, who has demonized migrants, called for the death penalty for “any migrant who kills an American citizen or a law enforcement officer,” and at one point stopped to show a video about Venezuelan migrants and gang activity in New York.
The crowd responded by chanting: “Send them back.”...
The hatred, the racism, the bigotry, the anti-Semitism, the punching down, the dark fascism -- pure, undiluted Trump and his MAGAt cult at the site of a 1939 American Nazi rally, no less. That's their closing argument. It's all out in the open for
anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear. They're telling you who they are. Believe them. (Aaron Rupar has a mega thread of the rally if you want to get more of the sickening show. More later in "Tweets/ Xeets Of The Day.")
BONUS: Tengrain did his own research and found this interesting stat of people of Puerto Rican heritage in key states--
- PA: 467,000
- FL: 1,200,000
- TX: 230,000
- NC: 115,000
- GA: 109,000
- WI: 65,000
- OH: 137,000
Vote!
