#Clinton Accomplishments

[joansiesbeloved]

Rest in Peace James Earl Carter Junior. October 1st, 1924 - December 29th, 2024.

[chrispineofficial]

gonna be so fr rn if you as a young and very left-aligning usamerican disdain the progress made by imperfect people who changed the world before you i simply have no interest in anything you have to say and i don’t think anyone else should either. you have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. none. truly insane take to have

[justsomeoneunordinary]

god i hate it when americans post their politics on here

may biden die this instant and may the us burn to hell with him

fuck you all

[reality-detective]

I'm going to spell it out one more time for those of you who are lost and not registering the 100's of fuckin clues I've been dropping for you. So please pay close attention because I'm tired of repeating the same shit. 👇

YOU ARE WATCHING A MOVIE 🎬 📽️

A lot of what you are seeing is complete bullshit and fake. It's so outrageous on purpose to get your attention at this point and it will continue until it has accomplished the goal fully and arrest will be ongoing with or without you.

There isn't/and never was a Biden presidency. The real Biden was executed for his crimes long ago, along with Clinton and many other deep state goons. You can't arrest them if no crime has been committed and the minions are still committing crimes.

You are seeing actors. Some have masks. That's why Biden keeps referring to himself as the mask president. This means they are the good guys in this movie on the team of freedom.

This whole election was fake along with a fake inauguration.

Fake Biden executive orders.

Fake oval office.

It's all bullshit.

Wake up. 👀

The military right now is controlling our country until the new elections in the coming months. The Insurrection Act has been signed. Executive Orders from Trump are in full effect and I've pointed those out.

Things will soon be revealed publicly. Hopefully, you can wake up before then so you don't have a heart attack in the process.

They really tried stealing our election that part is real. Trump knew this and allowed it to happen to expose them and arrest those involved and he and the military will be implementing a blockchain fraud proof election system, which was already patented back in August 2020. He skipped the 9th circuit corrupt courts because they, too, were compromised and went 100% FISA. This whole thing has been a total military sting operation.

The goal was to arrest and remove these crooks first before ever winning an election. Furthermore, the Vatican owned the corrupt DC corporation, and that is no longer intact, it has been dismantled.

It will soon be a republic for which it stands under the constitution as originally intended. You will get a history lesson in the process along with a solid grasp of what the constitution actually is.

Many corrupt DC rats and Hollywood pedophiles have gone to jail and/or have been executed for crimes of high treason, conspiracy and other crimes against humanity. Many more are in the process of meeting justice via military tribunals as I'm posting this.

Things will be made public in due time, no more secrets, no more games.

There are many actors in this movie, not just the Biden double comedian guy. Who's who at this point is somewhat of a mystery. We don't know exactly who is who 100%. Some actors have been playing a part from the very beginning. Others flipped for a deal and are now playing a part in this movie to avoid the death penalty.

The best thing you can do right now is just wake up to the truth that's being shown to you, take heart and know that communists have no real power over our country and look forward to the things Trump has already pre-planned long ago for you.

I'll warn you now. Things WILL get stranger from here on out.

If you pay attention and listen to what I've been trying to tell you here, you'll start laughing at the ridiculousness of the whole production.

If you are watching the mockingbird media CNN or the other FAUX NEWS networks, you'll probably cry.

Whatever you do, please don't call Joe Biden the president. He really has been long gone, and his double has no power. And that ain't Kamala Harris.

Enjoy the show 🍿 As the federal government is being removed via the military.

https://rumble.com/v5cidlv-8.26.24-the-tipping-point-on-revolution.radio-with-l.t.-col.-riccardo-bosi.html?e9s=src_v1_ucp

If you people would listen to Riccardo Bosi in the above 👆 link you will see what I'm saying. The interview begins at the 1:11:11 mark it's about an hour long. Scott McKay talks about other things before bringing on Lt. Col. Bosi. I posted this 👆 earlier and I know people didn't listen to it. A lot of you are still stuck on the fake bullshit and if you wanna know the truth then put in the time required to learn it. I can't put this anymore clearly. 🤔

[batboyblog]

Is there any way you could put together like, an emergency positivity post or something? Some of Biden's biggest accomplishments in office? I ask this because after the debate... Well, people are spreading negativity, apathy, and anti-voting rhetoric faster than ever before, especially in regards to his response on Roe and Gaza.

again, vacation I'm tapping these out in a brief moment of peace while the kids are at the beach.

But 1. I'd tell everyone to buck up, and fight your corner, did the media react this way when Trump was indicted for crimes in 4 different cases? did they act this way when he was declared a RAPIST! in court? did they act this way when he was convicted of 34 felonies? and we don't even know if he'll end up in prison? no? then fuck off with this BS, there's one person who should drop out and its not the slightly older man who had a cold, its the rapist. And there's one way we stop a RAPIST from being President (again) we vote for the old man.

second, on Roe just briefly, Joe Biden's ability to do things on this issue without Congress is very limited, but he did two things that a Republican would not have done (indeed would have done the reverse) one he made sure that people can get mifepristone by Telehealth and through the mail, keeping the door open for medical abortion nationwide, of course this is not perfect but understand a Republican would have not done this, and so in states with bans it'd be BANNED, second he issued guidelines that the federal law that covers emergency care, the part where the ER can't throw you out with a heart attack because you can't pay, would cover abortion emergencies as well, too many women are being sent to wait in parking lots to bleed till its "their lives" at risk, how much worse would it be if HHS wasn't saying "no you HAVE TO treat them"?

it can ALWAYS be worse, always, Biden has done things to limit this damage, things a Republican would not have done, and in the case of mifepristone like would have taken steps to block access.

