Tag: 2024 Elections

Crime Is Out Of Control!

We are hearing this statement playing out with every campaign speech.

That is one of the taglines for the Trump campaign…..a good hook for idiots and the truth is it is so much bullsh*t.

The fact is crime has been in decline….regardless what Donald has said…..there is no proof it is out of control….

Violent crime levels have dropped significantly in the first half of the year, according to a new report from the Major Cities Chiefs Association.

Overall, violent crime dropped by 6 percent and homicides fell by 17 percent in 69 cities compared to the same period last year. Columbus, Ohio, saw the biggest drop in violent crime at 41 percent, according to an Axios data analysis. But cities including Miami, Washington, DC, and Austin, Texas, also saw large declines. Notably, New York City was not included in the data, though other reports have indicated that violent crime is falling there, too.

It’s hard to say exactly what’s causing the decline, which comes after a major Covid-19 crime wave. It may be partially due to policies aimed at tackling crime at the federal, state, and local levels. But it may also just be a symptom of the fact that normal life in America has resumed post-pandemic — or a combination of those and other factors.

Republicans have long tried to use concerns about crime as a political cudgel against President Joe Biden’s administration. While former President Donald Trump doesn’t appear to be giving up on that attack strategy just yet, Democrats can now use the new data as a defense. Whether that will be effective, however, is far from certain.

In a statement on Saturday, President Joe Biden credited the $1.9 trillion economic stimulus bill that Congress passed in 2021, which allocated $15 billion toward public safety and violence prevention efforts, for helping bring down crime levels. He also cited bipartisan gun control law that expanded background checks and encouraged states to adopt “red flag” laws to prevent people who pose a danger to themselves or others from obtaining a gun.

But while those laws may have helped, some experts are highly skeptical of attributing the decrease to specific government initiatives.

“I think it’s early to know exactly why murder and violent crime are going down now,” said Jeff Asher, a crime researcher who runs a crime database at AH Datalytics. “Generally, I’m skeptical of political actions causing crime to go up or crime to go down, especially at the federal level.”

However, the pandemic crime was such an outlier in terms of the speed and degree to which it took hold that Asher said it’s possible that government spending on public safety helped interrupt such an acute increase in violence.

https://www.vox.com/policy/366622/violent-crime-dropping-pandemic-wave-2024

I am sure that these people will point to one city that is having a spree and claim the whole country is having it as well….that would be pure horse manure.

If you fancy yourself as a law and order voter then do not listen to crap, do the research and you will see that crime is declining across the nation.

Vote Smart!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

2024 Will Be The Pocketbook Vote

We hear almost daily that this election will be about economics…..some call it the “pocketbook vote”….people will vote for the person that they think will improve their income so they can better support their families.

I want to go on record as saying that I do not believe that BS for a moment.

Why would I make such a bold statement?

Let’s look at my state of Mississippi….which by the way is at the bottom of the economic scale….voters on local, state and national level do not vote with their wallets…..if they did this state would be a lot better off than it is today.

Many studies assume that policy issues have little bearing on voting, while the economy has a substantial impact, especially in congressional elections. Yet from 2020 to 2022, congressional voting preferences changed in fundamentally rational ways based on views, thus suggesting evidence of democratic accountability with respect to this particular issue.

“What people tell you is ‘most important’ in determining their vote is likely to be a reflection of their partisanship, rather than a source of change in their vote preferences,” conclude Mutz and Mansfield.

“It could mean that people’s perceptions of the economy are less important than journalists typically imply in their coverage. As a result, lingering effects of the Dobbs decision and general distrust of the Supreme Court may be especially influential in 2024.”

https://phys.org/news/2024-05-conventional-wisdom-americans-pocketbook-voters.html

Do Americans “vote their pocketbooks?” This near-ubiquitous cliche seems at first to pass the test of common sense. Why wouldn’t people vote for the candidates under whom they’ll do the best financially? A wealthy voter should favor the candidate who will lower their taxes. A chronically unemployed voter should support the candidate promising lavish government handouts.

In the most basic economic terms, however, this logic falls apart. If one votes, for example, to maximize the present value of their future income, the answer is to not vote at all. Given the vanishingly low probability of breaking a tie, voting isn’t worth the gasoline used to drive to one’s local fire station and cast a ballot.

Perhaps this critique says more about the limits of economic modelling than it does about voting. Slogans like “It’s the economy, stupid” and “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” suggest a bigger-picture view people can take when voting their pocketbooks. But once again, this view fails to hold water.

The concept of “voting one’s pocketbook” frequently causes partisans who don’t understand the other party’s voters to make strategic errors. It also perpetuates the destructive idea that different groups of citizens are playing a zero-sum game against each other. Finally, and perhaps most insidiously, it creates the myth that the right politician can make our pocketbooks grow.

The Myth of Voting One’s Pocketbook

I ask for your input.

Do you think Americans will vote with their wallets?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

The Walz Attacks

As expected once Harris named Tim Walz as her VP the attacks and the sleazy would commence and it has….

That idiot war hawk in the Senate Tom Cotton accuses Walz of some sort of collaboration with China….

