#what does joe biden plan to do about this

[ryuseitai]

today is such a chiaki day in my brain. i mean every day is like this in m y brain but its like overwhelming i keep feeling sick and short of breath.icant do this

[irnhero]

if i see one more article, post, or news anchor talking about how joe biden is old, i'm putting my fist through a window. i feel like i've gone through the fucking looking glass.

this is project 2025, trump's plan for what he'll do if elected. whatever you think is in there, it's worse. watch a breakdown of the highlights here. this man wants to unravel the fabric of our democracy for good - this all aside from his vitriolic hatred of poc, his determination to start ww3, and the fact that he can't string a sentence together without telling outrageous and easily verifiable lies. his administration will start their crusade to exterminate trans people on day one, and they won't stop there.

do not talk to me about how joe biden is old, as if that could ever matter to me more than my life or the lives of my friends and family. my little sister is 14, she's trans, and i don't know what to tell her when we talk about politics, because one of these people wants her dead and the other one is old and some of you are still acting like those problems are equals.

i can't fucking stand this. i'm not hearing it this time, we are not repeating 2016. refusing to vote is not an act of protest, it is an act of complacency, and our most vulnerable will suffer for your negligence. vote like your life depends on it, because for some of us, it really fucking does.

[ardentperfidy]

hot take but i actually think there's a fairly significant foreign policy divide between people who remember the obama syria red line failure and people who were too young or not dialed in enough to politics at the time

[qqueenofhades]

oh god is biden dropping out? i don't know what happens then

Jesus effing Christ.

Few thoughts:

The billionaire Democratic donors got their way, apparently. All I saw was that the big-dollar donors were secretly putting pressure on the rank-and-file Democratic elected officials (i.e. House and Senate) to denounce Biden or not get any more money, and other shameful backroom maneuvering to knife Biden. I will refrain (lol, no I won't) from speculating that billionaires of any political stripe feel threatened by Biden's increasingly progressive tax/wealth redistribution policies, and saw their chance after the bad debate performance to knife him. Because until further notice, I'm going to think that was the biggest factor.

I don't know if there's an actual health condition that made Biden agree it was the best time (in fucking July) to step down, but if this was an issue, there needed to be planning last year, at the earliest, to prepare for a new successor. I don't know what's going on. This is a clusterfuck on many, many levels.

However: it is true that this does change things and not necessarily only for the worse, as long as Harris is immediately confirmed as the new nominee and this stupid Democrats In Disarray nonsense, which is giving the media exactly what they want, is put to a fucking end. If Harris is also swept aside and the billionaire donors try to install their preferred "Centrist!!!" candidate (lol Manchin or some shit) with an equally antidemocratic closed-door Star Chamber convention, then yes, we're fucked. Because the Congressional Black Caucus and African American voters saw exactly what the rich white man billionaires were trying to do by torching Biden and then Harris, and they are not going to play ball with some Magical White Man replacement.

If Harris is immediately confirmed as the new nominee (and to the best of my knowledge Biden has endorsed her), then she has a chance of reinvigorating the race. There were a lot of Americans who did not want either Biden or Trump. I suspect they were fucking braindead, but so be it. Harris has apparently polled pretty and increasingly well in recent days (in some cases actually better than Biden) and again, there is no remotely small-d democratic alternative to her. The billionaire donors already trashed the duly elected (by the primary process) Democratic nominee. If they do the same to Harris, then yes. We will have Trump and there won't be any more democracy in this country on either side, because the Republican big-bucks donors will gleefully pick up where the Democratic big-bucks donors left off.

Jesus fucking Christ.

The message needs to be "Harris is Joe's successor, she is younger and already has four years of experience and is the only candidate." Anything else is a fucking gift from god to the Republicans, once more getting trashed after Trump's terrible RNC speech. Maybe she can then pick Whitmer or Shapiro (both popular and effective Democratic governors of swing states, MI and PA respectively) as a running mate, but the nominee has to be Kamala. There is no other fucking choice. This is already enough of a mess.

If that can happen, and the fucking donors can refrain from fucking it up, then... okay. It's not great, but it does change things. It makes the ticket younger. It makes it historic (first Black female president beating Trump would be amazing). It could reach people disenchanted with the current two-old-white-guys setup.

This is an incredible sacrifice on Biden's part and I only wish that I could believe he did it voluntarily, rather than being forced out by a small class of rich people worrying about his policies getting too progressive.

I wish him only the best and I recognize this decision was taken under extreme pressure. If we then lose to Trump, I hope everyone who forced Biden out burns in hell.

