#settle for biden 2020

[she-anemone]

vote third party or not at all I'm so serious. you owe it to yourself and to everyone to not settle for republican or republican blue edition

[batboyblog]

I'm seeing a worrying amount of idiots on tumblr dot com push that "Kamala hates trans women" and I am losing my mind at how they are pushing it, constantly, saying she is a proven transmisogynist, despite it being a complete lie and her actively working behind the scenes to help trans women in prison. Is there like, sources that could help debunk this shit because I'm at my wits end as these people scream and cry and vomit trying to get biden to drop out but then are like "eghhhh still don't wanna vote for a transphobic cop..." when she's NEITHER-

Isn't the internet wonderful? first rule NEVER examine your priors! ALWAYS! hang onto whatever the first hot take you had on a subject to THE DEATH!

"Kamala is Transphobic!" over here in reality

past that trans and LGBT rights groups have been quick to endorse her like

Advocates for Trans Equality

Human Rights Campaign

just today 1,100 LGBT celebrities, lawmakers and leaders endorsed her

“The intersection on the issue of reproductive care and trans care, and the ability of families to be able to have care for their children and their families, is really, again, an intersection around attacks that are on an identity,” -Vice-President Harris, 2023

any ways the root of the idea she's transphobic comes from one case in 2015. Two inmates in the California State Prison system sued to get GRS, which as inmates would have been covered by the Prison system. It's worth noting here, both women got what they wanted, one was paroled and got the surgery covered by California Medicare while the other serving a life sentence was ultimately covered by the prison system.

Two things are important to bear in mind here, 1. Part of the job of California Attorneys General is to defend the state when it is sued, thats the job, 2. It seems early on in the case Harris was not personally aware of it, about 1,000 lawyers work in the Cali AG's office and so the AG cannot be personally aware of every case, and check this quote from the Lambda Legal lawyer handling the case:

“The California AG’s office shifted its handling of these cases significantly after now-Sen. Harris took over,” Renn said. “Initially there was language in briefing for the state that glaringly misunderstood the medical necessity of transition-related medical care and was patently offensive. But then, there was a dramatic change, which seems to have gone along with important policy shifts.”

Link

in 2019 Harris talked about the case and working after it was settled to change the policy of the California State Prison system

"When that case came up, I had clients, and one of them was the California Department of Corrections. It was their policy. When I learned about what they were doing, behind the scenes, I got them to change the policy," Harris said.

"I commit to you that always in these systems there are going to be these things that these agencies do. And I will commit myself, as I always have, to dealing with it," Harris said.

Any ways Harris can consistently spoken out for and supported Trans people, banned the hateful Trans panic defense when she was AG, in the Senate supported the Equality Act, during her 2020 campaign for President she drew attention to the hate crimes against black trans women while holding herself accountable for the 2015 case. As Vice-President she drew fire voicing support for Dylan Mulvaney during the hellish Bud Light backlash. Her Husband Doug was tapped to host the first ever White House Trans Day of Remembrance

basically you're looking at a great ally who clearly supports trans rights, who was involved in a case, which involved two people who got the surgeries they were looking for paid for by the State of California, close to 10 years ago now, there's evidence that both she moved the case in a better direction when she took over it and also that she changed the polices of the state to before more gender affirming.

[qqueenofhades]

So I keep seeing people play the "Harris is a Cop, so I'm not voting for her because ACAB" card, and not even pointing out that she was a DA/Prosecutor rather than an actual cop seems to change their minds - as far as they're concerned, working with cops in any capacity makes you a cop. Do you happen to have anything that'd make for a good counterpoint to this argument (or, at the very least, something to make those of us who still plan on voting for her despite our dim views on Law Enforcement not feel so bad about it)?

....Not feel so bad about it?

First of all: these are laughably, incredibly unbelievably unserious people, and frankly, my first advice would be NOT to bother trying to engage with them at all, because there is nothing whatsoever they will ever accept in the way of logical proof to change their minds. First it was "you can't ask me to vote for Biden specifically because of [insert issue here.]" This changed a lot, from Roe getting overturned by the corrupt SCOTUS, to the train strike (hey anyone remember that?) to student loan forgiveness and then had settled firmly on Gaza. So now, lo and behold, they're given exactly what they asked for: a new younger candidate who is not Biden and explicitly more progressive on the Gaza issue (Harris was the first member of the administration to openly call for a ceasefire). So they turn their noses up, rush to their favorite 2020 disinformation founts that were first spouted when they were trying to sabotage her in favor of Bernie (who endorsed Biden pretty strongly before he dropped out), flirt with Jill "Actual Agent of Putin" Stein, and other equally expected and equally bullshit maneuvers. Lololololololol online leftists. Never change, or something.

That said: because their minds are so set that they will never vote for any Democrat ever, you can't really give them any logical information to separate them from this conclusion. I don't have the links on hand, but etc Google and Wikipedia are free: Harris's tenure as district attorney and California AG was progressive even by modern standards, and it was happening in the early 2000s: she refused to prosecute for low-level weed offenses, pushed for harder sentences for assault weapons, performed gay marriages LONG before it was legal even in San Freaking Francisco, refused to seek the death penalty, worked with restorative justice programs, etc. This was after she was a first-generation American child of brown immigrants who took advantage of equal-opportunity education programs to go to law school, and her parents were already high-achieving academics (one a cancer researcher from India and one an economics professor from Jamaica). Sure sure, she definitely seems exactly like Derek Chauvin to me. Critical thinking is great! #VoteJillStein! A literal puppet of Putin and unabashed Assad fangirl is definitely the pro-peace morally correct option here!*

In other words, the morons do not give a single shit about factual reflections of Kamala's record. They do not care about whether her time as a district attorney was progressive (it was) and whether she was actually a cop (she wasn't). They're so wedded at the hip to their braindead disinformation propaganda that now we're going to see the excuses change at lightspeed from why they can't vote for Biden specifically to why they can't vote for Harris specifically. None of it will be remotely tethered to reality and all of it will be in extreme and obvious bad faith. As I said, there are plenty of persuadable voters elsewhere who HAVE been energized by her elevation to candidacy. If you are indeed interested in winning voters to her side (as opposed to having to find reasons to justify yourself to the All Voting Is Evil crowd who will never listen to or believe you anyway), I suspect your time would be better spent elsewhere, and outside the echo-chamber leftist social media space in general.

Aside from that, I have gotten a few hand-wringy asks about Kamala and the election overall, and I gotta say, I am not going to waste my time and effort replying to them. We have about 100 days to win this election or become a fascist dictatorship. We are already in uncharted territory, but the replacement of Biden with Harris went UNIMAGINABLY smoothly, far, far more than anyone (including me) ever expected. It reminds me of the presto-chango that the French center, left, and center-left parties pulled off to replace candidates, IN FIVE DAYS, to better position themselves to defeat the fascists. Compared to that, three and a half months is a cakewalk, but we still absolutely do not, DO NOT, have time to sit around worrying and hand-wringing about this or that hypothetical Bad Thing. It deeply unsurprises me to hear that US Online Leftists are still throwing snits and pitching their toys out of the pram rather than getting on board, but the rest of us don't have any time to waste and need to apply our energy to where it will be best put to use. So yes.