Within hours of Tim Walz being declared winner of the Democratic “veepstakes”, Republican accusations that he is pro-China came thick and fast.

“Communist China is very happy,” Donald Trump’s former ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell, said on Twitter/X. “No one is more pro-China than Marxist Walz.”

Tom Cotton, a Republican senator, said Mr Walz owed an explanation “about his unusual, 35-year relationship with Communist China”.

MAGA War Room, an influential X account supporting Donald Trump, unearthed a 2016 video in which Mr Walz told the farming policy outlet Agri-Pulse that the US and China did not need to have an “adversarial relationship”.

But what does the record show? Republicans may want to weaponise Mr Walz’s links to China, but it’s pretty slim pickings.

Mr Walz’s personal relationship with China does indeed extend back decades.

It began in 1989 when, fresh out of college, Mr Walz began a Harvard University volunteer programme teaching American history and English at the Foshan No 1 High School in southern China.

He later set up a business with his wife Gwen organising annual summer educational trips to China. The venture lasted more than a decade and by his own estimation, Mr Walz returned to the country around 30 times.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgewpzyd91o

Well that one will fall flat and die a silent death…..but there is more….

The tag of “Tampon Tom”…..I have heard this mention several times….even on this blog….

Tim Walz continues to make headlines, as the public learns more about him, and as the GOP goes on the attack. But one law the Minnesota governor signed last year is drawing special attention, as well as generating a new derogatory nickname.

  • The law: The bill included a mandate to provide free menstrual products to students in fourth grade all the way up through 12th. CBS News calls it an effort meant to address “period poverty,” when students can’t afford necessary pads and tampons. NPR notes Minnesota is one of nearly 30 states that has such a law in place.
  • GOP attack: “Tampon Tim put tampons in boys’ bathrooms,” Karoline Leavitt, a Trump campaign rep, said in a statement to CBS. She made a similar claim Tuesday on Fox News, noting, “As a woman, there’s no greater threat to our health than leaders … who support putting tampons in men’s bathrooms in public schools.”
  • More: Other right-wingers also came out swinging. “She actually chose Tampon Tim,” Stephen Miller, an ex-adviser to former President Trump, wrote on X after Vice President Kamala Harris announced Walz as her running mate. Chaya Raichik, who runs the far-right Libs of TikTok social media account, posted a picture of a box of tampons with Walz’s face superimposed on it and the words “Tampon Tim” written across the front of the package.
  • Fact check: The Star Tribune‘s editorial board lauds the “compassionate” law and calls the attacks against it “ill informed,” pointing out there’s no mandate to put menstrual products in boys bathrooms—the law’s language simply allows for the products to be placed where those who need them can access them, like unisex bathrooms or the nurse’s office. “This has unfortunately been used to stoke ongoing culture wars over transgender individuals,” the authors note.
  • Misfire? Some say the GOP’s campaign against Walz won’t work. “Friends, this attack will backfire,” writes Nancy Kaffer in an op-ed for the Detroit Free Press (this columnist agrees).
  • Big-name pushback: NPR notes that “many on the left see ‘Tampon Tim’ as a compliment, including the Minnesota congresswoman who was the chief sponsor of the bill in the state House. “This law exemplifies what we can accomplish when we listen to students to address their needs,” wrote Rep. Sandra Feist, using the #TamponTim hashtag. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton weighed in as well, noting, “How nice of the Trump camp to help publicize Gov. Tim Walz’s compassionate and common-sense policy.”

Is this the best the GOP can do?

Maybe a sure sign these dullards are running scared.

Any thoughts?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Blueprints For Authoritarianism

I know there is a bunch of stuff written these days about Project 2025 and for that I am glad for there is not enough time for the whole picture to come into focus without these attempts.

There are plans within plans going on in this country and we need to be vigilant or things could drastically change for all of us.

In history there have been blueprints to bring about the ‘king figure’….Mein Kampf comes to mind and now Project 2025….

I am not arguing that “Project 2025” is directly comparable to Adolf Hitler’s autobiographical manifesto “Mein Kampf,” but there are some similarities in their political ideology and their political plans for the United States and Germany, respectively. Both documents are “blueprints for authoritarianism.” As the saying goes, often you need to be forewarned in order to be forearmed.

The antisemitic ravings of “Mein Kampf” are quite different from the unconscionable anti-immigrant markers in “Project 2025.” However, the language of the documents as well as the language of Donald Trump reveal a contempt for groups of individuals that is evil and ugly. Hitler wrote about the “Jewish peril,” which isn’t far removed from Trump’s racism going back to the “American Carnage” speech of 2017 as well as the Project’s call for mass deportations.Trump’s language has only worsened over the years, and we never should forget his Muslim ban and the reference to “shithole” countries in his first year in the White House.

The important role of Stephen Miller on behalf of Trump and the Project is stunning; Miller is Jewish but he would have made a good Gauleiter for any Fascist party. Miller has been working for years to get a nationwide crackdown on immigration. He has vowed to increase deportations by a factor of ten, to a million people a year, according to recent articles in the New York Times and the New Yorker. Project 2025 calls for “stringent reinforcement” of immigration and deportation measures, including “ramped-up workplace inspections,” and penalties for employers hiring undocumented workers.

