US Election Thread

[wayneL]

Innerestin' development:

RFK Jr's running mate says campaign considering backing Trump

Nicole Shanahan also accused the Democrats of "sabotage", including planting insiders in their campaign.

www.bbc.com

 

[mullokintyre]

people often wonder how the USA has descended into such chaos.
its the low quality of the people who manage to rise to the top.
Not much cream, but plenty of froth.
Below is an interview with the US Secretary of commerce, Gina Raimondo.
In it she says she is not familiar with the BLS.
When ideology overtakes common sense, things go pear shaped quickly.


Mick

 

[moXJO]

people often wonder how the USA has descended into such chaos.
its the low quality of the people who manage to rise to the top.
Not much cream, but plenty of froth.
Below is an interview with the US Secretary of commerce, Gina Raimondo.
In it she says she is not familiar with the BLS.
When ideology overtakes common sense, things go pear shaped quickly.


Mick

democrats are fanatical. They have been living in a crafted bubble for a while. They have actually watched over the end of the west in real time.

 

[Garpal Gumnut]

people often wonder how the USA has descended into such chaos.
its the low quality of the people who manage to rise to the top.
Not much cream, but plenty of froth.
Below is an interview with the US Secretary of commerce, Gina Raimondo.
In it she says she is not familiar with the BLS.
When ideology overtakes common sense, things go pear shaped quickly.


Mick

I agree Mick, particularly the Democrats who have a tremendous ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

I barely watched the DNC but was struck by the dissonance between the present Democrat party and working Americans, particularly working male US voters. I got a similar feeling before the 2016 election and in fact predicted Hillary Clinton's defeat.

There is no arguing that Trump is a nasty piece of work. If anyone goes low, he can go lower again. The Dems seem to have a mantra now of using the same tropes in any interview on any topic to attempt to slam Trump. They will fail because they are not down in the dirt people. The are mostly disaffected far left or college educated and Nepo women. They are gents and ladies with a few outright mad Gaza gremlins pushing a message that means nothing for working families. They have lost the Jewsih vote and are now desperately trying to get it back.

Walz seems to be their token white working class male. I can see him fall on his face.

It is a shame to see a great party fall on its face, twice in one decade. Kamala I haven't mentioned which means I guess that she is a liability for them.

gg

 

[moXJO]

I agree Mick, particularly the Democrats who have a tremendous ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

I barely watched the DNC but was struck by the dissonance between the present Democrat party and working Americans, particularly working male US voters. I got a similar feeling before the 2016 election and in fact predicted Hillary Clinton's defeat.

There is no arguing that Trump is a nasty piece of work. If anyone goes low, he can go lower again. The Dems seem to have a mantra now of using the same tropes in any interview on any topic to attempt to slam Trump. They will fail because they are not down in the dirt people. The are mostly disaffected far left or college educated and Nepo women. They are gents and ladies with a few outright mad Gaza gremlins pushing a message that means nothing for working families. They have lost the Jewsih vote and are now desperately trying to get it back.

Walz seems to be their token white working class male. I can see him fall on his face.

It is a shame to see a great party fall on its face, twice in one decade. Kamala I haven't mentioned which means I guess that she is a liability for them.

gg

I heard that Russell crowe threw he's piece in and he was actually spot on the money.

 

[mullokintyre]

The map below might help to explain some of the things that happen in the USA.
More than half the population in the US live in the 7 megaregions outlined in various colours.
These mega regiois occupy about 15% of the land mass.
The other 48% live in the non shaded areas, in 85% of the land mass.
In our recent ten week trip in the USA, we specifically aimed to see as many of the National Parks as we could.
So naturally, we spent the vast majority of our time in the 85% area.
We saw hundreds of pro trump signs, ranging from complete billboards to small bumper stickers.
We saw two Biden support stickers on cars, one in LA, and one in Seattle.
It became obvious that trumps support lie in the rural and semi rural areas of the US.
We spoke to quite a few Trump supporters, being careful to let them know we were from Oz and had no axe to grind.
Their responses were varied, but can best be summed up the statement that they want their old way of life back.
Mom, Dad, two kids, the dog, a big family wagon that took them dressed up in their best Sunday clothes to Church along wide safe streets , and most of all, a government and other busybodies that kept out of their lives.
I did not want to disappoint them by suggesting that those days are gone forever, no matter who wins in November.
Mick

 

[Garpal Gumnut]

