Comment on This Day in History: Oct. 26

If there's one thing that Republicans know about, it's voter fraud. They're just not very good at it though, as they keep getting caught. Source: Arizona Mirror Republican state Rep. Austin Smith has dropped his reelection bid after being accused of personally forging more than 100 petition signatures to get on the 2024 ballot. And he’s facing a possible criminal investigation into his signatures after state elections officials forwarded his petition signatures to the Arizona Attorney General’s Office. Smith is first-term representative from Surprise, a member of Arizona’s far-right Arizona Freedom Caucus and a top official at Turning Point Action, the campaign arm of the far-right Turning Point USA, which is aimed at young Republicans and run by Charlie Kirk. Ironically, Smith is also a member of the House’s Municipal Oversight and Elections Committee, where he decried unproven election fraud in Maricopa County, and has even made jokes accusing county officials of mail-in ballot signature fraud on social media. “Signature verification in Maricopa County is a joke,” Smith wrote on Twitter in May 2023.

The comparison between the GOP's Project 2025 and "The Handmaid's Tale" may seem far-fetched, but it's not. Project 2025 is a terrifying 800 page blueprint for Donald Trump's second administration. Even former GOP Rep. Liz Chaney warns that America is "sleepwalking into a dictatorship," due to the Republican party's anti-democratic extremism. Please watch and share this video about Project 2025 from The Courier about the blueprint for a Christian Nationalist America in a second Trump Administration.

Who was the first tortured poet? Maybe the ancient Egyptian who wrote, sometime in the 15th century BCE, “My beloved stirs my heart with his voice. He causes illness to seize me…. My heart is smitten.” Maybe the poet Catullus, whose heartbreaks lit up ancient Rome: “I hate and love,” he explained in Latin, “and it’s excruciating,” or (depending on the translator) “it crucifies me.” Petrarch’s sonnets, in 14th century Italy, complained that love both scorched and chilled.

Breaking up is hard to do, but music may just make getting over your ex a little easier. The best breakup songs provide a source of comfort to those dealing with the many stages of heartbreak. But just as no breakup is exactly the same, the same can be said of breakup songs.

A man set himself on fire on Friday afternoon outside the Lower Manhattan courthouse where former President Donald Trump’s historic criminal trial is taking place. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Witnesses say the man doused himself with liquid in Collect Pond Park, a designated protest area across the street from the courthouse, before orange flames soon engulfed him.

Coban Porter, the brother of Denver Nuggets star Michael Porter Jr., was sentenced to six years in prison Friday for killing a woman in a drunk-driving crash last year. Porter, 22, pleaded guilty to vehicular homicide and vehicular assault in February on the condition that he would be sentenced to no more than eight years in prison.