Month: November 2024

IST Saturday News Dump–23Nov24

Yes my friends it is that time again….the Dump of the week.

Does anyone remember when ‘Black Friday’ meant the day after Thanksgiving?

Locally–we finally got some cooler temps….up to Thursday it was in the high 70s now we are ranging in the low 60s…..and we got a bunch of rain that has been sorely needed…..but not to worry next week it will be back to high 70s….

Personally….last week between Sue and I we had doctors appointments every damn day……I am so tired of hospitals.

Since we have a new president-elect with some crazy ideas for the economy I thought this would be a good place to start….

Walmart had a better-than-expected third quarter, but consumers might not reap the benefits of that for long if President-elect Trump’s threatened tariffs on imports come to pass. Trump said during his campaign that he plans on imposing a 10% to 20% tariff on imports in general, with fees as high as 60% to 100% if those goods come from China. Now, Walmart CFO John David Rainey is weighing in on what that could mean for consumers—and it’s not looking good in the short term. “Tariffs will be inflationary for customers,” he tells the AP. He adds, per CNBC: “We never want to raise prices. Our model is everyday low prices. But there probably will be cases where prices will go up for consumers.”

  • NRF: Earlier this month, Matthew Shay, CEO of the National Retail Federation, issued a red flag about potential tariffs, calling them “a tax on American families” and noting they would “drive inflation and price increases and will result in job losses,” per CNBC. An NRF study from earlier this month noted that tariffs could cost consumers an additional $46 billion to $78 billion annually, per Axios.
  • Other companies: Walmart isn’t the only company warning of higher prices should the Trump tariff proposal come to pass. Lowe’s CFO Brandon Sink said on a Tuesday earnings call that tariffs “certainly would add product costs”; execs from AutoZone, Columbia Sportswear, and Stanley Black & Decker made similar statements.

This is the first consequence of the vote of stupidity.

I know if you watch the tube you have seen the corporations jumping on the green and clean bandwagon….but it is nothing more the ‘greenwashing’….a con!

In 2019, leading oil and chemical companies joined together to form the Alliance to End Plastic Waste (AEPW), vowing to divert more than 15 million tons of plastic from the environment by the end of 2023. Weeks into 2023, the alliance gave up the goal as “too ambitious.” Now, documents reveal what critics argue is further evidence of AEPW’s greenwashing. An analysis by energy consultants Wood Mackenzie shows five Alliance members—AEPW chair Dow, ExxonMobil, Shell, TotalEnergies and ChevronPhillips—produced 145 million tons of polyethylene and polypropylene over five years, but cleaned up just 130,000 tons of plastic waste—or 0.1% of the plastic they produced, per the Guardian.

According to Greenpeace, the five companies “produce more plastic in two days than the Alliance’s projects have cleaned up over the past five years.” What’s more, the amount of plastic produced is likely an undercount, as other forms of plastic, like polystyrene, were not assessed. “It’s hard to imagine a clearer example of greenwashing in this world,” says Bill McKibben, a US environmentalist. “They’re letting the running tap flood the house while trying to scoop up the water with a teaspoon,” says Will McCallum, a co-executive director at Greenpeace UK, adding “the only solution is to cut the amount of plastic produced in the first place.”

The AEPW denies the allegations of greenwashing in a statement, saying “the alliance aims to accelerate innovation and channel capital into the development of effective scalable solutions to help end plastic waste and pollution.” However, its representatives continue to lobby against plans to curb plastic production in negotiations for a global treaty to end plastic waste, the Guardian reports. In its report, Greenpeace cites documents from a PR company that worked with the AEPW as noting the alliance’s goal was to counter the “demonization of plastic” and to “change the conversation away from short-term simplistic bans of plastic.” It adds the Alliance has spent more than $10 million on communications consultants since its founding.

A big deal in the space industry is the mining of asteroids…..for huge profits like one full of gold, nickel and iron worth to the tune of $10,000,000,000,000,000,000. (damn that is a lot of zeros)

Back in 2023, NASA launched a spacecraft from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to investigate an asteroid believed to be worth $10,000,000,000,000,000,000.

The faraway asteroid, named 16 Psyche, is one of the largest M-type asteroids ever discovered and is thought to be composed of precious – and lucrative – metals, including gold, iron and nickel.

The asteroid is said to be so valuable, it could, hypothetically turn every single person on the planet into a billionaire, should its profits be shared among the entire population of the globe.

But, unfortunately, that’s not a realistic outcome.

In fact, despite NASA sending a spacecraft 2.5 billion miles away to investigate the space object, there are some pretty big hurdles that would need to be crossed before the metals could actually be mined from the asteroid.

But first, it’s important to understand why NASA is so keen to investigate this asteroid in particular.

https://www.unilad.com/news/asteroid-16-psyche-challenges-mining-metals-value-529215-20241120

We know that those possible profits will NOT be shared with anyone but Congress.

As long as we are in space I will keep with the meme….

A military spacecraft launched 55 years ago was moved from its orbit – and nobody is quite sure who did it, or why. 

In 1969 the UK launched Skynet-1A, a military communications satellite placed in orbit above the east coast of Africa in order to relay information to British armed forces. It stopped working due to hardware issues around 18 months after it started operating, and the spacecraft was left to the laws of physics to orbit the Earth – it is now the oldest UK spacecraft still in space.

It’s a good idea to check on defunct satellites, to make sure the space debris is not on course to collide with any working satellites or populated areas of the Earth below. In the 1970s, when the satellite was closely tracked, it was in a geostationary arc at a longitude of around 40 East, where it remained when it was decommissioned. Such orbits are subject to gravitational perturbations by the Sun, Earth and Moon.

“If Skynet-1A had failed at its operational location of around 40 East, we would now expect it to be oscillating by +/- 35 degrees either side of 75 East,” satellite-system engineer Dr Stuart Eves explains in a blog post for The Global Network on Sustainability in Space.

https://www.iflscience.com/skynet-1a-military-spacecraft-launched-55-years-ago-has-been-moved-by-persons-unknown-76727

Does anyone else think it is strange that the thing is named….Skynet?

Is it nuclear power rush for big tech?

Meta, like rivals including Microsoft and Amazon, has been seeking to use nuclear power to meet the vast power demands of its artificial intelligence projects, but the quest has been complicated by bees. The company had planned to build an AI data center near an unspecified nuclear plant in the US, but the project was scrapped after rare bees were found at the site, sources tell the Financial Times. The sources say the discovery of the rare species added to the environmental and regulatory challenges holding back Mark Zuckerberg’s proposed deal with a nuclear plant operator in the US.

