Thoughts and prayers, thoughts and prayers. Oh, they're still dead? Just pray harder.

I went to the WA SOS site and it appears that you're correct. I had never thought of the VBM term as encompassing the distribution of ballots. In my mind "voting" is the act of filling in the little circles, popping the ballot into the envelope(s), and returning the ballot somehow. So yes, if Republicans can successfully prevent the distribution of ballots, that's going to be a huge problem in WA state and other states that use primarily VBM. As for "absentee" ballots, I'd heard the term but not in a long time, and mentally associated it with voting systems back east where I'm from and where VBM did not exist when I lived there. An "absentee" ballot was something you requested if you were going to be unable to physically get to the polling location for some reason.

Joshua Aviles says he is on a nine-month Middle East deployment and learned his father has been arrested

Another one of Orange Diaper Baby's "thank you for your service" moments. The entire crew of the Lincoln must hate him. He'll say they've all turned Communist and will insist the ship stay deployed forever.

No, not only mail-in ballots. Voters may choose to mail-in their ballots or submit them the old-fashioned ways. For some, mailing their ballots is easier than old ways and increases voter participation. Republicans want to discourage voter participation, hence the war on voting by mail.

The ballots here arrive in the mail. That includes envelopes to enclose them in when you return them, either by mail or by drop-off somewhere. I've not yet heard of the distribution of ballets by mail being a target of Republicans, but it could happen. Then we'd be back to the real oldy-time voting methods of having to physically go into a polling center where you only got your ballot on arrival. Republicans would love that, because it both discourages voting and would feel like something from the 40s and 50s, the era when America Was Great. Polling centers would also allow greater control over who got to vote - darker-skinned people or people of non-European heritage or women or the disabled or anyone who looked "weird" could be easily turned away without even having seen a ballot.

I'm in WA and I never vote by mail. That's mainly because there's a real ballot box not far from me and not much farther from me than the USPS office. But it's also because it eliminates the opportunity for someone in the mail delivery chain to steal, destroy, or misdirect my ballot.

I'm imagining a Drumpf intervention being something like a Venezuelan one. Helicopters and paratroopers over Wall St (and maybe over other international financial centers at the same time), soldiers rounding up traders, flying them off to concentration camps (losing a few out the door on the way, just for show) where they'd loosen their ties and drink WormyWater while their wounds festered.

Orangeboi would then demand a 10% cut of all portfolios as reparations, paid to his shell companies and friends and family. The traders would be replaced with puppets, no longer concerned with profits, but instead with maximizing the ego-yield for Diaper-baby. Demands would be made nightly on Truth Trading with the expectation of fulfillment the following morning.

Rinse & repeat with equity markets.

I live in Spokane. I was recently shooting the shit with a stranger, 50-something guy. Not five minutes into the convo I had to learn about how he'd re-discovered his "T"(estosterone) as a result of some specific exercises and how he felt better than ever as a result. I then heard some ordinary removed about "kids these days" (being disrespectful) and then on to a grouse about how public school teachers were targeting young students to convince them that they were the opposite of their birth sex ... in other words, to "turn them trans". He had grandkids, and these teachers were a threat to them. At this point I was just thinking "WTF" and turned on the grayrocking machine, but later started to wonder where all this came from (the T hobby, disrespect, trans conspiracies) and all I could think of was online "influencers" of some kind. The guy looked/seemed pretty "normal", but apparently was a host to various kinds of angers that could be channeled, by the right forces, into very specific beliefs and quite possibly, actions.

Local coverage: https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2026/aug/20/i-just-fought-for-my-life-on-my-front-lawn-transge/

Weed for some people is anxiety train to nightmareville

Yeah, for me, high doses of THC, like through edibles, induces panic attacks, which are double-plus unfun. Lower doses, like through smoking, mainly make me "feel dumb" rather than feel relaxed. It would be interesting to have the sensation of "chilling out" that other users seem to get from weed, but I've never experienced it. Alcohol, on the other hand, makes me feel great and very chill and relaxed up to a point. I would still use it (bitter IPAs are the best but brewers are cranking up alcohol content way too high these days) if it weren't for bad interactions w/chronic illnesses and with other prescription Rxs.

That's odd. I don't remember what word I used there but whatever it was I'd be surprised if it was censorship-worthy. b.i.t.c.h.i.n.g maybe?

Paywalled, ghostarchive link returns an error.

I don't have any devices that need volate at all so I'm unconcerned.

Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bon_Secours_Mother_and_Baby_Home .

The mothers were required to stay inside the home for one year, doing unpaid work for the nuns, as reimbursement for some of the services rendered. They were separated from their children, who remained separately in the home, raised by nuns, until they could be adopted – often without consent.

Some women who had had two confinements were sent directly to nearby Magdalene laundries after giving birth, as punishment for their perceived "recidivism". According to Professor Maria Luddy, "Such a stance, though not intended to be penal, allowed for the development of an attitude that accepted detention as a means of protecting society from these reoffending women.

Confinements. Punishment. Detention. Reoffending women.

earmarking $45 billion to detain 100,000 migrants

$450K per migrant. I wonder which MAGA-sponsoring corporations are going to see that payday, and I wonder what % of it they'll be kicking-back to Orange and Elmo? We've got a lot of citizens here. Kidnapping them at government expense will be extremely profitable, even at today's rates.

"Congressman Michael Baumgartner is currently serving his first term in the U.S. House of Representatives where he represents the people of Washington State’s 5th Congressional District." https://baumgartner.house.gov/about

He's a MAGA bootlicker and is unfit for office. What an embarrassment to our nation he is.

Concentration camps.

The California-based Raw Milk Institute called the warnings "clearly fearmongering." The institute's founder, Mark McAfee, told the Los Angeles Times this weekend that his customers are, in fact, specifically requesting raw milk from H5N1-infected cows. According to McAfee, his customers believe, without evidence, that directly drinking high levels of the avian influenza virus will give them immunity to the deadly pathogen.

By all means, drink up, morons, get the hell out of our gene pool, we've got enough troubles without your Dimwit DNA.

I think that's overly optimistic.

Concentration camps for foreigners and racial undesirables, political prisoners put away forever for thoughtcrimes, mass surveillance by the government, theocracy on the rise ... never thought I'd see it, or any part of it, in my lifetime in the US.