The United States was alerted nearly a decade ago to Steve Bannon’s Leninist “destruction of the administrative state,” and Project 2025 moves in this direction, calling for partisan control of the Department of Justice and the FBI. The Project wants increased military participation in domestic law enforcement, stressing the use of the Insurrection Act of 1807 to put down revolt or even civil unrest in the United States. Even peaceful protests could be targeted. The Germans had nearly one decade of warning regarding Hitler’s interest in destroying the parliamentary system, but never took his views seriously. We seem to be following the German pattern. Are we Germany 1933?

https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/08/01/blueprints-for-authoritarianism-mein-kampf-and-project-2025/

This “Plan’ came from the Heritage Foundation….the same place that one of their people stated that Stalin had a good idea…..

The far-right Heritage Foundation — which is the chief group pushing the authoritarian Project 2025 initiative — once heaped praise on Russian dictator Joseph Stalin for his socially conservative policies.

On the social media platform Bluesky, journalist Faine Greenwood posted snippets from a 2022 post on Heritage’s website by researcher Emma Waters. In the article, Waters — whose bio notes that she works at Heritage’s “Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Life, Religion and Family” — made the argument that the totalitarian Russian leader was pro-family despite his regime killing millions of people.

“Joseph Stalin had an utter disregard for human life, and his regime claimed the lives of 9,000,000-20,000,000 of its own subjects. Yet even Stalin understood that society depended on strong, intact families,” Waters wrote.

https://www.alternet.org/project-2025-divorce/

Is that really someone you want to look up to at any time?

You should read this especially!

Did you know that there is a ‘secret’ part of 2025?

However, there is even more to Project 2025 than the public is aware of.

The lawmakers pointed out that while the people behind the blueprint promised to be transparent, this apparently does not apply to one section of the plan.

“[T]he entire ‘Fourth Pillar,’ the ‘180-Day Playbook’ which you describe as a roadmap of comprehensive, concrete, early actions for each federal agency, remains shrouded in secrecy,” they write, and they called on the Heritage Foundation to disclose these parts of the document.

“You have conspicuously declined to publish or disclose any of the prioritized early actions that we believe would obviously be the most important parts of Project 2025,” they write.

This includes the executive orders, presidential directives, and other actions that would drastically remake the federal government and the US as a whole.

House Dems to Heritage Foundation: Show Us the Secret Part of Project 2025

Then there are those ‘training’ videos….

Project 2025, the controversial playbook and policy agenda for a right-wing presidential administration, has lost its director and faced scathing criticism from both Democratic groups and former President Donald Trump. But Project 2025’s plan to train an army of political appointees who could battle against the so-called deep state government bureaucracy on behalf of a future Trump administration remains on track.

One centerpiece of that program is dozens of never-before-published videos created for Project 2025’s Presidential Administration Academy. The vast majority of these videos — 23 in all, totaling more than 14 hours of content — were provided to ProPublica and Documented by a person who had access to them.

The Project 2025 videos coach future appointees on everything from the nuts and bolts of governing to how to outwit bureaucrats. There are strategies for avoiding embarrassing Freedom of Information Act disclosures and ensuring that conservative policies aren’t struck down by “left-wing judges.” Some of the content is routine advice that any incoming political appointee might be told. Other segments of the training offer guidance on radically changing how the federal government works and what it does.

https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-project-2025-secret-training-videos-trump-election

Since everyone pisses and moans about taxes, especially the dullards on the right, then maybe you should focus on what “2025′ would do to you if it becomes the law of the land….

An economic analysis of the far-right Project 2025 agenda crafted by at least 140 former Trump administration officials shows that the plan would result in higher taxes on working-class Americans and “corporate welfare” for the rich and large businesses.

Conducted by the Democrats on the Joint Economic Committee (JEC), the new analysis notes that Project 2025’s sprawling “Mandate for Leadership” would establish a “two-rate individual tax system of 15% and 30% that eliminates most deductions, credits, and exclusions.”

Such a system, according to the JEC, “would force many middle-class families to pay thousands of dollars more in tax payments.”

“Together, these changes to tax rates would mean that a family of four earning $90,000 per year would have paid roughly $2,300 more in taxes last year,” the JEC found. “If the Child Tax Credit was also eliminated, this family would have paid roughly $6,300 more. Meanwhile, millionaires would pay a lower top tax rate.”

The analysis also points to Project 2025’s push for a “national sales tax,” a highly regressive proposal endorsed by dozens of Republican lawmakers in the House of Representatives.

A national sales tax would “force working families to pay more at the grocery store, gas pump, and any other place they buy
goods or services,” JEC said Thursday, noting that past GOP proposals “would have hiked the cost of essentials like groceries and housing—usually exempt from state and local sales taxes—by 30%.”

https://www.commondreams.org/news/project-2025-taxes

Can you see just how bad things would be if we elect a person that would do everything possible to enact these provisions?

If not then this country is in serious terrible.