Zuckerberg told staffers at an all-hands meeting that the plan would have made Meta the first Big Tech company with nuclear-powered AI, according to FT. The sources say the CEO told staffers that Meta is still looking into emissions-free power sources, including other nuclear options. In September, Microsoft announced a deal to revive one of the reactors at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania to power its data centers. Earlier this year, Amazon announced plans to build a data center next to the Susquehanna Steam Electric nuclear plant, though the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission rejected the proposal last week, Axios reports.

Google has also joined the Big Tech nuclear race. In a blog post last month, the company said it had signed the “world’s first corporate agreement to purchase nuclear energy from multiple small modular reactors” in a partnership with Kairos Power. “The grid needs new electricity sources to support AI technologies,” Google said. Popular Science notes that it’s not clear where Meta had planned to build the data center—there are 55 nuclear plants across 28 states in the US, and dozens of endangered bee species. One possibility is the Diablo Canyon Power Plant in San Luis Obispo County, the only operational nuclear plant in California

Is this a good idea when there will soon be an assault of environmental regulations?

Finally a gross report that has me shaking my head.

Tattoos….it seems to be the fad now that everyone wants to decorate themselves like some yakuza enforcer….but this trend is just NUTS!

An unusual cosmetic surgery procedure that involves permanently changing the color of your eyes using tattoos soaring in popularity.

As the Wall Street Journal reports, experts are warning that the procedure — called keratopigmentation, or corneal tattooing — could leave lasting damage.

The procedure involves cutting a donut-like tunnel into the cornea of the eye. The surgeon then widens this tunnel and fills it with a special dye that immediately and permanently changes the color of the eye.

Conventionally, the procedure has been used to correct a cosmetic disfigurement from an injury or disease, as The Guardian reports. For some patients, the procedure can reduce glare following corneal damage

But as the WSJ reports, European doctors began injecting dyes for solely cosmetic reasons in the 2010s.

“I see it as an enhancement,” New Jersey resident Jason Jimenez, who underwent the procedure, told the newspaper. “People get their teeth done, they get implants and Botox. If it’s something that could make you happier, make you look better — then why not?”

The US Food and Drug Administration has yet to approve keratopgimentation as a procedure in the US. But that hasn’t stopped surgeons from finding workarounds: some are using lasers designed for vision correction off-label and buying dyes from companies overseas where they’re certified, the WSJ reports.

https://futurism.com/neoscope/eye-color-tattoo

Stupidity strikes again!

That does it for me this Saturday….I hope you guys found it entertaining and possibly a little informative.

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend and as always….Be well and Be Safe….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Stop Calling For Unity!

For decades the magic term in DC has been bi-partisanship or more comically called ‘compromise’…..and to this day there are some mindless dweebs that are still calling for and believing in this ‘unity’.

Trump’s possible candidate for AG has made it clear what will not happen after this past election.  (I know Gaetz is gone Bondi is in….I wrote this draft before he withdrew)

Mike Davis, a Republican lawyer and former Senate aide whose name has repeatedly come up as a potential attorney general in the next Trump administration, seems bent on revenge against Democrats even after the former president’s big win Tuesday night.

“Here’s my current mood,” Davis wrote on X Wednesday morning. “I want to drag their dead political bodies through the streets, burn them, and throw them off the wall. (Legally, politically, and financially, of course.)“

In the past, Davis has said he wants to imprison journalists in “gulags,” though the line between what Davis calls “trolling” and his earnest dialogue sometimes isn’t easily discernible, as a Politico profile from September noted.

In any event, Davis‘ string of posts following Trump’s win made no mention of taking the “high road,” so to speak.

“F— unity. We have the votes. And they tried to kill Trump,” he wrote in another post minutes earlier, making an overly broad reference to “they.”

His statements pretty much sums up the hatred that is ruling over the government and its cogs.

Now for the Democrats….for decades they have embraced the stupidity the bi-partisanship was the way to govern…..now how has that worked out?

This last election their base went the way of the dodo….

One of the focal points of Harris’ campaign was her outreach to women voters. She made this election about freedom for women to make decisions about their own bodies and reproductive health.

And while this message did resonate with many women – in particular younger women – it didn’t with others. According to exit polls by the Associated Press, 47% of women over the age of 45 voted for Trump, as well as 43% of women aged 18-44. More than half of white women overall also voted for Trump (53%).

Exit polls by CNN also found that while Harris did better than Hillary Clinton in 2016 with white women with college degrees, white women without degrees overwhelmingly supported Trump.

This says a lot about the decisions that some women made in the election. It seems possible that what Trump was able to do was give these women enough wiggle room to reconcile what might seem to be otherwise irreconcilable. For instance, they could perhaps believe that Trump wouldn’t actually implement a national abortion ban, simply because he has said he would not. Or they may simply believe that Trump’s policies wouldn’t necessarily apply to them.

https://theconversation.com/why-did-white-women-and-the-democratic-base-abandon-kamala-harris-my-view-from-the-campaign-trail-243136

Democrats need a new plan…this centrist BS has gotten them nowhere and has done little for the people that voted for them.

They whisper and shout a lot about the wealth inequality during campaigns and have little plan after they lose….

America has gone through many ups and downs since the civil rights era, but one thing has remained remarkably constant: In 1970, 12.6 percent of Americans were considered poor; in 2023, that number was 11.1 percent — or 36.8 million people. “To graph the share of Americans living in poverty over the past half-century amounts to drawing a line that resembles gently rolling hills,” the sociologist Matthew Desmond wrote last year.

It might seem as though the persistence of poverty in the United States says something about how intractable the problem is. This is, after all, the richest country in the world. If America can’t rid itself of poverty, then who can? But it’s not that America can’t do it; it’s that it chooses not to.

That said, there isn’t a single answer to why so many Americans continue to be stuck in poverty. It is true, for example, that the American welfare system is broken, consistently undermined, and, in some cases, set up to fail. Studies have shown that programs like work requirements don’t work, and states have been caught hoarding billions of dollars worth of welfare funds instead of distributing them among the people they’re intended for.

https://www.vox.com/policy/374488/ending-poverty-america-policy-choice

Dems need a new plan….but that would mean going against the hand that feeds them, special interests, and if history since 1992 has taught anything is that they will not go against the powers that control the party.

So they will continue to offer platitudes and the GOP will continue winning elections.

We need a new party, a progressive party, that has the best interests in the people of this country and not the profits of the corporations.

This may be wishful thinking and as long as stupidity reigns there will be no change.

The party will not move forward without change.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Trumpian Possibilities For Healthcare

A continuing look ahead at the possibilities for 2025 and a new president…..