The map below might help to explain some of the things that happen in the USA.
More than half the population in the US live in the 7 megaregions outlined in various colours.
These mega regiois occupy about 15% of the land mass.
The other 48% live in the non shaded areas, in 85% of the land mass.
In our recent ten week trip in the USA, we specifically aimed to see as many of the National Parks as we could.
So naturally, we spent the vast majority of our time in the 85% area.
We saw hundreds of pro trump signs, ranging from complete billboards to small bumper stickers.
We saw two Biden support stickers on cars, one in LA, and one in Seattle.
It became obvious that trumps support lie in the rural and semi rural areas of the US.
We spoke to quite a few Trump supporters, being careful to let them know we were from Oz and had no axe to grind.
Their responses were varied, but can best be summed up the statement that they want their old way of life back.
Mom, Dad, two kids, the dog, a big family wagon that took them dressed up in their best Sunday clothes to Church along wide safe streets , and most of all, a government and other busybodies that kept out of their lives.
I did not want to disappoint them by suggesting that those days are gone forever, no matter who wins in November.
Mick
View attachment 183020

This a worldwide problem. The ALP will get kicked out next Queensland election.

They say they are doing everything they can to stop crime. Queenslanders not interested. They want it stopped.

It is Governments job to provide the safety that those Trump supporters want. Same here in Australia.

gg

 

[SirRumpole]

All the hand wringing about the supreme court decision recently about giving the president immunity seems to ignore so much history.
If indeed this is a new get out of jail card free, why was George Bush never inducted for this?
View attachment 179977
Mick

U.S. Apology and Compensation: The U.S. government initially defended the action as a tragic accident of war but later expressed regret. In 1996, the U.S. reached a settlement with Iran, agreeing to pay $61.8 million in compensation to the families of the victims, though the U.S. did not admit legal liability.

 

[mullokintyre]

When you look at the us electorate, and the hoopla that goes on with them, there are some similarities to what happens in OZ.
The peole who do not have to worry much about their economic position can shout about issues like teh Voice, or Freedom of speech, or how we should be shutting down carbon intensive activities etc etc.
As the middle class get squeezed further and further, and the bottom third get forgotten, the top third are still doing very nicely thank you.
Assuming they can be bothered to vote, it is these folks who will determine what happens at the presidential and congressional elections.
I doubt the s;oganeering from both sides will resonate much with them.
From Of two Minds

Mick

 

[Dona Ferentes]

from an Aussie fund manager:

Portfolio Manager Miles Staude said: “The key event on the horizon for investors today is the pending US election cycle. Whether you have been following the US elections, or like many, have been willfully disengaged, the importance of the outcome for markets means it requires a good amount of your dispassionate attention. While most of the attention around the US elections centers on the race for the White House, the less well understood story is that Republicans will likely take control of the Senate this year (betting markets put the odds at over 70%.

If Kamala Harris wins the presidency, a Republican controlled Senate will be able to block most of her legislative initiatives. It will also greatly frustrate her attempts to appoint preferred candidates to key governmental posts. Conversely, if Donald Trump wins the presidency, it will allow him to deliver on one of his key campaign pledges and an important focus of his first administration deregulation and a great unwinding of the federal government’s role in the economy. Importantly, with control of the Senate, such initiatives can be enacted unilaterally as they do not need Republicans to control the House of Representatives. We discuss the implications of this in our letter to shareholders, but from a game theory point of view, the key takeaway from the probable Republican control of the Senate is that a Trump victory will provide a sugar rush boost to markets. Meanwhile, a Harris win likely means more government dysfunction and a very limited administrative agenda."

 

[basilio]

So Kamala Harris does her first Press interview. Did she swing from the rafters, make grand promises, whiz the interviewer with her stunning policy platforms and rhetorical insights ?

Nah. Safe, boring, low key, no fuss, no nonsense. And on the way just dismissed Trumps poisonous racial attacks as not worth 2 seconds of air time. Clever and classy.

Kamala Harris’s much-hyped, first big interview was ... radically normal​

David Smith in Washington
Just like at the Democratic convention, the vice-president did enough to clear the bar and do herself no harm

Fri 30 Aug 2024 00.09 EDTLast modified on Fri 30 Aug 2024 00.18 EDT


Donald Trump spent Thursday in Michigan raving about bacon, windmills, Al Capone, trans boxers, nuclear war and, of course, his crowd size. Weird! Kamala Harris and Tim Walz gave an interview on CNN that was … radically normal.
Just as she did a week ago at the Democratic national convention, the vice-president was comfortable and composed, solid and unspectacular, doing enough to clear the bar and doing herself no harm. She turned a much hyped first interview as nominee into a soon-to-be-forgotten pit stop along the campaign trail.

