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Re: 2024 USA Election: Wishin' and Hopin'
Naomi Klein wrote an interesting article recently on Robert Kennedy Jr, arguing that he should be taken seriously as he may appeal to many people even though his stances are phony.
https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...-not-an-option
It's certainly telling that someone who previously built a reputation on caring about the environment is now offering excuses for why the government should do nothing about climate change.
It's understandable that people are looking for alternatives in the current environment, but it's disheartening that this so often leads them to manipulative charlatans.
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Re: 2024 USA Election: Wishin' and Hopin'
Thanks for the link, I saw this the other day but didn't read it, and she does a good job demolishing Kennedy's drivel. My only slight annoyance is with the typically American refusal to talk about Capitalism, shifting the argument to a well-rehearsed one, like this:
"...a great many voters are hurting and rightfully angry: about powerful corporations controlling their democracy and profiting off disease and poverty. About endless wars draining national coffers and maiming their kids. About stagnating wages and soaring costs. This is the world – inflamed on every level – that the two-party duopoly has knowingly created."
American Capitalism has benefited corporations since the 19th century, while anti-trust laws have been passed and even implemented (notably the break-up of Rockefeller's Standard Oil in 1911), but the trend is hard to resist because of the wealth and influence it creates. So there isn't much of an intelligent debate on such big issues, but nit-picking on things like welfare, medicaid and so on.
What also strikes me is the faith some people put in the powers of One Man to heal the wounds, repair the damage, liberate them from bondage, restore their pride. That the main candidates for position of Redeemer are frauds like Trump, or just incapable, like De Santis, makes one wonder why this phenomenon has not died a death of a thousand exposures, not to mention Court cases.
Why don't Americans put more faith in themselves than some 'Great Leader'? We have just seen a wannabe Julius Caesar leave the stage in the UK, his career ended by his deluded belief in himself,. And on that basis, Joe Biden as an elderly, sometimes incoherent President, is at least a good manager of the affairs of State. I don't think American needs all that 'razzamatazz' or whatever its called, but who knows what will happen in the next 12 months?
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Re: 2024 USA Election: Wishin' and Hopin'
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Stavros
While I do think he is just being a surrogate for Biden, with an eye towards 2028, there are times it feels like Gavin Newsom is warming up in the bullpen just in case he is needed for 2024.
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Re: 2024 USA Election: Wishin' and Hopin'
Quote:
Originally Posted by
blackchubby38
While I do think he is just being a surrogate for Biden, with an eye towards 2028, there are times it feels like Gavin Newsom is warming up in the bullpen just in case he is needed for 2024.
Interesting...so I guess Newsom doesn't get on, or see much future for Kamala Harris?
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Re: 2024 USA Election: Wishin' and Hopin'
A pep talk for those for whom California ain't about dreamin' but real promise -though one would hope a solution to the homeless might be more possible than it seems to be, and as for the rental sector....but can't have everything I suppose.
California dreaming: How the Golden State plans to lead the resistance to Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis (msn.com)
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Re: 2024 USA Election: Wishin' and Hopin'
Vivek has amazing teeth, is that a vote winner?
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Re: 2024 USA Election: Wishin' and Hopin'
No surprise, but Trump is refusing to promise to support the Republican nominee if he doesn't win.
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/0...ebate-00110599
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Re: 2024 USA Election: Wishin' and Hopin'
Quote:
Originally Posted by
filghy2
A pledge that was introduced for his benefit.
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Re: 2024 USA Election: Wishin' and Hopin'
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Re: 2024 USA Election: Wishin' and Hopin'
I didn't see the debate but cull a few remarks from the report in The Guardian
De Santis
"I’m a blue-collar kid. I work minimum wage jobs to be able to make ends meet."
-Then like any other blue collar guy, say, from West Virginia, I went to Yale, then Harvard Law School, then the Navy....keep the dream alive!
Vivek Ramaswamy
"God is real. There are two genders. Fossil fuels are a requirements for human prosperity. Reverse racism is racism. An open border is not a border. Parents determined the education of their children. That nuclear family is the greatest form of governance known to man. Capitalism lifts us up from poverty. There are three branches of government, not four. And the US constitution, it is strongest guarantor of freedom in human history."