*extreme, extreme sarcasm alert

[justinspoliticalcorner]

It is hard to imagine a worse candidate for the American presidency in 2024 than Donald J Trump. His history of dishonesty, hypocrisy and greed makes him wholly unfit for the office. A second Trump term would erode the rule of law, diminish America’s global standing and deepen racial and cultural divides. Even if he loses, Mr Trump has shown that he will undermine the election process, with allies spreading unfounded conspiracy theories to delegitimise the results. There are prominent Republicans – such as the former vice-president Dick Cheney – who refused to support Mr Trump owing to the threat he poses. Gen Mark Milley, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff under Mr Trump, calls his former boss a “fascist”. America was founded in opposition to absolute monarchy. The Republican nominee models himself after the leader he most admires: Russia’s autocratic president, Vladimir Putin. Mr Trump’s authoritarianism may finish US democracy. He has praised and promised to pardon those convicted in the January 6 insurrection. He has suggested bypassing legal norms to use potentially violent methods of repression, blurring the lines between vigilantism, law enforcement and military action, against groups – be they Democrats or undocumented immigrants – he views as enemies. His team has tried to distance itself from the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 and its extreme proposals – such as mass firings of civil servants and erasing women’s rights – that poll poorly. But it is likely that, in office, Mr Trump would adopt many of these intolerant, patriarchal and discriminatory plans. He aims to dismantle the government to enrich himself and evade the law. If Republicans gain control of the Senate, House and White House, he would interpret it as a mandate to silence his critics and entrench his power. Mr Trump is a transactional and corrupting politician. His supporters see this as an advantage. Christian nationalists want an authoritarian regime to enforce religious edicts on Americans. Elon Musk wants to shape the future without regulatory oversight. Both put self-interest ahead of the American people. Democracy erodes slowly at first, then all at once. In office, Mr Trump appointed three supreme court justices, who this summer blocked efforts to hold him accountable for trying to overturn the 2020 election: their immunity ruling renders the president “a king above the law”, in the words of the liberal justice Sonia Sotomayor. Since Kamala Harris stepped into the spotlight following Joe Biden’s exit, her campaign has been a masterclass in political jujitsu, deftly flipping Mr Trump’s perceived strengths into glaring weaknesses. With a focus on joy, the vice-president sharply contrasted with Mr Trump’s grim narrative of US decline. In their sole televised debate, Ms Harris skillfully outmaneuvered Mr Trump, who fell into her traps, appearing angry and incoherent. She is confident and composed. He sounds unhinged. [...] Political hope fades when we settle for what is, instead of fighting for what could be. Ms Harris embodies the conviction that it’s better to believe in democracy’s potential than to surrender to its imperfections. The Republican agenda is clear: voter suppression, book bans and tax cuts for billionaires. Democrats seek global engagement; the GOP favours isolation. The Biden-Harris administration laid the groundwork for a net zero America. A Trumpian comeback would undo it. A Harris win, with a Democratic Congress, means a chance to restore good governance, create good jobs and lead the entire planet’s climate efforts. Defeating Mr Trump protects democracy from oligarchy and dictatorship. There is too much at stake not to back Ms Harris for president.

The Guardian Editorial Board's endorsement of Kamala Harris for the 2024 US Presidential Election (10.23.2024).

The Guardian’s editorial board gave a powerful endorsement for Kamala Harris, as our democracy’s survival depends on her winning.

[renthony]

Just curious. How bad has Biden been at controlling COVID-19 in your view?

First: I already responded to a similar question you left on this post.

Second: Biden has been atrocious for COVID-19 safety and management. COVID-19 is still killing people, and our president has done a horribly insufficient job in mitigating that. "Better than the Republicans" is not the same thing as "good" or "effective." Biden's abysmal reaction to COVID-19 is part of why I'm so thrilled that the Uncommitted campaign for the Democratic primary has achieved some success. That particular campaign is focused on ceasefire in Palestine, but the People's CDC explained in a statement how Palestine is also very much a public health issue. We need to scare the bastard and actually do some of that "pushing him left" that people claimed they'd do after getting him elected. Though it seems to me like a lot of people just settled for, "okay, we got rid of Trump, we don't have to worry anymore."

Third: While I'm at it, people have to do more than vote. You have got to get involved. You have got to do more than participate in the presidential election once every four years. Join a union (may I recommend the IWW?), follow the guidance of The People's CDC, volunteer for your local Food Not Bombs, get involved in a tenants union like the Autonomous Tenants Union Network, read Riot Medicine, get trained in first aid and get involved in a street medic group, read up on your local politics and get involved on the small-scale, do something in addition to voting in the presidential election. Even if you're limited in how much you can personally participate, find the people who are talking about these issues and signal boost them, and share the information with others who may be more able to participate more. If you can tell people to go vote in the presidential election, you can also tell them to go do other things, too.

Now, with all of that out of the way, here are some links related to Biden's abysmal COVID-19 response:

During his 2020 campaign, Biden promised immediate $2K stimulus checks. Instead, he delivered $1,400. Sources: [x] [x] [x] [x] [x]

Velena Jones for NBC Bay Area: "‘Too expensive': Bay Area residents shocked over new COVID vaccine prices"

Reuters: "COVID vaccine manufacturers set list price between $120-$130 per dose"

Joseph Choi for The Hill: "Free COVID-19 test program to be suspended for now"

Disability activist Alice Wong writing for TeenVogue: "Covid Isn't Going Anywhere. Masking Up Could Save My Life," and the follow-up article, "COVID and the 2024 Election: What Biden and Democrats Owe High-Risk People."

Laura Weiss writing for The New Republic: "Democrats Can't Keep Ignoring Covid in 2024."

David Cohen and Adam Cancryn for Politico: "Biden on '60 Minutes': 'The Pandemic is Over.'"

Alex Skopic for Current Affairs: "COVID-19 is Still a Threat. So is Biden’s CDC."

Adam Cancryn for Politico: "Biden Appears to be Over Covid Protocols."

Paul Thornton for the Los Angeles Times: "Covid Still Rages, and the Biden Administration Isn't Helping."

Eric J. Topol for the Los Angeles Times: "The U.S. is facing the biggest COVID wave since Omicron. Why are we still playing make-believe?"

We should have free, universal testing. We should have free, universal vaccination. We should have free, universal treatment. We should have financial assistance for those of us who can't work outside the home. We should have mandated work-from-home for any job that can be done remotely. We should be emptying prisons and paying attention to the way disease and abuse proliferate inside their walls. We should have COVID-19 safety PSAs and government support for universal masking. We should have free distribution of N95s. We should have mandated masking in medical settings and public spaces. We should have a higher minimum wage. We should have healthcare reforms. We should have strong worker protections. We should have improved infrastructure. We should have a president who gives a single flying fuck about how many of us are dying.

And we have none of it.

But we sure seem to have money to keep dropping bombs, arming cops, terrorizing the vulnerable, and imprisoning innocent people to use for slave labor.

[barleywheaton]

Voting third party for president right now is basically the same as not voting for the office at all. We need to fix things at a lower level so we can get rank choice voting before that becomes viable at for higher offices. Absolutely vote third party for lower level candidates, and campaign for them too to help their chances, but that's not going to happen for president yet.

EDIT for context: this post was before Biden dropped out. I'm not sure where i stand on Kamala Harris yet)

Remember in 2020 when people used their voices and Joe Biden got the most votes in a presidential election in US history? That's official history now (for the time being). Our voices are powerful. Imagine the possible acceleration of this cultural shift we're in that could happen if a Green party candidate made record progress in the general election. She wouldn't win this year, but imagine if she won a single state, or even just a handful of districts. It would send a very loud message to the powers that be.

We are fed up with this bullshit. We draw the line at genocide. If you're not going to stop the genocide anyway, then we're taking you out of office. Next time, at least try Peace.

Now compare that to,

Okay maybe we do hate you, but since we hate the other guy more, we'll settle for genocide abroad as long as we get to keep a president who tells us we matter.

A vote for third party is a vote for Trump

A vote along party lines is a vote for the ever constant erosion of our rights. A vote along party lines is a vote for the status quo, a conservative vote regardless of color. A vote along party lines is a vote for genocide.

The Democrats are not your allies. They and the Republicans are greedy little toddlers who will rip their precious toys to shreds just to get back at the other guy in an attempt to make us think they're saving us. That's us, we're the toys. Wise up, comrade.

