Attorney General Todd Blanche has declined to pledge DOJ’s independence from the White House and would not rule out similar suits in other states
Donald Trump says he ordered the Department of Justice to sue the state of Alaska in an effort to block the results of a U.S. Senate election from being certified, unless the incumbent Republican wins.
Government attorneys filed a lawsuit Friday arguing that the presence of Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. on the ballot would confuse voters who support the sitting senator, Daniel S. Sullivan, in the unusual matchup of two candidates with the same name up against a Democratic candidate.
“I’m the one that said do it,” Trump told reporters Friday. “They have two Dan Sullivans.”
Trump’s admission of an extraordinary intervention in the nation’s elections follows the president’s threats to overhaul election administration and assert federal control before critical midterm elections with the balance of power in Congress, and fate of his final years in office, at stake.
This is totally tinfoil-hat, but I could actually see the republicans having this guy run independent so they can get the precedent they need to reject certification of elections. ‘A plant to siphon votes’ is probably something the GOP would actually do atp to fuck with elections and we know how much they love projection. Ok tin-foil hat off, there’s zero evidence for that and maybe it really is just a coincidence, I honestly don’t have much information on the issue. And that’s probably giving them way too much credit anyway.
So what? For all we know JD Vance’s real name could be IM Cornhole.
Trump’s approach is definitely corrupt and yet another of the hundred reasons he should be in jail.
But… recent years have seen other flawed democracies where unknown candidates with no previous track record in politics and no party affiliation but who just so happen to have the same name as a major party’s candidate show up. There clearly needs to be something in place to mitigate these shenanigans, but it seems more like a fix that’s needed in the ballot design, rather than the insanity that Trump’s pushing.
recent years have seen other flawed democracies…
Which ones? I haven’t heard of this happening anywhere other than this.
What’s the problem? The other Dan Sullivan isn’t even allowed to run in the same party.
So the ballot will have Dan Sullivan with an R next to his name and him marked as the encumbent and the other Dan Sullivan having an I for indepent. If the voters can’t figure that out, I don’t know what to tell you…
I dunno. I think you want to make efforts to get at what the voters actually want, and that means making some allowances for voters being, y’know, fallible humans.
Have a look at the “butterfly ballot” used in Florida in the in 2000 presidential election:
Now, it’s pretty clear to me, looking at that, that the top hole is a vote for George W Bush, the hole below that is a vote for Pat Buchanan, and the hole below that is a vote for Al Gore. But it’s also obvious to me how a voter could think that the second hole is for Gore, as the listing on the left side of the ballot has Gore listed just below Bush. I wouldn’t make that mistake here, but it’s plausible to me that people would. And indeed, people did. Buchanan got a LOT more votes than his polling would lead you to expect; and while this was still a small number of overall voters, it was more voters than the margin in multiple counties, including Miami-Dade. And Florida had enough electors, and the national election was close enough, that how Florida went decided how the whole country went. That is, these few people (less than 2000) making this mistake may have been a deciding factor in the national election of George W. Bush.
So while, yes, it’s the vote they cast, and if they can’t handle something as simple as voting then maybe that’s on them… it’s not like it doesn’t matter. We should want the outcome of the election to reflect the will of the voters, and so it makes sense to make some effort to make it easy for them to vote for the person they actually want.
Elections aren’t usually close enough for this kind of thing to matter. But it sucks when it does.
It makes me want to look up some the attack ads to see how they differentiate. Like they can’t just “Dan Sullivan is piece of shit” lol
I think you’re letting what you want to be true override what you deep down know to actually be the case. But I guess I should know by now not to attempt injecting reality into an old fashioned partisan pile-on thread.
I could see the MAGA fucknuts having problems reading the name and the party that appears after the name. Tough shit and hopefully they lose the Senate seat.
They have ranked choice voting, so as long as those two are your top choices, it really doesn’t matter. And the “real” Dan Sullivan has his party and “incumbent” after his name.
This is how you know someone else is controlling him. He loves taking credit for someone else’s idea.
He tried to take credit for Obama’s economy he inherited 90 days into his first term.
He is one of the most litigious men in history. Is it really a surprise at this point. He has already sued himself and was declared the winner so the sky is the limit apparently.
He has been a defendant over four thousand times. That just boggles the mind.
It’s all above board. Why would anyone think otherwise? Corrupt piece of shit said something… oooh, that news!
Look how tiny his stupid little hand is
His words are drivel.
