2024 US Presidential Election

Everyone already knows what a Trump presidency would look like, because they saw four years of one. Without covid, it would have been comparable in dignity to any other presidency of modern times, all the way back to the first one of Grover Cleveland. (wink wink) Covid wasn't his fault, but he would have been blamed for his response to it no matter what he did, and the sufferers of TDS were very successful with that blame. Not near as aware of it as they'll be this fall, after the blitz of radio and television commercials she comes up with.Trump easily beat ALL his challengers in the primaries. Polls now show him beating Biden in several swing states, by more than a margin of error.

Everything that liberals say surpr...wait, wait, NOTHING liberals say surprises me anymore. I know I've been lied to, by Democrats who fall all over themselves championing democracy, while trying to get Trump removed from state ballots.I'm not all alone in my views. That you liberals think the views of close to half the country don't accurately reflect reality, is an indicator that you don't pay attention to what's going on, the fact that Trump got 500,000 + votes recently in the Colorado primary as only one example. That's what I've been doing here off and on for the past 14 + years, and most of what I get is name calling. The reason? - the liberals here have no idea that I represent close to half the country. They've never seen what I say before. They could handle it better if they'd get out more."Rage bait talking points"? Yes, I agree there's a lot of that here, from liberals.

Percy wrote:The Ten Worst States for Quality of Life
CNBC today ran an article about The Ten Worst States for Quality of Life. It rated all the states according to how good they were to live and work in, which included factors like crime, environmental quality, health care, childcare, discrimination, voting rights and reproductive rights. Here they are in ascending order from worst to least worst, and I include CNBC's point score. I also include who they voted for in 2020. I don't expect there are any surprises:
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State Points 2020 Vote
Texas 53 Trump
Oklahoma 75 Trump
Louisiana 76 Trump
South Carolina 86 Trump
Alabama 86 Trump
Missouri 98 Trump
Indiana 113 Trump
Tennessee 115 Trump
Arkansas 118 Trump
Florida 129 Trump___________________________CNBC is as far left-wing as media liars can get.
Californians are RUNNING out of the state due to absurdly high taxes,
coddling criminals, woke politics, the insanely high price of housing, the highest homeless percentage of any state and far and away the largest number of street bums crapping in the streets of San Francisco, Los Angeles and......
What state are the most Californians moving to? Texas, where men are men and women are glad of it. This should hurt Percey's feelings as I'm quite certain he things homosexuality is JUST FINE. I mean, except for the thousands of small children they molest, and the mass murders they commit far in excess of their relative population.

Coming from a far right-wing fascist we can safely discount that opinion and the politics behind it. As for the rest of your bunk, that really isn't saying very much. The usual republican dog whistles and scare themes.The election is upon us, guys. This is all the old Trump fascism stuff from the last election that you lost. Haven't you got anything new? Jail time would be good.

I'm not a liberal. There are absolutely reasonable objections to states trying to remove Trump from their ballots, and in fact the Supreme Court was unanimous in forcing Trump back onto the ballot. (To be clear, I dont *agree* with the Supreme Court here, but I don't think all of the objections were baseless or crazy).But do you understand the 14th Amendment? The Constitution is the highest law of the land, right? The drive to remove Trump from the ballot was not *undemocratic.* It was based on following the Constitution. The 14th Amendment was enacted after the Civil War, when it was a real possibility for a person who formerly was involved in literal actual open rebellion and war against the United States could try to be elected President. Again I'm not a liberal. Neither am I a Democrat.Marc, 100% of people are wrong about something. Multiple somethings. I include myself in that. Nobody is omniscient. And everyone is entitled to opinion. Positions on fact, however...well, sometimes people are just wrong. There's no shame in being wrong unless you try to resist correction. And we can determine facts based on evidence and consistent arguments. For example - you can absolutely have an *opinion* on when (relevant, morally important) life begins, or the relative value of the life of the mother vs the fetus. Those are personal beliefs. But it's a simple *fact* that banning abortion in the way that it's been done in several states puts the lives of women at risk. There's no debating that, it's simply a provable, demonstrable fact.Voter fraud is something that can be proven. There have been investigations - lots of them. Fraud is found sometimes - it happens. But it has not been shown to have happened in any electorally significant fashion, and literally zero of the court cases brought by the Trump campaign were able to make it through the courts, including courts with judges that Trump himself nominated. It's not a matter of Democrats here, Marc - the Republicans in the court system agreed that the claims of widespread voter fraud were *unsupported by evidence.*That might be an unpleasant thought for you. It was unpleasant for me when Trump won in 2016. I was absolutely upset about it. I'm honestly still upset. But demoncracy means that sometimes your preferences don;t win at the ballot box. My preferences didnt win in 2016.Trump lost in 2020.If you have actual evidence that he *won* in 2020, by all means, please present it. Not just to us, but to the court system.Any society is going to need "finders of fact" who analyze claims and address issues. In our society, that's the courts. They're flawed, sometimes deeply - they're run by people after all, and by and large, people seem to have been a mistake that the universe perhaps should regret. But it's pretty telling that over 60 separate court cases including judges appointed by the claimant *all* found the claims to be without any merit. The finders of fact found that there was no evidence to support claims of widespread fraud. The finders of fact are how we establish how our society will "officially" react to basically anything. It's the same thing as when Trump won in 2016 - we didnt need court cases there, Clinton didnt claim fraud, but we (grudgingly) accepted the results.

