Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)

[unclevlad]

5 minutes ago, wcw43921 said:

Far-Right Trump Supporters Enraged After Trump Admits To 2020 Election Loss

 

Welcome to Trump Reality 101.  Trump will throw you under the bus on a whim...which is all this is, IMO.  Or trying to remove a weak point, I suppose, but it's far, far too late for that to work.

[unclevlad]

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/09/05/us/georgia-school-shooting?unlocked_article_code=1.Ik4.ZZZw.CKrJeIMQtZqG&smid=url-share

 

The charges don't surprise me.

 

That they were brought *so fast* does.  

 

I almost wrote "blows me away" but that would have been a truly terrible metaphor for this....................

 

The comments from family members are basically throwing the dad under a steamroller.

 

 

[Lectryk]

1 hour ago, unclevlad said:

That they were brought *so fast* does.  

 

Maybe the fact that Gray was already investigated for threats, and the father apparently did nothing to restrict access escalated the speediness of the response?  

[unclevlad]

1 hour ago, Lectryk said:

Maybe the fact that Gray was already investigated for threats, and the father apparently did nothing to restrict access escalated the speediness of the response?  

 

They clearly feel they already have a strong case, to arrest and charge a day later.  I wouldn't care to speculate much past that;  they're just not saying at this point.  

Well, no, I'll add this.  The son was taken in.  I *presume* he has a lawyer with him...as a minor, in a homicide case, they'd want to make doubly sure things get handled properly.  Even so, it's plausible the son's cooperating.  He's got NO defense, presumably, insofar as doing the shooting.  Guns were in his hand, powder residue everywhere, probably witnesses.  So it's possible he's been quite talkative.

 

And in that scenario, if the police get a hint of serious family issues, which the family members mentioned in the NYT article...well, the case against daddy comes together rather quickly.  Especially if the other family members tend to back it up.

[DShomshak]

5 hours ago, wcw43921 said:

Far-Right Trump Supporters Enraged After Trump Admits To 2020 Election Loss

Oh, my. What a childlike faith Mr Fuentes shows in his fallen hero's former claims. You actually *believed" Trump when he said the elections was stolen?

Quote

"So, why did we do Stop the Steal? Why did did anyone go to Jan. 6? Why did any one go to jail? ... It would have been good to know that before 1,600 people got charged," Fuentes said on his podcast, referring to the criminal charges for those who invaded and ransacked the Capitol. "It would’ve been good to know that before (I) had all my money frozen, put on a no-fly list, banned from everything, lost all my bank and payment processing.”

You did it because you wanted to seize power, of course. Which in turn was because you couldn't obtain it legitimately.

 

Welcome to the Game of Thrones, where you win, or you die. I'd say Mr Fuentes got off lightly.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Cygnia]

Spoilered for swearing

 

Spoiler

 

[Cygnia]

More braying the quiet part out loud

 

Trump says his plan to expel millions of immigrants will be a ‘bloody story’

 

Quote

Donald Trump has issued yet another ominous warning about his potential second term in the Oval Office, this time promising a "bloody story" for the millions of immigrants he intends to deport.

He made the comments at a campaign rally in Mosinee, Wisconsin on Saturday, echoing the broader Republican National Committee’s 2024 platform. The GOP's plans for America after a Trump victory include aggressive immigration enforcement and mass deportations.

That's when Trump alluded to the blood.

"And ya know getting them out will be a bloody story," Trump said. "[Undocumented immigrants] should have never been allowed to come into our country. Nobody checked them."

Though Trump did not explain what he meant by "bloody story," he has frequently — and falsely — insisted that many undocumented workers crossing into the US illegally are criminals released from Venezuelan prisons or other violent lawbreakers.
…

As was previously reported by the New York Times, Trump's vision for America includes mass deportations that will be so extensive that "huge camps" will be needed to detain people. To execute his vision, Trump has proposed the creation of a deportation force pulled from local police and National Guard troops volunteered by "Republican-run states."

In other words, Trump wants an army of Republican-loyal racial purity troops and concentration camps.

 

[Clonus]

 

How to appeal to people from Latin America?  Advertise in Latin!

[Cygnia]

Column: I know what Trump was really talking about in his child care rant, and it’s even scarier than you thought

 

Quote

An incoherent rant Donald Trump delivered at an appearance Thursday in answering a question about child care policy has gone viral, mostly because it reached new heights of incoherence, even for him.