The more the GOP is hammered with the Project 2025 thing the more Americans learn and the more they dislike the ideas behind the mask….

There’s been some infighting among conservatives lately over a package of sweeping conservative policy proposals known as “Project 2025.” Conservative groups developed the plan as a sort of wish list for if former President Donald Trump gets reelected, and it contains policies widely considered to align with his vision for governance. But the former president’s campaign has disavowed the project and recently went so far as to say its “demise would be greatly welcomed,” while Trump urged his supporters to boo it at a campaign rally.

That’s likely because a growing majority of Americans are hearing about the controversial proposal, and a significant share also disapprove of it and closely associate it with Trump, despite his concerted attempts to distance himself from it.

https://abcnews.go.com/538/americans-dont-project-2025/story

Dems should just keep punching away with the attacks on ‘2025’….the more we learn the more it is disliked.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Swiftboating Returns

Swiftboating?

For those with short memories let me take you back 20 years to 2004….

The term swiftboating (also swift-boating or swift boating) is a pejorative American neologism used to describe an unfair or untrue political attack. The term is derived from the name of the organization “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth” (SBVT, later the Swift Vets and POWs for Truth) because of their widely publicized—and later discredited—political smear campaign against 2004 U.S. presidential candidate John Kerry.  Since the 2004 election, the term has come to commonly refer to a political attack that is dishonest, personal, and unfair.

(wikipedia)

I bring this blast from the past up because the Trump minions are swiftboating Walz…..

JD Vance appears to have settled on a line of attack against his rival to be vice president, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz—and it revolves around military service. The details:

  • Walz served in the National Guard for 24 years before retiring in 2005 to run for Congress in Minnesota. Politico notes that Walz filed his paperwork to run in February 2005, roughly a month before reports came out that his unit might be deployed to Iraq and about five months before the official orders were issued.
  • A former Guard colleague, Al Bonnifeld, says Walz knew of the potential deployment and wrestled with whether it was the right time to run for office. “He told us that he wanted to run for Congress, and he was in a tough spot, because he was pretty sure we were going to Iraq,” Bonnifield told NewsNation, per the Hill. But, Bonnifield noted, “we didn’t have orders. We didn’t have any kind of orders at all.”
  • The Washington Post has one of the most thorough explorations of all this here. It includes the views of those such as Bonnifield, who praise Walz’s service, as well as those who served with Walz and are critical of him.
  • Vance is essentially accusing Walz of cowardice and of inflating his service, attacks reminiscent of the infamous “swift boat” attacks on John Kerry in the 2004 election over his Vietnam War record, per USA Today. The story notes that Chris LaCivita, who led the attacks on Kerry, is now a senior adviser to the Trump campaign. The criticism of Walz on this front has surfaced previously in his Minnesota elections, without success. (Two Guard retirees wrote this scathing letter in 2018.)
  • Vance also is calling attention to a Walz quote from a campaign event a while back in Minnesota (and being trumpeted by the Harris-Walz campaign) in which he referred to the “weapons I carried in war.” Walz never saw combat, prompting Vance’s jab: “Well, I wonder. Tim Walz, when were you ever in war?” For the record, Vance served four years in the Marines and went to Iraq, but he served in a communications role there and did not see combat, either, per the New York Times.

This is not all that surprising for when you have no defined policies then you personally attack your opponent hoping that the idiots will fixate on the BS and not on their lack of direction.

It worked well when used against Kerry and Trump hopes it will once again be a death blow.

This election is all about jibes and insults not policies and solutions.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Harris/Walz: Radical Leftists?

Please do not make me laugh.  Only a mental midget would think that Harris or Walz is a radical Leftist.

Anyone that believes that crap is smoking crack.

Some yahoo on FOX (go figure) stated that Harris is the most leftist candidate in history….I guess he never heard of Eugene Debs. (For Christ sake look it up)

I was impressed with Harris when she came out as a senator and endorsed the Green New Deal and Medicare For All….but does that make her a radical Leftist?

No it does not!

I am a radical Leftist and have been for 60 years and Harris is nowhere close to being radical…..an opportunistic Dem….then yes.

Some progressives in the Democratic Party would like to see Harris as someone like themselves, but there is little basis for it. She fully supported Biden’s economic and social programs—the most significant in half a century—most notably the American Rescue Plan Act ($1.9 trillion) to support business and workers during COVID, Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act ($1.2 trillion), and the Inflation Reduction Act ($369 billion) to deal with climate issues. Vice-president’s never present their own views, and neither did Harris.

She has also completely supported Biden’s foreign policy, backing Israel and its war on Gaza, supporting Ukraine against the Russian invasion, and opposing China’s rival imperial ambitions. Harris’ reputation for being more progressive regarding Israel is based on statements like this one a few days ago after her meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, “What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating,” she said. “The images of dead children and desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third or fourth time — we cannot look away in the face of these tragedies,” she said, adding, “I will not be silent.”

Perhaps she will not be silent, but she has not said how she would change U.S. policy, if at all.

I have been waiting for her to back away from any true progressive ideas just to garner votes.