I am an old fart so healthcare is a prime concern for me as I age…..I am not particularly impressed with some of the rhetoric around this issue coming from the Trump camp.

We could see major changes in a wealth of areas in the field….like ‘reform’ of the ACA, Medicare ‘reform’, changes in the CDC, and others…..let’s look at the overall picture…..

Donald Trump returned to the presidency last night, and the impacts for healthcare could be sweeping.

The 2024 election returns Republicans to the helm of health agencies, armed with plans to reshape federal health programs, reshape standards for healthcare, and push to lower prices. Trump said previously that he would allow some of his most outspoken campaign leaders, such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to “go wild” on health, medicine, and food policy.

In addition to wanting to tackle rising costs, Trump has also said he wants to improve the performance of U.S. health agencies. The slogan “Make America Healthy Again” was a facet of his campaign. He touched on it again in his victory speech last night, also name-dropping Kennedy.

Trump will likely head into his second term with a supportive Congress, as the GOP has regained the Senate and the Associated Press has not yet called which party will lead the House.

Here are some of the healthcare priorities Trump mentioned on the campaign trail.

https://www.moneytalksnews.com/ways-president-elect-trump-plans-to-change-healthcare/

Medicare is a concern to this nation’s seniors and there is the possibility that major changes could be waiting in the wings…..

On the campaign trail, both former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are eager to portray themselves as guardians of Medicare. Each presidential candidate accuses the other of backing spending cuts and other policies that would damage the health insurance program for older Americans.

But the election’s outcome could alter the very nature of the nearly 60-year-old federal program. More than half of Medicare beneficiaries are already enrolled in plans, called Medicare Advantage, run by commercial insurers, and if Trump wins, that proportion is expected to grow — perhaps dramatically.

Trump and many congressional Republicans have already taken steps to aggressively promote Medicare Advantage. And Project 2025, a political wish list produced by the conservative Heritage Foundation for the next presidency, calls for making insurer-run plans the default enrollment option for Medicare.

Such a change would effectively privatize the program, because people tend to stick with the plans they’re initially enrolled in, health analysts say. Trump has repeatedly tried to distance himself from Project 2025, though the document’s authors include numerous people who worked in his first administration.

Conservatives say Medicare beneficiaries are better off in the popular Advantage plans, which offer more benefits than the traditional, government-run program. Critics say increasing insurers’ control of the program would trap consumers in health plans that are costlier to taxpayers and that can restrict their care, including by imposing onerous prior authorization requirements for some procedures.

“Traditional Medicare will wither on the vine,” said Robert Berenson, a former official in the Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton administrations who’s now a senior fellow at the Urban Institute, a left-leaning research group.

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/election-outcome-bring-big-medicare-experts/

None of this news strikes me as making the country “healthy again”….as was promised on the campaign trail.

But that is just me

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Hegseth? Rubio? Gabbard? WTF?

This series I am writing is letting the less informed of what they are getting for their vote…..

Trump is proving that he has no intention of trying to make America great again but the silly nominations that he is putting forth……especially when it comes to foreign policy.

Hegseth for Secretary of War….a person with limited experience other than he was in the military….I was also in the military does that make me eligible for the position?

Little Marco Rubio as SecState….another bad choice…..he is a China hawk…..and a Iran Hawk…..is an agent for defense industry and AIPAC…none of which will make him a good SecState….

Of all Trump’s choices for his foreign policy team, Marco Rubio is the least controversial to the neoconservative foreign policy establishment in Washington, and the most certain to provide continuity with all that is wrong with U.S. foreign policy, from Cuba to the Middle East to China.

The only area where there might be some hope for ending a war is Ukraine, where Rubio has come close to Donald Trump’s position, praising Ukraine for standing up to Russia, but recognizing that the U.S. is funding a deadly “stalemate war” that needs to be “brought to a conclusion.”

But in all the other hot spots around the world, Rubio is likely to make conflicts even hotter, or start new ones.

Then DNI, Gabbard….why?

Can some explain these choices?

Here are a few theories on his choices….

What do card sharks, magicians, pickpockets, and tyrants do to hide their tricks? They deflect your attention. “Look over here!” they say, as they create a commotion that preoccupies your mind while they bamboozle you.

At first, I thought Trump’s gonzo nominations were intended to flood the zone — overwhelm us, demoralize us, cause us to lose our minds.

Alternatively, I thought, they had a strategic purpose: Smoke out Senate Republicans who might stand in Trump’s way on other issues — such as allying with Putin and destroying NATO — so Trump could purge the holdouts through primary challengers and angry MAGAs.

But while flooding the zone and purging recalcitrant Senate Republicans may be part of it, I’ve come to think there’s a larger plan at work.

https://www.alternet.org/card-game-tricks-and-trumps/

This another theory on these historically bad choices for cabinet members….

“Each of them individually is historically bad,” said Snyder. “But taken together, these are not people who are going to be bad at their jobs in some sort of normal sense. Taken together, these appointments suggest an attempt to actually make the American government dysfunctional, to make it fall apart, to pervert it, to have it do things that it’s not supposed to do until it’s not capable of doing anything at all.”

For instance, Trump’s choice for director of national intelligence, former Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard, regularly amplifies Russian propaganda and conspiracy theories. Her role would have her oversee 18 intelligence agencies, but critics—even in the House Intelligence Committee—have drawn attention to the danger of her nomination considering her particular affinity for foreign dictators such as Syrian President Bashar Al Assad and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Responding to a clip of Gabbard from February 2022—shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine—in which the former Democrat claimed that Ukraine should “embrace the spirit of Aloha” and relinquish any military alliances with NATO or Russia, Snyder argued that “it’s not just that these people are not qualified enough.”

“It’s not just that they’re totally unqualified, it’s that they’re anti-qualified. They are qualified to do the opposite of the thing that they are supposed to do,” Snyder said.

“Tulsi Gabbard is talking about a moment when Russian forces are approaching the Ukrainian capital. When Russian assassination squads are attempting to kill the Ukrainian head of state, and she’s advising people that all we have to do is summon up a magic word, and in effect surrender all of Ukraine to Russia,” Snyder continued. “And it’s not naïve. It sounds naïve but it’s not. What it’s doing is trying to prepare the way for more Ukrainian suffering. It’s saying, he who invades is right.”

(newrepublic.com)

You may not care and that is your choice but I believe that you should if you care anything about this country.

Will these tools be any help?

Will these tools get us into international hot water?

Since I am a nerd for foreign policy I would like a deeper dive in his choices…..