So you like Roe? you want abortion protected? Biden is your guy, send him a Democratic Congress, the first 100 days will see an abortion rights bill passed and him sign it, he'll only appoint pro-choice Justices to the Supreme Court. And just as a side note, he's said that, which in the past, Obama, Bill Clinton for sure, both felt like they had to say they wouldn't make that a test (while Republicans made overturning it a open test for every Justice since GHWB was President) The Democratic Party is more pro-choice than it has ever been before, its no longer scared to support abortion rights, thats a big shift, that Biden has been in the front of

[kvetchlandia]

Time For...

One of My Occasional Rants.

So, we in the United States are on the verge of a presidential election. I'm sure all of you lovely people already know that. This particular election is beyond ghastly and grim in its implications. You have one candidate who is a representative of the long term status quo and another who is more dangerous not only to the people of the United States but to the people of the entire globe than my own meager command of words allows me to express.

I'm no particular fan of Kamala Harris. As a lifelong socialist, I see her as a candidate of capitalism, and a socially moderate one at that, essentially a Clinton Democrat, the sort of Dem who would have been a Republican 60 years ago. In other words, the sort of candidate that under normal circumstances I'd never consider for one moment voting for. However, her opponent is a veritable monster; a multiply convicted felon; a man found civilly liable for sexually assaulting a woman and then libeling her after his conviction; a serial liar of astronomical proportions; a man who is supported by open fascists and KKKers; a man whose own open racism and antisemitism is decades old; a man who bragged on television about assaulting women; a man who coddles autocrats and openly aspires to be one; a man who urged his brownshirt wannabe followers to commit a putsch against the legally elected government then referred to those putschists as "heroes" and has promised, if elected, to pardon those convicted of their violent crimes; a man so self-interested that the only thing he really accomplished during his previous presidency was to give himself (and, as an after effect, his fellow billionaires) a whopping tax cut, paid for by raising taxes on the working class; a man who bragged about depriving women of their right to control their own bodies; a man void of culture and knowledge and one so ego-damaged that his own aides admitted that they had to place his name in huge all caps in his daily briefing books to get him to even skim them, since the only thing he was interested in was himself; a man who completely botched the response of the United States to the COVID epidemic and who then recommended to his followers that they inject bleach and that they shine lights on their bodies to cure the virus while he, when he contracted it, of course got state of the art medical care; a man who will reshape the courts, as he's already done to the Supreme Court, so that they're little more than a voice of medieval religious obscurantism and political reaction and a man who has already promised to use the military to quash demonstrations against him and his policies and to go after those who have or who continue to oppose him. I could go on and on, but you get the point. If Trump is elected, which is a distinct possibility, that's the end of American bourgeois democracy, always a limited and partial thing at its best.

Trump has promised to drill for even more oil and to end this country's investment in alternative sources of energy, thereby all but ensuring that complete environmental collapse due to global climate change will take place in the next few decades, if not sooner. It's already an ongoing process.

If Trump is elected, he's promised to deport more than 10 million people. That, of course, is nearly impossible, but that won't stop him from trying. Should he really undertake that blind, racist endeavor, it would of course be politically and morally wrong, but it would also cost trillions of dollars to do (where would they be placed before they were loaded on trains and deported? Camps would have to be built. Who would guard those camps? Tens of thousands of people would have to be hired, trained and armed). And then, of course, the American economy would collapse, since it's those people who do so much of the work that keeps the economy running. I don't see many Americans lining up to harvest the fields or work in the garment sweatshops for starvation piece-work wages, nor do I see many Americans willing to work at the tough, usually non-union, low skill construction jobs that keep the economy rolling. Needless to say, those millions of deportees won't be buying any of the commodities they now purchase on a daily basis to support their families. Bye bye, profit.

All of this is well known. None of it takes any research to uncover. The voting age population has lived through it and everyone is aware of it. Nonetheless, and this just boggles my mind, the polls keep telling us that the race is a toss up. That means that tens of millions of people either don't care or support the horrors that Tump embodies and stands for. That is truly frightening. I'm not convinced that Trump is a fascist, for a number of historical and analytical reasons that I'm sure none of you are interested in, although a number of his supporters are members of fascist organizations. Fortunately, as of right now, the United States still doesn't have a mass fascist movement and I don't see one developing soon, for reasons related to why I don't consider Trump a fascist. He is, though, openly disdainful of the bourgeois democracy that is represented by the American status quo and he's both expressed his desire to be a dictator and has said he made a mistake by leaving office in 2020, despite losing the election (which he pretends was rigged, although he damn well knows it wasn't). If he's re-elected, the only way he'll leave the White House is when he's rolled out on a gurney. Yet this is all OK with millions of Americans. I don't like to draw inappropriate analogies with the catastrophe that befell Germany starting in 1933, but it's hard not to see similarities despite the very significant differences. One of those similarities is the passivity of that part of the population that might not be hardcore MAGA cultists and worshippers of their bloated demigod, but will nevertheless vote for Trump, for whatever reason they cite. That's how Hitler came to power and many of those passive non-nazis had no problem when the Nazis began the roundups of Jews and political opponents of the regime. As a person who has long been politically active, I don't think I'm being at all paranoid when I say that I fear, soon after a re-elected Trump took office, that we would quickly start having those midnight knocks at the door and disappearances into the night and fog.

OK, rant over. Now I've managed to depress and terrify myself even more. I need a stiff drink.

[theothin]

I wasn't old enough to vote in 2008, but I paid a lot of attention to the election regardless. I was excited to see Obama elected, and hopeful for how much he would change things.

