Night Owls, a themed open thread, appears at Daily Kos seven days a week

At The Baffler, Nathan Kalman-Lamb, Derek Silva, and Johanna Mellis write—The Red Zone.

Seaman High School in Topeka, Kansas, has been the subject of a lot of rumors and jokes over the years. Some of those would go into exactly the kind of juvenile jabs you would expect. Other stories that floated about Seaman school were not as humorous, and far darker.

The final two weeks of the 2020 election are upon us, and with the political climate continuing to favor Democrats overall, Daily Kos Elections is moving our race ratings in 11 more contests—nine shift to the left, while two move towards the GOP. We also now have a total of 11 GOP-held Senate seats rated as Lean Republican or better for Democrats. You can find all our Senate, gubernatorial, and House ratings at each link.

Donald Trump has made clear that he expects to lose the election but plans to do everything he can to cast doubt on the results, even at the cost of faith in U.S. democracy. That’s an enormous, ongoing piece of bad news that we live with every day. The good news is that Democrats and election integrity organizations and even a few good-faith Republicans aren’t just sitting around waiting for the worst. They’re mobilizing now to be ready with a response.

The Supreme Court isn’t finished possibly issuing another devastating ruling in the 2020 census count. Just days after issuing a brief, unsigned order allowing the U.S. Census Bureau to end data collection early, the court last Friday agreed to fast track impeached president Donald Trump’s discriminatory order seeking to erase undocumented immigrants from the count in order to affect apportionment of House seats.