But what commentators and viewers have missed is the tiny nugget of actual fact nestled within Trump’s 374 words of absolute gibberish. That’s too bad, because that nugget makes his answer even dumber, and scarier, than you might have imagined.

Here’s how he launched into the topic at the Economic Club of New York, when asked by attendee Reshma Saujani, a Democratic children’s advocate, if he would commit to making child care more affordable and what “specific piece of legislation” he would advance as president to do so:

“Well, I would do that, and we’re sitting down, and I was, somebody, we had Sen. Marco Rubio, and my daughter Ivanka was so, uh, impactful on that issue. It’s a very important issue. But I think when you talk about the kind of numbers that I’m talking about, that, because, look, child care is child care is. Couldn’t, you know, there’s something, you have to have it — in this country you have to have it.”

Trump then veered into talking about “taxing foreign nations at levels that they’re not used to,” and about making “this into an incredible country that can afford to take care of its people, and then we’ll worry about the rest of the world,” etc., etc. (Here’s a full, unedited, verbatim transcript.)

Pretty much everyone writing about this moment has passed over Trump’s references to Rubio (R-Fla.) and to his own daughter Ivanka, probably because they seemed to come completely out of left field.

But they’re an important clue to what was really going through Trump’s mind. In 2018, you see, Rubio and Ivanka actually put forward a proposal for paid family leave.

It was a horrible idea with a veneer of practicality. It looked like an answer to an issue facing new families, but in fact it would undermine their financial position for life.

The idea was to allow new parents, including adoptive parents, to receive up to 12 weeks of paid family leave. That sounds pretty good so far: The idea of paid family leave was (and is) enormously popular with voters, and providing it to American families would finally bring the U.S. into line with every other high-income nation in the world.

But in the proposal by Rubio and Ivanka Trump, families would have to raid their Social Security to pay for it by reducing or delaying their retirement benefits. As the Urban Institute calculated, for every 12-week leave, new parents would have to delay their Social Security benefits by more than twice that period, or as much as six months.

Parents who took four 12-week leaves, according to this analysis, would lose 10% of their retirement benefits, for life.

Based on the average benefit retirees receive this year, that would mean a hit of nearly $200 a month, taken at a time when many have few other financial resources if any: About 40% of retirees depend on Social Security for half their income or more, and for as many as 15%, Social Security represents 90% of their income.

Deferring retirement benefits, the Urban Institute observed, could “create financial hardship for people who develop health problems or lose their jobs as they approach retirement.”

As I wrote at the time, the dirty little secret of the proposal was the impact it would have on the Social Security system itself. The Rubio-Trump plan fit perfectly into the Republican Party’s long-term project to undermine Social Security.
…
So what happened Thursday at Trump’s appearance? It seems evident that he dredged up, from the distant, dim recesses of his mind, that Rubio and Ivanka once had a proposal that was “impactful” on child care, whatever that means.

 

[Cygnia]

Florida voters who oppose the state's 6-week abortion ban say they are being visited by police

 

Quote

Florida voters who signed a petition to place a pro-choice abortion referendum on the ballot this November say they have been visited by police who are investigating claims of fraud at the behest of Gov. Ron DeSantis' administration, the Tampa Bay Times reported Saturday.

Last year, DeSantis, a Republican, signed into a law a ban on abortion after six weeks of pregnancy. In response, pro-choice campaigners gathered and submitted nearly one million signatures to place on the ballot Amendment 4, a referendum that would overturn the ban and restore reproductive rights in the state.

Now Florida's Department of State is claiming it suspects fraud in the signature-gathering process. In an email to county election officials, the department's Brad McVay requested that they hand over their already-verified petitions so that the signatures can be reexamined, claiming without evidence that those who circulated the petitions "represent known or suspected fraudsters," Tampa Bay television station WTVT reported.

 

[Cygnia]

Here is what will happen on day one of Trump’s presidency, according to Project 2025

Quote

It’s a cold day in Washington DC in late January 2025. Though Donald Trump has lost the popular vote for a third consecutive election, his narrow capture of the electoral college has delivered the presidency.

During the campaign, Trump offered some symbolic gestures to distance himself from Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation-led policy blueprint for the next Republican administration, matched with a database of conservative personnel to execute those plans. “Personnel is politics,” they explain.

But with Republicans now holding bare majorities in both chambers of Congress, the gloves come off. As Trump utters the last phrase of the oath of office – “so help me God” – the first phase of what Project 2025’s authors call “the playbook” begins.