That's some pretty repugnant homophobia you have there, ChemEngineer. Baseless nonsense-claims.And CNBC is liberal. Center-right. They're farther left than the ultra-far-right-wing MAGA camp, but so is the entire universe.

Yep, see ya later! Welcome back! We've missed your sunny disposition these 27 hours 21 minutes.If Trump follows through with his expressed intentions for a 2nd administration then it likely will be like the first, only more so. He's promised to turn the civil service into a political arm of the White House, and to turn the Justice Department into the president's personal law firm. He wants to a appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate the Biden's. He says he'll pardon the January 6th insurrectionists. He's promised to make border control a central focus of federal law enforcement, and he's promised mass deportations. He wants the death penalty for drug smugglers. He's promised to abolish the Department of Education, but also to remove all Marxists from it. He says he will eliminate Obabacare, which now covers over 21 million people. He's against gender affirming care for youth. He wants stronger immunity for police, and to send federal law enforcement into any cities he deems crime-ridden.He's invited Russia to invade NATO members who haven't met the commitment to devote 2% of GDP to defense spending. He wants to increase domestic oil production, even though it is already at all time highs. He will increase tariffs, which are paid for by the American people, not by foreign industry.His promise to build "Freedom Cities" to reopen the frontier and provide thousands of jobs sounds like the Depression era PWA (Public Works Administration). I think revitalizing rural America is an excellent idea, but a jobs program that sends people to live and work on the "frontier" when unemployment is already at all time lows seems to have a low probability of success.He will roll back emission standards and roll back programs encouraging the transition to electric transportation. He's promised more tax cuts, which last time provided greater cuts for the rich. He would reverse Biden's commitment to racial equity in the federal government.Trump v2 would be like Trump v1 on steroids. I don't know what the "wink wink" was supposed to convey, but dignity isn't something most people associate with Trump, even his most ardent supporters. Trump has no one to blame but himself for conducting one of the worst responses to covid in the western world. In this chart the United States is 4th worst in excess deaths after Mexico, Poland, the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic. Even Hungary did better than us. Hungary! I wonder how many people actually care what celebrities think, about anything. Here in New Hampshire Biden wasn't even on the primary ballot and won anyway. Yes, scary times.--Percy

I'm still trying to understand the Supreme Court's logic that control over abortion should be returned to the states so that it can become a patchwork of different laws, while control over elections should not be the domain of the states for presidential elections because it would become a patchwork of different laws.Attempting to keep insurrectionists dedicated to the overthrow of American democracy off the ballot is the epitome of championing democracy. The opposite of championing democracy is supporting a known insurrectionist for president. Back in 2020 Rona McDaniel, head of the RNC until recently, was a key force driving efforts to overturn the 2020 election that she said had been stolen by Biden. She was an active participant in efforts to create false slates of electors. She encouraged Michigan election board members to not certify Michigan election results. Citing fraud and irregularities and voting machine meddling with no evidence she said over and over that the election was stolen. While head of the RNC she never wavered from that position. Did her expressed belief that the election was stolen reflect reality?I guess not because McDaniel recently lost her position as RNC head and was hired by NBC News where she suddenly changed her tune, saying that Biden had won the election "fair and square."It would seem that Trump supporters say whatever is convenient at the time. If they're employed by Trump then they say they believe the election was stolen. If they're employed by NBC News then they say they believe Biden won "fair and square."But who knows whether McDaniel was telling the truth about what she believes while still at the RNC, or only after she was hired by NBC News. And that doubt about her honesty is why she really lost her job. This is nonsense. Everyone here is very well aware how huge a segment of the country supports Trump, and it's both sad and scary.And whatever you say, we've already heard it because the mainstream media reports everything Trump says and you just echo Trump. You're like a permanent gaslight, perpetually telling us about mainstream media coverups about things that we all already know because they've been reported on by the mainstream media.--Percy