-No prosperity before the commercial development of oil and gas in the 19th century? What is the nuclear family -three wives and five children? What if parents cannot read and write?
"“Part of the problem is we also have a federal government that pays single women more not to have a man in the house than to have a man in the house, contributing to an epidemic of fatherlessness."
-Not because some guys want to get laid but not be dads? Does this guy actually live in the US?
Tim Scott
"“I had the good fortune to have a mom who worked 16-hour days, making sure we had food on our tables. She taught me that if you’re able-bodied in America, you work, if you take out a loan, you pay it back, you commit a violent crime, you go to jail. And if God made you a man, you play sports against men,” the South Carolina senator said."
-So is he going to ban mixed doubles in Tennis, Badminton, and Squash, and ban sports where men and women compete together, like Horse Racing, Equestrian events, Luge? What about Ice Skating?
Republican debate veers from abortion and fentanyl to Trump and Ukraine as Harris attacks ‘extremist agenda’ – as it happened | Republicans | The Guardian
Ever get the feeling these guys are out of touch with what is happening in their own country?
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Re: 2024 USA Election: Wishin' and Hopin'
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Stavros
Ever get the feeling these guys are out of touch with what is happening in their own country?
They don't care about what is happening in the country. They care about appealing to their base.
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Re: 2024 USA Election: Wishin' and Hopin'
Meanwhile, De Santis is going to get tough on drug traffickers...
"Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday promised to send the U.S. military into Mexico to fight the cartels on “Day one” if he becomes the next president of the United States."
DeSantis pledges to send US military to fight cartels on ‘Day one’ | The Hill
I guess he could always have a chat with someone from the DEA who might tell him where most of the USA's supply of Fentanyl comes from, though it ain't via illegals from Mexico slipping across the 'open border'...
"Fentanyl is primarily trafficked by U.S. citizens. The U.S. Sentencing Commission publishes data on all federal convictions, which includes demographic information on individuals convicted of fentanyl trafficking. Figure 1 shows the citizenship status of fentanyl traffickers for 2018 to 2021. Every year, U.S. citizens receive the most convictions by far. In 2021, U.S. citizens accounted for 86.3 percent of fentanyl trafficking convictions compared to just 8.9 percent for illegal immigrants."
Fentanyl Is Smuggled for U.S. Citizens By U.S. Citizens, Not Asylum Seekers | Cato at Liberty Blog
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Re: 2024 USA Election: Wishin' and Hopin'
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Stavros
Meanwhile, De Santis is going to get tough on drug traffickers...
[FONT="]"Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday promised to send the U.S. military into Mexico to fight the cartels on “Day one” if he becomes the next president of the United States."
[/FONT]DeSantis pledges to send US military to fight cartels on ‘Day one’ | The Hill
I guess he could always have a chat with someone from the DEA who might tell him where most of the USA's supply of Fentanyl comes from, though it ain't via illegals from Mexico slipping across the 'open border'...
[FONT="]"Fentanyl is primarily trafficked by U.S. citizens. The U.S. Sentencing Commission publishes [/FONT]data[FONT="] on all federal convictions, which includes demographic information on individuals convicted of fentanyl trafficking. Figure 1 shows the citizenship status of fentanyl traffickers for 2018 to 2021. Every year, U.S. citizens receive the most convictions by far. In 2021, U.S. citizens accounted for 86.3 percent of fentanyl trafficking convictions compared to just 8.9 percent for illegal immigrants."
[/FONT]Fentanyl Is Smuggled for U.S. Citizens By U.S. Citizens, Not Asylum Seekers | Cato at Liberty Blog
Again, the Republican base doesn't care about that. But they'll back aggression toward Mexico under any pretense.
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Re: 2024 USA Election: Wishin' and Hopin'
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Fitzcarraldo
Again, the Republican base doesn't care about that. But they'll back aggression toward Mexico under any pretense.
Completely agree they sure don't. And also agree that's exactly what they'll do.
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Re: 2024 USA Election: Wishin' and Hopin'
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Stavros
I didn't see the debate but cull a few remarks from the report in The Guardian
De Santis
"I’m a blue-collar kid. I work minimum wage jobs to be able to make ends meet."
