@Adam_Cadmon1@mastodon.online one way to put it is it’s usually predictably *oppositional* journalism, writing against or trying to debunk perspectives of the “mainstream” or “corporate” media.

but it’s even more predictable than that. there might be many different frames/perspectives at variance with a US/Western mainstream. "independent journalists” a very particular frame, oppositional to and undermining of status quo US/Western projects + authorities.

sometimes perusasively! sometimes not.

The perspective of people who style themselves “independent journalist” is surprisingly predictable.

they call it horse race journalism but it feels more like a hearse race.

@carolannie no, i think as a practical matter, if you did want to worry about this, you’d say a vote doesn’t count if a death certificate has been issued by the day prior to election day, something like that. i don’t actually think we want to worry about this, regardless of the merits, i think the tiny numbers it applies to would be lost in the noise. i just think it’s an interesting case to think about.

practicalities aside *should* early votes by the election-day deceased count?

“The point of Open-Source isn’t and has never been ‘source available’. That’s just a prerequisite and a nice to have. The purpose has always been giving users the freedom to use for whatever purpose, or to fork the software, which in turn translates to lower development costs for the software makers.” @alexelcu https://alexn.org/blog/2024/09/06/trusting-open-source/

“This absurd both-sidesing is inherent to our terrible journalism culture but there is also something else going on here. Even with Harris in the race, Trump still has a ~45% chance of winning it all. If he does win, these journos don’t want to be on the “enemies” list. And there will be an enemies list this time around for sure if Trump does take the prize.” #Chill #quoderat #EpiceneCyborg https://www.technologyasnature.com/2024/09/06/president-evil/

@mattlehrer i love it!

Since Trump is a narcissist, he assumes the more that people see him, the more they will like him, so he’s unafraid of ad-libbing. In fact he’s terrible, but still his “indiscipline” communicates a kind of openness, he his what he is he has nothing to hide.

Kamala’s campaign is professional, “disciplined”. Which does prevent potentially costly gaffes! But the public does perceive the stage management, knows she is not “letting it all hang out”, wonders then if she might have something to hide.

@admitsWrongIfProven if you really wanted to, you could hold early drop-off/mail-in votes in their envelopes until election day, check the envelopes against recent death certificates, and throw away the (unopened) envelopes from voters who died. drop-off/mail-in votes are typically anonymous on the inside, but the outer envelope is identified and signed, so the voter can be checked against the voter roll (both as a valid voter, and to prevent multiple votes).

one flew over a (privatized) cuckoo’s nest. https://x.com/moreperfectus/status/1832055707908370915

@artcollisions (i’m subtooting JD Vance referring to school shootings as “a fact of life”.)

i liked it better when “the facts of life” referred to sex stuff.

@mattlehrer i guess the argument would be (1) election day is the relevant date for determining eligibility — ie if you turn 18 the day before election day, you can vote; and (2) those dead on election day would be ineligible to vote on election day, so their earlier votes are the inverse of the almost-18-year-old, the convenience of early voting can’t overcome their ineligibility.

@realcaseyrollins i doubt enough to matter. it’s just a corner case i’m curious about.

if you vote early or by mail, but then die before election day, does/should your vote count?

netanyahu and sinwar have gotten exactly what they wanted all along. it’s only everybody else who suffers.

@Zamfr well, i just openly tooted on the subject now! ;)

Given the news about Tenet Media — a DoJ indictment alleges $10M in secret Russian funding to support people like Tim Pool, Dave Rubin, Lauren Southern, etc — has anyone looked into the possibility that Substack subscriptions to very lucrative newsletters may not reflect organic subscribers, but may be sock-puppeted by sponsors interested in financing sympathetic media personalities?

@debrashannon 🙁