Election 2024 Thread - Page 13 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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User avatar
By jimjam
#15207027
Drlee wrote:Like him or not Trump was out in front and delivered on all but one of his promises.


Oh please, get a grip :lol: .

"We are going to fix our inner cities and rebuild our highways, bridges, tunnels, airports, schools, hospitals. We're going to rebuild our infrastructure, which will become, by the way, second to none." D.Trump

Sounds like something Biden/Democrats are doing :lol:
User avatar
By Drlee
#15207058
Sounds like something they should be doing. Unfortunately their bill was about 1/3 what he promised.
It is mostly unfunded and adds to the deficit immensely. And, it contains not a cent for what was called "social infrastructure".

Now as a conservative, I am glad it did not become a monstrous social welfare give-away program but there are cuts to social welfare programs to pay for infrastructure if I am reading the bill correctly. All in all, Biden has not done much for the low income voters who helped put him in office.

I do not fault Trump for not passing infrastructure. The democrats blocked it and Covid stood the country on its ear. Still is. Plenty to blame Trump for but this one, not so much.
By late
#15207060
Drlee wrote:
I do not fault Trump for not passing infrastructure. The democrats blocked it...



Trump never actually tried. He said he was going to, many times, but never did.

That would have required actual work, and political skill. Trump didn't do the first, didn't have the second.

Do you actually think Republicans would have supported it?
User avatar
By Drlee
#15207064
Absolutely I do. They supported Biden's bill. They would have loved credit for it. Republicans are only fiscal hawks when they are out of power. More is the pity.
By late
#15207066
Drlee wrote:
Absolutely I do. They supported Biden's bill. They would have loved credit for it. Republicans are only fiscal hawks when they are out of power. More is the pity.



Are we talking about the same thing?

"Not a single Republican lawmaker in either chamber voted in favor of President Joe Biden's $1.9 trillion economic aid package over the past few weeks, reflecting their fierce opposition to an early Democratic legislative priority."

https://www.businessinsider.com/stimulus-no-republican-in-congress-voted-for-biden-stimulus-package-2021-3
User avatar
By jimjam
#15207108
Drlee wrote:their bill was about 1/3 what he promised.

1/3 more than trump's zero.

Drlee wrote:adds to the deficit immensely.


Where were you in 2017 when trump's tax give-a-way to billionaires went thru? At least Biden's bill will give Americans some infrastructure improvements. Trump's free lunch for billionaires gave us "trickle down economics" ( :lol: ) which i guess you ascribe to.

Drlee wrote: Biden has not done much for the low income voters who helped put him in office.


Aside from "trickle down economics" ( :lol: ) what did trump do to address the massive gap between the 1 percenters and the "losers" in 4 years?

Per DrLee trump delivered on "all" his promises but what was clearly a promise on infrastructure gets a pass :?:
User avatar
By Drlee
#15207346
Why would you "guess" that? I was screaming (including here) for the runaway spending and tax cuts under Trump. I will add, though they saved me a shit ton of money.


I thought Biden was president now. I thought he said he would do something about the poor and middle class. Did I miss something? Yes. I missed him doing something for the poor and middle class.

Per DrLee trump delivered on "all" his promises but what was clearly a promise on infrastructure gets a pass :?:


Can you quote where I said this? Or are you just making shit up that you wished I had said?
#15207702
Let me remind everyone:

This is how it started:



This is how it ended:



Round 3 could happen but considering all the shit that happened after the 2nd try then Trump chances are near 0.
User avatar
By anna
#15207923
Drlee wrote:
I thought Biden was president now. I thought he said he would do something about the poor and middle class. Did I miss something? Yes. I missed him doing something for the poor and middle class.



He's tried. Unfortunately the GOP plus two idiot Dem senators have managed to do a good job of obstructing almost everything. Which was McConnell's plan, he actually told us that's exactly what he was going to do.
User avatar
By colliric
#15207924
anna wrote:He's tried. Unfortunately the GOP plus two idiot Dem senators have managed to do a good job of obstructing almost everything. Which was McConnell's plan, he actually told us that's exactly what he was going to do.


Just like Pelosi told the exact same thing to Trump, and did it too. And pushed the Russian conspiracy crap for 4 years.

