#over 65 voters

[harriswalz4usabybr]

Harris-Walz Campaign Update!

53 days ago the Harris-Walz campaign kicked off in Maine and we've been working diligently to meet with Americans across our country, answering questions, communicating policies, and working to win every voter's confidence. The campaign has officially visited 45 states, the District of Columbia, and all 5 territories. We maintain our commitment to visiting all 50 states and will swing through the remaining states in the coming days.

We are happy to know that this strategy is also seeing positive results in polling numbers, while not all movement in the polls has been in our directions, there are traditionally deep red states that are seeing movement that was not expected. Using multiple polls, we've been able to establish a map that speaks to the work we've been putting in and that we view as more and more likely. However, as the country learned in 2016, polls are not the end all, be all in predicting a winner.

We cannot be fooled into complacency. The Harris-Walz administration remains the underdog in the 2024 presidential race and we must remain steadfast in bring more independents and republicans into our fold, while also deepening our support in key demographics. White college voters are a growing base with us, which we believe is due to common sense policy on our side, and divisive rhetoric coming from our opponents campaign.

We will continue to fight on the campaign trail every day for the trust of the American people and their vote for our ticket and democrats down the ballot. We look forward to campaigning and for Americans to have their voices heard in 28 days from now, on Election Day!

~BR~

[batemanofficial]

quiet doctor's office waiting room voted best place to have a loud, highly revealing personal conversation for the third year in a row

[allthegeopolitics]

Despite the Democrats losing the popular vote in the election to the Republicans for the first time since 2004 - and by more than five million votes - many pro-Kamala Harris social media users aimed their frustrations at pro-Palestine voters, specifically Arabs and Muslims, on Wednesday.

Although many Arab and Muslim Americans voted for the Green Party’s Jill Stein, she received only 0.4 percent of the national total, amounting to 628,525 votes. This is less than half of what Stein received in 2016 when she received 1,449,370 votes.

Former President Donald Trump overperformed across the electorate. The Financial Times reported that Trump gained ground in all but two states, specifically among those in the working class who care most about the economy and immigration.

Even if Harris had managed to win Michigan in the electoral college, which is home to a significant Muslim and Arab voting bloc, she would have still lost the election.

"Asian, Black, Hispanic and white voters all moved towards Trump. "Harris only increased her vote share among the over-65s and with white college-educated women," the FT report said. [...]

Continue Reading.

Tagging: @vague-humanoid

[sprites4ever]

Since I'm A Solution-Oriented Person, Instead Of Crying, Here's What I'll I Advise Every American And Everyone Else, Who Wants To Hear It

GET TOGETHER AND STAY TOGETHER

The Right and Fascists thrive on division of their opposition. Don't preocuppy yourself with infighting.

You never wanted politics to be a fight, but they've made it one. So remember who your enemies are, and what people can achieve when they have a common threat.

If you're in a red state and are fearing for the life and well-being of you and/or people you know, GET OUT NOW. You have a month until inauguration, so, if you can't leave the country, move to a blue state.

While it is, of course, no guarantee for safety against the MAGA cult, the comparatively limited power of the US federal government over citizens and state governments should buy you some time to prepare for a Trump Nazi Regime and/or WWIII or a second US Civil War.

DON'T DENY THE ELECTION RESULT

I know it's comfortable to think that most Americans wouldn't be so insane to re-elect Trump, but that's not true. The race was pretty much 50/50 and winning over the battleground states put Trump over the edge. There's also the fact that, while a ~65% voter turnout is pretty good for a democratic country, that still means that half of eligible American voters did not vote. So, whatever their ideals are, they did not participate in the choice that impacts them, every other American and, due to the US' status, the rest of the world.

Remember, Hitler too was democratically elected. None of the reasons with which Hitler and Trump convinced voters are real things, but still, those voters believed them and made their choice. May they shamefully rot in the worst pages of future history books, but they made their choice.

This is the inherent risk of democracy: That people can always choose to ruin it.

I'M NOT GOING TO MINCE WORDS:

CORRECTION: I previously claimed that the voter turnout was ~50%, when, in reality, it was around 65%. This is strong for a genuine democracy (fake democracies can obviously force people to vote at gunpoint, or just make up voter statistics), but this still means that a third of the country did not vote and that Trump was elected by a third of the country, not even 50% of the population. By that logic, any election with a voter turnout below 100% would not represent the genuine majority, but you get my point. The reality is that both a lot of American non-voters and Trump voters live in rural areas where the rest of the world, outside their community, might as well not exist. So, of course, they can, for example, take Trump's word on the LGBTQ+ community, because they know so little about the world that they can be told anything and also won't vote responsibly, as, if, for example, there's no LGBTQ+ person in their community, they have no way of knowing what these people, their issues and the threats they face actually are like. A lot of voters also don't care about politics and just vote for the guy everyone else is voting for, or the guy who's face they like better. (I'm not making this up, people from multiple countries have legitimately stated that they vote based on politician hotness.) It's strange, because this type of rural unknowingness is usually typical for countries that are undeveloped and autocratic, so one wouldn't expect it from the richest country where the elections define so much. I guess it's the US' federal system and libertarian economy that have led to this extreme compartmentalization of society, where communities are essentially as different from each other as Stone Age-villages.

WITH TRUMP RE-ELECTED, DEPENDING ON HIS CHOICES, THERE WILL BE WORLD WAR III OR A SECOND AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

I'm not paranoid for saying this, as former US Armed Forces Chief of Staff General Mark Milley, who served two years under Trump and Biden, has stated in an interview with The Atlantic that he and others had to stop Trump from launching nuclear missiles at North Korea multiple times in 2018.

ON A POTENTIAL WORLD WAR III

WWIII means a nuclear holocaust, meaning hundreds of millions of deaths around the entire world within half an hour of the war turning nuclear and billions of deaths in the years following, no way around it.

Cities and areas near government and military instalations in nuclear-armed countries (USA, russia, China, Israel, Iran, India, Pakistan, North Korea, United Kingdom and France) will be most affected, but that doesn't mean those will be the only places to be nuked or affected.

Decades of many nations' strategists' deliberations during the Cold War, the period of tension between the US-led NATO and Soviet russian-led Warsaw Pact after the end of WWII in 1945, which in and for itself ended with the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1991, came to the same conclusion - If another World War occurs, it will be nuclear and it will be global. It can't even really be called a war, as the world's nuclear powers have had the capacity to annihilate each other's militaries and economies within half an hour ever since 1950.

Since then, WWIII hasn't happened due to powerful people being aware of this and due to multiple courageous individuals who chose right in close calls. For example, President Kennedy maintained a cool head during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, during which, for the uninitiated, NATO and the USSR got extremely close to a nuclear war, as they both deployed nuclear missiles right at each others' doorsteps. In that crisis, too, Soviet Naval Officer Vasili Arkhipov prevented his submarine from launching nuclear weapons at the US when the submarine lost contact with Moscow and other officers thought a nuclear war had started and Moscow had been destroyed. In 1983, when the Soviet Politburo had become so paranoid that they believed their own propaganda about an impending attack by NATO, their nuclear forces were on such high alert that a malfunctioning Soviet spy satellite sending a false alarm about an American nuclear launch nearly caused them to launch in what they thought would be retaliation. At that time, the Soviet Command Officer Stanislav Petrov however figured that the computer at his base, which displayed the warning and which had been installed just the day before, was malfunctioning and chose not to relay the alarm to the rest of Soviet command.

Now, much misinformation has been spread around atomic energy and nuclear weapons. Here's the reality about nukes:

Almost all of the aforementioned nuclear powers have the capacity to launch a nuke at any target in the world within minutes, as nuclear missiles, especially Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) can reach insane hypersonic speeds, faster than anything that could shoot them down before the nuclear warheads start the detonation sequence.

While we're talking about the US, the aforementioned decades of deliberation have concluded that is impossible for any country to fire a nuke without it soon turning into a war between all nuclear powers with their nukes. Nukes are just too destructive for decision-makers to not panic in that event.