She started backing away when in 2019 and her run for the Dem nomination…..and this will not stop….

During her short-lived 2019 presidential campaign, Harris was a supporter of single-payer healthcare, a fracking ban, and a federal jobs guarantee. No longer. On July 26th, a campaign official told the Hill that Harris “will not seek to ban fracking if she’s elected,” even though she had previously said there was “no question I’m in favor of banning fracking.” The following day, CNN reported that “the vice president no longer supports a single-payer health care system,” despite having co-sponsored Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All bill back in 2017. And on July 31, a Washington Examiner exclusive revealed that Harris has “changed her position” on a federal jobs guarantee—a component of the Green New Deal she backed in 2019—and no longer supports that either. 

Moreover, moving to the right on policy will not prevent Trump and his proxies from attacking Harris as “dangerously liberal,” a line they’ve already started using. This is a lesson Democrats should have learned in the Obama years. No matter how much Barack Obama tried to portray himself as a reasonable centrist and make compromises with Republicans, he was still attacked as a “socialist” whose healthcare plans would lead to “death panels.” Today, the GOP is not going to suddenly say “Well, I guess we should stop attacking Harris as a radical.” But her abrupt U-turns on policy will allow them to deploy a second line of attack, namely that she’s untrustworthy and doesn’t keep a consistent position on anything, which wouldn’t be wrong. 

https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/its-a-bad-idea-for-harris-to-abandon-progressive-policies

Harris was one of 16 co-sponsors of Sanders’s socialized health-care plan branded as “Medicare for All,” which would have cost $34 trillion over a decade, according to the left-wing Urban Institute. It would also have necessitated kicking about 180 million people off their private insurance plans. She also signed on to the Senate version of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s radical Green New Deal.

In 2019, as the Democratic primaries took off, there was fierce competition to the left of Joe Biden. Harris dug into her support for banning private insurance before (unconvincingly) trying to take it back. She called for banning fracking and offshore drilling. She said those who crossed the border illegally shouldn’t be treated as criminals and called for getting rid of ICE and starting from scratch. She advocated banning AR-15s and confiscating them (under the euphemism “mandatory buybacks”).

This will continue for the policies that got her elected to the Senate will now be liabilities….so progressives do not too excited on the Harris/Walz team.

Now Walz…..

Clips of Tim Walz have spread widely, helping cement him as Kamala Harris’s pick to run alongside her as vice-president.

It’s not just the “weird” of it all: he’s been able to run through a list of what Democrats want, and what he’s done as governor during a banner time for Democrats in his state, that articulates to voters what they would be voting for, not just the danger of what they’re voting against. He speaks plainly and pragmatically, showing the commonsense policies his party stands for.

Walz, 60, was born and raised in small-town Nebraska. He became a teacher, first in China, then in Nebraska and finally in Mankato, Minnesota, where he taught geography and coached the high school football team. He was the faculty adviser for the school’s first gay-straight alliance chapter in 1999, long before Democrats nationally stood for gay rights. He also served in the army national guard for 24 years, enlisting at age 17, a role that took him around the country and on a deployment to Europe. And like JD Vance, Walz has a penchant for Diet Mountain Dew.

(theguardian.co.uk)

I do not know much about Walz so I cannot say much at this time.

Harris picked him with the hopes that is bona fides as a progressive will help her run….

He has started off badly with me…..he refused to meet with voters…..why?

In March, Walz lauded the “uncommitted movement”, describing the initiative to pressure President Joe Biden to call for a ceasefire as “engaged”. 

“These are voters that are deeply concerned as we all are. The situation in Gaza is intolerable. And I think trying to find a solution, a lasting two-state solution, certainly the President’s move towards humanitarian aid and asking us to get to a ceasefire, that’s what they’re asking to be heard. And that’s what they should be doing,” Walz said.

“We’ve gone through this before. And we know that now we make sure we’ve got eight months [to the election]. We start bringing these folks back in. We listen to what they’re saying,” the governor added.

But according to several activists in Minnesota, not only has the governor refused to meet with Palestinian families who have lost relatives in Israel’s war on Gaza, he has barely acknowledged their concerns and and demands.

(middleeasteye.net)

If true then that would be strike one .

I will continue to monitor these and other concerns to help my readers understand a few things that the MSM probably will not cover.

I am sure someone will say that they are better than the other guys.

That is a given but it does not preclude me looking at all aspects of the positions.

Stay Tuned!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Who Is Tim Walz?

Harris has made her choice for the position of VP and he is a governor, Tim Walz.

But just who is Tim Walz for most Americans have very little knowledge of this guy….and I can help….