By 2012, that excitement had faded. After a couple of years of his presidency, my enthusiasm gave way to frustration with ways he and other Democrats didn't feel like enough of an improvement over the Republicans. Rather than voting for him for re-election, I cast my first vote for president for Jill Stein, hoping that others would take care of re-electing him but that my own vote would play a role in paving the way to something better.

Obama succeeded in winning re-election, but the votes for Stein didn't show any sign of accomplishing anything. Still, in 2016, an alternative emerged: Bernie Sanders.

I supported Sanders in the primary, and was disappointed when he lost to Clinton. I felt tempted to repeat the same thing I had done in 2012, but as the election loomed closer, I realized that the prospect of a Trump presidency was too dangerous to risk in the name of sending a message. I concluded that Clinton needed all the support she could get, and voted for her as well as encouraging others to do the same.

It turned out that the support Clinton needed was even more than what she got. Trump won that election, and the consequences were catastrophic.

In the 2020 primaries, I voted for Elizabeth Warren, but recognized that Biden's lead was insurmountable. This time, I went in prepared to adapt. I knew that there were things I didn't like about Biden and that more would turn up in the future, especially if he became president. I also knew that his opposition would still be far worse, and promised myself that none of that would change my support for Biden in the general elections. I voted for him, and thankfully, he won.

Over the years since then, Biden faced accusations of not being progressive enough, just like Obama had. This time, I held to my commitment not to let those accusations sway me again. If he had continued to run, I would have gladly voted for him again. But he didn't, and so the same reasoning passed to Kamala Harris.

I voted for Harris this morning, and I hope the support she's gathered is enough.

[phaeton-flier]

You know, a lot of the Biden staffers who ended up in Harris's election campaign staff apparently criticized her for not hyping up Biden's accomplishments more; I wonder how many of them were old enough to see Al Gore try to do that after Clinton's scandal and learned the wrong lessons

[justinspoliticalcorner]

President Joe Biden dug himself a hole and now he is trying to climb out. But many fellow Democrats and some in the media keep shoveling dirt on him. One 20-minute TV interview was never going to swing the race back in Biden’s favor after his halting debate performance against Donald Trump — whose own shambolic showing was largely shrugged off. Legitimate questions remain as to whether Biden, 81, or Trump, 78, are up for the grueling campaign and four more years of a relentless job that has aged past Oval Office occupants. Biden insists he is staying in the race. He must now convince voters he has the mental strength and stamina to do the toughest job in the world. The same bar does not apparently exist for Trump, who loses no points for incoherence or incompetence. The country is not electing the next debate champion. Biden is a decent and honorable man with a substantive record of accomplishment. But to make his case, Biden should hold more unscripted events, including town halls, press conferences, and interviews. At each stop there will be no margin for error. The media is tracking Biden’s every move with an obsession greater than the 2016 focus on Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server. The rules have always been different for Trump. Recall when seven members of Trump’s team used private email accounts, including his daughter and son in law, it barely caused a ripple. [...] But little attention has been paid to Trump’s incoherent debate performance because he is often incoherent. Trump told more than 30 lies in 90 minutes during the debate like it was another day at the office. [...] Apparently, it’s OK for Trump to spew nonstop nonsense, but Biden can’t ever lose his train of thought. [...] Trump’s list of flubs is long and more frequent. To be sure, anyone on the public stage will have occasional gaffes. But stringing words together is not what should worry voters the most. Some pundits have suggested that it’s time to take away Biden’s keys, but any fair-minded American should know by now that Trump is unsafe to serve at any speed. Four criminal indictments, two impeachments, one guilty verdict, a sexual abuse judgment, and a civil fraud finding should have sent Trump to the ash heap of history.

Philadelphia Inquirer Editorial Board on the hypocrisy of media coverage between President Joe Biden's cognitive decline and Donald Trump's cognitive decline (07.06.2024)

The Philadelphia Inquirer Editorial Board is on point here as to why Joe Biden's cognitive decline is getting all the coverage but Donald Trump's is being ignored with this phrase: "Apparently, it’s OK for Trump to spew nonstop nonsense, but Biden can’t ever lose his train of thought."

[keep-both-eyes-on-trump]

The year was 2016, the month November. I was sat at the front desk of my apartment building complex–hair, pristine; uniform, immaculate; anxiety, rampantly uncontrolled–ostensibly working although I was really obsessively refreshing the election results on the work computer every two minutes watching as Donald Trump inched closer and closer to victory. I had voted for the first time, having sat the 2012 election out still steeped in conservative values but thinking that President Obama guy was doing a pretty good job of it, for Hillary Clinton and was dismayed at the election results that confirmed Trump's victory in the early morning hours and endlessly frustrated with his presidency thereafter.

The 2024 election went differently in some ways and the same, unfortunately, in others. I voted early for Vice President Harris, turned in early to be up in time the next day for work tentatively hopeful, and, surprisingly, slept rather well. The election wasn't called when I got up, but it was clear Trump was once again on the path to victory. A half hour later the AP called it for Trump.

I gave myself a moment to process, then quietly got ready, ate breakfast, told my dog I loved him, and stepped out under the still dark sky to drive about three hours to the other side of the state. A three hour drive that gave me much longer to process and have a chat with a friend about how fucked we possibly were for the forseeable future.

And, somewhere during that three hour drive and surrounded by my insufferable fellow drivers, I had an idea. I was going to start a blog.

“Why?” No one asked me since I was in a car alone.

I've never been one for journaling, I've never been one for speaking about strong feelings aloud. And, though I despise Trump as a person and generally despise many of his so-called accomplishments of his first term, I had honestly done my level best to bury my head under a rock the last time he was in office. Not this time. This time I am going to watch. I am going to feel. I am going to write.

In a strange way I am relieved. The election is over. I know where the country stands. And I know where I stand.