The currently existing nukes are spread as follows:

USA: ~5500 nuclear warheads total, how many of those are ready-to-launch is classified, launch means are silo-launched Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles with Multiple Independent Reentry Vehicle (MIRV) warheads (meaning one missile can drop nukes on multiple targets), Intermediate-Range Ballistic Missiles (IRBMs), Short-Range Ballistic Missiles (SRBMs), Ground-, Air- and Sea-launched Cruise Missiles, Air-dropped bombs, Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missiles (SLBMs) with MIRV warheads

russia: ~6000 nuclear warheads total, readiness same as above, launch means are silo- and truck-launched ICBMs with MIRV warheads, IRBMs, SRBMs, Ground-, Air- and Sea-launched Cruise Missiles, Air-dropped bombs, SLBMs with MIRV warheads

China: ~250 nuclear warheads total, readiness same as above, launch means are ICBMs, cruise missiles and SLBMs

Israel: ~100 nuclear warheads total, readiness same as above, launch means are cruise missiles and SLBMs

India: ~100 nuclear warheads total, readiness same as above, launch means are ICBMs, cruise missiles and SLBMs

Pakistan: ~100 nuclear warheads total, readiness same as above, launch means unknown

United Kingdom: ~200 nuclear warheads total, readiness same as above, launch means are cruise missiles and SLBMs

France: ~100 nuclear warheads total, readiness same as above, launch means are cruise missiles and SLBMs

Iran: Does officially not have nuclear weapons, can factually assemble some nuclear warheads within weeks, launch means unknown

North Korea: Official number of nuclear warheads classified, most likely ~30, readiness unknown, launch means are ICBMs, IRBMs, SRBMs and cruise missiles

Nukes cause unrivaled destruction over tens of kilometers with their explosion, emit a flash of Gamma radiation in the moment of their explosion, cause massive shockwaves and fires, can blind people with the brightness of the flash of Gamma radiation and cause long-lasting contamination with dangerous radiation via fallout.

Gamma radiation caused by the initial nuclear fission of a nuke last extremely short. This radiation is quickly lethal, but so fast that is gone within milliseconds. Anyone too close to the source will, however, be hit by so much of said radiation, that they will get extreme Accute Radiation Syndrome (ARS), also known as radiation poisoning, and die within hours, as Gamma radiation is so strong that, in high enough concentration, it passes through the human body and rips out the electrons from the atoms which cellular tissue is made of, degrading them to Ions. (Hence the term 'Ionizing Radiation')

Ions, unlike atoms, are way less stable, meaning that cellular tissue that has been ionized can't uphold itself and falls apart.

The other type of ionizing radiation from nuclear bombs, Neutron radiation, works the same way, but lasts much longer than Gamma radiation. Unlike Gamma radiation, it sticks to most materials, causing them to give off Neutron radiation for years. This is the radiation hazard that comes from fallout. Fallout is the soot kicked up by the explosion, which originates from everything it pulverized. The immense heat causes it to first be carried upwards, forming the characteristic mushroom cloud, before the air cools and allows the now irradiated soot to fall out (hence the name) and back onto the ground. It is affected by wind and weather.

To avoid both types of radiation, the first factor is distance. Any amount of radiation still consists of individual particles that race through the cosmos, so the further away you are from the source, the less likely for its rays to hit you, as they travel in a straight line.

The second factor is cover. Like everything else, ionizing rays can get through certain things and can't get through others. Gamma rays get through everything with a lower density than multiple centimeters of lead and Neutron rays get through anything with a lower density than multiple meters of concrete. So, being underground or in the center of extremely thick buildings, as well as having resources necessary for survival, is key to surviving radiation after a nuke explodes.

The third factor is time. The human body can withstand different levels of radiation for different amounts of time. The easiest way to figure out how long you can stay exposed to how much, is with a dosimeter.

SO, YES, I AM TELLING YOU TO START DOOMSDAY PREPPING

The essentials, of which you should amass a stock that will last you multiple years in a secure location:

Non-perishable canned food

ABSURD amounts of drinking water

Distilled water for hygiene

Nonperishable Grain-based food

Long-lasting milk

Dried fruit and nuts

Eggs

Flour

Sugar

Honey

Salt

Black pepper (hurts like hell, but can be used as a coagulant to stop wounds from bleeding)

Paper towels

Trash bags

Hygiene gloves

Breathing masks

As much replacement clothing, especially outdoors and warm clothing, as you can get

Water treatment tools

Camping cooking equipment

Easily useable heat sources

Tools (Wrench, File, Screwdriver, Crowbar, Fire extinguisher, Knives, Compass, Hammer, Shovel, Pickaxe)

Physical maps

Hand crank-powered radio

Many spare batteries

Many spare rechargeable batteries

Battery charger

Means of power generation (hand crank, solar)

Flashlight

Radio phone

Backpacks

All the medicines you need

Bandages

Hygiene products

Antibiotics

Medicines against cold

Medicines against diarrhea

Disinfectant

Pastes against insect bites

Pastes against sunburn

Soap

Dosimeter

Geiger counter

Hazardous enviroments clothing

Helmets

Gloves

Cups

Buckets

Canisters for water

History books

Important works

A laptop

A smartphone

A camera (don't need it if you have a smartphone)

Print out important documents on put them in a folder

Analog data storage

Physical data storage (hard drives, flash drives, CDs, SD cards)

Devices to read data storage

Means for self-defense

Emergency plans with people you know

Similarly, a second American Civil War would also need Americans to prepare, in order to survive.

IF YOU LIVE ANYWHERE THAT'S NOT THE US, YOU WILL BE AFFECTED, TOO

Don't think the US are far enough away. Of course, the aforementioned nuclear war would affect you, but a second American Civil War and just Trump being re-elected will, too.

Even without WWIII or a second American Civil War, it's pretty clear that:

In Europe, this will invigorate the similar far-Right movements to bring about similar destructive changes as those Trump wants.

Trump will most likely abandon Ukraine like Afghanistan, meaning russia taking it over and attacking Western European countries afterward. Trump is completely on Putin's side and will also destroy NATO, meaning all of the US' allies, including those in Europe, will be abandoned. I live in Germany, which is seeing a rise in popularity by the far-Right AfD party, and which does not have the military means to defend itself against russian expansionism without the US.

With russia's war against Ukraine, China will feel invigorated to annex Taiwan, and just like with Ukraine, nationalist and authoritarian Trump will not do anything to stop it.

South Korea could be abandoned in the face of North Korea.

Trump will continue to support Israel in the Western Right's extremely hypocritical manner, most likely ordering more US military action in the Middle East.

ULTIMATELY, GIVE THEM THE FIGHT THEY WANT

I know that we liberals, progressives, people who don't care about politics and just want to build their own life and even former conservatives who deemed far-Righters like Trump too radical, never wanted a fight. We never wanted to fight for our values in Western society, against the values of those who demonize us. We were always ready to coexist with them, if only each side kept to themselves with living out its values and didn't impair the other.

But the far-Right fascists and religious zealots, with their leaders who don't mean a word of what they say and say anything they want to get power, have made this a fight. By electing a US President who promised to destroy democracy, eliminate women's and LGBTQ+ rights, oppress non-white ethnicities, censor media, give churches and capitalists unprecedented power and abandon all allied nations, the far-Right has declared war on everyone and everything that's true, moral or even just acceptable. Let's remember that they hate diversity, and that we are from many more groups and walks of life than them. Let's use this to our advantage and show to the fascists what happens when you give different people a common enemy.

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved in our archive

A very long but worthwhile read chronicling the liberal descent into antimask/vax madness and the doctors who led the charge.

The full article includes a wealth of helpful links I can't reasonably transfer. Follow the link to find them! I'll try to transfer as many images and videos as I can.

Emily Oster, Leana Wen, Ashish Jha, and Zeynep Tufekci Betray America

Public Health in America is having its Budd Dwyer moment.

We were told time and time again how crucial it was that Kamala Harris defeated Donald Trump this past November. Well, it was recently revealed that Harris' internal polling never showed her defeating Trump. Instead of retooling her campaign and doing what's necessary to defeat Donald Trump, even if it meant giving Wall Street the middle finger, Harris and the Democrat Party burned over a billion and a half dollars praising Dick Cheney and putting Donald Trump back in the White House - as well as leaving 65% of races uncontested nationwide, simply handed to the Republicans on a silver platter. Giving Oprah a million dollars, spending six figures to re-create a podcast set that resembled a dentist's waiting room, and countless other thoughtless grifts, made it clear that Kamala Harris and the Democrat Party were never serious about defeating Trump - a blatant insult to every liberal and Democrat voter that put their faith in the opposition party which insisted "democracy was on the ballot" as their Vice Presidential nominee livestreamed Sega Dreamcast games.

