Tag: 2024 Elections

2024–Is This Good News?

Most of this year the news from the election front has been really bad, that from the point of view of a Dem, that is, Biden was polling horrible especially after the dismal debate performance then the Dems turn against him and forced him to drop out at this late stage of the game….then the focus on the GOP side was on the Heritage tome, Project 2025, that most see as some form of authoritarianism….the news just kept getting bad….

Then a glimmer of good news came out….voter registration was up….

The group behind a popular get-out-the-vote technology platform said Friday that it’s registered more than 100,000 new U.S. voters since President Joe Biden withdrew from the 2024 presidential race, a surge that came amid mounting Republican efforts to make it harder to register and vote.

Vote.org said that 84% of voters registered in the new wave are under age 35. Nearly 1 in 5 new registrees is 18 years old. Andrea Hailey, the group’s CEO, said that “since 2020, we have led the largest voter registration drive in U.S. history,” with more than 7.8 million people registered.

After dropping out, Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to face former Republican President Donald Trump and Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) in the November election. The new presumptive Democratic candidate has already earned endorsements from many Democrats in Congress and groups advocating on issues including climate, labor, and reproductive rights.

Vote.org’s success comes as Republicans at the federal level are proposing and passing legislation creating obstacles to the ballot box.

Earlier this month, U.S. House Republicans passed Rep. Chip Roy’s (R-Texas) Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which would require proof of American citizenship to vote in federal elections. Republicans claim the bill is meant to fix the virtually nonexistent “problem” of noncitizen voter fraud.

However, Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) slammed the bill as a “xenophobic attack” meant to silence “Black voices, brown voices, LBGTQIA+ voices, [and] young voices.”

Lee said the SAVE Act underscores the need to pass her recently introduced Right to Vote Act, “which would establish the first-ever affirmative federal voting rights guarantee, ensuring every citizen may exercise their fundamental right to cast a ballot.”

https://www.commondreams.org/news/u-s-voter-registration

This indeed does sound like good news….there is always a ‘but’….

Those thousands of new voters that were registered is NO guarantee that they will get off their butts and actually vote.

In a country where less that half of the registered votes actually vote this is not all that positive in my book….I hope I am wrong….and we shall see….

Let’s not forget the words of the Lord High Master of the Right…..

During a recent campaign rally, former President Donald Trump appeared to suggest that voting in elections will be a thing of the past if he gets a second term in office.

The 45th president of the United States made the remarks while addressing a crowd of evangelical supporters at the Turning Point Action summit in West Palm Beach, Florida. After former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson introduced Trump, he launched into a speech that culminated with him calling on evangelicals to vote for him. The former president insinuated that 2024 would be the last election they would have to participate in because society would be “fixed.

“And again, Christians: Get out and vote! Just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore! Four more years, you know what? It’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine. You won’t have to vote anymore,” he said. “In four years you don’t have to vote again, we’ll have it fixed so good you’re not gonna have to vote.”

https://www.alternet.org/trump-supporters-vote/

Do you think this will make a big difference?

Is that what you want?   Never to have to vote again?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Trumponomics

Well we have an official ticket for the GOP, Trump/Vance, and now they will set about doing what they must to win in November….a good place to look is their economic policies or we could call it Trumponomics…..the prevailing thought is Americans will vote with their wallets this time around.

Then let us look at Trump’s policies…..

The odds of a second Donald Trump presidency are mounting in the wake of a failed assassination attempt and his strong debate performance, with Wall Street preparing for the possibility of sticky inflation, protectionist trade policies, and higher long-term bond yields

https://seekingalpha.com/news/4124846-trumponomics-what-trump-would-do-if-he-wins-presidential-election

Now that you have a good look at their upcoming policies….what will it mean for the markets?

Economic populism has transmuted the Republican Party, and that new version of the GOP has just gone from one standard bearer to two.

Donald Trump’s choice of J.D. Vance as his running mate suggests he is leaning harder into the economic policy instincts that helped land him his first term in 2016 and that he no longer feels the need to placate the type of free-market conservatives who have dominated the party for decades.

The former president’s views on tariffs, spending and immigration were no doubt a key ingredient to his electoral success in 2016. But he chose Mike Pence as his vice president for that race — a candidate with more traditionally conservative free-market viewpoints.

Few Republicans have been more vocally critical of the party’s modern economic conventions than Vance, who has embraced not just tariffs, but also policies like a higher minimum wage and increased barriers to corporate mergers — even openly praising President Joe Biden’s aggressive antitrust chief, Lina Khan.