Sore losers on both sides is a real problem in the US at the moment.
By Doug64
#15207940
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Why Democrats are panicking:

What Biden's Approval Rating Means for the Midterms
This is important. Although the presidential election isn’t for another 2½ years, the midterm elections are fast approaching. In our increasingly polarized and nationalized politics, the single most determinative factor in midterm outcomes is the president’s job approval. With both the House and the Senate very narrowly split between the two parties, entering the 2022 elections with a president whose job approval at this level carries catastrophic implications for the Democrats. It isn’t accidental that, in the generic ballot (which asks which party individuals would prefer to control Congress), the Democrats’ current vote share is 42.8%, nearly mimicking Biden’s.

For a more precise sense of what this means, it may be useful to revisit the Senate model that I developed in 2014 and updated about a year ago for the coming midterms. It attempts to predict Senate race outcomes according to three factors: The president’s estimated job approval in a state, whether an incumbent is on the ballot, and whether the parties nominate “problematic” candidates (think Christine O’Donnell). This model has performed remarkably well over the past decade, predicting the actual outcome within a single seat in the four elections that have transpired since it was created, and always landing within its “error margin.”

What does it tell us about 2022? Assuming the parties don’t nominate particularly weak candidates and there are no further retirements, a Republican-controlled Senate starts to come into the picture when Biden’s job approval falls to around 51% and becomes the most likely outcome at around 48%.

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At 42%, the model envisions virtually no chance for Democrats to hold the Senate and predicts a loss of four seats as the most likely outcome. At 42%, the Colorado Senate seat could potentially come into play, assuming that Republicans produced a credible candidate (remember that a relatively unheralded candidate held Sen. Michael Bennet to a six-point margin in 2016).

Now, it doesn’t necessarily follow that if things get even worse for the Democrats that they will lose six or seven seats. There’s a realistic floor for political parties in elections where even the hardcore partisans begin to turn on the president but nevertheless vote for their party’s nominee in Senate and House elections. The classic example of this phenomenon is 2008, when President George W. Bush’s job approval fell into the 20s nationally. Despite this, Republicans managed to win Senate elections in places like Kentucky and Georgia even though Bush’s disapproval brushed up against 60% in both states.

Nonetheless, if the president’s job approval doesn’t improve, his party will find itself in dire straits in the midterms. The good news for Democrats is that there is still time for things to turn around. The bad news is that public perceptions of issues like the economy and the pandemic are relatively slow to do so; the clock is starting to tick.


So according to that chart, at Biden's current job approval number Democrats can expect to lose around four Senate seats and have zero chance of maintaining control. I imagine the news out of Wisconsin isn't helping.... :D

Wisconsin Judge Bans Ballot Drop Boxes, Says Election Officials Broke The Law (various links in the article)
A judge in the key battleground state of Wisconsin ruled Thursday that ballot drop boxes and ballot harvesting violate state law and cannot be used in the upcoming midterm elections.

Waukesha County Circuit Court Judge Michael Bohren determined “there is no statutory authority” to allow for either practice, which became highly controversial in Wisconsin following the state’s razor-thin outcome in the 2020 presidential election. President Joe Biden defeated former President Donald Trump in the state by approximately 20,000 votes.

The Wisconsin Elections Commission, which is under fire for allegedly bending and even openly violating state law to give Biden an edge, authorized the dramatic increase in the use of ballot drop boxes, but Judge Bohren held that the agency lacked lawful authority to do so.

The plaintiffs, voters represented by the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL), argued that state law allowed for only two methods of returning an absentee ballot: Through the mail or in person at the municipal clerk’s office. Nowhere does it allow for a ballot to be dropped off in a drop box.

Likewise, Wisconsin law provides that no person “may receive a ballot from or give a ballot to a person other than the election official in charge.” This, the plaintiffs argued, is a clear prohibition on ballot harvesting, the practice of third parties collecting absentee ballots from voters.

Despite this, the Wisconsin Elections Commission sent a memo to municipal clerks ahead of the 2020 election indicating that “a family member or another person may also return the ballot on behalf of the voter” and that ballots could be returned in drop boxes instead of in person at the clerk’s office.

Neither of these, Bohren ruled Thursday, were lawful orders. Still, clerks set up more than 500 ballot drop boxes across the state, which were used to collect tens of thousands of absentee ballots. The ruling, which will almost certainly be appealed, prohibits the use of drop boxes in upcoming elections.