Now we all get to live with the consequences of such a horrific act of political irresponsibility and cowardice. David Gorski of Science Based Medicine, Walker Bragman of Important Context, and the Death Panel podcast have all done extensive breakdowns of how Trump's handpicked crusaders against vaccines and public health have a long history of getting countless children sick, hospitalized, disabled, and dead. This isn't an article about retreading the same territory as the above-mentioned outlets, which have covered these nominees and their long history of failures and moral depravity in excruciating detail.

What's most important about these appointees is what they all share - a dangerous combination of two traits: utterly incompetent and arrogantly dishonest. We are talking about scientifically illiterate narcissists who, when soundly rejected by the overwhelming consensus of their colleagues in medicine and science, as well as...reality, instead embraced sadistic billionaires such as Peter Thiel and the Koch oil dynasty, taking to social media to spread their message amongst right-wing cranks and contrarian media in the hopes of fooling Americans into embracing their unethical delusions. The fantasy of these inept contrarians being brave medical geniuses, censored by The Man, became a popular fiction amongst conservatives and conspiracy theorists across social media; adolescent fantasies of the brave Rebel Anti-Vax Alliance hero Luke Skywalker brandishing his fully erect lightsaber against the evil giga-vaxxed Lord Vader of the Galactic Public Health Empire.

Sadly, we are now watching liberals in journalism and academia begin to embrace and even endorse this depraved crankery in a total betrayal of the public that puts their trust in them, legitimizing the same old tired anti-vaccine crankery that has haunted us for centuries - at one point, smallpox was even advertised as harmless and beneficial. We are witnessing the beginning of a total rewriting of the history of the past five years, even when the facts are readily available, in order to push false equivalences or outright lies to grant legitimacy to the utterly illegitimate, just weeks before a second Trump Administration is set to be sworn into office. There is no excuse for such a gross violation of every professional and ethical standard in the world of medicine, science, and public health - yet liberals in academia and journalism are happy to openly engage in such obscene banjaxing.

Lobbyist Leana Wen and Economist Emily Oster Endorse RFK Jr. on Raw Milk, Fluoride, and Vaccine “Choice”

Take it from a cattle farmer with over a decade of hands-on experience shoveling manure: Unpasteurized or “raw” milk can make you very sick and possibly even kill you. (FDA) This is a well-documented, basic scientific fact that has been well-established for a very long time. (Wikipedia) Pasteurization is, essentially, the process of boiling milk in order to kill bacteria and other threats to human health, because humans are not cows - or bats. There are no meaningful health benefits to drinking "raw" milk, a frankly bullshit term that is an insult to any serious farmer. We are also now at a point where H5N1 is being detected in "raw" milk products, risking the start of another pandemic within our own borders. Dr. Noha Aboelata of Roots Community Health breaks this down in detail in a 30-minute briefing:

Potential head of the HHS under Donald Trump, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. - who has already gotten countless children killed from his anti-vaccine advocacy (Mother Jones) - pushes the imaginary health benefits of this garbage to his easily deluded audience. Unsurprisingly, liberal pundits like Leana Wen and Emily Oster are rushing to defend these sorts of "choices" using fraudulent data, just as much as they worked overtime to confuse parents about COVID-19, which has already killed and disabled many children; a fact that both paid opinion havers are still in serious denial of.

We previously profiled Leana Wen in January 2023, a Brookings Institute lobbyist and M.D. who has experienced the COVID-19 pandemic from the safety of her couch. We've also talked extensively about Emily Oster over the past two years: an economist with zero medical or scientific credentials and a long history of morally depraved garbage to her name - from claiming “it isn’t economical” to give Africa drugs to treat AIDS, (Forbes, Archived) to declaring that the right of pregnant women to drink alcohol (Twitter) is a feminist issue, to taking money from bloodsucking fascist Peter Thiel (Twitter) to publish fraudulent data in order to get countless children killed and disabled by COVID-19. These are not legitimate medical or scientific experts.

Both Emily Oster and Leana Wen took out opinion editorials (Oster in the New York Times, Wen in the Washington Post) recently citing the same JAMA Pediatrics study claiming that fluoride in drinking water is potentially a biohazard - using the racist, long-debunked concept of "Intelligence Quotient points," in order to legitimize Robert F. Kennedy's depraved conspiracy theories and baselessly attack one of the most effective public health initiatives in our lifetime. If you actually read this study for yourself, you will find the results to be…utterly inconclusive. Epidemiologist Abby Cartus breaks this down in extensive detail on her newsletter Closed Form. Wen and Oster think you are too inept to read for yourself and form your own conclusion from the reality that this single study is... worthless!

Why any self-respecting woman would carry water for a depraved, exploitative wretch who drove his wife to suicide by keeping a black book of all his affairs, rating each woman he had sex with based on how extreme a sex act he was able to perform with them, is utterly beyond belief - achieving absolutely nothing but completely destroying their own professional reputations in the process. If you truly hate yourself on this level, you're supposed to either seek professional help or drown out your sorrows with a bottle of whiskey in the privacy of your own home, instead of publicly humiliating yourself in service of an abusive, misogynistic creep that considers you subhuman for the unforgivable atrocity of having a uterus.

Unsurprisingly, Biden's final COVID-19 Czar Ashish Jha went to bat to endorse his fellow Brown University laptop class academic Emily Oster, writing on Twitter that this was merely a crisis of "public health messaging:"

"Great [Emily Oster] piece about how to do public health messaging better. Some public health experts believe the public can't handle nuance. That's nonsense. Talking to folks about the complexity of the evidence, tradeoffs, and strength of recommendations is good. Want to rebuild trust in public health? Treat the public as adults."

There is no "nuanced" argument legitimizing the selling of "raw milk" and other scam health products with serious public health risks, especially with a potential H5N1 pandemic on the horizon. It’s not “complex” to state that children should be vaccinated against COVID-19, and the overwhelming majority of pediatric COVID-19 deaths are in unvaccinated children. There are no meaningful “tradeoffs” for putting safe amounts of fluoride in water fountains. These are all basic scientific facts, and a large part of maturing into an adult is having to accept the reality of being told "no," and realizing when you're simply dead wrong. As Final COVID Czar under Joe Biden, Ashish Jha's primary goal was not to "treat the public as adults," but as bleeding piggy banks to be exploited for profit from unmitigated COVID-19 infections.

As a handpicked crusader for "privatizing the pandemic response," Ashish Jha oversaw millions of Americans winding up disabled by COVID-19, often losing their careers in the process - falling into poverty, homelessness, and deaths of despair. Women are disproportionately affected by Long COVID disability, and the messaging of the failed Harris campaign was that these women were to be abandoned (Twitter) and brutalized by the same police that the Biden-Harris administration diverted pandemic relief into buying more weapons and military toys for.

Ashish Jha smugly shrugged his shoulders and took out an opinion editorial telling everyone to "ignore COVID" whilst accepting prestigious awards. If we lived in a just society, he would be living out of a cardboard box under a freeway overpass, begging for pocket change. Unfortunately, we live in the world where the Brown University Dean of Public Health is comfortable making public endorsements of sadistic anti-vax cranks, such as Marty Makary and Jay Bhattacharya, to senior government positions.

Biden's COVID Czar Ashish Jha Endorses Mehmet Oz, Jay Bhattacharya & Marty Makary for CMS, NIH & FDA Directors You've likely heard a version of the phrase "if one Nazi is sitting at a table of a dozen people, you have a table of a dozen Nazis." The same is true of anti-vaxxers and their depraved ideals, which are often rooted in a naked embrace of fascist eugenics. You simply cannot find a "reasonable middle ground" or stake out some sort of enlightened "centrist" view that legitimizes the opinions of the arrogantly incompetent & dishonest, who champion pestilence whilst fearmongering about safe & effective vaccines for their own personal gain. By lending credence to these frauds, you establish your priorities: saving lives is less important than not hurting the feelings of sadistic cranks, or one's own personal comfort.

With a second Trump administration about to be sworn in, Democrats should be in open revolt that the Biden Administration left the COVID response in charge of anti-vax cheerleader Ashish Jha, who in a November 24th, 2024 post on Twitter wrote:

"I think [Marty Makary] at FDA, [Mehmet Oz] at CMS, and [Jay Bhattacharya] at NIH are all pretty reasonable...They are smart and experienced."

This is, undeniably and objectively, an absolute lie from the former Biden Administration official, similar to how Biden parroted the lies that Iraq had "weapons of mass destruction" as head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 2003. It shouldn't be surprising that rewarding failure only breeds more failures, even when a nation is gripped by a once-in-a-century pandemic disaster.

