2024 US Presidential Election

[Psy-Fi]

Kamala Targeted Black Mothers For Prison!

[Lisnaholic]

^ As so often with attention-grabbing headlines, the story may not be as cut-and-dried, one-sided as it appears.

From an NPR article on Kamala Harris's truancy law:

I thought it was really interesting to look at [Harris's] involvement in this issue, because she didn't invent the idea of punishing parents when their kids miss school. California already had a law on its books. Her innovation was to build a really standardized way for local district attorneys to get involved in pressuring parents to make sure their kids go to school. And a lot of education advocates were happy that she brought attention to the issue, because they say attention is actually the number one way we solve truancy. They think it's really important to call people's attention to the fact that, Hey, it adds up when your kids miss school.

What Harris also intended to do was to build a system where the school district officials, teachers and parents could all sit down and talk through the problems: Why isn't your kid coming to school? What are the resources that we could give you to help make sure that your child goes to school every day? And what she sort of layered on top of that was, You will get a series of increasingly scary warnings from the district attorney if this problem doesn't get solved. And that's what people really put their finger on as what they disliked about this program: ... the reality is that the reasons why kids miss school so often are not totally under the parent's control. But we just increasingly blame the parents. And that is a very typical American way of dealing with school. I mean, that goes back decades, and even hundreds of years. So it's not fair to lay that all at Harris's feet. But what people would say in response is that when you use the criminal justice system to solve social problems, you will criminalize people no matter how good your intentions were.

The law passed with pretty broad support.... After we reported on Cheree's case, Harris talked about regretting that some district attorneys had used this law, which she had fought for with good intentions, to crack down really hard on and to criminalize the parents. She has talked a lot about how her law was intended to give schools the tools to make sure parents work with them to solve these problems.

Bottom line, (to me): in the unfortunate case of Cheree Peoples, the K Harris law was applied over-zealously and for reasons not explained, Cheree either didn't get, or didn't respond to "a series of increasingly scary warnings", during which the valid justification of her daughter's illness should have given her a free pass.
Somebody mis-applied KH's law to a person to whom it shouldn't have been applied at all. Does that really make the story "Kamal's Most Evil Secret" ? 

 

[Marie Monday]

I admire you patience with that kind of clickbait trash, lisna

[DJChameleon]

He's said some stupid shit but he isn't wrong about everything.

Makes a few decent points in that video. I listened to it last night.

Also he is funny as fuck tbh.

The points he makes in that video are bullshit and just regurgitated talking points from people on the right that are easily disproved.

[DJChameleon]

https://theweek.com/politics/trump-fascist-dictator-john-kelly

Trump "is in the far-right area, he's certainly an authoritarian, admires people who are dictators — he has said that. So he certainly falls into the general definition of fascist, for sure," Kelly told the Times. "He certainly prefers the dictator approach to government." Kelly also said Trump "commented more than once that, 'You know, Hitler did some good things, too,'" and affirmed that he heard Trump call fallen or captured U.S. soldiers "suckers and losers" on multiple occasions.

Kelly told The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg that Trump said he wanted his military leaders to be like "Hitler's generals." Kelly's comments, two weeks before the election, echoed former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Gen. Mark Milley's recent remarks to Bob Woodward that Trump is "the most dangerous person to this country" and "a fascist to the core." Retired Gen. James Mattis, Trump's defense secretary, emailed Woodward to agree with Milley, Woodward told The Bulwark last week.

@SGR

Get in here and defend Trump against facist Hilter comparisons with your mental gymnastics like you have done in the past.

[Paul Smeenus]

we're fucked     

[Lisnaholic]

I admire you patience with that kind of clickbait trash, lisna

^    Thanks, Marie ! Yes, I've been wondering myself why I continue to respond to all these non-stories that demonize the Dems. I clearly have the soul of a fact-checker.

https://theweek.com/politics/trump-fascist-dictator-john-kelly

@SGR

Get in here and defend Trump against facist Hilter comparisons with your mental gymnastics like you have done in the past.

^  Yeah, I've been wondering what's happened to SGR lately.

[Lisnaholic]

we're fucked   

^ That's also my outsider's assessment of the US at the moment: with such a stark contrast between the two candidates and the two parties, the fact that the polls are so close is a worrying sign of the inability of the electorate to work out what's best for democracy, the environment, civil rights, and even the economy*.

* See that post I put somewhere explaining how tariffs almost always have a negative impact on the tariff-wielding country: they are the economic equivalent of shooting yourself in the foot.