So here I am now, eight years later–hair, in need of a trim honestly; anxiety, what my therapist calls somewhat controlled; faith in this country, justifiably absent–embarking on a journey that may very well end short of Trump’s term if my therapist has anything to say about it. Is it healthy to emesh myself in watching Trump's moves as this country's president? Probably not. Will it be enjoyable? Almost definitely not. Am I going to commit to it anyway? Yes.

For all those who stand today disappointed, angry, and anxious: you are not alone. We are still here. We still have a voice.

The Watcher

[thatsonemorbidcorvid]

“By simply existing as women in public life, we have all become targets, stripped of our accomplishments, our intellect, and our activism and reduced to sex objects for the pleasure of millions of anonymous eyes.

Men, of course, are subject to this abuse far less frequently. In reporting this article, I searched the name Donald Trump on one prominent deepfake-porn website and turned up one video of the former president—and three entire pages of videos depicting his wife, Melania, and daughter Ivanka. A 2019 study from Sensity, a company that monitors synthetic media, estimated that more than 96 percent of deepfakes then in existence were nonconsensual pornography of women.”

Recently, a Google Alert informed me that I am the subject of deepfake pornography. I wasn’t shocked. For more than a year, I have been the target of a widespread online harassment campaign, and deepfake porn—whose creators, using artificial intelligence, generate explicit video clips that seem to show real people in sexual situations that never actually occurred—has become a prized weapon in the arsenal misogynists use to try to drive women out of public life. The only emotion I felt as I informed my lawyers about the latest violation of my privacy was a profound disappointment in the technology—and in the lawmakers and regulators who have offered no justice to people who appear in porn clips without their consent. Many commentators have been tying themselves in knots over the potential threats posed by artificial intelligence—deepfake videos that tip elections or start wars, job-destroying deployments of ChatGPT and other generative technologies. Yet policy makers have all but ignored an urgent AI problem that is already affecting many lives, including mine.

Last year, I resigned as head of the Department of Homeland Security’s Disinformation Governance Board, a policy-coordination body that the Biden administration let founder amid criticism mostly from the right. In subsequent months, at least three artificially generated videos that appear to show me engaging in sex acts were uploaded to websites specializing in deepfake porn. The images don’t look much like me; the generative-AI models that spat them out seem to have been trained on my official U.S. government portrait, taken when I was six months pregnant. Whoever created the videos likely used a free “face swap” tool, essentially pasting my photo onto an existing porn video. In some moments, the original performer’s mouth is visible while the deepfake Frankenstein moves and my face flickers. But these videos aren’t meant to be convincing—all of the websites and the individual videos they host are clearly labeled as fakes. Although they may provide cheap thrills for the viewer, their deeper purpose is to humiliate, shame, and objectify women, especially women who have the temerity to speak out. I am somewhat inured to this abuse, after researching and writing about it for years. But for other women, especially those in more conservative or patriarchal environments, appearing in a deepfake-porn video could be profoundly stigmatizing, even career- or life-threatening.

As if to underscore video makers’ compulsion to punish women who speak out, one of the videos to which Google alerted me depicts me with Hillary Clinton and Greta Thunberg. Because of their global celebrity, deepfakes of the former presidential candidate and the climate-change activist are far more numerous and more graphic than those of me. Users can also easily find deepfake-porn videos of the singer Taylor Swift, the actress Emma Watson, and the former Fox News host Megyn Kelly; Democratic officials such as Kamala Harris, Nancy Pelosi, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez; the Republicans Nikki Haley and Elise Stefanik; and countless other prominent women. By simply existing as women in public life, we have all become targets, stripped of our accomplishments, our intellect, and our activism and reduced to sex objects for the pleasure of millions of anonymous eyes.

Men, of course, are subject to this abuse far less frequently. In reporting this article, I searched the name Donald Trump on one prominent deepfake-porn website and turned up one video of the former president—and three entire pages of videos depicting his wife, Melania, and daughter Ivanka. A 2019 study from Sensity, a company that monitors synthetic media, estimated that more than 96 percent of deepfakes then in existence were nonconsensual pornography of women. The reasons for this disproportion are interconnected, and are both technical and motivational: The people making these videos are presumably heterosexual men who value their own gratification more than they value women’s personhood. And because AI systems are trained on an internet that abounds with images of women’s bodies, much of the nonconsensual porn that those systems generate is more believable than, say, computer-generated clips of cute animals playing would be.

As I looked into the provenance of the videos in which I appear—I’m a disinformation researcher, after all—I stumbled upon deepfake-porn forums where users are remarkably nonchalant about the invasion of privacy they are perpetrating. Some seem to believe that they have a right to distribute these images—that because they fed a publicly available photo of a woman into an application engineered to make pornography, they have created art or a legitimate work of parody. Others apparently think that simply by labeling their videos and images as fake, they can avoid any legal consequences for their actions. These purveyors assert that their videos are for entertainment and educational purposes only. But by using that description for videos of well-known women being “humiliated” or “pounded”—as the titles of some clips put it—these men reveal a lot about what they find pleasurable and informative.

Ironically, some creators who post in deepfake forums show great concern for their own safety and privacy—in one forum thread that I found, a man is ridiculed for having signed up with a face-swapping app that does not protect user data—but insist that the women they depict do not have those same rights, because they have chosen public career paths. The most chilling page I found lists women who are turning 18 this year; they are removed on their birthdays from “blacklists” that deepfake-forum hosts maintain so they don’t run afoul of laws against child pornography.

