Voter Suppression Tactics Are Being Reported in Alabama 

Dunno about you but I’m looking forward to a long, sensual evening in the arms of my smartphone tonight.

Here’s all the shit we couldn’t cover today:

• As polls in the Alabama Senate race inch toward their closing hour, reports are pouring in of long lines, confusion, voter intimidation tactics, and voter ID issues. The New York Times reports that some voters had received inaccurate texts telling them their polling place had moved, while others reported that law enforcement officials were intimidating voters. Many voters are reportedly confused over having been labeled “inactive,” and civil rights groups have reportedly received hundreds of complaints today. [New York Times, Mother Jones]
• The Moore campaign, meanwhile, really went balls-to-the-wall today! Some very smart people on this team, folks! [The Hill, CNN/Twitter]
• And the Alabama Supreme Court has stayed a lower court’s order that would have forced election officials to preserve voting records in the case of, say, a recount, or evidence of vote tampering. Which is a pretty weird thing to not want! [The Hill]
• Speaking of courts, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th circuit will henceforth be treated to the opinions of Leonard Steven Grasz, who earned a unanimous “not qualified” rating from the American Bar Association. Thank you to the Republican Senate which confirmed his judicial nomination today. [Huffington Post]
• So sorry, but I would like to present you with a fairly disturbing paragraph from a Bloomberg report on Steve Bannon’s role in the Moore campaign: “Bannon worked to create a counter-narrative that ultimately would change many Republicans’ perception of the scandal. A former filmmaker, he’s long been captivated by the propaganda films of Leni Riefenstahl, the Nazi filmmaker, and the Soviet director Sergei Eisenstein for their power to shape public sentiment. Earlier this year, Bannon told the New Yorker’s Jane Mayer his 2012 anti-Obama film ‘The Hope and the Change,’ had consciously mimicked Riefenstahl’s infamous, ‘Triumph of the Will.’ Her film, he added, ‘seared into me’ that unhappy voters could be influenced if they felt they were being conned.” [Bloomberg]
• Would it surprise you to hear that the Republican tax bill, which is quickly coming together in conference, financially benefits many of the corrupt psychos who wrote it? [International Business Times]
• In an unexpected move, Republican Sen. and Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley has pushed back against a few of Trump’s most extreme judicial nominees. [CNN]

Here are some tweets the president was allowed to publish:

This has been Barf Bag.