....not to mention at least some degree of true, decency in political discourse. Trump has abandoned all that, and, despite  a  handful of rebels standing with Liz cheney and rejecting Trump, the bulk of the GOP is still defending him to the hilt. One recent media rebel has been Geraldo Rivera, who sums up the GOP dilemma very neatly:-

"If you are a Republican, Donald Trump has made a liar of you." 

[SGR]

^  Yeah, I've been wondering what's happened to SGR lately.

Sorry y'all, at the beginning of the month, I was on vacation in Chicago. And the last six days, I've been on another vacation with my wife to celebrate our anniversary. So I've been quite busy, and haven't been able to keep up with things as much

[SGR]

https://theweek.com/politics/trump-fascist-dictator-john-kelly

@SGR

Get in here and defend Trump against facist Hilter comparisons with your mental gymnastics like you have done in the past.

I mean, these opinions from John Kelly are nothing new. Unless he or someone else has recordings of Trump saying this Nazi stuff (or disparaging the military), then it's just he-said, she-said stuff. One side will assume Kelly's telling the truth, the other side will assume he's lying, I don't think that moves the needle much.

There is apparently though tell of a story that could completely tank Trump's chances if it's true, according to Newsmax journalist Mark Halperin.

Mark Halperin Says He's Been Pitched Story That Could 'End' Trump's Campaign

I don't know much about Halperin, but it's only his opinion that the story likely isn't true - it's possible he hasn't seen all the evidence (assuming they have some) to back up the story. Whether there's meat on the bones or not for this rumored story will likely be something we'll find out more about within the coming days. Even if the story isn't completely true (or isn't true at all), it could be spun this way and that way in terms of influencing public opinion.

Whether the story is true or not, my guess is it will come out - if not published, then leaked. And my guess is that by this time next week, no one will be talking about John Kelly.

Veteran political journalist Mark Halperin, who was among the first to report that President Biden would withdraw from the race in July, revealed on Tuesday that there is a "certain story" that has been pitched to major news outlets that — if true — could derail Donald Trump's 2024 presidential campaign in its final days.

Speaking on his "Morning Meeting" show on YouTube, Halperin shared that although he does not believe the story is accurate, its impact—if it were—would be the October Surprise the political media has been waiting for.

"I know of one story... I don't believe it is true. But if it's true, it would end Donald Trump's campaign," Halperin said, adding that he's aware of various efforts to influence the race's outcome with less than two weeks until Election Day.

Halperin highlighted the nature of last-minute campaign tactics, comparing them to an attempt to "pull a Comey." He was referring to former FBI Director James Comey's actions during the 2016 election, when, just 11 days before Election Day, he sent a letter to Congress announcing that the FBI had reopened its investigation into Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

[Lisnaholic]

Sorry y'all, at the beginning of the month, I was on vacation in Chicago. And the last six days, I've been on another vacation with my wife to celebrate our anniversary. So I've been quite busy, and haven't been able to keep up with things as much

Back-to-back vacations ?! Good for you, SGR and congrats on your anniversary.

Unfortunately, you can't post more than a couple of lines here, without me pouncing on it, I'm afraid:-

I mean, these opinions from John Kelly are nothing new. Unless he or someone else has recordings of Trump saying this Nazi stuff (or disparaging the military), then it's just he-said, she-said stuff. One side will assume Kelly's telling the truth, the other side will assume he's lying, I don't think that moves the needle much.

Surely by now, it's more a case of he-said, they-said, or even he-said, we-heard ?! The Hitler comments are just some of the criticisms that Kelly has recently made, and as you say yourself, it is hardly new: here are other people saying much the same things as Kelly about Trump's character:-

Bill Barr: "he will always put his own interests, and gratifying his own ego ahead..."
Andrew McCabe: "the FBI is under attack by the President of the United States"
Mark Esper: "I do regard him as a threat to democracy"
John Bolton: "... renders coherent foreign policy almost unattainable." "He views himself as a big guy; he likes dealing with other big guys, and big guys like Erdogan in Turkey get to put people in jail and you don't have to ask anybody's permission. He kind of likes that."
Mark Milley:"He is fascist to the core...the most dangerous person to this country."

On Nazi stuff:

Back in 1990 -- decades before he got into politics, Trump reportedly acknowledged owning a copy of "Mein Kampf." The admission came in an interview with Vanity Fair shortly after his divorce from his first wife, Ivana. Here's what the magazine reported:
 
"Last April, perhaps in a surge of Czech nationalism, Ivana Trump told her lawyer Michael Kennedy that from time to time her husband reads a book of Hitler's collected speeches, "My New Order," which he keeps in a cabinet by his bed."