Effective laws are exactly what the victims of deepfake porn need. Several states—including Virginia and California—have outlawed the distribution of deepfake porn. But for victims living outside these jurisdictions or seeking justice against perpetrators based elsewhere, these laws have little effect. In my own case, finding out who created these videos is probably not worth the time and money. I could attempt to subpoena platforms for information about the users who uploaded the videos, but even if the sites had those details and shared them with me, if my abusers live out of state—or in a different country—there is little I could do to bring them to justice.

Representative Joseph Morelle of New York is attempting to reduce this jurisdictional loophole by reintroducing the Preventing Deepfakes of Intimate Images Act, a proposed amendment to the 2022 reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act. Morelle’s bill would impose a nationwide ban on the distribution of deepfakes without the explicit consent of the people depicted in the image or video. The measure would also provide victims with somewhat easier recourse when they find themselves unwittingly starring in nonconsensual porn.

In the absence of strong federal legislation, the avenues available to me to mitigate the harm caused by the deepfakes of me are not all that encouraging. I can request that Google delist the web addresses of the videos in its search results and—though the legal basis for any demand would be shaky—have my attorneys ask online platforms to take down the videos altogether. But even if those websites comply, the likelihood that the videos will crop up somewhere else is extremely high. Women targeted by deepfake porn are caught in an exhausting, expensive, endless game of whack-a-troll.

The Preventing Deepfakes of Intimate Images Act won’t solve the deepfake problem; the internet is forever, and deepfake technology is only becoming more ubiquitous and its output more convincing. Yet especially because AI grows more powerful by the month, adapting the law to an emergent category of misogynistic abuse is all the more essential to protect women’s privacy and safety. As policy makers worry whether AI will destroy the world, I beg them: Let’s first stop the men who are using it to discredit and humiliate women.

Nina Jankowicz is a disinformation expert and the author of How to Be a Woman Online and How to Lose the Information War.

[deadpresidents]

I don't understand why news stories about JD Vance keep mentioning that he's the most unpopular non-incumbent VP candidate since 1980. Unless they're talking about John Anderson (maybe? who knows?), that would've been the Reagan-Bush ticket, and they won! Maybe the VP choice really doesn't have that much impact on elections?

I think they're just using 1980 as a starting point, not as a comparable example. George H.W. Bush was an excellent choice as Reagan's running mate. He brought ideological balance to the ticket, was extremely qualified, and unified the party (he was Reagan's closest challenger for the nomination in the 1980 Republican primaries). The better example for a horrible VP pick would be, as I have seen mentioned in some places, George McGovern's disastrous choice of Thomas Eagleton in 1972, which ultimately resulted in Eagleton being dumped for Sargent Shriver eighteen days later.

Dan Quayle was a very questionable pick when he first was chosen as George H.W. Bush's running mate in 1988 because people just didn't know who he was. Even though Quayle had served in the House and the Senate up to that point, he had made so little of an impact that his selection was pretty shocking to many observers. I think the bigger problem with Vance, however, is that he's just plain unlikable. Even Quayle had a certain attractive quality to him because he was a youthful pick who brought a different kind of energy to that ticket once people got over the shock of him being picked. Vance hasn't added anything to Trump's ticket, and it's easy to argue that he's actually had a negative impact on the campaign, which is the one thing a Vice Presidential nominee should never do.

In retrospect, Sarah Palin was obviously one of the worst VP picks in American history, but she revitalized McCain's campaign in 2008 and there were moments were she really shined. If she had been actually qualified or prepared for the role she would have been a different story. I was working on the Obama campaign in 2008 and remember watching her give her acceptance speech at the 2008 Republican National Convention and we were all thinking, "Oh shit...they might have something here!" And then she started having to do interviews and it immediately became apparent that there was nothing under the charisma. We went from being scared that she might be good to being scared by how extraordinarily unqualified and ill-prepared she was.

There have been misfires on the other side, as well. Joe Lieberman was one of the least-inspiring choices of my lifetime. John Edwards, one of the slimiest American politicians of the 21st Century (which is quite an accomplishment), was as much of an empty suit under big hair as Sarah Palin was. And Tim Kaine may have been well-qualified for the job, but I don't know anybody who was excited when he was Hillary Clinton's choice. I don't even remember Hillary Clinton being excited about picking Tim Kaine. Kaine wasn't a net negative to Hillary Clinton's campaign, but I didn't think he added anything, either.

When it comes down to it, I think it's more likely that you're correct about the VP selection not having that big of an impact on the election. It's still an important inflection point in a campaign because it's the Presidential nominee's first big decision and EVERYBODY is paying attention. And, sometimes, it's an indication of the type of team the President is going to build around him when he does govern. But there hasn't been a running mate that really made a difference for geographical reasons since LBJ was nominated in 1960 and helped JFK narrowly win Texas. Yet, geographical balance is always one of the most-talked about aspects of building a ticket.

The most important thing is to pick somebody who is qualified to be President if necessary and doesn't take anything away from the ticket. Ideological, demographic, or regional balance is always good, but not necessary. One of the better tickets of my lifetime was Clinton/Gore and Clinton was a young, Southern Governor who decided to double-down and chose an even younger, Southern Senator as his running mate. Clinton chose someone who he thought could help him govern. And one of the other best tickets of my lifetime was a losing one: Romney/Ryan in 2012. There was more of a demographic/ideological/regional balance with that ticket, but Romney chose Ryan because he wanted an active partner in governing and Ryan had the legislative experience that Romney lacked.

Again, it's probably less important to the general election results than it seems, but the whole "Veepstakes" deal is always fun for political junkies, so we'll never stop talking about it!

[kimkimberhelen]

I can't promise this will be my last rant regarding the current political fuckery, but it could be. There was an opportunity post-debate for the Democratic Party leadership and politicos to be rational and level-headed. One could acknowledge that Biden had a lousy night while also having his back, defending his accomplishments, and moving on to focus on the horrors of Donald Trump.

