News and Current Events - 2023 +

[Jeff Wrangler]

The Final 2024 Election Tally is Almost In. It Should End the MAGA Mandate Myth.
There’s going to be a reckoning about the distance between what the swing voters who gave Trump this majority were voting for and what they’re about to get.
by Chris Hayes
https://www.msnbc.com/top-stories/latest/MAGA-mandate-myth-rcna181039
From the plan to use the military to forcibly expel millions of migrants from the country

You know, the thought came to me last night, If they do this, how many citizens are going to get caught up in it just because they're black or brown?

[fritzkep]

It won't matter to the base, and they're the only ones who count to the FF.

[gattaca]

^^^ Yeap.. the chart above is telling about the mentality involved in those states.   I'd wager the education or lack thereof in general is driving those stats. 
^^^ Yeap.. The farmers in many locales and especially in CA have already been warning that our fresh food supply will be severely impacted up because of mass deportations.... all throwing more gas on inflation.

Hang on it's going to be a rough ride.

[fritzkep]

No doubt FF's people are happy because they think it will only affect California and not other states like Texas. And they ignore any idea other than that their ideology will protect them from being affected by an increase in the price of food items.

Or else they're willing to hurt themselves with the hope that it will hurt the people of California more.

[gattaca]

^^^ That's part of the issue.  The myopic focus of "getting my way at any cost (a pack with the devil incarnate)"... but my bad decisions are "not going to impact me" b/c the GoS said so.

LOL. The gullibility of this electorate who voted for the GoS really is quite high.  What's the old saying, "There's a sucker born every minute...."  In this case, a lot.

These impact will ripple and ramp up across the US - anywhere there's a need for "lower cost" labor - farming, chicken, and other animal processing plants, hog farms.  That means many of the GOP gerrymandered southern states (TX, FL, AL, GA, MI, ....)  that voted for the orange turd are going to feel a lot of pain when prices escalate and shortages appear for fresh produce b/c it's rotting on the vine and in the fields!  We will see increasing issues within the health care industry too b/c there's  lot of "off the book" health care help privately hired to care for the very people (silents and boomers) who voted for the orange turd.  The electorate has made the bed, now we _ALL_ have to sleep in it. 

Gonna be a rough ride.  My hope is that shit hits the fan such that enough of the electorate wakes up for the mid-terms and at least returns control of congress to the saner Dems.  For that to happen though, they will need to seek out the truth in reliable sources and not listen to the BS being piped in from Russia, China, and others via "social media".   And of that I have little hope.   I reminded someone the other day the Germans elected Hitler.  We may be seeing history repeating itself.  I have no doubt my grandparents are spinning in their graves as are all those young men (and women) who died in WWI/WWII defending our democracy.  V>

[Jeff Wrangler]

I guess gullibility is the word for it. The Big Turd tells them he's going to make things more affordable  for middle- and lower-class working people, and they believe him because they hear what they want to hear, with no comprehension that kicking out the people who pick the fruits and vegetables and imposing tariffs on imported goods will just raises prices.

[Lyle (Mooska)]

I thought this youtube segment I watched yesterday was quite eye opening.

The topic:
Michael Steele is joined by John Fugelsang, Tara Setmayer and Symone Sanders-Townsend to discuss how Kamala Harris' campaign compared to other U.S elections and America's relationship with news and media today.

I've been of the mind that one big reason Democrats are at a disadvantage is that they don't have a big enough presence like the right-wing news echo system does.They have Fox News pumped 24/7 into the ether as well as the right wing podcasters and right wing radio spoon feeding the masses. (We need to outlaw foreigners, like Rupert Murdoch, infiltrting our political system.) The left wing has been relying on the "mainstream" media sources more or less and this election proves how out of touch they are in the way they cover national elections, or don't cover them; I never really thought that before, but it was so obvious to me this year. The mainstream media is more corporate media interests, out for themselves, nowadays.

The people in the video are two former Republicans (Michael Steele used to be head of the RNC), another is an MSNBC host and the 4th is John Fugelsang. John hosts a left-wing radio broadcast on Xirius XM radio. He used to be an actor and at one time hosted America's Funniest Home Videos. (No kidding!) I was surprised one time to see him on a youtube video and how intelligent he is about left-wing politics. He's a force for good in that area, but as the right wing has countless people like this, the left does not.

P.S.: I say this now after linking videos all year, but a lot of them have click-bait titles or headlines to get you to notice or look at the video. For instance, this one is called: America's Not Man Enough to Make a Woman President.
But the content is better than this might lead you to believe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDsl528AdFo

[Lyle (Mooska)]

Trump Is FURIOUS At Reports Showing He Didn't Even Win 50% Of The Vote
Farron Cousins explains the REAL numbers that show that Trump is still as pathetic as ever, even if he won.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJ1lCtaHklk

[Vic]

Nice! So only 23% of Americans voted for him... and he didn't even make it to the 50% of the actual voters.
But of course it was the "biggest win in over a 100 years"... 

So losers can still win if people don't step up.
Farron is right, it's very important to go out and vote.

[Jeff Wrangler]

This morning's home-town newspaper included an appreciation (originally published in the Philadelphia Inquirer) for Bob Casey's work in the Senate. As I read this article, I got the feeling that his campaign suffered from the same thing that I've come to feel that Biden has suffered from--not enough touting the stuff they actually got done. I was left with the impression that while you wouldn't necessarily call them "behind the scenes" guys, they worked to get things done and weren't flamboyant about their achievements. (Maybe they should have been at least a little bit more.    )

(Hypothetical example: "See this bridge? Biden got it built!")

[Lyle (Mooska)]

I got the feeling that his campaign suffered from the same thing that I've come to feel that Biden has suffered from--not enough touting the stuff they actually got done.

The current maga party is only interested in demonizing the other side and praising themselves...constantly...twenty-four/seven. Does most of the voting public know that the work of Government is supposed to be inherently boring. The public is not supposed to be up on every  s i n g l e  thing the President and Congress is doing every day. They're supposed to be living their lives day to day. An actual President doesn't have time to do rallies to flatter himself while he is in office like the cretin did during his time, and then he didn't go away, he did it all through Biden's term in office (the news covered the cretin more than Biden all that time). Do these same people know what their Governor is doing each and every day? I'll wager a good amount of them don't even know who their Governor is.

The Democrats have a chance to change this around a bit when all those construction projects happening because of Biden are started and/or finished during the next year when the cretin will surely take credit for them if the Democrats do not counter that with some truth. They really need a PR firm or start one at the DNC.

[Jeff Wrangler]

The Democrats have a chance to change this around a bit when all those construction projects happening because of Biden are started and/or finished during the next year when the cretin will surely take credit for them if the Democrats do not counter that with some truth. They really need a PR firm or start one at the DNC.

I have little to no faith that they will do this. They do indeed need a PR firm.

[Jeff Wrangler]

So Joe has pardoned Hunter. The hypocritical Trumpite claims about the weaponizing of the Justice Department followed shortly.

[Lyle (Mooska)]

I have little to no faith that they will do this. They do indeed need a PR firm.

Ben Wiker is the chair of the Democratic Party in Wisconsin and I've seen him interviewed several times before.
This guy is always upbeat, which is a plus, and he has a good track record in turning around things in Wisconsin and he's throwing his hat in the ring to be the DNC chairman. You can watch an interview he did with Brian Tyler Cohen about this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egCztbffYqs&t=604s

Or read the statement from his website:  (or do both!)


UNITE. FIGHT. WIN.

Today, the country we love needs the Democratic Party to be stronger. To unite. To fight. And to win.

In Wisconsin, we run a permanent campaign. We organize and communicate year-round, in every community—and it works. We've ended GOP control and unrigged our state. 

What has made a difference here can make a difference everywhere. So I'm running for Chair of the Democratic National Committee—to UNITE, FIGHT, and WIN across every state and territory in our country.

UNITE.

We must unite our Party around long-term plans to organize, recruit, and build teams to compete at every level in every state. We need a reckoning—not recriminations—about what works and what needs to change. We win by growing our big tent and focusing on the values and the fights that bring us, and most Americans, together—and defeat the divide-and-conquer attacks of GOP oligarchs.

FIGHT.

What we fight for shows voters who we are. But we don't win if voters only get their news about Democrats from Republicans. To make clear that Democrats are on the side of working families everywhere, we have to shape the information environment, training and deploying great communicators to authentically deliver the most effective messages in every place and on every platform.

WIN.

We have a moral obligation to win—because the real measure of our work is the difference it makes in people's lives. That means competing to win at all levels—in local, state, and federal races, in red, purple, and blue states alike. This means recruiting talented staff and volunteers, raising a ton of money, and getting resources to the people who can use them best, on the front lines.

[Lyle (Mooska)]

So Joe has pardoned Hunter. The hypocritical Trumpite claims about the weaponizing of the Justice Department followed shortly.

"No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter's cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son — and that is wrong," Biden said.

I felt some disappointment that Biden did this because he said he would not, but then I thought of what I'd heard so much: that if Hunter Biden were not the President's son and just some average person accused of what he was accused of that his case would never have gone this far and been gone long ago. So I don't blame him for doing this. Apparently a high moral ground does absolutely no good with the general maga public who think Trump is qualified to even run for President, much less impersonate one.

Some Democrats are coming out to criticise this. Read some quotes here:
https://www.axios.com/2024/12/02/biden-house-democrats-backlash-hunter-pardon

Some Democrats are not:
https://www.axios.com/2024/12/02/congress-democrats-reaction-hunter-biden-pardon

Said Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.): "If you defended the 34x felon, who committed sexual assault, stole national security documents, and tried running a coup on his country…you can sit out the Hunter Biden pardon discussion."

To some Democrats, the pardon was a bit of payback after what they see as Trump's flagrant use of pardons during his first term — and likely his second term as well — to bail out unworthy allies. One notable case: Charles Kushner, the father of Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, received a pardon from Trump in 2020 and on Saturday was nominated as Trump's ambassador to France. "At this point, we are sissies compared to Trump and everyone around him," remarked a third House Democrat who spoke anonymously.
__

To Trump supporters I say: This action by Biden is exactly what you voted for by voting for Trump.