He is uninterested in traditional small-government priorities.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/07/16/the-trump-vance-ticket-is-a-repudiation-of-free-market-conservatism-00168578

What about prices?

Tariffs, one of Trump’s only consistent enthusiasms, are a sure thing. Starting in 2018, his administration imposed several rounds of duties, prompting predictable retaliation. Combined, these measures eliminated jobs, slashed incomes and cost consumers about $51 billion annually. Now Trump wants to impose tariffs of 60% on Chinese-made products and 10% on other imports. Bloomberg Economics estimates that this would raise consumer prices by 2.5% over two years and reduce growth by 0.5%. Trump has also promised a 100% duty on imported cars. Details TBD — one analyst describes the likely effect as “catastrophic” — but the point is that trade wars of this kind are always prone to raising prices.

Prices will most likely rise and so will inflation….so just how does he plan to end our ‘inflation nightmare’?

Former President Donald Trump is campaigning on a pledge to end the “inflation nightmare,” vowing that if he wins a second term, he’ll bring down prices “very quickly.” And if that scenario came to pass, it would be cheered by the millions of Americans who say higher costs remain a major problem.

There’s only one problem: Key policies that undergird so-called Trumponomics — a combination of tariffs, tax cuts and a crackdown on immigration — are likely to cause a flare-up in inflation, according to many Wall Street economists. That would be a painful outcome for consumers and businesses sapped by more than two years of surging prices. More broadly, renewed inflationary pressures would also come as inflation is finally inching closer to the Federal Reserve’s goal of 2% per year. 

But experts warn that Trump’s economic policies could cause such progress to stall, and even reverse. They note that tariffs effectively act as a consumption tax, increasing the cost of goods imported into the U.S. — costs that businesses typically pass on to consumers. 

(cbsnews.com)

If one would just look at these plans and stop kissing Trump’s ass they would see that his proposals will only hurt them in the long run…..a vote for Trumponomics is shooting oneself in the foot….and there has been too much of that in the last decade.

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

Vote Smart!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Kamala Harris: A Cheat Sheet

We have a presumptive Dem nominee and voters need to look at her from all angles….I can help.

Not much is known a Harris by the average voter….she was from California, was a lawyer and then vice president…..beyond that not much is known….I decided to try and educate the readers about her life and skills and since I am having limited time to research this I found a good summation of her life and skills in the Guardian…..

Let us start with her name….

After Kamala Harris was named as Joe Biden’s running mate in August 2020, Donald Trump said she was “totally unlikable” and a communist; he twice called her “this monster”. While “monster” is a dehumanising term, the pronoun flags what seems to me to be a racist subtext: not “a” monster, but “this” thing we have all agreed is a monster.

But he also strategically mispronounced her name, elongating the middle “A” to make it sound more foreign. It’s important, therefore, not to get it wrong by accident. It doesn’t rhyme with Pamela; it doesn’t sound like Tony Soprano’s wife. For Americans, it’s “comma” with a “la” at the end and the stress on the first syllable. In Britain, it depends on your accent, but it sounds like “kaw-ma-la” or “karma-la”. The video below from Harris’s 2016 Senate campaign shows children demonstrating the correct pronunciation.

(there is more…..read and learn)

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/22/kamala-harris-cheat-sheet-19-things-to-know-woman-might-be-president

Since one of the pressing topics during this election will be climate change….I thought a look at Harris and her stance….

As vice president, Harris argued for the allocation of $20 billion for the Environmental Protection Agency’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, aimed at aiding disadvantaged communities facing climate impacts, and frequently promoted the IRA at events, touting the bill’s investments in clean energy jobs, including installation of energy-efficient lighting, and replacing gas furnaces with electric heat pumps. She was also the highest-ranking US official to attend the international climate talks at COP28 in Dubai last year, where she announced a US commitment to double energy efficiency and triple renewable energy capacity by 2030. At that same conference, Harris announced a $3 billion commitment to the Green Climate Fund to help developing nations adapt to climate challenges, although Politico reported that the sum was “subject to the availability of funds,” according to the Treasury Department.

As a presidential candidate in 2019, Harris proposed a $10 trillion climate plan to achieve carbon neutrality by 2045 on the campaign trail, including 100-percent carbon-neutral electricity by 2030. Under the plan, 50 percent of new vehicles sold would be zero-emission by 2030; and 100 percent of cars by 2035. But that proposal, like similarly ambitious climate change proposals released by other Democrats during that election cycle, was nothing more than a campaign wishlist. A better indicator of what her plans for climate change as president would look like — better, even, than her record as vice president, as much of her agenda was set by the Biden administration — could be buried in her record as San Francisco’s district attorney from 2004 to 2011 and as California’s attorney general from 2011 to 2017.