One of the ways to fight cancer is to cut it off with blades
I like that there are a few ways that involve shooting it with a laser.
Blasting it with explosive radiation is fun
Explosive?
Woodchipper
First of all, the headline focuses on Trump’s order but fails to inform people of the more important fact that a lawsuit has actually been filed.
Government attorneys filed a lawsuit Friday arguing that the presence of Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. on the ballot would confuse voters who support the sitting senator, Daniel S. Sullivan, in the unusual matchup of two candidates with the same name up against a Democratic candidate.
Second, this has already been adjudicated, it’s a matter of state law, and the case isn’t ripe because they are suing over a hypothetical that has not happened yet.
But even if there weren’t all those other reasons to toss out the suit, the whole thing is nonsense anyway because Alaska has ranked choice voting. Anyone who is confused can pick both Daniel Sullivans. The only way it could possibly become an issue is if the two Dans come in first and second, which has effectively no chance of happening.
No, no. You don’t understand. Ranked choice voting is Dumb! And confusing!
/S
So say the advertisements I have been subjected to for the last 4 months. (Some morons are trying to repeat it, again, and their advertising campaign is LITERALLY that it is “dumb, dumb, dumb”
They did a nice job labeling the different Dans. I early voted, and apparently, I am not Dumb, Dumb, Dumb, because I am 100% certain I was able to rank the Dan I wanted to, and not rank the Dan that is a giant PoS, as one was clearly marked “incumbent”.
Honestly, I’m pretty sure most R voters are just looking for the letter next to the name and not the name itself these days
My state population was genius enough to vote for ranked choice voting to be illegal. How we still managed to make abortion accessible at the same time I’ll never know, but then we’re voting on that yet again this election – this time with the added attempt to outlaw transgender surgery for minors in the same amendment! Which is already illegal here…
This fuckin state drives me crazy
Hmmm… Missouri? That place really seems like it sucks.
I think it’s where they tried to confusingly phrase a ballot initiative to repeal the state constitutional amendment they’d passed to guarantee abortion.
You seem to have an awful lot of faith in the law of a country that has a pedophile felon president.
no-one is going to enforce the constitution so perhaps it’s time to get used to living a christian nationalist nazi confederacy
I knew they wouldn’t do shit after J6. It was just disappointing to know all those “Tree of liberty needs to be watered” folk were the real bootlickers all along. Glad I got out of the US, so I don’t have to deal with that theocratic shit hole Reich that’s embedding itself into government
I’m glad for you that you were able to get out, but still vote by mail if you can!
You filled a bag and ran bro. Not sure why you’re so proud of that. You’re a beneficiary of the burg reich who timed things well enough to avoid consequences smugly dismissing those of us still being tread on as bootlickers and it really rubs me the wrong way
I can’t blame the bro for leaving. The Jewish people who stayed in Nazi Germany until it was too late, mostly died. There was no virtue in staying, no bravery, no solidarity with the other victims. It didn’t change anything, except for them dying instead of living. It didn’t help anyone except the nazis to kill them. There was no reason to stay.
Every one of the victims would have been better off leaving while they could, so anyone staying behind and saying “no guys, stay behind with me or else I’ll call you all cowards” harms their fellows far worse than the ones saying “I’m leaving while I can, and you should too.”
Besides, bro can still vote by mail. There’s literally no reason to stay if you have somewhere else you can go. Not leaving does nothing to help the people who can’t leave.
And if I’m reading their comment right, they didn’t call you a bootlicker. Unless, that is, if you were at J6. In which case, well…
“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants” is the full quote he used there. It’s a call to revolutionary action by Thomas Jefferson. He’s condemning the lack of some kind of violent response to the Jan 6th stuff while himself big chillin somewhere cozy on the wealth he managed to extract from the USA (read: it’s victims around the world). Feels a lot less like a persecuted jew taking flight, and a lot more like someone’s nephew setting up shop in Argentina.
Whether or not you can make a difference by standing your ground and showing a little solidarity is a whole other can of worms, more debatable but I’m stuck here and can’t help resenting someone who’s clearly got the resources to help for bailing instead. If you can’t see any virtue bravery or solidarity in the people who helped one another survive ghettos and concentration camps, the people who smuggled those actually in danger to freedom, or the people who formed literal armed resistance movements I really don’t know what to tell you
I know the quote. The point the commenter was making is that the people who always chant it (i.e., 2A folks) were, in the end, the ones who stormed the Capitol at the behest of their favorite dictator.
