Election 2024 Part III: Out with the old!

[Voidwalkin]

Cheney is voting for Harris, via statement.

He believes Trump is a great threat to the Republic.

He was pivotal in creating that threat, being the prime ideological driver for expansion of executive power. He and his buddies Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz were also the primary architects of the Iraq War. It could also be argued the spirit he brought to the early Bush admin also accelerated the careers of judges who'd later become notorious for legislating from the SC.

Strange times. Man prefers Harris. GWB silent afaik.

 

[GenMarshall]

Interesting in that it doesn't talk about which side the illegal immigrants are voting for.

illegal immigrants are banned from voting by federal law. new york allows noncitizens, i believe. texas? nope.

Illegal immigrants cannot vote at all in New York City (and by extension The State of New York).

“Only U.S. citizens may vote in statewide and national elections in New York.”

“A 2021 New York City law involving local elections gave voting privileges to noncitizens who are in the U.S. legally, but a judge struck down that law in 2022 and it’s not in effect.”

 

[Lexicus]

Cheney is voting for Harris, via statement.

He believes Trump is a great threat to the Republic.

He was pivotal in creating that threat, being the prime ideological driver for expansion of executive power. He and his buddies Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz were also the primary architects of the Iraq War. It could also be argued the spirit he brought to the early Bush admin also accelerated the careers of judges who'd later become notorious for legislating from the SC.

Strange times. Man prefers Harris. GWB silent afaik.

Not to mention that the invasion of Iraq was a crime dwarfing anything Trump did while in office

 

[Angst]

Illegal immigrants cannot vote at all in New York City (and by extension The State of New York).

“Only U.S. citizens may vote in statewide and national elections in New York.”

“A 2021 New York City law involving local elections gave voting privileges to noncitizens who are in the U.S. legally, but a judge struck down that law in 2022 and it’s not in effect.”

oh, i didn't know about the strikedown. thanks for the correction. (Y)

makes the point clearer, too.

 

[choxorn]

Not to mention that the invasion of Iraq was a crime dwarfing anything Trump did while in office

Well, yes if you only count the ones he succeeded at doing, the attempted insurrection was at least an attempt at doing an Iraq-level crime.

 

[Core Imposter]

So Trump can win carrying Pennsylvania and Georgia assuming he retain the other states?

He's gone burger if he doesn't win Pennsylvania and it's a lot harder for Harris if she doesn't win.

Trump is in a hugely weaker position than he was before Biden dropped out and I make him a real underdog for the following reasons:

1. Now that the possibility of Virginia is gone there really isn't any plausible pick-up states outside of the original six battlegrounds. Georgia in the south, Arizona and Nevada in the west and three blue wall states in the mid-west, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. That's the field of play.
2. North Carolina is now a battleground, and it does not seem plausible for Trump to win without it.
3. Trump was solid in the south and west end of this field but now he can lose any of those states and if he loses any one of the three will likely be fatal to him because:
4. Harris doesn't need any of those states if she can hold the blue wall that voted for Biden in 2020.

So yes, you are right Pennsylvania remains key. But Harris has more paths to win now than Biden did. It has gone from Biden has to hold the blue wall to win to Harris can lose one of the three blue wall states and still win the election.

If she loses Pa., she has 5 winning combinations to Trump's 3.
If she loses Mi., she has 3 to Trump's 2.
If she loses Wi., she has 3 to Trump's 1.

Biden had essentially none of those opportunities. It was blue wall or bust.

So, Trump is hanging by a thread in my view if the polls are close to being on the money. Which, I wouldn't bet money on but it's the best expectation we have. They could easily be off a couple of points and the debate could be decisive.

 

[Core Imposter]

It appears that Harris was correct to go the safe route by picking Walz instead of Shapiro because she doesn't have to go into the debate with a Jewish vice-president on the ticket right after the IDF fatality shoots an American citizen in the West Bank. Although it's still a huge issue for her to handle. She also was smart to match Trump's no tax on tips pledge which could net her Nevada. Trump is not putting points on the board.

All this being said I feel like Harris's momentum has stalled out so the debate is something she can't blow. I think she needs to be aggressive and assertive to put him on the back foot and then run out the clock. It is almost always the first half of the debate that matters.

 

[Lexicus]

Well, yes if you only count the ones he succeeded at doing, the attempted insurrection was at least an attempt at doing an Iraq-level crime.