-Then like any other blue collar guy, say, from West Virginia, I went to Yale, then Harvard Law School, then the Navy....keep the dream alive!
Vivek Ramaswamy
"God is real. There are two genders. Fossil fuels are a requirements for human prosperity. Reverse racism is racism. An open border is not a border. Parents determined the education of their children. That nuclear family is the greatest form of governance known to man. Capitalism lifts us up from poverty. There are three branches of government, not four. And the US constitution, it is strongest guarantor of freedom in human history."
-No prosperity before the commercial development of oil and gas in the 19th century? What is the nuclear family -three wives and five children? What if parents cannot read and write?
"“Part of the problem is we also have a federal government that pays single women more not to have a man in the house than to have a man in the house, contributing to an epidemic of fatherlessness."
-Not because some guys want to get laid but not be dads? Does this guy actually live in the US?
Tim Scott
"“I had the good fortune to have a mom who worked 16-hour days, making sure we had food on our tables. She taught me that if you’re able-bodied in America, you work, if you take out a loan, you pay it back, you commit a violent crime, you go to jail. And if God made you a man, you play sports against men,” the South Carolina senator said."
-So is he going to ban mixed doubles in Tennis, Badminton, and Squash, and ban sports where men and women compete together, like Horse Racing, Equestrian events, Luge? What about Ice Skating?
Republican debate veers from abortion and fentanyl to Trump and Ukraine as Harris attacks ‘extremist agenda’ – as it happened | Republicans | The Guardian
Ever get the feeling these guys are out of touch with what is happening in their own country?
Yes i do get that feeling that the MAGA Party is out of touch with what happening in their own country,but they don't give a damn about what's going in the country.
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Re: 2024 USA Election: Wishin' and Hopin'
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Stavros
Ever get the feeling these guys are out of touch with what is happening in their own country?
The Republican party is no longer a political party concerned with policy. It has really become a sort of counter-cultural movement concerned with striking poses that appeal to their supporters' sense of grievance and paranoia.
Apart from Trump's continuing ascendancy, the rise of Vivek Ramaswamy is a good demonstration of this. The guy is clearly a policy airhead, but his style seems to be going over well with the Republican base.
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/0...ebate-00112752
To me he just seems like one of those annoying overconfident salespeople who won't take no for an answer, but the MAGA crowd loves this sort of brash hucksterism. I think he's been succeeding where De Santis has failed because he comes across as so confident, whereas De Santis always seems to be calculating the right thing to say.
Given Ramaswamy is probably the most pro-Trump candidate in the field the obvious question is why he's running against him. Maybe he's just angling to be VP.
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Re: 2024 USA Election: Wishin' and Hopin'
Quote:
Originally Posted by
filghy2
Given Ramaswamy is probably the most pro-Trump candidate in the field the obvious question is why he's running against him. Maybe he's just angling to be VP.
If he follows the Trump playbook, he will be calculating how much money he can make from this exposure.
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Re: 2024 USA Election: Wishin' and Hopin'
More on RFK's quixotic quest to run for the Democratic nomination by appealing to Republicans. As with Elon Musk, you have to wonder whether the real motivation is just to get attention and to spite those who have shunned or criticised him.
https://www.vox.com/politics/2023/9/...gn-republicans
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Re: 2024 USA Election: Wishin' and Hopin'
Quote:
Originally Posted by
filghy2
More on RFK's quixotic quest to run for the Democratic nomination by appealing to Republicans. As with Elon Musk, you have to wonder whether the real motivation is just to get attention and to spite those who have shunned or criticised him.
https://www.vox.com/politics/2023/9/...gn-republicans
RFK Jr. Realized Primaries Are Rigged! - YouTube
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Re: 2024 USA Election: Wishin' and Hopin'
Really, Ben, are you impressed by this incoherent garbage, or do you post this to expose the intellectual vacancy of these people? I don't know who Lee Camp is but his permanently startled mess of half-thought-up phrases signifying nothing may account for the delusions of RFK and like-minded losers that they might actually win, though what they win when they win I doubt they know.