[turnways]

This is what I can't stand about the way liberals talk about voting they cant just be normal about discussing it and it's limitations and have this fantasy idea of what voting accomplishes like

"You are voting for a country that values diversity and stands against fascism" like be so fucking for real

At least in 2020 people would have the humility to say that Biden is just something theyre settling for. Now voting for him means voting for the liberal equivalent of 1950s idealistic advertising

[patriottruth]

2024 U.S. Election: donald j. trump Is Not President Elect Until After the Canvas Confirming EVERY SINGLE VOTE, All Election Litigation is Decided in his Favor, and The Results Are Certified By All States (Just Like 2020). Nothing's Official Until December 2024. Initial Election Results Bible Study and Resultant Earthquake Analysis:

A few inconsistencies with the 2024 U.S. elections thus far:

Hillary Clinton received 65,853,514 votes in 2016 when women's human and civil rights hadn't been destroyed, when rape-induced pregnancies weren't spiraling out of control, when the people of the United States didn't know about donald trump's true colors, before donald trump's incompetent COVID-19 response, before all of donald trump's criminal investigations and negative outcomes, when donald trump hadn't tried to overthrow the U.S. government, when donald trump hadn't incited an insurrection, before donald trump's massive cognitive decline, and before donald trump's campaign rallies were only half full for the full 2 weeks prior to the election.

And now, after donald trump said he'd have the election so rigged his supporters would never have to vote again, with American women and men of all ages, of all political parties voting against him, with Puerto Ricans, Latinos, and Blacks voting against him, and with Harris/Walz rallies being packed full the entire election season, with historic early and mail-in voting, with millions more youth voters joining the electorate and voting for Harris/Walz, and with massive Democrat turnout on voting day, donald trump is "somehow' leading Kamala Harris by 5 million votes while he's also under criminal prosecution for election tampering, fraud, interference, and racketeering for the 2020 election and being a long-established cheater and fraud at business, golf, and all of his marriages? Yeah, right…like that's not as fraudulent as the 2016 election where he lost by at least 3 million votes…that we know of… It's important to remember that there's going to be a nationwide canvas to confirm every vote that was cast in the 2024 election for every single race in the election; and that every instance of trump allies "finding him and his allies the votes" they need is an easily resolved, and criminally prosecutable, situation.

Biden/Harris received 81,283,501 votes after donald trump's disastrous COVID-19 response and before his January 6 insurrection; and then there's all of his criminal investigations, scandals, and court losses, his severe cognitive decline and low energy setting in, Republicans, Independents, and former trump voters aligning with Harris voters, his rallies being not only far smaller, but far smaller AND half-empty compared to his 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns, and him intentionally pissing off all Latinos, Blacks, and Jews the week before the election. And the American people are supposed to believe Kamala Harris somehow received 15 million votes less than Biden/Harris received in 2020, while donald trump received 4 million less votes than he received in 2020 AND he's somehow beating Kamala Harris by 5 million votes? C'mon, now, the American people aren't as stupid as donald trump and his allies!

The 2024 elections aren't over until after the official nationwide canvas/voter confirmation has occurred, all litigation is settled in the courts in December, the results are certified by each individual state, and Congress certifies the results on January 6, 2025. donald trump isn't headed back to the White House, and the control of Congress isn't settled, until every vote he and his allies claim to have received has been verified by every single voter who cast a ballot in the 2024 elections and all litigation has been settled in their favor. And the most important thing to remember about all of donald trump's court cases since the 2020 election: he's lost almost every single one of them; especially when he he was fighting against women, so this 2024 election has only just gotten started, and EVERY single election "victory", at every single level of local, state, and federal government that donald trump and his allies are claiming at the moment are going to have to hold up during the canvas, in court, and in final certification. I mean, claiming that Republicans swept every single race they were competing in along with taking the House, Senate AND Presidency after everything they've been up to since November 2020? The investigations and trials from this attempted overthrow of the U.S. government will be quite similar to what the Nazis experienced after their defeat; and let's not forget that donald trump's OWN MAGA SCOTUS already anointed President Joe Biden as Divine King for Life of the United States of American with Unlimited Immunity and Unchecked Power…so, he's quite likely to use all of that limitless immunity and unchecked power to start the vigorous "ass-smacking" of donald trump and his allies at any moment now that it won't affect voter turnout…

As of 6:08 AM EST 11/6/2024:

Georgia: 117,385 votes votes difference between trump and Harris trump: 2,651,206 (+189,352 from 2020) Harris: 2,533,821 (+60,188 from 2020) Electoral votes: 16

Georgia 2020: Biden: 2,473,633 trump: 2,461,854

Pennsylvania: 170,601 votes difference between trump and Harris trump: 3,434,001 (+56,327 from 2020) Harris: 3,263,400 (−194,829 from 2020) Electoral votes: 19

Pennsylvania 2020: Biden: 3,458,229 trump: 3,377,674

North Carolina: 191,543 votes difference between trump and Harris trump: 2,875,538 (+116,763 from 2020) Harris: 2,683,995 (−297 from 2020) Electoral votes: 16

North Carolina 2020: Biden: 2,684,292 trump: 2,758,775

Wisconsin: 32,192 votes difference between trump and Harris trump: 1,676,729 (+66,545 from 2020) Harris: 1,644,537 (+13,671 from 2020) Electoral votes: 10

Wisconsin 2020: Biden: 1,630,866 trump: 1,610,184

Iowa: 223,320 votes difference between trump and Harris trump: 899,659 (+1,987 from 2020) Harris: 676,339 (−82,722 from 2020) Electoral votes: 6

Iowa 2020: Biden: 759,061 trump: 897,672

Michigan: 109,302 votes difference between trump and Harris trump: 2,717,396 (+67,544 from 2020) Harris: 2,608,094 (−195,946 from 2020) Electoral votes: 15

Michigan 2020: Biden: 2,804,040 trump: 2,649,852

Nevada: 59,862 votes difference between trump and Harris trump: 660,980 (−8,910 from 2020) Harris: 601,118 (−102,368 from 2020) Electoral votes: 6

Nevada 2020: Biden: 703,486 trump: 669,890

Arizona: 103,355 votes difference between trump and Harris trump: 1,150,781 (−510,905 from 2020) Harris: 1,047,426 (−624,717 from 2020) Electoral votes: 11

Arizona 2020: Biden: 1,672,143 trump: 1,661,686

Do not be bitter, my Father will reign over Adam and Eve: אִי תָ מָר אֲבִ ימֶלֶךְ אֹדֶם אִיּ וֹב

Initial 2024 Election Results Bible Study: 11/6/2024: 02:50 AM EST: When asking about why and if the Abrahamic G-d gave the United States and the world over to donald trump and his global dictator allies: TANAKH (Jewish Publication Society, Hebrew-English) Page 56 Genesis 26:13 And the Lord was standing beside him and He said, "I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac: The ground on which you are lying I will assign to you and to your offspring.

Earthquake: 09:55:50 GMT+2 Jerusalem, Israel, 23:55:50 PST Local Time Petrolia, CA (02:55:50 EST (5 minutes and an unknown number of seconds after the bible study))

Luke 9:51 As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem. Luke 9:52 And he sent messengers on ahead, who went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for him; Luke 9:53 but the people there did not welcome him, because he was heading for Jerusalem. Luke 9:54 When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, “Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?” Luke 9:55 But Jesus turned and rebuked them.

Luke 23:55 The women who had come with Jesus from Galilee followed Joseph and saw the tomb and how his body was laid in it. Luke 23:56 Then they went home and prepared spices and perfumes. But they rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment. Luke 24:1 But very early on Sunday morning the women went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. Luke 24:2 They found that the stone had been rolled away from the entrance. Luke 24:3 So they went in, but they didn’t find the body of the Lord Jesus. Luke 24:4 As they stood there puzzled, two men suddenly appeared to them, clothed in dazzling robes. Luke 24:5 The women were terrified and bowed with their faces to the ground. Then the men asked, “Why are you looking among the dead for someone who is alive? Luke 24:6 He isn’t here! He is risen from the dead! Remember what he told you back in Galilee, Luke 24:7 that the Son of Man must be betrayed into the hands of sinful men and be crucified, and that he would rise again on the third day.”