Debatable, but certainly a successful attempt to usurp the constitution would open the way to committing more of those types of crimes and worse ones

 

[Zardnaar]

Trump is in a hugely weaker position than he was before Biden dropped out and I make him a real underdog for the following reasons:

1. Now that the possibility of Virginia is gone there really isn't any plausible pick-up states outside of the original six battlegrounds. Georgia in the south, Arizona and Nevada in the west and three blue wall states in the mid-west, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. That's the field of play.
2. North Carolina is now a battleground, and it does not seem plausible for Trump to win without it.
3. Trump was solid in the south and west end of this field but now he can lose any of those states and if he loses any one of the three will likely be fatal to him because:
4. Harris doesn't need any of those states if she can hold the blue wall that voted for Biden in 2020.

So yes, you are right Pennsylvania remains key. But Harris has more paths to win now than Biden did. It has gone from Biden has to hold the blue wall to win to Harris can lose one of the three blue wall states and still win the election.

If she loses Pa., she has 5 winning combinations to Trump's 3.
If she loses Mi., she has 3 to Trump's 2.
If she loses Wi., she has 3 to Trump's 1.

Biden had essentially none of those opportunities. It was blue wall or bust.

So, Trump is hanging by a thread in my view if the polls are close to being on the money. Which, I wouldn't bet money on but it's the best expectation we have. They could easily be off a couple of points and the debate could be decisive.

Yeah I think Trump will lose. But not 100% convinced. He has to win Pennsylvania imho.

Harris could blow him out whole at best he scraps in around 270 maybe one more state.

 

[Birdjaguar]

How secure and reliable are US elections? You’d be surprised​

With election season underway, you’re bound to hear from former President Donald Trump that an army of undocumented immigrants is trying to vote in the presidential election. You may hear from Democrats that GOP efforts to pass new voting laws is a form of voter suppression.

Despite that rhetoric, you might be surprised to hear the argument that voting in the US — the act of casting a ballot and the guarantee it will be counted — is better now than at any time in the country’s history.

That’s what you’ll get from David Becker, founder of the Center for Election Innovation & Research, a nonpartisan and nonprofit group that gets most of its funding from charitable foundations and aims to improve and build confidence in US elections.

I had a long phone conversation with Becker, a former senior attorney in the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division who has been working for decades to improve US elections. Our conversation, edited for length, is below:

Actually, voting in the US is better than ever​

WOLF: Your first point in talking about US elections is that the system we have is really good and has never been better. Explain that.

BECKER: The fact is, our elections right now — as voters are thinking about whether it’s worthwhile to cast a ballot in this election — our elections right now are as secure, transparent and verifiable as they’ve ever been.

From the security perspective, we have more paper ballots than ever before. Paper ballots are a best practice. They’re auditable, they’re recountable, they’re verifiable by voters, and well over 95% of all voters will be voting on paper in 2024.

We have more audits of those ballots, which confirm the machines work. Those audits are hand counts of ballots to make sure that those counts match what the machine said.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/20/politics/electoral-votes-swing-state-margins-dg
We have more preelection litigation that confirms the rules of the election than ever before. We have better voter lists than ever before, thanks to states having better technology and better data and sharing that data with each other. And then finally, we have more post-election litigation that confirms the results.

We saw that in 2020 where, despite dozens of cases and with additional cases that have been brought in the years afterwards regarding defamation and otherwise, there’s still not been a shred of evidence brought to any court in the country that would indicate that there was a problem with the 2020 election.

So we know the results are accurate

Much more at th4e link:

https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/07/politics/elections-voting-security-what-matters/index.html

 

[Birdjaguar]

Trump on Childcare. A step by step analysis.

Trump’s rambling answer to a child care question, deconstructed​

Former President Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance were both asked essentially the same question while thousands of miles apart this week:
How would they bring down the cost of child care, which is a barrier to people having children and a major drain on parents?
https://cnn.it/4fJzHtb
Given that the Republican ticket is built around the idea of reversing inflation and appealing to “real” Americans, and that Vance in particular has argued, joking or not, that “childless cat ladies” are a threat to American democracy, it seems like the kind of subject for which they would have something to say.

But the two men gave remarkably different answers, neither of which seem likely to bring down the cost of child care.

Vance, speaking to a conservative activist at an Arizona church on Wednesday, thinks parents should look to grandparents, aunts and uncles for those who have them, and also suggested cutting down on training and certification requirements for day care workers. That answer, at least, focuses on the issue at hand, but it won’t satisfy any parent or potential parents who don’t live near their extended family or whose extended family can’t afford to work for free.