You need only ask yourself how candidates are chosen to find the answer, because the system has been there long enough. You could be a Trotskyist, an Anarchist, a Maoist, a Nazi, a supporter of the Flat Earth Theory, but you can register as a Democrat or a Republican for the sole purpose of voting in a Primary. But even if you had a European style Party system with annual membership fees, party cards and so on, the candidates would come from a narrow field of those who meet the Party criteria, though in some cases indeed quite a few (at least in the past in the UK) candidates were known to local people as they matured from local council office to nomination for Parliament, then a selection panel and so on until they are on the short list for party members to vote for- that was the Labour Party system. The Conservative Central Office has on so many occasions 'nominated' Mrs T or Mr X for a local Conservative Association (as their party is called) that local members often feel they had no choice, because they didn't.
So stop assuming that the selection of candidates is entirely democratic, because it ain't and never has been. Does this mean the selection process is rigged? I doubt it because they don't need to rig it at all -the system is what delivers, so if you are dissatisfied, change the system, abolish these Primary and Caucus processes, and find another way for Parties to choose.
Better still, stand yourself. Find some sponsors, create a following on Tik-Tak, Mammogram or Twinker, get yourself on TV, and so on, and maybe even have a portfolio of appealing policies. Who knows where this might lead?
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Re: 2024 USA Election: Wishin' and Hopin'
Ben is evidently concerned about climate change, but perhaps he is unware of what RFK Jr has been saying on the subject lately.
https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...-not-an-option
In recent interviews, he claims climate science is too complex and abstract to explain and that, “I can’t independently verify that.” He also says that the climate crisis is being used to push through “totalitarian controls on society” orchestrated “by the World Economic Forum, Bill Gates, and all of these megabillionaires”.
“In my campaign I’m not going to be talking a lot about climate. Why is that? Because climate has become a crisis like Covid that the Davos groups and other totalitarian elements in our society have used as a pretext for clamping down totalitarian controls.”
This about-face has earned him friends among the most prominent and dangerous climate-change deniers, including the Republican-aide-turned-disinformation-dealer Marc Morano, who says Kennedy is “undergoing a genuine transformation over his views on the climate agenda.” In podcast interviews, especially with rightwing hosts, RFK Jr now says he would leave energy policy to the market and describes himself as “a radical free marketeer.”
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Re: 2024 USA Election: Wishin' and Hopin'
If someone cannot even summarize the basics of a subject, their "theories" on that subject should not be taken seriously. RFK Jr. also said covid was engineered as an ethnic bioweapon to attack certain groups and when asked why he thinks that, said "furin cleavage site".
But why don't journalists ask him what a furin cleavage site is and why it supports his assertion? If he cannot give a careful explanation of what it is, and why it indicates covid was a bioweapon, then expose him as a charlatan. Ask him how mrna vaccines work? When asked to follow up on any of the quackery he parrots he almost always claims it's above his pay grade. If the evidence for his crazy theories is beyond his pay grade, then promoting such theories should be too.
There is a dangerously large segment of this country that thinks the death toll of covid is entirely made up. Climate change, which is supported by lots of evidence and has the potential to cause many times the damage to human populations, but which has not yet resulted in refrigerators full of bodies at emergency rooms, should be easy for them to deny.
RFK Jr. cannot be taken seriously. I'm not looking to insult anyone here but he is a serious moron and a crackpot conspiracy theorist. It's not really a matter of opinion.
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Re: 2024 USA Election: Wishin' and Hopin'
In the midst of criticising Biden's 'cognitive impairment' Trump warns of the risk of World War 2 and confuses Obama with Biden and Hillary Clinton.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-09-...tion/102866974
It often seems like Trump is judged by lower standards because noone expects anything from him but word salads.
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Re: 2024 USA Election: Wishin' and Hopin'
Quote:
Originally Posted by
filghy2
In the midst of criticising Biden's 'cognitive impairment' Trump warns of the risk of World War 2 and confuses Obama with Biden and Hillary Clinton.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-09-...tion/102866974
It often seems like Trump is judged by lower standards because noone expects anything from him but word salads.