For starters, Mehmet Oz is a morally depraved quack celebrity doctor who once boldly proclaimed that the public has "no right to health," and has frequently abused his daytime television platform to peddle quack cures to exploit his elderly audience. If put in charge of the CMS, Oz's priority is privatizing Medicare and Medicaid so that he may profit from companies that he is personally invested in, leaving the elderly and disabled with substandard, privatized "Advantage" plans that do not cover essential medical needs - driving more American families to medical bankruptcy and begging strangers on GoFundMe to survive, or more likely: homelessness & deaths of despair.

This is what the Brown University Dean of Public Health, Ashish Jha, considers "pretty reasonable."

Marty Makary's claim to fame was as a cheerleader for nakedly embracing COVID-19, falsely proclaiming the end of the pandemic via "herd immunity" multiple times, starting in early 2021. In September 2021, he claimed that getting COVID-19 protects you from COVID-19 - try telling that to the countless American children who have had it half a dozen times already, and are losing their health, dreams, and futures as a consequence. When it became clear that this approach of nakedly embracing COVID-19 had obviously failed, disabling millions of Americans in the process, Makary took out an opinion editorial in the Wall Street Journal in December 2022, attacking Long COVID - claiming it was "long anxiety" on Fox News. The evidence is overwhelming at this point, and it all says that this supposed practitioner of "evidence-based medicine" was dead wrong and is too craven and pathetic to admit that he was dead wrong about the disease he simped for to millions of FOX News views.

Makary would also fearmonger about the COVID-19 vaccine, claiming that the disease - which has killed tens of millions worldwide, according to the Economist - is essentially harmless, while the vaccine is supposedly causing massive epidemics of myocarditis. Marty would falsely label COVID-19 as "omi-cold" and "nature's vaccine," both objectively false lies that got countless thousands of Americans killed and disabled in the winter of 2021-22. Makary openly celebrated parents not vaccinating their children against COVID-19; of the thousands of pediatric COVID-19 deaths in America, they were overwhelmingly unvaccinated. Their parents would likely prefer a child with a sore arm instead of a child who is now six feet under, in a coffin. Marty has never apologized to these parents or lifted a finger to help pay for the funerals of these children who have been forever silenced.

This is who Biden's COVID Czar, Ashish Jha, considers "smart."

Last but not least, we have Jha's endorsement of Jay Bhattacharya, a Stanford "health economist" who made bold proclamations about the alleged harmlessness of the SARS-CoV-2 virus from the comfort of his couch, taking money from the Koch oil dynasty - which has already funded an incredible amount of unscientific climate collapse denial propaganda as well as the "Tea Party" which would evolve into Trump's "MAGA" hordes - to champion a mass infection strategy for COVID-19 as it was overwhelming hospitals, driving some doctors and nurses to suicide. Bhattacharya was happy to openly demand millions of American teachers risk death and disability from COVID-19 in early 2020, long before a vaccine was available, in order to preserve “normalcy.” It’s worth noting that teaching is a predominantly female-dominated profession.

These sorts of Little Eichmanns (Wikipedia) have always existed in society in one form or another; morally depraved sadists desperate to play God with the lives of their supposed inferiors. They must always be condemned, combatted, and outright rejected by polite society. Instead, liberals like Ashish Jha are openly lying in public displays of support for these lecherous, vapid narcissists who can only derive self-worth via forcing suffering upon others.

Much like how the Third Reich was helmed by incompetent scam artists cooked to the gills with methamphetamines, Stanford's Jay Bhattacharya looked at the COVID-19 pandemic and his inability to do anything to treat COVID-19 patients & save lives - as he never bothered to put in the work to attain a medical license - and decided to make the largest mass death event in the history of the United States all about how he could promote the most important "health economist" in America: himself. Starting off 2020 by conducting a fraudulent seroprevalence study (Twitter) and publishing false conclusions, Smilin' Jay never bothered to stay grounded in reality whilst his fellow Americans were dying and being disabled by COVID-19. Jay's priorities were rooted in growing the public profile of Jay Bhattacharya, no matter how wrong he was or how many Americans he would get killed in his sycophancy for a deadly and disabling virus he refused to learn a single thing about.

Employed by Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, Jay Bhattacharya would get countless Floridians killed in 2021 by failing to vaccinate the population before the Delta variant struck, after boldly proclaiming that he "protected the vulnerable." Smilin' Jay never apologized for this failure, or his many others - and why would he? He's been generously rewarded for his loyalty to the SARS-CoV-2 virus, with liberals like Ashish Jha cheering him on. As part of his narcissistic fetish for spouting unscientific nonsense in front of any camera he could find, Jay Bhattacharya would also fearmonger about the COVID-19 vaccine, fearmongered about PPE, falsely portrayed himself as a victim of "censorship," falsely proclaimed getting COVID-19 protects you from COVID-19, openly embraced anti-vax conspiracy theorists, and even endorsed Canadian white nationalists whilst tweeting "Honk Honk" - a dogwhistle for Heil Hitler.

This is what Ashish Jha considers "experienced." This is who Biden and the Democrats put in charge of the final months of the COVID-19 response: a vocal supporter of abusive, scientifically illiterate anti-vax cranks that nakedly endorsed conspiracy theories whilst advertising pediatric illness as beneficial for your child’s health. If you voted for Biden in 2020 in the hopes that he would treat the very real domestic threat of COVID-19 more seriously than the blatantly false threat of a "smoking gun" from Saddam Hussein, you should be outraged: you have been made a fool of, and the anti-vaccine movement is now primed to unleash a torrent of pestilence upon you and your children via the federal government.

Liberal pundits, such as sociologist Zeynep Tufekci of the New York Times, are now working overtime to try and rewrite history - even if it means legitimizing anti-vax cranks like Jay Bhattacharya in a craven attempt to save face.

Desperate to establish herself as some sort of Enlightened COVID Centrist in "the paper of record," Zeynep was a vocal loyalist to the Biden Administration's vaccine-only strategy of mass infection from 2021 onwards. As the consequences of such a failed strategy came to light, such as COVID-19's negative impacts on the immune system - a well documented fact now in 2024 (PAI) - Zeynep would frequently cherry pick experts that validated her pro-viral opinions, and abuse her own platform to attack developing science in a failed crusade to falsely equate COVID-19 reinfections as "mild," on par with the common cold and influenza. This required endorsing obscene, unscientific views like "immunity debt," (PAI) a myth easily debunked by opening any Immunology 101 textbook.

The Pandemic Accountability Index will provide a full profile of the years of disinformation that Zeynep Tufekci peddled to the public in due time, but for now, it's worth noting that on November 27th, 2024, Sociologist Zeynep Tufekci would write an opinion editorial in the New York Times titled "Trump's Pick to Lead the N.I.H. Gets Some Things Right." Zeynep would open this drivel by making an objectively false statement that disqualifies anything which might come after:

"It's a welcome sign that, unlike many of Donald Trump's picks to lead parts of the nation's health system, his pick for director of the National Institutes of Health, Jay Bhattacharya, is actually qualified."

Fact Check! There is zero tradition of the National Institute of Health employing "health economists" such as Jay Bhattacharya, especially in a leadership position, and especially when they have a morally depraved history of making obscene claims like "health insurance encourages obesity." Jay is, by any serious definition of the term "qualified," utterly unqualified for the responsibilities of heading the NIH. We know this, because thanks to his previous experience under Ron DeSantis, he got countless Americans killed by COVID-19.

To pretend otherwise, one has to completely erase the history of Jay Bhattacharya's activities over the past five years. Zeynep Tufekci of the New York Times is either too dangerously incompetent to handle the responsibilities of medical journalism, or so utterly dishonest that one has to wonder if she's been contracted by the SARS-CoV-2 virus itself to function as a Public Relations spokesperson. This sure as hell has nothing to do with sociology, but this hasn't stopped Zeynep from asserting her supposed expertise on topics she clearly knows very little about.

Zeynep would also claim on Twitter that Bhattacharya "has made valid points about the pandemic;" mainly her insistence that SARS-CoV-2 must have come out of a laboratory, and that repeated COVID-19 infections are protective against... COVID-19. Zeynep is too scientifically illiterate and devoid of ethics to answer the very serious question raised by such "valid points:" if you seriously believed SARS-CoV-2 was designed in a lab, why would you take money from the Koch oil dynasty to argue that we should rapidly infect hundreds of millions of unvaccinated Americans, including children, with said lab-designed virus less than a year after it touched our shores, well before we had any comprehensive understanding of the harms it posed to the human body? Are working Americans and their children little more than lab rats?

