The (no longer) much too early 2024 election thread

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Here's how trustworthy polls in June the year before a presidential election are, even for a primary let alone the general.

June 22, 2015.

Jeb Bush 22%
Scott Walker 17%
Marco Rubio 14%
Ben Carson 11%
Mike Huckabee 9%
Rand Paul 7%
Rick Perry 5%
Ted Cruz 4%
Chris Christie 4%
Carly Fiorina 2%
Donald Trump 1%
Lindsey Graham 1%
John Kasich 1%
Bobby Jindal 0%
Rick Santorum 0%
George Pataki 0%

https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/ ... ck-n379601

[N.E. Brigand]

Here's how trustworthy polls in June the year before a presidential election are, even for a primary let alone the general.

June 22, 2015.

Jeb Bush 22%
Scott Walker 17%
Marco Rubio 14%
Ben Carson 11%
Mike Huckabee 9%
Rand Paul 7%
Rick Perry 5%
Ted Cruz 4%
Chris Christie 4%
Carly Fiorina 2%
Donald Trump 1%
Lindsey Graham 1%
John Kasich 1%
Bobby Jindal 0%
Rick Santorum 0%
George Pataki 0%

https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/ ... ck-n379601

About four years before that poll was conducted, David Bratman was kind enough to note on his blog that I was the only person he knew who could rattle off the names of all (then) 44 U.S. presidents in chronological order faster than he could. But I put my foot down on there being three Bushes in such a short span of years: too tricky for the tongue. That's right: it's my fault that Trump won in 2016.

[N.E. Brigand]

From a New York Times article on a rally that Donald Trump held today (7/3/23) in South Carolina:

Pam Nichols, who described herself as an “insurrectionist,” said that she flew from Mundelein, Ill., to proudly support Mr. Trump in person. She had last done so in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, she said, when a mob of Mr. Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol building. She did not talk in detail about her actions that day.

“I was told to lay low after,” Ms. Nichols said, adding that she had watched a number of Mr. Trump’s speeches online since. “But I felt like it’s time to come out now. I’m tired of laying low.”

Maybe we'll be seeing a late appearance from Ms. Nichols in the 2020 election thread.

[Sunsilver]

About four years before that poll was conducted, David Bratman was kind enough to note on his blog that I was the only person he knew who could rattle off the names of all (then) 44 U.S. presidents in chronological order faster than he could. But I put my foot down on there being three Bushes in such a short span of years: too tricky for the tongue. That's right: it's my fault that Trump won in 2016.

Thanks for the laugh, N.E.!

Some of those names...who the heck is Scott Walker??

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Scott Walker is the former governor of Rose's fine staye of Wisconsin.

[RoseMorninStar]

Oh yeah.. that's one of the names on the list I was all too well acquainted with. He is of the trumplodyte mold. *twitch*

Speaking of which, from The Nation Wisconsin Is Finally Coming Out of Its Scott Walker Nightmare. Let's hope the trend continues.

[N.E. Brigand]

CNN analyzes claims made by the presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. about how supposedly "man-made chemicals in the water could be turning children gay or transgender."

That used to be one of Alex Jones's big theories.

[Dave_LF]

It's a "good" conspiracy theory as far as such things go, because it has enough of a kernel of truth to sound halfway plausible. There's no question that our drinking water, and the environment in general, is full of man-made chemicals that mimic sex hormones and mess with our biochemistry (and that of other animals). But anyone who claims to know the precise downstream consequences of that mimicry is claiming too much (unless their claims are accompanied by a brand-new study), and anyone who claims those chemicals are being put in the water on purpose in order to produce those effects is just plain nuts.

[N.E. Brigand]

Did Geroge Bush's campaign pay Laura Bush for the speeches she gave in support of her husband?

Did Barack Obama's campaign pay Michelle Obama for the speeches she gave in support of her husband?

Did Joe Biden's campaign pay Jill Biden for the speeches she gave in support of her husband?

"Trump Super PAC Made $155,000 Payment to Melania Trump in 2021" (New York Times).

"The money was listed as pay for a 'speaking engagement' by Ms. Trump in a new personal financial disclosure by her husband." The payments were described in campaign expenditures disclosed last year, which "showed two payments, for $125,000 and $30,000, to 'Designer’s Management Agency,' which lists Ms. Trump as a client" for "event planning and consulting".

[narya]

I just finished reading US Rep. Katie Porter's book "I Swear.." She represents the mostly red Orange County in Southern California. Now she is running for the US Senate. I must say, I'm impressed by her book, her ideals, and her style. But I am also very impressed by the work of her competitor in the 2024 race, Barbara Lee, the long-time US Rep in my district. Lee's autobiography - Renegade for Peace and Justice, is on my library wish list, but as my representative, I've seen her in action for many years, and even got a chance to shake her hand and thank her for trying to keep us out of our endless wars. And Porter and Lee are running against Adam Schiff, US Rep from Los Angeles, about whom I know little, so his book, Midnight in Washington, is also in my queue. Ro Khanna, representing Silicon Valley, is also making noises about running, so I've queued up his book, Progressive Capitalism. This will be an interesting race.

Here's an overview: https://www.vox.com/politics/23691807/d ... lee-schiff.

The article addressed race and gender, but did not discussed age. In 2024, Porter will be 50, Schiff will be 64, and Lee will be 77. I don't want to be ageist, not being a spring chicken myself, but if Lee does win this round, her second term would be as an 84 to 90 year old. It's a sad fact that over 20% of 80-something Americans (and, I suspect, some of our senior senators) have dementia. A younger senator would be able to stick around longer and have more seniority and power. But on the other hand, there is something to be said for term limits.

Seniority is power in the Senate, but if we favor seniority, we do not favor current voter wishes - we favor decades-old voter wishes, because once someone gets into the Senate, they are hard to unseat (in California, anyway). The current California Senator Diane Feinstein is stepping down at the end of her term at age 92, after serving for 8 terms. If Porter won, she could theoretically serve 4.5 terms before reaching Lee's current age; 7 terms before reaching Feinstein's age.

If this is just a presidential 2024 thread, feel free to move this elsewhere, or start a new thread - 2024 US Non-Presidential races.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Perfectly appropriate here. Indeed, we've had several other posts about the California senate race in this thread.

There are an unusual number of good candidates in the Democratic primary. I vacillate between Porter, Lee and Schiff, and I honestly don't know which one of them I am ultimately going to vote for in the primary. Obviously, I will vote for any of them in the general

[N.E. Brigand]

CNN analyzes claims made by the presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. about how supposedly "man-made chemicals in the water could be turning children gay or transgender."

That used to be one of Alex Jones's big theories.

And today we learned that last week, RFK Jr. said at a dinner that Covid-19 was "targeted" to "attack" Caucasians and Black people while sparing Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people, and he speculated that this supposed targeting might be "deliberate." When confronted today with those remarks, he denied saying them, but there is video and witnesses, and then he said the event was supposed to be off the record, but that doesn't really make what he said any better and also the event's host says otherwise, and then he said he was just speaking hypothetically about a specific genetic issue.

Not that his father and uncles didn't have their own flaws, but I have to think they'd be so ashamed of what he's become.

[Frelga]

He walked it back by saying he didn't mean Jews except he went on to say that he totally meant Jews.

This is the kind of talk that gets people killed. Just as anti-trans rhetoric got trans people, and in some cases cis people suspected of being trans, killed. That this man is still in the news as a presidential candidate and not as a dangerous joke really speaks to how far towards an actual facts fascist state the US has come.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I was going to say that I wasn't going to comment about RFK, Jr.'s comments, but just saying that I wasn't going to comment about them is probably more than enough.

[RoseMorninStar]

Why not comment? Such comments should be condemned. It's horrific that such things are being said by a public figure. Shameful.

[River]

I guess taking his tits out didn't get him enough attention (really, that only works for young women) so he just went for pure anti-Semitism. Yuck all around.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Kerry Kennedy
@KerryKennedyRFK
I STRONGLY condemn my brother's deplorable and untruthful remarks last week about Covid being engineered for ethnic targeting.



ETA:

Joe Kennedy III
@joekennedy
My uncle’s comments were hurtful and wrong. I unequivocally condemn what he said.

[N.E. Brigand]

Trying not to keep too many Trump-specific threads going, this story in the Daily Mail may now be most relevant here:

"President Trump wanted to take a 'wrecking ball' to veterans' care and cut 25% from the $250 billion in annual funding before his aides told him it was politically 'lethal', former aide claims in new book." The book is Miles Taylor's Blowback. A Trump spokesman says that Taylor's book "either belongs in the discount bin of the fiction section or should be repurposed as toilet paper," and added some more colorful language.

The article's last sentence caught my eye: "Former Veterans' Affairs staffers under Trump also confirmed to DailyMail.com that the Department of Veterans' Affairs (VA) was being controlled in the shadows by the 'Mar-a-Lago three' -- a group of Trump's wealthy longtime friends who were never put forth for Senate-confirmed roles." I remember some earlier reporting about this.

[Frelga]

Dark Brandon strikes again.



Greene is an example of the Moxon's Beard-Trimmer. Just because she is stupid doesn't mean she isn't also malicious.

Sent from my Pixel 7 using Tapatalk

[RoseMorninStar]

I find that simply hilarious. Pure Gold.