Perhaps most important was the personality test. The old saw in presidential campaigns was: which candidate would you rather have a beer with? Harris and Walz came over as the couple you’d be fine sharing cake and coffee with at your kids’ birthday party. The same cannot be said of the former president and his running mate, JD Vance.

Democrats’ bet is that Americans crave such relatability after a decade of Trump’s malignant narcissism and Joe Biden’s struggles with old age. The current president turned every interview into a nerve-wracking high-wire act. Harris was a fresh-faced model of steadiness by comparison.

.....Addressing a national audience, rather than a rally, Harris was also careful not to alienate the type of Republicans who supported Nikki Haley. She said she would appoint a Republican to her cabinet if elected, though she did not have a particular name in mind. “I have spent my career inviting diversity of opinion.”

When Bash asked her about Trump’s questioning of Harris’s racial identity, she could have unleashed a long and angry tirade about his history of racism. Instead she wisely chose the pithy response: “Same old tired playbook, next question please.”

Bash asked: “That’s it?” Harris confirmed: “That’s it.”

Kamala Harris’s much-hyped, first big interview was ... radically normal

Just like at the Democratic convention, the vice-president did enough to clear the bar and do herself no harm

www.theguardian.com

 

[wayneL]

Dems don't think they can win without cheating

 

[basilio]

How seriously should the US public take Donald Trump ? Is he just a blowhard who would never actually do the stuff he says ? Is it all "just Trump talk" and not to be really considered when US citizens go to the polls on Nov 5th.

This is around up of the most recent declarations.

Take the Ranting Seriously​

—Andrew Egger

Donald Trump’s rhetoric has only ever really been constrained by one thing: His lizard-brain sense of what he can get away with.

As the election draws near, he seems to believe he can get away with more than ever.

Trump’s policy promises are getting wilder and his flirtation with authoritarianism more brazen. At a rally in Wisconsin Saturday, he made a new pledge to slap a “100 percent tariff” on countries that adopt reserve currencies other than the dollar: “You leave the dollar and you’re not doing business with the United States because we are going to put a 100 percent tariff on your goods.”

“We’re gonna be a tariff nation,” he went on inanely. “It’s not going to be a cost to you, it’s going to be a cost to another country.”

He keeps promising to elevate kooks. He says he’s tapped Elon Musk to run a “government efficiency” task force. He’s left open the door to a cabinet appointment for Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the anti-vax crank whose endorsement he secured last month. In Wisconsin, he extolled his plan to end the federal Department of Education and “send it back to the states so that Ron Johnson can run it.”

His diagnoses of what ails the country remain utterly untethered from reality, as with his repeated false assertions that public schools are performing transgender surgeries on minors: “Can you imagine you’re a parent and your son leaves the house and you say, ‘Jimmy, I love you so much, go have a good day at school,’ and your son comes back with a brutal operation,” he Saturday.

Most of all, though, he’s leaning into the violence. Trump, repeatedly and in open sight, is outlining two major initiatives involving large-scale, systematic arrests of groups of people.

His proposed mass deportations of millions of migrants, he warned Saturday, will be “a bloody story.” And he keeps pledging to redirect the Department of Justice against his own political enemies, calling for prominent Democrats to face “public military tribunals” and for members of the congressional committee who investigated January 6th to be indicted for treason. (For good measure, his promises to pardon January 6th rioters now explicitly include those who assaulted police during the insurrection attempt.)

On Saturday, Trump made clear that that enemies list won’t stop with national Democrats, promising “long term prison sentences” for anyone he deems to have cheated in the upcoming election in a baroque post to Truth Social:

CEASE & DESIST: I, together with many Attorneys and Legal Scholars, am watching the Sanctity of the 2024 Presidential Election very closely because I know, better than most, the rampant Cheating and Skullduggery that has taken place by the Democrats in the 2020 Presidential Election. It was a Disgrace to our Nation! Therefore, the 2024 Election, where Votes have just started being cast, will be under the closest professional scrutiny and, WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences so that this Depravity of Justice does not happen again. We cannot let our Country further devolve into a Third World Nation, AND WE WON’T! Please beware that this legal exposure extends to Lawyers, Political Operatives, Donors, Illegal Voters, & Corrupt Election Officials. Those involved in unscrupulous behavior will be sought out, caught, and prosecuted at levels, unfortunately, never seen before in our Country.