Mythology has always played a central role in American politics and once a falsehood is sculpted, the premise becomes very difficult to break.

When it comes to Donald Trump, one of the most prevalent fabrications surrounds the 45th [and now also the 47th] president’s war record. According to many MAGA loyalists, Trump is significantly less hawkish than the presidents who’ve served before and after his time in the White House. This lie is so widespread that even many of those who openly oppose the president feel the need to partake in this ill-placed and undeserved praise.

Any notion that Trump was a peace-seeking commander-in-chief who spent his time in the Oval Office fighting America’s war machine is a fantasy coated in convenient omissions, blatant lies, and wishful thinking.  

Anyone still unconvinced by his record should consider some of the cabinet picks Trump’s floated since winning re-election. Although only a few nominations have been announced, the names that Trump’s transition team has publicized should serve as a solid indicator of what foreign policy in a second Trump term will look like. Just as he did the first time around, Trump appears to be filling his administration with a slate of neocons with some rather disturbing views about the US government’s role in the world.

https://issuechronicle.substack.com/p/the-foreign-policy-cabinet-of-the

None of this screams confidence to me…..how about you?

Will you pay attention (I know a bit much to ask).

I Read, I Write, you Know

“lego ergo scribo”

News From Ukraine

I realize there is a lot going on in our country right now with the election of a president and all the silliness around the issues…..but while we are scratching our heads the conflict in Ukraine remains and thanx to Biden is beginning to expand.

Those long range missiles that Biden told to fire into Russia…..

Ukraine fired six US-made missiles at Russia’s Bryansk region, Russia’s Defense Ministry said Tuesday, days after US President Biden eased restrictions on Ukrainian use of American-made weapons in the war that has reached its 1,000-day milestone, per the AP. Ukraine claimed it hit a military weapons depot in Bryansk in the middle of the night, though it didn’t specify what weapons it used. In a statement carried by Russian news agencies, the Russian Defense Ministry said the military shot down five Army Tactical Missile System, known as ATACMS, and damaged one more. The falling debris sparked a fire at an unspecified military facility, but didn’t inflict any damage or casualties, the ministry said.

Neither side’s claims could be independently verified. The announcement came after Biden authorized Ukraine to use US-supplied missiles to strike deeper inside Russia, easing limitations on the longer range weapons after Russia deployed thousands of North Korean troops in the conflict. Earlier on Tuesday, Ukrainian officials reported a third Russian strike in three days on a civilian residential area in Ukraine killed at least 12 people, including a child. The strike by a Shahed drone in the northern Sumy region late Monday hit a dormitory of an educational facility in the town of Hlukhiv and wounded 11, including two children, authorities said, adding that more people could be trapped under the rubble.

Ukrainian civilians have repeatedly been hit by Russian drones and missiles during the war, while on the battlefield its army is stretched extremely thin at places on the 600-mile front line against a bigger adversary. On Sunday, a Russian ballistic missile with cluster munitions struck a residential area of Sumy in northern Ukraine, killing 11 people and wounding 84 others. On Monday, a Russian missile barrage sparked apartment fires in the southern port of Odesa, killing at least 10 people and wounding 43. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that the series of aerial strikes proved that Russian President Vladimir Putin wasn’t interested in ending the war. “We must force Russia to a just peace by force,” he added.

For a couple of years I have read about how Putin will use nukes…..and now did Biden make that a possibility?

Russia just loosened its rules on when it can unleash nuclear weapons, and Reuters sees the timing as a clear warning to the US. On Tuesday, Vladimir Putin formally changed Moscow’s nuclear doctrine by lowering the threshold for when it can use nukes against its enemies. The move follows through on a pledge Putin made in September, notes the New York Times, but implementation of the change comes just days after the US reversed itself and gave Ukraine permission to fire longer-range American missiles inside Russia. In fact, Ukraine fired the first of those missiles on Tuesday.

  • New doctrine: Russia reserves the right to use nuclear weapons in response to a conventional weapons attack that creates “a critical threat to their sovereignty and (or) their territorial integrity,” per Reuters. The previous doctrine stipulated a threat to the “very existence of the state,” per CNN.
  • Joint attack: Further, the new doctrine considers an attack by a nonnuclear nation backed by a nuclear ally to be a joint attack by both, per the AP. Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called this a “very important paragraph,” notes the Times.

“The big picture is that Russia is lowering the threshold for a nuclear strike in response to a possible conventional attack,” Alexander Graef of the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg tells Reuters

Is this escalation?

The United States Embassy in Kyiv closed its doors Wednesday as it issued a warning that Russia might launch “a significant air attack.” It said it had “received specific information” about a possible attack but did not elaborate; employees were advised to shelter in place and Americans were told to heed air-raid alerts. The New York Times reports Ukraine’s capital is frequently the target of drone and missile attacks, “but the embassy rarely issues such a specific alert or shuts down.” CNN goes further, reporting the embassy had not previously fully closed since the war began in February 2022. More:

  • Russia on Tuesday promised to “react accordingly” to what Russia Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called “a qualitatively new phase of the Western war against Russia.” He was speaking of Ukraine’s first-ever use of American-made ballistic missiles, which were fired into Russian territory on Tuesday. Over the weekend, President Biden authorized the use of long-range missiles provided by the US for strikes deeper into Russia.
  • CNN sees the closure as “a stark reflection of how this war is escalating,” though “it is unlikely Russians will hit the US Embassy directly—that would be a severe escalation in the closing months of a White House soon to be replaced by a more sympathetic President-elect Donald Trump.”
  • The Times puts some numbers to what Kyiv has suffered so far: It reports that in the first 1,000 days of war, more than 2,500 missiles and drones have been unleashed on the capital from Russia, per data from the city’s military administration. About half of the attacks have occurred in 2024.
  • And while there have been around 1,370 air alerts to date, the paper notes there is rarely much of a heads up when ballistic missiles are launched. Due to their speed, they can reach their target within minutes. The AP reports Italy and Greece also closed their embassies in Kyiv, but the UK opted to keep its embassy open.

Something that is not reported much oin this conflict is the Ukrainian people unless there are children killed then it is a major story (not so much for Gaza or Lebanon)

To cap off his finally few days Biden has done an unthinkable…..mines.

The Biden administration announced Wednesday that it will be providing Ukraine with widely-banned anti-personnel mines, breaking its own policy that’s meant to prohibit the transfer of the indiscriminate weapons.

The provision of anti-personnel mines is the latest escalation from the Biden administration and comes after President Biden authorized Ukraine to launch long-range strikes on Russian territory using US missiles, which Ukrainian forces have already begun firing into Russia.