First come the firings. Thousands of federal, non-partisan civil servants –environmental and food safety regulators; authorities in disaster relief coordination; attorneys overseeing anti-discrimination policies in housing, education and employment; medical and scientific researchers – receive immediate layoff notices. Many will not be replaced, as entire federal programs and agencies are shuttered. The new personnel that do arrive come from conservative thinktanks, or are rightwing activists who applied through the Project 2025 application database. Political cronyism is now the official hiring policy of the US federal government.

Next come the roundups. As drafted by the Maga nativist-in-chief Stephen Miller, a broad range of law enforcement, from the national guard to state and local police are deputized for a new deportation army. Sweeps of neighborhoods and businesses take aim at blue states and cities, but general terror is their intended goal. Detention centers are established on military bases and federal facilities with quick access to airfields to execute mass removals. Nearly a million lawfully present immigrants are stripped of their legal protections, subjecting them to immediate deportation. An end to Daca and a return of the Muslim ban follow.

In the following months other parts of the agenda unfold. Cuts in corporate taxes so generous they would make the robber barons blush. An end to federal funding for public television and radio that forces many local stations to shutter. The termination of Head Start programs leaves hundreds of thousands of parents and guardians without preschool or childcare. The elimination of the Department of Education and programs like Title I halt funding and many protections for students with disabilities, English learners and students from low-income households.

Pornography is criminalized. Ditto for abortion rights, emergency contraception and many reproductive health programs. Adiós also to most public sector unions, labor organizing rights and anti-poverty programs.

It can be difficult at times to distinguish the hyperbole of Trump and the Maga movement from actual governing plans. “Build the wall” was always more of a campaign performance and fundraising stunt then a policy blueprint. But after attending several rightwing conferences and rallies for research in the last year, I have little reason to doubt their intentions this time around.

 

[unclevlad]

From Cyg's quote, not direct.

 

4 hours ago, Cygnia said:

It can be difficult at times to distinguish the hyperbole of Trump and the Maga movement from actual governing plans.

 

I disagree.  It IS their governing plans, at least far more often than not.  It's just that sometimes those plans don't pan out...at the time.  Sometimes they need more prep work, like stacking the Supreme Court.

 

At this point, if they do get both houses of Congress and Trump's elected...as the writer concludes, nothing will be too extreme to attempt.  And with the Supreme Court's near carte blanche for the President, things may well advance *quite* a ways before anyone can pull anything back.  

[Old Man]

21 minutes ago, unclevlad said:

At this point, if they do get both houses of Congress and Trump's elected...as the writer concludes, nothing will be too extreme to attempt.  And with the Supreme Court's near carte blanche for the President, things may well advance *quite* a ways before anyone can pull anything back.  

 

At that point any "pulling back" would probably have to occur outside the system.

[Cygnia]

U.S. Generals come to Harris' defense on Afghanistan

Quote

Ten generals and admirals are mobilizing to defend Vice President Kamala Harris from Republican attempts to tie her to the chaotic 2021 U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Why it matters: The withdrawal has emerged as a major campaign issue in the lead-up to Tuesday's presidential debate, with Harris coming under fire from former President Trump, House Republicans and parents of victims of the Abbey Gate suicide attack, which killed 13 American service members.

• The push to defend Harris comes from retired military brass, including three with four-stars: Admiral Steve Abbot, who served as deputy homeland security advisor to George W. Bush, Gen. Lloyd W. Newton and Gen. Larry R. Ellis, who has never previously endorsed a political candidate.
• Some of the military officials are also fanning out on TV this week to defend Harris' record, two people familiar with the plans told Axios.

Driving the news: "Without involving the Afghan government, [Trump] and his Administration negotiated a deal with the Taliban that freed 5,000 Taliban fighters," the retired military officials wrote in a National Security Leaders for America letter first obtained by Axios.

 

• The group accused Trump of leaving Biden and Harris with no plans to execute a withdrawal and little time to do so.
• "This chaotic approach severely hindered the Biden-Harris Administration's ability to execute the most orderly withdrawal possible and put our service members and our allies at risk," they wrote.
• Trump "continually disrespects those who serve in uniform, including wounded warriors, prisoners of war, and those who have made the ultimate sacrifice," they added.