Tufekci would also make more absurd, blatantly false claims in defense of Jay Bhattacharya via Twitter:

"[Jay's] dismissal as 'fringe' by public health authorities, and even censorship on social media, was unjustified and wrong. Not every point was completely wrong, and besides, they deserved addressing, not silencing. The public has a stake in such major decisions."

In reality, Jay Bhattacharya and his deranged ideals of letting COVID-19 ravage hundreds of millions of Americans well before a vaccine was widely available *was* addressed by an overwhelming consensus of scientists, doctors, and public health experts...in the fall of 2020. David Gorski for Science Based Medicine, Epidemiologists Abby Cartus & Justin Feldman with the Death Panel podcast, and countless other voices from experts around the world, including the Royal Bank of Canada Global Asset Management, published extensive rebuttals about such a horrific idea from the same mind that brought you "the thin are subsidizing the gluttony of the obese via health insurance premiums." Liberal pundit Zeynep Tufekci is outright lying and rewriting history, silencing critical voices in order to construct a false legitimacy to anti-vax social media grifter Jay Bhattacharya’s appointment to lead the NIH.

To claim that Jay Bhattacharya is an "unjustified" victim of "censorship" is a morally depraved and outright fictional statement. A laptop-class loudmouth being told "you're dead wrong" by doctors and scientists with real-world responsibilities isn't censorship. Privately owned social media networks, such as Twitter and YouTube, are entitled to moderate their platforms as they see fit and does not qualify as "censorship." Jay Bhattacharya isn't some oppressed dissident voice that the public needs to hear; to embrace his sage wisdom about how COVID-19 infections protect against COVID - Jay is backed by wealthy billionaires that have, for decades now, peddled the same unscientific propaganda that alleged liberal journalists like Zeynep Tufekci are supposed to vigilantly oppose - not launder - in the newspaper.

Every single "point" that Jay Bhattacharya has spouted about COVID-19 has been completely wrong, time and time again. This is a well-documented phenomenon, all across the Internet, because Smilin' Jay simply cannot shut his own goddamn mouth for five minutes. Yet again, Zeynep Tufekci of the New York Times thinks the general public is too incompetent to verify her outlandish claims in defense of a cruel, manipulative fraud that has incited violence against doctors and scientists that are tasked with actually saving lives.

In Closing People are rightfully afraid to fear of what might come to pass if America's federal public health apparatus is put in the hands of a gaggle of unscientific anti-vax cranks who already have the blood of countless Americans on their hands. It will be crucial for real experts to raise hell and get their teeth bloody in angrily rejecting whatever bullshit comes out of the mouths of these frauds - and guerilla, grassroots public health, in whatever form that may take, will become crucial to safeguarding the health and wellbeing of Americans over the next four years - especially that of our children. What we simply cannot do is embrace outright fiction in order to legitimize and empower bad actors that have long proven themselves utterly incapable of handling the real-world responsibilities of managing public health in America.

Every single liberal academic & pundit you see going to bat to endorse Trump's hand-picked social media sycophants - bloodthirsty zealots waging a crusade against public health and regulatory authority on behalf of their billionaire backers - is committing a grave act of treason against their fellow American, on behalf of a nefarious villain that dates back to the origins of human civilization. Countless thousands of years ago, ancient mythology was a tool to pass down essential knowledge from one generation to the next via oral tradition, and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse were no different. These are forces that have shattered human societies throughout our long and bloody history - War, Death, Famine, and yes, Pestilence - infectious diseases. This war that medicine has waged against disease has a long tradition; you can read up on the mother of modern medicine, Florence Nightengale, (PBS) on the importance of clean air in preventing the spread of disease, or Death in Hamburg (Internet Archive) on the class politics of pandemics - or read up on saboteurs in 1830 claiming that smallpox is a "New Year's Gift to the world." (Twitter)

As long as we have civilized society, we will always have this fight against infectious diseases, and those who insist we nakedly embrace them will never have your best interests in mind. This is a basic fact that any credentialed sociologist getting paid to write about public health should know quite well by now.

There is no good reason for any liberal to waste a drop of ink legitimizing these grandstanding carny hacks. Going forward, one has to wonder how liberal journalists & academics will help forward Trump’s crusade against public health.

We have a long four years ahead of us, and mainstream institutions like the New York Times will try again and again to rewrite history. The Pandemic Accountability Index refuses to let this pass, and only with your support is our archival work and reporting possible. If you haven’t already, please consider taking out a paid subscription or making a one-time donation.

[mariacallous]

Tomorrow is Election Day, the last day of voting in this tumultuous 2024 campaign. What a long, strange trip it's been. Just a year ago, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was challenging former president Trump for the GOP nomination by saying the word "woke" at least a hundred times a day while former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley competed for what's left of the "normie" Republican vote. A clown car full of grifters and kooks, meanwhile, used the primaries as an opportunity to suck up to Trump, whom everyone knew would inevitably be the nominee. After all, he'd been running non-stop since 2015.

Meanwhile on the Democratic side, incumbent president Joe Biden was an unchallenged shoo-in for the Democratic nomination. Most people felt he'd probably be able to replicate his 2020 win despite being unpopular due to a lingering hangover from the pandemic. After all, Trump had incited an insurrection and was facing lawsuits and felony trials in federal court and two different states stemming from a variety of alleged crimes. Surely, he couldn't possibly win after all that?

In the year since, Biden was revealed to be just too old to run for president again and was replaced by his younger vice president, Kamala Harris, who sparked a massive rise in enthusiasm among Democrats. Trump, meanwhile, has shown that his millions-strong cult of personality is fully intact and they are ecstatic about putting him back in the White House in spite of his many flaws (maybe even because of them.) We could find out the winner as soon as tomorrow night — or maybe not.

If it's as close as many of the pollsters say it is it could take a while before we know the final results. And it goes without saying that unless they call the race for him right away, Trump is planning to cry "fraud" and will do everything in his power to create the illusion that he won regardless of the count. So we can expect chaos. He's made that very clear.

The polls have more or less shown a tied race nationally and in the swing states for the past couple of months. Whether that's correct or not, we don't know. Because they missed some Trump voters in 2016 and 2020, everyone is on edge that the same thing has happened again despite the pollsters' going out of their way to correct the problem this time. With the polls this close that error could translate to a repeat of 2016 which has a whole lot of people losing sleep these last few weeks.

But something unexpected happened this past weekend that may have called those assumptions into question. The Des Moines Register poll, considered one of the best in all of politics due to pollster J. Ann Selzer's excellent track record, dropped its final poll of the cycle and it landed like a nuclear bomb. Iowa is a solid red state and the previous poll had Trump winning the state handily as expected. Now the numbers showed Harris beating Trump 47 - 44. Boom.

Iowa is one of the whitest states in the union, so race isn't a factor which makes it an interesting proxy for white voters in other swing states with similar populations (like Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, for instance.) While Trump has maintained his base of men, evangelical voters, rural residents and non-college-educated voters, the poll found that women, specifically older and politically independent women, have swung in large numbers to Harris. And just as surprising, Harris is winning voters over 65, which has been a GOP base vote for decades. What in the world does this mean?

First, it's pretty clear that reproductive rights are driving this race for a whole lot of people. Iowa, in particular, is now living under a draconian six-week abortion ban that was upheld by its far-right Supreme Court last summer. Justice Samuel Alito wrote in his notorious opinion that "women are not without electoral or political power." It appears we may be about to find out the truth of that.

People expected that younger women would vote in large numbers on this issue but there seems to be some surprise that older women would be motivated to do so. Ohio Senate candidate Bernie Moreno was caught on video bemoaning the "single issue" women voters and wondering why women over 50 would care about it.

I guess it's hard for right-wingers to understand why anyone would care about someone other than themselves. But it's more than that. The reversal of Roe v. Wade was deeply offensive to many women of all ages, something we could only see as a direct attack on our basic human rights by a group of men (and one very conservative woman) determined to turn back the clock to a time when women were literally second class citizens. Women can see where this is leading and it isn't toward freedom and equality — for any of us.

The Republican Party and its leader, a predator found legally liable for sexual assault, is running for election on a platform of flagrant misogyny. Donald Trump literally said, 'I was able to kill Roe v. Wade' until he belatedly realized it wasn't popular, at which point he came up with his fatuous rationale that "everyone wanted it to go back to the states." That is utterly absurd and most people know it. He's lately taken to saying that he'll be women's "protector" which, coming from him, is more of a threat. In fact, in recent days he's said that he'll  do it "whether the women like it or not."