Wisconsin’s current U.S. Senate race is among the most hotly contested in the country, as control of the Senate may depend upon its result. Last week, incumbent Republican Ron Johnson announced he would run for a third term. Several Democrats, including Lt. Gov Mandela Barnes and Treasurer Sarah Godlewski, have launched bids to unseat Johnson.

The state will also have a fiercely fought gubernatorial election, as former Republican Lt. Gov Rebecca Kleefisch is challenging Democrat incumbent Tony Evers. Last fall, Kleefisch filed a lawsuit against the Wisconsin Elections Commission in an effort to force it to follow state law during the 2022 election cycle.

Her suit, seeking direct action from the Wisconsin Supreme Court, also alleged the use of ballot drop boxes violated state law, a position confirmed by a report by the nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau. That agency determined in October that the Wisconsin Elections Commission did not comply with numerous laws in the way it administered the 2020 election.

Among the Audit Bureau’s findings were that the Wisconsin Elections Commission did not perform legally required checks of the multistate voter database to identify potential double voting, that tens of thousands of voters were able to skirt Wisconsin’s Voter ID law by falsely claiming to be indefinitely confined to their homes, and that voting in all of the state’s nursing homes was unlawfully conducted.

In addition, the Wisconsin legislature has launched a special counsel investigation into the election, which has focused primarily on the manner in which outside money from groups funded by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was used to unlawfully influence (and, in the city of Green Bay, possibly even take over) the administration of the presidential election.

Former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman, the special counsel, has faced significant stonewalling from the Wisconsin Elections Commission and local election officials in Green Bay as well as the Democrat-controlled cities of Milwaukee, Madison, and Green Bay. In response, he has filed numerous subpoenas compelling those officials to sit for interviews with his investigators.

The investigation, which began last summer, is expected to conclude in the coming weeks. Gableman has not given any public indication of his timeline, but Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, who hired Gableman, has said he wants it to conclude by the end of February.
User avatar
By Drlee
#15208059
Well there is no doubt @Doug64 that Republicans do not want all eligible voters to vote. They are quickly passing laws and gerrymandering to make sure it does not happen. Particularly people of color. It does not serve the minority party to have everyone vote.

Biden had a press conference today and two things happened. First he allowed some reporters to push-poll him. It was sad. Typical of US politics these days but sad. Trump handled reporters much better by telling them to sit down and shut up.

Secondly, according to some reporters, he came across as distracted and unprepared. His answers were not forceful nor were they comprehensive. He failed to articulate a plan for Ukraine and what he did say seemed to give Putin a green light for some sort of incursion. First Afghanistan and now this. Seriously. Is the world's largest military powerless in the face of these despots? If so I want my money back. If we are powerless to use our military and our economic clout then lets just dramatically cut the military, update our nuclear forces, build another 200 attack submarines, decommission the Aircraft Carriers and sit back on our soon to be fascist island.

If NATO is unable to stop stuff like this on its very borders then let's get the US out of it. We spend 70% of the aggregate defense spending of all NATO nations and pay 22% of the NATO budget. We spend close to 8 billion on NATO direct expenses, over 22 Billion stationing troops in the EU and god knows what else. If we can't stop aggression on the borders of our members then we need to bring our troops and the money home. Especially stop a pissant country like USSR-light.

The EU can certainly afford to replace us. Germany alone could cover the 22 billion without noticing it much. Germany only has 64,000 soldiers in its army. What a fucking joke. Given that Russia has about a million active and two million reserves, it is nothing short of laughable. They need 500,000, France needs 500,000, UK needs 500,000, Italy needs 500,000 and so forth. The Hellenic Army is over 100,000 with 750,000 reserves. And pretty good actually. Germany has 266 main battle tanks. Greece has over 1100 of them. The Hellenic Army has over 4000 artillery pieces and Germany has...wait for it.....129. What a fucking joke. As a soldier I would not be happy to go up against either the Greek or Italian Army.

I am ready for the US to give the finger to these people who want us to carry the load but are not standing strongly with us. Tell me someone. Why should I care about Ukraine? It seems to me that if the EU wants to defend itself against the Russian, Turks, and even potentially China, they need to pony up the gilders.