What came out of Trump’s mouth, however, in his talk with the Economic Club of New York on Thursday, was not a direct answer about child care, which he dismissed as ultimately not a very big problem and not that expensive to fix compared with the money he will raise from tariffs.

You could charitably say that he pivoted from the child care question back to his talking points for the day, which had to do with his plan to place taxes, also known as tariffs, on all imports coming into the US.

Much more at link:

https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/06/politics/child-care-trump-what-matters/index.html

 

[Sommerswerd]

Not to mention that the invasion of Iraq was a crime dwarfing anything Trump did while in office

I'd argue that Trump's mishandling of COVID, specifically the discontinuation of the Obama anti-pandemic procedures/policies, the endless attempts to downplay the disease, and discourage efforts to limit and contain the spread, peddling of misinformation and mistrust towards the medical and scientific community attempting to develop ways to stem the pandemic... directly influencing the leaders nationwide and worldwide who followed his example... and all the resultant needless deaths it caused, not just in the US, but globally... was worse than the Iraq invasion.

EDIT: I'll add that another reason it was worse, was because of his motives. The reason Trump mishandled COVID so badly, was because he was completely incompetent and all he cared about, was that taking it seriously might make him look bad politically, ie damage his chances of re-election. So he fostered a global pandemic that killed millions of people and caused all sorts of additional damage... economic, educational, psychological, etc., just because he didn't want to take the political hit. At least Baby Bush was motivated by a desire to secure the sources of oil to improve the US economy, enrich US corporations and allies and strengthen the US status as a global hegemon... certainly not necessarily a non-evil or noble goal, but it was at minimum, about something besides just personal benefit/aggrandizement.

Well, yes if you only count the ones he succeeded at doing, the attempted insurrection was at least an attempt at doing an Iraq-level crime.

This too.

Debatable, but certainly a successful attempt to usurp the constitution would open the way to committing more of those types of crimes and worse ones

Yes, partially for exactly this reason... just one example... Ukraine is doomed if Trump gets back into office... not just Donbass, the whole country.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Trump is in a hugely weaker position than he was before Biden dropped out and I make him a real underdog for the following reasons:

1. Now that the possibility of Virginia is gone there really isn't any plausible pick-up states outside of the original six battlegrounds. Georgia in the south, Arizona and Nevada in the west and three blue wall states in the mid-west, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. That's the field of play.
2. North Carolina is now a battleground, and it does not seem plausible for Trump to win without it.
3. Trump was solid in the south and west end of this field but now he can lose any of those states and if he loses any one of the three will likely be fatal to him because:
4. Harris doesn't need any of those states if she can hold the blue wall that voted for Biden in 2020.

So yes, you are right Pennsylvania remains key. But Harris has more paths to win now than Biden did. It has gone from Biden has to hold the blue wall to win to Harris can lose one of the three blue wall states and still win the election.

If she loses Pa., she has 5 winning combinations to Trump's 3.
If she loses Mi., she has 3 to Trump's 2.
If she loses Wi., she has 3 to Trump's 1.

Biden had essentially none of those opportunities. It was blue wall or bust.

So, Trump is hanging by a thread in my view if the polls are close to being on the money. Which, I wouldn't bet money on but it's the best expectation we have. They could easily be off a couple of points and the debate could be decisive.

I'm skeptical of a scenario where Harris wins Georgia and/or North Carolina, or even Nevada and Arizona, but then also loses Pennsylvania. I'm thinking that if the Harris campaign proves strong enough to win Georgia or North Carolina, they would win Pennsylvania by an even larger margin.

Looking at the RCP polls from 2016, Trump ended up getting 2.5% more than he was polling, while Hillary ended up with 1.2% more than she was polling by the end of the election cycle. The result of course was that Hillary ended up winning the popular vote by 2.1% while Trump still won the election. In 2020, Biden was polling 7.2% ahead of Trump but only ended up getting 0.2% more than what he was polling, while Trump got a whopping 2.9% more in the election that what the polls were averaging. The result was that Biden ended up winning by 4.5%, far less than the 7.2% lead he was polling.

 

[Core Imposter]

I'm skeptical of a scenario where Harris wins Georgia and/or North Carolina, or even Nevada and Arizona, but then also loses Pennsylvania. I'm thinking that if the Harris campaign proves strong enough to win Georgia or North Carolina, they would win Pennsylvania by an even larger margin.

