It looks and feels like everyone is waiting out what happens in November and with it what happens in January... (There might not even be an inauguration in January, Trump might begin his day 1 dictatorship right after he claims winning the elections, and has his goons to support him)

Everybody that matters now is frozen from acting untill past the election, while imo now should be the time to intervene and not let it roll onwards, remove one of the chess pieces now and the momentum might not be unstoppable.

I've been gently pushing for the same message but at best hear people say "oh it's just politics, and we have laws against all this so it will be years before anything can truely change"

Hitler's power was solidified in a matter of months, whereby he threatened and/or had his political opposition killed. Then he came with the excuse "I don't believe my people did this"

No one dared say any of it was against the laws, he was fully above the law and shielded anyone he felt worthy of the same, ofcourse he would have them dissappear when their use ran out..

I have hope democracy prevails... But also a big feeling that the republicans have all their pawns lined up for a perfect storm this time (and half of them are still hidden), allowing them to be able to semi legally brush the election results aside. They had 6+ years to prepare...

Only a true landslide of blue votes might be able to give some of them pause, a small difference would be ignored and decided upon faster than Gore vs Bush.

Trump will declare a win regardless of the outcome.

Very pleasing how he put the girl in the background :-)

Pleasantly surprised he is mentioned in that way.

I stood near him on "conventions" a few times with some years in between and he is such a nasty person both while making phone calls and in the way he treats others/his staff.

Comes over as someone who can't find any joy in the small things in his life and p*sses on everyone else because of it.

Trump could now argue he, as sitting president, was threatened in his functioning by the new president elect, and it was an official act to block the transfer of power as long as the sitting president has concerns about the validity of the votes. (Ofcourse he always has those concerns)

And now with the coming elections he will claim the same and as a bonus he officially and in the open has the republicans refuse to certify a losing vote because that also threatens his position and impedes his functioning.

If the lower courts now claim his acts were not official he will just appeal that back to the Supreme Court, thereby still delaying any closure of the case well after the elections.

This is not a new revelation, I guess it just eluded a lot of people watching the movies.

Palpatine could do it on a galaxy wide scale, Yoda mentions "The Dark Side clouds everything" in the prequels.

I don't remember which, but in various games the Dark Side users had similar powers.

Also, Obi Wan influences the mind of stormtroopers etc. it is a logical conclusion that Dark Side users have abilities like it.

That it is now done in the middle of a lightsaber fight just means the one doing it is trained in this style of combat.

Ofcourse imo it still is bad writing if it works on just about every jedi, in their prime, attacking him in that group.

Trump demanded the debate, Biden should have demanded thorough fact checks with graphs and balances.

I personally would not have stepped in any debate setting with a certified liar and scammer without any sort of fact checking, it's just foolishness.

You bring up a point there that I have not seen many people consider: Where is Kamala Harris in all this? And from the outside it is as simple as that.

A friend in Europe said: Biden is everywhere but we never see or hear from the VP. In this time of big elections I find that odd.

Cancelation fees (and steep ones at that) on digital goods/"services" ... shows how far things sunk towards the lower hells.

They'll unseal them but all envelopes contain only an "I Owe You" from Trump, and under his signature he wrote in small font "I declassified them after I took them home"

I watch YouTube content on my tv, and get ads, next to using it on my PC where I block them. Generally I did not mind the ads, since it is part of the business model.

But frankly the experience on the tv is degrading quickly in the last 12 months:

From 2 skippable ads at the start (and end) of a video, I now get 2 longer unskippable ones, but regularly it doubles to 4 and a 5th that is either short or skippable. And if it's still 2 at the start then usually 1-2 mins in I see 2 more long ads ... If I have the gall to rewind or forward the video I get 2 more long ads, usually followed by 2 short ones a minute or two later... Some of that is probably ad-space tagged by the creators, but clearly YT overrules that and places its own ad markers.

Slowly I feel it's leaning towards punishment to watch content on YT, at least on the tv.

On top of that there is the annoying interface that blocks a full 30% of the screen, often blocking the one thing I wanted to look at. Then the ads that always break subtitles of the video, or somehow enforcing subtitles in a language that I can not read.

And don't get me started on the topic-bubble the algorithm captures the user in.

YT should have left it as it was a few years ago, but it is forcing more and more ads, making things unfriendlier for both the viewer and creator, all to squeeze the viewers for more and more revenue.

It's a shame it's all so detrimental to the wealth of knowledge on there.

So if a good and proper alternative is able to stand on its feet I will gladly follow the creators and watch the new stuff on there.