Now that Kamala Harris has settled on Tim Walz as her running mate, the question becomes: Who is Tim Walz? A look at coverage of the Minnesota governor:

  • Profiles: The 60-year-old Nebraska native enlisted in the Army National Guard at 17, served 24 years, and eventually settled in Mankato, Minnesota, where he coached the high school football team and taught geography and social studies, report the Star Tribune and New York Times. Walz and his wife, Gwen, have two children, Hope and Gus, and Walz has spoken of his and his wife’s use of IVF, per USA Today.
  • Congress: While still teaching, he flipped a GOP congressional seat in rural Minnesota in 2006 and served in Congress until being elected governor in 2018.
  • As governor: Walz, working with narrow majorities in the state Legislature, “spent billions of dollars on schools, infrastructure, and other programs while passing a long list of progressive priorities such as marijuana legalization, universal school meals, paid family and medical leave, and abortion rights protections,” per the Star Tribune.
  • The image: “He comes across as what he is: a straight-talking teacher, America’s youth football coach,” writes Rachel Leingang at the Guardian. He’s “right out of central casting as the way you think [a] Minnesota governor would be like,” adds Michael Brodkorb, former deputy chair of the Minnesota Republican Party.
  • Interview: New York Times columnist Ezra Klein interviewed Walz before his selection, under the headline, “Is Tim Walz the Midwestern Dad Democrats Need?” Klein takes note of Walz’s recent claim to fame that speaks to his persona—the governor described top Republicans as “really weird” in a slam that went viral. “This is where I take offense to JD Vance and Hillbilly Elegy,” Walz tells Klein of the Republican’s memoir. “Those are my people. I come from a town of 400—24 kids in a class, 12 cousins, farming, those types of things. And I know they’re not weird. I know they’re not Donald Trump.”
  • Big moment: Watch the Morning Joe interview that raised Walz’s national profile.

This goes to show the lengths the Trump machine will go….

The Trump campaign on Tuesday immediately tried to tag Walz as a far-left liberal. “It’s no surprise that San Francisco Liberal Kamala Harris wants West Coast wannabe Tim Walz as her running-mate—Walz has spent his governorship trying to reshape Minnesota in the image of the Golden State,” said Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s campaign press secretary. Trump sent a fundraising email Tuesday calling Walz “Dangerously Liberal” and saying he would “unleash HELL ON EARTH.”

Sounds like they may be running scared to me.

Now we have our VP candidate but is he the right person for the job?

Harris was also impressed with Walz’s biography, as well as his accomplishments as governor that she “wants to replicate in her presidency—access to reproductive health, paid leave, child tax credits and gun safety,” Politico’s sources say. Other takes on the choice:

The “nice” choice, but perhaps not the best. Nate Silver believes Harris didn’t make the best choice. At Silver Bulletin, he writes that while Walz is a safe, inoffensive, and “nice” choice, Shapiro would have been a better pick because he “increases the likelihood you win Pennsylvania, he has a demonstrated track record of popularity in the most important swing state, he’s obviously an extremely talented politician and perhaps a future standard-bearer for the party himself.” Minnesota, he notes, is highly unlikely to be the “tipping point” state that decides the presidency.

  • Broad appeal. Harris had some strong options from swing states, including Shapiro, Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, and North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, but she “instead went with someone from a somewhat competitive state who will ideally appeal more broadly to middle America,” writes Aaron Blake at the Washington Post. Blake notes that other candidates could have had the same broad appeal, but “none of them demonstrated the kind of folksy appeal that Walz has in recent weeks.”
  • His previous career. Walz’s potential appeal to Midwesterners includes his background as a military veteran and a hunter who has often spoken about his gun ownership, Katie Rogers writes at the New York Times. She says that according to a person close to the process, Walz’s “previous career as a high school teacher and football coach also appealed to Ms. Harris, who has gained the support of the nation’s teachers unions.”
  • The “cool dad.” Farnoush Amiri at the AP writes that Walz, who went viral after calling Donald Trump and JD Vance “just weird” a few weeks ago, has been labeled the “cool dad” online and Democrats see him as an “effective messenger.” “Walz’s ability to speak in layman’s terms about policy and politics coupled with his knowledge of the internet zeitgeist has helped propel the little-known politician to the national stage and on the ‘For You’ social media pages of millions of Gen Z voters whose support will be crucial for Democrats come November,” he writes.

My thoughts so far…I like the idea that he is a possible progressive but like Harris I want to see if he pushes back on his progressive ideas…..I am thinking they both will flip-flop on issues to try to influence as many voters as possible.

Since like most Americans I know very little about this person I will reserve my more scathing analysis until I hear more from him and his running mate.

This is what I know as of 06Aug24…. I am sure there is more to come.

Stay Tuned!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Harris: And The Winner Is

First let us begin with the nomination….it is official VP Harris will be the Dems nominee….

Vice President Kamala Harris, a daughter of immigrants who rose through the California political and law enforcement ranks to become the first female vice president in US history, formally secured the Democratic presidential nomination on Monday—becoming the first woman of color to lead a major party ticket, the AP reports. As soon as President Biden abruptly ended his candidacy, Harris and her team worked rapidly to secure backing from the 1,976 party delegates needed to clinch the nomination in a formal roll call vote. She reached that marker at warp speed, with an Associated Press survey of delegates nationwide showing she locked down the necessary commitments a mere 32 hours after Biden’s announcement.