2 Thessalonians 2:6 And now you know what is holding him back, so that he may be revealed at the proper time. 2 Thessalonians 2:7 For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work; but the one who now holds it back will continue to do so till he is taken out of the way. 2 Thessalonians 2:8 Then the man of lawlessness will be revealed, but the Lord Jesus will slay him with the breath of his mouth and destroy him by the splendor of his coming. 2 Thessalonians 2:9 The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with how Satan works. He will use all sorts of displays of power through signs and wonders that serve the lie, 2 Thessalonians 2:10 He will use every kind of evil deception to fool those on their way to destruction, because they refuse to love and accept the truth that would save them. 2 Thessalonians 2:11 For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie 2 Thessalonians 2:12 and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.

TANAKH (Jewish Publication Society, Hebrew-English) Pages 1796 and 1797 Esther 8:1 That very day King Ahasuerus gave the property of Hama, the enemy of the Jews, to Queen Esther. Mordecai presented himself to the king, for Esther had revealed how he was related to her. Esther 8:2 The king slipped off his ring, which he had taken back from Haman, and gave it to Mordecai; and Esther put Mordecai in charge of Haman's property. Esther 8:3 Esther spoke to the king again, falling at his feet and weeping, and beseeching him to avert the evil plotted by Haman the Agagite against the Jews. Esther 8:4 The king extended the golden scepter to Esther, and esther arose and stood before the king. Esther 8:5 "If it please Your Majesty," she said, "and if I have won your favor and the proposal seems right to Your Majesty, and if I am pleasing to you--let dispatches be written countermanding those which were written by Haman son of Hammedatha the Agagite, embodying his plot to annihilate the Jews throughout the king's provinces. Esther 8:6 For how can I bear to see the disaster which will befall my people! And how can I bear to see the destruction of my kindred!" Esther 8:7 Then King Ahasuerus said to Queen Esther and Mordecai the Jew, "I have given Haman's property to Esther, and he has been impaled on the stake for scheming against the Jews. Esther 8:8 And you may further write with regard to the Jews as you see fit. [Write it] in the king's name and seal it with the king's signet, for an edict that has been written in the king's name and sealed with the king's signet may not be revoked." Esther 8:9 So the king's scribes were summoned at that time, on the twenty-third day of the third month, that is, the month of Sivan; and letters were written, at Mordecai's dictation, to the Jews and to the satraps, the governors and the officials of the one hundred and twenty-seven provinces from India to Ethiopa: to every province in its own script and to every people in its own language, and to the Jews in their own script and language. Esther 8:10 He had them written in the name of King Ahasuerus and sealed with the king's signet. Letters were dispatched by mounted courieers, riding steeds used in the king's service, bred of the royal stud, Esther 8:11 to this effect: The king has permitted the Jews of every city to assemble and fight for their lives; if any people or province attacks them, they may destroy, massacre, and exterminate its armed force together with women and children, and plunder their possessions--

Acts 8:8 So there was great joy in that city.

TANAKH (Jewish Publication Society, Hebrew-English) Page 1777 Ecclesiastes 8:8 No man has authority over the lifebreath--to hold back the lifebreath; there is no authority over the day of death. There is no mustering out from that war; wickedness is powerless to save its owner.

1 Corinthians 5:5Then you must throw this man out and hand him over to Satan so that his sinful nature will be destroyed and he himself will be saved on the day the Lord returns.

TANAKH (Jewish Publication Society, Hebrew-English) Pages 1815, 1816, 1817, and 1818 Daniel 5:1 King Belshazzar gave a great banquet for his thousand nobles, and in the presence of the thousand he drank wine. Daniel 5:2 Under the influence of the wine, Belshazzar ordered the gold and silver vessels that his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple at Jerusalem to be brought so that the king and his nobles, his consorts, and his concubines could drink from them. Daniel 5:3 The golden vessels that had been taken out of the sanctuary of the House of God in Jerusalem were then brought, and the king, his nobles, his consorts, and his concubines drank from them. Daniel 5:4 They drank wine an dpraised the gods of gold and silver, bronze, iron, wood, and stone. Daniel 5:5 Just then, the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall of the king's palace opposite the lampstand, so that the king could see the hand as it wrote. Daniel 5:6 The king's face darkened, and his thoughts alarmed him; the joints of his loins were loosened and his knees knocked together. Daniel 5:7 The king called loudly for the exorcists, Chaldeans, and diviners to be brought. The king addressed the wise men of Babylon, "Whoever can read this writing and tell me its meaning shall be clothed in purple and wear a golden chain on his neck, and shall rule as one of three in the kingdom." Daniel 5:17 Then Daniel said in reply to the king, "You may keep your gifts for yourself, and give your presents to others. But I will read the writing for the king, and make its meaning known to him. Daniel 5:18 O king, the Most High God bestowed kingship, grandeur, glory, and majesty upon your father Nebuchadnezzar. Daniel 5:19 And because of the grandeur that He bestowed upon him, all the peoples and nations of every language trembled in fear of him. He put to death whom he wished, and whom he wished he let live; he raised high whom he wished and whom he wished he brought low. Daniel 5:20 But when he grew haughty and willfully presumptuous, he was deposed from his royal throne and his glory was removed from him. Daniel 5:21 He was driven away from men, and his mind made like that of a beast, and his habitation was with wild asses. He was fed grass like cattle, and his body was drenched with the dew of heaven until he came to know that the Most High God is sovereign over the realm of man, and sets over it whom He wishes. Daniel 5:22 But you, Belshazzar his son, did not humble yourself although you knew all this. Daniel 5:23 You exalted yourself against the Lord of Heaven, and had the vessels of His temple brought to you. You and your nobles, your consorts, and your concubines drank wine from them and praised the gods of silver and gold, bronze and iron, wood and stone, which to not see, hear, or understand; but the God who controls your lifebreath and every move you make--Him you did not glorify! Daniel 5:24 He therefore made the hand appear, and caused the writing to be inscribed. Daniel 5:25 This is the writing that is inscribed: MENE MENE TEKEL UPHARSIN. Daniel 5:26 And this is its meaning: MENE--God has numbererd [the days of] your kingdom and brought it to an end; Daniel 5:27 TEKEL--you have been weighed in the balance and found wanting; Daniel 5:28 PERES--your kingdom has been divided and given to the Medes and the Persians." Daniel 5:29 Then, at Belshazzar's command, they clothed Daniel in purple, placed a golden chain on his neck, and proclaimed that he should rule as one of three in the kingdom. Daniel 5:30 That very night, Belshazzar, the Chaldean king, was killed,

Acts 7:55 But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed steadily into heaven and saw the glory of God, and he saw Jesus standing in the place of honor at God’s right hand.

Matthew 16:1 One day the Pharisees and Sadducees came to test Jesus, demanding that he show them a miraculous sign from heaven to prove his authority. Matthew 16:2 He replied, “You know the saying, ‘Red sky at night means fair weather tomorrow; Matthew 16:3 and in the morning, ‘Today it will be stormy, for the sky is red and overcast.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times.