You don’t know that the commenter is chilling on a pile of wealth. He might be a sysadmin and got a job at some startup in Estonia for all you know. Try not making uncharitable assumptions about people while preaching from your high martyrdom horse.
Whether or not you can make a difference by standing your ground and showing a little solidarity
Solidarity isn’t unilateral, and unless you’re lucky enough to live somewhere where that actually exists among your neighbors, then no exertion of willpower on your part will make it happen. And yeah, standing your ground alone is suicidal.
I’m stuck here and can’t help resenting someone who’s clearly got the resources to help for bailing
That sucks, I’m stuck here too, but I don’t resent people who get out while they can, because if I could I would too. Your resentment is your problem, not theirs.
If you can’t see any virtue bravery or solidarity in the people who helped one another survive ghettos and concentration camps, the people who smuggled those actually in danger to freedom, or the people who formed literal armed resistance movements
That’s a misreading of what I said. When did I say that? I said the people demanding that others stay did more harm to anyone foolish enough to listen to them. Bringing a few dozen extra neighbors to the camps with them wouldn’t save anybody. Are we crabs in a bucket?
Which one of those things are you doing, by the way? Are you helping anyone survive? Are you smuggling anyone to freedom? Are you forming an armed resistance? And if the other commenter stayed, do you think they’d be in any position to do those things either?
Or is all you’re doing demanding that people stay and keep themselves in danger? If I offered to let you climb over me to escape the bucket, wouldn’t you take me up on it? Would you remain behind just to keep pulling others down when they try to climb out?
This is honestly too much for me to reply to through a phone, so here’s a few poorly articulated bullet points.
Assuming everyone who thinks a state monopoly on violence is bad is against you is idiotic and self defeating. Even on a reread (which I did before replying to you earlier and again just now) I’m pretty confident they’re making the equally dumb assertation that there should have been an armed response to the J6 bullshit and that the lack thereof is somehow hypocritical.
It’s expensive as hell to move at all, emigration moreso, and anyone able to make it out of here was doing pretty well in the first place to pull that off. Community is pretty much all I’ve got, and I build that every day through consistent participation. Whether I want to or not, because we need each other. It absolutely takes ‘willpower’ and has nothing at all to do with luck. That’s exactly what makes it happen and the only thing that can.
Re: resentment? Nobody’s perfect, said I couldn’t help it, their attitude and the criticism coming down from such a privileged position got to me. You have no idea how life changing even the price of dude’s plane ticket out itself would be down here. He’s the crab who made it out and is kinda being a dick about it, where I’m committed to tipping the bucket if I want to live (solidarity/collective action is the only hope of pulling that off).
You literally said there was no virtue, bravery, or solidarity in staying behind and doing so changed nothing, wish I could quote.
The attempted callout is deeply hypocritical a couple lines after telling me not to make uncharitable assumptions, and I’m not about to dox myself to validate the efforts I make to you. Absolutely working my ass off to get myself and others through this though, despite often failing to do so. The tendency for anyone with the resources to do so to put the Rational Self Interest we’re conditioned for above the needs of the many really doesn’t help. They’re in a much better position to help than I am and chose not to.
Begging, pleading, entreating would all be better words than demanding for whatever the hell it is I’m doing here. Not exactly operating from a position of power. I’ve turned down opportunities for myself because of the position it would leave my community in more than once, it’s what makes me a part of it and what lets me feel like a good person.
Let’s reread what they said:
It was just disappointing to know all those “Tree of liberty needs to be watered” folk were the real bootlickers all along.
That reads to me as: “The people who quote that line turned out to be the ones who support fascism.” In other words, “The don’t tread on me people turned out to enjoy being treaded on/treading on others.”
Maybe you read it differently, but if my reading is correct, then I’d say the other commenter wasn’t lying. Calling that “assuming everyone who thinks a state monopoly on violence is bad” is… a take…
Community is pretty much all I’ve got, …
Okay. That’s a privilege. If you think everyone in this country has that opportunity, you’re assuming everyone is in a similar situation as your own, which is ignorant.
Do you think a trans person in Alabama could build community solidarity by an act of willpower alone? Or a gay man in Nebraska, or a lesbian woman in Utah, or a Latino person in Mississippi?
I’m assuming from your words that your neighbors are mostly anti-maga. Do you really think that’s the norm everywhere in this country? Because if it was, we wouldn’t be in this mess to begin with.