Trump also dined in late 2022 with the Hitler-praising rapper Ye, formerly Kanye West, and the Holocaust-denying Nick Fuentes, a major voice in America's white nationalist movement.

He has also fully embraced "Great Replacement Theory," a false conspiracy theory that asserts Democrats and other elites — often Jews, though Trump has never made that explicit — are working to replace America's white majority with violent, uncivilized masses of nonwhite immigrants.

On disparaging the military and John McCain:-

Trump rejected the idea of the visit [to military cemetery] because he feared his hair would become disheveled in the rain, and because he did not believe it important to honor American war dead, according to four people with firsthand knowledge of the discussion that day. In a conversation with senior staff members on the morning of the scheduled visit, Trump said, "Why should I go to that cemetery? It's filled with losers." In a separate conversation on the same trip, Trump referred to the more than 1,800 marines who lost their lives at Belleau Wood as "suckers" for getting killed.

"He's not a war hero," said Trump in a televised interview. "He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren't captured."

[DJChameleon]

^ That's also my outsider's assessment of the US at the moment: with such a stark contrast between the two candidates and the two parties, the fact that the polls are so close is a worrying sign of the inability of the electorate to work out what's best for democracy, the environment, civil rights, and even the economy*.

* See that post I put somewhere explaining how tariffs almost always have a negative impact on the tariff-wielding country: they are the economic equivalent of shooting yourself in the foot.

....not to mention at least some degree of true, decency in political discourse. Trump has abandoned all that, and, despite  a  handful of rebels standing with Liz cheney and rejecting Trump, the bulk of the GOP is still defending him to the hilt. One recent media rebel has been Geraldo Rivera, who sums up the GOP dilemma very neatly:-

"If you are a Republican, Donald Trump has made a liar of you." 

 

The reason that it's so close and also the reason that black males are buying into the message is simple.

When you ask the average Joe were you doing better financially four years ago or today. They are going to say four years ago and attribute that to Trump even without understanding the details that us political nerds know. People are struggling and that's all that matters to them. They don't care about abortion or any of the other social issues it all just comes down to the economy and their ability to feed their family.

Sorry y'all, at the beginning of the month, I was on vacation in Chicago. And the last six days, I've been on another vacation with my wife to celebrate our anniversary. So I've been quite busy, and haven't been able to keep up with things as much

No need to be sorry enjoy your life sir and congrats on your anniversary. Back to back vacations sound nice.

[jimmy jazz]

Apology not accepted! @SGR

[SGR]

Back-to-back vacations ?! Good for you, SGR and congrats on your anniversary.

Thanks @Lisnaholic, much appreciated!  It was a great time, and over the course of two vacations, I made a total of 3 trips to different steakhouses 

Surely by now, it's more a case of he-said, they-said, or even he-said, we-heard ?! The Hitler comments are just some of the criticisms that Kelly has recently made, and as you say yourself, it is hardly new: here are other people saying much the same things as Kelly about Trump's character:-

Yes, many former intelligence officers and government officials have publicly stated similar opinions as Kelly. It's all old-hat at this point, and we've been hearing these opinions and accusations for almost a decade now, and honestly, it reeks a bit of desperation. These kinds of accusations, being old-hat as they are, aren't going to persuade anyone who's undecided at this point, regardless of how much truth there is to them. For Democrats, winning this election is not going to come down to signal-boosting just one more former government official's opinions about Trump being a fascist. The people who would be persuaded by that are already voting for Kamala. As a result, I think, if the Democrats want to win, they should stop talking about Trump so much, and talk more about how they're going to improve the lives of average Americans - and better communicate their vision for the future.

Instead, what do Americans see when they tune in to the race the last couple of days? Democrats talking about Trump's admiration for Hitler's generals, while Trump, on the other hand, talks about his admiration for the size of Arnold Palmer's genitals. 

The great irony, and the story that might be told if Democrats lose is: the party that hollered and clamored about Trump's threat to democracy lost an election to him because they themselves circumvented democracy by being dishonest and incurious about their sitting president's health and mental fitness - and as a result, they (the party elites) decided to coronate their eventual nominee by committee, instead of by the vetting will of their electorate. In other words, it won't be the Democrat voters faults, blame would rest squarely on the shoulders of the party bigwigs and the media who ran cover for them for the open and fair primary the Democrat voter was ultimately denied.

[Psy-Fi]

Arab American Voters SHOCK CNN & MSNBC!