I was a diehard Biden supporter not because I loved the guy personally, but because he was the only choice for preserving democracy in America. The essential stakes of the election have not changed, even if the billionaires just knifed us in the fucking back, possibly to nobody's surprise, because R or D, they are not our friends.

Kamala is the only choice. I will now have to defend her as hard as I did for Biden. She needs to beat Trump. There is nothing else to it. If you think she can't, then you need to work at helping her do that. There is already enough calamity and doom. We do not have a choice. We cannot lose sight of what is at stake here.

Kamala Harris/Whitmer and/or Shapiro and/or Buttigieg 2024.

The end.

[unrelaxing]

From a country where voting is not a choice, but a duty, it's interesting seeing American discourse every four years on whether or not voting matters. This year there's an added layer, because Joe Biden has been supporting Israel's genocide against Palestine. Now there's a pervading sentiment - both in and out of the US - that voting for Joe Biden supports Palestinian genocide, and it's an American's moral duty to withhold their vote in support of Palestine.

I guess the question I ask is: how is withholding your vote effective activism?

If you don't vote, and Trump wins, he says he will deport pro-Palestine demonstrators. He says he supports Israel's right to defend itself. If you vote independent, and Trump wins the same thing happens.

If Biden wins, he will continue his support of Israel.

So: Is voting really the battleground for the Palestinian genocide, when either outcome leads down the same road?

And what other battles are being fought in this presidential race?

Gun laws - Biden passed "the most significant gun safety legislation in more than two decades", the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. It includes enhanced background checks for gun purchasers, and prohibits individuals convicted of domestic violence towards a romantic partner from purchasing a gun (wherein the past a 'boyfriend loophole' had existed, wherein the law only applied if an individual was convicted of domestic violence against a spouse or cohabitant). Trump has promised to overturn Biden's new laws.

Healthcare - Uninsured Americans are at an all-time low under Biden's administration, with only 7.6% of Americans being uninsured in the second quarter of 2023. The number of people who signed up to Obamacare in 2024 is at 21.3 million - and Trump plans to repeal it.

Climate change - Biden's Inflation Reduction Act invests 300 billion dollars towards clean energy. Electricity generation from renewable energy sources — including wind, solar and hydropower — surpassed coal-fired generation in the electric power sector for the first time in 2022, making it the second-biggest source behind natural gas generation. At a recent dinner with oil executives and lobbyists, the Republican promised to eliminate Mr Biden's new climate rules and environmental regulations if they donated $1bn to his campaign.

Much has been said about Trump's second term beyond the above three points. @batboyblog posted a very clear and concise graphic on Trump's plans for his second term.

The BBC has also posted about Trump's plans for his second term, which I'll screenshot:

Trump is now a felon, but I was really shocked to learn about how little impact this has on his ability to run as president. His supporters are likely to stay by his side, because they believe in these policies.

Biden does not have the same luxury. I don't think he should have the same luxury. Still, I feel like it's important to point out that Trump and Biden's opinions on Israel and Palestine align, but there are a plethora of other issues they do not align on. As a voter, as an activist, when given two political parties, why would you choose based on the similarities as opposed to the differences?

Ways to help Gaza.

Vetted gofundmes.

Other links to help Palestine.

[felixcloud6288]

Listen.

If you can vote, you need to get out and vote. You cannot boycott an election. Refusing to vote does not send the message you think it does. In fact, it sends the exact opposite message. If you refuse to vote, you're telling politicians that you are a demographic not worth appealing to.

If you care about reproductive rights and don't vote, politicians will not try to appeal to you.

If you care about LGBT protections and don't vote, politicians will not try to appeal to you.

If you care about a free Palestine and don't vote, politicians will not try to appeal to you.

If you care about police and prison reform and don't vote, politicians will not try to appeal to you.

If you care about immigrants and don't vote, politicians will not try to appeal to you.

Politicians will act to appeal to the greatest number of voters. If you do not vote, they will appeal to the people who will. And the people who want to take away birth control, and criminalize trans people, and support Israel's genocidal campaign, and want to militarize the police, and want to exile every non-white person WILL VOTE.

In November, there are only two choices that matter. You either vote for Joe Biden or you do not. Any vote not cast for him or a vote withheld is support for Donald Trump.

Joe Biden is a politician and an imperialist. He may support Israel, but as we've been seeing, he can be made to back down. If you are loud and you put pressure on him, he can be made to do what is right. And he knows that if he wins, it will be because the people didn't want Trump. So he will be more inclined to listen to the people.

Donald Trump is a dictator and a fascist. He does not respect the rule of law. He does not respect the will of the people. He does not respect anyone or anything. If he comes into power again, he plans on seizing permanent power, deporting people en-masse and stripping away everyone's rights.

And we have seen his response to protests. He has had protestors shot at. He will never yield to any amount of force. He will only respond with violence.

Fascism doesn't use tanks and armed forces to seize power. It seizes power through deception. Fascism uses the tanks and armed forces to keep its power after seizing it.

The majority of people DO NOT want what the Republicans are offering. The Republicans only have power because they have lied and cheated and manipulated everything. And we need to come out in a force great enough that no amount of foul-play can overcome.

All the Republicans have to offer is hatred. All they can do is divide us against each other. And they can only win by stripping the rights from the people they dehumanize.

No amount of moral conviction matters if you will not commit even the barest minimum effort.

No amount of protest or demonstration or internet posting matters if you do not vote.

If you refuse to vote because no candidate is the purest morally right choice that would solve everything, then you can take your WORTHLESS moral superiority and FUCK OFF!

Taking no sides is siding with whoever DOESN'T NEED YOUR HELP. And Trump and his fascist cronies DO NOT need your help.

I meanwhile am going to add what little strength I can to moving the US in the right direction.

[aashiqeddiediaz]

you know, after watching day 3 of the democratic national convention, i need to say something, especially to other muslims like me.

most of the muslim communities that i'm a part of have chosen to vote uncommitted, or independent, or sometimes, even trump. they refuse to give their vote to kamala harris and tim walz, because of the way the us has handled the war in gaza, and how they have been careless with acknowledging palestinian lives lost, how it was american bombs and american tax money that went towards funding this genocide. it's fucked up, and it's wrong, and there shouldn't be any debate on that.

and i am 100% in support of that anger. i am 100% in support of forcing america to stop funding this genocide. no one wants to keep seeing palestinian lives suffer. no one is free until we're all free, and i believe that to my very core.

my only concern is that where this anger is being placed, from 1 year to 11 weeks before the presidential election, is so scary. because the reality of the situation is that america has a bipartisan outlook. whoever gets the presidency is either democrat or republican. and every vote that doesn't go towards democracy (i.e. voting for kamala harris) inadvertently goes towards trump's big plan of project 2025, which is basically dictatorship. Even voting uncommitted, even voting independent. we cannot afford to elect trump for a second term, and voting anything other than democrat draws that line way too close, especially in swing states like michigan, pennsylvania, wisconsin, georgia.

yes, there are many issues that we wish joe biden would handle better. there are many ways that the democratic party has fucked up beyond repair. there are many ways the democratic party has refused to acknowledge the pain of people affected by their military people throughout the years, and we've been seeing it for years. this is not a new thing. this did not start on october 7th. we see it during pretty much every administration.

however, voting for your candidate should never be based on a singular issue. no political candidate is ever going to check every single box. and its so unfortunate that we have to always take the "lesser of two evils" approach when nominating our president, but that's the reality of the situation at this very moment. there are many other rights to be considered that are at stake this election, all of which trump is trying to remove. abortion bans, women's rights, healthcare, social security, climate change, to name a few.

(and, somehow, there's a belief that trump will lead to a ceasefire deal where biden-harris didn't? let me tell you that is never going to happen.)

does this mean we just stop protesting or pressuring? absolutely not. you NEVER stop, because if our votes are the ones that put the candidate in their position of power, then we expect results. we expect them to work towards what they promised. and we can't let up on reaching out to our local county offices and our state governors and escalating these issues further until someone takes notice and does something about them. we don't elect them and just leave them to do what they want. we keep them accountable. use that anger i was talking about.

but it also means not having tunnel vision. the election in november could very well mean the end of democracy if kamala harris doesn't win. this post is not me all giggly-happy over the democratic party, because trust me, i have my fair share of issues with them as well. this post isn't to tell you what to do, because i can't force you to vote blue. i can't force the community i'm in to change their minds about toss-up votes. but what i can do is put down plainly what's at stake this election. and that is, very simply, our right to choose everything.

so if you are eligible to vote and haven't registered, please do. if you haven't voted before because "what's the point", please see above what the point is. a handful of votes is enough to flip the outcome of an election, especially with the electoral college.

and if you're still on the fence on whether to vote for kamala or trump, hopefully this post gives a little bit more perspective in the most streamlined way i could manage without bogging you down with statistics and numbers.

the choice is yours.

[foxgirlmoth]

Okay, lets go through this apparent list of positives that Biden is in favor of.

Trans Rights: There have been multiple laws within states to fully close off especially trans kids rights to medical treatments and more. This is extremely current. Biden puts in minimal effort to look like he's doing anything at all for trans and queer rights, and there haven't really been any efforts aside from doing one or two proposals that immediately get shot down, and he's more than okay with that, hence why there's no longer really any push for this shit still. If you're trans, you can't piss in Utah without the risk of getting a fine right now. Even though these are state laws, the fact that there's been nearly zero effort federally to address this besides the title IX rule, speaks a lot about priorities in this area.

Abortion Access: Are we just forgetting the whole Roe V Wade getting overturned thing that happened in 2022? Are you really trying to say that this is good for abortion access? Abortion access has gotten actively worse.

Environmental Reform: Biden has endorsed extreme oil drilling projects and in general oil companies still love him! Not to mention the train crashes which we'll get to later.

Healthcare Reform: Covid-19 is still around and is sadly predicted to stay around for a long while. Healthcare is still private and a competitive field in the US and that causes major issues as well. If you look this up, you see articles titled along the lines of "Biden has lowered the cost of insurance" and meanwhile it just dropped in 2020 once during the pandemic but has been growing in cost.

Prescription Reform: Reading into this, not much has changed, which isn't surprising under genocide Joe. Drugs in the US are still higher than anywhere else in the world, and with healthcare issues still abundant, this is still a big issue.

Student Loan Forgiveness: Student debt is still extremely high in the US, and while Biden has rolled out some plans for forgiveness, it's a fraction of the debt, and he primarily uses the whole thing to win over swing states. This is a dangling carrot that provides very little overall.

Infrastructure Funding: Train crashes from 2020-present, worldwide, but notice the amount of US crashes! Neat! Quite literally just look up train crashes in the US during his presidency, there's too many to link here. It is also important to remember that Biden signed a bill to prevent rail strikes, preventing a lot of pressure to the government and the economy, which would have been a GOOD THING. Seriously, this guy has fucked up our environment and our rights in multiple ways.

Advocating Racial Equity: Structural racism within the US is still a huge problem, Biden hasn't addressed much. Also people are still in cages on the Mexico/US border (Which has been maintained by every president in office since it was established), with a very recent crackdown on the border.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: Just. Look at the racial equity and trans rights sections above. Biden does the bare minimum, loves focusing on swing states, and all around uses the ol' carrot on a stick.

Vaccines and Public Health: Once again look above at sections on healthcare, abortion access, and prescription reform. Its bad. Remember how Covid-19 vaccines aren't being continued for free?

Criminal Justice Reform: This is just structural slavery still. Disproportionate amounts of black people are incarcerated, police are still heavily funded under Biden. He does not care about reforming the justice system, he even supports cops breaking up campus protests! Cool!

Military Support for Israel: Yup! Both sides suck! Biden has a very long history of sure hating Arabic countries though! He's done nothing but ship weapons and participate in the genocide of Palestinian people. Would Trump also do this? Yes. Does this mean this is an issue you should just drop and call a non-issue? No, what the hell are you talking about.

Israel/Hamas Ceasefire: Netanyahu has no plans to accept any actual ceasefire, yet Biden still provides weapons and support. Wow! That sure is weird? I wonder if Biden really cares about a ceasefire or how he just looks publicly.

Biden is not a good president, much less a good human being. You provided such a flimsy chart with zero resources or support behind you, and it just feels like people are just making shit up at this point. Get your heads out of the liberal cesspool you grew up in.

[kineticpenguin]

At my most cynical, I'd say the Democrat's apparent lack of a plan is the plan.

Once Ruth Bader-Ginsburg died, it should've been perfectly obvious what was coming down the pipe. The Democrat response was to wait until Roe v Wade was struck down and then act surprised.

Why? Surely they're not that incompetent. Maybe it's because they knew that ending Roe would make Republicans the dog that caught the car. The GOP is busy tearing itself apart not just over loyalty to Trump, but now also about how hard abortion should be banned, if at all. Oh, a 10-year-old rape victim had to travel out of state to get an abortion? Guess she should've thought of that and voted for Hillary in 2016. We hope you've learned your lesson, plebs.

Good ol' tough-on-crime Blue Dog Joe Biden is too old to give a shit about reelection. He's already got what he wants: "President" on his tombstone. He has been ignoring the polls because if he loses, he goes home to spend his final days eating ice cream and petting his dogs. The worst thing his constituents could do to him is re-elect him and make him do the job for another four years or right up until he croaks, whichever comes first. He cannot be pushed to the left because nobody has any leverage against him. This leaves him perfectly free to engage in his one remaining, true political passion: Genociding anyone the Israelis don't like.

This behavior is acceptable to Democrat party leadership because they are convinced that Trump cannot win the election, and even if he does, then we go through another cycle of the American people being punished for their disloyalty with more disastrous Republican policy. Playing the long game, they are confident that in the unlikely event of a 2024 loss, by 2028 their constituents will be chastened and come back to vote blue no matter who.

[klbmsw]

Superstar Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg goes viral for a knockout takedown of Donald Trump's collapsing presidential campaign.

This is one for the books…

"I think you were exactly right to describe it as distraction. The challenge of course is you have to say something if he attacks the service of military service members who earned the Medal of Honor," Buttigieg said to MSNBC's Joe Scarborough.

"If he, you know, goes to the National Associaton of Black Journalists and blurts out something racist, obviously you have to deal with that," said Buttigieg. "But you have to deal with that quickly and then come right back to our message."

"Because I do think this is a kind of strategy. You might ask why would a politician do things like that but you know going all the way back to the days of him denigrating the service of John McCain, it's very clear that he does this for a reason," he continued.

"It's a twofold reason," Buttigieg explained. "One, is he wants people talking about him. And then two, he wants people not talking about the difference between our agenda and his agenda especially when you look at Project 2025."

"It's an amazing thing that Project 2025 is kind of the scandal of the year for the Republicans, the thing that they have had to do the most damage control around," he went on.

"Because look at what Project 2025 is. It's just their policies. It's nothing but a write-up of what they plan to do and they really don't want the American people focused on how Trump is about tax cuts for the rich and we're trying to make sure we have a fairer tax code," said Buttigieg.

"Or Donald Trump demolished the right to choose in this country. Now, Kamala Harris will lead the work to restore that right to choose," he continued.

"Or any other issue from climate to gun safety to education. You name it. Where the American people strongly agree with us and strongly disagree with him," he went on. "They don't want us talking about that. They don't want us talking about his record, results that even if you go by the measures that conservatives tend to pay the most attention to — like crime rates — that was worse under Donald Trump."

"If you're one of those folks who thinks of the economy in terms of the stock market — you know there's a lot more to the economy than the stock market but to some people that's pretty much the same thing — the DOW and S&P were worse under Donald Trump than they were under Biden and Harris," said Buttigieg.

"Energy production! One of the things you hear Republicans talk the most about. Domestic energy production is higher under Biden and Harris than it was under Trump,” he continued. “He can't afford for us to be talking about that so every couple days he's going to blurt out something outrageous so that we're talking about that instead."

As usual, Buttigieg's analysis is incisive and spot-on. Trump has no popular policies to run on so he's resorting to cheap tricks and distractions.

Meanwhile, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are offering a vision of a brighter future. Under their leadership, America will flourish and leave the fascist MAGA movement in

[reasonsforhope]

Btw, if anyone cares to know, my position on Biden and the 2024 election is this:

Starting September* 1, 2024, I will be doing whatever I can to make sure that Trump does not get a second term as president

Until that day, I'm going to be doing whatever I can to push for an end to the genocide in Gaza and an immediate ceasefire, and that includes criticizing, protesting, and lambasting Biden for funding and providing weapons for Israel's genocide

ETA: I will still be posting about significant good things the Biden administration has done, though, because some of it is a really big deal that people deserve to know about

ETA: But I will not be defending Biden from any criticism around Palestine/Israel/war crimes

*This originally said October 1st but someone pointed out to me that there are a few states where early voting starts in late September, including a couple swing states, so I changed it because that's a very good point

I don't plan to tell anyone not to vote for Biden in the meantime, myself, because shitty two party system and I'm really serious about Trump not getting reelected

But I'm also not going to do anything to discourage people who are seriously rallying against Biden, because he is, you know, literally bypassing Congress to make sure he can fund crimes against humanity

I never want to diminish that reality.

And more than that: If we want genocide to actually be a dealbreaker for politicians and presidents... then we need to start acting like it could be.

--

Details/related thoughts:

I will still be posting about good things Biden and his administration are doing, because they are the ones running the US government and Congress is super deadlocked, so a lot of the national-level good news in the US has been done by his administration, and I'm not going to stop posting about that good news

Shout-out to the anon who accused me of being a US government propagandist with a whole PR team bc I posted about Biden a few days in a row. I promise you I'm blogging from my bed in my pjs and do not have a PR team lol

Also, for people who don't think we should be spreading serious criticism about Biden, for fear of Trump winning in 2024: I hear you--that's an incredibly valid fear. I've struggled with that myself, in the process of coming to this(/these) decision(s). But consider this: it's better that we really pile on the criticism and pressure now, because a) people are dying, and b) Biden's chances will be much worse if Israel is still bombing/decimating Gaza on election day

Relatedly, for anyone who's tempted to think Trump would be better when it comes to the Gaza genocide, again, it's really understandable to want to put your hope in any viable alternative. However, I promise you that is not going to happen. Joe Biden at least conditionally gives a couple shits about human life. Trump doesn't. Remember Trump's Muslim ban? In all likelihood, Trump would just tell Israel to bomb Gaza harder and ban Palestinian refugees from entering the US

Last thing on Trump: maybe this is naive of me, but for a lot of reasons, I'm not actually particularly worried about Trump winning in 2024. If I was, I might have made some different calls here. I have a few asks about this in my inbox and will probably make a post at some point about the reasons why, but yeah, Democrats have mostly been wanting to run against Trump instead of DeSantis or Haley or whoever for some very real reasons

You're welcome to disagree with me/this post in any direction, btw

Seriously, I'm just a random person who doesn't speak for anyone besides myself and my own blog. I'm not saying these are categorically the right answers, or that any of this is what everyone should be doing. This is simply the system I have settled on (right now) for how I personally want to handle all of this

You're welcome to disagree with me but please don't send me any angry asks about any of it. Not that I in any way get a lot of those, thankfully! But yeah, this isn't something I'm interested in debating, this is mostly for notification/explanation purposes

[luckykittysshowerthoughts]

I genuinely don’t understand undecided voters in this election. I can understand the hardcore Trumpers being too far up his ass to see what’s going on, but I truly don’t understand the outsiders and neutral parties who don’t seem to understand the stakes here. I know neither of our options are good, but the lesser evil is so obvious.

Do I trust Biden? No. Do I think he’s mentally fit to be President? No. But I’d much, MUCH rather waste four years on him helplessly floundering in our political hellscape and accomplishing absolutely nothing than see someone actively and knowingly dismantling our democracy.

Did we all just forget about the January 6th insurrection? It’s only been three years since we all saw it live on TV; were we even watching the same thing?

Are we all just ignoring Project 2025, its plans for christofascist policies and the way it ties far-right Republicans to foreign meddling?

What about every single violent, hateful, incendiary, fascist thing that’s come out of Trump’s mouth in the past eight years? Were none of us listening?

At least with Biden’s incompetence, we can rely on his cabinet members to pick up the slack. We can also rely on him to NOT further saturate the Supreme Court with far-right nutjobs if another justice dies or retires. Even just getting another vaguely left-leaning or even dead-center moderate person on the Supreme Court would make his presidency worth it in my eyes. Given the current court’s mass-overturning of important human rights precedents, I’d argue the Supreme Court is far more important than the presidency right now, and the only way to change that is with a non-extremist President.

Incompetence and lack of initiative can be compensated for. You cannot, however, fix malice. You cannot fix that Trump will go out of his way to be dangerous and fuel his ego above all else no matter what the people around him say, and that many of the people around him are either spineless enablers or actively cheering him on. You can’t fix that. That is far, FAR worse and more insidious than a bumbling fool.

And don’t lecture me on Israel and Palestine. We all know every single one of those aid bills would have still passed under Trump. he's been in Israel's pocket since long before October 7th. And he would’ve said the quiet part out loud, too; we all know exactly how he feels about Middle Easterners. I don’t say this to defend Biden; I say this to iterate that there is absolutely no world in which letting Trump retake office will make things any better in regards to the genocide in Palestine. The things our congress and Joe Biden are complicit in are absolutely despicable, but destroying our own democracy to prove a point does absolutely nothing for the people of Palestine. We unfortunately can’t help them with our ballots this year, but we CAN help our fellow Americans. And many of our own people are in genuine danger if Trump wins this election.

I don’t understand how it’s even a question. For the love of god, for the love of our democracy and our most vulnerable people, VOTE BIDEN.

[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. 

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Adam Gabbatt and Ed Pilkington at The Guardian:

Anger and vitriol took center stage at New York’s Madison Square Garden on Sunday night, as Donald Trump and a cabal of campaign surrogates held a rally marked by racist comments, coarse insults, and dangerous threats about immigrants. Nine days out from the election, Trump used the rally in New York to repeat his claim that he is fighting “the enemy within” and again promised to launch “the largest deportation program in American history”, amid incoherent ramblings about ending a phone call with a “very, very important person” so he could watch one of Elon Musk’s rockets land. The event at Madison Square Garden, in the center of Manhattan, had drawn comparisons to an infamous Nazi rally held at the arena in 1939. Tim Walz, Kamala Harris’ running mate, said there was a “direct parallel” between the two events, and the Democratic National Committee projected images on the outside of the building on Sunday repeating claims from Trump’s former chief-of-staff that Trump had “praised Hitler”.

There was certainly a dark tone throughout the hours-long rally, with one speaker describing Puerto Rico, home to 3.2m US citizens, as an “island of garbage”; Tucker Carlson mocking Harris’ racial identity; a radio host describing Hillary Clinton as a “sick bastard”; and a crucifix-wielding childhood friend of Trump’s declaring that Harris is “the antichrist”. The Puerto Rico comments, made by Tony Hinchliffe, a podcaster with a history of racist remarks, were immediately criticized by the Harris-Walz campaign. Ricky Martin, the Puerto Rican popstar who has more than 18m followers on Instagram, wrote in a post: “This is what they think of us. Vote for @kamalaharris.” Trump campaign spokesperson Danielle Alvarez in a statement said “this joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign.”

But that could prove problematic in Pennsylvania, where the majority of the swing state’s 580,000 eligible Latino voters are of Puerto Rican descent. Both campaigns have been trying to appeal to Latino voters in the final weeks of the campaign, and Harris had visited a Puerto Rican restaurant in Philadelphia earlier on Sunday, where she outlined plans to introduce an “economic opportunity taskforce” for Puerto Rico. The pugnacious mood didn’t change once Trump began speaking, as the former president quickly repeated his pledge to “launch the largest deportation program in American history”.

Trump continued his frequent rants about immigration and claimed that a “savage Venezuelan prison gang” had “taken over Times Square”, which will come as a surprise to anyone who has recently visited the New York landmark. The former president also stated, wrongly, that the Biden administration did not have money to respond to a recent hurricane in North Carolina because “they spent all of their money bringing in illegal immigrants, flying them in by beautiful jet planes”. Trump’s usual dystopian threats were on offer, as the 78-year-old expanded on his claims about “the enemy within” – a group of political opponents that he has said he will set the military on if elected. “We’re just not running against Kamala. I think a lot of our politicians here tonight know this. She means nothing, she’s purely a vessel that’s all she is,” Trump said. “We’re running against something far bigger than Joe or Kamala and far more powerful than them, which is a massive, vicious radical-left machine that runs today’s Democrat party. They’re just vessels.”

[...] “There’s a direct parallel to a big rally that happened in the mid-1930s at Madison Square Garden. And don’t think that he doesn’t know for one second exactly what they’re doing there.” The Trump campaign reacted furiously to the accusations, describing Clinton’s comments as “disgusting”. One of the few people to reference the 1939 rally on Sunday was Hulk Hogan, who emerged to wrestling music, spent several seconds struggling to rip off his shirt, then claimed: “I don’t see no stinkin’ Nazis in here”. After a night of fire and fury, it will be up to the American voters to decide.

The MSG Trump Rally in NYC on Sunday was nothing more than a modern-day Nazi rally for the brainwashed MAGA cultists, as Donald Trump and various MAGA hacks launched hateful racist, unhinged, and bigoted tirades.

See Also:

The Guardian: Racist remarks and playing to the base: key takeaways from Trump’s MSG rally

HuffPost: Fascist At The Garden

[kindwarrior]

Tucker Carlson is Outing Obama as Gay. But Everyone is Missing the Big Story. I’m Obama’s College Classmate. I’ve Been Trying to Warn America for 15 years!

By Wayne Allyn Root

I’m Barak Obama’s college classmate at Columbia University, Class of ’83. I’m also the author of the #1 bestselling hardcover book in America in 2012, “The Ultimate Obama Survival Guide.”

I’ve always had Obama’s number. I understand what makes him tick. I understand his goals.

First let’s get the “gay issue” out of the way. I’ve reported on both my radio and TV shows for 15 years that my wealthy, connected friends in Chicago have always said, “Obama frequented gay bath houses and gay clubs. Everyone in the know, knows Obama is gay.”

Now that we’ve heard from Obama’s biographer that Obama wrote about his daily gay fantasies, I think it’s pretty clear my Chicago pals were right. Tucker Carlson is onto something!

But gay is not the issue. The issue here is fraud. If Obama is in fact gay, then he was lying to the American people from day one. He portrayed himself as a happily married family man with a wife and two beautiful young daughters. That’s called fraud.

If America had known the truth in 2008, does anyone honestly think Obama would have been elected president?

But all of this is small potatoes. This is not the big story.

Why does any of this matter now? Because Joe Biden is a brain-dead puppet. This is the third term of Obama. The proof is we are all reliving the nightmare Obama economy. Great for Wall Street and billion-dollar multi-national corporations. But a disaster for the American middle class and Main Street.

Second, Biden is fading fast – and everyone can see it. At the same time Biden’s cognitive health is in freefall, all of his corruption from the past is pouring out of the closet. Biden is finished. He is toast. He will never make it to 2024.

Sometime this fall Biden will have a very public “episode” and be hospitalized. Soon thereafter he (or Jill) will announce he is stepping down for “health reasons.”

Who will replace him? Either Michelle Obama or Gavin Newsom. But whoever it is, Obama will be calling the shots from his nearby Washington DC mansion. That’s why this story matters.

I’ve had Obama pegged from the first day. Obama is the ultimate “Manchurian Candidate.” Gay is unimportant. What matters is he was groomed to be president by the Deep State and communist, fascist, globalist enemies of the United States. What matters is Obama is a radical Marxist tyrant carrying out the destruction of America.

Obama was tame in his first two terms. He was “boiling the frog slowly.” But Trump ruined his plan. Now Obama is trying to destroy this country as fast as he can before Trump has a second chance to undo the damage. And at the same time, Obama is coordinating the attacks on Trump to either imprison him, kill him, or disqualify him.

My guest on my show, “America’s Top Ten Countdown” on Real America’s Voice TV last week was former Illinois Governor Rod “Blago” Blagojevich. Blago’s Governor’s mansion was raided by an early morning FBI Swat team. Sound familiar?

I pointed out to “Blago” that Obama’s fingerprints were all over his frame job… and FBI SWAT raid… and long prison sentence. Obama set him up. Obama took away his freedom. I asked him to comment. Blago reported, “Obama set up the meeting that led to my arrest.”

Do you get it now? It’s the exact same M.O. as what’s happening to President Trump. The same FBI raids, persecution, frame job. The same weaponization of government to destroy Obama’s political adversaries.

I’ve always said the key to understanding Obama was his time at Columbia University.

First, there is the “Ghost of Columbia” mystery. I was a Pre Law, Political Science major. So was Obama. He had to be in all the same classes as me. But he was never in one class. I never met Obama, never saw him, never heard of him, never met anyone at Columbia who has.

Obama got in, so why didn’t anyone ever see him? My educated guess is Obama was in the Soviet Union studying communism. Columbia had a “sister school” in Moscow. That would be the only real answer as to why Obama was rarely if ever seen at Columbia. He was being groomed way back then by the enemies of America.

Secondly, at Columbia we learned a plan to destroy America called “Cloward Piven.” I’ll bet Obama spent two years in the Soviet Union at our “sister school” becoming the world’s expert. Look around. Everything happening in America today is Cloward Piven…

The open borders bringing millions of foreigners into our country, changing our demographics forever.

The explosion of welfare and bailouts.

The Green New Deal.

The destruction of our military.

The end of the dollar as world reserve currency.

The plans for pandemic lockdowns, climate change lockdowns and Central Bank Digital Currency.

The censorship, banning of dissent, and weaponization of government against conservatives and Christians. Defund the police.

The vicious criminals let out without bail.

Critical Race Theory and Transgender brainwashing.

Persecution of PTA parents.

Conservatives and Christians classified as “domestic terrorists.”

The arrest of political opponents.

87,000 new IRS agents.

It’s all about Cloward Piven and communist-level control.

Sound familiar? It’s what Obama the “Manchurian Candidate” learned in the Soviet Union from the best. This man was groomed from day one by the communist and globalist enemies of America. He was sent to destroy us.

Now he’s working behind the scenes to finish the job. He is the man who ordered the spying on Trump. The framing of Trump. Now he’s the man directing the nonstop government attacks against Trump. Just as he did to Blago.

So, Obama being gay is the least of it. America is being destroyed. Obama is at the root of every evil thing happening.

[time-being]

Another week, another bunch of Biden's lies

Genocide Joe now says he's worked out a great cease-fire for Israel. Israel, of course, says it's going to slaughter Gazans for 7 more months. (https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/top-israeli-official-says-fighting-in-gaza-likely-to-last-at-least-another-7-months/ar-BB1nhivp)

Read the lies here: https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/05/31/politics/biden-middle-east-remarks

There isn't any more reason to believe this than the falsified NSM-20 report (https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/30/stacy-gilbert-us-state-department-israel-gaza-aid)

Or than Biden's supposed "red line" on Rafah (https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2024/05/israel-tests-red-lines-rafah-what-will-biden-tolerate)

Or the worthless pier, which wasted a month and then lasted for about a week, while delivering very little aid (and some military equipment).

And Biden continues to personally deny that Israel is commiting genocide, while he promotes racist lies about Arabs and ancient evils.

This is just a campaign speech. It doesn't mean anything.

This isn't good enough.

If you are in Biden and the Democrats' political coalition, then do what you want. I'm not gonna tell you how to vote or not to vote.

I will tell you to make a plan for when he treats your rights and your humanity the way he does Gazans. What will you do when he turns his back on queer rights and reproductive rights?

But I'm not in his coalition. My family aren't people to him. We are just pawns and collateral damage. An acceptable sacrifice.