(vox.com)

Will she still be a staunch supporter of green energy?  After election will tell the tale.

There is more on her stands….

Harris’s career in public life is well-documented, beginning as San Francisco District Attorney in 2004. She has long been a centrist, though she veered into more progressive territory during the 2020 campaign, endorsing Medicare for All and the Green New Deal, a comprehensive policy measure devised by progressive leaders aimed at tackling the climate crisis. Biden’s campaign wouldn’t align with the progressive movement on those issues, but offered robust climate proposals as part of his marquee policy agenda, the Inflation Reduction Act, which was passed by Congress in 2022. 

On health care, Biden often speaks proudly of the Affordable Care Act, passed when he was Vice President under Barack Obama. Throughout his first term as President, Biden has talked about improving access to Medicare, but stopped well short of endorsing anything close to a single-payer health care system. 

On foreign policy, Biden is an adherent of 20th century America’s often self-imposed role of global mediator. Since October 7, 2023, he’s been unflinching in his support for Israel’s military operations in Gaza, despite widespread outcry over the death toll of Palestinian civilians in the region. Biden has often reinforced the importance of strengthening international alliances, namely the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which Trump disparages as a so-called globalist money-pit. Harris is pro-NATO, like the vast majority of mainstream politicians.

(inc.com)

She appears to be a bit progressive but that could all change once the nomination is hers and the donors start calling the shots.

But so far so good in my book…..she will be in my process.

The big story is the speculation who she will pick to be her running mate…..my prediction is….some generic white guy with no baggage.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Harris: A Look Forward

Harris will most likely be the Dem nominee unless there is some amazing theatrics at the convention (I can only hope it would be interesting)…..so now is the time to see what is happening in Kamala’s world…..

As long as ‘Uncle Joe’ stayed in the race donors were pulling back….and now that he has bowed out how does the bribe money look for the Dem candidate?

Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign says it raised a stunning $81 million in the 24 hours after President Biden dropped his reelection bid and endorsed her. The Harris campaign says it is the largest 24-hour fundraising haul in the history of presidential elections, CBS News reports. According to the campaign, more than 888,000 donors were involved and 60% of them were making a donation for the first time in this election cycle.

Democratic donors opened their wallets after President Biden closed the door on his reelection bid. Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign says she raised more than $50 million in less than 24 hours after Biden quit the race and endorsed her, the New York Times reports. The ActBlue donation-processing portal says that around $50 million in donations for Harris received by 5am Eastern were part of a larger haul of more than $80 million for Democratic candidates after Biden’s announcement.

How nice eager interests buying the person who can do the most for them.

If she is the nominee how will she handle the Trump machine?

Will she attack or be the typical Dem?

As Kamala Harris consolidates her position to be the Democratic nominee in quick fashion, strategists in both parties already are feeling out what a race between the vice president and Donald Trump might look like. Coverage:

  • Three words: A story at CNN based on interviews with more than a dozen Harris advisers and allies suggests the VP’s strategy could be summed up succinctly as “prosecutor versus felon.” Harris served as San Francisco’s district attorney before becoming a senator, and she played up the “prosecutor for president” angle in her own 2020 run.
  • Six words: In an appearance on the Morning Joe show, former Obama adviser David Plouffe suggested a campaign message that struck the same chord with three extra words: “She’s a prosecutor. He’s a criminal.” Plouffe also suggested a Harris campaign could immediately flip the he’s-too-old card on Trump, who would be the oldest candidate ever nominated, per Mediaite.
  • Against Harris: The Trump campaign and allied super PACs will attempt to tie Harris to high inflation and unpopular border policies, reports the Wall Street Journal. A video on the latter already is out. Republicans also are playing up the narrative that Harris misled the public about Biden’s fitness to serve. A video on that is out as well, tagged, “Kamala was in on it.” Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has been among the prominent Republicans pushing that narrative. “The number one question that she’s going to have to answer now is, why did she lie to the American public?” McCarthy said on Fox.
  • Against Harris, II: A post at Popular Information has more details on the expected lines of attack against the vice president.
  • As a prosecutor: The Trump team will be scouring Harris’ record as district attorney for attack points, but it’s complicated. As the Washington Post notes, she was criticized by Democrats in her 2020 race—amid the fallout from the George Floyd killing and Black Lives Matters protests—for her “tough-on-crime” policies. In 2024, however, a tough-on-crime message might resonate more against an opponent who happens to be a “convicted felon,” per the Post. Her prosecutorial skill of understanding both sides of an argument in order to “unpack” it for a jury should help her as well, an ally says.

