#consequences of an election

[eugenedebs1920]

Trump has been nothing but a financial, political, and spiritual burden on the United States! What has he ever done, besides give the 1% a giant tax cut adding $5 trillion to the deficit, beneficial for this nation? Honestly! I’d like to know. He inherited a great economy that Obama and Biden spent 8 years fixing from Bush Jr’s catastrophic failures. By the time Trump left office we had record high unemployment, economy in the tank, inflation on the rise. I hear maga say Obama was the most divisive president of all time?! To that I say BULLSHIT!!! He was only divisive if you were a racist. Which apparently is a lot of people.

The only thing Trump has done is grift off this nation, shred the constitution, rig SCOTUS, destroy our reputation, ruin the economy, sell our secrets to Russia, divide this nation like never before, and make a mockery of all who died to protect the rights and freedoms granted to us. So if you hate America, he did quite a bit I suppose.

[deadpresidents]

"What emerged in two interviews with Trump, and conversations with more than a dozen of his closest advisers and confidants, were the outlines of an imperial presidency that would reshape America and its role in the world. To carry out a deportation operation designed to remove more than 11 millions people from the country, Trump told me, he would be willing to build migrant detention camps and deploy the U.S. military, both at the border and inland. He would let red states monitor women's pregnancies and prosecute those who violate abortion bans. He would, at his personal discretion, withhold funds appropriated by Congress, according to top advisers. He would be willing to fire a U.S. Attorney who doesn't carry out his order to prosecute someone, breaking with a tradition of independent law enforcement that dates from America's founding. He is weighing pardons for every one of his supporters accused of attacking the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, more than 800 of whom have pleaded guilty or been convicted by a jury. He might not come to the aid of an attacked ally in Europe or Asia if he felt that country wasn't paying enough for its own defense. He would gut the U.S. civil service, deploy the National Guard to American cities as he sees fit, close the White House pandemic-preparedness office, and staff his Administration with acolytes who back his false assertion that the 2020 election was stolen."

-- "How Far Would He Go", TIME Magazine's interviews with Donald Trump, April 30, 2024.

I know we're saturated in coverage of Trump and it's easy (and probably better for our mental health) to usually ignore most of the articles when we see them, especially since he's so full of shit and infuriating. But it's also important to recognize that he is going to be the Republican nominee for President and he could absolutely be elected in November, and if you thought his first term was scary and dangerous, you need to understand that in a second term he's going to have people around him that are better prepared and VERY willing to do the crazy shit that he wants to do to this country. They aren't even hiding the fact that they are seeking vengeance against political opponents whom they feel have wronged them, and are ready to fundamentally dismantle the democratic foundations that are barely holding this country together after nearly 250 years.

Just look at what Trump says about the people who he incited to attack the United States Capitol in an attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election and halt the peaceful transfer of power that has happened every four years since 1789:

"Trump has sought to recast an insurrectionist riot as an act of patriotism. 'I call them the J-6 patriots,' he say. When I ask whether he would consider pardoning every one of them, he says, 'Yes, absolutely.' As Trump faces dozens of felony charges, including for election interference, conspiracy to defraud the United States, willful retention of national-security secrets, and falsifying business records to conceal hush-money payments, he has tried to turn legal peril into a badge of honor."

Oh, and please note that Trump -- a former President of the United States and possible future President of the United States -- said on the record in these interviews with TIME: "There is a definite antiwhite feeling in the country and that can't be allowed either." We are at a point where political leaders are outright saying that in this country again, and it's because of Donald Trump.

So, take the time to recognize that Trump is straight-up telling us the country we're going to be living in if he wins again in November. And understand that your vote matters -- and WHO you vote for matters -- because, as I've been saying for years now, ELECTIONS HAVE FUCKING CONSEQUENCES.

[artielu]

Listen up.

The current Supreme Court is a 6-3 conservative majority.

Justice Thomas, that corrupt fascist fucker, is 75.