Yes, it is more probable that your line of thinking will prove out unless the race is so close, and the margins are razon thin. But Harris does now have the money to go hard in these newly competitive places and if she goes that route, it could pay off. At some point spending for ads have saturated the market and bring little return. She might go hard enough in some of these other states to cause Trump headaches over where to spend his resources.

I do know that if I am supporting a campaign, I would rather be the one having the alternate paths to win. Harris has a serious and legitimate issue in Michigan that could cost her the state, and if so, it is imperative that she make that up somewhere.

Also, I remember how Trump blew the Senate in Georgia. This was an astounding display of political incompetence, and the state is just sitting there for her.

Then there is the secondary consideration of creating a coattail effect that might have significant long-term effect.

 

[Cutlass]

Cheney is voting for Harris, via statement.

He believes Trump is a great threat to the Republic.

He was pivotal in creating that threat, being the prime ideological driver for expansion of executive power. He and his buddies Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz were also the primary architects of the Iraq War. It could also be argued the spirit he brought to the early Bush admin also accelerated the careers of judges who'd later become notorious for legislating from the SC.

Strange times. Man prefers Harris. GWB silent afaik.

Thinking on this, Cheney is certainly authoritarian and antidemocratic. But at the same time, there still has to be a country to rule, and the US's place at the top of the international food chain must be maintained at all costs. And one thing we know with absolute certainty is that America's place in the world goes down under Trump. Trump talks about doing that constantly whenever on the subject of foreign affairs. Cheney is an old Cold Warrior, both hard power and soft. Trump is just chaos and uncertainty.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Trump clearly does not understand how amendments are passed. I am curious why Trump wants to the cabinet to able to remove Vance?

Trump calls for modifying 25th Amendment to make it possible to remove a vice president​

Former President Donald Trump on Saturday called for modifying the 25th Amendment to the Constitution and said if a vice president “lies or engages in a conspiracy to cover up the incapacity of the president,” they should be removed from office. Since President Joe Biden suspended his 2024 presidential campaign in July, Trump and his Republican allies have accused Vice President Kamala Harris and others at the White House of engaging in a cover-up to hide the state of Biden’s mental fitness.

During a campaign rally in Mosinee, Wisconsin, Trump said: “I will support modifying the 25th Amendment to make clear that if a vice president lies or engages in a conspiracy to cover up the incapacity of the president of the United States — if you do that with a cover-up of the president of the United States, it’s grounds for impeachment immediately and removal from office, ‘cause that’s what they did.”

“You know, think of it — if he didn’t go to that debate, he’d still be running,” Trump added, referencing Biden’s poor performance at the CNN debate in June.

CNN is reaching out to the Harris campaign for comment.

The 25th Amendment has periodically been discussed as a means of last resort to remove a rogue or incapacitated president.

This is a breaking story and will be updated.

 

[Zardnaar]

Yes, it is more probable that your line of thinking will prove out unless the race is so close, and the margins are razon thin. But Harris does now have the money to go hard in these newly competitive places and if she goes that route, it could pay off. At some point spending for ads have saturated the market and bring little return. She might go hard enough in some of these other states to cause Trump headaches over where to spend his resources.

I do know that if I am supporting a campaign, I would rather be the one having the alternate paths to win. Harris has a serious and legitimate issue in Michigan that could cost her the state, and if so, it is imperative that she make that up somewhere.

Also, I remember how Trump blew the Senate in Georgia. This was an astounding display of political incompetence, and the state is just sitting there for her.

Then there is the secondary consideration of creating a coattail effect that might have significant long-term effect.

Apparently they're more or less equal in spending Georgia and Pennsylvania.

Trump's behind in spending other 5 battleground states.

Not that it ultimately decides who wins.

 

[sophie]

Trump clearly does not understand how amendments are passed. I am curious why Trump wants to the cabinet to able to remove Vance?

"will no one rid me of this turbulent pervert?"

 

[Core Imposter]

Thinking on this, Cheney is certainly authoritarian and antidemocratic. But at the same time, there still has to be a country to rule, and the US's place at the top of the international food chain must be maintained at all costs. And one thing we know with absolute certainty is that America's place in the world goes down under Trump. Trump talks about doing that constantly whenever on the subject of foreign affairs. Cheney is an old Cold Warrior, both hard power and soft. Trump is just chaos and uncertainty.

Cheney is as much a part of the elite as any of the Democrats. Trump is not. This is about class struggle.

 

[Angst]

Trump is not. This is about class struggle.

??????