LAW AND ORDER!!! The People of the State of New York v. donald j. trump is a criminal case against failed and deposed former president donald j. trump. donald j. trump was charged with and convicted of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to conceal payments made to the pornographic film actress Stormy Daniels to ensure her silence about a sexual encounter between them; with costs related to the transaction included, the payments totaled $420,000. The Manhattan District Attorney (DA), Alvin Bragg, accused Trump of falsifying these business records with the intent to commit other crimes: violation of federal campaign finance limits, unlawfully influencing the 2016 U.S. presidential election that he lost to Hillary Clinton by 3,000,000 American votes, and tax fraud. The criminal indictment charged Trump with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the first degree, in violation of New York Penal Law §175.10. Each count is related to a specific business document, each having a date ranging from February 14 through December 5, 2017: 11 for invoices from Michael Cohen 9 for general ledger entries for donald j. trump 9 for checks from donald j. trump 3 for general ledger entries for the donald j. trump Revocable Trust 2 for checks from the donald j. trump Revocable Trust

Earthquake: M 2.6 - 8.8 km (5.5 mi) WNW of Petrolia, CA

2024-11-06 07:55:50 (UTC) 40.347°N 124.385°W 16.3 km depth

In the Pacific Ocean off of Mussel Rock adjacent to Mattole Road and Petrolia Table Cemetery.

Mattole refers to a Native American group and their language, historically situated in the northwestern region of California, particularly along the Mattole River and nearby coastal areas.

The common name "mussel" is also used for many freshwater bivalves, including the freshwater pearl mussels. Freshwater mussel species inhabit lakes, ponds, rivers, creeks, canals, and they are classified in a different subclass of bivalves, despite some very superficial similarities in appearance. The most valuable pearls occur spontaneously in the wild, but are extremely rare. These wild pearls are referred to as natural pearls. Cultured or farmed pearls from pearl oysters and freshwater mussels make up the majority of those currently sold. All shelled mollusks can, by natural processes, produce some kind of "pearl" when an irritating microscopic object becomes trapped within its mantle folds, but the great majority of these "pearls" are not valued as gemstones. Nacreous pearls, the best-known and most commercially significant, are primarily produced by two groups of molluskan bivalves or clams. A nacreous pearl is made from layers of nacre, by the same living process as is used in the secretion of the mother of pearl which lines the shell.

Natural (or wild) pearls, formed without human intervention, are very rare. Many hundreds of pearl oysters or mussels must be gathered and opened, and thus killed, to find even one wild pearl; for many centuries, this was the only way pearls were obtained, and why pearls fetched such extraordinary prices in the past. Cultured pearls are formed in pearl farms, using human intervention as well as natural processes. One family of nacreous pearl bivalves – the pearl oyster – lives in the sea, while the other – a very different group of bivalves – lives in freshwater; these are the river mussels such as the freshwater pearl mussel. Saltwater pearls can grow in several species of marine pearl oysters in the family Pteriidae. Freshwater pearls grow within certain (but by no means all) species of freshwater mussels in the order Unionida, the families Unionidae and Margaritiferidae.

Matthew 13:45 “Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a merchant on the lookout for choice pearls. Matthew 13:46 When he discovered a pearl of great value, he sold everything he owned and bought it!

40.347°N

Strong's Concordance #40 Abimelek: From 'ab and melek; father of (the) king; "father is king," "My father will reign," a Philistine name, also an Israelite name Original Word: אֲבִימֶלֶךְ

Strong's Concordance #347 Iyyob: From 'ayab; hated (i.e. Persecuted); Ijob, the patriarch famous for his patience -- Job. Original Word: אִיּוֹב

124.385°W

Strong's Concordance #124 odem: From 'adam; redness, i.e. The ruby, garnet, or some other red gem -- sardius; a carnelian Original Word: אֹדֶם

Strong's Concordance #385 Ithamar: From 'iy and tamar; coast of the palm-tree; "land of palms," Ithamar, a son of Aaron Original Word: אִיתָמָר

Do not be bitter, my Father will reign over Adam and Eve: אִי תָ מָר אֲבִ ימֶלֶךְ אֹדֶם אִיּ וֹב

[donald-trump-official]

I publicly challenge Joe Biden to a cage match to settle 2020 once and for all

[mariacallous]

Since entering Georgia politics in 2020, state Rep. Michelle Au has been called every name in the book: Chinese spy, foreign plant, “agent of the Chinese Communist Party.”

Au recalled this experience in March as she pushed back against a bill to ban “agents“ of China and other “foreign adversaries“ from purchasing farmland in the state, as well as property near military installations. The bill’s mostly Republican backers argued that it would defend against national security threats; Au and other critics warned that the measure would fuel xenophobia.

“It stokes this suspicion and this sensibility that many of us face in our everyday lives—even before this type of bill was being passed—that Asian Americans and Chinese Americans in particular are perpetually foreign,” said Au, a 46-year-old anesthesiologist and a Democrat in Georgia’s House of Representatives. “We are cast under a light of suspicion that other immigrants are not.”

The bill, which was signed into law in April, reflects how concerns about China’s influence loom large in Georgia, a swing state that proved key in the 2020 U.S. presidential election and that both former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are desperate to win on Nov. 5. It’s not just land ownership that has raised national security concerns in the state. Georgia Tech, a top public university, recently severed a long-standing partnership with a Chinese university.

At the same time, Chinese American communities are intimately familiar with how rocky U.S.-China relations and inflammatory rhetoric can stoke hostility against Asian Americans, which surged nationwide in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, during Trump’s presidency. In Georgia, fears about hate crimes intensified after a gunman stormed three spas in Atlanta in 2021 and killed eight people, six of whom were Asian women.

“While attention may have moved from [the 2021 shootings], the fear that Asian Americans, Chinese Americans [feel] is still very much there,” said Marvin Lim, another Democratic state representative in Georgia. He added that these communities have long grappled with the question of where they fit in.

Georgia’s Chinese American community, which today consists of more than 80,000 people, accounts for just a slice of the state’s electorate. But it offers a window into how geopolitical pressures weigh on Chinese American voters ahead of an election partly defined by a U.S. hawkishness toward Beijing.

“Asian American voters in Georgia are the fastest-growing voting demographic and voting bloc,” said Murtaza Khwaja, the executive director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta, a legal advocacy group. It’s, he said, “an electorate that wants to see themselves represented and see candidates emerge from those communities.”

Georgia’s Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) population has grown by more than 50 percent since 2010, with many people settling in the Atlanta-area counties of Forsyth and Gwinnett. In 2020, they made their electoral power clear. Voter turnout among the group surged by a staggering 84 percent compared to the 2016 election—an increase that helped Biden win the battleground state and the Democrats take the Senate.

Those trends were also visible nationally, as Asian Americans—a group long overlooked by both politicians and pollsters—increased their turnout by 40 percent, with most of those ballots cast for Biden. The bloc could be even more decisive this time around. Between January and June, Asian Americans logged the sharpest increase in voter registration of any racial group in the United States, compared to the same period in 2020.

“As the fastest-growing racial group in the country and also the fastest-growing electorate in this country, we are stating very clearly that elected officials can no longer take us for granted,” said Cynthia Choi, the co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate, a U.S.-based coalition. “We deserve to have our rights protected. We deserve to feel that we can establish roots in this country. We deserve to have protections and to feel safe.”

This political evolution is underway as competition with China has become one of the rare areas of bipartisan agreement in Washington. Trump spent his four years in the White House waging a trade war with China and using inflammatory language that deepened concerns about xenophobia against Chinese and Asian Americans. After taking office in 2021, President Joe Biden expanded on many of Trump’s policies with his own campaign of tariffs and tough restrictions; Harris is expected to take a similarly hawkish approach.

Chinese Americans’ voting preferences remain somewhat hazy, in part because the community is not monolithic, with deep political divisions across generations, professions, proximity to immigration, gender, and education level. Like other Asian American demographic groups, many Chinese Americans also do not have long familial traditions of voting for Republicans or Democrats, resulting in weaker party affiliation.

The AAPI community has “a lot of new American voters. We have a lot of naturalized citizens, people who maybe haven’t voted in the past,” said Au. “If you’re thinking about just the math of it, these are voters who are up for grabs.”