Harris’ nomination became official after a five-day round of online balloting by Democratic National Convention delegates ended Monday night, with the party saying in a statement released just before midnight that 99% of delegates casting ballots had done so for Harris. The party had long contemplated the early virtual roll call to ensure Biden would appear on the ballot in every state. It said it would next formally certify the vote before holding a celebratory roll call at the party’s convention later this month in Chicago.

Now that is out of the way…..the next big step will be her second….

The entire nation has been holding our collective breath wait to see just who Harris will choose as her running mate…..I said it would be a some generic white white, someone with little to no baggage……and now we know who that mysterious person will be…..

Tim Walz….

Vice President Harris has chosen Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) to be her running mate as she heads toward a November faceoff against former President Trump, she announced Tuesday.

Harris announced her choice of Walz in a post on Instagram and in a text message to supporters, praising his support for middle class families and his personal history serving in the National Guard and working as a teacher.

Walz, 60, emerged as a dark horse contender for the No. 2 slot as chatter over other high-profile names, in particular Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) and Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly (D), dominated the early portion of the veepstakes.

But the Minnesota governor saw his profile rise considerably over the past week, especially after a viral cable news interview in which he derided some Republicans as “weird” — a line of attack later adopted by national Democrats.

Walz was also seen by many as a safer choice for Harris thanks to his liberal bona fides and the fact that some of the other contenders had come under fire from certain segments of the left. Shapiro received heavy scrutiny recently over his response to pro-Palestinian protests that emerged in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war, and both he and Kelly drew the ire of union leaders.

(thehill.com)

I will say he makes a good speech….plus he is from Minnesota a liberal state….a veteran…..and a family man….so he ticked many of the boxes….and now he be the VP nominee.

I am sure I will have more to say the more I learn about this guy…..so stay tuned.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

 

Has 2025 Lost Some Luster?

The big deal story of this election has been the word of the Heritage plan to control the country, Project 2025, I have written about it with the hope that people will pull their heads out of their butts and see what is in store if Trump comes to power yet again.

But since few paid attention to my take I shall give you another take on this wildly fascist plan….

In talk about what a second presidential term for Donald Trump might bring, one name has become the shorthand for all the horrifying things that might await: Project 2025.

It’s been called “authoritarian” and “dystopian.” It’s the talk of TikTok. Some Democrats see it as the ace in the hole that could save President Joe Biden’s struggling reelection campaign. But Trump is now claiming, implausibly, to know nothing about it.

So what is it?

Project 2025 is the conservative movement’s detailed and specific plan for what the next Republican president should do with his power, including its preparation to put that plan into action. Basically, it’s an attempt to make the second Trump term way more organized and effective than the first.

Organized by the right-wing think tank the Heritage Foundation and advised by more than 100 conservative groups, Project 2025 has put forth a 922-page list of policy recommendations, going agency by agency in the federal government.

It is not a pie-in-the-sky policy agenda full of bold but empty promises. It is crafted to be a list of things the next president’s appointees really can do, put together by many people who served in top posts under Trump last time and could well do so again. (Project 2025 is also collecting a database of names of conservatives who could take jobs in Trump’s second term.)

https://www.vox.com/politics/360318/project-2025-trump-policies-abortion-divorce

A new survey shows that the public is slowly seeing that the plan is not what this country needs….

New polling out on Tuesday suggests that Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s best hope for Project 2025, the far-right policy agenda that at least 140 of his former administration officials helped craft, was that most Americans would remain unfamiliar with it.

Over the past month, though, a growing number of voters have learned more about the 900-page plan spearheaded by the right-wing Heritage Foundation — and public opinion of the agenda has plummeted as it’s become more widely known.

Progressive polling firm Navigator Research found in a survey conducted between July 11-14 that 54% of Americans were familiar with Project 2025, which calls for the weakening and eradication of federal agencies and the consolidation of power with the president, the elimination of job protections of thousands of federal employees, and the withdrawal of mifepristone — a pill used in a majority of abortions in the U.S. — from the market.

That’s an increase of 25 percentage points from Navigator’s poll on Project 2025 just one month ago, said the firm.

Just 11% of people polled viewed the agenda favorably, while 43% had unfavorable views — a 24-point increase since June.

A New Poll Shows Project 2025 Gets Less Popular the More Voters Learn About It

Another report along the same lines…

https://www.commondreams.org/news/project-2025-2668798316

I just hope that as it becomes more and more known the public will turn completely against this ‘plan’ that flies into the face everything this country stands for…..and I hope….

It looks like Project 2025 has lost a leader….

The director of the Heritage Foundation’s controversial Project 2025 has stepped down following strong criticism from Donald Trump’s campaign. Paul Dans, one of many former Trump administration officials involved in the project, played a leading role in drafting the 920-page blueprint for a potential second Trump term. Kevin Robert, president of the conservative think tank, said they are “sticking to the timeline” of concluding policy drafting after the party conventions, the Hill reports. “We are extremely grateful for his and everyone’s work on Project 2025 and dedication to saving America,” he said of Dans.

“Our collective efforts to build a personnel apparatus for policymakers of all levels—federal, state, and local—will continue,” Roberts said. The project, which proposes, among other things, boosting the power of the executive branch and replacing civil servants with conservative political appointees, has been repeatedly disavowed by Trump, reports the AP. At a rally earlier this month, he said it came from the “severe right” and some of its proposals are “seriously extreme.”