It would be very interesting to see what Trump would do in this situation. My assumption is that his personal relationship/fealty to Putin might have prevented this in the first place.
#15208078
Drlee wrote:Well there is no doubt that Republicans do not want all eligible voters to vote. They are quickly passing laws and gerrymandering to make sure it does not happen. Particularly people of color. It does not serve the minority party to have everyone vote.


Voters are considered by the professional political class as a resource to be optimized, like their donor networks, email lists, media allies, etc. As such, voter groups that don't enhance the Party's power are to be downgraded in value, and attempts to exercise their franchise are to be blocked by any and all means they can get away with. One can only note this is not unpopular with the rank and file. Indeed, I daresay most GOP members are 100% on board with voter suppression. Democrats, for tactical reasons, do most of their voter suppression at the primary level, where they have untrammeled leeway. It's not feasible for Democrats to suppress votes in general elections, as the GOP controls a substantial majority of the State Legislatures (including Secretaries of State).

Another factor is that federal courts have been effectively subverted over the decades. Even if Biden were able to pass a voting rights bill, it would the devil's own task to enforce it. The days of LBJ-style voting rights being aggressively enforced by the courts are long gone.

None of this is new, of course. In the immediate aftermath of the Civil War there were numerous Negro legislators elected. The South took immediate action to impose a reign of terror, and quickly suppressed this threat. Laws were changed to minimize this risk - just as they are being done today.
By Doug64
#15208248
Drlee wrote:Well there is no doubt @Doug64 that Republicans do not want all eligible voters to vote. They are quickly passing laws and gerrymandering to make sure it does not happen. Particularly people of color. It does not serve the minority party to have everyone vote.

I agree that there are probably a few Republicans that agree with Democrats that many of their voters are too stupid or lazy to jump through the few hoops needed to protect voter integrity. Why else would Democrats be so desperate to make permanent (and universal) the often unconstitutional "emergency" relaxation of voter integrity laws last time? Unlike some I don't think that Democrats see the relaxed rules they are pushing as an opportunity to cheat, I think they just don't care so long as it gives them a chance to win the presidency in 2024.
User avatar
By Drlee
#15208323
@Doug64

I think, at this point, the Democratic Party has little to no chance to take the presidency in 2024 unless:

The new Republican controlled House and Senate repeal Obama care or cut Social Security. These two things could cost them the 2024 election on their own.

The abortion bans do not favor Democrats because they are only happening in bright red states. The repeal of Roe V. Wade through allowing states broad leeway to limit abortions will also play into Republican hands. Women do not vote the issues it would appear and again, the states where this issue matters are already bright blue.

Trump could lose the election for Republicans but I don't think he will run. If the Republicans run anything even remotely resembling a moderate they will take 2024 in a landslide. But for Trump to win he has to start playing elder statesman and mature politician. Yea Right.
User avatar
By JohnRawls
#15208325
Drlee wrote:@Doug64

I think, at this point, the Democratic Party has little to no chance to take the presidency in 2024 unless:

The new Republican controlled House and Senate repeal Obama care or cut Social Security. These two things could cost them the 2024 election on their own.

The abortion bans do not favor Democrats because they are only happening in bright red states. The repeal of Roe V. Wade through allowing states broad leeway to limit abortions will also play into Republican hands. Women do not vote the issues it would appear and again, the states where this issue matters are already bright blue.

Trump could lose the election for Republicans but I don't think he will run. If the Republicans run anything even remotely resembling a moderate they will take 2024 in a landslide. But for Trump to win he has to start playing elder statesman and mature politician. Yea Right.


This is true but Trump will run by the looks of it.
User avatar
By Rancid
#15208330
Republican rout in 2024.

The question is, will it be Trumpists taking over? If yes, America is fucked. If no, business as usual
By late
#15208331
Rancid wrote:
Republican rout in 2024.

The question is, will it be Trumpists taking over? If yes, America is fucked. If no, business as usual



It will be a Cult member, not Trump, if I was a betting man, I'd wager it will be Hawley. Which would be worse than Trump, because he's not a complete idiot.
User avatar
By Rancid
#15208336
late wrote:It will be a Cult member, not Trump, if I was a betting man, I'd wager it will be Hawley. Which would be worse than Trump, because he's not a complete idiot.


America is fucked then.
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