Anti-personnel mines, which are designed to kill or maim people, are banned by 164 countries under the Ottawa Treaty, but the US and Russia are not signatories. Ukraine has signed the treaty but has violated it by using anti-personnel mines in the conflict.

(antiwar.com)

To continue his final days Biden will forgive loans to Ukraine….

The State Department announced on Wednesday that it has moved to forgive about $4.7 billion in US loans to Ukraine as the Biden administration is trying to spend as much as it can on Ukraine during the transition period.

The $61 billion in aid for Ukraine that was authorized by Congress earlier this year included about $9.4 billion in economic and budgetary aid provided in the form of loans, an idea first promoted by President-elect Donald Trump. However, the law allows the president to forgive the loans if Congress doesn’t stop him.

After November 15, President Biden was allowed to forgive the first half of the loan. “We have taken the step that was outlined in the law to cancel those loans,” said State Department spokesman Matt Miller. On January 1, 2026, Trump will be able to forgive the second half of the loan if he chooses to do so and Congress allows it.

(antiwar.com)

Is it not time to make these slugs in DC start thinking about the taxpayer and the money they throw at this despots?

It seems the war is popular only with those that make their living with it….

A poll released by Gallup on Tuesday found that the majority of Ukrainians want peace talks to end the war with Russia.

The poll, conducted in August and October, found that 52% of respondents wanted talks with Russia to end the conflict as soon as possible, while 38% believed Ukraine should keep fighting, and 9% said they didn’t know or refused to answer.

Out of the 52% who favor negotiations, 52% said Ukraine should be open to territorial concessions, while 38% disagreed, and 10% said they weren’t sure.

The survey marked the first time since the Russian invasion that a Gallup poll found the majority of Ukrainians favored negotiations to end the war. The support for peace talks is stronger in eastern areas of Ukraine near the frontlines, where 63% want negotiations to end the war, and only 27% want the fighting to continue.

The poll, published on the 1,000th day of the war, came amid a major US escalation in the war as Ukraine began striking Russian territory with long-range US-provided missiles. The Biden administration appears to be doing whatever it can to escalate the conflict before President-elect Donald Trump is sworn in on January 20.

The US is escalating the proxy war despite Ukraine having no clear path to victory. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been pushing for more US support as part of his so-called “victory plan,” but even he has acknowledged the war will likely end through diplomacy in 2025.

(antiwar.com)

2025 looms and we all known what the president-elect has said, right?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

50 Years In The Making

We have completed a process (a plan) that begun about 50 years ago by electing Trump as president for the second time.

???  What on Earth are you going on about Professor?

Simple if you study political history….

To meet the challenge, business leaders would have to first recognize the severity of the crisis, and begin marshalling their resources to influence prominent institutions of public opinion and political power — especially the universities, the media and the courts. The memo emphasized the importance of education, values, and movement-building. Corporations had to reshape the political debate, organize speakers’ bureaus and keep television programs under “constant surveillance.” Most importantly, business needed to recognize that political power must be “assiduously cultivated; and that when necessary, it must be used aggressively and with determination without embarrassment and without the reluctance which has been so characteristic of American business.”

Powell emphasized the importance of strengthening institutions like the U.S. Chamber — which represented the interests of the broader business community, and therefore key to creating a united front. While individual corporations could represent their interests more aggressively, the responsibility of conducting an enduring campaign would necessarily fall upon the Chamber and allied foundations. Since business executives had “little stomach for hard-nosed contest with their critics” and “little skill in effective intellectual and philosophical debate,” it was important to create new think tanks, legal foundations, front groups and other organizations. The ability to align such groups into a united front would only come about through “careful long-range planning and implementation, in consistency of action over an indefinite period of years, in the scale of financing available only through joint effort, and in the political power available only through united action and united organizations.”

The Lewis Powell Memo: Corporate Blueprint to Dominate Democracy

If you read the article…..does any of that sound any where near familiar?

In 1971 there was a plan and it has been pretty much followed to a tee ever since….

We just watched the final fulfillment of a 50 year plan. Louis Powell laid it out in 1971, and every step along the way Republicans have follow it.

It was a plan to turn America over to the richest men and the largest corporations. It was a plan to replace democracy with oligarchy. A large handful of America’s richest people invested billions in this plan, and its tax breaks and fossil fuel subsidies have made them trillions. More will soon come to them.

As any advertising executive can tell you, with enough money and enough advertising — particularly if you are willing to lie — you can sell anybody pretty much anything.

Even a convicted felon, rapist, and friend and agent of America’s enemies.

America was overwhelmed this fall by billions of dollars in often dishonest advertising, made possible by five corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court, and it worked. Democrats were massively outspent, not to mention the power of the billionaire Murdoch family’s Fox “News” and 1500 hate talk radio stations.

Open the lens a bit larger, and we find that it goes way beyond just this election; virtually every crisis America is facing right now is either caused or exacerbated by the corruption of big money authorized by five corrupt Republicans on our Supreme Court.

They are responsible for our crises of gun violence, the drug epidemic, homelessness, political gridlock, our slow response to the climate emergency, a looming crisis for Social Security and Medicare, the situation on our southern border, even the lack of affordable drugs, insurance, and healthcare.

https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/trump-oligarchy-wins

The plan is almost complete just a few more cogs to work out.

After that half century we have Trump and his minions of doom…..

The American people want Donald Trump. And now they will get him. He will bring with him a horde of cranks, frauds, religious zealots, gutter racists, and vindictive thugs unprecedented in modern American history. The Nixon White House will look like a zen temple compared to what is coming. Trump’s second term will be a wave of pure malevolence. There will be revenge against his enemies, and there will be assaults on innocent and vulnerable Americans of the sort that our government usually reserves only for people overseas. Fringe lunatics will dictate health policy; Crypto grifters will dictate economic policy; Christian evangelicals will dictate Middle East policy; Flinty corporate lawyers will dictate labor policy; and the mighty American federal government will be run with all the propriety of a late night infomercial selling miracle cures to insomniacs. The cure will be branded ​“TRUMP,” in large golden letters. It won’t work. There will be no refunds.

(Hamilton Nolan)

You see the GOP has been planning this very thing for 50 years and anyone who voted for the GOP in those 50 years has contributed to the situation that many bitch about today.

But let us take a closer look at what that memo brought forth…..Project 2025….

But just how influential are their recommendations? According to The Heritage Foundation, during the first year of Trump’s first term, he “embraced” nearly two-thirds of their policy mandates. The website states that “64 percent of the policy prescriptions were included in Trump’s budget, implemented through regulatory guidance, or under consideration for action.” These included leaving the Paris Climate Accords, increasing off-shore drilling and military spending, and repealing net neutrality.