  • In a statement, Trump campaign managers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles said the campaign “has been very clear for over a year that Project 2025 had nothing to do with the campaign, did not speak for the campaign, and should not be associated with the campaign or the President in any way.”
  • They added: “Reports of Project 2025’s demise would be greatly welcomed and should serve as notice to anyone or any group trying to misrepresent their influence with President Trump and his campaign—it will not end well for you.”
  • The AP reports that Trump campaign reps did not respond to requests for comment on whether the Trump team pushed for Dans to step down.
  • Vice President Kamala Harris has made attacking Project 2025 a key part of her campaign and she is expected to continue doing so despite Dans’ exit, CNN reports. “Project 2025 is on the ballot because Donald Trump is on the ballot,” campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said. “This is his agenda, written by his allies, for Donald Trump to inflict on our country. Hiding the 920-page blueprint from the American people doesn’t make it less real—in fact, it should make voters more concerned about what else Trump and his allies are hiding.”
  • The Guardian goes into more detail on the project, noting that beyond the policy document, it has created a database of potential personnel for a second Trump administration and proposals to train them in a “Presidential Administration Academy.” Some of the policy document’s more controversial proposals include banning pornography and reversing federal approval of the abortion pill.

Apparently the luster is tarnished and has to go….but how far will it go?

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Where Does He Get This Sh*t?

By ‘He’ I mean VP nominee, Vance.

He has some wild ideas and makes one wonder where did he come up with this shit.

In 2008, a software developer in San Francisco named Curtis Yarvin, writing under a pseudonym, proposed a horrific solution for people he deemed “not productive”: “convert them into biodiesel, which can help power the Muni buses.”

Yarvin, a self-described reactionary and extremist who was 35 years old at the time, clarified that he was “just kidding.” But then he continued, “The trouble with the biodiesel solution is that no one would want to live in a city whose public transportation was fueled, even just partly, by the distilled remains of its late underclass. However, it helps us describe the problem we are trying to solve. Our goal, in short, is a humane alternative to genocide.”

He then concluded that the “best humane alternative to genocide” is to “virtualize” these people: Imprison them in “permanent solitary confinement” where, to avoid making them insane, they would be connected to an “immersive virtual-reality interface” so they could “experience a rich, fulfilling life in a completely imaginary world.”

Yarvin’s disturbing manifestos have earned him influential followers, chief among them: tech billionaire Peter Thiel and his onetime Silicon Valley protégé Senator J.D. Vance, whom the Republican Party just nominated to be Donald Trump’s vice president. If Trump wins the election, there is little doubt that Vance will bring Yarvin’s twisted techno-authoritarianism to the White House, and one can imagine—with horror—what a receptive would-be autocrat like Trump might do with those ideas.

Trump’s first campaign was undoubtedly a watershed moment for authoritarianism in American politics, but some thinkers on the right had been laying the groundwork for years, hoping for someone to mainstream their ideas. Yarvin was one of them. Way back in 2012, in a speech on “How to Reboot the US Government,” he said, “If Americans want to change their government, they’re going to have to get over their dictator phobia.” He had also written favorably of slavery and white nationalists in the late 2000s (though he has stated that he is not a white nationalist himself).

https://newrepublic.com/article/183971/jd-vance-weird-terrifying-techno-authoritarian-ideas

Vance has been labeled a ‘aristopopulist’….(love that title)….

An elite voice who understood the realities of working-class life, Vance became, for mainstream commentators, one of “us” who could speak about “them”, a guide to what many consider a mysterious species: poor white people living precarious lives.

In his memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, Vance chastises white workers as once he criticised Trump: for blaming everyone else for their problems but never looking to themselves. The troubles tormenting working-class communities may partly be the product of globalisation and industrial decline but, Vance insists, speak much more to cultural and moral failings; workers given to indolence (“we choose not to work when we could be looking for jobs”) and a desire to play the victim.

“We spend our way into the poorhouse,” Vance admonishes the poor of Middletown, buying “giant TVs and iPads” and “homes we don’t need”. “Thrift,” he adds, “is inimical to our being.” Vance talks of “we” and “us” but really means “they” and “them”. There are, for Vance, two kinds of workers, the deserving and the undeserving. His grandparents “embodied one type: old-fashioned, quietly faithful, self-reliant, hardworking”. His “mother and, increasingly the entire neighbourhood, embodied another: consumerist, isolated, angry, distrustful”. Particularly undeserving are those on welfare, living a life of ease on “government largesse”.

It’s a diagnosis that, as Vance himself recognises, echoes the judgment many have projected on to black Americans. “I have known many welfare queens,” he writes, “some were my neighbors, and all were white.”

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jul/21/aristopopulists-like-jd-vance-can-offer-only-empty-promises-to-the-working-class

But you decide if this is a con artist or a legit person….

Will The Real JD Vance Stand Up?

If you vote for one then you vote for the other…..and this person should set off alarm bells in your head.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”