Well, yes, I do, as a matter of fact, but personal freedom to openly be oneself is what's really important. This is just your homophobia talking. No data support this. In case you're unfamiliar with data, data is what drove the numbers in this chart of the 10 worst states for quality of life. The lower the points the lower the quality of life, and Texas leads the list with the fewest points: --Percy

Which is why he was voted out of office to begin with. The attempted coup just added to the reasons not to put him back in office. Bullshit. Trying your damndest to stop the peaceful transfer of power is the opposite of dignified. Threatening to hold back foreign aid from a country unless they invent scandals that damages your political opponents is not dignified. Trump was the least dignified president we have ever had in modern times. Your obsession with Taylor Swift is noted. This is a perfect example of the crazy found in the modern GOP, and why they will lose big this fall.

GOP official who claimed 2020 election was stolen voted illegally 9 times, judge rules, reports the Washington Post. The Post has a paywall, so here's another article from the Atlanta Journal-Constituion: Georgia judge rules that Republican Brian K. Pritchard voted illegallyYou just can't make this stuff up! The Georgia Republican Party's first vice chairman, Brian Pritchard, voted illegally nine times, and then he claimed that the 2020 election was stolen. The Republican Party makes all this noise that the Democrats stole the 2020 election without an ounce of evidence, and every time a notable election fraud case comes up IT'S A REPUBLICAN! The Republican party becomes more and more like Trump every day. Just as Trump accuses others of doing whatever he's up to himself, the Republican party apparently does the same thing.The specifics are unbelievable and fascinating. In 1996 in Pennsylvania Pritchard was sentenced to three years probation for felony check forgery. His probation was revoked three times after he moved to Georgia: in 1999, again in 2002, and again in 2004, at which point a judge imposed a new 7-year probationary sentence. Despite that he voted anyway, four times in 2008, and five times in 2010 (he didn't vote multiple times in the same election - they were all separate elections).It gets better: Pritchard is a conservative talk show host and the owner of fetchyournews.com. And last year he ran for a seat in the Georgia statehouse.--Percy

And in other news, Kari Lake has filed for a default judgment (i.e. the civil court version of pleading guilty) in the lawsuit accusing her of defaming an Arizona elections official.Kari Lake declines to defend her statements in a defamation case | CNN PoliticsShe had been claiming she had proof of election fraud, but when it came time to actually defend her statements with evidence she chose to wave the white flag.It was all lies, from the very start. We all knew this, but it's nice to see it confirmed.

This is the unfortunate lesson of the American electorate. Many are just like Phat. A good story told with conviction and oomph is all that's necessary to convince, no evidence required. What Trump and Lake and so many other Republicans have learned is that it isn't what you say that is true, but what you say that you can convince people is true.And so the Republicans have stuck us with an American public where many people believe the 2020 election was stolen and our elections can't be trusted. Republican leaders live in the Republican echo chamber where all the other leaders are telling them the election was stolen, and they believe that each of these other leaders must have some evidence of election fraud, and when the evidence from all these Republican leaders is added together it must amount to a mountain of evidence of election fraud.Except every time they get to court there's nothing there. The Republicans would do well to read Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. Finding oneself in the middle of a wholly convincing delusion is not a modern phenomenon. The book will be a couple hundred years old in another decade or so.--Percy

A good story with conviction and oomph that also feeds into pre-existing biases. That last bit is just as important.Democrats are just as susceptible to feeding into their own biases which is a reason to always stay both informed and skeptical.

This country was originally birthed largely as a meritocracy. I believe that this is the fairest system. If one works hard, one should prosper. The whole idea these days is to "help" everybody equally, but the fact is that if not everybody contributes to the greater good, everybody shouldn't be propped up so much. Its not fair to those who work the hardest.