 

[unclevlad]

The letter written:

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25106804-nsl4a-statement

 

I also note the signatories.  Sergeant-Major of the Marine Corps is the highest-ranked enlisted man in the entire Corps, unless there's a special enlisted advisor to the chairman of the JCS.  He advises the Marine Corps commandant on matters of importance to the enlisted troops.  Another was Assistant Secretary of the Navy.  And as noted, three 4-stars.  

 

This is now the second serious rebuke of Trump by the military.  Senior officers have been opposed before.  Hopefully this has some influence moving down the ranks.

[Starlord]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/moderators-shouldn-t-let-trump-lie-in-this-debate-ask-him-these-questions-instead/ar-AA1qjeug?ocid=entnewsntp&pc=U531&cvid=7845c921157a48a4cd3f220b3b1ac435&ei=99

 

"You have said you plan to remove millions of immigrants from the country in what you’re calling a ‘mass deportation’ effort. Can you explain specifically how that would work, what it would cost, where the money for such a massive program would come from and how it would impact communities across America and employers who rely on the people you’d be deporting?”

 

“On that same subject, at a recent rally you said mass deportation would be a ‘bloody story.’ What did you mean by that, and are you expecting this program to be violent?”

 

"At a recent event, you said tariffs alone would lower child care costs. Economists agree tariffs on foreign goods are effectively taxes that get paid by U.S. businesses, with the costs passed along to consumers. So how could that possibly impact an American’s child care costs? Please be specific.”

“You have spent the years since your 2020 presidential election loss claiming the results of that election were not legitimate. Many of your supporters who attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, are now in prison because they believed you. But you recently said in an interview that you ‘lost by a whisker.’ What changed your mind, and do you now accept the results of the previous election?”

 

"On Saturday, you posted on your social media site Truth Social that you will imprison your political opponents and anyone you feel has, in your words, ‘cheated’ in the upcoming election. You wrote, in part: ‘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.’ In a democracy, how do you justify, with zero evidence, threats of political reprisals like this for things that haven’t happened?”

 

“You have recently been saying that a child may go to school and, in your words, ‘he comes home a few days later with an operation.’ You’re clearly referring to some kind of gender-affirming surgery, and you have been saying that ‘the school decides what’s going to happen with your child.’ You must know that none of that is true. That isn’t something that is happening anywhere. Can you explain why you keep repeating such an obviously false story?”

“Your opponent is biracial, and you have openly questioned her racial identity, suggesting she only recently ‘happened to turn Black.’ Many Americans found that offensive. Would you like to apologize for that statement here in front of Vice President Harris?”

[Cygnia]

Republicans threaten a government shutdown unless Congress makes it harder to vote

Quote

It’s that time again. The last act of Congress funding the federal government expires on September 30. So, unless Congress passes new funding legislation by then, much of the government will shut down.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), egged on by the House Freedom Caucus and by former President Donald Trump, reportedly wants to use this deadline to force through legislation that would make it harder to register to vote in all 50 states.

Johnson plans to pair a bill funding the government for six months with a Republican bill called the “Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act” or “SAVE Act,” that would require new voters to submit “documentary proof of United States citizenship,” such as a passport or a birth certificate, in order to register to vote.

There is no evidence that noncitizens vote in US federal elections in any meaningful numbers, and states typically have safeguards in place to prevent them from doing so. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, for example, claims to have identified 1,634 “potential noncitizens” who attempted to register during a 15-year period. But these possible noncitizens were caught by election officials and were never registered. In 2020, nearly 5 million Georgians voted in the presidential election.

More broadly, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center, “illegal registration and voting attempts by noncitizens are routinely investigated and prosecuted by the appropriate state authorities, and there is no evidence that attempts at voting by noncitizens have been significant enough to impact any election’s outcome.”

 

[Cygnia]

 

[tkdguy]

Taylor Swift Endorses Kamala Harris

[Old Man]

9 minutes ago, tkdguy said:

Taylor Swift Endorses Kamala Harris

 

Election.  Over.

[Old Man]

 

33 seems kinda low

[Ternaugh]

24 minutes ago, Old Man said:

 

33 seems kinda low

 

They might be only counting the first instance of each claim. "Illegals will eat your pets" would have garnered at least 5 counts all by itself otherwise.

[dmjalund]

The only Illegal likely to eat your pet, is ALF

[Lawnmower Boy]

3 hours ago, dmjalund said:

The only Illegal likely to eat your pet, is ALF

Anti-Melmacianism runs deep around here.

[Cygnia]