The (no longer) much too early 2024 election thread

[Voronwë the Faithful]

In that same Fox News event today, Laura Ingraham noted that Donald Trump has spent "a huge amount of time" in court. She asked him specifically about Judge Engoron's ruling that Donald Trump owes $454 million plus $93 million in interest

I think you had a small typo, because it is actually $354.9 million plus interest, not $454 million plus interest.

[N.E. Brigand]

In that same Fox News event today, Laura Ingraham noted that Donald Trump has spent "a huge amount of time" in court. She asked him specifically about Judge Engoron's ruling that Donald Trump owes $454 million plus $93 million in interest

I think you had a small typo, because it is actually $354.9 million plus interest, not $454 million plus interest.

Fixed, thank you. Two typos, actually. (Should I blame the late Alexei Navalny?)

For the fraud trial, it's $355 million plus $99 million in interest at the time of judgement.
Plus $83 million for E. Jean Carroll.
And the interest grows by $87,000 per day, or approximately $1 million every twelve days.

(The original $5 million for Carroll was already moved to an interest-bearing account, so Trump doesn't have to worry about it anymore. Not that he won't!)

[Frelga]

What's next? Banning the Pill for everyone who isn't married?

For everyone, period.

[RoseMorninStar]

What's next? Banning the Pill for everyone who isn't married?

For everyone, period.

Nicolae Ceausescu ( Romanian Communist party leader/head of state 1967-1989) forced women of child bearing age to be subject to monthly exams to make sure they were not preventing conception. Families were rewarded (or punished) with food (or lack thereof) for their ability (or not) to produce future workers. This resulted in families who could not feed their children and so they were left at orphanages. There was insufficient care for these children and many were left in filthy cribs all day with little to no human touch. Many of the children ended up with developmental issues as a result. Then AIDS came along and because they reused needles to inoculate many children many got AIDS.

Then there is China's one child policy.. that hasn't worked out well. The government shouldn't be involved in personal medical choices and family planning should not be forced.

[narya]

Do they define contraception as preventing fertilization or as preventing the implantation/impregnation of the fertilized zygote? IUDs and some low-dose versions of the Pill do permit ovulation and fertilization, but not implantation several days later, because the uterus is not properly prepared. And even without contraception or birth control, about 1/4 of fertilized eggs don't implant, or miscarry early.

[N.E. Brigand]

Because the US does not have national health care, employers have an incentive to not hire full time and provide benefits/especially health insurance. From my experience, many nurses, physical therapists, doctors, shop workers, etc.. etc.. work at more than one facility because employers just won't hire full time. In my humble opinion, it's really hurting the American work force.

While I agree it's a problem that health care is not universally available (thus the popularity of Obamacare, about which more anon), nonetheless unemployment is at very low levels (record lows for some subsets of the population) and as that chart shows, part-time work is also as low as it's ever been.

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What's next? Banning the Pill for everyone who isn't married?

For everyone, period.

Nicolae Ceausescu ... forced women of childbearing age to be subject to monthly exams to make sure they were not preventing conception. Families were rewarded (or punished) with food (or lack thereof) for their ability (or not) to produce future workers.

Indeed, what's next, apparently, is "ending recreational sex and senseless use of birth control pills."

That's a quote being promoted by conservatives, not a mischaracterization of their position by liberals.

Returning to the news from Alabama, in light of that state's supreme court decision, the "University of Alabama at Birmingham health system has paused in vitro fertilization procedures ... due to fear of criminal prosecution and lawsuits".

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The conservative Heritage Foundation (source of the quote about sex above) has put together an immigration plan meant for Donald Trump to use should he retake the White House. Legal immigration is very much on the chopping block. The politically centrist Niskansen Center analyzed the plan:

It reflects a meticulously orchestrated, comprehensive plan to drive immigration levels to unprecedented lows and increase the federal government’s power to the states’ detriment. These proposals circumvent Congress and the courts and are specifically engineered to dismantle the foundations of our immigration system.

The most troubling proposals include plans to:
--Block federal financial aid for up to two-thirds of all American college students if their state permits certain immigrant groups, including Dreamers with legal status, to access in-state tuition.
--Terminate the legal status of 500,000 Dreamers by eliminating staff time for reviewing and processing renewal applications.
--Use backlog numbers to trigger the automatic suspension of application intake for large categories of legal immigration.
--Suspend updates to the annual eligible country lists for H-2A and H-2B temporary worker visas, thereby excluding most populations from filling critical gaps in the agricultural, construction, hospitality, and forestry sectors.
--Bar U.S. citizens from qualifying for federal housing subsidies if they live with anyone who is not a U.S. citizen or legal permanent resident.
--Force states to share driver’s licenses and taxpayer identification information with federal authorities or risk critical funding.

Ironically, Donald Trump himself has benefitted from being able to hire H-2 visa holders at Mar-a-Lago and elsewhere.

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President Biden needs to capitalize on the popularity of the Affordable Care Act, which Donald Trump still wishes to repeal:



I think the general public would also appreciate this Biden administration effort (per the New York Times):

"I.R.S. to Crack Down on Corporate Jet Users Who Abuse Tax Code."

Specifically that's people who use private jets for personal travel but claim it as a business expense.

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A Politico story about a new poll has this headline: "Poll: Nearly 70 percent of voters say Biden is too old to be president."

But the poll in question also shows President Biden beating Donald Trump by four points.

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Republicans should ponder the risk of setting expectations too low:

[narya]

Indeed, what's next, apparently, is "ending recreational sex and senseless use of birth control pills."

It's always been an option for sex to be recreational for men. It has only been the past few decades, with better contraceptives, that fertile women have had the option of care-free sex. The encyclical Humanae Vitae doesn't say "don't use contraceptives", it says "every time you have sex, think seriously about the consequences of starting a new human being, and being responsible for him/her for the next 20 years".

Lately, I've been reading a lot of science fiction written by women in this century, (and some awful stuff written by men in the 1950s) and marvel that women in the near future just may be able to be full, equal citizens. That is only possible when women, not men, decide what portion of time women will spend pregnant, lactating, and raising children, or not.

[N.E. Brigand]

Republicans should ponder the risk of setting expectations too low:

[Tweet from pool reporter Jeff Mordock: "While posing for selfies in L.A., President Biden switched a customer's phone to selfie mode. The customer was surprised the President knew how to do that. 'After the last guy, the bar's on the floor,' the President responded."]

And why was President Biden in Los Angeles? To announce the cancellation of $1.2 billion in student debt for 150,000 people:



The original Biden student debt plan, which was thrown out by the Supreme Court, cancelled more than $400 billion in debt. The administration has been grinding away since then on an approach that's beyond the Court's reach. I don't know how close they can get to the original goal, but they're now about one third of the way there.

[N.E. Brigand]

Florida governor and former Republican presidential Ron DeSantis said this yesterday about Donald Trump: "He said at some point he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose a vote. Well, I think he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue, and the conservative media wouldn't even report on it."

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There was a story a few day ago about how "the Resistance" movement (i.e., the opposition to Donald Trump on the left) is suffering from fatigue. Based on these media numbers, it appears there may be at least as much exhaustion on the right: conservative news outlets are seeing large drops in readership and viewership.

[RoseMorninStar]

Florida governor and former Republican presidential Ron DeSantis said this yesterday about Donald Trump: "He said at some point he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose a vote. Well, I think he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue, and the conservative media wouldn't even report on it.

Unfortunately I think this is too true.

Edited to add: which makes it propaganda, not news.

[N.E. Brigand]

In that same Fox News event today, Laura Ingraham noted that Donald Trump has spent "a huge amount of time" in court. She asked him specifically about Judge Engoron's ruling that Donald Trump owes $454 million plus $93 million in interest $355 million plus $99 million in interest (and that interest is growing by $87,000 every day, as Laura Ingraham kindly noted). He replied:

"It is a form of Navalny."

Speaking of the late Alexei Navalny, President Biden met with his family today in San Francisco:

[Voronwë the Faithful]

But Biden's old. And he didn't stand up to Netanyahu any more than any other American president would have. So let's put Trump and MTG back in there because they would do better?

[Frelga]

Screenshot_20240215-203545.png (897.59 KiB) Viewed 842 times

[RoseMorninStar]

I thought of the same meme Frelga.

[N.E. Brigand]

NBC reports that a "Fake Joe Biden robocall tells New Hampshire Democrats not to vote on Tuesday." That's a crime. Who's behind it?

NBC: "A New Orleans magician says a Democratic operative paid him to make the fake Biden robocall."

Said operative, Steve Kramer, is associated with Dean Phillips's campaign, which is now denouncing Kramer and threatening to sue him. Kramer has worked for many political campaigns since the 2000s but may be best known for working on Kanye West's 2020 spoiler presidential campaign.

The magician, Paul Carpenter, "holds world records in fork-bending and straitjacket escapes but has no fixed address".

[N.E. Brigand]

One of the speakers this week at CPAC (the Conservative Political Action Committee), Jack Posobiec, said:

“Welcome to the end of democracy. We are here to overthrow it completely.”

Very few Republicans have commented on those remarks.

Donald Trump speaks at the event today.

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Speaking of Trump, speaking at the Black Conservative Federation yesterday he said, "These lights are so bright in my eyes I can't see people. But, uh, I can only see the black ones. I can't see any white ones. That's how far I've come. That's how far I've come. That's a long, that's a long way isn't it? Ah, we've come a long way together." This was a joke, and it sounds like the audience enjoyed it, but I'm struggling to imagine the reaction if any other white candidate said something like that to a black audience. I think their political career would be over.

At the same event, Trump said that "the black people like me" because they can sympathize with him for being indicted.

[N.E. Brigand]

MSNBC interviewed some reportedly "far left" voters of MIddle Eastern descent in Michigan who said they would be voting against Joe Biden and make him a one-term president because of his pro-Israeli policies, saying "It's like a vaccine: I'm willing to take short-term pain for a long-term gain" and "Why should our democracy mean more than the thousands that have died." Republicans may wish to make hay with these comments (which would be interesting given the "vaccine" metaphor), but Donald Trump is even more pro-Israel than Biden.

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Yesterday Donald Trump said that he was "indicted" for his phone call in 2019 with Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

That's not true. He was impeached not indicted for that activity. HIs indictments have nothing to do with Ukraine.

Trump then said that Zelenskyy later described it was a "perfect call."

That's not true. Zelenskyy never said that. That was Trump's characterization.

Trump then said that the call was "taped" and that when Congressman Adam Schiff "heard the tape, he just sort of disappeared."

That's not true. The call was transcribed but not, as far as we know, recorded: no tape was ever released. And Schiff delivered the closing argument at Trump's impeachment trial.

More evidence that Trump is too senile to be president?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Biden may be "pro-Israel" but he probably is the least "pro-Israel" president in my lifetime. What people don't seem to be willing to accept is that every single other Democrat who had some chance at winning the nomination in 2020 would be acting at least as "pro-Israel" in the current situation as Biden. Including Bernie Sanders.

Meanwhile, among the numerous (too numerous to name) misstatements that Trump has made in recent days is that he bragged that he made "Israel" the capital of Israel (what he meant to say is that he acknowledged Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and moved the U.S. embassy there). Trump is not only far more pro-Israel (and anti-Muslim) than Biden is, he is also showing far more signs of mental decline than Biden is.

But of course, none of that matters.

[N.E. Brigand]

As expected, Donald Trump won the Republican primary in South Carolina tonight. He's likely to get all the state's delegates, although Nikki Haley does seem to be beating the most recent polling average, which had Trump's expected margin of victory, even after some tightening over the past ten days, at 28%. It's looking likely to be closer to 21%: right now it's Trump 60%-Haley 39% (with 60% of the vote counted).

But this loss is being interpreted by many as the true death knell for Haley's campaign because it's all but nearly impossible now for her to catch up to Trump in the delegate count. That said, Haley is performing more strongly against Trump than challenger Pat Buchanan did against incumbent president George H.W. Bush in 1992 (Buchanan got 26% in South Carolina) when Bush went on to lose to Bill Clinton. (One writer at FiveThirtyEight says that "this would be panic-time for a sitting president running for reelection — evidence of a significant rift in the party." But Trump isn't a sitting president.) And Haley just spoke and said she's staying in the race.

Edited to add: The margin above is holding up. With 91% of the vote counted, it's Trump 59.9%-Haley 39.4%. The total turnout looks likely to end up 3% higher than it was in 2016. And Haley may pick up a few delegates: she's on track to win South Carolina's first Congressional district, which would give her three of the state's fifty delegates.

Edited the next day, with 95% of the vote counted, add this update:
59.8% (451,905) -- Donald Trump (47 delegates)
39.5% (298,674) -- Nikki Haley (3 delegates)
0.4% (2,951) -- other candidates

One commentator observes: "If you can’t break 60% with the party and its media machine behind you and a terroristic band of fanatics threatening everyone, and you’re also facing ruinous judgments and a panoply of felony charges, maybe it’s time to drop your campaign and focus on your personal problems."

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All the major media outlets called Trump's victory almost immediately after the polls closed, and Trump spoke soon after. In those remarks, speaking from notecards,* Trump began by thanking "my family: Melania, Barron, Don Jr. and Kimberly, Ivanka and Jared, Tiffany and Michael. They're so supportive, so supportive of me and we really appreciate and love them. We have a great family."

That's right: Donald Trump forgot to mention his other son and daughter-in-law, Eric and Lara. And this despite the fact that he's been trying to get Lara installed as a co-chair of the Republican National Committee. (Edit: I didn't see the whole speech. Apparently he did thank them later, but I there's no way they were deliberately omitted from that opening.)

*The notecards are worth mentioning because there was reporting in Axios yesterday that Democratic donors are concerned that President Biden uses notecards. That reporting was by a journalist who can been using notecards when he conducts interview.

(I've also seen online reports that when speaking to CPAC earlier today, Trump referred to his wife Melania by the name Mercedes. I suspect that may be an error in the reports, because CPAC is run by Matt Schlapp and his wife Mercedes. HIs speech is 80 minutes long, and I haven't listened to the whole thing to check.)

[N.E. Brigand]

(I've also seen online reports that when speaking to CPAC earlier today, Trump referred to his wife Melania by the name Mercedes. I suspect that may be an error in the reports, because CPAC is run by Matt Schlapp and his wife Mercedes. HIs speech is 80 minutes long, and I haven't listened to the whole thing to check.)

OK, I put the CPAC speech on in the background as I did some other things. I understated before: it actually runs 86 minutes. The first five minutes (or more) is just Trump thanking various people in the audience (including Argentina's president and the talk radio host Sebastian "Seb" Gorka). Very near the beginning (0:41-0:52) he thanks his hosts, the Schlapps, and he looks to his left as he does so. About two-thirds of the way in, he did mention his wife, as part of a possibly improvised section of the speech where he's been making fun of President Biden and how the Secret Service supposedly needs to rescue him from wandering off. This section is itself a digression from another possibly extemporaneous story about Trump's visit to Iraq in December 2018 and how he was told by a general that ISIS could be defeated in four weeks rather than four years. I looked up a story about that trip and saw that a week before he went to Iraq, Trump had "hastily declared that he had defeated ISIS, and that the US would pull its troops out of Syria." That move had led to the resignation of Trump's Secretary of Defense, James Mattis, and of the U.S. special envoy to the international coalition to defeat ISIS, Brett McGurk. And obviously it must have been weird for Trump to be asking a general for advice about defeating ISIS a week after proclaiming that we had already done so.

But here's my transcript of five minutes (53:35-58:40). Italics indicate Trump raising his voice. Bold indicates my empahsis:

But one of these guys will run up and grab him and take him off the stage. This is what we have as our president. But the worst thing is when I do that, the fake news--I call up my wife, the great First Lady, she was a great--people love her [audience applauds], yeah people love her. [Trump looks to his far left] Oh look at that! Wow! Mercedes, that's pretty good! Ah, she's good. And she loves our country, and she loves the people. It's true. When I give these big rallies -- we give rallies -- they say: "We love our First Lady." [Trump waves his right hand as if holding a sign] They have signs. "We love our"--they always show a high heel, you know? "We love our First Lady."

But I call up our First Lady. I say: "So baby, how good was that?" She goes, "You were OK." Oh. She's a very tough critic. I'll go into a group. I'll speak in front of fifty-five, fifty-six, sixty-eight thousand people sometimes. I'll call her up. I'll say, "How good was I tonight? Was that unbelievable?" She goes, "Well, your hair didn't look good." Oh. That's not good. But it's very hard to get, like, you know, once in a while, she'll go, "You were really good tonight," but that's, like, a major--but I said, in this case, I said, "How good was that tonight?" She said, "You were really good tonight, but what happened? You couldn't find your way off the stage." Because the fake news said, "Donald Trump couldn't find his way off the stage." I said, "Wow." Or when I interject a name. Like, I go, "Our president, Barack Hussein Obama" -- Rush Limbaugh, remember, he would always -- right, Seb? -- Rush would go "Barack Hussein." You couldn't hear the name "Barack" or "Obama," but the name "Hussein" he'd be screaming. I don't know exactly what he meant by that. [sotto voce:] I think I do. But he'd go, "Barack Hussein." So I go, "Barack Hussein Obama, our president, has done this, this"--now I meant that because there are those people that say he's running our country, because Joe is not strong on aptitude. So there are those--we don't know that that's true. But they go out and they say, "Donald Trump"--headline--"Donald Trump doesn't know who the president of our country--he thinks Obama's the president"--Lou, eh?, look at the great Lou Dobbs [points at guest]--"he thinks Obama is the president."

So when I'm sarcastic--cause I'm sort of a sarcastic guy, I find humor in sarcasm--but it's very dangerous [unintelligible: "for me to do"?], because they take it very seriously, but it's a very serious subject, because of what happened. To finish the first story. What happened--by the way, isn't this better than reading off a friggin' teleprompter? [audience cheers] What? Right? Anybody can do that, except, except for Biden. Anybody can read off a teleprompter except for Biden. He can't do that either. He can't do that either. He asks questions: "Uh?" [mimes holding a piece of paper] News conference. Hey, when I'm at a news conference, people are these, these maniacs, these lunatics are screaming at me. They're just screaming like crazy. And, you know, you take 'em, and I love it, you know it's like a mental challenge. It's horrible people, but they're screaming and you're answering, and you're gettin' 'em, and then sometimes I get in trouble, because they say, "You were too tough," or "You were too nasty. Do this, the people don't like that," and I understand that too. But he asks like a question, and it's "Uh [mimes holding a piece of paper], Bo-Bob, from NBC." OK. "Mr. President, sir, we just want to know: are you feeling well? Is everything good? And did you have ice cream today?" Then he picks up the paper [mimes holding a piece of paper] and he reads the answer: "Yes, it was vanilla." No, but think: they ask him questions and they give him an answer. That never happened to me, right? I walk out there, and it's like a free-for-all. But it's a sad thing.

OK, so now I go off--and watch: you know this is all genius, OK? You do know? I hope you know. I always say: my uncle was the longest serving professor in the history of MIT, Dr. John Trump. We have a lot of great aptitude [points at head]. They'll say, "He rambled." Nobody can ramble like this. Nobody. If they did, they'd be, they'd, they wouldn't even try. They'd go step by step. And they wouldn't get off that sucker [points at teleprompters]. They go step by step.

And then he returns to the story about his visit to Iraq.

So did he refer to his wife Melania as "Mercedes"? I don't think so. That video never cuts from Trump, but this one does have an occasional crowd shot, including a cut to the audience at the moment in question. As far as I can tell, Melania isn't even there. He's apparently expressing to Mercedes Schlapp his reaction to the audience giving the absent Melania a brief standing ovation. It's weird because he never mentions Melania's name at all.

(Edited the next day to note that this regular Trump critic agrees with me.)

Two other points may have jumped out at you:

1. He is very sensitive about the subject of his competence and intelligence. This whole five-minute ramble is very defensive.

2. If Melania is actually watching Donald's speeches on TV, as he claims, then why would she rely on news reports and ask him if he wandered off?