It remains to be seen just how much of Project 2025 will be enacted once Trump takes office, but there’s no doubt that everything from LGBTQ+ and abortion rights to immigration and climate justice are at risk. Below, what Project 2025 lays out for several top issues.

Read On….

https://www.marieclaire.com/politics/project-2025/

Now you have a small idea of what you will get by putting your vote into ignorance.

If you did vote GOP at any point you can bitch but you see you helped make Trump’s assault on democracy possible by buying into this plan.

I hope you are happy…..and have a merry christmas.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Trump On Education

The continuing series on what we Americans can expect from our new president……

Trump is NO friend to education but does that mean that it will become an elective for life?

Donald Trump will be serving a second presidential term, and with both chambers of Congress likely under Republican leadership—though the House is still to be decided— the future of education in the U.S. could starkly change. 

Trump has pledged to dismantle the Department of Education, cut federal funding for schools teaching critical race theory, and bar transgender female athletes from participating in school sports.

“The American people re-elected President Trump by a resounding margin giving him a mandate to implement the promises he made on the campaign trail. He will deliver,” Trump-Vance Transition Spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told TIME in a statement. 

Trump’s transition team did not respond to specific questions regarding which of his policies will take priority come January. 

Here’s what to know.

Dismantling the Department of Education

On the campaign trail, the President-elect vowed to eliminate the Department of Education, which has been a cabinet-level agency since 1980. The Department takes on numerous functions: designating federal aid through Title I, which gives state and local funding for schools serving low-income families, handing out Pell Grants, and regulating student loan relief through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program or income-based repayment plans. 

There more….please read on….

https://time.com/7174651/what-trump-winning-means-for-education/

With that said a closer look at the possibility with the elimination of the Dept of Ed…..the link below is from a conserv paper….

President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to cut the Department of Education and move its responsibilities back “to the states.” The change would be an unprecedented move as no Cabinet department has ever been dissolved without being reorganized in some way.

The Washington Examiner spoke to three leading education policy experts, who explained how cutting the Education Department would work, if it is realistic, and what the effects would be.

“I think it’d be fine,” Frederick M. Hess, senior fellow and director of education policy studies for American Enterprise Institute said. “The Department of Education is extraordinarily bureaucratic. It creates extraordinary amounts of red tape for the nation’s schools, especially relative to the money it actually provides.”

Hess said that under the Obama and Biden administrations, the department became “a political entity frequently engaged in promoting particular ideological nostrums” which he called “massively problematic.” He added that the two Democratic presidents “make the best possible case for abolishing the department. So, yeah, I think downsizing the department, or even abolishing it, is certainly wholly sensible.”

How Trump’s promise to abolish the Department of Education would work

In my opinion every word of that report is bullshit!

Then there is a view from the other side of the political spectrum….

The consequences of President-elect Donald Trump fulfilling his promise to abolish the Department of Education could be widespread, CNN reports.

“I say it all the time, I’m dying to get back to do this. We will ultimately eliminate the federal Department of Education,” Trump said during a September rally in Wisconsin.

“We will drain the government education swamp and stop the abuse of your taxpayer dollars to indoctrinate America’s youth with all sorts of things that you don’t want to have our youth hearing,” he added.

The establishment of the Department of Education as a Cabinent-level agency goes back to 1979 when former President Jimmy Carter signed it into legislation. Before Carter, federal education programs were housed in other agencies. It’s unclear how Trump would handle shutting the department down, but the move would have reverberating effects on K-12 schools and higher education.

One of the Department of Education’s biggest tasks is administering federal funding to K-12 and managing the federal student loan and financial aid programs. Funding programs under the federal agency for K-12 schools include the Title I program, an aid to low-income families, and the IDEA program, which helps provide money to meet the needs of children with disabilities. Programs like these could be in danger with the abolishment of the Department of Education.

The agency also doles out roughly $30 billion annually to low-income college students through the Pell grant program and manages about $1.6 trillion of student loans.

https://www.binnews.com/content/2024-11-12-heres-what-could-happen-if-trump-shuts-down-department-of-education/

My feeling is that education is a vital part of life and any attempt to eliminate or lessen its impact is a disaster waiting to happen.
Will Trump make good on his promise to eliminate the Department of Education or will he decide on something less?

Texas is trying a template for the rest of the nation on education…..

A new Texas public school curriculum criticized for focusing too much on Christianity passed a preliminary Texas State Board of Education vote on Tuesday. A measure to reject the state-produced Bluebonnet Learning curriculum was defeated in an 8-7 vote, with three Republicans siding with the board’s four Democrats, the New York Times reports. It is up to schools whether they adopt the curriculum—but those who do so can get an extra $40 per student per year. A final vote on the curriculum is expected Friday.

  • The K-5 curriculum incorporates lessons from the Bible as early as kindergarten, with a “Golden Rule” kindergarten lesson focusing heavily on Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and making only brief mentions of other religions. A first grade “Sharing Stories” unit includes the Parable of the Prodigal Son from the New Testament, reports CNN. Critics say the Christian stories and ideas are presented without being introduced as religious beliefs.
  • In a press release days before the vote, Texas AFT, one of the state’s largest teachers’ unions, said it “believes that not only do these materials violate the separation of church and state and the academic freedom of our classroom, but also the sanctity of the teaching profession.
  • Critics say the curriculum has other problems, including the downplaying of the role of racism and slavery in American history, the San Antonio Express-News reports. A kindergarten lesson instructs teachers to tell children that Founding Fathers including George Washington and Thomas Jefferson “realized that slavery was wrong and founded the country so that Americans could be free,” ignoring the fact that both men were slaveowners, reports the Texas Tribune.
  • Supporters say the Bible plays a big part in American history, the Times reports. The curriculum will “allow our students to better understand the connection of history, art, community, literature, and religion on pivotal events like the signing of the US Constitution, the Civil Rights Movement and the American Revolution,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said in a statement.
  • “Of course, the Bible is an important part of history and American society. And of course, students should learn about the Bible as literature and history in the context of a secular curriculum,” Charles Haynes, a senior fellow for religious liberty at the Freedom Forum, tells CNN. “But inserting faith-based lessons into public school classrooms, which sounds like what is intended here, is not the study of history or literature. It is religious indoctrination.”
  • The Times notes that as conservative Christians push to expand the role of religion in public schools, similar lessons may be adopted by other states, and the Texas curriculum “may also offer a playbook for the White House” after Donald Trump returns to the presidency.