It’s convenient, and maybe even a bit comforting, to just sidestep this as classic Trump overstatement and showmanship. But the record is very clear that his rhetoric has grown more ominous and his policies more draconian over time.

As a matter of policy, Trump is saying he intends to subjugate the Department of Justice to his own will more completely than any previous president has dreamed. Mentally, he is incapable of maintaining any category distinctions between “friends versus enemies” on the one hand and “patriots and criminals” on the other. Any ally, anybody useful, anybody willing to suck up or to just go along will be deemed a patriot, and any charge against them a witch hunt. Any enemy, anybody in the way, anybody who refuses to be an accomplice will be considered an enemy of America and a likely criminal to boot.

David Frum noted yesterday that Trump has reached a point where his rhetoric has become so unhinged that it actually plays to his favor:

The mainstream media cannot report every outrageous remark, or they would do nothing else. Even those shocking comments that do get reported tend to make just a blip. The next day, if not the next minute, Trump is telling another lie or vilifying another public servant or issuing another threat. Yesterday’s shocker is soon crushed beneath today’s, and then tomorrow’s, until it’s ancient history.

It’s exhausting and bewildering to follow it all. But tuning it out is a luxury only afforded to Americans so long as Trump remains out of power.

For the media, the next few months will be a testing point, too. Will they get bogged down in the minutiae of debates over what is the right level for a tax on unrealized capital gains? Or will they be clear-eyed about the threat?

Trump Leans Into the Violence

Is our press corps up for this moment?

www.thebulwark.com

 

[mullokintyre]

I watched a small portion of the debate.
Based on that small sample, Harris won the debate, in that she was less of PIA than Trump.
Mick

 

[moXJO]

I watched a small portion of the debate.
Based on that small sample, Harris won the debate, in that she was less of PIA than Trump.
Mick

Did you notice the democrats basically stole all John Howard's policies.

I'm too biased to make a call on the debate. Harris promised a lot but they are actually in government. They probably could have done it already if they were going to do something.
All I see is more taxpayer pain.

 

[mullokintyre]

Did you notice the democrats basically stole all John Howard's policies.

I'm too biased to make a call on the debate. Harris promised a lot but they are actually in government. They probably could have done it already if they were going to do something.
All I see is more taxpayer pain.

All of the above is true, but it matters little in terms of how the punters see it.
people who have been screwed in the past only want to hear that a candidate is going to fix things, they are not interested in the hows.
So much of politics in the USA is visual, short catchy soundbites, and the ease of speaking lies without anyone pulling them up on it.
Either candidate only has to convince a very small number of the swinging voters in each state to win.
The rest are welded on to each candidate.
Mick

 

[moXJO]

All of the above is true, but it matters little in terms of how the punters see it.
people who have been screwed in the past only want to hear that a candidate is going to fix things, they are not interested in the hows.
So much of politics in the USA is visual, short catchy soundbites, and the ease of speaking lies without anyone pulling them up on it.
Either candidate only has to convince a very small number of the swinging voters in each state to win.
The rest are welded on to each candidate.
Mick

I think the soundbite of "Why hasn't she done it already" will play hard. There an unease with the amount of illegals flooding the country that is also pretty visible.

The other optic was that the ABC moderators were debating for her whenever it went unscripted. There were clear biases. It's funny that these are rarely in unfavourable conditions for Democrats. Where as Trump will go on anything.

 

[PZ99]

I watched a small portion of the debate.
Based on that small sample, Harris won the debate, in that she was less of PIA than Trump.
Mick

Now I know why bitcoin is going down the swanny

 

[wayneL]

The other optic was that the ABC moderators were debating for her whenever it went unscripted. There were clear biases. It's funny that these are rarely in unfavourable conditions for Democrats. Where as Trump will go on anything.

 

[wayneL]

Fair comment from Elon here:



The moderators fact checked Trump on pets being eaten by illegals (which is actually, demonstrably true) among other things, yet gave Kamala a free hand to perpetuate several lies/hoaxes, inter alia:

*very fine people
*Jan 6
*Bloodbath
*Lawfare
*Agenda 2025

In fact Kamala was not fact checked a single time analysis shows that the dice were loaded.

Trump going into these debates with these left-wing MSM moderators is effectively going into a boxing ring with one hand tied behind his back.

That said Trump landed a few excellent zingers. My favourite - "I'm speaking Kamala"