Then you have his choice for running mate, JD Vance, who thinks that women should stay in abusive marriages, thinks abortion should be banned nationally even in cases of rape and incest and wants to prevent women from traveling out of state to obtain them (he now denies knowing about such efforts). And he famously believes that "childless cat ladies" are the cause of everything wrong in our culture and agrees that "the whole purpose of the post-menopausal female is child care."

And people are surprised that women of all ages are refusing to vote for these people?

This Iowa poll may be an outlier and all the chatter about this remarkable result will end up being nothing more than election year lore. Most analysts still seem to think that it's nearly impossible to believe that Harris will actually win Iowa. But this poll is one of the very few that caught the hidden angry non-college-educated Trump vote in 2016 and 2020. There is every reason to believe that it may be catching the hidden pissed-off college-educated and independent women Harris vote in 2024. Nothing would be more satisfying than for this voting block to be the one to spell the end of Donald Trump's political career. 

[socialistexan]

This is from the latest Siena College NYT poll, which is an incredibly solid poll with a good track record.

The only group Kamala Harris isn't more popular than Biden with is voters over 65 and non-college educated white men. That's it.

If you look at the raw percentages you can see that the total percentage of voters is higher, 30 to 44 goes from 92% decided to 95% for example.

So a lot of the gains Harris gets aren't from from people switching from Trump (though there are some), a lot of that is motivating either undecided or 3rd party voters to come over it her or from unmotivated voters who were turned away by Biden to show up.

It would still be tight, but Harris is running from a place where she can grow rather than be in a constant defensive position with way fewer question marks.

[dertaglichedan]

Colorado Voters Approve Excise Tax on Their Guns and Ammunition

Just over 54 percent of Colorado voters approved on Tuesday Proposition KK, which contains an excise tax on the in-state sale of guns and ammunition.

CBS News reported that roughly 1.3 million Colorado voters supported the proposition, while 1.1 million opposed it.

The approved tax is 6.5 percent, which means the price of $400 firearm will rise $26 and the price of a $1,000 firearm will increase by $65 because of the new tax.

MSN noted that the passage of Proposition KK makes Colorado the second state to place a tax on the tools of the Second Amendment. California adopted a similar, albeit higher, excise tax that took effect July 1, 2024.

CBS News pointed out that gun rights advocates fought against the tax, arguing that “law-abiding gun owners shouldn’t have to pay more than they already are.” They also noted that the tax will cause Colorado businesses to lose revenue, because many Coloradans will now purchase guns and ammunition out of state to avoid the tax.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Jesse Duquette

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

November 2, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Nov 03, 2024

Yesterday, in Time magazine, Eric Cortellessa explained that the electoral strategy of the Trump campaign was to get men who don’t usually vote, particularly young ones, to turn out for Trump. If they could do that, and at the same time hold steady the support of white women, Trump could win the election. So Trump has focused on podcasts followed by young men and on imitating the patterns of professional wrestling performances.

At the same time, he has promised to “protect women…whether the women like it or not,” and lied consistently about crime statistics to keep white suburban women on his side by suggesting that he alone can protect them. Today in Gastonia, North Carolina, for example, Trump told the audience: "They say the suburban women. Well, the suburbs are under attack right now. When you're home in your house alone and you have this monster that got out of prison and he's got, you know, six charges of murdering six different people, I think you'd rather have Trump."

The crime rate has dropped dramatically in the past year.

Rather than keeping women in his camp, Trump’s strategy of reaching out to his base to turn out low-propensity voters, especially young men, has alienated them. That alienation has come on top of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that recognized the constitutional right to abortion. 

Early voting in Pennsylvania showed that women sent in 56% of the early ballots, compared to 43% for men. Seniors—people who remember a time before Roe v. Wade—also showed a significant split. Although the parties had similar numbers of registrants, nearly 59% of those over 65 voting early were Democrats. That pattern holds across all the battleground states: women’s early voting outpaces men’s by about 10 points. While those numbers are certainly not definitive—no one knows how these people voted, and much could change over the next few days—the enthusiasm of those two groups was notable. 

This evening, a Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa poll conducted by the highly respected Selzer & Co. polling firm from October 28 to 31 showed Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris leading Trump in Iowa 47% to 44% among likely voters. That outlying polling result is undoubtedly at least in part a reflection of the fact that Harris’s running mate is the governor of a neighboring state, but that’s not the whole story. While Trump wins the votes of men in Iowa by 52% to 38%, and of evangelicals by 73% to 20%, women, particularly older women, are driving the shift to favor Harris in a previously Republican-dominated state. 

Independent women back Harris by a 28-point margin, while senior women support her by a margin of more than 2 to 1, 63% to 28%. Overall, women back Harris by a margin of about 20 points: 56% to 36%. Seniors as a group including men as well as women are also strongly in Harris’s camp, by 55% to 36%.

A 79-year-old poll respondent said: “I like her policies on reproductive health and having women choosing their own health care, and the fact that I think that she will save our democracy and follow the rule of law…. [I]f the Republicans can decide what you do with your body, what else are they going to do to limit your choice, for women?”

The obvious driver for women and seniors to oppose Trump is the Dobbs decision. The loss of abortion care has put women’s lives at risk. Within days after the Supreme Court handed the decision down, we started hearing stories of raped children forced to give birth or cross state lines for abortions, as well as of women who have suffered or died from a lack of health care after doctors feared intervening in miscarriages would put them in legal jeopardy. 

As X user E. Rosalie noted, Iowa’s abortion ban also has long-term implications for the state. It has forced OBGYNs to leave and has made recruiting more impossible. As people are unable to get medical care to have babies, they will choose to live elsewhere, draining talent out of the state. That, in turn, will weaken Iowa’s economy.

That same process is playing out in all the states that have banned abortion. 

It seems possible that the Dobbs decision ushered in the end of the toxic American individualism on which the Reagan revolution was built. When he ran for president in 1980, Ronald Reagan set out to dismantle the active government that regulated business, provided a basic social safety net, promoted infrastructure, and protected civil rights. Such a government was akin to socialism, he claimed, and he insisted it stifled American individualism. 

In contrast to such a government, Reagan celebrated the mythological American cowboy. In his telling, that cowboy wanted nothing from the government but to be left alone to provide for and to protect his family. Good women in the cowboy myth were wives and mothers, in contrast to the women who wanted equal rights and jobs outside the home in modern America. That traditional image of American women had gotten legs in 1974, when the television show Little House on the Prairie debuted; it would run until 1983. Prairie dresses became the rage.

Reagan’s embrace of women’s role as wives and mothers brought traditionalist white Southern Baptists to his support. Those traditionalists objected to the government’s recognition of women’s equal rights because they believed equality undermined a godly patriarchal family structure. They made ending access to abortion their main issue. 

At the same time that the right wing insisted that women belonged in their homes, it socialized young men to believe in a mythological world based on guns and the domination of women. In 1980 the previously nonpartisan National Rifle Association endorsed Reagan, their first-ever endorsement of a presidential candidate, and the rise of evangelical culture reinforced that dominant men must protect submissive women. 

When federal marshals tried to arrest Randy Weaver at his home in Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in August 1992 for failure to show up in court for trial on a firearms charge, right-wing activists and neo-Nazis from a nearby Aryan Nations compound rushed to Ruby Ridge to protest what right-wing media insisted was simply a man protecting his family. 

The next February, when officers stormed the compound of a religious cult in Waco, Texas, whose former members reported that their leader was sexually assaulting children and stockpiling weapons, right-wing talk show hosts—notably Rush Limbaugh and Alex Jones—blamed new president Bill Clinton’s attorney general, Janet Reno, for the ensuing gun battle and fire that killed 76 people. Reno was the first female attorney general, and right-wing media made much of the idea that a group of Christians had been killed by a female government official who was unmarried and—as opponents made much of—unfeminine. 

When he ran for office in 2015, Trump appealed to those men socialized into violence and dominance. He embraced the performance of dominance as it is done in professional wrestling, and urged his supporters to beat up protesters at his rallies. The Access Hollywood tape in which he boasted of sexual assault did not hurt his popularity with his base. He promised to end abortion rights and suggested he would impose criminal punishments on women seeking abortions. 

And then, in June 2022, thanks to the votes of the three religious extremists Trump put on it, the Supreme Court handed down the Dobbs decision, stripping women of a constitutional right that the U.S. government had recognized for almost 50 years. 

