Austere News & Opinion

News aggregation and commentary on current events, politics, news. #TX #ATX 🇺🇸🇭🇷 and a 4 word quote in NY Post

[AltAzn @Alt_Azn]

The mail in ballots support raising taxes too, what are the odds?

[Susan Shelley @Susan_Shelley]

The "Yes" vote has almost caught up to the "No" vote on Measure ER, the 0.5% general sales tax increase in Los Angeles County that was sold to voters as necessary to prevent mass death. The June 6 update from L.A. County:

[Miles Cranmer @MilesCranmer]

This is an insane paper and I love it

https://t.co/DP8OR5NJf2

[Austere News & Opinion @commanderdata85]

@grok @ChristianHeiens How about the last 10 polls taken?

[F.A. United States Attorney Bill Essayli @USAttyEssayli]

If you have witnessed potential election fraud, we want to hear from you.

People have been contacting our office wanting to provide information. We have established a dedicated email address for this purpose.

Email tips to: [email protected]

Please do not send rumors, theories, or second-hand information. We require direct evidence. Examples of what to report:

• A ballot arrived at your home for someone who has never lived there.

• You were told someone already voted in your name.

• You witnessed someone filling out ballots for others without their knowledge.

[Justine Bateman @JustineBateman]

I find it very hard to believe that Bass' growth is flat and Raman's is exploding suddenly. I know a very wide and diverse group of people in LA and I don't know anyone who was voting for Raman.

[Spencer Pratt @spencerpratt]

Me trying to figure out how votes get counted in LA

[Adeo Ressi @adeoressi]

I organized an intervention to stop Elon from starting SpaceX. Here is the story...

Twenty five years ago, Elon and I sat in a car on a dark stretch of Long Island highway, two neurodiverse geeks staring at the night sky and wondering what came next. We had both experienced substantial exits and felt the weight of possibility ahead of us.

When I joked about 'space' while gazing upward, neither of us imagined we were planting the seed for what would become the largest IPO in history. We spent the next two hours debating why space was so hard. In the end, rockets are fuel and metal. We also debated where to go, and it was crystal clear that Mars was the only real destination.

Upon returning to NYC, we embarked on a global tour of space, meeting space agencies and luminaries worldwide. This opened our eyes to an industry stuck in bureaucratic thinking. If things continued at that pace, it was clear that we would never explore space in our lifetime.

So, we launched Life to Mars to show the world that two ambitious young men (29 and 30 years old), could send life to Mars without any government backing or support. We planned to send and grow plants on Mars, though some were pushing us to send mice.

We had a $50 MM budget that rested on our purchase of two Russian ICBMs for $7 MM each. We assumed one ICBM would fail, and we would learn and fix everything before launching again. When Elon went back to actually buy the ICBMs, the Russians tripled the price, bringing out launch costs from a total of $14 MM to $42 MM.

Our ambitious Life to Mars plan was no longer viable.

As you might imagine, Elon was not pleased. So, he decided to start SpaceX and create his own Mars rockets. Now, this is a crazy idea, both now and at the time, so I organized a large panel of top space experts, and we ambushed him at the Georgian Hotel one morning. It was set up like an intervention for an alcoholic, but for space.

Elon looked me in the eye when leaving the room and said, "I am going to do this." The intervention failed. Elon was committed. The rest is history.

I am excited to see this IPO after 25 years of hard work. What SpaceX has done is a testament to human will and overcoming insurmountable obstacles. It's nothing short of amazing.

Congratulations, E. Amazing.

[Austere News & Opinion @commanderdata85]

@TheBabylonBee

[Austere News & Opinion @commanderdata85]

“Ceasefire”

[MenchOsint @MenchOsint]

Around 80 IRGC Navy fast boats spotted in the strait of Hormuz

[Shipwreckedcrew @shipwreckedcrew]

How is she still there?

Didn't John Dingell die about 20 years ago?

Little known fact -- I've posted it here before.

Michigan gained 4 seats in Congress from the 1930 census. John Dingell Sr. successfully ran for one of those new seats in 1932. He was born in 1894.

He was re-elected 11 times and held the seat for 22 years when he died in office in 1955.

John Dingell Jr. was 29 years old and 3 years out of law school. His father died on Sept. 19, and a Special Election was held on Dec. 13 -- 85 days later.

John Dingell Jr. won the election, and then served 30 terms spanning 59 years, from 1955 to 2014. He announced he would not seek re-election in 2014 - he died in 2015 at age 92.

His wife Debbie ran to replace him in the 2014 election and won. She has since been reelected 5 times.

So three people -- and only 3 people -- all named "Dingell," have represented one of Michigan's "new" Congressional Districts for 94 years.

And no one else.

She is running for re-election in 2026 and has no primary opponent.

[Shipwreckedcrew @shipwreckedcrew]

Well put.

This IS the process the Calif Legis -- with veto-proof super-majorities that let it do what it wants -- put in place.

They DO NOT CARE about the criticism from outside the state.

The entire system is designed to MAXIMIZE ballot accumulation, with the barest minimums of safeguards against vote fraud.

Those minimums only pay lip service to the threat of vote fraud.

The elongated period for the receipt of ballots introduces TIME that creates opportunity for mischief that would not be present if all votes had to be in on election day.

The resort to mailing millions of unrequested ballots to unverified addresses puts the means for vote fraud into the public domain.

But it all begins at the Calif DMV where merely checking a box registers the person named to vote with no ID or proof of citizenship required. That person can then get a ballot mailed to them and cast that vote without any interference from state or county election officials.

It is entirely on the "Honor System."

[Austere News & Opinion @commanderdata85]

@SenateGOP sits on their hands and does nothing. Can’t pass a simple bill to stop this.

[Nate Silver @NateSilver538]

It's hard to overstate how much of an outlier California is for its slow vote-counting relative to literally any other state or almost any other industrialized democracy.

[Chris @chriswithans]

So this guy’s ballot was received by San Francisco county on Election Day June 2nd but still hasn’t been counted. They’ve had it all this time but it’s not been counted.

In this case, this is just sheer incompetence and laziness on the state’s part.

[PoIiMath @politicalmath]

This is really pulling the mask off. The previous narrative was "late ballots always lean toward Democrats, it's just demographics"

But now we are seeing that late ballots always lean toward the specific Democrat who needs more ballots.

That is not possible.

[Houman David Hemmati, MD, PhD @houmanhemmati]

🗳️ Many have been asking me describe the potential signature verification loophole for Los Angeles mail in ballots.

It says: “If a voter is unable to sign, the voter can make a mark witnessed by one person.”

Here, the person drew a happy face & “witnessed” it with a scribble. That scribble isn’t validated as being a real person. No name, nothing.

While a happy face may draw scrutiny, a plain line would not.

This could hypothetically enable mass harvesting where the voter never fills out, signs or even sees their own ballot.

We should be told how many ballots show up without the voter’s signature.

[Cynical Publius @CynicalPublius]

Remember:

The very purpose of mail-in ballots, no-ID laws, ballot harvesting and ballot drop boxes is to make it virtually impossible to prove widespread fraud while widespread fraud nevertheless routinely occurs.

[Austere News & Opinion @commanderdata85]

@TheAhmadOsman ✅