There are some overarching trends. Nationally, the majority of Chinese American voters lean Democratic, according to the Pew Research Center. They also largely favor Harris over Trump; A 2024 voter survey by AAPI Data found that 65 percent of Chinese American respondents backed Harris, compared to 24 percent who preferred Trump. Forty-five percent of respondents believed that Harris would do a better job dealing with China—more than double the percent that supported Trump’s approach.

The outlook is more complicated along individual issue areas. Take economic policy, which remains a top concern for Georgia’s Chinese Americans, according to Khwaja. “Many in the Chinese American community here in Georgia are small-business owners or physicians who own their practice or of the like,” he said. “The economy is an incredibly important issue for them.”

Yet Chinese American voters overall are divided on which party does a better job when it comes to economic policy. According to one survey by AAPI Data, one-third of Chinese American respondents believed Republicans had a better approach to jobs and the economy, which only slightly edged out the 31 percent who favored the Democrats and the 29 percent who felt there was no difference between the parties. One-third of Chinese American respondents also favored Republicans’ record on inflation, compared to the 26 percent who preferred that of the Democrats.

It’s also difficult to tell how U.S.-China relations will sway the vote among the demographic. Among Asian Americans, Chinese Americans are the only group in which the majority does not view their ancestral homeland favorably, according to Pew, underscoring how some voters may prefer a tough-on-China approach in this year’s election.

Fei-Ling Wang, a professor of international affairs at Georgia Tech, said that some Chinese Americans in Georgia may favor Trump because his rhetoric makes him seem tougher on Beijing than Harris—even if that’s not necessarily true in practice. “Many Chinese Americans, in my opinion, they sort of read the rhetoric more than [the] substance,” he said.

On the other hand, some voters may worry about what that kind of tough talk means for them. Nearly two-thirds of Chinese Americans believe that the current U.S.-China relationship negatively affects how they are treated, according to a recent study by the nonprofit Committee of 100 and NORC at the University of Chicago. More than 80 percent of respondents expressed concern about how both presidential candidates’ rhetoric toward China could fuel discrimination in the United States.

“The majority of domestic xenophobia and anti-Asian sentiment is driven by American foreign policy,” Khwaja said. “I think even those that would be supportive of legislation or … rhetoric critical of the Chinese government, there’s a reservation and caution of the form that it’s taken and how they themselves and their families would be targeted.”

These issues could prove pivotal on Nov. 5 in the battleground of Georgia, where polls are pointing to a thin margin between Harris and Trump; as of Oct. 16, polling averages showed Trump in the lead by around one point. Four years after Asian Americans in Georgia showed up at the polls in record numbers, those same voters may now be gearing up for another round.

“I was told as a first-time candidate, ‘Don’t bother talking to Asian voters because Asian people don’t vote,’” Au said. “I think we’re realizing that that is wrong, and people are now actively like, ‘Oh, we were sleeping on the Asian Americans. We’ve got to get them to vote for us.’”

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Irene Yazzie can’t think of anyone who lives within 10 miles of her farm in the Navajo Nation who has drinking water flowing into their homes, hers included. In the far reaches of the reservation in Northeastern Arizona, near where the red-rock buttes of Monument Valley rise above the desert floor, indoor plumbing can feel like a luxury.

“I don’t know that people understand how hard of a life we have here,” said Yazzie, 71.

Help could be on the way if Congress approves a historic agreement reached between the Navajo, Hopi and San Juan Southern Paiute Tribes and the state of Arizona that would settle all of their outstanding water rights claims to the Colorado River Basin.

The deal, which all three tribes have now approved, marks a historic milestone for Indigenous nations that have fought for decades for their fair share of the water coursing through their ancestral lands.

Water claims with New Mexico and Utah had already been settled. Arizona had been the lone holdout. The 27,400-square-mile Navajo reservation, the nation’s largest, stretches across parts of all three states, with huge distances between towns and even individual homes.

While millions of people in the interior Southwest and Southern California draw from the Colorado River to sustain their cities and crops, Yazzie’s tribe has lacked pipelines connecting it to this precious — and overtaxed — waterway.

Several days a week, Yazzie or one of her two adult children makes the hour-long drive along bumpy dirt and gravel roads to reach a tribal community center that allows residents to pump water for a fee. Once back home, Yazzie has her son refill a cistern in the family’s yard.

“I’m always hauling water,” Yazzie said recently by phone.

Yazzie and her neighbors outside the Navajo hamlet of Dennehotso aren’t alone in living with water scarcity. An estimated 30% of households on the Navajo reservation don’t have indoor plumbing, and many who live in remote areas have to power their homes with generators because they’re also not connected to the power grid.

During a signing event in the tribal capital of Window Rock, Ariz., Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren said the water agreement is especially meaningful for residents on the reservation who are forced to haul water simply to access a basic necessity of life. In some cases, residents share water supplies with relatives and friends, while others get relief from nonprofits that offer free water system installations.

While the deal has been a long time in the making, the effort to bring safe drinking water into tribal members’ homes has taken on a new urgency in recent years due to droughts caused by climate change, the coronavirus pandemic and the battle among Southwestern states to secure their share of water from the river basin.

The country’s volatile politics and the looming presidential election are also top of mind for Indigenous leaders. The tribes will need both congressional approval and a presidential signature before the new agreement can take effect.

Some tribal officials see the Democratic administration of President Biden as more favorable to water rights claims and the protection of ancestral lands than Biden’s predecessor and presumptive Republican nominee, Donald Trump, though both as president have acted in support of expanding water access. In 2020, the Trump administration backed a deal between the Navajo Nation and Utah that settled all water rights claims in state and authorized about $220 million in federal funding to help build water infrastructure. Since Biden took office in 2021, his administration has directed hundreds of millions of dollars to Indigenous tribes for water projects.

In 2023, however, the majority-conservative U.S. Supreme Court dealt a blow to Navajo efforts to expand water access when it ruled that the federal government is not legally obligated to aid in the building of pipelines and other infrastructure to bring safe drinking water to reservation residents.

“Last year it was a hit to the belly that the (U.S. Supreme Court) was not going to help us,” Nygren said at the signing ceremony. “But now we have our own attorneys, water experts, hydrologists, and we can figure out how much water belongs to us.”

Under the finalized agreement, the Navajo will receive “a substantial amount of the Colorado River Upper Basin water, some Lower Basin water, all groundwater underlying the Navajo Nation, all surface water that reaches the Navajo Nation from the Little Colorado River, and all wash water that reaches the Nation south of the Hopi reservation,” according to the Navajo Nation Council.

The deal calls for the federal government to allocate $5 billion toward the building of critical infrastructure to link the territory’s surface water and groundwater sources to the communities that need them. It also gives the Navajo the flexibility to move Arizona water from the Colorado River’s upper basin to the lower basin and to divert water in New Mexico and Utah to Navajo communities in Arizona if that’s the closest source to those residents.

“Obviously, living on the Navajo reservation, we don’t have boundaries — this is just one piece of our homeland — so building out large infrastructure for water, sewer and electric lines, that’s huge,” said Joelynn Ashley, who chairs the Navajo Nation Water Rights Commission and represents areas that border the river.

Ashley said that while many Navajo have long depended on groundwater, contamination from uranium and arsenic, as well high salinity levels, make some of it unsafe to use. And some wells simply don’t yield enough water to meet demand.

“We just want to be able to use all of our water because we’ve got a lot of places where either water quantity or water quality is not there,” Ashley said.

Yazzie says the arrival of pipelines and water pouring from a tap in her home could not happen soon enough. She’s looking forward to the day when she doesn’t have to drive 16 miles each way to fill up on water for her family, as well as her 18 cows, 15 goats and two horses.

“It’s a hassle,” she said.

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved on our archive

Is the COVID-19 pandemic ongoing?

It depends on who you ask.