Forced indoctrination.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Democrats Have A Plan

After having their asses handed to them in the last election the Dems have started formulating a new plan to balance the sheet.

The Dems lost support among their staunchest supports of years past….

What happened in this year’s election was not some kind of flowering of American fascism, but a rebellion against a hated, out-of-touch Democratic Party elite.

The primary driver of the election outcome was an angry working-class rejection of the status quo and deep cost-of-living crisis proudly presided over by the Democrats. Traditional Democratic voters who had faced sky-high grocery prices, gas, rent, alongside crumbling social infrastructure were told to buck up and vote for Kamala Harris, or else. They were told to ignore the genocide in Gaza, and worse yet to vote for the genocider. The only thing the Democrats offered to working people was a recycled anti-Trump campaign.

Predictably, the Democrats hemorrhaged working-class support and managed to lose ground in virtually every part of their base: the Arab and Muslim American community, Black voters, Latino voters, young people, and even women.

…

Harris abandoned a raft of progressive policies that are wildly popular, some of which were featured on ballot initiatives that won by big margins in states that went for Trump. Voters approved minimum wage increases, including to $15/hour (Alaska and Missouri), expanded workers’ ability to earn paid sick leave in three states (Alaska, Missouri, and Nebraska), rejected school vouchers (Colorado, Kentucky, and Nebraska), and opted to ban anti-union captive audience meetings (Alaska).

https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/11/15/the-democrats-deserved-to-lose-1000-times-over/

I agree that the Democratic Party needs new and fresh leadership…..

The leadership of the Democratic Party deserves significant blame for the return of Donald Trump to the White House. While there were multiple factors at play, it must be acknowledged that Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and their enablers engaged in vast levels of political malpractice despite countless warnings from many key voices and constituencies. 

…

If we want a Democratic Party that can produce different outcomes, we will need to hold the current party accountable for its failures. That means matching our demands for change with the force and pressure of real accountability. The Democratic leadership must itself be targeted with campaigns that highlight the principles of electoral success while punishing those responsible for the party’s continued defeats. I’m building a campaign to do exactly that, and here’s how I think we can win.

Take Out the Trash: A Proposal to Clean Up the Democratic Party

And now they have a plan or at least the beginning of a plan….

Let me say this is something that should have been done back as early as 1992 but no they had faith….and it bit them in the ass as faith has a way of doing.

But now the Dems have a plan of action (My responses will be typed in red)

With Republicans about to have control of the White House, Senate, and House, Democrats are coming to the conclusion that Washington might not be the best place to mount their comeback. Instead, the New York Times reports, elected Democrats are forming a plan to build their opposition in the states they dominate politically. In Minnesota, Attorney General Keith Ellison said his office has been readying a strategy in the event Donald Trump returned to power for more than a year. “States in our system have a lot of power,” Ellison said. “We’re entrusted with protecting people, and we’re going to do it.” Steps include:

  • Going to court: Hundreds of lawyers are being recruited to challenge Trump administration policies. Advocacy groups are lining up potential plaintiffs and workshopping cases to fight regulations, laws, and administrative actions that Democrats anticipate. A legal group formed after Trump’s election in 2016 has raised millions, enlisted more than 800 lawyers, and learned lessons from his first administration, per the Times. “No one was running to the courthouse on a range of things that matter to people in communities,” said Skye Perryman, CEO of Democracy Forward. “Resistance this time is a lot more about collective power building. It’s using the law and using litigation.”

This may be a little late since the last Trump admin stacked the courts in his favor)

  • Focusing on governors: There are 23 Democratic governors. They’ve articulated varying strategies so far. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy suggests cooperating with Republicans where possible. “It’s a combination of fight where you need to fight, and that includes everything—legal action, a bullhorn, peaceful protests and civil disobedience,” Murphy said. “And then at the same time, we can’t close off the opportunity to find common ground.” California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker have begun preparations for confrontations, with Newsom calling a special session of the legislature to fund court fights. Pritzker and Colorado Gov. Jared Polis formed a group called Governors Safeguarding Democracy; not all Democratic governors agreed to join.

This idea is about 25 years too late

  • Working remotely: Strategists say they’re trying to coordinate policy among Democratic-run states and urging the party to think local. “Emerging policy experts and political organizers who want to make a difference—don’t go to Washington,” said Arkadi Gerney, urging them to go instead to capitals in blue and purple states and work to make those places great.

Again may be too late….this should have been a priority a couple of decades ago.

Check out the rest of the plan below.

The Times reports the scope of Democratic plans here.

These are good and solid ideas the problem as I see it is as I have stated it is a bit late.  With the temperament of the nation as it is today these ideas may be as self-defeating as some of their ‘big’ ideas from years ago.

Thoughts?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Trump Economics For 2025

The series on the possibilities of a trump administration continues.

Some pundits say that the economy was a driving force in the past vote….and that things will improve….I disagree.

Now that the idiots in our society all 51% of them have given the nod to Trump for a second time it might be helpful to know what to expect from his economic policies…..

President-elect Donald Trump on the campaign trail laid out a broad array of ideas aimed at providing tax relief, cutting prices, hiking tariffs and strengthening the economy, which ranks at the top of voters’ concerns.

Nearly all of the measures, which lack detail, would require congressional approval. That could be tough to achieve in the partisan climate on Capitol Hill.

Here’s what you need to know about what Trump has said he’ll do to address the economy:

Tackle expiring tax cuts

Some parts of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, one of Trump’s signature achievements during his time in the White House, are scheduled to lapse at the end of 2025.

While the law reduced taxes for most people, Democrats often criticize the TCJA for disproportionately benefiting the wealthy.

Trump wants to extend all the individual income and estate tax cuts that the 2017 law provided. This includes, among other things, an increase to the standard deduction, lower marginal income tax rates for most income brackets, and an increase to the estate tax exemption.

Trump has suggested he would get rid of the cap on state and local tax deductions, known as SALT. The TCJA limited the deduction to $10,000, but the controversial cap expires at the end of 2025.

Additionally, Trump has called for lowering the corporate tax rate to 15% for certain companies. The TJCA permanently lowered the top corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%.

Trump would also restore companies’ ability to immediately deduct investments in equipment and research.

There is so much more…..

https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/06/politics/heres-what-trump-is-proposing-for-the-economy/index.html

Trump’s big stand is the imposition of tariffs…..remember what happen last time he did so?

Economic experts have predicted that such policies would hinder economic growth, increase inflation, harm the working class, balloon the deficit, and likely ignite a new trade war. As a result, his policies would take us back to the first Gilded Age of wealth concentration and gross economic inequality.