And by the way, are you assuming that the other commenter is a cishetero white man? Because if literally anyone else were to get out while they could, would you still be so opposed to it? I didn’t see anything in their comment that indicates one way or another.
their attitude and the criticism coming down from such a privileged position got to me.
Let’s look at the rest of their comment:
I knew they wouldn’t do shit after J6.
Obviously talking about the government here, who failed to prosecute the leaders of that insurrection.
Glad I got out of the US
I would be too.
so I don’t have to deal with that theocratic shit hole Reich that’s embedding itself into government
They ain’t wrong.
What about this sounds condescending to you?
You literally said there was no virtue, bravery, or solidarity in staying behind and doing so changed nothing, wish I could quote.
Doing so literally changes nothing, ergo there is no virtue or bravery in it, only stupidity (if it’s done by choice when there’s an alternative option, at least).
You might be able to argue that there can be solidarity in that, but it’s the solidarity of crabs in the steamer. There’s no shame in climbing overboard, but there is shame in dragging someone back down when they’re trying to climb out. Not sure how you don’t see that.
The tendency for anyone with the resources to do so to put the Rational Self Interest we’re conditioned for above the needs of the many really doesn’t help. They’re in a much better position to help than I am and chose not to.
The cost of a plane ticket is not enough to fix this mess. Just because they got outta here doesn’t mean they could have done anything to help even if they had stayed.
Not exactly operating from a position of power.
None of us are, dude. That’s why some of us leave.
I’ve turned down opportunities for myself because of the position it would leave my community in more than once, it’s what makes me a part of it and what lets me feel like a good person.
Would you do the same if 90% of your community were malicious, ignorant magas?
I would leave too if my wife wasn’t insistent on staying here. Dunno where I’d go, but it seems like it’s about to get bad, and I’m honestly afraid there’s going to be a lot of needless deaths in the near future.
Wherever you go, there you are. Start a garden, learn first aid, get a gun, and most important of all meet your neighbors.
e: oh yeah and if you do make it to paradise maybe avoid talking shit about those of us left behind
OP isn’t talking shit about you. Their comment is nothing but the truth. Dunno why you’re so sensitive about this. We are all stuck in the same boat right now.
…they’re calling everyone still stuck in the US who hasn’t gone out in a blaze of glory a bootlicker from whatever comfy bolthole they’ve been blessed with. Not an option for the vast majority of us, especially those who actually need it. They aren’t stuck in the same boat, they’re very clear (and smug, and self-righteous) about that. It’s exactly what irritated me. Dunno why you felt the need to involve yourself, or what truth you’re finding so resonant
they’re calling everyone still stuck in the US who hasn’t gone out in a blaze of glory a bootlicker
No they’re not? You’re putting words in their mouth and then getting mad at them over something they never said.
The bootlickers are the MAGA dipshits who voted these chucklefucks into office. Reread their comment, and stop reacting to shit people never said.
Civil War is the real Halloween horror movie choice for October 2026.
It’s so weird how the cons have to rely on all this sort of shit.
Instead of, you know, running on a record where they are actually doing something for all of the American people.
Not just stealing the country blind and enriching themselves to the tune of billions, while throwing bones to the rabid right wing that they think will “make liberals cry again”.
Their platform sucks so they have to cheat and lie, always been this way, but enough keep choosing to make things worse and regress every other time.
Its also nuts that no one seems to take any notice.
I feel like everyone’s spare kidney is being harvested and no one actually notices.
Your body came with a spare?
Most people are born with an extra kidney, that’s why you can donate one and still live
But if I was Born with two, then I don’t have a spare.
Yes you do, you can live with one
Doesn’t everyone’s?
If that moron had any neurons at all, he’d know to keep his plots quiet. How can someone simultaneously so stupid and evil become President of the United States?
Because a lot of Americans are fucking stupid and racist
Bigotry of all kinds (racism, sexism, homophobia, ableism, etc…) are a symptom of stupidity. Only stupid people cling to uneducated beliefs and refuse to believe the information that explains why they’re wrong
The answer is enough stupid and evil people chose it. They literally chose the rapist, traitor liar.
He knows he doesn’t need to keep quiet because nothing is going to be done about it
He does it because there are absolutely zero consequences for him doing it.
The dude has effectively gotten away with being a rapist and a paedophile. A little thing like election interference won’t stop him.
Right, then every election will have multiple candidate with the same name and no election results will ever be valid again.