The World Health Organization ended the public emergency declaration over the virus in May 2023, while President Joe Biden declared the pandemic over in spring 2022. (Former President Donald Trump promised the reopening of the American economy by Easter 2020.)

The fact is COVID-19 is still here and its dangers are ever present for people young and old.

A March Gallup poll showed 59 percent of Americans believed the pandemic is over, but only 43 percent said their lives would ever return to what they were before the pre-2020 shutdowns.

“We can say as a general truth at this point in time, we’ve settled into COVID. It’s not going away,” Dr. Joe Suyama, an emergency medicine doctor with UPMC, said to the New Castle News for a story that appeared Monday.

Suyama noted 74,000 people died last year of COVID, while 44,000 died from the flu.

Those saying COVID is just like the flu or the common cold just isn’t accurate. It’s nearly twice as deadly as the flu and we know its effects linger far longer than most other respiratory diseases.

“COVID itself is not just the common cold for a lot of people,” Suyama said.

The easy solution is something we have heard for four years now — the best way to protect yourself, your family, your loved ones and your neighbors is to get vaccinated.

Is a vaccine a magic dose that prevents all diseases? No, but no vaccine is ever billed as such.

“(COVID vaccines) are not a repellent from getting it,” Suyama said. “But it is going to decrease the likelihood that you’ll be hospitalized or be severely sick from it.”

Vaccines are available from Pfizer, Moderna and Noravax. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found the COVID vaccines caused a 50-percent decrease in emergency room and urgent care visits compared to those with took no vaccines.

“COVID is still out there, and it’s still causing severe disease, and it’s still causing death at a much higher rate than the flu,” Suyama said. “If you take the flu seriously, you should take COVID seriously. Take them both seriously.”

We know COVID is still prevalent in New Castle. We’re also aware medicine surrounding COVID is more complex and easier to obtain than when the pandemic first began.

Vaccines are available at pharmacies for free with most insurances — at both local pharmacies and chains, like CVS and Walgreens — while the government is sending out more free tests at COVIDTests.gov.

The CDC’s current recommendation for people who test positive should stay home until they are fever-free for at least 24 hours. Two negative tests for those with symptoms and three tests for those without is the CDC’s new guidance.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Michael Moore's Substack:

Right now, if you know how to really read the polls, or if you have access to the various private and internal polling being conducted by and shared only amongst the elites, Wall Street, and Members of Congress, then you already know that this election was over weeks ago. Trump simply refused to believe that “Sleepy Joe” was no longer his opponent and that there was instead “some woman” claiming she was “Black” who was now going to pummel him on Election Day. He soon became unhinged, ranted for hours about Hannibal Lecter, Haitians cannibalizing your pets, and a nonstop drone of oral diarrhea spewing misogyny, racism and essentially claiming that if he loses “it will be the Jews’ fault.” 

The vast majority of the country, the normal people, have seen enough and want the clown car to disappear into the MAGA vortex somewhere between reality and Orlando. The swift and explosive momentum for Kamala Harris is unlike anything that’s been seen in decades. Which is why maybe at this point in my rant I just need to say out loud that which is being said to me in private by people I respect — and not just in whispers, but in excited tones of exuberance: That a new era is being born, one where caucasian is just one of the options but no longer the bossy pants of the world. Where it’s OK if you’re missing the lower right quadrant of the second X chromosome thus making it a “y” which means you’re never going to have your own fallopian tubes so just deal with it and keep your hands off the gender who has them. Simple.  An aggregate of top polls as of today shows that Harris will defeat Trump in the Electoral College count by 270 to 268. But I think we need more. We need to ensure that Trump loses in a landslide, with numbers so massive, the likes of which haven’t been seen since the entire country tuned in to watch Geraldo open up Al Capone’s vault. Because that’s the only way to guarantee his permanent removal from the public eye. We should settle for nothing less. 

[...] Since losing the debate to Harris, Trump’s momentum has come to a screeching halt. Even with Vance “winning” the debate on Tuesday night with his “charm,” “civility,” “politeness” and “the“ “Satanic” “laser rays” “shooting” “out” “from” “his” “eyes” “into” “our” “brains,” it did not help change anyone’s mind. Harris continues on her rocket ship, never slowing down and only increasing her popularity each day. Trump’s voting base is now severely depressed and more and more they have that sinking feeling as they realize there is no way now for Trump or the Astros to win. BUT… You and I know that there are always ways for him to win. We just don’t know what they are because we don’t have “666” inscribed on our foreheads in invisible ink. We do know that Trump has a stellar streak of pulling off the impossible — and those who have written him off have more than once lived to see the day where they must eat humble pie. It is never wise to do a victory dance on the two-yard line when Trump is your opponent.  So, each of us must still do our work to get out the vote and, most importantly, make sure Harris has a Democratic House and Senate elected next month to pass her/our legislation next year.

Michael Moore has some astute analysis on who is favored in the 2024 Presidential Elections. Moore is predicting a Kamala Harris victory.

He predicted Biden to win 2020 and Trump to win in 2016.

[ingek73]

Interview

Michael Moore on how Harris-Walz can defeat Trump: ‘Do weird and cringe until the debate, then nail him’

Edward Helmore

Progressive film-maker says he’s more optimistic than he’s ever been since Trump announced first run eight years ago

Thu 15 Aug 2024 11.00 BST

With Joe Biden looking for re-election Democrats feared they were looking at an electoral catastrophe. Now, with Biden dropping out and Vice-President Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket, it suddenly feels like it is Donald Trump who is staring at possible defeat.

The liberal film-maker and Democratic whisperer Michael Moore says he’s more optimistic than he has ever been since Trump stepped on to the escalator in Trump Tower to announce his first run for the presidency eight years ago.

“This isn’t just a sugar-high or what [recovering] heroin addicts call a pink cloud,” Moore says. “It was so depressing for so many weeks and then it was instantly not depressing. I am hopeful now but it’s ours to blow – and we have a history of blowing it.”

Moore, 70, has in recent years become something of an electoral sage. He predicted Donald Trump’s victory in 2016, in part because of the sense of political-cultural superiority Democrats emanated and because he had noticed that the campaign was fearful of inspiring Maga supporters. He predicted, too, that Democrats would buck the trend and be fine in the 2022 midterms.

In this election cycle he is in some ways in line with the pollster Nate Silver, who recently said that “the strategy of the Harris campaign should be to triangulate the strategy of Hillary 2016, the Harris 2020 primary campaign, and Biden 2024, and do the exact opposite.”

But Moore says he understands why Democrats are nervous that the Harris-Walz ticket could come apart, though it shows no current signs of doing so, particularly if Harris gets tarred with Biden’s unpopular “Bidenomics” or responsibility for his full-throated support of Israel’s war in Gaza.

“Biden, sadly, is going to be remembered for funding the war in Gaza and providing the armaments to Netanyahu, not arms for protecting Israel, but extra money to kill Palestinian civilians,” Moore says. He remains “saddened and surprised” that Biden, who had refused to meet Netanyahu last September, flew to Tel Aviv after the 7 October Hamas cross-border attack and hugged him.

“You can say what’s in a hug?” he says. “But ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce Neville Chamberlain to you. It doesn’t take much for history to see that in the moment you needed to display courage you did the opposite.”

But he’s cautiously optimistic that Harris is signaling a change of direction. She did not pick as expected the Pennsylvania governor, Josh Shapiro, who had harshly called out student protesters against the war in Gaza and settled a former employee’s claim that she was sexually harassed by a senior aide.

Harris, he applauds, went against the conventional wisdom, upending the predictions of many TV pundits, and chose “this guy from the midwest, a football coach who had offered to be adviser to the gay student group. It’s pretty stunning.”

And while as vice-president Harris has no power to speak against Biden on Israel, Harris has made her feelings plain. She declined to sit in on Netanyahu’s address to Congress, which echoed Pope Urban II’s 1095 call for the first crusade, instead traveling to a Zeta Phi Beta sorority meeting in Indianapolis.