Attack, attack!  But will it be enough?  Keep in mind she will be dealing with a proven dick and liar and a con man partner.

News came out as I was writing this draft that Harris has the ‘votes’ she needs to secure the nomination….

Vice President Kamala Harris has secured the support of enough Democratic delegates to become her party’s nominee against Republican Donald Trump, according to an AP survey, as top Democrats rallied to her in the aftermath of President Joe Biden’s decision to drop his bid for reelection. Several state delegations met late Monday to confirm their support for Harris, including Texas and her home state of California. By Monday night, Harris had the support of well more than the 1,976 delegates she’ll need to win on a first ballot, according to the AP tally. No other candidate was named by a delegate contacted by the AP, and no major Democrat has announced plans to challenge Harris.

The AP tally is based on interviews with individual delegates, public statements from state parties, many of which have announced that their delegations are supporting Harris en masse, and public statements and endorsements from individual delegates. Still, the AP is not calling Harris the new presumptive nominee. That’s because the convention delegates are still free to vote for the candidate of their choice at the convention in August or if Democrats go through with a virtual roll call ahead of that gathering in Chicago.

Indeed, despite Harris being overwhelmingly favored, the Democratic Party plans to push forward with a virtual roll call, the rules of which will be approved at a convention rules committee meeting Wednesday. But the AP saw a draft, which indicates Harris, and any other potential Democrat willing to challenge her, will be required to submit 300 electronic signatures from convention delegates, not more than 50 of whom can be from the same state. The vice president, and any other candidate qualifying, would then have a few days to lobby delegates for their support before a virtual vote is held, possibly as soon as Aug. 1. Multiple rounds could be required, but the process would be completed no later than Aug. 7—or 12 days before the party’s convention begins.

I am a international relations voter and Kamala’s record here is spotty and dismal in my opinion.

Since Gaza is on-going her blindness is typical of someone who has money shoved in their pocket by AIPAC.

Harris has been a staunch supporter of Israel for years. In 2017 she addressed the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s (AIPAC) annual conference and reminded attendees that the first resolution she co-sponsored as a senator was aimed at combating “anti-Israel bias” at the United Nations.

“Let me be clear about what I believe. I stand with Israel because of our shared values, which are so fundamental to the founding of both our nations,” she told the crowd.

“The vast majority of people understand the importance of the State of Israel,” she added later. “Both in terms of its history and its present in terms of being a source of inspiration on so many issues, which I hope we will talk about, and also what it means in terms of the values of the United States and those values that are shared values with Israel, and the importance of fighting to make sure that we protect and respect a friend, one of the best friends we could possibly have.”

That is a paid endorsement.

Nothing about what Israel is doing is a shared principle of the US and especially the Founders.

But people want me to disregard everything I believe in and hold my nose and vote for someone that would not represent anything I hold dear.

That is the question I must answer for myself….and I will write about my decision.

Of course some Red State idiot has files articles of impeachment against Harris….

Kamala Harris is even more of a target now that she’s the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination, so perhaps it’s not surprising that a House Republican on Tuesday filed articles of impeachment against her. Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee added to articles already filed against the vice president, the Hill reports. His new article claims Harris “knowingly misled the people of the United States and the Congress of the United States, principally to obfuscate the physical and cognitive well-being of the President of the United States, Joe Biden.” He says she should be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors, though Fox LA reports he did not give specific examples of alleged crimes. Forbes calls it a “political stunt” that is unlikely to have any impact.

The original article of impeachment, which has not gone anywhere after being introduced in June of last year, takes issue with Harris on immigration. It claims she “willfully and systematically refused to uphold the immigration laws, failed to control the border to the detriment of national security, compromised public safety, and violated the rule of law, to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.” In a statement announcing his move, Ogles said Tuesday that Harris “has disgraced the Office of the Vice President and willfully disregarded her oath to uphold and defend the Constitution,” and says she should invoke the 25th amendment to remove Biden from office because he is “mentally and physically” unfit.

These idiots never get tired of playing games so they do not have to do any actual work…..and people vote for them…..amazing!

As a PSA I will write about her, Harris,  political side since she is pretty much an unknown factor as of right now….look for it.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Hillbilly Elegy: A Review

This is an IST public service announcement (PSA)……

Since Trump named JD Vance his running mate last week the author’s book has been flying off the shelves both on-line and brick and mortar bookstores.

Since I refuse to waste money on a book written by a racist blowhard I have to depend on other sources for the review.

After extensive research I found a review that might help any fence sitters decide whether this guy has a place in our nation’s leadership.

I’m no fan of Hillbilly Elegy, the 2020 movie starring Amy Adams and Glenn Close, but when I picked up the book it’s based on recently, in light of rumors that its author, J.D. Vance, would be Donald Trump’s pick for vice president, I expected it to feel more substantive than its screen adaptation.

At one time, liberal and conservative centrists alike hailed Vance’s bestselling 2016 memoir of making it out of rural, poverty-stricken Appalachia, transforming himself from a tempestuous teen into a successful Yale law school grad.

Yet years on, Vance has undergone a transformation of a different sort, remolding himself from a fairly moderate professed conservative who once compared Trump to Hitler and wrote with disdain about the outer edges of the party into a would-be authoritarian.

That’s not to say Vance doesn’t have some nuanced and even appealing positions. His populist economic instincts are a running theme of Elegy, and today he makes deals across the aisle with Democrats like Sen. Elizabeth Warren. But to understand his larger worldview, you have to look past his economic ideas to his social ideas — and to what Vance actually displays about himself throughout the book.

Perhaps readers in 2016 were eager to look past the book’s highly loaded subtext and overt classism, as the promise of a sympathetic conservative who could unlock Trumplandia for liberals was just too appealing. It also seems likely that readers loved the book because it confirmed all of the negative stereotypes they already held about country hicks. As a read on Vance himself, though, in the context of his subsequent embrace of Trump and far-right ideology, Hillbilly Elegy paints a portrait of a man obsessed with status — and brimming with contempt for just about everyone he meets.

https://www.vox.com/culture/360909/jd-vance-how-true-is-hillbilly-elegy-classism

Nothing about this ‘person’ would lead me to vote for him or any party that would have him as second to the presidential candidate.

I even posted a piece written by someone who knows the man’s story…..

Will The Real JD Vance Stand Up?

Paul Krugman put it right….”this is the man that put ‘con’ in conservatism”.

I hope this was helpful in some small way.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Biden’s Out! Harris In!

 New fodder for the media.

Biden crapped all over my series that I had compiled on his public service (if it can be called that)….this is a re-post from GSFP on Biden….

Harris has been tagged in to the political battle royal….will she have what it takes?

I posted the series as to not waste my time and to inform….hopefully I did both.

Biden Is Out….Will Harris Be Our Savior??

I am thinking that if one is looking for some sort of change then they will be sadly disappointed with Harris…..she is and will always be a big money democrat.

This will be my last Biden post….times change and people go missing…..

Any thoughts?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Around The 2024 Campaign

Stop The Presses!

It is official as of yesterday…..Biden has dropped out!

President Biden on Sunday dropped his bid for reelection, as more members of his party called on him to leave the race in light of his disastrous debate performance against Republican Donald Trump. “I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the reminder of my term,” the statement says, per the Washington Post. A short time later, Biden separately announced on X his “full support and endorsement” of Vice President Kamala Harris to become the Democratic nominee.

Biden’s decision ends one political crisis and brings another, per the New York Times. It’s not clear who might replace Biden and whether the party will close ranks around Harris or begin a brief process to select someone else as nominee. It also concludes a political career covering a half-century, beginning when Biden was elected to the Senate in 1972 as one of its youngest members ever and ending with him as the oldest president ever at 82. “It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your president,” he wrote Sunday. “Democrats—it’s time to come together and beat Trump,” he said. “Let’s do this.”

The warning signs for Democrats had included Biden’s declining fortunes in polls and a withdrawal of support by big donors. One of them, Gideon Stein, on Sunday called Biden “a true American hero” and predicted the decision will lead to Democratic victory in the November election. Daniella Ballou-Aares, leader of a group organizing business executives pressuring Biden to withdraw, likened his decision Sunday to George Washington’s relinquishment of power, saying it’s “a historic precedent for selfless leadership.” Biden’s letter to the nation can be read here.

Sorry Dems but I do not think Harris is the answer.

Time is drawing close….time for us to cast our vote…..so I thought I would look at the news around the campaigns…..

Donald Trump went back on the campaign trail Saturday, in his first rally since the attempt on his life in Pennsylvania. The Michigan event also marked his first appearance outside the Republican National Convention with JD Vance, the running mate crowned by the delegates this week in Milwaukee. Trump mocked the opposition party’s chaos over whether President Biden will stay on the Democratic ticket, the Washington Post reports, asking the Grand Rapids crowd its choice for his opponent: Vice President Kamala Harris, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, or the incumbent. Biden won the voice vote. Other campaign developments involve:

Wound update: Earlier in the day, Trump posted a letter on Truth Social platform from his former doctor providing new information about the injury sustained when a gunman shot at the former president last Saturday. Rep. Ronny Jackson said Trump suffered a bullet wound at the top of his right ear that was two centimeters wide, saying the shot was “less than a quarter of an inch from entering his head,” per the AP. There’s no longer any swelling, Jackson said, adding that the injury “is beginning to granulate and heal properly.” The memo said Trump still needs to wear a bandage because of intermittent bleeding. At the rally, where Trump talked about the shooting, the white bandage of earlier in the week was replaced by a smaller, tan one.

Project 2025: Trump upped the rhetoric in putting distance between himself and Project 2025, in which allies lay out a presidential agenda for him, per the Post. He told the rally that the Heritage Foundation’s plan comes from the “severe right” and is “seriously extreme.”  (Do you truly believe he would bad mouth Heritage….I do not)

Democrats: Campaign spokesperson Michael Tyler told reporters on Saturday that details of Biden’s return to campaigning will be released “as soon as we have the green light,” per the AP. Biden is isolating in Delaware, and his doctor provided an update Saturday on the president’s COVID bout. Vice President Kamala Harris was in Provincetown, Massachusetts, where organizers reported that a fundraiser netted more than $2 million, per CNN. “We are going to win,” Harris told supporters. “It’s not going to be easy.” The Postreports that big donors are paying for an independent, early-stage vetting process for potential vice-presidential nominees, should Biden leave the ticket and Harris assume the top spot.

Biden is hold up in Delaware…..his COVID news….

President Biden still has a loose cough and hoarseness as he deals with COVID-19, his doctor reported Saturday, though the symptoms are easing. The president has now had six doses of Paxlovid, Dr. Kevin O’Connor wrote in a letter he released. He said tests showed that Biden contracted the KP.2.3 variant of COVID. About 13% of new COVID cases involve that strain, the Washington Post reports, and KP variants overall cause more than 80% of recent infections. The new variants don’t appear to be leading to more serious illnesses, experts say.

Now what about all the calls for him to step aside….how is that going?

(Apparently he saw the handwriting on the wall and took a powder)

This part of the post is a moot point….go to top and read the intro.

President Biden is recovering from COVID at his beach house in Rehoboth, Delaware, and there’s likely some fist-shaking going on in the general direction of top Democrats. Using terms like “fuming” and “increasingly resentful,” the Times paints a picture of a sitting president in an unprecedented situation: Facing a quietly orchestrated mutiny from party leaders including his old boss, Barack Obama, as well as Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and Hakeem Jeffries, with less than a month until the Democratic National Convention.

Biden particularly blames Pelosi for the efforts to get him to step aside, reports the Times, citing sources close to Biden, but is also increasingly bitter toward Obama, who he sees as quietly pulling strings in the background and not doing anything to help his campaign. But while Biden has staunchly maintained that he’s sticking the course, in private, sources say he’s discussing how and when to bow out.

One factor in the timing of any decision is a Wednesday visit by Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu to address Congress. Without a ceasefire in place in Gaza, Netanyahu “will humiliate Biden,” Barbara Slavin, a fellow at think tank Stimson Center, tells DW. “It is an act of incredible chutzpah—nerve for him to show his face in Washington.” For now, Biden campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon tells Business Insider in a statement: “You have heard from the President directly time and again: He is in this race to win, and he is our nominee, and he’s going to be our President for a second term.”

Pelosi needs to shut-up….if there is any one person that does not need to point to age it is her….she has been milking the Congressional gravy train for decades…..time for her to go away.

Time is running out….a choice must be made……now the question should be is Harris capable of beating Trump in November?

I am sure there are lots of thoughts on this election…..then let’em fly!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Will The Real JD Vance Stand Up?

We have the GOP VP nominee and running mate for Trump….and during his acceptance speech we heard all about his life as a poor boy from Ohio or was it Kentucky…..but was it a story told to fools or was he all that?

It is a Friday and what better time for an FYI feature I found an article by someone from the region and his story and what he thinks of the tale spun by Vance.