Instead, panic was chosen. Now, the press is always going to do its thing regarding Democrats, but the party itself could have stayed strong. Since the debate, Biden has had multiple interviews, rallies, and press conferences, discussing very complex issues with thoughtfulness and nuance. This was in the constant face of ageism and ableism. Whatever bleeding occurred could have been easily stemmed, but for whatever, Democratic 'leadership' is committed to this bizarre death-by-a-thousand-cuts strategy.

Some of this is complicated. Big money donors like Hollywood scumbag George Clooney are essentially withholding the big bucks from the party until Democrats oust Biden. This is essentially extortion, and it's trying to subvert what the voters decided during the 2024 Democratic primaries, where voters such as myself partook in the democratic process by casting our votes for Biden.

Biden was technically the only candidate during the primaries, but some voters chose not to vote, and some protest voted as was their right. Biden still won. Now, it seems as though that doesn't matter. I said before that if the party had all these alleged concerns about Biden for a while, they had multiple opportunities leading up to the debate to take care of business, but they did not do this.

Telling Biden all day, every day, to drop out with no real plan but 'someone better' is absolutely insane, and people touting Kamala Harris as an alternative don't seem to realize she's already on the ticket and actively governing.

The stupidity is embarrassing. And the way Democratic leadership has conducted itself these past three weeks has been a total disgrace by showing zero backbone in the face of adversity, acting as if election day was tomorrow when it's only fucking July.

If Joe Biden is replaced, the new and shiny toy will not be treated any better by the media or Republicans. They will get the same treatment as Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Kerry, Al Gore, Bill Clinton, Michael Dukakis, Walter Mondale, and Jimmy Carter.

As you can see, the vast majority of these candidates did not win.

I guess the question going forward is if a replacement happens, will the Democratic Party stand by its candidate when the inevitable political curveball happens, or will it plunge into another doom spiral and declare all is lost?

We shall see.

[qqueenofhades]

A thing about it is, like them or not and agree with them or or not and think they're valid or not... People had reasons for not liking "her". Not once did I hear someone say she was shrill or just for some reason. There was always a reason. Here's two other things: 1. I thought you were going to mention someone else was the one as well qualified (guess that goes to show we as a country do not agree on what qualifies a candidate) 2. Of course our country is misogynistic etc but also... We are allowed to dislike or not choose women and it's not always misogyny. Anyhooo... Just some thoughts that came up on your recent post. Thought I'd add it to the conversation pool.

Thanks for the contribution. Unfortunately, it's total nonsense. Allow me to expand:

People had reasons for not liking "her". Not once did I hear someone say she was shrill or just for some reason. There was always a reason.

People had reasons for not liking... scare quotes... her? Funnily enough, I can't tell if you're referring to Hillary Clinton or Kamala Harris, and yet you want to convince me they had super good reasons for doing it, because they didn't like "her." Who? Does this person have a name? And if you really, actually haven't heard anyone say that a female politician is shrill or dislikable, unfortunately, Your Personal Experience Is Not A Statistic. I find this very hard to believe for that reason. And it wasn't "just for some reason, there was always a reason?" What reason? Was it a real reason? Or was it made up to justify the real reason? There are literally no specifics here, and yet It Was A Real Reason, Pinky Swear.

1. I thought you were going to mention someone else was the one as well qualified (guess that goes to show we as a country do not agree on what qualifies a candidate)

If you want to explain to me in a compelling 2000-word essay with footnotes and bibliography why Hillary Clinton was secretly actually not qualified for the American presidency (I assume you're referring to her, as yet again, the lack of specifics make it difficult) please do. Please compare her accomplishments and background (as well as the opposition she faced) to other major party candidates present and past. It will be graded.

2. Of course our country is misogynistic etc but also... We are allowed to dislike or not choose women and it's not always misogyny

And yet! You have not articulated one actual reason for why that might be! What are these reasons? How do they compare to other reasons? Who even are the women you are referring to? This is all insanely vague, speculative, hypothetical, and is not offering anything beyond "don't accuse me of misogyny because [insert reason]." Once again: If an actual reason (attached to an actual woman) can be identified, and it's not just thinly veiled code for something else that is felt to be less politically correct or compatible with one's own identity as a Liberal Tolerant Person, we can have a conversation about it. I have not heard any of that. Have a good day.

[reality-detective]

Long Post... But Very Important 👇

HISTORY OF THE US NESARA LAW:

· NESARA was signed into law by President William Jefferson Clinton in 2000, at gunpoint because the Military forced him to sign it. He wasn't going to, and was to be announced by Alan Greenspan on Sept. 11, 2001, at 10:00am.

· This was prevented by the destruction of the World Trade Center by then President George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and others involved with this great deception. They murdered 7,000 innocent Americans that day and stole billions in Gold and Silver from Building 7.

· In early 1993, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on charges by the Farmer's Union that banks in the U.S. were fraudulently foreclosing on farm mortgages and that the U.S. Government was in collusion with these banks. The testimony and proof brought into court by a retired CIA Agent let to further evidence and proof that Farmer's Union claims were legitimate. It also led to evidence that the 16th Amendment, the Income Tax Amendment, was never properly ratified by the required number of states and therefore, declared that income taxes were unlawful.

· Almost unanimously the U.S. Supreme Court Justices ruled in favor of Farmer's Union. The Justices recognized that overwhelming evidence proved the U.S. Government and the Federal Reserve Banking System were perpetrating FRAUD in many ways upon Americans. The Justices recognized that to remedy this situation, massive reformations would be required. When rulings were made by the U.S. Supreme Court, one or more of the justices are assigned to monitor the process by which rulings are carried out.