“Couldn’t they have made up something that sounded important with foreign policy attached to it? No, She’s busy at a sorority meeting … and she refused the traditional diplomatic “grip-and-grin” after meeting with Netanyahu. It was very public.”

The first days of the Harris-Walz ticket have shown precisely the change of direction that Moore has argued for. The ominous but complicated “threat to democracy” anti-Trump platform has been dropped for “threat to freedom”. Trump’s folk story confabulations resist fact-checking, so that’s been refined to a kind of medieval textual charm, “weird”.

Jibes over JD Vance’s “couch capers” and eyeliner discussions work in much the same way. What Harris-Walz are doing is much as Moore advocated when he offered the Clinton campaign “satirical support” to come up with lines that would get under Trump’s thin skin, especially in a televised debate.

“I think I’m going to see what I was hoping for for eight years,” he says. “Once anybody gets under that thin skin anything can happen. On live TV? Trump could explode, start talking like a 12-year-old, though no offense to 12-year-olds, or get up and leave.”

But didn’t Democrats bet on the Biden-Trump debate being a success? And the Trump prosecution in New York? The Republican candidate’s polling and fundraising went up after both.

“It’s a holding pattern until she gets on that stage with him. I understand why people are nervous it might be a sugar high but Harris and Walz are people of substance. They’re being slow and cautious enough to get it together. It’s just been a couple of weeks. They are going to have to tell us what they’re going to do and hopefully come up with the right thing. And there will be mistakes.”

As the Harris-Walz campaign “humanize” the ticket it is clear that the November election represents, on the Democratic side, a generational shift.

“I’m so happy to hear Gen Z and X are over half the vote because it’s called facts and data,” Moore says, pointing out that the number of boomers over 65 who have died since 2016 is exceeded by Gen Z and millennials who have become eligible to vote. “How many of them do you think are going around in hats saying Make America Great Again”? They’ve never known it to be “great”, let alone “again”.

“It’s not just a cultural shift – it’s a generational shift. The boomers may not be the No 1 voters in this election. And that’s why Gaza is so important. Young people hate war and they’re totally against Biden and his support of the war.” Harris, he says, needs to tap into “affordable housing, student debt, peace and the dying planet”.

His prescription? “Do weird and cringe until the debate and then nail him,” Moore said. “But nail him with irony, satire and a simple way to point out the beyond weird absolute idiocy and insanity of what these two men are talking about. Reach them on a commonsense level so it doesn’t matter if you’re Democrat or Republican.”

“Once anybody gets under that thin skin anything can happen. On live TV? Trump could explode, start talking like a 12-year-old, though no offense to 12-year-olds, or get up and leave.”

[whatbigotspost]

I don’t know if an “apology” is what I’d like to see. But a good start might be if they were required for like a month to have every. single. host. start off every. single. show. with having to read a prepared statement like, “this network has been found beyond a doubt to be intentionally and maliciously lying. We have always known Biden won the 2020 election. We were manipulating you and pandering for ratings when we ever suggested otherwise. We are not a credible news source.”

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

David Rowe

* * * *

Fuck the media explanations that Trump won because he was talking to them about the economy, because he was talking to them primarily about himself in his bizarre monologues that also covered the dick size of a dead golfer whose career peaked sixty years ago, windmills killing birds, kids coming home from school having had their gender changed maybe during recess, and a whole lot of Hannibal Lecter apparently because in the broken jelly of his brain there was some kind of association between insane asylums and refugees seeking asylum, and on top of that a lot of threats against and menace to women and anyone who opposed him, juvenile insults, and a whole thing about sharks and batteries, and a certain amount of slurring words and a whole lot of words in no particular order conveying no particular meaning, along with the promise to put the world's richest man in charge of the economy, who in turn promises to wreck it.

I get that there's a lot of economic unhappiness and real struggle, but that didn't start with the Biden Administration, which gave people pandemic relief at the beginning of its term, but Republicans wouldn't let them renew it, which is why people remember being better off four years ago. Meanwhile the Harris campaign promised to help with in-home healthcare, the cost of housing, and raising the minimum wage, and I know no one knew that any of these campaigns had content because the media was too busy rewarming frozen scandals. But also a lot of people got good green jobs from the Inflation Reduction Act and a lot of people got debt forgiveness, both Biden administration things that began as, respectively, the Sunrise Movement's Green New Deal and the debt activism that emerged from Occupy Wall Street (I've been thinking back to Occupy Wall and how it created space in 2011 for people to reveal how crushed by housing, medical, and student debt they were--Harris went after predatory housing lenders after Occupy, when she was California's attorney general.) Biden, who clearly modeled himself after FDR, was hailed in some quarters as the first non-neoliberal president since Reagan came 44 years ago to destroy the New Deal and the Great Society and make the poor poorer and the rich richer.

It is its own form of disinformation, how the mainstream media settles on explanations about what just happened and why when they happen not to be true. And we heard the same bullshit in 2016 when mostly white people voted against their own economic interest for a racist, sexist, incompetent member of the 1% and middle class people claiming to speak for the working class insisted this was all economic dissatisfaction. Trump is a puppet for forces that will make ordinary peoples' lives far harder and then they will blame Antifa or immigrants or something and the media will repeat these ridiculous allegations as though they deserve serious consideration.

One point no one should forget: abortion is an economic issue for anyone who can get pregnant. Immigrant rights are not just an economic issue for immigrants but for the whole economy, which would fall apart without them.

Brookings Institute: "The Trump campaign decided that Harris’ stance on transgender issues was the Willie Horton of 2024 and invested heavily in negative advertising that dominated the airwaves throughout the South.1 Anecdotal evidence suggests that this campaign helped weaken Harris’ effort to portray herself as a common-sense center-left candidate rather than an emissary from San Francisco."

Wired: "Trump ran a campaign that stoked culture war grievances and divisions, and was defined by lies, a desire for vengeance, and, at times, threatening rhetoric. In social media posts he threatened mass arrests of his political opponents in revenge for “stealing the election” in 2020 (though evidence conclusively shows the 2020 election was not stolen). Lawmakers, election workers, school board members, federal agents, and judges have been repeatedly targeted over the years with violent threats by his supporters who believe they were acting on his behalf. Trump repeatedly promised his supporters he would “destroy” the deep state, invoking the popular conspiracy theory of a nefarious web of faceless bureaucrats working to destroy the US from within. He cast himself, alongside the people who stormed the Capitol on January 6 over election lies, as “political prisoners,” even “hostages” who were being persecuted by a “tyrannical” Biden administration."

Robert Hubbell: "Just as the media normalized Trump before the election, there is a wholesale effort to “normalize” the election results. Pundits are claiming the election was decided by voters’ concerns over inflation, immigration, or crime. Those issues are post-facto rationalizations offered by voters to conceal their real reasons for voting for a convicted felon and adjudicated sexual abuser over an eminently qualified candidate."

Brian Merchant, tech journalist extraordinaire: "Apart from Trump himself, there are few more obvious victors that Elon Musk; for $100 million or so and a few months’ display of unrestrained fealty, he just bought himself some real estate in the inner sanctum of Trumpworld. It may be the most fruitful investment he ever made, a bargain really. ...Suffice to say that Elon Musk is the closest that a Silicon Valley tech titan has been to the White House, in a position of overt and direct power. There is of course a long lineage of the Valley linking up with Washington for defense contracts, help in avoiding regulations, and other forms of material support—see: Malcolm Harris’s Palo Alto—but this is the next level. It could even, perhaps, be considered a logical culmination. It’s time to face facts. In Trump, Silicon Valley got what it wanted: A president that will kneecap antitrust efforts, embrace deregulation, and defang labor laws."

[Rebecca Solnit]