Justice Samuel Alito suggested that women could change state laws if they saw fit, writing in the decision that “women are not without electoral or political power.” Indeed, since the Dobbs decision, every time abortion rights have been on the ballot, voters have approved them, although right-wing state legislators have worked to prevent the voters’ wishes from taking effect. 

In this moment, though, it is clear that women have electoral and political power over more than abortion rights. 

The 1980 election was the first one in which the proportion of eligible female voters who turned out to vote was higher than the proportion of eligible men. It was also the first one in which there was a partisan gender gap, with a higher proportion of women than men favoring the Democrats. That partisan gap now is the highest it has ever been.

The fear that women can, if they choose, overthrow the patriarchal mythology of cowboy individualism that shaped the modern MAGA Republican Party is likely behind the calls of certain right-wing influencers and evangelical leaders to stop women from voting. For sure, it is behind the right-wing freak-out over the video voiced by actor Julia Roberts that reassures women that they do not have to tell their husbands how they voted. 

The right-wing version of the American cowboy was always a myth. Nothing mattered more for success in the American West than the kinship networks and community support that provided money, labor, and access to trade outlets. When the economic patterns of the American West replicated those of the industrializing East after the Civil War, success during the heyday of the cowboy depended on access to lots of capital, giving rise to western barons and then to popular political movements to regulate businesses and give more power to the people. Far from being the homebound wives of myth, women were central to western life, just as they have always been to American society. 

In Flagstaff, Arizona, today, Democratic presidential candidate and Minnesota governor Tim Walz told a crowd: “I kind of have a feeling that women all across this country, from every walk of life, from either party, are going to send a loud and clear message to Donald Trump next Tuesday, November 5, whether he likes it or not.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[tanadrin]

Still getting polls where Harris is up 21 points with over-65 voters and Trump is up 10 points over 2020 with African Americans. The polling continues to be kinda cooked!

[bewires]

in 1959, for the first time after over half a century of trying over and over again, women in switzerland managed to get a vote going about whether women could vote

switzerland is a direct democracy, which means changes like this are put to a referendum. everyone eligible to vote can vote.

at the time, obviously, only men could vote.

the referendum failed. 66% of (male) voters voted against women's right to vote.

women didn't get the national right to vote in switzerland until 1971 (still decided by men). This time, 65% were in favor, although only about 58% of the eligible population voted, with some cantons even holding out until the early 90s for local elections.

if you do not or cannot go vote for yourself and your own rights, you cannot rely on other people to vote for your interests.

[tomorrowusa]

Ohio voters handed anti-abortion Republicans a stinging defeat. Those voters approved Issue 1 which puts reproductive freedom into the Ohio Constitution. The just passed amendment also protects the right to contraception and fertility treatment.

Results are still coming in. But with 85% of the votes counted, about 55.5% of Ohioans voted to protect reproductive freedom. And most of the remaining uncounted votes come from large urban counties which approved Issue 1 with over 65% of the vote.

Ohio voters approved a constitutional amendment on Tuesday that ensures access to abortion and other forms of reproductive health care, the latest victory for abortion rights supporters since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year. Ohio became the seventh state where voters decided to protect abortion access after the landmark ruling and was the only state to consider a statewide abortion rights question this year. The outcome of the intense, off-year election could be a bellwether for 2024, when Democrats hope the issue will energize their voters and help President Joe Biden keep the White House. Voters in Arizona, Missouri and elsewhere are expected to vote on similar protections next year. Ohio’s constitutional amendment, on the ballot as Issue 1, included some of the most protective language for abortion access of any statewide ballot initiative since the Supreme Court’s ruling. Opponents had argued that the amendment would threaten parental rights, allow unrestricted gender surgeries for minors and revive “partial birth” abortions, which are federally banned. Before the Ohio vote, statewide initiatives in California, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana and Vermont had either affirmed abortion access or turned back attempts to undermine the right. Issue 1 specifically declared an individual’s right to “make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions,” including birth control, fertility treatments, miscarriage and abortion.

It's a great victory for women and freedom in general. And it's a bad omen for GOP prospects in 2024.

Donald Trump carried Ohio both in 2016 and 2020. But the Republican insistence on controlling women's bodies will probably hurt the party there and elsewhere. And any attempt by the GOP to moderate its stand on abortion will result in major pushback by radical fundamentalist Christians who would like to return to the societal standards of the 17th century.

[ridenwithbiden]

STOP BLAMING MEN FOR EVERYTHING

it's a gross generalization, it's sexist, and it's wrong.

the gender gap was actually smaller in 2024 than in 2020 or 2016.

as one example, women between 45 and 64 voted for democrats

by 7% less in 2024 than they did in 2020, and under 30 years old,

women voted 2% less, that's right, even under 30 voted less. but,

both men and women over 65 the same in both 2020 and 2024.

most likely, because of social security, medicare, and medicaid.

"Vice President Kamala Harris’ potentially history-making bid to become the first woman in the White House did little to bring more women voters into the Democratic Party during the first presidential election after the loss of federal abortion rights, with seemingly one exception: women over 65.

These women were motivated by the same issues that were important to the overall electorate, like the economy, threats to democracy, immigration and abortion, something central to Harris’ failed bid for the presidency. They were, however, more likely to name priorities like caregiving, aging in place and preserving the government retirement savings program Social Security as decisive factors, according to an AARP analysis of an AP VoteCast survey of 120,000 registered voters.

The specific priorities of women over 65 could explain why they voted for Harris at higher rates than men their age and moved more in Harris’ direction than younger women.

“Social Security … is not an issue that people said was either first or second most important, but 70 percent of voters said that Social Security was an extremely or very important issue in their vote, and it was slightly higher among voters who voted Democratic,” Jeff Liszt, a partner at Impact Research, a Democratic polling firm, said during a post-election briefing hosted by the AARP.

“And then voters 50+? Eighty percent of voters 50+ said that Social Security was extremely or very important in their vote,” he continued.

Across gender, age and race, the electorate largely moved away from Democrats this year and the shift typically, though not always, benefited Republican President-elect Donald Trump. This happened even as a record-breaking percentage of voters said that abortion was their top issue and majorities of the electorate across all demographic groups said they trusted Democrats to better handle it.

Trump picked up support despite his role cementing the conservative Supreme Court majority that overturned Roe v. Wade, the dozens of allegations of sexual misconduct against him and his conviction last year for sexual abuse. He received more support from women across all age groups compared to 2020, except for those 65 and older, who swung in Harris’ favor by several points: 54 percent of them backed Harris while her support from men of the same age group was 44 percent, according to CNN exit polls.

A main takeaway this year is that a gender gap that many political experts predicted could be historic did not materialize, in part because the share of the women’s electorate that Harris won decreased across all age groups, except for women over 65.

A gender gap has existed in every presidential election since 1980, with more women supporting the Democratic candidate. This year, it was smaller than in the past two elections. Trump competed in both — winning the first, losing the second — though each occurred before Roe was overturned and the former president’s sexual abuse conviction. He has also since been convicted of 34 felonies related to falsifying business records to obscure payments to an adult film star during his first campaign.

The gender gap is typically considered the difference between the proportions of men and women who supported the winning candidate. In 2024, there was a 10-point gender gap. In 2020, there was a 12-point gender gap. In 2016, there was a 11-point gender gap, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.

A smaller proportion of women overall backed Harris this year than did President Joe Biden in 2020, with 53 percent voting for her; 45 percent cast ballots for Trump, according to a CNN analysis of exit polls, an imperfect science that nonetheless provides an initial look at the electorate.  The same exit polls from the 2020 election indicated that 57 percent of women backed Biden and 42 percent backed Trump.

The CNN exit polls indicated that Harris lost support across all other age groups of women this year. The drop ranged from two points among 30- to 44-year-old women to seven points among 45- to 64-year-old women..

But women and men 65+ moved roughly equal amounts in favor of Harris as compared to 2020  — and women in this age cohort remained more likely than men to support the Democratic nominee.

Liszt participated in the briefing hosted by the AARP, along with Bob Ward, a partner at Fabrizio Ward, a Republican polling firm. The two pollsters analyzed AP VoteCast data across 43 of the most competitive U.S. House districts, most of which were also in presidential battleground states. As they layered gender across age and race, a fuller picture started to come into focus about why women 65 and older in these key areas seem to have defied the ideological shifts seen across other demographic groups.