· In this case, five of the Justices were assigned to a committee to develop steps to implement the required governmental and banking reformations. As the Justices went about developing the changes, they enlisted the help of experts in Economics, Monetary Systems, Banking, Constitutional Law and other areas. They built coalitions of support and assistance with thousands of people worldwide, working with us to bring NESARA and GESARA to fruition. These people were called the "White Knights". The term "White Knights" was borrowed from the world of big business when a vulnerable company is "rescued" from a hostile takeover.

· Because of the enormously sweeping changes the rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court required, an EXTREMELY STRICT gag order was put in place on everyone involved. The Justices also sealed all records on the case until after the reformations are all accomplished.

· To maintain secrecy, the case details for the docket number assigned to the Farmer's Union case were changed. So, doing a search for this case will fail to reflect the correct information until after the reformations are made public. At every step of the process, anyone directly involved has been required to sign an NDA to keep the process of implementing the required reformations "Secret" or face charges of Treason which are punishable by death.

· To implement the reformations, the five justices spent years negotiating how the reformations would occur in agreements called "accords" with the U.S. Government, with Federal Reserve Bank owners, the IMF, World Bank, and numerous countries including the UK and the EU.

· The reformations required the Federal Reserve Bank system to be absorbed by the U.S. Treasury and all fraudulent banking activities to be stopped, as well as remedies to Americans for past harm due to FRAUD.

· The U.S. Banking reformations will impact the entire world and therefore the IMF, World Bank and other countries involved including the UK and the Vatican City.

· Members of Congress were ordered by U.S. Supreme Court to "DENY" the existence of NESARA / GESARA or face charges of TREASON, punishable by DEATH. Some members of Congress were charged with "Obstruction" and threatened with charges of TREASON. Therefore, all members of U.S. Congress have had to pretend that NESARA has not been passed in order to comply with the Justice's GAG ORDER.

O. SAT. 3 AUGUST 2024 NESARA GESARA REFORMATIONS:

· NESARA / GESARA is the most groundbreaking reformations to sweep the world in the entire history of the world.

· All foreigners will be required to return home in order for them to receive their GESARA Payments.

NESARA DOES THE FOLLOWING: 👇

a. Zero's out all Credit Card, Mortgage and other bank and loan transaction debts.

b. Abolishes the Internal Revenue Service and the Income Tax.

c. IRS employees will be transferred to the US Treasury National Sales Tax area.

d. The Federal Reserve will be absorbed into the US Treasury.

e. Creates a 14% - 17% National Sales Tax, applied to NEW ITEMS only for government revenue. Some of it goes to states, rest to new national government.

f. Used items sold will not be taxed. Food & Medicines will not be taxed.

g. Sets up Restitution Payments for those victimized by Chattel Property Bonds. Those Aged 61 and over will receive a lump sum payment. Those Aged 41 to 60 will receive scheduled payments set time and sign work contract. Those Aged 29-40 will have to sign a Work Contract to receive their funds. Initiates a Universal Basic Income or UBI for those 16-29 years old.

h. An increase for retired Senior Citizens up to 3x current SSN amount up to $5,000.00

i. Dissolves US Inc. and returns the country to 1791 Constitution and Common Law.

J. Admiralty-Equity & Civil Laws are dissolved. Judges & Lawyers will be retrained in Constitutional Law.

k. Restores the Original 13th Amendment known as the Titles of Nobility Amendment.

l. Requires that New Presidential and Congressional Elections occur within 120 days.

m. Monitors Elections and prevents illegal election activities of everyone.

n. Creates a new US Treasury Rainbow Currency that is Asset Backed.

o. Forbids the sale of American Birth Certificates as chattel property bonds.

p. Initiates a new US Treasury Banking System in alignment with Constitutional Law.

q. Restores Personal Financial Privacy.

r. Ceases All Military Activities Worldwide.

s. Establishes World Peace.

t. Releases enormous sums of money to be used for Humanitarian Purposes.

u. Enables the release of over 6,000 patents of suppressed technologies including free energy devices, anti-gravity and medical bed technologies.

THE RODRIGUEZ TRUST REDEMPTION AND EXCHANGE FUNDING PROGRAM: 👇

· The Rodriguez Trust, based in the Philippines, is reportedly over 100 years old. It is claimed to be the single largest source of funds in the world.

· Dr. Alan Cohler is said to be the asset manager of the trust. The trust is backed by gold, some of which is said to come from King Solomon’s Temple.

· However, these claims are often associated with spiritual and metaphysical beliefs, and their validity is not universally accepted. For definitive information, legal consultation is recommended.

· The value of both the St. Germain and Rodriguez Trusts have 3083 zeros behind them.

The "New Earth" is near 🤔

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Mike Luckovich

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

July 14, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

JUL 15, 2024

Shortly after 6:00 yesterday evening at a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, a shooter on the roof of a building about 400 feet from the stage appears to have shot eight bullets at the former president and into the crowd. Trump appeared to flinch and reach for his right ear as Secret Service agents crouched over the former president. When the agents got word the shooter was “down,” they lifted Trump to move him out. He asked to get his shoes and then to put them on.

With that apparently accomplished, Trump stood up with blood on his face, exposed to the crowd, and told the agents to wait. He raised his fist in the air in front of an American flag in what instantly became an iconic image. He appeared to yell, “Fight, fight, fight!” to the crowd before being ushered offstage.

Pennsylvania firefighter Corey Comperatore, 50, was killed. David Dutch, 57, was injured and is hospitalized in stable condition. James Copenhaver, 74, was also injured and is in stable condition. 