Maybe in simpler terms…..

Food will more expensive, education will suck, health care will suffer, tax breaks for billionaires, and on and on…..

But do not take my word for it….

Trump says all this would end inflation, boost manufacturing and employment, and lower the cost of food and housing. But that has been analyzed and dismissed by almost every economist and trade group in the country to look at it.

“Trump has again proven he is a brilliant huckster,” said Kristen Monroe, a political economist at the University of California Irvine. “The election was decided because Americans thought Trump would do a better job managing the economy. Unfortunately, they are wrong. Trump’s policies will help billionaires like Elon Musk but hurt most everyday Americans. We’ll see higher prices, increased deficits, increased costs for healthcare and prescription drugs, and trade wars that will hurt everyone.”

Economists say Trump’s proposal now — for tariffs of 50% to 60% on imports from China and 10% to 20% on all other imports — would crush the economy and do little to preserve jobs. A Bloomberg Economics analysis found that Trump’s tariffs would almost double inflation from its current rate of near 2% to 3.7% by the end of 2025.

https://qz.com/donald-trump-economy-tariffs-trade-taxes-inflation-fed-1851692901

Let’s look at the immediate increases with the Trump tariffs….

President-elect Donald Trump has promised a major escalation of the nation’s tariffs.

Trump has proposed tariffs of between 60% and 100% on Chinese goods, and a tax of between 10% and 20% on every product imported from all U.S. trading partners.

Economists widely forecast that tariffs of this magnitude would increase prices paid by U.S. shoppers, since importers typically pass along a share of the cost of those higher taxes to consumers.

Trump’s tariffs would cost the average U.S. household about $2,600 per year, according to an estimate from the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

Some products would likely undergo much more significant price increases than others, experts told ABC News, pointing to items like electronics and toys that rely heavily on imports.

https://abcnews.go.com/Business/trumps-proposed-tariffs-raise-prices-products-experts/story

There is no room for optimism with Trump economics….it will be disastrous…..and you will be paying through the nose….

But do not bitch for you voted for the SOB

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Still Scratching Their Heads

With the their asses handed to them in the election lets look at the Dems and any possibilities they can bounce back.

Democrats are trying not to go into denial over their loss to Trump and his minions…..I thought I would look at some of the reports and pass them on.

My opinion is the Dems have been drifting too far right ever since Bubba Clinton and that is what got them where they are today for the working class feels it has been abandoned by the Dems after all these years.

I agree with Bernie…..

Sen. Bernie Sanders was reelected on Tuesday, but he’s not surprised that Democrats lost the White House. Sanders, who caucuses with Democrats, sharply criticized the party in a statement posted on social media, USA Today reports. “It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them,” the independent senator from Vermont said. “While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change. And they’re right.”

Sanders cited issues including wealth inequality, noting that while “the very rich are doing phenomenally well,” weekly wages for the average American “are actually lower now then they were 50 years” when inflation is taken into account. “Will the big money interests and well-paid consultants who control the Democratic Party learn any real lessons from this disastrous campaign?” Sanders asked. “Will they understand the pain and political alienation that tens of millions of Americans are experiencing? Do they have any ideas as to how we can take on the increasingly powerful Oligarchy which has so much economic and political power? Probably not.”

The Party spent too much time focused on degrading Trump and not enough time on what really matters to the voter.

Take abortion and yes it is an issue and Harris spent many hours focused on returning to the days of Roe v Wade…..but did women care?

Donald Trump has won the majority of white women voters for the third straight time. 

Even after destroying abortion rights, even after a judge went to painstaking lengths to clarify that Trump raped E. Jean Carroll, and even as the Harris campaign targeted the imaginary “silent majority” of women hiding their political views from their husbands, 52 percent of white American women showed us who they are: Trump supporters.

National exit polls show that Trump easily carried white women’s vote, as white men too were 59 percent for Trump. For comparison, Black men and women went 20 percent and 7 percent for Trump, respectively.

There was so much liberal hand wringing over Harris’s perceived issues with Black male voters. Black men were too sexist, too uneducated, and were seen as a real vulnerability for her chances. “This election has taught me that there is a true intellect deficiency amongst our Heterosexual Black Men. It’s a sad reality,” one viral tweet on X read. A bit earlier, Barack Obama delivered an entire speech blaming Black men for their reluctance to back Harris. 

And yet Harris won three-quarters of Black men, while a much larger, much more powerful group of voters (white women) rejected the party begging for their votes for the third time in a row.

https://newrepublic.com/post/188061/white-women-harris-trump-exit-polls

Let’s take a deeper look…..

The dust is settling, and though in some ways the 2024 presidential election was typical, there are several ways in which it wasn’t.

  • Improving all over: Despite facing numerous legal battles and controversies since leaving the White House, former President Trump improved on his 2020 margin in 92% of more than 1,300 counties where at least 95% of the vote was counted, per Politico. “The median county shifted a bit under 2 points in Trump’s favor,” the outlet notes.
  • Popular vote: In a 20-year first for the GOP, Trump is expected to win the popular vote on top of the Electoral College; George W. Bush last did it in 2004. After losing the popular vote twice before, Decision Desk HQ has him with 71 million votes compared to Kamala Harris’ 66 million.
  • Latinos: Trump gained with “nearly every demographic group,” per CNN, but particularly Latino voters. They moved 26 points toward Trump from 2020, while Latino men moved 33 points in a massive swing, according to ABC News exit poll data. This surge in support “could fundamentally reorient American politics for a generation,” per Axios.
  • Starr County, Texas: Trump is the first Republican to win the former Democratic stronghold, part of the Rio Grande Valley region, in a presidential race since 1896. And it wasn’t close. He led by more than 15 points, per the Texas Tribune.
  • Independents in Georgia: President Biden won this group, which makes up 31% of the state electorate, by a 9-point margin in 2020. Trump was leading by 11 points in a CNN exit poll, marking a 20-point swing Jake Tapper described as “wild,” per the New York Post.
  • Dearborn, Michigan: After drawing 30% of the vote in 2020, Trump won 42% support over Harris’ 36% in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn, an Arab-American stronghold, per the Wall Street Journal. Meanwhile, Green Party candidate Jill Stein won 18% support in an apparent protest vote against the Biden administration’s support for Israel amid its war with Hamas.

AS I have stated….the Dems screwed themselves in 1992 by switching to a big business party…..and they have never looked back….they offer platitudes but no action to back up their accusations and promises.

What this country needs is another Eugene V. Debs…..a charismatic political firebrand….someone who will embrace a true change and not just in word.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”