The AARP analysis showed that abortion and immigration were the top issues overall that determined candidate choices this year, with about one in four voters naming each as the decisive factor. The economy and jobs ranked at a close second, though it became the top issue overall when expanded to include inflation and Social Security in the broader category of “personal economic issues.”

Voters 65 and older were also far more likely than those in other age groups to say “protecting democracy” was at least a “very important” issue to them. About 90 percent of 50+ women said that protecting democracy was very important, compared to 79 percent of men.

While women over 50 were less likely than men the same age to name “personal economic issues” as the most determinative, more of them specifically picked Social Security. Women in this age group preferred Democrats’ approach, with 59 percent of them reporting that Social Security is or is expected to be a “major source” of income for their household. Fifty-one percent of men the same age said the same, the AARP analysis showed.

The biggest gender gaps in 50+ voters were on the issues of abortion and immigration, with women prioritizing the former and men the latter, the pollsters said.

Voters caring for an elderly, ill or disabled adult were more likely to vote for Harris and more women than men over 65 reported being a caregiver. Women over 50 were also 10 points more likely than men to say they trusted Democrats more than Republicans to “help seniors live independently.”

AARP’s takeaways are supported by interviews The 19th did with 65+ women ahead of the November elections.

Take Kathryn Engelhard, 69. She said after a mid-October Harris campaign event in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, that protecting Social Security was her top concern, followed by health care, specifically the GOP policies related to reproductive rights and abortion.

Sue Shomsky, a 70-year-old Michigan voter who backed Harris, said she was inspired to put up yard signs and go door-knocking for the first time this year because of the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, which she saw as a threat to democracy, as well as Republican abortion policies, which she considers a threat to her grandchildren.

“You know, after January 6, I said: ‘My God, we cannot let this man get back in the White House.’ I’m going to do everything I can to protect the rights of my daughter and my granddaughters. Whatever it takes, I’m willing to do it,” Shomsky told The 19th in late October.

The AARP analysis was based on AP VoteCast, which surveys more than 120,000 registered voters across all states and is conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago for Fox News, PBS NewsHour, The Wall Street Journal and The Associated Press. These interviews, conducted in English and Spanish, took place in the final week before Election Day and reflect responses from registered voters who cast ballots in person, early, absentee, by mail or decided not to vote. It is a more expansive survey than the exit polls analyzed by CNN, which were compiled by doing voluntary interviews with about 23,000 voters.

The post Harris lost support from women overall — but not women over 65 appeared first on The 19th."

[cameoamalthea]

This is what the electoral map would look like of young voters voted at the same rate as voters over 65. But less than half of young Americans plan to vote in 2024.

Change your mind, change the world! VOTE

[jackmedwn]

Kyle Becker on X: "JUST IN: The Harris-Biden administration is reportedly using taxpayer funds to hide Medicare premium hikes from voters before the election. Voters over the age of 65 should pay close attention to the CON GAME the Harris campaign is running on them with taxpayer dollars. "In a https://t.co/8nAz7IPTE3" / X

[beardedmrbean]

For decades, Britain’s Left-wing elite has looked at Europe’s high-spending social model with a degree of awe.

France, Germany and Scandinavia have long been viewed, perhaps through rose-tinted spectacles, as examples of what the UK could be if governments were not so tight-fisted.

Under Sir Keir Starmer, Labour is determined to give the country a much bigger state. Official projections published alongside the Budget last month show government spending will settle at around 45pc of GDP.

Spending has never been sustained at these levels before, only reaching such highs briefly in the nation’s worst moments – including the pandemic, the financial crisis and the 1970s oil shocks.

So at last the UK has a chance of becoming the high-spending social democracy of Labour dreams.

It is unfortunate, then, that this is the moment Christine Lagarde has chosen to issue an extraordinarily vivid warning: Europe’s social models are utterly unsustainable.

Weak and uncompetitive economies risk running out of money to fund their sprawling welfare states unless they can reverse decades of relative decline and emulate America’s runaway success in tech, the president of the European Central Bank (ECB) cautioned.

“Our productivity growth in Europe is progressively slowing, which means that our ability to generate income is diminishing. If left unchecked, we will face a future of lower tax revenues and higher debt ratios,” she said in a speech in Paris.

“We face a rising old-age dependency ratio which will drive up public spending on pensions. And it is estimated that governments will need to spend in excess of €1 trillion (£836bn) a year to meet our investment needs for climate change, innovation and defence.

“If we cannot raise productivity, we risk having fewer resources for social spending.”

Those pressures are only going to mount. Pensions, for instance, are becoming ever more expensive. More than one-fifth of the populations of Spain, Germany and France are now aged over-65. In Italy, almost one-quarter have reached that age. Two decades ago, none had more than 20pc in the cohort.

Projections from the United Nations show even more stark increases to come. In Italy, for instance, more than one-third of the population will be aged 65 or older by 2040.

In Britain, not only is the share of pensioners rising – despite increases to the state pension age – but the generosity of the benefits they receive is also increasing.

The triple lock means the state pension rises by the highest of inflation, wages or 2.5pc each year, meaning benefits paid out in old age are, over time, guaranteed to rise more quickly than the incomes of the people whose taxes cover the cost. Adding to that is the cost of healthcare for those pensioners.

As Lagarde put it: “We face and will continue to face growing expenditure arising from a changing security environment, ageing populations and the climate transition.”

Cutting back any of those benefits is appallingly hard, as successive British governments have found. Not unsurprisingly, voters whose taxes paid for previous generations of pensioners find it galling to be asked to receive less themselves.

Similarly in France, Emmanuel Macron faced widespread protests against his plans to raise the pension age. Marine Le Pen’s National Rally made big gains in this year’s general election, in part on promises to reverse the increase.

Costs are also growing for other age groups, with more generous childcare subsidies on offer in Britain, as well as a rising population of working-age benefits claimants.

Europe is ‘trailing behind’

If Europeans want to keep on enjoying such largesse, they need to find a way to pay the bills, says Lagarde.

“Europe is under pressure. The rapid pace of technological change triggered by the digital revolution has left us trailing behind,” said the ECB president and former managing director of the International Monetary Fund.

“We need to adapt quickly to a changing geopolitical environment and regain lost ground in competitiveness and innovation. Failure to do so could jeopardise our ability to generate the wealth needed to sustain our economic and social model, which the vast majority of Europeans nevertheless hold dear.”

While the US economy roared back from Covid, Europe’s recovery was distinctly underwhelming, with Germany effectively failing to grow at all from its 2019 level. But the problem is not just a lockdown after-effect.

Over the past 20 years, productivity has grown twice as fast in the US as in the eurozone. Output for every hour worked has climbed by more than one-quarter in America compared to less than 13pc in the single currency area.

In Britain the situation is even worse, with productivity up by less than one-tenth.

The world’s largest companies illustrate the problem. By market capitalisation, the biggest five – each worth more than $2 trillion – are all American, led by Apple. All are also tech companies – chip-maker Nvidia, Microsoft, Google-owner Alphabet, and Amazon.

In sixth place, at a mere $1.8 trillion, is the first non-American entry, Saudi Aramco, the state oil company.

Most of the top 20 are American. The first European company is in 25th place – Denmark’s Novo Nordisk, famed for its manufacture of Ozempic and Wegovy, and worth the best part of half a trillion dollars.

The biggest European tech company is SAP, a relatively unsung German titan of business technology, and the 37th-largest listed company globally.

The industries in which Europe was traditionally a world leader are under growing threat.

Germany’s car industry is struggling to compete with cheap electric vehicles from China and fashion and luxury groups are at risk from tariffs if president-elect Donald Trump makes good on his campaign policy to impose border taxes of 10pc or even 20pc on imported goods.

LVMH, the 34th-biggest company and star of French industry, ranks highly on Morgan Stanley’s list of businesses which are exposed to US tariffs, because of the large share of products which the luxuries group sells over the Atlantic.

It is also exposed to any slowdown in trade with China, showing how exposed Europe has become to geopolitical tensions.

Lagarde says the Continent risks a “middle-technology trap”.

“We are specialised in technologies that were mostly developed in the last century. Only four of the world’s top 50 tech companies are European,” she said.

“Unlike in the past, Europe is no longer at the forefront of progress. Our productivity growth – the key factor driving our long-term prosperity – is diverging from the US.”

On top of that come trade wars, and the cost of military wars with Russia the most immediate threat, for which the continent is under-prepared.

As Lagarde notes, it was only wealth that generated the taxes to pay for Europe’s welfare states in the first place.

The sun is setting on European-style welfarism. Sir Keir must take note – growth has to come first.