Justice Alito, that biased fascist fucker, is 74.

Each is married to a fascist ultra right wing woman. Ginny Thomas was actively involved in Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Martha Ann Alito is the alleged source of the ultra right wing flags on the Alito homes.

If Trump is elected in 2024, Thomas and Alito will retire, just like Kennedy did in 2018. Trump will get to appoint two more justices in their 50s.

Like sexual assaulter and liar Kavanaugh. Or handmaid's tale Coney Barrett. And the conservative majority will be on lock for thirty years. Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Coney Barrett are in their 50s.

Add two more ultraconservative justices in their 50s and you have a five seat conservative majority for 30 years if they live natural lifetimes.

If Trump is elected in 2024, we've not only lost the Court for at least a decade (now) but another thirty years.

What other civil rights would you like to lose? Because YOU WILL. We ALL will.

Can we fucking not? CAN WE FUCKING NOT?

Vote for Biden.

Vote for Democrats for the Senate.

[lotus-pear]

FUCK this country

[eugenedebs1920]

How’s that protest vote working out for you? Trump will let Bibi raise Gaza to the ground! You want to say Genocide Joe? You ain’t seen NOTHING yet! Trump will not only allow the slaughter of Palestinians, once they’re out of the way, Kushner will be there to erect luxury condos in their place. Maybe we deserve this. A lesson to not be so reactionary, entitled and uninformed.

It’s going to be a LOOOONG 4 years… 😐🔫

[tomorrowusa]

People need to be reminded of Trump's woeful incompetence which came to a head during the pandemic emergency and resulted in the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans.

The Obama administration successfully dealt with the threats from swine flu and Ebola. There was no swine flu disaster, there was no Ebola disaster, and there was even no Zika disaster because competent people were running the US. Near the end of Obama's term, his National Security Council staff put together a 69-page playbook on how to deal with pandemic emergencies. It's called "Playbook for Early Response to High-Consequence Emerging Infectious Disease Threats and Biological Incidents". Of course Trump ignored the document and plunged the nation into COVID hell.

Trump team failed to follow NSC’s pandemic playbook

Michelle Obama, in one of her best speeches ever in Kalamazoo this weekend, excoriated Trump's incompetence.

Michelle Obama laced into Donald Trump in a searing speech in Michigan on Saturday, accusing the former president of “gross incompetence” and having an “amoral character” while challenging hesitant Americans to choose Kamala Harris for US president. “By every measure, she has demonstrated that she’s ready,” the former first lady told a rapt audience in Kalamazoo. “The real question is, as a country, are we ready for this moment?” [ ... ] In raw and strikingly personal terms, she asked why Harris was being held to a “higher standard” than her opponent. Trump’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic and his failed attempt to cling to power after losing the 2020 election should alone be disqualifying, Obama argued. But now the people who worked closest with him when he was president – his former advisers and cabinet secretaries – had stepped forward with a warning that he should not be allowed to return to power.

ICYMI, here is Michelle Obama's speech in Michigan.

Too many people have been afflicted by Trumpnesia. They seem to have forgotten the catastrophe that happened starting on 22 January 2020 when the first COVID infection was discovered on US soil. On that day Trump told CNBC: "we have it totally under control" and "it's going to be just fine".

Instead of following Playbook for Early Response to High-Consequence Emerging Infectious Disease Threats and Biological Incidents, Trump did the usual bullshit Trump things like criticize the Oscars and rage-tweet from the bathroom. He belatedly declared a state of emergency on Friday the 13th of March – the day after the stock market crashed.

Don't let anybody in real life get away with describing the Trump years as some sort of utopia.

Some people disingenuously claim they don't know enough about Kamala Harris despite her 20 years in public service. We all know more than enough about Trump's egregious ineptitude which turned a national emergency into a prolonged national nightmare.

[alwaysbewoke]

[glassblossomsthunderstorm]

"Honestly, I don't really care why she lost. I care why he won."

- Desi Lydic

[grits-galraisedinthesouth]

History Repeating Itself 💔

Joe Biden’s Role in the Yom Kippur War

Joe Biden had his first meeting with an Israeli leader, Golda Meir, on the eve of the Yom Kippur war, right after meeting with officials in Cairo. During the then junior senator’s meeting with Meir, Biden suggested that Israel make a unilateral withdrawal from settlements for peace, criticizing the settlement policies of the Labor Party, and suggesting they represent a form of “creeping annexation.” Though Biden assured Meir that Egyptian officials were convinced of Israel’s military superiority, 40 days later, Sadat initiated a surprise attack against Israel.

This is the gist of a bombshell tweet from Israel’s Channel 13 reporter Nadav Eyal containing excerpts from a classified memo from an Israeli official who attended that fateful meeting. While it may have been the first meeting between Biden and an Israeli prime minister, it was certainly not the last. In subsequent meetings with Israeli prime ministers, Biden threatened Menachem Begin with withholding U.S. aid, and publicly upbraided Benyamin Netanyahu because it had been announced in a town council meeting that 1600 homes were to be built in future in the Jewish Jerusalem neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo (more about this here).   

Joe Biden paints that early meeting with Golda as something precious that cemented in his mind how important Israel is to the Jewish people. It is clear, however, that Joe Biden has always been against the Jewish people settling their indigenous territory. The very thought of Jews planning to build homes in Jerusalem makes him furious. Therefore, contrary to the love fest with Golda he has often described, Biden used the first chance he had to meet with an Israeli prime minister to broach the subject of unilateral concessions.

One wonders how much clout the young senator wielded at that time. Not to mention the timing of subsequent events, with the surprise attack on Israel by Egypt occurring just 40 days after Biden’s meeting with Meir. Is it possible that Golda Meir incurred wider U.S. displeasure by refusing to entertain Biden’s suggestion of unilateral concessions? Was Egypt perhaps emboldened by this state of affairs to attack Israel without fear of American intervention?

During its years in office, Israel fought the 1956 Sinai War, the Six-Day War and the Yom Kippur War. Labor agreed to UN Resolution 242 and the notion of trading land for peace. Nevertheless, successive Labor governments established settlements in the disputed territories and refrained from dismantling illegal settlements, such as those established in 1968 at Qiryat Arba in Hebron by Rabbi Moshe Levinger, and others set up by Gush Emunim. By 1976, more than thirty settlements had been established on the West Bank; however, their population was fewer than 10,000.

"TODAY’S BLOG:

Joe Biden’s Role in the Yom Kippur War

In January 1973, Joe Biden was sworn in as Senator from Delaware.

September of that year found him in the Middle East on a trip to Egypt. Shortly thereafter, Biden was in Israel in a meeting with Israeli PM Golda Meir.

In that meeting, Biden convinced Meir that Egypt would not attack Israel by convincing her that Egypt thought that Israel had absolute military superiority.

The meeting was documented on October 2, 1973 in a secret letter (below) written by Israel Foreign Ministry official Gideon Jordan. Four days later Egypt attacked Israel.

Foreign Ministry official Gideon Jordan summed up Biden’s words as follows: “Of all the personalities (in Egypt) he (Biden) met, he heard that there was not one of them who disbelieved in Israel’s perfect military superiority and therefore stated that it is not possible for Egypt to go to war against Israel now. According to the people he spoke to Egyptians, time will take its course and when God wills, he will find the solution.”

What this letter calls into question is Joe Biden’s extreme misreading of Arab “personalities” and their intentions. His misreading–and that of Israeli intelligence–had disastrous consequences in the Yom Kippur War. One cannot help but think of similar Biden misreadings when it comes to Iran, Lebanon, and elsewhere.

Gideon Jordan later notes in the secret document that Biden was interested in more than Egypt: “The senator repeatedly said that Israel should do a unilateral act, that is to withdraw from some territories, of course not from those territories of strategic importance such as the Golan Heights, Sharm el-Sheikh and the Gaza Strip–but to withdraw without even any negotiations or an agreement with the Arabs.”

Jordan remarks that Meir immediately disagreed with Biden about unilateral withdrawals without achieving true peace. Again, one cannot help but think about the disastrous Biden unilateral withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the unilateral concessions that the U.S. has demanded from Israel in the current Lebanon “agreement” talks.

The secret letter is below for those of you who read Hebrew:

When Biden met Meir: Joe Biden advised Jewish PM to trade land for peace - The Jerusalem Post

 Biden meeting between Joe Biden and former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, described in a memo published by Israeli reporter Nadav Eyal, sheds light on the former Vice President's thought process at that time, and what he believed Israel should do shortly before the Yom Kippur war broke out. The meeting took place following his return from Egypt where he discussed with Saadat several things, roughly 40 days before the surprise attack that would turn into the Yom Kippur war.

https://www.jpost.com/us-elections/when-biden-met-meir-joe-biden-advised-jewish-pm-to-trade-land-for-peace-646732

[eugenedebs1920]

I just want to clear something up because I hear this crap from all you treasonous maga out there, “we’re not a democracy, we’re a republic.” Guess what? I can watch Fox News too and regurgitate bullsh*t talking points and sound like a dumb*ss. I’d rather think critically, do research, come to a conclusive answer. This screenshot is from the civics lessons you have to take to become an American citizen (hence govinfo.gov).

So according to the government of the United States, the United States is federal representative democratic republic under the constitution.

No matter what propaganda sh*t Jesse Watters or Sean Hannity tries to spew. This is what our government says our government is. Hope we can move on from this, and yall will shutup.

Thanks 👍

Every intelligent, patriotic American

[atlas7seo]

Sometimes I feel like people failed US History and this recent election and talks about tariffs really do prove that. I mean did literally everyone collectively forget about the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act and those major repercussions? Btw that act happened in 1930. There's a reason President Hoover's name was used to refer to Shanty Towns in the Great Depression. Or the fact that almost all tariff acts within the last 80 or so years have either been expanding negotiation for world trade or deliberately decreasing tariffs. And the one time in 2002 where steel had tariffs placed on it, it was repealed in under a year because the cost greatly outweighed any benefits.

Does anyone remember the last time Trump tried to make tariffs in 2018? How many people credit it to be one of the largest tax increases in US history!?

Are people really that stupid? Like it's literally a REQUIRED part of our general education. Why do you think it is!? So people can actually make smart decisions.

[deadpresidents]

The town hall, moderated by South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R), began with questions from preselected attendees for the former President. Donald Trump offered meandering answers on how he would address housing affordability and help small businesses. But it took a sudden turn after two attendees required medical attention. And so Trump, after jokingly asking the crowd whether "anybody else would like to faint," took a different approach. "Let's not do any more questions. Let's just listen to music. Let's make it into a music. Who the hell wants to hear questions, right?" he said. For 39 minutes, Trump swayed, bopped -- sometimes stopping to speak -- as he turned the event into almost a living-room session of his favorite songs from his self-curated rally playlist. He played nine tracks. He danced. He shook hands with people onstage. He pointed to the crowd. Noem stood beside him, nodding with her hands clasped. Trump stayed in place onstage, slowly moving back and forth. He was done answering questions for the night.

Just want to point out that this is a real thing that actually happened at Donald Trump's "town hall" in Pennsylvania on Thursday. And, as I always feel the need to remind everybody: in less than a month, tens of millions of Americans will vote for this person to once again be President of the United States. Do your part in making sure that it does not happen again because this is not normal. This is the type of shit that bizarre dictators like Turkmenistan's Turkmenbashi would do because nobody was able or willing to say, "No, that's not a good idea." Vote on November 5th because ELECTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES.

[hotmess-exe]

"MY life has gotten marginally better or been unaffected under the current administration, so give the Democrats YOUR vote"

that's what y'all sound like. fuckin entitled. or do none of y'all actually believe in one person, one vote lol

just say that other people's problems, well-being, stability, and dignity is secondary to your fucking comfort under the status quo.

if things are "better under Biden" for you to such an extent that you feel entitled to other people's fucking votes, I got news for ya — you were probably fine under Trump too 🙃

[waytootiredstudent]

It's very weird. I am not American. None of my co-workers are. This is just a random office in Germany. And yet there is a notable air of anger and despair from everyone about the election results. One of my co-workers has a red coat and just bitterly said that it's a bad day to wear that colour. She normally really likes the colour and the coat. Theres a notable lack of laughter and smiles and a lot of grim faces in the break rooms. Like yeah everybody does their job. But they're all a little exhausted.

I don't have a point. It's just weird to see how present this is in everybodies minds. How many people that have nothing to do with it care about it. It is mostly met with disbelief. A sense of "I can't understand it. It doesn't make any sense. Why?"

[frankie-catfish-morales]

i dunno if it's just me but there is something to a young white girl openly copying drag culture and making millions off it all while claiming she "hates" being famous, but then does every live event and interview show she's invited to while canceling planned events for her fans, and claiming she is all about the rights of POC and LGBTQ while at the same time undermining the upcoming election in a completely tone-deaf way proving she's just another white girl appropriating the cultures of others while not actually knowing anything of their struggles and what would actually happen to their rights should Tr*mp get re-elected. Like please be for real girl.

[artielu]

Listen up.

We knew this was coming but it's really, really fucking bad. We're in the endgame now.

For all of you who are somehow still on the fence about voting for Biden, the Supreme Court, including THREE JUDGES HE APPOINTED, just gave Trump a nearly blank fucking check.

And if he's elected in November, he's going to appoint another two people to SCOTUS to replace conveniently retiring Thomas and Alito, and maybe another if Sotomayor's health continues to decline. That's five or six ultraconservative justices in their 50s who will be on the Court for the next thirty to forty years. DECADES of ultraconservative decisions.

------

"The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision along ideological lines, ruled that a former president has absolute immunity for his core constitutional powers — and is entitled to a presumption of immunity for his official acts, but lacks immunity for unofficial acts. But at the same time, the court sent the case back to the trial judge to determine which, if any of Trump's actions, were part of his official duties and thus were protected from prosecution.

That part of the court’s decision likely ensures that the case against Trump won’t be tried before the election, and then only if he is not reelected.

If he is reelected, Trump could order the Justice Department to drop the charges against him, or he might try to pardon himself in the two pending federal cases.

[ . . .]

Monday's Supreme Court decision came months after the court agreed to hear the case Feb. 28 and scheduled arguments for two months later. Court critics have noted that the justices could have considered the case as early as in December, when Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith unsuccessfully sought review of the same questions later put forward by Trump."

-----

IF WE DO NOT ELECT BIDEN, THIS COULD SERIOUSLY BE THE END OF DEMOCRACY IN THE UNITED STATES.

Biden is a decent, imperfect man. He's chosen a really spectacular, diverse, qualified team of people surrounding him, including

VP Kamala Harris, Black Asian woman, smart as hell, fiercely pro choice

Transportation Pete Buttigieg, gay father, working on safety, infrastructure, airline compensation when airlines fuck us, and healing neighborhoods slashed by racist highway plans decades ago

Interior Deb Halaand, the first native person to head the department which has relations with indigenous peoples and has massively invested in indigenous communities and protecting the environment

Energy Jennifer Granholm, who is working hard to help green our energy grid and funding billions in carbon capture and renewable energy sources

And on the other side is 34 TIME CONVICTED FELON and his shady ass corrupt cabinet of family members, cronies, and criminals.

How is this even a question?!?!