The FBI has identified the shooter as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, who was killed by a Secret Service agent. Crooks used an AR-type semiautomatic rifle that apparently belonged to his father. Crooks was wearing a gray Demolition Ranch tee shirt advertising a YouTube channel for gun enthusiasts and people interested in explosive devices. The channel has more than 11 million followers. Crooks appears to have been a registered Republican.   

Trump said he had been “shot with a bullet that pierced the upper part of my right ear.” So far, no doctors have briefed the public. 

In the confusion immediately after the shooting, MAGA Republicans blamed the Democrats for the violence. “Today is not just some isolated incident,” Ohio senator J.D. Vance, who is in the running to be Trump’s vice presidential pick, posted on social media. “The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs. That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.” Representative Mike Collins of Georgia called for a Republican district attorney to “immediately file charges against Joseph R. Biden for inciting an assassination.” Indeed, he said, “Joe Biden sent the orders.”  

Edward Luce of the Financial Times noted, “Almost any criticism of Trump is already being spun by Maga as an incitement to assassinate him. This is an Orwellian attempt to silence what remains of the effort to stop him from regaining power.” Indeed, MAGA Republicans appear to be trying to stop discussion of their extremist plans— which are enormously unpopular— by claiming that such a discussion is polarizing. 

The idea that Democratic opposition to authoritarian plans like those outlined in Project 2025 caused violence might convince MAGA Republicans, but it will likely be a hard sell for Americans who remember things like: 

•Trump’s own suggestion in 2016 that “Second Amendment people” could solve the problem of Hillary Clinton picking judges; or his 2020 attacks on Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, who became the target of a kidnapping plot; or election workers bombarded with death threats as Trump lied that the 2020 election was stolen;

•the October 2022 tweet by Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. mocking then–House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul after a home intruder hit him in the head with a hammer; or Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor Greene’s 2022 campaign video in which she promised to “blow away the Democrats’ socialist agenda” as she took aim with a rifle; 

•in 2023, House Republicans wearing AR-15 lapel pins on the floor of Congress; Representative Don Bacon (R-NE) saying his wife slept with a loaded gun after he voted against Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH) for House speaker; or Republican representatives sending Christmas cards showing the whole family toting guns;

•in 2024, the Kansas Republican Party’s March fundraiser where attendees could donate to kick and punch an effigy of President Biden; or Don Jr.’s reposting an image of Biden bound and gagged in the back of a pickup truck;

•or Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson of North Carolina, who is running for the governorship and who is scheduled to speak at the Republican National Convention starting tomorrow, saying just two weeks ago: “Some folks need killing! It’s time for somebody to say it.”

Indeed, in March 2024, in Vance’s home state, Trump said: if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole…country,” and a 2022 campaign ad by Representative Collins himself showed him shooting a rifle at Nancy Pelosi’s “agenda” and at a cardboard rhinoceros he says is a “RINO,” a Republican in Name Only. 

Republicans under Trump have increasingly advocated violence as a way to gain power because they know their unpopular positions cannot lead their candidates to victory in free and fair elections. In this moment, when there is still little evidence about yesterday’s tragedy, it appears they are projecting their own behavior onto Biden and the Democrats, blaming them for advocating violence when in fact, Biden and the Democrats have tried hard to enact commonsense gun safety laws and have consistently condemned the violent language and normalizing of political violence by Republicans. 

Republicans’ embrace of violence is a hallmark of authoritarian leaders; by definition it  undermines democracy. In Nashville, Tennessee, today, neo-Nazis shouting “Hitler was right!” were involved in fights in the streets. Ending that resort to violence, which never advances society and always injures it, is key to restoring the guardrails of democracy.

Biden spoke to the nation tonight, warning that Americans need to “lower the temperature in our politics and to remember, while we may disagree, we are not enemies. We’re neighbors. We’re friends, coworkers, citizens. And, most importantly, we are fellow Americans. And we must stand together.” He condemned yesterday’s violence, noting that “[a] former president was shot” and “an American citizen killed while simply exercising his freedom to support the candidate of his choosing…. There is no place in America for this kind of violence or for any violence ever. Period. No exceptions. We can’t allow this violence to be normalized.” 

The framers of the Constitution, he said, “created a democracy that gave reason and balance a chance to prevail over brute force. That’s the America we must be, an American democracy where arguments are made in good faith, an American democracy where the rule of law is respected, an American democracy where decency, dignity, fair play aren’t just quaint notions, but living, breathing realities.”

Biden rejected the idea that criticizing the Republicans’ extremism was polarizing. While they can “criticize my record and offer their own vision for this country,” he said, “I’ll continue to speak out strongly for our democracy, stand up for our Constitution and the rule of law, to call for action at the ballot box, no violence on our streets. That’s how democracy should work.” 

Biden paused all campaign ads and events after the shooting and told staffers to “refrain from issuing any comments on social media or in public.” Trump is fundraising off the attempt on his life, but he spent the day golfing rather than campaigning. 

The Secret Service has launched an investigation of how a shooter could get so close to Trump; Biden has ordered an independent investigation as well. Biden said he has also directed the Secret Service to review the security measures in place for the Republican National Convention, which starts tomorrow in Milwaukee.

Within hours of the shooting, House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) announced that “THE HOUSE WILL CONDUCT A FULL INVESTIGATION OF THE TRAGIC EVENTS TODAY,” saying, “The American people deserve to know the truth.” Although the FBI investigation has barely gotten underway and Congress has no law enforcement power, Johnson promised to have officials from the Secret Service, the Department of Homeland Security, and the FBI “appear for a hearing before our committees ASAP.” 

Observers noted that it sounded like MAGA plans to have yet another investigation designed to spread a narrative, in this case, that the “Deep State” was involved in the shooting. 

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON