The (no longer) much too early 2024 election thread

[N.E. Brigand]

And access to birth control is very much a live issue.

In a new interview, Donald Trump says he's considering limiting access to contraception ...

I guess after his Manhattan trial more widely disseminated the fact that he didn't use a condom when cheating on his wife, he's decided to go all in on that subject?

Just four days ago, Virginia's governor, Glenn Youngkin, a Republican who was presented to voters as a moderate, vetoed legislation that would have guaranteed all Virginians the right to access contraception, and in the 22 months since "the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022 ending the federal right to abortion, dozens of states have also passed restrictions on access to contraceptives."

(Later today, Donald Trump did try to walk back his comments that had indicated he was open to restrictions on birth control.)

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Forcing women to give birth against their will, by banning birth control and abortions? All good by Republicans!

Forcing a criminal defendant to sit in a hot courtroom that he bizarrely claims is cold? A travesty, per Republicans!

Rational observers all said after Trump complained about this yesterday that the court is stifling not frigid.

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Rep. Victoria Spartz, an Indiana Republican who was born in Ukraine but voted against the recent military package to defend Ukraine against Russia's attacks, today said that Republicans should "shut down the economy" in order to force President Biden to punish immigrants.

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Republican pollster Patrick Ruffini admits that inflation is largely Donald Trump's fault (he "juiced the economy needlessly with the CARES Act, eviction moratorium, student loan pause, etc.") and says that Trump leaving it for President Biden to "deal with the hangover" represents the "best practical joke a president has ever pulled on his successor".

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Donald Trump's campaign raised more money than President Biden's campaign in April ($76 million vs. $51 million), but Biden has much more cash on hand.

[N.E. Brigand]

Ric Grenell, who served in Donald Trump's administration as the U.S. Ambassador to Germany and then as the Acting Director of National Intelligence and who is now one of candidate Trump's top foreign policy advisors, met in Michigan tonight with 40 Arab American leaders. Apparently it didn't go well, as Grenell "came off as unsympathetic to the plight of Palestinians, while actually angering some participants by reiterating a comment from ... Jared Kushner, who said in March that Israel should remove Palestinians from the valuable 'waterfront property' in Gaza." The Arab American leaders conveyed to Grenell that Trump would only win their vote if he offered (a) "support for an immediate ceasefire"; (b) "funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency — which has been the primary provider of humanitarian aid in Gaza" and (c) "a commitment to enact the so-called Leahy Laws in Gaza" which "prohibit the United States from funding foreign militaries that violate human rights". Grenell did tell the attendees that despite what Donald Trump has been saying, he wouldn't actually enact a Muslim travel ban (never mind that he did do so before).

[Frelga]

He broke every promise he ever made unless it was to do something nasty. Why, given his record, they even talk to him?

I guess if they dangle a large enough donation, they might get somewhere.

[N.E. Brigand]

A new poll from Quinnipiac finds President Biden narrowly leading Donald Trump (48%-47%) and doing even better with RFK Jr. in the race.

And new polling from Bloomberg finds Trump leading Biden in all but two of six swing states, but in all six, Biden is doing better than he was a month ago.

Thus 538.com average, which this morning had Trump ahead nationally by 1.4%, now has him ahead by 0.9%. But Trump is still ahead.

[N.E. Brigand]

Not really for this thread but there's no 2032 election thread yet, so...

"Minnesota Just Became The Latest State to Eliminate Prison Gerrymandering."

Counting incarcerated people as residents of white rural areas where prisons are located rather than the diverse urban areas where they mostly lived at the time of their arrest gives undue political power to Republicans. This change -- which previously failed before the 2010 and 2020 censuses -- fixes that in Minnesota, although it won't matter until after the 2030 census. Maine and Illinois have passed similar laws recently.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Just as a general comment, there is no reason why you can't start a new thread for a topic that doesn't fit well in existing threads. just sayin'.

[N.E. Brigand]

I didn't realize that Donald Trump's adviser Stephen Miller has compared Trump's plan to remove 15 million immigrants to Israel's invasion of Gaza.

[N.E. Brigand]

This is bluster born of fear:

[Voronwë the Faithful]

This is just insane. There is no other way to describe it.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Sadly, the most likely path to keeping Trump from returning to the White House probably involves Biden having some kind of medical emergency that forces him to step aside. Although assuming that Harris would then become the nominee, I'm not sure that she would fare any better than Biden.

[N.E. Brigand]

Donald Trump is openly boasting that Vladimir Putin is holding Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich as a hostage until Trump is elected:



Isn't that conspiracy to commit kidnapping?

[N.E. Brigand]

Donald Trump is openly boasting that Vladimir Putin is holding Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich as a hostage until Trump is elected ... Isn't that conspiracy to commit kidnapping?

I'm quite serious about this. Donald Trump appears to be engaging, right now, in a major crime. The FBI should investigate.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Donald Trump is being an irresponsible asshole, but there is no crime to investigate.

[N.E. Brigand]

Donald Trump is publicly saying that he and Vladimir Putin have an understanding that Putin will hold an American citizen hostage until an agreed-upon time.

[N.E. Brigand]

Let me explain at more length why Donald Trump is at least pretending to be committing a very serious crime.

Donald Trump is publicly saying that he and Vladimir Putin have an understanding that Putin will hold an American citizen hostage until an agreed-upon time.

Just think about how this would work if it were not an international case featuring a former president.

Suppose there's an Amber Alert issued in Pennsylvania. A 10-year-old girl has disappeared, apparently abducted, and the alleged kidnapper's identity is known but he's missing. A description of them and the kidnapper's car has been texted to all our phones, aired on television and shared on electronic highway billboards.

Then I, an Ohio resident who is not the kidnapper but who is known to have been in communication with the kidnapper in the past, make a public announcement that the little girl will be released as soon as $10 million is deposited in my bank account, because the kidnapper "will do that for me."

Maybe I'm only bluffing. But do you think the FBI isn't going to come knocking at my door?

(And you can be sure that the presidency is worth more than $10 million to Trump.)

Edited to add: I meant to write this morning that Trump was "at least" engaged in an apparent kidnapping conspiracy. The international angle actually makes his crime worse not better. I know that Keith Olbermann is an erratic figure, but he gets it in some commentary later today: not only is Trump claiming that "he's been in direct or indirect contact with Putin and has convinced him to continue to hold an American hostage in Russia" (how else would Trump know that Putin will or won't release his hostage if Trump gets what he wants?), but this also is an attempt to "interfere with our sovereign elections."

[N.E. Brigand]

David Corn writes in Mother Jones on how "RFK Jr. Is Even Crazier Than You Might Think." Corn's piece is less about delivering new information about Kennedy as about countering a recent tendency in the mainstream media to pretend that his extreme views are merely quirks. Still, RFK is a complete nutjob and should be treated as such.

In May 2022—about a year before he announced his presidential bid—Kennedy appeared on the podcast of comedian and reality TV star Theo Von, a recurring guest on Joe Rogan’s podcast, and he presented a harrowing tale: A global elite led by the CIA had been planning for years to use a pandemic to end democracy and impose totalitarian control on the entire world. He claimed to have proof: the ominous-sounding Event 201.

This was the name of a pandemic simulation held at a New York City hotel in October 2019, months before the Covid pandemic struck. In his usual frenetic and rambling style, Kennedy told Von that the cohosts of the event were billionaire Bill Gates and Avril Haines, whom he identified as the deputy director of the CIA. He asked, “What is the CIA doing at a public health forum. They don’t do public health. They do coup d’etat.” He dwelled on Haines’ participation, noting she was now the “top spy of the country”—the Director of National Intelligence—and “also in charge of the coronavirus response.” He pointed out that in attendance at Event 201 were “people from all the social media companies” and from “the pharmaceutical companies, mainly Johnson and Johnson.” He added, “you have another guy, a peculiar guy, George Gao, who’s the head of the Chinese CDC.” And he reported there were participants from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

It goes on for another ten paragraphs of RFK's blathering before Corn then shows that not only is this dangerous conspiratorial theorizing, but it's also wrong on the basic facts. For instance, Avril Haines didn't host the event and wasn't working for the government at that time.

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Meanwhile a new New York Times article has this headline: Kennedy Adviser Leaves Campaign, Citing 'Hateful and Divisive Atmosphere'." How bad was it? Well, that adviser, Angela Stanton King, was formerly a Trump supporter who ran for Congress on a QAnon-friendly Republican platform in 2020 and in 2021 called for President Biden to be removed in a military coup. And RFK's campaign, after five months, was too extreme for her! (I think we do have to allow for the possibility that she was too extreme for them, though.)

[N.E. Brigand]

Here are a couple items on the nature of Donald Trump's supporters and one likely outcome should he be elected:

[N.E. Brigand]

As one can see from clicking on the link, Donald Trump's supporters will flood the replies with videos of President Biden's gaffes in response to posts like this one from the Biden-Harris campaign. The campaign surely knows that, but presumably they're banking on replies getting less circulation than original posts, and they probably think it's worth it just to make more people aware of Donald Trump's difficulty speaking.



And once again we observe that the accordion hands are a gesture Trump uses to stabilize himself after a brain glitch.

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Edited to add: what the hell?

"Brooklyn rappers accused of murder conspiracy join Donald Trump at Bronx rally."

[N.E. Brigand]

Edited to add: what the hell? "Brooklyn rappers accused of murder conspiracy join Donald Trump at Bronx rally."

Also, why on earth is Trump campaigning in New York? Why was he campaigning in New Jersey a couple weeks ago? He has no shot at winning either state, and after the defense in his Manhattan criminal trial rested on Tuesday, he had six days until he's next required to be in court there. Why give a rally to about 4,000 people, some of whom left early? Guests on Fox News -- which cut away from the speech partway through -- claimed there were 35,000 people in the crowd -- so maybe the national propaganda value and the relatively low cost were worth it? Apparently Trump had said at previously that he would hold a New York rally at my nemesis, Madison Square Garden, but that venue seats about 19,000 and costs anywhere from $50,000 to $500,000 to rent.

[Frelga]

Coincidentally or not, Madison Garden was where the largest rally of American supporters of Hitler took place in 1939.

When Nazis Took Manhattan

To the credit of the American public back then, the rally was surroundered by protestors, held back by an army of police.

Things went downhill for the Bund shortly after. Subsequent rallies were joined by Jewish mobsters, including the infamous Murder Inc (who were persuaded to stick to non-lethal methods in this instance).

Gangsters vs. Nazis