But if Trump believes he saved 100 millions lives worldwide during the Covid Pandemic, that you need ID to buy a loaf of bread from a grocery store, that the 1918 Influenza Pandemic ended the First World War, then it is no surprise that when the White House lawyers told him he had lost the election in 2020 he simply did not believe them. If he believed the Earth is Flat, and was transported in a spaceship in an orbit of the Earth, one assumes he would return to Earth and still say 'the Earth is Flat'. How do you prosecute someone who insists they are always right, and that evidence is irrelevant?
Yes, he has the right to do that. But did he have the right to interfere in the election process in Georgia? Did he have the right to encourage Pence to 'delay' or 'pause' the transfer of power in Congress, or incite a mob to help him to do that? Is he so dumb he can't see the difference?
Trump says he ‘didn’t respect’ his lawyers who said he lost 2020 election | The Hill
Here in the UK, the former Prime Minister, Elizabeth Truss, is now flipping all the evidence to claim she was right and everyone else was wrong-
"The former prime minister will give a speech at the Institute for Government on Monday, almost exactly a year since her government’s “mini-budget”, which caused the pound to crash and ultimately led to her downfall.
Speaking days after it emerged that the UK economy shrank by 0.5% in July, Truss will say the UK’s current economic problems are not her fault."
Liz Truss: economic consensus since 1997 to blame for UK woes – not me | Liz Truss | The Guardian
We seem to have a generation of politicians in power who are so detached from reality one wonders how they get through the day. I can't imagine having a sensible conversation with either Trump or Truss, but I do wish they would just shut up and go away, we have enough problems do deal with as a result of their rank incompetence, their ignorance, their devotion to themselves.
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Re: 2024 USA Election: Wishin' and Hopin'
An intriguing article on how Trump could lose the popular vote and the electoral college but become President through a 'Contingent Election'. Scary stuff.
Here’s the scary way Trump could win without the electoral or popular vote | Stephen Marche | The Guardian
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Re: 2024 USA Election: Wishin' and Hopin'
Interesting commentary:
https://newrepublic.com/article/1756...2024-spectacle
Excerpt:
Quote:
We Have Two Medias in This Country, and They’re Going to Elect Donald Trump
It’s often asked in my circles: Why isn’t Joe Biden getting more credit for his accomplishments? As with anything, there’s no single reason. Inflation is a factor. His age is as well. Ditto the fact that people aren’t quite yet seeing the infrastructure improvements or the lower prescription drug costs.
There is no one reason. But there is one overwhelming factor in play: the media. Or rather, the two medias. It’s very important that people understand this: We reside in a media environment that promotes—whether it intends to or not—right-wing authoritarian spectacle. At the same time, as a culture, it’s consistently obsessed with who “won the day,” while placing far less value on the fact that the civic and democratic health of the country is nurtured through practices such as deliberation, compromise, and sober governance. The result is bad for Joe Biden. But it’s potentially tragic for democracy.
Let me begin by discussing these two medias. The first, of course, is what we call the mainstream media: The New York Times, The Washington Post, the major (non-Fox) news networks, a handful of other newspapers and magazines. This has also been known as the “agenda-setting media,” because historically, that’s what they did: Whatever was the lead story in The New York Times that day filtered down, through the wire services and other delivery systems, to every newspaper and television and radio station in the United States.
Then there’s an avowedly right-wing propaganda network. This got cranked up in the 1970s, when conservatives, irate over what they (not incorrectly) saw as a strong liberal bias in the mainstream media, decided to build their own. Rupert Murdoch bought the New York Post. In the 1980s, the Reverend Sun Myung Moon started The Washington Times. In the 1990s, right-wing talk radio exploded (enabled, in part, by a 2–1 decision by a judicial panel of the D.C. Court of Appeals making the Fairness Doctrine discretionary; those judges were Antonin Scalia and Robert Bork). Then the Fox News Channel was launched.
Back then, even with the launch of Fox, the mainstream media was much larger and more influential than the right-wing media. If the mainstream media was a beachball, the right-wing media was the size of a golf ball.
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Re: 2024 USA Election: Wishin' and Hopin'
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Fitzcarraldo
An interesting read, from which I pluck this quote: "A media environment that doesn’t put truth above all other considerations is by definition a media environment that promotes spectacle."
Spectacle, impression management, these seem to me to dominate: they are the headlines that scream and shout that are intended to create an impression, and it doesn't matter if the facts do not support the intention. It also means that the tedious job of reporting on the implementation of policy is either ignored, when it works, or is the news when it doesn't, or doesn't seem to work. Immigration and crime are examples of the latter, inflation reduction and higher employment examples of the former.
And yet, people can tell the difference, and if it is the case that a substantial amount of voters are opposed to policy, for example on Abortion in Republican run States, then voting matters, and the ruling party could be in trouble, though one notes how Republicans -and I assume Democrats in some States too- have attempted to deal with voter diversity by diluting it, or neutering it through gerrymandered District Boundaries.
In the UK it has meant that slogans rule -'Take Back Control' was the perfect example in the Brexit campaign, implying we had lost control, thereby failing to register the actual influence the UK had had on EU policy making. 'Stop The Boats' is another, a convenient way of attacking illegal immigration by ignoring who is on those boats - 'Stop The Children' doesn't have the same effect.
But, again, there is little coherent presentation of detail in either policy formation or its implementation, and while it may often only be an impression policy has failed, on a range of issues on both sides of the Atlantic, it has. And thus, if there is a lack of detailed debate it makes that debate harder, because people respond to headlines more than details, undermining the purpose of civil society and democracy, which is to have a population engaged in the debate, inclusive, diverse and equal,
Murdoch loathes Government, he loves Markets, especially the ones he owns a large share of. It is that simple, but maybe he and his supporters should be frank about what it means -defunding the Government, scrapping the regulation of industry and business, isolating the State from international affairs.
But is this what the people want (on either side of the Atlantic)? And how will we know when we know?
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Re: 2024 USA Election: Wishin' and Hopin'
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Stavros
This is not new. It's essentially what they tried to do last time - find a pretext to reject the electors chosen by the voters so the President would be chosen by a state-based vote in Congress.
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Re: 2024 USA Election: Wishin' and Hopin'
Quote:
Originally Posted by
filghy2
This is not new. It's essentially what they tried to do last time - find a pretext to reject the electors chosen by the voters so the President would be chosen by a state-based vote in Congress.
I think the procedures for a 'Contingent Election' are different from what Trump tried in 2020/21, I doubt he has a clue what it is, and I don't recall seeing it material from the 'Constitutional Expert' John Eastman.
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Re: 2024 USA Election: Wishin' and Hopin'
The term 'contingent election' does not appear in the Constitution, but we are talking about the procedures laid out in the 12th Amendment if no candidate has an absolute majority (270+) of Electoral College votes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contingent_election
This was evidently the outcome they were trying to engineer in pressuring Mike Pence to reject the electors from the states won by Biden that they were disputing.
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/05/p...ege/index.html
A first option – which the lawyers have told Trump is unlikely to succeed – is that expected objections to the Electoral College brought by Republican lawmakers would lead to so much gridlock that the contest is decided by the House of Representatives. That is viewed as a very remote possibility since the number of senators and representatives currently on board with raising objections is not nearly a majority.
More convincing to Trump has been an argument that after Pence listens to the objections, he refuses to certify electors from the six states that are in dispute: Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Georgia.
Decertifying those six states wouldn’t make Trump the winner; instead, because neither of the candidates would meet the 270 vote threshold, Trump’s lawyers believe it would send the question to the House of Representatives. Because each state delegation (as opposed to each member) gets one vote, Trump would presumably prevail.
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Re: 2024 USA Election: Wishin' and Hopin'
But is it not the case, that the key point that has led to the indictments in Georgia, is that Trump had no legal argument to justify a Continent Election -there was no proof of election rigging, that votes for Trump were swapped for Biden. There were two recounts in the State and recounts in other States, and all failed to prove Trump's case, and so on. It was fantasy politics, driven by Trump's infantile resentment that he lost and could not then, and does not now accept it. That the US should have been brought so low by a selfish moron tells us more about the Republican Party and its distance from reality and the Constitution than it does about Trump, because he was a known liar and crook long before he descended the escalator in New York.