I was raised in Coal City, West Virginia and when Monday’s big news about Trump’s vice presidential selection was announced, I felt instant rage. I wrote to my friends:

“J.D. Vance was named Trump’s running mate, which means people are talking about his stupid fucking book again, in which a venture capitalist from suburban Ohio who spent a couple of summers in Kentucky praises himself for pulling himself up by his bootstraps and blames the continued poverty of his ‘fellow’ hillbillies on their poor choices.

“Instead, read literally anything else. Read Appalachian Reckoning which responds to J.D. Vance’s stupid fucking book. Read Demon Copperhead. Read Another Appalachia. Dump a can of alphabet soup onto the floor and read whatever comes out of that. I guarantee it will be better than J.D. Vance’s stupid fucking book.”

Vance fills me with rage, in part, because I’m a lot like him.

When viewed from a distance, the arc of my life looks remarkably similar to his. Unlike Vance, my story actually starts in Appalachia. I was born in 1997, one town over from Coal City which doesn’t have luxuries like hospitals. My parents were white but that was basically their only advantage. My father is chronically ill and disabled. After getting a hysterectomy, and on the advice of her doctors, my mother started taking OxyContin. This prescription turned into an addiction that would carry her to an early grave.

Like Vance, I was raised primarily by my hillbilly grandparents, especially my mamaw. Papaw had died years earlier from stomach cancer that was left untreated when he refused to go to the doctor because he couldn’t afford to miss a shift in the mines. Papaw left mamaw with a meager pension and a roof over her head.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/i-grew-up-in-appalachia-too-jd-vance-is-a-hillbilly-phony-caleb-miller-writes

Maybe he is not the ideal person that he wants the world to believe…..all politicians fudge their life story a bit no matter the party.

But you decide whether this is the guy you want to be a secondary voice of your desires.

This is the end of my reporting week and now it is time for all of us to go out and enjoy the weekend wherever you live.

Turn The Page!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

It’s Official! Let The Fun Begin!

Finally and mercifully the RNC convention came to an end…..this Majesty ended this thing with a speech of acceptance….OMG!~ the length…..92 agonizing minutes in total.

At first it was and acceptable speech and even thought there was truth in the desire for unity….and that was what I get for thinking things would change after the ear piercing.

Before we got the honor of his majesty we had to site through the boring speeches by the slithering throngs of Trumpites…..Hulk Hogan, the octogenarian wrestler, entertained the crowd of low intelligent morons by ripping his classic shirt off…I should go on….but why the speeches were a bunch of canned crap about the border and Biden and Dems and….well use your imagination.

Let’s move on to his majesty’s acceptance speech…..like I said a rambling mess of accusations with no proof of statement.

Here we go….hang on to your ‘nads.

Donald Trump accepted his party’s presidential nomination for the third time on Thursday and gave a speech written in the days after the attempt on his life. His was the longest televised presidential acceptance speech ever, at one hour and 33 minutes, ending at 11:05pm CT. The previous record belonged to Trump; he set it in 2016 with a 75-minute speech. With his ear still bandaged, Trump was joined on stage by the firefighter’s uniform that belonged to Corey Comperatore, who was killed at the Saturday rally. Trump touched on topics ranging from COVID and his classified-documents case to inflation and the border and went off-script repeatedly. Standout lines:

  • “Four months from now we will have an incredible victory and we will begin the four greatest years in the history of our country. … I am running to be president for all of America, not half of America, because there is no victory in winning for half of America.”
  • already know, the assassin’s bullet came within a quarter of an inch of taking my life. So many people have asked me what happened, tell us what happened, please, and therefore, I’ll tell you exactly what happened, and you’ll never hear it from me a second time, because it’s actually too painful to tell.”
  • “I heard a whizzing sound and felt something hit me really really hard on my right ear. … I immediately knew it was very serious, that we were under attack. … Bullets were continuing to fly and brave Secret Service agents rushed to the stage … and pounced on top of me so I would be protected. I felt very safe because I had God on my side. The amazing thing is that prior to the shot if I had not moved my head at that very last instant … I would not be here tonight.”
  • “Nobody [in the crowd] ran and by not stampeding many lives were saved. They knew I was in very serious trouble and thought actually most did that I was dead. They knew it was a shot to the head and they saw the blood. … The ears are the bloodiest part, they bleed more than any other part of the body, the doctors told me. … This beautiful crowd they didn’t want to leave me and you can see that love written all over their faces. … Bullets were flying over us yet I felt serene.”
  • “I will end our illegal immigration crisis by closing our border and building our wall. … We have to stop the invasion into our country that is killing hundreds of thousands of people a year. I will end every single international crisis that the current administration has created,” specifying Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Gaza.
  • “If you took the 10 worst presidents of the United States and added it up they would not have done the damage that Biden has done.”
  • “I will bring back the American dream. You don’t even hear about the American dream anymore. With great humility I am asking you to be excited about our future, be excited.”
  • Trump said he was the first president in modern times to start no new wars. “There was peace in Europe and the Middle East. Under President Bush, Russia invaded Georgia. Under President Obama, Russia took Crimea. Under the current administration, Russia is after all of Ukraine. Under President Trump, Russia took nothing. We defeated 100% of ISIS in Syria and Iraq, something that was going to take five years, and I did it in two months. I stopped the missile launches from North Korea.”
  • “With our victory in November, our years of war and chaos would be over. … I could stop wars with just a telephone call.”
  • “America is on the cusp of a new Golden Age, but we must have the courage to seize it … we have to produce massive amounts of energy if we’re going to produce the new … AI needs tremendous, literally twice the energy that’s available now in our country, can you imagine?”
  • “Just a few short days ago, my journey with you nearly ended. And yet here we are tonight, all gathered together, talking about the future, promise, and a total renewal of a thing we love very much, it’s called America. We live in a world of miracles. None of us knows God’s plan, or where life’s adventure will take us.”
  • “But if the events of last Saturday make anything clear, it is that every single moment we have on Earth is a gift from God. We have to make the most of every day for the people and for the country that we love.”
  • “For too long our nation settled for too little … You have been told to lower your expectations and to accept less for your families. I am here tonight with the opposite message. Your expectations are not big enough. It is time to start expecting and demanding the best leadership in the world. Leadership that is bold … as long as our energies are spent fighting each other our destiny will remain out of reach and that’s not acceptable.”

What can I say?

Nothing has changed his rhetoric is the same as his 2 previous nominations….the call of unity flew down the political toilet.

I am still searching for the stats on his claim of hundreds of thousands killed by illegal immigrants…..so far nothing to confirm that POS.

He got as much mileage out of the assassination attempt as he could….he milked it for the all it was worth.

Finally I heard lots words but nothing I could point to as policy….promises that mean literally nothing but crowd fodder.

That was 92 minutes of pure crap but a junkie like me listened to it all and then had to visit the porcelain library….

Now I await the Dems moment in the sun….what will it be…Joe or his replacement?

Stay tuned

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Can The World Stand A Trump Presidency?

As a person with a degree in international relations I am always looking beyond our borders (they are not as porous as some would have you believe)….while I do not approve of Biden’s world view (a future post) I care less for Trump’s.

Volumes have been written about what a second Trump presidency would do to the country….but few are looking beyond that and staring into what the world will be like with that second shot at greatness.

Since the US has this sort of ‘invisible empire’ thing going on a Trump presidency will effect the entire world with his rants and acts.

So what could we expect for the rest of the world….

Just over six months ahead of the US election, the world is starting to consider what a return to a Trump presidency might mean. While Americans might be weighing up the difference between the two candidates domestic policies, the rest of the globe is more interested in what foreign policy decisions he might make.

Donald Trump has already hinted at some areas he is particularly likely to address: China, Nato, Ukraine and Gaza among them. Recent statements during the campaign and leaked memos – as well as his last stint as president signal moves that may be ahead.

“A handful of successes — and many more failures” is how Harvard professor of international affairs Stephen Walt describes Trump’s global decisions in his first term.

Joel Rubin, deputy assistant secretary of state for legislative affairs in the Obama administration, characterised Trump’s “America First” catchphrase as “America first, but really America alone”, emphasising Trump’s isolationist credentials. But could his assertive attitudes to other nations have some positive fallout?

Take NATO for example….

Trump had a mixed relationship with Nato in his first term. After declaring the organisation “obsolete” in January 2017, he later backtracked on this position. However, much of the damage with America’s Nato allies had already been done, and relations remained frosty.

Trump has been hinting that if reelected he would cut US funding to Nato or indeed not stand by article 5 of its founding treaty, which says that if one Nato member was attacked militarily, others would come to their aid. This has already caused concern across Europe.

Some European allies have taken heed of Trump’s early warnings, and are now starting to increase their defence spending and, in some cases, increase military recruitment and reservist numbers to help deter Russia.

Some might argue that Trump’s intention when he made these comments was to increase the military capacity and spending of America’s European allies – and might suggest this is already a Trump success.

There is so much more….

https://theconversation.com/what-a-second-trump-presidency-might-mean-for-the-rest-of-the-world-227641

Will this be good for the US if he is elected?

From an international perspective my thought is that it will not.

Any thoughts?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”