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Re: 2024 USA Election: Wishin' and Hopin'
And also the claim that Trump wanted to halt the counting of mail-in ballots on the night of the election. We know that Roger Stone had laid out plans to reverse the result before election night, and it may be a key component of the case in Georgia and the Jan 6th trial that Trump never intended to honour the result of the election, having decided at 10 pm on the night that he had won it and anything that happened after was 'illegitimate'. From start to finish, the man was eyeball deep in bullshit, but in touch with people like Stone, Bannon and anyone who would encourage him to lead the attack on the US.
Trump unwittingly admitted to two of the charges against him in new interview, ex-Mueller prosecutor says (yahoo.com)
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Re: 2024 USA Election: Wishin' and Hopin'
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Stavros
Whether he unwittingly or wittingly admits to charges makes no difference for his supporters. He has no worries about incriminating himself, because he has yet to be held accountable for the vast majority of his crimes. (He's only lost the one civil suit so far.) He will continue to stall all prosecution, and if enough idiots vote enough Republicans into office he will escape accountability.
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Re: 2024 USA Election: Wishin' and Hopin'
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Stavros
But is it not the case, that the key point that has led to the indictments in Georgia, is that Trump had no legal argument to justify a Continent Election -there was no proof of election rigging, that votes for Trump were swapped for Biden.
They don't care. The point of the election-rigging claims was to create a figleaf to justify a legal coup, in the hope that disrupting the certification process would see the election decided by a state-based vote in the HoR or the Supreme Court.
The other objective was to convince Republican voters that the election was rigged so that Trump could retain control of the Party. In that he has obviously succeeded. If Republicans are able to block any accountability then trying to overturn election results has only upside, so why not just keep trying until you succeed?
The other thing is that they haven't paid a big electoral price for any of this. The polls are pointing to another close race. Swinging voters don't seem to be sure whether the future of democracy is a bigger concern that a temporary surge in inflation.
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Re: 2024 USA Election: Wishin' and Hopin'
Rafael Cruz thinks at the last minute the Democrats will swap Biden for Michelle Obama.
"Hannity asked his guest if the former first lady would want that.
“I don’t know Michelle very well,” Cruz said."
Ted Cruz Predicts Democrats Will Ditch Biden At Last Minute For This Candidate (yahoo.com)
I wonder why? But then, what does he know?
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Re: 2024 USA Election: Wishin' and Hopin'
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Stavros
That would be a ridiculous move, but I guess that's what I should expect from Cruz.
Scathing commentary:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/ask-go...s-open-fascism
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Re: 2024 USA Election: Wishin' and Hopin'
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Fitzcarraldo
Rabbits in headlights, yet those opposed to Trump, instead of being paranoid about lising his 'base' could widen their appeal, but it seems the Party is now so utterly detached that this once upon a time obvious tactic -remember Reagan Democrats?- is now unthinkable. Would these pathetic candidates if Trump can't make it step aside so Tom Brady can square off against Michelle Obama?
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Re: 2024 USA Election: Wishin' and Hopin'
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Stavros
The Democrats aren't doing that. Ted-Sniveling Coward-Cruz doesn't know anything expect for playing a role in trying too overturn a free and fair election,that his leader lost.
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Re: 2024 USA Election: Wishin' and Hopin'
A surprisingly weak assessment from Timothy Garton-Ash though he writes mostly about Europe. Yes the ‘age thing’ has traction, but he doesn’t factor in two things: 1) Trump has never, and will never be the choice of most Americans, and 2) he can only win through the electoral college, but if still there in 2024 there is the potential for Republican controlled States to use State law as changed since 2020 to select Trump regardless of the vote. This would create a crisis as deep kf not deeper than the re-election of the Disgusting Beast.
https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...ident-trump-20
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Re: 2024 USA Election: Wishin' and Hopin'
What did ‘Pro-Life’ Mike Pence say the other night?
““And if I’m president of the United States, I’m going to go to the Congress of the United States, and we’re going to pass a federal expedited death penalty for anyone involved in a mass shooting, so they will meet their fate in months, not years,” Pence said. “
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaig...ass-shootings/
If Pence is indeed a believer in Jesus, he can only produce a couplet for any and all murderers:
‘I Love You, I Forgive You’.
In Christianity, Forgiveness is absolute, and non-negotiable.
